The special boast of the age is its progress. Upon this, its self-gratulations are numerous and fervent, as if it not only loved to advance, but to let the world know, as decidedly as possible, how much it thinks itself advancing.
Are these gratulations well founded? Is this progress a reality? Is there not exaggeration in the boasting? Are there not many compensating and neutralizing considerations which go far to raise the question whether, upon the whole, having respect to minus as well as the plus of the items, and looking well at the opposite sides of the great balance-sheet, there has been solid and thorough progress—progress which will abide—progress which has placed the nation, or the race, upon a higher level—spiritually, morally, intellectually, physically?
Let it be allowed that, in many things, the age is one of advancement. Thus much is notable, and beyond question. It would be unjust and unthankful, as well as untrue, not to allow this. We admit it ungrudgingly, not reluctantly, or through constraint. Into much that is true the age has found its way; and in several provinces of knowledge unreached by its predecessors it has made good its footing. Circle after circle has widened round it, and its discoveries are certainly neither shadows nor tinsel—they are real and solid. No Christian need fear to make this admission, nor think that by so doing he lowers the credit of the Scriptures, as the true fountain-head of God-given truth, or casts dishonor on Him "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
The mental philosophy of the age is, in some respects, of a truer kind than heretofore, though still cloudy and unsatisfying—nay, often stumbling into Scepticism, Pantheism, Atheism. The science of the age is prodigiously in advance of former ages. The age's literature is wider in its range, and higher in its aim. Its arts are on a higher and more perfect scale. Its astronomy has searched the heavens far more extensively and profoundly. Its geology has pierced the earth more deeply and successfully. It—the age, we mean—has brought to light law after law in the system of the universe. It speeds over earth with a rapidity once unknown. It transmits intelligence not only more swiftly than sound, but more swiftly than the light. It is restoring fertility to the soil. It can shut out pain from the body, in circumstances which, but a few years ago, would have racked or torn every nerve. These things, and such as these, the age has discovered and done; and because of these things we may admit most freely that there has been, in some things, wondrous progress—progress which might be turned to the best account—progress for which praise is due to God.
All that is true, in any region of God's world, must, in its measure, be valuable. What is true is of God, and therefore not to be cast aside, because discovered by an unsanctified understanding, seeing God has often used his worst enemies as his servants, making them his hewers of wood and drawers of water. The value of a truth is not to be judged of by the character of the discoverer; for why may not God use the finger of a Balaam to point to the Star of Jacob? The difficulty lies not in discerning what truth is of value and what is not, but in regulating its degree of value, so as to give to each portion or fragment the right place, the true level, the proper space, the due order, and to assign the exact amount of thought and study which it demands or will repay.
"All truth is precious, though not all Divine," said Cowper; but to this we must add, that though all truth is precious, yet all truth is not equally precious, nor equally worthy of our care; nay, and we must also add, that though all truth is precious, yet much of it must be left unstudied totally; our life is brief, and we have no time for all; we must select; for we are hurrying onwards—the King will soon be here, and it concerns us to dwell most on those things which will help to fit us for his presence and kingdom.
There is the atom of dust under our feet; there is that flower-bud rising above it; there is yon forest stretching miles around; there is yon vast mountain-range that walls in the plain; there is the blue arch above us, with its clouds and rainbows; there is day, with its sun and splendor; there is night, with its stars and stillness. All these things exist. Their simple being is a truth; and with that being there are connected ten thousand truths. Yet there is not the same kind of truth, nor the same amount of truth, belonging to each, for each is the centre of a circle, wider or narrower, less or more important, according to its nature. Yet what there is of truth in each is equally real, and therefore not to be slighted. To say that the facts in each of these are equally precious, because equally true, or to say that the same amount of study should be allotted to each, would be foolishness. To say that the same amount of time may be expended upon each, is gross miscalculation, indicating a false estimate of the different parts of truth, as well as of the true value of time. The truth which affects the future—especially the eternally future—must be more momentous than that which influences the present only. The truth which relates to the inner man must be more important than that which relates to the outer man. The truth that goes to make up the link between us and the God that made us must be unspeakably more precious than that which forms the tie between us and earth, or even between us and each other. The truth which bears upon earthly citizenship and its rights must be far inferior to that which bears upon heavenly citizenship, and its more glorious privileges. These distinctions the age does not consider. Progress in one direction, or at least in one or two directions, it is apt to regard as progress in all directions. Blinded by the magnitude of its discoveries, and by their present bearing upon society, it overlooks counteractions; it forgets how sadly it is being ground in many things; it veils the evil, and exaggerates the good; and then reports progress, where real progress there is none.
