WE have said that faith is belief founded on satisfactory evidence. From this it by no means follows that everything must be understood before it can be accepted as true. One may believe that the sun shines, tho he knows nothing of how it does so. We may believe that in the humanity of Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” tho we can not understand how it could be.
Now, if there is anything relied upon as the grand reason for accepting Christian Science, it is the claim it makes of healing disease.
Judged by the Scriptures.
It has been our purpose in these studies to deal not so much with the scientific as with the moral aspects of the various systems we have been examining. As regards the scientific standing of Christian Science, there is nothing to discuss—it has none. Science depends on experience and reason. Transcendentalism, of which Christian Science is a branch, scorns both. Mysticism has nothing in common with Science. The actual method of Christian Science healing must, therefore, be judged by the Scriptures. It would be as impossible from its mere results, so far as treating disease is concerned, to decide whether its principle is scientific or not as it is to tell whether clairvoyant diagnosis, the use of Hypnotism in therapeutics, and mind-healing generally, can be justified as relying on any rational basis.
As regards the number of cures which Christian Science boasts, we may state that we have lived during the whole career of Christian Science, have traveled some, read a great deal, made a number of inquiries into the actual results in Christian Science healing, have talked with others who have done likewise, and have concluded that Christian Science can show no advantage, whatever, in proportion to those practising, over mind-healers of almost every description. There are many interesting records of the power of bread-pills, magnetized water, holy relics, placebos, and incantations of various sorts, over the imagination. We recently met an official of one of the largest counties in California who was just on the point of turning Christian Scientist because the abracadabra of an adherent of that faith had apparently caused the disappearance of a “seed” wart from his hand. We have known several cases where this same piece of mental surgery was performed by Gypsies, ignorant old Hibernian women from the Emerald Isle who could speak their native tongue better than English, and others who had never heard of Christian Science. We remember reading somewhere in English history of a recipe owned by an old lady who, by its means, had wrought wonderful cures. Parliament thought it might be well for the government to own so precious a piece of information. A commission was appointed to investigate and report on the cures. The finding of this commission was equal to the previous reputation of the old lady’s medicine. Parliament purchased it. It ran something like this:—
Snails calcined;
Wild burdock seed,
Wild turnip seed,
Hips and haws,
All burnt to blackness with soap and honey.
We know more about the personal cures wrought by Schlatter, Weltmer, Dowie, and others, than about Mrs. Eddy’s success, except from her own writings. It would seem from public notoriety that several of these mind-healers and faith-healers can personally show better results than the founder of Christian Science.
Alleged Cures.
Dr. J. B. Huber, of New York, investigated twenty of the most remarkable alleged Christian Science cures; in not one case could the genuineness of the cure be established. He made a mistake; he should have investigated the less remarkable. We are confident that in this way his success would have been ample. In fact, we have great confidence in Christian Science in some lines. For when we remember that structural or organic diseases constitute perhaps less than one-tenth of the ills of mankind, and that hysteria—various phenomena of disturbed nervous force—can simulate every known disease, it is not difficult to account for the success of any system of treatment that affects the imagination and will.
A few years ago one of the most eminent physicians of New York City engaged in a series of experiments at the great Demilt Dispensatory to test the value of mental therapeutics. No medicine was given, but by various devices he appealed as powerfully as possible to the imagination of the patients. His testimony is that the results were as good as under any system of treatment he ever used. We have no objection to Christian Science disabusing the minds of sufferers, but we object to a matter of imagination being made to nullify the Gospel. As regards the published reports of healing, those found in religious periodicals and newspapers, and those that pass from lip to lip, any one who has studied the psychology of self-deception and the practical impossibility of unscientific persons, especially those of a particular religious bias, reproducing the exact truth,—such a one knows that these reports are to be taken with a great deal of allowance.
But the scientific status of Christian Science is secondary in our present purpose, tho when Christian Scientists claim that diseases can not be contagious or infectious, that poison does not kill; when its teachings lead to the disregard of reporting to the Department of Public Health cases of smallpox, diphtheria, measles, and tuberculosis, as sworn testimony in our hands proves they do, it becomes a live question whether it would not be wise for the author of “Science and Health” to inform her disciples that some other things besides going without food and clothes are “not legitimate.”
In concluding this limited review of Christian Science, let us compare its method of healing with the Biblical one. What are the instructions of true inspiration in this particular? They are found in James 5:14, 15:—
“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.”
