DOCTRINE, FALSE AND TRUE

A Lecture in which

THE DOCTRINE UPON WHICH HUMAN SOCIETY, ECCLESIASTICAL, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL, IS FOUNDED, SHEWN TO BE EVIL, IMPOTENT AND CONTRARY TO THAT FORM OF SOUND DOCTRINE GOD HAS PUBLISHED IN THE SCRIPTURES OF TRUTH FOR THE REGENERATION OF THE WORLD

By J. U. ROBERTSON

In such a world as ours, where there are so many voices filling the whole vault of heaven with their discordant and jarring sound, where the air pants with the tremulous burden constantly poured out upon it from myriad tongues, where unceasingly are heard voices proclaiming means and measures for alleviating the evils, great and sore and many, of mankind, where angry voices contend hotly for their own peculiar doctrines, and soft voices and persuasive charm never so wisely,-there is no more pertinent nor valuable advice to the simple seeker after the truth, than that which Christ gave unto his disciples, when He told them to take heed how they heard.

If that was a needful precaution in the days of Christ, when the world lay in a state of semi-active mental force, and before the great throbs of fierce democracy began to pulse through its every part with irresistible energy, how much more is it necessary in these days of divided opinion on every matter under the sun, when men differ from their fellows simply from a love of controversy, when a flood of talk covers every thing, holy and profane with its unmitigated verbosity. Amid such a Babel of public opinion let each one, walking in his own integrity, take heed how he hears.

Doctrines and doctrinaires are the order of the day. Every man has a scheme, a proposal, a panacea, an opinion, an exposition and the true (?) solution of those things which most interest mankind. But where among all these clashing systems can the truth be found?

Human society is built upon doctrines. Ideas are formulated into set phrases and these govern the world. They may be right or they may be wrong, as it chanceth, for truth is not always the first consideration to their formers, who are actuated by other motives than a high regard for unswerving veracity. Personal interest, or in other and plainer words, innate selfishness almost always lies at the bottom of human thought and action; and this is distinctly written between the lines of the doctrines men have formulated for themselves.

Take as a striking example that doctrines govern the world and that selfishness dictates them, the British Houses of Parliament, or the talking houses as the words imply. Here we behold an assembly of men gathered out from among the peoples of the United Kingdom, who propound political doctrines which become laws, and govern the inhabitants of the land.

Examine these laws one by one and you will see how they hedge in vested interests, and protect the strong against any attempt, feeble though it may be, from the weak. See how laws, upon which the deliberations of the politicians have been spent for months, fail of their purpose, and are in a little while dead letters, being succeeded by other and apparently more competent enactments. In fact a constant change of the statutes of the realm is continually going on. Old ones, the very incarnation of the hoar wisdom of our forefathers, are falling into disuse, on account of their not being applicable for present purposes, and new ones, full of assurance of present and future good, are taking their places. An ever growing and awkwardly ponderous volume of laws presses its heavy load upon the shoulders of the people, and sustains in existence a numerous class, whose sole duty is to endeavor to translate for the understanding of the simple minded Briton, the meaning of the laws under which he lives. Bringing to the task all possible learning and great legal acumen, the general result they achieve is that the legislators themselves did not understand the majority of the statutes which they framed after many deliberations and consultations thereon.

It is every day apparent that the political and legal doctrines of one age are not fit for another, for the character of all is transitory, and they are at their best mere makeshifts; and not only so, but they are evil, and powerless to benefit in a true and permanent sense the people for whom they are made.

Turning for a while from the State to the Church, the same unstable, and unreliable features are seen in the dogmas which go to make up its incongruous constitution; which like Joseph’s coat, is a patchwork fabric, composed of many scraps of many colors, differing however from that historical garment, in that it is sadly rent and torn, and its ugly rifts discover the nakedness and deformity which exist within.

In the days of our grandfathers, it was a sweet reflection, upon which the parson mind never ceased to dwell with pious pleasure, that the souls of the wicked would be tormented forever and ever in a bottomless pit of fire and brimstone; and the clerical imagination was stretched to its utmost to describe the awful terrors of that post mortem place. How many of their sons can there be found to-day, with any reputation for ordinary knowledge and wisdom, who believe in this ancient fable? Or if they have a lurking suspicion of fondness hidden away in some dark corner of their heart for the cruel thing, dares to preach it to an intelligent and inquisitive laity? Yet it was one of the pillars of orthodoxy forty years ago.

