Let us not forget, on the other hand, that the history of a fact is not the mere statement of the outward thing that has happened.  Suppose four people, for instance, standing at the foot of Christ’s Cross; four other ‘evangelists’ than the four that we know.  There is a Roman soldier; there is a Pharisee; there is one of the weeping crowd of poor women, not disciples; and there is a disciple.  The first man tells the fact as he saw it:  ’A Jewish rebel was crucified this morning.’  The second man tells the fact:  ’A blaspheming apostate suffered what he deserved to-day.’  The woman tells the fact:  ’A poor, gentle, fair soul was martyred to-day.’  And the fourth one tells the fact:  ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins.’  The three tell the same fact; the fourth preaches the Gospel—­that is to say, Christian teaching is the facts plus their explanation; and it is that which differentiates it from the mere record which is of no avail to anybody.  So Paul himself in one of his other letters puts it.  This is his gospel:  Jesus of Nazareth ’died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.’  That is what turns the bald story of the facts into teaching, which is the mould for life.

So on the one hand, dear brethren, do not let us fall into the superficial error of fancying that our religion is a religion of emotion and morality only.  It is a religion with a basis of divine truth, which, being struck away, all the rest goes.  There is a revolt against dogma to-day, a revolt which in large measure is justified as an essential of progress, and in large measure as an instance of progress; but human nature is ever prone to extremes, and in the revolt from man’s dogma there is danger of casting away God’s truth.  Christianity is not preserved when we hold by the bare facts of the outward history, unless we take with these facts the interpretation of them, which declares the divinity and the sacrifice of the Son of God.

And on the other hand, let us keep very clear in our minds the broad and impassable gulf of separation between the Christian teaching as embodied in the Scripture and the systems which Christianity has evolved therefrom.  Men’s intellects must work upon the pabulum that is provided for them, and a theology in a systematised form is a necessity for the intellectual and reasonable life of the Christian Church.  But there is all the difference between man’s inferences from and systematising of the Christian truth and the truth that lies here.  The one is the golden roof that is cast over us; the other is too often but the spiders’ webs that are spun across and darken its splendour.  It is a sign of a wholesome change in the whole sentiment and attitude of the modern Christian mind that the word ‘doctrine,’ which has come to mean men’s inferences from God’s truth, should have been substituted as it has been in our Revised Version of my text, by the wholesome Christian word ‘teaching.’  The teaching is the facts with the inspired commentary on them.