COLONIAL TOPICS TOUCHED FROM THE PULPIT. RELIGION, MORALITY, AND POLITICS. (Sermon Preached By Rev. W. Bratty, M.A., At St. Paul's Church, Auckland, on Sunday Evening, 18th December, 1887.) A NATIONAL MESSAGE.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 239, 28 January 1888, Page 2

COLONIAL TOPICS TOUCHED FROM THE PULPIT. RELIGION, MORALITY, AND POLITICS. (Sermon Preached By Rev. W. Bratty, M.A., At St. Paul's Church, Auckland, on Sunday Evening, 18th December, 1887.)

A NATIONAL MESSAGE.

St John I. 23.— He sjid, " I am the voice of one crying: in the wilderness. JMako straight tho way of tho Lord, as said tho prophet Esuuia."

These contain the answer of St. Jolin the Baptist to tho theological doctors, iarho, with what seems very likoprofcsssional arrogance, had sent a deputation to examine .the strange preacher as to his person and authority. I think that, taken in conjunction with other accounts of his teaching, they suggest some thoughts worth dwelling on, for those of us at least, whoso presence in church is not a mere accident, or matter of form, but a proof that unseen and spiritual things are to us real and substantial verities. Let us mark, first of all, that the Baptist's message was a national one. The words of the great statesman-prophet, Isaiah, which he applies to himself, hud, as originally spoken, a national bearing. They form part of the marvellous song ot comfort and encouragement which the patriotseer addresses to his afflicted countrymen, assuring them that Jehovah would bring them back from tho exile that to them was -worse and bitterer than death, and urging them to prepare a way for the return ot' the remnant to their own land. Tho remnant tad returned, purified by the fire of sufferiog,cieansed for ever from the lust for gross idolatry, which had ruined their fathers ; they had taken root in Canaan once more, and flourished there. Bub subtler and therefore more dangerous sins than the old Idolatry had laid hold of them, spiritual pride, contempb for others, party spirit, "worship of the letter of their Scriptures, slavery to rites and ceremonies ; and in Sfc. John the Baptist's day Judea was in a far worse state, morally, spiritually and physically than in Isaiah's. The Baptist iiad been taught of God, that the King, of whom Isaiah and all the prophets had spoken, was now about to visit His people as Ho had never visited them before, and that he, John, was the King's herald to bid men prepare His way.

THE BIBLE. AND NEW ZEALAND. This language concerning a king of nations, concerning national sin, repent■juice, and reformation, is very familiar to us in the Scriptures, and perhaps seems to us not without meaning in their pages; but, as far as one can see, we have hardly more than the very faintest and dimmest conception that it has any real bearing on our life in New Zealand to-day. The Old Testament is, in the main, a history of the Jews. Where tbe narrative deals with individuals, it is almost always in their relation to the commonwealth. Not only kings and warriors are represented aB concerned in politics and public affairs, l»ut every single prophet, and not a few priests. The worst persecutions that the messengers of God suffered were aroused not because they preachedfalse doctrinesorgave offence to individuals, but because they took an unpopular bide in home or foreign policy. Oi this Isaiah and Jeremiah are notable examples. In the Psalms, those outbursts of love, devotion, ani adoration which, by the mercy of God, ttill form a large part of our daily service, and so do something to counteract the poi&onous effect of hymns, many of which are sentimental and mawkish, some silly and irreverent. In the Psalms we see at every turn how the writers looked on national affairs as sacred and spiritual, and how, whether in their cries of penitence or their raptures of praise, they always thought and felt ana worshipped as citizens of a divine commonwealth. To go to tho Old Testament, therefore, merely to call out " texts " and " promises " which seem to suit our own individual case, and help to make us feel happy and easy in our mind, is simply to misuse it. There is no privilege without corresponding responsibility, and if we j want to be able to take to ourselves the ! comfort and strength which are to be found in the words of David, for example, we must be ready to work and light, to pray and grieve for our country, as he did for his. St, John Baptist, then, showed himself the true .successor of the older prophets in addressing his message not to a few individuals, but to the whole nation ; not to Peter or Andrew or Philip as individuals, but as children of Abraham, members of the church and people that Jehovah had taken into covenant with Himself. ! Nor was the teaching of our Lord and Bis apostles different. Most, if not all, of the parables in the Gospel have primarily a national and secondarily an individual, and therefore universal application. This is notably so in the case of the marriage feast and the wicked husbandmen ; it is equally, though perhaps less obviously, true of the Prodigal Son, the rich man and Lazarus, and others. In the parable of the sheep and the goats we are expressly told that all •she nations are called before the King to be judged. If the death of Lazarus and his sisters' grief drew gentle tears of kindly sorrow from the Sou of Man, the thought of the destruction of tbe Jewish Church and State made Him burst into loud lamenta- i tions, and on the dolorous way to the cross ' He bids the women of Jerusalem lament, j not for His passion, terrible though it was, but for the woes unutterable which, before that generation passed away, should fall on their nation.

