Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 1, 1858
Victory over the Beast.
By A. S. Hutchins
THAT there is a glorious and most triumphant victory for the remnant "over the beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name," to be realized and enjoyed a little distance in the future, we think the word of the Lord plainly teaches.
"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." Rev. xv, 2.
This company we believe to be the same as described in the previous chapter, verse 3. "And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders; and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth."
That a very severe conflict, a trying struggle lies between us and this blessed victory, we doubt not. Respecting this, however, there is some difference of opinion at present. Some supposing that the martyrdom of all the living saints will be accomplished by the image of the beast, before the Saviour comes, and that they will remain dead three days and a half, and that they will then awake in a mortal state, and subsequently be changed to immortality.
Others are firm in the belief that those who endure unto the end, will not suffer death, but will live and "remain" unto the coming of the Son of man. To this position we are driven, by the evidences gathered from the Scriptures on this point.
Speaking of the two-horned beast, John says, "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Rev. xiii, 15.
So far as we have been able to learn, this is the leading text from which the conclusion is drawn that the saints will all be put to death; and we may remark by far the most plausible, to our mind. Some months since, I conversed freely with one of the strongest advocates of this view, and I was unable to see the least show of any plausibility in its favor, setting aside this text.
But this vanishes at once, before Wakefield's translation of this verse, furnished us in the Review, No. 17. Let us read it again. It may steady the pace of those in difficulty on this point. We think it should.
"And he was allowed to give breath to this image of the beast, that this image of the beast might give orders to execute death on those who will not worship the image of the beast."
As was remarked in the Review to which we call your attention, so we say, "Now unless we suppose that every wicked power will be permitted to put into execution every decree of vengeance which it may see fit to issue against the people of God, the text can furnish no ground for the above conclusion."
Again, if the position of the death of all the saints be tenable, we would ask in what sense do the remnant church obtain the victory over the beast, and over his image, that the people of God did not over the first beast, the Papal Church, and over Paganism? Under those cruel and crushing powers, millions inspired by the hope of a "better resurrection," and of a martyr's crown, cheerfully laid down their lives, rather than to yield their religion and have deliverance from their sufferings. Truly with christian fortitude, were they obedient to the injunction, "Be thou faithful unto death."
Mark the language expressing the power of the Papacy over the Church of God; and he shall "wear out the saints of the Most High." Dan. vii, 25. "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them." Rev. xiii, 7. How did he overcome them? Certainly not by compelling them to bow to his mandates, and worship him. He overcame them in that he had power to take their life; to hush their voice in death.
Now we conclude that victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, will consist not only in keeping all the Commandments of God, contrary to the mandates of the beast, but will also secure to us a triumphant victory over his wicked decree to take from us our life.
Says the Apostle, "Behold, I shew you a mystery! We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." With our view of this subject, there is no necessity for correcting the Apostle in this mystery as some do; for says one who advocates the opposite view, Paul meant we should not all be asleep when Christ comes.
We can see no necessity for dislocating one joint of the Apostle's teaching on this subject. And if not, with him we conclude that some will be alive and remain, to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. "Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. iv, 13-18.
A. S. HUTCHINS.
Monterey, Mich., March 19th, 1858.
Not Under the Law, but Under Grace.
By A. THAYER
BRO. SMITH: The position taken by H. L. Hastings in a letter to a Sabbath-keeping friend of mine, together with a multitude of others, who are waiting for the Son of God from heaven, but reject the Third Message, induced me to pen the accompanying lines for publication in the Review, if you think it will subserve the glory of our dear Redeemer, who has "loved us and given himself for us," and the good of our fellow men.
Yours waiting for the everlasting kingdom to be set up under the whole heaven.
A. THAYER.
Buckland, Mass., March 9th, 1858.
CHRISTIANS "not under Law, but under grace." Rom. vi, 14. Do they then transgress Law, because they "are not under Law, but under grace?" By no means. Rom. vi, 15. He who says, I will sin because I am "not under Law, but under grace," is not a christian; for "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his;" [Rom. viii, 9.] and he was "without sin, though tempted in all points." Many seem to infer that those scriptures which represent christians as freed or justified from Law; also teach that obligation to obey Law, has ceased; that the Law is "dead," "nailed to the cross," "taken out of the way," &c.; than which a more unscriptural and destructive idea could not obtain.
