THE GREAT DIVIDER

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1880

THE GREAT DIVIDER.

"As THE cross of Christ separated the penitent and believing malefactor from the impenitent and unbelieving one of Calvary, so has it continued ever since to separate the army of believers from the army of unbelievers."

The above paragraph from some evidently clear-headed and sound Christian writer, contains a suggestion of great practical importance. The cross of Christ stands between the evangelical church of Christ and all systems of rationalistic or merely moral religion. The cross and all that it signifies, namely, salvation by the blood of Christ, is completely excluded from false religions; yes, even from that religion which, while it lavishly glories in the symbol of the cross, conceals the all-sufficiency of Christ's atoning sacrifice and practices the impiety of pretending to repeat it daily. To make a sacerdotal caste the custodian of the saving power of Christ's vicarious atonement, to be retailed out at its pleasure for money, is the hight of blasphemy.

Dear friends, before you join any church or association, be sure you find out on which side of its door is the cross of Christ and the ONE who hung thereon! It is not enough to have a priest, however exalted, inside the door, nor yet a Grand-Master.—N. Y. Witness.