Review and Herald, Vol. 46, No. 11. (9/16/1875)

Review and Herald

Sep 16, 1875

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1875

Our Saviour’s New Law.

By Chas. B. Reynolds

The pertinacity with which people cling to “teachings of men” and reject the teachings of the Bible—even the very plainest declarations of the Saviour himself—would be inexplicable, but for the prophecy describing the condition of the world in our day.

“Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come [margin, the latter day] forever and ever; that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord.” Isa. 30:8, 9.

It is with great confidence asserted that we are no longer to respect or heed God’s holy, perfect law—the ten commandments, which were given for the conversion of the soul, but that A NEW AND BETTER LAW is taught us by our Saviour; namely, that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourself, and this, being a new and better law, supersedes the law of God. That so many religious, wise and prudent people can honestly be so much in error is really marvelous, and would seem impossible but for God’s declaration: “Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men, therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” Isa. 29:13, 14.

That this lack of wisdom and failure to understand is especially in regard to the keeping of the ten commandments, we have the positive declaration of Jesus: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from

me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. 15:3, 7–9.

To prove that we are now under our Saviour’s new law we are referred to Matt. 22:36–40: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The question is not, What new law have you to offer us? but, Which is the great commandment in the law?—in the law already existing. In the parallel text Mark 12:28, 31, our Saviour quotes the very words of Moses. In Deut. 5, Moses recites the ten commandments; in chapter 6 he sums them up. Let us compare the words of Jesus and Moses.

JESUS.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment.” Mark 12:29, 30.

“And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31.

MOSES.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Deut. 6:4, 5.

“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord.” Lev. 19:18.

“And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is one God; and there is none other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark 12:32, 33.

This identifies the law of the ten commandments, and separates it from the ceremonial law. It proves that the law to which Jesus referred was the same law referred to by Moses, the ten commandments, to which God added no more.

“These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.” Deut. 5:22.

In Matt. 19:16, 17, we read that the young man asked the all-important question, “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” And Jesus answered, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” The young man, like the lawyer, asks, “Which?” Not which one of the ten commandments—but which code—the moral or the ceremonial? Christ said, “Keep the commandments,” and identifies the code of ten commandments to which God added no more, quoting from the second table. It is asserted that Jesus did not mention the Sabbath; therefore, obedience to the fourth precept is not a condition of eternal life. Christ did not mention idolatry or profanity. Did he therefore teach that we can obtain eternal life while worshiping idols, blaspheming, and swearing? Christ had already declared that every jot and tittle of this code of ten commandments must remain in full force till heaven and earth should pass away. Matt. 5:17, 19, and Luke 10:28.

The young man claims to have kept this code; but Jesus proves to him that he had not kept the very first precept; for he had other gods before the true God—he loved his possessions more than he loved God; for he could not part with them, and so turned sorrowfully away.

Our Saviour gave no new law, nor left out a jot or tittle of the old law which we had from the beginning. In proof of this, let us place his two answers to the same question side by side.

TO THE YOUNG MAN.

“And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” Matt. 19:16, 17.

TO THE LAWYER.

“And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right; this do and thou shalt live.” Luke 10:25–28.

“What is written in the law? how readest thou?” In reply, the lawyer quotes the words of Moses when summing up the ten commandments—the very same words Jesus quoted when asked which was the greatest of commandments. Our Saviour says to the young man, “Keep the commandments.” To the lawyer, after he had quoted them in part, he said, Keep the law as it is written, as you read it, “this do and thou shalt live.”

But did not Christ give us a new commandment? Did he not himself call it a new commandment? “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John 13:34. This certainly was a new commandment to the Jews—to love as Christ loved. Jesus came not to change, alter, or to make void, the law, but to magnify and make it honorable; to teach its depth and breadth. Let us learn from the beloved disciple John, who gives us this record, in what sense it was a new commandment: “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you; because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.” 1 John 2:6–10. “For this is the message [or commandment—see margin] that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.” 1 John 3:11, 12.

