Newspaper Page Text
September 4, 1912] THE 1
The Southwestern Presbyterian University
for oneself. A subtle sense of the glory that one
is to have out of it is always dangerously present.
Such a motive is too low. It is self-glorified. An
intense love for others, and eager desire, growing
out of that love, for their good is not a solid
foundation upon which to lay the work. The
mere humanitarian can go with us there. If he
be sincere he, too, loves others and so desires
to see their good that he will even make sacrifices
to bring it albout. This is mere altruism glorified.
Delight in the processes, pleasure in contemplating
the results, is not a solid foundation upon
which to lay the work. That is the intoxication
at best of the scientist with his theory and its applications
and tests, the keen delight of the investigator
in his analysis or finding, of the or
gamzer in his machine. It is mere professionalism.
even though it be professionalism glorified.
The fundmentals here lie lower and go deeper,
and then rising take hold of loftier things. Self,
altruism, professionalism do not fathom the
depths or scale the heights of genuine Sunday
school enterprise.
Instead of them one must place, first of all
sincere piety. Piety is veneration or reverence
for the divine character, working its way oat in
loving obedience to the divine will, and reproduction
of that divine character and will in one's
life. It ib God-likeness. It is the realization of
David's dream, "I shall be satisfied when I
awake with thy likeness." It is the response of
the heart, mind, and life to John's vision of the
glory of the coming world, ""We know that,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is." He that founds his work
in the craving and determination to he like God
is building upon a rock. Every stone he lays
will stay in its place. The cement of the divine
grace will hold it there. It shall endure forever.
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy
him forever."
Next to consecration of heart, mind and life
comes constant communion with the source of the
new life. This is found in prayer. Prayer is a
channel through which grace is made to flow into
the human heart. It is the cable thrown out
from the great ship by which the oariess boat
draws itself over the heaving waves to the safety
of the ship's side or deck. It keeps the soul in
touch with the CVYM -rrvo /if life air>A oivmnoo o<n/4
power. It is the line over which the current
goes from the inexhaustible dynamo to the point
where it is converted into applied force.
"We kneel?and all about us seems to lower;
We rise?and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny out-line, brave and clear;
We kneel, how weak! we ride, how full of
power!"
And with the consecration and communion
one must be prepared. Preparation in the heart,
in growing love to Christ ; preparation in the
life, in increasing likeness to him; preparation in
the mind, in intelligent study of the principles,
conditions, needs and demands of the case in
hand and of the matter taught; preparation in
method, in the wise adaptation of means to end:
this the ardent worker will never depreciate or
forge. There is no place for slip-shod work
here. The weal or woe of sonls is the stake. The
master workman will first master himself and
crush out ignorance or whatever else will impede
the work. He must then by study and constructive
method and adaptation fit himself for
the task in hand for the finest attainable results
in the work. Proper preparation is the Godhelped
assimilation on onr part of the God-given
material, force and spirit of the work.
Conscience is a wicked man's enemy and a
just man's comforter.
* .*
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
DR. BRIOaS' MANIFESTO.
Much attention is being given by the reHgious
press to a paper published in the Ameriran
Journal of Theology by Dr. Charles A. Briggs
on "The Christ of the Church." Dr. Briggs
is well known as a professor in Union Theodogical
Seminary, New York, who on account of
statements made in his inaugural address as
professor in that seminary, was brought to trial
before the General Assembly (U. S. A.) of 1893
and found guilty. The Assembly finding was
that Dr. Briggs had "uttered, taught and propagated
views, doctrines and teachings. contrary
to the essential doctrine of Holy Scriptures
and the standards of the said Presbyterian
Church in the United States, and in violation of
the ordination vows of said appellee, which
said erroneous teachings, views and doctrines
strike at the vitals of religion and have been
industriously spread.
In the paper referred to. "The Christ of the
Church," Dr. Briggs takes a firm stand against
some of the more pernicious teachings of that
conspicuous school of biblical critics who call
themselves "advanced," or "high," or "broad,"
but never "shallow" or "crooked." For this
service he is entitled to the sincere tbankB of
all seekers for truth and reverent interpreters of
the holy oracles. For some reasons the frank
and forceful statements of Dr. Briggs are all
the more significant because of the source from
Which they come. Their author has been for
years 'regarded as being identified in general
with the very school whose teachings he here
criticises, and whose errors he repudiates; not
that he has distinotly taught those errors, but
he has been prominent in the institution in
which they flourished and one would assume that
jf he disbelieved them and adequately estimated
their dangerous character, he would have been
brave enough and loyal enough to truth to have
opposed them. "Whatever the reasons that may
have seemed to justify the belated protest
against very pronounced and aggressive heresies
the protest is made in no uncertain terms, as
is evidenced by the following extract:
"The ancient heresies revive from time to
time in those who find it difficult to reconcile the
Christ of the Church with their speculations in
philosophy or science; but these speculators have
never made any important or lasting impression
upon the world. They have been thrown off
by the Church without hesitation and at little
cost. Whatever has been discovered 'by science
or philosophy that had any validity, has fitted
into the'Christologv of the Church with the ut
1 ? * 11 i?it- 1
uivTOt uiuctj auu rA?vturno; lui an iruill Iltirmonious,
and our Christ is the eternal Logos,
the King of Truth.
