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THE
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I SINFULNESS OF
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HERESY.

By
REV. M. H. MacINERNY, Ο. P.

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Mission Church Press
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Boston, Mass.

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The Sinfulness of

Heresy*
«

By

REV. Μ. H. MaclNERNY, Ο. P.

Published with kind permission of the
Australian Catholic Truth Society.

MISSION CHURCH PRESS,
St. Alphonsus Street,
Boston, Mass.

6^

Hihil Obstat.
PATRICK J. SUPPLE,
Censor Librorum

Umprimatur.
* WILLIAM CARDINAL O’CONNELL,
A rchbishop of Boston

The Sinfulness of Heresy
By REV. M. H. MacINERNY, Ο. P.
Foreword.
“My Brother in Christ, this book has been placed in
your hands, and you will have time to read it carefully
by yourself, and to think over it calmly. But, at the
very outset, let me beseech you to ask the guidance of
God. No harm can come of it, if you do that; »o
good can follow without that guidance.”—(Rev. T.
P. Garnier.)

Two Truths Ignored.
If we have to name any Christian truths which
seem to have fallen completely out of the conscious­
ness of our separated brethren, we should unhesitat­
ingly instance these two—the unity of the Church and
the sinfulness of heresy. These two sacred truths are,
so to speak, the complement and counterpart of each
other. They are distinctly and repeatedly inculcated,
in a variety of forms, by Our Divine Lord and His
Apostles. They are truths so plainly taught as to
strike the least observant reader of the New Testa­
ment. Yet they are quite ignored and forgotten by
the non-Catholic world of to-day.

Religious Journalese.
In the newspaper press we may often find a
palmary instance of the oblivion into which these

4

vital truths have fallen. Thus, it is nowise unusual
for journalists and newspaper correspondents to re­
fer to "the Church’’ when they really mean "the
Catholic Church plus all the sects together.” The
Christian Church, in the loose view of these writers,
is the assemblage of all religious denominations that
bear the Christian name. The unity of the Church
must have faded utterly from such men's minds, oth­
erwise they would never use such an expression as
“the Church" when they wish to include, not only the
true Church of the living God, but also the chaotic
multitude of discordant sects that lie outside her pale.
This modern notion of “the Church” is assuredly a
crude one. It is both lax and illogical.
It stands
condemned by the inspired teaching of the New Tes­
tament, as well as by the uncompromising doctrine of
the illustrious Fathers of the early Church. A
"church" composed of several hundreds of jarring
sects, all teaching contradictory doctrines, would have
been regarded by the Apostles and the Fathers as a
veritable monstrosity.

A Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity.
“The unity of the Church,” observes Professor
Stanton Devas, “is, perhaps, of all her characteristics,
the most important and august. In the solemn and
effectual prayer of her Founder, it is made the very
note and evidence of her divinity: ‘I pray for those
also who, through their word, shall believe in Me;
that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me and

5
I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.’ And the
Apostle, amid his bonds, exhorted his converts to be
true to their vocation, to be one body and one spirit,
as became those who confessed one hope, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
Here is a principle fundamental and unchangeable;
there were not to be two Churches and two Christs,
but one ; not two folds and two shepherds, but
one.”(i)
There cannot possibly be more than one true
Church of Christ in the world. All other Christian
bodies are mere sects, plunged in schism or heresy,
usually in both. The unity of the Church is a funda­
mental doctrine of the Christian religion ; it is a doc­
trine sadly obscured in non-Catholic minds, owing to
the prodigious multiplication of sects under the ægis
of Protestantism. The same cause has inevitably led
to an almost total oblivion of the sinfulness of heresy
and schism among modern sectaries. The endless
vagaries of the sects, their negations and contradic­
tions, their erratic tenets, and no less erratic denials—
these are looked upon as legitimate differences of opin­
ion. Nowadays the advent of a new religion excites
no more surprise than the advent of a new green­
grocer.

The Modern Babel.
What is Protestantism but an indescribable Babel of
sects, an inextricable tangle of heresies and schisms?
(l) “Key to the World’s Progress,” popular edit., p. 60.

6

About the middle of the 17th century the learned Dr.
Walton thus described, in his biting way, the rank
luxuriance of heresy in the pastures of English
Protestantism,—
“Aristarchus formerly could hardly find seven wise men in
Greece; but amongst us [English] are hardly to be found so
many ignorant persons; for all are teachers, all divinely
instructed ! there is no fanatic or clown, from the lowest
dregs of the people, who does not give you his own dreams for
the word of God. For the bottomless pit seems to have been
set open, from whence a smoke has risen which has obscured
the heavens and the stars, and locusts are come out with
stings, a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who have
renewed all the old heresies, and invented monstrous opin­
ions of their own. These have filled our cities, villages,
camps, houses ; nay, our churches and pulpits too, and lead
the poor deluded people with them to the pit of perdition.”
(Præf. ad Proleg. in Bibl. Polyglotta.”)

Dr. Walton was editor of the famous Polyglot Bible,
and afterwards Anglican Bishop of Chester. His
training and environment prevented him from per­
ceiving that if the Anglican Church had not first
fallen into heresy and schism, the “numerous race of
sectaries and heretics,” whose vagaries roused his in­
dignation, would never have arisen. These sectaries
were the natural offspring of a schismatic and hereti­
cal mother. They were, moreover, the inevitable
product of the Protestant rule of faith ; they were the
inevitable outcome of the “glorious privilege of pri­
vate judgment,” as applied to the “Bible alone.”
Things have not improved since Dr. Walton’s time.
Heresies and sects have grown and multiplied from
his day to our own. “England alone,” says a leading
article in “The Times,” of January 13, 1884, “is re­
puted to contains some seven hundred sects, each of

7

whom proves a whole system of theology and morals
from the Bible.” This state of things gave occasion
to the frenchmans gibe that “England is a country
which possesses hundreds of religions, but only a sin­
gle sauce.”

