The trend of the ages

Front matter

BR 125 .B7 Copy 1

TREND OF THE AGES,

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Chapter I. Miracle And Development

"When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

Through time the Christ is marching. Historyis but the record of a great mind-movement upon physical organism. In mid- ages stands the cross, and we are far down the march of time as it is marked by the world incidents of the past. The terminal inflorescence of the earthly divine manifestation makes haste now, and soon the social Christ flower will appear in its unfading bloom. Enough of its beauty already appears to help us much in our study of the divine anthotaxis.

Really the flower is one, and in its expansion it is centrifugal, or from center to circumference. And when it has, in its fragrant beauty, described the circumference of earth and time it will have but one meaning and one charm. "Christ is all and all."

What a day of the Lord Almighty. What a splendid scene to the eyes of the heavenly hosts when Adamic life took form from the dust of the ground and stood forth a complete miracle. Six successive periods had removed the earth's garment of cloud and its swaddling band of thick darkness, and the fixing of the sun, moon and stars in the heaven had prepared the earth for the dwelling of man. Somewhere in Asia, perhaps where the flowers were already blooming along the banks of the Euphrates and while the new-made birds were singing their morning song of gladness, the morning stars and the sons of God joined in the first glad vocal prophecy of a subdued world.

In man's primitive form they caught the first glimpse of a far-away and ultimate purpose as from his face beamed the evidences of psychic consciousness and intelligent action. Before their eyes hung the mists of unfolding centuries, but the light of prophetic virtue shined upon the pages of far-off time; and, instinct with the emotions of psychic triumph, they sang earth's prelude in the metre of a world redeemed.

In this first man there was the possibility of the fall, and in his complex being there was foreshadowed all the passions of malice and hate with which to channel the earth for a river of blood.

Beneath the outward form of beauty was the heart-beat which when poisoned by a single act of disobedience was to drive the engines of destruction through long ages holding the problems of human suffering and woe. And yet there was a miracle. Material form stood erect, instinct with intelligence and life, and proclaimed the final triumph of mind over all the material issues involved. Thousands, and even millions, may fall in the wreck of ages and generations, till the mastery of mind in and over matter is complete, but this final triumph was the prophecy of man's psychophysical being.

He who by arbitrary miracle gave to human mind and will its cosmogonal existence and abode had an ultimate purpose, and foresaw the trend of the ages, and his plan comprehended the end from the beginning. To him who is from everlasting to everlasting the centuries are but as an incident and a thousand years as but a day. His wisdom is manifold and his plan is multiform. He is in his works and his power is beyond the emergencies and contingencies of all time. The fall was not the obliteration of the soul upon which the divine might impinge as the life of the soul had done upon material form. The fact that that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit was definitely fixed in the mind of God, and the creation of man was only the miraculous beginning of a great spiritual movement upon the material forces of the earth which he had made.

The souls of men were made conscious of this movement almost from the beginning, and it imparted to earth its hope of final regeneration. Along the trend of the ages the emotions of earth's millions produced by faith and hope have broken forth in a song which answers back to the time when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy; and, thus, the supernatural proclaims the fulfillment of the world's first prophecy in miracle.

The creation of a human soul involved the human possibilities of the visible manifestation of the kingdom of heaven, and in the nature of that soul was projected a great spiritual movement upon the forces of nature which God inwrought in the creation of the world of material and animal being. In the history of that day we read the prophecy of the incarnation of the divine life of the Christ, in whom was to be subjected all the psychic and cosmic forces of psychophysical humanity to the Christ character. In the history of that incarnation we read the prophecy of another incarnation of the Christ life in all the relations of human lives, while in the character of the first incarnation we read the prophecy of what the last shall be.

Thus it will be seen that by an involution as well as an evolution the Father's world government has been dispensational, and it suggests the necessity of different methods and processes in different ages of the world.

