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Review and Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 24

PURIFYING THE HEART.

Earlier text: Infidel Objections to the Bible Answered. No. 21.

WHO CONFIRMS THE COVENANT?

BRO. CROCK.—Please say to whom the personal pronoun “he” in Daniel ix. 27 refers, and oblige. Yours, C. C.

The text referred to reads thus in the common version, “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

We know of no passage of scripture of the same length that has such a variety of readings as Daniel’s famous prophecy of the seventy weeks. Dr. Adam Clarke has collected “upward of thirty various readings in the compass of four verses, and several of them of great moment.” In the expression, “He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week,” the pronoun “he” is supplied by the translators, but in the judgment of many of the best critics, it is implied. We understand it as being properly supplied and as having reference to the Messiah.

Albert Barnes says, “There has been a difference of opinion, however, as to the proper nominative to the verb confirm—whether it is the Messiah, or the foreign prince, or the ‘one week.’ Hengstenberg prefers the latter, and renders it, ‘And one week shall confirm the covenant with many.’ So also Lengerke renders it. It seems to me that it is an unnatural construction to make the word ‘week’ the nominative to the verb, and that the more obvious interpretation is to refer it to some person to whom the whole subject relates. It is not usual to represent time as an agent in accomplishing a work. In poetic and metaphorical language, indeed, we personate time as cutting down men, as a destroyer, &c., but this usage would not justify the expression that ‘time would confirm a covenant with many.’ This is obviously the work of a conscious, intelligent agent; and it is most natural, therefore, to understand this as of one of the two agents who are spoken of in the passage. These two agents are the ‘Messiah,’ and the ‘Prince that should come.’ But it is not reasonable to suppose that the latter is referred to, because it is said (verse 26) that the effect and the purpose of his coming would be to ‘destroy the city and the sanctuary.’ He was to come ‘with a flood,’ and the effect of his coming would be only desolation. The more correct interpretation, therefore, is to refer it to the Messiah, who is the principal subject of the prophecy; and the work which according to this, he was to perform was, during that ‘one week,’ to exert such an influence as would tend to establish a covenant between the people and God. The effect of his work during that one week would be to secure their adhesion to the true religion; to confirm to them the divine promises, and to establish the principles of that religion which would lead them to God. Nothing is said of the mode by which that would be done, and anything, therefore, which would secure this would be a fulfillment of the prophecy.”

That Titus, the “prince” who led the Roman army at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, was not the one who was to “confirm the covenant,” is obvious from the fact that no covenant ever existed between him and “many” of the Jews to be confirmed by him. No trace of such a transaction can be found in Josephus, or the Latin histories; and the obstinacy and infatuation of the chiefs of the Jewish factions at that time were such as to preclude the idea of any league between them being consummated.

The attempt of some writers to carry the prophecy into the future for a fulfillment by some Roman or Syrian “prince,” we regard as untenable. We have never seen reason to consider any other than the Messiah as being the subject of it. As Mr. D. N. Lord remarks:

“He filled the great office ascribed to him in verse 27. He confirmed the covenant to those who listened to his voice during the period of his ministry by appearing himself as the Son of God to take away the sin of the world, and promising eternal life to all who believed on him; by working innumerable miracles, by which he demonstrated his deity; and at length, by dying on the cross to make expiation for sin. He confirmed it also, after his death, by his resurrection, by commissioning his disciples to preach the glad tidings of redemption through his blood; and by pouring out the Holy Spirit and renewing a great multitude of the Jews, and giving them assurance of their interest in his salvation by the supernatural knowledge and miraculous powers with which they were endowed. This confirming of the covenant with many of that people, continued through three years and a half; when his disciples were directed no longer to confine the proffer of salvation to them, but to proclaim it also to the Gentiles.

“It was, in consequence, accordingly of this confirmation of the covenant which he accomplished by his ministry and death, that in the midst of the week he caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease. As He whom the sacrificial offerings typified had come and wrought the expiation by his blood which their blood foreshadowed, there was no longer necessity for the presentation of animal sacrifices. And we find in fact, that after his resurrection those offerings were discontinued by his disciples. Not a hint appears in the Gospels, and the Acts, or the Epistles that a solitary victim was presented by any believer, after his crucifixion.

“All that is foreshown in this verse, thus had a full and sublime verification in him. It must, therefore, be taken as its true and only fulfillment if it is to receive. To deny it, is to deny that the acts and the only acts that correspond to the prediction have any title to be considered as its accomplishment: and that is to turn the prophecy into a mockery. What more shocking desecration of the passage can be conceived, than to strike from it the Redeemer, as those writers do, and substitute in his place, in the greatest and most gracious acts of his life and death—a mere man, whom these very authors depict as being, and to be, the greatest monster that ever strode the earth!”—Advent Herald.

