Quotable

Link: http://www.pleasantplaces.biz/titles/machen_faith.php

Dr. Gresham Machen was interested in a "modern" education and so pursued the path to the extent of going to Germany to learn from the source of this philosophical religion source. The process almost made him an infidel, but by God's grace, he learned of the error of his way and repented. He then gave the rest of his life to fighting this horrible heathenism that has become the mainstay of churches today.

His book, What Is Faith, is a powerful definition of the meaning of faith and why it is so important that we not try to redefine it based on feelings or social "norms." He explains why modern ecumenism is not the saving faith of the Bible, but instead a dangerous heresy that has extreme consequences, starting not only in the condemnation of one's soul to hell, but the destruction of society.

The following clip is the conclusion of chapter 4.

A new and more powerful proclamation of that law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had only learned the lesson of the law. As it is, they are turning aside from the Christian pathway; they are turning to the village of Morality, and to the house of Mr. Legality, who is reported to be very skillful in relieving men of their burdens. Mr. Legality has indeed in our day disguised himself somewhat, but he is the same deceiver as the one of whom Bunyan wrote. “Making Christ Master” in the life, putting into practice “the principles of Christ” by one’s own efforts—these are merely new ways of earning salvation by one’s own obedience to God’s commands. And they are undertaken because of a lax view of what those commands are. So it always is: a low view of law always brings legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace. Pray God that the high view may again prevail; that Mount Sinai may again overhang the path and shoot forth flames, in order that then the men of our time may, like Christian in the allegory, meet some true Evangelist, who shall point them out the old, old way. through the little wicket gate, to the place somewhat ascending where they shall really see the Cross and the figure of Him that did hang thereon, that at that sight the burden of the guilt of sin, which no human hand could remove, may fall from their back into a sepulcher beside the way, and that then, with wondrous lightness and freedom and joy, they may walk the Christian path, through the Valley of Humiliation and the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and up over the Delectable Mountains, until at last they pass triumphant across the river into the City of God.

Entering on Life by Cunningham Geikie is the first of his books we have chosen to publish. The book is for young men, but I doubt there are any today who would even dare to read such a book. He assumes a real education where the young man knows Latin and Greek and has a firm grasp of English! Do such young men even exist today?

Nevertheless, it behooves the older folks to read such a book and try to share the message with the vain youngster of our day! Here is a passage quoted in his coverage of youthful pleasures, sports, giddiness, etc. The whole section is things society needs to hear today, even more than ever!

But we are not to abuse our blessings, or surfeit ourselves with a gluttony of either one kind or another. Pleasure worth the name must be innocent, and must come only as a relaxation from work. To give oneself up to it is to miss it in any true sense. Even Cicero, though only a moralist, declares that he is not worthy to be called a man who is willing to spend even a single day wholly in pleasure. Mere lightness is only a foil to something graver, where the taste is healthy. It is the vox-humana stop in the solemn roll of the Psalm of Life. To do nothing but laugh, or to laugh mainly, is to write one’s own condemnation. It is a shallow stream that dimples all the way. Nothing hurts worse than frivolity; nothing unfits for business more, or forms worse habits for success, or wastes the time in which we might mold the future, and nothing leaves less return. Only to “giggle and make giggle” as Cowper says of the clerks in the office he attended, is hardly a fit use of life. There is something better than laughing, after all. The story told by Roger Ascham of Lady Jane Grey opens a new world to mere triflers, and there are others as pleasant within our reach. Her father and the duchess having passed by, hunting in the park, her tutor asked her if she would not like to join in the sport? “All the sport in the park,” said she, “is but a shadow of that pleasure I find in this book”—a volume of Plato she had in her hand. The mind and the heart are nobler parts of us than our mere animal spirits, and have enjoyments of their own. Not to seek pleasure from such higher sources, but to give ourselves up to inferior, is to barter our birthright for Esau’s pottage. If you be wise you will vary your pleasures, and add to them by mixing the grave with the gay. Mere amusement soon cloys, and leaves even Xerxes to offer a royal gift to anyone who could invent some new spur to his satiety. Nothing grows duller than mere amusement, and no one needs it so much as he who has most of it. But to be a mere fribble is not the chief end of man.

Kitto's Popular Encyclopedia is unique because it is the first to try to get experts in each field to write about the topics in each entry. Unfortunately, some unbeliever commentary got included. However, there are also some very excellent conservative experts that left a real helpful legacy. The following is under the entry "Isaiah," and demonstrates some clever writing! Notice the way liberal ideals are described!

The Jewish synagogue, and the Christian church during all ages, have considered it as an undoubted fact that the prophecies which bear the name of Isaiah really originated from that prophet. But in the last quarter of the eighteenth century this prevailing conviction appeared to some divines to be inconvenient. In the theology of the natural man it passed as certain, that nature was complete in itself, and that prophecies, as well as miracles, never had occurred, and were even impossible. The assumption of the impossibility of miracles necessarily demanded that the genuineness of the Pentateuch should be rejected; and, in a similar manner, the assumption of the impossibility of prophecy demanded that a great portion of the prophecies of Isaiah should be rejected likewise. Here also the wish was father to the thought, and interest led to the decision of critical questions, the arguments for which were subsequently discovered.