If we are to depart from the Jerusalem Church because it was in its
infancy, and not reproduce the primitive church, we should like to
know how far we are to depart from it, and in what. If the faith and
practice, the precept and example of the primitive church may not be
adopted now and followed; if in all things we should not now have the
same faith and practice, precept and example they had, we should be
pleased for some expounder of the new doctrine to explain to us in what
the departure shall consist, and what rule we are to adopt now. If we
let go of the rule that governed the first church, what rule shall we
adopt? If we cut loose from the divine, shall we adopt a human rule? If
so, what human rule? Some one of these already made? or shall we have
the presumption and folly to think we can make a better one than these
human rules already in use?
We are not ready to cut loose from the Jerusalem Church, its rule of
faith and practice, its precept and example. We have more confidence
in the old ground than ever, and have no idea of departing from the
Jerusalem Church, its faith and practice, precepts and example. The
men that will not stand on apostolic ground, the faith and practice of
the first church, will not stand on anything long. We want something
reliable, permanent, sure and steadfast—a kingdom that cannot be
moved. In the old Bible, the old gospel and the old church, we find it.
Here is something to lean upon living and dying, for this world and
the world to come. If we leave this, all is uncertainty, darkness and
night. Let us “hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” and not he
of those who “depart from the faith,” giving heed to seducing spirits,
and not listen to “unstable souls,” or those “ever learning and never
able to the knowledge of the truth.”