Unconditional Election--Children of Believing Parents--An Arrogant
Pretension--God's Own Children--The Heathen of All Time--A Baleful
Shadow--Former Cruelty--Herbert Spencer--Dr. Farrar's Eternal Hope--A
Lady With an Open Mind--Dr. Dawson's Larger View.--The Universal
Attraction.
The old doctrine of God's unconditional decrees still survives, despite
our conviction that perfect impartiality is one of the attributes of the
divine character. The idea seems to have taken hold of some minds that a
thing is right because God is the Author of it. That is certainly
beginning at the wrong end. God does a thing because it is right; His
doing of it does not make it right. But we need to have faith that His
future administration will rectify all the apparent wrongs of the
present. It is our failure to take this larger view that has led many
people of the kindest heart to adopt the most cruel conclusions.
Just now a lady has told me of a certain "eminent divine" who says that
children who die in infancy are elected if they are the children of
believing parents! What a revelation this "eminent divine" must have of
the eternal mysteries! Since he knows so much, I would like to ask if
one believing parent would not suffice, in an urgent case, or if both
must infallibly be believers! A more arrogant pretension it would be
difficult to conceive.
The lady who spoke to me on the subject said it would be a very
comfortable thing to believe. "Yes," I said, "it might be a comfortable
thing for you, but what about the other woman down street who is not a
believer? Do you think that her children are not as precious in God's
sight as yours?"
Away with all such hard, narrowing conceptions! Can it be imagined that
God would consign infants to everlasting torment, simply because they
are children of unbelieving parents? A thousand times No! Let us
remember that they are His own children, whatever earthly parentage they
may have. His love and power are not going to be thwarted by any
considerations of evil ancestry. Any lingering doubt of that is a
survival of the old, narrow, hard doctrine of absolute election.
But in support of the idea referred to, this passage may be quoted: "The
promise is to you and to your children." Does not that exclude all
others? Well, let us see. Read on. "And to all that are afar off." Ah!
That immensely widens the circle. "All that are afar off." Who are
they? Are they not the heathen of all the world, and of all time? So the
children of believing parents are bound up in the same bundle with the
vilest of mankind. And we are not greatly surprised. For they are God's
own children, every one; and whether they are little innocent infants or
others advanced in some stages of wickedness, or the most depraved of
mankind, we believe they are all subject to redeeming power and grace.
Different means may be required for their education or reclamation; but
it is easy to believe that divine love, and power, and wisdom, will not
fail of their effect.
But, then, something more is added in the passage we have quoted. "Even
to as many as the Lord our God shall call." Does not that look like
restriction, or selection? Well let us see. Who are they that are
called? Here we have it, Listen. "Look unto me, and be saved, all the
ends of the earth." Surely, that means the whole race. And equally it
means the next life as well as the present; for there are millions and
millions who never heard the call, and never will hear it, on this
side of time.
We hope we are now leaving behind us the ferocity which was formerly
considered quite appropriate to religion. Indeed, a man was hardly
accounted serious, if he was not severe. And the worst of it was, that
God was considered severe. Men could read over and over again that "God
is love;" but somehow the great truth was not received in its fulness.
The idea of God's justice seems to have cast a baleful shadow over men's
hearts and lives. Certainly heaven's own light is now breaking through
the gloom. Many of the highest judgment and character now entertain
views which their fathers would have repudiated as rank heresy.
* * * * *
It is a most unfortunate thing that we have derived from our
bloodthirsty ancestors an impression of divine cruelty that is utterly
opposed to the fact. And it is not so very long ago that such traditions
were handed down to us. "What we forget," says the New York Evening
Post, "is the short distance of time and space that separates us from
our ferocious forefathers." Dr. Johnson in his 'Journey to the Western
Islands,' relates the tradition that the Macdonalds--honored name
to-day--surrounded the Culloden Church on Sunday, fastened the doors,
and burnt the congregation alive. The entertainment received its
perfecting touch when the Macdonald piper mocked the shrieks of the
perishing crowd with the notes of his bagpipes.
* * * * *
"Perhaps an even more striking illustration of the survival of savagery
may be found in men's religious beliefs--say, in the conception of a God
who is a cruel man endowed with omnipotence. Grave divines were telling
us within a generation that a just and merciful Father, for his good
pleasure, had doomed certain of the non-elect to the most hideous
physical tortures for all eternity. It was in 1879, about thirty years
ago, that Herbert Spencer in 'The Data of Ethics,' stated the theory
quite nakedly: The belief that the sight of suffering is pleasing to the
gods,' He added: 'Derived from bloodthirsty ancestors, such gods are
naturally conceived as gratified by the infliction of pain; when living
they delighted in torturing other beings; and witnessing torture is
supposed still to give them delight. The implied conceptions
long survive.'
