STERLING BRINGS IN HIS RESERVES.
That evening after dinner Mr. Sterling brought over his distinguished
friend. Dorothy had invited Mr. Walton to return and form one of the
group.
"Doctor," said Mr. Page, with a smile and a wink at Mr. Sterling, "I
guess you will have to set us all straight. Mr. Walton here is about to
enlist Dorothy and Mr. Sterling under the Baptist flag."
"Miss Dorothy seems to think the Bible commands her to be put under the
water," remarked Sterling, "and she does not believe at all in infant
baptism. She insists that these things prevent her joining our church,
and she talks as if the Baptist doctrines are nearest to the doctrines
which she believes the Bible to teach."
"Am I stating it correctly?" asked Sterling of Dorothy.
"Mr. Sterling is right in saying that I believe in immersion and not in
infant baptism, and therefore I do not feel it would be right for me to
join his church."
"May I ask why you feel that you cannot join his church?" asked the
Doctor in a gracious manner.
"If I think the doctrines of the church are wrong, do you think I ought
to select that as the church for me to join?"
"May I ask another question?"
Sterling's hopes rose as he saw the Doctor entering upon the discussion.
He felt there could be but one result.
"Mr. Sterling has mentioned that you thought very favorably of the
doctrines of the Baptists. One of the cardinal doctrines of the Baptists
is religious liberty. That means they believe in the right of every
individual to interpret the Scripture for himself. Do you believe in
that doctrine?"
"Certainly. Don't you, Doctor?"
"I see you are putting me on the witness stand," he said with a smile.
"I answer that I assuredly do believe in such individual liberty; but it
seems to me that the Baptists are inconsistent. They demand individual
liberty and yet they cry out against us Presbyterians because we
interpret the Scriptures in a way different from them. You say, Miss
Page, you cannot join the Presbyterians because of their beliefs, but I
should not think that that ought to concern you. If you hold that
everyone must interpret the Bible for himself, then that is what the
Presbyterians are doing. In doing that they carry out the Baptist
doctrine of individual accountability to God."
Sterling was delighted. It was just as he had expected. He saw in a
flash that if the Baptists were true to their doctrine of religious
liberty they could not demand that he change his faith, but must accord
him a perfect right to his belief.
"Excuse me, Doctor," said Dorothy, "I do not think you understood me. I
do not blame the Presbyterians for drawing their own conclusions about
the Bible and believing just what they think the Bible teaches rather
than what somebody else thinks it teaches. I grant them this right, but
it does not follow that I must therefore join their church. I say let
the Presbyterians follow what they consider to be the teachings of the
Bible; but let me do the same and let me not feel that I must join their
church."
"No, my young friend, I would not say you must join the Presbyterian
church; but may I ask why you should find it impossible to join that
splendid body of Christian people? If everybody must follow his own
convictions of Bible teaching, would you say you cannot fellowship those
who do not interpret the Bible as you do?"
"Doctor, I do not say I could not fellowship the Presbyterians, or
anybody that may understand his Bible differently from me. I can respect
them and believe them to be better Christians than I am. But I don't
think I ought to join their church unless I believe their doctrines."
"Well, my daughter, you will never find a church with every member
believing just as you believe."
"What does a denomination mean, anyhow, Doctor? Does it not mean a body
of people believing a certain set of doctrines?"
"Yes."
"It seems to me to be somewhat after this fashion. I guess I have no
right with my small knowledge about these things to be theorizing, and
yet is it not this way? Here in the world we find a multitude of
Christians. As they read the Bible some understand it one way and others
understand it another way, and still others another way, and those
therefore who understand it one way get together in one great company
and those understanding it another way get together in another great
company and so on, and these large groups are the different
denominations, and this simply means that people believing alike
naturally come together and fall into line under one name."
"Why, yes; that certainly sounds sensible, daughter," said Mr. Page. "I
guess that those people who believe as Mr. Walton believes about baptism
and other matters are called by the name Baptists, and that those who
believe the doctrines that Dr. Boardman believes call themselves
Presbyterians. Now of course you would not respect a person believing as
the Baptists do and joining the Presbyterians. He is not a Presbyterian
in belief and he ought not to call himself such nor be known as such."
"Doctor," asked Dorothy, "would you want a person to join your church if
he would not accept the doctrine of your church?"
"Since I come to think of it, my fair questioner, I don't think we would
take in such a person. If you cannot accept the teachings of the
Presbyterian church, then probably you ought not to join, though I
confess I am not as strict as some of my brethren. If a person is with
us in the fundamentals, then we can overlook such minor matters as
baptism and the like. I think the trouble with the Christian world
today is that we are magnifying the non-essentials and neglecting the
weightier truths."
"You say baptism is a minor matter?" asked Dorothy with some surprise.
"Why, certainly, my daughter. Christ himself must be pained when he sees
his people so anxious about external forms rather than about matters of
heart, of life."
"That greatly bewilders me, Doctor. It has been intimated several times
that these matters about immersion and infant baptism and church
government are minor matters, that there are other doctrines that are of
greater moment; but let me ask, are we to disregard and treat these as
we please? Must we not try to obey these commands as they were
originally commanded and practiced? Besides, Doctor, it seems to me that
this beautiful ordinance with its impressive teachings was given great
prominence by Christ. His last great command to the apostles had baptism
in it, and when people were converted under the preaching of the
apostles the first thing they always did was to be baptized, as if
baptism was one of the things that had to be done and done at once.
