A Book of Gems, or, Choice selections from the writings of Benjamin FranklinFranklin, Benjamin
Religion
A Book of Gems, or, Choice selections from the writings of Benjamin Franklin
Franklin, Benjamin
Churches of Christ
All the names not applied to the people and Church of God in the
Scriptures must be repudiated and discarded, and we must determine to
speak of the people and Church of God in the language of Scripture.
This we can do; to this, no child of God can reasonably object. There
will be no difficulty in this, when we shall have no other kind of
people or Church but the people and Church of God. While we have other
kinds of people and churches, we shall need other names for them. But
we shall have no trouble about this, for they will select and give
themselves other names, such as they think fitting and appropriate.
All we have to do in the matter is to call them by the names they
give themselves. If they will not permit the Lord to name them, but
will call themselves by some name not given to the Lord’s people in
the Bible, it is their own doing, not ours. There is no reason why
the Lord’s people should follow their example, and not accept the
designations found in Scripture, and use them exclusively. If we are
the Lord’s people, we can be spoken of in the language of Scripture; if
we are not, then we might have some other name.
THE WORK OF CREATION.
After Moses states the wonderful fact that “In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth,” without stating when it was, only
that it was “in the beginning,” he proceeds to give a brief account
of the state of things after this _first fact_, and before the work
of the six days. He says: “The earth was without form, and void, and
darkness was upon the face of the deep.” This state of things was
preceded by the creation of the heaven and the earth. The next thing in
the successive acts was to operate on material created, brought into
existence; to form or fashion it. What was the first thing? “The Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters.” This was not bringing into
existence, but operating on that which was in existence. “And God said,
Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called
the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and
the morning were the first day.” Here we have the work of the first
day. What was done on that day was not the same, no matter how we
describe it, as the first act. It was forming, shaping, operating on
material previously brought into existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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