Living in Revolutionary Times – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The following is the text of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s address at the 1975 Puritan Conference, entitled ‘The Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times’: The French Revolution and After. This address appears in The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors.

Our object in studying this subject of the Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times has a very practical intent. We have not considered this matter in a theoretical manner for the simple reason that we are in the midst of such a situation ourselves. I have thought several times during the conference of a friend who was many times in this very room in recent years, Josef Ton a Baptist pastor in Romania, who is in the midst of the fiery furnace, if one may use such an expression, at the present time, and also a colleague of his, Prof. Valish Talosh who is professor of history in the Baptist Seminary in Bucharest. These men are already in this very situation.

The former periods of which we have been hearing were revolutionary times like ours, but as we have been seeing, each period tends to have its own special features. So if we want to consider this subject in a practical manner we have to bring it up to date; and it has fallen to my lot to do that very thing. We cannot stop even at the American War of Independence and the Declaration of Independence. We must go on beyond that; and so my title is ‘The French Revolution and After.’

My whole thesis is to show that something entirely new emerged, and came into being, with the French Revolution. It is one of those great turning-points in history comparable to the Reformation – not in the same way, of course, but quite as defin­itely a turning-point as was the Protestant Reformation. I start by saying that it was something which was essentially different both from the rebellion and revolution in England in the seventeenth century and also from what happened in America in 1775–76.

This new thing that came to expression in the French Revolution can be traced to a number of influences, particularly in France. It was the age of the so-called Enlightenment. The man who played a very prominent part in that was Diderot. He edited what was called an Encyclopaedia in thirty-five volumes, between 1751 and 1780, which was meant to cover the whole of knowledge, a complete conspectus of life. He was aided in this by many men but in particular by two men. The first was Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau is vital to any consideration of the French Revolution. He was a voluminous writer and an undoubted genius. He published a number of books that had a profound effect on the thinking of the French people. In a book on education in 1762 he said that education was to be based entirely on natural instincts, and was to be entirely free from every competing influence of society, and especially the church. He introduced a rational view of everything. He discounted revelation and all revealed religion. He believed in a kind of natural religion based upon feeling and an experience of God; and he denounced any belief in a supernatural revelation. Then came his famous book called The Social Contract. In this book his argument is that the laws of the state are not of divine appointment and are not based upon Divine law but upon ‘the will of the people.’ We know about the view of John Locke and others but there is something that is quite new here. Those men, after all, were deists. But we now reach a point when that is no longer the case in these matters. These Frenchmen held a very optimistic view of human nature, and they refused to take the Christian revelation, and especially as regards salvation, seriously. The basis of society, they said, is to be that the members of the society are to agree to a social pact, not under God, but among men themselves. There had been an acknowledgment of God so far, but now that had ended. Men are to combine for freedom and for just government in the interests of the majority. That was essentially the teaching of The Social Contract. Then came Voltaire, who was much more violent that Rousseau, and very violently anti-Catholic and ‘anti’ all Christian dogma.

These two men had a tremendous effect upon the whole outlook of the French people. They were living under the government of their dissolute kings – it was a tyranny and all that resulted from that. These new ideas came in, and at the same time Jean Astruc – the father of Higher Criticism, and, I regret to say, a physician – introduced his teaching. That introduced a yet more direct attack upon the authority of the Bible. Men had more or less, in a general way, accepted the Bible and its teaching, but now all this began to be queried. All these tendencies worked together. In other words man became the centre, not God. Not only in matters connected with the state but also in matters of religion. Reason is supreme, not revelation. The idea of the ‘sovereign people’ came in, and all this led in 1789 to the Revolution and the great slogan of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity.’ This referred not only to political but also social matters and the whole of life; and so you get the beginning of the French Revolution. There were other elements, other strands. The teaching of Kant worked in this same direction. And in this country there was Thomas Paine who wrote his famous book The Rights of Man.

All this led to the French Revolution. It was a phenomenon that in a sense shook the world. At first most intelligent people welcomed it. In this country, for instance, it was eagerly welcomed by people like Coleridge and Wordsworth. One cannot really understand Wordsworth’s poetry apart from the French Revolution, especially such expressions as ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.’ The Prelude gives the history, and frequent references to the Revolution are found in other poems. These men, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others, really believed that this was the dawn of a new era – not the millennium in the biblical sense, but in their sense a kind of millennium. Men were going to be set free from all restraints and shackles, and a great new world was going to develop. However, it did not last very long. These men soon became disillusioned. The ‘reign of terror’ followed in France, and that in turn led to the dictatorship under Napoleon. That disillusioned Coleridge and Wordsworth and others and caused them to revert to their former views. John Wesley denounced the Revolution from the very beginning, and prophesied that this was going to be the introduction of ‘the time of the end.’ William Wilberforce, the leader in the cause for the abolition of slavery, regarded it with absolute horror. So there was a reaction against it in this country.

