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“The New Man is renewed by exact knowledge, (eis epignosin,) after the image of his Creator.”—Paul.
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“THE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.”
OR THE LITTLE VALIANTS OF TENNESSEE EXTINGUISHED.
“The Christian Publication Society of Tennessee,” is an association of persons in that State which affixes its seal to the traditions of our friends Scott and Campbell, attesting that they are the very truth itself. This association styles itself “Christian,” and professes to be devoted to “the spread of the Gospel.” Christian and gospel are fashionable terms of general application, and inscribed in the nomenclature of every form and variety of superstition in Anti-christendom. These words, in the theological use of them, no longer represent the ideas attached to them in apostolic times. Were we not therefore in possession of some of the publications of this society, we should be at a loss to know what sort of Christianity it professed, or what kind of gospel it laboured to disseminate. We know what the word christian represents in the Bible, and we know, too, what gospel is exhibited there; so that when we contemplate this society in its publications, we are prompted to exclaim, “Jesus we know, and Paul we know; but who are ye?” We see the seven sons of Sceva associated to adjure men by Jesus whom Paul preached; but we find neither the doctrine nor the gospel which they proclaimed for the obedience of faith. “Who are ye,” ye exorcists of Tennessee? Ye, who undertake to extract the mote from the eye of others, and behold not the beam in your own! “Christian,” you say, and spreaders of the gospel—What gospel? The gospel of the extatic revelry of dead men’s ghosts in the Milky Way! The gospel oracularised from “the chair of Sacred History”—mere college divinity bewitched!
As this society, then, spreads a peculiar gospel, which gives character to its Christianity, it should be styled, not “Christian,” but “The Bethanian Sky-Kingdom Publication Society of Tennessee.” By this designation its nature and mission would be defined, and no mistake. The public would know its real character and position, and be no more imposed upon by its substitution of a tinsel imitation for the pure, untarnished, gold of truth.
The organ of this society of Bethanists is a monthly periodical, published at Nashville, styled “The Christian Magazine.” It is well printed, and, if trimmed by the binder, would be decidedly neat. It contains about two pages and a half more typography, upon eight pages more paper, than the Herald; and is enclosed in a bright yellow cover. These artistic qualities are all we can see in it attractive. It comes to us periodically, which reminds us it exists. We look at the captions of the articles, and if we perceive any thing “taking,” we cut asunder the leaves and try to read. We find it, however, impossible, for the most part, to wade over much surface. To a student of the prophets and apostles “The Christian Magazine” is perfectly unreadable. There is an attempt at “fine writing” in a pious strain; but from whatever point the writers set out the print is sure to merge into Bethany traditions; which, having become as stale and insipid as “old wives’ fables,” are perfectly intolerable to the “taught of God.” Being thoroughly acquainted with them in the original, we cannot afford the time, and do not possess the patience, nor have we the ability to imbibe them anew, in the watery hash cooked up for the public by “The Bethanian Sky-Kingdom Publication Society of Tennessee,” and served out to them in its Magazine.
For the first time, for a long period, we discovered something amusing, if not edifying, in a recent number, which has induced us to bestow this passing notice upon the Society and its Magazine. It is known to our readers and to those of the Bethany Millennial Harbinger, a pretty numerous company in the United States, that our valiant friend, the President, after possessing a copy of “Elpis Israel” about two years, plucked up courage to draw his wooden sword to see how it would handle against it! Being “old field pine,” a wood all sap, he found his weapon very dull, light, and fragile; nevertheless, being a right valiant fencer, he thought the weight and power of his arm, and the terror of his mighty name, would compensate the inferiority of his weapon, and be the death of his adversary from very fright! Our friend is a perfect Goliath of Gath, boldly defiant of Israel’s armies, and willing to extinguish their Hope in the twinkling of an eye! It did the Philistines good to see the champion flourish his wooden claymore with stalwart prowess at Elpis; and before it was discovered that the rapid gyrations played off in bringing it from the “draw” to “cut one” had shivered it to flinders, they set up a shout, as though the battle had been fought and the victory won! Animated by this illusion, every uncircumcised Philistine became a Goliath! Even they had only to grin at Israel’s Hope and it would be no more! Among these little valiants was one of the “conductors of the Christian Magazine,” rejoicing in the initials “J.B.F.” Seeing the big Goliath at fence, he must try his hand too! He had not discerned the flinders of the giant’s weapon sporting in the wind, or he might have become prudent as the better part of valour; but bent on his own pantomime, he swelled into a bigger Goliath than his original, and forthwith flourished his lath to the terror of every suckling in Gath and her sister Askelon!
