Earlier text: THE SIN OF ACHANIMMORTALITY—CONSTITUTIONAL OR CONDITIONAL?
We smile complacently at our colored brother whose astronomy, learned from Joshua, makes sun, moon, and stars revolve around a flat earth. The smile of the next generation at our notions of man's constitution and destiny may be through tears. Terror, despair, death, have resulted from teachings now spurned by many noble Christians. Our conflicting creeds and sects prove the existence of grave, perhaps fundamental error. A glance at some of these creeds may quicken our zeal to find and banish it. The duality of man's nature has been long and widely taught, viz: That he has an immaterial, indivisible, immortal soul—the seat of thought, emotion, will, consciousness—the real man; and a body, the servant, instrument of the soul. To these two, some prefix an immortal spirit, filling the Pauline catalogue of "spirit, soul, and body," thus making man as well as God a trinity. A smaller, but rapidly augmenting number, think man a purely material, organic unit, composed not only of gross, but of those subtle elements which manifest the phenomena of light, heat, electricity, etc., etc. Is asserted to be the final extinction of all at death; the extinction of sinners only; unconsciousness until the resurrection; dim consciousness; vivid activity because freed from clogging bodies; immediate entrance to heaven for all, or for the good only, while the bad enter hell; these results only after the judgment; purgatorial, restorative pains; a second probation which transmits all to heaven, or a part to heaven, leaving an incorrigible balance for endless woe or for annihilation. Let me close this imperfect list with the teachings of a learned, eloquent, earnest evangelist, lately deceased, who long held, with the title of D. D., a professorship in a theological seminary: The sinner is justly punished after death. Since he is beyond grace, his sufferings cannot tend to his reformation. He rebels, blasphemes, increases his guilt. Justice demands heavier inflictions which only augment the rebellion and blasphemy, and this process goes on, "until, in the ages of eternity, the period will arrive when God will be compelled to exert the utmost of his infinite power to hold the wretch in existence, while he wreaks upon him the utmost of his infinite vengeance." The words marked as quoted made so vivid an impression that nearly the exact language has been remembered. The preacher's false theories, worked up by inexorable logic, with unflinching courage, faith, and zeal, bore a natural harvest of terror, insanity, and death! Yes, the smile will be through tears. It is well for some to have changed their theories, and for others to take a deep interest in the present discussions of immortality. Thirty-six years ago an educated, beloved, Christian friend astounded me by showing a tendency toward rejecting the almost universal belief in man's immortal soul. I searched long and zealously for arguments to save him. Was not I, like Dr. Haven, proudly conscious of a soul whose communion with Nature and its Author had been my chief joy? Surely, I held the truth, and that truth must save my friend. The brief space allotted to this article permits only a very imperfect statement of facts and results. Many centuries before Christ, taught "immortal-soul-ism," supposed by some to have been based on corrupted traditions of Eden. Others think that it arose from a God-given longing for immortality, necessarily given to a race about to be invited to "seek for glory, honor, immortality, by patient continuance in well-doing." Candidates for "the crown of life" must have innate aspiration for it. We sometimes mistake this noble aspiration for the actual possession! This Pagan philosophy, backed by pride of heart, by ignorance of material forces, and by fixity of opinion from lifelong training, has made it well-nigh impossible to read nature and the Bible aright. Manfully dismissing prejudice, let us read 1. The babe has a small, soft brain, a feeble mind; then both grow, mature, decay together. If immaterial soul only can evolve mental action, that soul, being constitutionally incapable of growth and material nutriment, would always abide in unchanging vigor. Is it asserted that thought and mind are joint products of soul and brain? Then brain is the senior and ruling partner of the firm; the soul does naught without brain, the facts soon prove that brain does all without soul. 2. Mental and moral qualities are hereditary. Our supposed immaterial, indivisible, immortal soul cannot be a product of physical generation, which is a purely material process. Each soul must be a new creation, coming pure from the Divine hand, and the dogma of derived depravity is (on this theory) a blasphemy! Does depravity inhere in the inherited brain, and through it contaminate the new-made soul? Then, verily, brain is master, and soul is slave. Such a soul is quite unnecessary. 3. Let a person be in perfect mental and muscular repose; then arousing his attention increases the heat of his brain and the amount of carbonic acid expelled from his lungs. Mental activity can be so excited as to cause a great flow of blood to the brain with rapid combustion of blood-nutriment, and an increase of heat which may require even ice to reduce it. If matter cannot think and feel and will, why all this commotion in the brain? 4. We are conscious of brain-weariness after severe mental toil, just as of muscular exhaustion after hard muscular toil. 5. The common terms, "a man of brains," "a brainless fool," "shallow brained," etc., indicate a conviction that brain secretes thought. 