Monday, March 31, 2014

The Kingdom Reign Of Christ by C. R. Stam




The Kingdom Reign of Christ, often called the Millennium, is, of course, still future, but even this dispensation will commence with a clear indication that our Lord’s beneficent reign will not change the unregenerate heart. Man is still a failure.

This will be evident from the fact that to put the rebellion down our Lord will have to “break” the nations “with a rod of iron” and “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psa.2:9). Indeed, He will have to “rule them with a rod of iron” (Rev.2:27). It is not strange, then, that we read in Revelation 20:7-9:

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

“And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

This final rebellion is followed by the casting of Satan and all unbelievers into the lake of fire and the bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth in which all the reconciled find their all in Christ (Rev. 20:10-21:1; Eph.1:9,10; Col. 1:19,20). It is interesting and instructive to see in the book of Revelation how the Lamb slain occupies the center of the glory of the universe. Not one saint from any age will ever boast of his own righteousness in that day. All will acknowledge their own unworthiness and proclaim the praises of the One who died that they might live and be justified and gloried. And even the unsaved and all demons and angels will acknowledge Jesus as Lord in that day. Because He humbled Himself and submitted Himself to “even the death of the cross… God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name:

“THAT AT THE NAME OF JESUS EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, OF THINGS IN HEAVEN, AND THINGS IN EARTH, AND THINGS UNDER THE EARTH;

“AND THAT EVERY TONGUE SHOULD CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER” (Phil.2:8-11).


How God Saves Men
Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4


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Why I Cannot Practice Water Baptism! By PASTOR CLARENCE E. KRAMER




Why I Cannot Practice Water Baptism! 
  By  PASTOR CLARENCE E. KRAMER

Why I Cannot Practice Water Baptism!
Sermon Delivered November 15, 1959
By PASTOR CLARENCE E. KRAMER
At Berean Church Holland, Michigan
and over WJBL, 1260 K.C.

       Whenever someone teaches a doctrine that is contrary to popular opinion, most people automatically reject it without thinking it through. This is especially true in the matter of water baptism. Christendom has always practiced water baptism, though in many differing modes and for many different reasons" Some teach that water baptism actually contributes to one's salvation while others teach that baptism is only a witness of some inward transformation. But though most baptizes differ among themselves as to the significance of the ceremony, yet they all band together to reject the sufficiency of the one divine baptism by which the Holy Spirit places the believing sinner Into Jesus Christ.

A remark often heard is: "How can you say that the whole Church has been wrong all these centuries and now only you have the truth about baptism." Let us first remember that we do not know if all believers practiced water baptism even though. the church as a whole did; and don't forget there Is a difference between all believers. and the religious hierarchy  of Christendom. But further, is it so strange that most have been misled regarding this truth? it will not be so strange to the one who knows the tragic history of Israel And Martin Luther must have been faced with the same problem when he, a mere 'monk, challenged the entire church of Rome on the question of Justification by faith. Truth has never been popular, and spirituality is not usually found with the majority. Rather than look around us to see what others believe, lest we be found different, we should stand for God's truth in spite of its unpopularity and the church’s indifference to it.
  
Now, we believe that the one basis of fellowship among all believers is the blood of Jesus Christ witch saved us from our sins. Our relationship with the blessed Son of God is what relates us to each other. I love every Christian not because they all agree with me doctrinally but because they all love my Lord, and we are brethren in Him. Water baptism should never be made a basis of Christian fellowship, unless, of course, water baptism makes us children of God, which no true evangelical, Bible believing Christian teaches or believes.

As for me, I cannot practice water baptism because: 1. WATER BAPTISM IS AN OLD TESTAMENT ORDINANCE (Hebrews. 9:10).

   In Hebrews 9:10 we read, regarding Israel's worship under the law: 

   "W1Iich stood only in meats and drinks, and divert washings and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation."

The Greek Word for "washings" in this verse is baptism  or baptisms. This incidentally shows that water baptism in the Bible is a ceremonial purification aid not a symbol of death and burial. There were no immersions under the old covenant or law. John the Baptist's disciples had a dispute with the Jews In  John 3:25 about purifying, not burying.

This first covenant (now the old covenant)"had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly  sanctuary" (Hebrews 9:1). The religious worship of Israel under the law consisted in "meats and drinks and divers baptisms." So water baptism was a part of the law worship and not a "New Testament" ordinance as so many try to make it. One need only read Exodus and Leviticus to find there the numerous ablutions and purification ceremonies. In Leviticus alone there are some twenty references to washings or baptisms. The laver, an important piece in the Tabernacle furniture, was used to wash or baptize the hands and feet of the officiating priest.

Then we read, in Hebrews 9:10, that the various regulations of the law, including baptisms, were "carnal ordinances" (the "and" after "washings" is not in the original). Water baptism as a ceremonial cleansing was a physical ceremony, a shadow of good things to come (Hebrews 10:1) which never could "make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the con­science" (Hebrews 9:9). It would be interesting to contrast this passage with First Peter 3:21 where the baptism which "doth also now save us" is a baptism that does meet the demand of "a good conscience toward God," something which a water ceremony could never do. This baptism is the antitype of Noah's baptism and must surely refer to the death baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ who experienced God's wrath for us on Calvary. We are safe from God's wrath being in Christ the same way that Noah was safe from God's wrath while' in the ark.      

We also read in Hebrews 9:10 that water baptism was "imposed on them until .... "Here was law. it was not left up to the believer's conscience; nothing was ever' said about it not being absolutely necessary. It was "imposed," but only temporarily. Like the law covenant itself which was "added because of transgressions, till the seed should come" (Galatians 3:18) water bap­tism was a temporary institution.

      Many fine Bible believing  Christians who are sure that believers today are not under the law, still insist that believers ought to be under the water. But the water is part of the law. Whatever we do with the law we must do with the water, and since the believer is not under the law he should not be under the water!

     Further, I cannot practice water baptism because:

      II. WATER BAPTISM IS NOT A PART OF THE PAULINE REVELATION (First Corinthians 1:14-17

The important question regarding water baptism is not whether or not it is taught in Scripture. It very plainly is, and for that reason I believe in water baptism. But is water baptism to be practiced today? ­This is the vital issue. Though God's Word does teach water baptism, it also teaches the need for blood sacrifices, circumcision and speaking in tongues. I believe in these things too. But are they to be practiced today?

