Month: September 2022

Copperfield

~ admin ~ 1 Comment

Have you read your budget commentaries yet? If not, I have no wish to distract you from them.

We read in David Copperfield that Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up.

The man who ended up in the King’s Bench Prison had some wisdom; we read later on that Mr. Micawber was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him, but if I have read it correctly, even with his wisdom he still increases the level of his borrowing by one shilling.

I have no wish, as perhaps some do, to impugn the intellectual abilities of our government; to have even appeared on University Challenge is something to which the brain of this writer could not have aspired, but to have succeeded there also would have been, had it not been seen, incredible. It is entirely credible that those who are in leadership have the aptitude for it, and the intellectual ability to be busy about something of such importance.

It is perhaps then of no surprise that as Mr Micawber ignored his own wisdom, others today have ignored theirs only to borrow more with a further promise to pay the bearer on demand the extra shilling when required to do so.

E&OE If I have misunderstood the English of the dialect used by Mr Dickens, which is no longer commonly spoken in this land, then I apologise, but I carry some hope that you may comprehend with some satisfaction that a modified interpretation would not entirely invalidate the conclusion that has been drawn.

History

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

It had escaped Coco’s notice, but in 2011 EIIR said:

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person, neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a saviour, with the power to forgive.

On the other hand Georg Hegel said:

The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

There is somewhat a contradiction here, until we look at the paradigm which drives these two assertions concerning history. Whilst one is derived from a paradigm, which whilst it sought to go beyond the scepticism and nothingness of Platonism with its vast empty abyss by the introduction of concepts such as the negation of certain determinations, which may be called determinate negations, and do not result in an empty, abstract nothing, but rather a determinate nothingness which has content, does not take us much beyond the former position, but rather lays a foundation for the ever more meaningless paradigms taken up later in the 19th and 20th centuries as men built upon the ephemeral concepts of eternal matter underpinned by an irrational cleavage to uniformity, which lead to the conclusion that we have no purpose and no responsibility towards any outside authority let alone to each other. Each of the words used to summarise the Hegelian position, you must understand, has a technical meaning into the discussion of which we shall not enter here. You may also disagree with the summary, and Coco shall be pleased to receive alternative concise summaries of Hegel’s paradigm.

The other however stands on a solid foundation, which is forever not having been laid by the hands of men, but rather by the One who made all things. Matter is not eternal; matter has a beginning. But the self-existent God has built this universe, made of matter, on the solid foundation of his own eternal faithfulness and righteousness.

The one paradigm leads to a hopelessness which results in pessimism about ourselves, our past, present and future; the other leads to an optimistic hope that despite ourselves, our past, present and future behaviours, that as a result of God’s past intervention, there is a future intervention that will straighten everything out. This universe is not to remain a vast dangerous wilderness where wild beats roam and men devour each other, but it shall be renewed in a way where the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion and the fatling together… they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Nothing shall hurt or harm, and men shall live in love for one another as they serve, and walk with, and enjoy the living God in the city that he has built.

But note that her Majesty does not say that we shall achieve this ourselves. God’s intervention is required, and so he sent his Son into the world as a saviour with the power to forgive. Yes, he came also teaching, preaching and healing, but primarily as he said when speaking of his death by crucifixion: Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.) The prospect of crucifixion is indeed troubling; later we hear him speak in this way: Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done. But it was for this very purpose that he came into the world, to die to save sinners. In this way he became the Saviour of men.

Concerning his power to forgive, very early in his ministry we find this affirmed when he was presented with a paralysed man by the man’s friends: When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’ This provoked outrage among some. And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, ‘Why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ They were quite right in their reasoning, but wrong in their conclusion. To show them that he had power to forgive, he healed the man who had been brought to him.

On what basis then does he forgive? Justice, as we know, demands a penalty. Forgiveness is not cheap. It is not right, as we know, to justify the wrongdoer. Are we all not revulsed when the guilty escape justice? How then can God let off the sinner? That was his dilemma, but in the infinite wisdom of God he found the way that he could be both just and be able to justify the sinner. The penalty for sin is too great for the sinner to pay, so God himself must pay it. For this reason, we read, and this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

De morte

~ admin ~ 1 Comment

We were in the Republic when the day came, and even though not on this occasion in a Chambre d’hôtes where Louis XXII had once resided, great consolation was shown towards us, but it was not until subjects of the House of Orange also came for refreshment, rest and repast that in the brotherhood of equality, liberty was granted to cry out:

La Reine est morte; vive le Roi.

If in the day of the death of King Saul, King David could say ‘This a day of mourning and weeping’, how much more we who have lost a Queen who had proven herself more worthy of her name in the keeping of her promises to God and to men than many others who would clothe themselves with the trappings of leadership. What freedom we have that we do not have to fight or contend over and vote for who shall rule over us, but simply lend our support and allegiance to the one who has been chosen not by the hand of man.

Long live the king! May he too be faithful to serve the people over whom the Lord has appointed him. And may the Lord give to him, as he gave to Solomon, an understanding heart to judge the people and to discern between what is good and what is evil.