Peter Taylor Forsyth
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 86
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... II The Authority of the Preacher I Venture here to state at once what I will go on to explain, that the preacher is the organ of the only real_and final authority for mankind. He is its organ, and even its steward; but he is not its vicar, except at Rome. The question of the ultimate authority for mankind is the greatest of all the questions which meet the West, since the Catholic Church lost its place in the sixteenth century, and since criticism no longer allows the Bible to occupy that place. Yet the gospel of the future must come with the note of authority. Every challenge of authority but develops the need of it. And that note must sound in whatever is the supreme utterance of the church, in polity, pulpit, or creed. It seems clear, indeed, unless the whole modern movement is to be simply undone, that the Church must draw in the range of its authority, and even Catholicism must be modified if it is to survive. But the Church can never part with the tone of authority, nor with the claim that, however it may be defined, the authority of its message is supreme. That is the very genius of an evangelical religion; for it declares that that which saves the world shall also judge the world, and it preaches the absolute right over us of the Christ who bought us--the active supremacy in conscience of our moral redemption. It is the absence of the note of authority that is the central weakness of so many of the churches; and it is the source of their failure to impress Society with their message for the practical ends of the Kingdom of God. It is useless to preach the Kingdom when we do not carry into the centre of life the control of a King. The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master. And the first charge of every...