FOR the security of those who should kill any person without design, the Lord directed Moses to appoint cities of refuge, when the Israelites should come into the promised land. The heart of the refugee, as he fled from the avenger of blood, must have beat with untold anxiety to gain this asylum of safety before him.
The Bible points the sinner, exposed to the wrath of God, to a place of refuge from the power of Satan, a protection from the second death. “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence; and his children have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.” Prov. 14: 26, 27.
And why do we remain away? Why not come to this asylum of “strong confidence,” to the fountain of life? All Heaven invites us to come. Our present and future happiness and safety, with our eternal interests, bid us come. Certainly, if we prized life eternal as men valued the preservation of this life for a season who winged their course to the ancient cities of refuge, we would come.
Who has ever found a life of sin and alienation from God to be profitable? Who has been made the wiser or better, physically, morally, or mentally, by sin? Let the present, or the vast generations of the past, ruined by the fall, answer, Who?
The apostle asks his brethren with reference to their past life of sin, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6: 21–23. Truly, “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.”
“Whoso committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.” The history of sin, from the fall of the happy pair in Eden to the present, as it is read in its blighting and degrading influence upon nations and individuals, and in the awful curse under which the earth has groaned for six thousand years, demonstrates and attests in the clearest manner that man needs a refuge, a protection in the merits of the crucified Redeemer, and in his atoning blood, to escape the penalty due for the transgression of God’s law; which Omniscience in the beginning pronounced to be death, and which, in the Judgment of the great day, must inevitably be inflicted upon the finally incorrigible. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
Numerous, indeed, are the subterfuges and false hopes under which many have taken refuge for safety in view of the day of general retribution. That awful day hastens on! Then will all error and deception, with every falsehood, be unmasked, and appear in their true color. The deceiver and the long deceived awake to utter the alarming truth, “We have made lies our refuge, and under falsehoods have we hid ourselves.”
Mercy pleads no more. Justice, and the avenging law of God, will then execute upon the lost the punishment so long threatened against the sinner. Here it will be learned by the most inexpressible anguish and woe experienced by the ungodly, that it was a falsehood of the most daring magnitude, when Satan said to Eve, “Ye shall not surely die.”
As we contemplate the future reward of the righteous, as portrayed by the pen of inspiration, language is inadequate to express the joy of the devoted Christian “who by patient continuance in well-doing” has sought for “glory and honor and immortality,” and has the soul-supporting hope of eternal life, based upon the conditions and promises of God’s word.
To the heirs of this precious boon, his promise can never fail; the “immutability of his counsel is confirmed by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast.”
In humble confidence may such adopt the language expressive of the strongest assurance of divine protection, a place of refuge beyond the power of evil. “In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Ps. 62: 7, 8.
A. S. HUTCHINS.
Greenville, Mich.
A Good Understanding.
By Mrs. H. D. Johns
I HAVE often heard people say, “Why are you Seventh-day Adventists so confident that you are right? There are a great many denominations, and they believe differently, and yet each professes to have the truth; people cannot all see alike; they have as good a right to their belief as you have to yours, and why are they not just as likely to be right?” I remember when I thought so, too; but there is one passage in the Bible which threw some light on the subject to my mind. It is found in the 111th psalm, “A good understanding have all they that do His commandments.” Here, then, is a good reason why commandment-keepers are more likely to have the truth than any other people, because they have a “good understanding;” and it is quite evident that a good understanding is a blessing which is granted them, because they keep his commandments. I believe it would be a good rule for those who are delaying to keep the Sabbath because they do not understand every point of our faith to “do his commandments” and pray in faith for light, and they will have that good understanding, which will enable them to discern light from darkness and error from truth. To keep all His commandments should be our earnest effort.
MRS. H. D. JOHNS.
Watching: You Prayed Well But Did Not Watch
By C. H. B.
Watching.
