Gospel No. 1

Whatever difference may exist in the world about the scheme of eternal life, and the duties enjoined upon the human family to prepare them for its enjoyment, all, we believe, who acknowledge the truth of the bible, agree in this, that the ancient apostles, commissioned by the Savior, were fully authorized to proclaim the gospel, and to make known the will of God to man; and that the things which were taught by them were correct; and the gospel which they preached was God's only scheme of life; and that adding to it or taking from it, deprived mankind of the benefits resulting therefrom, and tended to disarm the plan of eternal life of its powers.

We believe that it is universally admitted by all believers in revelation, that no persons could receive into their hearts, the things taught by these men, and practice the duties they required, without obtaining the promises made by them; for if this were not the case, it would be worse than folly to hold them up to view as messengers sent of God to bless the nations.

The point of light in which these apostles are held up to view in the scriptures is, that the gospel which they preached was the only gospel, acknowledged of God, and the proclamation which they proclaimed, the only one that men were authorized to receive, and the promises which they made, were to be as certainly enjoyed, as ever men put themselves in a situation to receive them, by obeying the instructions which they gave them. For though religion in some form was prevailing in every part of the civilized world in the days of the Savior and his apostles, still they presented themselves to the world as the only persons who were capable of enlightening the minds of men, and of bringing them into an acquaintance with the true faith, and of introducing them into the family of the Most High, having (as they said) authority from God to do this work, and that a dispensation of the gospel was committed to them for this purpose.

The professed object of their apostolic mission was, that men might be saved: this their commission clearly sets forth. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be damned!"-From this it is plain, that whatever might have been the amount of religion in their day, there was not a sufficiency of rightousness [righteousness] on earth to save one

man, only as it was restored to the world through the Savior and his apostles, nor was it possible for one single creature in all the world to be saved unless they put themselves under their guidance; for they were to go into all the world, and preached the gospel to every creature; so that every creature in all the world, had to be taught by them, and receive the gospel which they preached, or else they must be damned; for they who believed not should be damned. This was certainly placing their commission in an important point of light: and their own teachings were in perfect consistency with their commission.

Paul says, when writing to the Galatians, first chapter, 8 and 9 verses.-"But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." In all their teachings they held themselves up to view as the only teachers of righousness [righteousness] which were approved of God in the world, and that their mission was not necessary only for the salvation of a part of the world, but all of it; yea every creature in it. It mattered not what progress the world had made in the knowledge of other things: in the knowledge of the science of salvation, they had retrograded, until there were none doing good, no not one. And unless God had sent the apostles, or others authorized as they were, the world must have perished: every creature in it must have been damned: for they were to go into all the world, and he, (that is, every creature) that believed and was baptized, should be saved; but he, (that is, every creature) that believed not, should be damned. Had there been one creature in all the world who was in a state of salvation, or could have attained that state without the apostles, this commission would not have been correct, that is, that every creature in all the world who did not believe them and be baptized by their direction should be damned.

Nothing can make the apostles' commission true, but the fact that no creature in all the world could be saved without their being brought into favor with God through their ministry.

The Savior, through the whole course of his mimistry [ministry] in the flesh, made it one of the principal items of teachings to make it clearly manifest to the religious Jews, that they had departed from the principles delivered unto them through the messengers whom God had inspired to make known his will to men. He did not reprove the Jews for adhering to the law, but because they had corrupted it, and made it void by their traditions. For neither the law nor the prophets, made hypocrites, blind guides, a generation of vipers: but a corruption of one, and a perversion of the other did-they made both. Neither was the law nor the prophets a hindrance to any person coming into the kingdom of God; but a perversion and a corruption of them were against the promises of God, and a barrier to men entering into the kingdom of heaven.

The Jews were not to blame for adhering to both the law and the prophets, but for corrupting one and perverting the other, through which corruption and perversion, they ceased to believe either Moses or the prophets; for had they believed them they would have believed the Savior also; for they wrote of him. Had the leaders of the Jews never corrupted the law nor perverted the prophets, they would never have been overthrown: for they would have received their Mesiah [Messiah] when he came, and have escaped "the wrath to come." But in consequence of their having corrupted the law, and perverted the prophets, they would neither enter the kingdom of God themselves nor let those who were entering go in; for which the Savior upbraids them. Not that they worshiped [worshipped] God according to the law, but according to their own traditions, by which they had made void the law, and rendered it of none effect: teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Mark 7th chap. from the 5th to the 15th verse. Matthew, 15th chap. from the 2nd to the 10th verse.

Every person in every degree acquainted with the Jewish history, as written in the scriptures, knows, that God, previous to the days of the Savior's

coming in the flesh, was withdrawing from that people, and that he continued to do so until they were abandoned to destruction.

But God never withdraws from a people for adhering to the order of things he established among them; for while they all adhere to him he cleaves to them. Had the Jews, in truth and verity, continued to observe the law as God delivered it unto them, and to have believed the prophets who were sent unto them, God would have continued with them, and they would have known their Mesiah [Messiah] when he came, and have entered into his kingdom and have found rest, and continued the people of God, even the favorites of heaven, until this day. But instead of their doing so, they changed their temple from being a house of prayer, to be a house of merchandise, and a den of thieves. Matthew, 21st chap. 12th and 13th verses. Mark 11th chap. 15th 16th and 17th verses. Luke 19th chap. 45th and 46th verses. They made void the law by their traditions; and stoned the prophets that were sent unto them. Matthew 23d chap. 37th verse. Whatever was saving in their institutions they rejected, and defiled, until destruction came on them to the very uttermost. This was their situation when the Savior came among them, and such their condition when he commissioned the appostles [apostles] to go and preach the gospel to them; and not to them only, but to every creature in all the word [world] aleo [also].

