Signs of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 11. (3/17/1887)

Signs of the Times

Mar 17, 1887

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 17, 1887

General Articles.

By Ellen G. White

REST IN CHRIST.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

THUS Jesus invites the weary and care-laden sons and daughters of Adam to come to him, and lay on him their heavy burdens. But many who hear this invitation, while sighing for rest, yet press on the rugged path, hugging their burdens close to their heart. Jesus loves them, and longs to bear their burdens and themselves also in his strong arms. He would remove the fears and uncertainties that rob them of peace and rest; but they must first come to him, and tell him the secret woes of their heart. He invites the confidence of his people as the proof of their love for him. The gift of the humble, trusting heart is more precious to him than all the wealth that riches can bestow. If they would only come to him in the simplicity and confidence with which a child would come to his parents, the divine touch of his hands would relieve them of their burdens.

Jesus, our compassionate Saviour, is the way, the truth, and the life. Why will we not accept his gracious offer of mercy, believe his words of promise, and not make the way of life so hard? As we travel the precious road cast up for the ransomed of the Lord to walk in, let us not overcast it with doubts and gloomy forebodings, and pursue our way murmuring and groaning, as though forced to an unpleasant, exacting task. The ways of Christ are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. If we have made rough paths for our feet, and taken heavy burdens of care in laying up for ourselves treasures upon the earth, let us now change, and follow the path Jesus has prepared for us.

We are not always willing to come to Jesus with our trials and difficulties. Sometimes we pour our troubles into human ears, and tell our afflictions to those who cannot help us, and neglect to confide all to Jesus, who is able to change the sorrowful way to paths of joy and peace. Self-denying, self-sacrificing gives glory and victory to the cross. The promises of God are very precious. We must study his word if we would know his will. The words of inspiration, carefully studied and practically obeyed, will lead our feet in a plain path, where we may walk without stumbling. Oh, that all, ministers and people, would take their burdens and perplexities to Jesus, who is waiting to receive them, and to give them peace and rest! He will never forsake those who put their trust in him.

Wickedness prevails at the present day. The perils of the last days thicken around us, and because iniquity abounds the love of many waxes cold. This need not be if all would come to Jesus, and in confiding faith trust in him. His meekness and lowliness, cherished in the heart, will bring peace and rest, and give moral power to every soul.

The shortness of time is frequently urged as an incentive for seeking righteousness and making Christ our friend. This should not be the great motive with us; for it savors of selfishness. Is it necessary that the terrors of the day of God should be held before us, that we may be compelled to right action through fear? It ought not to be so. Jesus is attractive. He is full of love, mercy, and compassion. He proposes to be our friend, to walk with us through all the rough pathways of life. He says to us, I am the Lord thy God; walk with me, and I will fill thy path with light. Jesus, the Majesty of Heaven, proposes to elevate to companionship with himself those who come to him with their burdens, their weaknesses, and their cares. He will count them as his children, and finally give them an inheritance of more value than the empires of kings, a crown of glory richer than has ever decked the brow of the most exalted earthly monarch.

It is our duty to love Jesus as our Redeemer. He has a right to command our love, but he invites us to give him our heart. He calls us to walk with him in the path of humble, truthful obedience. His invitation to us is a call to a pure, holy, and happy life,—a life of peace and rest, of liberty and love,—and to a rich inheritance in the future, immortal life. Which will we choose—liberty in Christ, or bondage and tyranny in the service of Satan? Why should we reject the invitation of mercy, and refuse the proffers of divine love? If we choose to live with Christ through the ceaseless ages of eternity, why not choose him now as our most loved and trusted friend, our best and wisest Counselor?

It is our privilege to have daily a calm, close, happy walk with Jesus. We need not be alarmed if the path lies through conflicts and sufferings. We may have the peace which passeth understanding; but it will cost us battles with the powers of darkness, struggles severe against selfishness and inbred sin. The victories gained daily through persevering, untiring effort in well-doing will be precious through Christ who has loved us, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a "peculiar people, zealous of good works." We should seek to obtain the excellence of Christ. In the face of temptation we should school ourselves to firm endurance, nor should we allow one murmuring thought to arise, although we may be weary with toil and pressed with care.

