Chapter 20

There is another class of people that I must refer to. Institutions and organizations come into being, created, in the first place, as the embodiment and expression of new and grand truths; and after a Arile their momentum becomes such that the persons who are connected with them cannot control their movements, and these persons become victims of the organizations and institutions to which they belong. So, when a new truth appears, the old organization rolls on like a Juggernaut car, and crushes the life, so far as it is possible, out of everything in its way. Take, for example, and note what a power it is and what an unconscious bribe it is to those who belong to it, the great Anglican Church. A man's ambitions, if he has learning, power, ability, tell him that there is the Archbishopric of Canterbury ahead of him as a possibility. His hopes, the chances of promotion and power, are with the institution. And, then, it is such a tremendous social influence. It is no wonder, then, that men who are not over-strong, who have not the stuff in them out of which heroes are made, should cling to the institution and remain loyal to it, even while they are false to the truth that used to animate it and for which alone any institution ought to exist.

Let me give you another illustration. Edward Temple, late Bishop of London, and who is now the Archbishop of Canterbury, had a priest of the established Church come to him and make a confession of holding certain beliefs which he knew were heretical. The archbishop said to him frankly: As Edward Temple, I believe them, I am in sympathy with your views. As the head of the English Church, I must be opposed to them; and the opinions which you hold cannot be tolerated. That is what the influence of a great organization may come to.

Let me give you another concrete illustration. Here is our American Bible Society, which publishes and circulates millions of Bibles all over the world. It is obliged, as at present organized, to print and distribute the King James version of the Bible; but there is not a scholar or a minister connected with the organization anywhere who does not know at least, since the revision at any rate that in many important respects the King James version is not an accurate translation of the original, even if that is conceded to be infallible. So that this organization stands to-day in the position of being obliged to circulate all over the world for God's truth any number of teachings that are simply blunders of the translator, of the copyist, or interpolated passages that have come down from the past.

So men in every direction become persuaded that they must be loyal to the organization. I know cases where a minister in conversation with a friend has said: So long as I remain a member of this Church, I have got a great institution back of me, and I can accomplish so much socially and in every way on account of it. I know I do not believe half of the creed, but any number of other ministers are in the same box. And so they stay true to the organization, while truth to the truth is sacrificed.

One other influence that keeps so many of these old ideas alive or prolongs their existence beyond the natural term is right in here. Any number of men, educated, strong, prominent men, give their countenance and influence to the support of old-time religious organizations because they believe that somehow or other they are serviceable as a police force in the world, they keep people quiet, they help preserve social order. I have had people over and over again say that they believed it would be a great calamity to disturb the Roman Catholic Church, because it keeps so many people quiet. Do you know, friends, I regard this as the worst infidelity that I know of on the face of the earth. It is doubt of God, his ability to lead and manage his world without cheating it. It is doubt of truth, as to whether it is safe for anybody except very wise people, like a few of us! It is doubt of humanity, its capacity to find the truth, and believe in it and live on it. Do you believe that God has made this universe so that it is healthier for the masses to live on a lie than it is for them to live on the truth? Is that your confidence in God? Is that the kind of God you worship? It is not the kind I worship. There is no danger of the ignorant masses of the world getting wise too fast, judging by the experience of the past up to the present time. There is only one thing that is safe; and that is truth. Do you know what the trouble was at the time of the French Revolution? It was not that the people began to reason and think, and lost their faith, as so frequently said by superficial historians: it was that they waked up at last to the idea that the aristocracy and the priesthood had not only been fleecing them financially and keeping them down socially, but had been fooling them religiously, until at last they broke away, having no confidence left in God or priest or educated people or nobility or anything. No wonder they made havoc. If you want to make a river dangerous, dam it up, keep the waters back, until by and by the pressure from the hills and the mountains becomes so great that it can be restricted no longer; and it not only breaks through the dam, but bursts all barriers, floods the country, sweeps away homes, farms, cattle, human beings, towns, cities, leaving ruin in its path. Let rivers flow as God meant them to; and they will be safe.

So let the world learn,-- learn gradually, and adapt itself to new truth as it learns, and there will be an even and orderly march of human progress. The danger is in our setting ourselves up as being wiser than God, wiser than the universe, and doling out to the multitude the little fragments of truth that we think are fitted for their digestion. The impertinence of it, and the impiety of it!

