THE PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS.
"Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." Rev. xiv, 12. This verse closes the message of the third angel.—The time having come when the truths contained in this message are present truths, it becomes us to study them well. Much is being said relative to the commandments of God mentioned by the third angel, but comparatively little is said upon the patience of the saints, and the faith of Jesus. These subjects we intend to present, but shall give only a few thoughts at this time upon the patience of the saints. But where shall we apply this text that speaks of the patience of the saints? In the future age? Nonsense! to talk of a period when immortal saints will be so immersed in perplexing trials as to make it necessary to exercise great patience! This text can be applied to no other period only when they are groaning beneath the infirmities of mortality, and subject to the temptations, and fiery darts of Satan and his children. Such a period the Apostle points out in a clear manner in Heb. x, 35—39, "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise; for yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." What is the subject of Paul's remarks? Answer, the coming of the Lord; and they can apply to no other period than that when Christ's coming is to be in "a little while." Then the exhortation, "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence," &c., refers to those who have had great confidence in Christ's coming, but have been disappointed. Such are told that they would need patience after they had done the will of God. "Here is the patience of the saints," says the third angel. Their position is one of peculiar trials. In publishing the first and second messages, they did the will of God. While fulfilling the Word they received divine approbation. But a period of trial of faith, the waiting, watching time must also come to fulfill the Word. These fulfillments are all perfectly plain.—The first message, based on time, has been given. The second, separating the Advent people from the churches, is also in the past. And it is equally as clear that the period of the patience of the saints has been since the great disappointment in 1844. But the Apostle continues: "Now the just shall live by faith." This, by no means, is a period of reformation and religious excitement, when thousands who have but little or no real faith, may be borne onward by a strong current of salvation setting heavenward, as in days past; but is a period of apostasy and death-like stupidity, when there are a thousand influences calculated to drag the soul down to perdition. Therefore, those who live to God at all, must live by naked faith.—Faith in the fulfillment of prophecy in the Advent movement in the past, and that "He that is to come will come" in a "little while," and faith that conveys present saving power to the soul. "But if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back to perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." Mark this: the only thing introduced here by the Apostle, from which there is danger of drawing back, is the "confidence" once enjoyed in the hope of the coming of Christ. This being the subject of his remarks, it follows that we are exhorted not to cast away our confidence, which has been pleasing to God, while doing his will in giving the former messages. And it is evident, also, that this period of the patience of the saints is in consequence of their disappointment relative to Christ's coming, and the trials of their waiting, watching position. These being the facts in the case, it is perilous to doubt, it is perdition to draw back, and fully deny and trample upon the advanced position once occupied by the whole Advent body.