FROM

THE

E V A N G E L I S T ,

BY WALTER SCOTT.

Go you into all the world, proclaim the good news to the whole creation:--he who be- lieveth and is immersed shall be saved; and he, who believeth not shall be condemned.
MESSIAH.
NO. 2.	CARTHAGE, FEBRUARY 2, 1834.	VOL. 3.

      It is a very common saying, and a very true one, that "men are prone to extremes." In our eagerness to escape one impending evil, we seldom cease our fight, until we rush into another of an opposite character, which is no less dangerous, and ought equally to be feared.

      Few indeed, there are who pursue that happy medium in which both truth and safety are to be found. Few, who follow the advice which Apollo is represented as giving to Phæton,--"In medio tutissimus ibis."^b

      This saying holds good of man in every period of the world, and in all his relations, whether natural, political, or religious. To what extremes has he not run in his views of nature? The Bishop of Cloyne has taught that there is no such thing as matter. A Priestly has declared that every thing is matter. At one time Nature has been regarded as the creature of chance; at another, a part of the Divinity: here a servile minister of pleasure: there an object of supreme veneration; now contemned and disregarded, and again honoured, idolized and adored. Nor has he been less extravagant and unreasonable in the use which he has made of her bounties. Sometimes we find him, like a Carnaro, an epicure and a glutton; and at another period affording a remarkable example of fasting and of abstinence. Now we find him a drunkard, and again he is discovered preaching up a total abstinence under the name of "temperance." Occasionally we see him, like a Charles V, voluntarily dispossessing himself of crown and kingdom, and becoming contented with obscurity, and retirement, and, frequently, like a Napoleon, he springs from obscurity, and becomes a conqueror of nations.

      In government, also, how unstable he has proved. From monarchy to anarchy--from tyranny to license--from strength to weakness, from dominion to servitude, have been his usual transitions. Neither in theory nor in practice has he pursued a medium, and even, if for a moment he seems to have exchanged a [34] despotism for a boasted republic, he stops not in his career, until that republic becomes again a despotism, or terminates in ungovernable licentiousness.

      In religion, his character is the same. One is all for external form, another is all spirit. One is an Arminian, and another is driven into Calvinism. One thinks he can do every thing, another that he can do nothing; and, while one speaks of the religion of Christ as if were in it no threatened punishment for the wicked, another talks of it as if it were wholly composed of fire and brimstone.

      It has been well observed that extremes produce each other. Opposition engenders opposition, and as pugnacious rams retreat to the extremes of the arena before they strike a blow, so disputants are driven, by contention, to assume points more and more distant, and to adopt the most unreasonable extremes.

      It is also worthy of remark, that extremes often meet together, and produce the same result. Thus the Arminians who suppose that salvation is offered to all, but that none can obtain it unless through a supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit, which is not at their command; and the Calvinists who imagine that the elect alone can obtain salvation, which must be also by a special call, actually agree in fact, and arrive at pretty much the same conclusion. Thus, two ships setting out at first, in opposite courses, one east, and the other west, in a voyage round the world, comes at last to the same port. Thus, too, it matters not whether we go north, or south, from the equator, we will equally arrive at the regions of eternal frost.

      Extremes have ever been found injurious to the peace of society, the cause of virtue, and the progress of truth. Tyranny excites rebellion, war, and bloodshed--the sultry calm begets the fierce tornado; austerity brings virtue and morality into contempt, and error fans the flame of wild enthusiasms.

