Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 11. (3/13/1884)

Signs of the Times

Mar 13, 1884

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1884

Science and Revelation.

By Ellen G. White

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” The mightiest intellects of earth cannot comprehend God. If he reveals himself at all to men, it is by veiling himself in mystery. His ways are past finding out. Men must be ever searching, ever learning; and yet there is an infinity beyond. Could they fully understand the purposes, wisdom, love, and character of God, they would not believe in him as an infinite being, and trust him with the interests of their souls. If they could fathom him, he would no longer stand supreme.

There are men who think they have made wonderful discoveries in science. They quote the opinions of learned men as though they considered them infallible, and teach the deductions of science as truths that cannot be controverted. And the word of God, which is given as a lamp to the feet of the world-weary traveler, is judged by this standard, and pronounced wanting. The scientific research in which these men have indulged has proved a snare to them. It has clouded their minds, and they have drifted into skepticism. They have a consciousness of power; and instead of looking to the Source of all wisdom, they triumph in the smattering of knowledge they may have gained. They have exalted their human wisdom in opposition to the wisdom of the great and mighty God, and have dared to enter into controversy with him. The word of inspiration pronounces these men “fools.”

God has permitted a flood of light to be poured upon the world in discoveries in science and art; but when professedly scientific men lecture and write upon these subjects from a merely human standpoint, they will assuredly come to wrong conclusions. The greatest minds, if not guided by the word of God in their research, become bewildered in their attempts to investigate the relations of science and revelation. The Creator and his works are beyond their comprehension; and because they cannot explain these by natural laws, Bible history is considered unreliable. Those who doubt the reliability of the records of the Old and New Testaments, will be led to go a step farther, and doubt the existence of God; and then, having let go their anchor, they are left to beat about upon the rocks of infidelity. Moses wrote under the guidance of the Spirit of God, and a correct theory of geology will never claim discoveries that cannot be reconciled with his statements. The idea that many stumble over, that God did not create matter when he brought the world into existence, limits the power of the Holy One of Israel.

Many, when they find themselves incapable of measuring the Creator and his works by their own imperfect knowledge of science, doubt the existence of God and attribute infinite power to nature. These persons have lost the simplicity of faith, and are removed far from God in mind and spirit. There should be a settled faith in the divinity of God's holy word. The Bible is not to be tested by men's ideas of science, but science is to be brought to the test of this unerring standard. When the Bible makes statements of facts in nature, science may be compared with the written word, and a correct understanding of both will always prove them to be in harmony. One does not contradict the other. All truth, whether in nature or revelation, agrees. Scientific research will open to the minds of the really wise vast fields of thought and information. They will see God in his works, and will praise him. He will be to them first and best, and the mind will be centered upon him. Skeptics, who read the Bible for the sake of caviling, through ignorance claim to find decided contradictions between science and revelation. But man's measurement of God will never be correct. The mind unenlightened by God's Spirit will ever be in darkness in regard to his power.

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Those who have no vital union with God are swayed one way and another; they put men's opinions in the front, and God's word in the background. They grasp human assertions, that judgment against sin is contrary to God's benevolent character, and, while dwelling upon infinite benevolence, try to forget that there is such a thing as infinite justice.

When we have right views of the power, greatness, and majesty of God, and of the weakness of man, we shall despise the assumptions of wisdom made by earth's so-called great men, who have none of Heaven's nobility in their characters. There is nothing for which men should be praised or exalted. There is no reason why the opinions of the learned should be trusted, when they are disposed to measure divine things by their own perverted conceptions. Those who serve God are the only ones whose opinion and example it is safe to follow. A sanctified heart quickens and intensifies the mental powers. A living faith in God imparts energy; it gives calmness and repose of spirit, and strength and nobility of character.

