Lecture
6
The Second Coming of the Lord
First published in London, 1859
Immediately
after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and
the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign
of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth
mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:29, 30)
And when he was
demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he
answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of
God is within you. (Luke 17:20, 21)
The question for our consideration tonight is, Will the Coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ a second time be a coming in person or in spirit? Is it to be
an outward display in the sky, and an alteration in the material universe,
or is it to be the descent of new principles from the Lord, forming human
souls on earth into the image of his glorious kingdom in heaven? To these
questions we reply, Undoubtedly it is to be a coming in spirit and not in
person; not by outward show or observation.
We would beg of
you to bear in mind this fact, that all the teaching which we esteem to be
Scriptural and harmonious with the whole counsel of God, must come up to
the threefold test of which I have previously spoken; namely, it must be
rational, it must be in harmony with science, and it must be Scriptural.
In relation to
doctrines, we also require that they should be taught in the very language
of the Sacred Scriptures--not simply that the ideas should be in harmony
with the spirit of the Bible, but that the foundation principles should be
absolutely expressed in the very language of the Bible. The very language
of the Bible in answer to this question you will find in our second text,
when in reply to the Pharisees and Scribes, Jesus said: "The Kingdom
of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, 'Lo here!' or,
'Lo there!' for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
Now that is
precisely what we teach upon the subject; everything else comes in the way
of illustration. The very letter of the Scripture teaches the true
doctrine. It is so with every doctrine we teach. As a doctrine we not only
know that it is in harmony with the whole Scriptures, but it is one which
can be stated in the very language of the Scriptures--it is "Thus
saith the Lord."
It is not so
with what may be called the old doctrines of Christendom; not one of them
can be stated in the very language of the Sacred Scriptures. They are
supposed to be inferred--supposed to be provable by something else that is
stated, but they are nowhere said in so many words.
To illustrate
this, begin with the doctrine of the Godhead. This says, there are three
divine persons in God, and these three form one God. You cannot find this,
however, stated anywhere in the Bible; not even two divine persons are
mentioned there. It is not to be found from Genesis to Revelation. I can
find plenty of statements to the opposite. God is one, is the grand
doctrinal note. And so it is with every one of the peculiar doctrines
which have been very commonly supposed to be the doctrines of true
religion. Not one of them can be stated in the exact and precise language
of the Bible.
If I ask a man
to bring me a passage of Scripture that says the natural body shall rise
again--that the material body shall rise again--that flesh and blood shall
rise again, or anything which specifically states what he means upon that
subject in the very words of the Bible, he cannot do it. The statement
that the dead shall rise is to be found there; but how, or in what body
shall they come? That is the particular inquiry: How they are to rise, and
when?
Ask me for a
passage that says flesh and blood shall not rise, and I give you one in a
moment, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither
doth corruption inherit incorruption" (1 Corinthians 15:50).
"The body thou sowest is not the body that shall be" (1
Corinthians 15:37). I can give you half a dozen if you like, to state in
Scriptural expression our view upon the subject.
And now in
connection with the subject of this lecture, the question is, whether the
Second Coming of the Lord is to be by outward show--by a visible
appearance in the sky--or whether it is to be effected by an inward
change, to take place by new principles being given. And here is the Word
of the Lord: "The kingdom of God cometh not by observation." It
is easy and simple; short and to the point. Men shall not say, "Lo
here! or, lo there!" Nor is it to come in the eastern sky, or the
western sky? "For the kingdom of God is within you."
Let us think
for a moment of this beautiful and Scriptural statement as to the
"how." It is not as to whether the Lord will come and form a new
kingdom or not, but as to how it is to be done.
Just think of
it; consider whether this Scriptural statement, that it is not by outward
show, is not as rational as it is Scriptural? Have not men been going on
for hundreds of years thinking that they could make themselves happy by
outward show? Some by an outward show in religion; some by an outward show
in irreligion; one man by the terrible ambition of royal, imperial, or
priestly rule; another man by thinking that he would be thoroughly happy
if he could only manage to get a thousand pounds, or a house of a certain
size, or some other form of external grandeur--and has there ever been a
man made happy by that means?
Is it not
evident to a thoughtful mind that this world--this glorious universe of
our God: the grand canopy on high, and the beautifully carpeted earth on
which we live--is the sublime creation of infinite Love and Wisdom; and
that nothing is needed to make this world a paradise, but that men should
become outwardly and inwardly permeated by the Spirit of God, and as
obedient to his will as the outward world is?
What is it that
makes the world unhappy? False and wicked principles. Take these away, and
this world would then become--it is true in a lower degree, yet it would
become for man--the outward kingdom of our God; this world would then
become a world of preliminary and preparatory happiness; a nursery for
heaven; a place of preparation where, as far as inward spiritual powers
and beauties and blessings could be expressed by the body and in the body,
we should have a heaven upon earth.
There is
nothing amiss with the world; there is nothing wrong with the sky; there
is nothing wrong with God's part of creation; it is man's selfishness and
sin that make the mischief. Let there be unfolded in the spirits of men,
true, Godlike principles, not the revelation of divine wisdom
perverted--let it be seen what it is that makes heaven there, let it be
insisted upon that the same principles must be acted upon here, and you
will then have the powers of heaven brought down upon earth; you will have
that fulfilled which, probably, every one of you have been praying for
today and every day; for our blessed Lord taught us all to do
it--"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so upon the
earth."
That has not
yet been the case. Not yet, even though prayed for so long. But surely it
is to be. Surely all this teaching, and all this prayer, and all the
promises of the Sacred Scriptures are to be fulfilled. And may it not be
that mistaken notions of religion have stood in the way of their
fulfillment hitherto--and that true ideas of religion will bring it about?
It is rational to think so. Thus is it with an individual. "If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold,
all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
It is then
within the experience of every person, that it is an inward change that is
wanted--a real inward change. Instead of self ruling in the soul, Christ
rules there; instead of fanciful and self-conceited notions being what we
act upon, the holy principles that form the essence of all religion are
these which we shall act upon.
Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the
second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On
these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew
22:37-40)
This view is
rational, then, as well as Scriptural, and it is in harmony with science.
Science says nothing about the Lord Jesus Christ coming in an outward way,
and the world being destroyed, and the universe becoming an awful wreck.
We invite
especial attention to the language of our text. Every now and then persons
rise up, who come with great zeal and energy, and declare that either in a
few weeks, or a few years, this general wreck and conflagration will take
place; and they agitate the minds of simple and ignorant persons until
these become almost, and sometimes quite, frantic with the idea that the
present universe is to be completely annihilated, that there is to be an
utter wreck of worlds and suns, and that this is to be attendant on the
Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here, I may remark, such
persons would select my first text as their peculiar authority for
teaching this. There are a few texts which are commonly made use of for
this purpose, but none more striking than this, and for that reason I have
selected it.
