The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1910-09-20
4 am not ashamed Of the gospel
Of Christ" (Romans i. I6).

others to judge of their honesty in this
| matter, but it is for others to decide
that they will no longer assist or CO
operate in the spread of such horrible
travesties upon the Divine character
| no longer assist financially or otherwise
In binding upon the poor heather al
home and abroad increased ignorance
and superstition.
Everybody knows that the word Cos.
pei signifies good tidings." And every.
body ought to know that, as Christian
people, we have for centuries misused
the word. applying it to the bad It'd
ings of great misery to all people. ex-
cept the mere handful of the elect. We
did this because 1t was handed down
to us by our forefathers What Jesus
said to the Jews has been true Of us
as Christians, "Ye do make void the
Law Of God through your traditions. .
Thank God that. as in the natural
world he is sending us now the electric
light instead of the tallow candle, SO
through Bible study helps, concord
ances, ETC., his Word the Lamp to his
peoples footsteps until the day dawn,
is now shining brighter than ever be-
fore.
Which ls the True Gospel?
Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy
have set forth for centuries two gen
eral views of the Gospel of Christ To
whatever extent they now disagree
with these they should publicly dis
own and abandon them. Until then
they are besmirched with whatever
odium attaches
The Catholic Gospel Good Tidings)
is that all the heather. all Catholics
and all Protestants, except a mere
handful. go to a Purgatory of awful
suffering, terrible anguish, lasting for
decades, centuries and thousands of
years. roasting. boiling, agonizing, and
thus purging away their sins and dross
that they may ultimately attain to
heavenly bliss for the remainder Of
eternity. If that is good tidings it can
be considered such only in contrast
with something more horrible, if that
be imaginable
Our Protestant Gospel.
Our Protestant Gospel. of which we
are so proud that we want to thrust
it upon Jews and Catholics and heath
ems everywhere, we should thoroughly
understand, enjoy and appreciate be-
fore we waste good time and money
giving it to others. Here 1t is: Four
centuries ago our forefathers, were not
Protestants but Catholics and believed
in Purgatory. etc.. as above Then
what was known as the Reformation
Movement set In. Catholics, Jews and
infidels will admit with Protestants
that great blessing of enlightenment
and civilization has come to the world
In the train of the Reformation Move
ment But none of us is prepared to
admit that the Reformers were per-
feet, nor their work perfect.
The Reformers criticized the Catho-
lie teachings which they had former
ly believed. They examined their
Bibles and found nothing there to the
effect that Mary was the mother of
God, nor that we should pray to saints,
nor that we should use pictures or i'm
ages in our worship. nor that their
sacrifice Of Christ in the mass was
proper, nor that there was a Purga-
tory anywhere. The Reformers threw
out these things as unscriptural. They
completely demolished Purgatory In
their minds. declaring that 1t had new
er been anything more than magma
ton. Then came another thought. viz:
What must we do with the thousands
or millions of mankind that we and
our fathers for centuries supposed
were in Purgatory roasting, stewing,
tortured, but hoping for heaven. They
looked at one another in CONSERVATION.
They had hearts and sympathies and
felt that as 1t had devolved upon them
to smash Purgatory. it must also de-
volve upon them to relocate all those
thousands of millions whom they had
on their hands. They felt the weight
of the responsibility. Could they de
mand of God that they should he put
into heaven? Surely mott Surely only
the sanity few are fit for heaven!
They. as well as all, recognized that
fact. Then. with blank CONSERVATION.
they determined that they must crowd
the entire mass into a hell of eternal
torture and shut the gates upon them
forever and write upon the gates,
"Who enters here abandons hope"
Brother Calvin to the Rescue.
Taking from practically all human
ity all future hope made the Reformers
for the time heartsick. 1t would be
awful to do that for one person, but
to thus do" all humanity seemed ter
rlble. And then to be obliged to label
that gospel 'Good Tidings' must GER
tainly have been a trying experience
for the Reformers.
But Brother John Calvin helped
them amazingly and took from them
their burden He told them that they
should not worry, because 1t was all
Gods fault and not theirs. God had
predestinated them to that awful fu-
ture long before he created man. Now
they should merely try to think Of
themselves as the "elect'' and try to
forget everybody else. OF course, 1t
seemed horrible to charge all these
things against the God Of all Justice,
Wisdom, Love and Power. But it was
the only solution which occurred to
them. John Calvin's theories were
afterwards embodied In the West
Minister Confession Of Faith" And
that confession of faith became the
foundation of nearly all Protestant
creeds. Brother John Wesley after
ward objected, but admitted that only
the sanity went to heaven and every
body else went to eternal torment.
His protest was that, instead Of this
being by Divine foreordination and in
tention, 1t was, on the contrary, be-
cause of Divine unwisdom and incom-
potency.
"Good Tidings Of Great joy"
Surely no sane person can any longer
defend any of the above Gospels" as
the true one, Of which st. Paul was
not ashamed Surely st. Paul never
preached any Of those Gospels, nor did
any of the Apostles-nor does the Bible
support such theories, except by the
turning and twisting Of language. mis-
translations Of the original and misin-
terpretations of some parallels. The
plain statements of the Scriptures are
all directly to the opposite.
The Bible teaches that "the wages
of sin is DEATH" not Purgatory nor
eternal torment. 1.-THE soul that sin
meth, it shall die" Adam, the perfect,
was placed on trial for life eternal or
death eternal He sinned and the SEN
tence against him was, Cursed is the