ar V ^^ _15212 .m^^ sf ^ja President Whjte Library Cornell University. arV15212 Ecclesiastical libert' Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 239 662 olln,anx The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031239662 Ecclesiastical Liberty BEING THE DEFENCE OF THE KEV. HOWARD MacQUEARY BEFORE THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN NORTHERN OHIO THE CHARGES OF HERESY DELIVERED IN CLEVELAND, OHIO, JANUARY SEVENTH ^ i8qi NEW YORK UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY SUCCESSORS TO JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 150 WORTH STREET, COR. MISSION PLACE PREFACE. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, Jan. i2th, 1891. My Dear Mr. MacQueary : I have read your speech carefully twice, and I congratulate you upon it most heartily. Excellent as your book was, I think that your speech shows still greater power. It stirred me deeply. You are rendering a great service to religious and thoughtful men throughout the country, but especially to those in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Your argument seems absolutely conclusive, but I have little hope that it will clear you before a Church tribunal. That it will clear you before the great mass of thinking men in our own and other Churches, I am sure : that it will quicken liberal thought in the Church, I am also sure. Your opponents little know what they are doing and what you have been endeavoring to do. They little know that the great danger is, that the coming generation of thinking men in the United States will separate themselves entirely from all Christian organizations. If what thinking men in the light of the dawn of the twentieth century can believe is to be tied by Church authority to what such men absolutely cannot, will not, and ought not to believe, then the Protestant Epis- copal Church and other Protestant Churches in this country will he left in very much the same attitude toward the thought of this country, as the Roman Catholic Church in Italy and France holds toward the thought of those countries. I hope for something better, and look to you and men like you to initiate movements which will bnng about a proper union between Christianity and modern thought. 4 PREFACE. I think so highly of your speech that I would like to circulate copies of it. I will subscribe for a number of these, and cir- culate them myself, to the amount of -dollars, and will exert myself to have others do the like. With sincere congratulation and good wishes, I remain, Most respectfully yours, ANDREW D. WHITE. The Rev. Howard MacQueary, Canton, Ohio. The above letter, which is inserted in this preface by the kind permission of the writer, is one of several requests I have received to publish the following speech, delivered before the Ecclesiastical Court of the Episcopal Church of Northern Ohio, on the seventh and eighth of January, 1891, in Cleveland, Ohio, defending myself against the charges of " heresy," because I had questioned the Virgin birth and physical resurrection of Jesus in a book entitled " The Evolu- tion of Man and Christianity " (D. Appleton & Co., New York, publishers). It will be seen at once that the questions raised by this trial were of fundamental and lasting importance, involving as they did a consideration of the great principles of the Prot- estant Reformation of the Si.xteenth Century, — the root ques- tions between Romanism and Protestantism. It was at- tempted to narrow the issues to a simple interpretation of Creeds and Canon Law, but the Prosecutor was forced to abandon this position, and in a speech in reply to this tried to refute my argument from Scripture. That he was unsuc- cessful may be inferred from the fact that two of the five judges constituting the Court voted for acquittal, and men like Dr. White, whose minds are free from theological bias, consider the argument conclusive. I am satisfied that the position here taken, namely, that the Bible is the supreme Rule ofFaithfor all Protestant churches, and that individuals should be allowed perfect liberty of thought and speech is absolutely valid. Creeds in Protestant Churches should be open to the freest criticism and subject to periodical alterations, and no PREFACE. 5 man should be expelled from the Church on account of opinions held. Church history shows that ecclesiastical courts and councils have again and again erred and condemned innocent men. Observation proves that the Bible is not in- fallible either in its scientific, historical, or even its moral and religious teaching. There is absolutely no infallible guide available in religious faith and practice, and hence every one who sincerely wishes to frame and fashion his life after the pattern of Jesus Christ's — every one who loves Him and would fain do Him service in the pulpit or the parish, should be cordially welcomed into the Church and ministry. In short conduct, not creed, should be made the basis of Church fellowship, and not until this is done will the Church do the work her Master intended her to do. Perhaps the day is not distant when these truths will he. practically recognized, and the Church may be forced to reconstruct her dogmas on a more rational and scriptural basis. If so, it will be well to have it generally known, among the laity as well as among the clergy, that the Church has- merely to re-assert the fun- damental principles of the Reformation and to return to the simplicity of the Apostolic and Nicene Faith. It is with the hope of promoting, in my humble way, this desirable end that I consent to the publication of the follow- ing speech. HOWARD MACQUEARY. ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Ecclesiastical Court : The Prosecutor's speech reminds me of the old story of the French king, who, with his lords and gentlemen, was mak- ing a tour through his dominions, and when he came to a certain provincial town the deputy of the mayor came forth to meet him and began his speech thus : " May it please your majesty, there are just thirteen reasons why his honor the mayor cannot come out to welcome you on this occasion. The first is that he is dead." When the king heard this i^e graciously excused the deputy from stating the other tweive reasons. The Prosecutor's speech amounts to this : The doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church are fixed and unquestionable quantities, whose meaning is so, clear that a wayfaring man though a fool cannot err therein. On the other hand, the opinions of the accused clergyman are so explicitly stated in his book, and are so evidently contradic- tory of the doctrines of this Church, that he is ecclesiastically dead, and there is nothing for the Court to do but to bury him out of sight, and perhaps erect over him a modest monument bearing the immortal words of Dante : " All hope abandon ye who enter here." I shall, therefore, aim to show first, that the doctrines of this Church are not fixed and unquestionable, and that their mean- ing is by no means so clear as the Prosecutor would have us believe. Secondly, I shall show that my opinions, rightly understood, are not so contra:dictory of the doctrines of this Church as to justify your condemnation of them. " There are two sides to every question," says the popular 8 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. proverb most truly, and at last the time has come when the other side of the question now before you may be heard and considered. For months my critics and self-constituted judges have had things all their own way. They have not only greatly misrepresented and vehemently denounced both my theological and ecclesiastical position, but they have attacked my moral character. They have accused me of violating solemn ordination vows and they have, with few exceptions, steadily refused to let me refute their slanderous charges. They have done this, too, knowing that they were on the popular side of the question, knowing that thousands would applaud their defense of self-styled " orthodoxy " with- out ever taking the trouble to examine the opinions of the man they condemned. They have thus created a widespread impression in the Church and out of it that I was simply a young, presumptuous ignoramus, who .wanted to create "a sensation" and win " notoriety " by advocating erroneous and strange doctrines. Before beginning my defense, therefore, I wish to ask this Court : Have you been influenced by these criticisms ? I fear that you have, for you are not superhuman, and even the most generous and sober-minded man must be more or less influenced by the assertions of learned Christian gentle- men, which are constantly and confidently reiterated. But if you have lent a willing ear to these criticisms, then you have prejudged this case against me, and there is no use in my proceeding with my defense, for even the inspired eloquence and arguments of St. Paul himself could not overcome prej- udice. But if you have come here determined to ignore the aforesaid criticisms; if you are resolved to look facts and reasons in the face, and accept the conclusions to which they logically lead, regardless of consequences ; if you are prepared to stem the tide of popular opinion and to set aside the will of the majority rather than do injustice to a humble fellow creature, who is as honestly seeking to learn ana speak the truth as his condemners are, to say the least of it, then, indeed, I may hope for a fair hearing and a just judg- ment. Trusting that you will give me this, I proceed directly to my defense. ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. g First. The first charge which " the indictment" brings against me is that I have violated my ordination vovvfs by- holding and teaching certain opinions specified. We must, therefore, examine the said vows and ascertain their nature and meaning. The first vow refers simply to the inward and spiritual call to the ministerial office which every candidatt for holy orders is supposed to experience. The second vow reads as follows : " Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine required as necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ ? And are you determined out of the said Scriptures ;o instruct the people committed to your charge, and to teach nothing, as necessary to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scriptures ? " The candidate answers : " I am so persuaded, and have so determined, by God's grace." Third vow : " Will you then give your faithful diligence always so to minister the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and this Church hath received the same, according to the command- ments of God, so that you may teach the people committed to your care and charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same ? " Answer: " I will do so, by the help of the Lord." Now, this is the vow which is specified as that which I have violated, We must, therefore, consider very carefully its meaning. The vow is understood to mean that the candi- date for the ministry promises to accept and teach the Creeds and Thirty-nine Articles of this Church just as they stand in the Prayer Book. On the contrary, I claim that the doctrine of Christ as this Church hath received the same is that the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine required as necessary to salvation, " so that whatsoever is not read therein (to quote the sixth article of religion) nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the Faith." In other words, the doctrine of this Church is that the Bible is her Rule of Faith and Practice, and that each individual must test and interpret the creeds and articles by Holy Scripture, not Holy Scripture by the lO ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. creeds and articles. I claim that the third vow and all the other ordination vows and the articles themselves prove this opinion to be correct. Thus, note the little word " then " in the third vow. The candidate is first asked, " Are you per- suaded that the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine required as necessary to salvation .? " and having answered in the af- firmative, he is next asked, "Will you then give your faithful diligence always so to minister the doctrine of Christ as this Church hath received the same?" This little word "then" refers us back to the second vow and shows us that the doc- trine there stated is the doctrine of this Church, and that doctrine is that the Holy Scriptures rather than the creeds and articles contain all doctrine required as necessary to sal- vation. The sixth article, which I have just quoted, expresses the same doctrine, and hence we must believe that the Bible is our Rule of Faith, and that our formulas must be interpreted by the Scriptures, not vice versa. This answers the point made by the Prosecutor that the sixth article restricts the pri- vate judgment of the individual. Of course it restricts it. But to what does it restrict it ? Manifestly to the Scriptures. The other vows teach the same doctrine. Thus, the candi- date promises in the fourth vow to "banish and drive away from the church all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to ■' — what ? The creeds and articles ? No, but " contrary to God's word." In the fifth vow he promises to " be diligent in prayer and in reading the Holy Scriptures and in such other studies as help to a knowledge of the same." This vow not only asserts the right of private judgment, but the duty of private judgment. The candidate binds himself to be diligent in prayer and in such other studies as help to a knowledge, not of the creeds and articles, but of the Holy Scriptures. Why should this promise be required of him if the Church has for- ever ascertained and. settled the doctrines of Holy Scripture in her creeds and articles ? Why should he be so diligent in his efforts to find out the meaning of the Holy Scriptures, if after all he dare not suggest that some article of the Faith is erro- neous and needs restatement ? If my opponents be right in their interpretation of the doctrine of this Church, this fifth vow is not only useless but it is absurd. ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. n (2) But it is said by the Prosecutor and others substantially that there are many theories of the theological schools — theo- ries of inspiration, the atonement, the sacraments, etc., upon which the Church allows difference of opinion, and the minis- ter must test all these by the Scriptures, but there is a limit beyond which he cannot go, a point at which he must stop and accept the judgment of the Church in place of his own, and that limit is found in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. A man may interpret the Thirty-nine Articles, or at least those which do not touch the doctrines of the creeds, according to Scripture and reason, and accept or reject them as he chooses, but he must not touch the creeds. I maintain, sir, that this alleged limitation to the exercise of private judgment is not only imaginary, but the contention is disapproved by the Church herself. Thus, turn to the eighth article of religion on the Creeds, and read : "The Nicene Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles's Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed." Why? Why, because "they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." But who is to show that they may be so proved ? " The Church in General Convention assembled," it is answered. But how will such a question ever be brought before the General Conven- tion for its consideration ? Manifestly only by the efforts of some individual, perhaps a young parson in a country or vil- lage parish. It is clear that the Creeds must be tested by Holy Scripture by some individual, and if he find reason to believe that any one of their articles is either erroneous in form or in substance, it is his duty imposed upon him by the Church herself, to say so publicly, and let the question be fully discussed, and then submit it to the General Convention for its consideration. Suppose he were to act otherwise. Suppose, for instance, that I had said nothing publicly about another interpretation or a restatement of the articles of the Creed on the birfh and resurrection of Christ, but had waited quietly until I had been elected a delegate to the General Convention (or perhaps a Bishop — I might have waited along time) and had then arisen in Convention and moved that the words " Or born of Joseph and Mary " be inserted^in the 12 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. margin of the Prayer Book as a substitute when preferred, for the words " born of the Virgin Mary." This suggested al- teration in, or addition to, the creed would be of a piece with the alternate form of the article on the descent into hell. But what sort of reception would such a proposition meet with in the General Convention ? Why, unless there are many more " heretics " in the Church than is generally supposed, such a proposition would be greeted with groans, and the mover of it would be considered either a fool or a " heretic " who should be dealt with — in this manner. That, sir, would be the result of any attempt to alter the formulas of this Church without first discussing them among individuals and before the Church at large. Is not this the method adopted by the Presbyterians in their attempts to revise their Confession of Faith ? Is it not the method we adopted in our recent revision of the Prayer Book ? Is it not the method adopted in effect- ing an alteration in, or an amendment to, the Constitution of the United States ? Think of the tremendous agitation of the negro question before the public mind before the fifteenth amendment could be passed by Congress ! And suppose that amendment had never been passed : Would the promo- ters of it have been condemned and executed as anarchists .'' Would they have been deprived of any of the rights of citi- zens ? I trow not. But they would have been allowed to hold their opinions and exercise the functions of a public office, if elected thereto, just as we permit men who now believe in Womans Suffrage or the Single Tax or Socialism to hold public office. The twentieth article of religion, on the authority of the Church, says : " The Church hath power to decree rights or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith ; and yet it is notlawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's word written " .... and " as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salva- tion." . . . Again, I ask : Who is to decide whether the Church has or not ordained things contrary to the Scriptures ? How will this question ever be brought before the Church for its consideration if he who raises it is at once excommunicated ? ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 13 Bishop Harold Browne in his commentary on this article distinctly says : " The authority of the Church is not absolute and supreme. The decisions of the Church must always be guided by and be dependent on the statements and injunctions of the written word of God." It is plain then, sir, that the doctrine of this Church is that the Scriptures are our supreme guide, and that each one of her children is bound to interpret both her creeds and arti- cles by Holy Scripture, and suggest any alteration either in their interpretation or their substance which may seem to him necessary. (3) The chief reason why the truth of this contention is not universally admitted is that intimated by the Prosecutor, that the creeds were established by the first General Councils and have been believed by the vast majority of Christians from that day to this. It is tacitly assumed and often explicitly asserted that the first General Councils of the Church were infallible and their decrees therefore unalterable. Yet this idea is flatly contradicted by the articles of this Church. Thus, the twenty-first article says : " Forasmuch as they (General Councils) be an assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred, in things pertaining to God. Where- fore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture." The American revisers of 1789 omitted this article from the Prayer Book when they adapted it to the changed condition of the Church after the Revolution. But they state in a note that they did so " be- cause it was partly of a local and civil nature, and is provided for, as to the remaining parts of it, in other articles." They refer, of course, to the nineteenth article, which says : " The Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome (the very Churches which formed the first General Councils) have erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith." Hence it is plain that " this Church" rejects the infallibility of the first General Councils, and con- sequently the infallibility of their decisions. We are just as much bound by the doctrines of this Church to test her creeds 14 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. by Scripture and reason as we are to test any one of the Thirty- nine Articles. I am here reminded of the Prosecutor's state- ment that we have no right to appeal to one or two of the Thirty-nine Articles unless we accept all of them. What, then, is the use of having the sixth article among the thirty-nine if we cannot appeal to that for the purpose of rejecting what may seem to be unscriptural in another .' May we not appeal to one article of the Constitution of the United States for the purpose of interpreting the meaning of another article or clause of the constitution ? May we not appeal to the article on amendments for the purpose of altering the Constitution ? It seems to me that that would be doing what the Constitution requires of us. I confess I cannot seethe force of the Prosecu- tor's argument on that point. Perhaps he may be able to make the point more clear later on. (4) It is quite as easy to refute the popular idea that because the majority have believed and do believe certain things, they are necessarily — or at least presumably — true ; indeed, the fact that the majority believes a certain thing is sometimes presumptive proof that it is false, for the majority of men do not think and are easily influenced by demagogues. At any rate, this notion is easily refuted in the present case, for if the belief of the majority is true, then Christianity, Protestantism, and the claims of the Episcopal Church are all false. The followers of Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mohammed far outnumber the disciples of Christ ; and many of these devotees of what we consider false religions are more than a match for Christians in intellectual power. At one time, the Incarnation or Divinity of Christ was all but universally denied by Christians, and then it was Athanasius, a young archdeacon of Alexandria, against the world. When Luther began the Reformation it was Luther against Rome ; and the Pope actually laughed at " Brother Martin," but his laughter was soon turned I'nto mourning, and we believe that " Brother Martin" was right, the majority wrong. The Roman Cath- olics to-day urge this very fact — the fact that their Church is the oldest and largest church — against the claims of Protes- tantism, but we reject their contention ^s false. The Epis- copal Church is much — very much — smaller than the great ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 15 Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Re- formed Churches, yet it actually had the courage a short time ago to ask these bigger sisters to accept its " Historic Epis- copate ; and although this offer has not been, and is not likely to be, accepted, yet we believe (none more firmly than I do) that "from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church — Bishops, Priests and Deacons." And so you see that none of us really accept the opinion of the majority as infallible, but often reject it as erroneous. Every departure from accepted opinions is, of necessity, inaugurated by one or a few individuals. Had Christ and St. Paul bowed to the will of the majority, there would have been no Christianity in the world to-day. Had Athanasius bowed to the will of the majority, the Church would now be Unitarian instead of Trinitarian. Had Luther and the other Reformers bowed to the will of the majority, there would be no Protestantism. Had Galileo and Bruno and Kepler and Copernicus and Newton and Lyell and Darwin bowed to the opinion of the majority, we should still be believing that the earth is flat and stationary, that the sun moves round the earth, that the world was created in six days of twenty-four hours each, and that the first man was made out of mud and had life and mind blown into him through his nostrils. Had Columbus bowed to the will of the majority, this glorious land of plenty and freedom would not have been discovered when it was. These are some of the most familiar and illustrious examples of individuals who have had the courage to face the world and reject the will of the majority. In citing them I, of course, do not for one moment think of classing myself with them, for I am not worthy to unloose their shoes' latchet ; but I simply cite facts of history to show that the tyranny of the majority, if it had not been rejected in the great crises of the world's history, would have deprived us of the greatest blessings we enjoy to-day. These examples show that the world is frequently, and often most fortunately, ruled by a small minority. But, Mr. Chairman, while I thus reject the infallibility of the first General Councils and of the majority— or rather while the Church rejects it — I am willing to bow to the authority of 1 6 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. the Council of Nice— that great Council that formulated and established A.D. 325 the great Catholic Creed of Christendom. Will this Court bow to this august and venerable authority ? Surely the Church of Ohio will not have the courage to reject the decree of the greatest Ecclesiastical Council that ever assembled ! But if not — if you are willing to accept the authority of the Council of Nice, then you must acquit me at once, for that Council — the Council whose very object was to define the doctrine of the Incarnation — that Council which was summoned and opened by one of the greatest Roman Emperors after Caesar — that Council in which sat Athanasius, " the Father of Orthodoxy," who formulated its Creed — that Council actually omitted from the Creed it established the article on the Virgin Birth of Jesus and did not define the nature of His resurrection. If you will turn to the article on " Creeds" in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was written by that eminent scholar and theologian, the Very Rev. Prin- cipal TuUoch, you will find the original form of the Nicene Creed. It reads as follows : " We believe in one God, Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begot- ten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things on earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down, and was made flesh, made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, went up into the heavens, and is to come again to judge the quick and the dead, and in the Holy Ghost.'' Dr. Schaff in his large works on "The Creeds of Christendom" Vol. I. pp., 28 and 29 gives the same Creed, and you will observe that not one word is said in it about the Virgin Birth or the nature of the resurrection of Jesus. These clauses were gradually added to this simple formula, not by councils, but by individuals, in order to meet various " heresies," until finally the Creed assumed its present form. " Even in the Council of Chalcedon, the fourth General Coun- cil," says Principal TuUoch, which met in A. D. 481, "when the Creed existed in its enlarged form, there was still a large ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 17 number of Bishops who greatly preferred the Creed in its original and simpler form, and it appears long to have main- tained its ground alongside of the others in the Eastern Church." It strikes me, Mr. Chairman, that I have pretty respectable authority to sustain my position — the Council of Nice, whose great object was to define what was necessary as a creed of the Church, and a great number of Bishops at the Council ot Chalcedon, and the usage of the early Eastern Church, and last, but not least, Athanasius, the Father