Review and Herald, Vol. 17, No. 5. (12/18/1860)

Review and Herald

Dec 18, 1860

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 18, 1860

THE LAW OF GOD.

By B. F. Snook

BY B. F. SNOOK.

CHAPTER. I.

1. The term law defined. 2. Its basis, the relation which exists between man and God and man and man. 3. Its nature is moral, i. e., right.

1. The definition. "Law is a rule of action, a rule of direction; that which governs or has a tendency to rule. Moral law, a law which prescribes to men their religious and social duties; in other words, their duties to God and to each other. The moral law is summarily contained in the decalogue or ten commandments written by the finger of God on two tables of stone." Web.

2. The foundation. The foundation of the law of God is firm and unchanging. It always has been and will ever be the same. It is based (1.) On the relation which man sustains to his Creator; and (2.) on the relation of man to his fellow man.

1. The first four precepts have respect to certain natural duties which man owes to God. He is our Creator, and by creation we are his. These are exalted relations and demand, 1st. That we love him with all the heart. 2nd. That we serve him—that we worship him only, and make him the object of our daily adorations. 3rd. That we speak of his name only in the most reverential and affectionate manner. 4th. That we reverence his institutions, and use them only as he has given us privilege and direction. On these relations is based the first great commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind." Deut. vi, 5. Also the first four commandments have the same basis, and grow out of the same source.

These relations are the same in all created intelligences. Hence the obligations growing therefrom are the same upon all. Wherever these relations exist, these obligations must exist. This shows the puerility of the position of those who maintain that these obligations rest only on the Jew. If this were true it would then follow that the relations out of which these obligations arise are confined to the Jew. That being true it follows that God is not the God nor Creator of the Gentile, and hence can have no claim upon him for love or obedience to any precept of his law! But how long since these obligations began? Evidently as long as the relations have existed which gave them birth.

It being an established fact that these obligations grow out of man's relation to God, it follows, 1st. That the obligations did not exist before their source or basis. 2nd. That they began as soon as their basis was created; as naturally as the effect follows the cause, and therefore are as old as the creation of man. 3d. The last six commandments have respect to the duties which men owe to each other. 1st. All men are creatures of the same Creator. 2nd. Are children of the same Father. 3rd. Possess the same natural and unalienable rights, which are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

These relations demand, 1st. That they love each other. 2nd. Treat each other with brotherly kindness. 3rd. That they respect and protect each other's rights. On these relations is based the second great commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Lev. xix, 18. Also the last six which hang upon this, and depend upon it, are based upon the same relations.

These obligations growing out of the above relations, it unavoidably follows that they reach back for their beginning to the time when the relations out of which they grow began to exist. Hence as soon as man was blessed with a fellow man whom he might denominate his neighbor, these obligations rested upon and required him to love and respect him as himself. Thus we see that the law of our heavenly Father is well founded. Its foundation will last while he is our Creator and we are his creatures. No man can violate one of the first four precepts who loves God with all the heart. Neither can he who loves God, and his neighbor as himself, violate either of the last six precepts. "For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments." 1 John v, 3.

Man would be perfectly happy if he would obey from the heart this law. His peace would be as a river and his righteousness as the rolling waves of the boundless ocean. Joy and peace would ever sit triumphantly enthroned in his heart while sorrows and sighs would never molest him. With the poet he could say—

"Great is their peace who love thy law, How firm their souls abide; Nor can a bold temptation draw Their steady feet aside. "Then shall my heart have inward joy, And keep my face from shame, When all thy statutes I obey, And honor all thy name."

3. Its nature. We propose to show in the next place that this is a moral law, or a law of morals. The word moral in its common use means "that which is naturally right;" that which is right in the very nature of things. That there is a class of commandments which are right in the very nature of things we presume no Bible scholar will deny. That this class of right or moral commandments is the decalogue, or law of ten commandments, the Bible abundantly testifies.

Proof. David says, "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. But David what do you mean by the statutes of the Lord? Ans. "The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." All is plain. We now understand you, since by the statutes of the Lord you mean his commandments. Again: "Thou camest down also on mount Sinai and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws (laws of truth, margin), good statutes and commandments." Neh. ix, 13.

