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Cardinal Gibbons’ sermon, widely published, attracted a great deal of attention amongst Protestants as well as Catholics. What will Protestantism say to this? was the query. We have heard but one Protestant response, and that, properly enough, from the pen of .one of the most widely known Protestant ministers in the world.

For comparison we place this minister’s able and forceful reply immediately following Cardinal Gibbons’ presentation, assured that it will be interesting to our Protestant as well as our Catholic readers: —

Protestant Minister Congratulates the Cardinal

It falls to'my lot to respond to Cardinal Gibbons’ sermon on “A Plea for United Christendom,” in which he urges very forcefully that there is but one Church and that, therefore, all Protestants should abandon their sectarian attitude and join the Roman Catholic Church. The reply falls to my lot, because, although I stand free and independent of all Protestant sects and parties, my brethren of the ministry in various denominations of Protestantism would find it rather awkward and difficult to acknowledge that there is but one true Church, and, in the same breath, to acknowledge that their denomination is no more that one Church than is any other sect.

I am very pleased with Cardinal Gibbons’ kindly moderation in the handling of the subject. It contrasts very forcibly with the terrible times of the past, when Roman Catholics on the one hand and various Protestant sects on the other, waged an indirect and internecine strife to the death in the name of God and of our Redeemer and of righteousness. Surely what all intelligent people need is to abandon foolish prejudices, hypocrisies and superstitions of the past and to come together as true followers of the Lord,

Agrees With Cardinal Gibbons

I am pleased to' say that I agree most heartily with Cardinal Gibbons’ presentation in dlmost every particular. Unquestionably sectarianism is wholly out of accord with the teachings of the Scriptures. Assuredly S't. Paul rebuked the Corinthian brethren because they presented a divided front, saying, I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Peter, etc. St. Paul’s reply to this was that it was proof of carnality, of fleshly minds and proof of an unspiritual state. All Christians are coming to realize this—Catholic and Protestant— although it is but a few years since some claimed that sectarianism was a positive advantage; that it led to a greater zeal and energy in the Divine service than if all were agreed.

All who are conversant with history understand what I mean when I say that God has been pleased to permit an illustration of—first, a united Christendom, and, secondly, a divided Christendom. For long centuries there was practically but the one Church in Europe, the Roman Catholic. The results surely were not all that could have been desired. That unity of the Church brought neither secular nor religious education, nor did it bring to the world the Millennium promised as the great desideratum of humanity. Rather in that long period we see that ignorance and superstition held the reins. During the last few centuries we have had the opportunity of testing the division of Christendom into various sects and parties. While the results are not satisfactory, while the condition is not what God’s Word prompts us to desire and expect, this divided condition has certainly tended toward greater freedom of thought, greater liberty from ignorance and superstition.

The Perplexing Question

So, then, dissatisfied with the sectarian divisions and strife, and equally dissatisfied with the compulsory union of the past; and, convinced, nevertheless, that the Bible teaches the unity of the Church, we ask, How may this Scriptural unity be attained—the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace and love, which maintains its own liberty and grants the same to others? Where shall we find; how shall we obtain; by what process shall we accomplish this unity?

We agree with that our Lord speaks Scriptures as the one and who approaches the Father in full consecration through Jesus and who receives the begetting of the Holy Spirit of God—all such are the brethren of Jesus and sons of God, whether or not they join the Roman Catholic, the Congregational, the Methodist, Presbyterian or other human systems. Our contention is that none of these human systems, Catholic or Protestant, is recognized by the Bible—none of them is recognized of God. They are all human institutions—originated by men and maintained by men—sometimes good men and sometimes bad men have had to do with their organization and its maintenance. Indeed, we hold that such a reformed, consecrated believer is equally a child of God in whatever denomination he may be, or if he outside of all denominational walls creeds.

Which Is the True Church?

