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Updated: June 12, 2025
You observe that the principal alterations of these words in the Revised Version are two: the one the omission of 'the church, the other the substitution of 'were being saved' for 'such as should be saved. The former of these changes has an interest as suggesting that at the early period referred to the name of 'the church' had not yet been definitely attached to the infant community, and that the word afterwards crept into the text at a time when ecclesiasticism had become a great deal stronger than it was at the date of the writing of the Acts of the Apostles.
That was because the alleged divine right of churches and states was the one might which it seemed everywhere necessary to break. The conflict with ecclesiasticism, however, was taken up also by Pietism, the other great spiritual force of the age. This was in spite of the fact that the Pietists' view of religion was the opposite of the rationalist view.
As a Conservative and a High Churchman, Gladstone stood aloof from those who would lay unhallowed hands on the sacred ark of ecclesiasticism. And here, at least, he has always been consistent with himself.
And from the Protestants I have to learn to put the living Christ above all doctrinal statements and liturgical mysteries. Or, if the Protestants of all classes would abandon their contemptuous attitude towards so-called ecclesiasticism and ritualism, and criticise themselves, saying: We have had too much confidence in human reason and human words.
Delicate and strenuous though the task may be, however arduous and prolonged the effort required, whatsoever the nature of the perils and pitfalls that beset the path of whoever arises to revive the fortunes of a Faith struggling against the rising forces of materialism, nationalism, secularism, racialism, ecclesiasticism, the all-conquering potency of the grace of God, vouchsafed through the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, will, undoubtedly, mysteriously and surprisingly, enable whosoever arises to champion His Cause to win complete and total victory.
Ecclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an essential part of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of which it declares to be certified by Jesus. Here upon the ecclesiastic may observe: Your doubt means that you disbelieve Jesus; therefore you are an "Infidel" instead of an "Agnostic."
We are perpetually assailed by the cry, "Back to Christ," which is significant of men's weariness of theological system, and organized ecclesiasticism, and of a desire to get away from the accretions of the Middle Ages and the dead hand of Church Tradition, into the pure, serene, and holy presence of Jesus of Nazareth.
"While, therefore," it is concluded, "we regard ecclesiasticism and ritualism as among the greatest of evils, we are convinced that Christianity is the only religion reconcilable with philosophy; and we therefore accept it as true." This declaration is reported to have met with very loud and angry dissent from a considerable minority.
Long prayers, ecclesiasticism, and creeds, have clipped the divine pinions of Love, and clad religion in human robes. They materialize worship, hinder the Spirit, and keep man from demonstrating his power over error. Sorrow for wrong-doing is but one step towards reform, and the very easiest step. The next and great step required by Wisdom is the test of our sincerity namely, reformation.
In Florence, one soon observes, the churches are relatively few and the dusky house-fronts more rarely interrupted by specimens of that extraordinary architecture which in Rome passes for sacred. In Florence, in other words, ecclesiasticism is less cheap a commodity and not dispensed in the same abundance at the street-corners.
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