God The Creator Of Both Evil And Good For Our Benefit

Contents

CHAPTER L

liemtirkw of a C'h'rgymftn—TtiMmncc and its Cause—Good and Evil In all Cmitimt—Idolatry lleatroys People—Diverse Tiwlihiff—Kvll Kpirita ..I

CHAPTER If.

Chapter I

Remarks of a Clergyman-Intolerance and its Cause-Good and Evil in all Creation—Idolatry Destroys People—Diverse Teaching —Evil Wpirits.

A CLERGYMAN asks, with reference to the view expressed herein, that the Almighty is the Creator of both evil and good for our benefit: “ Have you fairly thought out all the stupendous issues that such a doctrine entails % ” and remarks also: “I think it would have been more to the point had you given a short outline of your belief, especially with regard to the Being of God, as well as to the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures/' That the issues are stupendous has been fully considered herein with the present teaching and its consequences; and in the Apostles' Creed is set forth the belief embodied in any matter of faith, herein alluded to, if the word “hell” is erased therefrom, and the original word “hades” introduced

GOD THE CIIEATOK OE in its place. With respect to the matter.of inspiration, there are many different degrees shown in the Scriptures : thus the inspiration of Samson was of a much inferior character to Isaiah’s; the inspiration of Moses was inferior to the inspiration of our Saviour, whose inspiration was the highest. All Scripture must he brought to this test, and stand or fall by His Words in the four gospels and by His example and teaching.

The minds of men, trained as they are upon the founda¬ tions and buildings of priests and ministers, are ever in difficulties and doubts and fears of the most distracting character, and often of the most dreadful description, ending but too often in lunacy or religious madness; whilst the end and aim of each priest and minister is to obtain as many followers and supporters as possible, ho who is spolmi well of by all men, being in the most envied position. The interpretation that each Church puts upon the Scriptures is the correct one, and each priest or minister knows the straight and the narrow way to happiness and everlasting salvation, whilst in many cases the people are taught that those without the pale of his Church can never receive or attain to it.

Thus, priests and ministers are the fathers of intolerance of the worst character; nor can anyone imagine a more fruitful source for the bitterest hatred and malice and all uncharitableness, or anything more abominable in the eyes of Hina who has created all things for His pleasure, and who, for His own wise purposes, hides Himself and His ways from the children of men, so that none hut our Saviour could understand or comprehend Him.

The great difference that there is in the teaching .of tli a

BOTH EVIL AND GOOD.

j

Scriptures and the teaching of priests and ministers is that the foundation laid in the second chapter of Genesis is that the Almighty is the Creator of both good and evil for our hrnefit, whilst the foundation laid by all priests and ministers is that God is the Creator of good for our preservation, and I tJlli devil m the creator of evil for our destruction. Those

to whom our Saviour listened when Ho was only twelve years old, “hearing them, and asking them questions,” taught thus: “ You am to he thankful for the evil, even as yon are thankful for the good,” thus endorsing the teaching of the Scriptures with which they were so well acquainted.

Whoever will think upon this will admit that without good and evil there can be no reasoning or intelligence, progress or improvement, and no repentance • that without evil there can he no good. Evil, in fact, is so predominant in every man that llm record in Job is that man is prone I to evil as the sparks fly upward j and Moses puts before the

Israelites this, telling them, “I have sot before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live and our Saviour’s teaching into the same purpose; whilst Isaiah, in writing to the priests, declares Hie Word to bo, “J am the Lord, mid them in urns eke. I form the light , and create darkness:

which corresponds with the foundation laid by the Scrip¬ tures.

The observation of all thoughtful men must endorse our Saviour’s words, that “the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” And, so far from His teaching being the now prevalent one of the fall of all men, in consequence of the fall of Adam, He shows that this is an order in the creation of all men, and all things, for the end proposed by Him who has created us for His pleasure, and who, for His own wise purposes, has made Himself incomprehensible.

