THE KING’S BUSINESS d — ■ ..................... - = = t n || Vol 6 NOVEMBER, 1915 H ...... - = No. 11 = d
E D I T O R I A L There is a tendency today to depreciate doctrinal preaching. We are told that it does not matter.much what you believe; sincerity is everything. It is well for us to recall, what the Presbyterian Standards so
The Preaching of Doctrine.
well affirm, that “Truth is in, order to goodness.” No opinion can be more absurd and pernicious than that which brings truth and falsehood on a level and. represents it as of no consequence‘what a man’s opinions are. No sane thinking can properly separate faith and practice, truth and duty. The history of preaching shows that all strong pulpits have laid special emphasis on this form of preaching. The preachers who have moved men have been doctrinal preachers—Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney are notable examples. * No exhortation to a good life that does not put behind it. some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience and mold the life. Preach doctrine. Preach all of it you can. Preach it not so much that men may believe it, but that they may be saved by it. To exhort men to live up to the ethical demands of the Gospel without preaching its doctrines, which give life and dynamic force to these commands, would be like putting together the wheels and setting the hands of a watch and forgetting the spring which is to make them all go. Truth is the life blood of pietv, without which we cannot maintain its vitality nor support its activity. The absence of doctrine in preaching would make it superficial, because it would make conduct blind and weak. I Preach doctrinal sermons. The Evangel would be a narrow Gospel indeed if it were merelv a message for broken men; if the church of Christ were naught but a vast Salvation Army, and if the hunger and thirst after righteousness which .is so necessary for fellowship with the Christ, could not come until men had been plunged into the depths of sin. That men rescued from such an awful condition have a place in the economy of the Gospel and in the service of the church, we gladly admit; that :such men. have glorified by their lives and service the Christian history of the centuries is a fact in which we rejoice. But the Gospel is also a call to another class of men—a fact which per chance is overlooked in modern preaching. The appeal of Christ to the Rich Young- Ruler illustrates what is. here meant. Christ’s call to this splendid, It is likely that we are too prone to look upon the Gospel of Christ as a power of rescue and repair, merely: as a dynamic for the man who is down and out and who has fallen iiito the awful depths of sin. Romance of the Cross.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker