^ PRINCETON, N. J. "^^ BR 121 .HFB^STT" Hunt, John, b. 1827. Contemporary essays in theology SAel/. CONTEMPORAEY ESSAYS IN THEOLOGY CONTExMPORARY ESSAYS IN THEOLOGY By the EEV. JOHN HUNT AUTirOR OF ' A\ ES«AY ON PANTHEIiJI,' ' HISTOIiY OF RELIGIOUS TIIOUIJIIT I.V EXIiLAND,' ETC. STRAIIAN & CO. 56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON 1873 [T/ic I'ijlit of Tviivdittioii in rcserred.^ LONDON : minted by virtue and co., citV road. A- PEIIICETON RtC. APH1882 PEEFACE. rpHE following Essays are mostly reprinted from the -H- ' Contemporary Eevie\y.' It has heen said that the only two subjects worthy the attention of a wise man are religion and government. These are, as nearly as fiossible, the subjects of this volume. It is mainly occupied with discussions which concern Christianity and the State Establishment of Chris- tianity in England. I have tried to avoid the tone of the dogmatist, and to cultivate rather the spirit of an inquirer; I would say sceptic, if that good old word had not been unfairly doomed to aQ unfortu- nate meaning. Sometimes in pushing arguments to their last results, my wish has beeu rather to make tentative suggestions than to express my own final views. A new apprehension of the meaning of Chris- tianity is imperative ; but I pretend to little more than showing its necessity. The question of the National Church I have tried to examine in the same way as the questions which immediately concern Christianity. The method is to start from facts, to follow reason, and to advocate Avhat reason dictates as best to be done. In the Church of England we have a powerful machhicry, vi PREFACE. which no one who regards the interests of the nation could wish to see destroyed. The plea for disesta- blishment is the renovation and not the destruction of the Church. The answer is, that disestablishment in the circumstances would be something like destruc- tion. On the other hand it is admitted that there are crying evils in the Church, and these are so bound up with the existing establishment that the removal of them is hopeless Avhile the present connection between Church and State continues. The grievance of which the Nonconformist complains, that a State Church is the cause of his social inferiority, I regard as imaginary. But even if it were real, so long as a State Chui'ch is a public good, his objection would justly be set aside. It is a subject which concerns Churchmen far more than Nonconformists, and ought to be fairly discussed, irrespective of external agita- tion. The best defences of the State Church are those which have been put forth by the Primate and the Dean of Westminster. And yet no two men in Eng- land are more insensible to the necessity of the only reformation which could both secure the greater efficiency of the Church and save it from disestablish- ment. So long as Church patronage can be bought and sold, or so long as it is vested in individuals, to be used at their discretion to provide for their relatives and friends, so long there will be an evil demanding immediate reformation. The Archbishop of Canter- bury seems so much afraid of the people having any voice in the election of their clergyman, that the Times lately described him as even hastening from a visitation PREFACE. vH to help some vioar in Dover to get the patronage of a living out of the hands of the parishioners. The one great blemish in Dean Stanley's Lectures on the Church of Scotland is his failure to appreciate the Free Church movement. The Church of Scotland, which, till that time, had always embraced the mass of the peo]Dle, was being threatened with the same evil which has long been passively endured in the Church of England. The patrons were tlmistiug men upon parishes without any regard to the special wants of these parishes or to the wishes of the people. The Dean seems to think the Free Church cause suffi- ciently refuted by the fact that Achterarder, the scene of the original conflict, after a few years, settled into a haven of perfect peace. And so, to my knowledge, has many an English parish after a similar presenta- tion ; but it has been the peace of death. The people either become Nonconformists, or they cease to take an interest in anything that concerns the Church. The one great advantage of the Church of England at the present hour is its indifference to theological dogmas. It is only a State Chiu'ch that could secure the freedom wliicli is nov/ enjoyed by the English clergy. It is only a State Church which could give the laity this practical lesson that religion consists in something that we are to be and to do, and not in holding some speculative opinions, about which men may differ for ever. There is not, hoAvever, much of which we can boast even in this. The Primate, in his recent charge, has told us that it is only in the Church of England that such men as Frederick Eobertson and Frederick Denison Maurice could have found a vni PREFACE. lioine. It is quite true tliey would have beeu sileuced in the Church of Eome, and they would have been fettered in any sect of Nonconformists ; but, after all, the shelter which the Church of England gave them was but the casual ward for wayfaring men. Their lives were the lives of martyrs, ' afflicted, persecuted, tormented.' Frederick Eobertson never had any prefer- ment, but ministered in a propi'ietary chapel. It is true he died young ; but Maurice was almost forty years in orders, and never held any higher preferment than a chiu'ch, of which the income was derived from pew rents ; and this at a time when for the most part the canonries and deaneries, to say nothing of the bishoprics, were held by men whose names would sound like the very essence of emptiness. Xo bishop ever dared to give preferment to Frederick Deuison Maurice. It is well to mark the advantages we have in the Chui'ch of England, but they are the best friends of the Church who are not afraid to confess that there are many things which might be improved. N.B. The notes marlicd X did not appear in the Review. CONTENTS. PAGE I. THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND 1 II. NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY 45 III. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS 78 IV. DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES 109 V. DEAN Stanley's essays on church and state . . .142 VI. SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 164 VII. THE BISHOPS AND THE REVISION OF THE BIBLE . . .190 VIII. REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL 216 IX. CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES 244 X. GERMAN THEOLOGY : ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 282 XI. RECENT ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGMENTS 314 XII. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM 342 XIII. A VISIT TO MUNICH. 376 XIV. THE JANSENISTS AND THE OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH OF UTRECHT 395 XV. THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS 413 XVI. THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT 437 XVII. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS 461 XVIII. A^J EARNEST MINISTER 495 XIX. THE EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY 506 Errata. — By an oversight the proofs of pp. 414-5 were not corrected. On p. 414, 1. 17 and 20, for Eheinkens, read Eeinkens; 1. 19, for Eensch, read Reusch ; on p. 415, 1. 4, read the two German words, Geistlicher Aufklarung; 1. 1 7, after ' arrived,' add in Bonn. I. THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND.* kUEING the last two years Sion College has been emerging from the obscurity in which for two long centuries it has lain concealed. When the Dean of Westminster's address on the connection of Church and State was the subject of comment in the daily papers, everybody was asking, Where is Sion College? and very few people were able to answer. The great world of London has migrated without the City, and the few dingy buildings which form the library, chapel, and almshouses of this ancient foundation are scarcely to be distinguished from the shops and ware- * Contemporary Review, April, 1870. The Freedom of Ojnnion necessary m an Established Church in a Fret Country. An Address delivered at Sion College, by Sir John Duke Coleeidgb. Macmillan's Magazine, March, 1870. An Address on the Connection of Church and State. Delivered at Sion College, Feb. 18, 1868. By Arthur Pknbhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. Macmillan & Co. The Three Irish Churches. An Address delivered at Sion College, Jan. 28, 1869. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.TJ., Dean of "Westminster. John Murray. A Lecture on the Characteristics of Charitalle Foundations in England. Delivered at Sion College on March 12, 1868. By Arthur Hqbhousb, Q.C. Longman, Green, & Co. The National Church. Edinburgh Eeview, July, 18G8. The Church and her Curates. Quarterly Review, July, 1867. Clergymen made Scarce. A Letter to the Bishop of London. By a Presby'tee. 1867. Second Edition. Hall & Co. The Present Dangers of the Church of England. By W. G. Claek, M.A., Viee-Mast«r of Trinity College, Cambridge. Macmillan & Co., 187r>. 15 2 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. houses by which they are surrounded. In the seven- teenth century it was the favourite resort of the London ministers. In the troubled times of the Long Parliament and the Commonwealth it was here they met to sign leagues and covenants, and to make ordi- nances against 'PojDcry, Prelacy, Arianism, Socinian- ism,' and every other conceivable heresy, knoAvn or unknown. Even so late as the Savoy Conference the London clergy, who were mostly on the side of the Pui'itans, had their special meetings at Sion College. Two years ago the Eector of Bishopsgate was Presi- dent. Besides some other salutary reforms and im- provements, he began the custom of ' Evening Meetings,' which have been continued by his suc- cessors in the presidency. At these meetings papers have been read on various subjects. Of these the most important are those which concern the T^ational Church. From many different quarters the question of the State Church is forced upon the public mind. Outside, there is the Eoman Catholic, the avowed enemy of the Church of England, working ceaselessly for its overthrow. The ' Liberation ' Dissenter is scarcely less active in his opposition to the Church of England so far as it is a State institution. The High Church- man is daily becoming less satisfied with the strong Protestantism of the Church's standards, while the advancing thought of our day is rendering it impos- sible for some other men to be bound by the rigid formularies of a past age. One other item of antago- nism, silent, indeed, but more important than all the others, is the steady and uniform growth of Dissent. THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 3 It is true that some of the religious difficulties of our time are common both to Churchmen and Dissenters. Which of the two shall best be able to meet them is one of the questions at issue. The old objections to State churches, as well as the arguments in their defence, to which we have been accustomed for the last thirty years, may now be set aside as irrelevant. It is not a question either of the duty of the State to support the truth, or of the sufficiency or insufficiency of the voluntary principle. In the hands of Dr. Stanley the contro- versy assumes a new aspect. The State Church becomes not, as it was supposed to be, an institution for the arrest of civil and religious liberty, but for their advancement. The object is not to crush the Dissenter by opposition, but if possible to comprehend him, and where that is impossible, to secure for him toleration and equality.* This view of a State Church is not something taken up merely to meet a present difficulty. It is connected with a theology which regards the Divine Being as carrying on His work of education by slow and silent progress in individuals, families, and nations. Its advocates are willing that the State Church principle be examined and tried by the experience of the past, not for a moment denying the many evils and imperfections inseparably con- nected with it, yet maintaining that it is the best * The plea of the Anti-State Churchman is, that there can be no equality but by the entire separation of Church and State. Our argument is, that such a separation is simply impossible. Every corporate body possessing great property must be under the control of the State. The objection that the State endows the Church of England is another phase of the question, raising that of the origin of Church property, and must be discussed by itself.— X. b2 4 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS within our reach.. The history of the past seems to say that no other was possible ; that the growth of the Church in any State inevitably implied its connection with the State. What the circumstances of the future may be must be left to the future to declare. When people speak of a State Church they often forget that the connection between Church and State has not always been the same. When Ave take a con- crete Church, as that of England, Scotland, or Ireland, and say that it is to be disestablished, we have immedi- ately to state the items which make up what we con- sider disestablishment. In the case of the Church of Ireland it consisted mainly in excluding a few bishops from the House of Lords, who, indeed, had not perma- nent seats, and in leaving the Church to choose its own officers. The deprivation of a third of the Church's property was called disendowment, and reckoned some- thing quite distinct from disestablishment. There was added the public declaration of the Government of the country that the Chiu'ch in Ireland was no longer a State Church. It was this which constituted it a disestablished Church, so far as it is disestablished. It was left in possession of two-thii'ds of its property and all its chiu-ches, some of which are to be kept in repair by the Government, as in some special sense be- longing to the nation. State establishment in its first and simplest form is when the State allows the Chiu^ch as a corporate body to hold property. The next form is when the State interferes to regulate that proj^erty, or to put restrictions upon it. Another form is when the State directly gives property to the Church. The State connection may be where the State simply pro- THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 5 tects the Chiu'ch ; or where an alliance is made between the Church and the State, with fixed terms of agreement. It may be where the State constitutes the Church ; or where the State, as the supreme ruler of all communities as well as of all individuals in the realm, is the final judge of differences in the Church. In one or more of these forms, every sect or religious body in any State is a State Church. There can be no abstract definition of a State Church. In every case it is a question of degree. Disestablishment, there- fore, can only mean a re-adjustment of the present relations between the Chiu'ch and the State. The history of the Church in England would furnish examples of all, and more than all, these forms of State connection. When the missionaries came to the Saxon kingdoms, they first obtained permission to preach. As they made converts they built churches and began to gather property. In the condition of society which then existed, when a ruler became Christian it would be a great step towards the conver- sion of his kingdom. Christian kings, by taking the side of the preachers of Christianity, thereby made Christianity the State religion. As centimes passed, and the property of the Church accumulated, the civil power had to devise new restrictions on property left to the Church, which became equivalent to an asser- tion of right to control it. As the Papal claims to supremacy increased, so did the antagonism between the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities. The King and the Pope both claimed to be head of the Church in England. Hem-y VIII. vigorously took possession of what his predecessors had always claimed, but 6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. not always with equal decision. He rejected entii-ely the Papal supremacy. If his daughter Mary brought it back, it was even then in the way of alliance. Queen Elizabeth again exorcised the Bishop of Eome. This time the Papal claims were eifectually dealt with, for not only the Pope, but the Pope's religion, was driven out of England. The relations of the Church and State were changed. The Pope's Chui'ch was dis- established. A new Church, to speak politically, was created. To speak ecclesiastically, a corrupted Church Avas reformed. Under Elizabeth the connection be- tween Church and State was of the closest kind. The Church w^as then moulded into a political institution. Out of the confiscated revenues of the unreformed Church the new Chiu'ch was endowed. Had the Bishop of Eome been the harmless and politically helpless individual that he is to-day. Queen Elizabeth's Church might have assumed a difi'erent form. But with the great power of the Papacy j)lanning for the overthrow of her kingdom, she was compelled to repress with an iron hand the Eomanist without and the Puritan within. Liberty of conscience, it is often said, was not understood in those days ; but it was impossible that it could be either understood or practised so long as the national life was endangered by the great political power of the Chui'ch of Eome. The Pui'itan felt the oppression of State tyranny, and groaned under it. More freedom might have been given him according to our judgment now, but not so in the judgment of Queen Elizabeth. The Puritan wanted to be under a government distinct from that of the State. He wanted to obey God rather than THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. ) man, when he thought that the divine and the royal commands were not in harmony. But no civil power ever permitted this, when it feared danger to its own existence. Christianity and the moral con- stitution of man have their foundation in right ; but all civil government depends on might. The great ' Leviathan,' to use the illustration of Thomas Hobbes, must first secure its own existence before it can yield protection or liberty to the individual members of whom it is composed. All liberty to the subjects of any commonwealth must be measured by its compati- bility with the safety of that commonwealth. This we apprehend was what Hobbes meant when he said that religion, morality, and law have their origin from the State. Since the time of Queen Elizabeth the connection between Church and State has been nominally the same, yet actually it has been very different at dif- ferent times. Under James and the fii-st Charles a great part of the spii'itual power denied to the Pope was put into the hands of the bishops. James I. was content that the bishops should be bishops by divine right, so long as he was acknowledged a king by divine right. This confederation of the king and the bishops ended in a revolution. A new Church, politi- cally, was established under the Commonwealth. This Church was as much the creation of the State, and as completely under it, as the Church had been under Elizabeth. The ' Leviathan ' was again compelled to rule with might. Under the second Charles the bishops regained some of their ecclesiastical power. Under the second James the State Church resisted the 8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. State, and obeyed God rather tlian man. It willingly served the Prince of Orange. It was fostered and strengthened by Queen Anne. Under the Georges it became the instrument of political parties. Since then the State has been gradually receding from inter- ference Avith ecclesiastical matters. The State connec- tion to-day is verj'' different from what it Avas in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The principle on which the Eeformed Church of England was established under Elizabeth is sometimes said to have been a comprehension ; but tliis is an ingenious theory rather than a fact. The Thii'ty-nine Articles plainly speak the language of the Augustinian theology which was adoj)ted by the Swiss Eeformers. Many of the bishops, in whose hands Elizabeth placed the government of the Chui'ch, had been in exile, and were full of the theology of Calvin. The old priests who had conformed to the Eoman Catholic religion under Mary were allowed to remain under Elizabeth, but only on condition of their subscribing the Articles, and teacliing the doctrines set forth in the Homilies. The Pope and the Pope's peculiar dogmas were ex- cluded. The Eeformers under Queen Elizabeth did not differ as to doctrines, but only as to ceremonies, and in these a rigid conformity was enforced and no latitude allowed. The ' comprehension ' appears to have been the result of circumstances rather than of intention. It was not till the time of Charles I. that the Church of England was wide enough to admit the Arminian High Churchmen, who came in, not by permission, but by mere might. ^New necessities de- manded the comprehension of different parties. With THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. g the High Churchmen came iu such Eatioualists as Hales aud Chillingworth. At the restoration of Charles II., though the Nonconformists, who had scruples about the ceremonies, were excluded, yet the Chiu'ch was made wider. It embraced many of the Presbyterians, who were allowed to subscribe with an express permission to make an explanation of the sense in which they understood the formularies. It also embraced the Latitudinarians, whose views of Church polity and ceremonies agreed with those of Elizabeth's divines, but differed from those of the High Churchmen, and whose doctrines, like those of the High Churchmen, Avere at variance with those of the Calviuists, which are properly those of the Articles of Religion. As an historical fact, the Church of England has become a Broad Church. Is it broad enough ? Or, what is perhaps a more correct form of the cpiestion, can it bear to be made broader ? Sii' John Coleridge distinctly declares that it is not his wish to change the formularies of the Church of England. His position is the matter-of-fact one, that if the Church is to embrace the thought of the nation some changes must be made. 'An Established Church,' he says, 'in a free country must take note of and represent the rehgion of that country, and if the re- ligious opinion of the country is various, the Church must contain a variety of religious opinions. No doubt it is a question of degree in which it is hard to draw the line. It is enough for me to say that the limits must be drawn far more widely than most people are prepared to draw them. It is idle to rave against the intellect, and to endeavour by tests to convert the deductions of clerical theology into necessary Christian truths. It is to my mind as certain as anything can be, which is contingent, that if the Church remains established it will remain so by the sacrifice of its present io CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tests. Do not suppose, however, that this future, which I think inevitahle, is what in itself I desire, or that it appears to me all good unmixed with evil.' The history of the Church of England shows, we have said, that it is a Broad Church by the force of circumstances, rather than by choice. The State which, under Elizabeth and James, tried to reduce all to uniformity of doctrine, was afterwards compelled to include all without uniformity. The same formularies remained, and they were subscribed according to the sense in which each party understood them. While the State allows subscrij^tion of this kind, it cannot be fairly said that there is any moral obliquity in the act of subscribing. But to him that thinketh it sin, to him it is sin. There are men to whom subscription has been a burden — men who have thought that by subscription they were bound to believe, or to profess belief, in every statement of the Articles, even though it might be something which is now plainly disproved, or which no rational man believes. The usual view of subscription is, that the subscribers are bound by the sense of the imposers. The High Chm'chmen, who were the first to depart fi'om the literal and grammatical sense of the Articles, yet claimed agreement with them. It was in the time of Laud, and with the object of favoui-ing his party, that ' His Majesty's Declaration ' was prefixed to the Articles, forbidding any man to put 'his own sense or comment ' upon them. It was impossible that this deception could be long concealed. The theology of High Churchmen was utterly at variance with the theology of the standards of the Church of England. THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. x r When the party had reasoned itself into its legitimate position.it was avowed that there had been a departui'e from the Articles. Tract XC. advocated the principle that the clergy are not bonnd by the original mean- ing of the Articles if another meaning with which they agree can be put upon them. It appears that there are men still dissatisfied with subscription. The formularies of the Church are not in harmony with modern ideas. The complaint of the bishops of the decrease of candidates for orders increases with every ordination. And those that do present themselves for ordination are not what is called the ' good men ' of the Universities. The desire of Mr. Clark, the Public Orator of the Univer- sity of Cambridge, to renounce his orders, and the resignation of Mr. Sedley Taylor, another Fellow of Trinity, are but visible signs of what is invisible to the unobservant world. The progress which has been made in Bible criticism forbids educated men to view the Bible as it was viewed by the Eeformers and theologians of the sixteenth century. Are men to subscribe formularies with the proviso that they do not entii^ely believe what they subscribe, or are these tests to be abolished ? Sir John Coleridge dealt only with one of the difficulties that beset the Church of England. The question of subscription is only a temporary affliction — an acute disease in the body ecclesiastical. But the Church has an old clu'onic affliction which it has borne for centuries, and with as little hope of being healed as the woman had who spent her all on physicians. This complaint may be called the patronage of Church 12 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. livings, including, as it does in England, the sale of benefices, and every other conceivable evil that may follow the triumph of Mammon in the Church. Such names as Julio de Medicis and Jerome de Ghinucci, among the pre-Eeformation bishops, are connected with histories which tell us that the patronage of the Chiu-ch was not better administered under the Popes than it was after the Eeformation. Not better, we say ; yet it was scarcely possible to have been much worse. Under Henry, Elizabeth, and James, many of the bishops obtained their bishoprics only on condition of giving up large portions of the episcopal revenues to the king or the nobles. The ordinary mode of obtain- ing a benefice was by making a bargain with the patron, either to give him a certain sum of money or ail annual payment out of the income of the living. 'The disease spreadeth,' said Archbishop Sandys; ' for patrons gape for gain, and hungry fellows, desti- tute of all good learning and godly zeal, yea, scarcely clothed with common honesty, having money, find ready entrance to the Church.' Bishop Jewel says, ' The masters of the work build benefice upon bene- fice, and deanery upon deanery, as if Eome were still in England.' ' T^on-residences,' said John Penry, ' have cut the throat of our Chiu-ch.' Dr. Eobert Some, of Cambridge, said, ' The sale and merchandise of C'hurch livings is cried out against in court, city, and university. It is so common that it cannot, and so shameless that it will not be hid.' The same thing might have been said at every j)eriod of the three hundred years that have intervened since the days of Bishop Jewel and Dr. Eobert Some. And to THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 13 this day the sale of livings and making merchandise of the sonls of men, is as common and as shameless as ever. That the traffic in Church livings has not ceased, we are reminded by the advertising columns of almost every daily or weeldy paper. A recent number of the Ecclesiastical Gazette, which is circulated gratuitously among the clergy, has eight or nine columns filled entirely with advertisements of advowsons and next presentations for sale. Six or seven ecclesiastical agents, in the open blaze of the daylight, advertise for purchasers of ' Church preferment,' and call at- tention to their 'private registers,' forwarded on ' confidential application.' One agent says that he has ' one hundi^ed Church preferments for sale,' and that he has registered the requirements of 'three hundi'ed clients fully prepared to purchase.' Any one curious to be initiated into the mysteries of buying the care or cure of souls, has only to enclose two stamps, and the ' private register ' is forwarded by the next post. The second step is to enter on a cor- respondence with ' theni that sell.' The recommen- dations of the different livings are of various kinds. Some have very aged incumbents ; some have pleasant neighbourhoods; some are near watering-places; others have trout streams, small populations, good society, and — the culmination of clerical blessedness — 'no Dissenters.' For one or two thousand pounds any clergyman may buy himself a Goshen, with the pros- pect of ' immediate possession.' A stranger, that is, a secular person unused to clerical ideas, might suppose, previous to experience 14 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. , to the contrary, that the life of a clergyman was one of entire disinterestedness and self-devotion. He may have heard of Apostles that went forth to convert the world without scrip or pui'se for their journey, and he may have wondered at their simplicity. But when he knows something of the mode of obtaining a benefice in the Church of England, he will see that the trade of preaching is not altogether foolishness. It is diffi- cult to understand how the English people, so eager for reform, and so deeply interested in all national institutions, should so long have endured the mal- administration of the property of the Chui-ch. It has become appropriated by a class. Livings descend with families. A j)rudent man who sends his son to the university, at the same time secures for him an ad- vowson or a next presentation. It is one of the pro- fitable ways of investing money. Doing the work of the Chiu'ch is only a secondary consideration, even when it is a consideration at all. Incumbents are now compelled by law to reside on their benefices ; but what comes by compulsion has never the value of what is done with a willing heart. So recent as the early part of this century there was no law to enforce the residence of the holder of a living. In 1810, out of the 9,754 incumbents of livings in the Church of England, according to a Parliamentary return 5,395 did not reside in their parishes. They did no work ; they simply received the tithes and rents, leaving their spiritual duties to be performed by stipendiary curates.* This represents so many thousands of men • This argument is not quite correct. Some were jiluralists, and did worlc in one parish. — X. THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 15 becoming clergymen for no other end than to enjoy the honours and the emolnments of theii* office. There is another aspect of the preferment purchase question which has not received much attention, because the facts connected with it do not often come to light. Some men have money to buy, or their friends have money to buy for them. But there are other men who merely speculate. Any unscrupulous man may get a living if he has sufficient courage to make a venture, or sufficient want of principle to render him insensible to the results that may possibly follow. The modes of raising money are the same as in other cases where a man speculates without capital. The only difference is that in buying a living he must strive to evade the law against simony. The effect of this law, like that of tests, is to keep out the man who has a tender con- science, while to other men it is no hindi-ance. The wi'iter of ' Clergymen made Scarce,' who seems to have passed through every phase of clerical life on the un- beneficed side, speaks of a correspondence which he had with an incumbent who was to sell his right to presentation and immediately retii-e. * This living was wortli ^6900 a year, one half from tithe and the other from pew rents. The sum wanted was £5,000, and im- mediate possession. I said that I was quite inexperienced in these matters. d65,000 was a large sum, supposing I had as much, which I had not ; it would be £250 a-year at five per cent., and the capital safe. But if I expend it on a next presentation, when I die I lose all. " The way to provide against that," said the rector, "is by a life insurance for the amount." "But it is a large sum," I re- peated with emphasis. The rector replied that it was only what his wife paid to put him there. He wanted to spend a few years on the Continent, and when he retui'ned, to lay out the money again on another living. I put my hand to my head, feeling instinctively, yet vaguely, that there was something more which I 1 6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ought to say. "Are we not," I asked, " in negotiating about this business, contemplating something illegal ? Is there not an oath to be taken by the presentee calling God to witness that he has not used any means, direct or indirect, to get the presentation?" " There is such an oath," said the rector, " but the ecclesiastical agent's lawyer has a form by which the law can be evaded," " Evaded ! " I said. " Nothing wrong," answered the rector. " I know excellent, upright men who have done it, and who would not have done it had it been wrong. Grood men, both High Church and Evangelical, do it daily. It is quite common ; nobody thinks it wrong." ' The private arrangements that are made with pa- trons rarely come to light. They are not generally creditable to any of the parties, and freqnently altoge- ther illegal, except on the ' evasion ' principle. There are cases where several persons are interested in the patronage, and the only mode of satisfying their claims is by dividing the money obtained for the pre- sentation. The best bargains are sometimes made with clergymen who are themselves withont property; but who receive loans by insurance policies and other available means. This sometimes involves them in debts and difficulties which embitter their lives, and bring lasting injury to their parishes. Cases of this kind are known to most clergymen and to all bishops. There are cases publicly known where men have got inducted into the livings, and after possession was obtained there was no money to be found to fulfil the agreement between them and the patrons. This has resulted in sequestration and suspension — with the benefice being served for Jong terms of years by sti- pendiary curates. The livings which are not in private hands are in the patronage of the Crown, the Lord Chancellor, the THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 17 Bishops, the Colleges, the Cathedral Chapters, and the incumbents of other livings. Of these, the adminis- tration of those belonging to the Colleges is the least liable to objection. The men presented may not, in every case, be the best parish ministers; but, as a rule, they always have some appreciable merit. The croAvn livings are subject to the changes and caprices of differents governments. Those in the gift of the Lord Chancellor are proverbially small, and are gene- rally given to men who have been some years in the service of the Chiu'ch. Dean and Chapter livings are disposed of either by the members of the chapter among themselves, or by presenting them in turns to their friends. Ej^iscopal patronage' is exercised in many different ways. One bishop studs his diocese with sons, nephews, and sons-in-law, putting them frequently into parishes for the management of which they have no earthly capacity, and making it a serious business for his successor to buy them out by giving them less important livings with larger incomes. Besides providing for his immediate relations, a bishop has often to remember the friends of the friends who in other days helped him. Until very lately, a Whig or a Tory bishop might be known by the j^referment which he had given to members of Whig or Tory families. It is difficult for any ordinary observer to make out the principle on which a bishop acts in the distribution of his patronage. The probability is that many bishops, in order to act faMy, avoid following a principle at all. The amoimt of their patronage is too small to enable them to promote all the men whom they may want to promote, while their dioceses are too large i8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to enable them to know the merits of all their clergy. An intercessor is often needed, or a special introduction from some one who has access to the bishop. But this also may fail. There are bishops who give to ' every one that asketh,' and there are others that turn away just because they are asked. It is said that some bishops, when an important parish is vacant, are very careful in the choice of a clergyman to whom the preferment is to be given. Others reckon it a matter of the merest indifference, acting on the principle that one man, or at least one priest, is quite as good as another. Some of the appointments made by bishops bear evidence that the first names on the list have been taken without any consideration of the special requirements of the parish. Men that are no preach- ers are sometimes placed over congregations that can only be kept together by preaching. We have known men appointed to chiu'ches where it was not possible for them to be heard by one-half of the people ; and the sole reason of the appointment may have been that they were the first to ask, or that they had a friend to intercede with the bishop for them. The last form of episcopal patronage is when a bishop promotes the men of his own party. There are many things to be said against this, but it argues that the bishop is doing his best, according to his light, to provide for the welfare of the parishes. In this way some dioceses are filled with 'Evangelical' incumbents, and others with those of the ' High- Church ' party. Some men get preferment merely because they have taken up with earnestness the views of some particular bishop. THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 19 It is impossible to give the details of the multitude of channels into which Church property and Church patronage may flow. A clergyman who wrote lately to one of the weekly papers on the abuse of patronage, gave an account of seven parishes in the neighbour- hood in which he lived. These may fairly be taken as an epitome of the whole system of patronage as now exercised in the Church of England. He says : — ' The parish of which I am now curate was originally a Lord Chancellor's living. It was bought by the wife of the present in- cumbent. This was a legal transaction, as some of the Lord Chancellor's livings were recently sold in expectation that they would be bought by men of property, who would add something to their value. This parish is surrounded by six others. Into the present incumbencies of these I have made inquiries, as far as it was possible to get at transactions, some of which were in secret. The first was an ordinary case of next presentation, which was bought for a few hundred pounds thirty years ago at an auction in London. The second was a peculiar one. The present incumbent's father had a living in the diocese worth ^63,000 a year. The bishop wished to secure this living for a relative. The old rector agreed with the bishop to vacate this living on condition that one worth £900 a year were given to his son, who had just taken orders. The third parish was given to the present incumbent because the income was small, and he was a man of some private property. The fourth was a family living. The fifth was bought by the present incumbent's friends, that is, by himself, while he was curate of a neighbouring parish. The sixth was a new district ; the present incumbent contributed £2,000 towards building a church that he might have the first presentation.' The last mode of buying oneself in furnishes an important part of the employment of the ecclesiastical agents. It is looked upon as the least sinful. It is encom-aged by incumbents who want new churches built in their parishes, and it is defended by some because of the apparent gain which it brings to the c2 20 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Church. It is said by those who profess to know that, but for this arrangement, many of the new churches in the subiu'bs of London would never have been built. The acute disease of a narrow creed and the chronic affliction of abused patronage are threatening the life of the Church of England. Sir John Coleridge and some others ascribe the decrease of 'good men' from the universities to the tests required before ordination. There may be some truth in this, but the more proba- ble cause is the uncertainty of the means of existence, not to say of fulfilling one's vocation, without having to deal in transactions from which every sincere and honest mind instinctively recoils. A certain number of men must be ordained, and if the best men of the universities refuse to take orders the bishops must be content with what they can get. If university men entirely fail, their place can be taken by ' literates,' or, what is worse still, by men who, without a proper school education, have had nothing but the meagre training of a theological college. The result is that the character of the clergy is visibly deteriorating. A few more years of the same downward course, and scholarship, gentlemanliness, and refinement will cease to be the marked qualifications of an English cler- gyman. According to the last census, about one-half of the worshipping people of England were outside of the Established Church. They had formed themselves into distinct Churches. Alongside of the position of the Church of England it will be profitable to have a A'iew of the actual condition of the religious com- munities outside of the C'hurch. Among these are THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 21 included the Eomaii Catholics, who are not indeed a very numerous body ; and, as their adherents are prin- cipally imported from Ireland, we may set them aside as not being one of the sects indigenous to England. For the same reason we exclude Presbyterians of all kinds. They are mainly importations from Scotland. We have left, as the chief sects, the Independents, Baptists, Unitarians, and Wesleyans. The first three of these sects are the oldest ; and, in one sense, the Unitarians are the oldest of the three, but, in another sense, the youngest. As Unitarians, they are modern; but under their other name of Presbyterians they are old. The principles of Presby- terianism were in the Church of England in the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, perhaps with the very beginnings of the Eeformation. They were chiefly adopted by the early Puritans. The Presby- terians came into power with the Long Parliament. Under Cromwell they gave place to the Independents. They were ejected in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity. The famous two thousand divines are represented to- day historically and lineally by two hundred Unitarian pastors. The decay of Presbyterianism in England is a history full of instruction to the student of religious tendencies. The aristocracy and landowners of the country were once divided between Presby- terianism and Conformity. So late as the early part of the last centiuy the City of London was the stronghold of the Presbyterian ministers, and the city merchants their chief supporters. Their descendants are no longer ]N'onconformists. They have long ago been re-absorbed into the l!^ational Church, Many of 22 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the bishops of the last century, as Butler, Seeker, and Barrington, were the chikben of Presbyterians. Even in our own day the successor of the great Puritan leader, Lord Saye and Sele, is a dignitary of the Church. Those who have not confonned are found chiefly among the Unitarians. It was only the other day that the last of the descendants of Echnund Calamy died at Exeter, a member of the Unitarian or Presbyterian Chui'ch. The Presbyterians, ap- j^arently, had every element necessary to the consti- tution of a lasting ecclesiastical body. They had numbers, wealth, piety, learning, an honourable his- tory, and yet they went to decay. The sect narrowed as its theology widened. We cannot enter upon reasons, but the simple facts are that the tone of the Established Church and of the Presbyterians became one. Their original principles may have stood dis- tinctly over against each other, but their spii-it had assimilated, and conformity thus became easy to the Nonconformist. As Presbyterianism passed into Uni- tarianism, those of the Presbyterians who clung to the faith of the Trinity found a refuge in the Established Chui-ch ; while one or two ministers of the Church of England, who had lost faith in the Trinity, united with the remnant to form the com- munity of Unitarians. The Independents are the most numerous of the old Dissenters. The names of above two thousand ministers are registered in ' The Congregational Year- Book.' It is difficult to fix the date of the origin of Independency. If we are to credit some of its modern defenders, it began with Adam, who was an THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 23 Independent before the creation of Eve. All religious parties seem to think that truth and antiquity must go together. In the seventeenth century the advocates of Episcopacy traced its origin to Adam presiding as a patriarch over his descendants. Milton recom- mended them to go higher, and begin with Lucifer. Dr. Waddington, who has earned some reputation as the historian of Independency, traces it all through the dark ages up to the Fathers and Apostles. Its first appearance, in England was in the person of Eobert Brown, a clergyman of the Church of England, whose character, as history records it, is only in- different. It was taken up by Henry Barrowe, John Penry, and some others who had been Presbyterians. It differed from Presbyterianism in this, that it un- churched the Established ChmTh, denying it to be a Church. Its adherents were called the ' Brethren of the Separation,' because they separated themselves from the national worship) and formed distinct con- gregations, consisting, as they said, of nothing but elect or believing souls. These old Independents were driven out of England in the time of James I, They fled to Ilolland, and finally to America. The next appearance of Independency was in the Westminster Assembly, when the ' five Dissenting Brethren' opposed the Dii-ectory for "Worship and Church Government. Under Cromwell they displaced the Presbyterians. In 1657, Independency was about to be declared the national religion, but Cromwell died, and the Savoy Declaration never became law. The Independents had nearly the same fate as the old Presbyterians. They made little or no progress 2+ CONTEMPORARl ESSAYS. till the beginning of this century. The present Inde- pendents can scarcely be reckoned the descendants of those of the seventeenth centiuy. In the ' Congrega- tional Year-Book ' for 1870 there are 222 chui-ches registered under London and its suburbs. Of these only 20 had their origin between 1700 and 1790. According to a MS. in Dr. Williams's library, in London within the 'Bills of Mortality,' in 1715 there were 29 Presbyterian Churches, 21 Independent, and 25 Baptist. In 1773 the Presbyterians were 19, the Baptists 12, and the Independents still 21. The Baptists, differing from the Independents solely on the question of infant baptism, may also trace their origin to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was not, however, till the time of the Common- wealth that they were cognizable as a distinct sect. Even to this day there are congregations partly In- dependents and partly Baptists. There are also two kinds of Baj)tists, differing in doctrine, one following Calvin and the other Ai^minius. This difference began in Holland at the very beginning of the Baptist sect. The Independents originally were rigid Cal- vinists, but Aiininianism and other doctrines have found an entrance among them. The Baj)tists are in numbers about half the Independents. The Particular Baptists have 875 ministers, and the General or Arminian 123. The great family of Wesleyans, originating in the last century, have nothing in common with the other Dissenters, unless it be that they are in the same company as outsiders of the Church. They refuse indeed to be called Dissenters, for though not Con- THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 25 formists, it is not from any objections to the doctrines or ceremonies of the Church of England, but solely that circumstances which they could not control have placed them where they are. In numbers, including all kinds of Wesleyans, they constitute one-half of the Nonconformists. They are not as a body hostile to the Church of England, and those who look into the future are not without hopes that the bonds between them and the Church of England may yet be drawn closer. The old Connexion has 2,280 preachers; the New Connexion 140 ; the Free Church 250 ; and the Primitive Methodists 780. It would thi-ow some light on the ]3ast history of the Church of England could we get at the facts that would account for the distribution of different kinds of Dis- senters in different parts of the country. The Inde- pendents are numerous in London and Lancashire, the Baptists in the Eastern counties, while in Lin- colnshire, Staffordshire, and Cornwall Wesleyanism is almost the national religion. Our estimate of the intelligence and religious worth of these bodies, and how far they are likely to rival the Established Chui'ch or to supplement it, must be made chiefly from those who are employed among them as preachers. Of the two thousand Independent ministers an appreciable number have taken degrees at a Scotch University or at the University of London. A few have studied in Germany. A considerable number have had no regular training ; but the majority have been educated at one or other of the ten or twelve Independent Colleges or Academies, which by a curiously uneconomical division of labour 26 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. are scattered over the country. Taking at random a page of ministers in the ' Year-Book,' we find that two studied at Glasgow, two at Edinburgh, five had not any regular education, and the rest, forty-seven in number, are from the theological seminaries. The Unitarian ministers are understood to have a higher education than the Independents. It appears, how- ever, from the ' Unitarian Almanack,' that the Scotch and German Universities contribute much the same proportion as among the Independents. The number without regular training is proportionably equal, while the majority are from the colleges of the denomina- tion. The Baptists are below the average standard of the Independents. Many of their ministers are engaged in business, and the number of those who have no education with a view to the ministry is much larger than among the Independents. This, however, is a test of but limited application, for some of the ablest men in all denominations have been without a regular education. When any man affects to despise ' literates ' in the Church of England, we have only to mention the names of Eichard Baxter, Bishop Warburton, John ^N^ewton, and Edward Bicker- steth. In some of the sketches of Mr. Spurgeon's life it is said that this great preacher was educated at an ' agricultural ' College. From his case it is evident that wisdom may be learned even among them 'that hold the plough,' and 'whose talk is of bullocks.' The Wesley ans were long opposed to giving their ministers any special training. Wlien they built a Theological College tliirty years ago, it was the occasion of a schism in the body. It is now THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 27 necessary for every minister to spend three years at one of their denominational Colleges before he can be admitted on the itinerancy. The nnniber of men with Scotch diplomas is much smaller among the Wesleyans than among the Independents. This may be accounted for by the stejDS of the probation which the Connexion prescribes, and partly perhaps by the paucity of Wesleyans in Scotland. At the present time the Conference receives about eighty candidates for the ministry annually. Of thesCj by an estimate recently made, about twenty are the sons of ministers who have had a good education at the Xingswood or Woodhouse Grove Schools, which were established for the education of the sons of preachers. About ten are the sons of middle-class tradesmen, who have been educated at the Wesleyan Collegiate Schools, esta- blished at Taunton and Sheffield. The remaining fifty are men who have previously followed some business, trade, or profession. All these bodies do not seem to have among their 6,500 preachers half-a-dozen of men educated either at Oxford or Cambridge. There is one in the Unitarian list, one in the Independent, and one or two among the Baptists and Wesleyans. It is a fact worth examining that a clergyman of the Church of England rarely becomes a preacher in a Dissenting body. If he leaves the Church he starts for himself, or, what is most frequently the case, joins some anti-clerical sect, such as the Society of Plymouth Brethren. The first obvious difference between the Church clergyman and the Dissenting minister is, that, as a rule, they come from two different classes of society. 28 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Admitting this to be true, which, indeed, it would be idle to dispute, it argues an imperfection, both in the Chiu'ch and in the Dissenting bodies, that they do not draw theii' ministers from every class. A Christian Church should be a republic, a leveller of class and caste distinctions, a true ' City of God,' in which there is * No high, no low, no great, no small.' The minister of religion .should be below no one, and above no one, but capable of all conditions with all men. It is among the humbler classes that the Dis- senters have done their work ; and just in proportion as Dissenters grow rich and adopt the customs of the higher classes, .they conform to the Church of England. This is a great grief to the thorough anti- Church Dissenter. He erects on it an argument against the connection of Church and State, and ex- claims against what he calls his ' unrighteous ex- clusion' fi'om the two great Universities. We are not disposed to regard this as more than an imaginary grievance. There is no good reason why he should ever have been excluded from the Universities. The tests which excluded him were meant chiefly to exclude the Eoman Catholic. It was no great hard- ship to an orthodox Dissenter to subscribe the Thirty- nine Articles of Eeligion. The old JN'onconformists always urged these Articles as the basis of a com- prehension within the Establishment. Moreover, if the Dissenters had not a clear coui-se at Oxford and Cambridge, they have had the London University for now thirty years, with all the Universities of Scotland and Germany open to them ; or, what would THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 29 have been better for tliem than all these, they might have collected the scattered forces of their denomi- national colleges into a gTeat university, into which they might have imported any amount of learning and civilisation that they wished. But for some years the English Universities have been open to them with some restrictions, and before long even these restrictions will probably be removed. It has, however, been found as a fact that not many Dissenters have matriculated at the Universities, and those that did have generally become Churchmen before they left. The opening of the Universities has not added any university men to the Dissenting mmistry. This is a fact which has some meaning, and it is an anxious question for the Dissenter what the future will do. This subject was well discussed by Mr. Neville Goodman in an interesting paper on ' The Universities and oui* Ministers,' read last year before the 'Au.tumnal Assembly of the Congregational Union.' Mr. Goodman does not reckon the advan- tages of an Oxford or Cambridge education as much exceeding those of the London University. He re- duces them to these three : — ' (1.) A stimulus to high attainments, such as is generated by the association, and from the very atmosphere of these ancient seats of learning. (2.) A definiteness of thought and a precision of language, which is ever the mark of a scholar, and more - especially of the gregarious scholar. (3.) Last and least, a certain social status, which is of some practical value.' Over against these he places as disadvantages — ' (1) expense ; (2) the absorbing nature of the pursuits ; and (3) the danger of defection.' The last is a lesson 30 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. from past experience. It is accompanied with the hope that, though 'the storming party' has been defeated, yet, when the whole army goes up, the victory may be gained. Yarious ^schemes, such as erecting Nonconformist Colleges in Oxford and Cam- bridge, have been proposed to segregate the Dis- senters from other students. All these Mr. Goodman condemns, as defeating the very object to be obtained, which is to let Dissenters breath the free atmosphere of university life. The second disadvantage would withdraw the students from theological study, or involve the necessity of studying theology after the university course was finished. But the matter of expense is the most serious of all. Men who are able to send their sons to Oxford and Cambridge never intend them to be Dissenting ministers. They are not of that class in society which furnishes candidates for the Nonconformist ministry. Mr. Goodman's words are : ' Many, perhaps most, of our students are eleemosynary ; and I cannot conceive that the com- munity of subscribers will continue to furnish large funds for the benefit of those over whom they have no supervision, either directly or indirectly.' The expense of the Universities excludes the Dissenter more certainly than the tests. But it also excludes larse numbers of the candidates for orders in the "Church of England, so that the Church, as well as the Dissenters, is losing the benefit of what are properly her own schools of learning. But beyond or beneath all these things there is another difficulty which is equally in the way of the Church of England and the Konconformist communi- THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 3 1 ties, and which seems to baffle them all. That is, how to secure for the ministry men with a sufficient educa- tion, and, at the same time, the other qualifications necessary for this office. The great distinction between the clergyman and the Dissenting minister is not, after all, the difference of the classes in society from which they come, but of the mode of their being receiyed as teachers of religion. The Church minister has simply to pass the prescribed course at the Uni- versity, and if the bishop is satisfied with his testi- monials, he is ordained without any reference even to his capacity to read or speak in public. The Dis- senting minister, on the other hand, must have given evidence of some special qualification for ministerial work before he is sent to college. The one is trained from his youth with a view to the ministry ; the other has passed his youth before his career in life has been decided on, and when it is too late to receive a thorough education. Each mode has its advantages and its disadvantages. The Church system secures regularly educated men ; the other plan secures men of good natural gifts, whose way into the service of the Church is not so easy as into the ministry among the Dis- senters. It is to be added, that often the work to be done among the humbler classes requires men who originally belonged to them. This would seem to point out the necessity, in a really National Church, of divers kinds of men in the ministry ; and if this diversity cannot be obtained in one community, the necessity of Dissent is inevitable until a nearer realisa- tion of our ideal of a Church. The war-cry of the Dissenter at the present hour is 32 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ' Eeligious Equality.' He supposes that the State does not deal faMy with him while he has to contend with a richly endowed and highly privileged National Church. That he is under many disadvantages is not to be denied. But they are such as Dissenters might overcome without the disestablishment of the Church of England. It is a complaint which we frequently hear from the Dissenting minister, that in social stand- ing the most insignificant curate is preferred before him. The curate is the recognised or legal teacher. The Dissenting minister feels that he is not. Some- thing of this may be imaginary. A multitude of these grievances would be easily remedied by that Christian spirit which seeks the lowest room. But the clergy- man sometimes claims the uppermost seat, on the ground that the Dissenter is an unauthorized teacher. There is a general complaint that the clergy do not regard the Dissenting ministers as their equals. This in the main is true ; but it is very doubtful if the separation of Chui^ch and State would in any way alter it. The clerical haughtiness towards the Dis- senting teacher has various grounds. Frequently it is the mere pride of a man who has studied at an English University towards one who has not. The English Universities nurture the belief that wisdom was born and will die with them. The same contempt wliich some clergymen show for Dissenting ministers they show also for their own brethren if they have not graduated at Oxford or Cambridge. This feeling, it is true, is most highly developed in the inferior class of university men, who have learned little more by theii' education at a university than the pride of having THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 33 been there. When this is the cause of the Church minister despising the Dissenting teacher, it is evident that the separation of Church and State would not change the matter. In Scotland, where Episcopacy lives on thorns and thistles, the Episcopalian minister keeps himself at a greater distance from the Presby- terian than the parish clergyman in England from the Nonconformist. The ministers of the Church of Scot- land have ever been willing to treat their prelatic brethren as even more than equals. They have offered them every service, even to the use of their churches ; but the minister of Episcopacy, though in aristocratic poverty, has never forgotten that he was the true channel of the grace apostolical. This was the doctrine of the old Independent, when he set up his ' gathered Church ; ' of the old Baptist, who excluded all from the kingdom of God who had not been wholly immersed in the waters of baptism. It is the doctrine of some modern Dissenters, as well as of the disciples of Dr. Pusey, and must be remedied by some other prescription than the separation of Church and State. Our real difficulty with the social position of the Dis- senting minister is to know what constitutes a Dis- senting minister. In Scotland the difficulty vanishes, from the fact that all ministers have gone thi'ough nearly the same studies, and there is, in consequence, some approach to a natural equality. But in England a Dissenting minister may be anything, from the pro- foundest scholar to the most ignorant mechanic. If Dissenters, instead of trying to bring down the Church to their level, would raise themselves to the level of the Church, religious inequalities, excepting D 34 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. those which are inevitable, woiikl naturally disappear. If the Dissenters continue, as they have begun, to erect buildings that equal and sometimes surpass those of the Established Church, and to fill them with efficient ministers, the Church of England will have more cause to fear losing its power over the upper classes than by the separation of Church and State. The futui-e of the Church of England, yea, the futui'e of the Christianity of England, dej)ends on the relations that are to exist between the Church and the civil Government, Disestablishment in the sense in which the Irish Church has been disestablished, would put the Nonconformist in a worse position than he is in now, if the Church without the State could continue as one body. It would be a vast combina- tion, with vast property, not controlled by the State — a dangerous empire within the empire. One of the arguments which Dean Stanley urges for the endow- ment and establishment of Churches is to provide against the evils of ecclesiastical government. The danger to the State is certainly greater from a Church which is connected with a foreign power than from one limited to the English realm. Yet a check is necessary, if only to prevent the undue accumula- tion of property. It is at this point that Church and State inevitably touch each other. Church property is called specifically national proj^erty. It is on this ground that the Dissenter asks disestablishment and disendowment. But this is founded on a simple obliviousness of what is meant by national property. The endowments of the Church of England are not ' private ' endowments, simply because it is the State THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 35 C'liurch. They eaiiuot be used as the Church directs, but as the State directs. Mr. Hobhouse has clearly explained the difference between ' private ' endow- ments and those given to the State Church. In the latter the State can always interfere to determine how they are to be used. In the former the will of the donor continues through all time. Hence the enor- mous evils of the ' charitable ' or ' private ' foundations in England. Trustees are bound by the wills of men who lived centuries ago, who had no knowledge of the necessities of our times, and .whose property has increased to what it is by the labour and industry of subsequent generations. The amount of proi3erty in England bound up by the wills of men long since dead, Mr. Hobhouse estimates at £3,000,000 annually ; and the effect of it, in his judgment, is evil rather than good. Church property is reckoned worth £6,000,000 annually, but with all the imperfections of its administration we have something to show for it, in 14,000 churches, with their weekly services and a well-educated body of clergy. The property of the Church is national property, simply because the State has taken possession of it. It did not proceed from the State. The Church's property before the Eeforma- tion was accumulated in a great measure out of bequests voluntarily made to the clergy. There have been at different times dii*ect endowments from the State, but what the State gave to the Chm^ch has been as nothing compared with what it took away. Even since the Eeformation the wealth of the Church of England has been vastly increased by voluntary en- dowments. But all these, equally with the oldest 36 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. possessions of the Church, are national property. ' At every crisis of change in this country,' says Mr. Hob- house, ' the principle that Chui'ch endowments are national property has been asserted in unmistakable terms.' 