Earlier text: HEAVY UPON ITCONCERNING PESSIMISM.
By Hope Onslow
“It is better to be a pessimist with your eyes open, than an optimist with your eyes shut.”—American Sentinel. “It is a treacherous stream,” said the man on the bank. “Better not embark.” “Ever been on it?” asked one of the boating party. “No, but I’ve read the records of those who have. I’ve heard of hairbreadth escapes. I’ve followed down the bank, and seen snag-heads, rocks, rapids, and the falls.” “Who cares for the records?” said one of the party. “Who cares for the word of a cowardly pessimist, who has never dared to sail on the stream?” laughed another. “Hairbreadth escapes give zest to life. Just what we enjoy,” said another. Away they went down the stream, merry, reckless, faithless. “Poor souls,” shouted the man on the bank. “Put in at the first inlet. I know you’ll never return if you do not. No one ever returns who passes the rapids.” “By, by,” shouted the party. “We’ve no use for a man who looks on the dark side. Avoid a pessimist as you would poison.” The man on the bank mounted a horse, and rode furiously across the country to meet them at the inlet, and, at the risk of his own life, seek once more to save theirs. The pleasure-party would never have taken to Danger River if they had not been intoxicated. By the time they reached the inlet, they were more drunken, more hilarious, more daring, more demented than when they started. “Put in to the inlet,” pleaded the man from the bank; “sure death is ahead of you.” “There’s the man who looks on the dark side,” shrieked one. “There’s the man with the jaunders,” said another. “There’s the old fool who wears black goggles, the old dyspeptic pessimist. Say, old biliousness, what do you see?” “I see the devil luring you to death and destruction.” “Ha, ha, ha,” laughed the party. “The old pessimist is a raving lunatic. The devil has hold of him, and he thinks we are his victims. Let us put him out of the way; he’s an enemy to all innocent enjoyment.” Their aim was too unsteady, and they missed the old man, and swept on past the inlet. “We’ll give the old man a peppering when we come back,” said one. “What a lovely time we are having! How delicious is the air! how delightful the motion!” One by one they fell fast asleep. A great roar roused them. They woke in horror; they shrieked; they lifted imploring hands to the old man high on the rocks above the falls. Too late! The pessimist was right. Death, destruction, was their doom. O Danger River, how many sail thy luring waves! Thy banks swarm with pleasure-lovers! The world is there, passing the intoxicating cup of infidelity from hand to hand. The State is there, drinking in the love of conquest, the lust of power. The Church is there, passing from soul to soul “the wine of the wrath of her fornication,” intoxicating the kings of the earth. The embarking boats rock beside the bank. Shall they go unwarned down Danger River to death and destruction? “Ho!” shouts a voice from above; “don’t embark. Throw away your intoxicants, and you will see that your boats can not live on such a stream.” And one like Mephistopheles rises, and points a finger of scorn, shouting, “Pessimist.” The Church steps daintily out, and asks, “Why should not I embark?” “Because God’s Word declares that the stream flows down to hell.” “O, no,” the Church says sweetly. “That’s the cry of a pessimist, a fragment from some old mythical Jonah, who swallowed a whale, and moped under a booth because his pessimism did not find a fulfilment. This stream is the stream of the world’s brotherhood.” “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean; and I will receive you,” replied the voice. “God is the Father of all,” said the Church. “The whole world is to be converted, and then there will be no need of coming out, and being separate. Let us embark. Come, State; follow me.” The State steps sturdily out, and asks, “Why should not I embark?” “The Dark Ages tell you why. Keep the Church and the State forever separate. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and let God have His own.” “Pooh!” said the State; “you would separate, separate, separate, as if mankind was not one blood and brotherhood. You are a misanthrope, an ascetic, a pessimist. Different times now than in the Dark Ages. Men are enlightened; the world’s better. Our boats can stand any gale; the machinery is much improved.” “But Danger River still runs to death and destruction.” “Let’s drink to the coming century, to the world’s brotherhood. Of course there are snags of monopoly, whirlpools of socialism and anarchy, rocks of war and pestilence and famine, crags of false theories, maelstroms of bigotry; but we’ll show you how we shall outride all danger, and come up on the banks of deliverance for world-wide peace and prosperity. Here’s to peace, prosperity, and popularity.” “You drink your own