TFrE

Issued monthly by "The Bible Standard Publication Society," 24, Mint Lane, Lincoln.
EDITED BY
Geo. A. BROWN, Pastor of Mint Lane Baptist Church, Lincoln.

THE BIBLE STANDARD

is devoted to the exposition of Biblical Truth, especially the doctrine of Conditional Immortality, the literal Resurrection of
the Dead, the Final Destruction of the Wicked, the Signs of the 'I'imes, the Second Coming of Christ, and His Personal Reign on earth,

" The Wages of Sin is Death; bu: the gift of God is Eternal Life throuqh. Jesus Christ our Lord,"
/

No. 5. FEBRUARY, 1878. Price Id.

GOD'S PENALTY FOR SIN.
THE subject under consideration is one of the most per-
plexing in the Theological world, made so to a great extent
by wrong deductions from certain passages of Scripture, and
also by the assumption made by the Christian world, that
man is by nature an immortal being. This, we claim, is
taken for granted without any evidence from Holy Writ.
An assumption purely based upon Heathen and Pagan
Philosophy, an assumption which forbids men from ever
coming to the Scriptural teaching of the sinner's destiny.
It compels those holding it to change the entire structure of
our language, and lands them in the most absurd and
horrible conclusions relative to that part of our race who do
not come into covenant relationship with God, through Jesus
Christ.
Amongst those who have thought on the subject,
we find some struggling with all their powers to evade
the conclusions arrived at by so many of our forefathers,
conclusions which have cast a gloom over the message of
God's love, and brought His character, which we have always
been taught to believe is love, into disrepute, and entirely
driven some away from the study of the book, which, they
suppose, teaches that horrible dogma-the eternal torment
of the wicked.
Others who have not been so radically effected, are en-
deavouring to make the book teach that all men, irrespective
of character, will finally be saved.
We must confess' that they have insurmountable diffi-
culties to contend with, in the form of direct and positive
statements that the wicked will " perish," "be destroyed,"
" not see life," &c.
If men would only settle from the Scriptures alone the
question of man's nature, and receive its plain and forcible
teachings on this subject, we feel sure that the greatest
difficulties would then be overcome.
But so long as Theologians fail to recognize the truth,
namely, that man, by or in the first Adam, is of" the earth,
earthy," and hence" mortal," just so long will the present
perplexity ahd confusion exist in the Theological world. on
this subject.
If we take for our guide the penalty pronounced. upon the
first offender by the Judge of all the earth, we cannot be
led far astray; we feel sure that it is a key which will unlock
the obscurity and perplexity which exists in the minds of
many honest and devoted Christians.
Let us fdr' a moment look at the construction put upon
the penalty, "Thou shalt surely die," by the Lord, who
passed sentence upon Adam according to the penalty of the
broken law in Paradise, We must admit that when a judge
pronounces a penalty upon a prisoner, he uses no ambiguous
language, but in the plainest manner possible, tells the
prisoner the' nature of the penalty he is about to suffer.
He hides nothing from him. In the case of the man who
comes under the greatest penalty known to human law,
when his sentence is passed, and 'after he has heard from
the mouth of the judge that he must" be hanged by the
rreck until he be dead," it needs no further explanation.
No work is created for lawyer or theologian to write a
comment on the judge's sentence, the prisoner knows too
well the nature of his punishment, and endeavours to meet
it with resignation.
Now, dear friends, we want to call your attention to the
19th verse of the Brd chapter of Genesis. In it we find the
following language used by Adam's Judge. Let us read :-
" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This is
God's definition of His own penalty, threatened if the Law
was broken, namely, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die." (Please read Article, " In the day.")
This must be so, for it is not the duty of a judge to create
34 THE BIBLE
a penalty after the Law is broken, but to define and pass that
which was given when the Law was made.
This, we think, was done in Adam's case. You will
please notice that not a word is said to Adam about his
" immortal - soul." If he had one, then we challenge the
ingenuity of man to find one single expression made by the
Judge relating to this supposed" immortal" part in the
sentence found in Genesis. Therefore, we must conclude
that if Adam was possessed of an immortal soul, and this
immortal soul was the real Adam, then the real Adam never
had any sentence passed upon him at all.