    How can we know what is to be practiced today and what is not? By what principle of Bible study can we rule out some things that do not seem to fit, and hold on to others? The key to this important problem is in the Word itself. God has dealt with men in various ways under differing programs. God is now dealing with men in grace, and this dispensation of grace under which we live was first revealed to the Apostle Paul who made it known to us in his epistles (see Ephesians 3:1-9; Colossians 1:24-27; Romans 16:25), This is why we must be "Pauline." Some things once commanded by God are now strictly forbidden (compare Genesis 17:9-14 and Galatians 5:2-3). The Word of God which is specifically addressed to us today is that revelation committed by the glorified Lord to the Apostle Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles (Romans 11:13). Pauline truth is our guide, and all truth must be taught in the light of this revelation

       Now what does Paul command in regard to water baptism? Absolutely nothing! There is not one command in the Pauline epistles to the effect that members of the Body of Christ should practice water baptism. Paul himself says he was not sent to baptize (Read First Corinthians 1:17 again). True, he did baptize some, as he also spoke in tongues, but water baptism was not a part of that particular revelation he received from the Lord for us. He was not sent to baptize and neither are we.

Now if Paul was working under the same commission as Peter (and the one most believers today are trying to obey) he could never have said: "Christ sent  me not to baptize.". Peter was sent out under the commission of Mathew 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15-17. Under that commission, Peter and the circumcision apostles were told to baptize all nations and he that believed and was baptized would be saved. Furthermore, miraculous signs would follow those who believed. Read the commission in Matthew and Mark again and see all it commands. This "great" commission' definitely required water baptism.

But Paul was not sent to baptize and hence could not have been working under that commission. What was his commission? It was a new commission for the new dispensation of grace which he received from the Lord in glory (Galatians 1:11-12: Ephesians 3:1-3). Water bap­tism is not included in this commission or in the program for this d1spensatlon. (see Second Corinthians 5:18-20)

Finally, I cannot practice water baptism because:

III. THE "ONE BAPTISM" IS THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT MAKES US ONE WITH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.  Ephesians and first Corinthians

    Paul does say a great deal about baptism but it is not water baptism. In Ephesians as part of the unity of the Spirit the one baptism. The following verses w1l1 show what this one baptism is:

mans 6:4-4  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

First Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles.

Galatians  3:27  For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Colossians 2:11-12  In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

It is Quite obvious a simple reading of these important passages that the one baptism that is common to every believer, irrespective of denomination, is the baptism into Christ and His Body. This baptism occurs the very moment one believes the gospel. If this baptism is by water then water baptism saves, for it is a baptism into Christ.

But it is only God who can save and only the Holy Spirit who can put anyone into Christ. In Romans 6:3-4 we are told that those who have been baptized into Christ (by the Holy Spirit) have been baptized into His death. It is in His death that we died to sin (Verse 2). Since we died with Him we were also buried with Him by means of that baptism into His death; buried, not in water but in His tomb. And when He arose we arose with Him to new life.

This is not symbolic language for water could never symbolize crucifixion, burial in a rock tomb or resurrection to new life.  This is all a spiritual reality which we are to reckon true by faith. This baptism into Christ transforms the life and breaks the power of the sin nature. Could water ever do this? Only God can, and God did, by making us one with Christ through this divine baptism.

This divine baptism, then, presents a spiritual obligation. Because we have been baptized into Christ and thus have died to sin and are now alive unto God, we are commanded to "reckon" ourselves "to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans. 6:11). Our baptism into Christ is the only true basis for Christian living. We died to sin only in Him and are alive spiritually only in Him. Put water here and we miss the whole lesson God would teach us. Yea, we miss the power to live pleasing to Him! 



Thanks be unto God for His wonderful gift:
 Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God
 is the object of the faith; the only faith
 that saves is His faith.

How God Saves Men
Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4


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Sunday, March 30, 2014

God's Eternal Purpose By – C. R. Stam




 What is the "eternal purpose" of God, spoken of in Ephesians 3:11? How is the "Body of Christ" related to it? Is the Messianic kingdom related to it in any way?

It is evident from the epistles of Paul that while there are many details to God's great plan for the universe, all revolves around one central, eternal purpose. It should be our sincere desire to understand that purpose and how we tit into it.



WHAT IT IS



In examining the Scriptures as to this im­portant subject we should be careful to observe that God's eternal purpose concerns Christ first of all. "The Church which is His Body," is, of course, involved in it, but our Lord Himself stands at the center of the "eternal purpose." Ephesians 1:9,10 makes this abundantly clear. There the apostle describes "the secret of His will ... which He hath purposed in Himself:

"THAT IN THE DISPENSATION OF THE FULNESS OF TIMES HE MICHT CATHER TOGETHER IN ONE ALL THINGS IN CHRIST. BOTH WHICH ARE IN HEAVEN. AND WHICH ARE ON EARTH:

EVEN IN HIM:'

God's great plan for the future, then, is to unify all things in heaven and on earth in Christ; to center all in Him.

How much, in heaven and earth, is now out of center; alienated from God and His Christ. This includes not only the majority of mankind, under their princes and potentates, but a great host of heavently angels under the rulership of Satan, their "prince" (Ephesians 2:2). Indeed, we believers wrestle "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in the heavenlies" (Ephesians 6:12).

This is only a temporary situation, however, for some day the heavens and the earth will be occupied only by those who love and adore Christ, including sinners reconciled to God through Christ. In Colossians 1 :20 the apostle te11s us that "having made peace through the blood of His cross," it pleased the Father "BY HIM to reconcile all things unto Himself; BY HIM, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." This agrees with his premise in Verse 19:

"FOR IT PLEASED THE FATHER THAT IN HIM SHOULD ALL FULLNESS DWELL:'

In contemplating this glorious scene, how­ever, it should be carefu11y noted that a recon­ciled heaven and earth does not spell universal reconciliation. The celestial and terrestrial are here included, but the infernal is carefully ex­cluded. God has exalted His Son, indeed, "that at the name of Jesus EVERY knee should bow," and this subjugation of all will include those "in heaven, and ... in earth, and ... under the earth" (Philippians 2:10) but the reconciled throng will be found only in heaven and on earth.



HOW IT WAS CONCEIVED



The eternal purpose was conceived in the heart and mind of God alone, in eternity past. Concerning our part in it, the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy:

"Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to THE POWER OF GOD

"WHO HATH SAVED US. AND CALLED US WITH AN HOLY CALLING, NOT ACCORDING TO OUR WORKS, BUT ACCORDING TO HIS OWN PURPOSE AND GRACE, WHICH WAS GIVEN US IN CHRIST JESUS BEFORE THE WORLD BECAN" (Second Timothy 1:8,9).

How often, in the Pauline epistles, we find this emphasis upon the sovereignty of God! "All things are of God"; this is the very essence of grace. It is blessedly true that the election of believers was "according to the foreknowledge" of God" (First Peter 1 :2; Romans 8:29) but we must not confuse His foreknowledge with the outworking of His sovereign purposes, as though He merely knew in advance who would be saved. Concern­ing the latter we read that "the purpose of God according to election" will "stand; not of works, but of Him that calleth" (Romans 9:11).

