Jude 1

Jude 1:1-3

“THE FAITH ONCE FOR ALL ” Jude 1:1-25. THE Epistle of Jude is the seventh and last of the catholic Epistles. After much controversy this Epistle was voted as clearly belonging to the sacred canon, the arguments which had been presented against its inspiration and validity being much more than matched by the array of those that favored both.In the introduction to the Epistle, the author tells us who he was—“Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James”. It will be remembered that Matthew’s Gospel reports Jesus as coming into His own country and teaching in the synagogue, and the astonished auditors said, “Whence hath this Man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not His mother called Mary? and His brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas”?There is every reason to believe that the author of this Epistle is none other than that same Judas, the brother of Jesus.Like a true apostle, he does not dream of lifting himself to the level of Jesus, and modestly omits all mention of his relationship to Him, save that he is His “servant”, but concerning the well-known Apostle James, he can say, “I am his brother.” When in the first chapter of Acts the little company in the upper chamber are mentioned, we find Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas, the brother of James. But you will note that “the brother” is in italics. The last mentioned of this company was in all probability the author of this Epistle.Whether written before or after the fall of Jerusalem, before or after the Second Epistle of Peter, which it in some respects parallels, are questions of unsettled controversy, while its certain quotations from “Enoch” and its apparent quotations from “The Ascension of Moses”—books held to be apocryphal—have discredited it in some quarters.It is a singular thing, however, that men should so argue.

When Paul quotes from the Greek poets no one thinks of either discrediting what he says or calling his inspiration into question; and the books of Enoch and Moses deal with far more important subjects, and whether inspired or not, they partake of the nature of Old Testament history. If there were time, and the exposition of this Epistle demanded it, I think a strong argument in favor of the possible inspiration of the book of Enoch could be presented. For hundreds of years Higher Criticism has attempted to take something from the Canon as at present constituted. It would not be at all surprising if this so-called science should eventually have to concede to the Canon another book or two.But waiving all questions of controversy, let us give ourselves to the study of Jude.THE PURPOSE OF THIS EPISTLE “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). It was born of constraint. The language of the Apostle seems to indicate that he had been contemplating the necessity of addressing to the saints, at large, an Epistle concerning the great salvation which was in Jesus. While he pondered what to say, the Spirit came upon him and turned his thoughts in another direction and compelled him to write what we find in this single chapter. Such “Spirit-constrained” productions are the best ever put forth. Spirit-constraint Accounts for true prophecy. Happy is that minister of the Gospel who speaks under the “constraint of the Spirit,” and wretched is that same man when “constrained” by circumstances to speak.When people of means have great interests at stake in court, they often employ two or three lawyers; not that each of them is to appear before judge or jury, but because one may be a capable pleader, while the other is an expert counsellor.He who pleads our cause before God is none other than Jesus, and yet we need what Dubose described as “a chamber counsellor” who will direct our steps, indite our thoughts, give form to our words, and effectiveness to our actions.Simon Browne was thinking of his need of this holy constraint when he wrote:“Come gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove, With light and comfort from above; Be Thou our guardian, Thou our guide; O’er every thought and step preside. “To us the light of truth display, And make us know and choose Thy way; Plant holy fear in every heart, That we from God may ne’er depart. “Lead us to holiness, the road Which we must take to dwell with God; Lead us to Christ, the living way, Nor let us from His pastures stray.” It contains an exhortation:“It is needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you”. If Jude were an Apostle, this was his right by Divine appointment. Peter at Pentecost, after having presented the way of salvation, “with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation”.Paul, in writing to Timothy, said, “Teach and exhort” (1 Timothy 6:2), and again, “Preach the Word; he instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4). And again he says, “Suffer the word of exhortation”.There was another right that the Apostles had to “exhort”, namely, the right born of sacrifice incident to their relationship with the Lord. If one look into church history, he will find the record of violent death for almost every man who belonged to the apostolate.Matthew perished at the edge of the sword; Mark as the result of having been dragged through the streets of Alexandria; Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece; St. John was flung first into a boiling pot, and, though saved in a miraculous manner, was afterward banished to the Isle of Patmos; Peter was crucified at Rome with his head down; James beheaded at Jerusalem; Philip crushed against the pillars of Hieropolis; Bartholomew flayed alive; Andrew perished on a cross; St.

