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Review and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 15.

The Law of God as Changed by the Papacy

Review and Herald

Apr 14, 1904

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 14, 1904

The Law of God as Changed by the Papacy

In presenting truths with reference to the Law of God, nothing is better than to have a copy of the “Law of God as Changed by the Papacy” to hang beside the Law of God, to show how the mystery of iniquity is working against the mystery of godliness, and how he shall think to change times and laws.
Besides the changes as made by the papacy, this chart gives assumptions and admissions of some of the most prominent Catholic authorities on the subject.
Printed on cloth, about 34 x 48 inches. Price, $1, postpaid.

Our Paradise Home

Though no effort is being put forth to keep this book especially before the public, the demand for it remains good. The people recognize in it true merit, and it seems to meet a hearty response in the common human interest, which quality in a book always guarantees a large circulation.
The people everywhere accept it readily. Boys and girls sell it easily. One small boy recently sold one hundred copies in a few days. When this book is placed in the home, many cardinal principles of the message go with it, for it is a little message-bearer.
It is now only nine months since it was first published, and nearly forty thousand copies have been sold. It is bound in three styles of binding: board, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents; presentation edition, 75 cents. Regular discount to agents.

Christ’s Second Coming, or the Bible Evidences and the Signs of Our Times

BY J. Q. A. HAUGHEY
This excellent tract, which has been out of print for some time, has been reset, and bound without covers, and made No. 42 of the Words of Truth Series. It contains 32 pages of Bible evidences of Christ’s second coming, and has proved to be an excellent tract for general circulation. Several hundred thousand have been sold, and excellent reports have been received of the good work it has accomplished.
It now sells for 2 cents a copy, with the usual discount to Tract Societies.

Scripture References

A valuable compilation of Scripture texts, arranged to assist the reader in the study of a large number of Bible subjects, such as, The Second Advent, Home of the Saved, Millennium, Sanctuary, Sabbath, Spiritualism, Nature and Destiny of Man, etc.
The texts are used in proof of leading propositions made under each subject, and will be found a real help to Bible study.
Thirty-two pages. Price, 2 cents each, or $1.40 per hundred.

The Sabbath-School Lessons for the New Quarter

will be on the book of Revelation, and are now ready.
A ten-cent pamphlet, entitled “The Seven Churches and the Seven Seals,” has been written as a special help in the study of these lessons, and is now ready. The pamphlet contains a chart in colors of the seven seals and seven churches, which will be found a very great help in the study of the lessons. Every one should have a copy of this pamphlet. Price, 10 cents, postpaid.

The Great Nations of To-Day

A Valuable Help to the Sabbath-School Lessons for the Second Quarter

As the present quarter Sabbath-school lessons are not a book study, but an outline history of the leading prophecies of the book of Revelation, and as this book treats of the great nations of to-day as really as the book of Daniel treats of the ancient kingdoms, a study of its prophecies in relation with the rise, career, and destiny of the leading nations of to-day will be a great help to a better understanding of these important revelations.
“The key to modern history of the great nations of to-day—their origin, course, and destiny—as contemplated in the book of Revelation, is found in the line of prophecy of the seven trumpets. Yet the seven trumpets themselves have a basis. The line of prophecy of the seven trumpets is a consequence. The events foretold therein occur because certain things have been done. These certain things are shown in the first three steps of each of the preceding lines of prophecy in the book of Revelation, the seven churches and the seven seals. Therefore, to find the basis of the seven trumpets, we must study the things which are their cause.”
“The Great Nations of To-day” is a treatise on the seven churches, with a thorough exposition of the seven trumpets, embodying every phase of the third angel’s message.

“More Interesting Than a Novel”

That is what was said of “The Great Nations of To-day” by a Bible student who read it, and he wished that it might be read by everybody. It gives the origin of the Eastern question, and traces it to the point of its centering in China, and to Japan and Russia, in the present war, which so deeply concerns the great nations of to-day.
It contains 257 large pages, in a nicely designed paper cover, containing the portraits of the leading rulers of the great nations of to-day. Price, 25 cents a copy. Discount to resident agents.