of Orthodoxy. Again, I ask, therefore, will this Court bow to the authority of the Council of Nice and the early Church "> I wish that some representatives of the so-called "Catholic Party " in our Church — i.e., the extreme High Church Party — were present, for these good brethren are forever appealing to the early Church for authority for the revival of Romanistic rights. Will the " Catholics " bow to the authority of the early Church and the Council of Nice ? If so, then let them stop abusing me and condemning me as a " heretic.'' They want to have prayers for the dead, and they appeal to the early Church for sanction of this custom. For my own part, I will not quarrel with them, if they want to pray for their dead, because it can do no harm, and if the wicked will have a chance after death for salvation, our " Catholic" brethren maybe able to pray some of their "heretical" friends out of purgatory. But I will quarrel with them if, after I accord them the right and privilege they claim, they refuse to grant me the same liberty, and I will quarrel with them till dooms-day. Will the "Catholics" bow to the authority of Nice and the early Church ? Then let them join us, the real orthodox brethren. Not only did the Council of Nice not insert the article on the Virgin Birth among the necessary Articles of Faith, but Justin Martyr, in the 48th chapter of his well-known " Dia- logue with Trypho," tells us that many Christians in his day — about 140 A. D. — believed that Christ was " born man of man " — that is, that He had an earthly father — but did he there- fore condemn them as " heretics " and propose their excom- munication from the Church ? No ; but he told Trypho exactly what I have been telling Trypho's modern represen- 1 8 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. tatives, that, although he (Justin) did not agree with those rejectors ot the Virgin Birth, yet it was not necessary to the Incarnation, and so in addition to the Council earance of Christ after death explains the Gospel narratives themselves, with the exception of a few passages, better than the old doctrine, and that those excepted passages cannot be rationally and fairly ex- plained by the old view. Nothing has been said to refute this contention ; only I have been denounced and my opinions have been ridiculed. But considering the eminent character of many in our Church and others who hold the same view it wrould have been a little more becoming in our opponents had they restrained their ire and ridicule and manifested a little more intellectual and spiritual power. The Rev. Mr. Haweis in the 24th chapter of his book, " Christ and Chris- tianity," teaches the same view of Christ's resurrection that I do. Dr. Abbott in his " Kernel and Husk" accepts the spiritual resurrection of Jesus and closes his masterly discus- sion with these words : " You cannot have forgotten how St. Paul assumes that the appearances of the Saviour to him- self and to the original apostles were of the same kind and on the same footing. And Christ," he says, " appeared unto Cephas ; he appeared unto James ; he appeared unto 500 brethren and last of all he appeared unto me also. In the two latest Gospels these appearances have been magnified into ac- counts that represented Jesus as possessed of flesh and bones, as capable of eating, as reclining at a meal, and as entering into long and familiar discourses. Naturally we ask as to St. Paul's the (indisputably) earliest account of a manifestation of Christ, what traces it exhibits of similar distortions and exaggerations ? You know the answer. There are no such traces." To the same effect writes the Rev. Dr. Fremantle, Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, England, and Bampton lecturer for 1883, in an article which appeared in the Popular Science Monthly for June, 1887. " As to miracles," he says, <' the theo- logian of the future will probably be but little concerned with ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. ^,1 them. We have all learned to read in a natural sense the account of the crossing of the Red Sea, which even Mr. Arnold, some years ago took as meant to record a violation of physical order. The strong east vifind, the cloud which beat in the face of the Egyptians, but by its lightning showed the Israelites their way ; the waters kept back at low tide, by the east wind, and walling in the course of the fugitives, but returning upon their pursuers when the tide rose and the eye of God looked forth upon ttiem through the cloud in the morning, lose nothing in majesty or in providential import- ance when we read them without importing violations of the laws of nature. And so it will be in many other cases. While as to those vvhich are notable only for their strange- ness, the action of hyperbole and the growth of the wonderful by tradition will be always present to the mind of the theo- logian and will make him pass over them with a light foot. We have no difficulty when we read of the miracles of St. Barnard or the prophecies of Savonarola, nor do they inter- fere with our estimate of those great men. The miracles of healing in the Gospels will, we can hardly doubt, always appear as evidence of a peculiar condition ofhuinan life in the East in the first century and of the restorative power of a great Personality." (In other words, our author means that they will be explained as " faith cures " and " mind cures.") " Little stress," he adds, "will be laid on the accounts of the infancy of Christ, since they are mentioned nowhere in the New Testament outside the first chapters of the first and third Gospels. In the case of the resurrection, the theologian who starts from the epistles of St. Paul as the solid central ground of New Testament literature, will go upon the apostle's teachings that not flesh and blood but the spiritual personality, clothed in the new house which is from heaven, inherits the kingdom of God, and will take the vision by which the apostle was converted as the type of all the mani- festations by which the companions of Christ were assured that He was not lost but gone before. He will, with St. Paul take the assurance that Christ was alive after His passion, as the fulfilment of the general hope of immortality which Israel had long entertained." 3 34 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. Here is an emiment Doctor of Divinity boldly and publicly proclaiming as radical opinions as ever entered my mind, and yet he is not only undisturbed in his office but he is is actually given the Canon's stall in the venerable Cathedral of Canter- bury, and is put forward as a Bampton lecturer, the very object of which lectureship is the defense of the faith of this Church. Surely the " heretics" are quite a respectable body after all. Rev. Prof. Alfred Momerie, who is Professor of Meta- physics in King's College, London, and preaches regularly at the Foundlings' Hospital and elsewhere, takes the same view of the resurrection that I do in his book on "The Church and the Creed." In a letter to me, which lam at liberty to quote, he says: "The facts you insist upon " (in my book) " must be recognized by the Church on pain of perishing ever- lastingly. " Prof Jowitt some years ago said, in a sermon at West- minister Abbey : ' People would soon give up believing in miracles as they had given up believing in witchcraft.' I have not," he adds, "said much about miracles except implicitly, I, of course, do not believe in them except as the subjective fancies of unscientific men." Since writing this, I have got an interview with Rev. Dr. Momerie, published in the Pall Mall Gazette, and although papers are not infallible, I dare say this report is correct. In this interview Prof. Momerie says : " The Bible does not make the ghost of a vestige of claim to inspiration in the ortho- dox sense I consider that ' In Memoriam_^ (by Tennyson) is in advance of St. John's Gospel." The interviewer then asked : " Don't you believe Christ rose again ? " Dr. Momerie replied : " Certainly not physically. Why, do you ? Come, I shall have to interview you. All great reli- gious teachers have had an immaculate conception, a physical resurrection, Gautama as well as Christ. But Christ did not rise in His body. