The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-07-05
WILLIS AND TAEOSOPHY
ANGLICAN BISHOP WRITES
PASTORAL.
Tells His Flock That Theosophy is
Black Atheism, Tricked Out With
Buddhist Trimmings.

Bishop Willis of the Anglican Church
has just issued a pastoral letter devot-
ed almost entirely to combating
"Theosophy." The following are the
principal portions of the letter:
"At the outset they suppose that
Theosophy, as the name implies, will
lead them to a knowledge of God, and
consequent illumination, which has
been the aim of some theosophical sys-
TENS; but, instead of this, Theosophy
as promulgated today, is not only fun
damentally opposed to Christianity,
but is a system of blank atheism,
closely allied to Buddhism, and derived
from 1t.
1T IS impossible for anyone to re-
tain the hope and faith of Christian,
and at the same time believe that the
SOUL after it has left the body at death.
will be reborn to live another life on
earth. The attempt to reconcile this
doctrine of rebirth Cor reincarnation, as
| 1t is called by an unphilosophical use
of language), with the teachings of
Holy Scripture completely fails. 1t is
argued that John the Baptist was
| temperance on earth of Elias, But
John himself denied that he was Elias
John /. 21). For though he was a
second Elias according to prophecy, he
]
personality as the first. For Elias,
according to Scripture, was carried up
into Heaven without undergoing any
dissolution of coul and body. To hold,
| then, that his soul was clothed with
new body in the womb of Elizabeth
is to make Holy Scripture contradict
itself.
Not only has the doctrine of me-
empsychosis (now called re-incarna-
| from
Word of God, but it abandons all be-
| lief in the resurrection of the body,
which is a fundamental article of our
own faith. Were it true that each soul
| is invested with a succession of bodies
before its final goal is reached, Holy
| Scriptures would not teach so clearly
the close relationship subssting be-
tween soul and body, whereby the
reasonable soul and flesh are one man.
Death, which dissolves the union of
| soul and body for a time, does not
annul the relationship between them.
| Within the world once created, no
| single atom is ever annihilated The
| elementary materials whereof the now
| corrupted body was composed are
| therefore still in existence; and the
Omniscient knows where they are and
the Omnipotent can collect them to-
gether again And so, according to st.
I Paups illustration in the Fifteenth
chapter of the First Epistle to the
! Corinthians, as from the buried grain
of wheat there springs up the golden
corn, so the body, which is sown in
corruption, shall be raised the incor-
ruptible vesture of the immortal soul.
Abandoning all hope of the resur-
rection of the body, the Theosophy of
! today abandons also the hope of man
kind planted in the human heart at the
beginning of human history a hope
which, founded in the love of God, be-
| came sure and certain after the birth
and death, the resurrection and ascen-
| sion of Jesus Christ were accomplish
ed facts. That hope is summed up in
! those words: God so loved the world
that He gave his only begotten Son
that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life
! Theosophy robs you of this hope; it
closes the door to all aspirations after
| those joys of which it is written: Eye
! hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him..
And what does it offer you instead?
An endless renewal of temporal exis-
tence in the world, for which 1t has no
! evidence to offer, until at length you
reach 'nirvana,' which is practically
condition of non-existence, whatever
high flown language may be used
about it.
What a spelling what a leading
! into captivity it is for one who has
once stood in the clear light and know
ledge of God revealed in Christ to be
drawn away by the vain deceit of
religion which has been described as a
philosophy of despair!
1T would take too long to give you
the history of Buddhism, which is the
source from which the teachings of
| Theosophy are derived.
But as you will be told that Budd-
hism is an older religion than Christ
! ianity, and, therefore, has stronger
| claims on the allegiance of mankind,
few words on this point should be said
LAS there is but one living and true
! God, so there is, and only can be, one
true religion. The Bible contains the
history of this religion, which has its
starting point in the covenant relation
established between God and man by
| the promise of "A Redeemer at the tim
of the Fall Christianity, so far from
being a new religion founded by Jesus
Christ is the open flower of the true
religion, the progress of which towards
this full expansion may be traced in
the pages of the Bible through the his
tory of four thousand years. Study the
Sermon on the Mount and you will find
! InaJ our Savior IedcnlUR was an ull-
FOLDING and revealing of the spirit
which till then had been shut up in
the letter.
There is then no cause for surprise
that the instructions of Gautama five
hundred years before Christ contain
many excellent moral precepts incul-
Gated by Christianity For the moral
obligations by which man is bound
were written in the beginning on the
human conscience, and so are the prop
erty of the whole human race. More
over, these same obligations, delivered
in Ten Commandments, had been pro-
claimed from Mount Sinai, and written
by the finger of God upon two tablets
of stone, nearly a thousand years be-
fore the time of Gautama. SO, If the
appeal is to antiquity, the sanctions
to which Christianity appeals are far
more ancient than those of Buddhism,
from which it follows, that there il
nothing surprising to find some of the
precepts of this moral law in the code