First Principles and Perfection; Or, the Birth and Growth of a Christian (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891. Excerpt: ... 1 CHAPTER XV. THE WHOLE SUBJECT EXEMPLIFIED. I have sought to bring out, and to exhibit somewhat in detail, "the word of the beginning of Christ," or the elements of salvation as taught in the Great Commission. No attempt has been made to treat the subject exhaustively. And if I have succeeded in setting forth these First Principles distinctly, and in their own clear light, showing their adaptation to the ends contemplated by them, and their mode of operation in reaching those ends, I may well leave the reader to survey, with more leisure and deeper thought, the whole ground which I have thus outlined. Lest, however, any should still be disposed to question the correctness of my interpretation of the commission, I deem it proper, before proceeding to consider its closing requirement, to ask how the apostles and primitive Christians understood it. Did their practice correspond in all essential particulars with the views which I have enunciated? They went forth to execute the very commission upon which I have been commenting, and what they did and said in the performance of this duty is upon record; or, at any rate, such specimens of their acts as were selected by the Holy Spirit to be written for our learning; and this record, consequently, will show how men who were supernaturally preserved from mistake understood it. As, therefore, this commission is the one under which we are acting, and the only one which furnishes any divine authority for our action, the propriety of the above inquiry is manifest. I had occasion, while discussing the subject of "conviction," to refer to the Apostle Peter's first discourse in Jerusalem, and to point out its immediate effect. But the reader will do well to study all the occurrences of that day with care. He will find th...