Who now-a-days recite the damnatory clauses of that precious document bestowed upon the church by the saintly Athanasius to announce that God was three incomprehensible Gods combined in some incomprehensible manner in one God, with any degree of assurance that the curses will carry,-that the carefully prepared clerical bogle will frighten or coerce the unbelieving?

The human intellect appears in these days to be utterly incapable of appreciating the high ecclesiastical lore which charmed the minds of former generations. Church and chapel goers of the present time, as a rule, fail to comprehend the simple doctrine of the trinity, and failing in this, the foundation and corner stone of their whole religious edifice, none need wonder at the painful uncertainty, the anxious carefulness, which exist in a greater or less degree, in some of the more logical sort, about the stability of their faith in the other doctrines which form the super-structure of their system.

Belief in a personal, superhuman fire-eating devil, once the darling pride of high heaven, but now fallen from his lofty station, and thrust down to hell, has about reached its vanishing point from the realms of current theology.

The latest attempt to maintain the personality of his Satanic majesty, by the revisers of the New Testament, provoked such a considerable amount of adverse criticism from the people upon whom they sought to impose him, that it would indeed be a bold company of clerics, who would again appear as champions of the glowing sovereign of the bottomless pit. Though less than forty years ago his name commanded reverence and respectful utterance among the godly, which indicate how low the obeisance they made to him was.

And so we might go on to show that the ecclesiastical doctrines of human society, in that enlightened section of it called “Christendom” one by one, are changeful and contradictory; and that each successive age assumes a theological complexion peculiar to itself, and that our own is more revolutionary and destructive of ancient cherished creeds than any of its predecessors. In proving this we demonstrate at one effort that either the dogmas of our grandfathers or our own are wrong, or to go just one step farther, that both theirs and ours are wrong.

The latter conclusion is very quickly confirmed when we compare the doctrines, as we behold them in our day, with the Scriptures of truth. There is no uncertainty nor change in the latter. Greater amplitude there is, as the development of the purpose of God progresses, in the subjects of His revelation, but the matter is one and the same, the principle is more fully exhibited, not changed.

There is perfect harmony between Moses and Paul in the nature of man, that he is of the earth, earthy; and in death disappears into the original elements out of which the Lord God created him in His own majestic image. This fundamental truth of the sound doctrine we find everywhere shining forth from the pages of the Bible is made of none effect by both the ancient and modern tradition of men, that there is in man an immortal soul, which is the real, true and abiding personality; though it is immaterial and consequently invisible and intangible. Take from the ecclesiastical systems of modern society the dogma of the natural immortality of the human soul, and you destroy at once the whole spiritual edifice, and deprive the hosts of clerks in holy orders of every denomination, of their ghostly occupation of the cure of souls. Traffic with the skies ceases, the air becomes free of the stream of ascending ghosts, heaven above, the home of the dear departed itself departs, yawning hell with its dire woes, its sinners, devils, fire, and chains vanishes like a horrible dream, and man stands face to face with the sober truth, that he has only one life and it is fast running its course, and the grave is it goal, apart from the salvation God has placed among men for their meek and thankful acceptance, upon His own unchangeable terms.

Moses and Paul agree perfectly in that there is only one God, the Father, the creator and sustainer of all things visible and invisible, that unity is the peculiar characteristic of the Godhead: they are in full accord concerning His spirit, by which he fills heaven and earth, and gives life, and breath, and all things; and through which His infinite power finds expression in countless myriads of forms. They bear the same testimony concerning his son Jesus Christ, one in type and shadow among the patterns of things in the heavens which were placed in and around the tabernacle pitched in the wilderness, and through the ordinances of the law: the other, in plain and unmistakable language shewing that He was the ending of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth; that it was a shadow of things to come, but its substance was Christ; and enlarging upon the testimony of Moses and the prophets Paul declares him to be the son of God, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, delivered unto death for the offences of his people and raised again from the dead for their justification, through faith in the obedience to Him. That He was made perfect through suffering; and though He was the son of God yet learned he obedience by the things which He suffered. That on account of his righteousness God raised him from the dead, exalted him to his own right hand in the heavens, causing angels, and powers, and principalities to be subject unto Him-filled him with the fullness of the Godhead bodily, with all power in the heavens and the earth reposed in Him. That this unspeakably glorious personage is coming again to the earth attended with multitudes of holy angels, when He will raise the dead, and bestow life eternal and never fading honors upon his faithful friends, who with him will destroy all things that offend and them who do iniquity; and then govern the whole world, from the rising to the setting sun, in righteousness, until at last God, will be all in all, and Christ will render the kingdom of the earth up unto Him. Far different from this sound doctrine, in which wisdom shines in every line, is that senseless jumble of foolish words by which the dogma of the trinity is set forth, which declares the Godhead to be one God in trinity and trinity in unity, equal in glory and co-eternal in majesty, three in person, and all uncreated, incomprehensible, eternal and almighty, yet not three but one in each of these particulars; all three Gods, yet not three Gods; all three Lords, but only one Lord. After this severe practice in ecclesiastical arithmetic, we are prepared to learn that “there is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions, and that in this unity of Godhead” there be three persons of one substance, power and eternity-“the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost.” Without troubling ourselves to know how three persons of one substance can exist without body or parts, or speculating upon the form of these bodiless beings who have no passions, we proceed at once to hear that the second person of this mysterious combination of three unsubstantialities, who was begotten of the Father before all worlds, and is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, for us men and our salvation come down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary and was made man. It is a pity that the formers of these creeds, who are so particular as to details, with which they seem to be so well acquainted, stopped here, and did not describe the process of metamorphosis which changed a “very god” into a “very man.”

