Chapter II: Material of Theology

I. Sources of Theology.

God himself, in the last analysis, must be the only source of knowledge with regard to his own being and relations. Theology is therefore a summary and explanation of the content of God’s self-revelations. These are, first, the revelation of God in nature; secondly and supremely, the revelation of God in the Scriptures.

Ambrose: “To whom shall I give greater credit concerning God than
to God himself?” Von Baader: “To know God without God is
impossible; there is no knowledge without him who is the prime
source of knowledge.” C. A. Briggs, Whither, 8—“God reveals truth
in several spheres: in universal nature, in the constitution of
mankind, in the history of our race, in the Sacred Scriptures, but
above all in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.” F. H. Johnson,
What is Reality? 399—“The teacher intervenes when needed.
Revelation _helps_ reason and conscience, but is not a
_substitute_ for them. But Catholicism affirms this substitution
for the church, and Protestantism for the Bible. The Bible, like
nature, gives many free gifts, but more in the germ. Growing
ethical ideals must interpret the Bible.” A. J. F. Behrends: “The
Bible is only a telescope, not the eye which sees, nor the stars
which the telescope brings to view. It is your business and mine
to see the stars with our own eyes.” Schurman, Agnosticism,
178—“The Bible is a glass through which to see the living God. But
it is useless when you put your eyes out.”

We can know God only so far as he has revealed himself. The
immanent God is known, but the transcendent God we do not know any
more than we know the side of the moon that is turned away from
us. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 118—“The word ‘authority’ is
derived from _auctor_, _augeo_, ‘to add.’ Authority adds something
to the truth communicated. The thing added is the personal element
of _witness_. This is needed wherever there is ignorance which
cannot be removed by our own effort, or unwillingness which
results from our own sin. In religion I need to add to my own
knowledge that which God imparts. Reason, conscience, church,
Scripture, are all delegated and subordinate authorities; the only
original and supreme authority is God himself, or Christ, who is
only God revealed and made comprehensible by us.” Gore,
Incarnation, 181—“All legitimate authority represents the reason
of God, educating the reason of man and communicating itself to
it.... Man is made in God’s image: he is, in his fundamental
capacity, a son of God, and he becomes so in fact, and fully,
through union with Christ. Therefore in the truth of God, as
Christ presents it to him, he can recognize his own better
reason,—to use Plato’s beautiful expression, he can salute it by
force of instinct as something akin to himself, before he can give
intellectual account of it.”

Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 332-337, holds that there is no
such thing as unassisted reason, and that, even if there were,
natural religion is not one of its products. Behind all evolution
of our own reason, he says, stands the Supreme Reason.
“Conscience, ethical ideals, capacity for admiration, sympathy,
repentance, righteous indignation, as well as our delight in
beauty and truth, are all derived from God.” Kaftan, in Am. Jour.
Theology, 1900; 718, 719, maintains that there is no other
principle for dogmatics than Holy Scripture. Yet he holds that
knowledge never comes directly from Scripture, but from faith. The
order is not: Scripture, doctrine, faith; but rather, Scripture,
faith, doctrine. Scripture is no more a direct authority than is
the church. Revelation is addressed to the whole man, that is, to
the _will_ of the man, and it claims _obedience_ from him. Since
all Christian knowledge is mediated through faith, it rests on
obedience to the authority of revelation, and revelation is
self-manifestation on the part of God. Kaftan should have
recognized more fully that not simply Scripture, but all knowable
truth, is a revelation from God, and that Christ is “the light
which lighteth every man”_ (John 1:9)_. Revelation is an organic
whole, which begins in nature, but finds its climax and key in the
historical Christ whom Scripture presents to us. See H. C.
Minton’s review of Martineau’s Seat of Authority, in Presb. and
Ref. Rev., Apr. 1900:203 _sq._

1. Scripture and Nature.

By nature we here mean not only physical facts, or facts with regard to the substances, properties, forces, and laws of the material world, but also spiritual facts, or facts with regard to the intellectual and moral constitution of man, and the orderly arrangement of human society and history.

We here use the word “nature” in the ordinary sense, as including
man. There is another and more proper use of the word “nature,”
which makes it simply a complex of forces and beings under the law
of cause and effect. To nature in this sense man belongs only as
respects his body, while as immaterial and personal he is a
supernatural being. Free will is not under the law of physical and
mechanical causation. As Bushnell has said: “Nature and the
supernatural together constitute the one system of God.” Drummond,
Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 232—“Things are natural or
supernatural according to where we stand. Man is supernatural to
the mineral; God is supernatural to the man.” We shall in
subsequent chapters use the term “nature” in the narrow sense. The
universal use of the phrase “Natural Theology,” however, compels
us in this chapter to employ the word “nature” in its broader
sense as including man, although we do this under protest, and
with this explanation of the more proper meaning of the term. See
Hopkins, in Princeton Review, Sept. 1882:183 _sq._

E. G. Robinson: “Bushnell separates nature from the supernatural.
Nature is a blind train of causes. God has nothing to do with it,
except as he steps into it from without. Man is supernatural,
because he is outside of nature, having the power of originating
an independent train of causes.” If this were the proper
conception of nature, then we might be compelled to conclude with
P. T. Forsyth, in Faith and Criticism, 100—“There is no revelation
in nature. There can be none, because there is no forgiveness. We
cannot be sure about her. She is only aesthetic. Her ideal is
harmony, not reconciliation.... For the conscience, stricken or
strong, she has no word.... Nature does not contain her own
teleology, and for the moral soul that refuses to be fancy-fed,
Christ is the one luminous smile on the dark face of the world.”
But this is virtually to confine Christ’s revelation to Scripture
or to the incarnation. As there was an astronomy without the
telescope, so there was a theology before the Bible. George
Harris, Moral Evolution, 411—“Nature is both evolution and
revelation. As soon as the question _How_ is answered, the
questions _Whence_ and _Why_ arise. Nature is to God what speech
is to thought.” The title of Henry Drummond’s book should have
been: “Spiritual Law in the Natural World,” for nature is but the
free though regular activity of God; what we call the supernatural
is simply his extraordinary working.

