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Review and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 17.

LAW AND GOSPEL

Review and Herald

Oct 20, 1868

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 20, 1868

LAW AND GOSPEL.

By R. F. Cottrell

Sin and Pardon; Disease and Cure.
BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.
TEXT.—“Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” Jer. viii, 22.
CONDEMNATION is the moral disease of mankind; a disease which, if not cured, will end in death. Sin, which is the transgression of the law of God, is the cause of this disease. In order to cure the disease, the cause must be removed. It is of no use to treat the symptoms, while the cause is left unremoved. Jesus Christ is the only Physician that can cure it, and the only remedy is the gospel. “He shall save his people from their sins.”
Had not our race transgressed the law of God, there would have been no moral disease, no guilt, no woe, and, consequently, no need of a physician nor a remedy. Man’s moral and physical health would have remained sound, and the result would have been everlasting life. But the violation of the laws of moral health has made a remedy necessary. The transgression of the law has brought condemnation; and to save man from condemnation and, consequently, from death, the gospel of pardon has become necessary. A return to the laws of moral health can aid in our restoration by putting us in a favorable condition for a cure. This, indeed, is absolutely necessary; but this alone cannot remove the disease. The remedy must be applied to cleanse us from the deep-seated, mortal disease already contracted, and preying upon our vitals. Future obedience cannot justify us from our past sins, which by the law demand our death. “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
But the great Physician is not like the quacks of our times, who, to sell their worthless nostrums, tell us that no change of diet is required—that we may still continue the pernicious habits which induced our disease, and yet expect a cure. He, on the contrary, demands an entire change in our habits of life, a return to the laws of health and life. His language is, “Wash you, make you clean [good advice to most patients, in a literal sense]; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” No cure is promised, but on condition of a return to the violated laws of health. We must not continue our wrong habits of living, in order to demonstrate the sovereign power of the remedy. We must not continue in sin, that grace may abound. The laws of health are precisely what they were before. The violation of them is as sure to bring disease as ever. “His servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness” and life. The transgression of the law still is sin, and the wages of sin is death.
But some invalids insanely imagine, being so taught by their quack advisers, that the work of the physician is not only to cure the sick, but to abolish the laws of health; so that the same acts which brought disease may now be repeated with impunity. They think that medicine has now taken the place of the laws of health—that the gospel has superseded the law. This took place, as they affirm, when the great Physician made his advent into our world, to confirm the glad tidings before revealed, that a remedy had been found; that the sin-disease could be cured. They seem to think that before that event all was disease, and there was no remedy; but that now all is remedy, and no disease—that before the cross all was law, and no gospel; but since that all has been gospel, and no law; that the laws of health, the violation of which was formerly sure to bring disease, have been superseded by medicine.
They tell us that the learned Dr. Paul teaches that sickness is cured by medicine taken in faith, and not by the laws of health; and that, therefore, those laws are abolished, and the convalescent need not heed them at all. Now we do not believe that Paul was such a quack as that would make him. We admit that the promise is his; but the conclusion is their own. He comes to a very different conclusion. Anticipating that some, whose perverted appetites had impaired their intellects, would try to force the above conclusion upon him, in order that they might claim his sanction to their self-indulgence, he proceeds to draw his own conclusion, as follows: Do we then abolish the laws of health by the use of medicine? God forbid! Yea, we establish those laws. The restored must keep them as they would preserve health and life. See Rom. iii, 20–31.
Again, he uses language similar to this: There is, therefore, now no sickness to those who have accepted of the great Physician, who walk not after their perverted appetites, but according to the laws of health. For the principle of life and health, administered by this Physician, hath made me free from the unnatural principle, established in us by disobedience to those laws, tending to transgression and death. For what the laws of health alone could not do, being made weak and inefficient through transgression of them, our Physician has supplied, not by justifying our transgression of them, but condemning it; that the righteousness of those laws might be exemplified in us, who walk not in transgression, but in obedience. See Rom. viii, 1–4.
