John Church

“ John, the inspired apostle who leaned on the bosom of Jesus, has to say of the tests by which we may try the spirits to see whether they are of God. Under the veil of figure and metaphor, we have the profound and long-studied conviction of one who was competent to decide, and to whom the wisest of mankind may look up with reverence for instruction. Nor need anyone have difficulty in determining for himself whether the kingdom of Christ finds its realization in his own soul, or long hesitate in identifying the true Church of Christ, which is simply the kingdom of Christ ruling in society. ”

“ All that are convinced of sin under-value themselves in every respect. We are every hour and every moment pleasing or displeasing to God, according to our works, according to the whole of our inward tempers and outward behaviour.”
If this is not high popery, what is? Mr. John was a professed churchman; but how the above doctrine stands, with what the doctrinal articles of that church maintains, I leave you to judge. As they declare, that he must believe that no good works can be done, in order to justification, but that we are accounted righteous only for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ From John, who when on earth was called the Baptist, now raised from the dead and become an angel of God, he received the Aaronic Priesthood, which gave him power to preach repentance and baptize for the remission of sins, from Peter, James and John, the three chief apostles of the dispensation ushered in by the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus, he received the keys of the Melchisedek Priesthood—the Holy Apostleship, which gave him power to establish the church of Christ to the uttermost and regulate all its affairs ”

“ Could they say, then, that the love of Christ was a partial love, that it was not directed to mankind, that it was not the expression of a universal love? St. John is the especial witness against these heresies. He declares that God loved the world; and Christ came to do His Father's will in saving it. What, then, might be—what has been—the effect of the name, 'the disciple whom Jesus loved,' upon the Church? It has been felt that the story of Judas needed this foil. The dark, solitary, separate man must be brought into direct contrast to a man who lives only on trust. ”

“ You may be sure that when a prophet appears on the scene, everything is dark, and the professing Church of God has gone over to the service of the god of this world. So it was when John the Baptist made his appearance. See how his name shines out to-day! Eighteen centuries have rolled away, and yet the fame of that wilderness preacher shines brighter than ever. He was looked down upon in his day and generation, but he has outlived all his enemies; his name will be reverenced and his work remembered as long as the Church is on the earth. ”

“ People may be laughed at for being fools, but you may depend upon it the more God will like them. All that believe not will certainly be damned. The duties of Christianity are not to be preached to an ungodly world; John Church is very much spoken of, but they had much better speak of Jesus; the people of the established church feel no spiritual joy. Spiritual discourse is enlivening to the senses, &c. The bread of life is not to be given away to Dogs. ”

“ It must here be observed, that the decision on this solitary complaint of eleven years standing, does not in the slightest degree affect any of the numerous accusations of a more recent date which have been made against John Church.
Several persons have been at a loss to know by what authority this man presumed to take upon himself the functions of a Minister of the Gospel. They have asked how could a man so profligate—so notoriously criminal, come forth to instruct others in religion. ”

“ A great and wise man, or obscure and ignorant, or an old or young man? If we look at the past, we shall find that John was a boisterous fellow, from the wilderness, that had no fellowship for any existing religion whatever. He struck the axe deep at the root of every religious organization, notwithstanding there were, probably, some good men in every sect, but they were in error. This man, sir, was first and chief pioneer to the Lord of life.
And who comes next to receive a message for all nations, and hold the keys of revelation for all nations? ”

“ In history John stands and must ever stand alone. He was one of the two who first accepted the call of Christ to come to Him: he was the last of the Apostles to repeat, in another and yet as true a sense, that invitation to multitudes of men. He was one of those two who first saw what may be called the beginning of the Christian Church, in the little booth by the Jordan: and the last one of the Twelve to remember its fuller establishments in the Upper Chamber of Jerusalem. He was the last man who had seen the last prophet who told of the coming Messiah ”

“ I do not believe that the canon of sacred scripture was closed with the revelation of John, but believe that wherever God has a true church, there he makes frequent revelations of his will: and as God takes cognizance of all things, both temporal and spiritual, his revelations will pertain to all things whereby his glory may be promoted, and the temporal and spiritual well-being of his people advanced. ”

“ The less, that is, the least Christian in the kingdom of Heaven, or the Church, which preaches and leads to the kingdom of Heaven is greater, that is, of higher dignity than John. Greater, I say, by reason of the status of the Church; and he is able to be greater from the nature of the Gospel, than John was. For the new law of Christ is the law of grace, which we are always able to increase. Whence John the Baptist and all the old fathers received their grace from Christ and the new law. ”

“ John, or rather with the life of St. John himself, who addresses them under the warning of removal for their failure. The throne at Jerusalem being gone, there was still, by him who had been there with the Lord, a recognition of the churches as something upon earth: there was nothing sealed in this. But if we take the Apostle as the mystic representative of the dispensation in its condition after the departure of St. Peter and St. Paul, [2] then it is the protraction of that state of things, till the Church, as a dispensation, is spued out of Christ’s mouth ”

“ For many years this was the only meeting-house which the Baptists had, and there are men living to-day who remember the struggles and trials which the denomination experienced in trying to plant a foothold in the sparsely populated district which St. John then was. The pastors of this church were known far and wide as earnest and faithful men, and such names as Samuel Robinson, Casewell, Bill, Henry Vaughan, and G. M. W. Carey, live in the hearts of all people and add lustre to any faith. ”

