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I need not take time or space to describe the wonderful successes of Christianity as long as the primitive purity and power of the gospel message was sustained and its results realized in a living, Spirit-filled church. But facts compel me to record a change from that happy condition. This transition was foreseen by those who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Paul declared: "Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils" ; "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" . Peter predicted, "There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies" . Jesus himself declared, "Many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" .

The transition from the apostles to the age of the early church fathers is involved in considerable darkness. Not until the middle of the second century, when Justin Martyr appears on the scene, does the church emerge from its obscurity into the clear light of history. The apostolic fathers--Clement of Rome, Ignatius, the Pastor of Hermas, Papias, and the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus--all these lived and wrote during that transitional period, and they could have told us much, but they have told us little. We can not but admire the beautiful spirit in which they wrote, and their style is earnest and vital. Nevertheless, we discern in these works two leading tendencies which stand, so to speak, as prophecies of what was to predominate in the ecclesiastical thought of succeeding centuries.

In the mind of the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, the grand central thought is the incarnation and the spiritual presence of Christ in redeemed humanity, by which they are led to the "free imitation of God," as a result of which they become to the world what the soul is to the body--its life and the means of holding it together. This teaching is an epitome of the Greek theology developed later by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Athanasius. But in Papias, who attaches much importance to oral traditions that "came from the living and abiding voice"; in Ignatius, who exalts the bishop above other presbyters; and in Clement, who, writing as a Roman, is concerned with matters of administration and subordination to authority--in these we discern the beginnings of the Latin theology developed later by Tertullian, Irenaeus, Cyprian, and Augustine, which produced the papacy, and which, as we shall show, has in a great measure dominated the ecclesiastical thought of the world until the present day.

After emerging into the clear field of historic Christianity in the time of Justin Martyr, we find everywhere evidences of a rapidly developing apostasy. In one respect we approach an examination of the Ante-Nicene church with feelings of admiration. This was a heroic age, an age of Christian martyrs. The struggles of Christianity against the powers of heathenism enthroned in the Roman Empire and throughout the world form a bright chapter in the annals of historic deeds and supreme loyalty to lofty ideals. When we view the subject from this angle, it would almost seem to be an act of irreverence or of sacrilege to call in question the doctrines and practises of that period when the church was baptized by fire and waded through rivers of blood. Reverence for the martyrs and for their noble efforts to extend the cause of Christ is praiseworthy, but in justice to truth, we must remember that even the martyrs were not inspired teachers commissioned to build a model for all succeeding ages. That they were heroic does not prove them infallible. We should never hesitate, therefore, to compare their teaching with the pure doctrines of the Word of God, and wherein there is any lack of harmony, we should be guided by the truth as it is in Jesus.

However much we may admire the early church fathers, we can not help noticing the sharp contrast between them and the first apostles; between their writings and the sublime, inspired teaching of the divine Word. If, after reading Paul, Peter, or John, we turn to Tertullian, Irenaeus, or Cyprian, we instinctively realize that we have, so to speak, been transferred from sunny Italy to frigid Siberia. We are conscious of a change to another era, and to another country. Notwithstanding the fact that we find numerous familiar objects, we know that we are moving in another atmosphere amid foreign surroundings.

The church of the Middle Ages was the natural fruitage of the seeds planted during the second and third centuries. There we began to notice particularly foreign elements which stand out in bold contrast to the simple forms of primitive Christianity. One of these innovations was the development of the ritualistic spirit, according to which undue importance was attached to particular forms of worship, such as time, place, positions of the body, and ceremonial observances in general. Take baptism for an example. Apart from erroneous notions concerning the efficacy of baptism, which will be referred to under another head, the writings of the church fathers abound with the most minute and puerile details concerning how the act is to be performed--details of catechism, of consecration of waters, of dressing and undressing, exorcism, anointing from head to foot with oil, the laying on of hands, etc., all of which were to be carried out in the most exacting and solemn manner.

