Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 25, 1893
The Life of God
JESUS said concerning those who are his, "I am come that they might have life." John 10:10. At another time, to the unbelieving Jews, he said, "And ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life." John 5:40.
IT is evident from the above texts, and many others, that man does not have this life in himself naturally. In fact, it is by faith he receives it, and by faith he holds it, and it must come through Jesus Christ alone. Says John (20:31), "These things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." The apostle Paul says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Gal. 2:20.
THIS is not man's soulical, or natural life, which he has in common with all the animal creation, sometimes called "this mortal life," because it surely ends in death; it is the life of God, or eternal life. True it is that all life comes from God, but all life is not God's life. There are bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial another. This is true of life. There is mineral life, and vegetable life, and animal life, and there is the life of God. They all come from God, but they are not all God's life. The life of God is dominant over all lower forms of life, is the source of all life. It is higher, more potent, than all other manifestations of life.
THE life of God is everlasting life. This is evident to all. "The everlasting God" possesses the everlasting life absolutely. It was "after the power of an endless life" that Christ was made priest for his people. This is the life, eternal life, which Jesus gives to his people. "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life." 1 John 5:11-13. This life is the Spirit of God. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead [Rom. 6:11, 12] because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Rom. 8:9, 10. As the mother imparts the life which she has to the child, so does the Spirit of which the child of God is born (John 3:3-5) impart the life of that Spirit.
THIS is the life which man possessed as he came from the hand of God. He was not mortal, for in that case he was subject to death, whether he partook of the tree of life or not. He was not immortal, or he never would have died. He was simply a perfect physical being, possessing eternal life, which connected him with the Source of all life. He too possessed this life by faith. Had he believed God he would have continued to live eternally, and when his character had become fixed, his whole being would have been made immortal, not subject to death. Man sinned, and cut himself off from eternal life, and became a dying creature.
FOR eternal life is not possessed apart from God. It is not given in sections. God does not cut up into so many portions his life or his Spirit, and divide it among his people, for each to use as he will. God is one; his Spirit is one and inseparable. To that heart which is open to receive it that blessed Spirit comes in; but in coming into the heart of the believer, it does not separate from God. It rather forms the bond of union between the believer and God. It does not allow him a little part of the life of God to use as he will, but it binds him to the great Guide by a bond which is almighty in its strength, to lead him into paths marked out by the all wisdom of God.
OH, what a preciousness there is in the thought,—the life of Jesus manifest in our mortal flesh,—no longer "alienated from the life of God"! Sinner, you may possess it. Open thy heart, yield it all—the sins, the lusts, the vileness—to Jesus, who has bought thee, and receive him, his death for the death due to thee in consequence of thy sins, his life—a free gift—for thy life, his fullness for thy emptiness, his righteousness for thy sin. Cast thyself upon his mercy, and trust him. He saith to thee, "He that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out." Brother, sister, take comfort in the thought. Is sin hard to overcome in thy members? Let faith bring the life of Christ to that very member, that very weakness. Art thou in pain?—The life that is in him is in thee, and the divine telegraph carries to him the very feeling of thine infirmities. Is there not strength, power, blessing, rejoicing, in the thought, nay, in the fact? Let faith make it fact every day, every hour.
MARYLAND SUNDAY CASES.
By Editor
The right to work on Sunday is a subject that is causing considerable discussion in Maryland, near Centreville. A number of Seventh-day Adventists insist on working in their own fields on Sunday, contrary to the law. When they are arrested and fined, they prefer to go to jail rather than pay their fine, having an idea that by this sort of martyrdom they are advancing their cause. As this recurs every few weeks, considerable attention is being excited, and persons, so it is said, are attracted to the trials from New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and other parts of the country. These people are, we assume, sincere in their religious beliefs, and they are said to be unusually orderly and law-abiding. It is a serious question whether the Sunday law should not be flexible enough to grant such men, who conscientiously observe another day as the Sabbath, the right to engage in work in their own fields, where they disturb the religious devotion of nobody else.—New York Voice.
