◄ No Word, No Truth ►

Without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Heb. 11:6).

Rationalism defies God; Ritualism degrades God.

"With Rationalism's intellectual audacity on the one hand, which dares to speak against the Word of God; and on the other hand, the outward piety of Ritualism - there is really the same root of infidelity at bottom. There is the supplanting of the plain truth of the inspired Word. Both get rid of it, depriving the soul of that which is the only means of a living link between God and man.

"It does not matter what the means or forms may be, whether the negative process of Rationalism, or the more positive claim of Ritualism: if man comes in - whether it be his rites or his reasonings - so as to exclude God's Word, or step between its authority and the soul of man, it becomes pretty much the same result in the end.

"Rationalism is the deification of human powers, in which man presumes by his own mind to judge the Word of God, and is therefore the infidelity of the intellect when either carried out to its results or judged in its principle.

"On the other hand Ritualism is the infidelity of the imagination, very often with piety underneath it, with a love for the Saviour that may preserve from the full consequences of the system, but in itself always savoring of and tending to idolatry.

"We cannot know the value of Christ the Truth unless we have the Spirit of Truth. Nevertheless, the test of having the Spirit of Truth, and of not being a prey to fanaticism, is that the soul is attracted and subject to the Lord Jesus Christ - and this cannot be without faith produced and nourished by the Word of Truth." -W.K.

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:1).