We will now enquire, What part the Lord has ever taken in the moral government of the world. In the last chapter I shewed that man has a moral agency; acting under the Lord, and is, consequently, responsible to him for his acts, as a moral agent. But does he leave him alone and unassisted to carry out his designs? No. Looking upon man as his son, he has from time to time offered his services and instructions, as a father. He has given revelations, instructing and warning his people. He has given promises to the obedient, and threatened the disobedient. He has instructed kings, rulers, and prophets. He has also protected the righteous, and punished, by judgments, the wicked. He has promised to Abraham and others lands and possessions. He has held out promises of eternal life to the faithful; but has never coerced or forced the human mind. He destroyed the inhabitants of the old world because they had corrupted themselves. He did not govern their minds; they might forget God, "and every thought of their hearts be only evil, and that continually;" but the earth was the Lord's, and he was the Father of our spirits; and although man had an agency to propagate his species, it was given him by God; and if he was so blind as to corrupt himself, and entail misery upon millions of unborn beings, the God of the universe, "the Father of Spirits," had a right to prevent him. And if he was prostituting the use of those faculties given him by God, to the service of Satan, and abusing the liberty which his Creator had so liberally given, although the Lord could not control the free action of his will, he could destroy his body, and thus prevent him from cursing posterity. Hence, if a man transgresses the laws of the land, he is considered a bad member of society, and is punished accordingly; sometimes imprisoned; sometimes banished; and sometimes put to death. Legislators assign as a reason for these things, that such persons are injurious to society; that if crime was not punished, the virtuous and good would be abused; the wicked would triumph; character, life, and property would be insecure; and anarchy, confusion, and desolation would inevitably ensue.
I would here ask, If man acts upon this principle, has not God a right to do so with the affairs of his government? Or should we arrogate to ourselves privileges that we will not allow the Lord to possess? Upon this principle the Devil and his angels were cast out of heaven. The devil having his agency, as well as man, came here, and sought to destroy the works of God; and succeeded so far as to obtain an influence over man's spirit, and bring his body into subjection to his agency; and if man was so ungrateful and corrupt as to yield to his influence, and obey his agency, God had as much right to punish him as he had the Devil; and as he cast the Devil and his angels out of heaven, he also cut man off from the earth, and thus punished the "spirits that were disobedient in the days of Noah." Satan, in heaven, had no power over those spirits; but when they came to earth, he gained an ascendency over them, and not having a body himself, made use of their bodies to corrupt the world, and thus thwart the designs of Jehovah; they must therefore bear the consequences of their disobedience. And if I am asked by a sceptic why God destroyed so many human beings, I answer, this was God's government, they had transgressed his laws, were traitors to him, and he had a right to punish them, as I before stated, to prevent them from bringing ruin upon others, and perpetuating this misery of the human family, in time, and in eternity.
The Lord has given laws, and although he has not forced man to keep them, nor coerced his will, yet he has punished him for disobedience, as a father would a son. A father of a child can teach that child correct principles; but unless he controls or confines the body, he cannot force that child to observe them; he can punish him for disobedience, however, and thus exert a moral or physical influence over him. Our Father does the same. He punished the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, Babylon, Ninevah, Jerusalem, and many other cities, and will punish the world on the same principle.
Again: he has offered rewards, and given them to the faithful, such as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he protected the Children of Israel, and blessed them with temporal and national prosperity, when they served him, and punished their enemies; and he would have extended his blessings to the world, if they would have been obedient to him. The Lord has used these influences; but never coerced the will. Hence Jesus said to the Jews, "How often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." God would have benefitted them, but they would not be benefited. Again, the Prophet says, "Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." Prov. i. 24-26. These things clearly prove that man is a free, moral agent, and that God never has controlled the human mind, and that, consequently, if man is found in a state of wretchedness, degradation, and ruin, he has himself to blame for it, and not the Lord. The Lord would have given him his counsel if he had sought it; for he did instruct men of God formerly, and gave them laws, and ordinances; and he told his people that if they called upon him "in the day of trouble, he would hear them;" and James says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." i. 5. When the Children of Israel served God and obeyed him, they acknowledged his authority, and said, "The Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us." Isaiah xxxiii. 22. If the Children of Israel had been obedient, and this principle had extended over the earth, we should have had the Kingdom of God established on the earth, and universal peace and happiness would have prevailed. But man's corruption and degeneracy have destroyed the world, and nothing but the wisdom, power, and blessings of God can restore it.
