Earlier text: The Golden Rule and Sunday LawsTHE BOOK OF JOB.
By George B. Starr
Is it inspired of God? Is it entirely inspired of God? or is it simply a novel, a finely arranged imagery, based wholly upon imagination, written by some learned men of Job's time or later, as a moral dialogue? Was it by the design and direction of God that it became a part of the Old-Testament Scriptures? or is it an unfortunate intrusion, permitted by God, but not directed by him? And this involves the still greater question whether the Bible as a whole is entirely from God; or whether we (men of all nations, good or bad, ignorant and learned) unto whom the Bible comes, are left to be judges of its inspiration, and to be judges for ourselves which books are inspired, and which are not. In other words has God appointed each individual man on earth a committee of one to compile a Bible to suit his judgment, out of all these books, said by some to be entirely inspired, by others, partially so? Is this the character of the book to which Christ refers all men, and of which he commands them to "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me"? and was he not aware of the fact that the books of Job and Ecclesiastes and the Songs of Solomon were parts of what the Jews held as the Scriptures, the sacred writings, and which Paul designates as the oracles of God? Rom. 3:2. Were these Scriptures the oracles of God? or were they only in part the oracles of God, containing erroneous books, teaching erroneous doctrines—oracles of men? If the latter view be the correct one, why did Jesus not except those books when referring to the Scriptures and urging upon us their careful, searching study? Did he not rather forbid such a view, when he quoted to the tempter the words of Moses, "It is written, Men shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God"? Luke 4:14; Deut. 8:3. And again, "It is written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" "and the Scriptures cannot be broken." John 10:34, 35; Psa. 82:6. The book of Job was a part (doubtless one of the oldest parts) of those writings called "your law" and "the Scriptures," and Jesus knew it. In the face of this statement can any part of the book of Job be broken? or the book as a whole be broken off from, or taken out of, the Scriptures? But more directly to the book of Job itself. If any people upon the earth, or in any age of the world, ought to give more careful and considerate thought to this book than others, that people certainly are those who are waiting for the second advent of Christ. For in their time of waiting, amidst the apparent triumph of the wicked, they are directed to this book especially. James 5:7-11. And here, after exhorting them to patience and giving them the example of the husbandmen patiently waiting for the fruit of his labor, and cautioning them not to grudge against those who are more prosperous apparently, he exhorts them to take "my brethren the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job." Where had those latter-day Christians heard of the patience of Job unless that book was recognized as coming down to them to the very last days, among the prophets to whom he refers? And how would we see the end, design, object, and pitiful tender mercy of God in Job's case, unless God was really and truly connected with his experience and history? Does not this indorse this book and that experience as among the things written aforetime for our learning, that we through comfort of the Scriptures might have hope? Rom. 15:4. Job is a real person, a righteous man and servant of God, is also recognized by God himself outside and independent of the book of Job itself. In view of impending judgments, the Lord says by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." Ezek. 14:14. Shall we not then as Christians who are looking for the coming of the Lord follow the advice of James, and learn from the books of Jeremiah, Job, and others, of the sufferings and patience and final victory of these men of God, and endeavor in a similar situation by the grace of God to follow their example? We think a most critical and careful study of Job, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and as a whole, will abundantly reward any one, and present views of the matchless power and sovereignty of God, hardly to be found in other parts of the Bible. For there God speaks for himself upon these points and reveals himself to Job, not through the reason simply, but through views of his unapproachable creative power and wisdom.—Geo. B. Starr, in Present Truth. FIFTEEN years ago it was a very common opinion that there was no important inventions left to be made. There might and would be improvements, but nothing revolutionary. The telegraph was the most perfect conceivable mode of communication, and there were physical difficulties that would limit the possible speed of railroad trains to sixty or seventy miles an hour, and of ships to twenty or twenty-five knots. To-day we are visibly entering upon a period of invention never approached in history. Nobody ventures to predict its possible limits. We have learned to talk to people a thousand miles away, and Edison promises to make us see them. We can petrify our speech for the benefit of future generations, so that our dead voices will speak to our descendants when we are not even in memory,—if we ever die, for science is venturing even to attack death itself. Within the next two or three years the transportation system of the world will probably be revolutionized. Inventors in two different lines each promise us a speed of from 100 to 300 miles an hour. Electricity and water are the rival agents. In the new electric road the train is drawn forward by the suction of charged coils of wire. On the water road the cars have no wheels, but slide on runners supported on thin films of water. In both cases the extraordinary speed and steadiness of motion are due to the fact that the action is continuous, like that of gravitation. A falling body goes faster and faster until, if the distance traversed be great enough, its speed is almost infinite. In the new trains there is no reciprocating motion, like that of a piston, with its continual stopping, reversing and jerking. There is a steady pull, constantly accumulating force and speed without jar. It seems to be the mere extravagance of incredulity to doubt the genuineness of these inventions. The Weems electric road has been repeatedly illustrated and described in lay and scientific journals for months past. The sliding water road is described by one of those ponderous British newspapers that never perpetrates a hoax, as in actual operation at the Paris Exhibition. Perhaps by the time the World's Fair of 1892 opens in New York we shall be able to leave our work in San Francisco on Saturday, take a look at the show and go back again on Monday.—San Francisco Examiner. Affliction Purifies Virtue
By Burton
As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.—Burton. THE “SIGNS OF THE TIMES” AND THE PROHIBITION PARTY.