God did not say to Adam, " Thy body shall return to the
dust, and thine immortal soul shall go away into hell fire."
Such should be the structure of the sentence if orthodoxy (?)
is right.
We cannot, nay, we dare not charge God with keeping
back any part of man's penalty for sin. The sentence
passed is in perfect harmony with God's account of Adam's
creation, for we are told in Genesis ii. 7, " That God formed
man of the dust of the ground.'" Mark well this passage!
It was lI1AN which God formed, not his "house," his
le casket," but Man, and this Man is told by his Creator
after that he has broken the law, that he must" return
unto the ground, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return," and death would have been to Adam, and to all his
posterity, an eternal sleep, had not God in His mercy
promised One who should crush the serpent's head. And
when this promise was fully unfolded, and the seed came,
we find Him to be indeed a Deliverer, From what? we
ask. We answer, from death, for as He stood at the grave
of a Lazarus, and bid the dead come forth, He proved
Himself to be the long-looked-for Emancipator, and the
world to-day rejoices in the fact that death is not an eternal
sleep, for the day will come when He, who touched the bier
on which the widow's son was laid, and bid him come to
life again, shall touch old Earth and bid her give up her
dead; and they who have come into relationship with God
through Christ shall then, and not till then, sing that grand
prophetic song, " Oh, death, where is thy sting? 0, grave,
where is thy victory? "
Then, and not till then, will" this mortal put on im-
mortality, and this corruptible put on incorruption." Then
no more death for the righteous, for" they will be made
equal unto the angels to die no more."
But this cannot be said of the wicked, for they will never
be changed from their mortal state, they will never put on
immortality, they will never possess incorruptibility, but in
the words of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, " They who
have sown to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption.
The Judge, the Lord Jesus Christ, will then pass sentence
upon the prisoner according to the penalty written in the
BOOK,which is " death," for Paul says that" The wages of
STANDARD.
sin is death." And this death will be an eternal one. No
further promise is made of a Deliverer to come, but they
will be "punished with everlasting destruction from the
presence of God andjTom the glory of His power."
Let us say here that our reason can grasp, and we can
realize that such a doom is not only possible but reasonable,
when we take into account -that Man in his present state is
mortal, a probationer for Immortality through Christ. This
penalty at once appeals to us as a just one, for if man refuses
God's offer and gin of eternal life, he then must pass off the
stage of action and be as " though he had not been," for we
are given fully to understand by the language used in the
Scriptures, that the judgment fires into which the wicked will
be cast, "will bum them up" (not preserve them), that it
shall" leave them neither root nor branch."
If we take for our guide God's definition of His own
penalty, in Adam's case, we think the subject becomes clear,
and we are at once established, by Divine authority, in one
of the most intric'ate questions of the day.
Th~' Spirit of God sets forth this matter in the
strongest language possible, and illustrates it in many ways
by likening the wicked to chaff, stubble, dry branches, and
using the words, "death," "perish," "destruction,"
"consume," "burnt up," &c " words which in themselves
convey to the unbiased mind a total and final extinction of
all the wicked in that day when He shall send His Son to
judge and execute the judgments written against the
ungodly.
(To be continued.)
•
THE FIRST TEMPTATION.
" YE shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Such was
the promise of the Great Tempter to our first parents.
Such the original lie by which they were drawn away from
God.
Our translation of this passage is defective. It is a
departure from the way the same word is elsewhere
rendered. The Hebrew word is Elohim, the uniform render-
ing of which is ""God."
It is so translated in the beginning of this verse, " For
God doth know," &c. There is no reason why it should not
be' so rendered here. The Devil's promise was to make
man as God.
This deceitful promise furnishes a key to all history. It
explains the development of the individual man, and, of the
race.
And, first, the mode of this temptation is to be carefully
noticed. Satan does not appear here in the form of
absolute evil.
This was not his style of warfare then, nor is it now.
From the outset, he appears as an arch deceiver, a
 THE BIBLE
traitorous dissembler of the work and office of Christ. The
promise was to the highest good. "Ye shall be as God."
Was not God the sum of all excellence and blessedness?
