The New Theology.

ATTITUDE OF THE BAPTIST DENOMINATION.

Read before the Wisconsin Baptist Ministerial Union by Rev. D. READ, LL.D., and published by their unanimous request.

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REPRINTED FROM "THE CHICAGO STANDARD.”

THEN Eugenio Kincaid went to the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, he carried his wardrobe and his library in a big bandanna handkerchief. He told some students whom he met that he had come to study theology. They asked him what books he had brought to study theology in, and he answered, "The Bible." An unsophisticated country lad, he thought the Bible the great text-book of theology, because it, and it alone, was inspired of God, and "is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." And to this day I think it is safe to say that Kincaid's view of studying theology is the one held by the majority of our ministers and church members. While we have now a large number of theological graduates in our ministry, the majority of our ministers are not graduates, and the minority, who have been through the courses taught in our theological seminaries, by reason of the early habits of their minds and the practice of their teachers, still regard the Bible as the only standard of theology, and its language as the best expression. of theological dogmas.

Most of our ministers and intelligent members have probably read the theological standards of the world's great teachers, but in their preaching and discussions it is very seldom that any of these works or of the famous symbols of faith are referred to as possessing the slightest authority. No question of faith or practice among us could be settled without a "thus saith the Lord"; nobody ever thinks of attempting to settle such questions by anything else than a "thus saith the Lord."

There is, in our denomination, no established human "Confession of Faith"; from the very nature of the case there can be none. Each one of all our churches is independent, and hence there is no recognized person or body to establish or enforce a creed. The only bond of fellowship which unites our churches and constitutes us a denomination, is our common understanding of the Bible, resulting from personal study, and a common personal experience of the grace and love of God in our hearts. Our union is not organic, but vital-not so much the result of law, or authority, human or divine, as of the working within us of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Realizing thus our fellowship and equality one with another, through our common relationship to Christ, our Head, we cannot consent to accept our system of faith or rule of practice from any other source than Christ himself. Our socalled "Articles of Faith" are only the briefest summaries of what we regard as the teachings of the Bible on the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; and in a majority of cases a subscription to these articles is not required of persons seeking admission to our churches. That which is chiefly insisted on as a condition of membership is the

evidence of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the acceptance of those radical doctrines of Christianity which are symbolized by the two ordinances of Christ, viz., baptism and the Lord's Supper, and a spirit of obedience to the authority of Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact we have in the ordinances of the gospel an epitome of the essential doctrines of the Bible, viz., the inspiration and supreme authority of the Scriptures, on whose teaching alone these ordinances are accepted and obeyed; the divine authority of Jesus Christ; the fact of the Trinity; the death of Christ for our sins; the confession of depravity and sin; and the work of the Holy Spirit, by which the sinner dies and is made alive with Christ; the fact of Christ's resurrection, and consequently of the resurrection of all mankind; and finally, the fact of Christ's second coming to judge the world in righteousness, for in the Lord's Supper we show forth the Lord's death till he come. By this word, "till he come," eternity is linked with time, and the authority of Christ as the Supreme Ruler is seen to span all the intervening ages.

With these great fundamental truths wrought into the heart by the Holy Spirit, and put upon him in baptism, and constantly held up before him by the Lord's Supper, a Baptist is safely anchored, and is in little danger of being drifted away by the adverse currents, or driven about by every wind of doctrine.

The foregoing statements suggest the reason of the fact that there is to-day, and always has been in our denomination, greater unanimity of faith and practice, and a warmer fellowship, than in any other large body of Christian people, while at the same time there is greater freedom of faith and independence of doctrine. We are made and kept a denomination by the Bible. Not by councils, nor assemblies, nor conferences, nor seminaries, nor by great men, but by the Bible do we exist and flourish. By the truth of the Bible, and the living Christ of the Bible, have we kept together through ages of persecution. By the Bible, and the living presence of the Christ of the Bible, are we winning the marvellous triumphs of our missions-triumphs not exceeded by those of the apostles and early churches.

Why, then, should we desire any new theology? Or why should we desire any reconstruction of the old theology?

