As a sample of their cruel spirit let me present you one of their curses. The following is part of a Romish form of excommunication, taken from the Roman pontifical: “By the authority of Almighty God and of his holy apostles, Peter and Paul, we solemnly forbid, under the curse of anathema, that any one draw away these present virgins or holy nuns from the divine service to which they have devoted themselves, under the banner of chastity; or that any one purloin their goods, or be a hindrance to their possessing them unmolested. But if any one shall dare to attempt such a thing, let him be accursed at home and abroad, accursed in the city and in the field, accursed in waking and sleeping, accursed in eating and drinking, accursed in walking and sitting, accursed in his flesh and in his bones; and from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, let him have no soundness. May there come upon him the malediction which Moses, in the law, the Lord hath laid on the sons of iniquity. May his name be blotted out from the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
“May his portion and inheritance be with Cain, the fratricide, with Dathan and Abiram, with Ananias and Sapphira, with Simon, the sorcerer, and Judas, the traitor; and with those who have said to God, ‘Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.’ Let him perish in the day of Judgment; and may everlasting fire devour him with the devil and his angels, unless he make restitution or amendment. So be it—so be it.”
Romish cruelty is still further illustrated by the fact that “Benedict, the Dominican, in his history of the Albigenses, approves of all the inhumanity of the holy inquisition and the holy wars. Mariana, the Jesuit, in his history of Spain, eulogizes persecutions and the inquisition, and recommends ‘fire and sword, when mild means are unavailing and useless.’ ‘A wise severity,’ he says, ‘is the sovereign remedy.’ Cardinal Bellarmine contends that for ‘the honor of religion, heretics should be consigned to the flames.’ ‘The apostles,’ he says, ‘abstained from calling in the secular arm only because there were, in their day, no Christian princes.’
“Dens advocates the same views as Bellarmine. . . . This Dens of whom I speak was a doctor of the university of Louvain. About 1760 he published a system of theology, which is better known to Catholic priests than the Bible. This work awards to heretics ‘confiscation of their goods, banishment from the country, confinement in prison, infliction of death, and the deprivation of Christian burial.’ I quote his exact words, which you may verify for yourselves. ‘Such falsifiers of the faith and troublers of the community,’ says this divine, ‘justly suffer death in the same manner as those who counterfeit money and disturb the State.’
“This work was recommended to Christendom by the doctors of Louvain university, ‘on account of its orthodox faith and its Christian morality.’”
The church of Rome has a code of laws she calls “the canon law.” “Cardinal Wiseman, says of the canon law, that it is the real and complete code of the church.”
Your canon law, which is the growth of many centuries, is made up of the bulls of popes and the decrees of councils, and traditions which have received the pontifical sanction. In this canon law in the decretals of Gregory IX., we read, ‘Archbishops and bishops, either personally or by representatives, are commanded to visit their dioceses once or twice every year, and inquire for heretics. Princes are admonished to purge their dominions from the filth of heresy.’ This work is to be conducted as follows: First—Excommunication; Second—Proscription from all offices, ecclesiastical or civil; Third—Confiscation of their goods; Fourth—Death, sometimes by the sword, more commonly by fire.”
In the decretals of Pope Honorius II. concerning heretics we find this: ‘All heretics, of both sexes and of every name, we damn to perpetual infamy; we account them accursed, and their goods confiscated; nor can they enjoy their property, or their children succeed to their inheritance, inasmuch as they grievously offend against the Eternal as well as the temporal king.’
“And we find such statements as these in the canon law: ‘The bishop of Rome has power to absolve from allegiance, obligation, bond of service, promise and compact, the provinces, cities and armies of kings that rebel against him, and also to loose their vassals and feudatories.’ And this: ‘The bond of allegiance to an excommunicated man does not bind those who have come under it.’ And this: An oath sworn against the good of the church does not bind, because that is ‘not an oath, but a perjury rather, which is taken against the church’s interests.’
