Foreword THINGS theological are nowadays in flux. Dogeared traditions and worm-eaten creeds are being consigned to the fire. Christianity is on trial, and its fundamental tenets are being challenged anew, while some imagine they can improve upon them. Our age is asking, with keen and critical insistence, "What think ye of Christ?" The question can not be carelessly parried. The Church must satisfactorily clear up its own thinking on the Person of Christ before it can go on. Once more the storms of debate beat around His head. Our purpose, in this series of studies, is to discover the truth. We have no call to defend a doctrine simply because it is old and considered orthodox, nor to challenge that which is new and deemed heretical. We would first discover the truth, let it lead us where it will; and this we would do "with malice toward none and charity for all." For, as Bishop Whately once epigrammatically declared, "Unless a man begins by preaching what he believes he will end by believing what he preaches." Doctrine is not true because it is old, nor new either. The "modern mind" (a term sometimes illogically applied to themselves by a few thinkers who are forever taking shy at some doctrine hoary with age or at some man of straw set up to burn and destroy), may be right or wrong; the "ancient mind" likewise. Newness does not prove worth, nor antiquity either. The former may carry a great deal of paint and veneer, the latter may not endure the fires of reason or the test of service. There are some light-hearted and light-headed people who, on the one hand, swallow a doctrine whole, if only it has been shouted with sufficient vociferation, and there are others, equally uncritical, who, the moment they espy a creed, any creed, proceed to give it a lusty kick. Each is a stupid performance: the first does his religious thinking chiefly with his mouth, the second with his feet. Christ is the court of last resort and the seat of objective authority in the spiritual realm. This authority is derived, ultimately, from God Himself, the final authority. Each mind is, in a limited sense, a law unto itself. By the inherent process of his reason, a man must bring all doctrines into the alembic of his own mind. But the standard of objective truth, set up by Christ in His revelation of the final religion, is, after all, the fan that tests and threshes, separates, and sifts out the wheat from the chaff. When these sermons were first given in Trinity Church, Springfield, Mass., many letters of commendation, and some of criticism, together with the request that they be put into print, were received by the writer. None of those received was more gratifying than the following letter from his old-time teacher and admired friend, the lamented Dr. Borden P. Bowne, one of the last letters he wrote, voicing anew that deep and abiding faith which always characterized him, but was an especially impressive note in his last public discourses. Of course, we do not hold Dr. Bowne responsible for anything here set down. The letter quoted refers to a newspaper clipping, containing an abstract of the first study, "Is He Jesus or Christ?'' BOSTON UNIVERSITY, BOSTON, MASS., FEB. 11, 1910. MY DEAR MR. ANTRIM: I am a good deal pleased with the clipping which you sent me, giving an account of your sermon. I agree with it altogether. It is a great mistake to fancy that our orthodox faith, with regard to Christ, is any worse off now than it has been in the past. Any one acquainted with the literature of the middle of the last century would readily admit that that was a time of much greater stress than we are having at present. Indeed, the fancy that things are worse than ever now impresses me as a mark of belated intelligence. It reminds me of the Irishman who assaulted a Jew and when asked what he was doing that for, replied that the Jew had killed his Savior; and when he was told that that happened two thousand years ago, he said, "It is no matter-I only heard of it last night." I am sorry to find some men, whom I know very well, seeming to incline in that direction. I can only look upon it as a result of dwelling too long in the naturalistic camp. In any case, it is only a local and provincial thing, and one can say of it what Athanasius said of a heretical movement of his time, "It is a little cloud and will pass over." Cordially yours, BORDEN P. BOWNE. But a few weeks passed when Dr. Bowne was translated and this letter was rendered thereby doubly precious and reassuring. EUGENE MARION ANTRIM. Springfield, Mass., June, 1910. |