Thomas was pierced by a lance; Matthias was stoned and beheaded; Paul perished in the same manner at Rome, and Jude was shot to death with arrows. The men who “loved not their lives unto the death” were surely the ones who had a right to exhort concerning the controversy about “the word of their testimony”.It involved a contention.“It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”. What was that faith? It is doubtful if one can find a better definition of it than Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 15, where he says, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”.The sacrificial death of Christ, His burial and resurrection, His ascension, His intercession, His return, and His final victory over all, Paul finds among the fundamentals of the faith. He received them from the Spirit; he delivered them unto the saints, and Jude enjoins upon his readers that they “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered”.The times upon which we have fallen would mock “the faith which was once delivered”, and mend “the faith which was once delivered”, and improve “the faith which was once delivered”. Contrary to the opinion of Jude that the true Gospel is complete and final and needs no supplement; contrary to the opinion of Paul, expressed in Galatians 1:6-9 to the same effect, we are told now that “the Gospel is an evolution still in process.”John Henry Newman as long ago as 1845 put forth this theory in his essay on “Development of Christian Doctrine,” and later Strauss took an additional step and dubbed the doctrines of early Christianity as “repulsive beliefs which thoughtful men had long since left behind.”Scholarship has been called upon by both of these writers “to keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient.”How are Protestants to accomplish this? Where is our Pope—the infallible man who makes no mistake, and what has he supplied? It is just such a departure from “the faith which was once delivered” that has given to Romanism an immaculate conception for the virgin, exalted her to a place of worship.

It is just such accessions to “the faith which was once delivered” that gave rise to purgatory, indulgences, communion with the church, and excommunication from it. In fact, it was just such accessions which gave birth to the notion of a Pope, and finally put all authority into his lips.Will any less beneficial results be seen when Protestants attempt the same. John in his Second Epistle anticipates this very departure from the faith and prescribes the course of the true Church in dealing with such an one. He says,“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. “If there dome any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: “For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 1:7-11). This brings us to the real occasion of this Epistle, namely,THE OF Jude is disturbed over their membership in the Church, saying,“There are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). He then proceeds to remind them that this is not the first time in human history that apostates have occupied prominent positions, and he records the dealings of God with apostates of the past.First of all, he cites the instance of Israel.“I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not” (Jude 1:5). The judgment of the antediluvian world when it had apostatized in both faith and conduct, is being abundantly proved by archaeology. The spade is uncovering incontestable proofs of the flood. The judgment that fell upon Israel later when her apostasy necessitated the same has never been in debate. Living, scattered Israel, without a king, without a nation, held in uniform contempt the world around, attests the text.The International Bible Encyclopaedia commenting on this text says, “‘Forsaking Jehovah’ was the characteristic and oft-recurring sin of the chosen people, especially in their contact with idolatrous nations. The tendency appeared in their earliest history as abundantly seen in the warnings and prohibitions of the laws of Moses. The fearful consequences of religious and moral apostasy appear in the curses pronounced against this sin, on Mount Ebal, by the representatives of the six of the tribes of Israel, elected by Moses.

So wayward was the heart of Israel even in the years immediately following the national emancipation in the wilderness, that Joshua found it necessary to repledge the entire nation to a new fidelity to Jeh, and to their original covenant before they were permitted to enter the promised land. Infidelity to this covenant blighted the nation’s prospects and growth during the time of the Judges. It was the cause of prolific and ever increasing evil, civic and moral, from Solomon’s day to the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. Many of the kings of the divided kingdom apostatized, leading the people, as in the case of Rehoboam, into the grossest forms of idolatry and immorality. Conspicuous examples of such royal apostasy are Jeroboam, Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon. Prophecy originated as a Divine and imperative protest against this historic tendency to defection from the religion of Jeh.”From Israel Jude passes to the rebellion of angels.“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day”. Peter speaking of this apostasy says,“If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to he reserved unto judgment; “And spared not the old World, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; “And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked” (2 Peter 2:4-7). Again, Jude mentions the judgment of apostate cities.“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire”. Here again scientists are increasingly convinced that such cities existed and the judgment that came upon them was complete, not only wiping them from the earth, but so perfectly destroying them as to leave a basin where they stood.Now the reasoning of Jude, of course, is this: that God is the same, and the apostasy of the present will no more escape judgment than have the apostasies of the past. And yet how strange that, with all of this history before their faces, men who are supposed to be students of history and even of the Bible itself dare to both practice and propagate apostasy from the faith.An author widely read and quoted by modernists argues that “the salvation of the church depends upon such radical modification of its doctrines and observances as to make it entirely satisfactory to the world.”It was this world entanglement that brought the flood; it was this world entanglement that brought judgment upon Israel; it was this world entanglement that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities round about.We are not enamored of Catholic history. The pagan yoke of Romanism our ancestors long since flung from their necks, and became free men. The papal deliverances do not always excite our applause. But when some years since the Pope, referring to the present apostasy in doctrine, called attention to the “notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who by arts entirely new and full of deceit are striving to destroy the vital energy of the church; and who assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man,” he spake the words of truth and soberness, and evinced a holy indignation which the Protestant people would do well to share.Recently Dr. Albert E.

Day, who we understand is also a modernist, said, “Something is missing in our modern religion. Everywhere throughout the church there is a vague sense of loss, of something wrong.