This is very brief, clear, and specific. It requires just two verses to tell it. “Science and Health” takes seventy-nine pages to explain how Scientists should do it. Does this book give the directions laid down by the inspired author of the Scriptural method?—Not a breath of it.
That these instructions given by James are in accord with those given to the apostles, we find in Mark 6:13. Here the Master gives them their commission, in pursuing which the record says they “anointed many invalids with oil, and cured them.” 20th C. V. A quotation or two from the seventy-nine pages mentioned above will show the drift of Scientist procedure:—
In proportion as matter, to human sense, loses all entity as substance, in that proportion does man become its master. He enters into a diviner sense of the facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus, as demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead, and walking over the waves. Page 368.
Realize that the evidence of the senses is not to be accepted in the case of sickness. Page 384.
When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the testimony of the senses by Divine Science. . . . Suffer no claim of sin or sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it, etc. . . . Agree to disagree with approaching symptoms of chronic or acute disease, whether cancer, consumption, or smallpox. Meet the incipient stages of disease with such powerful eloquence as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise, in the conscious strength of the Spirit of Truth, to overthrow the plea of matter, or mortal mind, arrayed against the supremacy of the Spirit. Blot out the images of mortal thought, and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Page 389.
Mentally contradict every complaint from the body. Page 390.
The physical affirmation of disease should always be met with the mental negation. Whatever mortal mind desires to produce on the body, it should express mentally, and hold fast to this ideal. Page 391.
When an accident happens, you think, or exclaim, “I am hurt!” Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real. Now, reverse the process. Declare you are not hurt, and understand the reason why; and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics. Page 396.
If you mentally and silently call the disease by name, as you argue against it, as a general rule the body will respond more quickly. Page 409.
Argue with the patient (mentally, not audibly) that he has no disease. . . . Mentally insist that health is the everlasting fact, and sickness the temporal falsity. Page 410.
It is true that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit, using the disciples as instruments, often performed miracles of healing in a more direct manner. But those instances depend on the arbitrary good pleasure of God, who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” If the exigencies of the case demand, He can and does heal in other ways. But the general religious method has been given, and none but God Himself has any right to say when this method may be departed from. The general method of Christian Science is a total departure from this rule; there is neither prayer, in any proper sense, nor anointing with oil in the name of the Lord.
Likeness with Other Isms.
All is Maya, illusion, says the ancient heathen philosophy of India; all is illusion, echoes Christian Science. God is all, says Pantheism; God is all, echoes Christian Science. God and man are inseparable, claims the New Thought; God and man are inseparable, echoes Christian Science. Page 472. Man has pre-existed5from eternity, says Plato; even so, is the echo of Christian Science. Page 473. Re-incarnation and death will occur on the next plane of existence, and continue till man becomes more spiritual, claims Theosophy.
Death will occur on the next plane of existence as on this, until the understanding of Life is reached. . . . The period required for this dream of material life [compare Kama loca and Devachan of Theosophy] . . . will be of longer or shorter duration, according to the tenacity of its error” (Page 243).
assents Christian Science.
The Gnostics, who were distinguished by the epithet of Docetes, . . . betrayed the human, while they asserted the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily conceived that the brightest Aeon, or emanation of the Deity, might assume the outward shape and visible appearance of a mortal [Jesus]; but they vainly pretended that the imperfections of matter are incompatible with the purity of celestial substance [Christ]. . . . He imposed on the senses of his enemies and of his disciples; and the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who seemed to expire on the cross, and after three days to rise from the dead.—Gibbon, vol. II., pages 307, 308.
In other words, Jesus was one thing, Christ another—the identical distinction made by Christian Science. Page 229. That heresy arose “while the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary.”
So we might go on showing the kinship of this monstrous travesty on the name of Christianity and science to the reeking superstitions of the ages. Half-concealed in its transcendental and mystical phraseology lies hid the hoary deceptions by which the enemy of righteousness has set aside the plain Gospel. It is as if, in his last grand effort to delude the world, he had raked from the pit of darkness the dregs of his most subtle errors. God forbid that our souls should be entangled thereby.
How They Became Convinced
By Editor
[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
CXXIV.
