C. Matthew McMahon
Christian Preacher
What are your thoughts on this sentence?
But, although the Scriptures are the supreme rule, they are not alone the supreme judge of faith and practice.
The writer (Girdeau) continues to explain:
"The question being as to the final judge whose expositions of the rule are ultimate, the answer is given with equal sublimity and accuracy in the Westminster Confession of Faith: "The supreme Judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." From the nature of the case, the only competent judge of a divine rule is a divine judge. Let us pause a moment that we may estimate the force of this mighty collocation. The grand principle of Protestantism is not that the supreme judge is the Word alone, nor that it is the Spirit alone; but that it is"”the Word and the Spirit. This little coupling and, which brings together and indissolubly unites the two great terms the Word, the Spirit, effects the junction with a thundering clank which should ring in the ear of the church, and penetrate into her innermost heart. The copulative here has a significance akin to that which expresses the substantial unity of the three distinct subsistences in the adorable Trinity"”the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God over all blessed forever. It is like that between justification, sanctification, and the personal experience of both,"”not the water only, not the blood only, not the Spirit only; but the Spirit and the water and the blood, one in the unity of the Word, and one in the concrete unity of the believer´s experience. God, all-wise, has put together these two terms of the grandest of all Protestant canons the Word and the Spirit, the supreme judge of controversies; and what God hath joined together let not man put asunder! Their divorce is sure to result in slavery to the letter on the one hand, and on the other, in wild hypotheses as to human rights and needless schisms which rend the unity of the church in pieces.
Neither, then, is the conscience of the individual, nor that of the church in her organic capacity, possessed of ultimate authority in matters of faith and duty. Both, in the noble language of Luther, himself the intrepid defender of the right of private judgment, in his final reply at the Diet of Worms, both are "bound captive by the Scriptures." And, as the Word is interpreted by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, human wisdom is to be guided by that infallible authority. In the grand words of the same distinguished reformer: "Obedience is to be preferred to the gift of miracles, even if we possessed that gift." Yes; the paramount duty of the church is absolute conformity to the written Word as it is expounded to faith by the divine Spirit.
Thoughts?
But, although the Scriptures are the supreme rule, they are not alone the supreme judge of faith and practice.
The writer (Girdeau) continues to explain:
"The question being as to the final judge whose expositions of the rule are ultimate, the answer is given with equal sublimity and accuracy in the Westminster Confession of Faith: "The supreme Judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." From the nature of the case, the only competent judge of a divine rule is a divine judge. Let us pause a moment that we may estimate the force of this mighty collocation. The grand principle of Protestantism is not that the supreme judge is the Word alone, nor that it is the Spirit alone; but that it is"”the Word and the Spirit. This little coupling and, which brings together and indissolubly unites the two great terms the Word, the Spirit, effects the junction with a thundering clank which should ring in the ear of the church, and penetrate into her innermost heart. The copulative here has a significance akin to that which expresses the substantial unity of the three distinct subsistences in the adorable Trinity"”the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God over all blessed forever. It is like that between justification, sanctification, and the personal experience of both,"”not the water only, not the blood only, not the Spirit only; but the Spirit and the water and the blood, one in the unity of the Word, and one in the concrete unity of the believer´s experience. God, all-wise, has put together these two terms of the grandest of all Protestant canons the Word and the Spirit, the supreme judge of controversies; and what God hath joined together let not man put asunder! Their divorce is sure to result in slavery to the letter on the one hand, and on the other, in wild hypotheses as to human rights and needless schisms which rend the unity of the church in pieces.
Neither, then, is the conscience of the individual, nor that of the church in her organic capacity, possessed of ultimate authority in matters of faith and duty. Both, in the noble language of Luther, himself the intrepid defender of the right of private judgment, in his final reply at the Diet of Worms, both are "bound captive by the Scriptures." And, as the Word is interpreted by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, human wisdom is to be guided by that infallible authority. In the grand words of the same distinguished reformer: "Obedience is to be preferred to the gift of miracles, even if we possessed that gift." Yes; the paramount duty of the church is absolute conformity to the written Word as it is expounded to faith by the divine Spirit.
Thoughts?
