. Be bold in denouncing the heresy, but slow and timorous in denouncing the erring brother as a heretic. The unmistakable passions of a factionary and a schismatic, the ostentatious display, the ambition and dishonest arts of a sect-founder, must be superinduced on the false doctrine, before the heresy makes the man a heretic.
Ib. p. 129.
—the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
Were the Nicolaitans a sect, properly so called? The word is the Greek rendering of 'the children of Balaam;' that is, men of grossly immoral and disorderly lives.
Ib. p. 130.
For if he who shall break one of the least moral commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, (Mat. v. 19,) it must be a very dangerous experiment, &c.
A sad misinterpretation of our Lord's words, which from the context most evidently had no reference to any moral, that is, universal commandment as such, but to the national institutions of the Jewish state, as long as that state should be in existence; that is to say, until
the Heaven