Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary: Collated from his Diary by Benjamin FunkKline, John
Religion
Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary: Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk
Kline, John
Kline, John, 1797-1864
SATURDAY, July 2. Cross the Cheat mountain to John Riley's in
Pocahontas County, Virginia.
SUNDAY, July 3. In the forenoon I attend a Methodist quarterly
meeting, at which they hold what they call a love feast; that is, they
take bread and water; and after preaching they take what they call the
Lord's Supper. They seem to be very sincere in what they do; but to my
mind they are not consistent in calling a morsel of bread and a sip of
wine, taken at the middle of the day, the Lord's Supper. I am sure we
have no right to depart from God's order in anything appertaining to
his church and worship.
In the afternoon I preach a funeral and baptize John Riley. Dine at
Jacob Yager's on top of the Alleghany mountain, and stay all night at
Adam Hevner's. Brother Kline got home Thursday, July 7.
SUNDAY, July 10. Baptize Samuel Bowman and wife. Brother and Sister
Bowman give proof of being a good tree by the fruit they bear.
Samuel Bowman lived and died on Linville Creek, not far from Brother
Kline's place. He raised a highly respectable family, very
intelligent, and some of his children became members of the church of
the Brethren.
SATURDAY, July 30. Meeting at Liberty, in Page County, Virginia. I
speak on FOREORDINATION and ELECTION. Much has been said and written
on these subjects. It is to be feared, however, that instead of light
being thrown upon them in the way they have been treated, darkness,
rather, has been added to darkness. No subjects wrongly viewed can
look darker; and none rightly viewed can look clearer. The word
FOREORDAIN means _to ordain beforehand_: and the word ELECT means _to
choose_. Some that I have met with, in speaking on these subjects,
particularly as they are given in the epistolary writings of the New
Testament, remind me of fish in a net; they flounder about in the net,
while every effort they make fastens them only the more tightly in its
meshes. They read: "Whom God foreknew, he also FOREORDAINED to be
conformed to the image of his Son, ... and whom he foreordained, them
he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom
he justified, them he also glorified." Rom. 8:29, 30. Likewise the
text before us: "ELECT ... according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit." 1 Peter 1:2.
These passages, with others of a somewhat similar import, do _not_
teach the foreordination and election of individuals independent of
character and fitness. A lack of perception of this comprehensive
truth accounts for the general misunderstanding of these and like
passages in the apostolic writings. The doctrine of _election_, as it
is called, opens out into a very large field for thought and
investigation. It takes in the whole way of salvation from beginning
to end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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