Some think this can be overcome by some new device, some magic method of making up in peace what is lacking in prophecy; but it cannot be done. There must be a new code of faith, deeper and more challenging, than either literalist or liberal now knows, if the lost radiance of religion is to be restored. Slowly we are attaining breadth in religion, but at the expense of depth, power, and vitality.”How could it be otherwise when men apostatize from God and degrade Him to the level of their own lives; when men dispute the authority and integrity even of His holy Word; when men bring His Son to the low level of a human teacher; when men despise the Blood wherewith they were sanctified, and even treat it as an unholy thing; when men repudiate the supernatural and propose to explain all Divine interventions on the grounds of natural law? The Christian religion is eviserated; the apostasy is complete, and the judgment day draws nigh.Dr. Augustus Strong, great president of the once orthodox Seminary at Rochester, had occasion to say, “The unbelief in our Seminary teaching is like a blind mist which is slowly settling down upon our churches, and is gradually abolishing not only all definite views of Christian doctrine, but also all conviction of duty to contend earnestly for the faith of our Fathers.”Dr. Robert G. Lee was absolutely justified when he said, “Because of the perverse tendencies of these coaxing conjecturalists, whose words and writings lay hold upon the human minds and hearts, as cancer smites the holy sanctuaries of the human body, or as tuberculosis blasts the delicate tissues of the lungs, our intellectual atmosphere is unhealthy, our psychology is frequently destructive, our philosophy is often superficial and immoral and the faith of our fathers is made a buffoon’s bauble.“The inapprehensible bewitchment and the incognitable conclusions of the conjectural cauldron of these anti-Biblical wizards, bring to mind what the second witch said in Scene One, Acts 4, of Macbeth:“‘Fillet of the fenny snake In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s leg and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble’! “These conjecturers have gone out into the fields of the scientific and the natural, and have found the wild vines and gathered, there, of gourds their laps full, and have made of them a pernicious pottage. And they pour this pottage out for folks to eat. And, with supercilious pose and an air of intellectual superiority they laugh at us for crying aloud to the youth of our generation, ‘There is death in the pot’!”It might be well to remember that while such self-imposed death may seem a judgment from God, and, in fact, is, it is also the natural fruit of the philosophic poison which these self-appointed leaders have first prepared and eaten, and then passed on to those who were so unwise as to eat from their hand.It is little wonder that Jude writes,“Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. “These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; “Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, “To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. “These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage” (Jude 1:11-16). FinallyTHE An analysis of this position suggests keeping one’s self in true faith and good works, and yet trusting not in self but in Christ alone, that we may honor Him above both men and angels.Keeping one’s self in true faith and good works.“But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of Our Lord Jesus Christ; “How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. “And of some have compassion, making a difference: “And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 1:17-23). There are people who attempt to pit Paul against James, and to make it appear that faith is all, and works are nothing. There are far more, however, that attempt to pit James against Paul, and make it appear that works are all, and faith is nothing. Both are wrong! We are saved by faith, and yet faith that does not evidence itself in works is an empty profession.Arthur Pierson in “Seed Thoughts for Public Speakers,” says, “Faith is the condition of justification and works justify, or prove and exhibit faith. The faith which justifies is, therefore, a vital bond of union with Christ, and seminally carries with it, and within it, the germ afterward developing into holy obedience. Paul and James not only express agreeing and analogous, but identical sentiments.

Paul speaks of faith as the seed of works; James, of works, as the flower and fruit of faith. As Mr. Titcomb says: ‘Faith is the seminal agent of justification; works, the visible agent. They resemble the convex and concave surfaces of a crescent; the one implying the other under all circumstances. When we contemplate a spiritual action from its motive side it is faith; on its practical side, work. Faith and works are part and parcel of the same reality.’”However, Jude is careful to get before his readers another fact, namely,They are not to trust in self, but in Christ alone.“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, “To the only wise God our Saviour” (Jude 1:24-25). It is sad when men fail to apprehend this fact. There is no possible position, no conceivable attainment, no self-generated moral worth that can be accepted as a substitute. Salvation is by grace alone.General O. O. Howard was widely known as a great Christian. His intimacy with Grant, the product of their fellowship in war, was also due to the fact that Grant so respected Howard’s character as known in his conduct.