Was it wrong to desire to be like Him? Does not the Word
of God present this as the lofty goal to which we are
destined, who are called to be sons of God. Has not Jesus
Christ come in the flesh to give us this power, and to exalt
us to this rank? "Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it doth not yet appeal' what we shall be; but we know
that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." The
essence of Adam's sin was that he chose to seek this lofty
prize, under the leadership of Satan, instead of calmly
waiting upon God to fulfil the desires of his heart.
The temptation of the second Adam was the same in
kind. It was a promise to the highest human exaltation,
the dominion of the world.
Adam fell into the snare, so artfully spread; and in his
fall he dragged his posterity into the same abyss of ruin.
But it is most important to observe that, in this brief
transaction, we have an epitome of the whole historical
development of the human race. When Adam became the
victim of satanic craft, the Devil was suffered to assume a
subordinate sovereignty over the human race. Our Lord
styles him" the Prince of this world." Paul writes of him
as "The god of this age." Of 'course he is limited and
overruled in his dominion by God, and specially by our Lord
Jesus Christ, unto Whom all power in heaven and earth is
now committed, and who, through His death and resurrec-
tion, has vanquished and will ultimately" cast out" and
"destroy him that hath the power of death, that is the
Devil." But the hour of Satan's (loom has not yet arrived.
The grand scheme of apostacy from God, begun in Paradise,
has not reached its climax. Satan is still abroad in the
world, conducting the drama to its crisis. In the breast of
the individual, and as the deceiver of the nations, he is still
persuading men to believe the old original lie. And to this
end, in his subordinate sovereignty of the world, he has
directed and inspired its: culture, organized its imposing
systems of trade and empire, reared its vast fabrics of
superstition, and woven its network of vain philosophies.
We may pause here, and observe how the history of every
man develops in the direction of this first temptation ..
The false fire, then kindled by Satan, gleams out even in
childhood. The self-assertion and obstinacy of children is
. but its latent working; and as the child grows up, its
imagination is filled with ambitious projects and castles in
the air. How it longs to be a greater somebody than it is!
And as the child becomes the man, the leaven of the old
lie works with accumulated power. What boundless aspira-
tions, what lofty conceits, what daring projects fill his mind!
We need not signalize eminent men of the past, or of the
present. We are all the victims of these insatiable desires.
..
STANDARD. 35
We all want to climb the heights of wealth or fame. And
at what pitch of self-exaltation will we be content to stop,
save that to which the Devil P!omises to raise us ?
"Ye shall be as God." Infinite! boundless! are these
aspirations. The soul of man cannot stop short of the
highest goal. And these flights of ambition are also
searches, on our part, after the knowledge of good and evil.
The two things are inseparably. connected.
They are strugglings of the soul to itself of the limitations
and misfortunes that encompass it as with a net. "Who will
show us any good?" is the universal cry. "Give me
wisdom, give me power, give me wealth; cause me to be
admired or feared; place me in that dream-land of the
future, or in the cloudy summits which beckon me on to
glory, and I shall have found the good my soul craves."
Thus does Satan tempt us on from one height to another,
by the vain hope that we shall run away from evil, and seize
the good, until he decoys us into that land of darkness,
where we find that, in striving to be as gods we have become
demons, and in the pursuit of good, we have landed in
the realm of all evil.
And, as with the individual. so with the race. It also
has been, and is now, deceived by the hope of attaining the
infinite good. The leaven of the original sin has pervaded,
and yet pervades, all its experiments at self-advancement.
It is manifest in the great empires that have successively
occupied the theatre of the world. It taints all the social
theories, by which it is propos.ed to rid the world of evil, and
exalt and bless man with the knowledge of the good.
To this end the scattered families of the earth were first
drawn together on the plains of Babel. "And they said, Go
to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach
unto heaven; and let us make ttS a name, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
The Lord thwarted this first attempt by confounding
their language. Afterwards, however, these attempts were
allowed to succeed ; and we have a long succession of
worldly states, under which the power of the human race
was aggrandized and its civilization 'advanced. It seems to
have been the plan of God to give the earth into the hands
of the children of this world, that they might have time and
scope to carry out their great experiments, under the leaders
ship of this world's Prince; And these experiments have
not yet closed. Every sort of theory has been, and is still
tried, by which the exaltation of the race is to be secured
and made permanent, by which the evils of its condition are
to be detected and eliminated.
