Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1861
ARE MIRACLES PRECLUDED BY THE LAWS OF NATURE?
IT has long been with infidels a standing argument against Christianity, that its miracles are contrary to the laws of nature, and therefore unworthy to be credited. The laws of nature, say they, are uniform; we never knew them vary; but we have often found human testimony false; hence, when the two are in conflict, we are bound as philosophers to reject the uncertain in favor of the certain.
It becomes us therefore to inquire, What does nature teach? Has she any testimony to offer on this subject, and what is it? Has she made any laws that bind the action of the Eternal?
We reply, Nature makes no laws. To make laws requires intelligence; but of this, nature is not possessed. She cannot tell why it would be better to impress upon the planets two forces than one; if she can, then she becomes mind, and is raised to the rank of divinity, an elevation which many would, no doubt, accord her, if by that means they could disprove the existence of a God. Nature has no laws except what God has given her. The term "laws of nature" appears to be a philosophical expression, invented for the purpose of avoiding any direct recognition of them as God's laws. So of the new phrase which Darwin has invented, "natural selection," as though nature selected such individuals and species as are best adapted to existing circumstances and conditions, and rejected the rest. Nature makes no selection. The phrase is an absurdity. The great discovery designated by its author, as "natural selection," is, in plain terms, simply this: that those races which are best adapted to the conditions of life, live, whilst those which are less adapted become extinct.
We have not the least reason for supposing there is any such thing in the universe as force, except what comes from mind. One of the primary characteristics of matter is, that it is inert. It cannot move of itself, nor when put in motion, can it of itself cease from moving. The Almighty impresses upon a particle, or collection of particles, motion in a straight line, and were there no other force to counteract, these particles would move on in a right line forever. But he also impresses matter with gravitation, and forthwith suns and systems are imbued with a compound motion, projecting them in wonderful order through the orbits to which this union of forces confines them. The power to move the human frame comes from the mind. We have a certain portion of matter included within our physical organism, and connected with the mind by nerves and muscles through which that matter is controlled; and when we will that the hand should rise, it rises; or that the foot should fall, it falls. The power that we have over a hand, but in higher perfection, God has over every particle of matter in the universe. Every seed that germinates does so by means of force, impressed by the Creator; every winged ray of light is sent on its errand by God's hand; every hue that variegates the face of nature is an impress of his will. Man acts upon matter indirectly as well as directly; the motion which he communicates to the hand is transmitted to the implement which the hand wields, and is thus communicated to other bodies with which it comes in contact. God acts in like manner; his machines are at work throughout the whole system of nature. One of the most wondrous laws he has given her is that each organized form shall reproduce itself, like giving birth to like, from the hyssop under the wall to the cedar of Lebanon; from the mammoth to the animalcula; from nervous man to the senseless polyp. The same rule is extended to other than organic substances; anger begets anger; love begets love; smile begets smile; terror begets terror; virtue and vice spread their likeness wherever they can find objects to influence; the thoughts and opinions of one man reflect themselves in the thoughts and opinions of others; a pulsation of music multiplies itself through all the air; a single ripple becomes a thousand waves; flame spreads flame; disease propagates disease; so far as our knowledge extends, image mirrors image, throughout the whole extent of being.
This is but one of the Creator's laws; he has made others of like universality in their application, and under them he has set the wheels of nature in motion. But will he never change their modes of operation? Will he never stop the machine? Will not the wheels be sometimes turned off the track in order to a special end? Interrogate nature on this point. What says reason? What says probability? What says analogy? Does not the mower's scythe sometimes make a balk in order to spare a bird's nest? If mind be the force which moves all this machinery we must expect there will be variations.
Occasional deviation from established rules is the prerogative of intelligence. Without any actual evidence on the subject, it would be vastly more reasonable to suppose there would be special interferences with nature's laws, than that there would be none. That there should never be a miracle, would be the greatest miracle of all. It would lead almost inevitably, to the atheist's conclusion, that there is no God!
