THE MORNING COMETH by Rev. John Cumming, D. D.

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 10, 1881

THE MORNING COMETH.

By Rev. John Cumming, D. D.

EVERY created thing is under a repressive influence. And man also is degraded—he was not made for this state. But when the curse shall be removed, and Satan chained, possibilities of grandeur, of beauty, and of glory, inherent but repressed, shall be developed, and a beautiful creation shall be trodden by the sons and servants of God, countless as the dew-drops of a summer's morn, and reflecting the splendors of an unsetting sun. God allows us transient and incidental sights of the still hidden possibilities of nature. For instance, the hedge-rose is a very poor thing, but by the art and the nursing of man, that is, by his diluting the curse as much as he can, it grows into that beautiful flower, a moss-rose. In that hedge-rose was huddled up and buried all the beauties of the moss-rose. God thus lets man know transient gleams of hidden beauties in the works of creation, that he may see how beautiful every tree will grow, and every flower will blossom when the repressive incubus is taken off and Satan no more allowed to blight it by his breath, or sin, by its pestilential taint. The expression of a dying horse is, next to that of a dying friend, the most touching. He seems as if he felt that something unnatural was coming over him, and he looks and appeals and all but speaks to those around him, as if asking them to help and heal him.

It seems as if the brute knew that there was something wrong and abnormal in suffering. The dog, the bird, the cat—the domestic and the wild animals—as they feel the pangs of approaching death, generally run into a nook or a hole, as if the shame of man's sin had cast its shadow upon them. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth." Nature is in travail—a woman with child about to give birth to the sons of God and to share in the glories and magnificence of their apocalypse. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting"—for what?—"waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power." "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." Now, over those who participate in the first resurrection, this second death shall have no power, there will be no fuel for its flames there. There will be nothing for it to lay hold of in redeemed and regenerated souls. They are "blessed and holy." "Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven," "blessed are the pure in heart," "blessed are the meek," "blessed are the peacemakers," "blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness," "blessed are they that hear the joyful sound;" all these benedictions scattered over the sacred pages, falling in their first slight showers upon

hearts quickened by the Spirit and redeemed by the blood of Jesus, will be compressed into one grand and lasting benediction, which shall rest upon soul and body of those who are blessed and holy, and have part in that first resurrection from among the dead. To them Jesus shall say, combining a thousand past blessings in one, "Come, ye blessed of my father,"—blessed, for ye have part in this first resurrection—"inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." THE MORNING COMETH.—Rev. John Cumming, D. D.