John here shows what he means by the command we had from the beginning, that it was from creation, and was known to Cain. We know this law must have existed from the beginning and before the creation of the earth; for when God created the first angelic intelligence in Heaven itself, the first duty of that intelligence was to love its Creator; and when the second intelligence was created his duty must have been to love his Creator, and the other created being.

Christ, the Son of God, twice positively declares that if we would have eternal life, the first great essential is to keep the commandments—not nine-tenths of them, not some new and better law, but the ten commandments which God spake; which God wrote with his own finger and added no more. Keep the law as it is written, as you read it. This do and thou shalt live. Chas. B. Reynolds.

DIVINE INTERPOSITION IN HUMAN EMERGENCY.

By Austin Phelps

This title expresses a law of God's government. The first act of God for man after the fall was a supernatural intervention in an exigency which could have been met in no other way. The promise of the “seed of the woman” was the capital act which signalizes the whole subsequent history of the world. Standing at the head of the stream of human experience, it has infused its own character of eccentricity into the whole current of that experience. As sin creates an unbroken succession of emergencies and entanglements in human destiny, so redemption creates a corresponding succession of interpositions and rescues.

This law of supernatural intervention is signally illustrated in the protection which God has given to the institutions of the gospel. The history of the gospel is a history of deliverances by invisible powers of that which to human view seems often to be a doomed cause. Philosophical expectations are all against its success. The balance of natural probabilities is never in its favor. The great forces of the world are its allied enemies. If it were true, as Murat said, that “it is the law of Providence to favor the strongest battalions,” Christianity ought long ago to have been numbered among the mythologies. We ought to find it in books of ancient fables. Its history is a riddle to statesmanship and philosophy alike, because it is a history of emergencies, from which truth has been rescued by a secret power, when all the visible causes of events seemed to insure its annihilation.

This is illustrated, for instance, in that law by which persecution always defeats itself. It has become a truism (has it not?) that persecution never permanently injures a good cause. We never fear the ultimate effect of violence in an attempt to suppress a truth, to put down a good man, to destroy a good book, to crush any good thing. Why? It is not, as is often affirmed, that in the natural course of things truth in such a conflict is the superior. In such a world as this truth is not the superior. Under natural law the good never triumphs as a matter of course. It never rises by its own elasticity. Crises have often occurred in which persecution has been backed up by wealth, by learning, by the prestige of antiquity, by civil law, by public opinion, and by bayonets, by all the great forces which sway society and compact nations, and thus allied, it has borne down—upon what? Upon armies bristling with steel? Upon Ehrenbreitsteins and Cronstadts? No; upon a handful of poor men and friendless women and little children, who had no weapon of defense but prayer.

The existence of Christianity has more than once hung in the balance of such a conflict as that. On which side, then, in the nature of things, were the chances of success? Leave out of account the law of supernatural intervention, and what wise man could foresee that impotence and strength would change places in the issue! Many times the success of persecution has seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Many times has its success appeared to be an accomplished fact. It has laughed at failure as a bugbear. Many times it has burnt up the handful of men, women, and children, as Alva did in the Netherlands. It has answered prayer with faggots. “We have them now,” said one of the “Blood Council,” “and God himself cannot save them.” Many times have even the people of God thought so. “We trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel.” “Oh! yes, we did trust; but our trust has failed us, our enemies have triumphed, God has not interposed as we thought he would, we have now only to lie down and die.”

It is often true that God has not interposed as men have believed he would. God is not partial to miraculous methods of working. He often seems to look on indifferently while fire and steel do their work on those who are as the apple of his eye. It has been said to be the great miracle of Providence that so often no miracles are necessary to accomplish his purposes. He does not find it needful or expedient to work very largely by hairbreadth escapes. His methods of procedure strike deeper than that. He strikes at persecution where it roots—in the underground of Satanic forces. The prayer of a dying child opens an armory which faggots cannot burn. The twelve legions of angels are given to it. Spiritual battalions crowd the air with their strategy, and soon to even our swollen eyes it appears that the success of persecution has been its failure. God has interposed in the emergency, but in his own way. He has caused violence to defeat itself, through the spiritual forces which it has roused to the rescue.

