Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/75

 was to deny and overthrow the reality of the atonement: and when Mahomet came, one of his principal heresies was to deny that Christ had died upon a cross, or had redeemed mankind by his death. By this heresy Mahomet adopted those of the Gnostics, of Cerinthus, of the Marcionites, the Ebionites, and the earliest recorded in Church history. As these earlier forms and varieties of the same great fundamental heresy died out, they were reproduced in still more definite shape by the celebrated heresiarch Arius; he, like his predecessors, overthrew the doctrine of redemption through Christ, by denying the Divinity of our Lord: for though he allowed a sort of Godhead in Christ, he denied the eternal Sonship, and the equality of the Son with the Father. Nestorius, too, while agreeing with the Catholic doctrine of the blessed Trinity, overthrew the Divinity of Jesus, by denying the hypostatic or personal union between Christ and God the Son; he affirmed that there were two Persons, absolutely distinct in Christ, so that God the Son was not Christ, nor Jesus God the Son: so that, according to him, the all-holy Mary was not the Mother of God, but of a mere man, and consequently he virtually overthrew the doctrine of the atonement; for how could one mere man atone for sins of millions