(_a_) Natural theology.—The universe is a source of theology. The Scriptures assert that God has revealed himself in nature. There is not only an outward witness to his existence and character in the constitution and government of the universe (Ps. 19; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:20), but an inward witness to his existence and character in the heart of every man (Rom. 1:17, 18, 19, 20, 32; 2:15). The systematic exhibition of these facts, whether derived from observation, history or science, constitutes natural theology.

Outward witness: _Ps.19:1-6—_“The heavens declare the glory of
God”; _Acts 14:17—_“he left not himself without witness, in that
he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons”;
_Rom. 1:20—_“for the invisible things of him since the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things
that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.” Inward
witness: _Rom. 1:19—τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ = _“that which is known of
God is manifest in them.” Compare the ἀποκαλύπτεται of the gospel
in verse 17, with the ἀποκαλύπτεται of wrath in verse 18—two
revelations, one of ὀργή, the other of χάρις; see Shedd,
Homiletics, 11. _Rom. 1:32—_“knowing the ordinance of God”;
_2:15—_“they show the work of the law written in their hearts.”
Therefore even the heathen are “without excuse”_ (Rom. 1:20)_.
There are two books: Nature and Scripture—one written, the other
unwritten: and there is need of studying both. On the passages in
Romans, see the Commentary of Hodge.

Spurgeon told of a godly person who, when sailing down the Rhine,
closed his eyes, lest the beauty of the scene should divert his
mind from spiritual themes. The Puritan turned away from the
moss-rose, saying that he would count nothing on earth lovely. But
this is to despise God’s works. J. H. Barrows: “The Himalayas are
the raised letters upon which we blind children put our fingers to
spell out the name of God.” To despise the works of God is to
despise God himself. God is present in nature, and is now
speaking. _Ps. 19:1—_“The heavens declare the glory of God, and
the firmament showeth his handiwork”—present tenses. Nature is not
so much a _book_, as a _voice_. Hutton, Essays, 2:236—“The direct
knowledge of spiritual communion must be supplemented by knowledge
of God’s ways gained from the study of nature. To neglect the
study of the natural mysteries of the universe leads to an
arrogant and illicit intrusion of moral and spiritual assumptions
into a different world. This is the lesson of the book of Job.”
Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 85—“Man, the servant and interpreter of
nature, is also, and is thereby, the servant and interpreter of
the living God.” Books of science are the record of man’s past
interpretations of God’s works.

(_b_) Natural theology supplemented.—The Christian revelation is the chief source of theology. The Scriptures plainly declare that the revelation of God in nature does not supply all the knowledge which a sinner needs (Acts 17:23; Eph. 3:9). This revelation is therefore supplemented by another, in which divine attributes and merciful provisions only dimly shadowed forth in nature are made known to men. This latter revelation consists of a series of supernatural events and communications, the record of which is presented in the Scriptures.

_Acts 17:23_—Paul shows that, though the Athenians, in the
erection of an altar to an unknown God, “acknowledged a divine
existence beyond any which the ordinary rites of their worship
recognized, that Being was still unknown to them; they had no just
conception of his nature and perfections” (Hackett, _in loco_).
_Eph. 3:9—_“the mystery which hath been hid in God”—this mystery
is in the gospel made known for man’s salvation. Hegel, in his
Philosophy of Religion, says that Christianity is the only
revealed religion, because the Christian God is the only one from
whom a revelation can come. We may add that as science is the
record of man’s progressive interpretation of God’s revelation in
the realm of nature, so Scripture is the record of man’s
progressive interpretation of God’s revelation in the realm of
spirit. The phrase “word of God” does not primarily denote a
_record_,—it is the _spoken_ word, the _doctrine_, the vitalizing
_truth_, disclosed by Christ; see _Mat. 13:19—_“heareth the word
of the kingdom”; _Luke 5:1—_“heard the word of God”; _Acts
8:25—_“spoken the word of the Lord”; _13:48, 49—_“glorified the
word of God: ... the word of the Lord was spread abroad”; _19:10,
20—_“heard the word of the Lord, ... mightily grew the word of the
Lord”; _1 Cor. 1:18—_“the word of the cross”—all designating not a
document, but an unwritten word; _cf.__ Jer. 1:4—_“the word of
Jehovah came unto me”; _Ez. 1:3—_“the word of Jehovah came
expressly unto Ezekiel, the priest.”

(_c_) The Scriptures the final standard of appeal.—Science and Scripture throw light upon each other. The same divine Spirit who gave both revelations is still present, enabling the believer to interpret the one by the other and thus progressively to come to the knowledge of the truth. Because of our finiteness and sin, the total record in Scripture of God’s past communications is a more trustworthy source of theology than are our conclusions from nature or our private impressions of the teaching of the Spirit. Theology therefore looks to the Scripture itself as its chief source of material and its final standard of appeal.

There is an internal work of the divine Spirit by which the outer
word is made an inner word, and its truth and power are manifested
to the heart. Scripture represents this work of the Spirit, not as
a giving of new truth, but as an illumination of the mind to
perceive the fulness of meaning which lay wrapped up in the truth
already revealed. Christ is “the truth”_ (John 14:6)_; “in whom
are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden”_ (Col.
2:3)_; the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, “shall take of mine, and shall
declare it unto you”_ (John 16:14)_. The incarnation and the Cross
express the heart of God and the secret of the universe; all
discoveries in theology are but the unfolding of truth involved in
these facts. The Spirit of Christ enables us to compare nature
with Scripture, and Scripture with nature, and to correct mistakes
in interpreting the one by light gained from the other. Because
the church as a whole, by which we mean the company of true
believers in all lands and ages, has the promise that it shall be
guided “into all the truth”_ (John 16:13)_, we may confidently
expect the progress of Christian doctrine.

