THE GREAT REPUBLIC IN HISTORY. Republicanism passes out of its Experimental into its Historical Period The People, as Sovereigns, advance to the Rank of a First-class Power THE GREAT REPUBLIC. INTRODUCTION. THE GOD OF NATIONS. I PROPOSE to examine the history of the United States of America from a Christian stand-point. The divine administration of human affairs is a profound study. There is reason to believe that no event in that administration stands alone; that, however small or comparatively unimportant, it must be in some way intimately related to the grand scheme of a general Providence. I am well aware that an effort to ascertain the position of the great American Republic in that scheme, and correctly interpret the acts of God in its origin, structure, and government, is a very grave responsibility; and I make the attempt with much self-distrust, but with humble dependence upon God for help. Our task requires careful attention to the teachings of history in regard to the asserted rights of divine sovereignty. The Hebrew commonwealth as well as the Jewish church was a theocracy. The great Father sought thus to realize the highest idea of government among men. He appeared in personal form, revealing a glory infinitely above the glory He uttered words of deepest tenderness and love, of highest wisdom and authority, that the people might be subdued by his grace, and awed by his power. He traced of man. their laws upon tablets of rock, and openly took upon himself the vindication of their rights, and the punishment of their crimes, that they might know and love and fear their true.and righteous Governor. The Hebrews, in their folly, became restless under this direct divine administration. Faith became unsteady, and national sins obscured the spiritual power in which they had been accustomed to confide. From the example of surrounding nations, they were seized with an unconquerable desire for a human sovereign. Had it been the recognition of a human representative of divine sovereignty, there had been no curse in it. But as events showed, and God revealed, it was the practical rejection of Jehovah as the supreme civil authority of the nation; and endless direful calamities followed. "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee; but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." God permitted this uprising of human rebellion that its extreme wickedness might appear. But he did not abdicate the throne: thereafter, as before, he asserted all the rights of unimpaired sovereignty. Let the summary judgments which fell upon the nation, the anointing and dethroning of kings, the slaughters and discomfitures in battle, the captivity in Babylon, and the destruction of Jerusalem, attest the fact, that the rebellion of man has no tendency to destroy or supersede the sovereignty of God. THE GOD OF ANCIENT GENTILE PEOPLES. Special divine government does not exclude, but reveals, the general. It does not show the limitation, but the method, of governmental prerogatives. Mistaken inferences from his evident sovereignty over one nation are corrected by authority. In another connection, but conclusively here, St. Paul demands, "Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also." Broadly and triumphantly it is asserted, as in the Psalms, "God is the King of all the earth." Grant that earthly potentates reject him, and attempt to usurp his throne: faithful history reveals him still "the Lord of lords, and King of kings." The four great monarchies of the East filled up the space allowed them in human history; and, one after another, the divine Sovereign laid them aside. The prophet of God foresaw these startling events, and yet another of grander proportions and significance: "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces, and consume all these kingdoms; and it shall stand forever:" showing the consummation of all special purposes in one great, general purpose, -the subordination of all anti-Christian civil powers to the righteous rule of God's Messiah. So the giving of the ceremonial and civil law to the Jews, only organized preparatory events for the grand inauguration of that universal government, whose laws of order were written on Sinai with the finger of God, and whose law of liberty was traced on Calvary in the blood of the Redeemer. The great Jehovah visibly exercised the rights of sovereignty over Abraham and his descendants; but he was none the less arbiter of events in Egypt and Assyria. The God who guided Israel through the sea and the desert and Jordan dashed down the walls of Jericho, and overthrew the vile idolaters of Canaan. The right to colonize the Hebrews implied the right to make summary disposition of the corrupt nations, whose crimes had forfeited all rights in the land "flowing with milk and honey." He whose sovereignty punished rebellious Israel brought proud Babylon into the dust. He whose justice overwhelmed guilty Jerusalem buried the dishonored glory of Tyre and Athens and Rome. Cyrus and Alexander and Tamerlane were as verily the chosen instruments of his sovereign power as Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, or Titus. He was no more a sovereign over the remnant of Israel than over the hosts of Sennacherib when "The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed." The history of the divine government, as set forth in the Bible, and in contemporaneous records so far as they extend, shows clearly that God claimed to be the Supreme Ruler of all nations, and that they rose and fell under the control of his omnipotent hand. THE GOD OF MODERN NATIONS. Because distinct acts of divine sovereignty are recorded in sacred history of ancient peoples and kingdoms only, is it hence to be inferred that modern nations have no God? Did he assert his divine prerogatives over Palestine and Egypt and Rome, and renounce all control over England and France, Austria and Prussia, Russia and America? Was he scrupulously exact to watch over the establishment of laws and dynasties, and punish national crimes, in olden times? and is he indifferent to the same great events amid the ongoings and upheavals of later days? Was it only in the days of Saul and Rehoboam, Xerxes and Alexander, Hannibal and Cæsar, that it could be truthfully said, "For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south: but God is the Judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up another"? To affirm this, it would be necessary to show, with respect to rights, that asserted acts of divine control were then a usurpation; or that the human race has somehow since outgrown the obligations of allegiance to the great Sovereign of the universe; or that the government of God is based upon accidental facts, and not upon unalterable relations. Who would dare to assert either? |