p. 6 | THE ESSENTIAL THING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 11.

THE ESSENTIAL THING.

The desirable thing, what ought to be the essential thing, in a religion worthy of acceptance, is life,—the life it has to bestow; the life its devotee may obtain; for life is power; life is multiplied blessing. A religion without life is dead. It may present an interesting theory; it may lay before the world a mysterious and seemingly profound philosophy, it may unroll an ancient and voluminous creed, endorsed by great men; its ritual and service may be ornate, superb, and affecting; it may have many devotees; but if it have not life to give to the needy, no power to lift him above the low plane of self, it is a hollow mockery.

We may subscribe to a creed, and admire the erudition and piety of those who framed it, but its dead words will not help us to cleanse one sin or lighten one burden.

Moral precepts will not save; they can not save. They reveal duty, but confer no power to perform it. Such are the precepts and the philosophy of Confucius. Other systems, like Buddhism, and Theistic evolution, and “Christian Science,” recognize the life and power in man, but supply nothing additional. They sometimes name it “divine power,” “divine mind,” or “divine immanence;” but it is what every person has within himself, if but recognized. Theistic evolution “assumes a God back of all, working “out results along the unalterable lines of natural law, and by physical forces exclusively.”—Standard Dictionary. In other words, it makes God dependent on the laws perverted by sin existent in humanity. The process is by evolution, not by creation.

“Christian Science” declares that “man is incapable of sin. . . . Hence the real man can not “depart from holiness.”—Science and Health, page 459. Again, it declares that “no man can break “God’s law. He can only break the law which benefits him, and not God; and it is man’s own law, “and not God’s, which holds man to accountability.”—Platform, vol. 2, p. 70. Thus “Christian Science” makes man his own lawgiver and his own judge.

It is not our purpose to seek to harmonize the inconsistencies of this so-called “science;” that is impossible. As above quoted, it declares that man is incapable of sin; that he can not break God’s law; that it is only his own law which he can violate; while again, in Science and Health, vol. 2, p. 84, we read: “Man is co-eternal and co-existent with God, “and they are inseparable in divine science.” If this be true, when man violates “his own law,” does he not violate God’s law? But if he be divine, he is above sin, hence needs no Saviour.

But enough of its inconsistencies; they are legion. What we wish here to note is that “Christian Science” makes man divine, his own saviour, if he have need of one. He saves himself by recognizing that he does not need saving.

It is the teaching of “Theosophy” (God-wisdom) that “the essential divinity is in man, and the progression of the divine ray proceeds thru all the “kingdoms of nature up to man, and beyond man “as we know him, up to beings of godlike perfection, “the evolution taking place by means of “successive re-embodiment, or reincarnation, and “according to the law of cause and effect.”—Standard Dictionary. And in this, as in evolution, man is his own saviour.

In all these, man’s salvation, man’s betterment morally, must be, if not by his own works wholly, by the aid which he furnishes, by the law which inheres in him, by the recognition of powers which he already possesses. What man needs, according to these theories, above all things else, is knowledge.

This idea of self-salvation enters into every false system of salvation, every false religion, the world has ever known. Wherever the true has been perverted, it has been thru this one idea or teaching, that man himself can do something toward his salvation. The motive is selfish; it is to glorify man. All the deceived ones may not see its selfishness, but the selfishness is there. All the Galatians did not see the selfishness of the perverters of the Gospel who were blinding them, but Inspiration says of them, and all such teachers, “They zealously seek you in no good way; nay, they desire to shut you out, that ye may seek [not Christ, but] them.” Gal. 4:17, R.V. “As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised; only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. . . . They desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.” Gal. 6:12, 13, R.V.

Said the apostle to the Gentiles, “From among your own selves [Christians] shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” Acts 20:30, R.V. Peter says, “Thru covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.” 2 Peter 2:3. It is ever the same in principle. The motive may be the seeking of an easier way than the way of the cross seems; it may be that of self-glory and praise; it may be that of worldly gain; it may be one of a half dozen other things, but in all, the selfishness of the natural heart enters and corrupts the true.

The religion may change the form of man’s sinning from grosser deeds to self-righteous Pharisaism, but the self-seeking is there. Signs and wonders may be wrought in its name, but there are no indications of the true. The greatest of God’s prophets “did no miracle.”

This subject will be considered further in our next.