To the Editor of the "NonrH-Cuina Datty News. letter, and I hope it may be my last, but the reply of Sophia seems to call for something more from me.
The Union of Modern Churchmen has declared as one of its principles, its purpose "to emphasize afresh the nature of the Christian life as personal fellowship with God, and to study with sympathy those movements and tendencies of thought [which are mystical in character, It is not surprising then that a mystic finds himself in sympathy with some phases of modernist thought.
T find a mystic defined as "one who professes to have direct intercourse with the Spirit of God who reveals mysteries to him." He in fact a man who trusts to direct knowledge of truths, without the aid of external authority.
Sophia evidently answers to this description. His view of Scripture fs that it is "but a series of guideposts," and that whatever directive value these have i Divine Spirit of must have written referred to the spirit in the men who wrote the books of the Bible.) His own opinion of their value ix tha "the general direction in which these guide-posts point is correct, and that by following them the way may be taken in confidence and hope?
But it ix not the occurrence of directions in Scripture which makes them sure, the fact that Jesus Christ said cert cording to the mystics, autho tive ennfirmatjon comes only from the man,' "the authority planted (in man) from the! creation, a ray from the sunshine of God's wisdom. lines of approach, that in these cases we knew all we could explain all.
Tam sure that many modernists and most Christian "mystics are /more guided and enlightened by the Bible than they are willing to admit, and I know well that the Gospel message is not "Believe all the Bible and you will be saved," but am equally sure from the Bible itself that it has been given to us by. God as the one final authority and guide both for faith and practice, Many of us who have this convietion cannet but in these days band ourselves together to bear witness to it, For i the conviction is true to fs it is vital to the life of the 8 Church, and to the inter jority of its witness in the world, that this ruling fact should not be forgotten, or without contradiction That our conviction is true to fact the whole Bible itself declares. I will give one instance only from either Testament, We read in the Old Testament that our first parents were given at the beginning a positive prohibit and warning. When Eve was invited to neglect it, instead of guiding herself by the external authority, she looked within, and the inward light even of innocent humanity, neglecting the outward autho. rity; led her fatally astray.
We read in the New Testament that the Lord of Heaven Himself came to be Man, and to Surely if anyone could look with for guidance, and neglect the written Word, it-was He. But when He was solicited by the same tempter He made it quite clear that, as Him, what was written in His. Father's book was to be final as the. law of His thought and action. Fol-owing that book implicitly and continuously He walked safely where Eve fell, The significance of these two his tories can scarcely be exaggerated.
simple lines have hung for narly "years in my study. May T transcribe them here and' so laz my letter?
I wish T could think that Sophia here intending to express what Tertullian meant when he said that Christianity is natural to man; oF what the Lord and His apostles meant when they spoke of a new birth for man to be obtained from above, by which he becomes receptive of the truth from above; or of jan enlightening by the Spirit' which reveals the things of God, which heart of man in itself could con of that unction from above: direct knowledge to the! believer and makes him so far in dependent of human teachers. But m afraid it ix not s0, and there'
My Saviour, through thix world's dark need lear and shining. tight To bring my distant Home in sight, And end "me there.
Anil never wander, Lord, trem "The, That 1 from every snare may fee.
Thy Word untormy feet shall be, Light. cheering beams around ce est, rhe ened onager past Treneh my Foahers Home of And rest with Thee.
Tam, ete,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.