Oriental Religions and Christianity - A Course of Lectures Delivered on the Ely Foundation Before the - Students of Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1891 by Frank F. Ellinwood
page 24 of 351 (06%)
page 24 of 351 (06%)
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it may be only a breach of custom, or a ceremonial uncleanness. The
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as it is set forth in Paul's Epistles, is to the missionary a union in which his personality is still maintained in blest fellowship with God, while to his audience it may be only that out and out pantheism in which the deity within us supplants all individual personality, and not only excludes all joy, but all responsibility. Professor W.G.T. Shedd has clearly pointed out the fact that the modern missionary has a harder task in dealing with the perversions of the heathen mind than that to which the Apostles of the Early Church were called, owing to the prevalence in India and elsewhere of that pantheism which destroys the sense of moral responsibility. He says: "The Greek and Roman theism left the human will free and responsible, and thus the doctrine of sin could be taught. But the pantheistic systems of the East destroy free will, by identifying God and man; and hence it is impossible to construct the doctrine of sin and atonement except by first refuting the pantheistic ethics. The missionary can get no help from _conscience_ in his preaching, when this theory of God and the world has the ground. But St. Paul appealed confidently 'to every man's conscience in the sight of God,' and called upon the ethics and theology of the Greek and Roman philosophers for a corroboration. The early Apologists, Tertullian and others, did the same thing." The testimonies which have been given within the last few years, by the most intelligent and observing missionaries in Eastern lands, are of such peculiar significance and force, that I shall be justified in quoting a few at some length. Rev. George William Knox, D.D., of Tokio, Japan, in accepting an election to an honorary membership of the American Society of Comparative Religion, wrote, December 17, 1890: "I |
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