That there has been a great departure from the doctrines, ordinances
and discipline of the Church as it existed in the days of Christ and
his apostles, must be evident to every unbiased enquirer into
religious truth. This has been demonstrated to some extent in that
already presented to the reader. But the full measure of the
apostasy that has taken place would take volumes to represent in
detail. The proofs are ample that it has been universal.
When Jesus Christ commenced his ministry on earth he found the
people who claimed to be the special subjects of divine blessing and
approbation, with all their priests and ministers and learned
divines, entirely out of the way of life and salvation. None were
acceptable unto God. He denounced the most pious, respectable,
devout and educated among them as hypocrites and "whited
sepulchres." Their foreign missionary enterprises he declared
obnoxious to the Almighty, and informed them that when they
compassed sea and land to make one proselyte they made him "two-fold
more the child of hell" (Matthew 23:15). He pronounced them blind
guides who made clean the outside, but within were full of extortion
and excess. The Spirit of the Lord had departed from those who
honored his name with their lips, but who had departed from his
ways, and who, in place of the word of God, "taught for doctrine the
commandments of men." They were without authority from God, although
they claimed to have it by descent and ordination through a long
line of predecessors and prophets. It should not be deemed
impossible that a similar universal apostasy could take place after
the establishment of the Church of Christ by him and his apostles.
But whether so considered or not, the facts are too patent to be
denied when they confront the honest and enlightened mind.
It has been shown that the gospel as taught and administered by
Christ and his apostles required first, faith in God and Jesus
Christ; second, repentance, which included reform of conduct; third,
baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, the
reception of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands of
divinely authorized men; and that obedience to these brought the
gifts of the Spirit, including love, joy, peace, patience, brotherly
kindness, charity, healings, tongues, interpretations, discerning of
spirits, miracles, prophecy, revelation, and the unity in one body
of all who were baptized into the Church, no matter what had been
their previous beliefs. Also that the ordinances of the gospel were
administered by men inspired of God, who were in communion with him,
and who were ordained to act for and in behalf of Deity, so that
what they performed by that authority on earth was acknowledged and
sealed in heaven. And that in the Church of Christ there were
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, and
other officers, who were constituent parts of the body of Christ.
This may be further seen by a careful reading of I Corinthians 12,
from which it clearly appears that God placed these in the Church,
that they were all essential to its existence, and that one of them
could not say to any of the others, "I have no need of thee."
Look at the condition of so-called Christendom today! There are no
inspired apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers,
administering by divine authority and in the power and demonstration
of the Holy Ghost. In their place there are contending priests and
teachers guided by the wisdom of men, the learning of the schools
and the traditions of the fathers, not even claiming that there is
any direct communication between them and God, but persuading
mankind that revelation has ceased and the voice of prophecy is
hushed forever. Not one of the clashing, jarring and discordant
sects of the day proclaims the gospel as it was preached by Peter on
the day of Pentecost, and as taught by all the duly authorized
servants of God in the primitive Christian Church. The gifts and
signs which Christ promised to true believers, and which were
enjoyed by the members of his Church according to their needs and
their faith, are not only absent from the churches of these
degenerate times, but are pronounced needless and "done away." There
is no "unity of the faith," no actual "knowledge of the Son of God,"
no manifestations of his divine acceptance nor of the power and
glory of the Holy Ghost.
What is the reason of this transformation? Has God changed? Is
Christ divided? Is the Holy Ghost dead? Or, have not men changed the
order, ordinances, discipline, doctrines, and spirit of the Church
of Christ? Is not the prediction of Isaiah the prophet concerning
these times literally fulfilled? "The earth also is defiled under
the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws,
changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant." He said it
should be "as with the people, so with the priest; as with the
servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress;
as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with
the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury
to him" (Isaiah 24:2-5).
The deplorable condition of affairs in modern Christendom was
foreseen and predicted by the apostles of Jesus Christ, whose
forebodings have come down to us in the New Testament. Paul, writing
to Timothy, spoke in this wise: "This know also, that in the last
days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own
selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection,
trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of
those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of Godliness, but
denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (II Timothy 3:1-5).