According to the Bible we may find the answer we are seeking—an explanation of what and where is the true Church. In the Scriptures it Is described as “the Church of the Firstborns, whose names are written in heaven” (Heb. 12:23). Will our Protestant friends claim that their Church r.oll corresponds to that written in heaven in the Lamb’s Book of Life? Would Christian friends of any denomination dare to make such a claim ? Most assuredly, No. We all realize that at very most the various sects and parties of Christendom are composed of wheat and tares and that, so far as human judgment can discern, the tares are vastly in the majority.

Christian Union Never Lost

From this standpoint we perceive that the great masses, Catholic and Protestant, are not, and never were, the Church of Christ—they deceived themselves. They have been children of this world, not spirit-begotten New Creatures in Christ; they have not been living stones in the temple, not branches of the true Vine, not members of the “little flock.” They have been worldly people with religious sentiments and good desires who misunderstood that great teaching of the Bible—that only the sanctified are In Christ Jesus, called to be saints. What has been done by these large numbers of well-meaning but mistaken people in the way of organizing churches, lodges, banks, etc., has had nothing whatever to do with the great organization which God effected eighteen centuries ago and which has persisted as a unit in the world ever since.

The true Church has never been divided, because each member of it is

Giver of everlasting life, on the earthly plane to Adam and all of his children who will accept it on the terms of the Kingdom. Then the Church will be the mother or nourisher and caretaker of all mankind to uplift them, instruct them, develop them, in the ways of righteousness—to bring as many as. will prove willing up to the full perlasting. All refusing this uplift and •rejecting the grace of God will be destroyed in the Second Death. St. Peter tells us that their destruction will be-similar to that of the brute beast that perisheth (2 Pet. 2:12).

Are There Protestant Counterfeits?

Although Protestants repudiate the-Roman Catholic idea that the clergy alone constitute the Church and that the people are the children of the-Church, nevertheless in many denominations we see this insidious error in a. slightly different form. This is notably true of the Episcopal Church, which, puts everything in the way of government into the hands of the clergy and treats the laity, to a considerable degree, as though they were children unable to comprehend spiritual things-The Methodist Episcopal Church follows closely in the same line of procedure. The Presbyterian and Lutheran systems also quite particularly differentiate the clergy from the laity, even though the laity be given some apparent recognition on the ecclesiastical boards. This is done usually for a reward or for the purpose nf securing-financial or legal advice. But the laity is not supposed to have an equal standing with the clergy in respect to spiritual things.

Congregationalists and Baptists and Disciples most nearly recognize an. equality between the clergy and laity and that the entire Church of God„ whoever they may be, are a Royal Priesthood. Yet even with these congregational bodies there is an attempt made to separate between clergy and laity and to hold all the spiritual power and authority in the hands of the clergy. This is done along financial lines in the Congregational Church through the so-called Congregational Union. In the Baptist Church the ministers combine in what is known as a Baptist Ministers Association, which holds the reins over the people as parents over children and tells them whom they may call for a Pastor and whom not—whom they are willing to ordain as their Pastor and whom they will refuse. Thus the same spirit is manifested in all these earthly systems and by it they are all distinctly differentiated from the true Church and her Scriptural regulations, which declare, All ye are brethren—and One is your Master, even Christ, and One is your Pope, or Father, even God.

Royal Priesthood Composed of Priests Regardless of Denomination

So, then, we ask Cardinal Gibbons to consider with us the Scriptural teaching which we have presented, namely, that the Royal Priesthood is composed exclusively of saints, regardless of whether they belong to their clergy or laity or are to be found elsewhere. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” We ask the Cardinal to consider that this one Church is indivisible; that the Heavenly Father is the husbandman of this true Vine; that he does not suffer any to remain as branches, members, of the true Church unless they bring forth the true fruit of the Vine. We ask the Cardinal to consider the Scriptural teaching that this saintly class, already vitally united with Jesus, is now the espoused virgin class mentioned by St. Paul (2 Cor. 11:3), and that they are waiting for the completion of their number, when the Heavenly Bridegroom, at his Second Coming, will receive them to himself in glory. By the power of the First Resurrection they will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and be with their Lord; and like him. Then, as the Scriptures declare, will come the marriage of the Lamb, “for his Wife hath made herself ready.” And shortly after that will come the Millennial Kingdom and the times of regeneration mentioned by our Lord, when his faithful will sit with him in the Throne and the regeneration of Adam’s race, the giving to them of new life from the Life-Giver, will begin.