I must not stop to deal with other reasons which lie in my mind this morning. You can think along other channels for yourselves. I have simply wished to suggest that, in the kind of world we are living in, you may not be sure, at any particular age in history, that a set of ideas is going to be accepted by the multitude merely because they are true; and, because they are not accepted at once, you are not, therefore, to come to the conclusion that they are not true. There never has been a time in the history of the world when the truth was not in the minority. Go back to the time of Jesus: do you not remember how the people asked whether any of the scribes or the Pharisees believed on him? They were ready to accept him if they could go with the crowd; but it never occurred to them to raise the question as to whether it was their duty to go with him while he was alone, as to whether two or three might not represent some higher conception of God, some forward step on the part of humanity. Consider for just a moment, let it be in literature, in art, in government, in ethics, anywhere, find out where the crowd is, and you will find where the truth is not. Disraeli made a very profound remark when he said that a popular opinion was always the opinion which was about to pass away. By the time a notion gets accepted by the crowd, the deeper students are seeing some higher and finer truth towards which they are reaching.

The pioneers are always in the minority. The vanguard of an army is never so large as the main body that comes along behind after the way has been laid out for it.

"Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust."

That is Lowell's suggestion, in that famous poem of his. If we care for truth, we shall not wait until it becomes popular. The truth in any direction to-day, if we had the judgment of the world, would be voted down. Christianity would be voted down among the religions; Protestantism would be voted down in Christianity; and the highest and finest thinkers in the Protestant churches would be voted down by the majority of the members.

Do not be disturbed, then, or troubled, because you have not the crowd and the shouting accompanying you on your onward march; and remember that there must be something of heroism in this consecration to truth. I wish to quote to you, as bearing on this truth, a wonderfully fine word which I have just come across in a recent number of the Cosmopolitan Magazine, the word of the Hon. Thomas B. Reed, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He says, "One with God may be a majority; but crucifixion and the fagot may antedate the counting of the votes." But, if it means crucifixion and the fagot, and we claim to be followers of the Nazarene and worthy of him, even for that we shall not shrink. It is our business simply to raise the question, and try to answer it or ourselves, Which way must I go to follow the truth? And that way I must tread, whether it means life or death, whatever the consequences; for the truth-seeker is the only God-seeker.

WHERE IS THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH?

As you are aware, there are certain churches that have taken the name of Evangelical, thereby, of course, putting forth the claim that in some special or peculiar way they have the gospel in keeping. For "Evangel" is the word translated "gospel," "Evangelist" is a "preacher of the gospel," "Evangelical" is the appropriate name for the church whose ministers preach the gospel. And the word "gospel," as you know, translated, means good news. It is the proclamation of hope, of something that the world has been groping in darkness for, a message that should lift the burden off the human heart, make men stronger to endure, fill them with cheer in the midst of life's difficulties and dangers, and give them a trust with which to walk out into the darkness that lies at the end.

A certain section, I say, of the Christian Church has appropriated this name; and by common consent it has been conceded to it. And as usage makes language, and the dictionaries only record the results of popular usage, why, of course, we must confess that this use of words is right. Right in that sense, I say. But I wish to go back of this popular usage this morning, and raise the question as to whether these churches that claim the title are the ones to whom it peculiarly or exclusively belongs. I wish to put forward the claim that we, though the idea is entirely against popular thought, are really the ones who are preaching the gospel of God, and that the liberals of the world come nearer today to proclaiming the actual original gospel of Jesus the Christ than do any other body of Christians in the world. I wish to do this, not in any spirit of antagonism, but simply by way of clear definition, and that we may understand where we are, and may unfalteringly and trustingly and loyally and hopefully go on to do the highest work that was ever committed to human hands.

