The Condition of Certainty in Religion.
EVERY department of knowledge has its appropriate methods for discovering and testing the truth. In the natural sciences, conviction depends on evidence appreciable by the senses; in the abstract sciences, upon logical or mathematical demonstrations. The great mistake of the skeptical scientist is his endeavor to test spiritual truth by these methods. He makes the demand first, to be convinced by scientifically exact arguments of the truth of Christianity, before he will accept it. He will first know and then believe. But this method can never bring him to his goal. Spiritual truths cannot be mathematically demonstrated. We may, indeed, attain by rational induction a sufficient degree of assurance of some truths, as the existence of God, and the fact of a future life, to warrant the hope that they are true. Plato and Socrates had a vague belief of these truths. But certainly they never attained. In opposition to these methods of testing the truth, is that prescribed by Christ: "If any man will do his will, he shall know the doctrine." The condition of spiritual wisdom and certainty is obedience to the will of God. The primary truths of Christianity are such as appeal to the heart and conscience; and their appeal must first be heeded and obeyed, and then they will not only prove themselves to the understanding to be divinely true and necessary, but will lead to increased light—to the clear apprehension and firm conviction of other truths. And observe that it is not the mere intellectual assent to axiomatic truths of Christianity that has the promise of increased light and certainty of conviction, but the disposition, the purpose, the effort to put those truths to practice. "If any man will do," literally, "wills to do his will"—has the spirit of obedience, the determination to do, manifested by his conduct, "he shall know the doctrine." Just here is the fatal mistake of many who attempt to test the truth of Christianity. Some of its teachings they know to be true, because they are "written in their hearts" and on their consciences. They say "I know this is right and that is wrong, for the proof is self-evident. I ought to avoid the one and do the other." But instead of beginning right there to learn the truth by obedience, they attempt to go on and ascertain the truth of the whole of the Christian system while they are habitually and knowingly violating its fundamental principles. Is it not plain that their investigations must receive a false bias from their refusal to obey the truth they have? Conscious adherence to sin is a fatal disqualification for knowing the truth. How can a man know the truth of the doctrine of forgiveness of sins who refuses to test it by renouncing his sins? He may come to a theoretical belief that Christ hath power on earth to forgive sin, but he can never be certain of it until he has tested it in the way Christ prescribes. So with the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, which is one of the greatest stumbling-blocks to the rationalistic spirit of investigation. There is no possible test of that doctrine, but by experience. And how is that experience to be attained? It must begin in the spirit of obedience, in the purpose and effort to keep the law of God. Nor does the fact that no man out of Christ can obey the law of God invalidate this argument; for the conviction of utter inability to obey the law is a necessary step in the progress of the truth, and that can only be learned by trying to obey. Paul began that way. He had just a belief that the law of God is "holy, just, and good" as any of the critical philosophers of our time. But he did what the latter often refused to do—tried to obey it, and so learned what they failed to learn for want of his obedience: that he was in a state of helpless bondage to sin, from which only Divine power could deliver him. And when he had learned that truth, he was prepared to take the next step in obedience—to cast himself on Christ, by which he learned that "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death." If any man will do His "will, he shall know the doctrine"—not have an opinion, merely, nor be able to accept it as a matter of rational belief or logical demonstration—but know by an inward spiritual and incontrovertible experience of its truth. The man to whom Christianity has become a life, knows that it is a system of truth; but he has come to this knowledge, not by reasoning, but by that spirit of obedience which, after all, is the highest reason and the essence of all true faith, and which has led him to an experience of the truth which he cannot doubt. He was not intellectually argued into religion, and can not be argued out of it. If he loses it at all, it will be by disobedience. It is a blessed fact that the avenue of certainty is opened to all; "any man" who has the spirit of obedience "shall know." If it were otherwise, if the certainty of the truth of Christian doctrines depended upon the investigation of Christian evidences, then only those could "know," who have the leisure and power to weigh evidence, to investigate history and languages; and the poor and ignorant would be left to "perish for lack of knowledge." But the weakest and humblest can "will to do" the will of God—can, by the spirit of obedience and submission to his will, test for himself the truth of the vital doctrines of Christianity. They know nothing, perhaps, these humble ones, of the "evidences of Christianity," but they are sure that Christ is their Redeemer, and that he hath power upon earth to forgive sins. They know nothing of the argument from design, but they feel God, and know that he "hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into their hearts, crying Abba, Father." They know nothing of salvation from sin through the "Religion of Culture," but they have passed from death unto life, because they love the brethren." They may never have heard of the rational arguments for immortality, but they "know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrines.—Northwestern Advocate.