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Show indorsations of Our 0ub : j j By Orestes JjL Brc wnsom j . .The -errors of pantheism were mentioned men-tioned in the concluding part of the Conversations last week. Against their argument Diefenback opposed: "There is nothing between the eternal being of God and existence hut his creative act, and nothing but his creative act between them and nothing, and hence j they are really his being, mediante i his creative act, and through that act J vitally joined to it." j CONVL'It.SATION XT. (Continued.) "Hut to avoid another error of pantheism," pan-theism," said Winslow, "we must , understand that the creative act which creates existemes and unites thein to God as his act:;, creates them not. as modes or affections of his being, but as active or. second iau.;s, able in the order or-der of second causes to imitate ;r copy his creative act. He is immanent or present in this act, i bui as tirst cause, creating second i causes. So great is his creative energy that it makes its effects, themselves, a sort of creators in their own order, in j relation to their own effects or phe- I nomena." , , "Hence," said Diefenbach, "the ground of moral and political obliga-I obliga-I tion. The creatures of God are created j activities and man and those above him are created free, activities, free agents and capable, though in a feeble sense, of imitating his free activity as first cause. i;;ut as they are made such only by his creative act. th?y owe even this tree activity to him and are bound to lender it to him freely and voluntarily. As ho owns our voluntary activity, he has the right to its product. Through his creative act he becomes the law to ns, our sovereign, and we his subjects. As our law he is our final cause, as by bis creative act he is our first cause. As we proceed from him by his free, voluntary act as first cause, so we must return to him as our tirst cause by our own free, voluntary act, or obedience, j He is our first and our final cause, our first beginning and last end. Hence, we have and can have tCo rights before him: rights, I mean, which we can plead against him; we have before him only duties, and what we call our rights before him are only the excess of his goodness, the rewards he freely offers us." "The only right man has before God." said Father John, "or can prete'ncP'to have, is, that since he has willed us to be free agents, he must have us free agents as long as he wills us to exist, and govern us accoidingly. But this, i reality, is his right, not ours; for it ift simply the right in man to be what he is, and not to contradict his own essential es-sential nature. Being created activities, free moral agents, we have rights in regard to one another, but onlv duties before God." "Ae we- are bound to obey God because be-cause he is the law or our final cause," said Winslow, "and as he is our final cause only by virtue of the fact that he is our first cause or creator, his dominion dom-inion is, and must be, founded on his creative act, and we are his and bound to serve him, because he is our creator, and. therefore our final cause. His right to govern us is in the' fact that he has created us and owns us. In obeyi ing him we are giving him only what we owe him. only discharging the debt strictly his due." "In this Ave see," said Father John, "that both atheism and pantheism deny all moral conceptions, for denying- the creator they can assert no sovereign, and, unable to assert a sovereign, they can assert no law, no justice, therefore there-fore no rights on the one hand, or duties du-ties on the other. "We see, also, here, the real atheism of those and they are many who scorn to serve God from a sense of" duty, or because commanded, but profess to be willing to serve him from love. They deny that they owe a debt to God. whielrjhey are bound in strict justice to pay him, but are willing wil-ling to make him, from their boundless generosity, a donation to the same or even a greater amount. This sort of love, so attractive to our superficial, immoral, unbelieveing, sentimental age, is no service of God at all, because it contains no act of obedience, no recognition recog-nition of the divine dominion or sovereignty, sov-ereignty, of his right to us and to all we can do. In it there is no acknowledgment acknowl-edgment of his proprietorship and It implies no act of submission to him as the law or fina! cause. of the will. It Is the invention of a heart capable of feeling indeed, but too proud to acknowledge its dependence, too proud to own a superior a master-even though that master is its maker. Certainly, Cer-tainly, we are commanded to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and Ktrength, but not with a sentimental love that excludes, but with the" rational ration-al love that includes, the sense of justice, jus-tice, of stern duty. We love and adore God for what he is in himself; we give him thanks for what he has done for us, both in creation and