Hence the importance of miracles, in any system of religion that is expected to secure credence. So far from a religion of miracles being repugnant to the common sense of mankind, we find that the inhabitants of all countries, when unsophisticated by science, are believers in supernatural interpositions of the Deity. The religious want in man's nature creates a necessity for something above and beyond the operation of physical causes. A supernatural religion man will have, must have, by the very constitution of his being. Infidels, atheists even, are obliged to resort to their superstitions as a substitute for the revelation they have discarded.
Christianity can only be rejected from dislike to its doctrines. The miracles of the Old and New Testaments are certified to us by an amount of evidence unequalled in any other department of human history. Writers in defense of Christianity have portrayed and argued these evidences with such clearness and force, that nothing further in this direction can be desired. And yet there will, no doubt, be skeptics till the day when the Son of man shall appear in the clouds of heaven. Men who claim to be philosophers profess their inability to accept the Scripture miracles. They would not be so averse to a belief in the special exercise of omnipotent power, if it were only exerted on great occasions. They would allow that the Creator may have started the primordial germs of vegetable and animal life; they would admit the reasonableness of his setting the worlds in motion; they would feel no strong repugnance to the idea of a general divine government through the operation of natural causes; but a special providence, a universality and minuteness of direction that includes the sparrow's fall, a positive interference with the course of nature for the sake of rewarding or punishing, advancing or preventing the purposes of mankind; above all, the bestowment of supernatural power on mortals, in answer to faith and prayer, the connection, through an atoning Mediator and an intercommunicating Spirit, of man with his Maker; these are doctrines incomprehensible to the carnal man, whose only life is the life of the flesh, who has no spiritual experience, who "receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
It is here that our treatises in defense of Christianity fail; and fail they always must, to a greater or less degree, not through the imperfection of evidence, but through the lack of spiritual perception, the blind eye, and the deaf ear, and the pulseless heart of the dead sinner to whom the reasoning is addressed. The church must rely for its power, not on proofs82and arguments, but on present spiritual experience. It is the living faith of the living members of Christ's living spiritual body that can lay hold on heavenly promises, bring down heavenly power, and scatter heavenly influences through an unbelieving world.
The conversion of sinners is as really the result of supernatural interposition as the raising of the dead to life. With Christ and his apostles the pardon of sins stood on the same footing as other supernatural gifts. The mighty Healer not only said, "Rise and walk," but also, "Thy sins be forgiven thee!" The word that healed and the word that saved were one. "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and if he has committed sins they shall be forgiven." It cannot be that the power of faith is obsolete. It cannot be that Christ and his apostles would have insisted with such earnestness upon the importance of faith, if it were not to be connected with spiritual heavenly gifts to the end of time. Faith was a leading subject in all our Lord's discourses. His life was a continued example of its perfect exercise. He spoke to the tossing waves, and every crested billow felt the instant check of an omnipotent rein. Come, said he to Peter, and the sea became solid to his tread. Money was wanted, and the magnetic thread that stretches from the Creator's throne to the remotest atom of the universe, draws the fish with his treasure to Peter's hook. Bear no more fruit, said he to the fig-tree, and the life force that sent up rich juices through trunk, and branch, and leaf, ceased its play. It was not as man, but as God, that he spoke, thought the disciples. Nay, said the Master, ye also, if ye have faith, can do not only the same, but even greater things. It is impossible for us to read Paul's enumeration, in the eleventh of Hebrews, of what faith has done, without feeling that the saints of old knew something of a power with God which Christians at the present day have in a great measure lost. Nearly all these instances of faith were attended by supernatural tokens of divine favor; the acceptance of Abel's offering; the translation of Enoch; the preservation of Noah; the miraculous interpositions in favor of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph and Moses. Faith cried, and the waters opened; faith blew the ram's horn, and unseen forces scattered the city walls; Samson prayed, and a spiritual influence strung every nerve with a superhuman strength; prophets were permitted to look into futurity; women received their dead restored to life; through faith persecuted saints "stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong."