Coming to the nineteenth century we find the popular teaching of the German philosopher, Hegel, with its new view of history. It rejected the view that God guides history and taught that there is a dialectical process which governs history – thesis and antithesis producing a new synthesis. This changed people’s view of history altogether; and they believed that this dialectical process produced inevitable progress. This obviously meant that there was an entirely new attitude towards the church, the State, man, everything; indeed there was a complete new view of life. Hegel, in turn, was followed by a man whom he had influenced, Karl Marx, whose teaching is essential to an understanding of our own century. Whatever we may think of his views, Karl Marx was an extremely able man who thought about these problems very deeply, both political and social. In a sense his central thesis was the inevitability of revolution, and that the course of human history had followed a certain dialectical pattern which would lead on inevitably to the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ This was inevitable. So this stimulated men to think about revolution. There were, of course, many variations among his followers as to the details of the teaching. Some tended to say that as this process was inevitable then there was no need for us to do anything. Others taught that we can hasten the process, we can help it along. The result of all this was that the nineteenth century in many ways was the century of revolution. We came very near to revolution several times in this country. There was unrest in the Manchester area, the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ of 1819 being long remembered. There were revolutions on the Continent in 1830, and very nearly a revolution in this country. Many like Macaulay held the view that if the Reform Bill which was passed in 1832 had not been passed, undoubtedly there would have been a revolution in this country. But the year of revolution was 1848 when there were revolutions in many countries on the continent.

All this was the result of this entirely new thinking that had gained currency. It was an attack on all established institutions, including the church and the state. It meant the rejection of all authority and the setting up of ‘the sovereign people,’ and their reason and understanding, as the arbiters in these matters.

I

We must now look at the way in which people reacted to all this. We have already seen that in this country, at first, people reacted against it. There is the oft-quoted statement of Halévy that the Methodist Awakening of the eighteenth century undoubtedly saved this country from a revolution such as that experienced in France. This country was cautious, and I believe there is much in what Halévy said. I would add to that that there was also the influence of the history of what had happened in the seventeenth century. After all, we had had a revolution in the seventeenth century; and you will remember that there was a reaction against that. The restoration of Charles II cannot be understood except in terms of a disillusionment with the Commonwealth period, and a feeling that government was impossible without some kind of a head, preferably a king. That introduced a note of caution and carefulness into the thinking of this country. The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 and the passing of the Bill of Rights in 1689 establishing a constitutional monarchy produced a settled order. So the tendency in this country right through the nineteenth century was to turn to political reform. The controlling belief was that you must have progress with order.

While that was true of the main church bodies and leaders it was not true of many of the followers. While most of the leaders of Methodism were really rank Tories, many of the Methodist people turned to Chartism, the teaching of Robert Owen and others, and became actively interested in Trade Unions. They believed and felt that the people had a right to liberate themselves from the tyranny and oppression under which not only industrial workers but also farm labourers suffered. So they entered into these movements of reform. Sometimes there was violence such as was seen in the Luddite activities, and the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs; but on the whole the prevailing view was that which trusted to liberalism and reform. In brief I think that that is a fairly accurate picture of what happened in this country.

I turn now to something extremely interesting; to me, the most interesting reaction of all to the French Revolution. It was what took place in Holland. Here I call attention to a fascinating and most important man whose name was Groen Van Prinsterer. He was on all counts a most remarkable man. Born in very comfortable circumstances, he was trained in law and philosophy and history. He became secretary to the king, and eventually secretary to the cabinet. He had been brought up in a nominal religious atmosphere – the religion of his parents – and he was quite satisfied with it. He was sent on one occasion to do business for the king and the government to Brussels, and there he met and came under the influence of Merle d’Aubigné, the great historian of the Protestant Reformation. Under this influence – and that of the whole movement known as the Reveil which had started in Switzerland under Robert Haldane who had gone to live out there, and who influenced some students – Groen Van Prinsterer’s life was entirely changed. D’Aubigné was one of the people who was converted under that movement, and he happened to be in Brussels when Groen went there, and as a result of that meeting he was truly converted in 1828. This, of course, profoundly affected his whole view of politics and of everything else, and as he continued to think deeply he became increasingly a first-class historian. But he could not be content with being an academic historian. He felt that he must become involved also in politics. And the more he thought the more he saw the dangerous character of the French Revolution and all that it had introduced. The result of this was that he published a great book in 1847 with the title Unbelief and Revolution. It is a book of fifteen chapters, only one of which has so far been translated into English, namely, chapter eleven. I am glad to be informed by friends who are in this conference that two further chapters are on the verge of being published in English, and I do hope that some of our publishers will take this up and see that eventually the whole of this great book is published in English. Notice that it was published in 1847, the year before the many revolutions which took place in 1848.