IN the time of George III., there were messengers about the court called runners, and one of them was very anxious to secure his master's good opinion. Among that master's virtues was his practice of attending worship every morning. On one occasion, the runner was present, who, by the loud tone in which he repeated his prayers, tried to attract the king's notice. After the services were over, the king saw him bustling about, hunting after something, and asked, “What is the matter?” “Please, your majesty,” he replied, “I have lost my hat.” “Lost your hat, lost your hat have you? You prayed well, but you did not watch!”
And of how many it will perhaps be said at last, “You prayed well, but you did not watch.” Every false religion and every true one which has developed itself into simply a form is generally noted for two things: 1. The disposition on the part of its adherents to spend a great deal of time in formal worship. 2. A great slackness in, and sometimes entire abstinence from, practical godliness. C. H. B.
The Golden Side
There is many a rest in the road of life,
If we would only stop to take it;
And many a tone from the better land,
If the querulous heart would make it!
To the sunny soul that is full of hope,
And whose beautiful trust ne'er faileth,
The grass is green and the flowers are bright,
Though the winter storm prevaileth.
Better to hope though the clouds hang low,
And to keep the eyes still lifted;
For the sweet blue sky will soon peep through,
When the ominous clouds are rifted!
There was never a night without a day,
Or an evening without a morning;
And the darkest hour, as the proverb goes,
Is the hour before the dawning.
There is many a gem in the path of life,
Which we pass in our idle pleasure,
That is richer far than the jeweled crown,
Or the miser's hoarded treasure;
It may be the love of a little child,
Or a mother's prayer to Heaven,
Or only a beggar's grateful thanks
For a cup of water given.
Better to weave in the web of life
A bright and golden filling,
And to do God's will with a ready heart,
And hands that are ready and willing,
Than to snap the delicate, minute threads
Of our curious lives asunder,
And then blame Heaven for the tangled ends,
And sit and grieve and wonder.
“The Amendment.”
By A. Smith
A CANDID CONFESSION.
Recently, while in company with a Methodist minister, the conversation turning upon the moral corruption of society, the writer remarked that since the war there had been an evident increase of crime.
To this, the minister assented, but hinted that a change for the better was approaching when nations should learn war no more.
This, the writer remarked, did not accord with the prophetic record concerning the last days; and asked if a nation like ours, figuring so conspicuously in the closing drama of this dispensation, should not have been noted in prophecy?
Minister. Yes, but I fail to recognize the symbol employed.
Writer. You will find it noted in Rev. 13. Nations are not noted in prophecy except they are connected with the people of God. Our nation is yet to become a persecuting power. An image to the beast (papacy) is yet to be formed, and worship enforced.
M. Is it possible that Romanism is to gain power in this country sufficient to effect such a change?
W. I think not; as, in such a case, the image would be a part of the beast himself; but it will evidently be an ecclesiastical organization under one head, like to that of the beast, whose worship it is to enforce.
M. Will the Protestant churches unite to form such an organization?
W. You are aware that a move is now being made to so amend the Constitution as to place Christian usages and customs upon a legal basis?
M. Yes, but only those points upon which all are agreed.
W. But they are not all agreed. There is a large class who honestly believe that, according to the Bible, the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath; whereas, the proposed amendment provides that the first day shall be observed as such. Now what is to be the rule of exegesis, the Bible or the Constitution?
M. [Reflecting.] Evidently the Constitution.
W. What, then, will be done with dissenters?
M. They will be persecuted for their faith; but, if they be true Christians, it will not hurt them, but serve to refine them, and cause them to press together; but no Christian, though differing with them on some points, would ever engage in, or consent to, such persecution.
W. True; but a majority of those who profess Christianity are not Christians, and a larger class will unite with them for gain, while still others will be indifferent to their action; and what was designed for a blessing, by the few candid Christian men who originated the scheme, will finally prove one of the most gigantic evils that ever shall have cursed our country.
