New Witness for God (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THESIS II. The Church of Christ was destroyed: there has been an apostasy from the Christian Religion, so complete and universal, as to make necessary a New Dispensation of the Gospel. CHAPTER II. THE EFFECT OF PAGAN PERSECUTION ON THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. A variety of causes have operated to produce the result stated in my second Thesis, among which I shall first consider those terrible persecutions with which the saints were afflicted in the first centuries of our era. Let it not be a matter of surprise that I class those persecutions as among the means through which the church was destroyed. The force of heathen rage was aimed at the leaders and strong men of the body religious; and being long-continued and relentlessly cruel, those most steadfast in their adherence to the church invariably became its victims. These being stricken down, it left none but weaklings to contend for the faith, and made possible those subsequent innovations in the religion of Jesus which a pagan public sentiment demanded, and which so completely changed both the spirit and form of the Christian religion as to subvert it utterly. Let me further ask that no one be surprised that violence is permitted to operate in such a case. The idea that the right is always victorious in this world; that truth is always triumphant and innocence always divinely protected, are old, fond fables with which wellmeaning men have amused credulous multitudes; but the stern facts of history and actual experience in life correct the pleasing delusion. Do not misunderstand me. 1 believe in the ultimate victory of the right, the ultimate triumph of truth, the final immunity of innocence from violence. These--innocence, truth and the right-- will be at the last more than conquerors; they will be successful in the...