When we pass on to examine the functions of this strange being we find that a considerable portion of his duties is to restrain the anger of the passionless father from being wreaked upon unoffending sinners, and to be present at the death beds of saints to fulfill the promise which he is supposed to have given of coming again and receiving his people unto himself, in the hour and article of death.

The redemption which is taught in the Scriptures is in nowise the doctrine so constantly preached from the pulpits of the land, that the souls of the righteous do immediately pass into glory, mounting aloft through the skies to “the saints secure abode.” The Bible doctrine is that they will be ransomed from death, redeemed from the power of the grave, and delivered from the bondage of corruption; and that, only at the time when Christ will return again to the earth in power and great glory. Then the silent sleepers in the dust who hear the life giving voice of the Son of man, will awake from their dreamless slumber and come forth to receive in body according as their work shall be found to be at the judgment.

The earth is to be the dwelling place of the redeemed, when they are caused to live again in that perfection of nature which God has promised to faithful men and women. The declarations of the Scriptures of truth on this matter are so plain as to be absolutely free from any fear of misconception, Moses records the unchangeable decree of the maker and proprietor of the earth concerning its future in the emphatic words: “As truly as I live,” says Jehovah, “all the earth shall be filled with my glory.” Elsewhere in the Psalms and prophets the same glorious truth is distinctly taught. “The meek shall inherit the earth and dwell therein forever, delighting themselves in an abundance of peace, when the evil doers will be cut off, the transgressors destroyed together, and the wicked consumed out of it, so that they shall not be found anywhere under the sun. “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” God’s kingdom will come and his will be done on the earth even as it is in heaven. When every curse is removed and sin and sorrow and death destroyed, then the tabernacle of God will be among men and he will dwell with them and He will be their God and they shall be his people.

Real, true, corporeal, substantial, deathless, powerful, beautiful men and women, no more corruptible, nor liable to pain, or care, or sorrow will constitute the glorious family of the redeemed, the ever-abiding inhabitants of the earth in the unending ages of the fullness of joy, which are to follow the present evil and vanishing one, in the predetermined history of the earth.

Contrast with this beautiful and soul satisfying picture drawn from the divine records, that heaven of modern theological discourse, where all is shadowy and unreal, and where immaterial souls float in long transparent gowns, upborne by gossamer wings among the spectre trees and along the ghostly water courses of that spirit land. If at the risk of being called “gross materialists” we assume that the heaven of “christendom” is more substantial than its divines, and poets have described it,-that the place to which all sects at all orthodox are in common aiming has something tangible about it, and that a fair proportion of the better dressed immortal souls we meet going to the various churches and chapels on a Sunday will get there, when they can no longer stay here,-then we very much marvel whether separate accommodation has been provided for the numerous disagreeing sects one sees here below. Does the church militant sink all its differences, great and small, when it becomes the church triumphant? Do the pious worshippers of the good old Presbyterian church, Saint David’s, become united with the saintly flock which pays its devotions within the walls of the Episcopal, Saint Paul’s? Do they recognize the devout Methodist, or admit into the fellowship the strict Baptist, should he consent to meet with them? Who can decide these important questions, so full of moment for the peace of heaven? Or who can answer the interesting inquiry so often made by anxious mothers whether children always remain children in heaven, whether sucking babes are always sucking babes, or whether they grow up into men and women, and become sober and grave old people, with white hair, stooped figure and wrinkled brows.

