WELL-DOING | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 31, 1856

WELL-DOING.

It hath pleased Him who is the author of salvation to make this the condition upon which it is to be obtained. God, says an Apostle, will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality, he will render eternal life. Rom. ii, 6-9.

Can any one find fault with these conditions of eternal life? The poor cannot say that riches which they have not are necessary to obtain it, and therefore they must be deprived of it. The unlearned cannot say that high attainments in learning which they have never reached, are necessary to secure it, and that they therefore are shut out from its blessings. The learned and rich cannot find any barrier interposed between them and eternal life, which is beyond their control, which would render it impossible for them to attain it.

The boon is held up before all; the condition of obtaining it is made known, and the means are at every man's door. We are continually acting: shall these acts be directed to right ends or bad? shall their results be good or evil? This is the point to be decided. Will we continue patiently to do well, and receive at last eternal life? or will we obey unrighteousness, and receive indignation and wrath? is the query which is put to the conscience directly home; and every man, high or low, rich or poor, free or bond, must be his own arbiter of the important question.

But what is well-doing? An enlightened conscience may decide much that is embraced in it; but we have a direct, and withal, an inspired answer to this very question. Says the apostle James, If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. To whatever minute acts therefore our duty may extend, one thing is certain: we do not do well not to fulfill the royal law. With well-doing is inseparably connected the keeping of the royal law, the ten commandments. The Bible is sufficient to thoroughly furnish the man of God unto all good works. 2 Tim. iii, 16, 17. Do we well then to endeavor with one of those commandments, to enforce an observance for which we are nowhere furnished in the word of God. It will be hard to prove that Sunday-keeping is well-doing.

The same sentiment and the same conditions are contained in our Lord's reply to the young man who inquired of him the way of salvation: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. xix, 17. "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator." 1 Pet. iv, 19.