IN speaking of the true doctrines of his kingdom, Jesus said: "No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved."
The priests, rabbis, Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees, who had hitherto held undisputed authority in matters of religion, and who were unwilling to give place to Christ, and to receive the truths of his kingdom, were represented as old bottles. They were found unfit to contain the new wine of his doctrines, and it was necessary to find depositories for the truth outside of those who were satisfied with their own spiritual attainments. In the teaching of Christ provision was made for a change of heart, for a new development of character. His system was designed for the whole human family. It was founded on faith that works by love, and purifies the soul. The truth received into the heart would make decided changes in the character. Brought into the soul temple, it would cleanse from all moral defilement. Those who profess to receive the truth, and yet who are unchanged in character, make it manifest that they have received but a theory of the truth, and do not know what is the vital influence of its operations. Practical godliness leads its possessor to keep the commandments of God. It lifts the soul out of its moral depravity, and the believing, repenting one realizes not only that his sins are forgiven, but that he is cleansed from all unrighteousness. By faith he beholds the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.
These developments were not seen in the life and character of those who followed the religion of the scribes and Pharisees. Their dry forms and set ceremonies were destitute of vital power, and they were represented as salt that had lost its savor. They did not bless the ones with whom they came in contact. There was no preserving quality in their religion to keep the world from going into complete corruption. Their religion was of no more value than savorless salt, that was only fit to be cast out and trodden under foot of man. It is only those who preserve the saving power of Christianity who coöperate with God in saving the world. Such are represented as the salt of the earth. But if men lose their spirituality, if their piety becomes sickly, if, because iniquity abounds, their love grows cold, then their religion has lost its savor. Their energy and efficiency has gone.
But Christ represents his people who have not lost their vital connection with God, as the light of the world. He says: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill can not 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." The Jews had erected a partition wall between themselves and every other people, but this was not after the direction of the Lord. When the Lord gives light and knowledge, it is not that men may exclude themselves from others, that they may hide the light in selfishness, so the divine rays shall not come to the people through the human channel that God has appointed; but he gives light, that it may be diffused, that men may see the good works of his followers, and be led to glorify God.
What Is Necessary.
The scribes and the Pharisees listened to the words of Christ, and decided that he was making light of the law. Instead of this he was showing them distinctly that the law must be enshrined in the heart, and revealed in the character. Outward conformity to the letter of the law was not sufficient. The very principles of the law must be planted in the heart, and love to God and love to man must be revealed in the character, words, and actions. Those who believe in Christ as their personal Saviour would have the faith that works by love, would manifest his Spirit and grace, and coöperate with him in educating and disciplining souls for his heavenly kingdom. In his own life he gave the world an example of what he meant by his sermon on the mount, for he kept his Father's commandments. He stripped from the holy precepts the human inventions and exactions with which men had covered up the true principles of the standard of righteousness. He showed the law of God to be holy, just, and good. He showed that it had power to convert the soul, and that it required from the human race a whole-hearted service to God and to man. Instead of depreciating the law, he showed that the commandments of God are the foundation of his kingdom, a reflection of the divine character. Those who were to be subjects of his kingdom were to reach a higher standard than that of the scribes and Pharisees. He presented the spirituality of the law, and said, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." His own life was a constant expression of the law of God, and he gave to his followers an example that they should walk in his steps.
Christ was the foundation of the whole Jewish system, and he swept aside the maxims, injunctions, traditions, and precepts with which men had encumbered the plan of salvation. When he swept away the rubbish with which men had buried up the truth, they thought he was sweeping away the truth itself. But he met their unspoken thoughts, saying: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 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 shall 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." The maxims, traditions, and doctrines of men had served the purpose for which Satan had instigated them, and had eclipsed the dignity and honor of the holy law. Forms and ceremonies had taken the place of vital godliness; but Christ came to exalt the law, to rid it of the rubbish that men had placed upon it, and thus to let it shine forth in its exalted character, and reveal to the world the divine glory of its Author.
