Revolution for the churches, so far as it may apply : or, What the silent are thinking

Part First

The Bible eqiial to the changing thought and condition of men for all time.

The goal of religious truth not yet reached.

Christ infallible but the apostles not to be regarded as God ma?zifest in the flesh.

The doclrijze of a New Birth reconsidered .

Part Second

The doclrine of Christ's Atonement reconsidered . As ?nost popularly taught, is not this doclrine becoming distasteful and repulsive to thoughtful men? If so. not Christ, but fallible men are responsible.

The life and death of Christ was to save men. but in a way consistent and rational .

The Old Testament support of the popular faith concerning the atonement investigated* and its weakness exposed.

Introduction

Being deeply impressed with a sense that the church is not receiving in our time that hearty support to which it is entitled from thousands of our most estimable fellow citizens, by reason of the fact that she, the Church, still persists in presenting the gospel as did the early fathers in their time in an age and to a people whose immediate wants and condition were so unlike the wants and condition of the people of the present day and generation ; and believing that the Bible is becoming a neglected book with multitudes because of the supposition that that book does in fact teach certain doctrines for which they can have no relish or fellowship and which to them is inconsistent and unintelligible ; and so without applying themselves to a thorough and independent investigation become indifferent to certain phases of the Christian religion, having neither the disposition to affirm nor the ability to deny the validity of these claims ; being thus impressed the author after studying and observing as opportunity has ottered for the last quarter of a century and having become fully persuaded that there is a way out of all this mist and perplexing doubt, humbly otters this little work to the public as the result of this study and investigation, hoping thereby to have some influence however small it may be in holding up the Bible, that book of books, before the world as a spiritual guide capable of meeting the spiritual wants of the world to-day and for. all time to come, as it has proved itself capable of meeting the wants of succeeding ages of the past through its unfolding revelations.

Part First

The Bible equal to the changing thought a7td condition of all men for all time. — The goal of religious truth not yet reached. — Christ infallible; but the apostles not to be regarded as God manifest iit the flesh. — The doclrine of a nexv birth reconsidered.

The Bible Invincible.

Most people are ready to concede that ever since the world has had a written history mankind have been slowly but surely developing to a higher condition, in religious sense as well as morally, mentally and socially ; and that those nations that recognize our Bible as the word of God and to a greater or less extent are governed by its precepts and commands embrace within their limits the best people on the face of the earth. And yet for all of that every school boy knows that all who have had this one Bible for their guide have not strictly held to one faith or adhered to one form of worship, hence it must be conceeded that if by their fruits we are to know them, the world having grown better through changing religious thought and worship, the religion of to-day is better than any religion of the past when regarded collectively and comprehensively. Hence there can be but one conclusion regarding this wonderful Book with its wonderful ability to offer a restful and sheltering faith to so many different classes of men among the great masses of humanity that

REVOLUTION f- OR THE CHURCHES.

have been thrown upon the shores of time under such varying circumstances and surroundings and endowed with such varying shades of intellectual acumen and power. And that inevitable conclusion is this : The facts of the Bible being thus wonderfully written, has been highly beneficial to our

race : and no other book having- ever been brought into exiScs o

tence like it, the conclusion that a designing; and overruling- Providence has ever been about it with a guiding and protecting hand challenges resistance.

Of all the various and diverging doctrines that have been gleaned from that sacred volume who is to say that there has ever been one sincerely believed in and lived by. that has not been instrumental of good ?

What other book could in the same narration give seeming support to two such diverging ideas as that of the materialist who would not give one cent for any hope of immortal life based upon any other hope than that of the literal resurrection of the material bodv, and yet at the same time harmonizes itself with the faith of the spiritualist, which faith at death bids a final adieu to the body of flesh and hopes for immortal life through the continued existence of the essence of life, the undying soul.

