The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-08-16
Gods Paternal Government-Mr. Beecher's
Views as TO a Personal God.
New Yark wscLd. June I'M

~H 49, 10y
We; our Father which art IN heaven" Mr..
Beecher continued as follows Who may saw
this prayer? Is IL a prayer limited 20 the use OF
the se~ctarian, or Is It universal? May IL be en-
ployed by every one that desires to approach
God? Il it his title? Does 1t. as far a. any,
thing can, set forth the true and whole nature Of
God 70 which our thoughts must address them
selves? Have we a right 10 determine the gov
eminent of GOd-the divine nature and proyi-
dence of GOd-from a title such as this? In our
time, no subject is more in mems minds than the
meet bounds and true nature of that government
under which We live and by which We are beng
fashioned for the other and higher life. All gov
eminent depends for Its nature and efficacy upon
the character Of the supreme governor from whose
will proceeds the laws. To ascertain the true
nature Of God, the true nature Of the divine
government. tasks mems curiosity, and some
thing better than that, their whole moral nature.
just in proportion a. they are developed and
grow strong-for when men are low and unsensi-
tive 1t seems unlmp0rtant 70 them, but when by
culture and divine grace men have unfolded the
faculties of the soul 70 feel the power of truth
1t becomes more and more a question of import
ance what shall become of them, and they can
not afford to make shipwreck. This is a universal
prayer-the Oldest and the youngest, the best
and the worst, the cultured and best developed,
and the savage just putting one foot before the
other in his upward path-all may draw near to
God by this sacred affirmation. But have we no
AAhHb " ~ AlA1iC ALADCILCNL GOuQlIlOus.
considering the imperfect conditions in which the
moral emotions and personal affections are devoted
IN this life considering how much below we are
by reason of our material formation, how much
therefore is relative and how much Of false there
Is in our way of life from our weakness? Con-
slderIng all this, have we u right to determine the
divine nature by any such figure as fatherhood
among men? That there is i great deal to be
thrown out, that there is a great deal in the life
and history of every parent that can not be EN-
ployed as material to interpret the divine nature,
all will admit but the substantive nature of
man, his affectional, his moral nature are the
alphabetical elements from which he can spell
out something of the divine nature. To say that
moral of man are not like Gods in
kind that deity differs from humanity that
truth with us is u different thing from truth in
God that moral discrimination are different not
IN variety and accuracy, but in kind that
thought-power In man differs from thought
power in GOd-to assert this is to say that men
have been deceived. We have been deceived if
those only elements by which We can form n con-
ception of God are not true and valid and real.
| attempt, taking the best actions of the best
men-l undertake to guide myself into that
which is just and right and perfect but if these
are false then l am beguiled and l cannot inter
pref the divine nature. L throw my prayers into
darkness; the being that l fashioned to myself
may or may not be such. What would be
thought of that government that should vote
taxes of so many dollars upon every mans prop
erty TO leave men to suppose that the measure of
taxes was interpreted by the term, until the time
came for paying them, when it would be found
that the government put a different value upon
the dollar from that commonly accepted or if it
made a contract for lumber or stone, and then
defined those articles to be something entirely
different and so with regard to the qualities we
worship as divine. We assert that it is Just to
argue from the fatherhood of man the fatherhood
of God. In the family the children are connected
with the parent by like nature and actual descent;
they are, it may be said, an extension of the
parent. The family is made up thus of parents
and children, and it has its own economy it is a
little separate kingdom of its own; it has its
aims it undertakes to rear children to manhood,
from weakness and Ignorance and so to harmonic
that from which it shall reap the greater strength
and the greatest amount of happiness, and it
therefore has its rules, its right and its wrong; it
is a little commonwealth, with pains and penal
ties, punishments and rewards, seeking the COM
mon good of the whole. They must be separate
there, all cannot be equal and alike; there must
be Obedience and the means of enforcing it. In
every family the government ranges from the
lowest to the highest form of government-that
IS, every paternal government has in itself some
thing OF three kinds of government every family
government has in it physical coercion the child
cannot do what he has a mind to; if the child
would run into the fire the mother restraints it
If 1T would take poison the father interferes the
child has to be cared for it must be clothed and
dressed while in infancy, and the physical nature
is governed as experience has taught us to govern
1t but besides that there is in every family GOV
eminent, in the father and mother, a kind of
magistracy and yet it is the affection of the father
that gives to both OF these their qualities and
gives to it its name of paternal government,
which includes in it physical power, magisterial
power, and love power. Second, they are related
to the common good, seeking it altogether. The
father and mother are Superior; yet this takes
nothing from the children the sovereignty of the
father and mother neither breaks the child's will
nor stands in the way of its freedom, but is in
fact the ground on which the child learns to
become free. Third, love is the ruling principle.
Every father and mother governs for the sake of
the family; their idea is that the children are to
be reared Alright that in any amount of thought
and pains and care, or even suffering, for the
rearing of children that is to be expended, love is
to be the fountain of all the other clements, and
this is, as we read the household, paternal gov
eminent. This view Is entirely consistent with
the view of the divine government. Just now
many men are drifting into the idea that there is
no other government in the world but one of law
and order, that our whole duty consists in finding
out just what are the laws of our condition, and
that that is as near God as we can come. Men
are beginning to scout the idea of God, or they
say he is some form of all creation. The total of
all the globe is the framework of deity, and this
is Pantheism. Men, finding that life depends
upon a compliance with the laws of health, are
coming more and more to feel that perhaps after
all too great emphasis has been applied to the
personality of God, but it seems to me without
the form of personality there can be no true con-
ception of God whatever, and that every man
Graves for personality. a government of natural
laws does not exclude the idea of personal gov
eminent, and as the cultured man can conceive of
complex machines which the mind of the savage
is totally unable to grasp, so if you extend this
idea and carry it up you may easily conceive the
idea of Il God, who is able to take in and control
all natural laws, and yet maintain his personality.
When men preach Gods fatherhood as if it was
a kind of smiling good nature their idea is rep
resented by the Word of God and by all our ideas
Of fatherhood. We do not remember such men
or such women in our childhood our fathers aud
mothers whipped US up to good; they sought
our good but did not spare our cry and SO with
Divine paternity Thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me =, and not for the present. nerhans.