p. 11 | Review and Herald, Vol. 19, No. 2. (12/10/1861)

Review and Herald

Dec 10, 1861

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1861

History of the Sabbath.

By John Nevins Andrews

THE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH.

(Continued.)

The second mention of the Sabbath in the Bible furnishes a decisive confirmation of the testimony already adduced. On the sixth day of the week, Moses in the wilderness of Sin said to Israel, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." Ex. xvi, 22, 23. What had been done to the seventh day since God blessed and sanctified it as his rest-day in Paradise? Nothing. What did Moses do to the seventh day to make it the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord? Nothing. Moses on the sixth day simply states the fact that the morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. The seventh day had been such ever since God blessed and hallowed the day of his rest.

The testimony of our divine Lord relative to the origin and design of the Sabbath is of peculiar importance. He is competent to testify, for he was with the Father in the beginning of the creation. John i, 1–3; Gen. i, 1, 26; Col. i, 13–16. "The Sabbath was made for man," said he, "not man for the Sabbath." Mark ii, 27. The following grammatical rule is worthy of notice: "A noun without an adjective is invariably taken in its broadest extension, as, Man is accountable." Barrett's Principles of English Grammar, p. 29. The following texts will illustrate this rule, and also this statement of our Lord's: "Man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more they shall not awake." "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." "It is appointed unto men once to die." Job xiv, 12; 1 Cor. x, 13; Heb. ix, 27. In these texts man is used without restriction, and therefore all mankind are necessarily intended. The Sabbath was therefore made for the whole human family, and consequently originated with mankind. But the Saviour's language is even yet more emphatic in the original: "The Sabbath was made for THE man, not THE man for the Sabbath." This language fixes the mind on the man Adam, who was made of the dust of the ground just before the Sabbath was made for him, of the seventh day. This is a striking confirmation of the fact already pointed out that the Sabbath was given to Adam, the head of the human family.

"The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;" yet he made the Sabbath for man. "God made the Sabbath his by solemn appropriation, that he might convey it back to us under the guarantee of a divine charter, that none might rob us of it with impunity."

But is it not possible that God's act of blessing and sanctifying the seventh day did not occur at the close of the creation week? May it not be mentioned then because God designed that the day of his rest should be afterward observed? Or rather, as Moses wrote the book of Genesis long after the creation, might he not insert this account of the sanctification of the seventh day with the record of the first week, though the day itself was sanctified in his own time?

It is very certain that such an interpretation of the record cannot be admitted, unless the facts in the case demand it. For it is, to say the least, a forced explanation of the language. The record in Genesis, unless this be an exception, is a plain narrative of events. Thus what God did on each day is recorded in its order down to the seventh. It is certainly doing violence to the narrative to affirm that the record respecting the seventh day is of a different character from that respecting the other six. He rested the seventh day; he sanctified the seventh day because he had rested upon it. The reason why he should sanctify the seventh day existed when his rest was closed. To say, therefore, that God did not sanctify the day at that time, but did it in the days of Moses, is not only to distort the narrative, but to affirm that he neglected to do that for which the reason existed at creation, until twenty-five hundred years after.

But we ask that the facts be brought forward which prove that the Sabbath was sanctified in the wilderness of Sin, and not at creation. And what are the facts that show this? It is confessed that such facts are not upon record. Their existence is assumed in order to sustain the theory that the Sabbath originated at the fall of the manna and not in Paradise.

Did God sanctify the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin? There is no intimation of such fact. On the contrary, it is mentioned at that time as something already set apart of God. On the sixth day Moses said, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." Ex. xvi, 23. Surely this is not the act of instituting the Sabbath, but the familiar mention of an existing fact. We pass on to mount Sinai. Did God sanctify the Sabbath when he spoke the ten commandments? No one claims that he did. It is admitted by all that Moses spoke of it familiarly the previous month. Ex. xvi. Does the Lord at Sinai speak of the sanctification of the Sabbath? He does; but in the very language of Genesis he goes back for the sanctification of the Sabbath, not to the wilderness of Sin, but to the creation of the world. Ex. xx, 8–11. We ask those who hold the theory under examination, this question: If the Sabbath was not sanctified at creation, but was sanctified in the wilderness of Sin, why does the narrative in each instance [compare Gen. ii, 1–3; Ex. xx, 8–11], record the sanctification of the Sabbath at creation, and omit all mention of such fact in the wilderness of Sin? Nay, why does the record of events in the wilderness of Sin show that the holy Sabbath was at that time already in existence? In a word, How can a theory subversive of all the facts in the record, be maintained as the truth of God?

