THE SIGN, SEAL, OR MARK OF GOD.
By George E. Fifield
BY ELDER GEO. E. FIFIELD. In the preceding article we have sought to show that the voluntary observance of the Sabbath was designed by the Lord as a mark of the worship of the Creator, a sign between him and his children. In contrast with this, we found that an enforced Sunday is the mark of the papal beast. Someone will perhaps say, "Will just keeping the Sabbath, mark, or seal a person as the Lord's?" We answer, No. Paul says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Eph. 4:30. Here the Holy Spirit is spoken of, not as the seal but as the power that applies the seal. In ancient times the art of seal cutting was carried almost to perfection. On some little piece of agate or other stone the artist would carve some beautiful design. From the ruins of ancient Nineveh are discovered seals so finely cut as to prove the existence and use of the microscope back there; for no human eye unaided would be capable of such work. Into the melted wax the seal was pressed, leaving on it all the beauty of its ideal design; and the article sealed was thus proven to bear the authority and be under the protection of the owner of the seal. The law of God is his seal. "All his commandments are righteousness." They bear the ideal beauty of his divine character. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, through the new, the everlasting covenant, to first melt the heart by such a revelation of God's love as shall make it like the yielding wax, and then to impress that law upon it till all the ideal beauty of his divine character shall be manifest in our lives. See Eph. 4:30; Heb. 8:10; 13:20-21. This seals us as his and places us under his protection. To such an one no evil can come, but all things shall work together for good. Because he has made the Lord his refuge, even the Most High his habitation, there shall no evil befall him, neither shall any plague come nigh his dwelling. The whole law impressed upon the character by the divine Spirit is the seal; how, then, is the Sabbath said to be the seal or mark? Ans.—Because it is the seal of the law, i. e., the seal of the seal, and because it is the outward act that will mark a man before the world, and, also, because, in the times that are soon coming, with their enforced Sunday and persecution, the man that will be true on this point will be true on all others. There is even a deeper significance than all this, a reason why the Sabbath stands out above all other religious duties, and above the requirements of the other nine precepts, as the mark, or sign, of the true worship of the Creator. All other ordinary divisions of time rest upon natural causes; the year, upon the revolution of the earth around the sun; the month, upon the revolution of the moon around the earth; and the day, upon the revolution of the earth on its axis. Not so the week. It rests solely upon the Almighty's fiat. He gave to man the first week, marking its close by a day of rest. So, also, when we look at the law of God. All other principles rest not simply upon the word of the Lawgiver, but upon natural principles easily discernible by the human mind. They are not so simply because God said so, but rather he said so because it was so. It is not thinkable that they could be any different. The having of different gods and the worshiping of them through graven images, and the taking lightly of their names in vain, would, as a natural, unavoidable result, in any world peopled by free, intelligent beings, bring division, war, bloodshed, a prostituting of the ideal of God, and therefore a lowering of the conception of the supreme good. In short, it would bring unavoidable misery and baseness. We can easily see, then, why these commands are given and why they could not be otherwise than they are. They rest in the inherent tendency of certain things to pleasure and happiness, and of other certain things to pain and misery. The same is true of the last six precepts. On the very face of them it is seen that their obedience will bring happiness, and their disobedience, misery. It is as inconceivable that there could be a world in the universe where it could be otherwise, as it is that there could be a world where two and two would be five instead of four. With the fourth commandment, however, it is different. We can very readily see the necessity of a Sabbath. We can see how, if people had always kept it, they would have thus, commemorating weekly the fact that the only true God was the Creator, continued in his worship, prevented idolatry, and so preserved the human race in one family, with one Father, thus making easy and natural the observance of all the other precepts. All this is easy and plain. There may be, and doubtless is, some principle underlying the precise proportion of time and the precise day of the week, had we the penetration and power of mind to grasp it; for we do not believe that in anything God is really arbitrary. We cannot see, however, why, if he had seen fit to say the first day, or the fifth day, it would not have done as well. We cannot see why, if he had commanded the observance of every sixth day, or every eighth day, it would not have done as well. Unlike all other principles in the Decalogue, the precise day of the week and the precise proportion276of time, so far as we are able to discern, rest solely