A few years since, a gentleman from England brought a letter of introduction to a gentleman in America. The stranger was of accomplished mind and manners, but in sentiment an infidel. The gentleman to whom he brought the letter of introduction, and his lady, were active Christian philanthropists. They invited the stranger to make their house his home, and treated him with every possible attention. Upon the evening of his arrival, just before the usual hour for retiring, the gentleman, knowing the peculiarity of his guest’s sentiments, observed to him that the hour had arrived in which they usually attended family prayers; that he should be happy to have him remain and unite with them; or, if he preferred, he could retire. The gentleman intimated that it would give him pleasure to remain. A chapter of the Bible was read, and the family all knelt in prayer, the stranger with the rest.
In a few days the stranger left this hospitable dwelling, and embarked on board a ship for a foreign land. In the course of three or four years, however, the providence of God again led that stranger to the same dwelling. But oh, how changed! He came the happy Christian, the humble man of piety and prayer. In course of the evening’s conversation he remarked that when he, on the first evening of his previous visit, knelt with them in family prayer, it was the first time for many years that he had bowed to his Maker. This act brought to his mind such a crowd of recollections, it so vividly reminded him of a parent’s prayers, which he had heard at home, that it completely absorbed his attention. His emotion was so great, that he did not hear one syllable of the prayer which was uttered from its commencement to its close. But God made this the instrument of leading him from the dreary wilds of infidelity to the peace and joy of piety. His parents had long before gone to their rest; but the prayers they had offered for and with their son had left an influence which could not die.—Sel.
QUARTERLY T. AND M. MEETINGS.
By J. F. Bahler
How few attend these important meetings! What is the reason, brethren? Is it because of the few dollars that you might perchance have the privilege of donating towards a work that is high as hight and deep as depth, and that pertains to Heaven, and the glorious truths of the Bible, and to the gathering in of souls to rejoice in the precious truth, and to the future promised kingdom of God, where they with us shall put on everlasting life, at the appearing of our great King.
Our Saviour’s life record is that of the greatest missionary that ever trod the earth. Let us imitate him in this wonderful work that is allotted to us. We are not called to give our lives as he was, hence let us not withhold the means that God has given us to forward his precious cause. And let us not, when the quarter rolls around, remain away from the place where the business of eternity is done in behalf of our fellow creatures, and where we may have the privilege of giving of our money, and helping with our talents to devise plans in which God and his angels are greatly interested.
Come, come, to the T. and M. meetings. Come with your purses laden, or at least with what they do contain, consecrated to the good work, and with your hearts and minds full of good things, and thus learn to imitate the great Missionary, Jesus, and to walk in his footsteps, that when he shall appear ye may receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away, and be brought to that eternal city in which we may walk without ever once dreaming of poverty. Rich indeed we will then be. May the God of Heaven help us faithfully to work in his vineyard, to spare no pains in setting forth to mankind in tract form the wonderful things that we behold out of the Bible.
J. F. BAHLER.
Dallas, Texas.
THE LOVE OF GOD.
By Eliza Scudder
Thou Grace Divine, encircling all,
A soundless, shoreless sea!
Wherein at last our souls must fall—
O Love of God most free!
When over dizzy heights we go,
One soft hand blinds our eyes,
The other leads us safe and slow—
O Love of God most wise!
And though we turn us from thy face,
And wander wide and long,
Thou hold'st us still in thine embrace,
O Love of God most strong!
The saddened heart, the restless soul,
The toil-worn frame and mind,
Alike confess thy sweet control,
O Love of God most kind!
But not alone thy care we claim,
Our wayward steps to win;
We know thee by a dearer name,
O Love of God within!
And filled and quickened by thy breath,
Our souls are strong and free
To rise o'er sin and fear and death,
O Love of God, to thee!
—Eliza Scudder.
ASTONISHING STUPIDITY.
By R. F. Cottrell
In conversation with an aged minister of very good repute, I mentioned a person who admitted that the 2300 days of Dan. 8:14 had ended. He replied substantially, “Well, what if they have ended?”
If the days are ended, the promised event is taking place; and the definite time was appointed that we, on earth, might know when this work is being done.
“What is the cleansing of the sanctuary?”
It is the closing work of our High Priest in Heaven, the blotting out of the sins of all his people.
