6. Purity of Speech

If I were to classify the entire Christian institution into three chapters, following the style of modern schools for clarity, I would call them Christian faith, Christian worship, and Christian morality. To these, modern thinkers have added two others, which, using the same freedom, I would call human philosophy and human traditions. Now, in the first chapter, we, and all Christians, agree: because Christian faith concerns the facts recorded — the direct testimony of God found in the New Testament about himself — about his Son and Spirit — about humanity — what he has done, and what he will do, there is no dispute. I find all confessions of faith, properly so called, like the four gospels, tell the same story as far as facts or faith are concerned.

In the second chapter, we also agree that God is to be worshiped through the Mediator — in prayer, in praise, public and private — in the ordinances of Christian baptism, the Lord's Day, the Lord's Supper, and in the devotional study of his word and his works of creation and providence.

In the third chapter, we all acknowledge the same moral code. What morality is, is confessed and recognized by all; but in its practice, there are significant shortcomings.

We reject the two remaining chapters as having any place in our faith, worship, or morality; because we believe we have discovered that all the divisions in Protestant Christianity — all the party strife, vain arguments, and heresies that have disgraced the Christian profession — have come from human philosophy and human tradition. It is not faith, nor piety, nor morality; but philosophy and tradition that have alienated and divided Christians and prevented the conversion of the world. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle would not deserve the reputation of philosophers if Calvin, Arminius, and Wesley were not worthy of it. The former philosophized morally on nature and ancient tradition — the latter, on the Bible and human society.

Religious philosophers on the Bible have developed the following doctrines and philosophical distinctions: —

'The Holy Trinity,' 'Three persons of one substance, power, and eternity,' 'Co-essential, co-substantial, co-equal,' 'The Son eternally begotten of the Father,' 'An eternal Son,' 'Humanity and divinity of Christ,' 'The Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son,' 'God's eternal decrees,' 'Conditional and unconditional election and reprobation,' 'God apart from Christ,' 'Free will,' 'Liberty and necessity,' 'Original sin,' 'Total depravity,' 'Covenant of grace,' 'Effectual calling,' 'Free grace,' 'Sovereign grace,' 'General and particular atonement,' 'Satisfying divine justice,' 'Common and special operations of the Holy Spirit,' 'Imputed righteousness,' 'Inherent righteousness,' 'Progressive sanctification,' 'Justifying and saving faith,' 'Historic and temporary faith,' 'The direct and reflex acts of faith,' 'The faith of assurance, and the assurance of faith,' 'Legal repentance,' 'Evangelical repentance,' 'Perseverance of the saints,' and 'Falling from grace,' 'Visible and invisible church,' 'Infant membership,' 'Sacraments,' 'Eucharist,' 'Consubstantiation,' 'Church government,' 'The power of the keys,' etc. etc.

Regarding these and all such doctrines, and all the speculations and terminology they have generated, we have the privilege neither to affirm nor deny — neither to believe nor doubt; because God has not presented them to us in his word, and there is no command to believe them. If they are drawn from the Scriptures, we have them in the facts and declarations of God's Spirit; if they are not drawn from the Bible, we are free from all the difficulties and conflicts they have caused.

We choose to speak of Bible things by Bible words, because we are always suspicious that if the word is not in the Bible, the idea it represents is not there; and always confident that the things taught by God are better taught in the words and under the names the Holy Spirit has chosen and assigned, than in the words taught by human wisdom.

Nothing is more essential to the unity of Christ’s followers than purity of speech. As long as the earth had one language, the human family was united. Had they then had a pure language as well as one language, they would not have been separated. God, in his just anger, scattered them; and before he scattered them, he confused their language. One of his prophets, who lived in a corrupt age and prophesied against the corruptions of his day, when speaking of better times, an age of unity and fellowship, was commanded to say in the name of the Lord, 'Then I will restore to the people a pure language, that they may all call on the name of the Lord, to serve him with one accord.' Purity of speech is here declared to be a prerequisite to serving the Lord with one accord.

'The words of the Lord are pure words.' To have pure speech, we must choose the language of Canaan and abandon that of Ashdod. And if we want to be of one mind, we must 'speak the same thing.' This was Paul's plan for unity, and no one can suggest a better one.

It takes little reflection to see that the fiercest disputes about religion are about what the Bible does not say, rather than what it does say — about words and phrases coined in the mint of speculative theology. Of these, the homousios and the homoousios of the ever-memorable Council of Nicaea are a fair example. Men are neither wiser, more intelligent, nor better after than before they know the meaning of these words. As far as is known on earth, there is not, in 'the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' the name of any person who was either converted or sanctified to God by any of these controversies about human dogmas, nor by anything learned from the canons or creeds of all the Councils, from Nicaea to the last Methodist Conference.

It is a virtue, then, to forget this scholastic jargon, and even the names of the dogmas that have shaken Christendom. It is a concession due to the crisis we live in, for the sake of peace, to adopt the vocabulary of Heaven, and to return the borrowed terminology of the schools to its rightful owners — to speculate no more on the opinions of Saint Augustine, Saint Tertullian, Saint Origen — to speak of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit — of the gospel, of faith, of repentance, of baptism, of election, of the death of Christ, of his mediation, of his blood, of the reconciliation, of the Lord's Supper, of the atonement, of the church of God, etc. etc., using all the phrases found in the Record, without partiality — to learn to love one another as much when we differ in opinion as when we agree, and to distinguish between the testimony of God and human reasoning and philosophy about it.

I need not say much about the chapter of human traditions. They are easily distinguished from the Apostles' traditions. Those of the Apostles are found in their writings, as those of men are found in their own books. Some human traditions may seem wise, but only appear so. As long as it is written, 'In vain do you worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men,' it will be presumptuous folly to add the commandments of men to the teachings of Jesus Christ. I know of only one way in which all believers in Jesus Christ, honorably to themselves, honorably to the Lord, and beneficially to all humanity, can form one communion. All have two chapters too many in their current church constitutions. The contents of these two chapters vary and differ in all the sects, but they all have these two chapters under some name. In some they are long, and in some they are short; but whether long or short, let everyone agree to tear them out of their book and burn them, and be satisfied with faith, piety, and morality. Let human philosophy and human tradition, as any part of the Christian institution, be thrown overboard into the sea, and then the ship of the church will make a prosperous, safe, and happy voyage across the ocean of time, and finally, under the triumphant banner of Immanuel, reach a safe harbor in the haven of eternal rest.

I would appeal to every honorable, good, and loyal citizen of the kingdom of Heaven — to everyone who seeks the good of Zion, who loves the kingdom and the coming of our common Lord and Savior — whether such a concession is not due to the Lord, to the saints in heaven and on earth, and to all humanity in the crisis we now face; and whether we could propose less, or should demand more, than to make one whole burnt offering of all our "empty and deceitful philosophy," — our "science, falsely so called," — and our traditions received from our ancestors. I would leave it to the good sense of every sane mind to say whether such a whole burnt offering would not be the most acceptable peace offering that, in our day, could be presented on the altar of the Prince of Peace; and whether, under the teachings of the Apostles of the Great Prophet, the church might not again stand triumphantly on the holy ground she so honorably occupied before Origen, Augustine, Athanasius, or the first Pope was born!

1 Christian Baptist, vol. 2, pp. 66, 67. Essays on the Westminster Creed, vol. 2. Review of Dr. Noel's Circular, vol. 5.

2 Pollock's Course of Time, Book 8: p. 189.

3 Millennial Harbinger — Extra, No. 6, pp. 340-345.

4 Millennial Harbinger, vol. 1, pp. 8-12.

5 The fundamental proposition is — that Jesus is the Christ. The fact, however, contained in this proposition is — that God has anointed Jesus of Nazareth as the only Savior of sinners. He is the promised Christ: 'God has made him both Lord and Christ.' — PETER. 6 Christian Baptist, vol. 1, pp. 167-169.

7, 8, 9 These are examples of scriptural phrases misused: for the corruption of Christianity has been completed by the incursions of barbarian language, and by the new appropriations of the sacred style.

10 Zephaniah 3:9.

11 Psalm 12:6.

12 Millennial Harbinger, vol. 6, pp. 109-113.