The Unveiling of the Everlasting Gospel [Signed E.C.].

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.1848 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. THE GOSPEL AS PROCLAIMED TO THE SHEPHERDS IN BETHLEHEM.--(continued.) The first feature in the great message, which would especially arrest the minds of the Shepherds, and give a most emphatic interest to the wondrous tidings proclaimed to them by the angel, was--its individual designation. Behold, I bring You good tidings. For to You is born a Saviour. Now, the very genius of the Gospel carries this great principle on its front, --that it is a message to men as individuals. For, indeed, no one can understand it fully, without perceiving this principle. How all-important, then, are the pronouns-- You, us, and Our --to the setting of it forth, in its true meaning and glory! Without them--it necessarily appears, to the natural mind, little more than a sublime, --a splendid theory, --or an awfully grand abstraction! For it is the great 124 THE INDIVIDUAL SUPERSCRIPTION. fact, --that Christ was born, --lived, --and died, --for every man, --which especially comes home to the bosom, --and, through the Holy Spirit, engrafts the truth on the heart of the sinner, to the saving of his soul. (Eph. i. 13.) Everything depends on his seeing these pronouns of the Gospel as including himself. In man's constitution generally, --especially while in his unconverted state, --the question of his own personal safety and happiness, --of the grand bearing of all event9 on himself, --is ever uppermost. And, from the strongest principles of his nature, all events, --however great and imposing, --beautiful or interesting, --in which the natural mind cannot perceive any advantage, --directly or indirectly, --radiating to itself, are listened to with comparative indifference. They do not take an immediate hold of the heart. But the Gospel is perfect in its adaptations to man's actu...