“Do you think Heaven needs cleansing?”
How astonishing that the teachers of the people, and those too who have had ample opportunity to be informed on a subject of such thrilling interest, should manifest such stupidity as to re-iterate the silly objections that have been fully answered a hundred times! R. F. COTTRELL.
Old Men, Good Precepts, and Bad Examples
OLD men delight in uttering good precepts—sometimes to console themselves for being no longer in a condition to set bad examples.
If there is anything that will cure a person of backbiting, it is suffering personal injury from this cause. If in your efforts to be useful you find your best endeavors neutralized by this thing, and friends estranged, and enemies and strangers prejudiced, and your work frustrated, and your precious time lost, by evil reports, and those reports set in motion by friends whom you love, who have not spoken a word to your discredit, as they think, but only spoken lightly, you will not wish to use your own in this way, never, no never; and you will regret that you ever spoke lightly of any one. JOS. CLARKE.
HEART-POWER
Heart-power is of all others the most beneficent. Physical energy subdues matter, but the soul triumphs by the force of its affections over the mightiest of obstacles. The heart of Christ is the seat and centre of his supremacy over so many millions of our race. He is not ranked as a genius, nor as an orator. He disdained the boasted charms of philosophy. Yet his speech distilled as the dew, and his words have an inexhaustible power, which neither dullness, nor ignorance, nor depravity, nor unbelief can resist. If we seek to find the reason of their power, we shall find it in that love which vitalizes all the truth they express. Here, then, lies the secret of Christian usefulness. Ministers of the gospel, Sabbath-school teachers, parents, and all who desire to impart the gospel, must let it run through the fervid affections of the heart. Cold, intellectual instruction may have its way in the schools, and in those discussions which relate to general public affairs; but in the kingdom of Heaven the heart is master. They who put most of heart into their work have most success, and reap the largest satisfactions. This is a truth too often forgotten in these days, when so much stress is laid on methods.—Christian at Work.
LUTHER’S ARGUMENT WITH THE DEVIL.
LUTHER says, “Once upon a time the devil came to me and said, ‘Martin Luther, you are a great sinner, and you will be damned!’ ‘Stop! stop!’ said I, ‘one thing at a time; I am a great sinner, it is true, though you have no right to tell me of it. I confess it. What next?’ ‘Therefore you will be damned.’ ‘That is not good reasoning. It is true I am a great sinner, but it is written, Jesus Christ came to save sinners; therefore I shall be saved. Now go your way.’ So I cut the devil off with his own sword, and he went away mourning because he could not cast me down by calling me a sinner.”
“If all the sins which men have done,
In thought or will, in word or deed,
Since worlds were made, or time begun,
Were laid on one poor sinner’s head,
The stream of Jesus’ precious blood
Could wash away the dreadful load.”
—Bible Banner.
HOW A MOTHER CURED A SON.
A MOTHER, of high spirit, who utterly loathed this popular filth, had sometimes seen one of her “darlings” aping dandyism. She had seen him take his various degrees, as he first smoked paper, then grape-vine, then rattan, and then she caught him with the genuine article between his ruby lips. As he caught the mother’s eye, the cigar fell. “Ah!” she exclaimed, “I will kill or cure.” “Smoke away, my son,” she cried aloud. He smoked, and ceased. “Smoke away, my son,” she cried in a sterner voice. He did so, and reeled and cascaded with beautiful freedom! “Smoke away,” she cried again. At this point the urchin called for quarter, telling his mother, if she let him stop, he would “smoke no more till he was twenty-one.” But then, in a tone which would have done honor to a queen, she cried, “Smoke away, my son.” This was the finishing stroke with this miniature dandy. “Mother, let me stop! Oh! let me stop!” he cried, “and I will smoke no more till the day of my death.” She did, of course. Her treatment was effective. The son is now an admirable man, who regards “the weed,” with utter scorn and loathing.—Golden Censer.
THE WINTER'S WORK.
By James White
The winter is rapidly passing, and the Tract and Missionary Societies are falling far behind on the work allotted to them by the General Conference. But a small portion of the 10,000 new subscribers for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES have been gathered.
