A Book of Gems, or, Choice selections from the writings of Benjamin Franklin. Бенджамин Франклин
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making and the additional sacrifices they are determined and willing to make. They are many of them living almost as economically as we did thirty years ago, in our incipient work of opening the way.
When the British general found General Marion living on roots, and his men fighting without pay, he admitted that the prospect of overcoming such men was gloomy. So, when our opposers see the glorious army of which we speak, of faithful young men struggling with only a half support, and, in some instances, not that, and behold the love for the gospel, the Lord Jesus and their fellow-men that impels them on; and when they witness their determination, zeal and energy; that they cannot be discouraged, disheartened and turned back, they give up all idea of ever conquering them or withstanding them. Let not one word we are saying be construed into an excuse for any Christian who has the ability not sustaining these precious men whom God has raised and put into the field. Nor need any one wait for a “plan,” nor an “organization,” or “system.” Plans, organizations and systems give no money. Men and women must give the money, if it is given at all. No man who has the means, and refuses to do his part, according to the ability God has given, to aid in this glorious work, need flatter himself that he will be a partaker in the final reward. According as a man sows shall he also reap. We know that there are hard-hearted and sordid men in the church, that do nothing of consequence, and men of this sort that will never be any better. They have but one idea ingrained and imprinted on their entire being, and that is to hang on with a grasp like death itself to the goods of this world. But the good and the true, the men of faith, and love, and zeal; the men who have their eye on a kingdom not of this world, and who are devoted to saving men and women from ruin, will not stop for these, nor brood over them, but turn away from them as they do from other abandoned characters who are past feeling, and go on with their glorious work. God will be with them, and, though poor in this world, they will be rich in faith, and the Lord will hold them up.
But what has this great army of young preachers to do? Where is their work? There is work enough for them to do. The only fear we have is, that when they look and see the vastness of the work, they will think, like one of old, “There be more against us than for us.” We have a vast amount of worldliness and carnality to drive out of the Church; conformity to the world; love of pleasure more than love of God; the love of Christ to restore; the gospel and the true worship. Where the cause has gone back, it must be recovered; where the gospel has been lost and superseded by something else, it must be restored, and where the worship has been corrupted, it must be purified, and the right way of the Lord established. Men who do not love the gospel, the worship and the things of God, will slough off when everything is driven out that did not come from God; when the only things they loved are taken away. In a few instances entire congregations may be carried away with worldly policies and appliances; but the whole number thus lost will amount to but little, compared with the grand throng that will stand together for the faith once delivered to the saints, and that will go on. What remains for good men to do is, to go on; stand fast; be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; put on the whole armor of God and fight the good fight of faith, and stand to the Bible and nothing else, and thus make the Bible a grand power in the earth. We have started with our Bible, and let us go on with it and carry it through the world. We have a book that nobody denies, except out and out skeptics, and one of supreme authority. Let us assert and maintain its authority, and carry it through the world. All the other books that in any way rival it, or are in anywise in the way of it, must be set aside and rendered a dead letter. There is not one particle of divine authority in anything that did not come out of the Bible. We must push all other books aside.
All the names not applied to the people and Church of God in the Scriptures must be repudiated and discarded, and we must determine to speak of the people and Church of God in the language of Scripture. This we can do; to this, no child of God can reasonably object. There will be no difficulty in this, when we shall have no other kind of people or Church but the people and Church of God. While we have other kinds of people and churches, we shall need other names for them. But we shall have no trouble about this, for they will select and give themselves other names, such as they think fitting and appropriate. All we have to do in the matter is to call them by the names they give themselves. If they will not permit the Lord to name them, but will call themselves by some name not given to the Lord’s people in the Bible, it is their own doing, not ours. There is no reason why the Lord’s people should follow their example, and not accept the designations found in Scripture, and use them exclusively. If we are the Lord’s people, we can be spoken of in the language of Scripture; if we are not, then we might have some other name.
THE WORK OF CREATION.
AFTER Moses states the wonderful fact that “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” without stating when it was, only that it was “in the beginning,” he proceeds to give a brief account of the state of things after this first fact, and before the work of the six days. He says: “The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” This state of things was preceded by the creation of the heaven and the earth. The next thing in the successive acts was to operate on material created, brought into existence; to form or fashion it. What was the first thing? “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” This was not bringing into existence, but operating on that which was in existence. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Here we have the work of the first day. What was done on that day was not the same, no matter how we describe it, as the first act. It was forming, shaping, operating on material previously brought into existence.
Moses proceeds, “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And he called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” Here we have the work of the second day, like that of the first day, forming, fashioning and bringing order out of chaos. This “firmament,” that God made, and “called Heaven,” is not the same as mentioned in the first verse, but is included in the words: “The heavens and the earth.” This is the work of arrangement, ordering, etc.
Then follow the gathering together the waters into one place, and the bringing to view the dry land, the naming of the dry land, Earth, and the gathering together of the waters of the seas; the ordering of the grass, the herb, the fruit-tree upon the earth. This was the work of the third day. Then comes the ordering the heavenly bodies, the great lights for day and night, the dividing the light from the darkness, etc., the work of the fourth day. All this is fashioning, forming, arranging, ordering, and not creating from nothing. Then follows the ordering of the waters, to bring forth the fishes, the fowl, and all the inhabitants of the seas on the fifth day. This is followed by the ordering the earth to bring forth the cattle, the creeping thing, and all the lower orders of the inhabitants of the earth, and concludes the work of the sixth day by the creation of man, or forming him in the image of God.
We have both the words “made,” and “created,” used and applied to this work of the six days, where it is manifestly used in the sense of shaping, forming, fashioning, ordering, arranging, and not in the sense of the word “created” in the first sentence in the Bible, where it manifestly means creating from nothing or bringing into existence. This wonderful act of the Infinite One, of bringing into existence the heaven and the earth—this stupendous universe—may have been performed an indefinite period of time before the commencement of the work of the six days described by Moses. In this view there is no danger. It makes the work of the Creator none the less wonderful, glorious and overwhelming. It matters not how long before the work of the six days it was that “God created the heaven and the earth,” or brought the universe into existence. Nor need we be startled at