1. THE LORD'S SABBATH.—This is the seventh day of the week, made and enjoined by the Creator in the beginning of our world. It is set forth in the Holy Scriptures as the seal, mark, token, or sign of the living God, who created all things in six days, rested on the seventh day, and then blessed and hallowed the day of his rest, and commanded that it ever after be religiously observed "holy unto the Lord." The moral principle involved in the proper observance of the Sabbath had to be violated by our first parents in order to the moral fall from the favor of God. Listening to the voice of the serpent, and then obeying that voice, in presumptuous disobedience to God, was certainly doing violence to the moral principle in the great Sabbath law, which requires supreme and unswerving reverence and obedience to God.
All atheism, infidelity, disloyalty, rebellion, or sin has its root here, and is, consequently, a violation of God's great Sabbath law. Hence it is that the Sabbath is never truly obeyed in its purity until all unbelief and sin are rooted out of the heart.
The Sabbath is also called the "Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10), for the obvious reason that the Lord Jesus, our Redeemer, is also the Creator. "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Hence it was Christ that made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all things therein, in six days; it was Christ that rested upon the seventh day; it was Christ that blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it; and it was Christ who commanded that we "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." When we recognize this great truth, we are not surprised to hear Jesus put forth the claim that he was "Lord of the Sabbath day." Mark 2:27, 28. As Christ made all things, and as the Sabbath was among the all things made for man, it follows incontrovertibly that Christ made the Sabbath, and hence he uttered but a grand and simple truth when he claimed to be its Lord. As God made all things by or through his Son, it follows that the seventh-day Sabbath is conjointly the Sabbath of the Father and the Son. There is no chance for evading this clearly revealed truth.
Then the Sabbath day is Christ's Sabbath; he was its Lord, and perfectly understood its intention and obligation. While here in the flesh he lived our example, and hence his manner of observing the Sabbath was in the most exact accord with its literal and spiritual intent. It was his custom to attend divine worship in the house of God on the Sabbath day. Luke 4:16. He was accustomed also to do good to the bodies and souls of men on the Sabbath day, as witness his miracles of healing on the Sabbath.
According to the notion of the Jews, Jesus did not keep the Sabbath at all. They accused him of being a Sabbath breaker, said he was not of God because he did not keep the Sabbath, and for this reason they hated him and went about to kill him, and never rested until they did kill him, and that, too, as they said, for the salvation of their place and nation.
But Christ's idea of Sabbath keeping was the true idea, the divine idea. All he did, as he himself declared, was in the most perfect accord with the divine law; it was "lawful." Hence it follows that the Jewish idea of Sabbath keeping was contrary to the divine law. Indeed, so far as their leaders were concerned, in the days of Christ their ideas of the Sabbath and its proper observance were Satanic, as they were thereby led to the rejection, persecution, and crucifixion of the Son of God, the Lord of the Sabbath. And instead of being to the salvation of their place and nation, as they said, it resulted in the utter and everlasting destruction of their place and nation.
2. THE JEWISH SABBATH.—It is true that the Holy Scriptures do not recognize such an institution as a Jewish Sabbath by name, nevertheless they do recognize the existence of such an institution in the days of Christ. It is apparent from the New Testament that the time or day of Sabbath observance by the Jews was identical with that of the divine law. It was the seventh day of the week, and in this particular the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's Sabbath were identical, but when this is said, about all is said that can be said as to their identity. Jesus was the heaven ordained and divinely authorized exponent, both in precept and example, of the Lord's Sabbath, and so contrary were his teaching and practice on the Sabbath question to those of the Jews upon the same subject that they were directly antagonistic. Jewish Sabbath observance forbade the walking upon green grass, separating the chaff from even a single kernel of barley or other grain, even to satisfy hunger, carrying a pail of water to a thirsty animal, healing the sick, and numerous other rigorous, burdensome, and superstitious prohibitions and requisitions, all of which were in the fullest harmony with the Lord's Sabbath, as exemplified by the Lord Jesus Christ, its author.