One measure of the Conference has been pretty generally taken hold of. A large portion of all our churches have adopted the plan to add one-third to the amount of their Systematic Benevolence for 1877. This one-fourth of all their S. B. is to be used in circulating the HEALTH REFORMER, the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and other publications. There are no reasons why a church or a Conference should wait for means to accumulate on their hands by the slow income of this system before going to work in earnest. As the result of labor, they can forward names for the SIGNS and REFORMER.
Why not every church in the land, that has not done so already, immediately order a package of the SIGNS, from eight to eighty copies, according to the amount of S. B. they pay, to use in their T. and M. work? Individuals, especially those who are scattered away from our churches, are also requested to circulate the SIGNS OF THE TIMES on the installment plan thus:—
Small churches and individuals can take eight copies at a cost of $12 a year. And if they are short of means, they can pay $1 at the commencement of each month until the entire sum shall be paid. Those who can use sixteen copies can pay $2 at the commencement of each month. Large churches can take twenty-four, thirty-two, forty, and all the way up to eighty copies or more. That church which takes eighty copies would have only $12 to pay at the commencement of each month. The little church in Oakland of about sixty members, and nearly all of them the poor of the flock, besides building a meeting-house and raising means for other missionary work, pay $51, for thirty-four copies to hand to strangers who come into their meetings and to use in general missionary work.
If all our churches and scattered brethren would act upon these suggestions at once, our list of subscribers would be swelled to 15,000 in a few weeks. If it is thought that this work should all be done through the T. and M. Societies, that will be the best way if the T. and M. workers will take hold of it at once; but let it be done immediately in some way. Let this be borne in mind, that these packages of the SIGNS are to be addressed to one person, and to be paid for in monthly installments at the commencement of each month. No packages will be sent to strangers unless the first month's installment accompanies the order.
Individuals and churches that receive packages of the SIGNS and obtain regular subscribers can have copies transferred from the packages and sent directly to the individuals at any time; but in all such cases they must pay the year's subscription for these individuals in advance. The winter is rapidly passing, and the best time for missionary labor will soon be over. The Missionary Societies have done but little toward furnishing the 10,000 subscribers for the SIGNS. We have been holding back on the great subjects of Christ in the Old Testament and the moral law in the New Testament, waiting for much greater circulation of the SIGNS before entering upon them.
The SIGNS OF THE TIMES is adapted to Missionary work. We have no publication that can do more good with the same amount of money than the SIGNS. We are making special efforts for the volume of 1877. We ask for immediate and hearty co-operation. The officers of our Tract and Missionary Societies, and the elders and deacons of our churches can bring about the desired object if they have a mind to work to the point.
We regret that a feeling has existed more or less among our people that the Tract and Missionary work has been pushed inconsiderately and rashly. In some localities this may have been true in a degree. But this error is not one-hundredth part so great as the error of doing little or nothing, which now exists to a great extent. We deplore over-action. It furnishes the devil a handle to get hold of to stop the car altogether. What has built up the cause has been steady pulling, strong pulling, and all pulling together. Sudden jerks prove to be poor policy.
But we have done all in our power to remove discouragements from all our State Tract and Missionary Societies. The REVIEW AND HERALD Office gave several of the societies that were in debt the amounts of their indebtedness—Minnesota, $943, Wisconsin $464, Indiana, $150, Missouri, $117, Kansas, $312, Iowa, $170, Maine, $100. And these very States, up to the present time, have done next to nothing in the work of furnishing the 10,000 subscribers for the SIGNS.
The Michigan Conference had $6,000 in her treasury after paying off all her ministers, and meeting all her tent expenses last September. And now that Conference is promptly adopting the added one-third to her S. B. which will add several surplus thousands to her funds. And yet Michigan has forwarded only a few hundreds of new subscribers. That State alone will have means to furnish 5,000 subscribers for the SIGNS with proper canvassing.
The most attractive and useful premiums have been made ready, such as the The Way of Life, engraving, Life of Urgos, and Sunshine Series of little books for children. Every encouragement and inducement has been held out to forward the winter's work of canvassing; and we still believe that our friends will not disappoint us. We close this hasty article by saying, Let the work be done, and let the names of new subscribers pour in by hundreds, and let the light of truth shine forth. J. W.
OUR COLLEGE.
