Mechanical Religion by J. Clarke

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 31, 1860

Mechanical Religion.

By J. Clarke

HAD it pleased God, he might have so systematized morality, and instituted such forms of worship, and so arranged moral science, so woven it with prophecy, and combined the whole with displays of his own power, that no rational being could have thought of doubting him or his truth for a moment.

But what would man have been in such circumstances? A mere automaton, obedient by necessity, with no grand reward of fixed choice, no sensation of the goodness of God in doing all this, and when saved from sin, he would only have looked upon it as a matter of course, something due to him, something as we see mankind now, frequently, who suppose the world was made especially on their own account.

"Says man, See all things fitted for my use, See man for mine, replies the pampered goose."

And man saved without a prodigious effort on his own part, without a sense of the awful nature of sin, would have been as insensible of the pit from which he had been taken, as the senseless brutes.

Sin too, undeveloped, had God at once smothered Satan's rebellion, and covered up the sin of Adam, by some well arranged system of reform, by which all the race had been kept in Jesus' fold, by force as it were, as the herdman collects his cattle, with whip and spur, then man nor angel had ever known the terrible nature of rebellion; and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, its hopeless deformity, and disgusting depravity, its destructive influence, its wretchedness, its vileness, and its tendency in every respect, whether as a whole, or in detail, to destroy everything good and holy, and institute in its stead all that is evil and unholy.

It is clear as day, that when Satan fell from his high estate, it became necessary for him to develop the nature of rebellion that its tendency is to continue its efforts in behalf of disorder, and its true character opposed as it is to God, and could it have its own unbridled course, would not halt until it had brought disorder and ruin everywhere, until heaven itself had been made a desolation, and all the starry host had been put in confused orbits. Then had rebellion been satisfied, when glutted with destruction, and when all that was precious had been involved in like ruin with itself; then had rebellion been appeased, when planets, suns, and starry constellations had dashed in wild confusion against each other, then amid the crash of worlds, and the blighting of innocence, had rebellion laughed with maniacal delight, and with like desperation would have fallen upon its own sword, saying, Let us die together. I die, but I die victorious! Ambition, mad ambition, rules in the heart of rebellion, and all sin is rebellion, as far as it extends.

The earth is the theater upon which this grand development is being matured, and the seed is nearly ripe for the sickle; man is the victim upon which rebellion first seized as its prey, and what Satan has done here, he would have done everywhere, had it been allowed (let us praise God it goes no farther), and God has so arranged his truths that all excuse is taken from man, while at the same time, its connexions and beauties must be studied and sought out, or they will be buried in rubbish which Satan has contrived to throw upon them.

Natural and revealed truths are harmonious and plain. It is Satan who has so blindfolded the understanding and bent the will, that these truths seem intricate and hard to be understood; and truths like the Sabbath, the State of the dead, the destruction of the wicked, the sanctuary and 2300 days, and other truths connected with them, all of them simple truths, lying just in our path, rudimental truths, as "sin is the transgression of the law;" plain, clear—yet Satan has so forestalled them with error, that the human understanding is blinded to the simple rules of right.