The religious teachers of the Jewish age were very jealous of their authority and doctrines, and to condemn the sternness of their exactions, to seek to lighten the intolerable burden which they urged upon the people and failed to lift themselves, was regarded as treasonable and blasphemous. The words of Christ stirred up their hatred. They termed him a meddler, an intruder, one who was seeking to overturn the established customs of the nation. Satan had almost undisputed sway upon the earth, and this was the secret of the enmity manifested against Christ, who, as the Light of the world, was shining amid the moral darkness. Darkness had covered the earth, and gross darkness the people, and the god of this world stirred up the hearts of his subjects to war against him who had come to condemn evil and to exalt righteousness. The time had come when a work must be done upon the earth. When the earth was in such a condition as this, the Lord had promised: "The Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." The prophet said Christ was to come when "judgment was turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey; and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head. . . . So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob."6As in the days of the Jews, so it is in our day. We see the same enmity manifested against the word of God in our own day as was manifested in the time when Christ was upon the earth. Men still cling to their traditions, and revere their customs, and feel hatred against those who show them that they are in error. In this day, when we are bidden to call attention to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and point out the fact that it is vain to think we are worshiping God in teaching for commandments the traditions of men, we see the same enmity manifested. Of the remnant people of God it is written: "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
Jesus Saves His People
"Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins."
LET US BE QUIET.
By R. M. Offord
BY R. M. OFFORD.
Let us be quiet. What is there to gain
By fret and worry in this fleeting life?
Alas for all the self-inflicted pain!
Alas for all the self-invited strife!
Let us be quiet. Winds and waters wage
In vain the fiercest conflict ever known;
They can not reach a star, howe'er they rage,
Nor touch the base of God's eternal throne.
Let us be quiet when our foes conspire
To do us evil or to thwart our good;
When friends charge ill to all our right desire,
And best of motives are misunderstood.
Let us be quiet when the ghosts arise—
Those phantom creatures of night's fevered brain;
They fly when morning's sun illumines the skies,
And we behold the world in light again.
Let us be quiet. Passing years shall prove
Purpose divine upon our welfare bent;
True wisdom, hand in hand with deepest love,
Works out for us the will omnipotent.
—New York Observer.
ANOTHER SETBACK TO CHURCH AND STATE RULE IN CALIFORNIA.
By W. N. Glenn
BY W. N. GLENN.
THE board of supervisors of Alameda County, Cal., have wisely decided that it is not within the province of that body to ordain how the people shall or shall not spend their Sundays. They were petitioned by a number of ministers, representing the California Sabbath Association, to prohibit the usual Sunday sports, and the petition was backed by a number of addresses. But the members of the board took a decided, manly stand, and unanimously voted to deny the petition.
This action of the Sabbath Association was in harmony with its policy to secure enforced Sunday observance throughout the state by means of county and municipal Sunday ordinances of one kind or another. Its efforts have been successful in several counties, and in a number of municipalities; and its officials and sympathizers have, for several years, been trying to draw the city of Oakland and the county of Alameda into the scheme. They seem to consider this city and county a kind of key to the situation.
The plan was begun in the south, and has been worked northward, but seemingly struck a snag when it reached San Francisco Bay. The friends of the movement have entertained the idea that if this obstacle could be overcome, the wave northward would receive a new impetus, sufficiently strong to secure, in the near future, a state Sunday law.
For the past decade strenuous efforts have been made to have reënacted the state law that was repealed by the Legislature of 1883. The repeal had been a leading issue in the campaign that preceded that session, and the electors favored the repeal by a majority of 17,000. For a few years the matter was allowed to rest, until the American Sabbath Union, which was organized in New York for the purpose of securing a national Sunday law, conceived the idea that it would be a great help to that end if it could be shown that all the states had Sunday laws, whose enforcement was impeded by the lack of a national law. California being at that time the only state without such a law, the Sabbath Union deemed it highly important that one should be secured. So Mr. Crafts, at that time field secretary of the Union, came on, with a great flourish of trumpets, and attempted to carry out the design.