We have seen the Sabbath ordained of God at the close of the creation week. The object of its Author is worthy of especial attention. Why did the Creator set up this memorial in Paradise? Why did he set apart from the other days of the week that day which he had employed in rest? "Because that in it," says the record, "he had rested from all his work which God created and made." A rest necessarily implies a work performed. And hence the Sabbath was ordained of God as a memorial of the work of creation. And therefore that precept of the moral law which relates to this memorial, unlike every other precept of that law begins with the word, "Remember." The importance of this memorial will be appreciated when we learn from the Scriptures that it is the work of creation which is claimed by its Author as the great evidence of his eternal power and Godhead, and as that great fact which distinguishes him from all false gods. Thus it is written:

"He that built all things is God." "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." "But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and everlasting King." "He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." "For he spake and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast." Thus "the

worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Heb. iii, 4; Jer. x, 10–12; Rom. i, 20; Ps. xxxiii, 9; Heb. xi, 3.

Such is the estimate which the Scriptures place upon the work of creation as evincing the eternal power and Godhead of the creator. The Sabbath stands as the memorial of this great work. Its observance is an act of grateful acknowledgment on the part of his intelligent creatures that he is their Creator, and that they owe all to him; and that for his pleasure they are and were created. How appropriate this observance for Adam! And when man had fallen, how important for his well-being that he should "remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." He would thus have been preserved from atheism and from idolatry; for he could never forget that there was a God from whom all things derived their being; nor could he worship as God any other being than the Creator.

The seventh day, as hallowed by God in Eden, was not Jewish, but divine; it was not the memorial of the flight of Israel from Egypt, but of the Creator's rest. Nor is it true that the most distinguished Jewish writers deny the primeval origin of the Sabbath, or claim it as a Jewish memorial. We cite the historian Josephus and his learned cotemporary, Philo Judaeus. Josephus, whose "Antiquities of the Jews" run parallel with the Bible from the beginning, when treating of the wilderness of Sin makes no allusion whatever to the Sabbath, a clear proof that he had no idea that it originated in that wilderness. But when giving the account of creation he bears the following testimony:

"Moses says that in just six days the world and all that is therein was made. And that the seventh day was a rest and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our labor on that day, and call it the Sabbath; which word denotes rest in the Hebrew-tongue." Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, chap. i, sec. 1.

And Philo bears an emphatic testimony relative to the character of the Sabbath as a memorial. Thus he says:

"But after the whole world had been completed according to the perfect nature of the number six, the Father hallowed the day following, the seventh, praising it and calling it holy. For that day is the festival, not of one city or one country, but of all the earth; a day which alone it is right to call a day of festival for all people, and the birth-day of the world." Works, Vol. I, Sec. 30.

Nor was the rest-day of the Lord a shadow of man's rest after his recovery from the fall. God will ever be worshiped in an understanding manner by his intelligent creatures. When therefore he set apart his rest-day to a holy use, if it was not as a memorial of his work, but as a shadow of man's redemption from the fall, man in his unfallen state could never observe the Sabbath as a delight, but ever with deep distress as reminding him that he was soon to apostatize from God. Nor was the holy of the Lord and honorable, one of the "carnal ordinances imposed until the times of reformation" [Isa. lviii, 13, 14; Heb. ix, 10]; for there could be no reformation with unfallen beings.

But man did not continue in his uprightness; Paradise was lost, and Adam was excluded from the tree of life. The curse of God fell upon the earth, and death entered by sin, and passed upon all men. Gen. iii; Rom. v, 12. After this sad apostasy, no further mention of the Sabbath occurs until Moses on the sixth day said, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord."

It is objected that there is no precept in the book of Genesis for the observance of the Sabbath, and consequently no obligation on the part of the patriarchs to observe it. There is a defect in this argument not noticed by those who use it. The book of Genesis was not a rule given to the patriarchs to walk by. On the contrary, it was written by Moses 2500 years after creation, and long after the patriarchs were dead. Consequently the fact that certain precepts were not found in Genesis is no evidence that they were not obligatory upon the patriarchs. Thus the book does not command men to love God with all their hearts, and their neighbors as themselves; nor does it prohibit idolatry, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, adultery, theft, false witness or covetousness. Who will affirm from this that the patriarchs were under no restraint in these things? As a mere record of events, written long after their occurrence, it was not necessary that the book should contain a moral code. But had the book been given to the patriarchs as a rule of life, it must of necessity have contained such a code. It is a fact worthy of especial notice that as soon as Moses reaches his own time in the book of Exodus, the whole moral law is given. The record and the people were then cotemporary, and ever afterward the written law is in the hands of God's people, as a rule of life, and a complete code of moral precepts.

