Chaotic Theology
"Desiring to be teacher's of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.'—1 Timothy 1:7.
"Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.
For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.ײ—Hebrews 13:9. A correspondent of the Hew York "Examiner and Chronicle" June 20, writing from West Virginia, says:—" Of course, things here are in a measure in a formative state—even the capital itself is not regarded as fully and finally located. It is now said to be 'on a steamboat somewhere between Wheeling and Charlestown.' The last vote of the legislature on it decided the latter place to be the location hereafter." In much the same condition are the minds of many who claim to be preachers of the gospel of" the advanced school." There is no telling what they say nor whereof they affirm. They believe nothing and therefore they speak. Their creed is in" a formative state,"—nebulous, cloudy. They know not what they believe: it is a question whether they believe anything at all. One of them informed us that he held his mind in a receptive condition, and revised his creed every week at the least—a human jelly-fish, or something more gelatinous still. We fear that even the main and fundamental points of the atonement of Christ, and his divine person, are unsettled with some of the Broad School. Their capital is on a steamboat somewhere between Unitarianism and Pantheism. The sooner they fix its location the better. It would probably be less injurious to those around them, if they were to become downright atheists than that they should remain in their present loose and sceptic-making condition. Their manifest indecision for truth is a clear gain to the side of unbelief. These rolling stones in the road cause many to stumble who else would have held on their way. With their cloudy speculations they throw an air of uncertainty over the most settled truths. They cause faith to dwindle into mere opinion and throw thousands into a condition of miserable suspense. Elijah would long ago have said to them," How long halt ye between two opinions? If the God of Israel be the Lord, serve him;" and if" cultured thought" is to manufacture a god of its own, finish the article and let us know what it is like. One would think from the talk of some men that the promises of the gospel were made to doubt and not to faith. Their sympathies are all with the infidel, whose doubt is decorated as "honest" and" thoughtful." Their anathemas are reserved for the orthodox, who are always prejudiced, narrow-minded, and stunted. Their charity pours its oil upon all except those horrid beings who adhere to the creed of the Puritans: as for those fellows, they despise them with all the Cavalier's contempt for psalm-singing Roundheads. Nevertheless, we pray for all true brethren, that the God of all grace may stablish and settle them, and we desire to be numbered with those who can say, "We believed, therefore have we spoken." "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."