The true mode
by which Christians are to attain right views, is not by shirking the
views of other people or shunning the texts that other people regard as
teaching different views; but it is by looking them straight in the face,
and making the entire Scripture harmonize together; and when you can not
only see your own, but harmonize the others with it, there is good reason
to believe that you have got the right key to the whole.
It is too often
with religion as it was with the outer garment of the Savior when he was
crucified. The soldiers divided the garment amongst themselves. Too often
it has happened that fighting Christians, those who have been earnest in
dispute, have overlooked the spirit of real religion: each has taken his
piece; each has kept his part of the garment. They have divided his
garment amongst themselves. And, precisely in this way, the Bible has been
taken piecemeal; each taking his bit, scarcely looking at what appears to
be of a somewhat opposite character.
The safer
principle is the other; take what seems to be contrary to your view, and
examine that well; see what you can make of that. There is no real
contrariety. But when a person takes his part of the letter of the
Scriptures, abides in the letter, and pays no attention to the spirit or
the grand entirety of divine revelation, then comes error. "The words
that I speak unto you," said the Lord Jesus, "they are spirit,
and they are life" (John 6:63). "The letter killeth," saith
St. Paul, "but the spirit giveth life" (2 Corinthians 3:6).
Well, now, as
to this first passage. It says that about the time when our Lord shall
come, and previous to his coming, "the sun shall be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven";
and the common notion has been that this is literally to happen. And while
men had no true knowledge of the grandeur of the system of the
universe--while they supposed that this world was not so large as it is,
and that the sky was just a blue arch raised over the world, in which the
stars were fixed as lamps or glory holes through which light gleamed from
heaven which was just above it--while they had this kind of notion, the
idea of the stars falling to the earth did not seem to them a very
startling thing or an irrational one at all.
But now it is
known that our earth is not the center of the universe, nor is it larger
than all the rest of the universe put together, as it used to be thought.
It is known that our earth is only a comparatively small portion of our
own solar system; that our sun is as large as thirteen hundred thousand
earths put together; that some of the planets in our solar system are many
hundred times larger than our earth; and that there are about ninety
planets, greater or less, belonging to our solar system. It is known that
our solar system all together, the sun and all his worlds if seen from
another fixed star, another sun--all together would only seem like a
point, like a star; the worlds would be hidden in the glorious beams of
the sun, and seen from another star, the whole would only be as one star
in the firmament.
When it is
known that there are millions of such stars, which are doubtless suns
attended by worlds revolving round them, then "the heavens indeed
declare the glory of God."
This is not
all. Great and powerful telescopes discover to us small, dim bodies which
have been called "nebulae," because they have a cloudy
appearance in the heavens, and these powerful telescopes show these small
bodies to be groups of stars--other grand starry systems--which, though
they are thus seen through the telescope to be stars, are most probably
suns with worlds around them, with other dim nebulae unveiled. The most
powerful telescopes, indeed, discover other cloudy bodies behind
these--other systems, other grand collections of suns and worlds. When I
say that some of these worlds, some of these suns even, are so far distant
that light takes millions of years to come from them to us, we come to see
how wondrously grand is this universe of our God.
What, then, are
we to think of the idea of the stars falling down to the earth, when one
of the secondary class, one that is only one of millions, is many hundred
times larger than the earth? Why then, surely science necessitates our
thinking a little more upon the subject, to see whether we have got the
right system of interpretation or not. In our view of the matter, we shall
easily perceive how beautifully the divine sense coheres and comes out.
With the
ordinary view, let a person just think that, first of all, as we said
before, one star is far too large even to be received upon the earth. Let
him imagine that the notion even of all the stars falling to the
earth is unphilosophical, because the earth is suspended in space, and the
stars are all around, so that a very large portion of them would have to
rise to the earth instead of falling to it, while others would have to
approach on the same level; and these wonderful bodies, if they were to be
making their way to the earth, millions of millions of miles before they
got there, would all be wedged fast. Again, such is the power of
gravitation that very, very long before these suns and worlds even came
together, they would so powerfully attract our world as to rend it to
atoms; there would be no world to come to--it would be all gone into ten
thousand thousand thousand atomic forms.
A person may,
however, say, "I have nothing to do with that; I have to believe the
Scriptures." The question is not one of believing the Scriptures; the
question is of understanding the Scriptures. And if you choose to
abide by the letter--the "letter" that "killeth"--instead
of coming unto the "spirit" that "giveth life," rest
assured you are not honoring God; you are merely yourself clinging to a
piece of unreasonable nonsense, and dishonoring God who teaches you by
science and by reason, as well as by the express teaching which I have
already quoted, that his kingdom does not come with outward show.
God teaches you to rise from the letter to some higher signification; and
if we are at all conversant with the Sacred Scriptures, we shall have no
difficulty in reading these glorious symbols.
God who made
the spiritual and outward worlds, has made them all beautifully
corresponding to one another. And one of the grandest of all sciences is
the science of seeing the relation, the correspondence, that there is
between outward things and inward things, between matter and spirit,
between the outward universe of nature and the inward universe, the
universe of mind.
Now it is
according to this grand law that God speaks in the Bible; and you will
find there that sun and moon and stars, that heaven and earth, are not
used in the sense of the earthly and material objects which are understood
when men are speaking about earthly things. But by the "sun" is
meant the higher sun, the sun of the soul--God himself; by the
"moon" is meant a higher and nobler moon, that faith which
reflects God's light upon the soul, as the moon reflects the light of the
sun upon the earth; and that the "stars" are used as the symbols
in the Sacred Scriptures of all the lesser lights of heavenly knowledge,
of the knowledges of heavenly things given in the sacred Word, when
understood--each one shining like a little star in the soul.
In this way the
Church is like that glorious image given us in the Book of Revelation,
where it is said by John:
And there
appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and
the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to
be delivered. (Revelation 12:1, 2)
Everyone will
see how beautiful the image becomes when we bear in mind that the
woman--or the Church, which is represented by a woman throughout the
Bible--the Church is the Lamb's wife; she has the sun of God's love
around her; she has the moon of faith for her support; she has the
inward ornaments of all the knowledges of heavenly things shining about
her head; she brings forth the true doctrine which forms men-children:
those that are really men; God's men; those that really bring out all that
is angelic and manly; those that rule everything within them in
subordination and obedience to the divine will; that rule all nations with
a rod of iron.
I have said
that the "sun" is the corresponding image to God himself,
especially to his divine love. And here perhaps one may ask, Well, but
where is there a text for that? It is quite ready. You will find it in the
Book of Psalms: "For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will
give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly" (Psalm 84:11). If you want another, turn to Isaiah:
"Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw
itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy
mourning shall be ended" (Isaiah 60:20). If you wish for further
evidence, turn to Malachi, "But unto you that fear my name shall the
Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings" (Malachi 4:2).
