Читать книгу A New Witness for God: History of the Mormon Church and the Book of Mormon - B. H. Roberts - Страница 17

1. Justin Martyr, First Apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius.

2. Mosheim.

3. Tertullian's Apology, ch. xiii.

4. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., vol. I, bk. ii, ch. 4.

5. Historie de Manicheism, tom ii, p. 642.

6. Eccl. Hist. (Mosheim), vol. I, bk. ii, part ii.

7. Nyssen's Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus.

8. I Cor. xii: 8—10.

9. "It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit (speaking of I Cor. xii) were common in the church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian; and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby heaped riches and power and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they [the spiritual gifts] almost totally ceased; very few instances of the kind were found. The cause of this was not (as has been supposed) because there was no more occasion for them, because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake, not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christians. The real cause of it was the love of many, almost all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold. The Christians had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens. The Son of Man, when he came to examine his church, could hardly find faith upon earth. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church—because the Christians were turned heathens again and only had a dead form left."—John Wesley (Wesley's Works, vol. vii, Sermon 89, pages 26, 27).

10. "That it was proper for the Christian bishops to increase restraints upon the licentiousness of transgressors will be readily granted by all who consider the circumstances of those times. But whether it was for the advantage of Christianity to borrow rules for this salutary ordinance from the enemies of truth, and thus to consecrate, as it were, a part of pagan superstition, many persons very justly call in question."—Eccl. History (Mosheim), book i, cent, ii, part ii, ch. iii.

11. Acts ii: 41. Acts viii: 12, 35—40.

12. Mosheim, vol. i, book i, part ii, ch. iv.

13. That exorcism was not annexed to baptism till some time in the third century, and after the admission of the Platonic philosophy into the church, may almost be demonstrated. The ceremonies used at baptism in the second century are described by Justin Martyr in his second apology, and by Tertullian in his book de Corono Militis. But neither makes mention of exorcism. This is a cogent argument to prove that it was admitted by Christians after the times of these fathers, and of course in the third century. Egypt perhaps first received it,—Murdock's Mosheim, vol. i, p. 190. (Note.)

14. Mosheim, vol. i, book i, part ii, ch. iv.

15. According to Schlegel, the so-called apostolic constitution (b. viii. ch. xxxii) enjoined a three years' course of preparation; yet with allowance of some exceptions.

16. That is, in the evening preceding the day on which Messiah is supposed to have arisen from the dead, and the evening preceding the seventh Sunday after Easter, the anniversary of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Apostles in a remarkable manner. (Acts ii.)

17. Mosheim, vol. i, book ii, part ii, ch. iv.

18. Cyprian's Epistles, letter 76.

19. Eusebius Eccl. Hist., b. vi, ch. 43.

20. In writing to the saints of Rome, Paul says: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. vi: 3—5.) In writing to the saints of Colosse, the same apostle reminds them that they had been "Buried with him [Christ] in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead" (Col. ii: 12). In these passages the terms "buried" and "planted" are in plain allusion to the manner in which the saints had received the ordinance of baptism, which could not have been by sprinkling or pouring, as there is no burial or planting in the likeness of Christ's death, or being raised in the likeness of his resurrection in that; but in immersion there is.—"The Gospel" (Roberts), page 185.

21. Milner's Church Hist., vol. i, pp. 429, 430.

22. Such is the opinion of Milner—Church Hist., vol. i, p. 430.

23. "The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner he took the cup, when he had supped, saying: This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." (I Cor. xi: 23—26.)

24. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., bk. i, cent. iii, part ii, ch. iv.

25. Protestants combating the Catholic idea of the real presence of the flesh and blood in the Eucharist—transubstantiation—have endeavored to prove that this doctrine was not of earlier origin than the eighth century. In this, however, the evidence is against them. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, writing early in the second century, says of certain supposed heretics: "They do not admit of Eucharist and oblations, because they do not believe the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins." (Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrneans.) So Justin Martyr, also writing in the first half of the second century: "We do not receive them (the bread and wine) as ordinary food or ordinary drink; but as by the word of God Jesus Christ our Savior was made flesh, and took upon him both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also the food which was blessed by the prayer of the word which proceeded from him, and from which our flesh and blood, by transmutation, receive nourishment, is, we are taught, both the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." (Justin's Apology to Emperor Antoninus.) After Justin's time the testimony of the fathers is abundant. There can be no doubt as to the antiquity of the idea of the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist; but that proves—as we said of infant baptism—not that the doctrine is true, but that soon after the apostles had passed away, the simplicity of the gospel was corrupted or else entirely departed from.

26. As evidence of the superstition which was connected with the Eucharist, note the following. "If any one through negligence, shall destroy the Eucharist, i. e., the sacrifice; let him do penance one year. * * * * If he lets it fall on the ground, carelessly, he must sing fifty Psalms. Whoever neglects to take care of the sacrifice, so that worms get into it, or it lose its color, or taste, must do penance thirty or twenty days; and the sacrifice must be burned in the fire. Whoever turns up the cup at the close of the solemnity of the mass must do penance forty days. If a drop from the cup should fall on the altar, the minister must suck up the drop and do penance three days; and the linen cloth which the drop touched must be washed three times, over the cup, and the water in which it is washed be cast into the fire." Decisions of Pope Gregory III.—Harduin's Concilia.

27. Luke xxii. Matt. xxvi.

28. The wickedness of the Christian world in the dark ages and during the progress of the "Reformation" was such that the author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," in closing his famous sixteenth chapter which deals with the persecution of the Christians during the first three centuries of our era, can say, and his arraignment cannot be successfully contradicted: "We conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdom, it must still be acknowledged, that the Christians, in course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman Empire in the west, the bishops of the imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as the clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres and the institution of the holy office (the Inquisition). And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censurers. In the Netherlands alone more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius (See Grotius Annal. de Rebus Belgiers). * * * If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceed that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman Empire." "Decline and Fall," vol. i, ch. xvi.