WHY DO MEN DO THINGS THAT ARE AGAINST “GOD’S WILL”? ( Santamaria)

To the Old School Baptist heart, the modern tinkering with the “wills of God” is more than a mere academic disagreement—it is an affront to the majesty of the Almighty. When men speak of a God who “wishes” for things that He has not ordained, or who holds two contradictory desires within His own breast, they diminish the very Godhead they claim to serve, reducing the Sovereign King to a conflicted, frustrated deity.

THE ALEXANDRIA CERTIFICATE.

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 1843 (BEEBE)

EDITORIAL.

New Vernon, April 1, 1843

CIRCULAR LETTER Messengers of the Delaware River Baptist Association to the churches they represent, send Christian salutation. (Suydam)

The Messengers of the Delaware River Baptist Association to the churches they represent, send Christian salutation.

FRONT PAGE OF 1844 SIGNS OF THE TIMES (Beebe)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

DEVOTED TO THE OLD SCHOOL BAPTIST CAUSE.

CIRCULAR LETTER WARWICK ASSOCIATION 1835

Circular Letter.

The Elders and Brethren composing the Warwick Ass’n., assembled at Brookfield, June 10th and 11th, 1835.—To the several Churches of which it is composed, Greeting:

A LETTER FROM ELDER SAMUEL TROTT 1835 (TROTT)

 FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Fairfax, C. H. Va. June 12, 1835.

BROTHER BEEBE, I have again to ask a place in the Signs, on a subject which some of us wish brought before those Churches that stand on Old School ground.

Vol. 3. NEW-VERNON, ORANGE CO. N. Y. JAN 7, 1835. No. 1. (Beebe)

 

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

DEVOTED TO THE O. S. BAPTIST CAUSE.

“The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”

Vol. 3. NEW-VERNON, ORANGE CO., N. Y. JAN 7, 1835. No. 1.

The Signs of the Times, devoted exclusively to the OLD-SCHOOL BAPTIST CAUSE, is published semi-monthly.

GILBERT BEEBE, Editor.
To whom all Communications must be addressed.
For Terms see advertisement under the editorial Head.

FALSE DOCTRINE, DEVILS & FALSE SYSTEMS (Flint)

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Butler, County, Ohio
Feb. 10, 1835.

ELDER BEEBE: Having been a subscriber and a faithful reader of the second volume of the Signs of the Times, I have found them to support, maintain, and defend the doctrine of the Gospel as it was first delivered to the saints, and as such, I can recommend it to my Brethren. I cannot but view it as a publication of peculiar advantage to the Church of Christ, whose faith it is labouring to defend.

 

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Hopewell, Oct. 30, 1835.

Bro. Beebe: There is considerable commotion in these parts concerning matters of religion. The New School Baptists are holding protracted or distracted meetings, accomplishing front-bench conversions.

THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT! (Haynes)

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

“And Elisha came again to Gilgal, and there was a dearth in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seeth pottage for the sons of the prophets; and one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered thereof, wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of potage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat: and it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot; and they could not eat thereof; but he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.”—2 Kings, iv. 38, 41.

RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD EDITORIAL NEW VERNON NY, NOVEMBER 1, 1846 (Beebe)

 EDITORIAL.

NEW VERNON, N. Y., NOVEMBER 1, 1846.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

Williamsport, Ten., Oct. 9, 1846.

THE SABBATH EXAMINED. [BY ELDER JOHN LELAND.]

 
THE SABBATH EXAMINED.

[BY ELDER JOHN LELAND.]

I have never been able to find out on what part of the globe the Garden of Eden was planted. Geography gives no account of a spot whence four rivers take their rise. It is, therefore, most likely that the flood so changed the bed of rivers that no such place exists. If it were at or near one of the poles, one entire day was as long as three hundred and sixty-five days are in the middle regions: of course, God was six of our years in creating and forming the heavens and earth; and all things therein, and thus ceased from his work the following year.

EDITORIAL. NEW VERNON, N. Y., JULY 15, 1846. INVITATIONS OF THE GOSPEL!! (BEEBE)

EDITORIAL.  NEW VERNON, N. Y., JULY 15, 1846.  INVITATIONS OF THE GOSPEL!! (BEEBE)

COMMUNICATIONS. For the Signs of the Times. New Charlottesville, Va., May 29, 1846. (Covington)

COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Signs of the Times.
New Charlottesville, Va., May 29, 1846.

EDITORIAL. NEW VERNON, N. Y., JUNE 15, 1846. AN EVANGELIZED ZEAL! (Beebe)

EDITORIAL.

