Present-day conservatism and liberalism within Biblical lines; a concise and comprehensive exhibit

NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES

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PRESENT-DAY CONSERVATISM
AND,.:UBERALISM

ylyilHii

JAMES GLENTWORTH BUTLER

^D

T

T.E'E.

PRESENT DAY CONSERVA
TISM AND LIBERALISM

WITHIN BIBLICAL LINES

A Concise and
Comprehensive Exhibit

BY

JAMES GLENTWORTH BUTLER, D.D.

Author of ** The Bible Work," 11 vols

The disturber is always active, and his audience
is large . . . The world does not belong to the
disturber and his excited victims, and men of sense
should say so in the open." Ex. Gov. Black

SHERMAN, FREI^CH ^^-^CiO/^PANY
1911

THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LFNOX AND
TILD N FOUNDATIONS,

R i9'3 L

** Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers !"

Bryant

c e etc «..%,• :

' CdpywQPT, 1911
Sherman, French &* Company

FOREWORD

The purpose of this book is to compare and
contrast present-day Conservatism and Liberal-
ism ; in clear, concise detail comprehensively to
unfold these earth- and heaven-wide, antago-
nistic systems of thought, — to trace succinctly
their origin, basis, methods, substance, personal
effects, and final, abiding issues. It undertakes
to show:

First, that modern Conservatism has its basis
and substance, and finds its vitality in Divinely
revealed and verified facts, and points to its
effective results in the existing world-wide Chris-
tendom. At every step it accepts the estab-
lished laws of thought, and deals with objective
facts ; buttressing these with reasonings, corol-
laries, and conclusions, with evidence and proof.
It is a Positive system, founded upon and ex-
pressly stated in the terms of the Bible record
touching the Redemptive agency of the Triune
Godhead. Thus, iur a, s^naly Ihirking mind,
conscious of responsibiJitjT t^ God and aware
of His gracious interventior^ to save, this sys-
tem has a practical stK):i:Jpg point, a solid
standing ground, and leads to consequent con-
viction and acceptance.

FOREWORD

Next, that the system of Liberalism exactly
reverses all these points. It baldly announces
that its canons of interpretation and its doc-
trines are wholly comprised in Negative terms.
Denying and ignoring Divinely revealed facts
it presents no objective basis and of course can
offer neither evidence, argument, or proof. It
coldly sets up its own fanciful conceptions and
baseless theories, assumes and asserts their
truth, without even a hint of reasoning. In
making these vagrant and proofless assertions
in place of an authoritative Revealer it substi-
tutes a natively ignorant, finite man for the
only All-Knower, the Infinite God. In its is-
sues and effects it is a Destructive System,
without effort, care, or thought of replacing
it with even a visionary Constructive fabric.

Upon the decision of this supremely vital
issue every man's eternal condition is staked.
In its consideration the influence of natural
bias or prejudice, of the spirit of partisanship,
or indulgence in casuistry, is simply and openly
suicidal.

" Iv9SJ>ic^'Finem|".was .the counsel of a cul-
tured Paguri inorVlVtj, le*p:anded by Asaph in
his reasonifjgs kntl: con-elusions upon actual life
conditions; cl-earl.y. slated in the seventy-third
Psalm. -Saiie'^rea^^n,' and clear, honest think-
ing considel-s, festinm^es^ and decides the great
life-question from the standpoint of eternity.

FOREWORD

What do life's ultimate issues promise concern-
ing the changeless future to my own ever exist-
ing spirit? The only assured answer we read
in the confessing words of Peter: "Lord, to
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life!" "This is life eternal," said the
Eternal Son to the Father, "that they should
know Thee the only true God, and Him whom
Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ."

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

CHURCH CREEDS AND CHRISTIAN
EXPERIENCE

Two Misstatements Corrected, in Address of Pres.
Brown at the Opening of Union Seminary; First, The
notion that Creeds were first Formulated by a "For-
tuitous Concourse" of Individuals, Each Qualified for
Creed-making by a Mushroom Leap into a Matured
Christian Experience; Shown to be Fanciful and Un-
historic; Historic Facts disclose the true method of
Creed Formation. Second, The Radical and Hurtful
Error of the Address: An Explicit Reversal of the
only possible Relation between Creed, or formed Belief,
and Experience; The True Relation proved to be, Ab-
solute Dependence of Experience upon Creed. Defini-
tion of Christian Experience; Its needful and helpful
Function in Confirmation of every Truth Revealed and
Believed. Instructive Facts touching Creedal History.

II

UP-TO-DATENESS, DESIRABLE AND
UNDESIRABLE

Desirable: Advanced Knowledge wisely Sought and
Personal Influence rightly Gained if Founded upon
clearly Ascertained Divine Truth and actually Expe-
ienced Divine Guidance and Aid.

Undesirable: When it takes the form of Ignorant,
Unguided Self-Obtrusion, under the Pressure of Selfish
Pride and Ambition, and is the Demeaning Product of
an immensely exaggerated Native Conceit. Applied to

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

self-styled "Modernism," of which Excessive Inborn Con-
ceit is the Generative Force; Particularly to the Theory
of Sabatier and Ritschl, Attributing to the Natural Un-
informed, Human Reason (in every man) an Inherent
Power of Knowing and Adjudging all Truth. Closes
with a Kindly Warning to all Believers respecting their
Exposure to spiritual harm from Conceit.

Ill

CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM OF
TO-DAY

Introductory: Grounds of Knowledge and reasona-
ble Certitude of Truth; Trustworthy Reports of Mental
Faculties the Basis of Knowledge; Truth, or exact
Knowledge results when the Mental View, or "Thought"
corresponds to the "Thing" or Object of Knowledge;
i. e., when the Subjective Apprehension agrees with the
Objective Reality. The Reason for Certitude is found
in Evidence. Revealed Facts of God's Redemptive
Dealing with Man embody all Religious Truth and are
the sole Subject-matter of Investigation; Proof of these
Facts Divinely Revealed. The terms "Doctrine" and
"Dogma" ruled out of this Discussion.

True Place and Meaning of Conservatism, in Present-
Day Use: How Applied in past generations; Cause of
Transformation; Spirit of Modern Conservatism; Its
Subject-matter of Belief, the Sovereign Facts of Divine
Revelation; Full Synopsis of the Essentials of Christian
Faith, Embodying and Defining the Living and Working
Conservatism.

Liberalism of To-day: 1. Its Underlying Root, the
Theory of Evolution; Its History and Malign Effects
Outlined.

2. First Emanation from the Evolutionary Root, The
Denial and Elimination of The Supernatural; Its Wide
Realm, Assured Reality, Solid Basis, and immeasurably
Blessed Results; Fatal Effects of its Denial.

3. Next Evolutionary Outgrowth, The Theory of

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

Autonomous Mind; Its Meaning and Shallowness Ex-
posed, and its Possibility Annihilated.

4. Next and most Tangible Emanation, The Self-
Styled "Higher Criticism," with its Abnormal and
Impious Work of Disintegration and Mutilation of the
Word of God; Its Tenets and Assumption of Superior
Scholarship Exposed and Refuted.

5. The Crowning Product of its Evolutionary Emana-
tions, The "New Theology" ; A Double Misnomer, with-
out Base or Support: Illustrative Citations ("Specimen"
Denials) of Four Prominent Advocates: Dr. Lyman
Abbott, R. J. Campbell, Dr. Charles Eliot, and Rev.
Dr. Wm. Adams Brown. A Shadowy Plea in Support
of Liberalism's Asserted Negations, the proud boast of
Intellectual Freedom — ^Punctured. Closing Summary.

I, II AND III FORTRESSED BY IV AND V

IV
THE GODHEAD AN ETERNAL TRINITY

God in Three Persons; Relation of Three Persons;
Fatherhood of God; Man's Sonship; Appeal of Three
United Persons; Interconmiunion Life of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit; Attitude in Prayer to the Three Divine
Persons; Scriptural Testimony to the Trinity; Three-
fold Office-Work in Man's Redemption.

PLACE AND WORK OF JESUS CHRIST

Identified with O. T. Jehovah; O. and N. T. Texts
Linked; Titles Applied to Christ; N. T. Disclosures of
Christ Match Old Testament Revelations. Christ the
Eevealer of All Truth in O. and N. Testaments, Both
Subject and Author of O. Testament.

Christ the Actor for the Godhead in Revelation, Crea-
tion, Providence, and Redemption; Ignorance of this
Transcendent Fact has produced Ritschlism and "New
Theology."

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

Proof cited from Prof. B. W. Bacon's Mutilation of
the Sermon on the Mount. Alleged Scriptural Support:
1. "Emptied Himself'; True Interpretation annihilates
"Kenosis"; 3. "Neither the Son," reasonably interpreted
proves the Liberal Inference to be baseless and impious.

VI

PERIL FROM "MODERN THOUGHT,'* GOD'S
WARNING VOICE
Class Exposed to Peril; Two Points of Peril: I.
Deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit; 2. Integrity and
Sufficiency of the Word of God; God's Words of En-
lightenment and Warning.

PRESENT DAY CONSERVATISM
AND LIBERALISM

CHURCH CREEDS AND CHRISTIAN
EXPERIENCE

Personal Note.

As a careful student of the Word of God
and of many volumes of scholarly and devout
exposition, with some thoughtful consideration
of the few widely accepted Theological Sys-
tems, for nearly seventy years, and as one who
seeks "^o contend earnestly for the Faith," the
writer would make definite reply to the two
basal misstatements in the address of President
Brown at the opening of the new Home for
Union Seminary. The apparent purpose of
the address was to justify the existing open
hostility of the Faculty (or its heterogeneous
majority) toward the Presbyterian Church.

We recall and note the fact that for many
fruitful years that great Church, honored, and
was honored by, the signally eminent Faculty
of half century ago. Models of Christian
courtesy, they were men of refined culture, of
profound learning expressed with great clarity,
grace and force, and were everywhere recog-
nized as masterly teachers of Biblical Theology,
1

2 CHURCH CREEDS AND

and of an Exegesis that included both the letter
and the spirit. Their students have largely
contributed to the progress of the Church and
to the maintenance of its integrity to the
Faith as God-given in His Word — Nomina
Clara: Rev. Drs. William Adams, Henry Boyn-
ton Smith, Roswell D. Hitchcock, Philip SchafF,
Wm. G. P. Shedd, and Marvin R. Vincent. [I
may be permitted to add, that all these friends
freely offered their volumes, and three of them
their MSS., by the use of which the pages of
the "Bible Work" were greatly enriched.]

Under the heading, "The Church and its
Creeds" (iV. Y. Observer, Nov. 10), President
Brown undertakes to define their mutual rela-
tions, and fills eight columns with what seems
to logically thinking men, tenuous, specious,
and fallacious reasoning.

As his prst misstatement, he bases all creeds
upon "« process of choice'' (testified solely by
individual consciousness) ^' which we call Chris-
tian experience.'" This is his starting point.
These lightly expressed and somewhat enig-
matic words carry a grave meaning and con-
tain one of the most insidious and destructive
root-errors of Liberalism, or New Theology.
For "Christian experience" must have behind it
a mature Christian believer, with knowledge of
Christian truth. But there is here no hint of
any source of objective truth or knowledge.

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 3

The men spoken of, and afterward referred to,
spring at once to the knowledge and forces of
Christian manhood. More than this, they are
at once invested with inherent power of appre-
hending and declaring what is truth. And
these mushroom growths of experienced men
are widely scattered over great breadths of ter-
ritory. Without any known links of connec-
tion, the product of experience is identical
among them all. So the address goes on to
trace the after "process" : "The Church is
made up of persons with this common Chris-
tian experience. And in order to unite in one
body there must be some interchange of ex-
pression indicating the experience which is the
real bond. . . . They must tell each other."
This theorif of first thinking and feeling alike
in an identical experience, evolved out of every
man's own uninformed and uninfluenced native
consciousness, seems airy and immature. But
the further suggestion of a "fortuitous con-
course" of many units, obsessed with like experi-
ences, the getting of these individually sepa-
rated and mentally diverse men into perfect
agreement in opinion and feeling, bringing them
simultaneously to think alike about a future
organization, and then moving them by a com-
mon impulse to start out, like the Three Kings
in "Ben Hur," to meet together, each with a
forethought of a formulated, uniting bond of

4 CHURCH CREEDS AND

Church organization, all this without knowl-
edge of place or time or fact of such meet-
ing, and without a single illumining historic
illustration, it would seem, to a matter of
fact thinking man, as if the whole scheme,
thus far, was woven out of a purely fanci-
ful fabric. But the theory we are consider-
ing goes further and, in the same simple way
of thinking, affirms progress. It continues:
"Then definition began to creep in. . . . By
degrees, not only some definition, but also some
explanation and inference crept into such
avowals, which took on a more formal and
stereotyped character. At length, what we
know as the Apostles' Creed grew up — or was
built up — and we see a few additional state-
ments and some incentives to the Christian life
included. Then the declaration of Nicaea, the
decree of Chalcedon ; long afterwards the arti-
cles of Trent and the Protestant formularies."
This is the visionary theory of the original
method by which Creeds were introduced and
formulated. (In the closing summary, the
theory just unfolded holds no historic place.
Nor could it attain such honor, since it is a
pure product of Modernism.) It is in direct
contradistinction from the actual facts, which
facts these theorizers characterize as unmean-
ing tradition and dismiss as unworthy of con-
sideration.

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 5

Our direct denial and ample disproof of this
entire theory is embodied in a single paragraph
of incontrovertible historic facts:

The differing creeds of Protestant churches
were formulated by small groups of devout and
scholarly men gathered in the schools founded
and formed by the great leaders at the outset
of the Reformation. The grounds of differ-
ence in their formulas were twofold : the in-
terpretation of Biblical texts and the philo-
sophic conception of the nature and working of
God and of man. With manifold complicated
questions arising from these differing inter-
pretations and philosophic views, increased and
emphasized by wide diversities of mental ability
and training and by temperamental idiosyn-
crasies, reenforced by a common native bias,
partisan spirit, and pride of opinion, it was
inevitable that the several groups should be-
come widely separated, and reach and formu-
late opposing judgments upon many points
of doctrine. Hence the birth and growth of
manifold denominations in the visible Church.
Hence, too, the prolonged and acrimonious dis-
cussions in the schools and in innumerable
volumes, which for three centuries have marred
and weakened the body of Christ and delayed
the onward march of His Kingdom.

Happily, we may note one good result of this
protracted controversy. As all attainment in

6 CHURCH CREEDS AND

the sciences and practical arts has been gained
and all advance of nations toward civilization
has been reached through long-sustained con-
flicts of thought, experiment, or warfare, so the
centuries of embittered, painful, separating dis-
putations of good men concerning the Bible
teachings have at length brought into clearer
light the apprehensible depths and grand sim-
plicities of the Gospel of Christ and wrought
a deeper, weightier conviction of their Divine
source and immeasurable value.

Before proceeding with the second point of
arraignment of the address, we note some in-
structive facts linked to our general theme:

1. No denominational creed has ever been
able to match its formulas with Scripture texts.
The Presbyterian Church (North) tried, not
many years ago by a committee of its foremost
scholars, to sustain its grand old "Confession,"
but failed at many points and wisely improved
its creed by revision.

2. Only within the past decade — when, as
the result of Christianity's leaven in the world's
life, facilities of intercourse and community of
interest have established the feeling of neigh-
borhood among nations and brought in a fur-
ther promise of brotherhood, and when, under
these added influences which have reached and
dominated the churches, theological diff*erences

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 7

have been ignored and discussions of differing
points of belief and practice have practically
ceased between Christian denominations — only
with the present-day permanent truce has the
idea come to birth and found expression that
there can be but one Biblical creed for all Chris-
tians. Hence the great Federation movement
has sprung at once into maturity, and has be-
gun its effective, blessed work at home and in
the mission field.

3. Upon the essentials of the one Biblical
creed there is complete agreement among all
evangelical denominations. They find these
essentials in the facts of God's Redemptive
dealings with man as these are recorded in the
Word Divinely revealed. Assuming God's crea-
tive might and moral supremacy as asserted by
Himself, the one creed of the universal Chris-
tian Church includes as essential: (1) The
three-fold office work of Jesus Christ, the
Eternal Son, and the two-fold agency of the
Eternal Spirit; (S) The corresponding condi-
tioned action of the human spirit in "repent-
ance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ." These are the elements and this the
substance of a living, productive Biblical creed.
Whoever accepts and adopts these elements is
a genuine disciple and follower of Christ. And
the church that adopts these essential facts as
its creed is a genuine Christian church. The

8 CHURCH CREEDS AND

man or the church may hold many differing
opinions upon other questions, but these can-
not affect their Christian character or fellow-
ship in worship or work.

4. It should be also noted in passing that
while the old friction of feeling and discussion
of doctrine have ceased between the denomina-
tions, speculative notions of a revolutionary
and destructive character, originating with
open infidels, have been insidiously introduced
by avowed Christian professors and ministers,
who are now stirring up strife and hindering
spiritual progress in many evangelical churches.
The disturbers are few in number, but intensely
active and aggressive, dealing in assertion with-
out reasoning or proof. Their vantage ground
for harm is found in the lack of Scriptural
knowledge and mental training on the part of
the lay membership, assisted by the natural am-
bition for up-to-dateness in thought movements,
which afflicts an inconsiderable number of the
ministry. But God is in and for His Church,
and in His own time will exert the inherent
power of His truth to remove this with all other
hindrances to the assured advance of His King-
dom on earth.

We return to our chief purpose as intimated
at the outset.

