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20.-Rose from the Dead and Ascended to Heaven.

Jesus Christ "rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven" in the sense of the Scriptures, which teach that "there is a Spiritual Body" over which Death hath no power; that "Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God"; and, that all who live and die in Holiness shall, in like manner, "rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven."

21.-Heaven and Hell.

The alternatives of human choice and destiny are "Heaven" and "Hell," in the sense that they are "within " us, as holy or unholy characters which will "comfort" us or "torment" us forever, without regard to locality, or to external conditions-which was emphatically the teaching of Jesus and of his chief Apostle, St. Paul.

22.-Shall come again to judge the World, whose Kingdom shall have no End.

Jesus The Christ and The Only Son of God—as already explained—is the "highly exalted" of God and the "Teacher," the "Example" and the " Saviour" of Mankind. As such he must also be "Our Judge." Himself said "I will not leave you; I will come unto you; Lo! I am with you always even unto the end of the World." In this sense-though physically invisible—he is the ever-living, ever-present Christ ; and Christendom is his rightful "Kingdom," and shall be, "World without end, Amen." In this, his Rightful Kingdom, he, for eighteen centuries, has been, is now, and ever shall be enthroned as "Judge of the World." Amen and Amen.

XLI.-STILL OPEN TO NEW LIGHT.

The mere Hireling in Religion as in other things, may say —as a Hireling Politician is represented as saying, "These, my constituents, are my sentiments; if they do not suit you they can be altered!" But the Truth-lover and Truthloyalist always says, These are my convictions; they can be altered, but only by the suggestions of The Spirit of Truth

speaking anew, and more audibly, through my own increased Intelligence and Holiness.

"He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of The Spirit, which all who believed on him should receive."

"Howbeit when He, The Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall guide you into all Truth."

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit; and began to speak as The Spirit gave them utterance."

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"In like manner The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.”

"For as many as are led by The Spirit of God, they are Sons of God."

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The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our Spirit."

And it shall be in the last days, saith God,

I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh:

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
And your young men shall see visions,

And your old men shall dream dreams :

Yea and on my servants and on my handmaidens in those days

Will I pour forth of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy."

These promises and assurances only began to be realized at Pentecost. Since the Second Century they have been either widely perverted or largely forgotten. Renascent Christianity is to be their revival and gradual-leading-on, through the ages, to a final and full Realization.

XLII. DEGENERATION OF PROTESTANTISM-PERSISTENT

TENDENCIES TO REVERT.

When the scholarly, broad-minded, warm-hearted Chaplain of the departing Speedwell and Mayflower said to his weeping flock-about to leave him forever-"There is more light yet to shine from the Word of God," he scattered the first seed of that Advanced Protestantism which has ever since been springing up and trying to flourish-in spite of

the unceasing efforts of "Orthodoxy" to trample it down and root it out.

Till then, it was generally conceded that Protestantism as Luther, Henry VIII., Cromwell, and Laud left it, was the final stage of Christianity's Evolution. In its Rituals of Worship probably, in its Ecclesiastical Methods possibly, but in its Doctrines or Dogmatic Statements certainly it should never be changed. The Ultima Thule had been reached. No navigator would ever venture beyond; should he be so fool-hardy, certain disaster and ruin would await him. The end had been attained; the height, depth, length, and breadth of Divine Truth fully and forever compassed. The three Creeds, and especially the Athanasian, contained it all; whosoever should doubt it, "let him be Anathema "-without question he should "perish everlastingly."

