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Cornell University Library BX8 .B27 Ideals and principles of church reform / 3 1924 029 357 435 /^7 The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/cletails/cu31924029357435 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM 1^ IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH REFORM Rev. J. C. BARRY, M.A. WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY JAMES DENNEY, D.D. Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street 1910 I/' Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. CONTENTS PART I PAGE Introductory Note . . . . . ix CHAP. I. Roman Catholic and Protestant Ideals— I. Unity ..... i II. Authority . . . -13 II. The Unity of the Primitive Church . 29 III. Reconstruction on the Primitive Model . . . . . .49 PART II I. Unity in relation to Doctrine II. Doctrinal Unity of Doubtful Value III. Unity without Unanimity . Appendix I. . IV. Social and Economic Relations Appendix II. . In Memoriam Notice . Vll 75 103 129 152 157 191 203 INTRODUCTORY NOTE By Professor James Denney, D.D. The subject of Mr. Barry's work is one which excites wide interest among Christian people, and the motive by which it is inspired must command the sympathy of all who are con- cerned in the efificiency of the Church. What Christian efficiency means, however, — what the Church has to do, and what are the con- ditions of successfully doing it, — are questions not sufficiently considered. The cry of union is raised and echoed in many quarters as if it contained the solution of all our perplexities, yet many of those who are caught by it have no distinct idea of the advantages it is sup- posed to bring, or of the principles on which it is to be carried through. What we hear most about is the sinfulness of schism, of Churches standing apart from each other ix INTRODUCTORY NOTE while they are practically indistinguishable in doctrine, worship, government and discipline; and by union seems to be meant the bringing into one larger corporation two or more of these practically indistinguishable bodies. Even if the mind ranges more widely, and there is talk, for example, of a union which should bring into one Church all the Presby- terians and all the Episcopalians of Scotland, it is assumed that before this can be done a common basis of doctrine and government must be accepted on both sides. The new corporation, in other words, must have a new constitution of the old type. Christians can only be united on the basis of a legal uni- formity of creed and discipline. Apart from this there cannot be a united Church. It is one of the merits of Mr. Barry's work that it seriously questions these assumptions. It questions their title to be counted Christian, and it disputes their practicability in the world in which we live, or in any world of which we need to take account. What we want for practical efficiency is not the legal incorporation of all who adhere to the same doctrine, worship, and discipline, but the moral integration of all who call Jesus Lord. The two things are not the same, nor is there INTRODUCTORY NOTE any necessary connection between them. It is a plausible, but to reflection a transparent mistake, to suppose that if all the Presby- terians (let us say) in Scotland were united, in the legal sense of the term, the problem of Christian unity would have been solved, so far as they are concerned. Even with them the true problem is local rather than national, and the Christians who are not Presbyterian would remain. It is one of the dangers incident to the current Romish idea of unity, that it leads men to forget that liberty no less than unity is essential in Christian life. It is not a mark of the weakness of Christianity, but of its immense power to stimulate human nature on all sides, and to adapt itself to all varieties of circumstance, that it has produced such distinct types of teaching as we see even in the New Testament, and such varieties of organisation as diversify the history of the Church from the earliest times to our own. We have no call to shed tears over such phenomena, or to beat our breasts in public and talk about the sin of schism. There is no reason why the unity of the Church should not be conspicuous through all the varieties of doctrinal type and legal organisation. In point of fact, it sometimes is conspicuous, xi INTRODUCTORY NOTE and the more conspicuous that it has such a background. If we look to the New Testament, we are not encouraged to think that the basis of union on which all Christians will meet can be anything narrower than their common loyalty to Christ. It is in this loyalty to Him that Christians recognise each other as brethren ; it is when the consciousness of it displaces in their souls all that is insignificant and selfish that they feel drawn to each other beyond their differences and pledged to mutual support in His service. This is the kind of union which is wanted to fight the Lord's battle — this, and not the acceptance of the same creed as a law of belief, or of the same constitution as an engine of discipline. It is painful to think how often some of the most sacred words in the gospel are mis- applied in this connection. The prayer of our Lord for His disciples—" that they may all be one ; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us : that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me " — is constantly quoted as a plea for what is called the incorporating union of great bodies or denominations of Christians. Surely its meaning is to be sought in quite xii INTRODUCTORY NOTE another region. "As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us " : what has this to do with any ecclesiasti- cal corporation the world has ever seen, with any system of doctrine, worship, government or discipline ? When our Lord speaks here of the world knowing, by the unity of His followers, that the Father has sent Him, He means precisely what He means in an earlier passage of the same discourse : By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another. Now this mutual love springs out of their common love and loyalty to Him, and out of nothing else. From this point of view it may be said that there is no reason why different denomi- nations of Christians should not continue to subsist, nor why they should not give all the evidence that is required of their unity, and of their membership in the Church of Christ, by their love one to another. This we believe to be quite true. It is compara- tively easy to unite denominations, but for that very reason it means little for the cause of unity. To get the official representatives of such large corporate bodies as the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church, with the loyal assent of their constituents, to xiij INTRODUCTORY NOTE amalgamate these institutions, was simple enough ; if the State connection were out of the way, we may believe it would be as simple to include the Established Church in the restored Presbyterianism of the nation. But when this was done, beneficial as it might be in some respects, the real task of achieving Christian unity in Scotland would remain. That task is not the amalgamation of the Presbyterian denominations by a legal act in the capital ; it is the uniting of all the Christians in the localities where they live and work — in Dumbarton or Greenock, in Edinburgh or Glasgow, in cities or in country places — in the service of their common Lord. Mr. Barry concentrates attention on this point, and it is safe to assert that in working out the problems connected with it many of the assumptions so unreflectingly made by advocates of " union " will be rudely shaken. It will become apparent, or we are much mistaken, that it is possible to be a Christian, and a lover of Christian unity, and yet not only to believe, but to rejoice to believe, that various types of doctrine and of organisation will persist among men who are truly loyal to Christ; that the Christian people of Scotland will never be all Presby- xiv INTRODUCTORY NOTE terian or all Episcopalian or all Independent ; that they will never be all Calvinist or all Arminian ; in short, that they will never be all included in any denomination resting on a purely doctrinal or disciplinary basis ; while yet they can love one another and co-operate in Christ's service. This is not a lower ideal of unity than the Romish one, but a higher : it is the unity of the spirit, reflected in the unity of the body — the unity of an organism, not that of a corporation or a machine. If it is said that this book contains no pro- gramme, and does not come to anything that one can do, perhaps that may be admitted. Its interest is that it raises in a convincing fashion, with earnestness and insight, the problems which must be faced before any- thing very effective is done. The blind pur- suit of incorporating unions, on the basis of identity in creed and Church order, must sooner or later come to an end. It takes no account of the individuality of men, which is not diminished but intensified in proportion as they are christianised ; it takes no account of the freedom of the Christian spirit. If there is ever to be a Christian society which finds its unity in creed and discipline, and XV INTRODUCTORY NOTE embraces all the Christians in an educated nation, or even in an uneducated country village, its creed will have to be simple beyond all precedent, and its constitution flexible to a degree which will disconcert bishops and presbyters alike. Whether the reader agrees or disagrees with Mr. Barry's attitude, he cannot enter without profit into his discussion of the fundamental questions with which he deals. The foregoing lines were written at Mr. Barry's request, and were sent by him to the press shortly before his sudden and lamented death. J.D. Glasgow, March, 19 lo. XVI PART I. ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT IDEALS. "The question now agitating the world is a reHgious question. Analysis, and anarchy of religious belief, have extinguished faith in the heart of the peoples. Synthesis, and unity of religious belief, will rekindle it." "The decay of a form of authority is naught other than its transmission ; and the death of a form of faith is naught other than its transformation." — Mazzini. CHAPTER I. ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT IDEALS. I. Unity. For a good many years now, in all the Protestant Churches, there has been much concern and debate as to possible read- justment of their ungracefully disposed relations and union of their irrationally scattered forces. But what has so far transpired of discussion, negotiation, and consequent attempt at reconstruction, has by no means tended to make clearer the way or brighter the prospect of union. The effect has rather been to confirm or awaken suspicion of some vitiating error in the diagnosis of the situation and the pro- posals for its improvement, — some radical misconception of the causes and the cure of the disordered and strained ecclesiastical 3 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF relations of which Protestantism, and especi- ally Presbyterian Protestantism, has been the unnaturally prolific parent. From such a parent a very different progeny might have been expected. It was a wise saying of Dr. Chalmers, that "he who looks to the wrong quarter for a disease will in all likelihood betake him- self to a wrong remedy." And there seems to be, in the case of the widely felt disease and weakness of the Church, much eager and distracted looking for a remedy without sufficient consideration of the real nature and source of the disease. Confessedly, the Churches are lamentably divided and weak in face of the most pressing need for union and strength. From within and from without they feel urged, by many influences, to look for a way of living and working together that may make them a more effective force for righteousness and the kingdom of God. But, as in any keenly felt emergency men are prone to cast about for means of safety and strength with too little consideration of the circumstances of their weakness and danger, so there is, it may be, much unreflecting excitement in the ecclesiastical mind as to what may or must be done, and too little 4 CHURCH REFORM suspicion of a radical fault and error vitiating all the ideas and arguments. A little reflec- tion arouses suspicion of some such radical fault and error, common to all the Churches concerned, when it is observed that they all agree in the profession of Protestant principles of faith and unity, and yet are greatly exer- cised over what they call "distinctive principles," which keep them apart, and which each thinks it impossible to surrender or to compromise. There is much eloquent declamation, equally sincere to all appearance on every side, as to the evil and almost the sin of existing disunion ; but, always, the ardour of desire and hope expressed for union is tempered by the reservation that this or that, of time-honoured and sacred "principle," can on no account be sacrificed. Is it not, then, just here that the radical error lies .'' In the common assumption that there are, or may be, irreconcilable "prin- ciples " of such importance as to bar effective union between Churches holding the same essential Protestant form of faith, tracing their ancestry to the same much glorified Protestant Reformation, and sharing a strong antipathy to everything savouring of 5 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF " Rome " ? Much under discussion, in par- ticular, is what is called by some the " Estab- lishment Principle," while others maintain that there is no such thing, but only a principle of "National Religion" which may or may not make lawful and expedient an Estab- lished Church. But surely the question is one that no amount of discussion will ever settle for all to whom it seems important. In many relations, men being various as they are in turn of mind and training, one man will regard as a sacred principle what another deems only an accustomed and cherished notion, or sentiment, of disput- able validity and imaginary worth. And the prior question, for Christian men and Churches, it may well be urged, is whether any conceivable principle can warrantably obstruct or hinder practical fellowship and co-operation between those who are agreed upon the fundamental principle of love and loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord .'' This or that amount of agreement, besides, it is con- tended, must be secured to make union justifiable or practicable ; and each separate sect insists upon something which it dignifies with the name of principle, or maintains to have for faith and practice the clear and 6 CHURCH REFORM exclusive warrant of Scripture or the support of the most trustworthy tradition. What one sect thus deems indubitable matter of faith, or inviolable matter of practice, another regards with equal confidence as pernicious error or, at best, questionable opinion, unessential or unedifying rule and custom. But surely the experience of many centuries of learned controversy and popular debate should teach that such differences are inevitable ; more inevitable, and more impervious to argument, than similar differ- ences, in almost any other matters of human knowledge and belief with associated rule and custom. Moreover, widening knowledge of Scripture and tradition certainly does not lessen, but rather enhances, the likelihood of theoretical and formal differences among professing Christians. The situation seems to call, therefore, for re-consideration of fundamental Protestant principles of Church constitution and union. Perhaps it will be found that some leaven of a foreign element has been at work, unsuspected, in elevat- ing, among Protestants, to the dignity of "principles" warranting separation and con- tention, mere beliefs, opinions, preferences, 7 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF as to which they who "love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity " may well agree to differ, and ought to be able to differ, without breach of fellowship and co-operation in the service of their common Lord. It has been shrewdly said that there is a " natural innate popery of the human heart." It may be that which has secretly inflamed the zeal of Protestants for uniformity of belief, opinion, practice, in matters of religion and the Church. Some unconscious surviv- ing influence of Roman Catholic habits of thought, about the Church, may account for the unhappy tendency of Protestants to divide into sects, each of which claims some superior understanding of and conformity to the Truth, if not exclusive knowledge and possession,- — a superior grasp and handling, if not the sole possession and use, of the "keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." Some taint of such Popish leaven in Protestant thought is surely very evident in the notion generally entertained of the kind and degree of union that ought to subsist among Protestants. In the popular mind the Roman Catholic unity seems, by contrast, a grave reproach to Protestant disunion. And although the mistranslation ',' one fold " CHURCH REFORM for "one flock," in John x. i6, is pretty well known and acknowledged, yet the Romish misconception of " One Fold " seems to dominate even the thinking of Protestant teachers and leaders about Church organisa- tion and union/ With the exception of the "Independents" or "Congregationalists," and some smaller bodies, the Protestant Churches have been formed upon, or have developed in accordance with, the ideal of " oneTold." They are unities of organisation and government embracing several or many " flocks " ; the flocks are of the fold, not as in convenient neighbourhood for feeding and fellowship, but as agreeing with other flocks, the most of which are in distant neighbourhoods, about one system of doctrine, 1 Bishop Westcott {Commentary on John's Gospel) repudiated the mistranslation with an emphasis of which Episcopalians (and Presbyterians too) have yet perhaps to learn the full point and application. " The translation ' fold ' for ' flock ' {ovile for grex) has been most disastrous in idea and in influence . . . the obliteration of this essential distinction between the ' fold ' and the ' flock ' in many of the later Western versions of this passage indicates, as it appears, a tendency of Roman Christianity, and has served in no small degree to confirm and extend the false claims of the Roman See ... it would perhaps be impossible for any correction, now, to do away with the effects which a translation undeniably false has produced on popular ecclesiastical ideas." IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF worship, and government ; and no idea of wider union is entertained except upon this essentially Romish basis of unity in creed, system of worship, and government. The distinction between the Popish and Protestant ideals was well illustrated, as follows, by Arnold of Rugby : "It seems to me that most of what I consider errors about the " Church " turn upon an imperfect understanding of this point. In one sense, and that a very important one, all Christians belong to one society. But that is only in the sense of Cicero's distinction between "societas," and "civitas" or " respublica." The Roman Catholics say there is but one " respublica " ; and therefore, with perfect consistency, they say that there must be one central government. According to Protestant principles, on the other hand, "there may be as many Christian societies, in the sense of bodies governing themselves, as there are political societies, or even more. ... If the Church were one society, by Christ's institu- tion, in the Roman Catholic sense, then, I do not say the Pope, but certainly a General Council, would possess an authority paramount in all ecclesiastical matters." Here, then, lies the radical misconception, 10 CHURCH REFORM with regard to the constitution and govern- ment of the Church of Christ, which is con- fusing the counsels, by misdirecting the aspirations, of the Protestant Churches, and so paralysing their efforts after union. They are dominated by the false ideal of one " respublica," with a central government ; and have no clear, consistent grasp of the distinctively Protestant ideal of one Spiritual Society, including as many self-governing societies, in the ordinary sense, as conveni- ence may require and reasonable liberty allow. The only thing contemplated in the way of union is amalgamation into one society, with a central government, of Churches now in separate existence. But this basis of union is false. And while the difficulty is great of getting such separate Churches to agree upon one standard of doctrine and one system of government, there are many, especially among the laity, who instinctively dislike the idea of one great ecclesiastical corporation, although they are keenly alive to the need of some readjustment of Church relations in accordance with common sense and Christian charity. What the more intelligent and thoughtful layman dreads, from an amalgamation of the sects into one II IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF Church, is clerical domination ; that is, the accruing of too much power to the kind of minister who justifies the saying that "new presbyter is but old priest writ large," whose idol is his own particular " Church," and who too easily gets a following of like-minded laymen in narrow ecclesiastical and conven- tionally pious thoughts and ways. It is thus, at bottom, a sanely Christian and soundly Protestant sentiment that makes many averse from what is sighed or cried for by ecclesias- tics, and vaguely dreamed of by some in all the Churches, under the name of a " Larger Union." It is not a feeling of jealousy for any sectarian position or principle, but rather of indifference to all that sort of religious belief and feeling which distinguishes sects. It is a too well-grounded suspicion that a big amalgamation of the Churches into one, would only remove the appearance and strengthen the reality of sectarian domination over freely Christian and Protestant belief and worship. A first requisite, therefore, for the solution of the problem presented by the scandal of Protestant disunion, is clear determination of Protestant ideals and principles. If the ideal unity be misconceived, it is small wonder that 12 CHURCH REFORM the way to union seems barred by insur- mountable difficulties. A notion of organised union which is neither Protestant nor Catholic, but only Roman Catholic, must fatally obscure both the vision of what ought to be and the way to reach the end desired. H. Authority. It is now pretty well understood among students of ecclesiastical history that, in one most important relation, the Reformation of the sixteenth century issued in a very incom- plete emancipation from bondage to the Romish tradition. Renouncing the authority over mind and conscience of the organised unity of a Church, Protestantism failed to extri- cate itself, altogether, from the notion of some one outward authority and rule to which all religious belief and worship must conform. " The exterior authority of the letter of the Bible took the place of the authority of the Church."^ Encumbered with this element of falsity to its own essential principle of freedom, Protestantism was doomed to become, and soon found itself, divided and ^ Sabatier, Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, p. 175. 13 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF weak. The principle of free inquiry and criticism, once uncompromisingly applied to the Church, could not consistently be restrained from application to the Scriptures on which the traditional claim of the Church was based. And at first, indeed, there was no apprehension of the results, so embarrass- ing to Protestant unity, of free inquiry and criticism applied to the authority of the Bible. " Luther neither foresaw nor desired all the consequences of the principle he introduced into the world . . . ; but in bringing religion back to inward faith, and theology to Chris- tian experience, he did justify the permanent criticism of ceremonial and dogma, and, for all time, shattered the system of authority, at least in religion." ^ What even Luther could not foresee, as the inevitable consequence of his uncompromis- ing assertion of the right of free inquiry and criticism, it is small wonder that smaller men, after him, failed to see in its bearing upon the faith and the freedom of the Church. His clear perception and passionate assurance of the supremacy of the witness of Scripture, over that of tradition and the Church, was too easily transmuted into a 1 Sabatier, Religions of Authority, etc., p. 152. 14 CHURCH REFORM blind belief in the literal infallibility of the Bible. The temptation was strong to simplify and strengthen the Protestant con- tention by " setting up one infallibility against another." And in polemic against extreme or immoral applications of the principle of freedom, the traditionally and generally accepted Sacred Book became naturally the standard of appeal. Naturally, also, the tendency was strong, on all sides, to exalt the authority available, and to appeal to it to sanction shades of doctrine, forms of worship, or modes of association and govern- ment. Thus the very spirit and principle of Popery survived and reappeared in Pro- testantism. All the Protestant sects have owed something of the vigour of their life, but also an insidious element of disease and weakness, to this radical inconsistency at the heart of their relation to the Bible and to one another. It has animated their zeal, but at the same time dissipated their energies and sharpened their antagonism. Agreed in regarding the Bible as a " supernatural and infallible code of Christian verities, in such manner that these verities may be deduced, more juridico vel geometrico, from the very 15 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF letter of the sacred text," ^ they have never been able to agree in their interpretations of, and deductions from, their one infaUible standard of truth. Criticism, with advancing science and scholarship, has increasingly disintegrated opinion and also discredited the assumption of an infallible standard of appeal. Unanimity of belief and uniformity of worship, according to any Biblical model and standard, are seen to be more hopelessly unattainable as the horizon widens of possible differences about the nature and value, the real content and authority, of the Biblical Revelation. But what has this history of Protestantism been but a course of futile dallying with a Roman Catholic and radically alien principle of authority ? As claimed for the one organ- ised unity of a Church, the authority was once for all, and rightly, renounced and refuted. But " the mental habits of a generation are not changed in a day." And still the notion survived of the necessity for some outward, authoritative rule and standard as the guar- antee of the historical reality and the religious sufficiency of the Church. No sooner, how- ever, was this supposed to be found in the ^ Sabatier, Religions of Authority, etc., p. 165. 16 CHURCH REFORM Bible than it began to appear impossible to obtain the needful agreement, as to the ground and scope of the authority or its teaching and requirement. And thus the Protestant Churches have vainly continued to seek, and are now less than ever likely to find, a basis of union in conformity to one standard of doctrine, or in agreement in one system of worship and government. May they not now, then, be reasonably and hopefully urged just to become more fully and frankly Protestant, in their regard for the authority of Scripture, and in their conception of truly Christian unity? Has not the hidden and malignant root of all their unhappy alienations and strifes been a notion of authority, and a conception of unity, alike incompatible with the spiritu- ality and freedom of the Church of Christ as gloriously reasserted, but only partially realised and restored by the Protestant Reformation ? As regards the " seat of authority " in religion, believing scholarship has been gradually forced to abandon the assumption, traditionally relied on by Pro- testants, of an absolutely and on all points infallible book. Confessedly, now, among those who know, and to the great alarm and B 17 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF confusion of many who do not sufficiently know, yet have an inkling of the facts, there is no valid and sure refutation of Romanism, Scepticism, Heresy, by appeal to an indis- putably full, clear, and authentic written revelation of all that is to be believed and taught. Protestants, however, may be re- lieved from much groundless, though natural, alarm and distress, by the perfectly easy demonstration that the long-cherished notion of a complete and infallible written revelation was no more a part of the original Reformation doctrine than the infallible authority of the Pope. Luther himself, it is not too much to say, was really the founder of "modern criticism " of the Bible, quite as much as he was the founder of the Protestant Church. He led the way, indeed, in appealing to the authority of Scripture from the authority of the Church and tradition ; but it is too little known how freely and boldly he criticised, in order to make sure of, the superior authority to which he appealed. Hardly anything more startling, to the common mind about the Bible, could be quoted from the most " advanced modern critic" than this from Luther's enunciation of his view and judgment as to the value of i8 CHURCH REFORM the several books, — "Christ is the Master, the Scriptures are the servant. Here is the true touchstone for testing all the books : we must see whether they work the works of Christ or not. The book which does not teach Christ is not apostolic, were St. Peter or St. Paul its writer. On the other hand, the book which preaches Christ is apostolic, were its author Judas, Annas, Pilate, or Herod. ... In fact, the Gospel of John and his First Epistle ; the Epistles of Paul, particularly those to the Romans, the Gal- atians, and the Ephesians ; and the First Epistle of Peter ; these are the books which show the Christ, and teach thee all that it is good and necessary for thee to know, though thou shouldst never see nor hear any other books. As for the others, the Epistle of James is a veritable epistle of straw, for there is nothing evangelical in it." With the same absolute indifference to any authority other than his own spiritual judg- ment of the worth of Holy Scripture, Luther expressed his opinion of parts of the Old Testament. "Without any doubt the prophets had studied the books of Moses, and the late ones those of their predecessors, and filled with the Spirit of God they com- 19 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF mitted their good thoughts to writing. But this is not to say that these doctors, scrutin- ising the Scriptures, did not sometimes find wood, hay, and stubble, and not always gold, silver, or diamonds. Nevertheless, the essential abides and the fire consumes the rest."^ Luther, in fact, and the other early Reformers with him, appealed to the Bible not as a fixed and infallible outward author- ity, but simply as the commonly accepted Scriptures, recognised by the Romish Church herself to be an authentic and sufficient record of the original history, the develop- ment, and the final setting forth, of the true religion. No decree of the Church of Rome, nor any Confession of Faith of the Protestant Church, had yet defined the canon of Holy Scripture. Even Calvin was as unflinch- ing and unqualified as Luther, in asserting the rights of criticism. Differing from Luther in some of his conclusions (as, for example, in his estimate of the Epistle of James, which, he maintained, was quite in harmony with the Christian gospel, though possibly not the writing of an apostle), Calvin repudiated, even more explicitly than Luther, 1 Sabatier, Religions of Authority, etc., pp. 158-159. 