CHRISTIAN
HHRALD.
3
*
Holy Spirit ?
5. Is it proper to pray for Christ’s
kingdom to come ? Or has it al-
ready come ?
These queries were suggested by
listening to four sermons preached
by a Disciple here and at Harris’
Bridge. In No. 1 text there were
six steps to the throne. The
speaker spiritualized his text and
said there were six steps to heaven,
namely: faith, repentance,baptism,
pardon, perseverance and death.
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. No. 2, text same; spiritualized
”siepsTIaIili,~ reptsTOWicy,"" rcgwrera“'
tantism has, therefore, been to dig
Bros. Editors:
tion, adoption, pardon, endurance
||e Bible up out of the rubbish
If the word " church ” is a true
and death.
thus heaped upon it. The process
and correct " Bible name ” for a
6. If the same Spirit spiritualized
was necessarily a slow one and the
“ Bible thing,” and certainly Bible
this text, what Spirit was it ? for
work is not yet fully completed.
readers who only understand the
it contradicts itself.
Protestantism necessarily partakes
English language will and do use it
7. Is death a means of grace, and
to a certain extent of the errors
appropriately; then why do so
a step to heaven ? If so, What
hat belongs to the dark ages, and
many use the word “ congrega­
will or did become of Enoch and
|nere never will be that unity so
tion ?•
Elijah who were too good to die ?
Jiuch needed to-day in the protes-
It appears to me that in some
8. Is pardon or justification a
.it world until all that is' purely
things the " distinctive plea ” is
means of grace, or the result of
toman Catholic is purged out of it.
strained clear of Bible simplicity
obedience to the commands of
Sprinkling for baptism sprang as well as of the denominations
Christ ?
I’p in the Roman Catholic church. The name " Christian ” for a church
Will.yotf please answer the above
is, without doubt a relic of the certainly implies that there are
queries, as there are many here w’ho
i. lark ages.
The Bible is as silent other churches just as good not
do not know the teaching of the
>n it as the grave, and must be Christian.
Testament on these points, and it
Jiven up before the people of God
G. W. P owell ,
will help to place our plea before
hn see eye to eye. Let any honest
answer .
the people.
nan whose mind is perfectly free
The word " congregation ” is used
Your brother in hope of heaven,
iom anything like bias in religious as a synonym of "church.” The
J. P. E aster .
atters, carefully read the Bible Greek word ekldessla, translated
answer .
yi rough to know the truth on this "church” in the New Testament,
1. Not expressly; yet we think
point and he will come out fully is defined by Robinson’s Greek
convinced that the Bible teaches Lexicon of the New Testament, a that is implied. In the act of bap­
nothing but immersion for baptism. convocation, assembly, congrega­ tism the person giyes evidence that
The reason why many apparently tion, church. But inasmuch as the he is an obedient believer. All of
nonest people hold to sprinkling is word "congregation” is generally God’s commands are, in one sense,
cause they are not honest with used in the Old Scriptures to tests of our loyalty to him.
2. We think not. The word "re­
Jiemselves at this point. They describe the Jewish nation or
very likely have been taught from assembly, we, as a rule, prefer the generation ” is found only twice in
their infancy that sprinkling is all word " church ” applied to the as- the New Testament, and it is not
used as a synonym of baptism in
?ight and can be found in the Bible, sembly of the saints.
either passage. See Matt. 19 : 28 ;
ut £hey have never taken the
The word " Christian ” is no-
rouble to honestly look the matter where in the Bible applied to the Titus 3:5. In the latter passage
up. We know of an old gentleman church, and is not the most happy baptism is evidently referred to un­
,tho lived in» a community where way of speaking of the churches of der the figure of a washing bath.
But we understand regeneration to
taey were all Pedo-baptists and- Christ.
include the whole process of turn­
•Rarly all belonged to the Presby-
ing to God, while baptism is only
* irian church. One day he bap-
C oquille C ity , O r .,
the bath of that process by which
med to get into an argument wi th
, Dec. 14, 1883.
we are saved.
member of the Christian church Bro. Floyd:
3. Substantially thé same, both
Will you please answer through
upon the question of baptism. They
r gued their respective sides for the H erald the following queries: including the whole process of be­
1. Does the Bible teach that coming a new creature in Christ
some time without either being con-
Jesus.
