It is really wonderful that a man like Bishop Taylor could have read the New Testament, and have entertained a doubt as to the decided opinion of all the Apostles, that every born Jew was bound to be circumcised. Opinion? The very doubt never suggested itself. When something like this opinion was slanderously attributed to Paul, observe the almost ostentatious practical contradiction of the calumny which was adopted by him at the request and by the advice of the other Apostles. (
Acts
, xxi. 21-26.) The rite of circumcision, I say, was binding on all the descendants of Abraham through Isaac for all time even to the end of the world; but the whole law of Moses was binding on the Jewish Christians till the heaven and the earth — that is, the Jewish priesthood and the state — had passed away in the destruction of the temple and city; and the Apostles observed every tittle of the Law.
Ib.
s. vi. p. 460.
The heresy of the Nicolaitans.
Heresy is not a proper term for a plainly anti-Christian sect. Nicolaitans is the literal Greek translation of Balaamites; destroyers of the people.
Rev
. ii. 14, 15.
Ib.