The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 54, No. 22
REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF INSTANTANEOUS SANCTIFICATIONPage 1
Earlier text: REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF INSTANTANEOUS SANCTIFICATIONPREDESTINATION
By Miles E. Cornell
Of the many false doctrines held and taught among Protestants, none have been fraught with greater evil, in certain quarters, than that of predestination, the doctrine that all are unchangeably elected to be saved or lost,—that all who are finally lost were predestinated to that end. In the Presbyterian confession of faith it is set forth as follows:— “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.” “These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.” “God’s decrees are the wise, free and holy acts of the counsel of his own will, whereby, from all eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men.” Now there can be no doubt that many thousands, supposing that this doctrine was true and according to the Scriptures, have failed to make their own election sure. They remained indifferent, because they thought, if God had from all eternity foreordained their ultimate salvation, he had also foreordained the means for its accomplishment, and of course it could not be in danger of failure by any neglect on their part. Under this delusion they passively waited as under the decrees of fate, and so made no effort to secure that which they supposed had already been made sure from all eternity! The principal text of Scripture relied upon to support this doctrine is found in Rom. 8: 29, 30: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” By a careful examination of this Scripture, and comparing it with Matt. 27: 52, 53 and 1 Cor. 15: 20, we find it has no reference to the righteous in general, but only to a particular class who were raised at the resurrection of Christ, for a particular object. They were raised, and ascended with Christ to take part with him in the work of the priesthood. See Ps. 68: 18; Eph. 4: 8; Rev. 5: 8-12. The principal support of the doctrine is a perversion of Scripture; besides, it does not harmonize with the general tenor of the Bible, nor accord with reason. Every effort to prove or explain it has only resulted in making it appear more dark and doubtful. It is related of one of the advocates of the doctrine, that after he had spent several hours trying to explain it to the understanding of his pious slave, he said, “Now, Sambo, do you understand it?” But Sambo, scratching his head significantly, replied, “Massa, before you splained it I thought I understood it pretty well, but now, since you splained it, I don’t know nothing at all about it.” Truth is plain, and easy of comprehension when once brought out. Like gold, the more it is scoured the brighter it shines. But of all errors the above seems most difficult and contradictory. It involves the greatest absurdity, and is a slander upon the character and attributes of Deity! No man can harmonize it with the scriptures on free agency. We believe that God did from the beginning decree that all who would obey him should be saved, and that those who would not should be lost; but he left man perfectly free to make his own election. 1. God decreed to bring to pass what shall be for his own glory. An intelligent being would not act without purpose, or design. No serious or thoughtful man intends, or purposes deliberately, to dishonor and degrade himself. Much less would we expect such a purpose on the part of God; for he must consider that the greatest happiness of his creatures brings the greatest glory to himself. 2. But sin is not for God’s glory, therefore he never decreed it. Sin is ruinous to his creatures, and for this reason it is dishonoring to God. Sin is in conflict with the nature of God, and with all the requirements of his word. How, then, can we admit that he decreed the existence of sin? Can we suppose that contradictory purposes existed in his mind? No; we cannot believe that God predetermined his own glory, and at the same time the existence of sin and evil, when they are in direct conflict one with the other. 3. But sin exists. Therefore some things exist which God did not decree. God does not will everything which is willed, nor does he do everything which is done. Man has a will, and he is essentially free to exercise both will and action. The Scriptures give numerous examples in which man has gone directly contrary to God’s will and pleasure. Then it is a fact that God may choose one thing, and man may choose another, and develop his choice into action in opposition to the will of God. In certain cases, God has overruled man’s wrong choice and action. He makes the wrath of man to praise him, and restrains the remainder of wrath; but he does not himself either purpose or bring about this wrath. How could a good and wise ruler purpose, or bring about, rebellion on the part of his subjects? There are, doubtless, purposes in the mind of God which are unknown to us. He has purposes in relation to the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter, but he has not revealed them to us, for the good reason that they do not concern us. If God has any secret purposes concerning any people, they cannot be contrary to anything revealed to us in his written word. Then it is not true that God decrees, “whatsoever comes to pass;” but, on the contrary, it is a falsehood forged by Satan. It remains a fact, therefore, that each individual must decide his own destiny, God having only predestinated and decreed that whoever would do his will should be saved, and that whoever would not should be lost. And in harmony with this general decree, man is exhorted to give all diligence to make his own election sure. 2 Pet. 1:10. If, therefore, any are lost, it is not because it was so decreed or willed by any but themselves; for God wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus would have gathered many, but they would not. But Jesus could never will any to be saved contrary to the will and decrees of God. And as Christ the Son wills the salvation of all if they will also, it cannot be that God the Father has decreed that any should be lost. All may be saved. “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” M. E. Cornell. A NAIL TO DRIVE.