The Second misstatement of the Seminary

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 9

Address is the sole basis of the First. It con-
sists in the square reversal of the only possible
relation between experience and creed or belief.
The grounds of support for this reversal have
b€en exhausted in treating the ample citations
from the Address embodied under the First mis-
statement. We concentrate our straight de-
nial of this fundamental misstatement as re-
spects reasoning and argument in a single para-
graph :

TRUE RELATION OF EXPERIENCE TO CREED

Many columns and pages of sinuous and
specious reasoning have been recently written
touching the relation of creed and experience,
and in open advocacy of what is boastfully
styled "New Theology." This unsustained
reasoning is founded upon the supposition that
experience is the source and basis, and so the
arbiter and interpreter of the creed, as asserted
by Ritschl. The fact is just the reverse. Of
necessity the creed alone furnishes the ground
and the means of the experience. The accepted
creed, with its immediate results of regenera-
tion and conversion, is the beginning of the
new Christian life. Of this life experience is
the continuance and development. The creed
is actuahzed instantly upon its acceptance by
the mind and heart. The experience is the
after resultant of the continued force of the

10 CHURCH CREEDS AND

heart belief reinforced by the forward endeavor
of the consecrated will.^

1 An extended review of President Adams's Address
by Dr. Daniel S. Gregory (Bible Student and Teacher,
Jan, 11), contains the following appreciation and en-
dorsement:

"The Rev. Dr. J. Glentworth Butler, author of the
great 'Butler Bible Work,' who was Permanent Clerk
of the New School General Assembly up to the merger
of the New and Old School bodies in 1870, has lately
given (in New York Observer for December 29, 1910),
in a paper on 'Church Creeds and Christian Experience,'
such an admirable and thoroughgoing exposure of the
irrational, illogical and imqwssihle qualities of this lat-
est Ritschlian 'pronunciamento , that we venture to quote
its statement of how the Modern View places 'the cart
before the horse.' Dr. Butler says, and says incontro-
vertibly on logical and rational grounds." (Citing above
paragraph.)

As a further exposure and refutation of this essential
point in Pres. Brown's Address, we cite from the clos-
ing portion of an exhaustive review by Dr. D. S. Greg-
ory, in "the Bible Student and Teacher," March, 1910:

"We all agree that our personal experience of the
grace of Christ best qualifies us to confess Him, and
that the work of His Spirit in our hearts alone enables
us to set our seal to the doctrines of the Bible. But, is
it true that our duty ends when we have confessed the
little that we have learned by experience? Is every
Christian limited in his profession to his own personal
and private experience of the truth? If so, his con-
fession will be meager indeed. Should we not confess
together also what the Apostles and Prophets have
taught, because they have taught it, even if we cannot
say that we have fully, or perhaps at all, scaled the
heights whereon they dwelt? May we not teach what
Christ taught even before we 'verify' it, just because
He taught it? Peter taught his converts to believe and

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 11

DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE AND ITS
CONFIRMING EFFECTS AND BLESSED RETURNS

The Christian believer's practical experience
may he denned as the present-life fruitage of
Christian faith and practice; eminently the re-
sulting effects of Christian duties and graces —
of daily exercised faith and hope and love, corn-
confess what Paul taught, though it was 'hard to be un-
derstood.' If he had followed Dr. Brown's plan, he
would have bidden them 'verify' it out of their own
experience before they said anything about it.

"It may be taken as axiomatic, that alike in the region
of religious facts and truths, there are some things that
ice can never 'verify ' The Church is surely under ob-
ligations, when necessity arises, to confess the facts
which the Scriptures teach. How can we 'verify' out of
our own experience, for instance, the facts of the life
of Christ, — that He was born of the Virgin Mary and
wrought His mighty works, that He suffered under
Pontius Pilate and was crucified, dead and buried, and
that His body was raised from the grave? Here we
reach the root of Dr. Brown's error. He plainly means
that 'religious experience' may reject, or call in ques-
tion, the facts alleged by the sacred writers. Therefore
he would not have in the creeds of Christendom un-
qualified assertions of such facts, if these creeds are
made a test of entrance to the ministry. Nor can the
fundamental truths involved in God's plan of salvation
be evolved from, or verified by, the 'light of nature,'
whether in man or in creation; but must be received (as
the Standards teach) by God's revelation as their only
authoritative basis.

"The failure to 'postulate' the Bible, in this authorita-
tive sense, as the foundation of the Evangelical faith,
is, as we take it, the basal failure in the Address, and
one that marks and mars it throughout."

12 CHURCH CREEDS AND

bined with praise and thankfulness, meditation
upon the Word and communion with the Spirit
of God, and faithful service to man. And all
these particulars proceed from heart accept-
ance of the essential facts of the one Biblical
creed.

Since Christian experience is not an origi-
nating source or force, since it is an effect and
not a cause, it should not be appealed to in
sane reasoning upon present-day questions as
a source or a cause. But it should be counted
as a means and condition that brings to the
loyal-souled believer an abiding peace of mind,
rest of heart and thankful joy — in God. For
while there is no direct or causal connection,
experience has a most impressive bearing upon
the accepted creed — a wide and grateful func-
tion that is both helpful and satisfying. While
it cannot create, formulate, or interpret a single
point of belief, it can and does confirm and
establish, and that with ever cumulative force,
the correctness and certitude of every point of
faith asserted by the creed. This it does by
reason and under the influence of its testing
faculty continuously exercised through periods
of months and years. Through this testing
power of time a true experience deepens the
conviction and strengthens the purpose of duty,
it maintains steadfastness in forward progress,
and by its ceaseless cheer augments the gains

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE 13

and enlarges the fruitage of our active Chris-
tian Hfe.

Furthermore, experience proves its own genu-
ineness by a conscious indwelHng and inworking
of God, by fervency and free utterance in
prayer, by vivid impressions of great truths
of the Word and actual appropriation of its
promises, and by the abiding peace of Christ
imparting quietness of spirit in the daily en-
counter with trial and change. Thus experi-
ence alone testifies to the genuineness of our
Christian profession. It alone can impart to
the believer an absolute assurance that he is
"accepted in the Beloved" — that Christ is truly
enthroned in his heart and that He is actively
engaged for His follower's present and ever-
lasting welfare. And in the sphere of Chris-
tian fellowship the experience of every indi-
vidual believer operates blessedly upon all others
associated in worship and work.

II

"UP-TO-DATE-NESS"— DESIRABLE AND
UNDESIRABLE

The phrase, "up-to-date," is one of the minor
products of the remarkable intellectual quicken-
ing that has characterized the past half cen-
tury. Because of its fitness its propriety has
been sanctioned by general usage. It carries
a plain and positive meaning; in itself, express-
ing the aim of a natural ambition to attain
place among the foremost seekers and actors.

But the spirit and aim of the seekers dis-
closes and differentiates two widely diverse
classes. These may be mildly distinguished as
"desirable" and "undesirable."

as it bears upon the attainment of knowledge
in the sphere of religious truth and life, and
upon the personal influence it brings. To this
point the present writing is limited.

The knowledge wisely sought and the per-
sonal influence rightly gained and used must be
14

DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE 15

based upon clearly certified truth originating
in and drawn from Divine sources ascertained
through the established laws of human thought,
and assured by faithful acceptance of and just
reasoning upon the vital facts of Divine Revela-
tion. Upon this solid foundation both knowl-
edge and personal influence will be intrinsically
worthy and ennobling, adapted to be helpful
and uplifting to the individual and to society as
respects the brief life on earth and the eternal
life that follows.

As defined by these conditions and faithfully
carried out, "up-to-dateness" is not only de-
sirable but is obligatory upon every believer.
Its meaning and practice is indicated by Paul
in his ringing declaration: "One thing I do,
forgetting the things which are behind, and
stretching forward to the things which are
before, I press on toward the goal unto the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus."

2. UNDESIRABLE "uP-TO-DATENESS"

To deal with this, solely with reference to
thought and action pertaining to a religious
life, is the writer's chief purpose. We seek to
expose the underlying spirit of native conceit,
with its malevolent and hurtful effects upon the
individual obsessed by it, and upon all others
subjected to his influence. And we boldly

16 "UP-TO-DATENESS"

affirm that inborn conceit underlies and is the
generative force of that self-styled "Modern-
ism" now aggressively rampant, which origi-
nated in disbelief in God and His Word, — dis-
belief and rejection of the Divinely established
relations between God and man bearing upon
man's spiritual condition in this world, and in
the eternity upon which he has already entered.
This "Modernism," born of and deriving all its
power from an all mastering conceit, has now
insidiously obtruded its malign influence and is
doing its destructive work within the Church of
God.

A recent English writer says: "Modernism
stands for the spirit that pervades the litera-
ture of the present day, and its strident note is
the personal tone. So exaggerated and fanati-
cal has the personal note shown itself in its re-
bellion against authority that critics of the old
school declare that the British public has lost
its capacity of appreciation and its stand-
ards. . . . The modern critic reminds him-
self that everything has been said about a given
subject that can be said; that there is nothing
that remains unknown excepting one thing —
how the subject happens to affect me."

Applied to present-day religious discussion,
the personal note is tersely expressed by the
questions : "What I think upon the vital teach-
ings of the Bible".? "What mi/ conscious-

DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE 17

ness reports as to their truth and value"?
This note may be synonymed and paraphrased
as a sharp accentuation of the truth of Arch-
bishop Leighton's quaint saying: "There is
naturally in all men a kind of fancied infalli-
bility— in themselves.'^ This proud self-judg-
ment of the values of God-given truths finds its
most notable type and radical expression in a
basal principle of the so-called "New Theology,"
which is the focal point of "Modernism" as ap-
plied to the Bible History and its fundamental
teachings. This principle is plainly affirmed
by its two French and German inventors : That
every human mind, untouched by the light and
life of the Divine Spirit, inherently possesses
power fully to apprehend and conclusively de-
termine what is truth. In the very spirit of
Pilate these inventors uphold this baseless
speculation in utter ignorance of and so wholly
ignoring the settled laws of thought through
which alone knowledge of truth is discerned
and certified; also, utterly failing to recognize
the revealed facts touching the Redemptive re-
lations of God with man, — facts which include
and disclose all truth that bears upon the char-
acter and destiny of man's immortal spirit.
Upon this point, Prof. F. Bettex of Stuttgart,
writes : "The fundamental principle or axiom
upon which the verdict of modern critics is
based is upon the idea that, as Renan expresses

18 "UP-TO-DATE-NESS"

it, reason is capable of judging all things, but
is itself judged hy nothing. This is surely a
proud dictum, but an empty one. For reason,
even as respects matters of this life, is not in ac-
cord with itself. If it were so, whence comes all
the strife and contention of men at home and
abroad, in their places of business and their
public assemblies, in art and science, in legisla-
tion, religion and philosophy? Does it not all
proceed from the conflicts of reason .^^ The en-
tire history of our race is the history of
millions of men gifted with reason who have
been in perpetual conflict one with another.
Is it with such reason, then, that sentence is
to be pronounced upon a Divinely given
Book? . . . Reason alone has never in-
spired men with great sublime conceptions of
spiritual truth, whether in the way of dis-
covery or invention ; but usually it has first
rejected and ridiculed such matters. And just
so it is with these rationalistic critics ; they have
no appreciation or understanding of the high
and sublime in God's Word. Moreover, they do
not agree with one another. They unanimously
deny the inspiration of the Bible, the Deity
of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, also prophecy
and miracles, the resurrection of the dead, the
final judgment, heaven and hell. But when it
comes to pretendedly sure results, not any two
of them afiirm the same things; and their

DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE 19

numerous publications create a flood of disputa-
ble, self-contradictory and mutually destructive
hypotheses."

Furthermore, this self-conceived principle,
claiming for every man a subjective capacity
of apprehending truth, squarely defies reason
and common sense, since it ignores all objective
facts, scouts all reasoning, and in its dicta re-
verses essential truths. It can only be the
product of wilful ignorance and intellectual
pride. Darkening counsel with its blinding
speculations and proofless assumptions, it un-
dermines the faith of seekers after the light
and peace of God. And this immeasurable
harm is deliberately enacted that the doer may
stand notoriously in the lime-light, and enjoy
an ephemeral influence for a brief day.

This destructive work is largely done through
the press. In its chief topic it strikes at the
very center of all essential truth by dealing
superficially and ignorantly with the nature,
life, and teaching of Christ. Many Secular
and Biblical Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
are deeply tainted with Liberal Doctrines.
Some University issues, monthlies and volumes,
— notably those of our four largest Institutions
— are saturated with skilfully woven sophistries,
and a few religious periodicals and weekly jour-
nals are marred and shorn of their helpful in-
fluence by immature speculations from unfur-

20 "UP-TO-DATE-NESS"

nished minds, — touching the mental processes
of Christ, and the blended relation of His Di-
vine and human nature. Some of these writers
boldly claim the knowledge, by actual insight,
of His infinite spirit. Others, under some cap-
tion connected with the name of Jesus, super-
ficially seek to exploit special characteristics of
His human nature, utterly without regard to
the hidden tics binding and coalescing the hu-
man and divine, through the full knowledge of
which alone His character, teaching, and life
can be rightly apprehended and interpreted.
In a word, these finite men assume and assert a
partial or complete knowledge of the Infinite
God, and openly deny His authority and His
inspiration of the Word Revealed. Under the
force of an exaggerated conceit one of these men
has dared presumptuously to write : "Accepting
the New Testament, Jesus evidently told us we
are immortal. But two things rob this fact
{sic) of all its influence. The first is that the
traditional ideas of inspiration and author-
ity have wholly perished with the thinking
classes. . . . The second is that the age of
authority is gone. Men insist on doing their
own thinking on all subjects." Yet these writers
must know their native impotence, dependence
and accountability, — that from God's hands
they come, by His power and goodness they re-
tain their being, and to Him they must render

DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE 21

account. This knowledge Is assured by a double
testimony within them, — the intense unbroken
sense of powerless dependence, and the still but
imperative voice of conscience. Yet they live
on and achieve their work under the fearful
propulsion of unresisted Inborn conceit, without
a thought or care of the fatal hurt that may
be wrought In neighbor souls.

And there are such imperiled neighbor souls!
As every baseless religious doctrine of the past
has had Its adherents, so with these pernicious
teachings. In the active sphere of every zeal-
ous advocate there are a few souls afflicted with
an abnormal ambition to stand abreast with a
leader and to accept the newest thought. These
followers are easily allured by the show of
learning in the bald assertions or barren rhet-
oric of self-posed leaders. Sometimes a fol-
lower under the force of unchecked conceit and
strong partisanship will outstrip the leader in
extravagant assertion.

Thus far we have called a halt for reflection,
and sounded a note of warning for immature
believers, who have been beguiled by this de-
fiant present-day heresy. But the warning has
broader application and suggests a gravely
needed lesson to all true believers, touching the
hurtful Influence of native pride of intellect and
self will. That the lesson calls for heed by

2^ "UP-TO-DATENESS"

men in the pulpit as well as occupants of the
pew is frankly charged by a brave editorial of
a recent year : "The adulteration of the love of
God and the love of man with love of self in
the hearts of the preachers of the gospel con-
tinues to-day as in all ages of the church the
gravest obstacle to the power of preaching."

And the same thoughtful consideration is
demanded and may be wisely given to this clear
warning by every individual believer. For in
every living soul intellect, heart, and will are
natively dominated by conceit. In every hu-
man life it has played a fearfully hindering
part. In a few strong-willed men self-respect-
ing intelligence has availed to weaken its influ-
ence by a measurably successful struggle. But
for effective resistance and actual release from
its power no human force is adequate. Only
the persistently entreated Spirit of God can
so transform and energize the heart and sub-
due the will as to evoke habitual meekness of
mind, lowliness of heart and abasement of will.
The Scripture counsel and injunction is clear
and definite : "Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall." "Put on a heart of
lowliness, meekness, longsuffering." "Yea, all
of you gird yourselves with humility; for God
giveth grace to the humble." In reenforce-
ment of this Divine counsel and command let
the believer ever remember that humility is the

DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE 23

basal and essential grace underlying faith and
hope and love and peace and joy, and with
these coronal graces abides forever in the ulti-
mate heavenly life.

Ill

CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM OF
TO-DAY

Our purpose is, introductorily to refer to
the grounds of the knowledge and reasonable
certitude of truth, and to present Revealed
Facts of God's Redemptive dealings with man
as embodying the essentials of all religious
truth, and as furnishing the sole subject-matter
of investigation ; then to use these points in a
full development of our theme; — buttressing
the whole with careful definitions and sound
reasonings.

The acquisition and use of knowledge is the
designed purpose and inherent function of the
intellect. The reports of our mental facul-
ties must be trustworthy and the evidence ac-
quired through them must provide the basis of
all knowledge. "Truth, or exact knowledge,"
writes a profound and accurate thinker, "is
reached whenever the mental view, or 'thought'
clearly corresponds to the 'thing,' or object
of knowledge. Knowledge comes with the
agreement of subjective apprehension with ob-
jective reality. . . . The reason for certi-
24

OF TO-DAY 25

tude in knowledge Is to be found, in all cases,
in evidencey or something that makes clear the
correspondence between the mental apprehen-
sion and the objective reality, the thought and
the thing." The knowledge of truth, there-
fore, is conditioned upon both an observing
mind and an object or fact to be observed.
For the knowledge of religious truth there must
be a subjective human thinker and appropriate,
worthy objective facts to be thought upon. On
one side a natively sinful, immortal spirit facing
a coming judgment and an eternal destiny,
and on the other certain momentous facts tell-
ing of a provided Redemption from the con-
demning guilt and might of sin, and a restora-
tion to righteousness and childship w^ith God.

That these vital facts are Divinely Revealed
appears from the certainty that God is the only
authenticated and authoritative Revealer, since
He is the only All-Knower, and from the fur-
ther fact that human consciousness can neither
generate nor formulate any particular of truth
or any form of belief, because the human mind
is finite and natively uninformed and the heart
is averse to any form of belief that unpleasantly
affects its own selfish enjoyments. Further-
more, in our ascertainment of these Divinely
Revealed truths "we have got to recognize the
fact that there are settled laws of thought,
valid for all rational beings in all ages and all

26 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

worlds. To ignore them is to destroy the very
possibility of thought. . . . Hence no man
has a right to his opinion unless it is right;
i, e,, unless his conclusion has been reached in
conformity to these universally and eternally
valid laws of thought."

