Fundamentals

The form of personal testimony has thus far been purposely adopted with a view to the strict limitation of responsibility. I have tried to state my own faith — the faith on which I live — in words as clear and simple as I could find. More and more I see that faith must be a man’s own. We fail when we try to pass faith on from hand to hand as a set of words which no man may change. Words were made for men, not men for words. There need be no wonder that in the coming and going of words some things may seem to be new which in fact are really old. It is only the word that is new; the truth has put on a new form for a new day. The old trees dress themselves in new leaves every spring. I have come to see how possible it is that even doubt itself may be a form of faith. The mind does not always move in

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straight lines. But if it did, may it not be true that straight lines are impossible in a universe of circles? The mistake may be in thinking that there are any straight lines. Even a diameter is limited by the circumference. Teachers recognizing diversities of constitution and temperament will make a difference between one doubter and another — “on some have compassion, making a difference” — but they must always meet sincerity with patience, and not allow themselves to see perdition in every troubled or even hostile inquiry. Our cross-examiners may be only feeling their way to the Rock and the Altar. What is to be our answer to those who are always calling out for some new thing even in religion? The call may not be frivolous. Even newness is not necessarily despicable. It is not unreasonable, however, if any good use is to be made of the past, to meet newness with some degree of suspicion. It has sometimes falsified its own credentials. Yet a householder should bring out of his treasure things new and old. May I venture upon the paradox that only the old can be the really new? Your house is new, but how old is the earth on which it is built? Your furniture is new, but how old was the walnut wood out of which it was cut? And what is our hoary “old” compared with the true antiquity? The gray old minster on which centuries have written their cipher is of yesterday compared with the rock out of which it was cut and on which it rests. Or if the newness that is admired and desiderated partakes of the nature of what is called “originality,” the same remark applies. Originality is always on the road to commonplace. It is on the commonplace that we live. Life feeds on bread. The unique is only the universal brought to a point. This is so with personality. You and I and the common multitude make Shakespeare possible. If all men were Shakespeares there would be no Shakespeare. If all plains were mountains there would be no mountains. The hill is only the valley as high up as it can get. You would be surprised how poor the bust looks when it is taken off the pedestal. All this applies to doctrine. All this is a reply to the clamor for originality. Notwithstanding the modern prophets and yesterday’s untested inspiration, I do not believe in new doctrines. I believe in new ways of combining the seven notes, but I am not sure that an eighth note has been discovered, Other Handels and Beethovens will arise, but the seven notes abide forever, ready to respond in new obedience to new masters. New illustrations we should welcome: new doctrines we should suspect. In comparing old things with new it is but common justice to remember that all the Christian miracles, by which I now mean all the wonders of home and foreign evangelization, were wrought by the old doctrines and the men who were prepared to die for them. I put in the history of missions as evidence. I never heard of a new hypothesis founding a missionary society. The men who believed in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, in heaven and hell, in verbal inspiration and in eternal punishment, proved their faith by their works. They may have been intellectually misguided, but they were faithful and noble to the point of self-sacrifice, and we who think they were mistaken have entered into their labors, and ought to be their grateful debtors forever.

Can we take an optimistic view of the present Christian outlook? Has not Christianity had its day, and has it not gone down as a sun that is set? Yes. It has gone down precisely in that way. I am not aware that when the sun has gone out of sight it has gone out of existence. I believe that the bright view is the only full view, and therefore the only true view. The danger is that we be tempted to draw large conclusions from a very limited number of facts, and to forget that under the law of advance there is a law of retrocession and modification. The movement of God is not to be judged in inches. Not even in centuries. It is to be judged, as we have seen, by the first verse of the Bible. We have examined it and found all the guarantees there. The creating God is the perfecting God — is so, not poetically, but by the very necessity of his own attributes. In the evolution of Christian history we undoubtedly come upon eras of barrenness and we pass through zones of storm. But we must take in more horizon if we would judge wise judgment, and the details we must leave to the Master; he will shape them and correct them, and rule them into his beneficent economy. If we would work more and manage less, our rest would be less scared by ill-bred dreams. Work helps faith. Faith is ever calm. Upon what are we standing? Are we standing upon the work of man or upon the Word of God — upon a resolution that can be amended, or upon an Oath that is unchangeable? There can be no difficulty in proving from its own contents and its own spirit that the Bible is distinctly optimistic. From first to last the outlook is bright. The serpent can hurt the heel only, but the bruised heel is to crush the serpent’s head. The name of Christ is always associated with triumph; true or untrue, fact or fiction, the Bible contemplates nothing but victory.