By Albert Stone
The fair prospects of the school at the opening of the present term is a just occasion of gratitude to God and of encouragement to his people. That such an institution, freighted with blessings for the cause of truth, should receive strength, rise up, and walk, on so short notice, is little less than a marvel.
Our people not only have contributed of their means to this worthy object, but what is just as requisite, they are making a good contribution of their sons and daughters, to enable the institution to carry out its benevolent designs. This is, indeed, like transplanting choice flowers from the wilderness, where they are liable to be deformed, and even destroyed, by ruthless hands, to the choice garden carefully prepared for them, where they may be cultivated and trained by skillful hands.
This is as it should be. Still let them come; there is room for many more. May those sons be as plants grown up in their youth, and those daughters as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. Ps. 144:12.
As a matter of further encouragement, we are informed that many of these have an eye to the vineyard of the Lord as the field of their future labors. May God bless and prosper our college is the prayer of many hearts.
ALBERT STONE.
NOTES OF THE DISCUSSION IN KANSAS.—EIGHTH SESSION.
By Dudley Marvin Canright
THIRD PROPOSITION.
Do the Scriptures teach that the wicked will be annihilated? I affirmed, he denied.
Some who believe in the destruction of the wicked are a little tender about using the word annihilate, but without any reason, because it is one of the prominent definitions of the word destroy, and means no more, properly, than destroy does in its fullest sense. We maintain that the wicked, as persons, will cease to exist. Of course the material which composes them will not be annihilated, but as individuals they are annihilated, in the same sense that a house is annihilated when it is burned up, or a forest is annihilated when it is burned down. The house as a house does not exist. Annihilate is thus defined by Webster:—
“Annihilate. 1. To reduce to nothing; to destroy the existence of; as, no human power can annihilate matter. 2. To destroy the form or peculiar distinctive properties, so that the specific thing no longer exists; as, to annihilate a forest by cutting and carrying away the trees, though the timber may still exist; to annihilate a house by demolishing the structure.”
“Destroy. 1. To demolish; to pull down, to separate the parts of an edifice, the union of which is necessary to constitute the thing; as, to destroy a house or temple; to destroy a fortification.”
2. “To ruin; to annihilate a thing by demolishing or by burning; as, to destroy a city.”
3. “To ruin; to bring to naught; to annihilate; to destroy a theory or scheme; to destroy a government; to destroy influence.”
4. “To lay waste; to make desolate. ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’ Isa. 36.”
5. “To kill; to slay, to extirpate; applied to men, or other animals. ‘Ye shall destroy all this people.’ Num. 32.”
6. “To take away; to cause to cease; to put an end to; as, pain destroys happiness. ‘That the body of sin might be destroyed.’ Rom. 6.”
7. “To kill; to eat; to devour; to consume. Birds destroy insects. Hawks destroy chickens.”
8. “In general to put an end to; to annihilate a thing or the form in which it exists.”
Now, in defining the word destroy he frequently gives annihilation as its meaning. I explained what we meant by annihilation, to which my opponent took no exception. I remarked that it is plainly declared in many places that the wicked should be burned up. Mal. 4:1; Rom. 6:23; should perish; 2 Pet. 2:12, &c. Then I pictured the horrors of an endless, burning hell, with the additional fact that the righteous in glory shall see the punishment of the wicked. I called attention to the fact that the great majority of the race would be lost. You have all the heathen world, Rom. 2:11, all the infidels and unbelievers of Christian countries, and all sinners of every land and every age. Frequently very young persons who have not been very sinful, but yet have committed some sins, have died without repentance. Many such must be lost; and shall they endure eternal, unending torture?
This doctrine of hell has made millions of infidels and spiritualists, and is the chief argument in the hands of the Universalists. It dishonors God by representing him as an implacable tyrant. It was invented by heathen priests to scare the people, and was adopted by Catholic priests to extort money from the ignorant. Protestants coming out from the mother church brought this monstrous error with them, and, until lately, taught it in all its native ugliness; but the light and progress of the last quarter of a century has compelled them unwillingly to greatly modify and almost entirely change their mode of teaching upon this subject. None of the ministers of the present day preach a literal hell as they used to. They refer to it but seldom and then in very modest terms.