That “ all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” or that such a thing should be possible with God, as prophesied by John the Baptist, is no more believed than that Publicans and harlots enter heaven before Scribes and Pharisees, or priests and ministers ; and intolerance is as rampant now as when our Saviour endeavoured to correct it by telling those that He spoke to of the widow of Sarepta and bfaaman the Syrian, as having help sent to those who were looked upon by the Israelites as dogs, whilst many Israelites in the same distress, who knew themselves to lie God’s own children especially, received no help at all; and in return lie was cast out of the church, and narrowly escaped being thrown over a precipice for His pains.

If there is any one thing that the Scriptures teach mere persistently and continuously than another, it is to respect the office of the priest or the minister, but to beware 4 , above, all things, of liim and his ways. In this nothing is to supersede the necessity there is that every mm should read and understand the Scriptures for himself.

It is perfectly consistent with the revelation of Him both EVIL AXI) good.

“wlio judgetli no man” that He is love, an.l'that He should, whilst creating evil and good for oar benefit, have sent His Son into the world to suffer in excess of the various ways that all are subject to, more or less, from others, whilst He lived the best of lives, that He should not spare Himself even to assigning Him a cruel death. It is quite consistent with all that is recorded of our Saviour that He should live the life He did for us, and give up a life for us which might otherwise have been attended with all the comforts and pleasures that we are so much attached to, whilst He accepted a mean condition, and in the greatest humility opposed the priesthood and ministers, and taught the strait and the narrow way for every one; attested to by the greatest miracles, giving up His life for ours, that wo might have an assurance of a better life hereafter through Him, as well as the example for all time of a better life hero, not before manifested.

He will assuredly bo the Lord of all hereafter, sparing those who have believed in Him, and remembered His words, and striven to follow Him, however poorly and weakly; whilst visiting deceivers and hypocrites with just condemnation, who, whilst calling Him Lord, Lord, have not heeded His words or remembered His ways, but who have rather copied from the ways of the Scribes and the Pharisees, and the pagans and the idolaters whilst repre¬ senting themselves to be His servants and Iiis followers.

It was to show forth the Almighty as the Creator of both good and evil that He assured us, “ The Father judgetli no man.”

It was to show forth this that lie told us that the only evil we had to fear was within us.

It was to show that God is the Creator of both evil and good, for our benefit, that our Saviour assured us that all sins and wickednesses that men commit should be forgiven them, except the blasphemy of priests and ministers against the Holy Ghost.

It was to show forth this that He told the multitude, if they did not hear Iiis words, that their houses would fall when the storms and troubles of life assailed them; that temporal people might know that God corrected thorn in .a temporal manner.

St. Augustine says that absolute evil is impossible, because if we look at it rightly it is always using up into good. “ Indeed, it is not too much to say that all things, in a certain sense, existed first in the form of evil ” (Mullock),

St. Paul even recognized that God was the Creator of evil and good; for he says': “ God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their . trespasses unto them”

The struggle there is throughout all creation, which all that is good has to maintain for an existence against all that is evil, can only be understood by contemplating it. The animal that above all others is the most valuable to man is the sheep, and there is no animal, perhaps, so utterly destitute and helpless, or so dependent on man for a con ¬ tinued existence; whilst the creatures that are, not only not so useful, but absolutely, in many cases, venomous and dan¬ gerous, are capable of self-defence. The plant of wheat, that is the most valuable to us, could not exist if absolutely neglected by man and left to itself for a very few years; whilst there is no weed that will not spread and inemwtj If left to itself to grow in its wildness. In the air the fierce

BOTH EVIL AND GOOD.

and violent prey on the defenceless and inoffensive as well as upon the earth ; and the same order prevails in the sea also. Nor does this great order end here. There is in every man a continuous struggle of the evil with the good, and how much the evil predominates must be for observation to determine. So that this order is established, not only within him, but in all that is around him. Nor is the struggle by which all that is good and estimable is main¬ tained of a slight or insignificant character, but the progress of all that is good, with all its helplessness, though slow is sure.