Men of science think that with their enlarged conceptions they can comprehend the wisdom of God, that which he has done or can do. The idea largely prevails that he is bounded and restricted by his own laws. Men either deny and ignore his existence, or think to explain everything, even the operations of his Spirit upon the human heart, by natural laws; and they no longer reverence his name or fear his power. While they think they are gaining everything, they are chasing bubbles, and losing precious opportunities to become acquainted with God. They do not believe in the supernatural, not realizing that the Author of nature's laws can work above those laws. They deny the claims of God, and neglect the interests of their own souls; but his existence, his character, his laws, are facts that the reasoning of men of the highest attainments cannot overthrow.

The pen of inspiration thus describes the power and majesty of God: “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? . . . Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. . . . It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.”

Nature is a power, but the God of nature is unlimited in power. His works interpret his character. Those who judge him from his handiworks, and not from the suppositions of great men, will see his presence in everything. They behold his smile in the glad sunshine, and his love and care for man in the rich fields of autumn. Even the adornments of the earth, as seen in the grass of living green, the lovely flowers of every hue, and the lofty and varied trees of the forest, testify to the tender, fatherly care of our God, and to his desire to make his children happy.

The power of the great God will be exerted in behalf of those that fear him. Listen to the words of the prophet: “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth

power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

In the word of God many queries are raised that the most profound scholars can never answer. Attention is called to these subjects to show us how many things there are, even among the common things of every-day life, that finite minds, with all their boasted wisdom, can never fully comprehend.

All the systems of philosophy devised by men have led to confusion and shame when God has not been recognized and honored. To lose faith in God is terrible. Prosperity cannot be a great blessing to nations or individuals, when once faith in his word is lost. Nothing is truly great but that which is eternal in its tendencies. Truth, justice, mercy, purity, and the love of God, are imperishable. When men possess these qualities, they are brought into close relationship to God, and are candidates for the highest exaltation to which the race can aspire. They will disregard human praise, and will be superior to disappointment, weariness, the strife of tongues, and contentions for supremacy.

He whose soul is imbued with the Spirit of God will learn the lesson of confiding trust. Taking the written word as his counselor and guide, he will find in science an aid to understand God, but he will not become exalted, till, in his blind self-conceit, he is a fool in his ideas of God.

ON GALILEE.

Down the bright vale of Galilee A tempest swept, the night fell dark, And out upon the stormy sea In peril toiled a lonely bark.

And one on board, in welcome rest, Was sleeping sweetly as the child That's rocked upon its mother's breast, Unmoved by winds or billows wild.

The men beheld his weary form, And none could wish to break his rest, But darker, louder grew the storm, And harder was the vessel press'd.

Stout hearts were there, and men of skill That long had sailed their native lake, But naught avails, the ship must fill; Oh, will the Master not awake?

Then rose above the breaking wave The cry of mingled faith and fear, “We sink, O Lord; wilt thou not save? Let not thy servants perish here!”

The wearied Jesus rose from sleep, He glanced into the storm and night; “Be still,” he said. And lo! the deep, Like his own face grew calm and bright.

What wondering joy abounded then— A placid sea, a welcome strand; Ah, favored boat! O happy men! To have such present help at hand.

Dear Lord, hast thou not servants still On earth who know thy love and power? Sustain our hearts, our bosoms fill With trust, against the trying hour.

But should the erring soul grow dark, And waves of passion o'er it sweep, Ah, do not leave the foundering bark, But save us from the yawning deep. —Sel.

Immortality—Belief of the Ancient Hebrews.

By J. H. Pettingell

We find among the early Hebrews no trace whatever of the doctrine of the natural immortality of man, for the good reason, that they were more directly under the teaching of divine inspiration than any other people. They did have notions, more or less distinct, of a future life—not on the ground of the natural immortality of the soul, but through the redemption of the soul and body together. It was the object of their divinely ordained sacrificial system to foreshadow this great truth, that man needs to be redeemed from the death to which all are subject on account of sin. Their hope of living again, so far as they laid hold of it, was in a resurrection from the dead by Divine Power, and not, according to the heathen ideas, on account of the living nature of the human soul.