The same truth is illustrated in that law by which infidelity on a large scale is always short-lived. There was a truth in the argument of Robespierre for the being of God, that “atheism was an aristocratic belief.” It is true of every variety of infidelity that sooner or later it contracts itself within the circle of a few minds. The masses of men never permanently embrace it. The history of infidelity proves this. It has been beaten so many times, in so many varieties, beneath such adroit disguises, under such diversities of circumstance, with such accumulations of disadvantage on the side of faith, popular opinion has so often spurned it, respectable opinion has so often become ashamed of it, that now we have settled upon this as one of the axioms of Christian policy, that infidelity cannot become the permanent belief of any people. The mania of suicide lurks in its blood. Sooner or later a secret power in the popular instinct of faith will creep around it in a circle of fire, and it will act the scorpion in the fable. This we believe simply because the history of unbelief is a succession of such deaths. It is always braying in some new form, and is always gasping in some old form.

But why is it so? It is not because anything in the nature of the case defends the world from infidelity. On the contrary, human nature has elective affinities with infidelity. Men do not love to retain God in their thoughts. Atheism finds a den to hide in in every human heart. The practical life of the world is largely atheistic. So strong are the tendencies of sin to a dethronement of God that many thoughtful minds anticipate that the last conflict of Christianity with it in this world will be narrowed down to a struggle with atheism, naked and shameless.

There have been periods when to human view the immediate prospects were overwhelmingly suggestive of this crisis. Times of transition have occurred, from an old to a new order of society, when the popular faith has seemed to break loose from the old moorings and to drift, nobody could tell whither. Simultaneously with this, infidelity has been greeted by the sympathy of the controlling minds of a nation. Universities and Royal Societies have nursed it; elegant literature has dandled it; poetry has sung to it; the sciences have disciplined and armed it; fashion has coquetted with it; philosophy has crowned it; wealth has built temples to it; philanthropy and liberty have brought incense to it from afar; and to the friends of Christ it has seemed that, if it were possible, the very elect would be drawn after it into the vortex of apostasy. Society, at such times, seems to have run mad with unbelief. What was Paris in 1789 and again in 1871 but one vast lunatic asylum? Respectable medical opinion thus explains the atheistic ferocity of the French metropolis.

Now at such a crisis it is not on the ground of natural causes operating in known methods that we can anticipate the restoration of faith. Indeed, in such emergencies that restoration usually comes in ways which have not been anticipated. Sometimes God suffers infidelity to triumph for a while, and by its enormities to work out a popular recoil. A very brief experience of it under the secret overruling of the Holy Spirit is often enough to do that. Sometimes he permits it to run to seed in absurdities which he uses to awaken the sense of the ludicrous. Then the common sense of the world breaks out into a broad laugh at it. Sometimes he raises up one man, like Bishop Butler, whose life's work it is to bring back the cultivated mind of a nation to the conviction that belief in God is intellectually respectable. Sometimes a national affliction comes like an earthquake, and a national revival of religion follows it. Providence and grace delight in co-operation. They go forth at God's bidding, as the disciples did at the command of our Lord, the two together. Their compound forces become explosive to the solidity of error. The mass is rent by fissures which never close up again. In some such unlooked-for method God comes to the rescue and meets the emergency himself. Thoughtful men seem to themselves to be spectators, rather than actors.

