IT is true, also, that “God’s word, as the only rule of faith and practice, is as much set at naught by the religious world to-day as it was fifty years ago,” and more too; and there is nothing so unpopular with the masses of the people, and some called brethren, as precisely the apostolic way; and the Reformation is not a failure either. Our reformatory movement was right, and is still right. It needs no modification, but needs to be faithfully and honestly carried out. No reformatory movement can ever get in ahead of it. It went back to the divine fountain to find the truth, and not something like it, that could be proved by it. It went back to the Bible itself, and not to something like it, or something that can be proved by it. It went back to the religion of Christ itself, and not to something like it, or something that can be proved by it. This was no failure. The attempt was to go back to the Lord himself; to his own Book, his own religion; and those who attempted this, and did it, made no failure. They found the Lord, his Book, and his religion, and found the salvation of the Lord. There was no failure in all this. This movement has been in the world about sixty years, or about half as long as Noah’s mission lasted. Noah found the salvation of the Lord for himself and family. There was no failure in his case.
[WHAT WE ARE FOR.]
WE are for the kingdom of God, and for all that pertains to it, but not for the kingdom of the clergy, either as manifested in the Papacy or among Protestants; nor are we enlisted to get up a new kingdom of clergy. We will never give our influence to establish any new kingdom of clergy, or recognize any old one. The people of God are free. They do not belong to the clergy. The congregations of the Lord are free, and not to be manacled down into human confederations and their great work ended in an insignificant sect. The day we agree to be banded together into some kind of general confederation of congregations, under a conference, convention, or we care not what you call it, we become an insignificant sect, a denomination, a christian sect, and will be nothing more forever. Ichabod will be written on us. But that day will never come. Mark that. We hope that none among us will ever make the experiment, but if they do, they will simply land in faction, to dwindle away and die.
But, we have come to a crisis, and, it is predicted, we will soon come to nothing if we do not do something. We intend to do something and are doing something, but not forming ecclesiastical confederations to bind burdens on the necks of the people, nor scheming to get clerical power. We have come to no crisis. The few scheming men that have so fully demonstrated their aim, have come to a crisis and to a complete defeat. But that will not produce any perceptible jar in the movements of the hosts of Israel. That is a mere circumstance. The Lord’s hosts are in motion and the work is going on. Why stand with a human figment in view, when we have stupendous matters of fact before our eyes? Look into the columns of our publications and see the reports that come up every week from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, and from the North of the Dominion of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and tell us what of the crisis? The men in the field at work have come to no crisis and to no panic. The Lord of hosts is with them, and they are not to be turned aside from their work.
Read the accounts of churches established every week, the houses for worship built, the preachers coming over from the ranks of Babylon, as well as private members, and the vast acquisition to their numbers from the world, and then tell us what of the crisis! Go into the field and go to work, every man, in faith and hope and love, and win souls to Christ, and the Lord of hosts will be with you, and good brethren will come up to the help of the Lord and support you. But if we continue the schemes that are now confessedly failures, or devise new ones, we will dry up the fountains of liberality till we can do nothing. The children of God will give money to convert and save sinners, but they will not give money to build up a hierarchy.
[A SUGGESTION.]