By Editor
THIS paper has from its very inception to the present time been an advocate of the prohibition of the liquor traffic; and knowing this, some of our friends are unable to understand why we do not support the Prohibition party, some even going so far as to deny that we are in favor of prohibition at all because we do not co-operate in all things with those who have taken that name. We wish now to state our position so plainly that none can fail to understand it. There are two reasons why we cannot and do not support the Prohibition party though we advocate prohibition. The first of these reasons is, the Signs of the Times is not a political nor a party paper. We advocate only principles; the support of men and measures we, from the very nature of the case, leave to papers published for that purpose. In this we do not differ materially from the majority of religious papers. Our second reason for not supporting the Prohibition party is that, whereas it advocates prohibition, in which we believe, it also advocates some things in which we do not believe. A single plank from the platform recently adopted by some six hundred delegates of the party assembled in convention in Pittsburg, Pa., will serve as an illustration. The plank is as follows:— “Third—The Sabbath must be preserved by the due enforcement of existing laws and the speedy enactment of such additional legislation as may be necessary to insure its due observance.” We cannot conscientiously give our support, nor even our tacit consent to this plank. The Sabbath is a religious institution, and its observance is an act of worship; its legal enforcement is, therefore, the legal enforcement of religion, and that is foreign alike to the real spirit of Christianity and to our free institutions. In all matters of religion man is responsible alone to his God, and when the State attempts to interfere in any way in such matters it usurps the place and prerogatives of God. The tendency of Sunday laws is to destroy that sense of personal responsibility to God which is the basis of all true religion, and in the very nature of the case, under them, men learn to look not to God to know their duty towards him, but to the State. Again, Sabbath laws are unjust. All do not regard the same day as sacred, nor do all agree upon the degree of sacredness which attaches to any particular day. It is manifestly unjust to compel the man who has kept Saturday, as many do, to keep Sunday also. To say the very least, the fourth commandment gives permission to all to labor six days, and certainly the man who has observed the seventh day according to the plain letter of that commandment has a divine right to work on the other six days, and not only so but he has a right to do any sort of work or to follow any sort of business which it would be right and proper for a Christian to do or follow upon any other day, always remembering the golden rule, to do as he would be done by. We should always be considerate of the rights and feelings of others, but this is just as obligatory upon one as upon another. But obedience to the golden rule would defeat all Sunday laws unless it might be a useless provision requiring those to rest upon that day who want to do so. Certainly it is not doing to others as we would have them do to us, to require them to observe religious institutions in which they have no faith. If Christians because they happen to be in the majority have a right to require unbelievers to act one day in the week as though they believed, it follows that were the majority on the other side the unbelievers would have the right to require Christians to act, at least occasionally, as though they were infidels. But God has never given any such authority to anybody. The words of our Saviour, “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” have forever separated civil and religious duties and left the State without the vestige of an excuse for interfering in matters of religion. The Sunday law of Pennsylvania is particularly objectionable because that under it conscientious Christian men have been, and may still be, fined and imprisoned for doing ordinary labor on the first day of the week after having religiously kept the seventh day. But the Prohibition party in that State, not only favors the strict enforcement of that law but demands the passage of still more stringent laws. Such a demand is neither Christian nor patriotic, and we certainly cannot join in it nor give it our sanction in any way. But even if the law did exempt from its provisions those who observe the day specified in the fourth commandment, we could not indorse it nor assent that it was right. It is a question which the State has no right to touch, nor can it do so without establishing a precedent most dangerous to religious liberty and to freedom of conscience. We have no quarrel with the Prohibition party so long as it confines itself to its legitimate work, and we stand aloof from that party not that we love prohibition less, but that we love God and freedom to worship him according to the dictates of our own consciences more. C. P. B. DO CATHOLICS PRAY TO SAINTS?