RELIGION AND PATRIOTISM. The Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter and St. James all show that they lived and felt and thought as patriots and citizens, while the Revelation to«8t. John is the sublimest philosophy of history that has ever been written, though theologians have done their best to degrade it into a collection' of puzzles and conundrums, and a topographi-cal-description of a Christiau Olympus and Tartarus. The New Testament, therefore, though settingforthanuniversaldispensation,acatholic church, which is to embrace the whole race, equally wi h the Old shows by its teaching that in the promise to Abraham, and in Christ's commission to His Apostles; the •words were not accidental, but carefully chosen. "In thee'and in thy seed shall' cm the.iiatiom.of the earfjh be blessed.". " Go ye and ' make , disciples of all the nation?) , baptizing them into the name of the Father and 'of the Sdri'and of the Holy Ghosfc." My friends, -I would most earnestly ask any of .yoy, , whom, my voice can reach, to consider* $ietljdi % ,'the "words of' s national Vfrfcaiifrgi '• direction^ *criatidnal promise, with ..which^the Bible teemsj haye^ any meaning *at,' alj for us. We,are apt to supposev ?Xhat.bthe*i Je^ws wete*' under' the -, govej.u{ ipenj; <and ; care ; pf G odi in 'an ©nti^ly •', ; r , qj.fiferon.t , sense-r 'fcovn.\ ) J.any- ■ otn'eV pfeople ; the, ' function, of jthjs Al&ig^h^ nb'wadays with' 1 rfega'rd;'tb" "men is xpisrfotically . ' limited'^; tytititf j '' c'all f Ba^a@jshf i|^oujpjl o^f>j^h«tJtwsS caliOslnd^J in^^i^ofie^afterJ^y die^tha.^ f&fi

efficient, continual* gove^nrrt'epb X>h every, nation and tribe anatfamiiy'and^omntfttnifeyj* as of every individual on the earth, has no existence save in some metaphorical sense, which is no sense at all.

THE PARSONS TO BLAME. No doubt we parsons ore greatly to blame for that sorb of thing. We have been busy justifying the slung name of. ".sky-pilots," which has been given v?'/ pointing j/he way to heaven, as we say, -•whatever that> means, instead of helping men to live honestly,' soberly, purely, joyfully, vigorously' 'on this beautiful arid blessed earth. ' We have beeii telling men that their main business is to " save their souls," i.e., to escape torture in hell, and secure a pleasant place in heaven, instead of stirring them up to work for God and their fellows at homo, in business, in poHties, in war if need be ; and so, for this generation at least, and possibly for two or three, we have emptied the Book we profess to expound of its deepest, and at the same time most obvious truth.

SELFISH AND IRRELIGIOUS. Moreover, tho circumstances and modes of thought of tho people of this colony are not such as to lialp them to understand this national aspect of the Bible. England has not colonised in tho same orderly and methodical manner as did Greece and Kome, sending out orgaui&ed bodies of citizens which contained all the component parts of a commonwealth, and founded a new Rome or a new Greece in other lands, bound to the mother country by ties of language, religion, constitution, and custom. Most of us come out here to make money. So far, so good j there is no harm in that. But unless not merely the Bible, but tho verdict of all human history be falte, a number of men associated merely for commercial purposes cannot form a nation, or even a community, which will endure for any length of time. Such an unsocial contract has never been consistently advocated as a national basis.even by a political economist, though one of our legislators whom we pay £200 a session for talking at Wellington not long ago made the statement, equally amazing to the Christian, the statesman and the philanthropist, that the State had nothing to do with the religion or the morals of tho people.

COMMERCIAL REVIVAL AND RELIGIOUS REVIVAL. If we are to live in this country and thrive, as we ought to do and may do, it will not and cannot be on the selfish principle of every man making it his first business to get money and property for himself. "Every man for himself" means', not " God," but the devil " for us all." Will it make our work Jess diligent, less earnest, less hopeful, if wo believe, as the old Jew did, that this land baa not been won by our own force or skill or wisdom, but has been given to us by God, the God of our fathers, who has blessed, de» fended, punished, saved our nation, and done many ** noble works in our fathers' days and in the old time before them ?" Suppose that this idea of national responsibility to God, national covenant with Him, and national unity ivere realised in New Zealand, would it be the better or the worse for the colony even in material things ? Would a man grab land and keep back the thorough settlement of the country if he believed that the land was God's, whose is the earth and the fulness thereof ? Would a man cheat the public if he realised that in so doing ho was cheating God? Would a man extort from the poor, the ignorant, the defenceless (and black villainies of that kind are done every week if not every day in Auckland, and winked at) if he believed that the just and righteous Judge, the Eternal Friend of the weak and oppressed, was at his elbow, and would call him to account in this world as well as in another? Would there be the contemptible jealousy between different towns and districts, the desire of each place to secure something for itself from the country's funds, if we believed that from North Cape to Invercargill the bounds of our habitation have been marked out by God to the end that we might live and work and rejoice together as one people in His sight? Would the question of religious eiucation, which is at present perplexing, bewildering and dividing us, be insoluble, or even difficult, if we j once learned to believe that, the State is a j spiritual body no less than the Church, that i ho State has ever existed for any time without a religious basis, and no Church has ever been more than a sectarian faction j which has not recognised the divine and sacred character of the State ?