The argument under consideration is unsound. 1. Because based on the supposition that the book of Genesis was the rule of life for the patriarchs. 2. Because if carried out it would release the patriarchs from every precept of the moral law except the sixth. Gen. ix, 5, 7. 3. Because the act of God in setting apart his rest-day to a holy use, as we have seen, necessarily involves the fact that he gave a precept concerning it to Adam, in whose time it was thus set apart. And hence, though the book of Genesis contains no precept concerning the Sabbath, it does contain direct evidence that such precept was given to the head and representative of the human family.

After giving the institution of the Sabbath, the book of Genesis, in its brief record of 2370 years, does not again mention it. This has been urged as ample proof that those holy men, who, during this period, were perfect, and walked with God in the observance of his commandments, statutes and laws, [Gen. v, 24; vi, 9; xxvi, 5], all lived in open profanation of that day which God had blessed and set apart to a holy use. But the book of Genesis also omits any distinct reference to the doctrine of future punishment, the resurrection of the body, the revelation of the Lord in flaming fire, and the judgment of the great day. Does this silence prove that the patriarchs did not believe these great doctrines? Does it make them any the less sacred?

But the Sabbath is not mentioned from Moses to David, a period of five hundred years, during which it was enforced by the penalty of death. Does this prove that it was not observed during this period?

The jubilee occupied a very prominent place in the typical system, yet in the whole Bible a single instance of its observance is not recorded. What is still more remarkable, there is not on record a single instance of the observance of the great day of atonement, notwithstanding the work in the holiest on that day was the most important service connected with the worldly sanctuary. And yet the observance of the other and less important festivals of the seventh month, which are so intimately connected with the day of atonement, the one preceding it by ten days, the other following in five days, is repeatedly and particularly recorded. Ezra iii, 1–6; Neh. viii, 2, 9–12, 14–18; 1 Kings viii, 2, 65; 2 Chron. v, 3; vii, 8, 9; John vii, 2–14, 37. It would be sophistry to argue from this silence respecting the day of atonement, when there were so many instances in which its mention was almost demanded, that that day was never observed; and yet it is actually a better argument than the similar one urged against the Sabbath from the book of Genesis.

The reckoning of time by weeks is derived from nothing in nature, and can only be traced to the six days of creation, and to the rest of the Sabbath. This period of time is marked only by the appearance of the sanctified rest-day of the Creator. That the patriarchs reckoned time by weeks and by sevens of days, is evident from several texts. Gen. xxix, 27, 28; viii, 10, 12; vii, 4, 10; l, 10; Ex. vii, 25; Job ii, 13. That they should retain the week and forget the Sabbath by which alone the week is marked, is not a probable conclusion. That the reckoning of the week was rightly kept is evident from the fact that in the wilderness of Sin on the sixth day the people of their own accord gathered a double portion of manna. And Moses said to them, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." Ex. xvi, 22, 23.

The brevity of the record in Genesis causes us to overlook many facts of the deepest interest. Adam lived 930 years. How deep and absorbing the interest that must have existed in the human family to see the first man! To converse with one who had himself talked with God! To hear from his lips a description of that Paradise in which he had lived! To learn from one created on the sixth day the wondrous events of the creation week! To hear from his lips the very words of the Creator when he set apart his rest-day to a holy use! And to learn, alas! the sad story of the loss of Paradise and the tree of life!

It was therefore not difficult for the facts respecting the six days of creation and the sanctification of the rest-day to be diffused among mankind in the patriarchal age. Nay, it was impossible that it should be otherwise, especially among the godly. From Adam to Abraham a succession of men—probably inspired of God—preserved the knowledge of God upon earth. Thus Adam lived till Lamech, the father of Noah, was 56 years of age; Lamech lived till Shem, the son of Noah, was 93; Shem lived till Abraham was 150 years of age. Thus we are brought down to Abraham, the father of the faithful. Of him it is recorded that he obeyed God's voice and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes and his laws. And of him the Most High bears the following testimony: "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment." Gen. xxvi, 5; xviii, 19. The knowledge of God was preserved in the family of Abraham; and we shall next find the Sabbath familiarly mentioned among his posterity, as an existing institution.