In order to indicate Groen Van Prinsterer’s viewpoint let me quote his own words as they are translated into English. Writing about the French Revolution he says, ‘As respects theoretical origin and course, the Revolution cannot be compared with any occurrences of former times. Change of rulers, re-allocation of authority, change of forms of government, political controversy, many a difference of religious conviction – all these have, in principle, nothing in common with a social revolution whose nature is directed against every government, against every religion; with a social, or rather yet an anti-social revolution which undermines and destroys morality and society; with an anti-Christian revolution whose chief idea develops itself in systematic rebellion against the God of revelation. So Stahl: ‘I take the Revolution in its world-historical idea. It did not exist in its complete form before 1789. But since then it became a world power and the battle for or against it fills history.’ ‘The Revolution is a unique event. It is a revolution of beliefs; it is the emergence of a new sect, of a new religion; of a religion which is nothing but irreligion itself, atheism, the hatred of Christianity raised into a system.’

‘The revolution of the United Netherlands has been compared with it; also the revolution in North America. As respects the Netherlands I appeal to what I have often said, that “liberty of Christian exercise of religion was its chief object as oppression of the gospel was the chief cause of the war.” As respects America, I appeal to the remarkable work of Baird, who said: “In separating themselves from Great Britain and in reorganizing their respective governments, the United States modified their institutions much less than one would be able to expect there. King, parliament and Britannic justice were replaced for president, congress and the supreme court; but it was at bottom the same political system plus independence.” Still less may I recognize in the English revolutions a likeness of the French. If you find agreement between the revolutions of 1688 and 1789, read Burke on the similarity in outward appearance, the contrast in essence and principle. He says: “The present Revolution in France seems to me to be quite of another character and description and to bear little resemblance or analogy to any of those which have been brought about in Europe upon principles merely political. It is a revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma.” Even with 1640, with the democratic tendency and with the tyranny of Cromwell, no comparison can be allowed in its chief conception. Says Tocqueville: “Nothing could be more dissimilar … In my opinion the two events are absolutely not to be compared.” And Stahl remarks: “The liberty of England and of America is permeated with the breath of the Puritans, the liberty of France is permeated with the breath of the Encyclopaedists and the Jacobins.”’

There we see Van Prinsterer’s essential point of view and his teaching. He did his best to propagate these views but he was very much a voice crying in the wilderness. But he was able to form, in a very embryonic manner, what became known as the Anti-Revolutionary Party. But fortunately another man arose, the great Abraham Kuyper, and Van Prinsterer soon recognized that Kuyper had public gifts which he himself lacked. Kuyper was a born orator, and a born statesman and eventually he became the Prime Minister of Holland. Groen Van Prinsterer brought Kuyper into the movement and soon handed it over to him; and so we know of, and tend to think of, Kuyper as the leader of the Anti-revolutionary Party, the Christian Party, and the many battles he fought in the political arena. Kuyper gave up being a minister of the church and eventually his professorship in the Free University which he himself had founded, in order to give himself to this political activity where he could introduce his Christian ideas and especially with regard to education. I wish I had time to go into all this thoroughly; but time only allows me merely to mention this most extraordinary and striking opposition to the whole principle of the French Revolution which took place in Holland. It did not take place in England; it did not take place in the United States of America; but in that little country it did. And there it stands as a great monument to the only real opposition to the whole notion behind the French Revolution.

Coming to this present century we find several striking events. Many of us, because these things were taking place in our own lifetime, do not realize what has been happening; but the Revolution in Russia in 1917 is a great landmark. The leaders of that Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky, claimed that they were putting into operation the theories and the teaching of Karl Marx. They have not done so; and it has been proved clearly that nothing could be further removed in a sense from the teaching of Marx, which advocates ultimately a class-less society and the end of all government, than the tyranny which we know exists in Russia and has done so for nearly sixty years. On the other hand, and at the other extreme, we have seen Mussolini and Fascism, and Hitler and Nazism. All these are essentially religious, as Van Prinsterer saw that the French Revolution was in reality a new religion, and not merely a political theory. There is an element of worship in them, and also an apocalyptic element. They are not merely political programmes, there is something much deeper and almost demonic. This is true of Fascism as well as of Communism.