The story of the risen Lord affords a good illustration. The materialist proves his faith by pointing to the empty sepulcher and by calling attention to the exclamation of doubting Thomas, when the Master bade him "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy 'hand and thrust it into my side." And he finds further evidence in the eating by the Master of broiled fish and of a honeycomb in the presence of the disciples. Yet a believer in materialized spirits sees no insurmountable obstacles to his faith in all this and defends his faith by calling attention to the marked contrast between the intercourse of Jesus with his disciples before and after his resurrection : before his resurrection he was with his disciples constantly, or as much so as friends are apt to be ; after his resurrection he appeared unto them at intervales of considerable length of time and appeared suddenly and unexpectedly, he appeared in their midst when the doors were

THE BIBLE INVINCIBLE.

shut. And after eight days again when the disciples were within, then came Jesus. The doors being shut is regarded by spiritualists as being something out of the common course, or rather would be out of the common course presuming that Jesus was still cumbered with flesh and bones, yet all in harmony with the appearance and disappearance of a disembodied spirit, and the idea seems to be strengthened in the narration of that walk that Jesus took with the two disciples to Emmaus. The fact that the familiar form and features and voice and those nail pierced hands and feet should be unrecognized until the last of the interview and that he should vanish from their .sight, indicates to those of this faith, that Jesus appeared at this time in "another form" from that with which the disciples were most familiar. And Mark xvi, 12 seems to give color to the idea that Jesus did appear in different forms.

Whatever of truth or error there may be in either of the opposing ideas thus briefly outlined, if each gathers in his own way from the story of the risen Lord evidence of a continued or renewed life after death and therebv gains strength to his hope of a blessed immortality, and although the one, owing to his peculiar education and intellectual endowments would be driven into skepticism and infidelity before he could accept the faith that is opposite to his own, and though the opposite faith may in fact embrace more of truth than his own, yet there is nothing in his own that leads him to be, or to do that which is unchristian, or that tends to divert his feet from the straight and narrow way. Who is prepared to say that it is not good for such a man, or such a class of men that the Bible has been so written as to be adapted to their peculiar wants or ability to receive ? Is it possible to draw from the sacred pages any faith that is not better than no faith at all ? For what matters it if we fail of arriving at correcl; conclusions as to the conditions of the hereafter in all its details, or in regard to any and all things else except to that which tends to make or unmake the christian character? Do we not know that it is the design of the Almighty that in this life we shall "know but in part," and accordingly the sacred writers were onh inspired "to prophesy but in part"?

REVOLUTION FOR THE CHURCHES.

It would be a strange and unmerciful provision indeed for the Almighty to base his favor or reconciliation with man upon a faith or belief or disbelief in doctrines that have divided the different sects, — that is, such doctrines as those that their acceptance or rejection can have no influence whatever in shaping the christian character and conduct before God and men, for after a man in searching for the truth has brought to his aid all the means at his command, he is no more responsible for the honest conclusions to which he arrives, than he is for having been born into the world.

But it may be objected that in all conflicting ideas gathered from the scriptures one or the other at least must be erroneous and that it is inconsistent to presume that a wise and good God should so govern that anything but evil could be derived from error. But it must be acknowledged that while God desires the greatest good for his creatures, he has permitted our race to wander and stumble about more in darkness and to be enveloped vastly more in a cloud of uncertainty of ignorance and positive error, than he has deigned to lift the veil that our limited vision might penetrate to the goal of absolute and positive certainty and truth.

Before asking how good has come from varying and conflicting ideas concerning gospel truth and from doctrines that have budded into existence and been ardently embraced by countless devotees only to be disregarded and ignored by succeeding generations ; first tell us why in early time God permitted man to be in such ignorance concerning the form and movements of the earth and concerning the heavenly bodies that were supposed to be mere lights that were hung out for the special benefit of man ; and tell us why so many generations were doomed to live and die without enjoying the blessings secured to us in our time through the printing press ; and why were their lives not made easier and more luxurious by the aid of labor-saving machinery, and through the power of steam and electricity? And why are not we to-day receiving further benefits from further developments of the same power that coming generations are morally certain to enjoy? And tell us why God's peculiar people were not

THE BIBLE INVINCIBLE.

led at once into the light and liberty of the New Testament rather than to be compelled to grope their way through the mysticism and burdensome rites and ceremonies of the Old Testament ceremonial law ?

Whether or not such questions can be satisfactorily answered, it is certain that in all things pertaining both to man's temporal and eternal well being our race have been called upon to work out their own salvation ; and as the ages have rolled on, thev who came after have had stepping stones to enable them to approximate higher toward the truth than they who have gone before.

