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Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 25.

General Articles

Signs of the Times

Jun 26, 1884

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1884

General Articles.

By Mrs. E. G. White

Palm-Tree Christians.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
"THE righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
These texts describe the happy state of him whose soul is rooted and grounded in Christ. But there is always danger of being satisfied with a superficial work; there is always danger that souls will not anchor themselves in God, but be content to drift hither and thither, the sport of Satan's temptations. "Enter ye in at the strait gate," says Christ, "for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The work of the Spirit of God in the heart will develop true penitence, which will not end with confession, but will work a decided reformation in the daily life. There will be manifested an earnestness, a perseverance, and a determination that can be properly represented by agonizing. Many professed Christians greatly need just this experience.
Are you beginning to see the defects in your character? Do not feel helpless and discouraged. Look to Jesus, who knows your every weakness and pities your every infirmity. He came "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." It is no disgrace to confess our sins and forsake them. The disgrace rests upon those who know their sins, but continue in them, and grieve the dear Saviour by their crooked paths. A knowledge of our wrongs should be more highly prized than a happy flight of feeling; for it is evidence that the Spirit of God is striving with us and that angels are round about us. Let the heart-searching work go forward; let it be deep and earnest, until every barrier is removed, and your heart is opened to welcome the messenger of pardon and peace, that has long been waiting to bring light and joy and gladness. In true contrition for sin, come to the foot of the cross, and there leave your burdens; come exercising repentance toward God because you have broken his law, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to pardon your transgressions and reconcile you to the Father. Believe what God says; take his promises to your heart.
It is the Christian's privilege to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." See the weary traveler toiling over the hot sands of the desert, with no shelter to protect him from the rays of a tropical sun. His water supply fails, and he has nothing to slake his burning thirst. His tongue becomes swollen; he staggers like a drunken man. Visions of home and friends pass before his mind, as he believes himself ready to perish in the terrible desert. Suddenly those in advance send forth a shout of joy. In the distance, looming up out of the dreary, sandy waste, is a palm tree, green and flourishing. Hope quickens his pulses. That which gives vigor and freshness to the palm tree, will cool the fevered pulses, and give life to those who are perishing with thirst.
As the palm tree, drawing nourishment from fountains of living water, is green and flourishing in the midst of the desert, so the Christian may draw rich supplies of grace from the fountain of God's love, and may guide weary souls, that are full of unrest and ready to perish in the desert of sin, to those waters of which they may drink, and live. The Christian is ever pointing his fellow-men to Jesus, who invites, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." This fountain never fails us; we may draw, and draw again.
We may individually have an experience of the greatest value. The fact that iniquity abounds, that we are surrounded by infidels and skeptics, or by professed Christians who have a name to live, and are dead, is no reason why one of us should be swept away by the current toward perdition. Because there is an almost universal forsaking of God, there is the greater need that we stand firm and loyal. Says Christ, "Ye are the light of the world." We must gather the divine rays from the Sun of Righteousness, and reflect them to the world. In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, we must show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Nothing but a deep personal experience will enable us to stand the test of the trials and temptations we shall meet in the Christian warfare. Too often we feel well when everything goes smoothly; but when doubts assail the soul, and Satan whispers his suggestions, our defense is gone, and we yield quickly to the arts of the tempter, with scarcely an effort to resist and repulse him. It is not enough to have good impulses. The soul must be barricaded by prayer and study of the Scriptures. Armed with these weapons, Jesus encountered our wily foe on the field of battle, and overcame him. We may all conquer in his strength; but it will not answer for us to suppose that we can dispense with his help. He says, "Without me ye can do nothing." But no truly humble soul who walks in the light as Christ is in the light, will be ensnared by Satan's deceptive devices.
All self-confidence, all boasting, all pride of talent, must be yielded, and the soul must fall broken on the Rock Christ Jesus. Those who have a proud spirit, and feel that they are capable of doing a great work, will be left to their own weak strength, to fall into grievous sins. They do not realize what a pure, virtuous, and holy character they must possess if they would stand without fault before the throne of God. Self must be crucified. There must be a thorough transformation of character. The clear, sharp testimony of living truth will separate the wheat from the chaff, the half-hearted from the humble and devoted.
There never was a time of greater danger to the church than the present, and many will not be true to their own souls. They will not be sanctified through the truth. They have lamps, but no oil in their vessels to replenish them, and their light goes out in darkness. Eli and his sons trusted to the ark, the symbol of the divine presence, while they were transgressing the holy law enshrined in the ark, and their sins were separating them from God. As a consequence of their presumption, both the sons of Eli were slain, and God permitted the ark to pass into the hands of the enemies of his people. Some in our day are making a similar mistake in trusting to their profession while they are transgressing the holy requirements of God's law. Such are asleep to their true condition.
The apostle Paul exhorts careless and unconcerned professors: "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Christ, the True Witness, would break the slumbers of his ease-loving people. His voice is heard addressing them: "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." I will not take your names into my lips, for you are unworthy. I am ashamed to call you brethren. "Be zealous therefore, and repent." "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayst be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayst be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayst see."
Our only safety is in Christ. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Those who enter Heaven will not scale its walls by their own righteousness, nor will the gates be opened to them for costly offerings of gold and silver; but they will gain an entrance to the many mansions of the Father's house through the merits of the cross of Christ. Jesus is the ladder by which every soul must mount who would climb from earth to Heaven. But there is round after round of painful ascent; for our characters must be brought into harmony with the law of God, and every advance step in this direction requires self-denial. The prize before us will amply repay every effort that we make to gain it. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." "As the days of a tree," says the Lord through his prophet, shall be "the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." As by an eye of faith we view the glories of that better land, the saints' everlasting inheritance, we rejoice, clinging to the merits of our crucified Redeemer. Love kindles in our hearts toward Him "who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all," and faith grasps the promise, "How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Thus Jesus becomes the medium of communication between Heaven and our souls, and holy angels are sent to minister unto us. And while these divine messengers are striving to lead sinners to plant their feet on the ladder that extends from earth to Heaven, let us be co-laborers with them, and urge all who will to climb the shining way.