The Sabbath of the Jews, as exacted by the ancient Pharisees, was a Satan-inspired, man-made institution; and its most ardent and zealous observers and defenders were the bitter persecutors of the Son of God, who was the most ardent and zealous observer and defender of the true Sabbath of the Lord our God. Ever since the days of wicked Cain and righteous Abel, as revealed in history, both sacred and profane, the abettors of fraudulent, man-made religious institutions are persecutors. True religion never persecutes; false religions, as if conscious of a lack of divine origin and support, always seek the support of civil governments or human power, and then persecute true religion.
Once we denied the existence of a Jewish Sabbath, but upon a reconsideration of the subject we have come to believe that there existed such an institution, and perhaps still exists, in part at least. In the four Gospels it is easily discovered, and, indeed, was so prominent that our Saviour came in contact with it at almost every turn. The Jews took counsel of the Herodians, a religio-political sect who had influence in the Roman Government, to decide how they might put Jesus to death, and their hatred was caused mainly by the teachings and practice of Jesus in antagonizing their man-made, straight-laced, and oppressive Sabbath-keeping ideas. That persecution culminated in the crucifixion of Christ and the final downfall of the Jewish nation.
3. THE PAPAL SABBATH.—This institution differs from the Bible Sabbath, the Lord's Sabbath, in every particular. It is another day, observed in a different manner, and for different reasons. It is called by the papists and many others the "Christian sabbath." This title only needs the small prefix of anti to make it exactly correct. It is the antichristian Sabbath.
It is the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday. Its name, Sunday, is derived from the pagans, as it is the day anciently dedicated by the heathen to the worship of the sun. Hence its name, Sunday, or sun's day. The papists, according to their own confession, set aside the true Sabbath of the Bible, the Lord's Sabbath, and substituted this man-made sabbath in its stead. It has no higher authority than the Catholic Church, it is a tradition which makes void the commandment of God. It is set forth by the Papacy as the sign or mark of their power. And, strange to say, many Protestants allow this by keeping Sunday strictly. And, what is more, and worse still, they are becoming incensed against the Lord's Sabbath and its faithful observers. The apostate church once endeavored to compel all to keep Sunday, and at the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364, they anathematized those who kept the true Bible Sabbath. Apostate Protestantism now becomes the strongest abettor of this papal idea of the Sabbath. Like the ancient Jews who sought the counsel of the religio-political Herodians, these professed Protestants will seek the counsel and support of the religio-political Church of Rome in their efforts at Sunday exaltation. And the Catholic Church has already expressed a willingness to coöperate with them in the promotion of Sunday observance. And why not, since it is their own institution and the mark of their power? History is repeating itself. It is the old story of a fraudulent and counterfeit sabbath making war upon the true. Already true Sabbath reformers, observers of the Lord's Sabbath according to the Bible idea, are being denominated the "greatest debauchers of the public conscience on the Sabbath question;" they are called rebellious and traitors, and all this, too, by professed religionists in high places.
The last conflict between truth and error is on,—the true Bible Sabbath, the sign or mark of the power of God, and a "little flock" on the one side, and the papal sabbath, the sign or mark of the power of the Papacy, and a popular host on the other side. The weapons of warfare by this host of false reformers6will be carnal. They will appeal to civil governments, and clamor for civil laws with severe penalties, and when they get them, it will be fines, confiscation of property, imprisonment, chain gang, banishment, and death to the transgressors,—and all in the name of religion, all the while claiming that it is necessary for the salvation of their place and nation. It will be the final rejection of Christ and the divine law of the Sabbath, and just the very thing that will result in the everlasting downfall of every nation under heaven.
The other side, the last remnant of true reformers, will use only spiritual weapons of warfare. Only such can a true Christian use. They will present the claims of the plain law of God and gospel of Jesus Christ in demonstration of the Spirit, and with power. They will teach, exhort, entreat, beseech, persuade, and there stop, leaving to every individual the most perfect liberty to choose whom he will serve. The weapons of their warfare are mighty through God, and in the name of the Captain of their salvation they will ultimately triumph, and, with psalms of victory and harps of gold, they will sing the everlasting song of triumph on the sea of glass in the presence of Jesus, their Almighty Deliverer and Redeemer. Ever may we share the trials, conflicts, persecutions, and labors of the remnant, that with them we may share the glory which is only a little farther on.
DIGRESSION ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ROME (CONTINUED)
By Percy T. Magan
A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN. NO. 14.
DIGRESSION ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ROME (CONTINUED).