Modern quacks and devotees to depraved appetites would do better to let Paul draw his own conclusions, than to undertake to force upon him a conclusion so at variance with common sense, and derogatory to the Heaven-established laws of health, to say nothing of the slanderous imputation against this justly-celebrated and inspired teacher of moral medical science and dietetics. Peter, another physician, and evidently of the same school with Paul, since he calls him his “beloved brother,” cautions all invalids against the deceptive practice of some, perhaps professing themselves to be learned physicians, who would wrest Paul’s words to their own destruction. 2 Pet. iii, 15, 16.
Beware, therefore, oh! beware, my brother, my sister invalid, that you be not deceived by the specious pretensions of quacks and counterfeiters, and join with them in forcing the words of Paul, making him teach the abolition of the laws of moral health, established from the beginning, and, for the sake of gratifying a depraved appetite, pursue your wild career of transgression till your disease shall become absolutely incurable, and carry you down to death. Oh! how many, when it shall be too late to recall it, will mourn in fruitless despair that they did not take Paul’s own conclusions to his arguments, instead of those of his opposers and enemies.
James, another new-school physician (if we call those of the present dispensation new-school), teaches us that if we fulfill each precept of the original royal law of health, we shall do well—we shall recover. He will not indulge the patient in the violation of that law in one particular, reasoning that each precept is instituted by one and the same Lawgiver, and that they are all alike right and indispensable to moral health. Isa. ii, 8–13.
Our law-abolishing medical pretenders may learn, if they will, that the sin-disease is just what it ever has been in all dispensations, always discovering itself by precisely the same symptoms. The laws of health alone never cured one individual patient afflicted with this dreadful malady. The ancients could avail themselves of the only remedy, faith in the skill and ability of the great Physician, as well as we. It was not all law with them, and no gospel; neither is it all gospel with us, and no law. They had the sin-disease; so have we. They had the gospel remedy set before them; so have we. Their acceptance of the remedy did not abolish the law, the violation of which brought the disease upon them; neither will ours. They, being healed, were under obligation strictly to observe that law to preserve their health; so are we.
Take Abraham for an example. The gospel was preached to him, Gal. iii, 8, but it did not abolish the law. He obeyed God’s voice, and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. Gen. xxvi, 5. He had both the moral law, which pointed out and condemned sin, and the gospel, which pointed him to the only remedy that can save a soul. He obeyed them both. He walked in the faith; he believed and obeyed the gospel, and thus became the father of the faithful to all future ages. His faith did not abolish the law; neither did Paul’s; neither can ours, though unbelief may choose to have it abolished by a pretended faith. But if we “walk in the steps of the faith” which Abraham had, we may be his children, and the heirs with him of the same promises. Rom. iv, 12; Gal. iii, 6–9.
Abraham’s faith in the gospel did not abolish the law. If we are his children, having the same gospel faith, we shall not abolish it, nor wish it abolished. The gospel ceremonies, church ordinances, or ceremonial laws, by which he and ourselves exhibit our faith in Christ, are different; because he lived before the great offering for sin was made, and we since; but the moral law, which convicts of sin, and the plan of salvation through faith in Christ, repentance and obedience, or a return to moral rectitude, are precisely the same in both cases. Otherwise he and ourselves, being converted to different standards of moral rectitude, or right-doing, must have separate Heavens in which to dwell; for our characters would not agree. But if we have the same faith and repentance which he had, they will lead us to obey the same moral law that he obeyed. Our moral characters being formed by the same standard, we can dwell together in the same inheritance.
Abraham was rich; he had both the law and the gospel. Are we rich with the gospel alone, and that “another gospel,” a gospel that makes void the law of God, and leaves us without a rule of right-doing? without a law by which to form a character for that Judgment where all are to be judged by law (not gospel), according to the deeds done in the body? O ye law-abolishers! wherein do your boasted, gospel privileges exalt you above our father Abraham? Is it that you are at liberty to break that holy, just, and good law which his faith in Christ and the gospel led him to obey? Is this what you call the law of liberty? Better call it a law of license and licentiousness.
