November 13, 1889
IN his Boston Monday lectures last winter upon religion in the public schools, Joseph Cook discussed the question, “Shall the common schools teach common morals?” This is a singular question for a man who demands that a religiously-grounded morality shall be taught in the schools, and that the religion upon which it shall be grounded shall be Christianity. It is also a singular question to come from a man who pretends to known anything about the morality demanded by Christianity. Even though it should be conceded, which it is not, that the common schools should teach common morality, that would be as far removed from the teachings of morality which Christianity demands, as earth is from heaven. Common morality is nothing but immorality. Common morality is simply that sort of morality that is common, the sort of morality that is practiced by most of the people; and to teach that in the common schools would be only to teach the pupils to do those things which are practiced by most of the people. In other words, it would simply be teaching the pupils in the common schools to do as most of the people do. But pupils can learn to do that without any special instruction.
Again: Such teaching as that erects the common practice into a standard of morality which all must be taught and to which all must be made to conform. In other words, that which most of the people do it is right to do, and that is the correct standard of morality. This, in turn, involves the doctrine that what the majority does, or says shall be done, is the standard of right, and is to be conformed to as such. In a popular government the majority is the State. What the majority says is what the State says. Therefore, as, according to this theory, what the majority says is right, it follows that the majority being the State, what the State says is right. And this brings us at once face to face with the pagan Roman idea of ethics, that the idea of the State is the highest idea of right, and that the voice of the people is the voice of God. It is demonstrated, therefore, that the ethics of the Boston Monday lectureship of 1889 are pagan.
But the idea of the State is not the highest idea of right. The voice of the people is not the voice of God, and most especially it is not upon the subject of religion or morals. What the State says or does may be right, but it is not right because the State says it, for it may be wrong. There is a higher idea of right than the idea of the State, or than any which the State can inculcate. That is the idea of right which God ex-presses and the standard which he has established, and is as much higher than the idea of the State as God’s ideas are higher than those of the Boston Monday paganism, or as God is higher than the inventor of it. And, according to this idea of ethics of morality and right, the voice of God only is the voice of God. This voice of God, and this standard of right, is expressed in the Bible and is exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ. It is implanted in the human soul, and woven into the character of men, by the power of the Spirit of God in answer to a personal and abiding faith in Jesus Christ. But such a character as that is not common any more than Jesus Christ is common.
Further: Any such view of morals as this taught by the Boston Monday lecturer, reduces it wholly to the plane of the natural. Common morals is only natural morals, and natural morals is nothing but immorality. Jesus Christ gave a description of the moral condition of humanity in its natural state. In other words, it showed what is the nature of this common or natural morals. He said: “Out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” Mark 7:21, 22. Then Paul described the same thing, only in other words, saying: “It is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace have they not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:10-18.
That is natural morals. That is common morals, and such it will ever remain in spite of all the States on earth, until the heart is converted by the power of God, and the evil fountain purified from which the evil flows; and by no power which the State can ever exert, nor any instrumentality which it can ever use, can it be effected. It can be done alone by the power of God through [330] the agency of his Spirit; and this is not a common or natural process, but is wholly above the common, and is supernatural. Genuine morality, therefore, in this world, is only the fruit of the Spirit of God. Properly speaking, therefore, there is no such thing as common or natural morals, and to claim such a thing in the name of Christianity is to reduce Christianity and its Author to the plane of the natural, and to place it on a level with all the natural religions of the world, and thus reduces it to the level of paganism. But any theory which reduces Christianity to the level of paganism is a pagan theory. Therefore, it is again demonstrated that the ethics of the Boston Monday lectureship are pagan ethics only. This is not only the logic of the theory, it is the fact, for Mr. Cook says:—
“Merely natural morals, if taught thoroughly, must include the morals taught in the highest of all historical realities in morals, namely, the character of Christ as a man, and, therefore, the picture of the character of Christ as contained in the New Testament literature is not to be excluded from the public schools.”
This puts the character of Christ as he lived in this world upon the plane of the “merely natural,” and it makes the picture of the character of Christ, as contained in the New Testament literature, a merely natural thing, and the morality of Christ a merely natural morality. This distinctly places Jesus Christ and his character, and the record of it, all upon the plane of the merely natural, than which nothing can be more, false, nor more abhorrent to the character of Christ, or to the picture of that character as given in the New Testament.
Jesus Christ is not a natural product, and therefore the morals of Christ are not natural morals. The character of Christi whether as pictured in the New Testament or the Old, is not a natural product. That picture is not a natural picture. It is all supernatural. Jesus Christ is the Lord from heaven. His coming into this world was wholly miraculous, and the miraculous is not the natural. The picture of that character as drawn in the Scriptures is a picture drawn by inspiration of God. The Spirit of Christ itself foretold his coming, the manner of his birth, and of his death. That same Spirit recorded the fact of his coming, of his birth, his manner of life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension again to heaven. These Scriptures came not “by the will of man, but holy men of God spike as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” To make that character, or the record of it, a “merely natural” thing, as the Boston Monday lectureship distinctly does, robs Jesus Christ of his divinity, destroys the gospel of salvation, and turns the record of it into a myth. Placing all of this on the level of the merely natural, does distinctly place it on a level with all the natural religions that have ever been, and so makes it essentially pagan.
For the sake of the case, we present another extract in the same line as the above, more fully to show that such is intentionally the ethics of the Boston Monday lectureship, and that such is the deduction that was intentionally reached in the lecture under consideration. The lecture closed with these words:—
“In Christ, the highest ethical reality known to established and incontrovertible history, there is the highest self-revelation of God. That revelation, so far forth as Christ is man, is a part of natural morals. Any system of instruction which shuts its eyes to this fact, shuts its eyes to reality. A book on architecture that should not mention the Parthenon, or one on painting that should say nothing of the Sistine Chapel, would be no more defective than is any book on purely natural morals without a definite account of the highest historical reality in morals—the character of Christ as a man and the ethics of the gospel. Natural morals, if taught thoroughly, teach, of course, the highest attained moral ideas. The character of Christ, as exhibiting the highest ideal of morals actually attained among men, is the supreme illustration, and contains the organizing principles of every scheme of natural morals that can be called thorough or scientific. No adequate picture of that character exists except in the New Testament. Natural morals, therefore, cannot be thoroughly taught when the Bible is excluded from the schools; and hence the State, in the exercise of its right of self-preservation, has authority to require that it shall not be so excluded. (Applause)”
That is but to say that the highest ethical reality known to established and incontrovertible history is a purely natural one. It is to say that the character of Christ, as a man, and the ethics of the gospels, are as purely natural as was the Parthenon, or as are the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. It says that the highest attained moral ideas are but purely natural ones. Hence the State as the highest natural organization of men must adopt, inculcate, and enforce, a system of purely natural morals as the highest ideal, and this it must do wholly in the exercise of its right of self-preservation. And this is only another form of expressing the highest ideal of paganism—the idea that the State is the highest ideal of ethics. And such is the highest ideal of ethics attained in the Boston Monday lectureship. Therefore, the ethics of the Boston Monday lectureship is essentially pagan.
And that is the idea, and such the ideal, to which it is proposed to pledge the American system of government by constitutional amendment establishing religion in the public schools. Are the American people ready to declare their government pagan, as the Boston Monday lecture-ship has declared itself? Are the American people ready to indorse by their votes the Boston Monday paganism, as did that “immense audience” at Tremont Temple, February 11, 1889, by its repeated and “loud applause”?
A. T. J.