SPURGEON ON THE QUACKERY OF CEREMONIALISM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 81, 14 November 1874, Page 10

SPURGEON ON THE QUACKERY OF CEREMONIALISM.

The writer of the following letter has requested us to publish it ia the Tablet — Ed. N.Z. Tablet.

(To]the Editor of the ' Ross Guardian.')

Sib — As your extract from Mr Spurgeon is going all the round of tlie papers, I think, as a subscriber of yours,'! have one right, to at least your columns, which Mr Spurgeon has not. I claim then to be allowed to say a word on this popular cutting from his letters. If Mr Spurgenn is a Mason, he must have received a severe castigation from his Worshipful Muster Wg before this, for speaking disparagingly and contemptuously of a matter which intimately concerns a noble craft that deep'y reveres their ceremonies as a sacred and integral park of thpir institution ; if he is not a Mason, he, no doubt, deplores the loss of the Marquis of Ripon, late Grand Master of English Masons, t > the rants of Protestantism, as a sad consequence of being too proficient in the ceremonies of the lodge. Dr. Ceremonial must, indeed, be a mighty clever fellow to catch such a large and knowledgeable fish as a Grand Master of English Masons must be. But Mr Spuvgeon, I suppose, pronounces the Marquis a fool. What a fool, too, must that Russian Prince be, William Radnzinel, who has of late joined the flock of Dr. Ceremonial, with the certain penalty of forfeiting all his i ro,jerty. Ml- Spurgeon wonders at the defection of a host of others, lay and cleric, willing dupes to the magic rites of the same fascinating doctor. " This quack, facing the East, drives a good trade," Mr Spurgeon says, addressing himself to the West London f ilk. I don't know whether the doctor is very particular about Hast or West but I know that Mr Spurgeon will not think of looking East, as it is too poor and too filthy. He knows bett r than to think of coming to Whitechapel or Bethnal Green He drives a first-class trade in the West, and does not envy Dr. Ceremonial, in his courts, lanes, and alleys.

Mr Spui'geon calls himself a Christian, and quotes scripture by the yard, and yet his conclusions are lamentably in contradiction wifcli whole chapters of the Bible. Now, Mr Spurgeon, I want you to swallow one of the doctor's large pills. Give me your Bible. Look here ; I find in it that God commanded Moses to take the shoes from off his feet, in respect for Mount Horeb, which He solemnly pronounced to be holy ground : I find Jacob trembling at Bethel, whilst he declared the spot, where he had seen the vision of the ladder, to be the House of God and the Gate of Heaven ; I find that God ollowed no one within the Holy of Holies except the high priest, and even him but once a year ; I find God visiting the Befchdarnites with a plague for dating to look at the Ark of the Covenant, and a Prince of Judah struck dead for merely touching it, &c, &c. ; and now tell me, Mp Spurgeon, how could you be so blasphemous as to laugh at the possibility of one place or thing being holier than another j and how are you justified in putting the religion of the chosen people of God on a low footing with the idolutory of Western Africa, called feticistn ? I read in the same Bible, in the twenty-fifth and following chapters of Exodus &0., minute details entered on by God Himself, for the decoration of the Tabernacle, and the clothing of its ministers : — " Ten. curtains of fine twined linen, and blue and purple and scarlet ; " and then the epnod, with its gold and purple ; and the robe of the ephod, with its seventy-two golden bells, and as many artificial pomegranates, &c., &c. ; all according to the dictation of God Himself ? Does Mr Spurgeon laugh ? God sets apart certain duys of the year, reckoned by the moons, as times of special prayer; and Mr Spuvgeon keeps holy the seventh day, although it is not the real Sabbath mentioned in Holy Writ. What say you, Mr Spurgeon ? I read that Christ breathed upon His disciples, and said to them : " Receive the Holy Ghost : whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them ; " and that He curod a deaf and dumb man, employing such ceremonies as taking him aside, putting His fingers into his ears, touching his tongue with His spittal, looking up to Heaven and groaning, and, ia fine, using the word EpTiphetha. Well, Mr Spurgeon dou't you think Dr. Ceremonial has got some reason on his side ? Again, in the garden, Christ fell on Mis face whan He prayed, and He said, the self-same prayer three

times. Now, Mr Spurgeon, why do you find fault, with postures in praying, and with " uttering over the same words ? " St. Paul knelt down to pray, as we read in the Acls ; and are you too proud to bend your knee. As Mr Spurgeon talks of a nibbling mouse, &0., he can not believei n the sacredness of Christ's Body and Blood, which had been scourged and trampled on respectively ; and as he makes so light of the wnter of regeneration, he bids fair, I am sorry to say, of never entering " into the kingdom of God," Bince I must believe the words of One Who ought to know, anJ Who speaks expressly of tre necessity of that water united to the Holy Spirit, in the very pages of the Gospel.

If there is one thing more than another that should expose a public preacher to contempt, it is inconsistency. It is not without reason then, that "I have no patience with such" people as Mr Spurgeon, lacking the first essential to public speaking. He points to the Bible as his great authority, yet he readily abandons it to feud popular prejudice. He well knows that low abuse, by a strange perversion, is argument with many ; and he, therefore, does not fiil to try the strength of an arch -scoffer's axiom : " Throw jplenty of mud and some of it is sure to stick." I am, &c,

Season and No Prejudice. P.S. — Mr Spurgeon a9ks : " What ia any worship unless the reaoon and heart enter into it? " And I answer, it is of no value. — R.