The annihilation or utter destruction of the wicked is sensible. Why should God keep a sinner alive in torment eternally? Will God take delight in it? Will it add to the joy of the angels? Will it add to the happiness of the righteous? Whom would it benefit? No, let them be blotted out and cease to pollute the universe of God. The penalty for sin is simply death, forfeiture of life. Gen. 9:6; Heb. 9:22.
Eld. Shick claimed that hell was not literal, there was no literal fire, no literal burning, &c. It was all figurative. It simply meant that they would be banished from the presence of God, separated from him and from the righteous. I remarked that this is just what the wicked would like. The farther they could get from God the better it would suit them. Go unto that low gambling hell; see them drinking and carousing; hear them cursing; look upon their brutal faces. Now tell them, Gentlemen, I have come to announce to you that unless you reform you shall never see God, you shall never enter Heaven, you shall not be with the righteous; but you shall live a real life, not in fire and brimstone, but far removed from the presence of God, and associated with the evil like yourself. How would they receive that? They would throw up their hats and give three cheers, saying, That is just what we want. Nothing would suit us better. Such is the hell which Eld. Shick proposed.
Here he endeavored to bring in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, though it had no bearing upon the present question, the destruction of the wicked, because it in nowise intimates anything as to the length of time which the rich man was to remain there in torment. We believe that they will be in torment just as this says, but that they will finally be destroyed; and this parable does not say they will not. So I refused to pay any attention to it, more than to make this statement.
He was very anxious to read Josephus upon this question, which was out of order; but I granted him the privilege, and gave him the book. He read at great length Josephus’ article on hades, and endorsed it. This says that hades is a hollow place under ground, divided into two apartments, that all the righteous are there in one apartment, and all the wicked in the other. Eld. Shick placed patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, all there waiting for the resurrection. This was a fatal position for him when he came to the kingdom question, as I will show. I should remark that the article on hades in Josephus is admitted by all scholars to be a forgery. Josephus never wrote it. Hence it is no proof on any question.
The Elder made one assertion on this parable, which I did not there notice; but as it is a very common one, I call attention to it now. He said that all the parables of Christ were based upon facts, never upon fiction; hence, granting that this was a parable, there must have been in the past, facts just like it upon which to found it. But this assumption is entirely false. It is evident that the most of his parables were not founded upon facts, but simply gotten up as parables always are, merely to illustrate a point. Furthermore, many of his parables are founded upon that which never could have been a fact. Notice a few.
In Matt. 7:15, we have the parable of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, going among the flock to devour them. Question, Did that ever literally happen? Did a wolf ever put on a sheep’s skin, and go among the sheep to devour them? Again in Luke 6:41, we have the parable of a man with a beam in his eye, trying to pull the mote out of his brother’s eye. Here is a man, not simply with a splinter in his eye, or a stick of wood, or a rail, but a beam, a great heavy stick of timber, actually sticking right into his eye. With this he walks around and endeavors to wipe a little mote out of his brother’s eye! That was real, was it? So the Elder said.
Again, in Matt. 15:14, we have the parable of one blind man leading another blind man. Did that ever occur? Whoever saw it? Non-sense. Again we have the parable in Luke 14, of the king who made a great supper, and bid many; and when they would not come, he sent out for the poor, lame, and blind to come in. Not obtaining enough this way, he sent unto his servants to compel them to come in from the highways and hedges. Evidently no such thing ever occurred. It is merely a parable. So with regard to the rich man and Lazarus. No such literal fact ever happened. The very parable itself shows this.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
(To be Continued.)
THE SINS OF BABYLON.
By John G. Matteson
Babylon is a symbol of those churches which have united with the world. They are represented as a city and as a great harlot. Rev. 18:2; 19:2. The Lord calls those professors who will be friends with the world adulteresses.53“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” James 4:4.
The Lord calls his people out of Babylon in the last days. “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sin, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Rev. 18:4. We must all receive the plagues of Babylon if we continue to partake of her sins. It is therefore very essential to understand what those special sins of Babylon are, that we may cleanse ourselves from them.
These sins are plainly presented in the third verse: “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” Here are three things mentioned:—
1. The wine of the wrath of her fornication. This is spoken of in the preceding chapter, and it refers evidently to the false doctrines of the Catholic Church with all those human commandments, traditions, and ceremonies, which she has introduced in the place of the commandments and ordinances of God. Many other churches have retained more or less of this wine of her fornication.
