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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

The Value of Single Doctrines

The Value of Single Doctrines.

To drop from a written Creed, because it may be a barrier to Union between brethren, an Article of Faith which, though true, is not fundamental, is a proposal well worth the consideration of our brethren in all the Churches; and this we are ready to consider, whenever the time arrives for skilled and reverent and careful hands to pour the old wine over into fresh wineskins. This, however, is a totally distinct position from asking us to drop a fundamental Article, or even a subsidiary' Article, because we now allege it to be false. For, as Bishop Westcott says, and every intelligent man knows: "One Doctrine many influence a system. A characteristic opinion on one point will be seen to re-appear in many unexpected ways through the whole system of doctrine to which it belongs." And if that is true of one doctrine, how much more of the system and substance of it? And if time can't undo what once was true, therefore what time Has Undone of faith and doctrine was never true; for ours is a historical religion of revelation of fact and doctrine, not a religious philosophy. Let us beware, then, of dropping out, piecemeal, the substance of our faith; lest presently we make the appalling discovery that the great river that has slaked and satisfied the thirst of mankind for thousands of years, not only has ceased to flow, but has never been. Then you shall have presented to you the tragic, pathetic, incredible, and impossible consequences of a false presupposition, such as the Aspotle presented to his brethren, when they, too, like ourselves, were under dominance of a false presupposition; "then" (if your presupposition be true, said he) "they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished." And he did not, like our polite moderns, who would have a Creed "broad" enough for everbody, hold true and false doctrine simply as regrettable differences of "opinion" or "views" among brethren. He declared that, if the evolutionary presupposition of His day was true: "Yea, and we are found (as a consequence) false witnesses of God."