By A. Smith
RECENTLY I had a dream, which, unlike that of Bunyan, was all a dream. I seemed to be engaged in repairing an old and very high building. The fascia of the cornice had become loosened by the drawing of the nails, and several men had been stationed side by side, each, at a motion of command, to drive his nail. I signaled C. to drive, but, thinking I meant B., he looked to see him drive his nail. The signal was repeated, and he turned to D., and wondered that he did not drive. Once more the order was given; and, quickly glancing up and down the line of men, he chanced to think that himself was intended, when he looked at his own nail, and found it more drawn than any other; then with a few strokes of the hammer he drove it to the head. The lesson, though clad in the fantasies of a dream, points a moral:— When the word of God is explained by the ambassadors of Christ, and sins are pointed out, Bro. C. looks at A., B., or D., expecting to hear them confess, or to see them melted to tears of penitence, and not until he looks within his own heart does he see his own sins, and make a personal application of the truth. Reader, have you a nail to drive? THE BOOK OF BOOKS, WHOSE DIVINITY IMPRESSES EVERY MIND. A CORRESPONDENT of the Inter-Ocean, who has read Colonel Ingersoll’s lectures, has collected the following utterances of scientists, statesmen, and thinkers in regard to the Bible:— The grand old Book of God still stands, and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred Word.—Professor Dana. All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming, more and more strongly, the truths contained in the sacred Scriptures.—Sir John Herschel. The Bible furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the thoughts that overwhelm us when contemplating the stellar universe.—O. M. Mitchell. In my investigation of natural science I have always found that whenever I can meet with anything in the Bible, on any subject, it always affords me a firm platform on which to stand.—Lieutenant Maury. If the God of love is most appropriately worshiped in the Christian temple, the God of nature may be equally honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer, and the priest and the sage exchange altars without the compromise of faith or knowledge.—Sir David Brewster. There is a Book worth all other books which were ever printed.—Patrick Henry. The Bible is the best book in the world.—John Adams. So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country, and respectable members of society.—John Quincy Adams. It is impossible to govern the world without God. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation.—General George Washington. Pointing to the family Bible on the stand, during his last illness, Andrew Jackson said to his friend, “That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests.” I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility, are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness.—General Harrison’s Inaugural Address. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, are the best the world has ever seen, or is likely to see.—Benjamin Franklin. I always have had, and always shall have, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rites, its usages, and its observances.—Henry Clay. A few days before his death, “the foremost man of all his times” drew up and signed this declaration of his religious faith: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Philosophical arguments, especially those drawn from the vastness of the universe in comparison with the insignificance of this globe, have sometimes shaken my reason or the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The sermon on the mount cannot be a merely human production. This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience.—Daniel Webster. Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of our liberties; write its precepts on your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book we are indebted for the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future.—U. S. Grant. It is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life.—Goethe. I account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.—Sir Isaac Newton. To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I should need to send him to no other book than the New Testament.—John Locke. I know the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater depths of my being than any other book.—Coleridge. A noble book! All men’s book. It is our first statement of the never-ending problem of man’s destiny and God’s way with men on earth.—Carlyle. I must confess, the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment.—Rousseau. There is not a boy nor a girl, all Christendom through, whose lot is not made better by the great Book.—Theodore Parker. “ANSWER HIM SOFTLY.”
By G. N.
Answer him softly. You cannot know,
In the depths below
How sharp was the struggle, the fight he made
Ere the price he paid,
And yielded his soul to the tempter’s power
In a hasty hour. Answer him softly; for it may be—
Like the sturdy tree,
Which tested, in many a storm, its strength,
To be rent at length—
He struggled full oft, and resisted well,
Though at last he fell. Answer him softly, lest you be tried
On your weaker side,
And fail, as before you so many have done,
Who in thought had won;
Fail, too, ere temptation had spent its force
In its subtle course. Answer him softly; for none can tell,
When the storm-clouds swell,
Whose barque shall weather the tempest, or whose
Its venture shall lose.