“The persecuting edicts of infallible (?) popes are infallible still; but they are not just in accordance with the sentiments of the present day. The ark of Rome has dashed on the rock of infallibility, and is fast going to pieces.”
Gavazzi says, “A Roman Catholic archbishop in being installed in office,” is required to take this oath: “Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord, or his aforesaid successors, I will to my power persecute and oppose.”
Relative to the tortures of the inquisition I will quote first from Hemphill: “The victims were apprehended commonly at midnight. The familiars of the holy office surrounded the door of a house, whispered the name of the tribunal, and the inmates, transfixed by the dreadful word, delivered up their dearest relatives. The victim was consigned to a dungeon. All communication with friends was cut off. The accuser and the accusation were alike unknown to him. He was urged by the most treacherous means to criminate himself. And when he refused, the rack was employed to extort confession.
“The accused, whether man or woman, was stripped naked. The arms were tied behind the back. A pulley, fastened to the arms, raised the sufferer off his feet, and held him suspended in the air. Then he was let fall several times, and raised with a jerk, which dislocated all the joints of his arms, while the cord with which he was suspended entered the flesh and lacerated the tortured nerves.
“The last scene in the dismal tragedy was the act of faith—auto da fe. The ecclesiastical authority transferred the condemned to the secular arm. The heretic, dressed in a yellow coat variegated with pictures of dogs, devils, serpents, flames—typical of his destiny hereafter—was then led to the place of execution, tied to the stake, and committed to the flames, amid the joyful acclamations of the populace.”
On the tortures of the inquisition, we will next quote from Gavazzi. “There are, I said, fourteen different species of tortures, all of which I, of course, cannot describe, as it would take many hours. One of the worst was the deprivation of rest, not allowing sleep for fourteen, twenty, or thirty days and nights continuously. Sometimes I have said, Let a description of these tortures be read, and all their cruelty cannot be conceived; but, if I can here reproduce them, I can more clearly convey what was the pain suffered.
“The first was called the ‘queen of tortures,’ namely, the ‘torture of the cord.’ In the middle of the prison stands a massive beam reaching from the floor to the ceiling; at the top is a pulley, and a rope passed through it, one end in the hand of the executioners (these always are two masked Dominican friars), the other end fastened to the arms of the victim, which are tied behind his back, while to his feet is attached a weight of a hundred pounds. At the signal, a rope is drawn, the victim hoisted, and, by the weight of the body and the hundred pounds attached to the feet, the arms are wrenched backward and upward, until they are drawn over his head. While in this position, the victim is often cruelly flogged, and tormented with hot pincers or iron nails, and then comes the question, ‘Are you guilty? Confess!’ He denies—then the rope is suddenly relaxed by the executioner; the victim descends, and is stopped within a few inches of the floor with a violent jerk, which completely dislocates the arms. If he do not then confess, he is sent back to the dungeon, to lie there three or four weeks, until sufficiently recovered to be able to bear a repetition of the torture, which is often applied three or four different times.
“Another torture is that ‘by fire.’ In the middle of the prison stands a brasier filled with live coals, within a few inches of which the naked feet of the victim are made to approach. Soon they become inflamed—then they break into wounds, from which blood and matter fall into the brasier. The torture is continued betimes for twenty-five minutes; then the feet are often scorched off, and the charred bones drop into the brasier; upon this the executioners remove the victims in their arms.
“‘The torture of the wheel is especially used against delicate women. The undressed female is tied on one of these wheels, which is armed with sharp cogs; two strong men turn it round rapidly, stop it suddenly, and the cogs enter the flesh of the suffering woman, who remains always senseless, and often lifeless.