How beautiful
is the idea that the soul has its sun as well as the body; that there is a
true light that enlightens every man that cometh into the world--that same
glorious Sun who, in the person of the divine Savior, came to reconcile
the world unto himself, and of whom John says, he "was the true
Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John
1:9).
Now this is the
Sun with which the Scriptures have to do. It is our relationship to that
Sun that is of the highest importance to all of us; and if we can open our
souls to let that Sun shed its glorious light upon our hearts, we may then
walk on, illuminated and blessed by its splendor, which will ever throw a
light upon our path, and enable us to advance from light to light unto the
perfect day.
In fact it is
in this way alone that we can understand the Scriptures, either when they
speak of a new heaven and a new earth being formed, or of the old being
broken down and dissolved.
Here allow me
to direct your attention for a moment to some passages in the Scriptures
to which men commonly appeal. They are not many in number; but they are
passages which, to people who do not think deeply, seem to say that the
world is to be dissolved, and the heavens also, with great heat, simply
because they have not observed the Scriptural mode of speaking. They have
taken their notions to the Bible, and interpreted the Bible according to
them, instead of just taking their minds to the Bible, and letting it
teach them.
Now, if they
had adopted the latter plan, and had read steadily the sacred pages, they
would have found there that whenever God speaks of forming a new
dispensation after the end of an old one, he calls it making a new heaven
and a new earth; and when a religion becomes faded, perverted, and broken
down, it is called the old heaven and earth being dissolved, and passing
away. This is the mode in which God speaks throughout the Scriptures. In
all these things we are most strikingly instructed by the sacred writings
themselves.
Take, for
instance, as an evidence of the mode of forming a dispensation, the
passage in Isaiah:
And I have
put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine
hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the
earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people. (Isaiah 51:16)
Now here, you
perceive, God speaks of planting the heavens, and laying the foundations
of the earth. But everyone may know that when he puts his words into the
prophet's mouth, or when he puts his words into your mouth or mine, he
does not then and thereby make the outward universe, which was made
thousands and millions of years before. But yet this is called
"planting the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and
saying to Zion, Thou art my people." But what "heavens?"
The heavens
within--the heavens with which we have to do. What "earth?" The
new earth of a new life and conduct--new institutions, to which the new
heavens give rise--new practice, a new outside as well as a new inside.
This is called the "planting of the heavens, and laying the
foundations of the earth."
Refer again to
Isaiah, and you will find, where thy Lord is speaking of founding the
Christian world, he says:
For, behold,
I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be
remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in
that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and
her people a joy. (Isaiah 65:7, 18)
But if creating
a new heaven and earth meant that he would do away with the natural
universe and form a new natural universe, it would be no rejoicing for
Jerusalem or her people either, for they would perish along with the rest
of the earth.
But then when
we read the Scriptures attentively, we see that what is meant is the
removal of the old principles, which have formed a wretched state of
society, and the bringing forth of new principles to form a new and holy
and pure state of society. The "last days" and the "end of
the world" do not mean the last days, or the end of the outward
world, but the end of the former dispensation--the former Church, the
former mode of thinking and acting. We are not only taught in the
Scriptures that the earth will be dissolved, but you will find precisely
the same language used concerning what it has been.
In David's time
the Jewish Church became corrupted. Saul, who ought to have been its great
protector, became forgetful of his God: a breaker of all divine
ordinances; a conspirer against the truly good. And how is that described?
The Psalmist says, "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are
dissolved; I bear up the pillars of it" (Psalm 75:3). Not they shall
be dissolved at some future time, but are, are now dissolved.
No one with common sense can suppose that the outward world in David's
time was all dissolved and done away with; and that he, like another
Atlas, was propping up the outward system of things.
But that is the
way in which divine revelation speaks. Because, as I said before, the
earth with which it has to do is the moral earth, the spiritual earth, not
the outward material world. The outer earth is all right. What we have to
do is to receive God's principles into ourselves, and use God's Word
aright.
It is not an
isolated state of things of which I am speaking, but it is interspersed
throughout the Word of God. It is very often found to be the case, that
when a person comes upon a new truth in science, he is astonished that he
was so dull as not to have seen it before, when it has been lying under
his nose all his life; and when others see it they also wonder that they
had never found it out. And so it is in religion. When you get a really
new view--one that is an advance in divine revelation--you wonder you
never saw it before. So it is with this view; it is found throughout the
sacred pages, yet numbers read them without perceiving it.
Turn to the
Psalms once more:
They know
not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness; all the
foundations of the earth are out of course. (Psalm 82:5)
No one surely
can suppose that because the people would not understand, and would not
know and act upon the principles of true heavenly light, the rocks went
out of course. "The foundations of the earth are out of course."
But the foundations of what earth? Why, the foundations of the moral
earth--the foundations upon which all men must build if they would have a
solid superstructure of holiness, wisdom, and true righteousness. The
grand foundation is Jesus Christ and his divine Commandments; these form
the foundations. But when men will not have them; when they love darkness
rather than light; when they walk on in darkness, then these foundations
get out of course.
You will find
it just the same in every one of the Prophets, the same in the Gospels,
and in the Epistles. We have the end of the world--or, as it ought to be
translated, the consummation of the age. We have it in this very chapter
in Matthew, from which our text is taken. The Lord says, in answer to the
inquiry of the disciples about the end of the age, called the end of the
world, "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be
saved"; that the time shall come when "because iniquity shall
abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the
end, the same shall be saved" (Matthew 24:12, 13).
But what can be
meant by enduring to the end of the natural universe--living on unto the
end of the world? Why, if none are to be saved but those who do so, then
all those that have died up to this time must be lost; for the world has
not ended yet. Jesus says, "He that endureth to the end"; that
is to say, when religion is becoming perverted and cold; and although men
may talk a great deal about faith then, it is faith in something of their
own; it is not faith in what Jesus teaches and lays down; it is very often
only the name of faith.
When men talk
about faith alone being saving, it is not the faith of Jesus Christ. There
is no such thing with him as faith alone. He does not recognize such a
faith; his Apostles did not recognize it. If a person has nothing but
faith, he has not faith; he has only fancy. He alone is saved by faith
whose faith is full of love, and goes out into practice. It is never faith
alone. "Though I have all faith," says St. Paul, "so that I
could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing" (1 Corinthians
13:2). "Show me thy faith without thy works," says James, show
it me; let me look at it, "and I will show thee my faith by my
works" (James 2:18).