Christian experience is sometimes regarded as an original source
of religious truth. Experience, however, is but a testing and
proving of the truth objectively contained in God’s revelation.
The word “experience” is derived from _experior_, to test, to try.
Christian consciousness is not “norma normans,” but “norma
normata.” Light, like life, comes to us through the mediation of
others. Yet the first comes from God as really as the last, of
which without hesitation we say: “God made me,” though we have
human parents. As I get through the service-pipe in my house the
same water which is stored in the reservoir upon the hillside, so
in the Scriptures I get the same truth which the Holy Spirit
originally communicated to prophets and apostles. Calvin,
Institutes, book I, chap. 7—“As nature has an immediate
manifestation of God in conscience, a mediate in his works, so
revelation has an immediate manifestation of God in the Spirit, a
mediate in the Scriptures.” “Man’s nature,” said Spurgeon, “is not
an organized lie, yet his inner consciousness has been warped by
sin, and though once it was an infallible guide to truth and duty,
sin has made it very deceptive. The standard of infallibility is
not in man’s consciousness, but in the Scriptures. When
consciousness in any matter is contrary to the word of God, we
must know that it is not God’s voice within us, but the devil’s.”
Dr. George A. Gordon says that “Christian history is a revelation
of Christ additional to that contained in the New Testament.”
Should we not say “illustrative,” instead of “additional”? On the
relation between Christian experience and Scripture, see Stearns,
Evidence of Christian Experience, 286-309: Twesten, Dogmatik,
1:344-348; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:15.

H. H. Bawden: “God is the ultimate authority, but there are
delegated authorities, such as family, state, church; instincts,
feelings, conscience; the general experience of the race,
traditions, utilities; revelation in nature and in Scripture. But
the highest authority available for men in morals and religion is
the truth concerning Christ contained in the Christian Scriptures.
What the truth concerning Christ _is_, is determined by: (1) the
human reason, conditioned by a right attitude of the feelings and
the will; (2) in the light of all the truth derived from nature,
including man; (3) in the light of the history of Christianity;
(4) in the light of the origin and development of the Scriptures
themselves. The authority of the generic reason and the authority
of the Bible are co-relative, since they both have been developed
in the providence of God, and since the latter is in large measure
but the reflection of the former. This view enables us to hold a
rational conception of the function of the Scripture in religion.
This view, further, enables us to rationalize what is called the
inspiration of the Bible, the nature and extent of inspiration,
the Bible as history—a record of the historic unfolding of
revelation; the Bible as literature—a compend of life-principles,
rather than a book of rules; the Bible Christocentric—an
incarnation of the divine thought and will in human thought and
language.”

(_d_) The theology of Scripture not unnatural.—Though we speak of the systematized truths of nature as constituting natural theology, we are not to infer that Scriptural theology is unnatural. Since the Scriptures have the same author as nature, the same principles are illustrated in the one as in the other. All the doctrines of the Bible have their reason in that same nature of God which constitutes the basis of all material things. Christianity is a supplementary dispensation, not as contradicting, or correcting errors in, natural theology, but as more perfectly revealing the truth. Christianity is indeed the ground-plan upon which the whole creation is built—the original and eternal truth of which natural theology is but a partial expression. Hence the theology of nature and the theology of Scripture are mutually dependent. Natural theology not only prepares the way for, but it receives stimulus and aid from, Scriptural theology. Natural theology may now be a source of truth, which, before the Scriptures came, it could not furnish.

John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity. 23—“There is no such
thing as a natural religion or religion of reason distinct from
revealed religion. Christianity is more profoundly, more
comprehensively, rational, more accordant with the deepest
principles of human nature and human thought than is natural
religion; or, as we may put it, Christianity is natural religion
elevated and transmuted into revealed.” Peabody, Christianity the
Religion of Nature, lecture 2—“Revelation is the unveiling,
uncovering of what previously existed, and it excludes the idea of
newness, invention, creation.... The revealed religion of earth is
the natural religion of heaven.” Compare _Rev. 13:8—_“the Lamb
that hath been slain from the foundation of the world” = the
coming of Christ was no make-shift; in a true sense the Cross
existed in eternity; the atonement is a revelation of an eternal
fact in the being of God.

Note Plato’s illustration of the cave which can be easily threaded
by one who has previously entered it with a torch. Nature is the
dim light from the cave’s mouth; the torch is Scripture. Kant to
Jacobi, in Jacobi’s Werke, 3:523—“If the gospel had not previously
taught the universal moral laws, reason would not yet have
obtained so perfect an insight into them.” Alexander McLaren:
“Non-Christian thinkers now talk eloquently about God’s love, and
even reject the gospel in the name of that love, thus kicking down
the ladder by which they have climbed. But it was the Cross that
taught the world the love of God, and apart from the death of
Christ men may hope that there is a heart at the centre of the
universe, but they can never be sure of it.” The parrot fancies
that he taught men to talk. So Mr. Spencer fancies that he
invented ethics. He is only using the twilight, after his sun has
gone down. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theol., 252, 253—“Faith, at the
Reformation, first gave scientific certainty; it had God sure:
hence it proceeded to banish scepticism in philosophy and
science.” See also Dove, Logic of Christian Faith, 333; Bowen,
Metaph. and Ethics, 442-463; Bib. Sac., 1874:436; A. H. Strong,
Christ in Creation, 226, 227.

2. Scripture and Rationalism.

Although the Scriptures make known much that is beyond the power of man’s unaided reason to discover or fully to comprehend, their teachings, when taken together, in no way contradict a reason conditioned in its activity by a holy affection and enlightened by the Spirit of God. To reason in the large sense, as including the mind’s power of cognizing God and moral relations—not in the narrow sense of mere reasoning, or the exercise of the purely logical faculty—the Scriptures continually appeal.

A. The proper office of reason, in this large sense, is: (_a_) To furnish us with those primary ideas of space, time, cause, substance, design, right, and God, which are the conditions of all subsequent knowledge. (_b_) To judge with regard to man’s need of a special and supernatural revelation. (_c_) To examine the credentials of communications professing to be, or of documents professing to record, such a revelation. (_d_) To estimate and reduce to system the facts of revelation, when these have been found properly attested. (_e_) To deduce from these facts their natural and logical conclusions. Thus reason itself prepares the way for a revelation above reason, and warrants an implicit trust in such revelation when once given.

