MODERNISM IN THE CHURCH.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15017, 11 July 1914, Page 16

MODERNISM IN THE CHURCH.

Preaching at Crouch Hill Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Richard Roberts gave a significant deliverance* as to Modernism in the Church. A striking obiter dictum was: "I do not suppose we -hail ever make another creed; I hope we never shall.'■*-, Modernism stood for the seeking out of; truth at all costs; tho claim for freedom of thought and speech in relation to creed, tradition and formula. The distinguishing work of the true modernist was an open mind. Modernism. was no new thing. At every epoch tho question of j the proper relation between the old and the now in reJjg»ou_ thought had had to be faced. Tbe proper attitude was neither, to despise tho old nor fear the new. The past was really the father of the new, albeit sometimes the parent did not recogniso his own offspring. Tradition- waa the embodiment of tho best thought and experience of the ages, yet --■ should not be a bondage but a guide. Mr Roberts drew attention, in rela-tion-to the stated formulas of the past, to (1) we cannot talk properly, ol old truth and new truth, truth being eternal, although the way in which it is clothed changes; (2) the statements of truth in the creeds are m words, w"hich in themselves are nuia and varying; (3) wo are dealing with translations from one language into another; (4) as ono instance, the Apostles' Creed, so-called, was known to us in twenty different forms, which meant that new aspects of trut new elements in experience were addec. as time went on. So bo-day there I were large tracts and continents or Christian thought and feeling still to :be discovered. Dealing with the limiItations to be placed upon modernism within the Church, Mr Roberts sa-d that the only conditions ho would attach to it would be tho acceptance ot the Incarnation and the Atonement as taught" in the New Testament. Yet ho expressed his belief that all honest seeking of truth was the working of the Spirit of Truth. Ultimately trutn is lifo and experience.