The desire which originally seduced man from his allegiance to God has been, and is still, strongly marked as the characteristic of his being. “Ye shall be as Gods” was the object proposed by the tempter unto disobedience. And so strong has been the predominance of this principle, that man has used the blessings which God has given to him, and even the very light which He has revealed, in order to assert his own sufficiency and independence. It seems the constant tendency in man to rejoice in the work of His hands; it furnishes him in his own mind with a kind of creative power. It is this which makes the works of man to be the subject of admiration and astonishment, when those of God, so much more wonderful in their kind, and mightier in their degree pass unnoticed or unheeded. Man will put no restraint on himself, as to the means he may use to, compass the end which he so fondly imagines to achieve. He will avail himself of God and the things of God to help in erecting a fabric, which may make him a name in the earth. He will even boast himself of God, in order to establish his own righteousness; and what he calls religion is that which he uses as he would any other scheme, not that to which he himself is subject. Hence it has arisen, that the greatest corruptions in the earth have been brought about by man's abuse of the privileges which God has given him; in other words, by religions corruption. The close of the former dispensation was of this character; even as it is distinctly marked in the prophetic word, that it shall be of this, “in the last days perilous times shall come” (2 Tim. 3).
At the period of the ministry of our Lord among the Jews, it was comparatively a very religions era. The observance of the Passover, and reading the scriptures, had shortly previous to the Babylonish captivity almost gone into desuetude. Thus in the days of Hezekiah, it is said of the Passover, “they had not done it of a long time in such sort as was written;” and when the invitation went forth to summons them of Ephraim and Manasseh to the solemnity at Jerusalem, “they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them” (2 Chron. 30). So again when the copy of the law was found by Hilkiah the priest, in the days of Josiah, “When the king had heard the words of the law, he rent his clothes,” and he sent, “Go, and inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book.” (2 Chron. 34) In the days of our blessed Lord, on the contrary, we find all the set feasts regularly attended, according to the law (Ex. 23:1717Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. (Exodus 23:17)), and not only did the males go up three times a year to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem, but a great many of the women and children also (Luke 2:4141Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. (Luke 2:41)). Scribes and doctors of the law abounded; and there was hardly a town without its synagogue. But however fair this might appear to the eye of man, which saw only the outside, however these might have been adduced as proofs of an increasing love of godliness among the nation, One Who judged not according to appearances, but Who judged righteous judgment, was enabled to detect under all this outward show an apostasy in principle and practice, just ripening unto judgment.
The twenty-third chapter of Matthew's Gospel lifts up the veil, and displays the real state of religion, at a time of so much apparent zeal and activity. There was much regard and outward reverence shown to the memory of the prophets, who had suffered for their testimony from their forefathers. They built their tombs, and honored the dead and silent witnesses, while the same spirit, which they condemned in their fathers, was about to show itself in a more flagrant manner in their treatment of the then living Witness, to Whom all the prophets had borne witness.
All their zeal about the things of God only tended to make those things subserve their own ends. They did what they did to be seen of men; they compassed sea and land to make a proselyte, in order to glory in his flesh; they would make long prayers, and yet devour widows' houses. They derided the notion of the impossibility of serving God and Mammon; and whilst they contended vehemently for the sanctity of the sabbath, they contrived to evade whatever was onerous in showing that honor to parents which the law of God required. In a word, all their knowledge of God, and all their religions privileges were turned to a selfish account. Man was the end they proposed to themselves, and not the glory of God; whatever thwarted their end was, according to their apprehensions, to be avoided. On every occasion did this religions selfishness show itself, insomuch that even the temple itself was turned into a scene of merchandise. No other moral condition—apparently could have prepared the way for the rejection of Jesus, of Whom they were the betrayers and murderers, when even the heathen governor would have let Him go. Had Jesus been acknowledged, the supremacy of themselves was gone, the notion of man's goodness and competency must be given up; and therefore the language of their heart was, “This is the Heir: come let us slay Him, that the inheritance may be ours.” They professed the good of man to be their object; they did all to have praise of men; and when He came Whose right it was to bless others, and to be honored by them, they received Him not. Such was their philanthropy.
Now the word of God most distinctly marks a declension and apostasy, parallel to this in its leading features, as terminating the present dispensation; only it will be much fairer in its appearance. It is the result of man's using (or rather abasing) the knowledge of God, and of the things of God, to the furtherance of his own scheme of philanthropy. For what is the high sounding title in the lips of man, when weighed in the balance of truth, but this, that “Men shall be lovers of their ownselves”? that man's well-being, according to his own short-sighted view, will become his object? and therefore, that Christianity itself, instead of being self-denying, and hating the life in this world, will only be recognized so far as it can be made to subserve man's self-interest, and to promote his self-exaltation? “They will be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”
The effort of man will be to secure the greatest possible sum of human happiness in the present state—this will be his object. To this will be directed his moral and intellectual powers; to this will his religion be made subservient. Increasing knowledge will mightily increase the power of man, and difficulties may perhaps be surmounted more rapidly than even he can imagine. It is not attempted to be denied that there is something very plausible in such speculations, and very pleasing in the expectations held out. But one might well pause, and ask the reason why such expectations have never been realized? What is there peculiar in the present age to render nugatory the experience of six thousand years? It may be answered, “Christianity is to shed its blessed influence over every institution of man for ameliorating the condition of his species.” Now what is here attempted to be shown is, that this is not the object of Christianity, and that it stands, in this respect, in direct contrast with philanthropy.