The apostle Paul in the epistle to the Romans, gives us a minute description of both the Gentiles and the Jews in his day; in the 1st chap. commencing with the 20 verse, he thus describes the state of the Gentiles, "Because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became, vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleaness [uncleanness], through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped [worshipped] and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." The apostle continues his description of the Gentiles to the close of the chapter, which the reader may examine at his leisure, and he will see that the picture is one of no very pleasing character.

From the description here given of the Gentiles, we learn this fact, that the Gentiles had previously known God; for when they knew God, says the apostle, they worshiped [worshipped] him not as God, &c. This is evidence positive, that the Gentiles had turned away from the knowledge of God, and were apostates from the truth.

In the 3d chap. of this same epistle, he gives a description of the Jews also, commencing with the 9th verse to the close of the 18th, we have the following description. "What then? are we better than they? No in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, as it is written. There is none rightous [righteous], no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre [sepulcher]; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known.-There is no fear of God before their eyes." In the 10th verse he says, "Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." In so saying the apostle gives his readers to understand that the preceeding [preceding] quotations, taken from the Psalms, were applicable to the Jews and to the Jews only; for they were the persons to whom the law was given, and they, and they only were under the law, "Now what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law." So the apostles make a direct application of what he here said to the Jews, as they were the people, and the only people, who were under the law.

Such is the light in which God viewed the world, both Jew and Gentile, when he sent the apostles among them to bring them back to the principles of rightousness [righteousness], from whence they had strayed; for God considered them all, not only under sin, but in a state of apostacy [apostasy] also.

Let the world have made what advances it might in literature, science or philosophy, in relation to eternal life-their case was deplorable; for instead of their being in a situation to be saved, they were in a situation to be destroyed: instead of being redeemed, they were in a situation to be condemned: for so far had the whole world, both Jew and Gentile, apostatized from the living God, that there was not a sufficiency of rightousness [righteousness] to save one creature in all the world.

Whatever improvement, therefore, the Jews or the Gentiles might have made in worldly matters, they were in a situation in which they could make no advances towards eternal life, only by receiving the apostles, and submiting [submitting] themselves to their guidance and direction. However humiliating this might have been to them. But so it was, that to the fishermen of Galilee they must come, and to them they must submit, or else they must be damned.

So closely does the God of heaven adhere to his plan of saving men, that nothing will be admited [admitted] as a substitute for his ordinances and institutions, no services but those of his own appointment will tend in the least degree to save men. The Jews might lay heavy burdens on each other's shoulders, subject themselves to many privations, make many prayers, and pay tithes of all they possessed, but when done, it would leave them short of eternal life!-to the fishermen of Galilee they must go, or be saved they could not. The Gentiles might lacerate their bodies, offer their children in sacrifice, or subject themselves to the severest scourgings, buffetings, or burnings; they might form books of morals, codes of laws, systems of government, or modes of worship, but all in vain, it would not give them eternal life, nor could they by any means obtain the salvation of God, only through and by the fisherman of Galilee: for their commission was to every creature in all the world, and he who did not believe them, should be damned; for there was no other gospel; no other scheme of things, nor no other form of worship, that had eternal life as their reward, but the gospel proclaimed by the apostles and the forms of worship taught by them.

These apostles, however, did not pretend that God never had, at any former period of the world, any messengers who had been authorized to bring men into a state of salvation, and to proclaim the gospel to the world; but on the contrary, Paul says in 3d chapter of the epistle to the Galatians and 9th verse, that the gospel had been preached unto Abraham. He says thus:-"And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham. But in the 1st chap. of the epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle shows that the gospel was of a much earlier date than the days of Abraham: that it was before time, being devised in eternity, before the foundation of the world.-See the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th verses.-"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavly [heavenly] places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated [predestined] us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved."

In the 11th verse he says: "in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated [predestined] according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the council of his own will."

We learn the following things from the above saying of the apostle. That the scheme of things by which he and the Saints at Ephesus were saved was devised in eternity before the foundation of the world. "According as he hath chosen us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world."

2nd. That they were to be the children

of God, through adoption by Jesus Christ. "Having predestinated [predestined] us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself."

3d. And all this according to his own purpose or scheme of things, (for what is a man's purpose but his scheme of things,) by which he works all things after the council of his own will?-That is the same as to say, that the plan of life and salvation which is called in the scriptures the gospel, was heaven's own scheme or purpose, and that scheme was before the world was; and that before God created man he purposed in himself that mankind should become his sons through adoption, by Jesus Christ, and in no other way.

If the apostle, in the foregoing sayings, teaches any thing, it is, that the gospel, or scheme of life and salvation which is the same, was from before the begining [beginning], and that from the creation of the world, God had but the one way of saving men; and that all who were saved, were to be saved in the same way; and this God had decreed, purposed, and predestinated [predestined] , and by this eternal scheme of things were accomplished according to the will of God, and this decree, will, and purpose, was before the foundation of the world.

Now let the truth of what the apostle here says be admitted and the result is, that that same scheme of things by which the Ephesians were saved, was the same by which all others who are to be redeemed, were saved. And if the same scheme of things, then the same ordinances were obeyed by all: for if Paul administered ordinances, that were not administered to all who are to be redeemed, then they were not saved by the same plan of salvation; for where there is a difference it matters not how small the difference is, the things thus differing are not the same, and it follows of necessity that if Paul baptized for the remission of sins, all others who are saved must have been baptized also for the same purpose, or else, they were not all saved by the same gospel or plan of salvation: and if the plan of salvation taught by Paul required men to be born of the water, and the spirit in order that they might enter into the kingdom of heaven, so the same must have been required of all since the foundation of the world, or the plan of salvation has not been the same, and if so, Paul's testimony is not true.

[To be continued.]