Testament. We may as well face the facts honestly and seek for
a remedy for this disease that has so long marred the beauty and
corrupted the nature of the true Christian system.

[Sidenote: Inherent evils]

I cheerfully admit that God has worked among his people in all ages
in accordance with the degree of light and truth which they possessed.
But I can not forget that the greatest revivals of evangelical
religion have either taken place in spite of the sect system or
among those who had just made their escape from the bondage of
ecclesiastical despotism and had not as yet become very deeply
affected by the sectarian principle. To what source, then, are we to
trace sects? What is their cause?

[Sidenote: Alleged causes of sect-making]

A large proportion of the Christian world would reply without
hesitation that the existence of the modern sects is due to these
two things: the principle of religious liberty and the limitations
of human knowledge. Such an answer reveals a superficial view of
the whole subject. Religious liberty among Christians existed in the
primitive church before the rise of ecclesiastical tyranny over the
conscience, and the masses of men in those days were at least as
limited in knowledge as are we. Still, the church was one; it was not
divided into rival and hostile sects. There was no need in those days
of constructing churches to conform to the limited capacity of men's
minds; for there was already in existence a church sufficiently
_catholic_ in its nature and spirit to accommodate all classes of
minds, because there was in operation the power of the Spirit of