“The last, which is especially used against courageous men, is the ‘torture by water.’ The victim is tied on a rough bench, his face is covered with white linen, and a funnel filled with water points toward his mouth. There is the inquisitor, there is the victim, and there the executioner. On the one hand is the inquisitor, on the other the executioner, between them the victim. The sign is given, and slowly, drop by drop, the water in the funnel begins to fall upon the cloth which covers the wretch’s face. The cloth is moistened, and, as it is, the breathing becomes more difficult. Gloom, sternness, secrecy, silence, except that one small, fearful sound, drop, drop, drop; and now the breathing grows thick, and thicker, and becomes a second sound, breaking the dreadful silence of that scene.
“Drop, drop, drop—still they come; and now the sensation of strangling, drowning seizes the victim, and a third sound is heard, low moans join the chorus of torture. The question is put, ‘Are you guilty?’ A weak voice answers with difficulty, ‘No! I have not committed’—Drop, drop, drop; still thicker breathings—still feebler moans; and the question is put again, ‘Are you guilty?’ A weaker voice, almost inaudible, piteously gasps forth, in broken syllables, ‘No—I have—not’—Drop, drop, drop; again the question; but now there is no voice—no breathing—once more the sound of that merciless drop is heard alone, as if in triumph at its victory; for it has arrested the blood and stilled the tongue—there is no more any answer, for there is no more any life.”
This is a sample of what Rome has done in her work of exterminating heretics. As we have shown, this terrible inquisition has been established at the request, and under the direction of Catholic popes. A bull of Paul III. established the Roman inquisition in 1540. A bull of Clement, styled by Webster, “A Protestant Pope,” abolished the Roman inquisition in 1773. A brief of Pius VII. restored it to life in 1814. It was again abolished by the Italians under Garibaldi in 1848, but restored again the same year by Pius IX., when French and Austrian soldiers had restored him from Gaeta to Rome.
“In this chapter we have given you some sample of what the church did, when she had the power. She has not changed. ‘Give her the power again and she will strike more fiercely than before. When the news of the massacre of Bartholomew Day reached Rome, Gregory XIII. went in procession to the Church of Saint Louis to render a Te Deum of thanks to God for the happy victory. Aye, and Pius IX. would do the same if he heard that every Protestant in America was ‘butchered to make a Roman holiday.’ Rome cannot change. She can so glove her iron talons as to make them appear soft and delicate as an infant’s fingers; but, despite her fair pretensions, her character is the same as in the darkest of the Middle Ages. She glories in her unchangeableness.”
I ask, Are there not facts coming to the surface that fully justify Mr. Hemphill’s statement? Let us see. The Catholic Guardian of San Francisco, only a few months since, came out with this statement, “The church is superior to the State, and as such, the State has no right to dictate any law which shall have force in the spiritual order against the rights of the church.” That statement, surely, looks like again desiring to make the government the bond-slave of the church.
But we read also in the Catholic Review, of 1873. “Protestantism of every form, has not, and never can have, any rights where Catholicity is triumphant. . . . The Catholic church is the only church of God, all others must be suppressed before God can reign on earth.”
The thoughtful reader who is any way familiar with the history of the Romish church, can readily decide what such hints mean, and what the church of Rome would be and do if she had the power.
J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
Repentance Without Amendment Is Useless
REPENTANCE, without amendment, is like continual pumping in a ship without mending the leak.
The Side of Regrets.
By Uriah Smith
REGRETS are not pleasant. Every considerate person wishes to avoid all occasion for them, and will do so if possible. We do not consider a person wise who deliberately enters and dwells upon ground which he well knows bears only the bitter fruits of repentance and regret.
Yet how often, and how extensively, is this very course pursued in spiritual things. On which side in spiritual life do regrets lie? On the side of zeal and activity? or on the side of indifference and backsliding? Who ever heard a person regretting that he had been too much engaged in the cause of God, and lived too near to him, and enjoyed too much of his blessing? On the other hand, who has not heard persons regret that they had not lived nearer to God, and been more faithful in the discharge of their Christian duties? Here is where the regrets come in, and where they are sure to come if the person ever recovers from his backsliding. Yet with this inflexible rule, this unavoidable certainty, before them, people pass on weeks, month, even years, letting slip Heaven’s richest blessings, and heaping up work for future repentance and sorrow of heart. Is not the strong language of Christ to his unconverted disciples still applicable—“Oh! fools, and slow of heart”?
