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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
has nothing but condemnation to offer. Their fate is foreshadowed in the words of Jesus addressed to the Doctors of Law :
“Woe unto ye lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in 'ye hindered."--(Luke, XI. 52.)
We do not know what Jesus would have said to the modern preacher, who has not only not entered in himself and stood in the way of those that were entering in, but has, also, actually misled and turned away many a well-guided soul from the right path, to follow what religion never preached, but that which is the most abominable perversion of the true doctrine. Alas! that the world should have its Pharisees in every age.
John, whose sense of delight at the discomfiture of the Pharisees is remarkably refreshing, records yet another discourse between them and his Master. He makes Jesus say:
“Verily I say unto you, if a man keep my saying he shall never see death”-(John, VIII.51).
This was too much for the patience of the poor, ignorant Jews, who forthwith demanded :
“Abraham is dead and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham which is dead ? and the prophets are dead : whom makest thou thyself ?"-(John, VIIT. 52-53).
If Jesus and the Jews had been merely talking of the resurrection of the dead in the World to come, it is difficult to see how such a misunderstanding could arise between them. It is impossible to construe this dialogue in any manner other than this, that the doctrine of Jesus was so startling and new to his congregation that they
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