This is the very faith of which the Apostle is speaking, when he tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Then Christians must all possess it. They may have it in different degrees, but if they are without it, the Scriptures pronounce them earthly, sensual, having not the Spirit. Only the living Christian is properly prepared to resist the assaults of infidelity. He has the witness within himself; the supernatural inflowing of the divine life. This is the best of all evidence. While the merely intellectual believer is perpetually weighing human testimony, harassed with doubt and anxiety, lest some new discovery of geology, or astronomy, or history, should be found to conflict with the sacred record, he that has the Spirit feels no such perturbation; no speculations or reasonings of philosophers can shake the basis of his faith, for it rests on personal experience; he can as soon be persuaded that his physical life is a dream or a delusion, as that the higher life infused into his soul by the Spirit of holiness, is not a blessed and divine reality. He has not only the inward consciousness of a joyous communion with heaven, but he occasionally experiences in the course of his pilgrimage, direct and unmistakable answers to prayer, such as bring with them the same evidence of supernatural interposition as did the miracles of old.—Am. Baptist.
GROWING IN GRACE.
By Richard Chenevix Trench
THIS did not once so trouble me, That better I could not love Thee; But now I feel and know, That only when we love, we find, How far our hearts remain behind The love they should bestow.
While we had little care to call On Thee, and scarcely prayed at all, We seemed enough to pray; But now we only think with shame, How seldom to thy glorious name Our lips their offerings pay.
And when we gave yet slighter heed Unto our brother's suffering need, Our heart reproached us then Not half so much as now, that we With such a careless eye can see The woes and wants of men.
In doing is this knowledge won, To see what yet remains undone; With this our pride repress, And give us grace, a growing store, That day by day we may do more, And may esteem it less. [Richard Chenevix Trench.
Tempted at Degrees
TEMPTED AT DEGREES.—John Newton says, "Satan seldom comes to Christians with great temptations, or with a temptation to commit a great sin. You bring a green log and a candle together, and they are very safe neighbours; but bring a few shavings and set them alight, and then bring a few small sticks and let them take fire, and the log be in the midst of them, and you will soon get rid of your log. And so it is with little sins. You will be startled with the idea of committing a great sin, and so the devil brings you to indulge yourself. 'There is no great harm in this,' 'no great peril in that,' and so, by these little chips, we are first easily lighted up, and at last the green log is burned.
"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."
CHRIST'S SYMPATHY.
No exercise of the human affections is so beneficial as that of sympathy. To the heart almost broken with sorrow, it is beyond measure cheering and refreshing. To the person bowed down with grief, it is a stay and support. To the victim of disappointment, ready to despair of success, it is a source of encouragement, often the stepping stone to prosperity and happiness. In time of rejoicing it adds that drop to our cup which causes it to overflow. When the heart has been made sick with hope deferred, and fears and doubts begin to reign within, it is a cordial to our souls, dispels our doubts and drives away our fears. Our Creator, in the exercise of his wisdom and goodness, has implanted it in the soul of man to alleviate the troubles and lessen the miseries so inseparable from our lot, even in its most pleasant form, and to heighten those joys and brighten those hopes, which make a period of sunshine in our journey through this world. Mutually dependent as we are to so great an extent, we require it, and we look for it, the one from the other, and it is our duty freely to bestow it.
In order to the exercise of this feeling there must be love. Sympathy with one whom we hate is impossible; with a person in whom we feel no interest, it can scarcely be said to exist. And in proportion to our love will be the measure of our sympathy. Hence the fullness and largeness of a mother's sympathy in all the varied hopes and fears and joys and sorrows of her children—in the childish sports and fleeting griefs of youth as well as in the real and more serious cares of later years. Hence, too, the tender sympathy of the loving partner of our life—her who has been united to us for weal or woe, till death shall separate us. Even in things in which it might be thought she would not be able to manifest it, or only in a slight degree, love comes to her assistance, and atones for all deficiencies. Oh! the value of the sympathy of a loving affectionate mother, or of a tender, faithful wife! Often has it reclaimed the erring man and strengthened his resolutions of reform. Often has it saved the strong man from ruin, and kept him from yielding to the dark and gloomy promptings of despair. Often has it eased his troubled mind, and upheld his weary hands. Often has it sweetened his cup of pleasure, and made him feel that the lines had fallen unto him in pleasant places—yea, that he had a goodly heritage.
