Miller’s Works, vol. 1. Views of the Prophecies and Prophetic Chronology

LECTURE ON TRUTH

I. WHAT IS TRUTH?

John 18:38. Pilate saith unto him, What is Truth? MWV1 111.1

IN this question by Pilate, we have the same thing presented which all mankind are professedly seeking after; yet with as little desire, perhaps, to know, believe, or practise the truth, as the individual who asked the question. MWV1 111.2

Pilate was noted for his depravity, wickedness, and crime; and when he had asked the question, went out, without waiting for a reply, and did that which he knew was wickedly wrong. For he said to the Jews, “I find in him no fault at all;” and yet he released unto them a murderer, and took Jesus and scourged him, crowned him with thorns, mocked and smote him, and said unto the Jews, “Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him.” Just so at the present day: we find many inquirers after truth, but few who are willing to hear, and fewer still who are willing to practise it. MWV1 111.3

I. I shall, in this discourse, endeavor to show some things that are true; although in this question a field is open which neither you or I could fully explore, even with the talents of the highest seraph, or the ability of an elect angel. Yet, by divine permission, we may look within the door, and see so much, and only so much, as Christ came to witness unto us. For he says, “For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” We may, then, safely inquire, “What is truth?” MWV1 111.4

1. God is true. This may be known by his works. Look into yourselves; see the order of your bodily system, the flow of blood, the heaving of the lungs; see, too, the activity of thought, the affections of the soul, the acuteness of feeling; every department of the mind, every function of the body acting in unison with its fellow; no jarring, while in health, but every motion and emotion true to the original cause as the needle to the pole. Can these laws by which we are governed in the body be thus true, and He who created them be untrue? No. MWV1 112.1

Look at the vegetable world. See the regular system of all the plants of the earth, each springing forth in its season, growing, budding, blossoming, bearing fruit, yielding its seed after its kind, and each seed containing elements of further increase, and so on, until figures would fail to multiply the number of likes contained in every seed. All true to the laws of the vegetable world-can this be true, and He who clothes the field with its verdure not be true? Never. MWV1 112.2

Look again at the heavens. See the systems of the planetary world. See suns innumerable, each the centre of a system, and all the planets moving in their respective orbits around these suns, keeping their proper distances, observing regular times, and so true that revolutions unnumbered may pass off without the variation of a moment. Do not all these things show that He who spake them into existence must be truth? MWV1 112.3

When, in short, we view the regular laws of nature, and behold all things, both animate and inanimate, obeying those laws, and man, though a rebel, compelled to yield to them, so that he cannot by any physical force evade or nullify the acts of the Almighty, are we not irresistibly led to conclude, that God is true-true to himself, true to his own laws, true to his own word and will, and that he does manifestly declare that he will be true in his moral government? This leads us to show, MWV1 112.4