(Concluded from page 174.)
But I must turn briefly to a few details as to the volume itself. All that is objectionable it would be endless to notice. In the first place, What is the effect of the existence of such a book? Two translations were in existence. One which Christians in this country put forward as substantially containing the words of eternal life, and for which they appeared in verification of the things which they brought forward to those whom they believed to be in darkness as of the love and mercies of God Himself, concerning their everlasting peace. But there was also another in use among a large body of those amongst whom they labored as witnesses for the word and love and truth of God, or at least recognized by them as more peculiarly their own Testament. But on comparison of these they were found to be so similar as to give credit to the version which they had been taught to consider as heretical, and very commonly the work of Satan himself; and to discredit those who had attempted to invalidate its authority as a bad book, and thereby keep them in darkness; whereas it was now found to be so much accordant with their own, and, what was more important, to substantiate all the truths by which those who labored among them as Christians sought to deliver them from their darkness into the light of God's own truth. And thus, under the circumstances of the case, that which was in itself an evil became in effect, in many instances, the instrument of God.
But what is the effect of this new translation but to declare that neither the one nor the other of them were sufficiently correct representations of the scriptures to be used in the ordinary instruction of children in the schools? A portion is taken from one here, and from the other there, while both are frequently made to yield to the fancies of the new translator, who can validate the one here, and invalidate the other there, or often reject, and whose authority therefore is paramount to both. Nothing can exceed the malignancy of thus unsettling the authority of the only sources from which the peasantry of Ireland drew their knowledge of truth, and to which alone they could refer as corrective of errors, or by which they might know the certainty of those things which have been taught by the Lord and His apostles. It is precisely the point at which Popery had been aiming all through. Thus far, then, the direct object of this work is to deprive the peasant entirely of the authority of scripture in any reference he may make for truth, by virtue of that in which he is instructed from infancy, under the authority of those to whom that instruction is entrusted, in which Protestants themselves have acquiesced! And if he be indeed led to scripture, as the preface states, he is led to a discredited version, for which he has now no substitute, for the other is alike invalidated, and the unhappy man is left in all the uncertainty as to his best hopes, in which it is the delight of infidelity to plunge him. And can we be surprised, if we know anything of human nature, and especially of the habits of those to whom this work is addressed, if the authority here put forward shall effectually invalidate their confidence in scripture?
And thus for the sake of a paltry selection for the use of schools, from which the truths of scripture are excluded, and to minister to the vanity of one man, all the existing translations are declared worthless, all the corrective sources of truth are, as far as these Commissioners are able to do it, at one blow annihilated for the whole unlettered population of the country. Here is a work coming with the authority of government. The Commissioners of Education: two Archbishops, and. they both of one place: a doctor of divinity, who is one of the educators of ministers themselves; and a dissenter who has a great deal of divinity without being a doctor at all; besides Dukes, and Remembaucers, and lawyers, agreeing not only to reject the scriptures, but in what they did admit of them, to reject both the existing translations; and this, not even preferring any other, but that in fact and representation of the mind of God it was so imperfect and so uncertain that the opinion of a single man was sufficient to subvert it. Nevertheless, the authority of these Commissioners is pledged to this: not only that this is truth, but “truth recorded under the influence of inspiration;” whatever previous translations may have been, this the child is given to know is a record “under the influence of inspiration.”
And thus again, further, we have practically the authority of man made available for what is truth, and what is recorded under the influence of inspiration. The scriptures they had certainly wore not; for the translator is sufficient authority to alter them, but on the authority of Dr. “Whately, Dr. Murray, &c, the children may receive this, and this much, as recorded under the influence of inspiration, and therefore trust in it; and therefore, observe, not trust in either of the existing translations; for if this be, they are not. But this is not all: much is added and mixed up with the extracts which is not scripture. I shall be told that usually this is printed in different type. Why usually? But in point of fact they very constantly are not so printed. And can we be surprised if, with the authority there is for this work amongst the people, such a radiance of light and authority sanctioning its statements—a mere mask such as this—be lost sight of by a child—and not only are large portions given with only this discrimination, but even a note appended upon a point of translation, so that the distinction between what is scripture and what is not (some of the abstracts being printed in smaller type) is made as indeterminate and various as possible: but the whole, observe, given to be received as conveying the history upon the authority of man. It is quite manifest that, while what is scripture is made to rest on the authority of man, the whole would be received by the children at school as one book with equal authority, as coming from the men from whom the authentication of the scripture itself came: if there were any difference, the notes being looked upon, filled as they are with a smattering of learning, as the most important, and freshest from the authority itself, of the whole; for we must observe that this further principle of Popery has been secured in this selection, namely, that the scripture is not intelligible without notes. I am not conscious of a single principle between God and Popery (for that is the true light to see it in), which has not been carefully secured on the side of Popery, with the acquiescence of Protestants, by this little but most important tract.