The item will speak for itself to every Christian who has progressed so far in divine things as to realize a modicum of what is the meaning of the Golden Rule. Seventh-day Adventists do not work on Sunday with the "idea that by this sort of martyrdom they are advancing their cause." They work on Sunday because to acknowledge that day as a sacred day is disloyalty to God, and because God has given them the right to work; and it is the duty of government not to take away that right, but to protect them in that right. Government has no more right to say that one Seventh-day Adventist shall not work on Sunday than it has to say that the great mass of Sunday people shall not work Saturday. It would have no more right to say that one Sunday keeper should keep Saturday if all the rest of the world kept it, than it has now to say that one man shall keep Sunday because the great majority keep that day.
Our contemporary questions whether "the Sunday law should not be flexible enough to grant such men, who conscientiously observe another day as the Sabbath, the right to engage in work," etc. Now what power has the government to pass upon the conscientiousness of any observance? Why does not the Sunday law demand that it shall be kept "conscientiously" by the Sunday keeper? If a Sunday law is right at all, it should be enforced upon all alike. The moment an exemption is conceded, the injustice of the law is acknowl114edged. Whatever is civil on Monday is civil on Sunday.
No one in this State, and, so far as we know, in all the States, has any right to disturb divine worship on any day. Governments do not make rights; their duty is to protect all equally in their equal rights, and the rights of one man are as sacred as the rights of ten million. If the vast majority of the people were Mohammedans, would the Voice contend that they had a right to compel all to observe Friday, with some possible exemptions for a “conscientiousness” approved by Mohammedan authorities? And would the refusal of the Christian to bow to the rival authority of the “Prophet” be construed as the Voice has impliedly construed the motives of Seventh-day Adventists? What good does a Sunday law do, anyway?
“SABBATH OR LORD’S DAY, WHICH?”
By Editor
(Concluded.)
IN our issue last week by request we reviewed an article with the above title, which appeared in the Christian Standard of September 2, 1893. The following points have been already noticed: (1) The various sabbaths of the Jews, “besides the Sabbaths of the Lord;” (2) the institution of the Sabbath at creation; (3) the obligation of the Sabbath from the creation to the exodus; (4) the Sabbath during the Egyptian bondage; (5) the eternity, perpetuity, and universality of God’s law, of which the Sabbath was a part; and (6) the Sabbath as a memorial and sign of creative and redemptive power.
7. The writer in the Standard says:—
This is the first time it was enacted as a statutory law. We have now found the origin of the Sabbath as a law; let us look for the origin and meaning of the word. It is derived from sabbatismos, or sabbaton, which means cessation, or rest.
This simply illustrates the ignorance of many anti-sabbath arguments. Sabbaton and sabbatismos are Greek words, or, rather, Hebrew terms transferred to the Greek. The original word is shabbath. “Sabbath” is a Hebrew word, which means to cease, to rest; that is, a spiritual, not physical rest. That was the divine example (Ex. 31:17), for God “fainteth not, neither is weary.”
8. Again he says:—
Now let us consider its [the law’s] perpetuity. Paul in Gal. 3:19 says: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression, till the seed should come.” We learn from this it was limited to the coming of Christ. To this agrees the language of the prophet as quoted by Paul (Heb. 8:7-10): “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.” But now let us hear the apostle again on this subject: “If the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away.” 2 Cor. 3:7. Again: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath.” Col. 2:14-16. In Romans, sixth chapter and fourteenth verse, he says, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” In the seventh chapter of Romans, from the fourth to the sixth verses, he tells his brethren they have become dead to the law, and delivered from the law, and in the seventh verse he shows this to be the law written and engraven upon stones.
These and other scriptures that might be quoted show that the Sabbath law ended when the Jewish dispensation ended. All the feasts and all the sabbaths were equally sacred. They all ended together when Jesus nailed them to his cross.
