The
Origin and Rise of Ecclesiasticism and the Papal System
w FOREWORD w
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The following articles were
originally written for a missionary periodical and, at the request of many
readers, have now been republished in this form. We trust they will have a wide
circulation.
Many today are concerned about
maintaining the standards of the Reformation; others, those of the so-called
Fathers; but the author of these papers is not concerned with standards such as
these. It is not sufficient to get back to the Reformation, however blessed
this movement was of God; still less to the teachings and practices of the
successors of the apostles. The latter invariably warned us of those who would
succeed them, and commended us alone to God and the Word of His grace.
The author, then, knows no standard
of authority but the Holy Scriptures. To argue from history and tradition would
be to meet the enemy on his own platform, and to court defeat. But he is
silenced when, in simplicity and faith, we meet him with the Word of God.
How important then, it is for us to
go to the fountainhead of truth and to search reverently and weigh solemnly the
Scriptures to which the author has appealed in support of his statements,
statements which contradict the cumulative authority of centuries of human
tradition and expose the well-nigh complete departure of Christendom from the
truth!
“As for you,” wrote the apostle
John; “let that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning. If that which
ye heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in
the Father” (1 John 2:24 r.v.).
r.v. Revised Version
W. R.
Lewis 1 Widcombe Crescent, Bath
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