Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · December 1, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 47

ANOTHER point of interest in Mr. Moscrip’s article is this:—

Co-operation of given communities through their single heads in a nation gives a national church. Co operation of national churches through their heads is Roman Catholicism. And the State Church and the Roman Church mean the wildest forms of error enforced by the strong arm of the civil power unless the spirit of liberalism or of atheistic philosophy creates a public opinion which makes such enforcement impossible.

This is not a negation of the oneness of the followers of Christ; it is simply a denial that human organizations constitute the true Church, and that they can be safely trusted with the power which would be theirs were organic union to become an accomplished fact.

The early Christian Church had no bond of union but a common faith; and never was there perfect organic union until it was effected by civil power in the time of Constantine. The history of the Dark Ages chronicles the result. Whether or not organic union shall ever again be effected by any means, it is impossible to predict. To us it seems very improbable; but the mawkish, religious sentimentalism of the times threatens a union, not only of Protestants, but of Protestants and Catholics, quite as destructive both to vital piety and to liberty of conscience as was the union which culminated in the Roman Papacy.