Edward Temple, late Bishop of
London, and who is now the Archbishop of Canterbury, had a priest of
the established Church come to him and make a confession of holding
certain beliefs which he knew were heretical. The archbishop said to
him frankly: As Edward Temple, I believe them, I am in sympathy with
your views. As the head of the English Church, I must be opposed to
them; and the opinions which you hold cannot be tolerated. That is what
the influence of a great organization may come to.
Let me give you another concrete illustration. Here is our American
Bible Society, which publishes and circulates millions of Bibles all
over the world. It is obliged, as at present organized, to print and
distribute the King James version of the Bible; but there is not a
scholar or a minister connected with the organization anywhere who does
not know at least, since the revision at any rate that in many
important respects the King James version is not an accurate
translation of the original, even if that is conceded to be infallible.
So that this organization stands to-day in the position of being
obliged to circulate all over the world for God's truth any number of
teachings that are simply blunders of the translator, of the copyist,
or interpolated passages that have come down from the past.
So men in every direction become persuaded that they must be loyal to
the organization. I know cases where a minister in conversation with a
friend has said: So long as I remain a member of this Church, I have
got a great institution back of me, and I can accomplish so much
socially and in every way on account of it.
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