"The Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient," &c. 1 Tim. i, 9. It has no claims upon a righteous man; he is not under Law, and if his righteousness is predicated on his own personal obedience, he is not "under grace." But the case with christians is otherwise. They are righteous men. They have suffered in Him "who loved them, and gave himself for them," all which the Law required. They "have been put to death by the Law, in the body of Christ." Rom. vii, 4. (Macknight's translation.) He has "tasted death for every man." Heb. ii, 9. His blood has atoned for the sins of the whole world. 1 John ii, 2. Having suffered "death," the "wages" and only penalty of the Law, he justifies all who accept salvation, as his free gift, purchased by his death. Their "old man is crucified with him." Rom. vi, 6. They are "buried with him by baptism into death;" [Rom. vi, 2, 3;] and "baptized into his death." Thus they have died in their substitute. "The wages of sin is death." (Nothing more.) "He that is dead is freed (or justified, margin,) from sin." Rom. vi, 7. The "end of the Law" is its penalty, death. Christ has become the "end of the Law for righteousness (or justification) to every one that believeth," by suffering death, the penalty of the Law, and imputing his death to all who accept salvation as offered in his gospel. Now the believer becomes a "righteous man," for whom the Law was not made, and over whom, it has "no dominion." "He is not under Law, but under grace." The Law had dominion over him while he lived; but he is now dead, in the body of154Christ.
His old man was crucified with Christ. But if he 'sin because he is not under Law, but under grace,' that very act transfers him from 'grace' to 'Law.' Jesus has neither said nor given indulgence to sin, so that the believer may now sin with impunity; for 'when a righteous man turneth from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done, shall he die.' Eze. xviii, 26. 'The soul that sinneth it shall die.' Verse 4. 'He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his Commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.' 1 John ii, 4.
Thus we see he is not under grace, but under Law; for all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire, [Rev. xxi, 8.] which is the end of the Law. He that said, 'Thou shalt not kill,' said also, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,' and 'the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.' Nor has he ever nailed that precept to the cross, so as to secure the transgressor from its penalty, death. 'The law of commandments contained in ordinances,' which Jesus abolished, [Eph. ii, 15.] and the 'hand writing of ordinances that was against us, and contrary to us,' which he 'blotted out,' [Col. ii, 14.] are synonymous with the 'carnal ordinances,' (rites, or ceremonies, margin.) of Heb. ix, 10. 'Ordinances concerning the flesh,' (Macknight's trans.) 'Fleshly ordinances,' (Whiting's trans.) which were imposed on them (only) until the time of reformation.
These 'fleshly ordinances,' 'carnal ordinances,' &c., were never intended to be imposed upon us, or gentile believers; nor upon the Jews after the 'time of reformation.' The consultation of the apostles, recorded in Acts xv, related to the same 'law of commandments contained in ordinances,' and 'hand-writing of ordinances that was against us,' and required us to 'abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled,' &c. See verses 1, and 29.
The 'rites,' 'ceremonies,' or 'ordinances of the flesh' &c., were typical and imposed during the legal dispensation only, foreshadowing the great antitypical sacrifice, in which, they received their fulfillment; hence they, together with the days in which they were observed, were of no further utility, and are said to be 'abolished,' 'nailed to the cross,' &c. But had the Law written by the finger of God upon tables of stone been 'nailed to the cross,' no sinner could ever have been led to Christ, no Holy Ghost would have been needed to 'convince the world of sin,' 'for by the Law is the knowledge of sin;' and no one would ever have 'known sin, but by the Law.' Rom. vii, 7. What Law? The Law of Ten Commandments, 'written by the finger of God,' as is proved by the connection, 'I had not known lust except the Law had said, Thou shalt not covet.' Hence if the Decalogue was nailed to the cross, Paul could never have seen Christ, 'as one born out of due time;' nay, Jesus would have died in vain, for he came 'not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,' (for 'the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,') 'and by the Law is the knowledge of sin.' 'God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the Law.' Gal. iv, 4, 5. But if the Law is 'abolished' or 'nailed to the cross,' there are none to redeem; none 'kept under the Law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed.' Gal. iii, 23. Faith is not 'revealed' until the sinner turns to the Lord; then the blinding 'vail' of unbelief 'is taken away.' Not only has Jesus 'died in vain' if 'righteousness come by the Law,' [Gal. iii, 21.] but also if he nailed the Law to his cross; 'for without the Law sin was dead,' 'there is no transgression,' consequently no transgressor. He came to save sinners; but there were none to be saved!!