Man's privilege and duty is not to form a conception of what God is, and therefore what he must have done before he made the world, but, rather to permit a conception of his multiform plan and manifold wisdom from what he is doing in the world. Thus we shall see him in his works and in his word. We will no longer vainly read the Bible in the light of our own feeble conception of God or the differentiated conceptions of his attributes. We will therefore cease to fix him apart from the world by some immutable law of his being vainly imagined by us, and by that law fixing all things in fate. "Theology" will become less important to us and "Bibliolatry" will become paramount in reading the signs of our times. Thus we will study the law and the prophets till in the evolutions of time we shall identify the first incarnation of the Christ.

Then in the light of his character we shall read the prophecy of the future. Thus we shall hardly fail to feel the power of his Spirit and catch his meaning when he says, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

The difference between mere variety and that of a distinct species is as clearly defined in the moral world as in the vegetable or animal kingdom. In the moral trend of the ages there were no new species appearing from the time the morning stars sang together, till the angels sang to the shepherds by night in the fields near Bethlehem, the city of David.

Along the history of long centuries we see no distinct miracle of this kind. But in the development of God's multiform plan we see marked evidences of the presence of manifold wisdom and supernatural power in the production of distinct varieties of the same species. These were epochal in character and marked the beginning and close of sub-dispensational eras. The second distinct world-era began with the flood, when all that was best in the psychic nature of a fallen race manifested itself in one family. The third world-era began with the destruction of the Tower of Babel, when God made of one blood, all nations to dwell on all the face of the earth. The fourth world-era began when God made covenant with Abraham that in his seed all families of the earth should be blessed. What is called by the naturalist or scientist the conservation of law, was nothing less than the supernatural Christ evolving what was possible in the wreck of a fallen image and treasuring it up in a narrow compass to scatter it abroad in a new era until the soil should be ready for his miraculous and visible appearance in the beginning of a new dispensation. Here the new species appeared in whom men were to be new creatures in Christ Jesus, by a new birth from above. This was the mystery hidden from other ages, but now made known by his holy apostles and prophets. The explanation of this mystery shows how it was involved in the era beginning with Abraham and evolved in the development of an hundred and forty and four thousand of the seed of Abraham whose psychic nature was susceptible to the spirit of inspiration and revelation; and who, in the fullness of the dispensation of times (eras) were recognized as the church of first-borns and constituted the Bride of the Christ.

The preservation of the divine character in Christ's earthly life was the conservation of the personal divine life in the human soul and form of the Son of Mary, and thus, in the ascension and enthronement of that soul and form, redeemed and sanctified humanity impinged upon the divine government to give the world a dispensation of free grace.

Thus in human form he obtained the promise of the Father and shed forth on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit to begin the reincarnation of the Christ in the social relations of human life. On that day was celebrated, on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, the marriage of the hundred and forty and four thousand of the seed of Abraham to the offspring of David through the eternal spirit.

Thus the age of wedlock began; and "The Spirit and the Bride say, come, and let him that heareth say, come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."

The miracle of Christ's birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, enthronement and descent upon his bride on the day of Pentecost is one, varying only in visible form and marking the close of one and the beginning of another dispensation in the great spiritual movement upon the natural forces of this world. It involves the possibilities of our dispensation as the miracle of the first Adam involved the possibilities of the first.

Nowhere is it indicated that all the minor details of human experience which are effected by causes more or less remote, nor even the salvation or loss of all persons, were fixed by divine decree, nor that they were even considered as necessarily involved in the carrying forward of a predetermined purpose.

But all of God ? s works were known to him from the beginning and the end of each dispensation was certain. That which is effected byremote causes may be or seem to be, in an historical sense, incidental to the progress of a divine movement, and still in no sense reflect the mind or character of the divine being. They are explainable upon the hypothesis of another being, and the Bible tells us who he is.

The entrance of Satan by invasion into the physical appetites and desires of man's psychophysical being vitiated his moral character and affected his attitude towards God. This manifests itself in the individual and imperils the soul in the gloom of a lost race.

Humanity was lost in Adam, and the second Adam came to save humanity. His plan incidentally and necessarily saved the souls of an hundred and forty and four thousand Jews, while the work of the Devil, incidentally, but not necessarily, results in the loss of millions.

If we may think of an alternative, and it is not clear that we may not, we may believe that had not the race have fallen in Adam, perfect purity would have been maintained in all the relations of human beings. In such a case the creation of a human soul would have been a complete prophecy, in itself, of the final and complete triumph of mind over matter.

