No 2.

Having passed the two brethren of the Corinthian Elymas, Messrs. Winfree and Harris, through the baptismal waters, brother R.K. Bowles and myself returned, as I said, to brother Winfree’s house, having concluded to defer our journey to Louisa county until the morrow. It was agreed that our meeting at Fine Creek was highly satisfactory. We only regretted that the house had not been filled, that a multitude might have heard, instead of the comparatively few that were there; and have witnessed the weakness of Campbellism Colemanised in Elymas, and the power and invincibility of the truth expounded from Moses and other prophets, and harmonised with the doctrine of Jesus and the apostles. The impression we know to have been made on the people who had attended, encouraged us to make Fine Creek a standing place of meeting on our future visits to the State; and we would here suggest, that brethren Magruder and Anderson, when they pass to and fro from Charlottesville to Lunenburg, make Fine Creek on their way. Some friend would doubtless meet them at a station on the Virginia Central, and take them to an appointment at Temperance or Webster’s, where brother Winfree would find them, and thence convey them to Fine Creek, and from this to Tomahawk station on the Richmond and Danville road, by which they would get to Lunenburg in a short time. Should they conclude on this, they can write to brother Winfree, whose post office is Jefferson, Powhattan. If Elymas present himself (and he has presumption enough for any thing, his presumption and hardness of face being in proportion to his ignorance, which is the only thing in which he is profound) they will know how to give a good account of him before the people. Of Moses and the prophets he knows literally nothing; and of the New Testament consequently, the little he pretends to know, is mere foolishness. He cannot reason. Declamation, anecdotes, and a "holy tone," are the sum of his speechifications. Strip him of these by confining him to testimony and argument, and you nail him to the counter for what he is—a sham. From all such may church and world ere long effectually be freed!

On Saturday, September 16, I met the people at Temperance, Louisa. The congregation was so good that I never wish to meet better. The house was full, and the audience apparently intelligent, more men than women, well-behaved, and fixedly attentive. I say more men than women, not that I do not like to see a goodly number of women at a meeting; on the contrary, I like to see a fair proportion of each; but I do not like to have to speak to a great majority of women with only a few men huddled up in a corner as if merely there upon sufferance, or about to take to their heels if a parcel of children in petticoats happen to come in! Besides, the mind of this generation is of a skim-surface and frivolous character at best; and generally speaking, even according to the testimony of the better sort of their own sex, women are more lightminded and unthinking than men. Hence, they have crowded the men into the rear; and carried off the tinkling cymbals and sounding brasses of their Zions—the dear, holy toned, orators of their "sacred desks"—and made them their own peculiar treasure. This is not the sort of audience for our doctrine. We want men and women who can think and do think; and who are not afraid of truth which does violence to the thinking of the flesh. Such an audience as this we seemed to have at Temperance. They seemed to listen as though they were thinking upon what they heard; and such are the only people that will ultimately be led captive by the gospel of the kingdom.

Next morning we left the neighbourhood of Temperance for Webster’s in Goochland county, where a houseful were assembled to hear about the New Doctrine; and some, we are informed, to act the part of the Ephesian craftsmen, who delighted in uproar. But, though the doctrine was too "hard" for some immersionists, who beat up a retreat as more pleasant to their feelings than hearing an argument to the end, by the clatter whereof they more or less disturbed their more candid neighbours who were otherwise disposed, the rest, and among them the predisposed to turbulence, behaved themselves as became persons of respectability and decorum.