Extracts under the influence of inspiration, as man will have it, abstracts, headings, and notes; they are all, moreover, presented to the child as scripture lessons: and this, sir, you must observe, is no augmentative effort, in the course of which its real character may be brought to light, but the habituation of the mind from childhood to these feelings and thoughts, by Protestants and Roman Catholics both, and the practical obliteration of every point which characterized Protestant truth and the authority and certainty of the word of God. Besides this, sir, care has been taken to separate one part of scripture from another; so that, such as it is, it should not be received in continuity and associations in which God has placed it, but in those into which man should draw it; and this, sir, instead of the healthful and refreshing streams of God's word.
In a word, while the testimony of God has been impugned in its authority, deprived of its authenticity, but presented ordinarily to the poor, and all its truth abstracted as here given, so that irreparable mischief being done to all, care is taken that the poor little Roman Catholic shall not see the light, the Protestant is ensnared by the wicked and lying presence of Scripture Lessons. I would call them Commissioners' Lessons that people may know and note the real baseness of their origin, that they come from a body the majority of whom deny the faith of God, as all are unworthy of the confidence of men. Let scripture be given in the full current of its own blessed truth, and it will not only refresh those that indeed drink of its waters, and carry comfort and fertility all around to the dwellers on its banks where we perhaps can trace no immediate communication of its life-giving power, but, if the evil of man should be thrown upon it, carry it all down till it is lost in that ocean from which it took its source; and all shall still drink of its streams in abiding freshness and unchanged purity. But if we will be turning it into the reservoir which our pride has made for itself, the potty pools which may seem indeed great works for man, not only shall we lose the blessing, sir, but mound upon mound may be raised to stern the evil of its perverted power, but alas! in vain: it will surely break all through, and lay all below in one wide scene of stagnant desolation and corruption, which none shall inherit and none shall stay; but the cormorant and bittern shall possess it, the wild beast of the desert, and the wild beast of the island. Evil shall reign there; and he who would then seek to remedy it shall but lose himself in the deadly evil and malignancy of the whole scene around, the seat and witness of the power of the enemy and of the wrath of God.
Such, sir, will be the sure result of an effort to make communion between that which God has utterly separated by the very existence of the stream of His living word. It shall prove the desolation of infidelity and wickedness over both. No person can estimate the mischief which the successful use of these falsely called Scripture Lessons would work. It is the most deliberate triumph of papal infidelity which has yet been achieved. This has been put out as a trial. The man, sir, who voluntarily gives up one sentence of scripture breaks his responsibility to God and gives up all. He gives up its authority, and then all is given up. He has given up the great point of allegiance to God. But in point of fact, I challenge Dr. Whately, Dr. Sadlier, and Mr. Carlile, to show one single point on the scriptural question between Protestants and Roman Catholics, which has not been given up to the Roman Catholics—by the publication we are considering. I challenge them to show a single point yielded by the Roman Catholics, and a single one not yielded by themselves. And, Protestants, remember, this is a point of allegiance to God; and God will judge by the public acts of the body, and will take the acts of its leading individuals as the act for which all are responsible. For how came it to be done, if it was only the act of an individual? These things will be taken by God, and are, as representations of the state of the body. No church ever fell by evil from without; but if it give up its allegiance to God, why should God preserve it?