As an example of the ritualistic character of Christian worship at the beginning of the third century, I will cite a passage from Tertullian. In the third chapter of his work De Corona, this celebrated Latin father undertakes to defend customs and practises that he confesses were received "on the ground of tradition alone." He says: "I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Whereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the gospel. Then when we are taken up we taste, first of all, a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we abstain from the daily bath for a whole week. We take also, in congregations before daybreak, and from the hand of none but the president, the sacrament of the Eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be done at mealtimes and enjoined to be taken by all alike. As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honors. We count shouting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign of the cross."

According to this confession, all the ceremonial observances here set forth are without Scriptural authority. When we read in the New Testament concerning the simple act of baptizing believers, and compare it with the customs and practises that had grown up in the Ante-Nicene church, we do not wonder that evangelical faith was soon afterwards almost entirely lost in ritualistic forms; that, like the Pharisees of old, men made the faith of God of none effect by their traditions.

Another evidence of the decline of evangelical faith is found in the presence of many false doctrines among the leaders of so-called orthodox Christianity in that period of which I now write. Paul not only taught that at a later time some should "depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and devils" , but he referred to some who had already "erred concerning the faith" , and named two persons, 'who, concerning the truth, had erred, saying that the resurrection was past already, and overthrew the faith of some' . After the death of the apostles, error made deeper inroads, and its baneful influence cast a shadow over the church, which rapidly deepened into the darkness of spiritual night.

One of the earliest corruptions of apostolic truth concerned the design and purpose of baptism. It was not long until unscriptural significance was attached to the literal rite itself, so that what was originally a mere sign, was substituted for the thing signified, and thus baptism took the place of spiritual regeneration. In several places in the writings of Justin Martyr, who lived about the middle of the second century, his language seems to attach undue importance to the literal rite; but other passages from the same author indicate that he had not as yet entirely lost sight of the apostolic standard. In his Dialog with Trypho, chapter 14, he says: "We have believed and testify that that very baptism which he announced is alone able to purify those who have repented ... and what is the use of that baptism which cleanses the flesh and body alone? Baptize the soul from wrath and covetousness, from envy and from hatred, and lo, the body is pure."

In his First Apology, chapter 61, the same writer draws a clear Biblical distinction between spiritual regeneration secured through repentance and faith, and ritual regeneration in baptism as a mere outward sign of the inward work. He says: "I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ ... as many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is truth, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water."

Other writers of the period under consideration, however, praise the saving efficacy of baptism in the most exalted terms. According to their minds, it is the actual means of the redemption of sins, not a mere literal rite expressing ceremonially the work of God's Spirit within the heart; it is an illumination; it extinguishes the fire of sin; it removes the unclean spirits from men and seals them for heaven. Tertullian wrote extensively on this subject. In his work On Baptism, chapters 3 to 8, he maintains the doctrine of baptismal regeneration "by which we are washed from the sins of our former blindness and set free for eternal life." He declares that by this act men are prepared to receive the Holy Ghost; that in the literal act, "the spirit is corporeally washed in the waters, and the flesh is, in the same, spiritually cleansed." Cyprian, bishop of Carthage , in his treatise concerning the Baptism of Heretics, teaches the same doctrine in no uncertain terms.

The limits of this work preclude the historic treatment of the rise and development of the host of false doctrines and practises that finally bound the people in the thralldom of superstition and plunged the world into the darkness of spiritual night. One who is free from such influences can scarcely read without feelings of disgust the elaborate treatises of these church fathers wherein they extol the virtues of virginity as forming a new order of life, as an evidence of divinity, as making virgins while in this world "equal to the angels of God," and as a certain surety of special rewards in heaven. From this false standard proceeded at length the celibacy of the clergy and monkery with all their attendant evils. And the time would fail me to tell of the introduction of images and image-worship in the Western Church and of that superstitious regard for miserable relics of every description and kind. True evangelical faith was at length lost to view, buried beneath the rubbish of men's traditions. The treatment of such matters, however, belongs to the church historian, and as the general facts are well-known, it is unnecessary here to make more than a brief reference to them so as to prepare the mind for that treatment of the reformation which is a special object of the present work.