Also: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times
some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their
conscience seared with a hot iron" (I Timothy 4:1, 2). Paul further
said: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and
his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season;
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For
the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but
after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having
itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth,
and shall be turned unto fables" (II Timothy 4:1-4). Paul also said
they should be "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge
of the truth." Writing to the Thessalonians he said: "Now we beseech
you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or
be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from
us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by
any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling
away first" (II Thessalonians 2:1-3).
The Apostle Peter also foresaw this great apostasy, and spoke of it
in this wise: "But there were false prophets also among the people,
even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall
bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them,
and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow
their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be
evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned
words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time
lingereth not and their damnation slumbereth not" (II Peter 2:1-3).
The "falling away" commenced in the time of the apostles, and hence
their numerous warnings and exhortations to the saints, rebuking
schisms and divisions, and counseling unity, showing that the Spirit
of the Lord promoted union and led people to the knowledge of the
truth, while dissension and strife came from the Evil One, and led
to darkness and death. That the great apostasy commenced at a very
early period is shown by the words of Paul, "for the mystery of
iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let until
he be taken out of the way" (II Thessalonians 2:7). By the time the
apostles were taken out of the way, most of them slain by the hands
of wicked men, the apostasy had assumed such proportions that only
seven of the Churches were deemed worthy of a divine communication
through the Apostle John, who had been banished to the Island of
Patmos. And in that revelation most of them were denounced by the
Lord because they had "left their first love," and were commanded to
repent or he would remove them out of their place. Some of them were
"neither cold or hot," others had given way to seducing spirits and
had committed abominations and imbibed false doctrines (See
Revelation 1, 2, and 3). In that same vision John the beloved saw
the Church in the form of a woman, clothed with the sun, the moon
under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head, taken away
into the wilderness, to remain for a lengthened period, and in her
place he saw "a woman sitting upon a scarlet colored beast, full of
names of blasphemy," and though decked with gold and precious
stones, she held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, and
the name upon her head was Mystery. He saw further that all nations
were made to drink out of that golden cup, by which they were made
drunken (See Revelation 12:1-6; 17:1-5; 18:2-3).
It is clear from these predictions in the New Testament, and others
that might be cited, that the departure from the purity, simplicity,
and unity of the gospel of Christ was to be universal; and that
these prophecies were fulfilled we have the testimony of the Church
of England. In her Homily on the Perils of Idolatry she declares:
"Clergy and laity, learned and unlearned, men, women and children,
of all ages, sects and degrees, of whole Christendom, a most
horrible and dreadful thing to think, have been at once buried in
the most abominable idolatry, and that for eight hundred years or
more." That being true, how is it possible to believe that the
Church of Christ had any existence on earth after that long
continued darkness and apostasy? How could there be any remnant left
of the divine authority held by the apostles and priesthood of the
original Christian Church? If the Romish Church, from which the
Church of England seceded, had no divine authority, then the Church
of England could have none, for all she had she obtained from that
Church. If the Romish Church possessed that authority, still the
Church of England could have none, for Rome excommunicated her with
all her priests and ministers. The Church of England being without
divine authority, all the various contending sects that have sprung
from her are of necessity in a similar condition, for none of them
even claim to have received any revelation from God restoring that
authority and re-establishing the Church of Christ.
From the Pope of Rome down to the latest minister presuming to act
in the name of the Lord, there is not and cannot be one who holds
the holy apostleship or any portion of that sacred priesthood which
God placed in the Church, and which Paul declared essential to its
existence. Good men, learned men, devout men, there have been by
millions; noble, pious, and blessed women also, with them, have done
the best they could according to their light and opportunities; but
darkness "has covered the earth and gross darkness the people," and
apostasy from primitive Christianity, as foretold by its founders,
has been awful and universal!
But, thank God, the restoration was also predicted, and it will be a
pleasing task in further chapters to set this forth, as revealed and
brought about by revelation from God the eternal Father, through
Jesus Christ his Son and the holy angels sent from their presence,
to usher in the last and greatest of all dispensations.