These movements have had an effect and an influence in this country. Movements have arisen on what is termed the extreme Left and also the extreme Right; but until comparatively recently all this has taken a mainly political form. But when we come to the 1960s we are confronted by a new phenomenon. I refer to the appearance of what is known as ‘the theology of revolution’ or the ‘theology of liberation.’ This is an amazing phenomenon because it has mainly affected South America which is a Roman Catholic-dominated subcontinent. The movement has been led by various Catholics, the most prominent of whom was a Roman Catholic priest, Camilo Torres. He was actually killed in a gun battle as a guerilla fighter. Among his sayings was that ‘every Catholic who is not a revolutionary and is not on the side of revolutionaries, lives in mortal sin.’ An Archbishop of Brazil calls for the complete revolution of present structures on a socialist basis and without the shedding of blood. It is very interesting to observe that there have been these divisions in every century between revolutionaries who have believed in fighting and those who have said that you must not fight. Under the teaching of these men, and there are many others, conversion becomes ‘one’s commitment to the liberation of man from all sorts of oppression.’ The love of Jesus Christ becomes love for your neighbour. We are told that we meet God in an encounter with man, and so the division between the church and the world is reduced. We have seen elements of this in the notorious book Honest to God by John Robinson and others. Mission – this is their great word – becomes denunciation of, and a confronting of the present state of social injustice. In other words they teach that real Christianity means to liberate people from poverty, from political oppression and so on, and that the Christian church should be leading in this revolution.

What is particularly interesting is that this movement has mainly risen in the ranks of Roman Catholics. It is perhaps linked up with Pope John XXIII and his talk of liberation and various other ideas. This ‘theology of liberation’ has had considerable influence upon many of the leaders of the World Council of Churches. They have been discussing it recently at Nairobi. There are of course the two views again, but it is such an insistent emphasis that the leaders cannot ignore it; and there are many in this country and other countries who are interpreting the whole of the Bible in this way. But this teaching does violence to the whole notion of Christian salvation in a personal sense. According to it Christ came to set people free politically, socially, and then in other respects. They use the story of the liberation of the children of Israel from Egypt and their going to Canaan as the great illustration of this. This is what God wants and this is the great purpose of Christianity – to give people political and social liberty.

To sum up, we find that that which began in 1789 in France has spread world-wide and has been manifesting itself in these various ways. So by now we find ourselves in a world, and in a situation in society, in which men are asserting that they are the supreme authority. This expresses itself in this country in the attitude which says that, though Parliament may pass Acts, if we do not agree with them we need not observe them. The resulting lawlessness leads many people to ask the question: Is this country any longer governable? Can life and government continue when men cease to recognize any authority except what they think and what they believe? This is the state in which we find the world at the present time.

II

The question that arises therefore is, What are we to do in this situation? We have made this great review of history in this conference – what conclusions do we draw from it all? I start by making certain general statements which must of necessity take a very dogmatic form because of the limitation of time. The Christian is not only to be concerned about personal salvation. It is his duty to have a complete view of life as taught in the Scriptures. That is common to all the views that have been considered, apart from those which are non-religious, to which I have been referring. As far as the Christian is concerned – and that is what we are interested in now – we are not to be concerned only about personal salvation; we must have a world view. All of us who have ever read Kuyper, and others, have been teaching this for many long years. I must add, immediately, that it is equally clear, surely, from the study we have been making, that we all tend to be creatures of our times and much of our thinking is conditioned by the age in which we live. It is surely clear that this was true of the Reformers. It was true also of the Puritans. We must therefore be very careful not to follow slavishly anything that has been taught in the past. We are as responsible to God as the Reformers were, or as any Puritans were, and it is our business to interpret Scripture, as much as it was their duty to do so. We are not merely to be gramophone records of anyone who has lived in the past however august he may have been. That seems to me to be another inevitable conclusion.

Perhaps the thing that stands out most prominently is that what has bedevilled this whole question, and caused the greatest confusion throughout the centuries, has been the idea of a state church. That has been the greatest curse in the history of the church and of the world! This of course is seen especially in Roman Catholicism, in Eastern Orthodoxy in its various branches, and in Anglicanism – chiefly Anglicanism in this country. I suggest that this association between church and state has been responsible for many of the greatest calamities, directly, and also because of the violent reactions they have produced. We have seen how it produced such a violent reaction in France. It is very difficult to disentangle the antagonism to the king from the antagonism to the church. That was because they were one; and so when people revolt against the king they revolt against the church. That is what happened in France, and in Russia. The Russians had not only suffered under the tyranny of the Tsars – those dissolute men – but also under the tyranny of a foul creature like Rasputin, a priest, and the whole power of Russian Orthodoxy. So when they got rid of the one they got rid of the other also, because the two belonged together. And this is surely an acute problem both in Spain and in Portugal at the present time, and is likely to be an acute problem in Italy also and in various other countries.

III

Those are some of the very broad general conclusions at which we can arrive. Let me next suggest that there are certain dangers confronting us in this revolutionary situation, as they have confronted all who have been in it before us. There are three main dangers of which we have to be very wary. The first is that we must never allow ourselves as Christians to be thought of as mere defenders of the status quo. I put that first because historically it has been the greatest danger. Christianity has been equated with what has been termed the Establishment – king and church, king and bishop. This is the danger therefore of which we have to be very wary. Let me illustrate what I mean, because this has done grave harm to the Christian cause. Take the famous stanza written by Cecil Frances Alexander, the lady who wrote hymns such as ‘There is a green hill far away.’ It reads thus –

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate;
God made them high or lowly
And ordered their estate.