      There is one extreme to which the religious world has run since the beginning of the apostacy, to which I would now more particularly advert. This is the extreme of mystification. No sooner had the Gospel of Jesus Christ arisen, like the sun, upon a benighted world, in simple beauty and unclouded splendour, than the Gnostics, or Spiritualizers, began to shroud its glories in the fogs of mysticism. Dissatisfied with the light of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, they thought to increase its brilliancy with the feeble lamp of vain philosophy--to improve the wisdom of God, by the foolishness of men. From the age of the Apostles, down to the present time, this has been the state of things. MYSTERY--Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abomination of the earth, has long sat a queen, and ruled its religion, sovereign of the ascendant. Of the cup which she has mingled have all the nations drunk, and by the abundance of her luxuries the merchants of the earth have been enriched. The sacred and saving truths of God have been obscured and concealed, their meaning perverted, and their effect destroyed. The more mysteries her teachers could discover in the plainest sentence, and the more deep the hidden meanings with which they could astonish the admiring audience, the greater their honour and renown. They have made merchandize of that which cost them nothing, have polluted the pure fountain of Living Waters; have deprived mankind of the blessings of [35] the Gospel, and introduced a Religion at once worthless, mysterious, and corrupt. But 'strong is the Lord that judgeth her' and terrible will be her day of reckoning. In one hour her riches shall be laid waste: death, and mourning, and famine, shall come upon her, and she shall be burnt with fire. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and they that play the flute, and sound the trumpet, shall be heard no more in her, and no artificer of any trade shall be found in her, and the light of a lamp shall be seen no more in her, and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard no more in her, because her merchants were the grandees of the earth, because by her sorceries were all the nations deceived, and in her was found the blood of Prophets, and of saints, even of all those who were slain upon the earth.

      Within a few years, however, a voice has been heard, saying, "Come ye out of her my people, that ye may not be partakers with her in her sins, and that you may not partake of her plagues." In plain language, a reformation has occurred. The Bible has been dug out of the accumulated rubbish of 18 centuries, and it has not only been put into the hands of the people, but they have discovered, that they have no need of downy Doctors of Divinity to enable them to understand its simple and unaffected language. Their aim and their delight has been to disentangle the Sacred Word from the intricacies and traditions of their former teachers, and they have thus been enabled to rejoice exceedingly in the beautiful simplicity of the Truth, to learn the Wisdom that cometh from above, and to drink at the pure fountain of mercy and salvation. In a word, the Gospel, as it was delivered by the Apostles, has been restored, and the Divine arrangement of its different parts, correctly ascertained and exhibited. In vain have the teachers of corrupt religion laboured to withstand the influence which its simple beauty exerts upon the human mind. In vain has their ingenuity been racked to mystify by metaphysical dogmas, or change by the audacity of transposition, the simple and original order of the Gospel. The true light has shone, and the darkness is past. The authority of synods, and councils, the prejudices of education, and the strong arm of secular power, have ceased to be the passports of this religion. It commends itself now to men by its Divine authority, and its perfect adaptation both to their capacities and their wants, and delivers them from spiritual tyranny, ignorance, and delusion. Wherever it has been thus restored in its simplicity, in vain do spiritualizers attempt to persuade those who think for themselves, that faith comes by the mysterious influence of the Spirit, that Baptism should come before Faith, and the Holy Spirit before Baptism, or that remission of sins is not to be obtained through God's appointed means. The love of God revealed in the Gospel, and the great and precious promises it contains, have been delivered from the veil which mystification had thrown around them, and the Gospel uncorrupted and unadorned, has proved itself to be, indeed, the Wisdom and power of God unto salvation to every one who believes it.

[R.

[The Evangelist 3 (February 1834): 34-36.]

FROM

THE

E V A N G E L I S T ,

BY WALTER SCOTT.

Go you into all the world, proclaim the good news to the whole creation:--he who be- lieveth and is immersed shall be saved; and he, who believeth not shall be condemned.
MESSIAH.
NO. 3.	CARTHAGE, MARCH 3, 1834.	VOL. 3.

      But, as we have remarked, men are prone to extremes, and these have a strong tendency to produce each other. The human mind, like the pendulum of a clock, seldom pauses until it have reached the opposite extreme from which it started. Accordingly, some in modern days, and some in the present reformation, in their haste to escape from the dangers of mystification, are in danger of rushing into an error no less fatal and pernicious. I mean the error of simplifying the religion of Jesus Christ so far as to destroy its identity, and prostrate its divine and gracious purposes.