Experience, wisdom and a knowledge of character tend to perfect our sympathy. The affectionate child may and will sympathize with his parent when in distress, but how far short does it fall of his who once buffeted the same billows of misfortune himself, or of his whom a long acquaintance has made to know his friend even better than he knows himself! But as none possess all the qualifications, and only some in a limited degree, man's sympathy is necessarily imperfect; hence the need of one superior to man to administer consolation and comfort—one who will possess in their fullest extent, all things necessary for so doing.
In nothing is the exercise of this feeling more useful or more called for than in the trials and difficulties of the Christian life; the young convert who is just setting out on his journey, especially needs it. Oftentimes has the kind sympathy of a Christian friend been like life from the dead unto him. Harrassed by temptations, he begins to think that his religion is a delusion, and that his troubles are peculiar to himself, and he is ready to give up in order to find relief. How cheering then, at such a crisis, to meet with some Christian brother who details to him a similar experience in the beginning of his Christian life, tells him not to be discouraged, for in due time, if he faint not, he will obtain deliverance! To many a believer it has been the decisive moment in his career, the grain which turned the scale when he was hesitating between going on and turning back.
We need it too, in our seasons of joy and rejoicing. How it enhances these to behold our brethren exulting in our happiness as we tell them of the goodness we have experienced at the hand of God! "Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he has done for my soul," is the language of every believer. What is it makes the fellowship of Christians so delightful, and their communion so profitable as they "take sweet counsel together, and walk unto the house of God in company?" Is it not the calling out of their sympathies, in seeing so many points of resemblance in their religious experiences?
Valuable as is Christian sympathy, what is it when compared with that of our great High Priest, our elder Brother, our Saviour our Redeemer? His is so tender and comprehensive, perfect in every respect. He possesses in an infinite degree, all the requisites for the most unbounded exercise of this feeling. Consider the greatness of his love, the breadth, and length and depth and height of which surpass our comprehension. Remember, too, the intimate experimental knowledge he has of all the troubles which befall us in the course of our life. He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; in infancy he was cradled in poverty; in manhood he had not where to lay his head; at the beginning of his ministry he was tempted forty days by his great adversary; at the close of his life, in that hour which he called "your hour and the power of darkness," he was exposed to hell's ungovernable fury. He hungered, he thirsted, he was weary. He was insulted and mocked by his enemies, reproached and forsaken by his friends; he agonized in the garden, and his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. On the cross he endured the hiding of his Father's countenance, which caused him to exclaim, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Meditate on these things, and see how well able he is to sympathize with you in all your sorrows. Although God hath highly exalted him far above all principality, and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, he still retains that heart which took compassion on the widow who was following her only son to the grave, that heart which wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and mourned for Jerusalem as he contemplated its impending doom. Blessed be God, "we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the fellow-feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin." And blessed be his holy name for the encouragement we are to draw therefrom: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Christ suffered not only that he might satisfy divine justice, but also that he might be qualified to sympathize with his people in their sufferings.
He is acquainted, moreover, with the disposition and character of every one of his people, with all the events of their lives, with their present feelings, situations, and wants; and to all these—innumerably various though they be—his wisdom enables him to adapt those consolations which he alone is able to bestow. He knows what is in man. "He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust!" He has wrestled with the tempter, and he knows how hard it is83for flesh and blood to overcome him. Oftentimes he sees that our inclinations exceed our ability, that "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." How well then, and how fully he can sympathize with us! "For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted."
The prophet Isaiah, when reviewing God's dealings with his ancient people, says: "In all their afflictions he was afflicted." How constant and how comprehensive this sympathy! "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" was his language to that wicked man when on his way to Damascus to destroy all those who called upon the name of Jesus.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me," will be his language of approval at the day of judgment to those on his right hand; while to those on his left, he will utter the language of condemnation. "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." See here the condescension connected therewith in his identifying of himself with the meanest of his people. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye." Believers are "members of Christ's body, of his flesh, and of his bones; and whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." "Now we are the body of Christ, and members in particular." These passages present to us its quickness and completeness.
What a source of joy and rejoicing have we in these thoughts! We may be despised by the world, and unknown, but we have a friend that sticketh closer than a brother—we have one who feels for us, who pitieth us as a father pitieth his children. How cheering when alone, to know that Christ is with us to comfort us and console us! Well, then, may we dispense without a murmur with the friendship and sympathy of man; the friendship and sympathy of God are far better. These will sustain us when flesh and heart faint and fail us.—
ANSWERING OUR OWN PRAYERS.