Perhaps no passage of Scripture emphasizes  this with such definite clarity as Ephesians 1 :3-12. As we quote it below, note how such words as tlwill," "counsel," "pleasure," "purpose," "chos­en," "elect" and "predestinated" predominate.

"Blessed be GOD and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who halh blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heafenly places in Christ;

"According as He hath CHOSEN us in Him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. That we might holy and without blame before Him;

"In llove having PREDESTINATED us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to THE COOO PLEASURE OF HIS WILL

"To the praise of the Ilory of His (rIce, wherein HE HATH MADE US ACCEPTED in the beloved One.

"H.ninC mad. known unto us the mystery of HIS WilL, Ie­c"d;ng 10 HIS COOD PLEASURE WHICH HE HATH PURPOSED IN HIMSELF:

"That in the dispenution of the fulness of times H. might cather together in one .11 thines in Christ, both which are in h.ann. and which Ir, on earth; ewen in Him:

"In .hom ,Iso ., hay. obt.ined In inherit.nc:e, being PREDES­TINATED ACCORDINC TO THE PURPOSE OF HIM WHO WORK. ETH ALL THINGS AFTER THE COUNSEL OF HIS OWN Will:

"THAT WE SHOULD BE TO THE PRAISE OF HIS CLORY, WHO FIRST TRUSTED IN CHRIST,"

All that has so far been fulfilled of the will of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, should give believers complete confidence that His purposes will find their culmination in the open exaltation of Christ, not only as King of Israel and the world, but as the Head over all, with a reconciled heaven and earth finding their all in Him.



HOW IT WAS REVEALED



The means which God used to reveal His eternal purpose are wonderful to contemplate.

The long-promised King appears and is re­jected. His forerunner is beheaded; He Himself is nailed to a cross. Those who testify of His resurrection from the dead are beaten and im­prisoned, and Stephen is stoned to death. A great persecution is waged against the disciples of Christ with Saul of Tarsus as its flaming lead­er. He scourges believers in their synagogues to compel them to blaspheme Christ. He drags men and women to trial and execution for pro­fessing Christ-and all with "authority and com­mission" from the rulers.

The favored na tion has proved itself no better than the Gentiles, whom God gave up cen­turies before, and, giving Israel up too, He now concludes them all in unbelief "that He might have mercy u.pon all "( Romans 11: 32) .

But what about His promises regarding the kingdom? These He will fulfil in due time (Romans 11 :25-27) but first He must demonstrate that man needs Christ; is hopeless without Christ, whether Jew or Gentile; that in his utter depravity he must be saved by grace, through Christ's merits,  or he will not be saved at all. Thus, setting the program of prophecy and the kingdom aside for a time, he sends an offer of reconciliation by free grace, through faith, to both Jews and Gen­tiles, on the basis of Christ's redemptive work at Calvary, and thus apart from sacrifices, circum­cision or water baptism. And He does this-

"THAT HE MIGHT RECONCILE BOTH UNTO GOD IN ONE BODY BY THE CROSS, HAVING SLAIN THE ENMITY THEREBY" (Ephesians 2:16).

What more appropriate vessel could God have chosen to demonstrate and proclaim these "riches of His grace" than Saul of Tarsus, the former blasphemer and persecutor? Thus it is this Saul, now saved and appointed an apostle, to whom and through whom God now reveab the secret of His will concerning the reconcilia­tion of Jews and Gentiles into one body in Christ -an earnest of the glorious future unity of all heaven and earth in Christ.

In short, God is now demonstrating in the Body of Christ, what will one day be experienced in all heaven and earth: that man's only hope is in Christ and that unity and blessing can be found only in Him.

The apostle writes of this in Ephesians 3: 1-11, a passage which we should ponder over prayerfully if we would see the relation of believers today to "the eternal purpose":

"WHICH IN OTHER AGES WAS NOT MADE KNOWN UNTO THE SONS OF MEN, IS it is now reveiled unto His holy apostles ud prophets by the Spirit;

"THAT THEY WHO ARE OF THE NATIONS SHOULD BE JOINT HEIRS, AND A JOINT BODY, AND JOINT PARTAKERS OF HIS PROMISE IN CHRIST JESUS BY THE GLAD TIDINGS .

"Whereof I was made I minister, according to the gift of the IIU. of Cod, liven unto me by the effectual working of His power.

"UNTO ME, WHO AM LESS THAN THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS, IS THIS GRACE GIVEN, THAT I SHOULD PREACH AMONG THE GENTILES THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST;

"AId to m.ke ,II men see what is THE FELLOWSHIP (DIS­PENSATION] OF THE MYSTERY, WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD HATH BEEN HID IN COD, WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST.

"TO THE INTENT THAT NOW UNTO THE PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS IN HEAVENLY PLACES MIGHT BE KNOWN BY THE CHURCH THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF COD.

"ACCORDING TO THE ETERNAL PURPOSE WHICH HE PUR­POSED IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD,"

This is how God revealed, and now demon­strates, His eternal purpose to gather all in heaven and earth together in one in Christ. Blessed revelation! Joyful anticipation! Glo­rious consummation!


MEANTIME



As God now conducts this divine demonstra­tion of His eternal purpose, we believers may enjoy a threefold blessing.

1. We may rejoice that we have been "PRE­DESTINATED ACCORDING TO THE PUR­POSE OF HIM WHO WORKETH ALL THINGS AFTER THE COUNSEL OF HIS OWN WILL:' Read Second Timothy 1:9 and Ephesians 1:1-12 again, thought­fully, and see how blessedly and eternally secure is the simplest believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. We may rejoice that" whatever the cir­cumstances, "ALL THINGS WORK TOGETH­ER [Lit., ARE BEING WORKED TOGETHER] FOR GOOD, TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD, TO THEM WHO ARE THE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE" (Romans 8:28).

3. We may rejoice in the reality and practice of our oneness in Christ, "ENDEAVORING TO KEEP' THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE BOND OF PEACE .... TILL WE ALL COME IN THE UNITY OF THE FAITH, AND OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD, UNTO A PERFECT MAN, UNTO THE MEAS­URE OF THE STATURE OF THE FULNESS OF CHRIST" (Ephesians 4:3-13),



How God Saves Men
Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4


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cspivey1953@gmail.com
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EVOLUTION AND SIN by C. R. Stam





For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom. 8:22).
 
Modern evolution, of course, denies the Bible account of the fall and has much to say about "the ascent of man," but evolution fails to account for, indeed, assiduously evades, that which lies at the very root of all man's troubles: sin. It fails to explain adequately why man finds himself weak, poor, miserable, distressed, corrupt, perishing, and it fails to explain why he is so utterly helpless to lift himself from this state. It fails to explain his inherent sense of blameworthiness; indeed insists he has no cause for a "guilt complex."
Every man feels within himself a disorder, a positive dislocation of things, which science -- and certainly the theory of evolution -- is unable to explain. Only the Bible account of the fall explains it and shows how all man's trouble and distress arise from his own nature, which is fallen and corrupt.