“ The second class of controversialists is of a much higher nature. Their emblem is the hawk with his bright eye, with the forward throw of his pinions, his rushing flight along the woodland skirt, his unerring stroke. Such hawks of the Churches, whose delight is in pouncing upon fallacies, fulfil an important function. They rid us of tribes of mischievous winged errors. The third class of controversialists is that which embraces St. John supremely—such minds also as Augustine's in his loftiest and most [Pg 42] inspired moments, such as those which have endowed the Church with the Nicene Creed. ”

“ But then, we all know, Lord John is a consistent and straight-forward man, and therefore, he may perhaps wish you, to adopt in your Liturgy, a modern language, significant of the modern origin of your Church, and therefore, he may perhaps wish you to show, by the language of your Liturgy, that your Church, is so many hundred years too late, to be the Church of Christ. ”

“ John the Apostle, says: "It is not allowable without a bishop either to offer a sacrifice or to celebrate masses." And Irenaeus, a pupil of John, clearly testifies that "Christ taught the new oblation of the New Testament, which the Church, receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout the entire world." This bishop, bordering upon the times of the apostles, testifies that the new evangelical sacrifice was offered throughout the entire world. Origin, Cyprian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, Basil, Hilary, etc., teach and testify the same, whose words for brevity's sake are omitted. ”

“ None of them are willing to say that the kingdom was set up in the days of John’s ministry, and therefore, since it was from that time every man was pressing into it, the difficulty, if there be a difficulty, which they raise against a future establishment of the kingdom is as great against one set up in the form of a church or otherwise after John’s ministry and before or at Pentecost. There is, therefore, nothing in the passage to sustain the popular view of a heart-kingdom or a church-kingdom. ”

“ In fact there can be no real progress in virtue without temptation.
4. St. John now sees the souls of those who participate with Christ in the government of His Church. They are the saints who worshipped not the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their forehead, and especially they are the martyrs who gave their lives "for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God." "Judgment was given unto them," for as St. Paul says: "the saints shall judge this world." ”

“ It is the least you can do, in justice to us, in justice to yourself. There are other bodies—I cannot call them churches—which doubtless would welcome your liberal, and I must add atrophying, interpretation of Christianity. And I trust that reflection will convince you of the folly of pushing this matter to the extreme. We should greatly deplore the sensational spectacle of St. John's being involved in an ecclesiastical trial, the unpleasant notoriety into which it would bring a church hitherto untouched by that sort of thing. ”

“ Its religion, which professed to be a primitive revelation carried down in the Greek and Egyptian mysteries, from which Moses borrowed, then further developed by Christ and transmitted in esoteric tradition by John and his successors the grand-masters of the templars, taught a divine trinity of being, act and consciousness, the eternity of the world alongside of God and an indwelling of God in man. It declared the Roman Catholic church to be the only true Christianity (église chrétienne primitive) . Its sacred book consisted of an apocryphal gospel of John in accordance with its own notions. ”

“ Thus does the eagle of the Church ever fix his gaze above the clouds of error, upon the Sun of universal truth.
Above all, over and through his negation of temporary and local errors about the person of Christ, St. John leads the Church in all ages to the true Christ. Cerinthus, in a form which seems to us eccentric and revolting, proclaimed a Jesus not born of a virgin, temporarily endowed with the sovereign power of the [Pg 50] Christ, deprived of Him before his passion and resurrection, while the Christ remained spiritual and impassible. ”

“ John is no mere doctrinalist he is yet the greatest theologian the Church has ever seen. (3) Once more; if the Apostle's Christianity is no mere humanitarian sentiment to encourage the cultivation of miscellaneous acts of good-nature, yet it is deeply pervaded by a sense of the integral connection of practical love of man with the love of God. ”

“ John's view broadens over the whole world beyond the limits of the comparatively little group of believers whom his words at that time could reach. The Incarnation and Atonement have been before his soul. The Catholic Church is the correlative of the first, humanity of the second. The Paraclete whom he beheld is ever in relation with, ever turned towards the Father. [154] His propitiation is, and He is it. It was not simply a fact in history which works on with unexhaustible force. As the Advocate is ever turned towards the Father, so the propitiation lives on with unexhausted life. ”

“ For the instruction of all the generations to follow John presents his inspired conception of what the kingdom of Christ in its purest and final form is, whether it be conceived as existing in the heart of an individual believer, or as synonymous with the Church, the body of believers. ”

“ We now declare to the world that this part of the visions of John has been fulfilled; that the angel has come and appeared to man upon the earth, conferring upon him this heavenly charge, namely, the responsibility of opening up a new Gospel dispensation; and we declare that God himself took part in it, and that Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, accompanied him, both of whom appeared to Joseph Smith, upon which occasion the Father, pointing to the Son said, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." Following this the Gospel was to be preached to every nation. ”

“ When every attempt to persuade John to receive the archbishop had failed, the Pope bade the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester lay the kingdom under an interdict. No church bells might be rung, no service sung save in low tones, no sacraments administered save confession and the sacrament for the dying, and the dead were buried in unconsecrated ground like dogs, without prayer or priest. In answer, John confiscated all the goods of the clergy and sealed up their barns ”

“ John to be our pastor, and during the intervening years with the exception of twenty-two months spent at Windsor, N. S., you have lovingly and faithfully ministered to this church and congregation. It is no easy task to break asunder ties that have been binding us together during these happy years—years of large-hearted and unselfish ministry on your part, and something, let us hope, of grateful appreciation on ours. ”