The Year Book for 1904

Every Seventh-day Adventist should have the Year Book. It is an epitome of what has been accomplished in the advancement of the work. It is a complete directory of all the departments of the General Conference and of the local conferences. With it you can readily learn the address of any officer, minister, or worker. With the Year Book you can always tell where the near-by vegetarian restaurant is, also where to find the treatment rooms and sanitariums, as well as the addresses of our physicians.
You may know the population of each union conference, with the number of churches and present membership. In traveling, you may know where to locate our nearest workers.
You will realize, after perusing the Year Book, that without it you would have been behind the times in the message, and with it you have a cyclopedia of the denomination and its work. Don’t delay. Order now. Price, postpaid, 25 cents.

The Lover’s Love

One of the best books of the day! “The Lover’s Love” is certainly an excellent and inspiring work. To read one chapter is to have an appetite created which will refuse to be satisfied until the whole work is read. Placed in the hands of a sinner, he will be touched by the exposition of God’s love through Christ. Placed in the hands of a Christian, he will appreciate more than ever his relationship to God. Few are the books on the market so beautifully written, so descriptive of the greatest attributes of God, so calculated to lift individuals to a higher standard of living.
“I have read the book with interest, and believe it will be a blessing to many in setting forth some of the glories of John 3:16. Young people will surely read it with interest.”
“W. A. Spicer.”
“I have received a copy of ‘The Lover’s Love, or John Three Sixteen.’ It is a very excellent book. I think it is one in which our people would be interested. I feel that it is a very valuable addition to our Sabbath-school library.”
“Mrs. L. Flora Plummer.”
It contains 176 pages well printed in large type. Price is only 75 cents. Send your order at once.

Steps to Christ

The Review and Herald still has a few copies of “Steps to Christ” in limp leather binding, printed on thin paper, which makes the book about the size of “Bible Text Book.” It is of convenient size for ministers and workers to carry in the pocket for ready reference.
As long as they last, they will be sold for 60 cents a copy, postpaid.

By Land and Sea

The new, revised edition of this book seems to be appreciated more than the old edition. Orders are being received from news companies and from religious organizations, which reveal the growing popularity of the book. Many excellent testimonials are received in behalf of this book, recommending it highly, and advising all young people to study it carefully, and especially those who are contemplating entering the missionary field. It is a good history, written in an attractive manner for our young people’s societies.
The reduced price ($1.50) brings this book within the reach of all.
Order of State Tract Societies: Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich.; Review and Herald, Washington, D. C.; Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn.

Be Watchful

By Editor

Editorial

“Be Watchful”

IN these times of peril there is need that we should exercise constant watchfulness lest we be ensnared by the enemy. We can see on every hand evidences of Satan’s deceitful working, and his efforts to confuse the minds of men and to lead them astray from safe paths. He presents darkness for light, and evil for good, and all this under the pretense of advancing the cause of truth. Only through the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God shall we be able to discern between the true and the false, and to keep in the old paths. Satan is capable of presenting his own evil philosophy, disguised under the familiar phrases of a Christian vocabulary and even set in Scripture phrases, as the antidote for the more openly heathen teaching of which he himself is the author, and which is designed to captivate the freethinker and the infidel. We need not expect that he will confine these efforts to the unbelieving world and the large and influential denominations, leaving this reform movement to make its way unhindered. To us comes this instruction, to which we shall do well to take heed: “Satanic agencies are clothing false theories in an attractive garb, even as Satan in the garden of Eden concealed his identity from our first parents by speaking through the serpent. These agencies are instilling into human minds that which in reality is deadly error. The hypnotic influence of Satan will rest upon those who turn from the plain Word of God to pleasing fables. It is those who have had the most light that Satan most assiduously seeks to ensnare. He knows that if he can deceive them, they will, under his control, clothe sin with garments of righteousness, and lead many astray. I say to all, Be on your guard; for as an angel of light Satan is walking in every assembly of Christian workers, and in every church, trying to win the members to his side. I am bidden to give to the people of God the warning, ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked.’” Very applicable to-day are the words of the apostle Peter: “Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom withstand stedfast in your faith.” Truly “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood.” “Even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness.” “Be on your guard.”