These are all endeavours on the part of man to realize,
now in one form, now in another, the dream of his destiny,
and establish a peaceful and prosperous empire, which shall
give him room for expansion, and protect him from evil in
the enjoyment of the good; and in all of them it is not hard
36 THE BIBLE
to detect the workings of the old lie. It would be wrong,
indeed, to assert that these attempts have accomplished
nothing in this direction. The promise has been seemingly
fulfilled, and there is no doubt that this present experience
in sin is his appointed preparatory discipline. But his true
ultimate glory requires his present failure. Hence his
success is only partial and unreal; and, with apparent
success, his pride and self-sufficiency increase.
Grander schemes than ever now swell his mind. Greater
prizes beckon him on, and giant evils follow him into the
new fields of his conquest. But the dream of a golden age,
to be wrought out by his own efforts, still lures him on.
His triumphs over brute matter, his access to the gathered
stores of the wealth and wisdom of the past, his vast
achievements lead him to believe that the goal is near.
Hence the might, the glow, the marvellous strides of our
modern civilization. Hence the agony and blood of the
mighty struggle. Above this roar of cities and din of work-
shops, above the noise of those steaming shuttlecocks that
are weaving the world's inhabitants into one vast fabric,
above the thunder of its battle-fields is heard the voice of
the Tempter echoing the old lie, "Ye shall be as Gods," and
urging men on to higher deeds and grander struggles.
And this progress in effort and achievement, in conflict with
/
evil and grasping after good, will go on, as we are assured
in Holy Writ, until it culminates in the revelation of the
man of SIN, whose cominq is after the working-of Satan, who
is to be an incarnation of the great falsehood upon which
the world's culture is based, "Ye shall be as God," for it
is said of him that" he opposeth and exalteth himself above
all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as
God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he
is God." Under him the drama of ages shall come to its
consummation.
The promise of Satan, in its highest fulfilment, shall be
proved,a lie. Man, raised as near to God as the Devil can
raise him, shall fall like lightning from heaven; for it is
written, "Him shall the Lord consume with the spirit of
His mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His coming."
These two points, then, the first deceitful promise to make
man as God, and the revelation of Antichrist, who, under
the inspiration of Satan, shall persuade himself that he is
God, and palm himself off on the world as such, are the
termini of this age. Satan will not give up the experiment
begun with Adam until he has made his final effort. Anti-
christ will be the embodiment and masterpiece of. his
transcendent genius and patient working through these long
years. What men call the " spirit of the age" is that spirit
of Antichrist, whereof we have heard that it should come.
For the" spirit of the age" totally denies the world's need
of the coming of the Lord from heaven, and vaunts itself as
able to work out the great problem of human destiny in its
STANDARD.
own strength. When men do homage to the spirit of the
age, they worship the Prince of this world.
And yet how many Christians are worshippers at this
altar! Protestant Christians have been quick to discern its
working in the bosom of the Church, in Rome's effort to
realize the kingdom of God before the time. But are they
aware that the majority of their purer faith have fallen into
a delusion no less subtle and dangerous? Has Protestant
Christianity proved itself any more able to realize the
kingdom? And yet the common doctrine of a Millennium,
before the coming of Christ, involves such a belief; and
worse than all, the hope of achieving this result rests
partly upon the" spirit of the age."
This doctrine denies any necessity for the judgment of
this world, and the casting out of its Prince (John xii. 31)
before the kingdom of God can come upon the earth.
Hence it looks for no such crisis and divine intervention
as the Advent doctrine requires. Instead of regarding
the present progress of the world as a ripening for
judgment, it expects it to ripen into a Millennium. Verily
the false Christs of modern civilization have deceived many.
Most of the visible Church is ready to welcome Antichrist·
Not only all the world shall wander after him, but those
Christians who, by their 'false theory, say, " My Lord de-
layeth His coming," are not at all prepared to resist his
claims.
The Lord grant that His people may be warned in time,
for such shall be the strength and subtilty of this last form
of Satan's working, that all worldly-minded Christians will
be deceived.
Therefore, " Watch," that ye may be accounted worthy to
escape all these things which are coming on the earth.-
L.O.B.
