on to-day as
this supposed authority of the letter of scripture. If only the
average Protestant could emancipate himself from this intellectual
bondage, the gain to truth would be immeasurable. I do not suppose
there is a single man who reads these words who would make light of the
religious opinions of a pious mother, but would he allow them to fetter
him in the exercise of his own mature judgment? But surely your own
mother stands as near to you as men who wrote centuries before she was
born. If God spoke to the hearts of men centuries ago, He can and does
speak to them now. If He spoke to Isaiah, He can and does speak to
you. If your mother's way of stating truth is not necessarily yours,
no more is Paul's. The deeper unity of the spirit forbids this blind
obedience to the letter. Therefore, knowing quite well what use
hostile reviewers will make of this sentence, I close by solemnly
adding: Never mind what the Bible says if you are in search for truth,
but trust the voice of God within you. The Bible will help you in your
quest, just as any good man might be able to help you; but you must
judge, test, and weigh the various statements it contains, just as you
would judge, test, and weigh the opinions of the best friend you ever
had. Nothing can make up for this quiet and assured confidence in the
Spirit of Truth within your own soul. If God is not there, you will
not find Him in the Bible or anywhere else.

CHAPTER XII

SALVATION, JUDGMENT, AND THE LIFE TO COME

+The inwardness of Salvation and Judgment.+--We come now to the
consideration of a group of subjects which are usually treated in quite
separate categories. I mean the punishment of sin, the nature and
scope of Salvation, Resurrection and Ascension, Death, Judgment, Heaven
and Hell. The reason why I feel that these subjects ought not to be
treated in separate categories is because they are all descriptions of
states of the soul and imply each other; they are inward, not outward,
experiences. This statement will, I trust, become clearer as we
proceed.

So far we have examined pretty thoroughly the nature of sin and its
effects in the world, but have said very little as to its penal
consequences, and yet the consideration of these consequences has been
the determining factor in most of the theories of Atonement, ancient or
modern, which have occupied the field of human thought. It is true, as
I have said, that the idea of Atonement is