GIVEN FOR OUR LEARNING.
By The Watchman
IN reading and studying the Scriptures it is needful to keep in mind the practical purpose of divine revelation. It was given, not to gratify curiosity, not to set before us the men of old time for us to sit in judgment upon them, but to teach God's will concerning us. Instead of asking whether a given personage sinned in a certain case, and whether it was a conscious and deliberate sin, let us ask whether, in the light of the gospel, it would be right for us to do the like; and if we decide that it would not be right, let us be thankful that "the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." If in the twilight of an imperfect dispensation good men did things which are now so evidently wrong that nobody would think of justifying them, this is evidence, not against those men, but of God's forbearance and tender mercy. Yet we should sin against his mercy if we took counsel of self-will, and presumed to do with our eyes open what those men of old did in partial darkness. It is for us to ask for ourselves, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" instead of asking what is the judgment to be passed on this or that man for what he did. To this impertinent question the Judge answers: "What is that to thee? Fear God and keep his commandments for thyself." While the Bible is very frank in disclosing the imperfections of good men, it never justifies their wrongful acts, nor encourages us to do so. At the same time it as little calls for our censure. It bids us consider ourselves, and while recognizing their good traits, look above them to the perfect example of Christ, conformity to whom is the crowning promise of the gospel. No charge against the Scriptures could be more preposterous than that of sanctioning immorality. Their effect, when believed, has uniformly been to elevate and purify and sweeten the morals of men and of societies. Unbelief may pervert them, but the resultant evil is to be ascribed to the unbelief and not to the word. "You say," said a skeptic to a minister, "that 'the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.' Well, I have heard and read it, and I never felt anything of that power." "You do not quote the whole verse," said the minister. "It is 'the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.' You do not believe." And he was a stranger to the saving efficacy of the gospel, not because as presented to him it had parted with any of its proper efficacy, but simply because his unbelief put it from him. We live in an age of prevailing unbelief, and, for that reason, of prevailing indifference to the gospel.—The Watchman.