RISE OF ECCLESIASTICISM

We have already seen that in the church, as originally constituted, organization, authority, and government proceeded from the divine and not from the human. The agents whom Christ used in performing his work and in overseeing his church were called and endowed by the Holy Spirit, and this divine endowment was the real basis of their authority and responsibility. Paul's authority and responsibility as an apostle, for example, was not positional authority, or authority proceeding from a certain position to which he had been appointed or elected. His authority was divine, and out of that divine authority grew his positional responsibility as the "apostle of the Gentiles." Over and over he affirmed that he was an apostle, "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ" . On the same principle the position, work, and responsibility of all the members of the body of Christ grew out of the gifts and qualifications possessed by them, and thus the church was divinely organized and divinely governed.

In his early epistle to the Philippians, Paul makes reference to the officers that guided that church. He sends greetings "to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons" . Polycarp, writing to the same church in the next century, addresses the "presbyters and deacons," showing that the apostolic order was still preserved there.

In the Ignatian epistles, however, written early in the second century, there appears positional authority of a new order. In place of the New Testament standard of a plurality of elders, or bishops, jointly teaching and guiding the local church, we find recognition of an office which was superior to that of the presbyters and to whose incumbents alone the term "bishop" was applied. A few extracts from his writings will make clear this recognition of a threefold order of the ministry--bishops, elders, and deacons. "Wherefore, it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also ye do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp" . "He is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the will of Jesus Christ" . And again, in the same epistle he says, "I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbytery in the place of the assembly of the apostles" . "In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as the appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these there is no church" . To the Smyrnaeans he writes: "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father.... Let no man do anything connected with the church without the bishop" . "It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God" . "It is well to reverence both God and the bishop. He who honors the bishop has been honored of God; but he who does anything without the knowledge of the bishop, does serve the devil" .

That this early recognition of a superior order of ministers was a distinct innovation is also shown from the literature of that period. In the Shepherd of Hermas, dating from the first part of the second century, elders and presbyters are distinctly named but no bishop in contrast therewith. In the so-called "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," also dating from the first part of the second century, bishops and deacons only are named as teachers and leaders of the church, showing that the original signification of the term "bishop" is here retained. Clement of Rome, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, speaks of the ministry as an institution of the apostles, but he mentions, nevertheless, only a twofold order--elders and deacons, presbyters and deacons, or bishops and deacons. The same classification is made in the second epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, a work which is generally ascribed to another author; so also in the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians.

What produced that transition from the humble apostolic church of the brethren to the medieval church of the impious Hildebrand, who caused monarchs to tremble on their thrones? The change resulted from two particular causes, and it is highly essential to our purpose that we understand them. One was a misconception both of the Fundamental constitution of the true church itself as designed by its Founder and of Christ's perpetual relationship to it; and the second was the imperialistic tendencies of that age to which the first error naturally exposed the church.

Out of that worldly conception of the kingdom of God grew the Romish figment of the "power of the keys." According to this idea, Christ constituted his ministers a sort of clerical, close corporation invested with direct authority over souls so that without their priestly mediation the kingdom of heaven is forever shut against men. The words "keys of the kingdom of heaven" are evidently nothing more than a figurative expression indicating the moral influence in the kingdom which Peter in particular should wield with peculiar energy and efficiency. According to Matt. 18:18 all the apostles and others were to exercise the same functions. In time, this expression denoting moral influence and usefulness in the service of Christ was tortured into an engine of despotism and made the means of spiritual tyranny over the consciences of millions of men and women. The corporation entrusted with such power durst not be resisted, and the church was identical with the hierarchy.

But all of Rome's boasted catholicity, centralized in an official, administrative corporation, is a chimera; for it is a fact that multitudes are accepted of God as members of the divine family who are not identified with the hierarchy. The real catholic church, embracing the whole spiritual brotherhood, is therefore something else.