If Protestants looked upon Dr. Whately, Dr. Sadlier and the like, as mere common blasphemers of God's word, and with much more responsibility than the Roman Catholics, because they say “we see,” and therefore their sin remaineth, could these acts of theirs take any effect? Clearly not. If, on the other hand, I am told the nominal place of authority in which Dr. Whately is set makes it wrong so to deal with them, makes it necessary to own them, then, I say, the church of Ireland is gone, its judgment is pronounced, the sign of judgment is on it from God; for by virtue of its very structure, by the obligations it is under, it is obliged to allow of evil, of the denial by its authorities of the principles on which it was founded, as acknowledged by God. The Protestant church exists by virtue of the acknowledgment of the word of God. This word has been denied by its public authority, and the inhabitants of the country cheerfully left for the instruction of popish priests. The church of Ireland either can or cannot reject this apostasy, from the public sanction which it now receives within its bosom. If it can and does not, its guilt will be apparent. If it cannot, then, I say, God is exhibiting the circumstances which will justify His proximate judgment. It has ceased to be available for the purpose of His public testimony in the land, the very object for which it had its position. The hand of God is upon it. He may bless its ministers individually; but the authority of the system may be used for the purpose of denying the principles on which God founded it. It has been so used, and then comes judgment.
If Dr. Whately must be recognized, after this book and its preface have gone forth, in the place of authority in what God heretofore set as the Protestant church, the judgment of God must be recognized also by the church to which he belongs, as impending on it. I repeat it, a shameful and vital dishonor has been done to God by the Protestant church, as to the very principle for the maintenance of which God instituted and owned it. If it cannot reject and repudiate it, then, I say, it stands with the public acknowledgment, that it is absolutely incompetent to maintain this position; nay, that it is competent for one holding its authority to be joined with Papists and Socinians: in denying this principle, and for what is God to own it any longer? Is Protestantism to be sustained when it allows of the far worst part of Popery? and for what? Those concerned may slight the question, but this will only prove the truth of the result. We shall see how it will be in fact. Who is worst, the Roman Catholic who instructs, or the Protestant teacher, or professed teacher, who cheerfully leaves the instruction to them, and the children of course to their instruction, taking care only that they shall not have the scriptures? Judge ye. I know how God judges; and if the Protestant ministers do not exert themselves, they shall have a share of the judgments that must follow.
To secure the better acquiescence in the authority of this tract, the translator in the preface tells us that the extracts are a literal translation from the original; but, in the unhappy blindness which often accompanies the desertion of God's word in seeking another object, he has contradicted himself in the same pages: “The translation has been made by a comparison of the Authorized and Douay versions with the original.” Now every one knows, sir, that the Douay is not, and does not profess to be made from the original at all, but from the Vulgate; and, truly, forming a text by the comparison of this and another translation with the original is not translating at all, certainly not literally from the original. And there are passages taken from the Douay, and important ones too, where is little or no authority for positive variations from the original save that of the Vulgate itself. It may be very well to set upon the front of the statement that it is a literal translation of the original. It was thus Mr. Belsham exerted himself. But it is too bad to find in the same page that it is a comparison of the translation of a translation with another translation which we have after all; and that, in fact, this authority is knuckled to in many instances. Will anybody believe that planting a garden from “the beginning” in Eden was introduced instead of Eastward, because it was more literal? In “Eden” he was forced to retain the authorized translation for sense' sake, though the Douay and Vulgate translate it otherwise; but then he was to give no advantage to either side: so Mikkedem must be translated “from the beginning,” though he confesses the Hebrew word has both senses, and the place is confessedly to the Eastward. But he was not satisfied with putting “in Eden,” but he must assert the integrity of the Douay, “pleasure,” in a note, the assertion of which would make nonsense of this and other places if “translated literally,” and which is directly negatived by the points as far as they go. But this, sir, is comparatively an immaterial instance, save as to the wickedness of unsettling all the certainty of scripture in the minds of man.
We may pass to others. The Second man from heaven, heavenly; here we have in a note, or the Lord from heaven. Now, sir, this is no question of translation at all. If the compiler translates “heavenly,” he does so by admitting a different reading, which, though probable, is not received in the original by any. But it is in the Douay: and here the Douay has not merely its own value as a witness, but its conventional value as one of the things to be compared with. Therefore, in spite of the original, we have the Douay version; and indeed I have not stated this fully, for although several manuscripts exclude the term “Lord,” the “heavenly” has scarce any support at all. This is pure concession to the Douay and Vulgate.