With these conditional points in thought, we
proceed with the affirmation that these Re-
vealed Facts touching man's Divine Redemp-
tion include the entire sphere of religious truth.
And it should be sharply remembered that this
sphere of truth has bounds, and is limited and
made exclusive by them. From that sphere all
error, even the least that antagonizes truth,
is of necessity excluded. The failure to recog-
nize the imperative exclusiveness of truth has
been and is the source and cause of vital mis-
reading and hurtful misstatement of the funda-
mental elements of true Christian character,
belief, and life. And this chiefly as these ele-
ments are related to and affected by the esti-
mate and treatment of Jesus Christ. The
supreme truth and fact of Divine Revelation
is His full Deity and assigned Agency for the
Godhead in the disclosure of all truth, and in
His Redemptive office work for man. The one
chief test of orthodoxy, or right thinking and
believing, is found in the answer to the Mas-
ter's own question, "What think ye of Christ.?"
The very term, "Christian," is limited, accord-

OF TO-DAY 27

ing to the Scriptures, to those who accept His
Divine Messiahship. In both Testaments Mes-
siah (or Anointed) is the identical equivalent
of Christ, and refers to His Divine anointment
as Prophet, Priest and King. It clearly fol-
lows that only the man and the organization
that recognizes and receives Christ in these
three Offices — that accepts Him as the only Re-
vealer of God and Teacher of Truth, as the
only Offerer and Offering for the forgiveness
of sin and bestowal of righteousness, and as the
Supreme, Eternal Sovereign of the human
spirit; in a word, that recognizes and acknowl-
edges Christ, the Eternal Son, as the Repre-
sentative Actor for the Triune Godhead in
man's redemption, — only that man and that
organized institution can justly claim to be
called Christian.

At this point we distinctly note, that it is
the attitude assumed in reference to these su-
preme truths of Revelation that discriminates
and divides the multitude of avowed disciples
that are denominated "Conservative," from the
few who array themselves under the title of
"Liberal." Our subject-matter, then, we find in
the Revealed Truths of the Word of God.

In past discussions prominent use has been
made of the words "doctrine" and "dogma."
Because of this prominence and the sharp an-

m CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

tagonisms connected with their use by the war-
ring schools a bitter distate has been generated
in many minds ; and as these terms are not
synonymous with "truth" they may wisely be
eliminated from present-day discussion. We
therefore use the definitely descriptive word
"truth." Furthermore, it will greatly help our
consideration to realize that all revealed truths
are actual facts, or bases of fact, each truth
charged with vital potency. To us, as re-
spects our spiritual condition, more than truths
they are vital facts. As such they are believed
and rested upon, or denied and helplessly re-
jected.

The immeasurable value of these Revealed
Facts is confirmed by many Divine promises
and commands : E. G. — / Tim. ii, ^, "God our
Saviour, who would have all men to be saved
and come to the knowledge of the truth." Jn.
xvi, 13, "The Spirit of truth shall guide you
into all the truth." // Tim. i, IS, "Hold fast
the pattern of sound words which thou hast
heard from me." // Thess. ii, 15, "Stand fast
and hold the traditions which ye were taught."

Knowledge of "the truth as it is in Jesus,"
i. e., knowledge of revealed facts pertaining to
His Redemptive work, is the supreme aim and
endeavor of all honest search and discussion.
Every spiritual truth is an objective fact of
pure Revelation, and must be so studied and

OF TO-DAY 29

interpreted. Its interpretation cannot be
thought of subjectively, by a natively ignorant
finite niind. It must be studied and can only
be interpreted in accordance with established
laws of thought, under the guidance and with
the aid of the Spirit of truth.

With these preliminary considerations as es-
sential conditions, and holding their organic
connections and bearing clearly in our thought,
we reach the direct exposition of our theme.

First, we seek to define and find the true
place of Conservatism in its proper present-day
use, as distinguished from its meaning and use
in past periods.

The term has been applied to all generations
since the Reformation. Its reference has been
first to the great pioneer Reformers, and then
to the successive scholars who have given their
lives to Bible study and exposition. The
world's debt to these giants of stalwart brain
and immovable purpose cannot be measured by
human computation. But these world reform-
ing teachers were imperfect men, differing
greatly in mental gifts, in fullness of training,
in temperamental characteristics, in natural and
acquired bias and partisan spirit. And these
differences naturally led to diverse and antago-
nistic interpretations of Scripture, and to the
formulation of opposing doctrines and philo-

30 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

sophic theories. The unavoidable result was
conflict, and the establishment of antagonistic
schools of thought and creed, with accompany-
ing bitterness and estrangement. This con-
troversy was maintained through successive gen-
erations. In the course of time there were
evolved not only diverse essential doctrines, but
differences in matters of church polity and in
trivial points of belief and conduct. This
brings us to our own time and accounts for the
hundreds of church names, forms of organiza-
tion,, and crudities of belief.

Instinctively repelling, unproven, and rea-
sonably questionable points of doctrine em-
bodied in the early creeds naturally and rightly
call for revision and restatement. And the
process of such revision has been carried on
through the conflicts of the schools until in this
wiser day of larger knowledge and clearer
thinking a consensus of belief has been reached
by the Evangelical Churches, and is expressed
in the Present-day Conservatism. This in-
cludes every essential truth of the one almost
universally accepted Biblical Creed. From this
Creed no vital doctrine has been omitted, or
shorn of its Divine force.

As a result of this revision and consensus,
the long mooted and unproven points justly ac-
credited to the Old Conservatism have been re-
tired and have become almost unheard, except

OF TO-DAY 31

when cited as a blind to enforce a specious argu-
ment by the wakeful opponents of the true,
Biblical present-day Conservatism.

A prominent cause of the transformation of
the Old into the New Conservatism is the swift
advance, during the last decade, in the spirit
of unity in Christian fellowship and service on
the part of all Evangelical Churches. This
wonderful. Divinely wrought fact has brought
rejoicing into the hearts of all God's true chil-
dren. In this land the effective Churches have
entered organically into Federative service for
their common Lord. And they have subordi-
nated all minor matters of belief and polity,
and virtually accepted one and the same Bibli-
cal Creed as the basis of united ministry.

This creed distinguishes and fully describes
the New, Present-day, Conservatism. This
pure, heavenly "form of sound words" imparts
to it spirit, breadth, strength, and joyous free-
dom. So it gladly welcomes this day of larger
knowledge and clearer, broader thinking, with
the cumulative sources of subject-matter that
have been added and carefully searched by suc-
cessive generations of scholars. It willingly
(accepts all conclusions that have borne the
test of unbiased and thorough investigation in
accordance with the laws of thought and the
canons of just and sound reasoning, and as
these conclusions are sustained by adequate evi-

32 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

dence. This conscious freedom and largeness
of thought and this conviction of truthful be-
lief based upon correct reasoning and conclusive
evidence has been unwrought by the intrinsic
greatness, the assured certitude, and the exact
fitness to man's need of its Scriptural beliefs
and their accompanying rich and satisfying
experiences.

In its subject-matter of belief modern Con-
servatism holds unreservedly and unwaveringly
to the vital facts of the Christian religion as set
forth in the Bible.

As the sole source of its beliefs it accepts
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
exactly as these have been preserved to us, un-
diminished and unchanged, as a Revelation
from God, in itself forever complete, ("The
Spirit does not add a single truth to the
Bible." — Chalmers.) — "a communication of
truths concerning the Divine nature and
the Kingdom of God, which could not
otherwise be known, an unveiling of that which
already exists in the world of unseen realities
and in the Divine will and purpose, which man
could only know as God is pleased to disclose
it." It receives these Scriptures as "given by
inspiration of God" — God-breathed — as Paul
declares. By inspiration is meant that "the
Bible is infallibly authoritative only on that
single and definite line where authoritative

OF TO-DAY 33

guidance was needed, that it authoritatively
teaches us, what God is, what God has done to
save us, and what we must do to be saved."

We condense the sovereign, vital facts of this
Divine Revelation — the Essentials of a genuine
Christian faith, — under the comprehensive cap-
tion :

THE GODHEAD AND DIVINE REDEMPTION

1. The Nature of God: a Personal Spirit;
Living and Life-giving; Self-Existent, Self-
Moved, and Self-Sufficient ; the only true God.
Possessing Unbounded Duration ; Unlimited
Knowledge and Wisdom; Infinite Power; Om-
nipresence ; Unchangeableness. In whom in-
heres in absolute perfection : Holiness ; Right-
eousness in Dealing; Justice in Administering
Law and Grace ; Truth and Faithfulness ; Good-
ness in Providence; Grace to undeserving and
mercy to ill-deserving; All, save Holiness, sum-
med up in Love, infinite and everlasting.

2. The Godhead an Eternal Trinity, with
Intercommunion Life. Only disclosed in the
Threefold Office-Work of the Divine Persons in
Human Redemption.

3. Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God. In
both Testaments disclosed as the Revealer of
God, and Agent of the Godhead in Revelation,
Creation, Providence and Redemption.

34? CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

His Incarnation as the God-Man. Luke
(i, 30-35) and Matthew (i, 18-21) distinctly
affirm His conception by the Holy Ghost and
birth of the Virgin Mary. And both facts thus
affirmed by two inspired writers plainly and
signally stand out as essential points of Chris-
tian faith since they underlie and are founda-
tion facts upon which rest all other truths and
facts that give existence and virility to that
faith.

His Threefold Office-Work as Messiah
(Anointed) i. e.^ Christ. In both Testaments
He is disclosed as Prophet, Priest and King.
As Prophet He is affirmed and claims to be the
source and Teacher of all truth. Jn. xv'i, H.
As Priest, both offerer and offering. "Christ
died for our sins." "He laid down His life."
"Enduring the cross," "despising the shame"
"for the joy set before Him" in "saving the
lost"; thus fulfilling the Father's will, and at-
testing the Father's love for an estranged
world, and endowing every believer with eternal
life. So each of us trusting in Him, may be
assured, that "there is therefore now no con-
demnation," and may rejoicingly say with
Paul, "who loved me and gave Himself up for
me." As Priest, too, "He ever liveth to make
intercession for us." As King, He is the Eter-
nal Sovereign of an ever abiding Kingdom of
grace and glory, into which He is pledged to

OF TO-DAY 35

bring us that we may be forever with our Re-
deeming Lord.

His superhuman Words and Deeds, incon-
testibly attesting His supernatural Wisdom and
Might, and manifesting a Divine love, and a
marvellous mastery over His own natural laws,
in the healing of incurable diseases, in restoring
life to the dead, in subduing by a word the
tempests of air and sea, and in forgiving sins
and imparting peace and hope to penitent souls.

In the crowning miracles of His Resurrec-
tion and Ascension, with their ample historical
proof through the testimony of many credible
witnesses.

In His Heavenly Enthronement as revealed
by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and most
intimately communed with on earth.

And in His final office as Kingly Judge af-
firmed and outlined by Himself. Mat, xxv.

4. The Eternal Spirit of God, and His
Agency in Man's Divine Redemption.

His preliminary and needful work in unfold-
ing a complete Divine Revelation through the
agency of human writers — a work w^hich w^as
finished with the "Revelation" of John.

His supreme Office-Work upon and within the
human spirit. In His approach to and action
upon the soul of man the Holy Spirit invaria-
bly uses as means the truths or facts of Christ's
Redeeming work. These saving truths He un-

36 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

folds, impresses, makes vivid and convincing,
and this without a breath of compulsion. Em-
ploying only the motive power of these sublime
and momentous facts, He seeks to draw the soul
to appropriate self-action. And when by the
impulsive force of a vividly impressed infinite
Divine love He has won the yielding soul to
penitence and self-surrender, and to the plight
of faith and love and service to the inviting
Christ, then it is that the Spirit's crowning
work of new-creating and life-giving is silently
wrought within the faintly trusting soul.
There takes place a spiritual quickening from
death to life, a radical transformation of char-
acter, a restoration of the lost likeness of God,
and a renewed childship and fellowship with
Him.

Following this act of regeneration and spirit-
ual transformation is the process of sanctifica-
tion by the Holy Spirit, the progressive com-
pletion of His work by daily renewal and in-
vigoration of the inwrought spiritual life.
In this "renewing day by day" the Spirit uses
the same truths with ever increasing emphasis,
together with the added power of inspired
prayer and sympathetic Christian fellowship.
And He is pledged to "perfect that which He
has begun until the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ."

With these primary vital functions of the

OF TO-DAY 37

Holy Spirit bearing upon the believer's experi-
ence, we complete our compact summary of the
revealed facts of the Bible that are essential
to Christian faith and experience. And these
supremely momentous facts, held with more or
less completeness and fullness of belief as meas-
ured by the individual's knowledge and experi-
ence, are embodied in the views and beliefs of
the modern Conservative. Standing upon
these vital disclosures of Divine Revelation he
is "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in
the work" of his Lord and Saviour. Under
the influence of these assured, eternal truths he
is ever looking and longing for broader views
and fuller knowledge of his relations with God
and the issues of his daily life on earth in their
bearing upon his changeless destiny in the
heavenly abiding.

And we may add, that these high, sustain-
ing and fruit-bearing beliefs constitute the
substance and heart of the one Biblical creed
that is now uniting in spirit and engaging in
common service Evangelical believers of every
Church name.

We proceed to consider

PRESENT-DAY LIBERALISM

— in its relation to Bible history and teach-
ing— as now aggressively active inside of
Church lines. We seek fairly to exhibit its

38 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

basal principles and theories, generated long
ago outside these lines, but adopted and ac-
tively propagated by avowed Christian teach-
ers and writers. A prominent New York pas-
tor and effective writer has said: "To-day the
only infidelity worth reckoning is that which
masquerades in the livery of heaven.
The deniers are ministers of Christ, under oath
to preach the very doctrines which they deny."
Foremost of all, itself the underlying root of
all the rest, stands the comparatively

MODERN THEORY OF EVOLUTION ^

This had its birth and initiation in specula-

1 "The doctrine of Evolution as it is now current in
popular literature is one-tenth bad Science and nine-
tenths bad Philosophy." — Geo. Fred. Wright.

"Pushed to its logical outcome it comprises ethics and
all the sentiments from which our Christian civilization
starts. It destroys the self-conscious agent, and sub-
stitutes for it blind materialism. Its logical outcome is
mechanical atheism, unsettled morals, and denial of im-
mortality or personality to man or God." — Pres. Noah
Porter.

"In evolution, as an orderly development and advance,
every intelligent man believes. But as a process of un-
interrupted differentiation of being, under natural laws
and from inherent forces, it is an unproved theory,
with all the evidence squarely against it. There is one
force in literature and history, of which evolution takes
no account, and which it cannot explain. It is person-
ality— strong, self-poised, determined personality. It is
a dominating force in literature and history, and per-
sonality is the absolute antithesis of evolution. Un-

OF TO-DAY 39

tivG interpretation of the method of Creation.
The true story is plainly given in the Bible.
Its first sentence attests the entire record as
a Divine Revelation, and itself proves its su-
pernatural source and superhuman authorship,
and therefore the truth of its contents. For
the stupendous fact it asserts is impossible of
conception, much less of invention, by a created,
finite mind.

This self-attested Record declares that at
the fiat of God "the earth brought forth grass,
herbs and fruit trees, each bearing fruit after
its kind'*; also "living creatures for the water,
the air, and the earth, each multiplying after
its kind/' This was the Divinely directed and
empowered method of the production and con-
tinuance of the animate products of the fertile
earth and the animal creation, each produced
through the generative power imparted by God
acording to its kind. This was God's way of
development — the extent and limit of the term
Evolution in its only true definition.

proved in science, demonstrably false in literature, art
and history, the theory of evolution cannot be accepted
as a canon of criticism." — A. T. F. Behrends.

"By the evolutionary conception the very idea of sin,
in the Christian sense, is essentialy altered. Sin is no
longer the voluntary defection of a creature who had
the power to remain sinless. The very possibility of
sinless development is excluded. Sin becomes a natural
necessity of man's ascent: a something unavoidable in
his history." — Borden P. Bowne.

40 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

The first form and application of the modern
theory openly denied and rejected these plain
averments of the Divine Word. It directly
antagonized them by its claim that original
life-germs came into existence by natural
processes, and that through these life-germs
lower species of plants and animals may be
and have been transmuted into higher. It
thus affirmed the existence of productive life
force without any conceivable cause or agency
in its production. And this is the sole root
principle, the colossal, impossible, speculative
notion, that defines and constitutes the entire
structure of the modern theory of Evolution —
a theory that is instantaneously rejected by
sane reason, and unsustained by a shred of
evidence. Its sole supporting assertion that
"the human race began low down and through
countless ages worked itself up to its present
civilized state" has been overwhelmingly si-
lenced by biologists, geologists, and archas-
ologists. These scientists confirm the state-
ment of the Divine Record: "God made man in
His own image.''

This first introductory form and applica-
tion of the Theory naturally led to the substi-
tution of human speculation for Divine affirma-
tion in the investigation of spiritual truth and
experience. It devitalized the Scriptural mean-
ing of regeneration and sanctification, substi-

OF TO-DAY 41

tuting for these essentials of Christian experi-
ence mere ethical improvement in personal
character. It deprived its blinded adherent
of the capacity to apprehend and the sensi-
bility to respond to the supreme needs and de-
mands of his immortal spirit, thus producing
a heart-hardening unfaith toward God and ulti-
mate soul loss.

As the Evolution theory is baseless and there-
fore false, as applied to Creation, it is equally
false and even more effectively harmful in its
further application to the essential truths and
historic statements of the Bible. This will be
made clear as we proceed to consider the definite
points of such further application.