“Unprofitable Discussion”

A CLEAR revelation has been made to us of the things which it is necessary for us to know concerning God and his purpose concerning us. “Every scripture is . . . profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” Why then should we leave this revelation of truth, so clear and so complete, in which we may find personal salvation from sin, for the profitless discussion of those things not essential to salvation, and which have not been fully revealed? Why should we speculate and philosophize about the nature and being of God? Why should we attempt to solve every problem relating to sin and the government of God except the personal problem of being free from sin ourselves and coming into right relation to the government of God? And why do we need to give our chief attention to the revelation which God has made of himself in the things which he has made, as though we were in the condition of the heathen who are without the written Word? If we choose to seek our knowledge of God by thus lightly regarding his Word, and by taking our place upon heathen ground, it will not be surprising if our ideas of God are heathenish. We are responsible for the light given unto us. We can not turn from the clear revelation of truth in the Scriptures to the dimmer revelations in nature without great risk of arriving at falsehood instead of truth. The only safe way to study the lessons of nature is to view them in the light which shines from the written Word. The light from the cross of Calvary renders the pages in the book of nature readable. We shall make greater advancement in our Christian experience if we spend less time in the dim twilight of speculation and uncertainty, where truth and error commingle, and live in the clear sunlight of the truth as it is in Jesus, made known to us in the Word of God. “What is the chaff to the wheat?”

“Glorious Things”

THE prospect before the Christian is indeed a glorious one. When we consider the “exceeding great and precious promises,” and remember that the time for their fulfilment is near at hand, we certainly have reason to be filled with the most joyous anticipations. Soon Jesus our Saviour will come to gather his children home to the Father’s house. Soon we shall be changed from mortal to immortality. Soon we shall meet the Lord in the air, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Soon we shall “enter in by the gates into the city.” Soon we shall behold the mansions which Jesus has gone to prepare. Soon we shall meet again all the loved of earth who have been taken from us by death. Soon we shall join with “every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea” in saying, “Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever.” Glorious indeed is the outlook! The hope of the coming of Jesus, when all these things will be fully realized, is truly “that blessed hope.” But the “glorious things” are not all in the future. More than gates of pearl and streets of gold and mansions fair, and that which sheds glory upon the whole scene, will be the presence of Jesus and the knowledge of the complete victory over sin, but these most glorious blessings may be enjoyed even here while we are seeking to prepare the way of the Lord and to make ready a people to meethim at his coming. When we accept the provision which has been made that we may have fellowship ‘with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ,’ and when we realize the fulfilment of the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always,’ we may enjoy the chiefest blessing of heaven before we reach the heavenly country. This is having a heaven in which to go to heaven. Surely we ought to rejoice and praise the Lord more and more for his wondrous kindness to us. Surely we can ‘serve the Lord with gladness.’
“How happy all thy servants are! How great thy grace to me! My life, which thou hast made thy care, Lord, I devote to thee.”

Important Instruction for Every Seventh-Day Adventist Testimonies for the Church, Volume VIII