NEW VERNON, N. Y., JUNE 15, 1846.

AN EVANGELIZED ZEAL!

Little indeed do the contributors to the pecuniary capital of modern missionism know the wanton use that is made of their liberality by hirelings, by them employed to enlighten the dark corners of the earth. Occasionally, however, they are startled by “awful disclosures” made by individuals who have opportunity to know, and honesty to disclose the extravagance of Foreign Missionaries. Not long since, the Baptist Missionary, Weston, published an account of the missionary operations in Jamaica; in which, we were informed of the “Ticket system;” by which operation some missionaries were realizing, in addition to their salaries from their respective boards, from $6,000 to $6,500 per annum. And so far as we can learn from any responsible source, it is very little better in any other quarter. From Missionary Reports which have been constantly paraded through the papers, throughout our country, of the wonderful success of the mission, enterprise in the Sandwich Islands, of the number of converts immersed and baptized, &c., the confiding community are but illy prepared for the following disclosures which we copy from a late work, published in New York and London in two volumes which may be had at 23 cents per volume of Wiley & Putnam, 161 Broadway New York. The account is given by Herman Melville, after having resided four months in the valley of the Marquesas.

The extract which we make, shows that the disclosures made is not attributable to any hostility felt by the writer to the missionary doctrines, as he is a believer in the efficiency of missionary operations when conducted on different principles. The length of our extract, makes it inexpedient that we should accompany it with very extensive comments. It speaks for itself; and, lest those zealous missionaries, should charge us with fabricating the report, as they did that of Weston’s account of the Jamaica mission, we have in the above referred the reader to the publishing house in Broadway, New York, where the work from which we make the extract, can be procured. The following is taken from volume ii. pages 243—254. The title of the Book is “Typee: A peep at Polynesian life, during a four months residence in the Marquesas, &c.; by Herman Melville.”

“Ill-fated people! I shudder when I think of the change a few years will produce in their paradisaical abode; & probably when the most destructive vices, and the worst attendances on civilization, shall have driven all peace and happiness from the valley, the magnanimous French will proclaim to the world that the Marquesas Islands have been converted to Christianity! and this the Catholic world will doubtless consider as a glorious event. Heaven help the ‘Isles of the Sea!’—The sympathy which Christendom feels for them, has, alas! in too many instances proved their bane.

How little do some of these poor islanders comprehend when they look around them, that no inconsiderable part of their disasters originate in certain tea-party excitements, under the influence of which benevolent-looking gentlemen in white cravats solicit alms, and old ladies in spectacles, and young ladies in sober russet gowns, contribute sixpences towards the creation of a fund, the object of which is to ameliorate the spiritual condition of the Polynesians, but whose end has almost invariably been to accomplish, their temporal destruction!

Let the savages be civilized, but civilize them with benefits, and not with evils; and let heathenism be destroyed, but not by destroying the heathen. The Anglo-Saxon have exterminated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.

Among the islands of Polynesia, no sooner are the images overturned, the temples demolished, and the idolators converted into nominal Christians, than disease, vice, and premature death make their appearance. The depopulated land is then recruited from the rapacious hordes of enlightened individuals who settle themselves within its borders, and clamorously announce the progress of the Truth. Next villages, trim gardens, shaven lawns, spires, and cupolas arise while the poor savage soon finds himself an interloper in the country of his fathers, and that too on the very site of the hut where he was born. The spontaneous fruits of the earth, which God in his wisdom had ordained for the support of the indolent natives, mercilessly seized upon and appropriated by the stranger, are devoured before the eye of the starving inhabitant, or sent on board the numerous vessels which now touch at their shores.

When the famished wretches are cut off in this manner from their natural supplies, they are told by their benefactors to work and earn their support by the sweat of their brow! But to no fine gentleman born to hereditary opulence does the manual labor come more unkindly than to the luxurious Indian when thus robbed of the bounty of heaven. Habituated to a life of indolence, he cannot and will not exert himself; and want, disease, and vice, all evils of foreign growth, soon terminate his miserable existence.

