Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-04

atonement Deliverance from the guilt OF
sin, and the love of it, is the desire of all
nations. When you probe it to the bottom,
Unitarianism cannot give peace to the soul
that seeks that double deliverance. Evan.
eelical Christianity lifts up the cross OF
Christ, and teaches as its central doctrine
the necessity of the new birth, and not only
the need, but the reality, of an atonement.
My prayer for the Orient and the Oceident
is therefore that God will lift up the cross,
and make it the rising sun of the entire
EARTH
IMPORTED UNBELIEF.
Mr.. Cooks lecture, which followed, was
upon Imported Unbelief in the Orient. !"
The speaker said:
sit is hardly too much to say that If
student in the Orient confines his attention
to only one regiment of our sceptics and
that regiment persistently driven round and
round the hill of London journalism, he
may mistake the regiment Tor an endless
army. 1t is trick to make q regiment
look like an army by keeping up an ap-
pearance of endless marching; and through
that advice agnesticism has obtained an I'M
mense hold in Japan, China and India.
What is agnesticism? / agree with Mr..
Abbot, of this city, when he defines it as
that creed which asserts the unattainability
of religious truth by any method. Seien-
tifc theism, on the other hand is that creed,
which asserts the attainability of religious
truth BY scientific method. These two are
rivals for the control of the educated mind
in the Orient as in the Occident. Scientific
spiritual theism may almost be said
to be the universal creed of culture, Occi-
dental and Oriental. The self-evident
truths of scientific theisms necessitate our
belief in the need of the new birth and of
the atonement. We are not pantheists, nor
even what begin to be called Christian pam
theists; for We are not to be called sons OF
God and brothers of each other in any en-
phatic sense, and as implying that we are to
be received to the bosom of God, unless we
have experienced regeneration; sonship of
God means similarity OF character with God.
SCIENTIFIC ZHEIsM.
'The revelation which asserts the neces-
sity of the new birth and the atonement, and
reveals the atonement as made, is the COM
pletion of scientific theism. What are the
objections of culture to supernatural revela-
tion? 1 will take up two which have the
most force in the Orient:
.First-That the gospels may be mythical.
"Second-That if they are historical, they
require us to believe that the founder of
Christianity had no human father.
81 hold in my hand Rothe's famous Ger
man work on theological ethics. His is
mighty head. desire to quote from him
largely to show that Mrs. Humphrey Ward
cannot claim him as on her side when she
writes her Robert Elsmere. 1 translate
roughly as follows: The foundation of all
nv thought, can assure the world, is the
simple Christian faith as for 1900 years it
has conquered the world. 1t is to me the
final certainty, in defense of which am
willing to enter the lists against any form
of knowledge that opposed it. 1 do not
know any other firm point for my philoso-
ply or for my existence except this faith.
know of no OF firm ground into which
can cast IT gious anchor except that
historic appearance which bears the holy
name of Jesus Christ. That historic
appearance is to me the holy of holies OF hu
manity, the highest that ever has been
reached within the range of human con-
sciousness. sunrise in history, by the light
of which we must study tn entire circle of
objects that fall beneath our eyes. This is
the testimony of one of the frees minds of
German. 1 wish japan. China and India
to rise to the level of Rothe, at least. and
when they are there, to discuss the second
objection.
A JAPANESE OBJECTION.
Mr.. Carnochie, before returning to Japan,
said that one of the chief objections of the
japanese to Christianity is the belief that
Christ had only one paren-. Now 1 raise
the question: Why should not Christ's
birth have been supernatural in as high
degree as His character and His life? Why
not an exceptional origin for a character so
exceptional? A fountain does not rise higher
than its source. Once, and once only, has
there appeared upon the earth a
sinless life. So far above the
human level is sinlessness that we must be-
iieve that that life originated on a super
natural plane. l give in closing, one or
two tests by which Orient and Occident may
distinguish genuine from counterfeit re-
ligious truths:
"First-Let them adhere to the self-evident |
in ethics. Our Lord, Himself, |
appeals to the cans and cannots in the very
nature of ethics. Gladstone says the gospel |
itself leans on the self-evident truths. Plant |
your feet there, and you may be bold in life,
in death and beyond death, for self-evident |
truth had almost said is the divine omni- |
presence, as Lotze says.
'Second-Adhere to those religious propo- |
sitions that come 70 you from historic sources |
and that are in harmony with self-evident I
truths. When historical evidence shows |
ycu there was one in the world unlike any |
other, and that God was in that one
REcoNCILING THE WORLD
to himself, and when you find all harmon
ICES with self-evident truths already learned, |
then clasp to yourself that revelation. Hold |
to the truths that are selfevident and you |
are on your way to the propositions that |
must eventually rule the world.
''Third-Have adequate suspicion of all |
fast and loose fantasies who accept and do
not accept selfevident truths. The mis-
chief of our time is the mixture of human
and divine in philosophy. Let us have
done with those who make a game of the
1logy or ethics.
"Fcurth-Adhere to evangelical unity.
Believe what the ages have sifted and have
reached harmony concerning through wide
circles of devout and accomplished men.
The greatest minds are the safest minds.
Let us be suspicious of those who cannot
show that they have been with God on the
mount. But let us reverence those to whom
God has given great endowments and who
have consecrated them all to God. As the
lges have forgotten the little men and re-
nembered the great ones, so let us do in this
'ur time.
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