By Editor

The warnings, counsels, and instruction which have come to this people through the spirit of prophecy since the rise of this denomination have exerted a marked influence in the development of this movement to give the closing message in the earth. Since the appearance of the first little volume in 1851, entitled “Experience and Views,” many thousand pages have been written and published under various titles. In 1855 there was published “Testimonies for the Church,” No. 1. Successive numbers have appeared from time to time, as the interests of the work have demanded, until this latest issue, number 36.
When fanaticism or apostasy has threatened the success of this work, as has been the case at different times in its history, the instruction through the spirit of prophecy has invariably been of the greatest value in pointing out with clearness the departure from “the truth of the gospel” and in directing the believers into right paths. Thus unity has been preserved, and the efforts of the enemy to overthrow the work have been defeated. We seriously question, however, whether any previous number of these Testimonies was ever issued which contained instruction more timely or better calculated to meet the needs of the hour than this last number. We have entered upon the perilous times which are peculiar to the last days. During the last two years we have passed through some remarkable experiences. Two of the largest institutions connected with this movement have been destroyed by fire. An effort has been made to force upon this denomination such teaching as, when carried to its logical conclusion, would remove the old landmarks of truth, and undermine the foundation of this threefold message. The headquarters of the denomination have been removed from Battle Creek, Mich., to Washington, D. C., and a new start is being made to establish institutions in a representative way in which the pure principles of truth shall have their proper place. A careful study of “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VIII, will answer many questions which may have arisen in the minds of the believers, and will throw light upon many perplexing difficulties. If any have been in a measure confused by the developments of the last year or two, and have not understood the reason for some of the movements made and some of the plans followed, these difficulties will be cleared away by a thoughtful reading of this book.
A full synopsis of the table of contents of this issue of the Testimonies has already appeared in the REVIEW, giving a good idea of the general ground covered, but we desire by a still further analysis of the instruction given to indicate the scope and trend of the book, especially in its dealing with our present situation. There are five sections, or general divisions, of the volume. Section one is entitled “Present Opportunities.” It emphasizes the fact that we have a special work to do in this generation, a special message to give, corresponding to the work of John the Baptist. It deals with the power promised for this work, the world-wide field of this work, and closes with a most encouraging view of the outcome of the great conflict between truth and error. The study of this section prepares the mind of the reader to understand and to appreciate what follows.
Section two is entitled “Counsels Often Repeated.” In this section will be found the true explanation of the destruction of the printing establishment at Battle Creek—the neglect to follow the oft-repeated instruction of the Lord given both to the workers in the office and to the members of the church. In some respects it is a parallel to the instruction given to the children of Israel after the overthrow of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. No mere outline can do it justice. It must be read thoughtfully.
Section three is entitled “Letters to Physicians.” The true basis of the medical missionary work is here set forth, and its place in the closing work is clearly indicated. This is done by bringing together the counsel which has been given in correspondence covering a series of years, thus showing that it is not for lack of proper instruction that the mistakes have been made which have brought so much embarrassment into our work of late. The reading of this section will set at rest any fears that the medical missionary work may be set aside if it, as the right arm of the message, is not allowed to take the place of the message itself. True medical missionary work can never be divorced from this message.
Section four is entitled “Be on Guard.” In this section are presented the dangers which have threatened this denomination and its work through the effort to carry out the idea “that the medical missionary work would be greatly advanced if all our medical institutions and other medical missionary interests were bound up under the control of the medical missionary association at Battle Creek.” It gives clear reasons why this plan can not succeed, and places the burden of responsibility for this work where it properly belongs. “The medical missionary work is God’s work, and in every conference and every church we are to take a decided stand against allowing it to be selfishly controlled.” “In establishing and developing medical institutions, our brethren must not be asked to work in accordance with the plans of a kingly, ruling power. A change must be brought about. The plan to fasten every medical institution to the central organization at Battle Creek must be relinquished. This plan God forbids.” Our limited space will not permit extended quotations from this section, but the instruction given is of the utmost importance.
Section five is entitled “The Essential Knowledge.” It brings out the difference between the true and the false teaching concerning the nature and being of God, and sounds an emphatic warning against the character of some of the teaching which has recently been given within the denomination. “Already there are coming in among our people spiritualistic teachings that will undermine the faith of those who give heed to them. . . . Those who continue to hold these spiritualistic teachings will surely spoil their Christian experience, sever their connection with God, and lose eternal life.” “The enemy is seeking to divert the minds of our brethren and sisters from the work of preparing a people to stand in these last days. His sophistries are designed to lead minds away from the perils and duties of the hour. They estimate as nothing the light that Christ came from heaven to give to John for his people. They teach that the scenes just before us are not of sufficient importance to receive special attention. They make of no effect the truth of heavenly origin, and rob the people of God of their past experience, giving them instead a false science.” Brief extracts can not do justice to this section. It must be read as a whole to be appreciated. The warning and instruction are most important.
We do not write carelessly when we say that “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VIII, ought surely to be read by every Seventh-day Adventist. We are entering upon a new experience in this work. A forward movement has begun. The message that “there shall be delayno longer” is beginning to be realized. This volume of the Testimonies deals with the present crisis in our work in such a clear way that all who are willing to receive the light which it gives concerning our present situation and the plans for the future will be able to go forward understandingly, and will know how to relate themselves to each branch of our work on right principles. We feel that we shall confer permanent benefit upon every Seventh-day Adventist who can be induced to read this book. Do not delay. Secure it at once.