Nor is man himself an exception to this great rule, as it has been only by the care of an Almighty Hand that his preservation and progress have been continually secured, and his elevation from the lowest condition of humanity cultivated by absolute creations from time to time of a superior race. This is now manifested plainly, first, by evidences that can leave no doubt that peculiar races have from time to time absolutely been extinguished—apparently people who have practised the worship of images—as in some of these cases great idols of stone remain amongst the other evidences of the existence of a race of men where no men are now to be found.

These are the only records that now remain by which we can be guided to the conclusion of the existence of people before the ability to make records in writing, except that the lowest races now are in the same or even a lower condition, the power of making records in writing being absolutely deficient in savages who have no idolatrous worship, as well as with some of those who are worshippers of idols. The ability to make records in writing in its earliest efforts may be illustrated by the first chapter of Genesis, the short, condensed matter therein contained showing the difficulty that then existed in making any records at all. And although many races of men must have existed when these records were made, they are all gene¬ ralized under one record of the creation of males and females, in the same manner that the record of the creation of beasts was made.

After the time of the creation of Adam and Evo this ability to make records increased, and consequently it has a short allegorical history attached to it; and the evidences of the superiority of this creation to all others preceding it is the extended history of this family, culminating in tin* birth of our Saviour, without whose creation mankind could not have progressed beyond the condition they had attained to at His advent. That Moses was inspired to collect these records from the stores of the Egyptians may he gathered from the knowledge we have that he wan educated by them, and that they were a very superior race. "We know certainly, from the character of their monuments and the remains of the people that have boon found in them, such a people would necessarily have endeavoured to collect whatever information could be obtained from every source that came within the bounds of their observation.

That to the worship of pictures and images was ascribed the gradual decline and ultimate extinction of those people who practised it may be gathered from the severe kwfe against it promulgated through Moses, it being the very first of those offences against morality which were cursed before all the people by the Levites appointed by him, and

BOTH EYIL AXD GOOD. _ 9

which the people were called upon to join in condemning, recorded in the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 15. And as that which is of the greatest consequence is always in Scripture attended to first, the character of the other vices cursed will show the estimation in which it was held.

Tlie singular character of this record is worthy of special attention, as it shows that the natural desire of man to have something before his eyes when he is worshipping or praying was appreciated by Moses in its serious and destructive consequences; but it is used in the present day by priests and ministers notwithstanding, thereby to increase the devoutness of their congregations, destroying souls and endangering the continued existence of the nation. Necessarily the inability to perceive the terrible character and result of the breach of the first denunciation only shows the inability to regard those that follow it, and the clergy or leaders are not exempted consequently from committing the less serious offences any more than the multitude that follow them are.

Our Saviour’s cautions against false teachers, who should be known by their fruit, have been prostituted by those in authority as priests- and ministers to apply to those who have resisted them, until whole nations have been reduced to idolatry or atheism; and even our Saviour in His day was called a false teacher by them; so that the struggle between the evil and the good in the spiritual world is not less, or of a less serious character, than it is in the temporal world—indeed, hvil would appear to predominate there at times even to a greater extent with similar destructive consequences as in the temporal world; but our Saviour says "both, must grow together until the harvest; afterwards there is to he a separation.

“ It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” is our Saviour’s declara¬ tion ; yet the very first Scriptural lesson is ignored, that God is the Creator of both good and evil. How many must, in consequence, have perverted texts of the building of which this was the foundation, and of which our Saviour was the chief Corner-stone ! If this has been done wilfully, it may be a consolatory reflection that no man’s wickedness prevents the Almighty’s work. And if suffering in this world is the best preparation for the life to come, priests and ministers must have the credit of having caused more bodily suffering, more anguish of mind, more unhappiness in communities and families, more loss of life, and more division amongst people speaking the same language than any other class of men on the face of the whole earth, whilst obscuring, if not absolutely destroying, that con¬ solation our Saviour was so anxious should he imparted to every creature.

