Religious sect

“ EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled. ”

“ But creeds exist otherwise than in formal expression. A creed is the standard of a church, it may be the spirit of a sect. And from the antagonistic aspect which each sect bears to another, and the centralized organization which it has within itself, this spirit may have a fierce and powerful operation. The Church-creed is defined; the Sect-creed is vague, and may depend for interpretation on narrow and bitter prejudice: the Church-creed may possibly lie dormant, but there is no escape from the wakeful vigilance of a religious surveillance. ”

“ It has often been told you that all people, sects, and denominations have more or less truth. None of the religious sects have a perfect system of salvation, though all of them have a portion of true doctrine, and suppose they have a perfect plan. ”

“ Soon the tide turned, and, though now there is less sectarian bitterness, and most sects can allow each other to be Christians with different names and badges, yet each is active for its own separate interests more decidedly than ever. And now the leading concern of each denomination seems to be, to increase its own separate churches, schools, colleges, theological seminaries, religious periodicals, and benevolent associations, not because the salvation of the lost depends on these distinctive matters, but chiefly as modes of increasing the extent, respectability, and influence of their sect. ”

“ The ministers of religion constitute one portion of the aristocracy of America, and I have met with the most intelligent and interesting individuals amongst them.
The consequence of this liberty, which is extended to sects, exhibits itself still farther by a large development of the religious mind. Each considerable sect has its own religious publication, in which its doctrines are developed by discussion with others, and the church relationship is contemplated in a many-sided manner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the innumerable religious sects which encumber the three kingdoms, taking them in alphabetical order, from the Anabaptists to the Unitarians, there is not one so hateful and dangerous as the Catholic church. ”

“ Religious sects in like manner we see succeed each other, coloring their progress with frequent persecutions and reformations, not unworthy of old-world mediæval fanaticism, as partisans of rival deities shape the popular superstition in conformity with their creeds. ”

“ Another effect of this rebellion of the national mind against the Puritan theories is seen in the almost yearly inauguration of some new sect in religion, in a land which is already so crowded with diverse and antagonistic religious organizations that it might be termed the land of sects. ”

“ Religious Sects.—There are episcopalians, presbyterians, methodists, catholics, baptists, and perhaps some other denominations of christians. They appear to live together in unity, and agree to disagree in opinion about their several forms of worship. ”

“ Of popular delusions one of the most striking and recurrent examples is the belief that new and despised religious sects, which are forced to meet in private, practice obscene and abominable orgies. The early Christians were accused of such rites, and they charged dissenting sects with the same.461 The Manichæans, Waldenses, Huguenots, Puritans, Luciferans, Brothers of the Free Spirit, and so on through the whole list of heretical sects, have been so charged. ”

“ All religious sects and reformers since the time of Christ have only succeeded in modifying, renovating, uplifting or debasing the eternal principles already enunciated by the Son of Man. He it was who founded the integral religion for all time, but as it permits of the most varied interpretations, innumerable and widely divergent sects have been able to graft themselves upon its eternal trunk. ”

“ But minute detail and formal aspect apart, what is it that constitutes the essential similarity of type in the religious and scientific group?
The immense multiplication of religious sects in the present day, and in history, is popularly accounted one of the least creditable features of civilisation. The sceptics deprecate it as a bad habit, like alcoholism and immorality, into which the uncultivated man is prone to fall. ”

“ Instead of sects giving the church of Christ a visible organization they mar and destroy the visible organization and unity of the church of Christ. A striking want of identity in the membership of God's church and human sects also proves conclusively that no sect, nor yet all sects together, constitutes the divine fold. ”

“ Each denomination is trained to regard itself as “the church of God” and to labor for its increase as a service to God's cause, while the extension of other sects is not so regarded. Although few intelligent Protestants now believe that any forms or rites are indispensable to salvation, each sect regards its own peculiarity as of very great importance. And as all the large sects are divided only on modes of baptism or of church organization there is a constant tendency to magnify these points of difference. ”

“ The realization of this grand ideal of the restoration of the New Testament standard of church membership, government, and authority, is impossible within the sect system. For the sects to turn all the people of God loose from subjection to every foreign yoke and make them free to associate without restriction with all the saved of God, would be an act of suicide. Only by division and by holding the grasp of ecclesiastical rule can sects survive. ”

“ The true church of God, by virtue of comprising all the saved and therefore being a unit, places sects in comparison only as false churches. A commentator truthfully remarks, "False Christendom divided into very many sects is truly Babylon, that is, confusion." (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary.) Thus sects, because they are a hindrance to proper Christian activity and because they present a spectacle of religious confusion, professing to be churches when they can only be false, are bad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most of us know some members of such sects with whom we should wish to dwell together in heaven, for whom our heart is rejoiced to feel that there are such prospects, in whose sanctified lives we have the present proof, that (however originators of heresy and schism may be regarded) in every nation and every sect, he that heareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. ”

