Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A REMONSTRANCE AND A REJOINDER. Delivered By C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ' For in Jesni Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision ; but faith which worketh by love.' GalHtians v. 6. The most prominent doctrine in Paul's teaching was that of justification by faith. He taught it so very plainly, so very boldly I had almost said so very baldly that it seemed needful to the Holy Spirit that James should bear testimony to the necessity of holiness as the result of faith. Hence the Epistle of James is put into the sacred canon lest any should wrest and twist the language of Paul from its proper meaning. His great teaching anybody can see this with half an eye the great teaching of Paul is that we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. This doctrine has always been taught in the church of God, and it is, as Luther well put it, the standing or falling article the test of a standing or a falling church. A church which holds this doctrine in its integrity, notwithstanding many errors, is still a church of Christ, but the church which denies this, whatever else it may hold, is anti Christ, and is not a church of Christ at all. The great Reformation, for which we so often bless God, was brought about by tiiis light. The truth, which had been hidden in darkness, being held forth in the preaching and teaching of Protestant reformers. For a long time after those eminent men had departed, the testimony of all the Protestant churches to justification by faith was clear and unwavering. You c;m scarcely read a sermon of any of the immediate successors of the reformers, but you will find it filled with the doctrine that man is justified through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, by faith in him, and not by th...
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