My parents were Baptists. They had always taught me the Bible as they understood it. As I came to understand by investigating the various systems of theology, I found some who taught man’s mortality. I had been taught and believed, with the great majority, the immortality of the soul. I could not meet their arguments, yet I believed I was right, until I read a tract prepared by Phineas Smith, of Rochester, N. Y., giving the Bible teaching on the subject. I have always taken the Bible as God’s Word, and therefore the best authority, and I have believed and taught immortality only through Christ, received at the resurrection of the just. As I yet knew nothing of Seventh-day Adventists, I attended the only churches near, and had the superintendence of the Methodist Episcopal and United Brethren Sunday-school, until Brethren J. N. Loughborough and Isaac Sanborn came to our town with the Third Angel’s Message. They presented the Bible Sabbath in all its force. I saw that I was wrong, and that they presented the truth. I told my folks that I could not keep Sunday any longer and be an honest man. Christ has told us that "the Sabbath was made for man" (Mark 2:27), and "all things were made by Him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3); and He never uttered a word about Sunday being the Sabbath.
JOHN LELAND.
CXXV.
IN the autumn of 1902 Brother Herbert Hartwell came to this section to labor as a missionary canvasser, and came to my house to hold a Bible reading, one Saturday evening. I had been an infidel for some years, and was opposed to the Bible; but, as he took up the Sabbath question and showed why he observed the seventh day of the week, I became interested, and did not object to his coming again. So it became a regular thing to have a Bible reading Saturday evening. As time passed, my interest increased, as he proved by the Scripture so conclusively that the Sabbath had never been abrogated, or changed. When people would ask me, jestingly, if I was going to keep Saturday, my answer invariably was, It is the Sabbath of the Bible, and if I ever become a Christian, it is the only day I shall observe.
Brother Hartwell came to my house every Saturday evening, with possibly two or three exceptions, all winter and up till the month of May, when myself and wife surrendered our hearts to the Lord. Now the point I wish to make is this: We were convicted of sin, became repentant, and were converted to God through the Bible, by a calm, sober, and reasonable study of it, with the aid of the Holy Spirit. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."
The morning of Saturday, May 9, I spent in labor, having the afternoon’s work planned, but at noon I surrendered myself to the Spirit’s pleadings, and became thoroughly repentant. I spent the remainder of the day in the study of God’s Word and in prayer, and in due time the answer came. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." "Thy Word is truth."
FRED W. SHAY.
CXXVI.
I OFTEN asked my mother why the Adventist people kept the seventh day. She would say that she did not know, but she knew they had a good reason or they would not keep it in preference to the first day. I was raised a Campbellite, and from there I went into the "Holiness" movement in June, 1891. Then the dear Lord called me out to keep His commandments. The Scriptures which convinced me most were Eze. 20:12; Rev. 14:6–12, Ex. 31:12–18.
M. R. SMITH.
WHAT IS DEATH?
By G. W. Draper
BY G. W. DRAPER.
OUR first knowledge of death comes usually in childhood. We are led into its grim presence, and shrink away in shuddering terror from the ghastly form which was once a human being, and for some time after a mysterious horror presses upon us whenever we think of this dreadful blight upon the bright and beautiful world we have hitherto known. The passing years may make us more familiar with the experience of death, until we can view it with a somewhat tranquil mien, and it is only when the fatal blow falls upon some one who is near and dear to us that we for the first time realize all the horror, the anguish, and despair of having a loved one torn from us by that dread fiend. With sinking hearts we stand beside the dying one; our own hearts seem dying within us as we realize our helplessness in the presence of the destroyer; and when the last breath is yielded up we cry with unavailing anguish, for all the brightness and sunshine of life seems to have gone forever. And when the lifeless form is carried to the tomb, we stand without the portals, and cry for some message of consolation, for some token from the other side. We strain our ears in vain for the whisper which never comes, for a word of hope to relieve our breaking hearts; but the silence of the tomb is never broken.
Death is not a natural phenomenon. The first knowledge of it always comes as a shock. Even the lower animals sometimes become strangely excited at the death of one of their own kind. It is recognized as an intruder and an enemy. So evidently unnatural and abnormal is death that all mankind of every age and race have refused to recognize it as final, and have sought for some evidence, or laid hold of some hope, false or true, of a future life.
Upon this foundation—man’s inability to recognize the reality or the finality of death—has been reared all the false religions of the world. That a living, thinking, human being, full of desires, hopes, aspirations, should suddenly cease to be and crumble away into nothing, is so incredible it makes such a mockery and such an enigma of life, that almost any theory of a future life seems reasonable in comparison. So, grasping at hope, however unfounded, and following the tradition received from the first deceiver (Gen. 3:4, 5), men have held that the human spirit survives the death of the body and rises into a higher state of existence. This teaching, grafted from the pagan systems of religion upon the church of the Dark Ages, has become the inheritance of even the Bible-reading Christians of to-day, and colors their interpretation of the inspired Word.
