Brother Dolan makes a sweeping cut with his Sword like this:
"Sectism is of the devil, and no-sectism is of the devil."
Amen. That's true. An ism spirit may attach itself to any
principle, false or true.
As many sects have been developed by making a center of some
subordinate point of the Christian system as by rallying upon some
mere human tradition.
Whether men worship the moon or an idol of their own make, it is an
equal insult to God; and whether men worship a gospel principle, or
a doctrine of devils, is of little if any difference in the sight
of God. Either case is idolatry; because Christ is supplanted as
the center by something else either subordinate or foreign. When
men get a chronic lopsidedness, so that they will scan greedily
over a paper and drop it as soon as they see nothing on their
hobby, whether it be sect or antisect, Sabbath or antisabbath,
or anything else, notwithstanding it may contain much good, pure
food, many blessed thoughts about Jesus, they have put something
else in the place of Christ, and their religion runs about like a
grindstone with its axis near the outer circumference and passing
diagonally through the stone.
We once heard a Disciple preacher say that every sect that holds
some truth that no other sect holds, has a right to its existence.
This provides for as many sects as there are truths in the religion
of Christ; but God allows no "schism in the body." Nothing but the
exclusive 'holding the Head,' 'seeing Jesus only,' and the full
enjoyment and constant "praising of the beauty of holiness," can
keep us from all isms.
A selection from the Vanguard, copied in the Trumpet shows the
spiritual state into which a number of leading holiness editors
had by this time drifted because of a failure to follow as God was
leading.