NURSING TROUBLES.

By Blind Amos

Some people are as careful of their troubles as mothers are of their babies; they cuddle them, and hug them, and cry over them, and fly into a passion with you if you try to take them away from them; they want you to fret with them, to help them to believe that they have been worse treated than anybody else. If they could, they would have a picture of their grief in a gold frame hung over the mantle-shelf for everybody to look at. And their grief makes them ordinarily selfish,—they think more of their little grief in the basket and in the cradle, than they do of all the world beside; and they say you are hard-hearted if you say “don’t fret.” “Ah! you don’t understand me—you can’t enter into my trials?”—Blind Amos.

Religion.—Religion is the best armor that a man can have, but the worst cloak.—Bunyan.

DEVELOPED HIMSELF.

If a young minister wishes to work for Christ, he will find enough labor in any field to task his powers of mind and heart; but if one thinks of improving himself more than of winning souls to Christ, he is likely soon to lose both earnestness and power. Dr. Brainerd tells the following story:

“We once introduced a young minister to a missionary congregation in the suburbs of a great city. The people were highly pleased with him and invited him to settle among them. He came to consult me on the subject. As he was an unmarried man, he regarded the salary as adequate. He had no fault to find with the number, the attendance, the attention and interest of the occasion. I urged him to give an affirmative answer. He hesitated.

“‘I am afraid,’ said he, ‘it is not the place for me to develop myself,’ alluding to the plainness of the people. I replied:

“‘It is an excellent place to develop the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; but I know not whether it is the place for you to develop yourself.’

“He left the field, and has since ‘developed himself’ by giving up the ministry. ‘He that exalteth himself shall be abased.’

“The little congregation, under the labors of better and purer men, has also ‘developed’ itself into one of the most numerous, intelligent, affluent churches in the land.”

FUTURE CHARACTER KNOWN TO GOD.

By Archbishop Trench

As the eye of the cunning lapidary detects in the rugged pebble just digged from the mine the polished diamond that shall sparkle in the diadem of a king; or as the sculptor in the rough block of marble newly hewn from the quarry beholds the statue of perfect grace and beauty that is latent there, and waiting but the touch of his hand; so He who sees all, and the end from the beginning, sees oft times greater wonders than these: he sees the saint in the sinner—Paul the preacher of the faith, in Paul the persecutor of the faith.—Archbishop Trench.

—Those are the best Christians who are more careful to reform themselves than to censure others.

To make moments hours, all that is necessary is to mix them with a little jealousy.

A WORD OF EXHORTATION.

By John Byington

“Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Phil. iv, 6.

Great is both the duty and privilege of prayer. It is the language of dependence, and ever since man became a fallen being, and a Saviour was promised, it has been his duty to ask, that he might receive. It is by prayer that ourselves, and not God, become acquainted with our wants.

To be successful in prayer how important that the hindrances are removed. Perhaps there is none greater than the one named in the text: anxious care. Not but that we should give everything pertaining to our work, temporal and spiritual, sufficient thought that duty may be done, and then leave the event with God.

Prayer is ejaculatory, secret and social. Ejaculatory prayer is raising our desires to God when our hands are employed, that he may continually be our help. Secret prayer is having a time and place when we leave the labors of our hands, and go before God where no mortal eye sees us and there ask and hold converse with God, that he may reward us openly. Matt. vi, 6. Social prayer is uniting with our family or the church, two or three, or more, that all may be of one accord and the united prayer of faith prevail with God. Matt. xviii, 19.

We have many examples in the word of God to encourage us to pray. When Israel was engaged in sore conflict with Amalek, Moses’ hands were raised toward Heaven, which was the token of dependence, and when weary, were stayed up by Aaron and Hur; and then Israel prevailed. Ex. xvii, 11. When a decree had gone forth for Daniel to be put into the lions’ den, three times a day he was found praying in his chamber, and the lions’ mouths were shut, and no harm was done to this praying prophet. Dan. vi, 10.

Christ says to Peter, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” Luke xxii, 32. Therefore though Peter hastily denied his Lord, a look from his Master caused him to repent, and he dies a faithful martyr.

Our Saviour prays, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me. Matt. xxvi, 39. He was relieved from his sufferings in the garden, where he might have died, until he went to the cross where he made a public exhibition of his willingness to suffer for the sins of the world. There was prayer at the house of Mary and the prison gate is opened, Peter’s chains fall off, and he goes free.