As they came under the demoralizing influences of the nations with which they had intercourse, they imbibed many of their false and superstitious notions concerning the dead. It was expressly to keep them from the corrupting power of these false notions, that they were segregated, and cut off as much as possible from intercommunication and association with them. They were forbidden to practice their rites, and, especially, under pain of death, to practice those delusions of the devil—necromancy, witchcraft, and the like—which so commonly prevailed throughout the Gentile world. And to the very last, though they became sadly corrupted in their latter days, they were kept more free from the ghostly superstitions of the heathen than any other people on the face of the earth.

They regarded the sheol into which all men, whatever their character, descended at death, as a region, or rather a state of silence, darkness, and utter unconsciousness, until God shall awaken them by his almighty power to live again. While, by the rites of their religion, and by divine communications through their prophets, they were taught to look beyond the present life, and by faith to lay hold of that mysterious, undefined, future good in reserve for them, and yet to be more fully revealed; and while they believed that the wicked should tremble in view of a future judgment and of remediless destruction; yet their ideas of anything beyond this life, even in the case of the most advanced, were exceedingly vague, and the great mass appear to have been hardly at all influenced by them. The motives and sanctions of their divine law and system of religion were pre-eminently earthly and temporal. The rewards of virtue and obedience were health, abundant harvests, numerous progeny, length of days, and general prosperity; and the penalty of sin and disobedience was just the reverse of these—drought, famine, disease, pain, sorrow, and death. No doubt, there was involved in these promised blessings, and especially in the promise so oft repeated that the righteous should prolong his days, possess the earth, etc., a deeper meaning than at first appeared. Here was the germ of that gospel truth yet to be revealed through Christ, of everlasting life in the kingdom of God, yet to be established on this renewed earth; and in the threatening of evil, and of death itself, there were doubtless intimations of that second death which follows the future judgment of the wicked, and from which there is no possible recall. But these higher truths were not distinctly apprehended till they were brought fully to light in the gospel.

Warburton, in his "Divine Legation," says: "The doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be found in, nor did it make a part of, the divine legation of Moses."

Bishop Lowth, in his Lectures, says that "no explicit mention of immortal spirits" is to be found in the Hebrew poets.

Dr. Harmer says: "Many of the Jews understood the life of the world to come in a literal sense;" that is, they believed in a literal resurrection from the dead, and in a real substantial life, and not in any such ghostly life of the spirit only, as was commonly imagined by the heathen.

It does, indeed, seem strange to those who are thoroughly possessed by the Platonic idea of the immortality of the soul as distinct from the body, and who try to find some support for it in the Bible, that the Jews, who of all others might be supposed to be well instructed in this "fundamental truth of religion," as it is called, should be so unsophisticated and innocent of any such idea. It puzzles them. It ought to lead them to inquire whether the idea—so far from being fundamental—ought to have any place whatever in any system of religion, as it certainly did not in that which was divinely given by Moses.

Professor Ernst Stahelin, in "The Foundation of our Faith," says: "Moses and Confucius did not expressly teach the immortality of the soul; nay, they seemed purposely to avoid entering upon the subject. They simply took it for granted." How does he know they took it for granted? He would better have said, As for Moses, he did not teach it simply because, as God's servant, he had no such doctrine to teach. It was Satan's doctrine, not God's truth; therefore he "purposely avoided" it. The author of "Ecce Homo," himself a believer in his heathen dogma, on pp. 35 and 36, says: "It is surprising that the early Jews, to whom the sense of God was so strong, and who were familiar with the conception of an eternal being, should yet have been behind, rather than before other nations, in suspecting the immortality of the soul. The Greek did not even in the earliest times believe death to be annihilation, though he thought it fatal to all joy and vigor; but the early Jews, the legislator himself, and most of the psalmists, limit their hopes and fears to the present life, and compare man to the 'beasts that perish.'" The suspicion of immortality appears in the later prophets—that suspicion which Christ himself was to develop into a glorious confidence. A glorious confidence in what? Not in the immortality of the soul of man. That doctrine is not found in the later prophets, nor in the gospel of Christ; but in the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the whole man through a resurrection from the dead, by the almighty power of God, and by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ the Saviour. It was not the ghostly immortality of disembodied spirits, but a living again of resurrected saints to possess this renewed earth and to hold it forever.