despair and death,” said the voice on the bank. But away sailed the parties down Danger River. Shall no effort be made to save them? Down the bank rush the messengers who would not go with them, too certain of their ruin. They reach Reformation Inlet in time to entreat and beseech with tears that the mad voyagers shall turn in, and walk up the rocks, instead of sailing down the river. Alas! hate is their reward. The Word of God and the history of the past have no weight. The danger of the river lures them on. Intoxication closes and dulls their senses, and those who would not receive the love of the truth are taken with strong delusion, that they all may believe a lie, because they have pleasure in unrighteousness. Song, dancing, hilarity, slumber. Mephistopheles pilots them through the rapids. He sings of peace and safety. He cries out against the pessimist, till suddenly the roar of eternal ruin wakens them. Too late! “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” High on the rock of God’s Word stand those who through all ages have been called alarmists, fools, pessimists, and enemies to human progress. Jesus is with them, saying to the deriders, “Your house is left unto you desolate.” Prophets, apostles, martyrs, are there; angels are there; the Father is there. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Sail no more on Danger River. “It is better to be a pessimist with your eyes open, than an optimist with your eyes shut.” HOPE ONSLOW. SIGNS OF THE COMING KING.
By Augusta W. Heald
This Gospel of the Kingdom.
Another sign of the end is found in the Saviour’s words, “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Matt. 24:14. Let us consider to what extent this prophecy has been accomplished. Scarcely had the great work of the Reformation been inaugurated through the labors of Wycliffe, Huss, and other early reformers, when in the year 1440 the art of printing was invented. It is a suggestive fact that the first book given to the world through this wonderful art, was a superb copy of the Holy Scriptures, and under God’s providence the printing-press has become a most important factor in the work of evangelizing the world. The process of printing was for a long time laborious and expensive. Books were few and costly; and the Bible was entirely beyond the reach of the majority. But knowledge has increased, and the appliances of modern science afford means by which the Gospel may be carried to earth’s remotest bounds, and at this day, so free is the circulation of the Bible that even the poorest may have in their homes a copy of God’s Word. It is not yet one hundred years since the first religious newspaper was published, and now millions of these publications are sent out every week. By the magic power of steam, they are speedily transported over land and sea, and their silent influence permeates every part of the civilized world. Why were the wonderful sciences of steam and electricity hidden for ages, to be thus suddenly developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century?—Because they are now fulfilling the word of prophecy. It would seem that God has enlightened human understanding to search and bring to light at this time all the latent forces of nature, that they may aid in preparing the world for the coming of the King; and obedient to the will of the great Creator, the vanishing vapor and fiery lightning are subject to man’s guidance and control, and aid in fulfilling the divine commission, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” Matt. 3:3. Not only is the printed page active in the work of God’s preparation, but the hearts of men have been moved to preach the good news of salvation in heathen lands; and with this purpose the devoted missionaries of the cross have gone out in the name of their divine Master. They have fallen at their posts, victims of disease and hardship, or slain at the hands of those they sought to enlighten; but others have stepped into the ranks, and thus the good work goes on. There is at the present time a widespread movement in progress, having for its avowed object the “evangelization of the world in this generation,” and with God’s blessing this grand purpose will no doubt be realized. One who has lately made the circuit of the world in the interest of foreign missions, said, “God has been preparing the way for twenty years; and now there is not a country in all the world where the way is not opening for the truth to go.” Of Africa he says, “With the exception of a narrow central strip of country 150 miles wide, there is no part of the Dark Continent where the influence of Christian missions has not been felt;” and of China, “Only a portion of Tibet remains to be entered by the missionary.” Thus rapidly is the prophecy fulfilling that “this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations.” GROWTH IN LOVE.