The same principle is illustrated in that law which forbids corruption within the church of Christ to reach the extreme of organic disease. If the wisest and best of men had fore-ordained the history of the church, they would have been apt to order events so that the church itself should have stood like an angel in the sun, pure as that purest of the elements. Men would have planned things so, because of an imagined necessity. We should have said it must be this or nothing. We should have reasoned on the problem of corruption in the body of Christ, as we reason upon gangrene in the physical body. Once pervasive, it is fatal. When spiritual disease has even balanced spiritual health in the church, it has been a perfectly natural inference that the last hour of the church was at hand. Looking cautiously into the surroundings of the French Deism of the last century and the French Atheism of to-day, we cannot but respect the sagacity of their champions in reasoning as they have done from the premise of the Papal church to the conclusion that Christianity must be near its end. If an effete and imbecile faith, the foe alike of learning, and liberty, and morality, be all that the Bible has to offer to a race of “wretches” such as Voltaire described mankind to be, it is reasonable to believe that the Bible will soon become an antiquarian rarity. Such logic is right if we reason only upon the assumption of such natural causes operating by such natural laws as are visible and calculable to our sagacity.

But the church of Christ has already lived long enough to demonstrate to us that there is one of the points at which natural law opens secretly to invisible agencies, which come in noiselessly and work breathlessly. They are God's angels of reform. Precisely how, precisely where, precisely when they act, we do not know; but we see results which cannot be explained without them. We see decay arrested. We see the mass of corruption sloughed off. We see the dead limbs stirring. We feel the heart which, but just now gave no sign to our stethoscope, bounding with the pulse of a new life. God interposes by an alternation of moral surgery with moral restoratives to save his beloved from dying by organic disease.

The same principle might be illustrated, if space would permit, from the history of local revivals of religion. These often excite in Christian observers the feeling of surprise. They often break out suddenly. They come in unexpected methods. They follow honored instruments. They develop power altogether disproportionate to the means employed. They often fall upon a slumbering church. They reach the forgotten classes of society. They compass results which even prayer had not foreseen. They override approved and established ways of preaching. Their first sign seems to be the undermining and the humbling of a revered and complacent pulpit. In ways which human ingenuity would never have thought of, God makes his own sovereignty felt in them. And in their timeliness they fit into emergencies in the religious life of a people which to human view could have been met by no other conceivable agencies or events. Such divine intervention is one of the favorite thoughts of prophecy. So has the church of Christ always found it to be one of the “precious thoughts” of God.—PROF. AUSTIN PHELPS, D. D., in Independent.

WATCH

By Sel.

Wake, brethren, up, arouse from sleep, Your festal robes prepare, The summons to the marriage feast, Is ringing on the air. The first sound of Christ’s chariot wheels We strain our ears to catch, All signs portend the end is near, And Christ says, “Therefore watch!”

To such as mock—“Christ come again?” Sufficient this reply— ’Tis likelier he should come to reign, Than that he came to die. The unbelief in Noah’s days Well does the present match, Which is a sign of last decline, And Christ says, “Therefore watch!”

The war-fiend’s loose! and carnage wrought— Oh! who can tell the sum! Man’s godless, earthly empires reel, And “perilous times” have come. The truth’s denied, and lies believed That wicked spirits hatch— A given sign of “the last time,” And Christ says, “Therefore watch!”

“In such an hour as ye think not”— Ah, me! who thinks at all, Of aught but self and worldly gain Or heeds the Master’s call? He’s near at hand, he’s at the door, His hand is on the latch, And “our redemption draweth nigh”— Watch therefore, Christian, watch. —Sel.

Committing Scripture to Memory.

“The Bible! ’T is a book divine, Where heavenly truth and mercy shine, And wisdom speaks in every line.”

Soon after the Lord in mercy opened our eyes to behold spiritual things, we commenced committing to memory portions of the inspired volume, carefully, prayerfully, and exactly, word for word, without the slightest deviation from the written letter.

First, we committed the sermon on the mount; the most practical parts of the epistles of Paul, Peter, James, and John; and parts of the Psalms, Proverbs, and prophecies. We then committed the whole of Matthew’s Gospel, whole psalms, and whole chapters in the writings of Solomon and the prophets; likewise whole chapters in Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, James and John, Peter first and second, and in the letters addressed to Timothy and Titus by Paul.