But we have not yet reached in this discussion the tap-root of the evil tree of human ecclesiasticism. The fundamental error underlying all other errors on this subject, was the idea of an absent Christ. Notwithstanding the definite assertions of our Lord, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" and "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"--notwithstanding these reassuring promises and the definite statements of the apostles which represent Christ as the ever-living and ever-acting head of the church, soon after the apostolic period men lost the consciousness of the divine presence and began to think and to act as if Christ were indeed absent and would not return again for thousands of years. The presence of gigantic evils in the world with no apparent available means of redressing them, the dead weight of heathenism, and the disturbing influences of speculative Oriental philosophies impressed upon the conscience of the world a despairing pessimism. In the midst of this trial there was a revival of the Platonic philosophy. The treatise of Plato that made the most profound impression upon the religious thought of the second century was the "Timaeus," wherein the Deity is pictured as withdrawn from the world into a distant heaven separated from all creation because of the evil with which matter is essentially connected. With God withdrawn from the world and Christ absent on a long journey, what was man to do? What was the hope of the world?

THE REFORMATION

The age of popery's greatest glory was the world's midnight. I have not attempted to give an adequate description of that long reign of superstition and error preceding the reformation of the sixteenth century. Such is the particular province of ecclesiastical historians. I have simply confined the discussion to certain features essential to our present purpose.

One point of importance I have endeavored to impress, namely, that the papal hierarchy, with all its attendant evils, corruption, superstition, and spiritual despotism, was the logical successor of the Ante-Nicene church; that the ripened fruits of papalism were the direct results of the seeds of error planted in the second and third centuries. In view of this fact, one is led to inquire why true Christianity was not permanently buried in oblivion beyond the possibility of resurrection, how any reformation could be possible.

If Christianity were nothing more than a human religion, its reformation at such a period of decline and corruption would appear impossible. But Christianity was of divine origin. No matter how deeply it was buried under the rubbish of human tradition and superstition, no matter how grossly it was perverted and misunderstood by men, it still retained within itself the vital spark of divine life, the living principle of reformation.

The secret of this reformatory power was Jesus Christ himself, the great ever-living head of the church. Notwithstanding the decline of faith and morals among those professing Christ, the wonderful character of Jesus still stood out with remarkable clearness and power in the records of the New Testament and could not but exert a tremendous influence in spite of prevailing standards; could not but shed rays of light and warmth in the midst of the surrounding darkness. Although men's ideas of the church became perverted, they could not entirely lose sight of the great Founder of the church, and they could not escape the conviction that the record of the founding of that church was given in the writings of the New Testament and that these writings were worthy of peculiar veneration. Perhaps this is the main reason why the learning of antiquity was chiefly preserved in monasteries and churches. There were ecclesiastics in all these ages who were acquainted with the Scriptures in Latin, and this acquaintance tended to preserve the knowledge of Jesus the Christ as portrayed in the original gospel records. The history of that epoch proves that there were men who loved the Lord more than priestly forms and ceremonial observances. John Wyclif, Jerome of Prague, John Huss, and others experienced that deeper longing for personal relationship with Christ, and they proclaimed the gospel of Christ in a manner that could not be understood by the hierarchy of their times.

Jesus was indeed the Christ of God. The light which shone forth from his presence could not be totally obscured, and the moral power and influence of his life and teaching could not be destroyed. The revival of classical learning restored the Greek Testament to western Europe and attracted the attention of students and learned men in all the monasteries and universities. While the hierarchy insisted on the exclusive right to interpret the Scriptures, the simple reading of these wonderful records could not but create new conceptions of truth which no clerical prohibition could banish. Life was springing up in the midst of death.

