A Spiritual Autobiography—I
By J. A. L. Derby
THE purpose of this article, and a few others to follow, is to give a brief account of how the writer, once an unbeliever, and willing to be a disbeliever if evidences warranted it, came to accept the Ten Commandments as the epitome of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I say unbelief, and not disbelief; for on arriving at mental manhood, I found that what I had believed on matters of religion up to that time, was the result of hearsay—I had never really investigated them for myself. I had not rejected evidence, nor did I. What I did do, was simply, after a careful examination of my notions of religion, to admit candidly to myself that I had not thought largely enough on the existence of God, the inspiration of the Bible, or the divinity of Christ, to entitle me to an opinion on those subjects. On taking an inventory of the theological doctrines to which I had been giving assent, I found, among other ideas, belief in the existence of God, in the truth of the Bible, in justification by faith in Jesus Christ, in the immortality of my soul, in an eternally flaming hell of brimstone, and in the Decalogue as man's perfect rule of life. This, I think, will be considered a fair creed; but for myself I was compelled to admit that my faith in any of these dogmas was nothing but a superstition. I had not examined the evidences of their truth. I had no reasonable belief. Therefore I resolved on unbelief of everything I had not proved. I think I was honest. Whatever maturer wisdom may judge of my resolve, I thought I was consistent. Whether short-sighted or not, I reasoned that it was foolish, if not dangerous, to act on beliefs for which I was not certain I had good foundation. To trust strangers is frequently to fall a prey to confidence men. Furthermore, I am sure I was not biased. I had no prejudice for or against these doctrines. I was not convinced; but I was willing to be convinced if proof could be found. In the meantime, my attitude toward them was one of deference and respect. However, I firmly decided to reject them should investigation show them to be baseless. I omit details of how I became convinced of the existence of God. I will say only that in considering the arguments offered by natural and rational theology, I concluded that most of them are unnecessary. One proof towers above all the others—the proof of prophecy fulfilled. That affords proof, not mere evidence. No reasonable man can elude it. The next question I pondered was, If God made a revelation to man, could the latter recognize it as such? That was easily answered even from a rational standpoint; for to say that the infinite—nay, a very finite—God could not make Himself understood, would be absurd. An infinite God must be infinite in resources. This settled, another problem arises: Is the Bible such a revelation? There may be several avenues of approach to the solution of this; but mine was by way of Jesus as the fulfilment of many prophecies, and through a study of a small book on Christian evidences. In speaking of Jesus as coming in fulfilment of numerous prophecies, it must not be understood that I first accepted them as inspired. Not at all. I picked up a book called the Bible, which many people claim is inspired. In it I found many things claiming to be prophecies concerning future events, and especially concerning a person to appear on earth. In one place that book called this man "the Messiah," and said that he would appear at the end of a certain number of years, beginning with 457 B.C. Even the Higher Critics and skeptics admitted that this prediction was in existence 160 years B.C. Five Corroborative Histories
In five histories dealing with certain events at the end of the years mentioned above, I found convincing evidence that a man did appear at just that time, claiming to be the Messiah foretold, and, more remarkable still, meeting the specifications of not less than three hundred twenty-five other predictions in the same book. Juries Have Not Such Strong Evidences
I have noticed that most juries, when trying men for murder, are satisfied to hang a man on half a dozen strong circumstantial evidences. The jury do not believe them to be mere coincidences. In view of that fact, I felt that three hundred and twenty-five predictions, uttered at various times during a thousand years or so, and by persons between whom collusion was impossible, made a very strong case. I felt, I say, that the probability of those predictions' happening was about in the ratio of the product of the numerator to the product of the denominator of 1/2 multiplied by itself three hundred twenty-five times. No, the probability against their merely happening was too great. But they did occur, and that as foretold. Therefore they did not happen. In other words, they were ordered by the God of prophecy, and the person in whom they were fulfilled was the Messiah and whatever else those prophecies claimed he would be. The notion that these prophecies had been given by an infinite devil, was wholly excluded by their character. Now, according to these foretellings, the man who should thus come, was to be nothing less than God Himself in human flesh. There was for me no escape from the logic of this situation. He came. He was God. If He had a message for men, I must accept it. I tested my five histories mentioned above. I must be satisfied of their substantial accuracy. Cæsar wrote his "Commentaries" more than a hundred years before the first of these histories appeared; yet no informed man doubts the practical accuracy of Cæsar's narrative as we have it to-day. Much less can an impartial investigator doubt that the histories coming to us under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are substantially correct and true. The question of the inspiration of these writings may be an important one, but it never appealed thus to me. Truth was strong enough to satisfy both my reason and my conscience. I may as well admit also that whether or not the books were actually written by the persons whose names they bear, is a matter I have never felt the need of devoting study to. It is sufficient for me to know that they are true or even as true as Cæsar's "Commentaries" or Sallust's "Conspiracy of Catiline." On this point I was very much assisted in reaching a conclusion by the little book mentioned above, on Christian evidences. It is by Prof. George P. Fisher, of Yale. It will be seen that by this time I had made four important steps in reasonable faith: I believed in God, I accepted certain writings (not the whole Bible, of course) as a revelation from Him, I was convinced that Jesus is the Christ, and I was satisfied of the substantial truth of the Gospels and the book of Acts. My Relation to Him Concerned Me
The matter next impressing me as calling for a definite opinion was my relation to the Man Christ Jesus. I read my histories. I found His claims absolute. Loyalty to Him is the essence of all righteousness. But surely loyalty to the law of God as taught before His time stands first. Not now. His demands are first. He is supreme Master and Lord. Loyalty to Him first of all—yea, before I know what He will command me. Is He God on earth? Then "Follow Me" demands my instant and unquestioning obedience—yes, tho His next word annul every obligation in the Old Testament. From Him as my ultimate Authority I must now learn my duty—not in part, but all of it. "Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am." John 13:13. "Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you." Not only so, but it is a life and death matter; for, "it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not7hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." Acts 3:22, 23. To this evidence I yielded. To Jesus Christ I avowed allegiance come what would. Aye, tho the unfolding of His will should lead me into the Church of Rome, into faith in Mohammed, or into the creed of Mormonism, Jesus was to be my leader. But no such opposition between His teachings and the Old Testament did I find. Into no such strange folds did He lead me. I found that He spoke often of sin, tho He never seemed to think definition of it necessary. During the whole time of His preaching, He seemed to take it for granted that everybody knew what sin is. He in no way indicated that men first became sinners by failure to heed His words, or that when He spoke He set up a new test of what sin is. Therefore in seeking to know whether I was a sinner or not, I found that I must accept as He accepted some already existing test of sin and standard of righteousness. What that standard is, was not far to search. "And, behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And He said unto him, . . . If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;" and that by "the commandments" He meant the Decalogue, is shown by His quoting several of its commandments to identify His reference. Let it be noted that the keeping of this law is explicitly stated by Christ to be the condition on which we receive eternal life. Then why does Jesus seem to be anxious primarily that we accept Him? "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Are there, then, two conditions of eternal life, either of which will do without the other?—Not so. A sinner can not keep a righteous law; but a forgiven sinner, with the Holy Spirit in his heart, thus obtains power to keep that law. It is evident, therefore, that the Ten Commandments, spoken by God Himself from Sinai’s top, written by Him on enduring stone, and preserved by themselves in the sacred ark, are recognized by Jesus as the divine summary of all God’s requirements. Having reached this conclusion, I found it necessary to clear up my ideas on some other points connected with the Decalogue. These I will explain in subsequent articles.