I would like to add a quotation from Alexander Campbells pen which may have been forgotten by those pushing a spirit of ecumenicalism with his name attached to it: It is not uncommon for us to mistake living characters, and not less uncommon to mistake the characters of the dead. The Pauls of the Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian, Methodist. and Baptist churches are very unlike Paul the Apostle. The Presbyterian Paul sprinkled infants and consecrated meeting-houses; the Episcopalian Paul was an Archbishop with a mitre and a surplice; the Catholic Paul always had a vial of holy water in his pocket, and a walking-cane made of the wood of the cross, and was always repeating prayers to the immaculate Virgin; the Methodist Paul was President of a Conference of Clergy, and much addicted to sneezing and shouting, a great lover of camp-meetings, and excessively eccentric in his apparel; the Baptist Paul was a Bishop of four churches, and a friend of Saturday monthly meetings, and extremely fond of annual associations and advisory councils. I cannot enumerate how many Pauls nor how many peculiarities each possess; but one thing I know, that most of them differ as much from the Apostle Paul, as the statue of the Holy Virgin in St. Peters Church, differs from the daughter of Eli, the wife of Joseph (Millennial Harbinger, Vol. 1, No. 2, February 1, 1830.)
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:50:08 +0000