U. S.
“The Diakka.”
By Uriah Smith
HERE come some more astounding revelations from the spirit world, and another infliction from the silly vocabulary of the spirits, upon our much abused English tongue. We take the article from the Chicago Tribune of last week.
The Diakka are bad spirits. Andrew Jackson Davis has found out all about them. According to his ponderous effusion on the subject, they are the beings who break dishes and tumble around furniture and tell outrageous lies and bring the shades of prominent dead men into disrepute by maliciously personating them. When George Washington sings, “Hey-diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle,” to a circle of awe-struck geese, it is not George Washington, but a Diak (if that is the proper singular of the tribal name). When Benjamin Franklin dances a jig and Charles Dickens writes an idiotic story and Keats raps out this wondrous couplet:—
You are my queen,
Loveliest I ever seen,—
the Diakka are playing their pranks. These things might be suffered to pass without protest, since such glaring shams are readily detected; but when the Diakka carry a pail of dirty water into the yard and tip it over on the week’s wash, as they lately did in Milwaukee, or when they give all the furniture in the house the St. Vitus dance at midnight, as they have just done in San Francisco, or when they pitch the whole contents of a china closet into one heap of debris, as they did near New Haven, Connecticut, a few years ago,—then it is time to complain. Yet even these evils are not the worst. If a New Orleans burglar is to be believed, he has a spirit in his employ, whom he described as “a very devil of a ghost,” that will climb up any balcony in the city, crawl through any key-hole, and throw me down all the valuables, without so much as wakening a canary bird.” It is sufficiently appalling to think of a “devil of a ghost” crawling through your key-hole without the added necessity of regarding him or it as a burglar. Of what avail are pistols against forms of thin air? You behold the elongate ghost half way through the key-hole. You spring to clutch him. He vanishes with a blood-curdling chuckle. The next moment, while you are absorbed in keeping the bed and bedding from going through the ceiling against which they are pounding, your pantaloons, containing pocket-book, safe-keys, etc., are dextrously whisked through the transom, and the spirit, first dropping the water pitcher on your head, disappears permanently. The Religio-Philosophical Journal indorses the New Orleans burglar’s story, and adds that the Diakka help the bandits of Italy and Mexico, and, in fact, the rogues of the world. This is too much. If we are to be preyed upon by all the scamps now alive, and by the spirits of all who have died, we might as well give up the contest. It is painful to think how the ranks of the Diakka will be swelled when the present generation of aldermen and county commissioners dies. Alas for our descendants! U. S.
“Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth.”
By Joseph Harvey Waggoner
THERE is a class of teachers who place a strange and unwarranted construction upon these words of the apostle Paul to Timothy. Not long since I heard a preacher of the Disciple order speak on this text. And it is a favorite text with that people, as their exposition of it is their warrant for throwing aside the Old Testament and rejecting the ten commandments as the rule of right.
The preacher said that the Old Testament was given to the Jews, and was not given to the Gentiles; this is the first work of “dividing,” and shows that we, as Gentiles born, have nothing to do with the Old Testament. In like manner, the ten commandments were spoken to the Jews, and, therefore, we have nothing to do with them. This method has also thrown aside the gospels, as pertaining to events under the former dispensation. And some of the epistles may easily be disposed of in the same way.
That exposition is based upon the assumption that any scripture is intended only for those to whom it was at first directly spoken. This, if true, would leave to us in this age a very inconsiderable portion. And that is probably its design.
To show how the Bible may be, and is, perverted under such a rule of interpretation, I relate the following incident. I was once introduced to a man who had the reputation, in his neighborhood, of being a close reader of the Bible. In the course of our conversation, he asked me if I knew whose duty it is to worship and to serve God. I replied that it is the duty of everybody.