'The State,' says Sii" John Coleridge, 'has always asserted its right to control and claim ecclesi- astical property, and has, with undeviating and inflex- ible pertinacity, consistently given notice, by statute of mortmain, to all its subjects, that if men give property by will to the Chiu'ch, it is given to the State, liable to State control and legislation.' Mr. Hobhouse wishes that the endowments of private foundations be also made national property. But what does that mean ? Simply that the State would take these abused charities and apply them to some useful object, iiTespective of the will of the donors. This tacitly supposes that they are already State property. The difference is that the State has long ago felt the necessity of controlling Church property, while it is only to-day that the necessity emerges for dealing with the property of the old ' charities.' The plain inference is that all property belongs to the State in conjunction with those who hold it, and when any property within a commonwealth is not used for the good of the commonwealth, the civil power may inter- fere and determine how it is to be used. The Church of England disestablished, with its present wealth, or, as in the case of the Irish Church, with two-thirds of it, would be a greater hindrance to the Nonconformist and a greater evil in his eyes, than it is now under the control of the State. But it is certain that the disestablished Church of THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 37 England wonld not keep together as one Chiu'cli. The State acts towards it, to use Eichard Baxter's words, as 'a unifying head.' One element in the State Church question, not to be overlooked, is contributed by the fact that such a Church as the Church of Eome exists. It is near us as a dangerous and subtle enemy. There is no reason why, in a free country, the Eoman Catholic, simj)ly as a citizen, should not have the same freedom as the representative of any other religion. But the past history and the avowed principles of his Church both bear testimony that it claims supremacy over nations incompatible with that freedom and equality which we would give to all Churches. There are times in a nation's history when the benefit of a State Church has been felt by all. Such times have been, and while the Church of Eome exists may be again. But, on other grounds, it is not desirable that the parties now included in the National Church should be divided into new sects. If the kingdom of God were some external organization, and the doctrines of Christianity so fully understood that further pro- gress would be impossible, then we might act on the principle of every man excommunicating every other man who did not believe as he did. But since God has not given the Church any material or outward frame, and since we have yet much to learn ere we reach Christian perfection, we should not willingly dispense with the covering, earthly tabernacle though it be, which the State has thrown over us, and which keeps us together as the Cln-istians of a Protestant nation. To retiu-n briefly to the question of subscription. When Sir John Coleridge read his paper at Sion 38 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. College, the Dean of Westminster remarked that the Solicitor-General seemed to overlook the modification as to subscription which had been made during the last few years. A clergyman is not now pledged to every statement of the Church's formularies. He only declares his general assent to the doctrines of the Church. This doubtless leaves an open door for dis- honest men, but experience teaches that no door, however close, can keej) them out. The tests having been found inefiectual, Dean Stanley is in favour of getting rid of them altogether. Eefore such a step is taken, many even of the most liberal Churchmen will pause. Tests are of two kinds. They may be barriers in the way of progress, or they may be badges of victory in the hard battles of the past. The Church of England has a history, in many re- spects a noble history. No true Englishman wishes the memory of the struggles of the Eeformation to be forgotten. The negative part of a creed is some- times as important as the positive. The errors of the Church of Eome were renounced at the Reforma- tion by the people of England. The National Church set up the Articles and formularies to prevent the return of these errors. If we pull down the barriers that are behind us, our progress onward may be arrested. If we were in no danger of a return of Eoman Catholic heresies, it would be right at once to set aside the formularies which condemn them. Like other old errors in theology, they might be left to the pages of the historian. But the Church of Eome still exists. It is as exacting, as audacious, and as unscrupulous as ever in proclaiming, with the pre- THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 39 tence of infallibility, dogmas opposed to the catholic reason of mankind, and the plain sense of the canonical writings. The gulf between us and the Church of Rome is impassable while that Church continues what it is. Tests that secure the territory already gained must not be rashly laid aside. It is admitted on all hands that the Thirty-nine Articles are not perfect. The eighteenth and the thii'teenth seem to deny the possibility of salvation to the virtuous heathen, or that good works can be done by any but Christians. The ninth gives a description of the original wickedness of man at variance with the facts of human life. The fourth speaks of Chiist as in heaven, with a body consisting of ' flesh ' and 'bones,' while a better authority tells us that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. The sixth article gives a list of canonical books ' of whose authority never was any doubt in the Church,' and yet among the ' commonly received ' are several which, at different times, have been the cause of great doubt and controversy. These are imperfections which strike us who live three hundred years after the Articles were written, far removed from the strifes which engaged the minds of those who wrote them : so that more than a general consent could not now be required of any man. Yet even with these imperfec- tions, every one of these articles contains a protest against dangerous errors. The sixth article is intended to exclude the apocrjqDhal books from the canon. The thu'teenth is aimed at the substitution of ceremonial works for those of the moral law. The ninth, with some that follow, is meant to teach us the necessity 40 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of Divine help in the spii'itual life ; and even the fourth, gross and ohjectionable as the statement is, has a very valuable meaning when we connect it with the desire which the Eeformers had to express their entii-e opposition to the doctrine of the objective pre- sence of Christ's body in the Eucharist. Better far would it be to bear with the imperfection of the Articles, than to risk losing such express renuncia- tions of the heresies of the Church of Eome. Sir- John Coleridge did not argue his subject from the High Cliurch side. He did not advocate the aboli- tion of subscription for the sake of the consciences of those who ride over the Articles in the fashion of Tract XC. or of Dr. Pusey's ' Eirenicon.' His argu- ments all come from evident sympathy with the difficulties of the Broad Churchmen. The occasion, or, if we may so speak, the casus helli^ of the paper, was Mr. Clark's letter to the Bishop of Ely. In that letter Mr. Clark stated that he could no longer express his conscientious belief in all the ' canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,' inasmuch as ' some portions of the Scriptures now seem to him to be of doubtful genuineness, and others to contain erroneous statements in history, and questionable teaching in theology and morals.' The Dean of "Westminster expressed his regret that a man of the high character and great learning of the Bishop of Ely did not answer Mr. Clark's letter, and assure him that the very same sentiments were entertained by himself and every clergyman in the country. The Dean's statement rather surprised the audience. It was repudiated by some clergymen, who regarded the THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 41 Public Orator's letter as putting him, not merely beyond the pale of the Chiu'ch of England, but of Christianity. The full extent of Mr. Clark's meaning may yet be open to doubt. He put his case strongly, as if he intended a manifesto. Some explanation is required of the sentence, 'questionable teaching in theology and morals.' As to erroneous 'statements in history and doubtful genuineness' of certain books, these are open questions for fui'ther study. If Mr. Clark does not mean more than his words may fairly be understood to mean, he has said nothing to bring him in collision with the formularies of the Church in the modified form of subscription. The Bishop of Ely might have shown him that he was only beating against the shadow of a wall which already had been battered do^Ti. Since the greater part of this paper was written we have received Mr. Clark's calm, earnest, and temperate pamphlet. We have admitted that subscription to creeds has its difficulties, but we think that Mr. Clark fails to recognise the inevitable conditions of progress. If oui' religious knowledge is progressive there must be always of necessity an infinite variety of religious opinions. Are men to divide themselves into distinct sects or chui-ches because of every little difference that may arise ? Or are they not rather to remain as long as possible in one church with a general agreement on some common principles ? Mr. Clark wishes to resign his orders because he believes the Bible is not infallible, and because he thinks the Church of England requires him to believe that it is. He admits that there is no article, no positive statement in any formulary of the 42 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Church, which declares the infallibility of the Scrip- tures. His plea is that this infallibility is everywhere assumed. He refuses to measure what he considers the moral obligation by the legal one. In our judg- ment subscription could be no hardship to Mr. Clark so long as he believes that the Scriptures really con- tain a revelation fr-om God. No law, either divine or human, binds his conscience to any infallibility but this. As to patronage and the present saleable condition of Church property, it is impossible that it can con- tinue much longer in the face of the searching inquiry which must soon be made into the condition of all our national institutions. If it cannot be stoiiped, dis- establishment is sm^e to be the other alternative, and disendowment with a far less dowry than was given to the Irish Church. The root of the evil is not the illegal transfer of livings, but the legalised mode of selling advowsons and next presentations. It would be better for the Church either that no sale was legal, or that no sale was illegal. The restrictions only place difficulties in the way of conscientious men. Let it all be legal, and then men will know what they ought to do. Or, better still, let it all be illegal. Let the patronage of all livings be vested, as far as possible, in the parishioners, and laws laid down by which they are to be governed in their choice. The Chiu'ch of England wants nothing more than to be cast on the people. When the Archbishop of Canterbury said lately that the laity were rej)resented in the Church by having so much patronage in their hands, he seemed to us 'as one that mocked.' Patronage, in THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND. 43 tlie hands of men who bny and sell, is a strange interest for the laity to have in the Chm-ch, as well as a strange mode of dealing with national property. Instead of doing for the people, we must give the people the opportimity of doing for themselves, and when a new church is needed, there will be no neces- sity for one or two thousand pounds from some clergyman to help to finish it, that he may have, in return, the first presentation and all the rights and privileges which are conferred by the present connec- tion with the State. As to the Churches outside the Church of England, let us look at things as they are, and no longer deal in theories. The daj^ for schemes of comprehension, and everything of that kind, is apparently past. But there is nothing to prevent the most friendly relations and the freest intercourse amongst all Cluistians. It has already been recommended in this Revietv^ by the Dean of Canterbury,* that Dissenting minister^ be allowed occasionally to preach in our churches. The Dean of Westminster has shown that there is nothing to prevent this even under the Act of Uniformity, on condition of subscribing to part of the Thirty-nine Articles. Those who could make the modified sub- scription now required under the recent Subscription Act, might do this without any alteration of the law. And while the ISTonconformist may preach in the Church of England, there is apparently even less in the way of the Conformist preaching for the Dissenter. Few things would tend more to remove the differences and social jealousies that now exist between the * DeanAlford. 44 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Clmrchman and the Nonconformist than this mutual interchange of their ministerial services. We boast of our freedom in the Church of England, yet some courage is required in an English clergyman to preach even in the pulpits of the Presbyterian State Church of Scotland.* The moral of this paper, if it must be mentioned in a sentence at the end, is, that the Church of England, as it now stands, is a great national institution in the hands of the nation ; therefore let it be used for the good of the nation. * Since this was written a bishop and an archbishop have preached in the kirk. The event caused some commotion among the Episcopalians in Scot- land and some parties in England, but no law of either Church or State was broken. We have no wish to repudiate the Episcopalians in Scotland any more than any other sect, but it is not reasonable that their fancies should be any hindrance to our liberty. n. NATURE-DEYELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY.* TWO methods of contemplating ]^J'ature seem to have existed since the first dawnings of human thought. It would be difficult to say which was the earlier; for, though apparently irreconcilable with each other, they seem to have been contemporaneous. A German philosopher once said that every man was born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. Certain ways of think- ing belong to certain classes of men, and methods of philosophy take their character from that of the minds which originate them. The study of Nature was doubtless the first study that engaged the human mind. The earliest reli- gions, theologies, and mythologies of all nations have been connected with systems of Nature. The most probable interpretation of Pagan worship is that which * Contemporary Review, May, 1870. On the Physical Basis of Life. By Professor Huxley. ' Fortnightly Review,' Feb., 1869. Chapman and Hall. As Regards Protoplasm in Relation to Professor Huxley's Essay. By James H. Stirlino, LL.D. Blackwood and Sons. 1869. The Reign of Laio. By the Dukb of Argyll. Fifth Edition. Strahan & Co. 1870. Essays, Philosophical and Theological. By James Martikeau. Triibner & Co. 1866. Das Christenthum und die moderne Nairtrtoissenschaft. Von J. Frohschammeb. Williams and Norgate. 1868. 46 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. resolves it into the worship of Nature, making the heathen gods and goddesses personifications of the invisible forces that pervade the universe. The oldest theologians identify God and Nature. The old Brahman said that Brahm protruded the universe from himself, as the tortoise protrudes his limbs, or as the spider weaves a web from its own bowels. Hermes Trismegistus, the interpreter of the Egyptian theology, called all created things parts and members of God. Bunsen, describing the religion of the early Egyptians, says — ' God dwelt In the piled mountain rock, the veined plant, And pulsing brute, and where the planets wheel Through the blue skies, Godhead moved in them.' The fundamental idea of these religions was Deve- lopment. The divine substance was evolved into the being of the universe, so that all natures or substances were in their original one nature or substance. This is probably the best key to the meaning of the old Greek philosophers. Their object was to find the first or primordial essence. Thales said it was ' water ;' Anaximander called it the 'boundless,' because, being all, it could not be any one of the things that are finite ; Anaximenes called it ' air ;' Pythagoras called it the 'one;' Heraclitus 'fire,' or the 'eternal strife ;' and Parmenides ' being.' Aristotle says, ' Our ancestors and men of great antiquity have left us a tradition, involved in fable, that these first essences are gods, and that the Divinity comprehends the whole of Nature.' The other method of contemplating Nature re- gards it as a work distinct from its Author. It NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 47 cannot be said that this idea was unknown even to the earliest teachers of Development. The Hindu Brahm, that evolved Nature from his own being, was also Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer. He created, formed, or moulded Nature according to his will. This implied in the Deity a personality which the idea of evolution seemed to deny. The doctrine of a forming and designing mind working in Natui-e is supposed by some to have been held by Thales and the other Greek philosoj)hers, who made the primal element the chief object of their search. But when Anaxagoras appeared, teaching that ' the Divine Mind was the cause of all things, and had arranged them in their proper ranks and classes,' Aristotle said that, compared with the other Ionics, he was like ^ a sober man.' Socrates, however, who had deeper religious feelings, was not satisfied with the doctrine of Anaxagoras. It was not enough that the Divine Being should construct the universe, and then leave it, like a self-acting machine, to its own laws. Socrates could not conceive of the Deity ceasing from His work, and retiring into undisturbed repose. The God of Socrates sits on no silent throne. He works unceasingly. In the words of Goethe, Nature never lacks His presence : — • ' So dass was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst.' Or in the words of our own poet Cowper : — ' There lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God.' Plato, in his philosophy, combined the ' Being ' of Parmenides with the ' Mind ' of Anaxagoras. He 48 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. reconciled the two theologies which have generally been thought irreconcilable. ' The Being ' was also ^ the Artificer of the Universe.' ' When God,' Plato says, ' had formed the soul of the world, the soul shot itself into the midst of the universe to the ex- tremities of being. Spreading itself everywhere, and reacting upon itself, it formed at all times a divine origin of the eternal wisdom.' The Book of Genesis represents the Creator as working six days, and then resting from His creation. It is not said that He made created things of His own substance, nor even that all things are originally of one substance. ' God made the beast of the earth after Ms kind^ and cattle after their kind.^ and every living thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind.'' The creating ' Mind ' of Anaxagoras, which wi'ought once and then retired, gives the idea of God and His relation to Nature which most resembles that of the Book of Genesis. Whether the Biblical account is a popular conception, or a par- tial statement adapted to the ordinary understanding, or a full scientific account of creation, is not a question at present to be discussed. The same view of creation is frequently found in ancient authors. Lucretius gives all things a distinct nature of their own — - ' Res quaeque suo ritu procedit et omnes Fcedere naturae certo discrimina servant.' The account of creation with which Ovid begins his Metamorphoses resembles that in Genesis : — ' Ante mare et terras, et quod tegit omnia coelum Unus erat toto naturae A'ultus in orbe.' Bayle translates this passage as meaning that before there was a heaven, an earth, and a sea, nature was NA TURE-DE VEL 0PM ENT AND THEOL OGY. 49 all ' homogeneous.' This interpretation has been disputed, as Ovid says, immediately after — ' Mollia cum duris sine pondere habentia pondus.' But there is not any real contradiction. The original chaos consisted of a primary matter, in which things afterwards 'soft' and 'hard,' 'light' and 'heavy,' were blended together. The creating Deity, Quisquis fuit ille deorum, formed all things out of this first matter, and gave them the qualities which they now have. This is clearly the Mosaic doctrine of creation. But in Horace we have the development of men from ' a dumb and filthy herd ' of animals, who at first fought for acorns with their nails and fists ; afterwards they forged arms, then they learned to speak, and at last built cities and established governments. ' Mutum et turpe pecus glandem atque cubilia propter Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus/ &o. The revival of the doctrine of development in ^Nature is contemporaneous with the science of geo- logy. That science, even in its first essays, can scarcely be dated earlier than the second half of the last century. It is true that almost three hundred years ago Bernard Palissy pronounced a mine of marl to be a mass of shells deposited by the sea. But even in the last century the marine character of the shells, and the theories founded on their discovery, were ridiculed by the wise men of Europe. Voltaire said he would sooner believe that ' Edith, the wife of Lot, was changed into a statue of salt,' than that the ocean once deposited shells in the vicinity of Chablais and Eipaile, or on the top of Mont Cenis. It was more E so CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. likely that pilgrims to Eome had carried them in their bonnets ! But incipient geologists, from the discovery of the shells so far from the sea, believed that the sea must once have covered the whole earth. There were many things that seemed to confirm this belief. The ancient Egyj)tians had deified the Nile. Out of water came that abundant fertility which made the riches and the strength of Egj^pt. Homer and Hesiod had traced the origin of all things to Oceanns and Tethys. Thales supposed water the first element of IN'ature, and the Book of Genesis says that the Spirit of God brooded over the face of the deep. The marine origin of the world, and all that is therein, was set forth by De Maillet, one of the early students of what is now the science of geology. He found, or at least thought he found, the bones of men, animals, and reptiles, with oyster and coral shells, all mingled together, and petrified into hard rock. He could only account for their being there by the action of the sea when the masses were soft and liquid. He said that petrified ships had been dug up on the tops of the Alps and the -Apennines, and that keels, anchors, and masts had been found among the sands of Libya. On a Swiss mountain there had been discovered the petri- fied bodies of sixty mariners, who had been ship- wrecked in a storm before the beginning of the Egyp- tian chronology. But unnumbered ages previous to that era the ocean embraced the seeds of all things in one mass of homogeneous protoplasm. Before man had come to the perfection of his being, it was necessary to suppose that he had existed as a NA TURE-DE \ EL 0PM ENT A ND THEOL OGY. 5 1 simpler organism than he now is. He may have been a mollusc, a star-fish, a flat-fish, a tiirbot, or a cod. The fins may have lengthened into arms, the forked tails into legs, and so the fish became a man. He was at first, of course, a 6'e«-man ; for till the gills had been changed into lungs he could not live out of his native element. It was easy for the unbelieving Yoltaire to laugh at this doctrine. He could no more believe it than he could believe in petrified sea-shells or basalted ' Edith, Lot's wife.' ' Notwithstanding,' he says, ' the extreme passion for genealogies which now prevails, there are few people who would believe that they descended from a turbot or a cod-fish. To establish this system, all species and elements must absolutely have changed into one another, and Ovid's Metamorphoses would become the best book of phy- sics ever written.' But ' the imlearned man laughs at the philosopher.' De Maillet saw a unity of type in IS^ature. He found correspondences between difi'erent organisms. iN'ature was a ladder of which he did not see all the steps ; but he saw some. It was a chain of which he had found some links ; but he could not put them together. His first eff'ort was to co-ordinate the forms of life on dry land and those in the sea. The ocean still bears witness to its universal fatherhood. We have sea- roses, sea-lilies, sea-violets, and sea-vines. When the water receded from the land plants and flowers re- mained. What changes they have since undergone are due to the influences of the sun and fresh water, being nourished by the rains and rivulets that water the earth. Similar conformations are visible in ani- E 2 52 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. mals. Yarieties of plumage and form in birds have their analogies in the shape, colour, and disposition of the scales of fishes. The fins of a fish are arranged like the feathers in its analogous bii'd. If we attend to the flight of birds we shall discover a likeness to the mode in which the corresponding fishes swim in the water. The same analogies De Maillet finds be- tween land animals and sea animals. When the waters left the land the marine animals had no alterna- tive but to become land animals ; and should the ocean again overflow the world, what could they do but again betake themselves to the sea ? In the sti'uggle for life many would, doubtless, perish ; but some would eat the herb of Glaucus, and when used to the new ele- ment, would find a congenial home with their ancient marine relatives, the children of N^ereus and Doris. De Maillet wanted but one link to connect the marine half of creation with that on dry land. This link was a sea-mscQ.. There were mer-maids, doubtless ; but the ?«^/*-men were not so plentiful. Such beings, however, had been seen. There was one caught in Holland, one at Exeter, and one in the twelfth century on the coast of Suffolk. The last gentleman was taken to Cambridge ; but one day, when walking in St. Peter's quadrangle, he eluded his keeper, i)lunged into the Cam, and never again appeared. In the last century about sixty of these 5e«-men surrounded an English whaler near Greenland. Each of them rowed a little boat. When they saw the sailors in the ship they went under the sea, boats and all, except one poor fellow who broke his oar. He was caught, but died soon after. His boat and fishing tackle were NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 53 curiously made of fish bones. They were brought to Euglancl, and, for the information of the curious, De Maillet says that they may yet be seen in the Town Hall of Hull. In the second half of the last century the doctrine of development was taken up by Jean Baptiste Eobinet, author of a once famous work called ' De la ]S"ature.' IN'ature with Eobinet was not God, but it was necessarily and eternally evolved from the Divine essence. ' In the beginning,' in Genesis, means out of time and in eternity. Creation is the everlasting work of the Deity, who from eternity has been work- ing in and after the manner of I^ature. The law which chiefly prevails in N^ature is progression. There are no leaps. All things begin to exist under the smallest possible forms. Nature in itself knows no- thing of kingdoms, classes, or species. These are artificial, the work of man. All things must have come from a unity, which has been infinitely diver- sified. This was the prototype of all that exists. Nature has been ever aiming at higher and more com- plete organizations. This is illusti'ated by the archi- tectural skill of man, which begins with a hut or wig- wam, and rises to an Escurial or a Louvre. The ourang was next to man in the scale of being. All the links of Nature's chain may not yet have been discovered, but ere long, Eobinet said, science must discover them. Lamarck followed Eobinet, adding nothing to the theory, but by natural studies bringing it more within the region of science. To him, as to Eobinet, Nature had no immutable orders or species. Circumstances 54 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. and conditions were the cause of diversities and varia- tions, even of those between vegetables and animals, insects and men. !N"ature is one. A seminal fluid per- vades creation, and impregnates matter when placed in circumstances favourable to life. K'ature begins with simple forms — 'rough drafts' — infusoria and polypi. When life has once pressed in, it strives to increase the organism which it animates. This inter- nal striving, or ' sentiment,' as Lamarck called it, was the physical cause of the possession of the different senses and organs of the body. The duck and the beaver, having long endeavoured to swim, webs at length grew on their feet ; the anteloj)e and gazelle became swift to run because often pursued by beasts of prey ; the neck of the camelcox)ard was elongated through stretching its head to the high branches of the trees on which it finds its food. In this way the ' mute and filthy race ' mentioned by Horace, after long eff'orts to speak, became ' articulate-speaking men.' The doctrine of development, even though sanc- tioned by the great name of Lamarck, was still a sub- ject of ridicule. Men could not believe it. They grinned at the suggestion of such an ancestry as it ascribed to the human race. But its history in this century is the history of the science of l!^ature. Cuvier withstood it to the last ; but his great contem- porary and fellow-worker, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, only waited till Cuvier completed his classification of the animal kingdom, that from this very work he might draw arguments in support of development. Cuvier thought to find the natural classification, but confessed NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 55 that he could not find it. St. Hilaire doubted its existence. The lines which seem to separate between genera and sj^ecies were to him as imaginary as the lines of latitude and longitude which divide the globe. When this subject was discussed by Cuvier and St. Hilaire before the French Academy in 1830, it is said to have engrossed the public mind even more than the impending revolution. The doctrine of development was made popular in England by the famous ' Yestiges of the N'atural History of Creation.' It is supported by the long and patient labours of Mr. Darwin, and it now numbers among its converts the distinguished geologist. Sir Charles Lyell. The ' Yestiges ' rejected Lamarck's doctrine of the 'internal sentiment,' making the phenomenon of reproduction the key to the gene- sis of species. Mr. Darwin accounts for the diver- sities in Nature called species by the principle of ' Natural Selection.' The doctrine of development was at first a specula- tion about Nature. It originated in the speculative philosophy. It is in that region still, however much some of its advocates may exclaim against all philo- sophy not founded on observation and experience. The human mind has ever had intuitions of a unifying principle which made all one in the midst of diversity. The ' one in the many ' was as familiar to the old Greek as it is to the modern German. The ' Nature producing ' and the ' Nature produced ' of Spinoza, the ' Deity in Himself ' and in ' His other being ' of Schelling, were theological ideas which, after uniting God and Nature, led to expectations of a continued unity in Nature itself. Experiment and observation S6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. have provided fiicts which tend to confirm the hypo- thesis, but which do not prove it. A purely scientific man may say that he believes that it is the probable solution of JSTature's secret, yet he must confess there is still something between the conclusion and the premises. Mr. Huxley's paper is a discourse on the ' Physical Basis of Life.' He supposes that he has found the protoplasm, or first matter, out of which all things were made. He identifies it with a semi-fluid sub- stance to be found lining 'the inner surface of the outer case of the hair of a stinging-nettle. He sees in all things a unity of faculty, of form, and of sub- stance. The painter and the lichen he paints, the botanist and the flower which he classifies, Mr. Huxley and the animalcules under his microscope, are all com- posed of ' masses of protoplasm.' To the question — is there no difierence between a ' plant ' and an ' ani- mal ? ' Mr. Huxley answers that ' plants and animals are not separable, and that in many cases it is a mere matter of convention whether we call a given organ- ism an animal or a plant.' Mr. Strrling denies that Mr. Huxley has found the protoplasm. He quotes against him the most ' advanced ' Germans, who find that the cells Avhich are reckoned to contain protoplasm differ in their chemical ingredients. He denies that either ' Molecularists or Darwinians ' are able ' to level out the difierence between organic and inorganic, or be- tween genera and genera, or species and species.' We do not believe that Mr. Huxley has found the first matter of life. We do not believe that he ever will find it, and for this reason, that it is ' beyond all NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 57 the physical forces which man can test and try.' It is not to he seen, tested, or handled. It is outside of the grossness of matter. It will ever elude his grasp like the sunheam through the Avindow, or the phantasma- gorian images on the canvas. He may find a stage in its progress from the invisible to the visible, wliich may seem to be a resting-place. Other physiologists will tell him to move on, and Mr. Huxley's ' semi- iiuid ' of the bark of the ' hair of the stinging-nettle ' will find a place in the same category with the primor- dial water of Thales the Milesian, the ' eternal strife ' of Heraclitus, or the homogeneous ' rudis indigestaque moles ' of the Eoman poet. It is, however, possible — yea, probable — that such a basis of life does exist ; that is to say, that all things arc diversified formations from one homogeneous sub- stance. Mr. Stirling thinks that Mr. Huxley has really not said anything remarkable in declaring that there is a protoplasm which is the matter of all organ- isms. For some time physiologists have traced the origin of all organization to primitive cells ; even the popular mind has been used to the belief that man was made of dust. The objection to Mr. Huxley's doctrine is not that he has found a universal proto- plasm ; that may be left for discussion with other physiologists. But Mr. Huxley is supposed to erect on his physical discovery a doctrine of materialism, and to account for the existence of the universe with- out the necessity of a forming mind. The Duke of Argyll calls inferences of this kind a great injustice to scientific men, and refers specially to Professor Huxley's article on ' Protoplasm,' and the 58 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. unwise criticism of some adverse reviewers. Mr. Huxley is often misunderstood, and we cannot deny that this misunderstanding is sometimes due to his own ^phraseology, and perhaps even more to a certain tone whicli suggests more than is said, and in our judgment more than is meant. But within his own sphere there is no man living more deserving the confi- dence of truth-loving men than Professor Huxley. He does his own work well. To use a homely phrase, he keejDS his own door-step clean; If his opponents did the same they would better understand Mr. Hux- ley, and Mr. Huxley would better understand them. Those of us who for the last ten years have been thinking over these questions, look back with a feel- ing of amazement to the difficulties, once formidable, that have now disappeared like mountains of mist before the light of the sun. In the Duke of Argyll's ' Eeign of Law,' doctrines and positions once de- nounced as infidel and atheistic are used to support religion, and to confirm men's faith in the Divine government of the world. The question of develop- ment in nature should never have been a question of God or no God. The man of science and the theo- logian should alike have regarded it as simply a question of how the Divine Being w^orks. The study of this is the study of the science of God, and may be the employment of created minds throughout the infinite ages. In the words of Wieland, — ' To think Him will be continually the highest striving of the deep thought Of every inhabitant of heaven : they -will strive for ever.' ' Ihn zu denken wird stets die hochste Bestrebung des Tiefsinns Jedes Olympiers seyn, sie werden sich ewig bestrebeu.' NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 59 The Duke of Argyll says, ' Whatever may have been the method or process of creation, it is creation still. If it were proved to-morrow that the first man was " born " from some pre-existing form of life, it would still be true that such a birth must have been, in every sense of the word, a new creation.' Under the reign of law is defined as 'under an agency through which we see working everywhere some purj)ose of the Everlasting Will.' Again, the Duke of Argyll says, ' It is no mere theory, but a fact as certain as any other fact of science, that creation has had a history. It has not been a single act done and finished once for all, but a long series of acts — a work continuously pursued through an inconceivable lapse of time.' The development hypothesis is grounded on some facts which must be acknowledged, whatever becomes of the hypothesis itself. The first of these is wdiat we may call a geological progression. The extinct forms of life are found to be connected by an orderly grada- tion with those which now exist. Creation has pro- ceeded from lower to higher types. The evidence of this progression is not perfect, that is to say, some of the links are wanting ; but so many have been found as to render it certain that the others once existed. We quote again from the ' Eeign of Law : ' ' Yery recently a discovery has been made, to which Mr. Darwin only a few years ago referred as a discovery of which the chance is very small, viz., of fossil organisms in beds far betfeath the lowest Silurian strata. This discovery has been made in Canada, in beds far down, near the bottom even, of the rocks 6o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. hitherto termed Azoic. But what are the forms of life which have been found here ? They belong to the very lowest of living types — to the " Ehizopods." So far as the discovery goes, therefore, it is in strict accordance with all the facts previously known — that as we go back in time we lose, one after another, the higher and more complex organisms : first, the Mam- malia ; then the Yertebrata ; and now, lastly, even the Molhisca.' But before geology was a science, the unity of Nature had become evident to all students of the physical world. Even Cuvier admits analogies among the subdivisions of the four great classes into which he divided the animal kingdom. The Yertebrata shaded imperceptibly into the Mollusca, the Mollusca into the Articulata, and these again into the Eadiata. St. Hilaire said that the divisions themselves were but arbitrary, for between each class there were intermedia- ries which completed the chain of being. Nor did it stop with animals : it passed into vegetables ; and by the same continuity the organic passed into the inorganic. The disciples of Cuvier long withstood the doctrine of types ; but they were at last compelled to yield. Pro- fessor Owen says that on reviewing the researches- of anatomists into the special homologies of the cranial bones, he was surprised to find that they all agreed as to the existence of the determinable bones in the skull of every animal, down to the lowest osseous fish. One type serves for the arms of man, the wings of the bat, the forefeet of quadrupeds, and the paddles of the whale. Professor Huxley maintains that monkeys as well as men have the ' posterior lobe ' of the brain NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 6i and the ' liii)pocam23us minor ;' that they are not four- handed, as naturalists commonly make them, but that they have two feet and two hands, the feet consisting, like a human foot, of an oh calcis, and an astragalus, with the other tarsals and the usual metatarsals and phalanges. The ostrich does not fly, yet it has rudi- mentary wings. In some quadi-upeds there is a mem- brane which covers the eye in sleep ; corresponding to this, anatomists find a rudimentary membrane at the internal angle of the human eye. And not only are all animals formed on the same plan, but even the different parts of the same animals seem modifications of other parts. The osseous pouch of the allouat, the organ by means of which it makes its strange howl, is an enlarge- ment of the hyoid bone ; the pui-se of the female opossum is a deep fold of the skin ; the trunk of the elephant is an excessive prolongation of the nostrils ; and the horn of the rhinoceros a mass of adherent hairs. In some organisms the stomach is but a simple modification of the intestines. Every organ seems to have grown out of some other, by a modification or adaptation neces- sary for its present purpose. In the simpler forms of life different functions are performed by the same organs, but in the more complex forms special organs become appropriated to special functions. And even bones are formed after a type. Lorenz Oken saw the bleached skull of a deer in the Hartz forest, and he exclaimed, ' It is a vertebral column ! ' Anatomists are now agreed that Oken was right. The same struc- ture that served for the backbone served also for the skull. This unity of plan pervades too the vegetable crea- 62 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tion. It is remarkable that the scientific doctrine of vegetable mori:>hology was not clue to botanists, but to the clear intuitions of a poet. ' It was,' says Prin- cipal Tulloch in his Burnet Prize Essay, ' to the fine and subtle glance of Goethe, roaming through nature, with so rich a percejDtion of its harmonies, that typical forms of structure in the vegetable world first revealed themselves.' In the ' Metamorphoses of Plants ' Goethe supposes nature ever to have had before her an ideal plant. Of this ideal every individual plant is a partial fulfilment. IsTot only are all plants formed after one type, but the appendages of every individual plant are repetitions of each other. The flowers are but the metamorphoses of the leaves. This doctrine was taken up with modifications by Schleiden, and again by De Candolle. It is now established as a certain truth in the science of botany. Lindley says that — ' Every flower, with its peduncle aud bracteolae, being the development of a flower-bud, and flower-buds being altogether analogous to leaf-buds, it follows as a corollary that every flower, with its peduncle and bracteolae, is a metamorphosed branch. And further, the flowers being abortive branches, whatever the laws are of the arrangement of branches with respect to each other, the same will be the laws of the flowers with respect to each other.' Professor Huxley dwells on a threefold unity of an organic existence. Besides the protoj)lasm there is a unity of faculty and a unity of form. The definition of man as an animal with a stomach who has to provide for some little animals like himself with stomachs, is a definition that for the most part embraces all creatures below man down to the lowest plant or animalcule. The sum of their existence, active and passive, is to NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 63 feed, grow, and reproduce their kind. This definition of man is the foundation of all sound philosophy. It was recognised by Goethe when he wrote — " Warum treibt sich das Volk bo und schreit ? Es will sich ernahren Kinder zeugen und die nahren so gut es vermag ***** "Weiter bringt es keia Mensch, stell'er sicli wie er auch will." The nucleated protoplasm, which is the structural unit of the human body, is also the structural unit of every body, whether beast, fowl, reptile, fish, mollusc, worm, or polype. The functions and forms of all bodies are alike. The material of which they are composed is the same down even to the shapes of the protoplasmic cells. Mr. Stirling denies that the cells are alike. He quotes Strieker for the existence of cells of various forms. Some are club-shaped, some globe-shaped, and some bottle-shaped ; some are sharp and some fiat ; some circle-headed; and if we were to reason from men to the structural units we might infer that some are beetle-headed. The discoveries of physiology only confirm the fact of likenesses more evident than men wish them to be. All bodies are subject to the same laws of birth, growth, decline, and death. The pecu- liar features of men appear in the faces of some animals, while the faces of some animals reappear among men as if to mock their pride and remind them of undesired relationship. A German physiologist says that a man with a pig's face is common, and with a pig's head probably more common still. Sometimes, as if to confirm De Maillot's doctrine of the marine origin of the race, we see men with the high shoulders 64 CONTEMPORARV ESSAFS. and the bulging eyes peculiar to the codfish. It is the recognition of a great fact in nature, and not a mere caricature of the artist, which represents some women as feline, and finds in sundry men the contour of countenance which is the property of the ass. To reconcile us to our lot in having so humble an origin Oken maintains that the human body in intro-uterine life passes through thirteen stages corresponding to the modes of existence of different organisms from a vesicle to a mammal. The chief theological objection to the development doctrine is the supposition that it conflicts with the theistic argument from the evidence of design in nature. This has already been answered by the Duke of Argyll in what he says of the creative energy as being equally manifested, whether creation be one act or a progressive work. Mr. Martineau, whose ' Essays ' we refer to mainly because of a remarkable essay on ' Nature and God,' gives a similar answer. The mate- rialist can never get rid of that ' Force ' in nature which can be due only to mind. To this conclusion both the physical and metaphysical scrutiny of ' Force ' ultimately come. ' This resolution,' Mr. Martineau says, ' of all external causation into Divine Will at once deprives the several theories of cosmical creation or development of all religious significance ; not one of them has any resources to work with that are other than Divine.' Every force is convertible with volition. Without this causality nothing can be done. Those who fancy that they can do without it commit ' a logi- cal theft ' upon it piecemeal. They ' crib causation by hairbreadths, to put it out at compound interest NA TURE-DE VEL OPMENT AND THEOL OGF. 65 through all time, and then disown the debt.' Mr. Martineau adds,— ' It is an equal error in the Theist to implicate his faith in re- sistance to the doctrine of progressive development — be it in the formation of the solar system, in the consolidation of the earth's crust, or the origination of organic species. That doctrine would be, atheistic only if the first germ on the one hand, and the evolution on the other, were root and branch undivine — some blind material force that could set itself up in rivalry to God's.' The objection of leading to Atheism was raised against the doctrine of types, and for a long time stood in the way of its reception even by eminent scientific men. Natm-alists had hitherto found their best guide to the study of Nature in seeking the final cause, that is, the object or use for which any- thing was made. Lord Bacon had indeed intimated that this circle was too narrow, and that the first business of the student of Nature was to seek the physical cause rather than the final. He did not say that there is no final cause, no design, but that the purpose or design is accomplished by means of the physical cause. It is this hint of Bacon's which has served not only to reconcile typology and final causes, but to place the whole doctrine in a new form, and to add strength to it as an argument for Theism. Com- parative physiology revealed members for the use of which no account could be given. If they were in use in one kind of animal, in others they existed as mere ' analogues,' ' homologues,' ' silent or abortive members.' The use of teats in females is evident, but no reason beyond symmetry can be assigned for their existence in males. The sutures in the head of 66 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. a cliilcl may render birth easier for the mother, but why shoiihl the same sutures be in the head of a bird which has only to break the shell of an ^^^ ? The ostrich does not fly, yet it has little abortive wings, ' analogues ' of the wings of birds that fly, and of the fore-arms of all mammals. A fish has gills to enable it to breathe in the water, yet corresponding bronchial apertures are found in reptiles, birds, and even in mammals, including man. The use is appa- rently not the first or immediate object, but rather unity of plan. Sometimes the ' analogue ' is used for different purposes according to the requirements of different animals, as the wing of the bird to fly in the air, or the paddle of the whale to help it thi'ough the deep, making a purpose beyond a purpose, or to quote Bacon's illustration, using these members as a wise politician makes other men the instruments of his will without letting them know at what object he aims. Homology thus opened to human vision a vaster view of the order of the universe. It revealed more of the mode of the Divine working. It told us th'at though man is made in God's image, yet that we must not reduce the Divine Mind to the dimensions of the human. To the intellect of man it is given to know but in part. That knowledge is real so far as it goes, but it does not embrace the Infinite. To do this, in the words of Wieland already quoted, it Svill strive for ever.' Of the relation of typical forms to the doctrine of final causes, the best illustration we can remember is that of De CandoUe. He supposes a splendid banquet. Ho is to find out or prove that NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 67 this banquet is not the result of chance, but due to the will of an intelligent being. The dishes are well prepared, and the selection of them implies a reference to the wants of the guests. So far the anatomist and physiologist have led us. But besides this, it is observed that the dishes which constitute this repast are arranged in a certain symmetrical order, such as pleases the eye, and plainly announces design and volition. If it is found that there are double rows of dishes, some real and some merely imitations which are of no use as to the repast, does it follow therefore that the idea of design must be rejected ? De Can- doUe answers that so far fi'om this he would rather infer that there had been an aim to make a sym- metrical arrangement, and consequently the work of intelligence. Symmetry of arrangement is as decided a proof of design as adjustment of mechanism. Beauty and harmony bespeak an author as much as working for an end. Should the doctrine of develop- ment ever be proved, theology will have as little to fear and probably as much to gain as it haS had from typology and morphology. There are few things in this world more remarkable than the way in which men — even able and earnest men — persist in misunderstanding each other. Yol- taire says that the reason why so few people under- stand Spinoza is because Spinoza did not understand himself. The Duke of Argyll thinks that Mr. Darwin does not quite understand himself. It is then no marvel that so many people have wrangled about the ' Darwinian hypothesis.' We read this passage in the * Eeign of Law ' several times over to be convinced f2 6 8 CONTEMPORARY' ESS A VS. that its obvious meaning really was its meaning. Tlie noble author says : — ' Strictly speaking, therefore, Mr, Darwin's theory is not a theory on the origin of species at all, but only a theory on the causes which lead to the relative success or failure of such new forms as may be born into our world. It is the more important to remember this distinction, because it seems to me that Mr. Darwin himself frequently forgets it.' It seems to us that Mr. Darwin does account for the origin of species by ' Natural Selection.' That is to say, that in the great struggle for life the strong sur- vive, and those that live become what they are according to the conditions on which life is granted to them. It is difficult for us to account for the Duke of Argyll's interpretation of Mr. Darwin. But a far more remarkable misunderstanding is that of a criticism of the ' Eeign of Law ' in the Quarterly Journal of Science. This article was written by Mr. Wallace, one of our most eminent naturalists. He states what one would think is clear and manifest to all men, that the whole controversy between Mr. Darwin and his opponents is simply ' a question hoiv the Creator has worked.' He then advocates a reign of law as if the Duke of Argyll had accounted for creation by ' incessant interferences ' and the ' direct action ' of the Divine Mind without law. The Duke of Argyll justly answers that the whole scope and aim of his book were quite the contrary. The idea of 'incessant interference' he holds to be essentially erroneous, as involving the idea of natural forces being agencies independent of the Creative Mind. Mr. Wallace explains and defends Mr. Darwin's NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 69 doctrine, which is, that the Creator has given to the universe self-developing powers. It has laws by which it is self-regulating, and 'the forms under which life is manifested have an inherent power of adjustment to each other and to surrounding nature.' The complicated parts of an orchis, to take the example given, were not contrived as a mechanic might contrive an ingenious toy or puzzle. They are the results of those general laws which were co-ordi- nated at the first introduction of life upon the earth. Mr. Wallace's doctrine simply is, that God made a machine, and left it eternally to spin. This was the eighteenth-century idea of the universe, with only this exception, that occasionally the Author interfered to keep it in repair. The Duke of Argyll finds law always present, but only as a servant, never as a master. It is the Creator who works ; but He works by means of law. Gibbon supposed that he was refuting Christianity when he assigned the natural causes by which it gained strength in the world. The whole argument was the assumption that God never works by means, that He is absent from the universe, and that natural agencies are really without God in the world. The Duke of Ai-gyll's doctrine deserves more atten- tion than it has yet received. It is pregnant with more meaning than the distinguished nobleman is probably himself aware of. It is clear and definite, but scarcely new. It