Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/401

 vi. 4). “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John vi. 68).

9. The examples of all ages show us that it has been an occasion for stumbling whenever the Church has turned aside from the fountain of Israel. Of the Jewish Church, sufficient is known from the lamentations of the Prophets. As regards the Christian Church, we learn from history that a pure faith lasted as long as the Gospel, and nothing else, was preached by the Apostles and their successors. But as soon as the heathen entered the Church in numbers, and the ardour that existed at first grew cold, pagan books were read, at first in private and then in public, and the result was a great confusion of doctrine. The key of knowledge was lost by the very men who boasted that they alone possessed it, and from that time opinions without number were substituted for the articles of faith. Then did strife arise, whose end is not yet visible; charity grew cold, and piety disappeared. And thus, under the name of Christendom, paganism came into existence again, and still reigns supreme. For the threat of the Lord Jehovah had to be fulfilled: “If they speak not according to the Word of God, surely there is no morning for them” (Isaiah viii. 20). “Therefore the Lord hath poured out upon them the spirit of sleep, and hath closed their eyes, that all vision might become unto them as the words of a book that is sealed,” because they worshipped God in accordance with the teaching man (Isaiah xxix. 10, 11, 13, 14). O, how truly in their case is fulfilled what the Holy Spirit says of the heathen philosophers: “They became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened” (Rom. i. 21). In short, if the Church is to be purified from uncleanness, there is only one way, and that is to put aside all the seductive teaching of man and return to the pure springs of Israel, and thus to give over ourselves and our children to the teaching and guidance of God and of His word. Thus at last will the prophecy come to pass, “And all thy children shall be taught of God” (Isaiah liv. 13).