“I beheld Satan as lightning
fall from heaven.”

“When Christ ascended up
on high he led captivity captive.”

1 ‘Having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of
them openly, triumphing over
them.”

We are not now discussing the truth of these views. Our one point is that from first to last the Bible sees nothing but victory; and the continuousness of that foresight, considering the incessant and tremendous action of the book, is itself an argument. I cannot give up the logical value of that significant fact. If one writer only had been jubilant and the others had been despairing, the value of the argument would have been destroyed. “The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent” would seem to be the heroic declaration which the Bible sets itself to make good. If the whole Bible had been the work of one man, the value of the argument would have sunk immensely. But the Bible is the work of many men, in many places, and in many centuries, yet its tone never varies, its courage never declines, and that fact, which can be tested by any reader, I claim not as a fact only, but as an argument that cannot be shaken. Truly, there is sorrow enough in the Bible, but it is the kind of sorrow essential to perfect joy. True, also, that the Bible is a record of conflict and hostility — the very history of perdition itself — in a sense quite as much a revelation of the devil as of God — but the enemy is dashed to pieces like a potter’s vessel: “Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever;” “he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds.” The Bible does not ignore the tragedies which convulse and darken the human story — this is no blind optimism that tints the sky with hectic colors — the whole horror is realized, and in the ghastly presence of sin’s vast havoc the Apostle exclaims, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” The grace is not overborne by the sin, the sin is overborne by the grace. I claim this, then, as an argument set in many lights and reasoned by many minds, yet ending in the vindication of one law and in the coronation of one Personality.

The optimism of the Bible is to be the optimism of the Church and all its ministries. This is to be the spirit of our service. We are saved by hope. We are inspired by hope. We build in hope. Under the influence of this assurance of final triumph we shall remember in all our work that there are other people in the world besides infidels and objectors. It has for a long time seemed to me that for any man to build his ministry upon the supposition that he is going to convert infidels by answering their objections and removing their difficulties is to adopt a policy which must end in disappointment. That special arrangements may be made for this kind of service is another matter. I am speaking of the purpose and staple of the Christian ministry. Infidelity may soon exalt itself into a profession. To some men infidelity may be the only possible distinction. I seriously doubt whether an infidel can even ask a question in a right spirit, and in Christian inquiry the right spirit is everything. If I may not say that the Bible is the Word of God because the infidel will at once draw my attention to a hard verse, neither may I tell him that prayer is answered, because he will at once tell me that many a prayer for safety has been followed by shipwreck, and many a prayer for recovery has been followed by bereavement. Neither may I tell him that God rules the world, or he will at once point me to still harder verses in human life. And who is this wonderful man the infidel, that he should plant himself in mid-stream and divert the current of Christian teaching as he pleases? What are his credentials? Is he greater than the apostles, the pastors, and the missionaries whom we have known? Is their inspiration less than his no-inspiration? I boldly deny this man’s right to be heard when the question is one of preaching the gospel to every creature. It is our business to preach the gospel. We have a message, and we must deliver it. Nor must we be affrighted by any lion in the way. But to do his work well, the minister must take great care that he himself is not an infidel. A formal infidel of course he cannot be. An insincere and self-seeking teacher he surely cannot be. Yet unbelief or half-belief or doubting belief may chill his very heart, may even spoil the delivery of the most correct verbal message. My meaning can hardly be mistaken. It is to the effect that the messenger must believe his own message if he is to expect other people to believe it. Notwithstanding his belief, they may reject it, yet will not their blood be required at the watchman’s hand? Working as if the victory were assured, with what thrilling enthusiasm will the preacher preach! In his soul there is a whisper, “The Lord will suddenly come to his temple.” He remembers the prophecy, “I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.” He answers the promises with loving desires and burning prayers — “Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down!” “Make no tarrying, O my God!” “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Thus the messenger has secret communion with his Lord, and many a love-token passes between them. Saith the Lord, “Behold, I come quickly;” saith the messenger, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” The descending Lord says, “Surely I come quickly;” the listening servant answers, “Thou art fairer than the children of men;... make haste, my Beloved.” Thus the holy work is done in hope. The issue is not dependent upon the will of man. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Great mountains may stand in the way, but before Zerubbabel they shall be leveled into plains. We are not struggling in a forlorn cause. There is no need of the cheer which comes from tabulated statistics. We take our stand upon the oath of God, and in that oath we see, as if it were an accomplished fact, a world reconciled and a Saviour satisfied.