Pantheism in Modern Philosophy of God and Nature

By W. A. S.

Present-Day Revivals of Ancient Errors—No. 4

Pantheism in Modern Philosophy of God and Nature

The word “pantheism” has a far-away and pagan sound to western ears. Pantheism is the basis of the heathenism of the East. It is also the thread-idea, running fine as the lotus fiber, through the modern philosophy of God and nature.
The Christian teaching concerning the revelation of God in nature is that “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.” Rom. 1:20. This is simple enough in the light of the Scripture truth setting forth the being of God, self-limited as to personal form, upon the throne of the universe, “upholding all things by the word of his power.” The power and life of his divine word are seen in the things that he has made; so that men are without excuse for not accepting the word of salvation.
But when men, in the vanity of their minds, sought a deeper and more scientific philosophy of the manifested power, they lost sight of God upon his throne in heaven, and thought they had discovered God himself within the creature. Man can not exercise power beyond his bodily presence. The vain imagination of men pictured God as like unto themselves, and fancied that it was not simply the working of the power of God that they saw in nature, but that God himself was in the things that are made. So “professing themselves to be wise,” they missed the glorious truth, and “changed the truth of God into a lie.” The full fruit of that highly spiritualized philosophy was the worship of the creature rather than the Creator.
The word “pantheism” expresses this philosophy of God himself in nature. It is the product of the Orient, and in this thing also the churches of Christendom are being “replenished from the East.” Isa. 2:6. It has helped to sink India to the depths. A French writer, Leroux, declared that “all religions and all philosophies have their root in India, and that had pantheism not been found in India, that would have been a strong argument against its truth, for then humanity would have erred in its beginning.”
It comes naturally with the idea of the infinite form of Deity. One Hindu conception, expressed in the Artharva Veda, was “a vast corporeal being, co-extensive with the universe, and comprehending in his several members the different parts of the material world.”
Such a personality, of necessity, was diffused through all things. Thus came the famous Hindu saying, “All this [universe] is Brahma.” We need not think for a moment that this was a conscious effort to deny God. It was all in the name of a high and philosophic view of Deity. A modern admirer of the philosophy that assumed to bring God down into all his works cries out in praise of the Hindu sages: “Who in later days or in modern times can even approach the spiritual sublimity of their religious thought, the intellectual splendor of their philosophy, the breadth and purity of their ethic?” Yet, as we shall see, this philosophy was the degradation of India. God was worshiped where the revelation of power seemed closest to man, as in humanity and animal and plant life. Thus came man and animal and plant worship, though only the uninstructed would for a moment admit that they worshiped the creature instead of the Creator.
When we think of the degrading worship of Egypt, where the glory of the incorruptible God was made like unto men and beasts and creeping things, we must remember that the philosophy that led to all this was most refined. “It so completely incarnates God,” says one writer, “as to make every type of animal existence divine.” Had one asked the priest of some ancient Egyptian temple why they worshiped animals, he would, says James Freeman Clark, have replied:—
Do you think we worship these animals? Each of them is a symbol of a divine thought of the Creator. We reverence the Creator in his work. We dare not make a statue in the likeness of God; we take the creatures of his hand as signifying his character. It is to avoid idolatry, to avoid making anything in the image of God, that we place these creatures in the shrine.
In the Hindu doctrine,—
Every region is full of gods, for everything that lives and moves is full of the divine. The fields are sacred, for Brahma is there; the rivers are worshiped, for Brahma lives in them.
Explaining the theory of the Hindu philosophy that sought to glorify nature study, Prof. Max Muller says:—
When we look at a tree and ask what it is, when we see through its leaves and fruits, its barks and wood, and ask again what it is, the answer comes that it would be nothing if it were not Brahma, that it lives through Brahma, that it exists through Brahma. This is the real pantheism of the Vedanta: and strange as it may sound to us, it would not be difficult to match it, whether from our own philosophers or our poets. Even so recent a poet as Tennyson is reported to have said, “Perhaps this earth and all that is in it—storms, mountains, cataracts, the sun and the skies, are the Almighty.”