Here is a curious jumble of Scripture texts; such work certainly could hardly be called rightly dividing the word of truth. We notice briefly: (a) The coming of the Seed in the sense of that text is not yet; “till the Seed [Christ] should come to whom the promise was made,” says the apostle. What was the promise? Answer—The promise of the inheritance to Abraham. Gal. 3:16, 18. What was the inheritance? Answer—All that territory which has been under the control of the enemies of Christ since the fall (Gen. 22:17, 18; Luke 4:5, 6), or, in other words, this world (Rom. 4:13). When will Christ take the kingdoms of this world? Answer—At his second coming again with power and great glory. See Eze. 21:27; Matt. 25:31, 34; 2 Tim. 4:1; Dan. 7:27. “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added [appointed, spoken] because of transgressions,” “that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” Rom. 7:13. “Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound.” Rom. 5:20. That is, God spoke his law from heaven, wrote it on tables of stone, added it in this form, in addition to all former ways in which he had taught it, gave it all summed up in ten words, and “added no more,” in answer to the prayers of the people (Deut. 5:22; Ex. 20:19); and he did all this that men might ever have before them the testimony that they were poor, wretched sinners, and so he led to the abounding grace there is in Christ Jesus. When Christ, the Seed, shall come to inherit the promise, every soul will be saved, and the office of the law as a witness of sin will cease.
(b) The old covenant was a mutual covenant between God and Israel, and had no salvation in it. It was made with the nation, and in it God promised to bless the people, while the people agreed through their elders to obey God’s voice. God’s voice was the ten commandments, which he immediately after spoke. Israel broke their agreement in less than forty days, but that did not alter God’s law. The law was not the mutual covenant, and in the very nature of the case could not be. The law is God’s will, obligatory upon all, whether any promise to keep it or not. In the new covenant, which was from the beginning, but confirmed later by the death of Christ, the same law of God is written on the hearts of all his people. That covenant was confirmed at the death of Christ, and after that confirmation “no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.” See Gal. 3:15; Heb. 9:16, 17. What, therefore, was in that covenant when Christ died on the cross must forever remain there. Well, the seventh-day Sabbath was then in the covenant, and it is never denied; and the first-day sabbath was not, and this is not denied. Whatever else is claimed to be there, which is read into that will of God’s, is a forgery, it matters not though it came but one hour after Jesus said, “It is finished.” The covenant was sealed with the blood of Christ; the will was forever unalterable.
(c) Why 2 Cor. 3:7 is quoted we do not know, unless it be for the expression, “which glory was to be done away.” Something was to be done away; the writer wanted to prove God’s law done away, and therefore he seized this expression. But what is it that “was to be done away”?—Simply the glory of that condemnation. The law is glorious to the condemned sinner, but it is done away in the greater glory of the righteousness of Christ. But the law remains, a blessed witness of the greater glory of the righteousness which is upon him who sees by faith his Justifier, Jesus Christ. Rom. 3:21, 22.
(d) Col. 2:14-17 (the quotation is not complete as given above) has no reference whatever to the moral law, or the Sabbath of the Lord. There is nothing in the Decalogue that is typical or shadowy. It commands no feast days or new moons. The holy days, the new moons, the sabbath days, were those yearly feasts and fasts (Leviticus 23) “which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” Col. 2:17.
(e) He is “under the law,” under its condemnation, who is not in Christ. By nature all are under the law, for all have sinned. Rom. 3:9, 19, 23. But he who by faith accepts of Christ is justified, or counted righteous. His faith is counted for obedience. See Rom. 3:21, 22; 4:5-7; 5:1. And because we have died to sin, and the sin is taken away, and righteousness is imputed, through grace, sin has no dominion over us. But what then? does this give us the privilege of sinning, or breaking God’s law?—Not at all; for if we turn again to sin, we become the servants of sin, and are again under condemnation of law. We are made free from sin that Christ working through us may keep the law. Rom. 8:4; 1 John 5:3. And this is Paul’s argument all through Romans 7. Married to the old man, we are the servants of sin, held in bondage by the law, which we can never keep. But yielding ourselves to Christ, dying with him by faith, the old man crucified and buried, we are delivered from the condemnation of the law, and are free to be married “to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” Rom. 7:4.
Would the writer have us believe in Christ and steal, kill, commit adultery, and use profane language?—It would seem so. The logic of his argument is that Christ saves us to sin instead of from sin. But what he wishes to prove is that we are not “under the law,” and therefore are not bound to keep the Sabbath. But he that said, “Thou shalt not kill,” said also, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Now if we do not kill, yet if we break the Sabbath, we become transgressors of the law. See James 2:8-12.
