An Extract from JOHN ANGELL JAMES
“I am aware it is sometimes said that the times are altered since the Apostles’ days, and that the state of the world is different from what it then was. But is not human nature in all its essential elements the same? Is it not the same in its moral aspect, impotency and necessities? Does it not as much need, and as much depend upon, the Gospel plan of salvation, as it did then? Is not the Gospel as exquisitely and fully adapted to its miserable condition as it was then? Can sin be pardoned in any other way than through the atonement of Christ, or the sinner be justified by any other means than faith in the Lord our Righteousness, or the depraved heart be renewed and sanctified by any other agency than that of the Holy Spirit? Are not all the motives of evangelical doctrine as adapted, as powerful, and as efficacious, now, as they were then? No alteration of subject can be called for now to meet the advancing state of society, since the Gospel is intended and adapted to be God’s instrument for the salvation of man, in all ages of the world, in all countries, and in all states of society.
“The moral epidemic of our nature is always and everywhere the same, in whatever degree of virulence it may exist, and the remedial system of salvation by grace, through faith, is God’s own and unalterable specific for the disease, in every age of time, in every country in the world, and in every state of society. Men may call in other physicians than Christ, and try other methods of cure, as they already have done, but they will all fail, and leave
the miserable patient hopeless and helpless, as regards every other means of health, beside that which the cross of Christ presents. We reject alike as delusive and fatal the ancient practice of conforming the evangelical plan of salvation to systems of philosophy, and the modern notion of progressive development of Christian doctrine by the professing Church. To the men who would revive the former we say, ‘Beware lest any man spoil you through a vain and deceitful philosophy, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ,’ and to the latter we say, ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever, so be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines: for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.’
“It appears to me that something like the same attempts are being made in this day to corrupt the Gospel by superstitious additions on the one hand, and by philosophic accommodations on the other, as were made in the early days of Christianity. It should never be forgotten that the time when the Apostles discharged their ministry was only just after the Augustan era of the ancient world. Poetry had recently bestowed some of its golden favours on the empire of letters in the works of Virgil and Horace. The light of philosophy, though waning, still shed its lustre on Greece. The arts, and their most splendid creations in architecture, sculpture, and painting, still lived, though they had ceased to advance. It was at such a time, and amidst such scenes, the Gospel of Jesus Christ began its course. Apostolic voices were listened to by sages and their pupils, who had basked in the sunshine of Athenian wisdom, and were reverberated in startling echo from temples and statues that had been shaken by the oratorical thunders of Cicero and Demosthenes; yet these holy men conceded nothing to the demands of philosophy, eloquent oratory, and the refinements of elocution, but held forth the cross as the only object they felt they had a right to exhibit. They never once entertained the degrading notion that they must accommodate themselves to the philosophy or the taste of the age in which they lived, and the places where they ministered. It is true that the philosophy of that day was a false one, but it was not known or acknowledged to be such at that time. It was admired as true, though like many systems that have succeeded it, it gave place to another, and was doomed, like some that now prevail, to wane before new and rising lights.
“Whether the apostle addressed himself to the philosophers on Mars Hill, or to the barbarians on the island of Melita (Malta); whether he reasoned with the Jews in their synagogues, or with the Greeks in the school of Tyrannus—he had but one theme, and that was Christ and Him crucified. And what right, or what reason, have we for deviating from this high and imperative
example? Be it so, that we are in a literary, philosophic, and scientific age, what then? Is it an age that has outlived the Gospel for its salvation; or to the salvation of which anything else can supply a means, but the Gospel?
“The supposition that something else than pure Biblical, apostolic, Christianity, as the theme of our pulpit ministrations, is requisite for such a period as this, or that this must be presented in an eloquent philosophic guise, appears to me a most perilous and preposterous statement, as being a disparagement to the Gospel itself, a daring assumption of wisdom superior to the Divine, and containing the very germ of infidelity. The Gospel sustains the nature of a testimony which must be exhibited in its own peculiar and simple form; a testimony to certain unique and momentous facts which must be presented as they really are, without any attempt or wish to change their nature or alter their character, and, like their Divine Author, the same yesterday, and today, and forever, immutable and infallible, and not therefore to be brought into a nearer conformity to the systems of men. Let the taste be cultivated as it may by literature, or the mind enlightened by science, or the reason be disciplined by philosophy, the heart is still deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, the conscience still burdened with guilt, and the whole soul in a state of alienation from God. The moral constitution is mortally diseased, and nothing but the Gospel can convey God’s saving health, which is as much required for the spiritual restoration of the polished son of science, as for the Hottentot of South Africa. All else is but pretence and empiricism, and the man who would be in earnest, and successful in the salvation of souls, must have a clear conviction and a deep Spirit-wrought impression of these facts. Philosophy must never be allowed to dilute the elixir of life, nor to evaporate it into the clouds of metaphysics.”