To confound or misregulate the degrees of value in truth, is at once an error and a mischief. It degrades everything. It is, in itself, an error, and it leads on to innumerable errors. It is, in itself, a mischief, and is the root of endless mischiefs. It is not merely equivalent to the non-discovery of truth, it not merely neutralizes the truth discovered; but it draws out of it all the evil of positive untruth, thus making truth the producer of error, good, the fountain of evil, light, the cause of darkness. So that there may be many steps of advancement, which, by the evil use made of them, or the false level assigned to them, become in the end so many steps of retrogression. Has this been duly weighed by those who boast of progress? Have they calculated the loss as well as the gain, the minus as well as the plus, and is it on the ascertained difference that they rest their congratulations? If so, let them boast. It is well. If not, then their estimate is so wholly one-sided, that no credit can be given to it even by themselves.
It is a literary age; it is an age of science; it is an age of far-ranging inquiry; it is an age of discovery; it is an age of action; many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased. But still it may not be an age of progress. The amount of knowledge gained may be nothing to the amount lost; or that which is gained may be so perverted or ill-regulated as to injure instead of profiting.
In these different parts of the world's progress, God is not recognized, or only by a few; or only recognized out of compliment or custom, and in such a way as to place him at an immeasurable distance from the works of His hands. What is there that is good, or true, or beautiful, of which God is not the centre? And is not the age, in its progress, fast severing God from his works, making man, or chance, or abstract laws, the centre of creation, instead of the living, personal Jehovah—thus shifting the axis of the universe, in order to be saved the irksomeness of coming into contact with Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being? What, then, becomes of the advancement and the enlightenment of the age? Can we look upon them in their present stage without suspicion, or can we contemplate their issues without terror? For all science is a lie—or at least lodges a lie in no very core—if apart from God and His Christ. All wisdom is foolishness, if independent of Him, "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
All inquiry must become a mere maze of scepticism, if separated from Him who has said, "Learn of me." All truth and goodness are but empty abstractions, if away from Him who is the true and42good. All beauty is but a torn blossom or a broken gem, if sought for out of Him who is its birthplace. All enlightenment is but a dream, if not received from Him who is the light of the world, the light of life. All liberty is but a well-disguised bondage, if not found in the service of Him whose love hath made us free. All rule and law are but the exhibitions of man's selfishness, and ambition, and pride, if dissociated from Him who is the Prince of the kings of the earth. Nay, and all religion is but hollowness and unreality, if severed from the fellowship of Jehovah and his Incarnate Son.
We hear much of the knowledge of the age. Well; but has not one of its own poets said, "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers!" Yes, knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers! Knowledge comes, but goodness lingers. Knowledge comes, but the world is as far as ever from peace and righteousness. Its wounds are not healed; its tears do not cease to flow. Its crimes are not fewer; its mortals are not purer; its diseases are as many and as fatal. Its nations are not more prosperous; its kingdoms are not more stable; its rulers are not more magnanimous; its homes are not happier; its ties of kindred or affection are not more blessed or lasting. The thorn still springs, and the brier spreads; famine scorches its plains, and the pestilence envenoms the air; the curse still blights creation, and the wilderness has not yet rejoiced or blossomed. Yet man is doing his utmost to set right the world, and God is allowing him to put forth all his efforts, more vigorously and more simultaneously than ever, in these last days. Nor can any Christian mind fail to look with intensest, though most painful interest upon these vain endeavors. We know that they must fail. Man cannot deliver himself, nor regenerate his world. Reforms, republics, constitutions, congresses, change of dynasties, will not accomplish it. Art in every form, science of every name, are bringing into play unheard-of energies for the improvement of this globe, and for giving man the complete empire of earth and air and sea. But the task is superhuman, and each new forth-putting of human strength or intellect is only proving this the more. And hence it is with such interest, as well as with such pity, that we look upon the generation around us, with its overwrought muscles, its over-tasked energies—toiling unrestingly, and yet failing in its mighty aim—the regeneration of a world.