When Grant was on his deathbed, Howard visited him. Grant’s speech was already muffled by the frightful cancer that was eating away his life, and Gen. Howard sought to comfort him concerning his approaching disease, and so reminded him of the great service he had rendered to his country, and told him that America would hold him in grateful remembrance. But he had proceeded a very short way along this line when the muffled voice of the great General interrupted him, and he said, “Howard; don’t tell me that. Tell me about God.”The greatest men when they come to face eternity can find nothing in the flesh of which to boast, or in which to place confidence for the future. We must then put our trust in Him, who is able to keep and present us spotless before the Divine glory.With the true believer all honor belongs to God.“To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever” (Jude 1:25). Nature itself would teach us that.“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handy work. “Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge” (Psalms 19:1-2). It is related that when a French infidel said to a Vendean peasant, “We will pull down your churches, destroy everything that reminds you of God and Christ,” the peasant properly replied, “But you will leave us the stars, and as long as the stars revolve and shine, so long the heavens will be a sign unto us of the glory of God.”

Jude 1:4

—A Jude 1:4. This is the first chapter, from the author’s volume on “The Blight of Unitarianism.” THIS address is the beginning of a series upon the general subject “The Blight of Unitarianism.” It is our purpose to present this series in five separate addresses: 1. Unitarianism—a Degenerating Religion; 2. Unitarianism—an Ape in Theory and Practice; 3. Unitarianism—an Enemy in the Evangelical Camp; 4. Unitarianism—a Deadly Ecclesiastical Infection, and 5. Unitarianism—a Conscienceless Church and College Thief.These subjects may sound harsh to the “sons of peace” and “the daughters of compromise,” but we confidently expect, in the progress of this discussion, to prove their occasion and justify their employment.A recent volume, entitled, “My Belief,” discusses Unitarianism, prefacing the treatment with this deliverance, “In the whole discussion we must keep in charitable touch with our Unitarian fellow-Christians.”Such a remark is characterized by both inconsistency and superficiality.

It is certainly a strange procedure to acknowledge as “fellow-Christians” those who reject the Christ. We can keep in “charitable touch” with Unitarianism as fellow-citizens, but even to call them “fellow-Christians” is an offense to their own religious convictions. In this series, they shall not be charged with a fellowship which they flatly reject.In speaking on “Unitarianism—a Degenerating Religion,” we shall endeavor to show that theologically it began on a much higher plane than it holds at present, and that if another hundred years shall mark progress in the same direction, it will be boastingly atheistic.In discussing “Unitarianism—an Ape in Theory and Practice,” we shall prove by copious quotations that it is based upon the Darwinian “ape theory,” and that it has never shown any originality in any religious movement, and that its attempts at “aping” the evangelical churches have been pathetic failures.In discussing “Unitarianism—an Enemy in the Evangelical Camp,” we shall show by their own admissions that they prefer to be found in evangelical bodies, since their work against evangelical Christianity can be more effective from the inside than if it were waged from without.In discussing “Unitarianism—a Deadly Ecclesiastical Infection,” we shall abundantly prove that wherever its doctrines have been surreptitiously adopted, in that proportion that evangelical body has declined; while in speaking of “Unitarianism— a Conscienceless Church and College Thief,” we shall rehearse the instances in which it has stolen churches, consciencelessly appropriated colleges, and prove, beyond doubt, that it is nothing better than an ecclesiastical bandit.To the text then:“There are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4) There will be occasion to return to this text more than once in this series, as it contains an inspired description of the procedure by which Unitarianism has wrought its theological and ecclesiastical havoc, as well as the final fruit of the philosophy which results in the denying of “the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ”. This has come about by a constant decline in faith on the part of those professing this particular religion that can only be justly described by the word “degenerating.” I may be pardoned if I largely limit what I have to say to the history of Unitarianism in America. IT WAS NEAR- Dr. Ezra Ripley, Unitarian preacher of Concord, said, “I am not sensible of having departed in any degree from the doctrines properly called ‘the doctrines of grace.’” The best of the early Unitarians did not deny the inspiration of the Bible, the reality and banefulness of sin, nor yet the Saviourhood of Jesus Christ.They did not deny the inspiration of the Bible. We are told that the Rev. W. B. O.

Peabody used to conduct Bible training courses from an interleaved Bible, much after the Moody manner, and one reports his comments on the third chapter of John and his emphasis upon the absolute necessity of regeneration or being “born again”.Ernest Gordon in “The Leaven of the Sadducees” tells us that Samuel May was brought up in the King’s Chapel, and May said of the preaching of Dr. Greenwood, “It contained little or nothing that an evangelical Christian could not cordially subscribe to.”Forty years ago, when I was a very young minister, my Unitarian neighbor pastors, instead of trying to disprove the authority and inspiration of the Bible, attempted to prove Unitarianism by rather copious quotations from the same.

The custom then was not as now—a repudiation—but, rather, a contortion of Scripture.They did not originally deny the reality and banefulness of sin. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s father said, “This doctrine of human depravity, whose truth is sanctioned by universal observation and experience, is a doctrine of the Christian revelation, and he who preaches it preaches Jesus Christ and Him crucified. For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. By His sufferings and death He proves the inherent and unchanging mercy of God, moves sinful men to penitence and reformation, and thence expiates their guilt and procures their pardon of sin.”Dr. Freeman, predecessor in King’s Chapel of Dr. Greenwood, wrote, “Let no man say when I am dead that I trusted in my own merits.