(f) The yearly sabbaths ended when the shadow reached the substance at the cross. The weekly Sabbath is of the same character and perpetuity as the other nine commandments with which it is associated.
9. The writer, after endeavoring to prove by Paul, who wrote twenty-seven years this115side of Pentecost, that the law was abrogated, nailed to the cross, done away, etc., says:—
Christ did not destroy the law; he magnified it by fulfilling it, and then it passed away. When the church of Christ was established at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, we find a new lawgiver, a new order of things. We find also nine commandments of the Decalogue embodied in the new law. The Holy Spirit put them there—six of them in Rom. 13:9, the other three in James 5:12, Col. 3:5, and Rev. 19:3. The fourth commandment, containing the Sabbatic law, is left out. Hence there is no divine authority for keeping the Sabbath after the church on Pentecost.
We take no pleasure in pointing out the Standards article's inconsistency. It is only to show the utter absurdity of error. (a) Now if the Decalogue reached only to the cross, and the new law was given at Pentecost, fifty days afterward, then for fifty days the world had no law, and hence no sin, "for where no law is, there is no transgression," and no need of a Saviour. (b) But six of the precepts of this new law did not appear till Paul wrote Romans, twenty-seven years afterward. But the law which Paul mentions in Rom. 13:9 is the very same law which he refers to in Rom. 6:14 and 7:6, 7. Yet our writer has already argued that the law of Rom. 6:14 and 7:6, 7 is done away, and therefore the commandments of Rom. 13:9 are gone. What will he do? (c) James 5:12 is evidently designed to mean the third commandment. If we grant it, this was given also about thirty years after Pentecost. But James (chap. 2:8-12) affirms the obligation of the entire law, the royal law, and according to the Old Testament scriptures. (d) Col. 3:5 is evidently designed to cover the second commandment. This was given thirty-three years after Pentecost. (e) Rev. 19:3 contains no semblance of a command. Did he mean verse 5? If so the language is prophetic of the redeemed state; and if it were not, this command, if command it can be called, did not come till over sixty years this side of Pentecost! A strange new law! And every writer and book from which Mr. Tate quotes confirms, if it is possible to confirm, the Decalogue, of which Jesus Christ said, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17; Matt. 5:17-20.
We wonder that men can be so blind! A law which in its very nature is eternal, which was separated out and proclaimed by Jehovah from heaven, which was written on stone by his own finger, which was kept by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our example, the integrity of which he vindicated and honored by his death upon the cross, to deliver men from the condemnation of which, and to enable man to keep, he came to this world,—for men to attempt to tear down such a law solely to get rid of a commandment which greater light shows them to be transgressing, is beyond human comprehension. Why not turn from the transgression to Christ? He will make "the Sabbath a delight." Is not the secret of all this opposition to God's law told by Paul when he says: "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be"?
10. The only day called the Sabbath in the New Testament is the seventh day. It was a day for worship when all other days were used in work. See Acts 18:1-11, where it is recorded that Paul preached every Sabbath, and worked at tent making the rest of the time. It was a day of religious meeting for both Jews and Gentiles. Acts 13:42, 46. This was Paul's common custom. See Acts 16:13; 17:2.
12. He says that Pentecost "was upon the first day of the week." But this is not stated in the Scriptures, and eminent first-day authorities do not agree. If the first day was honored by the events of Pentecost, would not the Lord have mentioned the day? Ps. 118:24 has no reference whatever to any Sabbath day. It is prophetic of the Christian dispensation.
13. There is absolutely no testimony whatever in the New Testament for the sacredness of the first day of the week. There is but one record of a religious meeting on that day, and that an evening meeting, the last part, the light part of that same day, being used in hard, toilsome labor. See Acts 20:7-14.
14. We will not follow the article we are reviewing into the history of the early Fathers. Suffice to say he quotes the spurious epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, the worse than spurious epistle of Barnabas—the author of which believed the hyena changed its sex, and was sometimes male and sometimes female—and others. He goes to these writers because he cannot find the testimony he desires in the Bible. In the early Fathers one can find testimony for everything he desires, evil and good.