A False Rule of Faith.
To enumerate all the Protestant sects that have
arisen in various countries since the days of Luther
would be wholly impracticable. All these wretched di­
visions and heresies have been directly produced by
the consistent following of the Protestant rule of
faith. In other words, the Bible, privately inter­
preted, has been the prolific source of errors and here­
sies innumerable. It follows, then, that the Bible pri­
vately interpreted, cannot possibly be the Rule of
Faith appointed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, the
grand object of whose teaching was to bring all men
to “meet in the unity of the faith . . . that hence­
forth they might not be, as children, tossed to and
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine,
but, maintaining the truth in charity, might grow up
in all things unto Him who is the Head,” etc. (Ephes,
iv., 11-14·) (2)

Unscriptural and Ruinous.
The irony of the situation is that, the Protestant
rule of faith is nowhere to be found in the Bible
itself. Nowhere do the Inspired Writings tell us that
(2) See Allnatt, “The Church and the Sects,” 1st series, p. 65.

8
the Bible, as interpreted or misinterpreted by each
individual, is to be the final court of appeal in religious
questions. Surely the fact that Protestantism has
been shattered into countless fragments by the prin­
ciple of private judgment—surely that incontestable
fact ought to enable sensible men to see that the prin­
ciple in question is a suicidal one. No candid person
can deny that Protestantism has been dynamited by
its own fundamental principle. The Bible, as inter­
preted by private judgment, has wrought more havoc
and disorder than a lyddite shell in the ranks of
Protestantism.

Anarchy in Religion.
The principle of private interpretation has logically
and necessarily resulted in religious anarchy—an­
archy in religious belief, no less than in modes of wor­
ship. The sects have been so oblivious of the sinful­
ness of heresy on all sides, that scarcely a single
doctrine of Christianity is held in common by them all.
A Protestant clergyman once tried to discover what
doctrines are held in common by all Protestants. He
began by stripping off the truths which are not held
by every sect, so as to arrive at the residuum which all
admit. He wrote:—
“Are Presbyterians Protestants?—Yes.—Then Protestants,
as such do not believe in Episcopacy. Are Independents
(Congregationalists) Protestants?—Yes.—Then Protestants,
as such, do not believe in any established line of ministry.
Are Anabaptists (Baptists) Protestants?—Yes.—Then Prot­
estants, as such, do not believe in Infant Baptism. Are Quak­
ers Protestants?—Yes.—Then Protestants, as such, do not
believe in any Sacraments. Are the Swiss Calvinists Protest­

9
ants?—Yes.—Then Protestants, as such, do not believe in the
Atonement. Are the new school of German Lutherans Prot­
estants?—Yes.—Then Protestants, as such, do not believe in
Original Sin. Are Socinians (Unitarians) Protestants?—Yes.
—Then Protestants, as such, do not believe in our Lord’s
Divinity. . . .
‘'We have now seen that, of all the articles of the Apostles’
Creed, Protestants are only agreed in believing two—namely,
the first, that there is one God; and the last, the Resurrection
of the Body and Life Everlasting. Nay, I might, without
any injustice go further. Socinians (Unitarians) cannot be
said really to hold the first article, because if they deny God
the Son, they clearly deny God the Father as Father ; and the
Universalists do not hold the last clause,, because they deny
the eternity of punishment, which is implied in it. The
Resurrection of the Body, then, is all that Protestants, as
Protestants, of all sects and sorts, agree in believing—I mean
of matters contained in the Apostles’ Creed, and in the sense
of that Creed.” (3)

German Protestant Unbelievers.
We may safely affirm that nowadays even the Res­
urrection of the Body is no longer believed in by
“Protestants of all sects and sorts.” In Germany
there are quite a host of Protestant theologians who,
with Professor Harnack at their head, deny the super­
natural altogether. Harnack denies that Christ is the
Saviour of men ; he rejects the Divinity of Christ, the
miracles of Christ, and the Resurrection of Christ.
Refusing to believe in the supernatural, Harnack and
his school are, perforce, obliged to deny that the Bible
is the inspired Word of God ; they are, perforce,
obliged to disbelieve in miracles and prophecy, as well
as in the Sacraments of the Christian religion. Pro­
fessor Harnack’s attitute towards the Christian re(3) Quoted by Charles T. Gratty, F.S.A., “The Revival of
the Catholic Faith in England,” pp. 19, 20.

ΙΟ

ligion is that of a thorough-going Rationalist : yet
Harnack’s theological views constitute the “massgebende Théologie”—the standard theology—of
modern Protestant Germany. That fact alone speaks
volumes for the unbelieving temper of the Protestant
clergy of Germany.
Another highly significant fact is this: Of all the
Protestant faculties of theology in the German Uni­
versities, there are only two—namely, those of
Erlangen and Rostock—in which the Divinity of Our
Lord is taught. In all the other Universities of Ger­
many, at least in all that are provided with Protestant
faculties of theology, the Divinity of Christ is openly
rejected and denied by the Lutheran professors of
theology.
Professor Harnack and his followers are sceptical
enough, in all conscience ; but we learn, with a shock
of surprise, that there is another school of German
Protestant theologians still more radical, more ration­
alistic and unbelieving, than even Harnack and his nu­
merous disciples. Some of the more advanced of the
Lutheran pastors go so far as to deny the existence of
a personal God ; others are Pantheists ; others sneer
from their pulpits at the practice of prayer, and so
on. (4)
We may safely assume that these sceptical pro­
fessors and pastors are far from entertaining any real
belief in so highly miraculous an event as the general
(4) See “Der Deutsche Protestantismus zu Beginn des
zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts,” by Dr. Philipp Huppert, pp. 8, 26,
68, et passim.

II

resurrection of all men at the Last Day. If the Ger­
man theologians disbelieve in the raising of Lazarus
—if they reject even the Resurrection of Our Lord—
they are not likely to believe in the possibility of so
stupendous a miracle as the resurrection of all man­
kind on the Last Day. The final resurrection was the
only point upon which Protestants seemed unanimous,
as we have seen ; but that unanimity is now incon­
testably a thing of the past. Lienee we may un­
hesitatingly affirm that not one single article of the
Apostles’ Creed is unanimously accepted any longer
by “Protestants of all sects and sorts.” It is, indeed,
impossible, or well-nigh impossible, to discover any
Christian truth which is held in common by the entire
Protestant world. The principle of private judgment
has reduced Protestantism to a chaos such as this
earth of ours never witnessed before.