Speak gently; the weakest may stand the gale,
The stoutest may fail. Daniel Webster once told a good story in a speech, and was asked where he got it. “I have had it laid up in my head for fourteen years, and never had a chance to use it till to-day,” said he. My little friend wants to know what good it will do to learn the “rule of three,” or to commit a verse of the Bible. The answer is this: Some time you will need that very thing. Perhaps it may be twenty years before you can make it fit in just the right place, but it will be just in place sometime; then if you don’t have it, you will be like the hunter who had no ball in his rifle when a bear met him. “Twenty-five years ago my teacher made me study surveying,” said a man who had lately lost his property; “and now I am glad of it. It is just in place. I can get a good situation and high salary.” The Bible is better than that. It will be in place as long as we live. “A little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts and almonds.” Gen. 43:11. —JUDGE not thy fellow till thou art similarly situated. —GOD warms the earth with snow; can he not also warm the soul with grief? —THERE is no salvation of the soul, no hope of everlasting life, but in the cross. —IF you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.—Colton. —IN matters of conscience, first thoughts are best; in matters of prudence, last thoughts are best. —A MAN truly good is inexhaustible in good will and happy thoughts to yield pleasure to others. —WE cannot believe in the experiences and projects of great souls until we have had such ourselves. —HANDLE rough-sided men carefully. It pays to take a little time when we are opening chestnut-burs. —ONLY what we have wrought into our characters during life can we take away with us.—Humboldt. —IT is not till the thoughts can find rest in nothing but God, that a man is drawn close to God himself and becomes his. —IT is wonderful what strength and boldness of purpose and energy of will come from the feeling that we are in the way of duty. —THE minds of some people are like the pupil of the human eye, and contract themselves the more the stronger light there is shed upon them.—Thomas Moore. —THE red heart sends its instincts up to the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched; and so become pure reason. The current should run the other way; the cold, calm thought should always travel to the lips via the heart.—O. W. Holmes. —Once I lost a single pearl
In a sea of gloom and fear;
And it lay beneath the waves
Many a sad and empty year.
Then there came a voice to me:
“Cast thy net into the sea!”
So I cast, and drew the line—
Lo! twelve pearls encrusted mine!
Thus, whene’er the Father takes
Precious gifts I fain would keep,
Somewhere in his sea, I know,
With his gems they safely sleep.
Melt the days, like dreams, away,
Till I hear the Father say:
“Cast thy net into the sea;
I have many pearls for thee!”
—Paul Pastnor, in Advance. The turning point in every man’s religious experience is, not when he says, “I believe,” but when he says, “I will.” A man is not a Christian in proportion to the amount of truth he puts into his creed, but in proportion to the amount of truth he puts into his life.—Dr. J. Walker. TRUTH IS HARMONY.
By R. F. Cottrell
From a notice clipped from some paper, which I have not the means of naming, I am informed that Rev. D. B. Byers has written a book against the seventh-day Sabbath and in favor of the first day, or Sunday. Not having the book, I can only notice the recommendations given. If the book is equal to these recommendations, it is a marvelous work indeed. Hear these witnesses, and mark well their testimony:— “The Nashville Christian Advocate, chief organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, says of it:— “In the West the seventh-day Sabbatarians have made quite a stir during the last few years, disturbing the minds of many and unsettling the faith of some. Here in the more conservative South we have had but little trouble from these hobby-riders. Here and there, however, a neighborhood has been disturbed by some extremist who thinks the salvation of the world depends upon going back to the obsolete Jewish Sabbath. Such a book as this was wanted. Mr. Byers has done his work well. He makes out his case. He shows that the Sabbath law did not enjoin specific time or a specific day reckoning from creation-week in weekly cycles, but only a proportion of time, as one day in seven. This point he establishes conclusively. It is then shown that Sunday synchronizes with the Sabbath of creation-week; that the children of Israel were ignorant of the seventh-day Sabbath until the Exodus, and that the change was then made from the first to the seventh day of the week to wean them from idolatry. The argument is, that as the Lord has separated the Jewish people by giving them a peculiar Sabbath on a day of the week not regarded most sacred by the idolaters about them, so he separated the Christians from the ceremonial worship of the old dispensation by restoring to them the original Sabbath in which to perform their devotions and abstain from all secular pursuits. This is the argument, and it is strongly put. We trust this work will be circulated freely—it is a word in season.” “The Northern Christian Advocate says: ‘A timely publication lies before us, in which the history of the Sabbath, its nature and design, its law and time, the change of the day and the authority of the change, are taken up and lucidly set forth. The historical sketch is