TO CORRESPONDENTS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 22, 1877

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A SABBATH-KEEPER wants us to explain 2 Cor. 5 : 8. Send for SIGNS OF THE TIMES, No. 48, Vol. 2, which contains an article upon that scripture. Address, SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal. It would be a good idea to subscribe for the SIGNS for a year at the same time. The same writer asks if a Sabbath-keeper can become a member of the T. & M. Society if he has not joined the church. Yes, by paying a membership fee of $1.00.

Does probation close at the beginning of the time of trouble or at its close? HENRY BEDDOR.

ANS. At the beginning. Dan. 12 : 1. The standing up of Michael [Christ] is the closing of his work in the most holy place of the sanctuary. Then there shall be a time of trouble—the seven last plagues are poured out.

MATT. 8 : 22.

We do not suppose that the young man’s father was dead; but that is a form of expression equivalent to saying, Let me remain at home while my father lives, while I have this care upon me, then I will follow thee. Jesus replied, Let those who have no interest in me attend to these cares, let the spiritually dead bury the dead. The phrase bury the dead corresponds with the phrase bury my father, and covers as much,—the care for the father the rest of his life and the final act of burying him.

In Review No. 2, Matt. 5 : 32 is used as proof that a man divorced from his wife according to the Bible, can marry again. How do you harmonize this with Luke 16 : 18? A. READER.

ANS. Matthew records an exception that Luke and Mark did not record. The general rule is the same. It is that he who puts away his wife, or she who puts away her husband, and marries another, commits adultery. Mark 10 : 11, 12. Matthew in recording the same rule has in two places recorded the exception,—“saving for the cause of fornication,” Matt. 5 : 32 ; 19 : 9.

Now if a man put away his wife, or a woman her husband, without this cause, and then if either marries, that one commits adultery. But in the case of adultery, the marriage covenant being broken, the marriage is fundamentally dissolved, and it lies in the power of the party wronged to prosecute it to a formal dissolution by divorce; and then the wronged party is at liberty to marry again. C. W. S.

What is meant by the words, Lead us not into temptation? Some think the Lord leads into temptation.

Dr. Clarke says the passage may be rendered, “Bring us not into sore trial.” The word temptation is often used generally for any kind of trial. In that sense, “God did tempt Abraham,” when he commanded him to offer up Isaac. Gen. 22 : 1. He tried him. God does not tempt any man in the sense of trying to cause him to do evil. James 1 : 12. Yet, as he did Abraham, and as he did Job, when he permitted Satan to try him with losses and disease, so he may try us. In those cases the Providence of God permitted the evil, or trial, to come, and the Spirit of God supported the faithful sufferers. But as these were extraordinary cases, and we are of ourselves unable to sustain the trial, we are taught to pray that God will be pleased to preserve us from such temptations, or in any wise from falling under them. See Cottage Bible.