There is a secret consciousness of the evil of the times, even among those who have not the fear of God before their eyes. They see but the surface, indeed, and yet that surface is not quite so calm and bright as they could desire, nor are the effects of the supposed progress quite so satisfactory as they expected it would be. They have their misgivings, though they cheer themselves with the thought that the mind of man will ere long be able to master all difficulties, and rectify all the still remaining disorders of the world. Accordingly they set themselves in their own way to help forward the regeneration of the world, and the correction of the evils of the age.
Among these there are various classes, or subdivisions. There is, for example the educational class. It labors hard to raise the level of society by the mere impartation of intellectual knowledge—"useful knowledge," "scientific knowledge," "entertaining knowledge," "political knowledge;" in short, knowledge of any kind, save that of the Bible, and of the God of the Bible. There is the novelistic class—a very large one, and possessed of far greater influence over the community than is generally credited. It has set itself to elevate the race by exciting what they conceive to be the purer feelings of our nature. Of one school the standard of perfection is romantic tenderness; of another, worldly honor; of another, bare rectitude of character, without reference to such a being as God, or such a thing as His law; of another, it is good-nature and Christmas festivity; while others seem to have no real centre of elevation in view, only they hope, by stimulating some of our finer feelings into growth, to choke or weaken our grosser and more hateful. There is the poetical class. They think, by the inculcation of high thoughts and noble images, to lift up the world to its proper level. With one school, it is the worship of nature; with another, it is the love of the beautiful; with another, it is chivalry; with another, it is the re-enthronement of "the gods of Greece;" with another, sentimental musings. These, and such as these, are the devices by which they hope to put evil to flight, and bring back the age of gold!
There is the satirical class. Their plan for meliorating the world is ridicule. Folly, vice, misrule, are to be caricatured in order to be eradicated! Ply men with enough of ridicule—just show them how ridiculous they are, or can be made—raise the laugh or the sneer against them—exhibit them in all the exaggerated attitudes that the genius of grimace can invent, and all will be well! There is the philosophic class—large and powerful, composed of men who are no triflers certainly, but who are sadly without aim or anchorage. Give them but "earnestness," and on that fulcrum they will heave up a fallen world into its true height of excellence. Give them but earnestness, and then extravagance, mysticism, mythism, pantheism, so far from condemned as ruinous, are welcomed as so many forces, operating at different points, for the anticipated elevation. Give them earnestness, and they will do without revelation; or give them "universal intuition," and they, setting it up as the judge of inspiration, will make man his own regenerator by making him the fountain head of truth. There is the political class. They have their many cures for the evils of society, and are quite sure that by better government, a wider franchise, freer trade, the abolition of ranks, the division of property, the extinction of laws of primogeniture, they will bring all into order and peace; as if these could touch the seat of the disease, or minister to the real wants of a helpless and heart-broken world.
To see the vanity of all these efforts of man to better himself, apart from God, one needs only to look into the extent of the evil to be remedied. It is vast—it is incalculable. We see but its outer circle—its innumerable inner circles of vileness and misery we see not—we cannot see. It is an evil so broad, so deep, so manifold, so malignant, that to attempt to cure it by such appliances, seems like silencing the thunder by the tones of the harp, or arresting the havoc of pestilence by scattering roses on the breeze. Whoever would have some idea of the hideous mass of evil under which the earth is groaning, and with which the atmosphere of the age is filled, let him read the third chapter of second Timothy, or the twenty-fourth of Isaiah, or the descriptions of Israel's state and sin, drawn by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Let him compare these inspired descriptions of Israel's condition with what he sees in the world around him, and he will, we doubt not, go forth to the world a wiser, more thoughtful, more solemn man; not disposed to hate, or to scorn, or to satirize, but to pity, and to mourn, and to pray.