His effort failed, and he was followed by Dr. Edward Thomson, who reorganized the Sunday law forces and began a three years' educational campaign, being quite sanguine that at the end of such a course the coveted law could be secured. This scheme also failed, when the doctor and his friends conceived the idea of plastering the state with county ordinances, where such could be secured, or, in case of failure with the supervisors, to capture such cities and towns as could be gathered in.
The plan was to "take what we can get." That is, if general Sunday-closing could not be secured, then ask for something easier, for instance, the closing of saloons on Sunday, or a general closing part of the day,—whatever the people would stand. It was anything for an entering wedge, anything that could be called a Sunday ordinance. A San Diego minister advised that "we do not ask too much at first; do not ask for more than the sentiment of the people will stand, and when they have become better educated, then we can demand more." Dr. Thomson remained until this scheme was well inaugurated, and then left the field, and the California Sabbath Association is carrying on the work to the best of its ability.
As most people know the saloons to be an evil, they are apt to be caught with the bait that to close them one day in seven, or even a part of the day, is a great good. Unless their attention is called to the matter, they are likely not to discern the hidden design behind the Sunday-closing screen, namely, a general state law, entailing the enforcement of a religious institution upon all the people. So with the race-tracks, pleasure resorts, and many of the games. A great many people are prejudiced against these institutions, for there are many evils connected with them, and are easily led to believe that they are worse on Sunday than on any other day. So they readily fall in with the move to forbid them on Sunday; never dreaming that it is only a screen to hide a deeper purpose to bind the consciences of the entire populace in the matter of Sunday observance. If these things are evil, how can Christians consistently endorse them six days in the week; for this they logically do by simply decrying them one day in the week. This action shows that those who petition against evil doing on Sunday are not actuated by enmity toward the evil, but by a desire to see Sunday observance enforced. This is further demonstrated by the fact that these Sunday-law advocates openly declare their design to secure a state law prohibiting all classes of business—honest as well as disreputable—on that day.
In order that the people may not be deceived by these local demands in the name of temperance, morality, sanitation, the welfare of the working men, etc., etc., Seventh-day Adventists have not been slow to expose the hidden hand and hidden purpose as opportunity presents itself. For this reason they are continually maligned and purposely misrepresented. They are charged with being saloon sympathizers, by professed Christians—ministers, journalists, and others—who well know that there is no truth in the charge. Every person who knows anything about their faith or practice knows that there is not a more radical temperance people in all Christendom. And now, because a single Adventist addressed the Alameda board of supervisors in a manner to show the unpatriotic character and sinister tendency of all religious legislation, it is charged that the Adventists are advocates of evil resorts.
Well, Seventh-day Adventists can stand all such charges. They have had to bear misrepresentation through all their history as a people, and expect they will have to do so unto the end. Our Saviour said to his disciples: "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household." And it was the professed church of God that misrepresented him in every possible way because he exposed their hypocrisies. It was the professed church that deceived their followers even to demanding that he be crucified. And he was the world's greatest champion of religious liberty, of freedom of conscience, having handed down to us this statement of principle: "If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world."
Those who follow in his footsteps and heed his word will not be found seeking the aid of civil law to enforce their ideas of Sabbath observance, or any other religious dogma. If legislative bodies have the right to enforce one religious rite upon the people, they have an equal right to enforce the observance of all others.
"THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION."
By A. T. Jones
THERE is a large number of Protestants as well as other non-Catholics who entertain the mistaken view that the doctrine of the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Jesus by the Virgin Mary. The truth is that it refers not to the conception of Christ by Mary, but to the conception of Mary herself by her mother. The official and "infallible" doctrine of the immaculate conception as solemnly defined as an article of faith by Pope Pius IX., speaking ex cathedra, on the 8th of December, 1854, is as follows:—
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we declare, pronounce, and define, that the doctrine which holds that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and, therefore, is to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faithful.
Wherefore if any shall presume, which may God avert, to think in their heart otherwise than has been defined by us, let them know, and moreover understand, that they are condemned by their own judgment, that they have made shipwreck as regards the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the church.—Catholic Belief, p. 214.7
What the Dogma Means.
