The Religion of Looking Within
By L. A. S.
THAT new phase of so-called Christian thought which teaches a person to look within himself for the revelation and guidance of the Spirit of truth, is not a phase of Protestantism at all, by the admission of its own exponents. One of these, Professor Moore, teacher of theology in Harvard University, says of it:— This religion of the authority of the Spirit of God within men, when we shall have advanced to it, will be seen to separate us from some forms of Protestantism by a wider interval than that which separated Protestantism from Catholicism four hundred years ago. That the gap which separates this new teaching from Protestantism is no less wide than the gap between Protestantism and Catholicism, and that, in fact, it leads back to the ground of the papacy, is set forth in another statement by Professor Moore, thus:— In giving up to almost any extent the oracular and external theory of the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, the Roman Catholic Church gives up very little, so long as it retains the doctrine of its own infallibility and the exclusive right of the interpretation of the Scripture. But the Protestant body, in questioning ever so little the verbal infallibility of the Scripture, in making itself in any sense the judge of that before which it yet bows as its own arbiter and judge, renounces, even though it may be all unconsciously, every authority in matters of religion short of God himself, and commits itself by a great act of faith to the divine principle working within humanity, to the religious instinct, to the trained intelligence, and the faithful heart of the individual man as the sole interpreter of Scripture and the only register of the influence of the Spirit of God upon the life of man. But between the authority of the church as the official interpreter of the Scripture and this response in our own hearts to the spirit which is in the Scripture there is no real standing ground. The sooner we make this clear to ourselves, the sooner we shall be delivered from half-way measures which are worse than no measures at all. [Italics ours.] “The authority of the church as the official interpreter of Scripture” is the position of the papacy. The wisdom and authority of the church are greater than the wisdom and authority of any human individual, and between looking to one's self for spiritual guidance and looking to the church, the choice must be in favor of the latter. Thus it is evident that this teaching of the “authority of the Spirit of God within men,” which means that a man shall look within rather than outside of himself for this authority, is really calculated to lead the individual Protestant back to the Church of Rome. As Professor Moore says, between that position and the position of the papacy “there is no real standing ground.” True Protestantism says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Between looking within ourselves and looking unto Jesus there is all the difference between the experience of falling into discouragement, then into sin, and then into darkness, and the experience of receiving light, strength, and cleansing from the life of God. “If you would be discouraged, look within; if you would be distracted, look around; but if you would be strengthened, look up.”