Sunday Morning at the Christadelphian Synagogue, Birmingham, No. 12
From Shorthand Notes by brother J. Butler.
The Duty of Christ’s Brethren in Relation to the Exercise of the Parliamentary Electoral Franchise.
p. 11BELOVED BRETHREN AND SISTERS.—Once more we are assembled, to hold in quietness and peace that festival of love and hope which Jesus has instituted as the rallying point of his people while he is away. Certainly, in these times, it is a very great privilege that we are able to come and hold this festival; because, for the time being, we are withdrawn from the toilsome world, and seated in the calm presence of God’s promises and of God’s revealed will. There is an advantage in being able to come face to face with these things, particularly at a time like this, when all the world around us is upturned with its own excitement, and engrossed in its own schemes, and when the things that are of God are at the lowest possible discount; for the truth, of which Jesus is the centre, shines with a very dim light indeed in the presence of the torch-glare of an English election; and we, who belong to the truth, are considered fools because we choose to stand apart from this busy work, waiting in faith and patience for the things that God intends to bring about—for the promised return of Christ, to do the things which these men are trying to do, and which they can only try to do, for do them they never can. It is out of the power of politicians to bless the world. Even supposing they could do all they seem to imagine possible to be done, it would not touch the root of human misery. There is no doubt that by means of sensible contrivances and regulations, it might be possible to cheapen food and increase employment, and generally to multiply those substantial advantages that are much set by in the world, and which, in their proper places, are unqualified blessings; but the simple bringing about of these things would not confer upon the world the real conditions of well-being. Supposing, under the leadership of the party which is most prominent and most popular in the country at present, everybody received higher wages and was more plentifully supplied with the good things of life, which is about as high as political benefaction aspires to reach, or can possibly reach, we should only have an extension of the conditions already existing in the well-to-do part of society. And we have even to look at the state of things prevailing among even the higher ranks of society to see how utterly such privileges fail in bringing about a true state of happiness. Where is there more secret crime, more false pride, more disregard of God, more feasts and revelries and wasting vanities, than among the titled and the wealthy, who have more time and money than they know how to use? And who is more impervious to considerations of principle? who is more unkind? who is more selfish? who is more wretched than the successfu commercial man of the day? who, with much money and plenty to do, is, generation after generation, finding out the truth of Solomon’s verdict, “that all is vanity and vexation of spirit.’” Those bulls of Bashan, those great creatures of success and sin who flaunt a pompous presence in our busy streets and market-places. are no better off as respects happiness or purity than the more refined sinners of the upper ten. And if this is the case amongst those who have plenty, what guarantee have we that the world would be any better with a more general diffusion of wealth than now exists? I think it would not be very difficult to show that a greater diffusion of wealth, under present circumstances, would involve a greater prevalence of wickedness. The mass of the population now is compelled by poverty to be quiet and well behaved. The force of hard circumstances acts as the lance on the full-bred horse; it reduces the violence of disposition which would grow with good living, and curtails those evil acts which would increase with greater opportunity. But suppose they had plenty of every necessary; suppose they were so well to do that it was not much an object to them to gain their daily bread, we should have a p. 12very different state of circumstances. We have an example of what would prevail, in those cases where working-men are now able to earn £4 or £5 per week. What do they do? In the majority of cases, as we in this part of the country have evidence of, they spend it in riotous living, and bring wickedness and misery on all around. Plenty of wealth would, doubtless, reproduce the sin of Sodom on a large scale; and what was her sin? It is mentioned in Ezekiel xvi. 49. “Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before me, therefore I took them away.” Now even in her present condition with so much poverty, misery and ignorance, England is a very proud nation; she delights in those national songs that pander to the national vanity, by exaggerating the national importance; and if she is proud when she is poor, what would be the case if wealth was general? Why, her pride would increase to the dimensions which characterized Sodom, and brought down the burning vengeance of the Almighty. We should have a state of things in which there might be more animal enjoyment, more creature luxury, but so far as moral and intellectual excellence and true happiness are concerned, we should be in a worse position than we are at present. We see this lesson taught in the fact that God has chosen the poor of this world as the heirs of His kingdom. He has chosen poverty as the condition of preparation for those whom He shall deem worthy to be entrusted with the administration of His power in the age to come. And we may depend upon it that if poverty were not a good thing for such a purpose, poverty would not be chosen. God is much wiser than we are; and perhaps it is not difficult to discern wisdom in this arrangement by which His children are first poor, and subjected to circumstances of slight and adversity to begin with. By this they are tried and developed, as they never could be were they nursed in the lap of plenty.