Some have passed through afflictions with light undimmed. Their hope and faith are strong, because acquired by conflict, and nurtured by suffering. If it were not for these heroes of faith, who have learned to endure, and to suffer, and be strong, the outlook would indeed be discouraging. How could we know how to sympathize with the burdened, the sorrowing, the afflicted, and to afford them the help they need, if we had never experienced similar trials ourselves?

We can never have a clear appreciation of the value of our Redeemer, until, by an eye of faith, we see him taking upon himself the nature of man, the capacity to suffer, and then reaching the very depths of human wretchedness, that by his divine power he might save even the vilest sinner. Jesus died that the sinner might live,—that God's justice might be preserved, and guilty man pardoned. The Son of the Highest suffered shame on the cross, that sinners might not suffer everlasting shame and contempt, but be ransomed, and crowned with eternal glory. Why is it that we have so little sense of sin, so little penitence? It is because we do not come nearer to the cross of Christ. We do not consider the Captain of our salvation, and our conscience becomes hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

The cross of Calvary appeals to us in power, affording a reason why we should love our Saviour, and why we should make him first and last and best in everything. We should take our fitting place in humble penitence at the foot of the cross. Here, as we see our Saviour in agony, the Son of God dying, the just for the unjust, we may learn lessons of meekness and lowliness of mind. Behold Him who with one word could summon legions of angels to his assistance, a subject of jest and merriment, of reviling and hatred. He gives himself a sacrifice for sin. When reviled, he threatens not; when falsely accused, he opens not his mouth. He prays on the cross for his murderers. He is dying for them; he is paying an infinite price for every one of them. He bears the penalty of man's sins without a murmur. And this uncomplaining victim is the Son of God. His throne is from everlasting, and his kingdom shall have no end.

Come, you who are seeking your own pleasure in forbidden joys and sinful indulgencies, you who are scattering from Christ, look upon the cross of Calvary; behold the royal victim suffering on your account, and while you have opportunity be wise, and seek the fountain of life and true happiness. Come, you who complain and murmur at the little inconveniences and the few trials you must meet in this life, look on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. He turned from his royal throne, his high command, and, laying aside his divinity, clothed himself with humanity. For our sakes he was rejected and despised; he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich. Can you, beholding by the eye of faith the sufferings of Christ, tell your trials, your tale of woe? Can you nurse revenge in your heart while you remember the prayer that came from the pale and quivering lips of Christ for his revilers, his murderers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"?

There is a work before us to subdue the pride and vanity that seek a place in our hearts, and through penitence and faith to bring ourselves into familiar and holy converse with Christ. We must not shrink from the depths of humiliation to which the Son of God submitted in order to raise us from the degradation and bondage of sin to a seat at his right hand. We must deny self, and fight continually against pride. We must hide self in Jesus, and let him appear in our character and conversation. While we look constantly to Him whom our sins have pierced and our sorrows have burdened, we shall acquire strength to be like Him. Our lives, our deportment, will testify how highly we prize our Redeemer, and the salvation he has wrought out for us at such a cost to himself. And our peace will be as a river while we bind ourselves in willing, happy captivity to Jesus.

It is high time that we devoted the few precious remaining hours of our probation to washing our robes of character, and making them white in the blood of the Lamb, that we may be of that white-robed company who shall stand around the great white throne.

HOLD ON! HOLD IN! HOLD OUT!

Hold on, my heart! in thy believing; The steadfast only win the crown. He who, when stormy waves are heaving, Parts with his anchor, shall go down. But he whom Jesus holds through all Shall stand, though earth and heaven fall.

Hold in thy murmurs, Heaven arraigning! The patient see God's loving face. Oh, bear thy burden, uncomplaining, 'Tis they who win the Father's grace. He wounds himself who braves the rod, And sets himself to fight with God.