The scriptural view, however, is too glorious to be looked over with impunity. Jesus came not to 'abolish' 'one jot or tittle of the Law or the prophets.' 'I am not come to subvert the Law, but to ratify.' Matt. v, 17. (Campbell's trans.) 'Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one point will by no means pass away from the Law, till all shall come to pass.' (Whiting's trans.) 'Whosoever, therefore, shall violate, or teach others to violate, were it the least of these commandments, shall be in no esteem in the reign of heaven.' Matt. v, 19. (Campbell's trans.) 'But the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones,' although so 'glorious' 'that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses,' for the reflection of its glory, from his countenance; still, had no glory in this respect, by reason of the excelling glory of the ministration of the Spirit. Hence, not only 'the glory of Moses' countenance,' is said to be 'done away;' but the glory of the legal dispensation is eclipsed by the exceeding glory of the 'Spirit ministration;' as the glory of the stars is eclipsed by the superior glory of the rising sun. 2 Cor. iii, 6-11. The Apostle alludes to the new covenant in the 6th verse, evidently the one promised in Jer. xxxi, 31-34. 'After those days saith the Lord, I will put my Laws in their inward parts, and will write it in their hearts,' &c. Paul shows, [Heb. viii, 10.] that this is fulfilled under the new testament (or covenant) dispensation.
'Nothing' was 'made perfect' by the 'blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer,' for it was not possible that they 'should take away sins.' Heb. x, 4. But Jesus has, 'put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.' Heb. ix, 26. He has taken 'away the first' will, 'that he may establish the second,' or ratify the Law by putting 'it in the mind, and writing it on the heart.' Heb. x, 9-17. Those who are 'sanctified' by the 'one offering' of Christ, [Heb. x, 14.] instead of transgressing any precept or 'teaching men to do so,' and thus forfeiting all 'esteem in the reign of heaven,' have the principles of the Law written 'in their hearts,' they also 'show the work of the Law written in their hearts;' not by claiming to be 'under grace' and disobeying Law; but 'by doing the things contained in the Law.' Rom. ii, 14, 15.
But the Saviour's precept is also written on their hearts. 'When ye have done all that is commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do.' Luke xvii, 10. They also feel conscious that 'righteousness does not come by the Law,' that all their obedience is due to Christ, who has bought them by his blood. His love constraining them to obey; nothing is further from their thoughts than the idea of obtaining justification by works. They are not their own; they are 'bought with a price;' love and gratitude constrain obedience. 'This is the love of God that ye keep his Commandments; and they, are not grievous.' And may I not be justified by the foregoing scriptures, and legitimate deductions therefrom, in saying, This is hatred to God that we break his Commandments, and 'seek to be justified by Christ, making Christ the minister of sin?'
The argument of the Apostle in Galatians, and elsewhere, is not against obeying any precept of the Decalogue; but against seeking justification by works of Law. Gal. ii, 16, 21; also iii, 10, 11. It was not because they abstained from profanity, theft, adultery, murder, covetousness, idolatry; or because they remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy; that the Apostle was 'afraid of them, lest he had bestowed upon them labor in vain;' but because they 'observed days, months, times and years,' connected with typical services; thus, virtually, rejecting Christ as the 'one offering,' by which we 'are perfected,' foreshadowed in those services.
A. THAYER.
Buckland, Mass., March 9th, 1858.
The Sleep of Death
By S. Bouton
From the Sabbath Recorder.
# THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
“TILL the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.”—JOB.
THEY slumber on; over their dreamless bed,
Through countless years, the sun has risen and set;
Ages have passed since love's last tear was shed
Upon their mossy tombs; they slumber yet:
Till the exploding heavens shall pass away;
Till the bright sun his azure path forsake;
Till God shall wrap the dim, expiring day
In pall of darkness, they shall not awake.
Unnumbered millions have been laid to sleep,
With loved ones, o'er whose graves they often wept;
Their children born a little while to weep,
Now slumber where the parents long have slept:
While o'er a dark and desolated world,
The troubled waves of sin and sorrow break;
While Death with his terrific flag unfurled,
Marches in triumph—they shall not awake.
But in the hastening future. Faith descries
A glimmering dawn advancing on the night:
Ere long the “Son of Righteousness” shall rise;
And all his glories burst upon the sight
And when the archangel's voice—the trump of God,
With awful peal, the universe shall shake,
That powerful voice shall pierce the dark abode
Of slumbering millions; and they shall awake.