We shall, however, soon lose our hope if we exchange regeneration for reformation. Christ is a Regenerator, not a Reformer. The reformer works by program; the Regenerator works by the silent, subtle, infinite power of God the Holy Ghost. No wise man despises reforms; no Christian man is satisfied with them. As effects they are good; as causes they are impotent. But a program of reforms is most tempting alike to impatience and ambition. Man wants the visible and the immediate, and this he foolishly thinks is being practical. We are hindered by the very Word we worship. Spiritual men should be most sparing and careful in the use of secular terms in relation to their special work. With the word “practical” as a primary term we have nothing to do. Our doctrine is spiritual. Our submission, I will use a stronger word and boldly say our contention, is that only the metaphysically right is the practically good. Only the metaphysically right is Eternal. “Make the tree good and the fruit will be good.” This accounts for the slowness of Christ’s work and its thoroughness. The reformer can move at once. His work is useful. I am not attempting to deny it. But his work is superficial, or limited, or temporary, or circumstantial. It is exactly otherwise with the work of Christ. “Your time is always ready,” said Christ, “mine hour is not yet come.” The man who has to make a ladder can bind himself under penalty to do it within a certain time; but the man who undertakes to grow a tree is in a different position. A tree may be trained very much as you please; but a mind must be consulted and studied. A coat may be made: a character has to be developed. How easy to clothe a body; how hard to clothe a mind! These illustrations may in some degree indicate the difficulty, because the inwardness and the spirituality, of the work of Christ. And as is the work of Christ so is the work of his ministers. It is not a reforming work, a social work, a political work, a controversial work; it is all this and more, and only this because it is more. An atheist may be an advocate of sanitation. A profane swearer may be an expert in questions as between capital and labor. A man may be a temperance reformer and never open a Bible. I purposely put the matter thus broadly that I may make the uniqueness of specifically Christian work the more obvious and impressive. Ministers are inspired by the Holy Ghost, and separated by the Holy Ghost, to do a work that cannot be confused or mingled with any other kind of work. When they lose their distinctiveness they not only lose their power, they lose the very reason of their existence. Forgetting this, they have, in some instances, nearly wrecked their true influence. And consider how great that true influence ought to be! It should be a terror to evil-doers. Bad men would soon be made to feel that every act was under holy criticism and that the very air was alive with judgment. The witness of God would express itself through the testimony of ministers. The poor, the broken-hearted, the wronged, and the down-trodden would soon be made to understand that their Redeemer liveth. We must get back, then, to the metaphysical, back to the spiritual, back to the Holy Ghost.

‘We have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the
power may be of God and not of
us.”

“By manifestation of the truth
commending ourselves to every
man’s conscience in the sight of
God.”

“My speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of
man’s wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power.”

“Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but also in power,
and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance.”