The first, most bitter and fatal product of
this Evolutionary root we find in the

DENIAL AND ELIMINATION OF THE SUPER-
NATURAL

The realm of the Supernatural reaches and
includes the vast time-range of human History,
the entire Bible product, the existence and na-
ture of God and His Working in Creation,
Providence and Redemption. As inclusive
prominent facts connected with man's Redemp-
tion we distinguish the Deity, Incarnation, su-
perhuman words and deeds. Resurrection and
Ascension of Christ; the agency of the Holy

42 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

Spirit in regeneration and sanctification ; and
man's corresponding consciousness of the for-
giveness and peace of God, and his realized ex-
perience of reversed judgments, desires, affec-
tions, aims, and hfe purposes, from self to
God.

The basis of the Supernatural is found in
its absolute necessity as an imperial condition
for this revelation of God and His redeeming
action toward men and for the corresponding
spiritual experience of men. Without the su-
pernatural working of God the disclosure
of His just and loving rule over men, and
His Incarnate entrance among men for their
salvation could not possibly have been ac-
complished.

More than this from our own standpoint:
The sense of the Supernatural permeates the
atmosphere we breathe. We acknowledge and
feel it in the consciousness of utter dependence
with which we are confronted in hours of weak-
ness, ignorance, doubt and darkness which
overshadow and pain our spirits in life's try-
ing changes, its sicknesses and losses. These
hours of unrest press upon us the subconscious
conviction that there is an unseen Supreme Con-
troller of all beings and events. That this
Controller is also our ever present Overseer
and Judge of our moral acting we know by
the persistent, convincing testimony of our in-

OF TO-DAY 43

hering conscience. And this consciousness of
an ever wakeful supernatural presence and
power imparts a higher value and greater dig-
nity to our life as it brings us closer to God
and into truer affinity with His revealed
thoughts and designs.

Denial of the Supernatural in its broadest
phase, means the deliberate casting out of the
area of the Universe the conception of God as
Creator, Sustainer and Ruler, and the substi-
tution of a blind, heartless Fate, with an aim-
less adamant will in control of worlds and ani-
mate creatures, achieving for all a destiny of
annihilation or of unlighted, hopeless, and abid-
ing doom. Even when modified by speculative
admissions this denial means the extermination
of all true satisfying religious aspiration and
hope. For it blots out every essential truth
of the New Testament Gospel, every teaching
of the Christian system of faith, and so utterly
extinguishes the very conception of Chris-
tianity.

And these deniers of the Supernatural have
never attempted to formulate an iota of evi-
dence in support of their impious denial. Their
entire evidential fabric is made up of their own
empirical assumptions.

As the next emanation from the Evolutionary
root came a European invention:

44* CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

THEORY OF AUTONOMOUS MIND

The Root Theory, with its effective co-agent,
Pure Naturalism, has brought us a God — or
an impersonal, nameless Energy — credited with
simple creative power at the outset, but ever
since caged and inert within His own world —
machine; displacing Him by another creative
force — whence derived no one knows — inhering
to the machine, whereby members of the ani-
mate creation are subjected to transmutation
and advance of species. By its co-agent it
empties religious truth of its vitality by elimi-
nating the Spirit of God from all connection
with His own inspired disclosures.

Now the basal Theory takes a natural for-
ward step by putting man — every man — in the
place of the Spirit of God as an interpreter of
His own revealed spiritual truth — making a
finite, ignorant man's consciousness together
with his native inclinations and tastes, the de-
termining authority and judge of the inmost
meaning of the Divinely revealed vital realities
that bind man to God and decide his eternal
destiny.

This further step fully defines and exposes
the significance of the phrase coined by one
of its inventors, "Autonomous Mind." Ex-
pressing it in his own philosophic terms,
Sabatier wrote: "To say that the mind is

OF TO-DAY 45

autonomous is to say that it finds the su-
preme norm of its ideas and acts not out-
side of itself, but within itself, in its very
constitution. It is to say that the consent
of the mind itself is the prime condition and
foundation of all certitude." "So," comments
an acute writer, "by virtue of the autonomy of
mind truth becomes mere matter of opinion.
As a man thinks it, so it is — to him at least.
Of course it can have no validity for the other
man, or for another day." And he adds : "The
question, whether there are any external objec-
tive realities corresponding to the truths of
theology and answering to the needs of the soul,
is a question of fact. The response to it is
to be found, not in the dicta of the autonomous
mind, but through the investigation of matters
of fact. The method is inductive, and it must
take in all the facts"

For the differing form of Ritschl's statement
and fuller refutation of the theory we refer to
page 104 ff. We only repeat the estimate of
Dr. W. C. Gray {Interior, Dec, '97) : "The
peculiarity of the Impressionist School, of
which Ritschl was the founder, is that it makes
nothing of historic or scientific facts or re-
alities. It is not things as they are or were
that have value, but the impression which the
whole makes upon the imagination or feeling.
It is a sort of idealism which denies the reality

46 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

of anything. . . . There are two sources of
knowledge; the external or objective, and the
internal or subjective. The old theology ac-
cepts an external standard in the infallible
Word of God, while the new accepts only an
internal standard found in the subjective judg-
ments of the individual. It asserts a new doc-
trine of infallibility to be found in the inner
consciousness of the believer." We add: To a
sane mind, rightly regarding all religious
truths as merely formulated statements of
facts relating to God and man, and therefore
demanding objective treatment, this purely
subjective theory seems to exclude itself from
the region of reason and common sense as it
has neither practical starting point nor solid
resting place.

As the next, most tangible, development in
its Evolutionary progress. Liberalism assails
the integrity and vitality of the Bible. Its
sole teaching aim is to show men what
there is to be doubted and believed. Under its
assumed title of "Higher" Criticism, it has
been putting in and aggressively pushing for-
ward its abnormal work of Disintegration, In-
terpolation, Mutilation, and destructive Rever-
sal of the historic statements and spiritual
teachings of the Word of God. This is a
natural forward step from the theory of self-

OF TO-DAY 47

determination by a finite mind of the meaning
of truths affirmed by an infinite mind. From
the right of interpreting particular truths its
advocates easily expanded their claim to a com-
plete revision of the entire Biblical contents.
In their endeavor to fill so large a contract,
applying human measures to the apprehension
of God and His Word, they constructed new
literary canons out of their own necessities and
sympathies, by which to interpret the breadth
and depth, and determine the genuine authority
of the Word of God. Then, rating the Word
as a human production, they proceeded to take
it to pieces, to analyze its make-up, authorship,
and contents, to displace and mutilate its parts,
to elide clauses, verses, and whole sections and
Books, and reset the dislocated remnants to
accord with their own notions, inclinations and
tastes. As instruments to give seeming sup-
port to their devastating work upon Old Testa-
ment History and Prophecy, these shrewd in-
ventors introduced to mature birth many hypo-
thetical redactors, of ghostly presence, but
gifted with magical editorial discernment of
genuine original text.

And tliis preposterous, colossal claim — of
human right and authority to displace, muti-
late and reverse the historic facts and spiritual
truths given through Divine inspiration by
Divine love to bring to men eternal life — this

48 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

astounding claim rests to-day, as it has from
its initiation by the infidel and profligate
AstruCy upon assertion buttressed in later
years by an utterly unsustained assumption of
superior scholarship. This, their arrogant
boast, filing the place of reasoning and proof,
always prominent in every advertisement and
writing, has been and is even more obtrusively
to-day, the only ground or plea upon which
they accentuate their claim for a wide and
general following. They have never presented
other evidence than their own unaided conclu-
sions. And upon every point in these conclu-
sions there is disagreement and antagonism
among themselves. They only agree in the com-
mon act of mutilating and reversing the only
enlightening and saving truth from Heaven.
Their claim of exclusive "Higher" scholarship
is equally unfounded, for to-day the number
of eminent conservative scholars greatly ex-
ceeds that of really learned and able advocates
of the disintegrating criticism, while the aver-
age scholars who hold the Bible intact and all
of God exceed the denying critics by many tens
of thousands in the world-area of Christendom.
Furthermore, the Literary method of the
Radical theorists is arbitrary, sophistical and
delusive. Its supreme and vital defect lies in
the patent fact that it is purely subjective.
Its subject-matter is mainly made up of hypo-

OF TO-DAY 49

thetical suggestion and conjecture, modified by
literary taste, without a shred of external data
of fact as foundation and proof. Its conceits
and extravagances are "without check or limit
beyond the prepossessions and caprice of the
critics." And the "process of literary analysis
is absolutely unprecedented. Nothing in all
literature, ancient or modern, presents a parallel
to the critics proposed reconstruction." Prof.
Schodde says of its basal Documentary theory :
"It is undeniably a purely subjective produc-
tion, without a scintilla of external evidence,
being founded solely upon subjective analysis
and combination."

The crowning product of the combined Evo-
lutionary emanations, surely resulting in an
undermined faith and an imperiled soul appears
in a self-styled

An able writer has just now described this
final product of Liberalism as "the system of
thought of those — so far as they have any sys-
tem— who accept the results of the Radical
Criticism and the Evolutionary Philosophy as
applied to the Bible and Theology." He adds :
"The Evolutionary Philosophy yields the Radi-
cal Criticism, and both have begotten the New
Theology."

50 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

The title, "New Theology," is a double mis-
nomer, as the system it propounds is Old, and
ignores God. With greater consistency and
courtesy to the world-transforming efficacy of
a past Christianity, Dr. Eliot calls the identi-
cal system "The Religion of the Future." But
it is exclusively a system of incomplete morals,
for the guidance of men in their personal and
social relations during this life only ; and it is
all borrowed from the Bible teachings. Since
there is no God in its alliance, it is no religion.
For the term, "religion," is properly defined as
"a belief binding the spiritual nature of man
to a supernatural being on whom he is con-
scious that he is dependent" ; and it must in-
clude man's entire life, present and eternal, in
his relations to God and to man.

The "New Theology" is amply defined in the
negatives employed by its advocates, and it has
never constructed any positives. There is a
seeming difference in the form and force of its
expressions, but all have an identical mean-
ing. Dr. Lyman Abbott, whose contributions
to the cause of humanity and social progress
have been greatly helpful, as an open advocate
of the New Theology, endorses the extreme ap-
plications of the Evolutionary Philosophy.
Concerning the supernatural he writes : "The
fundamental basis of the old theology is ex-
pressed by the word supernatural. . . . The

OF TO-DAY 51

New Theology denies absolutely the old as-
sumed distinction between the natural and the
supernatural.'* He further says: "The New
Theology questions the basis of authority, and
questions so effectually that neither the Bible
nor the Church speaks to even the Church-
man with the authority with which they spoke a
century ago." And again: "Jesus Christ is
not the source of religion. Religion existed
among peoples who never heard of Jesus
Christ. He did not come to found a religion,
nor to found a special form of religion."

And the British heresiarch, R. J. Campbell,
affirms the same system of unfaith in terse par-
ticulars when he says : "We believe that Jesus
was divine; so are we. Every man is a po-
tential Christ." "The belief that Jesus suf-
fered some mysterious penalty and took away
sin is a moral mischief." "Sin itself is a quest
after God." A noted London editor (the
Clarion) boasting himself as an "agnostic so-
cialist" and affiliating himself with Mr. Camp-
bell, declared that "the New Theology em-
braced nothing that he denied and denied noth-
ing that he believed."

For a third "specimen" denial of a Self-
Revealed Triune, Redeeming God we refer to
the already forgotten scheme of so-called
"New Religion" evolved by Dr. Charles Eliot.
The scheme, for we cannot call it a system of

52 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

thought, Is as old as Cain, who rejected the
merciful intervention of God. It is only one
of the recent manifestos of the multitudes that
have appeared in all human generations. Nor
is it a religion, since, instead of re-binding
man to his Divine Creator and Moral Ruler,
it severs him from God. The New York Times
"fears that no martyr will ever give his blood
as the seed of Dr. Eliot's new reHgion" ; while
to the New York Tribune, "it seems like a re-
ligion of aristocracy, one for the few superior
men, the supermen." In substance, detail,
and effects, it is identical with the New The-
ology. Both alike hold to the fatal limitation
of human life to the present-time existence, to
an exclusive theory of negations of all Re-
vealed Facts. And both never even hint at any
rational constructive system to replace their
own destructive theories.

To the great grief of all Evangelical writers,
especially to the lovers of the Union Seminary
as it was, the Rev. Dr. William Adams Brown,
the Professor of Systematic Theology, has now
openly avowed to the world, through the Har-
vard Theological Review (Jan. 1911), in a
summarized statement, his entire sympathy
with and acceptance of the System of Lib-
eralism, or "New Theology," in its whole length
and breadth and depth. The issue, in all its
momentous magnitude, is between the old, long

OF TO-DAY 53

established, impregnably based and fortressed
upon the Revealed Word of God, and held to-
day by the immense multitude of learned and
straight thinking scholars, and the baseless,
reasonless and proofless system of unfaith, a
product of solely human origin, with a fruit-
age of widely malign influence upon untrained
lay minds.

With fitting comment we cite Dr. Brown's
own words in defense of the "New Theology"
and depreciation of the Old:

Page 1. "By the new theology we mean the
type of theology whose method is determined
by the modern scientific movement. By the
modern scientific movement is meant the move-
ment of thought whose chief marks on the out-
ward side are the acceptance of development
as the law of the physical universe, and on the
inward side the recognition of the contribution
of mind to the content of knowledge."

Page 12. (Repeating page 1.) "By the
new theology we mean the theology whose
method is determined by the results of the
modem scientific movement, both on the ob-
jective side in the acceptance of develop-
ment^ (evolution) "as the law of the physical
universe, and on the subjective side by the
recognition of the contribution which the mind
itself" (the Autonomous Mind) "makes to the
content of its own knowledge. It is a theology

5i CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

which has come into existence as a result of the
intellectual revolution through which thought
has passed during the last century, and it
expresses the reaction of that revolution within
the realm of religion."

Concerning this recent "intellectual revolu-
tion of thought," also referred to as "the
modern scientific movement," and here affirmed
to be the generator of the new theology, we
submit brief but sufficing comment:

Every Christian scholar gladly and grate
fully recognizes the remarkable intellectual
quickening that has characterized the past half
century. Its main producing causes may be
read in the swift and signal advance in scien-
tific knowledge and inventive art, leading to
an immense increase in means and facilities for
intellectual and industrial intercourse, and ex-
changes of commercial products between civi-
lized nations. The crowning results, as re-
spects religious truth, appear in a clearer,
keener insight, a profounder search, a wider
vision, more definite knowledge, and a simpler,
more direct and effective expression of Divinely
revealed truths.

As respects the above cited assertion that
the New Theology was begotten by the recent
"intellectual revolution of thought," a little
rudimentary reasoning will show that the no-
tion of truth-creating force existing in and

OF TO-DAY 55

operative by mere human thought is a fanciful
chimera. For the human mind is simply a
fabricating machine. Like all manufacturing
machines it needs to be supplied with appro-
priate material upon which to work, and pro-
duce a definite fabric. As the manufacturing
machine is incapable of producing the material
upon which it works, so the human mentality is
utterly unable to originate and create a single
conception of either truth or fact. It can
only be exercised in the consideration of such
truths and facts as are set before it by an au-
thentic and authoritative Divine disclosure.
Furthermore, all enlarged and advanced intel-
lectual progress is purely subjective, — i, e.,
proceeds from the mind's own action — and
it is made possible only by the mind's con-
tact with objective truth and fact. Here
is the root error of the above cited asser-
tion ascribing creative force to "the intel-
lectual movement of thought." Such move-
ment cannot exist or be operative except it is
solidly based upon truth or fact from a Divine
source Divinely revealed. Much less can it
masquerade as "scientific," and begetter of a
Theology, or Science of God.

Page 1. "The new theology is a matter
of principles."

Only two "principles" are indicated thus far :
1. The acceptance of the Evolutionary The-

56 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

ory, which affirms the existence and actual work-
ing of a productive life-force in a mere natural
process of events, without any conceivable
cause or agent in production. Even Goldwin
Smith bids "the Evolutionist to remember that
Evolution cannot have evolved itself." 2. A
similar acceptance of the Theory of "Au-
tonomous Mind," i. e., the utterly impossible
notion that the discerning and determining
power as to questions of truth and duty is
natively inherent and fully possessed by the
mind of every man. Akin to these two asserted
"principles," a third crops out in the further
pages. It is the like baseless notion that
experience is the source and basis and so the
arbiter and interpreter of the creed or things
to be believed. The simplest analysis shows
that the fact is just the reverse. (See p. 9.)

With visionary "principles" as its substance
and body, instead of solid, immovable Facts of
Divine Revelation, it naturally follows that

Page 1. "The new theology has no formal
creed in which its beliefs are embodied. It
is a spirit and a method rather than a body of
definite opinions."

If we read these citations together, we have
a definite creed, although negative in terms,
vague and visionary in substance, barren as to
results, and, as certified by the writer's closing
word, uncertain as to correctness and perma-

OF TO-DAY 57

nence. From the acceptance of such a creed
every sane mind would be instinctively repelled.

ITS POINTS OF NEGATION AND DENIAL OF
ESSENTIAL TRUTHS

Page 9. "Doctrines such as election, re-
generation, justification, perseverance, assur-
ance, to many (Christians) in our day have
lost their meaning and become empty words."

Page H. (Denial of the Supernatural.)
"The contrast between nature and the super-
natural, which was fundamental for the old
theology, has disappeared. . . . The same
law which holds the planets in their orbits is
matched by a corresponding law within. The
mind has its uniform processes in which cause
follows effect in irrevocable sequence. It is a
law of development."

Page 15. "The Bible . . . can no longer
be isolated from other books, as was the habit
of the old theology. Considered as literature,
the Bible is a book like other books. We can
trace its origin, follow its history, analyze
and explain the processes by which its different
elements were brought into the form in which
we have them." P. 18. "When we turn to
our Bible, we do not have to abandon the
methods which we use when we study Shakes-
peare or Homer."

