The Gnostics alleged that the present world owes neither its origin nor its arrangement to the Supreme God. They maintained that its constituent parts have been always in existence; and that, as the great Father of Lights would have been contaminated by contact with corrupt matter, the visible frame of things was fashioned, without His knowledge, by an inferior Intelligence. These principles obviously derogated from the glory of Jehovah. By ascribing to matter an independent and eternal existence, they impugned the doctrine of God's Omnipotent Sovereignty; and by representing it as regulated without His sanction by a spiritual agent of a lower rank, they denied His Universal Providence. The apostle, therefore, felt it necessary to enter his protest against all such cosmogonies. He declared that Jehovah alone, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, existed from eternity; and that all things spiritual and material arose out of nothing in obedience to the word of the second person of the Godhead. "By Him," says he, "were all things _created_, that are in heaven and that are in earth, _visible and invisible_, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is _before all things_, and by Him _all things consist_." [203:1] The philosophical system of the Gnostics also led them to adopt false views respecting the _body of Christ_. As, according to their theory, the Messiah appeared to deliver men from the bondage of evil matter, they could not consistently acknowledge that He himself inhabited an earthly tabernacle. They refused to admit that our Lord was born of a human parent; and, as they asserted that He had a body only in appearance, or that His visible form as man was in reality a phantom, they were at length known by the title of Docetae. [204:1] The Apostle John repeatedly attests the folly and the danger of such speculations. "The Word," says he, "was _made flesh_ and dwelt among us. [204:2] ... Every spirit that _confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh_ is not of God. [204:3] ... That which was from the beginning, which we have _heard_, which we have _seen_ with our eyes, which we have _looked upon_, and _our hands have handled_ of the Word of Life ... declare we unto you. [204:4] ... _Many deceivers_ are entered into the world who confess not that _Jesus Christ is come in the flesh_." [204:5]