This testimony is the clearest proof as to the morality of the law in question. We will bring forward one more text which we regard as most triumphantly settling the question: "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is RIGHT. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise." Eph. vi, 1, 2. Paul in giving this requisition refers to the fifth commandment in the decalogue as authority, and sanctions the obligation enforced by it as being right. These witnesses prove the morality of the whole law, and show that as a whole it is right or moral.

But it is objected that the fourth commandment is not moral, but is ceremonial or positive. To this we reply as follows: 1. There is no proof to sustain the objection. 2. The Scriptures which we have referred to prove the morality of the fourth as much as that of any other precept. 3. If the objection is true, David should have said, the statutes of the Lord are right except one, the fourth precept, which is positive. 4. The fourth precept hangs upon the first great commandment as much as the other three which regulate our duty to God: Matt. xxii, 40. 5. It grows out of the same relations to God that the others do. 6. God proclaimed it at the same time he proclaimed the others, and spake it in their very midst. 7. When graving the others on the tables of rock for their preservation and to denote their perpetuity, he placed it (the fourth) in the very bosom of the ten. 8. It as much protects and guards the Lord's holy day which is his property, as the sixth guards and protects any property of man. These reasons prove the morality of the fourth precept beyond the possibility of refutation. But if it is not moral, then verily to steal from the Lord is not the violation of moral law, while to steal from man is!!

SOON AND FOREVER.

Soon and forever! such promise our trust, Though ashes to ashes and dust unto dust: Soon and forever, our union shall be Made perfect, our glorious Redeemer, in thee. When the sins and the sorrows of time shall be o'er, Its pangs and its partings remembered no more; Where life cannot fail, and death cannot sever, Christians with Christ shall be, soon and forever.

Soon and forever the breaking of day Shall chase all the night-clouds of sorrow away; Soon and forever we'll see as we're seen, And know the deep meaning of things that have been; Where fightings without and conflicts within Shall weary no more in the warfare of sin; [never, Where tears, and where fears, and where death shall be Christians with Christ shall be, soon and forever.

Soon and forever the work shall be done, The warfare accomplished, the victory won; Soon and forever the soldier lay down The sword for a harp, the cross for a crown. Then sink not in sorrow, despond not in fear; A glorious to-morrow is brightening and near, When—blessed reward for each faithful endeavor— Christians with Christ shall be, soon and forever

Rejoice in the Lord

THERE is no religion in making yourself miserable; God loves to make poor sinners happy; in the Old Testament he bids you delight yourself in the Lord; and promises the desires of your heart. In the New, he says, "Rejoice in the Lord alway."

MISTAKES IN RELIGION.

By Hannah More

(Concluded.)

In some who make further advances towards religion, we continue to see it in that same low degree which we have always observed. It is dwarfish and stunted, it makes no shoots. Though it gives some signs of life, it does not grow. By a tame and spiritless round, or rather by this fixed and immovable position, we rob ourselves of that fair reward of peace and joy which attends on an humble consciousness of progress; on the feeling of difficulties conquered; on a sense of the divine favor. That religion which is profitable is commonly perceptible. Nothing supports a traveller in his Christian course, like the conviction that he is getting on; like looking back on the country he has passed; and, above all, like the sense of that protection which has hitherto carried him on, and of that grace which has promised to support him to the end.

The proper motion of the renewed heart is still directed upward. True religion is of an aspiring nature, continually tending towards that heaven from whence it was transplanted. Its top is high because its root is deep. It is watered by a perennial fountain; in its most flourishing state it is always capable of further growth. Real goodness proves itself to be such by a continual desire to be better. No virtue on earth is ever in a complete state. Whatever stage of religion any man has attained, if he be satisfied to rest in that stage, we would not call that man religious. The Gospel seems to consider the highest degree of goodness as the lowest with which a Christian ought to sit down satisfied. We cannot be said to be finished in any Christian grace because there is not one which may not be carried further than we have carried it. This promotes the double purpose of keeping us humble as to our present stage, and of stimulating us to something higher which we may hope to attain.

