Notes on the book of NumbersMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
Notes on the book of Numbers
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Bible. Numbers -- Commentaries
worth, and God’s thoughts shall rise into full unqualified dominion.
This, we feel persuaded, is the grand desideratum—the crying want of
the day in which our lot is cast. Man’s will is every where gaining
the ascendant. It is rising like a mighty tide, and bearing away those
ancient barriers which have, in some measure, kept it in check. Many an
old and time-honored institution is, at this moment, giving way before
the rushing torrent; many an edifice, whose foundations, as we supposed,
were laid deep down in the fond and reverent affections of the people, is
giving way beneath the battering-ram of popular feeling. “Let us break
their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
Such is, pre-eminently, the spirit of the age. What is the antidote?
_Subjection!_ Subjection to what? Is it to what is called the authority
of the church? Is it to the voice of tradition? Is it to the commandments
and doctrines of men? No, blessed be God; it is not to any of these
things, nor to all of them put together. To what, then? To the voice
of the living God—the voice of holy Scripture. This is the grand remedy
for self-will on the one hand, and submission to human authority on the
other. “We must _obey_,”—this is the answer to self-will: “We must obey
_God_,”—this is the answer to mere bowing down to human authority. We see
these two elements all around us. The former—self-will, resolves itself
into infidelity; the latter—subjection to man, resolves itself into
superstition. These two will bear sway over the whole civilized world.
They will carry away all, save those who are divinely taught to say and
feel and act upon that immortal sentence, “We must obey God rather than
man.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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