UNITY AGAIN
Dear Brother King: In your issue of June 1, of the 0. P. A., I find two letters from brethren who are "rank believers in all the innovations of the latter days." They are anxious for UNITY.
Please call upon them for their STANDARD of Unity. What will they say? "It doesn’t matter about non-essentials, we can’t all see alike. Just satisfy your conscience, and you are all 0. K."
Conscience: what is it? "The normal sense which determines right and wrong." These preachers (J. N. Armstrong, Don Carlos Janes, W.H. P. Showalter, N. Q. Martin, G. C. Brewer, and others) used to say, "Conscience is a creature of education, and cannot be depended upon to guide you in religious matters." Which is absolutely true. But we read in the Scriptures, about such a thing as "searing the conscience."
I would very much like to know, whether the aforesaid preachers can have a clear conscience in their practice "Caucus selected, non-ordained elders and deacons," in using individual cups, (for fear some one will poison them), in "scrapping the Bible" by using Sectarian selected texts, in hiring themselves out to preach to a congregation "during good behavior," in practicing many other silly and foolish things in their MODE of worship. "In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men."
I think, Bro. King, the way to test the above mentioned, and many other BIG preachers is to go after them personally, and you will find out what I have found: that they "Will not have time to discuss it with you, or will ignore you, and call you all the usual names that other sectarians use in escaping the truth.
It is horrible to think of the condition of the church of today that claims to "Speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent." See that motto at the top of a paper, and. then read the rotten stuff it puts out for the honest hearted people to read!
What can those editors expect except eternal condemnation. Would to God this condemnation could be present, so their readers would be warned in time and not lost with them.
0, my dear brethren and sisters, why will you follow the lead of such men when you know that they are not teaching nor practicing what the Bible teaches. Take your Bible and read what Christ said He would say to those men who are leading you to hell. Read Matt. 7:22, 23; Rom. 10:2-4; 1 Cor. 10:5-12; Rom. 15:4; Also on Substitution for God’s way. Ex. 6:23; Lev. 10; Deut. 32:49-51; Num. 20:7-1,2; Josh. 32:49-52. 1 Sam. 15:22, 23; Mark 8:38; "If ye love me ye will keep my commandments." John 14:15; 15:14; "Let us pray for each other, nor faint by the way, in this world of sorrow and care."
Emmett A. Lowry, Daytom, Tenn.