First, comes the destruction of false ideas--a bracing time for the
born fighter; second, comes the tentative search for new ideas--an
anxious time for the responsible philosopher; third, comes the preaching
of these new ideas with passion--the opportunity of the enthusiast.
Happy were the divines of the seventeenth century!
We, however, are in the second stage.
This is not a period for new ideas: it is a period of searching for the
best idea. He who rushes forward with an untried new idea may be more
dangerous than he who still clings, in the Name of Christ, to an old
idea which is false. We must be quite certain of our ground before we
advance with boldness, and our boldness must be spiritual, not muscular.
Modernism has fought and won the battle of verbal inspiration. No man
whose opinion counts in the least degree now holds that the Bible was
verbally inspired by God. It is respected, honoured, loved; but it is no
longer a fetish. In ceasing to be a superstition, and in coming to be a
number of genuine books full of light for the student of history, the
Bible is exercising at the present time an extraordinary influence in
the world, a greater influence perhaps on thoughtful minds than it ever
before exercised.
The battle which modernism is now fighting over this collection of books
concerns the Person of Jesus and the relative value of the gospels which
narrate His life, and in the case of the Fourth, endeavour to expound
His teaching.
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