The Reformation was the sincere effort of honest men to restore the truth of primitive Christianity, that the world might again experience the triumph of evangelical faith. To the everlasting credit of the Continental reformers be it said that their motives were not selfish. They sought not for themselves freedom of thought and speech nor church power. Their immediate object was the restoration of the gospel; all other results were but secondary. Nothing is more certain than that at the first Luther had no idea of assailing the organization of the papal church. Most of the reformers at the first still believed most earnestly in the imperial government of the universal church; and they relinquished this long-cherished ideal only when driven by force of circumstances which were at first unseen and unsuspected. Luther did not at first question the doctrine of the supremacy of the pope; but when he found that the reigning pope could not be reconciled with the principles of truth which he taught, Luther proposed to appeal the matters in question to a general council, notwithstanding the melancholy example, a century earlier, of the Council of Constance and the fate of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.

The real occasion for the outbreak of the Reformation was the papal traffic in indulgences. Leo X had great need of money for the building of St. Peter's, and other undertakings, and in order to fill the coffers of the church he had recourse to the sale of indulgences. The power of dispensing these indulgences in Saxony in Germany was committed to a Dominican friar named Tetzel, a fanatical enthusiast who entertained the most extravagant notions concerning their efficacy in forgiving not only the sins already committed but even those which were contemplated. Luther's soul burned with righteous indignation. Of what use was the doctrine that forgiveness of sin came by the death of Christ on the cross if any sinner could obtain it from an emissary of the pope for a pecuniary consideration. Luther felt that this infamous traffic was making the Word of God of none effect. He therefore drew up ninety-five theses against the doctrine of indulgences and nailed them on the church-door at Wittenberg. The printing-press scattered copies of these theses everywhere, and soon the continent of Europe was in a blaze of controversy. Such, in short, was the beginning of the Reformation and some of the causes leading thereto.

The key-note of the reformers was, therefore, the gospel. The views of the reformers with respect to truth were not altogether harmonious, and it is evident that some of them had much clearer conception of the gospel than had others. Nevertheless, their primary purpose was the same. They were gradually forced to the conviction that Rome had made the faith of God of none effect by her traditions, errors, and superstitions, so much so as to make it practically unknown. It was the purpose of these heroic preachers to bring out these long-obscured truths and thus make them effectual in the saving of men. The main doctrine around which the Reformation centered was justification by faith independent of human mediation.

We have already shown that development of ecclesiasticism which culminated in the papacy. From the primitive autonomy of the local churches, there came the centralization and consolidation of churches sectionally under a human headship with administrative functions, then provincial or national centralization, then finally the primacy of Rome over them all. The reason for this is evident. When the moral and spiritual dominion of Christ's kingdom was lost to view or could not be appreciated, the wrong conception of the church as a world-empire naturally took possession of men's minds; for in that age vast, centralized, imperial power was the ideal government. When, however, the political empire fell, and men witnessed the ruin of their political ideal, they sought to realize the same universal conception in a world-church possessing imperial powers under the pope of Rome.

The clergy, who had long been accustomed to the imperial tie, believed that a national headship was now necessary. The governments of Europe at that time were for the most part absolute monarchies, about the only limits to the sovereign power of these kings being the control which the pope exercised over the ecclesiastical affairs of the nations. From this control the Reformation liberated them. Therefore they eagerly took upon themselves the oversight of the national churches, and thus came into existence the church-and-state system of Protestant Europe. To a great extent the power that the imperial head of the church lost was acquired by the national heads.

All this seemed perfectly consistent to the reformers. They felt the necessity of lodging somewhere that power of human control which had been formerly exercised by the pope. As one writer has said, "They could not understand that Christianity could prosper without a strongly organized and governed church or without the presence of a strong and vigorous hand ready at all times to repress dissent and enforce uniformity of faith and worship." The time of absolute religious freedom was not yet.