That superficial thing which by mere people of the world is dignified by the appellation of religion, though it brings just that degree of credit which makes part of the system of worldly Christians, neither brings comfort for this world, nor security for the next. Outward observances, indispensable as they are, are not religion. They are the accessory, but not the principle; they are important aids and adjuncts, but not the thing itself; they are its aliment but not its life, the fuel but not the flame, the scaffolding but not the edifice. Religion can no more subsist merely by them than it can subsist without them. They are divinely appointed and must be conscientiously observed, but observed as a means to promote an end, and not as an end in themselves.

The heartless homage of formal worship, where the living power does not give life to the form, the cold compliment of ceremonial attendance, without the animating principle, as it will not bring peace to our own mind, so neither will it satisfy a jealous God. That God whose eye is on the heart, "who trieth the reins and searcheth the spirits" will not be satisfied that we make him little more than a nominal deity, while the world is the real object of our worship. Such persons seem to have almost the whole body of performance; all they want is the soul. They are constant in their devotions, but the heart, which even the heathen esteemed the best part of the sacrifice, they keep away. They read the Scriptures, but rest in the letter instead of trying themselves by its spirit. They consider it as an enjoined task, but not as the quick and powerful instrument put into their hands for the critical dissection of "piercing and dividing asunder the soul and spirit;" not as the penetrating "discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart." These well-intentioned persons seem to spend no inconsiderable portion of time in religious exercises, and yet complain that they make little progress. They almost seem to insinuate, as if the Almighty did not keep his word to them, and manifest that religion to them is not "pleasantness," nor her "paths peace."

Of such may we not ask, "Would you not do better to examine than to complain? to enquire whether you do indeed possess a heart which, notwithstanding its imperfections, is sincerely devoted to God? He who does not desire to be perfect is not sincere. Would you not do well to convince yourselves that God is not unfaithful? that his promises do not fail? that his goodness is not slackened? May you not be entertaining some secret infidelity, practising some latent disobedience, withholding some part of your heart, neglecting to exercise that faith, subtracting something from that devotedness to which a Christian should engage himself, and to which the promises of God are annexed? Do you indulge no propensities contrary to his will? Do you never resist the dictates of his Spirit, never shut your eyes to its illumination, nor your heart to its influences? Do you not indulge some cherished sin which obscures the light of grace, some practice which obstructs the growth of virtue, some distrust which chills the warmth of love? the discovery will repay the search, and if you succeed in this scrutiny, let not the detection discourage but stimulate.

If then, you resolve to take up religion in earnest, especially if you have actually adopted its customary forms, rest not in such low attainments as will afford neither present peace nor future happiness. To know Christianity only in its external forms, and its internal dissatisfactions, its superficial appearances without, and its disquieting apprehensions within, to be desirous of standing well with the world as a Christian, yet to be unsupported by a well-founded Christian hope, to depend for happiness on the opinion of men instead of the favor of God, to go on dragging through the mere exercises of piety without deriving from them real strength or solid peace; to live in the dread of being called an enthusiast; by outwardly exceeding in religion, and in secret consciousness of falling short of it, to be conformed to the world's view of Christianity, rather than to aspire to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, is a state not of pleasure, but of penalty, not of conquest, but of hopeless conflict, not of ingenuous love, but of tormenting fear. It is knowing religion only as the captive in a foreign land knows the country in which he is a prisoner. He hears from the cheerful natives of its beauties, but is himself ignorant of everything beyond his own gloomy limits. He hears of others as free and happy, but feels nothing himself but the rigors of incarceration.

The Christian character is little understood by the votaries of the world; if it were, they would be struck with its grandeur. It is the very reverse of that meanness and pusillanimity, that abject spirit and those narrow views, which those who know it not ascribe to it.

A Christian lives at the height of his being, not only at the top of his spiritual, but of his intellectual life. He alone lives in the full exercise of his rational powers. Religion ennobles his reason while it enlarges it.

Let then, your soul act up to its high destination, let not that which was made to soar to heaven grovel in the dust. Let it not live so much below itself. You wonder it is not more fixed when it is perpetually resting on things which are not fixed themselves. In the rest of a Christian there is stability. Nothing can shake his confidence but sin. Outward attacks and troubles rather fix than unsettle him, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster, while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.