(To be Continued.)

THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.

By Uriah Smith

"But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." Num. xiv, 21.

MARRED is thy course, O earth, with sin and woe; In gory stains thy mantle now appears; And days, and years, and ages, as they go, Are resonant with groans and wet with tears. And still beneath thy weary load of years, Thou toilest on like one too sore oppressed, While worn humanity, through hopes and fears, Adjures an answer to its soul's request, Is there no end of sin, no day of coming rest?

Ah, yes, thy days of grief are numbered all! From thy great Maker comes the fiat forth, To wipe away thy curse, remove thy pall, And re-adorn thee with celestial worth; And holy bards, in strains of heavenly birth, To themes immortal have attuned the lyre, And sung of glory yet to flood the earth, In lays that deep the drooping heart inspire, And light the torch of hope, with heaven's own hallowed fire.

And even now o'er all the eastern hills, The deepening tints of dawn ascend the sky; And joy each weary, waiting bosom fills; For lo! the morn of glory draweth nigh: When in the radiant heavens ascending high, The Sun of Righteousness his wings shall spread, To all the healing of his beams apply, And wake to endless life the sainted dead; And, I am sick, shall be no more forever said.

Haste, glorious day; for sin too long hath trod With blighting step o'er earth's once fair domain; And lo, the whole creation cries to God For him whose right it is to come and reign. Come for thy waiting few who yet remain, With sorrow, toil and dangers still oppressed. Let earth's re-hallowed soil be once again By righteous feet alone in gladness pressed, When to their final home shall come the good and blest. U. S.

Evidences of Christianity.

By Moses Hull

BY MOSES HULL.

CHAPTER I.

(Continued.)

I do not design in this chapter to prove that the Bible is the revelation which God should give: my only desire is to show the necessity of a revelation. But I cannot refrain from asking here, if our Bible is not of superhuman origin, if the character of a Christian as presented in that book is not divine, why are there so many counterfeits on it? Why so many counterfeit Christians? Men do not counterfeit infidelity. Why is this? Why do not men put on the cloak of infidelity to secure a character for honesty, soberness, chastity, or benevolence? The reason is obvious. Copper coin is too cheap for men to counterfeit. Let infidels prove themselves to be the most sober, chaste, honest, virtuous, self-denying people in the world. Let them build churches and school-houses, establish missionaries and benevolent institutions. Let them prove themselves to be what Christians have been for the last eighteen hundred years, and then you may look out for counterfeit infidelity.

But to return to the subject. How is it that heathens who know nothing of the Bible, have never been found boasting of the all-sufficiency of the “inner light.” They have always lamented

the need of a revelation from “One who careth for us.”

Men in all ages have had devotional feelings, but without a revelation could not tell how to direct their worship. Go to Athens and you will find the people of that city, notwithstanding their “reason,” “inner light,” and “self-consciousness,” worshipping thirty thousand gods. And not yet satisfied, fearing that among all of their gods they had not yet found the true one, another altar was erected and dedicated “to the unknown God.” See Acts xvii.

Gibbon says: “The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed in peace their local and respective influence; nor could the Roman who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. Every virtue and even vice acquired its divine representative, and every act and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries. It was the custom of the Romans to tempt the protectors of besieged cities by the promise of more distinguished honors than they possessed in their native country. Rome gradually became the common temple of her subjects, and the freedom of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind.” Decline and Fall, Vol. i, pp. 32, 35, 36.

Prof. Tholuck says: “In this mania for foreign gods, the nobles and the emperors themselves set the most corrupting examples. Germanicus and Agrippina devoted themselves especially to the Egyptian gods. So also Vespasian. Nero served all gods, with the exception of Dea Syra. Marcus Aurelius caused the priests of all foreign gods and nations to be assembled, in order to implore aid for the Roman empire against the incursions of the Marcomanni. Commodus caused himself to be initiated into the mysteries of the Egyptian Iris and Persian Mithras. Severus worshipped especially the Egyptian Serapis; Caracalla, chiefly the Egyptian Iris, and Heliogabalus the Syrian deities, though he was desirous of becoming a priest of the Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian religions.” Tholuck on Heathenism, Biblical Repository.

