And this leads us to the text: in which the Apostle touches upon the official life, the personal life, the consecrated life of one who was called upon to discharge for a while Episcopal functions: ‘Take heed unto the doctrine:’ ‘Take heed unto thyself:’ ‘Continue in them:’ enforcing his exhortation by the promise, ‘for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.’
The Official Life. ‘Take heed unto the doctrine.’
As believers in the Divine origin of Christianity, we assume that there was revealed to the Apostles a body of religious truth, definite, complete, unchangeable.
In the pastoral Epistles this distinctive body of truth is frequently referred to, as ‘the pattern of sound words’ (2 Tim. i. 13), ‘the sound (healthful) doctrine’ (1 Tim. i. 10; 2 Tim. iv. 3; Tit ii. 1), ‘the doctrine which is according to godliness’ (1 Tim. vi. 3), ‘the gospel of the glory of the blessed God’ (1 Tim. i. 11), ‘the good deposit’ (1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. i. 14); ἡ πίστις, τὸ χήρυγμα, according to the gloss of Chrysostom; Catholicæ fidei talentum.
Of this body of truth, Divine in its origin, and invested with Divine authority, two things may be predicated; first, that it is unchanged and unchangeable; secondly, that it is embodied in the Articles and Formularies of the Church of England.
It may be allowed that in all ages change has been the law of human affairs. But it is a mistake to associate this law of change with the central truths of Christianity; and for this reason, that Christianity is founded upon facts, upon events that have actually taken place; and if these facts are incapable of change, then are the doctrines which are founded upon them incapable of change also. Men may seek to sweep away the objective reality of Christianity; but, failing as they do in this, then inasmuch as the facts upon which Christianity reposes have been already wrought, and cannot be undone, the Gospel which we preach partakes of the immutability of those facts, and is alike unchangeable.
Equally certain is it, that the great Christian truths which were held in apostolic and primitive days, are identical with those which are embodied in the teaching of the Church of England.
True indeed we are liable to attack. We are met on the one side by the champions of scientific scepticism, and on the other, by the adherents of modern Rome; the one seeking to destroy the historical basis of our faith, the other to press upon us conclusions for which we find no warrant in God’s written word.
It would seem, however, that as the science of attack developes itself, the science of defence receives from unexpected quarters fresh accessions of strength.
If modern research tends to show that some portions of the outworks of Christianity are less strong than had been supposed, it proves with rigorous precision that the fortress itself is impregnable. Every ruin that is uncovered, every site that is identified, every inscription that is deciphered, confirms the historical veracity of the sacred writers. The Bible is made an object of ridicule, and the very stones cry out in condemnation; the statements of inspiration are denied, and witness after witness rises up to prove them; the voices of eager sceptics proclaim the overthrow of revelation, and there come to us from across those Eastern plains such voices from the buried past as prove their boast to be vain.