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. It must be a spiritual resurrection.'' And yet this outspoken radical clergyman is not only permitted to preach in London pulpits, but is given a professorship in King's College and his ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 35 sermons are published and recommended to the faithful by the Church Press. These few clergymen, the list might easily be enlarged, rep- resent a large school of thought in the Church of England which, beginning with Frederick Denison Maurice, Dean Stanley, Robertson and others, has grown in strength and numbers and influence until now its leading representatives fill many of the most prominent positions in the mother Church. Yet with these facts staring us in the face, and known to all the intelligent world, I have been denounced and presented to this court as a " heretic " and it has been said that I stand absolutely alone in this Church. Nor let it be imagined that the liberal theologians are confined to the English Church. I speak deliberately and am prepared to prove the assertion when I say that they are as thick as hops in the American Episcopal Church, and if Churchmen generally do not know them, it is due to what our Roman Catholic brethren would call " invincible ignorance," but what we may generously prefer to call charitable blindness and obtuseness. I ask per- mission to refer to one or two such clergymen merely by way of illustration. The Rev. Dr. Heber Newton is Rector of All Souls' Church, New York City, in a diocese whose Bishop showed himself such a champion of traditional orthodoxy last summer, when a presbyter in Ohio, who, he had some reason to believe, was treading in Dr. Newton's footsteps, was ap- pointed to speak in the last Church Congress. Dr. Newton in asermon on " Robert Elsmere," which was published in his parish paper and was widely circulated and even quoted with- out disapproval by the orthodox Standard of the Cross and the Church, accepts Dr. Keim's view of Christ's resurrec- tion. " Keim," he says, " whose life of Jesus seems to be the best expression of scientific criticism, concludes that the story of the resurrection was not a mere spiritual process in the mind of man, but was an actual experience on the part of the disciples of an influence emanating from the still living Jesus, whereby he made them realize that he was verily alive, a veritable objective experience. He thinks that we may and must believe as they did that Jesus communicated with them from the spirit sphere, that they received a telegram from 36 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. heaven." Strip the story of every possible accretion of le- gend (adds Dr. Newton on his own responsibility), dig down through the mass of conflicting details and you will touch the core of the tradition, the appearance of Jesus fronj the spirit sphere. It was the persuasion in the minds of the disciples that He had thus appeared to them which took form in the story of the resurrection." I will give only one more instance. Sometime ago I re- ceived a letter of sympathy from a clergyman in the West, who graduated from Kenyon college and seminary, in which he avowed himself an agnostic — which I certainly am not— as he admitted. He said : " The disbelief in the old idea of a general judgment and general resurrection has had too many upholders to cause much criticism. But all so-called miracles must share the same fate, and none is so marked as the Virgin Birth or so necessarily devoid of proof. The moment the dogma of an infallible revelation falls it carries •with it most of those things that are dependent on it alone." This clergyman said in response to my query that I might use his name if I saw fit, but it is not necessary. He is the head master of a large school in the West and is evidently a thinker, but I dare say he, like the other clergyman I quoted, followed Prof. Bancroft's advice and read Coleridge and other profound philosophers, such as Spencer, and at last finds himselfa right good heretic. I might mention others. Indeed I might a tale unfold about the good " heretics " in our Church that would probably make you tremble for the fate of tra- ditional orthodoxy, but I don't want to shock you and I have cited enough instances to serve as representatives of the large and growing school of liberal theology in this Church. Some of us are, of course, more radical than others, but all, or none, deserve condemnation as "heretics." After what has been said it must be evident to you and the court that the great questions before you now refer to the inspiration and interpretation of the Bible and the interpretation of the Creeds. I maintain, on the authority of the Privy Council of England, that this Church has no authorized theory of Scriptural inspiration and no prescribed method of interpretation. She says simply " Holy Scripture ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. %1 contaitteth all things necessary to salvation." She does not say that all that Holy Scripture contains is inspired and necessary to salvation. She does not say that every word in the Bible came from God. She does not even say that those passages of Scripture which are cited in proof of the old doctrines of the birth and resurrection of Christ are infallibly and unequivocally true and must be accepted as such by her clergy. The prosecutor has referred to the epistles and gospels and lessons for Christmas Day and Eastertide as Scripture? bearing the stamp of this Church's approval as in- spired Scriptures. But I beg him to remember these sensible words of the twentieth Article of Religion, viz.: The Church may not "so expound one place of Scripture that it be repug- nant to another." It will not do therefore to disconnect certain texts or chapters of Scripture from other passages bearing on the same subject ; but they must all be considered. I know as well as anyone that certain passages of Scripture assert as plainlyas possible the literal Virgin Birth and bodily resur- rection but there are other passages which, considered in the light of what we know of the origin of these writings, express another view of these events. St. Luke tries to prove that Jesus had flesh and bones after he arose from the dead, but St. Paul says that " the body that is sown (buried) is not the body that shall be, but God giveth us bodies as it shall please Him." And that Christ " has become the first fruits of them that sleep." St. John says that the risen Jesus passed through closed doors, but we know enough of matter and the laws of matter to say that a body of flesh and bones capable of eating fish, honey, etc., could not do this. St. Paul says : " There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body," two different organisms ; that our resur- rection body will be a spiritual organism. Mary called Joseph Christ's father, and his intimate acquaintances did the same, and many of the early Christians believed that Joseph was His father. And so we are confronted with two views- of Christ's birth and resurrection, mutually contradic- tory and irreconcilable. Instead of attempting to harmonize them by far-fetched explanations of their discrepancies, we should accept the one offering the fewest difficulties and 38 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. explain the discrepant details as due to the gradual forma- tion of the Gospels from oral tradition. At any rate, it won't do to cite one passage of Scripture as conclusive of a ques- tion when another passage contradicts it, for if so, we do " so expound one passage of Scripture that it is repugnant to an- other." Let not the Prosecutor attempt to turn this argument against my own interpretation, for I have just said that when two passages of Scripture conflict one must be given up, and that should be given up which offers the most palpable marks of error. In other words, since we cannot in such a case accept both passages as true, and since it would be foolish to reject both, it only remains for us to accept the most prob- able and credible. I accord to the Prosecutor the right to accept the passages of Scripture embodying the old views of Christ's birth and resurrection, if he so desire, and I claim under the authority of this Church, the right to prefer the pas- sages of Scripture which support and suggest my views of those events. It forbids me to give contradictory interpreta- tions of Scripture, and since the said passages do contradict one another, I am forced by the Church to make a choice, and I therefore choose those passages which seem to me most rational, probable, and credible. This has always been the method of Scriptural interpretation, and interpretations have always varied according to scientific and historical knowl- edge and discoveries. When it was believed that the earth was flat and stationary and that the sun moved around it, our theological professors interpreted the Bible by this knowledge — or rather ignor- ance. When it was believed that the world was created in six days of twenty-four hours each the Bible was interpreted according to this belief. When it was believed — and where it is now believed — that man was made out of mud and had life and mind blown into him through his nostrils, the Bible was and is interpreted according to this science, falsely so called. When it was believed that " the sun do move " the story of Joshua stopping its mad career until he could whip Israel's enemies was accepted as literally true, but it is now interpreted differently. The cures which our Lord wrought are quite generally explained frpin our pulpits and ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 3^ in theological treatises to have been simply faith cures and mind cures. Indeed the Bible says they were. The literal resurrection of our bodies is nowhere believed by intelligent people. All apologists make most energetic efforts to show that the miracles recorded in the New Testament were not violations of natural law and order, and in doing so they are compelled to depart from the old method of interpretation, and to reject a few of the details of the stories. And so I claim that I not only do not violate my ordination vows in proposing to interpret the story of Christ's birth and resurrec- tion as I do, but I stand right in line with all modern apolo- gists, some of whom have spoken out just as plainly as I have, and have not been, and doubtless will not be, disturbed in their office. But, Mr. Chairman, let us turn from the interpretation of Scripture to the interpretation put upon certain articles of the Creed by even Bishops in the Church and we will see that my proposed interpretation of the articles on the birth and resur- rection of Jesus is not one whit more strained and unnatural than their interpretation of other articles. The Creed says that there will be " a resurrection of the body," and there can be no question about the meaning of the word body as it stands in the English Creed or in the original Greek form : it means exactly what it seems to mean, and the framers of the Creed and all of the old theologians interpreted this -article to mean that there would be at the last day a resurrec- tion or a re-collection of the very particles of the body which is laid in the grave and a re-formation of them into the exact bodies that were buried. But, as already stated, no intelligent theologian believes this doctrine now. I venture to think that neither the prosecutor nor any member of this court, nor our respected Bishop himself, believes this doctrine of the resurrection, yet it is the doctrine of the Creeds if they are literally construed. The eminent Bishop of Carlisle, Dr. Goodwin, in his recent work on the "Foundation of the Creed " says of this view of the resurrection : " This view of the possibilities of the future resurrection is mentioned here be- cause it is one which our present knowledge of matter and its laws renders it imperative upon all wise men to discard,. 