OUR RESPONSE.

By R. F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.
"Is THIS the kind return ? Are these the thanks we owe, Thus to abuse eternal Love, Whence all our blessings flow?"
The choicest gift of love, God's well-beloved Son, Descended from the throne above, For those by sin undone.
Himself for us he gave, Endured our grief and pain; He died to raise us from the grave, With him to live and reign.
And shall we spurn his grace, Still choose our evil ways, From love embodied turn our face, From him withhold just praise?
Shall love like this awake In us no heartfelt praise? Shall he thus suffer for our sake, And we despise his grace?
Melt, melt, this heart of stone, Love's flame, begin to burn; Let heart and life be his alone — Yet what a poor return!

Rise of the Papacy.

AS EARLY as the first three centuries, the churches of the metropolitan cities had been held in peculiar honor. The Council of Nice, in its sixth canon, named especially three cities, whose churches, according to it, held an anciently established authority over those of the surrounding provinces. These were Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch. The political origin of this distinction may be discerned in the name which was at first given to the bishops of these cities; they were called exarchs, like the political governors. In later times they bore the more ecclesiastical name of patriarch. It is in the Council of Constantinople that we find this title first used. This same Council created a new Patriarchate, that of Constantinople itself, the new Rome, the second capital of the empire. Rome at this period shared the rank of patriarchate with these three churches. But when the invasion of Mahomet had swept away the bishoprics of Alexandria and Antioch, when the see of Constantinople fell away, and in later times even separated itself from the West, Rome alone remained, and the circumstances of the times causing everything to rally around her, she remained from that time without a rival.
New and more powerful partisans than all the rest soon came to her assistance. Ignorance and superstition took possession of the church, and delivered it up to Rome, blindfold and manacled.
Yet this bringing into captivity was not effected without a struggle. The voices of particular churches frequently asserted their independence. This courageous remonstrance was especially heard in proconsular Africa and in the East.
To silence the cries of the churches, Rome found new allies. Princes, who in those troublesome times often saw their thrones tottering, offered their adherence to the church, in exchange for her support. They yielded to her spiritual authority, on condition of her paying them with secular dominion. They left her to deal at will with the souls of men, provided only she would deliver them from their enemies. The power of the hierarchy in the ascending scale, and of the imperial power, which was declining, leaned thus one toward the other—and so accelerated their twofold destiny.
Rome could not lose by this. An edict of Theodosius II. and of Valentinian III. proclaimed the bishop of Rome "ruler of the whole church." Justinian issued a similar decree. These decrees did not contain all that the popes pretended to see in them. But in those times of ignorance it was easy for them to gain reception for that interpretation which was most favorable to themselves. The dominion of the emperors in Italy becoming every day more precarious, the bishops of Rome took advantage of it to withdraw themselves from their dependence.
But already the forests of the North had poured forth the most effectual promoters of papal power. The barbarians who had invaded the West and settled themselves therein—but recently converted to Christianity—ignorant of the spiritual character of the church, and feeling the want of an external pomp of religion, prostrated themselves in a half-savage and half-heathen state of mind at the feet of the chief priest of Rome. At the same time the people of the West also submitted to him. First the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths, a short time after the Burgundians and the Alans, then the Visigoths, and at last the Lombards and the Anglo-Saxons came bowing the knee to the Roman pontiff. It was the sturdy shoulders of the idolatrous children of the North which elevated to the supreme throne of Christendom, a pastor of the banks of the Tiber.