"Some of our readers may recall the attacks upon Spencer, and even upon
clergymen otherwise orthodox, like the late Frederick William Farrar,
who doubted the doctrine of eternal torture."
* * * * *
We hope we are beginning to survive such false and horrible ideas. Those
ferocious representations are the very contrary of the truth. To get the
truest conceptions of God, we have to think of man at his highest; and
even then we are as far below the reality as the earth is below the
stars. We are made in the image of God, however, and are a human
transcript of the divine. But we are finite at our best, while God is
infinite. Beyond all human thought His love is strong, and tender, and
unchangeable. He is veritably our Father, and I think He is so in a far
closer relation than mere creation. If we can think of the possibility
of delight in torturing our children, ten thousand times more repugnance
would God have in torturing us, except for a time, and for the highest
and wisest ends.
* * * * *
If we go back to medieval times we have the most revolting pictures of
the agonies of hell. We are told, for instance, of a certain monk who in
the course of his journeys came to the underworld, and there he found "a
fiery glen 'darkened with the mists of death,' and covered with a great
lid, hotter than the fires themselves. On the lid sat a huge multitude
of souls, burning, 'till they were melted, like garlic in a pan with the
glow thereof.' Reaching the nethermost hell, he was shown the Prince of
Darkness, black as a raven from head to foot, thousand-handed and with a
long thick tail covered with fiery spikes, 'lying on an iron hurdle over
fiery gledes, a bellows on each side of him, and a crowd of demons
blowing it.'
"As he lay there roasting, tossing from side to side, filled with rage
and fury, he grasped the souls in his rough, thick hands, bruising and
crushing them, as a man would crush grapes to squeeze out the wine. With
his fiery, stinking breath, he scattered the souls about Hell, and as he
drew in his breath again he swallowed them down with it, and those whom
his hands could not reach he lashed with his tail. This, the angel
explained, was Lucifer."
Unfortunately, however, medieval ages had no monopoly of such horrors.
They have survived almost to our time. In some cases they are reproduced
even yet. It is a painful thing to recall, but even our late beloved
Spurgeon at times fell into this snare.
I have just had an interview with a lady of the highest Christian
character. She was brought up in the orthodox faith, and never doubted
its truth. I hesitated to launch these larger views upon her, thinking
they might only disturb her, and that perhaps she was too old to recast
her opinions. But I found that her mind was perfectly open; and after
some discussion she firmly believed in the larger hope. I was persuaded
that such would be the experience of thousands more, if they would but
give their heart and mind to a devout consideration of these questions.
And oh, what a pall of gloom would thus be lifted from the heart of
the world!
We may well give here the noble words of Dr. Dawson, who in an address
before the Royal Society of Canada, quoted this stanza:
"For a day, and a night, and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span,
With travail, and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man."
Then he says: "The holy spirit of man! Holy in its capacity, in its
possibility: nay, more, in its ultimate destiny!"
This is no self-righteousness. It is a gleam of man's potentiality, that
makes him truly sublime. There are many Scripture statements that make
man pitifully little; but this is because of his present sinful
condition. Bye and bye he will rise into his true condition, and then
"The holy spirit of man" will be not only a possibility, but an
experience. It is gratifying to notice that such a man as Dr. Dawson has
this larger hope.
* * * * *
In striking antithesis to such views as we have referred to, I may here
narrate an experience of my own in which I think there was revealed to
me a peculiar phase of Christ's universal attractive power. One day in
San Francisco I saw a funeral procession passing along the street. I
joined the procession, and went with it into the church. I saw that all
the company were negroes. The minister, who was also a negro,
announced the Hymn:
"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast,
There by His love o'ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest."
It was sung with all the fervor of the negro race. As it proceeded a
strange thought struck me: How could negroes find rest on the bosom of
One quite another color? It was a natural thought, for the color
prejudice is strong. Even when we think of Christ, we instinctively
think of Him as a white man. How, then, could these worshippers find
rest on His bosom, and in His arms? If He had been a negro, they might
do so; but how could they do such a thing when they realized that He was
of a different color from themselves?
Then suddenly, a solution same to my mind. If Christ was not black,
neither was He white. In fact He was brown; about midway between white
and black. So in color He was as near to the negroes as to the white
race. Therefore the negroes can recline on His breast, and in His arms,
as naturally as we. That seemed to me a very happy idea; perhaps even a
revelation.
But then, another thought quickly followed. What if Christ took this
central place, even as to color, of set purpose? He could thus appeal
more directly to the whole human race, and thus more effectively draw
all men to Himself. Therefore I hazard the conjecture that one reason
why He chose to come of the Jewish race was, that he might be, even as
to color, the central attraction of the world. Oh yes; if we only widen
the horizon of our thought and our affection, we shall see that the
great scheme of redemption is co-extensive with the race, and reaches
forward into the eternities.