20 CHURCH REFORM all external authority over the judgment of believers as to the value of any Scripture. It was "contempt of the Holy Spirit," he affirmed, to ask, " Who will certify to us that the Scriptures come from God ? who will assure us that they have been preserved in their entirety down to the present day ? and who will persuade us that one book is to be received and another rejected, if the Church is not our guarantee on all these matters ? . . . As to their question. How are we to know that the Scriptures come from God if we cannot refer to the decree of the Church ? we might as well ask how we are to learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, bitter from sweet." ^ Calvin, it thus appears, was even less guarded than Luther, in asserting Protestant liberty of opinion as to the authority and teaching of Scripture. For he made the criterion purely subjective and personal, — a testimony of the Spirit, with no qualification or reserve exclusive of fatuities and caprices, of ignorant fanaticism or bigoted prejudice. Luther, with or without clear intention, consistently qualified his subjective judg- ^ Reuss, History of the Canon of Holy Scripture, p. 295. 21 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF ments by reference to a standard of gospel faith and truth which he found sufficiently warranted by Holy Scripture, as well as assured by the witness of the Spirit. In his most confident repudiations of tradition and common opinion, Luther, indeed, showed a reverence for the accepted Sacred Writings, and a modest deference to the opinion of other reverent and competent students, such as has been too rarely seen on either side of the controversy between old and new opinions. Witness these words from his preface to the Epistle of James, "Therefore I cannot place it among the right canonical works ; but I do not wish thereby to prevent any one from so placing it and extolling it as seemeth good to him." It is thus abundantly clear that common belief and opinion, as to the authority for faith of the common Bible of the Protestant Churches, has long assumed a form and substance quite unwarranted by the spirit and principle of the first Reformers. They were not agreed, and saw no necessity for absolute agreement, about the Bible as a whole, or the value and authority of its several parts. They would, perhaps, have shrunk from the principle they so boldly 22 CHURCH REFORM asserted, and to some extent fearlessly applied, if they could have foreseen the lengths to which Biblical Criticism would go. Happily, however, they did distinctly assert, although they imperfectly conceived and applied, the principle of none but a Spiritual AuthoiHty for Christian faith and practice ; so that now we need only courage and candour to retrace the false steps by which Protestantism has wandered from the way of Spirituality and Freedom and become again entangled in the yoke of bondage to External Authority. Under stress of controversy with Rome, and in mistaken effort after a similar unity and strength, the Protestant leaders were misled into making rigorous definition of the canon, and the inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture. Gradually, not only systems of theology but Confessional Documents were developed, as standards of Protestant unity, embodying dogmatic definitions of belief about other debatable matters. The result has been, for Protestantism, a melan- choly history of disunion and strife with sectarian zeal and animosity. And now, after much barren controversy over trivial matters of difference in belief and practice, 23 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF the Protestant Churches find themselves dis- creditably divided and weak, when the very foundation and substance of their common faith are criticised, and men call in question the rational justification and social necessity or advantage of any Church institution or system at all. Criticism, too long suppressed or unheeded, is making new and bolder assaults upon traditional beliefs even within the Churches themselves ; and many who are still confident of the essential ideal and faith of the Church, intelligently persuaded of the abiding value, for the individual and for society, of association and worship in the name of Jesus Christ, are yet perplexed and anxious as to what the rule of faith really is, and how the Church is to adjust itself to new social conditions and to altered ways of thinking, about the world, and about human welfare here and hereafter. Protestantism, however, has only to learn wisdom for the future from its failure in the past. It has not altogether failed ; has failed, if at all, only by not being altogether and fearlessly true to itself; and still holds the key of the situation as regards the satisfaction of the religious needs of men by some rational unity of a Church of Christ. 24 CHURCH REFORM Just as a torrent may run free so as only to refresh and fertilise the earth over which it flows, but may become destructive if artificially and insufficiently restrained, so the Protestant principle of free inquiry and criticism has been made dangerous and unsettling to faith only through mistaken attempts to keep it dogmatically restrained and bound. The spirit of criticism is really more congenial to faith, although it be near akin also to honest doubt. It is really the most genuine and spiritually-minded faith in religious truth, as having the Witness of the Spirit, that begets and strengthens doubt as to dogmatic formulas framed by, and appealing to, the intellectual rather than the spiritual mind of man. Such intellectual doubt, freely and reverently exercised in subjection to faith, becomes in the long run the best servant and helper of a truly spirit- ual faith. And the attempt to restrain and fetter inquiry and criticism, by authoritative decrees and dogmatic definitions, has only made timid and hesitating the steps of some, rash and unsettling the rush of others, to reassert the spirituality and freedom of essential Christian faith. Unhappily also, the tradition of dogmatic 25 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF certitude has emboldened the intolerance and uncharitableness of many, while it has embarrassed the simplicity and kindliness of others, who have not learned to distinguish between the intellectual and changeable framework and the abiding spiritual substance of the faith. Hence the prevailing unsettle- ment and suspicion within, and the growing indifference and scepticism without and around the Churches. After long and vain repression, with illusive and futile attempts to compromise between traditional creed and critical opinion, the inquiries and conclusions of competent and candid students and thinkers are becoming more and more unsettling to common belief and disturbing to Christian unity and peace. But, by frank and full reversion to its own first principle of spiritual freedom and negation of external authority. Protestantism may yet become securely united and power- ful, not only against the artificial and mechanical uniformity of Roman Catholicism, but also against all the antagonisms of irre- ligion and unbelief. In its very beginnings Christianity was a revolt, and a protest, against the pretended authority of tradition and the false assumption of fixity and finality 26 CHURCH REFORM for forms of belief and worship. Protestant- ism, in its beginning, was an uncompromising reassertion of the essential principle of primi- tive Christianity, namely, the sacred and in- violable autonomy of the human soul in relation to the "Lord, the Spirit." It is only, therefore, agreement in subjection to the One Lord, that Protestants may consist- ently require as a condition of any otherwise practicable and desirable union. Leaving to Roman Catholicism the "splendid dream," and the imposing semblance, of absolute empire over the spirit and the intellect of man. Protestantism should frankly renounce all rivalry with such pretended authority and all emulation of such outward uniformity. It should be her aim, rather, to develop a freely spiritual fellowship of frankly differing minds, and of such societies as they may, anywhere, find it convenient to form, on a basis of loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord. Not by the toning down of differences into "articles of agreement," or by any constraining com- promise of opposite opinions, should the Protestant Church seek for union, but rather by the fullest recognition of unity in difference ; by inclusion and comprehension of varieties of belief and worship, according to differing 27 CHURCH REFORM views as to the authority and teaching of the Scriptures, the lessons of history, and the convenience or requirement of time and place and circumstance. In this way only is there any hope or possibility that "the theological edifice, erected in the sixteenth century, may be replaced by a structure more in harmony with the primitive thought of the gospel and therefore more enduring." 28 THE UNITY OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 29 " For the body is not one member, but many." — i COR. xii. 14. " Endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." — Eph. iv. 3. " The law of the Spirit makes men one ; it is only by the law in our members that we are many." — M. Arnold. 30 CHAPTER II. THE UNITY OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. It will be found instructive to consider the history and the prospects of Protestant ecclesiasticism, in the light of what is now better ascertained to have been the theory, or at least the practice, of the primitive Church with regard to organisation and government. The Reformation, in that light, will be seen to have failed to break completely with Roman Catholic traditions of unity, just as it failed to rise above similar misconceptions of authority. While the principle of the primitive spiritual unity was vigorously asserted in the revolt from Rome, it was very imperfectly apprehended in all its implications for social as well as individual religious liberty. Even as the spiritual authority of Christ came to be confounded with the external and literal authority of the 31 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF Scriptures, so the ideal of spiritual unity, in the recognition of Christ as the One Head and Lord of the Church, became confused with the lower and poorer conception of unity in one understanding and belief as to the authority and teaching of the Bible. Formulas of such agreement, and systems of worship and government in accord there- with, took the place in separate nationalities of the more comprehensive system and rule of Rome. And, in unconscious subjection to the spirit and principle of the rule against which they had revolted, the Protestant leaders made it their aim to suppress differ- ences, rather than to comprehend varieties, of belief and worship. So powerful, indeed, was the Romish tradition of organised, external unity to obscure the judgment and pervert the moral sense of zealous Protestants, that they thought themselves warranted, and even bound in loyalty to God and truth, to enforce conformity by pains and penalties if argument and appeal to Scripture failed. Glorying in the liberty of private judgment for themselves, they very grudgingly allowed, and even grossly violated, the sacredness of that right as exercised by others. Pro- 32 CHURCH REFORM testants tried to enforce upon their fellow- Protestants, by the help of the Civil Magistrate when that could be obtained, conformity to one creed or system of doctrine, and even adherence to forms, times, and places of worship legally ordained or sanctioned. And so the religious liberty, of which the primitive Christian gospel is the imperishable charter, and of which primitive Protestantism was the splendid but imperfect reassertion, had to be wrested again from a usurpation and tyranny only the more hatefully Roman Catholic, in essence and principle, because fantastically disguised under the Protestant name and profession. Even yet, indeed, although express and positive legal penalties no longer attach to dissent or non-conformity, there are survivals of exclusive pretension and privilege, essen- tially inconsistent with Protestantism, in so- called "National " or "Established" Churches. These involve still some disability and dis- advantage, for other Churches, of which it is not unreasonable to complain. And depending as they do, for unity, upon forms and terms of association subject to regula- tion by the State, such Established Churches can never be the rallying ground of re-united C 33 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF Protestantism. It is conceivable that a free federation of Churches may yet become truly National, comprising all the varieties of Christian faith and forms of fellowship within the nation. Such a free and comprehensive federation, upon an equal footing, of all the Protestant Churches, may even form some advantageous alliance with the State. But the indispensable condition of truly Pro- testant unity is suppression of all exclusive legal privilege, with freedom from all authority (excepting in civil affairs) alien and external to that of the Churches themselves. That the bad tradition of corporate union on the Roman Catholic model has mis- guided Protestantism into all the confusion and scandal of its disunion, will sufficiently appear from a view of ecclesiastical con- stitutions and relations as they existed and developed prior to the Roman usurpation. It will be seen that essential unity was quite clearly conceived, and very practically re- alised, without any sense of need for corporate union, and without holding in common more than the very simplest principles of Christian belief and hope. For a very full and clear demonstration 34 CHURCH REFORM of the spiritual simplicity, and the practical sufficiency, of primitive Christian unity, with- out rigidly organised union, reference may be made to one of the most recent and competent works, in English or any other language, on early Church organisation and development.^ From what may here be quoted it will be seen how well grounded is the contention that later Romish, rather than primitive Christian, ideals have prevailed in Protestant thought about Church organisation and union. "A study at first hand of the contemporary evidence belonging to the first three centuries — and this has been accumu- lating wonderfully during the last quarter of a century — reveals the important fact that changes were being continually made. Almost every ancient document as it un- expectedly appears . . . tells us something new about the organisation of the early Churches : . . . the unvarying lesson is that there was anything but a monotonous uni- formity in the Church organisation of the early centuries ; that there were changes, experiments, inventions, in administration, made by men who were alive to the needs ^ T. M. Lindsay, D.D., The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries (1903). 35 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF of their times and who were unfettered by the notion that there is only one form of government possible to the Church of Christ and essential to its very existence as a Church. . . . Buttheuseof the word C^?P. 5. 