.Building on “Other Foundations” Is The Doctrine of Self-Salvation A Safe Proposition ?
Cainite Religion Renewed Bÿ REV. C . H . FO UN TA IN
Fount of humanity.” “Christ was the world’s greatest ethical Teacher, Di vine in the sense that all are Divine; so good that His deluded followers took Him to be a god.” “Those who record the virgin birth sought to secure for Him the honor of celestial paternity.” “A virgin birth and a resurrection are no essential part of the Christian faith.” “The recorded miracles of Christ,are merely legendary exaggera tions.” “Every man must atone for Jiis own soul.” “Hell does not exist and never will." “Man is his own saviour.” “If man ever had a fall, it was a fall upward.” “The ‘gospel of gore’ be longs to the dark ages. Nothing of the kind was needed." “There is no far- off Judgment Day, and no judge ex ternal to ourselves.” “All are sons 01 God, and all will be saved.” These are some of the least of the “doctrines of devils” to be found in the religions of Christendom today. And it must be admitted that many of these, though not so crudely stated, form the basis of much of the preaching of today. Man as his own saviour; the Lord as an example, not as the atoning God; the ascent of man and his es sential divinity; aversion to or de preciation of the remission of sins by blood, and the pre-eminence given to self-improvement; these things are no torious in almost all the churches. The “gospel of gore” has been an of fence to men since the days of Cain, and the doctrine of attaining heaven by their own merits has attracted them since our remote ancestors sought to build a tower at Babel. “Let us build us a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and
T seems beyond all question that the great doctrine of Christendom today is self-im provement, while the prevailing principle is either to aim at some small improvement, or, far more generally, to follow
one’s own inclinations and leave every thing else to chance and the mercy of God. Instead of calling sinners to re pentance and personal regeneration, the aim of most preachers seems to be to get everyone to assist in the work of re generating the world. But as Society, or the Nation, or the World is composed of individuals, no regeneration or re formation of the mass can possibly come about, apart from that of the individual. And if men try to build on any founda tion unknown to the Bible, their hopes are foredoomed to failure. There is lit tle need to wonder why, with all the enormous expenditure of energy in the religious world, and the ever-increasing maze of organizations run on the most approved business lines, there is yet such an infinitesimal result. It is not due to the failure of Christianity. It is due to the folly oif trying to build on “other foundations,” and Christianity has only one— the regenerate heart, without which the Christian life has not even begun. There is no need to quote at length, in support of this contention,^from the vagaries of Christian Science, Spiritual ism, Russellism, and numerous other “isms” and cults. A few flat contradic tions of Scripture from the New Theol ogy, probably the most widely accepted of all heresies in this country, will suf fice. “God is essentially man—the
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