(Continued from page 204.)
Now, since God's love to man is the very thing set forth in the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ, can that really be worthy to be called love to man, which (even should it obtain what it aims at) leaves him infinitely short of the blessing which God proposes in the gospel? The question is not as to the propriety of meeting man's complicated misery, in order to its relief by any means in our power (this would love be strenuous in doing, even as Jesus went about doing good), but whether the pretension of man to philanthropy, stopping so very short of God's intention in the gospel, is not in its principle virtual infidelity? For when God, out of His love toward man, proposes to Himself one object—and man, out of his love to himself, proposes another object, what is man's persisting in his object but an impeachment of the goodness and wisdom of God? It is thus that man is still guided by the old principle of his seduction, “Ye shall be as gods “; and, making even Christianity subservient to his own aims, he brings in that which is a second and more fearful corruption of the earth (compare Gen. 6:1313And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Genesis 6:13); Rev. 11:18; 19:218And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. (Revelation 11:18)
2For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. (Revelation 19:2)), ending in the judgment of God. Such is the use which “the Christian world” has made, and is making, of those privileges which are indeed great every way. They use them wrongly: patching the new piece to the old garment, and the rent becomes worse, and putting the new wine into old bottles, they burst and the wine is spilled. Christianity loses its distinctiveness, and is only known as a theory of dogmas, instead of a new and active energy; while a morbid and sentimental philanthropy, busy and daring, is substituted in its place. The necessary consequence of this adaptation of Christianity to present circumstances is, that it becomes itself the subject of human expediency, occupying a secondary place, instead of being a dominant principle, bringing everything to its own standard. In attempting to infuse something of the salt into human institutions, it only loses its savor, instead of seasoning that to which it is imparted; and not the grace of God, but the wisdom of man reaps the glory. The world (for example) knows full well how to use Christianity in urging any benevolent work of its own; but it dare not use it in discountenancing covetousness, for this is its own principle: the world loves its own, and such is the basis of almost all human legislation. The philanthropist would seek to infuse something of the spirit of Christianity into a criminal code; but stops short on the one hand, of its intolerance of evil of any kind; and on the other, of passivity as the proper place of a Christian under its pressure.
Christianity is looked upon by men at best as only subsidiary, and, the moment it comes to interfere with convenience, its obligation is denied. Because they may be engaged in promoting the things which are commanded by the precepts and commended by the example of Christ, without the least regarding either their motives or their objects, they conclude they must be right. “Jesus went about doing good;” no human misery was there which did not find His sympathy, and feel His power to meet it. Thousands received blessing from Him, who yet were strangers to eternal life. Ten lepers were cleansed; one only returned to Jesus to give glory to God, and got the further and substantial blessing; “Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole” (Luke 17:1919And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. (Luke 17:19)).
When Jesus had healed the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda, and found him afterward in the temple, He said to him, Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, “lest a worse thing come unto thee.” His philanthropy did not end where man's would, and does end; He saw a worse thing far beyond the measure of the human misery He had remedied. There were yet death and judgment before him, who had been so marvelously delivered; he had yet the blessing to seek which alone belongeth to faith, even deliverance from death and its power, sin. This is the sad mistake of philanthropy: its proposed end, even if attained, stops short of deliverance from “the worse thing.” And therefore, granting all that philanthropy aims at to be accomplished, though this is indeed allowing much; granting that it could say in power to the misery that disfigures society, “Behold, thou art made whole,” the root of the evil remains untouched. Thus, whilst man may be glorying in the success of his efforts, his very success may prove the occasion of blinding him to a sense of his actual state before God—that “the worse thing” is yet before him. It is impossible to say to what extent man's misery may actually be mitigated, or the social system improved, by the mighty powers and resources of man now being developed, and by the use of Christianity itself, as one of the many means to obtain such an end. But experience has hitherto shown, that whilst the surface may be healed, even to the eye of man it is but falsely healed, the wound still festers beneath And just when a goodly fabric has been raised, decked with the fair show of religion by the wisdom of man, it has withered away before the power of some new evil.
But as Christians, we have something more sure than experience (man's utmost certainty), even the testimony of God—that the end of this scheme will be disaster. The gospel is necessarily humanizing and civilizing in its effects; but this is not the real design of God in it. And although it may answer man's end so to use it, he “has his reward” in attaining his object; but still there is the “worse thing” which may befall him; and the very perfecting of his scheme is precisely its ripeness for judgment (Dan. 4:30, 3130The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty? 31While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee. (Daniel 4:30‑31)). It is of solemn importance to realize that God regards the objects at which we aim; if He is aiming at one, and we at another, we cannot be fellow-workers under Him. It is accordingly quite possible to be very busy indeed in religious things, and yet to be quite wide of God's object. The end therefore of such zeal must be disastrous, not attaining to the purpose of God.
Thus it was with Israel, as we read in Rom. 10. They did not submit themselves to the righteousness of God; they used the law for one end, God gave it for another. Thus also is it characteristically marked as to the present dispensation. “To them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honor, and immortality (here their object is marked), eternal life; but to them who are contentious (opposed to enduring and suffering, and marking the way of the world), and do not obey the truth (have not God's object, do not submit to His righteousness) but obey unrighteousness, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil” (Rom. 2).
“God is not mocked, but whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” He has made known to man, in the gospel of His Son, an available power against evil— “Christ crucified, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” The peace which the gospel gives, and the blessed fruits which it produces, man would fain take if he could to embellish the fabric of his own rearing. Hence every system of religion, which man has attempted to establish, has always had a second object (or rather one besides that of God), which becoming the proximate has had the first share of man's thoughts. To the truth of this we have an unexceptionable witness in Mr. Wesley, who, perceiving the increased symptoms of worldliness among his own followers, appears to have almost despaired not only of Methodism, but of Christianity itself. “How astonishing a thing” (says he), “is this? How can we understand it? Does it not seem (and yet this cannot be) that Christianity, true scriptural Christianity, has a tendency in process of time to undermine and destroy itself? For wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which in the natural course of things must beget riches; and riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity. Now if there be no way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself, and of consequence cannot stand—cannot continue long among any people; since, wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation.”
However true and humbling the fact, that such has been the course of Christianity, is it not clear that God's object in “true scriptural Christianity” was quite overlooked by the holy man who wrote the above? That object is not to make men comfortable in the world, but to give them power to live above it; at the same time that true scriptural Christianity does produce such fruits as must commend themselves to the conscience of man, although he knows not whence they spring. Man sees these, and he seeks them, but not victory over the world. It is on this common ground of the effects of Christianity, righteousness, temperance, that real Christians and speculative philanthropists meet; its neutrality at once shows it to be ground on which a Christian ought not to be. “He that is not with Me is against Me;” and wherever a Christian, on the principle of his association, cannot confess Christ, he is clearly off the ground of faith.
(To be continued.)