"...BY ONE MAN SIN ENTERED INTO THE WORLD, AND DEATH BY SIN; AND SO DEATH PASSED UPON ALL MEN, FOR THAT ALL HAVE SINNED" (Rom. 5:12).

It is most important for the unsaved to learn this lesson; to learn that it is not merely our sins, but our sin that makes us unfit for the presence of God; not merely our deeds but our nature; not merely what we have done, but what we would do because we are essentially sinful as the children of Adam.
How profoundly grateful we should be, then, that God loves us despite our sins and our sinful natures, and that... "...God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). 

"In whom we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace" (Eph. 1:7).

How God Saves Men
Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4


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ABOLISHED RITES, or SPIRITUAL, NOT CEREMONIAL WORSHIP- by A. H. GOTTSCHALL



ABOLISHED RITES,
or
SPIRITUAL, NOT CEREMONIAL
WORSHIP
by
A. H. GOTTSCHALL
Eighth Edition.
. 1887-1909


" THE law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."—John 1:17.

If Christ abolished types and shadows, why should we still observe them? If we are complete in Christ alone by faith, why should we still cling to fleshy emblems? These are searching questions, which will not be lightly dismissed by the sincere and spiritual-minded believer.

The great Head of the Church said to the woman at the well: "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH."—John 4:23,24.

Every child of God knows that he received Christ by faith, and not in, through, or by any perishable ordinance. Paul most emphatically says : "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so WALK YE IN HIM."—COL 2:6.

It is a mistake to teach that completeness in Christ by faith is not sufficient, but that some rite, ceremony, or type, administered by human hands, is necessary to completeness and obedience.

As well might an artist try to improve on the grandeur of the star-studded canopy of the heavens with his puny brush as a man endeavor to better the finished work of Christ in efforts to make a man more meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light by dipping his body into water, or inviting him to partake of perishable emblems.

When God has finished the work of a soul's salvation, by the mighty agency of His Holy Spirit, through the new birth, and most emphatically teaches in His Word that in the acceptance of His Son as our Saviour, and an implicit soul rest upon the vicarious atonement of Christ, we are complete, who shall say we need something that a man can add to make us more complete or acceptable?

Our worship is now " not of the letter (the law), BUT OF THE SPIRIT: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."-2 Cor. 3:6. " But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."--1 Cor. 2:14.

There need be no literal, fleshly eating, drinking, and washings, or baptisms, now in the worship of God, but we should feast upon Christ BY FAITH. Like the Israelites while in the desert, we should now " all eat the same spiritual meat; And . . drink the same spiritual drink : for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them : and that Rock WAS CHRIST."' Cor. 10:3,4.

" For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink :  BUT RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND PEACE, AND JOY IN THE HOLY GHOST. For HE THAT IN THESE THINGS SERVETH CHRIST IS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD." —Rom. 14:17,18.

" It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; NOT WITH MEATS, WHICH HAVE NOT PROFITED THEM THAT HAVE BEEN OCCUPIED THEREIN. We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle."— Heb. 13:9,10.

Many Christians believe that carnal ordinances are obligatory now : many others do not. But if we have the spirit of Christ, we will not ignore and disfellowship those who differ from us in respect to these outward, earthly things.

It we reject a child of God because he does not see as we do, and because he clings to rituals which we plainly see have been abolished, we are not manifesting the right spirit. On the other hand, if the advocates of ordinances persecute us because we are satisfied with CHRIST ALONE, and reject all fleshly emblems which He abolished, they prove that they are occupied with something besides Christ, that they lack His mind and spirit, and at the same time show that the observance of fleshly ceremonies has not imparted to them the fruits of the Spirit. Every intelligent Bible Christian will acknowledge that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and that we are saved alone by appropriating to ourselves through faith the redeeming merits of His atonement for us on the cross. Then why should we ignore or denounce one another because we do not see alike in what are, at best, but non-essentials, in the great matter of salvation?

It is an evident fact that religious ignorance, hatred, and persecution usually go hand in hand, and nowhere, perhaps, are these traits more prominent than in ordinance advocates. Because Stephen preached down rites and ceremonies, and held up Jesus as being all-sufficient, he was stoned to death; Acts 6:13,14;7:59,60.

The pages of martyrology prove that during the earlier centuries of the Church a countless host of worthies passed up to join the blood-washed throng by way of fire, rack, knife, water, and every invention of cruelty and murder that religious monsters could invent ; and for the very reason that they refused to make an idol of bread and wine. Not less than two hundred and eighty people were publicly burned, or otherwise killed, in England, in 1555 and the three years following, principally because they differed with their religious enemies about the bread and wine. And of the thousands of people said to have been killed directly or indirectly by the fearful persecutions of the Catholic Church in various countries, many of these were slaughtered because of their non-conformity in the sacraments, as history amply proves, and as is shown in other parts of this work.

How much in the dark are people who fancy that they must consume a bite of bread and a sip of wine as a means of remembering the Lord, when His very last message to the Church is : " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and WILL SUP WITH HIM, AND HE WITH ME."—Rev. 3:20.

" Ye are the temple of the living God ; as God hath said, I WILL DWELL IN THEM, AND WALK IN THEM."- 2 Cor. 6:16. If the Lord, then, on His own assertion, dwells and walks in His children in spirit, how unreasonable it is to say that in order to remember Him we must observe a fleshly eating and drinking !

The Catholic Church maintains that the number of ordinances, or sacraments are seven. When Luther and the other early Reformers left Rome they carried two or three of these ordinances along, and left the rest behind. No man or set of men have all the light and truth, and these early Reformers made a grand stride from the yoke of dead rites and ceremonies in dropping four or five of the husks of Catholicism, especially in that dark day of Romish ignorance and superstition. Is it any wonder that later on other discerning Christians should also drop the other two or three as the Quakers and others have done and still do? Many centuries before either Luther or the Quakers appeared, even from the First or Second Centuries on down, as history shows, God has had a people who, discarding the borrowed rites of Judaism, strove to accept Christ as the end of all types and shadows, and aimed to be satisfied with the baptism of the Spirit, and to be fed by faith upon Him who is the BREAD OF LIFE and to seek for that worship which is spiritual and not ritualistic.

Some Christians insist that in the act of observing ordinances they show their humility, and thus make a sacrifice. To the honest, devoted soul there is comfort in the thought that duty is being performed, yet their idea of duty may not have truth for its foundation. Others claim to receive a blessing in the observance of ordinances. This may, in some cases, be true. There is always a comfort and satisfaction in doing what is believed to be right. Loyalty to convictions brings inward composure. But that is no proof against error. Paul lived in good conscience, and thought he was doing God service while cruelly persecuting the Saints.

