"Probably this means the doctrine of coming out of all
the sects, and giving the church of Christ no visible
organization."--Christian Harvester.
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.
But it may be claimed by some that all the sects taken together
constitute the true church in her visible organization. This is
also a great mistake. How can all these bodies sum up the one
organic visible church of God, when they have no organic relation
to each other? In what a disgraceful light sectism presents the
church! Does that look like a divine and heaven-born family,
that is composed of numerous, rival, jealous, independent, and
conflicting organisms? Oh, I beseech you for Christ's sake, do not
dishonor God by confounding his church with Babylon confusion!
Instead of sects giving the church of Christ a visible organization
they mar and destroy the visible organization and unity of the
church of Christ. A striking want of identity in the membership of
God's church and human sects also proves conclusively that no sect,
nor yet all sects together, constitutes the divine fold. Their
walls are not the walls of God's house at all, neither are "their
thresholds" his threshold. Many are in them who never entered God's
church, and, thank God, many have entered by Christ the door who
have never attached themselves to any of the factions that are not
of God, but the result of sin. If, then, the constituent elements
of sects are not identical with the elements of God's church, sects
themselves are not identical with her, and consequently their
organization is not her organization.