Along with its boast of progress, the age boasts of its liberality. Let us look at this, and see how far it can make its boasting good. True liberality is a blessed thing; for it is but another name for the love that "beareth all things," that "thinketh no evil," that "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." With this, however, the liberality of the age has nothing in common. Its essence is, indifference to sin and error. Its object is, to smooth down the distinctions between good and evil; between holiness and sin; between the church and the world; between Protestantism and Popery; between the belief of God's Word and Infidelity, or Atheism. All its sayings and doings in government, in the legislature, in society, in corporations or private intercourse, are based upon the axiom that there is no real difference between these things, or, at least, that if there be, it is not discoverable by man; so that man is not only responsible for acting upon it, but it would be intolerable and presumption in him to do so. Kings are, therefore, to rule as if there were no such distinction, forgetting by whom they reign. Judges are to know no such distinctions, forgetting that they are to judge "in the fear of the Lord." Society is to be constructed without reference to any such distinction, as if the Bible were not the basis of all society. But is not this calling good evil, and evil good—putting darkness for light, and light for darkness—putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter?
We see this liberality in the kind things spoken of Infidelity—in the praises of Popery; in the sneers against Protestantism, as being by its very name a system of liberality. Education from which God is shut out, and in which the Bible has no place, is contended for, even by men who call themselves religious; and this is named liberality. To attend mass in a Popish cathedral; to listen to the blasphemies of Socinianism for the sake of the eloquence of the preacher; to hold fellowship with the avowed infidel for the sake of science; to sit at the table of the licentious, on the score of his artistic fame—these are common things amongst us, and all are honored by the name of liberality! Because our fathers condemned these things; because "they abhorred that which was evil, and cleaved to that which was good;" they are branded as intolerant and narrow-minded; and because our own age has thus filled up the gulf between the good and the evil, it is honored with the name of enlightened.
Thus to blot out the difference between truth and error has been the feat of the age. For this it praises itself, pitying the littleness and contractedness of other days and other minds. In so doing, it forgets that no man is narrow-minded who expands to the full circle of truth, and that the first step beyond that is contractedness of spirit. Latitudinarianism is not true liberality; indifference to error is not true liberality, unless it can be shown that the Bible, the Book of Truth, is equally latitudinarian, and equally indifferent to error. It is an appalling fact, that man, with the Bible in their hands, should deny the distinction between truth and error; and then, as if ashamed of what they had done, call it by the venerated name of liberality. But it is a more appalling fact, that men should give, as the reason for this indifference, the truth is not discoverable, thereby throwing the blame upon God for having given a Bible so vague, so ambiguous, so unmeaning, that no one reading it can certainly gather what is truth or what is error.
This liberality, however, turns out to be a one-sided principle. Its toleration of error is unqualified and unconditional, almost as if the fact of its being error entitled it to toleration, and even encouragement. Its toleration of truth is grudging, meagre, restricted. Nay, it only consents to tolerate truth on condition that its supporters will not contend for it too decidedly, but will bring it considerably down to the level of error. Thus, though assuming a Protestant name, its deference to Popery is unlimited; while its hatred of all that is decided and essential in Protestantism is deep and unconcealed. It finds many excuses for the Popish claim of infallibility, but none for the Protestant assertion of the full and thorough inspiration of the Word of God. It palliates the Popish system of monastic vows, but detests and denounces the Scriptural doctrine of separation from the world. It praises and associates with a Papist that believes in the lying legends of saints, and in the virtue of dead men's bones, or in the immaculacy of the Virgin Mary; but it rejects, as silly and insipid, the acquaintanceship of the man who reads his Bible, and loves his Saviour, and walks humbly with his God. Its sympathies are all practically on the side of those very errors it professes to reject, and its hostilities are directed against those very truths which in words it owns.
