“Prove All Things; Hold Fast That Which Is Good.” 1 Thess. 5:21.
By N. Orcutt
NEVER in this world's history has there existed greater necessity of giving earnest heed to this injunction of the apostle, than exists at the present. Perilous times have come. Much of what Paul saw in prophetic vision has been written as history in the experience of the present generation. “Evil men and seducers . . . wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” Error, hydra-headed, stalks through the land as never before. We encounter it on every hand, and in various forms. Atheism, boldly defiant, challenges us to believe in all unbelief. Philosophy, with its specious pleadings, “oppositions of science falsely so called” (against which the apostle has warned us, 1 Tim. 6:20), would undermine our faith in God and his word. Fanaticism would drown, in its turbulent waters, those whom infidelity cannot freeze, or philosophy overthrow. And Satan’s masterpiece—the monster delusion which has gone forth “unto the kings of the earth and the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty,” through the pretended revelations from departed friends who sleep in the dust—challenges our credulity and questions our faith. Error comes to us sugar-coated—mingled with, and partially covered over with, truth, and under the sanction of those who are looked up to, and respected, in the theological world. We live in times of great danger, times when everything, except the progress of the truth, is characterized by startling development and rapid transition. How important, how necessary, that we walk cautiously, scrutinize closely; that we “prove all things;” and “hold fast that which is good.” Such are some of the thoughts suggested by the perusal of an editorial from the pen of Henry Ward Beecher, in the Christian Union of Aug. 28, 1872, entitled “The Life to Come.” He says truly:— “The whole teaching of the Bible, as to the future life, centers on this—that what we are now is supremely important with reference to what we shall be then. Every warning, every encouragement, all the grand and terrible imagery of the Judgment, all the tender assurances of Christ, are directed to that end. The object of them all is to impress the transcendent importance of character. Language and thought are tasked to the utmost to express this. Visions of woe unspeakable, of joy ineffable, are used to picture the results of well-doing and evil-doing, to show that they radiate into eternity, and are immeasurable.” Then, following this declaration of what the Bible teaches, he goes on to say (and here the poison is introduced, a thousand times more dangerous in this connection, and coming from a professed preacher of the gospel than if it came from an avowed spiritualist like Judge Edmonds, or Prof. Denton): “And we have no right to break the force of this teaching, by the assumption that only one of two grand results is possible, and that so a man is saved at last, his misdeeds will hurt him little. That is neither according to Scripture, nor moral reason. He only that is righteous is to be ‘righteous still;’ he that is holy to be holy still.” According as a man has attained in this stage, so is his beginning in the next. He must commence there according as he has finished here, on a high plane or a low one.” The two last sentences of the above quotation express an idea which cannot be misunderstood—an idea that, next to the dogma of inherent immortality, is one of the most important principles in the creed of modern spiritualism. Yet it is no part of the teachings of God’s word. Mr. B. must certainly have based the idea thus presented upon “moral reason,” instead of “Scripture.” We quote again, language to which we can take no exception, every word being true:— “Modern forms of religious feeling do not make so much account as former ones, of preparation for death.” (Especially is this true of present truth.) “And it is no loss that they do not, if only they sufficiently insist on rightness of life. That, taking the words in their largest sense, including faith and love Godward, as well as right action manward, is the only preparation for death that is good for anything. Any other preparation, whether it be receiving church rites, or going through some kind of emotional experience, that will serve as a passport at the heavenly gates, is a delusion. To love God, to trust him and obey him, to be pure, and upright, and loving, that is the only preparation for death, and that is the only true life.” How beautiful the truth! Error, how seductive, and yet, when seen in its true light, how hideous! When we consider that the truth elevates, purifies, sanctifies, how desirable. And when we consider that error degrades, contaminates, destroys, how essential that we are prepared to discriminate—to “prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” Oh! that we might feel the importance of a thorough knowledge of the great Detector; that we might be led to search the Scriptures, put on the whole armor of God, have our loins girt about with truth; that in our wrestling “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits [margin] in high places,” we “may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Jamaica, Vt., Sept., 1872.