As for the great and prosperous human institutions which are more or less duplicating the Lord’s Kingdom all over the world, these also, in the Scriptures, are called vines—the vine of the earthj in contrast with the Vine of the Heavenly Father’s right-hand planting. It is not for us to determine how much good and how much harm these earthly churches, vines of the earth, have accomplished. That the Lord will declare in his own season, but he tells us that the grapes borne by these vines— anger, malice, hatred, envy, strire, evilspeaking, etc.—will overflow the winepress of the wrath of God in the near future and bring upon the world that great time of trouble, which all may gee upon the horizon and which the Lord declares will be such a time of trouble as the world has never before known.—Daniel 12;1; Matt. 24:21.

For some weeks our city has been in the throes of a “Revival of Religion.” Hundreds of ministers have placed themselves and their congregations under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Chapman and Mr. Alexander, the famous singer, for the purpose of reviving religion; for the purpose of rescuing human souls from-eternal torment, as the proposition is generally understood. Business men have subscribed large sums of money for this noble work of rescue, reasoning that if thousands of dollars are spent in fire-fighting apparatus for the protection of human life for a few years, the services of Messrs. Chapman and Alexander will be cheap if they carry away twenty-five thousand dollars for a month’s work, provided the results show a goodly number rescued from eternal torment.

We sympathize with some of these large-hearted and open-handed business men who give their money for so laudable an object. Yet we cannot think that many, nay not even a majority, of those who contributed this sum have done so conscientiously. We cannot think that one-half of them believe in the teaching of eternal torture, nor can we think that more than one-tenth of them believe that a practical conversion is signified by a response to an invitation which implies a preference for heavenly bliss rather than for eternal anguish. However, it is for those who pay the money to exercise their own consciences in this matter,' and it is none of our business what they decide.

We sympathize also with the hundreds of Pastors of this city who have joined in this movement, which they hope will increase their congregations and church revenues, but these Pastors know in reality that the Bible does not teach eternal torment, and they have discarded the Bible anyway in favor of Higher Critical-Infidelity. Theirs is an unhappy and stultified position.

We sympathize still more with the poor people whose education along spiritual lines is almost wholly neglected, and who live in constant fear of the God who loves them and in dreadful misunderstanding of the Bible, which he has given them. Between the imperfectness of the translation and the coloring of prejudice and the twist of misunderstanding of some parables and symbols they are helpless in the presence of educated men who teach inferentially what they do not themselves believe.' Alas! poor “common people!” that you should be betrayed by those in whom you repose confidence and whom you unwittingly pay for keeping you in the dark by taking from you the key of knowledge. Truly, “My people perish for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4, 6).

Sympathizes Still More With God

But still more we sympathize with God, whose name is dishonored, whose Justice, Mercy, Wisdom, Love and Power are traduced, nay, vilified. We cay to ourself, How wonderful the patience of God, which for centuries has endured blasphemous misrepresentations of his good character and Divine Plan of the Ages! Well does lie tell us that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so his plans and methods in respect to our salvation are higher than ours—not lower. Well does he tell us that human fear toward him is taught by the precepts of men, not according to his Word (Isaiah 29, 13). We can see reasons why the Lord has kept silence toward the heathen, but we are perplexed that judgments have so long delayed to come upon those who, knowing better, still slander the great and holy name and misrepresent the Divine purposes.

