THE most natural thing to do is to ask God to make known his will to us. With this agrees the apostle James: "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God." But right here many conscientious Christians make a mistake. Some pray the Lord to open up the right way and hedge up every wrong way. This petition might be safer, or what follows might be more reliable, were not the enemy continually at work hedging up the right and opening wrong ways.
Some good, praying people are accustomed to using "Gideon's fleece," or something equivalent. In seeking to know the mind of God they propose to prove it; if a specific thing be best, let some proposed event take place. Doesn't this seem rather presumptuous, when we remember the Lord nowhere directs us to use such means in learning his will? May this not come from a lack of faith?
Many sincere Christians have a way of obtaining answers to their queries and perplexities by reading them from the Bible. For instance, they wish to know whether it is right for them to go to a certain place. They open and read: "Then Peter arose and went with them." This they take for a Bible answer. Is it? "Why," say they, "I prayed the Lord to direct me where to open." Then you rely, not upon the Bible, but upon what you suppose to be the direction of the Spirit. Could you not pray him to direct you to an answer in some other book and get just as much of the real teaching of the Bible? Can the word of God be responsible for such answers to prayer? We must not forget that evil spirits have access to us and are working in every conceivable way against us. To trust alone to spiritual direction is to lay the foundation for fanaticism.
It is not by detached words that the Holy Scriptures answer their object to man; that is, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 Tim. 3: 16. We must take time and dig deep to find the principles of the Bible, its ideas in whole, if we would build upon this rock. These principles are extensive enough to reach every possible case, else it could not "thoroughly furnish us unto all good works." We cannot expect to learn any principle by a single word or phrase as above.
It should settle all such questions to know whether they are God's ways, specified or sanctioned by him. The Scriptures have not left us without explicit direction on this important subject. In the first place we must be consecrated to God before we can have a knowledge of his will. "If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching." John 7: 17, Revised Version. Our minds are then brought in contact with the divine mind, and we are made susceptible of discerning spiritual things. Says the Psalmist: "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple." "A good understanding have all they that do his commandments." This presupposes a careful study of the word to learn God's requirements.
But "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8: 7. It must then be changed, "created anew unto good works." This is done by the Holy Ghost. Titus 3: 5. Peter says, "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." 2 Peter 1: 4. This "entrance of the word" is applied by the Holy Spirit to our hearts and lives through faith (Acts 15: 9), and we are new creatures.
The Holy Spirit is now ours, to teach us all things. John 14: 26. Not that we shall be made instantaneously wise on all points, but, having the Spirit, it directs us as we realize our need, and as our faith grasps the promises. This is what is meant in Isa. 28: 6: "The Lord . . . is for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment." Do we not well, then, to pray earnestly for the Holy Spirit, and believe we receive it? and for a sanctified judgment, and then shall we not use it? Why did our Creator give us reason if he did not expect us to use it?
James makes the subject under consideration very clear: "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering." We are told that sometimes the answer comes with sudden velocity and overpowering might, and sometimes it is long delayed.
Our Saviour approved the "day and night cry" to God. Luke 18: 7. It is our privilege to ask again and again, but always in faith; and this faith must not be intermittent, exercised while we are praying and no longer. Let the mind be stayed on God. Says David, "I waited patiently on the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry." This waiting on the Lord is, in patient, restful expectation, watching for the answer which God will surely send. "As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us." "It is well known that in the East servants are often directed by a mere sign of the hand. . . . The Eastern ladies are waited on even at the least wink of the eye or motion of the fingers, and that in a manner not perceptible to strangers."—Comp. Com.
The Lord knows just how to enlighten our minds. Our part is to ask and to believe; all the rest belongs to him. Sometimes our perplexities are resolved in one way to us, sometimes in another. Often the subject which was before all darkness becomes all light.
Let us give the Lord room in which to work for us, the privilege of answering our prayers in any way and whenever he chooses. This confidence in him, that leaves it all in his hands, is inexpressibly sweet to us, and no doubt is very precious to our dear Heavenly Father. When the answer comes, the waiting, watching one will be sure at once to recognize it; his heart fills with gratitude and love and increased faith. With the Psalmist he can joyfully say: "I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live."
What Others Say
By Fred G. Stevens
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST NEAR AT HAND.
WHAT OTHERS SAY.
[Compiled by Fred G. Stevens.]
