Page:Darby - Christianity Not Christendom.djvu/24

 of sins to baptism is very natural; for when a heathen or a Jew became professedly a Christian by baptism, he did administratively enter into the privileges belonging to Christianity, though this became soon the doctrine of the efficiency of the sacrament. But I cannot doubt that the writer was a Christian, and though despised by many ancient and modern writers, and the departure from the true christian standing, from a gospel such as Paul’s, who was not sent to baptize, is flagrantly evident, still, it contains by far the most truths of any of these ancient writers. I have quoted all that is of worth; the rest is really nonsense in general.

Besides this, he makes us hasten to our appointed place by our works, and then gives a string of commandments to follow, among which he tells them to labour with their hands to give to the poor, that their sins might he forgiven them, and these commandments were the way of light. We get here some very faint trace of the first elements of the gospel, but the application of the blessing of it is by baptism and works, but he is pretty much on the ground of the historic church. Be ye taught, he says, of God, seeking what it is the Lord requires of you, and doing it, that ye may be saved in the day of judgment: we have nothing of the clergy. The epistle is found attached to the New Testament in the MSS, as in Sinaiticus, along with Hermas; he distinctly substitutes (ii.) men’s offering themselves for the burnt-offerings, and quotes the prophets as putting man’s conduct in the place of sacrifices. It is an utter departure from the gospel as found in scripture, with happy signs that he did not intend to deny it.

In Polycarp we have one of the best of these epistles, and he quotes Paul to the Ephesians: “Knowing that