SELECTIONS.
By Rev. Dr. Humphrey
It is Too Late.
ON the day that Louis Philippe abdicated the throne of France in favor of his grandson, the Dutchess of Orleans, mother of the infant Prince, entered the Chamber of Deputies, leading him by the hand, that as the heir apparent he might be proclaimed King of the French, by the representatives of that great nation, in the room of the repudiated monarch. It was an awful moment, big not only with the destinies of the reigning family, but
of thirty-five millions of people. All eyes were fixed upon Odillon Barrot as he rose slowly from his seat, ascended the tribune, and moved that the young Count of Paris, then and there present, be proclaimed King, in the room of his grandfather. Every sound was hushed. Men held their breath. It was as if the heart of an empire had ceased to beat. The question was about to be put, when a single voice from the gallery broke the silence—"It is too late!"
Never did a more thrilling and potent exclamation burst from mortal lips. It smote the ear of the Dutchess as the death-knell of her house. Great confusion ensued, and she was glad to escape with her son through one of the back doors of the Chamber. It was too late. Had the motion in favor of the heir apparent been made a day, or even a few hours earlier, it might have prevailed. But the time was gone by. It was too late! The throne was irrecoverably lost. This is but a single example among a thousand of delay. Many a throne has in like manner been lost.
But our purpose is not to dilate upon examples like these. Those ominous words in the French Chamber, "It is too late," apply to losses continually incurred, which are infinitely greater than those of any dethroned or expectant monarch. The value of a thousand earthly kingdoms bears no proportion to the worth of the human soul. For the soul, there is a day of grace, and there is a day of final retribution. While mercy pleads and waits, the sinner may repent and be saved; but by and by, perhaps the next hour, "it will be too late." On this point the Bible abounds with examples and illustrations, which were "written for our learning on whom the ends of the world are come." One of the most striking of these is in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. "Looking diligently," warns the Apostle, "lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." "It was too late." And as it was too late for Esau, so would it soon be for them, if they continued to "reject the great salvation." To the same purpose is that awful communication in the first chapter of Proverbs. We have room for only a part of it. "Because I have called and ye refused. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but shall not find me. They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own ways, they shall be filled with their own devices." They might have hearkened, they might have been saved, but now "it was too late." They had heard and slighted the last call of mercy, and nothing remained to them but "a certain fearful looking for of wrath and fiery indignation."
We often hear it said, that while life lasts it is never too late for a sinner to repent, and in one sense it is true. If he would truly repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in the last mortal hour, he would be saved. But will he? How small, have we reason to fear, is the number of such? The day of grace may close even before the wicked man dies; it certainly does where the unpardonable sin is committed, and who can tell how long before? Be it a few years, or but a few days, "it is then too late." And if the Saviour were to speak by an audible voice from heaven in a thousand dying chambers, who can tell in how many of them he would say, "These all might have been saved, but it is too late. When I called, they refused, and now there is no place of repentance." The rich voluptuary, who had a little before spurned Lazarus from his presence, would have given all his banquets, and purple, and fine linen, for "a drop of water to cool his tongue," but "it was too late." The horrors of a guilty conscience drove Judas back to the temple with his thirty pieces of silver, crying, "I have betrayed the innocent blood," but "it was too late." The Saviour had said, Good were it for that man if he had never been born, and he went away in black despair and hanged himself. Voltaire, and Thomas Paine, and other blasphemers155would, some, or all of them, have given kingdoms in their last hours for the Christian's hope, but "it was too late." They had treasured up wrath against "the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." How many such, according to the most authentic testimony, have gone shuddering and shrieking out of the world, to meet their final doom?
The king of the Sandwich Islands, who promised the missionaries that in five years he would break off from his debaucheries and attend to their instructions, died in less than two; and what hope could they have of him? He had fixed his time, but before it half expired, he was in eternity. "It was too late." And so it will be with all impenitent hearers of the gospel who put off their preparation to a "more convenient season," and do not live to see it. They will bewail their stupid procrastination when it is too late. The young Duke of Bordeaux lost only a temporary crown. They will lose that "crown of glory that fadeth not away."
Reader, reader, whosoever thou art, yet in thy sins, there is no time to be lost. The arrows of death are flying thick. The young, as well as the old, are falling. If thou dost not repent, a voice from the other world, It is too late! TOO LATE! TOO LATE! will ere long seal thine everlasting doom.