brief, but prepares the way for the argument against the Sabbatarians in which he engages. The absurd posture of this sect is considered as amply as it deserves, and both by Scripture text and scientific fact, the position is successfully assailed. So long as any men are simple enough to believe that they can discover a day corresponding to that on which the Lord rested, or that all men on earth can observe the same physical Sabbath, such books as this must be written.’” Both these witnesses seem satisfied that Mr. Byers has done his work well, and made out his case. The first says that he “establishes conclusively that the Sabbath law did not enjoin specific time or a specific day reckoning from creation-week in weekly cycles, but only a proportion of time, as one day in seven.” How does he show this? What other means has he to show what the Sabbath law enjoins but Gen. 2:2, 3, and the fourth commandment found in Ex. 20:8–11? These testimonies of Scripture are squarely contradicted by these assertions. The Sabbath was pointed out by the fall of manna on the other six days, the withholding of it on the seventh, and the preservation of that which was gathered on the sixth for use on the seventh. No man of the people could keep any other day, except that definite seventh, and have his daily bread. Then in the fourth commandment the Lord told them to keep the seventh day, and not only so, but he assures them that this seventh day is his Sabbath, that is, the day on which he rested, and as a reason, he refers them back to the creation for the fact that when he made the world he rested on this day, as recorded in Gen. 2:2, 3. But our witness says, “It is then shown that Sunday synchronizes with the Sabbath of creation-week.” Right here we must let our other witness speak. Says he, “So long as any men are simple enough to believe that they can discover a day corresponding to that on which the Lord rested (the very thing our first witness says that Mr. Byers has shown), or that all men on earth can observe the same physical Sabbath, such books as this must be written.” Yes; I suppose they must be written; but what is the use of writing them? It is esteemed silly to suppose that all men can “observe the same physical Sabbath.” Doubtless he wishes all to observe Sunday the world over. Is Sunday any less physical than Saturday? What contrast is suggested by this word physical? Is it spiritual? If so, what reason can be given why Sunday is more spiritual than the Lord’s Sabbath? Is it because God did not rest on it, that he never blessed it, never sanctified it, never commanded it nor mentioned it in all the Bible as a sacred day? Where is the “Scripture text” with which Mr. Byers has “successfully assailed” our position? This and his “scientific fact” are only bold assertions without proof. But, going back to the testimony of our first witness, it is easy enough for these men to say that “the children of Israel were ignorant of the seventh-day Sabbath until the Exodus.” Where is the proof of it? Is it in the fact that they, of their own accord, prepared for the first Sabbath after the manna began to fall, and then came in the persons of their rulers and told Moses what they had done, which appeared to be a transgression of the charge he had given them not to gather any to be kept over night? Here is the evidence that they knew this seventh-day Sabbath before Moses had mentioned it to them. And where is the proof that the surrounding nations, who had forgotten God and turned to idolatry, were still holding the true Edenic Sabbath, making it necessary for God to give his loyal people another day, one that he did not rest upon, nor sanctify, nor bless, in order to distinguish them from the heathen? It is reasonable to suppose that God’s true people knew the original day, as well as the heathen idolaters. What a tumult it must have raised in the camp when Moses told them they must profane that day and keep another sacred in its place! But not even a murmur is recorded. This reminds me of the tumult the Jews must have made against the apostles when they changed the day back again to Sunday. And this, too, by some inadvertance, is not recorded. I am in correspondence with a lone brother in the interior of Pennsylvania, far from others of like faith; and I will conclude this writing by giving in his own words a dream which he recently dreamed, as related in his last. He says: “I will give you a strange dream I had some time ago. The ideas were quite new to me, for I never saw them in print. I thought some one spoke to me about the change of the Sabbath, the zeal and prejudice of Sunday advocates, etc. And said he, ‘How could a handful of Christians have changed a divine institution that had been in existence for more than 4,000 years, and was interwoven with all their sacred writings? The first Christians were all Jews by birth. Would not such a change have caused great confusion? Would it not have been a stumbling-block and a hindrance to the spread of the gospel? Would not the Jews have been ten times more prejudiced against such a change than people are now? No, no! the apostles did not change the Sabbath.’” The inevitable confusion and disputation which must have attended such a change was all avoided. No writer, sacred or profane, has recorded a word of it. But what a stir it now makes for a few to return to the Sabbath of the Lord; while at the same time these very persons hold that any one day in seven is all that the Sabbath law ever required! The Texas Camp-Meeting.