MODERN SECTS

Picture a keen observer living in the middle of the first century of our era. He travels about from place to place studying the development, nature, and fruits of the recently established religious phenomenon--Christianity. He observes the purity of its doctrines and the high moral standard exemplified in the lives of its adherents, and he inquires particularly concerning the secret of that mysterious bond which unites in one body and in one fellowship, sympathy, and love the entire society of believers in Jesus. He departs. After the lapse of long ages he returns near the beginning of the twentieth century, and lo, what is it that meets his astonished vision? The mournful spectacle of a divided Christendom; of rival sects compassing land and sea to make proselytes; of the spiritual alienation of those who, in reality, belong to the one divine family; of waste and inefficiency in methods of evangelical effort; not to mention the error, pride, and worldliness inherent in the gigantic ecclesiastical systems known as denominational churches. What a change!

It is useless to minimize the evils inherent in the sect system. Intelligent men the world over need not the services of an eye-specialist to see clearly that there is something wrong with modern Christendom; that the sect system does not represent the standard of primitive Christianity, but that in reality the sect principle misrepresents the apostolic ideal as portrayed in the New Testament. We may as well face the facts honestly and seek for a remedy for this disease that has so long marred the beauty and corrupted the nature of the true Christian system.

I cheerfully admit that God has worked among his people in all ages in accordance with the degree of light and truth which they possessed. But I can not forget that the greatest revivals of evangelical religion have either taken place in spite of the sect system or among those who had just made their escape from the bondage of ecclesiastical despotism and had not as yet become very deeply affected by the sectarian principle. To what source, then, are we to trace sects? What is their cause?

The natural limitations of human knowledge may account for difference of opinion, but more than this is required to account for the entire system of organized sects such as we see it today. Millions of evangelical Christians possessing spiritual affinity and holding opinions no more divergent than often exist between members of the same sect, are, nevertheless, divided into independent, rival parties. Something else originated and now perpetuates that barrier between them.

When differences are fundamental and therefore unavoidable, they will become more pronounced under test than at any other time. If, during an epidemic, a physician believes that the method of treatment employed by another doctor is actually killing the patients, his opposition to such a method will then he stronger than at any other time. As long as that method is simply a theory, it is harmless. Only when put into practise does it become dangerous.

Traced to the original source, modern sects, we find, originated where the papacy originated--in the corruption of Christianity in the early centuries. All came from the same roots of error.

However modified and diversified in external form and in doctrinal teaching they may now be, they exhibit in their ecclesiastical constitutions a foreign character derived from the foreign stock from which they sprang. Into this system there have been engrafted many noble scions of truth from the "good olive-tree," and these have produced commendable fruits of righteousness. But we are here concerned with pointing out those fundamental characteristics of the system that are foreign to the true church of Jesus Christ.

Coincident with the creation of foreign ideals concerning church societies was the formation of of a foreign idea of church-membership and church-relationship. In the beginning, as we have shown, the church was simply the divine family. Therefore salvation through Christ was its sole condition of membership. "And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved" . And as the local congregation was but the concrete expression of the ideals of the general body or church, that membership in Christ which made men members of the general body, made them, by a moral and spiritual law, members of all the other members of Christ, and therefore fixed their local relationship: they belonged by divine right with whichever company of believers they happened to be associated. Nothing more than simple recognition of what God had done for them and the according to them of the local rights and privileges that naturally belonged to them was necessary on the part of a local congregation to make the actual union complete.

The formation of creeds tends to create division and to perpetuate division. Caesar's maxim illustrates their history: "Soldiers will raise money, and money will make soldiers." So creeds will make sects, and sects will make creeds. "A creed or confession of faith is an ecclesiastical document--the mind and will of some synod or council possessing authority--as a term of communion by which persons and opinions are to be tested, approbated or reprobated." The sect churches are built on their creeds, although, of course, they affirm that their creeds are built on the Bible. In this case, however, it is usually apparent to the careful observer that the Bible is that part of the foundation which is buried out of sight below the ground. The creed is the real test applied to persons, the measure by which their opinions are judged. It is the creed upon which the sect is built that gives the denominational character and distinctiveness.

