Page:The New Church - What, How, Why .djvu/15

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THE • NEW • CHURCH—WHAT
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itish Church was brought to an end. A new dispensation was commenced. It was founded upon truth newly revealed by the Lord, subsequently reduced to writing, and extant in the New Testament. The church then established by the Lord and His apostles is the Apostolic Church. Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Orthodox denominations in general are sects of the Apostolic Church. That Church was not a division of the Israelitish Church, or a sect of it, nor was it derived from it. The sects of the Israelitish Church were the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. The Apostolic Church when established was an absolutely new church coming in fulfillment of prophecy and founded upon newly revealed truth. It was a step higher than the Israelitish Church, and separated from it as one round of a ladder is distinct from the one below it.

The New Church comes likewise in fulfillment of prophecy and at the end of the former or Apostolic Church. It is also