James Skinner

“ If it be enough for Christ that you know Him, though you confess Him not before men, it will also be enough for you that He knows you, though, at the last, He confess you not before men. It is not enough to say, “I hold the Truth in my heart, but I am silent before the world.” ”

“ The Government believed and declared that it was fair, and right, and just, and necessary “for legislative purposes,” that the people of England should confess the religious profession which they make—each man his own. The Government still believes in the fairness, and justice, and necessity of such a declaration. But, because some persons object to it, on the ground that no man ought to be asked what his religion is, or whether he has any religion at all, and because those persons have political influence, the Government has yielded its convictions to those persons. ”

“ Ephraim is the witness of God—testifying God’s Truth,—bearing God’s commission—appointed in the world to win and attract the people,—to draw them upward, far above worldly measures of things to the divine measure of things—to the things which shall be in the eternal Future, and to the fixed and unchangeable will of God, on which that eternal Future stands. ”

“ Now it will be seen who is possessed by that enervated and timid spirit which inspires so many faltering hearts, and directs so many enfeebled wills, in this day of conflict for the Church of God.
And, above all, your love is being sifted. Is your hold upon the Church and her teaching “rooted and grounded in love?” God is trying your love—your love to Himself, to Christ, to the Truth. The head is not a casket in which Truth can safely lie enshrined. ”

“ They know not to-day what they may believe to-morrow. Meantime they will hold on to the Church as to a secular institution, and do what they can to secularize it. It will become more useful and less mischievous in their opinion, just as men cease to regard it as a “witness” for the glory of God, and a training school for the salvation of souls.
The other side of the same opposition has more appearance of religious feeling about it. Men object to define their faith, because really and conscientiously they have no faith which they can define. ”

“ This facing of the Truth against numbers is a necessity. And if you seek to shun it, you are sure nevertheless to encounter it; and with all the more roughness, for your efforts to escape it. If you side with the multitude, you will probably be magnified by those who are in the wrong. But you will hardly escape being censured by those who are in the right. And their commendation, if it makes less noise, has more value.
You must not be dismayed, therefore, because the world is against you. You must not begin a course of action because it is popular ”

“ If on the side of injustice, and unfairness, and the entanglement and perversion of legislation, there should be political influence, that will be the side of the Government. Evil consequences in the future are nothing. Present place and present power are everything.
I think this ought to be a lesson to Churchmen not to put faith in Governments. The Church can never lose by any measures which are just, and fair, and straightforward, and open. And, therefore, the Church had nothing to lose from the “religious profession” clause of the Census Bill. ”

“ Whereas, by God’s institution, they were a peculiar people,—witnesses for God, and separate from the world, “they have mixed themselves among the people,”—that is, among the idolaters of the land,—they are “as a cake not turned,” as a cake baked only on one side; serving God by halves, halting between two masters; worshipping God a little, and worshipping idols a little, and worshipping nothing much. ”

“ Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father Which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father Which is in Heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me ”

“ But “Ephraim hath mixed himself” with the people,—he has “learned their inventions,”—he has adapted his witness to their demands,—he has lowered his standard of God’s appointment to the people’s standard of human construction. So that God’s teaching and man’s teaching have become confused and indifferently accepted, and they who have fallen into grave errors of faith are in no sense differently esteemed from those p. 7who have maintained the truth as revealed by God, and as witnessed by the Church in every land, in every age, by every tongue. ”

“ Therefore Religion is not for show, but for reality. God is for Truth, and not for numbers. And they who are truly wise must be content, as the Apostles of old were content, to have p. 16numbers against them, if so it be, and to pass in turn through good and evil report, in the honest and simple defence of what is true. ”

“ My own conviction is that, under the distracting circumstances of religion in this country, it would be better and p. 9wiser for the state to abstain. And yet in common sense the state may as well demand information as to my religious profession, as in respect of my age or worldly calling. But the question having been raised, what is this evidence which it has brought to light, and which I say is so grave in its results? There is a vehement, almost a passionate resistance of the proposition, that men should give an account of their faith. ”

“ All God’s Word testifies that, compared with the many who forsake the truth, or who never p. 15accept it, or who deny it and lose its fruits, those who receive it, and live by it, and enter into its reward, are few. Of all the world at the time of the Flood only eight persons were worthy to be rescued. ”

“ But the “fearful” or cowardly, (the δειλοὶ,) and the unfaithful or “unbelieving” (the ἄπιστοι,) the deserters who fall off from want of faith and patience, what of them? “they shall have their part with murderers, and whore-mongers, p. 20and idolaters, and liars, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” [20a]
And what says the Apostle? When love is perfect [20b] then we have “boldness in the crisis,” or judgment, or trial, of faith; and “love casts out fear.” And fear is the parent of all unlawful concessions. ”

“ I do not believe that this question excites churchmen, or that they care, except as a matter of political justice, what becomes of it. For themselves they know what they are, and where they stand, and in Whom they trust. And they are “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them.” ”

“ The Prophet is reproving the sins of the princes, and the great men of Israel. “All their kings are fallen.” The flame of civil discord has spread, and dried p. 5up the sources of legitimate authority among them. ”