Characteristic Inconsistency.
WHILE the servants of the Lord were endeavoring to turn the heathen to the worship of the true God, they were followed up by their persecutors from Antioch and Iconium—representatives of the professed church of God. These bigoted zealots of the popular church now joined the heathen, whom they considered to be unclean, and instigated a riot against the reformers. To this envious extreme do all professors and churches go when they seek to maintain merely their own name and authority. The same spirit of envy has pursued the church from age to age until the present time, and must eventually take possession of every individual or body professing godliness, which refuses to keep pace with the light of truth, and with every advance step in the great reformation which God is working by his Spirit amongst his children. When men profess to believe the word of God, yet reject its plain fulfillment; when they assume the "form of godliness," yet "deny the power thereof" when it is plainly demonstrated before their eyes; they are prepared for almost any degree of inconsistency—even to a rejection of the "commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."