A. SMITH.
Diogenes on the Most Dangerous Beast
It is said that Diogenes being asked which beast’s bite was the most dangerous, replied, “If you mean wild beasts it’s the slanderer; if tame ones, the flatterer.”
MOSES AND CHRIST NOT CONTRASTED
By James White
The Jewish and Christian dispensations, systems of religion, institutions, and ministrations are compared in the sacred writings; but are not held in contrast. Moses and Christ also are compared. God did not devise two plans by which to save men, one for the Jewish age, and one for the Christian age, the one opposed to, and held in contrast with, the other. The plan of salvation through Jesus Christ is one plan, and only one. And in the development of this unit plan in the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian ages, there are degrees of light and glory which may be compared.
But there is in the minds of the masses dense theological fog about this subject, which otherwise is as clear as when the sun shines from the cloudless heavens in his strength. Ministers preach, and write, and talk, in a manner to give the vague impression that Christ is the saviour of sinners only in the Christian age, while somebody else, or something else, perhaps Moses or the law, was the saviour of the men of past ages.
Some carry this matter so far in their eagerness to degrade the moral code in the minds of their hearers and readers, and to deaden their consciences to its claims, as to represent the Jewish age, in contrast with the Christian age, as one of merciless rigor and gross darkness, in which God gave his people laws in themselves bad, and such as they could not observe. And these blind leaders of the blind do not fail to class the moral code with the bad things of the past dispensation; for to pour contempt upon that code which Paul declares to be holy, just, and good, and to quiet the consciences of the people as to the claims of the fourth commandment, are the main objects of their efforts.
But this one grand truth stands out in bold relief upon the Sacred Page, from Genesis to Revelation, that in God's plan of the redemption of man, Jesus Christ is the only saviour of sinners in all the ages. Hence he is represented as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 13:8. “For there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12.
While it is admitted that, in the development of the unit plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, there have been degrees of light and glory in the several ministrations, it is denied that these ministrations of the same plan, all devised by the same Divine Mind for the salvation of the same race of sinners, to bring them all to the same Heaven, so far differ as to be properly held in wide contrast.
And to hold Moses and Christ in contrast, as though Moses was the author of what is called the Jewish code and the Jewish system, and Christ the author of what is called the Christian code and the Christian system, is most absurd. Moses was not the lawgiver of the Jews; neither is Christ the Christian’s lawgiver. Moses did not legislate; neither did Christ. In this sense, there has never been but one lawgiver. “There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.” James 4:12. This one lawgiver is neither Moses nor Christ, but the eternal Father.
Our opponents should save themselves the labor of contrasting Moses and Christ as lawgivers; for neither assumed the position. Christ emphatically says: “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.” John 7:16. “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.” Chap. 8:28. “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say.” Chap. 12:49. “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.” Chap. 14:24. Moses and Christ received the word from the Father, and gave it to the people; but neither assumed the position of independent lawgivers.
As prophets, or teachers of the people, Moses and Christ were not in contrast, but were alike. To sustain this proposition, we have the best testimony, directly to the point. The Lord said to Moses, “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” Deut. 18:18.
As a prophet, Christ was to be like Moses. The Father was to put his words into the mouth of Christ, as he had put them in Moses’ mouth. And this truth is regarded of such importance as to be rehearsed by Peter, in Acts 3:22, and by Stephen, in chap. 7:37, under circumstances which give it great force. And yet ministers will blindly go on in their mad career against the law of God holding Moses and Christ, and the Jewish and Christian ministrations, in widest contrast possible.
Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of Moses and Christ in such connection as to call out words favoring a contrast between them, if any such thing could exist. He speaks of the house of Moses, and the house of Christ. But does he contrast Moses and Christ as standing opposed to each other? Does he contrast the house of Moses and the house of Christ? As an answer to these important questions, we give just what Paul has said upon the subject.
“Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house.” Heb. 3:1–3.