There would therefore have been a necessity for only one incarnation and manifestation of the Christ. This would have certainly come in the material and social relations of this world, as it certainly will come, since he has once come in the flesh and put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

The new species appeared in the second Adam. The Spirit of God breathed upon the face of the deep and prepared the earth for the abode of the first Adam, and then God created him by distinct miracle.

The same Spirit breathed upon the abyss of man's fallen nature till it was ready for the second distinct miracle, and then xhe second Adam was conceived in the womb by the Lord God Almighty. Christians are of this species, and some day will rise in character and type to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ.

Chapter II. Predestination In The Trend Of The Ages

Since the sacred Scriptures are to be regarded as authority touching the religion of rational beings their harmony and consistency must be maintained. It is not necessary to show that unconditional election and predestination as a distinct proposition is inconsistent with the moral accountability and consequent free agency of man. As separate and distinct propositions they are at war with each other and can never be harmonized. One deals with man in the most arbitrary manner as to his origin, conduct and destiny, while the other takes account of his intelligence and seeks to govern with beneficent limitations. To suggest both as the plan of governing the same people at the same time and under the same circumstances is to forfeit all claim of intelligent authority. No sane man can admit the divinity of such a suggestion.

The right of government in either form may be admitted, but the possibility of both at the same time with the same people is out of the question. The human mind is incapable of such an admission. On this account Christians with common loyalty to the Bible have warred with each other; one party practically denying the doctrine of predestination and unconditional election, and the other practically denying the doctrine of man's personal accountability. Each party have been compelled to admit that there were things in the Bible which they could not understand. Not that the language in which these things are set out is incomprehensible, but because the things set out seemed to contradict other things which they were sure the Bible taught. Is human reason to surrender at this point? I say it is not. There is a point where human reason must surrender, but it is not where the Bible is surrendered as a revelation from God to man.

Some things are hard to be understood because of our attitude towards them, but if they are in the Bible we ought to be willing to change our attitude in order to understand them. But if predestination and man's free agency are both taught in the Bible, how is an honest man to change his attitude towards one without changing his attitude towards the other? If he ignores the one because he holds to the other, he can, if he regards them as distinct and unrelated propositions, only take kindly to one while proportionately abandoning the other. If they are both taught in the Bible, one of two things is true. Either the Bible has no claims upon rational beings or else the two doctrinal propositions are relative to each other. The relation of the one to the other can never be found in the government of the same people at the same time, because one suggests a government radically different from the other.

Every student of the Bible and of the human race must recognize that law and order have been a development so far as this world is concerned, and that this development has a comprehensive history. In the making of this history is found the relation of one form of government to another as one stage of development is necessary to another in the general advancement towards God's ultimate purpose. Thus it may be seen that doctrinal propositions which seem to be essentially in violent conflict with each other when applied to the same people, time and circumstances may still be in perfect harmony when viewed in their historical relation.

Predestination is not merely a formulated doctrinal statement without a history. It is not the analysis of a divine attribute, but an inspired historical statement of what God has done. History never exactly repeats itself in the progress of development. Things are similarly related when seen in the light of historical development towards a great end, but until the end of development is reached the government under which the development is carried forward is ever changing in form. This is the history of predestination; and it is necessarily so. When the act of predestinating a thing has accomplished the purpose of predestination, the thing purposed takes the place of direct and arbitrary predestination. Thus it appears in history that from the beginning things are becoming less and less miraculous, and thus it will continue until all things will naturally wear the yoke of a divinely developed government. Then that government will take the place of every predestinated means for its development.

The Bible simply reveals the facts which were necessary in God's governmental control towards the end purposed in the beginning. All beneficent government, though necessarily arbitrary in the beginning, seeks, through the process of development, the emancipation of the human mind and will. In the process of development some things are necessarily predetermined, while other things are purposed indirectly through the means directly and arbitrarily predestinated. Behind every free government, guaranteeing the right of personal choice, there has been the use of direct, arbitrary and predetermined authority. And in the front of every divine movement of this kind the beneficence of divine government manifests itself in the right of personal free choice. The right of personal choice is the thing purposed, and the thing which makes it possible is the thing predetermined. When the right of choice, therefore, is established, it necessarily displaces those things which were formerly predestinated, but are now the subjects of free choice.