These events occurred in the West at the beginning of the seventh century, at the precise period that the Mahometan power arose in the East, and prepared to overrun another division of the earth.
From that time the evil continued increasing. In the eighth century we see the bishops of Rome on the one hand resisting the Greek emperors, their lawful sovereigns, and endeavoring to expel them from Italy; whilst on the other they court the French mayors of the palace, and demand from this new power now arising in the West, a share in the wreck of the empire. We see Rome establish her usurped authority between the East, which she repelled, and the West, which she courted, thus erecting her throne upon two revolutions.
Alarmed by the progress of the Arabs, who had made themselves masters of Spain, and boasted that they would speedily traverse the Pyrenees and the Alps, and proclaim the name of Mahomet on the seven hills—terrified at the daring of Aistolpho, who, at the head of his Lombards, threatened to put every Roman to death, and brandished his sword before the city gates—Rome, in the prospect of ruin, turned on all sides for protection, and threw herself into the arms of the Franks. The usurper, Pepin, demanded the confirmation of his claim to the throne; the pope granted it; and, in return, obtained his declaration in defense of the "Republic of God." Pepin recovered from the Lombards their conquests from the emperor; but instead of restoring them to that prince, he deposited the keys of the conquered cities on the altar of St. Peter's; and with uplifted hand, swore that it was not in the cause of man that he had taken arms, but to obtain from God the remission of his sins, and to do homage for his conquests to St. Peter. Thus did France establish the temporal power of the popes.
Charlemagne appeared. At one time we see him climbing the stairs of St. Peter's, devoutly kissing the steps; again he presents himself, but it is as master of all the nations composing the Western Empire, and of Rome itself. Leo III. decided to confer the rank on one who already possessed the power; and in the year 800, on Christmas-day, he placed the crown of the Roman emperors on the brow of the son of Pepin. From this period the pope belonged to the empire of the Franks, and his connection with the East was at an end, thus loosing his hold on a decayed tree, nodding to its fall, in order to graft himself upon a wild but vigorous sapling. Little could he then have dared to hope for the elevation that awaited his successors among the German nations, to which he thus joined himself.
Charlemagne bequeathed to his feeble successors only the wreck of his own power. In the ninth century disunion everywhere weakened the civil authority. Rome perceived that this was the moment to exalt herself. What better opportunity could offer for achieving the church's independence of the State, than when the crown of Charles was broken, and its fragments scattered over his former empire.
It was then that the pretended decretals of Isidorus appeared. In this collection of alleged decrees of the popes, the most ancient bishops, contemporaries of Tacitus and Quintilian, were made to speak the barbarous Latin of the ninth century. The customs and constitutions of the Franks were gravely attributed to the Romans in the time of the emperors. Popes quoted the Bible in the Latin translation of St. Jerome, who lived one, two, or three centuries after them. And Victor, bishop of Rome in the year 192, wrote to Theophilus, who was archbishop of Alexandria in 385. The impostor who had fabricated this collection, endeavored to prove that all bishops derived their authority from the bishop of Rome, who held his own immediately from Christ. He not only recorded all the successive acquisitions of the pontiffs, but carried them back to the earliest times. The popes did not blush to avail themselves of this contemptible imposture. As early as 865, Nicholas I. selected weapons from this repository to attack princes and bishops. This barefaced fabrication was for ages the arsenal of Rome.—D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation.