After a careful reading of what Paul has said of Moses and Christ, and of the house of Moses, and of the house of Christ, in the foregoing quotation, it will be clearly seen,
1. That the apostle does not in the least degree favor the custom of holding these in contrast.
2. His statement, that Christ is worthy of more glory than Moses, illustrated by the figure of a house and its builder, shows that Christ was the builder of Moses, in the sense of a teacher and leader, and the founder of the whole typical system.
3. That Christ is represented as the builder of Moses’ house, inasmuch as all things relating to redemption, given to Moses in type, came from the Redeemer.
We close with the impressive words of Christ, in which he most emphatically indorses Moses and his writings as in harmony with himself, and his doctrines, “There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” John 5:45–47.
J. W.
Causes which Elevated Sunday and Abased the Sabbath.
By John Nevins Andrews
THE first day of the week is almost universally observed as the Christian Sabbath. Yet no precept for its observance is to be found in any part of the Bible. It is never called the Sabbath. Though eight times mentioned in the New Testament, it is never honored with any sacred title. There is no record of its observance as a day of abstinence from labor. A local and temporary precept respecting the laying by of money on that day, for benevolent purposes, was given by Paul; but even this was to be done by each one separately, i. e., at home.
There is on record a single meeting of the church at Troas in the night time of the first day of the week; but this was followed by Paul's act of setting out early first-day morning on his journey to Jerusalem. No sacred writer counted the day worthy of Sabbatic honors, and there is an excellent reason for this: They were inspired of God, and therefore withheld such honors because the Spirit of God did not bestow them.
The seventh day is observed by only a minority of Christians, small, indeed, though much more considerable when those of other countries are counted, than most persons suppose. Yet the seventh day is the only weekly Sabbath of the Bible. It has had the highest of all honors bestowed upon it. God rested upon the seventh day, and because of that rest, he blessed the day and sanctified it. The seventh day, though stigmatized by men as the Jewish Sabbath, is by the great Lawgiver honored with the title of “the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” The day is called the holy of the Lord and honorable, and such in the highest and noblest sense it really is. It is the Sabbath, even when mentioned in the New Testament in immediate connection with the first day of the week, and in the very instances in which the resurrection of Christ on that day is recorded. The resurrection of Christ had therefore nothing to do with the change of the Sabbath. In fact, such change is absolutely unknown to the Scriptures, except as the work of an enemy.
But if the hand of God did not make this change, how was it accomplished? Sunday is in possession of the ground. If it was not placed in possession by the Most High, how did it come to pass that it obtained such eminence as it now holds, and by what means was the Sabbath of the Lord brought down to the dust? Possession is not always proof of ownership. Were there a divine precept for first-day observance, the Bible would record it. The day has, therefore, no divine warrant for the place it holds. There is such warrant in behalf of the seventh day, and yet men trample that day in the dust. There must have been powerful causes thus to elevate the day which has no Bible precept in its support, and abase the day which holds so prominent a place in the law of God. Let us enumerate some of these causes.
1. Prominent among the causes which abased the Sabbath of the Lord was the intense hatred which existed toward the Jews. This people, who retained the ancient Sabbath, had slain Christ. It was easy for men to forget that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had claimed it as his own institution, and that the great Lawgiver had pronounced it “the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” and to call the Sabbath a Jewish institution which Christians should not regard. This was actually the course of things, and the power of this blind, unreasoning prejudice was immense. Victorinus, one of the old Christian fathers, says, “Let the sixth day become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews.” And Constantine, who had so much to do with the elevation of Sunday, says: “It becomes us to have nothing in common with the perfidious Jews.” These quotations illustrate the intense prejudice toward everything observed by the Jews.
2. Still more powerful than this was the active hatred of the church of Rome toward the Sabbath, and its ever-present determination to elevate Sunday to the highest place of honor. This church, as the chief in the work of apostasy, took the lead in the earliest effort to suppress the Sabbath by turning it into a fast, that it might be odious and despicable in the eyes of men. And the very first act of papal aggression was by an edict in behalf of Sunday. Thereafter, in every possible form, this church continued this work until the pope announced that he had received a divine mandate for Sunday observance in a roll which had fallen from Heaven. The angel told Daniel that the Roman power would “think to change times and laws,” and that it would “cast down the truth to the ground.” Dan. 7: 25; 8: 12.