So even supposing we were for a moment to admit that these political world-doctors could do all that they promise, we can see that what they might accomplish would be of very questionable advantage. They would bring about a state of things in which evil would reign to even a greater extent than now. If people were richer than they are now, they would become more lawless than now, more wanton, more proud, more generally disregardful of those principles whose acquaintance can only be made in circumstances of adverersity. There would be no fear of God before their eyes. “Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?”—(Psalm xii. 4.) “We are the people who should make the laws; we will dispose of the earth and all things therein as we please.” Such would be their cry. A spirit of Tower-of-Babel democracy would become rampant, and we should speedily have a state of things more obnoxious in the sight of God than the present, if that were possible. I do not mean to say the present state of things is well-pleasing to Him, far from it; only the blood of well-fed wickedness is let out on every hand. The wicked punish, frustrate, and impoverish the wicked. God providentially dashes one against the other, so that they cannot combine to carry out those mad schemes which in time would extirpate all righteousness from the earth. The schemes of the politicians, therefore, contain no blessing for the world. But the scheme with which we are identified is far different. It is one that does really involve the highest good for all mankind, and which will develop, in course of time, realities of glory and excellence far beyond the brightest visions of the most sanguine politician. We are identified with a government that is able to conceive and carry out a government of unmixed blessing; we are identified with “another king, one Jesus,” who will clear the way for true reform, by overcoming all kings, and putting down all governments, and breaking in pieces every dominion under the sun, and who will then establish his authority as the standard of universal law. When this comes to pass—when one king enforces his power—when a righteous and single despotism brings wisdom, and love, and power, to bear in the government of the world, we shall see every difficulty touched. There will be no social or political problem too hard for solution or too insignificant for notice. Jehovah’s king will be able to do what the poor political tinkers of our day cannot do; he will bring about an equal division of wealth; he will justly diffuse and distribute the abundance of God’s liberality, which is now scantily and unequally divided by the selfishness, and injustice, and impotence of man. He will do more than that; because mere plenty without wisdom to use it, would not be a blessing. Plenty with wickedness is a curse. Therefore he will p. 13do something which these men cannot do, and never pretend to do, and never wish to do; He will teach men righteousness by the judgments of God in the earth. He will, by a period of trial and great and destructive judgments, train the nations of the earth to recognize their subordination to the Deity. He will enforce, as the first law of the world, “glory to God in the highest.” He will teach them that God must be first, before there can be true blessing. He will bring them to obedience before he bestows benefit. He will teach them wisdom, which politicians cannot do, because they know not wisdom themselves. He will teach them how to be happy, which no human power can do. He will teach them how to make a beneficent use of things, which in the hands of wickedness are accursed; and he will abolish those standing sources of misery and poverty, of which political men complain, but which no human hand can ever get out of the way, viz., standing armies and immense fleets, the maintenance of which absorbs a great proportion of the world’s wealth, and embarrasses the operations of peaceful industry. He will abolish them by abolishing the necessity for them. Armies and fleets owe their existence to the fact that the world is divided among many governments, each of which can only hold its own against the rest by the right of might. Christ will put this plurality system of government out of the way, and erect a simple and absolute monarchy “by divine right,” exercising supreme power unquestioned throughout the earth, and his iron hand will keep down all opposition for a thousand years. He will thus bring about the possibility of beating swords into plough-shares, and spears into pruning-hooks, and for that period will exhibit the prediction of the prophets, and the hope of saints, as a blessed reality. It is idle for men to dream about such a thing now, at best all expectations that it can be realized in the present state of things can only be dreams. The facts are against them. Political deceivers assure listening audiences that the world is getting better, and is getting towards the realisation of peaceful principles, when actually there are more armed men in the world now than there ever have been in the whole course of the world’s history! and there is a greater tendency to, and danger of war, than there ever has been in recent times! The increase of these armaments going on before our eyes, is itself a disproof of the fair speeches and plausible theories by which they seek to secure the votes of electors.
Now, witness how great a cause we are on the side of, and you will realise what an indignity it would be for any Christadelphian to be deluded by the glosses, and the silver lies with which these men tickle the ears of the people; and induced to lay hold of the defiled machinery of electoral power. Such a mistake would in some degree be to compromise his position as a son of God. It would be to play the human reformer on the basis of the devil Let us stand apart in the holiness and the dignity of our position; as those who have no continuing city, but seek for one to come. It is true that the maintenance of this position involves present self-denial and obloquy. It is not agreeable when everybody is busy and enthusiastic, to be looked down upon as a religion-warped lunatic, nursing utopian dreams, and letting the present substance slip. It is not agreeable to be isolated in the corner, and considered as belonging to those whose society is to be avoided; yet the eye of faith, the mind of conviction, the soul that really and resolutely believes the gospel, will have no difficulty in “tiding” over the trial, and in keeping a tenacious hold of the invisible link of connection between a suffering and degraded present, and a glorious future—such a future as the world has no conception of and can never realise. It is only the mind of those whose faith is weak, whose vision of the promises of God is very dim, whose confidence in the truth is faltering, that would hesitate as to their duty in such a crisis as this. No doubt there will be some such; for there are some whose faith is weak. But what we must do is—for those who think themselves strong to help those that are weak to envelope themselves in the mantle of faith and spiritual vision, through which the darts of the wicked will not be able to penetrate, and within which they will feel themselves to be calm and serene and confident, when all the world is upheaved with vain excitement, or a prey to well-founded fears. The world desires and believes in coming plenty and glory of its own creation; but all its hopes are vain. Rest and peace and blessing, will only come from God, and in His own way, which will be manifest in Jesus Christ at his coming.
So it is pleasant and profitable to come round this table, and hold as it were, an invisible interview with him who is the centre of all our hopes, and who is the instrument of all God’s designs to the world. It strengthens us in our determination p. 14to abide by him and by his cause at such a time as this, when the association of his name with the future affairs of the world, is an occasion of laughter to the fool. We remember that when he was on the earth, he was all by himself: he took no part in political movements—he was esteemed a madman, and of no reputation. His words to us are “Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world; if they hate you, ye know that they hated me before they hated you; if they listen to my words, they will listen to you also.” We know that they did not listen to his words: he was an outcast, despised of men and afflicted, whose generation even was cut off from the earth because he asserted his kingship in antagonism to the authority of man He was crucified because he said “I am the king of the Jews;” and the culminating consideration with Pilate was put before him by the Scribes and Pharisees, in these words: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend; for whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar.” When Pilate heard that, he gave him into their hands to be crucified; and so we stand by the side of the crucified Jesus, and we are prepared to be socially crucified with him, and to have nothing to do with the polling booth.
EDITOR.