p. 14 | Untitled article by M. W. H.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 10, 1862

"BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW."

By M. W. H.

WHEN our Saviour tabernacled in the flesh, and observed how mankind "loved the praise of men more than the praise of God," he pertinently inquired, "How can ye believe [on me], who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?" With what propriety might most professing Christians of the present apply this question to themselves, for there has a degree of favor grown up around the popular institutions of religion, till the exclamation of Paul, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," can scarcely be comprehended.

But with this popular favor is intermingled the popular theories of modern theology, till the belief of many is perhaps as greatly at variance with the primitive "faith once delivered to the saints," as was the Jewish faith degenerated when Christ was upon the earth. For with sorrow it must be observed how low an estimate most Christians practically entertain of Christianity, or rather, of what constitutes a Christian; and painful is the admission, though too true, that it is but the legitimate fruit of much of the religious teaching of the day. And while we would be the last to undervalue the sweet truth—"that the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin," we can but feel that the equal truth—"that whosoever hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure," and to this end "every one who nameeth the name of Christ" should be "careful to maintain good works," should never for a moment be separated from it, lest an antinomian spirit be the result, and our faith come to a theory likewise, instead of being as it should ever be, a life-giving principle to influence us in our daily conduct. M. W. H. Malone, N. Y.