One the most noticeable facts in the history of Christianity is the apparent struggle the great truth as taught by Jesus of Nazareth has always had to maintain its simplicity; or, to state the matter more correctly, the unremitting efforts the human mind has put forth, through, the centuries, to rob it of its simplicity and so to encumber it as to neutralize its effects, as far as possible, in human experience. The story of Christianity is to a large extent the story of this process, a binding and a breaking free and then a rebinding only to be followed by a still greater and a wider emancipation. The binding process, of course, never appeared as bondage, any more than did the liberating process appear as liberty. The reactionaries ever appear as the defenders of the faith, and the liberators as rebels and traitors. Every restriction enjoined by authority, every tradition perpetuated, every custom sanctioned is made to appear, at the time, as an aid to salvation, as a safeguard against contamination, and as a fuller obedience to the behests of the Founder of Christianity. Those who questioned the righteousness of these ordinances, who sought to have recourse to the "simplicity that is in Christ" have ever at first been held in abhorrence by the majority.
The human mind, moreover, being what it is, has never learned anything from experience. The persecuted of yesterday have ever been the persecutors of to-morrow. The process of enslavement to some new form of ordinance, to some new set of traditions, has ever been, as far as those so enslaved is concerned, an unconscious process. In their own estimate there could never have been any possible comparison between the attitude they may be taking up and the attitude taken up by those people from whom, in times past, they had broken free. So the Protestant persecuted the Puritan, in exactly the same way as he himself had previously been persecuted by the Roman Catholic, without for a moment recognizing or admitting any similarity between the two processes. Now this process is, of course, inevitable just so long as the human mind can claim to have any dominion. Paul's statement in his epistle to the Galatians. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh," is a simple metaphysical truism, and just so long as there remains any belief at all in the flesh will this warfare continue.
It is particularly interesting to note how early this warfare made its appearance in the history of Christianity. In the first tremendous enthusiasm and devotion which followed the revelation of Pentecost, there was everywhere noticeable amongst the converts to the new faith, in Jerusalem, an extraordinary breaking free from tradition and an extraordinary simplicity of conduct. Without apparently making any rule about it they had all things in common, whilst repentance, followed by baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, was the only condition for complete reception into fellowship. To the multitudes at Jerusalem, "pricked in their heart" at his preaching, who cried to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."
