THE SOURCE OF REFORMATION.
By W. N. GLENN
PROFESSOR WESCOTT has aptly remarked that “it is no exaggeration to say that each great movement for good in the Christian Church has coincided with fresh study of the Bible. It was so with the great fathers of the first ages, with Origen, and the masters of Alexandria; it was so with Jerome and Augustine; it was so in the tenth, the fourteenth, and the sixteenth centuries. At each crisis deeper investigations of Scripture found new treasures which answered to the wants of a new society. And by God’s help it will be so now. The power of the Bible is unchanged and inexhaustible. It speaks with authority to societies and to men; it speaks with sympathy; it speaks with authority because it speaks with sympathy; because it speaks with a human voice, through men and to men, in many fashions, and many parts. Let us emphasize this thought. We commonly describe the Bible as a ‘book.’ It is a book, one book; and it is more. The first title which was given to it in the West was ‘Bibliotheca Divina,’ and it is indeed a divine library, rich in every region of human interest, rich in every variety of human record.” A notable example of the truth of these words is found in the experience of Josiah, king of Judah, an account of which is recorded in 2 Kings 22 and 23. It would appear from this record that the book of the law had been entirely lost, even by the high priest. The long, wicked reign of Manasseh had just preceded Josiah’s accession to the throne, with829the exception of the two years’ reign of Amon, who had walked in the ways of his father. Manasseh had gone so far in idolatry as to “build altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.” Chap. 21:5. However, there must have been some good men left in the kingdom, who were desirous of serving the Lord; for when Josiah, at the age of eight years, began to reign, “he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father.” Chap. 22:2. This course must have been the result of the good influence of others, for he was too young to have inculcated the idea himself, especially under the pernicious influence of his father and grandfather. God never lets his fire die out entirely; in the darkest days there has always been a spark left, which could be fanned into a flame when the right man came to the front. With the honest desire and manifest determination to do his will, there always comes the light of his truth. So when Josiah began to repair the house of the Lord—the breaches that had been made through its misappropriation—the book of the law, the plain word of God, was found. It came to him as “a light that shineth in a dark place.” When it was read to him he learned the condemnation the people were under through disobedience. (By the law is the knowledge of sin. Rom. 3:20; 7:7.) This led to deep humility on the part of the king. “And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.” Chap. 23:3. And when the passover time came, the king commanded that it should be kept “as written in the book.” Of this occasion it is said, “Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah.” Verse 22. So, in the days of the Saviour, when darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people (Isa. 60:2), he pointed them to the Scriptures. John 5:39, 45; Luke 16:29. Their faith had greatly degenerated and they erred because they were ignorant of the Scriptures. Mark 12:24. And the great work of his reformation did not fully open until after his resurrection, when he enlightened the minds of his disciples so that they understood and were able to reason out of the Scriptures. This “sword of the Spirit” was their reformatory weapon. The reformation in Luther’s time was brought about by a fresh and close search of the Bible, and a determination to make it the only standard of doctrine. The church had become corrupt to an unparalleled degree because the word of the Lord was taken away, and they had not the means of knowing right from wrong. A renewed search of the word, and the finding of the law by the people, which gave them the knowledge of sin, brought about the reformation. And the same cause and effect was experienced in Wesley’s day. While it is true that all substantial reform comes from “fresh study of the Bible,” it is equally true that degeneration and apostasy are the fruits of its neglect or of a false interpretation. There is an acknowledged spiritual “falling away” in the churches of our time. This is not because the word of life has been literally taken away, but because the popularly recognized exponents have robbed it of its legal force, which is the pith of the whole. The term “spiritual” is made to mean figurative, and is used as an excuse for all sorts of departures from the evident meaning of the Scriptures. The force of the word being then taken away, it no longer points out sin; it loses its power, and is consequently neglected. The reformation needed to-day, and which is now going on, is to cause another “fresh study of the Bible;” another “repairing of the breaches” made by idolatry, which will lead to a rediscovery of the law of God, and a humiliation before him on account of its transgression. There are hundreds of people in the world to-day who have come out of the popular churches and united with the cause of “present truth,” and they invariably declare that under its light the Bible appears as a new book. “Every scribe [teacher] which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” Matt. 13:52. (New and old—a Jewish phrase for great plenty.—Clarke.) “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Ps. 119:18. W. N. GLENN.