“ Since true Christian unity is incompatible with sects, and since coming out of sects is opposed by the sect spirit and invites persecution by the sects, the only course for the people of God to take who have received the light on the true church is to cut loose from human institutions and abide in Christ alone, even though it places them in a relation hostile to the so-called churches. ”

“ He causes people to worship the first beast (Catholicism) by copying its standards and doing reverence to a human ecclesiastical system; and an image to the first beast is made whenever a sect is organized. He causes the image to "speak" (exercise man rule) and to persecute those who, instead of bowing to the sect image, are disposed to exercise in their spiritual freedom and give allegiance alone to God. ”

“ We have often said, Why do not opposers of holiness go to the standards of the doctrine and controvert what they say? They never do. Again, we ask, Why do not sect apologists attack what "come-outers" teach? They teach the one true and catholic church of the Bible—this can not be overthrown, therefore sect worshipers seek to hide their sin in misrepresenting [281] all who abandon sects. Come out of Babylon, brother, then you can see much clearer. ”

“ Of sects there were already enough in existence. Division and subdivision had already created of confusion more than enough, and there was no possible excuse for the introduction of a new Christian sect. But if men through apostasy had corrupted the Christian religion and lost divine authority to administer the ordinances of the Gospel, it was of the utmost importance that a new dispensation of the true Christian religion should be given to the world. ”

“ It is a fact which no man of intelligence will deny, that no one sect on earth is the identical church of God.
But it may be claimed by some that all the sects taken together constitute the true church in her visible organization. This is also a great mistake. How can all these bodies sum up the one organic visible church of God, when they have no organic relation to each other? In what a disgraceful light sectism presents the church! Does that look like a divine and heaven-born family, that is composed of numerous, rival, jealous, independent, and conflicting organisms? ”

“ The theory of the one sect is, that the church is a society of good men, (of the regenerate,) —​of the other, that it is a society of men seeking to become such. With the one party, the sacrament is a seal of their acceptance ”

“ The great line of division between different modes of religion, is formed by Establishments and Sects. In an infant sect, which is always in some degree a persecuted one, the strong union and entire affection of its followers, the sacrifices [Pg 246] they make to principle, the force of novelty, and the amazing power of sympathy, all contribute to cherish devotion. It rises even to passion, and absorbs every other sentiment. Severity of manners imposes respect; and the earnestness of the new proselytes renders them insensible to injury, or even to ridicule. ”

“ We are already in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and in holy spiritual fellowship with the saints, and God has given us the victory again and again while fighting against the unholy sects. What can the sect yoke do for us? We are now free to go everywhere preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus. ”

“ They are very devout, pray three times a day,—morning, noon, and evening. They also observe three annual fasts, offer animal sacrifices, and practice circumcision, and cherish other foolish customs, and preach other superstitious doctrines, which the cultivation of the sciences has had the effect to open the eyes of some of its devotees to see the absurdity of. Hence they have left, and founded new sects with new and improved creeds. In this way a great many new sects have sprung up from time to time, as in Christian countries, which marks the progress of religious improvement. ”

“ And yet, in default of the grander development of the coming kingdom—the one organic headship of Christ, and [19] the one all-pervading, and all-comprehending unity, under that headship—he recognized the preliminary usefulness of the sects, in keeping mankind beating the bush for religious truth, and making endeavors toward pure living. Hence his motto was: "The seed of the true church is scattered among all the sects, and will be gathered into one in the fullness of time." ”

“ The various sects of the Christian world—Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Church of Rome, and others, no matter what their peculiar creeds or forms of worship may be—entertain the idea that they are all on the highway to Heaven. They build magnificent churches and pay thousands of ministers; they are also very zealous in missionary labours, and contribute largely for the support of charitable institutions. But it is very few of them who reflect upon first principles; they do not like to trouble themselves on such matters. ”

“ We repeat that these constitute the Scriptural standard of the church and characterize her in her unity and integrity. It is by lacking in one or more of these essentials that a sect is a sect. In the rise of the church out of apostasy any reformation that does not develop to the full the essentials that characterize the church in her wholeness and completeness must necessarily fall short of being the final reformation and must leave a cause for further reformation. This is the explanation of the existence of the so-called Christian sects, viewing them in the most charitable light. ”

“ I cannot belong to any separate sect, but I believe in a holy, Christlike Church, a fellowship of saints, and I hold as my brother, my neighbour, my flesh and blood, all men who belong to Christ among all sects, faiths, and peoples scattered throughout the whole world—only I allow nobody to have dominion over the one place which I am pledged to the Lord to keep as pure virgin, namely my heart and my conscience. ”

“ As to the people's disposition in matters of religion, they will follow none out of the path of interest, and they heartily embrace none but such as will fill the barn and the basket. Most sects are here professed, but in general they are practical atheists. ”