American Unbelief.
The downgrade of Protestantism was well illus­
trated in a recent examination of candidates for the
Presbyterian ministry in New York. Three would-be
ministers, who openly and persistently denied some of
the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, were
admitted and licensed as Presbyterian ministers by
the authorities of that denomination at a special meet­
ing held in New York last June. The three candidates,
had openly expressed their disbelief in the Resurrec­
tion of Our Saviour, as well as in the Divine Birth of
Christ, the raising of Lazarus and the transmission of

12

original sin. The three unbelievers are now “minis­
ters in good standing" in the Presbyterian denomina­
tion, and their admission was hailed as “a triumph of
liberalism.” Liberalism is frequently a synonym for
infidelity.
In the May (190g) issue of the “Cosmopolitan,”
Mr. Harold Boice gives a long and detailed statement
of the heterodox views which are being taught in the
(mainly Protestant) Universities of the United States.
In those Universities it is daily taught in hundreds of
classrooms that the Decalogue is no more sacred than
a syllabus ; that the home, as an institution, is
doomed ; that there are no absolute evils ; that immor­
ality is simply an act in contravention of society’s ac­
cepted standards ; that democracy is a failure, and the
Declaration of Independence only spectacular
rhetoric ; that the change from one religion to another
is like getting a new hat ; that moral precepts are
passing shibboleths ; that conceptions of right and
wrong are as unstable as styles of dress ; that wide
stairways are open between social levels, but that to
the climber children are encumbrances ; that the sole
effect of profligacy is to fill tiny graves ; and that
there can be, and are, holier alliances without the mar­
riage bond than within it. One professor has even
gone so far as to maintain the daring thesis that
“anything tolerated by the world in general is right.”

The Climax.
Things have come to such a pass in Protestantism
that atheism itself no longer appears sinful to a certain

13
type of Protestant mind. Twenty-six years ago, after
declaring his personal conviction of the existence of a
Deity, Mr. Norman Pearson immediately added, “I
see nothing in the least immoral in an opposite be­
lief!” (5) Doubtless the latter part of Mr. Pearson’s
statement would awaken many an approving echo in
Europe and America to-day. Surely the sinfulness of
unbelief must have vanished utterly from men’s minds
when they can discover “nothing in the least immoral”
in an unblushing confession of atheism !

Marvellous Catholic Unity.
Happily, there are many millions of the best and
most enlightened of mankind who· still adhere firmly
to “the faith once delivered to the saints.” (6) The
Church of the living God still exists in undiminished
vigor, and the gates of hell have not prevailed against
her. She still is, and will ever be, “the pillar and
foundation of the truth.” (7) She has ever possessed
the abiding presence of her Divine Founder, in ac-,
cordance with His solemn promise, “Behold, I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the
world.” (8) She has likewise enjoyed the constant
guidance of the Divine Spirit of Truth ; to her alone
the Redeemer promised that “The Spirit of Truth
shall abide with you for ever: He shall guide you
into all truth.” (9) The marvellous unity of belief
(5) “The Nineteenth Century,” August, 1883.
(6) Jude 3.
(7) i Tim. Hi., 15.
(8) Matt, xxviii., 20.
(9) John xiv., 17; xvi., 13.

U

which exists among her children—though these belong
to every nation, tribe, and tongue under the wide
canopy of heaven—stands out in strong contrast to
the disunion, and anarchy which prevail among the
sects. In the Catholic Church alone has the Saviour’s
prayer for unity found its fulfilment—“That they all
may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee;
that they may be one in Us ; that the world may be­
lieve that Thou hast sent Me.” (io)

Tributes of Non-Catholics.
Thoughtful men of the world are profoundly im­
pressed by the spectacle of Catholic unity. Thus,
Matthew Arnold writes :—
“If there is one thing specially alien to religion, it is divi­
sions ; if there is one specially native to religion, it is peace
and unity. Hence the original attraction towards unity in
Rome, and hence the great charm for men’s minds of that
unity, when once attained. I persist in thinking that Catholi­
cism has, from this superiority, a great future before it;
that it will endure while all Protestant sects dissolve and dis­
appear.”

In like manner, the great German philosopher, von
Hartmann, clearly recognized the immeasurable su­
periority of the Catholic Church over her sectarian
rivals :—
“If there should really be a Church that leads to salvation,
no matter how, then, at all events, I will search for an im­
movable Sovereign-Church, and will rather cling to the Rock
of Peter than to any of the numberless Protestant sectarian
churches.” (n)
“In these days” [writes Professor H. Thurston Peck, of
Columbia College] "when doctors of divinity devote their επ­
ί ιοί lohn xvii., 21.
(n) “Der Krisis des Christenthums,” p. 98.

15
ergies to nibbling away the foundations of historic faith, and
when the sharpest weapons of agnosticism are forged on
theological anvils, there is something reassuring in the con­
templation of the one great Church that does not change
from age to age ; that stands unshaken on the rock of its
convictions, and that speaks to the wavering and troubled
soul in the serene and lofty accents of Divine authority.” (12)

The Catholic Church’s Divine Credentials.
“Divine authority’’—the whole situation is summed
up in that single phrase. The Catholic Church
possesses Divine authority ; all other so-called
"churches” are mere man-made sects. The Catholic
Church, in her teaching capacity, is the living rep­
resentative'of Jesus Christ in the world; she is His
mouthpiece ; through her voice He speaks in clear and
unfaltering accents to the children of men. The Catho­
lic Church has received from her Divine Founder His
authority, His doctrine, His sacraments, along with
the assistance of the Divine Spirit of Truth to keep
her infallible in her teachings. To despise the Church
is to despise Christ ; to separate from the Church is
to separate from Christ ; to remain estranged from the
Church is to remain estranged from Christ ; to dis­
believe in the Church's teaching is to disbelieve in the
doctrine of Christ, and to incur eternal condemnation.
Unbelief that is wilful and perverse can expect no
mercy, for Christ has expressly said, “He that believeth not shall be condemned.”
All this is abundantly clear from the declarations of
Our Lord and of His inspired Apostles. To the first

(12) “The Bookman,” vol. iv., p. 240.

