FAITH VERSUS NEW THOUGHT, OR PANTHEISM.
By R. C. Porter
"When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8. WE are not only living in an age of wonderful inventions and extensive travel, both of which are signs of the near-coming of Christ (Dan. 12:4), but we are also living in an age of varied forms of skepticism. Taking one view of our time the outlook is very discouraging. Another view presents a very practical result that will be accomplished by the multiplied forms of infidelity now being foisted upon the world by men who are ambitious to become noted for wisdom above what is written in the Book of God. This teaching will separate between the child of faith, and the skeptic; between him who will take that Word as it is in truth "the Word of God" and him who will follow the popular religious current of new-thought pantheism in its tremendous rush into infidelity. Read a brief statement from the new-thought creed of Dr. Lyman Abbott: I no longer believe in a great First Cause. My God is a great and ever-present force, which is manifest in all the activities of man and all the workings of nature. I believe in a God who is in and through and of everything—not an absentee God, whom we have to reach through a Bible, or a priest, or some other outside aid, but a God who is closer to us than hands or feet. Science, literature, and history tell us that there is one eternal energy, that the Bible can no longer be accepted as ultimate, that many of its laws were copied from other religions, that the Ten Commandments did not spring spontaneously from Moses, but were, like all laws, a gradual growth, and that man is a creature of evolution, not a creation. Read also the following from Professor Mathews of Chicago University: It will not be long before scientists will generate life in the laboratory, and already examples of this are before us. It is my belief that life can be generated by chemical action, and it only remains for the discovery of the process. I do not wish to be understood as saying that science will be able to construct a human being, perfect and like man, for the divinity of the spirit would be an element lacking. Talking before the class in physiology, Dr. Mathews said the Biblical story of God creating man from clay, that He took up the earth and moulded it in the shape of man and then said "Live!" was "a little too exaggerated." What could more strikingly fulfil the above text? "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" When eminent divines boldly disavow their faith in the God of creation, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments as proclaimed from Sinai's summit by the voice of God (Exodus 20), it is time for the faithful watchman to call to the attention of the people this sign of the times, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth." Coupled with this scripture let us read from Paul's dying charge to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:3, 4:)
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables."
How plainly the utterance of such men of prominence in the church fulfil the prophetic declarations of that Word, attest its truthfulness and prove its divinity! The God who11can cause even the wrath of man to praise Him has ordained that the very testimony of unbelief shall, when the Son of Man is near to come, testify to the all-wisdom of the Creator who foresaw their doubt and infidelity, and announced even this as an evidence of His speedy return to save the children of faith. Christ is the only "Author of life." "In Him we live and move and have our being." He made us and not we ourselves. "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them." Gen. 1:27. In creating "He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." Compare the above utterance with the following statement of Hindoo pantheism as stated by J. H. Wyckoff, D.D. in his Round Top missionary address on August 4th, as reported in Record of Christian Work: Then there is another doctrine, and that is the doctrine about God. If you should go with me to an out-of-the-way village in India, and ask the first man or woman whom we met how many gods there are, the reply would be, "God is one; there is one God." But those words in the mouth of a Hindoo do not mean what you think. He believes indeed that there is one God, but one in the sense that there is not only no second God, but no other existence in the universe but God. That is, he teaches that there is one real existence in the universe, the Supreme Being; that all men, from the highest to the lowest, are simply manifestations of this Being, and that all life, whether in men, birds, animals, fishes, or trees, all is God, and God is all. There in a sentence or two you have the essence of the pantheistic philosophy that lies at the base of the Hindoo religion. But we are only concerned with its practical results, and those are twofold—polytheism, idolatry. If God and His creatures are one, then He may be worshiped in any of His manifold forms. Hence the Brahman has multiplied the number of gods in India as occasion has required, until they are said to number something like three hundred and thirty million. Everything in India becomes deified as an object of worship. What a striking similarity between the higher criticism or new thought of Christendom and the pantheism of heathendom. Both profess faith in a god, but not the God of the Bible. Both believe in an all-pervading force, or life, but not in a life proceeding from God as creator to His created beings. Heathen pantheism deifies man in its interpretation of God, and worships the creature rather than the Creator. Higher criticism, or new thought, exalts its so-called science above the Word of God, exalts human reasoning above the revelation of Jesus Christ, and cuts the cord of faith that holds humanity to its anchorage within the veil whither Jesus as our Saviour has entered; and sets humanity adrift upon the dark sea of doubt and uncertainty, in a rudderless bark without chart or compass or guiding star of hope.
In the first chapter of Romans (verses 20-23) Paul describes how pantheism usurped the place of faith in the establishment of heathenism:
"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." Professing themselves to be wise, was the fundamental difficulty which led to the rejection of God as Creator. Then they established in the place of His truth the doctrine of all-pervading life, and that led to idolatry and all their abominable practices. What a warning the above scripture should be to the modern "higher critics" who are in our day professing such great wisdom, and after the same manner disavowing their faith in the Creator. It is only those who walk humbly with God, who walk safely. Skepticism on the atonement always follows skepticism of the work of creation. "There is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved." In the midst of a world which "by wisdom knew not God," how cheering are the clear ringing notes of the voice of that sublime faith, sounding through the vales, and echoing from the hills of Judea and Greece and Rome and thence to the uttermost parts of the earth: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." This glorious light is not to be extinguished by human philosophy. Humble tho those hands that bear aloft this torch of truth, shackled by prison stocks those weary feet that hasten to bear this Gospel light to the darkened corners of the earth, to cheer the hearts, and revive the hopes, of earth's toiling sin-weary millions, it still shines on. It speaks with the voice of cloven tongues of fire with such power that thousands are converted in a day. It is accompanied by angels of light with sufficient power to release from jails its faithful adherents, and bid them, "Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life." It heals the sick, restores the blind, causes the lame to walk, and casts out devils by the power of that name, JESUS. It gives a life of cheer in the midst of adversity, comforts all that mourn. It so sweetens and brightens life's pathway that the believer rejoices in the Lord always, and when the hour of death approaches, it gives an assurance that can be gotten only by the Christian's hope: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." At the coming of Christ, the Word declares: "The heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath has come; and who shall be able to stand?" Then the voice of the children of faith, who have been willing to be counted ignorant, antiquated, and even obstinate, because they refuse to follow the multitude in the realms of new scholastic higher criticism that leads away from Christ, will be heard saying with a confidence born of an experience in trial, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us." Reader, with which company will you stand in that momentous hour?