That alone is
true faith. Tell me what a man does, and I shall know what he believes. He
may talk about his faith from morning till night; but if I see that he
acts from a spirit of selfishness and injustice, he does not believe in
Christ, he believes in himself--that is his faith, the other is only a
sham--one that he talks about and keeps for show; and perhaps after
deceiving others for a long time, he at last deceives himself, and
supposes he believes what he talks about believing. He has got something
that is not what the Lord Jesus recognizes as faith. He said to the woman
that loved him, "Thy faith hath saved thee." When persons love
him, then their faith will act; for it is faith not alone; it is full of
love.
This is the
only faith that Jesus Christ recognizes as faith--that which the Apostle
speaks of when he says, "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by
love" (Galatians 5:6). That is saving faith.
Well, then, the
Lord teaches that before his Coming there would be a great lack of
faith--that the sun would be darkened, and the stars should fall from
heaven.
But I have said
that the end of the world, the last day, and suchlike expressions, refer
to the end of a dispensation, not to any destruction of the material
world, and that this is the meaning in the New Testament as well as in the
Old. We will just examine the New Testament first.
We have already
said that our Lord's words would be unintelligible if we thought of the
end of the world. But where a man is faithful, and holds to the truth and
the love of Jesus Christ, and will not swerve from them--though he sees
his neighbor getting rich by cheating, and his neighbor believing in
cheating--he remains a man who believes in Christ, believes in justice,
believes in goodness, and clings firmly to these, not only in his prayers
and on Sunday, but in his practice and every day in the week, a man with a
real faith; he is enduring to the end, and he will be saved. The other man
is being lost in the wreck, and he will not be saved.
At the end of
the Jewish system, which was called "the end of the world," or
"the consummation of the age," and "the last days,"
you will find the use of the term "ends of the world" by the
Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians: "Now all these things happened unto
them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the
ends of the world are come" (1 Corinthians 10:11). Not will
come, but "are." Here we have the very expression itself:
the Apostle says it was the end of the world. But of what world? Why, the
Jewish world, the Jewish dispensation, which had become altogether corrupt
and false. And the Lord Jesus Christ from his cross proclaimed it to have
come to an end: "It is finished"--and the veil of the temple was
rent in twain; all was then over with that dispensation; then was the end
of it.
You will find
that in the Apostolic writings the terms "last days" and
"last time" very frequently occur. As, for instance, the
Apostles, when preaching on the Day of Pentecost, were charged with being
drunk, and Peter stood up and said, "These are not drunken. . . .
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, 'And it
shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of
my spirit upon all flesh. . . . And I will show wonders in
heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor
of smoke'" (Acts 2:15, 19), and so on. Precisely a similar
passage to what we have in our text, only that Joel had spoken it hundreds
of years before Christ came; and when Christ came and put an end to the
Jewish Church, and began the Christian Church, what that prophet said was
in these last days fulfilled. These were the last days of that
dispensation, and the first days of a better and a higher.
So, again, in
the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Paul wrote: "God hath in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son" (Hebrews 1:2). Mind,
in these last days. John said: "Little children, it is the
last time" (1 John 2:18), and that was nineteen hundred years
ago, but it was then the last time, the last days, the end of the world.
All these
declarations were made then as applicable to that time, but, as we have
asked before, What was it that came to an end? It was the existing
dispensation, not the world. This is God's mode of teaching that the moral
system had become corrupt, and was no longer carrying out God's will, and
that it was time for it to pass away; and he did away with it.
The new
Christian Church is called a new heaven and a new earth. When it was said
that this was to occur again, it is to teach us that the principles he
gave to man in Christianity would again become corrupt; again would
delusion come instead of faith; again would selfishness come instead of
love; again would blindness come instead of the light of life. And
therefore, Christ said that "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven."
And has it not
been so? If the sun be, as we have said, the love of God shining upon the
heart--the Sun of righteousness pouring out his divine influences over the
affections, has not that been darkened? We are now rising gradually from
the depth of darkness into which men sank--rising, and have been rising
for a considerable time, to somewhat better things; but even now
everyone knows we have much to strive for. God's love is darkened in too
many hearts, even now. It is no uncommon thing for persons to say to
themselves, "Where is there a real Christian? I know plenty of
professors, but where are those in whom the love of Christ is continually
operating?" God be thanked there are a few, here and there. But is it
not the case that we in this land of enlightenment and Bibles--that even
with us, everyone feels that there is only here one and there another, and
that to the vast mass the sun is still darkened? But how dense was that
darkness when Christians, during the middle ages, were engaged in infernal
hate--persecuting one another even to death, and doing so in almost every
land! How terrible must have been the darkness that shut out the Sun of
heaven from the human spirit!
"The
moon," it is also said, "shall not give her light"; and the
moon we have seen represents holy faith, not in some scheme of our own,
but a faith in the living light that comes from Jesus Christ, and is
reflected upon the soul when it is going on in the darkness of spiritual
night. The soul has its nights as well as the body. There are times of
glory and blessing in which the sun is felt to be shining; and there are
times in which there are shade and night--we can hardly see light, look
where we may. There are times of sorrow and distress. God leaves us to
ourselves that we may see and know what we are. "Weeping may endure
for a night," the Psalmist says, "but joy cometh in the
morning" (Psalm 30:5).
There would be
complete darkness did not faith, like a silvery moon, lend her light, and
tell us to hope; trust in God; fear not, I will be with thee; hope; night
will not always last; be faithful, and in a little time a new morning will
break over the spirit, and thou wilt come to a state of blessedness again.
"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord" (Hosea
6:3). This is the moon shining over the soul.
But when men
have falsified religion--when their views have altogether become immersed
in terrible colors--when they say that nobody can be saved but those who
belong to their little clique--that there is no salvation for those out of
their chapel or sect--the moon is being darkened, the highest and
brightest and divinest blessings are being driven away from the soul.
It is a God of
love that gives men comfort. It is a God unchangeable, kind, and
gentle--it is our holy Savior breathing love; and when we are in the
depths of sorrow, he stretches out his hands, and says, "Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"
(Matthew 11:28). But when the moon is darkened, it is a bad time with the
soul.
This is that
which is meant when it is said concerning this time of bitterness,
"Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in
those days!" (Matthew 24:19). That is, woe to them that are trying
earnestly to be born again; that are trying to have the new man of the
heart born from God within them--woe to them; it is hard with them when
false religion is prevailing, and true religion has become obscured; it is
hard for them when they are trying to become new men, and feed upon
"the sincere milk of the Word"; "woe to them that give suck
in those days"--when the Bible is either closed through false
interpretation, or not allowed to be in their hands at all; it is
"woe to them that give suck in those days," for almost all the
milk is turned into poison. The stars fall from heaven.
We have said
that the stars mean the lights of heavenly knowledge. Every verse of the
Scriptures becomes a "star" when you understand it. It becomes a
beautiful light that gives its ray in the right place and at the right
time. That is the sort of star that Peter spoke of in his second epistle:
"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that
ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day
dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts" (2 Peter 1:19). It
is a star that rises in the heart; the same sort of star is meant by the
Lord in the Revelation: "And he that overcometh . . . I
will give him the morning star" (Revelation 2:26, 23).
