WITH AUTHORITY | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1857

“WITH AUTHORITY.”

CHRISTIANITY speaks with divine authority, allowing no contradiction or appeal, and demanding the assent of all men to its claims, as the only true religion. The christian cannot say to his friend—his intelligent, well-read friend—You have your opinion, I have mine. We are thus on a level. As a gentleman, I can no more question your belief than you can mine. I cannot say to you, Believe the gospel, or you are lost. But can we conceive of Paul's thus dealing with educated unbelievers? Allowing the apostle and the preacher to be lost in the gentleman and the philosopher. No: he does not so discuss Christianity, as if men might lawfully take different sides respecting its divine and exclusive character. He knows that the gospel of Christ is the only true religious system, and, whether among the rude Lycaonians, the refined Corinthians, or the inquisitive, philosophic Athenians, he is ever the same uncompromising preacher of Christianity, ready always with meekness to listen to honest questionings, and to give good reasons for his faith, yet intolerant to every other system—not in the spirit of a bigot, but of one who knew whereof he affirms, and who so loves Christ and his fellow-men, that he cannot yield an inch of that gospel which honors the one and saves the other. The gospel is from heaven: believe it and be saved; reject it and be lost.

It is evident that this honest, straight-forward course must over-ride some of the current courses of worldly gentlemanliness, and subject him who pursues it to the charge of uncharitableness, narrow-mindedness, and even vulgarity. It may lose for him his literary and fashionable friends. He must suffer the offense of the cross. No doubt Paul, educated as he was, sometimes felt keenly at this very point. But this is a part of the minister's trial, and if he have not courage to stand it, he is unfit for his post. He cannot expect to persuade men to believe in Christ, certainly not to convince opposers.

“An obscure man rose up to address the French Convention. At the close of his oration, Mirabeau, the giant of genius of the Revolution, turned around to his neighbor, and eagerly asked, Who is that? The other wondered at Mirabeau's curiosity. Whereupon the latter said, That man will yet act a great part; and asked to explain himself, added, He speaks as one who believes every word he says!”

Just so with the preacher. Would he make others believe, he must be in earnest—often terribly in earnest—from a deep conviction of the truth of the gospel—of its being the only way of salvation. Any mixture of false gentlemanliness, which savors of doubt, takes off the edge of his discourse, and his hearers will go away feeling that, after all, it is an open question whether Christianity be divine. Do ministers, as much as they should, practice this divine intolerance—this gentle, intelligent, yet earnest intolerance, which lays hold of sinners, to pull them out of the fire, the real fire of God's righteous indignation? Does not Satan artfully insinuate into society, especially cultivated society, false rules of propriety and politeness, to make earnestness in religion disreputable, and quiet men in sin?—Watchman and Reflector.