THE following interesting item appeared in the Christian World, of London, January, 1893:—
A letter "to the Conveners of Christian Conferences in the United Kingdom" has just been published bearing twenty-two signatures of ministers and others, including Sir S. A. Blackwood, Dr. Fausset, Dr. Bullinger, Dr. Gratton Guinness, T. Hudson Taylor, R. C. Morgan, H. W. Webb-peploe, Mark Guy Pearse, and F. B. Meyer, urging that the second coming of Christ as an event near at hand be made a central subject at the gathering of 1893.
Rev. J. G. Harrison, of England, says:—
There is in the present day a somewhat general expectation in the church of God, a kind of pre-sentiment that the coming of the Consolation of Israel is near. I myself, though an old man who might be supposed likely to dwell upon the past rather than look with much hope to the future, am nevertheless full of joyous hope and expectation.
Says the American Presbyterian:—
Everything seems to make ready for no common crisis, no ordinary issue. . . . Statesmen's hearts literally fail them for fear of the things coming on the earth at the present hour.
Says the Protestant Churchman:—
Till the glorious coming of the Saviour, we may expect nothing but successive overturnings of men and earthly things.
Says George C. Needham, the Irish evangelist:—
I believe the thousands of scattered Christians whose hearts have grasped this truth, will be heard declaring, as with united voice, The Lord is at hand. They can no longer keep silence. This truth proclaimed in the Spirit's power will save the church from shipwreck.
Says Henry Varley, another evangelist:—
We are near the end of this dispensation. . . . The coming of the Lord in the clouds, to take his church to be with himself, is the Christian's hope. Oh, to be ready! In the Master's name I tell you to be ready; I charge you to prepare for his coming.
Says Rev. Samuel Garratt:—
We are living in the very age towards which all eyes have been directed as those of the closing days of the church's conflict as long ago as the days of Luther.
Says T. De Witt Talmage:—
We may expect Christ now at any time.
Says Dwight L. Moody:—
I believe he is yonder, getting his guest chamber ready, and the moment it is ready those clouds shall roll away and he shall come, and we shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. So there may be some in this audience who may never taste death.
Said the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon:—
I am afraid we cannot hope for much better times until the Lord Jesus Christ comes a second time. Often do I cheer myself with the thought of his coming. The shout shall be heard, Allelujah! allelujah! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! For that day I do look; it is to the bright horizon of that second coming that I turn my eyes.
Rev. R. Roberts, of Birmingham, England:—
Almost all students of prophecy are agreed that the present dispensation is near its end, and that the living generation is likely to witness the change from this dispensation to the next. . . . The next dispensation is the reign of Christ.
Rev. Dr. Chapel, of Boston:—
This subject of the Lord's coming is necessary to a right understanding of the Christian religion. . . . All the earnest students of Scripture are looking for it.
The Christian Alliance, at its session, in Ohio, February, 1892, listened to a discourse from Rev. A. B. Simpson, on the "Second Coming of Christ." I quote from the discourse as follows:—
Never before has so much been written and said on the second coming of the Messiah. New York278papers have been devoting column after column to the subject.
Chicago Herald, Feb. 4, 1892, has the following in reference to Alliance meetings in Findlay, Ohio:—
Rev. A. H. Hussey, of Chicago, gave a discourse on Christ's return to the earth to rule as King over all the nations, and predicted that this time was now almost at hand.
Mrs. E. G. White, Testimony No. 33, written in 1889:—
The present activity of Satan in working upon hearts, and upon churches and nations, should startle every student of prophecy. The end is near . . . We are standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Prophecy is fast fulfilling . . . There is soon to open before us a period of overwhelming interest to all living. The controversies of the past are to be revived; new controversies will arise. The scenes to be enacted in our world are not yet even dreamed of. Satan is at work through human agencies. Those who are making an effort to change the Constitution, and secure a law enforcing Sunday observance, little realize what will be the result. A crisis is just upon us. . . . 'The time of trouble such as never was' is soon to open upon us.