We have given the impression far too often, as Christians, that that is our standpoint. But were Luther and Calvin guilty of this? It was surely their danger because of their belief in law and order. Wesley and Whitefield were certainly guilty of this. They were both horrified at the possibility of rebellion in America, and we have to confess that the record of Whitefield as regards slavery was very poor indeed. How human and how fallible we are! Many also in America who from 1773 to 1776 and after spoke and fought so strongly for their own liberty as against England and the oppression that England was guilty of, did not seem to see that the same applied to the poor black slaves whom they continued to buy and sell and to employ for nearly a hundred years afterwards. This shows us the limits of human understanding. The same was true in Wales of some of the great religious leaders and preachers. We were celebrating in 1974 the bicentenary of the birth of John Elias. John Elias was a thoroughgoing Tory. He stood, as did most of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, for conservatism; and they opposed what was then called liberalism.

But this has been especially true of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout history you have had this alliance between Roman Catholicism and the king. It is interesting to observe how the Roman church, in a typical manner, changes her point of view from time to time according to changing circumstances. When the kings were in authority, they supported the kings and condemned revolutions; but when a revolution took place and another government came into power they justified rebellion against that government. The principle of ‘the just war’ could be manipulated to suit the exigencies of any particular situation! That has been prominent in the long story of Roman Catholicism; and that is what makes this new movement of ‘the theology of liberation’ so interesting. The same has been true of Orthodoxy, and also of Anglicanism. Is it not true that Anglicanism in the last century not only gave the impression, as has been said, of being ‘the Tory Party at prayer,’ but was also guilty of supporting the whole notion of colonialism? What is still more tragic is that the missionary enterprise was so often linked with colonialism and colonial ideas.

Whether you agree with the recent pronouncement of the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches or not, his assertion is true that this whole outlook, based upon the church-state idea, has been more productive of the problems of racialism confronting the new nations in Africa today than perhaps anything else. So we must be very careful not to give the impression that we are always on the side of the Establishment and the existing authorities. The Plymouth Brethren are by no means innocent in this respect. By regarding any participation in politics in any form as being the height of sin they inevitably landed themselves on the side of the status quo. The first Member of Parliament from among the Brethren told me and many others that he was more or less ostracised in his Brethren meeting because he had committed the terrible sin of taking part in politics. This shows how defective and contradictory our thinking can be. While they denounced a man for going into politics they never denounced men for going into the army. They gloried in the fact that certain of their members were generals and had had very high promotion. Are Evangelicals in the United States clear in this respect in their attitude to the coloured people? I have met some who base their whole attitude toward the coloured people on the fact that the latter are the descendants of Ham.

These are serious matters in a revolutionary age. Without our desiring to do so we can be jockeyed into a position in which we are regarded as mere defenders and advocates of the status quo. It is not insignificant, surely, that certain well-known evangelists are supported by numbers of millionaires, and that some of them in a recent presidential election even went so far as to propose that a certain evangelist might be put up as presidential candidate! They did this because of their political and economic interests. So, the impression has gained currency that to be a Christian, and more especially an evangelical, means that we are traditionalists, and advocates of the status quo.

I believe that this largely accounts for our failure in this country to make contact with the so-called working classes. Christianity in this country has become a middle-class movement; and I suggest that that is so because of this very thing. Nonconformity is by no means clear on this question. In the last century, and in this present century, far too often, as nonconformist men have got on in the world, and made money, and become managers and owners, they have become opponents of the working classes who were agitating for their rights. So it is as true of the nonconformists in this country as it is of the Anglicans and Roman Catholics and others. For some strange reason one of the greatest temptations to a man who becomes a Christian is to become respectable. When he becomes a Christian he also tends to make money; and if he makes money, he wants to keep that money, and resents the suggestion that he should share that money with others by means of taxation etc. Looking at history it seems to me that one of the greatest dangers confronting the Christian is to become a political conservative, and an opponent of legitimate reform, and the legitimate rights of people.