      This simplification is attempted, in two ways: 1st, By simplifying the means through which the religion is taught; and, 2ndly, By simplifying the things of which it consists. As is well known, the Babylonish teachers have endeavoured to inculcate that the scriptures are so exceedingly mysterious, that it is out of the power of the common people to understand them, and that consequently they need such learned, clever and apostolical men as the clergy to explain them. In opposition to these absurd claims it is urged that the scriptures are plain and simple, easily understood, and requiring no exposition whatever. And, carrying out these views to their utmost limits, some have become so strongly [49] impressed with an idea of the simplicity of the scriptures, that they cannot tolerate a single word by way of exposition, so that in Christian assemblies not a syllable must be spoken, no exhortation must be tendered, no teaching attempted--the bare reading of the scriptures can alone be permitted. Thus the congregation is cut off from one of their chief sources of edification and improvement, to wit, the teachings and exhortations of the brethren. For it is susceptible of easy proof that the bare reading of the scriptures tend very little to the edification of a church. It is one thing to read the scriptures or hear them read, and quite another to receive and fully understand the ideas which they contain. Indeed it is a great error to suppose that a book which contains the words of the Divine Spirit--yea, the deep things of God, is to be comprehended at a glance, even by an unprejudiced mind, much less by those who have been previously misled by erroneous views and false teaching. The experience of every one who is well acquainted with the scriptures, attests, that it requires deep and solemn thought--prayerful meditation to enter fully into the meaning of the sacred prize: There are a profundity and a beauty in the ideas contained in the scriptures which entirely escape the superficial reader. And if any one have by studious examination learned any important truth, or discovered more fully the force and beauty of a single expression, how conducive it is to Christian improvement that he should call the attention of the brethren to it, and exhibit and enforce it with whatever power of argument and illustration the scriptures may furnish him! But the extreme of which I speak, not only interferes with the growth of Christians in knowledge, but leads them to neglect plain injunctions and important duties. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together," says Paul, "but exhort one another." There would be no wisdom in assembling together merely to read: this could be done as well at home, and reading is not exhortation. Again he says, "if any word be good for the use of edification, speak it, that it may minister grace to the hearers." But it is unnecessary to multiply quotations.

      Those who thus advocate the mere reading of the scriptures, and oppose teaching and exhortation among saints, are equally opposed to having the Gospel proclaimed to sinners. "They have the Bible," they say, "let them read it, or we may read it to them." Highly gratified and edified indeed would a congregation of sinners be, if called together by the sound of the bell, to hear a chapter of the New Testament read to them! Not so did the Apostles practise, who reasoned with the Jews out of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, (which they at that time read, and are reading to this day without any advantage) and directed their attention to the truths therein conveyed, intreating them to attend to them. The tongue has in every age been employed in converting and reforming men; and must continue to be while human nature remains unchanged. The Bible, indeed, contains the truths of salvation.--In the scriptures, as in a storehouse, or granary, is laid up the good seed of the kingdom; but that seed can never grow unless it is drawn forth, and scattered abroad. [50]

      But this is not the only evil that results from this extreme. It leads to errors and absurdities as great as those which flow from the supposition that the Bible is a mysterious and incomprehensible volume. For restriction to the bare reading prohibits investigation, and consequently prevents the necessary distinctions from being drawn, between those matters which are circumstantial and peculiar in their application; and those which are universal and imperative. So that those who hear will be likely either to neglect important duties, or perform works of supererogation. Some, accordingly, in hearing read some of the most valuable injunctions of the sacred oracles, suppose them not to be at all applicable to those who live in the present day. Others have gone forth, "without purse or scrip," and have only been convinced after discovering that they "lacked many things," that they were not among the number of the Apostles. Some again, hearing it read, that the Saviour instituted the supper the evening before his trial, and washed the disciples feet upon the same occasion, have been wont to wash each others' feet when they eat the supper,^* thus transforming what Paul calls a good work into a mere ceremony. And I have heard of a small congregation, which after reading that, at the conclusion of the supper, "they sung an hymn, and went out"--were induced to imitate the example, and after "singing an hymn," thought it their duty to go out, that they might in all things walk according to the simple letter of the New Testament. The passage reads, however, "when they had sung an hymn they went out into the mount of Olives." Whether, or not, they visited that famous mountain, or have yet returned from their travels, I have not been informed.