I clip the following from the Northfield General Conference Bulletin, of September, 1892:—
The present age began with the rejection of Christ; it will end with the reception of antichrist. It began when Christ ascended; it will close when he descends again to earth. The peculiarity of the age is its mixed character—ignorance of God and indifference to spiritual things, lawlessness and insubordination, apostasy, sneering and scoffing, false philosophies supplanting faith, and speculating sciences antagonizing revelation, lust of the flesh and laxity of morals, the desecration of everything sacred, including the Sabbath, marriage, the home, and public worship, mountebanks of ministers and parasites for preachers. Piety has been swept aside, while pride occupies her place. Love to Christ has waned, while pursuit after a false liberalism has waxed hotly. Soundness in faith and contention for sound doctrine have been undermined by fashionable skepticism and weakened by the dry rot of higher criticism. Nevertheless, the light of the gospel will continue to shine brighter and brighter in every dark land where it finds entrance.
Rev. F. Tilney Bassett, M.A., writes in the Prophetic News as follows:—
False prophets, doubtless, are as thick as tares all over the field of Christendom. Infidelity, rationalism, and the higher criticism, as it is speciously called, are luring men away from the true Christ; and . . . there is a surging of the waves which no oil of diplomacy can still, and a deep-seated sore is threatening a universal eruption, which the most skillful statesmen cannot skin over.
New York Tribune, editorial, of recent date:—
A social unrest unparalleled in history has taken possession of the nations of Europe, and has found a lodgment in our own land.
Sermon of Dr. Talmage, November, 1892:—
I have to tell you what you know already, that American politics have sunk to such a low depth that there is nothing beneath . . . So poor is the type of piety in the church of God that men actually caricature the idea that there is any such thing as the higher life. . . . There is enough out-and-out licentiousness in American cities to-day to bring down upon them the wrath of God, who, on the 24th of August, '79, buried Herculaneum and Pompeii so deep in ashes that 1813 subsequent years have not been able to complete the exhumation. As the Romans were after the Celts, and as the Normans were after the Britons, so there are evils after this nation which will attend its obsequies unless we first attend theirs.
Rev. R. D. Clark, Baptist minister, Eureka, Cal.:—
We are not ready to place our liberties in the hands of any church or combination of churches, under the name of the 'American Sabbath Union.' The Lord deliver us from all laws that tend in any way to bind the consciences of men. Baptists and others worked too hard in the early formation of our grand old Constitution to now surrender the whole thing into the hands of those who, like Uzzah, put forth their hands to steady the ark of God. When a nation does that, like Uzzah, it will perish.
Zion's Watch Tower, of January 1, 1893:—
Men in every condition of life are bending together to resist others of opposing sentiments, so that the appearance of the world to-day is that of a great battle field where mighty hosts of contending parties are defiantly mustering their forces and preparing for a desperate conflict.
Battle Creek, Mich.
Tomorrow’s Fate
By Omar Khayyam
To-morrow's fate, though thou be wise,
Thou canst not tell, nor yet surmise;
Pass, therefore, not to-day in vain,
For it will never come again.
—Omar Khayyam.
Purpose Firm Is Equal to Deed
"THY purpose firm is equal to the deed;
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more."
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
By Ellen G. White
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
WHEN God pardons the sinner, remits the punishment he deserves, and treats him as though he had not sinned, he receives him into divine favor, and justifies him through the merits of Christ's righteousness. The sinner can be justified only through faith in the atonement made through God's dear Son, who became a sacrifice for the sins of the guilty world. No one can be justified by any works of his own. He can be delivered from the guilt of sin, from the condemnation of the law, from the penalty of transgression, only by virtue of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. Faith is the only condition upon which justification can be obtained, and faith includes not only belief but trust.
Many have a nominal faith in Christ, but they know nothing of that vital dependence upon him which appropriates the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. Of this nominal faith James says: "Thou believest there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" Many concede that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world, but at the same time they hold themselves away from him, and fail to repent of their sins, fail to accept of Jesus as their personal Saviour. Their faith is simply the assent of the mind and judgment to the truth; but the truth is not brought into the heart, that it might sanctify the soul and transform the character.
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
Calling and justification are not one and the same thing. Calling is the drawing of the sinner to Christ, and it is a work wrought by the Holy Spirit upon the heart, convicting of sin, and inviting to repentance.