58 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

Fage 15. "What is true of God's revela-
tion without, in nature and in the Bible, is true
also of his activity in the spirit of man. Here
too the abrupt contrasts of the old theology
have disappeared from the new. Sin is not a
foreign intruder making its appearance in the
universe suddenly at a moment of time, and
bringing about an abrupt transformation in
human nature as a whole. Sin is the inevita-
ble result of certain tendencies inwrought into
the structure of human nature. It is the sur-
vival of the animal in man, his failure to rise
to the higher capacities within him. So, salva-
tion is not an act wrought once for all in some
transcendent realm. It is a process going on
through the ages, and rooted as truly as sin
itself in the nature of man. Atonement is not
the great exception, it is the universal law of
all true living. Calvary is a principle as well
as an event. . . . So, under other names,
justification and sanctification are experiences
found outside of Christianity. The church is
not composed of exiles from the world, it is
the first-fruits of the society that is to be.
Jesus is not God and man, he is God in man,
the first-born among many brethren, but the
type to which all mankind is ultimately destined
to conform."

(Every Revealed truth is here explicitly or
implicitly denied, and every sentence, with every

OF TO-DAY 59

other citation before and after should be em-
phatically underscored.)

Page 16. "God is not thought of as sepa-
rate from the universe, but rather as its im-
manent law. He is not a transcendent being
living in a distant heaven whence from time to
time he intervenes in the affairs of earth. He
is an ever-present spirit guiding all that hap-
pens to a wise and holy end. We meet him in
nature. We meet him in history. We meet
him in the Bible. We meet him in the lives of
great men, and supremely in Jesus, the ideal
man, through whom he has given us the clear-
est revelation of his character and purpose.
He has but one purpose, which animates him
in all that he does, and that is to make indi-
viduals like Jesus, and to unite them through
brotherly service in the ideal society."

Page 16. "The old theology provided a
clear-cut, invariable standard, valid everywhere,
always, and for everybody. The new theology
knows no such standard. It deals with prin-
ciples rather than laws, and when conditions
change, the application of principles has to
be modified to suit the changing environment.
Right and wrong are determined for us not so
much by a standard established in the past as
by a purpose affecting the future. As Chris-
tians it is our ultimate aim to establish the
Kingdom of God on earth, but what particular

60 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

kind of conduct that purpose may involve un-
der any particular set of circumstances can only
be determined by a study of the factors of the
problem as they arise."

Page 17. "The consciousness of the im-
mediate presence of God, which was so char-
acteristic a feature of the older piety, is not so
prominent in the new. It is not that the be-
lief in the divine presence is lacking, but it is
spread over so wide a territory that it is not
as palpable to the emotions." (An attenuated
"experience.")

Page 19. "If the new theology owes its
origin to curiosity, it finds its verification in
experienced"

Page 19. "The advocates of the new the-
ology are called critical, destructive, sceptical,
pullers-down rather than builders-up, and it
must be confessed that there is truth in the
charge. How can it be otherwise? The new
theology is the outgrowth of a rational (?)
movement, and thought is necessarily critical,
destructive, sceptical. The old view of the
world which served for a thousand years has
broken down, and countless builders are at
work on the framework of the new philosophy
which is to house our enlarged universe."

Against this distempered conception of the
rational origin of the new theology, and the
insensate prophecy of the world's stability and

OF TO-DAY 61

progress under the mere movement of unaided
human thought, we need only the cheering as-
surance of the clear Word of the Living God:
"Wherefore, receiving a Kingdom that cannot
be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may
offer service well-pleasing to God, with rever-
ence and awe."

Page %Ji., (The closing sentences confess
the writer's remaining doubt and abiding un-
certainty.)

"We have to show that with the intellectual
resources which the new knowledge puts at our
disposal we can give to the old convictions a
surer and more satisfying expression than they
have ever received before. If the new theology
can do this, it will last; if not, it will have to
give place to a newer. ^^

The writer's personal attitude is worthy of
note. By definitely classifying himself with
the "advocates of the new theology," p. 22;
by his use of the words "we" and "our" in the
above closing sentence; by deliberately, of his
own motion, without assigned request or provo-
cation, assuming the task of exploiting the
New Theology in disparagement of the Old;
and by his choice, for making his position
known, of a magazine that has been and is the
foremost antagonist of Evangelical orthodoxy.
Professor Adams virtually announces himself

62 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

as a champion advocate of the modern system
of Liberal Thought, of which the ultimate
fruits and fullest expression appears in the
so-called "New Theology."

To an intelligent Christian reader the above
citations are informing and utterly condem-
natory of the New Theology which they dis-
close and interpret. It explicitly ignores both
the natural and moral Supremacy of God, en-
slaves and chains Him to His own Nature-
machine. It has no thought or word of a Di-
vine Redemption of sinful, condemned men. It
ignores and denies the Divine Sonship and
Mediatorship of Jesus Christ, — the only men-
tion of His name being to point a denial of His
Godhood. The very name of the Holy Spirit
does not appear, and in its whole fabric it
implicitly rejects both His Godhood and His
Redemptive agency in the renewal and sanc-
tification of the man "justified by faith." And
as an incontrovertible consequence it obliter-
ates the Cardinal Fact of inspired Revelation,
— The Divine Trinity — upon which hangs the
very Being of God, and depends the sole hope of
man's restoration to the likeness and engage-
ment in the eternal fellowship and service of the
Almighty, Infinitely Perfect and Loving God.

It is not a Theology, or science of God, since
it denies His Transcendency, and thrusts Him

OF TO-DAY 63

aside from His own Creation and from His
Moral Rule over the race He has made in His
own image and whom He will adjudge at "the
great Day." Without a hint of man's possi-
ble Divine call to "repentance toward God and
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ," it rules out
of the Bible the hope and joy of such ringing
affirmations, promises and invitations as these:
"Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away
the sin of the world!" "God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son that
whosoever believeth on Him should not perish,
but have eternal life." "Christ died for our
sins, and was raised for our justification."
"Come unto Me, all that are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest!"

In place of these Holy Scriptures, abound-
ing in "exceeding great and precious promises,"
which include earth and heaven, time and eter-
nity, and overwhelmingly meet and match man's
supreme needs for an eternal existence, this
trivial system of "Modern Thought" presents
a bare ethical scheme, at most aiming at a
better ordering of this earthly, ephemeral life.
With this temporary scheme it subverts and
empties human life of its vital significance,
eliminates its high and holy purposes in its only
abiding relation to its Divine Maker, Ruler,
and loving Redeemer. In its experiential is-
sue, it cannot fail to realize the awful vision of

64 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

Jean Paul, of a world without light, life, or
hope.

And this, from his high official place as The-
ological Instructor, is the final, summary belief
and teaching of a scholar, greatly gifted, finely
cultured, and withal, considerate and courteous ;
of whom to his honor it may be said, "He has
the courage of his convictions."

In contrast with these teachings of the
present Theological Professor, — and elsewhere
(p. 2) — with those of the incumbent of the
Presidency of Union, we offer brief extracts
from the Professor of Theology and from the
Seminary President of half a century ago, in
the period of its glory. And we ask the reader
to linger upon the thought conveyed in these
paragraphs, — to note its depth of meaning and
high purpose, and to appreciate the simplicity,
beauty, tenderness, and strength of its ex-
pression.

PEOFESSOR HENRY BOYNTON SMITH, D. D.
THE THEOLOGY FOR OUR TIMES

"The theology which is preeminently needed
in our times is that whose substance and man-
ner have met the needs of men in all times.
This, in its essential principles, is the old, time-
honored theology of the Christian Church, with

OF TO-DAY 65

its two foci of sin and redemption, all viewed as
dependent on God. It is based upon the solid
granite rock (the only true petra) and built up
of living stones in massive proportions, rising
ever upward until its aspiring lines fade away
in the bosom of the infinite, whither it leads us
that there we may rest. That old theology —
older than our schools, older than the earth
and the stars — coeval with the Godhead ; al-
way yet never old, never yet ever new; it is
dateless and deathless as the Divine decree,
yet fresh as the dawning light of a new day
in every new-born soul ; it has been known from
the beginning to all penitent and believing
souls ; it is uttered in every humble prayer ;
it has been sung in such melodious and rap-
turous strains as have nowhere else found voice.
Someone has said that it is a theology which
can never be sung; but it is the only theology
which has called forth the tenderest and lofti-
est tones of human feeling; which finds its full
expression equally in that saddest of human
music, the woful miserere which recalls the
sacred, awful passion of our dying Lord, and
the jubilant and triumphant anthem which
celebrates His accomplished victory. That old
theology, the living essence of our sacred Scrip-
tures, abiding substance of our creed, the sense
of our confessions, and the consensus of our
schools, has been held and taught by the most

66 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

piercing and soaring intellects of our Chris-
tian times— Athanasius and Augustine, An-
selm and Aquinas, Luther, Melanchthon and
Calvin, Turretine and Edwards ; and through
them it has taught and fashioned the most
vigorous and advancing churches and nations
of modern time." Bib. Work, viii, 429.

PRESIDENT WILLIAM ADAMS, D. D.
THE POST-RESURRECTION QUESTION OF CHRIST

^'Lovest thou me? All down through time,
the question, in various ways, is presented to
living souls. The human race is, and will be,
divided by that one test. It will be uttered
again from the throne of judgment, that
throne high and white, before which a disparted
world shall pass to his right hand and his left.
That throne will be occupied by the resplendent
form of incarnate Love, and the destiny of
every man will be — must be — as are his affini-
ties in regard to Him. He that loveth is of
God; and they who are like God shall be gath-
ered to his bosom." Bible Work, N. T. I.,
p. 576.

THE OPEN TOMB OF CHRIST

"Come to the vacant sepulchre of Christ,
and sing for joy. Death is abolished; let us
rejoice and be glad. Angels, those spirits of
purity and love, hasten to meet us here with

OF TO-DAY 67

their message of joy. They too are interested
in the redemption of Christ ; for they sung on
the night of his advent ; they ministered to the
sufferer in the garden of agony; they rejoice
over every sinner that repenteth ; and they bear
the spirits of the righteous to the bosom of
God. Heaven and earth, angels and men, meet
happily together at the open tomb of Christ.
Sorrow may be for a night; joy cometh in the
morning. With grateful hearts, with a head
lifted up, and with a full-toned voice should
we ever repeat the great articles of our faith:
* I believe in Jesus Christ, who was crucified,
who died, and was buried ; who rose again from
the dead; and who is now at the right hand of
God : I believe in the forgiveness of sins, in
the resurrection of the body, and the life ever-
lasting.' " Bib. Work, N. T. I., p. 558.

The ultimate aim and life-purpose of the
New Theologians and the Future Religionists
are summed up in an absolute independence of
God's supremacy, and a present passing life
abounding in gainfulness and creature comfort.
They do indeed present definite features which
to a limited extent are just and true. The
grounds, valid as far as rightly applied, upon
which they rest their appeal for a wide and
general following, consist in the humanities of
neighbor help to the poor, the ignorant, the

68 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

wretched, and the depraved, and in the pro-
prieties, refinements and culture of social inter-
course. But they owe to the widespread teach-
ings of a Bible Christianity alone all their
humanizing and elevating influences and ef-
fects. And in the very use of these influences
they are prompted solely by the ultimate mo-
tive of self-pleasing, through the inwardly im-
pelling demands of natural sympathy, senti-
ment or taste, or instinctive generous desire to
remove unjust, lawless, and repulsive social
conditions. While these natural sympathies
and generous instincts, and innate demands for
social order, decency and dignity evince a su-
perior character and place the individual upon
a comparatively high level, they fail to reach
the higher standard of true philanthropy/.
This is defined and fully expressed in the Sec-
ond Commandment: "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself." And this Second can
only be fulfilled under the impelling force of
obedience to the First and "Great" Command-
ment of Supreme and all-mastering Love to
God — heart obedience by the renewed believer
whose life-constraining motive is the infinite,
everlasting love of the God-man Christ Jesus.

Upon this illumining testimony it would
seem that the New Theology may be substan-
tially summed up in the denial of every state-

OF TO-DAY 69

ment that distinguishes Christ from the ordi-
nary man ; in the flouting of His Redemptive
Office- Work as the God-Man, His Resurrec-
tion and Eternal Enthronement; in the rejec-
tion of the Deity of the Holy Spirit ; of His re-
creating agency in the spirit of man, and the
elimination of His inspiring influence from the
writers of the Bible, thus reducing it to the
level of human production. Not only does it
ignore and scorn God and His Word, but as
subsidiary points that appeal to every man's
deepest life-experience the system has no word
or thought in the recognition of human sor-
row or human sin. It makes no mention of
life-burdening human guilt, "that perilous stuffs
which weighs upon the heart." It only thinks
and writes of progress in personal and social
amenities, forgetting that such progress is not
advance, since advance is only possible when
the motive-ideal of the life is perfect holiness.

As abundantly evidenced in these pages Lib-
eral writers wilfully ignore the laws of thought,
the premises of logic with all demands of dia-
lectic, and the canons of reasoning and criti-
cism. In their ambition to stand in the lime-
light they prefer the mental excitement of so-
phistical hypotheses, and incredible assump-
tions. For support or defense of their posi-
tions they present neither reasoning nor proof.

70 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

Their sole, shadowy plea of ground and motive
for their bold negations of God's truth is found
in a proud boast of

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

True liberty has its base and finds its pure
wing of gladness in unwavering loyalty, or
whole-hearted obedience to the Law of life,
material or spiritual. And every intelligent,
reasonable, and clear thinker knows that genu-
ine freedom, wise and just liberty, in every rela-
tion among men — in citizenship, and in business
and social organizations — is limited and con-
trolled by appropriate authoritative laws
through which orderly and progressive results
are obtained. Lawless license is the antonym
of true liberty. Unhappily, in the domain of
thought as expressed in literature, the present
age is largely dominated by lawless laxity mas-
querading in the name of liberty. Speaking
of "the great, free, progressive, modern intel-
lect," Chesterton says: "Our age has been
superficially chattering about change and free-
dom."

Religious liberty, or freedom in the holding
and expression of religious truth, is of neces-
sity bounded by and finds its very freedom and
life in obedience to the law of God. The
Psalmist said: "I shall observe thy laws con-
tinually: and I shall walk in liberty." Paul

OF TO-DAY 71

affirms : "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty." James calls it "the perfect law,
the law of liberty." And the Master sums up
in His plain declaration : "The truth shall
make you free" ; "If the Son shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed."

It would seem, then, that the claim of in-
tellectual freedom by Liberal writers when set
against their system of negations and their
unfaith toward God and His Word, means de-
termined and unrestricted license, and extin-
guishes all rightful law and authority in the
universe of God.

In fine. Liberalism is condemned by all
sane thinking for its utter lack of sound rea-
soning and appropriate evidence. It is dis-
proved and rejected by the logical outcome of
its basal Evolutionary Philosophy : — in its de-
nial of Supernaturalism ; in its claim of deter-
mining and interpreting Scripture truths by
every man's own consciousness and inclination ;
in its destructive Criticism of the historic facts
and spiritual teachings of the Bible; and in the
system of thought and unfaith embodied in the
New Theology.

At its weakest it doubts and questions, at its
boldest it defiantly denies, the Deity of Christ
and of the Holy Spirit, and so obliterates the
crowning fact of inspired Revelation, the Trin-

72 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

ity of the Godhead. It leaves the race of sin-
ful men without an intervening God, under the
ban of self-condemnation, helpless, hopeless,
despairing, in the face of an eternal existence.
For the deepest penitence it presents no merci-
ful, forgiving Sovereign and Father; for the
yearning after sympathetic fellowship with and
joyful abiding service to a loving and com-
muning God, the sensitive, responsive, undying
spirit is forever barred out.

FAILURE OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY IN GERMANY

Rev. Dr. Rittelmeyer, of Nuremberg, a pro-
nounced liberal, in the Christliche Welt, a lib-
eral organ, makes this open confession:

"All the public discussions and populariza-
tion of modern critical views have not found
any echo or sympathy among the ranks of the
laboring people, and there are whole classes
of society among the educated who are an-
tagonistic to liberal tendencies in religion.
Among these are the officers in the army and
the navy, practitioners of the technical arts
and of engineering, and almost to a man the
whole world of business. It is foolish to close
our eyes to these facts."

He makes this frank admission and confes-
sion:

"One trouble is that modern theology has

OF TO-DAY 73

entirely growTi out of criticism. Its weakness
is intellectualism ; it is a negative movement.
We can understand the cry of the orthodox,
that advanced theology is eliminating one thing
after the other from our religious thought, and
then asks, What is left? True, we answer,
God is left. But is it not the case that the
modern God-Father faith is generally a very
weak and attenuated faith in a Providence and
nothing more? And on this subject too we
quarrel among ourselves, whether a God-Father
troubles himself about little things only or
about great things too, such as the forgiveness
of sins. We do the same thing with Jesus.
We speak of him as of a unique personality, as
the highest revelation of the Father, and the
like, but always connected with a certain skep-
tical undercurrent of thought; but we do not
appreciate him in his deepest soul and in the
great motives of his life. He is not for mod-
ern theology what he is for orthodoxy, the
Saviour of the world and the Redeemer of man-
kind."

A CLEARER, FULLER, PROFOUNDER TESTIMONY

Dr. Wilhelm von Schneten in a work entitled
"The Modern Jesus Cult," himself a pro-
nounced radical of the modern school in Ger-
many, affirms that the modern picture of Jesus
is a false deduction from its premises. We cite

74 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

his words from the "Literary Digest" transla-
tion:

"The modem Jesus cult is a romantic rev-
erence for the 'human' or the 'historical' Jesus,
the way for which was prepared by Herder,
and was put into distinct theological formulas
by Schleiermacher, was then fully developed by
Ritschl, and in recent years, in hundreds of
variant forms, has become popular through
thousands of publications, by the lectures of
'critical' theologians and the preaching of
'liberal' pulpits. In fact the Jesus problem
has become the great religious question of the
day, around which all other religious convic-
tions and life in modern times seem to circle.
It is on this recognition of Jesus as their Mas-
ter that liberal theologians base their claim
that what they teach is 'Christianity.' When
they appeal to the authority of Jesus they
think they can prove the purity and greatness
of any doctrine. They insist that by search-
ing for the 'original sense' of the teachings of
Jesus they can serve the religious needs of the
present day best. In every sphere of discus-
sion, including the practical problems of so-
ciology, an appeal is made to Jesus. The dan-
gerous tendencies of Social Democracy are to
be overcome by leading the people back to the
primitive moral teachings of the 'historical'
Christ. In the praise of the Master's virtues

OF TO-DAY 75

as a man the skeptical scholar of scientific re-
search thinks he has found a real Christianity.
Jesus is 'the purest, the greatest of all human
personalities' ; 'he alone gives to life a real pur-
pose and aim' ; 'he is the ideal of the human
race,' 'the ideal perfect man, the example for
human conduct and life;' 'one in whose free
and sacred person we find a recompense for all
that which we otherwise have lost.' In one
word, the entire religion of the modem man,
as Naumann expressly declares, is a cult or
worship of the ideal human being Jesus, 'the
religious and ethical model.' The veneration
for his human personality, faith in the 'eter-
nal' significance of his words, and pious imita-
tion of his love for others is represented to
be 'the essence of Christianity,' the one and
only thing that constitutes true religion."

In direct denial of the claim of the modern
Jesus cult of liberal theology to be called
"Christian" Dr. von Schneten continues :

"It must not be forgotten that Christianity
is, as the name implies, not faith in Jesus, but
faith in Christ, and faith in Jesus only in so
far as Jesus is regarded, as Christ is, as the
Redeemer and the son of God ; moreover, a 'son
of God' and a 'Redeemer' in the real historical
sense of the term, and not in a modernized em-
phasizing of these expressions into general and
meaningless terms. In a word, Christianity

76 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

is a Christ-religion, is faith in redemption
solely and alone through the true son of God,
Jesus Christ. Whether this faith is one that
now is out of date or not, whether it be a true
or a false faith, everybody must decide for him-
self; but that in him, and in him alone, the
'essence of true Christianity' is to be found
can not be doubted for a moment. Not Jesus
the man, not the revered preacher and teacher
of morals, who sealed his convictions, as is
claimed, by his death, is the person who has
conquered the hearts of mankind and overcome
the decaying civilization of the old Greco-
Roman world and brought to his feet the bar-
baric hordes of Europe; but he who accom-
plished this was the Christ, who suffered, who
died as the divine Saviour on the cross, which
thereby has become the grand symbol of the
sacrifice of a God for the welfare of man. It
is this faith in the divine redemption that has
been reechoed in the hymns and prayers of
Christianity and that has revolutionized the
world. The joys of Christmas, of Easter, the
majestic hopes of the martyrs, the sublime faith
of true Christianity can be explained only on
this ground, but never on the basis of a 'his-
torical' Christ, a great moral teacher or a
model moralist. And to the present day it is
this faith that upholds and develops the church
and makes Christianity the greatest power in

OF TO-DAY 77

the thoughts and lives of men and of nations.
Even the non-Christian philosophy, that does
not agree with the church's conception of
Christ, must recognize historically and in the
present life of the church the Christ as the
son of God as the center and heart of Chris-
tianity in its world mission and work. A
philosophy can not change facts.

"Of this great central thought and power
the modern conceptions of Jesus as the 'great
man' deprives the gospel; and, what is more,
is directly contrary to what the gospels intend
to teach, and do teach when taken in the sense
of their promulgators. The Jesus of the gos-
pels, even of the Synoptics, is not a mere man,
not even the best of men, but on the whole the
Christ of the traditional teachings of the church.
In this respect there is no substantial difference
between John and the other three gospels ; and
it is incorrect to reconstruct a kind of a hu-
man 'historical' Christ out of the Synoptics.
This can be done only by doing violence, e. g.^
to the narratives of Matthew and Luke con-
cerning the virgin birth of Jesus. We may not
believe these things, but the gospels certainly
want to teach them, and the elimination of these
elements by liberal theology does violence to
the sources for the life of Jesus.

"Even Professor Bousset, the author of
'Jesus,' declares that the oldest of our gospel

78 CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM

records, that of Mark, already depicts Jesus
not only as the Messiah of the Jewish people,
but also as the eternal son of God.

"In view of these facts it must be maintained
that the modern Jesus cult of liberal theology
is practically an empty thing and little more
than a mountain of words, but of no religious
value, and can not even claim to be 'Chris-
tian.' "

IV

THE GODHEAD AN ETERNAL TRIN-
ITY; THREE-FOLD OFFICE-WORK IN
MAN'S REDEMPTION

1. GOD TRIUNE

According to His own assertion there is One,
and only One, God; but, as disclosed in His
own Self Revelation, there are Three Distinc-
tions in the Godhead, revealed most clearly and
fully in the New Testament, under the names
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To these
Three we apply the term Persons as the best
that human language affords. But the fact
of an inseparable unity must always be borne
in mind. We add the illumining words of
Bishop Huntington: "In the transcendent, re-
moved, and awful depth of His absolute infini-
tude, which no understanding can pierce, the
Everlasting and Almighty God lives in an ex-
istence of which our only possible knowledge is
gained by lights thrown back from Revelation.
Out of that ineffable and veiled Godhead there
emerge to us in Revelation the three whom we
call Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
79

80 THE GODHEAD

with their several individual offices, mutual re-
lations, operations toward men, and perfect
unity together. Holding fast the prime and
positive fact of this unity, we have given us, as
an equal matter of faith, the threeness. We
know of no priority to that threeness ; of no
epoch when it was not; of no Deity independ-
ent of that threefold distinction. No hint is
given that there is any difference of nature,
dignity, duration, power, or glory between
them. Each of them is referred to in the
Scriptures as God. Each of them is distin-
guished from the others by the personal pro-
nouns. To each of them Divine attributes and
acts are ascribed, and to each Divine worship
is offered."

2. RELATION OF THE THREE PERSONS

"In the language of the old theologians, the
Father is the original Fountain-Head of the
Godhead; therefore in Scripture is frequently
called God absolutely. The Son is spoken of
as 'begotten' ; this with the view, first, of dis-
tinguishing the mode of His origin from *cre-
ation' (the Son Himself is the Creator of all) ;
and next, of indicating that He is of the Fath-
er's own substance — 'very God of very God.'
And the Spirit is described as 'proceeding'
from the Father and the Son (Jn. xv, 26)
'breathed forth' as the name indicates. — The

AN ETERNAL TRINITY 81

doctrine of the Trinity is obtained by observ-
ing and collating what is declared in Scripture,
and discerned in the process of human salva-
tion, regarding these Divine Persons." — Prof.
James Orr.

3. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD

"The Fatherhood of God in the New Testa-
ment is never revealed as a thing by itself; it
is revealed always in relation with the Son and
the Spirit. . . . The Fatherhood of God,
in the full Christian idea of it, does not origi-
nate with God's relation to the world or to
man ; or even with God's relation to believers.
If you wish to find the ultimate spring of
Fatherhood in the heart of God, you must seek
it, not in relation to humanity or to believers,
but in the relation to the Eternal and 'only be-
gotten' Son. It is with this Fatherly love, of
which the primal object is the Son, that God
turns to the world, and seeks to draw men in
to be sharers of it." — Prof. Orr.

4. man's sonship (childship) to god

"When God created man it was to a destiny
of Sonship. But man by sin turned his back
on that destiny. He took another spirit into
his heart ; passed into another relation to God
than that of a Son to a Father. If this des-
tiny of sonship was to be realized, it could no

82 THE GODHEAD

longer be on the basis of Creation, but only on
the basis of Redemption. Hence the restric-
tion of sonship in the Gospel to those who are
actually partakers of the grace of Christ's sal-
vation. Sonship, in grace, becomes ours by
regeneration and a Divine act of Adoption."
— Prof. Orr,

5. FORCEFUL APPEAL OF THE THREE DIVINE
PERSONS

The complete Self-Revelation of God in-
cludes, on one side, all elemental and spiritual
attributes as equally possessed and alike ex-
ercised by each Person of the Triune Godhead.
On the other side, in its disclosure of the Di-
vine Working in Redemption the Revelation
discriminates peculiar relations and acts em-
bodied in the definite Office-Work of each Divine
Person.

Both sides of the Godhead as thus revealed
— the infinite wisdom, might, holiness and love
manifest and exercised in common, and all spe-
cial relations and acts of the Three in the
achievement of man's Redemption — combine to
exert a mighty force of appeal to arouse the
attention, attract the confidence, and win the
responsive love and reverent thankful obedience
of the sensitive human spirit. Then will fol-
low submission and penitence, filial trust and
loyal consecration to service. And this won-

AN ETERNAL TRINITY 83

der-work of grace on the part of the interven-
ing God is the supreme motive power that con-
strains the self-serving man to bow beneath the
Cross of the Self-sacrificing Son of God.

6. INTERCOMMUNION LIFE OF THE TRINITY

As an eminent part of a full interpretation
of the Divine Trinity there stands forth a fact
of the highest moment and most intense per-
sonal interest and relief to the fervent seeker
after God : There is and ever has been Fellow-
ship in the Life of the Godhead, a social Inter-
communion between the Three Divine Persons ;
and this perfectly harmonious Fellowship ex-
ists without break or change from everlasting
to everlasting. "This is My beloved Son,"
said the Father, "in whom I am well pleased."
"Thou lovedst me," responds the Son, "before
the foundation of the world." "Glorify Thou
Me with the glory I had mth Thee before the
world was !" And to the Pharisees He said,
"I am not alone, but I and the Father who
sent me."

"Only through the Trinitarian distinction,"
writes Prof. Orr, "are we brought into com-
munion with a Being who has within Himself a
life of communion. R. H. Hutton says, *If
Christ is the Eternal Son of God, God is in
deed and in essence a Father ; the social nature,
the spring of love, is of the very essence of the

84 THE GODHEAD

Eternal Being: the communication of His life,
the reciprocation of His affection dates beyond
time — belongs, in other words, to the very
Being of God.' "

For unknown ages, we may believe, this Life
of Fellowship in the Divine Trinity has been a
glorious and conscious reality and source of
sympathetic joy to the multitude, of angelic
intelligences who "kept their first estate."
And assuredly this intercommunion of life and
love between the essentially united Persons of
the Godhead must deeply affect and add im-
measurably to the blessedness of the vaster
hosts of redeemed and purified human spirits —
who forever dwell in the presence, enjoy the
fellowship, and engage in the service of the Al-
mighty and changelessly loving God — since it
brings into that holy and harmonious life of
Creator and creature the presence and activ-
ity of the whole Deity, the Father and the Holy
Spirit in vital conjunction and ceaseless coop-
eration with the visibly enthroned Son of God
and Man, "the King in His beauty."

Alike impressive, inspiring, and sustaining
to the living believer^s thought of God is the
fact that, instead of a single companionless
Being existing eternally alone without possi-
bility of exercising sympathy, love, and fel-
lowship which in an infinite measure must be
possessed by an Infinite Spirit, there is dis-

AN ETERNAL TRINITY 85

closed to us a Triune Godhead which compasses
and includes an Intercommunion Life between
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit eternally
existing. Here, indeed, is a great and precious
truth for present consideration ; a sublime far
reaching fact that demands and rewards our
deepest thought and realization. For it re-
veals the Counsels of the Triune Godhead
planning and achieving the history and des-
tiny of the race to be created, and leads us
naturally to the apprehension and personal
glad acceptance of the Office-Work of each
Divine Person in the Redemption of the new
but fallen creature.

7. ATTITUDE IN PRAYER TOWARD THE THREE
DIVINE PERSONS

This is definitely stated by Paul (Eph.
ii, 18) : "For through Him (Christ) we have
our access in one Spirit unto the Father."
Christ's Name and Mediation provide the basis
of our approach, and the Holy Spirit is our
efficient Inspirer and Helper in thought, feel-
ing, and expression. Christ reveals the Father,
and through His Self-Offering becomes our as-
sured Advocate and Intercessor. The Holy
Spirit reveals Christ in His mediating and sav-
ing offices, shows all our needs supplied by
Him, and so illumines, inspires, and aids our
utterance in prayer. Thus in intelligent,

86 THE GODHEAD

heartfelt, and acceptable prayer, we listen for
the voice, heed the prompting, and welcome the
influence of the Spirit, we plead the name and
mediatorial work of Christ, and we ask the
Father.

Yet are we privileged to address our prayer
alike to the Father, to the Lord Jesus Christ,
and to the Holy Spirit, according to the nat-
ural play of thought and feeling respecting
the things desired, and the special relation of
the Persons to the particular objects of our
aspiration or need. But even in such specific
forms of address no thought of severance be-
tween the Three Persons may be allowed. For
the prayer addressed to each is equally heard
and the response of blessing equally accorded
by the Three in their absolute harmony and
inseparable unity of Being and Action.

8. SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY TO THE TRINITY

Old Testament intimations of plurality in the
Godhead are distinctly read in the plural name
of God and the connected idea of converse,
Gen. i, 26, and elsewhere; in the Theophanies
to individual patriarchs and leaders ; in the
Trine "Holy" of Isa. vi, and in many Psalms.

As for the New Testament, almost innumer-
able expressions in the Gospels, Acts, Epistles
and Revelation plainly distinguish and dis-
criminate each of the Persons of the Godhead,

AN ETERNAL TRINITY 87

noting a peculiar relation subsisting between
them and a special office and mission of each
in carrying out the Eternal Purpose and Plan
of man's Redemption. The distinction between
the Father and the Son is vitally woven into
almost every utterance of Christ and into every
chapter of the Epistles of Paul, Peter, and
John, and it underlies every doctrinal truth
contained in those Epistles. The Three Per-
sons are explicitly mentioned, Gal. iv, 6; Eph.
ii, 18 ; I Pet. i, 2 ; and elsewhere.

9. THREE-FOLD OFFICE-WORK IN MAN's RE-
DEMPTION

First Announced hy Christ to NicodemuSy
John iii : Dr. Wm. Hanna writes : "Standing
in time the first, this discourse stands in char-
acter alone. You search in vain through all
the subsequent discourses of our Lord for any
such clear, compendious, comprehensive develop-
ment of the Christian salvation ; of its source in
the love of the Father; of its channel in the
death of His only begotten Son; and of the
great Agent, the Holy Spirit, by whom it is
appropriated and applied. You search in vain
for any instance in which the Three Persons of
the Trinity were spoken of by our Lord con-
secutively and conjointly; to each being as-
signed His proper part in the economy of our
Redemption."

88 THE GODHEAD

The Formula of Baptism. "In the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit." Dr. J. J. Owen writes: "Literally
into the name. It is a profession of subjec-
tion, in a new and special sense, to the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit ; a profession of being
God's peculiar property, and of entire devo-
tion to His service. The use of the word name
in the singular emphatically expresses the
unity of the Godhead, as the words Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, denote the tri-personality.
The names Father, Son and Holy Spirit refer
to the Offices which the Sacred Three sustain in
the work of man's Redemption; and in which
Offices the only revelation of the Trinity which
we have is made : One Person, in consequence of
official superiority^ is called Father; the Person
who stooped to the condition of inferiority is
correlatively styled Son; while the other Person
of the Trinity, from His office as Regenerator
and Sanctifier by His communicated influence, is
called Spirit. These are the relations brought
to view in the Word of God. In no instance is
the term Son applied to the second Person in
the Trinity except in His office-work of Medi-
ator and King. And baptism into the covenant
of grace is here designated baptism into the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, i. e.y
into the duties and privileges of that covenant
of Redemption, which was founded on the pro-

AN ETERNAL TRINITY 89

visions of grace^ denoted hy these official names
of the Persons of the Trinity. Beyond this we
cannot go. The mode of the Divine Existence
we cannot fathom."

The Apostolic Benediction. " ^The grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ ' is the beginning
and foundation of Christian experience. Only
through the grace of the Son men come to the
full experience of the Father's compassion.
Therefor 'the love of God' is mentioned in
the second place. The name of Father is si-
lently understood, and in the most absolute
sense the name of God is given inclusively to
the Father, because in the Divinity of the
Father that of the Son and of the Spirit has
its immovable basis. Only after men have per-
sonally experienced the grace of the Lord Jesus,
can they be certain of the love of God. We
continue in the permanent possession of both
only in the fellowship or * communion of the
Holy Spirit,' which forms the crown and cope-
stone of the apostolic blessing. Only through
the Son do we become children of the Father,
and temples of the Holy Spirit. Only through
the Holy Spirit do we become partakers of the
grace of the Son and the love of the Father."
— Van Oosterzee.

"The truth of God's nature, as one God in
Trinity, becomes better understood and de-
lighted in as ministering a solid foundation of

90 THE GODHEAD

trust to a sinful man. As far as the believer
can see, the very possibility of salvation rests
on this distinction of Persons in the one blessed
God; so that the Father could give His only
begotten Son, the Son could offer Himself with-
out spot to God, and the Spirit of the Father
and the Son could go forth to apply this sal-
vation by testifying of Jesus, quickening the
believer's soul 'together with Christ, and fitting
him for the service and enjoyment of God.' "
— Goode.

"To those who have gone most deeply into
this subject, the Trinity, so far from being a
bare speculative doctrine, is one of the utmost
practical value in our Christian thinking. If
anyone once comes to realize what is involved
in it, he will never part with it, or be able to
feel that he has the right conception of God
without it."— Pro/. Orr.

"We can wish the reader nothing more
beatific in this life than to have found and fully
brought into feeling the practical significance
of this Eternal act or fact of God, which we
call the Christian Trinity. Nowhere else do
the bonds of limitation burst away as here.
Nowhere else does the soul launch upon im-
mensity as here ; nowhere fill her burning censer
with the eternal fires of God, as when she sings :

" One inexplicably three.
One in simplest unity.

