Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/252

 Him as, being "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever; also as the , for "all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made;" likewise as the . He "having obtained eternal redemption for us;" and the , "For He shall save His people from their sins." They knew that He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" "the Hearer of prayer; the Divine Being, whom the angels worship, and without whom man can do nothing;" He being the only wise God —"God manifest in the flesh," in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." This was the grand doctrine of early Christianity concerning the Lord, and such are the scriptural terms in which it is expressed. But this doctrine, in its simplicity and truth, did not long continue to be acknowledged. It began to be questioned even in the apostolic ages; for we find in the epistles intimations that antichrist had come, and that this fact originated an expectation that the second advent was at hand. That event, however, did not then take place; the corruptions which conduced to it were begun, but as yet they were not completed. Disputations increased, subtleties were invented, animosities were engendered, until the fourth century, when the central truth of Christianity was authoritatively abandoned, and Jesus ceased to be the sole object of the Church's faith.

About those facts there can be no controversy. In the second century, the love of dominion in the Church began to be displayed among its leaders, and thereupon altercations arose about its government and laws. Heresies also broke