And thus it is that death, that foul destroyer, whose reign has devastated the earth through all the ages, is lauded in Christian pulpits and from Christian lips, as an angel of light, a messenger from God, a gateway into heaven.
All that human art and ingenuity can devise has been invented to throw a glamour of beauty and dignity over the hideousness of death. Wealth is lavished in display; flowers are strewn; soul-rending strains of music pierce the hearts of those who mourn; the bodies of great men are held lying in state for days to impress the people; graves are adorned to make them beautiful, and monuments are reared to commemorate the virtues of the dead, and their entrance upon their reward.
But it is all a deception—a deception welcomed, however, by the human heart in preference to the reality. Death is not beautiful; it is hideous. It transforms a living, sentient creature into an object of horror. When death lays his corrupting touch upon the fairest and loveliest of earth, how quickly they become a mass of corruption, which even fondest affection hastens to bury from their sight.
Neither is there aught that is noble and dignified about death; it is an ignominious execution of the penalty of broken law. It is not a victorious entrance into heavenly joys; it is a defeat, a total surrender, a cessation of all effort and all struggle. It is man’s final confession and demonstration of his corruptible nature, and his utter inability to save himself.
Is there, then, no hope of a life beyond the grave? Are our loved ones gone forever, and must we also cease to hope and sink into the blackness of nothingness? Mourning ones, look up! There is a light beyond the tomb. There came One into the world who claimed power over death, saying, "I have power to lay it [My life] down, and I have power to take it again." In proof of this assertion, He, on several occasions, called back the departed breath and robbed the grave of its victim. And giving this evidence of the truth of His claims, He said: "I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in Me, tho he were dead, yet shall he live [at the last day, John 6:39, 40]; and whosoever liveth [at the last day] and believeth in Me shall never die." John 11:25, 26.
That is the true hope of a future life and a reunion with the departed—by means of a resurrection from the dead. That event takes place at the coming of the Lord. 1 Thess. 4:13–18. With joy we hail the tokens of the approach of that glad day.
THE CONDITION AND THE REMEDY.
By Editor
THE question pertains to the condition of the church of God, and the remedy.
The very idea that a remedy is needed presumes that the condition is not favorable. And it is not. Let us give three statements of Holy Writ upon this point, divine predictions of the church in the very time in which we live. We hope that our readers will not pass them by, but consider them seriously. The first is a general statement from our Lord, recorded in Matt. 24:11, 12.
"And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold."
The multiplied lawlessness is not in the world; for the world has ever been lawless as respects God. Among the heathen and those who know not God in Christian lands there has ever been all kinds of iniquity; devilish deeds of deepest dye have been prevalent from the time that murderous Cain struck to his death his brother. Such deeds without have ever brought the people of God nearer to Him.
The multiplied iniquity is found in the professed church, a condition thus predicted by the apostle Paul, in 2 Tim. 3:1-5:—
"But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof; from these also turn away."
The merest careful reading of this scripture will clearly disclose (1) that its application is to religionists in the last days; (2) that these eighteen different sins are only various forms of selfishness which the power of God has not touched; (3) that the "grievous times," the "perilous times," result from the fact that the spiritual condition of the church is such that these things are tolerated; (4) that these sins are not crimes, infractions of civil law, but that they are even more dangerous, because the very conservator of righteousness in the earth, the light-bearer, is herself in darkness; and (5) that from those who take pleasure in such things it is as much the duty of the child of God to turn away as from youthful lusts and false doctrines.
The third scripture (Rev. 3:14-17) to the Laodiceans reveals the awful condition of insensibility to spiritual things resulting from indulgence in these sins and their toleration:—
"These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked."
O, it is awful, the condition of God's professed church when measured, not by worldly standards, but by the law of God in the illuminated life of Jesus Christ and the teaching of His prophets and apostles. The grosser forms of sin are not so manifest as in the past perhaps, but the selfishness—the root of all—is more prevalent in a thousand more pleasing and delusive, but not less deadly, forms. The very sins which Paul charged against the heathen world in his day, he predicts of God's own professed people in the last days. See Rom. 1:28-32. They are all the fruits of the flesh, and "My people love to have it so; but what will ye do in the end thereof?"
Family prayer is the exception, not the rule. Prayer-meetings are thinly attended, and the religious meetings are considered long if extended an hour, while foolish, senseless parties of pleasure will continue into the small hours of the morning with none weary. God's cause calls for means to save souls, and the response is feeble, while pleasure and commercial investment can always command a full purse.
We know that there are many who will read impatiently this article. We are sorry, but we can do no otherwise than to write it. God's Word and Spirit and present conditions witness to its truth. It is for your eternal good and highest enjoyment we write these words. If God's Book is the truth, it is worthy of all heed. If Christ is worthy of service, He is worthy of our best. We can not hope in His promise if we ignore the conditions of implicit obedience, of simple childlike faith in His holy Word, of answering loyally to His law and kingdom.
The devil, clothed as an angel of light, is lulling millions into the slumbers of eternal death. Christ comes with open hands filled with the jewels of Heaven's choicest truth, but like children we turn away to the tinsel toys. He comes offering His own stainless robes of righteousness, but we prefer the gaudy, fading trappings of pleasure or the tarnished robes of the harlot of Babylon. Angels of God bend low to sing to us glorious symphonies of heavenly peace, grand diapasons of victory, but our ears are so filled with the din of the world's traffic, and the blare and discord of the fish-horns of pleasure, that we hear no sound of the music of God. The very beauties of heaven are disclosed in Christ's life and Word, but, blinded by the glare of the world, we can not see them.
O soul, awake from thy stupor of death; awake alone; wait not for others. Take acceptable words of repentance and confession and return to thy God. Give up the world, break partnership with Satan, yield all to God. He waits to be gracious. He longs to heal. He has the white robes, and the eyesalve, and the pure gold of eternal riches,—yea, more than tongue can tell or lips repeat, to give to thee, and more than all else His own priceless companionship. Will you not, O soul, cast off the powers of darkness and turn to Him who is light? Will you not reject the counterfeit and accept the only genuine?
The Yoke of Christ
The Yoke of Christ.—Jesus says, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls." To take the yoke of Christ upon us means to work in the same yoke with Christ. In such case, He furnishes all the strength both for Himself and for His yoke-fellow; therefore, the one who works with Him finds rest. Of course, under such conditions the yoke becomes easy and the burden light. Paul describes his labor as "striving according to His [Christ's] working, which worketh in me mightily." Again He says, "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." As long as one works for Satan, he has to bear all the burden and suffer the consequences of sin. By changing yokes, or masters, the sinner is relieved of a grievous burden, and enters upon a service in which there is peace with God and rest of soul. The service of Christ is a service of love—love to God and love to man. And "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous."
WASHED FROM THE STAIN OF SIN.
THE whole universe of God will one day be clean, the last stains of sin wiped out. Sin brought the curse. But God, in His Word, tells us of a time when "there shall be no more curse." As sin brought the curse, the removal of the curse includes the removal of that which brought it.
Every manifestation of nature to-day is imperfect and subject to decay. When God looked upon His finished work, He saw that "it was very good." There was no imperfection then, no wasting then, no decay then—no pale-faced death then. Into that wonderful, beautiful symphony of Love's labor came the canker of sin, and that canker has been eating out the life, the joy, the comfort of this smitten race from then till now. O the bitter dregs of misery that have been wrung out of this afflicted world since the first seeds of sin were cultivated in the heart of man by the harrow of disobedience. What a flood of tears goes 'round the world with every setting sun since men began to reap the harvest from that sowing! What a tide of blasphemy rolls around the world from day to day, where ought to be sincerest praise and worship and thanksgiving! How the towering shaft of crime rises daily toward heaven from the seething volcano of sin!
Will it go on forever, this terrible perversion of God's loving design for His creatures?—"There shall be no curse any more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein [in this earth]; and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light; and they shall reign forever and ever." Rev. 22:3-5. God's design was that man should possess this earth in all its undimmed, untarnished loveliness, and reign over it forever. In order to accomplish that design, He must now uproot and destroy sin, and save man from its consequences. That is the work that is going on now to its culmination. That work will never need to be done over again. The Lord declares in Nahum 1:9, "He will make a full end; affliction shall not rise up the second time." When that work is done, it will be done for all eternity.