[N. Y. Evangelist.
John Knox a Sabbatarian.
[This celebrated reformer, says the Am. Encyclopedia, was the “chief promoter of the Reformation in Scotland.” Knox has been styled “the intrepid Reformer,” and he possessed such zeal, that Queen Mary of England declared she “feared his prayers more than an army of twenty thousand men.” He died 1572, and Banatyne sums up his character as follows: “The light of Scotland, the comfort of the church within the same, the mirror of godliness, and pattern and example to all true ministers in purity of life, soundness of doctrine, in boldness in reproving wickedness; one that cared not for the favor of men how great soever they were.” The following valuable extract shows him to have been a Sabbath-keeper, which we reprint from No. 20, Vol. VII, of REVIEW:]
A CORRESPONDENT of the London Notes and Queries says, the only words used in English for the first day of the week, before the existence of Puritanism, were Sunday and Lord's day. The former of these expressions was used by our Saxon ancestors, with all other Teutonic nations. The latter was adopted from the Christian form of Southern Europe. Sunday in Italian still retains the Hebrew name of Sabbato. The word for Sunday, in Russian, means resurrection; “identifying the day, as the Southern nations do, though more significantly, with the great triumph of the Christian faith.” D'Israeli, in his Commentary on the Life of Charles I, fixes the reign of Elizabeth, and the year 1554, as the period when Sunday was first called Sabbath day, (dies Sabbati). He says:
“It was in the reign of Elizabeth, during the unsettled state of the national religion, that a sect arose among these Reformers of the reformed, who were known by the name of Sabbatarians.” Also that “John Knox, the great Reformer of Scotland, was the true father of this new doctrine in England, although Knox was the bosom friend of Calvin.” Vol. II, c. 16, p. 353.
Calvin was opposed, as were indeed Luther, and other great Reformers of that day, to Knox's views of Sunday. Calvin himself was behind some of the present day professors, if a tradition at Geneva is true, “that when John Knox visited Calvin on a Sunday, he found his austere coadjutor bowling on a green. At this day, and in that place, continues D'Israeli, a Calvinist preacher after his sermon will take his seat at the card table.” This question is so much involved with the death of Charles I, and the rise of the Commonwealth, that D'Israeli has treated of it very largely in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of his second Volume, and with great erudition, judgment and taste.
We copy the following from Archdeacon Blackburn's “Historical View of the Controversy Concerning an Intermediate State,” printed in London 1772, p. 40:
“‘In the year 1567, the Churches of Geneva, Berne, and Basil, with other Reformed Churches of Germany and France, sent to the whole Church of Scotland the sum of the Confession of their Faith, desiring to know, if they, the Scots, agreed in uniformity of doctrine, alledging, that the Church of Scotland was dissonant in some articles from them. To this the Church of Scotland, with Knox at their head, answered, ‘That they agreed in all points with those Churches, and differed in nothing from them, albeit in the keeping of some festival days, their Church assented not, for only the Sabbath was kept in Scotland.’”
Phenomena in Missouri.
THE editor of the Cape Girardeau (Mo.) Eagle makes the following statements:
Our devil is a medium, and by holding a pen loosely in his hand, it will, involuntarily on his part, write answers to questions; turning his eyes from the paper, he knows not what is written till he examines. Though sometimes correct in his replies, he frequently makes mistakes. But he made our little writing table perform some most wonderful feats a few nights since. It went anywhere about our sanctum, that it might be directed. It traveled about with a boy on the top of it, and when required to careen and slide him off, it did so, notwithstanding a youth of considerable strength tried to hold him on.
The table was told to shake hands with a certain man; it went to the place where he was standing, and diagonally held up one of its legs. It was required to get into the lap of another, when it approached him and placed one leg on his knee. Now, these are facts, which several of our best citizens can testify to, and who are still incredulous with regard to its spiritual origin. We do not know what motive power caused the table to move about as it did. The youth could not have been in collusion with any other person, and that, to us, renders the whole thing so much the more mysterious. The youth inquired the name of the spirit, and to his utmost surprise wrote down the name of his father, who had died many years ago.—Spirit. Age.
The "Jerks" Revived.