In these days of the general acceptance of Catholicism as Christianity, and of the compromises with the Catholic Church, and apologies for her, it is well that we should study such things as this, that we may know for ourselves what is their real effect upon the doctrine of Christ, and what their consequences in those who accept the dogma. The first consequence of it is to make the Virgin Mary, if not actually divine, then the nearest to it of any creature in the universe; and this, too, in her human nature. In proof of this we have the following statements of Catholic fathers and saints:—
The ancient writer of "De Nativitate Christi," found in St. Cyprian's works, says: Because (Mary) being "very different from the rest of mankind, human nature, but not sin, communicated itself to her."
Theodoret, a father who lived in the fifth century, says that Mary "surpassed by far the cherubim and seraphim in purity."
In the Greek liturgy of St. Chrysostom, a father of the fourth century . . . the following words are directed to be chanted by the choir during the canon of the mass: "It is truly meet that we should praise thee, O mother of God, . . . thou art the mother of our God, to be venerated in preference to the cherubim; thou art beyond comparison more glorious than the seraphim."
Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem, said in the second council of Nice, that Mary "is truly the mother of God, and virgin before and after childbirth; and she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than that of all natures, whether intellectual or corporeal.—Id., pp. 216, 217.
This then puts the nature of Mary infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind.
Having this clearly in mind, let us follow to the next step. And here it is in the words of Cardinal Gibbons:—
We affirm that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word of God, who, in his Divine nature is, from all eternity, begotten of the Father, consubstantial with him, was in the fulness of time again begotten, by being born of the Virgin, thus taking to himself from her maternal womb, a human nature of the same substance with hers.
As far as the sublime mystery of the incarnation can be reflected in the natural order, the Blessed Virgin, under the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, by communicating to the Second Person of the adorable Trinity, as mothers do, a true human nature of the same substance with her own, is thereby really and truly his mother.—Faith of Our Fathers, pp. 198, 199.
REJOICINGS THAT MARY IS DECIDED TO BE THE MOTHER OF GOD.
Now put these two things together. First, we have the nature of Mary defined as being not only "very different from the rest of mankind," but "more sublime and glorious than all natures;" thus putting her infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to mankind as we really are.
Next, we have Jesus described as taking from her a human nature of the same substance as hers.
Robs the World of a Saviour.
It therefore follows, as certainly as that two and two make four, that in his human nature the Lord Jesus is "very different" from mankind, is farther from us than are the cherubim and the seraphim, and is infinitely beyond any real likeness or relationship to us as we really are in this world. And in this it follows also that the dogma of the immaculate conception puts Jesus Christ infinitely beyond the reach of mankind; as far beyond our reach indeed as tho he had never offered himself at all. Thus completely does the doctrine of the immaculate conception rob the world of Jesus Christ, the Saviour, to just the extent that the doctrine is received.
We know the answer that "the Church" makes to this—that Mary and Joseph especially, and all the other saints, intercede with him for those who would have his help, and that through these he is enabled to reach mankind tho he himself is so far beyond us. But this is as great a fraud as is all the rest of the scheme. For the Virgin Mary and Joseph and all the rest of the saints are dead, and can not intercede for anybody. For the word of God says plainly that "the dead know not anything." Eccl. 9:5. And "in death there is no remembrance of thee." Ps. 6:5. And Jesus said to his disciples all, "Whither I go ye can not come." John 13:33.
Thus with Mary and Joseph and the other saints all dead, and consequently unable to intercede for anybody, the fact is doubly demonstrated that the dogma of the immaculate conception puts Jesus Christ infinitely beyond the reach of mankind, and robs the world of the Saviour to the extent that that dogma is received.
The truth is, that the Lord Jesus, in his human nature, was made lower than the angels, and took our nature of flesh and blood just as it is, with all its infirmities. The Scriptures are as plain as anything can be on this point, and are worthy to be set down here against this papal invention. Having found that the Papacy puts Christ as far away from men as possible, we will next consider how near to men he really is.
