AS is generally well known, Dr Dick Wilson, Princeton Seminary, is one of the most learned, if not the most learned, of Semitic scholars. Even the ablest scholar in the ranks of the Higher Critics who claim to have a monopoly of scholarship must take off his doctor’s cap to the Princeton Professor. To enumerate the various languages that form part of Dr Wilson’s linguistic equipment would convey little meaning to those who may not have tackled even one of them, but it will interest our readers to know that Dr Dick Wilson is using the results of his forty years’ original research and study of the Old Testament text in defence of the Word of God. Last summer Dr Wilson paid a visit to Korea, China, and Japan, and delivered lectures at various conferences of missionaries and theological students. At Kuling (China) the Professor was politely told that it was not in accordance with the Kuling Convention custom for a speaker to deal with “controversial subjects.” This was too much for the learned doctor, and called forth a severe rebuke to his compromising monitors. In an interview, Prof. Wilson thus refers to the incident:—”To think that a defence of the Old Testament Scriptures should be regarded by any missionaries as a ‘controversial subject’! I was thoroughly aroused. I brought my fist down on the table, and I said to them—’I’ll not speak on such conditions. I came to China at the invitation of missionaries to lecture in defence of the Scriptures, and if I do not speak on that subject in your meeting, I’ll go out on the hillside and speak there, and let any come to hear me who want to do so.'” The Convention management, however, gave the Professor permission to deliver the lectures. That Dr Wilson did not spare the Higher Critics is evident from a letter written home by a missionary who was present at Kuling, who wrote as follows:—”The course of lectures Professor Robert Dick Wilson has just given at Kuling has stirred up more comment and made the ‘liberals’ among us rage more than perhaps those of any other speaker we have ever had here. They tried first to prevent his giving the lectures, but since that did not succeed, have opposed in other ways, and are now determined to prevent the coming of any such champion of the Word of God here in the future.” The lectures, like the Apostle’s letters, must have been powerful when it had such an effect on the ‘liberals.’ It is inexpressibly sad to think that men who have gone out professedly with the Word of God to the heathen should be unbelievers in it themselves. Like the false teachers in Apostolic times, these missionaries are causing great confusion in the minds of the native Christians, who appear to be more loyal to the Word of God than many of their teachers. It is extremely disheartening to the missionaries who are loyal to their Lord, faced as they are with the dead mass of heathenism around them, that they should thus have to combat the views of professed brethren and nominal followers of Jesus Christ. Dr Dick Wilson, on his return home, wrote a short account of his visit to “The Presbyterian,” which we herewith quote:—
“Having just returned from a tour of Japan, Korea, and China, where I have been lecturing for five months to the students of many of the colleges, seminaries, and conferences, I take pleasure in stating that most of our own missionaries whom I met are above suspicion, both as to their life, doctrine, and efficiency. It is my belief that the ordained missionaries of our Church are as true to the teachings of the Confession and as loyal to the Word of God as the ministers at home . . .
“Nevertheless, while believing that it is our duty to give adequate support to the missionaries already on the field who are loyal to the doctrine of the Church, I cannot refrain from stating my conviction that the Board, and especially some of our secretaries, have erred grievously in some of their policies with regard to the work entrusted to them by the Church. The first of their errors is the entangling alliances made with bodies of missionaries differing from us in doctrine and polity. There is no better reason that I have heard for such unions on the foreign field than there is at home. If a man believes the Bible to be the Word of God, how can he teach in harmony with a man who does not so believe? If some professors teach the Apostles’ Creed and the inspiration of the Scriptures, while others deny them, how can they teach in harmony, and what must be the effect on the students?
“These Chinese students (as well as the Japanese and Koreans) are just as keen at discerning inconsistencies and incongruities in their professors and teachers as our American students are; and what would the students of Princeton Seminary think if the faculty were teaching diverse views on nearly every great question of theology—What would they have a right to think? Why, that we were sure of nothing, or the biggest lot of cowards and hypocrites they ever laid eyes on. Union in medical or social work, or in religious work with men who agree with our views of the Bible may be justifiable; but when attempts are made to combine in religious work men of fundamentally different views, these attempts are bound to be disastrous to the more conservative side. Why, then, should our Board force, or even allow, our missionaries in China to unite in faculties, some of whose members are radically different from us in their beliefs and teachings? And yet this is what our Board has deliberately done, with the result that there are but a very few union institutions in China whose faculties would subscribe to the essential doctrines set forth in the deliverances of our General Assemblies of 1910, 1916, and 1923. It is my judgment that the Board of Foreign Missions would do much to relieve the suspicions of the Church at home and abroad if they would themselves take the initiative and resolve to withdraw as far as possible from the vain attempt to unite in harmonious missionary work those who do and those who do not believe in the essential doctrines of our Church.” From these words of Prof. Wilson it appears that union in the Mission Field has been purchased at a terrible price, if we are to judge by its fruits.
The essential doctrines to which Professor Wilson refers as the Presbyterian General Assembly deliverances of 1910, 1916, and 1923, are as follows:
1. It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God and our standards that the Holy Spirit did so inspire, guide, and move the writers of Holy Scripture as to keep them from error.
2. It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God and our standards that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.
3. It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God and our standards that Christ offered up Himself as a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and to reconcile us to God.
4. It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God and of our standards concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, that on the third day He arose again from the dead with the same body with which He suffered, and with which also He ascended into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of His Father, making intercession.
5. It is an essential doctrine of the Word of God as the supreme standard of our faith that our Lord Jesus showed His power and love by working mighty miracles. This working was not contrary to nature, but superior to it.
MERCY IN GOD’S FROWN.
“Oh what mercy in that frown, however awful and terrible, by which the Lord vindicates His majesty, holiness, justice; filling the soul with approving dread, and laying it low at His feet. And then when He is heard saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him,’ and when our eye meets the Father’s eye fixed on His Son, O how the divine majesty, holiness, and justice become the full brightness of Jehovah the Father’s smile! and it reaches us both by reflection and direct transmission.”—Dr Duncan.