Sad is the spectacle of these churches; meeting week after week to be beguiled by the philosophy of men, and raising no voice in protest against the denial of their only foundation as a church, and of their only hope for time and eternity!  Far more honorable were the infidels of the past generation than these ministers.  They were wholly outside the Church.  But now, behold the inconsistency!  Men who are covered by the vesture of the Church, ministering its sacraments, and supported by its benevolence, are making an open attack upon that wisdom of God which made Christ Jesus the only ground for all righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.  The predictions for the last days are thus not only being fulfilled by false systems and doctrines, but they are found in the visible Church itself.  “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (II Tim. 4:3, 4).

Great religious activities are possible without coming into complications with saving faith.  It is possible to be more concerned over the untimely death of one hundred thousand drunkards than with the Christ-less death of twenty million human beings; or to be wholly concerned with the educational and physical needs of the heathen, and to neglect their greatest need in regeneration.  Thus Satan may gain his own ends, even through some so-called missionary undertakings, for in this manner he can beguile untaught saints to limit their work to the lines of his highest ideals.  It is possible to fight against sin and not present the Saviour; or to urge the highest Scriptural ideals and yet offer no reasonable way of attainment.

There is a strange fascination about these undertakings which are humanitarian, and are religious only in form and title.  And there is a strange attraction in the leader who announces that he is not concerned with the doctrines of Scripture, because the helping of humanity is his one passion and care:  yet all his passion is lost and his care is to no real end unless coupled with a very positive message of a particular way of Salvation, the true understanding of which demands a series of most careful distinctions.

Recently the word “pragmatism” has been brought into popular use to denote the test by which the pragmatists measure all systems, theories and doctrines.  The pragmatic inquiry when applied to any system, theory, or doctrine may be understood to mean, “does it meet its claims in practice?” Although much is being made of this phase of pragmatism, the test is as old as the race, and verified by Scripture, for Jesus said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”  However, the burden of testing claims has never before been so great, for the world was never so filled with new and strange theories as now.  And these modern systems that deny true salvation