2. The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her. Here the prophet speaks of the unlawful union between church and state, which has taken place in the earth. And this includes the friendship of the world, which is enmity with God.
3. The merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. This shows how the members of these churches have given themselves to luxury, vanity and pride. They have been carried away with worldly lusts, and love to make a vain show. Thus they present a striking contrast to the poor and lowly Jesus of Nazareth, who was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.
These three things are very offensive and abominable in the sight of God. And that which makes these sins more aggravating is that those who commit them call themselves Christians, and thus blaspheme their Master and Lord.
Those who desire to come out of Babylon and not receive of her plagues need to consider this carefully. It is not enough that we change our views and name. We must learn to obey the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. We must turn away from the counterfeit friendship of the world, and open our hearts to our best friend, that Jesus may come in and sup with us, and we with him. And we must cease to strive for luxury and vain glory, and learn to be meek and quiet in our conduct before God and men. JOHN G. MATTESON.
KEEP IT BEFORE THE PEOPLE.
By R. F. C.
The various questions respecting Sabbath observance were never before the people as at the present time; and they are destined to be agitated more and more. The question of enforcing Sunday-keeping by law has led to the question whether the obligation for its observance rests upon divine authority, or upon human authority only; and its claims to divine authority not being very satisfactory to the inquiring mind, and the pious not feeling willing to admit the claims of the infidel party, that we have no weekly Sabbath at all, very naturally lead to the inquiry, Which day of the week is the Sabbath enforced by the command of God? The fourth commandment of the decalogue being the only law of the Scriptures for a weekly Sabbath day, it becomes important to know which day of the week is the Sabbath according to the commandment. The following hint upon the subject I clip from the Baltimore Sun of Feb. 1, 1877:—
“A PEACEFUL SOLUTION.
“Had not the electoral bill already passed Congress, advantage might be taken of the annexed suggestion, which appears in the New Orleans Picayune, made from Baltimore in behalf of Louisiana, to settle the presidential problem also. Though the occasion has passed for that, we cannot refrain from giving this piece of home manufacture in justice to its author as one of our citizens:—
“‘Mr. Packard is in receipt of a postal card from Baltimore, submitting a proposition for the solution of the Louisiana problem which is at once easy and satisfactory. The writer signs his name with a great deal of ink, as James T. Sazarin, 195 Sharp Street, Baltimore.
“‘This party is under the impression that the people here “transgress” too much, and do not “keep the commandments,” proposes that that party which shall be able to prove which day of the week, Saturday or Sunday, is the Sabbath, shall be entitled to the government of this State. The proposition is, on the whole, a fair one; but if it should be left to the respective legislatures to decide, we fear there would be a slight advantage in favor of the Packard side. His legislature is largely made up of preachers, while the other side has none but invited ones.’”
R. F. C.
NOTE.—We think that the other side would stand a fair chance, as the “invited ones” are full as apt not to get muddled on clear Scripture as the preachers are.
C. W. S.
HOW DIFFERENTLY MEN ARE CONSTITUTED!
By R. F. Cottrell
From the same premises opposite conclusions are drawn. How strange! To illustrate, I quote a late writer as follows:—
“No. 1 [the decalogue], does not contain a single precept that will be needed by the saved in the world to come. Look over the ten commandments. Will these be necessary in the kingdom of Heaven? Does any one believe it? Will a holy man need a commandment telling him he must not murder, steal, swear, lie, or commit adultery? This covenant, No. 1, was applicable to a hard-hearted, blind, and sinful people that needed a curb bit. Such were the Jews.”
The argument fully stated stands thus: 1. All in the world to come will be holy persons. 2. No holy person will violate one of these precepts. These are the premises, and so far we are agreed; but how widely different the conclusions! His conclusion is, 3. Therefore the decalogue “was abolished, being ended at the cross.”
From the same premises I come to the conclusion that these precepts will be law in the world to come. No one will break them; consequently it will be the law or rule, without an exception, to keep them. To make them the law it is not necessary that any one should violate them. It is possible that the will of God may be done perfectly “in earth as it is in Heaven.” Will not his will then be law? When I read in prophecy that in the new earth all flesh shall come from Sabbath to Sabbath to worship the Lord, I infer that the Sabbath will be observed by all its inhabitants without an exception, and therefore the Sabbath precept will be a universal law. See Isa. 66:22, 23.
