CHRISTIAN LIFE | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, June 24, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 56, No. 1

CHRISTIAN LIFE.

The Epistle to Diognetus, written soon after those of the apostles, gives the following delineation of the Christian life:—

The Christians are not separate from the rest of mankind by country, or by language, or by customs. They are confined to no particular cities, use no peculiarity of speech, adopt no singularity of life. Their doctrine embraces no tenet built upon the reasoning and subtility of crafty men; neither do they, like others, uphold the opinions of any man. Dwelling in the cities, whether of Greeks or barbarians, as every man's lot is cast, . . . they dwell in their own country, but as sojourners. They partake of all things as denizens; they endure all things as strangers. Every foreign land is their country; their own country is to each a foreign land. . . . They are in the flesh, but they live not after the flesh. They abide on earth, but they are citizens of Heaven. They obey the laws which are established; and in their own lives are superior to the laws. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. Men know them not, yet condemn them. Being slain they are made alive; being poor, they make many rich; deprived of all things, in all things they abound. Being dishonored, they are thereby glorified. Doing good, they are punished as evil-doers. Being punished, they rejoice. In a word, Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body. The soul is dispersed over all the members of the body; Christians, over all the cities of the world. Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world.

—The highest point outward things can bring unto is the contentment of the mind, with which no estate can be poor, without which all estates will be miserable.—Sydney Smith.