By Francis Paget
Love is life, and lovelessness is death. As the grace of God changes a man's heart and cleanses and sanctifies him, this is the great evidence of the change, this is the great difference which it makes: that he begins to grow in love, to lay aside self-seeking, and to live for others—and so he may know that he has passed from death unto life. He may know it even here and now—yes, that great discovery of love, that learning to live for others and finding the grace and gentleness that God is keeping up all over the world—even now it is the way from death to life. Even now it changes homes, it lightens every burden, it brings peace and gladness into the hardest days; it alters even the tone of a man's voice and the very look of his face. But all this, blessed and surpassing as it is far above all else in the world, still is but the beginning. For that life into which we pass, as God's dear grace of love comes in us and about us, is the very life of heaven.—Francis Paget. GOD'S VOICE, OR THE HIGHER CRITIC.
A questioner asks the editor of the Outlook if God really spoke to the people of old, or if what we have been taught to believe as God's declarations to His people were merely the words of zealous religious men who believed they were speaking in accord with the mind of God. Replying to this question, the editor, who is a supporter of the “higher criticism,” replies, in the issue of June 28:— The phrase, “Thus saith the Lord,” is the common Hebrew formula of an authoritative declaration, and means simply the same as the modern preacher's phrase, “God knows that what I say is true.” The editor further declares that “the prophets themselves heard only the inner voice that we describe as the voice of conscience. It is only in conscience that a voice recognized as divine ever makes itself heard.” If this be true, then there is just as much evidence of inspiration in the utterances of the modern preachers as there is in the recorded words of the prophets which go to make up our Bible. Some hold that there are contradictions in the Bible, and have tried hard and long to prove that such is the case. But the veriest tyro in Biblical study would have no difficulty in showing contradictions, inconsistencies, variations from proved truth, unscientific statements, glaring misrepresentations of God's character, and perversions of fact, in such a bible as the accumulated utterances of modern theologians would be—modern theologians, especially, who are drifting so far away from the teachings of that Book of books which is the Word of God, the fountain of purity and truth and life. It is because of this drift away from God's Word that these contradictions and inconsistencies are so prevalent in the teachings of modern theologians. But the statement of the Outlook is not true. There is an infinite difference between “holy men of God” speaking “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” and modern religious teachers speaking what they believe to be true, especially when such teachers are teaching that what “holy men of God spake” aforetime was merely the outbreathings of their own finite convictions. They can not both be true. They can not both be the Word of God. If the “convictions” of the modern theologians are true, then the utterances of the “holy men of God” who spoke in times past “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” are not true; and the movings of the Spirit now contradict the movings of that same Spirit as manifest in the inspired writings. By such inconsistent teachings are the minds of the unstable to-day being turned away from God's Word and His truth. There is a studied and persistent attempt on the part of such teachers to undermine and shatter the Rock upon which the true church of God is builded. Some will even be convinced that that Rock has been undermined and toppled over into the abyss of everlasting darkness, or that it has been shattered into a million fragments and scattered to the ends of the universe on the winds of the “higher criticism;” just as Christian Science is teaching its devotees that things do not exist which are actually in evidence. The day is not far distant when such teachings will be put to the test—will be weighed in the balance of God's judgment—and will be found wanting; and that Rock of truth, the Word of God, which men thought they had undermined and shattered, will be seen then standing at the entrance of the Valley of Eden, the great El Capitan of the universe, sheer and white, unshattered and unshaken, and yet an impassable barrier to every one who has flung invectives at it or pummelled his little fist against its hoary and eternal base. There is one Rock of truth, and on that is builded the true church of the living God. That Rock is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Voice of the eternal Father, the Speaker of the words the prophets uttered. “Did God ever speak to man in an audible voice before the time of Christ?”—He did; and it was so intensely audible that those men besought Moses in these words: “Let not God speak with us, lest we die.” Ex. 20:19. In verse 22 the Lord Himself declares, “Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.” Again: “Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.” Ex. 19:19. The inspired record of this event reads: “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them in two tables of stone.” Deut. 5:22. The world would fain forget that God ever spoke to man with an audible voice, especially when those audible words were the great, unchangeable law of His kingdom. But the record stands, and all who will may read it. There is also the record of Elijah's experience, when, standing in the mouth of the cave, he hearkened to the “still small voice” of the Lord, and the Lord gave him positive audible instructions in regard to his work. See 1 Kings 19:12–18. He talked with Abram concerning the destruction of the cities of the plain, and also concerning his heir and his inheritance. He spoke to Samuel when the wickedness of the sons of Eli made it impossible for the Lord to instruct them or carry on His work through them. We read in Heb. 1:1 that God “at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.” The higher critics teach us this means that those men “heard only the inner voice that we describe as the voice of conscience.” But the Bible declares that God spoke by the prophets. The Bible and the “higher critic” can not both be right. “Let God be true.” The Bible tells us that those men spoke “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 2 Peter 1:21. The “higher critic” teaches that they heard the inner voice of conscience, and spoke that. They can not7both be right. “Let God be true.” The “higher criticism” is infidelity's first lieutenant, and is doing perhaps more strenuous service than its captain himself in overthrowing the faith of those who are not rooted and grounded in the truth. It is nothing less than one of those marvelous workings of Satan that were to be so prevalent in the last days. “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”—Not if the “higher criticism” can prevent it. It will be scarce, but it will not be totally extinct. “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. This is said of those who have faith. It will not be said of those who have been trying to destroy it. “WITH THEE IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE.”