is to be found in the sermons of the most thoughtful, we may say philosophical, preacher that ever adorned the Church of Scotland. Dr. Caird says : — 70 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ' A humau rueclianist may leave the machine he has constructed to work, without his further personal superintendence, because, when he leaves it, God's laws take it up ; and by their aid, the materials of which the machine is made retain their solidity — the steel continues elastic, the vapour keeps its expansive power. But when God has constructed llh machine of the universe. He cannot BO leave it, or any the minutest part of it, in its immensity and intricacy of movement, to itself; for if He retire, there is no second God to take care of this machine. Not from a single atom of matter can He who made it for a moment withdraw His superin- tendence and support ; each successive moment, all over the world, the act of creation must be repeated.' The Deity must be present, and vnth His latvs. There is something to think about here. Is not the omnipresence of God enough without His laws ? Or, to put the question in another form, are His laws any- thing else but the mode of His working? Our great difficulty in approaching this question is to banish from our minds the human conceptions which steal in with the analogies. When we speak of laws, a machine and a machine-maker, and aj)ply these ideas to God and the universe, we often forget that we are using metaphors. A man is distinct from the machine he makes, and the laws to which he commits it are laws external to himself. But the Omnipresent can never be absent from the universe. He must be in some way identical with His laws ; His working must in some way be immediate working — even when it is mediate. Were we to say that nature is God, the saying would be false ; for it would mean that God is not greater than nature. In another sense it would be true ; for the most manifest thing in nature is the presence of God. The Duke of Argyll gives five definitions of ' law.' The first is that it is ' simply NA TURE-DEVEL OPMENT AND THEOL OGY. 7 1 an observed order of facts.' This appears to us the most accurate of all the definitions of law when applied to the natural world. The other forms are really nothing more than observations in detail of par- ticular parts of this ' observed order.' A law of nature simply means a certain order given in human experience. We are, then, quit of law in every human sense, and are alone with God only, and the mode of His working. We cease to be troubled about Hume's doctrine, that we know notliing of physical causation but the sequence of phenomena. The efficient cause is God. Here, too, we meet Mr. Huxley, who accepts this definition of law, and free- ing himself from every possibility of being charged henceforth with materialism, avows that we know as little of ' matter ' as we do of ' spirit.' The plain conclusion is, that the first and most certain existence in the world is the existence of the Divine Mind. The doctrine of ' fiats,' or Divine ' interferences,' which were once regarded as the sole evidence of Theism, has disappeared from the pages of the Duke of Argyll, Mr. Huxley, Mr. Martineau, and, indeed, of almost every eminent writer on these subjects whose name we can recall. The continuity of nature's work is supposed to speak more of God than a sudden break. It is regarded, too, as a matter of fact, that no ' breaks ' have existed, that nature has kept the even tenor of her way, making no pauses, but by in- cessant and progressive working has woven the vast web of creation. Yet the doctrine of ' interferences,' whether true or not, had a meaning in the wants and cravings of the human mind. While the machine 72 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of the universe was regarded as a work left to itself, men thirsted after the living God. If He could not be found in the daily upholding of the universe He must be expected at intervals interfering with the ordinary working. It was on this principle that miracles spoke more of God than the order of nature. Thus, while the universe was regarded as a machine, the existence of miracles was declared impossible by those who denied the ' interferences.' T^ow, as the Duke of Argyll remarks, it is admitted on all sides that the question of miracles depends entirely on the evidence. This craving for ' interferences,' or, what is the same thing, this belief in ' interferences,' has possessed the human mind in every age, and under many forms. It was perhaps inevitable to those who could not realise the presence of Deity in the world of nature and providence. But religious beliefs can- not always be reduced to logical consistency. Even those who saw the ' Great First Cause ' in the 'secondary causes,' were not satisfied unless the Deity worked also without secondary causes. And though the world was governed and their prayers answered mediately, they would have called it Atheism to say that God never works but according to the order of nature. This had its root in that craving for absolute certainty which seems to be an original element in the sentiment of religion. It is really a part of the question of miracles, and must end in the simple inquiry of the amount of certainty which is within the reach of man. Supposing the doctrine of development were true, it Avould give a hint towards the settling of another NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 73 question which has been long agitated among theolo- gians. This regards the mode of the Divine working in revelation. Has there heen progression there too, or has revelation come only by ' interferences ? ' And with this opens up a wider question, if it has come by ' interferences ' at all. In the latter case, if it has not, and we retain the idea of the universe as something apart from God, we fall into simple Deism. If we retain the idea which we have already reached, that the existence and presence of God are more certain than the existence and presence of the universe, we get a new glimpse of revelation, and with it a light which would dissipate many diffi- culties. We must, however, take care lest analogies mislead us. There is an a lyriori probability that the Divine working in the education of the human race will correspond to the order of the Divine worldng in nature. At the same time, there is something in the idea of revelation which suggests speciality. We cannot prosecute this subject further. There is a cor- respondence of difficulties between development in nature and in revelation. Mr. Darwin finds his new species in nature, but he only guesses at the mode of their introduction. We find higher waves of truth thrown ujd at different ages of the world, but the fact that they have come is more obvious than how they have come. If space permitted, we might draw some more lessons from the theory of Development. One which, however, is really independent of the theory, though not of the facts on which the theory is built, should not be omitted. If there is anything which Mr. 74 CONTEMPORARF ESSAYS. Darwin has certainly proved, it is that qualities acquii'ed by individuals are inherited by their de- scendants. Habits which are a second nature to those by whom they are first learned, are natural to their children. This seems true of all properties, whether physical, mental, or moral. The dog imparts its fidelity to its progeny. Ducks that have become weak of wing and strong of limb by domestication hatch ducklings with the same properties. What men teach animals they transmit to their descendants. How evident is it in human life that evil descends ; and good, too, with many apparent, we dare not say real, exceptions, goes down from father to son. If example be good, it will have its influence ; but there is a proverbial saying, verified by Mr. Darwin's philosophy, that good or evil runs in the blood. There is yet another question which concerns the whole relation of natural knowledge to religious faith. This is independent of ]\ii*. Darwin's theory being- true or false. It belongs to the higher generalisation which includes all special inquiries. It is not pro- perly the question of science and Christianity, but rather if science is in any w^ay to determine, or even influence, our views of Chi-istianity. The student of Nature has rightly claimed that he shall be free to follow whatever truth his method reveals. "We are not disposed to complain of Mr. Huxley devoting himself exclusively to one fleld, nor even of the dis- cij)le of Comte for saying that we know phenomena, and nothing but phenomena. It is true in an obvious sense that there is a kind of knowledge acquired here which cannot be otherwise attained, and that NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 75 there is a method available here which is not available elsewhere. What we comjjlain of is the implication sometimes made that this method reveals all that is really knowable by man. Lord Bacon made a com- promise between science and religion, relegating the one to the province of knowledge, and the other to that of faith, forbidding them to meet or to influence each other. The same separation was made by the late Baden Powell, and the result which he every- where offers is that in science we have real know- ledge, that here we proceed on rational principles, but in religion we have to depend on some vague thing called '• faith.' We have no reason to doubt the reli- gious sincerity either of Lord Bacon or of Baden Powell; yet they were subjected to the charge of irreligioTL — unjustly, indeed, yet not unreasonably. If our faith in Christianity is not founded on some principles of reason, it is a thing of too little value to be worth contending for. When Baden Powell rele- gates us to ' faith ' for our grounds of religious con- viction, ' we certainly feel,' Mr. Martineau says, ' that the door is rather rudely slammed in the face of the inquiry, and that we are turned out of the select society of philosophers who know, to take our place with the plebs who believe.' It is not to be denied that there is a true distinction between faith and knowledge. It has been made familiar in the words of Tennyson : — ' We have but faith, we do not know, For knowledge is of things we see.' Yet this faith is mainly founded on knowledge : it is strengthened and regulated by what we know ; and 76 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. knowledge, even natural knowledge, is itself founded on ' faith ' — it has to assume postulates. A man can- not believe contrary to what he knows. Between science and religion there may be a border-land, unre- claimed, but not irreclaimable : a final or absolute seiDaration is impossible. Whatever Christianity may be in itself, it must present itself differently to dif- ferent minds, countries, or ages of the world, and the highest evidence of its Divine origin will be that as ages advance in knowledge and things now secret be- come revealed, it will continue to be acknowledged divine. Frohschammer is one of the three Munich profes- sors who have distinguished themselves by their opposition to the proceedings of the Council now sitting at Eome. The other two are Dollinger and Huber. His book treats of the whole question of science and Christianity, but the greater part of it concerns Mr. Darwin's doctrine. This, indeed, is viewed as only a hypothesis ; but the facts on which it rests are regarded of as much theological signifi- cance as if the hypothesis itself were established. It is admitted that science and the Bible are not in har- mony on such questions as creation, the origin of man, and the relation of man to the lower animals. It is maintained that the Bible must be interpreted by what science teaches ; and if so with the Bible, much more with the dogmatic teaching of the Church. Christianity is considered as subject to laws of de- velopment like to those which we see in the natural world: The spu'it of it remains, but the form is ever changing. It is not remarkable that some of Froh- NATURE-DEVELOPMENT AND THEOLOGY. 77 schammer's books have been put into the ' Index.' His interpretation of what are usually reckoned the chief doctrines of Christianity would scarcely be tolerated by any sect in England. If he is an ordinary speci- men of the Eoman Catholic Broad Churchman it was quite time that the Poj)e assembled his ' (Ecumenical.' The modern science and civilisation which Dr. Man- ning denounces as the childi-en of darkness and the devil, are the day-spring from on high to the Catholic Professor of Munich. III. BROAD CHUECH CATHOLICS.* THE clay is probably far off when language will cease to be conventional. Until that time comes we must be content to struggle with the imperfection of the signs which represent our ideas. The words Broad Church Catholic seem a redundant tautology. Does not Catholic mean universal, all-embracing? Is it not another word for liberal or comprehensive, im- plying greatness of heart and soul, wide and far- reaching sympathy ? Whatever may have been the original signification of the word, it is certain that those who are most eager to be called Catholics, are usually understood to have least of the spirit of true Catholicity. They start with a claim to some peculiar possession which is supposed to give them a right to be exclusive. Hence the fact daily to be seen, at least in England, and which put into language seems a paradox, that those who call themselves * Contemporary Review, June, 1870. Kirche und Kirchen, PapsUhiim und Kirchenslaat. Von J. J. loir. Dollinger. Munchen, 1861. Der Papst und das Condi. Von Janus. Leipzig, 1869. Die wahren Bindernisse und die Grundbedingung en einer durcJigrei/enden Heform der Jcatholis- chen Kirche, zundchst in Dentscldand eriilert. Von Dr. A. Pichleu. Leipzig, 1870. Dffs Christ enthitm und die moderne NahirvAssenschnft. Vox. J. Frohschammeb. Wien. 1868. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 79 Catholics are the most sectarian, while some of the smallest sectaries are, in spirit, most truly Catholic. This paradox is due to the many conventional meanings of the word. The Eoman Catholic limits it to those of his own communion. The High Angli- can includes himself, the Greek Church, and as many other Churches as can boast a succession of bishoj)s duly consecrated. The Church of England, in the only description which it ever gives of the C'hurch Catholic, includes ' all who profess and call themselves Chi-istians.' To this definition nearly all Protestant sects agree. The Church C-atholic is regarded as the whole house of God throughout the world, with all its varieties of thought and language, with all the modifications of time and place and circumstance, with various degrees of perfection and imperfection, sepa- rated into sects and nations, but united before God and one in the name of Christ. Some go beyond this and include the world as potentially the Church. The world is the Church in virtue of the fatherhood of God, and Catholic because of the brotherhood of man. It would make too long a digression to enter into the history of the word Catholic. It was claimed by all sects in the first centuries of Christianity. Each boasted that it was the Catholic Church. St. Augus- tine was asked by the Donatists to define Catholic. He answered that it meant ' over all.' It is the title of that Church ' which is diffused throughout the world, is foimd in all lands, and is everywhere known as the Catholic Church.' It was objected that a part of the world was pagan, another part heretical, how, then, could the Church be ' over all ? ' Augustine 8o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. answers that the promise was made to Abraham, — ' In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed ; ' and, again, that it is written in the Psalms concerning the Messiah, — ' He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the end of the earth.' To make his argument good, Augustine added, — '• Surely the promises of God cannot fail.' The ' Orbis terrarum,' or Eoman world, was supposed by Augustine to em- brace all the inhabitants of the earth. They had been outwardly converted to Christianity. They were included in one empire, and the Church of the empire was, in idea, at least, the Church of the whole world. But the Donatists, like most heretics, were rather shrewd people. They hinted to Augustine that there might be nations on the other side of the world. Augustine answered that that could not be, for there was a great sea between us and the other side of the world, and it was impossible that any of the children of Adam could ever have crossed that sea. The Catholic Church had dominion over the whole world. It was to repress heresy and schism. It was Sarah the lawful wife, while the Donatists were Hagar, who was to be chastised till she returned to her mistress. The property of the Donatists was to be taken from them in virtue of the promise that the Messiah was to reign from the river to the end of the earth. St. Augustine's idea of the Catholic Church is the one which we usually associate with the Church of Borne. If, then, to ^ Catholic ' in this sense, we add ' Broad Church,' we make no tautology. We only try to express Avliat we mean. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 8i It is always with a singular interest tliat English- men think of Germany. No two nations, if we may speak of the Germans as a nation, are more conscious of brotherhood. They understand each other. They have been mutually indebted to each other, and both of them gratefully acknowledge their debts. jN'o educated German is ignorant of English literature, and now happily in England the capacity to read German is part of the education of every well- educated man or woman. Sprung from the old Teutones, kindred in blood and thought and language, there are many tilings which unite the two races. But there is one supreme over all. That one is reli- gion. Germany was the cradle of the Eeformation. The Germans are Protestants. So are we. The name of Luther is a household word in England. We pronounce it with feelings of reverence aldn to worship. We have said that the Germans are Protestants, but this statement needs qualification. In number, not more than half the people are Protestants. That half is confessedly the higher, the better educated, the more influential. It is among the Protestants that the German spirit has had its best and highest incarnations. Our interest in Protestant Germany makes us almost forget that there is a Catholic Ger- many. This forgetfulness, however, will be remedied as we become familiar with the names of Dollinger, Huber, and Erohschammer — remedied, too, by the memory of recent vigorous protests of German arch- bishops, bishops, and cardinals, against what is properly and strictly Komanism. Eauscher and G 82 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Schwartzenberg, Hefele and Strossmayer, are already heroes with the English public* For some time after the Eeformation the Catholics of Germany were zealous opponents of the Eeformed religion. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, according to their own historians, they did but little for the Catholic cause, and still less for literature. Their prelates were princes, and the character of the ecclesiastic was frequently merged in that of the statesman. Any signs of life which their theologians manifested were in the direction of dis- obedience to the Eoman See. Those who were most anxious for the conversion of Protestants regarded the authority claimed by Eome as a hindrance to the desired unity of the Christian world. In 17C3, John Nicholas von Hontheim, Suffragan-Bishop to the Elector of Treves, published a book under the name of Febronius, in which he maintained that the supremacy was conferred on the Eoman Pontiffs by the Church, and not by Christ. He denied that the Pope had any proper jurisdiction or authority over all Churches, or that his laws had any binding force except through '• the unanimous adhesion of all bishops.' This work was condemned at Eome, but the doctrine of Febronius was generally received in the theological schools of Catholic Germany. The reforms of the Emperor Josej)h were all in the direction of securing the independence of the German Catholics. A check was given to the jurisdiction which the Papal nuncios had long exercised in Ger- many. The emperor, with the bishops, took the government of the Church into their own hands. In * Since this was -written the first three have submitted to the new dogma. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 83 1786 the ecclesiastical Electors of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, with the Archbishop of Salzburg, met at Ems, and framed the articles known as the ' Twenty-six Points of Ems.' In these it was denied that the Eoman See had any right to jurisdiction in Germany. The ' Twenty-six Points ' were not re- ceived by the other prelates, and under the influence of external pressui'e they were revoked next year by theii* authors. In 1814, after the general peace, the German governments negotiated with Eome for new ecclesiastical organizations. Eoman Catholic wi'iters complain that the stipulations of the Concordats then made have never been honestly fulfilled. The prelates have supported the princes in giving less allegiance to Eome than was promised. The principles of Febronius appeared in an intensified form in a party known as 'Liberals,' or 'Anti-Celibates,' who advo- cated a German National Church, a German litm-gy, the sacraments administered in German, and the abolition of clerical celibacy. Another party, called ' Hermesians,' were kindred to the Liberals. They took their name from Dr. Hermes, a Catholic pro- fessor at Bonn, who thought that by adopting Luther's doctrine of private judgment, he would be able to overthrow Luther's theology. Count von Spiegel, Archbishop of Cologne, with many of the clergy of Westphalia and the Ehine provinces, were numbered among the Hermesians. Both these parties as such have disappeared, and it is only within the last thirty years that the genuine Eoman Catholic could look with any approach to satisfaction on the Catholicism of the Catholics of Germany. g2 84 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. The first theologian of Catholic Germany whose name became familiar to Englishmen was Moliler. Through him we learned something of Diepenbrock, Sailer, and other great prelates, who faii-ly represented the better side of the German Catholics. In Mohler there was something of what we see in our own Newman — a rational theology conjoined somewhat incongruously with a belief in infallibility. Mohler had been brought up a Catholic, but it was only Germany that could have produced such a Catholic. Protestantism helped to make him. In his first curacies of Walderstadt and Eeidlingen he was reckoned a Eationalist. But this did not raise against him the persecution which it would have raised against a yoimg Eationalistic curate in our Protestant Church of England. ' It is allowable,' said an old priest, in the spirit of the truest Catholicism, 'for such a learned young man to belieye a little differently from us old men.' A few years later Mohler receded from Eationalism. And this he owed, not to Catho- lics, but to Planck, the Protestant Professor of Gottingen. The cure which Planck recommended was effectual. It was the study of the ancient Fathers. The spirit of reason, however, remained. It was fettered, but not dead. Mohler, like T^ewman, was a great master of dialect. Like Newman, too, he appealed to conscience, to reason, and to Scripture ; and, like Newman, the force of his argument lay in giving a new colouring to Eoman Catholic theology. Baur, one of Mohler's ablest opponents, seized the ver- tebrae of the controversy when he told Mohler that he had not fairly stat-ed the doctrine of his own Church. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 85 Mohler was a great man, and great things were expected from liim ; but he passed away when he had scarcely reached the meridian of life. Then we became familiar with Dollinger, who is now the acknowledged intellectual leader of the Catholics of Germany. Several of DoUinger's works are trans- lated into English, and are extensively read. There is probably no living German author so well known and so highly esteemed by English Protestants. We envy the German people, who, as Protestants and Catholics, can live together in peace, and discuss the questions on which they differ with mutual patience and forbearance. Catholicism, we use the term con- ventionally, is never presented to us with that tone of impartiality which is manifest in Mohler and Dollinger. In England it has so little of what is lovely, that when we hear of 'good' Catholics we think of the old proverb about Nazareth. Its priests, with do^vncast eyes, apparently ashamed to look honest Protestants in the face, steal through our streets, as if conscious of intrusion. Its laity, if we except some old families chiefly in the north of England, are a horde of degraded Irish, multitudes of whom storm the parish clergy in their vestries for charity, volun- teering to change their religion for the smallest coin, but without the most distant intention of doing what they offer to do. The only arguments which we hear in favour of Catholicism are some anathemas against reason, culminating in a demand for submission of body, soul, and spii4t to the See of Eome. To these may be added misrepresentations of Protestants and Protestant teaching in ' Catholic ' reviews and news- 86 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. papers, generally the outcome of that wild exaggera- tion which is natural to the Irish mind. "We grant willingly, on the other hand, that the spirit of the specially Protestant press is ' devilish.' Frederick Eobertson says, in one of his sermons, 'The religious press of this country has a tongue set on fire of hell.' But, vile as some of our Protestant newspapers are, they are more than rivalled in baseness by those Avhich boast themselves Catholic, whether Eoman or ' Anglican.' In the ' Chiu'ch and the Churches ' Dollinger speaks some severe truth concerning the Church of England ; but, taldng this book altogether, the estimate of Pro- testantism is impartial. He tells his bretliren of the Church of Eome that for the sake of theii' own cause they must give up using their pulpits to abuse the Eeformers. He would have, we imagine, but Httle sympathy with a sermon we once heard, which the priest began thus : — ' In the sixteenth century there was a llacliguard in Germany of the name of Luther.' A similar style of speaking of the Eeformers has lately been tried in England by some of our imitation ' Catholic ' Anglicans ; but Dollinger, whose acquaint- ance with the history and literature of the Eeformation is extensive and accurate, admits that the Eeformers did a great work, and that the evils of the Church of Eome were past endurance. Luther made mistakes. Had he lived to renounce them his retractations would have been more numerous than those of St. Augustine. Dollinger says, though not in reference to Luther, ' It is a law as valid for the future as for the past, that in theology we can only through errors attain to truth.' BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 87 DoUinger acknowledges that Protestant Eeformers and Protestant theologians have rendered great ser- vices to Christianity. He believes that four-fifths of our differences are misunderstandings; that when these are removed, and a desii-e for unity is really felt on both sides, then the reunion of Christendom will come. But Dollinger is not unfaithful to his profession as a Catholic. He believes in the infalli- bility of the Church, though not of the Pope. He does not advocate ISTational Churches. The idea of a national Church is to him Pagan. These existed before Christianity, but with Christianity came Catholicity — that is, one Church for all lands. To preserve the unity of the Church, and to keep it independent of secular governments, it must have a spiritual head. The Bishop of Rome has always been this unifying and protecting power. The Papal' See is inextricably interwoven with the being of the Church. Dollinger says that the first mistake of Protestantism is 'the delusion that the Papal See has arrogated to itself a despotic and absolute power, and exercised it when- ever it was not restrained by fear.' ' This delusion,' he adds, ' is generally diffused, especially in Germany and England.' In these countries Protestants really l^elieve that the Pope's power is boimdless, and that individual Churches are defenceless against it.* But so far is this from being true, that the power of the Pope is very limited. Dollinger says it is universally admitted that the Pope cannot dispense with things which are commanded by Divine laws. He quotes and endorses the words of De Maistre, that ' every- thing restrains the Pope — canon laws, national 88 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. customs, monarchs, tribunals, remonstrances, negotia- tions, duty, fear, prudence, and, chief of all, public opinion, the queen of the world.' He quotes, fui'ther, the words of Pius YII. and other Church authorities, denying that any absolute power resides in the Pope. He appeals to the declarations put forth in 1826 by the Galilean and Irish Churches, with the sanction of the Eoman See, which affirmed that the Bishop of Eome had no jurisdiction in things temporal. He adds that in the middle ages ' the laws and rights in religious matters AYcre the same for all. It was every- where taught that not only every bishop, but the Pope himself, must, should he fall into erroneous doctrine, be deposed ; and, in case of his perseverance in error, he must, like every other, be condemned.' Since this was written. Dr. Bollinger has learned that the ' delu- sion ' is not entirely without foundation ; and, should a certain dogma be established by the Council now sitting at Eome, the great German theologian, proud of the name of Catholic, will be in the same condemna- tion with the Protestants of Germany and England. In the work of ' Janus ' we advance some steps beyond Dollinger. The author is generally understood to be Huber, another professor in the University of Munich. Huber's studies hitherto have been mostly in philo- sophy: He has written, besides some smaller papers, a little book, called 'Philosophical Writings;' a treatise on John Scotus Erigena, illustrating the philosophy and theology of the middle ages; and another on 'The Philosophy of the Church Fathers.' The present work might have been written by an English divine of the seventeenth century. The standpoint, in fact. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 89 is substantially the same as would have been taken by Andrewes, Bramhall, Cosin, or any of the defendants of the Catholicity of the Church of England against the accusations of the Church of Eome. ' Janus ' strikes with even a sharper axe, and he has the advantage over them of the criticism of two centuries on dis- puted books and points of history. As a German Catholic, he has lived in the belief that the Church is independent of the Eoman See. Like the other Catho- lics of Germany, he has been indulging in dreams of the reunion of Christendom. But the proposals of the Pope's (Ecumenical have disturbed his repose. There are two great parties in the Eoman Catholic Church, and the first point of their difference concerns the bond which unites them. ' Janus ' speaks of a reactionary movement which has been going on for twenty-five years, and which, by means of the Council, is preparing to take possession of the whole organic life of the Church. This movement is mainly the work of the Jesuits. Their ideal of a Church is a universal spiritual empire, with the secular arm as its servant, to punish heresy and check every kind of opposition. Our ideal of the Church, '• Janus ' says, is separated from this by a great gulf. The Catholic Church is not the Papacy. That is but an excrescence entailing manifold diseases. The Primacy, in the judgment of all Catholics, was founded by Christ, Its type was ordained in the person of Peter. But this Primacy has been corrupted into a Papacy. The history of this transformation, as described by ' Janus ' from its first germs to its present stage before the Eoman C^ouncil, only illustrates the craving of man 90 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. for an absolute authority, with a fixed determination that if such an authority cannot be found it must be invented. We cannot regard the difference between '• Janus ' and ' true Catholics ' as anything else but ' a great gulf.' It is the question of ecclesiastical authority against the Divine government of the world. Benedict XIII. condemned the whole of Christendom when it refused to acknowledge him ; and when deposed by the Council of Constance, he declared from his castle of Peniscola, ' The whole Church is assembled in Peniscola, not in Constance, as once the whole human race was collected in Noah's ark.' To this the disciples of Loyola, 'Janus' says, will bring the Catholic Church, rather than admit the Divine right of reason and conscience. And when the educated classes of Europe are tho- roughly forced out of the Church, then it will be easier to guide the ship, then it will be easier to keep the flock obedient to the shepherds. ' Catho- licism, hitherto regarded as a universal religion, will, by a notable irony of its fate, be transformed into the precise opposite of what its name and notion imports.' This warfare against reason, civilisation, and human liberty, is not imaginary or inferential. It is openly avowed by the Jesuits and the advocates of Papal infallibility. They claim jurisdiction for the Chui'ch not merely over the minds, but over the bodies of men ; a power to inflict bodily chastisement, to impose fasts or fines, to imprison, hang, or burn. ' The Syllabus condemns the whole existing view of the rights of conscience, religious faith, and profession ; it is a wicked error to admit Protestants to equal poll- BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 91 tical rights with Catholics, or to allow Protestant im- migrants the free use of their worship ; on the con- trary, to suppress them is a sacred duty, when it has become possible, as the Jesuit fathers and their adhe- rents teach.' It is admitted that this spirit has been working for centuries in the Church, but it is denied that it is the spirit of the Church, or necessary to the idea of Catholicism. The peace of Westphalia was condemned by Pope Innocent X. because it secured to Protestants the free exercise of their religion and their admission to civil offices. Dollinger, in his zeal for reconciliation, ascribes the Pope's disaj)probation of the peace of Westphalia to a clause which imported that every civil government was to enforce its own religion within its own dominions. But though this spirit of Papal supremacy has been working in the Church for ages, it is only in these last days that the ne- cessity Jias arisen for a final effort. The world has been developing independently of the Church. The voice of reason has been speaking in the world's highway. Even Catholics have been judging for themselves. But now, at last, the Pope is to interfere. He is to explain the true idea of a Church ; he is to set aside the old canon of Yincentius Lii'inensis, ' Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.' He is to put an end to all differences about doctrine ; he is to save all men from scepticism, by saving them from inquiry. The Biblical scholars of England and Germany are to be relieved from their arduous labours and their endless perplexities. A telegraph from Eome is to enlighten the world. No matter how ignorant the Pope may be, infallibility will serve for knowledge. In the expressive words of 92 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Erbermann, a Jesuit professor of Mayence, the world henceforth is to be instructed in righteousness ' by the mouth of a speaking ass.' ' Janus ' quotes many cases from history which prove that Popes in past times have not been infallible. Innocent I. and Gelatins I. declared that infants dying without having received the communion 'go straight to hell.' This doctrine was anathematized by the Council of Trent. Leo IX. and Gregory YIL re- ordained priests that had been ordained by simoniacal bishops, in opposition to the constant teaching of the Church, that ordinations are valid whatever be the personal unworthiness of the ordaining bishop. Pope Pelagius declared that the invocation of the Trinity was indispensable to a valid baptism; while Nicholas I. assured the Bulgarians that baptism in the name of Christ was sufficient. Stephen II. allowed marriage with a slave girl to be dissolved, and a new one contracted; whereas all previous Popes had pronounced such marriages indissoluble. Nicholas 11. taught the Capernaic doctrine that Christ's body is sensibly touched by the hands and broken by the teeth in the Eucharist; 'an error,' 'Janus' says, 'rejected by the whole Church.' Pope Innocent maintained that the laws of Deuteronomy were binding on the Church, because that book is the second book of the law, and the Chi'istian Church is the second Church. Pope Sextus V. published an ' authentic ' edition of the Bible, and in a Bull declared it to be the only one which was triie and genuine. It was found to contain two thousand errors. The copies were recalled, and a new and correct edition issued in its place. BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 93 According to the earliest authentic histories, the voice of the Bishop of Eome was not reckoned final. When Pope Stephen pronounced heretics' baptism valid St. Cyprian and Firmilian of Csesarea denied the right of the Pope to dictatfC a doctrine to other bishops and Churches. Augustine, looking back to this con- troversy, says that Stephen's judgment was not received as the decision of the Church. In the Arian dis- putes, the Eoman See was passive for half a centuiy. The first Popes who took a part in them were Julius and Liberius. Julius pronounced Marcellus of Ancyra, the Sabellian, an orthodox Christian ; Liberius con- demned Athanasius, and subscribed to an Arian creed, giving a proof which satisfied all the middle ages that a Pope might fall into heresy. When Jerome declared that the world had become Arian, we might have expected that Catholics would have tui'ned to the Eoman See for deliverance from their perplexities. But we read only of sjTiods. The Pope's name is never mentioned. In these times all dogmatic questions were settled by coimcils, and these were convoked by the emperors, not by the Popes. The beginning of the Papacy is dated from the middle of the ninth century. It was founded on the forged decretals of Isidore, which pretended to be decrees of the earliest Popes, confii-ming the decisions of councils. This idea of a Papacy developed into a belief in infallibility. Isidore makes one of the early Popes say that ' the Eoman Church remains to the end free from all stain of heresy.' Writings, too, were forged in the names of Fathers, and genuine writings were corrupted, to support the pretensions of the 94 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Papacy. St. Augustinej speaking of the canonical books, said that those were pre-eminently attested which the Apostolic Churches had first received and preserved. This passage was changed into ' Those Epistles belong to canonical- writings which the Holy See has issued.' This forgery served Peter Lombard and Gratian, and in later times Cardinals Turrecremata and Cajetan, for certain evidence that the great Bishop of Hippo raised the infallibility of the Holy See above that of the New Testament Ej)istles. Some extended the idea of Papal infallibility to that of Papal sinless- ness. A rightly-appointed Pope was said to be holy, because of the merits of St. Peter imputed to him. But it was found difficult to maintain this in the face of the evil lives of many of the Bishops of Eome. The doctrine of Papal infallibility found ardent sup- porters in the monks, who were independent of the bishops, and whose prerogative rested on Papal autho- rity. It was enforced, too, by the Inquisition, in all countries where that institution was established. Gregory IX. on the strength of the fable of the Donation of Constantine, asserted that the Pope was lord and master over the whole world. Innocent IV. claimed to be supreme ruler of the spiritual and the temporal. St. Paul says, ' The spiritual man judges all things,' which some Popes understand to mean that they are to judge all nations. The Eoman Church became the Eoman Court. Instead of a com- munity of 'clergy and laity bound together by the ties of brotherhood,' it became 'a chancery of writers, notaries, and tax-gatherers, a rallying point for clerical place-hunters from every nation in Europe.' Devoted BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 95 Catholic bishops applied to the Church the same pro- phecies which had been applied to it by the sectaries. It was the venal harlot whose nakedness was to be unco- vered before all men. Even St. Bonaventura, whom the Pope had loaded with honours, and who was bound to Eome by the closest ties, declared the Eoman Church to be the harlot who makes kings and nations drunk with her whoredoms. When Dante called the Papacy Antichrist, and applied to it the Apocalyptic prophecy, it was not from the blindness of Ghibelline party spii'it; he was only expressing the judgment of many earnest Catholics in that age. Dr. Pichler is one of Dollinger's most advanced disciples. He is considerably beyond ' Janus.' Dol- linger] and ' Janus ' take their stand against Papal infallibility on the iiifallibility of General Councils. This, in Pichler's judgment, was the error of the Eeformers. They asked a General Council. Trent came, and they were condemned. Was Trent not (Ecumenical ? Will the Liberal Catholics abide by the anathemas of the Council of Trent ? If they do, what avails it that they reject the infallibility of the Pope ? The Eeformers, indeed, had a plea which modern Catholics have not. The decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basel gave them hoj)e that a General Council would do justice to all sides. The illusion was dispelled by the Council of Trent. If the present Council decrees Papal infallibility, then it must be true, or we have the other alternative — a General Council is not infallible. The true hindrance to the reformation of the Ger- man Catholic Church is, Dr. Pichler says, the influence 96 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of Ultramontanism. What that is may not be easily defined. When it comes in the gross, we can dis- tinctly perceive it, but often it is infinitesimally diluted. Luther described it as that which is opposed to everything ' free, Christian, or German.' It consists of a claim put forth by the Church of Eome — or what, in one sense, is the same thing, the Court of Eome — with various degrees of authority to govern all Churches in all nations. ' Janus ' says that the Papacy is no part of the Church. The ' true Catholics,' as they call themselves, make the Papacy the essence of the Church. Dollinger comes mid-way. He denies Papal infallibility ; but he says that those who do not ac- knowledge the Pope, and receive his Church for their Church, separate themselves fi-om the Church universal. Germany has been for ages in conflict with the spirit of Ultramontanism. ' The divergence between it and the religious earnestness of the German peoj)le, became ever wider and deeper, till it found its strongest personal expression in Luther and Leo X.' After the Eeformation, the Papacy trembled even for the hold which it had upon Catholic Germany. Since this century began, the Jesuits have been hard at work. Twenty or thirty years ago it was expected that the whole of Germany would soon be restored to the Church of Eome. These hopes have not been realised. In the judgment of ' Liberal ' Catholics the Jesuits are hindering rather than furthering the return of Protestants to the Catholic Church. The greatest enemies of the Church of Eome can have no more ardent wish than that the present Council would establish the dogma of Papal infalli- BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 97 bility. This would put the topstone on the Babel of confusion. It would bring definitely before the world what Eoman Catholicism is. Pichler wishes that Pro- testants be told plainly how the Catholic Church re- gards them, and how by its own inherent principles it must regard them. Apologists for Catholicism in Germany show mercy to Protestants ; but it is only in Germany that they are led to hope for mercy. In Italy they are told — as, for instance, by Cardinal Per- rone — that ' the leaders of Protestantism are men who, because of their evil deeds, deserve the gallows,' and that they are ' all, body, soul, and spirit, the property of the devil.' The Church of Eome claims to be the only Chui-ch in which men can be saved. Let it only be known that this is the doctrine of the Church, and ' Liberal ' Catholics will see that their position is no longer tenable. It has been said by Pressense that '• concerning nothing does greater ignorance prevail than concerning Catholicism.' , Pichler finds no hope for the Catholics of Germany but in separation from Eome. They must unite with the Protestants, and set up a ISTational Church. The object of Ultramontanism is to crush that freedom which Catholics already possess. The real conflict is between the divine progress of the world and the authority of Eome. Pichler sees a new era of Chris- tianity dawning before the German mind. It will be an era in which Christianity will acknowledge God in science, in civilisation, and in all the forms of human progress. Between this spirit and that of Eome there is a ' great gulf fixed.' . It is useless to pretend union any longer, or to speak of it as possible. In separation H 98 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. only is their hope. To this, Pichler says, ' Janus ' and the liberal Catholics must come, if not, all they are saying and doing will come to nothing. In Frohschamnier we have an exposition of the Christianity which is henceforth to be preached to the Catholics of Germany. Its fii'st principle is opposition to ecclesiastical authority. All progress is regarded as di\dne. The law of development to which every organism is subject is also the law of States and Churches, which are historical organisms. There is a law of death as well as of life. To it, too. States and Churches are subject ; Christianity, at least in its externals, is not excepted. Times of transition in religious communities from life to death, and death to life, are times of trial, doubt, and difficulty. But, as in nature, the old form dies and the new one takes its place, so in religion the old organizations decay, and newer and higher forms of faith are evolved. It is vain for ecclesiastics to breathe their anathemas and denunciations against modern science, the culture of the age, and the free government of States. This is God's world, and progress is God's order. Too long has the Church been at war with God. Too long have the so-called princes of the Chm-ch persecuted the world's benefactors — the genuine priests of truth. Henceforth Christianity must take account of the world's progress, and acknowledge all that is in itself good. As grace supposes nature and is built upon it, so Christianity supposes science, and must embrace all that science teaches. Most men prefer a positive religion. It is easy ; it saves inquiry and anxiety. But the problems which preseut themselves to us are BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 99 not problems of our making. We did not desire them, and to turn aside and disregard them would be to dis- regard the work which in our day God has given us to do. Frohschammer starts with the familiar question of science and the Bible. The student of nature dwells chiefly on the discrepancies between them, while the theologian is deeply concerned to evince their harmony. But to harmonize the facts of nature with the state- ments of the Bible human ingenuity has laboured, and ever will labour, in vain. Theologians feel the neces- sity of saying, that though the Bible contains a reve- lation, yet there are things recorded in it which are not strictly true. Frohschammer wishes to approach the subject from a philosophical stand-point. He is to- pursue the inquiry in subjection to natural and logical laws. He is to build on axioms that cannot be dis- puted, and to recognise the facts of the natural world. Theologians, he says, usually start from this principle, though without confessing it. They say that between nature and revelation there can be no contradiction ; that nature can teach nothing contrary to what is revealed. But when nature does reveal something diJfferent from what the Bible teaches, theologians say that revelation is more to be trusted than human reason. To this it is answered that the truth of revelation is not so clear and immediate as an axiom or a fact in nature. The natural, or that which we know immediately, must be held as the foundation, and used as the criterion, of truth. A Catholic would add in addition to the Bible the authority of the Church ; but this authority, Frohschammer conceives, h2 100 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. cannot rise higher or be more certain than the revela- tion itself, and must be subjected to the same criterion of natural truth. Without this foundation in natural reason we should be incapable of knowing anything. Whatever contradicts the faculty of knowing cannot be a truth of revelation. The authorities of the Eoman Catholic Church have been compelled to act on this principle. They now admit the truth of the Copernican system, belief in which was once damnable heresy. Christianity has nothing to fear from science. Its essence as taught by Jesus remains the same, and as natural knowledge advances its divine origin will become more evident. The first science which came in conflict A^ith Church theology and Church authority, was the science of astronomy. Christ Himself taught nothing concerning the heavenly bodies. Eeligious and ethical doctrines are not inseparably connected with any natural sciences. Christ spoke of nature as it appeared to the people who were His hearers. But the system of theology which grew up in the Church incorporated the Ptolemaic astronomy. The earth was supposed to be the centre around which the sun, moon, and stars revolved. This seemed to correspond with the Mosaic account of the creation, and with the sun standing still on Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. It became connected with a theory of inspiration which regarded the letter of the Bible as inspired. For centuries theological writers followed this belief till the Church consciousness and Western science seemed to have been united for ever. Other things helped to confirm this view of the universe. The BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. loi doctrine of the Incarnation — that God became man, and died for the redemj^tion of man — seemed to de- mand that the earth be the great centre of creation, and not a mere speck in the immeasurable universe. The Biblical accounts of heaven and hell, with the C'hurch doctrine of angels, and Aristotle's doctrine of spii'its guiding the stars, were all in harmony with the system of Ptolemy. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Copernicus published his six books concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. The sun no more went round the earth. It was discovered that the earth was but a planet — one of an innumerable multitude that tra- velled through boundless space. The meaning of many texts of Scripture now became doubtful, and many dogmas of the Church untenable. Even the doctrine of the Incarnation seemed to vanish. Heaven could no longer be regarded as above us, nor hell as beneath us. The very existence of Christianity seemed to be in danger. Catholics and Protestants united to defend the system of Ptolemy. The doctrine of Coper- nicus was said to be contrary to Scripture, to the voice of the Church, and to Catholic antiquity. In 1616, the works of Copernicus were put into the '■ Index ' as destructive of ' Catholic truth.' The Eoman Curia and the Inquisition evinced the strength of their con- victions in the persecution of all who taught the doctrine of Copernicus. It was not until 1835, when the works of Copernicus were taken out of the Index, that Eome ceased to maintain, in spite of astronomy, that the sun went round the earth. This late acknowledgment of the truth of the system of Coper- 102 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. nicus is a confession, even on the part of the Church of Eome, that ecclesiastical authority must yield to the truths of reason. Science must be free ; it can not give up what it knows to be true because of anything in the Bible, or supposed to be in the Bible. It was well that astronomy was a definite science. When it came in conflict with Church authority and the old doctrine of Bible inspiration, there was no question which side had to yield. Astronomy has vindicated the cause of freedom for all science. It is vain, there- fore, for the Pope to send forth his briefs, as he did so late as December, 1863, forbidding the faithful to receive the conclusions of scientific men, and com- manding them to abide by the decrees of Popes and Councils ; yea, even the decisions of the Congregation of the Index. Frohschammer maintains that the substance of Christianity was not touched by the system of Coper- nicus, but rather Christianity by the new science received a deeper meaning. Men learned to see God in the order of nature. They ceased to look for Him, as the Pagans did, merely in the extraordinary and the mii'aculous. Lalande said that he had searched the whole heavens and had found no God. That is, Frohschammer says, no God according to the popular and in some respects heathen idea : no God working by miracles and interferences, but a God working by law and reason, and everywhere by His works mani- festing Himself to the mind of man. There we see Him as a bountiful Father, as spirit and love, as the omnipresent and all wise. Aristotle's argument for the existence of Deity, which postulates a first mover, BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 103 may not now have the force which it once had, but the principle is still valid. The argument receives another application when not a first mover, but an incessant worker is demanded for the necessities of creation. The scientific question of the present day, with which theology is most concerned, is that of develop- ment in nature. Mr. Darwin's doctrine may not be proved. The origin of man may still be regarded as a mystery. But it is impossible now to receive the Mosaic accounts as more than the popular ideas of the time when they were wi'itten. They are as much con- trary to the ascertained facts of nature as the Mosaic astronomy to the system of Copernicus. The Bible represents creation as produced at once, and every- thing perfect as soon as it appeared. All was ' good,' that is, free from imperfection, suffering, or pain. The world was paradisiacal. Science, on the contrary, demonstrates that nothing was perfect at its first crea- tion. From the very beginning of creation all living organisms have been subject to disease and death. Perfection lies in the future, not in the past. The ideal of creation was perfect from the first, but the realisation of the ideal is to come. The Mosaic accounts of the creation of Adam and Eve, their innocency and their fall, are not regarded as credible in the light of known natural facts. The doctrine of original sin, which the Church elaborated out of the fall, is without any good foundation. In the interests of a speculative theology St. Paul spoke of sin enter- ing by one man. The human consciousness of guilt, and the sense of Divine forgiveness, are the essential 104 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. truths of the speculative doctrines of original sin and redemption by a j^rice. The Book of Job, which confessedly has for solution the problem of the exist- ence of evil, does not refer to the record in Genesis, which, if meant for what it is understood to be, would have settled the question at once. There is not a word of birth-sin. The whole argument is resolved into the power and wisdom of God. The principle is distinctly renounced in this book that physical suffering is a punishment for moral evil. It was renounced, too, by Christ Himself, when He said that neither ' this man nor his parents have sinned that he was born blind.' This mode of viewing Christianity is not new to those who are familiar with German theology. To those who meet it for the first time it seems to de- prive them of all certainty about religion. At this point its advocates are prepared with an answer, and one which deserves all attention, for it is, in reality, the foundation principle where the difference begins. "We supj)ose an infallible Church or an infallible book, a miracle or some immediate interference of Deity, which gives us certainty beyond what is given in the order of nature. The answer is, that no such cer- tainty exists for us. Like everything around us we are being developed. God is teaching us, but teach- ing us in His own way. Shall we go on inventing schemes of revelation, or shall we be content to learn of God as He chooses to reveal Himself? In one place Frohschammer says that Christ did not establish a Church with an external organization after the pattern of Judaism. lie did not give a system of BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 105 doctrines, ceremonies, and prescriptions. He simply- asked a free, child-like disposition towards God, and a practical love to man. Frohschammer, we believe, is still a Catholic, nor do we know that he intends leaving the communion of the Church of Eome.* He professes to take a middle course between Protestantism and Eomanism proper. He wishes to stand on the same platform as Dollinger, in union with Eome, but independent of Eome. He has been denounced by the Ciu^ia, in- dexed by the Congregation, and removed from the office of university preacher. We have read, too, that Catholic students are forbidden to attend his lectures. In the Church of England Broad Church- men have difficulties ; and on this very question they are divided whether they ought to separate or to continue under the old creeds. The Vice-Master of Trinity wishes to resign his orders, if it could be done, rather than subscribe, in the sense of a very modified subscription, to the Thirty-nine Articles of Eeligion. How would he writhe, if to Professor Frohschammer' s advanced theology, he had to add the decisons of the Council of Trent ? We dare not judge for others, but there is much to be said in favour of keeping to the old building, and submitting to conditions which are inevitable. The old leaves may be allowed to hang. They will fall freely when the new ones begin to appear. The old walls may be allowed to stand till the' stones are prepared for the glorious temple that is to arise. * He was excomniunicatcd in 1861, but has never formally withdmwn from tlie Catholic Church.— X. 1 06 CONTEMPORARY ESSA VS. But the practical and immediate question is the tenableness of the position which Liberal Catholics are now occupying. It is said that Eome never changes, hut it is true that the policy of Eome is not always the same. The Pope was willing to sanction the English service, as it stood in the time of Eliza- beth, on condition of submission to the Eoman See. But in the time of Edward, by the Bull of Pius III., all England was excommunicated — Protestants and Catholics alike. The Catholics of that time wished to retain the same relation to Eome as Dollinger now advocates. They believed in the Pope's doctrines. They wished to be in union with the Eoman See. They acknowledged the Papal Primacy, though they took the oath of the roj^al supremacy. The Eeformers adopted the Thirty-nine Articles, which taught the Swiss theology ; but it is only trifling with words to say that this theology is not Catholic. It was the theology of St. Augustine, the most Catholic of all the fathers, whose name alone had greater weight than all antiquity. Like Luther and Savonarola, all our Eeformers were willing to abide by the decisions of a General Council. But when Trent came the Eeformed Churches were excluded. Bishop Jewel complains bitterly that they were condemned without being heard. This was manifestly unfaii', for it is admitted on all hands that the need of reformation was urgent. The Eeformers had been rectifying evils in their own National Churches, and ought not, on that account, to have been excluded from a General Council of the whole "Western Church, But to us Pichler"'s argument, that General C^ouncils are BROAD CHURCH CATHOLICS. 107 fallible, is invincible. If not, we ongbt to accept the decisions of Trent, and, if the present Council decrees it, the infallibility of the Pope. We seem to recognise a difference between Bol- linger's position and that of ' Janus.' The latter denies the Papal supremacy though admitting the Primacy.