If some of the movements now on foot are to be tolerated, there
is no reason for our existence as a body. If we want organs,
gorgeous temples, Catharine wheels, clerical orders, superior
courts, organizations and numerous societies, aside from the local
congregations of the Lord, the Pope can supply any demand for any or
all of these. If there are “means of grace,” he is rich in means. He
can furnish them an outlet for their overwhelming benevolence in the
innumerable channels he has opened. If the great problem is how to
reach the pockets of the people and build expensive temples, put up
tall spires and chimes of bells, he has solved it. He has swarms of
men, and women, too, doing his bidding and under fine pay, living on
the fat of the land. He has a _system_, a _plan_, an _organization_, a
grand one; the broadest one ever made by man. Here is the opening for
men who long for something of that sort. There is no use in mincing
the matter, nor in half-way measures. Why not at one bound go right
up to the grand culmination of all this kind of progress? There is no
use in trudging along behind the Pope, when a man can go to him and be
received into his embrace at once.
What a farce for men to be talking of _progress, going on to
perfection, keeping up with the age_, etc., etc., when they are giving
up and retrograding from the grandest progress possible to men—the
progress up to the ground consecrated by the feet of the apostles and
first Christians. Talk of progress when going back to the feeble and
exploded schemes of sectarians and patronizing their shallow devices!
Progress, indeed, to turn away from the holy gospel, the power of
God to salvation, and scheme to catch people and draw them in by the
blandishments of fine houses, theatrical, musical shows and clerical
pretentions! No, brethren, all this is empty and powerless for good,
and yielding up to the influences of hardness of heart, and aiding
on that overwhelming avalanche of unbelief now coming upon us. We
must stand by our Lord and the simplicity of the gospel, its faith
and practice, worship and discipline. We can defend and maintain the
gracious system of mercy and grace given by our Lord, in its own native
purity, but we can maintain nothing else. There must be no wedge of
gold in the camp, no Achan. We must offer no strange fires on God’s
altar. The Lord directs our minds and hearts and keep us in the love of
Christ. We long to see those who trouble us cease to give pain to the
hearts of the friends of the Lord; to learn to be happy themselves and
make others happy.