3. Another thing which effectually prepared the way for the elevation of Sunday, and which shows how easily such a thing could originate in apparent piety toward the Saviour, was the voluntary observance of days memorable in the history of the Lord Jesus. Thus, in the Christian church, almost from the beginning, men voluntarily honored the fourth, the sixth, and the first, days of the week, as the weekly memorials of the betrayal, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ. In like manner, they honored the anniversary of the passover by the annual commemoration, with one party, of the death, and with the other, of the resurrection, of Christ; and the anniversary of the Pentecost, by the annual commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit on that day. These acts, which in themselves could not be counted sinful, and which seemed to be prompted by ardent piety, originated custom in this matter, which Dr. Heylyn pronounces the first of the two things on which Sunday observance rests.
4. Out of this speedily came traditions of an authoritative character. The making tradition to be of equal authority with the Scriptures was the great error of the early church, and the one to which that church was specially exposed. It had in it, first, those who had seen the apostles, and next, those who had seen persons who had seen them. It was this which rendered the voluntary observance of memorable days a dangerous thing. For what began as a voluntary observance became, after the lapse of a few years, a standing custom, established by tradition, which must be obeyed because it came from those who had seen the apostles, or from those who had seen others who had seen them. This is also the origin of the various errors of the great apostasy. This system of error began in apparent innocency, and its foundation was laid by men who had not the slightest idea of the vast edifice of error which was to be reared thereon.
5. The entrance of the no-law heresy was another powerful agency for the abasement of the ancient Sabbath. This heresy is seen in Justin Martyr, the earliest witness to the Sunday festival, and in the church of Rome, of which he was then a member.
6. The extensive observance of Sunday as a heathen festival not only contributed to the establishment of the day as a festival in the Christian church, but also aided to elevate it above the other days of voluntary observance. The first day of the week corresponded to the widely observed heathen festival of the sun. It was therefore easy to unite the honor of Christ in the observance of the day of his resurrection with the convenience and worldly advantage of his people in having the same festival day with their heathen neighbors, and to make it a special act of piety, in that the conversion of the heathen was thereby facilitated, while the neglect of the ancient Sabbath was justified by stigmatizing that divine memorial as a Jewish institution with which Christians should have no concern.
These six things show that Satan had agencies at work fully adequate, if God suffered them to proceed, to effect the complete abasement of the Sabbath, and the elevation of Sunday to the highest honors. The following scriptures are here worthy of notice:—
Prov. 30: 5, 6: “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
Matt. 15: 9: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Eccl. 12: 13: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
J. N. A.
The Reformation not yet Complete.
By Uriah Smith
Four hundred years ago Christendom was lost in the darkness of the great apostasy. A power foretold ages before by the prophets of God, had long held all western Europe in absolute subjection to its spiritual control. The period known as the dark ages was the golden age of Romanism. The little horn of Dan. 7:24 had plucked up three other horns, and was more stout than his fellows. The saints, times, and laws, were in his hands. Paul’s man of sin, 2 Thess. 2:3, had been developed, and held his seat as God, in the temple of God. Christianity, through the working of the mystery of iniquity, had gone into partnership with paganism, and the hybrid firm was the papacy. The doctrines of Christ had been obscured. Errors and superstition of the grossest form were rampant and unrestrained.
Upon this scene of darkness happily the light of the Reformation began to dawn. Multitudes began to throw off the shackles of papal superstition, and emerge from the darkness of its teaching. No marvel if in that time of transition, everything did not at first assume its permanent and proper form. But truth is progressive; and the work went on. But all the theology of our day has come from the era of error, darkness, and corruption, here described. It would be too much to expect that every Romish perversion in doctrine, or error in practice, should be at once discovered and discarded. Something certainly is wrong in the Protestant bodies that have come out from the Romish church; for schism has become wide spread, and sects have multiplied.