ι6

pastors of the Church and to their successors through­
out the ages, the Redeemer promised the abiding
guidance of the Holy Ghost. “The Spirit of Truth
shall abide with you for ever: He shall guide you
into all truth.” (John xiv., i/;xvi., 13).
St. Paul was inspired by the Holy Ghost to de­
scribe “the Church of the living God” as “the pillar
and foundation of the truth.” 1 Tim. iii., 15.)
“As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you,” said
the Saviour to His Apostles. (John xx., 21.)
“Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, behold, I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the
world.” (Matt, xxviii., 18-20.)
“Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel
to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized,
shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, shall be con­
demned.” (Markxvi., 15, 16.). “Whatsoever ye shall
bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven ; and whatso­
ever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.”
(Matt, xviii., 18.). “He that heareth you, heareth
Me; and he that despiseth. you, despiseth Me; and he
that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.,
(Luke x., 16.)
“I will give unto thee (Peter) the Keys [the symbol
of Supreme Government] of the Kingdom of Heaven ;
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be
bound in Heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on

17

earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven.” (Matt, xvi,,
19.) “Thou art Peter [Kepha], and upon this Rock
[Kepha] I will build my Church, and the gates of hell
[Satan and his hosts] shall not prevail against it. And
I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven,” etc. (Matt, xvi., 18-19.).
“If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee
as the heathen and the publican. Amen I say to you,
whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in
Heaven,” etc. (Matt, xviii., 17, 18.).
The Apostles faithfully re-echo these maxims of
their Divine Master. Opposition to the Church in her
teaching capacity is the same as opposition to the
Church's Divine Head and Founder. “We are of
God,” says St. John ; “he that knoweth God, heareth
us; he that is, not of God, heareth us not. Hereby
know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.’
(1 John iv., 6.) And St. Paul tersely says: “He
that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God.” (1
Thess. iv., 8.).

Christ’s Promises Fulfilled in the Catholic Church.
Now, the Catholic Church is the only True and
Original Church, which Christ Himself founded, and
to which the foregoing promises were made. She
alone has had a Visible Existence in all ages, from the
time of Christ to the present hour. She alone can
“unroll the catalogue of her Bishops,” as Tertullian
phrases it, and prove their continuous succession from
the Apostles of Christ. She alone has taught and

ι8

baptized all those nations of the world which have
ever yet received’ the Christian Faith—including all
those which now profess some of the myriad conflict­
ing forms of Protestantism. The nations which are
now Protestant apostatized, in the sixteenth century,
from that Catholic Faith to which they had originally
been converted from their heathenism; they aposta­
tized from the Catholic Church by which, and into
which, they had been baptized.
The Catholic Church alone has been, in all ages,
“the Light of the world she has ever been “a city
set on a hill, that could not be hid she alone has been
“the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth,” rendering
it conspicuous, and the knowledge of it attainable to
all mankind. This Catholic Church—of which the
See of Peter was ever the acknowledged centre—alone
has been, and still is, the “One Fold under One
Shepherd.” The Catholic Church—of which the sucsor of St. Peter is the Visible Head—is that great and
illustrious body or society of Christians whose exhibi­
tion of supernatural and majestic unity has profoundly
impressed the world, besides presenting a striking
contrast to the disunion and disorder of the separated
sects. The Catholic Church alone possesses—and
alone claims to possess—the supreme and unerring
Teaching Authority, without which no such unity
could be guaranteed or preserved.

Protestantism is Spurious Christianity.
On the other hand, it is clear as noonday that no
Protestant sect or conglomeration of sects can be the

19
One, True and Original Church founded by Christ
for the propagation and extension of His one true
Faith and religion throughout the whole world, and
for the preservation of the same Faith and religion
throughout all the ages. None of the Protestant sects
is as yet 400 years old. They all owe their origin, in
the first instance, to the apostate pseudo-Reformers
who broke away from the Church of God in the six­
teenth century, -and forthwith proceeded to set up re­
ligions of their own.

None of the Protestant sects has ever pretended to
be the One, Visible, Catholic and Apostolic Church
founded by Christ Our Lord. It was not by any
Protestant body that the Commission given by Christ,
"to teach and baptize all nations,” was fulfilled ; in
fact, it is notorious that no single nation of the earth
was ever yet converted from heathenism by Protest­
ant agency, or to the profession of Protestant Chris­
tianity.
So far are the adherents of Protestantism from
presenting a spectacle of religious unity, either at
home amongst themselves, or in the missionaries
whom they send to the heathen—so far are Protest­
ants from constituting “One Fold,” “One Body,”
“One Faith,” etc., that their incurable divisions have
become a by-word among the nations. From the
first they have failed to present a spectacle of re­
ligious unity ; to-day they offer only a spectacle of
religious anarchy. Their profound religious dis­
cords and dissensions have all arisen from that

20

first and fundamental principle of their religion,
namely, "the liberty of'private judgment.” This illomened principle has resulted in the formation of innumerablè sects, hopelessly divided against one an­
other in Faith and Communion. These anarchical and
incurable dissensions have been, almost from the first
year of the existence of Protestantism, and in every
country where Protestantism has shown itself “an op­
probrium and disgrace to the very name of Christian­
ity·” (13)

Unity Strict’y Inculcated by Christ and His
Apostles.
Protestantism is quite the reverse of what the true
Church of God must be, according· to the emphatic
pronouncements of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.
"Other sheep I have that are not of this fold,” says our
Saviour; “them also I must bring, and there shall be
One Fold and One Shepherd.” (John x., 16.) The
Catholic Church is visibly and manifestly One Fold*
under One Shepherd; but only in the veriest irony
could the same description be made to apply to
Protestantism.
The illustrious Apostle of the Gentiles beseeches the
Ephesians to be—
“Careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace ; one body and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope
of your calling; one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; one God
and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us
all.” (Ephes, iv., 3-6.)

St. Paul exhausts the language of entreaty in his
(13) This and the four preceding paragraphs are adapted
from Allnatt’s work, “Which is the True Church?” pp. 18-3^.