On this point Burgess well says :

" When a man performs that which his judgment calls upon him to do, he finds great serenity of mind. You must never judge of the truth of any way in religion by the comfort and peace of conscience you find therein ; for all Turks, Jews and heretics have much quietness of conscience in discharging that traditional religion they are brought up in, and would be much troubled in conscience to deny or apostatize from their way." " This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, ARE YE NOW MADE PERFECT BY THE FLESH? "—Gal. 3:2,3.

" For Thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give it : Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are A BROKEN SPIRIT : A BROKEN AND A CONTRITE HEART, 0 God, Thou wilt not despise."— Psa. 51:16,17.

" I am the living bread which came down from Heaven: if any man eat of this bread, HE SHALL LIVE FOREVER.

* * * It is the Spirit that quickeneth; THE FLESH PROFITETH NOTHING : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."—John 6:51,63.

We have nothing but Christian love for those who conscientiously believe that in the observance of outward rites they are obeying and pleasing God, nor would we for a moment tolerate the idea of anything so unchristian as holding aloof from them because of their doctrine and practice in these things. No ; all who know Jesus to the pardoning of their sins are our dear brethren and sisters, irrespective of the observance or non-observance of ordinances.

We can, we trust, worship God in Spirit and in truth by their side, but on the other hand, our freedom in the Spirit must not be fettered by their rituals. Paul, after turning from the rites of the law to the gospel of grace, labored in harmony with some who seemed still to have been of the circumcision; see Col. 4:7-12, but he was not bound by their practice. The poet gives expression to the same sentiments in the old hymn :

" We'll not bind our brother's conscience,

     This to God alone is free ;

Nor contend for non-essentials,

     But in Christ united be."

" Here's my hand, my heart, and spirit ;

     Now in fellowship I'll give ;

Now we love and peace inherit,

     Show the world how Christians live."

The idea that God insists upon a literal water baptism, a literal washing of feet, a literal table, a literal cup, a literal feast of bread and wine, IN A SPIRITUAL DISPENSATION—and that, too, as a means of following, imitating or remembering Him who promises to be ever in and with us spiritually—seems absurd to a spiritual-minded man or woman, providing, of course, that light upon these truths has shown into the soul. We receive light upon divine things only as we want it, ONLY AS WE CAN BEAR IT, ONLY AS WE WILL WALK IN IT.

It is an undeniable fact that too often as Christians grow formal and loose in soul-life they try to make up for it by zealously observing rituals. But as believers, like Samuel, "grow before the Lord" (I Sam. 2:21), they see the hollowness of clinging to outward ceremonies. They are satisfied with Christ, and having Him, they would not (knowingly) dishonor Him by allowing anything emblematic to take His place. " Now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held ; that WE SHOULD SERVE IN NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, and NOT IN THE OLDNESS OF THE LETTER."-ROM. 7:6.

If people, when being occupied with bread made by the hands of a woman, and wine made by the hands of a man, would, like Peter (after observing a type), "remember the word of the Lord" (Acts II:16), they might more fully grasp the meaning, and more fully enjoy the reality of partaking of the real Lord's Supper which Jesus Himself invites us to in Rev. 3:2o, where He says : " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, AND HE WITH ME."

If we have Christ in spirit, why should we cling to any perishable remembrance of Him? Must we consume a bite of bread and a sift of wine as a means of remembering Him whose Word declares that " Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."-2 Cor. 6:16. If we really have Christ by faith, who is the end of everything typical, why should we still cling to the shadow?

Right here is where many Christians make a mistake by adhering to that which was of the Mosaic dispensation, and was never intended to be kept up by the Church in the gospel age. In Acts 15, nineteen years after Christ, the Gentiles were received without the law, or rather declared to be exempt from it, as they had never been under Judaism, but not the Israelites, for in Acts 21, twenty-seven years after the cross, the Jewish believers were keeping the law, and it is only first in Heb. g:io, thirty-one years after the cross, that the law of types is plainly declared to be abolished.

Some Christians seem slow to understand that the rituals of Moses were still observed by the New Testament Christians for years after Christ, but the New Testament plainly declares the fact. Read the fifteenth and twenty-first chapters of Acts. In Acts 18:21 Paul said : " I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem," and in Acts 20:6, he said : " And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread." In Acts 24:18, he says, " Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple." So we see that Paul, with others, at this time, was still observing the law.

" Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God BY FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS."—Gal. 3:23,24,25,26.

Our ordinance brethren so often quote Matt. 11:13, (A. D. 31), " All the prophets and the law prophesied until John," and claim that this text virtually declares the abolishment of the Jewish types, but the text makes no such assertion ; Jesus, in Matthew 23:2,3 (A. D. 33), moreover says, " The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." Again, Mark 1 :44, " Show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a TESTIMONY UNTO THEM." Here we see that the Jewish law was still in force after John's appearance, and JESUS HIMSELF RECOGNIZED IT.

Others say that the observance of Mosaic rituals actually ceased at the cross. Neither is correct, for we find the rites and ceremonies of the law zealously observed by the believing Jews for years after Calvary, as has already been shown. While Christ in very deed did abolish rites and ceremonies at the cross, the time for their actual cessation was not declared till Heb. 9:10, thirty-one years later.

" A testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. —Heb. 9:17. The Christian Church, or dispensation, may, in a sense, be said to have grown out of the Jewish, and the washings, or baptisms, and the Passover Supper of that ceremonial system, seems to have been so implanted into the minds and customs of some, that they may not always have been fully dropped by all. Indeed in the Second and Third Centuries, as history asserts, there began a lapsing back into old customs, and a trust in ceremonies. This leaning toward Judaism and its ceremonies became more marked later on as Catholicism came to the front, especially from the Third Century on, and by this latter system rites and ceremonies were greatly increased and magnified. Many of the more modern Reformers never fully cut loose from the ceremonies of Judaism and Catholicism, but carried some of them, namely, water baptism and the supper, along out with them.

This backward movement on the part of the Early Church is, as we find, first mentioned in history as appearing in A. D. 140, 15o, 175. Neander, the great German ecclesiastical historian says :

" Christianity having sprung to freedom out of the envelope of Judaism, had stripped off the forms in which it was first concealed. This evolution belonged more particularly to the Pauline position. The Jewish principles which had been vanquished, pressed in once more from another quarter. Humanity was as yet incapable of maintaining itself at that lofty position of 'Sure spiritual religion. The Jewish position descended nearer to the mass. This recasting of the Christian spirit in the Old Testament form did not take place, it is true, everywhere uniformly alike. In general, the more men fell back from the evangelical to the Jewish point of view, the more must the original free constitution of the communities, grounded in those original Christian views, become changed. We find Cyprian (A. D. 250) already completely imbued with the notions which sprung out of this confounding together of the different points of view of the Old and New Testaments."