[In our last issue the writer showed that the Papacy was based on the paganism of the Roman Empire. It was the old paganism modified by Christianity, with the changed nomenclature. He also showed from Scripture and history just what the principles of Rome were. In this number the subject is continued.]
THE Scripture says of the Roman people that they are “the children of robbers” or, Revised Version, “violence.” Mithridates records concerning “their foundation and origin,” “whatever they have, they have from violence.” There is no dissonance between these two. So much for their origin, now to their national life and policy. Says the historian:—
The Romans invaded, upon different pretenses, those great potentates, who divided Europe and Asia. And how haughtily did they treat them, even before they had conquered! A powerful king, confined within a narrow circle by a private man of Rome, was obliged to make his answer before he quitted it: how imperious was this! But then, how did they treat vanquished kings?—They command them to deliver up their children, and the heirs to their crown, as hostages and pledges of their fidelity and good behavior; oblige them to lay down their arms; forbid them to declare war, or conclude any alliance, without first obtaining their leave; banish them to the other side of the mountains; and leave them, in strictness of speech, only an empty title, and a vain shadow of royalty, divested of all its rights and advantages.
We cannot doubt but that Providence had decreed to the Romans the sovereignty of the world, and the Scriptures had prophesied their future grandeur; but they were strangers to those divine oracles; and besides, the bare prediction of their conquests was no justification of their conduct. Although it be difficult to affirm, and still more to prove, that this people had, from their first rise, formed a plan, in order to conquer and subject all nations, it cannot be denied but that if we examine their whole conduct attentively, it will appear as if they had a foreknowledge of this, and that a kind of instinct had determined them to conform to it in all things.
Be this as it will, we see, by the event, in what this so boasted lenity and moderation of the Romans terminated. Enemies to the liberties of all nations; having the utmost contempt for kings and monarchy; looking upon the whole universe as their prey, they grasped, with insatiable ambition, the conquest of the whole world; they seized indiscriminately all provinces and kingdoms, extended their empire over all nations; in a word, they described no other limit to their vast projects than those which deserts and seas made it impossible to pass.
The above is a picture in general terms of Rome's national policy. But the following quotation gives the facts just as they were, with the philosophy of those facts interwoven:—
The relations she [Rome] maintained with surrounding communities had been such that she could not trust to them. Her enemy [Carthage] found allies in many of the Greek towns in the south of Italy. It is enough for us to look at the result of that conflict in the treaty that closed it. Carthage had to give up all her ships of war except ten triremes, to bind herself to enter into no war without the consent of the Roman people, and to pay a war fine of two millions of pounds. Rome now entered on the great scale, on the policy of disorganizing States for the purpose of weakening them.
Under a pretext of an invitation from the Athenians to protect them from the king of Macedon, the ambitious republic secured a footing in Greece, the principle developed in the invasion of Africa, of making war maintain war, being again resorted to. There may have been truth in the Roman accusation that the intrigues of Hannibal with Antiochus, king of Syria, occasioned the conflict between Rome and that monarch. In issue the prodigious event in the material aggrandizement of Rome—it was the cession of all his possessions in Europe and those of Asia, north of Mt. Taurus, with a war fine of three millions of pounds. . . . The resistance of Perces, king of Macedon, could not restore independence to Greece; it ended in the annexation of that country, Epirus and Illyricum. The results of this war were to the last degree pernicious to the victors and to the vanquished; the moral greatness of the former is truly affirmed to have disappeared, and the social ruin of the latter was so complete that for long marriage was replaced by concubinage. THE POLICY AND PRACTICES OF ROME NOW LITERALLY BECAME INFERNAL: she forced a quarrel upon her old antagonist, Carthage, and the third Punic war resulted in the utter destruction of that city.
Simultaneously her oppressions in Greece provoked revolt, which was ended by the sack and burning of Corinth, Thebes, Chalcis, and the transference of the plundered statues, paintings, and works of art to Italy. There was nothing now in the way of the conquest of Spain except the valor of its inhabitants. After the assassination of Viriatus, procured by the Consul Cæpio, and the horrible siege of Numantia, that country was annexed as a province.