Ah! the sin-disease was never more prevalent than now. It arises from the transgression of the same holy laws; and all the gospels of health which propose a remedy without a change in the patient’s manner of living, without a return to those laws, the violation of which induced the disease, will prove to be false and deceptive; and all their boasted, “sovereign remedies,” not only worthless, but pernicious, hastening the blind recipient down to the gates of death. O my dear friend, go to the true Physician, accept of the only remedy, return to the only laws of health, and live.
You are afflicted with the malady that has been common to our entire race. The general symptoms, as I have said, are always the same, though the several symptoms differ in degree of intensity in different individual cases. The disease is known by any, and all, of the following symptoms: A disposition to have some other god, or object of supreme affection, in preference to our Creator; to deify and adore something that our own fingers have made; to use God’s name irreverently; to desecrate the day to our own selfish purposes, which he has reserved to his own especial honor; to dishonor parents by breaking away from their restraints in our youth, and neglecting them in their decrepitude and age; to injure our neighbor, defrauding him of his rights in respect to life, chastity, property, and reputation; with a general desire for things that belong to others.
Besides these general symptoms, it may be well to mention some special ones that are frequently manifested in those that are under treatment. In the first place then, there is sometimes a feeling of security in the patient, an idea that because he has applied to the Physician, he is past all danger. It is right to feel, and all should feel, an assurance that we are perfectly safe while we strictly follow the directions of our Physician; for he never lost a case, the management of which was fully committed to his care, and his instructions as to exercise, regimen, &c., fully heeded. It is the privilege of those that do so to rejoice in perfect confidence of complete triumph. “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice.” At the same time, “let your moderation be known unto all men.” Phil. iv, 4, 5. It is, certainly, a bad symptom for the patient to be in doubt and fear as to his case, distrusting the willingness and ability of the Physician. But when the feeling of security and freedom from danger inclines the patient to think it not necessary to be very particular in obeying the laws of health, it is a bad symptom and a certain sign of relapse, and unless something be done to counteract it, the patient is lost. To trust in the Physician, while we are not careful to follow his prescriptions and his directions in regulating our habits of life in accordance with the laws of our being, is folly and madness. Such trust is all in vain, and the sooner the patient knows it, the better.
Another bad symptom is the strange idea that has destroyed its thousands, who otherwise might have recovered, that the church, i. e., the great body of those who were supposed to be convalescent, or some one of their number in whom they choose to trust as the “Father and Doctor of all Christians,” has the power to change the laws of health at pleasure; so that a course of life that was once hurtful, is now not only safe, but conducive to health and necessary. The quacks of the dark ages favored this idea; and this has given rise to the familiar expressions, “old law” and “new law,” which we so often hear. “During the old law,” you hear them say, “such things were necessary to health; but now it is different, for invalids and doctors have substituted something else in their place.” Millions have been deceived, and lost their lives by this sort of quackery.
But no symptom can be more alarming than the insane idea in the patient’s mind, that the laws of health have all been abolished. When one under treatment takes this wild fancy, it is certain evidence that the disease is getting deeply seated on the brain, and that a terrible death is imminent, unless a speedy change of symptoms can be effected. It is easily discoverable that he is not in his right mind—that his reasoning faculty is gone, possibly, gone forever. You will hear him say that all the laws of health have been abolished, and yet that nine-tenths of them are just as good as ever; but that it was necessary, in order to get rid of one, to destroy the whole. We should certainly think that surgeon insane, who, in order to remove one sore finger, would cut off all that a man has, though he might propose to join them all on again but the sore one. And when one represents the Author of the laws of our being as performing a like act, we must, certainly, think him insane; and this is the most charitable construction we can put upon it.
My dear friend, arouse! Can you not hear the voice of the great Physician? “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.
Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.” Matt. v, 17–20.
The kingdom of Heaven is the promised inheritance of all those who shall be fully restored from the sad effects of violated law, where they will ever live in perfect obedience to all the laws of health, glowing with the vigor of immortal youth and beauty. “Oh! give me a place in that kingdom, When life with its turmoil is o’er, Let me dwell with the King in his beauty, And I ask, oh! I ask for no more.”
AMEN! May it be your lot and mine to be there!