By Geo. J. Butler
The meeting held in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 5–11, was a most profitable one to the cause in that State. It was not large; perhaps one hundred and twenty-five camped upon the ground. It was held about two miles from town. The camp was near a large spring, which supplied abundant water. The most of the brethren came early and staid till the close. Eld. Kilgore and myself did all the preaching. I spoke thirteen times, and felt very free in talking to these Southern brethren. As this was my first visit to the State, of course nearly all were strangers to me; but we were soon on the most friendly terms, and I was never treated more cordially by any people. We tried, as usual, to present the plain, practical principles of our Lord’s religion, and from the first the preaching met a response in the hearts of the people. Our social meetings were as free as any we have attended this year. Many times from three to five would be upon their feet at once, waiting their turn to speak, and many of the social meetings could not well be closed on time because of the anxiety to speak. A good degree of interest was taken in the temperance work, which I presented with as much force as I could. Nearly a hundred signed the pledge, most of whom became full members. There seemed to be a general advance in the temperance cause in the State. A State Association was formed, and a hopeful feeling was manifest among the membership generally that good would be done. As I knew the habit of tobacco-using was so common in the South, I was happy to find so few among our brethren still addicted to it, and also to find so many interested in health and temperance reform. The interest in the temperance work was fully as great as in any Conference I have attended this year, considering the short experience of the believers in Texas. The only opposition I saw to it came from some old Sabbath-keepers of Northern birth, who were not in harmony with the body of our people. Indeed, were it not for these, there would be a remarkable state of union among the brethren in Texas. In one church some difficulty has been seen from their influence. As they came upon the ground talking out their insinuations and dissatisfaction, aimed, as usual, against the work of the Spirit of God among us, it gave me an excellent reason to publicly present the evidences from God’s word upon which our faith in this respect is founded. God helped me to make these matters plain, and the minds of many were settled on points which had given them some perplexity, and the influence of these persons was cut off. I never more fully realized the power of this great truth to unite hearts and break down suspicious and sectional feelings, than at this meeting. How wonderful it is that this doctrine can bring together foreigners, members of different churches and of no church, Northern and Southern men, so that they will all feel perfectly united as a band of brethren. I know of no other doctrine in the world that will do this to the same extent. We well know the feelings of bitterness and suspicion which have existed between Northern and Southern people, yet I have never seen a people seem to think more of a brother minister than these native Southern men do of Eld. Kilgore. He was a captain in the Union army, and many of them fought on the other side. I have never left a camp-meeting in all my experience with greater evidences of love from the people than I received from these Texans, though I am a Yankee of the extremest type. No special efforts were made on either side to bring about this result. The present truth breaks down these sectional lines, and unites the hearts of those looking for the Lord. These brethren, of course, have much to learn yet, as their experience has been short. This they seemed to realize, as they spoke with tears of contrition of their need of a deeper work of grace. Bro. Kilgore has accomplished a good work in Texas. Nearly three hundred Sabbath-keepers have taken their stand upon the truth in a few years, and a promising Conference has been established. About one hundred have come out on the truth the past season. There has been a great drought the past summer, and crops are short and money is scarce; but almost $400 was paid in on the T. and M. work at the camp-meeting, and a disposition was manifested to do all they could. Their Conference funds will soon be largely increased. The General Conference has never had to pay out any funds for the establishment of this mission. I left Monday night before the meeting closed, to get to the General Conference as soon as possible. Quite a number were to be baptized. We had an excellent meeting Monday afternoon. The hearts of the people were greatly moved, and many excellent testimonies were borne, wet down with tears. On the whole, I enjoyed my visit to Texas very much, and formed many pleasant acquaintances. Thus closed my seventeenth camp-meeting for the present season, making four solid months of camp-meeting life. I have usually preached from ten to fourteen times each week, besides other labor, which has often been wearing and perplexing. In many of these meetings I have been the only outside help, and hence had to bear the principal part of the burden. But God has wonderfully sustained me physically, and has, I trust, helped me spiritually to do a little good. Praised be his name for all his mercies. The past season has witnessed some most precious out-pourings of the Spirit, which have been truly soul-stirring; but many of our people need a great work done for them, for they are living far from God. What shall arouse them from this state of heart-hardness? May God have mercy upon us. GEO. J. BUTLER. THE CLEANSING OF THE SANCTUARY, AND THE JUDGMENT.