It has been found in the past that the Bible terms which relate to the facts of natural science are in the language of appearances, and are consequently adjustable to all new discoveries; hence no advancement. that can ever be made will require any change or hesitation in the use of Bible terms relating to natural phenomena.

The Bible expressions of religious truth, many of them, contain an infinite depth of meaning, which, upon prayerful study, will yield a fuller and more satisfying sense; as the ocean yields up more of its secrets and its treasures, as our sounding apparatus becomes more perfect. If new light shall break forth from the Word, we shall be ready and glad to receive it and walk in it. But the danger is that many will mistake the prismatic colours of their own hearts for the pure, white light of the sun.

All revealed truth is in the Word, as all light is in the sun. To this nothing can be added; from this nothing can be taken away; but we

may hope for ever-increasing means of making the power of the Word available for the purposes of life and salvation.

It is now conceded that the great forces which produce storms, cyclones, and convulsions on, our globe are stored up in the sun, and flow down upon us through space.

So, also, it is beginning to be recognized as a fact, that the great moral forces which convulse the nations and effect reforms, and lift the people up to a higher plane of civilization, are stored up in the Bible, and stream down from the heights of Zion. The abolition of serfdom, of slavery, of tyranny, of woman's subjection, of the union of Church and State, and largely of the horrors of war,--these great results have been wrought by the Bible; not by gaining any new light from it, but by bringing the old errors and abuses and crimes up into the old light of the eternal Word.

By our principles we stand with the council held at Jerusalem in the first century, free from all Jewish ceremonial laws, from priestcraft, from bondage to the letter, from the world and from sin; free because made free by Christ. Holding as we do, and as we always have done, that Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and that the churches are to be spiritual bodies, made up of converted members, and that religion is the soul's voluntary love and service to Christ, and that each church is independent, and to be governed only by the Scriptures as interpreted and applied by themselves-our denomination possesses a polity which adapts it to all nations and all times, and to the ever-advancing spirit of liberty which characterizes our age, and which we believe must finally dominate the world, in the recognition of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. In view of these principles as they have been illustrated in the history of our denomination, we cannot conceive of any changes or revolutions in society, or among the nations, which shall require any change in our doctrines, or polity, or spirit. Our doctrines are universal, our polity is universal, our spirit is universal, our aim is universal, our life is universal, and therefore our triumph will be universal. Our principles, our polity, our mission, our success are all contained in our charter as epitomized by our risen Lord himself, when he said, "Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." So long as we remain true to our mission, Christ will be true to his promise, and while he is with us we cannot fail.

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In accordance with the foregoing statements we are constrained to say that the attitude of our denomination towards the new theology may be summed up in these propositions: 1st. That it is unnecessary. We need not gild fine gold, nor perfume the rose. Bible, as God gave it, is perfectly adapted to all purposes for which it was designed. The atonement which Christ offered is complete. "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." "His blood cleanseth from all sin." Justification in Jesus is full and free; so that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. There is no need of a future probation. First, because the provisions of this present one are ample; there is light enough for all who are

willing to walk in it; and second, there is no reason to believe that those who fail of salvation in this world would secure it in another if they had the opportunity. It is said that Sir Charles Bell offered a reward of a thousand pounds to any one who would suggest any obvious improvement in the structure of the human arm, and no one ever wanted to claim the reward. So, if we should offer a reward to any one who would suggest any obvious improvement to the doctrines of the Bible, we should have no fear of being compelled to pay the reward.

In such a case we should require that the judges should be themselves spiritual persons, who had had an experimental knowledge of these doctrines, and had been enlightened by the Holy Spirit. To the natural man these spiritual truths are foolishness ; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned, but he that is spiritual judgeth all things.