Next we see the gigantic republic extending itself over the richest parts of Asia Minor, through the insane request of Attalus, king of Pergamus. The wealth of Africa, Spain, Greece, and Asia was now concentrating in Italy, and the capital was becoming absolutely demoralized. In vain the Gracchi attempted to apply a remedy. The Roman aristocracy was intoxicated, insatiate, irresistible. The middle class was gone; there was nothing but profligate nobles and a diabolical populace.
What can be added to this?—Nothing save the words of Rollin, already quoted: “Although it be difficult to affirm, and still more to prove, that this people had, from their first rise, formed a plan in order to conquer and subject all nations,” they could not have gone about it more systematically and more diabolically than they did. The majority of their wars were altogether uncalled for; they were the result of the policy of SELF-EXALTATION. The Romans were truly “enemies to the liberty of all nations.” And their treatment of those they conquered was positively brutal. Listen again to Draper:—
The republic, during its whole career, illustrates the observation that the system on which it was founded included no conception of the actual relations of man. It dealt with him as a THING, not as a being endowed with inalienable rights. Recognizing power as its only measure of value, it could never accept the principle of the equality of all men in the eye of the law. The subjugation of Sicily, Africa, Greece, was quickly followed by the depopulation of those countries, as Livy, Plutarch, Strabo, and Polybius test. Can there be a more fearful instance than the conduct of Paulus Æmilius, who, at the conquest of Epirus, murdered or carried into slavery 150,000 persons? At the taking of Thebes whole families were thus disposed of, and these not of the lower, but of the respectable kind, of whom it has been significantly said that they were transported into Italy to be MELTED DOWN. In Italy itself the consumption of life was so great that there was no possibility of the slaves by birth meeting the requirement, and the supply of others by war became necessary.
. . . To such a degree had this system been developed that slave labor was actually cheaper than animal labor, and as a consequence much of the work that we perform by cattle was then done by men. The class of independent hirelings, which should have constituted the chief strength of the country, disappeared, labor itself becoming so ignoble that the poor citizen could not be an artisan, but must remain a pauper—a sturdy beggar, expecting from the State bread and amusements.
Rome never considered man as an individual, but only as a thing. Her way to political greatness was pursued utterly regardless of human suffering. If advantages accrued to the conquered under her dominion, they arose altogether from incident, and never from her purposed intent. She was no self-conscious, deliberate civilizer. Conquest and rapine, the uniform aim of her actions, never permitted her utmost intellectual development to comprehend the equal rights of all men in the eye of the law. Unpitying in her stern policy, few were the occasions when, for high state reasons, she stayed her uplifted hand. She might in the wantonness of her power stoop to mercy, she never rose to benevolence.295All this tells the fundamental principles and the undeviating policy of Rome. To her, in the words of one of her most illustrious children, man was naught but “mud mixed with blood.” Wanton cruelty of the most uncalled for and diabolical kind has marked every step of her pathway to territorial greatness, from that “place of refuge” for “vagabonds” on the Palatine Hill, to the zenith of her glory, when, with stately but with proud and heartless step, she trod upon mankind from the Rhine and the Danube to Mount Atlas, and the Atlantic to the Euphrates River.
To the majority of us Pagan Rome is a phantom of the past. Her heroes occupy the shadowy corners of our memories, no longer as men, but as Latin “nominatives governing a verb, or ablatives of means or instrument.”
But the principles of Pagan Rome still LIVE. They are still perpetuated amongst us, not by Tarquin and Scipio, but by Leo XIII. and Satolli. The members of the Roman hierarchy are the counterpart to the old Roman generals; the Jesuits, the unruly but much to be dreaded legions. At present they come to us with specious “pretexts” of friendship; but this is only that they may secure a “footing” in our land. She has won the American people over to her ideas, and is even now with one hand rocking them to a fearful slumber in the papal cradle, while with the other she administers that deadly potion,—“the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Soon, like Delilah, she will have them lulled to sleep; nay, we may almost say she has already shorn them of the locks of their strength that her minions may put out their eyes and bind them with fetters of brass.
Thank God, in this most awful time the God of heaven will hear the cry of the righteous, and deliver them out of the net of the fowler. “Give me,” said Archimedes, “a point without the world, and I will lift it from its poles.” Jesus Christ is that point. From his seat “within the veil” he anchors his power into the souls of men, lifting them from their “double pivot of selfishness and sensuality,” and making them revolve upon a “new axis of righteousness and peace.” This work will soon be completed in the hearts of all who will be saved, and then he will “come quickly” and bring his “reward” with him. “Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus.”