6. It is confidently asserted that consciousness, the most subtle and sublimated of all mental products, cannot have a material origin. Yet, pressure of my finger tip on the scalp of my young friend Hooker, who had lost the upper, frontal portion of his skull by a kick from a horse, would quickly render him as unconscious as a marble statue. I know experimentally, and all ought to know by observation or unimpeachable testimony, that concussion and disease of brain often produce utter unconsciousness, in which the lapse of days, weeks, months, has no known duration to the patient. A marine, wounded at Trafalgar, remained unconscious eleven months. Then he was trepanned, the skull raised off the brain, and the surgical wound dressed. In two hours thereafter he sat up in his cot, looked around and asked how the battle was getting on! If that oak splinter had crushed his brain, he must, perforce, have remained unconscious until the resurrection brain were given. To him, a delay of ten thousand years would not have been one second. 7. Stimulants carried by the blood currents into the brain quicken, and sedatives suppress, thought. 8. Monomania and partial insanity cannot occur in an indivisible unit-soul; they can and do in a brain composed of many organs. The rare and curious phenomenon of double consciousness may be manifested in a brain composed of two symmetric hemispheres, which, through disease, act alternately and not conjointly; thus practically converting one person into two, wholly strangers to each other. Will immortal soulists claim two independent souls to one body! 9. Anxious in my youth to attain practical knowledge of human nature, I gave attention to Locke, Brown, Reid, Upham, and other metaphysicians of that day. Vain labor! Next, with note-book and pencil in hand, I began some practical study of the specimens accessible. While busy thus, a child, aged only a few years was introduced. Its name was Phrenology, a thoroughly practical little genius. By hundreds of observations on heads the assertions of this child were carefully verified. Phrenology makes brain the complex organ of mind; faculties being manifested in strength or feebleness according to size and quality of organ. Experts described the character of utter strangers with wondrous accuracy. I once witnessed a strange confirmation of Phrenology in a case of brain lesion. The person was a Christian. The first symptom of disease was unusual religious fervor, with heat at the vertex of brain. Next, conscience and firmness were involved in the fever, and inflexible duty was the constant theme. Then caution became diseased, and anxious fears were distressing. At this point (reached in a few days) I understood the gradual descent of the inflammation, and made due preparation for the restraint and control of the patient when the dangerous organs of combativeness and destructiveness should be involved in this preternatural excitement. Medication did not, could not, avert this crisis of the disease, but the damage to person and furniture were made light. Ice, blisters, heroic treatment, subdued the disease, and in three months the patient was cured. Such cases demonstrate the truth of Phrenology—brain thinks. A veteran university professor of Natural Science once exclaimed: "The more I study matter the more I respect it." Organic brain-matter is specially respectable. It is objected that materialism is fatalism; that matter, subject to fixed law, cannot have freedom. If man has a soul, that soul is as much a creature made under fixed laws as matter is. We cannot even comprehend how God, a being of perfect law, can be free. Conscious of freedom of choice, having a conscience which approves or accuses, assured that God has not put a lie in our constitution, we believe ourselves free. Having read a few facts in nature, let us turn to the Bible. "God formed man of the dust of the ground." Air breathed into his nostrils caused him to live, to become a living soul. ("neh-phesh.") He did not receive a Pagan, Platonic soul, for this "neh-phesh" is applied to all water and land animals in the first chapter of Genesis, also to human corpses, etc. It here signifies a purely material organism. David believed this, saying: "He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." His wise son declared that man, by constitution, "hath no pre-eminence above the beast; all have one breath, all go to one place, all are of the dust and all turn to dust again." Peter asserts the same, that the sinful, "like natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, shall utterly perish in their own corruption." Adam was material and mortal, needing, even when sinless, the "tree of life" to heal disease and stay natural decay. This tree was accessible only while he obeyed. Tradition says Adam was a century old when he wedded Eve. She evidently was an inexperienced, guileless girl, at once imposed on by specious words; and having eaten of the forbidden tree, supposing she would confer a favor on her loved Adam, urged him to eat also. Adam saw the sad mistake at once. Eve must leave Eden, live in the rough, outside world, exposed to peril and toil, then at last die. But she must not go alone, unprotected. Adam loved too deeply for that; so he, "not deceived," understandingly ate, and thus linked his fate with hers. A few centuries of life and love with Eve were better to him than a lonely immortality in Eden. He well understood the penalty, for he had lived long enough outside the garden to know what death meant. To assert that the threatened death meant immortality in hell fire, or