The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 55

April 1, 1880

“A Review of Paine’s ‘Age of Reason.’ (Continued.)” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 55, 14, pp. 211, 212.

BY ELD. A. T. JONES

(Continued.)

ON page 29 he says, “I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 211.1

He may not recollect, but that does not prove that there is not a single passage that conveys any idea of who God is. We find in Romans 1:19, 20 that “that which may be known of God is manifest in them [margin]; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” “And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is.” Acts 4:24. Paul and Barnabas said, “We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth and the sea, and all things that are therein; ... he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” Acts 14:15-17. “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and earth.” Acts 17:24. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Revelation 4:11. His memory must have been very poor. ARSH April 1, 1880, page 211.2

Again, on page 28, he says, “As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism—a sort of religious denial of God. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious or irreligious eclipse of light. The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everything upside down.” How much alike infidelity is in all ages! See Acts 17:5, 6. When Paul and Silas preached Jesus, “The Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 211.3

On page 39 we read, “But the Christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through the long chasm, to the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy desert.” This was not the Christian but the Anti-Christian system. “It is an inconsistency scarcely possibly to be credited, that anything should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to be irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe that God had made.” That is true; and it is an inconsistency no less surprising, that a power professing to believe the Bible should hold it to be irreligious to study the Bible. Yet this also is a fact; and it was this very fact of that power “casting down the truth to the ground” (Daniel 8:12; John 17:14) that caused that “long chasm” reaching from the beginning of the “sixteenth century to the times of the ancients.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.1

On page 37 Mr. Paine says, “Had Newton or Descartes lived three or four hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they did, it is most probable they would not have lived to finish them.” True; but was not Newton a Christian? Most assuredly. But on page 39 he again makes a most important statement: “The event that served more than any other to break the first link in this long chain of despotic ignorance, is that known by the name of the Reformation by Luther. From that time ... the sciences began to revive, and liberality, their natural associate, began to appear.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.2

This is true, every word of it, and how plainly it illustrates Psalm 119:130: “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” Mr. Paine’s intense infidelity would not suffer him to allow this, of course; yet the revival of the sciences, liberality, and enlightenment was nothing else than the result of Luther’s work of printing and scattering Bibles through Europe. By the light of the Scriptures the nations saw the despotic power that had kept them in ignorance, and they arose with Luther in the strength of the Lord, and burst the fetters that had bound them so long. They found and learned the truth, and the truth made them free. John 8:32; 17:17. ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.3

On page 43 he says: “Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of creation, that to believe otherwise, that is, that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind; and he who thinks that he believes both has thought but little of either.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.4

So far from this being the truth, it is directly the contrary. And I shall show that the two beliefs not only can, but must, “be held together in the same mind;” and that he who does not believe both “has thought but little of either.” “Through faith we understand that the worlds [plural] were framed by the word of God.” Hebrews 11:3. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds [plural].” Hebrews 1:1, 2. “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” Isaiah 40:25, 26. Also Psalm 147:4; Job 9:9; 38:31, 32; Psalm 33:6. ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.5

Again, on page 43: “A world of the extent of ours may, at first thought, appear to us to be great; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which it is suspended, like a bubble in the air, it is infinitely less in proportion than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of the world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean.” I suppose Mr. Paine thought, when he penned this, that he was announcing to Bible believers something they had never known, or thought anything of; but he was grievously in error. More than twenty-five hundred years before he wrote this, it was announced and written in words far more forcible and sublime. Isaiah 40:16, 17: “Behold, the nations are a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.... All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.6

The following, on mystery and miracle, pages 50 and 52, is sound and good, therefore we hold it fast: “With respect to mystery, everything we behold is, in one sense, a mystery to us; our own existence is a mystery; the whole vegetable world is a mystery.... But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can be applied to light. The God in whom we believe is a God of moral truth, and not a God of mystery or obscurity. Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human inventions, that obscures the truth and represents it in distortion.” Every Bible believer, every Christian, can indorse this; for the Bible is a revelation, and not a mystery. ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.7

He continues: “In the sense that everything may be said to be a mystery, so also may it be said that everything is a miracle, and no one thing is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, though larger, is not a greater miracle than a mite; nor a mountain a great miracle than an atom. To an almighty power it is no more difficult to make the one than the other; and no more difficult to make a million of worlds than to make one. Everything, therefore, is a miracle, in one sense, while in the other sense, there is no such thing as a miracle. It is a miracle when compared to our power, and to our comprehension; it is not a miracle compared to the power that performs it.” ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.8

This is all true. At the marriage in Cana of Galilee it was in reality no more of a miracle for Christ to turn the water into wine, than is performed before our eyes every season. The vine which he has created draws sustenance from the moisture of the earth and air; it buds, blossoms, bears grapes, they ripen, we extract the juice, and, lo, we have wine. So the only difference is, that there he did in an instant what here is done in a season; and the one required no greater exertion of his power than the other, for his power is almighty. The first was only a miracle in that it was “contrary to the established constitution or course of things.” Dr. Horne gives this as the definition of a miracle: “A miracle is an effect or event contrary to the established constitution or course of things, or a sensible constitution or course of things, or a sensible suspension or controlment of, or deviation from, the known laws of nature,” etc. “Thus, the production of grain by vegetation is according to a law of nature; were it to fall like rain from the clouds, there would be a miracle.” Yet even in that case, it would be no more of a miracle to the power that performs it, than it is in the present case where it is produced by vegetation; for it would be the Almighty Power which performed both. ARSH April 1, 1880, page 212.9

(To be continued.)