Rare Book Monthly
Articles - October - 2003 Issue
The Doctrine of Caiaphas by Rev. David Murdoch D.D.
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As to myself, I go down into obscurity, not knowing what things await me. I expect no material benefit from the course I am pursuing. I shall be hurt in this struggle, I know; but “blessed are those who are persecuted for justice’ sake.” I am not vain enough to suppose that any strange thing has happened to me. The Master was slain through expediency. Jonathan Edwards – greatest theologian, the holiest man ever known in America, and the most successful preacher that ever preached the gospel since the Apostles’ days – was severed from his people, after twenty-four years’ labor among them, and then sent off as missionary to the Indians, by an act of his own brethren, in which they say, “We deem it expedient that this relation be dissolved.” Footnote no. 8 Thousands in the American Church have had the same trial to go through. I can point to cases a hundred fold worse than mine, within my circuit; but the call of justice is not weakened by those multitudes, but rather aggravated in its intensity. If God has no other work for me to do on earth but thus to expose the doctrine of Caiaphas, that slew the chief minister of God, and has slain ten thousand of his servants since, I shall not have lived, struggled, and died in vain.
I am, with great respect and affection,
Your servant,
David Murdoch
Footnote no. 8: See the Life of Jonathan Edwards.
