The Puritan Vision of God # 4

The Puritan Vision of God # 4

Furthermore, the prisoner on Patmos would say to us, "Listen, God is speaking to you. Hear what he says! "Not a little of the mischief of our age has been caused by the growth of what is known as Agnosticism, a long and high-sounding word for unbelief.

It may be doubted whether there have ever been any genuine atheists on the earth, men who have denied the existence of Deity altogether. Even Lucretius, the Roman poet, believed in a Deity who was far removed from all that goes on in the world, hidden somewhere in the inexhaustible depths of space. The human mind in every age has felt that there must be something, be it law or force or principle or energy or fate or destiny or mind, by which the universe came into being, and according to which it moves. But all men are practically atheists who deny that God can speak, and that He does speak to the human heart. To say that one does not know whether God speaks or not is to cut away the ground upon which the world's strongest characters have been built. "Out of the throne," says John, "there comes a voice. Listen to it." And if you listen you will hear it telling you to pray.

There is divine wisdom in the poet's lines:

"Speak to Him thou for He hears, and
Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer
Than hands and feet."

"Look up, listen, work." Work while it is day, for the night is coming when no man can work.

Work, for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Work, in order that at the end of the day you may hear the King saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord."

What did the Puritans give to the world? Certainly not pictures, nor statues, nor philosophy, nor metaphysics.They were not artists, scientists or architects or sages; they were nothing but heroes who gave the world a new impulse toward God. They were ahead of us because they are nearer to the throne. With all our knowledge and acumen and attainments and accumulations we stand abashed before these men, acknowledging that they are indeed above us, and the radiance of the throne is on their foreheads.

This then is the greatest work which any man can do, which any set or society of men can do, which any state or any church can do, it is to blow the dust off the ideal, to pick up the lowered standards and lift them higher, to unveil the face of virtue that men may see her in her loveliness, to adorn the doctrine of the blessed God, to sound a note of warning that men shall not take the downward path, but turn their faces toward God's throne.

If we should ask ourselves what our Puritan forefathers would say to us if they could speak to us tonight, no doubt they would say very simple and elementary things like this: "Better die than live ignobly, better be poor through life than be dishonest, better fail with honor than succeed by means that are unworthy of a man, better leave your boys nothing but an unspotted name than leave them a colossal fortune with a name that has been tarnished." There is no tragedy on earth so terrible as the fading of the luster of an honored name. There is no spectacle so heart-breaking as the spectacle of laurel withered brows that have worn it nobly until their hair is gray. There lies upon this island one of the highest heaps of gold ever amassed by the genius and ingenuity and industry of man. That mass of gold can be an Aaron's rod by means of which miracles shall be wrought for humanity, or it may if wrongly used be a millstone and drown us in the depths of the sea. Let us keep repeating to ourselves the words of Jesus, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Let us ponder the meaning of the sentence, "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul?" And how in a world like this shall a man keep from losing his soul? Simply by living always within sight of the great white throne!

~Charles E. Jefferson~

(The End)