John Tulloch

“ Scientific presumption may suggest the delusiveness of this sphere, just as in former times religious presumption sought to restrain the inquiries of science. It may, when it becomes ribald with a fanaticism far worse than any fanaticism of religion, assail and ridicule the hopes which, amidst much weakness, have made men noble for more than eighteen Christian centuries. But science has no voice beyond its own province. The weakest and the simplest soul, strong in the consciousness of the divine within and above it, may withstand its most powerful assaults. ”

“ So much as this, we say, may be realised—this consciousness of sin on the one hand, and of a living Righteousness and Love far more powerful than our sins, and able to save us from them. These roots of religion are deeply planted in human nature. They answer to its highest experiences. The purest and noblest natures in whom all the impulses of a comprehensive humanity have been strongest, have felt and owned them. ”

“ Look at these men and many others equally significant on the spiritual side as they look to God, or as they work for men, how much do they resemble one another! The same divine life stirs in them all. Who will undertake to settle which is the truer Christian? But look at them on the intellectual side and they are hopelessly disunited. They lead rival forces in the march of Christian thought—forces which may yet find a point of conciliation, and which may not be so widely opposed as they seem, but whose present attitude is one of obvious hostility. ”

“ Because I cannot be sure whether the Pentateuch was written, as long supposed, by Moses—or whether the fourth Gospel comes as it stands from the beloved apostle—am I less in need of the divine teaching which both these Scriptures contain? Surely not. That I am a spiritual being, and have spiritual needs craving to be satisfied, and that God is a spiritual power above me, of whom Christ is the revelation, are facts which I may know or may not know, quite irrespective of such matters. The one class of facts are intellectual and literary. The other are spiritual if they exist at all. ”

“ RELIGION AND THEOLOGY. 2 Cor. xi. 3.—"The simplicity that is in Christ."
There is much talk in the present time of the difficulties of religion. And no doubt there is a sense in which religion is always difficult. It is hard to be truly religious—to be humble, good, pure, and just; to be full of faith, hope, and charity, so that our conduct may be seen to be like that of Christ, and our light to shine before men. But when men speak so much nowadays of the difficulties of religion, they chiefly mean intellectual and not practical difficulties. ”

“ Mere authority, if we could find any such authority, would be of no avail to settle any of them. Modern theology must work them out by the fair weapons of knowledge and research, with no eye but an eye to the truth. Within this sphere there is no light but the dry light of knowledge. ”

“ Men may meet in common worship and in common work, and find themselves at one. The same faith may breathe in their prayers, and the same love fire their hearts. But men who think can never be at one in their thoughts on the great subjects of the Christian revelation. They may own the same Lord, and recognise and reverence the same types of Christian [20] character, but they will differ so soon as they begin to define their notions of the Divine, and draw conclusions from the researches either of ancient or of modern theology. ”

“ Not to be rational in religion as in everything else is simply to be foolish, and to throw yourself into the arms of the first authority that is able to hold you. In this as in other respects you must "work out your own salvation with fear and [22] trembling," remembering that it is "God which worketh in you." You must examine your own hearts; you must try yourselves whether there be in you the roots of the divine life. If you do not find sin in your hearts and Christ also there as the Saviour from sin, then you will find Him nowhere. ”

“ The presumption of all supernatural religion is that there is a spiritual or supernatural sphere, as real and true as the natural sphere in which we continually live and move; and the facts which belong to this sphere must be tested within it. Morality and moral conditions may be so far verified from without. If we do wrong we shall finally find ourselves in the wrong; and that there is a "Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness" and which will not allow us to rest in wrong. This constantly verified experience of a kingdom of righteousness is a valuable basis of morality. ”

“ A man is not good or bad, spiritual or unspiritual, according to the view he takes of them. Men may differ widely regarding them, and not only be equally honest, but equally sharers of the mind of Christ. And this is peculiarly the case with many questions of the present day, such as the antiquity of man, the age and genesis of the earth, the origin and authority of the several books of Scripture. Not one of these questions, first of all, can be answered without an amount of special knowledge which few possess ”

“ It is the function of theology, as of other sciences, to ask questions, whether it can answer them or not. The task of the theologian is a most important one—whether or not it be, as has been lately said, [4] "the noblest of all the tasks which it is given to the human mind to pursue." ”

“ II. But religion differs from theology, not only in the comparatively simple and universal order of the facts with which it deals, but also because the facts are so much more verifiable in the one case than in the other. They can so much more easily be found out to be true or not. It has been sought of late, in a well-known quarter, to bring all religion to this test—and the test is not an unfair one if legitimately applied. But it is not legitimate to test spiritual facts simply as we test natural facts ”

“ But the knowledge that is essential to religion is a simple knowledge like that which the loved has of the person who loves—the bride of the bridegroom, the child of the parent. It springs from the personal and spiritual, and not from the cognitive or critical side of our being ”