We must now turn to the second danger, which is the exact opposite. We always tend to go from one extreme to the other. In this conference, which has had to be selective, we have not considered the Levellers; but they were important people in the seventeenth century. The Levellers were not an accident. They played a prominent part in the debates held in Putney under the auspices of the army, and then in the later discussions that took place on these very matters in Whitehall as to how the country was to be governed, and what was to be done with the church. There were also the Fifth Monarchy Men, the Millenarians and many groups such as the Diggers in the seventeenth century. They did not belong to the mainline Puritans, but Cromwell – who was perhaps the most honest man in the seventeenth century, a man who strove to be true to his conscience above all others that I know of in political history – was ready to listen to them. He was torn between these various ideas, and his sympathies were on both sides. These men objected to the whole hierarchical view of life. They actually anticipated most of what is being demanded at the present time. They said that God was over all, even over kings and bishops. The individual soul and personal experience were of vital interest to them, and they claimed their right to express their opinions. The Methodist Awakening of the next century emphasized this also and stressed the importance of personal experience, and assurance of salvation – man and his standing before God. They taught a new notion of humanity and of the common people. They realized that they had brains; that is why they wanted to be taught to read and write. All this is inevitable, it is a natural outworking of true Christianity. So when you come to the nineteenth century you find that these Christian men were concerned about reform. In Sheffield the poet Ebenezer Elliott wrote in his moving manner –

When wilt thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men.

This was the spirit. Throughout the centuries the talk had been about thrones and crowns and kings; but it is men that matter, so these men were concerned about reform. The result was that Nonconformity in the nineteenth century became very interested in reform.

It is vital, however, that we should realize that it was mainly political reform that interested them. What they agitated for, and fought for, was political equality. Macaulay understood this. He was a very astute thinker. At the time of the Reform Bill, as I told you, he was very fearful that there might be a revolution. But the Reform Bill was passed, and he saw that the danger had gone, but he realized that it was but a temporary respite. He said that the agitators were satisfied for the time being because they had the vote. They were being given more political equality. But he saw, and said, that the real problem, the ultimate problem would arise when the masses asked for economic equality and complete economic freedom. I suggest that we have already reached that particular point.

So Nonconformity, on the whole, in this country was content during the nineteenth century with political reform and political freedom. Today this concern is represented partly by the recent movement which emphasizes ‘The cultural mandate,’ and teaches that it is our primary duty as Christians to see that the lordship of Christ is exercised in every realm and department of life – in drama, art, literature, politics, in Trade Unions and in every other respect. Finally, there is this movement teaching the ‘theology of liberation or revolution.’ In practice in most countries, including ours, the latter is showing itself as a spirit of lawlessness. It is a defiance even of laws passed by the majority, and at times defiance of the guidance and instruction given by their own appointed leaders. The legitimate desire for reform has tended to give way to a spirit of revolution and lawlessness.

The third danger is to advocate complete other-worldliness. I have already dealt with that by emphasizing that it is the duty of the Christian always to be concerned about these matters and to have a world view.

IV

What, then, are we to do in the light of all this? What has this conference taught us? It was designed to help us to face the revolutionary position in which we find ourselves. The first and most obvious lesson must be that there is no blueprint in this matter. We have been hearing how great men, men of God, men who were concerned above all else about exposition of Scripture, exegesis and interpretation, differed and disagreed. We have heard of the different points of view, and disagreements; and we are left to face the position for ourselves, very much as they were. We have the advantage of knowing what they thought and said, whether we think it was right or wrong; but we certainly do not have any ready-made solution.

So, we must go back to the Scripture and attempt to summarize its teaching. The first is, that the New Testament never advocates revolution, but rather the reverse. Take the attitude to slavery for instance. Surely it is of importance at this point. Notice that the New Testament when dealing with this did not denounce slavery as such, or try to put an end to it. Its approach is illustrated in the Epistle to Philemon, for instance, where the apostle Paul makes a spiritual appeal and urges that the slave, though still remaining a slave, should now be regarded as a brother and a brother beloved. There is no broadside attack upon institutions such as slavery. Still more significant, surely, is the symbolical character of the Apocalypse, the book of Revelation, where the situation is dealt with quite deliberately in a symbolic manner in order that the Christians might receive comfort and help and enlightenment, but without aggravating the position, or adding to their sufferings, by a denunciation of the worldly and religious powers that were opposed to them and persecuting them. A fair reading of the New Testament leaves us with that impression, that Christianity is not a revolutionary movement in the sense that this new theology of revolution or liberation would have us believe. That is entirely contrary to the New Testament teaching. On the other hand, the Christian is represented as ‘salt’ in society and ‘leaven,’ and surely the whole point of those comparisons is that Christian influence is to be a quiet influence and a slow process of influencing society.

In the light of that principle it seems to me that we can justify the attitude of Luther and Calvin at the time of the Reformation as over and against that of the Anabaptists. Is it not true to say that, in the situation that obtained at that time, and remembering especially the views of the state, and the relation between the church and the state then held commonly, that Luther and Calvin probably saved the Protestant Reformation. That was surely the motive that governed their attitude to the Anabaptists and to the Peasants’ Revolt.

