The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.3

171

“Preach the Word”

Word is His Church built. The doctrines of grace have neither human origin nor human support. They are alto­ gether Divine, and are received only by the soul that becomes partaker of the Divine nature. To go, therefore, to human philosophy or to man’s inner consciousness for their con­ firmation or explanation, is to go to the sentenced criminal to understand the excellences of criminal law. The error of errors is the seeking for the truths of religion from man. It is but the adaptation of religion to the carnal heart. It is the essence of pride and rebellion against God. Thousands of tomes have been written by men who called themselves Christian scholars and Christian philosophers, which are but volumes of confusing metaphysics and specious rationalizing from the basis of natural experience, and which have under­ mined faith in the Word of God, and utterly perverted the Gospel of Christ. Students of Christian theology waste precious time in studying the works of these conceited think­ ers, whose names are lauded as those of giants in the Church, while they are corrupting the pulpit and secularizing the pew. It is a favorite charge of the advocates of this looseness that we are worshipping a Book. “Bibliolatry” is the for­ midable word that they cast at us. But we worship no book. We do worship God who sent the Book, and it is no true worship of God that slights the Book which He gives. If we honor God, we shall honor the Word He has sent, and we shall be jealous for that Word, that not one jot or one tittle of it be disturbed by the vagaries of dreamers or the impious hands of boasting critics. It is the Word of God, and, as such, we shall not allow, for a moment, the specula­ tions, imaginings, and guesses o f men, ever so learned, to weigh a feather’s weight against it. They have been con­ victed over and over again of grossest fallacies in their hot endeavor to detract from the influence of the holy Word, and their criticisms have returned upon themselves to their confusion. What gross absurdities have been promulgated

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