The Mode of Man's Immortality, Or, the When, Where, and How of the Future Life

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. 1874 Excerpt: ...after the destruction of the temple. They circumcised their children and observed the fasts and feasts of the Jews as religiously as the most devout Jew--indeed, they were themselves the most devout of their people, super-adding their Christian faith to the faith of the fathers, never dreaming that Christianity was to become a distinct and antagonistic organization. Among these was no less a disciple than the apostle James himself. Do we, therefore, quote their opinions and practices as authority for opinions and practices to-day, in reference to temple service, circumcision and ceremonial sacrifice? Certainly not; become partisans of this or 124 MISTAKEN VIEWS yet the opinions which they entertained concerning the personal return of the Saviour to set up a temporal reign are quoted as authority for his yet coming, although we know that whatever they wrote or said on this subject implied an immediate appearance. Now, why should we not insist on temple worship, and daily sacrifices, and Jewish fasts and feasts, as earnestly as some do on the second advent of Christ, and enforce it as they do this, by an appeal to the views and customs of the early church? We know that in opinions and practices the apostles differed during their whole lives among themselves, and that the best of them changed their views on the incidentals of Christianity as they grew older and found their earlier expectations mistaken, although there is no indication in their own writings or in cotemporaneous history that they ever modified the doctrines of the Gospel, which they were commissioned to preach. As they began, so they ended; as they preached in Judea, so they preached in Greece and Rome. Redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Peter yielded his national...