The Christian world, having changed the order of the Church of God, have lost these gifts, and in endeavoring to justify themselves, say they are no longer needed. Some of them, more honorable than the rest, acknowledge the true state of affairs and confess the lamentable condition they are in.
Mr. Wesley states that the reason the gifts are no longer in the church "is because the love of many waxed cold, and the Christians had turned heathen again, and had only a dead form left" (see Vol. I, Sermon 94).
Smith's Bible Dictionary (page 163) also says: "We must not expect to see the church of holy scriptures actually existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom, or still less in any of those fragments." The names of sixty-five learned divines and Biblical scholars are on the preface page, as contributors to and endorsers of this book.
Dr. Adam Clark, in his commentaries (page 452) on the 4th chapter of Ephesians, says: "All these officers and the gifts and graces conferred upon them were judged necessary by the Great Head of the church, for its full instruction in the important doctrines of Christianity. The same officers and gifts are still necessary, and God gives them, but they do not know their places."
Roger Williams refused to continue as pastor over the oldest Baptist church in America, on the grounds that there was "no regularly constituted church on earth, nor any person authorized to administer any church ordinance; nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the church, for whose coming I am seeking" (see Picturesque America, page 502).
"Till that great and notable day of the Lord come, we can not, from the prophetic word, anticipate a universal RETURN to the original Gospel, or a general restoration of the kingdom of God, in its primitive form" (Christianity Restored, Alex. Campbell, page 181).
Having brought forward for the consideration of the reader the foregoing points, we now proceed to examine the results that will naturally flow from this terrible situation of affairs; and while we do so, we plead with you, reader, to lay aside prejudice, and, as you value your soul's salvation, seek earnestly to know the truth; "for what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
Having thrown aside the officers of the church, Christianity lost its authority and could no longer administer in the ordinances of the Gospel for the salvation of the souls of the children of men. Instead of the officers and endowments of the kingdom or church of God, man-made doctrines and changeable creeds have been substituted, until to-day the Christian world is "driven and tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine." Weakness, imbecility and lack of authority are written on its every movement; vice, sin and wrong-doing prosper and flourish under the very droppings of the sanctuary.
To-day one theory is taught, tomorrow another. Men have "builded cisterns that will not contain water;" in short, have turned from the apostle at the head of the church, and the prophet in the church of the living God, and heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears, who have turned the hearts of the people from the truth, and led them astray after fables, until "darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people."
Conflicting creeds and faiths fill the world with a war of words, until the hearts of honest men become sick, sick!—sick of the petty jealousies and miserable trickery of professing Christianity—sending the blood-guilty murderer, with his hands reeking with the blood of his victims, from the gallows to eternal glory and the presence of Deity; while an honest man, because he differs from them in belief, must be consigned to a never ending hell!