“No, sir,” he quickly answered; “if you will read the fourth chapter of Matthew you will find that the Saviour spoke this commandment to Satan. He said to the devil, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’ In the past dispensation it was given to the Jews, but when their dispensation ended it was spoken to Satan.”
To all my efforts to place the matter in its true light, he answered that he would not bring himself down to be under a commandment given to the devil!
As absurd and impious as is this position, it cannot consistently be repudiated by those who adopt the Disciples’ method of “dividing the word of truth.” It is the legitimate fruit of their system.
Let us thank the Lord that the light of the third angel’s message is exposing the fallacy of such a system of error as that which would set us free from moral obligation because the moral law was not first and directly spoken to us. God chooses his own methods of revealing his will to his creatures; and instead of caviling at his method let us praise his name that he has revealed his will, and not left us in ignorance of our duty to him. And may we ever “fear God and keep his commandments, . . . for God will bring every work into judgment.”
J. H. WAGGONER.
DUTY OF THE CHURCH TO DISORDERLY MEMBERS
By George I. Butler
Thoughts on Church Government.—No. 8.
DUTY OF THE CHURCH TO DISORDERLY MEMBERS.
In this closing article, I desire to express some thoughts on this most important branch of the subject. Perhaps there is nothing so difficult in the administration of the church as this, nothing from which there is so much shrinking, nothing that is so neglected, as dealing with disorderly members. But the Bible has given us much instruction upon it, and there are duties to be done as plain and as important as any connected with the subject of church management.
Proper dealing with disorderly members is the only thing that will keep the church pure. Constituted as men are, and sinful as we are, and surrounded by circumstances calculated to develop our bad traits, it must be expected that disorder and many kinds of evil will be found connected with church members. They are human, with the natural passions of men and women to contend with. All may desire to do right, but human infirmity will be stamped on everything they do. There has never yet been found a process which would take a sinful person, unregenerated by divine grace, and make him perfectly pure and holy in a moment of time. The purifying influence of truth may, and often does, powerfully affect persons when they start out in the service of God. A great change is seen in their course of life and experienced in their hearts. This is called conversion. Its importance can hardly be overestimated. But after this, every such individual will realize that there is an evil nature to struggle against. The Christian course will ever be a battle and a march—a battle with our evil traits of character and a march from one victory to another, in the work of overcoming. This very fact shows that evil lurks within us, and we cannot, in this world, fully escape its effect upon us, though we can gain the victory over it.
In the most eminent examples of piety in the Bible there are marks of infirmity and sin growing out of this fact. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and Peter, are familiar examples. So also, the Bible, in its comparisons and instructions concerning the Christian course, intimates plainly the same fact. It speaks of the Christian church as a building composed of gold, silver, and precious stones, and also of hay, wood, and stubble, entering into its composition. The latter, however, is to be burned at last. It speaks of wayside hearers, stony-ground hearers, and those in which thorns were choking out the seed, as well as of those who bore plenty of fruit. The gospel net also brings in good and bad fishes, the bad were to be cast aside. The race in which all are to run for a glorious prize is one in which we are very liable to lose it. Even Paul feared being a castaway. John recognizes the fact that Christians may sin, therefore we need an advocate. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, showing plainly that Christians are liable to sin.
Even the apostolic churches were found to be very imperfect. That age was doubtless the purest of all, but there was much that was wrong there. The twelve which Christ himself chose were imperfect men; one was a traitor, another denied his Lord. The letters of Paul show great imperfection in the church of Corinth, and of Galatia, and others. Some gave up God’s truth anciently. All Asia forsook Paul. Demas loved this present world, and so we might go on. What does all of this prove? Simply that man is a poor, weak, imperfect, sinful being, with whom God has to bear with much patience, and that human nature is the same in all ages. It shows that trials will come, and people will need correction, instruction, admonition, and reproof. The church is God’s school of morality and religion, in which to train these imperfect creatures. Like any other school, such should be taken in for instruction as give some reasonable prospect of being benefited. If they will conform to right principles, if they will submit to reasonable discipline, let us take them in and benefit them all we can—give them a fair and patient trial.
