X. THE DEFECTIVE NATURE OF QUAKERISM XI. THE CHURCH AND THE SECTS Sectarianism reproduces itself PAGE 210 214 215 217 218 LECTURE IV. SECTARIANISM. WE have been endeavouring to see what were the principles of the great puritan movement which convulsed the English Church during the latter part of the Reformation period. And unless I have failed in my purpose you will have observed that one of its most striking features was the resolute way in which it struggled against the making of divisions in the Church. The Puritans were content to go on occupying an entirely false position,-living within the Church and forming or taking part in organizations entirely adverse to the discipline and even the doctrine of that Church, and enduring all the obloquy and misinterpretation of motive which resulted from this fact, rather than be the means of creating a schism. Even when the puritan clergy were deprived of their benefices, or when puritan laymen felt themselves unable to take any public part in the services, they did not therefore secede. They simply became, in the language of that day, non-conformists, or non-conforming members of the Church of England. For the seventeenth century knew nothing of our modern use of the word to denote those who have definitely seceded from the Church-separatists or sectaries, as they would have been termed 1. Nor must we suppose that the Puritans threw in their lot in any way with those who formed separate conventicles, however closely they might resemble one another in some particular points of doctrine. The great fundamental difference between them lay in the fact that the Puritans were within, and the separatists without, the communion of the Church; and this was far too important to be overlooked because of certain minor points of resemblance between them. In fact, no people were more severe as against sectarianism than the Puritans. When they were themselves in power they strained every nerve, both in England and America, to prevent any outward dissension. So far were See an article in the Church Quarterly Review for July 1883 (vol. xvi. p. 407), on "The Nomenclature of English Dissent." they from extending toleration to others that the Westminster Assembly declared, in its Confession of Faith, that "they who upon pretence of Christian liberty shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be Civil or Ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And, for their publishing of such practices as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity, whether concerning Faith, Worship or Conversation: or to the power of Godliness or such erroneous Opinions or Practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ hath established in the Church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against by the Censures of the Church, and by the power of civil Magistrates 1." And this was the position taken up by the bulk of them down to the Savoy Conference 2. 1 The Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechism p. 47 (Edinburgh, 1683). 2 See the Appendix, No. XXIX. L I. To-day then we pass on to the altogether different subject of Sectarianism, and have to deal with the position of those who definitely rejected the claims of the Christian Society as they found it, and desired to set up another after their own ideas of what was suitable and right. It is, of course, a position which must of necessity be taken up by all who consider that the Christian Church as they find it has ceased to be the Body of Christ and His representative in the world. But by the very fact of so doing, be it remembered, they have rendered nugatory a far larger part of the teaching of the New Testament than we sometimes realize. They have definitely altered the interpretation which had been given for more than fifteen centuries of our Lord's words: "I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world." And they have given a meaning to the word Church which differs fundamentally from that of the great mass of Christian people in all times. Now it is not to be supposed that men came to take up this position and became sectaries all of a sudden. And indeed, the word sect |