And how many witnesses have borne testimony to the utility of prayer every day before engaging in the common duties of life. Then our minds are stayed on God and we trust in him for help, while we engage in that which is lawful and right. And let me say here, that all prayer is offered to God in the name of Christ our great High Priest, who says, “Ask in my name.” How important then that the hindrances to prayer are removed. How many professed Christians awake in the morning and their first thought is, the business of the day. They enter upon it without first going to God in their closets. The hour of family prayer arrives, and it finds them early in the day filled with anxious care, and thus family worship is neglected, or hindered. The hour or day for prayer with the church arrives, and then you hear the excuse, “I was so weary and I had so much to do I could not get to the house of prayer.” Thus they take the matter into their own hands and live as though there was no need of help from God. Brethren, these things ought not so to be. Let us return unto the Lord. If ever, at one time more than another, prayer was important, it is now with Seventh-day Adventists. John Fletcher, when traveling, stopped for refreshment. He heard the landlady mention the name of Methodist. He asked who they were. She said they were a people who prayed to God night and day. He said if there were such a people on earth he would find them. And let me ask one and all, Do you pray in secret? Do you pray with your family, if you have one? Do you do your part to sustain the prayer-meeting? And are you as regular in this work as you are in your daily work? Reader, the above questions are to you.

JOHN BYINGTON.

Leslie, Nov. 11, 1867.

ADVENTISM.

By Jos. Clarke

Much obloquy is thrown upon Adventists because they advocate views which are peculiar and uncommon.

It is admitted that those who believe in the soon coming of our Lord are peculiar; but why is it so? Simply because the world in general disbelieve this doctrine. Also we admit that Sabbath-keeping is peculiar. Why? Because the world and most of the churches keep a day of their own choosing, versus the true Sabbath. Under these unfortunate circumstances you are in a dilemma. Either you must deny facts and disobey the moral law, or be peculiar. Whichever of these you choose, decides your true sentiments and groundwork of character.

Nothing elicits more ridicule than Millerism, as it is called, or Adventism; and in the newspapers of the day, and the common conversation of the people, and from the pulpit itself come the most caustic satires, and sarcasms aimed at Adventists. A late number of the New York Tribune thus vents itself upon those who look for the coming of the Lord:

“We notice that those who believe in the speedy second coming and an approaching millennium, are holding camp-meetings in different parts of the country. It is now a quarter of a century since the Rev. Mr. Miller, aided immensely by a large and unexpected comet, created considerable excitement and some alarm by predicting a final terrestrial conflagration, the same having been figuratively foretold by the prophet Daniel and St. John the divine. The idea of the abolition from the solar system of this great globe is an old one. It was entertained in the earliest days of Christianity, and frequently revived during the Middle Ages. Its origin, we suppose, is partly religious, partly scientific, and partly intellectual. In the first place, the world is too wicked to wag much longer, and while it does last, should, by every rule of right reason, belong to the saints. In the second place, other heavenly bodies have come to grief, and why should not ours? Thirdly, we naturally attach the idea of end to all materiality; for it logically follows beginning. “We have no wish to throw any discredit upon anybody’s religious belief, and are ready to admit that many learned men have had full faith in mundane destruction. Although we are forced ourselves to go on from day to day precisely as if there never would be an end of publishing, we know in our secret soul—much, we admit, to our mortification—that the morning

will come when no Tribune will be published. Nor are we singular in our perseverance. Believers in an approximating millennium never cease to attend to the vital economies. They sow in the seed-time; they take and give notes at six and nine months; they purchase land, and they make provision for the heirs of their bodies. It is next to impossible for any man to dissever himself from his earthly relations; it is only death which can unmesh us from the toils in which we are struggling.

*

“The world may be destroyed, but it is our opinion that the democratic party will go first. While Mr. Vallandigham continues to make speeches, those who fear the crack of doom may take courage. When Sir Charles Lyell was in this country he attended a Millerite meeting, and the predictions which he there heard, if we may credit his journal, did not in the least disturb his scientific serenity. Instead of becoming low-spirited at sermons about the image of ‘fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay,’ Sir Charles fell back upon his geology, and derived much comfortable assurance therefrom. This was wise. Any person, without objection from us, may believe that the world is coming to an end in 1868, as the new saints solemnly affirm. We only insist that to-day and to-morrow, whatever his hands may find to do, he shall do with all his might.”

Respecting the Sabbath, the worldly churches and those in their influence, are almost indignant. Lately a pleasant speaker of the Methodist order, thus relieved himself of the venom that was in his heart. Speaking of some of his father’s experience on a certain occasion in opposing Sabbath-breaking, meaning breach of the first-day observance, he said, “Would to God every Sabbath-breaker had died at that time!” I ask, if his wish had been satisfied, would the speaker now exist to bless us with his presence, and terrify us by his fulminations? Alas! how few would now live, if that wish had been fulfilled; in fact there would be no need of missionaries or missions, ministers or people of the earth would truly have been destroyed; for all the nominal churches even, are in fact Sabbath-breakers in the letter, and by far the most of them in spirit; for the true Sabbath is not only ignored by them, but it is derided. JOS. CLARKE.

