The supposition, therefore, that the Protestant church is to
furnish the material for the image, involves no violation of the
symbolic harmony of this prophecy.
Let us look a moment at the fitness of the material. We are not
unmindful of the noble service the Protestant churches have rendered to
the world, to humanity, and to religion, by introducing and defending,
so far as they have, the great principles of Protestantism. But they
have made a fatal mistake in stereotyping their doctrines into creeds,
and thus taking the first steps backward toward the spiritual tyranny
of Rome. Thus the good promise they gave of a free religion and an
unfettered conscience is already broken. For, if the right of private
judgment is allowed by the Protestant church, why are men condemned and
expelled from that church for ncwother crime than honestly attempting to
obey the word of God, in some particulars not in accordance with her
creed? This is the beginning of apostasy. Read Chas. Beecher's work,
"The Bible a Sufficient Creed." "Is not the Protestant church," he asks,
"apostate?" Is not the apostasy which we have reason to fear, "already
formed?" But apostasy in principle always leads to corruption in
practice.
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