AN ETERNAL TRINITY 91

Who that has been able, in some frame of holy
longing after God, to commit his soul up freely
to the inspiring impulse of this Divine mystery
as it is celebrated in some grand doxology of
Christian worship, and has so been lifted into
conscious fellowship with the great celestial
minds, in their higher ranges of beatitude and
their shining tiers of glory, has not known it
as being at once the deepest, highest, widest,
most enkindling, and most practical of all prac-
tical truth?" — Bushnell.

THE PLACE AND WORK OF JESUS
CHRIST: SCRIPTURALLY IDENTI-
FIED WITH JEHOVAH; IN BOTH
TESTAMENTS THE IMMEDIATE RE-
VEALER AND ACTOR FOR THE GOD-
HEAD

IDENTIFIED WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT JEHOVAH

The name "Jehovah" explicitly affirms God's
Eternal Being, and expresses His covenant re-
lation with His people as their Redeemer. "His
essential name," says Delitzsch, "is Jehovah,
and consists in this, that He is the God of sal-
vation who in the might of free grace pervades
and overrules all history. This name is for
His people a fountain of exultation."

[The earlier scholars interpreted the He-
brew word Jehovah as asserting an Eternal and
Changeless Being. Impliedly accepting this,
recent investigators affirm the added meaning
of Infinite Power in Supreme Control of all
creatures and events. They express this vital
meaning in the prase : "He shall cause it to be,"
or ^'He shall cause it to come to pass.'* The
92

OF JESUS CHRIST 9B

eminent scholar, John Urquhart, presents this
interpretation with great fulhiess and force, and
sustains it by many convincing reasons. — The
Biblical Guide, vol. iv, pp. 98-101.']

1. EVIDENTIAL POINTS FEOM NEW TESTAMENT
USE OF OLD TESTAMENT STATEMENTS

(1) Compare Isa. vi, 3, with John xii, 41.
Isaiah sees the glory of Jehovah; John affirms
that it was the glory of Christ.

(2) John xix, 37, declares that the word of
Jehovah spoken by Zechariah xii, 10, "They
shall look upon Me whom they have pierced,"
was fulfilled in the piercing of the side of
Christ.

(3) Hebrews i, 10-12, citing Ps. cii, 25-27,
"assumes that this passage ascribes Creator-
ship to the Son of God. This obviously im-
plies that God as revealed to His people under
the name Jehovah, the great 'I am,' was really
the Eternal Son" (Cowles).

(4) Moses declares that Jehovah led Israel
through the wilderness. In I Cor. i, 4, 9, Paul
affirms this of Christ. And Stephen (Acts vii,
38) declares that Christ was with His "Church
in the wilderness."

(5) "The Psalmist, Ixxviii, 17, affirms, 'They
tempted and rebelled against the Most High
God.' With reference to the same events Paul
writes, I Cor. x, 9, 'Neither let us tempt

94> THE PLACE AND WORK

Christ, as some of them also tempted Him.
Therefore Christ is the Most High God'"
{Jones of Nayland).

2. EVrOENCES FROM TITLES APPLIED TO CHRIST

(1) Messiah, meaning Anointed, referred to,
Ps. ii, 2, and Dan. ix, 25, has Christos as its
Greek equivalent. Both refer to the long prom-
ised Divine Redeemer, denoting His Prophetic
office, Kingly authority, and Mediatorial char-
acter. Christ distinctly claimed to be the Mes-
siah, Son of God, John iv, 26, Mat. xvi, 16, 17,
and xxvi, 6S, 64.

(2) Furthermore, the expression "Son of
of Man/' which Christ appropriated to Him-
self, is taken from Daniel third and seventh
chapters. Of this expression Meyer says: "Its
simple meaning is. The Messiah, Christ, inas-
much as in Him the Messiah was come, was, in
the realization, that Son of Man whose form
was seen in Daniel's vision."

(3) In the histories of Abraham, Jacob,
and some of the Judges we read of God as
manifested in the form of man. In many in-
terviews He is referred to as "the Angel of Je-
hovah.'' In some, as with Moses at the bush.
He explicitly identifies Himself with Jehovah.
Those to whom He makes His presence known
recognize and offer worship to Him as God.
And the Biblical writers unreservedly call Him

OF JESUS CHRIST 95

Jehovah. "The peculiarity of the angel is that,
while distinguishing Himself from Jehovah, He
is yet, in some mysterious way, identified with
Jehovah, speaks in His name, nay, is declared
to be Jehovah Himself."— Prof. Orr, "Now,"
writes Dr. Barry, "since 'no man hath seen God'
(the Father) 'at any time,' and 'the only be-
gotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father
hath revealed Him,' the 'Angel of the Lord' in
such passages must be He who is from the be-
ginning the 'Word,' i. e.^ the Manifester or
Revealer of God, and those appearances must
be 'foreshadowings of the Incarnation.' "

We add Gerlach's clear and compact sum-
mary on this point:

"Throughout the Old Testament there runs
the distinction between the hidden God and the
Revealer of God, Himself equal with God, who
most frequently is called 'the Messenger, the
Angel of the Lord,' 'Malachi-Jehovah,' — one
with Him, and yet distinct from Him. This
Messenger of the Lord is the Guide of the patri-
archs ; the Caller of Moses ; the Leader of the
people through the wilderness ; the Champion
of the Israelites in Canaan ; and also, yet fur-
ther, the Guide and Ruler of the people of the
covenant; or, as He is called (Isa. Ixiii, 9),
'the Angel of His Presence' ; by Malachi, as the
Messenger of the Covenant. This Angel of
the Lord often in the Old Testament speaks as

96 THE PLACE AND WORK

Jehovah, and His appearing is regarded as
that of the Most High God Himself. Nay,
God says expressly of this Angel, 'My name —
i. e.. My revealed Being — Is In Him.' In the
New Testament the expressions, 'The Word,'
'Son,' 'Express Image,' 'Brightness,' betoken
the same, viz., the countenance turned to man,
the Revealer of the invisible God. The future
appearance on earth of the God-man is gradu-
ally prepared for in the Old Testament in two
ways : on the one hand, there is promised a
mighty and glorious human Ruler over all (in
later times called 'Messiah' — the Anointed of
the Lord), to whom at the same time in His
human nature. Divine names, attributes and
works are ascribed; on the other hand, the per-
sonal distinction In the Godhead, the Revealer
of the Invisible God as a separate person. Is
more and more clearly made known."

3. EVIDENTIAL POINTS FROM THE DISCLOSURES
OF CHRIST

(1) In exact correspondence with these mani-
fold Old Testament manifestations of the "An-
gel of Jehovah," distinct from yet one with
Him, is the disclosure of Christ in the Gospel
and Epistles of John. The discourses and ex-
tended colloquies of the Gospel to the end of
Chapter 17 are studded with explicit affirma-

OF JESUS CHRIST 97

tions of His distinction from the Father yet
perfect equality and oneness with Him in na-
ture, in power, and in working, and of His ex-
clusive office work as the Revealer of all truth
respecting the Father and the Holy Spirit, each
one of which stands forth as proof of His Je-
hovahship.

(2) Indirectly but distinctly, by word and
act, Christ claims the place and work of Je-
hovah. Echoing the 0. T. demand "Trust ye
in Jehovah forever," He demands "Believe upon
me." "With calm, simple, profound dignity,"
writes Maclaren, "He lays His hand upon all
consecrated words, upon all the ancient and hal-
lowed emotions that are centered in the unseen
God between the Cherubim, throned above judg-
ment and resting upon mercy ; and He says,
'They are all Mine ! That ancient trust I
claim the right to hold. I am He upon whom
in all time the loving hearts of them that love
God are set. I am the Angel of the Covenant
to whom whosoever trusteth shall never be con-
founded.' "

(3) "The word Lord, equivalent to the Je-
hovah of the Old Testament, and correspond-
ent to it in the Septuagint version, is constantly
applied to Christ in the Acts, where it is found
nearly a hundred times, and is like a sacred
key-note of the whole, ever sounding for His
divine Lordship in the ear of the world. It is

98 THE PLACE AND WORK

Hhe Lord Jesus' who is said by Peter to have
come in and gone out among them. It is He
who chooses Matthias ; He who sends the Holy
Ghost; He who adds believers daily to the
Church; He who works miracles by the hands
of His apostles. To the Lord Jesus, Stephen,
the first martyr, looks up and prays at the hour
of death. It is He who calls to the persecuting
Saul from heaven." — Bp. Wordsworth.

"The Lord of Glory," an able work of Pro-
fessor Warfield, of Princeton Theological Semi-
nary, is devoted to the exhaustive presentation
of this New Testament usage.

CHRIST THE REVEALER OF ALL TRUTH

At the close of His ministry when announcing
the coming of the Holy Spirit in the fullness
of His manifestation and power, Christ dis-
tinctly claimed to be the source of all spiritual
truth, while He as distinctly disclosed the office-
work of the Spirit in the complete unfolding
and expression of that truth by inspired reve-
lation to the New Testament writers. His
words on this point are clear and plain :

"The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
in My name, shall teach you all things and
bring to your remembrance all that I have said
unto you. He shall guide you into all the
truth : for He shall not speak from himself ; but

OF JESUS CHRIST 99

what things soever He shall hear, these shall
He speak. He shall glorify me, for He shall
take of mine and declare it unto you."

And in His prayer: "I have given unto them
the words that Thou gavest me." Hence Ber-
nard says : "The teaching of the Lord includes
the substance of all Christian doctrine. It
would be easy to show that the intimation of
every truth revealed to the apostles by the
Spirit came first from the lips of the Son of
man."

And the Revelation itself closes with a Book
in which Christ from the throne is the speaker.

From all the words of Christ the fact appears
that the Father has given to the Son and the
Son has conveyed by the Spirit the words of
truth and life. To these truths the Spirit adds
nothing, but takes, opens, and applies them in
their fullness of meaning and power, and so is
the immediate author of the God-breathed,
written Word of Revelation.

If Christ be Jehovahj assuredly the Son and
Spirit of God must sustain the same relation
to the spiritual truths of the Old Testament.
As God, Christ asserts Himself to be the im-
mediate Revealer of oil truth received from the
Father. Since He is the sole Revealer of truth
to men. Old Testament truths must be included
in His New Testament assertions and the Holy
Spirit must alike inspire both Old and New

5HH4ttr'

100 THE PLACE AND WORK

Testament writers. Thus Christ's Office-work
as Prophet is manifest and proven in the Rec-
ords of both Testaments, unfolded and ex-
panded by the commissioned Spirit of God.

Christ's two-fold relation to the Old Testa-
ment is clearly expressed by Principal Shera-
ton: "He declared Himself to be the Supreme
Subject of the Old Testament. He expounded
'in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself.' 'They were all,' He says, 'written
concerning me.' 'They are they,' He affirms,
'which bear witness of me.' He declared
Himself to be the object of all the promises
and predictions of the Old Testament; the
fulfilment and consummation of all its revela-
tions.

"He was not only the Subject but the Author
of the Old Testament. God has given no reve-
lation of Himself except through the Eternal
Son. God reveals His power and wisdom in
His works ; and that revelation was given
through the Son, for 'all things were made
by Him, and without Him was not any thing
made that has been made.' God spake by the
Prophets, but 'it was the spirit of Christ which
was in them.' — / Pet^ i. 11. Our Lord declares
that 'He is the light of the world.'
There never was, there never could be, any
revelation of the Father except through the
Son. The office of Revealer belongs to Him

OF JESUS CHRIST 101

as Son. It is inherent in His Person." — Shera-
ton}

CHRIST THE ACTOR FOR THE GODHEAD IN CREA-
TION, PROVIDENCE, AND REDEMPTION

Thus far the conclusion is reached that both
Testaments disclose Christ, the Second Person
of the Divine Trinity, to be the Speaker and
Revealer of all truth for the Godhead. Fur-
thermore, explicitly or by clear implication
throughout both Testaments the Speaker and
Revealer is also affirmed to be the immediate
Actor and Agent of the Godhead in all Divine
Agency: — in Creation, in the Ordering of Hu-
man History, and in Man's Redemption. This
is abundantly proven in the explicit statements
of John and Paul, in the declarations and deeds
of Christ, and in the Offices, qualifications and
purposes attributed throughout the early and
later Records to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, as

1 Failing to consider the all-inclusive character and
reach of His Office-work as Prophet, some able and de-
vout students of the Word express astonishment at
Christ's exact and exhaustive knowledge of the Old
Testament. Others have incautiously affirmed that
Christ Himself, derived His knowledge and the subject-
matter of His teachings from the study of the O. T.
Scriptures, and this in forgetfulness of His manifold,
majestic assertions of original and unlimited knowl-
edge and authority: "I say unto you!" "The words
that I speak are spirit and life!" "I am the way, the
truth, and the Ufe!"

lOS THE PLACE AND WORK

Messiahy God-Anointed and Appointed to be
man's Prophet or Teacher, Priest or mediating,
interceding and Atoning Sacrifice, and King,
or Sovereign Controller of man's life in all its
events and conditions for time and the after
changeless destiny.

If the above Scriptural assurances, reasonings
and inferences are correctly stated, and if they
are just, and solidly based, there flows from
them — as the central, fundamental and all-
comprehensive disclosure of the entire Divine
Revelation — this transcendent fact: That both
Testaments incontrovertihly affirm that Jesus
Christy the Eternal Son of Gody the *'Word
who was with God and was God,'' was assigned
hy the original counsels of the Divine Trinity
to be the immediate A\ctor for the Godhead in
Revelationy in Creation (John i, 3; Col. i, 16),
in Human Historyy and in Redemption.

In this transcendent fact of His Assigned
Representative Agency we find the distinctive
Place and Work of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, and the Son of Mary.^

In the light of this central, vital disclosure,

1 This Scripturally proven fact would seem to have
been so deeply fixed upon the mind of Swedenborgh as
to form a basis for the supreme place assigned to
Christ in his Unitarian scheme of the nature of God,
and the subordinate, mystical functions, attributed to
the Father and the Holy Spirit.

OF JESUS CHRIST 103

and as corollaries to it, a double inference
is imperatively affirmed: First, No human
thinker who has deliberately ignored these
Scriptural assurances, or failed to consider the
deep significance and wide bearing of this
transcendent fact can possibly form an intel-
ligent estimate or write rationally of the Per-
son and place of Jesus Christ in human His-
tory. Second, No avowedly Christian thinker
who has not profoundly considered and con-
vincingly appreciated the marvellous breadth,
fullness and preciousness of the meaning in-
volved in this fundamental and momentous fact
is prepared to deal fairly, much less instruc-
tively and helpfully, with the nature, the char-
acter, the teaching and the work of Jesus
Christ, and with His Divinely assigned place in
the Christian system of faith.

From lack of thorough consideration and ap-
preciation of this vital fact as the supreme and
central theme of both Testaments, and from
the resultant lack of spiritual insight and dis-
crimination, we find among professedly Chris-
tian present-day writers much that is fanciful,
baseless, and irreverent in their dealing with the
nature and teaching of Jesus Christ. The root
error of their treatment lies in their defective
viewpoint of Christ Himself. They are so ab-
sorbed in the thought and study of His human
nature and relations that they interpret His

104 THE PLACE AND WORK

teaching and work exclusively from their own
imagined estimate of His human character and
capacity. Thus they forget and ignore the
cardinal fact that His Godhood dominates His
manhood in His every word and act.

This foundation error, under the controlling
force of inborn conceit, has led to vagrant and
demeaning estimates, involving essential rejec-
tion, of the Person, Supremacy and Redemp-
tive Work of the Divine Christ. In its present-
day form this radical error is a chief basis of
the self-styled "New Thought," and is obtru-
sively pushed to the front by its few but
clamorous and energetic advocates scattered
throughout our Colleges and Seminaries, with
here and there an ambitious, would-be up-to-
date preacher and writer. Its main support
is found in a speculative theory evolved a half-
century ago by a German professor of The-
ology. A master thinker explains and refutes
this theory: "Ritschl denies the possibility of
anything except 'judgments of value,'' in the
religious sphere. In science there is such a
thing as judgments of matters of fact, i. e.,
judgments based on facts, and so in accord
with the principles of logic and philosophy.
On these rest exact Knowledge and assured
truth; but there is nothing of this hind in re-
ligion. According to Ritschl, man is left to
his own judgments of vcdue or worth, judg-

OF JESUS CHRIST 105

ments not based upon fact nor amenable to
logic or philosophy, but rather selected or ac-
cepted *07i the basis of volitional and affective
dispositions.'' A man's theological furnishing
is to be the result of his own choices ('voli-
tional dispositions') and to come out of his
own itishes ('affective dispositions'). The
whole region of religion thus becomes a region
of mere opinion^ in which it is literally true
that 'one man's opinion is just as good as
another's,' and in which any man's opinion is
liable to constant change with the shifty winds
of inclination. Of course, the natural man's
'volitional and affective dispositions' do not
incline him to agreement with the great truths
of the Bible concerning man's sinful and lost
condition and the way of salvation through
atonement by Christ. . . . Ritschl's view
ignores all tests of right thinking and knowl-
edge. The chief count against it is that it
ignores the eternal objective realities of which
the truths of theology are the interpretation
and expression, and rejects the only way of
becoming acquainted with them."

