Enjoy
these favourite words of wisdom from the pen of Dr. Thomas…
1.
Humanity
“His
heart is evil; and, left to its uncontrolled impulses, he becomes licentious,
merciless, and more cruel than the fiercest beast of prey. … His propensity is
to obey the lust of his nature; and to do its evil works.” Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p1-2
2.
God’s plan
“…It
is a mere conceit the idea, that God wills the immortalization and
glorification of every member of the human family. He has purposed no such
thing. His design requires only the
separation from the nations of a sufficient number of men and women to occupy
the globe when constituted on an eternal basis, without sea, be that many or
few. ‘What a paltry, contemptible, few,’ exclaims one, ‘compared with the
immense mass of human flesh and blood, which will have existed on the earth for
7000 years!’ Granted; but what is needed more than a sufficient population for
the renovated earth? If this immense mass of corruption and sin, living and
dead, had listened to the voice of reason; if it would have believed God and
obeyed Him; an adequate provision would have been made for them; but they would
not, and the consequences inevitably follow.” Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p183
3.
War
“Peace
is to be deprecated as a calamity by the faithful... War is not displeasing to
God any more than a rod is displeasing to him that uses it for correction. … It
is a divine institution for the punishment of the transgressors of His law; and
a most beneficent one too: for all the little liberty the world enjoys is
attributable to the controversy of the tongue, the pen, and the sword.”
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p113-114
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p113-114
4.
Peace activists
“Surely
ye are incorrigibly demented.”
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p117
5.
Suffering
“Sin
and evil are as cause and effect. God is the author of evil, but not of sin;
for the evil is the punishment of sin. … The evil then to which man is
subjected is the Lord’s doing. War, famine, pestilence, flood, earthquake,
disease, and death, are the terrible evils which God inflicts upon mankind for
their transgressions. … Evil is the artillery with which He combats the enemies
of His law, and of His saints.” Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p128-129
“The
saints who understand the word will keep aloof from politics. None are more
interested in them than they; but they will mix themselves up neither with one
party nor another; for God regulates them all: therefore to be found in any
such strife, would be to contend in some way or other against Him.”
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p66
7.
Praise and prayer by non-Christadelphians
“Is it not, then, preposterous to invite the clergy and their followers,
or the sinners of the world to sing songs of praise, and to pray – to offer up
personally, or by proxy, their “abominations?” … Prayer and praise, and
thanksgiving are spiritual worship, when offered “in spirit and in truth;” and
can only be so offered by those who are intelligent in the truth. Under any
other circumstances, they are the mere mutterings of unreasoning animals…”
The Christadelphian, Vol. 23 Bd. 23, c1886
The Christadelphian, Vol. 23 Bd. 23, c1886
“We
hear much in some parts of the world of the political rights and equality of
women with men; and of their preaching and teaching in public assemblies. We
need wonder at nothing which emanates from the unenlightened thinking of sinful
flesh. … Men do not think according to God’s thinking, and therefore it is they
run into the most unscriptural conceits; among which may be enumerated the
political and social equality of women. … Preaching, and lecturing, women, are
but species of actresses, who exhibit upon the boards for the amusement of
sinful and foolish men. They aim at an equality for which they are not
physically constituted; they degrade themselves by the exhibition, and in
proportion as they rise in assurance, they sink in all that really adorns a woman.”
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p123-124
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p123-124
9.
Killing babies
“The
destruction of ‘infants and sucklings’ is especially commanded in divers parts
of scripture. Not because they were responsible transgressors; but, on the same
principle, that men not only destroy all adult serpents that come in their way,
but their thread-like progeny also; for in these is the germ of venomous and
malignant reptiles. … It is a law of the flesh that ‘like produces like.’ Wild
and truthless men reproduce themselves in their sons and daughters.”
Elpis Israel (4th ed.) p132-133
“Human
governments have all been opposed to God’s truth, and have made war with that
class of people in their several countries who are entitled scripturally to the
designation of the Saints. You cannot make peace between them. That is the
reason why we who advocate the doctrine of God's Saints are in hostility to the
world. Those on our side who would make peace with the enemy are not fit to be
on our side. It is war to the knife between the powers that be and all
Christadelphians. We accept no truce; we will consent to no compromise. Either
they must conquer us or we must conquer them – by argument now, but when the
time for argument is passed away and the Lord has come with power and great
glory, His Saints will take the sword and conquer the world, whether the world
likes it or not.” The Book Unsealed (1870), p13
And
in a final irony, he said of other denominations:
“The
people begin to flag. The masses take no interest in their preaching. Their
churches are cold, formal, and deathlike.”
It
reminds me of something, I just can’t think what.
Readers
are welcome to suggest additions to this list.
I wonder if references could be adding to the quotes, and perhaps a downloadable/printable PDF. I would like to "bill" my local Christadelphians with it, and "invite" them to discuss the matters contained within...
ReplyDeleteCould we have the one from his letter where he describes slaves of African descent as "The Everlasting (n-word)"?
ReplyDeleteReferences added.