21
appeals to Christians to preserve unity. To the. Philippians, for instance, he addresses this pressing ex­
hortation :—"Only let your conversation be worthy of
the Gospel of Christ : that, whether I come and see
you, or, being absent, may hear of you, that you stand
fast in one spirit, with one mind, laboring together
for the faith of the Gospel.” Further on, he again
beseeches them to maintain the unity of faith: ‘‘Fulfil
ye my joy, that you be of one mind, having the same
charity, being of one accord, agreeing in sentiment. '
(Phil, i., 27 ; ii., 2.)
The Apostle bids the Corinthians remember that
we, being many, are . . . one body;” he warns
them that “God is not the God of dissension, but of
peace;” and concludes, with this earnest injunction :
“For the rest, brethren, rejoice, be perfect, take ex­
hortation, be of one mind, have peace; and the God
of peace and love shall be with you.” ( 14)
St. Paul’s constant solicitude for unity displays
itself once more in his letter to the Ephesians. To
his converts at Ephesus the Aposrle explains that Our
Lord has given prophets and apostles, evangelists and
doctors and pastors to His Church. And St. Paul im­
mediately adds the reason why Jesus Christ left in
His Church a succession, of orthodox pastors and
teachers. The reason was mainly this—to preserve
the faithful in unity and truth : that we may “all
meet unto the unity of faith; and . . . that
henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro,
(14) i Cor. x., 17; xiv., 33; 2 Cor. xiii., 11.

22

and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”
(Ephes, iv., 13, 14·)
In fervid and impressive language the same great
Apostle adjures the Corinthians to beware of religious
dissensions:—“Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the
name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak
the same thing, and that there be no schisms among
you; but that you be perfect in the same mind and in
the same judgment.” (I. Cor., i., 10.). He reminds
them that “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or
free.” “You are the body of Christ,” he tells them—
meaning that they had become members of Christ’s
mystical body, which is the Church. “God hath tem­
pered the body together,” the Apostle adds, “that
there might be no schism in the body.” (1 Cor. xii.,
13-27·)
To the Colossians, the Apostle writes:—“If so ye
continue in the Faith, grounded and settled, and im­
movable from the hope of the Gospel which you have
heard,” Jesus Christ will “present you holy and un­
spotted and blameless” before His Heavenly Father.
(Col. i., 22, 23.). The Thessalonians receive from the
same illustrious Apostle, a similar exhortation to
constancy in the profession of the One True Faith:—
“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the tradi­
tions which you have learned, whether by word or by
our epistle.” (2 Thess. ii., 14.). Finally, the Apostle
bids his Galatian converts remember that “You are
all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. iii., 28.).

23

These reiterated precepts and admonitions from the
pen of the inspired Apostle are simply echoes of Our
Lord’s own teaching. In the sublime and most touch­
ing prayer which Our Blessed Saviour addresses to
His Heavenly Father, when His agony was about to
begin, He implored that unity might always prevail
amongst His true followers, in such sort that their
Visible Unity might be a standing proof of His
Divinity :—
“Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name, whom Thou hast
given Me; that they may be one, as we also are. . . . And
not for them [the Apostles] only do I pray, but for them also
who through their word shall believe in Me : that they also
may be one in Us : that the world may believe that Thou hast
sent Me. I in them, and Thou in Me: that they may be made
perfect in one : that the world may know that Thou hast sent
Me, and hast loved them, as Thou also hast loved Me.”
(John xvii., 12-23.)

The Church's unitv being thus made the very evi­
dence of her Founder’s Divinity, it is not surprising
that those who choose for themselves a separate doc­
trine or separate authority, leaving the straight path
of orthodoxy, have always been regarded by the faith­
ful as involved in the extremity cc wickedness. These
fallen Christian teachers have been denounced as
ministers of Satan by the Apostles as well as by the
illustrious Fathers of the early Church ; and the
strongest epithets to show abhorrence of such men
have Scripture warrant. For it is the evil mission of
heretics to make a breach in that order which the
providence of God has placed in the world to be the
special witness of His handiwork. By darkening the
light of the One Faith and One Mediator, heretics

24

have darkened the evidence for the Divinity of Christ
and the Trinity of the Godhead. They have sought
to rend and tear the mystical Body of Christ, the
Church being recognized as the body of which Christ
is the Head.” (15)

Christ Condemns Heresies.
The strongest expressions in reprobation of heresy
have Scripture warrant. Our Lord Himself warns
us, in the clearest and most trenchant language, to
beware of false teachers of religion. He likens the
professors of false doctrines to cruel and merciless
wolves: ‘‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you
in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are raven­
ing wolves.” (Matt, vii., 15.)
The “false prophets” against whom Our Lord so
strictly warns us are obviously the agents of heresy
and unbelief. Such is unmistakably the opinion of St.
Jerome, who has well been styled “the greatest Chris­
tian scholar of his time such is likewise the general
verdict of commentators on the Sacred Text. Accord­
ing to St. Jerome and countless other Christian
scholars, the “false prophets” whom Jesus Christ so
scathingly denounces are heretics, propounders of
false and corrupt doctrines ; they are false teachers
who affect a mission from God which they have not,
like the “lying teachers,” whom St. Peter condemns,
in language of appalling severity, in his Second
Epistle.
(15) Adapted from Professor Stanton Devas, “Key to the
World’s Progress,” populat- edit, p. 60.

35

St. Jerome and commentators generally, as we have
seen, understand the expression "false prophets” to
refer to heretics ; and, as a modern Biblical scholar
observes, "everyone knows what a sanctimonious ap­
pearance heretics generally assume, both in words and
manner, in order to deceive the unwary, and lead them
away from the Faith.” (16)
Elsewhere Our Lord foretells that “many false
prophets shall arise, and shall seduce many.” (Matt,
xxiv., ii.) Here, again, He manifestly refers to the
heretics who were to afflict the Chuch in later ages.
Some of these false teachers confess the Divinity of
Our Lord, but reject some of the sacred truths which
He has revealed, and which His Church proposes for
our acceptance. Other heretics strive to degrade
Jesus Christ to the level of a mere man, as do many
of the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Congregationalists,
not to speak of the Unitarians, whose raison d’etre is
the denial of Our Lord’s Divinity. These false teach­
ers are disseminators of error. They corrupt the
sacred truths of Christianity.
They are “false
prophets,” against whom the Divine Founder of
Christianity bids His true followers be on their guard.
St. Paul repeatedly admonishes the faithful to shun
“false prophets,” who reject or falsify some of the
sacred truths of the Christian revelation. So does St.
Peter, in a memorable chapter of his Second Epistle;
so, likewise, does the Beloved Disciple, St. John, who
(16) Archbishop MacEvilly, “Exposition of the Gospels,”
vol. I., pp. 139-140.