"The peculiarity of the Impressionist School
founded by Ritschl," wrote Dr. Wm. C. Gray
in the Interior, December, '97? is that it makes
nothing of historic or scientific facts or re-
alities. It is not things as they are or were
that have value but the impression which the

106 THE PLACE AND WORK

whole makes upon the imagination of feeling.
It is a sort of idealism which denies the reality
of anything. There are two sources of knowl-
edge; the external or objective, and the internal
or subjective. The old theology accepts an
external standard in the infallible Word of
God, while the new accepts only an internal
standard found in the subjective judgments of
the individual. It asserts a new doctrine of
infalHbility, to be found in the inner conscious-
ness of the believer." "The Consciousness
Theory," says another acute thinker, "tests
the truthfulness of the Sacred Word, not by
any criteria on the God-ward side, but by its
accord with Christian consciousness, as it is
called; that is to say, what one's consciousness
certifies to be true, to him it is true, and
what his consciousness rejects as false is false,
— the inspiration being really in the reader or
hearer, and not in the writer or author."

It thus appears that the reliance of the
Modern Theorists for knowledge and certitude
of truth is solely upon individual conscious-
ness— ever shifting impressions of opinion, im-
agination, or feeling, making up what they call
experience — to the utter exclusion of reasoned
processes upon the only fixed basis of Revealed
Facts. Assumption based upon assertion, with-
out assignment of reason or proof is the method
pursued by the advocates of the "New The-

OF JESUS CHRIST 107

ology" and of their closely allied comrades of
the Disintegrating Criticism. The genesis and
natural connection of these two aggressive
allies has recently been tersely stated: "The
Evolutionary Philosophy/ as applied to the
Bible and theology, produces the Radical Criti-
cism and both have begotten the "New The-
ology." And a prominent adherent has un-
blushingly avowed the purpose of this unified
system of destructive unfaith: "We intend,
First, to reconstruct the Bible history in har-
mony with the theory of evolution. Second,
to eliminate by this process all that is super-
natural in the record. Third, to unite schol-
ars in support of sweeping changes in the ortho-
dox view of the Holy Scriptures." The ulti-
mate resultant of their efforts we find: 1st. In

1 The writer refers to the radical theory of Evolution
— a comparatively recent infidel invention — which is the
basic factor in the structural scheme of "Modernism";
a theory which ignores and dethrones God by putting
Him aside from His own Creation, and making Him
helplessly subject to His own established natural laws;
thus eliminating the supernatural from Revealed His-
tory, and annihilating man's hope of recovery from sin^s
effects through a Divine Redemption.

The term, evolution, has another reasonable use when
interpreted as a synonym or equivalent of development,
and defined as a method of action by a God whose con-
trolling energy pervades every atom and permeates
every point of space, and who inherently possesses per-
sonal omnipotence to achieve events and processes "be-
yond the natural order," as His inspired Revelation
abundantly testifies.

108 THE PLACE AND WORK

a virtual denial of the Godhood of Christ by
the claim of more than equal knowledge with
Him. 2d. In the usurpation by every adherent
of the sphere and work of the Holy Spirit by
the claim of equal inspiration with Him.

The evidence or proof of these startling con-
clusions may be read in manifold pages of cur-
rent volumes and reviews. We can only refer
to a long ago published book (with many since)
by a professor of Biblical Theology in Yale
University. Prof. Bacon here claims the ability
and the right to revise and restate the very
words of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, select-
ing, manipulating and rejecting as his own
judgment determines. A single sentence,
touching his method, furnishes overwhelming
evidence to every rightly thinking mind: "The
method of the Higher Critic in applying his
principles must be to think himself into the
atmosphere and circumstances, yes, above all
into the spirit, idedls, and feelings of Jesus.'*
Upon this a learned judge, in an exhaustive
refutation of the book's absurdities, naturally
comments: "Man thinking himself into
Deity — that is, a finite being thinking him-
self into the spirit, ideals and feelings of the
Infinite Being! The claim that a mere man
can think himself into anything more than a
mere man and the conceptions of a mere man
is preposterous !" And Dr. Leitch writes :

OF JESUS CHRIST 109

"At the back of the minds of all the critics lies
the conviction that they know better what
Christ said and did and was, than any of the
writers of the New Testament."

ALLEGED SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT

Only two brief clauses in the New Testa-
ment are suggested in support of these amazing
assumptions' and denials touching the Godhood
of Christ.

1. Paul's statement that Christ emptied him-
self.*'— Phil, iiy 7. The meaning of this clause
is exhausted by the facts embodied in the entire
sentence, verses 6-8. It can only refer to,
as it simply affirms, that Christ, "existing in
the form of God," took on the added form of
man, that, possessing both natures, He might
be qualified to mediate between God and man,
and by His Self-Offering unto death upon the
cross, the just God might be justified in re-
mitting the law's condemnation, in imparting
righteousness and restoring childship to the
penitent, believing man forever. "Wherefor,"
sums up the Apostle, "every tongue shall con-
fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father." In the place of this only
possible meaning there has been evolved the
vitally destructive theory of Kenosis or utter
abdication and surrender of His Deity.

110 THE PLACE AND WORK

S. This baseless and impious notion is re-
inforced by an inferential assumption of a con-
fessed limitation of His Omniscience hy Christ
Himself in His own single, brief utterance
recorded by Mark (xiii, 32) and by Matthew in
like connection: "Of that day or that hour
knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father."

Concerning this utterance Sir Robert Ander-
son writes : "Two facts which are strangely
overlooked claim prominent notice. The first is
that the antithesis is not all between man and
God, but between the Son of God and the
Father. And the second is that He had been
reinvested with all that, according to Phil, ii.,
He had laid aside in coming into the world.
*A11 things have been delivered unto Me of My
Father,' He declared; and this at a time when
the proofs that 'He was despised and rejected
of men' were pressing on Him. His resuming
the glory awaited His return to heaven, but
here on earth the all things were already His.
Should any still doubt or cavil another answer
to the Kenosis figment is complete and crush-
ing. Whatever may have been the limitations
under which He rested during His ministry on
earth. He was released from them when He rose
from the dead. And it was in His post-resur-
rection teaching that He gave the fullest and
clearest testimony to the Hebrew Scriptures.

OF JESUS CHRIST 111

Then it was that ^he ginning at Moses, and all
the prophets, He expounded unto them, in all
the Scriptures the things concerning Ilimsclf.'
And again, confirming all His previous teach-
ing about those Scriptures, 'He said unto them.
These are the words which I spake unto you
while I was yet with you, that all things must
be fulfilled which were written in the law of
Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms,
concerning me.' And the record adds : 'Then
opened He their minds that they might under-
stand the Scriptures.' And the rest of the
New Testament is the fruit of that ministry,
enlarged and unfolded by the Holy Spirit given
to lead them into all truth."

We add some salient points from an exhaus-
tive study of this clause and its connections by
Dr. Howard Osgood:

"Christ does not say that He did not know
that day and hour, but He says that He did
not know 'of,' 'concerning,' 'about' that
day and hour. And yet the plain fact is that
in all this discourse — Mat. xxiv, 4, xxv, 46;
Mk. xiii, 5-37; Lu. xx, 8-36— Christ is tell-
ing His disciples only 'of,' 'concerning,'
'about' that day and hour. He tells them
what shall precede that day to the very instant
it shall appear. He tells them what shall be
done on that momentous day. So that Christ's
not knowing of that day must, in some rray,

112 THE PLACE AND WORK

be consistent with His knowledge and telling of
that day, unless one would find here a clear
contradiction, against all sanity and truth.
Surrounding the verse that contains Christ's
not knowing we have His assurances that He
knew, what He had often told before, that be-
lief or unbelief in Him and in His words was the
supreme test of man's eternal welfare or eternal
loss. He knew, as He had before taught His dis-
ciples (Mat. xvi, 27; Mk. viii, 38; Lu. ix, 26),
that He would, on that day, be possessed of
and accompanied with all the evidence of the
great power and the great glory of God. He
knew that He would be the Lord of all the
angels, *His angels,' who would do His bidding
and gather His elect from the uttermost part
of earth to the uttermost part of heaven. He
had told His disciples previously as He tells
them now, that He knew that He knew that He
was to be on that day King of the Kingdom of
heaven, holding its keys (Mat. xvi, 19), and
distributing its thrones (Mat. xix, 28). He
had constantly foretold and He knew that He
w^as to be the final judge of all men of all na-
tions, and would decide the state of their hearts
and enforce His decisions as to their eternal
condition.

'^So that Christ's 'not knowing' is preceded
and followed in this discourse by His repeated
claims to omniscience and omnipotence. And

OF JESUS CHRIST 113

unless we reject the whole discourse and all
similar statements in other parts of these three
gospels, Christ's not knowing must be consist-
ent in His mind with His assertion of His omnis-
cience and omnipotence. There is, therefore,
no possible standing ground between rejecting
the gospels and Christ as mythical delusions of
abominable falsity, or receiving Christ as He
everywhere in the gospels claims to be, omnis-
cient and omnipotent, the Son of God, the
God-man. In no other way could the omnis-
cient Son of God be said not to know 'of that
day and hour' than in the practical sense
that it was the Father's prerogative and not
the Son's to declare it."

And this conclusion is confirmed by Christ's
definite statement upon this very point to the
disciples assembled for His Ascension: "It is
not for you to know times and seasons which
the Father hath set within His own authority."
(Acts i, 7).

VI

THE PERIL FROM VAGRANT AND
BASELESS MODERN THOUGHT;
GOD'S VOICE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
AND WARNING

Only a small minority of the Christian Min-
istry and a very few individuals of the Chris-
tian Laity have attained such a measure of
mental training and scholarly learning as to be
able to make original and thorough investiga-
tion of the make-up, the textual interpreta-
tions, and essential teachings of the Bible, and
by their own research and study to reach con-
clusive results as to its text and spiritual
teachings.

The great majority of enrolled Christian
ministers and almost the entire Church mem-
bership have had limited means and opportuni-
ties of Biblical learning, very many not even
finding time to give thorough and studious read-
ing to the Bible itself. They cannot, therefore,
possess sufficient scholarship to acquire at first
hand a full and accurate knowledge of theologi-
cal and critical questions. These, — ministers
114,

MODERN THOUGHT 115

and church-members, — generally accept the
textual interpretations and forms of spiritual
truth that have been received from trusted pro-
fessors or preachers.

This great majority comprises two classes:
One class, happily including almost the entire
Church enrollment, finds personal assurance
and satisfaction in actual spiritual experience
of enlightening and saving truths. By God's
grace this vast body of established believers
are immune to alien and hostile influences.
They upbuild and maintain the health and
vigor of the great living and advancing
Church.

But there is a second class, relatively incon-
siderable in number, in both ministry and laity,
who, by reason of idiosyncrasies of tempera-
ment or of mental processes, or from an in-
ordinate ambition to keep pace with the fore-
most and newest thought, are exposed to error
and spiritual hurt by an abnormal readiness to
accept and espouse the unreasoned speculations
and baseless assumptions of the everywhere ac-
tive and aggressive exponents of the New The-
ology and its inseparable twin, the Modern
Criticism.

In the interest of this last — smallest yet too
sadly manifest — class we are now concerned to
present in clear view the explicit and plain
warnings of God in His Word, — warnings

116 THE PERIL FROM

which every sane and thoughtful mind must be
concerned to read and consider. No other mo-
tive or feeling prompts this writing and these
cited warnings save a deep heart-concern in the
many avowed disciples of Christ who stand in
peril to-day.

The peril touches mainly two basal and vital
Facts: 1. The Deity of Christ and of the
Holy Spirit, i. e., the Fact of the Divine
Trinity, through whose three-fold Offices alone
man attains life-renewal and peace on earth and
a blessed, eternal life in heaven.

% The absolute integrity and sole relia-
bility and sufficiency of the Word of God ex-
actly as guarded and preserved, unchanged by
human comment, undiminished by a word, and
without addition.

Passing by any consideration of the manifold
changes, the amazing glosses, sophistries, in-
ventions and conceits whereby many modern
speculative writers "corrupt the word of God,"
and "handle it deceitfully," we simply cite some
plain words of enlightenment and warning from
that Word ; and this, in order that all true dis-
ciples of Christ may be guarded against vital
errors that weaken and undermine faith, and
endanger the precious gospel hope of eternal
life.

MODERN THOUGHT 117

god's own words of enlightenment and

WARNING

1. Concerning those who with full knowledge
of the Old and 'New Testament Scriptures,
question or deny the Godhood of the Son and
the Spirit of God.

The first word of Divine command and warn-
ing we find in the Third Prohibition of the
Moral Law as spoken by the very Voice of God :
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vainr

Throughout the Scriptures the Divine Name
stands for the Divine Person. And the One
Name which appears ever foremost in the Gos-
pels and Epistles is the Name of Jesus Christ,
the Eternal Son of God. Isaiah introduces
Him through a symbolic, but actual transac-
tion, as conceived by "the Virgin" and named
"Immanuel," God with us. He further declares :
"Unto us a Child is born, a Son is given, and
His Name shall be called . . . the mighty
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of
Peace; and of the increase of His Government
and of His Power there shall be no end."
Other similar evidential references abound in
the Psalmists and other Prophets.

The facts reported by the Evangelists and
Apostolic writers match the predictions of
Psalmists and Prophets. The Son of God is

118 THE PERIL FROM

born and named, and His every word and act
proves His origin directly from God, and His
Person to be in the highest sense Divine. As
further definite points of proof: Baptism is
performed "in the name of the Lord Jesus,"
(Acts ii, 88) ; we are bidden to "do all things in
the name of the Lord Jesus" ; it is affirmed that
"we have life through His name" ; and healing
the body and saving the soul is attributed to
"the name of Christ."

Linking together Isaiah, Paul, and Peter
the proof of Christ's Deity is made still clearer :

Isa. xlv, 21-23. As the mouth-piece of the
Redeeming Jehovah Isaiah speaks: "There is
no God else beside Me, a just God and a Sav-
iour. Look unto me and be ye saved. By
Myself have I sworn . . . that unto Me
every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear."

Phil, a, 5, 8, 9-11. "Christ Jesus . . .
being made in the likeness of men . . . be-
came obedient unto death, yea, the death of the
cross. Wherefore God . . . gave unto
Him the name which is above every name, that
in the name of Jesus every knee should bow
and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father."

Acts iv, 10-12. Peter, arrested for healing
and standing before the assembled Sanhedrin,
boldly answers : "In the name of Jesus Christ

MODERN THOUGHT 119

of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, . . . even
in Him doth this man stand before you whole.
He is the stone which was set at naught of you
the builders, which was made the head of the
corner. And in none other is there salvation:
for neither is there any other name under
heaven, that is given among men, whereby we
must be saved."

Is there not in these incontrovertible Scrip-
tural testimonies absolute and conclusive evi-
dence of the true Deity of Jesus Christ, as
God's Eternal Son.'' And if so, are not those
writers who intelligently deny His Godhood and
boldly assert the fatal untruth of His sole
manhood justly charged with "taking the name
of God in vain".? And does not their persist-
ency in daring the Infinite God involve fearfully
cumulative guilt.?

Two more words of Warning under this head :
(1) Christ's confirmation of the Psalmist's
prophecy, and His denunciation of doom
against those who defy His Divine Supremacy:
Luke XX, 17, "The stone which the builders
rejected, The same was made the head of the
comer. Every one that falleth on that stone
shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall,
it will scatter him as dust."

"What a commentary upon that word,
'Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken,'
is the whole history of the heresies of the church

120 THE PERIL FROM

and the assaults of unbelief! Man after man,
rich in gifts, endowed often with far larger and
nobler faculties than the people who oppose
him, with indomitable perseverance, a martyr
to his error, sets himself up against the truth
that is sphered in Jesus Christ; and the great
divine message simply goes on its way, and all
the babblement and noise are like the sea-birds
that come sweeping up in the tempest and the
night, to the hospitable Pharos that is upon the
rock, and smite themselves dead against it.
Sceptics well known in their generation, who
made people's hearts tremble for the ark of
God, what has become of them? Their books
lie dusty and undisturbed on the top shelf of
libraries ; whilst there the Bible stands, with all
the scribblings wiped off the page, as though
they had never been ! My brother, let the his-
tory of the past teach you and me, with other
deeper thoughts, a very calm and triumphant
confidence about all that opponents say now-
adays ; for all the modern opposition to this
Gospel will go as all the past has done, and the
newest systems which cut and carve at Chris-
tianity will go to the tomb where all the rest
have gone." — Alexander Maclaren.

(2) Hebrews 10:29. "Of how much sorer
punishment shall he be judged worthy, who hath
trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath
counted the blood of the Covenant ('The blood

MODERN THOUGHT 121

of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin,' 1
Jno. i, 7) an unholy thing, and hath done de-
spite to the Spirit of grace!"

2. CONCERNING THOSE WHO DIMINISH, ADD TO,
OR CHANGE THE VERY WORD OF GOD

Jer, xarvi, 2. "Speak all the words that I
command thee to speak; diminish not a word."

Jer. xociii, 30, 32. "Behold, I am against the
prophets, saith Jehovah, that steal my words,
every one from his neighbor . . . and that
cause my people to err !"

// Tim. i, 13. "Hold fast the pattern of
sound words which thou hast heard from me."

Heh. xiii, 9. "Be not carried away by div-
ers and strange teachings."

Col. xiii, 8. "Take heed lest there be anyone
that maketh spoil of you through his philoso-
phy and vain deceit, after the rudiments of this
world, and not after Christ."

Gal. iy 7, 8. "There are some that trouble
you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
But though we or an angel from heaven should
preach any other gospel than that which we
preach unto you, let him be anathema (ac-
cursed)."

Mark vii, Jf2. "Whosoever shall cause one of
these little ones that believe on Me to stumble,
it were better for him if a great mill stone were

122 FINAL WARNING

hanged about his neck and he were cast into the
sea."

Luhe arciu 1, "Woe unto him through whom
the offense cometh !"

The plainest, most explicit word of warning
we read in the final utterance of Christ from the
Throne, — the closing word of the Revelation
from heaven:

Rev. a:a:ii, 18, 19, "I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this
book. If any man shall add unto them, God
shall add unto him the plagues which are writ-
ten in this book: and if any man shall take
away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part from
the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which
are written in this book."

>^/^