Untitled - Electric Scotland

1863-67] DEFINITENESS 477
of any attempts to tamper with these truths, than he was when he
defended them in earlier life on grounds of mere speculative
orthodoxy, having not yet learned to prize and love them through
-what must be to each practically the surest test their tried
value to his own spirit. ... It would not, therefore, have been
surprising if the author of the following discourses had found, in
1 86 1, that he could neither himself indorse what he had written
fifteen years ago, nor, if it did still retain its hold on his convic
tions, look upon it as applicable to the circumstances of a greatly
changed age. He has not, however, met with this difficulty.
Re-perusing what he then put forth, he finds it to be as true an
exponent as ever of his real sentiments, and he thinks that, by
(iod s blessing, the statements he long ago deliberately published
need to be
may tend to quiet men s hearts even now. . . . Men
told now, as much as they ever did, that controversy,
to be
Christian, must be conducted in a Christian spirit of forbearing
love. . . . Men need to be told now, as much as ever, that the
truths of a living Christian faith cannot be made to find their way
into reluctant minds through mere protest and negation. . . . To
warn us against what is not true is very different from giving us
the truth. The Holy Spirit of God can indeed alone mould the
convictions, but the human advocate of truth will not do his part
in upholding it, unless he tries to clothe it in the living form of
an embodied and intelligible teaching, capable of warming the
sympathies and attracting the affections,
at the same time that it
appeals, as the case may be, either to the understanding or the
highest
reason." 1
Such a "living form of embodied and intelligible
teaching
"
the Bishop endeavours throughout the volume
to supply, and the twenty-five sermons it contains are,
whatever else they be, neither ambiguous, nor timorous,
nor vague. From very various quarters he received
thanks for what were described as his
"
outspoken words
of reassurance, hopefulness, and faith," and especially for
the pains he had taken to face and not evade the exact
points in dispute.
1
Dangers and Safeguards of Modern Theology", Introduction, pp. 1-3.