Have Times Really Changed?
John Angell James
I am aware it is sometimes said that times have altered since
the apostles' days, that the state of the world is different from
what it then was. But is not human nature in all its essential
elements the same? Is it not the same in its moral aspect, impotency,
and necessities? Does it not as much need, and as much depend
upon, the gospel scheme now, as it did then? Is not the gospel
as exquisitely and fully adapted to its miserable condition now
as it was then? Can sin be pardoned in any other way than through
the atonement of Christ; or the sinner be justified by any other
means than faith in the Lord our Righteousness; or the depraved
heart be renewed and sanctified by any other agency than that
of the Holy Spirit?... The moral epidemic of our nature is always
and everywhere the same, in whatever various degrees of virulence
it may exist, and the remedial system of salvation by grace, through
faith, is God's own and unalterable specific for the disease,
in every age of time, in every country of the world, and in every
state of society. Men may call in other physicians than Christ,
and try other methods of cure, as they have done; but they will
all fail, and leave the miserable patient hopeless and helpless,
as regards any other means of health than that which the cross
of Christ presents...
It should never be forgotten that the time when the apostles discharged
their ministry was only just after the Augustan era of the ancient
world. Poetry had recently bestowed on the lettered world the
works of Virgil and Horace. The light of philosophy, though waning,
still shed its luster over Greece. The arts still exhibited their
most splendid creations, though they had ceased to advance. It
was at such a time, and amidst such scenes, the gospel began its
course. The voices of the apostles were listened to by sages who
had basked in the sunshine of Athenian wisdom, and were reverberated
in startling echo from temples and statues that had been shaken
by the thunders of Cicero and Demosthenes; yet they conceded nothing
to the demands of philosophy, but held forth the cross as the
only object they felt they had a right to exhibit. They never
once entertained the degrading notion that they must accommodate
themselves to the philosophy or the taste of the age in which
they lived, and the places where they ministered... Whether the
apostle addressed himself to the philosophers on Mars Hill, or
to the barbarians on the island of Melita; whether he reasoned
with the Jews in their synagogues, or with the Greeks in the school
of Tyrannus, he had but one theme, and that was Christ, and him
crucified. And what right, or what reason have we for deviating
from this high and imperative example? Be it so, that we live
in a literary, philosophic, and scientific age, what then? Is
it an age that has outlived the need of the gospel for its salvation;
or for the salvation of which any thing else can suffice but the
gospel? The supposition that something else than pure Christianity,
as the theme of our pulpit ministrations, is requisite for such
a period as this, or that it must be presented in philosophic
guise, appears to me a most perilous sentiment, as being a disparagement
to the gospel itself, a daring assumption of wisdom superior to
God's, and containing the germ of infidelity.
—John Angell James, An Earnest Ministry: The Want of the
Times (1847; reprinted in Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust,
1993), 69-73.