Howdy all!
Whilst perusing some mags from 1887 (as you do) I stumbled upon this article slagging off the 'Protestant Papacy' as they called it.. It may have been posted before, but it was new to me (as, increasingly is a LOT of stuff) so I thought I'd share..
I've emboldened some areas of interest, it shows (to me) a good attitude back then.
See anything familiar with our day in there?
LOST AND SAVED
[This article was a reprint of that published in issue of March, 1884, which please see.1]
PAPACY IN THE PROTESTANT CHURCH
The Protestant Church repudiates the Pope. It has much
to say of the right of private judgment. And yet while it
dismisses the Pope at the front door, it admits the Papal
principle at the back door. Not content with framing its
creeds out of the facts of Christianity, which no true Christian
will dispute, the Reformed churches constructed systems of
theology into creeds, and substituted for the rule of the
Spirit, which is the only true substitute for that of the
Pope, the domination of the system. Hence, in them all,
there is more or less of this papacy of creed. If any one
discovers some new truth out of harmony with its statements,
or error inwrought at some point, he must either be silent,
or run the risk of loss of standing and preferment, and per-
haps of excision. It is amazing, when one reflects upon it,
how the Protestant Church has thus abandoned the principles
of private judgment, and the liberty of the Spirit, upon which
it was based. One need not go far to find churches where
honest thought and high aspiration are repressed, where the
gates of free inquiry are closed, and new light from the Word
of God. and from other sources in Nature and Providence, is
barred out. A fatal domination of recognized leaders, keeps
the body within the strict lines of its tradition, and puts its
ban upon any who dare transcend them; unless, indeed, it be
done in some such covert way as not to excite suspicion that
the integrity of the system is to be endangered.
To illustrate what we mean. A member of a prominent
Presbyterian church remarked that his pastor, in conversing
with him upon these themes, told him that he believed a
great many things which gave him comfort which, as a
Presbyterian minister, he could not preach. The admission
has more than once been made to us by brethren of the
highest standing that they found relief in the belief that
God’s ways in redemption were not exhausted in this world,
and that sinners who proved irreclaimable under them finally
suffer extinction of being. And yet none of these men would
dare give public utterance to such convictions. They regard
themselves as under a sort of bond not to do so. And cer-
tainly their standing in the church would be jeopardized if
they did. This is what we mean by Protestant Papacy. How,
we would ask, can there be honest progress in the knowledge
of the truth, if honest convictions must thus be concealed ?
Words of Reconciliation
(Zion's Watchtower 1887 p926)