The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1910-08-02

corinthians XIV. Fl. %. r. W. I
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Jesus and the Apostles to the same
effect. In the New Testament the
Greek word hades. representing the
tomb, the death state, takes the place
Of the Old Testament sheol in every
passage translated from the Old Tes-
lament into the New Testament.
1t was nearly three hundred years
after Jesus and the Apostles, after the
writing of the New Testament, before
the doctrine Of Purgatory was invent
ed And for this reason neither the
word Purgatory nor the Purgatory
thought Is expressed In the Scriptures.
But Bibles were few, and the people
could not have read them even If they
had possessed them; hence for long
centuries the teachings of the clergy
were accepted without Bible proofs,
and the doctrine of Purgatory spread
all over Christendom. All of our fore
fathers believed In it 1t became the
teaching of Christians everywhere that
dying when they seemed to die, went
to heaven and that the great mass of
humanity, instead of dying when they
seemed to die, went In some mysteri-
GUS manner to a mysterious place
called Purgatory, of which nobody
knew anything except what they were
taught. The teaching is that practi-
cally all of humanity go to Purgatory
there to be roasted and otherwise tor
tured for centuries-ultimately to gain
release from the torture, when fitted
for heaven Upon this doctrine in turn
sprung the doctrine of saying masses
for the dead" who were believed not
to be dead but intensely alive The
fear Of Purgatory drew the people very
close to the priests as the supposed
counsellors of the Almighty and the
mass money drew the priests very
close to the people. They were all
honestly intentioned, but all deceived
by the great deceiver-Satan
A Bad Matter Made Worse.
By and by priest, a Catholic theo-
Logan and teacher in one of their col
leges, by name Martin Luther, acct
dentally ran across copy of the New
Testament in the Latin language. Be
ing an educated man he was able to
read it; for there was not one copy In
the German language anywhere. Lu-
Their tells us of his perplexity in not
finding Purgatory in the New Tesla
ment. He tried to interest the Pope
in Bible study. but failed. and instead
was branded hereto He protested,
and others protested; hence came the
name Protestants!
These Professionals were undoubtedly
as sincere before their protest as they
were afterward; hence their protest
was against the very doctrines which
once they had proclaimed as the
Truth. Their minds were full Of the
thought that dead person is not dead
but more alive than before he died,
and that some Of these at death went
to heaven while the great majority
went to Purgatory. They did not see
the teaching of the Bible, that ''the
wages of sin is death"-that all go into
death, good and bad, and that this
death state Is the sheol and hades of
the Bible. Instead of getting this true
light upon Gods Word. they went
from darkness into greater darkness
on this point. Here we wish to empha-
size the thought that all these noble
men, Catholics and Professionals. In
their day. like all true people today,
held a measure of Truth in combina-
ton with errors. 1t is the measure of
Truth possessed and enjoyed that has
given any power and force to our va
rious Christian systems. and that. to
some extent, has neutralized the effect
of our errors.
Starting from their misunderstand-
ing Of Bible teachings respecting the
wages Of sin, Brother Luther and his
noble companions battled bravely for
many truths, but made one great blum
der. When they concluded that Pur-
gatory was contrary to the Scriptures
and threw it away, not seeing the
Bible hell. the tomb, they adopted an
other hell and thereby went from bad
to worse on this subject. They said.
The heather and the masses Of the
civilized are surely not saints-surely
Jesus-surely, therefore, they cannot
be Of his spiritual flock. Concluding
that these could not be taken to heav-
en-, they said, We must take them out
Of Purgatory anyway, wherever we put
them, because we have found out that
there is no such place as Purgatory.
After Conferences, seriously dislik-
ing to make out Gods character worse
than they formerly supposed. they
said under their breaths, We must
take them out of Purgatory and quick
ly put them into a hell of eternal tor
ture and say as little about the mat
ter as possible. They were greatly
relieved when long-headed Brother
John Calvin explained to them about
the mere handful going to heaven and
the great mass going to eternal tor
ture. He explained that God had fore
ordained and predestinated these aw
full results-that he might show his
wisdom and his power. As to a
Love divine. all love excelling,"
Brother Calvin seems never to have
thought Of that. Brother Wesley and
others since, though less logical and
theological. did stand up for and de-
clare the Love Of God, even though
rather absurdly they claimed that he
was neither wise enough nor powerful
enough to do more than rescue mere
handful Of Adams race from the eter-
nal torture to which they thought God
damned them all because of the DISC
bedience in Eden.
"AIl In Adam-All In Christ"
In the light of our better Bibles and
Bible Study Helps and minds freed
from the ignorance and superstitions
Of the past we may understand the
Apostles words and find in them, not
only justice and love, but harmony and
beauty. Instead of all mankind going
to eternal torment for Adams sin, all
go into the Bible hell, the grave, on
account of his sin-and all of the men
tai, moral and physical blemishes of
our race are a part of this heredity.
There would have been no hope of
future life, good or bad, had not God
in his mercy provided the Savior-the
Life Giver," as the Syriac renders the
word. In Gods due time he set before
his Son the opportunity Of becoming
mans Redeemer. The Logos was made
flesh John i, 14) and obediently gave
himself In death-"tasted death for
every man." As by one mans disobedi-
ence the sentence Of death passed upon
all of the race, even SO by the obedience
of the man Christ Jesus unto death
justification to life passed for all Of
that race. Now we see the wise rea-
son for permitting the sentence to pass
<1.wo,.nh 1ua x,1an,s GfoNhnAfonon 70