even an eternity of woe of any sort, is absurd. Exposing Adam to such a fate while left in utter ignorance of it, were exceedingly unjust. If Adam understood that to be meant, he was simply an idiot to incur the fearful penalty for the sake of Eve's society. In fact, finite man cannot comprehend eternal, i. e., infinite suffering; hence a just and benevolent God cannot have enacted such a penalty. Figures of rhetoric are justly discarded from the announcement of law and penalty, by both God and man. There is no figure in the law announced by God to Adam—"In the day thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die:" neither in the sentence, "Until thou (the sinner) return unto the ground; out of it wast thou taken; dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." That disposes of exactly all that sinned, not of a mere innocent body, the humble slave of an imperious soul. Then followed the glorious promise of a "seed" which should break the bonds of death and restore all to life by a resurrection—the righteous to immortality, the wicked to the penalty of the second death. "The wages of sin is death"—"everlasting destruction from the presence of God and the glory of his power," while "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ," that promised seed. That the death threatened the impenitent is extinction of conscious being, is unequivocally declared by the action of fire on stubble, chaff, tares, withered vine branches, felled trees useless for fruit. Immortality is conditional, to be sought by faith in Christ and "patient continuance in well-doing." 197Without a resurrection the sleep of death would be eternal. "There is no knowledge in the grave whither thou goest." Those "who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," but "the dead know not anything." The patriarchs, the fathers, Stephen, "fell asleep." All who sleep in Christ, who is the bread of life, shall wake to immortality. All others "perish," "shall be as though they had not been." Bible accounts of raising the dead make no reference to a disembodied spirit or soul. Christ took Jairus' daughter by the hand with the words: "Daughter, I say unto thee, arise!" To the widow's son, "Young man, I say unto thee, arise!" Lazarus sleepeth—is dead, corrupted, in the tomb, but the order is, "Lazarus, come forth." Peter, after prayer, turned to a corpse and said, "Tabitha, arise!" If the beloved Lazarus and Tabitha's souls were in Heaven, it were cruel to recall them to toil and death once more.—D. H. Chase, LL. D., in Northern Christian Advocate. Of the preaching of Jesus, the gospel preserves numerous fragments, but no lengthened abstract of any single discourse, except that of the “Sermon on the Mount.” It seems to have been delivered immediately after the choice of the twelve, to the disciples at large and the multitude who thronged to hear the new Rabbi. Descending from the higher point to which he had called up his apostles, he came towards the crowd, which waited for him at a level place below. There were numbers from every part—from Judea and Jerusalem in the south, and even from the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon; some to hear him, others to be cured of their diseases, and many to be delivered from unclean spirits. The commotion and excitement were great at his appearance, for it had been found that to touch him was to be cured, and, hence, all sought, either by their own efforts or with the help of friends, to get near enough to him to do so. After a time, however, the tumult was stayed, all having been healed, and he proceeded, before they broke up, to care for their spiritual, as well as he had already for their physical wants. Tradition has chosen the hill known as the “Horns of Hattin,” two horn-like heights, rising sixty feet above the plain between them—two hours west of Tiberias, at the mouth of the gorge which opens, past Magdala, into the wild cliffs of Arbela, famous in the history of the Zealots as their hiding place, and famous also for Herod’s battles in mid-air at the mouths of their caves, by means of great cages filled with soldiers let down the precipices. It is greatly in favor of this site, to find such a writer as Dean Stanley saying that the situation so strikingly coincides with the intimations of the gospel narrative, as almost to force the inference, that, in this instance, the eye of those who selected the spot was rightly guided. The plain on which the hill stands is easily accessible from the lake, and it is only a few minutes’ walk from it to the summit, before reaching which, a broad “level place” has to be crossed—exactly suited for the gathering of a multitude together. It was to this, apparently, that Jesus came down, from one of the higher horns, to address the people. Seated on some slightly elevated rock—for the teacher always sat while he taught—the people and the disciples sitting at his feet, on the grass; the cloudless Syrian sky over them; the blue lake, with its moving life, on the one hand, and in the far north, the grand form of Hermon, glittering in the upper air; he began what is to us the Magna Charta of our faith, and to the hearers must have been the formal inauguration of the new kingdom of God. —Geikie’s Life of Christ, pp. 417, 418. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” The people could see the white salt, glistening in the pathway, where it had been cast out because it had lost its savor and was therefore useless. Jesus used salt as an illustration of the Christian’s life and teachings upon the world. Were it not for the few righteous who inhabit the earth, the wrath of God would not be delayed a moment from punishing the wicked. But the prayers and good works of the people of God preserve the world; they are the savor of life. But if Christians are only so in name, if they have not virtuous characters and godly lives, they are like the salt that has lost its savor. Their influence upon the world is bad; they are worse than unbelievers. Jesus took objects in the view of his listeners as emblems by which to teach his truth. The people had come together to hear him while it was yet early morning. The glorious sun, climbing higher and higher in the blue sky, was chasing away the shadows that lurked in the valleys and among the narrow defiles of the mountains. The glory of the eastern heavens had not yet faded out. The sunlight flooded the land with its splendor, the placid surface of the lake reflected the golden light, and mirrored the rosy clouds of morning. Every bud and flower and leafy spray glistened with dew-drops. Nature smiled under the benediction of a new day, and the birds sang sweetly among the spreading trees. The Saviour looked upon the company before him, and then upon the rising sun, and said to his disciples, “Ye are the light of the world.” The figure was peculiarly striking. As the sun lit up the landscape with his genial rays and scattered the shades of night, so the disciples were to diffuse the light of truth, and scatter the moral darkness that brooded over the world. In the brilliant light of morning the towns and villages situated in the surrounding country, stood forth clearly and made an attractive feature of the scene. Jesus, pointing to them said, “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” In these words Jesus taught his disciples that if they wished to direct others in the path of righteousness, their own example should be correct, and their acts reflect the light of truth. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Here Jesus refutes the charge of the Pharisees. His mission to the world is to vindicate the claims of that sacred law which they charge him with breaking. If the law of God could have been changed or abolished, then Christ need not have come to a fallen world to suffer the consequence of man’s transgression. Jesus came to explain the relation of the law of God to man, and to illustrate its precepts by his own example of obedience. He further declares that, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven.” Thus did the Saviour declare the validity of the moral law. Those who disobey the commandments of God, and teach others to do the same by their example and doctrine, are condemned by Christ.—Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 2, pp. 214, 215, 218. Jesus had a very different conception of the law from that of the Rabbis. To him it meant the sacred moral commands given from Sinai. The whole apparatus of ceremony and rite at first connected with them, were only rude external accommodations to the childhood of religion, to aid the simple and gross ideas of early ages. Looking beneath the symbol to the essential truth, it was a lofty, religious, moral, and social legislation, far deeper, wiser, holier, and more complete than the highest human system. He knew how the prophets had drawn from it the pure and exalted conceptions they had enforced, anticipating in their spirituality his own teaching. But centuries lay between him and the prophets, and Judaism had sunk to a painful idolatry of the letter and outward form of the law, to the neglect of its spirit and substance. The exile had weakened and perverted the national conscience, and a burning zeal for rigid external observance of the letter had followed the just belief that their national troubles had been a punishment for previous shortcomings.—Geikie, p. 426. A prime folly of the church has been hunting bears with greyhounds. A greyhound is swift, trim, and beautiful. For a quick chase, of certain game he is unexcelled. To tussel with bruin, a different species is called for. The slender, nimble, pretty, delicate thing is out of place. A grip of the beast would break the thin, weak creature to pieces. The short, ugly, bunchy bull-dog is the animal for bears. The brilliant preacher is a botch at business. God chose a stammerer to get Israel out of Egypt. Fowler, as the magician of fraternal fustian, set all the good old people in the general conference to crying and cheering. Fowler, as the conductor of a great church paper, was like a bug in a bottle flying aimlessly up or flat on his back at the bottom. Jefferson the statesman, and Washington the general, were wordless before an audience. They, however, made America. The church dotes on the declaimer. Bascom, whose bombast like the Amazon, the wonder of a continent, broad and burdened from fountain head to the sea with the brilliant blooms of the tropics, yet turning no mill, bearing no cargo—Bascom, the matchless rhetorican, was whirled by a gust of admiration into the bishopric. The business of the overseer, the superintendent of workers and work was committed to a man without the plain sense to take care of himself. The Lord of the vineyard removed him at once. He held but one conference. There is reason to believe that Peter was much superior to Paul as a public speaker. The conduct of great and imperial concerns demanded the sagacity and statesmanship of the latter. It was Paul, the indifferent orator, that had the care of all the churches on him. Nightingales and carrier-pigeons have supreme genius. We much fear the showy qualities of the tuneful bird would win the trusty position of a bearer of messages, though unfit by nature, if pleasing preachers had the balloting. The most notable man in the ranks of the clergy succeeds to the Vatican. The Popes are conspicuous among learned cardinals. And yet Italy was the worst managed government in Christendom. The southern church has not lacked in oratory. The “connectional” galaxy through all the years have been tip-top talkers, and with here and there an exception, the most incompetent men ever in trust of great affairs.—Richmond Christian Advocate. BEING OF ONE ACCORD, OF ONE MIND.
