New Testament by way of a comprehensive comparison of all its diverse points of view and variant expressions of the Gospel. Not only so, but in this volume itself, which is but part of the proposed plan, I have recognized the fact that even within the narrower limits of the Gospels which give us our record of the Gospel, there are not only possible but actual diverse impressions of what the Gospel is; and that not only is full justice due to each such impression, taken by itself and for its own sake, but that the very fullest justice to each is the only way of arriving at the truth of all, or at the truth of the whole of which they are the complementary and necessary parts. The one great lesson that must forerun and make ready the Christian unity of the future is this: that contraries do not necessarily contradict, nor need opposites always oppose. What we want is not to surrender or abolish our differences, but to unite and compose them. We need the truth of every variant opinion and the light from every opposite point of view. The least fragment is right in so far as it stands for a part of the truth. It is wrong only when, as so often, it elevates into a ground of division from the other fragments just that which in reality fits it to unite with and supplement them. What has been said may indicate at least the spirit and temper in which the study before us is sought to be conducted. I speak here, of course, only in generalities; the concrete application or use of the principles enunciated must be found and judged in the book itself. As a matter of form rather than of substance, I feel that there will be a question as to the success with which the promise of method or procedure has been carried out in the volume before us. The matter is treated in the following order: (1) the Gospel of the Common Humanity, (2) the Gospel of the Work, and (3) the Gospel of the Person of our Lord. And each of these is to be considered, as far as possible, by itself and independently of the others. There are those who hold the first of these and not the other two, or the first two and not the third at least in the full sense in which we think Christianity includes them all. And we were under obligation to do full justice to the point of view of all. If I have succeeded but imperfectly in doing this, if I have at times, contrary to promise, run the lower position up into the higher, or anticipated the higher in the lower, it is at least a question where the responsibility lies. It may be that what I myself believe to be, not three gospels, but three aspects or stages of one and the same Gospel, may indeed be so. And it may be that they themselves do, of themselves and in spite of us, so run up together into one, that it is impossible for us, however honest we may be in the effort to do justice to each by itself, to keep them apart; so predetermined are they, and determined, to find each its own meaning and fulfilment, not in the separate truth of each, but in the united and common truth of all. So let us agree to disagree, if conscientiously we must, in all our manifold differences; and, bringing all our differences together, let us see if they are not wiser than we, and if they cannot and will not of themselves find agreement in a unity that is higher and vaster than we. SEWANEE, St. Luke's Day, 1905 W. P. DUBOSE |