es, then, in his
Divine Name, let us not be alarmed when, here and there, after
infinite weariness and labor, a little ray penetrates the darkness of
the ages and promises to give us a noonday view of the origin and
influence of God's Word.

It should also be considered that the newer heresies are not primarily
defections from Christian doctrine, only from the creeds which assume
authoritatively to define such doctrine. Public teachers are being
arraigned for their departure from certain standards, such as the
Thirty-Nine Articles, the Westminster Confession, and the lugubrious
compilation known as the New Hampshire Confession of Faith. These
documents, with whatever excellency they may be accredited, were
prepared by fallible men--some of them, indeed, exceedingly
fallible--who were hardly qualified in their day to define the faith
of Christ for the guidance of future ages, and were adopted in most
cases by meagre majorities. Why we should suppose their statements are
to be regarded as infallible, and why thinkers of our times should be
strictly held to their formulas, is something that no one yet has had
courage or intelligence sufficient to explain. What right has any body
of men to insist on conformity to a creed prepared by beings like
themselves, even though it has been venerated for a century or two?
Who is Melancthon, and who is Luther, and who are the Westminster
divines but "men by whom we have believed"? But are we bound to their
word, or are we strictly held to the Word of our common Lord and
Divine Teacher? Is Chillingworth's cry, "the Bible, the whole Bible,
and nothing but the Bible the religion of Protestants," a mere
illusion? It certainly is, and the sacred idea concerning the right of
private judgment, if the withered hand of men long dead is to hold the
brain of the present in the grasp of death; if we respect ourselves
and our avowed belief in the adequacy of Scripture as a rule of faith,
then we had better make one huge bonfire of all the antiquated creeds,
than denounce the so-called heretics who are, in reality, trying to
bring us back to the position of the primitive saints who allowed no
human word to obscure or darken the divine Word given by revelation.

I think that every candid soul will admit, in addition to what I have
stated, that the newer heresies are not revolts from the scriptural
high ideal of Christian life, only a noble protest against narrow
interpretations of that life. The me