MY CLOSET OF PRAYER.

By V. O. Cross

My closet of prayer, to thee do I come; The home of my soul while life's pathway I roam. When wearied with earth, with its sorrows and care, I'll haste me away to my closet of prayer.
'Tis there I hold converse with one that I love, Through Jesus, who left the bright regions above, And came to this earth to suffer and die, To redeem fellow-sinners, unworthy as I.
'Tis there I find strength to resist and repel The many temptations around me that swell, That crowd in my pathway to lead me astray, While striving to travel the heavenly way.
Oh! when I neglect thee, my closet of prayer, How soon I am taken in Satan's strong snare; How soon I forget to watch and to pray; And grieve holy angels in sorrow away.
Then let me not leave thee; no, never again; But when burdened with sorrow, temptation, and pain, Let me cast upon Jesus my sorrow and care, And pour out my soul to my Saviour in prayer.
V. O. Cross. Bordoville, Vt.

ENTIRE CONSECRATION INDISPENSABLE TO THE HIGHER CHRISTIAN LIFE.

“Thus nothing should our hearts divide, But on our years serenely glide, And all to love be given.”
Consecrated yourself, have you? friend? How far have you gone in this work of consecration? What progress have you made in cutting off right hands, plucking out right eyes? Consecration to God's service means something; have you counted the cost? “The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.” “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.” “He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me.” Matt. x, 38.
“He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
“Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” Matt. xix, 29.
Thus far the introduction. What next? the catalogue? the details? the specification, item by item, little sins, and great sins, sins of the flesh and the spirit, of omission and commission, of thought, word, and deed? First, then, where is your pride? Dead and buried? “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”
Your vanity? Any shadow of this? Is it manifested on love of dress, outward adornings of gold, or pearls, or costly array?
In regard to love of gain, laying up treasures on earth? Have you brought all the tithes into the storehouse? Are you a steward? Are you making friends with the mammon of unrighteousness?
Are you feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, causing the widow's heart to sing for joy?
Is your heart and your purse open wide, joyfully, when calls are made for charity and mercy?
Very many Christian professors and seekers after the higher life are groping in darkness at noonday; starving to death spiritually; crying out “Oh! my leanness, my leanness,” on account of close-fistedness. “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.” Prov. xi, 24-26.
We may pray and pray, fast and fast, and wonder why God does not bow the listening ear graciously. How can he hear so long as we keep back part of the price? “Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him.” 1 John iii, 17. “Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” See also James i, 27; Ps. cxii, 9; Prov. xix, 17.
“Is not this the fast I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer. Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.” Isa. lviii, 6-9. This whole chapter of Isaiah is a chapter of consecration, of ceasing to do evil and learning to do well. Read it. Pray over it. Bring it home to your inmost soul.
“The love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness; fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life.” 1 Tim. vi, 10-12.
Again, how is your appetite? Pampered? indulged to excess? Are you a slave to narcotics of any kind? the poisonous Indian weed, tea, coffee? “Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.”
Again, how is your conversation at all times? Edifying, administering grace to the hearer? or are you garrulous, light and trifling, giving loose to a flippant, unguarded tongue, indulging in levity, foolish talking, and jesting. No wonder the smiles of redeeming, sanctifying grace are withheld. No marvel at all that you are destitute of a holy unction, a spirit of fervent, prevailing prayer, the joys of perfect love. As soon expect the Holy Spirit to take up his abode in “an idol's temple,” or “a cage of unclean birds.” Light reading, silly novels, romances, love tales, light and trifling conversation, are mutual, the leprosy of the day, the gangrene of hell! eating out the essence—the very life of spirituality!
Finally, beloved reader, have you come out from the world entirely? laid all upon the altar of Christ Jesus, time, talents, property, reputation, life itself? Without this entire, unreserved, perpetual, persevering consecratedness, there is nothing done to purpose or acceptance. What avail good desires, resolutions, prayers, preachings, writings, expostulations, doing this, or doing that, without this entire consecration, giving up all for God?—without first laying all upon the altar, “laying aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us,” meanwhile abstaining from all appearance of evil?
Till this consecration is heartily made, all is sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
How is it possible for God to look complacently on any one, saint or sinner, professor or non-professor minister or layman, without this presenting the “body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service.”
The whole tenor of God's merciful dispensations goes on the principle or condition of this consecration. There is no divine acceptance, no solid peace, hope, or comfort—no joy in the Holy Spirit—no smiling approbation of the Most High—no permanent success in our labors, in the cause of truth and salvation, save on the condition of this entire consecration, this giving up our wills to God's will. Reader, is not this correct theology, sound, scriptural, undeniable? God declares it, reiterates it on every page of inspiration. See Isa. i, 15-18; Rom. xii, 1, 2; 2 Cor. vi, 14-17.
Till this entire, unreserved consecratedness is made in good faith, and forever in the sight of Heaven, angels, and men, there is no pardon, no forgiveness, no acceptance with God, no sweet, heavenly, glowing joyful manifestations of the Most High. God cannot, will not bow the listening ear. The heavens are brass above us, the earth iron beneath! Heaven is shut—the pearly gates barred—so long as we cling to earth, hold on to lust, the pride of life—refuse to bow the knee, humbly, consecratedly, and give God the glory henceforth and forever.
When we have complied with God's reasonable, necessary, permanent, unalterable conditions—grounded entirely the arms of our rebellion, made a willing, hearty, unreserved sacrifice of all we possess for Jesus; brought all the tithes into the storehouse, the windows of heaven are then opened wide, salvation streams! The Lord smiles graciously, gloriously! “Come now let us reason together, saith the Lord.” See Isa. i, 18.
Now, “the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” 1 Thess. v, 23.
“There is a path that leads to God, All others go astray; Narrow but pleasant is the road, And Christians love the way.”
AUTHOR OF “SHINING LIGHT.”

“OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE FALSE PROPHET,”

By M. W. Howard

Within a few days I have heard two different preachers, themselves exult, and seek to comfort bereaved hearts with the assurance that the dead infant knew infinitely more of God than any living person could! It is true that David said, when seeking to justify to observers what seemed to them his inexplicable conduct, when told of the death of his child, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me,” 2 Sam. xii, 23; and these words can be forced to teach a conscious reunion at death. But what say those who do this, to the plain testimony of Solomon: “The dead know not anything;” and of Hezekiah: “The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee. . . . The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day?” Isa. xxxviii, 18, 19. What think they of Job, when he testified, “Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, and he perceiveth it not of them.”
Shrinking, with almost sanctimonious horror, from the imputation of Spiritualism, can they not perceive that the foundation for that superstructure is laid in their accepted teachings? Why not look a little beyond the present lesson, and consider the legitimate outgrowth of such theories? Consider who is to have nicety of precision a few years hence, so as to accurately decide where popular Spiritualism ends, and unpopular Spiritualism begins? Or, if the expression is preferred, where orthodox Spiritualism ends, and demonology begins? For my part, I can hardly tell now, when I hear, from orthodox (?) pulpits, of “the spirit-land of our dead,”—or of their being “gone over the dark river,” and “standing on the battlements of Heaven, beckoning, with shadowy fingers, the inhabitants of earth toward the better land.” But, I ask, “What is truth?” Nor will I turn away, in scornful unbelief, without waiting for a reply. Only I insist it be given from the written word of God, and not from the mouth of the false prophet.
I turned from my writing, took up the weekly paper, and found this little obituary. Was it an illustration ready to my hand? As such, I give it: “Little Maud has gone to join her mother in the spirit-land. Let it be said of them both,”
‘Sleep on, sweet angels, Take thy rest; God called thee home, He thought it best.’
I comprehend what is intended by the prose, but if there is consistent sense to the poetry, I fail to recognize it. “Sleep” and “rest” accord not with the prevailing ideas of “the home,” and spirit-land.
At another theory “out of the mouth of the false prophet,” I wish to glance. It is the expectation, over which so many animate themselves, of future good to our earth. They fancy they already see portentous clouds looming up in the near-coming future. It has become a matter of faith, and to smile disdainfully at any other supposition is often their only argument. Surely it is enough for them, as another expressed it, “Since the golden age is in the future, as is happily now the prevailing faith.”
“Happily now the prevailing faith!” Alas! not happily, with its enervating effects. Not happily, with the unblest notes of that siren song that shall have lulled to sleep, “if it were possible, the very elect,” when Christ again shall come.
If Satan entraps the soul with one fatal lie, his purpose is accomplished. The death chill of unbelief quenches the incipient faith that might otherwise be developed. And it is so in this case. A fatal lie closes heart and eye to the developing of evil in our world, and is continually holding itself up for our following, when it would be far more conclusive, could it do so, to show how much of good has been developed by its training.
