No honest reader of the New Testament can fail to see that the Jewish temple and priesthood, with all the splendid and attractive institutions of the ceremonial law, gave place, after the ascension of Christ, to a system marked by simplicity, and adapted to popular use. It requires a strange perverseness, in a people blessed with an open Bible, to abandon the simplicity which the Holy Ghost himself substituted, on purpose, for the elaborate symbolism of the ancient ritual, and endeavor to return again to the showy usages of the priesthood and the temple. Romanism is a revolt against the studied simplicity of the gospel. It proclaims to the world that the simple organization under the lowly apostles, and the plain worship and service of the New Testament church, are unsatisfactory and insufficient. It aims to undo the revolution accomplished by the cross, and to establish a splendid hierarchy and a seductive worship rivaling that of the Jews. The English court and priesthood, in opposition to all other Protestants, insisted that the papacy was to a great extent right in this design, and condemned our fathers [e.g., Presbyterians, Puritans] for too strict an adherence to the Scriptures.

I beg leave to maintain that the sons of the Reformers have no right to go back upon the New Testament. There is a principle at stake which a Christian ought not to ignore. And yet we see it trampled under foot by young people every day (J. A. Waddell, Letters to a Young Presbyterian, 12-13).