upon the fiat of the Almighty. We know well that this is the very reason why so many separate this precept, or at least this part of it, from the rest of the law, and make it a thing of small importance, or subject to human changes. We believe, however, that this very point, just because it rests solely on the fiat of the Almighty, contains a principle of moral government, the recognition of which is absolutely essential to the happiness and well-being of all God's children, in short, that right in this very thing lies the reason why the Sabbath is a sign of the true service of the true God. Not that God wishes to rule us arbitrarily. He is our Father, and a loving Father too, combining both the father and the mother love. He says the mother may forget the child, but I will not forget you. Thus is his love more than the father's and the mother's, for he is love. But every father, no matter how tender and kind, knows that the obedient child must recognize the right of the father to command even in those things where the child can see no reason; not that the father commands for the sake of the commandment, not that there is no underlying reason, not that the father is not willing to reveal the reason to the child as soon as he can understand it, but if the reason and understanding of the child were equal to that of the father, then he would not need the father's government, for he would be capable of governing himself. To the child, with his childish mind and feeble understanding, many of the most loving and tender commands of the father must ever seem arbitrary. They take from him some coveted toy or some fancied pleasure. The unripe fruit that the love of the parent forbids, tastes sweet to the child, and he knows not of a tendency to produce sickness, nor even of what sickness is when told of it. The good child, the obedient child, is one whose love of the parent is such that he considers his word as sufficient reason, and so renders immediate and loving obedience. Thus he is saved from a thousand dangers and from unknown sorrows. Nothing short of this is obedience in the child; it is rebellion and would be recognized as such by every parent. Now we are children. God's thoughts are high as the heavens above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways. How can we hope to comprehend them? Why not rather say with the apostle, "How unsearchable is his wisdom, and his ways past finding out"? Were it not better in childlike trust to obey him in the dark as well as the light, knowing that if his ways are past finding out, his love, too, passeth knowledge, and underlieth all his ways? Nothing else is obedience. It is rebellion. The man who throws out the Sabbath, or claims the right to change the day simply because to his poor human comprehension it rests solely on the fiat of God, reasons like the rebellious child who refuses to obey only when he sees fit and understands the reason. Since God is so far above man, and governs us but to lift us up to him, how necessary that man should be tested in his law on this very point. He who refuses to yield obedience on this point because his finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite reason, makes it impossible for God to lift him into a higher comprehension. He who renders implicit obedience here, trusting in the Father's love back of the command, though he may not see the reason, will render obedience everywhere else. This is why this, is the mark, or sign, of the truly obedient child. Christianity is following Christ. Said he: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." The whole secret of the Christian life is following the infinite Father in the darkness as soon as he tells us the way, although we cannot see the justice or the reason in it now, trusting to the future to make light what is dark here. It is a giving up of our way and taking his way, not because we can just now see the reason for it, but because it is his way and he is love. This was the life of Jesus. It was not at Gethsemane simply that Jesus said from a full soul that stood almost stunned by the darkness and apparent injustice of his lot, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt;" it was at every step of the way he said it—not my way, not my will, not my doctrine, not my works, but thy way, thy words, thy will, thy works in me. Even on the cross, though from the anguished soul, when temptations pressed the thickest, there was wrung the almost despairing cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," yet it was almost immediately followed by those words of faith, expressing a willingness to go even through the dark valley if it is his will, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." This is obedience, this saying not my way, not my will, but thine. The mark of this obedience is the joyful observance of the Sabbath because God commands it, leaving the scorn, and the persecution, and all earthly results with him. It is essentially the mark, or sign, above all other acts of obedience to the law, because it is an open evidence to all that we recognize the right of our Father, who is infinitely above our highest ideal of him, to command us, even in points where we cannot see his reasons. Our answer is, not my will, not the will of the pope, not the will of the beast or his image, but thy will, and thine only be done in us. Amen.