Chapter VIII.
Whose Right Is It to Govern the World? Who Has Governed It?
Having traced out in the preceding chapters the nature of man, his destiny and parentage, spiritual and temporal; what his object is in being here; what his relation to this earth is; his moral agency; and shown that God has never controlled his actions; we will next enquire a little about the earth; whose right it is to govern it; and who has governed it.
It will not be necessary to say a great deal here about the earth, and its organization, for we have touched on this subject before, and it is one about which there should be no dispute among believers in the Bible. I will briefly state, that Paul says, "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him." Colos. i. 16. This being the case, without further investigation, we will examine whose right it is to govern it. If the world be the Lord's, he certainly has a right to govern it; for we have already stated that man has no authority, except that which is delegated to him. He possesses a moral power to govern his actions, subject at all times to the law of God; but never is authorized to act independent of God; much less is he authorised to rule on the earth without the call and direction of the Lord; therefore, any rule or dominion over the earth, which is not given by the Lord, is surreptitiously obtained, and never will be sanctioned by him. I am aware that kings and queens are anointed and set apart by their different ministers, according to the different forms and creeds of the several countries over which they reign. There are two things necessary, however, to make their authority legal, and to authorize them to act as God's representatives on the earth. The first is, that they should be called of God; and the second, that the persons by whom they are anointed are duly authorised to anoint them. First, then, it may be necessary to observe, that, if kings and queens are of God's selection, and are his representatives, they must themselves be appointed by him; for if not so, how can they be considered his representatives? The prophet Hosea complains, that "they have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not." viii. 4. If they are sent by him, they must understand their office and calling, and the designs of the Lord concerning the people whom they govern, the same as a governor of a province, or a minister plenipotentiary, receives his credentials from the prince or court whom he serves. If, then, we examine the position of kings, and their relationship to their divine Sovereign, we shall find that there are only two ways for this calling to be legal. It must have been given, either by God, through revelation to the ancestors of the reigning kings, and handed down in an unbroken descent to the present time; or, otherwise, given by direct revelation, and they set apart by a prophet of the Lord God. But no nation, kingdom, or king in existence will acknowledge either of these ways. All the kingdoms that are now in existence were founded by the sword, without any respect to God. In relation to their anointing, the question would naturally arise, Who authorised the ministers to anoint those kings and queens? For if the persons officiating have not the authority thus to anoint, and set them apart, to execute God's law and reign over the nations, their anointing will avail them little: it will be merely the anointing of man without the direction and sanction of God.
Authority to anoint kings and queens, in order that they may be the anointed of the Lord, must be given in one of three ways. It must first, have been given by revelation to the primitive Christian Church, authorising them to administer in this ordinance, and empowering their successors to do it; secondly, by direct revelation; or, otherwise, it must have been transmitted from the ancient Jews, through a lineal descent. In regard to the first, we find no such record in the New Testament; neither Jesus, nor his Apostles, nor any of the seventies, nor elders, ever administered in this ordinance, or spoke of it as being associated with the powers of their ministry. Consequently, no power can come from there.[A]
[Footnote A: I am aware that the Roman Catholic ministry will tell us, that they have traditionary authority to anoint kings, and to perform many ordinances that are not contained in the Scriptures. Without, however, arguing the point of their authority here, I would briefly remark, that in order for the administration to be legal, it is necessary that the kings themselves be called of God; that this call is requisite, as well as the anointing; and that, if they possessed all the power they claim, they have no more right to anoint a man to be king, who is not called by God, in one of the two mentioned ways, than any officer of state would be authorised to confer an office of trust or honor on any individual, the gift of which was vested in the king alone, if the king had never appointed the individual. All intelligent persons must see that either appointment is illegal, and consequently null and void. The following from a French History, is interesting, and needs no comment: it shows clearly the design of its usage first in France:—