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The Fundamentals
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do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wicked- ness. 9 9 ¡ a *» The Pharisees were the best people of their day; and yet they were the greatest failures. Against no others did Jesus hurl so fierce denunciations. Why ? Because they put reforma tion in the place of repentance and faith; because they were employing human means for accomplishing what only the Holy Spirit could accomplish. And so, today, every device for the betterment of society which does not strike at the root of the disease and apply the remedy to the seat of life, the human soul, is Pharisaical and is doing a Pharisee’s work. It is polishing the outside, while indifferent to the inside. The road to hell from a church door is as short as is that from a hangman’s noose, or an electric chair. More church members than murderers have gone to the hell of the unbeliever. “The good is always the enemy of the best” ; and so reformation is always an enemy of the cross of Christ. *Mr. Begbie’s “twice-born men” were reformed, and they made proof of it in their subsequent lives because they were regenerated, twice bom; but there were beside them, a great multitude of “reformed” men, who were no less heirs of hell than before their “reformation.” He tells us of only a few of the great multitude of those reformed—a few of thou sands. Fundamental to the Christian system is a conviction of sin which compels a cry for mercy, responded to by the Holy Spirit, who regenerates the soul, converts it, reforms it and fits it for the blessedness of heaven. *By reference to Mr. Begbie’s book, the writer means no criti- cism, for he is in full accord with the facts and purposes of the book. He uses it only as a striking illustration of the point he wishes to make. . -
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