THE NEXT STEP IN CHRISTIANITY.
UNDER the above heading the Advance of September 22 refers to an opinion expressed by one of its writers (and held by many people, we may add) that the church is about to take an advanced step, spread herself out, so to speak, taking "into recognition of Christian fellowship and religious standing a growing class of men who are now outside of the church." The Advance feels that it may well be questioned whether such a step would really be backward or forward, and truly remarks (Italics are ours):— "A glance over the pages of church history readily reveals the fact that a decadence of religious conviction has always been intimately connected with latitudinarian ideas in regard to church membership, either as cause or consequence. Whether it was the imperial power of a Charlemagne sweeping into the folds of the church whole tribes of barbarians, or a Cortez proselyting the conquered Mexicans with the power of the sword and the help of a fair interpreter, or the required conformity of the English establishment, or the easy-going notions of Rationalism, the underlying idea has always been the same, namely, that men can be massed in the Christian fold on some basis of human regulation or opinion, without regard to a distinct individual experience." And this is emphatically true. The church militant is to be in the world but not of the world. But more and more emphatically is the church becoming of the world. The Advance continues:— "Over against this arbitrary regulation on the one hand and loose opinion on the other, has stood the central doctrine of the Reformation, namely, that men must be converted into the church. The power of the Reformation was and is its clear-cut distinctions. It has always made a direct and definite appeal to the individual, and urged upon him the requirement of a changed heart, redeemed nature and personal choice of Christ as Saviour and Master. It has said, as he said it of old, Ye must be born again. If it is now about to step away from this principle and adopt some other basis of recognition, it would seem to be abandoning its fundamental position. How it can preach the gospel of the New Testament and give up the idea that men must repent and believe and personally consecrate themselves to the service of Christ in order to bear the name of Christian, is not easily seen." Why go back to the Reformation merely? Why not build on the words of Christ? True, in the proclamation of that principle, the Reformation was presenting the gospel of Christ, but the Reformation held with that truth of the gospel many more things which needed reforming. What the Reformers did was well for their day. They followed the light which then dawned upon them; but for us to look back to the Reformation for our example, for our liberty, for our reason of faith, is to
*"Make their truth our falsehood,
Thinking that hath made us free,"
copying the errors and the weaknesses rather than the truth and strength. It is the words of Christ that are needed, "Ye must be born again," but this is not looking back, but forward, for Christ goes ever on before. His truth leads in ever brightening splendor, laying bare cherished error and hoary tradition in all its wickedness, as it reveals to the earnest seeker new and greater depths of God's wisdom, power, and love. But the Advance, and many other religious papers, are working, blindly, perhaps, for the very thing which they condemn. In the advocacy of Christian teaching in the public schools by State-paid teachers, in the constant, persistent, and increasing demand that Sunday, the so-called "Christian Sabbath," shall be enforced by statute law, and in other things of which we need not speak, are they working to bring in a standard of Christian morality and worldly tests of Christianity which will develop hypocrites to that extent, and degrade the religion of Christ to that degree, that all the weak editorials of protest will never be able to check. Sunday is of human origin only, as Neander, the great church historian, has remarked. It came in as a substitute of the truth of God, and this elevation of a church dogma by statute law is massing men into the "Christian" fold on a "basis of human regulation." It is giving glory to human substitutes and apostate powers. Against this the age-lasting gospel of God, with its burden, not for the sixteenth century, but for our day, peals forth its warning voice to all the world, "Fear God, and give glory to HIM, for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14:7. "The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?"