the apostles is thus “discriminated!” We wonder where Mr. Darby and Mr. Kelly got their “competent biblical knowledge” on this subject, announced with the usual tone of assumption and dogmatism.
But how two men could agree together to impose thus on a confiding community, and trade on their ignorance by assertions on the most vital subject of Christianity which have not the shadow of a shade of truth to rest upon, beats anything that we have met in our experience as coming from evangelical men. Our estimate of the “competent biblical knowledge” of either has not been very high for a very long time; but we confess, that we were not prepared for such a climax as this. This is what Germans call the ”verifying faculty” imposed on a well-intentioned and confiding people, apart from all evidence. The temerity of attempting such a process upon an uncultured community, and that in reference to the highest subject of Christianity, is something very fearful and sad in the extreme!
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
Next to the foregoing, perhaps the subject of justification by faith takes the chiefest place in Christianity. With St. Paul nothing is more prominent or important; he makes it the foundation stone of his epistles to the Romans and Galatians. Yet this great subject now receives an entirely new meaning—a meaning which preserves the grammatical construction just the same, but wholly different in sense. We are told that, “by faith” means “on the principle of faith,” and God is justifying us on a principle. This, if true, alters the meaning of every passage, and the subject must be looked upon in another light altogether, and in a way more free and easy—a sort of “reading-made-easy.” If, on the other hand, it be not true, then it vitiates and distorts every passage, to the utter destruction of the doctrine and the subject. But before saying more, we shall give twelve quotations from Mr. Darby’s New Testament. They are given in English and French, that the reader may be able to judge for himself on the evidence, and are as follows. The French renderings are within brackets:
1. “For righteousness of God is revealed therein on the principle of faith to faith (sur le principe de la foi): according as it is written, But the just shall live by faith.” (Rom. i. 17.)
2. “Since indeed it is one God who shall justify the circumcision on the principle of faith, etc. (sur le principe de la foi.”) (Rom. iii. 30.)