Many are confused as to what constitutes the first steps in the work of salvation. Repentance is thought to be a work the sinner must do for himself in order that he may come to Christ. They think that the sinner must procure for himself a fitness in order to obtain the blessing of God's grace. But while it is true that repentance must precede forgiveness, for it is only the broken and contrite heart that is acceptable to God, yet the sinner cannot bring himself to repentance, or prepare himself to come to Christ. Except the sinner repents, he cannot be forgiven; but the question to be decided is as to whether repentance is the work of the sinner or the gift of Christ. Must the sinner wait until he is filled with remorse for his sin before he can come to Christ? The very first step to Christ is taken through the drawing of the Spirit of God; as man responds to this drawing, he advances towards Christ in order that he may repent.
The sinner is represented as a lost sheep, and a lost sheep never returns to the fold unless he is sought after and brought back to the fold by the shepherd. No man of himself can repent, and make himself worthy of the blessing of justification. The Lord Jesus is constantly seeking to impress the sinner's mind and attract him to behold himself, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. We cannot take a step toward spiritual life save as Jesus draws and strengthens the soul, and leads us to experience that repentance which needeth not to be repented of.
When before the high priests and Sadducees, Peter clearly presented the fact that repentance is the gift of God. Speaking of Christ, he said, "Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Repentance is no less the gift of God than are pardon and justification, and it cannot be experienced except as it is given to the soul by Christ. If we are drawn to Christ, it is through his power and virtue. The grace of contrition comes through him, and from him comes justification.
Paul writes: "But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach: that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." The faith that is unto salvation is not a casual279faith, it is not the mere consent of the intellect, it is belief rooted in the heart, that embraces Christ as a personal Saviour, assured that he can save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him. To believe that he will save others but will not save you is not genuine faith; but when the soul lays hold upon Christ as the only hope of salvation, then genuine faith is manifested. This faith leads its possessor to place all the affections of the soul upon Christ; his understanding is under the control of the Holy Spirit, and his character is moulded after the divine likeness. His faith is not a dead faith, but a faith that works by love, and leads him to behold the beauty of Christ, and to become assimilated to the divine character. "For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. . . . But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live."
It is God that circumcises the heart. The whole work is the Lord's from the beginning to the end. The perishing sinner may say: "I am a lost sinner; but Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He says, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' I am a sinner, and he died upon Calvary's cross to save me. I need not remain a moment longer unsaved. He died and rose again for my justification, and he will save me now. I accept the forgiveness he has promised."
(To be continued.)
THE BUILDERS.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
ALL are architects of fate,
Working in these walls of time,
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.
In the elder days of art
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each unseen and minute part,
For our God sees everywhere.
Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house where God may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean,
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base,
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain
And one boundless reach of sky.
—Longfellow.
GOD-GIVEN RIGHTS.
By T. B. Snow
BY T. B. SNOW.
THERE are certain rights with which every man is endowed by his Creator. There are the "certain inalienable rights" referred to in the "Declaration of Independence." It is not in the power of government to give these rights, for God gave them—everyone has them. Neither can government take them away. It is our right to enjoy our God-given rights.
Government might prevent us from exercising our right, but it could not take away our right to enjoy our rights. These rights are called "Absolute Civil Rights," and include "personal security," "personal liberty," the right of "private property," and "religious rights."
The right of personal security is the right of protection from injury to our lives, body, health, or reputations. The right of personal liberty is the right to go where we please, and may be modified by law only as to the way we may take to go where we please. So to go where I please I must go by the public highway, and not through my neighbor's field. To go through my neighbor's field to his damage is uncivil, hence the civil law interposes and prescribes the way I may go and the way I must not go. The right to private property is the right to acquire property and enjoy it peaceably. Religious rights include the right to worship God in whatever way one thinks best, when he pleases or not at all, and to make known his religious belief.
These are the natural, inalienable, absolute rights of man. Liberty is the freedom to exercise these rights. Civil liberty is freedom to enjoy the rights secured by civil law. Civil rights may be forfeited. For instance, if one man steals from another, he has infringed the right of that man, for the man from whom the property was taken had the right to peaceably enjoy his possessions. The one who took the property, thus infringing the right of the other thereby, forfeited his right to so much of his property or time as the law demanded as a fine or detention in custody. He would also forfeit his right to "go where he pleased" for the time being.
The right to worship God cannot be forfeited. The man who had committed the theft would have the right to repent, to ask God for pardon, to worship him. These natural rights should not be enforced by law, for if enforced they cease to be rights, and become obligations. The right of "private property" includes the right to amass a fortune; but suppose one has no desire to do this, should the law compel him to do so?
