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minds. They cannot weigh the evidences of truth, and comprehend the
requirements of God. Our Saviour will not reach his arm low enough
to raise such from their degraded state, while they persist in pursuing
a course to sink themselves still lower.
All are required to do what they can to preserve healthy bodies,
and sound minds. If they will gratify a gross appetite, and by so doing
blunt their sensibilities, and becloud their perceptive faculties so that
they cannot appreciate the exalted character of God, or delight in the
study of his Word, they may be assured that God will not accept their
unworthy offering any sooner than that of Cain. God requires them to
cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of the Lord. After man has done all in his power to
insure health, by the denying of appetite and gross passions, that he
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may possess a healthy mind, and a sanctified imagination, that he may
render to God an offering in righteousness, then he is saved alone by a
miracle of God’s mercy, as was the ark upon the stormy billows. Noah
had done all that God required of him in making the ark secure, then
God performed that which man could not do, and preserved the ark by
his miraculous power.
Our Redeemer, laying aside his glory and majesty, to take human
nature, and to die man’s sacrifice, was a miracle of God. It was God’s
wise arrangement to save fallen man. God requires his people to be
laborers together with him. He requires them to abstain from fleshly
lusts, which war against the soul, and present their bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is the only service he will
accept from reasonable mortals. Jesus has stooped very low in order
to reach man in his low estate. And God requires of man to make
earnest efforts, and deny self, that he may preserve his vigor of mind,
and elevate himself, and imitate the example of him in whom was no
guile. Then will he be benefited with the atonement of Christ. As
the Lord bade faithful Noah before the flood, Come thou, and all thy
house, into the ark, he will, previous to the time of trouble, say to his
faithful saints, who have been preparing for translation, “Come, my
people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee.
Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be
overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth, also, shall disclose
her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”