♦■fciriced that he was in error. But baptism is. a test of obedience ?
4. We are not expressly told.
2. Does the Bible teach that re­
just before they separated the mem-
er of the Christian church said to generation and baptism are one and Our opinion is that in the passage
resbyterian I want to make a the same, and that the word re­ where it is mentioned, it was attrib­
singpie request of you, and I want generation may be substituted for uting the power of the Holy Spirit
to Beelzebub. This was one mani­
you to promise me that you will do baptism in the gospel plan ?
3. Is regeneration and the new festation of the unjiardonable sin
it. lie said he would if ho could.
Then said the brother I want you birth one and the same ? (If so, which consists rather in a state of
heart utterly beyond repentance,
whim you get home to take your explain; if not so, explain).
4. What is the sin against the and which manifests itself in vari­
Rible and carefully read it through
le Jews had been heaping their
raditions upon the word of God
nd that in this way it had been
early buried out of sight. They,
ruly had " made the word of God
II f none effect by their traditions,”
,nd the same was true upon a much
irger scale, when Martin Luther
ommenced his reformation. For
mlenturies and centuries Rome had
«been piling her errors and super-
t Ititions upon the Bible until the
World was sunk in the grosest
noticing every passage where at
speaks of baptism, and see how
much Scripture you can find that
will favor sprinkling. He said he
would do it, and the result was that
in a few weeks h6 came out and de­
manded immersion at the hands of
a Christian preacher. He confessed
that in. carefully reading thé Bible
through he did not find one line
that either favored sprinkling or
infant baptism.
M.
Ar
-r
■ Id
ous ways. See Matt. 12 : 31-34,
Heb. 6:4-6, 10:25-29, 1 John
5 : 16.
5. Christ’s kingdom or church on
earth has already come, and hence
it is not proper for us to pray that
it may come. We can properly
pray for God’s future and eternal
kingdom to come.
.' ’ 7
6. We do not know the text re­
ferred to, and hence, do not under­
stand the meaning of this question, ,
7. Yes, inasmuch as most people
can not enter heaven till after death,
^nd-ftre-notprepared to da so JfL
they could. Enoch and Elijah were
exception to the rule.
8. Both.
• :
Selections and Comments.
T he C ulture of E nglish .—The“
Christian at Work gives us these
valuable and much needed thoughts }
on the culture of the English lan­
guage :
While the cry is going up to the
heavens in behalf of the culture of
Greek, the plea being that this liv­
ing dead language is in danger, no
one has seemed to think it worth
while to say a word in behalf of the
culture of Epglish; but oh ! how
sadly the cry is needed. Why, take
the graduating " theologue ”:—how-
comes it that he mounts the pulpit
and delivers himself of such bad
English, his long u’s transformed
into oo’s, the h,s knocked out of his
which's, which are metamorphosed
into w'iches, the third day of the
week given the nickname of Tooz-
day, while involved sentences, the
use of the wrong personal pronoun, ,
and such solecisms as "he don’t/
“ every one must mend their lives”
etc. etc., are to be met with at every
turn, and this, too, when he has run
the gauntlet in college and seminary
of two professors of rhetoric ? Are
we forgetting our mother tongue ?
It looks so; but not so did the
Greeks, whom so many worship >-
they looked carefully after their
own and refused to have anything
to do with any other tongue. And
this deficiency in the cultivation of
the English language meets The
Christian, at Work at every turn;
and how much trouble it gives us,
we suspect only editors know. The
simple truth is that the majority of
those writing for our columns can
not—at least they do not—W'rite
the English language with clearness
and directness. On the contrary,
we have to change nominatives and
verbs, sometimes eliminate any
number of verbal involutions and
rearrange obscure sentences. The
desire to write pretty, neveless
English, at the expense of clearness, '
directness, force, is the bane of the
mere literary method, and its evil
results show themselves not only
among the sophomoric writs, but
in the productions of those more
experienced, and who out to know