Last Judgment (Post) (Rogers) n. 361

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361. [297.] Afterward the Moravians came to a certain apostolic church which had existed in Galilee not far from Tyre. They comported themselves in the same way there, giving the Galileans to believe that they possessed the same doctrine they did. But on being asked about the Word, the Moravians replied that they hold to the Epistles of Paul, which contain their essential doctrine, and said that Paul spoke from the Holy Spirit. Asked what they believed in regard to the Gospels, they said that the Lord spoke in them from Himself. Asked whether He did so from the Father, thus from the Divine, or from the Holy Spirit, they said that He spoke from Himself. The Galileans asked about the manner in which He spoke, to which the Moravians replied that He spoke in a simple fashion as a man, and not from the Father or from the Divine, because He wished people to have faith in Him and wanted to be equal to the Father. The Galileans asked whether He was not conceived of the Father. The Moravians said that they think as they please about this, not daring to say that they think as Jews do. Nor did they dare to say that they have little regard for what He said. When asked about the Old Testament, whether it is not holy, they said that Jews consider it holy because it was written for them, but that they themselves do not consider it holy, and that it is evil to believe that it is holy for them. Asked whether they know that there are many particulars regarding the Lord's advent contained in it, they said that these had to do with the coming of the Messiah, and that by the Messiah is meant God the Father and not the Lord, denying that the Father was in the Lord according to His own testimony. When the Galileans began to cite passages in the Old Testament regarding the Lord, they turned away and said that they interpreted them differently than the Galileans. In short, they rejected the Word of the Old Testament as not holy and as containing nothing in it having to do with the Lord. Some of their responses I pass over, because they were such as would offend the ears. After that the Galileans heard about the Moravians' faith, and they said that it accorded not at all with their faith, indeed that it was nothing of any value. And incensed that the Moravians had claimed to be of their church, the Galileans ordered them to leave, saying that otherwise they would be driven away, because they saw that the Moravians were not in the least Christians, calling them antichrists.


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