Hold out, there comes an end to sorrow; Hope from the dust shall conquering rise; The storm foretells a sunnier morrow, The cross points on to Paradise! The Father reigneth; cease all doubt; Hold on, my heart, hold in, hold out.

—From the German.

A FORM OF GODLINESS.

By A. T. Pierson

I WENT one afternoon to a cathedral. What a vast temple! A colossal organ whose plaintive whisper or pealing thunder rolled billows of sound along the arches! A choir of surpliced boys sang like larks. Then a grand sermon from a great preacher, fitly called a canon, whose velvet sermon case rested on a brazen spread-eagle. But with all these charms, there was only a handful of people, and they were staring about as though in a museum! I came away, asking myself when will the church learn that, if she will have the spirit of the world in her courts, she cannot have the Spirit of God, unless he comes, not as the shining shekinah, but as the consuming fire; not as Jesus, with the breathing of the Holy Ghost, but with the lashing scourge and the flashing eye!

—Rev. A. T. Pierson.

THE BRIDGE OF RECONCILIATION.

THAT is a wonderful expression which occurs in one of Paul's epistles to the Corinthians—"as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." The positions seem to be reversed. The apostle does not describe a guilty rebel suing for mercy, but an outraged sovereign begging the rebel to come and seek forgiveness. The wronged and insulted father is entreating the disobedient son to hasten back from the starvation and the swine, and receive pardon and restoration. It is as though the infinite Love went down on bended knee and besought sinners not to commit eternal suicide.

Where a quarrel has long existed between two persons, it is a great point to bring the parties together to talk over the differences between them. The holy God makes the first advance. He makes it to every sinner who is in willful, wicked insurrection against him. He proposes his own terms of reconciliation, just as a sovereign has the right to do. Perhaps the reader of this article is, and long has been, in a wretched controversy with his heavenly Father. If so, let me tell you, my friend, that God beseeches and entreats you to end this deadly quarrel with him at once. If continued into another world, it means eternal death. Two things are indispensable to a full reconciliation. One of these has been done already; the other must be done.

1. You have sinned, and sin deserves punishment. A government on earth or in Heaven without penalties for wrong, is anarchy. Divine justice requires that your sins should be punished. Your Bible in this very chapter tells you that God hath made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for you, that you might be made righteousness in him. Paul means by this that Jesus Christ, by his atoning death on the cross, took your place, and was treated there just as you, the sinner, deserved to be treated. If you, in penitence and honest faith, will accept the crucified Saviour as your substitute, and yield yourself to God, you will be forgiven. You will be treated as righteous for his sake. Scoffers sneer at this as a "blood theology." It is such; it is blood warm with infinite love from the heart of God. It is a glorious theology to preach and to practice. When Jesus Christ made his full, rich, complete atonement, he threw a bridge across the otherwise impassable chasm that separated human guilt from God's eternal favor. Of all the marvels of the divine architecture, the atonement of Jesus Christ is the masterpiece.

2. The first essential to your reconciliation with God has been accomplished. Christ has reared the bridge, and now you must cross it. The movement toward God must be on your part. Listen to the beseeching God, who calls out to you, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." You must submit to God on his own terms. Those terms are repentance of your sins, and acceptance of the atoning Saviour. It is for your indescribable benefit that you cannot set foot on that bridge of reconciliation until you surrender your heart to God, and are willing to abandon your sins—not sin in the abstract, but your own individual wickedness and wrong-doings. Your holy and loving Father says to you, "Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well." As to the particular sin or sins that you are to abandon, ask conscience, consult God's commandments.

My friend, God pleads with you. If you will only let him, he will lavish untold blessings on you. At the end of yonder bridge of love is his outstretched hand and open door. He waits to bid you welcome. How rich is that old Saxon word "wellcome"! It is well to come, but death to stay away. He will welcome you, not to a selfish religion of lazy luxury, but to a hard and noble fight, and an armor for the victory. He does not promise you a trip to Heaven in palanquin or palace-car, but he invites you to the highest, holiest manhood and womanhood in this world, and in the world to come a flashing crown and the life everlasting.—Selected.

LAX THEOLOGY, LAX MORALITY.