I trust only in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ,” voicing in that single sentence his respect for Bible teaching, his sense of sin and his faith in Jesus Christ.They did not originally repudiate the Saviourhood of Jesus Christ. Hezekiah Packard, prominent Unitarian in his day, declared, “I have nothing but Christ to trust to, and I hope to be clothed with my Saviour’s righteousness,” and when death .drew nigh and he was asked if he feared the last enemy, he answered, “I do not think much of the King of Terrors; my thoughts are on the King of Glory,” and his last whispers were of “Rock,” “Redeemer,” “Shepherd.”John Stuart Mill, in his posthumous book on the “Utility of Religion and Theism,” writes of Christ, “It is Christ rather than God whom Christianity has held up to believers as the pattern of perfection for humanity.

It is God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews, or of nature, who, being idealized, has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind. And whatever else may be taken away by rational criticism, Christ is still left, a unique figure, not more unlike His precursors than all His followers, even those who had the direct benefit of His personal teaching. It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the gospels, is not historical. * * * * Who among His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels?”Even Theodore Parker, who was a leader in the downgrade of Unitarian theology, and whose later deliverances concerning Jesus of Nazareth were as sacrilegious as superficial, once wrote of Him, “Nazareth was no Athens, where philosophy breathed in the circumambient air; it had neither Porch nor Lyceum, not even a school of the prophets. There is God in the heart of this youth. That mightiest heart that ever beat, stirred by the Spirit of God, how it wrought in His bosom!” Renan expressly said, “The day on which Jesus uttered His saying (John 4:24), He was truly the Son of God.”In fact, there seems to have been, seventy-five to a hundred years ago, a whole school of Unitarians, and they were the leading school, who as Emerson said of Dr. Ezra Ripley, “had a constitutional leaning in their religion toward the camp of the Puritan fathers.” But time took away from them this entire tendency and the movement came to beC WITH ITS NAME, Turn to your Standard Dictionary and you will find that “a Unitarian is a member of any religious body that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity.” The same dictionary tells us that “the more conservative of these accept the Bible and the Divinity (as distinguished from Deity) of Christ, while the more radical are rationalistic and some hold merely a form of deism.”Augustus H. Strong, the late President of Rochester Theological Seminary, a theological giant, said of Unitarianism, “Christianity without Christ becomes agnosticism and paganism. Dethroning Christ and counting Him mere man, the Unitarian is left with a conception of God so vague and unmoral, that Stoicism and self-righteousness take the place of humility and faith. * * * * Unitarianism is not progressive but retrogressive thought. * *“When New England broke away from evangelical theology, no real theology was left to it, and its gravitation was downward. The high Arianism of Channing gave place to the half-fledged pantheism of Parker; and Parker’s faith or lack of faith was followed by the full-fledged pantheism of Emerson.” And this will all be abundantly illustrated as we proceed with this discourse.Its first downward step was the rejection of the God claim of the Christ. In this degradation Theodore Parker was a leader. He said, “It is folly, even impiety, to say that God cannot create a greater soul than that of Jesus of Nazareth.” He denominated the Lord’s Supper “a heathenish rite.” He placed the crucifixion of Jesus on a level with the employment of the “huxter, merchant, lawyer, harlot, minister, poetess, orator and black Dinah,” and declared that it made no difference whether one’s work be by the way of a “basket,” a “warehouse,” or a “mop,” or a “cross.”It was this descent in faith that lead Prof.

F. D.

Huntington of Harvard to quit the society after it had bestowed upon him multiplied distinctions, and to describe his departure from its fellowship as the leaving of a “barren and dry land where no water was,” and assigned as his reason for so doing, “Christianity cannot be accounted for on the Unitarian theory of Christ;” and it was he, who, in an article in the Forum, June, 1886, asked, “Is there anywhere in ecclesiastical annals an instance of so swift a plunge downwards in any association of people bearing the Name of Christ by simply losing hold of the central fact of revelation?”It was the same observation that led Oliver Wendell Holmes to say, as Prof. Francis S. Child claims to have heard him remark, “I can see no excuse for Unitarianism to exist longer,” while Childs himself gave the following testimony, “Father, who was born on Salem Street, Boston, 1825, in his great grandfather Paul Revere’s house, united with the local Methodist church on confession when about fourteen years of age. When a professor at Harvard about 1850, his letters from then to 1860 to my mother were full of deepest faith and often referred to the Cross in the most devout and sweetly fervent manner. But mother was a Unitarian, her mother, own cousin to Dr. Channing, and together they attended the First Parish (Unitarian) church.

Prof. F.

