CHURCH REFORM.
Surely, before the blessing of a Millenium is vouchsafed to us, the whole Christian world has much to confess in its several branches. Rome has to confess her Papal corruptions, and her cruelty towards those who refuse to accept them. The Christian communities of Holland, Scotland, and other countries, their neglect of the Apostolical Order of Ministers. The Greek Church has to confess its saint-worship, its formal fasts, and its want of zeal. The Churches of Asia their heresy. All parts of Christendom have much to confess and reform. We have our sins as well as the rest. O that we would take the lead in the regeneration of the Church Catholic on Scripture principles.
Our greatest sin perhaps is the disuse of "a godly discipline." Let the reader consider
1. The command.
"Put away from yourselves the wicked person." "A man, that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition reject." "Mark them which cause divisions and offences, … and avoid them."
2. The example, viz. in the Primitive Church.
"The Persons or Objects of Ecclesiastical Censure were all such delinquents, as fell into great and scandalous crimes after baptism, whether men or women, priests or people, rich or poor, princes or subjects." Bing. Antiqu. xvi.3.
3. The warning.
"Whosoever … shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven."
KING, PRINTER, ST. CLEMENT'S, OXFORD.