When in the early dawn of human history Osiris reigned supreme in Egypt, Amenti, the land of the setting sun received the souls of the righteous dead, which departed across the burning sand and the blackened rocks of the Lybian wilderness into the glory of the golden west. Osiris and his fellow-gods are dead, and Amenti with it immortal hosts, has vanished like the deceptive mirage of the desert.

The gods of Greece and Rome with their pleasant elysium, filled with the delights of the ancients to which their immortalities repaired at death, have been buried deep in the oblivion of the heathen flood of time. The happy hunting ground of the red Indian has been pushed farther and farther west, until it is about to be everlastingly submerged in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean. So the heaven in which Christendom now delights being in no wise more true or real than its predecessors, will like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision faded, dissolve before the splendors of the coming day of Christ, and leave not even an immortal soul behind.

The whole ecclesiastical edifice which occupies Christendom, is composed of such doctrines as we have briefly examined, and one such examination is of itself sufficient to prove their hollowness and absurdity. We readily perceive that they are but mere fables which a long continued superstition has firmly bound upon the people, who reverence their venerable character too much to doubt them; or who fear to examine the foundations of their faith lest they should find them, as they more than half suspect, planted on no firmer basis than treacherous, unstable, shifting sand.

The people are not alone in this feeling of doctrinal insecurity, the clergy also, not only feel it, but are keenly alive to its existence; and strive as men whose bread and butter are at stake, by ever means in their power to uphold the tottering system which every day is reeling more and more to its irremediable fall. The ecclesiastical system of this nineteenth century is being consumed by the spread of the truth which is permeating society in ever direction unperceived by steadily; and which is the latter day manifestation in its first phase of the spirit of Christ, it will be utterly destroyed by the brightness of His coming, now at hand, when the Gentiles will come unto Him from the ends of the earth and shall confess, “Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things in which there is no profit.” Then says Jehovah, “will I cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land,” and “the prophets or clergy, shall be ashamed every one of his vision, neither shall they wear a rough garment, to deceive.” In those days all the peculiar sanctity and superiority which pertains to “the cloth” will depart suddenly and the “right reverend” and “very reverend,” and only “reverend” masters of the people, will begin with shame to take the lowest room. Doctors of divinity will come down from their high seats and emptying themselves of all their learned foolishness, will begin with the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, concerning which they are perfectly ignorant to-day. Those grand lords over an heritage which in its pitiable ignorance fancies them to be God’s, the bishops, will be sent empty away, and in their places will Christ appoint pastors according to his heart, who will feed the people with knowledge, for lack of which they are now perishing in myriads from off the fair earth on which they live.

There are other doctrines besides the ecclesiastical which are equally evil, and impotent of good; and contrary to that form of sound doctrine God has published in the Scriptures of truth for the regeneration of the world.

Foremost among the pernicious principles which have leavened society through and through in these latter days is the popular doctrine that “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” that when the masses speak the true rulers utter their sapient decrees-the government being the executive merely to carry into effect their wishes-that majorities undoubtedly should govern. These are the maxims upon which “this enlightened nineteenth century pins it faith; they are believed to be the pillars of all substantial government, and the very essence of the stability of a State, yet they are only a century old. Amid the terrible travail of the French revolution nearly one hundred years ago, when a whole nation bowed itself in the mad agonies of political parturition, the fierce children of modern democracy, “Liberty, equality and fraternity” were born,-delivered into a world ripe through long centuries of most cruel oppression from priest and prince, to receive with alacrity their revolutionary and leveling principles.

What has the rule of Republicanism for nigh upon a century produced? Are its institutions purer, freer, more beneficial or reproductive of good than those of other forms of government which men have in turn tried from depots downwards?

Republic France produced the sternest autocrat, the most terrible scourge for itself and for the world that has ever yet appeared among men. Following close upon its bloody carnival of joy at the liberty obtained came that terrible dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte, who like a fearful Nemesis crushed beneath his iron heel the boasted liberties of the people an scattered their fond conceits of equality and universal brotherhood to the winds.

Republic France of to-day stands before the world the cowed neighbor of the strong imperialism beside her. Her governments follow one another like the shifting scenes of the kaleidoscope at every turn of public opinion. The republicanism of her representatives destroys cohesion of a lasting kind in politics, and for want of which she is incapable and weak in executive, which is a very serious fault in any body, individual or politic.