No one will
suppose that he means, that to the man who overcomes in his spiritual
conflict, he will give an earthly morning star, either Jupiter or Venus;
no one will be so foolish as to think so. No; the star that Jesus gives is
a star of true light from himself, the true knowledge of himself, that
star of which he speaks when he says, "I am the root and the
offspring of David, and the bright and morning star" (Revelation
22:16). When he shines into the soul, he is, to him that conquers
selfishness and evil, first of all, a "morning star," an inward
heavenly light that tells him of a new day, which assures him that the
night is ended and his morning is beginning. But that same star will
enlarge, will become grander as he presses on, until from a star it will
become at length, the great Sun of righteousness, that with healing in its
wings will shed its manifold blessings upon him.
When religion
is corrupted, when the Church is fallen, then men make use of the
knowledge they have of heavenly things, not for heavenly purposes, but for
earthly ones: the stars fall from heaven. Men care nothing then about
heaven, they make pelf and power the great objects of their concern; they
may talk about Scripture, they may preach like saints; they may make use
of religion as if they were the most earnest men in the world; but it is
self that is at the bottom, it is some earthly advantage; they talk of
God, but mean themselves; they talk of religion, but mean getting a good
living by it; they bring the stars down from heaven, and mix them up with
their own life, their own low and selfish persuasions and feelings. This
is when the stars fall from heaven. It has nothing to do with the wreck of
the outward universe; it is the wreck of the inward universe. The stars
fall from heaven.
But man's
necessity is God's opportunity. When men have come to the end, then is the
time for God to begin. The darkest hour of the night is that just before
the morning. And hence, directly after the passage has stated that all the
great lights are darkened, come the words of restoration: "Then shall
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven"--the sign of the Son of
man; the banner of the Son of man. For this is what the "sign"
means: the banner, the flag, as it were, the ensign--the true symbol of
the Son of man. The ensign of an army is the banner, by which it is known
where the general is, where the headquarters of the army are. Thus it is
known where the ruler is. The sign of the Son of man is the true doctrine
of Jesus Christ. His banner is the doctrine which declares who he is, what
he is, and what he requires. "Then shall appear the sign of the Son
of man in heaven." That is to say, Thus will the Lord Jesus make
himself known afresh in his true and perfect character; so that men may
know that Jesus Christ is God, the manifest Deity, and that they must be
like-minded with Jesus Christ, in order to be Christians.
This true
doctrine, to be revealed when a new dispensation, or a new heaven and
earth, are to be formed, is in this blessed book called "the sign of
the Son of man." It is promised in other parts of the Sacred
Scriptures. Jesus said, "The time cometh when . . . I will
show you plainly of the Father" (John 16:25). Mark the word
"plainly." But except in the New Church, whose doctrines have
been revealed in these latter days, men know no more of the Father than
the Jews did. In the New Jerusalem it is seen that Jesus Christ himself is
what Isaiah taught, when he said: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a
son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name
shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). The doctrine that teaches
this, teaches "plainly of the Father." Jesus Christ has the
Father in him, as a man has the soul in him. "The Father that
dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10).
In this way we
perceive how plainly the Father is revealed to us in the divine Savior,
and that no man can come unto the Father but through him and by him. He
that seeth him seeth the Father; and this is the plain teaching of the
Father, "the sign of the Son of man in heaven." When persons
separated the idea of the Godhead from Jesus Christ, so that they
worshipped two other distinct persons or Gods, whom they called the First
Person, and the Third Person, some imagined this God was of such a
character that he had only made a few to be saved; others, that he was of
such a character, that it was excessively difficult to please him; and
although they would readily go to Jesus Christ for mercy and salvation,
they dreaded the other two, particularly the first. They must be
continually mortifying themselves, not only in wrong things, but in right
things; making themselves miserable all their lives long, not enjoying the
beauties of their Father's world, or the mercies of their Father.
This is not the
plain teaching of the Father. Hence, creeds which became generally
accepted in the Middle Ages said, "The Father is incomprehensible,
the Son is incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost is incomprehensible."
That is not the plain doctrine of the Father, or of the Son. That which is
"incomprehensible" cannot be plain; and hence, those who adhere
to this creed attempt to stop investigation by saying it is a great
mystery. You must not think about it, they say; it is a mystery.
Well, so it is,
but that is not the plain teaching of the Father. These persons put their
own sign up, that their doctrines are not those which Jesus Christ
declared would at some time prevail, for he says that the time would come
when he would teach us plainly of the Father. Such persons say these
doctrines are incomprehensible. You are, then, only a provisional church;
you are confessedly not what Jesus meant, when he said: "The time
cometh when I will show you plainly of the Father."
In other parts
of the Sacred Scriptures it is said: "The earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
This was to be another sign of the Second Coming of the Savior. "The
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord." This prophecy will
be fulfilled undoubtedly. How few yet know the Lord truly! Those who call
themselves Christians are not a fourth of the human race. Of these, is one
in a hundred really so? Of these, how many have a clear knowledge of
the Lord? The prophecy has not yet been fulfilled; and how can it ever be
fulfilled with the Church's present mysterious doctrines? Ponder this
well. The knowledge of that which cannot be known never can cover the
earth.
The ordinary
Churches confess they have not a knowledge of God. They sometimes try to
prove it cannot be obtained. We believe the Scriptures, however, and are
convinced there is a knowledge of God that can be comprehended. When this
is done--when men can have such a knowledge of God as they can see to be
first Scriptural, then rational, and lastly in harmony with all that
science discovers--then each man, and every man, aye, and every woman, and
every intelligent child too, can give to the heathen, to Mohammedans, to
Jews, to all classes of men, the knowledge of the Lord, that may, and
will, cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. But this will not come
till men have been taught, that he who said: "Ye call Me Master and
Lord: and ye say well; for so I am" (John 13:13), is the real Lord
Jehovah of the Old Testament as well as Jesus of the New; the only God of
the universe, by whom "all things were made, and without whom was not
anything made that was made" (John 1:3).
The next grand
feature which is connected with the revelation of the Son of man in this
and other parts of the Sacred Scriptures is that there should be such a
state of innocence by walking in the Lord's path, as that, in the
beautiful language of Isaiah, none "shall hurt nor destroy in all my
holy mountain" (Isaiah 11:9). That passage has not yet been
fulfilled. Those who read over the sad pages of the dark history of what
has been called the Church for hundreds of years gone by, will find it a
record far removed from this ideal. It has been a record of one man
calling himself a Christian, yet injuring another as much as he possibly
could; of the men of one system persecuting those of another as
relentlessly as they could. Nay, a record not only of Christian nations
struggling and fighting against each other, but of Christians of one
nationality struggling and fighting amongst themselves.