The age also boasts of its religion as a part of its progress. With many, religion is mere philosophic speculation upon truth connected with man's soul. With others, it is the seemly discharge of all relative duties. With others, it consists in admiration for the Bible, as a book of literary excellences. With others, it is the adoption of a creed, or connection with a church. With others, it consists in bustle and outward zeal. In all, it lacks LIFE—that deep, intense, glowing life, which so marked it in earlier times. Its root is not in the conscience, but in some outer region of the soul, which does not bring us into close and living contact with Jehovah himself. It is a thing of the imagination, or of the intellect, or even of the affections, but not of the conscience. There can be no religion which has not its seat there. The hindrance to living religion is the want of a "purged conscience," and till the conscience has been purged from dead works, there can be no real religion—no true service of God. How little is there of conscience in the religion of the day! Hence that lack of simplicity, of freshness, of serenity, which we should expect. Hence its hollowness and shallowness.43The religion of the day is an easy-minded religion; a religion without conflict and wrestling, without self-denial and sacrifice; a religion which knows nothing of the pangs of the new birth as its commencement, and nothing of the struggle with the devil, day by day, making us long for resurrection-deliverance, for the binding of the adversary, and for the Lord's arrival. It is a second-rate religion—a religion in which there is no largeness, no grandeur, no potency, no noble-mindedness, no elevation, no self-devotedness, no all-constraining love. It is a hollow religion, with a fair exterior but an aching heart—a heart unsatisfied, a soul not at rest, a conscience not at peace with God; a religion marked, it may be, by activity and excitement, but betraying all the while the consciousness of a wound hidden and unhealed within, and hence unable to animate to lofty doings, or supply the strength needed for such doings. It is a feeble religion, lacking the sinews and bones of hardier times—very different from the indomitable, much-enduring, storm-braving religion, not merely of apostolic days, but even of the Reformation. It is an uncertain religion; that is to say, it is not rooted in certainty; it is not the outflowing of a soul assured of pardon, and rejoicing in the filial relationship between itself and God. Hence, there is no liberty of service, for the question of personal acceptance is still an unsettled thing; there is a working for pardon, but not from pardon. Hence all is bondage, heaviness, irksomeness. There is a speaking for God, but it is with a faltering tongue; there is a laboring for God, but it is with fettered hands; there is a moving in the way of His commandments, but it is with a heavy drag upon our limbs. Hence the inefficient, uninfluential character of our religion. It does not tell on others, for it has not yet fully told upon ourselves. It falls short of its mark, for the arm that drew the bow is paralyzed.
These are some of the features of the age. Such is its progress. Such are its prospects of self-regeneration, or world-regeneration. Alas! how little in all this do we see of God! How little can we detect in these movements of the Spirit of God! There is a movement, doubtless; nay, not one movement, but many. But how much of this is the work of the Holy Spirit—of Him who alone can reform an age or regenerate a world? How much from above, and how much from beneath? How much onward and upward, and how much backward and downward? Is not the age one which is especially grieving, nay, quenching the Spirit? And in many of these things which are counted progress, are we not grieving Him most, signally and awfully? Instead of setting our face steadfastly to go after Christ, are we not following after Antichrist, in his manifold delusions, in which, by mixing up truth and falsehood, he is seeking to deceive the very elect? Instead of putting ourselves under the teaching of the Spirit, are we not taking the false guidance of the evil one, now clothed in the fair disguise of radiant knowledge, and going before us as an angel of light, to mislead and ruin?
Not as though some strange thing were happening to us. We look for no times of righteousness in these last days. We have been warned to expect evil, and not good—progressive evil, not progressive good—until the Lord come.
The age of progress is not the present. In the present there is the development of evil. Man is now putting forth his power to the utmost in efforts after progress. Poor progress at the best, yet much boasted of! It is but man's progress; it is but finite development. Man is now put to the proof. He is allowed to do his best, and he is given time to do it in. God will not hinder the attempt, nor hurry him in making it. Full time, ample scope, large opportunity, will be granted. Man ruined a world; it is to be proved whether he can rebuild it. He ruined it in a day; he is given six thousand years to attempt its re-construction.