The Christian at Play.

By Rev. E. P. Marvin

Howard Crosby says: "The church of God is to-day courting the world. Its members are trying to bring it down to the level of the ungodly. The ball, the theater, nude and lewd art, social luxuries with all their loose moralities, are making inroads into the sacred inclosure of the church, and as a satisfaction for all this worldliness, Christians are making a great deal of Lent and Good Friday, and church ornamentation. It is a trick of Satan. The Jewish church struck on that rock. The Romish church was wrecked on the same. And the Protestant church is fast reaching the same doom."
This witness is true. Play takes the place of the power of godliness. An unconscious sarcasm lurked in the remark of one of our religious editors concerning a novel and successful entertainment gotten up by the young people of a church in Buffalo, that he "was always glad to see the young people of our churches engaged in church work."
Oh that the eyes of God's dear people might be opened to see that this alliance of the church with the play-house and the club-room, which has even been incorporated into the polity of "the godly old Methodist Church," is sapping the spiritual life of the church and, delivering it over to the world! Indeed, I solemnly and sadly declare that a large portion of our religious organizations may be truly characterized as "the churches of the world." Worldliness and play-people control them, and their principal activities are directed to furnish entertainment for such as lack the joy of God's salvation. The few devout souls in them are in grief, humiliation, and contempt.
These play-people of the churches play at missions and other benevolent enterprises, and the more they play the less they pray. They have never come out from the world; and except a few forms of godliness, they are characterized by every work that defines worldliness. In their frivolous course they are trifling with the agony of the cross, and the most sacred cause in the universe, and making the church a training school for the theater, ballroom and other places of sinful pleasure. Yet these people claim that they are imitating Christ. Ministers, for various plain reasons, often wink at these things, and when the leaders fall in their solemn charge, there is usually no hope. Some of them are singing the siren song of "Peace and safety" in the midst of these revelries, and so, alas! how many of our churches, instead of being apostolic, are rapidly becoming apostate.
—Rev. E. P. Marvin.

Prayer Characteristic of Piety.