What would a chief shepherd do to an under-shepherd found misleading the sheep, guiding them into poisonous pastures? We believe that he would take the sheep from them, even though he allowed them still to shepherd the goats. And it is quite our thought that such a judgment impends over Christendom and that all shepherds, false to their trust, will be dismissed ignominiously, and that very soon!

Some urge that we should do evil in order to obtain good resultsthat we should misrepresent the Divine character in order to get people to join the Church. Is it urged that some may, as a result of this evangelistic movement, lead a more orderly and decent life hereafter as citizens, and that we should be willing to join in traducing our Creator, in order to obtain this result? We answer, No, a

thousand times, No! In our judgment the perversions of the Truth, the dishonoring of our Maker, the instilling of misconceptions into the minds of the people, is an awful cost to pay, even if the results should be a hundred times as great as promised. Well did Jesus say, “Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he is gained, you make him two-fold more a child of destruction than yourselves” (Matt. 23,  15). The canversions

achieved by misrepresentations of God instill a poison into the heart difficult to eradicate, impervious to the Truth.

It grieves us to be obliged conscientiously thus to characterize a movement which has, at least, an outward appearance of godliness. It will attract to us the venom of those whose hypocrisies we criticize. It is not the money that they will collect that grieves us, for those who give it honestly, thinking thus to serve the Lord, will surely be blessed by him. It is the hypocrisy of the thing, the misrepresentation of their own belief and unbelief and the slander against the holy name of the Creator and the further bamboozling and throwing of dust into the eyes of the common people—this awakens, and should awaken, righteous indignation. And the more others do not speak, the more we must speak in denunciation and in warning to the people to search the Scriptures and become undeceived.

Hearken Now to Our Text

The teachings of all of the creeds of the “Dark Ages” which have come down to us, although they contain many good things, are so befogged with misrepresentations of God as to be a stench to our nostrils and a menace to our spiritual health. They picture to us a God either reckless and careless of the future interests of his human creatures, or else powerless to aid any but the few. They picture to us millions going down to torture during the four thousand years before Jesus came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. They picture to us that since his coming only a handful, comparatively, of the human family have become his disciples, footstep followers, “Meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” All the others, according to our Protestant creeds, Calvinistic and Armini-an, have gone down to eternal torture. From this standpoint it is that Dr. Chapman and Mr. Alexander are the heroes of the hour, saving a few more whom God would have otherwise neglected, or, as some might say, saving them in spite of Divine foreordination to the contrary.

But what say the Scriptures? Does the Bible substantiate such theories?

Nay, nay! In harmony with our text, the entire Bible reveals to us a God as infinite in his Wisdom and Power as in his Justice and Love. Our text tells us that he is mindful of his creatures—humanity. He was mindful in the very beginning when he created man and foreknew his fall. Away back there he foretold that “the Seed of the woman should ultimately bruise the Serpent’s head.” Away back there he indicated his Divine purpose, in due timd, to redeem man from destruction (not from eternal torment, for none were sentenced to torment).

The skins which covered the nakedness of our first parents cost the lives of animals, and thus God typically prophesied “better sacrifices” for the perfect covering of. man’s sin and shame. In God’s dealings with the nation of Israe*, he gave numerous types foreshadowing the later blessings, following “the better sacrifices” of the antitypical Atonemen' Day—blessing all the families of the earth.

God was mindful of man’s interests all that time (for over forty-two centuries), even though, during that long period, nothing was actually accomplished. The salvation was purposed, was planned, was assured, but must be waited for until God’s due time. Reconciliation by “Better Sacrifices”

When Jesus appeared the world was still in sin—even the one little nation of Israel was still under Divine condemnation because of sin—because their typical sacrifices were insufficient and merely foreshadows of “the better sacrifices,” which God was mindful later to bring to pass.