In the same lesson we have the note to the Douay version, of which so much has been heard; that the sense is the same, whether we read it according to “the original” “it,” that is, Jesus Christ, or “she,” the woman. What do people mean by the sense being the same, “for,” &c.? Do the Commissioners think the sense is the same? No, sir, the children must be troubled with the intricacies of philological speculation. Not that any honest man would have any difficulty here, but Popery must be yielded to in its worst form: this is a pure concession, and that of the word of God, to Popery.
The Commissioners, or some of them, it is manifest, did not think the sense the same, or the note would not be given as a “note to the Douay version.” But they would not exercise an independent opinion. It was not the truth of the thing, but concession to what they believed to be false. And this is the character of the whole work. “Divers of the fathers and the Latin.” What is all this? Is it right, or is it wrong? “Translated literally from the original.” Why so carefully preserved, if it be wrong? What is there of it in the original from which the translation has been made? It is written, sir, “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I do definitely charge here the whole of the Commissioners with introducing here what they know to be false, to yield to, or secure, according to the credit of their respective parties, the credit of papal falsehoods. But are the poor children to be subjected to this? They must, sir; they cannot help themselves. These are days of liberty, but not for them.
If ever there was thorough devilish wickedness, it is this Commission; and the worst people in it are the so-called Protestant ministers: we shall see their end.
I may note here a most important comment in the shape of a question: “Why has death passed upon all men?” —a question no way warranted by the structure of the sentence.
In the next lesson, sir, we have a gross dereliction of the original to let in the Douay, and that in a point directly involving the worst principles of Popery. “Whosoever is not just [or righteous] is not of God, nor he that loveth not his brother.” Now, sir, what “original” is this translated from? The Vulgate and some of the fathers: what miserable dishonesty is this! “He that doeth not righteousness” is the original and the English version. But the Douay must be conciliated. No other possible reason can be assigned for the deviation from the original.
I said, sir, that it was in connection with the worst principles of Popery by which a man is not just as before God by virtue of the work of Christ, but his own state. We have a very Jesuitical note on this subject which shows that it did not escape the Commissioners' observation, and may account for the departure from the original here. “Righteousness, justice. The word rendered in the Authorized version, righteousness, and in the Douay, justice, sometimes signifies the virtue of justice or uprightness, and sometimes the condition of a man, who is just, or justified before God, through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. To express the latter sense, Roman Catholic English translators are accustomed to use the word justice. Protestant translators more frequently use the word righteousness” (p. 39). The cold-hearted wickedness of these men! Well said the prophet, “The unjust knoweth no shame.” They use a different word, and to show their unity the Commissioners will use both; but as to sense Roman Catholics and Protestants are quite agreed as to righteousness or justification. “This latter sense,” common of course to both, is expressed by one, so, and by the other more frequently (not always, I suppose,) so. Indeed! In fact, translators are the only people concerned.
It is a pity we had not Mr. Carlile before, and we should have been spared all the trouble about this way of righteousness. There is no question as to the truth of God. All the artillery of the Council of Trent might have been spared. “A man,” quoth the note, “just or justified before God through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this latter sense,” &c. The Council of Trent says, “if any one says that men are justified either by the imputation of Christ's justice (or righteousness to Protestants) alone, or by the remission of sins alone, grace and charity being excluded, which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them; or also that the grace whereby we are justified is only the favor of God, let him be anathema.” Again, sir, “this disposition or preparation justification itself follows, which is not the remission of sins alone, but also sanctification and renovation of the inner man through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts; whence a man from unjust becomes just.” Again, the instrumental cause is baptism; and again, “with which endued” (i.e., the justice of God) “we are renewed in the spirit of our mind; and are not only accounted but are truly called and are just, receiving justice in ourselves which the Holy Spirit distributed (or bestows) to each as He will, and according to the proper disposition and co-operation of each.” Convenient it may be to Mr. Carlile, and it may be to others of his coadjutors to get this “latter sense” identified with the righteousness which is imputed to us if we believe on Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Convenient it may be to show that Protestants, when they speak of righteousness before God, have the same sense (merely more frequently using a different word) as when a poor misguided Roman Catholic talks of justice, which, according to the well-defined opinions of the apostate Council of Trent, he is taught must be inherent; and that all simple confidence in the remission of sins by the offering of Jesus Christ once for all, by the which He has perfected forever them that are sanctified, is but the vain confidence of the heretics.