Dr. G. D. Boardman, in his "Creative Week," page 215, makes the following admission, though he seems reluctant to do it: "And yet—for I would be candid—I must add that not a single passage, from Genesis to Revelation, teaches, so far as I am aware, the doctrine of man's natural immortality. On the other hand, holy writ emphatically declares that God only hath immortality; that is to say, God alone is naturally, inherently, in his own essence and nature, immortal. He alone is the I AM, having this as his name forever, his memorial to all generations. If then man is immortal, it is because immortality has been bestowed on him. He is immortal, not because he was created so, but because he has become so, deriving his deathlessness from him who alone hath immortality;" and—he should have added—only by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and a new birth and a resurrection from the dead through the Saviour, as revealed in the gospel.

It was not till after the return of the Jews from their long captivity, where they imbibed many heathen notions, and after the close of the sacred canon, which had hitherto been the foundation of their religious faith, that they began to think of the soul as a separate essence, and to entertain the fables of the pagan world respecting its separate existence after death. Hence in the Apocrypha, and in the Mishna and Gemara of the Talmud, and in the writings of Josephus, who was a Pharisee and a Platonist, as the Pharisees generally were, we find here and there traces of such notions. But there is no uniformity nor consistency of teaching in these writings, nor in the later writings of their Rabbins. By careful scrutiny one may find, mixed with much that is true and in accord with the Old Testament doctrine, many passages, here and there, which favor the Grecian philosophy, as well as vague hints that he may construe either way as he may himself be inclined.

Dr. Pusey, in his "Analysis of the Book of Enoch," maintains that it is made up of contributions from several authors, and can be quoted on either side of this question, because it expresses both the belief of the Pharisees in the endless suffering of the wicked, and of the orthodox Jewish church in the everlasting life of the righteous only, and the destruction of the wicked.—The Life Everlasting, by Rev. J. H. Pettingell.

HAPPINESS

Most of the wrong-doing in the world comes from an uneasy craving for pleasure of some sort. The desire for revenge produces all kinds of malicious and hateful conduct; the yearning for gain suggests dishonesty, fraud, oppression, injustice; the appetite for sensual gratification leads to gluttony, intemperance and vice. A state of true happiness would render these cravings impossible; were the higher gratifications once thoroughly enjoyed, no room would be left for the lower. The great happiness of love annihilates revenge and malice; sympathetic pleasures extinguish selfish ones; pure and innocent recreations, cheerful society, and wholesome habits preclude the temptations to vicious courses. In a word, happiness, in its truest meaning and best forms, is the foe to wrong-doing, and in this sense it may be said that those who are happy are good.

Blessed Are the Meek

BLESSED are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

The Mormon Plague.

THE extensive and successful efforts of the Mormon power, in almost all nations, to decoy innocent people into its net, calls for a note of warning from every one in a position to give the sound any influence whatever. From an elaborate article in the Christian Union, by Prof. George N. Marden, of Colorado Springs, Col., who has well acquainted himself with the subject, we cull the following:—