COLONIAL PROBLEMS. My friends, if my poor words can gain the attention of any, let me say that we have in this colony some serious problems to work out. One is how feelings of loyalty, enthusiasm, and devotion to the commonwealth can be fostered, andindividuality of i thought and character with all rightful freedom of private action maintained at the same time. Another is, how the apparent contradictions, or, at any rate, the want of harmony between our religious and. our public Jife can be removed. I believe that the study of the Bible, especially of the lives and words of j the prophets, and of the Book of Deuteronomy, will indicate the solution of those problems. Only first we must give up our notion that the chief end of map in this life is to make money, and secondly, we must give tip our notion that the main business of man in the next life is to play on a harp and wear a golden crown in a place called heaven, and that the Bible is a sort of Bradshaws guide-book by which we can get there.

•RELIGION VERSUS MORALITY. Another point about the' Baptist's message is his stern teaching of morality. There were religious gossips and gad-abouts with " itching ears " in Judea then as there are in Auckland jidw, but the young priest in the wilderness had nothing to tell 'them that they could call " nice " and " beautiful " and "sweet," bub an assertion in plain strong words that what was useless would soon be cut down, what was rotten "would be burnt up, a command to 1 mend their ways, be honest, gentle, kind, contented. My friends, religious people have made a divorce between religion and'inorality, and said, " If we have religion, we don't want morality." Moral people with much more excuse have retorted, "We must have morality, and, if you can have your religion without morality, we can have our morality without religion." An old contest, my friends, yet one w,hich is .ever. new, and which earnest men .on jkhe, moral,, side are waging to-day more "strenuously than evor. The Baptist f says neither one thing' nor the other, but grounds hia oall to purity of life -on the fact that the King was 'come— -ttie Ivipg who,, pure and Righteous Himself, would ljavo'm,en to^be so tdo\ and, mote'- 1 oVei'i was able to makert-hem 50,, -to baptize theniwitha Poly^Spirib 'and wifchva'ftoe/ ■vYKich/fihQujdjrejGie^ 'and^purgeothem;- afid* v their,, .dross/. uT,he-sBaptist "disciple, St; boretlresame testin^pny,-^' l£e ; tl}at dofith righteousness is'rig^eousj^yeias Hetfs righteous:/' tifMy* litt|e > '.ch^dr(B j n^o.lefe ue^pofciloyeiiiDwojfiiiV hßitiier.ih^ng'U^^Ji in deed. lf <." 'fH&ybo 4cvC!s.jGoa rjshaU) r j5haU) -alfeo.^^ tOW|'silhyin* .goddi'in' w I - *"" * ■ ;.h&sMw & . »«m.v «w»*»*-* «* <c -» >;

of -WidSWrKfei; «al tone been kept up unless their morality was grounded on what they believed to be the will of God. . r

A tfBIISONAL APPEAL. St. John's message was of a Person, a Kin}?. He himself was a voico, a cry, lost in the utterance. He did ngt want to gather diecipiW to himself, buPto point all men, to ttfejiTuting. He hacUhota Bystoni, of doctrine to lay down, but a Person to proclaim/ My 7 , friends, if out* preaching' simply %tuffs "your minds itfibh words: and phrasos that you can repeat and wrangle' about, if it makes you think of us and what we said and how we said it, then it is useless ; we had better give up. If it helpß you to see, and lovo, and trust, and follow and obey Christ, who, whether you know and heed it or not, is your King, and Friend, and Saviour, and the King, and Friend, and' Saviour of all' men ; then our words and ourbelves .may - pass out of your memory, but we have not spoken in vain. Think, I pray you, of the blessed message which Christmas brings, of the love and goodness and humbleness of God, of His utter care for men, of the glory which the Word made flesh has brought to our common manhood, of the message of peace and goodwill brought by the, birth of Hnn t who is Son of the Father, and in whom all men are sons, who is the Son of Man, and !in whom all' men are brothers. Think of Him, and ask Him to help you by true re] pentance, by well-doing, by kindness, to propareHis way in your hearts and homes, in your town, your Church, your nation, and in the world.