Those “better sacrifices” are not yet completed, though nearly so, we believe. They consist of “the Man Christ Jesus” who igave himself a “Ransom for all,” and also of the faithful few whom he has accepted as his disciples and who are walking in his steps, “presenting their bodies living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God,” through their Redeemer (Rom. 12, 1).

God is still mindful of humanity. He has not forgotten his responsibilities as a Creator. The theory that God shirks his responsibility and allows the ninety thousand who die daily to drop into eternal torment because of carelessness or indifference on our part is not true—is not Scriptural.

God affirms his own responsibility for every feature of his Plan. He declares, “My Word that is gone forth out of my mouth shall not return unto me void; it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55, 11). Hence we should understand that God sent no message to convert the world during the first forty-one hundred and fifty years after Adam’s creation, because he did not will the world to be converted then. He had no message for the world. His time had not come. St. Paul refers to this, saying, “The times of that ignorance God winked at” (took no notice of). But now, since the death of Jesus, the Just for the unjust, and the opening up of possibilities for a future life through a resurrection, God commands all men everywhere to repent. And all who become disciples of Jesus are privileged to be ambassadors for God, to convey to all who have the hearing ear a message of God’s mercy—to bind up the broken-hearted, to declare the acceptable year and the opening of the prison doors.

But the work in the present time is restricted. Not all could possibly be blessed now—and the elect must have an ear to hear and must be “drawn of the Father” and must walk in the Master’s footsteps and thus become copies of God’s dear Son. This is the only work thus far, and it is not to the world, but to the few who have the hearing ear and who leave the world to become followers of Jesus.

“The High Calling in Christ”

The Bible declares that now God is sending forth a “high calling in Christ.” Those called during this Gospel Age are called to walk in Jesus’ footsteps as saints, “presenting their bodies living sacrifices,” suifering with their Master and for his cause. The promise to all these is that, if faithful, they shall share with the great Redeemer his Messianic Throne which is yet to bless the world. To this Brideclass the Redeemer will be the Bridegroom, Lord and Head. Sharing his sufferings they will share his exaltation to the divine nature and its glory, honor and immortality. And these will participate in the glorious Messianic work soon to begin.

“Let God Be True”—Others Liars

If evangelists and others would preach this “narrow way” of the Gospel of Christ, how we would rejoice with them, and how soon would the true knowledge of God’s love spread over the world and appeal to the hearts of all! How gladly we would have them join us in this message and in the further message that God’s Plan in the next Age will reach Adam and all of his posterity—“every man,” just and unjust—living and dead! They should be told of the “Times of Restitution” that are nearing. They should be advised that if they neglect the “high calling,” the “election” now in progress, they will, • nevertheless, have responsibility and be liable for stripes or punishments, in proportion as they know right from wrong and wilfully do the wrong.

What we plead for is that the educated ministers and laymen should cease to do evil, cease to misrepresent and traduce our gracious Creator. We warn them that he will not hold guiltless those who take his name in vain— will not hold guiltless those who atrociously malign his name,

The Great Revival Coming

As for methods for the calling of the “elect” in this Age, we urge that neither we nor others are wise enough to improve upon the methods and practices of Jesus and the Apostles. We urge that any deviation from their Gospel of “good tidings of great joy for all people” must be injurious. We urge that we of today should preach, as St. Peter did at Pentecost, not only of the “high calling” of the Church, but also of the world’s blessing— “Times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3, 19-23).

We urge that such a general presentation of Divine Justice would appeal to all true hearts and heads in the present time much better than any “expediency” preaching and prepare all mankind the better for the future as well as for the present life.

The great revival of religion will come to the world immediately following the great time of trouble with which this Gospel Age is shortly to end. Then, under the blessing of Messiah’s Empire, all the ignorance and superstition and misrepresentation of God and of his Plan will flee away before the presence of the Sun of Righteousness, which will illuminate the world.