So thought Robert Hall. He thus wrote: "A lax theology is the parent of a lax morality." Such is its tendency. Such is the depravity of the natural human heart, so prone is it to evil, that it needs all the restraints of a sound theology to check its wayward inclination. In the degree that the creeds of men are abbreviated and diluted, in that degree, sooner or later, will they manifest a downward trend of morals. A loose age as regards doctrine will be a loose age as regards morals.

In order to tone up these, and to keep them well toned up, all the fundamental truths of the Bible must be believed. You will always find the best conditions of morals in those places where these truths are most faithfully preached, and most cordially accepted. It is not enough to preach morals. This may be done earnestly and perseveringly, but unless, at the same time, those great doctrines of the Bible are preached, which are the basis of all pure morality, the people will degenerate rather than become more virtuous. Dr. Chalmers made trial of this experiment to his satisfaction.

God, the infinite God, must be made prominent. His existence as a personal being and his glorious perfection must be made conspicuous. He must be made to appear, as in the preaching of Dr. Bellamy, "so great, so great;" "just in his character, and great in his government." He must be made to appear as a God of justice, of holiness and truth,

as well as of mercy, of condescension and compassion. Those doctrines must be preached that exalt God, and that humble man; that set the Creator on his throne, and the creature at his footstool. When men come to cherish low views of God, and to think of him as one altogether like unto themselves, their morality will correspond. Then they will bow down and worship a golden calf at the very feet of science. Then with proud Pharaoh, they will be prepared impiously to say, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?"

The law of God must be proclaimed in all its demands, nor must its dreadful penalty be ignored, or modified. Men may not like the truth; they may cry, "Speak unto us smooth things." But these will not answer. These will not serve to stop men in their career of wickedness, and in their way of destruction. Those truths must be plainly preached that tend to convict men of sin, and that prompt the inquiry, "What must we do to be saved?" And Christ must be held up as the only Saviour of lost men. They must be told that there is "no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." The history of religion abundantly shows that "a lax theology is the parent of a lax morality."—Golden Rule.

BOTH SIDES OF THE CHRISTIAN.

THERE is a beautiful symmetry in yonder maple tree which I see from my window; no limb obtrudes so far from the outer line of foliage as to disturb the equipoise of the tree; a mathematician could hardly have given it a more perfect balance. In Christian character symmetry is equally important as an element of both beauty and usefulness. There are two sides in a well-developed Christian. There is what may be called the Martha-side, which is occupied in benevolent activities,—in giving, teaching, toiling, and other diffusive methods. Some good people rather overdo this side, and neglect the Mary-side, which consists in self-study, reading, meditation, and heart-communion with their Master. They are incessantly on the go, in a round of constant excitement; and there is a tendency to noise, haste, and general superficiality. Shallow brooks often raise a racket; the still streams that run deep do not so soon run dry. A life of zealous activity requires constant replenishing. The busiest and most benevolent Martha should often take Mary's place at the dear Master's feet, both to learn his will and to be filled with his Spirit.—Selected.

EXCITEMENTS.

By R. F. Cottrell

A LARGE portion of mankind move by the impulse of the moment, and are carried by excitement. Where there are gatherings of the people, they run together, with no particular object more than "to see what's up." It was so at Ephesus when Paul was preaching the gospel there. Demetrius, calling his fellow-craftsmen together, got up a little stir; and the people, seeing it, rushed together. Something was going on, they did not know what. Some cried one thing, and some another; for the assembly was confused, and the greater part knew not wherefore they were come together. But Demetrius and his craftsmen touched the key-note, and they caught the spirit of the occasion, and all, with one voice, about the space of two hours, cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"

It is much the same way now. If anyone can succeed in getting up a little excitement, and have it rumored abroad that a special work is going on in any particular place, thither will the people flock together out of curiosity, and, catching the spirit of the work, will fall in with it, so far as to help forward the excitement, and spread still farther the flame.

