WHAT IS THE PROSPECT? by Milton C. Wilcox

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 19, 1879

WHAT IS THE PROSPECT?

By Milton C. Wilcox

That there may be a union of all the churches, the mother and her daughters, in the near future, appears altogether probable. Not that they will be united under one general head, but they will come to regard each other as sister churches,—branches of the one great body. And by a union of interests in some of the doctrines common to all, there will arise a union of purpose to crush out everything that opposes what they in common deem orthodox. The Church of England is not the only one that is drifting toward Roman Catholicism.

The N. Y. weekly Sun of June 4, in an editorial headed, “The Union of Churches against the Assaults of Scientific Men,” after calling attention to the General Assembly of Presbyterians, recently adjourned at Saratoga, and the progress of that denomination, which, with its offshoots, it calls “the most learned, wealthy, and influential Christian communion in this country,” says:—

“One of the most striking and instructive [the italics are ours] features of the proceedings at Saratoga was the gingerly way in which the Assembly handled the Roman Catholic Church. The question of the validity of Catholic baptism came up for consideration. Some of the Presbyteries had asked the Assembly to advise them whether, in case a person who had been baptized by a Catholic priest desired to join a Presbyterian church, it would be necessary to baptize him again. The Assembly rather evaded a direct decision of the main point; but after an extended debate, it relegated the whole subject to the church sessions, authorizing the ministers and elders of each locality to act upon the matter as they saw fit. The discussion disclosed the fact that a large majority of the Assembly recognized not only the validity of baptism by the Catholic clergy, but regarded Catholicity as a branch of Christianity, and as an important ally in the great contest now waging with rationalism, materialism, and other forms of modern skepticism.

“When we remember how severe were the attacks of Presbyterians only a few years ago upon the faith and policy of the Roman Church, it is astonishing to hear such admissions from the lips of men who claim to be the followers of the Genevan reformer of the sixteenth century. There is no mistaking the tendency of such utterances. If in the coming hundred years American Presbyterianism advances toward American Catholicism as rapidly as in the last hundred, the margin that will separate them on fundamental doctrines will hardly be wider than that which divided the Scotch Calvinists from the Arminian Methodists in the times of Wesley.”

May the Lord help us to be prepared for the great developments of the near future.

MILTON C. WILCOX.