This committing to memory portions of the blessed Bible was made a daily business. On some days, only one verse was committed; on others, two, three, four, six, eight, or ten. The passages committed in the morning were often repeated during the day, while going out and coming in, lying down and rising up. While occupied in our usual avocations, or business transactions, these golden gems were turned over and over again, and again meditated upon, and brought home to our hearts. The glorious results of thus treasuring up these “apples of gold in pictures of silver,” are inexpressible. We mention only a few of these blessings:—

1. This hiding the word of God in our heart by these daily committals assisted us in prayer, not only in using scriptural language in approaching

the great “I AM,” but as whole psalms and other parts of the Bible were made up of prayer entirely, we could, when in a state of spiritual aridity and when the heavens were brass over us, and our own words seemed to rise no higher than our head, take the words of the Holy Spirit’s dictation, and soon feel our heart kindle with true, spiritual devotion. Often, when clouds and darkness were thus around us, the healing beams of the Sun of Righteousness would dawn.

2. This method of examining the Bible by careful and prayerful committal of its pages assisted us very much in ordering our conversation at home and abroad, in the social circle, and around the table. A verse or two, taken from this pure fountain, was often introduced on these occasions for elucidation and edifying conversation. Moreover, it aided us equally in giving a happy turn to social or family interviews, when otherwise precious golden moments would have been occupied on things of a trifling nature or commonplace, or on things of little or no profit. Furthermore, when conversation was likely to flag, a passage from this light-house would be introduced for mutual edification and spiritual enlargement.

3. In our missionary trips from house to house in cities and villages, this familiarity with holy inspiration was of special advantage; also around sick-beds on occasions when the Bible could not easily be taken up, we could then have recourse to this stock on hand treasured in our memory, and repeat verbatim such passages as would comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, and administer consolation to the sick and dying.

4. In teaching Sabbath-schools, Bible-classes, also in attending meetings for prayer, testimony, and in more public ministration, this fund of Holy Writ, stored for future use, we found incalculably beneficial.

Thy word, “where’er it enters in, Is sharper than a two-edged sword, To slay the man of sin.”

5. In writing for the press, or otherwise, the same blessed results were experienced as when imparting oral instruction.

6. In severe temptation, we could apply this “sword of the Spirit” skillfully in warding off the fiery darts of the enemy, from the fact of our having so many of the great and precious promises before our mind’s eye. Our blessed Lord set an example here, when tempted by Satan, after his long fasting of forty days. What did he say? “Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Matt. 4:10. Mark well the purport of the words, “It is written.”

7. This hiding God’s truth effectually destroyed, and killed out forever, the least and last tendency to silly, nonsensical chit-chat, foolish talking, and jesting, about things of little or no profit, so common with many church-members. The attempt at witticisms to excite vain laughter eats out the life and essence of true piety. Whenever you see persons given to light, trifling or frivolous conversation, like the crackling of thorns under a pot, take it for granted such individuals are very superficial in Bible theology, and know but little if anything of the marrow and fatness of the gospel.

8. Another exceedingly important item in thus bringing home the spirit of the Bible to our inmost soul was this: It killed or destroyed entirely and forever all relish for insipid, frothy, and ephemeral publications, the popular periodicals of the day, the fashion-plate magazines and comicals, the multitudinous mixture of the bitter and the sweet, God and Mammon, Christ and Belial, so frequently advertised and puffed by religious editors. When once the truths of the Bible have taken firm root in the heart, and become more precious than gold, sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb, these sugar-coated poisons, snakes in the grass, Satanic transformations, appear disgusting and heart-sickening, and are repudiated as the froth and scum of the pit, fit neither for the land nor the dung-hill. Whenever you see persons poring over these “literary serpents” with evident delight, you know certainly that they have not yet learned the first principles of true discipleship.

“Fill first the bushel with the wheat— With wisdom, food for souls to eat; Then chaff, the fiction of the day, Will find no place, and blow away.”

9. This investigating of the writings of holy and inspired men opened our eyes to see the vanity and sinfulness of worldly conformity in dress, equipage, church-building, the pride of aristocracy, the uniting of Christ with Belial in matrimonial connections, religious festivals, and secret, oath-bound societies. When you see the professed disciples of Jesus following the wake of worldly popularity, receiving honor from one another, rest assured that God’s word has not done its perfect work.