To-day the Mormon Church has as many missionaries as has the American Board. In one year, 1881, they sent out one hundred and eighty-nine, besides seventy-nine to Arizona to spy out and secure the best land for colonization purposes. One day last April, sixty-one Mormon missionaries were at the Grand Central hotel, New York, and sailed for Europe the day following. On the 16th of October, thirty more left Salt Lake City in a Pullman car. Within eight months of last year, about 3,000 Mormon proselytes arrived at New York. The Mormons have missions in England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Malta, Gibraltar, Hindostan, Australia, Siam, Ceylon, China, Chile, Guinea, the West Indies, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, Iceland, on the banks of the Nile, and even in the Holy Land. Twenty-seven nationalities were represented in one of their recent public celebrations. More converts were sent to Utah in the past two seasons, since the passage of the Edmunds bill, than in any four years previous. Rural districts in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee have yielded many. The Book of Mormon is now printed in many tongues, and periodicals are issued in at least eight languages. Mormon land is much more than Utah land. Shrewdly, systematically, large areas have been secured in the great central plateau of this continent, and are being colonized for religious and political control. Some of the best portions of Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho, and Colorado, are under Mormon control.

Forty years ago an officer of the United States Army wrote to a friend: "There is developing in the Rocky Mountain region a power that will, if unhindered, some day shake this country to its center." William Smith, brother of the prophet, left the Mormons years ago, saying, "It is their design to set up an independent government; the mass of Mormons will be purged of American feelings, and will be shut out by church restrictions from any but a Mormon freedom." To-day the Mormon vote is solid, is dictated by a few men, and is in favor of the party which is least inclined to restrain Mormonism.

Surely, Mormonism is no weakling to be ignored. It is probably the most energetic ecclesiastical body on this continent. In the face of pulpit, press, and adverse legislation this sect has thriven and thrives. Many people are asking how it is that this thing of mean origin and ridiculous pretensions has been able to rise up in the midst of the nineteenth century. How is it that in this our country, where every fifth inhabitant belongs to the Christian communion, is found a system with practices tolerated in no other nominally Christian land excepting Abyssinia? The answer is manifold.

1. Mormonism goes after simple-hearted, uneducated people. It gains a respectful hearing by means of the truth which the system contains, and not by means of the error. It says many good things, as: Repent; fear God; be honest; be just; be virtuous.

2. It is eclectic. Joseph Smith shrewdly determined that his scheme should accommodate wanderers from all folds. So it professes to believe in the New Testament, and in the mission of Christ, and in the Book of Mormon as being in harmony with the Bible. It borrows scraps of doctrine from the various Christian sects. John Taylor says: "The present dispensation is a combination of the various dispensations that have existed in the different ages of the world." This profound liberality and breadth is artfully contrasted with the exclusiveness of the sects; and Mormon unity, also, with the divided aspect of Christendom.

3. Missionary operations are conducted with enthusiastic, self-denying zeal, many missionaries traveling—as the president of the church has done—tens of thousands of miles without purse or scrip, preaching the doctrines of Mormonism. Little or nothing is said about the obnoxious features of the system. All that the converts know is from the statements of Mormons.

4. While Mormonism goes across seas to men in coal-pits and factories, and labors among them as loving their souls, it also holds out to the weary, hopeless toiler the assurance of a home of his own and forty acres in a sunny land, and offers him aid, if necessary, from the Emigration Fund.

5. By thoroughness of organization the Mormon Church has a strong hold. Every fourth man is an official. There are twenty large districts; these are divided into two hundred and thirty wards; the wards are subdivided, and over the subdivisions are set deacons and teachers to visit each individual every moon, and to know his affairs, temporal and spiritual. All Mormons are solemnly sworn to keep no secrets from the teachers. From the great wheel to the least spindle the whole Mormon system is tightly belted and geared together.

6. The iron grip of the Mormon Church appears in its control of the land. The forty acres promised is to be found where the church elects to send the proselyte. The leaders have such control of choice soil in Utah that non-Mormon emigrants are discouraged from entering. Colonization for political ends is systematically carried on. Does the Mormon vote need strengthening in some county in Idaho? Strong wards in Utah are bidden to furnish their quotas of emigrants. As Bishop Lunt says: "Our people are obedient. When called by the church they promptly obey; sell houses, lands, and stock, and remove to any part of the country to which the church may direct them. You can imagine," adds the Bishop, "the results which wisdom may bring about with such a system as ours; it is the completest the world has ever seen." The Mormon Church in its control of the irrigating canals has an effective grip. If a man rebels, the thumb on the ditch chokes him into submission. No wonder the Mormon vote is solid.