But for the fact that so many are now violating this precept, and desire to excuse themselves in their disobedience, our writer had never made his raid against the decalogue.
But supposing his inference to be sound, that holy men in the world to come will need no such restrictions as are contained in the ten commandments, does he not have them abolished eighteen hundred years too soon? He must admit that there are some men now that need such laws. There are some “hard-hearted, blind, and sinful people” now, that need a curb, as well as the Jews of old. But perhaps the decalogue is abolished only in respect to such good men as he is. He concludes an argument against the Sabbath thus: “As he [Jesus] has nowhere intimated that he wishes us to keep the seventh day observed by the Jews, it is certainly not enjoined upon his disciples. Here we rest, trusting sweetly in Him who keeps us in ‘perfect peace.’”
Jesus did affirm the perpetuity of every jot and tittle of his law, till heaven and earth pass. But as he never intimated that he wishes us to keep the first day of the week, instead of the seventh, is not the conclusion full as logical that “it is certainly not enjoined upon his disciples.” He has given a solemn warning to those who break the commandments and teach men so, but some don’t seem to mind it. They think they are so good that they do not need such precepts.
“If men but knew it, in their reckless strife,They’re laboring hard to lose eternal life.”
Immediately after deciding that the ten commandments will not be needed in the world to come, because they are not suited to holy men, the writer proceeds to present the two great commandments as every way suitable to that state. He says they “are eternal in their application to all intelligent created beings, in all generations, world without end.” Now following his course of reasoning we ask, “Will a holy man need a commandment telling him he must love the Lord with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself, to prevent his hating God and his neighbor?” “Will these be necessary in the kingdom of Heaven?” But can one love God and his neighbor as required in these great precepts, and at the same time violate one of the ten commandments? “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments;” not as a grievous burden, but as a delightful privilege.
The opposers of the law of God give painful evidence of insanity. To say that no two of them are agreed is not telling the whole truth. No one of them can write a small tract in defense of his theory, without taking several contradictory positions. If the fourth commandment has any determinate meaning, it commands those to whom it is addressed to rest from their own labor on the day on which God rested from his. But our author argues that the day the Jews were required to keep did not correspond “with the seventh day of the original week;” but was another day given to commemorate their deliverance from Egypt. On another page he gets time all disarranged, and drives us into an inextricable maze, by a long day when the sun stood still in the time of Joshua. Again he says, “Astronomical calculations give evidence that the Lord’s day, now observed by Christians generally, is the one first kept in Eden. It appears quite plain that the Jews had a new rest-day, not observed by other nations. In Persia, where the patriarchs lived, the people turned away from the worship of the true and living God to the worship of the sun, and called it ‘Sunday.’ They did not lose the original rest-day, but changed the mode of worship.”
The original rest-day has not been lost, then, though Joshua did command the sun to stand still. Astronomical calculations and the idolatrous Persians have preserved it. Those who departed from the true God to idols still kept the true Edenic Sabbath; while Abraham and his seed who were separated from idolatry and called to the worship of the true God, had another day to keep, enforced by a commandment which caused them to believe that it was the Sabbath, or rest-day of God, the day on which he rested when he made the world!
The writer implies that there was a Sabbath “first kept in Eden,” and that it was “observed by other nations.” If so, this Sabbath-keeping was in accordance with a divine law. If this was a law of God, Abraham kept it; for God testifies of him as follows: “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Gen. 26:5. Abraham’s time was certainly more than four hundred and thirty years before the deliverance from Egypt. And God said of Abraham, “I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord.” Now which kept the true Edenic Sabbath? Abraham and his seed, or the idolatrous nations from which they were separated?
Astronomy is a very exact science. It settles the time of historic eclipses. But if you go back of reliable human history, and undertake to tell by astronomy the exact beginning of earthly time and the day of the week on which God rested, you will find as great a lack as Archimedes did when he said that the only thing which hindered him from lifting the world was a fulcrum on which to rest his lever.
I prefer to trust in God, in the second of Genesis, in the fourth commandment, and in the concurrent testimony of Christ and his apostles, to inform me of the day on which He rested.