03.03. National Systems And Their Relation To The Gathering Of Believers

National Systems And Their Relation To The Gathering Of Believers As to systems called national, the existence of them cannot be traced higher than the period of the Reformation. The very idea seems not to have found entrance anterior to that period. The only thing in the least analogous - the privileges of the Gallican Church, and the practice of voting by nations in certain general councils - are so widely different, that they cannot be considered to call for any discussion. Nationalism - in other words, the dividing of the church into bodies - consisting of such and such a nation, is a novelty, not above three centuries old, although many dear children of God are found dwelling in it. The Reformation did not directly touch the question of the true character of God’s church. It did nothing directly tending to restore it to its primitive estate. It did what was more important: it brought out the truth of God as to the great doctrine by which souls are saved, with much more clearness, and with far mightier effect than the modern revival. But it did not re-establish the church in its primitive powers. On the contrary, it placed it in general under subjection to the state, in order to free it from subjection to the Pope; because it regarded the papal authority as dangerous, and looked upon all the subjects of a country as Christians. To escape from this anomaly, believers have sought to shelter themselves under the distinction between a visible and an invisible church. But I read in Scripture, "Ye are the light of the world." Of what use is an invisible light? "A city set on an hill cannot be hid." To say that the true church has been reduced to the condition of being invisible is at once to decide the question, and to affirm that the church has entirely lost its original and essential standing, and departed from the purpose of God, and from the constitution it received from Him; for God did not light a candle that He might put it under a bushel, but that He might put it upon a candlestick to give light to them that are in the house. If it has become invisible it has ceased to answer the purpose for which it was formed. Such, upon its own shewing, is the present condition of Christianity.