In the March number of the Magazine this redoubtable Philistine has two pages and a half of foolishness under the caption of “Religious Phases Extraordinary,” which he introduces with a flourish of quotations, singularly applicable to himself and company, who have, indeed, departed from the faith giving heed to deceiving spirits, and to doctrines of disembodied ghosts (daimonion.)—1 Timothy 4: 1. After moralising upon ambition and merit, he snaps his mimic sword against the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come. Following in the wake of Goliath, he runs a tilt against “the literal throne of David with our Messiah upon it.” He does this in presenting his readers with a perverted and burlesque summary of the subjects treated of in this paper, taking care not to omit the “non-resurrection of infants, idiots, and pagans; and the final annihilation of all the wicked.” This is done for effect. Being destitute of testimony and reason, he flippantly addresses himself to the blind propensities of the weak-minded, with whom the feelings of the flesh are the supreme law in morals, politics, and religion. There is nothing in the notice to grapple with, for it is impossible to deal with an interjection, a laugh, or a sneer. He has no proposition to be examined, nor does he attempt to show that any thing we have affirmed is untenable, or contrary to “the word of the kingdom.” He says, we seem to rank as a prince among the saints of the Lord. We humbly trust it may not only seem so, but prove to be a reality when the Lord comes. He terms the name of this periodical “the wonderful title.” It is doubtless. It announces a wonderful truth—that in the Age to Come the God of heaven intends to set up a Kingdom by Jesus Christ, which shall supersede all others. This wonderful truth, destined to become an accomplished fact by His agency, whose name is “the Wonderful,” is the sling-stone to carry dismay into the souls off the Philistines, uncircumcised of heart and ears. Against this holy and glorious truth of God, this christian conductor of the Magazine has nothing to offer but an infidel exclamation and a sneer. He admits we have “read the prophets often and anxiously;” but hints that it has only been for sinister purposes; and plainly avers his belief, that we are “under the influence of an ambition that earth cannot gratify.” This is a strange averment after admitting that our hopes are bounded by Messiah’s reign on earth. If he had said, “an ambition that the present constitution of earth cannot gratify,” he would have said truly. He must be “earthly, sensual, and devilish,” that can be satisfied with it; for nothing but “the wisdom from beneath” experiences civility and respect at present. Our ambition, he says, “has led to the adoption of the crudest fables of Jewish dotage and fancies of modern scepticism.” Thus, after the example of our friend his master, this unbeliever speaks of the restoration off the Kingdom again to Israel, the reestablishment off the throne of David on Mount Zion, the annunciation of Gabriel concerning Jesus, and immortality the gift of God to those only who believe and obey the truth. With him, these are but “the crude fables of Jewish dotage, and fancies of modern scepticism!” Are we not justified in saying that such men as he are ignorant of “what be the first principles off the oracles of God?” They know nothing of religion, and never will know any thing of it, till they become as little children, and humble themselves to be taught of God through the writings of his holy prophets. Marvellous spreaders of the gospel indeed! —blasphemers of the very things it proclaims as good news to Israel and the Nations. Surely, if Jehovah laughed at the vain efforts of Herod and Pontius Pilate, heaven’s conclave must echo with shouts of derision, when the angels hear earth’s reputed wise ones aver, that David’s throne is in the nebulous centre of boundless space, and his son Jesus now sitting upon it and reigning over the house of Jacob forever! Do they not apostrophise such folly, and exclaim, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken?!”
