SECTION II.

THE TEST OF TRUTH.

LET it be observed, in the very outset of our arguments and representations, that in such a discussion the only standard of authority to which appeal is to be made, is the ascertained testimony of Christ. There is but one right course to be pursued in the investigation of such a question as this. Here both the accuser and the accused are bound to take up and to abide by the same law and the same testimony, the same revelation, and the same authority. THE GOSPEL OF JESUS OF NAZARETH— the New Testament-the New Covenant-does it speak plainly, intelligibly, directly, conclusively, to the point? If it does, then all Christian controversy must necessarily cease. That man is a Christian in disguise, who prefers the sophistries of the schools, or the maxims of the world, to the plainly recorded word of Jesus of Nazareth.

“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The testimony of Jesus of Nazareth, the divine mediator of the new covenant between an offended God and his rebellious creatures, is, ALL TRUTH-is THE truth, be the subject of its announcement what it may. "THE

TRUTH shall make you free," said the Lord, our deliverer.

Here we deprecate all human authority, and place our question on the gospel of the Christian dispensation alone, well assured that a plain and luminous answer will be afforded to it. If our premises be true in fact, true in spirit, true in principle, true in practice and operation, when tested by the gospel of Jesus, the most exalted and dignified of the earth must give credence to our proposition, must humble himself before its mighty and distinctive import, although it were uttered by the most contemptible of mankind. The moment we show that our data are plainly predicated in the Bible, there must be an end of all controversy among Christians.

We are then to "cease from man, whese breath is in his nostrils," and "turn ourselves unto the Lord," to that Lord whose name we bear, and whose laws we are to obey. As common folk, indeed, our opponents tell us, that we ought to resort to the church for the solution of our question. Spiritual deliberations," we are informed by one of them, "belong alone to the man of God, and may not be interfered with by the laity." Upon this principle, we, as laymen, are lawless trespassers on other men's premises. We invade the province of our betters; and, instead of presuming to write an essay on so sacred and momentous a subject, we ought

* Gordon of Oxford.

to be pious readers, attentive listeners, and humble compliants, in all that our spiritual pastors and masters are kind enough to teach us. But alas! be it for weal or for woe, we cannot help it, our truant minds will not yield to any such admonition. It is after the most serious, oft repeated, and, we trust, dispassionate consideration, that we venture on this controversy. If it be to churchmen that we must resign our judgment, we cannot avoid asking to which of the two great churches of Christendom are we to go; to the church of Rome, or the church of England? We have consulted both, but to no one good and salutary result. We find, and we shall again have to advert to the fact, that each of these churches fixes upon the other the stigma of personating the covert being whom we seek. And, much more than that, we find them in thorough subservience to, and in ample amity with, the creature they affect to denounce and despise.

This assertion will have a very strange aspect in the eye of an ordinary reader; we cannot, however, either retract or qualify it. We believe, in the first place, that the libel is true; in the next, that the development of the truth is of the highest importance to the best interests of all mankind: and lastly, that it is competent to every sound and common-sense Christian to make the truth appear. Again, then, we say, "Cease from man, turn unto the Lord."

But how are we, in the right way, to turn to the Lord? Shall we attempt to search into the depths of

that sacred volume wherein the Almighty, for thousands of years, has recorded his holy will and word? Or shall we supplicate that some divine ray of heavenly inspiration may be shed upon us? Nothing of the kind. Not only do we regard any such attempt on our parts as entirely vain; not only have we no faith in any such heaven-sent inspiration now-a-days; but a more available source of light, another channel of communication as to truth, is always open before us. The brief, the brilliant, the comprehensive, the conclusive GOSPEL of the Lord of the Christian Dispensation, this contains all the intelligence we require. The question before us, in whatever form, or shape or type, it may arise, must be submitted to this ordeal-"IT IS WRITTEN," WE MUST READ, and what we read we must receive and submit to.

This, then, is our principle, that all human authority-all tradition-must succumb and yield to the wrritten to the revealed-will and word of the holy gospels; that to it must all the articles, and dogmas, and expositions of all churches, and all states, and all individuals too, be made to bend. One of the great luminaries of our day, before he became entangled in the meshes of the State religion, has placed this position in better language than we know how to use. He says -yes, says-for no retractation is admissible in such a -"Had no message come to us from the fountain head of truth, it were natural enough for every individual mind to betake itself to its own speculation. But a message has come to us bearing on its forehead every character of authenticity and is it right now that the

case:

6

question of our faith, or of our duty, should be com mitted to the capricious visitations of this man's taste or that man's fancy? Our maxim and our sentiment is, God has put an authoritative stop to all this. He has spoken; and the right or the liberty of speculation no longer remains to us. The question now is not, What thinkest thou?' In the days of pagan antiquity, no other question could be put; and to the wretched delusions and idolatries of that period, let us see what kind of answer the human mind is capable of making, when left to its own guidance, and its own authority. But we call ourselves Christians, and profess to receive the Bible as the directory of our faith; and the only question in which we are concerned is, 'What is written in the law ;how readest thou?'

"The Bible "—we quote the same celebrated and once unsophisticated advocate for the written word"will allow of no compromise. It professes to be the directory of our faith, and claims a total ascendancy over the souls and the understandings of men. It will enter into no composition with us, or our natural principles. It challenges the whole mind as its due, and it appeals to the truth of heaven for the high authority of its sanctions. Whosoever addeth to, or taketh from, the words of this book, is accursed,' is the absolute language in which it delivers itself. This brings us to its terms. There is no way of escaping after this. We must bring every thought into the captivity of its obedience.*

* Dr Chalmers' Evidences, Works, vol. IV, pp. 434, 435. 440.