CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

There is a difficulty in believing that the most precious truths — truths which, when received from God, are a source of joy and blessing to our hearts — should produce controversy and painful conflict.

But we must take it as it is. It is exactly these truths, the dissemination of which meets with all the hostility of the flesh and all the prejudices of souls accustomed to things which cannot hold their ground in presence of those truths. I shall draw the attention of my reader to a new phase of the controversy, to which the testimony of God in these last days has given rise. It is true that the fundamental points have been sufficiently discussed, but since the truth has made immense progress, those who are opposed to it have completely changed the ground on which battle was joined.⁺⁺ An answer then must be given to these fresh attacks directed against the truth and to the fresh arguments intended for the defence of error.

In the case which now occupies us the defence of the old order of things has been entirely given up. The greater part of the things which, for a long time were the objects of various attacks, has been abandoned, as not being in accordance with the word of God, and not only abandoned, but stigmatized as faulty. Those who, for many years, have borne testimony against these things, speak of them more calmly.

⁺Geneva, 1849.

⁺⁺The root of the question is not a new one. It is the same principle all that of M. Rochat with respect to the establishment of elders. What is new is, that along with this, they would have a church more or less composed of the multitude of professing Christians. The consequence of that is, that discipline is indirectly put aside, and that, whilst earnestly seeking to preserve a clerical position for themselves, there is an irritable feeling against the true Church for the multitude and against the true clergy, who have openly occupied the ground before them.

^[p. 184] According to our adversaries themselves, the clergy is of the devil.⁺

Again, according to them, the visible unity of the Church has been lost.

Thus, at least, there is much ground gained; one would have thought that the controversy was at an end.

No! A man does not always receive the truth even when he is reduced to confess that he is in error.

Nothing but the ground of the contest is changed, and in changing to a new ground, it is sought to render a part of that which has been written on these subjects useless. As the actual order of things is no longer vindicated, the attacks upon it, say they, are superfluous. But let us state the facts plainly. If the attacks are no longer vindicated, it is because the conclusions of those who love that testimony have been accepted. Have they been accepted from the bottom of the conscience before God, so as to place them humbly in the position which follows the admission of these principles? Alas! in no way. They only say that, since the early centuries, it is true, all has been corrupted; that the order established by God has been abandoned; and that the order of things which has sprung from it is of the devil. It is true, say they again, that the visible unity of the Church has been destroyed; but they add, “I can re-establish it quite as well as the apostles; and those who do not submit to that which I have established, are the enemies of the unity of the Church.”

The facts are admitted intellectually, to give room for the pretentious action of the will of man. The truth has not penetrated their conscience so as to place it in humiliation before God.