MODERN SERMONISING.
NUMBER 2.
As a faithful chronicler of what is passing in the religious world, especially among those who claim to be par excellence Bible Christians, and to plant themselves on the Bible alone, as their exclusive rule of faith and practice, the ‘Herald,’ may be expected to keep your readers informed of the kind of faith and preaching, the ‘Reformers’ now serve up to the public in their stated ministrations. Tributary to this object, I ask space to say that about a week ago, I heard a ‘sermon’ delivered in this town by Mr. R. L. Coleman—one of the authorised expositors off the Reformation creed—a brief sketch of which only, I propose to offer.
After reading portions of Luke’s testimony in 18th and 19th chapters, stopping at the 11th verse of the latter chapter, just in time, it would seem, to save from utter confusion and contradiction, his cherished dogma of a Pentecostian Kingdom; the verses following, from the 11th to 16th inclusive, proving incontestably that the kingdom could not be set up until the Lord (the ‘nobleman’ of the parable) should ‘return’ (15th verse) from the right hand of God, where he now sits, he commenced his address by declaring that ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote to convince the world that Jesus Christ was the Messiah—the Son of God.’ I marvel that one so well acquainted with the testimony in the case, should have again stopped short of giving the Evangelists’ whole testimony as to the object of their biography, as stated by one of them. ‘These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ—the Son of God and believing ye might have life through his name.’—John 20: 31. Was the omission to quote these last words of the verse occasioned by the Preacher’s belief in the Pagan dogma of an ‘immortal soul’ already in man, which, of course, renders the having ‘life through his name,’ a matter of but little moment. If so, Mr. Coleman is consistent, for truly, if we have life—even eternal life—as we must have in our immortal souls, the mission of Jesus is among the Romish ‘works of supererogation!’ to that complexion, it must come at last. Truly, may we not ask, of what profit is it to us, to know that ‘Jesus is the Son of God,’ unless we learn also, that ‘through HIM we may have life’—that He only ‘hath the words of eternal life’ and that ‘this life is in (not out of) God’s Son.’
Discarding all connexion between Jesus—his name and Mission and our having life through him—which his immortal soul creed obliges him to do—the preacher gave a loose rein to his fancy in setting forth the object of the Christ’s Mission into this world. This he described comprehensively in these words, ‘Jesus Christ came down from Heaven to carry men up to Heaven.’ Alas! alas! what is become of the creed of ‘this Reformation’ which used to embrace this prominent item. —‘If any man speak let him speak as the oracles of God’—1 Peter 4: 11. Where, let us pause and ask, where do ‘the oracles of God’ declare that such was any part of the Mission of Jesus? Is it in John 3: 13, where Jesus himself says ‘No man hath ascended up to Heaven?’ or in Acts 2: 34, where it is written, of a better man than this age can probably furnish, ‘David is not ascended into the Heavens?’ or in Proverbs 11: 31, where it is written, ‘The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; much more the wicked and the sinner.’
Is it not incumbent on Mr. Coleman to show his authority for the assertion above quoted? He is of age that we may ‘ask him.’ He is the editor of a paper, where he can be heard before thee public and he is as all know, a gentleman of intelligence and independence—has been for many years a student and an expounder of the Scriptures, and there is no reason to doubt his sincerity and honesty in advocating the system he preaches. Let him show himself a man of candour, and willing to bring his creed to the test off the written word, by presenting these objections to his readers and proving they are unfounded. —The Bible does not contradict itself, yet what is quoted above is directly and flatly contradictory to his assertion that Jesus came to carry men up to Heaven. If He came for this purpose, let him show how men went to Heaven before Jesus came—such as Abraham, Noah, Moses, Job, &c., or does he mean to say that they have ascended since Jesus came. If so, where is the proof? If indeed good men go to Heaven at death, as he affirms, let him explain or account for Paul’s strange sayings, on that hypothesis, in 1 Corinthians 15: 16-18, ‘If the dead rise not, then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.’ How can the dead christian be said to have ‘perished,’ if he be alive in Heaven, seeing that this is so, whether he be raised or not? Truly, ‘wisdom is justified of all her children,’ but confusion and every evil work attend the gloomy pathway of error.
A. B. MAGRUDER.
Charlottesville, September 1852.
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