These are only a few of the mistakes among the multitude which might have been pointed out, but these are noticed as being of common and every-day occurrence. The ineffectiveness of such a religion will be obvious.

That religion which sinks Christianity into a mere conformity to religious usages must always fail of substantial effects. If sin be seated in the heart, if that be its home, that is the place in which it must be combated. It is in vain to attack it in the suburbs when it is lodged in the center. Mere forms can never expel that enemy which they can never reach. By a religion of decencies, our corruptions may perhaps be driven out of sight, but they will never be driven out of possession. If they are expelled from their outworks, they will retreat to their citadel. If they do not appear in the grosser forms prohibited by the decalogue, still they will exist. The shape may be altered but the principle will remain. They will exist in the spiritual modification of the same sins equally forbidden by the divine Expositor. He who dares not to be revengeful, will be unforgiving. He who ventures not to break the letter of the seventh commandment in act, will violate it in the spirit. He who has not courage to forfeit heaven by profligacy will scale it by pride or forfeit it by unprofitableness.

It is not any vain hope built on some external privilege or performance on the one hand, nor a presumptuous confidence that our names are written in the book of life on the other, which can afford a reasonable ground of safety, but it is endeavoring to keep all the commandments of God—it is living to him who died for us—it is being conformed to his image as well as redeemed by his blood. This is Christian virtue, this is the holiness of a believer. A lower motive will produce a lower morality, but such an unsanctified morality God will not accept.

For it will little avail us that Christ has died for us, that he has conquered sin, triumphed over the powers of darkness, and overcome the world, while any sin retains its unresisted dominion in our hearts, while the world is our idol, while our fostered corruptions cause us to prefer darkness to light. We must not persuade ourselves that we are reconciled to God while our rebellious hearts are not reconciled to goodness.

It is not casting a set of opinions into a mould, and a set of duties into a system, which constitutes the Christian religion. The circumference must have a center, the performance must have a principle. Outward observances were wisely constituted to rouse our forgetfulness, to awaken our secular spirits, to call back our negligent hearts; but it was never intended that we should stop short in the use of them. They were designed to excite holy thoughts, to quicken us to holy deeds, but not to be used as equivalents for either. But we find it cheaper to serve God in a multitude of exterior acts, than to starve one interior corruption.

Nothing short of that uniform stable principle, that fixedness in religion which directs a man in all his actions, aims and pursuits to God as his ultimate end, can give consistency to his conduct or tranquility to his soul. This state once attained he will not waste all his thoughts and designs upon the world; he will not lavish all his affections on so poor a thing as his own advancement. He will desire to devote all to the only object worthy of them to, God. Our Saviour has taken care to provide that our ideas of glorifying him, may not run out into fanciful chimeras or subtle inventions by simply stating—"herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit." This, he goes on to inform us, is the true evidence of our being of the number of his people by adding—"So shall ye be my disciples."—Hannah More.

Watching and Praying in Gethsemane

"WHAT! COULD YE NOT WATCH WITH ME ONE HOUR?" MATT. XXVI, 40.

IN these most expressive words there is a tone of rebuke, not to say even of reproach. And not without reason. For with Jesus it was the hour of his intensest trial and agony. Never in all his life had there been an hour when he so much needed a dear friend to watch and pray with him. We have no record to show that ever before he had solicited this favor of his friends. But on this occasion he had. Selecting out of the twelve three on whom he could most rely, the same three who were with him in his transfiguration, he had taken them with him to a retired part of the garden of Gethsemane, and had said to them, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with me."

Such words should have startled them to wakeful sympathy and solicitude. They should have said to each other—Is our master so borne down with anguish that it seems to him he cannot live? "Sorrowful," he said, "exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." O let us watch and pray with him in the hour of his temptation and sore agony!

So it seems to us they should have said; yet it does not appear that they did say or think on this wise. What they did think does not appear from the record; but we have the sad humiliating fact that instead of either watching or praying they fell asleep. The favored three of all his living disciples, the only men of all the myriads who have been redeemed by Jesus' blood, and whose hearts have loved him, sometimes even to the death, yet out of all this vast family of attached friends, the only three who could be there, thus signally failed him in his hour of greatest need. Viewed in its bearings upon Christ's people, it is humiliating. We are ashamed that the men who should have represented the responsive sympathy of the whole church universal, and should have consecrated the utmost energy of their hearts' sympathy, watching and prayer, to his comfort and aid, should have proved so recreant to their high privilege and responsibility. We are almost ripe for indignation and protest.