DAVID sings in his ascription of praise to God in the thirty-sixth psalm: “With Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light shall we see light.” It is therefore true primarily and inherently that all the life in the universe is from God. In even a stronger sense we can say that “all the life in the universe is God’s life,” if by life we mean that which is directly connected with God, unperverted, tending only to perpetuity. But even as “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel,” even so that is not all God’s life that is of His life. If sin had never entered the universe, all life would have been literally God’s life, whether in planet or plant or mollusk or man. As God is eternal, so His life is eternal, flowing in uninterrupted affluence from the great Fountain. It would have perpetuated to all eternity every living creature. Where God’s life reigns, there is no death. God’s life is in harmony with God’s law. It flows from the great Fountain through that living law. It was designed to flow from the Fountain unto all God’s children, and by their choice out from them in streams of blessing to others. The operations of that law in deeds of love are the manifestations of His life. But when sin in Satan and man perverted that law and that life, the perverted law was no longer God’s “law of righteousness,” but “the law of sin,” and that perverted life was no longer God’s life, but became the working of death. Hence the life of Satan and his demons and the life of sinful man and all the lower creatures is a “vain life,” fed of God in order to prolong an existence in which man may “lay hold of eternal life,” and God’s wisdom and love may be demonstrated. But tho He prolongs that existence, tho He feeds a dying world, the life of the dying is not His life. For it is expressly written that the wicked are “alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4:18); that without Christ they have “no hope, and [are] without God” (2:12); that “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36); that “he that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life” (1 John 5:12). But thanks be to God, all may have God’s life. Those who by faith believe in the only-begotten Son of God not only will have, but do have in the believing eternal life. John 3:16; 6:47; 1 John 5:11. Faith is yielding to God’s will, is harmony with the law of God’s life, and opens heart and soul to life’s inflow. All through the Scriptures we read of the life common to plant and beast and man; but through Jesus Christ another life is given, the life of the Spirit. The first life, coming through inheritance and prolonging conscious existence, is the psyche or soul life; but the life which God gives, which comes to us through His own unperverted channels, is the zoe life. Only to this latter word are the adjectives everlasting and eternal applied. The energy which comes through it is “the power of an endless life” which makes a man victor over sin. All who receive this life are no longer “alienated from the life of God,” but are indeed temples in which God dwells. Man should therefore honor his body as a temple of God. He will consecrate it to be used for God’s service. He will do as did Daniel, nourish it upon that which will furnish the best material for the working of the endless life. He will feed it and water it with those things which are most in harmony with the law of God’s righteousness and life. And this will not be a mere sentiment, but a principle ripened into a purpose, bearing fruit to God’s glory. O, it is only life that can transmute black despair to living faith. It is only the life of God that can lift above sin and death. Every soul needs His life. And every soul can have it, warm, fresh, free; for Jesus came expressly “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF.