The right of "personal liberty" includes the right to go where we please. I choose to go to Chicago, but it would be tyranny to compel me to go. Religious rights include the right to be a Methodist, or a Baptist, if I choose, but a law to compel me to be either, or prevent my being neither, would be unjust in the extreme.
Let us apply the above reasoning to our own time: In the State of Tennessee some Christian people, supposing that they had the right to worship God in their own way—"according to the dictates of their conscience"—refrained from all unnecessary labor on Saturday, the seventh day of the week, attended their meeting, and in thus obeying the injunction not to "forsake the assembling of themselves," offered God their worship. They then, supposing that the right to "go where they pleased," to earn thus daily bread, and that the right to acquire property and to peaceably enjoy it, were still theirs, proceeded to exercise these natural rights by going quietly about their work on Sunday. Now it must be seen at a glance by any candid person that if exercise of the natural right to worship God as a Methodist, or as a Baptist, or as a member of any other sect, or not to worship him at all, is allowable and just, it must also be allowable and just for one to worship him as an Adventist. But to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience was to obey him by keeping the Sabbath holy. The only way those Adventists knew which day to keep holy was what the Bible said about it. They read in Ex. 20: 8-11 that the "seventh day is the Sabbath," and proceeded to act in harmony with that command. The State of Tennessee utterly ignores the right to worship God as Adventists think is right.
It virtually prohibits any person becoming an Adventist, on pain of imprisonment or the chain gang. It ignores the right to acquire property except what may be acquired by five days' labor in each week, unless a person chooses to worship God contrary to his conscience, which would really be no worship at all. It makes crime of an act which is manifestly the inherent, inalienable right of every person. So far as the State is concerned, it is just as much the right of a person to go when he pleases as to go where he pleases. He may go Sunday or Monday as he chooses. All have the same right, and any law that takes away either of these rights savors of bigotry and oppression.
But it may be agreed that the State may, by prohibiting a certain act, make it a crime. A decree issued by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 6: 7-9) made it a crime against the State for anyone to worship God in harmony with his conscience, for thirty days. One could not pray to God or ask a favor of any man on pain of being cast into a den of lions. The law to compel all the subjects of the king to worship the golden image (Dan. 3: 5, 6) was another instance of religious legislation. The crimes committed by Daniel and the three Hebrew children were crimes in precisely the same sense that working on Sunday is a crime. The government of Babylon legislated on religious matters, and every legislative act of that government on the question was an act of injustice, tyranny, and oppression. This kind of legislation at any time or in any place can be nothing less because it takes away or prevents the exercise of an "inalienable right." The above references to decrees enforced by the king plainly show that there are some things that a government has no business with.
The natural rights of one are the rights of all. One man has just as many rights as ten men. The rights of the minority are just as many, and just as sacred, as the rights of the majority; and unless "might makes right," the oppression of the minority is just as wicked as the oppression of the majority would be. The oppression or persecution of one man is the same in principle as the oppression of a thousand. From these facts it is clearly evident that there are some things with which majorities have no business.
Government can have no business with any man's religion, or how he worships God, when he worships, or whether he worships at all. They can have no business whether a man is a Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, or Adventist. It can be the business of no one whether I believe in God or not. If I do believe in him, in his creative and redemptive power, he has given me the Sabbath, by the keeping of which I show that belief. If I do not believe in him, no State law can compel me to believe. If it compels me to keep the Sabbath; it simply compels me to act as though I believed. But to act as though I believe a thing I do not believe is hypocritical; therefore an enforced worship, or the keeping of the Sabbath enforced by law, is simply hypocrisy to avoid the penalty of the law.
If those religious bigots who are persecuting those of another faith, want to know what rights every man has and ought to be allowed to exercise, let them imagine the persecuted ones in the majority, and trying to force them, against their honest religious convictions, to keep Saturday after they have conscientiously kept the day they believe to be the Sabbath. Let them imagine themselves fined, thrust into prison, or the chain gang, because they worked on Saturday. Let them ask themselves, "Could we stand that?" "Would we like that?" "Would we like to have our neighbor do so to us?" Where they have done this, let them remember to "do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you." When they do this, when everyone does it, the rights of each one will be respected and protected by all.
The Bible, Our Best Ally
By Garibaldi
THE best of allies you can procure for us is the Bible, which will bring us the reality of freedom.—Garibaldi.
