20. NEW THEOLOGIES IN OLDEN TIMES

through the process of evolution. This will more clearly appear from subsequent quotations; but at this point we would notice again the assumption which is involved in all the utterances of this sort, so often heard from the pulpits and read in the religious papers, namely, that the final test of the soundness and fitness of a doctrine, or system of doctrine, is whether or not it finds favour with the religious crowd. If it is popular, it is right; if not popular, it is by that fact alone discredited and condemned.

This test is a corollary of the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest"; and its general acceptance is also aided largely by the subtle influence of the principles of Democracy. No one seems to question the test, or to ask if acceptability to the mass of people be really an infallible proof of sound doctrine. That is simply taken for granted.

Doubtless there have been incidents of a similar sort in times past. In the progressive days of King Ahab, for example, opportunity was afforded to the learned doctors of theology—graduates of the seminaries patronized so generously by that eminently devout and religious queen Jezebel—to employ their gifts and learning in framing explanations accounting for the collapse of the Israelitish Theology, as expounded to previous generations by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel. And we may assume that the exponents of the new and popular theology of that day improved the opportunity to the entire satisfaction of their congregations, and that they put forth their learned explanations with all the garnishment of ponderous diction and polysyllabic utterance. And we may also assume that, if the discourses of these eminent theologians had come down to us, we should find, on examining them, that the substance of their sapient explanations was that the ancient creed had fallen from power because it was beneath the best religious consciousness of the times, that those deceased prophets had been in bondage to the Book of the Law, that they failed to apprehend the function of the free intellect, and that their theology had been outgrown in knowledge and in ethical conceptions.

For, if the will of the people be the true test of doctrine, that test was just as valid in Samaria, in the days of those very religious rulers, Ahab and his royal consort, as in Boston in the days of President Roosevelt.

The New England Theology "fell from power," says Dr. Gordon, "because it was found beneath the best religious consciousness of the time." Did not Christ then, and His teaching, "fall from power" for the same reason? Was not He, by the unanimous voice of the people, rejected and cast out to the Roman executioners, and for the reason that His teaching was displeasing to the religious crowd and their leaders? If Dr. Gordon had been living in that day, would he

"AWAY WITH HIM"

not have found, in the facts of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ, all the materials for a profound discourse upon the "Collapse of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ?" And would not that discourse have commended itself to the best religious consciousness of the time? Was not the principal charge against Him that of blasphemy against the Most High? And does not Dr. Gordon specifically charge against the old New England preachers that the doctrines of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, so fervently and unceasingly preached by them, "are the worst blasphemy ever offered to the Most High?"

We see, then, that the written Word of God is being subjected at the present day to precisely the same treatment as that to which the Incarnate Word submitted when among men; and this is at the hands, not of the publicans and harlots and sinners—for the common people still hear Him gladly—but at the hands of the learned doctors of theology, the accredited religious leaders, in association with the intellectual and political authorities, and with the religious crowd who are subject to their influence. Their cry to-day is the same as it was nineteen centuries ago, "Away with Him, Away with Him!" and "We will not have this man to reign over us." Were any religious mandates ever better established by "the will of the people" than these? Were any teachings ever so "distasteful to the masses" as those of Jesus Christ?

The crucifixion answers these questions with an emphatic "Never."

But this assumption of the infallibility of the popular taste in matters of doctrine is utterly unfounded. Against it we need only to say that what is true is not, and never has been, popular; and that what is popular is not, and never has been true.

Further items of the indictment which Dr. Gordon brings against the New England Theology are—lack of originality (for being in bondage to a book they had no freedom to originate doctrine), "the restricted use of the human reason," and the persistent "refusal to learn from Unitarianism."

On the latter point Dr. Gordon says:—

"Unitarianism is the complement of Trinitarianism no less than its rival; that is, if the Trinitarian belief in a social God is to live, it must be matched with the Unitarian belief in a social humanity. If with the Trinitarian we say God is Father, with the Unitarian we must say MAN IS THE INALIENABLE CHILD OF GOD."

