,•• Stn "Sanctify therct throUgh Thy DWI): Thy Word is trafh."—John %vit. 17. Vol. 12. LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 1i, 1896 No. 24. and God'd works. Our works are always for ever " (Heb. xiii. 8), and therefore God prestat Crutb. faulty ; God's works are always perfect ; not only was but is in Christ, reconciling PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY THE therefore it is God's works that we need in the world unto Himself. So if Christ International Tract Society, Ltd., order to be perfect. But we are not able dwells in the heart by faith, the works of 59, Paternoster Row, E. C. to do God's works, for He is infinite, and God will be manifest in the life ; " for it is Annual Subscription, By Post, 68. 6d. we are nothing. For a man to think him- God which worketh in you both to will and Make all Orders and Cheques payable to the International self able to do God's works is the highest to do of His good pleasure." Phil. ii. 13. Tract Society, Limited, 481, Holloway Road, London, N. presumption. We laugh when a five-year- To be had at Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son's Railway old boy imagines that he can do his father's How this is done, is not within the Bookstalls, or through any News Agent. work ; how much more foolish for puny range of our comprehension. We do not WHATSOEVER is not of faith is sin." man to imagine that he can do the works need to know how it is done, since we do Rom. xiv. 23. of the Almighty. not have it to do. The fact is enough for us. We can no more understand how THEREFORE it is that " being justified " GOODNESS is not an abstract thing; it is God does His works, than we can do those —made righteous—" by works. So the Christian life faith, we have peace with is always a mystery, even to God through our Lord Jesus the Christian himself. It is Christ." Rom. v. 1. a life hidden with Christ in God. Col. iii. 3. It is hid- FAITH, not works, is that den even from the Christian's through which men are own sight. Christ in man, saved. " For by grace are the hope of glory, is the My faith looks up to thee, ye saved, through faith; and Thou Lamb of Calvary, mystery of the Gospel. Col. Saviour divine! i. 27. that not of yourselves; it is Now hear me While I pray, the gift of God ; not of Take all my guilt away, 0, let me from this day works, lest any man should Be wholly thine! IN Christ we are created boast." Eph. ii. 8, 9. unto good works which God has already prepared .for " WHERE is boasting, then ? It is ex- action, and action is found only in living us. We have only to accept them by eluded. By what law? of works? Nay; beings. And since God alone is good, only faith. The acceptance of those good works but by the law of faith. Therefore we His works are of any account. Only the is the acceptance of Christ. How long conclude that a man is justified by faith man who has God's works is righteous. " before " did God prepare those good without the deeds of the law." Rom. iii. But since no man can do God's works, it works for us ?—" The works were finished 27, 28. necessarily follows that God must give from the foundation of the world. For them to us, if we are saved. This is just He spake in a certain place of the seventh THE Gospel excludes boasting, and what He does for all who believe. day on this wise, And God did rest the boasting is a natural consequence of all seventh day from all His works. And in attempts at justification by works; yet the WHEN the Jews in their self-sufficiency this place again, If they shall "—i.e. they, Gospel does not exclude works. On the asked, " What shall we do that we might the unbelieving, shall not—" enter into My contrary, works—good works—are the one work the works of God ? " Jesus replied, rest." Heb. iv. 3-5. But " we which grand object of the Gospel. " For we are " This is the work of God, that ye believe have believed do enter into rest." His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus on Him whom- He hath sent." John vi. unto good works which God hath before 28, 29. Faith works. Gal. v. 6 ; 1 Thess. THH Sabbath, theiefore,—the seventh prepared that we should walk in them." i. 3. It brings God's works into the be- day of the week,—is God's rest. God Eph. ii. 10, with margin. lieving one, since it brings Christ into the gave the Sabbath as a sign by which men heart (Eph. iii. 17), and in Him is all the might know that He is God, and that He THERE is not the slightest contradiction fulness of God. Col. ii. 9. Jesus Christ sanctifies. Eze. xx. 12, 20. Sabbath- here. The difference is between our works is " the same yesterday, and to-day, and keeping has nothing whatever to do with 370 THE PRESENT TRUTH. No. 24. justification by works, but is, on the con- By force a man's fears may he so wrought ness rules, inordinate desires fill the mind trary, the sign and seal of justification by upon that he may say he believes, and he and occupy the ambition, insanity de- faith; it is a sign that man gives up his may act as though he believed. That is to velops. own sinful works and accepts God's per- say, a man who fears man rather than But it is not in the last development of fect works. Since the Sabbath is not a God may he forced to lie. But "no lie is actual insanity where the greatest and work, but a rest, it is the mark of rest in of the truth." Therefore since the Sabbath most widespread harm is done,—it is in God through faith in our Lord Jesus is the sign of perfect faith, it is the sign of the intermediate stages of selfish lives, Christ. perfect liberty—" the glorious liberty of the hardened hearts, and the drying of the children of God "—the liberty which the very sources of the milk of human kind- No other day than the seventh day of Spirit gives ; for the Sabbath, as a part of ness, so that a man's foes are found to be the week can stand as the mark of perfect God's law, is spiritual. And so, finally, those of his own household. Thus the rest in God, because on that day alone did let no one deceive himself with the thought corrupt nature of man conspires with the God rest from all His works. It is the that an outward observance of even God's originator of all evil to dethrone human rest of the seventh day, into which He appointed rest-day—the seventh day— reason, and bring about the eternal de- says the unbelieving, cannot enter. It without faith and trust in God's Word struction of as many of the human race as alone of all the _days of the week is the alone, is the keeping of God's Sabbath. will yield themselves servants to sin and rest day, and it is inseparably connected " For whatsoever is not of faith is sin." Satan. with God's perfect work. In the nature of things the continuance of this is unavoidable so long as Satan DOES THE WORLD GROW BETTER? ON the other six days, including the lives and the nature of man remains cor- rupt. Man has made every possible pre- first day of the week, God worked. On Is THE world growing better, and will it paration for continuing his part of the those days we also may and ought to work. continue to improve ? There are men who Yet on every one of them we also may and Satanic work. Will Satan himself be be- profess what they think to be a happy ought to rest in God. This will be the hind man in the furthering of his own Christian optimism, who think and teach case if our works are " wrought in God." purposes ? Certainly not. The only es- that this is so. They make a mistake in John iii. 21. So men should rest in God cape, then, from the continued develop- the fact, and they are in error, too, in every day in the week; but the seventh ment of evil is the Divine intervention. thinking their view the highest optimism. day alone can be the sign of that rest. God will intervene. He has said so. He To prove them wrong in the fact, it is only will remove all evil and the author of all necessary to go to the Scriptures and the evil out of existence. Righteousness will Two things may be noted as self-evident sure Word of prophecy. Here we are as- reign. It is the highest optimism to be- conclusions of the truths already set forth. sured that the wheat and the tares shall lieve this as God has said it, and to do His One is that the setting apart of another grow together until the end, and that will awaiting that glorious consummation. day than the seventh, as a sign of accept- " evil men and seducers shall wax worse ance of Christ and of rest in God through and worse." Him, is in reality a sign of rejection of This, in itself, is enough to show that Priests In Politics.—The Roman Catho- Him.