Beware of dogs

With reference to Philippians 3:2—The things written on the outside pertain to the "dogs," against whom Paul cautioned those within, saying, "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision" (Phil. iii. 2). These were dogs who had got into the sheepfold unawares, and passed themselves off for sheep by a sheeplike demeanor. They were nothing but dogs, however, in the clothing of sheep. They were very pious; so much so, that in appearance they surpassed the sheep. They were righteous overmuch, and thereby destroyed themselves (Ecc. vii. 16). They were "evil workers" under pious pretenses, who seduced the faithful from "the simplicity which is in Christ," teaching for doctrine the traditions which in after years intoxicated all the nations of the Fourth Beast dominion.

These "dogs" without are commonly styled "the Fathers" by those who are without. These, in the estimation of the Gentiles of "the court which is without the temple," are of higher authority in all ecclesiastical or spiritual questions and "articles of faith" than all the prophets and apostles, or Jesus Christ himself. The Fathers of the Greek and Latin "Christendom" are the foundation upon which it is built for a habitation of the Satan, through the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. The spirituals of "the court of the Gentiles without the temple," in all "the times" allotted to the Gentiles to "tread under foot the Holy City," are the living incarnations, in all the ages and generations of those times, of the soul-destroying principles and practices of "the concision" -- loved and invented by the Nikolaitanes, Balaamites, children of Jezebel, and the Satan -- the Fathers of the Laodicean Apostasy. The priestly and ministerial incarnations of the principles of these Fathers in our day are "LEGION." They are blind leaders of the blind into the perdition that is yawning to engulf the Man of Sin-power and all his agents. Their admirers designate them as "reverend divines," "ambassadors of Jesus Christ," "successors of the apostles," "ministers of the gospel," called and sent of God, as Aaron was, to preach and administer ordinances, "holy men of God," clergy, or God’s lot, "holy orders," and so forth. They are the spiritual guides of the people in all the ways, the broad ways, of "the court without the temple of God." They are the learned and pious expositors of the traditions sanctioned by the innumerable "names and denominations," styled apocalyptically "names of blasphemy," of which the scarlet-colored beast of the "court without" is declared to be "full" (xvii. 3). These "dogs without" are they who "are of the world, who therefore speak of the world, and whom the world consequently hears." By this broad fact, patent to all who understand the truth, all apocalyptic "dogs" may be discerned, and the spirit by which they are inspired perceived (1 John iv. 1-6). They are, as the prophet said of the watchmen of Israel, "blind; they are all ignorant (of the truth); they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreamy, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way (or sect), every one for his gain to his quarter" (Isa. lvi. 10,11). "They are shepherds that cannot understand," or "come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. iii. 7). They can understand, in some sort, the school divinity it is their business to grind for those who go "wondering after" them, and by whom they have their wealth; but to understand the gospel of the kingdom of Deity, and of the name of Jesus Christ, is too high for them, they cannot attain to it. Let any man, intelligent in the gospel, the preaching concerning Jesus, the revelation of the mystery and its fellowship, as set forth by the apostles (Rom. xvi. 25,26; Eph. iii. 9), take in hand a Greek priest, a Papist sin-pardoner, a Protestant State Church parson, or a Dissenting minister of any of the sects of "the court without the temple," and try his best to exorcise him of his Gentilism, and to substitute in his understanding "the truth as it is in Jesus," and he will find experimentally, that they are all shepherds that cannot understand. With much care the truth was communicated to their predecessors of the apostolic age, who received it, but not in the love of it that they might be saved. They held it in unrighteousness, having the form of godliness, but denying its power. For this cause, God, as Paul threatened, sent upon them strong delusion that they should believe the lie they had invented and to this day so dearly love (2 Thess. ii. 10-12). This "lie" is the matter of the pharmakeia, or poisoning by which all nations have been deceived (xviii. 23). Its effect is to delude strongly all that swallow it, so that it is hardly possible for the truth to enter in.