THE TOKEN OF THE COVENANT.
By George C. Tenney
BY ELDER G. C. TENNEY.
SINCE early childhood we have been taught to look upon the rainbow in the cloud in the day of rain as a token of the promise that God would never again bring a flood upon the earth to destroy it. It means that, no doubt, but a more thoughtful consideration of its significance reveals a far greater depth of beauty and meaning.
In the first place, the covenant which God made with Noah was not restricted in its application to the possibilities of a future deluge. It related to the plan of salvation; it was the gospel of peace. It was to extend to "perpetual generations;" it was to "all flesh" and to "every creature." All such covenants and promises come to men through Jesus Christ, and he is not simply a Saviour from temporal ruin, but from eternal death. These circumstances are referred to by the prophet in the following language:—
"In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." Isa. 54: 8-10.
That which is here declared to be "as the waters of Noah" is called the "covenant of my peace," which embraces salvation through Christ. In another place we read:—
"Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." Zech. 6: 13.
In this place the "covenant of peace" is the "counsel of peace," and this is the gift of Christ to every one of his people.
In the first chapter of Ezekiel the prophet seems to endeavor to reduce to human language the picture presented to him of the throne and glory of God. Though he wrote under the power of the Spirit of God, we can but feel that he comes short of satisfactorily accomplishing his desired object, not because he did not understand his subject, nor from a lack of appreciating its fullness, but because human tongues know not the words which adequately express such glory, and the intellect fails short of comprehending the thought or catching the inspiration of the writer. But in verse 28 there is one thing of which we can form some idea. He says that round about the throne was "as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain." "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." John obtained a similar view of it. He says, "And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." In "Patriarchs and Prophets" we read:—
When man by his great wickedness invites the divine judgments, the Saviour, interceding with the Father in his behalf, points to the bow in the clouds, to the rainbow around the throne above his own head, as a token of the mercy of God toward the repentant sinner.
How strikingly are the words of the prophet illustrated, "and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." To eternal and infinite justice the beautiful rainbow about the throne is a constant reminder of infinite mercy and compassion. Our sins invite the wrath of God, but we are protected by the gracious covenant of peace, in which God has sworn that, though the mountains depart and the hills be removed, "my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee;" and the sight of that bow is an everlasting surety of mercy for every repentant sinner.
We notice again what Ezekiel says, when, speaking of the bow, he declares, "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." The rainbow is but the dissolution of sunbeams by refraction as they shine through drops of water. All the beautiful tints of the prism or of the rainbow are contained in every ray of sunlight. Indeed, it is their combination that produces sunlight; but sunlight is so common that we fail to appreciate its glorious beauty until we have been for some time deprived of it. A person emerging from a dismal dungeon or a dark mine understands its beauty. Sunlight is the best image we have of the glory of God; the most glorious object we know is the sun, and the glory of the sun is the combination of the primary and secondary colors of the rainbow, beaming with intensity and heat from the great center.
Even so, as the rainbow is the analysis of sunlight, the bow above the throne, which is as the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God, is but the beautiful reflection and refraction of that glory. Those harmonious and wondrous colors are but the analysis of God's glory. It is the blending of infinite justice, love, mercy, truth, and wisdom that constitutes the glory of God. And no wonder the Saviour, who pleads for sinners, points with confidence to the resplendently beautiful arch where each element of the divine glory stands revealed in its individual loveliness, and by that exhibition of power and grace asks for pardon for the penitent sinner. To us the rainbow means all this. It is the token of the covenant of eternal peace, because it represents the analysis of that glorious character where justice, love, and mercy blend in perfect harmony.
IGNORANCE OF THE BIBLE.
The Union Gospel News prints the following:—
When the Bibles were first introduced into the pews of a certain church for responsive reading, and "Habakkuk" was given out, there was distress and confusion, a rattling of leaves, a ridiculous pause. The fact is, the percentage of people sure, the first time trying, of the order of the obscurer books is small. Six years' weekly "searching [for] the scriptures" in Bibles in the pews in the church in question has improved this; yet the following are recent testimonies: "I dislike these Bibles in the pews," said a young man, a church member; "I hate to have to find my place," said the son of a church officer; "father had to give it up and take to the index."