Then will come God’s time for blessing the world. His Kingdom, established in the world with power and great glory, will rule it with a rod of iron, compelling prompt obedience to the Divine Law, both in letter and in spirit. The obedient will be helped upward and will progress step by step to perfection, while the rebellious^ after proper testing and provings,, “will be destroyed from amongst, the* people”—an the “Second Death.”

Why should we not tell the people* plainly that there is a special salvation now in progress and that a common or general one will follow for the-non-elect? Why not explain to them the great reward of the present time— joint-heirship with Messiah in the Kingdom for which we pray, “Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as in heaven?” Why not explain to the world that restitution is-the portion of all who do not choose to sacrifice, but that, according to their present course, upward or downward, will be their standing future— more or less disapproved and requiring more or less of chastisements or stripes, difficulties, for their extrication, for their uplifting.

Much better could we understand the giving of money to tell mankind the Truth and to glorify the name of our God and our Redeemer. But we are totally at a loss to comprehend the attitude of those who give time and money for a little outward show and the grievous inward injury to the many through a misrepresentation of their Creator and his Word.

To the out-ef-Church millions whom we address through these columns we would suggest that the power of the Truth is love, and that faithfulness to our Lord and to his Message in the Bible are the two greatest privileges that could possibly come to any of us, and that we should each and all unite hearts and voices in “showing forth the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.” Thus we may be helpful to other wanderers seeking “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” “The Love of God constraineth us.”

TO THE INTERESTED READER

We have some back numbers of this journal treating important religious topics which we will be pleased to supply free to those interested.

We mention amongst other topics: “What Is the Soul?” “Where Are the Dead?” “The Rich Man in Hell,” “Lazarus in Abraham’s Bosom,” “Joy for the Sorrowing,” “Sin Atonement,” “Why God Permits Calamities,” “Foreordination and Predestination,” “Gathering the Lord’s Jewels,” etc.

EVERY THINKING

CHRISTIAN

SHOULD READ

PASTOR RUSSELL’S

BOOKS

“Studies

in the

Scriptures”

Respecting the first volume of this work TSB ATLANTA CONSTITUTION says editorially:

“It is impossible to read this book without loving the writer and pondering, his wonderful solution of the great mysteries . that have troubled us all our lives. There is hardly a family to be found that has not lost some loved one who died outside the church—outside the plan of salvation, and if Calvinism be true, outside of all hope and inside of eternal torment and despair.

“This wonderful book makes no assertions that are. not well sustained by the Scriptures. It is built up stone by stone, and upon every stone is the text, and it becomes a pyramid: of God’s love ana mercy and wisdom. There ₍ is nothing in the Bible that the author denies or doubts, but there are many texts that he’ throws a flood of light upon that seem to un-cover its meaning.”

The set of six volumes, cloth, 3,000 pages, iU supplied by the BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, NO. 17 HICKS ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y„ for th® usual price of one such volume, namely, $2. This includes postage or expressage to your home, anywhere, ,

THE Great Teacher said of the lilies of the plain, “They toil not, neither •do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew vi, 28, 29). Similarly we believe that in heaven the angels are free from toil. Divine power exercised in their interest makes toil unnecessary. ■ He who created the angels and made the lilies is the same God by whose omnipotent power we human beings came into existence. We are surrounded by conditions which call for labor, toil, and sweat of face, as indicated in our text. Why are these things so? Why is man less favored by his Creator than the angels and the lilies? The answer to this query is found in God’s great Book, the Bible. As Bible Students the majority of us know, of course, the answer to this query. And yet it may prove beneficial to us to examine the question afresh.