40 Ecclesiastical liberty. Matter which appertains to one body at one time appertains to another body at another. The notion of particle being joined to particle so as to reform a certain body, involves an impossibility because the same particles may have belonged to a thousand different bodies and may be claimed by one as rightfully as by another. In fact, itis only necessary to bring the notion into contact with what we certainly know concern- ing material particles to break down and annihilate it." This is a thoroughly rational argument and the rationalistic method of interpreting the Scriptures and the Creeds, and had Dr. Goodwin lived a hundred years ago and expressed such opinions he would have been condemned and excommunicated as a " heretic.'' But he really expresses the opinion of the great body of theologians and intelligent believers. Let us apply this method of interpretation to other articles of the Creed — the articles under consideration. We know enough of mat- ter and the laws of matter to say that it is impossible, by the very definition of matter, for two pieces of matter to occupy the same space at the same time, and hence a bodily form could not go through closed, wooden doors, as Christ's issaid to have done, without breaking them open. If His body did this, then it was- not a body but something else. In attempt- ing to get over this difificulty traditionalists really convert the physical body into a spiritual organism, and so come around by a more circuitous route to our view. They would act more rationally and scripturally to let the body go in the first place. We know enough about embryology and natural order to say that the virgin birth of a person is, if not impossible, at least so improbable as to require overwhelming evidence to prove it. We know enough of history and of the time of Christ to say that no such evidence is forthcoming, and that such stories as those in question grew up around great per- sons, but were not true. I urge, then, that if we apply Dr. Goodwin's method of interpreting the Creed in its full mean- ing, you cannot condemn me. But the article on the resur- rection of the body is not the only article of the Creed upon which anon-literal interpretation is put by even Bishops in the Church. The Creed expresses belief in "life everlasting," and perhaps no other article in the Creed has been so generally ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 41 interpreted literally. No reader of the Bible or the Creed would, unless some outside influence suggested it, imagine that the wicked are to be totally destroyed in hell and the righteous alone to enjoy " life everlasting." Yet it is well known that belief in the final destruction of the wicked is spreading rapidly in the Church. A Bishop in an adjoining diocese told me not long ago that he believed this doctrine. Prebendary Row of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, strongly advocates it in his able work on " Future Retribution." A presbyter formerly of New York City, and now rector of the largest Church in Washington City, believes this doctrine, and because of it lost the Bishopric of Virginia, yet he was undisturbed at the time by the orthodox Bishop of New York, and is now undisturbed by the orthodox Bishop of IVIaryland. These are mere samples of a large and increasing number of clergymen who restrict most unwarrantably the article on " life everlasting " to the righteous. This article is applied by Pearson and all the old theologians to both the wicked and the righteous. Indeed, the everlasting punishment of the wicked, and therefore their eternal existence, is s'till considered by many the orthodox opinion, and in former years —less so nowadays — was preached as the great power of God for saving sinners. In departing, therefore, from this doctrine, and in interpreting this article of the Creed as referring only to the righteous, theologians, bishops and preachers have all departed from the \\\.tX3\, prima facie meaning of the Creed. How, then, can this court consistently condemn me for pre- ferring to put a non-literal or metaphorical meaning on other articles of the Creed ? Condemn us all, or condemn none, is the dictate of common sense and common justice ! If it be said that by such methods of interpretation the very essence of the Creed may be sapped and emasculated, I answer : Not so ; for the matters in dispute are not, and never have been considered of the essence of faith. The Council of Nice evidently did not so consider them. All it required was be- lief in the Incarnation of the Divine Word and Wii post mor- tem appearance to His disciples. It did not insert the article on the Virgin Birth in the Creed, nor define the nature of the Resurrection. Whoever, therefore, accepts the essenge of 42 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. these articles, namely, the Incarnation and Q\\x'\s^% post mor- tem appearance to His disciples, should be accounted orthodox, and be permitted to interpret ihemode of the Incarnation and the nature of the resurrection as seems to him most rational and Scriptural. If I were a Materialist or an Agnostic ; if I attacked or rejected the Incarnation or miracles altogether, then I could better understand why this court should condemn me, fori could not justly claim that Scripture sanctioned my views. But I do not reject miracles, I merely understand them differently from what some others do. I believe in prayer for material blessings, and this some of the clergy of this diocese do not believe. I beg the court, therefore, to, seriously consider such facts. It is said that my interpretation of the Creeds is not an honest one. After all I have said, after having shown that this Church requires her clergy to interpret the Creeds by the Scriptures, and both by facts and reasons, this assertion ap- pears false. But I will quote as a further answer to it the forcible words of Rev. Mr. Haweis. He says truly : " Every living party in the Church has been charged with dishonesty just so long as it was a reforming party. The Low Church were called dishonest because they leaned to Nonconformity and its irregular ways ; but the Low Church got itself accepted, and has long since been dubbed orthodox. Indeed, Lord Palmerston, under Lord Shaftesbury's dictation, would have none but Low Church Bishops. The High Church was called dishonest because it leaned towards Rome, but that, too, got itself accepted, and now it is better to be rather High Church than otherwise (whether Gladstone or Salisbury be in power) if you want to be a bishop ; and so the Broad Church, who are the latest re- formers, are naturally denounced as dishonest because they want to remould the doctrine and the ritual of the Church into accord with nineteenth-century thought and feeling. When people attack the Broad Church with — " Do you believe the doctrines of the Church "> Do you approve of the formularies of the Church ?" it is sufficient answer to say : — The Church of England doctrine is believed, and the Church liturgy is used and preached in the High and Low Churches, ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 43 but it does not sound quite the same in both, and it certainly does not look at all the same ; why expect more from the Broad Church ? We believe and preach the doctrines and we use the forms in our way, they in theirs ; condemn us all, or-acquit us all, we are all guilty, or we are all innocent. The Low Churches had at one time such a contempt for ecclesiastical forms that they could hardly abide the bishops, or bear the trammels of the liturgy at all. Wesley arrogated to himself Episcopal functions ; and the Lady Huntingdon connection fairly stept across the border ; yet Lady Hunting- don's first chaplain and trustee, Dr. Thomas Haweis, lived and died Rector of Aldwinkle in the Church of England. The High Church, openly detest the word Protestant, and denounce the Reformation as a curse. Their doctrine of the Real Presence in the Sacrament is closely akin to the gross materialism of the Mass, but the High Church have stood their ground as honest men for a' that. The Broad 'Church call for Re-statement. They are for dropping what