redemption: redemp-tion: we hope in him and confide in his promises, as our supreme good, but we obey him because he is our sovereign sov-ereign lord and master. . Not to obey him because he is our sovereign lord, and we are his by his right of property, prop-erty, is not to obey him at all, and we only follow our own sentiment and impulses, im-pulses, and obey ourselves. It is to deny his relation to us as our beginning begin-ning and end, and to set ourselves up in his place. The molality based on sentiment, sen-timent, impulse, or interest, is no real morality at all, and is,, in the last analysis, only self-love; or the adoration adora-tion of; self. We are moral, only in so far as we act in obedience, to the will of our sovereign, and itf3 acting, acknowledge ac-knowledge his right or authority to do with us as he pleases to command us , whal he chooses." "Hence." said Winslow, "they who do even the things commanded by the law, ii they do them not because the law ordains or-dains them, fail . to honor tho lawgiver. law-giver. In order to gi'2 God his elue. vvc must keep the commandments because they are his commandments, so that in I the act of keeping th"in. there shall be an acknowledgement of bis dominion, and of our subjection to him. We must in it perform an act of real. downright submission, and make a full and unreserved confession of the truth that we are his, and not our own. It is this, not the thing commanded, that makes obedience so humiliating or so distasteful' to our pride. It is far pleasant?!- to be generous than It is to be just eid sacrifice is less humiliating than obedience. In obedience we deny ourselves,' In generosity, in sacrifice, except sacrifices made for the sake of God, we assert ourselves. We may be generous from pride, we can be obedient obedi-ent only from humility. The Knglish pnd Americans, the so-called Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon family, are generous, and are inferior in-ferior to no people on earth in nobility of sentiment and manliness of character: char-acter: but" they are deficient in humility, humil-ity, lack that true loyalty of heart which loves and obeys the law because it is the law. They will submit to no authority, because it is authority. They are proud and claim to be their own lords and masters. They can brook no I superior, and what they do they will do j because it is their pleasure, because it comports with their own self-respe.et and personal dignity. "Mr. Winslow is too sweeping in his expressions," said Father John. "Thoso traits of character, when confined to our purely human relations, the relations rela-tions of man with man, and of man j with society, are not unreasonable, and J up to a certain point, are even com- j mendable. They give to the individual i a personal dignity and manly bearing; they found free government, favor re-publican re-publican institutions and provide safeguards safe-guards for individual freedom and independence. in-dependence. They tease to be com- mendable, and become sinful only when transferred to the relations of man with his maker. As God's dominion is founded on his creative act, through which. If we may so speak, he becomea our final cause, as he is in his eternal essence his own final cause in creating, j he is the end or supreme law of all our j free, voluntary activity. As his dominion do-minion is universal and absolute, since he is sole first cause as sole final cause, it excluded all other dominion and denies de-nies all dominion of man over man, and of society in its on right over in-I in-I dividuals. No creature has an inher-: inher-: cut right over another. What we call the rights of man and of society are really jtho rights of God. I have no rights j before him, and o p him the most ;t)solute and unreserved submission, submis-sion, Part as the necessary converse of this 1 do 'and can owe submission to no onojeI.se. Before him I can make no assertion of self, fr I have no self independent in-dependent of him, but before others, before jail creatures. I have the perfect right of self-assertion. No creature can bind me by his own authority, and j the debt I must pay to my neighbor, I owe not to him, but to God, and I must pay it to him only because such is the will of God. my sovereign. The obedi-ene-e. the submission is in all cases due to God alone, and where his law does not exact it, I owe no obedience at all. Theocracy, then, frees us from all authority au-thority but that of God. and while it exacts entire submission of man to his maker, it asserts his entire freedom I and independence in all bis relations i with his fellow-men, both individually ! and socially. No individual, no king, ' no emperor, no aristocracy, no democracy democ-racy has any power to bind me, save as the delegate, vicar or representative ; of God, appointed and commissioned hy him. and even then only within the j terms i( the commission. Theocracy is, therefore, the basis and the only basis of all true or desirable liberty." |