01 TRUTH AND ERROR

SINCE first in Eden sin an entrance found,
When sad success the Tempter’s efforts crowned;
Since first the sunlight saw its hideous birth,
Dark floods of error have swept o’er the earth.
Stern and unceasing has the conflict been,
‘Tween light and darkness, ‘mong the sons of men;
Many the ways the Prince of death has tried
God’s truth to weaken and his name deride;
Many the snares he ne’er has ceased to weave,
Many his doctrines fashioned to deceive,
Many his artful schemes, mankind to win
From ways of holiness to ways of sin;
Many his frauds to make the world believe,
While grasping error, they the truth receive.WFS 5.1

So rooted deep, wide-spread among mankind,
Of creeds discordant, countless hosts we find; Theories opposed, widely conflicting views,
‘Mid which men find whatever they may choose;
But all cannot be truth; all cannot flow
In that straight channel truth alone can show;
All cannot lead men on in light and love;
All cannot guide them to the realms above;
So must we closely search if we would know
Where blooms the truth, where poisonous errors grow;
With closest scrutiny each form must scan,
Lest it conceals the Tempter’s artful plan.WFS 5.2

O sacred Truth! dark was for thee the hour,
When man first bowed to the Deceiver’s power;
When sin first came, thy gilded page to mar,
And on thy precepts wage unholy war;
To pour rank poison in thy purest streams,
To shut men’s vision to thy brightest beams,
To make apostates of our fallen race,
And drive thee, slighted, from they rightful place.
Yet art thou not cast down; thy lovely form
Has rode triumphant over every storm;
Sin has not undermined thy structure fair,
Though it has turned mankind from worship there;
Firm thou hast ever stood, and e’er shalt stand,
Guarded by Heaven, upheld by God’s own hand;
Still dost thou shed, fair as the morning light,
Thy holy radiance o’er earth’s moral night;
Still does thy form, majestic, lead the way, And point us onward to eternal day;
Yet still do men, heedless thy beaming rays,
Grope their blind way thro’ error’s devious maze.WFS 6.1

O Error! hideous, dark, unholy thing,
With thousand snaky heads and poisonous sting!
How hast thou marked, with foul, unhallowed breath,
A thousand crooked ways that lead to death!
How hast thou trailed thy serpent length along,
And wound insidious ‘mong the heedless throng;
How hast thou spread o’er earth a moral blight,
And warred with truth and holiness and right.
Unsightly monster! hide thy hideous head
In realms that thou hast peopled with the dead.
Soon shall thy rule and empire be o’erthrown,
Thy father, Satan, shall receive his own.WFS 7.1

‘Mong all the mighty truths that God has given,
To fit mankind to share a home in Heaven,
One fair, illustrious stands, and e’er has stood,
Since God first made the world and called it good;
One mighty truth, and to our purpose quite,
To show how error dims men’s mental sight.
‘T is thus expressed in plainest, simplest terms,
As He in wisdom sacred truth affirms:WFS 7.2

Six days for man’s own work did Heaven accord,
The seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord.
The seventh day God sanctified and blest,WFS 7.3

And set apart for man, a day of rest. That day is binding on his creatures still;
And all must keep it who would do his will.
And since the mass of all enlightened men
Observe a day God did not give us then,
A day of rest-however they may view it-
We question now the right by which they do it:
The right by which they boldly set aside
The only day that God e’er sanctified;
Then strive to place upon the vacant throne,
Another day he ne’er has called his own.WFS 8.1

The fact which first we claim, and justly too,
Which we contend no one can prove untrue,
Is this: Since God at first the Sabbath made,
He has not placed another in its stead.
Though men may search, no record will they find,
Where he has changed the day to suit mankind;
No record that he ever took away
The blessing which he gave the seventh day;
And surely none in any age or clime,
Where he has blest aught else as holy time;
Therefore, we say, according to God’s will,
What was the Sabbath then is Sabbath still;
Firm is the pillar set, we cannot move it,
The world say it is changed, and they must prove it.WFS 8.2

And this to do, and set the thing at rest,
Many have sought the field and done their best;WFS 8.3

To prove this point, many have sternly fought;
And most absurd the arguments they’ve brought.
But, bad for the assertions which they make,
Scarce any two the same position take;
And so they find, at last, unlucky elves,
The heft of battle is among themselves.
Here only they agree: to prove somehow,
The seventh day is not the Sabbath now;
And to this end they arguments employ
Which do each other totally destroy.WFS 9.1

Like some fair monument, of towering form,
The Sabbath stands, unmoved amid the storm;
While round it fierce the noisy rabble crowd,
With tumult wild and imprecations loud;
Their missiles at it hurl with venomed spite,
To mar its beauty and obscure its light;
And dire “Confusion” is their proper label,
Like that which babbled round the tower of Babel.WFS 9.2

‘Mid all this jargon of discordant sound,
‘Mid all the darkness which enfolds them round,
One shining lamp we have our feet to guide,
One rule, alone, by which we can abide;
One only standard, God’s unerring word,
To show how human creeds with truth accord.
This is the cleaver keen, which, without ruth,
Will trim all theories till they fit the truth.WFS 9.3

With this alone we hence propose to test
These various views, and see on what they rest; To mark how with God’s word they will compare,
And whether truth or error lingers there.
Hence, if the first-day theory, which would make
Sunday the place of God’s true Sabbath take,
Arrayed against the Scriptures shall be found,
It straightway should be leveled to the ground.
If the no-Sabbath views, which some pretend
Are views correct, and no one can amend,
Shall prove but empty chaff and brittle hay,
One breath of truth shall blow them all away.WFS 9.4

In short, if all the views that e’er arose,
God’s holy Sabbath sternly to oppose,
Shall all be found, though fair outsides they wear,
To be mere puff-balls filled with empty air,
Or morsels which the Foe of truth has fixed
With error and corruption duly mixed,
All sugared o’er with nicest care refined
To suit the vicious palate of mankind,
From this fixed purpose ‘t is not ours to swerve,
To treat them plainly, as they best deserve.
It is not ours, who battle for the right,
To cringe when old Tradition heaves in sight,
Nor from truth’s bold position basely shrink,
Because with us all people do not think.
This be our aim, who’er the question moots,
To pluck up error by its lowest roots;
From its strong snare some wandering feet to save,
And dig Tradition’s everlasting grave.WFS 10.1