* He maintains that IN'ational Churches may be members of the Church Catholic though owning no allegiance to the See of Eome. This was the position of English High Churchmen in the time of the Stuarts. It is still the position of our ' Catholic' Anglicans. Like 'Janus' they suppose the Church infallible, and like him they rest on the Divine right of Episcopacy. The Pope re- fuses to acknowledge this position as Catholic, even though like our advanced Eitualists they receive most of the doctrines of the Church of Eome. Put is it tenable in itself? Does not the infallibility of the Church, in the sense necessary to the argument, dis- prove itself? To say nothing of the uncertainty of docrine, can we suppose the Church to have been infal- libly guided by the Holy Spirit when the clergy as a body were notoriously immoral in their lives ? ' Janus ' says that though at the j)resent time in Germany the majority of the priests are above suspicion, yet before the Eeformation there was not more than one in thirty who even professed ordinary morality. And as to Episcopacy, are not the arguments as strong for the Divine right of the Pope as for the Divine right of the bishops? This subject has been discussed exhaustively in England, where the Divine right of * It is now generally understood that DoUinger is ' Janus.' He employed Huber and others to collect materials, but he is himself the real author. io8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. 11 bisliop is in the last stage of infirmity. Moreover, Episcopacy is not sufficient to secure the unity of the Church. There are bishops against bishoj)S, and epis- copal churches against episcopal churches. The Dona- tists of Africa had more bishoj)s than the orthodox. It scarcely seems possible for the controversy with Eome to enter upon another phase. It has already passed through almost every conceivable form. The most characteristic part of the present oj)position to Eome is the theological as represented by Frohscham- mer. The Eeformers of the sixteenth century ap- pealed to the infallible Bible against an infallible Church. It was a great reformation to go back to the original documents of Christianity. But it is not to be expected that the men of the nineteenth cen- tuiy can see everything with the same eyes as the men of the sixteenth. We are carried onward by the stream of progress whether we will it or not. English Protestants may not agree with all that German theologians have to say. But they cannot be unconcerned spectators in the present conflict between Germany and Eome. It is truly a battle for * Science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.' ' The combat deepens.' In the words of our poet we say:-- ' On ye brave ! Wave, IMimich, all thy banners wave ! And charge with all thy chivalry ! ' lY. DE. PUSEY AND THE ULTEAMONTANES.* THE peace between Eomo and England is not yet concluded. Earnest, simple-hearted Dr. Pusey continues his ' Eirenicon.' He speaks of peace, and he is answered, — What hast thou to do with peace ? His words, they say, are very swords. The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. Dr. Pusey is regarded by Eoman Catholics as a Jehu at the gate of Jezreel, a Zimri who slew his master ; yea, he has even been called an incarnation of the arch- fiend who has taken upon him the office of the accuser who accuses the brethren day and night. Jesus said, ' Blessed are the peace-makers ; ' but Eome's blessing is ' anathema sit.' * Contemporary Eeview, July, 1870. First Letter to the Very Eev. J. H. Neivman, D.D. By the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. James Parker & Co. 1869. 7s Healthful Beunion Impossible f A Second Letter to the Very Rev. J. H. Ne'wmiin D.D. By the Rev. E. B Pu.sey, D.D. James Parker & Co. 18?0. Tilt Reunion of Christendom. By Henry Edwakd, Archbishop of "Westminster. Long- mans, Green, & Co. 1866. Essays on the Reunion of Christendom. With an Introductory Essay by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. J. T. Hayes. 1867. A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on his recent Eirenicon. By John Henbt Newman, D.D. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1866. Peace Through the Truth. By the Rev. T. Harper, S.J. Long-mans, Green, & Co. 1866. if Mouvement Catholiiiue dans I' Anglicanism e. — Rtvue du Monde Catholi^ue. Fevrier et Mars. 1866. no CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Dr. Piisey, however, is undaunted. To use his own words, he is not to be ' discouraged by censures, disheartened by mistakes, sickened by the supercilious tone of -some in high station, or cowed by rebuffs.' There is such a thing as faith, and men whose con- victions are firm, and who act upon them, certainly do great things in this world. Faith ' laughs at impos- sibilities.' The greatest revolutions that have taken place among men have been brought about by faith. It is not necessary to suppose anything supernatural in this, for faith leads to action, energy, and sacrifice. But, whether Dr. Pusey succeeds or fails, the movement in which he has borne so conspicuous a part will ever be regarded as one of the greatest events in the history of Christianity. The multitude of men may despise it. They may laugh at the cer- tainly ludicrous imitation of Catholicism to which it has given rise. Sorrow and anger may alternate in their breasts, as they seem to be deprived of the Protestant heritage of their forefathers, won for them at the stake and the scaffold. But even granting that all this is just, yet the ' Catholic revival ' is a great event in the religious history, not merely of England, but of the world. It has pressed the demand for an answer to two urgent questions, which, strange as it may appear, have never yet been fully answered, — ^What is Protestantism ? and. What is Catholicism ? The reunion question is the most recent phase of '■ Anglo-Catholicism.' We can scarcely be wrong in saying that Dr. Pusey's ' Eirenicon ' is founded on Tract XC, written by Dr. Newman, who soon after found himself at rest in the Church of Eome. Dr. DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. iii Newman had been led to embrace some doctrines that had been rejected by the Eeformers of the Chui'ch of England. He -was anxious to reconcile these doctrines with the formularies of the Church of which he was a minister. The Prayer-Book, from its very nature, was found not to have many difficulties ; but the Thirty- nine Ai'ticles, which defined the doctrines of the Church, were seriously in the way. They were, in a great measure, taken from the confessions of the Eeformed Churches abroad. The men who compiled them were known to have had intimate relations with the Eeformers of these Churches. The Articles them- selves abounded in negative propositions, and these were almost entii'ely aimed at what was understood to be the doctrine of the Chui'ch of Eome. Yea, even the affirmative parts were mostly counter-statements of what was called Eoman teaching. At fii'st sight the Articles appeared to be, what the Eeformers really intended them to be, a moat and a fortification to defend the Church of England in prospect of the Eoman enemy. But Dr. Newman had an intellect of marvellous ingenuity, yet, so far as intention went, perfectly honest. He could not ignore the fact that the Articles were Protestant — the product of a Pro- testant age ; > but he thought that a ' Catholic ' mean- ing might be put upon them, so that they might be subscribed by those who believed the contrary of what the compilers intended. It was admitted that they condemned, not merely the dominant errors of the time when they were wi'itten, but also the 'authoritative teaching of the Church of Eome.' They were, however, supposed to be compatible with 1 1 2 CONTEMPORARY ESS A FS. what was called ' Catholic ' or ' primitive truth.' Dr. Newman was at last convinced that they were not. The result is known. Dr. Pusey, while admitting that he does not take the Articles in the sense of those who wrote them, yet maintains that, without violence to their literal and grammatical meaning, they may be interpreted so as to agree with the decrees of the Council of Trent. Here then is a basis for reunion, founded on the creeds of the two Churches. Of course the Tridentine creed has also to be exjjlained. But in the natural uncertainty of human words, and the remark- able uncertainty of what is Eoman Catholic doctrine, it is even easier to find a serviceable interpretation of the decrees of Trent than of the English Articles. At the Eeformation the greatest doctrinal question between the Eeformcrs and the Church of Eome concerned the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Arch- bishop Cranmer said that it was with this sacrament that '■ the devil had craftily juggled.' The Church of Eome taught that, by an act of omnipotence greater than the act of creation, by means of the blessing of the priest, the bread and wine were changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. This was, and is, the central doctrine of the Eoman system. It is called Tran- substantiation. Ai'ticle XXYIII. of the Church of England says that it ' cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scrip- ture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.' Here, surely, is a sufficiently distinct renunciation of the Eoman doctrine. But it happens that substance is DR. PUS EY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 113 just' one of the things of which we know nothing. We only know accidents or qualities. The under- lying essence or substratum cannot be defined. In fact, its existence, apart from these accidents, cannot be demonstrated. What is the meaning then of a change of substance ? Is it a change of accidents, or of this unknown quantity? The authorised Eoman teaching is, that the substance is changed, while the accidents remain. The body and blood of Christ exist under the species of bread and wine. But there was also a popular doctrine, or ' dominant "error,' that Christ's body with its accidents was present, and that it was eaten as the men of Capernaum understood the discourse about eating His flesh. The Article is evi- dently directed against the authorised doctrine, and a fortiori 2i^^ms,t the ' dominant error.' But then the change is an unknown change of something unknown. Perhaps the matter or vKt} of the philosophers is only an illusion. Perhaps the substratum of all things is spirit. The Church of England admits a spiritual presence. The Roman doctrine at the most is an invisible presence, under the accidents or species of the bread and wine. Dr. Pusey says that the School- men taught that the bread and wine in the Eucharist lost their qualities of supporting and nourishing. But the Council of Trent declared that the ' bread retains the quality natural to bread.' The presence of Christ then is the presence of a spiritual substance, so that the Roman Church agrees with the Anglican in teach- ing a spiritual and not a carnal presence. Connected with this doctrine was the sacrifice of the mass. The Reformers called the Church of Rome I 114 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ' the Upas tree of superstition.' They determined to cut it to pieces, root and branch. Article XXXI. says — ' The sacrifices of masses, in which it was commonly said that the priest did oflter Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.' In all ages of the Church of England, in all contro- versies, by all theologians since the Eeformation to the days of Dr. Newman, this Article Avas understood to condemn the sacrifice of the mass in the Church of Eome. The counterpart of the phraseology is found in Bishop Ridley, who calls the mass ' a new blas- phemous kind of sacrifice to satisfy and pay the price of sins both of the dead and of the quick.' To this correspond the words of Archbishop Cranmer : ' The Romish Antichrist, to deface this great benefit of Christ, hath taught that His sacrifice upon the cross is not sufiicient hereunto without another sacrifice devised by him, and made by the priest.' As Cran- mer and Ridley lived before the Council of Trent, it is just possible that they may not have known the authorised doctrine of the Church of Rome. They may have spoken of the mass as they had themselves learned it, and as it was generally taught and under- stood by the priests and people of that time. Gar- diner, however, and the defendants of Catholicism denied the inference that the sacrifice of the mass interfered with the one sacrifice of Christ. Yet the deliberate judgment of the Reformers clearly was that the mass is a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit. But the Article does not say so. It only speaks of ' masses.' It may, therefore, according to DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 115 Dr. Pusey, be understood as referring to a custom prevalent at the time of buying and selling masses, which was afterwards condemned by the Council of Trent. These questions, with many others in debate be- tween the Reformers and the Church of Rome, ran up into the higher questions which related to the authority of the Church and the place of the Scrip- tures in reference to the Church. Article XX. says — ' The Church hath power to decree rites and cere- monies and authority in controversies of ftiith.' This clause was not in the Articles in 1552 nor in 1562, when they were subscribed by both Houses of Con- vocation ; but it ejffected a surreptitious entrance before the Articles received the assent of the Crown. It first appeared in the Latin edition of 1563 ; but it was not in the English edition ratified by Parlia- ment that same year. The second clause of the Article is usually understood to limit, if not to neu- tralise, the authority claimed in the first. It says — ' Yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any- thing that is contrary to God's word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another.' Nevertheless, the clause remains, declaring that the Church has 'authority in controversies of faith.' This, Dr. Pusey says, is a Divine authority. It must be if the Church has power to decide in matters of faith. It implies the necessary preservation of the Church as a whole fi'om error. It is the fulfilment of the promise, ' Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.' The Church tells us what is the Catholic faith, and i2 1 1 6 CONTEMPORA RY ESS A YS. what must be believed as necessary to salvation. The Church must not contradict Scripture nor herself. The Fathers of the later Councils began by express- ing their assent to the earlier. It is not open to individuals to criticize, by their private judgment, the ' Catholic truth,' which has been agreed on by the whole Chui'ch. This, of course, is a long way short of the claim of the Church of Rome to speak infallibly on any controversy that may arise. But then the infallibility of the Church of Eome is something afloat. Nobody knows exactly where it is or what it is. Two things so indefinite as the authority of the Catholic Church and the infallibility of the Eoman Church may meet somewhere and touch each other at some point. Article VI. says — 'Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought necessary or requisite to salvation.' Then follows a list of the books which are ' Scripture,' that is, Scripture to be used for establishing doctrine. From this list the Apocryphal writings are excluded. It is not said who is to decide whether or not any doctrine has been 'proved' by ScriiDture. The Article, in its obvious meaning, seems to imply the Protestant doc- trine of the right of private judgment. But if con- nected with the clause in Article XX., about the authority of the Church in controversies of faith, it may be understood to have another meaning. We caimot adopt the doctrine of the infallibility of General Councils, for Article XXI. says that ' they may err, DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 117 and sometimes have erred, in things pertaining to God;' but we have the ' Catholic Church,' with tradi- tional creeds, doctrines, and interpretations. Some General Councils may have erred, but all have not. Those which have not erred are Catholic. That they have not erred is the test of their Catholicity or (Ecumenicity. Who is to decide which General Councils have erred and which have not, is to be settled by Dr. Pusey and those who agree with him. The apparent Protestantism of Article VI. is supposed to be removed. The right of private judgment is denied. The meaning of the Scriptures is to be learned from the traditional interpretations of the ' Catholic ' Church. It is assumed by Dr. Pusey and his party that the Church of England was not reformed according to the Scriptures alone, but according to the Scriptui'es as understood by the Fathers. It can scarcely be a mistake to say at once that, in the sense intended, tliis is a supposition without any foundation. It is a principle never announced in the writings of the Eeformers. Cranmer and Ridley, considering the great ignorance of the common peoijle', decided as a matter of policy, that the changes in the services of the Church should be as few as possible consistently with the entire elimination of Roman doctrine. It is a matter of history that in this they had not the agreement of Hooper, and were but partially favoured by Latimer. The principle of the English Reforma- tion, stated expressly by Bishop Jewel, is, that the appeal is made to the Scriptures alone. Then fol- lowed the question as to the Fathers, which simply ii8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. was, that they are on the side of the Church of England rather than on that of Eome. The solitary passage adduced by Newman and Pusey for their views of the Patristic character of the English Ee- formation is from a canon in the reign of Elizabeth. This canon enjoins that ' preachers should be careful that they never teach aught in a sermon to be reli- giously held by the people except that which is agree- able to the doctrines of the Old and New Testament, and which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from that very doctrine.' But there is nothing to intimate that this canon meant more than Bishop Jewel's principle, that Eoman doctrine was not to be found in the Fathers, and therefore was not to be taught in the Church of England. It was in the same reign that a Convocation gave a semi-official authority to Bullinger's 'Decades,' commanding the less educated clergy to find there the material for their sermons. Article XXY. reduces the sacraments of the Gospel to two, rejecting five of the Eoman sacraments. With these five were connected many of the supersti- tions which the Eelbrmers had to remove. They declared that they were not sacraments of ' like nature with Baptism and the Lord's SujDper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.' But the word sacrament has a very general meaning. Whatever is a visible sign of the Divine goodness may be a sacrament. The rainbow is a sacrament. The flowers of spring are sacraments. All nature is a sacrament. The Protestant meaning of the Article was clear enough. The five rejected DR. FUSE Y AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 119 sacraments were regarded as merely of ecclesiastical authority, and might, therefore, be either retained or laid aside. C^oufirmation, orders, and matrimony were retained : the first because it was an old and useful custom, the second for the sake of order, and the third because no reformation could abolish matrimony. Penance and extreme unction were closely interwoven with the popular superstitions. The Prayer-Book recommends confession to those who are troubled in conscience, as a preparation for the Lord's SujDper. But penance, properly speaking, as well as extreme unction, departed from the Church of England at the Eeformation. Dr. Pusey passes in review these five rejected sacra- ments, lamenting the loss of extreme unction, yet maintaining that in substance the other four are still retained as sacraments. The mode of proof is to have recourse to the Prayer-Book and Homilies, connecting together some stray passages, and interpreting them by the light of what is called the ' Catholic ' Church. The principle by which Dr. Pusey interprets the Articles is to take them as they stand, and see what the words may be made to mean apart from the history of the times or the known sentiments of the Eeformers. But while all external light on the Protestant side is excluded, the Articles are to yield to every ' Catholic ' phrase, and every overlooked renmant of the old superstition that can be j^icked up in any unswept corner of the Homilies or the Prayer-Book. There is no Protestant who is unwilling to abide by the Homi- lies, and to subscribe to the words of Article XXXV., that they contain a ' godly and wholesome doctrine 120 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. and necessary for these times.' But no man is re- quired to subscribe to every sentence in the Homilies ; and Dr. Pusey, least of all men living, would like to be bound even by their general teaching. They were written by men whose sentiments differed widely ; by the ' Catholic ' Bishop Bonner and the Presbyterian Prebendary of Canterbury, Thomas Becon ; the judi- cious Archbishop C^ranmer, and the glory of the Elizabethan prelates, the learned Jewel. The Homilies indeed contain a ' godly and a wholesome doctrine ; ' but they are full of blasphemy, both against the Pope and the devil. When Dr. Newman applied his alembic to the Homilies, all the ' Catholic truth ' he could distil out of them was a few unguarded sen- tences chiefly from the Fathers, some general state- ments about the primitive Chiu-ch, the application of the word ' Scripture ' to the Apocryphal writings, and sometimes ordination or matrimony called a sacrament. The exility of the evidence from the Homilies is in sti-ange contrast with the immensity of the conclusion. It is naturally an important matter for Dr. Pusey's object to be able to prove that the Chiu'ch of England has retained valid Orders. Without this it would be idle to speak of the Chiu'ch of England being a part of the Catholic Church, while the necessity of an Episcopal succession is regarded as the first requisite of Catholicity. Now, whatever Roman Catholics have to say against the validity of English ordination, the historical fact cannot be denied that at the Eeforma- tion the Episcopal succession was not broken. Dr. Pusey makes a great matter of this. He finds the consecrator.s of Parker were anxious to adhere to 'the DR. FUSE Y AND THE UL TRAMONTANES. 121 ancient forms. They looked out for a precedent, and found one in the case of Archbishop Chichele, who was consecrated at a time when the intercourse be- tween Eome and England was interrupted. They used as the words of consecration, ' Take the Holy Grhost,' which they had translated from the Exeter Pontifical. To make sure work of it, all the four consecrating bishops put their hands on the arch- bishop's head, and all four repeated the words of con- secration. Dr. Pusey adds, ' Sui-ely this care to do what the Church had done is, in itself, evidence enough of the intention required ! ' It is difficult to enter into men's intentions, but it is not difficult to know that there were many reasons in simple policy why the old forms of consecration should be retained. We say nothing of the fact that the establishment of an Episcopal Church at all was the will of the Queen rather than of the men who were made bishops. The Zurich Letters sufficiently reveal the un episcopal dis- positions of Elizabeth's first prelates. But to speak only of the four consecrators of Parker. They were Barlow, Coverdale, Scory, and Hodgskins. The last was only a suff'ragan. Of him and Scory we know nothing, except it be that they preferred exile rather than conformity under Mary. Miles Coverdale, all the world knows, was a Puritan. He and Scory refused to wear Episcopal robes at the consecration, and officiated in Geneva gowns. Coverdale was never restored to his diocese. Conformity to the Church was so little to his mind that the rest of his days were spent, for the most part, in poverty and persecution. As to Barlow, his judgment of the value of consecra- 122 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tion is on record. He said in a sermon, that ' if the king's grace, being supreme head of the Church of England, did choose, denominate, and elect any lay- man, being learned, to be a bishop, he, so chosen, without mention being made of orders, should be as good a bishop as I am, or the best in England.' This is enough ; but he adds, ' Wheresoever two or three simple persons, as cobblers or weavers, are in com- pany, and elected in the name of God, there is the true Church of God.' So far as Barlow was con- cerned, the renowned Nag's Head in Cheapside was as fit a place for the consecration of an archbishop as the chapel at Lambeth Palace. We cannot undertake to speak of his ' intention.' But we can scarcely doubt that if William Barlow and Miles Coverdale had known the use which Dr. Pusey was to make of their consecrating an archbishop, they would sooner have put their hands into the fire than laid them on the head of Matthew Parker. Dr. Pusey's Church of England is something alto- gether different from the old Church of England, of which Ave read in history, and which we find in the writings of the old English divines. The reunionists generally make an effort to reconcile the old Eeformed Church with their ' Catholic ' ideas. When they fail they usually revenge themselves by a kick at the Eeformers. The bishops of whom Dr. Pusey speaks, as so anxious to preserve the ' Catholic ' faith and order, are dismissed by one of the Eeunion Essayists as 'the whole tribe of Calvinistic j)relates under Elizabeth.' They were not able, he adds, ' to root out faith and love ' from the people, nor to prevent DR. FUSE Y AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 123 tlicm still ' piously drawing the sign of the cross on forehead and breast.' Beyond all controversy Eliza- beth's bishops were Calvinists. They simply con- formed to Episcopacy. There is no evidence that one of them believed in the Divine institution of bishops. In fact, that doctrine was unknown in the Church of England till Bancroft, in 1588, preached his famous sermon at St. Paul's Cross. Whitgift was then archbishop, and, tired of his long warfare with the Puritans, he wished that Bancroft's doctrine were true, for it would be a short and easy method of dealing with the Nonconformists. An ecclesiastical polity by Divine right was first maintained by the Presbyterians. It is almost the sole subject of the discourses of Thomas Cart^Tight. It was the essence of the railings of Martin MarjDrelate. ' The Lord's discipline ' was the Puritan's phrase for the polity of the Church as it ought to be. The doctrine con- tinued among the Irdependents. It is traceable, for instance, in the works of Thomas Goodwin, in the form of grace coming by the appointed ministers as by a sort of material channels. The Stuart divines took up the idea, and connected it with Episcopacy. After the Eestoration, when Presbyterians and In- dependents became brothers in adversity, it was gradually obscured. In the practical, common-sense eighteenth century it was almost extinct. In the Episcopal form it has turned up again in our own day. On whatever authority it may rest its claims, it is as certain as any matter of history that it was not the doctrine of the Eeformers of the Church of England. Again, in Dr. Pusey's two favourite doctrines, the J 24 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Eeal Presence in the Eucharist and Baptismal Ec- generation, we conld show that he is not in agreement with the old Eeformed Church of England. Cranmer, while using the strongest language concerning the presence of Clirist's body and blood in the sacrament of the Supper, takes care to exj^lain it as meaning only that the faithful feed upon Christ in the Eucharist in the same way as they feed upon Him in every act of worship. All the Eeformers, even Calvin, Bucer, and Peter Martyr, were anxious to retain the rhetorical language of the Fathers concern- ing this sacrament, and this caused them sometimes to speak as if they really intended a transubstantia- tion. Then they had to explain themselves by in- comprehensible speeches, such as eating a body spiritually, and feeding in the sacrament upon that which is really in heaven. This was not peculiar to the Church of England. It passed into all the Eeformed Churches, Even the Westminster Assem- bly's Confession declares that the body and blood of Christ 'are as really but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.' Clear-headed men, like John Hales of Eton and Ealph Cudworth, rejected this way of speaking as bordering upon non- sense. Even Bishop Jewel had light enough to declare that the only use of the Supper was a com- memoration of Christ's death, and that all other uses are abuses. But, while the language remained in the formularies, it is not remarkable that some took it literally. It suited the Stuart divines when they tried to couvort the Eeformed Church of England DR. FUSE Y AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 125 into a ' Catholic ' Church. They talked about altars and sacrifices, but it was a long time before they knew what they had to sacrifice. Andre wes and Buckeridge gave the grotesque explanation that we offer on the altar the elect or mystical Church, which is the body of Christ. The language of the Baptismal service had a like origin. Calvinistic Eeformers retained it, but in connection with their doctrine of absolute predestina- tion. It is found in all the Reformed Confessions as strongly as in our Prayer-Book. It really meant that every elect child was regenerated in baptism. But as no man could distinguish which children were elect, and which were not, it was charitably supposed that all were regenerated. This is the only explanation which a Calvinist could put on it if he believed the regeneration to be actual. And it is the interpreta- tion which the Calvinist divines of that age did put upon it. Hooker, speaking of baptism in connection with predestination, saj^'s, that ' all do not receive the grace of the sacrament who receive the sacrament.' It is remarkable that, at the Savoy Conference, the Puritans did not object to the baptismal regeneration of the Baptismal service. They asked that the words ' remission of sins by spiritual regeneration ' might be changed into ' may be regenerated and receive remis- sion of sins.' This was asked, not because they objected to the doctrine, but because the words seem to confound remission of sins with regeneration. We have as little desire as Dr. Pusey can have to be bound by the meaning of the service as understood by the ' Calvinistic prelates,' who made it part of the 126 C ONTEMPORA RY ESS A VS. Prayer-Book ; and while the words are there, we are not surprised that some persons will take them literally. They are fairly capable of Dr. Pusey's interpretation, but it will do no harm to remember the truth and the whole truth concerning their history. But the greatest of all difficulties in the way of reunion between the Church of England and the Church of Pome, are the two latest Poman dogmas. The infallibility of the Pope, if not already pro- claimed, will be, it is generally believed, before many days. This must put an end to all hopes of the reunion of England in any other way than by penance and absolution. If the Pope is infallible, England is in the fearful pit of heresy and schism. The Imma- culate Conception of the mother of Jesus has been a dogma since 1854. This is the great crux to Anglicans. The Protestant doctrine that Christ alone is without sin, and that He alone is the Mediator, displaced the worship of the Virgin in all " Protestant countries. In the Church of England there is not a vestige of it to be found. Mary is no more wor- shipped than any other holy matron. It is peculiarly the doctrine of English Christians that ' Jesus is all.' In Him they see supremely all that in man is great and noble, all that in woman is pure and gentle. The first thing that strikes and repels a Protestant when he goes into a Eoman Catholic Church, is the supremacy that seems everywhere given to Mary. Apart from the dogma of the Immaculate Concep- tion, there is a ctdtus which has grown wild and luxuriant, sometimes checked hj the authorities, and DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 127 sometimes encouraged, as the devotion best suited to certain classes of people. The account which Dr. Pusey gives of the extent of Mary-worship in some Eoman Catholic countries, is a very sad one. The passages he quotes ' from Eoman Catholic authors, some authorised and some not,' drew even from Dr. Newman the confession that he read them with sorrow and anger. Dr. Pusey shows that Eoman Catholics pray to Mary to have remission of sins, to be led into the way of truth, to have grace, life, and glory. Catholicism, it is said, does not flourish in England, because English Catholics do not give sufficient wor- ship to Mary. ' Here in England,' says a pious Eoman Catholic wi-iter, ' Mary is not half enough preached : devotion to her is low and thin. It is frightened out of its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always inviting human respect and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary, that Pro- testants may feel at ease about her. Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the back-ground. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is ivithheld from them.'' Italian priests have lamented by the death-beds of their English converts, that they were but half con- verted, for when dying they put their trust in Jesus, and never uttered a prayer to Mary. Dr. Pusey has often been told that before he can expect to be con- verted he must learn to pray to Mary. In the Chui'ch of Eome, Mary is all in all. She is the ' Queen of heaven, and Mistress of the world,' 'the Great One Herself,' ' the Holy Mother of God,' ' Companion of the Eedeemer,' ' Co-redemptress,' ' Authoress of eternal salvation,' 'the Destroyer of heresies through- 1 2 8 CONTEMPORA RY ESS A VS. out the world,' ' tlie Ring in the chain of creatures,' ' the Mediatress not of men only, but of angels,' ' the Complement of the Trinity.' One Catholic writer says, that in the Eucharist they eat and drink not only the flesh and blood of Christ, but the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary, and that there is present in the sacrament, not only the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also the virgin milk of His virgin mother. Another writer says that the regene- rate are born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God and Marij. It is sometimes very provoking to have the plain truth told. Of course this well- evidenced charge of Mariolatry implied that ' the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their manner of living and cere- monies, but also in matters of faith.' Dr. Pusey's proposals for reunion were met with a howl of indig- nation. The authorities at Rome put his book in the Index of books forbidden, along with two others which, Dr. Pusey says, contain ' blasphemies against our Lord's All-Holiness.' The Church of Rome crucified Dr. Pusey, nailing him to the back of the door of St. Peter's along with two malefactors, who only received the just reward of their deeds. Dr. Pusey did not relish the society of his two companions in tribulation. He did not see that ' Ecce Homo ' was really an ' Eirenicon, ' that its brilliant pages portrayed the human life of Him who even in His humanity was divine, and thereby drew all men unto Him. And did not the other book also speak peace ? Was it not an Eirenicon, and with no ' sword wreathed in myrtle ? ' Did it not appeal to the Catholic reason DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. i2q of mankind to find in that reason a basis for the essential doctrines of the religion of Jesus Christ, and so to unite all men into one Church wide as the human race, and Catholic as God's universe ? The Diiblin Review complains that there are some things which they ' cannot hammer into Dr. Pusey's head.' * Of the two great parties into which the Church of Home is divided it was from one only that Dr. Pusey could expect even a patient hearing, and that party is not the one which rules the Church of Eome. It only exists on sufferance. Taking it as represented by such Catholics as Dr. Dollinger there is scarcely a doctrine or ceremony on which they could not come easily to at least a temporary agreement with Dr. Pusey. But they meet each other only by accident. Like travellers lodging at the ' Three Taverns,' they are within a day's journey of Eome. But while Dr. Pusey has set his face as if he would go to the great city, Dr. Dollinger and his friends have been there already, and have no wish to return. To them it is not like ' A little heaven below.' The intimate relations that have long existed be- tween Dr. Pusey and Dr. I^ewman give a peculiar human interest to this controversy. We say contro- versy, for such it has really become. Dr. Newman's conversion to Eoman Catholicism will never have any other significance than that of a curious study for the psychologist. A great reasoner adopts some principles * In the Essays on Eeiinion Dr. Pusey complains bitterly of the treat- ment he had received at Rome. He adds afterwards, in a note, that he has received reliable information that his book escaped the Index. K 130 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS, which have no foundation in reason. He reasons upon them till he becomes troubled with the incon- gruities between his reason and what he believes. To get peace and to smie his soul he at last abandons reason, and clings only to authority. He wants to be delivered from the responsibility of reason. So he joins the Church of Eome because it makes the oldest and boldest claim to speak infallibly in the name of God. There is an acknowledged principle in physiology that a well-developed organ often has its strength at the expense of some other organ or organs. The same principle is probably applicable to the faculties of the mind, and explains the co-existence of strength and weakness in the same man. Dr. Newman actually speaks of ' saving his soul ' by leav- ing the Church of England for the Church of Eome, and the principle is the one of being on the safe side after a reckoning of probabilities. The turning-point of the conversion of this great master of reasoning was a rhetorical sentence in the very illogical St. Augus- tine. ' Securus judicat orbis terrarum ! ' cried the Bishop of Hippo, in his controversy with the Dona- tists. The world must be right against a sect that exists only in the north of Africa. The world must be right, echoed Dr. IN'ewman, against Anglicans who exist only in England. It is always an argument that a man is in the wrong when the whole world is against him. But what was St. Augustine's ' orbis terrarum ? ' The great saint really believed that the Eoman empire embraced the world, and that the whole world was converted to Christianity. What was Dr. T^ewman's world whose universal judgment DR. PUS EV AND THE ULTRA MOXTANES. 131 was to overrule his reason ? It was not the eight or nine hundred millions that people the globe. It was not the judgment of the wise men of all ages which he sought. It was not even the judgment of the learned men of Europe. It was only, we may say, the judgment of the C^ouncil of Trent received by Roman Catholics, not as the conclusion of their reason, but as the evidence of their submission to the authority of a Chiu'ch. Dr. Pusey's first letter to Newman, which we take to form Part II. of the ' Eirenicon,' is entirely devoted to the Immaculate Conception. This was the subject on which Dr. Newman had undertaken to enlighten his 'dear Pusey,' whom he congratulates with a superb piece of the most delicate sarcasm on his seeing his way to lay down definite proposals as a basis of cor- porate reunion. Dr. Pusey is here told that the Chm-ch of England is fundamentally in error, and that he must come to the Catholic Church in the spirit of obedience, not reserving to himself so much private judgment as whether or not he shall kiss a crucifix. Immaculate conception is explained as simply meaning that, from the first moment of her existence, Mary had a superadded fulness of grace, which put her in a state of innocence corresponding to that of Eve. St. Augustine explained original sin as birth by concupiscence. And in this sense Mary was not without it. Her birth was not supernatural, like that of Jesus. But she had supernatural graces added. She did not fall, as Eve did, but merited to become the mother of the Eedeemer. In this sense, she too is a Saviour. Dr. Newman justified to a great extent K 2 132 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the popular Mariolatry. The silly things which devout people say in their devotions to Mary are com- pared to the silly things that fall from lovers' lips, to be whispered only in lovers' ears. Dr. Pusey natu- rally asks the question, If this worship of Mary was in the primitive Church ? He applies the old rule of Catholicism, laid down by Yincentius Lirinensis — ' What was believed by all, always, and everywhere.' Dr. Newman answers from his theory of 'Develop- ment,' that it existed in germ. Mr. Harper illus- trates the process by development in nature. We do not look for vertebrates in the earliest geological strata ; yet we find germs or rudiments of the organ- isms that now exist. This means, we imagine, that if Mr. Darwin had proved that men are developed fi-om fishes, it would therefore be right to say that fishes are men, because men are developed from fishes. In this way the continuity of ' Catholic truth ' is pre- served. The passages which Dr. Kewman quotes from the Fathers in support of Mary-worship are such as the words of St. Jerome, — '■ Death by Eve, life by Mary,' or this of TertuUian, Mary ' blotted out ' Eve's fault, and brought back ' the female sex,' or ' the human race ' to salvation. The old Fathers had a great fond- ness for contrasts. St. Paul's illustration of the fii'st and second man may have suggested that of the first and second woman. The language, indeed, of the Fathers is not to be justified, but it is unfair to take their fanciful parallels, and convert them into doctrines. If this were done only by Eoman Catholics we might have a word to say for Dr. Pusey ; but Dr. New- DR. FUSE Y AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 133 man argues, we think justly, that from Dr. Pusey's own doctrine concerning the mother of Jesus, he ought not to be oifended by some of the titles used in the Chm'ch of Eome. Dr. Pusey delights to call Mary the ' Mother of God.' This is a title which to modern ears sounds like blasphemy. Taken literally, it is destructive of the ' Catholic faith,' for even the creed of St. Athanasius does not say that the man Jesus was God, but expressly the contrary, that He was ' man, of the substance of His mother.' A General Council decreed that Mary was Theotocos Deipara, or Mother of God. It must then be received as an article of the faith by all who believe in the infallibility of Councils. It originated in the fond fancies of such Fathers as St. Ignatius, who says ' Our God was carried in the womb of Mary,' and of St. Chrysostom, who speaks of the ' everlasting ' as born of a woman. It is continued by Dr. Newman, who does not scruple to say that '• Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal.' Even with Dr. Pusey she is ' Our Lady.' ' Eirenicon,' Part III., or the second letter to Dr. Newman, is a defence of the original positions of the ' Eirenicon.' It still maintains that reunion is possible if we can treat Avith the Church of Eome on the Galilean principles as expounded by Bossuet. This leads Dr. Pusey to repeat the well-known argu- ments and facts against Papal infallibility. But the repetition of them is an offence to the very pai'ty which rules the Church of Eome. For the spirit and claims of that party we must turn to Dr. Manning's Pastoral. Some Eoman Catholics and some Anglo-C'atholics had formed an association, 134 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. and agreed to pray together for the reunion of Christ- endom. The Eoman Catholic bishops in England sub- mitted the constitution of the ' association ' to the judgment of the ' Congregation of the Holy Office ' at Eome. The association was condemned, and Catholics were forbidden to pray with Anglicans for any such object. The grounds of the condemnation involved the condemnation of the principles on which the Anglicans jDroposed reunion. The ' Congregation ' said that there were not thi-ee Churches of Christ — the Greekj the Eoman, and the Anglican — but only one Church, which was that of Eome. Christ's Church had never lost its unity, and never could lose it. Under pain of eternal death, it was declared to be the duty of every man to enter the only Church of Christ, which was that presided over by the Bishop of Eome. Dr. Manning described the scheme of union as based, not on the Thirty-nine Articles as understood by Englishmen, nor on the Council of Trent as understood by Catholics, but in a sense known neither to the Church of England nor the Church of Eome. He declares it to be as impossible to be saved out of the 'one fold,' which is that of Eome, as it is to be re- generated without baptism. The Church of England is the ' Anglican separation,' the Greek Church is the ' Greek schism.' To call these Churches parts of the Church Catholic is to destroy the boundaries of truth and falsehood. If these Churches are Catholic, then the infallibility and occumenicity of Trent must be denied. Dr. Manning says that if Anglicans appeal to Bossuet, they must believe with Bossuet. The in- fallibility of the Pope may be denied, but there DR. PUS EY AND THE UL TRAMONTANES. 135 remains the infallibility of the Church. Bossuet lived in Catholic unity, Anglicans are in separation. It is not enough to accept the decrees of Trent because we agree with them. This is mere private judgment. They must be accepted because the Council spoke with authority. To decide, because of evidence, to agree with the Church in doctrine, through an exercise of private judgment, does not make a man a Catholic. That requires submission and obedience. It is the Church which interprets both antiquity and the Scriptui'es. Its office is to assert, not to argue ; to declare, not to give reasons. It is no sign of humi- lity. Dr. Manning says, and no evidence of faith, to appeal from the Pope to a General Council of Greeks, Anglicans, and Romans, who shall put down Ultramontanism, declare the Pope fallible, and restore the Immaculate Conception to the region of pious opinions. True faith is obedience to the Church of Eome ; ' other foundation can no man lay.' Of the same tone and character is Mr. Harper's elaborate work, ' Peace through the Truth.' The Church, that is, the Church of Pome, is the visible kingdom of Christ, ' His Incarnation.' It is a super- natural institution, and lives a supernatural life. A religious society, like the Church of England, outside of the ' true Church,' has no rights. The question is between ' the Incarnate Word ' and ' a body of men.' To say that the Church has erred for twelve centuries is to say that the Holy Ghost has failed in His mission. The Church being, as it were, the body of Christ, not by a figure, but in reality, from Him, tlu-ough the hierarchy, flows a never- 136 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ceasing stream of suiDernatural grace; but it flows only through those in union with the body. The Anglican priesthood are, therefore, but ' high and dry ' channels, without even a globule of sacramental grace. In Dr. Pusey's objections to the extravagances of Eoman devotion Mr. Harper only sees hatred to the practical life of the Church. The ' dominant errors,' against which Dr. Newman said our Articles were chiefly directed, are regarded as the ' perfected con- sciousness ' of the Church. It cannot, we think, be denied that Mr. Harper has here caught the spirit by which the Church of Eome lives. This accords with the claims of an infallible Church. The consistency of the ideal is preserved. Our Eeformers agreed with Mr. Harper that the popular superstitions were a part of the consciousness of the Church of Eome, and just on that account they did not trouble themselves to distinguish between authorised dogma and what was commonly believed. And this is really the vital ques- tion. It is not whether a harmony can be effected between the creeds of the two Churches, but whether the two Churches can have one life, one consciousness. All Protestants have felt instinctively, as Mr. Harper feels, that between the Church of England and the Church of Eome there is ' a great gulf.' On which side are the companions of Dives or Lazarus will be a matter of difference. But Mr. Harper is consistent with himself when he says, that but for the Eeforma- tion in England ' thousands now in hell might have been eternally saved.' He denies that there is one well-authenticated case of a Pope ftilling into error. The Anglican doctrine of the ' Eeal Presence?,' even as DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 137 explained by Dr. Pusey, is declared to be in direct contradiction to that of the Council of Trent, while the history of the ' Black Eubric ' determines, with his- torical certainty, that Dr. Pusey's doctrine is not that of the Church of England. Mr. Harper announces a ' Second Series ' of Essays, and Dr. Pusey advertises a reply to Mr Harper. Of all the answers to Dr. Pusey, we know of none to be compared with that in the Revue du Monde Catholique. It consists of three articles by a Jesuit Father, written with a fascinating precision, with a penetrating insight into the minutest bearings of the question, and with a delicate raillery worthy of the happiest moments of Yoltaire. The literary and theological value of the ' Eii-enicon ' is estimated at about nothing. The arguments are simply those advanced thirty years ago by Father IN'ewman, and by the same Father after- wards solidly refuted. The Anglicans reject the name of Protestant, and take upon them that of Anglo- Catholics, ' or even Catholics.' Of all the Protestant sects the Anglican is the most inconsequent, precisely because it is that which has preserved most Catholic truth while revolting against the Catholic Church. It professes to follow antiquity, and yet there is nothing in antiquity more clearly proclaimed by the first Councils, or more energetically demonstrated by the Fathers, than the supremacy of the Eoman See. When Cardinal Wiseman got the Anglicans upon antiquity, he crushed them under the weight of decisive texts. Anglicans rest upon Episcopacy because of the privi- leges which the Fathers say are possessed by ihoi bishops ; but these same Fathers show that the first 1 3 8 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. condition of enjoying these privileges is legitimate appointment. Catliolics have always denied the validity of the consecration of the Anglican bishops under Elizabeth. With only one exception they had all been violently introduced into their sees by the royal authority, and contrary to the holy canons. From the Fathers the Anglicans learned some vague ideas about the necessity of the unity of the Chui-ch. On the strength of this they pronounced a severe sentence against the Dissenters. They even called John Wesley a heresiarch. More than that, theii* simplicity was such that they charged Catholics with quitting the great unity of the Christian world. Anglicans saw the necessity of an authority, but they could not determine where it was to be found. Article XX. gives the Church a right to propose decisions, but not to impose them. The Church has some authority in apjDeai-ance, but none in reality. To make Dr. Pusey a Catholic one thing is lacking. Without that one thing he will be a Protestant all the days of his life. He w^ants that which in itself con- stitutes orthodoxy. He wants submission to the autho- ritij of the CJmrch. He must believe the doctrines of the Church, not because of their agreement with Scripture and tradition, but because the C^hurch de- clares them. It is true he believes the Church, but then it is the C^hurch of another age — a Church which speaks by documents of which Dr. Pusey remains the sole judge. Like other Protestants, he still exercises his private judgment. The only difference is that they interpret the Bible only, while Dr. Pusey interprets decrees of Councils and writings of Fathers. But in DR. PUS EF AND THE UL TRAMONTANES. 139 both cases there is private judgment and an equal absence of true faith, which is submission. The Church of thefii'st centuries was infallible, accord- ing to Dr. Pusey. That is to say, Chi-ist's promise to His Church was only kept till the Church was invaded by heresy and schism. The guides of the Church now are to be the writings of the Fathers. But does Dr. Pusey know the meaning of the Fathers ? Their writings may be understood in many senses. More- over, if Christianity can only be learned from the Fathers, what is to become of the multitude of j)eople who have no time to read either Fathers or decrees of Councils ? Did Jesus Christ place His truth within the reach of Oxford doctors only, and not also of infants and little children? There is nothing, the French writer says, peaceful in Dr. Pusey' s book except its title. It is a ' sad book.' It proposes to unite ' Anglicans ' and ' Catholics,' by converting both into ' Puseyites.' The Eeunion Essays, published by Mr. Hayes, are in their way curiosities. We might have given the volume a word of commendation, but for the utter inanity of three or four of the essays about the middle and towards the end of the book. One writer proposes nothing less than to un-Proiestantke and to Catholicize England. Another speaks of the restoration of the ' Daily Sacrifice.' One charges the Society for Pro- moting Chi-istian Knowledge with ' an overt act of heresy,' in striking out of all its books, at the instiga- tion of a late Archbishop of Canterbury, without a protest from a single bishop, the expression ' Mother of God.' Another bemoans the infidelity of the age, 140 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. which has almost ceased to believe that there is ' material fire ' in hell. But the gem of the collection is the Essay by ' A Priest of the Archdiocese of Con- stantinople,' who tells the Anglicans, in the spirit of Mr. Harper, that they and the Eoman Catholics ' must hear the words of truthful warning from the unvarying lips of orthodoxy ;' that ' the truth which the orthodox hold must be affirmed ' by all, and that ' orthodoxy is ready and willing to explain when the uninformed are prepared to be taught.' With the Greek Church reunion is more probable than with the Boman ; but the great interest of the question turns on the relation of Eome to separated or national Churches. The claim wiich Eome makes is peculiar, and as generations pass, that claim is in- creasingly urged. The events of the passing hour take away all hope that those who rule the Church of Eome will ever make even a sign to Dr. Pusey and his friends, till, on bended knees, they receive from the ' Holy Father ' that blessing which will purify them from the bii"th-sin of heresy. Nor in one sense do we blame Eome. If it really is what it professes to be, it is right in making no surrender. But, on the other hand, if it is not what it professes to be, then Pro- testants are justified in the severest things that they have said against it. If Mr. Harper's view of the C'hurch of Eome really is the correct one, it either is what he calls it, an ' incarnation of Christ,' or it is Antichrist. In the latter case the claim to infallibility will be its destruction, and Protestants may say, ' Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone.' We might urge this on ' Anglo-CVitholics,' but we DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 141 are too conscious that their position is not one reached by reason. It is simply due to a certain tendency of mind. The same men who are ' Anglo-Catholics ' in the Church of England would be Ultramontanes in the Church of Eome. There are two tendencies in all Churches. One is the disposition to rely on authority ; the other is to mental independence. We sometimes see Eoman Catholics claiming the right to reason for themselves, and Protestants rejoicing in the renun- ciation of reason. Dr. Pusey, in the nineteenth cen- tury, still looks for grace coming through a hierarchy, as through a material channel. Bishop Jewel, thi-ee centuries ago, was able to say that Divine grace is not given to sees and successions, but to them that fear God. DEA:N^ STANLEY'S ESSAYS ON CHURCH AND STATE* JULIUS HARE used to say, ' Children always turn to the light; Oh, that grown-up men would do likewise I ' If we were to attempt a description of Dean Stanley's characteristics, we should name first, and chief of all, his intense love for the light. His is not the half-despairing cry of Goethe for 'more light,' but the happy radiant hopefulness of the child, whose great joy is ' to go out and see the sun.' He opens every door and window to let in the light. He is all eye and all ear, quick to receive all knowledge from whatever quarter it comes. He has learned to ' Seize upon truth where'er 'tis found, On Christian or on heathen ground.' His ' Essays on Church and State ' might be called the epic of ' the Thirty Years' War ' in the Church of England. The subject is the three great battles which each party in the Church has had to fight to maintain its existence. Other subjects, collateral and subsidiary, are discussed as occasion off'ers, coming in, as it were, * Contemporary Review, September, 1870. Essays on Church ami Stntr. By A. P. Stanley, D.D. London : John Miirviiy. 