The Present Age: by Bonar

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 9, 1864

The Present Age:

By Bonar

ITS BOASTED PROGRESS DELUSIVE.

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 upon 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 Skepticism, 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 onward,—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 center 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 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—specially 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 losing ground in many things; it vails 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 deranges everything. It is, in itself, an error, and it leads on to innumerable errors. It is, in itself, a mischief, and it 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 to 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 center of creation, instead of the living, personal Jehovah, thus shifting the axis of the universe, in order to be rid of 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 its 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 skepticism, 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 and good. All beauty is but a torn blossom, or a broken gem, if sought for out of him who is its birth-place. 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 morals 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 briar 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 intense 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 untold-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 over-wrought 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 erelong 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 center 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! Play 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. If, in 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 chapter 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.

Bonar.

(To be Continued.)