G. Peabody was their pastor. When I was ten years old (1879), family prayers, regularly held up to that period, were dropped off. Father ceased going to church more than once in a great while by 1885. At his death in my arms in the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1896, he had lost all faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour, and I, under the influence, was utterly without hope and in the depths of despair. I was convicted of sin and joined the First Congregational Church, Cambridge, on confession of faith in November, 1900.

Papa was always an intense lover of the Bible, but read it, alas! little after 1880, or at least less and less, except that being professor of English literature he taught the Bible as literature once in three years.“I ought to say that Unitarianism, which ruined papa’s happiness and peace and likely his eternal joy and spoiled all my childhood, youth, and young manhood, I have observed to be always deteriorating and disintegrating in its influence and effect, spiritually and morally. I know many instances, especially in the leading families of Boston.”It came also to dispute the authority and integrity of the Bible.

That custom, exceptional in the day of Theodore Parker, is now extremely common. Our own local celebrity, of Minneapolis, is an illustration. In a sermon preached some months since in the Garrick Theater, Minneapolis, he set forth “the Biblical theory of salvation” as resting in Jesus the only begotten Son of God, the efficacy of His atoning sacrifice and the efficiency of His saving grace, and he says, “This whole Christian doctrine of atonement rests throughout upon the foundation of the story of Adam and Eve,” and then adds, “I need not waste any time this morning in showing an audience like this the purely legendary character of this whole narrative in Genesis. We know today, as a result of our Biblical criticism, as well as of our knowledge of the doctrine of evolution, that the story of Adam and Eve is not to be classed with the sober facts of history, but with the great mass of Greek myth and Roman legend and Arabian fairy tale, which is ingenious and beautiful, but which no one outside of a kindergarten thinks for a moment of accepting as true. The whole story of the creation and fall of man have the symbols of fable and legend stamped upon every word and letter.” Such is the estimation set upon the sacred Scriptures by present-day Unitarianism. In another sermon he says, “I insist, then, that to accept the Christian claim in regard to the Bible is not an innocent belief, a harmless faith. It is something that stands squarely in the way of human progress, more than anything else of which I know.Is there anything stranger known to a country whose progress and accomplishments are to so great an extent the pure product of the Christian faith than a body of people professing religion, even employing in their services the Bible as a text book and voicing in their songs Biblical sentiments; than this downgrade in theological thinking that makes of them “sappers and miners” of the very foundations of that faith which has brought to the world its greatest and practically its only blessing, and of that Book which has for two thousand years, in its entirety, and for thirty-five hundred in its older portions, been the world’s one and only adequate moral luminary? Naturally, this downgrade in theology reaches a further stage.It denies the reality of sin and the necessity of salvation. The same local representative of Unitarianism, in one of his addresses, informs his audience to this effect, “With the passing of this Adam and Eve story there comes the total collapse of the whole Christian dogma of atonement. If the first man never sinned, as described in the Book of Genesis, then there is no sin for his descendants to inherit; and if there is no sin to inherit ** then of course there is no need of atonement; and if there is no need of atonement, then there is no need of God sending into the world His only begotten Son that through Him the world might be saved.” It continues further, “Man is not totally depraved; he does not need to be saved from the wrath of God; he does not need to have any faith in a Divine Redeemer—all of these conceptions are simply untrue from start to finish, and all the familiar ideas of atonement and redemption, conversion and regeneration, heaven and hell, which comprise the fabric of the great doctrine of Christian salvation, must be utterly surrendered by every great student of the facts.”Later he tells us, “The only salvation man needs is a change of social environment,” and reaches his conclusion by declaring, “This salvation is effected by means of education rather than redemption.”That’s an interesting deliverance!

It declares that two thousand years of Christian history have been in vain; yea, worse than in vain, since in his conception the dogma of the atonement, central in the entire Christian system, has impeded progress.How strange then, how exceedingly strange, is the fact that those countries to which the Christian Scriptures have been carried and in which Christian ministers and Christian laymen have wrought as missionaries, pastors, evangelists and teachers, have become the most civilized and desirable countries of the world. In them social wrongs have been most rapidly righted, mechanical inventions have marked the most rapid progress, higher education has found its best friends, and those amenities that tend to sweeten and sanctify life have best flourished.The illustration is most unfortunate for its author.

He holds that the ancient world perished because its individuals sought to save themselves instead of the whole of society, and, as a result, the heathenism of the north rolled down upon Greece and Rome and so far polluted the civilizing process, as not only to arrest it, but to utterly overthrow and crush the same.But what about “the education” of Greece and Rome? Certainly that medium of salvation to which this modern has linked his faith for future good was neither forgotten nor yet neglected in Greece and Rome.Prof. Conklin of Princeton, himself one of the leading exponents of the very evolutionary process which Mr. Dietrich adopts as his religion, tells us of the intellectual and cultural advantages enjoyed by Greece 500 to 300 years before Christ. He says,“In the two centuries between 500 and 300 B. C., the small and relatively barren country of Attica, with an area and total population about equal to that of the present State of Rhode Island, but with less than one-fifth as many free persons, produced at least 25 illustrious men,” and quotes approvingly Galton’s conclusion that “the average ability of the Athenian race of that period was, on the lowest estimate, as much greater than that of the English race of the present days as the latter is above that of the African negro.”If education is a savior, why did not Greece become the world’s savior?

