SERMON XII – William Elbert Munsey
Ezekiel’s vision (discourse 1.)
Dispensations of Divine Providence.
“Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them ; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.” — Ezekiel 11:22.
SPEAKING of the wheels, the prophet says: ”Their appearance …. and their work was like unto the color of a beryl ” — that is, a beautiful blue like the firmament. ” And they had one likeness ; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. They went upon their four sides : and they turned as they went …. they went straight forward. Whither the spirit was to go they went As for their rings they were so high that they were dreadful ; and the rings were full of eyes round about them four.” These symbolized the Dispensations of Providence.
The very idea of wheels revolving suggests revolution and change. Their connection with the chariot of Providence, shows that in the revolutions in the sentiments and habits of men. in the revolutions effected by education and civilization, in the revolutions of kingdoms and governments, God is carrying on His work. Revolutions are not the causes of progress, as Mr. Watson intimates in his sermon upon this part of the vision, but the result. The idea of revolutions as the cause of progress, evolved from the idea of revolving wheels, is only a beautiful and impressive metonymy, where the effect is put for the cause. Revolutions are but epochs in the developments of progress. They are but notches progress cuts in the history of the world’s emancipation from ignorance, sin, and imperfection. A people are rude and illiterate ; a certain form of government is adapted to them in that state ; and when the people in time become polished and learned their government changes with their advance- ment in civilization. The constitution of the government of Great Britain is but a history of its progress from bar- barism to its present national eminence, chaptered by revo- lutions. Revolutions are indications of the spirit of prog- ress, and in these revolutions the wheels of the chariot of God’s Providence, roll grandly.
In the revolutions of states by war, are seen the wheels. War originates in the selfishness and inharmony of man’s fallen nature. Its ultimate cause, within the range of created things, is Satan, the Great Adversary. In the meantime, men make war, and yet God carries on His work. War is the necessary expression of the selfishness and inharmony of man’s nature, but as light is increasing, even war works for the general good of humanity. It strikes down all civilizations which have crystallized to suit the degree of intelligence and light of a past age, and which prevent all increase, and smother down all developments towards a higher intelligence, and a higher and brighter light. War prevents a civilization in a low form from crystallizing, and concreting itself so fixedly, that all advancement would be impossible.
Licentiousness, luxury, wealth, indeed, everything which prevents man’s mental and moral progress, naturally destroy the conservative and formative basis of governments and nations, and the elements composing them lose their affinity fcr each other ; and from a homogeneousness, become hetero- geneous, and by impingement upon each other produce war. The war, itself, however, eliminates the causes which produced it, and the elements again harmonize upon the same basis, or another ; but all training the elements for an eternal union after awhile in a Theocracy. It does not follow, however, that the success of armies in battle show what, from a human standpoint, may be regarded as the right side in the controversy. As far as human fights of property and person are concerned, they may not amount to much in God’s disposition of the affairs of mankind — as a rule. God has an especial administration with every man, and every man is the subject of special providences. None but the Christian has a promise to this effect, in the Bible, and then it is contingent upon prayer, faith, or some act of Christian- ity. Special providences establish no general rule, which enables us in the discussion of the general doctiine of providence.
As to the question of natural personal rights, I have nc rule. I feel, and the Decalogue teaches me, I have some rights with relation to other men, which they ought to respect. As to a natural inherent personal right, life is so much of a compromise with the rights of other men, and my relations to God in His relations to other men, that I do not know as I have any such rights. I intend to let God take care of that. Again, I know that intelligence and civiliza- tion ought to govern ignorance and barbarism, and intelli- gence and civilization are so often might, and might so often appears to be right, that my ideas of right and wrong in these regards get confused ; and again I have to leave this matter to God’s providence and His decision. One thing, I have always been able to learn what my duty was in every condi- tion with reference to God and man, and I try to do that.
As to the rights of nations, we still have no ultimate, absolute, generic, and reliable rule. It does seem that Russia ought not to be prohibited from having more than ten small steamers in the Black Sea; from entering the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus from the Black Sea ; and from the privilege of maintaining on the Black Sea coast any military or marine arsenal. It does seem that the articles of the treaty of 1856, forbidding these, ought to be modified or abolished. Yet if it is supposed by England that Russia, if these articles of the treaty are done away with, will make the Black Sea a base for military operations upon Turkey, and ultimately upon England-s possessions in Asia, it does seem that Eng- land does right in insisting upon maintaining the existing treaty. It seems right in Russia to resist the treaty : it seems right in England to defend the treaty. Which is right, and which is wrong ? If it comes to war, upon which side is God?
I have no doubt the clergy of both countries can prove to the satisfaction of their fellow-countrymen that God is upon both sides — that God can be divided against Himself. I wish that there was enough spiritually in the church to put every preacher out of the church who goes beyond the record, and retails in God’s market his own miserable and cracked pottery. I suppose if I was a politician I would do, like most politicians do, take the side that paid me and my party best. W-hat would it matter if fifty thousand widows, and one-half of a million orphans were made — my pockets would be benefited, and my political party would be maintained in power in the government. I know, if I was a politician I woul’d do this way — the amount of apostasy necessary to turn a minister into a politician would fully warrant the other.
We cannot decide upon the merits of such controversies. Men must do the best they can. There is at last a God who governs, and Christianity and civilization are saved from the power and numbers of Infidelity and Paganism, by measures and influences unseen to us ; and the general history of the .vorld containing the history of the contest between parties, which have eventuated in the ultimate success of the good over the bad, is an evidence of the truth of the Divine Providence. There is a great conservative wheel in the machinery of the world, which, though unseen, controls the wheels that are seen, and whose control is seldom if ever apparent to the generation living at the time the machinery in question moves.