In thus giving Christ his proper function as a Regenerator we shall know exactly how to define and qualify the doctrine which has grown around the word Christocentric. Properly denned, there is no objection to the word, yet it may be most deceitful and misleading. Christ must not be at the center in the sense of a bust surrounded by floral tributes. Then he would be a mere idol. He must be at the center in a living, commanding, inspiring sense. Not that alone. Infinitely more than that. He must prove his right to be there. And to be there is no man’s right. Only God can be there with adequate right. The position would overweigh and overwhelm any man. Yet Christ must be there. And if there, why? Because of his quality, his resources, his doctrine, his majesty, his Godhead! To my consciousness Jesus Christ is the Incarnate God not because of some Greek preposition or some recondite point in Greek syntax. If grammar created his deity, grammar might destroy it. To me he is God incarnate because of what he is in himself, and not because of what he is even in the estimation of his worshipers. If, therefore, we gather around him not as an idol, not as a figure of extreme dignity and loveliness, but as the Incarnate God, the term Christocentric, though pedantic and affected, may not be objectionable, in some cases it may even be temporarily useful. But its deceitfulness is obvious. It may conceal a deep disloyalty. It may go no farther than admiration. It may only mean applause, it may not express the highest conception of worship. The poet has his “society,” the philosopher has his devotees, but Christ, as God the Son, must be hailed as Lord and God, and adored as the Infinite Saviour of the world. How is the reality of this worship to be proved? May it not be a mere sentiment? May even prayer be other than emotion rhetorically expressed? Here, again, as ever — a continuousness which amounts to a revelation and an argument — we come upon the law and the test of strenuous discipline. Our worship must be tried by rack and thumb-screw; our prayers must be passed through the fire. “The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” Christocentric does not mean self-considering:

“Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and
do not the things which I say?”

* ‘Not every one that saith unto me
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven; but he that
doeth the will of my Father which
is in heaven.”

“If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me.”

1 ‘Let us go forth, .therefore, unto
him without the camp bearing his
reproach.”

If by Christocentric we mean such devotion and such discipline, it becomes but a new verbal description of an old and unchanging process.

It is here that I find a standing-place, a rock, amidst the bogs and the quicksands of this century of self-assault and self- rectification on the part of Christian believers. It is not at all discouraging, indeed it may be the exact contrary, that Christians are overhauling their own books and arguments. And inasmuch as the overhauling leads to no cessation of Christian activity, but if possible to an increase of apostolic service, it is safe to infer that they themselves conclude that no central position has been shaken. A broad distinction must be drawn between men who assail the Bible because they are hostile to its moral teaching and men who believe that the moral teaching would be better understood if the historical and critical position were better defined. These men are our friends and helpers; we must therefore honor and guard their spotless reputation; and this we can do without being able to accept all their suggestions and conclusions. My present feeling is that some of them in moving at all have either gone too far or they have not gone far enough. 1 could have understood them better if they had not claimed any exceptional inspiration for the Bible, for to me inspiration is more than spiritual genius, it is sovereign and divine authority. There are two positions, outside the orthodox view, which might be maintained intelligibly and effectively.

