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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 37

I. Christianity" as a System

I. Christianity" as a System.

1. Regarded as to its universal element, Christianity is a beautiful but imperfect presentation of natural morality.

2. Regarded as to its special element, Christianity is a great completed system of faith and life—a coherent body of doctrines logically developed and organized as an historical power by the Christian Church. It claims absolute control over the collective life of society and the outward and inward page 9 life of the individual. It rests this claim on the supernatural revelation of the will of God; that is, on the' principle of Divine Authority.

3. The chief features of this system are the doctrines of the Fall of Adam, the Total Depravity of the human race, the Everlasting Punishment of the wicked, and salvation by Christ alone. Through the transgression of the first man, all human beings lie under the consuming wrath of God, and are condemned to an everlasting hell, from which the only escape is by the Atonement of Christ.

4. This system demands absolute and unreasoning submission from the human mind. It teaches that doubt is sin, and that disbelief is damnation. It everywhere condemns freedom of thought, and persecutes it in proportion to its power. It is the worst enemy of liberty, science and civilization, because it is organized Despair of Man.