Page images
PDF
EPUB

sinner, ask God that he may have the same "probational advantages" that he could not help having, without the prayer, if God is just? What else could sanction the following as a full statement of all that was done to redeem the human nature of Jesus: "We hold that from the infinity of all possible human souls, omniscience selected that one which in the crisis of the case, it foresaw would stand, though free to fall." p. 382.

We are thankful to Dr. Whedon for his book. It would have been better, we think, if a Glossary had been appended containing unusual words, from "Alteriety" down through the alphabet; or, if the term Glossary were disliked, it might be called The Freedomistic Pocket Dictionary, and be bound separately. Still as the book stands, we are thankful for it. It is an honest and earnest protest against the narrow freedom of Edwards, and though it fails most strikingly to overthrow its antagonist, yet it contains most acute and suggestive discussions of subordinate points. It will be a means of progress in mental science. We do not envy any one that is satisfied with Edwards' treatise, and we wonder that that great mind, with its rare combination of metaphysical subtlety and plain common sense, should have imagined that it had reached the end of progress in the science of mental freedom, and should have written such words as these: "If any imagine they desire higher, and that they conceive of a higher and greater liberty than this, they are deceived, and delude themselves with confused ambiguous words instead of ideas."

ARTICLE VI.—THE ADVANCEMENT OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM BY WAR.

"THERE was war in heaven." Even the high and holy place of God's immediate presence was not secure from the audacity of sin. The Scriptures teach, that far back in the history of the moral universe-probably before the earth was fitted for the abode of man-there was an apostasy among the angels; that a leading spirit, who is known as Satan, the Devil, the Dragon, the Prince of the Power of the Air, conspiring with other angels, revolted against the authority of Jehovah, and made war upon the angels who were true to their allegiance. The overthrow of this rebellion was referred to by Christ, when he said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven;" and Jude records it in these words, "The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."+

But Satan, expelled from heaven, is represented as having for a season a range of power upon the earth; and here, acting through men systems and institutions, and also by influences too subtle to be embodied in visible forms, he works for the subversion of God's authority, and maintains a kingdom of evil against the kingdom of light and holiness. And inasmuch as spiritual beings, while invisible to human view, must be localized somewhere, Satan is represented as in the air, "the prince of the power of the air," having his seat in the regions that surround the earth; where are gathered about him spiritual wickednesses in high places, the hosts or confraternities of dark and evil spirits in the aerial spaces, "the supraterrestrial but sub-celestial region " lying between earth and heaven.t

It is taught, moreover, in the Scriptures, that good angels

are set to watch and to counteract Satan and his forces of evil,

* Luke x. 18.

VOL. XXIV.

+ Jude, verse 6.
20

Ellicott on Eph. ii. 2.

and that prominent among these is Michael, the archangel. The first conflict between good and evil is pictorially described as a war in heaven between opposing legions of angels: "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven."* This conflict was both a reality and a symbol. For every struggle between good and evil in this world, more especially every collision be tween organized forms of good and evil, is a reproduction of that old warfare of spirits; and every victory over the forces of wickedness in this world is a new triumph over Satan in the spiritworld, and a new demonstration of the kingdom and power of Christ, "who was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil."

Wars among men are not always the collisions of sheer human wickedness; not always the mere test of strength and prowess between contending nations or opposing parties in the State; not always the determination of temporal and earthly interests by the sword. There are times when armies are moved by unseen forces mightier than emselves; when, though the theater of war is upon the land and the sea, the seat of war is "in the air," and the shock of arms is but the echo of a collision that shakes not the earth only, but also heaven. In the drama of the progress of Christ's kingdom which John beheld in vision, war is an agency for the destruction of powers and governments, of systems and institutions of iniquity, that oppose or obstruct the advance of that moral kingdom which Christ established for a perpetual and universal dominion in the world. And He himself is represented as marshaling the armies of heaven to smite the nations that resist is authority. "I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called, The Word of God."+

[ocr errors]

*Rev. xii. 7-11. See also Jude, verse 9.

Rev. xix. 11.

Every great crisis at which the moral principles that Christianity has set in order in this world come into collision with organized forces of evil in society or in the State, is a new judgment upon the Prince of this world by the Son of God. Every new triumph of righteousness is a casting out of Satan from his intrenchments; and hence we may conceive of the wars that array the principles of Right and of Humanity against systems and powers of evil as but a renewal within our sphere of that old conflict between Michael and the Dragon, from which comes forth a new manifestation of "the kingdom. of our God, and the power of his Christ." In such conflicts it is more than true that war is overruled for good by Him who "maketh the wrath of man to praise him;" it is more than true that incidental benefits are derived from a tremendous calamity and evil. The war, necessitated by the encroachments, the demands, or the attitude of the powers of evil, becomes the direct way to good-the only way by which the audacity of evil can be checked and the maintenance of the Right assured. Then the Prince of Peace himself girds the sword upon his thigh, and "in righteousness doth judge and make war;" then every victory over the hosts of wickedness is a palpable advance of the "kingdom of God and the power of his Christ" toward the universal dominion of the world.

When Philip II. of Spain attempted to force the Inquisition upon his provinces of the Netherlands, and to exterminate the Protestant faith by the bloody and perfidious measures of the Duke of Alva -the most atrocious character of modern history-the salvation of Protestantism, not for Holland only but for Germany and even for England, and the establishing of religious liberty as a principle for mankind, demanded an appeal The Prince of Orange, who threw himself against that hideous combination of political and ecclesiastical cruelties, was not only the savior of his country from a foreign tyranny, but the savior of Christianity for his country and for Europe. When " by almost superhuman exertions," William the Silent had raised and equipped at his own expense an army of thirty thousand men, he threw down the wager of battle in the name of a pure and a free Christianity. "Cheerfully in

to arms.

clined," he said, "to wager our life and all our worldly wealth upon the cause, we summon all loyal subjects of the Netherlands to come and help us. Let them take to heart the uttermost need of the country, the danger of perpetual slavery for themselves and their children, aud of the entire overthrow of evangelical religion." Himself a Catholic by birth and training, and a Prince of ancient race and imperial blood, he yet revolted at the outrages perpetrated in the name of the crown and of religion. Beginning with the simple defense of Protestants in their rights as fellow-subjects, he grew to be the champion of religious toleration and of a free and spiritual Christianity. As Motley says of him: "The religious Reformers became his brethren, whether in France, Germany, the Netherlands, or England. Yet his mind had taken a higher flight than that of the most eminent reformers. His goal was not a new doctrine, but religious liberty. In an age when to think was a crime, and when bigotry and a persecuting spirit characterized Romanists and Lutherans, Calvinists and Zwinglians, he had dared to announce freedom of conscience as the great object for which noble natures should strive."* Placing himself in the hands of the Almighty, he won for the Netherlands, and by example he won for mankind, the freedom of religious faith and worship. The success of the Netherlands in this conflict for spiritual independence encouraged the reformers who were striking for religious liberty in England. Holland became the refuge of the persecuted Puritans; and from her free atmosphere came forth that band of Pilgrims who brought to these shores a pure and free Christianity. The wars of the Netherlands at the close of the sixteenth century were manifestly the order of Divine Providence for saving the Reformation and extending "the kingdom of God.”

The war that in the next century desolated Germany, through all those anxious and bloody years, from 1618 to 1648, gave the final blow to the military ascendency of the Papacy in Europe. The usurpations and persecutions by which the Emperor Ferdinand sought to maintain the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church disclosed a purpose "to effect the en

Netherlands, Vol. II., p. 244.

« PreviousContinue »