Newspaper Page Text
February 10, 1909. 1
V
eternal life, the fact that they <lied incapable
would prove their election. But
in the absence of such evidence, how
the death of an incapable, for example
the infant child cf an Egyptian enemy of
God and his people on the night of the
Exodus, is a certificate of his election
to eternal life, passes the comprehension
of a plain mind, unbiased by a theory.
What then is our conclusion? That any
one of these incapables is finally lost?
By no means. 1 should have great zeal
to keep such an utterance out of our
confessional statements. The conclusion
is that God has kept his purposes as to
the salvation of the incapable children of
reprobate parents, to himself. He has
not revealed them to us. It becomes us
to leave his purposes where he has left
them.
There are two very good reasons for
this: One is that the modern American
mind is prone to think that it is wiser
than God, and that it knows a great deal
more about God and his purposes thap
God has seen fit to reveal. In the past
our Sruthern Presbyterian Church has
teen, in some wavs n stnn<ltni* rt>v?iiro
to this mental temper. It will be well
for us to maintain our ground in this
respect. Should it now dogmatically affirm,
what God has not authorised it to
affirm, that he has elected all the incapable
children of all his enemies to eternal
life, it would be a needless and shameful
concession to the rampant, rationalistic
spirit of the age. Because learned, devout
and honored brethren have either
done this, or suffered it to he done without
effective protest, Is all the more a
good reason why we should be loyal to
our God; speaking when he speaks; and
am-m, in an Humility or minn, wnen ne
is silent.
The other reason is a "very practlcaf
one. The silence of God as to the Incapable
children of reprobate parents
gives us a plea with which to urge unbelieving
parents to faith, to covenant
keeping, that they may have assuranos
that they and their children are of the
number of God's elect. Let us say plainly
and boldly to unbelieving parents that
as long as they are unbelieving they can
have no assurance that their incapable
children are saved or are to be saved.
On the other hand, we can say t > vhem.
what Paul said to the Phllipptan jailer:
"Believe on the Ixtrd Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved and thine house."
Lexington, Missouri.
The "Year nook of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States, 1909" has
been published by the Richmond committee.
It is a booklet of sixty-four
pages, sold at five cents a copy or more
copies at a greatly reduced rate, down to
two and a half cents. A few pages are
devoted to a brief statement of the history
and characteristics of our church.
Next come a summary of statistics, an
outline of the acts of the last OeneraT
Assembly, an account of ih? nnrotii?oHnn
and work of the several Executive Committees
facts and suggestions as to Sunday
schools, Young People's Societies and
Brotherhoods. Eater pages contain the
Prayer Meeting Topics and the Sunday
School lessons for 1909.
rHE PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOU'
_____ ...
Books and Periodicals
;
"Introduction to Christian Missions." by \
Thomas Cary Johnson, author of "The j
IJfe and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney";
The Life and Letter? of Benjamin
Morgan Palmer," etc. sin. S vo., i
220 pages, cn sale by the Presbyterian |
Committee of Publication, Richmond,
Va., 1909.
Ten lectures, dealing with the fundamentals
of missions and having very little
of details of missions. Dr. Johnson's j
purpose is to give a philosophy of mis- i :
sions, not an unfolding of the work, exppnt
co far ac? V* I
leads up to the philosophy. It Is. as he
claims, an introduction to the study,
showing its underlying principles. In the
f'rst chapter he unfo'ds the fact that the
church is God's ordained missionary ;
society and all her members its members,
pledged to her utmost as such, and all
under an imperative and exclusive obligation.
This thesis he maintains fron:
the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic provisions.
and ine New Testament teaching.
His next lecture unfolds the New Testament
principle regulative of the church's
missionary effcrt. illustrated in the fcnir.
It's Work, the command to go out and
bear witness, the teaching of universal
Chr'stianity, and the general apostolic
wcrk. Special attention is given in the
third chapter to Paul's relation, in sense
of obligation and respcnse, to the work
of missions. Following this are chapters
on the early Christian or patristic mission,
up to A. D. 590, beginning with the
literary efforts of the early Fathers and
running through the post-Nicene period.
IhA 1 i * * ?
wie iiiciiiciui missions lip 10 A. 11. 1517,
and the attitude of the Reformers, the Roman
Catholic, Protestant and Reformed
Churches to the work. A fine chapter
follows on the age of voluntary missionary
societies, beginning in 1781. and another
on the chuVch's realization or con- j
sciousness of herself as a missionary society,
and the last is a stirring declara- j
tion of the motives to missionary endeavor.
_ . I
me mook or Kstner." A critical ami i
exegetical commentary. By I^ewis
Bayles Paton. I). D. CloTh, 8 vo. $2.50.
New York, Charles Scribners" Sons,
1908.
Dr. Briggs' an?l Dr. Driver's editorship j i
of the International Critical Commentary,
of which this volume is a part, is a suffi- | i
cient Indication to the critical standpoint
of Dr. Paton. Our wonder is that he esteems
such a book as *he regards Esther
to b9 worthy of any serious thought. Be- j |
ing utterly unhistorical, with not "even
a Historical Kernel underlying Its narrative,"
it is a falsehood on the face of it.
Why waste time in unfolding such a fraud 1
as Dr. Paton thinks it is? The highest
conception of it is that it is of the "de- '
rived from the same cycle of legends" as
the Apocrypha, and is simple romance.
BELLS.
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