But we check ourselves with the thought that it would not have been unlike our own human nature, if we had in their circumstances proved as treacherous and unreliable as they. In fact we are afraid their sleep should rather be taken as a prophecy of the cold hearts and heavy souls of most if not all his disciples in all ages and climes. Indeed, we know but too well that it would be so, save as his own grace should avail to stir them to more fidelity and sympathy toward their Lord. A sad picture this of the best human hearts, while not yet deeply baptized in the Holy Ghost. How could they have felt so little sympathy with one so good, one to whom they were so much indebted, yet who was now in a sea of sorrows so deep, and buffeting against waves of temptation so terrible and so well nigh overwhelming!

We must not forget how keenly this very failure of his dearest and most reliable friends must have stung that anguished heart in this hour of its sorrows. Jesus had human sympathies. He chose these three friends and asked them to go with him because his heart was human and he felt the need of human sympathy and prayer. It is not given to us to analyze and fathom all the anguish of his soul in the garden of Gethsemane. It is, however, plain enough that the sum total of the agonies of his atoning sacrifice was present most vividly—as if its contents were compressed into one cup, and this cup was put to his lips in this anticipated hour. He saw it all. He saw it so that he felt its bitterest anguish. He saw what it must be to stand alone, and bear in the sinner's stead the manifested wrath of God against sin. Ah, he never had known before by experience the darkness and the horrors that come over the soul when God hides the light of his face. It seemed to him insupportable. We do not wonder he should have shrunk back, crying, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" Nor do we wonder that the thought came forcibly to his soul—O if I could only have the sympathy and the prayers of a few faithful friends! O, if Peter, James and John might only stand by me while I bear this fearful load, and while I drink this dreadful cup of sorrow!

As we dwell on these aspects of the case it seems hard to forgive our three honored brethren for their sad, sad failure to sympathize with Jesus in that hour of his extremest need.

But as we have already intimated, there is in their failure a home lesson which it were not well for us to miss. May not Jesus be saying the same to us? May it not be that already he has ground for keener rebuke and more cutting reproof against us than against them? Have we "watched with him" at every call of his providence, or on every motion of his Spirit? When his cause has languished and seemed to be passing through some eventful crisis of its destiny, and he has most manifestly summoned us to watch with him one hour, has he not found us sleeping? Nay, have we not accounted it our fittest time to sleep, just when, on every side, the Saviour's cause has been low, and few came to the solemn assemblies of Zion? Have we at all realized this fact—that seasons of declension in the churches are precisely the time of greatest trial and anguish to Jesus Christ, and that it is peculiarly afflictive to his heart that his most reliable Peters and Jameses and Johns should be found not watching and praying but sleeping then? O if our hearts were really in sympathy with Christ's heart, we should surely think more of the anguish he feels over his church in her days of darkness and spiritual declension. We would rush to his side as we saw him enter the garden of Gethsemane, borne down with sorrow, and should deem it our princely privilege to watch with him one hour then.

But how has it in fact been? Have our hearts been quick to the touch of every appeal from the trembling lips of our Lord to watch and pray with him in the hour of Zion's need? Do we vividly remember that Jesus—now no longer living among us in human flesh—yet does truly live among us in the life of his own cause? Do we consider that all his soul identifies itself with the welfare and progress of truth and holiness on the earth?

From this obvious truth we naturally reach the inference that his seasons of greatest trial with his people, are those of widest, deepest declension. As each season of this sort approaches, we may hear him say as to the twelve—"Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation." As the darkness thickens, and the sorrow of his soul becomes more intense, we can understand him to call out Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and tenderly entreat them to watch and pray with him one hour. And what if they should fail him? What if they restrain prayer, sink down under the general stupor of the times, and when the sorrowing Jesus comes back from his prayer of anguish, are found to be fast asleep!