Seemingly with the adoption of rites and ceremonies from Judaism in the Second Century, the Early Church rapidly drifted into what later became Catholicism, cropping out more and more from the Third Century forward. The priesthood that came into power evidently seeing that a code of rituals was advantageous in maintaining priestly prestige, rule and power, added ceremonies to their hearts' content, and seem to have convinced their following that it was all of Divine approval. Baptismal regeneration, penance, purgatory, and the whole system of Popish emptiness, followed in course of time.

Later on down the line of time, says D'Aubigne, the French historian, (died 1630): " Indulgences were more or less an extraordinary branch of Roman commerce ; the sacraments were a staple commodity. The revenue they produced was of no small account."

Mosheim, the great German ecclesiastical historian (died 1755) says : " It is certain that to religious worship, both public and private, many rites were added, without necessity, and to the great offense of sober and good men. The principal cause of this I readily look for in the Perverseness of mankind, who are more delighted with the pomp and splendor of external forms than with the true devotion of the heart ; and who despise whatever does not gratify their eyes and ears. Also, there is good reason to suppose that the Christian bishops multiplied sacred rites for the sake of rendering the Jews and the Pagans more friendly to them, for both had been accustomed to numerous and splendid ceremonies from their infancy, and had no doubt that they constituted AN ESSENTIAL PART OF RELIGION.

Hence, when they saw the new religion TO BE destitute of such ceremonies they thought it too simple, and therefore despised it."

" The simplicity of the worship which Christians offered to the Deity had given occasion to certain calumnies, spread abroad both by the Jews and Pagan priests. The Christians were pronounced atheists, because they were destitute of temples, altars, victims, priests, and all the pomp in which the vulgar suppose the essence of religion to consist. To silence this accusation the Christian doctors thought they must introduce SOME EXTERNAL RITES, which would strike the sense of the People, so that they could maintain that they really had all those things of which Christians are charged with being destitute; though under different forms. Also, it was well known that in the books of the New Testament, various Parts of the Christian religion are expressed by terms borrowed from the Jewish laws, and are in some measure compared with the Jewish rites."

" In process of time, either from ignorance or motives of policy, the majority maintained that such phraseology was not figurative, but accordant with the nature of things. Bishops were called high priests, and the presbyters, priests, and deacons, Levites. In a little time, those to whom these titles were given maintained that they had the same rank and dignity, and possessed the same rights and privileges with those who bore these titles under the Mosaic dispensation. Also, from the Greek Mysteries the Christians were led to claim similar mysteries, and they began to apply the terms used in the Pagan mysteries to Christian institutions, particularly baptism and the Lord's Supper! They also introduced the other rites designated in those terms, and a large part of the Christian observances of this (Second) Century had the appearance of the Pagan mysteries!"

Dr. Robison, the Baptist historian, on this line says: " Unconnected as baptism may seem to be with all this, it was, however, the chief instrument of acquiring power and producing a revolution in favor of pontifical dominion. By this the hierarchy was formed, and by this, and not by argument, was chiefly supported. Pope Sylvester dedicated the first edifice to the Romanizing (Judaizing) party, November g. It was named after Solomon's temple, to distinguish it from idol temples. Also, for the same reason, a painting or statue of Jesus was placed there !—probably the true origin of pictures, images, and all ecclesiastical idolatry."

" A wooden table there was called an altar, and they denominated those who officiated there Levites. The same effects which the baptistery had produced at Rome followed in all other cities, as Venice, Naples, Florence, Pisa, Milan, Boulogne, Viterba, Modena, Verona, Ravenna, Aquileia, and many other cities. The priest of the congregation that claimed the baptisteries became a prelate ; the other priests in the city his clergy ; some of them were called his cardinal ' priests and deacons, chiefly because they assisted him to administer baptism. From these sprang suffragans, prebendaries, canons! chapters, conclaves and councils. Cardinals derived their titles from baptismal churches."

" The city fashion of building baptisteries was, as all fashions are, soon imitated by country towns. The bishop of the city baptismal church inspected and regulated the affairs of the town churches, and provided them with teachers and administrators of ordinances, and generally supplied them with oils and ointments from the metropolitan baptist try. The fetching of this chrism at Easter from the city baptistery, became in time an evidence to prove the dependence of these baptisteries on that in the city. The bishop who supplied the baptisteries acquired the most parishes. It was the baptistery, precisely, and neither the parsonage house nor the church, which constituted the title to the whole. For this reason baptismal churches are called Titular churches. All these baptisteries were dedicated to John the Baptist (an ante-Christian, Jewish priest) and not to Christ."

Dr. J. T. Hendricks in his work on baptism says : " The religion of Christ was a religion of principles. The religion of the Fathers, even in the Second Century, became a religion of sacraments or ceremonies, as the Catholic religion now is. The first symptom of decay in religion, at that time, was, as it ever has been, a revival of the ritual or ceremonial part. Principles and sacraments in religion never can be kept abreast of each other, they will not remain in a state of equipoise, the spiritual part will be thrown back, and retire, and the merest formalities and grossest superstitions will follow. No sooner than Christ had died, even before His immediate disciples died, this leaven of Judaism began to work itself into the Church, and did leaven the whole lump, and continued down to the Reformation."

Some Christians, and many of them well meaning, erroneously teach that Jesus instituted carnal ordinances for His Church to observe during this dispensation ; but let us observe what God's Word says, whether it conflicts with the popular belief or not. It is truth that we must deal with, and not what even many good and well-meaning people may think, do, or teach. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."—Rom. 10:4.

" Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances."—Eph. 2:15.

Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings (Greek and German, baptisms), and carnal ordinances, imposed On them UNTIL THE TIME OF REFORMATION."—Heb. 9:10.

" Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances THAT WAS AGAINST US, WHICH WAS CONTRARY TO US, and took it out of the way, NAILING IT TO HIS CROSS." —Col. 2:14.

" Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, WHY, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (TOUCH NOT; TASTE NOT; HANDLE NOT; Which are all to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?"—Col. 2:20,21,22.

Dr. E. B. Turner, a Congregational minister, in a discourse entitled " Forms not Religion," says : " No part of the Mosaic religion was designed to be perpetuated but its principles. Her forms and ceremonies having now become of no importance, have become obsolete. The entire absence of any prescribed forms in the New Testament indicate it. If any particular external modes of exemplifying and perpetuating the doctrines of the Gospel had been designed, would they not have been the subject of express instruction? Of what use are principles, which cannot, through defect of the means of applying them, be made of practical utility? And if any fixed forms were intended to be established, and to be made perpetual in all countries and ages, is it probable that we should be left without any written formularies on the subject? Who will undertake to show that there are any such formularies in the New Testament? Who will say that they are so clearly defined that he who runneth may read?' "

Jesus says : —  "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."—John 13:34,35.

