theology as sinful, and traces every deviation from "the one faith" of
the gospel to the corruption of a darkened intellect. [201:1] It
declares--"He that believeth not is _condemned already_, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God; and this is
the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, _because their deeds were evil_." [201:2]
Thus it was that the most ancient ecclesiastical authors described all
classes of unbelievers, sceptics, and innovators, under the general name
of heretics. Persons who in matters of religion made a _false choice_,
of whatever kind, were viewed as "vainly puffed up by a fleshly mind,"
or as under the influence of some species of mental depravity.

It thus appears that heresy, in the first century, denoted every
deviation from the Christian faith. Pagans and Jews, as well as
professors of apocryphal forms of the gospel, were called heretics.
[201:3] But in the New Testament our attention is directed chiefly to
errorists who in some way disturbed the Church, and adulterated the
doctrine taught by our Lord and His apostles. Paul refers to such
characters when he says--"A man that is an heretic, after the first and
second admonition, reject;" [201:4] and Peter also alludes to them when
he speaks of false teachers who were to appear and "privily bring in
damnable heresies." [201:5]

The earliest corrupters of the gospel were unquestionably those who
endeavoured to impose the observance of the Mosaic law on the converted
Gentiles. Their proceedings were condemned in the Council of Jerusalem,
mentioned in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; and
Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, subsequently exposed their
infatuation. But evangelical truth had, perhaps, more to fear from
dilution with the speculations of the Jewish and pagan literati. [202:1]
The apostle had this evil in view when he said to the Colossians--
"Beware lest any man spoil you through _philosophy_ and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the _rudiments of the world_,
and not after Christ." [202:2] He likewise emphatically attested the
danger to be apprehended from it when he addressed to his own son in the
faith the impassioned admonition--"O Timothy, keep that which is
committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and
_oppositions of science_ falsely so called." [202:3]

There is no reason to doubt that the "s