Without this knowledge of the foundation on which the Scriptures are built all sorts of interpretations or readings are adopted of the original text; and the more learned the translators have been, the more various have been the interpretations and the more' prolific have been the causes of dissent and the hatreds and the animosities that have been fomented. Words omitted, words substituted, and words transposed are to be counted by the thousand, that a close attention to this great lesson would have obviated in great measure. The great human family would have been instructed in the truth, and darkness and ignorance would

BOTH EVIL AND GOOD.

liave been destroyed by the light of God’s holy Wbrd r ^ff£hpeace and happiness and progress 'would have taken the place of strife and wretchedness, and stagnation spiritually.

“It must needs be that offences come,” but the belief that there is a great creator of evil for our destruction, opposed to an almighty Creator of good, is an offence against Him who is incomprehensible of the deadliest cha¬ racter, shattering society into fragments, destroying His teaching, and but too often the lives of His people ; intoler¬ ance of each other so extreme as to induce a belief in some that His salvation only applied to those belonging to their Church, even to marry out of it being denounced, the strife being continued through life amongst those whose natural ties often were the newest, and but for this teaching would have been the dearest.

How Christ is to be “ all and in all,” as St. Paul prophesies, unless His teaching is received as superior to the teaching of any other, it is difficult to see. He is the Word by which every record of Scripture must be tried. All that He ever did or said shows that He recognized mankind as born sinners, and yet superior to beasts that could not sin ; that the sinner could not be happy, and was to he pitied and loved and taught whilst under the hand of His Father; not to he threatened and cursed and driven away, but to be drawn to Him.

To be thankful that the Almighty did not create us as beasts that cannot sin, and that He has created us human beings that can and do sin, takes away nothing from the great sacrifice that our Saviour made for us; takes away nothing from His sufferings for us, nor diminishes in any way His divinity. We must all, through much tribulation, attain to better things—not a soul is exempt from this law ; but it would tend to make people humble and thankful, who, after being born again, are in danger of becoming worse than they were before, through spiritual pride and self-confidence and vanity, if not hypocrisy, if they remembered this.

There was a great difference between the teaching of Moses and the teaching of Christ, Moses having been meek above all men in his time, and Christ still more humble and lowly afterwards; and in the long space of time that intervened, much spiritual matter of a miraculous cha¬ racter was openly manifested, whilst open vision appears to have ceased. Prophets who had the testimony of the Spirit deceived one another ; lying spirits were permitted to influence other prophets; the witch of Endor showed a singular power practised by many; Eli neglected to correct his sons, who were priests, for the most shameful profanity and wickedness, even when committed in the Lord’s house ; the priesthood were charged by the prophets with crimes of all sorts: and yet groat judgments were abroad, showing forth God’s power and might for the protection and pre¬ servation of a people amongst whom so much of a character that was inconsistent with that displayed after by our Saviour took place.

Now, St. John lays it down as a rule that the Spirit of God—by which he intended to imply a good spirit-might be known by the person confessing Christ, and heeding His words and following, Him, and that every spirit that did not do this was an evil spirit, or what St. John, calls “ that spirit of anti-christ,” or a spirit that, whilst acknowledging Him, acted against Christ or His example or directions;

BOTH EVIL AND GOOD.

or, as our Saviour Himself describes it, a spirit that could or would call Him Lord, Lord, and yet would not obey Him, or bear what He said.