I remind you that the words of our text are God’s comment upon the conditions which now obtain and which were made necessary by man’s disobedience and the terms of his sentence. As originally created the conditions of sweat of face and battling with thorns and insects too numerous to mention were not necessary and were not imposed upon mankind. On the contrary, Adam was placed in Paradise, in the Garden of Eden, whose every prospect was beautiful. Its trees were fruitful, yielding a variety and an abundance of life-giving fruit for the maintenance of the king of earth and his queen, mother Eve. The responsibilities of the situation were merely to dress, or keep, the garden— to pluck its fruits and to prune the waste foliage to Adam’s pleasement. Every necessity was provided, as surely as in the case of the angels and the lilies. The great change which thrust our first parents from Pr.radise is the result of “Original Sin”—disobedience to God.

The basis of the fall may be said to have been the temptation of the Serpent, but otherwise, too, we may say that it was the loss of faith in God on the part of Mother Eve. Had she properly continued in faith and trust, the Tempter’s suggestions of disobedience would have been promptly rejected. His suggestion that the great Creator had been prompted by selfish motives in forbidding the fruit of one particular kind of tree should have been promptly recognized as slander. And the further suggestion that the God of all Grace and Truth lied to them and distorted the facts when he warned that disobedience would result in death—this misrepresentation should have been indignantly resented. But, alas! 'Mother Eve had not yet reached that degree of character development; she succumbed to the temptation, crude as it was. Her desire for knowledge ensnared her. A lesson to us in this connection is that any knowledge which may come to us as Bible Students, or come to others, along any lines out of accord with the Divine testimony, would be costly knowledge indeed.

“The Wages of Sin is Death”

The result of the disobedience might have been the smiting of our first parents by a thunderbolt, but, with gracious purposes, God permitted them to have what they undoubtedly preferred —death by a dying process of centuries. This gate Adam and his posterity contact with sin and its penalty. The Divine object in so doing is Scripturally declared to be that all mankind may learn of the “exceeding sinfulness of sin,” its undesirability and the sureness of its penalty—death. Had it not been for God’s^-intention by and by to send the Redeemer and to pay man’s death penalty, and thus to make possible his reclamation from death conditions by re-creation processes, our race might better have been instantly smitten to oblivion in our first parents; and the Twenty Thousand Millions of Adam’s children might better have remained unborn. However, the Bible clearly reveals that “as by man (Adam) came death, even so by a man (Jesus) also comes the resurrection of the dead. For as all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive, every man in his own erder.” (I Corinthians xv, 21-23.)

The purpose of the Lord, clearly expressed, is that mankind in general shall have the blessed opportunity of sharing in the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom—the uplifting blessings, the restitution blessings, the resurrec-that thousand years of blessing as '“times of restitution • of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts iii, 21). Very clearly we discern God’s wise purpose to be that as mankind through Adam are

sin, the whole world to a knowledge of the discern, not only the but also his Wisdom,

fruit

The bring

that this would, of him the more careful, even, perhaps, to the mony and meanness, ences developed the operation the great and complex machine we call civilization. Our Socialist friends may tell us that Love and Benevolence should actuate the human mind in all these things for the public benefit. We are ready to admit that such would be a very ideal condition, so far as the rich are concerned. But why should we expect more of the rich than of the poor, as respects love and willingness to lay down life and pleasure and wealth and comfort for their fellow-men? Our Lord puts the matter the other way, saying, He that is faithful in that which is least would be faithful also in the greater things. The poor man or woman who is found to be very generous and very helpful to his friends and neighbors is thus attesting that if he were wealthy he would probably use his wealth for the public benefit. But, alas! we find comparatively little of unselfish love, either in the poor or the rich. And this being true, love could not be the motive power of the world under present conditions.

Paradise to Be Restored.

We have already seen that it is necessary, in viewing the Divine dealings with humanity, to keep in memory the future outcome of God’s Plan. Otherwise the permission of Six Thousand Years of the reign of Sin and Death would be entirely unreasonable to us, inconsistent with Divine Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power. But keeping in memory the fact that it is the Divine Purpose to reclaim man from his fallen condition of imperfection of mind and physique, and that it is the Divine intention to make the entire earth a Garden of Eden—Paradise—from this standpoint, the permission of evil may be clearly understood and appreciated as a master-stroke of Divine Wisdom.