The Livingston County News of the 16th says: "We learn that at Avoca, Ills., the Methodists are having a religious excitement. At meetings of this kind we believe it is customary for the attendants to have what is termed 'the power.' But at this place the wonder has assumed a different shape; members of the audience are suddenly seized with violent spasms causing them to jump up and tumble down, writhe and twist and tumble about generally like 'a parched pea.' Our informant says, a man passing the streets one day, feeling the influence coming upon him, fastened his arms about a post to keep from being taken up or thrown down, and had it not been that the ground was frozen, the post would have been thus miraculously pulled up. Those thus affected cling to their seats in the vain attempt to keep themselves within bounds, but the more they exert themselves to keep quiet, the more they are jerked and strung about."
Another account says:
"From fifty to a hundred were jerking at the same time. Their hands, shoulders, feet and heads would be violently thrown into the most grotesque and apparently frightful shapes. The women's bonnets would fly off, their hair become disheveled, and in some instances snap like a whip. In some instances it attacked unbelievers, and unconverted men who tried to resist it, by folding their arms and wrapping them tightly around their bodies, but in spite of themselves, their shoulders, first one and then the other, would be jerked back, till they lost all control of themselves."—Spiritual Age.
The Power of Prayer
The most splendid talents, and the most mighty eloquence, and the most devoted diligence, will be utterly inefficient, except the unction be brought down from heaven by frequent and fervent supplication.—Bridges.
Obedience
OBEDIENCE.—God allows many things to remain mysterious, partly, I believe, that he may in this way test the obedience of our minds; for he requires obedience of mind from us, as much as he does obedience in action.
The Downward Way of Sin
THE way of error and sin is always down hill, and once in motion, who can tell when and where it will stop! You trifle with the Sabbath to-day; to-morrow you profane it. To-day you take a glass to gratify a friend; to-morrow you may take one to gratify yourself. You now endure bad company; you will soon choose it; so true is it. “They proceed from evil to evil.”
Reverence
REVERENCE.—"I wish," said Robert Hall, speaking of a lady who was wont to talk of the Supreme Being with great familiarity, "I wish I knew how to cure that lady of her bad habit. I have often tried, but as yet in vain. It is a great mistake to affect this kind of familiarity with the King of kings, and speak of Him as though he were a next door neighbor, from the pretence of love." To this he adds, quoting an old divine—"Nothing but ignorance can be guilty of this boldness; there is no divinity but in a humble fear, no philosophy but shows itself in a silent admiration."
SLEEP.
The unwisest of all economies is time saved from necessary sleep, for it begets a nervous irritability which masters the body and destroys the mind. When a man becomes sleepless, the intellect is in danger. A restored lunatic of superior mental endowments, said: “The first symptom of insanity, in my own case, was a want of sleep; and from the time I began to sleep soundly, my recovery was sure.”
Trials That Lead to Trust
The darkest and most embarrassing trials are sometimes the only means by which men can be brought to give up their own self-dependence, and trust in the Lord with all their hearts.
What Family Government Is.
It is not to watch children with a suspicious eye; to frown at their merry outbursts of innocent hilarity; to suppress their joyful laughter, and to mould them into melancholy little models of octogenarian gravity.
And when they have been in fault, it is not to punish them simply on account of the personal injury that you have chanced to suffer in consequence of their fault; while disobedience, unattended by inconvenience to yourself passes without rebuke.
Nor is it to overwhelm the little culprit with a flood of angry words, to stun him with a deafening noise; to call him by hard names which do not express misdeeds; to load him with epithets which would be extravagant if applied to a fault of tenfold enormity; or declare with passionate vehemence that he is the worst child in the place and destined to the gallows.
But it is to watch anxiously for the first rising of sin, and to repress it in time; to counteract the earliest workings of selfishness, to teach an implicit and unquestionable obedience to the parent, as the best preparation for a future allegiance to the requirements of a civil magistrate, and to the Laws of heaven.
It is to punish a fault because it is a fault, because it is sinful and contrary to the Commandments of God, without reference to whether it may or not have been productive of immediate injury to the parent.
It is to reprove with calmness and composure and not angrily with irritation; in a few words, fitly spoken, and not with a torrent of abuse; to punish as often as you threaten, and threaten only when you intend, and can remember to perform; to say what you mean, and infallibly do as you say.
It is to govern your family as in the sight of Him who gave you authority; who will reward your strict fidelity with such blessings as he has bestowed on Abraham, or punish your neglect with such curses as he visited Eli.
Meekness
MEEKNESS is a grace which JESUS CHRIST alone inculcated, and which no ancient philosopher seems to have understood or recommended.—Buckminster.
