(X.)
MONTROSE, 19th November, 1879.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—Do you understand the state of things in our poor church? I do not. What I am afraid for is the doctrine of the Trinity. Of course shallow folks (and they are too numerous) would laugh at my saying so. But although I cannot enter on it here, yet let me tell you that a church’s hold on the doctrine of the Trinity is affected by her hold of the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. There is an inevitable certainty that when the infallibility of inspiration is questioned, in that measure Sabellianism gets a footing. For it is in virtue of a truly inspired Word—His own Word—that the Holy Spirit acts as a person. It is degradation to the Third Person of the Godhead to suppose that He would speak by the word or words of any person less than Himself. He does not speak at all as a person by any word less than His own Word, or the Word of the Son, or the Word of the Father, all which are one. To suppose the Spirit coming by a new and fresh revelation is of course Quakerism, but in His coming by a previously written inspired Word, He acts as a person. As a person He speaks, enlightens, convinces, persuades, and renews. Deprive Him of His own Word, of Christ’s and the Father’s Word, then the Spirit is made to be only a force, overcoming just as force overcomes, as a hatchet knocks down a bullock. Deal falsely with personality here, then the Holy Spirit does not combine with the Second Person, but falls back upon an impersonal Deity—a Thing. You have merely what is implied in “God is a Spirit,” but Word is gone, Father is gone, Sonship is gone, Messiahship is gone, Mediatorial position is gone, infernal robbery has been committed, and the mists of darkness have settled down upon the church! Yea, we are not a church at all, for we are robbed of a divine revelation, of a divine record. The privileges and position of a church are given “chiefly because unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Alas! that so many who ought to be teachers deal as falsely and irreverently with the oracles of God as a cat playing with her kitten, or a kitten with a cork.
I am sorely afraid that there is to be a great decline in our church, a great lack of holy courage in contending for the infallible truth of the entire Scriptures, and truly men that can tolerate the substitution of the natural for the supernatural, of human reason for divine revelation, are not only no longer worth their sustentation, but are no longer “worth their salt.” May God raise up men taught from above, and valiant for every jot and tittle of divine truth, for it shall stand should heaven and earth pass away. And if you meet any after I am gone who do courageously stand for all revealed truth, give them my compliments, and tell them to be strong and of a good courage, for now, even at this present time, their heads shall be lifted up above their foes. Let them yield not to the current sentimental Christianity that would convert men’s faith in a living, glorious, inexhaustible, infallible Word into empty-headed, empty-hearted speculations no better than chinese puzzles or acted charades. God will avenge such trifling. “The Scripture cannot be broken,” is the testimony of Him who is Himself the eternal Word. And will He suffer it to go unpunished if the divine truth which He has in infinite condescension been pleased to make known to men by means of an infallibly inspired record—will He suffer it to go unpunished if that truth be broken up into bits and shreds, into fragments and fancies? And if the “Lord will not hold them guiltless who takes his name in vain,” “He will not, assuredly, hold that church guiltless, which tolerates any profaning or abusing of that Word by which he hath made himself known.” We pity poor silly papists who ascribe infallibility to mortal men, but what are we to think of proud, self-blinded Protestants who deny infallibility to the written Words of the God of truth?—Yours, &c.,
HUGH MARTIN.
P.S.—I cannot get myself satisfied speaking of the blessed combination of Word and Spirit. What is it but the very manifested light of Jehovah. God dwelleth in light that is inaccessible and full of glory, and which no man can see or approach unto; with Thee, O God, is the fountain of light. Nevertheless, the church says, “In thy light shall we see light.” In Thy light which would otherwise be inaccessible, we, through the illumination of Thy Word and Spirit—Thy light—”shall see light.” Thus, whoso of the children of men hath in any measure come into this light, becomes one of God’s “hidden ones,” hidden in this world, not from defect of that light into which they have been brought but hidden because of the excess of its purity, its brightness, and its glory. H. M.