DeleteThe quotation you're thinking of comes from a letter to Robert Roberts in 1865, which you can read in full here. The relevant passage is:
"We have a great many speculators in the faith on this side the Atlantic. Mere theorists, who are a sort of amalgam made up of a little Storrism, a little Adventism, a little Campbellism, and a hodge-podge of traditions, of which water, pork, alcohol, tobacco, salt, leaven, raisins, and “the everlasting nigger,” are the prolific “head-centres.” But of believers, intelligent in “the unadulterated milk of the word,” by which they have grown into “young men” and “fathers” in Christ, we have very, very few."
He is basically having a go at other nonconformist believers who didn't share his religious views. If you're wondering what the pork and tobacco are all about, in a comment elsewhere on this blog, former editor Corky explained that "He was talking about the hodge podge of health doctrines held by the COGGC and the COG-7th day churches. The COGs were against slavery - therefore, the good doctor must have been for slavery - else, why mention black people in such a derogatory way?"
Rather than a targeted racist gibe as such, I think Thomas was saying "This everlasting fuss about slavery, why do people keep banging on about it - as if it even mattered!" The impression I get is of a man so lacking in compassion that he didn't regard any form of human suffering - whether it was due to war, poverty, enslavement or anything else - as important. After all, it was the will of God and we worthless humans deserve no better. I suspect he simply regarded slavery as a non-issue - and great minds like his had loftier things to think about.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did harbour racist views (in keeping with his general ignorant backwardness), but to me this quotation says more about his callousness than anything else.
So (quotation 5), "the evil to which man is subjected is the Lord`s doing. War, famine, pestilence, flood, earthquake, DISEASE (my capitals), and death, are the terrible evils which God inflicts upon mankind for their trangressions".
DeleteI wonder what those CD`s (and their loved ones and relatives), who are subject to various diseases, think of the God, whom Dr JT has said, "inflicts" these diseases upon them?
I like Homo Deus's take on it:
Delete"For generation after generation humans have prayed to every god, angel and saint, and have invented countless tools, institutions and social systems but they continued to die in their millions from starvation, epidemics and violence.
Many thinkers and prophets concluded that famine, plague and war must be an integral part of God’s cosmic plan or of our imperfect nature, and nothing short of the end of time would free us from them.
Of course, these problems have not been completely solved, but they have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. We don’t need to pray to any god or saint to rescue us from them. We know quite well what needs to be done in order to prevent famine, plague and war – and we usually succeed in doing it. True, there are still notable failures; but when faced with such failures we no longer shrug our shoulders and say, ‘Well, that’s the way things work in our imperfect world’ or ‘God’s will be done’. Rather, when famine, plague or war break out of our control, we feel that somebody must have screwed up, we set up a commission of inquiry, and promise ourselves that next time we’ll do better. And it actually works. Such calamities indeed happen less and less often.
For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined. In the early twenty-first century, the average human is far more likely to die from bingeing at McDonald’s than from drought, Ebola or an al-Qaeda attack."
The Value of Elpis Israel:
ReplyDelete"Firstly, let every candidate for immersion be requested prior to immersion
(preferably), but definitely after, to read in conjunction with his daily
portion of Scripture, Elpis Israel. All whom God has privileged to bring
out of Gentilism into Christ, and who desire their work to withstand the
fire of Christ's scrutiny, have a a definite duty to perform. Babes in Christ
should receive parental control until they can walk safely alone. Thus,
the reading and study of Elpis Israel will build them up and establish
them in the general ethics of God's Word, placing them on a more solid
foundation, guarding them against false doctrine, stimulating them to
withstand the darts of the evil one." — R. Roberts.
The establishment of a cult....to be continued.
What is the full guote on those ignoant of the biographies of Abraham Issac and Jacob are ignorant of the gospel?
ReplyDeleteSorry, Unknown, I'm unclear what you're asking. But if you're trying to find a specific quote that doesn't sound like one I know.
DeleteJon, off topic, but been watching a lot of Sky News Australia lately, and it seems like you people down under, or your leaders, have completely lost the plot. Hope it picks up for you soon, not good here, but sort of normal.
DeleteThanks Joseph! Without wanting a lengthy off-topic discussion of media sources, I don't know what Sky News has been saying, but get the impression quite a few people here have been upset with the way it has covered the news.
DeleteMy take is that the leaders here haven't completely lost the plot, though there is certainly disunity between federal and state governments as well as between some states and others. But clearly also we're not where we want to be with everything and haven't been for a few months, and certainly the hope is that that can turn round in the remainder of the year. Being able to work from home it probably affects me less than many, but thanks for the thoughts. And I hope things continue to improve there.
very briefly, Jon, Covid is spiking here, particularly in the west country, rather than getting better (neither is Brexit).
DeleteSorry to hear that, Mancott. And sorry I missed approving your comment - no idea how I failed to see it for more than a week.
DeleteIt seems true in so many places that vaccination has (I think?) improved the situation, but not by as much as perhaps we hoped 6 or 12 months ago. And that definitely has many here nervous - yes, we're aiming for higher vaccination numbers before re-opening significantly, and we can't stay cut off from the rest of the world forever, but what will be the cost and is our healthcare system prepared enough?