“Pyrrhonism” will not require many words, nor will there be occasion, in what is here designed, to advert to Pyrrho or his philosophic system (if the term system may be applied to that which advocated universal doubt and the mind’s perpetual equilibrium). But Pyrrhonism may exist without the name. And amidst the breaking up of conventional modes of thought and the felt insufficiency of the common standards of orthodoxy, if superstition does not take the place of truth, binding down the conscience to a usurped authority, that on the one hand forbids the conscience to find rest where God has placed it, even in the blood of Christ, and on the other puts a bar to the soul’s direct appeal to His holy word, there is especial danger of the mind becoming weary and indifferent in the march after what is vital, and so taking refuge in the question, “What is truth?” as if it allowed of no definite or sufficient answer. This state of mind, in degree, may infest the church, as well as become the prevalent folly of the world. The producing causes are to be found in the very constitution of the human mind, when acted upon by the peculiar influences of the present and similar times. Besides, there are many things short of the patent dislike of the truth that may tend to keep the mind in a state of hesitating equilibrium. The real solution of many a perplexing and doubtful case is to be found in the Words of Christ, “How can ye believe who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?” or, in the sterner declaration, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” The world is in direct antagonism to the Father; and hence inasmuch as the world, in whatever form, has its hold unrelaxed upon my heart, I shall be indisposed to listen to the communications of the Father through the Son. I do not oppose; I do not disbelieve; I only doubt. I doubt the meaning here; I doubt the application there; I doubt the possibility of carrying it out in this place. But know this, O doubter! that truth will never be truth to thee nor to thy soul, until it is translated unto action! Truth appeals to thy conscience, to thine affections, to thy duty, with all the authority of the God of truth. At first it deals with thee about ruin or redemption. It next claims to be formative of thy motives, to be the guide of thine actions, the director of thy thoughts, the animator of thine hopes, the overseer of thy whole inner, as well as thine outer, life. Truth exists not for thee, if thou refuse to it thine obedience and thine heart.
DOGMATISM
By “Dogmatism” I do not mean that undue positiveness of manner in asserting the truth which is ordinarily designated by this term, but rather the condition of mind in holding the truth which endangers its becoming a matter of opinion, instead of, as the Lord expresses it concerning His words, being “spirit and life.” The first may be prejudicial to the truth by the repellent attitude it assumes; the second destroys its power by evaporating its very spirit and life. Principles, for which so many are ready to contend, and contend rightly when viewed as evolved by the vital power of truth, apart from this become worthless and deceptive, and soon degenerate into opinions only and the dogmas of a sect. It is not that grace and truth, in expressing themselves, will not assume those definite forms, which are rightly enough called principles; but if these are to be practically of any worth, it is in their being animated by the energy of the inward life. There is a form which springs from the energy of life and is self-evolved; and there is a form which is superinduced, and, if it does indicate the absence of life, is repressive of it. The Scripture speaks of both in the passage, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Truth to the dogmatist is but a mold which impresses an outward form. Truth, to the earnest Christian, ought to be, and is, what the root and sap are to the plant or tree. The apostle thus addresses the dogmatists of his day, and his words demand the attention of a willing ear in ours— “But if thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?” To these I but add the words of the Lord to His disciples, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”
CHRISTIANITY
“Christianity.” We now leave the ground of objective testimony, or the expression of authoritative truth, and come upon that of subjective experience, or the living expression of this truth. The question now is, supposing truth to have been rightly taught and rightly received, what will be its legitimate effect? This is answered in the directest way by the apostle in the summary he gives of the effect of the gospel on the Thessalonians. He speaks of them as remembering their “work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope, in the sight of God and our Father.” And this answers to his expression in 1 Cor. 13:13, “Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three.” There is that in the revelation of the truths of heavenly grace which thus acts by the power of God on the soul when it is yielded up to its power. The “work of faith” is seen in its turning the heart “to God from idols,” in all the intensity of the contrast between utter emptiness and vanity, and eternal living fullness. The “labor of love” expresses itself in the outgoing of life’s energies in the service of Him who, in the all-commanding and constraining power of infinite and unstinted love, makes Himself known to the soul, and by love thus enchains and leads it captive. “The patience of hope” takes the definite form of waiting for the accomplishment of the promise of Him who said, “I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” Hope shows its power in the soul by sustaining the patience while “waiting for God’s Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead [with all the pregnancy of this mighty truth in power and love and grace] even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come.”
Now these are presented not as the ripened fruits of long experience in the truth, but as the very first results of the reception of gospel grace: the upspringing of heavenly fruit from a virgin soil when first brought under culture by the hand of God; the well-tuned harmony of the soul touched in its chords by the skill of infinite love. The Lord Jesus Christ was the spring and object of their faith and love and hope; and the conscious presence, to their faith, of Him who was their God and Father, gave a solemn reality to all that the truth had brought home to their hearts. “The work of faith” was there; and “the labor of love” was there; and “the patience of hope” was there. Nothing of the divine testimony was inert. Indeed, apart from this living energy, Christianity has no existence in this world. The truths by which it was first evoked remain, and the divine power remains which gave these truths their living expression; but Christianity exists only in this living expression. Many things which marked the bright course of the early church have passed away, but these are emphatically said to remain, “faith, hope, charity, these three”; without which Christianity is not.
Should not, then, a right presentation and a right reception of the truth of the gospel be still productive of the same effects? Should we not view it as a defective gospel, either as preached or professed, if these effects be absent? God’s grace must not be limited: but I am speaking of the responsibility which the truth brings to the soul. The effect of the gospel is not here limited, as it is so often now, to the heart having obtained peace by it, or even the knowledge of the possession of eternal life. If the heart rests in faith on the divine truths on which Christianity is based, must it not claim for them an energetic and a transforming power? Where God is working, I own it becomes the soul to tread softly. But in what are called “revivals,” I think I see this—on the part of God, souls awakened in an extraordinary degree, and many doubtless brought to Christ; on the part of man, nature largely acted on, often a defective gospel presented, and the mind concentrated too much on its own assured and joyous feelings. The result of this is, to a large extent, even where the work is real, the rearing of hot-house plants, which wither and show the yellow leaf when the extraneous heat and forcing influences are withdrawn. Conversion is not everything. Fervor will not stand in the place of truth engrafted in the soul. Activity is not the only sign of spiritual life and power. “I am so happy!” may be welcomed as the soul’s expression of a sense of having found in Christ what it could find in nothing else. But there is another word of Christ to be heard besides “Thy sins are forgiven thee”: it is, “If any man serve me, let him follow me.” It is a great thing that the practical aim of Christians be not lowered. True revival I take to be the leading back of souls to see from whence they have fallen, and to repent and do the first works. The sure token of a revival in the church (I do not mean the fact of frequent conversions) will be found in Christians being led solemnly to lay it to heart, whether the church is in a position to meet the Lord, and whether it is a true and faithful witness for Him in His absence. There are the dangers of all times, and there are the special dangers of our own; but the fullness of the truth as communicated to us by God is sufficient to enable the simple and dependent saint to meet them all, and so to find the special blessing promised, by the lips of Him whose name we bear, “to him that overcometh.”
Ever affectionately yours,