January 1927
48
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
C hrist’s A ll-C onquering Grace W HAT heart can conceive, or what tongue recount the daily, hourly triumphs of Christ’s all-con quering grace? We see scarcely a millionth part needy petitioners every moment surrounds His throne! What urgent wants and woes to- redress; what cutting griefs and sorrows to assuage; what broken hearts to bind up; what wounded consciences to heal; what countless prayers to hear; what earnest petitions to grant; what stubborn foes to subdue; what guilty fears to quell! What clemency, what kindness, what long-suffering, what com passion, what mercy, what love, and yet what power and. authority does this Almighty Sovereign display! No-circumstance is too trifling; no petitioner too insig nificant; no case too hard; no difficulty too great; no suer too importunate; no beggar too ragged; no bankrupt too penniless; no debtor too insolvent, for Him not to notice and not to relieve. Sitting on His throne of grace, His all-seeing eye views all, His almighty hand grasps all, and His loving heart embraces all whom the Father gave Him by covenant, whom He Himself redeemed by His blood, and whom the blessed Spirit has quickened into life by His invincible power. The hopeless,- the helpless, the outcasts whom no man- careth fo r; the tossed with tempest and the comforted; the ready to perish; the mourners in Zion; the bereaved widow; the wailing orphan; the sick in body, and still more sick in heart; the racked with hourly pain; the fevered consumptive; the wrestler with death’s last struggle—O what crowds of pitiable objects surround His throne; and all needing a look from His eye, a word from His lips, a smile from His face, a touch from His hand. O could we but see what His grace is, what His grace has, what His grace does; and could we but feel more what it is doing in and for ourselves, we should have more exalted views of the reign of grace now exercised on high by Zion’s enthroned King.—/ . C. Philpot. ' Mrs. Eddy and P an theism J AMES P. WELLIVER of Mildred, Minn., sends us the following interesting comparison between state ments of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, and the Pantheistic doctrines of Spinoza (1677) and Hodge in “.Universal Doctrine of the Pantheists.” The strange thing is that Mrs. Eddy attempts to spurn Pantheism, yet all but appro priates the statements of Pantheistic teachers. Mrs. Eddy: Evil is negation, because it is the absence of truth. It is nothing because it is the absence of some thing. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent . . . The only reality of sin is the fact that unrealities seem real. Spinoza: Sin is nothing positive. The same things which appear hateful in men are regarded with admiration in animals . . . . It follows that sin, which only expresses an imperfection, cannot exist in anything which expresses a reality. We speak improperly when we say that we sin against God, . . . . Evil is what is finite for the finite is negative, the negation of the infinite. Mrs. Eddy: Such theories assume that matter is the product of Spirit . . . . to regard God as the Creator of matter -is not only to make God responsible for all dis
asters, physical and moral but to announce Him as their source. This creation consists in the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the Infi nite Mind and forever reflected. God is identical with nature. Cousin: “The finite cannot exist without the in inite, and the infinite can only be realized by developing itself in the finite.” Chas. Hodge on Pantheism : “These systems ' unite in denying all dualism in the universe. The essential distinction between mind and matter, between soul and body, between God and the world, is repudiated.” Mrs. Eddy : An individual rather than a personal God. In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi vidual, not personal. God as a principle, not person, saves man. Prayer to a personal God is a hindrance. (Who would stand before a blackboard and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem?) Hodge : “Pantheism denies the personality of God. God is not a person who can say I or be addressed as thou. He is a person only so far as he comprehends all personalities, and the conscious ness of the sum of finite creatures constitutes the consciousness of God.” Mrs. Eddy : There is no finite soul or spirit. Soul or spirit means only one mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural. If there ever was a moment when man did not express the divine perfection, then there was a moment when Deity was unexpressed. Man, like a ray of light which comes from the sun, man the outcome of God, reflects God. Hodge: “Man is not an individual subsistence. He is but a moment in the life of God, a wave on the surface of the sea, a leaf which falls and is renewed year after year.” Note: These words of Hodge were written before any of Mrs. Eddy’s doctrines saw the light. I A Dark, Dead, D ism al World T HERE is a strange old legend of a world that grew colorless in a single night. The clouds became life less, spongy vapors; the waves turned pale and motionless; the fire fled from the diamond and light from every gem; the metal gleaming of the snake and the dyes of the jeweled orbs faded away slowly, as the stars go out at daybreak. The world turned into a sculptor’s world, and all was animated stone. Those that dwelt upon it were saddened and bewildered at the change, and never ceasgd to mourn for the beautiful tint of the flowers and grasses, and the vanished hues of the sunset clouds. All nature was in mourning, and wore a lead-colored robe. Nevermore should diamonds sparkle, or rubies shine, or dewdrops glisten in the morning light. Nevermore should there be a rainbow on the cloud, or silver in the falling raindrops. The expanse of lake or ocean should never more reflect a blue heaven, or the stars, or the sun. The world had passed into eclipse—into the shadow of death. This old legend is a parable. It suggests to us a pic ture of the world without Christ. What a dark, dead, dis mal world this would be; what an awful world it would be if in that total eclipse of a Christless condition! What if there had been no Saviour ?
of what Jesus as a King on His throne is daily, doing; and yet we see enough to know that He ever lives at God’s right hand, and lives to save and bless. What a crowd of
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