BREVITIES by Jos. Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 20, 1861

BREVITIES.

By Jos. Clarke

SELF-DENIAL is a lesson we should be constantly learning. It is painful to witness the desire even among the people of God, to minister to the carnal appetites. God does not require of us to abstain from nourishing, strengthening food; but to expend money upon a costly and unnecessary article of consumption, seems plainly at variance with the command of cross-bearing.

CHURCH TRIALS, have a depressing and saddening effect upon the mind; they can only be avoided by avoiding the cause; by constant watchfulness, and if offenses and difficulties arise, dispose of them before they roll up like an Alpine avalanche. Brethren, let us endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit, and if hate springs up for a moment in the heart, expel it, as you would a mad dog from your dwelling-house.

WITHDRAWING FROM THE CHURCH, because of offenses, is contrary to the genius of christianity. The tie which binds together the church of God, is stronger than any earthly relationship; and it would be a sad spectacle to see the husband withdrawing from the wife, or the wife from the husband, on every occasion of trial.

The church is the place where the christian is to develop and ripen the heavenly graces; and the mariner who leaves the ship, and attempts to breast the storm and waves by swimming, is not more distracted than the person who leaves the church, and the fellowship and watchcare of brethren, to walk alone the perilous journey.

THE WOUNDS OF FRIENDS.—There is no wound so severe as the contentions of those who go on pilgrimage to the celestial city; none so deep, none so fatal. Those who foment these contentions cannot long hold on their way; but while they do so, their presence is like some cancerous tumor, eating away the heart-strings of the loving, devoted christian.

CONVERSATION.—Appropriateness in conversation is essential. To speak whatever comes uppermost, shows a shallow brain, or a perverted understanding. Cull, select your best thoughts, don't lug in something entirely foreign to the subject in hand, to make a jingle of words, unless you want to make yourself abhorred by every wise man, and pitied by the good. The fool speaks just as it happens, the wise man selects, the good man weighs his words. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

FORGIVENESS.—It is true that evidence of true penitence should be full and clear, but when a brother has given this, and we have accepted his acknowledgments, and ratified by our own act his reconciliation, after this, to still brood over his failings, and refer back to his offenses, is ungenerous in the extreme. A brother who has humbled himself thus, who has thus asked for reconciliation and pardon, commends himself to our kindest efforts in his behalf, and now we should set about the work of assisting him in reform. He has erred, and his errors show where his weakness lies; and this is the office of brethren, to try to fortify the erring one on this very weak point.

SYMPATHY.—Sympathy is an excellent quality of the mind when it is rightly applied. If we sympathise with good, if our sympathies are on the side of Jesus, it is well; but when Satan gets control of our sympathies, and we begin to lean over the abyss, there is peril.

DEVOTION.—Devotion is the heart of godliness, when led of the Spirit of God, but not all devotion is thus directed. Let us beware of false experience. The Brahmin, the Mahometan, the Mormon, all have an experience, and Satan lends power to false experience very often. It is his stronghold, and he triumphs in fanaticism. O Lord, guard us in this hour of peril.

Jos. CLARKE.