BANDS of music are forbidden to play on most of the large bridges of the world. A constant succession of sound-waves, especially such as come from the playing of a band, will excite the wires to vibration. At first the vibrations are very slight, but they will increase as the sound-waves continue to come. The principal reason why bands are not allowed to play when crossing certain bridges, the suspension bridge at Niagara, for instance, is that if followed by processions of any kind they will keep step with the music, and this regular step would cause the wires to vibrate. At suspension bridges military companies are not allowed to march across in regular step, but break ranks. The regular trotting gate of a dog across a suspension bridge is more dangerous to the bridge than a heavily loaded wagon drawn by a team of large horses. So united action tells against evil. So persistent, steady effort tells against sin. Thoughts, Tempers, and Tongues
WHEN alone, we have our thoughts to watch; in our families, our tempers; and in society, our tongues. BUSTLE is not industry, nor is impudence courage. KNOWLEDGE.—How important is knowledge. The more we know of God, the more we shall love him ; and we may learn his character from his word, where we may see God in the person of Christ. What a treasure is this word ! May we esteem it more than our necessary food, and ever study it with an attentive mind and a devout heart. "For verily I say unto you." Verse 18. Here, for the first time, does that august expression occur in our Lord's recorded teaching, with which we have grown so familiar as hardly to reflect on its full import. It is the expression, manifestly, of supreme legislative authority, and as the subject in connection with which it is uttered is the moral law, no higher claim to an authority strictly divine could be advanced.—Portable Commentary. "A bushel." A measure both among the Greeks and Romans, containing a little more than a peck English. From some ancient writers we learn that only those who had bad designs hid a candle under a bushel; that, in the dead of night, when all were asleep, they might rise up and have a light at hand to help them to effect their horrid purposes, of murder.—Clarke's Commentary. "Perform unto the Lord thine oaths." The morality of the Jews on this point was truly execrable; they maintained that a man might swear with his lips, and annul it in the same moment in his heart. They did not pretend to forbid ALL swearing, but only what they termed MUCH. A Jew might swear but he must not be too abundant in the practice. Against such permission our Lord opposes his, SWEAR NOT AT ALL!—Ibid. THE State Quarterly meeting held in Oakland on Sunday, April 24, was the most interesting one that it has ever been our privilege to attend. Details and statistics are noticed elsewhere. They were of the deepest interest to all present. We never saw the great importance of our Tract and Missionary work as we see it now. We are thankful that, in the providence of God, societies have been organized to carry it forward; and if a spirit of consecration and humility characterizes these workers, God will surely bless and prosper his work in their hands. When the SIGNS OF THE TIMES was started in Oakland, many persons were ready to question the wisdom and propriety of our having two publishing houses; and we remember that we then received letters of inquiry on this point, though not then connected with the Office. But time has dispelled all doubts on the subject, and shown that this step was wise and timely. We have, at this port, facilities for furnishing our publications to foreign countries, which could not be excelled at any point in the United States. We find sea-captains who are ready to carry our publications in bulk to other nations, and take a real interest in their transportation. The cost of freight on white paper is small, and when this paper is turned into paper-tracts, pamphlets, and books, it is all ready to be circulated on the ships in our harbor, or sent to the nations of the earth by the cheapest transportation which the world affords. It is unfortunate that our country, for which we have only feelings of loyalty, has been divided, both politically and religiously, into a North and a South, and that feelings of prejudice have existed in each toward the other. But the population of California is so cosmopolitan that these feelings do not affect our work here. We have in this State the whole United States represented in one commonwealth. This gives us opportunities which we could not find in any other part of the world. Our ship missionary work is very fast increasing in magnitude. As the missionary becomes more experienced in the work, it seems that the Spirit of God is opening the hearts of sea-faring men, both officers and sailors, to listen to the truth. Our hearts were cheered and filled with gratitude as these matters came up before the meeting. May the Lord bless the workers and prosper this precious, holy cause. While the nations of the earth are engaged in contentions with one another, and in