“All churches have traditions, and the older they are, the more pernicious they are. We should never forget that Cain was the eldest. If he had founded one, his church would have had the very best claim on antiquity” (Against the Church, p. 40).
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Cain founded the first secular state, but he began the tradition of killing God’s people if their ministry offends your pride. And Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees, upon whom all that bloodshed beginning with Abel was avenged.
Any claim of Cain to antiquity could only have been second best. His father had the church already through the gospel (Gen. 3:15). It was Cain’s rejection of the church’s Word and discipline (and, some would say, sacrament), that led to fratricide and the beginnings of pagan civic royal “divinity” ( a religious “secularism”).
The newest denomination has the necessary “antiquity” if it sufficiently bears the three marks of the Church.