By M. C. W.
"THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS" by the Most Rev. James Gibbons, D.D., archbishop of Baltimore, now cardinal, says on page 182:— "In the exposition of her creed, the Catholic Church weighs her words in the scales of the sanctuary with as much precision as a banker weighs gold. With regard to the invocation of saints, the church simply declares that it is 'useful and salutary' to ask their prayers. There are expressions addressed to the saints in some popular books of devotion, which, to critical readers, may seem extravagant. But they are only the warm language of affection and poetry, and are to be regulated by our standard of faith; and notice that all the prayers of the church end with the formula, 'Through our Lord Jesus Christ,' sufficiently indicating her belief that Christ is the Mediator of salvation." The "Catholic Christian Instructed," by the Most Rev. Dr. Challoner, approved by the Rev. John McCloskey, D.D., late archbishop of New York, says (page 236):— "We hold it to be pious and profitable to apply ourselves to them [angels and saints], in the way of desiring them to pray to God for us; but not so as to address ourselves to them as if they were the authors or dispensers of pardon, grace, or salvation." Compare with the above quotations, the following prayer sent out by Leo XIII., as printed in the Catholic News, of September 1, 1889:— [Translated for the Catholic News.]
We fly to thee, O blessed Joseph, in our tribulations, and imploring the aid of thy most holy spouse, confidently invoke thy patronage also. By that charity which united thee with the immaculate Virgin, mother of God, and by the fatherly love with which thou didst embrace the infant Jesus, we humbly beseech thee to look benignly on the inheritance which Jesus Christ acquired by his blood, and help us in our necessity by thy power and aid. "Protect, O most provident guardian of the holy family, the elect children of Jesus Christ; ward off from us, O most loving Father, all pestilence of errors and depravity; be propitious to us from heaven, O most powerful protector, in this our struggle with the power of darkness; and as thou didst once rescue the child Jesus from the greatest peril to his life, so now defend the holy church of God from the snares of the enemy and all adversity; and shield each one of us with thy perpetual patronage, that imitating thy example, and supported by thy aid, we may be enabled to live a holy life, die piously, and attain everlasting bliss in heaven. Amen." This prayer is to be recited throughout the month of October in connection with the rosary, henceforth and forever. Mark, that St. Joseph's prayer to, or intercession with, Christ in behalf of the pope and church is not asked, but his (St. Joseph's) "help," and "power and aid." The encyclical letter of the pope places him on a level with the Virgin Mary. The pope says that Joseph the patriarch, as one in whose hands Pharaoh had placed the affairs of his kingdom, was the type of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of our Lord. "Then, again [says Leo XIII.], there is perhaps a more remarkable coincidence, when at the king's order Joseph is invested with the most absolute control of the entire kingdom; and when at the time of the famine, the dearth of corn and of all means of supporting life were so sharply felt, so admirable was his management of the affairs of the Egyptians and their allies that the king decreed that he should be called the Saviour of the world. Thus in the life of the elder patriarch, we can trace the image of the latter. As the one was first the successful and skillful manager of his master's domestic affairs, and afterwards the admirable director of the entire kingdom, so the other, destined to be the guardian of the Christian name, must be considered the defender and protector of the church, which is the house of God and God's kingdom on earth." To Mariolatry the Catholic Church adds Josepholatry. Because he was the husband of the Virgin, therefore equal. Because she was the mother of599Christ, therefore can exact obedience of our Lord. Here is another man-made god of Rome, a deified mortal. The act is worthy of its origin—paganism. We have naught of disrespect toward Joseph or his highly-honored virgin wife. The thought of this Roman Catholic exaltation of them would have been most abhorrent to their souls. Oh, no, Roman Catholics do not worship or pray to saints; but if this prayer, if these statements of the position of St. Joseph,—“absolute control of the entire kingdom,” the church,—be not worship and adoration, and intercession, such as ought to be paid to God alone, we know not what could be called worship. What words could be used in prayer to God or Christ which would express more. “Most Provident Guardian,” “Most Loving Father,” “Most Powerful Protector,” are terms which belong alone to God, if words mean anything. “So that, sustained by thy example, and thy help, we may live in holiness and die in piety, and reach the everlasting blessedness of heaven.” (Catholic Review translation.) What more can Christ do? To those who will devoutly recite the prayer, is granted “an indulgence of seven years, and seven quarantines.” Wonderfully efficacious! And note that this prayer does not end with, “Through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Another thought. During October, devout Catholics will be uttering this prayer at all hours all over the world. Take two cases, one in Rome, Italy, one in San Francisco, Cal., two places 7,000 miles apart. Does St. Joseph hear both of these prayers?