By W. H. Littlejohn
On the tenth day of the seventh month, in each year under the Mosaic dispensation, the high priest entered the most holy place of the earthly tabernacle, and performed a work which is spoken of as the cleansing of the sanctuary. It is generally held by Seventh-day Adventists that the service then performed answered in the type to the great day of Judgment, which was entered upon in the sanctuary in Heaven on the tenth day of the seventh month in A. D. 1844. There are many reasons which are offered in proof of that hypothesis. It is not proposed in this brief article to even present a summary of them; the only design of what is written being to throw a side-light upon the question found in Dan. 8:13: “Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?” The reply to this interrogation was given to Daniel instead of the saint who asked the question. It was as follows: “And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” If there is any significance whatever in this response, it will be found in the fact that it in some way furnishes a clue by which Daniel, or the church, whom he represented, should be able to ascertain how long the persecution of the church as brought to view in the prophecy should continue. Now what are the facts, provided we admit that the cleansing of the sanctuary relates to the commencement of the Judgment? They are, (1) the Judgment commenced in 1844; because the 2300 days, commencing the count at B. C. 457, would terminate at that time; (2) The declaration that the Judgment would commence (or the sanctuary be cleansed) was the same as stating that the persecution of God’s people would cease at that point; since Daniel had been already informed (chap. 7:25) that when the Judgment should sit the dominion of the little horn (i. e., the papacy) should be taken away to consume and destroy it to the end. In other words, that even its power or ability to persecute any farther should be taken away. Having now seen that if the cleansing of the sanctuary spoken of in the connection related to the commencement of the Judgment at the end of the 2300 days, the 14th verse does contain a direct answer to the question found in the previous verse, and that when otherwise construed, the answer given by one of the saints to Daniel does not furnish a direct response to the interrogation made, we now inquire in conclusion whether the history of the events as they have occurred verifies the correctness of our interpretation. To this query facts which have transpired before the eyes of our generation will furnish the needed answer. Subsequently to 1798, and before 1844, the power of the papacy seems to have been restrained to that extent that practically speaking it had ceased to be a persecuting power. Nevertheless, it still held on to its temporal authority, and the theory that it was the Heaven-appointed corrector of heretics. But about the year A. D. 1844, certain political combinations seemed to originate which gradually increased in numbers and influence, until at last, between the years 1844 and 1848, they were able to bring such a pressure to bear upon the pope that he was finally driven into exile. Subsequently to that period, he regained his throne and a portion of his former prestige. From that time to this, however, revolutions and combinations have succeeded one another, and by slow degrees his temporal power and territory have been taken from him, until at last he does not rule over a single state, and has not the power of inflicting physical punishment upon even the most contemptible of the myriads of the so-called heretics who now laugh to scorn all his pretensions to the right to wield the sword against those who set at naught his authority as the successor of St. Peter. Here, then, we discover the perfect agreement between the prophecy as construed by us and the events of history. At the end of the 2300 days—or at the commencement of the Judgment in A. D. 1844—we discern in the political affairs of Europe unmistakable evidence that a higher power than any earthly king has decreed the utter humiliation of the papacy. The prophet had predicted that from that precise point of time the work of gradual decay and disintegration should commence. “The Judgment shall sit,” said he, “and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it to the end.” Thus it has been. He has not been overthrown173 in a moment as the result of some masterly onslaught on the part of any one military chieftain; but his power has gradually wasted away as the consuming victim gradually disappears when placed upon the glowing embers of the altar. How striking is the fulfillment, and how strong its confirmation of the doctrine that He who both caused the prophecy to be written and its fulfillment to be accomplished, is now engaged in the solemn work of the Judgment; or, that which is identical with it, the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. Happiness as Calm, Steady Serenity
THE happiness of life consists, like the day, not in single flashes of light, but in one continued mild serenity. The most beautiful period of the heart’s existence is in this calm, equable light, even although it be only moonshine or twilight. Now the mind alone can obtain for us this heavenly cheerfulness and peace.