And this is called religious revival. The people in this land of Bibles are sadly in need of religious instruction. Do they get it? The preacher tells anecdotes, and marvelous incidents of wonderful conversions, and thrilling death-bed scenes; and when he has raised his audience to a fever-heat, he exhorts and invites them to "come to Jesus," taking it for granted that all know how to come, as well as he. Then all that make any kind of a move are counted in as converts. Soon the excitement is over. They don't know why they cried with the rest, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," only it was the spirit of the occasion. They remain where they were before, until another wind blows, and then they are ready to be counted into the fold again.

The people need instruction. They need to have the great doctrines of the gospel set before them,—the sacrifice and sufferings of Christ, and the object, to save men from their sins. They need to be told what sin is, not merely in a general way, that it is doing wrong, but that it is the breaking of any one of the commandments of the law of God. "Sin is the transgression of the law." Then men need to learn that repentance is breaking off from transgression, and turning to obedience of the same divine law. And having thus died to sin, to live no longer therein, they may be buried in the likeness of Christ's death, and rise to walk in newness of life.

Oh, that there were more teachers of the truth! R. F. COTTRELL.

THE CRITICS NEVER LEARN.

It must be confessed that there is an amusing as well as a serious side to the escapades in which some critics indulge in their eagerness to discredit the Bible narrative. The latest "critic" who has come to grief through too great haste, is the ingenious but erratic scholar, W. St. C. Boscawen. Mr. Boscawen, according to his own account, recently saw a Hittite gem with the representation engraved upon it of a priest standing upon the back of a bee. But Mr. Boscawen saw a great deal more than a Hittite priest standing upon the back of that bee. That bee, he reasoned, must be the totem or sacred animal of some worship; and Deborah, in Hebrew means "bee." Again, the lightning is called, in some mythologies, the "sting-fly of heaven;" and therefore, according to Mr. Boscawen, we have, in Hebrew "legend," the association of Deborah, the "bee," with Barak, the "lightning," or "sting-fly of heaven." What could be more evident than that the story of Deborah and Barak is a clumsy biblical theft from pagan mythology?

But meanwhile the gem in question has been re-examined by Mr. Pinches and Dr. Tyler, who both find that what Mr. Boscawen mistook for a bee, is only a chip,—that, in fact, if there was a bee anywhere about, it must have been in Mr. Boscawen's bonnet. And so the whole ingenious hypothesis tumbles to the ground; and we are permitted still to regard Deborah and Barak as historical characters. But will the critics never learn the lesson, that the Bible is the most trustworthy book of ancient history which has come down to us, and that the scholar who attempts to overthrow its solid history on the evidence of his own conjectures, is pretty sure to come to grief at last?—S. S. Times.

CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN.

By John L. Withrow

THEY are living in sin. And, however much this may sound like a truism to you, there is need just now to say it over again, and to examine the statement until we shall be sure that unless the witnesses have been corrupt or incompetent, the case stands proven; that the pagan world lies in wickedness. Perhaps we may well begin with the thought that if they are not sinners against the Most High they are better off without the gospel than we are with it. And in that event, for us to send them missionaries and the Bible to announce to them the glad tidings of salvation, is exceedingly more absurd than carrying coals to Newcastle, or contributing money for a charity dinner for Dives. Indeed, it seems more than absurd. Is it not a pitiful or a vulgar impertinence which the pagan world might properly resent, and reply, "Physician, heal thyself"? But if the Spirit of God moved the mind and made the logic of Paul when he "proved both Jew and Gentile that they are all under sin," then the case stands gravely different.

If "sin is the transgression of the law," and if the Holy Bible solemnly asserts that the Gentiles have "the law written in their hearts," and yet they have so "changed the truth of God into a lie," that "they are without excuse," then the case is closed and the verdict inevitable. Skepticism must either impeach the testimony of Christ's apostle and challenge the authority of these scriptures of God, or else quit the contention and accept the fact that all mankind, barbarian, Scythian, bond, and free, stand guilty before God; "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." All men, the apostle meant, the same "all" that he referred to when he wrote, "In Adam all die." For Paul no more meant to limit these "alls" to the children of Abraham than he intended to limit them to those who have curly hair or high foreheads. His mind was not running on lines of national peculiarities, but was acting under the influence of the Holy Ghost, and that eternal word which was uttered, "The soul that sinneth it shall die!" No difference in what age, or nation, nor under what dim or dazzling rays of moral illumination, if only one knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.