Any one may observe fleshly ordinances, but the new commandment of  "Love one another," only Christians who have the spirit of Christ can observe. Jesus plainly declared that upon the two commandments, Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And * * * thy neighbor as thyself, * * hang all the law and the prophets.''—Matt. 22:37,39,40.

Again in Mark 12:31, concerning these two commandments of love to God and man, it is said, There is none other commandment greater than these."

It is true that many godly men and women believe in these outward things, and observe them in good faith, not realizing that Jesus forever put away typical worship, and that the New Testament declares legal observances blotted out. We are responsible only for what we see and understand, but when light dawns, then we are responsible for our use of it.

On the other hand, there always was, in all probability, a " little flock " who worshiped God in spirit and in truth, ignoring outward, fleshly ceremonies, and in all likelihood, there will always be " a little flock " of similar heart and mind. But if we have the spirit of Christ, we will not reject those who differ from us upon these non-essentials. It is not observing ordinances, or laying them aside, that makes a Christian, but it is having the new birth—the life of God within the soul.

Chambers' Encyclopaedia says : " Some early Christian sects appear to have rejected baptism on grounds somewhat similar to those on which it is rejected by Quakers at the present clay, who explain the passages which relate to it symbolically, and insist that a spiritual baptism is the only real baptism of Christians."

Though not a Quaker, or a member of the Society of Friends, we indorse this their doctrine, and certainly love and respect them for the spirit of Christ, the uprightness of life, and the peaceful and benevolent characteristics so universally attributed to them by Christians in general. The first Quakers landed in America, at Boston, July, 1656, and disseminated their views with zeal and success. William Penn, Quaker preacher and author, the founder and first Governor of Pennsylvania, and the City of Philadelphia, might be called the leading representative of the Friends in America in his day.

The Quakers teach salvation to be obtained only through the death and merits of Christ. They accept the Bible as the work of inspiration and rule of faith and life, believing that in this, the new covenant dispensation, the baptism which embodies saving merit is not that of water, but that of the Spirit ; and that the true communion is not partaking of bread and wine, but spiritual feasting upon Christ by faith.

The census of 1880 gives the number of Quakers or Friends in the United States as 72,098, and the number of meeting places as 736. A number of these " meeting houses," as the Quakers call their church buildings, are situated in Philadelphia, one of the early cradles of Quakerism in America and perhaps still one of their strongholds in this country. Many Quakers, too, are found in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and in other countries.

John Wesley, in his diary, Aug. 1o, 1739, says : " I had the satisfaction of conversing with a Quaker. O, may those in every persuasion, who are of this spirit, increase a thousand-fold." In the same diary he says: " Thursday, Sept. 22, 1743 : As we were riding through a village called Stickpath, one stopped me in the street and asked, Is not thy name John Wesley?' Immediately two or three more came up and told me I must stop there. I did so, and before we had spoke many words, our souls took acquaintance with each other. I found they were Quakers, but that hurt not me ; seeing the love of God was in their hearts." Again Wesley says in his diary, of June 24, 1742: " I rode to Painswick, where in the evening I declared to all those who had been fighting and troubling one another about rites and ceremonies and modes of worship and opinions, The kingdom of God IS NOT MEAT AND DRINK, but RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND PEACE AND JOY IN THE HOLY GHOST."' Again John Wesley says : " He that truly trusts in Christ cannot fall short of the grace of God, even though he were cut off from every outward ordinance —though he were shut up in the centre of the earth. There is no power in means ; separate from God it is a dry leaf—a shadow, and in itself a poor, dead, empty thing. My belief is no rule for another. I ask not of him with whom I would unite in love, are you of my church? of my congregation? If thou lovest God and all mankind, I ask no more ; give me thine hand. So far as in conscience thou canst (retaining still thine own opinions) join with me in the work of God, and let us go hand in hand."

Wesley's spirit and attitude towards the Quakers were certainly God-like, for the Scripture plainly declares : " Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of Persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him, AND WORKETH RIGHTEOUSNESS, is accepted with him."  —Acts 10:34,35. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."-2 Cor. 3:17.

The Society of Friends, or Quakers, arose in England. Concerning these people, ecclesiastical history says :

" They spread very rapidly in Great Britain and Ireland, as well as largely in the American Colonies. Their great apostle and founder, George Fox, was a man of intense earnestness in his investigation of religious truth, willing to go wherever the truth, as he understood it, might lead him, and to bear any reproach that might be laid on him because of his profession. At first the followers of Fox called themselves Seekers, as indicating their desire to discover the truth. The epithet Quakers was early applied to them by enemies as a term of derision and reproach. George Fox was unquestionably a good man, and sincerely aimed at discovering the primitive truths and practices which had been overlaid in the course of centuries. In his- own manifold journeyings and preachings through the country he attracted many by his evident sincerity, no less than by his eloquence, and led them to embrace his views."

" In 1647 he began his missionary career, and in eight years afterward ministers of the new society were spreading their doctrine in various parts of Europe. They endured with calm patience most grievous suffering and oppression. As many as thirty-four hundred of these earnest, God-fearing people were confined in noisome prisons, and many of them died as martyrs to their faith."

" Their meetings were broken up, their persons were assaulted, and they were treated with all forms of indignity and contempt. The society spread very rapidly in England, and when William Penn founded the Colony of Pennsylvania, the cause extended under his influence on this Continent. In New England and other sections of the American Colonies, they became numerous. Strange as it seems, even in New England their trials were most severe ; a godly woman and three men of culture and earnest piety were actually hanged on Boston Commons for their faith."

Of course, the Quakers who arose in 1647 were not the first to discard the rites and ceremonies carried over from Judaism, and to advocate the worship of God in spirit and in truth, because history proves that from the early centuries on down there has been a people who maintained the same truth.

The following brief extracts are gleaned from " Ritualism Dethroned," by William B. Orvis, (a college-trained Doctor of Divinity) published in 18751880. The work is probably the most able and complete one on the abolishment of rites and ceremonies ever issued. Its ancient and modern testimony as gleaned by its author in a wide field during his researches covering a period of one-third of a century, are very valuable. The work embodies 2 vols. of 754 pages.

The author died some years ago. Whether or not he has a monument of stone we cannot say, but he has left a monument in his work "Ritualism Dethroned" which we hope will never be obliterated, and we pray that the precious truths it embodies may ever have adherents. This Baptist Doctor of Divinity says :

" Ordinances, by Protestants so called, are simply borrowed Judaisms, undefined as to time and manner in the early Christian Church (being pre-defined only by the law of Moses), contingent as to observance in the Early Church, and received from, and ranked with, the other ceremonies of the prior dispensation ; and therefore are not „Positive institutions, nor of any binding force in the Christian Church."

