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J. W. McGarvey Short Essays in Biblical Criticism (1910) |
[Nov. 26, 1904.]
AN INFIDEL TRACT.
A brother has sent me a tract issued by the American Unitarian Association, Boston, entitled "Open Inspiration vs. a Closed and Infallible Bible." Its author is Rev. Charles William Pearson. Mark the "Rev." It contains a number of statements which illustrate the fact patent to all observers that modern Unitarianism is a system of disguised infidelity.
One of the first assertions which the author makes shows him to be blind to what is going on around him. He says: "Modern preaching lacks truth and power because so many churches cling to an utterly untenable tradition that the Bible is an infallible book."
If this is true, we should expect to see the preachers who deny the infallibility of the Bible exerting great power and those who affirm it exerting little or none. But where are Unitarian preachers to-day? Which of them is a power for righteousness in any large circle? On the other hand, I wonder if this blind man ever saw or heard of Spurgeon, Moody, and others who believed in an infallible Bible and preached it with all their might, stirring thereby the souls of thousands wherever they went? Who are the men that are now preaching with power throughout the land, and turning sinners to the Lord by scores and hundreds? Are they the men who deny the infallibility of the Bible, and tell the people that miracles are incredible? He can not point to one of this [476] class who is earning his salt as a missionary of the cross. Such men, if preachers at all, are found, as a rule, doling out their doubts and speculations to dwindling congregations gathered together in better days by preachers who believed the Bible. Every man who has eyes to see can see this.
In the same strain Rev. Mr. Pearson says of the churches who believe in an infallible Bible:
This dogma is their besetting sin. It is the golden calf of their idolatrous worship. It is the palpable lie that gives the ring of insincerity to all their moral exhortations. If theologians wish to regain their lost intellectual leadership, or even to possess an influence on the thoughtful part of the community, co-ordinate with that of poets, philosophers and men of science, they must throw aside the dogma of an infallible Bible as completely and frankly as Protestants have thrown aside the dogma of an infallible pope.
While he was at it, why did he not tell us how Unitarian preachers are to gain "an influence co-ordinate with that of poets, philosophers and men of science"? If belief in an infallible Bible has caused those who entertain it to lose power and prestige, what has caused Unitarianism to grow smaller by degrees and beautifully less in the last generation? If he only had eyes to see, he would know that the influence of all the poets, philosophers and men of science of this age is not comparable to that exerted over the lives and consciences of men by honest and courageous preachers, who in every part of their own and other lands, even in heathen lands, are upholding the claims of Christ and the apostles and prophets as men who wrought signs and wonders while proclaiming the infallible word of God.
On another page Mr. Pearson is candid enough to state a fact which some writers and speakers whose positions require them to do the same, uncandidly refrain [477] from. It is this: "It is impossible to draw any dividing line between the alleged miracles of the Old Testament and similar accounts in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles." This is bold and candid, and it appears to me nothing short of cowardice for men who summarily pronounce the miraculous accounts in the Old Testament unhistorical, to yet admit that miracles were wrought by Jesus and the apostles. I have far more respect for the intellectual honesty of the man who denies all miracles than for that of one who hedges and compromises on this vital question. I like a whole man better than half a man--a whole infidel better than one who tries to be half-and-half.
But Mr. Pearson is not half-and-half. He cites the case of the three Hebrews thrown by Nebuchadnezzar into the fiery furnace, and who came out without the smell of fire on their persons, and he says it must be a very ignorant man who believes it. This shows that he is a greater heathen than Nebuchadnezzar himself, who not only believed it, but found in it cause for proclaiming to his whole kingdom that if any man should speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he should be cut to pieces and his house be made a dunghill. It was well for Mr. Pearson that he was not living then in Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. Old Neb had no use for such skeptics as he.
"TO THE LORD BE ALL THE PRAISE." If you mean it, don't say so much about your own part in it.
"KEEP UP WITH THE PROCESSION." The circus is passing by, and the crowd of hoodlums, black and white, is keeping up with it. Keep up with the procession, or [478] you may fail to see the monkeys, the big snakes and the blind gyascutus. Don't let anybody get ahead of you in running after the new fads. If you do, you may be set down as a slow team.
"HE WAS MUCH IN EVIDENCE." What do you mean by it? If you mean anything in particular, why not say it, instead of constantly repeating this old saw? Or is it a new saw, which you think you must saw with before others quit sawing with it? If you must have a saw, don't borrow one that all of your neighbors have used, but get one of your own. [479]
[SEBC 476-479]
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