I apprehend that those who feel the need of a new theology, or of a restatement of the old, cherish the hope that by these means the Christian scheme may be made acceptable and pleasing to men. But in this they will be disappointed. The carnal mind is at enmity against God. To the natural man the gospel is foolishness. To the Jews the cross is a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. Christ's preaching was not acceptable to men, but gave great offence, as also did that of the despised apostles. And from the very nature of the gospel, it must always be offensive to the ungodly and unconverted masses. The offence of the cross will never cease. The late Dr. Francis Wayland said (see "Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches," p. 47): "An audience is always composed of the friends and enemies of God. If a minister deliver his message in such a way as to please both parties, he must talk of glittering generalities that mean nothing, or the trumpet must give an uncertain sound, so that no one can prepare himself for the battle." He continues: "But it will be said, 'Are we to drive away all but the children of God?' I reply, Is there no Holy Ghost? There is never an empty house when the Spirit of God is present. You could not keep men away from a church where souls were asking what they should do to be saved, and where converts were uttering the new-born praises of the King of Zion.

Manifestly, therefore, the cross of Christ and the Holy Spirit are the best, and indeed, the only reliance of Baptist churches. Having these, we have no need nor wish for a new theology.

2. The new theology is unfounded-unproven. Confident assertions, human authority, learned phrases, the arrogant assumptions of science, and the self-assertions of the spirit of the age, do not constitute proof. We do not under-estimate scholarship, nor science, nor philosophy, but we do say with entire confidence that all these, apart from a truly spiritual condition of the heart, are altogether inadequate to a correct interpretation of the Scriptures.

An eye, which by its very nature and construction is colour-blind, can never by any expedient of training become a good judge of the beauties of nature and of art. So the carnal mind can never judge correctly of spiritual truth. Other denominations have generally had

more learning and a higher grade of scholarship than our own, but we have had a better and fuller conception of revealed truth than they.

In an age of great learning, no one of the dominant English church had such a deep spiritual insight of the Bible as John Bunyan. And the same may be said of the Baptist churches of that day. To-day we behold the marvellous spectacle of the most learned divines of all the great Pædobaptist bodies bearing testimony to the fact that the Baptists have always been right in their understanding of the New Testament teachings concerning baptism, and the nature of the church as made up of converted members, and the simplicity of its construction. They say, as the late Dean Stanley did, that while we are Biblical they themselves have wisely discarded and changed some of these things. Even Roman Catholics declare that we are more in harmony with the Bible than themselves or any other denomination.

In the early ages, our churches and ministers, accepting the Bible as God's plain revelation to plain people, planted themselves on the most obvious meaning of the text, as they saw that meaning in the light of the Holy Spirit, and of a new heart, loving the truth and desiring to obey it; and behold now, with all the light of modern scholarship, other denominations are coming to our positions, and conforming to our practices!

We have only to stand still with Christ, and all the churches of Christendom will come nearer to us as they come nearer to Christ, who is both theirs and ours.

We should, therefore, advise our young ministers to spend more time in gaining a thorough knowledge of the old Bible, which is proved, and has stood the test of ages, and less in studying the vagaries of the new theology. If at last any new truth should be established, fully proven, it will then be time to accept it. Meanwhile, it is our manifest duty to strive earnestly to save the lost, by the preaching of the cross, which has been demonstrated to be the power of God unto salvation.

3. The new theology is unfruitful, and, therefore, only cumbers the ground. The logic of its principles and its history show that it tends to relax and paralyze evangelical and missionary enterprises. Consider: If I cannot be sure that what is written in the Bible is from God, why should I make any sacrifice to obey it? If those who fail of gaining eternal life in this world are to have another opportunity in the world to come, why should Judson languish for years in chains amid the horrors of Oung Pen La? And why did Mrs. Comstock give up her children that she might be more free to do Christian work among the heathen? And why should any missionary, or any church, make sacrifices to send the gospel to the heathen in this world?

If sin be more the misfortune of the race than the guilt of the individual, and if there is such a solidarity of the race that Christ's divine life has been shot through the race, and so charged it with the redemptive forces that its elevation and salvation are secured by a process of its own evolution, why the need of personal sacrifice and of direct evangelical effort?

It has been often urged, as an inconsistency of orthodox Christians, that their efforts to spread the gospel, and secure the salvation of

* See "Doctrinal Catechism," by Rev. S. Keenan, New York, 1851.