Author Description

How can a man throw a stone at the sun, aiming or intending to hit the sun? An individual is shooting at a mark, with the full belief that no man, whatever his natural powers may be, ever did or ever will hit that mark. It is an absolute impossibility that he ever should, with that belief, intend to hit it. For the same reason, while a man regards perfection in holiness as impracticable; while he believes that no man ever did, or ever will, in this life, attain to that state, and that it is criminal to suppose the opposite, — to aim at perfection in holiness, or to intend to be perfectly holy, is, then, an absolute impossibility. Now, the church universally affirms, and ministers every where preach the same thing, that no one can be a Christian who does not aim at perfection in holiness, or intend to be perfectly holy. The church and the ministry, then, almost as universally, hold it criminal for any man not to believe a certain fact, to wit, that such perfection is unattainable, the belief of which fact renders the existence of such intention an absolute impossibility. "Thus have ye made void the law of God by your traditions'' If a man must aim at perfection in holiness, or he cannot be saved, he must theoretically or practically believe that such perfection is practicable, or he cannot be saved.