Said an intelligent lady who sits "up front:" "Ruth was given out; I turned to the short books, the minor prophets. Then I ran through again from Malachi to Psalms. I was sure Ruth was there, so again I worked backwards through them slowly. I was ashamed to consult the index. The congregation began to read. I kept my book open to Nahum, and pretended to follow. After service, at home, in secret, I learned to locate Ruth."
The Bible is not a large book, and those who consult it frequently will soon learn to know its various parts. Sad to say, the above is not confined to one church. There is a lamentable ignorance of the Bible among professors of religion generally.
Receiving Instruction Is Wisdom
“It is a sign of wisdom to be willing to receive instruction; the most intelligent sometimes stand in need of it.”
A CATHOLIC ON CATHOLICS.
No paper read at the Catholic Congress in Chicago created a greater sensation than that of Miss M. T. Elder on "Our Twenty Million Loss." Miss Elder is the niece of Archbishop Elder, of Cincinnati, a fact which added emphasis to her statement that the Roman Catholic Church has lost 20,000,000 followers in this country. Having undergone a severe fusillade from Roman Catholic critics, Miss Elder returned to the charge in an article in the Catholic Telegraph, of Cincinnati, remarkable for the array of eminent Catholics whom she cites in support of her position.
Bishop Keane, of Washington, for example, says:—
When we would offer Catholic truth to the Protestant masses, they reply, "Look at your drunkards!"—and that settles it.
Canon Murane, of England, in an address at Birmingham, said:—
How can you expect conversions when a Catholic prison chaplain can assert that of six or seven thousand women brought into prison yearly more than eighty per cent are Catholics? If the drunken neighborhood is the Catholic neighborhood; if the drunkard's names in the police reports are notoriously those of Catholics; if the saloon goers and saloonists are Catholics; if the "boodlers" who thrive by saloon politics are Catholics; if the saloon-made paupers and tramps are Catholics, then, as a moral force among men, Catholicity is done for in that community; whatever individual good it may do its members, its "public force" for morality is "nothing." Chrysostom and Bossuet, aye, or Paul and Patrick, could not convert men to such a Catholicity.
Cardinal Vaughan, primate of all England, presents a sweeping indictment in another direction:—
Whatever else you Catholics of the States have or have not done, when it comes to a missionary zeal, you have accomplished virtually nothing.
Miss Elder repeats the assertion that the great men of the country, in politics and in literature, have, with but few exceptions, been Protestants. All this she ascribes to the fact that the greater part of the rural population is Protestant. Her condemnation of her own church could not have been more sweeping from Protestant lips:—
We will indeed have, now and then, a grand Catholic. We will occasionally receive a brilliant, an extraordinary convert (converted by reading, not by example). We will have, here and there, an exceptional community of sober, exemplary Catholics. But that we will ever, as a whole, as a class, a people (present conditions remaining), stand on a social, an intellectual level with the Protestants of the country, never, I say, never!
—The Advance.
LOVE AND HUMILITY.
By J. G. Matteson
BY ELDER J. G. MATTESON.
LOVE is the principle element in Christianity, but it does not appear except in company with humility. These two, love and humility, always go together. Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life. He is also love; for God is love. Jesus manifested his love to us when he gave up his glory and joy in heaven, and went about on the earth as a poor, humble man, doing good to those who were rebels against his government, and despised and hated him. At last he gave his life on the cross for his enemies. He gave his life for us and loved us before we cared at all about him.
Jesus died for me; therefore I know that he loves me. He rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven, and intercedes before the throne of God for me as my high priest and advocate; therefore I know that he loves me. He went after me with his word and spirit when I was a straying sheep; therefore I know that he loves me. He caused the rays of eternal love to enter my soul and melt my heart in order that I, with a spirit of repentance and humble submission, might turn to him; therefore I know that he loves me.
Jesus continues every day to speak to me by his word and remind me by his Spirit; therefore I know that he loves me. Oh, how strong and unchangeable is the love of Jesus! Then I turned, and now I turn, to my crucified Redeemer. By faith I see his noble, holy, gentle face. I see his head crowned with thorns bowed down for me on the cross in anguish and death. I see in his dim eyes the heavenly flame of love, whose light was extinguished in death for me, and I see that Jesus loves me.