1870. DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 143 'by way of episode.' The lesson or moral of the whole is that the three parties are to tolerate each other, and to continue the union of Church and State because that union softens the bitterness of party feeling, controls the fierce spirit of ecclesiasticism, and prevents the Church being cut off from the Divine progress of the world. The first Essay in the volume is on the Gorham Controversy. It was published twenty years ago in the Edinburgh Review. We have not at present any intention of tracing the history of the rise of modern High Churchism. "We shall really avoid the usual platitudes about the 'godless' eighteenth century. We shall not speak of the 'fi"ost' under Bishop Butler, and the ' thaw ' under Dr. Pusey. The com- placency with which some men in our time condemn the last century is amusing. The common denuncia- tion of the immorality of our grandfathers and great- grandfathers implies a tolerably well-satisfied opinion of our own progress. To connect the Oxford move- ment with the repose of the last century is to trace the Trojan War to Leda's eggs ; and in both cases the amount of fable is about equal. We start with the well-known fact, that in the fifth decade of the present century the High Church party thought they had sufficient strength to thrust the ' Evangelicals ' out of the Church of England. The decisive battle was fought between the Bishop of Exeter and Mr. Gorham. The subject of their dif- ference was of significance only as it indicated the different tendencies of the two parties represented by the Bishop and the Presbyter. Dr. Philpotts said 144 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. that every baptized child was '■ regenerated ' by the act of baptism. Mr. Glorham denied that by that act a baptized child was necessarily 'regenerated.' The judgment was against the bishop. It declared Mr. Gorham's doctrine tenable in the Church of England, and compatible with a fair interpretation of the formularies. This judgment Dean Stanley receives as the charter of our ecclesiastical liberty, the legal authorisation of differing dogmas in the Church. A great part of the baptismal controversy is mani- festly a mere battle about a word. The most zealous advocates of baptismal regeneration differ among themselves as to what 'regeneration' means. With some it is an actual sanctification of the baptized. With others it is merely foederal, signifying nothing more than admission into the Christian covenant. The battle was fought on the question of regeneration in baptism, but the real conflict was between the theo- logical system of Calvin and that of High Church- men, who combine with the theology of Arminius the claims of a hierarchy. We are not sure that we agree with Dean Stanley when he quotes and endorses the words of Bishop Horsley, that on the points of dif- ference between the followers of Calvin and their opponents 'the Church of England maintains an absolute neutrality.' In one place the Dean says that no Piu'itan would have written the baptismal service. This is probably true, yet we have not read that the Puritans ever raised any special objection to this service. If by Puritan Dean Stanley means simply a Calvinist, we differ from him altogether. It might have been written by any of the Reformers of Calvin's DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 145 school. The same mode of speaking of baptism is found in the Calvinistic Confessions of the Eeformed Churches. But, on the other hand, no Arminian could have written Article XVII. We try in vain to conceive of this Article as existing in a AYesleyan Confession of Faith. Moreover, the whole spirit, tone, and phraseology of the Thirty-nine Articles is Calvin- istic. Calvin or his great ancestor, Augustine, turns up everywhere with a perversity and a pertinacity that are sometimes provoking. The only arguments ever advanced against the Calvinism of the Thirty- nine Articles are the two feeble pleas put forward by Archbishop Laurence. The first is that the Articles were compiled from the Augsburg Confession, which is simply begging the question that on these subjects the German Eeformers did not agree with Calvin. The second argument is derived from the rejection of the Lambeth Articles. But any one who reads the only authentic account which we have of the Hampton Court Conference will find it plainly stated that the Lambeth Articles were not rejected because they diff'ered from the Thirty-nine, but simply because there was no necessity for them. King James, who decided on their rejection, was himself at that time a strong Calvinist, and the compiler of the Lambeth Articles, Archbishop Whitgift, was a member of the Conference, and the chief supporter of the king. In evidence of the Calvinistic character of the Eeformed Church of England we have the theological literature of three generations after the Eeformation, forming a * consentient voice ' of the Church for seventy years, testifying to the dominion of the theology of Calvin. L 146 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. It may be urged that the moderation of the Articles contrasts with the pronounced Calvinism of the AVestrainster Confession. But the difference is in degree, not in kind. It is easy to account for the more systematic statements of doctrine coming after the great controversy on the five points in the beginning of the reign of the first Charles. The issue which was raised in the Gorham pro- secution was not the admissibility of Calvinism in the Church of England. That had been admitted since the Eeformation. Mr. Gorham had on his side the Calvinistic Eeformers and their successors, who believed that baptism conveyed regeneration to elect children. But as these were known only to God, the visible Church charitably assumed that all baptized children were among the elect, and, therefore, re- generate. The only foundation which Dr. Philpotts had for his doctrine was by taking literally, in the baptismal service for children, the words which in the service for the baptism of adults, he explained as Mr. Gorham did. In denying the neutrality of the Church of England as to the doctrines of Calvin, we at the same time fail to discover any ground for ascribing to our Eeformers the principle of compromise or comprehension. It is possible that the Dean of "Westminster only means that comprehension was the result. We cannot find that it was ever seriously intended, much less openly proposed. In the time of Henry YIII. Cranmer pro- ceeded with caution and prudence, as far as circum- stances would permit him. Under Edward his action was more decided. If we reckon the Puritan party DEAN STANLEY ' ^ ESS A VS. H7 to have then existed, and to have been represented by such men as Hooper and Coverdale, there was great freedom in that direction. But this reign was short and unsettled. Between Elizabeth and her first bishops there was something like compromise. The bishops conformed to rituals and ceremonies which they would gladly have laid aside. For some years the Queen was allowed to have a crucifix in her chapel, though not without some bitter complaining. For the first five years of her reign the Puritans had great freedom as to the ceremonies. Then began subscriptions and the enforcing of uniformity. The principle of exclusion contended with the fact of comprehension. The same influences that exist to- day were at work then. A Broad Church was the result obtained, but until Dean Stanley's time it never was the end proposed. Ten years after the Gorham prosecution and the cry of war was again raised. The Church of England, in separating from the Chui'ch of Eome, appealed to the Scriptures. It retained the three creeds, for the reason assigned, that they could be proved by ' most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.' An appeal to the Scriptures, explain it as we may, is an appeal to reason. It throws men back at once upon questions concerning the authenticity, history, authority, and inter]3retation of the Scriptures. The inquiry at every step implies the supremacy of reason. There was not probably either in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries one single theologian who carried out this principle to its ultimate and logical results. It was largely developed in Hooker ; but he is confused and l2 148 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. contradictory when he speaks of the province of reason in religion. Chillingworth went further, and was clearer ; but he did not touch the goal. The exigencies of his argument did not require him to go beyond the position, that to start with an infallible Bible was as rational as to start with an infallible Church. The claims of reason were acknowledged more openly by the Cambridge Platonists and by the theologians of the eighteenth century, yet in every case with certain limits. The discoveries in science and the progress in the study and criticism of the Scriptures that have been made in our day, demanded that a further step should be made in the direction of reason. This was done in 1860 in the famous 'Essays and Eeviews.' The ^ religious world,' unprepared, as it too often is, for a change in theology, gasped with horror. The seven writers were seven Antichrists of the latter day. High Churchmen and Low Chui'chmen stood appalled. Their hearts failed them for fear. Dr. Pusey grasped the hand of the editor of the Record. Each felt that a brother is born for adversity. An enemy had arisen, whose existence demanded the cessation of all former hostilities. From that day Herod and Pontius Pilate were friends. Dean Stanley's estimate of 'Essays and Reviews' is, in the main, just. It was not the best exposition either of the principles or the spirit of the Broad Church party. It took away, without always showing what was to be given in the place of what was taken away. It was not a book for the general public. Its authors, indeed, did not intend that it should be. They wrote for scholars ; in fact, they wrote for the DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAFS. 149 clergy, and for them it was a book seasonable, salutary, and necessary. Two of the writers were prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Courts. Out of thirty-two charges they were condemned on five, in the Court of Arches. They appealed to the Privy Council. Of the five remaining charges, two were withdrawn by the prosecutors. The thi-ee that were left were the denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures, eternal punishment, and justification by faith. In the defence it was urged that the inspiration of the Scriptures was not denied. It was only made the same in kind with that which guides the Church and pui'ifies the hearts of the faithful. Eternal punishment was not in strict language denied. There was simply a hope expressed, that in some way unknoT^Ti to us, all men might be ultimately saved. Justification by faith was not denied, but only the 'fiction of a transfer of merit,' or what in technical theological language is called the 'imputation of Christ's righteousness.' On these three charges the two essayists were acquitted. There is no formulary of the Church of England in which inspiration is defined. There is no article which for- bids us to hope for the final restoration of all men. There is an article which defines justification by faith; but there is no mention of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. On all these questions we regard it as certain that the compilers of the Articles believed the opposite of what the essayists believed, and that they would have agreed entirely with the prosecutors. But this belief is not expressed in the formularies of the Church, and so the position of the Broad Church party was legally established. 1 50 CONTEMPORARY ESS A YS. Several of the men who wrote against the essayists rapidly rose to high places in the Church. The essayists themselves were left without further prefer- ment. The sole exception was that of Mr. Pattison, who was appointed Eector of Lincoln, but against whose essay no one had anything special to say. Dr. Williams spent the remaining years of his too short life in the congenial work of a country clergyman, among his parishioners of Broad Chalke. Mr. "Wilson was left in his quiet parsonage of Great Staughton — a voice, it may be, in the wilderness, but a terror to the surrounding clergy, and a beacon-light to warn all men of the danger of ' free-handling' the Scriptures. Mr. Jowett, whose essay was the glory of the volume, is still Greek Professor at Oxford.* In those days he taught Greek for nothing. It was proposed to endow his professorship ; but that burning zeal for the '■ faith' which rarely fails the country clergy, brought them in such numbers to Oxford, that they outvoted the promoters of the endowment. Had it not been for the wisdom of the Lord Chancellor in connecting a canonry with the professorship, Mr. Jowett might to this hour have been teaching Greek for nothing. Ten years had nearly passed before a Prime Minister had the courage and decision to elevate one of the essayists to the Bench of Bishops. This was done amid the bowlings and wailings of High Chm-chmen and Low Churchmen ; but it was done. The fact is accom- plished. The editor and prime author of ' Essays and Beviews' is Bishop of Exeter. * He has since been made Master of Balliol. DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 151 We do not know that Dr. Temple has in any way- renounced his connection with the liberal party in the Church since his elevation to the see of Exeter. He has withdrawn his essay, which in one sense we regret. Yet there is something which all men owe to the con- sciences of them that are weak. Dean Stanley reduces the doctrine of Bishop Temple's essay to the level of the most ordinary theological truism. He makes it simply St. Paul's doctrine that the advent took place ' in the fulness of time ;' in Dr. Temple's words, ' at the time most fitted for the production of the effect intended.' The 'education of the human race' we always understood as meaning this certainly, but also more than this. In our judgment it made heathen wisdom part of the Divine teaching, thus extending the idea of inspiration beyond the circle of the Jewish nation and the Christian Church. In other words, it made the world potentially the Church, not limiting 'revelation' to what was contained in the canonical Scriptures. To be in harmony with the rest of the volume, the essay on ' The Education of the Human Eace,' required this meaning. In the current number of the Westminster Review^ it is said that Dr. Temple never understood his own doctrine, for to the ' educa- tion' he adds 'revelation' as the necessary comple- ment.* It is true that in all these questions we are ever at the mercy of words. St. Paul, speaking in the Epistle to the Eomans of the wisdom of the Greek philosophers, distinctly says, ' God manifested it to them.' Yet, conventionally, we call that only rcvela- * In K revicAA- of ' Relieious Thought in England.' 152 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tion which we learn from the Scriptures; and, as Father Malebranche says, we ' ungratefully ' ascribe all other knowledge to our own understandings. One of the essayists, the lamented Baden Powell, had passed into the unseen world before the ' Essays and Eeviews ' were published. His essay, more than any of the others, reqiiii-ed explanation. On the rela- tions of faith and reason he is beyond measure con- fused, relegating revelation entirely to faith, and in words which remind us of Voltaire's sneering 'persiflage concerning the virtue of ' believing.' Yet Yoltaire only repeated the words of the orthodox concerning faith ; and there is every ground for believing that, in placing revelation beyond the province of reason, Baden Powell was perfectly sincere. We rather marvel at the caution with which the Dean of Westminster defends the memory of the Savilian professor. He had been denounced as a hopeless infidel and a con- firmed atheist. It was publicly stated in support of these charges that he died without any ministrations of religion. Dean Stanley answers that his death was sudden, and, like all sudden deaths, it was without religious or other ministrations. But within a few days of his last illness he preached, worshipped, and communicated as usual at St. Andi-ew's, Well Street, the church which he usually attended. In the very year in which he died he asked permission to deliver the Bampton Lectures. So far the Dean's defence. We are disposed to go much farther. We have read with some care all that Baden Powell wrote. On many questions in theology his views were imperfect ; yet in that department which was peculiarly his own, DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 153 the scientific side of religion, we think that no man in this century has done more to clear, to establish, and to strengthen the argument for theism drawn from the manifestations of order and intelligence in the natural world. The only party which has not yet made good its position in the Church of England is the High Church party. It was put on its defence in the Denison pro- secution, but that broke down on some technical point. It is now on its trial in the prosecution of Mr. Bennett. When we speak of a High Church party we must again bear in mind the inadequateness of language, and especially of terms which are used to class and label religious parties. There are different kinds of High Churchmen, some of them exceedingly unlike each other. In the seventeenth century the High Churchnif^n were the men of culture, the scholars of the age, liberal and tolerant of everything except the scruples of Puritanism, which sorely tried their patience. After the Eevolution the High Churchmen were generally the country clergy, whose great war- fare was not with the flesh and the devil, but with Latitudinarian bishops. In the beginning of the last century all liberal measures passed the Upper House of Convocation, but were condemned in the Lower House. The "Wesleys, in the early stages of their career, were High Churchmen ; but by High Church zeal they were pelted with brickbats and rotten eggs till the devotion" which began in the Church could only find rest in the conventicle. But the old species died out. In their later days they were simply the ' beef- eaters ' of the Church. They obeyed its laws. They '54 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. defended in their own way its bulwarks. They were ■great pluralists, the ready servants of the State; but too loyal and too Conservative, both in religion and politics, ever to come into collision with anything the Church taught, or seemed to teach. The High Churchism of the present day might be regarded as including all opinions — from those of some members of the ' Evangelical ' party, who have a vague belief in apostolical succession, up to the attitudinarians of the Eitualistic Churches. So long as High Chiu'chmen were moderate, and merely emphasized some acknowledged principles or allowed practices of the Church, they were unmolested. The party was put on its defence when it openly taught doctrines and introduced ceremonies that had been expressly put aside at the Reformation. The one great doctrine at which, beyond all others, our Re- formers stumbled was the Roman doctrine of transub- stantiation in the Eucharist. Sooner than admit tliis they went to the stake and the scaffold. A party of High Churchmen are now confessedly teaching the same doctrine in the Church of England under the name of the ' Real Presence.' There is a marked difference between the history of the baptismal ques- tion and that of the Eucharist. At the Reformation no one objected to baptismal regeneration. It was received, so far as we can learn, by all the Reformers, both at home and abroad. We do not except the Puritans. We are not siu'e if we can even except the Zwinglians. It was never a subject of controversy between our Reformers and the Church of Rome. But the same cannot be said of the Eucharist. This was DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 155 the greatest of their controversies. A few words may- be gleaned here and there in the Pray er-B 00k which seem to savour of the rejected doctrine. But there were Articles written expressly to condemn it; and in the time of Edward a special rubric was added, declaring the impossibility of a body being in two places at the same time, in the very words of John Fryth, who was burned at Smithfield for teaching the doctrine of Zwingle. This rubric was omitted under Elizabeth, and was not re-inserted till after the Savoy Conference. The Puritans asked its restoration. It was restored by the moderate party ; not, however, to please Puritans, but as a barrier against the Eucha- ristic doctrine that had been introduced by Laud. The question, then, of the comprehension of the modern High Churchmen — we mean of the Eitualistic class — is not the same as in the case of the other two parties, who are not touched by the formularies. The objects of the Eitualists is avowedly to override both Articles and Eubrics, to go beyond the Eeformation, and, for the teaching of the Eeformers, to substitute that of the Church previous to the Eeformation. Dean Stanley wishes to extend the comprehension as far as it can be extended compatible with the safety of the Church. On this ground only can we acquiesce in the recent judgment of Sir E. Phillimore in the case of Mr. Bennett. To give a legal sanction to definite errors which the Articles of the Church definitely condemn, is to disregard the last semblance of that law and order without which the Church cannot exist. The ' Eeal Presence,' which Mr. Bennett teaches, was not the '• presence ' held by the Eeformers. They iS6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. illustrated their meaning by the sun, which is in the heavens, and yet is present on earth by its light and heat. We do not think the illustration a happy one ; nor do we think that Cranmer, Calvin, Bucer, and Peter Martyr were wise in speaking of a presence at all, for this reason, that they did not mean a presence in any definite sense. Still, they did speak of a ' presence,' and therefore Sir E. Phillimore's judgment may be vindicated on the ground of toleration and comprehension. Weak-headed men may be useful under proper guidance. Driven from the Chui-ch, and put into the category of martyrs, they might be injurious botli to themselves and others. There must, however, be a limit somewhere. Mr. Bennett could not fairly have been acquitted if the words under which the prosecution was instituted had not been withdrawn. He spoke in one of his tracts of ' the real, actual, and visible presence of our Lord upon the altars of our churches,' — lauguage too much, surely, even for a Eoman Catholic, and which sounds as if it had been written by a maniac. All these controversies issue in the practical ques- tion of a final judge or arbiter who will draw the lines of comprehension and toleration. The need of a judge whose decisions would be final has created the claims of the Bishop of Eome to infallibility. The want of such a judge among Protestants has given rise to an endless sectarianism. The appeal to Scrij)ture has always turned out to be an appeal to reason, either to the private judgment of the individual to find out the meaning of Scripture, or to the same judgment to find out the meaning which the old Pathers put on the DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 157 Scripture. Dean Stanley sees our only hope in a National Church, in which the State will allow all parties as much freedom as may be compatible with safety and unity. On this unexpected use of the State-Church prin- ciple we have already spoken in this Eeview.* The tide of public opinion, and apparently the whole stream of progress, were flowing in the other dii'ec- tion. At the Reformation the Church of England clung to the civil ruler as its only protector from the tyranny of Rome. The King was Christ's vicar. The Pope was Anticlu'ist. At the Revolution this doc- trine was found untenable. The Divine right of kings refuted itself. The second James took the side of ^ Antichrist,' and the Church went its own way in giving allegiance to the Prince of Orange. The prin- ciple of the old State Church of England died out with the Nonjurors. The Highest Churchmen were then the most consistent State-Churchmen. Now times have changed. It is the High Churchmen who are impatient of the government of the State. It inter- feres with the development of their idea of a hierarchy. The civil power, represented by the Court of Arches and the Privy Council, is the ultimate judge of the doctrine of the Church. In discussing the Church and State connection we admit at once that it is not a conclusive argument against it to say that it has been accompanied hitherto with many and great evils. No system is perfect, and * See an article on 'The Churches of England,' April, 1870, and a notice of Dean Stanley's Essay on ' The Connection of Church and State,' June, 1868. TS8 COXTEMPORARV ESSAYS. with great advantages we must expect some evils. There have been eras in our history when the whole tendency of the State connection has been apparently to drive all earnest religion out of the Church, and to uphold all manner of iniquity within. The past may, however, be full of instruction for the future, and that evils have been may be the pledge that they shall not be again. It might, indeed, be argued with some fairness that neither the Nonconformists of 1662 nor the Wesleyans of the last century were driven out by the State. They were the victims of parties stronger than themselves. The sin of the State lay in its indifference ; and this, it is to be feared, ever will be its sin. "We have seen the end of pluralities, and ere long we may see the end of the sale of presentations. Unfortunately we cannot say of advowsons ; and so long as that remains there can be no check on illegal or secret treaties about presentations. We cannot surely be wrong in fixing on the present mode of disposing of benefices as the root-evil of the State Church. Dean Stanley has but little to say even in favour of a disinterested j)atronage, except that it is preferable to the tumults which accompany popular election. To this he adds the consideration that if the clergy had the election of the bishoj)s, men of liberal tendencies would never be elected to the episcopate. As to the evils of popular elections, they might be very few if definite laws were made by which congre- gations were to be guided in the choice of ministers. It is here that we come upon the strength and the weakness of the argument for our freedom within the National Church. When a man gets a living, — let it DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 159 be by purchase, presentation, or simony, — the power which a bishop has over him is merely in name. The bishop is compelled to institute, and he cannot suspend without an expensive process in law. But a clergy- man without a benefice is completely, at the mercy of either bishop or incumbent. A few weeks ago, to our knowledge, a clergyman, not unknown as a theological writer, agreed to take charge of a small parish not far from London. After an interview with the bishop, his lordship refused to sanction the agreement made with the rector, and ostensibly for no other reason but that the clergyman was a writer who advocated a theology of which the bishop did not aj)prove.* The clergyman had no redress, no court of appeal. He might have gone to the Prime Minister and com- plained that an arbitrary and impulsive man had been placed over a great diocese, for the duties of which he evidently wanted capacity. The Prime Minister could only have answered that the appointment was made * The bishop was the present Bishop of Eochester. The clergyman ■was curate of the parish of Lambeth. He had gone through the correspond- ence generally involved in a new engagement, and resigned the curacy which he held. The bishop wished an interview, in order, as he expressed it, ' to make acquaintance.' He asked, among other things, why the curate was leaving a populous parish like Lambeth for a small country i^arish. The answer was that he had literary work, and could not therefore do the work of a large parish. The bishop asked if he wrote for any reviews or maga- zines. Several were mentioned, and at last the Contemporary. At the men- tion of this Eeview the bishop's countenance fell, the nerves in his face visibly quivered, he turned away his head for a few seconds, and then stammered out in confusion, ' You will not do ; the parish will not suit you, and you will not suit the parish.' The clergyman remonstrated against being treated in this arbitrary manner, but in vain. ' It is my business,' said the bishop ' to judge what men are suitable for places, and what places are suitable for men.' There are, it is to be hoped, but few bishops in the Church of England who so misui^derstand their position as to make so flagrant an abuse of their power. But the case illustrates what a self-willed bishop may do, and how helpless an unbeneficed clergyman is before- him. i6o CONTEMPORARY ESSAVS. by his predecessor, for whose acts he was not respon- sible. We do not find in any of Dean Stanley's arguments that he ever takes into his calculations the ftict of the existence of curates. The ' Parvique Cures ' arc C-hurch animalcules, not to be discerned without a glass that magnifies. This would be par- donable if curates were, as the theory implies, merely apprentices to Church work. But it is different when we know that they are really the working bees of the Church, that their number is more than a thu^d of the whole clergy, and that, on an average, a man is from twelve to fifteen years in orders before he gets a living. Here, then, is the actual price of our freedom — a benefice by purchase, or a quiet tongue in our heads for nearly twenty years of the best part of a man's life. Of course the exceptions are many. Dean Stanley, Bishop Temple, Archbishop Tait, and others whom we could name, were never either purchasers of preferment or subjected to a long and ignominious silence. They began life with the prizes of the public schools and the great Universities, which must ever be beyond the reach of the many, and from their very nature attainable only by a few. One of the essays in this volume is on Subscription to the Articles, both in the Church and the Univer- sities. It is not proposed to set aside the Church's formularies, but only not to enforce subscrij)tion, because that in fact no man now believes every state- ment of the Articles. Those who enter into the life of the Church, and receive the substance of its teach- ing, will cling to it voluntarily. Those who do not will drop off. And here we have the Dean's answer DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. i6i to the Westminster and Quarterly Revietvs^ when they urged the moral obligation of the essayists to resign their preferments. There is a spirit of progress at work in all Churches. Where this progress is normal, it implies imperfection in the past. The forms in which religion expresses itself in different eras must be subject to change. The old must ever be giving place to the new. Sojne dogmas which we should now willingly set aside are the incarnations of the devout feelings of the saints of other days. What a figment to us, as indeed it was to Eichard Baxter and John Wesley, is the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness ! Yet how precious was the meaning it had to Tobias Crisp and John Saltmarsh, to James Hervey and Augustus Toplady ! The Dean of Westminster has peculiar advantages for the discussion of theological questions, from the variety and the accuracy of his knowledge. He reads all kinds of books. He is not only, as we all know, an eminent classical and Biblical scholar, but he is familiar with all the European languages which pos- sess any literature. He has travelled much, and has had the friendship of the prelates and scholars of the Greek and Eoman as well as of the Protestant Churches. To these advantages he has added an appreciative study of all the religious parties at home, and their relations to the State Church. He under- stands General and Particular Baptists, IS'ew Connexion and Association Methodists, New Light and Old Light Seceders, and we verily believe he could distinguish between a Burgher and an Anti-Burgher. This capacity for a wide survey enables him to compare, to M 1 62 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. analyze, to trace the working of the same principle under different forms, and to detect inconsistencies, not merely in arguments, but what is of more import- ance, in tendencies. At the time of the 'Essay and Eeview ' mania, the High Church zeal for everlasting punishment in a material hell was very vehement. In the essays on ' The Church and the World,' the repre- sentative High Church volume. Dean Stanley finds a hope expressed that there may be a limit to future punishment. A favourite dogma of the High Church party is that Chi-ist's human nature was so unlike ours that it excluded all imperfections of knowledge. But Dean Stanley finds John Keble singing — ' Was not our Lord a little child, Tauffht hij de'jrees to pray, By father dear and mother mild Instructed day by day ? ' After the judgment on ' Essays and Eeviews,' when it was discovered that the Church of England taught no definite doctrines concerning inspiration or everlasting punishment. Cardinal Wiseman wished to make some capital out of this for the Church of Eome. He called mechanical inspiration and everlasting punishment the 'vital doctrines,' the 'sacred deposit,' committed to his Church. Dean Stanley immediately answered that the Cardinal spoke only as a private theologian, for the Decrees of Trent have made no ' definition of the extent of inspiration or of the limits of the Divine mercy.' In another place, where he is dealing with the Bishop of Capetown's argument for a ' concurrent testimony ' of the early Church, the Dean says a ' con- current testimony ' may be found in remote times for DEAN STANLEY'S ESSAYS. 163 the ' Immaculate Conception,' and certainly for the celi- bacy of the clergy. The Apostolical canons on which the Bishop of Capetown grounded his judgment against Dr. Colenso, direct that a clergyman who marries after taking orders is to be deposed, and the Council of Mcea enjoins the same punishment for every bishop, presbyter, or deacon who shall be promoted to any higher place in the Church than that which he holds. The chief significance of Dean Stanley's Essays is that they are a contribution to the new theology, or what he calls the theology of the nineteenth century. The chief objection to this theology is that it is but a stepping-stone to something beyond. "We do not know what is to be the next form it will assume. This position is accepted. The old theology posited infallibility, and then reasoned downwards. The new begins with ascertained facts, and builds upon them. The doctrine of progress implies that the full truth is a goal to be reached, and not a point from which we start. The old theology assumed what the Bible ought to be ; the new asks what it is. To invent ways for God is one of the failings of the human mind. We are now to begin to learn God's way. Popes, councils, and creed-makers in all ages have spoken as if their '• little systems ' embraced the whole of truth. Expe- rience of their faihu'es gives us wisdom. We begin to learn that we are only children in the school of Christ, and that our capacities are but small. We recall the forgotten words of Jesus — His parting words to His disciples, as full of meaning in our day as they were then — ' I have yet many things to say unto 5^ou, but ye cannot bear them now.' m2 YI. SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE CHEISTIANITY OF CHEIST.* AGEEAT deal has been written during the last thirty years, both in Germany and in England, concerning dogma and its relation to the essence of Christianity. It cannot be said that what has been written is of little value; but no one will affirm that on this subject the last word has been spoken, or is likely to be for some time to come. A glance at the contents of the volumes placed at the head of this paper will show, not merely how widely men differ as to what are Christian dogmas, but even as to the meaning, the importance, and the place of dogma itself. The question is intimately connected with several * Contemporary Review, February, 1871. Present-Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology. Edited by the Right Rev. Alexandeb Ewing, D.C.L., Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. First Series. Strahan & Co. 1870. The Atonement in its Relations to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of our Lord. By the Rev. Hugh Martin, M.A. James Nisbet & Co. 1870. The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bampton Lectures for 1866. By Henby Pabby Liddon, M.A. Rivingtons. 1867. The Dogmatic Faith. An Inquiry into the Relations subsisting between Revelation and Dogma. The Bampton Lectures for 1867. By Edward Garbett, M.A. Rivingtons. 1867. Studies of Christianity. By Jameb MAETnJEAU. Longmans & Co. 1658. SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 165 others. It involves the character of Christianity, the meaning of Eevelation, and the functions of the Church. From the stand-point of the Church of Eome, the subject is very simple ; as, indeed, all sub- jects are except that of the Chui'ch itself. A dogma with the Church of Eome is an article of belief im- posed by authority. It is not necessary that the article be understood, or that there be any evidence of its truth ; it is enough that it comes with the authority of the Church. The only groimd for an essential difference among Eoman Catholics must be concerning this authority — ^who are they whose deci- sions constitute the voice of the Church? The dis- tinction between a dogma and a pious opinion is clear and definite in the Church of Eome. The same cannot be said of Protestantism. Three hundred years have passed since the Eeformation ; but it is only to-day that men are beginning to see the ultimate of the principles which the Eeformation involved. Protes- tants made creeds which consisted of definitions of doctrines ; but the only authority claimed for them was the authority of Scripture ; which implied either that the framers of the creeds had infallibly interpreted the Scriptures, or that those required to believe the creeds were to judge for themselves. It is not unnatui-al that those who have written on dogma should generally begin with an inquiry con- cerning the meaning of the word. The definition given by Neander is just the opposite of what the word means in the Church of Eome. A dogma, he says, is an opinion — a notion. For this meaning of the word, he quotes Plato and Sextus Empiricus. In ib6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the New Testament, however, he adds that the word never occurs m the sense of a doctrine, but only in that of a statute or decree. Dogma, according to Neander, does not form an original part of Christianity. It is derived and secondary. The essence of Chris- tianity does not consist in a system of ideas, but in a tendency of the inner life. ' The pearl of Christianity is a hidden life in God, consisting neither in dogmas, nor ideas, nor ceremonies.' In this case a history of dogmas would be a history of human opinions, not necessarily true, and very probably untrue. The words of Hagenbach correspond to those of Neander. 'Jesus,' he says, 'was not the author of dogmatic theology, but the author and finisher of our faith ; not the founder of a sect, but emphatically the founder of religion, and of the Church.' The Lutheran theo- logian, Martensen, on the other hand, maintains that a dogma is not an opinion, nor even an ascertained truth, but a truth resting on faith, and ' derived from the authority of the Word and Eevelation of God.' This is the old Protestant definition, while Ncander and Hagenbach represent the view with which it is in conflict. Mr. Liddon starts with the imj)ossibility of separating between faith and dogma ; the latter being simply identical with the thing believed. This is true in itself; but Mr. Liddon' s argument is beside the question, which is not the impossibility of sej^a- rating between religion and theology, but whether any given system of articles to be believed can be j^roved to have authority. Mr. Garbett, in the main, agrees with Mr. Liddon. He defines dogma as positive truth positively asserted. This, Mr. Garbett says, is SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 1(^1 the historical meaning of the word, both among Christians and pagans. ' In Christian philosophy it expresses the theology based on the authority of Scripture and the judgment of the Fathers.' The question of the etymological or historical mean- ing of the word might be dismissed. It would be no loss to either side to dispense with the word altogether. Mr. Liddon and Mr. Garbett both mean by dogmas certain things to be believed because of the authority which imposes them. This opens up the real question at issue, which is the character of belief if it depends on authority, and the consequent inquiry who or what that authority is. Neander and Hagenbach are as clear as Mr. Liddon and Mr. Garbett that certain things are believed, but they do not admit that they are presented for our belief in the form of authorita- tive dogmas. The Church of Eome, as we have said, takes up a position definite and consistent. It claims to speak infallibly, and therefore to publish doctrines or defini- tions of doctrines with authority. Mr. Liddon, of course, as a Protestant must take the Scriptures before the Church ; but not being willing to be considered altogether a Protestant, he falls back on something which he calls ' the voice of the Catholic Church ' — that is, some interpretations of Scripture which he finds, or supposes he finds, in some old creeds or Church Fathers, and which he considers 'authoritative elucidations of Christian doctrine.' "We have difficulty in discovering that any authority ever belonged to the Church which does not belong to it now. What Mr. Liddon means by the ' C/atholic Church ' is not easy 1 68 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to say. Its relations to the present Church of Eome, or the present Church of England, are difficult to determine. Both these Churches cannot be at one with it, for their dogmas are different. The recent efforts to harmonize their teaching have been made, as we all know, by dissolving the dogmas peculiar to each. The English Church is to renounce its articles, and the Church of Eome the decisions of Trent. Mr. Garbett — faithful to the Protestantism of the Church of England, but unfaithful to the principle of Pro- testantism— seeks another foundation for the authority of dogma. He divides the theory of dogma into three elements — the Church, the dogma itself or the 'faith,' and the Scriptures. The first is the keeper of truth, the second is the truth kept, and the Scriptm-es the authoritative record. The Scriptures are the criterion or the judge. By them we are to discriminate between a true Church and a false Church ; by them we know that the dogmas of the Church of Eome are errors, and that those taught in the articles of the Church of England are the truth. This is not enough, Mr. Garbett adds in the spirit of the most innocent orthodoxy, that all the Eoman dogmas condemned in our articles, rubrics, canons, and homilies are the 'dogmas taught by special branches of the Church,' while the teaching of the articles consists of the ' dogmas ever held in common by the universal Church.' Authority, however, in the final analysis of the argument, is only ascribed to the Scriptures, so that this ' universal Church,' whatever it may be, and the 'judgment of the Fathers,' whatever that may moan, have no validity in making dogma authoritative. SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 169 To approacli this question somewhat nearer, we may- follow Mr. Liddon in his application of the principle of dogma to the subject of his lectui-es — the Divinity of Jesus Christ. In the sense in which Mr. Liddon understands the divinity of Christ, that divinity is an authoritative dogma. "We waive the question whether or not Mr. Liddon' s doctrine is that of the ancient Church. By his own confession, it was not that of the ante-Nicene Fathers. At least the forms in which they put their doctrine were not satisfactory. They ' admit a Catholic interpretation, but they do not invite one.' This really means that the ante-Nicene Fathers held the divinity of Christ in a sense which would now be reckoned heresy. We do not know if Mr. Liddon' s doctrine is really that of the Nicene Fathers. We seriously question if it be that of St. Athanasius. We have grave doubts if it is even that of the Athanasian Creed. The Church went on defining till the latter definitions converted the earlier doctrines into heresies. This is the conclusion to which we are inevitably led by every history of dogmas. The dogmatist demands that the doctrine be received in its most developed form. The anti- dogmatist prefers it in a simpler form, under which may be included a variety of opinions respecting it. In John's Gospel Jesus speaks of Himself as being one with the Father, and He prays for His disciples that by a like union they might be united to Him, that they all might be one with the Father. Atha- nasius, in the spirit of John's Gospel, made the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus the same in kind with the incarnation of the Logos in all good men. 170 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. The very object of the incarnation, according to St. Athanasius, was that man might be made God. This is far removed from that modern view of the incarna- tion which isolates the man Jesus from the whole of humanity, as if in Him, under the limitations of the finite, was embraced the all of the Infinite. Exube- rance of i)iety might be pardoned when it speaks of ' Our God contracted to a span ;' but when this idea is worked up into a dogma, and called the ' Catholic ' faith, anti-dogmatists may well long for the simpler creed of the ante-Nicene Fathers, or even that Athanasius would again arise and fight his battles, ' contra mundum^ against the world of modern dogmas.* Tor another phase of the development of dogma we turn to Mr. Hugh Martin. We have designedly chosen an extreme form of Calvinism, and we take a representative of the metaphysical Scotch intellect, the ' Gens nitione ferox et mentem paata cliiina3ris." The question is, if any of these chimaeras be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mr. Martin advocates the old Scotch theology in its integrity, the theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith. This Confession is still subscribed by the Presbyterian ministers in Scotland; in charity, we hope, only with explana- tions and reservations sufficient to neutralise its • In opposition to the whole of Mr. LidJon's theory we may quote the words of Liicke : ' The more I endeavour to realise the manner of thinking and speaking current in the New Testament, the more I feel myself called upon to give it as my opinion, that the historical Son of God, as such, cannot be called God without completely destroying the monotheistical system of the Apostles.' SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 171 meaning. It is, however, only too evident that there are men who really subscribe it in good faith, and receive its teaching as absolute truth. The genuine believers are mostly to be found in the Free Church. Mr. Martin is consistent, and, granting his premises, logical. He is thorough, and not afraid of the legiti- mate results of what he believes. He tells us that the view of the atonement which he advocates, is a 'revealed reality.' It is a dogma resting on the authority of inspired and infallible Scriptures, and therefore to be thoroughly believed and received by all men. It is moreover declared to be ' the doctrine of the Catholic Church.' This use of the word ' Catholic ' brings us into our usual perplexity as to what men can possibly mean by it. The doctrine in question is now renounced by the whole Christian world, if we except the party in the Free Church of Scotland represented by Mr. Martin, the Particular Baptists, and a very small section of the clergy of the Church of England. ^ATien a man sets forth his own views of doctrine as ' Catholic,' we generally suspect that he is in want of a more solid argument, and that his acquaintance with the history of Christianity does not extend much beyond the history of his own sect. Mr. Martin's doctrine is what is called the ' federal theology.' It means that God made a covenant with Christ that He should save a certain number of the human race who were included in that covenant. So that Chi-ist did not die for man, but for some men ; not for sin, but for ' sins.' His death was a literal substitution for those in the covenant, a literal price paid that they might escape punishment. Objections 172 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. on the side of reason are not to be heard against a 'revealed reality.' If they cannot be answered directly, they must find a general answer in the Divine sove- reignty, which means that an ' Almighty Tyrant,' to use John Wesley's words, can do as He likes with the beings He has made. The first objection to this view of atonement is that the innocent sufi'ers in order that the guilty may escape. By a ' legal fiction,' they are accounted righteous who are not righteous. Mr. Martin's answer is that Christ and His people are federally one ; Christ has become the guilty, and His righteousness has become theii's. There is then, he concludes, no ' legal fiction,' which of course is true if Mr. Martin could prove that the identity of Christ with other men is not itself a ' legal fiction.' Another objection is that if Christ died only for some men, there is no possibility of salvation to those for whom He did not die. It is admitted that the invitation of the gospel is addressed to all, but the answer is that they cannot come. The old Calvinistic divines got out of this difficulty by the matchless scholastic distinction between a moral and a physical inability. The inability w^as not physical, but moral. It con- sisted in having no will to accept Christ's invitation to repentance and forgiveness. Mr. Martin, having found by the help of Dr. Cimningham a better answer, admits that this distinction did not meet the objection. The better answer is to show that man is responsible for his inability. The ' federal theology ' easily manages this by regarding the whole human race as ' one and indivisible.' So that when Adam sinned, all sinned ; and thcrefurc all miglit have been, as SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 173 some will be, punished everlastingly, because of their ' federal ' connection with Adam. According to Mr. Martin, this is not merely a doctrine expressly and verbally revealed in Scripture, but the only one to which we are led by ' scientific or Baconian induc- tion.' If it were either of these, we fear that the very existence of such a dogma in the Scriptures would in the judgment of most men be sufiicient, not merely to overthrow the authority of the Scriptures, but to deprive them both of value and meaning. It is always an advantage in studying any contro- verted subject to get an author who is not afraid of all the legitimate results of his position. This is the case with Mr. Martin ; and one thing which is clearly evident from his book is the inconsistency of those who believe in literal substitution, and yet reject the ^ federal theology.' The Arminian or Wesleyan view, that Christ died for all, but that they only are saved who believe and repent, is the antithesis of Mr. Mar- tin's doctrine ; and yet it is not generally believed to contain any special heresy. Several theological writers, especially among the Independents, who have wished to adhere to Calvinism, and yet to escape its difficul- ties, have supposed a imiversal atonement for all men, but an election, afterwards of some men to the benefits of that atonement. It does not seem to have occurred to these writers, any more than to the Arminian s, that their theory really excludes the proper idea of literal substitution. If Christ died for every man, and yet every man is not to be saved, then all the literal ideas of satisfaction, substitution, price, and redemption must go. The dogmas supposed to be ' revealed 174 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. realities ' disappear. The truth at the bottom of these theories, and common to them all, takes a simpler form, and the anti-dogmatist enters on the inquiry what that simpler form is. We have chosen Mr. Martineau's volume for the same reason that we chose Mr. Martin's. Mr. Mar- tineau is the representative of the descendants of the old English Presbyterians in their most advanced stage of departure from dogma. Mr. Liddon could doubtless prove that Mr. Martinean has dogmas as well as the dogmatists ; that is, certain things which he believes. But our present business is to see how in his hands dogmas which others think all-important pass on to dissolution. The foundation of the ' federal theology ' is the fall of man in Adam, which implies the identification of all men with Adam, and their being involved in his sin. Mr. Martineau confesses that he cannot explain the mystery of the existence of evil, but he denies that in Christianity all physical and moral evil is ascribed to the sin of Adam. He sees suffering in the world which he cannot explain ; but to be told that that suffering is to be eternal is to be carried into ' deeper and gratuitous difficulties.' Supposing the fall of Adam to be the cause of the existence of evil, we see no evidence that it has been affected by the death on the cross. The ' visible ' efi'ects are visible still, and if the visible consequences of Adam's sin are unredeemed, there is a just suspicion that the invisible also are unredeemed. The an- nouncement to Adam simply was that if he sinned he should die. To have extracted from this that he and his posterity were to suffer endless life in hell must SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 175 have required the ingenuity of a theologian. The theory of substitution is that the blow of Divine jus- tice must fall somewhere. This can be understood in two ways. We can either suppose the Divine Being is a person, and that He refuses to forgive until satisfaction be made to Him, or we can suppose that God is impersonal, and that justice, existing eternally and necessarily, demands retribution. In the first case the Divine Being is vindictive ; in the other case the universe is not ruled by will but by inevitable law. With every effort which the Calvinist makes on his scheme to defencj the Divine Being from vindictive- ness he falls into the idea of the Divine impersonality. What amount of truth there may be in this aspect of Deity we cannot at present inquire ; but Calvinism, consistently with itself, falls back on the analogy of nature, where it finds a terrible Deity, not always just, but apparently never suffering sin to go un- punished. Mr. Martineau protests against going for analogy to that which in nature is dark and incom- prehensible. That one man suffers hy the sin of ano- ther is evident, and in this we cannot exj)lain Divine justice ; but, he says, no man suffers /or another.* The great and manifest truth in the world of nature and of revelation is that every man must bear the punish- ment of his own sins. ' The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' ]N'o guilt is forgiven until it is eradicated from the soul. The atonement, then, as explained by Mr. Martineau, is simply that God forgives men who * We are not sure that Mr. Martineau's distinction is really tenable. If one man suffers because another man does wrong, it is really suffering for another. Every man does not, at least in this life, bear the punishment of his own sin. — X. 176 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. forsake their sins ; and this forgiveness is not a ' legal fiction,' like the popular doctrine of justification, but proceeds according to the degree of inner or actual regeneration. But the question, which view has Scripture on its side, has yet to be determined. In the first three Gospels it may be admitted that there is no trace of anything like substitution for sin. The words of Isaiah, quoted in St. Matthew, that ' He bare our diseases,' are applied to Jesus healing the sick. For- giveness is always represented as following repent- ance and amendment. The parables, which set forth the Divine forgiveness, as, for instance, that of the prodigal son, say nothing of substitution. In John's Gospel Jesus says, ' I lay down my life for the sheep.' The sense in which a good or true shep- herd dies in defence of his sheep may fairly em- brace all that is meant by this passage. It is chiefly in the Epistles that we find the sacrificial lan- guage on which the popular dogmas of satisfaction and propitiation are erected. And the sole question is, if this language be literal, or only an adaptation of Jewish phraseology by way of illustration of the simple fact of the Divine forgiveness. Mr. Martineau, admitting that three or four sacrificial passages are to be found in the Gospels and the Acts, and holding this distinction to be nearly true, yet lays down one which he regards as absolutely true. It is that the language supposed to teach the atoning efficacy of the cross does not occur in the !N"ew Testament until the beginning of the Gentile controversy. By His death Christ ceased to be merely the Jewish Messiah, and SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 177 opened the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles. He was lifted up that He might draw all men unto Him. He laid down His life that He might bring together the ' other sheep not of this fold.' With considerable ingenuity this principle is applied to the sacrificial language of St. Paul's Epistles. The Epistle to the Hebrews is excepted. In it we have all the Jewish phraseology, and indeed the whole Jewish economy spiritualised or applied by way of adaptation or illus- tration to Christ. This was done to satisfy the Hebrews for the loss of their temple-worship and ritual. In this Epistle Christ is spoken of as offering up sacrifice once for all ; for His own sins', and also for the sins of the peoj^le. The Epistle with Mr. Martineau is simply a Jewish mode of exhibiting or illustrating the Divine forgiveness. To the same conclusion, concerning the sacrificial language of the New Testament, Mr. Jowett has come in his study of St. Paul's E23istles. ' Passing allu- sions,' he says, ' figures of speech, rhetorical oj^posi- tions, have been made the foundation of doctrinal statements, which are like a part of the human mind itself, and seem as if they never could be uprooted without uprooting the very sentiment of religion.' The ' federal theology ' which Mr. Martin lauds as ' a noble catalogue of revealed truth,' Mr. Jowett cannot find anywhere in the Scriptures. Concerning its first principle, Mr. Jowett says, ' How slender is the foundation in the New Testament for the doctrine of Adam's sin being imputed to his posterity — two pas- sages from St. Paul at most, and these of uncertain interpretation. The little cloud, no bigger than a N 1 78 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. man's hand, lias covered the heavens.' The words, indeed, of the two passages are plain — ' As in Adam all die,' and ' By one man sin entered into the world.' But did they mean to St. Paul what they are under- stood to mean now ? Was Adam's sin the cause of death to all his posterity in any different way than as Abraham was a father of circumcision to the uncir- cumcised ? This is a parallel ease of St. Paul's mode of speaking. Where he says all died in Adam, is it the same that is meant as in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, where he says, ' If one died for all, then all died ? ' The Apostle's words need not mean more than that Adam's sin was the cause of the sins of his posterity. The ' federal theology,' like many other theologies, has to go about for explanations. The second clause of the first passage is, ' So in Christ shall all be made alive.' But Mr. Martin comes in to say that the 'all ' in the second clause only means all that are in the covenant, not all that died in Adam. If the words are to be taken in the simple sense which they have to us, they mean clearly that as all men fell in Adam, so all shall be ultimately restored tlirough Christ. And, indeed, this accords with the whole argument of the chapter. ' Every man in his own order ; Christ the firstfruits, afterwards they that are Cln-ist's, then cometh the end.' The last enemy is to be destroyed, all things subdued, and the consummation is a complete restoration to the bosom of the Eather when ' God shall be all things in all things.' Mr. Jowett finds in St. Paul's Epistles that Christ's dying for us is the same as His living for us. The nearest and best conception he takes to be that furnished by Christ SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. lyq Himself, who spoke of a, good man djdng for his friends ; or this death for us may mean that He iden- tified Himself Avith our troubles and sorrows. It may edify Mr. Martin and some other advocates of the ' Catholic faith ' to know that there was no doctrine of atonement in any primitive creed, and that according to the gi-eat Fathers of the ancient Church, the price was paid, not to God, but to \\\(i great enemy. It is with considerable satisflietion that we can number among anti-dogmatists a bishop of the Epis- copal Church of Scotland. That Church, perhaps, never had any very luminous virtues, and of late years its poverty has made it the prey of an extreme party in the Church of England. At the present hour, it is letting slip a golden opportunity for intro- ducing into Scotland something of the culture and liberality of sentiment which now, happily, have made considerable progress in the Church of England. It might do much to lessen the sectarianism and the dogmatism which are among the chief evils of reli- gious parties in Scotland, But we fear it is only introducing an intensified sectarianism, which is different merely in species, not in genus, from the narrowest sects. Their operations are diversified ; but it is one and the self-same spirit which is at work. The Bishop of Argyll is evidently an excep- tion. We do not venture to speak of the benefits which Mr. Hugh Martin, and those whom he repre- sents, might derive from the paternal counsels and godly admonitions of this Eight Eeverend Father in God. The object which the writers of the Present-I)ay N 2 i8o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Papers seem to have before them, is to try ho"v\- mucli of the dogmatic incrustations that have gathered around Christianity may be removed without injury to the essence of Christianity. They are not uncon- scious of the difficulty, and even the danger, of the work which they have undertaken. Their spirit is cautious and reverent; conscious, on the one hand, that some of the popular dogmas are the chief causes of unbelief, and conscious also that by many they will be themselves regarded as promoting that unbelief. Speaking of the departui-e of some in the present time from the faith of Christianity, one of the writers says — ' We do not look on it as hopeless, or with unmitigated fear, for we are under the impression that the present is no final, hut merely a transition stage, where the things which have served their purpose and become effete are being superseded by those things which are real and cannot pass away. It signifieth, we believe, but the removing of the things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.' The preface gives a definition of Eevelation dif- ferent from the ordinary one, and simpler. It takes the word as it stands, meaning ' a giving of light, an unveiling.' It is not an additional mystery to the mysteries of nature, but something whereby we are to understand what is dark and mysterious in nature. It is something which speaks to the reason and the conscience ; whatever then in the Scriptures is dark can be no part of Eevelation. ISI'one of the writers have treated of the doctrine of the Trinity, which must always be the main test, whether or not there are any mysteries in Christianity which claim to be SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. I8X believed as mysteries. Anything in the Scriptures which seems contrary to our sense of right, on this principle can be no part of Eevelation. The fii'st paper is a reprint from William Law's ' Spirit of Love.' The subject is the Atonement. William Law, we suppose, is reprinted because of what he said, and not for the mere authority of his name. When he wrote this tract he had become a follower of Jacob Bohme. He does not deny ' a justice of God which requires satisfaction done to it before man could be reconciled,' but he denies that this favours the ojjinion of wrath or resentment in God, The wrath to be atoned is nothing else but sin or disorder in the creature. When sin is extinguished in the creatui-e, all the wrath that is between God and the creature is fully atoned. If the wrath is to be taken away from God, then the atonement would be for his benefit, and not for the benefit of man. St. Paul says we ' are by nature children of wrath ; ' and David says, ' Thine arrows stick fast in me. Thy hand presseth me sore.' These, and such passages, are understood to mean simply the dominion of sin and its necessary consequences. The work of atone- ment is the work of regeneration ; it is ' Christ given unto us.' Sin brings its necessary punishment, not because God wills it, but because He cannot change His own nature ; He cannot give blessedness to any but the righteous. The atonement of Chiist is God putting an end to sin, and death, and hell. There is nothing in it supernatural. It is ' only nature set right, or made to be that which it ought to be.' The question here, us befure, concerns the sense in which 1 8 2 CONTEMPORARY ESS A YS. the Scriptui-es are to be iinderstood, and liow far reason and conscience are to be guides in interpreting them. The difficulty of dogma is only the difficulty of Scripture interpretation intensified. The Bishop of Argyll has often said that the statement in the second of the Thii'ty-nine Articles — Christ died ' to reconcile His Father to us ' — can only be received in a con- ventional sense. ' A bargain has no relation to love ; but Christ's wounds are the outgoings of God's love, the pledge of its reality, the gauge of its def)th, not equivalents for sin.' Of the fruits of sin, it is said, there never is remission. But Christ vs^ent among the wheels of a disordered creation to bring it into unison. He delivered from sin rather than from the penalty ; indeed, from the penalty only by eradicating sin. Salvation, regeneration, and justification proceed with equal steps. We are saved, regenerated, and justified just in the degree that sin is removed and the life of Christ has become real within us. The author of the last Paper in the series, ' Eternal Life Mani- fested,' says, ' The life was incarnated in Jesus Christ, and then from Him and through Him, as a medium, it is commimieated to men on earth.' This, he adds in a note, ' is the entire sense of the doctrine of mediation. The mediator of artificial theology, standing between an offended God and sinful creatures, is a dishououi'ing and unscriptural invention.' Putting, as we have done, on one side Mr. Liddon, Mr. Garbett, and Mr. Hugh Martin, and, on the other side, the writers of these Papers, it is evident that there is a wide interval between the principles of the dogmutirits and the anti- dogmatists. And yet SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. i8j both sides are willing to stand by the Scriptui-es. Mr. Liddon's argument, which we already remarked was beside the real question at issue, is, nevertheless, correct in its own place. He argues truly that religion cannot be separated from theology. Men will reason. They will define, and their definitions and reasonings must be metaphysical. The defini- tions in the creeds are the efibrts of the writers to express their conceptions of certain doctrines. The first development of dogma is distinctly to be traced in the K^ew Testament itself. The teaching of Jesus, as recorded by the first three Evangelists, is in the main practical. In John's Gospel we have not only Christ's doctrine, but a doctrine concerning Chi'ist. The Apostle had become familiar with the meta- physical terms of the Alexandi'ine philosophy. By means of them he illustrated and defended the doc- trine of the incarnation. Some English wi'iters have thought it necessary to deny this ; but it is manifest to all unprejudiced scholars. Chi-istianity had an inheritance from the philosophy of the Greeks. The writer of the fourth Gospel made use of the terms and modes of thought current in that age to express his conceptions of the doctrines of Chi-istianity. St. Paul and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews were evidently not unacquainted with the Alexandi'ine philosophy, though they delight more in Jewish forms, both of speech and thought. These are mani- fest proofs of Mr. Liddon's principle that men will not, probably cannot, stop at religion, but must go on to construct a theology. The two schools of Christian philosophy that existed among the Fathers, and the 1 84 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. dogmas peculiar to each, are well known to all who are familiar with the history of theology. Mr. Lid- don puts them together as one bundle, and dignifies the whole with the title of ' the ripe decisions which we owe to the illuminated mind of Primitive Chris- tendom.' Besides these 'ripe decisions,' we owe not a few definitions to the scholastics. As Protestants, we have also to receive the dogmas that grew out of the controversies of the Eeformation, while Roman Catholics have to abide by those made at Trent — ■ often out of mere opposition to the doctrines of the Eeformers. The question, we repeat, is not that meu will make dogmas, or go on trying to define what they believe. The question is, if these dogmas or definitions are to be received as imposed by authority. If so, where is the authority ? Without a claim to infallibility, no Church can pretend to have authority to impose dogmas. We go back, then, to the Scrip- tures. There are here three things to be distinguished from each other — How we understand the Scriptures, what the writers really mean, and what was the ex- tent of their knowledge. Mr. Liddon forbids us ' to exercise thought on the Christian Eevelation.' Mr. Garbett tells us that the province of reasom is confined to the evidences of a Divine Revelation. The great principle of the Reformation was the right of every man to judge of the meaning of the Scrijjtures. It did not advocate any abuse of j)rivate judgment in the sense of every man putting on the Scriptures whatever sense he fancied. But it did advocate the individual responsibility of every man, and his obli- SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 185 gation to be guided by his own convictions. One of the writers in the Bishop of Argyll's Papers says that this principle cannot be separated from another ; which is, that ' we are free to judge what is Eevela- tion or not.' If we are bound by the Scriptui'es only as we have capacity to understand them, then the measure of that capacity is the measure of what we are to believe — that is, of the dogmas we are to receive. Whatever is clearly taught in the Scriptures, that alone is to be received by Christians. 