Christ’s Tenderness Without Sentimentalism
By Phillips Brooks
THE absence of sentimentalism in Christ's relations with men is what makes his tenderness so exquisitely touching.—Phillips Brooks.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE BIBLE AND RELIGION.
By George B. Thompson
BY ELDER GEO. B. THOMPSON.
UNBELIEVERS of this and every age have assigned as a reason why they cannot accept the Bible and religion because there are some mysteries connected with them. This, say they, is the cause of our skepticism. We cannot accept anything we cannot reason out.
That there are many things in the Bible, and the "mystery of godliness" which are beyond the scope of our intellectual powers we wish neither to palliate nor deny. We rejoice that it is so, and deem it better wisdom to dilate, if possible, the mind to the amplitude of the mysteries rather than straiten the mysteries to the narrow compass of human reason.
The eternity of God, his creating worlds from nothing and holding them in place by a word, the incarnation of Christ, and the events in connection with the plan of redemption, are some of the innumerable things which we cannot unravel with the candle of human reason. But that is no reason why they are not true, or that we will never understand them. Many things which now are among the simplest elements of our knowledge, were to us, when children, utterly incomprehensible. And it was not becoming in us then to oppose our knowledge against that of our teacher. Neither is it now. God is our Teacher, and we are certainly reprehensible if we dare oppose our reason against his. The Bible and religion deal in eternal realities, and it will require an eternity to fathom this, but even this is promised.
The most gigantic mind can and will expand by reflecting on the "mysteries of godliness." Now we are finite, peering, as it were, through some narrow crevice at fields of knowledge, but by and by we will be lifted to a summit from whence we can behold this rich domain more clearly.
Why should men desire to grasp all mysteries? Better be content to acknowledge their fallibility, for it is axiomatic that "that which may be comprehended is less than the hands that grasp it." There are numerous forms of intelligence, of which man is neither the highest nor the lowest. Nobler creatures in higher spheres understand many things which to us are inexplicable. Let man be content to drink at the fountain of intelligence. How idle is the assertion that we believe nothing that is not within the grasp of our mental powers! In the multitudinous forms of animal and vegetable life which surround us, there are numberless things which we know are so, but we cannot understand them. The mysteriousness of the laws which govern them are too deep for us to fathom. Science tells us some things, but not all. Philosophers and chemists have, as a result of their research, learned some facts, and can demonstrate some things. Astronomers have by study learned some facts about the planetary world, yet they all know and admit that in all these things there is an unnavigated sea beyond.
Man knows that he lives and that the world is radiant with animal life, but can he solve the problem of his own existence? Some have tried it, but after reading the explanation we knew as little as before. Elaborate descriptions have been written and violent disputes engaged in about force, matter, etc., but when summed up, the answer simply amounted to this, Force is force, and matter is matter; the subjects were still involved in doubts, perplexities, and diversities of opinion. Now we ask in all candor, Is it consistent to accept all the occult mysteries of science, and so many things which are enshrouded in impenetrable fog, and then reject the Bible and religion because they too have some mysteries? To be consistent, the rejectors of incomprehensibilities must discard everything in which a mystery is found. Think of this. What would be left?—Simply nothing.
Then let us accept the Bible and the religion of Jesus Christ. It will make us sons of God and heirs of immortality. It contains deep mines of truth, and rich promises, too vast for us to estimate. But let human reason bow before God and believe. We are not to understand that we may believe, but believe that we may understand. Never by searching can we find God, but by faith we receive all there is of him. How grand the thought! Let us like children come to God and learn, not by questions and doubts, but accepting as true his faithful utterances, and he will produce the facts. Says the learned author of "Ecclesiastical Polity":—
When I behold with my eyes some small and scarce discernible grain, or seed, whereof nature maketh a promise that a tree shall come; and when afterward of that tree any skillful artificer undertaketh to frame some exquisite and curious work, I look for the event, I make no question about performance, either of one or of the other. Shall I simply credit nature in things natural? Shall I, in things artificial, rely myself on art, never offering to make doubt? and in that which is above both art and nature, refuse to believe the Author of both, except he acquaint me with his ways, and lay the secret of his skill before me?
Let all ponder these queries, and in humility come to God, confess our insensibility of conviction in the past, and open our hearts to the word of God, which is able to build us up and give us an inheritance among the sanctified.