First: A man may say that, without making any claim whatever for the Bible, he simply finds in it many things that are most pathetic and beautiful, and he values them on their merits. He neither knows nor cares to know who wrote the Bible: he reads it as a collection of books and judges it as its contents may vary. This man has no theory of inspiration. Second: A man may say that inspiration comes and goes; the Bible was inspired; it was at the time all that the most orthodox have claimed for it, but now it is displaced, in the higher education, by the Holy Ghost. This second view might be profitably examined by Christian believers. It is more than possible that the Holy Ghost may have been, unintentionally in many instances, ignored and dishonored. Is it not possible that the Bible, regarded simply as a book, may have done all that it was ever intended to do, and according to the law “first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual,” may it not now disappear, except as a historical record, and give place to the Living Spirit, the very Spirit which, in the opinion of many, dictated and inspired its messages? I find no difficulty in seeing that such an inquiry may be conducted in the most reverential and obedient spirit. As a matter of fact, displacement or supersession has been the law of the Bible itself. This I regard as a key which might be largely used. Sacrifices have been displaced: ritual has been superseded: “the first tabernacle was a figure for the time then present “(Heb. ix. 9), and was displaced” by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands “: the law was only” a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things “:” there is verily a disannulling of the commandment”: miracles are no longer known as in New Testament times: the Saviour himself has ascended up on high, “yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2 Cor. v. 16): we cannot deny this law of displacement. Sometimes we call it the law of growth. The man displaces the child. The fruit displaces the blossom. Experience displaces ignorance. Who, then, shall say that the Bible, considered as a book, may not be displaced by the Spirit wrho wrote it by the hands of men? But by what test should we then know ourselves to be of the divine seed? “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (1 John iv. 13). But how do we know that the living Christ is in our hearts the hope of glory? “Hereby know we that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (1 John iii. 24). “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. viii. 16). But can we be perfectly sure that we have realized our forgiveness and received the seal from God?” He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in l6o NONE LIKE IT.

himself” (i John v. 10). In view of all the facts thus set forth I am quite prepared to believe that the Church may be passing through a transition in regard to the exact place of the Bible in Christian education, nor can I call those men infidels or enemies who have entered into such deep communion with the Spirit that the book is no longer, as a book, what it was when they first believed. For my own part I still need the book, and I need the Spirit to interpret it. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom. xv. 4). I am willing to bear all the reproach of the old faith if I may be permitted to keep the book to whose messages I owe my very soul. All that I know of Jesus I learned from the Bible. It has been a lamp to my feet ever since I accepted its teaching. When all other books have forsaken me the Bible has been to me sweeter than honey, yea, than the honeycomb.

I deliver this testimony the more earnestly because it helps to account for a fact which is not always understood. That fact is the supposed narrowness of men who cannot at once surrender an old friend for a new theory. I am one of those men. The propounders of theories that are novel even if true will immensely increase the value of their theories by being patient with those who ask for time to examine them. Epithets are not always convincing. Why should we be called narrow, bigoted, unprogressive, and superstitious? We think we have a vindication — sometimes that vindication is a memorv, or an experience, or an emotion, or a conviction; but whatever it is, we think an answer better than a sneer. Those who sneer at our narrowness should remember our training. We think we owe more to the Bible than we owe to them. For the present, speculation is subordinate to gratitude. But we had really come to love the Bible, greatly as we may have been mistaken. We did not love it thoughtlessly; our love was based upon reason. When we were poor, the Bible spoke to us as if it knew exactly our emptiness and destitution, and it bade us be of good cheer and to fix our expectation upon God. When the little child came into the house, Jesus Christ spoke to us about it, took it up in his arms and blessed it; and when the little child died that same Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;” and as we tremblingly placed it in his arms he smiled upon us, and said something about “a little while.” The Bible has been very precious to us. I know not what the house would have been without it. The print was so large that we could read it in the dark. The message was so good that it soothed our weariness and lay like balm upon the heart that was ill at ease. In such hours men knew as if by an inspired instinct what a book really is. It was in such hours that we first truly read the Bible. And as we read the psalm, the prophecy, the song, we pressed the Bible to our hearts and called it the Word of God. Be patient, therefore, with us if we cannot all at once change our point of view and modify our appreciation. We do not mean to be “narrow,” but we do mean to be just. A life-long love implies a long process of eradication. We must try the spirits whether they be of God. We are not afraid of light. We have no fear of progress. We pray for the expansion and sanctification of scholarship. True criticism will rob us of no promise, and in no degree will it spoil our heritage or vex our peace. But do not call us “narrow” even if we think every word in the Bible came directly out of heaven from God. Sq much did come from him that we supposed it must all have come. Perhaps we approached the Bible more from the point of sympathy than from the point of criticism. Take away from it, if you can, all its literal errors, and rectify all its historical mistakes, you will, I know, as Christian scholars be just as anxious as the humblest believer to guard the tree of life and magnify the love of Christ.