It must be evident that a very prolific source from which such spirits might proceed would be from the laying oil of the hands of others; a means of imparting a spirit not recognized by our Saviour, and a breach apparently of His direct instructions to lay hands only upon the sick : for had He intended that a spirit should thus be conveyed by otheis to a man in health, He would most certainly have signified so important a matter to them. It would appear that the precedent set in so doing by St. Paul and the apostles was without His sanction, did not bring forth good fruit, had evil results, and was an abuse of the spirit which had been given to them, just as St. Peter abused the Spirit in another way and willed away the lives of Ananias and Sapphira, and so behaved himself after that St. Paul was obliged to administer serious correction to him. The preparation that the apostles had received before the Holy Ghost rested on them, if compared with the preparation of those who absolutely did not know if there was any Holy Ghost at all, upon whom St. Paul laid his hands, affords no warrant whatever for believing that what ho did was right, but rather that lie abused that which had been given him. And his own records and St. John’s epistles show that very many at least of those, on whom hands had been laid were rather filled by evil than by good spirits afterwards; for wicked spirits, Christ says, work miracle.*, (Matt. vii. 22,) Whoever they are that may think that Elymas the Sorcerer was ft fool are greatly mistaken in their reasoning; and as it is evident that the gift of the Holy Ghost even may lie

GOD THE CREATOR OF BOTH EVIL AND GOOD.

abused, the only safeguard that any man can possibly have is faith or belief in Christ alone.

The great safeguard against deception was the laying hands on the sick and healing them, and the most that could be advanced for laying hands on others would )»■ “This ought ye to have done, but not to have left the. mlu-r undone.”

Chapter II

Differences of Spiritual Life—Laying on of Hands—Application of Prophecy to Priests and Ministers—Results of Evil Teaching- Limiting the Almighty-Errors of the Scribes and Pharisees continued—Our Saviour’s Cautions—St. Paul’s Followers—Moses’ Teaching—Consequences of Spiritual Disobedience—Blindness of the Multitude.

The gift of spiritual life and the gift of the Holy Ghost are very different tilings.

The preposterous assumption entertained by priests and ministers, whether they may or may not have been born again, and conceded to them by the multitude, that they have had given to them the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, imparting to them wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge, and counsel, and might, and the fear of the Lord, is only supported by their having had hands laid upon them by others j by a dress supposed to be appropriate to priests and ministers, always of greater length than that usually worn by the multitude; by a reserved or sad and more or less sanctimonious manner; and by a devout way of speaking, all or any of which can be obtained or assumed by the vilest hypocrites of the fiercest or proudest character. Neither of these identities is at all requisite to show forth the greatest gift that the, Almighty has ever conferred upon anyone, but rather the contrary. They are always better assumed by Mohammedan, or idolatrous, or other pagan priests or ministers, than they are by those who call themselves Christians; and they .‘ire quite inconsistent with the description that would apply to “ him who serves ” in a menial capacity those he might be asso¬ ciated with, washing even their feet occasionally, if necessary. Biit consistency with the example of our Saviour does not appear now to be much considered by anyone.

It was in this light that St. Paul endeavoured to correct the evil spirits that he saw had been produced by the laying on of hands, telling those to whom he wrote, “ He that would be chiefest amongst you, make him the servant of all.” He appears certainly in this to have kept our Saviour in remembrance, and to have endeavoured to make priests and ministers humble. But priest and minister now, whether, so called, Christian, or Mohammedan, or idolatrous, or pagan, are all imbued with the same sad countenance and spirit of determination to make people good, and to obtain as much authority as possible over them, so as to expel or cast out all those who will not obey them and be .subject to their interpretations and directions.

In this way they are all wise, and wukrsiumHii'f, and knowing, taking counsel of those likely to assist them and to give them power; and the confidence they have that they are in the fear of the Lord, and that they are keeping the strait and the narrow way, and acting in accordance with our Lord’s commands, and in the humble spirit He took ho much pains to impress, is of such a character that nothing can persuade them to the contrary; or, in our Saviour’* words, “ They will not be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”

BOTH EVIL AND GOOD.