Present success is no touchstone to determine which nation is right in battle. The first Napoleon said God was on the side of the best guns. This was a very foolish remark, and was intended to mean that God had nothing to do with wars at all, or battles among men. Yet Napoleon was wrong and he was right. He was wrong if he meant to say that God had nothing to do with the success of armies. All the elements which enter into the morale of an army may be vital and effective by supernatural influences from that end of the chain of causes which rises into the invisible. The great supernatural world is connected in close unity with the natu- ral world, and has in itself all first causes. Second causes are only found in the material and visible. It may be a nation has to place itself in certain attitudes to the super- natural, as a condition to be operated upon by the supernat- ural. God’s government is a government of moral agents. The point of connection may be the human mind. It is certain, in war, the wheels of God’s chariot roll dreadfully ; God holding the reins in His hands, and preserving the integrity of His plans in spite of the war, or facilitating their development by the war, and sometimes it makes no difference to the success of God’s plans which side is victorious in the war. Sometimes it does, and God has to do with wars as it suits His purposes. Don’t force Him to act by an iron rule. At one time He may, at another He may not. War affects mankind too seriously to rule God out of it, but pray let him govern, and do not make Him the cause.
Napoleon was wrong if he meant to say God was on the side of success. Napoleon was usually victorious, and he could boast and defy God. He would have done better to have waited till the hour of his death in exile. But this, the mere implication, is really reducing God too low. A French editor of “The Paris Moniteur,” in 1815, then the organ of Louis Eighteenth, thus, from day to day recorded the progress of the first Napoleon from Elba to Paris :
“The anthropophagist has escaped.” “The Corsican Ogre has landed.” “The Tiger is coming.” ” The Monster has slept at Grenoble.” ” The Tyrant has arrived at Lyons.” tt The Usurper has been seen in the environs of Paris.” ” Bonaparte Advances Toward, but will never enter the Capital.” ” Napoleon will be under our Ramparts To- morrow.” “His Imperial Majesty entered the Tuileries on the 21st of March, in the midst of His Faithful Subjects.” I know men who have changed their politics to be on the successful side. If immediate success in some things means anything, I believe it more generally means that a cause is wrong.
But success in war is no criterion of God’s favor. This has been the mistake of all ages. Russia, Prussia, and Austria, at different times have divided the independent kingdom of Poland among themselves, and a chivalric, bold, proud people have been crushed to the earth. Is this an evidence that God endorsed it ? Turkey crushed the Cre- tans to the earth, and a civilized world saw it done. Is this evidence that God endorsed it ? God may have endorsed it or He may not. As long as men have a future as per- sons, and as a race, and as long as there is a heaven and a hell, we cannot judge of God in these matters. The rules determining success upon a battlefield, are the best generals, the best soldiers, the greatest number, the best guns, and the best home support. If God wants to crush a good army, He will send a better one to do it, or rouse a combinatien of nations to do it. He gives no premium for weakness, and faith cannot take the place of works. But even if an army is crushed with these conditions, we are not sure it is right. Success is no criterion.
But the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift — certainly nofc if God wills it otherwise. — But is it not the rule that the battle is to the strong, and the race to the swift ? Certainly no one doubts that God can reverse the rule, and He has done so. God has willed it otherwise in an engagement ; and furthermore, the battle is never to the strong though victorious in battle, with reference to the great principles involved which affect humanity’s redemption from ignorance and sin, and with reference to ultimate issues which are in the hands of God, and about which we really know comparatively nothing. That He worked miracles upon the battlefield for the Israelites in the establishment of a typical Theocracy, establishes no precedent for the Divine action in after times, or for wars in general for those times. Being miracles, places them at once beyond God’s ordinary government of things.
In all revolutions affected by education, science, art, Christianity and war — symbolized by these revolving wheels — the race of man is pressing on to the goal of a blessed redemption. On rolls the chariot of God’s providence. Let men and demons do what they can, God is carrying on His work, and do whatever they may, God presses it into His service. Hear the roar of the elements in the north, and see the vast cloudy pile advancing like a rugged wall of ebony and tempest, pushed by the whirlwind’s breath, with a burning centre, and fringed with light, and corruscating sparks and flames leaping from its bosom and returning ; flashes of lightning breaking from it and hissing along before its terrible march. It sweeps close the ground, covers half the sky, and its awful summit towers beyond all flight of bird. In mighty travail it shakes the earth, and angrier jets of fire bite the air like fiery serpents, while vital and prolific from its ignescent centre great wheels are born instinct with eyes ever-looking, and by them burning cherubim — four-faced and four-winged, bearing upon their hea^ls a pavement of resplendent crystal, supporting a sapphire throne upon which God sits. On rolls the Chariot. Its wheels are beryl — a beautiful blue — the cherubim are red and fiery, the cloud is black, yet belching flames, the firmament is clear and bright, and the Throne is above. The wheels are revolving • the whirlwind is roaring ; the lightnings are flashing ; the cheru- bim are flying, each with two wings extended in their flight, and each with two wings raised up to the firmament to shield them from the glory above. Which way we turn we hear the thunder of the revolving wheels, and see the innumerable eyes — mountains tremble, kingdoms shake, institutions rock, civilizations give way. Now, the sun shines out a moment on them, the darkness stands back a little, and Lo ! the wheels are wreathed with flowers, and their touch is soft and noiseless ; then the darkness rushes in again — the fires barn, the eyes flash, and on, through dust and gloom, blood spin- ning from their straiks, and hurtling in gory clots from their axes ; they sweep on, and sound on, like the din of an earthquake over luxurious empires, and hold the world aghast. But their track is upward, rolling the race up to God. You are confused, your minds are darkened, but the other symbols as the series advances will clear the darkness, perfect the picture, and bring out the beauty.