is obsolete, but not all at once. They would go on printing the Prayer Book with alternative forms and additions. They are for recovering and re-setting the essen- tial truth which lies at the bottom of every dogma, correlating the new knowledge with current religious thought, and re- adapting the Church functions to the needs and the intellec- tual, social, and aesthetic instincts of the age ; and the Broad Church presume to call themselves honest men for a' that. You don't call your M.P.'s, Mr. John Morley or Mr. Bryce, dishonest, because they admire Republican opinions, and yet take the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty. People have almost left off calling Parnell dishonest because he, like many others, continues to be an M. P. and a Home Ruler as well. Our judges are not thought dishonest because they take the oaths, and are content to preside over a mass of laws, some obsolete, some contradictory, some sorely in need of re-statement, and not a few which call for interpretation in strained and non-natural senses. But what are the difficulties of the British Constitution, and what is the confused and heterogeneous mass of the English law— what is the mixed 44 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. position of the M. P. or the judge compared to the confusion, the jumble of things old and new in religion, with which the clergyman of the Church of England has got to deal ? And what should he do under the circumstances ? Why should his principle be other than that which governs judge or M. P. ? To the same effect writes the New York Press for Dec. 14th, i8go,.in reference to this trial : " A man," it says, " who belongs to a certain denomination, who loves it with that fer- vor with which organized religion, like strong political par- tisanship, often inspires its votaries, has a certain right to say ' I will not go out. I will stay in, and you can't put me out for anything short of treason to a vital principle. This is my religious home and country, and you cannot evict me or banish me. It is my right, under the conditions of human fallibility, to appeal to reason, and to agitate for a change for the better or for what I think is for the better." " This is the position taken by the revisionists in the great Presbyterian Church, about its Confession of Faith. It is that taken by the Rev. Howard MacQueary in the Episcopal Church. We believe that sooner or later all religious denom- inations that do not claim that they are the only and eternal repositories of infallible truth must recognize its honesty and justice. Certainly the clergyman who takes it can no longer be pushed aside with a wave of the hand and con- demned as a violator of his ordination vows, because he re- fuses to conform to teachings that the world's experience of practical Christianity shows to be not indispensable to the fruits by which alone we know the truth." The most remarkable article, however, on this case, is one which appeared in the New York Churchman for November 15th, 1890. I wish to cite it as a witness to my essential ortho- doxy, partly because this paper has been so severe in its criti- cisms of my position, and partly because it suggests facts which this court should seriously consider in forming its judg- ment in this important case. Says the Churchman : " We sincerely regret to learn that the presentment in the case of the Rev. Howard MacQueary has been allowed, and that Ecclesiastical lisehtv. 45 within a few weeks that gentleman will be put on trial for error in doctrine. " The pity of the thing is that Mr. MacQueary, probably from lack of knowledge, is much nearer the truth than his wild words have made him seem to be. On the subject of the resurrection he strenuously affirms his conviction of its spiritual reality. But for one dreadful and intolerable phrase, which Mr. MacQueary does not perceive to be contradictory of his own theory, what he says of the resurrection in general might be fairly reconciled with the doctrine of St. Paul in i Cor. XV., and more than justified by the express language of the catechism of the Council of Trent," (Think of it; I'm a pretty good Romanist according to the Churchman .') " In this matter, therefore, Mr. MacQueary asserts essential truth ; and the intolerable error which he asserts along with it is not only contrary to his own theory and to the faith of universal Christendom ; it relates to a matter of which Mr. MacQueary knows absolutely nothing, and of which it was Both needless and presumptuous in him to speak. " Much the same may be said of his doctrine of the birth of Christ. He maintains the Incarnation to ha^e been — as an Incarnation must be — a miracle. The nature of that miracle he does not attempt to tell ; but he presumptuously tells what, in his judgment, it cannot possibly have been. (I say nothing of the kind.) Here, as in the other matter, Mr. Mac- Queary affirms essential truth, and with it an intolerable error contradictory of the faith of universal Christendom, " Poor Nice ! ") on a matter of which Mr. MacQueary can have no special knowledge. " Modesty alone ought to have kept Mr. MacQueary from his gratuitously shocking assertion concerning the Crucified Body of our Lord. Modesty alone ought to have kept him from declaring that, because he could not understand a Virgin Birth, therefore the miracle of the Incarnation cannot have been that of a Virgin Birth. So has it been in every succes- sive denial of the faith. The beginning is a presumptuous love of singularity ; the end is heresy and schism." Ihe spirit of this article is unworthy of notice. It is charac- teristic of a large class of writers who think that any one 46 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. who differs from them must be a fool or a lover of notoriety and sensationalism. They cannot imagine such a one's being influenced by earnest convictions and a deep sense of duty. But passing over the contemptible slurs on my knowl- edge and motives, I wish to call the earnest attention of the court to these facts : First. Even according to the stricfly orthodox Church- man there is much truth in my opinions, and hence in form- ing your judgment you must carefully distinguish the truth from the error, else this Church will place itself in the unenvi- able position of condemning the truth as well as error. Second. When you have sifted out the error from the truth, you will find that it is so small a particle that the Church ought to hesitate to condemn a man for holding this atom of error. She cannot afford to condemn her clergy for so small an offense, for while some hold this alleged error, others, as has been shown, hold opinions which, strictly measured by the letter of the formulas, are equally erroneous. Even the Evangelicals themselves will be brought under your ban if you attempt to enforce the letter of the Prayer Book's teaching. They constantly violate the rubrics and letter of the formulas. But_because they accept the essence of the Church's faith you let them remain in the church, iind you act wisely and well, for otherwise you would do nothing but hold heresy trials till Gabriel blow his trumpet. Third. Remember that the article on the Virgin Birth is pratically a dead letter in our Church. We repeat it during service, but we never appeal to it even in a sermon on purity. Now, we could understand why the Roman Church should insist on a belief in a literal interpretation of this article, for the doctrine has many practical bearings and consequences in that Church, but in Protestant Churches it is absolutely a dead letter. I ask you, therefore, can this Church afford to condemn one of its clergy for questioning an article of the Creed which does not touch the essence of the Creed, which has no practical importance, which was not insisted upon by the Nicene Council, which is accepted by the accused clergymen in as true u sense as the articles on life everlasting and the ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 47 resurrection of the body, are accepted by even Bishops, and which lacks the support of science and Scripture? Surely you cannot ignore all these facts, and in deference to popular prejudice and clamor condemn a man who, whatever may be his intellectual defects, is at least honest and is honestly seeking to learn the truth as it is in Jesus, and to lead his fellow men into that truth, and fashion his life and their lives as nearly as possible after the Master's example. But if all that I have said had little or no force in it there is another fact which I wish to appeal to, in conclusion, and which, it seems to me, cannot be too carefully considered by this court, and that is the fact that we live in' a transitional period. Many old things and old beliefs are passing away or being changed. Theology is in a tremendous state of flux and ferment, and this Church should, therefore, be very care- ful about putting itself on record as bound by the letter of any formula, or opposed to any opinion that does not touch the very heart and core of Christianity. Whether the views I advocate are true or not, they are rapidly spreading among all thinking people, and ere the twentieth century dawns they will be all but universally accepted. They are spreading among both the clergy and the laity. Hear what the Church- man said on Oct. 4, 1890, about the general acceptance of the evolution theory by the clergy : " Whether we like it or not, the world at large has come to think and