JUDGMENT by J. CLARKE.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 16, 1861

JUDGMENT.

By J. CLARKE.

If there is anything a man takes pride in, it is his judgment; and if there is anything a man hates to acknowledge perverted, it is his judgment. Some fanatic, who has thrown away reason for a moment at Apollyon's behest, and finds his judgment perverted, and owns it, runs the gauntlet on all sides, and most say within themselves, What a pity! and straightway they, Pharisee like, say tacitly, God, I thank thee my judgment is not perverted like this fanatic's.

But let us consider whose judgment has not been perverted. If so, why is it necessary for a messenger to lecture week after week to (very intelligent) people to convince them that the seventh day is the Sabbath? and that death is not the gate of heaven, forsooth? Unperverted judgments! where are they? Why, at this rate it might be but a few centuries (if time continued) before it might require a course of lectures to (very intelligent) people, to convince them that twice two are four, or that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the base and perpendicular.

If that bogus scripture was genuine, that each generation became "weaker and wiser," we might truly trace our ancestry back to very gigantic dolts. If there is anything humbling to us, it is the fact that the judgment not only may be, but has been, perverted. If it is not credited, go back if you please a few years ago, when you settled down most sweetly into the downy pillow of error, and think what efforts have been made by God, and angels, and men, to tear away the vail you so tenaciously pressed over your eyes, while rays of light sought almost in vain to reach those blinded orbs, and yet individuals there are who, having been forced as it were to believe some few self-evident leading truths, and having been freed from some of the chains and handcuffs of tradition, again settle down into the pillow of self-complacency, and having now as they suppose the key of knowledge,

they become wiser than their teachers, and the enemy weaves another vail, thicker than the former, and this serves as effectually to blind the mind.

Of what use is the body of Christ to such individuals? To such persons, of what use is Paul's lecture on the unity of the faith, and the gifts which God has set in the church? Can one member act independently of another? Of what use is faith, if it always acts in a solitary hermit-like manner? Suppose some conceited bee should say, I will not work in these cells until I can understand the mathematical proportion of the combs, and forthwith he settles down into melancholy and grief! Poor bee! Or suppose some ray of light from the sun should separate itself from the rest of the rays, because it could not comprehend its own origin, or some abstract question of the reflection of light, and forthwith it secedes, and where is it?! If the judgment of each individual were of itself sufficient in itself, and if the judgment of individuals were never to be sacrificed to the judgment of the body, where is the necessity of such exhortations as Paul gives in 1 Cor. xii.

I agree that the judgment should, if possible, precede the act of faith; but such is the ignorance and blindness of the mind of some, that unless they will relinquish their peculiar ideas, when they conflict with those of experienced and tried leaders, whom God has set in the church, and by an act of faith believe those whom God has set over them, they must of course suffer the consequences, and like some discontented ray of light which darts into oblivion, become lost in the darkness around. J. CLARKE.