INTRODUCTION

This booklet seeks not so much to argue or enter into controversy, as to expound the Truth as it is in Jesus. Truth has an enormous vitality in itself. Once seen it can never be forgotten. It may be hated, but not confuted. It is hopeless, for example, to struggle against the ten times tables! Every ray of truth carries with it a real illumination, which satisfies both heart and mind, so that we exclaim involuntarily "I was blind, but now I see". The full assurance of understanding is the magnificent goal which God has set before all who give themselves to the study of His Word. (Col. 2:2).

We are exhorted to "buy the Truth and sell it not". Yes, it is expensive; it may cost a man his life or his livelihood, his relations or his business, his career or his pleasures; and the temptation to sell it for the same price when once purchased will come in times of strain or stress. That is why men's accounts of Christianity vary so much. One man has only felt able to afford a little bit of the Truth; another will go further, and a third beggar himself completely! It is, for instance, cheaper to be a minister in a respected church organisation than to be a member of a despised sect. The Army bonnet cost a great deal more fifty years ago than it does today!

So the seeker after Truth, since he must begin somewhere, often finds himself so entangled in some traditional view of Christianity that it is next to impossible to go forward till he has extricated himself from ideas accepted without question, but also without sufficient reason. The author well remembers how in his early Christian life he found himself so confused by the different doctrines presented to him by Christians, who were obviously good, that he hardly knew what to believe. It was at this juncture that he read Psalm 1, and