10. This method of searching the Scriptures, accompanied by the influence of the Holy Spirit, eradicated entirely and forever a sectarian spirit and the spirit of caste. We were led also to hate oppression in every form as God hates it, and as every holy being must hate it.

Beloved reader, are not the blessings here enumerated, which result from treasuring up God’s truth in the heart by committing portions of it daily, worthy of your immediate, prayerful consideration? Can you hesitate a moment from following on to know the Lord in this way, “till the day dawn and the day-star arise in your heart?” “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 2 Pet. 1:20, 21.—Guide to Holiness.

“Another River.”

A LADY, walking one day near a river, saw a man with his hat and coat off. Thinking he meant to drown himself, she looked to the Lord to give her a word to arrest him. Presently she walked up to him, when he turned and said:—

“A beautiful river, ma’am.”

“Yes,” she replied, “but there is another river—a river that makes glad the people of God. Do you know that river?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied.

She tried to say more, but was unable, and left without saying another word. Hastening home, she told her husband what she thought the man intended doing. Persons were sent off at once to see if he was still there. They found his hat and coat, and searched the neighborhood, even dragging the river, but found no traces of him. Twenty years afterward, the lady was in a chapel, and observed a man looking intently at her. She tried to remember where she had seen him, and while doing so, he leaned over and said, “There is another river; do you know that river?” Immediately she recollected seeing him and all the circumstances connected with their meeting. The word she had dropped had been a word in season.

“Do you know that river,” my reader? Know you the river of mercy which flows down from the bosom of God into the midst of a wretched world? Oh, it is mercy, full and free, to the chief of sinners! The dark river of death, wrath and judgment, has been entered into that you might pass over dry-shod. Christ has been down into death; judgment has spent itself upon him. He tasted death in all its bitterness that eternal life might be yours forever.—Sel.

A LITTLE HELP.

A company of men were pushing a boat into the water; but it stuck fast so that they could not move it. “Another pound,” said one, “and it will go.” “I can push a pound,” answered a little boy. He did, and she was soon afloat.

The Bible Standard.

By M. Wood

“SEARCH the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.” John 5: 39. There is a class of individuals who, when one talks to them on the subject of religion, and especially the prophecies relating to the second advent, say that the Bible is a sealed book, a book of contradictions, and inconsistencies; and others who profess to take the Bible as the standard of faith and practice claim that the prophecies of Daniel and John are portions of Scripture which cannot be understood. Such statements conflict very materially with the testimony of Jesus, and with that of the prophets and apostles.

Jesus has told us to search the Scriptures, without any qualification; for they testify of him. And in 2 Peter 1:20, 21, the apostle informs us that “no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved of the Holy Ghost.”

The book of Revelation cannot possibly be called a book of mysteries, as the first verse declares it to be “the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.” Add to this the testimony of Paul in 2 Tim. 3:15, and we learn that even a child can understand the Scriptures.

If all who profess to take the Bible as the standard of faith and practice would follow the instruction given by our divine Lord, and would search the Scriptures for themselves, the word of God would not appear so dark and mysterious, but would be to them, as it was to the psalmist, a lamp unto their feet, and a light unto their path. Ps. 119:105.

Again, Paul gives us the assurance that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Rom. 15:4. We need at the present time the combined light and strength which may be derived from the various portions of the Bible. The Bible not only warns us of the time of trouble which is just before us but it gives us courage to prepare for the coming perils, and confidence as to their results. It fortifies us against the wiles of the enemy. It tells us our true position in this life, and will, if its teachings are practically carried out, guide us safely to the city of God.

As the Bible is God’s word, and one special means by which he holds communion with us, it should be constantly, carefully, and prayerfully read. We should read every part of God’s word, and we should pray over every portion we read; for only the Spirit that inspired it can fully explain and apply it. We are not to raise our standard and bring the Bible to it, as is too frequently done, but we should be willing to let the truths of the Bible have their plain and common-sense meaning.

