CHANGE by Jos. Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 12, 1879

CHANGE

By Jos. Clarke

“Thus saith the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her, for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.’” Eze. 5:5, 6.

In Matt. 5:14, Christ speaks of his people as a city that is set on a hill; they are also called by him the light of the world, and the salt of the earth; he places them in a conspicuous place, where the world is constrained to see their order and purity. Old Jerusalem was situated upon high mountains, and could be seen at a great distance; its temple and palaces, its lofty walls and towers, were the pride and gem of the age, and its beauty and strength and splendor might, with the far greater and infinitely more important system of religion which this city was intended to represent, have produced an abiding impression for good upon the heathen nations round about her.

But man is fickle, fond of change; and when the especial restraints of law were slackened by the death of good men, and good kings, and faithful prophets, and devoted and holy priests, then the people clamored for change; they desired to be like the heathen, and to substitute the forms and ceremonies of the heathen instead of the forms of the Mosaic economy. The heathen form was cheaper and not so rigid. The Mosaic forms called for the best and most costly offerings without a spot or blemish. Not so the forms of the heathen; they could be free to offer whatever was most convenient, and so the laws of the heathen left each person more free to acts of a carnal nature, while the moral laws of God were strict and unchangeable, inflexible and eternal. The Jews as a people were human, and their natural inclinations were like the nations round about them, and we cannot wonder that they with their carnal natures unchanged, longed for the freedom of the heathen around them,—freedom from tithes and offerings, freedom from moral law, which continually stood in the way of their avarice, their pride, and their lusts.

On the same principle the Roman influence adopted a change of the fourth precept, because they could thus harmonize heathenism with Christianity, by compromising the law of God; and the laws of Constantine, A. D. 321, were just the thing for an apostate church, and now the same motive perpetuates the change.

How important for the church, the light of the world, a city set on a hill, the salt of the earth, to set a holy example, to give a true exposition of God’s law and testimony, and a proper and correct representation of the gospel of Christ. For this God has set them on high as a beacon light to a lost and benighted world. Shall the church hold out a false light? shall she change the law of God, and say he approves her action in the matter? Is it not blasphemy so to do? Is it not taking the position of those who entice seamen by false signals, to guide their ships, laden with precious life and treasure, upon the rocks and breakers of a desolate coast, that they may enrich themselves with the wasted cargo? Do not ministers, with their eyes open, defend the change of God’s law, because this yields them a nice salary and patronage and other temporal advantages besides that of being called Rabbi? but will not the day of reckoning come, when they will appear in their true character?

Tell me, is there a church that is really holding out the true light? Yes; praise the Lord that, amid the moral darkness, the lighthouse sends forth its rays upon the waters far at sea! Tell me, reader, do you ever hear error after error preached to the multitude, in sweet and eloquent strains, while the people applaud? Does not your heart throb with pain, and is not your soul almost crushed at the thought of the mischief to follow?

“Thus saith the Lord God, This is Jerusalem; I have set it in the midst of the nations; and she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations.” Yes, this is the Christian,—the Protestant church of the nineteenth century, seeking, with all her moral and civil force, to perpetuate the most glaring of the Papal errors. With the true light throwing its rays afar upon the earth, they still persist in ignoring the true light, and in extolling the false; and the multitude are led by the false light; and who will answer for the wreck of human hopes? Jerusalem, set on a hill, hath changed my judgments, and her light is misleading the nations round about; but the day of reckoning will come. Will there be then a Jeremiah to weep over the ruins of Jerusalem, set on high, to say, “Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears”? But I forbear. This is a subject painful to dwell upon. Jos. Clarke.