The many kind responses to our brief paragraphs on "the model prayer-meeting" and on "prayerless prayers," prompt us to a few further words on answering our own prayers. We use this expression, not too literally, but simply for want of a better one. The idea we aim at is, that every Christian is bound to do his utmost for the fulfillment of his own prayers. He is never to ask God to give what he is not trying his utmost to obtain; he is never to ask God to make him what he is not faithfully trying to become.
This is our idea. It is partially illustrated by the familiar fable of Hercules and the wagoner. When the overloaded wagon sank into the mire, instead of laboring to pry out the imbedded vehicle, the wagoner fell to praying Hercules to interpose his brawny arm for his relief. The god of muscle, thus appealed to, reminded the luckless teamster that while he prayed for help, he had better put his own shoulder to the wheel and help himself.
In one sense this heathen fable illustrates the true relation between the sovereign God and the child of prayer. On our side is complete dependence. On the side of Omnipotence is infinite mercy. From him cometh down every good and every perfect gift. And because we are so dependent upon our heavenly Father, and owe him so much of submission, obedience and trust, therefore are we to "pray without ceasing." But while we pray we are to work; first as a proof of the sincerity of our desires, and next, in order to obey God, who commands us to become the very men that we ask him to make us by his grace.
Does every child of God do his utmost to secure the answers to his own uttered requests? Most emphatically, we reply, no! With even the best men, there is a sad disparity between prayer and practice—between the askings of the lips and the actings of the heart—between their life and their liturgy.
1. Take for example the oft repeated prayer for growth in grace. This is a vital request, and the most formal Christian professor will utter it nearly every day of his life. If he would resist the continual gravitation of inward sin and surrounding worldliness, he must cry as continually for heart-grace. But just imagine the owner of a vast field of weeds kneeling down among the "johnswort" and Canada thistles, and praying God to give him from that field a plentiful corn harvest! Not a furrow has been turned. Not a kernel planted. But the insane husbandman implores from heaven a crop, toward the growing of which his sluggish fingers have not been lifted. My Christian brother, you never are guilty of such folly in the management of your secular interests. You never expect cargoes without sending ships seaward; you never count on crops without ploughing, manuring and seeding your acres. No school-girl would expect to see her pet flower grow in the conservatory without water and fresh earth. She sprinkles the azalea leaves until they drip, and feeds the delicate tuberose with new earth as its wasting leaves telegraph its hunger. God takes care of her plants, but she takes care of them too, and does not expect him to work miracles for the benefit of lazy people. Her prayer for her flowers is in the brimming pitcher and the virgin earth which her careful hands bring to the green-house.
Carry this same principle into your religion. Do you pray with the lips for growth in holiness, growth in heavenly mindedness, growth in spiritual stamina? Then to the work of cleansing the heart-field! Then to the cutting up of the tares of covetousness, the johnswort of pride, the nettles of selfishness, the briers of deceit, the overgrown burdocks of sloth, and the seed-scattering thistles of unbelief! Pull them by the roots. Give your inward lusts no quarter. Keep no terms with them. Make no compromise with some darling sin to sprout and grow unobserved in some back corner of your soul-garden. Clear out every weed in order that the seed-corn of godliness may have the full strength of the affections and the energies to make it grow. Watch over that precious seed. Water it with prayers and penitential tears. Strengthen it with Bible truth. And as you pray for the growth of heart piety, let no indulged lust, no pet sin, harbored in secret places prove your uttered prayer to be an abomination in the sight of the all-searching God. "If I regard iniquity in my heart (i. e., if I cling to it and cherish it) God will not hear me." Nor will the Lord of holiness answer with a yea what we are practically answering with a nay.