The trouble with churches generally is that a loose, do-nothing system is pursued. Every one goes on as he pleases, no standard of righteousness is erected to which all must conform, and people go along thinking they are about right, and no one is developed or benefited. It is important that points come in every experience where every individual is tested, or given an opportunity to show whether he loves right or wrong most. Such times will come with every one. Decisions will then be made which will have an important bearing upon the eternal destiny of the one in question. There should be wisdom in the church at such a time to make such crises work for the benefit of the individual, the same as every judicious parent watches for points in his child’s experience where a deep impression for good may be made upon his heart.
If, then, we admit that the church is God’s school for teaching persons religion and morality, we must admit also that some corrective discipline must be administered to those who will not conform to principles which God’s word teaches are sacred. Something must be done with them. In almost every church, wrong is prevalent more or less, because of the evil in men’s hearts. We have seen that it is the elder’s duty to reprove and exhort, to counsel and admonish, and give such instruction in private and public as will lead the flock in the direction of purity and virtue. The members are each to uphold him in this, and set the right example, and manifest love and justice in all they do. But there are those who persist in pursuing a wrong course, who will not heed these counsels. There are those who slander others, who get into trial and difficulty with others, who refuse to live in peace, who show no proper respect to God’s institutions, who are covetous, and defraud their neighbors. What shall be done with such? If this course continues, and no notice is taken of it, evil is communicated from one to another. Others similarly inclined are emboldened to do the same things. The truly good are grieved and disheartened. Evil increases. These sinners themselves are left unwarned, to go to ruin, and, in short, the very objects for which the church was instituted are perverted. It was designed to lead its members upward to God, but is lowering them down to death by showing that the authority of the church sanctions wrong by its silence.
All wrong asks is silent consent to its work. Then it can run riot. But the church is God’s institution to teach morality and virtue. Its work is ever aggressive against evil. It must, therefore, if it be true to itself, the object of its institution, and the highest interests of humanity, make war on evil in its own bosom. A church that does not do this is a dead carcass, and the sooner it goes under the sod, the better it is for morality.
The church therefore must exercise a watch-care over its members, and deal with those who walk contrary to sound doctrine; and if they will not submit to right, they must be turned out, or the church is false to its high trust. In no other way can it be true to its mission. The church will make a grand mistake to let grievous sins pass unnoticed. It then ceases to do what it was designed to do. It will commit another error equally great if it refuses to expel those who will not submit to correction. Then it allows its disorderly members to triumph over its authority. In either case, it is unfaithful to its high trust. It sins against the cause of morality. It sins especially against the sinner himself, just as the parent sins against the child whom he allows to grow up disobedient and rebellious. The world justly holds a church responsible for those sins which it tolerates in its members. The church then becomes a body of darkness instead of light. I regard the church management of the present day as terribly lax, and contrary to right principles and the Scriptures of truth.
GEO. I. BUTLER.
(Concluded next week.)
Is not that Different?
By N. Orcutt
In conversation with a Baptist deacon and his wife, who had recently embraced the scriptural view of man's nature and destiny, and had also yielded to their convictions of duty by observing one Sabbath, but had fallen back to justify themselves in Sunday-keeping by the arguments usually adduced, I inquired of them how they settled the question of man's mortality? They replied,117“By the testimony of the Scriptures.” When I plead with them to settle the Sabbath question by the same rule, said the lady: “Is not that different?”
Truly, it is somewhat different. But will the difference justify us, while we decide the mooted question of man's nature by the Bible testimony alone, in settling the other by the opinions, traditions, and commandments, of men? The first is a truth of no small consequence, revealed by God in his word. Of the last the same may also be said; and further, it directly involves the matter of obedience to that Being who made all things, who rested on the seventh day, blessed and hallowed or sanctified it. And in his word he has commanded its observance,—a command he has never abrogated nor changed. Truly we may apply the language of the dear Saviour here: “These ought ye to have done” (i. e., to decide other questions of truth and duty by referring them “to the law and to the testimony”), “and not to leave the other undone.”