2Ô
calls them Antichrists. St. Paul predicts the coming
of heretical teachers, and stigmatizes them in scathing
language : “I know that, after my departure, ravening
wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
And of your own selves will rise up men speaking
perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."
(Acts XX., 29, 30.)
Among the apostles of error whose coming is thus
predicted by Our Lord and St. Paul, we may reckon
Ebion, Cerinthus, the Nicolaites, and the whole tribe
of the early Gnostics. To the same class belong such
heretical teachers as Arius and his numerous follow­
ing of Arian and Semi-Arian misbelievers. The same
category also includes the whole swarm of Protestant
sectaries, from Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Henry
VIII., down to Johanna Southcote and Elijah Dowie.

The Wickedness of Unbelief.
When about to ascend to His Father, Jesus Christ
gave His Apostles this sublime commission : "All
power is given to Me in Heaven and on earth. Go­
ing, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things what­
soever I have commanded you; and, behold, I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the
world.” (Matt, xxviii., 19, 20.) On the same occa­
sion, as St. Mark tells us, Our Lord said to His Apos­
tles : “Go ye into the whole world and preach the
Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is
baptized, shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall
be condemned.” (Mark xvi., 15, 16.)

27

This latter passage is explained and commented
upon by an eminent Scripture scholar in these
terms :—
“ ‘He that believeth not’ the Gospel preached by the Apos­
tles and their legitimate successors 'shall be condemned’ ; it
matters not whether he be rich or poor, learned or unlearned,
young or old, king or subject. Infallible truth is pledged to it.
The Judge of the living and the dead has decreed it. The
Saviour of all mankind has made it an indispensable condition
for all, in order to be partakers of the fruits of His Redemp­
tion, that they must have faith—faith conceived only from the
preaching of those legitimately sent. If the preaching of oth­
ers would suffice to engender faith, why should the preaching
of the Apostles be necessary to reach every creature? On
this account it is, the Apostle tells us, that, while faith comes
from hearing, it is from hearing those only who are legiti­
mately sent. To those alone who have a legitimate mission
from the Apostles, and their successors in God's Church, can
the words apply : ‘How beautiful are the feet of them that
preach the Gospel of peace; of them that bring glad tidings
of good things.’ ” (Rom. x., 15.) (17)

“The Heathen and the Publican.”
In expounding the precept of fraternal correction,
Our Lord declares that, in the last resort, the delin­
quent must be cited before the Church, and then, “if
he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the
heathen and the publican.” (Matt, xviii., 17.) This
condemnation applies a fortiori to· cases of obstinate
heresy. The adherents of heresy, when reproved for
their misbelief, generally refuse to “hear the Church
in most cases, they obstinately prefer their own er­
roneous notions to· the teaching of “the Church of the
living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the
truth.” If an ordinary delinquent is to be classed with
(17) MacEvilly, vol. I., p. 670.

2g
“the heathen and the publican” by reason of his refusal
to abide by the Church's judgment in regard to his
offence, how much deeper is the guilt of him who
Openly rejects the moral or dogmatic teaching of the
Divinity-guided Church of Jesus Christ? If it be
wrong to reject the Church’s verdict in regard to an
individual offence, it is surely a far more heinous
crime to reject the teaching of the Universal Church
upon questions of faith or morals. Heretics noto­
riously decline to “hear the Church” on the gravest
of all questions. Therein lies their condemnation.

St. Peter Condemns Heresy.
The Prince of the Apostles faithfully re-echoes the
sentiments of his Divine Master in reference to false
teachers and their doctrines. In language that is ab­
solutely terrific, he stigmatizes the heretics who were
to arise at a later time, and warns Christians to be on
their guard against them :—“There were also false
prophets among the (Jewish) people,” he says, “even
as there shall be among you lying teachers who shall
bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who
bought them : bringing upon themselves swift destruc­
tion.” (2 Pet. ii., I.)
In this scathing sentence we have a descriptive defi­
nition of heretics. As Tertullian says, heretics are
Christians who deliberately choose false doctrine,
either instituting sects themselves, or receiving the
false doctrine of sects already founded. The great
African apologist adds that a heretic is condemned

29
by the very fact of his choosing for himself, since a
Christian has no such liberty of choice, but is bound
to receive the doctrine which the Apostles received
from Christ. (18)
It is idle for people to pretend that they “believe in
the Lord,” when they deny doctrines which the Lord
has revealed, and which His Church proposes for our
belief. Hence St. Peter says that heretics “deny the
Lord who bought them,” inasmuch as they deny some
of His Divine teachings, and apostatize from His
Church. In reference to these “lying teachers,” the
Apostle further says
“And many shall follow their riotousnesses, through whom
the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through cov­
etousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of
you. Whose judgment now of a long time lingerteth not, and
their perdition slumbereth not. . . . The Lord knoweth
how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to reserve the
unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented; and es­
pecially them who walk after the flesh in the lust of unclean­
ness, and despise government, audacious, self-willed, they fear
not to bring in sects, blaspheming.”

In this fearful indictment of heresy, there is scarcely
a sentence that is not a summary of some chapter of
Reformation history. To those who are acquainted
with the facts of Protestant history, to those who know
the licentious doctrines and practices of the pseudo­
Reformers and their immediate followers, it must
often seem as if St. Peter possessed a prophetic knowl­
edge of the Lutheran revolt against the Church of God.
Further on, the Apostle pens this appalling denun­
ciation of false teachers :—
(18) Tertullian "De Prcescript,” 5, 6; also “Cath. Diction­
ary,” s.v. "heresy.”

30
"These men, as irrational beasts, naturally tending to the
snare and to destruction, blaspheming those things which they
know not, shall perish in their corruption, receiving the re­
ward of their injustice; counting for a pleasure the delights
of a day, [they are] staines and spots, sporting themselves to
excess, rioting in their feasts with you : having eyes full of
adultery and of sin that ceaseth not : alluring unstable souls,
having their heart exercised with covetousness, children of
malediction. Leaving the right way, they have gone astray,
having followed the way of Balaam of Bosor, who loved the
wages of iniquity.”

