Religious division

“ The differences between religious sects are mainly of faith, not of works, and the wise of all denominations are gradually coming to the conviction that they will all do God more service by toleration and co-operation than by animosity and disunion. ”

“ To leave that civil society, in which the different sects of religion are now-a-days compelled to live in peace and side by side, and to enter religious society itself, the Christian Church of our days:—what is its actual position with respect to these grand questions which it has to discuss with the spirit of human liberty and audacity? ”

“ An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. ”

“ Why is it that there has been so singular a religious movement as that which has taken place within the last thirty years, introducing views that are contrary to the commonly established views of the whole religious world? ”

“ Thus we see for the first time in history bodies of men and women banded together, irrespective of nationality and social rank, for the purpose of religious observances, and religion becoming recognized as the affair of the individual rather than of the state, while each member of the association was directly interested in its extension. ”

“ To every social gathering around the religious idea that explains and sustains it, what a disturbance in the secular system formed by the co-ordination and mutual adaptation of laws, customs, morality, and institutions! ”

“ Here in our isolated position, we feel how trifling are many of the distinctions which divide religious communities, and that we could gladly give the right hand of fellowship to any denomination of Christians who hold the main truths of the Gospel. ”

“ Then again: the divisions of the Church, and the uncharitable spirit in which points of difference between contending sects are discussed, and the disposition sometimes shown by religious disputants to impugn each other's motives, to call each other offensive names, and to consign each other to perdition, are occasions of stumbling to some. ”

“ When you compare the systems, creeds, and governing principles among the sects and religious denominations in the world, where will you find one that is perfect, or that is calculated to lead men back to a unity of the faith and to God? Where will you find a system or a denomination of religious people in the world who have such principles embodied in their faith? ”

“ If the religious nations of the world had been consulted in establishing a new religion with the intention of superseding all other sects and denominations, they would have selected a grave council of the wisest, most most learned, and pious men they could find,—learned in theology, in philosophy, in law, and in every department of science. ”

“ In ecclesiastical affairs, we see the integrality of the church destroyed under the influence of the Protestant principle of private judgment, one of the first fruits of individuality. We perceive sects gradually subdividing into sects, until, instead of a unity of religious sentiment and a sympathy of religious action under the impulse of a common creed, an innumerable variety of religious denominations came into existence, each embodying different beliefs in diverse articles of faith, and refusing Christian fellowship with the others. ”

“ In the same direction we have been led in days more recent by the large development, in all our denominations, of two main branches of Christian work. I refer to Missionary enterprise abroad and Social service at home. Our ecclesiastical divisions are a serious handicap to both. In a matter more vital still, that of the Religious—the Christian—Education in our Schools and Colleges, our divisions have sometimes proved well-nigh fatal. The one remedy is that we make up our differences and come together. ”

“ For instance, a government may simply declare, that the Christian religion shall be the religion of the state, and shall be aided, and encouraged in all the varieties of sects belonging to it; or it may declare, that the Catholic or Protestant religion shall be the religion of the state, leaving every man to the free enjoyment of his own religious opinions; or it may establish the doctrines of a particular sect, as of Episcopalians, as the religion of the state, with a like freedom ”

“ In the contest for ascendency, the Church possessed the advantages of thorough organization and submissive obedience of inferiors, of reverence for alleged celestial origin, and of unity of language; advantages never, in any former age, enjoyed to such an extent by any other society, political, or religious ”

“ Having ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect, and the secure enjoyment of it as the best human provision for bringing all, either into the same way of thinking, or into that mutual charity which is the only proper substitute, I observe with pleasure the view you give of the spirit in which your sect partake of the common blessings afforded by our Government and laws. ”

“ If all these sects were introduced into a Mahomedan country, then instead of the people being brought to greater unity of the faith, division would be established in their midst, they would be split up into sects just like modern Christendom is to-day. And yet if the Bible is true, the time is to come when all shall know God from the least to the greatest, and when all shall bow the knee and confess that Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. ”

“ As civilization progressed, we are told that a separate order of men, with a liberal provision for their subsistence, was set apart for religious service, and a minute and magnificent ceremonial contrived, which challenged comparison with that of the most polished nations of Christendom. ”

“ With the emancipation of Man's higher activities from ecclesiastical control, the distinction between the religious and the secular life has gradually established itself. That this should happen was inevitable. ”

“ The social action of religion springs from its very essence. Men of the same religion have no more imperious need than that of praying and worshiping together. State police have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the sanctuary or the home ... ”

“ As one of the chief remedies against evil societies is the formation of Catholic societies, the Code (Canon 684) praises those of the faithful who enroll as members in associations established or recommended by the Church. Catholic societies distinct from religious Orders or Congregations are of two kinds. ”

“ There are about a hundred so- called religious denominations, from the orthodox bodies and their subdivisions to those professing the lawless fanaticism of Mormonism, or the chilling dogmas of Atheism. ”

“ However much the chiefs may feel the truth of modern ideas, may grow moderate, may perceive the effects of religious separatism upon worship and doctrine, they will probably avail little or nothing; the head will be overpowered and out-clamoured by the tail. ”