13ut this obviously may be far short of what is really in the Scripture. To get at the real meaning, for instance, of St. Paul's Epistles is no easy matter. The infallible Church of Eome has never ventured on any infallible interj)retatiou. The keenest intellects and the greatest scholars of modern times are unable, in many cases, to find out the stand-point from which the Apostle is discoursing. They find it impossible to enter the circle of ideas that prevailed in his time. They do not loiow the precise force of his modes of reasoning or the limits of his rhetoric, and they can only guess at the mental characters and capacities of those to whom his Epistles were written. Our understanding, then, of much of the Pauline theology may be very different from what that theology really is. The last consideration concerns the infallibility of the writers of the Neiv Testament. Do they speak infallibly ? Do they profess to speak infallibly ? What is the date of the dogma of infallible and autho- ritative Scriptures ? Mr. Garbett says that he is not ashamed to hold the Scriptures infallible, because he is in company with the great names of Fathers and i86 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Eeformers, In another place lie applies the closing words of the Apocalypse to the whole of the New Testament, as if it had then been all written and collected into one volume ; and he adds, ' Here the voice of inspiration ceases. As its last solemn accents die away upon the ear, the Church takes up the cry and echoes on the testimony. The simple tones of her multitudinous tongues no longer carry with them the force of an infallible inspiration ; but the ordinary gifts of the Spirit still remained.' Mr. Garbett says so ; but where is the authority, dogmatic or un- dogmatic, for this distinction between the inspiration of the New Testament and the inspiration of the Church ? This surely will not be dignified as the 'Catholic faith,' or as a 'ripe decision of Primitive Christendom.' Doubtless we desire that the Scriptures always spoke clearly and infallibly. We crave in- fallibility. An infallible Church would be the satis- faction of our heart's desires. But what we long for must not be confounded with what is. Is St. Paul never wrong '? Was he not in error about C^hrist's second coming ? Are all his rhetorical argu- ments and illustrations infallible, or did he even suppose that they were ? Must the Christian Eevela- tion go to the ground if Professor Huxley proves that a seed sown does not die before it brings forth fruit, or if Mr. Darwin proves that physical death did not enter the w^orld by the sin of Adam ? The story of Adam and Eve is believed to be only a myth by many Christians who have no difficulty in supposing that St. Paul spoke according to tbe best of his knowledge. The (juestiou then culniinates in this, if even the SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 187 speculative theology of the Apostles is binding on lis with the authority of dogma. And Mr. Garbett has not failed to see that this is the real point of the conflict between dogmatist and anti-dogmatist. It is idle for either side not to look the question fairly in the face. In Mr. Garbett's words — Are the Scrip- tures the creators of faith or its products, the embodi- ment of the religious consciousness of different periods of the world ? The only way to settle this question is by an examination of what the Scriptures are and what they profess to be. The objection, then, of the anti-dogmatist does not appear to be against believing certain doctrines, but against receiving any doctrines coming as dogmas — that is, claiming to be received in vii'tue of an au- thority which overrides reason and conscience. The necessity for putting our beliefs into definite forms is admitted ; but it is denied that these forms are either permanent or infallible. Some dogmas have become associated with certain phases of piety, and are appro- priate vehicles for its expression. Who objects to sing Toplady's hymn, ' Eock of Ages,' redolent as it is with that theology which makes the death of Christ salvation ' from wrath ? ' In prayers, in hymns, and even in definitions of doctrine, we must receive many conceptions, to use the Bishop of Argyll's word, ' conventionally,' feeling that if they express partially certain things that are true, yet they express them the more vividly in virtue perhaps of that partiality which is itself inseparable from definite conception. If illus- tration and speculation concerning the death of Christ were forbidden, some preachers would have but little 1 88 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to say in their sermons. They would be deprived of the means of conveying thoughts to multitudes of minds. Many who would be unaffected by a discourse from Mr. Jowett or Mr. Martineau, concerning that Divine love which has no anger to be appeased, would be instructed by John Bunyan's exposition of the parable of the barren fig-tree, Avhere the Father in justice commands it to be cut down, and the Son in mercy pleads for another year of probation. The dis- courses of the learned writers of the ' Present-Day Papers ' would be unmeaning to thousands who are edified by Mr. Spurgeon when he preaches on what God has done for them for ' Christ's sake,' notwith- standing that the text is a notorious mistranslation of the original Greek.* And all this brings us back to the fact that it is with the religious consciousness that preachers have to deal, and not with formal definitions of theology, except so far as these definitions help to work upon that consciousness. The mischief appears when the dogmatists of different sects begin the enun- ciation of their dogmas with a ' Quicunque vult,' and end with an anathema that he who does not think as they do shall ' without doubt everlastingly perish.' In this sense Dr. Schenkel is right when he describes orthodoxy as the sin against the Holy Ghost. The anti-dogmatists wish to stand by what Lessing calls ' the Christianity of Christ,' that is, practical re- ligion as taught by Jesus Himself, consisting of love to God and love to man. These are to be placed in the first rank along with whatever in the New Testa- ment is manifestly clear to the reason and the con- * -Sec a strinon on Ephcsiaus iv. ^2. SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 1S9 science. That which is plain is that which is revealed. It belongs to us. What is secret we may desire to look into ; but we are not to take the words of men, nor the definitions of men, as the words of God. We are not to bow before the ' ripe decisions of Primitive Christendom,' nor the subtle definitions of scholastic doctors, nor the symbolic books of the learned Ee- formers. We also are men. The same responsibility is given to us that was given to them. They judged for themselves according to the light that was in them ; so we too must judge for ourselves, and seek to share that light which shone in them. In taking up this position the anti-dogmatist places himself in harmony with the matured judgment of the universal reason of humanity. He begins with what is evident. He walks by the light which he has. He performs faith- fully his present duty ; and for the rest of the path of existence he goes on trustfully till the day break and the shadows flee away. YII. THE BISHOPS AND THE EEA'ISION OF THE BIBLE.* A FEW weeks ago the members of Sion College were summoned to an ' Evening Meeting,' at which Professor Bonamy Price was to read a paper on ' A Rational Government for the C'hurch of England.' Before beginning his paper, the Professor begged to explain that the word ' rational ' had been inserted by some other hand. It was not in the original title, and it seemed to imply that the Church of England had not a rational government. The interpolation was due to the ingenuity of the president of Sion, who re- sembled one of whom we read in the IS'ew Testament, that being high priest that year he ' prophesied.' The majority of the bishops of the Roman Church had just stultified themselves in the face of the civilised universe, but we did think that, so far as our bishops represented the Church, we really had some approach to a rational government in the Church of England. Time, how- ever, which proves all things, has proved that we * contemporary Review, April, 1871. REVISION OF THE BIB IE. igt. ■were wrong, and that the prophetic sonl of the presi- dent of Sion Avas dimly and mysteriously in the right. It is now a long time since the desire became general among Biblical scholars for a revision of the authorised translation of the Bible. Like all ideas in our naturally conservative country that affect changes, its progress towards realisation has been slow but sure. There were many difficulties which were felt by all the promoters of revision. The words of the present translation are familiar to us. The very sound of them is sacred. To the multitude of peoj)le who have read the Scriptures only in this translation, the reli- gious ideas and feelings are so wedded to the words that to change them seems to be changing the Bible itself. The translation, too, was a grand work for its day. It had the advantage of being made when our language was in its spring-time, capable of all the suppleness and rejoicing in all the strength of youth. And then it was done when there was but one Church in England. It has thus become the inherit- ance of all nations Avho speak the English language of whatever Church or sect, with the sole exception of those who adhere to the Church of Eome. It was something for the great Anglo-Protestant world to be agreed in the use of one translation of the Bible. The necessity of preserving this catholicity in the use of the same translation was felt by every advocate of revision. All sides were prepared that revision should be abandoned rather than this should fail. In due time the subject was taken up by Convo- cation. ^N'o one, not even the most extreme Dis- senter, could say that Convocation was not the proper i'92 COXTEMPORARY ESSAYS. body to undertake the superintendence of the revision. That body, indeed, is only a 'clerical meeting,' not the largest, but certainly the most important clerical meeting in England. It was evident to every mem- ber of Convocation that if the revised translation was to be accepted by all who accept the present, mem- bers of other religious bodies external to the C^hurch of England must be invited to give their assistance and co-operation. On this account a few members, a very few, opposed revision altogether. There are some odd men in every community, and they are not wanting, and never have been wanting, in the Church of England. Some eccentric idea about 'the Church' alone having power and right to bind and loose the Scriptures, led some in Convocation to oppose revision. Other members, whose ideas may be a little out of harmony with what is going on in the world at the present hour, were yet Avilling that scholars from all religious communities might be invited as helpers. But the majority, believing that the authorised version of the Bible was as much the inheritance of the Eng- lish Dissenters as of the Church of England, were glad of the opportunity of uniting the National Church and the Dissenters in one great work which was truly National as well as Christian. Accordingly among the resolutions passed in Convocation, there was one that the Committee appointed to undertake the work of revision be ' at liberty to invite the co- operation of any persons eminent for scholarship to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.' This resolution was drawn up by. the Bishoj:) of Win- chester. It was opposed by the party opposed to REVISION OF THE BIB IE. 193 revision. Archdeacon Denison, with that fine percep- tion which enables him to diagnose heresy at any dis- tance either of time or space, proposed an amendment by adding the wonls ' save only and except such as deny the divinity of Christ.' After a debate on the desirability of admitting Jews and Unitarians, the amendment was lost by a majority of twenty-three against seven. On the strength of this resolution, the Committee invited scholars from other religious bodies, and among them Mr. Vance Smith, as a repre- sentative of the Unitarians. The Eevisionists began their work on June 22 nd by a commemoration in Westminster Abbey of the Last Supper of Jesus with His disciples. Notice had been sent by the Dean of Westminster to every member that such a celebration of the Communion would be held. Among the communicants was Mr. Vance Smith. This event shocked the susceptibilities of some High Churchmen and of a few Evangelicals. It evoked the usual comments in the ' religious ' news- papers, and it furnished a luxurious feast for some of the more rabid ' Church ' prints of the Philistine order, which manage to exist by being outrageous. This died out in its time, and the work of revision was going on from strength to strength. On the 14th of February, this year, the Convocation reassembled after the Christmas recess. The Guardian gravely records that there were seventeen bishops present, and that in the Lower House the attendance was larger than usual. The Bishop of London took the chair, uttering ominous words of sorrow that the Primate was absent, and betraying the consciousness 0 1 94 CONTEMPORARY RSSA FS. of a gathering storm. There were dark clouds in the horizon and indications of the special presence of some of nature's unseen but subtle powers. The Bishop of Winchester arose, and then ' A child might understand The deil had business on his hand.* He said that he never meant to include Unitarians in the Company of Eevisers, though his own hand drew up the resolution that scholars should be invited, ' to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.' He was surprised that Mr. Yance Smith had been invited, and he shared in the indignation which had arisen about the Communion in the Abbey. He had letters from American bishops who agreed with him, and he believed that the orthodox Nonconformists were equally opposed to the admission of a Unitarian to aid in the work. He therefore proposed a resolu- tion, ' That, in the judgment of this House, it is not expedient that any person who denies the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ should be invited to assist in the revision of the Scriptures ; and that it is the judg- ment, fui-ther, of this House, that any such one now in either company should cease to act forthwith.' This resolution was seconded by the Bishop of London, as the only atonement he could make for having himself advocated that the Committee should be on a broad and liberal basis. It never occurred to him that members of 'the Socinian body' could be invited. The Bishop of Llandaff rose to explain that it was by his vote that Mr. Yance Smith was among the Revisionists. There were five votes for him, and four against, the bishop voting with the majority. He REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 195 was surprised to learn that the gentleman for whoiu he had voted was a Unitarian ; but the bishop was deaf, and did not know for whom he was voting. There is a story of Dr. Blacklock, the blind Scotch poet and preacher, that he once preached in a kirk in the south of Scotland, to the great delight of all who heard him. There was at the time a great prejudice in Scotland against reading sermons. An elder re- marked to an old woman coming out of the chm-cli that they had heard a fine sermon. ' Yes,' said the woman, ' but does he read ? ' ' Xo, no,' said the elder, 'he canna read; he's blind.' 'Thank God!' ex- claimed the old woman, ' I wish they were a' blind.' The Bishop of Gloucester said that this resolution was intended to include Jews, but not Unitarians, who were divided from us by a gulf of difference which is ' everlasting.' Some coruscations of light came from the Bishop of Ely ; but to be followed only by the blackness of darkness. He could not see how Jews were to be included and Unitarians excluded. Jews he said were Unitarians, and denied not merely the divinity of Chi'ist, but also his Messiahship, and some even his historical existence. Dr. Harold Browne had voted for Mr. Yance Smith. But since the Com- munion at the Abbey he had passed a perpetual Lent. The penitent bishop spoke frequently at all the sittings of Convocation — rivalling Augustine in his retractations and Luther in sorrow for his sin. ' I regret,' ' I am sorry,' ' I retract,' again and again repeated the bishop — ' lu his fine confessions Which make most people envy his transgressions." o2 196 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. The Bishop of Lincoln rejoiced that this calamity had overtaken the Eevisionists. Had they taken his advice, they would have limited their company to members of the Anglo-Episcopal communities. This, he said, was done in the time of King James, when Bishop Andrewes was Dean of Westminster. That orthodox and truly Anglican dean did not employ Jews, Infidels, Turks, Heretics, and other Dissenters to revise the Scriptures. He confined the work to members of the Anglican Communion. An ingenious person once proposed in- stituting a missionary society for the conversion of bishops. It was never, we believe, established; but a society for instructing the bishops in the history of the Church of England seems to be a necessity. If the Bishop of Lincoln will read Dean Barlow's account of the Hampton Court Conference, he will find that the proposal for the revision of the Bible in the time of King James, came from the Puritans. It was one of the things which their leader, Dr. Eainolds, was instructed to bring before the Conference. And if the Bishop will search out what is known of the lives of the translators of King James's Bible, he will find that some of them battled to the death against the ' Anglicanism ' of Bishop Andrewes.* The Non- conformists of that day were neither allowed to be * It IS enough to mention the best known — Rainolds, President of Corpus Christi, and Chaderton, Master of Emmanuel, two representative Puritans ; Abbot, the Puritan Archbishop, and Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, who prevented Laud, when Dean of Gloucester, from turning the Communion Table ' altar-wise ' — a turning which has made it impossible for any clergy- man to keep the rubric concerning the north side, and which has brought down on High Churchmen the recent just judgment. An indignant ' Anglican' historian says that Miles Smith converted all the churches of his diocese into conventicles. REVISION OF THE BIBLE. »97 separate from the Church, nor did they wish to be separate. To include, therefore, at least the orthodox Dissenters, was to imitate, in our altered circum- stances, the plan of the old translators. Three bishops opposed the Bishop of Winchester's resolution. The Bishop of St. David's did not ask, whether the Eevisionists were ' Unitarians, Deists, or Atheists.' The only thing to which he looked was efficient scholarship. He could not see that the Westminster Communion had any connection with the question before them. The Bishop of Exeter pleaded that the Convocation must keep faith with those who had been invited from other religious bodies ; and the Bishop of Bath and Wells was thank- ful for ' the blessed opportunity of communion with our Nonconformist brethren.' The debate was continued next day. The Bishop of Eochester sjDoke first. Simple unsophisticated Dr. Claughton could not see the necessity of the winding ways of the astute Bishojp of Winchester to compass his end. He would apply the knife at once, and cut off the offending heretic. Why should we keep faith with men who do not believe as we do ? Eeplying to the Bishop of Exeter, he said that such ' precious things ' as ' good faith and pledged faith,' must be thrown 'overboard,' to make 'reparation to the injured honour of oui* Lord and Saviour ! ' It is difficult to express the solemn sorrow and the infinite pity which possessed and overwhelmed our whole being on reading these words. For some speculative difference in theology, we are to sacrifice the most sacred and the most certain of human oblisrations. Is jq8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. this the religion of Jesus Christ ? or is it, as the Dean of Westminster said, the religion of the old Pagans ? Bring your sacrifices and appease the all-devouring god. Violate every human affection, every human duty, every relation between man and man, and for the honour of Him — oh, my soul, utter it not I — of Ilim who sacrificed Himself for all that was human — of Him who preferred mercy to sacrifice, who did not break the bruised reed, and whose whole life was one continual protest against wrong-doing under the pre- tence of honouring God, and against those who sup- posed that wrong-doing did not mean the same in heaven that it does on earth. The Bishops of Bangor and St. Asaph agreed with the Bishop of Eochester ; and the Bishop of Chichester added that not only good faith, but ' logic and consistency ' too must go, and that in the renunciation of these things his brother bishops had done ' a noble act of self-sacrifice ! ' ' Pro Superi, quantum mortalia pectora Ccocae Noctis habent ! ipso sceleris molimine Tereus, Creditur esse pius ; laudemque a crimine sumit.' * Alas ! ' cried the Dean of Westminster, in an out- burst of impassioned eloquence, and carried beyond himself with indignation at this blasphemy against the Son of Man — ' Alas ! and has it come to this, that our boasted orthodoxy has landed us in this hideous heresy ! Is it possible that it should be supposed that we can consent for a moment to degrade the divine attributes of our Lord Jesus Christ to the level of a mere capricious heathen deity ? Can we believe that anything but dishonour can be conferred on Him by making His name a pretext for inconsistency, for vacil- REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 199 lation, for a breach of faith between two contending parties ? I have read in that sacred book — the mean- ing of which it was the object of this revision to bring out more clearly to the people of England — I have read in that sacred book that one of the characteristics of those who dwell on God's holy hill is, " whoso sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him not, though it be to his own hindrance." I have also found that in the other part of the sacred book it is declared, "Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my Father " — and we know that the will of the Father is judgment, justice, and truth — " shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." I for one lift up my voice against any such detestable doctrine as that our Lord and Saviour can be honoured in any way but by a strict adherence to the laws of honour, integrity, and truth. I repudiate the notion that anything but dishonour can be brought on His sacred name by that which, from every recorded word and every act of His sacred life, we must be certain He would have entirely ojDposed.' The resolution was passed by ten bishops against four. Thi-ee have already been honourably mentioned. The fourth is the Bishop of Oxford, who has achieved a noble repu- tation by one stroke. The inaugm-ation of the resolution into the Lower House was not Avithout promise of a repetition of what had passed among the bishops. Dr. Jelf, in moving that the resolution be adopted, deliberately and solemnly declared liis conviction that ' it was due to the direct influence of God's Holy Spirit ! ' At the Hampton Court Conference, in the days when the 200 C ONTEMPORARY ESS A YS. divinity of the king was an orthodox episcopal dogma, one of the bishops, marvelling at the wisdom of James, said that his Majesty spoke by the Holy Ghost. A profane Scotch minister, a representative of the Kirk, is said to have expressed doubts, in words which we do not care to quote, concerning the purity of the channel of the Divine communications. If bishops are to be found who openly advocate that the most sacred of human obligations are to be sacrificed for what they suppose to be the honour of the Deity, it is not mar- vellous that a mere presbyter should believe that these bishops were guided by the Holy Ghost. Other members spoke in favour of the resolution. Canon Gregory denied that there was any obligation to be violated, as no meeting had taken place between the two contracting parties. Archdeacon Freeman was opposed to the presence on the Committee of men who did not hold their views of the Christian faith, on the ground that the true interpretation of the Scriptures was independent of ' the ordinary laws and rules of criticism.' Dr. Fraser would not have a Unitarian among the Eevisionists, because the Church was the keeper and witness of Holy Writ, and its revision might touch the faitJi and salvation of millions. Canon Seymour said that St. John would not have committed the translation of the Scriptures to one that denied the Godhead of Christ; and Canon Woodgate said plainly that it was a ' sin ' to have put this gentleman on the Committee. Wiser counsels, however, prevailed. The Dean of Westminster opposed the resolution on three grounds : ■ — ' (1) That it involves on its very face a breach of REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 201 good faith, a scandalous inconsistency and vacillation on the part of this venerable House of Convocation. (2) It involves by implication a new principle in the translation of the Holy Scriptures, and one which scholars in all such matters ought entirely to repu- diate. (3) The resolution, as worded, is intrinsically absurd and impracticable.' On the first head, the Dean went into the history of the resolution which it was now proposed to rescind. It had been deliberately debated by the House, opposed by Archdeacon Deni- son, defended by the lamented Dean Alford, and carried by an overwhelming majority. On the second head he showed that the present resolution, by exclud- ing men of certain theological opinions, would change the ground of impartial criticism on which the revision was originally based. And thirdly, to exclude only those who deny the Godhead of Christ was to leave an open door for those who denied the Godhead of the Father and of the Holy Ghost. The resolution, by condemning the doctrine of the Unitarians, would exclude all except the disciples of Swedenborg. The really orthodox and only eligible members of the Committee would be those Avho believed that the all of the Infinite was concentrated in the person of Christ. Canon Selwyn confirmed the Dean's account of the original resolution against some exceptions that had been made by the Bishop of Gloucester, and vindicated the necessity of having the Scriptures revised accord- ing to the real meaning of the text uninfluenced by any theological bias. Mr. De Winton added his tes- timony to the accuracy of the Dean's account, and dwelt on the great advantage of having the judgment zo* CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of a Unitarian on Trinitarian texts. Archdeacon Moore and Canon Blakesley pleaded that the character of the House for honesty and good faith must be preserved. Archdeacons Chapman and Fearon spoke with great wisdom of the unfeigned faith and piety of many Unitarians whom they had known, and how difficult it often is to draw a line between their views of Christ and the orthodox faith of the Church of England. The debate lasted two days. On the morning of the second day, it was known that the Bishop of St. David's had retired from the Eevision in consequence of the Bishop of Winchester's resolution. It was known, too, that he had forced the Upper House to accept a resolution avowedly proposed in contradiction to the Bishop of Winchester's resolution, to the effect that the Revisionists were to be guided solely by criticism, and not by theological oj)inions. The know- ledge of these things gave new life to the Bishop of Winchester's opponents in the Lower House. Arch- deacon Moore, in announcing with deep regret the retirement of Bishop Thirlwall, pronounced on the Bishop an eloquent and well-deserved eulogium. '- If,' said the Archdeacon, ' the resolution were carried, it would drive from them the Bishop of St. David's, who was not the least amongst the greatest scholars of Europe, and who possessed one of the greatest judi- cial minds that ever dwelt in a human form ; a prelate distinguished for his integrity and honesty ; who when at Cambridge retained his oj)inions through good report and evil report, without hesitation or flinching, although it was to his own detriment. He was a man REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 203 of whom it might be said incorrupta fides nudaque Veritas.'' The Lower House declined to vote the previous question, but it passed a resolution to the effect that no opinion be exjDressed on the resolution of the bishops, until the work of revision be finished. This was gladly accepted by the Upper House as a welcome escape from the toils in which they were involved by the Bishop of Winchester's resolution. The Bishop of St. David's then w^ithdrew his resig- nation, and Mr. Vance Smith continues among the Eevisionists. The schemes of the Bishop of Win- chester and his friends have been defeated. Their hands have not been able to perform tbeir enterprise, and they have groped in the noon-day as in the night. Mapyjjj/ (76 Qiol Oiffav, o'i re SvvavTat 'Aippora TTOitjoai Kai tTrifpovd TTft; /xaX' foj'ra Kat T€ \a\i(l)povkovra ano(ppoavvrii; i7rtj3t)ijav.* This strange episode in the history of the revision of the Bible has received but little notice from the new^s journals. The Guai'dian has been full and fair in its reports, but sparing in its comments. The Times has preserved a benignant and merciful silence. It is in the tide of history that its real significance will bubble up. In the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, before the meet- ings of Convocation were forbidden by the Crowm, there was generally a pitched battle between the two Houses. The Lower House, which then represented the ignorance and passion of the inferior clergy, con- * ' The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a gley.' Scotch version by liubcrl Burns. 204 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. demned heretical books written by the bishops ; and the dignified ' Fathers in God ' treated the Lower House with the infinite compassion and gentleness of wise and loving parents towards weak and erring childi-en. But on this occasion it is the Lower House which has had to guide the ' Fathers ' and to preserve their feet lest they should stumble and fall. Alas ! where now are the Tillotsons and the Stillingfleets ? The see of Gloucester has not an Edward Fowler, nor Ely a Simon Patrick. Gilbert Burnet does not come from Salisbury, Thomas Tenison from Lincoln, nor John Williams from Chichester. John Moore is no longer at I^orwich, nor Thomas Sprat at Eochester, and Winchester has not even its Peter Mew. We do not, however, forget that Tait was absent, and that Thirlwall and Temple were on the right side. The informal reason of this Convocation panic was the Westminster communion, which was, as the Bishop of St. David's said, and as every member of either House who had not sacrificed his judgment as well as his ' consistency ' knew to be, altogether distinct from the question of a Unitarian being among the Eevisionists. Mr. Yance Smith, like any other Englishman, was at liberty to join in any act of worship in the N^ational Church, and no clergyman could lawfully have refused to give him the Sacra- ment.* The bishops may have forgotten the constitu- tion of the Church of England, but if they had looked at their Prayer- Books they would have found * Chancellor Massingberd quoted a statute of the time of Edward VI., whi< h forbida any clergyman to deny the sacrament to any person humbly and devoutly dcsiriiiu it. REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 205 that it binds no creed on the laity, and lays down no condition of communion but a Christian life. A clergyman is only at liberty to refuse the Sacrament to ' a notorious and evil liver.' There is no court to take cognisance of a layman's theology. The people are nowhere compelled to conform to all which the Church teaches. This was Stillingfieet's great argu- ment with the Nonconformists. The ministers had to take oaths and make subscriptions, but with the scruples of the people no one could interfere. This has been the spirit of the Church of England, in all times of her history, since the government passed from the bishops to the Crown. Before the days of tolera- tion it was imperative on all parishioners, as the rubric distinctly states, to receive the communion at least four times in the year. Two hundred years ago compulsion to the communion was openly advocated, if not prac- tised. ' Compel them to come in ' is the text of a sermon or tract by Dr. Henry Hesketh, who was rector of St. Helen's, BishojDSgate, in the reign of Charles II.* Dr. Hesketh vindicates the practice — not for a moment doubting that it was the acknowledged law of the Church. He says that in compelling men to receive the Lord's Supper, ' the governors of Church and State * In Dr. Williams's library it is found in a supplementary volume to a work ■which was representative in its time, called ' Cases and Discourses to Recover Dissenters.' In Sion College Libi-ary there is an answer to this tract, in which the writer maintains that to compel men to the Communion was not the law of the Church of England. The argument is grounded on the exhorta- tions in the Prayer-Book that the communicants come prepared. The general belief, however, at the time was that compulsion was the law of the Church. It is recorded of Bishop Lloyd, of Norwich, in 1686, that he 'set a day for Dissenters to come to the Sacrament, and if they do not come then, he will proceed against them with all severity.' (See Dr. Stoughton's ' Church of the Restoration,' vol. ii. p. 143.) 2 o6 CONTEMPORARY ESS A TS. are actuated by kindness, and not by any consideration for their own interests ; they are compelling Noncon- formists to their greatest good — that is, to have their souls strengthened and nourished by the body and blood of Chiist.' We cannot prove that any Unitarian was compelled to receive the Sacrament, but we can prove what is equally important for the argument, that Unitarians did receive it without compulsion. The Unitarians of that day were Conformists to the Church of England. Thomas Firmin, their leader, was a worshipper at St. LawTence Jewry, when Tillotson was vicar, and after- wards at Lombard Street, where Dr. Outram was minister. Tillotson and Outram both wrote against Socinianism, but the thought of excommunicating Thomas Firmin and his Unitarian friends was never for a moment entertained. They did not wish to do it, and if they had wished they dared not have done it. Our bishops may dislike their position as servants of the State. If they do, let them say so, and join the Eitualists for disestablishment. But while they are the bishops of the National Church, the law will not allow them to reduce that Church to the dimen- sions of a sect. English Christians may still say to the clergy, as Eowland Hill did to the Close Com- munion Baptists, that the communion-table is not their table, but the table of the Lord. It is, of course, possible to quote canons or to raise difficulties of a technical kind. This was done by the clergy in the last century when they expelled the followers of John Wesley. They were refused the Sacrament on the ground of the canons of 1603, that REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 207 the Commimion is not to be administered to schis- matics. The anthority of these canons was always doubtful; but if they have authority, we might ask, as Wesley often did, who keeps them ? They forbid the clergy to wear night-caps unless they are made of silk or velvet, — which, however, may be the material of ritualistic night-caps, — but they also declare that depravers of the Eoyal Supremacy are excommunicate, ipBo facto. The gentlemen of St. Alban's need not then wonder that they are afloat, for they have been overtaken by the ' Excommunicatio latse sententiae.' An argument founded on a technicality in a rubric is equally vain. It may be said that Mr. Yance Smith did not give notice the day before the communion ; but who knows that he did not ? Apparently he did. How many persons keep this rubric ? How many clergymen enforce it? Again, it may be said that Mr. Vance Smith was not confirmed ; but who knows ? What clergyman is there who certifies himself con- cerning every communicant that he has been con- firmed ? It is usually quoted as an historical fact that Archbishop Seeker was never confirmed, and doubts concerning the confirmation of the present Primate have caused great anxiety in some quarters. It has never been the custom of the Church of England to administer confirmation to persons who have already been communicants in other Churches. We have a continuous comment in history in evidence of this. William III., George I., and George II., were never confirmed in the Church of England, and in our own day there is the case of the late Prince Consort, to whom no bishop ever refused the sacrament of the 2o8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Supper. Even the ' blessed Martyr,' Charles I., was never confirmed.* The argument from the use of the Nicene Creed is already answered. Its recital is not an essential part of the Communion Service, and when the recommendations of the Eitual Commissioners be- come law, it will not even be a necessary appendage. The Dean of Westminister was right in every way that it is possible for a man to be right. To have refused the Communion to Mr. Yance Smith would have been to have violated the law of the Church, which is also the law of the land, and to have sub- jected himself to the penalty of a law-breaker. The responsibility, on the other hand, of receiving the sacrament rests with the recipient, who, so far as the act goes, is thereby a member of the Church. Mr. Yance Smith has been blamed by Nonconformists as much, probably, as the Dean of Westminster has been blamed by Churchmen, which is not surprising ; for, as Canon Blakesley said in reference to another subject, Nonconformist human nature is very much like Church human nature. It is the same humanity, with its good and its evil, its strength and its weak- ness, which runs through all. Occasional conformity to the Church of England is an ancient grief both to Conformists and Nonconformists. After the Act of Uniformity, the ejected ministers in the City of Lon- don held a meeting, at which they resolved to continue to receive the sacrament at their parish churches. Eichard Baxter and many of his brethren did this to their lives' end. Toleration came ip. with the Prince * A friend has since discovered in Holme a's Chronicle a record of the con- firmation of Charles T. — X. REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 209 of Orange, but the Test Acts remained. It thou became difficult to determine, when a Nonconformist attended the sacrament, whether his object was to conform as far as he coukl or only to qualify himself for a public office. In 1697 a Presbyterian Lord Mayor went to St. Paul's in the morning to receive the communion, and in the afternoon to Pinners' Hall with the sword of office carried before him. To the rigid Churchman and the stern Dissenter of that day, this was a desecration and a profanation more awful than the presence of a Unitarian at the Westminster Communion. The voice loudest in condemnation was that of Daniel De Foe ; but the Lord Mayor was defended by Viscount Barrington, a leader among the Presbyterians, and by John Howe, a man whose memory is revered by all Nonconformists. Charles Leslie, on the Church side, took ' a short and easy method ' with the occasional conformists, denouncing their hypocrisy, and stripping the wolves of their sheep's clothing.* The mad Church Tories, led on by the fanatic Sacheverell, tried to pass a Bill in Parlia- ment against occasional conformity, but it was opposed by the resistless eloquence of Gilbert Burnet. For- tunately the bishops of that day were wiser than ours, and the Church of England remained the free and open Church of the nation. Wq do not forget that the present question is not the occasional conformity of a mere Nonconformist, but of a Unitarian. What that name means we do not undertake to say. To define a Unitarian would be about as difficult as to explain the primal essence * See his tract called, ' The Wolf stript of the Shepherd's Clothing ' P 2 1 o CONTEMPORARY ESS A YS. of the universe.* That any living bishop could do either of these, we think impossible. We do not, in the present day, expect bishops to be theologians. The amount of practical work which they have to do prevents most of them having more than a merely superficial acquaintance with the great science of being, which is the science of God. This superficial knowledge makes them use indefinite words as if they were well-defined, and speak of subjects beyond the grasp of the human intellect as if they had been weighed and measured. They answer in dogmatic words the awful question which Simonides found to be more difiicult to answer the more he thought of it. The Bishop of London said that ' the Catholic Church stops when we reach those who cannot believe and adore our Saviour as God.' But what is God ? or in what sense was Jesus God ? Until the first question is answered the second must be open to an infinity of answers. The Bishop of Gloucester alone attempted to argue the doctrinal subject against the Unitarians. He said that Unitarians are precise in rejecting the personality of the Holy Ghost. But will Dr. Ellicott define personality? Will he tell us where in the Scriptures the word ' person ' is applied to the Holy Ghost ? We ask even a further question : Is the word ' person ' ever applied to Deity in the Scripture, * Mr. Vance Smith, in a work since published, maintains in reference to this passage that a Unitarian can be defined. His definition is one which makes "Unitarians those who afiirm the Unity of God, and by inference Trinitarians are Tritheists or Polytheists. But this is begging the whole question. My meaning is, that the name Unitarian covers many diff'erent opinions, some of which are so near to the orthodox faith that the diflference may be only a question of subtle metaphysics. Arians, for instance, are included under the name Unitarians, though Dr. Priestlej' excludes them. It is impossible that any definition of Unitarian can include both Arian and Socinian to the exclusion of Trinitarian. — X. REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 21 1 in any sense ? The solitary passage that can be quoted is that in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which leaves us to make what we can of the indefinite word hf/postasis, which if we translate ' person ' will involve a denial of the personality of Christ. But Dr. Ellicott is peremptory. Between those who accept the Nicene Creed and those who do not, ' the gulf of difference,' he says, ' is everlasting.' We personally receive the Nicene faith as the most rational exj)lica- tion of Deity that has ever been given to the world ; but there must be a misapprehension somewhere if we are separated by an everlasting difference fi-om many of the ante-Nicene Fathers, and in modern times from John Milton and Sir Isaac ^N'ewton, from Samuel Clarke and Dr. Isaac Watts. The history of theology in the Church of England bears ample witness that within the circle of those who subscribe to the Nicene Creed there may be a far wider difference concerning the Trinity than that which separates the Unitarian from the Athanasian. The Nicene Fathers, in our judgment, were the genuine disciples of Plato, or at least of the philo- sophical ISTeo-Platonists, Plato explained the Trinity as ' Being,' ' Reason,' and ' Soul,' three and yet one.* The great question between the Arian and the Athan- asian was primarily a question of philosophy, and had often been discussed among the philosophers. It was whether or not the ' Reason ' was co-eternal with the * This Trinity is in Plato in various forms, but the second hj^tostasis is NoCt,-. The \6yoc which St. John uses is supposed to have been borrowed from the later Platonists. Dr. Thompson, in his notes to Archer Butler's Lectures says that the Logos in this sense never occurs in Plato. The cliaiige in the word, however, does not affect the argument. Bishop Kidder quotes a passage in the sixth book of the ' Republic,' where he understands the Logos of the second person in the Trinity. p2 2 1 2 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. ' Being ' — in Christian phraseology, the Son with the Father. Arius said that there 'was (a time) when the Son was not.' ' Fool ! ' cried Athanasins, ' could God ever exist without his " Eeason ?'" Athanasius was right, and so was St. John, who said that the Logos, or 'Reason,' was in the beginning — was with God, and was God. Dr. Cudworth and the Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century adopted this hypothesis of the Trinity, which is really that of Scripture, of reason, and philosophy. Dr. Wallis explained how the three were one by the illustration of a cube which has three dimensions — length, breadth, and thickness. Dr. South adopted a similar hypothesis, making the three persons three modifica- tions of the one Being. Bishop Fowler said the Son and the Holy Ghost had not an absolute existence, but derived life and eternity from the Father. Dr. Sher- lock said that the three persons were as distinct as Peter, James, and John, but they were one by a mutual self-consciousness. Joseph Bingham followed Sherlock, and both were condemned by the University of Oxford as teaching that there were three Gods. The three persons were described by Sherlock as three distinct minds. They were one by each know- ing the thoughts of the other — a hypothesis which would make as many persons in the Godhead as there are mutually conscious minds, and which might lead us to hope that, after the lapse of ages, the absolute consciousness of the universe may be evoked, and all thinking souls eternally blended in the One. But this is philosophy. The old Unitarian did not like it. He was jealous for the personality and the unity of God. He supposed that in worshipping the Son we dis- REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 2 1 3 honoured the Father. He supposed that we worshipped a man as God, which is doubtless true of many Trini- tarians. Our first conceptions of Deity of necessity take a human form. The old Unitarian did not escape this. It is not even evident that he tried to do it. He simply transferred the worship of the Son as man to the Father as man. The first person in John Bidle's Trinity — for he really taught a Trinit}^ — was the Father, who was distinctly a corporeal being ; the second was the Son, who was the Son of God in virtue of His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost ; and the Holy Ghost was ' a person ' in the Bishop of Gloucester's sense of ' person.' The modern Unitarian would repudiate the theology of John Bidle as heartily as we do that of the Bishop of Eochester. The miraculous birth of Jesus some of them would deny altogether, and those who did this are just those who would come nearest to the philosophical theology of St. Athanasius. They would admit, as Athanasius did, that the eternal ' Reason,' or Logos, is in all men, but that it was supremely in the man Christ Jesus. To Him the Logos was given without measure, so that He, in a most definite and distinct sense, is very God, and, as God, to be worshipped. The old Unitarians did not refuse to worship Christ even with their imperfect views of His divinity. There are tracts on this sub- ject in the series published by Thomas Firmin, and some Unitarians in the present day use our collects in which there is direct prayer to Jesus Christ.* * A Unitarian minister sends to the present writer the following note : — 'In June, 1870, tlie Eev. Alexander Gordon, M.A., of Liverpool (successor of Ml-. Martin>au) preached a sermon (since published— not 'by request,' however) before the Provincial Assembly of Lancashire and Cheshire (an old 214 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. It is generally supposed that Unitarians deny the Atonement. I3ut this is only true in the sense that they deny many theories of the Atonement wliich have been rejected by some of the greatest divines of the Church of England. They deny the hypothesis of the Schoolmen that God demanded an infinite satisfaction, and they refuse to take literally all the figures under which the work of Christ is set forth by the New Testament writers. The Eacovian Catechism says that '■ Christ, by the Divine will and purpose, suffered for our sins, and underwent a bloody death as an expiatory sacrifice.' On this subject there are doubtless different views among Unitarians, as there are in the Church of England. Bishop I3urnet repudiated most of the scholastic theories concerning satisfaction, and John Locke was wisely satisfied to believe that Christ was his Redeemer, leaving the manner of redemption among those things which we shall know when in ages to come we shall have learned more of God. According to Bishop Burnet the work of Dr. William Outram on the Sacrifice of Christ contained the doctrine generally received by the clergy in his day. Outram says a great deal Presbyterian assembly dating from tbe Commonwealth) in which he advocated prayer to Christ, said that it \vas time to break through the Unitarian custom of not piaying to Christ, and concluded with the collect for the Third Sunday after Advent, ' O Lord Jesu Christ,' which was published at the end of the Sermon. Mr. Gordon, who is a humanitarian, has also declared his belief in the profound philosophical and theological truths of the Athanasian Creed. The prayer to Christ seems to have excited no protest at the assembly.' Mr. Gordon wrote to the PIditor of the Contemporary Review that this note was incorrect. He did not, he said, in that sermon advocate prayer to Christ, and he never dcchired his belief in the philosophical truths of the Athanasian Creed. I have seen the sermon, in which prayer to Christ, in some sense, is certainly advocated. But for my argument it is quite enough that there have been Uniturians who have prayed to Christ. REVISION OF THE BIBLE. 215 about sacrifice, expiation, and propitiation ; but the words are larger than the meaning. The Atonement is explained as not having been effected by the blood of Christ, but only that God was pleased with the obedience and sufferings of His Son. The Unitarians of Burnet's day were willing to receive Outram's work as in the main expressing their views. We have tried to determine how near a Unitarian may come to the theology of the Church of England. We have shown that he may be often nearer than some who are of the Church of England. It is pos- sible, then, that Mr. Vance Smith may be separated from us only by some little difference that should be relegated altogether to the region of speculative theology. The position of the Unitarians of the present day does not seem to be so much the defence of Unitarian dogmas as the advocacy of practical reli- gion, and the necessity of letting in light from what- ever quarter it comes. They are asking the Church of England to do the same, and that is only asking the Church of England to be what it professes to be — not a Church of dogmas and metaphysical creeds, but of practical religion. This is the Church's ideal, which we cannot but believe will one day be realised. The recent exhibition in the Upper House of Convocation is certainly humiliating, but it is doubtless due in a great measure to the absence of the Primate and the folly of some of the bishops. We may now indeed call upon our souls, and all that is within us, to unite in one rapturous Te Dcum of thanksgiving that the Cliurch of England is governed by the law and not by the bishops. YIII. EEPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL.* C T. AUGUSTINE says, ' It is recorded of Cain that he built a city, but Abel was a pilgrim, and built none. For the city of the saints is above, though it has citizens here upon earth, in which it lives as a pilgrim till the time of the kingdom come, and then it will gather all the citizens together in the resurrec- tion body, and give them a kingdom in which they will reign with their King for ever and ever.' In another place Augustine calls the two cities repre- sented by Cain and Abel two mystical cities. The one is the city of them that do evil, the other is the dwelling of the just. But if the cities are ' mystical,' * Contemporary Eeview, July, 1871. Plato's HepuHic. Aristotle's Politics. CiCEKO, De. Itepiihlica. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei. Db Quincey on the Essenes. Sib Thomas More's Utopia. HoBBBs' Leviathan. Haek™gton's Oceana. The Works of Fourier, St. Simon, and Robert Owen. SargAnt's Social Innovators. Les Moines d' Occidtnt. Par le Comte de Montalembert. . W. H. Dixon's JN^ew America. Band-look of the Oneida Communily. By J. H. Noyes. Wallingford, C'onnecticut. 1867. History of American Socialisms. By J. H. Noyes. Triibncr & Co. 1870. REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 217 they are not concrete ; that is, they are not cities in the ordinary sense of being situated in definite places. They are proj^erly invisible, or cities cognisable only in their members, and in the principles by which their members are guided. It is, then, by a figure of speech that any earthly city, such as Eome or Babylon, is called the city of the wicked. Still more is it a figure to speak of any given community as the city of God. But if the city of God is constituted by principles, and by members acting on these principles, it may exist more or less in any earthly city. A number of the citizens may be members of the heavenly city, or the government itself may be just, and therefore so far penetrated by the spirit which constitutes the kingdom of God. It is clear, even from Augustine's illustration, that no secular city in itself is the anti- thesis of the city of God. The world, simply as the world, is not the antagonist of the Church. It is rather the battle-field for the contending forces of good and evil. The children of- Seth and l^oah built cities as well as the children of Cain. Plato treats of government or politics proper in the ' Laws ; ' but in the ' Eepublic ' we have his ideal of a civil commonwealth, the embodiment of his idea of the city of God. The 'Eepublic' might be described as a scheme of education, a mode of training the people to a sense of justice, grounded in the con- viction that justice in the widest sense is the true welfare, not of individuals only, but of nations. The analogy which he works out is between the perfect man and the perfect state. He introduces Socrates 2i8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. discoursing of justice, and its harmony, to use a modern phrase, with the constitution of man. Thrasy- machus argues, that whatever is expedient for the established government is justice. Whatever the powerful do to support themselves, that is just. Socrates, on the other side, proves that what is just is expedient both for the governed and for them that rule. The old Bible question of the present prosperity of the wicked is answered as the Bible answers it. The inequality in God's ways is not real, but only apparent. Men who are unjust, and yet prosperous, are compared to the runners in a race, who do well at the first starting, but lose in the end, and become objects of compassion and ridicule. Socrates main- tains that this is essentially true both with men and states. The exceptions are few, if indeed there are any real exceptions. He adds, too, the consideration of a future judgment, when the judges shall put the just on their right hand and the unjust on the left ; the one to go upwards, and the other downwards. The poets were to be excluded from the Eepublic because of their unworthy representations of the gods ; in other words, the influence of the mythology was reckoned evil. Such deities as were found in Homer and Hesiod were not to be worshipped. The people were to be so well instructed in righteousness, that is, in what is right both as to body and spirit, that they were to require neither magistrates nor physi- cians. So far Plato's ' Eepublic ' was a city of God. But Plato has to deal with men, women, and children as they are, not as he intends them to be. He has to meet the facts of human life. Man is by REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 219 nature a selfish being. He seeks first of all his own interests. As an individual, or as a member of society, he may covet the goods of other individuals or of other societies. This may be the occasion of war. Hence arises the necessity of guardians, that is, a military class, or soldiers. Husbandmen may plough the fields and find sustenance for themselves and their families. Artificers may earn by their craft the means of existence. I3ut this necessity for a military class is a heavy tax on the resources of the common- Avealth. It was for them alone that special social arrangements were to be made. They required food, clothes, lodging. All these they were to have in common. Being provided with these, there was no need that they should have individual property. But the community being divided into three classes, this third included women as well as men. It would be easy to provide for men only ; but the number of women that come into the world is equal to that of men. This fact in nature has always perplexed the politician and the moralist wherever the necessity has existed for a standing army. Plato proposed that the women should be trained to warfare as well as the men ; that the military class should have their wives in common ; that healthy children should be brought up as the children of the State, but those that Avere not likely to be physically strong were to be de- stroyed. There were two difficulties to be met — the necessity of a military class, and what to do with their children. Plato meets them as they would have been met by Cain, or by the people of the city which Cain built. 