THE GREAT MISTAKE OF PROTESTANTISM.
By Editor
REV. H. H. HINMAN has an article in a recent number of the Christian Cynosure, in which he writes thus concerning Christmas:— “If we may adopt religious institutions of mere human devising, and arbitrarily appoint days for their celebration, there is no limit to what man may do in creating religious institutions. There is quite as much reason for the adoration of her who was the most blessed among women, as for the unauthorized celebration of the birth of her Son. The great mistake of the Papacy has been the substitution of human inventions, of which Christmas is manifestly a sample. If we admit these interpolations in religion, we cannot stop short of entire conformity to all that is laid upon us. We must either cease our protest against the worship of the bread and wine in the mass, and to the confessional, or stop doing religious duties that have no higher authority than man. The road leads to Rome, and there is no stopping-place but at the end. We shall find enough to do in keeping divinely-appointed institutions in their true spirit, without turning aside to the commandments of men.” Whatever may be the merits or demerits of Christmas as a mere human holiday, it certainly has no just claims as a religious institution. Few comparatively are so ignorant as to suppose that it is indeed the anniversary of the birth of our Lord; and if it were, there is certainly no divine warrant for its observance. But in that respect it does not stand alone; Sunday keeping is equally without divine precept; and yet in the paragraph following the one quoted, Mr. Hinman calls that day "the Christian Sabbath." Certainly if the practice of celebrating Christmas is reprehensible (and we do not say that it is not), Sunday keeping is doubly so, for whereas Christmas antagonizes no divine institution, Sunday stands opposed to the Sabbath of the Lord, the day commanded in the fourth precept of the decalogue. True it is that the great mistake, yea, the great sin, "of the Papacy has been the substitution of human inventions" for the divinely-appointed institutions of the gospel; and it is no less true that the great mistake of Protestantism has been in adopting these substitutes, thus making void the commandments of God by Papal traditions.