Dove, Logic of the Christian Faith, 318—“Reason terminates in the
proposition: Look for revelation.” Leibnitz: “Revelation is the
viceroy who first presents his credentials to the provincial
assembly (reason), and then himself presides.” Reason can
recognize truth after it is made known, as for example in the
demonstrations of geometry, although it could never discover that
truth for itself. See Calderwood’s illustration of the party lost
in the woods, who wisely take the course indicated by one at the
tree-top with a larger view than their own (Philosophy of the
Infinite, 126). The novice does well to trust his guide in the
forest, at least till he learns to recognise for himself the marks
blazed upon the trees. Luthardt, Fund. Truths, lect. viii—“Reason
could never have invented a self-humiliating God, cradled in a
manger and dying on a cross.” Lessing, Zur Geschichte und
Litteratur, 6:134—“What is the meaning of a revelation that
reveals nothing?”

Ritschl denies the presuppositions of any theology based on the
Bible as the infallible word of God on the one hand, and on the
validity of the knowledge of God as obtained by scientific and
philosophic processes on the other. Because philosophers,
scientists, and even exegetes, are not agreed among themselves, he
concludes that no trustworthy results are attainable by human
reason. We grant that reason without love will fall into many
errors with regard to God, and that faith is therefore the organ
by which religious truth is to be apprehended. But we claim that
this faith includes reason, and is itself reason in its highest
form. Faith criticizes and judges the processes of natural science
as well as the contents of Scripture. But it also recognizes in
science and Scripture prior workings of that same Spirit of Christ
which is the source and authority of the Christian life. Ritschl
ignores Christ’s world-relations and therefore secularizes and
disparages science and philosophy. The faith to which he trusts as
the source of theology is unwarrantably sundered from reason. It
becomes a subjective and arbitrary standard, to which even the
teaching of Scripture must yield precedence. We hold on the
contrary, that there are ascertained results in science and in
philosophy, as well as in the interpretation of Scripture as a
whole, and that these results constitute an authoritative
revelation. See Orr, The Theology of Ritschl; Dorner, Hist. Prot.
Theol., 1:233—“The unreasonable in the empirical reason is taken
captive by faith, which is the nascent true reason that despairs
of itself and trustfully lays hold of objective Christianity.”

B. Rationalism, on the other hand, holds reason to be the ultimate source of all religious truth, while Scripture is authoritative only so far as its revelations agree with previous conclusions of reason, or can be rationally demonstrated. Every form of rationalism, therefore, commits at least one of the following errors: (_a_) That of confounding reason with mere reasoning, or the exercise of the logical intelligence. (_b_) That of ignoring the necessity of a holy affection as the condition of all right reason in religious things. (_c_) That of denying our dependence in our present state of sin upon God’s past revelations of himself. (_d_) That of regarding the unaided reason, even its normal and unbiased state, as capable of discovering, comprehending, and demonstrating all religious truth.

Reason must not be confounded with ratiocination, or mere
reasoning. Shall we follow reason? Yes, but not individual
reasoning, against the testimony of those who are better informed
than we; nor by insisting on demonstration, where probable
evidence alone is possible; nor by trusting solely to the evidence
of the senses, when spiritual things are in question. Coleridge,
in replying to those who argued that all knowledge comes to us
from the senses, says: “At any rate we must bring to all facts the
light in which we see them.” This the Christian does. The light of
love reveals much that would otherwise be invisible. Wordsworth,
Excursion, book 5 (598)—“The mind’s repose On evidence is not to
be ensured By act of naked reason. Moral truth Is no mechanic
structure, built by rule.”

Rationalism is the mathematical theory of knowledge. Spinoza’s
Ethics is an illustration of it. It would deduce the universe from
an axiom. Dr. Hodge very wrongly described rationalism as “an
overuse of reason.” It is rather the use of an abnormal,
perverted, improperly conditioned reason; see Hodge, Syst. Theol.,
1:34, 39, 55, and criticism by Miller, in his Fetich in Theology.
The phrase “sanctified intellect” means simply intellect
accompanied by right affections toward God, and trained to work
under their influence. Bishop Butler: “Let reason be kept to, but
let not such poor creatures as we are go on objecting to an
infinite scheme that we do not see the necessity or usefulness of
all its parts, and call that reasoning.” Newman Smyth, Death’s
Place in Evolution, 86—“Unbelief is a shaft sunk down into the
darkness of the earth. Drive the shaft deep enough, and it would
come out into the sunlight on the earth’s other side.” The most
unreasonable people in the world are those who depend solely upon
reason, in the narrow sense. “The better to exalt reason, they
make the world irrational.” “The hen that has hatched ducklings
walks with them to the water’s edge, but there she stops, and she
is amazed when they go on. So reason stops and faith goes on,
finding its proper element in the invisible. Reason is the feet
that stand on solid earth; faith is the wings that enable us to
fly; and normal man is a creature with wings.” Compare γνῶσις (_1
Tim. 6:20—_“the knowledge which is falsely so called”) with
ἐπίγνωσις (_2 Pet. 1:2—_“the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
Lord” = full knowledge, or true knowledge). See Twesten, Dogmatik,
1:467-500; Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 4, 5; Mansel, Limits of
Religious Thought, 96; Dawson, Modern Ideas of Evolution.

3. Scripture and Mysticism.

As rationalism recognizes too little as coming from God, so mysticism recognizes too much.

A. True mysticism.—We have seen that there is an illumination of the minds of all believers by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, however, makes no new revelation of truth, but uses for his instrument the truth already revealed by Christ in nature and in the Scriptures. The illuminating work of the Spirit is therefore an opening of men’s minds to understand Christ’s previous revelations. As one initiated into the mysteries of Christianity, every true believer may be called a mystic. True mysticism is that higher knowledge and fellowship which the Holy Spirit gives through the use of nature and Scripture as subordinate and principal means.

“Mystic” = one initiated, from μύω, “to close the eyes”—probably
in order that the soul may have inward vision of truth. But divine
truth is a “mystery,” not only as something into which one must be
initiated, but as ὑπερβάλλουσα τῆς γνώσεως (_Eph.
3:19_)—surpassing full knowledge, even to the believer; see Meyer
on _Rom. 11:25—_“I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this
mystery.” The Germans have _Mystik_ with a favorable sense,
_Mysticismus_ with an unfavorable sense,—corresponding
respectively to our true and false mysticism. True mysticism is
intimated in _John 16:13—_“the spirit of truth ... shall guide you
into all the truth”; _Eph. 3:9—_“dispensation of the mystery”; _1
Cor. 2:10—_“unto us God revealed them through the Spirit.”
Nitzsch, Syst. of Christ. Doct., 35—“Whenever true religion
revives, there is an outcry against mysticism, _i. e._, higher
knowledge, fellowship, activity through the Spirit of God in the
heart.” Compare the charge against Paul that he was mad, in _Acts
26:24, 25_, with his self-vindication in _2 Cor. 5:13—_“whether we
are beside ourselves, it is unto God.”