142 CHURCH REFORM regarded by different minds differently. And thirdly, although all Christians allow the Scriptures to be of decisive authority, yet the peculiar form of these Scriptures, . . . the critical difficulties attending their inter- pretation, and the still greater difficulty as to their application . . . amidst the infinite variety of human affairs ; all these things prevent the Scriptures from being in practice decisive on controverted points, because the contending parties, while alike acknowledging the judge's authority, persist in putting a different construction upon the words of his sentence." " Aware of this state of things, and aware also, with characteristic wisdom, of the deadly, evil of religious divisions, the Roman Catholic Church ascribed to the sovereign power in the Christian society, in every successive age, an infallible spirit of truth, whereby the real meaning of any disputed passage of Scripture might be certainly and authoritatively declared. . . . But the claim to infallibility was not only false but mis- chievous ; because it encouraged the notion that these differences were to be condemned and prevented, and thus hindered men from learning the truer and better lesson, how to 143 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF make them perfectlycompatible with Christian union." . . . "Our fathers rightly appreciated the value of Church unity ; but they strangely mistook the means of preserving it. . . . Turn which- ever way they would, they sought in vain for an authority in religious controversies. . . . Is it not then worth while to try a different system ? And since disunion is something so contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and difference of opinion a thing so inevitable to human nature, might it not be possible to escape the former without the folly of attempting to get rid of the latter ; to constitute a Church thoroughly national, thoroughly united, thoroughly Christian, which should allow great varieties of opinion, and of ceremonies, and forms of worship, according to the various knowledge, and habits, and tempers of its members, while it truly held one common faith, and trusted in one common Saviour, and worshipped one common God ? " ^ " The problem then is, to unite in one Church different opinions and different rites and ceremonies . . . how ... to provoke the least possible disagreement, without ^ Pamphlet, pp. 11-13, 19. 144 CHURCH REFORM sacrificing in our own practical worship the expression of such feelings as are essential to our own edification. . . . The very notion of an extensive society implies a proportionate laxity in its points of union ; . . . entire agreement with many, or general agreement with all, are things impossible. . . . Nor is this only applicable to a National Church ; it holds good of the smallest districts, where there are assembled men of different habits, different abilities, different degrees of know- ledge, different tempers, and it may be almost said, different ages. If agreement of opinion on a number of points be required as the condition of communion, there must be many different Churches in every town ; and these will be continually multiplying, for exclusiveness grows by indulgence. . . . Infallibility or brute ignorance can alone prevent differences of opinion. Men, at once fallible and inquiring, have their choice either of following these differences up into endless schisms, or of allowing them to exist together unheeded, under the true bond of agreement of principle." ^ Proposing thus to open wide the doors of the Establishment to every variety of opinion 1 Pamphlet, pp. 21, 26, 27. K 145 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF consistent with a credible profession of Christian faith, Arnold saw the necessity of providing for the separate expression, in common worship, of different views and feelings, different tastes and preferences, as to doctrine and ritual. The one condition of perfect unity, as he conceived it, was that no opinion and no preference should be insisted upon, to the exclusion of another, or so as to hinder any from freely enjoying edifying fellowship. So, of the Liturgy of the Church of England he said that, "even allowing it to be the best conceivable religious service in itself, still it ought not to be the only one. . . . Nor should I think it an evil, but a great good, that different services should be performed at different times of the day and week, within the walls of the same church. Not only do the various tastes and degrees of knowledge amongst men require varieties in the form of their religious services ; but the very same men are not always in the mood for the same things ; there are times when we should feel most in unison with the deep solemnity of the Liturgy ; there are times also, when we should better enjoy a freer and more social service ; and for the sake of the greater familiarity, should pardon 146 CHURCH REFORM some insipidity and some extravagance. And he who condemns this feehng, does but lose his labour, and can but ill appreciate one great attribute of God's works, — their infinite variety." . . . " There is no reason why all should not be gratified without quarrelling with each other ; why the organ should not sound at the morning service, and be silent in the evening ; why the same roof which had rung at one part of the day with the rich music of a regular choir, should not at another resound with the simpler but not less im- pressive singing of a mixed congregation."-' Such proposals, in 1833, were hopelessly far in advance of any general disposition to reasonable compromise of opinion and practice, either in the Establishment or among Dissenters. They will probably still seem visionary and impracticable, lati- tudinarian and unprincipled, to most who are now cordially attached to any system of belief or custom of worship. Their motive with Arnold was, no doubt, too much that of preserving a National Church, in such terms of alliance with the State as must to many seem of doubtful advantage or propriety, or 1 Pp. 45, 46, 48. 147 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF even incompatible with the spirituality and freedom of the Church of Christ. He assumed also more willingness to compromise, in the matter of Episcopal government, than is likely even yet to be found ; although the strongest objection would not, probably, be on the side of those whom he expected to reconcile to the name and office of bishop by reducing his authority to that of " president of his council of elders, supreme in rank, but controlled effectually in power." ^ In his main contention, however, for the utmost possible freedom and variety of form and doctrine, Arnold has well indicated the only truly Protestant, sound and lasting, basis of unity in religion. The advantage of Establishment, as hitherto understood, he probably overestimated. In a Church of organised unity coextensive with the nation, the needful concessions and adjustments might only be more difficult to arrange and control, almost certainly they would, if subject to any formal sanction from the Civil Power. Whereas, within the limits of a town or district, every reasonable accommodation required by differing views or tastes would be ' P. 39. 148 CHURCH REFORM easily ascertained and would be readily yielded by neighbourly considerateness, without con- straint or hindrance from any legal authority. Working on the recognised principle of unity in difference, the Independent Local Churches would, in time, find their way to a National Federation, of more real power to christianise the State than any ecclesiastical corporation bound to it, as a whole, by statute. But whatever view be taken as to legitimate or desirable connection between Church and State, Arnold's exposition of the principles of union for Christians, in any organised system of relations with one another, can hardly be impeached. They must be willing to amalgamate in religious fellowship, on the basis of a common substance of faith so stated as to give the least possible occasion for intellectual discrimination and definition ; making also the fullest allowance and accom- modation for varieties of form and usage, in worship, that neighbourly goodwill can devise. In truly Protestant Reformation, there can be no finality till something like this irre- ducible minimum of creed is recognised as sufficient, and an indefinite flexibility allowed to systems of fellowship and forms of wor- 149 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF ship. The study of theology, and of Church history, may yet lead to many modifications of opinion in matters of importance for an intellectual view of the world, and of God and man. But all this may be left to competent and leisured scholarship to explore and debate, without anxiety concerning the old forms of doctrine or confident enthusiasm about a "New Theology." What is wanted by the new conditions of knowledge, in our time, that they may further and not hinder the progress of true Christianity, is the recognition as enough, and securely settled for all time, of the essentials of Christian faith and unity, namely, belief in One God and Father of all, and in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Master and Saviour of all. Refusing to complicate the spiritual and practical simplicity of this faith, by any disputable intellectual definition embodied in a creed, we shall find the way open to the utmost possible practical unity, in every place, by making no other condition of membership in the one Church save willingness to join, on equal terms with others of the same mind, in the cultivation of moral and practical subjection to Christ as Lord, and in worship of the Father " in Spirit and in Truth." ISO CHURCH REFORM For the sake of such practical unity of association it would surely be worth while to yield a large toleration to different intellectual conceptions of the truth. Might there not even be real Christian edification for all in having to listen, perhaps within the same place of worship, to varying expressions of the truth as conceived by the human mind ? — " It has been the weakness of Christians in all ages, and never more than in our own, to see good in only one aspect of truth and listen to no form of teaching but one. . . . We know that to confine ourselves to one form of food induces poverty of blood and disease, and yet we fancy a healthy spiritual life can be maintained only by confining ourselves to one form of doctrine and one way of looking at universal truth. To the Evangelical who shrinks with horror from liberal teaching, and to the advanced thinker who turns with contempt from the Evan- gelical, Paul would say, Ye do yourselves a wrong by listening to one form of the truth only ; every teacher who declares what he himself lives on has something to teach you ; to despise or neglect any form of Christian teaching is so far to impoverish yourselves. " All things are yours," not this teacher or 151 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF that, in whom you glory, but all teachers of Christ."^ It may take long to break down so com- pletely the bad tradition of the necessity of intellectual unanimity for organised Christian unity. But more now, a great deal, than when it was first addressed to contending Churchmen, there is a widespread and intelligent disposition to press upon them something like the advice of Erasmus, — " Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed to the smallest possible number ; you may do so without any injury to the realities of Christianity. As regards all other points, either discourage inquiry or leave every one to believe what he pleases. Then we shall cease from quarrelling ; and religion will again take hold of life." APPENDIX I. The appeal to the "voice of Christian antiquity," outside and after the New Testament, Arnold characterises as an ap- ' Dr. Marcus Dods, " First Corinthians," — Expositot's Bible, pp. 94-95. 152 CHURCH REFORM peal to the "opinions of a time and state of society, whose inferiority in all other respects is acknowledged, and the guidance of individuals, not one of whom approaches nearly to that greatness which in the case of the great Greek philosophers made an implicit veneration for their decisions in some degree excusable."— P. 47. "As the Scriptures wholly disclaim these notions of a human priesthood, ... it is strictly superfluous to inquire into the opinions of early Christian writers, because if these upheld the doctrine of the priesthood ever so strongly, it would but show that the state of mind of which the Epistle to the Hebrews complains, was afterwards more universal and more remote from Christian perfection. But it is satifactory to find that it is not so ; that although the germs of the mischief may be here and there discernible, yet that the doctrine of the Apostles was in the main faithfully taught by those who, in point of time, came nearest to them ; that it needed more than one generation to corrupt so deeply the perfect purity of Christian truth."— P. 58. "It is not my present purpose to inquire into the genuineness of . . . the writings of the so-called Apostolical Fathers. I am willing for the present to assume that they are genuine, because I wish to meet the 153 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF advocates of the priesthood on their own ground ; and I contend that their system can no more be derived from the reputed works of the earliest Christian writers, than from the Scriptures themselves." — P. 60. "It is the famous "accedit verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum," which contains the essence of the unchristian and most mischievous view of the sacraments entertained by the Romish and Anglican popery." — P. 63. Of a passage from one of the much relied on, and much disputed, Epistles of Ignatius, Arnold writes with characteristic and down- right abhorrence — " The first sensation which we ought to have, on reading such a passage as this, is one of gratitude to God, who has not permitted any such language to appear in the writings of the Apostles." — P. 99. With equally characteristic candour and charity he adds, — " Still, unguarded as is the language of Ignatius, and though it had a direct tendency to bring in priestcraft, and has been quoted repeatedly in support of the notion of a priesthood ; yet it is only just to confess, that Ignatius himself appears to have had no such meaning. His words exaggerate unwisely the power and im- portance of bishops (' Christian governors') ; . . . but they acknowledge in them no priestly character. ... It may be that, in 154 CHURCH REFORM the days of Ignatius, the Church did wisely in committing to its rulers an almost absolute authority ; it is most certain that it would act most unwisely if it were to do the same thing now." — Pp. 104-105. " Nor can we doubt that Ignatius recom- mended pure despotism, as sincerely and conscientiously as ever men of different views, and under different circumstances, have protested against it. But instead of seeing in the letters of Ignatius a strong display of views . . . more than ordinarily justified by the peculiar circumstances of the Church, men have sought to find in him a perpetual law of Church government, . . . and, being the slaves of a name, they have transferred what Ignatius says of the neces- sity of an absolute government in the hands of a bishop, to the later system of the mystical power of the priesthood." — Pp. 115-116. " We do not find in these early Christian writers the doctrine of the priesthood and sacraments which was afterwards prevalent in the Church ; but we find language which will sufficiently account for the subsequent introduction of that doctrine ; whereas the Scriptures not only do not contain it, but absolutely repel it : between them and it there is a great gulf fixed, over which no art of man can cast a bridge." — Pp. 1 16-1 17. 155 CHURCH REFORM To the above may be added this para- graph from the " Postscript " to Arnold's pamphlet on Principles of Church Reform, — " The New Testament, amongst a thousand other proofs of that divine wisdom in which Christianity originated, offers this most re- markable one, that alone of all the religions of civilised man it disclaims any earthly priesthood. The Christian society had its ministers of various ranks and various offices ; but nothing was definitely and universally commanded with regard to their number, jurisdiction, or mode of appointment. As far as related to its external constitution, it was left from age to age in full possession of the right of regulating its own government." — Postscript, p. 9. 