description and kind. True evangelical faith was at length lost to
view, buried beneath the rubbish of men's traditions. The treatment
of such matters, however, belongs to the church historian, and as the
general facts are well-known, it is unnecessary here to make more than
a brief reference to them so as to prepare the mind for that treatment
of the reformation which is a special object of the present work.

[Footnote A: Tertullian is the earliest writer that clearly and
unmistakably teaches trine immersion, or records its practise. But
here he honestly confesses that it is a "somewhat ampler pledge than
the Lord has appointed in the gospel."]

CHAPTER VI

RISE OF ECCLESIASTICISM

[Sidenote: Two phases of apostacy]

In order to understand the place which the work of reformation has in
the plan and purpose of God respecting his church, we must carefully
observe the twofold character of the apostasy. Both these phases
are clearly outlined in that remarkable prediction of Paul to which
reference has already been made, recorded in the second chapter
of Second Thessalonians. The first phase, described as "_a falling
away_," was that decline from true Christianity which we have
considered in the preceding chapter as the Corruption of Evangelical
Faith. The second phase was the rise and development of a foreign
element which was from its beginning "the mystery of iniquity" and
which in certain respects usurped the true place of Jehovah himself
in spiritual worship in the temple of God. This phase now demands our
special attention.

Since the sixteenth century reformation a large part of the Christian
world has renounced the right of the pope to sit as the supreme
earthly head of the church, but we shall show later that these same
modern Christians who have sought the restoration of the evangelical
_faith_ have not discarded the essential elements of the papal
hierarchical system, but have perpetuated them in their own
ecclesiastical constitutions, and that this relic of medievalism is
the chief barrier to a reunited Christendom and the restoration of
pure apostolic Christianity. It is highly essential, therefore, that
this phase of the apostasy be carefully considered. It is not enough
to reject the pope and his college of cardinals. If that tree, as
judged by its fruits, is an "evil" tree, we should seek to know where,
when, and by whom the evil seed from which it grew was first planted,
and then _reject