The Theocracy of the Future.
The Rev. J. S. Hughes, writing to the New York Voice recently, thus defines the theocracy of the future:— “Yet the state should and will become a theocracy, but with none of the present or past ecclesiasticism in it. Doctrines, opinions, and even Christian rites, as baptism, etc., will be purely personal property, with no intervention of either ecclesiastical or secular authority of any kind; but commerce and government must and will be governed by the moral and humanitarian principles taught by Jesus Christ, and he will break in pieces the present governments as a potter’s vessel is broken, and will rule the world in righteousness.” But this is just what political reformers have promised themselves in every age. Mr. Hughes thus speaks of the present condition of the churches, and what is expected of the Prohibition party:— “This weak and nearly worn-out church is not as good an exponent of Christian morality as the Prohibition party. The Prohibition party to many of us, to myself certainly, had in it the promise of leading our nation into the channel where the church would find its way into a purer Christian morality. . . . My faith and interest in the usefulness of the Prohibition party have risen and fallen with that single hope that the Prohibitionist believers in Christ would stand firm, and so open a new channel where the church could find a higher expression of Christian conduct and personal liberty of conscience as to doctrines and ordinances, and so hasten the day when Christ shall rule. Christian statehood is at this hour the high-water mark of Christian reformers.” This puts the political party above the church, the body of human policy above the ordained body of Jesus Christ! Legislation is to lead the church in the way of righteousness, and Christ is to rule through the plan proposed by men! But this is not Christ’s way as set forth in the Gospel. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Prov. 6: 25. The way of the Gospel is not that of politics, however holy may be the party of the politics.