The seventeenth century, I would suggest, was mainly a political revolution. While the ministers, the preachers, were involved for spiritual reasons, it was essentially, and mainly a political revolution. It can be argued that the ideas entered the minds of the politicians through the preachers and their teaching. I would accept that, but I would still maintain that the revolution itself was primarily political. I would venture to say that the American War of Independence was mainly political also. The great influx in the population of which we heard had a great deal to do with it, and in spite of the influences on the part of the preachers the whole outlook leading to the war was essentially a political one.

Nothing is clearer from the history than that there is tension always between liberty and order. This is the great problem. Am I right when I suggest that the danger of Calvinism is always to overstress order? Order has to be stressed, the danger is to over-stress it. Arminianism over-stresses liberty. It produced the laissez-faire view of economics, and it always introduces inequalities – some people becoming enormously wealthy, and others languishing in poverty and in destitution. That outlook, which is essentially Arminian, always leads to a reaction – chaos first, then a violent reaction ending in a dictatorship on either the right or the left.

Another general remark at this point is that a lack of political and social concern on the part of Christians can very definitely alienate people from the gospel and the church. I hasten to add, on the other hand, that a demonstration of great interest in political and social matters never succeeds in attracting people to Christianity. The history of the past proves that conclusively. Christopher Hill says that there were two revolutions in the seventeenth century. The one he is most interested in, the political and social, he says failed. The Restoration of Charles II proves that. At the same time it is clear that the attempt to reform people by Acts of Parliament has always failed; and the state of the world today proves that that cannot succeed. It is pathetic, not to say ludicrous, to notice the way in which certain modern Evangelicals, who seem to have started reading some ten or twelve years ago, after having spent their time exclusively in evangelistic activities, are now rushing their ill-digested reading into print, and seem to think that they are innovators in saying that we should all be taking an interest in politics and social matters. They do not seem to have heard of the ‘social gospel’ craze of the earlier part of this century. All this has been tried with great thoroughness. I well remember certain men who were concerned about social and political matters, and who constantly preached on such themes, and packed their chapels for a while, but only as long as they preached politics. The moment they began to preach the gospel truly the crowds left them. Politically-minded people are always ready to make use of the church, but they always abandon and shun her when she ceases to be of any value to them.

We must always remember these two aspects. If we give the impression that we have no concern about political and social matters we shall alienate people; and I suggest that we have done so, and so the masses are outside the church. On the other hand, if we think we are going to fill our churches and solve our problems by preaching politics and taking an interest in social matters we are harbouring a very great delusion.

V

What then is our position? We start from the position that the Christian citizen is a man who says that his citizenship is in heaven. ‘Our citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil. 3:20). Christ said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The Christian’s primary concern must always be the kingdom of God, and then, because of that, the salvation of men’s souls. The Christian is a ‘pilgrim and a stranger.’ He is a traveller and a sojourner in this world. Those are preliminary assumptions.

At this point I ask a question: Does eschatology come in at this point? I believe it does. The Christian, if he is at all instructed must have a view of history. The Bible has a view of history. There is a Christian view of history, and surely it is that everything is leading to an end. There is a development and a progress in history, and it is all leading up to ‘that one far off divine event to which the whole creation moves’ – our Lord’s Second Coming. This is basic to the whole of the New Testament teaching. It ends with, ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’ The main function of government and of culture and of all these agencies is mainly to restrain evil, to make life possible, and indeed to introduce an element of enjoyment into life. That all comes under common grace, but that ultimate great event dominates everything. And I believe that if we are to face our particular age truly we have to face that question. Remembering all the warnings against being concerned about the ‘times and seasons,’ and as one who has been emphasizing that for nearly fifty years, I ask whether there are not indications that we may be in ‘the end of time.’ Are we reaching the ultimate stage? The sign of being in that ‘time,’ I would suggest, is the worship of man. The number of man, 666! Are we reaching that? Is not democracy bound of necessity to lead to that ultimately? The moment democracy loses any kind of biblical sanction it is bound to lead to the worship of men and the setting up of men as the ultimate power over against God, and indeed as god. We are in an age when man is being worshipped. ‘Man come of age,’ ‘Man come into his own,’ Man claiming even to be now in the position to exercise the ‘powers of the Creator’ as a Cambridge professor put it a year or two back. These are the characteristic phrases of today. And we are witnessing anti-God movements and a whole world attitude of anti-God. Not only so, the Turkish Empire has been destroyed, and the Jews are in Palestine. How difficult it is for us to understand how the Puritans could think that England was the elect nation. England is not the elect nation. God’s ancient people are the elect nation. That nation because of its disobedience was put on one side, and Christ said that God was going to give the kingdom to ‘a nation that bringeth forth the fruits thereof’ – the church. But he has not abandoned his ancient people. So, it seems to me, there are certain signs which should at least make us think. I find them to be of great comfort as we face the confusion and the chaos of the present time. Are we not also perhaps beginning to witness a crumbling and a final destruction of the Roman Catholic Church? I do not know. But it is our business as Christians to keep our eyes open. We are exhorted to do so. We are exhorted to expect certain signs by our Lord in his last great addresses.