Even now we are
very far from the state described in which none shall hurt or destroy in
God's holy mountain; very far from what the Scriptures teach, that the
time shall come when men "shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).
Oh no! Brethren, with the common Christianity, which ignores the fact that
God is a Being of divine love and wisdom, true peace can never be. An
angry God makes angry Christians, a sectarian God makes sectarian
Christians.
There must be
new principles, surrounded with such a glory of heavenly light as is
called in our text "power and great glory." Power: the power of
practical religion; the power of a religion, clear and loving, that is no
contradiction in itself; that does not say it is, and it is not, that to
repent and be good is the way to be saved, and yet that the vilest
murderers, whose lives have been a chain of crimes, can be saved by
believing at the last. The power of religion that has no back doors to
heaven; that says the soul must really be trained for heaven by actually
living a godly life, is real life, is real power. If you put it off until
you hope to make it up by a little faith at last, you may depend upon it
you are not taking Christ's method. Christ says, "Not everyone that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew
7:21).
People
generally, and especially religious teachers, have been too fond of
talking about the dying part of religion, and too little intent,
either in precept or in practice, on the living part of religion.
No religion can really operate a change in human souls, in nations, and in
the world, but a religion that teaches men how to live; and which tells
them that if they live aright their death is sure to come aright. It must
be a religion that begins with childhood, a religion that says,
"Suffer little children to come unto Me." To come unto me! This
is one of the most cheering signs of the new age.
We have begun
in these latter days to be very anxious and earnest about the children.
Sunday schools have arisen within the last hundred years, and are one of
the grandest fruits of the second outpouring of divine love. Sunday
Schools are indeed a movement in the right direction. They take little
children and train them to live, but unhappily they too often have not had
full, free, and fair effect.
The religion
given in too many Sunday Schools has been imparted to the scholars in such
an unpleasant fashion, and is itself so sectarian and comfortless, that
the schools become distasteful. The children are crammed with catechism
and made miserable by gloomy tales of hell, instead of gently giving them
here a little and there a little of the beautiful, the true, and the good,
respecting heaven and earth. The little souls are often frightened with
the description of a terrible God, instead of being attracted by a God of
lovingkindness--one who would take them to his arms and bless them. Fear
has been the great exciting stimulant by which men have been called to God
in the old religion.
The new
religion has for its grand principle love--Christ as a God of
love--religion as a religion of love. Heaven is the land of love; the
Bible is the story of love, when it is truly understood. And this grand
principle operating with children, so as to lead them to love
religion--not to be frightened into it, and terrified with everything
about it; to love it as the way to happiness; to enable them to live in
religion when they are living on earth, as the true way of happiness; to
overcome in themselves what opposes religion, as the only mode of
cleansing out the sources of misery; to exhort and teach children to
remove from themselves that self-love which has been the gall of
bitterness in past ages, and will be so to them if they do not begin to
fight against it, and obey the divine Savior and his laws--this is the
essential lesson.
This is the
spirit of the new dispensation. This is the new proclamation; the banner
of the Son of man. And when this spirit, combined with reason, seen to be
in harmony with religion and science--seen, I say, to be in harmony with
both, is accepted, it will present us with the principles which, when
spread, will really cause none to hurt, none to destroy, in all God's holy
mountain.
The same period
of the latter days is represented in the Scriptures to be a period of
light--a period of intelligence. And true religion is, and must be really
so. It is only a mistaken religion that has an inward fear of its own
principles, that keeps continually saying to men, "Now do not reason
about them, for you will get into infidelity if you do not take care; you
must not be too eager about science, science reveals some very strange
things; science teaches one thing and religion another." The religion
which opposes as long as it can the teachings of science, and when it
cannot oppose further, modifies itself as little as it can, is a religion
you should suspect. It is a mistaken theology.
True theology
is in all respects harmonious with itself, it harmonizes with its God,
harmonizes with science, and harmonizes with true reason: it comes to man
"with power and great glory." "The tribes of the
earth," it is said, "mourn." Those that have believed
previously in other views and in other principles, mourn at first; they
dislike it, change is sad for them. To part with old notions, prejudices,
and beliefs, is always difficult. We have all mourned when we have found
that we have been holding false principles, and that we have to change our
views and habits; but "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be
comforted."
Let them always
remember, however, that although they may view new light and new
principles as taking away things that have been dearly cherished,
that he who passes from error to truth gains a reward which more than pays
him for any mourning, any difficulty, any degree of pain or agitation. He
cannot but gain in this glorious conflict. He who loses wins. He who finds
that he has been mistaken before, but who now embraces a higher and nobler
view, is the gainer. When two are considering a subject, the person who
has maintained the right, when the argument is finished, is where he was;
but the person who has upheld the wrong, though he loses the argument, has
gained the truth, which is a thousand times better.
And as the
influence of these sacred principles from the Most High, meant by the holy
city, new Jerusalem coming down from God, which have come, therefore, not
by man's discovery, but by God's revelation; as the influence of these
principles extends, the Savior is coming, and will come. His spreading
light, his spreading love are leading men to become truly brothers, more
and more. It is breaking out sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
another, and it is advancing gradually, as God does everything, but yet,
spiritually, with giant strides. He never flashes from night to day all at
once.
It is in the
moral world as it is in the material. The sun rises gradually--tips first
the top of the eastern hills--gradually extends his beams down their
sloping sides, over the plains, and over the fields, until, at length, his
silent majesty diffuses over the face of nature its glorious light, and
the whole horizon is illuminated. Just so it is in the moral and spiritual
worlds. Truth always begins with the few. Only the eleven disciples met
after Jesus was crucified; only eleven of them met together. They were
shut up in a house for fear of the Jews; but from these went forth the new
light, which was taken up by another band at the time of Pentecost. This
gradually spread itself through the first century--onwards it went, until
the banner of the Savior, despised as it had been, was bowed down to by
the chiefs of the earth, and the cross that had been a disgrace became a
glory.
And so it is
always. God begins with a few. He touches some holy souls with the rising
light of a new day. It is like the glittering summit of the highest
mountain that gets its first glories, and reflects its brilliancy to
another and another; God's truths become gradually unfolded, and first one
and then another receives them, and still fresh souls widen the circle,
until at length that which was known at first only to a few becomes spread
throughout the world.
And so will it
be--it is coming, not by outward observation, but by inward diffusion.
There are men with principles of this class being formed amongst all
Christian denominations. Those that love God are gradually receiving views
more worthy of God, and this diffusion of divine truth, partly through a
few men, but really from the great Lord of lords, will leaven the whole
world. It has commenced its glorious career; it will never cease. "I
beheld One that sat upon the throne," wrote the Apostle John, who
said, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end"; who
said also, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life
freely" and further, "Behold, I make all things new."
