Conclusion

“DON’T be a fool.” Such a phrase may seem strangely uncouth, and utterly unworthy, as a refrain to the note struck in one of the earliest pages of this book. And yet it is but a colloquial rendering of an Apostolic precept addressed to the Ephesian Church. “Be not unwise,” our translators give it; but “fools” is their rendering of the same word elsewhere: “Be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”1

The use made of the passage in Ecclesiastes, above referred to,2 about paying vows, illustrates the need of this Apostolic exhortation. For no man of generous mind would be guilty of the mingled cruelty and meanness which, in this matter,

1 Eph. v. 17. 2 Eccles. v. 1-5. See p. 8, ante.

“the Catholic Church” attributes to God. The enforcement of life vows, moreover, is not only abhorrent to the spirit of Christianity, but opposed even to the letter of the Mosaic law.

If the Apostle’s words be construed precisely as he wrote them they will read thus: “Take heed then how ye walk strictly, not as unwise but as wise, buying up for yourselves the opportunity, be cause the days are evil: on this account be not fools, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”

There are different types of folly in the

1 If ail Israelite who bad made a vow desired to be released from it, God did not bold him to it. Whatever the devoted thing might be — whether the man himself, or his house, or his land, or his beast — its capitalised value was estimated, and on payment of that sum with a definitely specified addition, the vow was at an end (Lev. xxvii.). The law has passed away, with the dispensation to which it belonged; but the Divine principle underlying it remains for our guidance. And the principle is, that God’s interests must not suffer. Suppose, e.g., that a Christian who, for the sake of God’s work, makes a vow of celibacy, desires to be released from it, he is to see to it that, by increased faithfulness in his changed circumstances, God’s work shall not lose, but gain.

2 This is Alford’s rendering (Greek Testament, Eph. v. 15-17), save that for “fools” he reads “senseless.1’

Christian life. The man who walks care fully is as really a fool as the man who walks carelessly, if with all his care he is ignorant of the Divine will. And it is this kind of folly that often does the most harm. For while the “inconsistent” Christian, who openly leaves the path, is regarded as an outsider, the earnest religionist who is wanting in intelligence misrepresents God and misleads men.

In no sphere, indeed, is the exhortation which heads this chapter more needed. For in all that pertains to religion, men seem ready to take leave not only of the Bible, but of their brains. And yet a book might be written on the appeals which Scripture makes to that uncommon quality called common sense. In addressing the Athenians, for example, the Apostle Paul appealed to it in proof that “God who made the world and all things that are therein “does not live in a house of stone or brick,” neither is served with men’s

1 Our Lord Himself appealed to it. See, e.g., Matt. xv. 16-20; Luke xii. 57.

CHAP, xiii] CONCLUSION 141

hands as though He needed anything.” And in the Epistle to the Corinthians he appeals to it when enjoining that even true spiritual impulses, and the exercise of genuine spiritual gifts, are to be made subordinate to the practical purpose of edifying others. “Let all things be done unto edifying,” and “Let all things be done decently and in order:” What are these maxims but an appeal to the ordinary intelligence of spiritual men?

And the great principle enunciated in the fifteenth chapter, that the natural takes precedence of the spiritual,3 has a wide and general application. Natural relationships, for example, have priority over spiritual relationships. Husband, father, master; wife, child, servant; these are not merged in the higher and closer bond of oneness in Christ, — but on the contrary, unless where loyalty to the Lord is involved, they take precedence of it.

1 Acts xvii. 24, 25. a 1 Cor. xiv. 20, 40.

3 “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural” (1 Cor. xv. 46, R.V.).

Man’s ruin by the fall does not destroy the fact that he is God’s creature. The word “natural,” therefore, has a double meaning. It may stand for what is right and good, as well as for what is evil. But Christians forget this; and as the result they often become unreal through wishing to become spiritual. A “sanctimonious” tone of speech, for example, and a phraseology that savours of cant, are studiously acquired by many as being more in keeping with truth and holiness than plain words spoken in a natural voice. In this matter, as in many another that might be specified, the Christian cannot be too “natural.” l

But while ordinary intelligence might save us from many of the follies of what

1 Clergymen and preachers generally are great offenders in this respect. Whether with Church dignitaries in cathedral pulpits, or humble “street-preachers,” the “holy whine’ is in evidence. When I used to dine in hall at the Middle Temple, I was often struck by the contrast when, in the absence of the Master and the Reader, our magnificent “grace” was read by a Bencher in his natural voice. And one of the memories of my first visit to Christ Church, Oxford, was the almost electrical effect when, after a prolonged spell of the “whine,” Dean Liddell’s fine, manly voice rang out in pronouncing the benediction.

passes as “religion,” there are errors of another kind, more subtle and more evil, in respect of which we are entirely dependent on “the word of the Lord” to teach us “the will of the Lord.” Hence the importance of making Holy Scripture the test and touchstone in everything, whether of conduct or of creed. A great Englishman of our own generation said a very great thing when he declared, in effect, that our care should always be to fall into line with the Divine purpose. And if a man of the world can grasp this principle, it ought surely to be the Christian’s most earnest aim to “understand what the will of the Lord is.” But Christians generally seem strangely ignorant even of God’s supreme purpose in redemption, and therefore wholly blind to the significance and solemnity of the times we live in.

