by John Thomas

“ The Serpent in the flesh shows itself in individuals in all the colours of its skin. It manifests itself in all the deceptions men practise upon themselves and one another. Its most insidious and dangerous manifestations emanate from the pulpit, and ecclesiastical thrones. In these, the Serpent presents himself to mankind, presumptuously entertaining them with things he does not understand. From thence he delights them with the assurance of wisdom upon principles in harmony with their nature. ”

“ Sin, then, takes away "the answer of a good conscience towards God", and converts it into an evil conscience; which may be certainly known to exist, when the subject of it is ashamed of the truth, and harassed by "doubts and fears". They are ashamed of the truth, who, being enlightened, feel themselves condemned; or, being ignorant, apprehend it. Such, on account of unbelief, or of "a dead faith", may well be ashamed and afraid; for to be ashamed of God's truth is to be ashamed of His wisdom and power. ”

“ God's knowledge of what a man's character will be, does not cause Him to exempt him from trial. He rewards and punishes none upon foregone conclusions. He does not say to this man, "I know you are certain to turn out a reprobate, therefore I will punish you for what you would do"; nor does He say to another, "I know thee that thou wouldst do well all the days of thy life: therefore, I will promote thee to glory and honour, without subjecting thee to the tribulation of the world". His principle is to recompense men according to what they have done, not for what they would do. ”

“ The unswerving obedience of faith, is the "faith made perfect by works", tried by fire. God is pleased with this faith, because it honours Him. It is a working faith. There is life in it; and its exercise proves that the believer loves Him. Such a man it is God's delight to honour; and, though like Jesus he be for the present, "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief", the time will certainly come, when God will acknowledge him in the presence of the Elohim, and overwhelm his enemies with confusion of face. ”

“ Men have lost sight of this truth. They know not, or seem not to know, that the only true standard of right and wrong, truth and error, is the divine law. Hence, they inflict upon themselves and one another all sorts of pains and penalties, making their lives miserable, because of nonconformity to standards of faith and morals, which know no other paternity than the serpent-thinking of sinful flesh. ”

“ When their sin was perfected, the propensities, or lusts, having been inflamed, became "a law in their members", and because it was implanted in their flesh by transgression, it is styled, "the law of sin"; and death being the wages of sin, it is also termed, "the law of sin and death"; but by philosophy, "the law of nature".
The thinking of the flesh, uninfluenced by the ameliorating agency of divine truth, is so degenerating in its effects, that it reduces man to savagery. There is nothing elevating or ennobling in fleshly thoughts ”

“ Now, the law of God is given, that the thinking of the flesh, instead of being excited by the propensities within and the world without, may be conducted according to its direction. So long as Adam and Eve yielded to its guidance, they were happy and contented. Their thoughts were the result of right thinking, and obedience was the consequence. But when they adopted the Serpent's reasonings as their own, these being at variance with the truth, caused an "enmity" against it in their thinkings, which is equivalent to "enmity against God". ”

“ THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL. (1 John 3:8)
It is clear to my mind that sin is the thing referred to by the apostle in the word devil. The sting of the Serpent is its power of destruction. The "sting of death" is the power of death; and that, the apostle says, in one place, "is sin"; and in another, "is the devil". There are not two powers of death; but one only. Hence, the devil and sin, though different words, represent the same thing. "Sin had the power of death", and would have retained it, if the man, who was obedient unto death, had not gained the victory over it. ”

“ The sentiments are as blind as the propensities when intellect is unenlightened by divine revelation. The truth of this is illustrated by the excesses into which mankind has plunged in the name of religion. Mohammedanism, Romanism, Paganism, and the infinite varieties of Protestantism, are all the result of the co-workings of the intellect, and sentiments, under the impulse of the propensities. They are all the thinkings of the flesh, predicated on ignorance, or misconception, of the truth. ”

“ If they neither believe nor do, or believe but do not obey, they are evil doers, and at enmity with Him. He asks men for actions, not words; for He will judge them "according to their works" in the light of His law, and not according to their supposititious feelings and traditions. The reason why He will not permit men to prescribe for their own moral evils is because He is the physician, they the lepers; He their sovereign, they the rebels against His law. It is His prerogative, and His alone, to dictate the terms of reconciliation. Man has offended God. ”

“ Wrong consists not in any particular act of which we are capable; but in that act being contrary to the letter and spirit of the divine testimony: in other words, right is the doing of the will of God. Hence, if we saw a man bowing down before an image of the Virgin Mary, which is death by His law, and He commanded us to kill him, we should do wrong to refuse, although He has said, "Thou shalt not kill". ”

“ A man cannot "honour God" more than in believing what He promises, and doing what He commands; although to repudiate that belief, and to neglect, or disobey, those commands, should highly gratify all his senses, and place at his disposal the kingdoms of the world, and all their glory. Not to believe the promises of God is in effect to call God a liar ”

“ Among the works of sin are the numerous diseases which transgression has brought upon the world. The Hebrews, the idiom of whose language is derived from the Mosaic narrative of the origin of things, referred disease to sin under the names of the devil and Satan. Hence, they inquired, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" A woman "bowed together with a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years", is said to have been "bound of Satan", or the adversary, for that time ”

“ Sin, though still in the flesh, should no more reign in his mortal body, nor have dominion over him.
If it were not for the law, or truth, of God, we should not know what sin is; for, says the apostle, "I had not known sin, but by the law"; "for without the law, sin is dead". If a man committed theft, or adultery, or any other thing, he would not know whether he did right or wrong in God's esteem, if God had not said they shall not be done. The lower animals steal, kill, and obey their propensities uncontrolled ”

