Chapter XCII: Section 2

OF CONFORMITY, USE MADE OF THE NAME OF JESUS NO PROOF.

Of the name of Jesus, whatever use he may have made--made (as it was seen) without authority--can any use, made in contradiction to this his own confession, afford any the slightest ground for regarding _his_ Gospel, whatever it be,--his Gospel, or any part of it,--as belonging to the religion of Jesus? If so, then are all impostors the persons they falsely pretend to be--all counterfeit productions of any kind, genuine ones.

While preaching to Gentiles at a distance from Jerusalem, from any use he could have the assurance to make of so revered a name, it is almost superfluous to observe, how much he had to gain, and how little to lose. In a case of this sort, how much soever there may be that is offensive in the demeanour of the pretended agent eulogizing, no part of it is ascribed to the pretended principal eulogized: and, in such his eulogy, the pretended agent is not hampered by any of those considerations, by which he would stand precluded from all prospect of advantage, had he the effrontery to lay it in equally strong colours on himself. Thus, in the case of Paul, from putting in the foreground where he did, the name of Jesus, there was this great advantage to gain: and, the pretended principal being never present to disavow him, the consequence was--that, so long as no accredited and credited agents, of that same principal, were at hand to contradict his pretensions,--the mere name of this principal would be no obstacle, to the preaching of doctrines, ever so decidedly at variance with his.

If, on the other hand,--in a company, in which he was preaching doctrines of his own, which were not Jesus's,--men should happen to be present, to whom, by reason of their personal acquaintance with Jesus, or with any immediate disciples of Jesus, these same doctrines of Paul's should be perceived and declared not to be Jesus's, here would be an inconvenience: and, on this account,--wherever, without using the name of Jesus, or any other name than his own, he could be sufficiently assured, of obtaining a degree of confidence sufficient for his purpose,--this course, supposing it successful, would, on several accounts, be more advantageous.

Here then, on each occasion, or at any rate on some occasions, would be an option for him to make: namely, either to preach in the name of Jesus, or else to set up for himself:--to set up for himself, and, on the strength of a pretended revelation from the Almighty, without the intervention of Jesus, preach in no other human name than his own.

From a passage, in the first of his two Epistles to his Corinthian disciples, it looks as if an experiment of this kind--an experiment for adding nominal independence to real--had actually been tried: but that, the success of it was not such as to be followed by continuance. For this suspicion--for it is but a suspicion,--any reader who thinks it worth his while may see the grounds in the subjoined note.[83]