habitually express itself in the terms of evolution. It is a fact which cannot be denied or ignored that that part of mankind which thinks for itself and for all the rest has unequivocally accepted the hypothesis of evolution as the only conceivable theory of the becoming of the universe. It cannot be said that Christian theologians of any church or of any school have been in haste to accept the evolution theory. Indeed the caution, the reluctance, the almost painful aversion with which they have regarded it goes far to emphasize the fact that bit by bit it has at length made its way into many minds of unfaltering Christian faith. Instances and illustrations of this observa- tion present themselves continually." But not only has this theory of evolution been generally accepted by theologians, the results of Biblical Criticism have also been accepted. I 48 ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. . need only cite two remarkable papers read before the recent Church Congress in Philadelphia by two eminent theological professors of this church. Those able and earnest minded men told the Church that, whatever imperfections might appear in the productions of particular critics, however much they might differ on minor points, they had completely exploded many of the old ideas of the inspiration, authority and authorship of the Bible, and henceforth that Sacred Book must be considered very differently from what it has been. They told us that Biblical Criticism had come to stay and its substantial results must be accepted. These ideas are in the very air we breathe. It is impossible to resist them. You may condemn me but you will not either silence me or stop the spread of the opinions I advocate. Far abler men than I am — perfect intellectual Goliaths — are waging the warfare of spiritual enlightenment and ecclesiastical freedom. All the leading educational institutions of the land are teaching these views. Yale and Cornell Universities have recently established claims in Comparative Religion and no other branch of study has done so much to broaden men's ideas of religion and to explode traditional opinions as this study has. Other institutions will follow the example of Yale and Cornell, and so the rising generation of young men and women, who will furnish intellectual and religious teachers to the next, will be thoroughly imbued with scientific ideas, and the inevitable result will be the rejection of many opinions which we consider everlasting. The Episcopal Church claims to be a leader of thought. Let her, then, prove herself to be this. She claims to be liberal. She claims to follow the example of the primitive Church. Let her fulfill this claim. She claims to have been founded by Christ and his apostles. Let her manifest the spirit of the Master and she will not con- demn me, for you remember that He rebuked His disciples because they forbade one to cast out devils because he did not follow with them, and do it as they thought he ought to do it. Let the Church which claims its origin from Jesus imitate that spirit, and she will not only not condemn a man for re- jecting a dogma which He never authorized, but she will ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 49 greatly increase her influence over men and draw them to the Master. The spirit of the age is opposed to condemnation for opin- ions. Said The Christian Union in a recent editorial on this trial: "We regret very much that any such trial is to take place. This is an antiquated method of arriving at the truth, unfitted for our age. A far better method, and one more in consonance with the method of the New Testament, would be to leave Mr. MacQueary and his views to the test of time in a free field — " and yet this paper criticised my book most unsparingly and rejected much of its teachings. Said the New York Times last summer: " The ecclesias- tical authorities of Ohio would cut a sorry figure before the religious public in trying to convict Mr. MacQueary of hav- ing denied in his book the faith to which he pledged himself at his ordination. It would be just as reasonable for the English Church to accuse the Bishop of Ripon of heresy be- cause he has granted, in his " Permanent Elements of Re- ligion " that the strength of modern apologetics lies in the ^MzVa/ rather than in the historical conception of Christianity. Mr. MacQueary 's book is simply a pioneer volume in a field where theologians are just beginning to make adventures. The late Canon Aubrey S. Moore, has been strongly com- mended in England for doing almost precisely what Mr. MacQueary has done. To attempt to crush Mr. MacQueary by throwing him under the wheels of the ecclesiastical Jugger- naut would be to make a martyr of one (a very poor martyr, Mr. Chairman,) who is not an exception among many of his brethren in point of belief, but has simply said in his book what others are saying and holding as practical beliefs. It is to be hoped that Mr. MacQueary may be treated as one among the many searchers after truth who, though questioning old dogmas, are not opposing them with the desire to destroy the faith but to make Christianity concordant with the dictates of plain common sense. The Rev. Dr. Heber Newton barely escaped an ecclesiastical trial for holding opinions similar to those affirmed by Mr. MacQueary, and the wisdom of not bringing him to trial and condemning him has been abun- dantly justified." 5° ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. The writer of this sensible article is an Episcopal clergy- man in good standing, and he knows whereof he speaks, and he expresses the opinion of scores and hundreds, yes, thou- sands, in our Church and in this country. He rightly says that I am not opposing old dogmas with a desire to destroy the faith, but rather with a view to make Christianity accord- ant with nineteenth century thought. The prime object of my writing a book was not to create a sensation or to attack the faith, but to show that the substance of the Gospels and the Creed could be accepted in spite of the objections and difficulties skepticism has raised. I urge and in this speech I trust I have proved, that the physical concomitants of the miracles of the birth and resurrection of the Saviour, which so offend scientific and critical minds, may be given up, and yet the essence of the faith and the Gospels will be left un- touched. But a heresy hunting " religious press," so-called, has passed by this commendable aim and has seized on the concessions I made to a reverent and conscientious skepti- cism in order to save the substance of the faith it doubted, and has magnified a mole-hill into a mountain of doubt and heresy, and has thus forced upon the Church an issue which ought not to have been raised and which may produce untold difficulties — may check enlightened thought among Christians and make hypocrites out of clergymen. I beseech you, there- fore. Gentlemen of the Court, to act very cautiously and con- siderately in this matter. You are, I know, placed in a seri- ous dilemma. On the one hand, are the so-called orthodox people in our Church and others who will denounce you if you acquit me. On the other hand are the thinking, liberal minded, charitable people who will applaud such an action as both wise and right, and they will condemn and denounce severe measures, if they be taken. Choose you, therefore, which horn of the dilemma you prefer. If you prefer to incur the disapprobation of the so-called orthodox people, your tolerance will be sustained by the early Church and Councils, by the great principles of the Protestant Episcopal Church, by the enlightened mind and conscience of the best men and women of this age and by the Master Himself, and ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 51 in a short time the wisdom of your action will be fully proved. This, then, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Ecclesias- tical Court, is what I have to say in reply to the charges brought against me. First, I do not violate my ordination vows, because those vows not only give me the right but impose upon me the duty to study the Scriptures by the light of facts and reasons and to interpret the Creeds and Articles by the same. Second, this Church has no authorized theory of Scriptural inspiration or irtterpretation, but leaves every man to adopt his own theory. Third, I do not reject the Incarnation, Miraculous Concep- tion or Resurrection of Jesus, but simply interpret these articles of the Creed somewhat differently from what many others do. Fourth, my interpretations of the Creed are no more strained and unnatural than those universally allowed to be put upon it, particularly on the articles on the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Fifth, my opinions have been tolerated in the church from the days of Justin Martyr and the fathers of Nice and Chal- cedon to modern times, and are now tolerated in the English Church and American Episcopal Churches in many cases. Finally, it is most unwise in the Church to put itself on record in this transition period as opposed to any opinion which does not touch the very core of Christianity, and I have the authority ot Nice for saying that my alleged errors do not touch the essence of the faith. I hope, therefore, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of the truth, for the sake of honesty and freedom among the clergy, as well as for my own sake, you will return a verdict of not guilty. r\l3 sg#.