Protestantism Drifting by G. B. Thompson

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 14, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 11.

Protestantism Drifting

By G. B. Thompson

I. The Foundation

THE Bible and tradition are the confessed foundation of Catholicism. This is well expressed in the Douay, or Catholic translation of the Scriptures, in a note on 2 Tim. 3: 16, which reads:

But if we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practise, we must not be content with those Scriptures, which Timothy knew from his infancy, that is, with the Old Testament ALONE: NOR YET WITH the NEW TESTAMENT WITHOUT TAKING ALONG WITH IT THE TRADITIONS OF THE APOSTLES, AND THE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CHURCH, to which the apostles delivered both the Book, and the true meaning.

Through centuries of darkness this huge system held sway. The light of heaven was extinguished. The minds of men were shackled by ignorance and superstition. The Bible was suppressed, chained to dungeon walls. “Men forsook the precious perfume of faith, and bowed down before the empty vessel that had contained it. They sought other bonds of union, for faith in the heart no longer connected the members of the church. . . . The living church retired gradually within the lovely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts, an external church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were declared to be of divine appointment. Salvation no longer flowed from the Word, which was henceforth put out of sight. The priests affirmed that it was conveyed by means of the forms they had themselves invented, and that no one could attain it except by those channels.”

At this midnight hour the Reformation began, and Protestantism was born, declaring that the “Bible and the Bible only” is the rule of Christian faith and practise.

The Famous Protest

In the famous protest of the princes made at the Diet of Spires April 19, 1529, it was declared:

Moreover, the new edict declaring the ministers shall preach the Gospel, explaining it according to the writings accepted by the holy Christian church; we think that, for this regulation to have any value, we should first agree on what is meant by the true and holy church. Now seeing that there is great diversity of opinion in this respect; that there is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the Word of God; that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine; that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; that this Holy Book is in all things necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness,—we are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive preaching of His Holy

Word, such as it is contained in the Biblical books of the Old and New Testament, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. THIS WORD IS THE ONLY TRUTH; IT IS THE SURE RULE OF ALL DOCTRINE AND OF ALL LIFE, AND CAN NEVER FAIL OR DECEIVE US. He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell, whilst all the human vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God.

This, D'Aubigné says, constitutes the “very essence of Protestantism.” Its foundation is the Bible without tradition; the Bible as it reads, without the private interpretation of priest or prelate or council, is the rock upon which true Protestantism is founded. And it never can have any other. When it ceases to stand on this foundation it ceases to be Protestantism. When once Protestantism accepts human philosophy, scientific speculations, and evolutionary hypotheses instead of the revealed truth of God's unerring Word, the edifice rests on the sand, instead of a rock, and must fall, and only ruins mark the spot where once stood the magnificent temple of the Most High God.

The Bible alone! What an adamant foundation! What an impregnable Gibraltar is this! The trituration of time has pulverized to dust proud, ambitious nations. As another has truly said, the proudest monuments of Rome's imperial greatness are to-day vast ruins. The destructive accidents of passing ages and the vengeance of barbarians have desolated her palaces and broken her sculptures. The palaces of the Caesars lie desolate, and the laws imposed upon the world then are buried in the dust of ages. The dynasty of the Caesars has sunk into oblivion, and her rulers are black with infamy. Other nations have passed from the map, and the most enduring structures reared by ambitious man have fallen into decay and long since have been forgotten. But the Word of God still lives, and is written in the hearts and minds of men and women scattered in every land and in every clime. Translated into hundreds of languages, printed in thousands of editions, and scattered by hundreds of millions of copies, the words of the King of Kings have indeed gone to the ends of the world. While the thirty thousand gods of the Roman pantheon are cast to the moles and bats to be worshiped no more forever, the Word of God stands fast forever, and the true God is enshrined in the hearts of millions of subjects in all lands. And it was on this immovable, eternal, imperishable, indestructible foundation Protestantism was planted by the Almighty.

Work of Unbelief

But unbelief is seeking to chisel away the foundation of faith; men are seeking to remove the pillars, dig up the foundation, and destroy the structure, and take from man his only hope—the Holy Scriptures—which in all the storms and distresses of life has been an anchor to the soul. Hastings well says:

While men who believed the Bible have been translating it into hundreds of languages, and printing it in every tongue for which the type-founder has ever cast a type; while they have given this book and the beginning of a literature to nearly a hundred nations and tribes who never had an alphabet or a written page before; while they have founded by their researches the science of comparative philology; while they have made more discoveries in geography than all other explorers; while they have penetrated the jungles of India and the depths of Africa; while they have opened the gates of Japan, and invaded the domains of the false prophet; while they have passed the Chinese wall, and traversed the icy heights of Tibet; while they have converted heathen, civilized cannibals, and carried art, literature, commerce, and education to the ends of the earth; these apostles of doubt and criticism and unbelief have nursed their theories, drawn their salaries, smoked their pipes and drunk their beer, and tried to prove the Bible a mass of fables.

Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, but some things which can not be shaken will remain. A story is told of a lunatic who, finding his way into a crowded church and grasping one of the pillars supporting the gallery, said, “I am going to pull the house down!” Timid women screamed and shouted; but an old minister calmed the tumult by crying out, “Let him try! let him try!” So there are men who are perfectly willing to have the critics try their hands at the Bible, and will abide the results. If they can grind it to powder let them do so; if they grind themselves to powder it will only be another instance of the rat gnawing the file.

But while infidelity has always trained its guns on the Word of God, there is at the present time a departure more marked than hitherto from the “faith once delivered to the saints,” on the part of professed Protestantism. The drift with the ebbing tide away from the foundation, is truly alarming, and is fraught with great significance. And it is this drift that we wish especially to call attention to in remaining articles of this series.

As we look out into the world we behold a sea of lost humanity. We look at professed Protestantism, and there is apparent a distressing dearth of spiritual power. Many churches are withering and dying. Their leaders are cold, worldly, formal, and lifeless. Real ministerial power is becoming a rare article. Men like Wesley, Whitefield, Moody, and others are growing fewer. There is much pomp and show, glittering generalities, expensive churches, fine organs, great singers, educated pastors who read sermons with precise and polished diction. But there is one universal lament that sinners are not moved as they once were. A few thousands are spent for the thousand million heathen, while millions are expended on the lusts of the flesh. Apostolic power has departed.

Something has happened, this is certain. We believe the explanation of the difficulty is found in the departure from the Word of God. That which gave the Reformation its power was not numbers, but its adherence to the “Bible and the Bible only.” When this is given up, and spiritual power is gone, the Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation for the believers.

In future articles we will mention some things that indicate a radical departure of Protestantism from its foundation of the “Bible and the Bible only.” We will do this not as a critic, but as a friend, deeply concerned and solicitous over the situation, and with a desire to awaken those who should be awakened to the condition, and check, to some extent, the tide that is fast drawing many away from the Word.