With those who may feel that the church or any branch of the church has to-day succeeded in planting itself upon the very summit of truth that there are no more camping grounds higher up for the church to occupy and do better service from a more commanding position, — with such we humbly beg leave to differ. And we are not alone in believing that there are such heights, and that thev are attainable. Nay more, — some of those heights have already been attained, not by the church in a body, but by an advance guard, who are not content with the easy-going, inefficient camp life into which the church as a body seems to have settled, and who believing that we have fallen into a sort of semi-conscious state by being" gorged with the husks of the sentimental in religion that has been fed so lavishly to the flock, are preparing the way for the church to come up higher and penetrate deeper, and become invigorated and its life blood quickened by way of feeding and being fed more exclusively upon the practical in religion, in other words, by way of returning and planting the church upon the simple and unperverted principles set forth by the great master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And now ideas are about to be advanced that perhaps may serve as a temptation for the reader to close the book with a determination to give no attention to anybody or anything that presumes to criticise the faith of the fathers in which they lived so happily and died so triumphantly, nor to give heed to any suggestions that are humbly offered in the firm belief that its adoption would lift the church into a sphere of greater

IO

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respect and usefulness.

But as to the temptation referred to, it depends wholly upon the influences with which you have been surrounded and upon your natural inclinations. If you are one who is better content with things as they are, and have a native dislike for innovations you may certainly congratulate yourself upon being one among the vast majority of mankind, especiallv as regards innovations in matters of religion. Now it is well to be conservative, but bad to be bigoted.

Remember that it was through the introduction of innovations through the persistent presentation of the new, that has lifted the church from Judaism, and carried it step by step until it has been planted where it is to-day, and every inch of the ground has been hotly contested between the lovers of the old and defenders of the new. In olden time the innovators were scourged, nailed to the cross, stoned, put to the rack and burned at the stake ; to-day they are railed at, talked about, shunned and feared.

But let it be understood in regard to what we have to present that we lay no claim to infallibility, and we concede that it is not every innovation that is worthy of acceptance and adoption. And let it be understood, once for all, that we have not that egotism to presume that we are alone in the great mass of earnest thinkers who have through some channel or through some course of reasoning or other arrived at substantially the same conclusions with ourselves. Furthermore as far as our observation extends, the church as a body is being borne irresistibly along in its practice in a line very similar to that which our theory would have her pursue ; yet the practice is rather out of harmony with the current preaching.

It is like this, — take for instance the matter of receiving members into the church. The preaching of regeneration by the Holy Spirit ; the going forward to the anxious seat, and the rising for prayers all indicate a presumption that fitness for church membership demands a supernatural conversion, yet we make bold to say that persons are admitted into the church in whom the supernatural is altogether too thin for

PROGRESSION STILL POSSIBLE.

discernment ; but more of this later on.

We are fully persuaded that there are very many who will

inwardly confess that there is not much of a chasm between

themselves and ourselves in our theological ideas, and furtherto ' i

more that we have not told them much that they did not know before, yet like Nicodemus prefer to be considered as one of the popular church.

We are also persuaded that there is a lesser number who have the honesty and courage to stand by their convictions who will openly declare that the views herein set forth accord in the main with their own preconceived ideas and endorse them as sound, rational and consistent.

And now to you who are so rooted and grounded in the faith of the fathers that our words may seem like a canker calculated to corrode and destroy that which is the most sacred of all things you possess, that faith which you have regarded as the only sure anchor to your soul, — to you we would say that we are conscious of our fallibility and humbly ask that you patiently follow us through, if for no other reason, do so regarding our thoughts as an index to the difficulties that lie in the way of so many among your acquaintances including many of your most highly respected fellow citizens from becoming aclive workers in the cause of the church and Christianity.

