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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3

Christ and Human Affairs

Christ and Human Affairs.

The writer of the article on the "Christian Hypothesis" in the March number asks whether to inculcate such a precept as "take no thought for the morrow" is not to lead man from the path which the highest reason would dictate? Let those who think it is, read the whole passage (Matt, vi, 19—34), bearing in mind the usual tenour of Christ's teaching, and they will surely perceive that the words in question form part of an expansion of the recommendation to serve God rather than Mammon; and the spirit enjoined is not improvidence or recklessness, but trust in Him: as if the Lord had said "Do not, out of anxiety for the future, sacrifice the service of God for that of Mammon; (as may be done by unrighteous and fraudulent dealing, or by too great preoccupation of thought and affection;) "for if you are mindful of God, He will be mindful of you." In like manner, when the claims of duty weighted the other scale, Christ could bid his disciples let go the present, and fix the thought rather on the future. "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or lands, &c., for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, and in the world to come, eternal life." In all these and kindred precepts the spirit is the same. Put God first, have respect before all things to Him and His claims, obey him now, follow to day what seems the path of right and duty, even when it demands a sacrifice of earthly interests; and then commit yourselves soul and body to His care, letting the future rest with Him. It should be observed that scholars tell us the words "Take no thought "should have been rendered "Be not careful," and Dean Alford in his new translation of the N. T., has so given it in Matt. vi. 25, 31, and 34. St. Paul, (who recognises the duty of parents to page 64 lay up for their children, 2 Cor. xii, 14) echoes this when he says "Be careful for nothing, but in everything make your requests known unto God; and St, Peter when lie adds, "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you." Such noble carelessness befits the dutiful children of such a Father; and is an element in the peace of those whose mind is stayed on Him.

The above question, however, occurs only as a branch of a larger one: "Might it not have been expected that a member of the God-head, come expressly to teach all social and moral truth, would have elaborated out of his omniscience a more complete system for the regulation of human affairs?" Now the idea let it be remembered, that the Messiah would do this is not overlooked in Scripture; for it was early predicted of Him, that he would exemplify such a system in a model kingdom, over which He was to reign as King, "with judgment and with justice," "judging, and seeking judgment, and lasting righteousness." It is said of this King that he should "reign in righteousness," "with righteousness judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek," and "execute judgment and justice on the earth," and that "in mercy should his throne be established;" so that it could be said, "the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the oppressors are consumed out of the land." (See Isaiah ix, 7, xi, 1-5, xvi, 4-5, xxxii, 1-5. Jeremiah xxiii, 5-6.) It is further stated that other nations should be attracted by the sight of this glorious King and kingdom, that their kings should do homage to him, that "he should not fail nor be discouraged till he had set judgment in the earth, and the isles should wait for his law." ([saiah xi, 10-12, xlii, 1-6, xlix, 1-8, lv, 3-5, lix, 19, Ixii, 1-2-11-12; Ezek, xxxvii, 21-28, and that the kingdom which was thus to regenerate the earth was to be characterised by prosperity, peace, and cessation of war, (Is. ii, 2-4, xi, 6-10, xxvi, 1-13 xxxv, Ixv, 17.25., Ezek. xxxiv, 23-31., Zeck. viii, and other passages.) Some of the above passages may have found a partial fulfilment; but let it be particularly observed that the setting up of the kingdom is associated in many of them with the Messiah's accession to the throne of David; which was as much an earthly throne in some aspects as that of Queen Victoria. Why then, if Jesus was the Messiah, and the Son of David, did he make no effort to take possession of this throne, in accordance with the prophecies, (see also Luke i, 32-33), and the continual expectations of his disciples, founded upon them? We must take his own answer. "He spake a parable unto them, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought the kingdom of God should immediately appear." It spake of a nobleman going into a far country to receive a kingdom and to return; but whose citizens declared, "We will not have this man to reign over us." (Luke xix 11.) It was because Jerusalem assumed this attitude towards the Son of David, that the setting up of the kingdom, as a kingdom, has been long postponed. But it may be said, surely, if he was also the Son of God, he could have summoned armies, or legions of angels, to make her submit. True, and had he surrounded himself with any kind of pomp, and demonstration of royalty or prowess, earthly or heavenly, she would have been only too glad to submit; and so far from hypocritically arraigning him before Pilate, on the false charge that he had rebelled against the throne of Cesar by calling himself "Christ a King," would have enthusiastically rallied about him.