15. In his closing paragraph we have the following:—
The Sabbatic law was never changed. The divine law cannot be changed. It must serve its purpose, and then end. Jesus did not destroy it, he fulfilled it, and then it ended. The Lord gave us a new day—his resurrection day. On that day we find Christian assemblies. They came to break bread. How appropriate the day, and how sublime the occasion! Lord, help us to follow the inspired example. "Day of all the week the best, emblem of eternal rest."
The first two sentences are absolutely true. And yet Mr. Tate has taken great pains to prove that God did away with the entire Decalogue at the cross, and then, from thirty to sixty years after, brought back nine of its precepts, some of them so artfully that no one but our author has discovered them; and that all this was done, by divine wisdom and power, to get rid of the Sabbath. Truly Mr. Tate must think that "God is altogether such an one as" himself. Jesus fulfilled the first commandment; did it end? He fulfilled the sixth and seventh and eighth; did they end? Why, then, the fourth?
16. "The Lord gave us a new day"! When? How? Why? Where? Where is the precept? Where the example? How first-day people would rejoice if they found a record something like this: "And on the first day he rose from the dead. And the Lord blessed the first day and sanctified it, because that in it he had risen from the dead"! They would ask no better proof. But when similar language is used, backed home by many other passages concerning the seventh day (Gen. 2:2, 3), it is considered of no force whatever.
But here we pause. The arguments in the article we have been reviewing were not worth the notice which we have accorded, and yet the article itself is no worse than many others of like length. It is inconsistent and self-devouring. It would break down all law, all morality, make of no effect Christ's teachings and example, simply to save a tradition received from the Roman Catholic Church. The question is not, "The Sabbath or Lord's day, Which?" It is no question at all; it is, rather, The seventh-day Sabbath is the only Lord's day. Reader, is not God's way, Christ's way, the way of prophets and apostles, the better way? Will you not walk in these "old paths," hallowed by the presence of the Son of God? God's way is the way of peace.
An Indication of the Times
By Editor
An Indication of the Times.—This is what the Examiner of December 1 says of the élite crowd which witnessed the wonderful display of our modern college education in football between the teams of Stanford and California Universities:—
Eighteen thousand people went mad yesterday—stark, staring, howling mad. They went out in a drenching rainstorm, sat in it for from two to three hours, and shrieked all the time. . . . Bedlam would have been a quiet resort for invalids compared to the Haight Street grounds, while all these super-heated partisans were roaring at their maniacal best.
We have no desire to say aught against the right of these eighteen thousand to enjoy the day in this way if they so elected, but such gatherings may be taken as a fair test of this "Christian nation." Where are there any twenty-two preachers of the gospel that could hold men even well pleased for three hours in the rain, though they might have the most weighty and important message? Where is the congregation that does not grow weary in cushioned pews over an hour's sermon? Perhaps these things are not indications of the state or trend of the nation's sentiment, but their name is Legion. This muscular exercise may be the Christianity of the day, but it is not the Christianity of Christ and Paul. Mark, we are condemning not one of the eighteen thousand; they have as clear a right to play or witness football as have their neighbors to go to church; nevertheless, it is true that "bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness with contentment is great gain."
Church and State Relations
By Editor
THIS is from the Independent of October 26:—
This is what Cardinal Gibbons, at the dinner given on the occasion of his jubilee, said of the union of Church and State:—
For my own part I do not desire to see the relations between Church and State any closer than they are at present. I do not wish to see the day when the civil authorities may be called upon to build our churches and to subsidize our clergy, for then they might dictate to us what doctrines we ought to teach.
This is good, sound sense; but we presume that there are some Protestants who will declare that it is all said for effect.
And what was it said for? What does the Independent now think of the Cardinal's demand, or effort to obtain, State aid for Roman Catholic schools? Many so-called Protestants are claiming for Roman Catholics a liberty and tolerance which Rome never claimed, and in fact which she denies.
SOUND DOCTRINE.
