THE TWO GLORIES by Joseph Clarke

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 27, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 22

THE TWO GLORIES.

By Joseph Clarke

BY JOSEPH CLARKE.

On page 244, vol. 1, of D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, man is represented as now in a state of humiliation and weakness between two glories and two grandeurs,—a past glory, from which he has been precipitated, and a future glory, to which he is called. These ideas, so presented, are truthful, and should never be lost sight of for a moment. Once man was almost an angel. The curse of sin had not left its blighting traces on his body or his mind; no tokens of death or decay marred this earth or any of its inhabitants. By faith we see that glory restored in the future; the earth, now defaced by a succession of curses, will be renovated and beautified as before.

All that we see around us goes to establish the truth of this position. The misery and calamities of this life are not the proper order of things. Some terrible mishap has turned our cup of happiness upside down,—has inverted the normal condition of affairs; but it is only for a little while, and then the future glory will appear. All now looks dark and dreary; earth and its inhabitants seem to be out of order, and “insanity” is the best word to describe the condition of things generally. But it is the last hour of night; day dawns over the tops of the hills, and to the eye of faith the future glory begins to appear. But to the infidel it grows darker and more dark. Reader, let us keep in view these two glories,—these two grandeurs.