The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1910-05-13

Close Attention Given. I
TeIr Il am no, Ashamed Of the Gospel Of Chria"
Roman,i l0).
oOO.-.-.-.-s-.-s-.-.-.-.-.-
equally we are in the day of Bible re-.
lection, because it is assumed that the
Bible, having been studied by the
formulators Of these creeds. must be
in accord with these and hence, must
be responsible for the unreasonable
teachings, and must be rejected when
these are rejected
Some OF us ran away with the doc.
trine of election" thinking 1t the
whole Gospel OF Christ: whereas our
fragment was incomplete, unsatisfac.
tory, and misrepresented the Gospel,
when taken alone. Others grasped the
doctrine of free grace" and ran away
with that, claiming that 1t was the en-
tire Gospel - ignoring the Scriptures
which referred TO election" etc.
These made a similar mistake. and
similarly misrepresented the Gospel of
Christ in its Wilderness, its solidarity.
Others grasped those Scriptures which
assure us of universal opportunity
for salvation, and interpreted them to
mean that all mankind will attain
eternal salvation. regardless of their
wills and cooperation. Others found
difficulty in harmonizing the relation.
i ship between the heavenly Father, the
! heavenly Son and the holy Spirit and
this contention led to Uuitarianism on
the one hand. and to Trinitarianism on
the other Others of us caught the
doctrine of baptism" and made OF 1t
the entire Gospel, and thus did violence
| to the lengths. and breadths, and
heights. and depths of the true mes
sage, the true Gospel, of which st.
Paul in our text declares that he was
not ashamed
Noting the logical mind of st. Paul,
who can doubt that he would be
| ashamed, as we ourselves are, of the
fragmentary presentations of the vari-
| Gus creedS which more or less oppose
! and contradict each other? We may
endorse as the Gospel of Christ" we
need not be ashamed Of. Hence our
| determination should be to search the
| Scriptures, and to find that one reason
able message Of the Divine Plan which
centers in Jesus our Redeemer.
I Things at Which We Gagged.
Men and women do not find 1t diff
cult to believe In a wise, just, loving
and powerful Creator: just such a God
| our hearts and heads tell us we should
expect: just such a God rational peo-
pie find no difficulty in worshiping
Indeed, while some Of us in the past
may have believed in the total de-
| pravity" of the race. may we not real
ize that Notwithstanding the fall. there
is still in the human mind and heart
something which has "longngs inf
mite" something which cries out for
the living God, and which commands
our reverence and worship, in proper
tiOn as he is recognized?
Spiritually we gagged at the sugges-
ton that a God of all wisdom. love,
justice and power ever created our
race with the foreknowledge and fore
ordination that practically all of these
thousands of millions must suffer Ell
ther purgatorial torture for several
centuries as our Catholic friends pre-
sent the matter, or at the still more
irrational theory of us Protestants that
eternal torture is to be the fate Of all
except the elect few, the saints, who
now follow in the footsteps of Jesus
a course contrary to the world and all
the tendencies of life around us. Well
may we gag. and the sooner we reject
and eject this entire mass of un-Scrip-
tural dogmas, the better. AS a whole
| 1t comes to us from our honest, but un-
enlightened forefathers, who verify
thought they did God service in tortur-
ing one another, even to the extent of
burning one another at the stake, be-
cause of little differences along the
lines Of these doctrines of devils" q
Timothy iv, u.
The rich spiritual food and the strong
faith, which we dear friends, as Bi-
bic students. should desire and seek
for, are to be found only in the Bible it.
self. We should not spurn suggestions
from one another, but we should re-
ceive such suggestions tentatively, and
the Word of God should be searched,
so that our faith should not stand in
the teachings of men, but in the power
of Cod as set forth in the Word of
God. From this quarter only can we
expect information respecting
Tho Gospel of Christ"
of which st. Paul was not ashamed.
That Gospel has two distinct features.
Primarily 1t relates to the world of
mankind, and instead OF telling us
that either centuries of purgatorial suf-
fering. or an eternity of torture awaits
the world. its message is that, in Cod $
due time, great blessing awaits the
world through the gloritied Christ, and
as a result of the sacrifice which he
finished at Calvary
This great blessing will not be uni
versal salvation, but it will be a uni
yerSal opportunity for salvation. 1t
will not be salvation in ignorance
and heather superstition, but a saliva
tion from such conditions, with full op.