The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1873-06-25
MISCELLANY.
COD A CONSUMING FEE.

Many of those who are accustomed to read
the Scripture with an attentive and obedient
mind, wish perhaps to themselves, that those
words in the twelfth of Hebrews, "For our
God is a consuming fire." had been omitted.
The chapter would seem to them complete
without it-this noble chapter that declares to
us the glory of the city above, the assembly
of the angels aud the church of the first born.
1t seems scarcely in harmony with the gene
raj tone of the New Testament. 1t appears
to them rather verse from Exodus or Deu-
teronomy which has crept into the text, and
to represents Eebraistic rather thana Chris
tian conception of God. And there are others,
not so accustomed to submit their minds to
the authority of the Scripture, to whom this
sentence appears SO Objectionable that they alb
solutely deny it. Our God. they say, is all
gentleness and wisdom, grace and beauty
He reveals himself to us in all the beautiful
and benign aspects of nature, and speaks to
us in the musical flow of the brook In the
diamond bespangled meadows, glittering with
sunlit dew-dlops, in the charms and fragrance
Of flowers, in the songs of birds, in the glee
and laughter of childhood. Our God reveals
himself to us in the quiet and beautiful pro-
gress of society, in the ameiorations of the
condition of that society from generation to
generation, and in the silent and beneficent
forces working through its great frame. Our
God reveals himself to us in Jesus of Naza-
reth, who is his best representative on earth
full of grace and full of truth, comforting
the mourning, taking up little children in his
arms and blessing them and ever teaching
in parallels full of beauty and the grace of ma
ture. This is our God, and if your God is a
consuming fire, we will have none of him.
Tear out the obnoxious text from the Scrip
ture 1t controverts reason, makes faith alb
surd makes glad obedience to him a matter
impossible.
Well this is one way of treating the matter.
But still, we may believe in God as he reveals
himself in all the gayety and brightness and
kindness of nature, in all the still and beau
tiful progress of human society, as personally
manifested to the world in Jesus Christ his
Son-and if there is anything in this other
representation of God which is inconsistent
with these beneficent revelations of him, we
will reverently lay this aside as containing a
truth as yet unintelligible to us, and for the
full understanding of which we must wait till
the higher life of the future makes it plain to
our souls. But is it irreconcilable? Is it not
true that because God is wisdom and gentle
ness and love and peace, that therefore he is,
to those essentially opposed to him in spirit,
a consuming fire, and that he must be so by
the very constitution of his being? How
numerous are the illustrations of this princ-
pie in the action of organic forces of nature
Steam is very pretty and harmless as il floats
in thin vapor from the nozzle of the simmer
ing tea-kettle but confined by the wonderful
invention of man into the mechanism of an
engine, if the rules that govern its action be
not observed, if it is pent in an improperly
constructed boiler, or there is flaw in the
iron, or the safety-valves are not attended to-
then follows the terrible explosion, sending
scores of lives. perhaps, into a sudden eterni-
ty-and thus steam becomes as a consuming
fire.
Thus it is with moral forces. Take the en-
lightened conscience, and if you wrong its
promptings, how remorse turns upon the soul
like a scorpion singing itself Take love, the
mighticst power of the universe and which is
the inspiration of everything that is best in
tile human conduct take love in its purest
FORM not the love of man for woman, for that
is subject to jealousy, butts the love of the
mother for her child. There is nothing but
sweetness, pathos, beauty in that Suppose
her purely; tenderly nurtured boy comes in
contact with vicious companion, who tries
to teach him obscenity, blasphcmy, theft and
falsehood, One day the mothers heart is
grieved by hearing some word of profanity
from his lips; she demonstrates with the Viz
cious lad, But II he continues in his endeav-
ors to contaminate her child, is that mothers
heart patient and cool under the injury? or
does her love fame into wrath, and a moral