The Judgment
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRESENT TRUTH, No. 20.
THE JUDGMENT!
We beseech the reader to approach this subject with that seriousness which its importance demands. From early and general teaching we have been taught to look forward to a day of judgment, a brief period when a general and indiscriminate multitude of all who have ever lived, would be gathered before the bar of their Judge, to hear from his lips the decision of their characters, and receive from his hands the reward of their deeds. It is not the design of these remarks to detract in any degree from the solemnity which we have been wont in our minds to attach to this event. And we trust that it will have no such effect upon any, but rather move them to new and earnest efforts in the work of preparation, as we proceed to show that its unalterable decisions are already passing upon the human race! A moment's consideration of the events connected with the close of this dispensation will reveal to us the fact that the line of distinction between the righteous and the wicked must be drawn before our Saviour makes his appearance; and that consequently the work of investigating the characters of mankind, and determining to which class they respectively belong, whether to the righteous or the wicked, must take place ere probation closes.
There are plainly brought to view in the Scriptures two resurrections, first, of the righteous, second, of the wicked. "The dead in Christ," says Paul, "shall rise first." 1 Thess. iv, 16. Again, it was shown John that a certain class would be raised to reign with Christ, and that a thousand years thereafter the "rest of the dead" should come upon the breadth of the earth, compass the camp of the saints, and be destroyed by fire. Rev. xx. He tells us moreover that the living righteous at the coming of Christ will be changed to immortality in the twinkling of an eye, and caught up to meet the Lord. 1 Cor. xv, 51-54. In each of these cases, if previous to the time of their resurrection or change, there has been no investigation of the characters of the sleeping or living multitudes, how is it determined who are "the dead in Christ," who among the living crowds that throng the earth, are worthy of immortality, and who should be abandoned to the dreary, hopeless slumber of a thousand years?
One fact will here be apparent to every mind. It is that after the righteous dead are raised, the living saints changed and caught up to meet the Lord in the air, there exists no necessity for any further judgment in their case, unless it be admitted that there may possibly have been some mistake in the matter, and the holy garb of immortality been bestowed upon some unworthy object, from whom it must be torn again, or that some unsanctified character has been called from his dusty bed, whose only portion should have been the second resurrection and the second death. To suppose, we say, a judgment on the righteous after it has been decided who are righteous, and they have been raised, is to admit the possibility of a mistake in the matter. But from casting such an imputation on the divine government, we at least, must be excused.
There are some texts supposed to prove a general and promiscuous judgment, which perhaps are entitled to a passing notice. Space will not permit an extended discussion of them; but there are certain general principles in accordance with which they may all be harmonized.
1. Whenever we read of men's receiving their desert according to the deeds done in the body, the testimony presupposes a judgment upon their characters previous to that time, and an allotment to them of rewards and punishments. Such texts as 2 Cor v, 10, therefore furnish no aid to the popular theory.
2. Whenever a text speaks of all nations' being gathered before their Judge, it must be shown that the expression includes all who have ever lived, before it can be urged in support of a general and indiscriminate Judgment; for the expression, all nations, or its equivalent, is sometimes applied to those simply who will be alive on the earth when Christ comes. See Matt. xxiv, 30: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Yet the wicked dead have no participation in this scene; for we are assured in Rev. xx, that they do not live till a thousand years subsequent to that event. Since therefore the expression, "all nations," may be limited to those living on the earth at any one time, such texts as Matt. xxv, 31, 32, are easily explainable.
3. If the Judgment is anywhere spoken of simply as occurring after any specified point, for instance, death, that expression alone is altogether too indefinite to determine its chronology. If we would understand the definite time of its occurrence, we must find other texts that tell us how long after the specified event, it takes place. Paul tells us in Heb. ix, 27, that it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the Judgment. This is usually supposed to prove that an individual is judged immediately at death. But when we look at the declarations of the Scriptures of a Judgment located near the second coming of the Saviour, we cannot admit that a Judgment has previously been passed upon mankind at death, unless we admit that the first Judgment was liable to mistakes, making a second necessary to correct the errors of the first—an absurdity from which we washed our hands in the first part of this article.
Seeing that no Judgment takes place at death, and Paul simply tells us in Heb. ix, 27, that after death is the Judgment, consistency compels us to let other texts come in, and tell us how long after death the event occurs. Its chronology and character we will now consider.