This brings us to the leavening influence of Eastern pantheism in modern thought. I have seen a Hindu prostrate himself before a tree to worship. To any remonstrance he might say that he worships God in the tree. Holding up water in his hand toward the rising sun, he worships at the close of his morning bath. If one objected, he might say that he worshiped God in the light. Here he would use language so nearly that of the Scripture that the critic might ask why we should object to the answer. It shows that we can never take the nature of a teaching for granted simply because Scripture phraseology is sometimes used. To the instructed Christian the text, “God is light,” means one thing; to the theosophist, quite another thing. The physical is confounded with the spiritual. The truth is turned into a lie. In meeting the plague of this Eastern philosophy of God let none be deceived by Scripture phrases perverted to mask and support heathen ideas. The language of Inspiration is given the false interpretation, even as in apostolic days unstable men had begun to wrest some of Paul’s writings to their own destruction. 2 Peter 3:16.
People are finding in the pantheistic idea of God in the tree, and God in the grass, and God in the light an influence that they think is making them more devotional. No one is so religious as the pantheist. One of the great modern advocates of pantheism was called “the God-drunken philosopher.” The Hindu sages were not irreligious men. The wine of this doctrine is a mocker and deceiver. It separates from God, while it professes to bring him near.
These ideas are daily becoming more popular. A great German scientist recently said, “It follows necessarily that pantheism is the world-system of the modern scientist.” A clergyman of the Church of England declares, “Pantheism is on all hands acknowledged to be the theology of reason.” It is all involved in the idea of the “immanent God,” the root idea of Hinduism. Human reason and science, falsely so-called, aspiring to a new philosophy of God, is rushing headlong down the path that led ancient philosophy to the pit of heathenism. Dr. Stockwell, a student of scientific thought to-day, says:—
Monistic idealism, or the conception of an immanent God, pervades all our modern religious thinking and feeling, is taught in our liberal universities, andtinges deeply, if it does not especially characterize, the new theology. In fact, the substitution of an immanent God for the traditional or far-off God, may almost be said to be a universal movement throughout the intellectual world. Correctly stated, it is pantheistic; . . . In any event, if we accept the growing conviction of modern scientific and philosophic thought, that “God and nature are one,” . . . I fail to see how we are to escape the charge of being pantheistic. And I am quite ready to accept as true Professor Tyler’s statement that “we have been altogether too afraid of this term pantheism.”
There is but one reason why men following the same path as the ancients should hesitate to describe the philosophy by its proper name. The reason is that the world has had a pretty fair chance to learn what the fruit of that philosophy is in the degradation of heathenism. But in the final conflict, old controversies are to be revived, the old paganism is to commingle with the new, and every mixture of light and darkness by which Satan has perverted minds in the past will be again set forth as new light, and with “satanic earnestness,” as we have been forewarned. That “God and nature are one” is the logic of the old and the new philosophy. As Dean Mansel said many years ago, of this philosophy of God:—
Endeavoring to simplify and purify our representation of the divine nature, [it] ends by depriving it of every attribute which can make God the object of any religious feeling or the source of any moral obligation. Instead of a religious relation between God and man, the relation of a person to a person, this philosophy substitutes a metaphysical relation between God and the world, . . . happy if it stops short at this error only, and does not find itself compelled by the inexorable laws of its own logic to identify God with the world.
The newest pantheism now takes this step boldly, as we have seen by the preceding quotation from a representative of the scientific school. Here is a word from Trine, author of “In Tune with the Infinite,” who represents the more religious school:—
God is Spirit, the Infinite Spirit, the Infinite Life, back of all these physical manifestations we see in this changing world about us, and of which all, including ourselves, is the body or outer form; the one Infinite Spirit which fills all the universe with himself, so that all is he, since he is all.
In one of the magazines published within our own denomination, I read: “Do not believe that nature desires to destroy you. God and nature are one.” It is an idea that crops out in all directions in these times when Eastern philosophy is flooding in. The popular philosophy of India is that of the Puranas, of which one writer says: “Pantheism is one of their invariable characteristics, as they always identify God and nature.”