IN THE DAY.-Gen. ii. 17.
OUR opponents frequently refer to this passage to substantiate
their claim that the penalty pronounced upon Adam was a
moral or spiritual death, and that he at once paid the
penalty by being severed from God, thus causing a loss of
holiness, &c.
It is somewhat difficult to understand what is meant
exactly by the term spiritual death, for if physical death is a
total extinction of all life from the body, then spiritual death
would, of course, result in a total extinction of all life from
the spirit; hence, according to this reasoning, the spirit died
before the body, therefore the sinner must carry about with
him a dead spirit. But we are told that the spirit cannot
die. Then what are we to understand by the term that
Adam died a " spiritual death"? We are told in reply that
it means a separation from God, a separation from holiness
and happiness. But. we should like to ask our friends where
 THE BIBLE
they obtained this ingenious definition of Goers penalty upon
Adam, for we have no record that God ever said anything of
the kind, and if he did not, then from whence do they derive
their authority? They tell us it must mean this, for
Adam did not die literally in the day that he eat of the for
bidden fruit. We fail to see a " needs be" in this matter.
On the other hand, adopting the popular view of the penalty,
it involves us in difficulties out of which we can not see our
way.
Let us take for granted that Adam's penalty was a spiritual
death, and this spiritual death consists in being a sinner, an
alien from God, one without holiness, &c.
Can we, then, reconcile this position with Christ's work of
atonement? for, if the penalty on Adam was a moral death,
then, inasmuch as Christ suffered the same penalty to
redeem man, He must die a moral death. In that case it
would be necessary for Him to become a sinner. But the
Scriptures affirm that He "did no sin, neither was guile
found in His mouth," (1 Peter ii. 22), therefore, moral or
spiritual death was not the penalty for sin.
Again, if the penalty pronounced against sin was a
spiritual death, which consists of being a sinner and an alien
from God, then the words, "In the day thou eatest thou
shalt surely die," are merely equal to saying, in the day
you sin you will become a sinner, and are no longer a
penalty, but a needless statement of an obvious fact-a
truism. Once more, if the penalty was a spiritual death, not
a literal one, it was only a figurative death, and really no
death at all. The difficulty, we think, is all removed when
the facts in the case are presented.
The statement, "Thou shalt surely die," occurs in twenty
other passages besides Gen. ii 17, and in them all it refers to
a literal death. Why say its first use (when language was
in its simplest form) is a figurative one? We think, if any
such assumption were necessary, it would be more reason-
able to assume that the day mentioned was figurative rather
than the penalty.
When speaking on Gen. ii.7, Dr. Clarke says :-" From
that moment thou shalt become mortal, and shall continue in
a dying state till thou die." This we find literally ac-
complished.
By anticipation Adam was a dead man when he .had
partaken of the forbidden fruit. During the plagues upon
the Egyptians, they urged the children of Israel to depart,
saying, " We be all dead men." Exodus xii. 33. In con-
sequence of what Abimelech had done, the Lord came to him
" in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but
a dead man." Gen. xx. 3. So, when a man takes poison,
we say of him, " He is a dead man," by which we mean he
will certainly die in consequence of taking the poison.
Instead of "Thou shall surely die," the Greek of Sym-
machus reads, "Thou shalt be mortal; likewise the Syriac,
STANDARD. 37
which is approved by Jerome, Grotius, Chrysostom, Theodoret,
Ambrose, the Venerable Bede, Patrick, Mant, Henry, and
Dr. Payne. The Targum of Jonathan reads, "Thou shalt be
subject to death."
In harmony with the foregoing, it should be stated that the
Hebrew preposition "be" rendered "in," is translated
thirteen ways in the Bible. But three of these thirteen
renderings would make sense in Gen. ii. 17, and these are
" in," " after," and" against." "Against" would hardly be
appropriate in the passage, and we drop it, leaving the
choice between "in" and "after." "In the day that thou
eatest thereof," and" after the day," are expressions equally
sensible and proper, and the choice between the two depends
entirely upon the meaning of the passage. In Num. xxviii.
