Article July 29, 1911 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

Rev. John H. McKenzie, D.D.,

Revealed truth must stand and will stand every method of investigation, whether it be the scientific, the historical, or the exegetical. Instead of being losers by this method, we are the gainers, because it is bringing about an academic honesty and sincerity that we have not always known even in the church, and instead of the pulpit being, as it has been called, a "coward's castle," the pulpit will boldly proclaim the truth as this church has received the same, and not simply garble a few platitudes that are lifeless and not the application of Christianity to immortal souls of this generation. The brave and accurate preaching of God's word is the crying need of the age; that preaching which eliminates personal opinions and honestly proclaims the truth as God has revealed it to His church; and not simply the truth, but the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and when God's ambassador clearly discerns God's revealed truth and clearly expounds it to the faithful with the same assurance that St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "We know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth;" when with this same assurance we preach and accept revealed truth, it will go far toward dispelling the unrest of the religious world in our day.

[Churchman.]

"Organic fellowship," "visible and organic oneness,"—these are not only ideals, they are not mere heights attained through faith and order. They are the fundamental facts in Christ upon which the church is built. They are the simple, sacramental basis of the church. It is surely impossible that that which is intended for the salvation of the world, that what is to be the means of reaching and saving common humanity everywhere, should be or can be a matter for historians or a matter for a few favored people, or in any sense a complex thing to be understood only by the few. In its original nature and character the church to be the church of the world must be simple. Membership in a family demands nothing as a prerequisite of the member born into it, but it demands everything of the member when born in order to fulfil the relations into which he is born. Membership in a nation demands conditions so simple of those who come into it or are born into it that practically citizenship in the nation is available to all. How can the analogy be resisted when universal citizenship in the eternal kingdom of God is substituted for that of the family and of the nation. Short-cuts, next-steps, philosophies and definitions must be subordinated to the everpresent fact—the governing principle of the family of God.

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