Inge, Christian Mysticism, 21—“Harnack speaks of mysticism as
rationalism applied to a sphere above reason. He should have said
reason applied to a sphere above rationalism. Its fundamental
doctrine is the unity of all existence. Man can realize his
individuality only by transcending it and finding himself in the
larger unity of God’s being. Man is a microcosm. He recapitulates
the race, the universe, Christ himself.” _Ibid._, 5—Mysticism is
“the attempt to realize in thought and feeling the immanence of
the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal.
It implies (1) that the soul can see and perceive spiritual truth;
(2) that man, in order to know God, must be a partaker of the
divine nature; (3) that without holiness no man can see the Lord;
(4) that the true hierophant of the mysteries of God is love. The
‘scala perfectionis’ is (_a_) the purgative life; (_b_) the
illuminative life; (_c_) the unitive life.” Stevens, Johannine
Theology, 239, 240—“The mysticism of John ... is not a subjective
mysticism which absorbs the soul in self-contemplation and revery,
but an objective and rational mysticism, which lives in a world of
realities, apprehends divinely revealed truth, and bases its
experience upon it. It is a mysticism which feeds, not upon its
own feelings and fancies, but upon Christ. It involves an
acceptance of him, and a life of obedience to him. Its motto is:
Abiding in Christ.” As the power press cannot dispense with the
type, so the Spirit of God does not dispense with Christ’s
external revelations in nature and in Scripture. E. G. Robinson,
Christian Theology, 364—“The word of God is a form or mould, into
which the Holy Spirit delivers us when he creates us anew”; _cf.__
Rom. 6:17—_“ye became obedient from the heart to that form of
teaching whereunto ye were delivered.”

B. False mysticism.—Mysticism, however, as the term is commonly used, errs in holding to the attainment of religious knowledge by direct communication from God, and by passive absorption of the human activities into the divine. It either partially or wholly loses sight of (_a_) the outward organs of revelation, nature and the Scriptures; (_b_) the activity of the human powers in the reception of all religious knowledge; (_c_) the personality of man, and, by consequence, the personality of God.

In opposition to false mysticism, we are to remember that the Holy
Spirit works through the truth externally revealed in nature and
in Scripture (_Acts 14:17—_“he left not himself without witness”;
_Rom. 1:20—_“the invisible things of him since the creation of the
world are clearly seen”; _Acts 7:51—_“ye do always resist the Holy
Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye”; _Eph. 6:17—_“the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God”). By this truth already
given we are to test all new communications which would contradict
or supersede it (_1 John 4:1—_“believe not every spirit, but prove
the spirits, whether they are of God”; _Eph. 5:10—_“proving what
is well pleasing unto the Lord”). By these tests we may try
Spiritualism, Mormonism, Swedenborgianism. Note the mystical
tendency in Francis de Sales, Thomas à Kempis, Madame Guyon,
Thomas C. Upham. These writers seem at times to advocate an
unwarrantable abnegation of our reason and will, and a “swallowing
up of man in God.” But Christ does not deprive us of reason and
will; he only takes from us the perverseness of our reason and the
selfishness of our will; so reason and will are restored to their
normal clearness and strength. Compare _Ps. 16:7—_“Jehovah, who
hath given me counsel; yea, my heart instructeth me in the night
seasons”—God teaches his people through the exercise of their own
faculties.

False mysticism is sometimes present though unrecognized. All
expectation of results without the use of means partakes of it.
Martineau, Seat of Authority, 288—“The lazy will would like to
have the vision while the eye that apprehends it sleeps.”
Preaching without preparation is like throwing ourselves down from
a pinnacle of the temple and depending on God to send an angel to
hold us up. Christian Science would trust to supernatural
agencies, while casting aside the natural agencies God has already
provided; as if a drowning man should trust to prayer while
refusing to seize the rope. Using Scripture “ad aperturam libri”
is like guiding one’s actions by a throw of the dice. Allen,
Jonathan Edwards, 171, note—“Both Charles and John Wesley were
agreed in accepting the Moravian method of solving doubts as to
some course of action by opening the Bible at hazard and regarding
the passage on which the eye first alighted as a revelation of
God’s will in the matter”; _cf._ Wedgwood, Life of Wesley, 193;
Southey, Life of Wesley, 1:216. J. G. Paton, Life, 2:74—“After
many prayers and wrestlings and tears, I went alone before the
Lord, and on my knees cast lots, with a solemn appeal to God, and
the answer came: ‘Go home!’ ” He did this only once in his life,
in overwhelming perplexity, and finding no light from human
counsel. “To whomsoever this faith is given,” he says, “let him
obey it.”

F. B. Meyer, Christian Living, 18—“It is a mistake to seek a sign
from heaven; to run from counsellor to counsellor; to cast a lot;
or to trust in some chance coincidence. Not that God may not
reveal his will thus; but because it is hardly the behavior of a
child with its Father. There is a more excellent way,”—namely,
appropriate Christ who is wisdom, and then go forward, sure that
we shall be guided, as each new step must be taken, or word
spoken, or decision made. Our service is to be “rational service”_
(Rom. 12:1)_; blind and arbitrary action is inconsistent with the
spirit of Christianity. Such action makes us victims of temporary
feeling and a prey to Satanic deception. In cases of perplexity,
waiting for light and waiting upon God will commonly enable us to
make an intelligent decision, while “whatsoever is not of faith is
sin”_ (Rom. 14:23)_.

“False mysticism reached its logical result in the Buddhistic
theosophy. In that system man becomes most divine in the
extinction of his own personality. Nirvana is reached by the
eightfold path of right view, aspiration, speech, conduct,
livelihood, effort, mindfulness, rapture; and Nirvana is the loss
of ability to say: ‘This is I,’ and ‘This is mine.’ Such was
Hypatia’s attempt, by subjection of self, to be wafted away into
the arms of Jove. George Eliot was wrong when she said: ‘The
happiest woman has no history.’ Self-denial is not
self-effacement. The cracked bell has no individuality. In Christ
we become our complete selves.” _Col 2:9, 10—_“For in him dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made
full.”