What, then, is the testimony of those witnesses on whom we are wont to rely for information of idolatrous and unevangelized nations? Does Juvenal's satires on the sins of the Romans of his time read as if that pagan poet thought them not sins, but simply the reckless acts of moral idiots, whom neither God nor man should hold responsible? One of the moralists of Rome, whom modern times

most often mention with approval, said of the pagans of his day: "We have sinned, some grievously, others more lightly; some purposely, others accidentally impelled or led astray. And not only have we transgressed, we shall continue to do so till the end of life. It was the complaint of our ancestors, it is ours, it will be of our posterity, that morals are subverted, that corruption reigns! The human mind is by nature perverse, and strives for what is forbidden." Such was Seneca's judgment of the moral condition of the world, without God and without hope, but not without sin. And let any who are given to doubt whether the heathen are already enough lost to be liable to all consequences of sin, go hence and bury themselves beyond the line of the light, and the saving influences of the lives of men under the gospel; go hence, where "darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people," and stay there for some years, eye-witnesses to the ways of those sunken creatures.—J. L. Withrow, D. D.

FAITH NOT REASON.

THE word of God alone reveals the beginning of life. No science is so modern as to pretend to tell us what was "in the beginning." There is therefore more truth in it in the region of physics, as well as metaphysics, than in all other books. The natural is hard to be understood, and scarcely two wise men are wise enough to understand nature alike. But it is the super-natural that we are after. Science is concerned only with the natural. It excludes with reverence or with contempt, according to its measure of sense, the supernatural, and asks only that natural causes be explained, the mode of existence and natural relations. This is the legitimate domain of the scientist. The natural is first, and afterward that which is spiritual. If the student has a soul with breadth and scope to embrace the higher relations of physics and metaphysics he perceives the grand necessity of knowing whether or not there is vital force that integrates the quartz, uniforms the lily, and wheels the stars. He drops the retort and crucible, shuts the telescope, puts out the fires in the laboratory, enters his closet, and on his knees he prays:—

"Infinite truth! the life of my desires, Come from the sky and show thyself to me. I'm tired of reading and this hearing tires, But I am never tired of telling thee 'Tis thy fair face my spirit burns to see."

The prayer is answered. Out of the darkness that covers the earth and sky, there comes in robes of celestial beauty, in her hands the keys of wisdom and truth, and on her head a diadem of stars, the gift of God, whose name is Faith. She comes to make us partakers of the divine nature. By faith we know. By faith, only, we know the worlds were made; not grew, were made. Here, just here, is that immeasurable gulf that separates belief and unbelief. Here we find the solution of that supposed, unproved, and unreal antagonism between science and religion. There is no probable reconciliation because there is no antagonism. The subjects in discussion belong to distinct worlds and cannot come in conflict. One is concerned with natural things, the other with spiritual. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."—Irenæus, in New York Observer.

THE FATHERS.

By John Hall

I RECEIVED the volumes of Clark's translations of the Ante-Nicene Fathers as they were successively published, and therefore had the best opportunity of examining them in detail. I am glad to possess them, and will welcome the supplementary library as proposed by Dr. Schaff. It must always be interesting to know what was written by Christian authors in the earlier centuries after the close of the New Testament. Whatever their character or value may be, such works must attract attention if it be only to learn what they are. And as the reader goes through the series, he must find much to confirm his faith in the inspired canon, and to throw light on its interpretation. But he will also find so much that is objectionable that the old saying must be verified in his own experience that the drag-net of the Fathers has accumulated a vast amount of garbage in addition to the wholesome truth.