God designed that his people should be one. The Son of God so prayed. And the word of God, which he has given us as the source of our instruction, and the basis of our belief, is not yea and nay. This confusion of sentiment is the work of the enemy. It has its source, substantially, in three great errors. 1. A wrong principle of interpretation. 2. An effort to bring the Bible to support what we have pre-determined to believe. 3. Reforming in part, and then barring the way to all further progress by a human creed.
This last is perhaps the worst error of all, for it is a step backward toward the spiritual tyranny of Rome. If a church before it becomes free from Romish errors, adopts a creed, these errors are stereotyped into its belief; and that this is the case with most Protestant churches, is the testimony of discerning men.
Alexander Campbell, (Baptism, p. 15) says:—
“All of them [the Protestant sects] retain in their bosom, in their ecclesiastical organizations, worship, doctrines, observances, various relics61of popery. They are at best a reformation of popery, and reformation only in part. The doctrines and traditions of men yet impair the power and progress of the gospel in their hands.”
The terrible evil of the creed power is well set forth in the following extract from a sermon by Chas. Beecher:—
“Our best, most humble, most devoted servants of Christ, are fostering in their midst what will one day, not long hence, show itself to be the spawn of the dragon. They shrink from any rude word against creeds with the same sensitiveness with which those holy fathers would have shrunk from a rude word against the rising veneration of saints and martyrs which they were fostering. . . . The Protestant evangelical denominations have so tied up one another’s hands, and their own, that, between them all, a man cannot become a preacher at all, anywhere, without accepting some book besides the Bible.”
“And is not the Protestant church apostate? . . . Oh! remember, the final form of apostasy shall rise, not by crosses, processions, baubles. We understand all that. Apostasy never comes on the outside. It develops. It is an apostasy that shall spring into life within us; an apostasy that shall martyr a man who believes his Bible ever so holily; yea, who may even believe what the creed contains, but who may happen to agree with the Westminster Assembly that, proposed as a test, it is an unwarrantable imposition. That is the apostasy we have to fear, and is it not already formed? . . . Will it be said that our fears are imaginary? Imaginary? Did not the Rev. John M. Duncan, in the years 1825–6, or thereabouts, sincerely believe the Bible? Did he not even believe substantially the confession of faith? And was he not, for daring to say what the Westminster Assembly said, that, to require the reception of that creed as a test of ministerial qualification was an unwarrantable imposition, brought to trial, condemned, excommunicated, and his pulpit declared vacant? There is nothing imaginary in the statement that the creed-power is now beginning to prohibit the Bible as really as Rome did, though in a subtler way.”
“Oh! woeful day! Oh! unhappy church of Christ! fast rushing round and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin! . . . . Daily does every one see that things are going wrong. With sighs does every true heart confess that rottenness is somewhere; but, ah! it is hopeless of reform. We all pass on, and the tide rolls down to night. The waves of coming conflict which is to convulse Christendom to her center are beginning to be felt. The deep heavings begin to swell beneath us. ‘All the old signs fail.’ ‘God answers no more by Urim and Thummim, nor by dream, nor by prophet.’ Men’s hearts are failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth. Thunders mutter in the distance. Winds moan across the surging bosom of the deep. All things betide the rising of that final storm of divine indignation which shall sweep away the vain refuge of lies.”
Hopkins on the Millennium says:—
“There is no reason to consider the anti-Christian spirit and practices confined to that which is now called the church of Rome. The Protestant churches have much of anti-Christ in them, and are far from being wholly reformed from the corruptions and wickedness.”
Simpson in his “Plea for Religion,” speaking of the doctrines and ceremonies of the Romish church, which are “inimical to the pure and unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ,” says:—
“That Protestant churches should imitate the church of Rome in this worst part of its conduct, can never be sufficiently bewailed.”
