ipture seems always to
imply the presence of teachers as the appointed ordinance by which men
learn the truth; and is principally engaged in giving cautions against
false teachers, and tests for ascertaining the true. Thus our Lord bids
us "beware of false prophets," not of false books; and look to their
fruits. And He says elsewhere that "the sheep know His voice," and that
"they know not the voice of strangers." And He predicts false Christs,
and false prophets, who are to be nearly successful against even the
elect. He does not give us tests of false doctrines, but of certain
visible peculiarities or notes applicable to persons or parties. "If
they shall say, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold, he is
in the secret chamber, believe it not." St. Paul insists on tokens of a
similar kind: "Mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them"; "is
Christ divided?" "beware of dogs, beware of evil workers"; "be followers
together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an
ensample." Thus the New Testament equally with the Old, as far as it
speaks of private examination into teaching professedly from heaven,
makes the teacher the subject of that inquiry, and not the thing taught;
it bids us ask for his credentials, and avoid him if he is unholy, or
idolatrous, or schismatical, or if he comes in his own name, or if he
claims no authority, or is the growth of a particular spot or of
particular circumstances.

If there are passages which at first sight seem to interfere with this
statement, they admit of an easy explanation. Either they will be found
to appeal to those instinctive feelings of our nature already spoken of
which supersede argument and proof in the judgments we form of persons
or bodies; as in St. Paul's reference to the idolatry of Athenian
worship, or to the extreme moral corruption of heathenism generally. Or,
again, the criterion of doctrine which they propose to the private
judgment of the individual turns upon the question of its novelty or
previous reception. When St. Paul would describe a false gospel, he
calls it _another_ gospel "than that ye have received"; and St. John
bids us "try the spirits," gives us as the test of truth and error the
"confessing that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," and warns us
against receiving into our houses any one who "brings not this
doctrine." We conceive then that, on the whole, the notion of gaining
religious truth for ourselves by our private