156 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RELATIONS. 157 "We are learning that social well-being is a holy thing, and that so to shape our activities that they may minister to it is a primary religious duty." — Hibbert Journal. "Why should not the priest elevate the hand that bears the martyr's cross, and sanctify with his blessing the crusade of the oppressed, in the pilgrimage ordained for them by God towards liberty, equality, and love ? " — Mazzini. " If such things as insufficient food and clothing, unwhole- some workshops, dwelling-places, and diet, and severe and long-protracted labour, have a natural tendency to blunt all the higher feelings and faculties of the mind, . . . the ascertainment of the nature, causes, and effects of these impediments to holiness, with a view to their removal, is not a matter of indifference." — G. COMBE. 158 CHAPTER IV. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RELATIONS. While great changes have been taking place in the general attitude of men's minds, to- wards the Church and Theology, there has been a most marked and particular move- ment of thought, both within and without the Churches, in regard to the claims upon religious interest and influence of questions of Social Reform. The demand long and loudly urged by, or on behalf of, the poorer classes for a fairer social state, in this world, has gained a more sympathetic ear from the councils of the Churches ; and ministers of religion have been giving more consideration to what are called social questions, some of them even professing themselves " Socialists " in their zeal for the redress of relations which seem unjust and oppressive to the poor. On the part of social reformers, not officially or formally in close connection with the 159 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF Churches, there has been a corresponding modification of mind and feeling as to the legitimate and needful influence of religion upon the reform of all social conditions and relations. By the more sane and cultured socialists it is now freely confessed to have been a radical fault of early theories that the " ultimate factor of all human affairs, the psychological factor, was disregarded."^ Thus there has been a coming together of interests and ideals which used to be re- garded, on both sides, as belonging to dis- tinct if not opposing spheres ; the Churches becoming more humanitarian and sociologi- cal in their views of life and duty, while professed socialists, and even scientific economists, have been learning to recognise the ultimate importance of the moral factor in all social reform. It would hardly be complained now, by either Churchmen or socialists of unpre- judiced intelligence, that to "blend theology with sociology is to mix two things better kept apart." As urged (by G. J. Holyoake) against the dealing of Churchmen with the socialistic theories and experiments of Robert Owen, the complaint may have been war- » H. G. Wells, New Worlds for Old, p. 226. 160 CHURCH REFORM ranted by the then common ideas of theo- logy and of the proper end and work of the Church. Even yet such ideas are so preva- lent that, to many good people, questions of Social Reform seem of secular rather than of religious interest and importance. But stiff and strong yet, in many connections, as is the prejudice bred of a false distinction between the sacred and the secular, in this connection of the religious interest and im- portance of Social Reform it has been largely broken down, in many minds, by reflection or by sympathy. Religion, as conceived and taught by Jesus Christ, is now better under- stood to claim the whole of life for its sphere, and to require a constant spiritual and practical, more than any occasional and formal, worship. This improved knowledge and understanding of religion, according to the "simpHcity that is in Christ," has both emancipated men's minds from excess of reverence for Churches as societies peculiarly sacred, and has taught them to see in all common life, labour, and fellowship a sacred meaning and end, some presence and work- ing of the One Divine Spirit that " worketh all things in all." In this clearer religious light it is being L i6i IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF seen that, while all human societies, Churches included, are in one aspect secular, as be- longing to earth and time, they are all of them, also, in a deeper and truer aspect sacred, as partly expressing and partly influencing for good or evil the moral mind and feeling of man. As partly expressive, also, of the Divine mind and will, and as indefinitely capable of becoming more ex- pressive of the Divine, through the willing consecration and wise co-operation of the human mind and will, other human societies are seen to have a sacredness at least as great as that of any so-called Church. Although too little realised, yet it is coming to be better understood that " Monday is as holy as Sunday ; . . . that doing the duties of life is as religious as prayer, because in doing duty we co-operate with God ; that as God is the present basis of all reality, He is as near to us in the merchandise we handle as in the Communion Cup, and in the men with whom we do business as in the person of the priest." ^ Even among Church people not quite so conscious, by reflection, of the religious interest and importance of Social Reform, ^ Coe, Religion of a Mature Mind. 162 CHURCH REFORM there has been a marked movement of sympathy towards consideration of the claims of the poorer classes for a larger share in the ever - increasing wealth of civilisation. The evermore urgent demand and systematic action of "Socialists," with the pathos of the facts on which they turn the most lurid and searching light, have compelled the attention of many to the "social problem" as claiming sympathetic consideration, at least, from the Church. " Socialism," it has been said, " has com- pelled political economy to recognise that it is not merely the natural science of human egoism, but that it should formulate a system of moral administration for the interests of society."^ And though it can hardly be said that the Churches have yet recognised their responsibility for even helping in so great a social work, they have certainly been compelled, or moved, as never before, to consider how Church agencies and influences may be made effective for raising the low and fallen to a higher platform of social well-being. What has partly moved the Churches to such extension of efforts and agencies as is ^ Professor Schoenberg, Quintessence of Socialism. 163 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF now known by the name of " Social Work," is confessedly the too manifest falling away of the poorer classes, both in the cities and in rural districts, from connection with the ordinary Church fellowships. This falling away has not been arrested, as was hoped, by special " evangehstic " efforts to reclaim the "lapsed" and prevent further "lapsing." And methods not so purely "evangelistic," more expressive of sympathy with depressed and depressing social conditions, are now much in vogue and have met with en- couraging response. The avowed aim is still "evangelistic" rather than "social," to bring the non-churchgoing poorer classes "within reach of the Gospel," and to commend it to them by freer and livelier forms of service and address, with such adjuncts as Book Clubs, Reading and Recreation Rooms, etc. etc. Such developments of more direct dealing with social conditions, in the name of religion, have taken shape in " Institutional Churches," in " Social Centres " and " Settle- ments," and in " Labour Homes," and so forth, for reclamation from vice and mendi- cancy and for relief of unemployment. It is with some hesitation and misgiving, how- 164 CHURCH REFORM ever, that such enterprises are considered as falling within the function of the Church. While undertaken by a few with eager enthusiasm and decided, if not fully reasoned, confidence, they are officially regarded as still requiring to prove their right to full recognition and free extension in the name of the Church. There is rather an uneasy feeling that something needs to be done, to deal with low social conditions of life, than a decided conviction that it lies chiefly with religion to find a remedy. And in the resort to means of attraction and influence appealing to the "natural" rather than to the "spiritual" man, some incline to fear a failure or decline of faith in the sufficiency of the Gospel. But while the Churches thus hesitate to give themselves to more direct recognition of and dealing with the " Social Problem," that problem continues to be pressed upon them both by awakened intelligence and conscience within, and by reproachful appeal and criticism from without. " Side by side with apparent religious indifference there grows a profound dissatisfaction with the social order as it exists." " So much has been said and written about social evils, that i6s IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF most of us are a little uneasy about the in- equalities of the system in which we happen to occupy a fairly prosperous place." . . . " The present condition of affairs is horrible for the poor ; and, rightly viewed, it is equally intolerable for the rich. Even the selfish, those who frankly care for no interest but their own, are tormented by a sense of uneasiness and ' insecurity.' . . . And the sensitive and enlightened conscience is troubled by nobler questionings. There are some to-day to whom the burden of prosperity so dearly bought grows unendurable ; they cannot bear to be the petted children of unequal Fortune, while their brethren are outcast and disinherited."^ The feeling thus growing, among fairly well-to-do and rich professing Christians, of some responsibility for the hard conditions of life among the poor, may be partly due to modifications of religious belief and hope with regard to the future beyond the grave. There has certainly been proceeding in recent years, even among those who have remained loyal to the Churches, if not a " decay of vivid and profound religious beliefs," yet a decided shifting of the stress ^ Peile, Reproach of the Gospel, pp. i8, ii8, 114. CHURCH REFORM of religious interest from questions of "salva- tion," in a future life, to questions of how the Christian religion requires men to live in this world. And to this aspect of the teaching of Christ's Gospel attention is being turned, with ever more emphasis and per- sistence, by zealous social reformers who remain in sympathy and fellowship with the Church. With no small show of reason it is contended that the primitive Christian Gospel was much more "socialist" in spirit and aim than later Church teaching and life have allowed to appear. And between what must be admitted to be the force of this contention, and what must also be admitted to be the less sure warrant for some traditional doctrines of the Church, there will have to be faced an increasing demand for such a presentation of the Gospel as shall bear more upon the condi- tions of life in this world, and not, so much as in the past, relegate the hope of heaven to a world to come. Not quite fairly, perhaps, are the Churches blamed for a too "other worldly" and "fit- for-the-well-to-do " presentation of Christ's Gospel. And too little credit is certainly given them for a restraining and ameliorating 167 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF influence, upon human character and social relations, exercised through the centuries, even though, it may be, by appealing more than true Christianity does to motives of self-love in view of a future life. But what is urged by some against the Churches, with indignant and perhaps too scornful reproach, is in substance admitted by sincere and candid historians and students who adhere to Christianity and the Church, namely, that in their general attitude and teaching, as to social questions, the Churches have been far from fairly representative of the mind of Christ. " The promise of the first Christian preachers. Christian States are only now beginning to fulfil ; and though the result has been achieved through the action of Christian ideas, yet it has not seldom been in the face of the now active and now passive resist- ance of Christian societies or their official representatives. . . . Much of our nihilism and our socialism has been born of dis- appointed hopes, and hopes that were legitimate. And the Christian Churches, if they are wise, will say, ' We are to blame for these crude negations ; they are the children of our neglect, the Nemesis that has followed on the heels of our unfulfilled duties. . . . 1 68 CHURCH REFORM The rebellion and alienation are the fruit, not so much of dislike of the truth of God as of the inaction or impotence of His Churches." ^ Perhaps Dr. Fairbairn goes too far when he says, " Men have a right to expect that religion, as Christian religion, shall cure poverty, shall make the charity that is at once the luxury of the rich and the misery of the poor cease : shall bring a time when wealth, equally distributed, shall create the happiest of civil and social and secular states." But he is certainly right in affirming that there is reason in the demand that Christian Churches shall justify their existence by some explicit answer to the question, " How are we to build up in the world, and in view of man and mankind, a state, a society, that, in all its parts, shall express and declare the great ideal of a city of God, a society in harmony with His spirit and mind?" And again, when he says that "the Christian religion is by virtue of its very nature creative of a new mankind, constitutive of a new society. . . . It is meant to create a perfect state through perfect men" (p. 252). And, "religion is no simple way of merely saving men ; it ^ A. M. Fairbairn, D.D., Religion in History and in the Life of To-day, pp. 24, 178. 