Paragraphs Worth Pondering by Dudley Marvin Canright

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 22, 1865

Paragraphs Worth Pondering.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THE DANGER OF TRIFLING WITH THE AUTHORITY OF GOD'S WORD.

SAUL's sin in sacrificing at Gilgal, was the first step to his apostasy and self-murder; and from this we learn, that when once we begin to trifle with the authority of God's law, we know not where to stop.—The Mine Explored.

EVIDENCE OF SAVING FAITH.

Others again, (called Nicolaitanes, and who are expressly mentioned in the Revelation of St. John) asserted that whoever possessed the knowledge of God

and of Christ, were sure of salvation, whatever his character might be. They affirmed that Christ had purchased for his people an absolute freedom from the law, even as a rule of life, so that they were incapable of sinning, and therefore not subject to punishment. See Rev. ii, 6, 15; 1 John i, 8, 10; ii, 1, 3; iii, 4. They were ever ready to comply with heathenism, rather than suffer persecution. The profligacy of their character, and that of most of the other heretics, suggests how intimately principles are connected with practice, and errors in doctrine with immorality of life. And, as the wreck becomes a sea-mark to the mariner, so may these heretics, thus traced to their principles, warn us of our danger; especially teaching us that the system of Christianity needs no human additions to make it more perfect; that to be content to remain ignorant of what God has not thought proper to reveal, forms no inconsiderable part of Christian learning; and that the proper evidence of saving faith, is subjection to the law as a rule of life. 1 Cor. ix, 21; Jude 3. Id.

[The above is copied for the benefit of our no-law friends. D. M. Canright.]