Vol 40 Issue 11

Rev. B. Woudenberg; of Edgerton, has received a call from Redlands, California.  Our Missionary, Rev. G. Lubbers has received a call from Southwest Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. 

MARRIAGE IN THE ROMISH CHURCH  It is a well known fact that the Roman Catholic Church forbids divorce and remarriage. This position is, of course, in harmony with Scripture, and the Romish Church has often been commended for their stand. 

In our worship today the congregation is led by the minister of the Word, before the preaching of the sermon, in a rather comprehensive prayer that contains various elements. Then, immediately after the sermon, the minister leads in another prayer that is usually very brief. Now this order was not always followed in, Reformed Churches. From the collection of Christian Prayers handed down in our Dutch liturgy and translated into the English, we learn that some centuries ago prayers were used and designated for use after the preaching of the sermon.

Normally, I suppose, a new department on missions in a church paper should start out with a discussion on the history of missions, or especially on the principles that govern all mission endeavor. I also considered this when I prepared the first article for this department a few months ago. And it is still my purpose; the Lord willing, to discuss at some future date the history and principles of missions. But in the meantime, there were other matters that forced themselves upon our attention. There was the Jamaican mission field that had been explored.

Concluding our articles on the Lutheran view of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the following quotation or quotations from the History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff may be of interest to our readers. In these quotations we obtain a picture of Luther’s attitude toward those whom he called the sacramentarians toward the end of his life, and this certainly confirms that the blame for the split in the ranks of Protestantism must be laid at the door of the German Reformer. We quote from Volume VII of this work of Schaff, pages 654, ff. 

The natural man still expects to be like God. 

The House of Levi, the Priests, Reproved for Their Contempt of the LORD’s House  Malachi 1:6-2:17 continued  The Logic of Jehovah of Hosts  We duo well, as we undertake to understand this passage of the burden of the LORD, to take notice here of the logic He employs in His reproval of the priests, and, in them, of the apostate house of Jacob-Israel. 

And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites; and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let us go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Sag now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan; and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. 

Baptism is a sign of submerging into death and bearing the punishment of sin, or of so submerging into death that the justice of God is fully satisfied. And therefore it is a sign also of the rising again unto a new life. Thus Jesus was baptized indeed. He descended into the depths of Gods wrath, into the deepest darkness of death, and tasted death for all His people. And He rose again, justised by the very sentence of God upon Him, in the glorious resurrection. Of this baptism into His own blood and into His own death He received...

A Question  From Mr. Jack Arens, Holland, Mich., I received the following questions:  1. What do you think of the “kantteekeningen” in the “Staten Bijbel”?  2. Do you agree with the views expressed in Brakel’s “Redelijke Godsdienst”?  I have enjoyed reading these, especially Brakel’s work. For example, this is what I find in Brakel’s “Redelijke Godsdienst”: