ARE WE DISCIPLES?
As SOME doubt may, by implication, have been thrown upon this point of late, it may not be amiss to be made more certain—to use an idiom of the old Romans—respecting it. No religious body has made so much use of the term as we. No people have made more prominent the statement that whatsoever of Holy Scriptures was written aforetime was for our learning. All manner of conceivable changes have been rung, for more than a quarter of a century, upon the fact that Christianity was a matter to be learned, a thing adapted to man as a rational, intelligent being.
Now there was plausibility in this. It seemed, indeed, to savor of a becoming humility in a community, to be willing to take, as their distinctive appellation, a name pointing to Christ in his primarily relation to us—that of teacher. It seemed less like spiritual pride to call ourselves only learners of him, than to name us saints of his royal priesthood, or citizens of his heavenly kingdom. But it appears, at length, that we have indulged quite a superfluous modesty, and that we have outgrown the vestments of discipleship, and should don the scholar’s gown, in token that we have finished our education, taken fellowships and are now residing about the halls of our former school-boyhood, as a kind of ornament to the institution, and for the sake of giving merely such attention to books as may farther beseem us as such. In a word, we are to let all men know that we are not of those who are “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Not we. We have graduated. We were once disciples, mere pupils; now we are scholars. Seriously, whither is this fast age leading?
We have been astounded at the positions of some of our scribes, of late, on this subject.
True, no one has quite asserted himself in the broad terms preceding. But if the bearing of certain prominent utterances is not in that direction, we know not whither they do tend.
Has it come to pass, really, in a community boasting the largest liberty, that a man may not dare to think for himself, without being branded as a heretic? Is it to be shown to the world that the Reformation of the present century is as incapable as its predecessors of shunning the bigotry of stereotyping its views? Have a few religious teachers and expounders of scripture discerned the whole of its truth and meaning so that no man among us may say less or more than they without being branded as an “infidel?” Who shall tell us that we are bound to swear in the words of any man? Are we about to set up a something of the “iron-bedstead” order, analogous to the “tradition” of one people, or the “usage” of another? We shall see.
There is another note of the utterances alluded to, which, while not so preposterously bold and overbearing, insidiously tends in the same direction. It consists in questioning the truth of any teachings which all cannot or do not understand. It challenges the fitness of any man for a teacher, unless he make himself easy of comprehension to all. No matter what he discusses. If any man, in blindness or willfulness, hearing, misapprehends, and cries “infidelity!” the case is settled. Any teaching thus capable of being misunderstood is marked as spurious.
Now this is as contrary to all analogy as to the nature and fitness of things. Every well-ordered school has its classes; and every judicious teacher adapts his instruction to those classes. He does not expect an abecedarian to understand a grammar and lexicon, will comprehend an abstruse lesson in mental philosophy. Should he carefully abstain from uttering anything except what every pupil in school could immediately fathom, His teachings would be speedily despised, and with good reason. But whoever heard an urchin in pinafore, tasked with the multiplication table, denouncing a geometrical problem for its false teaching? Or despising his instructor for not making Newton’s Principia clear and luminous to his little brain?
Christ and his Apostles could not stand before such sweeping dicta. A few of their rudimental teachings were, of necessity, so simple and easy that all might understand. Of this character, most happily, are the directions about receiving Christ and entering into his school. But for those who have entered, lesson above lesson is arranged, so that a life-long study of them will not do more than take one through the primary school and fit him for the college above. And the same minister who can cause an inquirer in a few moments to understand the simple gospel—that particular “truth” to the knowledge of which some of old, ever learning of the wrong teachers, were never able to come—must yet labor with all diligence to lead his newly-made disciple into “all truth,” but if he think to do it in a day, or a year, time will teach him better. For he will often find dis- courses, which he had certainly thought were easy, understood only by a few of his advanced hearers. Should he become discouraged at this, and so change his Choice of topics and his discussion of them as that everything should be comprehended instantly by all, he would soon find a woeful lack of interest and advancement both in knowledge and piety. No man is fit for a Christian pastor who dare not say anything to his flock except what he is sure they will all understand and believe. Nor is any man worthy such a post for whom “our doctrine” has terrors.
Whoever added anything to the great fund of religious knowledge worth speaking of, without hearing the miserable barking and yelping at his heels—“Oh, beware! he does not preach our
doctrine!”—?
Believing that the same rule applies to ministers and editors, we therefore speak, and shall speak, not as pleasing men, but as pleasing God. We dislike exceedingly, to turn aside from the more direct work of inculcating piety, to criticize the work of others. But with the name of this periodical, what it is, we cannot hold our peace forever. Truth should have guardians more vigilant than the fabled sentry of the golden fleece. One thing, however, we cannot afford to do; that is, to defend the good name of the Sentinel, or our own, against attacks or innuendoes; as brethren may satisfy themselves, if they choose, by still further experiment. We have chosen our work, and hope, by the blessing of God, to accomplish something for the good of souls and the glory of his blessed name. And we still confidently purpose to go on learning, and as confidently expect to find many others still willing to be Disciples.