The Protestant evangelical church is placed upon the same
footing with Romanism; both of which organizations unchurch all who do
not conform to their creed. "The truth is," says a speaker, "this
Protestant evangelical church is in the same chronic delusion as its
enemy, the Roman Catholic church; it can propose no plan of Christian
union which will include the Christians of the country. Its only idea of
union is the conspiracy of a few sects to take the kingdom of heaven by
violence; monopolize its honors in this world and the world to come; and
either compel the rest of mankind to come into its arrangement, or be
turned into everlasting perdition--a proceeding which the American
people, with due respect to the undeniable rights of this church, begs
leave respectfully to decline,--and further to intimate, that it is not
at all alarmed about the eternal consequences of a refusal to accede to
the pretensions of an ecclesiasticism that assumes to be God's
vicegerent to the United States of America."[261]
Great fault is found with the doctrines of the plenary inspiration of
the Scriptures, and the efficacy of Christ's blood for man's salvation.
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