A Timely Book
I have just finished the most entertaining book I have read in a long time. At the same time, I found it constantly stimulating, and I feel I have profited immensely by having read it.
It is the book, The New Testament Church by F. H. Srygley. It consists of a collection of his editorials from the years 1889-1900, during which time he was the front page editor of the Gospel Advocate. The editorials have that vital, ringing quality which are peculiar to editorials written for an immediate audience. The fact that they were not specifically written for a book adds to their interest.
Brother Srygley had a clear concept of the undenominational character of the church. He contended with Baptist, Methodist, and those who were intent upon making the church into a denomination, stoutly maintaining that "God has never required any one to be more than a Christian while he lives or to try to do any better than go to heaven when he dies." With particularly telling logic he shows that any party containing only part of those who are Christians cannot be the church and is not approved by God. He delights in drawing the fire of Methodist or Baptist writers, then reducing, by logic and scripture, their reasoning to the ridiculousness which it truly is.
The particular feature which interested me in the book, however, is the exchanges he had with those who were promoting the missionary society. The last hundred pages or so are confined to this subject. The tactics and thinking of the missionary society advocates revealed by these exchanges are so similar to the tactics and thinking of some of the more liberal advocates of institutionalism today as to make one think.
You will enjoy this book. It can be obtained from the Gospel Guardian.