There is certainly no question that demands plainer or more explicit testimony to settle than the query whether the great Lawgiver has changed or abolished one of the precepts of his law. And shall we, because of the cross to be borne in obeying God, rest satisfied with evidence upon this point, involving as it does the question of both truth and duty, which we would utterly refuse to receive upon questions of minor importance? “God forbid.”
This matter has been forcibly brought to my mind by reading an article in the Christian Era, a Baptist paper published in Boston, Mass., in which the writer, referring to the subject of baptism, uses the following pertinent and forcible language:—
“It is unchristian and unworthy to charge the guilt upon any party without substantial proof that its practice is contrary to the teachings of Christ and the Scriptures.
“The Baptists believe: 1. That the immersion of the body in water is essential to Christian and apostolic baptism. 2. That none have a right to the Lord's supper until they have been baptized. 3. That infant baptism is without divine authority and opposed to it.
“Show me from the teachings and example of Christ and the apostles that I am wrong, and I will strike my colors and make common cause with my Pedo-baptist brethren.
“But we want a ‘thus saith the Lord’—Bible proof. Inference is not sufficient. Any one can draw inferences if he is strong enough, and can prove by them whatever he pleases. Venerable custom will not do, for customs that are black with sin have come down to us through the ages. The opinion of large majorities is inadequate, for the adherents to the truth have always been in the minority. Profane history, human logic and conscience, are alike deficient, for they are all more or less depraved and biased. It is not enough to say this or that practice is not forbidden, for that is no authority whatever.”
This has the ring of the true coin. Will our Baptist brethren, and all others who profess to take the Bible alone as their rule of faith and practice, be consistent and apply this reasoning to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, by settling its claims upon them? Where will their Sunday stand when tested by this rule? “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.”
N. ORCUTT.
So. Vineland, N. J., Sept., 1874.
Hear Them.
By Uriah Smith
WE are told that the views we promulgate respecting the second coming of Christ lack the element of certainty; that we cannot know anything about it.
HEAR CHRIST.
“So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it [he, Christ, margin] is near, even at the door.” Matt. 24:33. See also Mark 13:29; and Luke 21:31.
HEAR PAUL.
To the Romans: “And that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” Rom. 13:11, 12.
To the Thessalonians: “But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief.” 1 Thess. 5:1, 2, 4.
To Timothy: “This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,” &c. “From such turn away.” 1 Tim. 3:1–5. How are we to turn away if we cannot know when the last days have come?
To the Hebrews: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” Heb. 10:25.
HEAR PETER.
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.” 2 Pet. 1:19.
HEAR JOHN.
“If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Rev. 3:3. If they would watch, it follows that they would know. Those therefore who fail to watch are the ones and the only ones who fail to know.
What do these writers mean by all these things? U. S.
The sounding of the first four trumpets “comes in as a complement to the prophecy of Dan. 2 and 7.” It describes the fall of the Roman Empire, and the manner of breaking it up into ten parts as represented by the ten toes of the image, or the ten horns of the beast.
We see in Num. 10:9, and Zeph. 1:16, that the trumpet is a symbol of war. Hence, we say in the words of another: “The trumpets denote great political commotions to take place among the nations in this age.” The events as set forth in our subject must belong to the Christian dispensation from authority of the angel’s words: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.”
As we follow down the stream of time from the head of the symbolic image to its feet, the history of its interpretation is calculated to inspire one with confidence in the word of God. It is that “sure word of prophecy” unto which, Peter says, “ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.”
To the Bible student, then, the trumpets, being a continuation of that subject, which has pointed the Christian traveler to the landmarks of his way so plainly, are also well-calculated to give an increase of faith in the promises of God.