preparations for the impending war, the work of the third angel's message is increasing in power; the "silent messengers" are going to the ends of the world, laying the foundation of a mighty and a glorious work ere long to be done. And they who aid the work now will have the satisfaction of knowing that it is their own work when God shall lighten the earth with the glory of the closing message. Brethren and sisters, fellow-workers all, be not disheartened. Your expectation of our Lord's coming will not lead to disappointment. We have the message of the third and last angel, to be followed by the appearing of the Son of man to reap the harvest of the earth. And "now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." We need not say or feel that our Lord delayeth his coming. The "sure word of prophecy" attests that "he is near, even at the doors." And our prayer is that he will hasten the day. In a late number of a religious paper we find an extended argument to prove that "water baptism is not essential to salvation." We notice this not for the sake of this one article alone, but because we often hear the same ideas advanced, and because there is a principle involved which should receive the careful attention of all lovers of the truth of God. The argument is based entirely upon the fact that there are many important texts defining obligation wherein no mention is made of baptism! It is surprising that any sane man of ordinary intelligence should consider this good ground for an argument to that intent; but it is even so. And this is not the only subject which is thus abused. We often hear people contend that the Sabbath is not binding because it is not mentioned in certain Scriptures, though it is very plainly enjoined in others; or because it was not "re-enacted," although it never was abolished. Such people have no conception of governing principles, or of the harmony of God's word. But to the argument. We first quote the following:— "If water baptism was essential to salvation Peter must have made a mistake in the third chapter of Acts, 19th verse, where he says: 'Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.' Here baptism is left out which shows that Peter, in Acts 2:38, did not mean that water baptism puts away sin. 'Refreshing from the presence of the Lord' certainly means the influence of the Spirit on a converted soul." The reader will say this is a mere cavil. We think it is nothing less than that. After quoting a number of texts to the same purpose, the writer closes with the following case, which most clearly shows the character of the entire argument:— "Also see or read the celebrated sermon of Jesus, found in the 5th 6th and 7th chapters of Matthew: in his wonderful discourse there is not a word said about baptism, and yet the whole duty of man is stated and practically defined. He does not say blessed are the baptized the first time. Love to God is not found in outward baptism." It may be that some have held baptism in a distorted light, teaching that it is the only means for the remission of sin, and that it is specially against this error that the argument is aimed. But that is no excuse for putting forth an argument which so completely subverts a gospel duty. No one should use an error to correct an error. Let us try this method of argument. Repentance is not necessary to salvation, because in the sermon on the mount, where "the whole duty of man is stated and practically defined," the Saviour said nothing whatever of repentance. And in Paul's excellent letter to the Ephesians, to whom he said he kept back nothing that was profitable to them, he made no mention of repentance. Nor yet to the Philippians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Titus, nor to Philemon. Nor did John or Jude speak of it. Surely repentance cannot be essential to salvation when it is so utterly ignored by so many important Scriptures! And faith is not necessary to salvation, or else Peter made a mistake in Acts 3:19, where he showed what is necessary to have our sins blotted out, but said nothing of faith. And so we might specify. But the writer to whom reference is here made, would reply that both faith and repentance are enjoined in the word of God in some places if not in those specified. True; and it is true that the Saviour said, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." He did not consider it of small moment, even though a person might be saved without it. It is true that Peter commanded them to repent and be baptized for the remission of sin. The least that can be said of this is that baptism is made a part of that system wherein is remission of sin and salvation. It is true that Cornelius was told to send for Peter of whom he would learn what he ought to do; and Peter "commanded them to be baptized." Not by the baptism of the Spirit, for that they had already received. And we do not think that "Peter made a mistake" in this—he understood his Lord's commission. And so of other texts. But what if you can be saved without baptism? Are you certain that you will be if you continue to slight duties made plain to your understanding in the gospel? Do you think so little of the will of your Master that you will disobey him as far as you possibly can, yet so as to be saved? Oh, such selfishness, to be called Christianity! Such perversions of the right way of God! We desire that men so blinded may be led to repent of such wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of their heart may be forgiven them. It is no small error to lead men to slight the word of the Lord, and teach them to neglect his requirements.