169 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF saves them — but for God's ends, not simply their own. It is no mere method for giving peace in death or a happy immortahty ; it accomplishes that by making time happy and a happy society. Religion is in order that eternal justice, eternal holiness, eternal purity, eternal harmony, eternal love, may, through man, be made everywhere to reign among men " (p. 93). Its work is " com- pleted only when Christ is all in all — that is, when humanity has been built up in all its parts, and regulated in all its relations, by the ideal of love and sonship that had lived from eternity in the bosom of God" (p. 254). What is thus urged, as to the relation of religion to "social questions," points to much more than is now being tardily and hesitatingly undertaken by the Churches in the name of "social work," By that is meant, methods of appeal, in the interests of personal religion, to those classes of the people who are socially depressed, endeavours to win their sympathies by relieving their hardships, by ministering to their necessities of sustenance, and to their desires for comfort and pleasure in the natural life. All this is good, and amply warranted by the example and teaching of Christ. It goes but a little J 70 CHURCH REFORM way, however, to meet the necessities of the situation, and the demands of the Gospel, as well stated and urged in what has been quoted above. What is needed is some- thing like a revolution in the teaching and method of the Churches ; a frank subordina- tion of the individualistic and eschatological to the social and ethical view of the saving grace of the Gospel ; a preaching and an organisation adapted to bring men, through redemption and regeneration, into godly fellowship with one another in this life, rather than seeking their individual security and welfare in a life to come. We may quote from Dr. Fairbairn another eloquent and forcible assertion of the pre- dominantly social and ethical end of the Gospel. " It is not, observe, a religion of anxious individualism, concerned about nothing except saving isolated souls ; careful only to make men contented in life, peaceful in death, and happy in eternity. It may accomplish these, but they are only means, not ends. In its essence it is a mighty plan, splendid in its design and in its efficiency for the construction, from the base upwards, of a humanity or a society that shall in all its parts, through all its members, in all its 171 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF relations, express or articulate the righteous will of God " (p. 141). Now, if such be the true end and mission of the Christian Religion in the world, it is hardly too much to say that, as hitherto represented and taught by the Churches, it has been largely unconscious of its mission and even under a misconception as to its end. That so labouring blindly, the power of the Gospel has proved able to accomplish so much of social amelioration and reform, gives a mighty hope of what it may accomplish when clearly and consciously directed to its social end. Without directly aiming at social reform, rather deprecating, indeed, as vain, much concern about the course of this world that "passeth away," even becoming themselves and suffering their members to be too much conformed to the fashion of the world, the Churches have yet, by their testimony to Christ as Lord, and by their spiritual teaching, wrought marvels of social emancipation and improvement. They have greatly raised the standard of purity, of justice, of honesty, and widely developed the sense of human brotherhood, of mutual obligation and responsibility, with zeal for freedom and equality before the law. But 172 CHURCH REFORM let the social aim become consciously and frankly dominant, the realisation of the kingdom of God, in this world, become the acknowledged chief end of Christian faith and fellowship, and how immensely greater would become the influence of Christian men and Christian Churches, for every possible purification and improvement of industrial, commercial, and social relations. It may be admitted that many things will prove impossible to mend, in such relations, until human nature be changed. And it is certain that the propagation of the spirit of discipleship to Christ, in individual men and women, will ever be the best contribution of the Church to the regeneration of society. The final truth to be reckoned with is prob- ably as stated in the dictum of Herbert Spencer, — " Our existing industrial system is very largely the product of existing human nature ; and can be radically and permanently improved only as fast as human nature improves." Or as a more Christian philo- sopher, Sir Thomas More, with quaint and kindly humour expressed it, — " It is not possible for all things to be well, unless all men were good, which, I think, will not be yet this good many years." — But how much 173 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF more impressive, attractive, and self-propa- gating, might the spirit of Christian Disciple- ship become, if it were more dissociated from ideas and feelings of " interest in Christ," for ends of personal salvation in a future state, and if it primarily and most manifestly meant a spirit of devotion to the highest possible service of universal human good, in every present state and relation ! No doubt, it has been the spirit of love to Christ as a personal Saviour that, more than anything else, has animated and inspired devotion to the service of all poor, sick, or suffering human creatures. But while it has largely stimulated compassion and charity, the faith of the Gospel, as commonly enter- tained, has had comparatively little effect in stimulating the sense of brotherhood, and of the duty of mutual service, among men and women able to be any way active in the competitive struggle of labour and business. To give liberally for relief and help of those who sink or fail in the strife, is a commonly recognised Christian duty and virtue. But to moderate and regulate the struggle for subsistence and wealth, by similar regard to obligations of brotherly love, has hardly yet been considered as, at least equally, a matter 174 CHURCH REFORM of Christian duty and virtue. Indeed, the application of Christian principles to affairs of ordinary labour and business is too commonly reckoned an impracticable dream. The whole sphere of industrial and com- mercial life is assumed to be subject to laws of exchange and distribution which work, on the whole, with sufficient fairness, for material ends, if each man do his best for himself without positive dishonesty towards his neighbour. Regard for any high moral end in "business" is not deemed compatible with such rules and methods as are necessary for success. Hence, as it has been well expressed, a "good deal of one-legged morality in the common practice, and still more in the common theory of commercial life." ^ The reference is to a "story of a man with one wooden leg, who stole a pair of boots and gave away the odd boot in charity." And although the comparison may fit only extreme cases of " devotion to charity of the superfluity of wealth unscrupulously gained," yet it aptly applies to the too commonly accepted and condoned reservation of " business " from the strict rule of religious honour and obligation. 1 Richmond, Christian Economics, p. 30. 17s IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF But are not the Churches largely to blame for this tendency to make religion a matter of private theory and personal interest rather than of public duty and social practice ? Have they not inverted the order, and obscured the end, of religious interest and devotion as set forth by Christ and His Apostles, laying stress upon different views of truth and urging adherence to particular forms of fellowship and worship, as giving to men the best means and assurance of being personally right with God ? To be per- sonally right with God is, no doubt, according to the Gospel, the chief end and good of every man ; and in the assurance of, or the aspiration after, such personally right and true relations with God, is the deepest spring and purest source of love and goodwill to men in every relation. But is this supremely important relation true and right, according to the Gospel, when the individual makes it an end for himself, more than for others with himself? — or when he seeks it through views and feelings about God and the Gospel, rather than in such love and service of his fellow-men as the Cross of Christ declares to be the love and service of God for eternal salvation to them all ? 176 CHURCH REFORM It is certainly very remarkable, and has been too little noticed in the strife of theories about justifying "faith," how much insisted on in the New Testament is the necessity of right affection towards our fellow-men to make us right with God. How emphatically are all sorts of Church system and service relegated to a place of secondary importance by such words as ''first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift ! " -^ How significant, also, the stress upon humanitarian sympathy and service, rather than theological belief or ecclesiastical observance, in the great parable of judg- ment, Matt. XXV. 40, 45 ! And to the same effect much might be quoted from the 1 See some striking comment on this plain inference in an essay by the Bishop of Ripon on " The Education of a Minister of God," Hibbert Journal, April, 1905, — " Christ insisted that ethic was at the base of spiritual religion. The gift was not to be offered till the worshipper had put right his moral conduct. ... If the worshipping Christian world were once to recognise the significance of this word of Christ and act upon it, mankind would witness the most stupendous example of religious eartnestness which it has ever seen. If every Christian man felt that he must straighten out his relations with his brother man before he could enter into spiritual harmony with God, and were to act upon this conviction, there would be more wrongs righted in a week than a hundred years of legislation could effect" (p. 440). M 177 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF Apostolic writings, not least from those of that Apostle whose authority has been most appealed to for sanction of that sort of "doctrine" which divides in opinion men who are one in spirit and aim. It is enough to refer to that Apostle's fervid eulogy of love in i Cor. xiii. ; but in many other eloquent passages, indeed in the most of what he taught and urged as Christianity, St. Paul has given the strongest expression to the social and ethical spirit of the Gospel ; and no one has so forcibly and copiously enforced the duty of subordinating every sort of opinion, taste, and preference, for the sake of the widest possible unity and fellowship of love and service, among men who love Jesus Christ as Lord. There is really no novelty, then, in the more social and ethical gospel which the Churches are finding themselves called and moved to preach. It is substantially the old and "earliest" gospel of the Divine Fatherhood seeking its Kingdom in a true Human Brotherhood. The circumstances of the world, however, have in many ways changed ; and also the view that it is reasonable for disciples of Christ to entertain of the probable future of 178 CHURCH REFORM this earth as a sphere for the reaHsation of the Kingdom of Heaven. To intelligent Christian faith there is no longer any reason- able hope or expectation of a sudden and extraordinary intervention of Divine Power and Grace to make an end of evil and injustice. Our earth seems likely to continue, for indefinite time, in substantially unchanged adaptation to the needs of man's natural life and to his capacity for moral and social development. Thus the individualistic and eschatological view of Christ's salvation, long too dominant in the system and the senti- ment of the Church, has been losing its power to hold and move the minds of earnest and thoughtful men ; and the religious inter- est of Christians has felt at once more constrained and more free to turn to problems of present life and duty, to seek through Christ and the Gospel the regenera- tion and illumination of human souls, not so much with a view to their individual life and blessedness in a future state, as with a view to the realisation in human society of a true and universal Brotherhood of Believers in one Divine Fatherhood.^ 1 In illustration of this changed and changing view and feeling as to the proper end and aim of Christian teaching 179 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF It thus appears that, within and without the Churches, there are strong tendencies of thought and feeHng, with much earnest aspiration and effort, pointing to the need of, and smoothing the way for, such a union and concentration of all available Christian forces as can only be realised on the basis of common locality with the simplest possible bond of creed. Within the Churches, there is a movement of thought relaxing the stringency and preaching, the following may be quoted from a news- paper of the day. At the opening of a Church Bazaar (Dec. 20th, 1908), it was said : " One difference between the standpoint of the Church to-day and her attitude, say, a century ago, was that then the salvation of the individual soul was the chief (if not the only) thing aimed at ; now, it was mainly the regeneration of the life they looked to. The sorry gibe which spoke of the Church as a gigantic organisa- tion for insurance against eternal fire had lost much of its excuse in later times." And in an address by a " Labour Party Leader," reported in the same newspaper, it was said : " The Churches, until within recent times, were slow to learn that not only had the teaching of Jesus Christ a great moral and spiritual meaning, but it had an equally important ethical and social mean- ing : . . . a great change was now coming over the Churches, and they were striving more and more to find remedies for great social evils. . . . The complaint that working men had against the Churches had been that they applied religion more to prepare people for another world than to the whole comprehensive programme of human life : . . . there was no more revolutionary force in the world to-day than Christianity." 180 CHURCH REFORM of devotion to traditional standards and modes of association and action ; and a move- ment of sympathy with the aspirations and efforts of all who desire the elevation and improvement of human society in this world. There is also without the Churches, agree- ably qualifying much unreasonably severe and ill-informed complaint and criticism, a great and growing disposition to recognise in the Christian Religion the most powerful and indispensable means of social reform — to welcome, with respectful sympathy and co- operation, the rather tardy and hesitating movement of the Churches towards a view of their mission and duty, embracing things earthly along with things heavenly, recognis- ing the close relation between moral and material, individual and social, well-being. On the one hand, it is getting to be under- stood that "social problems" are, funda- mentally and radically, problems of religion and morals, while, on the other hand, en- thusiasts for religion and morals are learning to see, in the natural and ordinary conditions and relations of life in this world, the proper sphere for the realisation of their ideal ends and aspirations. Both those whose dominant interest is in social reform, and i8i IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF they whose deepest sympathies and aspira- tions are religious, may learn something from the vigorous expression given to his views by Mr. Frederic Harrison. Believers in the Christian Religion may, so far, cordially agree with and welcome his statement of the case while they deprecate his stunted and baseless conception of a Religion of Human Brotherhood uninspired and unsupported by faith in the Divine Fatherhood. And perhaps some who might suspect a Christian of overstating the importance of Religion may be more impressed with the truth as urged by one who, in the name of Positive Science, disowns the Christian faith in God the Father and in the future life of souls. — " Our industrial system is vicious, because our moral, religious, and social system is disorganised. It is impossible to regenerate industry, until we also regenerate society. . . . And society can only be regener- ated by sound religion, true morality, right education, wise institutions, and good govern- ment. . . . We can only change the general conditions of industry by changing the spirit in which industry is carried on. . . . The cause of social misery may be traced to the passion of self-interest and to a low sense of 182 CHURCH REFORM social duty. In politics, philosophy, art, or manners, in domestic or social life, self- interest is not canonised as the principal duty of man. In industry it is otherwise. For all industrial matters in modern Europe and America, a moral code has been evolved, which makes the unlimited indulgence of self-interest, pushed to the very verge of liability to law, the supreme social duty of the industrious citizen. ... It is assumed that the rapid increase of business, the great accumulation of wealth, is a good per se, good for the capitalist, good for society. . . . Here, then, is the all-sufficient source of industrial maladies. ... If all employers were as thoughtful for the general welfare of those they employ as they are now eager to get the most out of them ; if all producers were as anxious for good, sound, useful pro- duction as they are for paying production ; if they who lend money considered not only the security and the interest, but the purpose for which the money was sought ; if those who develop new works thought more of the workers than of possible profits, — industry would not be what we see it. In other words, i^e solution of the industrial problem is a moral, social, and religious question. 