Some thoughts on a need for a restoration:
II Thessalonians 2:2-3 states, "Be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man decieve you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first..."
The Apostle Paul is clearly discussing some type of falling way in regards to authority...the loss of it and then the restoration of it before the second comming of Christ.
Even reformers mentioned the need of some form of restoration.
Martin Luther: Christianity has ceased to exist
In Galat. (1535) Weins IX, P.I. 293, 24-27, p. 50, Luther and His Times, p. 509, Martin Luther, p. 188.
"I have sought nothing beyond reforming the Church in conformity with the Holy Scriptures. The spiritual powers have been not only corrupted by sin, but absolutely destroyed; so that there is now nothing in them but a depraved reason and a will that is the enemy and opponent of God. I smply say that Christianity has ceased to exist among those who should have preserved it."
John Wesley: Gifts of the Holy Ghost no longer found
Wesley's Works, vol. 7, Sermon 89, pp. 26-27
"It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were common in the Church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian...From this time they almost totally ceased...The Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ than the other heathens...This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church; because the Christians were turned Heathen again, and had only a dead form left."
Roger Williams: Waiting for new Apostles
Picturesque America, p. 502
"There is no regularly constituted church on earth, nor any person qualified to administer any church ordinances; nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the Church for whose coming I am seeking."
