No, Sir, the idea that any true ing, however lofty and inspiring, even that of Christ Himself, can impose itself by its intrinsic moral adequacy and beauty upon mankind to such purpose as to make human government perfect, is the offspring of an unbalanced mind, and is belied by 19 consistent centuries of human history. "He will come as a teacher.. one who will sound another note in the Divine bar-many, and lead men again from the vicious circle of material strife peace of spiritual understanding!' Can, this fine-tinkling rhetoric, of which the world is sick, exorcise for us the frightful spectre of domented misanthropy, breathing poison and armed to the teeth, which is about to burst upon the world under the leadership of Bolshevist Russia? Such a view consistently ignores the great black ineradicable fact of human depravity. Nothing but force, inerrant, impeccable force, can possibly put the race as a whole right with itself or with its Creator, and of course no one but the Triune God is capable of exercising such force. It is "when Thy judgements (not "Shy teachings') are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Isa. XXVI, 9.
"Sophia" says: "Fancy Christ smiting His enemies!" A.S.0.P. says: "It is altogether unworthy of Him and His Scriptures to hold out the thought that He comes as a bloody Juggernaut to overwhelm men in fear and destruction." Now if these dear friends intend thus to claim support from the Scriptures, I must ask them fo look at one or two passages. Will they kindly examine Rev. XIX. 11-21, and tell us who is represented by the militant figure called the Word of God, the Faithful and True, King of kings, and Lord of lords; also, who are the nations that He is seen smiting, and at what point in the redemptive programme do tha whole vision stand as to its "fulfilment. Will they also explain to us the meaning of that strange phrase: "The wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. VI. 16), and say why the same Christ is portrayed both as Lamb and as Lion in Rev. V. 5-63
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.