Theory is ever tested by practice. If it does not stand this test, however attractively it may be presented, it is to be rejected. How does it work? This is the ultimate test.
So tested, higher criticism and modernism stand discredited as miserable failures. When sitting in one’s study, in comfort and pleasant surroundings, theories may attract the unregenerate mind or allure the unestablished believer. But what comfort do they bring in trial, in poverty, in bereavement, in sorrow? What consolation do they give on a deathbed? These are the tests. Above all, how do they affect eternal issues?
Modernism is the thin end of the wedge, of which the thick end is open, rank infidelity. Many a nominal believer has begun with higher criticism, and ended in infidelity. Lawlessness and godlessness lend themselves to national suicide and individual disaster.
Modernism, old as the vagaries of man’s mind, cannot be classed as Christian in the remotest sense of the word. It has a genius for pulling down, but not for building up. It loosens every corner stone of morality and truth and involves in a cataclysm of ruin those who seek shelter where there is none.
The following well illustrates my meaning. It is related by the late Dr. J.H.Jowett, as told him by his friend, the late Charles H. Berry, D.D., and abridged from The Homiletic Review.
Dr. Berry received at a very early age the highest honours that the denomination to which he belonged was able to confer. His fame as a preacher was as wide as the English-speaking world. He was a modern theologian when the following incident took place.
“One night there came to me,” he says, “a Lancashire girl, with her shawl over her head, and with clogs on her feet.”
“‘Are you the minister?’ she said.
“‘Yes.’
“‘Then I want you to come and get my mother in’
“Thinking it was some drunken brawl, I said, ‘You must get a policeman.’
“‘Oh, no,’ said the girl, ‘my mother is dying, and I want you to get her into salvation.’
“‘Where do you live?’
“‘I live so and so, a mile and a half from here.’
“‘Is there no minister nearer than I?’
“‘Oh, yes, but I want you, and you will have to come.’
“I was in my slippers, and I did all I could to get out of it, but it was of no use. That girl was determined, and I had to dress and go. I found the house, and upstairs I found the poor woman dying. I sat down and talked about Jesus as the beautiful Example, and extolled Him as a Leader and Teacher. She looked at me out of her eyes of death, and said:
“‘Mister, that’s no good for the likes of me. I don’t want an example. I’m a sinner.’
“Jowett, there I was face to face with a poor soul dying, and had nothing to tell her. I had no Gospel; but I thought of what my mother had taught me, and I told her the old story of God’s love in Christ’s dying for sinful men, whether I believed it or not.
“‘Now you are getting at it’ said the woman. ‘That’s the story for me.’
“And so I got her in, and I got myself in. From that night,” added Dr. Berry, “I have always had a full gospel of salvation for lost sinners.
What a testimony to the old-fashioned gospel preached by Paul, Wycliffe, Luther, Wesley, Whitefield, Spurgeon and multitudes of sainted men of God—the old, old story for which Huss, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer and thousands besides have died, rather than surrender its blessing.
Higher criticism and modernism are emphatically not for the slums, for the sick, for the poor, for the dying. The old, old story is for all, from the sovereign on the throne, to the denizens of the slums and the solitary inmate of the condemned cell.
It is still doing its happy work, spite of the flood of evil cast out by the dragon’s mouth. It is still winning its peaceful conquests. Nothing can stop it.
How striking is Dr. Berry’s testimony. Not only was the poor dying sinner saved, but finding the powerlessness of his message to others when tested, he wisely came to the conclusion to receive God’s message of power for himself. Preacher and listener saved by the same address! How delightful.
No wonder that Paul exclaimed: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes” (Rom. 1:16). It had saved him. It could save others.
For three short years Dr. Berry preached, as he styled it himself, “a full gospel of salvation for lost sinners.” God used his message mightily, and then he was called home. One Sunday night as he was about to begin his sermon he was called from serving to resting. He was ready! I trust none of my readers are deceived by a theory no more able to comfort than prismatic colours lighting up an icicle are able to warm the starving traveller in the Arctic regions.
Why not put the Gospel to the test? I remember hearing of a sceptical Russian nobleman, Count Bobrinski, who decided to do so. He prayed earnestly, “O God, if there is a God, reveal Thyself.” His prayer was answered. He was converted, and for many a long year he was an earnest and successful preacher of the gospel, whose power he had experienced.