Romans 12:6-8 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy… It has been a matter of controversy whether "the faith" is to be understood in its objective or subjective sense, in other words, whether the caution is intended to guard the preacher against violating the due relation existing between one and another of the truths of revelation; or whether he does not rather use the word "faith" in its subjective meaning, and bid the Christian who is to exercise the prophetic office so to regulate his teaching as may be in accordance with the measure of faith attained by himself or his hearers. I can myself see no reason why we should not use the words in both applications. I. First, taking THE TEXT IN ITS OBJECTIVE MEANING, what shall we say is the true proportion which is to guide us in our teaching? Surely in the first instance we must go to the Catholic creeds: these, surely, in the first place, are the natural exponents to us of the revelation of the New Testament. The great truth of the incarnation of the eternal Son lies, as we all should admit, at the root of all sound teaching connected with man's relation to God. It is the one great central truth round which a theologian would group all the subsidiary truths, which we connect with the words "atonement," "reconciliation," "pardon," "justification," and the like. A number of other points of teaching, whether we count them matters of faith or of opinion, flow out of this central head. A clergyman — a scribe instructed into the kingdom of heaven — ought to see this relation between the several parts of revelation; but every clergyman even is not a formal theologian; and, deep as is the reverence still amongst our people for the English Bible, St. Paul's Epistles are mostly read for other purposes than for that of tracing the interdependence of religious truth. We complain sometimes, and not without reason, of the way in which a past generation so magnified one particular doctrine, which they thought to be embodied in St. Paul's writings, as to obscure altogether collateral and complementary truths; so as to give a thoroughly distorted image of the apostle's teaching concerning the doctrine nearest to their own hearts. Our generation surely is not altogether clear from the same error. II. But I suggested that St. Paul's words, where he speaks of the proportion of faith, MIGHT FAIRLY BEAR THE SUBJECTIVE AS WELL AS THE OBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION; in other words, he seems to imply that prophecy, to be effective for the edification of the Church, must be exercised in subordination, not only to the analogy of the faith of the Church itself, but also to the faith of the preacher, and I think also of the hearer. Am I wrong in saying that the prophecy of our days has not been always mindful of this rule? And has not this forgetfulness been one fruitful source of much of the disappointment which has waited on the ministry of good and earnest men? And we hear a great deal about the importance of defending the outworks from some who do not seem to understand altogether what is the citadel which they suppose these outworks to defend. I do not at all mean that there is of necessity any insincerity in all this, but there is, I think, a measure of unreality. The learner is not attracted by very decided statements on the part of the teacher, so long as there is a certain secret instinct in his own mind that the conviction of the speaker's heart is not altogether in unison with the strength of his language. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh — words not spoken out of that abundance fall dead and powerless even upon the untaught ear. But there is a third, and a different aspect of the whole question. III. THE PROPORTION OF FAITH WHICH WE HAVE TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT IS THE FAITH OF OUR HEARERS AS WELL AS THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE, and the force with which we ourselves have apprehended the realities with which faith deals. The days in which we live are days of excitement, of controversy; I must add also days of failure and disappointment to those who have the cure of souls. We have gone out, many of us, full of expectation, and we have returned full of disappointment, "we have sown much and we have brought in little," and the bright lights of the early morning have ended in a very sober grey. Doubtless there are many causes working up to this result. Our expectation has been unreasonable, and it has been good for us that "tears, prayers, and watchings should fail." But I venture to think that there has been also a great forgetfulness of St. Paul's precept among us clergy. We have again and again looked for a sympathy amongst our people, which we had no right to expect; we have failed to apprehend the very wide difference between their standpoint and our own: we have expected to quicken their interest in religious truth, simply because our own has been quickened: and that new, possibly important, phases of doctrine should commend themselves to the spiritual apprehension of our people because they have so commended themselves to our own. These things are doubtless in a measure inevitable. I suppose every clergyman, in reviewing his own work and teaching, has found that he has fallen into many a mistake in his younger days from attempting to build up a super-structure where there was no sufficient foundation already laid. Sympathy with the spiritual and intellectual condition of others must of course be the result of experience. In a word, as years go on, I believe the oldest and the simplest standards alike of faith, and of devotion, and of practice satisfy us best. For dogmatic statements about the sacraments we turn to the catechism of our childhood, and we learn to see that all the refinements of more elaborate definition have added not one whit to the clearness of our apprehension of what is confessedly mystical. In like manner as the Lord's prayer becomes to us the most complete and satisfying formula of communion with God, each petition in its iteration becoming more and more formal, but ever pregnant with fresh meaning and with new life, so also do the Catholic creeds supply us with all that we want as a standard of faith. Curious and intricate questions about which we were once very much inclined to speculate, we are content to leave where the creeds leave them, implicitly contained perhaps in their statements of truth, but no more. It is in them that we learn the true balance, the real proportion; and alike for our own soul's guidance and for the teaching of our people, we fall back upon truths learnt at our mother's knee, and we find words which once sounded a little cold and formal become ever instinct with a new life; for that indeed they contain all that a Christian ought to know and "believe to his soul's health," the love of the Father, the Incarnation of the Son, and the indwelling power of the Spirit of God. (Archdn. Pott.) Parallel Verses KJV: Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; |
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