      The same extreme which leads some to do every thing which the book declares to have been done, induces them to refuse to do any thing not expressly mentioned in its pages. So strait-laced are they--so hide-bound in Christianity, that they dare not have a meeting house; they cannot endure to have any person appointed to preside over, and keep order in their meetings: they contend against receiving formally, any persons as members of particular congregations, and tremble at the thought of having their names written in a church record; things which are highly necessary, and conducive to the peace, comfort, order, and edification of a Christian church, and which are absolutely implied in the precepts relating to order, decency, and things of good report.

      Thus, zeal for simplicity as it regards the means of Christian instruction, when carried to an extreme, in opposition to the complicated system of things heretofore existing in the religious world, not only leads men into errors and absurdities, but strips the Christian church of edification, exhortation, order and [51] comfort, and leaves entirely undone the work of the Lord, the conversion of the world.

      This rage for simplification is, however, by no means confined to the means of instruction, but extends itself to the truths revealed. Some are wonderfully pleased with the idea of bringing every thing in the Christian religion down to the level of the plainest understanding, and delivering it from all that is of a mysterious nature, and hard to be understood. In this spirit, a book has been lately written to prove, that the Devil is nothing but a personification of evil; and, we may, perhaps soon, have another to prove, that God is only a personification of good, and by this means be reasoned out of the belief both of a Divinity and a Devil. Again, others have attempted to show, that our Saviour was a mere man, and his religion nothing but a sublime system of moral philosophy; while there are not wanting some, even among those who advocate the restoration of Ancient Christianity, for whom the scriptural doctrine of the Holy Spirit is quite too mysterious. They cannot imagine how the Divine Spirit can dwell in the congregation, or how it is possible for any one in these days to receive the Holy Spirit. They suppose, therefore, that Holy Spirit stands for the "Word of God," by which, perhaps, they mean the scriptures, though this phrase in the New Testament signifies the gospel. But I have not understood them to suppose that the simple gospel is the Holy Spirit; nor do I know whether or not they would have it to mean the New Testament, or the Old, or both, nor whether it be the words as they stand in black and white, the ideas expressed by those words, or the things represented by those ideas. And if they imagine the things revealed to be the Holy Spirit, I know not whether they exclude any of the multitude of things revealed from their definition, or what part, or how many they thus exclude. Nor have they explained whether or not, a person can be said to have the Holy Spirit, who is fully acquainted with these truths or things revealed and yet does not obey them; and if so, how a wicked person can thus have the Holy Spirit without reformation and obedience, and why the fruits of that Spirit are not manifest in him. Nor have they explained other difficulties which arise upon their hypothesis. Paul instituted an analogy between God and the Spirit of God, and man and his spirit, and says, that "as no man knows the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him, so no one knows the things of God but the Spirit of God." Now if the Spirit of God be the word of God merely, why is it represented as knowing the things of God? And if the Spirit of God be the word of God, the spirit of man must be the word of man--ergo, a dumb man has no spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit is represented as working, as speaking, as bringing forth fruit, &c. and all are commanded to be immersed into his name.

