Birth of a Reformation; Or, The Life and Labors of Daniel S. WarnerByers, A. L. (Andrew L.)
Religion
Birth of a Reformation; Or, The Life and Labors of Daniel S. Warner
Byers, A. L. (Andrew L.)
Church of God (Anderson, Ind.) -- History; Warner, D. S. (Daniel Sidney), 1842-1895
I wish to ask the editor of the Harvester if human sects are
essential to the visible organization of Christ? The above language
so implies.
Then, according to this statement, the church of Christ was without
a visible organization hundreds of years, until the present-day
sects arose. And if the visible organization thus provided is a
necessary adjunct to the church, then the apostle Peter made a
mistake when he said that God had already "given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness."
Again, if the formation of sects gives the church of Christ a
visible organization, will the Harvester please point out the time,
in the history of the church, when that important event occurred?
Was it when the first sect was formed, namely, the Roman Catholic
sect, in the beginning of the apostasy? Did she give the church
of Christ a visible organization? If so, what need of subsequent
efforts at organization?
We presume that the Harvester does not admit that this corrupt
hierarchy is the church of Christ. So there was one sect formed,
and Christ's church still not visibly organized.
Out of her came the Church of England. She claims to be the
identical church of Christ. Does the Harvester admit the
assumption? If not, then he must admit that a second sect failed to
organize and represent the Church of Christ.
Again, from the old mother of sects came forth the Lutheran sect
and her daughters--granddaughters of Rome. Did any of them organize
the visible church of Christ? If so, which one?
Or was it left for John Wesley to organize the church of Christ
in the formation of the Methodist Episcopal sect? If that sect
is really the identical church of Christ, then the editor of the
Harvester is in a hopeless condition, since severed from that body;
but we presume that he still felt that he was in the church of
Christ after dismembered from that great sect, therefore it is not
identical with the church of Christ, and her organization was not
the organization of Christ's church at all.
Having now followed two branches of Rome to the second generation
without finding in any of these sister denominations the identical
church of Christ, we must pass on to the third generation.
Is any of the sects that have branched out from the Methodist
Episcopal sect the church of Christ? If so, will the Harvester
point out the one? Will he assume that the one he represents is the
church of Christ? If so, then he has been without Christ's church
until recently. If not, then the founding of the Wesleyan Methodist
sect was not the organization of the body of Christ. It is a fact
which no man of intelligence will deny, that no one sect on earth
is the identical church of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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