1885 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

een strengthening its roots, and shooting out and building up itsbranches, and soon the sure fruit will be a general denial of theredemption secured through Jesus' death. Already, prominentthinking ones in these various systems, reasoning, not from theScriptures, but from the so-called orthodox standpoint, are boldlydeclaring their conclusions, and with no little effect upon others.This is the logical effect so far as faith is concerned, of that onesingle item of error firmly rooted. This error and those which havegrown out of it, have also deterred the church from pursuing themost important part of her work, viz.: the building up of each otherin the truth as presented in the Scriptures, from which alone comethe highest and purest incentives to a holy life and to untiring zealin the divine service. Furthermore, by inculcating ideas of Godwhich represent him as cruel and vindictive, encouragement hasbeen given to those base qualities of man's depraved nature, and asa consequence, the most cruel persecutions and pitiless andrevolting crimes that the world has ever witnessed, have beenperpetrated in the name of Christianity, and by those claiming to bethe followers of Christ.Take another dogma which is held and guarded with the utmostjealousy by all these systems, viz.: the dogma of The Trinity, anidea so absurd that its very absurdity is taken as proof of its divineauthority, though not a text of scripture can be quoted in its support,save a single spurious clause (1 John 5:7-8. Without theinterpolated words it reads plainly as follows:--"For there are threethat bear record, the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and thesethree agree in one" testimony), introduced for this express purpose,now generally known and admitted to be an interpolation. Thisdogma teaches that God is three separate and distinct persons, equalin power and glory; that the Father is a person, the Son is a person,and the Holy Spirit is a person, yet all three are one person. In thisconfusion of ideas none can form a clear conception of God, and alltheir thoughts of him must be very mixed and cloudy. It tends alsoto mystify their comprehension of the sacrifice which Jesus madefor our redemption; for, if the three persons are one person, thenwhen one died all must have died, and the universe was left withoutGod for three days, and mere chance must have raised him up fromdeath if the true idea of death be accepted; or if death be consideredbut a period of transition from one nature to another, then this musthave been the case with Jesus also, and consequently if he was ofthe divine nature before death, he must be a different nature now.And so one absurdity leads to another, and leaving the principles ofthe doctrine of Christ as set forth in the Scriptures, the various falsebodies of Christ have built themselves up into systems of great sizeand influence in the world. Their great claims and apparent successhave deceived very many of God's children; repressed their zeal forthe truth, left them in almost complete ignorance of the Gospelhopes, both for the world and for the little flock of overcomers, ledthem to worldly conformity, and prejudiced them against the truth