PROTEST AND TESTIMONY by E. P. Marvin

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 31, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 13.

PROTEST AND TESTIMONY.

By E. P. Marvin

THE several periods of man's past history have severally begun in divine mercy, progressed in human apostasy, and ended in divine judgment. In none of these successive periods of man's redemption has God staked his truth upon its prevalence among men. Any intelligent infidel can easily show that the universal prevalence of truth and righteousness in the present church period would be the positive refutation of the New Testament.

As we draw near the close of this outcalling of the Gentiles, all moral forces intensify; men are better and worse, and a kind of "mixed multitude is filling up the moral chasm between the church and the world." The lukewarmness, lawlessness, and apostasy of a great part of the professing church is plainly predicted, and it may be clearly seen by men with their eyes open. Voices therefore should be lifted everywhere by God's scattered witnesses in protest and testimony. We might quote most of the New Testament, but leave others to search the Scriptures and see if these things are so.

1. We solemnly protest against the general lawlessness of thinking, confusion of thought, and laxity of belief in pulpit and pew. We testify to the certainty, perspicuity, and unchangeableness of the faith once delivered to the saints, and the solemn duty of the preacher with an open Bible in hand, to ring out clearly the four great R's—Ruin, Redemption, Regeneration, and Resurrection!

2. We protest against all vain and false speculations of science, upon the brutal origin of man and his progressive development by the inherent forces of nature. We testify that revelation, history, and true science point to a supernatural origin of man, and that except where some influence has come from without, especially the truth and grace of God, individuals and nations have deteriorated by an inherent and overpowering bent toward corruption and destruction.

3. We protest against the denial or neglect of truth concerning the exceeding sinfulness of sin and its exceeding dreadful penalty, and the teaching or holding a baseless, sentimental hope of probation after death.

We testify that revelation is clear and emphatic upon sin and penalty, and that these solemn and awful utterances should have no inferior place in preaching, since sinners who are not thus warned will die in their iniquity, and their blood will be required at the watchman's hands.

4. We protest against the popular moral and sentimental view of the atonement of Christ, and all modifications of his true and sufficient expiation for sin.

We testify in the Spirit and by the repeated and unmistakable word of God to the proper deity of Christ, and his vicarious death in the sinner's place, to provide a righteous basis of pardoning mercy, and that this must be true, or Christ would be an imposter.

5. We protest against all lax views and rationalistic speculations concerning the inspiration of Scripture, either to harmonize apparent discrepancies, or to make believing or living easy to the natural man.

6. We protest against the transfer of faith from divinely appointed to humanly devised agencies, in propagating the gospel.

We testify our undiminished confidence in the truth and Spirit of God to do all that can be done for man's salvation.

7. We protest against that false charity and false peace, in which fatal errors are tolerated, and fatal errorists are complimented for certain "manly virtues," on considerations of expediency.—Rev. E. P. Marvin.