Royce, World and Individual, 2:248, 249—“Assert the spiritual man;
abnegate the natural man. The fleshly self is the root of all
evil; the spiritual self belongs to a higher realm. But this
spiritual self lies at first outside the soul; it becomes ours
only by grace. Plato rightly made the eternal Ideas the source of
all human truth and goodness. Wisdom comes into a man, like
Aristotle’s νοῦς.” A. H. Bradford, The Inner Light, in making the
direct teaching of the Holy Spirit the sufficient if not the sole
source of religious knowledge, seems to us to ignore the principle
of evolution in religion. God builds upon the past. His revelation
to prophets and apostles constitutes the norm and corrective of
our individual experience, even while our experience throws new
light upon that revelation. On Mysticism, true and false, see
Inge, Christian Mysticism, 4, 5, 11; Stearns, Evidence of
Christian Experience, 289-294; Dorner, Geschichte d. prot. Theol.,
48-59, 243; Herzog, Encycl., art.: Mystik, by Lange; Vaughan,
Hours with the Mystics, 1:199; Morell, Hist. Philos., 58, 191-215,
556-625, 726; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:61-69, 97, 104; Fleming,
Vocab. Philos., _in voce_; Tholuck, Introd. to Blüthensammlung aus
der morgenländischen Mystik; William James, Varieties of Religious
Experience, 379-429.

4. Scripture and Romanism.

While the history of doctrine, as showing the progressive apprehension and unfolding by the church of the truth contained in nature and Scripture, is a subordinate source of theology, Protestantism recognizes the Bible as under Christ the primary and final authority.

Romanism, on the other hand, commits the two-fold error (_a_) Of making the church, and not the Scriptures, the immediate and sufficient source of religious knowledge; and (_b_) Of making the relation of the individual to Christ depend upon his relation to the church, instead of making his relation to the church depend upon, follow, and express his relation to Christ.

In Roman Catholicism there is a mystical element. The Scriptures
are not the complete or final standard of belief and practice. God
gives to the world from time to time, through popes and councils,
new communications of truth. Cyprian: “He who has not the church
for his mother, has not God for his Father.” Augustine: “I would
not believe the Scripture, unless the authority of the church also
influenced me.” Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola both
represented the truly obedient person as one dead, moving only as
moved by his superior; the true Christian has no life of his own,
but is the blind instrument of the church. John Henry Newman,
Tracts, Theol. and Eccl., 287—“The Christian dogmas were in the
church from the time of the apostles,—they were ever in their
substance what they are now.” But this is demonstrably untrue of
the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary; of the treasury of
merits to be distributed in indulgences; of the infallibility of
the pope (see Gore, Incarnation, 186). In place of the true
doctrine, “Ubi Spiritus, ibi ecclesia,” Romanism substitutes her
maxim, “Ubi ecclesia, ibi Spiritus.” Luther saw in this the
principle of mysticism, when he said: “Papatus est merus
enthusiasmus.” See Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:61-69.

In reply to the Romanist argument that the church was before the
Bible, and that the same body that gave the truth at the first can
make additions to that truth, we say that the unwritten word was
before the church and made the church possible. The word of God
existed before it was written down, and by that word the first
disciples as well as the latest were begotten (_1 Pet.
1:23—_“begotten again ... through the word of God”). The grain of
truth in Roman Catholic doctrine is expressed in _1 Tim.
3:15—_“the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth” = the church is God’s appointed proclaimer of truth; _cf.__
Phil. 2:16—_“holding forth the word of life.” But the church can
proclaim the truth, only as it is built upon the truth. So we may
say that the American Republic is the pillar and ground of liberty
in the world; but this is true only so far as the Republic is
built upon the principle of liberty as its foundation. When the
Romanist asks: “Where was your church before Luther?” the
Protestant may reply: “Where yours is not now—in the word of God.
Where was your face before it was washed? Where was the fine flour
before the wheat went to the mill?” Lady Jane Grey, three days
before her execution, February 12, 1554, said: “I ground my faith
on God’s word, and not upon the church; for, if the church be a
good church, the faith of the church must be tried by God’s word,
and not God’s word by the church, nor yet my faith.”

The Roman church would keep men in perpetual childhood—coming to
her for truth instead of going directly to the Bible; “like the
foolish mother who keeps her boy pining in the house lest he stub
his toe, and would love best to have him remain a babe forever,
that she might mother him still.” Martensen, Christian Dogmatics,
30—“Romanism is so busy in building up a system of guarantees,
that she forgets the truth of Christ which she would guarantee.”
George Herbert: “What wretchedness can give him any room, Whose
house is foul while he adores his broom!” It is a semi-parasitic
doctrine of safety without intelligence or spirituality. Romanism
says: “Man for the machine!” Protestantism: “The machine for man!”
Catholicism strangles, Protestantism restores, individuality. Yet
the Romanist principle sometimes appears in so-called Protestant
churches. The Catechism published by the League of the Holy Cross,
in the Anglican Church, contains the following: “It is to the
priest only that the child must acknowledge his sins, if he
desires that God should forgive him. Do you know why? It is
because God, when on earth, gave to his priests and to them alone
the power of forgiving sins. Go to the priest, who is the doctor
of your soul, and who cures you in the name of God.” But this
contradicts _John 10:7_—where Christ says “I am the door”; and _1
Cor. 3:11—_“other foundation can no man lay than that which is
laid, which is Jesus Christ” = Salvation is attained by immediate
access to Christ, and there is no door between the soul and him.
See Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 227; Schleiermacher,
Glaubenslehre, 1:24; Robinson, in Mad. Av. Lectures, 387; Fisher,
Nat. and Method of Revelation, 10; Watkins, Bampton Lect. for
1890:149; Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. World, 327.

II. Limitations of Theology.

Although theology derives its material from God’s two-fold revelation, it does not profess to give an exhaustive knowledge of God and of the relations between God and the universe. After showing what material we have, we must show what material we have not. We have indicated the sources of theology; we now examine its limitations. Theology has its limitations:

(_a_) _In the finiteness of the human understanding._ This gives rise to a class of necessary mysteries, or mysteries connected with the infinity and incomprehensibleness of the divine nature (Job 11:7; Rom. 11:33).