If “culture” is the redeemer of the race, what happened to paralyze its redeeming powers at the very moment when it had reached its acme? If we are told that the intellectual culture of 2,500 years ago lacked the mechanical contrivances known to modern education, which go to affect the amenities of life and to soften the very struggle for existence, let us not forget the late experience with Germany—the world’s educational center, nor yet the allegory of R.

F. Horton, the Old World’s prominent liberal as applied to America. It runs after this manner, “The Spirit of Modern Progress one day called up a human being, and said to him, “I perceive that you are discontented with your life. You long for things beyond your power. Tell me, now, what it is that will make you happy, and I will give it to you. If you have such wonderful power at your command, then make my life more comfortable, for I am weary of it.” ‘You ask what is easy,’ replied the Spirit; and thereupon he gave the human being beautiful cities, with streets that were sometimes clean, and police departments that were occasionally efficient.

He gave him handsome houses with modern plumbing and electric lights, and a thousand other things that made life comfortable.“ ‘Now,’ said the Spirit, ‘do you wish for anything more? for you have but to ask and I will give it to you.’ ‘I should wish,’ replied the human being, ‘that my business life were more comfortable,’ ‘That, too, is easy.’ answered the Spirit, and thereupon he gave the human being telephones and telegraphs, railroads and steamships. And after this the human being asked that his pleasures be made more comfortable, and thereupon the Spirit gave him fireproof theaters and comic operas, motor cars and yachts.“Then again the Spirit asked, ‘Do you still desire more?’ and the human being replied, ‘Yes, make my religion more comfortable.’ ‘That is simplicity itself,’ answered the Spirit, and thereupon he gave the human being magnificent churches, good preachers, and twenty-minute sermons. ‘And now,’ asked the Spirit, ‘are you satisfied at last, or is there something yet lacking to your happiness?’ ‘Yes,’ answered the human being, ‘my conscience troubles me.

Make that comfortable.’ ‘That is the easiest thing of all,’ said the Spirit; and thereupon he did away with the personal devil and gave the human being an easy-going summer and a hell that made a comfortable winter resort. At that the human being fell back into his easy chair and remarked, ‘Really, my dear Spirit, you have made religion so comfortable that I shall hardly need think of it,’ and he buried himself in the Sunday newspaper. As for the Spirit, he began to float out of the window. ‘Where are you going?’ asked the human being. ‘To see my father,’ said the Spirit. ‘He is dying.’ ‘And who is your father?’ ‘The Spirit of Nobility,’ replied the Spirit of Modern Progress. ‘He is on his last legs.’” I ask in all candor if that is not the exact condition of society in the very moment when “education” is more easy and more universal, the world over, than ever since man had a beginning. Take the immoral conditions of colleges that are now exciting the interest, not alone of educators, but of the general public—conditions that are raising questions so serious that no philosopher has risen with an adequate answer, and tell me if there is the slightest prospect that “Education,” divorced from Christianity, promises anything to the future than a new paganism, so tending to an unbridled license and to the exercise of unmeasured lust that it looks to the repetition of history in the degradation of the present-day civilized nations to the same point to which Babylon, Greece and Rome plunged?Education has never proven itself even a moral force. It gives a veneer to civilization, but it makes no contribution to righteousness of character.Chicago is an educational center. Many of the biggest universities and most important theological seminaries are located in that city. Its schools of all sorts represent not millions, but billions of investment; and yet, at this moment it is doubtful if there is a more besodden city on the face of the earth. Its crimes are incalculable in number and unthinkable in character.