It is not in the past in the peninsula of Arabia; it is a present worship. That worship (see Exodus 32 and our Sunday-school lesson in this issue) was simply substituting something else for the worship of God and calling it God. It was not any conception of God as a person by a devout and faithful follower, but it was the worship of the carnality of the human heart, deifying that lust or carnality, substituting that false god for Jehovah, and calling its worship the worship of the true God. At Sinai the carnality of Israel longed for the old nature worship of the Egyptian Sun-god Apis. They loved the sensuousness, the licentiousness of it. The golden calf was the apotheosis of low, lustful nature worship. And so the people sat down to eat and drink in gluttony and rose up to wanton, naked, lewd orgies. And yet this sun-god feast was called “a feast to Jehovah.” It was an awful backsliding, and the words were an awful blasphemy. There is another striking lesson. In less than six weeks previous to this the people had three times, amid the most solemn and awful grandeur, overshadowed by the radiant glory of the Eternal God, declared, “All that Jehovah hath spoken will we do.” Yet notwithstanding this they had yielded to utter apostasy, set up a false god, a rival of Jehovah, had used, of course, the sun’s day as a day of special worship, and had declared it to be “a feast to Jehovah.” A parallel to this backsliding was witnessed in the Galatian church. That church came from the heathen. They were once largely the worshipers of the things “which by nature are no gods.” Gal. 4:8. When they turned from the Gospel of Christ, salvation only in Him, they turned back again to the “weak and beggarly elements, whereunto” they desired “to be in bondage over again.” And turning back to their false gods, they immediately began to observe the days and times of the heathen, of which the apostle was afraid. Gal. 4:9, 10; Lev. 19:26. Chief among these days was “the wild solar holiday” of all pagan times, the Sunday. Both of these comparatively sudden apostasies go back to the old heathen sun-worship. These are written for us upon whom the ends of the ages are come. 1 Cor. 10:11. We need the lessons. The golden calf is worshiped as truly to-day as then. The apotheosis of wealth and science and pleasure and fame is substituted for the worship of the great Jehovah. How many bow at the shrine of mammon! How many devotees of pleasure are dying of sensuousness and sensuality! How many substitutes for the true has the professed church received from the ancient apostasy? What authority is there for the first-day sabbath in the place of God’s holy day? Who declared that sprinkling should take the place of immersion? Where is the authority for the substitution of ornate and elaborate formalism for the simple, spiritual worship of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ? Surely “an enemy hath done this.” Well indeed would it be for God’s people to-day to heed the lesson from the apostasy of the past, and turn to the Lord with all the heart. The Revelation for the Last Days
The Book of “the Revelation,” in the very nature of the case, could not be understood till the last days. There are in it not less than six distinct lines of prophecy, meeting their plenary fulfilment, as regards mundane affairs, right at the consummation of this age. The development and later phases of the beast power is predicted; the fearful apostasy within the church is set forth; the working out of the pernicious union of Church and State is foretold; the wilderness state of the church and the holiness of the waiting remnant are portrayed; and all these must be seen and met before the Revelation could be appreciated and accepted. And of such a one who thus receives it, it is said, “Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.” Rev. 22:7. Will you kindly explain where the once sinless being, Satan, obtained his immense stock of sin, in a sinless realm? And what reason have we to believe we will not meet the same fate under the same conditions? W. H. H. 1. To develop moral character, voluntary choice is absolutely necessary. A “good” man, if there could be such a thing, not from choice, would be an automaton. God made man and angels, and gave them the privilege of choice. Divinity will not take that away. For the creature’s highest good, He will not. 2. God wishes willing service. No other service is worthy of the God of love, and love can not be enforced. It is no pleasure to God that His creatures should appear to serve Him while their hearts are elsewhere. For His own perfect pleasure, man must choose. 3. This development of character involved, as it must, the awful risk of sin. But in infinite justice and kindness God forewarned of the evil and told man, not what the arbitrary punishment would be, but what would be its inevitable fruitage. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death.” 4. For the perfect and best development of character, man must exercise faith in God the Infinite; that faith must depend upon God’s naked word of things which the character-developer has not seen as yet, about which he knows nothing only as God tells him. God is the personification of all the infinite verities, glories, beauties of the universe. To learn to trust Him is to love and obey Him. Faith turns the thoughts, the aspirations, the impulses of the creature from himself to the Infinite. It opens mind and heart to the great things of God. It constantly develops the faithful one, and continually opens before him new fields of everything worthy, wise, and good; and this also to all eternity, for the finite can never reach the infinite. He will therefore find his chief pleasure in doing good to others of God’s children, and he himself will be served by the whole universe. 