What is secularism?

1883 290 At the present day, at least in this country, all who reject Revelation seem to be uniting under the name of Secularist. Under that name are found those who assail the Being, the Attributes, the Personality and the Providence of God, and who endeavour by philosophy — falsely so called — to overthrow the christian's faith in the genuineness, authenticity, inspiration, and exclusive authority of the Word of God. Could they succeed, all belief of a future judgment, and consequently the immortality of the soul, would be derided as an idle dream, and the grossest materialism would become the universal creed. And what do these Secularists propose as a substitute for the Bible? They pretend that sufficient guarantee for morality is found in nature and in human intelligence. What their idea of morality may be is difficult to say; but according to their highest definition, can it fill the craving void felt by every soul at one time or the other? A craving after the unseen and the unknown? A craving which compels the idolater to worship the image his hands have made, and leads the infidel to idolize the god of his imagination, i.e. his reason, himself?

Now this appears to me a fact of very great importance. The use which the Gentile makes of his power is to set up a religion connected with the polities of the kingdom, a religion for present earthly purposes. Where this is the case, religion cannot be left between God and the conscience. It is no longer a question of having a real conviction as to God and His truth, nor is there liberty to judge the imposture. The worship devised by the Gentile king is bound down upon the subject under penalty of death.

There may be certain things which hinder, for a season, the natural results of the world's will in having its religion condemned. And this has been the case for some time. For the last fifty years and more, every one knows there has been a certain system of opinion, commonly called "liberalism." This has got hold of men's minds. In no way does it respect God and His word as such. Its great stock-in-trade is the rights of man. Its cardinal virtue is, that all should be left free to think, act, and worship as they please. As long as the idea of man's rights is allowed to have play, the mercy of God turns it into an occasion for Christians, having a conscience towards Himself, to pass quietly through, and worship God according to His will. And as it was always unquestionable that God claimed the right over His own people; as His revealed will alone can rightly govern them; so, as the Father, He now seeks His children, that they may worship Him in spirit and in truth. The renewed heart and conscience delight in His will and find the chief blessedness here in exalting Him. To the believer, that will is more peremptory than the absolutism of the heathen king. Liberalism really dislikes this exclusive claim over the conscience. Still, it has led to a sort of calm in the world; and the full exercise of its authority, as to religion, is in abeyance for the time. For, apart from temporary circumstances, none can deny that, wherever there is a religion introduced by the monarch, for the guidance of his realm, necessarily it does not admit of difference, contradiction, or compromise. This would defeat the purpose for which it is imposed. But it is to fight against God. The monarch himself may have a conscience, and he is, of course, bound to worship God according to His will. But the using the authority of the realm to coerce others is the denial, practically, of God's direct control over the individual conscience.

And when we turn to the Apocalypse we find this thought conceived in the head of gold coming out into manifestation in the feet of iron and clay. There an image is made to the beast—the revived Roman Empire—and every one who will not do homage to the image of the beast must be killed (Rev. 13). In the thought of the Gentile rulers nothing is of any importance but the kingdom. Everything must be sacrificed to the expansion, grandeur, and greatness of the kingdom under which men live. God and the relation of men to Him are of no account. A religion is of course felt to be a necessity. In an autocracy it must be a state religion, and individual conscience is little, or not at all, tolerated. Generally speaking where democracy prevails men may have whatever religion they like or none at all where this is preferred. But whether the government is autocratic or democratic religion must be subservient to the state. It is a kind of decoration for the kingdom, and is used by the devil as a silencer to the conscience, for man must serve a God of some sort. But, regarding the individual’s relations to the powers that be, conscience toward God cannot be tolerated. The conceptions of the head become conspicuous in the feet.

I have purposely adopted the ideas and words of an able, learned, and pious advocate of this impious scheme, which contradicts all that the godly in the past have gathered from scripture, especially such passages as Rom. 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-18. On the texts there is the less reason to dwell as almost all who read these pages reject on principle that wretched fruit of the French Revolution, or rather of the infidel philosophy which gave so deep and strong an impulse to it, not only immediately, but also from our own land for a century before. Blasphemers began to assert their lawless will, not without the reproof of public law and to the horror of believing ears. But gradually restraint gave way, and men have got to think that every form of blasphemous iniquity, which can count so many heads, is entitled to its representation in the high places of the earth. For after all what the Christian calls blasphemy is the religion or school of thought sincerely accepted by others, who are no less entitled to be heard as themselves, and to rule if they can command a majority! For, again says their pious oracle, what human power can pronounce authoritatively upon the truth of a religion, when every nation, or part of a nation, will with equal zeal maintain the truth of its own? Thus God is excluded, where He is most of all needed, and the creature, in all the aberrations of his guilty will, is worshipped rather than the Creator, Who is blessed for ever. Amen.

At the present moment "the rights of the people" loom largely in all directions. and are now well established in the region of religion. We are in the age of "democratised Christianity." Political democracy finds all its authority in the will of the people. In that sphere there are no fixed standards of right and wrong. If the majority of the people want it, be it betting, intoxicants, opium, war, or anything else, it is politically right. If they do not want it, be it the Bible in the schools, liberty for the preaching of Christ, temperance, peace, or anything else, it is politically wrong. Even so also then in democratised Christianity, man and his will is everything. God and His Christ, and their word, are nothing.

