STRENGTHENING THE HANDS OF EVIL-DOERS.
By J. W. Scoles
IN a recent number of the Christian at Work, the editor of that journal says:— “Churches to-day should not exact as tests of church membership more than the Lord Jesus Christ required. And in applying tests for the Christian ministry it is well to avoid establishing a new decalogue. Moses established one by command of God; and fifteen hundred and twenty-three years later Christ declared love to fulfill all the law: the ten articles of the moral law gave way to one supreme statute—love to God and man. What was sufficient in Christ’s time ought to be sufficient now. And yet—only the other day a candidate for the ministry was rejected because at first he declined to subscribe to a new commandment, “Thou shalt not take snuff!” We should like to know just how many decalogues a candidate to the ministry must subscribe to before being allowed to preach the gospel!” And we should like to know just what species of moral intoxicant the writer of the foregoing has been making use of that he should give utterance to such sentiments as these. Is it possible that he considers an overt act necessary in order that the decalogue shall be violated? Did Christ add any new principle to the seventh commandment when he declared that the look of lust was a violation of its requirements? (Matt. 5:27, 28). Is not the entire decalogue so spiritual that it takes cognizance of every thought and purpose of the heart? Paul seemed to think so when he said, “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.” Rom. 3:19. Again, in Rom. 7:14 he says, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” The ten articles of the moral law constitute the original and only decalogue that ever was or ever will be given by God to man. These statutes never gave way to the one supreme statute of love to God and man, because they themselves are, and always have been, the very embodiment of this principle. The first four comprise man’s duty to his God, the last six show his relation to himself and his fellow-man. Therefore Christ answered truthfully when he said, “On these two commandments hang all the law.” Matt. 22:40. And no man who loves God with all his heart, and who loves his neighbor as himself, will, or can, continue in the direct violation of any of the principles of these ten commandments. And lastly, we would like to know upon what ground such inspired men as Paul, Peter, and other of the New Testament writers, condemn the various lusts and iniquities of the people in those days, if it was not upon the basis of the same decalogue. When Paul exhorted the brethren at Corinth to cleanse themselves from “all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,” did he ask them to subscribe to a new decalogue? When James spoke of the wisdom which was “earthly, sensual, devilish,” and warned all who would be righteous to avoid it, was he doing so upon authority of a new code of morals? Did Peter formulate a new creed when he besought those to whom he wrote to “abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul”? It is bad enough for any man to indulge in the filthy, injurious and polluting practice of tobacco using in any form. It is worse for a man who professes to be an ambassador for Christ to attempt to proclaim a pure and holy gospel to others while he is himself indulging in such filthiness of the flesh; but for a Christian journal with such a noble mission as is naturally suggested by the title of Christian at Work to uphold the dirty, destructive, and soul-debasing vice, is worst of all.