Page:The Christian Witness - Vol. 1 - 1834.pdf/23

Rh God be satisfied that His Church should sink below the glory of the Great Head of it, without even a testimony that he was dishonoured by it.—In truth it has ever been so: judgments from without for a good while marked His displeasure while it was sinking; and when it was utterly sunk in Apostacy, He raised his witnesses, who should sigh and cry for the abominations that were done in it; who in much darkness of spiritual understanding, bore testimony against the moral corruption that had overwhelmed the Church; and in the acknowledgement of redemption by the Lord Jesus, out of this present evil world, testified the Apostacy of the professing Church. When it pleased God to raise this testimony into the place of public sanction, while doctrinal truth (we may believe) was much developed for the foundation and edification of the faith of Believers, it by no means followed that the Church, thereupon, emerged wholly in spirit and power from its depression, assuming the character which it has in the purpose of the Author of it, and becoming an adequate and distinctive witness of His thoughts to the world. Such indeed, however blessed, as we are all bound most thankfully to acknowledge the Reformation to have been, was not the case: it was much and manifestly united with what was merely human agency; and though the exhibition of the word, as that on which the soul could rest itself, was graciously afforded, there was much of the old system which remained in the constitution of the Churches, and which was in no way the result of the development of the mind of Christ, by setting up the light and authority of the word. This gave to the general state and practice of the Church (whatever the excellence of individuals may have been) a character which many discerned to be short of that which was acceptable to God; and the authority of the word having been recognized as the basis of the Reformation, they sought to follow it, as they supposed, more perfectly. Hence arose all the branches of Nonconformity and Dissent, which prevailed when the Spirit of God was poured out, in proportion to the secularity or alienation from God, of the body publicly recognized as the Church, For it must be observed, that since the time when Popery prevailed over the nations, till lately, among those who have taken a share in the revival of religion, that has in general been called the Church, which the rulers of this world have received as such; not those who were delivered from the