JOHN KNOX was famous for his earnest prayers. He was heard at the great crisis to plead: "Give me Scotland or I die;" and Queen Mary said that she feared his prayers more than she did all the armies of Europe. And this seemed a curious presentiment; for one night, in the bloody times of persecution, as he and several friends were praying together, Knox spoke out and declared that deliverance had come, though he could not tell how. The next news was that "Bloody Mary" was dead.
Zuinglius, the Swiss reformer, was also a man mighty in prayer, and he laid the heavy burden which he was trying to bear, upon the Head of the Church, in these words: "O Jesus, thou seest how the wicked and the blasphemous stun thy people's ears with their clamors. Thou knowest how, from my youth up, I have abhorred controversy, and yet, against my will, thou hast never ceased to impel me to the conflict. Therefore do I call upon thee with confidence to finish what thou hast begun! If in anything I have builded unwisely, let thy hand of power cast it down. If I have laid any other foundation beside thee, let thy mighty arm overturn it. O thou vine, full of sweetness, to whom the Father is the husbandman, and we are the branches, abandon not thy tendrils. Hast thou not promised to be with us unto the end of the world?"
Melanchthon so prized prayer that he feared to lose anxieties, lest he should lose the blessed relief of prayer. He said: "If I had no anxieties, I should lose a powerful incentive to prayer; but when the cares of life impel to devotion, the best means of consolation, a religious mind cannot do without them. Thus trouble impels me to prayer, and prayer drives away trouble."
In Gustavus Adolphus we have not only a sagacious king and successful general, but a man of prayer. When he was in camp before Werben, on one occasion, he had remained alone in his private apartment for some hours, and at such seasons his attendants were not allowed to disturb him. At length, however, a favorite, who had something important to communicate, presumed to look in at the door, softly, and found the king on his knees. Gustavus called him in, and said: "Thou wonderest to see me in this posture, who have so many thousands of subjects to pray for me; but I tell thee that no man has more need to pray for himself than he who, having to render an account of his actions to none but God, is, for that reason, more closely assaulted by the devil, than all other men besides."
The venerated Rev. Philip Henry, the father of Matthew Henry, the commentator, was a specially godly man. In his life it is said: "He and his wife constantly prayed together, morning and evening." We are told, also, that he made a conscience of family worship, and abounded in it. He said to his children and friends: "Be sure you look to your secret duty; keep that up, whatever you do; the soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy generally begins at the closet door." As to family worship he would say: "If the worship of God be not in the home, write, 'Lord, have mercy on us' on the door, for there is a plague, a curse in it."
Rev. Samuel Rutherford, the pious Scotch minister, in the days of persecution for the sake of the "Covenant," was said to be "always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying." When settled at Answorth, he was constantly praying as well as laboring for his people; so that he says: "There I wrestled with the angel and prevailed. Woods, trees, meadows, and hills are my witnesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt Christ and Answorth."
President Jonathan Edwards, at the beginning of his Christian life, adopted this resolution: "Resolved, Very much to exercise myself in this all my life long; viz., with the greatest openness of which I am capable, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him; all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and everything and every circumstance." "He made a secret of his private devotions," observes Dr. Hopkins, one of his biographers, "and therefore they cannot be particularly known; though there is much evidence that he was punctual, constant, and frequent in secret prayer, and often kept days of fasting and prayer in secret, and set apart times for serious, devout meditations on spiritual and eternal things as part of his religious exercises in secret. It appears from his diary that his stated seasons of secret prayer were, from his youth, three times a day, in his journeys as well as at home. He was, as far as can be known, much on his knees in secret, and in devout reading of God's word and meditation upon it. And his constant, solemn converse with God in these exercises of secret religion, made his face to shine, as it were, before others."—Dr. Patton.

Shall We Have Law, or No Law?