And so in these days it is difficult to have a hearty, simple, childlike faith. A feeling of distrust mingles itself, perhaps unconsciously, in many hearts, and is betrayed by the alarm manifested when investigation is called out; as if in terror lest the eternal foundations were sliding from beneath their feet. How like the spirit manifested by the Pharisees among the Jews, when the doctrines of Jesus were propagated; as if investigation were not the surest safeguard. It is the superficial reader of the Bible, whose faith wavers—he, who casting aside the wisdom of God, seeks to stand in his own wisdom. And if in Paul’s time it could be said, “The world by wisdom knew not God,” 1 Cor. i, 21, how signally true it is in these days of scientific and geological fables, and infidelity. So wickedness seems to run riot, and “because iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold.” And the iniquity to which I now refer, is not of that “baser sort” that of its own density settles to the lower strata of society, leaving the mass apparently clear. But to that refined sort of iniquity, from which few shrink, exhibited in the various amusements and pleasures of the times; that love of display, in dress and equipage that everywhere abounds; the varied means by which the mind is kept in such a tumult of excitement, that there is little space left for “the peaceable fruits of righteousness,” proving how mankind have become “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.”
It is natural to associate Christianity with the church, but in these degenerate days the conviction forces itself upon the understanding, that, though outwardly prosperous, he is inwardly decaying; and you cannot feel that you have found a Christian, though his name be enrolled upon the records of the church.
Alas! it is sad to know that that prophecy is fulfilled, and already a corrupt Christianity has become “the hold of every unclean and hateful thing.” Already “the fowls of the air are lodged in its branches.” Sad to know, that the “beast” and “false prophet” are fast ranging themselves side by side in history, as they have already been placed by God in prophecy. The Catholic shrinks from the appellation of “beast;” the nominal Christian from the appellation of “false prophet.” I confess I do so shrink myself. But facts are uncompromising arguments, and will abide the test.
M. W. HOWARD.

THE HEAVENLY PROSPECT.

By Maggie A. Morse

Time still rolls on. Oh! how the weary, care-worn pilgrim longs for that land of rest, where sorrow and anguish will never be known. We think this earth very beautiful now; but what will it be then? There will be no sickness or death, no new-made graves where we have laid loved ones to rest. Oh, no! We shall shed no tears of sorrow over the friends we love, and then lay them away to rest beneath the cold, cold sod. No, the inhabitants of that country will never suffer pain or death. All that enter that happy place will no more have the trials and troubles of this life to contend with. Then the enemy of all mankind will have no power over the faithful ones; for they have at last gained the haven of rest, and have received the crown of life and a harp of gold.
What a blessed thought that the time is near when all that is evil will be banished from off the face of the whole earth, and nothing but that which is pure and holy will be in all this universe. Who can imagine the glory and splendor of this earth as it was when it first came from the hands of its Creator? But now how changed and marred its beauty. Then there was no destroying enemy to mar the happiness of the dwellers in that holy garden. How happy they will be when they see the new earth restored to what it was when they first saw it. How thankful we should be that there has been a way opened for us that we might come to the fountain of life. How many of us realize the great sacrifice which was made for us? I fear we too often forget the suffering and anguish which our dear Saviour endured for us, while here on this earth. We think we have great trials and temptations; but what are they compared with the trials of our blessed Redeemer. He bore the sins of the world, and then suffered the shameful death of the cross, that we, poor, sinful mortals, might have eternal life. Is it not worth striving for?
Cheer up, lone pilgrim. Not many more years will roll round, not many more trials and troubles to overcome, before we shall rest safe on the “evergreen shore.” Then let us be up and doing, striving harder than ever before to win the prize. Lord, help us all to reach that happy shore, is my prayer.
MAGGIE A. MORSE.
Deerfield, Minn.

