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The history and doctrines of Irvingism (v. 2)
The history and doctrines of Irvingism - v. 2 Author:Edward Miller Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. EVIDENCE AND CATHOLICITY. ||AVING got all these counts of an accusation, each of which seems to rest upon grounds, which if not irrefragable are... more » yet very difficult of removal, the question naturally occurs, what would the Members of the Body themselves advance in answer to them. It is not perhaps easy to anticipate exactly what course would be pursued by an adversary, at a particularjstage in a controversy. But the following argument is pleaded frequently and with much earnestness and vigour. If I fail to represent it favourably enough, it is not from want of desire to do it full justice. "All this method of judging upon so sacred a matter is wholly out of place. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. It is not from an outside estimate, by examination of fringes, or appendages, or appearance, that any trustworthy inference can be drawn. This is Divine action, and can only be known by those who are in the midst of all that goes on. These are the operations of ' The Spirit of truth: Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.' The mind must be purified from worldly tendencies and Intellectual Judgment. 97 judgments, in order to be in a posture to receive the Lord's message. Pride of intellect, not the humility of God's children, is inseparably attached to inexorable reasoning. Let people go into the centre of the Lord's work, with docile hearts, as earnest seekers after truth, and they will see that all this handling and examination of the husk and shell is mere superficial trifling; that the kernel is pure and supernatural, and that there is found an answer to all cavils." Now if we take away the element of truth in which this reasoning is wrapped, and by which it is recommended, we shall find two factors, viz., that ...« less