“ It is an indubitable fact that at first the religious movement was supported by the Protestant missionaries, and the views of its founders forwarded by every means in their power, with the object of using it to prepare the soil for the promulgation of Christianity. ”

“ So again he was always eager to insist on the essential points of union between various denominations of Christians. He was throughout his life an unflinching advocate of the connexion between Church and State. By this he under- stood: (1) " the recognition and support on the part of the state of the religious expression of the faith of the community," and (2) "that this religious expression of the faith of the community on the most sacred and most vital of all its interests should be controlled and guided by the whole community through the supremacy of law." ”

“ For while the question of a religious establishment proved one of the most exciting issues in politics, influences more truly religious suffered a natural degradation and diminution through their over-close association with secular affairs. ”

“ Do we habitually remember how it offends our Lord to see divisions in the Christian Church, nations nominally Christian armed to the teeth against one another, class against class and individual against individual in fierce and relentless competition, jealousies among clergy and church-workers, communicants who forget that the sacrament of union with Christ is the sacrament of union also with their fellow-men?
Christians are to be makers of Christ’s peace. Something we can all do to reconcile individuals, families, classes, churches, nations. ”

“ Religion as organized is organized division. The communion is a communion-table, the Christ is a symbol of the sects, the unity is a unity made up of separate departments and families. The ancient religions of the world still hold their own. Buddhism, Brahminism, the religion of Zoroaster, the religion of Confucius, Judaism, fetichism, Sabaism—all stand where they did. All gather in their population; all have their organized activities, as they ever had. ”

“ What, does our author make the religious societies a church? This is going further than the Methodists, whom he is pleased to stile only a sect. But if the religious societies, my Lords, be a church, may it not be proper to enquire how their doctrines or practices came to be set up as a rule and standard for others to go by, so that persons doing service or disservice to religion must be judged of according as they deviate from or adhere to the religious societies either in doctrine or practice? ”

“ Far from it; we see in the modification of the demands it makes on society a great change in religious feeling. We may observe the general relaxation of formal bonds in the more liberal ground that is taken by even the more conservative sects, and in the fact that the others insist rather on righteous living than on rigid belief. ”

“ Hear what this author thinks of promoting holiness over these "high places," or sect walls.
"The divisions of the Christian church, as they now exist, are a prominent cause of the low state of piety among believers; the greatest single obstacle which now exists to the spread and triumph of our religion in the world." "The moment you separate the church of Christ into distinct divisions, you set up the idol of party. ”

“ So the Church may be truly one, one in the sense intended by our Lord, one in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, though there continue to be various divisions and sects. It may very well be argued that, constituted as human nature is, the Church, like every other society or institution, will be the better of a competing, if not an opposing, rival; that schism, divisions, sects, are necessary evils ”

“ The religious rites and ceremonies, the feasts and mysteries, the prayers or magic, are all community affairs. Many of the divinities are local. These religious bonds are all the firmer and more compelling because, in the lack of any developed and permanent political organization, religion is the great tribal bond. We easily forget the civilizing, refining, and improving unremitting pressure and power of these simple, uninteresting peasant influences. ”

“ The spirit of our early ancestors was never more manifest than in their earnest advocacy of religious liberty, and their protest against all ecclesiastical authority. The numerous settlements in different sections of the country, with their differentPage 49 nationalities and diverse religious opinions, tended to multiply the religious denominations and to establish churches with divergent aims and plans. ”

“ There are some who call themselves holiness people, but the prophet says we shall be called, "The holy people." Holiness factions and sects have actually sprung into existence, which declare that sectism and division is necessary. This class of holiness is not that described in the foregoing scriptures. Bible holiness will in every individual instance destroy everything out of men's hearts that separates or divides. Divisions are the outgrowth of carnality and not of the Spirit of God. ”

“ And one would think, that property assigned for the purpose of providing for a people's religious worship when that worship was one, the State should, when that worship is split into several forms, apportion between those several forms, with due regard to circumstances, taking account only of great differences, which are likely to be lasting, and of considerable communions, which are likely to represent profound and widespread religious characteristics ”

“ What a splendid and perdurable creation is not the glorious union of Church and State—a church regulated by fixed rules of divine origin, deriving influence and beauty from its connection with the secular government ”

“ There are the founders of small societies, religious in form—the Essenes, the earliest Christian communities, the monastic orders of the Orient and Occident, the great Catholic or Mohammedan congregations, the semi-lay, semi-religious sects like the Moravian Brotherhood, the Shakers, Mormons, etc. ”

“ And as it is in the religious, so it is in the political world; they are all divided, and the more energy they put forth to make proselytes, the greater are their contentions, and the further they go from the mark. This is the condition they have been in, and the course they have been pursuing for almost eighteen hundred years, until today they have become so divided that I think it would puzzle anyone to tell how many religious denominations there are in Christendom. ”

“ Hence we have among us every shade and every variety of religious opinion, and, in many cases, contention and strife, resulting from hopeless efforts to produce uniformity.
A stranger who should come among us would suppose, from the tone of our religious journals, and from the general aspect of society on the subject of religion, that the whole community was divided into a thousand contending sects, who hold nothing in common, and whose sole objects are the annoyance and destruction of each other. ”