—Then he is omnipresent, clothed with an attribute of Deity. If he hears only one, then the other petitioner is deceived. The Catholic can accept either horn of the dilemma he chooses. Pope Leo XIII. either makes St. Joseph a god, or he deceives his people. “Most loving,” “most provident,” and “most powerful,” are superlative terms; omniscience belongs only to Deity. But the Catholic Church has clothed mortal man with all. How much better the Bible truth. “The dead know not anything,” the righteous sleep in Jesus; and when He who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with the good of all ages, with Christ in glory. Col. 3:4. In Christ alone is our “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” 1 Cor. 1:30. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the LORD.” SOME of the writers in the Herald of Life have caught the almost annual time-setting disease as regards 1889. One L. E. Pendleton thus writes of the closing of the great prophetic periods, in a recent number of that paper:— "Where will they end?—Facts and figures indicate 1889. This also stands as antitype to the forty-five years waiting of ancient Israel from Kadesh-barnea to the division of land, when the faithful ones stood in their lot. This can never be true of another year, brethren. As the sister said in the Herald, whose article the Crisis rejected, this year is a test of our message which no previous time-movement has been; neither can any future one reinstate our record as vindicated by the prophetic periods." The italics are his. Later on he says:— "Daniel's nap in the Persian tomb will then be broken, and he will stand in his lot as Caleb and Joshua did anciently, 'at the end of the days.'" Of course this means that the resurrection of the righteous dead will take place in 1889. It means that Mr. Pendleton believes this. We wonder if he and those who hold with him, will be any wiser when 1889 ends? or, will they continue to "set times"? The doctrine of the second advent is a Bible doctrine. We may know when it is near, even at the door, but facts and figures, prophetic or historical, do not "indicate 1889," or any other year, as the end of these prophetic periods. All of this time-setting is laid at the door of the students of prophecy and the Advent people, wherever found. But they are not responsible. Seventh-day Adventists never did set times, nor have they any connection with those who do. Time-setting is one of the devil's means of bringing reproach upon a great and important Bible doctrine. IN answer to a question received relative to John 12:31, we cannot do better than to quote the following from Doctor Albert Barnes’ comment upon that text:— “Now is the judgment of this world.” Greek, “crisis.” This expression, doubtless, has reference to his approaching death, and whatever he means by judgment here relates to something that was to be accomplished by that death. It cannot mean that then was to be the time in which the world was to be finally judged, for he says that he did not come then to judge the world (chap. 12:47; 8:15), and he has clearly declared that there shall be a future day when he will judge all mankind. The meaning of it may be thus expressed: “Now is approaching the decisive scene, the eventful period—the crisis—when it shall be determined who shall rule this world. There has been a long conflict between the powers of light and darkness—between God and the devil. Satan has so effectually ruled that he may be said to be the prince of this world; but my approaching death will destroy his kingdom, will break down his power, and will be the means of setting up the kingdom of God over man.” The death of Christ was to be the most grand and effectual of all means that could be used to establish the authority of the law and the government of God. Rom. 8:3, 4. This it did by showing the regard which God had for his law; by showing his hatred of sin, and presenting the strongest motives to induce man to leave the service of Satan; by securing the influences of the Holy Spirit, and by his putting forth his own direct power in the cause of virtue and of God. The death of Jesus was the determining cause, the grand crisis, the concentration of all that God had ever done, or ever will do, to break down the kingdom of Satan, and set up his power over man. Thus was fulfilled the prediction (Gen. 3:15), ‘I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’” QUESTION ON THE SABBATH.
By C. P. B.
