Sect

“ Is one's pride in his sect, his zeal for the propagation of it, his jealousy of any influence that tends to impair its greatness or hinder its progress, likely to be reduced, or is it rather likely to be exalted, by the consciousness that the sect is a very great sect, standing alone for important principles? ”

“ How common it is to see persons of the mildest character and most benevolent disposition regard with aversion the adherents of a different sect from their own! The reigning religion—that is, the religion of the sovereign, or of the priests in whose favor the sovereign declares himself—crushes all rival sects, or, at least, makes them fully sensible of its superiority and its hatred, in a manner extremely insulting, and calculated to raise their indignation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I do not recall a year that has not given birth to several new sects in India. The stronger the current, the more the whirlpools and eddies. Sects are not signs of decay, they are a sign of life. Let sects multiply, till the time comes when every one of us is a sect, each individual. ”

“ Sect branched out of sect, presumption rose over presumption; the 105 miracles of the early Church were denied and its martyrs forgotten, though their power and palm were claimed by the members of every persecuted sect; pride, malice, wrath, love of change, masked themselves under the thirst for truth, and mingled with the just resentment of deception, so that it became impossible even for the best and truest men to know the plague of their own hearts ”

“ A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office or public trust under the United States. I am a friend to a variety of sects, because they keep one another in order. How many different sects are we composed of throughout the United States? How many different sects will be in congress? We cannot enumerate the sects that may be in congress. And there are so many now in the United States that they will prevent the establishment of any one sect in prejudice to the rest, and will forever oppose all attempts to infringe religious liberty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To raise a party or sect, to exist certainly not more than twelve years, and now not more than three years, - you cannot suppose it to be an object. Again, thousands, and even tens of thousands more of you can witness, that I have begged of you to make no divisions in your churches or sects; that we had more than enough already. I have advised all men of every sect not to separate from their brethren, if they could live among them and enjoy christian privileges. ”

“ Each sect, it is true, believes itself in possession of the truth and of salvation; ‘each party,’ as the Koran saith, ‘rejoices in its own creed’; but as the chief of apostles, whose word is always truthful, has told us, ‘My people will be divided into more than seventy sects of whom only one will be saved.’ This prediction, like all others of the Prophet, must be fulfilled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the confused and amorphous state in which it manifests itself to the crowd, every idea is predestined to define itself in the more specific form of the sect, to become later a party, a school, or a church—scientific, political, or religious. ”

“ The tenets of the sect I certainly do believe to be more in accordance with the Christian religion than any other; and I have no hesitation in asserting, from my knowledge of those who belong to this sect, that they, generally speaking, lead better lives. ”

“ Sectarianism, it is vaguely supposed, is the normal condition of religion. Now a sect is, by its very nature, instinctively adverse to a scientific theology; it feels that it is short-lived, without a history, and unconnected with the main stream of ecclesiastical progress, and it is inspired with hatred and with contempt for the past, for its teaching and its writings. Practically, sectaries hold that a tradition is the more surely to be rejected the older it is, and the more valuable in proportion to the lateness of its origin. ”

“ Sect, Sectarianism.—The Supreme Court of Nevada defines “sect” as follows: “A religious sect is a body or number of persons united in tenets, but constituting a distinct organization or party, by holding sentiments or doctrines different from those of other sects or people. ”

“ So much may be gathered from the book about the origin and history of the sect. We turn now to its expectation. As a teacher of righteousness, an anointed one (priest) , was the founder of the sect, so in the last times a teacher of righteousness, an [pg 341] anointed one, shall appear (6 10 f.) . Those who proved faithless to the covenant are cut off from the community, “from the time when the unique teacher was taken away until the anointed one from Aaron and Israel shall arise” (19 35-20 1) , that is, during the whole of the present dispensation. ”

“ In the middle of the seventeenth century, both the beliefs and the practices of the sect were in an inchoate state, and the vagaries of many of its adherents from the lower walks of life seem not only to have called forth unparallelled torrents of abuse from all quarters, but to have made men fear that these inoffensive people were to repeat the excesses of some of the frenzied sects of a century earlier. ”

“ But, when a sect becomes powerful, when its favour is the road to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest members in all the outward indications of zeal. No discernment, no watchfulness, on the part of ecclesiastical rulers, can prevent the intrusion of such false brethren. The tares and wheat must grow together. ”

“ If the sect is so completely established that, in addition to the founders, the priests of the temple, the paid sacristans and choir-boys, it has a congregation, processions, and far-sounding bells, it then attaches to itself other converts besides the hysterical who have accepted the new belief by way of suggestion. ”

“ Take any town in America that contains half a dozen churches, representing the same number of religious denominations, and it will be found that, with one, and that probably the dominant sect, it will be all that a man's reputation and position are worth to belong to another sect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief. ”

“ The sect was dominated by a limited number of shrewd and ambitious faquis, whose opinions, received by the ignorant as infallible, were supposed to be prompted by divine inspiration, and whose wild fanaticism was justly regarded by themselves as the most efficient means for the attainment to supreme power. ”

“ It is indeed that propensity, which, so violently condemned in catholics, has been the chief propagator of every sect since the reformation to the present moment, and not without symptoms of rebellion, and even of king-killing. ”

“ With us the number of sects and denominations is such that no hardship arises if one sect chooses to adopt stricter laws for the sake of making a demonstration or exercising educational influence, and decides to run the risk of driving its own members to other sects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the majority, I was told, were devotees, men of every sect and creed in the country, all initiates in some of the many branches of the secret knowledge, and all bound by vows, they can not practically break, to some farther advanced seeker than themselves, who again must obey others, and so on, until you come to the leaders who are of no sect and no religion, but of all sects and all religions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let sects alone until holiness prevails! What a device of the enemy! How can we expect to bring forth permanent fruits into holiness, if we allow the plowshare of God's truth to slip over this fallow ground of sin? Sects are the devil's "high places" in the land, the groves of his own planting, and gods that he has set up to corrupt Israel, and "provoke God." ”

“ I blame them not; it is their profession which so blinds their eyes. They are as wise and as valiant as the churches let them be. What sect in all this land ever cared about temperance, education, peace betwixt nations, or even tho freedom of all men in our own, so much as this sect cares for the baptizing of children with water, and that for the baptizing of men; this for the doctrine of the Trinity, and all for the infallibility of tho Bible? ”

“ 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 ”

“ This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every religious sect, or fragment of a sect, is represented: Baptists, Free-will Baptists, Seventh-day Baptists, Presbyterians, United Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Episcopalians, both High-Church and Low-Church, Methodists of divers complexions, Adventists, Swedenborgians, Friends, Unitarians, and Universalists: all control special institutions, equipped and endowed with due reference to the perpetuation of sound faith, and, incidentally, to the encouragement of what is supposed to be learning. ”

“ Out of what had originally been a political party a sect, or rather a number of sects, had gradually grown. The doctrine of the divine right of Alí and his descendants had under foreign influences, Christian and Persian, gradually developed into a complete or partial deification. ”

“ We come now to homogeneous crowds, of which the first type is the sect. Here are found again individuals differing in birth, in education, in profession, in social status, but united and, indeed, voluntarily cemented by an extremely strong bond, a common faith and ideal. ”

“ To have founded a sect, or even a school, would be, he once said, a sure sign that he was wrong and was leading others wrong. He was a Catholic and a Theologian, and he wished all men to be such likewise. ”

“ 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. ”