The materialism which, a generation ago, accepted a plausible theory of the origin of living matter as an adequate solution of all the mysteries of life, has given way under the proofs which Spiritualism affords of the existence of beings to whose origin evolution can supply no clue. And movements like Spiritualism and Christian Science, which in our own time have made more converts than Christianity, ought surely to have a voice for the spiritual Christian. But while even men of science have come to recognise the existence of a spirit world, the attitude of most Christians to ward that world is one of scepticism or indifference. In a vague way, indeed, they believe in a devil — the bogey of the religion of Christendom — but of the Satan of Scripture they know absolutely nothing.

“Ye are of your father the Devil,” was the Lord’s scathing reply to the Jews when, in rejecting His teaching, they fell back upon that figment of apostates, the fatherhood of God: “Ye are of your father the Devil, and the desires of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth because truth is not in him. When he speaketh the lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.”1

“A murderer from the beginning.” The beginning of what? Not of his own existence; for he was created in perfectness and beauty. Nor of the existence of man; for, before the Eden fall, he had already dragged down others in his ruin. His being a murderer connects itself immediately with the truth which he refused, and the lie of which he is the father. These words of our Divine Lord give us a glimpse into a past eternity, when, to the heavenly intelligences, the great mystery of God2 was first made known — the purpose of the ages, that a Firstborn was to be revealed, and that “in all things Lie might have the pre-eminence.”3

The greatest of those heavenly beings, whom we now know as Satan, claimed that place, and, rebelling against the Divine counsels, he set himself from that hour to

1 John viii. 44.

2 “The mystery of God, even Christ” (Col. ii. 2, R.V.). 3 Col. i. 18.

K thwart them. Therefore it was that he compassed the ruin of our race. But it is in the temptation of Christ that he and his lie are fully manifested. He claimed to meet the Lord on more than equal terms. Not one Christian in a thousand realises the significance of the narrative. Having “led Him up,” and given Him that mysterious vision of the kingdoms of the world, the Devil said unto Him, “To thee will I give all this power and the glory of them; for it hath been delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me it shall be thine.”

This was not the raving of profanity or madness. It was the bold assertion of a disputed right. Satan claims to be the Firstborn, the rightful heir of creation, the true Messiah; and as such he claims the homage of mankind. Men dream of a Devil with horns and hoofs, an obscene

i And in view of the promise to Eve, he may possibly have thought that Cain or Abel was his rival, and so he won Cain over to his side and compassed the death of Abel.

monster who tempts the depraved to acts of atrocity or shame; but the Satan of Holy Writ “fashions himself into an angel of light,” and “his ministers fashion them selves as ministers of righteousness.” Do angels of light and ministers of righteousness corrupt men’s morals, or incite them to commit acts of vice or crime? 2

In the light of these words we may read the Divine warning of an apostasy “in later times,” promoted by demons of a sensitive spirituality, and a more fastidious morality than Christianity itself will sanction. “All Scripture is God-breathed.” But it would seem that sometimes the revelation was made with special definiteness; and this particular warning is prefaced by the words: “the Spirit saitfiescpressly.” And it relates not to a new development of wickedness in the world, but to a new falling away from tlic jaitli in the Church — a cult that will prove a

1 2 Cor. xi. 14, R.V.

2 These paragraphs about the Devil are based on the chapter upon the subject in “The Silence of God.”

peril to the Christian by tending to draw him away from Christ.

For there is nothing more plainly revealed in Scripture than that “the latter days” are to be marked by a development of evil of unparalleled subtlety — an apostasy of such a kind that, but for Divine grace, it would “deceive the very Elect.” If people would use their brains they would see that “the Elect” could only be deceived by evil in the guise of good; not by an apostasy characterised by transparent error or open

1 1 Tim. iv. “But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences cauterised, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.” The Revised Version rendering, “the hypocrisy of men,” suggests a false exegesis of this passage, which is supported by an arbitrary punctuation. And consciences cannot be branded, though they may be seared.

It is certain that demons were aggressively active during our Lord’s earthly ministry. And we have the clear testimony of Scripture that “the latter days” will be marked by even greater demoniacal activity. But ‘during this Christian dispensation the activities of evil spirits have apparently been restrained in Christian, though not in heathen, countries. And this may be explained by the presence of the Spirit of God. In many ways the close of the dispensation will seemingly resemble its opening days.