5. Unbelief brings the opposite of all this. All that God made was good and only good, working in harmony with His great law of beneficent life. According to God’s Word, His children could choose this, and never know sin in experience. Many so continued. Lucifer, by what process of reasoning we know not, chose the way of unbelief, of self-centering, of perversion of right, persuading himself, of course, that his way would work out good. He corrupted his wisdom by reason of his brightness. 6. But he failed. The highest and first of all created beings (Eze. 28:12), when perverted he became the greatest power for evil. The most potent good perverted becomes the most potent evil. Love, the holiest of passions and affections, becomes, when perverted, selfishness, lust, and hatred. One of the most beneficent of all forces, rightly used and directed, is electricity; perverted, it is the most potent for destruction. So when Lucifer, the light-bearer, perverted his entire being by turning from God to self, from other’s good to his own advancement; when he utterly rejected all God’s offers to reform, he became Satan, the adversary, the prince of the powers of darkness, filled with evil, the mightiest agent of all evil. It is an eternal law that if “the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.” Matt. 6:23. See Isa. 14:4-15; Eze. 28:11-19; John 8:44. 7. God in infinite wisdom has permitted Satan and sin to work out sin’s evil results, to bear its ripened fruitage—suffering, destruction, and death in all its appalling forms—that the universe may know that God is true, and that His laws of love are always for the good of all His children. Those who will believe Him, who will reject the sin and selfishness, will have learned the lesson. They will be willing, eternally willing, that God shall rule in heart and life forever. “Affliction shall not rise up the second time;” “there shall be no more curse.” The Apostles and the Sabbath
The Apostles and the Sabbath.
“Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.” Amos 3:7. No prophet of the Old Testament foretold any change in the law of the Sabbath. Even Christ Himself had distinctly disclaimed any intention to annul even a jot or a tittle (the smallest letter or part of a letter) of the law. And He as positively avowed that no such change would be made as long as heaven and earth should stand. Matt. 5:17, 18; Luke 16:17. A change in the Sabbath day would be a marked change in the law. So any alleged change of the Sabbath could not possibly have the authority of Christ. The true prophet must speak by the authority of Christ. 1 Peter 1:10–12; 2 Peter 1:21. Therefore any one, no matter how exalted his position, even though he were an angel, who should assume to prophesy a change of the Sabbath, or assume to effect such change, would not have the sanction of Christ. There was no “Sabbath question” during Christ’s earthly ministry, excepting as to the manner of its observance. Even the pagan observance of the first day was not as a sabbath day, but as a “wild solar holiday.” The Sabbath during which Christ rested in the tomb was observed by the disciples “according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56. When we come to the ministration of the apostles, under the direct leadership of the Holy Spirit, there is no departure from the precept or example of Christ as regards the law of Ten Commandments. The Jews were none the less determined to stamp out the name and influence of Jesus of Nazareth than when He was among them. They were just as anxious to find occasion against those who taught in His name as they were to accuse Him. So even the works of benevolence and mercy performed by the apostles were made a pretext for stopping the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. Even when the rulers were constrained to acknowledge that “a notable miracle” had been done in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, they took occasion to command that all work in that name should be stopped. Acts 4:13–18; 5:25–28. Since the Jewish opponents of the name of Jesus were so determined to put an end to the work of the apostles, they surely would have found popular and conspicuous occasion against them had they in any way ignored the Sabbath day. The Jews were especially tenacious of their traditions concerning the Sabbath, and nothing would have suited their persecuting purpose better than to have found the apostles observing, and teaching others to observe, another day than the Sabbath of the commandment. But of all the complaints brought against the apostles, or any disciples of their day, there is not a hint in all the record that they ever were accused of Sabbath-breaking. This fact alone is convincing evidence that the apostles did not make any change in the day of the Sabbath, or in any way teach that there had been a change in the law of the Ten Commandments. The apostles, like their Master, were accused of disregarding the traditionary customs of the Jews, but there was no complaint that they substituted another day for the Sabbath. As far as the law of Ten Commandments was concerned, it was virtually acknowledged that there could be no fault found with the disciples. This virtual acknowledgment was made when, in the case of Stephen, they “set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law.” Acts 6:13. While this formal charge was made, those who made the accusation knew that it was not true. When