Not willing to accept the standards of doctrine published and recognized by each church, nor to abide by the verdict of learned debates upon all questions of difference, ministers and members, with astonishing freedom and with defiant presumption, enter the arena of controversy, public and private, with a zeal and a spirit equally hurtful to Christian charity and the general cause of true piety. Nothing can awaken a community more generally and excite the people more intensely than a public debate, formally arranged and pitched by two noted champions. The notoriety gained by the antagonistæ outlasts, if it does not outreach, the settlement of disputed questions. And, then, each man or woman, however old or young, must become an adept in religious controversy, and convert every road side, street corner, shop, office, counting room, kitchen and parlor into a place for petty, spiteful theological disputation. Instead of edifying one another in love, and deepening the work of grace in the heart by appropriate religious conversations, they embitter the sectarian spirit, destroy Christian charity, alienate personal friendship, a and “dote about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth.”
With many, sectarian jealousy is equaled only by sectarian bigotry, and the great work of soul-saving is made only tributary to denominational success. Indeed, many go so far as to deny the virtue of saving grace to all but themselves, and vainly imagine that the saving virtues of the atonement are transmitted to the hearts of men only through their church ministrations and distinctive ordinances.
Nothing excites sectarian jealousy more thoroughly than great religious awakenings and revivals in any given church. It is natural that the minister of the gospel who, as a human instrument, is very successful in winning souls to Christ should be “highly esteemed in love for his work’s sake,” and yet nothing exposes him more to the unjust criticisms and unchristian detractions of his less successful brethren in the ministry. Let a revivalist be successful in stirring the religious life of a whole community and in producing a general religious awakening, and the ministers and members of other churches, instead of joining heartily with him in the great work and laboring together for the general good, will watch with jealous interest the progress of the work, discuss with uncharitable criticism its character, and seize the first opportunity to begin a meeting Of their own, that they may make the religious awakening of the community inure to their denominational advantage. Should the revival occur in a small town where the whole population Christianized could not more than adequately support one healthy church organization, with one pastor, instead of assimilating all the religious elements, it would act like a moral solvent, disparting and isolating each shade of religious belief and thought. “Where two or three are gathered together” of the same belief they will organize, send for a pastor and set up for themselves. Thus the little community becomes divided into little sectarian factions, each to drag out a half-conscious, miserable, contentious existence, instead of uniting in one large, healthy, self-sustaining congregation, with all the benefits and advantages of a first-class minister well supported, a good church and Sabbath school, with all the regular ministrations of the gospel.
These things can not be affirmed of all ministers of the gospel, nor of all churches and communities in Missouri; but the facts are too common, too prominent and deplorable to be overlooked in any legitimate search for the animus of sectarianism in Missouri.
Where the differences between denominations are essential they are agreed upon their differences and live in peace, each pursuing a distinct line of operations in its own way unmolested, and their lines rarely, if ever, cross each other. On the other hand, where the difference is non-essential, they will not agree to disagree, and wrangling and contention, disputings and debates, mark the conflict. Where the difference lies in fundamental doctrines, debates are rare and formal. If the difference lies in ecclesiastical polity, or in forms of worship, or in sacraments or modes of ordinances, the discussions are interminable and the petty disputations endless. The nearer denominations approach each other in all that is essential in doctrine, worship and works of righteousness, the deeper seated and more bitter the jealousy and strife between them. Non-fraternization and non-intercourse are maintained with much punctiliousness between those Churches which are one in origin, one in doctrine, and one in all of their essential characteristics, but which have separated from each other upon questions of ecclesiastical polity, or for some other like cause.
Judging from the character of the strife between them, their methods of ecclesiastical warfare, and the downright animosity that enters into and characterizes these strifes, one would readily suppose that, according to their own interpretation, their peculiar commission is to overcome, root out, exterminate and supplant the church that bears the same “image and superscription.” Particularly is this true when the essential grounds of difference are political.
For confirmation of this position it is only necessary to refer to the two Methodist, the two Presbyterian, and recently the two Baptist Churches of this State, which are divided, not upon doctrines or ordinances, but upon questions of ecclesiastical polity—whether ecclesiastical bodies, as such, have the right to legislate upon or intermeddle with questions that belong to the State, and must be controlled by the State.
This allusion is sufficient for the present purpose. It only remains to be noted here how readily ecclesiastical partisans take advantage of everything in political and civil strife that will confer upon them power and position. How readily they identify themselves with dominant parties, if by so doing they can damage their ecclesiastical opponents and gain position and power for themselves! How heartily they endorse the policy of the party in power, if by it their own disability is exchanged for temporary enfranchisement, and their own minority is invested with temporary power to oppress and persecute the hated majority!
History repeats itself; and the genius of religious persecution and proscription has discovered very few new expedients and adopted very few new instruments since the days of the Master. The manger of Bethlehem cradled the Incarnate Innocence, and Pilate’s judgment hall gave birth to the diabolical genius of persecution, which was equal to the task, in that it did there and then invent and employ the only expedient that could at once be successful in the crucifixion of Incarnate Innocence, and in transmitting itself to every country and age with undiminished efficiency to pursue to prison and to death the followers of its first and greatest Victim as long as time should last. The cry of disloyalty and treason made by ecclesiastics is now, as it always has been, the strongest appeal to the guardians and defenders of the State; and as that was successful before Pilate, and forced him to sign the death warrant of the Master, so it has been successful in every tribunal of earthly power, and procured the death warrant of all the martyrs in every country and age, and under every form of government and every phase of ecclesiasticism from that day to this. “We found this fellow perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ—a king.” “If thou let this man go thou art not Cæsar’s friend; whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.” Such declarations made by the High Priests of the Church could, and did, influence the Roman Procurator against the convictions of his better judgment, against reason, against all the facts, again right and against innocence. What were all these to the life blood of their victim?
In some form or other these charges have been repeated in every systematic persecution of ministers of the gospel and martyrs for the truth, from Stephen, Antipas, Polycarp and Barnabas to the Bartholomew Massacre in Paris, and from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the Papal Inquisition to the last great tragedy in the drama, occurring during and since the late civil war in America, in free Missouri and under the ægis of institutions that boast of religious liberty, and the sanction of men who profess to represent the advanced Christian civilization of the age.