26, the same preposition" be "is correctly translated both
in and after in the same verse as follows :-" Also in the day
of the first fruits, when ye bring a new meat-offering unto
the Lord, after your weeks be out." Genesius says, the
Hebrew preposition" be" should be rendered after, " where
- the mind rests more upon the end of a period, and spoken
therefore of time already past." This is the case with the
sentence pronounced on Adam, in Gen. ii. 17.
Had it been rendered "after the day that thou eatest
.thereof thou shalt surely die," it would have been in harmony
with all the facts and statements connected with the history
of the first man. The Lord did not design that he should
die in that day, for He says to him.rin Gen iii. 19, " In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto'
the ground." This passage shows that the Lord designed
A dam should live " till" a certain period, and then he would
" return unto the ground." H he had died in the day he ate
of the tree, it would have exterminated the human race, for
Adam had no children at that time.
Those who translated the received version of the
Scriptures, in King James' time, believed man to be im-
mortal, consequently he could not die a literal death. .It
would not have been in harmony with their views to
translate the preposition" be" by the word'" after." Let
the death penalty pronounced against Adam be literal death,
and all is plain and harmonius, We think it is obvious that
the penalty for Adam's sin was literal death.
•
THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH.
A SIGH! You all know it well, this sigh of sadness, this
sigh of expectation. We are ill at ease. All of us, whether
we be happy or unhappy, have a burden to bear, the burden
of human woes. There is no escape from our deep con-
sciousness.c=intensified perhaps by the breathless hurry of
our age,-of the short duration of all earthly things.
The best are soonest over, but all pass in exceeding haste,
38 THE BIBLE
and we ourselves seem as though a mighty and resistless
wind were sweeping us away.
Formerly, tidings, whether good or bad, were slow of step;
we hardly knew what was going on at the other side of the
globe till a year after the event. If blood had been spilled,
the earth had had time to drink it up; if tears had flowed,
the SUll had had time to dry them. The grief that spoke to
us from afar, left the heart comparatively unmoved. Things
are changed now. The tree of the knowledge of good and
evil has bent its branches more within our reach, and each
moment our greedy hands are raised to gather its fruit.
And the result is not only an anxious restlessness, but a
fund of bitter melancholy.
Formerly, the general tone was one of gaiety. The note
that an attentive observer would have heard prevailing over
all others, was a crystalline serene note, echoing from the
cottage to the palace. The note that echoes over our earth
at this present hour, in the village, town, or quiet country,
is a wailing note, akin to tears,-an immense sigh.
As for me, from my heart there ever rises an unutterable
groan. The world, as it now is, does not satisfy me: still
less do I satisfy myself. Creation suffers and laments with
me. St. Paul expresses this mighty woe in one strong
word-" travaileth in pain."
What is it that we are looking' for-death? It is here,
taking us all away at our appointed hour. Death is a
curse; it sweeps the .earth bare, but cannot transform it.
Is it the final judgment.The awful hour, that even the re-
deemed of the Lord cannot contemplate unmoved?
The judgment crushes the guilty; but creation is not
saved. Is it the final destruction, the devouring fire pre-
dicted in Scripture ? This will destroy the earth, but will
not restore its innocence or beauty. Is it the new heaven
and the new earth? But it is this world that has suffered,
and to it special promises have been made. The whole
creation plunged in misery, the oppression of the poor,
nature fallen from its first estate-all ask for something
beside, claim some other promise, wait for something more!
What is it that creation hopes for? For its deliverance!
For what does it sigh? For its restoration l What does it
wait for? For Jesus the King! He will come again!
This cry flchoes throughout the Scriptures. He will come
again. He who publishes liberty to the captives, and
crushes death beneath His foot-He will come again. With
Him will come purity, love, the era of perfect blessedness
foretold by the prophets.
The messengers. of the Lord in all times speak to us of a
sanctified world, singing praises to God; we only know a
sinful world, hurling complaints and blasphemies against
Him. Happiness overflows the earth of which they speak.
Our earth is the seat of desolation. They tell us of " times
of refreshing." Our times are times of exhaustion. Peace,
STANDARD.
love, exceeding great joy here on earth, both with God and
our fellow-creatures, these are promised; and, behold, wars
ravage, tears inundate our worlc1; sorrow for death draws
her dark veil round it; the angels as they pass it in their
heavenward flight hear a murmur of plaintive cries, angry
voices, and mad laughter, sadder still than tears. From age
to age generations of believers have been laid in the grave,
their faces turned to the east; and each, in dying, has left
behind the sublime watchword, " Thy kingdom come! "
Yea, Lord, Thy kingdom come! Scoffers, indeed, may
laugh, "Where is the promise of His coming?" "Since
the fathers fell asleep, all things have gone on as they
were." vYe have nothing to answer, 'and nothing to ask,
but simply, " Thy kingdom come! "
Thy kingdom come! It is at once a prayer and a pledge.
He who told us thus to pray is He who will surely come.
If hearts big with love, hands clasped-if with strong crying
and tears, the whole earth were to raise this burning
aspiration to the skies,-oh, I believe that the Lord would,
hear, I believe, indeed, that the Lord would come. "Even
so, come; Lord Jesus! "-Selected.
IMMORTALITY.
WHOhas it? "Every man," is the response which comes
from many quarters. Pardon us if we differ from the mass
in this respect, for the Bible tells us very plainly that Jesus
Christ, the King immortal, invisible, only hath immortality.
And we can only obtain it through Him, at the resurrection
of the just, when" this mortal shall put on immortality, and
this corruptible shall put on incorruptibility.
Man's Immortality depends upon his being in covenant
relationship with God through our Lord -Jesus Christ, who
will bestow this precious gift upon His people at the, re-
surrection.
It is written that" God gave His only-begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have ever-
lasting life."
Again it is written, "The wages of sin is death, but the
gift of God is etemallife through our Lord Jesus Christ."
The Master once said, " My sheep heal' My voice, and they
follow Me, and I give untt:l them Eternal life."
Again He said, "This is the will of Him that sent 11e,
that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him,
may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last
day."
Christ is called" the Door," "the Bread of Life," "the
Resurrection and the Life." He is called "the Prince of
Life," " the Life Giver." He it was who brought Life and
immortality to light through the Gospel, hence we would
remind our readers that if they hope for a future life apart
from Christ, they will be miserably mistaken, for in Him
alone abides the attribute of Immortality-He is made the
Channel through which it must flow to man, for "this is
the record, that God hath given to us Eternal. life, and this
life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he
that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (i.e. eternal).
1 John v. 11, 12.
 THE BIBLE
NOT KNO-WING.
* KNOW not what will befall me! God hangs a mist o'er my eyes,
.Jfi: And before each step of mv onward path, He makes new scenes to rise;
And every joy he sends me, comes as a sweet and glad surprise,
J see not a step before me, as I tread the days of the year,
But the past is still in God's keeping, the future His mercy will clear;
And what looks dark in thedistance may brighten as I draw near,
For perhaps the dreaded future has less bitter than I think;
The Lord may sweeten the wat-r before I stoop to drink;
Or if Marah must be Marah, will stand beside its brink.
It may be He keeps waiting for the coming of my feet,
Some gift of such rare blessedness, some joy so strangely sweet,
That my lips can only tremble with the thanks I cannot speak.
0, restful, blissful iguorauce l "I'is blessed not to know,
It keeps me quite in thosearms which will not let me go,
And hushes my soul to rest, on the bosom which loves me so.
So I go on, not knowing! I would not, if I might;
I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light,
I would rather walk with Him by faith than walk alone by sight.
My heart shrinks back from trials which the future may disclose,
Yet I never had a sorrow but what the dear Lord chose;
So I send the coming tears back, with the whispered words, "He knows.' ,
SELEC1'ED.
• That day will surely come. We may smooth things over
LOOK OUT FOR A THAW!
WHAT a mantle of charity winter casts over the short-
comings and wrong-doings of men in the out-door world.
Farms, gardens, fences, walls, weeds, stones, order and
disorder, neatness and confusion, all alike are smoothed
over, and covered up by the fleecy whiteness of the falling
snow. And on through all the winter, if a shovelful of
ashes, 01' a handful of potato parings, or a pan of apple
cores or onion skins, or a pail of dish-water, or a tub of
suds, or the dirt from a stove-pipe, or a dust-pan, have been
thrown out where they ought not to have been, a few
minutes' snow-fall, and all is covered, and looks as fail' as
hypocrisy, and as clean as a whited sepulchre.