Paul and Barnabas came to Antioch in Pisidia, “they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down.” Acts 13:14. After the regular reading by the leaders of the meeting, they invited the strangers to speak, if they so desired. Paul delivered a Gospel discourse, in which he alluded to the prophets, “which are read every Sabbath day.” In both of these expressions, both the apostle and the writer of the Acts recognized the day observed by the Jews as the Sabbath. Their reference to it is without qualification. After Paul’s discourse, it is said that “when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.” Had a change of the Sabbath day been really instituted, or in any authoritative manner contemplated at that time, this would have been an excellent opportunity to have so informed these Gentiles, and to have put the matter on record for the information of others. But so far the Lord had not revealed any such design to His servants. On one of his long tours, Paul came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews, and “as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” Here the Jews were highly incensed because of the preaching of Jesus, and were exceedingly anxious for some plausible accusation. But not a word was said about their changing the Sabbath. So pressed were the Jews for some charge, that they had to resort to the subterfuge that the apostles did “contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.” Ch. 17:7. Paul passed on from there, and shortly afterward came to Corinth. Here, in accordance with his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. “And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” When the Jews rejected his preaching, he left the synagogue, and held meetings in a house adjoining. This change of meeting place from the synagogue to a private house, and the audience being changed from one mostly of Jews to one mainly composed of Gentiles, would have been a most auspicious time and place for a mention of a change of the Sabbath—if there had been any change. Indeed, such an important and far-reaching matter as a change in the law which Christ declared would not be changed, certainly would have been a prominent feature of some apostolic discourse. But Paul “continued there a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them,” without a single reference, as far as the record goes, to any other Sabbath day than that enjoined in the commandment. Conybeare and Howson’s “Life and Epistles of the Apostle Paul” was written by men who believed in the Sunday institution; yet, in referring to the situation at Corinth, they assume that the Jewish and the Christian congregations both assembled on the same day. On page 328 we read: “The Jewish and Christian congregations would often meet face to face in the street, and all the success of the Gospel would become more palpable and conspicuous.” The authors of this popular work would not have made such a reference, if there could have been found any plausible inference in the Scriptures that the Sabbath which the Christians observed was the day following that observed by the Jews. It is a noticeable fact in this connection, that in all the fifty-nine references in the New Testament to the weekly Sabbath, every one clearly applies to the seventh day, the day observed by the Jews, and by Christians in the apostolic age. Moreover, the lack of mention of any controversy on the subject of the Sabbath between Jews and Christians in the New Testament, is indisputable evidence that there was no Sabbath question between them during the administration of the apostles. In after years, when the question did arise, the controversy was a bitter one. G. DEPARTURE FROM PRINCIPLE.
By G.
In giving instructions to Civil Governor Taft, of the Philippines, regarding negotiations for the purchase of the lands held by Roman Catholic religious orders, Secretary of War Root lays down the following principle as one to be borne in mind:— One of the controlling principles of our government is the complete separation of Church and State, with the entire freedom of each from any control or interference by the other. The principle is imperative wherever American jurisdiction extends, and no modification or shading thereof can be a subject of discussion. This is a concise statement of the theory of the relation of Church and State in the Government of the United States. Then what meaneth the maintenance of a specially religious Bureau of Reforms at Washington, whose sole purpose is to influence legislation by Congress? How is it that the manager, recognized as a minister of the Gospel, can boast of having sufficient influence in Congress to carry certain measures championed by the bureau? How can such a bureau have the support of professed Protestant churches, when Protestantism, as well as the United States Government, stands for absolute separation of Church and State? How is it that the manager of this bureau can claim the full sympathy of the chief executive of the government in its manipulation of Congressional action? How could the government assume to declare officially that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the first day of the week, when the commandment itself says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God”? How is it that nearly all the States have laws enforcing a church institution (Sunday), and these laws have been sustained by the Federal Supreme Court? It must be that the answers to these questions would develop quite a departure from the fundamental principles enunciated by the Secretary of War in behalf of the administration. G.