This would be re-enacting the sad, heart-sickening unfaithfulness which we complain of so justly in the case of Peter and the two brothers in the garden. Alas! how sad, and how humiliating!

Who of us, brethren, fall under this condemnation? Who of us in condemning that favored three, have passed sentence on ourselves? We each of us have in our turn the blessed privilege of watching and praying with Jesus in some night of his sorrows; does our heart leap to improve it? With all the sympathy of our soul do we say, Give me many a night of watching and prayer with my Lord in his sorrows over the darkness and backslidings of his church. It is but little at the utmost that I can do in this life for him who bore my griefs and carried my sorrows; let me at least have the luxury of watching with Jesus in prayer over the desolations that pain his heart so deeply.

Beloved, is it not the case with some of us that our Christianity has little of Christ in it, and that consequently the question how He feels in view of our present state of heart and in view of the state of others' hearts around us, has little to do with our Christian sympathies and activities? Does it often occur to us how much our blessed Lord lives in the prosperity of his cause, and mourns in sorrow over its decline and its low estate? Do we naturally sympathize with these seasons of reviving, or of declension, because we know that Jesus does? This is what we mean by living in sympathy with our divine Lord. Do you know what it is?—Ob. Evan.

WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?

“O GENERATION, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness?” Jer. ii, 31.

There is pertinence in this appeal coming to his people in the word of the Lord by Jeremiah. They had promised to walk in covenant with him, but they had drawn back. Practically this amounted to a declaration that they could not live with him.

Such a manifesto put forth by the actual life of his people was a reproach upon their God. It became proper for him to inquire for the reason of it. Hence the words above quoted: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel? a land of darkness?” When they came near to dwell with me, was my presence only a wilderness of desolation? Was it only as sitting down in some sunless clime, some region of the frozen zone where no sunlight returns? Whereas I had promised them green pastures and still, lovely waters, did they find only barren sands—plains and broad sweeps of view, naked of verdure, wherein is no water? How is this? God calls on his people to bear witness if such has been their reception, such their surroundings and supplies in his pastures, and in the fields of his love.

Professed Christian, if thou art a wanderer from God into ways of sinful enjoyment, he asks of thee the reason. Is it that you could find nothing cheerful and satisfying in the life of loving obedience and trust? Has God been a wilderness to your soul? Has the love of your heart to your Lord met no responsive love in return? Has your confiding trust put you to shame with disappointment? What have you to say? If you have any charge to make, the form of this appeal is such that you may properly bring it forward. Bring it out, not too confidently, lest it should be found far other than you think. Subject it to a careful revision, lest it should not bear the light of the searching scrutiny it must have when it comes to the great canvass before Jehovah. Yet bring it forward. Let it be diligently sought out. Cast it into the balances of the sanctuary. Let it be searched under the light of the Saviour's countenance. Wherein has the Lord dealt ill with thee that thou shouldst have dealt so ungratefully and so falsely towards him?

It was in the covenant that thou shouldst give him thy heart. Hast thou done it? And if so can it be truly charged that your Lord was still to you as darkness, and shed no light of his love on your soul? It was promised on your part that you would “have Christ's commandments and keep them;” and then responsively on his—“I will love him and will manifest myself unto him.” Do you propose to show that on your part these covenants have been kept, but not on Christ's part? This is the precise point to which the word of the Lord by Jeremiah brings you.

Especially it was the genius of that covenant as divinely expressed—“I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not [need to] teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” The spirit of this new covenant is well set forth by Ezekiel's words: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean.” “A new heart will I give you and a new spirit put within you.” “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.”

Have you taken hold of the promises of this new covenant? If so have they failed you utterly in their fulfillment? Is it not rather you that has failed, in that you have not welcomed these promises to your soul, and sought with all your heart the blessings they pledge to the faith of God's people? Say, is the failure on the part of the God of this covenant? Has he been a wilderness to you? Wherefore is it that this promised cleansing from sin has so sadly failed of ample and joyous fulfillment?—Ob. Evan.

The Censorious Spirit

A censorious spirit is generally attended with self-complacency; they think most of themselves who are constantly condemning others: he that censures himself, pities, prays for, and sympathizes with others, when their failings are discovered.

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