It is a fact of history that the primary purpose of the historical creeds was not to unite men but to separate them. The Nicene Creed was made to exclude the Arians. The Decrees of the Council of Trent were framed to exclude Protestants; the Westminster Confession, to exclude Arminians; and the Episcopal Articles, to exclude Catholics and Independents. To rally around a creed framed by human authority and make it the basis of union is but to teach a system--a sect system; but to rally around the person of Jesus Christ and make him the supreme object of our faith, hope, and love is to contend for what the Bible terms the faith, the truth, the gospel. This is infinitely better than any document proceeding from Nicea, Trent, Dort, Augsburg, or Westminster.

Another cause, both for the origin of the sect system and its perpetuation, is the assumed "power of the keys" which has been carried over from the Church of Rome. The idea that the administrative rule and government of the church of Christ has been, by divine decree, centralized in a self-perpetuating clerical caste with authority to legislate for the church and then to enforce its decisions by judicial procedure, is foreign to the primitive church as recorded in the New Testament. It is a product of Papalism, and yet it has been, in its essential characteristics, transferred directly to the sects of Protestantism. The New Testament recognizes no such human positional authority. It recognizes only that divine authority which operates through God's chosen ministers and helpers by virtue of the Spirit-bestowed gifts and qualifications. The only governmental authority exercised by the New Testament ministers was in cooperation with Christ, the visible head, by putting forth, in accordance with the Spirit's gifts and qualifications, some portion of that moral power by which alone Christ governs.

The idea that to a clerical order has been committed the exclusive guardianship of the church, with full power to admit to or exclude from the worship and service of God all except those who come by way of their priestly mediation, is the basest assumption. It is a violation of the rights of individual conscience. Yet just such power has been and still is being exerted as a means of enforcing acquiescence in matters of opinion and submission to customs and practises which every unprejudiced man knows, or can soon see, is no part of the New Testament teaching and requirements. What a weapon has this ecclesiastical assumption been! One always ready for use. It makes no difference whether it is wielded by a Methodist conference, an Episcopal judicatory, a Presbyterian synod, or a Catholic pope, it is all the same in principle--"the power of the keys."

That "power of the keys," making and then enforcing the standards of creeds, has done violence to the conscience of both the clergy and the laity. Conscienceless persons subscribe to the creed without any particular hesitation, but the truly conscientious suffer the greatest embarrassment They must either refuse altogether and withdraw from all connection, or else subscribe with a mental reservation amounting practically to hypocrisy.

This inflexible character of the sect institution has been a most fruitful cause for the production of new sects. No matter how spiritual the movement at its beginning, when its leaders were not longing for church power but were earnestly preaching the Word of the Lord as it came unto them, as soon as the sect machinery was thoroughly organized and was set in motion the inevitable tendency has been to throw around the movement a wall of creedal and ecclesiastical exclusiveness which shut out other true people of God; and then began a process of crystalization which ever afterwards precluded the unfolding of new truth. It is a well-known fact that the high tide of truth-discovery in every religious movement in Protestantism has been at the time of its beginning. A fixed law of immobility has ever afterwards prevailed. The reason is clear: whenever men grasp the reins of government and assume those prerogatives which belong to God alone, the rule of the Spirit ends. The unfolding of new truths by the operation of the Spirit is impossible within the limits of the old order where human ecclesiasticism reigns. But truth can not be permanently suppressed. If it can not find room for development within the existing order of things, God will raise up men who will, independently, proclaim the Word of the Lord. This he has done repeatedly, only to have the new movements end in the same manner--in a rule of human ecclesiasticism.

Human ecclesiasticism has always been the greatest barrier to the free spiritual development of the work of Christ. According to that relic of the papal church, authority and rule is vested in the clerical corporation and is by them conferred upon other individuals by the act of ordination. How different the standard of the Word! In the Old Testament times the office of prophet did not come in the priestly line, but on whomsoever the spirit of prophecy descended--whether upon Amos, the herdsman, or David, the king--he spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. There has never been a time under the divine economy when any man to whom the Word of the Lord came was not divinely authorized to proclaim his message wherever he could get a hearing, whether in synagog or temple, or out under the broad canopy of heaven.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE

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