“ In the war between them the heel of her seed was bruised by the Serpent power, as it had bruised that of their great Captain; but thanks be to God who gives them the victory, the time is at the door, when they will leave the dead, and with him bruise the Old Serpent's head upon the mountains of Israel (Ezek. 39:4) . There can be no friendship between these parties. Death or victory is the only alternative. There can be no peace in the world till one or other be suppressed. The "enmity" is the essential hostility betwixt sin and God's law, which is the truth. ”

“ MAN in the first estate is "a little lower than the angels"; but, in the second, or higher, estate, he is to be "crowned with glory and honour"; and to take his stand in the universe upon an equality with them in nature and renown. ”

“ Man's first estate is the natural and animal; his second, the spiritual, or incorruptible. To be exalted from the present to the future state and inheritance, he must be subjected to trial. From the examples recorded in the scriptures, it is evident, that God has established it as the rule of His grace; that is, the principle upon which He bestows His honours and rewards to prove men before He exalts them. Probation, then, is the indispensable ordeal, to which every man is subjected in the providence of God, before he is accepted as "fit for the Master's use". ”

“ By these examples, also, it appears, that man's probation is made to bear upon the trial of his faith by testing his obedience. An untried faith is worth nothing; but a faith that stands the test of trial, "is much more precious than gold which perisheth, though it be tried with fire"; because the sustained trial will be "found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearance of Jesus Christ". ”

“ When the "Red" or pagan aspect of the Dragon was changed for the "Catholic", by the victories of Constantine, the opposing power was removed; in fact, the Adversary, or Satan, now a professor of Christianity, took "the Mystery of Iniquity" under his patronage; and as he found paganism no longer fit for the contest against the apostolic faith, he determined to change his weapon, and to fight it with the apostasy in the name of Christ. Hence, the first thing he did was to impose this apostasy on the world as its religion. ”

“ Experience, then, teaches us that their performance of such a thing, so simple and easy in itself, would be utterly impracticable; for "the thinking of the flesh is enmity against God"; and until they throw away their traditions, and study the Word, which is very different from "studying divinity", they will continue as they are, perhaps unconsciously, the perverters and enemies of the truth. ”

“ People of this description proscribe all conversation about the truth as unfashionable, and vulgar; or as calculated to disturb the peace of the family circle; others, again, make a great outcry against controversy as dangerous to religion; as though God's truth could be planted in the hearts of men, already prepossessed by God's enemy, without controversy: others subjected to the timidity of sin, reduce everything to opinion, and inculcate "charity"; not that they are more liberal and kind than other people ”

“ This is the accuser, adversary, and calumniator of God, whose stronghold is the flesh. It is the devil and satan within the human nature; so that "when a man is tempted, he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed". If a man examine himself, he will perceive within him something at work, craving after things which the law of God forbids. The best of men are conscious of this enemy within them. It troubled the apostle so much, that he exclaimed, "0, wretched man that I am! ”

“ The probation of the Lord Jesus is an interesting and important study, especially that part of it styled the Temptation of Satan. Paul, speaking of him as the High Priest under the New Constitution, says, "He was put to the proof in all things according to our likeness, without transgression"; (Heb. 4:15) that is, "having taken hold of the seed of Abraham", "being found in fashion as a man", the infirmities of human nature were thus laid upon him. He could sympathize with them experimentally; being, by the feelings excited within him when enticed, well acquainted with all its weak points. ”

“ God does not willingly afflict, but is long-suffering and kind. If men, however, will work sin, they must lay their account with "the wages of sin", which is disease, famine, pestilence, the sword, misery and death. But let the righteous rejoice that the enemy will not always triumph in the earth. The Son of God was manifested to destroy him and all his works; which, by the power and blessing of the Father, he will assuredly do.
THE GREAT DRAGON The old Serpent, surnamed the Accuser and the Adversary, who deceives the whole habitable." ”

“ As for a college education in divinity qualifying boys for "preaching the word", the absurdity of the conceit is manifest in the fact that the "college-bred divines" are all at variance among themselves upon its meaning. Call a convention of priests and preachers of all religious sects and parties, and assign to them the work of publishing a scriptural and unanimous reply to the simple question, What do the scriptures teach as the measure of faith, and rule of conduct, to him who would inherit the Kingdom? ”

“ Every sect has its "good and pious" ones, who are thought little or nothing of by adverse denominations. The law of God is the only true standard of goodness and piety; and men may depend upon it, attested by the examples in Scripture, that they who treat Him as not meaning exactly what He says in His word, "make God a liar" (1 John 5:10) , and are anything but good and pious in His esteem. ”

“ As the Mosaic narrative gives an account of things natural, upon which things spiritual were afterwards to be established in word and substance; the key to his testimony is found in what actually exists. When, therefore, he tells us that the eyes of Adam and Eve were closed at first, in that he says they were opened by sin, we have to examine ourselves as natural beings for the meaning of his words. Moses, indeed, informs us in what sense, or to what phenomena, their eyes were closed, in saying, "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed". ”

“ It is unheard of that wild beasts, or savage men, ever tamed or civilized themselves; on the contrary, the law in the members when uncontrolled in its mental operations is so vicious in its influence as to endanger the continuance of the race. If, therefore, God had abandoned Adam and his posterity to the sole guidance of the newly-developed propensities, the earth would long ere this have been peopled by a population not a whit above the aborigines of Australia, or the savage tribes of Africa. ”

“ The Dragon, the Old Serpent, surnamed the Devil and Satan, being representative of SIN in its imperial constitution, as manifested in the past, present, and future, upon "the Habitable", or Roman territory; the Man of Sin is that dynasty, "whose coming was after the energy of the Adversary with all power, and tokens, and prodigies of falsehood, and with all the deceit of iniquity in them that perish" (2 Thess. 2:9,10) . ”