By W. N. Glenn

To RESPECT a Government is to respect its laws; to disregard the law, is to disregard the Government. It is the character of the laws that renders some Governments attractive and prosperous, while others are repulsive, degrading, and prone to decay. There can be no such thing as a Government without definite law. There are two classes of immigrants from the older countries to the United States. One class seem to have an idea that here they will find license to do as they please, without legal restraint; they have no love for the Government further than to accomplish their selfish or vicious purposes. The other class are pleased with the salutary laws of our land as compared with the more arbitrary statutes of European countries. They have been attracted to our shores by the wholesome character of our legal system, which, under a republican form of Government, is designed for the good of the whole. These become orderly citizens.
All communism, socialism, nihilism, or rebellion is antinomian in its character and tendency. Where laws are oppressive, or favorable to certain classes to the detriment of others, there may be a show of excuse on the part of the oppressed to break the bands of tyranny; but no well-disposed person ever thinks of violating or desiring to evade a proper and equitable law. And there can be no manner of rebellion so utterly heartless and inconsistent as that of one who claims to be a citizen of the Government of God endeavoring to set aside the law which he has pronounced "holy, and just, and good." There can be nothing more unreasonable than the religious communism which, professing to come out from the dominion of sin and to assume allegiance to the Government of Heaven, will denounce the pure principles of the decalogue as "oppressive bondage"—a "grievous yoke." What is there in the ten commandments that is oppressive or grievous to a virtuous person, desirous of honoring God and doing good to his neighbor?
What would be thought of a human Government that would remove all obligation of its citizens to hold its executive officers in higher esteem and more worthy of obedience than the authorities of other Governments? How long would the Government of the United States stand intact if her laws were abolished and the statutes of antagonistic powers were allowed full sway within her territory? Or suppose all the laws, State and national, against murder, theft, perjury, adultery, etc., were abolished; what would prevent a state of anarchy in a very short time? There would be nothing to check it, and so sure as violent men exist, it would come. Those who have lived on the extreme frontiers, and especially in the mining regions of new countries, where thousands have crowded in advance of organized local Government, can testify to the tendency under such circumstances.
Yet to abolish law against these crimes is just what many professed Christians maintain that God has done and ought to have done. And they say very hard things of those who hold that such devastation in the Government of Heaven has not been sanctioned by the supreme Ruler. It is even claimed that God sacrificed his own beloved Son in order to secure the abolishment of his law, and thus relieve his people from all legal allegiance and restraint! A moment's thought will be sufficient to expose the fallacy of such preposterous assumption, although it is the logical conclusion of all anti-law theories.
There is now a great cry for a "Sabbath" law in this country, and the religious element has been making strenuous effort toward that end for years. At the same time they tell us that God found such a law to be so oppressive, his people being unable to keep it, that for the sake of "liberty" he repealed it. Is not, then, the move for a Sabbath law an acknowledgment of a desire to restrain that liberty which they claim God meant to establish by abolishing the law? Why, during all these years of clamor for a Sabbath law, have they not observed the one established by the Creator himself, in the beginning, and which is part of the code that Christ came to "magnify," and even sacrificed his life in order to sustain its honor? Is it not because of the reckless communism that exists in the heart of disobedient man?
There is also a popular and very proper outcry against Mormonism, and the established church is loud in its demand for anti-polygamy laws and their rigid enforcement. And so say all good citizens; but wherefore, if God has purposely abolished the statute containing the prohibition of adultery, in order that men might enjoy the "liberty of the gospel." Why make other laws to enforce chastity, if it cost the blood of the Son of God to get rid of the one he had made? Surely a law of God's making would be as "holy, and just, and good" as any that man could make. And there is much complaint of fraud in official circles, and peculations in responsible places in almost every county and city in the land, causing great loss to many honest people. But if God has abolished "Thou shalt not steal," what professed subject of his can consistently complain of the result, or call for the execution of human enactments against embezzlement and public robbery?
Furthermore, if God has repealed all the decalogue, what right has man to re-enact any of its Heaven-abolished principles? Especially, how can professed subjects of the heavenly King consistently cry for laws, immunity from which they are now claiming to be the highest type of gospel liberty. W. N. GLENN.

Tribute to the Bible.

THE following acknowledgment of the debt which civilization owes to the Bible is from the London Times:—
"Immensely as the literature of this country has increased this century, the Bible now occupies a larger proportionate space in that literature than ever it did. No book raises so many inquiries or touches so many interests. The Bible sends the student to libraries and archives. To the Bible we owe much of the intense and spreading interest in languages and in the originals of customs and of peoples. It directs the traveler to buried cities, to the tombs of kings, to the records of States once great, and well-nigh forgotten. Wherever the battle of opinion is now the liveliest, wherever the race for discovery is the most eager, wherever the earth at last reveals her buried history, it is to add to our knowledge of the sacred story, and to our understanding of the sacred volume."
Continue reading: The Sabbath in History