But, alas! covering up is not cleaning up, by a long way;
and the day of revelation will surely come. A January
thaw damages the fair illusion; a season of February slush
makes havoc with the smooth exterior. A light snowfall
may stay the dreaded exposure, but as the sun shines on,
concealment be-comes impossible. If the thaw could dissolve
filth and shreds, scraps and rags, dust and ashes, bones and
buttons, it would be very pleasant; but it does no such
thing. One by one the frozen coverings vanish before the
increasing heat; one by one the signs of dirt, disorder, and
carelessness stand out, until the last veil is rent, and the
misdeeds of a six-months lie in full relief stand before our
astonished gaze.
There are multitudes of men in this world, deluding them-
selves with the idea that covering up their faults is as good
as clearing them up and repenting of them. They wrap the
mantle of their charity over their own misdoings, and then
offer a fresh snow-squall of apologies, explanations, decep-
STANDARD. 39
tions, and misrepresentations, which they think will make
all right. And then everything seems clean, and smooth,
and pure, and fair, and comely, but-loole out for a thaw.
It will surely come. The veil will lift, the snow melt, the
sepulchre will scent through all the whitewash, the thaw
cut through the subterfuges, and sweep away the refuges of
lies; the man will find the sheep-skin torn from his wolfish
back, and will stand forth as he is,-mean, vile, crooked,
and contemptible, an offence, a loathing, and an abomination.
And if such revelations astound the world even here,
what shall men say, when, standing in the blazing glory of
the judgment hour, they shall see their mantle of hypocrisy
rent in twain, the last concealing guise removed, and ·the
light of God revealing the sins and crimes of a life-time of
iniquity and shame. How long-forgotten sins shall start to
view! How long-hidden crimes shall start up from
memory's dark retreat! And how men shall feel and 'CltOW,
as they never knew before, the value of Christ's forgiving
grace and cleansing blood.
in time,-God will reveal them in eternity. At last they
must be settled. But how much better to have them settled
now; how much better to prove the virtue of the 'blood of
Jesus Christ. How much better to have Jesus cleanse our
sins, than to seek ourselves to cover them. How much
'better to hide now in the Rock of Ages, than to call for
rocks and mountains to shelter us in that day.
Reader, if you have not attended to this matter, wisdom
bids you do so at once.-II. L. Hastiuqs,
THE SLEEP OF DEATH.
" Do you think the little girl was really dead?" asked the
teacher of a class of neglected-looking boys, gathered in
from the lanes, who had been painfully toiling to read
through the story of Jal'-i-us' daughter.
" Please, 'm, I think she was," answered a raggecl little
fellow at the end of the-form.
" Why, then, do you think; did the Lord Jesus say she,
was sleeping?
" Please, 'm, it ,was only sleep to Him, He could wake her
so easy."
"Only sleep to Him." How sweet the thought, that
terrible as death is to us, with its icy chill, its gloomy paler,
its dust and ashes, and corruption, it is " only sleep to Him"
who has the keys of hell (or the grave) and of death, and
can wake the slumberer with His slightest word!
Let us then bury our dead in hope. Gloomy as death
seems to us, "it is only a sleep to Him," and the hour is
coming when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice
of the Son of God, and shall come forth, and those who sleep
in Jesus shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and
so be forever with the Lord.-Selected.
/
, •i
40 THE BIBLE STANDARD,

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Your life may be one of deep, deep sorrow. Your way may
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that He, who passed that way before you, knows how to Mint Lane Chapel, Lincoln.
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Learn then to trust the same in the darkness and fury of
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The Pastor, Geo. A. BROWN,
in both conditions. Our darlmes is no impediment to Him,
Will deliver special discourses on Sunday evenings,
for God can see our needs j ust as well in the dark as in the through the month of February, as follows:
light. So, Christian, cheer thee! fur He will keep thee to Feb. 3rd. { " Life and Immortality, through Christ alone.
the end, and neve1',no, nerer will He leave or forsake thee. ,,10th. N<:>Immortality for the wicked."
" 17th. Anniversary Services, Morning and Evening.
" 24th. "The Resurrection."
THAT the soul is naturally immortal is contradicted by
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