But where is honesty and the truth of God? The direct force of this passage is to give the notion that justification before God, through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, is held in the same sense by Protestants and Roman Catholics. Perhaps Mr. Carlile does, and very likely his so-called Protestant coadjutors may; but if it be so, where is truth, or what are we to expect as to the education of the poor, if the Protestant Commissioners forsooth think thus? Here is a positive announcement, under the notion of accounting for two words being used, that the sense in which Protestants and Roman Catholics consider this subject is the same; and yet, if I am not much misinformed, Mr. Carlile thinks he gains much from his Popish coadjutors in this matter. But I never knew a case in which the devil was not more cunning than anyone that undertook to do his business in the hope of cheating him. And so it is here. I said the note was Jesuitical; Popish hands have been in it, I am sure, for, while it identifies the Protestant righteousness with Roman Catholic justice, it completely secures the popish view of the subject itself. And in anxiety for this, the very sense of the passage is sacrificed; for the note, if scrutinized, is nonsense. It first states that justice, in the Douay, means either the virtue of uprightness, or the condition of a man, &c.; and then states that Roman Catholic translators use the word justice to express the latter. And now notice the result: justice, and therefore Protestant righteousness, signifies the virtue of uprightness or what? The fact of our acceptance with God? The forgiveness of our sins? Righteousness being accounted to us? Are these ideas admitted? Not at all, but the condition of a man who is justified before God, through, &c. Now this is exactly the distinction of Popery, the distinction of the Council of Trent.
This one note is the surrender of the vital question between Protestants and the deniers of the truth of the Church of Borne; and for which the Lord gave Himself, just as the book itself gives up the authority of the scriptures. Say, that Protestants mean by righteousness, besides practical uprightness (as in the previous perverted text, “he that doeth not righteousness"), a man's being accounted absolutely righteous before God, by virtue and on account of the death, and evinced by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that this consists in the absolute non-imputation of all or any sin: the Roman Catholic starts away. The truth has touched the vitality of his system. Tell him that justice means the condition of a man who is just or justified before God through the atonement, &c, and he agrees at once. Tell him, this is all a Protestant means by righteousness, and he says, You may fraternize with us: there is nothing to hinder you. And in truth there is not. And why put in the note at all? The text told the truth; and therefore the note must be put in to say, that, by believing in God, Abraham was in the condition of a man who was justified before God through, &c, and that in fact this was all Protestants meant by the words.
What God means, sir, is not the question with the Commissioners. They must, somehow or other, make the scriptures suit both parties; but the way we see they do this is, where the scriptures speak plain Protestant sense, the passage is not to be left out, (that might give a handle,) but, what is worse, it being introduced is to be shown in a note that Protestants understand it in no other sense than Roman Catholics themselves do. Either Mr. Carlile and the other, so-called, Protestant members, introduce this note, or the Popish members. If the former, then we have an open willful purpose upon their part to neutralize the truth of scripture; where left to itself, it speaks Protestantism. If the latter, where scripture passages speak Protestantism, the former are obliged to allow the latter to introduce their comments with their sanction, that Protestants themselves think no otherwise on these subjects than they do. But they do, sir; and though Archbishops may deny the faith and take part with Papists, and though Mr. Carlile should give up the authority and obliterate the truths of scripture which he once professed, I trust there are many, if needs were, to lay down their lives for what they have been doing their utmost to suppress in this book and their whole work in this matter and to deprive their poor countrymen of (though that they are not). They have taken away the key of knowledge; they would not enter in themselves, and those that would enter in they hinder. They have done worse; they are giving the sanction of the profession of the truth to those who are doing so of old. Of the two at this moment, far rather would I be the Roman Catholic Archbishop than Dr. Whately or Mr. Carlile; and I must ask, if Popery be recognized, what business has Dr. Whately to be Archbishop at all?
I have said sufficient to show the character of this book to those who have ears to hear. Others I cannot expect to influence in these days of apostasy. Those who love money better than principle, and seek the cover of the name of Archbishops, and Protestants, for their own acquiescence in infidelity and Popery, may be expected to receive their bounty and rejoice in the wages of their iniquity; but the curse of deceived thousands will await them when all is unveiled.