At the outset, though it will necessitate my saying certain things which I have said to you before, I must outline briefly that body of doctrine which goes by the name of "Evangelical." I will not go back two or three hundred years to include in it such dogmas as Foreordination, Election, the Damnation of non-Elect or non-Baptized Infants, though these doctrines still remain in the creeds. I will take what must be considered the simpler and fairer course of confining myself to setting forth those beliefs which are generally accepted, and which are made a part of the creed of the so-called "Evangelical Alliance" that is, an organization including representatives of all the great so-called Evangelical Churches. These beliefs, in brief, are that God created the world perfect in the first place, but that in a very short time it was invaded by the evil powers, and mankind rebelled against the Creator, and became the subjects of the devil as the god of this world. Then man, by thus rebelling against God, lost his intellectual power to discern truth, became mentally unable to discover spiritual truth, to find the divine way in which he ought to walk; and that he became morally incapable, so that, even when the truth was presented to him, he felt an aversion towards it, and was disinclined to accept it. The next point is this being the condition of things that God began to reveal himself to the world, first, by angel messengers, by prophets, by inspired men, and that then at last, through certain chosen mediums, he wrote a book telling men the truth about their condition, about his feeling towards them, about what they ought to do, and the destiny involved in the kind of life they should live here. After the world had been in existence about four thousand years, according to this teaching, and very little headway had been made even among the chosen people, the few that had been selected from the great outside and wandering nations, God himself comes down to earth, by means of a woman specially prepared to be his mother he is born without a human father. He lives, he suffers, he dies. This, after one theory or another, I need not go into them, to make it possible for God to forgive, and to enable him to save those who should accept the terms which he should offer.

Then, after his withdrawal from the earth, his Church is organized under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit. Its mission is to proclaim the gospel among all nations. That proclamation has gone on; but after two thousand years not a third of the world has heard the gospel, not a third of the people who walk the planet knows anything about the book that has been written. But they still stumble along in darkness, worshipping anything except the one only and true God. So that this effort up to the present time would strike us, if we judged it as a human device, as being a sad and lamentable failure.

The upshot of this, according to the Evangelical creed, is that the great majority of the world is to be permanently lost. Only a few, those who are converted or those becoming members of the true Church, connected with it sacramentally or in some way, only the few are to be saved, and the great majority outcast forever.

This, in substance, makes up what has been called the gospel; and those who claim that they are preaching the gospel are preaching these things as true. I am well aware and I would not have anybody suppose that I overlooked it that this creed is undergoing very striking and marked changes, and that a great many of those things which some of us look upon as more objectionable are being left out of sight, and not preached, as they used to be, though they still remain in the creeds.

I am aware, for example, that what it is to be orthodox or evangelical has been reduced to very low terms as compared with those which I have just set forth; that is to say, reduced to very low terms in certain quarters. For instance, Dr. Lyman Abbott, of Brooklyn, tells us that we need not believe in the infallibility of the Bible any more; that we need not believe in the old-time Trinity; that we need not believe that Jesus was essentially different from a man; we need not believe in the virgin birth, unless we find it easy to accept it. But the two things which he tells us we must believe in order to be orthodox, or evangelical, are that in some way, though he does not define how, the Bible contains a special message from God to the world, and that in some way Jesus particularly and specially represents God, and that he reveals him to men, so that, when he speaks, he speaks with authority, as representing divine truth. Everlasting Damnation eliminated, Foreordination not referred to, the Trinity transformed, Infallibility no longer insisted on, the humanity of Jesus granted, to be orthodox, according to Dr. Abbott, has become a comparatively simple thing.

In my conversations with clergymen of other churches during the past winter I have discovered that there, too, among certain men, the conditions of being orthodox are a great deal simpler than they were a hundred years ago. An Episcopalian tells me it is only necessary to accept the Nicene and the Apostles' Creeds, and that even then one is at liberty to interpret them as he pleases; that this is what constitutes Orthodoxy and makes one evangelical.

But this process of eliminating the hard doctrines has not gone on in any authoritative way on the part of the Church itself. There has been no proclamation of any such liberty allowed; and I am not aware that the most of these men have made any public statement in their own churches of these positions. It may be known through personal conversations that they hold these views; and, if they are rendering good service, they may not be disturbed by the church authorities in their positions.

So much, then, for a statement as to what constitutes the Evangelical Church, as to what must be the message of the minister who is to preach "the gospel of Christ."

Now I wish to call your attention for a moment to another way of looking at these doctrines. I am not to question their truth. I simply wish to ask you to note as to whether, considering them true, we should be inclined to speak of them as good news. Are they a gospel? Can we with gladness proclaim them to men? For example, suppose God, after creating the world, loses control of it, an evil power comes in, his enemy, takes possession of his fair earth, alienates from him the hearts of the only two of his children who are in existence here, and who are to be the parents of a countless race. Suppose that is true. Is it something we would like to believe? Is it good news? Can we call it an integral part of a gospel?