We trust that we are fully alive to the great responsibility resting upon us in what we have undertaken. Our aim is to secure greater respect for the Christian religion, and to arouse greater earnestness and inspire greater vitality for the church. And shall we say it ? to bring her up to unfeigned sincerity and to unflinching honesty. If it should please God to make us humbly instrumental in so doing by causing a a clearer light to be shed upon his Word, we will thank him for it. If on the other hand that which we in our simplicity regard as light should prove to be in the sight of Heaven but darkness, and they who are out of darkness, and have been illuminated by heaven's pure and unmistakable light should deign to take sufficient notice of our errors as to answer our enquiries and correct our mistakes and in so doing give the popular teaching of to-day such a vindication as to carry conviction to the indifferent, the doubting and the skeptical ones that the church has already arrived as near to the ultimatum of truth as may be expedled in this life, — then shall we have equal reason to thank Him who is able even to make "the wrath of man to praise him" for what he has done through us.

We presume that by this time the reader may be wondering how any one can have the presumption to think of throwing new light upon the scriptures in this late day of the Christian Era ; permit us to explain that we neither claim the ability nor have the disposition to undertake the part of the commentator only in a very limited sense.

Generally speaking we accept the explanations by our commentators of scriptural language so far as getting the original ideas intended to be conveyed by the writer is concerned.

But one thing to which we do object, is the manner that seems to be so very prevalent among students of the Bible, of attributing equal importance to whatever may be said or written if it is only found within the lids of the Bible whether it be the words of a prophet, Christ or an apostle, and with but little regard to the time, place and circumstances attending the words spoken or written, or to whom they were addressed.

We have particular objection to the adherence of the church to-day to ideas for which the apostles are wholly responsible with scarcely a shadow of support either from the words or example of Jesus their Lord and Master.

As to the teaching and practice of the apostles, fishermen of men as they were, being founded in wisdom and being adapted to early time we have not a word of criticism to offer ; we believe God in heaven smiled upon and blessed them in their' effort to win men up higher in the scale of humanity. Yet who and what were they? They were men subject to like passions as we are ; it is true they were endowed with some remarkable and miraculous gifts, but they were never infallible, a fact which they fully understood themselves, and Paul thus declares it : "We know but in part, we prophesy but in part. We see as through a glass darkly." While with the

APOSTLES NOT INFALLIBLE YET INSPIRED.

Master they were only disciples or learners, and like other masters and teachers the Lord found in his pupils a proneness to blundering and stupidity and often a dullness of comprehension that was trying.

We have only to read the New Testament with the eye of the mind open to discover the fallibility of the apostles. Yet our knowledge of the lives and sayings of these men must of necessity be forever fragmentary at least, although the little that is recorded of them is so often and so persistently rehearsed in our hearing w e feel that no one has ever lived in the past with whom we are so well acquainted. It would afford a good idea of how little is recorded of these men if we should take the trouble to collect all that has been handed down concerning any one of them and place it by the side of what might be collected of the sermons, the books, the sayings and the life of such a man as H. W. Beecher : on the one hand we would have but a few hours of reading at most, on the other hand we should have months of reading. Yet there is enough handed down to us concerning the apostles to reveal the fact that* with all their gifts they were limited in power, in understanding and in wisdom. The most careless reader cannot fail to notice that while with the Master they were but as children in understanding ; if it were not so why that constant questioning? And when the Master replies, "Are ye yet also without understanding?" is there not a dullness of comprehension implied that was almost inexcusable ?

Think of it ! After three years of constant intercourse with their Lord so imperfectly do they understand his mission and the kingdom he was to set up, they ask of him at the very last, "Wilt thou at this time restore again Jerusalem?" And it should be remembered that these characteristics were equally conspicuous after as well as before miraculous gifts had been imparted to them.

Even after receiving the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, while they were stronger men, and more steadfast in their work they were far, very far from being equal to their Lord and Master in power of knowing and understandinoraen and things. When Paul "assayed to join himself to the

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disciples" they were all afraid of him and "believed not that he was a disciple," but Jesus would not have required any explanation by Barnabas of Saul's conversion, for he knew the hearts of men, and needed no instruction as did the disciples in common with other men. That they were not wholly changed from the human to the Divine nature is well illustrated in that gathering together of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem to consider the matter of subjecting the converted Gentiles to the ordinance of circumcision. Had they been infallible there should have been a perfect agreement upon all such questions, but the matter was only settled after "much disputing." Yet who can doubt that the council of God prevailed in that convention ? And who can estimate the mighty influence the final decision had upon the future of Christianity, and of the world? And who can doubt the genuineness of the claim that the Holy Spirit had an influence in the dictation of that letter to the heathen Gentile brethren ? for it seemed good to them to put no further burden upon these brethren, "than these necessary things, That ye abstain from meats ottered to idols, and from blood, and»from things strangled and from fornication ; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well."

