To the Saints Scattered Abroad
21
and if they glorify God by praising him, they are, by these professed
believers in the soon coming of the Lord, often considered deluded,
and charged with having mesmerism or some wicked spirit.
Many of these professed Christians dress, talk and act like the
world, and the only thing by which they may be known, is their profes-
sion. Though they profess to be looking for Christ, their conversation
is not in heaven, but on worldly things.
“What manner of persons” ought those to be “in all holy conversa-
tion and godliness,” who profess to be “looking for, and hasting unto
the day of God?”
2 Peter 3:11
. “Every man that hath this hope in him,
purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”
1 John 3:3
. But it is evident that
many who bear the advent name, study more to decorate their bodies,
and appear well in the eyes of the world, than they do the word of God,
to learn how they may be approved of him.
What if the lovely Jesus, our pattern, should make his appearance
among them, and the professors of religion generally, as at his first
Advent? He was born in a manger. Follow him along through his life
and ministry. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
These professed Christians would be ashamed of the meek and lowly
[28]
Saviour who wore a plain, seamless coat, and had not where to lay his
head. His spotless, self-denying life would condemn them; his holy
solemnity would be a painful restraint upon their lightness and vain
laughter; his guileless conversation would be a check to their worldly
and covetous conversation; his declaring the unvarnished, cutting truth,
would manifest their real character, and they would wish to get the
meek Pattern, the lovely Jesus, out of the way as soon as possible.
They would be among the first to try to catch him in his words, and
raise the cry, Crucify him! Crucify him!
Let us follow Jesus as he so meekly rode into Jerusalem, when
“the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God
with a loud voice, * * * Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the
name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. Some of
the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke
thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you, that if
these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out.” A
large portion of those who profess to be looking for Christ would be as
forward as the Pharisees were, to have the disciples silenced, and they
would doubtless raise the cry, Fanaticism! Mesmerism! Mesmerism!