_Job 11:7—_“Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find
out the Almighty to perfection?” _Rom. 11:33—_“how unsearchable
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Every doctrine,
therefore, has its inexplicable side. Here is the proper meaning
of Tertullian’s sayings: “Certum est, quia impossible est: quo
absurdius, eo verius”; that of Anselm: “Credo, ut intelligam”; and
that of Abelard: “Qui credit cito, levis corde est.” Drummond,
Nat. Law in Spir. World: “A science without mystery is unknown; a
religion without mystery is absurd.” E. G. Robinson: “A finite
being cannot grasp even its own relations to the Infinite.” Hovey,
Manual of Christ. Theol., 7—“To infer from the perfection of God
that all his works [nature, man, inspiration] will be absolutely
and unchangeably perfect: to infer from the perfect love of God
that there can be no sin or suffering in the world; to infer from
the sovereignty of God that man is not a free moral agent;—all
these inferences are rash; they are inferences from the cause to
the effect, while the cause is imperfectly known.” See Calderwood,
Philos. of Infinite, 491; Sir Wm. Hamilton, Discussions, 22.

(_b_) _In the imperfect state of science, both natural and metaphysical._ This gives rise to a class of accidental mysteries, or mysteries which consist in the apparently irreconcilable nature of truths, which, taken separately, are perfectly comprehensible.

We are the victims of a mental or moral astigmatism, which sees a
_single_ point of truth as _two_. We see God and man, divine
sovereignty and human freedom, Christ’s divine nature and Christ’s
human nature, the natural and the supernatural, respectively, as
two disconnected facts, when perhaps deeper insight would see but
one. Astronomy has its centripetal and centrifugal forces, yet
they are doubtless one force. The child cannot hold two oranges at
once in its little hand. Negro preacher: “You can’t carry two
watermelons under one arm.” Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra,
1:2—“In nature’s infinite book of secresy, A little I can read.”
Cooke, Credentials of Science, 34—“Man’s progress in knowledge has
been so constantly and rapidly accelerated that more has been
gained during the lifetime of men still living than during all
human history before.” And yet we may say with D’Arcy, Idealism
and Theology, 248—“Man’s position in the universe is eccentric.
God alone is at the centre. To him alone is the orbit of truth
completely displayed.... There are circumstances in which to us
the onward movement of truth may seem a retrogression.” William
Watson, Collected Poems, 271—“Think not thy wisdom can illume away
The ancient tanglement of night and day. Enough to acknowledge
both, and both revere: They see not clearliest who see all things
clear.”

(_c_) _In the inadequacy of language._ Since language is the medium through which truth is expressed and formulated, the invention of a proper terminology in theology, as in every other science, is a condition and criterion of its progress. The Scriptures recognize a peculiar difficulty in putting spiritual truths into earthly language (1 Cor. 2:13; 2 Cor. 3:6; 12:4).

_1 Cor. 2:13—_“not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth”; _2 Cor.
3:6—_“the letter killeth”; _12:4—_“unspeakable words.” God submits
to conditions of revelation; _cf.__ John 16:12—_“I have yet many
things to say into you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Language has
to be created. Words have to be taken from a common, and to be put
to a larger and more sacred, use, so that they “stagger under
their weight of meaning”—_e. g._, the word “day,” in _Genesis 1_,
and the word ἀγάπη in _1 Cor. 13_. See Gould, in Amer. Com., on _1
Cor. 13:12—_“now we see in a mirror, darkly”—in a metallic mirror
whose surface is dim and whose images are obscure = Now we behold
Christ, the truth, only as he is reflected in imperfect
speech—“but then face to face” = immediately, without the
intervention of an imperfect medium. “As fast as we tunnel into
the sandbank of thought, the stones of language must be built into
walls and arches, to allow further progress into the boundless
mine.”

(_d_) _In the incompleteness of our knowledge of the Scriptures._ Since it is not the mere letter of the Scriptures that constitutes the truth, the progress of theology is dependent upon hermeneutics, or the interpretation of the word of God.

Notice the progress in commenting, from homiletical to
grammatical, historical, dogmatic, illustrated in Scott, Ellicott,
Stanley, Lightfoot. John Robinson: “I am verily persuaded that the
Lord hath more truth yet to break forth from his holy word.”
Recent criticism has shown the necessity of studying each portion
of Scripture in the light of its origin and connections. There has
been an evolution of Scripture, as truly as there has been an
evolution of natural science, and the Spirit of Christ who was in
the prophets has brought about a progress from germinal and
typical expression to expression that is complete and clear. Yet
we still need to offer the prayer of _Ps. 119:18—_“Open thou mine
eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” On New
Testament Interpretation, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and
Religion, 334-336.

(_e_) _In the silence of written revelation._ For our discipline and probation, much is probably hidden from us, which we might even with our present powers comprehend.

Instance the silence of Scripture with regard to the life and
death of Mary the Virgin, the personal appearance of Jesus and his
occupations in early life, the origin of evil, the method of the
atonement, the state after death. So also as to social and
political questions, such as slavery, the liquor traffic, domestic
virtues, governmental corruption. “Jesus was in heaven at the
revolt of the angels, yet he tells us little about angels or about
heaven. He does not discourse about Eden, or Adam, or the fall of
man, or death as the result of Adam’s sin; and he says little of
departed spirits, whether they are lost or saved.” It was better
to inculcate principles, and trust his followers to apply them.
His gospel is not intended to gratify a vain curiosity. He would
not divert men’s minds from pursuing the one thing needful; _cf.__
Luke 13:23, 24—_“Lord, are they few that are saved? And he said
unto them, Strive to enter in by the narrow door; for many, I say
unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Paul’s
silence upon speculative questions which he must have pondered
with absorbing interest is a proof of his divine inspiration. John
Foster spent his life, “gathering questions for eternity”; _cf.__
John 13:7—_“What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt
understand hereafter.” The most beautiful thing in a countenance
is that which a picture can never express. He who would speak well
must omit well. Story: “Of every noble work the silent part is
best; Of all expressions that which cannot be expressed.” _Cf.__ 1
Cor. 2:9—_“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which
entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared
for them that love him”; _Deut 29:29—_“The secret things belong
unto Jehovah our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto
us and to our children.” For Luther’s view, see Hagenbach, Hist.
Doctrine, 2:388. See also B. D. Thomas, The Secret of the Divine
Silence.