On a recent visit to that city I saw more drunkenness in one day than I have witnessed in three years in my extensive travels in other cities. Its murders per annum would equal, if they did not exceed, England and one-half dozen European governments combined. Take the evangelical churches out of Chicago and leave it with its schools only, for fifty years, and there is not a self-respecting man on earth that would think of making it his residence place, or even permitting his wife or daughter to pass through the same, unattended by an armed bodyguard.But the man who can believe in the hypothesis of evolution—an hypothesis that has not a scintilla of evidence in all the earth—can also believe that “education will save,” in spite of the fact that all human history opposes his expectation.It is, however, an evidence of some remaining remnant of sanity that one living in a world, sin-cursed as this one is, should feel the need of “salvation,” and since “Divine redemption” has been rejected by Unitarians, it is only natural, perhaps, that they should seek to substitute human “education.”One needs to change the language of Prof. Gwatkiniri but a single word to make it applicable. “You may worship Christ or you may seat ‘education’ upon the throne of God and worship that.”Choose you this day which! The first makes you a Christian believer; the second makes you a pagan idolater.But the end is not yet. IS NOW Having put away the Son, it now repudiates the Father. This also is a fulfilment of Scripture.“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father;” “neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him”. In a recently published sermon, a prominent Unitarian preacher, a leader of that society, attempted to define God. He made it out that all nature had in it a resident “force or energy.” Then, to save himself from the charge of atheism, he argued that this force or energy is “omnipresent”; in other words, it is everywhere. He also insisted that it was “eternal”—never had a beginning and it would never have an end. His language is, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” He claimed for it “infinity,” “omnipotence,” and finally “consciousness.” At the sight of this word “consciousness,” we thought that after all he was going to admit a personal God, and so put himself in line with Theists at least. But, alas, for the theological downgrade in this denomination! He had no such intent.

The “consciousness” of which he spake he found in man, and in man alone. Hence, the only conscious god, or even manifestation of God with which he is familiar, is man—a conclusion that must inevitably result in one of two things—the worship of man, which is idolatry, or the proclamation of only an unconscious god—Energy, which is atheism.Having rejected the spiritual, Unitarianism adopts the mechanical.

The mechanical theory of the universe is in popular vogue today in Unitarian circles. Again we quote the language of Augustus H. Strong, “More and more the spirit of materialism and agnosticism has taken possession of the Unitarian body”. They are accustomed to glorify nature, magnify science and multiply their praises to mechanical inventions. Here is a specimen of it. “Electricity and steam, as they have been applied to the use of men, are doing more to bring about a sense of human solidarity, to help men understand the relations which exist between them on all parts of the globe, than all the prayers and all the preaching in all the churches of the last 1,900 years.”It is impossible to listen to these songs of worship, so extravagant in their praise of the material and so disparaging in their judgment of the spiritual, without remembering what Paul wrote to the Romans 1:18-25.“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed IT unto them. “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, EVEN His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified HIM not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and Worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen”. Finally, having flung away the Scriptures, Unitarianism accepts the gospel of Darwinism. In a sermon on “The Kind of Salvation Man Needs,” the Unitarian preacher says, “Man was not created a few thousand years ago in a perfect condition, but he came into existence and reached his present stage of life by a long and gradual process of development from lower forms of existence. In other words, millions of years ago man was simply one of the numerous species of animals which then populated the earth. He was a mere animal creature struggling with all the other creatures for existence, and armed with all the unbridled and cruel passions of animal life necessary to his existence. Slowly, however, he began to rise, and little by little to differentiate himself from the other animals. He developed a brain which proved to be a more powerful factor in the struggle for existence than the strength and skill of the body.

He developed emotions of sympathy and love, and human society with all its advantages for defense against the world came into existence. He developed a conscience that urged him to do those things which , contributed to the elevation of life.

Thus little by little he took on the image of a man and slowly developed to his present stage of civilization.”It is evident, therefore, that the words of Christ had occasion, “He that is not with Me is against Me”. It is evident that this philosophy of religion, which began with a slight departure from the “faith which was once delivered”, is ending in the deepest, darkest and dankest atheism. Darwinism came to Unitarianism as a veritable boon when it had denied the central figure of Christianity—even Christ, and had parted from the shores of spiritual religion and had gone out on the seas of infidelity to face the winds and waves of skepticism without chart or compass. Darwin came with his atheistic philosophy of the universe, and this rudderless, puny “Society” seized that godless philosophy and it is now striving by naming the falsehood a science to make it sustain a religious faith. It is the action of a drowning man who strives to float ashore on pig iron. Unitarianism and Darwinism are sinking together.

They are helping to carry each other down. The one entertains exactly the same prospect as the other.

Being alike destitute of the truth, they are destined to perish. The fires these two philosophies have sought to kindle have produced a darkening smoke, but never yet has either of them sent up a flame. They are void alike of light and warmth, and in the language of the late Geo. B. Foster of the University of Chicago, an ardent exponent of both, their attempt “to cleave to the sunnier side of doubt,” is a vain one, and the prayer of their Apostles, “May there be light and warmth enough to keep us from freezing in the dark,” is the prayer of men who have deliberately struck the sun from the heavens in the rejection of Jesus— “the Light of the World”, and whose darkened paths and freezing souls are the sheer consequence of a voluntary infidelity. So the Christian believer, however sadly he may feel to say it, is compelled to remark to the Unitarian, as to the modernist:“He that hath felt the spirit of the Highest Cannot confound or doubt Him or deny, Yea, with one breath, O world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.”