These cases are selected from the most enlightened of the ancient heathen nations. They are not exceptions, nor was this age an exception. Go to India to-day, and you will find as devoted a people as there is on the earth, worshipping everything from an onion to the sun, and many of them giving their lives in attestation of their sincerity. They feel the need of a revelation so deeply that they are willing to follow anything pretending to be an oracle from the gods, even if it commands them to cast themselves and their children before Juggernaut and let it crush them under its ponderous wheels.

And think you that everybody would be running for a physician if there was no such thing as disease? As the abundance of patent medicines is the proof of disease and the necessity of a remedy, so the abundance of things that come pretending to be a revelation from God, shows how deeply mankind feel the necessity of such a revelation. If as Parker says, “Everything that is of use to man lies in the plane of our own consciousness,” why this universal craving for a revelation from God? Discourse, p. 171.

Socrates acknowledged the insufficiency of human reason in the following language: “We must of necessity wait till some one from Him who careth for us shall come and instruct us how we ought to behave ourselves toward God and toward men.” Plato said, “We cannot know of ourselves what petition will be pleasing to God, or what worship we ought to pay to him; but it is necessary that a law-giver should be sent from heaven to instruct us. . . . O how greatly do I desire to see that man.” Again, “This law-giver must be more than man, that he may teach us the things that man cannot know by his own nature.” Plato, Republic, Books iv & vi. Fables of Infidelity, p. 68.

Not only have those who have no revelation from God spoken thus, but those who have had the benefit of the inspired seers of God have appreciated its value, and from experience spoken in its favor. Solomon has said, “Where there is no vision the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Prov. xxix, 18. Solomon had intercourse with all the nations of the earth. He knew what nations had prophets among them, and he saw that they prospered. He was acquainted with the nations also who were destitute of the teachings of the Spirit of God, and saw what ignorant, marauding savages they were, and wisely gave the solution of the cause of the difference in the language above quoted.

“The people perish.” Yes, look at the history of France during the three years’ reign of infidel terror, and answer whether the people do not perish. Now let the scenes of France be acted in America. Let the Bible be burned and the goddess of reason adored, and the scenes of Paris and Lyons will soon transpire in New York and Philadelphia. Then I apprehend that even infidels will “wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east for the word of the Lord.” Amos viii, 11, 12. And I am certain that no minister will be needed to expound the text, “Where there is no vision the people perish.”

But I have asserted that men need a revelation to teach them morality. Where is the strictly moral man that knows nothing of the Bible? Am I referred to a Solon, a Pythagoras, a Socrates, a Plato, a Zeno, or a Seneca? Their morality did not equal that of the Aborigines of the far West, and their education was not equal to that of the Sunday-school scholars of this country. Oaths are of frequent occurrence in their writings. Alexander Campbell says of them, “I also know something about them, and of the schools in which they were brought up, the schools which they founded, and the lives which they led. I will not draw their frailties from their dread abode.” Debate with Owen, p. 5.

The little morality that these ancient heathen had, they drew, either directly or indirectly, from the oracles of God. Plato says that he learned the moral principles which he advocated from the Jews. Mr. Campbell says of them, “But they were educated men.” In what schools of tradition were they brought up? They received instruction. They did not create it. The glimmering, flickering lamp which gave them light, was kindled by the radiations from a fire that God kindled on mount Sinai, in Arabia, from a mystic lamp that shone in a tabernacle pitched by Moses in the desert, and from the temple which Solomon the wise raised in Jerusalem. Sinai is older than Athens or Parnassus; and mount Zion than Mars hill. Moses was born more than a thousand years before Pythagoras, Solon, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Zeno, or Seneca. Some of these were contemporaries of the Jewish prophets. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, antedate them all more than fifteen hundred years. David sang before Homer, and Solomon wrote his Proverbs and his Ecclesiastes before Solon the oldest of them was born.” Debate with Owen, p. 6.

(To be Continued.)

The Connexion Between Holiness and Eternal Happiness.

It is an impossibility to move man to action without an appeal to his hopes and fears; and every work that he performs is done with the expectation of gaining some good, or avoiding some evil. The Scriptures do not fail to take advantage of this principle when urging the Christian on to holiness. They clearly teach us that the amount of happiness which will fall to our lot beyond the grave, will be proportioned to our attainments in holiness during our pilgrimage through this vale of tears.