Some of the passages (even in Augustine's "City of God") are so immodest that the translators have left them in the original, and many more pages appear in English which ought to have been so veiled, or expunged. I take a volume, without selection, from the Ante-Nicene shelf. It proves to be the second of Tertullian. It opens at page 311 with this exposition of 1 Cor. 15: 39-41: "There is one flesh of man (that is, servants of God, but really human); another flesh of beasts (that is, the heathen, of whom the prophet actually says, 'man is like the senseless cattle'); another flesh of birds (that is, the martyrs which essay to mount up to Heaven); another of fishes (that is, those whom the water of baptism has submerged). There is one glory of the sun (that is, of Christ), and another glory of the moon (that is, of the church), and another glory of the stars (in other words, of the seed of Abraham). So there are bodies terrestrial as well as celestial (Jews, that is, as well as Christians)." Tertullian was as early after the apostles as the second century, but who can trust an expositor of their writings whether for doctrine or church order, who was capable of making such a paraphrase of holy writ? Yet this is but a specimen of the want of common sense, the crudities, the blunders, as well as contradictions and variations, which might be quoted from Clement to Photius.

A large number—it is hoped a large majority—of the readers of the Ante-Nicene library will use the collection with a protest against the opinion of Dr. Coxe, the American editor, that "with the inestimable Scriptures [it] supplies a succinct autobiography of the Spouse of Christ for the first two centuries," and that it is "a supplement so essential to the right understanding of the New Testament itself." If these works are such an autobiography, they must have been revealed by the Holy Spirit. If they are essential to the understanding of the New Testament, the inspired word must be accompanied by these eight volumes of more than six hundred pages each. Then the Scriptures are not sufficient. They must be supplemented by the "Fathers," or they cannot be understood! His tradition indeed reached this point in the age of our religious development!—Rev. John Hall, D. D., in N. Y. Observer.

CHRIST'S COMING AND THE END.

By Frank Burg

"And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Matt. 24:3.

AMONG the very important topics of to-day is that of Christ's coming, and the end of the world. As there are diversities of opinions in regard to this, our only safety is in the Bible. Jesus's answer to the question asked by the disciples respecting this, is, "Take heed that no man deceive you." Verse 4. Our Saviour was aware that his disciples would be exposed to the deceptions of the world, hence he cautions them to "take heed." The question as to the time and manner of this great event demands our most careful attention.

The fact that Christ's coming will be visible to all, and not in the "desert" or in the "secret chamber," is supported by many passages of Scripture. As our first resort we shall notice the words of our Saviour in verse 27: "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." What could be more unmistakably visible than the vivid flash of lightning that cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west? Just so will the coming of the Son of man be.

When Jesus ascended to heaven from off Mount Olivet, he was seen of the people until a cloud received him out of their sight. "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:10, 11. Another very plain text on this subject, is the following: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him." Rev. 1:7, first part.

Language could not state more plainly that his coming will be visible. With these plain scriptural statements no one need be in doubt as to the manner of our Saviour's appearing. But the exact time of this event is not revealed to us, and yet we are not left in utter darkness in regard to it. Jesus has given us signs that we may know when it is near: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Matt. 24:29.

The signs in the sun, moon, and stars have been fulfilled. May 19, 1780, there was the most remarkable darkening of the sun and moon ever known. And on the night of November 13, 1833, occurred the most wonderful meteoric shower ever witnessed. There are many living witnesses to this scene, whose description of the falling of the stars differs not from that of Rev. 6:13: "As a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." With those in mind who should see the fulfillment of these signs, our Saviour says, "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." Matt. 24:34. Again he says, "Now learn a parable of the fig tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." Matt. 24:32, 33. When we go out and behold the fig tree putting forth leaves, we doubt not that summer is near. Equally certain may we be that the revelation of the Son of man is nigh.

We might notice the words of Christ in verse 37: "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Previous to the destruction of the inhabitants of the world by a flood, the earth was filled with violence and corruption. See Gen. 6:11, 12. So it is to-day. We have but to look about us, and we see corruptness on every hand. Even in the professed churches of Christ we see much that is corrupt. The world is fast becoming similar to the days of Noe, and should we wonder that the end is near, and that God is soon to destroy the inhabitants of the earth, as he did the antediluvians? FRANK BURG.

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