(_f_) _In the lack of spiritual discernment caused by sin._ Since holy affection is a condition of religious knowledge, all moral imperfection in the individual Christian and in the church serves as a hindrance to the working out of a complete theology.

_John 3:3—_“Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of
God.” The spiritual ages make most progress in theology,—witness
the half-century succeeding the Reformation, and the half-century
succeeding the great revival in New England in the time of
Jonathan Edwards. Ueberweg, Logic (Lindsay’s transl.),
514—“Science is much under the influence of the will; and the
truth of knowledge depends upon the purity of the conscience. The
will has no power to resist scientific evidence; but scientific
evidence is not obtained without the continuous loyalty of the
will.” Lord Bacon declared that man cannot enter the kingdom of
science, any more than he can enter the kingdom of heaven, without
becoming a little child. Darwin describes his own mind as having
become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large
collections of facts, with the result of producing “atrophy of
that part of the brain on which the higher tastes depend.” But a
similar abnormal atrophy is possible in the case of the moral and
religious faculty (see Gore, Incarnation, 37). Dr. Allen said in
his Introductory Lecture at Lane Theological Seminary: “We are
very glad to see you if you wish to be students; but the
professors’ chairs are all filled.”

III. Relations of Material to Progress in Theology.

(_a_) _A perfect system of theology is impossible._ We do not expect to construct such a system. All science but reflects the present attainment of the human mind. No science is complete or finished. However it may be with the sciences of nature and of man, the science of God will never amount to an exhaustive knowledge. We must not expect to demonstrate all Scripture doctrines upon rational grounds, or even in every case to see the principle of connection between them. Where we cannot do this, we must, as in every other science, set the revealed facts in their places and wait for further light, instead of ignoring or rejecting any of them because we cannot understand them or their relation to other parts of our system.

Three problems left unsolved by the Egyptians have been handed
down to our generation: (1) the duplication of the cube; (2) the
trisection of the angle; (3) the quadrature of the circle. Dr.
Johnson: “Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than
none; and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.” Hood
spoke of Dr. Johnson’s “Contradictionary,” which had both
“interiour” and “exterior.” Sir William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) at
the fiftieth anniversary of his professorship said: “One word
characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the
advancement of science which I have made perseveringly through
fifty-five years: that word is _failure_; I know no more of
electric and magnetic force, or of the relations between ether,
electricity and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I
knew and tried to teach my students of natural philosophy fifty
years ago in my first session as professor.” Allen, Religious
Progress, mentions three tendencies. “The first says: Destroy the
new! The second says: Destroy the old! The third says: Destroy
nothing! Let the old gradually and quietly grow into the new, as
Erasmus wished. We should accept contradictions, whether they can
be intellectually reconciled or not. The truth has never prospered
by enforcing some ’via media.’ Truth lies rather in the union of
opposite propositions, as in Christ’s divinity and humanity, and
in grace and freedom. Blanco White went from Rome to infidelity;
Orestes Brownson from infidelity to Rome; so the brothers John
Henry Newman and Francis W. Newman, and the brothers George
Herbert of Bemerton and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. One would
secularize the divine, the other would divinize the secular. But
if one is true, so is the other. Let us adopt both. All progress
is a deeper penetration into the meaning of old truth, and a
larger appropriation of it.”

(_b_) _Theology is nevertheless progressive._ It is progressive in the sense that our subjective understanding of the facts with regard to God, and our consequent expositions of these facts, may and do become more perfect. But theology is not progressive in the sense that its objective facts change, either in their number or their nature. With Martineau we may say: “Religion has been reproached with not being progressive; it makes amends by being imperishable.” Though our knowledge may be imperfect, it will have great value still. Our success in constructing a theology will depend upon the proportion which clearly expressed facts of Scripture bear to mere inferences, and upon the degree in which they all cohere about Christ, the central person and theme.

The progress of theology is progress in apprehension by man, not
progress in communication by God. Originality in astronomy is not
man’s creation of new planets, but man’s discovery of planets that
were never seen before, or the bringing to light of relations
between them that were never before suspected. Robert Kerr Eccles:
“Originality is a habit of recurring to origins—the habit of
securing personal experience by personal application to original
facts. It is not an eduction of novelties either from nature,
Scripture, or inner consciousness; it is rather the habit of
resorting to primitive facts, and of securing the personal
experiences which arise from contact with these facts.” Fisher,
Nat. and Meth. of Revelation, 48—“The starry heavens are now what
they were of old; there is no enlargement of the stellar universe,
except that which comes through the increased power and use of the
telescope.” We must not imitate the green sailor who, when set to
steer, said he had “sailed _by_ that star.”

Martineau, Types, 1:492, 493—“Metaphysics, so far as they are true
to their work, are stationary, precisely because they have in
charge, not what begins and ceases to be, but what always _is_....
It is absurd to praise motion for always making way, while
disparaging space for still being what it ever was: as if the
motion you prefer could be, without the space which you reproach.”
Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 45, 67-70, 79—“True conservatism
is progress which takes direction from the past and fulfils its
good; false conservatism is a narrowing and hopeless reversion to
the past, which is a betrayal of the promise of the future. So
Jesus came not ‘to destroy the law or the prophets’; he ‘came not
to destroy, but to fulfil’_ (Mat. 5:17)_.... The last book on
Christian Ethics will not be written before the Judgment Day.”
John Milton, Areopagitica: “Truth is compared in the Scripture to
a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual
progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and
tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth.” Paul in _Rom.
2:16_, and in _2 Tim. 2:8_—speaks of “my gospel.” It is the duty
of every Christian to have his own conception of the truth, while
he respects the conceptions of others. Tennyson, Locksley Hall: “I
that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that
earth should stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon at Ajalon.” We do
not expect any new worlds, and we need not expect any new
Scriptures; but we may expect progress in the interpretation of
both. Facts are final, but interpretation is not.