By George C. Tenney
BY ELDER G. C. TENNEY.
"SPEAK thou the things that become sound doctrine." Such was the emphatic charge of the great apostle to his son in the gospel.
Truth in our day has no greater enemy than the foes which are in the house of its friends. It maintains an unequal fight against error, because of a weak-kneed policy which prevails among those who profess to be upholders of its banners. Positive religious convictions are giving way to a sickly sentiment which favors catholicity of creeds at the expense of positive statements of doctrinal truth. It is considered by many very narrow to entertain a well-defined outline of faith as regards religious forms or specific duties. It is magnanimous and broad, in the same minds, to ignore all distinctions of faith and practice, and to contend that one church is just as good as another. Dogmatism is spoken of with a contemptible emphasis on the "dog," as if it were canine to entertain a definite idea of Christian doctrine, and to believe those doctrines to be right and essential.
In the midst of this popular clamor for peace on any basis or no basis at all, we would respectfully raise the question, Must a man be considered a bigot because he cannot say that he believes that those who differ with him in important matters are as nearly right as himself? It would really seem that this is the case. And the consequence is a wishy-washy gush about "love," and "charity," and "only believe," which in its boneless folds would inclose the pure and the impure in one body, all being on an equal footing.
We claim to be as much in favor of brotherhood as anyone. But at the same time we claim that true Christian brotherhood has its distinctions, which clearly mark between the true and the false. Its basis is truth. For truth it must seek and contend. Says Christ, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It is the will of God that furnishes the Christian with the specifications of his duty. "My brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it." Not those who say, "Lord, Lord," but those who do the will of the Father, will at last enter heaven.
In the instructions of our Saviour the word of God was always held up as the standard of righteousness and of judgment, the means of sanctification, the embodiment of the truth. Its study is urged upon us. It is declared to be profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for instruction in righteousness.
It is true that we have no right to sit in judgment on the characters of those about us. God will judge all things. But at the same time no man with a trace of moral backbone can neutralize his own convictions of truth and duty by admitting that those who radically oppose those convictions are in as acceptable a position before God as he is. And if his convictions possess the same elements that those of Paul and all the good men of the past have possessed, he will feel it to be his duty, in the spirit of kindness and courtesy, to shed abroad the light of truth, and thus lead others to a knowledge of the truths he loves. There is nothing inconsistent with pure Christianity in this, nothing that savors of bigotry.
We need not undertake to judge of the sincerity of others who differ with us, much less to impugn their motives. We should recognize the fact that others honestly hold opinions which are opposed to what we hold to be the truth. We should regard the feelings and rights of such to be as sacred as our own; but at the same time we need not conceal our deep and solemn conviction that they are mistaken in their views, and that our own approach nearer to a correct interpretation of the divine will.
There are, however, plenty of people about nowadays who are ready to cry, "Pestilent fellow," "Setter forth of strange doctrines," "Turning the world upside down," as were the Pharisees in the days of Paul. To such we commend the wise counsel of Gamaliel (Acts 5: 33-39), and the example of the noble Bereans (Acts 17: 11).
It is very easy to raise the cry of heresy; it is natural to cleave to the things we have been taught; and it is dangerous to be drifting about with every wind of doctrine. But to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth should be the purpose of everyone. Sound doctrine is necessary to a sound faith and stability of character. It is necessary to symmetry of character. Good, sound, and distinct doctrines and principles are to character what the skeleton is to the body. We shrink impulsively from contact with a creature that has no bones. The clammy, flabby folds of the jellyfish are repulsive; nor do we, on the other hand, really admire the arrangement of the shellfish, which wears its skeleton on its back. We rather admire the human form, which consists, in its perfect state, of a firm, unyielding skeleton, clothed, modified, and beautifully rounded with sinews, muscle, skin, and other tissues.
Do not let us wear our moral skeleton on the outside, lest we appear deformed and cause pain to ourselves and others. Rather let us "adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." But at the same time, when we clasp friendly moral hands with our fellow-men, let them feel, beneath the warm grasp of Christian charity, the impress of firm conviction. Let them know that we love them all, and that we love the truth, and we wish them to know it and love it too.