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But the kingdom was to be founded on the acceptance before all things of spiritual principles; and it was to test the spirit of the people in relation to these that Christ appeared in poverty and plainness, and commenced his work by enunciating those fundamental principles of righteousness and love, towards God and man, which it was necessary the people must first accept in their hearts, and for their own sake; he therefore avoided dazzling their eyes by any display of majesty; and when he used his supernatural powers, it was not to compel their faith, but generally to confirm that of those who had already shown a willingness to believe in him. Had the nation, with its rulers, received his teaching, been penetrated with it, and recognised its Divinity, there is reason to believe that he would not have waited long to make Jerusalem a praise in the earth, reigning over her in righteousness and glory, and holding her up as the model and instructor of other nations; exemplifying his principles embodied in political and social life. But she despised and rejected him; therefore a long interval has been interposed; while another people is being gathered from among all the nations of the earth, in place of those to whom he was first sent, to prepare the world for the full establishment of the Kingdom. When his first disciples,—who had with difficulty learned that the fulfilment of the pathetic 53rd of Isaiah must have its place as well as that of his more joyful prophecies, supplying a strong additional support to the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship,—returned with hope re-animated to the question, "Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" he replied "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons,…….. but after the Holy Ghost is come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Acts i, 6-8. "This gospel of the kingdom "he said before "shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Lu. xxiv, 14.

This witness was to include dissemination of those spiritual fundamental principles with which he began among the Jews, not developed into various forms and adaptations calculated to meet the varying conditions and circumstances of different nations and stales to the end of time, but applicable in spirit to all; for the people now to be gathered, Christ's true and spiritual disciples, would constitute no state or states, but form a sprinkling among all states and nations whom they were to prepare by their influence, for the time when He who yet remembers in the heavens that he is "the root and offspring of David," shall come again as "King of kings, and Lord of lords; when Jerusalem shall greet him with a late repentanee, (Zech xii, 10-14, Rev. i, 7,) and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, (Rev. xi 15, xix 16, xxii 16.) His first coming was as the "morning star," heralding the dawn; but the second will be as the rising Sun, (Mat. iv. 2) flooding the world with light. Till then, "the kingdom of God," he said, "cometh not with observation, neither shall they say lo here! or lo there! for the kingdom of God is within you," Lu. xvii. 20-21, and St. Paul described the same "kingdom of God" as righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Inward are those principles which in full development would establish the kingdom of God on earth, and which even page 66 now influence legislation and social life, in proportion as the true Christian element makes itself felt in any given people.

That this leaven does so work, who can deny? It is true that of numbers who profess Christianity, and of many even in ecclesiastical office, St. Paul's question might well be asked, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? "so little do they evince of his influence;—there are many into whose hearts the seed has never really sunk, and from which it has been caught away ungerminating;—there are those in whose minds it has quickly sprung up, but been as quickly withered by opposition, or choked by earthly cares and interests; but where it has really taken root in honest and good hearts, it bears more or less abundantly its proper fruit; though in the world this is found mixed with innumerable tares. Meanwhile there come here and there within the sound of Christ's message, certain ardent idealistic spirits; who, with hearts sufficiently good and honest to respond to his moral teaching, yet rejecting its supernatural claims and sanctions, seem to imagine that natural religion may suffice to regenerate the world. But perhaps they are not fully aware how much the enlightenment of their own consciences is due to the gospel which has appealed to it. Let them look at the condition of regions where the natural feelings of man have had opportunity for uninterrupted play, as in heathen lands; let them look again at the transformation which takes place in all life and manners in such regions, when the gospel is really received, (as is notably the case just now in Madagascar;) and among our own heathens at home,—not the idealistic, but the low, coarse, and brutal;—and then let them ask what agency has yet proved so powerful for reforming and elevating man as Christianity; and also what community has, in spite of its faults and the lukewarmness of many of its members, been on the whole so compassionate, so enterprising, so laborious, so self-denying, so persevering, and so efficient, in seeking to raise the ignorant and vile, and ministering to the several wants of soul and body, as the Christian Church, carrying in its hands the gospel. We shall see, or posterity will see, when a sufficient number of centuries have been allowed for the experiment, whether the "Social Progress Association," which seems inclined to assume the title of a "New Church," with its Idealist, its Book of Wisdom, and its pamphlets, will accomplish more.

