Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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and other radicals who endeavored to build up a new Church of converts
directly from the Bible, without any regard to the intervening historical
Church, he says: f651
“Dreadful are those descriptions in which Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Habakkuk,
and others, deplore the disorders of the Church at Jerusalem. There was
such general and extreme corruption in the people, in the magistrates, and
in the priests that Isaiah does not hesitate to compare Jerusalem to Sodom
and Gomorrah. Religion was partly despised, partly corrupted. Their
manners were generally disgraced by thefts, robberies, treacheries,
murders, and similar crimes.
“Nevertheless, the Prophets on this account neither raised themselves new
churches, nor built new altars for the oblation of separate sacrifices; but
whatever were the characters of the people, yet because they considered
that God had deposited his word among that nation, and instituted the
ceremonies in which he was there worshipped, they lifted up pure hands to
him even in the congregation of the impious. If they had thought that they
contracted any contagion from these services, surely they would have
suffered a hundred deaths rather than have permitted themselves to be
dragged to them. There was nothing, therefore, to prevent their departure
from them, but the desire of preserving the unity of the Church.
“But if the holy Prophets were restrained by a sense of duty from forsaking
the Church on account of the numerous and enormous crimes which were
practiced, not by a few individuals, but almost by the whole nation, it is
extreme arrogance in us, if we presume immediately to withdraw from the
communion of a Church, where the conduct of all the members is not
compatible either with our judgment or even with the Christian profession.
“Now what kind of an age was that of Christ and his Apostles? Yet the
desperate impiety of the Pharisees, and the dissolute lives everywhere led
by the people, could not prevent them from using the same sacrifices, and
assembling in the same temple with others, for the public exercises of
religion. How did this happen, but from a knowledge that the society of the
wicked could not contaminate those who, with pure consciences, united
with them in the same solemnities.
“If any one pay no deference to the Prophets and the Apostles, let him at
least acquiesce in the authority of Christ. Cyprian has excellently remarked:
‘Although tares, or impure vessels, are found in the Church, yet this is not