In Paul’s day there were “christians” who “preached another Jesus” as well as “another gospel”—2 Corinthians 11: 4. It is so even now. —The Jesus of the Tennessee Publication Society is not the Jesus whom Paul preached. Paul preached a Jesus to whom as yet all things are not subject, though even now crowned with glory and honour—Hebrews 2: 8-9—he preached a Jesus who shall be revealed from heaven with the angel’s of his power to destroy the Apostasy and its Chief—1 Thessalonians 1: 10; 3: 13; 4: 16; 2 Thessalonians 1: 7; 2: 3, 8—he preached Jesus prophesied of by Isaiah who shall reign over the nations, when they and Israel shall rejoice together—Romans 15: 10-12. Read Isaiah eleventh; also the ninth, tenth and eleventh verses of the fortieth chapter; the first seven verses of the forty-second; the first twelve verses of the forty-ninth; the sixty-first and sixty-second chapters, and the first six verses off the sixty-third. This is the Jesus whom Paul preached—one who came in weakness and humility, but is again to come in power as Jehovah’s servant to perform an appointed work—to smite the nations with the sword of Israel, to build up David’s throne, to restore his Kingdom, to give laws to the world, to enlighten mankind, to establish peace, and with his resurrected brethren to “govern the nations upon earth” as the kings and priests of God—Psalm 22: 27-28; 67: 4; Revelation 5: 10; 2: 26-27; 11: 15; 20: 4. This is not the Jesus preached by Bethanists and other sectaries. They preach a Jesus who was crucified and rose again, whose mission was so to do, to save ghosts from fire and brimstone who, before their disembodiment, believed that he died for sin and rose again for their justification; and then to depart to a mystic throne of a mystic David, to return no more to earth till the time came to destroy it by fire and so exterminate it from the universe of God! Here are two characters with two distinct and opposite missions proclaimed under the same name—the one character answering to the description of the prophets and apostles, and preached by Paul; the other, answering to the portraiture of neither, and imposed upon the public as Jesus Christ by “J. B. F.” and other blind guides of the apostasy, whom he and the rest who burn incense to the people’s idols, delight to honour. We cannot know Jesus personally till he comes again; if we know him at all, then, it must be as a character described. Which description doth the reader confess—Isaiah and Paul’s, or that of the college-evangelicals? The latter are profoundly ignorant of the prophets, and consequently do not understand the apostles. Hence the character they describe is an unscriptural one, and therefore to be rejected. If you believe in the Jesus of the “sacred desks” you do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible, for they are diverse. “J. B. F.” is therefore at fault in saying that we teach the establishment of the literal throne of David with one he styles “OUR Messiah” upon it. We don’t believe in his Messiah, nor in the Tennessee Society’s Messiah, nor in any collegiate Messiah. We believe in the Messiah of Moses and the prophets whom Paul preached—in that Jesus Christ who is to come and raise the dead, build up the tabernacle of David and set up its ruins “as in the days of old.” We teach that this is the Messiah who is to sit upon his father David’s throne in Mount Zion. We do not teach that the sectarian or Gentile Jesus is to sit there. If their Jesus were to appear, and declare that he intended to reign in “old Jerusalem,” the preachers would not permit it, if they could hinder it. For they don’t believe in such a reign, which they ridicule as monstrous and absurd. They would be for sending him back beyond the skies with all haste, for to remain on earth would be to convict them of being fools and blind.
After characterising the things we sustain by testimony and reason, as “the crudest fables of Jewish dotage and fancies of modern scepticism,” he continues in the next sentence to remark, “we have never read his Elpis Israel, however,” that is, as implied by the adverb, “we undertake to affirm what he teaches in Elpis Israel, notwithstanding we have never read it.” So much for prejudice. This is quite in keeping with his master, our intuitive friend the President! He thought he knew what was in Elpis Israel before he read it, but to his mortification he has found himself deceived. Men who give judgment concerning things before they have acquainted themselves with them are neither honest nor well-informed. Why do not our calumniators meet us like honourable men, and convince us of error, or the public of our errors, in fair and open controversy? Let them cease their dastardly appeals to prejudice, and come forward with their strong reasons, and irrefutable prophetic and apostolic testimony, and overwhelm us with argument and truth. There are Elpis Israels and Heralds in Nashville and Bethany, let the enemy then quote them honestly, if possible, and contravene their positions if they can. Dare they do this, and admit us to try the temper of the spirit’s two-edged blade upon the weapons they may flourish in the fight? O infatuate their courage, Lord, and bring them to the contest, that through their defeat thy truth may be caused to shine brighter and brighter to the perfect day!
EDITOR.
