1841 William Miller Evidence from Scripture & History - A2Z.org

we am wholly dependent on God is a hard doctrine: we
will not subscribe to such humiliating terma How can
we tell sinners to reform, if they cannot do it Wbere
is my guilt If I cannot reform myself; aurely God
would be unjust to condemn me for not doing what 1
cannot do." And thus yoa argpe, throwing all tho
blame upon God, when all that God bas required in the
text, is, that you should be willing that he should do the
work of reformation for you. And wrel God must be
best worban of the two. God says Ce +a us,
fy ye will not be reformed by me." Thie, my Christlan
lnend, is our crime, for which tbe church has been
and will be punished seven timea And if ye will not
be refonned by me by these thingan What does God
mean by uthese thii " I answer, It is God d m the
work, and he meana ha people shall give him the glory ;
and when they have passed through the furnace of affliction,
and when seven times has passed over them, as
it did over Nebuchadnezzar, then will the church, Ue
that proud monarch, learn that God rules in heaven and
earth. But could we be willing to learn this lesson
without this punishment, Uby these thinyn that is, by
the word of God, by the preached gospel, y the merctea
of God, by blessings of heaven from above, by Mossingo
of the earth beneath, by the love of God, by the death
of Christ, by the ministry of angels, by the etrivinp of
the Holy Spirit; in one word, by all the meam of pace ;
if all these things could teach ua that God WM the Author
and Finisher of our faith, end make us willing to
be reformed by him, - then, indeed, he would not bve
punished us. But, alas! without chastiae~nents we
should be baatarda, and not s o d Therefore the
cauqe why the Christian must be punkbed,-to subdue
their proud, rebellious wills, to humble their haughty
and selfish he&. They must suffer all that wicked
men or devils can, heap upon them, they lust fill up the
measure of Christ's sufferings in his body, which in tbe
church, in order to make them Et for heaven or happiness.
They must, like pld, be wven times purified
Ae I have before mid, all the merciee of God, and bleac
of heaves .rd earth, could not w e tbe chvch