Majesty and Mercy

In the highest heavens the beams of majesty are displayed, but to the lowest hearts the bowels of mercy are discovered.

GOD'S SEVENTH DAY OF REST.

Says Prof. Joseph Emerson in The Advance, of Aug. 27, 1868, in concluding an article on this subject:
“We can therefore come to no other conclusion than that the seventh day, and therefore probably all the other days, are not to be measured by revolutions of the earth upon its axis, but are days known to Him with whom ‘one day is as a thousand years.’ The ‘evenings’ and the ‘mornings’ therefore are not settings and risings of our sun, but periods perhaps of gloom and then of glory, like those which we see measuring this seventh in which we are living. We need, therefore, be no more disturbed than Moses was to find the Spirit telling of ‘days’ and ‘evenings and mornings’ before the sun and moon were set to rule the day and night for men. And if modern science should come to a like conclusion, we shall only welcome it to the ground which the word of God has held from of old.”
Doctors of divinity, and doctors of medicine! As the latter have killed more persons than they have cured, so the former have created more errors than they have overthrown. No person less than a “professor,” who has a large share of that wisdom which is foolishness with God, would have thought of making such a muddle of the record in Genesis as is made in the paragraph above quoted. Their leading if not their only rule of interpretation seems to be that the Bible must not be allowed to mean what it says; its language must be strained, distorted, mystified, perverted, and made to signify that which is as wide as possible from what it would naturally be supposed to mean.
This writer asserts that we are now living in the seventh day. Now there is language in the record of Moses from which we think it might reasonably be inferred, inasmuch as it is most directly and positively stated, that the seventh day of that record has long been past. God rested, says Moses, upon the seventh day, and then blessed and sanctified the day because he had rested. But no, says the wisdom of the nineteenth century, you are six thousand years ahead of time: God has not yet completed his rest on the seventh day, that day is not yet ended; we are still in it; so God has not yet blessed and sanctified the day, because that in it he had rested; for his rest is not yet complete; Moses to the contrary notwithstanding. Probably the time will soon come, when God, having passed the seventh day in resting, will bless and sanctify it, as Moses said he did in the beginning, about six thousand years ago. Such is one of the discrepancies which have been doctored into the text by those whose profession is to explain and defend it.
But there are other difficulties. According to the record Adam was created on the sixth day. He lived a portion of that day, or, as our writer would have it, that period, all through the seventh period, and nine hundred and thirty years afterward. But we are told that we are yet in the seventh day, or period. According to this Adam should be still living. Will some D. D., who advocates the period-day theory, produce him? No one, of course, will have the boldness to assert without any evidence that there is any change in the nature of the narrative between the first two chapters of Genesis, and subsequent portions of the same book.
But there is another statement still more strange, as it contradicts not only the inspired record, but the evidence of our own senses. These “were periods,” says the extract, “perhaps of gloom and glory, like those which we see measuring this seventh in which we are living.” Astonishing! Where do we see it? The gloom precedes the glory. The evening and the morning constitute the day. We must be near the close of the seventh period, that is, in the time of its glory! The time of its gloom, then, must have been when angels walked and talked with men, when patriarchs held converse with God, and prophets wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; but this age of unparalleled spiritual dearth, this age when many times the millions are spent on pride, tobacco, rum, lust, and the demon of war, that is used in the promulgation of the gospel, when thoughtful minds are compelled to admit that they cannot contemplate the mad and intoxicated state of the world without a shudder—this is the time of the glory of the seventh period in which we live!! What need we say more to such an argument? Were the prophet Isaiah here, would he not re-utter against the writer of such absurdities, his seething denunciation, “Woe unto them that call evil, good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter? Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight.” Isa. v, 20, 21.
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