"I have made Christology, more than even
criticism, the study of my life, and have not
shrunk from the investigation of its most profound
and difficult questions. In late years I
have sought to find in the most recent results
of scientific and philosophical investigation something
that would help in the study of the most
difficult theological questions, anything that
would enable me to test, verify, or correct, the
Christological opinions T had inherited from my
teachers; and I venture to affirm that I have
found very little help. And I challenge any
man to produce any valid results of modern
philosophy or modern science that will in the
slightest degree impair the Christ of the Church
as represented in her creeds and institutions.
"It is significant that the modern objectors
to the Christ of the Church content themselves
with challenging the definitions that the Church
has already made. They revive ancient heresies,
nothing more. These speculators, many of them,
call themselves Modernists. They tell us they
have a new theology. They may be Modernists
in the philosophical and scientific spheres, and
may have new speculations, some true and some
false; but so far as theology is concerned, and
the Christ of the Church, they have nothing new
or modern.
C T It (1017) 11
In the effort to make Jesus a purely natural
man, they deny the virgin birth, the bodily 2j|
resurrection, and everything in the nature of
the supernatural, whether miraculous, theophan- j!
ic, apocalyptic or messianic, as misunderstandings
of his early disciples. They read into the
gospels political, social, and economic theories
which were alien to his mind; and so they substitute
for the Church of Christ, and the sacraments
instituted 'by him, a kingdom which is no
kingdom at all, but a socialistic democracy of
economic equality."
Many will be disposed to understand from
Dr. Briggs' paper that he has erperienced a
change of heart or change of head on some of
the topics which he discusses. This does not ap- |
pear from the discussion. It does not take the
form of a confession but rather of a polemic.
"We are inclined to think that the veteran pro
fessor has been prompt to discover that the pendulum
is returning and that it is always the
proper thing to be in the right place at the rignt
time. The "sure results of advanced scholarship"
are perfectly familiar to the whole school of
radicals and have become commonplace. "Why
tarry amidst these trite monotonies ? The undergradual
e of Union Seminary (N. Y.) knows th^
whole list and can recite it as pat as the Browns
or Hall or McGiffert. Why should Dr. Briggs
linger in such company T The tide of old fashioned
faith in inspired truth is coming in and
why not bt on the crest of the first returning
waves f
The evidence of a reversion to the tried and
sure foundations of truth, in both the old and
new world, are many. The following will serce as
iiu indication of the present trend whicn evmgelical
scholars have 'been telling us all along,
would become a reality.
As noted in the "Herald and Presbyter," Dr.
G. Frederick Wright, editor of the Bibliotheca
Sacra, in commenting on an article by Rev. A.
Troelstra, minister of the Reformed Church of
Holland, on "The Organic Unity of the Old
Testament," says:
"This lecture, delivered in a course at the
University of Leyden, ... is but one of the
many indications of the return of Old Testament
critics to the maintenance of conservative
views. The critical views of Kuenen are no
longer maintained by his successors at Leyden.
The all-too-prevalent Wellihausen assumptions
are being now more and more discredited in the
Fatherland, and it is to be hoped that his British
and American followers may have their eyes
opened to the anachronism of still maintaining
his views of the Pentateuch. To continue to
impose them upon the Christian public, as the
incontrovertible results of scholarship, is coming
tn Hp UMIa Ipsq thnn orrmina.1 "
A BOY'S RELIGION.
If a boy is a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ,
though he can't lead a prayer-meeting or be
a church officer or preacher, he can be a godly
boy in a boy's way and in a boy's place. He
need not cease to be a boy because he is a
Christian. He ought to run, jump, climb and
yell just like a real boy. But in all he ought
to be free from vulgarity and profanity. He
ought not use tobacco in any form, and should
have a horror of intoxicating drinks. He ought
to be peaceable, gentle, merciful and generous.
He ought to take the part of small boys against
large ones. He ought to refuse to be a party
to mischief, to persecution, to deceit. And,
above all things, he ought now and then to
show his colors. He should not always be interrupting
a game to say that he is a Christian,
but he ought not to be ashamed to say
that he refuses to do something because he
fears God or is a Christian. He ought to take
no part in the ridicule of aacred things, but
meet the ridicule of others with a bold statement
that for things of God he feels the deepest
reverence.?Ex.