Suppose, again, that God writes a book, an infallible book, and gives it to whom? To a few people, to the little company of Jews who lived on that little narrow strip of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. He does not give it to anybody else. He has given, indeed, according to this theory, the Old Testament and the New to Christendom since that day. But think a moment.

According to what we know to be true now, man was on this planet for two or three hundred thousand years before God revealed himself at all; and the race went stumbling on and falling in darkness, no light, no hand stretched out to help, no voice speaking out of the silent heavens, the world, apparently, absolutely forgotten, so far as God's truth was concerned. Suppose that, after two or three hundred thousand years, God did give an infallible book to the world. As I had occasion to say a moment ago, comparatively a very small part of his children have heard anything about it. And, then, what is very striking, the proofs of its having come from him are so weak that most of the wisest, the best, the noblest of the world, cannot accept any such claim on its behalf. Is this, if it be true, good news? Would we speak of it as a gospel, something of which to be glad, something to proclaim to mankind as a cheer, a message from on high?

Once more, suppose, after the world had been in existence for two or three hundred thousand years, God comes down, incarnates himself, wears a human body, and does what he can to save men. If it is true, in the economy of the divine government, that human souls could be saved in no other way, is that good news? Would we think of it as a gospel to proclaim to mankind, that God himself must suffer, must be outcast, be spit upon, be reviled, be put to death, and that only so could he forgive one of his wandering children, and bring him back to himself?

Then, once more, suppose all this to be true, and suppose that, as the outcome of it all, the countless millions of men and women and children that have walked the earth during the last three hundred thousand years, until the Jews received their first light from heaven, suppose that they have been lost: that is a part of this gospel. Suppose that since that time all the nations outside of Christendom have been lost: that is a part of this gospel. Suppose that not only this be true, but that all people in Christendom who have not been members of churches have been lost. Suppose even, as I used to hear it preached when I was a boy, that large numbers of those who were church members were not really children of God, and would be lost. Suppose this most horrible doctrine be true. Is it good news? Could we proclaim it with any heart of courage as a part of the gospel of God?

It seems to me, then, that I am bringing no railing accusation when I say that those Churches that claim to be Evangelical are not proclaiming a gospel to the world. But, though this be literally true, they may claim that they are delivering the message of Jesus the Christ, and that, from their point of view, this is relatively a piece of good news, good news, at any rate, to the few who are going to be saved. So I ask you now to turn, while I examine with you for a few moments the essence of the gospel which Jesus proclaimed. Note its terms. Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel;" that is, this proclamation of good news, the coming of God's kingdom. Was this the essential thing in the gospel of Christ?

Let me ask you now to look with me for a few moments. You are perfectly well aware of the fact that the Jews cherished a belief in the coming of a Messiah and the establishment of God's kingdom here on earth and among men. You are not so well aware, perhaps, unless you have made a study of it, that a belief like this has not been confined to the Jews. In many other nations a similar expectation has been cherished. We find it, for example, among some of the tribes of our North American Indians. It is world-wide, in other words, in its range. It is no peculiarity of the Jews. But let us confine ourselves a moment to their particular hope. It is a perfectly natural belief. It required no revelation in order for it to grow up. They believed that the God of the world, of the universe, was their God; that they were his chosen people. Do you not see what a necessary corollary would be a belief in their ultimate prosperity and triumph? God would certainly bless and give the kingdom to that people which he had specially selected for his own. And so, as the coming of the kingdom was postponed, they believed that it was because they had not complied with the divine conditions, they had not kept the law or they had not been good, they had not obeyed him. Somehow, they had done wrong; and that was the reason the kingdom so long delayed.

Remember another thing. We have come, in this modern time, to place the kingdom away off in another world after the close of this life. The Jews had no such belief about it. They expected it to come right here on this poor little planet of ours; and they expected that a kingdom was to be set up which was not only to place them at the head of humanity, but through them was to bless all mankind. Different thinkers among them held different views, but this in substance was the belief; and they were constantly looking for signs of this imminent revolution which was to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, that is, his Anointed One.