7. Great is the power of the tithe. One-tenth of all one's property and income and time is required. About a round million a year is raised for purposes which strengthen the church. Thousands of dollars are spent at Washington in adroit lobbying against anti-Mormon movements. Generous attentions shown to distinguished visitors at the Mormon capital tend, in some degree, to disarm criticism.

8. The Mormons are held together, not only by external authority, but by a kind of faith and devotion. It were blindness to call them hypocrites; though it would doubtless be but a discreet and mild use of language to apply to the founder the word knave.

9. Mormonism has as a part of its capital the memory of sufferings and tribulations; especially the martyrdom of the prophet, the manner of whose death threw his vices into the background and surrounded him with a halo. The story of the march of the ten thousand across the plains, and of precious dust laid beneath the buffalo grass by the weary way, is not without effect. The shotgun policy, which report says was employed against Mormon preachers in parts of North Carolina last year, is an effective ally of Mormonism.

10. Among the leaders polygamy is a bond, the sense of fellowship being strengthened by common opposition to the law of the land. It is a sad fact that the Mormon Church furnishes to the conscience a justification of all that it bids men do. It sets its "ought" to abominable things. Adroitly shuffling texts, it teaches that the highest seats in Heaven are for those who have the largest families on earth. And the sly oracle permitting polygamy was careful to provide for future changes of policy on this subject.

11. Favorable to Mormon growth is the isolation of its seat of power, and the general segregation of the converts, by which much contact with non-Mormon civilization is generally avoided; also their concentration in a great gathering-place from all the nations, for which prediction was provided in the Book of Mormon.

The magnificent temple at Salt Lake City, whose total cost will be nine millions of dollars, and which has already been thirty years in building—this, and other grand and imposing structures, the creation of their own toil, and for their solemn mysteries, impress the people with a sense of power. Zeal in temple building is quickened by the doctrine that the living may be baptized for, and save the souls of their dead friends, or of heathen, but that the baptism, to avail, must be performed in the temple only.

The Mormons have a strong hold on their young people by means of their system of schools, from which non-Mormon teachers are excluded, and in which Mormon doctrines are assiduously taught.

The Mormon press and pulpit catch eagerly at calamities, by fire and flood, earthquakes, popular discontents, fears in high places, wars and rumors of wars, and crimes outside of Mormondom, as signs that the kingdom of the "saints" is to triumph.

Finally, by substituting church tribunals with closed doors in place of open courts, and by the apparent faith of the leaders in their ability to defy the Government, and, if it must be said, by the slowness of the Republic to awake to a sense of danger, this masterly tyranny has got a tightening grip, which can be broken only by vigorous measures applied speedily, and faithfully followed up.

Yet in the face of all this spectacle of corruption, political demagogues become fawning sycophants before the Mormon ballot and Mormon money. And in wholesale mercantile circles is whispered the fear that anti-Mormon agitation may injure trade with Utah!

Precept and Example.

By J. C. Holbrook, D. D.

It has been sarcastically said of some ministers of the gospel, that they are like guide-boards in the highways—pointing out the true path to others, but not going in it themselves! And so the apostle Paul suggests that one may proclaim the way to Heaven, and yet never himself reach that goal. "I keep under my body," he says, "and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway." I do not suppose he meant us to understand from this that he had any serious doubts as to his good prospects for eternity, for elsewhere he manifests abundantly the full assurance of hope which he exhorted others to attain; but he knew that his salvation was to be consummated, under God, by watchfulness on his own part against temptation, and by a persistent warfare with "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life."—J. C. Holbrook, D. D.

Bunyan’s Counsel on Heaven

John Bunyan was once asked a question about Heaven which he could not answer, because the matter was not revealed in the Scriptures, and he thereupon advised the inquirer to live a holy life, and go and see.

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