"Nevertheless What Saith The Scriptures?"
Brethren, both pro and con on the institution controversy, have a great deal to say about whether certain have changed, or whether Srygley, J. D. Tant, Lipscomb, and others of yesteryear, were for or against such organizations, or whether certain ones are modernists or near-modernists, etc.
I respect the memory of our brethren of the past, such as Srygley, Tant, Sewell, and others. I knew some of them personally. I even disagreed with them face to face, and through the columns of the Gospel Advocate. F. B. Srygley has spent many days in my home. I loved him very dearly. But what he stood for, and even his writings which are still with us, do not prove a teaching or practice to be Scriptural to me.
It matters not if brethren have changed, or if I have changed in my convictions. It does matter eternally to me and to you whether a teaching or practice is from heaven or from men. "What saith the scripture? "That is the question." I think that both Roy Cogdill and Guy Woods can be mistaken. I think that they both have been wrong. Sometimes they confess their errors. But brethren are inclined to criticize those who do confess their errors. Why?
I believe much valuable space and time are wasted in discussing what modernism is, and whether certain men are falsely accused regarding it, or whether others are empiric in their dealing with modernism, etc. The real question we should be facing up to sincerely, without hedging, without injecting immaterial matter, is "what saith the Scripture?" I am not impressed with a show of "the wisdom of the world," when we are discussing matters concerning the gospel of Christ. If the average man cannot understand what we are saying, it is not the "simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ". "What saith the Scripture?"