at an early date were led to attach such a meaning to a term which had hitherto been understood to imply nothing reprehensible.  The New Testament teaches us to regard an erroneous 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]