VI

So I come to my final conclusion. I suggest we are back in New Testament times again. A whole era began to come to an end with the French Revolution in 1789. We are now back to the New Testament position; we are like the New Testament Christians. The world can never be reformed. Never! That is absolutely certain. A Christian state is impossible. All the experiments have failed. They had to fail. They must fail. The Apocalypse alone can cure the world’s ills. Man even at his best, even as a Christian, can never do so. You can never make people Christians by Acts of Parliament. You can never christianize society. It is folly to attempt to do so. I would even suggest that it is heresy to do so. Men must be ‘born again.’ How can they live the Christian life if they have not become Christians? Good fruit can only come from a good tree, a good root; and the idea that you can impose a Christian life or culture upon non-Christian people is a contradiction of Christian teaching. Nevertheless, government and law and order are essential because man is in sin; and the Christian should be the best citizen in the country. But as all are sinful, reform is legitimate and desirable. The Christian must act as a citizen, and play his part in politics and other matters in order to get the best possible conditions. But we must always remember that politics is ‘the art of the possible’; and so the Christian must remember as he begins that he can only get the possible. Because he is a Christian he must work for the best possible and be content with that which is less than fully Christian. That is what Abraham Kuyper seems to me to have done. I have recently read the life of Kuyper again and it is clear that his enactments as Prime Minister and head of the government were almost identical with the radicalism of Lloyd George. They were two very different men in many ways but their practical enactments were almost identical. The chief respect in which they differed was in their view of education.

I now come to what, to me, in many ways is the most important matter of all. I suggest that this is the main conclusion at which the conference should arrive. The Christian must never get excited about reform, or about political action. That raises for me a problem with respect to the men of the seventeenth century and other times. It is that they should have become so excited about these matters. I would argue that the Christian must of necessity have a profoundly pessimistic view of life in this world. Man is ‘in sin’ and therefore you will never have a perfect society. The coming of Christ alone is going to produce that. The Christian not only does not get excited, he never pins his hopes to Acts of Parliament, or any reform or any improvement. He believes in improvement, but he never pins his hopes to it, he never gets excited or over-enthusiastic; still less does he become fanatical or bigoted about these matters.

Another principle of great importance at a time such as this is that there is no point in changing one form of tyranny for another. There is also no point in fighting against impossible odds. So in many countries today the Christian can do nothing but indulge in passive resistance, and he must continue in that until a point arrives that his government tries to interfere with his relationship to God, or his worship of God. His resistance must then become an active resistance. But should he live in a country where a large number of people are agreed about reform and improvement, and that seems possible, I would say that it is his duty to join them and to belong to them. But he must never be foolish or foolhardy. He must be passive in his resistance until he feels that it is possible to produce the desirable form.

So the Christian is left with this profound pessimism with regard to the present, but with a glorious optimism with regard to the ultimate and the eternal future.

How does he live in the meantime? He must heed the great exhortations of the Scripture, and at a time such as this our Lords’ exhortation is – ‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man’ (Luke 21:34-36). That is our supreme duty, and I suggest that the primary function of preachers at the present time is to constantly urge that exhortation upon their people. We are not to get excited about the ‘christianizing’ of art or politics or anything else, imagining that you can do so. Exhort people to be ready and prepared; warn them. This surely is the primary business of the preacher at a time like this.

As for the people, they are to act according to their consciences at all times. Ultimately we cannot dictate to another man as to what he is to do. Niemoller in Germany defied Hitler and was sent to prison. Another Christian, Erich Sauer did not do so, and was able to continue with his ministry. We get this difference constantly. A man like Hromodka a Czechoslovakian, was able to justify himself as a Christian preacher and professor in a communist country, whereas other people spend most of their time in denouncing communism. I suggest that our overriding concern should always be our relationship to God, and our looking for, and longing for the coming of Christ. That is the only answer. Man has reached the ultimate. He can no longer be persuaded. He has gone beyond that and worships himself. I can see nothing beyond the present position. Democracy is the ultimate and highest human idea of government but because of man’s fallen sinful nature it must lead to lawlessness and chaos.

Little can be done to arrest this or prevent it; so we look to this ‘glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour,’ and in the meantime we do our utmost to open the eyes of our fellow men and women to what is coming to them. They are entitled to liberty and freedom; but, still more important, they have to meet God and stand before him in judgment.

So I end by saying that we must live as the early Christians did. In the final analysis, to the Christian what do all these things matter? What is your life, the life about which we get so excited and are ready to fight, and to agitate, and to quarrel and to divide. ‘What is your life? It is but a vapour.’ ‘In this tabernacle we do groan being burdened,’ and we shall continue to do so until the King comes, and ‘the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.’