The more useful the child of God is here, the more blessed will he be hereafter. Not even the smallest act, if performed with an eye to the glory of God, shall lose its reward; and every sinner that we are instrumental in saving shall glitter as a star, in the crown of our rejoicing, forever.

In “that day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known,” every man shall receive a reward “according to the deeds done in the body,” and certainly those who have been most diligent in their Master’s cause, shall receive the greatest reward. But what is to qualify us for usefulness? Learning, talent, and wealth are of no small value, and, when united with holiness of heart, they add greatly to the usefulness of him who possesses them. The duty of the church is not to neglect these things, but to use them for the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom. But they are of but little value when contrasted with holiness; and the whole history of the church serves to confirm the position, that the holier a man is the more useful he will be. It was this that made successful ministers of Paul, Whitfield, Wesley, Emory, and Hedding. True, these men had talents that would have raised them to eminence in any of the walks of life; but had they been destitute of the deep baptisms of the Spirit that they possessed, they would never have been instrumental in “turning many to righteousness.” If this reasoning be correct, of how great value is holiness!

But there is another view of this subject, that may be worthy of consideration. We know that in this life we cannot be happy unless our feelings accord with the circumstances by which we are surrounded. He who has no love of music, derives no pleasure from the fact that his ears are saluted with sounds that would cause other hearts to thrill with emotions of joy. Let the unlettered person be introduced to the society of the learned, and he will find no pleasure in their conversation.

How little pleasure does the sinner find in the service of God! To him the Bible is a dull book; and praising God an employment for which he has no heart. But change the dispositions of these characters, and then how different will be the emotions under the circumstances by which I have supposed them to be surrounded!

But in heaven all is holy. The song that the glorified will sing above, is a song of praise to him who has redeemed them from all sin. He whose smile sends joy to their hearts, “cannot look upon sin with the least allowance;” while the angels that gather around his throne have never been guilty of the least deviation from holiness; and earth’s children will not be permitted to enter that “palace of angels, and of God,” until they have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

And is it reasonable to suppose that an unholy person would be happy in such a place, even were it possible that he should be admitted there? Would there not be such a dissimilarity between his feelings and the society and employment of that place, as would render him miserable? The sooner we are cleansed from all sin, the better will we be prepared to enjoy heaven.

If these things be so, how important is it that the child of God should immediately “lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset him.” Every moment of delay lessens the amount of happiness that he will inherit beyond the grave. Shall we not, then, strive to gain an abundant entrance into heaven?—Guide to Holiness.

When Will Ye Be Wise?

“Ye fools, when will ye be wise?” Ps. xciv, 8.

THE Scripture stigmatizes the sinner as a fool. He may be rich, he may be learned, he may fill an honorable station in the world, but so long as he neglects the one thing needful, he is called a fool. Wisdom consists in fixing upon a worthy end, and pursuing it in the most prudent and judicious way. A wise man thinks of his soul, and seeks above everything else its salvation. He thinks of the wrath of God, and endeavors by all means to escape it. He thinks of a crown of glory, and sets his heart upon obtaining it. He sees that glorifying God is his highest honor, and secures his greatest happiness; and therefore he makes that the grand end of his life. But the

multitude, alas! the multitude overlook, or despise, or treat these things with contempt. They live as if self-gratification were the end of their creation, as if earth were their eternal dwelling-place, and as if glorifying God were no business of theirs. Looking at men in general, one would be ready to conclude, if we were to judge by their conduct, that they had no souls to be saved or lost,—as if there were no hell to escape or heaven to obtain,—as if there were no crown of glory to be won or crown of shame to be avoided. Surely the Scriptures are right in designating such men fools; for fools, the greatest fools, they must be. Should the eye of a worldly man or woman light upon this page, God asks thee the question, “When will you be wise?” When will you begin to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness? When will you come to Jesus, and be saved from wrath by him? When will you begin to lay up for yourself treasure in heaven? When will you prepare for death, judgment, and eternity?

“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” Deut. xxxii, 29.

THINGS.

