The record-union., 1897-06-27
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
Expressions From Various Religious
Newspapers
The Religious Thought of the Day
as Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press.

THE creeds employed at first" says
the Living Church" (P. Ed of Chicago,
like that of the eunuch, We're the eX-
preston of some one or more points of
crucial Importance. No one Imagined
that they contained everything. 1t is
not to be supposed that the eunuch was
not required to have true ideas of God,
or that he was not called upon to be-
lieve in the Resurrection. Later, The
creed became a formula by which par
ticular heresieS were excluded by
clear statement of the truth as held
from the beginning in the church. This
would be far, as yet, from necessitating
a complete explicit statement of the
whole round of Christian belief. In
their final stage the creeds are no more
than compendiumS of a large sphere
Of doctrine those points being stated
upon which all the rest depend. They
are never germs out of which larger
systems are evolved. The larger Sys-
tenn come first, and the creed serves
as an Introduction or a general index
of subjects We cannot too emphat-
ically repudiate the position that moth
ing is required in this church as mat
ter of faith except the creeds, nor can
we for a moment admit that when the
candidate for the priesthood promises
always so 10 minister the doctrine of
Christ as this church hath received
the same, nothing more is meant than
that he must accept and teach the
creed, and that too, with whatever nov
el Interpretation he may see fit to put
upon it,
''It is always safe to assume that
no theological doctrine has ever had
strong hold on human life and per-
manent place in Christian faith unless
there has been in it something more
than DOGMA" remarks the New York
Outlook" 1T is only heart-doctrires
that spread beyond the ecclesiastical
school which gives them birth, and sur
vive the epoch in which they see the
light Thus the worship of the Virgin
Mary is the worship of the element of
| womanliness in God. a medieval re-
currence to the earlier doctrine that
when God made man in his own image
male and female created He them. To
a modified doctrine of purgatory the
Protestant Church is returning. In its
tinued after death Protestantism, af-
ter having rejected the despOtic au-
thority of the Papacy, is endeavoring
to find a way to a church unity con-
sonant with freedom In similar man
ner We are sure that the doctrine Of
the Trinity has in it more than the in
felicitous phrase Three Persons in
One God There is something in this
oh
meets the want of the human soul to
which it responds, which it will never
willingly and permanently relinquish.
In the realm of scholastic theology
Trinity means definitions which do not
define. phrases which mislead, Trithe
ism which explanations in vain en-
deavor to explain away. But in the
realm of spiritual experience it means
something vastly deeper and more sa-
cred"
Zone of the things hard to be under
stood" says the "Watchman" Bapt)
of Boston, lis why the critics who rest
ed so much upon the authority of Har-
mack do not have the tables fairly turn
ed against them when Harnack recog-
nizes the substantial trustworthfness
of the Christian tradition as to the ear
ly date of the New Testament writings.
Harnack may be right or wrong in his
conclusions: the indisputable thing is
that the scholar under whose name so
many of the advanced critics have
sheltered themselves has admitted the
early date of the first Christian docu-
ments. We have been told ad nauseam
that in these high matters the decis-
ion of the experts is final, and we have
been taught that Harnack is a high
priest of the experts. Now that Har-
mack rejects only II. Peter as wrongly
attributed, and regards all the Pauline
epistles as genuine with a little hesi-
fancy as to Ephesians, and even roots
the pastoral Epistles in original real
letters, and places all the Gospels with
in the first century, why is it not per-
fectly fair, without going into the mer-
its of the question at all, to point out
that the chief of the experts has brok-
en- with the higher critics?"
1T seems to u.s. says the Church
Standard" P. Ed of Philadelphia, that
there need be no strain of any ones
conscience in obeying the law of the
church in regard to the marriage of the
innocent party in a just divorce. AS
Bishop Nelson says. there is no law
compelling US to marry divorced peo-
ple.' Therefore the Bishop is at liber-
ty to declare that he himself will not
marry such people. He is also at lib
erty, if he can, to persuade his clergy
to follow his example in this particular;
but since he has neither power nor
right TO constrain them so to do, he
cannot be responsible for their action;
and since he has no power to issue Ii
cense or to grant his permission to
celebrate any marriage whatsoever, he
cannot be responsible for marriages
which the church permits and which
the clergy Of the church may celebrate
under her authority without in the
least compromising him. When the
bishop is required, under the law. to
deliver his judgment concerning the
two questions of fact which may be
referred to him, it is his bounden duty
TO fulfill that function with all judicial
diligence and probity: but there his
function ends, and with it his response
bility. The whole responsibility rests
first upon the church and then upon
another minister who, in his proper
sphere both is and ought to be as free
as any Bishop to obey the law of the
church. Consequently, there need be
no strain upon the Bishops conscience
at any point unless he is tempted to
laid upon him, and which he has SOL
emnly sworn to fulfill
srryl-