Nothing can so well illustrate the perverseness or inability in human nature to follow His example than their refusal to follow His teaching in performing menial services for others. His humility seems ever since to be ignored, and in most important ways ; the very things that He denounced are continually done, the very gift of spiritual life being more abused by those who call them¬ selves His followers than it was by the Scribes and Pharisees, and the multitude is abandoning the priestsand ministers, and their synagogues threaten to stand empty of all but those that nothing can convince that their ways and our Saviour’s example and instructions are utterly at variance with each other.

After the descent of the Holy Spirit upon our Saviour, wo have the record of the greatest humility, even to the performance of menial offices for His disciples. But after the laying on of hands, we have the record of “ many evil spirits ” having gone forth j and the pride of a priest or minister 1ms become proverbial; indeed, the very first tiling that a priest or a minister will do after he has had “ hands laid upon him ” is to assume authority over others : but that which our Saviour specially called the attention of His apostles to was, that He had been amongst them “as ho that serves.”

The presumption that any person or persons can convey * or impart the Holy Ghost to another is a most frightful deception that has no consistent testimony accompanying it, and it is utterly inconsistent with our Saviour’s teaching. No sinner has such power, and no man is without sin. Christ is the only One who retained the Holy Ghost, by His being without sin j nor is there anything in all His teaching o that could justify the apostles in such an assumption, or that can warrant others since then, or in the present day, in imagining such a thing to be possible.

The Holy Ghost appears only to have rested on the apostles, and was not retained by them. The evidence of this is their divisions and St. Paul’s lamentation over the condition in which he found himself to be, and which he trusted in Christ to be delivered from, but only after death.

If St. Paul and the apostles had obediently confined themselves to the laying on of their hands upon the sick, and refrained from imagining that they were able to make ministers of men, of the condition of whose heads and of whose hearts they must have been ignorant, the great evils that have afflicted the Church would have had no vitality, even if they had at any time obtained an existence; but their spiritual pride was flattered by the idea that they had power given them in this way also, and faith in Christ’s superintendence was lost. The fruit has shown what tree it was—of the very worst spiritual character that can possibly be imagined. So-called Christianity for ages was the greatest curse that could afflict humanity. All power lost to heal any sick by the laying on of hands, or belief even that any power is given in the present day, is almost wanting, and an absolute barrier is raised that nothing but a new dispensation will remove.

When, in disobedience, no hands are laid on the sick, and no miracle or shadow of a miracle accompanies the supposed gift, in like manner as there was in many different ways when our Saviour and the apostles after His resur¬ rection received it, what justification can there possibly bo for such a presumption, when those who have made such

BOTH EVIL AJSTD GOOD.

an. awful claim shall have to give an account for it, more especially when an evil spirit may have been imparted to another instead of a good one, and an absolute spiritual injury inflicted on the person and on the multitude 1 There is abundant evidence on record to show that the Christian ministry in all ages might have had the same remark made upon it that St. John delivered himself of in His epistle, when he noticed that “many evil spirits had gone abroad into the world”; and our Saviour’s words proclaim that a condition of things would be permitted to exist out of which He would have to condemn many to extreme punishment and correction when He came again. In accordance therewith are the records of all Church History in all times and in all ages since He was crucified. Nor are they less now, when only the laying on of hands upon healthy instead of sick men, or long prayers and regular prayer-meetings, or the putting Him to shame as a wine-bibber by very good people, or idolatrous, presump, tuous practices and proceedings, or frightful denunciations upon tbo multitude amounting to blasphemy, is the limitall evil fruit of corrupt trees. But no one may now be tortured, or imprisoned, or put to death by burning, or in any other way, by priests or ministers; nor may the lives of those calling themselves His servants he openly scan¬ dalous and be tolerated. Yet the fruit is but little better, although from independent causes the condition of the great multitude is ameliorated and improved. Many who think themselves converted men are so confident, and know so well the good they have done, and are doing, that if one or a dozen men rose from the dead, they would not believe to the contrary.