Sabbath Scripture Readings Volume 1

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 Excerpt: ...and in its governing influence the truth as it is in Jesus, that I may be sanctified by that truth, and that by it I may be made free from the law of sin and death. And O let this be permanent as well as powerful, lest I be of the number of those who have once tasted of the powers of the world to come, and at length fall away. Save me from the fate of those who have the form of godliness without the power thereof--who have a name to live, and yet are dead. L CORINTHIANS V. When reflecting on the excesses of depravity whereof our nature is capable, it were well to reduce the generality of the sentiment, and bring it particularly home. Thou knowest, O God, all the enormities to which I might go if abandoned to the headlong impulses of my own corrupt disposition. O that my own consciousness of this were of more effect to soften and to humble me; and when I think of the manifold delinquencies both of heart and conduct whereby I have incurred the resentment of a holy God, surely this might well disarm the resentments into which I might be hurried by the perversities and provocations of my fellows in the business of the Church. O for more of self-command and reticence, and less of a diseased appetite for human sympathy. Let me never forget the sentence of James on him who bridleth not his tongue; and how important every way is the lesson of self-restraint, when one thinks of the appalling scandals and vices into which we may be led if we bridle not the other propensities of our own evil and wofully distempered natures. The delivery unto Satan may signify excommunication--the two great divisions of the human family being made up of the Church and the world, and Satan being the god of this world. But whether this or some other explanation is to be sustained, let me...