As one illustration of this, suppose entered into the world humanity had been as case of Adam’s im-(whose birth-rate was one a century), how long would it have required to people the earth? But in Adam’s fallen condition, as a part of the result of the fall, the sorrows and conception of motherhood were greatly multiplied (Genesis iii, 16), so that during the period of Seven Thousand Years a sufficiency of the human family will have been subduing of the earth has under Divide forearrangement been accomplished by convict labor; for are not all mankind convicts serving out a death sentence? And is not our Creator permitting man, for his own good, to battle strenuously with the unfavorable conditions prevailing in the earth? And does not this battling serve to quicken man in his mental qualities, even though this quickening be chiefly along selfish lines?

Furthermore, as we have heretofore seen, the rqign of Sin and Death amongst mankind made it possible for God, on the one hand, to show the severity of his Justice in permitting us to die thus, as a “groaning creation, travailing in pain,” and it made possible the exhibition of his Love in the providing of the Redeemer, who

READ AND

• 1. “Where Are the Dead?”
  
  2. “Why God Permits Calamities.” bought us with his precious blood. Further be it remembered it served as the occasion for the testing of Lucifer, the proving of his disloyalty, when he became Satan, the Adversary of God, Additionally it furnished the opportune test of the loyalty or disloyalty of all the angels of heaven, as recorded in Genesis vi, Jude vi, and II Peter ii, 4, as we have previously seen.

  5. “Church Federation From the Bible Standpoint.”

  
  

  Address: Brooklyn Aabernacle

  
  

  Brooklyn^ N. T.

  
  

“The Mystery' of God.”

And now we come, dear friends, to that feature of the great Divine Plan Which is so peculiarly interesting to us —to us who are Bible Students; to us who are disciples of Jesus; to us who are trusting that he has accepted us as “members of the Body of Christ,” as members of the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife, and his Joint-Heir in the Kingdom Without the . permission of sin there would have been no such opportunity as we now enjoy of experiencing a “change” of nature from earthly to heavenly—human to Divine. As our Lord would not have left the heavenly glory to become a man and to suffer and to die, the Just for the unjust, unless there had been sin in the world; unless sinners had needed redemption; so likewise we would have had no opportunity or privilege of joining with our Lord in his sacrifice of himself! We would have had no opportunity of joint-heirship with him in his Kingdom!

Indeed, had there been no sin to conquer, to down, to overthrow, there would have been no need for Christ’s Mediatorial Kingdom — for Christ’s reign of righteousness. Had there been no fallen condition of humanity in sin, in degradation, there would have been no work for the Royal Priesthood to accomplish during the “times Of restitution,” during the existence of the Messianic Kingdom. So, then, while appreciating the terrible devastation of sin in the world, its terrible consequences upon the human family, we see behind the glorious Advent of our Lord in Kingdom power a full recovery of the race from All that was Lost in Adam and Redeemed on Calvary. From this standpoint we have a glimpse of the length and breadth and height and depth of the Love and Justice, the Wisdom and the Power of our God. From this standpoint we worship and adore our Almighty Creator and our precious Redeemer! From this standpoint we may ■have full confidence in the outcome, that ultimately all shall have the fullest opportunity of eternal life and that all wilful evil-doers shall be ultimately destroyed in the Second Death, from which there shall be no redemption, no resurrection.

From this standpoint we may rejoice to suffer with our Redeemer, that we may be glorified with him in his Kingdom and participate with him in its glorious⁴ work of uplifting the poor, fallen race to Paradise, and to all the perfections of Adam. Yea, we may rejoice even in the Second Death of the unwilling and ■disobedient, realizing that true and righteous is the Divine edict under which they shall perish (II Peter ii, 12).

OBSERVE!!

• 3. “The Hope of Immortality.”
  
  4. “What Is the Soul?”