2. Let us illustrate and apply this principle in the next place, to parents who are praying for the conversion of their children. No petition is more fitting than this; none could be more acceptable to God. But what hope have you my friend for the renewal of your children's hearts if you pray in one direction with the lips, and quite in the opposite direction with the life? We see constantly the two antagonistic types of parental influence. Both are nominally Christian; only one is really such. The one man pleads at the altar for the sanctification of his household—that his sons may become sons of God, and his daughters may be as polished stones in the temple of Christ. He makes religion prominent in his family; it is visible, legible and above board. The books that are brought home for the children to read, the newspapers that are taken, the amusements that are chosen, the society that is sought, the aims in life that are set before those children all bear in one direction, and in the right direction. God is not asked by that father to convert his offspring to godliness while he is doing his best to pervert them to sin and worldliness. Nor is God implored to convert them while the parent uses no agencies to effect the longed-for result.
Yet professed Christians do this very thing often in morals and religion. They pray for their children's recovery to holiness, and then poison them! They pray for a son's purity, and then flash the wine-cup before his eyes. They pray for a daughter's conversion with a theater ticket in their pockets—a "family ticket" for the whole household! They go to church, look devout, and then come home to trifle, to gossip, to entertain Sunday visitors at a sumptuous feast, to talk politics, to do anything, in short, but follow up the teachings of God's minister with affectionate faithful home instructions. The practical effect of their whole conduct and conversation, both on the Lord's day, and all the days of the week, is to undo whatever good may have been done by the earnest labors of the pulpit. What must such children think of those fluent prayers that they hear every night at the family altar? What of the consistency of those parents who utter such solemn mockeries? Oh! it is better never to pray at all for the conversion of your offspring, than to ask God in solemn tones to save them while you are using your whole influence to harden and destroy them. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou unfaithful servant."
In eternity it will be a terrible thing for many a man to meet his own prayers. Their very language will condemn him; for he knew his duty but he did it not. Those fervent prayers which the good man labored to make effectual, will be "shining ones" in white raiment to conduct their author in to the banqueting-house of the great King. But the falsehoods uttered at the throne of grace will live again as tormenting scorpions in the day of the Lord's appearing. Be not rash with thy mouth, nor let thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God," is an injunction that forbids more than irreverence in prayer. It forbids us, by implication, to ask for that which we do not sincerely desire. Above all, it forbids the asking from God those blessings which we are hindering by our neglect, or thwarting by our selfishness and unbelief.—T. L. Cuyler.
EARLY CHARITY.
TRAIN your children in charity. Begin young. As soon as they can speak, they can learn the grace of giving pity, prayers and money to the destitute and distressed. Easier then than later. When the tenderness of childhood and youth has been supplanted by the more earnest and sterner business of active life, it will be much harder to touch the heart with tales of sorrow, and elicit sympathy in its behalf.
The mother of queen Victoria often took her when a small girl, into the hovels of the poor and sick, and thus taught her to sympathize with the heirs of poverty. Childhood is more sympathetic and tender than age. Train it to love the good, to pity the suffering, and help the needy. Send your children with presents to the poor. Give the poor a chance to talk to them. When collections are to be taken, give them money that they can give for themselves. In this respect parents are often at fault. They give for their children, but this will not affect their experience in the least. Give a child a penny, a shilling, a dollar; tell it of the breadless poor, of the millions that have no Saviour, and its own heart will at once respond with the money. To make it liberal, generous, zealous in the cause of God, benevolent and kind to the poor, begin early. All Sabbath-schools ought to institute a system of beneficence, to cultivate the grace of charity in the scholars. The different objects of benevolence should frequently be explained to them so as to enlist, at least their sympathy in their behalf. In this respect it is likewise true: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Mr. Beecher on "Feet-Washing.
THE Examiner says, that Henry Ward Beecher, in his sermon before Theodore Parker's congregation in Boston, took ground that "feet-washing is a most affecting ordinance of the church," which stands upon a command just as explicit, and just as literally enjoined as the "Lord's supper, or baptism," and which "bears an idea as fundamental to humanity and manhood as these other sacred ordinances do to spirituality, and faith, and futurity."
THOUGHTS ON THE ADVENT.
(Continued)
ALTHOUGH we have found many unequivocal declarations in the oracles of God that the Son of man is to return to this earth personally and visibly in power and glory, and have produced an amount of evidence on the point, which must be more than satisfactory to every candid mind, there are other scriptures which we are unwilling to pass entirely by.