Was the light of love extinguished?—Yes, on earth, but not in heaven. Extinguished on earth a little while in order that it afterward might shine on earth with everlasting glory. Oh, wonderful revelation of Him who is love! God became man and dwelt among us. God was in Christ, and reconciled the world to himself. This is the great mystery of godliness. Divine love and humility united into one wonderful heavenly light which shines on the narrow way from earth to heaven; from the impure mire and abyss of sin, to the bright mansions of holiness; from the dark pit of vice, to the eternal kingdom of glory; from the sad land of misery and death, to the heavenly home, of bliss and immortality.
God is revealed to us in Christ. He loves us. He loves you, dear reader, whosoever you are, young or old, rich or poor, well or sick. He loves you with an eternal love. Do you believe this? Do you think of it? Then you will also love him again. You will humble yourselves before the Lord, since he humbled himself for your sake. You will serve him, because he served you, and gave his life a ransom for you. Matt. 20:28.
But if you do not believe that God loves you, then he does love you, nevertheless. Your unbelief does not change God's faithfulness. He does not love you because you despise him and his holy commandments, neither does he love you because you serve him and obey him, but he loves you because he himself is love. You cannot, by your sin or virtue, diminish or increase the love of God. Do not cherish the idea that God becomes more loving and kind when you have done his will one day or one year. No, no; God cannot be filled with more love than he had six thousand years ago, or a thousand times six thousand years ago. God has always been, is now, and will always be love.
And this divine love is in Christ united with the greatest humility which ever has been and ever can be shown. May this great gospel truth shine clearly into our hearts. God loves you because he is love. He also loves me for the same reason. And he has proved this to us by giving his only-begotten Son to die for our sins and give us eternal life. He has united humility with divine love. Let us then call God our Father in Christ, and love him as our Father, and serve him as our Father, and ask him every day to teach us how we may unite humility with love in our everyday life, that we may love all, without any respect of persons, just as God has loved us.
College View, Neb.
GUIDANCE.
By Mrs. A. W. Heald
BY MRS. A. W. HEALD.
1. Does God guide his people?
"I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye." Ps. 32: 8.
2. What should be our attitude in view of the promised guidance?
"I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and I will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved ["what I am agreed with," margin]." Hab. 2: 1.
3. What attitude of character is essential on our part?
"The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way." Ps. 25: 9.
4. What will meekness lead a man to do?
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." "Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil." Prov. 3: 5, 7.
5. In what manner did God guide ancient Israel?
"And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night." Ex. 13: 21.
6. Was God's presence always accompanied by such striking manifestations?
"And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice." 1 Kings 19: 11, 12.
7. How does God speak to his people in these last days?
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." Heb. 1: 1, 2.
8. How does our risen Lord still continue to guide his followers?
"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come." John 16: 13.
NOTE.—Christ revealed to us the word of God, and in that word the teaching of the Spirit always coincides with the written word.
9. In what other way does the Spirit sometimes speak?
"While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them." Acts 10: 19, 20.
10. May man become a medium for the Spirit's utterance?
"Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him." "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus." Acts 8: 29-31, 35.
11. What promise does God give us in searching his truth?
"The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things." John 14: 26.
12. Does God show us our work?
"And he [Paul] trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." Acts 9: 6.
13. Does God warn us of danger?
"Behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him." Matt. 2: 13.
14. May we be guided in all things?
"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Prov. 3: 6. "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." Isa. 30: 21.
15. How may we distinguish God's guidance from human influences?
"I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine." "And the sheep follow him; for they know his voice." John 10: 14, 4.
16. How must we respond to the divine voice?
"Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts 26: 19.
17. What promise is made to those who are guided by God's counsel?
"Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory." Ps. 73: 24.
18. In the world of glory, shall we still follow the guiding hand?
"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." Rev. 7: 17.
"Shepherd of thine Israel, lead us,
Pilgrim through this desert land;
Thou who hast from bondage freed us,
Guide us by thy mighty hand;
Daily feed us,
Till we reach the heavenly strand."