183 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF Industry must be moralised, infused with a spirit of social duty from top to bottom, from peer to peasant, from millionaire to pauper." ^ In view, then, of the new interest and urgency, more or less felt in all the Churches, of the problem of moralising, as far as pos- sible Christianising, all social and economic relations, the plea for Local Unity as the primary requisite for Christian Churches acquires impressive strength. The more that religion is realised as a matter of social, at least as much as individual, interest and obligation, and as a chief necessity for the working out of the best possible economic and social relations ; the more important it will be felt to have, first, the best possible organisation of Local Unity, whatever may become of the denominations. The very existence of separate denominational ties and interests has, in each local community, an unmoral and unsocial aspect and influence extremely detrimental and enfeebling to social and moral influence. Even from the purely individual and future salvation point of view, they seem increasingly anomalous and wrong to minds convinced of the essen- ' F. Harrison, National and Social Problems, pp. 417-420. 184 CHURCH REFORM tial unity and simplicity of the religious faith that saves. And when the social is seen to be the immediately pressing end of the individual salvation, and a great, if not indispensable means of its full realisation, then the unsocial separation of professedly Christian societies, in the same locality, seems all but inexpressibly absurd and even sinful. Religion, which above all is needed for the moralising of common society, appears as itself a demoralising, because a disintegrat- ing influence. It breaks up, rather than cements, the natural social unity, attracting people to different centres of fellowship and "places of worship," not by appeal to their desires and aptitudes for religious social service, so much as by flattery of the self- love in which they cling to some distinctive opinion, prefer a certain " minister," or are uncomfortable in any but a familiar building or pew. Thus that spirit of self-pleasing, which is the bane of ordinary society, is positively fostered and encouraged in the name of that religion whose ideal is self- devotion and social service. And in each residential neighbourhood, where there should be union and organisation for social service, there is rather a chaotic representa- 185 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF tion of religious sectarianism dividing the interests, sympathies, and activities, which should be concentrated upon one common end. That religion should be thus weakened as a unifying and purifying influence, upon ordinary social relations, is the more deplor- able when it is considered that, however differently, in some ways, they may think as to the world to come, or as to the best means of social amelioration in this world, the religious sects are practically in entire agree- ment as to the common end, whether for this world or the next. Stated in general terms, the common end is to bring men into right relations with God and with one another. And as to the chief means, also, for achieving that great common end, they are agreed that it is found in acknowledgment of and obedience to Jesus Christ as Lord. All that is wanted, therefore, from any of them for the sake of common action and influence in every local centre, is simply the subordination of con- fessedly subordinate matters of opinion or preference, as to ways and means and ends. And such subordination need not involve suppression of any opinion or preference, so long as it is not asserted or indulged in such 1 86 CHURCH REFORM a way as to hinder or impede common action for the great common end. As to how far the subordination of secondary interests is a sacrifice required for the common end, each sectarian body must, of course, be left to determine for itself.^ But a consideration which should appeal strongly to them all is this, that even the most sincere and ardent pursuit of the great end which all have in common is inevitably distracted and enfeebled just in proportion as any inferior or particular end is deemed worthy of separate organisation and effort. A narrowly sectarian zeal is so much more easily cultivated than a broadly tolerant and charitable devotion, that it is very apt to attract more than its due pro- portion of interest and service ; and thus all the sects have the formal adhesion of many, as well as the ardent attachment and ser- vice of a few, to whom what is most truly and purely Christian is not a dominant but really a secondary interest. To make a common testimony for what they hold in common is, therefore, more important for all the sects than for any of them to make a separate testimony of its own ; more impress- 1 See Appendix II., p. 191. 187 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF ive both for their own adherents, and for those outside the pale of any Christian profession. The demoralising and enfeebling influence of separately working religious fellowships in any common locality, becomes keenly felt when any unusually acute emergency arises, calling for all available Christian sympathy and beneficence. There being no custom of, nor machinery for, the common action urgently called for, it is exceedingly difficult to create and guide. The organisation of common and carefully distributed action is hampered at every step by the custom of sectarian interest and attachment, with its supposed necessity and claim for special safe- guard and service. The exceptionally acute and wide-spread distress through unemployment, of the winter of 1908-9, has recently done much to force such considerations upon the minds of all concerned for the social efficiency of religious faith and fellowship. " A great opportunity " (wrote one active worker in the cause) ^ "is being opened to the Churches. If they rise to the opportunity, it may well happen that, as a result of the present effort to cope with ' The Rev. D. M. Ross, D.D., in the Scottish Review, October, 1908. 188 CHURCH REFORM the distress due to non-employment, the whole Christian Church of Glasgow will be inevitably led on to a more effective grappling with the problem of social wreckage." There is happily named here, although probably without clear consciousness of the suggestive implication of the phrase, just what ought to be in every city or common district. There is, no doubt, such a spiritual entity as the " whole Christian Church of Glasgow " ; only it is insufficiently aware of itself, and, for effectual grappling with the "problem of social wreckage," it needs to realise and rationally organise itself as one, throughout the city. Until there is, in every city or common district, a Christian Church thus really whole and undivided, effectively organised in deliberate subordina- tion of every sectarian interest to the great common end, and so as to make the most for the common end of every endowment and every energy pertaining to the Christian people of the city or district, — until some- thing like this is realised in every locality, religion will never have a chance of showing what it can do to so moralise all social relations as to prevent (which would be better than to deal remedially with) "social 189 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF wreckage." So long as it is itself de- moralised by manifest disunion among its avowed representatives, misrepresented by Churches which are in competitive, rather than in co-operative, relations, religion will be comparatively powerless in its appeal to men to moralise their ordinary relations, being discredited by the example of its own special organs and advocates. But, itself set free from demoralising division and weakness, how potent may religion be to heal division and alleviate strife in ordinary social relations ! how impressive in its admonition and reproof to all who fail, in its inspiration and encouragement, also, to all who are strong in the sympathies and aspirations of social service ! By such United Local Churches, the ideal might be realised of "an ardent and hopeful association ... for the purpose of contend- ing within a given district against disease and distress, of diminishing by every con- trivance of kindly sympathy the rudeness, coarseness, ignorance, and imprudence of the poor and the heartlessness and hardness of the rich ; for the purpose of securing to all that moderate happiness which gives leisure for virtue, and that moderate occupation 190 CHURCH REFORM which removes the temptations of vice ; for the purpose of providing a large and wise education for the young ; lastly, for the purpose of handing on the tradition of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, main- taining the Enthusiasm of Humanity in all the baptized, and preserving, in opposition to all temptations to superstition or fanaticism, the filial freedom of their worship of God." ^ APPENDIX II. There has been published, since the most of this small work was written, a much larger volume dealing with the same problem and pointing in the same direction for its solution.^ The author, according to the publishers' advertisement, was a " well-known Manchester citizen." In the preface he states that his " main conclusions have been forced upon him by a providential leading extending over forty years of business life and close association with religious and philanthropic work." The melancholy information is added in a note, that he " passed away in December, * Ecce Homo, 14th edition, pp. 212-213, chapter xviii. 2 Christian Reunion : A Plea for the Restoration of the "Ecdesia of God." By Frank Spence. Hodder & Stoughton, 1908. 191 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF 1907," but leaving the manuscript practically ready for the press. For the writer of this brief discussion of the problem of Christian Reunion, Mr. Spence's work has the special interest of being the only explicit advocacy he has met with of the principle of union on the basis of convenient locality or common neighbourhood. His plan, indeed, con- templates more than has been in the mind of the present writer of a continuance of the existing denominational system. But as to the priority of the principle of local union, and the urgent necessity for giving effect to that principle by subordination of sectarian principles and aims, this thoughtful and cultured Christian layman had reached con- clusions quite decided and thoroughgoing ; and of that ruling principle and ideal as it governed the practice of the Primitive Church, he has given an exposition as complete and clear and scholarly as could be wished. Of the soundness and applicability of this ruling principle and ideal some may be more easily persuaded when assured, as Mr. Spence affirms, that it may be immediately applied "without touching a slate on a denominational roof""- He thinks that the various existing denominations may still 1 Christian Reunion, etc., chapter ii. p. 6. 192 CHURCH REFORM have a beneficial influence upon each other by friendly rivalry, and that their "diversity of view, controlled by the spirit of charity and honourable emulation, may subserve the interests of truth by evolving phases of it which would othefwise be unrevealed." -^ In this view, much is made of an interesting but, perhaps, rather fanciful analogy. The unity of ancient Israel was a unity of " twelve self- governing tribes," each of which had its own peculiarity of character, function, and fortune. In the Book of Revelation the New Jerusalem is depicted with features similarly significant (by the number twelve and its multiples) of a variety of "spiritual tribes," with varied characteristics, making up the whole Church of God. The denominations, it is argued, may be recognised as " tribes " with complete self-governing freedom in their own distinc- tive spheres. But none of them, separately, nor all of them incorporated in one, can ever constitute a " Church " in the New Testament sense. That can be formed only by "a local union of Christians of every sect and party " ; and to mark the distinction between a denomination and a Church, it is suggested that the untranslated term " Ecclesia" be re- served for the locally constituted association. For the constitution and management of such local " Ecclesias," Mr. Spence was at 1 Christian Reunion, etc., p. 149. N 193 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF the trouble to draw up elaborate by-laws which, with exposition and comment, occupy about a hundred pages of his book. They contain much that may be found useful in the way of directions and rules for giving effective order and activity to a local Church. It may be doubted, however, if the continuance of denominational corporations requiring such elaborate contrivance for their joint and equal representation in local Churches, will prove compatible with any cordial recognition of the ruling ideal of one united Church in each convenient locality. There will hardly subsist sufficient zeal for separate denominational ends, with convinced and adequate devotion to a common unsectarian end recognised as of prior obligation and supreme importance. But some such scheme as Mr. Spence has suggested may prove of temporary value for the transition from denominationalism ; to bring the denominations in each locality into practical co-operation without delay, so forming the nuclei and familiarising the idea and custom of independent self-governing local Churches. That such Churches would suffer from lack of the rivalry of denominations is urged as a reason for contemplating, and even encourag- ing, their continuance. " All experience shows (a) that when a denominational Church has a monopoly of a locality, uninfluenced 194 CHURCH REFORM by emulation, it tends to lose its spiritual life and power ; (d) that the more a denomina- tion centralises its government the more it parts with its members' initiative enterprise and wholesome control of its policy."^ But what is here urged under (3) seems to suggest a sufificient answer to what is stated under (a), supported as the latter is by this further note, — "Some decades ago one of the Scottish Presbyterian denominations discovered that its sleeping Churches were mostly those which were in sole possession of their districts." Monopoly of a locality by a denominational Church does, no doubt, tend to slacken energy and zeal on the part of both minister and people, especially when the monopoly extends to the exclusive enjoyment of parochial en- dowments. But would not "decentralisa- tion " more than counterbalance the evil of " monopoly " under a system of independent local Churches ? The monopoly then would not be that of a denomination, but of a Church including all on an equal footing, who should desire to have part in its work, worship, and management. And such a monopoly would, surely, have quite a different effect from that of a denomination. It would give a rich development to local interest and enterprise, quickening the sense of larger than denomi- national, or even local ends, and diffusing, ' Christian Reunion, etc., p. 173. 