His downward progress was swift enough; it is to be tried whether his upward progress will be as rapid, or whether there can be such a thing as upward progress at all, when he is left alone. God has been putting him to the proof. He says to him, "Try to govern the world;" man tries it, but fails. He says to him, "Try to regenerate a world;" he tries it, and fails. He says to him, "Fertilize the earth;" he tries it, and fails. He says to him, "Try to advance—make progress—increase in knowledge;" man tries it, and fails. It will not do. Man's day has been a long one; but it has been a day during which, in all possible circumstances and with all advantages, he has been proved helpless, ignorant, evil; unfit to rule, and unfit to be left without a ruler; unfit to teach, and unwilling to learn; unfit to be intrusted with the care or management of aught within the world's wide circle.
When God has made this proof to the universe of man's utter incapacity; when he has demonstrated man's unworthiness of trust, and inability for any progress, save a downward one; he sets him aside as "a despised and broken vessel," in order to bring in the "greater man"—ay, the greater than man, even his own eternal Son. The great experiment of 6000 years is now drawing to a close. The vast but awful demonstration is now nearly complete. The case is most manifestly going against man. King, prince, noble, peasant, beggar; statesman, diplomatist, master, parent, child, servant; poet, philosopher, artist, mechanic—all have had their long age of trial, and all have failed. The verdict will soon be given, and the sentence pronounced.
At this crisis we now stand. At the close of a long series of experiments, made to see what man could do, we find the world as wicked and lawless (to say no more) as at the first. Peace has not spread her reign among the nations, nor misrule departed. Righteousness does not sit on the throne of the nations, nor does holiness beautify the homes of the children of men. Man's merchandise is not consecrated to God, nor his wealth laid at the feet of Jesus. The heart remains still deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Oppression, murder, cruelty, lust, sedition, strife, and hatred, are still uneradicated, unsubdued, unmitigated. Man has found no cure for these maladies. They rage on, but he is powerless. The curse still pervades the earth and poisons the air. Man cannot disinfect it. The thorn and thistle still shoot up their prickly memorials of the primal sin. Man cannot uproot them. Disease still haunts the body, and man says, "Depart," in vain. The "rooted sorrow" still keeps place in memory, scorching health's freshness, and tearing down life remorselessly—man vainly endeavoring to pluck it out. Death still smites down its daily myriads, and man tries in vain to bribe or disarm it. The grave still receives the loved, and preys upon the beautiful—man pleading in vain that it should give back the joy of his heart and the desire of his eyes!
Such are the fruits of the first Adam's doings, and such the powerlessness of his children to remove so much as one of the ten thousand evils. It has been proved that man can ruin, but not restore, a world. His attempts at restoration have been sad and mischievous failings. His attempts at progress have been abortive; so that progress in evil, progress in alienation from God, is the feature of greatest prominence in his history.
But this progress in evil has a limit. God has set bounds to it which it cannot overpass. He will not allow this earth of his to be totally a hell. He will make the sin of man to praise Him, and he will restrain the remainder thereof. A certain amount and a certain duration he will allow, but no more. Neither of these is indefinite; and we seem to be nearing their boundary.
It is well. For then shall the good displace the evil, and the blessing the curse. The second Adam is at hand, and, with him, the kingdom and the glory. He brings the cure. He knits the broken world. He rebukes disease and sorrow. He binds death. He rifles the grave. He delivers creation. He sets up a righteous, peaceful throne.
That is the age of progress! What progress, when God shall set his hand to it! In the light of that ever-widening knowledge, in the blaze of that ever-brightening glory, how poor, how vile, shall seem the progress of the dishonored past! Not merely like age's recollection of childhood's trivialities and wasted time, but like morning's remembrance to the drunkard of last night's revelry and lust; like the king of Babylon's remembrance of his seven years' sojourn with the beasts of the field!