1889 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

The underlying principle of the Great Reformation, to which allProtestants look back with pride, was the right of individualjudgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures, in opposition tothe papal dogma of submission to clerical authority andinterpretation. On this very point was the whole issue of thegreat movement. It was a grand and blessed strike for liberty ofconscience, for an open Bible, and the right to believe and obeyits teachings regardless of the usurped authority and vaintraditions of the self-exalted clergy of Rome. Had not thisprinciple been firmly held by the early Reformers, they nevercould have effected a reformation, and the wheels of progresswould have continued to stick in the mire of papal traditions andperverted interpretation.To-day, the careful observer may note, and it should be notedwith alarm, that the very condition of things which led to thegreat Papal apostasy, against whose errors and bondage ourfore-fathers awoke and protested in the sixteenth century, isgradually, stealthily, yet swiftly, overshadowing Protestantism;and, unchecked, will soon entirely wipe out the idea of the rightof individual judgment in the study of God's Word, and bindProtestants as securely as Romanists are bound, to the judgmentand religious decrees of a system, instead of leaving faith to theintelligence, study and judgment of each individual.The foundation of the great Apostasy (Papacy) was laid in theseparation of a class, called the "clergy," from the church ofbelievers in general, who, in contradistinction, came to beknown as theR1135 : page 3"laity." This was not done in a day, but gradually. Those whohad been chosen from their own number, by the variouscongregations, to minister to or serve them in spiritual things,gradually came to consider themselves a superior order or class,above their fellow-Christians who elected them. They graduallycame to regard their position as an office rather than a serviceand sought each other's companionship in councils, etc., as"Clergymen," and order or rank among them followed.Next they felt it beneath their dignity to be elected by thecongregation they were to serve, and to be installed by it as itsservant; and to carry out the idea of office and to support thedignity of a "clergyman," they deemed it better policy toabandon the primitive method by which any believer who hadthe ability had the liberty to teach, and decided that no mancould minister to a congregation except a "clergyman," and thatno one could become a clergyman except the clergy so decidedand installed him in office.Their councils, at first harmless if not profitable, begangradually to suggest what each individual should believe, andcame finally to decreeing what should be considered orthodox