The Breadth, Freeness, and Yet Exclusiveness of the Gospel

BY THE REV. EDWARD HOARE, M.A., Incumbent of Trinity Church , Tunbridge Wells .
LONDON: WILLIAM HUNT AND COMPANY, 23, HOLLES STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. IPSWICH: WILLIAM HUNT.
The subject has, I presume, been chosen for our discussion, in order to meet the aspersions of those who claim for their own system the merit of breadth, comprehensiveness, and large-heartedness, while they speak of our Gospel as the narrow-minded theology of a body of men whose contracted intellects are so cramped and stunted that they are unable to take in the broad views of the nineteenth century. Such persons consider themselves broad, and us narrow; and their teaching to be characterized by largeness, ours by narrowness; theirs by generosity, ours by bigotry; theirs by comprehensive philanthropy, ours by an exclusive interest in a small section of the human family.
Now there is something very noble in broad, large, and comprehensive views of the dealings and character of God, and something, on the other hand, exceedingly repulsive in any disposition to contract God’s message, or to half close the door which God has opened wide for the world. And, more than that, there is something so grand in the magnificence of creation, that we cannot be surprised if our judgment naturally decides in favour of that which claims to be the broader view of the religious government of God. We fully acknowledge therefore the attractiveness and persuasiveness of breadth, and are fully prepared to admit that the broad has much more to commend it than the narrow, and that the probability of truth lies on the side of the broadest, the widest, the freest message.
But, while freely admitting that the broadest statement of the Gospel is most probably the truest, we have yet to decide the question, which statement is really the broadest, and on which side is the narrowness to be found? and if this question be fairly considered, it may possibly turn out that that which calls itself the broad is really the narrow, and that which some men call narrow is possessed of a breadth, and length, and depth, and height, that can only be measured by the infinity of God. It is well therefore to consider whether the Gospel, as revealed in Scripture, is really broad or really narrow,—applying the tests of breadth and fulness to the message of salvation as proclaimed in the Gospel of the grace of God.