The two beasts of our chapter present a series of strikingly marked contrasts. The first came out of an unsettled state of things — the sea; the second arises out of a settled and established condition of civil and political government — the earth. The former is a secular power; the latter a religious one. The first Beast had ten horns; the second has two. In subtle soul-destroying influence the second is the more dangerous of the two executive ministers of Satan, but the first is paramount in civil and military authority. The second Beast is clearly subordinate to the first, and, in fact, uses the military and other forces of the empire to accomplish his purpose — the deification of the first Beast. The second is the lieutenant of the first. The first is a Gentile; the second a Jew. Chronologically, too, the second Beast succeeds the rise of the first. There is considerable confusion in the minds of many as to the respective spheres of action of these two beasts. The first is a vast political and military system, and as such perishes at the Coming of the Lord. While the territorial extent of the empire is more limited than it was in its past imperial character, its authority and influence extend throughout the civilised and christianised parts of the earth, embracing numerous nations and peoples. To it Satan gives his throne and authority, that which Christ refused from Satan (Luke 4:6-7). He receives it from His Father (Ps. 2:8). No power can withstand the Beast. It is the dominant power on earth.

“If it should fall out with us also that the State became hostile to the Church, and invested British citizenship with an anti-Christian character, how should we who profess and call ourselves Christians behave? The materials for conflict are quite plainly accumulating as secularism dominates our public life. Certain it is that Christians can never give to the State an unconditioned obedience. There is “another King, one Jesus,” whose claims must be first satisfied.

“If I mistake not, the ‘Signs of the Times' suggest that the time draws near when we also shall be put to the test. As I reflect on the state of Christendom as a whole, and observe how the tendency to repudiate the Christian tradition seems to be gathering strength, and the agencies of religion steadily decline, I find it increasingly difficult to indulge the mood of complacent optimism which is reflected in our official and semi-official publications. I think the outlook in Church and State far graver than is generally realised.”

"If it should fall out with us also that the State became hostile to the Church, and invested British citizenship with an anti-Christian character, how should we who profess and call ourselves Christians behave? The materials for conflict are quite plainly accumulating as secularism dominates our public life. Certain it is that Christians can never give to the State an unconditioned obedience. There is "another King, one Jesus," whose claims must be first satisfied.

Men say if the slums could be eradicated then the devil would be defeated and people would turn to God. To look around the suburbs of our great cities is sufficient to afford evidence to explode that theory. The vast housing estates and the slum clearance settlements do not exhibit much evidence of desire for God. Gross secularism is usually dominant. People use the Lord's Day as convenient for gardening, playing games, and doing all sorts of trivial things.

'Who mind earthly things.' This last particular gives its character to the whole description, and sets in its clearest light the point of the Spirit's accusation. For to set our minds on heaven and heavenly things, because Christ, our life, is hidden there, is the especial calling of God's saints. The Church is meanwhile the wife of the Lamb in title, His bride in expectation, and in her waiting experience a widow, till He come to take His people to Himself. For such, therefore, as name His name to live in pleasure on the earth, is to be alive in profession only, while really dead to God. What is in fact described in this mournful passage is 'the Christian world' as it now exists and meets our eyes on every side, and which finds such ample representation in the popular literature of the day. But it may be asked, What, in the Apostle's intention, are 'earthly things'? The answer is obvious. They are the things regarded as objects of interest or desire by man in his natural state and as a dweller upon earth. They are therefore, under another name, things carnal, as opposed to things spiritual, or our own things in contrast to the things of Jesus Christ. All things, therefore, of whatever kind, that root themselves in the earth, and to which ideas of local permanency attach, are 'earthly things.' All things, moreover, which are regulated or controlled in any way by the human will fall under this generic category. To enumerate these at present is impossible. I begin and end also with the highest.

Christianity, as men ordinarily regard it, is an 'earthly thing.' For if we listen to the voices of statesmen and publicists on the one hand, or of private society and its leaders on the other, we shall find that 'the Christian religion' is regarded with honour among men in general, mainly because of its value as an efficient factor in the great work of civilisation and secular advancement. True it is that the common eye looks, in addition to its social benefits, for its 'consolations' also at the closing scene; and, Balaam-like, men wedded heartily to earth still wish to die the death of the righteous, and to find, when their mortal life is at an end, a heaven to their wish. But chiefly and immediately the place held by nominal Christianity in the esteem of men is determined by its proved usefulness to man as a dweller upon earth. And that this is its all-pervading spirit is evidenced by the mutual recriminations which sectarian writers cast at one another when advocating their respective claims as the guides and instructors of the popular mind. And here, without attempting to examine separately the multitudinous varieties of sectarian language and pretension, it must be on all sides admitted that, broadly speaking, and confining ourselves to western and southern Europe, as a sufficient sample of Christendom at large, Popery and Protestantism divide the so-called Christian world. And in what do these great antagonists essentially and practically differ? Each claims to be of God; but what is asserted by the former is dominion over men's faith and conscience, and a general supremacy over the kingdoms and nations of earth through a false use of the Lord's name and words. On the part of the latter it is urged, not without reason, that both nations and individuals have thriven better as Protestant than as Catholic. Trade and the march of mind, political liberty and moral elevation generally, are found rather on the side of Protestantism, which bears also as its supreme distinctive badge an assertion of the sole final authority of the Scriptures.