All Gospel Tracts Alike? - Glenn Conjurske
All Gospel Tracts Alike?
by the editor
Brownlow North was one of the well known evangelists of the nineteenth century. He lived in a day when most of those who preached the gospel preached the genuine article. Whether the Baptist and separatist
C. H. Spurgeon, or the Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle, or the Congregational layman D. L. Moody, they all preached with the Saviour of the world, “Repent and believe the gospel.” They all preached with the apostle of the Gentiles, “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” They all preached that men must give up sin, or be damned. Evidently the testimony of the church on this matter was consistent and uniform. Brownlow North bears witness to this united testimony in the following tract:
THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.
WHAT’S this? A tract! Oh, they are all the same. I know every thing that is in it, before I read it. If I don’t give up sin, and believe in Jesus, I shall go to hell.
In this way careless, thoughtless men often speak, when they receive a tract, and very generally they speak the truth. Every faithful tract written to awaken sinners, tells the very same story that Christ and His Apostles told eighteen hundred years ago. If men do not give up sin, and believe in Jesus, they will go to hell.
Now do you know why all these tracts say just the same thing? I will tell you. It is because they say what is in the Word of God. They are all written by God’s people, and they tell others what God has told them. If you are not one of God’s people the plain truths of His Word seem foolishness to you, and for this reason,—-that you are not taught of God. The people who believe and write these truths are all taught of God.
Will you cast this paper from you because it tells you that if you do not give up sin, and believe in Jesus, you will go to hell? You can if you like: but if you do, you reject a call from God, and some day will regret it. Perhaps you have often rejected a call from God. Whether that be so, or not, do not reject this one, for there is an hour coming, when you must listen to His call. There is an hour coming, says the Scripture, when all that are in their graves SHALL hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. (John v.29.) That hour you must see, and that call you must hear. If you will give up sin, and believe in Jesus now, He will teach you by His Holy Spirit, how you can appear before God in that day, as having “DONE GOOD:” He will give you His blood to wash you, His righteousness to clothe you, and His Holy Spirit to sanctify you. But if you will not give up sin, and believe in Jesus Christ, as sure as you now hold this paper in your hand, the day is coming when you will awake to the resurrection of damnation. You can throw this tract from you if you like, and say tracts are all the same; but it will not be the same to you, whether you wake to the resurrection of life, or the resurrection of damnation.
—-Gathered Leaves, by Brownlow North. London: Chas. J. Thynne, Second Edition, 1901, # XII.
Alas, times have changed. We might almost say today, as Brownlow North said in his day, that all the gospel tracts say the same thing, but if so, it is not because all the tracts preach the truth, but because they all fail to preach it. The present generation has advanced in spiritual wisdom far beyond Christ and his apostles. That men must give up sin or go to hell is rarely mentioned in a gospel tract today, any more than it is from most of the pulpits. This is no doubt one reason why revivals are a thing of the past, and the church is nearly as worldly as the world itself.
Glenn Conjurske