Of these apostles of error, St. Peter further says:—
" I hese are fountains without water, and clouds tossed with
whirlwinds, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved. For,
speaking proud words of vanity, they allure by the desires of
fleshly riotousness those who for a little while escape, such as
converse in error : promising them liberty, whereas they them­
selves are the slaves of corruption. ... It had been bet­
ter for them not to have known the way of justice than,
after they have known it, to turn back from that holy com­
mandment which was delivered to them. For that of the true
proverb has happened to them : The dog has returned to his
vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the
mire.” (2 Pet., chapter 2.)

“Ministers of Satan.”
The great Apostle of the Gentiles is equally uncom­
promising in his denunciations of the spokesmen of
heresy. “Such false apostles,” he says, “are deceitful
workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light. Therefore,
it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as
the ministers of justice but their “end shall be ac­
cording to their works.” (2 Cor. xi., 13-15.)
To the Galatians he addresses a peremptory warn­
ing, bidding them beware of false religionists, whose

31
insidious errors would pervert the Gospel of Christ:
“Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel
to you besides that which we have preached to you,
let him be anathema ! As we said before, so now I say
again : If anyone preach to you a gospel besides that
which you have received, let him be anathema!” (Gal.
i„ 8, 9.)

“Adultery, Heresies, Murders.”
Further on in his Epistle to the Galatians, the in­
spired Apostle places heresy in the same category with
murder and lasciviousness. In the Authorized Ver­
sion this memorable passage runs as follows :—
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness—Idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, sedi­
tions, heresies—Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings,
and such like : of the which I tell you before, as I have also
told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal. v., 19-21.)

“Speaking Lies in Hypocrisy.”
In his letters to St. Timothy, the Apostle sternly
condemns the false doctrines of fallen Christian teach­
ers. Such false apostles were active in St. Paul’s day,
and he prophesies that other heretical teachers would
ply their evil trade in ages to come : “Now the Spirit
manifestly saith that in later times(i9) some shall de­
part from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and
doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and
(19) This is the sense of the Greek original.—See Van
Steenkiste, “Commentarius in S. Pauli Epistolas,” vol. 2, p.
324·

32

having their conscience seared.” (I. Tim. iv., 1-3.)
After emphasizing various points of doctrine and
practice, the Apostle adds: “These things teach
[thou] and exhort—If any man teach otherwise, and
consent not to the sound words of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, and to that doctrine which is according to
godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick
about questions and strifes of words: from which
arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions,
conflicts of men corrupted in mind, and who are desti­
tute of the truth.” (I. Tim. vi., 2-5.)
In his Second Epistle, St. Paul warns Timothy to
“shun profane and vain babblings, for they grow much
towards ungodliness. And their speech spreadeth like
a canker: of whom are Hymeneus and Philetus, who
have erred from the faith, saying that the resurrection
is past already, and have subverted the faith of some.”
In reference to the same heretical teachers, the Apostle
instructs St. Timothy to “admonish them that resist
the truth ; if, peradventure, God may give them re­
pentance to know the truth, and [if perchance] they
may recover themselves from the snares of the devil,
by whom they are held captive at his will.” (II. Tim.
ii., 16-18, 25-26.)
According to the inspired doctrine of St. Paul,
therefore, heretical teachers are slaves of the devil,
“held captive at his will;” they are veritable “minis­
ters of Satan;” their heresies are on the same plane
of wickedness with adultery, lasciviousness, and
murder.

33

In this Epistle, the great Apostle once more fore­
tells the coming of wicked men who shall deform the
religion of Christ and lead souls to destruction. In
language that reads like a summary of early Protest­
ant history, St. Paul denounces the coming “reform­
ers” :—
“Know also this, that in later days (20) shall come dan­
gerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous,
haughty, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, un­
grateful, wicked—without affection, without peace, slanderers,
incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness—traitors, stubborn,
puffed up, and lovers of pleasure more than of God ; having
an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power
thereof. Now these avoid. For of these sort are they who
creep into houses, and lead captive silly women loaden with
sins, who are led away with divers desires, ever learning and
never attaining to the knowledge of the truth.
“Now, as Jaimes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also
resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning
the faith. But they shall proceed no further : for their folly
shall be manifest to all men, as theirs also was. . . . Evil
men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, erring and
driving into error.
“For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound
doctrine : but according to their own desires they will heap
to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and will indeed
turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned
unto fables.” (2 Tim., ch. iii.)

Finally, to the Bishop of Crete the Apostle writes
his trenchant instruction: “A man that is a heretic
avoid, after the first and second admonition, knowing
that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being
condemned by his own judgment.” (Tit. iii., 10.)
(20) This is the sense of the original Greek. The Rhemish
version, in this instance, is much less happy than usual. St.
Paul’s phrase may refer to any period subsequent to the date
of his writing. The same remark applies to the analogous
phrase in 1 Tim. iv., I.—See Van Steenkiste, “Comment, in
S. Pauli Epistolas,” vol. ii., pp., 324-384.

34
Such heretics are stigmatized by the great Apostle
as “disobedient, vain talkers, and seducers.” They
“must be reproved,” he adds; for they “subvert whole
houses, teaching the things which they ought not to,
for filthy lucre’s sake.” He commands Titus to “re­
buke them sharply, that they may be sound in the
faith,” and that “they may not give heed to command­
ments of men who turn themselves away from the
truth.”
If ever there was a commandment imposed by “men
who turn themselves away from the truth,” it is surely
the commandment to frame a religion for oneself out
of the pages of the Bible. That “commandment” was
promulgated by Luther, who had derived it from John
Huss. It is a “commandment” that has shattered
Protestantism into a thousand fragments ; it is, more­
over, an injunction based upon a mistranslation and
misinterpretation of Our Lord’s words to the Jews, in
reference to “searching the Scriptures.”
In this very Epistle St. Paul’s language is the re­
verse of complimentary to those who “search the
Scriptures,” but yet wrest them to their own destruc­
tion: “To them that are defiled, and to unbelievers,
nothing is clean ; but both their mind and their con­
science are defiled. They profess that they know God ;
but in their works they deny Him; being abominable,
and incredulous, and to every good work reprobate.”
(Titus, chap, i.)

