The Progress., 1893-03-25
AUTHORITY IN The CHURCH.

So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should
cast seed upon the earth.-Mark iv, 26.
Say what you will of the intellectual
tendencies of the age in which we live,
it's chief characteristic within this center
of intellectual activity is the exploration
of the mystery of true religion. This is
true whether you go into the domain
of philosophy or pure metaphysics, or
whether you enter the domain of history
or fiction. What is true religion? What
is true Christianity? The deathknell o.
bigotry is in that inquiry. | rejoice in
| that.
1t means that this spirit of restless dis
content with anything save the real
knowledge of the real Christ and real
God must destroy bigotry not only with
in the church, but outside it, and in
every realm of thought bring the world
back to the truth, the whole truth and
the truth for its own sake. And that
means the deathknell to your liberal
bigot. Of all the bigots who have had
no excuse for their existence, the most
impudent and insolent are the liberal
bigots of the order of Voltaire and the
men who have followed in his footsteps.
The bigot within the so called liberal field
must keep silence, save so far as he finds
the truth, as the bigot in the ecclesias-
teal field.
CHRISTIANITY DEFINED.
The movement now on foot within the
Presbyterian chuach to effect compro-
mise in this battle between the cham
pions of form and progress may not re-
ceive a warm response. but the very
fact of this battle and its fierceness is an !
indication that the beginning of the end
is now upon us-the beginning of the |
end of an ecclesiastical power that has
asserted itself within the domain of Prot
estantism, brought over bodily from his
toric Romanism, that the world is OUT |
growing. and which is doomed as the
ceremonies of past are doomed before
the searchlight of the truth of this age.
In the midst of this spirit of inquiry
and investigation and progress there is
a ghost from that past which rises be-
fore us and says: what is to become of
Us if there is no church authority. no
central organization from which there
shall issue an authoritative creed? If
your critics shall undo for us the sun
posed infallibility of the Old Testament
and of certain historic creeds, where
will men go for authoritative knowledge?
Where can we find anything that will
be real, that we can depend upon? Shall
We look to the Catholic church in its con-
inuity of offices, back through the diff
erent ecclesiastics who have ruled. or
hall we search in the church of Eng
and and find there something that is
table on which we can stand, or follow .
n the theology of Paul, or prefer the
heology of Peter? Shall we take the {
'ynoptic gospels or take the gospel of
Ohm? How can the world know any
hing authoritatively if you open those ,
oodgates and do not establish ANYTHING ,
/;
There is but one place to 90, and that I
to Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ a
'hrist is Christianity, and the Christian L
y that cannot be squared with his per- b
onality Is spurious. In scores of places b
4 Christ's recorded words we have his h
tatement of this essential principle of h
and Jesus SAYS in so many v
lords that @
Christianity is life. AH claim, there t,
're, Of authority or historic continuity n
authority must be based only upon the h
ossession Of that life. a