This, again, is a highly important statement. Dr. Gordon avows himself a Trinitarian; so we see here a mediation between these two systems, which, through all the centuries since the days of Arius and the Nicene Creed, have been supposedly antipodal and irreconcilable. But even such differences yield to the potency

UNITARIAN—TRINITARIANISM of the modern idea of Consolidation. Unitarian-Trinitarianism is therefore to be counted as one of the products of this productive age.

Then, again, this statement of Dr. Gordon brings clearly into view the idea of the Solidarity of Man. This is the meaning of the phrase "social humanity." As God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are One God, even so, says Dr. Gordon, all men are one, there being no distinction between those who are "sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal. iii. 26, John i. 12, 13, 1 John v. 1) and those of whom the Lord Jesus said "Ye are of your father, the Devil" (John viii. 44). And this doctrine is dogmatically asserted (though without the slightest attempt to support it by proof) in the statement that "man is the inalienable child of God."

Thus, as Dr. Gordon approaches the subject of that theology which is at the present time coming into the room of the discarded and collapsed theology of bygone days, we begin to discern the now familiar outlines of the religion of Humanism,—the exaltation and worship of Man.

III. THE NEW THEOLOGY

So much for the ancient belief which has "fallen from power," and for the explanation of its "collapse," as given by Dr. Gordon. What chiefly interests us is the system which is taking its place in the thoughts of the men of New England. As to this new religious system Dr. Gordon has a clear answer. He says:—

"When we come to man, we have a being whose essential nature is love. If God does not answer to man here, He falls below the work of His hands."

"HUMANISM is our greatest word, because it covers the greatest fact we know, the phenomenal world of MAN."

Again, we will do well to look carefully into the countenance of this new theology (which indeed is not new at all, but as old as Eden) and to listen carefully to the tones of the voice by which its pleasing doctrines are proclaimed. Undoubtedly it comes up fully to the recognized standard of the day in containing nothing that is in the slightest degree "distasteful to the masses." Hence there can be no doubt of its almost universal acceptance.

Then again, it challenges God to punish the rejectors of Christ, and the despisers of His unspeakable gift, by telling Him that, if He does so, He will fall below the work of His own hands. Modern Man is thus set up as the standard by which God must regulate His own behaviour.

The chief significance of the statement that man's essential nature is love, is that it puts man in the place of God, by assigning to the former the highest definition,

MAN'S "ESSENTIAL NATURE"

which God has given us of Himself, "God is Love" (1 John iv. 8). This blasphemous doctrine most effectively exalts man to the supreme place, and is equivalent to asserting his Divinity.

But if man is love, it is pertinent to ask an explanation of the outcries of the oppressed, the suffering, the needy. Why these courts, and prisons, and police? Why these demands of labourers, complaining that their hire is kept back by fraud? And why these enormous and increasing armaments on land and sea, under the burden of which governments are becoming bankrupt, and the people of all the "progressive nations" are being oppressed by intolerable taxation? Against whom are these ingenious and destructive engines and these devilish explosives being prepared by beings whose essential nature is love? Is it an uprising of the animal kingdom, or an invasion of demons that is feared?

Surely a more palpable untruth than Dr. Gordon's definition of the essential nature of man was never uttered. But we must not lose sight of the standard by which modern preaching is governed, namely, that not what is true, but what is pleasing to man, is to be proclaimed and taught; and surely it is quite acceptable to the unreconciled and unpardoned sinner to be told that his essential nature is love.

Congregations now sit as judges of the utterances that proceed from the pulpit. They listen critically, and freely announce their decision, pronouncing the sermon "good" or "bad"; and from their decision there is no appeal. If man's character and achievements are landed, and particularly if the divinity of humanity and the salvation of all men are proclaimed, the preacher is pretty sure of the coveted approbation. But if he should declare that human nature is unspeakably corrupt, that all men are by nature children of wrath, that those who believe not are condemned already, and that those who know not God and obey not the gospel of Christ will surely go to endless perdition, the sermon would be adjudged "bad," and there would probably ensue a lively agitation for the preacher's resignation.

Then again, Dr. Gordon's definition of man is a flagrant and insolent contradiction of the Word of God; and this will still further commend it to "the best religious consciousness of the time."

The Bible declares that men are by nature "full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful" (Rom. i. 29-31); that "there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net" (Mic. vii. 2); that their "mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known";