I might mention other instances of the sublime morality which their suppression of parts of scripture has secured; as that concubines were an inferior sort of wives which men were permitted to have in ancient times—by God, I suppose, though it is not stated whether before the fall, or whether it was an allowance to their passions after it. But when principle is gone, such things can excite no surprise. They fancy it is virtue, and they must rescue scripture—virtuous men!—from the charges to which it might be liable, when they cannot help stating the facts as God stated them. Though why this should have been introduced at all, unless to state that “concubines were permitted,” it would be hard to tell. But these are trifles; the principle of the book is the thing. It is badly executed indeed besides; immaterial things introduced, no scriptural thread in the story, as alienated from the scriptural concatenation of the subjects as possible, a sort of epistle and gospel, collectanea to suit the tastes of the compiler, everything to efface the forms and associations of God's scriptures, and to present merely an allowance framed by the wisdom of man out of scripture; and this itself not under the influence of any peculiar views of Christianity, doctrinal or practical; the open renunciation of Protestantism in form and substance; in form the scriptures, in substance as here stated. And so much so, that, where a passage might seem to favor Protestantism, it is expressly renounced in the note.
Now, sir, to preach Protestantism is one thing. That was not done in the old schools, unless the scriptures, even the Douay version, are Protestantism. But openly to renounce it and deny the scriptures is another; this was reserved for Dr. Whately, Mr. Carlile, and Dr. Sadlier, not for themselves, but under color of their profession, for all the poor children in the country. A comfortable conscience they must have at the thought, if this system succeeds, that as far as they can do, the children of 2,000,000, have been deprived of the scriptures, and of 5,000,000 completely, whom they cheerfully leave to the instruction of Popish priests. So at least, they say. I do not envy them their cheerfulness.
And here I close my painful task, in which we have seen the first fruits of a commission, founded on infidelity, in a work whose chief object is to desecrate the authority, and destroy the certainty, while it robs us of the truths, of scripture; and delighting in a skepticism, which, having no peculiar religious views at all, if the scripture should force any upon us, will take care to explain them away: and, having lost all regard of God in its desire to please men, will take care to do this toward them who are in authority, while the poor children, who are nominally committed to their care, they cheerfully leave to their instructors to teach whatever they please; only taking care of this, that, so long as they are under their control, the fresh breathings of God's healthful and health-giving word and Spirit shall never reach their thirsty and gasping lips, while all they shall mix up for them, willing or. unwilling, they must take. Well done, good and faithful servants!
Christian friends, the true light in which to look at it is this: there is no government in Western Europe now (that is, within the limits of the Roman Empire,) which is not either infidel or papal. Almost the only public profession of the form of truth, which substantially remains within its existing limits or power, is the profession of a large body, however faithless, in Ireland. Against this the powers of Satan are directed, and in this effort the leading moral instrument is the new Board of Education. The document on which' it was founded was a public manifesto of this. The conduct which it has pursued is here shown to be suitable and accordant to it. The authority of the scriptures is surrendered and their truths covered.
Rouse yourselves, therefore, Christians. Trust not in man, nor in any child of man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in princes. I expect them to have much success. It is a day in which wickedness is allowed to have much success, that it may meet its reward: but if we are faithful to God, they can have no success against us. Christians, therefore, exert yourselves; it is the wily effort of infidelity to poison and destroy your children, and the children of all around you. There is no help in your effort, I warn you so, but in God. Trust not in yourselves; lean upon God, and He will be with you. I have told you, nay they have told you themselves, that the governments of the earth with which we are concerned are infidel. Do you think they will care for the truth, or those who hold it? They do not pretend to it, for there is strength and favor in God. I say, trust in Him, act as Christians, and God will own you. I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that you bestir yourselves, that those who have ears to hear may escape this engulfing effort of infidelity. This is a question of Christianity: let every man do something to rescue the children from them. I do solemnly warn you all, Christian friends (and I think I have proved it, if proof is needed) that this is the effort of infidelity to destroy the public profession of the truth, and the souls of the children that are ensnared in it, and I warn those that are engaged in it, that they are involving themselves in the final judgments of God.