“ But are our spiritual wants to wait the solution of such questions? Am I less a sinner, or less weary with the burden of my own weakness and folly? Is Christ less a Saviour? Is there less strength and peace in Him whatever be the answer given to such questions? ”

“ He knew, moreover, what was in God towards man as a living power of love, who had sent Him forth "to seek and save the lost;" and beyond these great facts, of a fallen life to be restored, and of a higher life of divine love and sacrifice, willing and able to restore and purify this fallen life, our Lord seldom traversed. Unceasingly He proclaimed the reality of a spiritual life in man, however obscured by sin, and the reality of a divine life above him, which had never forsaken him nor left him to perish in his sin. ”

“ Religion is identified with the tenets of a Church system, or of a theological system; and it is felt that modern criticism has assailed these tenets in many vulnerable points, and made it no longer easy for the open and well-informed mind to believe things that were formerly held, or professed to be held, without hesitation. Discussions and doubts which were once confined to a limited circle when they were heard of at all, have penetrated the modern mind through many avenues, and affected the whole tone of social intelligence. ”

“ What the special corruptions from Christian simplicity were with which the minds of St Paul's Corinthian converts were assailed, it is not necessary for us now to inquire. Their special dangers are not likely to be ours. What concerns us is the fact, that both St Paul and Christ—his Master and ours—thought of religion as something simple. ”

“ The difficulties of modern theology, the theories of modern science (when they are really scientific and do not go beyond ascertained facts and their laws) , have little or nothing to do with religion. Let the age of the earth be what it may (we shall be very grateful to the British Association, or any other association, when it has settled for us how old the earth is, and how long man has been upon the face of it) ; let man spring in his physical system from some lower phase of life ”

“ It must rest, not merely on certain facts of divine order, but on such personal relations as are ever uppermost in [14] the mind of St Paul, and are so clearly before him in this very passage. Moreover, the higher experience which reveals to us a Power of righteousness in the world, no less reveals to us the living personal character of this Power. Shut out conscience as a true source of knowledge, and the very idea of righteousness will disappear with it—there will be nothing to fall back upon but the combinations of intelligence, and such religion as may be got therefrom ”

“ Christians differ like others in intellect, disposition, and temperament. They differ also so far, but never in the same degree, in spiritual condition and character. To be a Christian is in all cases to be saved from guilt, to be sustained by faith, to be cleansed by divine inspiration, to depart from iniquity. ”

“ The [8] soul and God are, if you will, dogmas to science. They cannot well be anything else to a vision which is outside of them, and cannot from their very nature ever reach them. But within the religious sphere they are primary experiences, original and simple data from which all others come. And our present argument is, that Christ dealt almost exclusively with these broad and simple elements of religion, and that He believed the life of religion to rest within them. He spoke to men and women as having souls to be saved ”

“ All this sameness in diversity disappears when we turn to theology. The differences in this case are radical. They are not diversities of gifts with the same spirit, but fundamental antagonisms of thought. As some men are said to be born Platonists, and some Aristotelians, so some are born Augustinians, and some Pelagians or Arminians. ”

“ Under the most various influences, and the most diverse types of doctrine, the same fruits of the Spirit constantly appear—"Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." ”

“ The true analogy of religion, in short, is that of simple affection and trust. Subtilty may, in itself, be good or evil. It may be applied for a religious no less than for an irreligious purpose, as implied in the text. ”

“ Look over a vast audience; travel to distant lands; communicate with your fellow-creatures anywhere,—and you feel that you can reach them, and for the most part touch them, by the story of the Gospel—by the fact of a Father in heaven, and a Saviour sent from heaven, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." ”

“ Other questions outside of this primary range of spiritual experience may be important. They are not vital. What is the soul? What is the divine nature? What is the Church? In what way and by what means does divine grace operate? ”

“ We realise not merely that there is a law of good in the world, but a Holy Will that loves good and hates evil, and against whom all our sins are offences in the sense of the Psalmist: "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight." ”

“ No sane man nowadays has the faith of the medievalist. No modern Christian can think in many respects as the Christians of the seventeenth century, or of the twelfth century, or of the fourth century. No primitive Christian would have fully understood Athanasius in his contest against the world. ”

“ It places us in front of a living Spirit who not only governs us righteously and makes us feel our wrong-doing, but who is continually educating us and raising us to His own likeness of love and blessedness. ”

“ What they really denote is diverse modes of Christian thinking, diverse tendencies of the Christian intellect, which repeat themselves by a law of nature. It is no more possible to make men think alike in theology than in anything else where the facts are complicated and the conclusions necessarily fallible. The history of theology is a history of "variations;" ”

“ Where is it not always the true, even if not the prevalent type of religion, to be good and pure, and to approve the things that are excellent? "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ”

“ The same, contrasts continually appear throughout its course, and seem never to wear themselves out. From the beginning there has always been the broader and the narrower type of thought—a St Paul and St John, as well as a St Peter and St James ”