" The writer was also a Pharisee of the Pharisees, made under the law of ritualism—a Baptist of the straitest sect and regular order, coming with all the credentials of baptism, and ordination, and theological parchments, and of ritual observances according to the appointed order of sect worshiping—an Hebrew of the Hebrews, touching the ceremonial law. But all these he now counts loss for Christ and truth, and takes the ground that the Christian Dispensation knows no ordinances, or ritual law."

" Christianity is, and must be, in the nature of things, a spiritual religion. Its seat and subject is the inner man! It is not in the letter, but in the spirit. Nothing outward or extrinsic strictly belongs to it. Its precepts and commands, each and all, inculcate principles, or the spread of principles to the heart-renovation, or spiritual regeneration of man."

" The circumstances of God's people in Palestine once demanded a Ceremonial Law, and that law was instituted, and inhered in a system we now term Judaism; but Christianity knows no such ceremonial law, no more than it knows the ceremonies of pagan worship which were cotemporary with Judaism. Christ, the Teacher and Redeemer of all, broke down all these ceremonial walls of partition."

" Towering walls of bigotry and sect are built around rituals, called ordinances, and sacraments, like the flaming sword around the tree of life, lest any man come, and eat and live. Ostensibly the wall is built, lest the sacrament be defiled, or its sanctity be trampled on, which mockery of pretense if there be amazement in Heaven, surely all Heaven stands amazed at such exclusion and sacrifice of souls, for whom Christ died, for the sake of saving a dead form —a ritual ! which thus proves a curse to all who so idolize it."

" Dost thou think that God has commanded all Saints to join some church that has a ritualistic door, and to pass through that door? If so, which is the church? Is it the Congregational Church? or the Baptist Church? or the Presbyterian Church? or the Episcopal Church? or the Methodist Church? or which of the forty or fifty extant orders of the Protestant Church? or the Greek, the Lutheran, or the Papal Churches? If Paul were to return to earth, which would he decide to be, the canonical Church? or Jesus, the Great Head? Perhaps, He would select (elect) your church and your baptism, and meekly inform all the others that they were not acceptable in His sight. Thinkest thou this, O, vain man and bigot?"

" Christ's baptism of the Spirit is demonstratively purifying and uniting, while ritual baptism and all sacramentarianism is as demonstratively the reverse. Eating Christ's body by faith in Him who is invisible (the Bread from Heaven), demonstratively gives life, while eating sacraments (bread of earthly elements), as demonstratively gives self-complacency, a censorious spirit, and divisive, and a false idea of the work and will of Christ."

" He is a poor student of the New Testament who does not see that therein the whole ritual, or ceremonial law of the Old Testament is set aside as cumbersome, and as a thing of naught to the Christian Church? And if any writer will point to us where a ritual law is re-established in the same Testament, marking its form and outline, to the intent that it may be practically apprehended as thus far from God and no farther, and just to what extent (when, where and how) the will of Christ, the Great Head of the Christian Church, would have us interested in it, we will meekly and thankfully sit at his feet and learn."

"This talk about sacraments has no warrant in the New Testament. Is there any word in the New Testament that answers to the word sacraments, or declares who shall administer them? Is not the idea wholly Popish and priestly? Ordinances are named in the New Testament, but ever as Jewish, and to be disregarded and renounced. And, when reassumed in after centuries, the appeal is not to Christ's, or apostolic authority, but to tradition. Of this we have abundant proof. It might be assumed in advance that a new dispensation (for all the world) would not be ritualistic like the old (the Jewish), and that Christ would not give a law to make bigots and sectarists, or to befool the unconverted with a vain hope of a ritual regeneration. Can any one assent to the proposition that the commission to convert the world was given a baptismal sheath? or that Christ's Spirit can be circumscribed by a ritual? There can be no sacrament but spiritually feeding on Christ. No sacred shrines or fonts, or forms—souls sanctified only are sacred. The heavenly life is not run in the narrow mould of a creed, or guarded and guided and bounded by a rite. Christ has not put salvation at the mercy of human frailty and shortsightedness, or in the power of priestly arrogance thus. No man's spiritual good is at the disposal of any administrator of rites."

" Every student of history knows that strifes about who shall administer baptism, how they shall administer baptism, and when they shall administer baptism, and what adjuncts shall attend it, have been rife for 17oo years. He knows that baptism has been administered in sanctuaries and out of sanctuaries ; by bishops, priests, and deacons ; to persons sick and well, living and dying ; infants and adults ; by affusion, by immersion, by sprinkling, by putting bodies into water, and applying water to bodies ; by trine immersion, and by single immersion ; by immersing with the face downward, and immersing with the face upwards ; immersing persons naked, and immersing persons clothed ; sprinkling with blood, with sand, and with tears ; following baptism with chrism, sign of the cross, white robes, confirmation, holy kiss, honey and milk, and other mummeries too numerous to mention ; and that in all these ages disputes about all these modes and adjuncts have been rife. Is this ritual then (and the supper, about which as many conceits and as many disputes have arisen) found woven into Paul's lofty catholic position, to secure the unity and purity of the Church?—to educate and train the Church to that higher spiritual life which she could not maintain, without going back to these carnal elements? "

" Where, we again ask, does the New Testament thus teach, or establish and define a law of sacraments? The evidence simply is, that Judaizers have interpolated them, and that the doctrine of baptism as a Christian ordinance, and of baptismal regeneration, was resorted to by the priesthood to gain power—to increase converts to their flocks and creeds—seizing even infants from their birth and before, to write their mark upon them, with most disgusting details of ceremonial adjuncts."

Surely this is a strong, bold master stroke against the observances of all fleshly ordinances, and coming, too, from a classical scholar, a college-bred Baptist Doctor of Divinity, armed with all the credentials of ordination and theological parchments. Under the head of " WATER BAPTISM " and also under the head of " THE LORD'S SUPPER," other extracts from his work, " Ritualism Dethroned," are hereinafter inserted with due credit.

Chillingworth says : " If this resting in outward performances was so odious to God under the law, a religion full of shadows and ceremonies, certainly it will be much more odious to do so under the gospel, a religion of much more simplicity, and exacting so much the greater sincerity of the heart, even because it disburdens the outward man of the performance of legal rites and observances."

Swinnock says : " When corn runs into straw and chaff, those that feed on it may well be thin and lean. When religion runs into formalities and ceremonies, her followers can never be thriving spiritually."

Bishop J. H. Vincent says : " There are people who exalt forms and ceremonies in religious worship, forgetting that parrots can talk, Aeolian harps emit sweet sounds, and sparrows chatter."

Preston says : " There are men who cannot see the body for the clothing, the signification of the spirit for the letter, the sword for the sheath, the kernel for the shell. They cannot see Christ but in the outward bark and rind of ritual observances and ceremonies, in the shell of them ; and so they become unprofitable servants."


How God Saves Men
Believing Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
Believing Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.

Read Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4


(A 10 Minute Video)

Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
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