35

The End of Apostates.
The inspired author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
has some terrific sentences in reference to the fate of
apostates : “It is impossible for those who were once
illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and
were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, have, more­
over, tasted the good work of God, and the powers of
the world to come, and arc fallen away, to be renewed
again to penance, crucifying again to theuselves the
Son of God, and making Him a mockery. For the
earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often
upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by
whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God. But
that which bringeth forth thorns and briars is repro­
bate, and very near unto a curse, whose end is to be
burnt.” (Heb. vi., 4-8.)
The same inspired writer categorically declares that
“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Heb.
xi., 6.) By “faith" he obviously means the true faith.
All heretics and misbelievers claim to have faith of a
kind; yet, throughout the New Testament, their
“faith” is repudiated as insufficient, and their unbelief
branded as ripe for condemnation.

What is Wilful Heresy?
It will be proper to note here, once and for all, that
the misbelief which Our Lord and His Apostles con­
demn is unbelief that is wilful, obstinate, and perverse.
If a person believes a false doctrine through no fault

3r>
of bis own, obviously he cannot be condemned for
such erroneous belief. Heresy, then, is of two kinds :
it is either material or formal. To be in formal heresy
is to maintain some pernicious error through one’s
own fault ; material heresy means adhesion to religious
error through mere ignorance. Formal heretics are
Christians who deliberately choose false doctrine, or
who culpably adhere to the false doctrines of the sects.
Christians who reject some article of faith through
mere ignorance, or who belong to some heretical sect
through simple ignorance, are in material heresy, and
are so far blameless.
The heresy which is so scathingly condemned by
Our Lord and His Apostles is always formal, culpable
heresy. Such heresy may be defined as the obstinate
rejection of any revealed truth proposed to us by Holy
Church. God alone can know whether or not the
heretical opinions of any individual are wilful and
culpable. Still, we like to think, with Professor Devas,
that among Protestants “it is the exception, and not
the rule, that heresy or schism is the responsible act
of the individual dissident.” In his Allocution of
December, 1854, Pius IX. explained how “it is held
as certain that those laboring under invincible ig­
norance of the true religion are not in this matter
blameworthy in the eyes of God. And who is the
man so presumptuous as himself to lay down, accord­
ing to national, local, or personal character, and a
host of other circumstances, the limits of this ignor­
ance ?”

37.
We like to think that, in the case of multitudes of
Protestants, heresy is a mere irresponsible inherit­
ance, not a wilful act of unbelief. We gladly grasp
at the welcome possibility that such Protestants are
only in name and appearance outside the membership
of the Visible Church, but are in reality invisible
members. Still, God knoweth the heart; He alone
knows whether individual Protestants are in good
faith or in bad; He alone knows whether any given
individual remains outside the Church’s fold through
his own fault or not.
Deliberate and formal breach of unity remains what
it always was ; deliberate and formal heresy has ever
been, and still is, a heinous crime. Against its authors
and abettors the Church ceases not, and never will
cease, to pronounce her anathema. (21 ) Her ana­
thema is simply an echo of the anathema which her
Divine Founder and His Apostles have launched
against all wilful heresy.

St. John Condemns Heresy.
Even St. John, the apostle of charity, becomes unwontedly stern when he has to speak of heretics:
“Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doc­
trine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in
the doctrine, the same hath both the Father and the
Son. If any man come to you, and bring not this doc­
trine, receive him not into the house, nor say to him,
(21) Prof. Stanton Devas, “Key to the World’s Progress,”
p. 61.

38
‘God speed you.’ For he that saith unto him, ‘God
speed you,’ communicateth with his wicked works !"
(II. John, 9-11.)
The ancient heresy which denied the reality of Our
Lord’s human nature seems less pernicious than the
modern one which denies His Divinity. Yet the ad­
herents of the ancient error were thus denounced by
the inspired Apostle: “Many seducers are gone out
into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh : this is a seducer and an Anti­
christ.” (II. John, 7.)
In the Apocalypse, St. John describes his prophetic
vision of the fifth Angel who “opened the bottomless
pit, and the smoke of the pit arose, as the smoke of a
great furnace ; and the sun and the air were darkened
with the smoke of the pit. And from the smoke of
the pit there came out locusts upon the earth. And
power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth
have power.” (Apoc. ix., 2, 3.) By these “locusts
with stings” (verse 10) some commentators under­
stand heretics, who torment and infect the souls of
men, stinging them, like scorpions, with the poison of
their heresies. We have seen how the learned Brian
Walton regarded the English sectaries of his time as
the “locusts with stings” foretold in the Apocalypse.

St. Jude Condemns Heresies.
The greater part of St. Jude’s inspired Epistle is
devoted to the stern denunciation of heretics and their
methods. St. Jude at times reproduces, almost word

39

for word, the terrific indictment formulated against
heretics by the Prince of the Apostles. “I was under
a necessity to write unto you," says the Apostle to the
faithful, "to beseech you to contend earnestly for the
faith once delivered to the saints. For certain men
are secretly entered in (who were written of long ago
unto this judgment), ungodly men, turning the grace
of Our Lord God unto riotousness, and denying
the only Sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ.’’
The ancient heretics denied Christ by denying His
Divinity, or His human nature; modern heretics deny
Him by rejecting His Divinity, or disbelieving in
some of His doctrines, or refusing to belong to His
Church.
Of such heretics St. Jude says: “These men also
defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme
majesty. . . . These' men blaspheme whatever
things they know not ; and what things soever they
naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are
corrupted. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the
way of Cain, and after the error of Balaam . . .
and have perished in the contradiction of Core.”
Heretics follow the way of Cain by murdering the
souls of their brethren ; the way of Balaam, by setting
out to oppose and inveigh against the people of God ;
and the way of Core or Korah, by their opposition to
the lawful pastors of the Church of God.(22)
St. Jude continues his tremendous condemnation of
heretics thus : “These are spots in their banquets,
(22) See note on this verse in Rhemish Testament.

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feasting together without fear, feeding themselves,
clouds without water which are carried about by the
winds, trees of the autumn unfruitful, twice dear!,
plucked up by the roots ; raging waves of the sea,
foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars,
to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever.
. . . These are murmurers, full of complaints, and
their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons
for gain’s sake. . . .
“We told you that in the last time there should come
mockers, walking according to their own desire in
ungodliness. These are they who separate themselves,
sensual men, having not the Spirit.
“But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon
your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep
yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ unt® life everlasting.”