CONSISTENCY.

By W. C. O.

WE clip the following from the Voice of the West, thinking our readers will be interested to know that Eld. Preble has at least one endorser among his preaching brethren:

THE HOLY SABBATH.

Thank you, Bro. Himes, and the Lord too, for your frank and open avowal in your Journal of this week's Voice (October 23), of your faith in the first-day Sabbath. Glad you can, with me, call the Lord's day a “holy day.”

The Sabbath is a holy institution. Would to God our dear brethren would carefully and prayerfully examine this subject as we have done, and I am sure they would endorse our views, to the glory of God and the good of our perishing fellow-men. How I rejoice that my eyes have been opened to the truth of the holy Sabbath of the Lord. Once I was in bondage to the “seventh-day-of-the-week” theory; then, again, to the “no-holy-Sabbath-in-this-dispensation” theory! Now, praise to our Heavenly Father, I am free! I am happy in the truth. May many others soon come into the light and freedom of the gospel Sabbath—the holy Sabbath.—T. M. Preble.

We can also rejoice with Eld. P., in the “frank and open avowal” of Eld. Himes, in his faith in the first-day Sabbath. Not that we are pleased to see him established and confirmed in an error, but because an open avowal of his position must of necessity lead to more consistency in the columns of the Voice on the subject of the Sabbath.

Now, if the first-day Sabbath is a holy day, as Eld. H. declares, then those who are promulgating the no-Sabbath doctrine, are engaged in an unholy work, and should be sharply rebuked; and certainly Eld. H. ought to be qualified, by age and long experience, for this very work, so that when Eld. Sheldon or Mr. Bailey, or other no-Sabbath advocates, offer their contributions on this subject for the columns of the Voice, they should be indignantly spurned, and their authors told to engage in better business than tearing down the sanctity of the Sabbath institution. From this point we may expect, if not a retraction of what the Voice has said in endorsement of such work, at least a more consistent course of conduct in this particular.

And, seriously, let us ask Eld. P. and Eld. H., and all others who believe in first-day sanctity, if we who teach the observance of one day as holy, even although it be the seventh, are not engaged in better business than those who would do away with all Sabbath, and strike a death blow at the moral law of God?

Another reason why we rejoice in Eld. Himes' committal to this position is, that it must be encouraging to Eld. P. to have a little gleam of comfort in this direction, for if we are correctly informed, Eld. H. is the only Advent preacher of any note who has unqualifiedly endorsed Eld. Preble's book. Those who speak of it at all, are so exceedingly cautious in their approval that it must be anything but flattering to Eld. P., or conducive to the sale of his book.

We had hoped that it might be otherwise, for a general endorsement of this or any other position, would place our opponents on ground where we might know how to find them, and thus be enabled in meeting them to avoid striking in the dark. W. C. O.

“Out of some eight hundred thousand various readings of the Bible, that have been collated, about seven hundred and ninety-five thousand are of just about as much importance to the sense of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, as the question in English orthography is whether the word honour shall be spelled with a u or without it. Of the remainder, some change the sense of particular passages or expressions, or omit particular words or phrases; but not one doctrine of religion is changed, not one precept is taken away, not one important fact is altered, by the whole of the various readings collectively taken.”

HOW I WAS ENCOURAGED.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

I HAD labored long and hard in giving a course of lectures. At first the interest seemed good and many came out to hear. But at length many dropped off until but few came to hear and these manifested little inclination to obey. Under these circumstances, I felt almost discouraged. My faith almost failed me, and I thought that I had mistaken my calling, that I had no ability to present the truth aright, and that I had better abandon the work and go to work with my hands again.

Just then I took up a Review and found a report from Bro. A. He had just closed a series of meetings and the result was—nothing! There, thought I, we know that he is a good, faithful minister, and that he does not lack ability. If souls are not converted, he is not to blame. I have made no greater failure than he. If he is not discouraged, why should I be? Here is a report from Bro. B., a man whom we all know to be faithful and efficient in the work. He has been holding meetings in a new place. After several week's labor, only five came into the truth. Doubtless this was not very encouraging to Bro. B., but to me just then it was quite consoling. I also read reports from others, some of which were only reports of labors with small results.

After reading those, I felt quite encouraged and strengthened to work on. So I concluded that it is best to “report labors” whether I have any results to report or not, and that even a fruitless meeting may be encouragement to some one. Brethren, report the dark as well as the light side.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Continue reading: THINGS IN MAINE.