My Dear Sir-I see you are setting yourself with devout zeal and Christian energy to uphold the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and in this I am wholly with you, and send you a volume which will show how fully I can sympathize with you in the present stand you are making to maintain the inspiration and authority of the Bible. But at the same time I fear, judging by what is patent to all, that the plague of rationalism has so pervaded the more prominent of your younger ministers, and has so many promoters in your colleges, that it is hopeless to think to arrest its ravages, or to stamp it out. What hope can there be when (as the division in Professor Smith's case showed) about one half of your theological professors are either sympathizers with it or screeners of him who holds it?
In our student days there was not a breath of religious skepticism. We were stirred in our souls by the thrilling evangelism of the truth-loving and eloquent Chalmers; we listened with eager ears and attentive minds to the profound and ponderous utterances of the great truths of God's word and the crushing of the arguments of errorists by Dr. Cunningham, and felt sure that no heretical thing could live beneath the sledge-hammer reasoning and stern logic of that great and good man; and if our other professors were not of equal weight, they were all sound in the faith, able men in their several departments, and worthy of all respect as those who were evangelical to the core, and who received the Holy Scriptures as the inspired revelation of God.
But what a change has these past thirty years wrought! With some there has been much attention given to the earnest preaching of the gospel, and there has been much mission work done and revival sought; but the steady tendency in theology has been to unsoundness, and in regard to the word to discredit its plenary inspiration, so that in Scotland there is cause to fear for a reign of rationalism, as in the end of last century. The writings of the Broad Church school of England, and the continuous translation and circulation of unsound foreign theological literature, will, ere long, have completely wrecked the orthodoxy of the Scottish churches. And within the last thirty years the Congregationalists of England, as a body, have wellnigh made shipwreck of the faith. They have now discarded " the atonement," "eternal judgment," and other truths. The Baptists, but for Spurgeon, had also gone down. But that they are not a little tainted with infidel views such writings as those of some of their chief men painfully show. There is a terrible declension in general orthodoxy in all denominations, and (what is nearly as painful) a levity and latitudinarianism in those who have the reputation of being sound. The authority of Christ and His word are ignored. The Pan-Presbyterian Council is the most outstanding witness of this lukewarmness as to Christ, when rationalists, sacramentarians, and evangelicals were congregated in one assembly at Edinburgh, in July 1877, to express the substantial unity of Presbyterianism throughout the world! Under the system of some of its leading members, Christianity entirely disappears, and these are specimens of the men united to display the cosmopolite " comprehensive " unity of Presbyterianism! Some of those men that could be named, do not believe in the real inspiration of the Bible, nor have they Scriptural views of the person and work of Christ. The atonement is not held by them; nor is it, perhaps, in the old way, if you inquire, by some of your professors. The young men of mark are tinged with the " progress " views, which are anti-Christian, and will eventually prove infidel. All these things are sorrowful and depressing; for there is, indeed, serious declension from fundamental truth in unlooked-for quarters.
But the remedy must be sought for elsewhere than in the action of church courts. We must hold simply by God's word and Spirit, be entirely on divine ground, and be so fully possessed of God's system that we can dispense with all human systems before we can be in an impregnable position ourselves, or be able effectually to act for Christ, so as to be a credit to our association with Him, or be of real use to our fellow-believers in a crisis like the present. Your deliverance, my brother, will not consist in getting Dr. Dods put out, but in getting yourself out; for though you were rid of him, and a score of others, the system you are in being only human, and having no warrant in the word of God, would just produce a fresh crop of free-thinkers, to be dealt with at some future day.
There are many Christian ministers and Christian people among you, but the system is not of God, and has no claim on any saint of God, and not being based on God's word, or guided by God's Spirit, neither your church, nor any other church, can be entrusted with the testimony of our Lord. For this we must be on the divine ground of God for His church on earth-on a Scriptural basis, such that it commands the consciences of all saints-a basis inclusive of all saints, and exclusive of all evil in doctrine and practice, before we can be of real service in a crisis like this through which we are now passing, and also meet the approval of our exalted Lord and Master. I have it in my heart to help in this solemn crisis by directing you to God's Christ and His word, but this must show that the system you have adopted is not Christianity, that your church is not owned by Christ as His, and that your Church's system of doctrine, discipline, and polity, as well as ministry, is outside the Holy Scriptures, and that you must abandon all and receive the things of Christ as the Holy Ghost has given them in the Holy Scriptures.. It is all right in you to maintain the inspiration of the Scriptures; but the Bible is our master, not our servant, and we are surely bound to be ruled by it as by the very voice of the Spirit of God speaking to us with divine authority; and if we are so, we will, of necessity, have to stand on the Scripture ground of there being only one church and no denominations, for " There is one body and one Spirit," and that is the divine unity we are to keep (Eph. 4), and, in doing so, we will, necessarily, find ourselves outside of all existing churches, Presbyterian and other. The cost of obedience is, no doubt, considerable, as was that of Saul of Tarsus "to the heavenly vision," but that is nothing compared with the happy communion resulting from knowing that your obedience to Christ is well= pleasing to Him, and puts you in the divine current of the action of the Holy Ghost for His glory at this time. There is a testimony being raised up all over the world in this outside place, in great apparent weakness when it is confronted with man's great human, institutions, but the strength of the Holy Ghost is in it, as it was in the Pentecostal church, in so far as there is full dependence on Christ and no confidence in the flesh. There is an ecclesiastical confederacy of the present day in which the Holy Ghost's unity and Christ's person and word are ignored, that they may all be happy with each other; and there is this movement of the Holy Ghost to maintain the truth of Christ's person and work, the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the work of the Holy Ghost in gathering saints to Christ on the divine ground of the church of God, and causing them to move outwards from all man's denominations, to center round Christ alone, the Holy and the True. All these " churches " must grow worse and worse, and land at last in such indifference to Christ that He will spue them out of His mouth'; and, notwithstanding the " woman " may be seen riding in state on the back of the beast, she will end her career in the " fire " of divine judgment (Rev. 17;18), this testimony upheld by the Holy Ghost will grow brighter and brighter as the infidelity of " the churches " becomes more pronounced; and those who have a place in it, by the grace of God, will have, at least, this said of them-" I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name" (Rev. 3:88I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. (Revelation 3:8)). It is very important to maintain the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, but, in order to be consistent, have weight with others, and enjoy God's blessing, we must be prepared to obey them (1 Sam. 15:2222And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)).