The subject discoursed upon was, 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4, being the point of Mr. Coleman’s hour’s declamation. I had not time to notice on the previous Thursday. I was the more inclined to treat of this, as several who were at Fine Creek were to be at Webster’s, and came accordingly. I showed that those who took the words of the third and fourth verses as Paul’s declaration of the gospel took a very shallow and limited view of the subject. In these verses no mention is made of Jesus except by implication. Paul affirmed aoristically, or indefinitely, that Christ dies for our sins, is buried, and rises again according to the prophets, the only scriptures then extant. When he visited the synagogue in Corinth he affirmed this, but while so doing, carefully abstained from saying any thing about Jesus. He confined himself to what the prophets testified concerning the sufferings of Christ, and the sacrificial character of those sufferings in dying; namely, that it was for the transgression of Jehovah’s people, whose iniquity was to be laid upon him. He did not "first of all" affirm, or deliver, that Jesus was that Christ, but simply that whoever he might be, he would have to die, be buried, and rise again. And that this is true, is proved by Luke’s narrative of Paul’s proceedings in Acts 18. He therefore informs us, that "Paul reasoned every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks;" but that he said nothing about Jesus until Silas and Timothy joined him from Macedonia: when, however, they arrived, "he was constrained by the spirit, and earnestly testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ." Until Silas and Timothy came, all things went on peaceably enough in the Synagogue all the sabbaths he reasoned there, because he made no mention of Jesus, who was "a stone of stumbling, and rock of offence" to them; but as soon as he applied his logical conclusions about the Christ to Jesus as that personage, they began to oppose and blaspheme. Paul’s past experience of the Jews had taught him to expect this result. He was, therefore, careful to defer the application of his argument to Jesus until he could well indoctrinate those who were looking for Christ, the king of Israel, with the idea of his appearing as a dying, buried, and rising heir to David’s throne. When the Jewish mind comprehended this, it was most guilefully captivated, craftily prepared, (if we may so speak in the best sense) for confessing that the obnoxious Jesus was indeed both Lord and Christ; for they had no other objection to him than that he died, and was buried; whereas, they had been taught that when Messias appeared he would live for ever without tasting of death. If on the first sabbath that Paul visited the Synagogue in Corinth, he had straightway declared that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, as Gentile orators do, they would have opposed him on the spot, blasphemed, and turned him out of the assembly, and there would have been an abrupt finish put upon his mission to the Jews. But he did not act so unwisely. He first laid down his premises—"reasoning with them out of the prophets, opening and alleging that the Christ ought to suffer, and to rise from among the dead;" which being demonstrated, he then affirmed, saying, "This is the Christ, even Jesus, whom I announced to you;" an affirmation he proved by adducing his own testimony of having seen him since his crucifixion; a testimony which the Lord himself confirmed by enabling Paul to do wonderful works in his name.

It is well to inquire, What was Paul about all the sabbaths he visited the synagogue of Corinth, while Silas and Timothy were in Macedonia? The general answer is, Doing what he did for three months in the synagogue at Ephesus, and in all the other synagogues he visited till they expelled him. And what was this in particular? "Disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God"—Acts 19: 8—"Expounding and testifying the kingdom of God, persuading concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the Prophets;"—"Teaching the Word of God among them," as Luke says he did among the Corinthians for a year and six months.

This word Jesus styles "the word of the kingdom," a phrase by which he designates "the gospel of the kingdom" which he began to preach in Galilee; and which he ordered the apostles to proclaim to all nations, as a testimony to them—Matthew 24: 14. Concerning this word, Paul says, "I declare the glad tidings I evangelised to you, which also ye received, and in which ye stand; through which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast to a CERTAIN WORD—tini logo—I evangelised to you, unless ye believed in vain." This "certain word" in the Common Version is rendered "what," and relates to "the glad tidings" he refers to in the first verse. But what glad tidings is there in the simple statement that "Christ dies for sins according to the writings of the prophets?" Suppose it was admitted that when he came he was to do this, was he to die for antediluvians, Jews or Gentiles? And what were they to gain by his dying for their sins? And how were they to have access to the things procured by his dying for sins? There is not a word of this in the third and fourth verses, and yet these are said to "declare the gospel" Paul preached! The things expressed in these verses are not the gospel; for a "the gospel was preached to Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations be blessed." They were only "first things," as I have shown, submitted to the Corinthian synagogue in the absence of Silas and Timothy; for he says, "I delivered to you," not "first of all," as in the Common Version; but en protois, "among the first things what also I received."