A CORRESPONDENT asks, “How can we prove from the Bible that Saturday, or Sabbath, is the seventh day?” The fourth commandment says: “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Language could not be plainer, for in this it is expressly stated that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and no comment on, or alteration in, the wording could make it any more explicit. But right here it is objected by some that the commandment does not mean the seventh day of the week, but only the seventh day after six days of labor. But this too is definitely settled by the Scriptures. Referring to Matt. 28:1, we read: “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.” This text shows that the first day of the week is the one immediately following the Sabbath, consequently the Sabbath must be the seventh day of the week; and thus it is proved, and proved by the Bible, not only that the Sabbath is the seventh day but that it is the seventh day of the week. But possibly our querist wishes to know how we can prove by the Bible that the day commonly called Saturday is the identical seventh day observed by the Hebrews from Sinai to the present. This cannot be proved by the Bible alone; for the reason that even the latest book of the New Testament was written not later than about 66 years after the crucifixion; and no one ever claims that during that time any change was made in the days of the week. Indeed no author of any note whatever has ever set up the claim that the day now called Saturday is other than the seventh day of the Hebrew week. Indeed the existence of the week among all nations in all historic times, and the fact that the week is everywhere the same, and that it has always been the same, is positive and unimpeachable evidence that there has been no change in the days of the week, not only this side the cross, but that there has been no such change since the creation of man. There is absolutely nothing in nature to suggest the division of time into weeks, and if the original week had ever been lost confusion must have resulted. But there has never been any such confusion. On this very point the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” art. “Calendar,” says:— “As it [the week] forms neither an aliquot part8of the year nor of the lunar month, those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss as Delambre remarks, to assign to it an origin having much semblance of probability.” Thus it appears that the existence of the week which has come down to us from the creation is at once an evidence of the truth of the Bible account of creation and an indisputable evidence that the ancient Sabbath has not been lost, but that it is the day now commonly known as Saturday, the seventh day of the week. C. P. B. THE POOR MARTYR.
By M. C. W.
The Catholic Mirror of August 31, in speaking of the attitude of the powers of earth generally, and the kingdom of Italy in particular, towards the holy see, says:— “Though the powers of this world are, to a great degree, apparently in league with the prince of the powers of the air to make the supreme pontiff a prisoner in his own domain, and though even the miserable emperor of Austria has proved lukewarm in devotion to the holy see, if not absolutely craven, what has Leo XIII., after all, to fear? Personally, he can be grieved, insulted, and even killed, much less driven from his palace, and nothing would more consecrate his last days than to suffer as Christ did for the sins of fallen humanity. Other popes have endured all extremities and gained heaven; and the Papacy remains. The present vicar of Jesus Christ would welcome martyrdom as a blessed privilege; and so, what has Crispi and his infidel gang to gain even by violence?” We do not know, as we read this, which emotion is dominant, pity for the poor deluded souls who swallow all such sentimentalism as gospel truth, or righteous indignation at the arrant blasphemy of this poor, dying mortal. Talk of the individual at the head of that system which has martyred “the whitest of the saints of God,” an individual who disavows not one single act of the persecutions of the centuries of that church over which he stands as vicegerent of the Son of God, but who rather indorses everything done by that system of iniquity,—talk of such an one suffering “as Christ did for the sins of fallen humanity.” We by no means excuse any unlawful or oppressive act of Humbert of Italy, or of Crispi his minister, but if Leo XIII. had power, the history of the past is certain proof that the ashes of Italy’s king and premier would even now be scattered to the winds, or these men would be dying by piecemeal in the dungeon of some Roman inquisitorial palace, while black-robed priests would be hypocritically chanting the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary. Dying for the sins of fallen humanity! Ten thousand deaths would not expiate the sins of the Papacy against humanity. But we can wait. We expect that all these actions of Italy will rouse sympathy for the poor, suffering friend of man at Rome. But whatever triumph Rome may gain, it will be brief. “Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.”
And the Christian can afford to wait. We envy not Rome’s power, Rome’s position, or Rome’s doom. God has spoken in his “more sure word of prophecy” concerning it all. We will cease not to warn others of her work. We would warn her adherents to flee from Babylon, turn to the pure word of God, and live. Her doom is inevitable. Thus speaks Revelation:— “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.” “For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” Rev. 18:21, 5.
M. C. W. AN ITEM OF ROMAN CATHOLIC PROGRESS.
SIR MORELL MCKENZIE has declared that the only hope of Rome’s ever having success in England or America is for that church to become Anglicized. In reply to this, the (N. Y.) Catholic News of August 25, makes answer with the following statistics:— “A hundred years ago there were three Catholic bishops in England, one in Scotland, a few in Ireland, one in Canada, none in the United States, none in British, East, or West Indies, no Catholic chaplains in army, navy, or institutions. During the century the church has been catholicizing; England and America have not been altering her divine constitution; and he is a lying prophet who says the future shall reverse this order of things. Now England has twenty-one cardinals, archbishops and bishops; Scotland, five archbishops and bishops; Ireland, thirty-one; the British possessions in America, thirty-four; Australia, etc., twenty-four; there are about twenty-four in other British territory; a cardinal and eighty-three archbishops and bishops in the United States. There are at least two hundred and twenty-five Catholic archbishops and bishops, with five cardinals, in English-speaking countries, against about thirty a hundred years ago.” It cannot be hidden; Romanism is gaining more to-day than Protestantism.