Library Collections: Document: Full Text
![]() |
Modern Persecution, or Insane Asylums Unveiled
|
Previous Page Next Page All Pages
![]() |
Page 117: | |
2699 | Calvin taught that the day of probation terminated with the death of our natural bodies. | |
2700 | Christ taught that there were no limits to God's mercy, that he was unchangeable, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for-ever," therefore, repentance will always remain a condition of pardon -- the free-agency is an indispensable law of our moral nature, over which the death of our natural body has no in-fluence -- that this natural law of our physical being has no more influence or control over the laws of our moral nature than the natural law of eating or sleeping has over them -- or, that putting off our natural body has no more power to change the laws of our moral nature than a change of clothing has to change the character. | |
2701 | Christ taught that our natures are holy -- that all their God-given instincts and laws are but a type of his own nature which we cannot violate with impunity -- that to disregard nature's claim, is to disregard God's claims. And he has shown us what these claims are by living a natural life himself on earth, for our example. He has shown us that sin consists in violating the laws of our God-given nature -- thus depraving, or perverting it, from its original tendencies; that he came to restore human nature from its present perverted condition to its original, natural state of innocence. | |
2702 | Calvin taught that our natures are sinful, that to live a natural life is to live a sinful life. He taught that human nature is our worst foe, which we must conquer into subjec-tion to his perverted standard of faith and practice, or be lost eternally. | |
2703 | Christ taught that to be baptized we must go down into the water and come up out of the water, as he did. | |
2704 | Calvin taught that to be baptized we must stand up in a house and be sprinkled. | |
2705 | Christ taught that to feel right we must first do right. | |
2706 | Calvin taught that to do right we must feel right. | |
2707 | Christ taught us to "overcome evil with good." | |
2708 | Calvin taught us to overcome evil with evil -- that the first step towards becoming better was to believe you were very bad, and if you are too honest to say you were bad when you felt that you were not, it was the darkest sign of guilt -- so that the upright, sincere soul felt driven to become bad, so that he could make an honest confession of his guilt in order to secure the confidence of his Christian brethren that he was converted. | |
2709 | Christ taught that to clothe ourselves with his righteousness, was to do like him, be like him, by doing right in everything. | |
2710 | Calvin taught that to clothe ourselves with Christ's right-eousness was to act contrary to the dictates of human nature and utterly repudiate obedience as a meritorious act, or as a reason why we should be acquitted and justified in God's sight, and depend wholly upon the merits of Christ, entirely independent of our own; or, in other words, to continue in an unnatural state, depending upon a soveregin -sic- act of God to appropriate the vicarious sufferings of Christ for our benefit, independent of our accountability. | |
2711 | Calvin taught that the elect were all that would or could be saved, and that these were God's children, and all others the devil's children. | |
2712 | Christ taught that all were God's dear children -- that all had good and evil in them, but that all the evil in them he came to destroy. And that for this purpose, he had elected some of his children and capacitated them by peculiar sufferings and trials to be co-workers with him for the good of the many. As if a father should bestow peculiar advantages upon one child, that he might be fitted to be the educator of his other children. This is "The economy of grace." | |
2713 | I believe that with these, his educated company of sanctified ones, who have come out of great tribulation, such as he endured on earth, he will make such assaults upon Satan's kingdom as will ensure its entire overthrow and destruction. | |
2714 | I believe that this reign of Christ on the earth, with his elect co-workers, is about to be inaugurated; and that these troublous times are only the day of preparation for a better state than has ever been experienced on earth. The clouds which precede this bright, millenial day, will soon be dispersed by the Sun of Righteousness; and that a kingdom is about to be established, which shall never be destroyed. | |
2715 | Then will the great work of redeeming a lost world com-mence, with accelerated power and efficiency. | |
2716 | Christ, with his chosen band of purified ones, will then make practical the beneficent, self-sacrificing principles of his unselfish nature, so that no inveterate foe to His government and reign -- not even the stoutest Calvinist -- will be able then to resist, effectually, any one of his benevolent plans to save the-whole class of Calvinists from endless torment, by leading them to bow to his sceptre, and become kind and tolerant towards others, as Christ and his followers are toward them. | |
2717 | I believe that all who have died unsanctified, will live again on the earth, where their surroundings will be so favorable, that they will be able to live natural lives, and, in this manner, take the first step to a higher spiritual life. For God says, with no exception, "First the natural, then the spiritual." And the poor deluded Calvinist, who has been led to despise nature, will not be found to have committed a sin too great for his benevolent Sovereign to pardon, on the ground of late repentance. |