In this condition are the professed churches of Christ found as the last days come down upon us. But it would be inconsistent to suppose that God would suffer his gospel to close, and the end to come without bringing forth a church in whose belief and practice the errors of the Romish apostasy would find no place. The church which is to be prepared for the second coming of Christ, must be entirely free from papal errors and corruptions.
We accordingly find a movement in progress in these last days, designed of God to accomplish this result. In future numbers we will speak of the means employed, and the reception with which it has met. U. S.
Items of Interest.
By Dudley Marvin Canright
WHAT THEY WILL DO.
THAT those who are seeking to amend the Constitution will oppress those who differ from them, is manifest from the unguarded words which now and then escape from them. Thus the Christian Register says:—
“It is reported that, at a recent convention held by those who are now agitating for a theological amendment to the Federal Constitution, an eminent clergyman said, in substance: ‘If it be objected that such an amendment would take away from the atheist the right to vote, I answer, The rights of the atheist are just like those of any other madman.’”
That is to say, they have no rights. So they will very naturally and easily conclude the same of those who desecrate the (so-called) Christian Sabbath.
RAPID GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES.
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has lately made a tour through the West. Of its rapid growth she says:—
“It is twenty-three years since we have seen this great West, and in this rapid flight through it, it seems as if towns and cities and palaces had grown up here as Aladdin’s palace did by the work of genii.”
How truly the prophet represents it as “coming up out of the earth.”
NOT SPIRITUAL DEATH.
Orthodoxy has always contended that the death threatened Adam included spiritual death. This it has regarded as one of its strongholds. But Edward Beecher, D. D., in the Christian Union, June 11, 1873, thus truly remarks:—
“Great efforts have been made under dogmatic influences to carry back the idea of spiritual death to the sentence pronounced on Adam and his race. But that sentence is its own interpreter: ‘Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’ The Jewish writers of the Alexandrine period and the Greek fathers took this view, and their interpretation is confirmed by the apostle Paul. Any other view is contrary to the whole genius of the Old Testament typical dispensation.” D. M. CANRIGHT.
The World's Expectation.
By Uriah Smith
OVER fifteen years ago, Mr. David N. Lord, of New York, penned the following language:—
“There has been no period for ages, probably, when there was so general an expectation among evangelical Christians of all classes, that either the advent of Christ is at hand, or else some great measure of Providence, by which a new era is to be introduced to the church; and what is equally remarkable, no time before in which other men of all creeds and classes—atheists, infidels, apostates, formalists, nothingists, were also looking as they are now, for a regeneration of the world after their several schemes of perfection and blessedness. Among the signals that Christ is at hand, one of the most striking is the skill and success with which Satan is working with all power and signs and lying wonders, and deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; and their abandonment by God to strong delusion, that they may show forth their true character as his enemies, and make the propriety manifest of the condemnation and destruction with which they are soon to be overwhelmed.”
The rapidity with which great and significant events are crowding in upon us has increased in geometrical ratio since the above was written. The working of Satan with signs and lying wonders, to which reference is made, has gone forward with long and rapid strides since that time. The development of evil has been so steady and constant that the world has become somewhat familiarized with it, and it makes less and less impression upon the general mind. But could there have been an instantaneous transition from the state of the world and society as it was thirty years ago, to what it is at the present day, all classes would have stood aghast, paralyzed and dumb with amazement at the terrible change.
The ranks of those who have pleasure in unrighteousness have greatly swollen in numbers; and some have so far thrown off the power of restraint and the mask of decency as to publicly avow, and defend their vile practices, glorying in, as Paul declares, and foaming out, as Jude adds, their own shame. Verily the Judgment of such cannot much longer linger, nor their damnation slumber.
With greater success than ever, Satan is working with his signs and lying wonders; and if fifteen years ago this was a sign that Christ is at hand, it is now evidence of his soon coming which cannot be overlooked nor mistaken.