In this simple creed, (if we may call it a creed) the very absence of all mention or allusion to the idea of love to God or to man, and the fact that no allusion is made to the "Golden Rule," proves its inspiration. Put no further burden upon children than they can bear ; to exact more is to spoil them. This brief epistle to the Gentiles has within it the whole idea of God's way of bringing men up to a harmony and unity with himself, little by little.

But in close connection with the foregoing, (all within the 15th Chapter of Acts) we find another illustration of the fallibility of the apostles, we refer to that " sharp contention" that arose between Paul and Barnabas about taking John, whose surname was Mark with them on a visit to the brethren in the cities where they had preached the gospel, and " so sharp was the contention that they departed asunder one from the other." If God had inspired these men to fulfill his purposes to that

APOSTLES NOT INFALLIBLE YET INSPIRED.

extent that it was impossible for them to err, how could it have ever been possible for such a disagreement to have arisen between them ?

Again we learn from Galatians, ii, 11, that fallible Peter did that which was so flagrantly improper that Paul ' ' withstood him to the face because (as he declared) he was to be blamed." Paul unquestionably supposed himself to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit generally speaking, but sometimes according to his own declaration, he taught ••as a man," and again he seems to be in doubt whether he was in the spirit or not. In 1st Cor., vii, he advances ideas " after my judgment." as he -says, (40th verse) and adds "I think that I also have the spirit of God." We should sooner agree with him if he had not been speaking disparaginglv of .married life. Yet old bachelors in our day talk very much the same. Any one familiar with Paul's writings will call to mind such expressions as "I wist not," or 4i I know not," indicating a limited understanding, also a forgetfulness, traits of character common to all mankind, but traits which we should not expect to find in a God manifest in the flesh ; but as to that no one believes an apostle to have been a God manifest in the flesh. Yet many there are who have such a reverence for the sayings of the apostles that they accept as God's truth some of the most absurd and God-dishonorinodoctrines that are seemingly, if not most emphaticallv and undeniably supported by these men and for which they, the apostles, are alone responsible, and these doctrines are not accepted as merely being necessary and helpful to the ancient undeveloped people for whom they were designed and to whom the words of the apostles were directed, but these doctrines are regarded to-day with such reverence that it is thought to be of the most vital importance that they are accepted, believed in and lived by.

From whence do men obtain license to attribute to the apostles power, and virtue and wisdom which thev never claimed for themselves ? As for their virtue, when Paul, the chief of the apostles, says for himself (Romans, vii. 19) ; 'For the good that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would i6

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not, that do I," even after his conversion and he had been a preacher for years, why not accept his statement as the truth ? And why not accept his own valuation of himself and his associates in regard to their wisdom and prophetic powers ? In i st Cor. , xiii, 9-12, we get his estimate thereof if it is in the power of language to express it. His words, "For we know in part," are not equivalent to saying we know the whole; and the words, "we prophesy in part," are not equivalent to professing to have power to foretell accurately all that God has in store for the children of men. Paul does not contradict the sentiment that he has elsewhere expressed, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." But to return to 1st Cor., viii, Paul goes on to say, "When that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away." That which is perfect has reference of course to the life to come. He further says, "When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put awav childish things ;" the very obvious meaning of these words are, the part which they knew and could prophesy were as the imperfect conceptions and reasonings of a child as compared with that fulness of understanding to which we shall attain when that which is in part is done away, and we with the apostles have become men in wisdom under the favoring conditions of the life to come. The expression, "For now we see through a glass darkly," as well expresses our own views of how much reliance may wisely be placed in apostolic sayings touching the deep things that are fully known only to him who alone is Omniscient as any words at our command. What other words could Paul have so fittingly used to rebuke those who so persistingly adhere to a verbal understanding of the writings of the apostles. Objects seen through the imperfect glass of the ancients could not be perfectly discerned or understood. Paul was conscious that divine things were in like manner imperfectly revealed to him.