tionably orthodox, yet as a matter of fact almost all the Lutheran doctors have abandoned the doctrine. The admission helps to convince us of the truthfulness and advantage of another view of Sacred Scripture. After making certain corrections of language, we are quite ready to admit the substantial truth of the charges made by these theologians, as applying to Congregationalism, which may be regarded as in some sort leading the advanced line of the Reformed Churches. The Congregational doctrine does not make the Word of God in Scripture dependent upon the comprehension of reason; it does not make reason judge over this Word; it does not subordinate the Word to the socalled Spirit. Its "spiritualism" is not "false" the Holy Ghost, whom it accepts as divine teacher, is not a "so-called spirit." This doctrine does, however, in a certain true significance of the words, co-ordinate reason with Scripture, and subordinate the letter to the spirit. The formal principle of Congregationalism must make itself defensible by reason: this it does to a large degree by uniting itself with the material principle. And how, we will begin by inquiring, is the formal principle of either Lutheranism or Congregationalism to erect itself at all into the place of an acknowledged principle, if it fly up in the face of the very facts and ideas of redeemed humanity upon which it must rather take its stand? Understanding by reason those higher rational and spiritual powers of humanity in which, when the soul is regenerated, the Holy Spirit delights to dwell, and which he uses as his organ, we are bound to declare, The claim of the Scripture itself to be the sole objective authority is derived from the historic fact that it is a gift of God in and through reason, is tested by reason, maintained by reason, is united in the last analysis with the claim to authority of reason itself. To erect a view of the Bible which does not acknowledge this is to build a house divided against itself. The union of the sanctified reason and the Sacred Scripture, of the divine Word subjective and the divine Word objective, is the primal and essential element in the formal principle. We do not, indeed, reply to those who object to our understanding of Scripture to use the illustration of Rudelbach-after the fashion of Luther in his debate upon the bodily presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. We respect the claims of the human reason: we regard the Christian consciousness as furnishing, in some sense, a co-ordinate revelation of the mind of Jesus Christ. We are not loath, then, to cite, in proof of this position, certain quotations made by Guerike and Rudelbach, and even to add others of our own. The essential unity of Scripture and reason is the doctrine necessarily formed by blending the formal and the material principles. "What is heard," says Zwingle, "is not the very word which we believe. . . We are rendered believers by that word which the heavenly Father preaches in our hearts, by which at the same time he illumines us that we may understand, and draws us that we may follow." And Ecolampadius speaks of an inner and an outward word which are as far from one another as are the law and grace. Calvin also declares,1 "For we ought to understand the word, not of a murmur uttered without any meaning or faith, . . . but of the gospel preached, which instructs us in the signification of the visible sign." These declarations are offensive and heretical in the sight of those who virtually deny 1 Institutes, IV. xiv. 4. that "the immediateness and fulness of that relation which exists between the spirit of Christ and the church of Christ extends to every congregation of true Christians and to the soul of every individual true believer." But this is, as we have already seen, a fixed principle in a true church polity. It is not surprising, then, to find the unity of sanctified reason and Sacred Scripture, as giving the rule of faith, virtually asserted by many writers in our church order, although formulated into an article of their creed by none. "God, who made two great lights for the bodily eye," said John Robinson, "hath also made two lights for the eye of the mind: the one, the Scriptures, for her supernatural light; the other, reason, for her natural light." "As to ecclesiastical matters," says Prince, in speaking of Robinson and his church, “they held the following articles to be agreeable to Scripture and reason." The same thought is advanced by Owen when he declares, that to take the attitude demanded by Romanism toward the errors of the Church is to "renounce our sense and reason, with all that understanding which we have, or at least are fully convinced that we have, of the mind of God in the Scripture." But in the other view, which is advocated by Guerike and Rudelbach, and which is intended at once to place the hand of church authority over the mouth whenever reason cries out against churchly interpretations of the divine Word, it is heretical to oppose the apparent meaning of the letter of Scripture by bringing forward known impossibilities of matter and mind, or even by appealing to clear convictions of the Christian con 1 Essay on Authority and Reason. 2 New-England Chronology, p. 177. The Italics are ours. sciousness. For example, when the church doctrine asserts the real presence of the body of Christ in the Holy Supper, we can only bow our heads before the doctrine; so, also, with sacramental regeneration and even the infallibility of the Bible itself. We may, perhaps, examine the text anew, to see whether it still read, hoc est meum corpus, or τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου. But we must not argue, no matter how sincerely and reverently, your interpretation cannot be correct, for the same divine Logos who made the world spoke in Jesus Christ, and HE has made it to be true, "Proprietas physica humani corporis est esse in loco." There are, however, some things of which we may say, as John Wise says of natural liberty, "And certainly it is agreeable that we attribute it to God, whether we receive it nextly from reason or revelation; for that each is equally an emanation of his wisdom (Prov. xx. 27). The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. There be many larger volumes in this dark recess called the belly, to be read by that candle God has lighted up." The same author does not hesitate to speak of reason as congregate with the nature of man, "a law immutable, instampt upon his frame." Surely nothing in Calvin, Zwingle, or Baxter, could so shock our Lutheran theologians as this. A correct view of the two fundamental principles of the true church polity in their mutual relations compels us to assert that a true doctrine of Scripture, as giving the rule of faith, must insist upon the essential unity of reason and the Word of God in Scripture. The spiritually illumined Christian consciousness, and the verbal statement of things uttered by holy men of old as 1 Vindication, pp. 21, 23. they were moved by the Holy Ghost, are in substantial accord. The Word of God in the biblical books cannot be contradictory of reason. This Word was originally the divine truth revealed in and through the divinely illumined reason of God's children. The present illumining of the reason of his children fits them to apprehend and appropriate this objective word. The spiritualized reason in the soul meets the historical and actualized work of the reason of God in the Book of his Word. The call which comes to humanity from this formal principle when united with the material principle is never the summons, Let Reason abjure her throne: it is, rather, Let Reason be divinely illumined so as to recognize her accord with the divine reason enthroned in the divine Word. We have no warrant for saying, We accept the Bible as giving the rule of faith and discipline, despite reason, or in neglect of reason. We say, rather, with Dr. Adam Clarke, "In every question which involves the eternal interests of man, the Holy Scriptures must be appealed to in union with reason, their great commentator." Nor must we be deceived by this speaking of reason as the great commentator of the Bible. The title does not imply that the only work of the divinely illumined Christian consciousness with reference to the Bible is to inquire formally, and as it were ab extra, what the Scriptures say, with a view to accept the traditional answer to this inquiry, however contrary it may appear to the so-called natural reason, or to the Christian consciousness, as a final and authoritative answer from the mind of God. Our doctrine implies an unwavering confidence that the true point of union for the Word of God in Scripture and the Word of God in the soul 1 Commentary on the New Testament, last page. |