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Idolatry · stempublishing.com

But this paper is no attempt to give an account of the different heresies which infested the early church; its object is to mark briefly the advance of infidelity which is not confined to the deniers of all revelation, but in a very insidious form attempted to destroy the foundation of Christianity while pretending to greater knowledge. Amid many notions both blasphemous and foolish from the first denial of the resurrection when the priests bribed the Roman soldiers to say, "His disciples came by night and stole Him while we slept," down to modern times, one uniform aim has ever been pursued by the religious infidel. The profane world has its aspect of infidelity in Positivism and Secularism, but that which is found in connection with the church (be it ancient Gnosticism, Arianism, Unitarianism and Rationalism of the Colenso school) is a religious infidelity equally fatal as Atheism, and more worthy of condemnation. The person of Christ has ever been the point of Satan's attack, the sole aim of the devil to deny the truth of Him. There were other errors beside Arianism, as are now beside modern unitarianism. For where the will is not subject to God there must follow heresies and divisions; but all unorthodox are not infidel.