The coming of the Lord is inseparably connected with other scenes. A series of events of which this forms a part is often spoken of in the word of God as a whole; the day in which it is to take place we find many times and uniformly described. This being the case, it follows that those scriptures which foretell any of these events, or declare to us that such a day is approaching, become so many direct prophecies of the coming of Christ, though this event may not be particularly specified therein. To a few passages of this class we now propose to call attention. "For yourselves know perfectly," says Paul in 1 Thess. v, 2, "that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." But what about this day of the Lord? Has this anything to do with the coming of Christ? Is the latter one of the events to take place therein? See the connection. In the previous chapter, verse 16, Paul had been discoursing directly about the coming of the Lord, and laying down declarations plain and strong like this: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." And he continues in the first verse of chap. v, "But of the times and seasons [when these things shall take place] ye have no need that I write unto you." Why? "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord cometh," &c.; and since you know about this, you of course know about the coming of Christ, which is one of its primary events.
Again, we have in Rev. vi, 12-17 a record of the events which John saw transpiring under the sixth seal. After mentioning the signs in the sun, moon and stars, he brings us to the closing event of the series when the heavens depart as a scroll, and every mountain and island move out of their places, and the great, and rich, and noble of earth cry to the rocks and mountains, saying, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand!" There can be no mistaking the fearful scene here brought to view. But it involves the presence of him who sitteth on the throne, the revelation from on high of the once insulted, but now exalted and avenging Lamb; for otherwise they could not pray to be hid from his presence or buried from his wrath. So we may add Rev. vi, 16, to the long catalogue of inspired announcements that the Lord will come.
In Isa. xiii, 6, 9, 10; Joel ii, 31; Zeph. i, 14, we have portrayed before us, in the graphic and sublime strains of inspiration, the great day of the Lord, which is appointed for all the earth. But no surer does the day of the Lord burst upon us, than our Redeemer appears to the salvation of all them that look for him. Heb. ix, 28.
Before leaving this division of the subject, we must notice a few more scriptures which speak to us of the great fact of the second coming of our Lord; not that they are necessary to the establishment of the point in question, but simply for the gratification which the heavenward traveler feels as he sees his hope recorded before him in line upon line, line upon line, here and there, throughout the book of God. To the weary pilgrim who mourns the ruins of the fall, no prospect can be more cheering than a restoration of all things to their primeval state, a cure of all the evils that sin has wrought. And such a restitution has been graciously promised. But what shall introduce this glorious era? Nothing less than the second coming of the Lord. Peter speaks in Acts iii, 19, of the times of refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord, and adds, "And he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must receive till the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
Very much after the tenor of this passage is another found in 1 Tim. vi, 14, 15: "That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his times he shall show," &c. It is here declared that the appearing of Jesus shall be shown; in Acts iii, that God shall send him; and when the Almighty utters his purposes with a shall, who is he that dare disbelieve!
1 Thess. i, 10. "He shall come to be glorified in his saints." 2 Thess. ii, 8. "And then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." To harmonize this scripture with their soporific theory, advocates of a temporal millennium tell us that a personal coming is not here intended, but a coming in the sense of an increased power imparted to the truth, and a universal spread of the gospel; and that by this means the man of sin is to be destroyed and consumed, or, in other words, be converted to the religion of Jesus. Had such persons never read beyond verse 8, although their interpretation would then be marvelous in the extreme, it might still be looked upon with greater allowance. But we feel warranted in utterly scouting such an idea, from the verses immediately following in which we are told that those who perish, are such as did not receive the love of the truth, and were therefore given over to strong delusion, not that they might be converted and saved, but that they all might be damned. Nothing less than a personal coming, and that, too, in inconceivable power and glory, can produce the results mentioned in verse 8. Such it will therefore be.
Paul in his letter to Titus [ii, 11-13] tells us that the grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ," or as it might better be rendered, the appearing of the glory of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
But Paul is not the only witness here. The other sacred penmen all come forward as if impatient to bear testimony to the glorious theme. Peter dwells in glowing terms on the coming day of the Lord, and carries us forward to the delightful scene of the new earth wherein righteousness alone shall dwell. And Jude, in his brief letter to Christians, is careful not to omit the fact that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints.