ZION’S Avciust 15, 1902 as Gol informs us of his appreciation of this quality, and that he cin deal with us only in proportion as we possess it, so in WATCH TOWER (259 260) our own experiences we find that we love most to assist and encourage those who manfiest an abiding confidence in us. Ven AXII ALLEGHENY, PA., SEPTEMBER 1, 1902 No. 17 VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER DR. HENSON AND THE FALL Having been obliged in the past to criticize the teachings of the celebrated Baptist preacher, P. S. Henson, in respect to the eternal torment of the large proportion of our race being the divine program, we are the more pleased now to be able to quote with approval his public utterances respecting original sm—the Fall of man—from the image and likeness of his creator. He Sys: “The Bible does not declare how old are the heavens and the eaith, but only that in the ‘beginning,’ whenever that was, the Lord created them. How long were the creative processes we aie not informed, for the word translated, ‘day’ in Genesis is often employed in the Bible to denote great tracts of time. “As to the method of creation the Scriptures make no explicit statement, though an evolutionist might imagine that he found some shadow of support for his theory when he 1eads that the Lord said: ‘Let the waters bring forth such creatures as live im the water, and let the earth bring forth such creatures as live on the land.’ As to man, indeed, a different formula en tirely 1s used, for God said: ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness.’ THE FIRST MAN “But whether He made man by direct creative act or by the slow evolutiona1y processes of the ages. the great fact remains that He made him, and this is all that the Bible directly declares. But whenever made and however made there must have heen a first man, and as he had a name, or ought to have had, at least, for the purposes of history there would seem to be no vahd objection, save that which arises from the ‘odium theologicum’ to the traditionary name of ‘Adam.’ So far, then, there would seem to be no reasons for controversy between the foremost scientist and the most literal Seripturalist. “The great battle ground is rather to be found in the third chapter of Genesis, which gives an account of that tremendous transaction which by common consent through all the ages has heen denominated ‘the fall of man.’ And never was there a more widely prevalent disposition than there is today to diseicdit the whole Seripture narrative and to brand it as preposterous and absurd. And many timid souls have been so overawed by the toplofttiness of the modern critics that they scarecly dare affirm their belief in the substantial verity of the Bible story. FACTS FOR DOUBTERS “Now, for the confirmation and the consolation of such quaking Ehs there are a few things it may be helpful to remember. The opening and the closing scenes of man’s ‘strange, eventful history’ as portrayed in the Bible are each laid in a garden—the one in Eden and the other in Paradise Whether the trees and rivers described in both stand for literal trees and rivers, such as we are accustomed to, does not concern our present purpose But they stand for something, and no doubt the real fact will at last he found to be far heyond the figure. ARGUMENT PROVING FALL “Now, whatever may be said of the figurative character of the language of Genesis, some things loom up as indubitably true untess the whole story he discredited as a tissue of lies. “One is that man’s original state was a state of innocence. Of course it was if he eame fresh from the hand of God by direct. creative act. And the like might be affirmed if the life he wore was the Jast result of evolution from the brute creation. No brute is a sinner, for he always acts up to the nature that is in him, but man is a sinner, and therefore some time, somehow he must have fallen, for now he consciously lives Yelow his proper level. His very nature is depraved in its propensities, and therefore now ‘when he would do good evil is present with him.’ “We excuse the sinner of today on the ground of bad heredity, hut how came he by the bad heredity’? We only dodge the difficulty by removing it farther hack. And yet we cannot help asking whence flows the filthy stream that befouls all hun an history? The Scriptures locate the foundation. Has philosophy been able to do any better? INTERDICT AGAINST EVIL “The second indubitable thing is that God laid upon man an interdict. What a pity and a shame, cries the horrified eritie that God should set a snare by winch to entrap the unsuspecting creature of His hand! “And yet if man were to be a subject and not a sovereign it must some day and im some way be determined whose will was to be law upon this planet. If that matter once for all were to be tested, can any complainant conceive of a test more wise, more considerate, more conclusive than the one that was was adopted? But what an outrage to interdict knowledge! and the devil has rung the changes on that outrage all down the ages. But he hes about this, as 1s his wont about everything else. It was not the tree of knowledge about which God drew a cordon, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—such knowledge of good and evil as comes from experience in evil doing. And the very words employed suggest their symbolic significance. MAN’S NATURE POLLUTED “The third great fact that looms up darkly is that man transgressed the interdict and went beyond the bounds that God im wisdom and in love, and from the very necessities of being, had appointed, and so laid himself liable to the penalty which the Sovercign of the universe must needs attich to violated law Not only so, but in the act of transgression he did violence to his own nature as well as to the law of God, and so became crippled and depraved. That nature he transmitted to his posterity ; for the Word reads that ‘he begat a son in his own lhkeness.’ God never made a thing like Cain. Humanity in its totality was in Adam, and therefore in a very true sense what was done by Adam was done by us all, for the nature that was in Adam is in us all. It is not then without reason that we speak of the ‘old man’ in us, for it comes down to us from the very fountain head of humanity, and if the fountain head be foul nothing but the salt of the grace of God can purify the stream that flows from it. THE BIBLICAL REMEDY “However much the language may be abused, there is such a thing as ‘the solidarity of society’ and the ‘umty of race.’ It is true that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations to dwell on the face of the earth,’ and henee if one member suffer all the memhers suffer with it, and being partakers of a common nature and all its heritage of pain and penalty, up from the depth of the sin and sorrow into which the first Adam has plunged us, we need to look to the Seeond Adam through whose atoning death we have redempticn from the eurse of sin, and through identification with whose risen life we are made partakers of the divine nature and are reinstated in the relationship of sonship to God. “Such we believe to he substantially the Scripture doctrine of the fall of man through Adam and the restoration of man through Jesus Christ.” “THE WAY OF THE LORD MORE PERFECTLY’’ The foregoing is good—Seriptural and logical; but Brother Henson should carry the question farther on the same Scriptural and logical plane if he would have the whole truth. For instance: WAS THE REAL PENALTY NOT STATED IN THE SENTENCE? (1) Where does the Doctor get his theory of eternal torment? Answer. Undoubtedly from this doctrine of the Fall where all other ‘‘orthodox” people claim to find it. The claim is that our Creator not only meant all that he said in his threat to our first parents, and in the curse or sentence following it, but unutterably and infernally more: that when he said, “Dying thou shalt die,” and, “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return,’ he meant not only all the degradation and pain and anguish and dying of the past 6,000 years, referred to above by Dr. Henson, but included also an eternity of anguish hevond this mentioned dying—for the disobedient pair and for all their unfortunate offspring who would not he so blessed as to escape it by being of the “elect,’—hbrought to a knowledge of the Lord, assisted to faith and obedience and sanctification of spirit, and to correct views of baptism and obedience thereto, Where in the Scripture will the Doctor find for vs this diabolical plan set forth as the divine plan of the ages which our Heavenly Father purposed in himself before the world was? Nowhere! Where will he find logic or reason to support such a theory? Nowhere! Logie and all the facts known to men corrohorate the Seripture teachings that God declared the whole truth in the death sentence promulgated against our first parents when they sinned, and inherited by their posterity in a natural way. This sentence ineludes mental, moral and physical degeneracy, as [3065]
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