Christ was himself baptized and he commands us to be. I don't see how
you could wish it to be plainer than that. I cannot understand how a
person can say that one command of Christ is not as important to be
obeyed as another. When you talk that way about a command, does it not
sound as if it did not make much difference whether we obeyed the
command at all?"
"Well, my daughter," said the Doctor, "I glory in your zeal and courage
and I bid you follow your convictions; but you must remember one thing,
and that is that you will probably never find a church all of whose
members believe exactly alike. Suppose you find some in the Baptist
church that believe something that you do not believe. How can you
conscientiously stay in with them?"
"I do not think it is a question as to what every individual member
believes, but what are the doctrines by which that particular
denomination is known? There are certain truths which the Baptists
believe, and when you say you are a Baptist people know just what you
believe. As I understand it, there are certain truths which all
Christians believe, and on those points we are all one; and although we
may not be in the same organization, yet I think we are like soldiers,
all fighting in the army of our King."
"Yes, my daughter," said the Doctor, "we all belong to what is called
the church universal."
"But," continued Dorothy, "there are other matters about which there are
differences, and this makes the army break up into different regiments;
but we all still have the same Commander."
"You are quite a little theologian," said the Doctor with a smile. "May
I ask my young theologian a question? How do you manage to swallow the
Baptist doctrine of close communion?"
"They do not seem close in their communion," promptly replied Dorothy,
"not any closer than you Presbyterians."
"You surely are a valiant defender. How do you prove that?"
"You believe, do you not, Doctor, that no one ought to come to your
communion table who has not first been baptized?"
"Yes, that is our rule. I certainly would not advise one who has not
been baptized to come to the table."
"The Baptists believe that, too."
"But the Baptists do not think I ought to come with them, and yet I have
been baptized."
"Yes, but you have not been Scripturally baptized--so the Baptists
think."
"But what have they to do with my baptism? I am satisfied with it. I
believe it is Scriptural. I thought the Baptists contended for
individual freedom in interpreting the Bible. I follow my conscience
with my Bible and decide that I must be sprinkled, and now you say the
Baptists say I ought not to commune because I have not been baptized the
way they prefer. In other words, the Baptists want me to interpret the
Bible not as my conscience decides, but as their conscience decides. If
I have followed my conscience about baptism, what more could you ask of
me as to my baptism, and why should the Baptists therefore refuse me a
place at their table?"
"Doctor, I don't think they refuse anybody a place at their table. I
expect that is where so many people get the wrong idea about the close
communion of the Baptists. Mr. Walton says that they keep no policeman
at their table to keep people away. I think that is very important to
remember. They believe that everybody must interpret the Bible according
to his own conscience, but that does not mean that they think that
everybody that does this will interpret the Bible as was originally
intended. But they do leave it to every man's conscience."
"Ah, you are mistaken there, my little lady. That is just what the
Baptists do not do. They do not leave it to other folks' conscience,
but--"
At this point the Doctor turned to Mr. Walton and said:
"Mr. Walton, I think it is one of the calamities connected with the life
of the Christian church today that so much of her energy is expended in
arguing about differences rather than in discoursing on their
agreements. I think denominationalism is a blight on Christianity, and
if we could banish it and unite our forces, presenting a solid front to
the enemy in heathen lands as well as in our own land, we would sweep
the field for our Lord and Master."
"But, Doctor, how can we get rid of denominationalism?" asked Dorothy.
"Can we ever get all men to think alike and to interpret the Bible
alike?"
"It is not that, my daughter," said the venerable man. "We must all have
our individual peculiarities, but we must subordinate these to the great
mission before the church of Christ."
"What do you mean by subordinating our beliefs?" asked Dorothy. "I do
not see how it weakens the Christian army for Christians to have their
own individual beliefs. It seems to me it makes Christians a stronger
people for them to be people of conviction and not for each one to treat
Christ's commands lightly. Let us not weaken at the point of conviction
in order to strengthen at the point of courtesy and friendship. Why, I
should think that the greatest success would come by each denomination
pressing forward along its own convictions."
"Will you let me say," remarked Mr. Walton, "that I believe that the
next epoch in the life of the Christian church will be a move not
towards denominational unity that is so much talked about now, but
rather towards an emphasized denominationalism in the highest sense of
that term? The church in her march of conquest loses rather than gains
in many of her attempts at union. Mark you, I do not say in all her
attempts at union, but in many of them. True denominationalism means
that the Christian church falls into certain divisions according to
their interpretations of the Bible. The trouble with many efforts at
Christian union is that the chief effort is not towards bringing the
church to one view of the Bible truth, but the pressure for union is
often along the line of expediency. A thousand times better is it for
each denomination to press along the path of its own individual
convictions as to Bible teaching; then will each denomination be
stronger. There will be higher mutual respect. Some of these
denominations may be, and undoubtedly are, mistaken in many of their
views, but by such loyalty they at least exalt the Bible to the loftiest
place. They put the emphasis on its study, and if true union ever comes
it will come from such focusing of study on the Bible. Under the light
of its teaching the denominations that are in error may see and abandon
their error. Intenser denominationalism in the truest sense of that word
is the secret of success. When the slogan is 'one denomination as good
as another', the Bible truth fades into minor importance; expediency,
custom and other current considerations assume control and Christianity
is the loser. If each denomination surrenders its differences in order
to come together, they may find after they have come together they have
not much left that is worth coming together for. If they put a light
value on some of Christ's commands, the danger is that they will come to
look lightly upon all of Christ's commands."