Such were the common, seemingly almost unanimous, conceptions of all "Orthodox" Christians. "The Reformation" had settled it all: no more questions were to be asked. The Earth on the back of the Elephant, the Elephant on the back of the Tortoise; Sixteenth Century Protestantism on the back of Fourth Century Theology, Fourth Century Theology on the back of Judaism-that explained it all. To enquire any further, certainly to expect any further changes, was "to fly in the face of Providence." On such or similar suppositions, Lutheranism organized itself in Germany and in Scandinavia; Anglicanism and Presbyterianism in Great Britain; Puritanism in New England; Episcopacy and all the other Denominations in the United States of America. All were one in this, and in this only, that all alike fixed about them a Faith-line (in military phrase a Death-line). This Faith-line fixed about them was in triangular form: unalterable Ritual on this side, unchangeable Ecclesiasticism on that side, and infallible Doctrines on the other side. True, every one of the hundred or more "orthodox" Sects, as they sprang up, differed as to the nature and limits of the first and second sides; but as to the third they were, and are, united. Each, of its own triangular boundaries, said, sternly, Thus far and no farther.

In this way Protestantism became, virtually, another Papacy or Patriarchate;-with endless popes and patriarchs instead of one. So too, in its degeneration, it soon came to repeat the intolerance and even the persecutions of the Autocratic Romanism whence it sprang. It hung Quakers, burnt Witches, banished Baptists and Romanists alike, in one portion of its domain; and, in all portions and among all its "orthodox" Sects alike, inhibited a free Religious Press, prohibited free Theological Speech, bound Reason, gagged Conscience, stifled Conviction, suppressed Enquiry, just as always had been done by degenerate Christianity back to the Fourth Century. True, on the part of most of the Protestant Sects, the triangular boundaries have been slightly extended now and then; but this only as compelled by indignant and influential Protesters from inside. True also that the prohibitions and penalties have grown less numerous and less severe; this, also, only as compelled, and in like manner. But the boundaries are still fixed, with their accompanying prohibitions and penalties; and none but the boldest and bravest ever venture to disregard them. As to the "penalties," they have changed in form, but hardly in substance, from those of Maternal Romanism. Ostracism (social as well as religious) has taken the place of Anathemas. Expulsions or depositions have superseded gibbet, and pyre; heresy-trials the inquisition, and whispers-of-heresy the thumb-screw and rack. The persecutions of mediæval Romanism, nay, even the stones and the cross of First Century Judaism, were, after all, easier for a genuine hero to bear than is the pusillanimous ostracism, the pestering heresy-trials, and the un-get-at-able suspicions which now are the punishments of all accused of "heterodoxy" or charged with Theological Unsoundness.

All this and much more-so painful to recall, and yet demanding to be recalled, in order to warn against continued degeneration-indicates the past and present Degeneration of Protestantism; it shows also how strong, even in it, is the old, universal, always persistent Tendency to Revert-in Religion as in everything else.

"Mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies:

"Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace ;

"To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Ferusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord God."

"Think not that I am come to send peace upon the Earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword."

"The Wisdom that is from above is first, pure-then peaceable."

XLIII. THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION ONLY THE BEGIN. NING OF NEEDED AND ESSENTIAL REFORMS.

When Christianity began to revert, it began, and till now has continued, to revert in three general directions. Its Symbolism (or Ritual) grew toward that of Heathenism; its Ecclesiasticism grew toward Despotism; and its Dogma grew toward the Superstitions of Paganism. The Protestant Reformation began, and has continued, as only a partial Reform of the first, a very slight Reform of the second, and no Reform at all of the third. (a) The Ritual of all the Protestant Sects is a marked advance upon that of the Medieval Churches-Roman and Greek Catholicism. (b) The Ecclesiastism of all the Protestant Sects is a slight advance; the same tyranny (in councils, conventions, and other officialisms) exists in modified forms; instead of one Pope or Patriarch, there have come to be hundreds or thousands called by various names. (c) The Dogmatism of the Fourth Century, increasing in popular favor down through the Dark Ages till now, remains essentially un-reformed, except among those Protestant sects known and condemned as Heretics-the Unitarians, United Brethren, Christians, What is now needed, called for, and demanded by rapidly increasing Protestants of the Higher Order (the most scholarly, virtuous, and reverent Christians of Christendom) is a Completed or, at least, a rapidly Completing Re

etc.

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