Page:Darby - Christianity Not Christendom.djvu/33



But we have enough to shew that immediately after the apostles, beginning with Clement, Paul’s companion, whose epistles no one questions, Barnabas, of the same date, whoever wrote it, soon after 70; Ignatius, some say 106, others 116; Polycarp at the same date ; Hermas some 50 years later; we have a collection of writings which express the then current thoughts and views, and which were more or less publicly read. Now, in these writings we do not find a trace of the gospel, and redemption and salvation, and blessings, which are found in Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Corinthians, John, or even Peter, who does not go so far as Paul and John; nor do we find the practical recognition of the Holy Ghost; I speak of their teachings. Polycarp and Ignatius were, no doubt, saints; Barnabas and Clement, it may be, too, though in the last less appears; yet I would not call it in question. On the other hand, the clergy and sacraments, particularly baptism (Paul was not sent to baptize), are the constituent elements of the church they are conversant with. They own Christ’s death, of course, but its effect or application, and the Christian’s place, as Paul and other apostles put it, is nowhere found.

It is not the fact that there are elders, of course, that makes the sudden departure from scriptural truth and standing evident. Paul chose such, but that they and sacraments are everything—constitute the church; and what constituted Christianity as God gave it is gone.

All this led the way to hierarchical power, and finally to Popery in the West; and, as to practice, the deliberate adoption of heathenism, days and months and years, formally judged in Galatians as a return to heathenism, and the deliberate substitution of saints’ memories, as