He has again
made his spiritual coming; again new things have been poured out amongst
mankind; again the glorious light has been spreading, and will spread,
until the realization to the finest minds of the Scriptural
prophecies--the realization of men's hopes and feelings and anticipations
will be altogether expanded into the universal brotherhood of good and
holy men, who do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God; under
the fatherhood of the Lord Jesus Christ, "in whom dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily."
He will be seen
reigning over their souls, and thus reigning over their bodies, until that
glorious period is realized which the prophets have foretold, and all the
great souls of poetry have sung, which every good man anticipates,
desires, and strives for; the crown of all toil, the perfection of all
ages, the reward of all suffering; earth's imitation of heaven, the true
establishment of the unfailing nursery for angels.
The Discussion
The Rev. Mr. ____: I am a clergyman of the Church of England, and
while agreeing with much that I have heard, yet I must object to your
reference to the Athanasian Creed. You seem to think that all persons who
use the word "incomprehensible" in the creed, do so in a sense
meaning not capable of being understood, and that persons attached to that
Creed show their absurdity in so saying. I am not used to public speaking;
but I take it to mean, according to the original, "infinite,"
not able to be grasped. The Father infinite, the Son infinite, and the
Holy Ghost infinite--I take that to be the meaning of
"incomprehensible," and the English word admits of that
interpretation.
Dr. Bayley: I am perfectly aware that there are many, and I hope
the number will still increase, who interpret the word
"incomprehensible" in the sense that you have given it, which
appears to me to be quite unobjectionable. A very large number, however,
do not use it in that sense; a fact probably within your own experience.
Probably you have had to correct people who have drawn the idea from the
word "incomprehensible," that God cannot be comprehended at all.
It is so very common, unless my experience has been unusual, to meet those
who, holding that creed, represent God as incomprehensible, in the sense
of not being capable of being understood in any way. I have wished very
much oftener to have met with your version than I have.
Clergyman: I believe you did not think of its true meaning when you
referred to it; for if you did, you did not clearly prove what you
intended, and what I think you would desire to impress.
Dr. Bayley: I am exceedingly obliged to you for drawing attention
to the circumstance. Of course, we are obliged to omit many exceptional
statements which, at other times, may be brought strikingly forward; and
it is a happy thing when, on such an occasion, a friend will take the
opportunity of throwing some light on a point that has not been dealt
with. At the same time I am fully satisfied that the idea you have given
is not the general idea in the Church of England--that it is an
exceptional view ("No, no")--and that the general notion is,
that the doctrine of the Godhead is a great mystery that cannot be
understood. (A voice: "So it is.") A friend says, So it is; and
that is the common idea, and to this common idea I have addressed myself.
There are a few who, like our friend, are willing to interpret the
Athanasian Creed in a different fashion, and I hope the number will
increase.
Clergyman: I did not mean to say that that was the general
acceptation of the term, but that it was the right interpretation. I know
that the other view is a popular delusion, and that great numbers think
that God cannot be comprehended; but I hardly think that justifies your
attack on the Athanasian Creed.
Dr. Bayley: Our friend admits that what I have described is a
popular delusion, and that this is chiefly grounded on the Athanasian
Creed, which entirely justifies my reference to it. My reference,
moreover, was meant not as an attack on the Athanasian Creed but as a
statement of the impression that people largely hold in relation to God. I
spoke to the popular mind, and spoke of a popular delusion.
If I had been
attacking the Athanasian Creed, I can assure our friend it would hardly
have been in so tender a style. I have not the slightest respect for it. I
believe it to be a tissue of contradictions from first to last. ("No,
no.") It says the thing of which it speaks is a great mystery, and
then it proceeds to explain it, and, in this pretended explanation,
contradicts itself in sentence after sentence. After giving what the
unknown author intends for an explanation, but which is a series of
contradictions, he then declares three times over that no one can be saved
unless he accepts undoubtedly his very questionable explanation of this
great mystery. For such a Creed I have not the slightest respect. (Cheers
and hisses.)
The applause
and the hisses have nothing to do with the argument; we should endeavor to
preserve ourselves, if possible, for argument; noise never proves
anything. As soon as there is manly feeling enough in the leaders of the
Church of England to dare to be faithful to the truth, and to alter their
creed and catechisms, they will not let our great dignitaries get up in
the House of Lords and confess that these things must not be altered
because destruction will follow. When the people become thoughtful enough
to say, "We will have the truth, and nothing but good will
follow," I believe that one of the first things will be the blotting
out of the Athanasian Creed. (Cheers.) Archbishop Tillotson, the once
great leader of the Bishops of England, wished they were well rid of it.
Many, both clergy and people, still wish they were rid of it.
Our friend, as
a clergyman, will know, that although the creed is said to be that of St.
Athanasius, there is a great doubt as to whether he wrote it, or, rather,
it is certain he did not write it. It is thought by many that Vigilius, an
African Bishop, composed it. It is a creed that professes to explain what
it cannot explain, and then damns all that do not receive it. (Hear,
hear.)
A friend said
lately that a clergyman had suggested to him that if it were always
recited in Latin it would not be felt to be so severe as when read in
English. Perhaps that would be best, as the first step towards getting rid
of it. If it were always read in Latin, so that no one understood it,
there would not be much harm. (A laugh, and cheers.)
Another Gentleman: You, Sir, did not come to Brighton, I am sure,
with these truths in your mind without being perfectly certain that you
would go against the grain of most men's ordinary belief. You did not come
here without being pretty well prepared to be called names; to be told you
were heretical.
But, sir, I
remember in ancient history a story told of a shrewd practical man, whom I
have no doubt his fellow tradesmen called a most sagacious man--a man
named Demetrius, who, when Christianity came, felt that his craft was in
danger, and cried out "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Those
whose craft is in danger will cry out, but nevertheless truth must
prevail. The world is really on the move once more. Men's souls are being
stirred towards a better way; and, sir, until the clergy learn to
understand the feeling lying underneath the conviction and the expressed
belief of the intelligent laity of the Church of England, I say, sir, her
influence is diminishing, will diminish, and ought to diminish.
The truths you
have told us are identical with those which for twelve years I have
obscurely been working out on my part with an agony of brain, for which
perhaps you will scarcely give one credit in these days of easy popular
religion and platform oratory. I say it is true that our teachers, not
merely the Church of England but our popular teachers, have always taught
in a mere forensic tone a scheme more fitted for a nisi prius lawyer.
I say, sir, that these are the teachers that make our infidels.
We can believe
in the infinite love that created us and sustained us, and which, we are
told, has redeemed us--we can believe such doctrines as these--but some
men will tell us that these things are "cunningly devised
fables," and that we want ancient creed-made truth. No, sir, we want
clear distinct declarations flowing from that simple truth, the infinite
love of God.