CHAP, xui] CONCLUSION 149

violence. Thus it was with the mother of our race. For Eve was “thoroughly deceived” l by the Devil’s craftiness in persuading her that wrong was right.

The mythical devil of Christendom is an extraordinary creature who, though omnipresent — for he is always at the side of every man and woman and child of all the fifteen hundred millions of mankinddevotes his powers to making children naughty and grown-up people vicious. But the Satan with whom we have to do is “the old Serpent” of Eden, and “the Power of Darkness” of the betrayal and crucifixion of the Son of God; that awful being of whom Holy Scripture speaks as “the prince of this world” and “the god of this world,” who controls the religion of the world.2

He appears in the very dawn of Revelation; and in its closing pages he fills a still larger place. For while he has seemed to

1 1 Tim. ii. 14. In the revised reading the word is in the intensified form as regards Eve. The same word is used in 2 Cor. xi. 3.

2 Luke xxii. 53; 2 Cor. iv. 4.

be the victor in many a skirmish, the voice of Divine prophecy is full and clear that the great battle is yet to come, when he will enter the lists in a final effort to thwart the supreme purpose of God in creation and redemption.

And what is that purpose? “The salvation of sinners” is the reply which a certain type of orthodoxy will offer. “The elevation of the race” will be the testimony of the most modern and popular school of theology; for with that school man is the spoiled child of the universe, and all heaven is dancing attendance on him! But the answer which every spiritual Christian will give to the question is, “the exaltation of Christ” Man is but “a pawn upon the board.” Our confidence and peace depend upon the fact that our salvation is linked with that great purpose. “Kept by the power of God” is inscribed upon the life record of every sinner who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows his own worthlessness and weakness, but he knows also that “HE is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” l

Just as a drop of water from the shal lowest pool upon the shore is the ocean in miniature, so the spiritual life-struggle of the humblest of the redeemed is a miniature of the great spiritual conflict of the ages. This it is that gives such solemnity, and lends such dignity, to the life of each one of us; for the true aim of the Christian life is to be ever in harmony with the Divine purpose of exalting Christ.

And now we can appreciate the Apostle’s words in their application to the times in which we live. The days are evil: “on this account be not unwise.” No Christian need hesitate to own that both materially and morally “the world is getting better.” But he will not confound the moral with the spiritual sphere, nor fail to see that, with increasing prosperity and intelligence, there is a marked decline, even in outward reverence for God.

But all this is beside the question. For

1 Ileb. vii. ’25.

“THE WAY ’ [CHAP, xin

what concerns us is not the state of the world as such, but the condition of the professing Church. Students of prophecy used to be perplexed by the seeming incompatibility of predictions of a revival of the historic apostasy, side by side with a new departure from the faith, marked by spiritual power and a high moral standard, and yet by a turning away from Christ and Scripture — “a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” But here in England to-day this enigma is being solved before our eyes. The National Church is lapsing back to the errors and superstitions of pre-Reformation times And the only powerful check upon this “Catholic revival” is essentially rationalistic. As for the “Free Churches,” a feeble evangelicalism, bent on compromise, is with most of them the only hindrance to the supremacy of the new apostasy. For the increasing clericalism which characterises them is due to the fact that in giving up what is Divine, men are apt to

1 The old apostasy is certainly not a form of godliness.

cling more closely to the human element in religion.

From the standpoint of our national interests, Rome is our greatest danger; for the influence of the Church as a political power has been always evil. But the Christian may be pardoned if he hesitates between an apostasy which embodies, even in the most corrupt form, the vital truths of Christianity, and an apostasy which rejects the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, and discredits the Scriptures which speak of Him.

Such a statement may seem startling. But let us cast aside prejudice, and test it by characteristic manifestoes of the two systems — the Decrees of the Council of Trent, and Hastings’ “Dictionary of the Bible.” In the one we shall find, beneath a mass of superstition and error, a clear acknowledgment of the deity of Christ, and of the truth and Divine authority of Holy Scripture. The prevailing ten-

1 I do not stop to discuss whether this was so in the early centuries.

dency of the other may be judged by the following typical extract from the “Dictionary.” 1 It is from the article on “Satan,” and therefore strictly germane to the subject of this present chapter.

“From the preceding exposition of the biblical conceptions respecting Satan we clearly see that early Christianity shared in the prevailing Jewish beliefs in demons and Satan....

“Our argument by no means implies that Jesus shared in all the current conceptions respecting demons. The problem is a complex one. We have to give due place to two considerations: ( 1 ) that Christ’s sayings and deeds are necessarily coloured by the representative human media through which they are conveyed to us; (2) that the demonology of Christ’s belief is scarcely visible in the Fourth Gospel, though His belief in a personal Satan is

1 I do not refer to the Encyclopaedia Biblica because Prof. Cheyne is the enfant terrible of the “Conservative “critics of the Driver school, whose ( ‘Confession of Faith” is the “Dictionary.”

clearly apparent. There can, however, be no scientific Christology which does not recognise that Christ’s humanity was so genuine and complete that He shared in the cosmic presuppositions of His time.... Now demonology was a necessary part of the intellectual apparatus of that period.”