But what matters all this? Behold the glorious result!—The abominations of Paganism have given way to the pure rites of the Christian worship—the ignorant savage has been supplanted by the refined European! Look at Honolulu, the metropolis of the Sandwich Islands!—A community of disinterested merchants, devoted self-exiled heralds of the Cross, located on the very spot that twenty years ago was defiled by the presence of idolatry. What a subject for an eloquent Bible-meeting orator! Nor has such an opportunity for a display of missionary rhetoric been allowed to pass unimproved!—But while these philanthropists send us such glowing accounts of one half of their labors why does their modesty restrain them from publishing the other half of the good they have wrought!—Not until I visited Honolulu was I aware of the fact that the small remnant of the natives had been civilized into draught-horses, and evangelized into beasts of burden. But so it is. They have been literally broken into the traces, and are harnessed to the vehicles of their spiritual instructors like so many dumb brutes.

Among a multitude of similar exhibitions that I saw, I shall never forget a robust, red-faced, and very lady-like personage, a missionary’s spouse, who day after day for months together took her regular airing in a little go-cart drawn by two of the islanders, one an old grey-headed man, and the other a roguish stripling, both being, with the exception of the fig-leaf, as naked as when they were born. Over a level piece of ground this pair of draught bipeds would jog with a shambling, ungainly trot, the youngster hanging back all the time like a knowing horse, while the old hack plodded on and did all the work.

Rattling along through the streets of the town in this stylish equipage, the lady looks about her as magnificently as any queen driven in state to her coronation. A sudden elevation, and a stony road, however, soon disturb her serenity. The small wheels become embedded in the loose soil,—the old stager stands tugging and sweating, while the young one frisks about and does nothing; not an inch does the chariot budge. Will the tender-hearted lady, who has left friends and home for the good of the souls of the poor heathen, will she think a little about their bodies and get out, and ease the wretched old man until the ascent is surmounted? Not she: she could not dream of it. To be sure she used to think nothing of driving the cows to pasture on the old farm in New England; but times have changed since then. So she remains in her seat and bawls out, “Hookee! hookee!” (pull, pull.) The old gentleman, frightened at the sound, labors away harder than ever; and the younger one makes a great show of straining himself, but takes care to keep one eye on his mistress in order to know when to dodge out of harm’s way. At last the good lady loses all patience; so “Hookee! hookee!” and rap goes the brawny handle of her huge fan over the naked skull of the old savage; while the young one skips to one side and keeps beyond its range. “Hookee! hookee!” again she cries—“Hookee tin bannaka!” (pull strong, man,)—but all in vain, and she is obliged in the end to dismount, and sed necessity, actually to walk to the top of the hill.

At the town where this paragon of humility resides, is a spacious and elegant American chapel, where divine service is regularly performed. Twice every Sabbath towards the close of the exercise may be seen a score or two of little wagons ranged along the railing in front of the edifice, with one or two native footmen of the congregation to draw their superiors home.

Least the slightest misconception should arise from anything thrown out in this chapter, or indeed in any other part of the volume, let me here observe that against the cause of missions in the abstract no Christian can possibly be opposed; it is in truth a just and holy cause. But if the great end proposed by it be spiritual, the agency employed to accomplish that end is purely earthly; and, although the object in view be the achievement of much good, that agency may nevertheless be productive of evil. To abort missionary undertakings, however it may be blessed of Heaven, is in itself but human; and subject, like everything else, to errors and abuses. And have not errors and abuses crept into the most sacred places, and may there not be unworthy or incapable missionaries abroad, as well as ecclesiastics of a similar character at home? May not the unworthiness or incapacity of those who assume apostolic functions upon the remote islands of the sea more easily escape detection by the world at large than if it were displayed in the heart of a city? An unwarranted confidence is the security of its apostles—a proneness to regard them as incapable of guilt—and an impatience of the least suspicion as to their rectitude as men or Christians, have ever been prevailing faults in the Church. Nor is this to be wondered at; for subjects as Christianity is to the mass of unexperienced men, we are naturally disposed to regard everything like an exposure of ecclesiastical misconduct as the offspring of malevolence or irreligious feeling. Not even this last consideration, however, shall deter me from the honest expression of my sentiments.

There is something apparently wrong in the practical operations of the Sandwich Islands Mission. Those who from pure religious motives, contribute to the support of this enterprise, should take care to ascertain that their donations, flowing through many devious channels, at last effect their legitimate object, the conversion of the Hawaiians. I urge this, not because I doubt the moral probity of those who disburse these funds, but because I know that they are not rightly applied. To read pathetic accounts of missionary hardships, and glowing descriptions of conversion, and baptisms taking place beneath palm-trees is one thing; and to go to the Sandwich Islands and see the missionaries dwelling in picturesque and prettily-furnished coral-rock villas, whilst the miserable natives you see committing all sorts of immorality around them, is quite another.