In America modern republicanism has been more faithfully and perfectly tried, and has obtained a solidity which the great catastrophe of a lone and sanguinary, and weakening war did not affect. In this “home of the free and land of the brave,” as its poets delight to style it, do we see unmixed blessing flowing in satisfying streams of peace, and good will to men? Where the “sovereign people” rule, is the political atmosphere clearer and purer, than where tyrants hold sway? Where all men are equal in public opinion, often blatantly expressed, are all men indeed equal? Under such favorable conditions as the United States of America afford for the full development of the high principles of democracy, do liberty, equality and fraternity really exist?

To these questions the only answer possible is an emphatic negative one. Men are powerless to lift themselves out of the evil condition in which the human race is plunged. The voice of the people uttered ever so unitedly can never bring to the weary and groaning nations peace and deliverance, a hand must be stretched down from above to rescue the world from the “slough of despond” in which it is helplessly plunged. Despotic governments wielding unlimited and unquestioned power, monarchial rule hedged in by such demotic devices as exist in England, and republics where the people are supposed to rule, have all been tried in turn, and all have failed to alleviate the evils of mankind. Power does not reside in man to direct his own way. He is full of schemes and a great inventor, yet with them all he remains in as hopeless a condition as ever as regards improvement in his social and political circumstances.

From the Scriptures of truth we learn that God has appointed a day of one thousand years duration in the which he will govern the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained and whom he has girded with omnipotent strength and filled with all the treasurers of wisdom and knowledge. He has already been among men some eighteen hundred years ago, when He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and when he lay down his life for his friends. His name is a household word to-day through the world. Men use it in many ways in all their concerns. Jesus Christ is the power which has already changed the character and complexion of all human society. He is coming again to heal it of its woes, to bind up the broken hearts, to change sorrow into joy, and to give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Before Him when he next appears will go down in utter ruin all governments of every kind. Despots will lick the dust, and democrats, and red republicans flee before Him. His kingdom will break in pieces all kingdoms under the whole heavens, and shall establish itself firmly and permanently upon their ruins, Her majesty the Queen of England’s realm, will, if she then be the occupant of the British throne, retire into private life, and be plain Mrs. Guelph, or Mrs. Stuart, which ever cognomen she may like best. France, whose republic is but a temporary affair, to be replaced by the monarchial form again, when the next impending European war comes on, will fall lower than ever victorious German hosts placed her, before the coming Conqueror of the whole world. German imperialism will vanish like a meteor in the night and no place be found for it. Russia will yield the empire of nearly the whole civilized world up to the invincible King of Israel, and cease to have political existence for a thousand years. All the world will obey Him and all kings, princes, powers and potentates of whatsoever state, condition of quality they be, will fall down in abject submission at His feet. The voice of the people, so long heard in angry controversy and in strife will be hushed into silence for long centuries of unbroken peace and perfect prosperity when the strong Son of God assumes the direction of the world’s affairs.

Then men will taste the exquisite delights of a liberty they have never yet dreamed of. Firm and unshaken will be the rule established over them, and as unbending as inflexible iron, will be the sway then supreme over all the earth. Yet men will then enjoy the very perfection of liberty,-for liberty does not mean what those who affect the cry would like to have it, that is lawlessness,-freedom from all restraint and men doing what seems right in their own eyes. It means deliverance from oppression, from evil, from care, from wearing toil, from sickness, from pain and from death. The crying shames which now oppress mankind will be destroyed and forever disappear in that age so quickly approaching when divine rule will assume the administration of the government of the whole earth.

Equality is a false cry, a delusive idea. It cannot be.

“Order is heaven’s first rule, and that confessed

Some are and must be greater than the rest.”

“One star differs from another star in glory.” In those glorious coming days when the kingdom of God will fill the earth with His praise, there will be manifested in all their beautiful order those successive ranks which will stretch down from God to the lowest subject upon earth, and will reach up from the simplest wayfarer and worker in the field to the All-wise and omnipotent Creator of all. The head of every man will be Christ and the head of Christ is God.

Fraternity will then be exemplified in its real and true sense. One happy family will be formed out of every willing and obedient tribe of the whole earth; it will be knitted together in live and perfect fellowship. No envy, nor jealousy, nor faintest jar can ever appear to disturb its sublime and eternal harmony. Like the sand upon the sea shore for multitude, like the splendors of the starry heavens for glorious beauty, like the earth with its stores of wonders untold for diversity and variety, and like the one eternal and immutable Father for unchanging unity and agreement, it will forever remain the undying and incorruptible possessor of this rolling world to show forth throughout all eternity the praises of Him, who will then be glorified in all.

The Christadelphian Advocate, September 1886, pgs 145-156

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