By Uriah Smith

THE word, things, when used otherwise than to denote actions or events, signifies, according to Webster, “any substance, that which is created, any particular article or commodity.” A thing, then, is something which has substance; it has length, breadth, and thickness; it occupies space; it can be measured, seen, felt, and handled. It is matter, and possesses all the properties of matter. Among every people on the earth, thing means something material and tangible; and in every book on the face of the globe when the reader meets with this word, he attaches to it, and correctly, too, a similar meaning. I said every book; perhaps one must be excepted; for there is a book which in common with all others uses this word, and in which it is made to mean something entirely different, or rather, nothing. That book is the Bible; and whether it is lawful to thus change the meaning of this word, when found in this book, from that which is given to it in all other books, and under all other circumstances, is the point in question.

To illustrate, see Col. iii, 1: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” Things above! What! are there things above? No, says the rarefied theology of the present day; there is immateriality above and nothing more. There is an immaterial heaven, an immaterial God and Christ, immaterial angels, and immaterial spirits of dead people. But the text speaks of things above. Can these things by any process be evaporated into the immateriality which the popular belief attaches to them? It cannot certainly be done by the definition of the word; for that signifies any substance, something actual and real, and it cannot be done by its use as applied to any object on this earth; for here it always means something material, something that has body and parts. There seems then to be no reason for the meaning that is attached to the word things when applied to objects above, save the mysterious belief that substance and reality are incompatible with the state of the blessed; and no reason can be given for this belief except the fact of its own existence; but behind this fact it thus entrenches itself; and while it forbids all questioning as to the right of its existence, it holds the theological world in slavery to its mystical demands.

Perhaps, however, this theory is wrong, and the Bible right. Perhaps the word things, when found in that book, with no conceivable reason to affect its signification, may mean the same as in any other book. The arbitrary claim of the popular view is set forth still more strikingly in the following verse, which reads: “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” Things above and things on the earth.

What do we understand by things on the earth? Anything immaterial and invisible? None will so claim; but things real and tangible. By what principle, therefore, can things above, in the antithetical portion of the sentence, be construed to mean just the reverse? When things means something in one place, how can it in just three words from where it is so used, mean nothing at all. Let every lover of consistency who is troubled with the mysticism that has been thrown over the word of God, consider this point.

Other scriptures bear testimony to the reality of heavenly things. Peter, in his first epistle i, 4, speaks of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in heaven for us. In Heb. ix, 24, Paul says, “For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves, that ye have in heaven, a better and an enduring substance.” This language is unmistakable: we have in heaven not immateriality and nonentity, but a substance. And when Paul would set before us the hope that inspired the worthies of old, he speaks of it in contrast with this earth, as “a country,” a “better country,” a “heavenly country.” Strange language, if this earth is the only real and substantial thing of the two. He also tells us that they looked for, not an airy nothing, but a tangible city; not founded on nothing, but one which had foundations, whose builder and maker was God.

Yes, there are things above. We can rejoice in the glorious hope of something real, something upon which a scriptural, sober, and intelligent faith can lay hold, an inheritance as literal as the earth upon which we now tread, glorified as infinite power, exerted in infinite wisdom can alone do it, where we shall know as we are known, and with the fine strung sensibilities of the redeemed, be enabled to appreciate the exquisite joys that dwell in the presence of God, and at his right hand forevermore.

Things above. But perhaps some one may ask, May there not be things somewhere above, and yet heaven itself be the intangible, spiritual place it is commonly supposed? Let the apostle answer. He tells us in the very text under notice, the definite location of these things; he tells us just where they are: “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” That is sufficient. The things above, are just where God and Christ have their glorious abode. There is the holy city, New Jerusalem, with its rainbow of precious foundation stones underlying its jasper wall; there are its gates of pearl, and its streets of gold; there is the tree of life, and the river of the water of life; there is the true tabernacle, pitched not by man, but by the living God, where our great High Priest is now ministering for us; there is the great original of the ark, the mercy-seat, and the tables of testimony, inscribed with the great law of Jehovah; there is the throne of God and the Lamb, and there the many mansions of the Father’s house, made ready for those who are found prepared when the Lord shall return, to be taken with him.

It is the things above that we are to seek. How shall we seek them? The next verse explains: Set your affection, your mind, your earnest desire, upon things above. And is it necessary for the apostle to exhort us to do this? Must a people so prone as we are to set our affections on the blighted and perishing things of this earth, when we have revealed to us the incorruptible, the surpassing, and unfading glories of heaven, which may be had by seeking—must such a people be exhorted before we will turn our attention to them? Not when faith in the reality and certainty of these things is lively and strong. Lord, increase our faith, and give us an earnest of the inheritance prepared for thy faithful followers.

U. S.

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