“ I admire the exceeding breadth of Paul, as indeed well one may admire it in every one who—steering clear of its counterfeit, laxity proves spiritual capacity for it. It becomes not the Christian to be narrow. Nevertheless, who can avoid seeing the tendency to be so in various ways? Be assured that it is not only weakness, but a danger, wherever it may be. I grant, however, that even narrowness in and for God’s truth is far better than that lax uncertainty and spurious liberalism in divine things which is growingly a snare in this evil day.
“ Take the contrary of this in the apostle and his preaching. The very man to whom all are most indebted for the gospel of the grace of God, set forth, as none else did, that particular phase of it which is called the gospel of the glory of Christ. At the same time he preached the kingdom of God as decidedly as possible. He never was afraid of the ignorant outcry that this is low ground. The fact is, that hasty and little minds say so, unable to take in more than one idea, and apt to be intoxicated with that one. But the apostle exhibits that excellent largeness and elasticity which gives its place to every message which God has revealed, which pretends not to choose in scripture, but thankfully takes and uses the testimony of God as it is given. It seems to me that we really lower the revival of truth which grace has wrought, by allowing that this truth or that is the only truth for the day. The specialty of our blessing is that we have got into a large place—contemptible as it looks to unbelief—that no truth comes amiss, and that all truth is for this day. I hold this to be an important point for us, avoiding the pettiness of fancying or seeking a fictitious value for whatever happens to be dawning with especial force on our own minds.
“ It is a snare the more to be dreaded, because it has ever led to the making of sects, through an active mind laying hold of, or rather taken captive by, some favorite notion, or even truth. I consider it then an essentially sectarian bias; and that the true and distinctive blessing of what God has given to us now in these days, is not so much laying hold of this or that truth higher than others accept—though this be true—but the heart open to the truth in all its extent, and this bound up with Christ personally, as the only possible means of deliverance—if by grace we walk there in the power of the Spirit—from every kind of pettiness. It will be found, too, that it is immensely important practically for holiness, because we are so wreak, that we are likely to take just what we like, and what at the time suits our own character, habits, position, circumstances, and capacity; whereas what we really want is to detect, judge, and thus be saved from self; not that whichever spares flesh, but what gives us to mortify our members on the earth, as well as what in divine love suits the varying wants of souls around us, and, above all, His glory who has given us not only a particular part of His mind, but the whole of it.
“ Thus, as it has been well said, the peculiarity of the right position is its universality. That is, it is not merely a special portion or phase of truth, no matter how blessed, but the truth in all its fullness as the divinely given safeguard against particular views, and the communication of the exceeding largeness of God’s grace, and truth, and ways for us in the world. ‘All things are yours.’ Anything that tends by distinctive marks to make a party by bringing forward oneself, or one’s own views, as a center, is self-condemned.”
W. K.
Note.—The foregoing is an extract from a work, entitled “ Lectures Introductory to the Minor Prophets,” by W. Kelly. (Broom, 25, Paternoster Square, London, E. C.) We cannot too highly commend this valuable work to the notice of the christian reader.
It contains some of the soundest, clearest, finest passages we have ever read.
There are other volumes by the same author, such as “ Lectures Introductory to the Pentateuch;” “ Lectures Introductory to the Historical Books.” Also three volumes of “ Lectures on the New Testament;” and a very elaborate and able exposition of “ The Book of Revelation.” All these works we earnestly recommend to our readers. We should like to see them in the hands of every Christian throughout the length and breadth of the professing church.