p. 44 | To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 26, 1870

To Correspondents.

E. L. WILLIAMS: We believe that the course for the sinner to take, is marked out in Acts 20: 21: 1. Repentance toward God. 2. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And following faith in Christ comes baptism for the remission of sins, as directed by Peter in Acts 2: 38.

W. ROMINE: Who makes the statement that “the Huns and Heruli were broken and swallowed up in the great revolutions which brought up and established the ten horns before the ten were all adjusted?” According to Machiavel, Hales, and Lloyd, the last of the ten kingdoms was established in A. D. 483; and according to Gibbon it was not till ten years after this, namely in 493, that the first of the ten kingdoms, the Heruli were plucked up. The second, the Vandals, was overthrown in 534, and the third, the Ostrogoths, in 538; which placed the little horn in position to take the saints times and laws into his hands. We think the events have transpired exactly as they should, to establish the prophecy.

W. A. DAINS: On Isa. 65: 25, “And dust shall be the serpent’s meat,” it is to be observed that the language undoubtedly refers to the new earth, and hence is proof that there will be beasts there. See also Isa. 11: 4–9. Verse 8 speaks of the asp and the cockatrice, or adder, margin; which shows that this class of animals will also be there. The inference from Ps. 104: 30, is that they will be there by a new creation. But they are rendered entirely harmless. The blood-thirsty and venomous nature will be entirely removed; for God says to the prophet, Isa. 11: 8, that “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.” Now if the language, “Dust shall be the serpent’s meat,” means the same as the language of the curse addressed to the serpent in Gen. 3: 14, “Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,” then there would seem to exist, as you suggest, the difficulty of having the curse perpetuated in the new earth. But do the two passages mean the same thing? We do not find, as a matter of fact, that the words of Genesis have been literally carried out, or in other words that any of the animals now known as serpents really eat dust. We must therefore take the language to denote the terrible humiliation and abasement that was to be visited upon the serpent for the part he had been made to act in the deception of our first parents; just as the expression is often used at the present time: “His enemies were made to bite the dust;” or as in Ps. 72: 9: “His enemies shall lick the dust;” not that they were to bow down and literally take a mouthful of dirt, but only that they should be overthrown, and brought down to the ground. If this is so, we see that the language of Isa. 65: 25, is altogether different in its nature. It is not a denunciation of judgment and humiliation to be visited upon any classes of animals, but only a plain and simple statement of what, in the eternal state, shall constitute the sustenance of certain classes. The same verse speaks of the lion’s eating straw like the ox. Now the lion preys on other animals. Instead of this, in the future state, the lion will eat that which constitutes the food of the bullock. There will be no destruction of life. So with the serpent. Instead of living as it does now on quadrupeds, reptiles, insects, &c., it will make its food of dust. And this could be spoken without any reference to the figurative denunciation against the serpent in the garden of Eden. The language in both instances is indeed very similar; but we think the position must be taken that that of Genesis is not literal, while this of Isaiah most probably is; which constitutes the difference between the two declarations.

WM. CURZAN: We do not think there is difference enough in political parties respecting the Sabbath question, to influence us to give preference to one over another. The democratic party may for a time, from motives of policy, favor the German views of the Sunday question. But whichever party is in power, its influence is ultimately to be brought to bear against those who keep the commandments of God.

E. PUTNAM: We understand that the righteous are concerned in the events described in Rev. 20: 12. This is evident from the mention of the book of life; but

that book is produced, if we view it aright, not for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not their names are there, but to show to the universal race of mankind that their names are there. We believe this is the only occasion on which a public use is made of the book of life. It is elsewhere several times mentioned, but only to speak of some whose names are there, or to state some purpose of God concerning those who are written therein. But here, when the whole human race is together for the first and last time, when the final separation is about to take place, as described in Matt. 25: 31–46, and the Lord shall say to those on his right hand, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world,” then, so to speak, the roll of honor is publicly produced; and the wicked are caused to see who they are whose names are inscribed therein. With amazement they behold that they are the very ones whom they esteemed as the filth and offscouring of the earth, and that Heaven now puts superlative honor upon the ones whom they reviled, defamed, persecuted, and destroyed. And, seeing the justice of God, in destroying all who have not secured the record of their names in the Lamb’s book of life, and seeing that their own names are not there, and beholding the infinite reward of the righteous, whose names are there, they “gnash with their teeth and melt away.” Ps. 112: 10.