When we look at it in its best sense, philanthropy is only remedial; and there is hardly a thing in which it glories that is not so intimately connected with sin, that its glory is only in our shame. It may improve the discipline of prisons, but why are there prisons at all? It may multiply hospitals, but can it prevent sickness? Is it not engaged against a power which is continually asserting its supremacy? For, when one evil is overcome, another rises in its place, like the fable of the hydra. In result, all these prove the inveteracy of the power of evil, from the failure of the wisest and best plans to counteract it. There was one who could say, “I have overcome the world “; but the philanthropist must constantly confess that the world overcomes him And when the evil is looked fairly in the face, and seen in its last and most appalling form—death; what can philanthropy avail against it? It is actually driven, in open defiance of scripture, to look on death as man's natural constitution, instead of as his moral condition on account of sin. And in this instance, we see the boasted goodness of man brought into direct collision with the truth of God. So long as it can use religion for its own end, it will. God will be acknowledged by it, when God can be subjected to it. But the moment its end is interfered with, even by God Himself, then its real exaltation of itself, its insubjection to God, is made manifest.
According to philanthropy the estimate of everything is utility. The language of the heart is, “Who will show us any good”? And as much, very much, of Christianity so evidently tends to the blessing of society, in promoting soberness, righteousness, and temperance; therefore man, in his effort to promote these for his present good, and for his own ends, will boldly say he is forwarding the gospel. He will acknowledge the excellence of the gospel in the very act of subverting its principles. “Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God”? And the same principle might be applied to those who take the standard of utility, instead of that of the will of God. To do so is to get off the ground of faith, and to walk by sight. Faith knows nothing of results; it considers them not; God is its sufficiency and warrant for action and expectation. On the contrary, man proposes a certain scheme, in order to a supposed result, and pursues it by all the means he can muster, and with a singleness of eye and a determinateness of purpose which may well shame the children of light. But what said the Lord in reply to the sneer of the Utilitarians of His day?— “Why was this waste of the ointment made, why not given to the poor”? What was His vindication of the apparently unmeaning action? It was done to Jesus. Faith wrought by love, and a lasting memorial is given to the work of a poor woman, which called forth the scorn of man, whilst the most splendid efforts of philanthropy have perished or been forgotten.
There is something in the description of the coming apostasy in the second Epistle of Peter, and in that of Jude, so fearful and revolting, that we almost shrink from applying it to a religious aura, descriptive of a state of society looked on, and gloried in, as Christian. But the scripture of truth is intended to set appearances in their real light, and the most loathsome comparisons are purposely employed to convey to our minds a sense of the abomination, in the sight of God, which is concealed under the fair show of an outward profession and busy activity. It is hard indeed, until we enter deeply into the working principles of man's mind, to realize the state of Sodom before its destruction, as less guilty and more tolerable than that of the Jewish nation in the time of our Lord; and it does require abiding in Jesus, and walking in the light, to detect under the show of philanthropy the features of an apostasy, marked as the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the gainsaying of Borah. But what are these features, but the assertion of the sufficiency of man, the using of the light of God for our own selfish ends, leading to the rejection both of the Priesthood and Lordship of Jesus?
And let it be calmly asked, if there be a Philanthropical Institution in existence not excluding but acknowledging Christianity in part at least, in which the working of such principles may not more or less be discovered. Nothing indeed is a more striking characteristic of modern philanthropy, than the union of the extremes of faith and opinion, to the exclusion of the mastery of any, as if there were no such thing as truth. This in fact is its boast, the occupation of ground common to all, except the uncompromising Spirit of Christ, which can never really rest, never be healthfully exercised, unless it can claim the ground as its own entirely.
But farther than this, there is something more than the danger of neutrality to be apprehended. Philanthropy, so called, actually invades the province of God, and usurps His place. It is the vain pretense of man to be wiser and better than God in meeting and dealing with evil, and with the misery of man. There is indeed such a thing as real philanthropy; not the experiment of a being under the power of evil to extricate himself or others from that power, or so to mitigate it as to make it tolerable, but the assertion of One, of His sole supremacy over it, in His ability to rescue man from under its power— “the philanthropy of God.” “After that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared (φιλαυθρωπία, the philanthropy of God our Savior), not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior; that, being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3). This is the gracious and noble design of God, the philanthropy of God. He alone knowing the full extent of man's necessity, could devise a plan adequate to meet it. And the extent of the misery and evil of man can only be duly estimated by viewing it as the occasion of the display of the counseled wisdom, power, and goodness of God, in order to its remedy. The object of God is the rescue of man; and when man proposes a similar object to himself, to be compassed by his own powers, he virtually rejects God, and only compasses himself about with his own sparks, in the end to “lie down in sorrow” (Isa. 1:1111To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. (Isaiah 1:11)).