1889 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

Scriptures is while they yet hold on to them and to some extentrespect them. They cannot stand still; for if those who have thetruth should, as they so much desire, let them alone, the deviland the world and awakening reason will not let them alone, butwill upset all their faith in the Bible and leave them naught butfaith in men and in sects of human organization.Let every soldier of the cross press nobly on for the deliveranceof his brethren, for the honor of his King and for the uplifting ofthe one and only Standard of truth--God's Word.====================R1158 : page 5FAITH AND WORKS."What advantage, my brethren, has anyone, though he say hehas faith, but have not works? This faith is not able to savehim."--James 2:14.We are taught that "without faith it is impossible to pleaseGod," and if faith without works is of no advantage, theinference is plain, that without works it is equally impossible toplease God. And yet, we may have both faith and works and notbe pleasing or acceptable to God. It is all-important that we havethe right kind of faith and that our works should be thedevelopment and outgrowth of that faith.What, then, is faith? We answer, True faith is the reasonable andaccepted conclusion of a logical argument based on a reasonablepremise or foundation. And more, it is the only reasonableconclusion to which such a logical argument could lead. Thus,reasoning on the principle of cause and effect, a principle firmlyestablished in all the operations of natural and moral law, we seein the whole realm of nature the evidences of an intelligentCreator. We know that such effects as appear in the order ofnature--as for instance the order of the spheres, the succession ofthe seasons, and of day and night, the growth of vegetation, etc.,etc., --could not be produced without an intelligent first cause.And so undeniable is the basis of fact thus furnished in nature'stestimony, and so logical the reasoning from cause to effect, thatthe conclusion --that there is an intelligent, wise and powerfulCreator--is so palpable and irresistible that the Scriptures declarethe man a fool who does not accept it.-- Psa. 14:1.And yet no man has ever seen God, nor can see him. (John 1:18;1 Tim. 6:16.) From these data alone we should have faith inGod, even if he had given us no written revelation of himself. Ina similar manner our faith in his written revelation and in all thatit contains is established. For all that God expects us to believebeyond the realm of our senses and observation, he has given usan undeniable foundation of tangible fact, upon which he invitesus to use our reasoning powers to arrive at conclusions of which