H. L. M.

1.—The particular precept—"take no thought for the morrow," certainly bears the construction that H.L.M. puts upon it; but although Jesus was not so impregnated with the spirit of asceticism as many of his contemporary compeers—(we do not allude to the Pharisees, whom he denounced, but to the Essenes, and John the Baptist,) that particular passage was selected at random when referring to this spirit, prevalent at all periods of untempered religious fervour, and to the lack in Christ's teaching of a resolute confronting of the great problems of social life, and of an exposition of the principles of practical wisdom. Yet this only detracts from his greatness when the omniscience of imaginary Godhead is attributed to him.

2.—The explanation given of the nature of Christ's mission might be an answer to some Jewish Rochefort or the still lower gaping of the populace for the restoration of the kingdom of David. We are not conscious of having expressed the discontentment of disappointed Radicalism; nor even of echoing the aspirations of the prophets—unfulfilled inspired prophecies by the way—who sighed for a benign despot, who should "crush the evil-doer." When the writer speaks of what Christ might have done had he not been despised and rejected, it is equivalent to saying that he was mistaken and dis- page 67 appointed in calculations which, it seem, the insight of modern thinkers would have been equal to; and in this case, where the omniscience of [unclear: Godhead]? We must then repeat our conviction, that had Jesus elaborated the laws of social equality and government,—we mean in theory, not in action,—his followers might have been preserved from the thousand errors and infamies that disfigured the sixteen centuries after his death; and more especially those latter ten of them when his word was enthroned over Europe. We repeat, also, that he himself did not assert his divinity in any such sense as it has been ascribed to him, and that his teaching remains a shining marvel of right thought, however incomplete it might have been.

The divinity of Christ then is accepted by transcendentalists in a realler sense than by so-called Christians, when they are conscious of oneness with the Universal Spirit, of which Carist was the embodiment in such a pre-eminent degree as to lead to his being received as the Son of God.

3.—Touching the influence that Christianity has exercised upon the world, who can marvel that so glorious a code of morality should have done much, when aided by the attractions and terrors of the supernatural, that are so potent with ignorant and unenlightened minds, that potency being the result of the faith in the supernatural doctrines, independently of their abstract truth. When one contemplates the moral as well as intellectual darkness that was so stationarily universal—as manifested in the Wars, Barbarisms, cruel customs, unjust laws, &c between the 8th and 15th centuries, in spite of the uncontradicted supremacy of the Christian faith,—when one traces the results that followed in organic sequence on the invention of printing, each century being a progression into less gross darkness (though, Heaven knows! it can still be felt) in proportion to the advancement of knowledge, one is inclined to wonder how it was that the omnipotent influence of the Spirit of God, that is so potent on believers, according to the Christian Hypothesis, was unable to modify the savageness of human society without the help of a puny German who, five centuries ago, bethought him to cut wooden letter type from the bark of a tree. If it is assorted that during all these centuries mankind has been discovering the meaning of the precepts it has been uttering from the teeth outwards, shall we not recognise the importance of the influences that have enabled mankind to solve that meaning? Does it not appear that in acknowledging the power of faith, or of some supernatural influence, we are engaged in a kind of fetish worship, that is skin to the act of the parched African who grovels before the Medicine Man and his devilries, and has no thought that can reach to God's winds and clouds.

We hold that as for by gone ages the Framer of the World-Scheme planned and missioned Apostles, Luthers, and a host of progressive thinkers who stood up for Him and His truth against the unheeding multitude, so this century has made its advances on the God-line of Truth; and that Emerson and Carlyle, the followers of science, and those who are shaping what is highest and most characteristic of this age,—that these, rather than aproned bishops wrangling in Œeumenical Council—that these, rather than heaven-appointed beneficed younger sons—are the speakers for God and his truth in this present generation; these the successors of Christ and the olden prophets. As regards the instrumentality of the Social Progress Association, if it help to record and interpret what the age produces, it will be fulfilling its office, however insignificant, in the Divine Cosmos. [Ed.]