In A. D. 337, we find the Roman Empire divided into three parts by Constantine the Great, and a part given to each of his three sons. It is on the ground of this division that we understand, in Rev. 8, where it speaks of the “third part of men,” it alludes to the part of the empire under the scourge. So say Dr. Barnes and others. According to chronology, we find the last of the three sons above noticed died in A. D. 354, and in A. D. 356, the Huns, a tribe of barbarians, had increased to such a power that the Roman armies dare not assail them. We find them on both sides of the Ural chain of mountains, “inhabiting from the regions of perpetual snow to the Caspian Sea, and ravaging at will Europe on the one side and Asia on the other.” See Sheppard’s Fall of Rome.
An idea of the territory which they occupied may be had from the treaty which was made between them and the Romans. The parties met on the banks of the Danube at a place called Margus. Said the king of the Huns to the Roman envoys: “Break off all connection with the Ultra-Danubian tribes. . . . Increase your tribute from 300 to 700 pounds of gold. Do this or war.”—Sheppard’s Fall of Rome.
The Roman ambassadors accepted the terms. We have, then, one of the toes of the metallic image, or one of the horns of the terrible beast, represented by the Huns.
The Goths were a tribe who at this time occupied Central Europe, but in A. D. 377, 378, divided themselves into two nationalities, and are known in history as Ostrogoths, who occupied the East (Mysia), and the Visigoths, who occupied the West (Pannonia). After their establishment as kingdoms, we may find them assisting, but not subservient to, the Roman power.
We now have the Roman Empire, which had ruled over the most of the habitable part of the world from the days of Augustus Cæsar, dismembered. Three large parcels of its territory are occupied by barbarians who neither pay tribute, nor yield allegiance to its authority.
We can readily see, then, that there are brought to view three of the toes of the image, or three of the horns of the terrible beast.
The Huns, whose territory lay east of the Ostrogoths, occupied mostly the country now known as Russia. In A. D. 395, they made war upon the Ostrogoths, and forced them into the territory of the Visigoths. The Ostrogoths submitted to the Huns for a while, but we afterward find them independent.
The Visigoths, under Alaric, turned their forces to the Eastern tripartite division of the Roman Empire and overran Greece. It was in such a dry season of the year that the army could easily ford the streams. Vegetation was so dried up that the forest trees burned when ignited. They devastated the plains of northern Greece and slaughtered the inhabitants. Their work is remarkably described by the first trumpet: The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth; and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
A short comment on a part of this verse, found in “Thoughts on the Revelation,” is so appropriate that we quote: “ ‘Hail and fire mingled with blood were cast upon the earth.’ The terrible effects of this Gothic invasion are represented as ‘hail’ from the fact of the northern origin of the invaders; ‘fire,’ from the destruction by flame of both city and country; and ‘blood,’ from the terrible slaughter of the citizens of the empire by the bold and intrepid warriors.”
“Cast upon the earth.” This seems to refer to a general devastation, fulfilled, not simply by the Visigoths under Alaric, and his brother up to A. D. 414, when their kingdom became transferred and established in the western tripartite division of the empire; but, also, by other northern barbarians who were overrunning the middle and western divisions during the same period. See Sheppard’s Fall of Rome, p. 190.
J. SAWYER.
Battle Creek, Sept., 1874.
(To be continued.)
“Due Form.”
By J. H. W.
IN reports of meetings it is frequently stated that they were opened in “due form.” What is the “due form” in opening religious meetings?
For the information of those who do not know how this expression came into use I will state that there are different forms of opening Masonic meetings. “Due form,” “ample form,” “due and ample form,” are different in grade. When reports are so made masonically, a mason at once knows in what manner the meeting was opened, and the rank of the presiding officer. But outside of the masonic ritual such expressions have no meaning. In a religious paper they may cause masons to smile, but they convey no information. Would it not be well to omit such expressions? J. H. W.