p. 211 | Be Gentle, but Firm by Lay Evangelist

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 17, 1879

Be Gentle, but Firm.

By Lay Evangelist

THERE should be in the words and acts of every Christian a sweetness and gentleness that will attract hearts to them. No man can have the spirit of Christ and be devoid of these, because the spirit of Christ consists in the manifestation of such graces. Nor does the possession of this spirit imply that the possessor must necessarily be false and deceitful.

A man may be as sweet as Heaven and yet protest that all lovers of the world, and all covetous people, and all the children of disobedience, are unsaved. To say the contrary will be untruthful and deceptive, because he who says the contrary presumes to make God a liar, which is wicked. The Lord is not bitter and censorious when He says these things, and we are not necessarily bitter and censorious because we protest that the words of the Lord must be true. It is unkind and cruel to say the contrary.

Soon the eyes of the saints will be opened to see that true charity does not consist in flattering ungodly people, and in screening them in their wickedness. It does not consist in apologies for, and extenuations of, sin; it does not consist in hiding the truth, and in crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. The perfection of love and of kindness is consistent with absolute truthfulness and unswerving fidelity to God.—Lay Evangelist.