Paul recalls their attention to these "first things," one of which was, the resurrection of the Christ from among the dead, and which they had admitted, as premises for an argument against a heresy that had been introduced among them by "false apostles;" who, teaching the pagan dogma of the existence of an immortal soul in every descendant of the first Adam, said "there is no resurrection of dead persons;" or what is the same thing differently expressed, "saying that the resurrection is past already." They concluded that resurrection was useless, if human souls, as they believed, were immortal, and went to heaven at their separation from their bodies at death. But their premises were false, for Paul teaches that where no resurrection is there is no future life; and this future life by resurrection he declared to be the result wholly and solely of the resurrection of the Christ, which he had testified to be scriptural, and which they had admitted.

Having settled the question of resurrection, he went on to "declare the gospel which he preached to them." He "files his declaration," as the lawyers say, in what remains of the chapter. In this we find his points, such as, the coming of Christ, at the epoch of the resurrection of the saints; His reign till he has put down all enemies; the delivering up of the kingdom at the destruction of death, the last enemy; baptism for the resurrection from among the dead, the kind of body with which the dead rise, that it is glorious, incorruptible, powerful, and spiritual; being the image of the Second Adam, the life-imparting Spirit, the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, the Heavenly One: the necessity of this, being because the kingdom of God is indestructible, so that they who are to inherit or possess it must be incorruptible; the transformation of those saints who are alive at the coming of Christ, and who shall therefore be exempted from death; the victory of the saints through Jesus; and so forth. These are the points of the apostle’s declaration filed on this fifteenth chapter of his letter to the Corinthians; points from which the reader may form some idea of the gospel preached by Paul; and judge whether the pulpit orators of the Gentiles have any scriptural pretensions to be in fellowship with his teaching. The apostle’s points thus declared were sustained by "the testimony of God," called also "the testimony of Christ;" and many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptised; and being thus obedient, they henceforth "waited for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ," that "with Him" they might possess "the world," "the kingdom," "judge angels," and "inherit all things." This was something like glad tidings—good news to all who laid hold of them, and acquired a right to them in recognising Jesus as the anointed Son of God and heir of all these things, and in being united to his name for repentance, remission of sins, and resurrection to the kingdom of Jehovah, destined to subvert all other kingdoms, and to stand for evermore.

Having discoursed thus for some two hours or so, the meeting was closed. Our friends from Fine Creek expressed themselves as well satisfied with this annihilation of this theological Bomarsund. The stronghold of human tradition was in ruins. They saw that Paul does not declare the gospel in two brief texts; but only a very few of the "first things" treated of before he was pressed by the Spirit to speak of Jesus. Besides the inherent power of the testimony, they were much strengthened when they perceived the weakness of the enemy. "Never," said one of them, "have I felt so strong in the faith, as since I have witnessed the feebleness of Mr. Coleman’s exposition of Campbellism as the gospel Paul preached, in his attempt to convict you of preaching another, and therefore, a false gospel!" Alas, for him; he made a plunge: and sunk like lead, to rise no more!

On the morrow, I took the packet boat for Richmond en route for King William county, where I arrived by the help of brother Davis on Tuesday afternoon, at the hospitable abode of brother J.B. Edwards, under whose shadow for many years past, we have been refreshed after the burden and heat of the day. This is true alike of all the brethren in that region; of brethren King, Littlepage, Edwards, Robins, &c., who, under all discouragements, have firmly defended the faith, and stood by it when all but ready to expire under the miasma of rampant and triumphant foolishness. But here we will rest awhile, as, in fact, we did; for no appointment awaited me till the ensuing Friday. In our next was shall conclude our visit to Virginia for 1854.

EDITOR.

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