The trouble between religious factions has been in their failure to see that the relation which predestination sustains to the right and power of personal free choice, is an historical one. The unalterable purpose of God is, and has been, so far as we know the history of his dealings with men, that man should ultimately possess the right in himself to choose that which is good for him. What he has directly and arbitrarily predestinated as a means to this end must of necessity in the development of this ultimate purpose, give place to the thing purposed. Thus it is that while predestination and personal accountability, while thought of as doctrinal propositions applied contemporaneously, are in deadly conflict with each other and antagonizing the divine claims of the Bible over human reason, they are, when viewed in the light of an historical necessity, in perfect harmony. The end clearly justifies the means in this case, and not only satisfies the enlightened mind that the Bible is the book of God, but inspires the heart also to praise him for his wonderful wisdom and goodness manifest to the children of men.

The necessity for having predestinated some men to eternal life must appear at a moment's thought. If ever the Gospel was to become the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, the way must be prepared for it. Some men must be arbitrarily chosen, and, prepared in kind, for its introduction. The kingdom of God must be harmonious in the means of its introduction. Aliens cannot be used in establishing its principles, which are foreign to earth's population. The predestinating act by which men were chosen must be practical as well as arbitrary. The act of predestinating and choosing them, therefore, must involve the arbitrary infusion into them of the very nature of the government of heaven. Here is a miracle, and this is the law of Biogenesis. This law blocks the way of progress at the border line of every distinct stage of development. But each separate stage in the earthly development of the kingdom of heaven is an enlarged promise of the fulfillment, until at last (Mark 1:14,15) Jesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the Gospel.

The meaning of the law and the prophets which were till John, and every means for the establishment of the kingdom of God in its Gospel form on earth, are now explained in the light of the Gospel which in the beginning of the fullness of time says: "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

Predestination is fatalism by whoever or whatever a thing is unalterably predestinated. Whatever is predestinated has its fate fixed in the act of predestinating or predetermining it. Herein is the distinction between the ultimate purpose of God and the thing predetermined. A purpose may be predetermined upon, but it is not the thing predestinated. The thing purposed is the meaning of the thing predestinated, and explains the reason for the predestinating act. The rationale of predestination is that some things are not arbitrarily determined. While they are related to the thing fated more or less remotely, as effect is related to cause, they do not sustain the same relation to a first cause as that which was unalterably fixed by the original act of predestination. This is the meaning of related influences in the progress of development. Thus we trace the history of what we are and what we enjoy, mutually affecting each other in earth's civilization, back to a time of absolute miracle, when the first thing affecting our present destiny was necessarily predetermined in the most arbitrary manner. The gradual removal from absolute miracle in the predetermination of things to the natural in the determination of the human will is but the gradual transfer of the right to choose, which is proportioned more and more to the individual as he ascends the scale of human development. We are given the right to choose and determine as we become capable of choosing and determining.

The development and consequent introduction of free choice as a factor in determining what the individual shall do and what shall happen to him does not in the least change the nature of the government whose trend has been constantly in that direction since its arbitrary and miraculous beginning. While the limitations of government multiply and the government of heaven becomes less arbitrary as to what man shall do and be, it does not become less arbitrary as to the results of wrong doing. While it is a transfer of responsibility it is not a change of the grounds of responsibility. History therefore is only the fulfillment of God's purpose to make man responsible when he is capable of free personal choice.

In the beginning man did not choose to exist on the earth, because he could not; but God determined it for him. But now we see much that contributes to health and long life fully committed to man's use and keeping. He also has the means and power of self-destruction subject to his will, and is free to us them, as many do. The same is true of man's spiritual being. He was made a living soul without his consent, but the means and power to improve or damage his spiritual condition are now subject to his own volition. The means and manner of putting the laws of health and of spiritual well-being under man's volitionary control describe almost the limits of predestination as recorded in God's dealings with men. There is a period in which a child must be governed arbitrarily, because it is unable to choose, and is therefore not responsible. So it was with an infant world. There comes a time in the child's development when it naturally assumes the function of choice in some things, and the arbitrary in its government gives way to that extent. So it has been in the development of our world, which is the child of our Father's care.

