The Raid by A. P. Lawton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 8, 1875

The Raid.

By A. P. Lawton

We meet a class who are ready to do battle, and if they can tell with whom or what, I confess I have yet to learn. Those who believe the Bible, or those who wrote it, or He who dictated it, or all, are the objects of hate and complaint.

Is it reasonable to doubt the Bible history of creation, man's rebellion and sin, the deluge, rise and fall of nations, while we give full credence to profane history concerning the same events? Is not the Bible, which treats of past, and present, and future events, with equal exactness, as reliable as the profane historian who can record nothing but what is past? But, says the caviler, look at the wars, bloodshed, and misery, in the world. Personal and national calamities do exist, it is true. Is God unjust? Will any one dare to sit as his judge, or be his counselor? Do not both the cause, and the consequences, rest upon those who dare rebel against the righteous government of God? If children rise up and rebel against the just claims of good, indulgent parents, and meet merited punishment, who is to blame? If we are intemperate in our habits of living, and consequently suffer, shall we charge it upon Him who made man upright.

Again I say, With whom are you at war? If you are not fighting a man of straw, you had better do so than to be contending with, and judging, the Maker of all things. He does not ask us to sit in judgment on him, but to obey and live. Many will find too late that they have been engaged in an unequal contest. Shall the clay say to the potter, Why hast thou formed me thus? Let us rather say, Why have we “perverted the right ways of God, broken the everlasting covenant,” and brought all these evils upon us?

A. P. LAWTON.

W. Winfield, N. Y.