What has been the fruit of this pantheistic doctrine, fully developed? We see it in all India, and more or less in all the world; for it tinges all philosophy and religion of the natural mind. Professor Flint says:—
Pantheism, instead of elevating and purifying Hindu polytheism, has contributed to increase the number, the absurdity, and the foulness of its superstitions.
It is necessarily so; for if God and nature are one, then, as Bishop Caldwell shows, “everything that exists is a portion of God, and every action that is performed an action of God.” The full fruitage of this philosophy, this “science of evil,” as any missionary to heathen lands can tell, is exactly summed up by James Freeman Clark when he says of pantheism:—
It is also immoral, because if all things are God, then bad actions as well as good are divine, and the distinction between right and wrong disappears. Hence the low morality of the Hindus, on whom this teaching has been at work for so many centuries; hence also the immoral practises reappearing in those Christian sects which claim perfect union with God.
This is a well-established fact in the history of that over-spiritualized view, by which intuitions and rational nature rule, and every man becomes a seer, inspired by what is supposed to be the God-consciousness within. While it assumes to be a state of remarkable spirituality and union with the divine, it really leads to the impulses of the flesh and the natural heart being taken as the movings of the Spirit of God. Before entering upon the path of mystical philosophy, it behooves us to look to the end of that way. This is not the path on which the advent band set out when they began the final march toward the city of God. It was not this philosophy that built up this great reformatory movement and everything of value in it, and gave us a mission in the world.
We have now traced the pantheistic philosophy from its root in the old theology of the East to its spreading forth in the “new theology” of the West. We can see the nature of the doctrine in the bud, and can judge the tree by the fruit it has borne through the centuries. In that recent solemn Testimony “Decided Action to Be Taken Now,” we are told concerning theories regarding the personality of God that have been urged among us:—
When fully developed [they] make Him, in the minds of those who accept them, as nothingness. . . . Those doctrines, followed to their logical conclusion, sweep away the whole Christian economy. . . . We are not to allow atheistic, spiritualistic sentiments to be brought before our youth.
We can see this in the logic of the pantheistic philosophy and in the fruit of it. In the place of the God of Revelation upon his throne in heaven, self-limited as to bodily form, approachable to redeemed men in the flesh, in one place as he is not in all places, the pantheistic philosophy substitutes an all-pervasive personality, variously called force, energy, intelligence, the universal mind, the infinite personality, the God-immanent, or, as one pantheistic preacher of the Church of England puts it: “The infinite God, impersonal and yet personal—to be called by all names, or if that is irreverent, to be called by no name.” The German philosopher, Schopenhauer, sums it all up frankly and irreverently as follows:—
Pantheism is only a polite form of atheism. The truth of pantheism lies in its destruction of the dualist antithesis of God and the world, in its recognition that the world exists in virtue of its own inherent forces. The maxim of the pantheist, “God and the world are one,” is merely a polite way of giving the Lord God his conge [dismissal].
Yet no system has so much to say of bringing God close to men. It assumes by a study of nature—from the atom and the molecule to the universe—to find what is called a rational basis for faith, that will bring God into every man’s consciousness. But when one has found this rational basis for faith, a basis in human reason, it is no longer faith. For faith comes by hearing the Word of God. It can come only as the gift of God. Instead of lifting men to God, the scientific process, “falsely so called,” leaves men just where this same method and philosophy of God originally brought mankind: “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Eph. 4:18. Well may we take to our own hearts the warning of the apostle to the brethren at Colosse, who had to meet this same philosophy, in the form of Neoplatonism, which worked until it leavened and ruined the church. He wrote to them:—
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world [the things of nature], and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him.” Col. 2:6-10.
W. A. S.

Religious Freedom in Panama

FREEDOM in religious belief and practise exists in the new republic of Panama, though the Roman Catholic religion is recognized as the belief of the majority, and the state has undertaken to aid in founding a Catholic seminary and to support Roman Catholic missions.
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