This extract is thoroughly characteristic of the book from which it is quoted, and of the school by which the book is accredited. The Buddha of this system was the dupe of “the current Jewish notions” of an ignorant age. l Therefore it was that (to quote Dr. Harnack) He believed in “stories of demons” and such like “absurdities “; therefore it was that He

1 “Both Christ’ and the apostles or writers of the New Testament held the current Jewish notions respecting the Divine authority and revelation of the Old Testament. “- Hastings’ “Bible Dictionary,” article “Old Testament,” p. 601.

Dr. Pusey wrote: “I know not whether the open blasphemy of the eighteenth century is more offensive than the cold blooded patronising ways of the nineteenth.” Personally I feel no such doubt. I would vastly prefer open infidelity to the tone of these evil books.

accepted and accredited the Hebrew Scriptures, and especially the Pentateuch, now known by “all people of culture” to be a priestly forgery; and the Books of Jonah and of Daniel, now rejected as an allegory and a romance!

And not only was His teaching destitute of any Divine sanction, but the writings which record it are unreliable. Neither the doctrine nor the records, therefore, afford any sure basis for Jaith. Is it not clear as light that the critic and the Christian have neither the same Bible,1 nor yet the same Christ?

The Kenosis theory by which these men seek to justify their repudiation of the teaching of our Divine Lord is entirely inadequate and irrelevant. For what has to be accounted for is not that in the

1 Here is another specimen. As above quoted (p. 147), the Apostle Paul records a revelation accorded him about demons, prefaced by the words, “the Spirit saith expressly.” “St. Paul shared the conceptions of his contemporaries respecting demons,” is the answer of Hastings’ “Dictionary” as to this (article “Demons”). Men who, write thus deserve to be branded as - — ; well, they are not entitled to the least respect or consideration.

ministry of His humiliation He was ignorant and deceived, though this might well offend the reverent and perplex the thoughtful; but what claims explanation is, that with extreme solemnity He demanded acceptance of His false teaching as Divine truth; that after His resurrection He endorsed it with the utmost definiteness, and sent out His Apostles to promulgate it; that the Holy Spirit, given to lead His disciples into all truth, confirmed them in the error; and that for eighteen centuries His people were left thus deluded and deceived, till a set of foreign rationalists exposed the fraud. All this must be accounted for before we can accept “the assured results of modern criticism.”

Still more irrelevant is it to plead that the English exponents of the so-called Higher Criticism are men of earnest piety and devotion to truth. For what concerns us is the character, not of the men, but of the system. “He that hateth his brother is a murderer,” is one of many statements which seem to savour of exaggeration if we forget the underlying principle, that an influence is to be judged by its legitimate tendencies; a road, by where it leads. We must not judge of the Higher Criticism, therefore, by the men who now father it in England, for they were trained in a different school, and still feel the power of the truths which they under mine. But what about those who shall come after them? Already there are quasi-Christian pulpits occupied by “ministers of righteousness” whose theology knows no Eden Fall, no redemption by blood, no atonement, no new birth by the Holy Spirit, no inspired Scriptures, no eternal judgment, no hell for the impenitent; no Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but in his place a “Jesus” who is “the ideal of almost perfect manhood.”

And not only are the Hebrew Scriptures discredited, but the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament are brought down practically to the level of mere human

1 These words are quoted from one of the most recent of the evil books of the propaganda.

writings. No fair man, therefore, whose mind is unclouded by the superstitions of religion, will deny that these “ministers of righteousness” hold the only position logically tenable if the Higher Criticism is to prevail. And the next generation cannot fail to recognise this. The lists are thus preparing for the great predicted struggle of the latter days, between the cult of rationalistic man-worship and the ancient apostasy of Christendom. If the reader fails to appreciate the origin and significance of this movement, this closing chapter will have been written in vain.

But in the midst of this “deepening gloom” let the Christian recall the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, which remind us that the gathering darkness bears the promise of coming dawn: “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption is drawing nigh.”

And as the teaching of this system is so persistently dinned into our ears, we

1 Luke xxi. 28.

do well to have our minds steeped in the thoughts and words of Holy Scripture about Him whom we worship as Lord and Saviour — words, for instance, such as these, expressly given to save us from the “vain deceit” of “scientific Christologies” l: —

“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature;

“For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him;

“And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.

“And He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that IN ALL THINGS HE

MIGHT HAVE THE PRE-EMINENCE.”
1 Col. i. 15-18; ii. 8.