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A Liberal Platform

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 19, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 33.

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A Liberal Platform

By L. A. S.

THE term “liberal” can never be used in its true sense apart from Christianity. Those who condemn the old-fashioned Christianity with its strict injunctions and prohibitions as being too narrow for this progressive age, show that their own minds are too narrow to perceive the truth. Christianity is the expression of the life of God, who is from eternity to eternity, and inhabits all space. The presence of God fills the universe, and his attributes are equally infinite. There can be no narrowness about that which he ordains. The motive power of all liberality is love, and God is love. The liberality of God to the world has been manifested by the gift of his only begotten Son, and with that gift, the greatest that heaven itself could afford, all other things have likewise been given us freely. Liberality could not go further than is revealed in the plan of redemption.
God has provided a platform for his people in the world,—that of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Is this a narrow or illiberal platform? “Thy commandment,” says the psalmist, “is exceeding broad.” The commandments of God cover every relation and condition of life, and apply not merely in this world, but in every part of God’s creation. Allegiance to those commandments links the individual with the great heavenly family, which extends far beyond the confines of this poor world,—the great family which peoples worlds unfallen, and surrounds with shining hosts the throne of God. Such a relationship is broad indeed.
The platform of God’s people to-day is broader than the world. Selfishness fills the world, and has made the minds of its people narrow and illiberal. Its inhabitants are wise in their own conceits. The god of this world has blinded their eyes, that they should not discern the breadth of God’s words and ways, and the narrowness of their own human theories. The breadth of their platform will be the salvation of God’s people in the day of the final overthrow and dissolution of earthly things. L. A. S.