      But the principle upon which this simplifying process is founded is entirely indefensible, and indeed manifestly erroneous. Upon what authority do they assert, that every thing in the Christian religion must be so simple as to be understood by every capacity, or indeed by any? That much of Christianity is so, I [52] willingly admit, and rejoice to know; but it is neither necessary, nor susceptible of proof, that it should all be so. Amongst all the sciences there is not one which does not contain some things abstruse, and difficult. The natural sciences are full of deep things and mysterious phenomena, which the highest human intellect has failed fully to explore. There is not in the heavens a star but what sparkles with mysterious light--there is not on earth a blade of grass but what is big with wonder. The human science too, abounds in things remote and difficult, which stretch themselves beyond the grasp of almost every mind. And if those sciences which relate to things which we feel, touch, taste and handle, contain such mysteries; if creation in all its various departments have its remote recesses, its arcana, its unfathomable depths; if man cannot fully know himself, and is unable to understand the secret springs of his own mind; what reason is there is to expect less mystery--nay what abundant reason is there not to look for secrets still more wonderful, and mysteries far more inscrutable, in the science of God the Author of creation, who breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, whom no man hath seen, or can see, who dwells in glory inaccessible, who is blessed for ever and ever? "Who by searching can find out God? Who can know the Almighty to perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deep as hell what canst thou know?" "Who can estimate the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, whose judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out?"

      To the suggestions of truth and reason, however, the pride of opinion is not accustomed to yield, and accordingly, there are some who, not content with applying this simplifying process in minor cases, presume to extend it to the Spirit of truth himself, and would not only make the things revealed more simple than the spirit of God has made them, but as we have seen, would fain resolve that spirit into his own words, and make the effect, the cause--uncaused.

      Thus the Christian religion, in the hands of simplifiers forbidding it to be taught, enjoyed or spoken, resembles a man tied neck and heels and gagged, but as though this were not sufficient, they would even take away from it its spirit, and reduce it to the condition of a dead body, soon to be resolved into obscure and worthless elements.

      In this way simplification destroys, as we have said, the identity, and frustrates the divine and gracious purposes, of the religion of Christ. Indeed, the beauty, the uses, and the characteristic properties of every thing is destroyed by too remote an analysis. The blooming rose with all its charms, may be changed into the same simple elements as the poisonous hemlock; and the brilliant diamond which glitters upon the tiara, may be converted into charcoal.

      Further, it becomes by this means as great all evil as its opposite, and actually, by the absurdities and difficulties in which it involves the Christian religion, renders it as obscure and as difficult to understand as mystification itself. Nor is this strange, for as we have shown, extremes often produce the same results. Would the bending lily which opens its silvery calix upon the margin [53] of the rivulet, be more difficult to recognize if dressed up in ribbands and daubed with paint, than when reduced to its ultimate elements in the crucible of the chymist? Would the water of the pure fountain which gushes from the mountain's side, if polluted with poisonous drugs, be less fitted to refresh the thirsty traveller than if it were wholly evaporated?

      It is evident then that to take any thing from the religion of Christ is as fatal an error as to add to it; and it is also evident, as indeed might naturally be expected, that those who are so fond of simplicity, show much simplicity themselves. They should remember, however, that it is WISDOM who enquires: How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity? and that it is WISDOM, also, who commands the simple to learn understanding and be wise.

      Let the testimony of the Lord then, be the unerring guide--"To the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to these, it is because there is no light in them."

[R.

[The Evangelist 3 (March 1834): 49-54.]

      Robert Richardson's "Simplification" was first published in The Evangelist, Vol. 3, No. 2, February 1834, and No. 3, March 1834. The electronic version of this two-part essay has been produced from the College Press reprint (1980) of The Evangelist, ed. Walter Scott (Cincinnati, OH: Walter Scott, 1834), pp. 34-36, 49-54. The text has been scanned by Colvil Smith and formatted by Ernie Stefanik.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. Inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been retained; however, corrections have been offered for misspellings and other accidental corruptions. Emendations are as follows:

 Page       Printed Text [ Electronic Text
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 p. 34:     momentheseems [ moment he seems
 p. 35:     Armenian, [ Arminian,
            Calvanism. [ Calvinism.
            Armenians [ Arminians
            Calvanists [ Calvinists
 p. 36:     strong is the Lord [ 'strong is the Lord
            spiritulizers [ spiritualizers
            [To be [ (To be
 p. 52:     "Word of God, [ "Word of God,"
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Created 6 September 2000.