23 Then answered Peter, If you talk in this style, be sure your Covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. Your pretended Life-boats and Preservers will do you no more good than if they were belts of gold girded about you, and sure to sink you by their own weight, deeper in perdition, unless you take refuge in him, who only is the Resurrection and the Life.2+ 23 Is. xxviii. 18. 24 John xi. 25. CHAPTER XI. A TALK ABOUT THE KING'S CHART.-WHO WROTE IT? HOW READS IT? AND WHAT DOTH IT CONTAIN?— -IT IS ITSELF THE WHOLE WORD OF GOD, AND BY ITS WORDS ALL MANKIND ARE TO BE JUDGED IN THE words Resurrection and the Judgment seemed to stir up scorn and wrath in the mind of Captain Glib's first mate, almost as if a mad dog had bitten him. Ho, ho! said he; you talk of that old story of the Resurrection and the Judgment, just as if all men were not judged in this life, and raised as fast as they die, to a new life, there being no death of the soul possible for any man, since Christ hath died. We can tell you a thing or two about these mysteries. We have a much better understanding of the Scriptures and their watch-words, than our old Translators ever had. Then said John to Peter, One might think that two persons at least had really made a resurrection already, and were here before us, namely, Hymeneus and Philetus, who concerning the Resurrection have erred, and have said that it is past already, and overthrow the faith of some,' or those other two, who, putting away conscience, concerning faith have made shipwreck, namely, Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." Can we do any good by talking with such persons any longer? Would it not be like casting pearls before swine? 3 3 Then answered Peter, These men do indeed seem given over to strong delusion to believe a lie. But just ask him if he has the King's Chart aboard ship. Then said John to the man, What do you sail by? Have you got the King's Chart in your cabin? of DEISM. To be sure we have it, and an Amended and Do-away Version of it. But do you think that was meant to tie us down to one and the same line passage in all generations? Do you think there has been no progress in navigation and the knowledge of the seas, all this time of the ages? Why, you don't suppose we are such bigoted, superstitious fools, as to go for navigation in this nineteenth century by the letter of a record made near two thousand years ago! 1 2 Tim. ii. 17. 3 Matt. vii. 6. 21 Tim. i. 19, 20. 4 2 Thess. ii. 11. No, no! We belong to the School of Progress. Do you think Science is going to advance at such a rate, and Religion stand still? Or that Christians are for ever to be like a wheel in a treadmill, always turning over the same route, grinding the same bark? I tell you we are tired of that, and the world is growing older. Then said John, All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And the Word of the Lord cannot possibly be an unknown, uncertain quality, or quantity; certainly, no more uncertain than the measurement and contents of your yacht and our ship, or the points of the compass by which our whole navigation is guided. Did not He that made the Universe make all the elements and all their combinations in it. And he that made these seas, and this firmament above us, did he not make North and South also, and order all points between East and West, and their whole relations, one to another, and to the whole globe? Did not the Creator of the world make the stars also, and he that drew the circle of the heavens, all that is within their circumference. Is not the Volume of Nature one, and do we not know that it contains at this day exactly the same 51 Pet. i. 24, 25. stars and constellations, within the same bounds and under the same laws, as when Christ the Lord walked the earth in Judea, and beheld the same seven stars and the North Star, that his hearers beheld, and that we too behold, and guide our course accordingly? Does not the sky contain all the Star-dust, and is there any portion that we do not know belongs to God who gave it? Even so, all that is contained in the volume of God's Word is God's Word, having God's meaning. You might as well say that the human frame contains, we do not know what, nor where the heart or the lungs are stationed in it, or for what purpose; or that a pine-apple contains the fruit, but we do not know exactly what is the fruit or the mere rind; or in a cocoanut, what the milk and what the husk; or this ship of ours, what the keel and what the cabin and its contents; or your steam yacht, what the engine and what the steam. It is but old wives' fables and vain jangling to talk of the volume of the Scriptures that Jesus Christ quoted as the whole truth of God, absolutely known and certain, as if it were a volume containing his Word only in some unknown and uncertain portions. Of what use would such a compass be in navigation? Nay, it would be more useless, with such uncertainty, than a book of blank pages to be filled |