In justice to the missionaries, however, I will willingly admit that whatever evils may have resulted from their collective mismanagement of the business of the mission, and from the want of vital piety evinced by some of their number, still the present deplorable condition of the Sandwich Islands is by no means wholly chargeable against them. The demoralizing influence of a dissolute foreign population, and the frequent visits of all descriptions of vessels, have tended not a little to increase the evils alluded to. In a word, here, as in every case where civilization has in any way been introduced among those whom we call savages, she has scattered her vices, and withheld her blessings.

As wish a man as Shakspeare has said, that the bearer of evil tidings hath but a losing office; and so I suppose will it prove with me, in communicating to the trusting friends of the Hawaiian Mission what has been disclosed in various portions of this narrative. I am persuaded, however, that as these disclosures will by their very nature attract attention, so they will lead to something which will not be without ultimate benefit to the cause of Christianity in the Sandwich Islands.

I have but one thing more to add in connection with this subject—these things which I have stated as facts will remain facts, in spite of whatever the bigotted or incredulous may say or write against them. My reflections, however on these facts may not be free from error. If such be the case, I claim no further indulgence than should be conceded to every man whose object is to do good.”

ELDER C.B. HASSELL IN THE SIGNS 1835

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

NUMBER 3.

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.—Paul.

a contrast between the heart of Pharaoh and the hearts of the children of Israel (Trott)

Original Communications.

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

NUMBER 1.

SRAPS

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

BROTHER BEEBE:—The following remarks are submitted for your publication, if you consider them worthy.

For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear: Mark iv. 23.

RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY. TRIBUTE TO ROGER WILLIAMS. (Signs of the Times 1833)

We extract the following beautiful passage from the first volume of Bancroft’s History of the United States, just published by Mr. Chas. Bowen, of this city.

HOW TO MAKE MINISTERS. (Christian Watchman)

HOW TO MAKE MINISTERS.

A PENSYLVANIAN.

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

“THE ADVANTAGES OF SABBATH SCHOOLS” EXAMINED. 2 (Vail)

 

NEW-VERNON, ORANGE COUNTY, NEW-YORK. JUNE 18, 1834.

GILBERT BEEBE, EDITOR.
To whom all Communications must be addressed.

COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Signs of the Times.

“THE ADVANTAGES OF SABBATH SCHOOLS”
EXAMINED.

“We to the rebellious children, saith the Lord that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin: That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt.” Isa. xxx, 1, 2.

THE ADVANTAGE OF SABBATH SCHOOLS EXAMINED. (Vail)

 

For the Signs of the Times.

THE ADVANTAGE OF SABBATH SCHOOLS
EXAMINED.

FOR THE SIGNS (Vaill)

 

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

BROTHER BEEBE:—There is published at Hartford, Ct. a paper called the “Christian Secretary,” and is “under the patronage of the Connecticut Baptist Convention.”

AN OUTCAST

BROTHER BEEBE:—I have often been struck, at the professed Ministers of this our day who are crying up human effort and human means for advancing the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; believing that if they had been taught the first lesson in Grace, which is the shutting up of ones mouth, and had known what it is to be shut up in prison, and had known experimentally what a real spirit of bondage was; they would rather sit in eternal silence than thus to prate like a parrot, and cut out work enough for others, but perform no part of it themselves, yet by the bye, look at the activity and fleshly sincerity of such characters;—Hark! how they can mimick the child of God, & with what vehemence they preach their Gospel.

New-York, Feb’y. 27, 1834. FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. New York, 20th Feb. (Westervelt)

New-York, Feb’y. 27, 1834.

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
New York, 20th Feb.

THE CHURCH OF ROME (Vail)

FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

BROTHER BEEBE:—The following is a parody on a communication published in the New York Observer—signed M. S. or a translation from the original partial religion of the Roman Church, alias, Benevolent Societies of the day, into the true impartial religion taught in the Bible.

Eldefr Samuel Trott on Predestination (Trott) 1834 Signs

To whom all Communications must be addressed. COMMUNICATIONS. For the Signs of the Times. Absolute Predestination of all things. No. 1. This sentiment, as expressed in the Prospectus of the “Signs of the Times,” has called forth so much invective from some, and so much ridicule from others of the popular Baptists of this region that one would conclude some strange and absurd idea had been advanced; some absurd whim daringly promulgated as a part of the secret things of God. It, therefore, may not be amiss to re-examine the subject and enquire whether it be a revealed truth of God, or a visionary notion of man, which is calling forth such malicious sneers from those who profess to be the servants of God.