I dare not
enter into the questions that you have brought before us; I cannot say
that I yield them my entire assent, although I have no antagonistic
doctrine which I can bring against them. For any man to stand up and say
he has got the whole truth, is as absurd as if he were to go to the
seaside and fill a tiny vessel with water, and say he had got the whole
waters of the ocean. Truth is a glorious system of many sides; and he will
do the Church an infinite service who will distinguish from outward creed
and ceremonies, the spiritual good that lies underneath. When that is done
we shall have men really practical, living Christians; and, sir, I feel
that I am not merely thanking you in my own name, when I propose a vote of
thanks, but in the names of most here, when I thank you for the truth
preached here at Brighton. (Loud cheers.)
I hope these
germs of holy thought will be to many of us germs of holy obedience. I
trust, sir, that your present visit will not be the last. (Hear, hear.) I
never saw you before I saw you stand at that table, and now I feel that
what you have said is real, spiritual, rational truth, a refreshing
draught for the thirsty soul; and as such I bid you "Godspeed"
in your work. (Loud cheers.)
Dr. Bayley: Suffer me, my beloved friend, to thank you also.
The Clergyman here intimated that he also joined in the vote of
thanks, though he dissented from some few of the sentiments.
Dr. Bayley: You have my kindest thanks both for your remarks and
for the manner in which you made them. I cannot but be gratified at the
little incidents that have arisen out of them. I assure you it is not a
conventional invitation to the audience to make remarks and offer
difficulties. I feel there is living beauty in divine truths that will
give us comfort in time, and happiness in death, if we understand and love
them. In the principles that I have been endeavoring to impart to my
fellowmen, there will be found clearness, harmony, and peace.
I have had many
of the same difficulties to master, the same objections to surmount which
others may be feeling at the present time. When we view the subjects in
the way I have presented them, we shall get light where there was
darkness, confidence where there was hesitation, and harmony with science
and reason where there seemed to be contradiction and difficulty. It is to
help many to understand and explain these things that I have ventured to
come to Brighton.
I am
exceedingly gratified for the kind and brotherly attention that has been
paid to me both by the clergy and others who have brought their particular
views under our notice; I have endeavored to receive them in a friendly
way and now I trust we shall part with a determination to "search the
Scriptures," as the fountain of truth, to see whether these things be
so. Let us dare to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is
good," and determinately to have our hearts set upon working out our
salvation, both in truth and in goodness, with fear and trembling, but
certainly with the conviction that God will never, never deny his light to
a seeking, earnest, loving spirit. Let us make the determination that we
will take up the maxim of the beautiful spirit of Cowper:
And truth alone, where'er my
life be cast,
In scenes of plenty or the pining waste,
Shall be my chosen theme, my glory to the
last.
Allow me to
wish you, then, an affectionate "Good night," and to express a
most earnest desire for your success in your spiritual and in your earthly
endeavors. Allow me to say "Godspeed" in your spirit's work,
under the protection of him who is love itself and truth itself. (Loud
cheers.)
Mr. Mott, surgeon, in the chair: I humbly request your attention
for a few moments this evening--this being the last lecture the Rev.
Doctor will give in the present course. They have been given gratis--no
expense whatever being incurred by any person in Brighton; everything has
been done gratuitously. [Subsequently, friends in Brighton insisted upon
paying the expenses.]
We have heard
six most eloquent, striking, interesting lectures upon the most important
points that involve the welfare of man's life, both here and for eternity,
and I think you will agree with me that we ought all to join once more in
giving a vote of thanks to the Rev. Doctor for his kindly coming here and
delivering to us these lectures. (Loud cheers.)
Rev. J. Ross: I think the eloquent lecturer has acquitted himself
as a workman that needeth not be ashamed (Hear, hear); and if there are
any in this assembly who dissent--and I believe some will think
differently from him--yet we must all agree that he has shown a singular
Christian-mindedness in his mode of stating truth, and great ability and
clearness in the proclamation of his own views. (Applause.) I am afraid,
sirs, that my testimony will not be of much service to Dr. Bayley, who,
like myself, has been considered to be a heretic--I, sir, have suffered
for the proclamation of many of those truths which Dr. Bayley, with more
eloquence than myself, has expounded in the course of these six lectures.
(Hear, hear.)
I am not
ashamed to give my testimony; and in order to gather up into a focus the
chief points or principles in which I coincide with Dr. Bayley, I will
just distinctly state them. First: He has done great service in this town
in proclaiming that "God is one" (hear, and cheers)--that there
is a baptism that teaches us that we are baptized not into three names,
but One infinitely divine name, the name of that Savior who is Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit; whereas, the common Christianity teaches that there
is a severance of persons in the Divinity. Dr. Bayley has done great
service to God's truth in teaching us, second: That the atonement is a
thing not wrought to change God's mind, but that it was a great process in
which God's mind was revealed to the world; the Scriptures never say that
Christ reconciled God to man, but, on the contrary, that "God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Third: Dr. Bayley has
done great service in restating the Apostolic doctrine of the resurrection
from the dead, and the rising up of the spiritual man from the mortal
clay. When the work through the mortal body has been done, we then come
forth in what is called the immortal, the principle within, which rises up
to the Eternal forever. But, last of all, Dr. Bayley deserves our cordial
thanks for proclaiming that the first, midmost, and last feature in
religion is charity. God is love; Christ is the love of God seen in the
flesh.
One word sir: I
feel that I must disburden my conscience. I am not going to controvert any
statement of yours; I feel that the last place in the world for the
discussion of truth is a popular assembly, yet I preach as I believe, and
that is, that God's charity will never rest satisfied while a man remains
in the hells of selfishness. No man, however, can be saved by simply
saying that he believes. He must subdue sin, and work out his salvation;
God never changes. He always does his utmost to enable man to follow him;
and if man does so, he will find that God is all in all.
And now, my
dear friend, I cordially thank you, and I am sure all this audience does,
for your kindness in coming to Brighton, and for the ability you have
shown in delivering these lectures; and I beg to second the motion.
(Cheers.)
The resolution
was then put and carried with but one dissentient hand being held up.
It was then
resolved to request that Dr. Bayley should revisit Brighton at his
earliest convenience, which also was carried with the solitary hand only
being held up for the negative.
Dr. Bayley: I beg, my dear friends, to thank you all for your
courtesy and kind feeling. I assure you that this meeting has been a
sufficient inducement to dispose me to visit Brighton again early. I thank
our dissenting friend, too, for bravely putting himself in opposition to
the whole meeting when he thinks he is right. He stands up for what he
believes to be the truth, and he should be held worthy of all respect as a
brave and worthy man. (Loud cheers.)
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