i8 7 o] A THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 155 



The Church is not redeemed by its theology ; it 

 theologises because it is redeemed. Theology has done 

 its work when it has given scientific expression to all 

 that is bound up in the consciousness of redemption and 

 the life that flows therefrom. And therefore the theology 

 of a living Church must not start from the mere outward 

 form and vehicle of Christianity, be that form never so 

 divine, but from the true substance of Christianity which 

 the Church knows that she has already grasped. In this 

 spirit it is that the Reformers with one accord, and no 

 where more clearly than in our own Confession, assert that it 

 is only the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness 

 with the Word in our hearts that is the true evidence 

 of the infallible truth and divine authority of Scripture. 

 The authority of the Church, or a mere natural contempla 

 tion of its incomparable excellences, may serve to make 

 us bow before a mystery that we cannot comprehend ; 

 but so long as God s revelation stands only over against 

 us even though it stand before us as evidently divine 

 we have not even won a starting-point from which to 

 develop the confession of our faith. The testimony of 

 the Church begins with the inward work of the Holy 

 Spirit with a Christianity realised in the heart. 



From this standpoint it was simply impossible for 

 theology to start from an apologetical estimate of the 

 outer evidences of Christianity. Apologetic speaks to 

 those that are without the Church and serves to make the 

 opponents of Christ inexcusable, to reduce them to silence 

 before a phenomenon that they cannot fathom. But 

 theology speaks to the Church, to those to whom Christi 

 anity is no mere phenomenon but a part, the only valuable 

 part, of life. To suppose that the Church has to be 

 nurtured on Christian evidences is to suppose that she 

 has forgotten her own identity. And, therefore, it was a 

 melancholy day for Christendom when the Reformation 

 Church ceased to vindicate its rights as a Church by 

 striving more and more fully to realise its calling in Christ, 



