PRINCIPAL CAIRD ON UNBELIEF.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1777, 16 April 1874, Page 4

PRINCIPAL CAIRD ON UNBELIEF.

On Sunday, Dec. 2, Principal Caird, of Glasgow University, preached in Ibrox U.P. Church, in which,- during the day, anniversary services were conducted. His text was from II Timothy, ii chapter,.l4th verse— -" If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful ; He cannot deny Himself." Is unbelief, he said, a sin ? Are doubts and difficulties, in the matter of religion of the nature of moral delinquency 1 Can the obtaining of correct opinions be justly made the condition on which a man's fate, either in this world or the next, is made to turn ? If he has the misfortune to entertain doubts as to the credibility of certain facts, or the authority or interpretation of certain dogma, or the logical accuracy of the deductions by which certain doctrines have been established, are we right in excluding that man from all Christian fellowship, and, if he die in his unbelief, in regarding him as finally rejected of God? There can be doubt that there is much in the language of Scripture which may be made, and has been made, to sanction the assertion that belief in certain objective facts and doctrines is essential to salvation, and that he who rejects, or doubts, or hesitates to. accept of them does so at the peril of his soul's salvation. The text of this sermon seems not merely to maintain the same proposition, but to go further, and points out the reason or principle on which it is based. To suppose it possible, the text implies, for an unbeliever to escape would be to ascribe self contradiction to the immutable, or inconsistency to the absolute and unalterable moral order by which the universe is governed. There are, however, certain obvious considerations which have led men to question whether inspired authority can really sanction the notion that unbelief is penal, that honest doubt or conscientious error can bring down on a man the irrevocable wrath of the Almighty. Belief or un- • belief, it is* said, are acts to which neither merit nor demerit can be attached, simply because they are involuntary. Whether the characters and events, for instance, i of the early period of Roman history are mythical and fictitious— whether the defendant in a certain well-known criminal trial is innocent or a base and perjured scoundrel are questions on which different investigators may and do reach different conclusions. The conclusion you have reached may be the right one, and you may be correct in thinking that those who differ from you are of feebler capacity ; but you never think of ascribing moral guilt to them, or o,f insisting that they should be punished for their involuntary and unconscious mistakes. When we return to the special province of religion, there does not seem it is maintained, anything there which renders these considerations inapplicable to it. There is no reason why there should be one canon of historical criticism for events Baid to have happened in Italy, and another for events said to have happened in Palestine. What course is open to the searcher after truth but to collect the evidence, oral or documentary, for the alleged facts, reject, what in his 'judgment is ambiguous, accept what he thinks is trustworthy, and having carefully deliberated, come to the conclusion which the evidence leads him ? If he comes to the conclusion that the ' facts are true, so much the better for him ; but suppose, after the most careful investigation, he cannot disabuse himself of the conviction that a more or less ; fabulous element has insinuated itself into the historical books of the New Testament, or that he has in his mind an uncertainty as to. any of the gfeat events of the life of Christ, what shall we say of the man who has the misfortune. to disbelieve the facts of which we are thoroughly convinced ? "We may deem his judgment weak, but can or ought we to think worse of his moral or religious character ? — or can we. bring ourselves to believe it possible that his soul shall be finally lost because of his historical blunders and critical inaccuracy? From these considerations it is held by many that belief or unbelief are mistakes absolutely innocent, • and that the only conceivable arrangement under which true theological, opinions could be made the condition of salvation would be the continuous existence of an infallible living ■authority in the world to whose dictates all men might be required to submit. Only in that case could persistence in doubt be regarded as criminal, or as resistance to the known mind and will of God. Principal Caird then went on to state the arguments of those who hold that unbelief is one of the sins persistence in which places man beyond the reach of mercy ; and, conceding to the utmost the trnth which- that view contained, pointed out two considerations which modified the principle of the blameable character of religious unbelief. First, no calamity, ■• however terrible, that results from involuntary acts can ever . rightly be called punishment. Where, he said, there is no consciousness of having done wrong, there is in punish- : ment— no sensation of , : moral degradation The other consideration is that sometimes, at least, doubt and unbelief are only the covered form of a deeper loyalty to the truth. No one acquainted •with the theological literature of our day but must be aware of how grave, how utterly different from the ribald flippancy of former times, has. been the tone of many who have been, led away. When we read of Buch thinkers as Carlyle, Comte, the brothers Newman, and others, can ■we think of the Almighty applying to such men the anathema He has pronounced on. the scoffers, the careless the unchaste, and the vile? Is it not I don't say more charitable, but more truly reverential, to think that these errors and ; difficulties under which they labor are but the discipline by which God is leading them on to Himself ; and, in His own time and way, where and when we know not, from the labyrinth in which, they : seem to be loßt, His loving hand will guide*them out into the eternal truth, for which here they have so passionately yet so vainly longed. There is nothing in the view I have suggested that favors . latitudinarianism. This line of thought ; does not paralyse zeal for the conversion of the heathen. Apart from all rash speculations as to the future destiny of the heathen, I know what they are without Christianity, and I know what belief in Christ Jesus can make them. ,

The Hon. T. Elder, of Adelaide, has despatched Mr Ross, with a well-equipped party, from the Peake to Perth (VV. A.), for the purpose of exploring the intermediate unknown country south of lat. 26deg.