gree among themselves on
the meaning of a single important text. The Bible became in their hands a
complete Babel. The sons of Noe attempted in their pride to ascend to
heaven by building the tower of Babel, and their scheme ended in the
confusion and multiplication of tongues. The children of the Reformation
endeavored in their conceit to lead men to heaven by the private
interpretation of the Bible, and their efforts led to the confusion and
the multiplication of religions. Let me give you one example out of a
thousand. These words of the Gospel, "This is My Body," were understood
only in one sense before the Reformation. The new lights of the sixteenth
century gave no fewer than eighty different meanings to these four simple
words, and since their time the number of interpretations has increased to
over a hundred.

No one will deny that in our days there exists a vast multitude of sects,
which are daily multiplying. No one will deny(149) that this multiplying
of creeds is a crying scandal, and a great stumbling-block in the way of
the conversion of heathen nations. No one can deny that these divisions in
the Christian family are traceable to the assumption of the right of
private judgment. Every new-fledged divine, with a superficial education,
imagines that he has received a call from heaven to inaugurate a new
religion, and he is ambitious of handing down his fame to posterity by
stamping his name on a new sect. And every one of these champions of
modern creeds appeals to the unchanging Bible in support of his
ever-changing doctrines.

Thus, one body of Christians will prove from the Bible that there is but
one Person in God, while the rest will prove from the same source that a
Trinity of Persons is a clear article of Divine Revelation. One will prove
from the Holy Book that Jesus Christ is not God. Others will appeal to the
same text to attest His Divinity. One denomination will assert on the
authority of Scripture that infant baptism is not necessary for salvation,
while others will hold that it is. Some Christians, with Bible in hand,
will teach that there are no sacraments. Others will say that there are
only two. Some will declare that the inspired Word does not preach the
eternity of punishments. Others will say that the Bible distinctly
vindicates that dogma. Do not clergymen appear every day in the pulpit,
and on the authority of the Book of Revelation point out to us with
painful accuracy the year and th