The completeness of that work is shown also in Malachi 4. "For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be7stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, saith Jehovah of Hosts."
Who are they that shall tread upon the ashes of the wicked? "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2. Again: "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. 22:14. The American Revised Version has it: "Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of life," etc. The thought is the same; for the washing of the robes signifies the removal of sin, and sin is the transgression of the law. The robes are washed when past sins have been removed and transgression ceases. All who are in this condition will be keeping and living the commandments of God; and it is these who are given the right to "come to the tree of life"—the right which was denied when sin came; and the right to enter the city of God—a right which man forfeited when he disobeyed his Maker. God's declaration that He will "come quickly" (His reward with Him), "to render to each man according as his work is," shows that there will be a standard in the judgment of the great day. That standard is the law of God. To the host of the redeemed God points and says: "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12. It will be a blessed thing to be found in that victorious company. But how can those words be said of us if we have been fighting against the law of God? How can we be found washed from the stain of sin if we have been transgressing the law whose transgression is sin? Our own hearts must answer these questions. Let us do it in the light of the judgment.
OBEDIENCE VERSUS SACRIFICE.
THE Lord set apart the seventh day as the Sabbath, as a memorial of His rest in honor of the great creation work. He blessed it and sanctified it, or made it holy. He did this "for man" (Mark 2:27), that is, for the benefit of man. It then became the duty of man to "keep it holy." But the "carnal mind," being "enmity against God," is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Therefore it is susceptible to the wiles of the adversary, and becomes an instrument in his persistent endeavor to destroy the law of God. To this end a false Sabbath is set up by an apostate church. Various pleas are set up in defense of this unwarranted assumption, all of which are illogical and inconsistent. One argument which we have frequently heard from some who altogether reject the law of God on the Sabbath question, and wholly ignore His claim in the matter, is that Sunday is observed as a "free-will offering to the Lord."
If it were possible for one excuse to be more absurd than another, this one would surely stand at the head. If it were true that God had come so to disregard the Sabbath as to utterly abolish the requirement, that would surely indicate that He did not want any more of it. Then what possible good could come of making an offering to the Lord of that which He did not want. Under such circumstance He would surely say, "Who hath required this at your hand?" Confessedly the "offering" is a work of supererogation; thus it is confessedly papal in spirit, as it is in historical fact.
It is an invariable rule, that inventions of doctrine or service which the Lord has not required are observed at the expense of those things that are commanded. Disobedience is never condoned by "offerings." Were such a course possible, man could purchase his own salvation. The Lord has positively stated that "to obey is better than sacrifice."
ROME AND THE COMING KINGDOM.
THAT the Roman power will continue till the coming of the Lord is plainly shown by the prophecy of Daniel. That it is the “little horn” of chapter eight is made clear by the statement that, “through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace [margin, “prosperity”] shall destroy many; he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.” Verse 25.
This “little horn” stands for Rome in its entirety, both under its Pagan and Papal phases. It was by the Roman authority and Roman soldiers that Christ was put to death. But Rome, under the Papacy, has more especially “magnified” itself than it did under pagan rule. That power is represented in Revelation 13 as having received a “deadly wound;” but the prophecy adds that “the deadly wound was healed,” and the healing process has been in progress for many years, and is now progressing faster than ever. Rome is fast gaining a more extensive political influence in the world without direct temporal sovereignty than she had as an imperial government.
But the “little horn” power is to be “broken without hand.” Neither the fall of the empire, nor the exile of the pope by France in 1798, nor the loss of temporal power in 1870, can fulfil this prophecy; for those reverses were accomplished by human hands, by military power. Then when can it be accomplished? We may learn this from the prophecy of Daniel 2, in the explanation of the great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. There the fourth universal kingdom, represented by the legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay, occupies the same historical setting as the “little horn” of the eighth chapter; it represents the same identical power.
Now of that fourth kingdom of iron, and of iron and clay the prophet said to the king, “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces.” Verse 34. The explanation of this is in verses 40-45, where it is shown that the “stone” which finally destroys this power is the kingdom of God, which will be set up at the second advent of Christ, and under His personal reign will fill the whole earth.
Then this Roman power, this “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2:3-12), this spiritual Babylon that is now operating to make all the nations “drunk” with the “wine” of her Church-and-State “fornication” (Rev. 18:1-6), will continue till broken in pieces by the “Stone cut out without hands.” So shall it be consumed and destroyed unto the end. Dan. 7:26.