In reading the Scriptures we should always watch for Jesus, for they testify of him. In one place he is revealed to us by types or figures; in another, he is clearly set before us. The Scriptures without Christ would be like the world without the sun, or like paradise without the tree of life. They testify of the glory of his person, the nature, magnitude, and perfection of his works, the depth and constancy, of his unfathomable love for a race of rebels, his spotless character, his bright and blessed example, and his glorious offices as prophet, priest, and king. They tell us of his first advent, that he was made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, and make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Heb. 2:17. They reveal him entering upon his priestly work in the heavenly sanctuary. Heb. 8:1, 2; 9:24. They describe his second advent when he shall come to earth in the glory of his Father and attended by all the holy angels to awaken his sleeping saints, to change the righteous living from mortal to immortal, and to take his people to those mansions which he has gone to prepare for them. John 14:1-3.

The spiritual minded find, in reading the Scriptures, so much in those sacred pages to feed the mind and delight the soul that they have no time for doubts or complaints. Such persons will find Christ in all parts of the word, but the carnal mind will scarcely discover Him who is the chiefest among ten thousand anywhere.

Let the word of God, then, be our study daily, the rule of our lives, and the weapon of our defense. Let us read it devoutly, examine it carefully, and make use of it constantly as a detector of sin. Let us prove all things by it, as it is the only standard of genuine holiness. May the sweet and tender Spirit of God unfold the Scriptures to our minds and apply them to our hearts.

M. WOOD.

M. E. STEWARD

By M. E. Steward

Croquet.

I am glad to see croquet playing mentioned in a recent number of our paper. Surely we who are living in the great day of God’s preparation have no time to lose. Those who have so great and thorough a victory to gain in so short a time should not be satisfied to spend any precious time in anything that is merely harmless. We should have an ambition to make every minute useful if possible, and to see that each one is lived the best it could be. But is croquet playing entirely harmless? Does it not strengthen emulation, selfishness, &c.? and dare we now, just at the time of the end, cultivate the fruits of the flesh (Gal. 5: 20) in the smallest degree? It is “the little foxes that spoil the vines.” We may never have an opportunity to put away our faults and form right characters by great efforts; it must be done by ceaseless and decided attention to these little things.

While an invalid, six or seven years ago, I became interested in playing croquet; and although I never played as much as many, I can say, from experience and observation, that no one can become much interested in playing it without being more or less charmed. I knew a minister who was much opposed to the game until he had been induced to engage in it a few times, when he became nearly infatuated by it. The excitement attending it is of the same nature as that connected with backgammon (which I also played at that time) and checkers. These, we learn from the testimonies, the Lord does not wish his people to engage in. They act as a mental stimulus. People often become so attached to backgammon that when prevented from playing in the evening, as usual, they will sit up to indulge their mental craving after the company has retired. Is not this something like a drunkard’s longing for his accustomed dram? Novel reading has a similar effect. Each of these things give an unhealthy tone to the mind, unfitting it to love the truth.

Dear young friends, let us strive after healthful conditions of body and mind; for we “are bought with a price,” and let us try to “glorify God in our body and in our spirit which are God’s.” The Lord help us who are older to be very careful and “make straight paths for our feet.” I wish that you could fully realize the importance of having a principle of your own. It is a time of great peril. Parents and friends may feel the deepest anxiety about your present course and final salvation, yet remember, “though Noah, Daniel, and Job” were in the land, “they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters.” Eze. 14: 20.

Go to God in prayer, and to his word for help; set your faces as a flint toward Heaven; continually strengthen your resolutions and efforts to do right in all things, let others do as they may. Heaven will then be on your side, and though evils and perils increase continually around you, you are always safe; yes, and you will be held safely in the hand of Him whom you serve when “the earth is utterly broken down,” “and shall be removed like a cottage,” and the heavens depart as a scroll.

M. E. STEWARD

Battle Creek, Mich.

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