This divine thought of humanity has advanced in the progress of the world's government to where the Gospel invites the individual to become the child of him who is the Father of all that is good. The exact time when the child actually becomes responsible is not perhaps well marked and defined, but it is more and more recognized till at last it is fully and authoritatively acknowledged. So it was till the first Pentecost after the Lord's resurrection. Since then, "The Spirit and the bride say, come; and let him that heareth say, come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." Till then the transfer of responsibility for the loss of the soul was not authoritatively announced, though it may have actually passed to the individual in many cases. Till then the arbitrary involved the election of the individual to salvation, while since then every one is exhorted to make his peace, calling and election sure.

Predestination involving the election of some to salvation even before the foundation of the world has become an historical fact, and its place is found in the history of those things which were. It has no place in doctrinal truth. It in no sense describes the essential character of him who is the way, the truth, and the life. He is all inclusive, and only he who wills not to trust, know and love him is excluded from participation in his beneficent character. Predestination involving the unconditional election of some to eternal life was never intended to be understood as a doctrinal principle unalterably associated with the nature of the Trinity. It is ever mentioned in terms of merest incident which associates it with historical expedients in the development of God's wonderful plan of the ages. Thus, in Eph. 3:1-12, Paul explains his own conversion, call and qualification in relation to God's plan of saving the Gentile world. Paul's conversion, though declared by him to have been out of due season, was wholly miraculous as well as supernatural, and in speaking of those unconditionally predestinated to eternal life he includes himself and gives the reason for it: 4 'That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," and, "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." This, he says, was according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ. While unconditional election is inconsistent with free choice in the same person, it is according to the purpose of free choice in the further development of God's plan of the ages. Hence, he says: "Unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

Through the manifold wisdom of God, involving every necessary expedient, including the qualification arbitrarily imposed upon some in their unconditional election to eternal life, the light breaks through the church and is vocalized in a world-wide song of freedom.

The Bride of the Christ. 27

Chapter III. The Bride Of The Christ

"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having" his Father's name written in their foreheads." Rev. 14:1.

This scene of earth which was pictured to John in his vision is full of interest as well as meaning, because it is associated with Mount Zion in Jerusalem and marks the beginning of the present dispensation of the Holy Spirit, when the Spirit and the bride began with united voice to say, come, to whosoever will, to take the water of life freely.

In pointing out who they were as well as their number, we identify them in their connection with God's plan in the redemption of our race and their appearance then and there. They will no longer stand apart from the great throng of the redeemed as an anomaly of divine love and favoriteism, but will appear as a necessary part of one harmonious movement, and as one of the most interesting incidents in the trend of the ages.

That they were the elect bride of Christ, and that this scene represents their marriage to the

Lamb through the eternal Spirit on the day of Pentecost after our Lord's resurrection, there is no room to doubt. That they were the complete number of those chosen before the foundation of the world, and called along the ages, being conformed to the image of Christ that he might be a first-born among the many brethren, and that they constituted the church of first-borns, whose names were written in heaven, which Paul also associates with Jerusalem, is as certain as that the Scriptures are best seen in their own light.

With the establishment of their identity with the elect bride the conclusion that they were visibly represented as a completed number on the day of Pentecost by the hundred and twenty, with whom and upon whom rested the visible signs of a perfect union with Christ, is indisputable. While the evidence may not appear in the form of positive proof, it is nevertheless conclusive.

They were all Jews. Rev. 7:4. So were those chosen before the foundation of the world. Eph. 1:12-13; Rom. 8:29; 11:2. They were guileless. Rev. 14. So were the true Israelites who became disciples of Christ. John 1:47. They were first fruits. Rev. 14:14. So were the elect. Eph. 1:12; Jas. 1:18. First fruits here is in the nature of the case the same as first-borns, which the elect are called and by which they are