195 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF while localising, the privilege and responsi- bility of "control." In such a democratically constituted Local Church, every variety of opinion now represented by denomination- alism might have the freest expression, in a friendly rivalry all the more outspoken and harmless because by common consent re- strained from going so far as to break up or impair the local unity. In one most important particular the order proposed by Mr. Spence for the unification, in each locality, of all sects and denomina- tions, certainly comes short of what will be found necessary for any form of organised unity. The creed basis proposed (pp. 243- 252), while brief in form is in terms and intention too exclusive. And it is pleasing to note that a much simpler and more com- prehensive basis of creed has been formulated, and defensively explained, by one so com- petent to guide in such a matter as the Rev. Professor Denney, D.D. See his recently published volume, Jesus and the Gospel, pp. 382-411. It is only fair, however, to Mr. Spence to say that his discussion of this important point is such as to make it highly probable that, personally, he would have agreed to a less stringent form of creed. A quotation from Stillingfleet, given with evident approval (page 243, note), seems sufficient proof of this, and is worth repro- 196 CHURCH REFORM ducing here. " What possible ground can be assigned or given why such things should not be sufficient for communion with a Church which are sufficient for eternal salvation ? What ground can there be why Christians should not stand upon the same terms now which they did in the time of Christ and His Apostles ? . . . Without all controversy, the main inlet of all the distractions, confusions, and divisions of the Christian world hath been by adding other con- ditions of Church communion than Christ hath done." But the chief value of this work is in its clear and full and amply supported demon- stration that " local autonomy" was the simple, invariable, first principle of primitive Church order and unity. Any candid reader of Mr. Spence's book will find abundant and con- vincing proof of such statements as these : " Every Ecclesia, or community of believers, organised by the Apostles, was designed by them to include all the Christians resident in the city or island of population in which it was placed ; it being always referred to as 'the' (and therefore the only) Ecclesia in such city." . . . But " Ecclesiasticism has submerged the Ecclesia." ... "In each city which contained a vigorous apostolic organisation, whilst there would be numerous district gatherings for preaching, worship, 197 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF etc., all the Christians . . . formed one local visible spiritual community or ' body of Christ ' ; and their oneness was manifested and perfected by their coming together for communion and for conducting (either per- sonally or representatively) the spiritual and temporal business of the Ecclesia as a whole." . . . "It seems indeed extremely probable that the city was chosen as the unit and area of the Ecclesia in order, among other things, to prevent the growth of huge, dominating, national, or world-wide hierarchies." . . . " The salient idea, then, of the New Testa- ment organisation is that of a city, town, or village community of Christians whose members can readily commune with each other, and who, like the limbs of a body, are in joint relationship with their glorious Head ; this local body also mystically representing the entire body of believers in heaven and on earth." It follows that "the Greek, Roman Catholic, . . . and the various Established and non-Established Episco- palian and non - Episcopalian national Churches ... all lack the essential . . . constituency of the . . . Christian organisa- tion founded by the Apostles." . . . "Whilst there is abundant evidence in the New Testament of generous voluntary co-operation between the separate Ecclesias, it contains no instance of these Ecclesias in any province 198 CHURCH REFORM or State merging themselves in one pro- vincial or national Ecclesia." . . . " There is no trace in the record of any design or effort of the Apostles to consolidate the various Ecclesias into one visible organi- sation. Everything, on the contrary, points to their great principle of the life and growth of each Ecclesia as an independent organism." The well-known historian Mosheim is quoted as follows : — "All the Churches in those primitive times were independent bodies, none of them subject to any other. For though the Churches which were founded by the Apostles themselves frequently had the honour shown them to be consulted in diffi- cult and doubtful cases, yet they had no judicial authority, no control, no power of giving laws. On the contrary, it is clear as the noonday that all Christian Churches had equal rights, and were in all respects on an equal footing. Nor does there appear in this first century any vestige of that consocia- tion of the Churches of the same province which gave rise to councils and to metropoli- tans." . . . And so, very pertinently, it is maintained, " our various denominations — Anglican, Baptist, Congregationalist, Metho- dist, Presbyterian, Salvation Army, and all other, are, in God's sight, on an equal footing ... all the tribes have . . . perfect equality 199 IDEALS AND PRINCIPLES OF of status and function as approaches or portals to the New Jerusalem."^ As to the pecuHarly exclusive claims of modern Episcopacy to be the only valid order for a Church of Christ on earth, the following judgments are well expressed and clearly argued : — " All truth-loving apologists of Episcopalianism now admit that — like our words superintendent and overseer — the words " bishop " {episcopos) and " elder " {pres- buteros) are simply different New Testament names for the same office." . . . "And as none of the numerous references to those Ecclesia bishop-elders — of whom there were numbers in each city- — indicate the existence of any superior over them — it is plain that the lordship of the single bishop cannot be found within the boards of the New Testa- ment." . . . "We can thus fully appreciate the significance of the fact that no one ever ventures to speak of a ' New Testament episcopate,' or of an 'apostolic episcopate,' but only of 'the historic episcopate.'" . . . "That the creation of the 'Episcopalian' bishop and his extraordinary prerogatives was conceived by unfaithful and ambitious missionaries, there seems only too much reason to believe." . . . "And in presence of his- torical fact, . . . might not Episcopacy, '^ Christian Reunion, etc., pp. 8, 12, 23, 32, 33, 34, 92, 93. 157- 200 CHURCH REFORM instead of proudly demanding the ' ordina- tion " of Free Church ministers by its bishops as a condition precedent of Christian union, much more fittingly plead for its own ad- mission to the brotherhood of the tribes ? " ^ Of the disorder and waste of our existing denominational system, it is well said to be " becoming a serious question whether our present regime, with its frequent unsatis- factory and declining Church attendance, is not yielding the minimum of efficiency at the maximum of cost." . . . "One of the most crippling consequences of the Bedouin regime of non-federated tribal bodies is its all but complete lack of co-ordination between the denominations in our cities and towns on any matter or subject of public interest. Every tribe does what seems to be right in its own eyes : with the inevitable result of overlapping effort and incalculable waste of the existing insufficient force. In a nation whose very life is threatened by drink, gambling, vice, and many forms of luxury and pleasure wor- ship, how deeply, discreditably unchristian is this !"...." Speaking honestly, if the members of Christ's body were suffused with the spirit of their Head, could they for an hour endure their present shameful dis- severance ? " ^ 1 Christian Reunion, etc., pp. 126, 129, 135, 142. ^ Ibid.^^. 22, 184, 198. 201 CHURCH REFORM Lastly, may be quoted the following em- phatic repudiation of all such ideals of union as are at present in vogue, with just the qualifying remark that (as has been argued above) it is very doubtful whether it is desir- able, or will be possible, for " denominations " to survive at all under the dominance of the "city family" ideal and system rightly urged as of primary importance and obliga- tion. " Instead of attempting vain spread- eagle schemes for the 'union of the Churches,' i.e., the denominations, by merging them under one vast hierarchy, would we not do well to preserve their delightful individuality by locally federating them on the tribal foundations of the New Jerusalem — by con- tenting ourselves, in short, with the city family organisation planned by Christ's in- spired apostles ? . . . Many centuries behind us have produced only visionary schemes of union. Has not the time now come to let the ' Leader and Commander ' achieve it in His own way ?"^ ^ Christian Reunion, etc., pp. 197-198. 202 3n fiDemoriam. The Author of this Volume, the late Rev. John Cooper Barry, M.A., was born at Forfar on 23rd September 1849, and received his early training at the Forfar Academy, of which he became Dux and Medallist. Early religious thoughts were strongly affected by the remarkable ministry, in the East Free Church there, of his brother-in-law, S. R. Macphail (now Dr. Macphail, late of Liverpool) ; but he was early marked by the strong individuality, the un- conventional bent, and the independence of thought which were life-long characteristics. After a full apprenticeship in engineering at Dundee, he spent some time in the Hyde Park Locomotive Works, Glasgow, and so received what he later used to say all men in the Ministry ought to receive, that living contact with the conditions of manual labour which produces a keen intelligent interest in the social questions of our time. On his father's death, however, he forsook a calling which had never been quite congenial, and studied for the Ministry through the University of Glasgow,in which he graduated, and the Free Church 203 IN MEMORIAM College there. He was recognised at College as a man of exceptional ability, and as one destined to fill an honoured place in the Church. He early devoted himself to the study of the social aspect and working of Christianity ; and while acting as missionary for one of the Glasgow Churches and actively co-operating in the work of the Glasgow Foundry Boys' Society, he gained valuable ex- perience of the sins and sorrows of a great city, while his sympathy with the moral and material conditions of its population grew in depth and strength. At the same time having, for intimate associates and fast friends, from College days onwards, such men as Dr. A. Whyte, the late Dr. Dods, the late Dr. A. B. Bruce, Professor Denney, Professor Martin, Dr. John S. Carroll, Dr. George Reith, and others, he enjoyed an inspiring intel- lectual and spiritual atmosphere by which he knew how to profit, while retaining an individuality all his own. At the close of his theological studies Mr. Barry acquired further experience in Spain, and also at Wallacetown, Ayr, where his labours were lovingly appreciated. Called to Lochmaben in 1884, he, through four happy years, proved himself a brilliant preacher and faithful pastor. Besides the ordinary routine of Church work, he instituted courses of lectures on subjects of general interest. Of several calls to other fields which reached him at Lochmaben, he accepted in 1888 the un- 204 IN MEMORIAM animous invitation of the North Free Church, Dumbarton, and to that prosperous and active congregation he gave through one and twenty- years the faithful and strenuous ministry which proved his joy and crown. In the public affairs of the town he took no active interest, nor was he prominent in the Presbytery. It was the social side of his labours which most strongly appealed to him, as was witnessed by the Mission work which he directed at Burnside and in other parts of the town. Mr. Barry also assisted in starting the scheme of Garden Allotments for working men, the first of these gardens being laid out on the ground at the rear of his own manse. He was, further, an original and prominent member of the Dumbarton Social Union, and was Chairman of its Garden Allotment Section. His rest came with a tragic unexpectedness on Sunday, the 14th November, 1909, after a few days' illness. His widow — the daughter of the late Robert Ballantyne Park, Esq. — and Sheila, one little daughter of seven years, remain to lament his passing away, and to thank God for his finished life and his call to higher service. 205 Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited Edinburgh T. and T. Clark's Publications. THE LATEST HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 'Of Dr. Lindsay's "History of the Reformation" Dr. Dennbt predicts that it will become a classic on the subject. Few safer pre- dictions have been hazarded. '—British Weekly. In Two Volumes, post 8vo, price lOS. 6di each. A History of the Reformation. BY Principal T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., LL.D. Vol. I.— the REFORMATION IN GERMANY, FROM ITS BEGINNING TO THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF AUGSBURG. Vol. II. — the REFORMATION IN LANDS BEYOND GERMANY (Switzerland, France, The Netherlands, Scotland, and England; the Anabaptist and Socinian Movements; The Counter-Reformation). With Map of the Reformation and Counter- Reformation (1520-1580). ' At last the English public possess an adequate History of the Kefor- mation. The two volumes cover the whole ground. The work is planned with great comprehensiveness, and executed with singular balance of thought and impartiality. It represents immense labour, with learning of most unusual breadth and depth.' — The Times. 'The best English History of the Reformation in Germany. A decidedly successful book.'— Professor Pollakd in the Tribune. 'There can be no doubt this will be the classical work in English on the Reformation. ... It is a noble crown of a life's study of the most stupendous spiritual movement since the death of St. Paul. Dr. Lindsay writes with an ease and charm that fascinates the reader and carries him on from page to page until the end, leaving us full of impatience for the second yolume.'— Christian World. T. and T. Clark's Publications. NOW READY. Crown quarto, 1008 Pages, with Four Maps, price 20s. net; or in Half-Leather Binding, 25s. net. DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE. COMPLMTM IN ONM VOLTJMM. EDITED BY JAMES HASTINGS, D.D. This Dictionary is entirely distinct from the Five - Volume Dictionary. It is complete in ONE Volume. The Articles are all new. It is not based on any other Dictiona/ry^ hut is a wholly new and original Work. Every Article is signed by the Author. This is the first time that all the Articles in a single-volume Dictionary of the Bible have been committed to Specialists and bear their signatures, as in the largest Dictionaries. Prospectus, with Specimen Page and List of Authors, post free on application. FROM EARLY PRESS NOTICES. 'A very fine achievement, worthy to stand beside his larger Dictionaries, and by far the most scholarly yet produced in one volume in English -speaking countries, perhaps it may be said in the world.' — Christian World. *The names of the editor and assistants alone are guarantees for the thoroughness with which everything that belongs to the production of a dictionary is attended to, and nothing could surpass the care, clearness, and accuracy which characterise the work from beginning to end.' — Ghxtrchman. *To produce in a single volume a Dictionary of the Bible suflBciently ample in its scope and plan, abreast of present scholarship, not too elementary to be of use to students and ministers, and not too technical and scholastic in its method for an ordinary reader is, as will be readily understood, an extremely diflEicuIt undertaking. So far as our examination of it has gone, it has been admirably accomplished.' — Methodist Recorder. * An exceedingly valuable and comprehensive work.' — Record. ' The work is able, scholarly, and of a thoroughly trustworthy kind. The editor has been able to enlist the foremost scholars of our time. We must call attention to the careful and masterly sub-editing. It is as near perfection as ia possible for man to attain.' — Aberdeen Free Press. 'Thoroughly abreast of present-day knowledge. For presentation and library pur- poses the book outstrips all its rivals, and its closely packed pages are a perfect mine for teachers and mimsters.'— Sunday School Chronicle. 'No pains have been spared to make the book thoroughly reliable and up to date.'— Scotsman.