220 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Aristotle criticizes Plato's ' Eepiiblic ' with his usual sagacity. He finds that the family is the first society established by nature. Families unite for mutual help, and make a village. Several villages form a city or state. In this state there are slaves, women and children, whom it is necessary to instruct in virtue. There must be some thincrs in common, as, for instance, the city in which they live. It is desirable that the city be as much as jiossible one. Yet it cannot be one so entirely as Plato maintains. It would not then be a city. Moreover, Plato's scheme of a community of goods and wives would not bring about the unity which he proposes. Men have a special care of what is siDccially their own. If the community of wives were a mere matter of policy, it ought to be allowed to husbandmen and artificers even more than to soldiers. It would help to prevent them uniting too closely against the guardians of the state. But it is inj.urious to every i)arty ; and, therefore, to the commonwealth. Children would lose the benefit of parental care and aff'ection. In case of quarrels, a son might inflict a blow on his father. If property were common, there would be no room for the exercise of such virtues as charity and benevolence. A com- munity of wives would destroy that modesty which is the peculiar grace of woman. The evils which Plato finds in existing states are not due, Aristotle says, to the fact of private property, but to the natural cor- ruption of mankind. In the ' Laws ' Plato proposed limiting every man's property according to a fixed plan. Aristotle answers that, if so, there must also be a limit fixed for his children. There may be REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 221 equality, and yet luxury. There may also be equality, and not a sufficiency to support the community. The Bible deals with the same problems as those which ocuupied the minds of the Greeks. Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees to seek a city. He sought a purer worship, and with that a purer morality. His descendants were established in Canaan, under the government of Jehovah. Their state was a theocracy, a city of God. We need not here discuss the question how far and in what it differed from other states. The Bible never says that the heathen nations were not under the divine protection. Jehovah, the God of the Jews, was not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. If the kingdoms of the earth were established and maintained by force, the same might be said of the kingdom of David and Solomon. The Jews' theocracy was only an earthly Canaan. The saints were but pilgrims, still looking for a city of God. Jerusalem was the type, the temporal emblem of that mystical city. Every deep yearning of the Jew was towards Jerusalem. His patriotism and his religious ardour alike centred in the capital of his country. Mount Zion was beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth. 'Glorious things,' the psalmist exclaims, 'are spoken of thee, 0 city of God.' The kingdom was rent asunder in the days of Jero- boam. The ten tribes were carried beyond the Euplirates by Shalmaneser. A like fate befell the two remaining tribes under J^ebuchadnezzar. Captive Judah wept by the waters of Babylon, but in the darkest hour of her sorrow she looked for a city of God. ' Thy King cometh,' was the joy of the daughter 222 CONTEMPORARY ESSAVS. of Zion. The weeping exiles saw this glorious city as Jerusalem restored, when its prosperity would be so abundant that the most feeble would fiud protection — ' the old men and old women ' dwelling in the streets, and ' the city full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.' In the time of the Babylonian Captivity the brute forces of the world were in the tide of their triumph. The four empires of the visions of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel — the Babylonian, the Grecian, the Medo- Persian, and the Eoman — were founded in injustice and oppression. To philosopher and saint, to the thought- ful Greek and the devout Jew, the conviction was deep that these monarchies must yield to governments founded on equity. Daniel saw thrones cast down, and ' the Ancient of days did sit,' and one like unto ' the Son of Man ' came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the ' Ancient of days.' To the ' Son of man' was given an everlasting kingdom. After the Eoman comes the kingdom of heaven, the city of God, the everlasting dominion of the Son of man. In the days of Herod, when the Eoman Emj)ire had reached the culmination of its greatness, came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ' Eepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' John connected this kingdom with the King who was to come, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ. After John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God. What did He mean by this kingdom ? Was He to establish a new Eepublic ? Was He, like Moses and Plato, to give laws for the guidance of a REPUBLIC S, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 223 Commonwealth? To this conclusion we shall cer- tainly come if we forget that the city of the good, as well as the city of the evil, is a ' mystical ' city. A perfect commonwealth may have been expected by the Jews, and longed for by the nations, but it was not necessarily implied in the words ' kingdom of God.' The idea of Jesus was the same in kind as the idea of Socrates and Plato. He was to found secular govern- ments on justice. He was to introduce into the world the reign of the meek and lowly, the peace-makers, and those who hunger and thii'st after righteousness. Did Daniel take it in this sense ? Perhaps he did, pro- bably he did not. It matters nothing. He may have connected it with a universal visible kingdom, as other Jews connected it with the restoration of Jerusalem. The kingdom which Jesus preached was not to comcAvith observation. He told the Pharisees, demanding an ex- ternal sign, that the kingdom was among them. It had come unseen by them. In a series of parables Jesus explains this kingdom. It is good seed sowed in a field. It is a grain of mustard seed which grew to be a great tree. It is leaven which a woman took and hid in three mea- sures of meal till the whole was leavened. It is a trea- sure hid in a field. It is the pearl of great price. In all these parables the kingdom is a principle rather than a society of men. The last of the series seems to take in the idea of a visible society, but then it is a society both of good and bad. It is a net which ' gathered of every kind.' It is not a realised city of God, but a society professing to follow the principles which con- stitute the city of God, and which are yet to leaven the world. 2T4. CONTEMPORARY FSSAFS. It is said in the Acts of the Apostles, that after the accession of the three thousand souls, ' all that be- lieved were together, and had all things common.' They had ceased to value property. Perhaps they believed that the end of the world was not far off. Beyond this brief notice, wo know nothing of the communist life of the first Chri^ians. De Quincey supposes that the Essenes mentioned by Josephus were the Christians. The argument is, that Josephus, who says nothing of the Christians, yet describes these Essenes in words which identify them with the Christians. They had all one patrimony. When they travelled they carried nothing with them, finding in the hospitality of their brethren all that was necessary. ' just as if it were their own.' They neglected wed- lock, without absolutely denying the fitness of mar- riage. They were peace-makers, and ' eminent for fidelity.' Now St. Paul allows marriage, that is, tolerates it. But for himself, and for the Christians generally of that time and in their circumstances, he regards it as an evil. They that have wives are exhorted to be as though they had none. It is more than probable that the first Christians became a body of communists such as the Essenes were, if the Essenes really were not the Christians. The records which we have of the heretics of the first ages are imperfect, and mostly from their enemies. Yet there are many things which, fairly interpreted, seem to prove that they were communists and celi- bates. They misunderstood the mission of Christianity and its relation to the world. A representative sect was the philosophical Manichees, who did despite not REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 225 to the Spii'it, but to the flesh. They could see nothing of God in the purely secular. The world was the work of the devil, and therefore to be hated and despised. They looked upon nature as we are all sometimes tempted to look upon it, as essentially im- pure. Manicheeism is an error found in all Churches and among all philosophers. It is an error natural to men who have known the conflict of good and evil in themselves, and who have confounded the forces of evil with the world of nature in which they met these forces. Some men cannot realise the city of God but as something absolutely apart from the city of the world. Augustine's conception of Christianity was far from perfect, yet his ' De Civitate Dei ' is a luminous exposition of the principles of the city of God, Eome had fallen under Alaric and the Goths. The fourth beast, ' dreadful and terrible and strong ex- ceedingly,' was now subdued. Eomulus, the founder of Eome, like the typical city-builder, slew his brother — * Fratemo primi maduerunt sanguine mmi.' The first citizens of Eome were robbers, stealing from the Sabines even the women that were to be the mothers of the future Eomans. The city became great by plunder. Cicero once said that if the Eomans were to give every man his own, they would have to leave their palaces and return to their huts. When this nation of robbers was finally conquered, the pagans charged the calamity on the Christians. They said that the gods had forsaken Eome because the Eomans had ceased to worship the gods. This Q 226 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. gave Augustine occasion to discourse of the principles by which Eome existed, of the pagan deities, and of the Christian religion. The claim which Yirgil made for Rome, that it was her glory ' Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,' Augustine called one of the attributes which belong only to the city of God. He says that according to the definition of a commonwealth in Cicero's ' Ee- public,' Rome never had a true commonwealth. It never was the ' estate of the people.' It never was governed by justice. Its laws were but decrees for the benefit of those that governed, and not laws grounded in right and reason. He puts in contrast the city of Rome and the city of God, yet he never speaks of the ' city of God ' as a visible community. It is not any of the commonwealths of the world, neither is it an ecclesiastical organization. It is the ' mystical ' city of the regenerate, or the elect. It is not denied that the Romans had some great virtues. It is not denied that the philosophers discovered some truth. It is even said that this was done by the grace of God. From this statement we might argue that, in St. Augustine's judgment, the philosophers and virtuous pagans were citizens of the ' city of God.' The object of the heavenly city is to regenerate earthly cities ; not to teach men to flee from the world, but to enable them to live justly in the world. In this sense we have put Plato's ' Republic ' among the efi'orts to realise the city of God. Plato's ' Rej)ublic ' probably suggested Sir Thomas More's ' Utopia.' Sir REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 227 Thomas More is not reckoned among onr reformers ; but he was a reformer, and, judging from this book, more than an ordinary one. The discourse is put into the lips of Eaphael Hythloday, a Portuguese, who had been in three or four voyages with Americus Yesputius. Sir Thomas More is in Belgium as ambassador to Henry YIII., and meets Eaphael in the town of Antwerp. They discourse of the evils of existing governments, of the disposition of princes to go to war rather than cultivate the useful arts of peace. Eaphael had been in England in his youth, and had been entertained by Cardinal Morton, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, in whose family Sir Thomas More was ' bred fi-om his childhood.' Eaphael says that dining one day with the Archbishop, a lawyer who was j)resent expressed his surprise that there were so many thieves in England, notwithstanding so many were hung that sometimes twenty might be seen suspended from one gibbet. On this Eaphael took occasion to say that it did not surprise him ; for the people of England were like many other peoj)le, more ready to chastise scholars than to teach them. He recommended making provision by which men could find the means of existence as more ' beneficial than enacting dreadful punishments against thieves.' He discoursed further of the prodigality and luxury of the nobles and landowners, who oppressed their tenants and labourers, griuding the faces of the poor, to support a multitude of idle persons to attend on them. In France Eaphael said things were even worse, for that country was full of soldiers ; the people ' sometimes seek occasion for making war that q2 228 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats, or, as Sallust observed, for keeping their hands in use.' He points out to the Cardinal the evils arising from the enclosure of lands for pasture, the destruction of towns and villages that formerly lived by agriculture ; even ' those holy men the abbots, not contented with the rent their farms yielded, stop the course of agriculture, enclose grounds, reserving only the churches, that they may lodge sheep in them.' The labourers were driven forth to beg or starve, or live as they best could. It was pro- posed that all beggars should be sent to monasteries, a grave ecclesiastic wittily remarking that this would not relieve them of beggars so long as the friars existed. After a long conversation on the manifold evils of society, Eaphael declares himself for Plato's doctrine of a community of goods. He says that the only way to make people happy is to make them all equal. He proves this from his experience of seven years among the Utopians in the island of Utopia, where the science of government had reached perfection. The island had fifty-four cities. Farmhouses were built all over the country, and the inhabitants were sent out from the cities by turns to dwell in them. Every country family was a community, consisting of not less than forty men and women, with two slaves. It had a master and mistress set over it, and over every thirty families there was a magistrate. Every inhabitant of the island was instructed in agriculture. They had reached great perfection in rearing crops, breeding cattle, and hatching chickens. The last was done by REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 229 collecting a vast number of eggs and placing them in an equal heat. They had no strong drinks, no luxu- ries, but an abundance of necessaries for all. They had no idle women, no idle priests or ' religious men,' no rich men, and no beggars. When the women married they went to the houses of their husbands, but the men continued in the houses of their fathers and grandfathers. The women served their husbands, children served their parents, and the younger children the elder. They despised money, preferring that which money represented. They valued ii'on, because useful above more precious metals. Their soup-basins and their di-inking bowls were made of earthenware, but their ' vessels of dishonour ' were of gold and silver.* Their children wore ornaments until they were old enough to put away childish things. They defined virtue as living according to nature. They governed their passions, and they called that piety which pre- ferred another's interest to their own. They did not allow polygamy. Their religion was a rational Theism, but all sects were tolerated. The com- munity was happy, at peace in their minds, and enjoying entire health, which in itself they reckoned the greatest of all pleasures. Lerminier says that one day in the first year of the French Eepublic, Condorcet was developing to his friends, with that enthusiasm wliich accompanied him through life, the social consequence of the revolu- tion. ' But,' said one of his hearers, ' you go beyond Eousseau.' 'Without doubt,' he replied boldly; * For the meaning of this see Notes on Rheimcs New Testament, Romans ix. 21. 2 JO CONTEMPORA RY ESS A VS. ' Eousseau made the philosophy of the eighteenth century ; I make that of the nineteenth.' Condorcet saw in the revelations of physical science discoveries which would, he expected, in a few generations change the whole conditions of society. Famine would be unknown, and human life would be protracted to a duration almost rivalling that ascribed to the patri- archs. Science was to introduce for humanity the golden age of the future. Condorcet did little more than make suggestions and prophecies. He was followed by others who made Socialism a religion, a philosophy, and a science. We cannot enter into the details of the transcendental theories of Charles Fourier. They were extravagant and fantastical, yet founded on some plain facts and some obvious truths. He saw harmony in the uni- verse, but man not in harmony with the universe ; and this he ascribed to the free will of man, which, acting in ignorance, gave human life an impulse contrary to the divine impulse. Philosophers and moralists had taught hitherto that some instincts are good and some bad; that some therefore are to be developed, and others suppressed. But the instincts which we call bad are as indelible, Fourier says, and of as high an origin as those which we call good. They must have a place in the general harmony. Their existence ought to be a blessing, and not a cui'se. Society should be constituted so that all j)er- sons be brought into harmony with the universal order. Man is regarded as the miniature or image of the Great Being. The divinely-insj)ired passions are said to be thwarted in their development by the REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 231 .present conditions of society. We suppress that which is divine instead of changing that which is human. Fouiier's remedy was to reconstruct society on what he called rational and philosophical principles. He was to abolish single families with all family instincts. He was to introduce communities in which all might have but one interest, where all rivalry in business might end, and the natural loves of humanity be inno- cently enjoyed without the base admixtui'e of self- interest. The communities were called phalanges. Each was to consist of 1,800 persons of different ages. A community was to live in a palace called the phalanstere. Foui'ier gives in detail the amount of land to be allotted to each community. He gives plans of workshops and gardens. He shows how the fields are to be cultivated, and how all are to share the produce, while ample scope is to be given for the natural ambition of men to work for the common good. About the time that Fourier was publishing his schemes of social regeneration, Count St. Simon was devoting himself to the same problem. The life of St. Simon is of great interest. At the Eevolution he was a young man, full of the new hopes that had just been born into the world. After some experience as a soldier under Washington, he returned to France, and gave himself entirely to the regeneration of society. He began by educating himself. He had been a soldier, and now he became a merchant. Eetiring with a realised fortune, he wished to become a savant. He studied the physical sciences. He opened his 2 32 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. house to astronomers, physicians, and mathematicians. He visited England and Germany, to make the ac- quaintance of learned men and philosophers. He tried to put himself in every situation of human life, that others might benefit from his experience. To complete his scientific education he entered into the married state, wishing to leave no condition of life untried, or to be a stranger to any emotions, good or bad, virtuous or vicious. His biographer says that when he ended his studies he had also ended his fortune. He began to write books, but no publishers would publish them without being secured against loss. He lived on bread and water, and, in winter, without fuel. At one time he tried suicide, but the ball missed its aim. The time of St. Simon's public activity is divided into two periods. The first was purely scientific, having no reference to religion, but entirely secular in its objects. During this epoch the world refused to listen. The second begins with the publication of a book, which he called ' New Chi'istianity.' In this book he connected his scheme of social regeneration with the progress of the ' Church of the Future,' which was to embrace both Catholics and Protestants, and to be more Catholic than any Church had yet been. He set aside dogmas. He said that the Church of Eome had become heretical ever since it had ceased to take the lead in science. The first and essential point of religion was love to man. Eealising this, we should endeavour above all things to ameliorate the moral and physical existence of the human race. That this was the primary object of Christianity, St. Simon REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 233 thinks is proved by the universal expectation of a Messianic era, when all things should become new. It is admitted that Luther effected a great reforma- tion. But he should have reorganized society as well as religion. He should have said less about a heavenly paradise, and tried more to show men how a paradise could be found on earth. Civilisation owes a debt of gratitude to Luther. But he stood in the way of progress, by reducing worship to simple preaching, thus dispensing with the powerful services of orators, poets, painters, architects, and musicians. St. Simon supposed that Christianity originally repro- bated the merely secular — that it identified matter, or the 'flesh,' with evil; and that it separated between the kingdom of heaven and this world. Humanity's hope for the future, he said, is in putting honour on all which Christianity has reprobated as the world and the flesh. In the Church of the latter day man. is to feel and realise the divinity of his whole nature, material as well as spiritual. Antagonism of every kind is to cease. Man is no longer to be the slave of man ; the privileges of birth and fortune are to be abolished. Men will be classed and rewarded accord- ing to their capacities and their labours. The spirit will no longer strive against the flesh, nor the flesh against the spirit. The strife will be ended by the perfectly-developed harmony of man's nature. Peace shall rule the world. Swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning -hooks. The earth shall be the main object of cultivation. It will undergo incredible transformations ; and man shall make continual progress in knowledge, in riches, 234 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. and in love. A great i:>art of St. Simon's scheme is identical with Fourier's. Its results are to be the equality of women with men, the dissolvability of marriage, a common home for children, the annihila- tion of all distinctions between employers and em- ployed. Instead of masters and merchants, there will be functionaries of agriculture, of industry, and of commerce, who will have salaries in proportion to the work they accomjjlish. Mr. Noyes has furnished us with a history of these schemes in the phase of experiments. Though nearly all of them have been failures, Mr. l^oyes is convinced that Socialism itself is not a failure, but that it has taken deep root in the American soil, and is full of promise for the future of humanity. The history of Eobert Owen's settlement, called the New Harmony, is well known. There were some things connected with its constitution and management which were sufficient in themselves to account for failure. The next one of special interest among those which failed is ' Brook Farm.' It was the offspring of the latest develop- ment of American XJnitarianism. But, according to Mr. !N'oyes, it passed finally into Fourierism. The idea originated with Channing, but the prime worker was George Eipley. It numbered among its members Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, and, for a time, l^Tathaniel Hawthorne. They made agriculture the basis of life. Eipley carted manure, and Hawthorne benevolently handled the shovel. Some one, with no taste for rural occupations, described them as having become ' chambermaids to the cows.' Miss Peabody, on the other hand, with a deep sense of REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 235 the poetry of existence, spoke of the true life as aiming beyond the highest star, yet ' redolent of the healthy • earth.' 'The perfume of clover,' she said, 'lingers about it. The lowing of cattle is the natural bass to the melody of human voices.' Emerson smiled incre- dulously at the project. Hawthorne has described it as a 'romantic episode,' a 'picnic; ' but Miss Peabody caught the true spirit of its originators. In The Dial, which was published at the ' Farm,' she explained it as an effort to establish upon earth the city of God. While admitting that the Chui'ch of the first ages of Christianity was a great advance on the previous institutions, she could not believe that it realised the ideal of human society which was in the mind of Jesus. The kingdom of heaven and the Christian Chui-ch were not something outside of society, but a reorganization of society itself on the principles of love to God and love to man — the principle with Jesus realised in His own daily life. Miss Peabody added, ' Perhaps Jesus' method of thought and life is the Saviour, is Chris- tianity. Por each man to think and live on this method is, perhaps, the Second Coming of Christ. To do unto the little ones as we would do unto Him would be, perhaps, the reign of the saints — the kingdom of heaven.' Again, 'We have hitherto heard of Christ by the hearing of the ear ; now let us see Him, let us be Him, and see what will come of that. Let us communicate with each other and live.' The society of American Communists which has prospered beyond all others is that of the Shakers. Theii- settlement on Mount Lebanon, as described by Mr. Dixon, is an Eden of blessedness. They arc the 2 3 6 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. followers of Ann Lee, a religions entlinsiast, who was originally a factory operative in Lancashire. By a Divine revelation, she and her followers were warned . to leave England, and seek the land of promise beyond the Atlantic. They are then pre-eminently a religious community. They believe that the kingdom of heaven has come, that Christ has actually appeared on earth for the second time, and that the personal rule of God has been restored. Neither birth nor death exists for them. They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are the childi-en of the Eesurrection. What is called death is but the shedding of the visible robe of the flesh for an invisible glory of the spirit. Their great work in the world is their warfare against concu- piscence. By it man fell from heaven, and by its de- struction will he rise to heaven again. Generation, they say, is the great foe to regeneration. The saints, therefore, do not dare to increase the empire of sin and death. Phsedi-a said to Hippolytus : ' Si Venerem tollas, rustica sylva tua est ;' but the Shaker community is happy and prosperous. They live long in health and wealth. The voices of merry boys and laughing girls ring over their green- swards, and young men and maidens enjoy love without lust, knowing no unions but the unions of the soul and the blendings of the spiritual life. Mr. Koyes is the head of the Oneida Community, which he connects with the Finney Eevivals. One of the things which he undertakes to prove in his book is the necessity of the religious element for the success of Socialism. Eeferring to Owen's schemes, he says REPUBLICS, CIVTL AND SOCIAL. 237 that the Eevivalists failed for want of the regeneration of society, and the Socialists for want of regeneration of heart. The religious principles of the Oneida Community are a mixture of revelation and divination. They also believe that the second advent is already past, that the kingdom of heaven has come ; and, there- fore, the ordinance of marriage is abolished. In the Oneida Community love is free to all ages. Care, however, is taken to limit the increase of the popu- lation. The mode of doing this is explained in the ' Hand-Book,' but Mr. Noyes omits it in his ' History.' We omit it here. The Mormons are also a religious community, though their chief faith seems to be in Ovid, who says : — 'Jupiter esse pium statuit quodcunque juvaret.' While on both continents the question was being dis- cussed if every man could support a wife and chil- dren, the Mormons demonstrated that by industry and simplicity of life every man in a community might support many wives and many children. Driven from their homes and their possessions, and settling without resources in an apparently barren country, by the Christianity of their muscles they have made a desert to smile and a wilderness to blossom. While in Eng- land the proportion of women over men makes it hard for many women to live ; and while in America the scarcity of women has set on foot all manner of ques- tions as to the rights and capacities of women, the Mormons neither find a lack of wives nor any difficulty in keeping them in subjection to their husbands. Mr. Dixon tells us that Brigham Young charges his 23» CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. missionaries when he sends them forth to convert the Gentiles, not to return without bringing with them ' young lambs for the fold.' All these communities, whether in theory or in actual existence, from Plato's ' Eepublic ' to the last of the American Socialisms, are connected with ques- tions which concern the daily life of every man and every commonwealth. They are Church questions, State questions, and Church-and- State questions. We have interpreted the Christian Church as an effort to realise upon earth the kingdom of God. By a figure of speech it is the kingdom of God. This distinction is important. Half the errors of theology arise from confounding figures with realities. If the professing Christian Church had been really the kingdom of God, it would have had some distinct notes of perfection. It would have retained its unity. It would have been infallible. Its officers would have possessed all the power which the priests of Eome say they possess. There would have been no ground for dispute between different societies of Christians which of them was the Church. Accused before Pilate of making Himself a king, Jesus answered, ' My kingdom is not of this world.' He was not a temporal king, such as the Jews expected, and such as the Romans feared. But He did establish a society. He gave the Apostles the keys of this society, which meant that they were to exercise government. "Was His kingdom then, after all, a kingdom of this world ? Did this kingdom depend on a succession of Church officers ? The Church of Eome consistently and logically adheres to this doc- trine. But when any Christians admit the possibility REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 239 of two Christian Churclies with a wall of separation between them, by that very admission they are com- pelled to say that the visible Church is not the kingdom of God. If Christ's institution of a society destined to be one through all time is the right interpretation of His words and acts, then there can be but one community, and that community, to preserve its conti- nuity and identity, should, like the Church of the Apostles, have all things in common. If the State were perfect, and the Chui'ch perfect, their union would follow by necessity. They would then be, to use Hooker's words, 'personally one society.' This ideal unity, this necessity for a perfect commonwealth founded in righteousness, is the philosophy of the arguments of Coleridge, Arnold, and Stanley, for the Church and State union. But the questions raised by these communities touch the very springs of existence. Mr. Darwin's natural law of struggle for life prevails among men as well as among plants and beasts. !N'ature is bountiful ; yet she gives but little to man without laboui*. Of the thou- sands of children daily bom into the world not one- half can receive the care and sustenance necessary to continue their existence. The great multitude of men have to work hard merely to live. It is the chief business of human life for men to provide for them- selves and their children. Many cannot do even this, and only a few can do more. Are we to believe that Nature produces more men than she provides for ? that here, as in the lower orders of creation, there is a surplus whose doom, in a state of natui'e, is to be food for other animals ? or is the imperfection due to a 240 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. vicious constitution of society ? There exist doubtless inequality, waste, and, from tlie fluctuations of com- merce, uncertainty. An increase of trade in any dis- trict is always followed by an increase of population. A momentary cessation of business leaves multitudes in destitution. Even if the scale of provision and popu- lation be in the main fairly balanced by ISTature, the necessities of society cause the provision side to strike the beam. Man has many desires by nature, and many more by habit, which intensify the struggle for human life. He wants to enjoy existence. ^N'ature's object is simply to continue existence. Throughout all her kingdom the continuation of life is her first aim ; not the life of individuals, as such, but life itself. From the individual she demands labour and sacrifice to preserve the race — ' So careful of tlie type she seems, So lavish of the single life.' The question of communist societies is in reality but another phase of the question of civil government. The problem is, how to substitute a common good for a merely individual good. It may be that all the socialistic schemes are not only impracticable, but fundamentally wrong. It may be that the life and energy of commerce are dependent on individual enterprise, which supposes individual wealth as the primary motive. But granting this, the question turns up again in the wider circle of civil government — Can there be communities founded on equity, and not on force ? Is man naturally a savage, must he ever be a savage, or is it possible that civilisation in any true sense will yet be the uniting bond of human REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 241 society? It is evident from all history that both amongst Jews and Heathens there were aspirations and strivings after higher forms of government than ex- isted in their times. Might reigned, and its reign was terrible. The Jewish theocracy, as well as the Greek and Eoman Eepublics, were the expressions of the aspirations of the people to be freed from the dominion of force ; but by force they were overthrown- Jesus was no revolutionist, yet the kingdom which He established was meant to revolutionise the world. His idea was that of Daniel — a kingdom of the Son of man, to succeed the kingdoms which make war with each other. The assumption by the Bishop of Eome of authority over kings and kingdoms may have been a perverted, yet certainly it was not an unnatural appli- cation of the Messianic idea. But the authority claimed by the Popes became the same in kind as the authority of princes. The history of centuries pre- ceding the Eeformation was but the history of the great struggle for power between the Bishops of Eome and secular princes. The Popes prevailed, but their reign was not the reign of righteousness. In the sixteenth century the divine right of kings was sub- stituted for the divine right of the Bishops of Eome. But the divine right of kings was frail. Their kingdoms had been established by force. Eevolutions came. New dynasties arose, and their divine right, too, was acknowledged. It was but the divine right of force. The ideas of Jesus have revolutionised men and nations ; yet apparently they have failed even to influence the principles on which civil states exist. The dualism between the Church and the world is still R 242 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. unreconciled. Few men who believe in progress conld have believed that the recent war between France and Germany was possible at the present stage of European civilisation. But it originated with that very nation which has been fruitful in schemes for regeneration, which has longed after a Eepublic, but which has never understood what 'an estate of the people' really meant. The fall of the Third Napoleon might have marked a stage of progress. He was overtaken by a just retribution, and went into exile unla- mented — * Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.' But the sequel has given us no hope. It may be in accordance with a law not to be broken that nations have evil rulers in proportion as the people fail to understand their civil duties. Our efforts for the regeneration of society might be hopeful if Nature herself did not present difficulties which seem as if they could never be conquered. The mere nature side gives us but little prospect of success. There is a mystery there which in and by itself is never explained. The terrible problem of the exist- ence of evil, which seems to connect depravity inseparably with all that is finite and temporal, has led some of the wisest and best men to despaii* of regeneration. It is from within us that we have our hopes and aspirations. Before our minds the ideals of what may be are ever arising. In some things the ideals have been realised, and these realisations have good ground to hope for the realisation of others. The faith of Jesus seemed a faith against the apparent realities of mere nature. He believed in the regene- REPUBLICS, CIVIL AND SOCIAL. 243 ration of society when He saw it at its worst. lie believed in man when man was at his vilest. Can we still believe in the regeneration of society — in the regeneration of man ? In other words, can we still cling to the faith of Jesus ? Can we believe that after all the world-process is really divine, that the storm will be followed by a calm, the dark clouds by the sunshine, and that we may say that when the evolution is completed the light will be manifest ' Gratior it dies Et soles melius nitent ' ? In the meantime there are some things within our reach, if all things are not. We may not be able to prevent a famine or an earthquake, but it is within the power of man to say that the differences of nations shall be settled without the barbarous solution of ' fire and steel.' It may be that the population of the world, if unchecked, would surpass its provision ; but even this has never been fairly tried. Less profligacy and more prudence, less luxury and more simplicity, no standing armies, but more productive industry, might yet realise Sir Thomas More's Utopia, or even introduce the dominion of the Son of man. r2 IX. CHEISTIANITY AND MODEEN EVIDENCES * ME. CAELYLE somewhere says that if an unbe- liever is sincere lie is to be pitied, and if lie is not sincere he is to be pitied all the more. It is sad enough for an earnest man to have lost faith in God and eternity, but the insincere scoffer is a spectacle over whom angels might weep. If there be any satis- faction at all in the thought that there are men with- out faith, it is that they are sincere in their unbelief. They have strained their eyes, but have not seen. They have waited for the light, but no day has dawned. So long as they are sincere there is hope. At any rate, they have the consciousness that they have done their best. But of the scorners it may be said as the psalmist said of the ungodly, ' They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.' It must be some satisfaction to right-thinking Christians, as well as to unbelievers, that Christian * Contemporarj' Review, September, 1871. Modern Scepiicism. A Course of Lectures delivered at the request of the Christian Evidence Society. With an Explanatory Paper by the Eight Rev. C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. London : Hodder and Stoughton. 1871. T/ie Witness of History to Christ. Hulsean Leetiu-esfor 1H70. By the Rev. F. W. Fabkab, M.A., F.R.S. London and Cambridge : Macmillan & Co. 1871. CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 245 apologists begin to respect sincere scruples, and to sympathize with men who are troubled with doubts. The modern unbeliever must be thankful that he is no longer represented by Bolingbroke or Paine, and Christians may be equally thankful that the defence of Christianity is delivered from the ferocity of the Bentleys and the "Warburtons. In reading old books on evidences it is painful to find that in order to achieve a victory over an unbeliever, it was often necessary to charge him with some immorality, to imj)ute some bad motive for his unbelief, to misrepre- sent his nieaning, and then to belabour him as one of the forlorn children of Belial. Of course this was the spirit of past times, and was quite in agreement with the love which militant Christians then showed to each other. The spirit of the lecturers at St. George's Hall contrasts favourably with this spirit. It shows that if Christianity does not develop, Christians do ; that if the ' faith once delivered to the saints ' be always the same, its defenders at least make progress in Christian virtues. It is not to be denied that at the present time we are in the midst of a great religious crisis. The educated classes, it is said, are renouncing Chris- tianity. Eeports concerning the universities represent scepticism as widely spread among the students. The highest intellects are no longer at the service of reli- gion, and even the clergy themselves are said to be making shipwreck of faith. Some allowance must, indeed, be made for the exaggerations to which reli- gious people are specially prone ; but it is certain that the faith which served our fathers will not, at least in 246 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the same form, serve our children. During the last ten years we have been compelled to give up positions which we once thought were the strongholds of Chris- tianity. We have entered on a new era, and all men are musing in their hearts what the end is to be. The subject of man's faith in God and his hopes for the future has been reopened. It is our duty to face it honestly, to make our inquiries, if we can without passion or prejudice, and not to suffer it to rest until, so far as in us lies, we have settled it once and for ever. The first supposed enemy of religion is physical science. When Lord Bacon propounded his method of induction he was careful to say that it was not to be applied in religion. I*^atural knowledge only Avas to be derived from nature. Articles of faith were to be learned from the Scriptures. Spinoza made the same distinction, limiting the use of reason in Scrip- ture to determining the meaning of Scripture. When the Eoyal Society was established it was opj)Osed by Bishop Gunning, Bishop Barlow, and some other scholastic theologians, from a fear that the study of nature would be prejudicial to revelation. Bishop Sprat, the historian and vindicator of the Society, said that their fears were vain. The domain of nature was entirely distinct from that of revelation. Science and revelation, he said, must agree to a divorce. He added, that if the study of nature was to imperil the faith of Christians, that study must be abandoned. The theologians who ojDposed the Eoyal Society were right from their stand-point. The study of nature cannot be without an influence on our interpretation CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 247 of revelation. If the study of nature reveals facts not iu accordance Avitli the Bible records, the question is immediately raised in what sense the Bible records are to be' understood. There was, however, wisdom iu Bishop Sprat's proposal for at least a temporary divorce. The student of nature must be free. As a mere physical student, he has nothing to do with the physical science of the Bible. He has nothing to do, as Bacon justly said, even with final causes. He has not to inquii-e for what end anything exists, but simply how it exists. It is true that no well-developed mind can stop here. But when a man comes to the Bible or to teleology he becomes a theologian, and ceases to be a mere student of nature. Every man, however, has his choice whether he shall merely collect facts, or if he shall also reason from his facts. It might be objected to the Archbishop of York's lectui-e that the lectui-er is blaming the scientific men of the present day for not combining theology with natural science. He seems to be asking them to enter on a province which they wish to avoid, until at least they have proceeded fui'thor in their inquiries. He is blaming Bacon, Spinoza, Bishop Sprat, and many devout Theists and Christians, for pursuing natural studies in the spirit of pure science. If we want a verdict from scientific men, it is surely not desirable that they should give it until they are prepared to give it. It is absolutely necessary that the freedom of science be absolute. It must be independent of theology. It must never be afraid of its own legiti- mate conclusions. It is not desirable that any truth in nature should be missed through fear of its being 248 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. in conflict with anything in Christianity, much less with any belief which is merely an inference, and may be after all no part of Christianity. Galileo mnst not be made to say that the earth stands still if he is cer- tain that it moves. Against the Archbishop's main argument scientific men can have but little to say. He seems to be giving that verdict on religion from science which at present they decline to give. If indeed any of them say that matter is eternal, they are, as the Ai-chbishop shows, deserting their own province. But we have no right to make inferences for them. It is one thing to deny creation : it is quite another thing to modify or change the popular view of creation. Supposing the hypo- thesis of development to be established, that would not exclude the operation of Deity in nature. Deve- lopment is not the antithesis of creation. The growth of a human body is as much the work of God as the immediate creation of a full-grown man. Science and religion alike forbid us to conclude that if God works by the process of development there is therefore no creation and no God. Mr. Wallace, the most eminent advocate of development after Mr. Darwin, has dis- tinctly declared that ' it is simply a question of how the Creator has worked.' To this the Duke of Argyll entirely subscribes, denying that he ever advocated * incessant interference,' or ' continual rearrangement of details.'* If Moleschott, speaking scientifically, has said ' no phosphorus, no thinking,' is it anything more than was said by Locke concerning thought and the material brain ? and is not Locke's answer satis- * See i\pptmli.\ to lil'tli edi(iou of ' The Keign of Law.' CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 249 factory, that God may have connected, the faculty of thinking with matter? The Archbishop himself answers to the same effect, and his answer is suffi- cient to remove all susj)icion that there is any neces- sary atheism in modern science. Two more of the lectures in this series deal partly with science. Mr. Jackson inflicts severe wounds on the Positivists. He knoAvs and understands his ad- versary. It may be unscientific, using the word in reference to ]3hysical studies, to mix up theology with the study of nature ; but it is unphilosophical, in the widest and truest sense of philosophy, to limit the intellect of men to the study merely of what is cog- nisable by the outward sense. Comte and Comtism have been immensely overrated. Positivism is a heresy of this generation, and can scarcely be ex- pected to outlive it. The few grains of truth which it contains are valuable. Wise men will appropriate them and pass on. The Dean of Canterbury gives a cautious lecture in the style of Bishop Butler. He does not attempt to jDrove much, but tries to obviate some difficulties. He balances the arguments for revelation with those against it, and he shows not only its probability but its necessity as part of the system of this world — that is, supposing the world to be the work of a creator. There is, of course, the alternative that after all the world may be a bungle, our hopes but di-eams, and oiu' beliefs the wild nettles of a luxuriant imagination. But to the Theist this is all improbable. There is nothing, the Dean says, in nature — even according to Mr. Darwin's interpretation of nature — which has not 250 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. its use, and for the neglect of which nature does not inflict a penalty. We have religious faculties, and for the exercise of them we expect a field. I^atural religion is insufiicicnt, and therefore we conclude the possibility or probability of revealed. The Dean does not go further. The only exception which can be taken to his argument is, that revelation may be something very different from what he understands it to be. It may come by an infallible Church, or by an inftillible Bible, but it may also be an internal illumi- nation never expressed in human words, and perhaps incapable of any outward expression. The subject of Dr. Rigg's lecture is ' Pantheism.' From its contents, however, it should be classed with those that refer to the study of natural science. The Archbisho^^ of York began his lecture by quoting — aj^parently, with approbation — the old devout Pan- theistic utterance, ' All things are full of God.' Dr. Eigg, as a "Wesleyan minister, must sometimes sing one of John Wesley's hymns where this verse is found: — ' In Thee we move. All things of Thee Are full. Thou ISource and Life of all ! Thou vast unfathoinable sea ! Fall prostrate, lost iu wonder fall, Ye sons of men.' This Deity of which all things are full, was the Deity of the old Greek philosoj)hers, of the Neo-Platonists, and of how many other philosophers we cannot at present inquire. A lecturer on Pantheism might really have said something important. The word itself is very inde- finite, and Dr. Eigg rightly begins with a definition. CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 251 But his definitiou only defines atheism, which he refutes under the assumption that the teachers of development and natui'al selection are atheists. This is a great mistake, but so common with men who ought to know better that we excuse Dr. Eigg. We cannot, however, excuse him for evading the subject on which he undertook to lecture. There are three well-known books on Pantheism — 'Am Pantheismus,' by G. B. Jiische ; ' Essai sur le Pantheisme,' by the Abbe Maret ; and an ' Essay on Pantheism,' by the present ^vriter. They are all written from dif- ferent stand-points ; but all agree as to what is com- monly called Pantheism. M. Maret includes among Pantheists all who think of Deity otherwise than the Church has decreed — that is, not merely the old Pagan philosophers, but Catholics like Malebranche, and all Protestants whatever, especially M. Guizot. ' Pantheism,' says Dr. Pigg, ' agrees with atheism in its denial of a personal Deity. Its divinity of the universe is a divinity without a will and without conscious intelligence.' If so it is no divinity at all, and Pantheism really is atheism. But under this definition of Pantheism are we to include Greek philosophers, and Neo-Platonists, Christian Fathers like Synesius, schoolmen like Erigena, mystics like Eckhart, philosophers like Spinoza, and the Transcen- dentalists ? These and such as these, including, con- fessedly, Goethe and our own Carlyle, are the men commonly called Pantheists. Is their Deity ' without a will and without conscious intelligence?' Mani- festly they have either been misnamed Pantheists, or Pantheism is not atheism. The one word which has 252 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to be said on this subject is to explain in what sense God is cither personal or impersonal. We are at the mercy of words. Most men use them as if they were mere inventions for concealing what we wish to say. A ' person ' in ordinary speech is an individual. It implies the conjunction of a rational mind with a bodily form. We do not call a brute a person, for a person is higher than a brute. We do not call a mind a person, for a body is necessary to the very idea of person. Some of the Fathers held that God was a body. They felt it difficult to conceive of God other- Avise than under the form of a man. Corporeity was to them personality. Socrates, the historian, says that the monks of Egypt made a riot in Alexandiia because Theophilus denied that God was corporeal. This was to them a denial of personality. They were right. Personality must go with corporeity. Schleiermacher wisely dismissed personal from the attributes of Deity. The question, he said, between us and the Materialists is, not whether there be a personal, but whether there be a living God. The converse of personal is imper- sonal. In the sense of incorporeal God is impersonal. He transcends the limits of finite personality. He is an infinite mind. If words could always be under- stood, it would be the profoundest reverence to deny a personal God. In logical order Dr. Stoughton's lecture might be said to follow the Dean of Canterbury's. It is the first approach to the subject of evidences proper. Chi'istianity was established by miracles. There is a multitude of ideas connected with miracles, which it is necessary to keej) very clearly and very distinctly CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 253 apart from each other. We seem at last to have come to a tolerably unanimous agreement as to what a miracle means. It is something out of the observed course of nature — ' a wonder ' or ' sign,' but not, therefore, out of the order of natui*e. Miracles, Dr. Stoughton says, ' are not spoken of as " violations " of law, or as " susjDensions " of law, or as "contradic- tions " of law.' They are not, then, impossible, as Spinoza and Baden Powell are suj^posed to have taught. A word by the way for Spinoza. Mr. Farrar has settled him in a note by a quotation from Mr. Mozley. The quotation is : ' The existence of God assumed, the law of the Divine nature is as much a law of nature as the law which it suspends.' Mr. Farrar's comment is : ' This is a com.plete answer to the objection of Spinoza.' The answer was not only suggested by Bishop Butler, but it is really Spinoza's own explanation of mii'acles. He does not deny the miracles of the Bible. He only maintains that they were within the predetermined order of nature. They were always wrought by natural means. The locusts were brought by an east wind. The Red Sea was di'ied up by a west wind. There is always, he says, something more in a miracle than the absolute com- mand of God. There is always the use of a natural cause. He admits that in the Bible miracles the cause is not always given, because they are, as he says, ^ expressed in such words and phrases as are most likely to stir men up to devotion.' These words are almost repeated by Dr. Stoughton, who evidently did not know that he was only following ' the holy but repudiated Spinoza.' The scheme of Bible interpreta- 2 54 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tion whicli Spinoza advocated was, that we should regard Biblical language and ideas as corresponding to the capacities of the people at the time when the different books were written. Many things supposed to be miracles were not really mii-acles ; yet Spinoza admits that God, for the pui-poses of revelation, worked miraculously — that is, in the way of wonders or signs. For instance, God spoke to Moses in a real voice when He delivered the ten commandments. To suppose the contrary, Spinoza says, is to wrest the Scriptiu-es. He cannot, of coiu'se, believe that God ^ has the shape of a man, and speaks with a human voice.' But the Israelites did hear a voice, which may have been created for the purpose of uttering the law on that occasion. When he can find the natural cause he gives it ; but, unlike Eichorn and Paulus, he does not propose an explanation of all Bible miracles. A physical explanation would be interest- ing to the student of natural science. But the religious element in a miracle is higher and more significant than the physical. Dr. Stoughton in- timates, in accordance with popular belief, that Spinoza denies the transcendence of Deity. It is the peculiar characteristic of Spinoza's system that it maintains pre-eminently the immanence of God in nature. Spinoza does not speak of God transcending nature ; but, by another distinction, he teaches all that this transcendence can mean. ' Natura naturans ' is the conscious, intelligent, creative Deity, and ' natura naturata ' is that which is formed. It is, of course, easy to put a heterodox meaning on the system of any original thinker, but Christian prudence, as CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 255 well as Christian charity, require us to give his words the best interpretation which they can fairly claim. But this very uncertainty of the physical signifi- cance of a miracle affects the value of miracles con- sidered as evidence. Inquiring men, who had learned to see God in the observed order of nature, were slow in admitting the miraculous. False miracles were common, and discrimination was required to dis- tinguish the true from the false. To those who believe that miracles have now ceased, there is considerable difficulty in believing that there ever were any miracles. Roman Catholics believed that miracles still continue. Our old apologists, such as Bishop Parker and Daniel Whitby, believed that for centuries after Christ miracles were wrought in the Christian Church. Richard Baxter found the manna in the Avilderness credible, for when he was minister of Bridgenorth there was a shower of manna on the church and the parsonage. Even the Thames had not then got into regular habits, for on IN^ovember 2, 1660, it had three tides in twelve hours. Such miracles do not occur in our day. We therefore doubt if those recorded by Baxter were genuine, and we have at least a difficulty in believing the miracles in the Bible simply as miracles. With the apologists of Baxter's time — as, for in- stance. Archbishops Tillotson and Sharp — the great miracle question was to show how the miracles wrought in old times were evidences to us. We did not see them, and we only have testimony that they were really miracles. The apologists showed that the testimony was good ; that is, quite as good as we 256 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. have for any other matters of history ; and this, they said, was enongh. Sharp even turned the argument, from the want of miracles now, to the confirmation of those recorded in the Bible. It was, he said, the order of Providence to work by settled and natural causes, the Deity only interfering v/hen a necessity emerged. This was said in a sermon on the words, ' If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead ' — a text which evidently does not give even to immediate miracles the highest place as evidence. Hume's argu- ment, that it is more likely the testimony should be false than the miracles true, had a deep meaning. It was, however, sufficiently answered by the considera- tion that there were circumstances which made miracles probable. But we cannot in any case get beyond the position that miracles are credible. We receive Christianity, and therefore we receive the miracles ; but they really are in the way of faith, and cannot, by any possible alchemy, be made evidences of the truth of Cliiistianity to the men of this genera- tion. Mr. Farrar's reasoning is excellent, and so are some of Dr. Stoughton's arguments ; but they never reach beyond the mere credibility of the miraculous. The miracles of the Bible are probably true, but they cannot themselves be converted into proofs. The lectures of Professor Eawlinson, Professor Leathes, and Mr. Eow, introduce us to some of the very ingenious schemes for attacking Christianity, and some of the complicated defences of its advocates. The perverse ingenuity of Strauss, and the brilliant CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 257 but fallacious, and often inconsistent theories of M. Renan, have occasioned a great deal of writing in defence of Christianity, the sum of which for the most part is but sound and fury, and its significance nothing. It is easy to make counter theories quite as good as those of Strauss or Eenan ; but this is only fighting without the citadel, and withdrawing the attention from the central question. If unbelievers are really anxious for truth, they cannot take a more ready way of defeating themselves than by extravagant theories which make the most of every apparent mistake or con- tradiction in the Gospel histories. Every violent stroke is likely to recoil, to give an apparent triumph to the other party, and be a hindrance to calm investigation. Mr. Farrar gives evidence of this in his vindication of St. Luke's Gospel. It ought to have been enough for every sincere mind to have supposed that Luke could not have greatly erred in simple matters of history that belonged to his own time. But because his statements could not be reconciled with all that we could learn from profane history, he has been de- nounced as a careless compiler. Mr. Farrar says, ' Sergius, the pro-consul of Cyprus, was believed to have been a propraetor till St. Luke's authority was finally confirmed by the evidence of coins. Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, was ridiculed as a clumsy inven- tion, till even Eenan has the candour to admit that his recent examination of the inscription of Zenodorus at Baalbeck has led him to believe that the evangelist was not so gravely wrong. The taxing in the time of Cyrenius had long been branded as a flagrant and damaging anachronism till the industry of Zumpt 2S8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. demonstrated that it was an historical datum implied, though not recorded by other historians.' This is a triumphant answer to all objections, but St. Luke may be an accurate historian without Christianity being true. Mr. Eowe is successful in refuting ' Mythical Theories of Chiistianity.' ' If,' he says, ' the Grospels are not in their main outlines historically true, they are no more divine than Shakespeare.' But they may be in the main historically true and yet not a revelation in the sense which Mr. Eowe intends. To refute opponents is often but a small step towards establishing our own position. Professor Eawlinson removes some other historical difficulties, but makes the Bible subject to the same accidents as have befallen other books. The Old Testament, he admits, is incorrect in its figures, and the original, in some records at least, probably lost. Professor Leathes is more ambitious. He gives 'a mythical theory ' on the believers' side. If Chris- tianity depended on the mere ingenuity either of its assailants or its defenders, we should say the com- batants were about equal. The Professor manages a very small argument with very great skill. To Christians, that is, to those who already believe, it is interesting to find confirmations of belief in casual expressions which have hitherto been overlooked. But unbelievers are not generally convinced by minute reasoning. St. Paul mentions in an epistle to the Corinthians that five hundred persons had seen Jesus after his resurrection. Of these many had fallen asleep, yet the Professor supposes that at least two hundred and fifty of them were still alive. St. Paul CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 259 had lived among the Corinthian Christians, and doubt- less had often spoken of the five hundred who had seen the Lord. The belief of Christ's resurrection was general ; the churches were founded on it. The early history of Christianity is inexplicable without this belief. St. Paul's ej)istles everywhere assure us that it was universally received. Xow if Christ did not rise we have effects for which we can assign no adequate cause. This argument is excellent, but we can easily imagine a really sincere unbeliever being simply pro- voked by it. His trouble is that there have been great delusions in the world ; that very great facts have been founded on very great fictions. A man indeed who does not believe that there is truth in Christianity must be haunted with the belief that the world is governed by imposture and superstition. This is his perplexity. Christianity too may be founded on a deception. This is a part of the phe- nomena which he has to investigate. His first question to Mr. Leathes would be concerning the manner in which the five hundred saw Jesus after He was risen. They saw Him at once, and they only saw Him once. Were they at worship and under the influence of excited feelings ? Had some powerful preacher, some Whitefield or Simeon of the early Church, held them entranced by a description of the glories of the risen Saviour? Did they see Jesus a« Paul saw Him, whether in the body or out of the body they could not tell ? It is strange that He should only have appeared once to a congregation of five hundred, and strange that that appearing s2 26o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. should only be once mentioned. David Strauss can erect an ingenious argument on a very small founda- tion, but he certainly has a rival in Professor Loathes. "We can imagine the unbeliever, in no spirit of wantonness, but in solemn sadness, setting aside the inference from the unbelief of the Corinthians con- cerning the future resurrection which the Professor says cannot be set aside. It really argues no sceptical spirit on the part of the Corinthians. They had simply misunderstood what the Apostle had told them about the resurrection, supposing perhaps that it was * past already.' We misapprehend the character of the first Christians if we suppose that they refused to believe until they were convinced by arguments. They were taken captive by the living spirit of the Gospel. They felt the new life and lived it. Modern evidences would only have made them sceptics. The first disciples of Jesus were the poor and the illiterate. The scribes did not believe on Him. When His Apostles went out into the world they subdued the hearts of men. Philosophers like Tacitus could only see in Christianity one of the ' atrocia aut pudenda ' which from all quarters flowed into the great city, and shrewd reasoners like Pliny found it nothing else but ^ superstitionem pravam et immodicam.' The Bishop of Ely has made the influence of Christ's character — or, what is the same thing, the inherent moral power of the Gospel — the subject of his lecture. This is an argument to which no in- genuous sceptic can take any exception. Many, indeed, whom the lecturers in this series regard as unbelievers, go entirely with the bishop in acknow- CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 261 ledging the supreme and, in some respects, unique character of Gospel morality and Gospel holiness. They will, however, object to the argument which the bishop builds on it for his view of revelation. They will object also to some of the details. They will admit that Jesus was a higher development of humanity than other men, and they will admit also that Gospel morality is clearer and more definite than Pagan morality. They will, however, deny the interval which the bishop tries to make and on which his main argument rests. ISTo such break between Christian morality and that of Pagan philosophy was ever made by the Christian writers of the first cen- turies. Arnobius goes so far as to say that if the works of Cicero were read the Christians need not trouble themselves about Scriptures. Augustine finds in Plato, in Seneca, in Yirgil, and other philosophers, the principles of the city of God. He even ascribes the beginning of his conversion to reading Cicero's ' Hortensius.' The bishop marks specially in the morality of Jesus, that He laid great stress on purity of thought. But to the familiar verse beginning, ' If any man look on a woman,' we can quote a parallel found even among the impurities of Ovid — ' Si qua metu dempto casta est, ea denique casta est, Quae, quia non liceat, non facit; ilia facit.'* The golden rule was uttered by Severus, ' Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.' Forgiveness is taught by Plato, who introduces Socrates saying, ' An injury by no means is to be done, nor may it be repaid to him that hath done an injury.' And love to our * Amorum, lib. iii. el. iv. 262 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. enemies does not seem to have been unknown. Origen says that a man once destroyed one of Lycurgus's eyes, but Lycurgus instead of punishing him never ceased to give him good advice, till ' he also became a philosopher.' Origen also records that one of Zeno's enemies once said to him, ' Let me perish if I do thee not a mischief ; ' and Zeno an- swered, ' Let me perish if I do not reconcile thee to me.' The bishop's argument for the isolation of Christ from other great teachers raises the question of the genuineness of the fourth Gospel ; but even when that is admitted, the question of the sense in which Jesus was divine, is still undecided. "Was it the Neo- Platonic sense in which the Logos or wisdom of God was believed to dwell in all good men, and in virtue of which philosoj)hers like Porphyry and Plotinus had occasional foretastes by divine absorption of their eternal union with the Deity ? The statement which the bishop makes that all the apostolic Fathers are clear on the Godhead of Christ is denied in the bishop's sense by Sandius, Episcopius, and Curcellceus, among Protestants; and by the learned Petavius among Catholics. It is easy to say that Bishop Bull refuted them, but it is equally easy to say that he did not. The mere fact that the early Church was un- certain in what sense Christ was God, or, to put it in another form, that there is any uncertainty as to what the early Church taught on this subject, takes away the foundation for any argument that can have weight with an unbeliever. The distinction which the bishop makes between the divinity which Christ claims and lliat of all Pagan incarnations is ingenious, CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 263 but it is also open to controversy. It is true, as he says, that the Gospel gives a deep sense of the great- ness of sin and of the love of God in forgiving it, but Lord Herbert has shown that these things were deeply felt by many in the Gentile world. It is quite possible for God to give men a sense of sin and of forgiveness without any external revelation such as we have in Christianity. To suppose this, would be to remove the objection from the want of uni- versality in the outward revelation, which the Bishop of Ely feels to be a great mystery. It was no per- plexity to Lord Herbert. He had an answer fi'om the universality of the revelation within.* "Without in any way disparaging the intrinsic value of any of these lectures, we give our decided prefer- ence to that by the Bishop of Carlisle. It is the most suggestive, and nearest the tract in which we think will ultimately be found the final solution of the diffi- culties which are in the way of an intellectual appre- hension of the significance of the Christian revelation. The really essential question to be settled is what revelation means — ^what it is in its contents, and in what way it has been given. On this question and those connected with it, there are great diversities of judgment among Christians. Arguments for revela- * We have some scruples about calling Lord Herbert a Deist. His chief object was to show the certainty of natural religion, which is immediate, over merely traditional revelation, the truth of which however he nowhere denies. The bishop has made a curious slip in calling him ' the most eminent of the Deists of the last century.' Lord Herbert, when a young man, was presented at the court of Queen Elizabeth. The bishop also quotes as from Horace the well-known lines of Ovid : * Probo meliora sequor deteriora.' f Why does not the bishop get his examining chaplain to read his proof- sheets ? — X. t Video meliora, proboque ; Deteriora sequor. 264 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tion are wasted until it is determined what revelation is. The Bishop of Carlisle tries to settle this question, and specially so far as the mode is concerned. To reveal is explained as to unveil. The unveiling was gradual. The revelation was developed, that is to say, it was made ' at sundry times and in divers manners.' But the last development was contained in the original idea, as a bu'd existed in the egg or a plant in the seed. The process is under the Divine superintendence. God is 'the developer, and His eternal purpose the thing developed.' It is desirable in our terrible fight with the imperfections and ambi- guities of words to define at every step. With this definition of development on the authority of a bishop, let us not forget that it need not imply any godless or undivine process. It is, however, on the word ' gra- dual ' that the bishop wishes to lay most stress. Here we have an analogy between God's works in nature and His mode of revealing Himself to man. Four stages are distinctly marked. The first is the revela- tion to Adam and Eve, the second to Abraham, the third to Moses, and the last in and by Jesus Christ. Eevelation at these stages was adapted to the capaci- ties of men at the diff'erent periods when it was made. In the fulness of time the revelation was completed. This is said to corresjDond to the gradual work of nature and the gradual process of creation as de- scribed in the beginning of Genesis. Bishop But- ler has shown from the analogy of religion to the constitution and course of nature that difiicul- ties in revelation are not greater than difiiculties in nature, and the Bishop of Carlisle adds, ' Certainly CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 265 those who are prepared to receive the Darwinian view of the development of man's body, ought not to find anything to offend them on the ground of improba- bility in the Scriptural account of the revelation made by God to the human soul.' In estimating anything which Bishop Butler said, it is always necessary to bear in mind the precise con- nection in which it is said. No man that ever rea- soned so thoroughly proved what he undertook to prove, but no writer on evidences ever undertook to prove so little. That we are to expect difficulties in revelation because there are difficulties in nature, is not to be received absolutely. "We expect that reve- lation will remove difficulties in nature. Butler was arguing with Deists who believed in a wise and bene- volent Deity. To them the argument had a force which it could not have to mere sceptics or inquirers. The difficulty in the way of believing Christianity is only increased by the additional difficulty in nature in the way of faith in the Deity. The objection, however, that revelation should make natural difficulties plain, is made on the assumption that revelation is the immediate opposite of nature. Without ascribing to Butler more than he meant, he may be said to have given the first hint of learning the mode of revelation from the Divine working in nature. The Bishop of Carlisle has made a beginning with the application of this hint. Some ingenious theologian, some futiu^e Origen or Malebranche, may be able to complete the parallel between development in revelation and Mr. Darwin's development in nature. This will considerably modify our present views of 266 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Christianity, and enable us to embrace within the Christian fold many of the ' educated classes,' who are now supposed to be without the ' city of God.' Eeve- lation will then be independent of the absolute truth of the Bible records. The Bible will maintain a place suitable to the nature of its contents and the manner of its composition. It will be regarded as the out- ward human expression of the divine impulse within, — the history of the highest religious experiences of the race. Instead of supposing that God adapted His revelation to the capacities of men, we shall then regard the different stages of development at different eras as marking the capacities of the race for under- standing the revelation made within. The Bishop of Carlisle suggests a starting point which might serve for this theory. It is not neces- sary to set aside the story of Adam and Eve. It may be literally true, or it may not. But we have what the bishop calls its ' philosophical meaning.' It represents the dawn of man's religious consciousness. It is the era in his history when he awoke to a sense of responsibility, of a moral law and of sin. All this might have happened by an internal unfolding, deve- lopment, or revelation. There may have been an external voice; but this supposition is not indispen- sable. The revelation essentially was the fact that man became conscious of responsibility. In a conven- tional sense we have come to limit the use of the word revelation to the contents of the Scriptures. We speak of revealed religion as opposed to natural. We suppose our faculties to be inadequate for the disco- very of truth, and so we posit revelation as the com- CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 267 plement of natural religion. But this distinction is of our own making. It supposes that truth which we reach by reason to be a discovery of our own, and not a discovery which God has made to us. It supposes, in fact, that our faculties were not given by God. 'Ungrateful man,' cried Malebranche, 'to call that knowledge natural which God has revealed.' The conclusions to which we come by reason St. Paul calls revelation. Speaking of the knowledge of God which the Pagans had, he says, ' God hath manifested it to them.' A legitimate distinction might, however, be made between reason and revelation corresponding to the distinction between reasoning and intuition, or knowledge mediate and immediate. The definition wliich limits revelation to the contents of the Bible is altogether modern. Bishop Williams, in his ' Boyle Lectures,' distinguishes between natural and super- natural revelation. Adam before his fall had natural revelation. Supernatural was added because of the necessity of restoration. But now that all miracles are regarded as within the order of nature, what was reckoned supernatural may be embraced in the natural. The future theologian, whom we are supposing to be setting forth this theory of revelation, will have to apply it to the different cases in the Scriptures. He will have least difficulty with the prophets, or those who simply professed to have been inspired. The words ' the Lord said,' and ' the word of the Lord came unto me saying,' may have meant an internal voice. But there will be no necessity to deny the literal truth of the external voices of which we read in the Scriptures. They may have been true ; but 268 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the necessity of taking them literally is not indispen- sable. An internal voice may have called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees. The ' fierce ritual of Syria ' may have told him to sacrifice his son, and yet this may still in a sense be a voice from God ; but a voice speaking through the imperfections of man. This view of revelation will supersede the necessity of explaining every occurrence in Bible history. To piety Grod will still speak to Moses in the burning bush, and go before the camp of Israel ' an awful guide in smoke and flame.' The truth of these appearances will not be denied ; but the mode of them may be questions for the free exercise either of reason or speculation. The details of Jewish worship may come from God, but not immediately. They will not be regarded as God adapting Himself to the capa- city of the Jews ; but as the expression of the stage of religious development which the Jews had then reached. They may show the wisdom of Moses in devising worship suitable to a people who had been used to the idolatrous ritual of Egypt. The anta- gonism of the spirit of the prophets to that of the priests will then be easily explained. The higher spirit of the prophets had virtually set aside the law. The ideal of the ceremonies, the ideal of the priest- hood, was ' a stand-point overcome.' The revelation appears not in the details, but in the result — in the progress which the nation made in real goodness. The spirit of the prophets was perfected in Christ. No external voice speaks to Him. He reveals Himself, and that is revealing the Father. In Him the tide of divine life overflows into the world. His own LlinUSTIANITY ..ND MODERN EVIDENCES. 269 growth in wisdom, like His growth in statui'e, was subject to the laws of gradual development. Miracles are not necessary to make us believe in Him. We can dispense with all theories of the incarnation, Arian, Nicene, or ante-Nicene. It is not necessary to suppose that He was God in any other way than as all good men will ultimately be God. The eternal Logos that was in Him was enough to make Him divine. His bii'th may have been miraculous. He may have risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven. These things are probable; so probable that we believe them. But they come to us only on testimony. They are, after all, but probabilities ; that of which we are certain is the revelation that was in Jesus, and through Him is made to the world. His words and the lessons of His life are the inheritance of the race for all time. ' God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.' This is the text on which the Bishop of Carlisle builds his doctrine of the develop- ment of revelation. It would not be right to ascribe to the author of this text the complete idea of a scheme of revelation such as we have supposed. He might, indeed, have included both the internal and the external revelations ; but evidently the latter were to him the more prominent. He did not extend revelation to the race. He did not make the great idea of revelation the unfolding of- God in the human mind. His stand-point as a Christian Jew led him to speak only of the revelations in the Jewish books. He supposed ' occasional interpositions ' from without, 270 CONTEMPORARY jFSSAFS. such as Mr. Darwin entirely excludes from the deve- lopment of nature. He says nothing, indeed, of future revelations ; but if we are to comj)lete the analogy between nature and revelation we must suppose that revelation has never ceased ; that God works unceas- ingly in the human mind as He works in nature. We know not what will be the end of progress, or what the next great unfolding in the natural world. Future generations may surpass us as much as we surpass the quadrumana, and a light may dawn on our minds as much beyond Christianity, as we now understand it, as the mind of Jesus was beyond that of the distant man who first awoke to a consciousness of responsi- bility. The great objection to this view of revelation will be the same as that made to Mr. Darwin's theory of development. It gives no certainty that God is the worker. It leaves the possibility that, after all, our beliefs may be but the creations of fancy, and our hopes never realised. It does not satisfy us to know that all nations have believed in God and a life to come, and that this belief is rational, and agreeable to the moral constitution of man. We want a certainty without to confirm the consciousness within. This was the objection which Eichard Baxter made to the scheme of Lord Herbert. He felt within himself an ' unsatisfactory kind of ap]3rehension till he looked to supernatural evidence.' He confessed, indeed, that this was but the weakness of ' a soul in flesh.' Yet it was a feeling natural to us as we are now constituted. It was the same thing which the sceptic Simmias expressed in the ' Phfedo,' when he longed for the CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 271 assurance of what Socrates taught by ' a word from God.' It is possible that this craving for an external cer- tainty may have created the object which it craves. The philosophical student of Eoman Catholicism must have seen how marvellous are the devices in the Church of Eome to meet every craving of the human mind. To the same craving is due the dogma of Scripture infallibility which long reigned among Pro- testants. Revelation has not been given us in the way that we could have wished it to have been given. It is not written in the heavens. It is not preached by angels. No immortals appear to men. The preachers of Christianity preach only what they them- selves believe, and they speak to the world with a divergence of beliefs enough to distract the illiterate and to make the educated sceptics. Evidence-writers fill volumes with learned arguments which are beyond the reach of the multitude, and which only provoke controversy among those who have time to read them. When they offer ' the word fi^om God ' which Simmias craved, they only give a tradition that there was ' a word from God ' in past times. The ' open vision ' which we crave is still wanting. The absolute cer- tainty never comes. But few of us ever act as if we really believed that we had an absolute certainty for what Christianity teaches. How few even of the most pious Christians regard the other life as a compensa- tion for the loss of this ! In words we do so every day. We give God ' hearty thanks ' for taking ' a brother ' out of the miseries of this- sinful world, and yet we mourn the loss of friends as the greatest of cala- 272 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. mities, not for our sakes, but for theirs. This diverg- ence between oui* words and our thoughts is itself an evidence that we come short of absolute certainty. We have a devout hope, and this helps us to resig- nation ; but only in cases of extreme suffering or ecstatic piety do we ever really feel that 'to die is gain.' Protestant theologians have not yet understood how much was implied in giving up an infallible Church. While that remained there was ample ground for sup- posing the external certainty of revelation. The infallible Church existed always, a living incarnation of the ' word from God.' It was in itself a continuous external revelation satisfying every desire of man, provided he could take the Church on its own autho- rity, without looking at its credentials. But with the rejection of the infallibility of the Church, men were thrown for certainty entirely on the internal word. The history of this is forgotten in our literature. It was ignored long before it was forgotten ; but we can distinctly trace it in the great controversies of our Church and nation. In Archbishop Laud's conference with Fisher the Jesuit, the Archbishop was asked how, without the infallible voice of the Church, he knew the Scriptures to be the Word of God ? He objected that this was not a question which ought to be raised among Chi'istians. The Jesuit was not willing that the sole point at issue should be ignored. His triumph was to press the Archbishop either to admit the infallibility of the Church, or uncertainty as to any external revelation. The Archbishop gave the usual P];otestant answers — 1, we have the testimony CHRISTIANITY A ND MODERN E 1 7DENC ES. 2 7 3 of the Chui'ch ; 2, the Scripture shines by its own light ; 3, the testimony of the Spirit to the Christian mind ; and 4, the evidence of reason. He admitted that none of these was sufficient in itself, yet if taken together, the four links, insufficient in themselves, would make a strong chain. About the time of the Restoration, another Eoman Catholic wrote an answer to Laud's. argument, called ' Labyrinthus Cantuari- •ensis,' or Dr. Laud's Labyrinth, in which he pressed the Protestants of that day to answer Fisher's ques- tion to Laud — How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God? This book was reckoned so formidable an assault on Protestantism, that Hum- phrey Henchman, Bishop of London, asked Stilling- fleet, then Dean of St. Paul's, to answer it. The outcome of Stilliugfleet's answer was that our cer- tainty of the truth of Christianity is only 'moral,' and not absolute. When we weigh the arguments, there is a balance of ' probabilities ' in its favour, but the assurance we have is that of the Spirit testifying within. Hooker had come to the same conclusion. He was charged by Travers with making the Word of God less certain than things of which the evidence comes by outward sense. The charge is substantially admitted. For sensible things, Hooker said, we have the certainty of evidence, but for the Word of God ^ the certainty of adherence.' Chillingworth gave the >same answer to Knott. He resolved evidence mainly into the inward testimony of the Spirit, which gave ' obsignation and confirmation ' to Christian minds. Locke, in the same way, made the certainty of revela- tion to depend on the internal evidence of the Spirit. T 274 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS, He makes up by ' the assurance of faith ' for what is wanting in absolute certainty. The next stage in this history was the rise of the Deists, who resolved all religion into that which we derive from our faculties. If there was no absolute certainty that the Scriptures were the Word of God, they could not have that place as an infallible authority to override conscience and reason which had been given to them by Protestants. The Deists denied, or at least doubted, the external word. The internal was of more importance. To this conclusion the way had been led by Hooker and Chillingworth, Stillingfleet and Locke. An opportunity had come for a fair and equitable settlement of the meaning of revelation. But the evidence-writers arose with their manifold proofs of the absolute certainty of that which theo- logians had just relegated to moral certainty. The Deists urged their difficulties, and the Apologists vehemently ' proved ' Christianity. But religion was independent of them both, and as if to rebuke them both, it came back without arguments, and its power was felt as that of a wind that ' bloweth where it listeth.' We have not hitherto noticed Canon Cook's lecture on ' The Completeness and Adequacy of the Evidences of Christianity.' There is a double meaning in this title which is not removed, but rather confirmed, by the contents of the lecture. It covers both the litera- ture of evidences and the evidences themselves. In the first sense the evidences are, as the lecturer says, ' of vast extent ; ' but he sui*ely over-estimates their value if he supposes them either complete or adequate. CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 275 The writings of the early apologists of C^hristianity did great service in helping to destroy the old fabric of Paganism, but their arguments for Christianity would create amusement if repeated before any intelligent assembly of Chiistians in the present day. The great burden of them all is not the miracles or the character of Christ, but the miracles which continued to be performed in the Church. Irenseus says that they could still cure the lame or the paralytic with a touch. Arnobius and Origen challenge the Pagans to cast out devils either from beasts or men as was done daily by 'the most simple and rustic Chi'istians.' Even in Augustine's great work, ' De Civitate Dei,' the main arguments are a multitude of incredible miracles. The most sensible of them is one concerning a poor cobbler who was in want of a coat, and coming to the shrine of the twenty martyrs, he prayed that they would provide him with raiment. The boys followed him through the streets shouting, ^ Cobbler Flo, Cobbler Flo, have you been praying to the martyrs for a few halfpence to buy a coat ? ' But as he walked along the sea-shore, near the harboui- of Hippo, he saw a large fish cast on the sands. He sold it to a Christian cook for three hundred pence. With this he bought wool, out of which his wife was able to spin as much cloth as made him a garment. More- over, the cook found a gold ring in the fish's stomach, and being a Chi-istian, he gave it to the cobbler say- ing, ' How wonderfully the martyrs have provided you with garments ! ' As for the works of modern apologists, we cannot estimate them at the same value as Canon Cook does, Grotius can now be regarded t2 276 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. only as a curiosity in Latin. The arguments of onr own old English evidence-writers are as amusing as those of the early Fathers. Eichard Baxter proves the Bible to be the Word of God because it is too good to be the word of the devil. Bishop Parker demonstrated the truth of Christianity from the story of 'The Thundering Legion,' from 'The Acts of Pilate,' and the 'brief and pithy answer of Jesus' to the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa. Dr. Whitby established the truth of Christianity from mii-acles being wrought by Gnostics, Carpocratians, and Satur- nalians ; by Finland witches, Chaldean Magi, and Egyptian sorcerers, and by the miracles of the early Church as attested by the Fathers. Joseph Glanvil refuted atheists and unbelievers by stories of 'the demon of Tedworth ' and ' the witch of Shepton Mallet.' Charles Leslie proved Christianity by the same ' hard Church ' argument which establishes the divine right of Episcopacy, or any other divine right that a wild imagination may devise. The apologists of the eighteenth century Canon Cook classes among * the foremost champions of the cross.' We cannot accord to them this honour. Even supposing they were successful against the Deists, it cannot be said that religion owed much to them. Mr. Pattison says they proved Christianity, but what to do with it after it was proved they did not very well know. Earnest religion was to them mere fanaticism and madness. Warburton's estimate of Wesley's revival is a true index of the spirit of the apologetical writers of the eighteenth century. Even the best of them had no religious influence. Butler was only intelligible to CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 277 select audiences, and Paley preached to empty- pews.* We do not think that Canon Cook is more successful in maintaining the completeness and adequacy of the evidences themselves. He says a few words of miracles, which we have already shown are defences that need to be defended, and proofs that require to he proved. We that already believe Christianity, take the miracles with it, but to urge them as argu- ments to an inquirer ic to make a use of them which they will not bear. The lectui-er also says a few words on prophecy, but here again we have nothing to present that will have any effect on the mind of a doubter. It is not true that Jesus was expected. The Jews expected a triumphant Messiah, but not such a teacher as Jesus was. It would be difficult, as Dr. Eowland Williams showed, to find a single pro- phecy in the Old Testament directly applicable to the Messiah. Anthony Collins settled this a hundred and fifty years ago in a way that has never been answered. Every one of the Messianic prophecies quoted in the New Testament is an application or accommodation of Old Testament words, often in a sense altogether new. We that are already Christians can justify the accom- modations. They were to some extent arguments to the Jews ; but to urge them on a modern inquirer * There is a story told in Sunderland, that when Paley was Rector of Bishopwearmouth, he was once visited by his patron, Bishop Barriugtou. The Bishop and the Rector walked down the High Street together till they came to the end of Sans Street, where a huge four- walled brick building had just been erected. When the Bishop saw it he exclaimed, 'I say, Paley, •what building is this ? ' 'Why, my Lord,' Paley answered, ' it's a Methodist chapel.' ' Methodist chapel ! ' said the Bishop. ' Does anybody go to it ? ' 'I hope theyMo, my lord,' said Paley, ' for very few people go to Church.' 278 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. would only be to perplex him. We agree more with the lecturer when he directs doubters to the contem- plation of the personal character of Jesus, and the necessity of feeling truth previously to reasoning about it. Christianity has won its triumphs as a life, not as a creed. The life has co-existed with a thousand creeds diverse in kind, and often antagonistic to each other. Those whom the lecturer wishes to convince will be repelled by the alternative that they must give up the moral excellence of Jesus, or accept Him as God. We dislike this kind of reasoning. We dislike these dilemmas, which break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. Christ may have been God and yet not in the sense which Canon Cook understands the divinity of Christ. It is said in the Gospels that Jesus grew in wisdom. He says Himself that of the day and the hour of the final judgment He knew nothing. He predicted many things which were to happen before the generation to which He belonged had passed away ; and, so far as we know, these things have not happened yet. It is possible to exj)lain all these passages. We that believe do ex- plain them, but they are difficulties in the way of believing that Christ was God. We do not care to have these difficulties pressed home to us in the form of a dreadful alternative, and we should not apply to others reasoning which we do not like aj)plied to our- selves. It is neither fair nor wise to impale an in- quirer on the horns of a dilemma which, after all, may only have its existence by a fallacy in our own logic. We cannot conclude without a protest against an 3Tgument used both by Mr. Farrar and the Bishop of CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 279 Ely. It is that of connecting the profligacy or the outrages of an era with speculative difficulties in religious belief. To the ' infidelity' of the eighteenth century Mr. Farrar ascribes the profligacy of that centmy, culminating in France in the atrocities of the Revolution. To the atheism of the eighteenth century the Bishop of Ely ascribes the recent outrages of the Communists in Paris. This is a kind of reasoning stereotyped in England, and sanctioned unfortunately by the stately eloquence of Robert Hall. But it is reasoning which has no definite data and which admits of diverse conclusions. The influence of Spinoza in England is only imaginary, and^nothing that he taught could have done harm to any one. Hobbes had a great influence on speculation, but we only dream when we suppose that an abstract philosopher has any immediate influence on the morality of the people. The profligacy of the eighteenth century in England was inherited from the seventeenth, and then it was due far more to the Stuart kings and the servile clergy than to any speculative infidelity. This has its parallel in the history of France. The atrocities of the French Revolution were not due to Diderot or D'Alembert, not even to Voltaire or Robespierre. They were due to the Popes and the French kings, who kept the Church and the people in bondage, and they were due to the French bishops who sold the liberties of the Church and the freedom of rehgion that they might bask in the sunshine of a king's court.* The priests who have been recently murdered * See on this subject the excellent article by Dr. Dorner, of Berlin, in the Contemporary Review for July, 1871. 28o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. in Paris owed their murder less to infidelity or atheism, than to the unfaithful bishops of the time of Louis XIV. It is certain, as we have already said, that we are on the eve of a great change as to the meaning of Christianity. Dogmas which once were to us the expression of absolute truth, are slowly but surely evanishing before our eyes. We can no longer regard Christianity as embracing all truth, or as marking the confines of revelation. God, who has been shown to be immanent in nature, is immanent also in the mind of man. We can no longer make the distinction be- tween what God teaches and what we learn by means of our faculties, for all our knowledge must in some sense be co-ordinated under revelation. God gave us our faculties, and what we learn by them we learn from Him. It is not indeed without a struggle that we relinquish old beliefs. We feel as the poet did when he says ; — ' I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high ; I used to think their slender tops Did reach unto the sky. It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tia little joy To know I'm farther off from Heaven Than when I was a boy.' Yet the new faith may be deeper than the old, and not to put aside the beliefs of childhood may be the greatest unbelief. We "crave a point where we can stand and say with certainty that now we know. But no such point is given us. In every case we are thrown finally on faith. It may be in a Church in- fallibly 'teaching us, or a Bible that speaks of the CHRISTIANITV AND MODERN EVIDENCES. 281 faith of those who have gone before, or in an all- pervading Spirit, slowly rearing the fabric of creation, bringing it to perfection in the roll of ages, and developing Himself in a mysterious way in nature and the human soul. Our life is a walk of faith. We should see it precisely as it is. We should not say there is light where there is only darkness. We should not tell lies for God or invent evidences where there are none. This is following our own way, and not submitting to God's way. It is true, as one of these lecturers says, that Christianity is not worn out, but it is also true that it gasps for freedom. We have made our narrow reasonings the laws and the limits for other men's faith, and God is saying, * Who hath required this at your hands ? ' X. GEEMAN THEOLOGY : ITS PLACE IN THE HISTOEY OF EELIGION.* AMOKG tlie books of mystical theology which he- longed to the era of the pre-Eeformation Mystics, there was one called ' Theologia Germanica,' or ' Ger- man Theology.' It was a great favourite with Luther, by whom it was edited and recommended to the people. Luther's friends were afraid that he might injure his cause by identifying himself with the the- ology of this book. 'We shall be called,' they said, ' German theologians,' and Luther answered bravely, ' It is well ; German theologians let us be.' In tracing the course of religious development in Ger- many, it is necessary to bear in mind this original connection of the Lutheran Eeformation with the theology of the Mystics. In the middle ages, and within the united fold of the Catholic Church, there existed the same diverse tendencies which were more definitely developed after * Contemporary Review, November, 1871. nistory of Protestant Theology. By Dr. J. A. Dobner. Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark. 1871. IHatory of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. By K. R. Hagenbach, D.D. London : Hodder and Stoughton. 1870. History of TMionalism. By John F. HuRST, D.D. London. Triihner & Co. 1867, GERMAN THEOLOGY. 183 the Eeformation. While Anselm said, * Credo iit in^ telligam,' Abelard answered, ' Intelligo ut credam,' Anselm took the doctrines of the Church on the authority of the Church, trusting to a verification in the religious experience, while Abelard wished to believe only what was known to be true. The Mystics again, with an inner self- consciousness of the truth of religion, tried to be independent both of authority and reason. In the depth of their own spirits there was an answer to the divine mysteries. Peep called unto deep. The consciousness of the divine communication refused to be disturbed by any external voice. The soul internally purified and enlightened recognised the truth of the Scriptures or the doctrines of the Church ; but its purification and enlightenment proceeded from another soui'ce. It might have been helped by these, but essentially it was indej^endent of them. The religious element in the German Eeformation was mainly contributed by Luther himself. It began with that inward struggle for mental peace which ended in a sense of the divine forgiveness. This was realised by faith, after all efforts by means of ecclesiastical prescriptions and external works had failed. But faith as understood by Luther was not believing the Bible or believing the Church. It was not the re- ception of orthodox doctrines. It was rather an actual realisation of the unseen, a feeling of contact with the divine, and a sense of participating in that spiritual strength which makes saints and prophets. This in its foundation was Luther's justifying faith. It came to him through his experience in the form of recon- 284 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ciliation. A sense of sin gave him trouble, a sense of divine mercy brought him peace. In Luther's theology this justifying faith in what we may call its scientific form, becomes the first ground of cer- tainty. It is the foundation of all other certainties. It is not preceded by believing the truth of Chris- tianity ; but, on the contrary, the truth of Christianity follows from it. In this sense it is the article of ' a standing or a falling Church.' So far Luther is at one with the Mystics. Like them he begins with the subjective, and from this proceeds to establish the objective. He is personally conscious of being taken out of a state where all was discordant, and of being brought into a state where all is harmonious. For want of better names he uses the current ecclesiastical language, and calls the one a state of nature, the other a state of grace. But he finds other men who have had the same experience. He finds that such men have existed in all ages. Their existence is a fact. These men constitute the Church. Here is the first passage from the subjective to the objective, and here begins Luther's essential antago- nism with the Church of Eome. All his language concerning the ministry and the sacraments must be understood from the point of view that true Christians alone are really members of the Church. The right of performing the offices of the Church belongs to them, springs from them, and, for the sake of order, is by them conferred on the officers of the Church. The Scriptures being the property of this Church, and the canon itself being determined by the Chui'ch, they cannot have an external or legal authority over GERMAN THEOLOGY. 285 the Christian's faith. The subject-matter attests itself to the hearts of men as the Word of God ; but the canon in itself as a formal principle is without au- thority. The Cliristian consciousness is above it. What Luther called justifying faith was the authori- tative criterion of canonicity. On this ground he rejected the Epistle of James, which he supposed to contradict the doctrine of St. Paul, and St. Paul's doctrine he did not take on St. Paul's authority, but because he had himself experienced its truth. Dr. Dorner * mentions several books, both in the Old and the New Testament, which Luther either rejected altogether or made deutero-canonical. He did not hesitate to admit that the writers of the Bible were not always correct in their statements nor sound in their arguments. The Scriptures contained the Word of God, but they were not themselves that Word, neither in their form nor, altogether, in their subject-matter. The Scriptures Luther said are but Christ's servant. He was satisfied to have on his side ' the Master and the Lord of Scripture.' These views of the Bible are clearly and frequently enunciated in Luther's writings, but they are never stated systematically or in the way of dogma. It is also true that many passages might be found which do not harmonize with these views. Lessing quotes Luther as calling the Scriptures on one occasion God Himself, and on another the very body of Christ. But Luther's language, beyond that of all other men, is not to be taken in the strictness of the letter. These expressions themselves bear witness of an * Vol. i. p. 243. i86 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. origiual tendency to the extravagant and undefined language of the Mystics. Yet his arguments, espe- cially against the Eoman Catholics, really assumed the objective certainty and external authority of the Scriptures. Miinzer, the leader of the Anabaptists, who rested all truth on the inward light, said that Luther took the same ground as the Eoman Catholics, with only' this difference, that he substituted the authority of the Bible for that of the Church. The Eeformed Church took up a more decided position than Luther's as to the authority of the ScrijDtures. This may have been due to the practical character of Zwingle's intellect, or it may have been necessitated by circumstances. The Anabaptists by their lawlessness had brought contempt on immediate inspiration, while the Catholics had an argument easily comprehended by the ordinary mind in the infallibility of the Church. Zwingle regarded the canonical Scriptures as a revelation of the divine will, and at the same time a rule of faith and life. They were a protection against the subjectivity from which Luther started and a refuge from the mere spiritualism of the Anabaptists. Their authority, however, was not even with Zwingle a mere outward law, but a law which became ' clear and sure ' only to the believer's mind. Zwingle says that all Scripture is not Holy Scripture, nor are all the sacred writers infallible. The religious truth in the Scriptures is the Word of God. But Zwingle rejected the authority of the Church for the canon. He excluded the Apocalypse^ on the same ground that Luther excluded some other books. Beginning with the objective, he fell back on GERMAN THEOLOGY. 287 the subjective, probably without consciousness of the change. Calvin took up Zwingle's position, but held to it with more consistency. He refused the authority of the Church, on the ground that the Church itself was based on the Scriptures. The authority of the Scriptures depends on the Holy Ghost, who speaks in them, testifying of their truth more clearly than any human evidence could do. It is true that this testimony, in the first instance, is coimected with the subject-matter, but the latter, in Calvin's judgment, is inseparable from the form of the Scriptures. The Book, as a book, is inspired. Calvin cannot therefore allow the same freedom of criticism which was allowed by Luther. Dr. Dorner remarks in agreement with this that the chief confessions of the Eeformed Churches enumerate the writings which form the canon. This is not done in any Lutheran confession, so that with the Lutheran the inclusion of any book in the canon is not an article of faith. To the living faith of Luther the voice of God was speaking throughout creation. The Church, tradition, the Bible, the sacraments, were all to him the Word of God. His successors, however, came nearer to the Reformed Churches, till at last the Scriptures not only contained the Word of God, but were themselves the Word of God formally and exclusively. The bond of the Church's union was no more, as with Luther, the sense of contact with the divine, but a written book which became an external rule of faith. To suit this position, it was necessary that there be no question of the canonicity of any of the received books, and the entire contents of the Scriptures must 288 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. be without the least admixture of error. At this stage the Protestant mind began, we may say, to reflect on its position, and to take an inventory of the contents of Protestantism. It found the objective method of Calvin more convenient, and, indeed, more serviceable, than the method of Luther. The practical mind wants an external law whose authority is the same to all sorts and conditions of men. To meet this want, many things were assumed concerning the Scriptures, and on the basis of these assumptions many arguments were founded systematically and logically. The Holy Spirit was supposed to have committed the office of teaching entii'ely to the Scrip- tures. The ' self-certainty of faith ' yielded to the inspiration of vowel points and Hebrew accents. Before the close of the seventeenth century this view of the Scriptures was generally received by all Pro- testant Churches. It was defended by the negative argument that if the Scriptures are not infallible, then we have no infallible authority, and as such an authority was longed for, it was assumed that it must be given. After this conclusion it was quite logical to admit no doubts concerning the books Avhich com- posed the canon, no various readings nor any un- certainty as to the absolute accuracy of every word and every letter. Calovius said that the writers of Scriptui'e were God's amanuenses, and that the books, even those which were mere history, were the same as if they had been written by Christ's own hand. Nitzsche, the Superintendent of Gotha, proceeded to yet greater extravagance, determining that the Scrip- tures were not a creature, but that, like God, they GERMAN THEOLOGY. 289 were uncreated. By the Scriptures he understood Luther's translation of the Bible, the very typo- graphical errors of which Dr. Dorner says were to be left untouched. The only protesters against this apotheosis of the Scriptures in the seventeenth century were such Mystics as Jacob Bohme and Pietists like Spener and John Arndt. These men preserved the subjective principle of Luther, but without being able to give an account of it to reason. The Orthodox, on the other hand, had, by a certain kind of reasoning, reasoned themselves into their position. Theii* real enemy was the Deism which they had themselves evoked. Deism met them on their own ground, and overcame them by the pure force of a clearer and more consistent logic. As a matter of history it is known that Deism came into Germany from England. The books of the English Deists were translated into German. But the ground was prepared. The same causes which had operated in England were at work in Germany. The genesis of Deism was found in the impossibility of proving the Scriptures to be what the Orthodox assumed them to be. Christianity was made to rest on the supposed authority of writings, the early his- tory of which was not absolutely known, and on the certainty of a canon of whose origin nobody knew anything. There was, however, another factor in Deism which strengthened its position against the Orthodox. This was natural religion, which embraced what may be known of God from nature and reason, independently of the Scriptures. Over against the uncertainty of u 290 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the sacred books, both as to their history and contents, the Deists placed the certainty of natural religion. Subjectivity or that internal certainty which might have rivalled at least the certainty of natural religion, had been put aside, so that from it no resistance could be made. This was equally true in Germany and in England. The precursors of the Deists were the theologians who applied reason to theology. Bacon and Locke, Leibnitz and Wolff, wished to confine their methods only to philosophy, or, if they touched theology, to draw the line very clearly between reli- gion natural and revealed. They seem to have sup- posed that it was possible to awaken the mind to the utmost activity in one sphere, and to confine it there when another sphere impinged on that, and was really inseparable from it. The ' Auf klaring ' dispelled the illusion. There were, however, in Germany in the eighteenth century theologians who opposed Deism, and yet saw the necessity of admitting the truth concerning the Scriptures. We cannot quite put Bengel in this connection, though he was one of the first who made the critical study of the Bible the great business of his life. He wished to restore the true text, believing that infallibility was connected with the original if it could be found. Bengel proceeded from the Pietists ; but he cleared the way for Wetstein and Michaelis, in whose hands the uncertainty, both of the text and the canon, could not be concealed. Eational views of the Bible were taught in many pulpits and universities, but those who taught them were persecuted as unbe- lievers. Ernesti laid the foundation for a new school GERMAN THEOLOGY. 291 of exegetics. He dispelled the illusive halo with which the Scriptures had been surrounded. He cleared away the niist of allegories, and challenged the cloudy images to declare themselves either gods or men. With clear and purified eyes he saw that whatever might be the meaning of inspiration, the Scriptures were written in human language, and by the laws of human language they must be understood. The divine, he said, had not destroyed the human ; and who could tell but that by a clear and ojDcn recognition of the human the divine might be more manifest ? Ernesti was followed by Semler, who had been educated among the Pietists, and who resolutely opposed Deism in every form. Semler early in life felt that the Scriptures had been deified, and that the destruction of this idolatry must be the work of his life. He could find no external certainty as to the number of canonical books, and when he applied the subjective test, he found that he must reject many of the Old Testament and some of the IN'ew. Semler did not solve the great question. He did not speak the right word ; but he showed the necessity that it should be spoken. He rejected from the canon some books which had quite as good a claim to canonicity as some that were retained. He made, however, the important distinction between what is local and what is permanent in the Scriptures, and he supposed that some of the writers of the New Testament accommo- dated themselves to the popular ideas and even super- stitions of the Jews of their day. The Orthodox and the Deists were agreed that Christianity cannot be true if the Scriptures are not u 2 292 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. infallible. The Deists said they were certain that the Scriptures were full of errors, while Eational Chris- tians said that Bible infallibility was altogether an invention of theologians. The Scriptures did not claim to be infallible, and Christianity did not rest on their supposed infallibility. The subject was first discussed in a complete form by Lessing. In 1774-77 he published the famous ' Fragments of a Wolfen- biittel Unknown.' Lessing said that he had found the ' Fragments ' in MS. in the library of Wolfen- biittel, to which he had been appointed librarian. They are part of a work, the original of which is still to be seen in the town library of Hamburg. It was written by Professor Eeimarus, and is called a ' Yindi- cation of the Eational Worshippers of God.' In these * Fragments ' there is no levity, no scoffing, no effort to conceal the ultimate meaning. They are rather written with an impressive earnestness and with the utmost frankness. The perspicuity of the language and the elegance of the style have secm-ed them a permanent place among German classics. It was these qualities which made them suitable for Lessing' s object. They showed that the Deists really had something to say against Chiistianity as it was then understood. Eeimarus had been educated for the ministry in the Lutheran Church, but be could not reconcile the Theism of reason with what was ascribed to God in the Scriptures. The 'Fragments' were six in number, or seven if we reckon one 'On the Toleration of the Deists,' which took the form of an introduction. The first was ' On the Condemnation of Ecason from the GERMAN THEOLOGY. 293 Pulpit.' The writer finds it true even of the most learned and inquiring men, that they generally keep to the religion in which they were educated. A blind faith is convenient. It is inculcated by the clergy of all nations. For this, however, ministers of the Christian religion have not the example of Christ and his apostles. They established a rational religion, and appealed to reason against the religion of the Pagans. It is true that St. Paul says, concerning the things of God, that they are foolishness to the natural man. But he is not here contrasting the darkness of reason with the light of revelation. The contrast is between the psychical or sensuous man and the spiritual man. St. Paul, in an epistle to the Corinthians, speaks of the reason being taken captive to the obedience of Christ. This passage is often misquoted; instead of the words ' of Christ,' it is generally read of faith. But St. Paul is not opposing reason. He only condemns certain false 'reasonings' of the Co- rinthians. Under the figure of a warfare, he describes their reasonings as subdued by the Grospel. It was commonly argued by the clergy that reason had lost its power thi'ough the fall. To this the writer of the ' Fragments ' answers, that the reason of the first men could not have been great, when they listened to the words of the serpent and disobeyed the clear command of God. The reason of man is not surely weaker now than it was then. It is impossible that we could be so weak as to sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression. The Scriptures lay the foundation of faith in reason. The Lutherans ' reason ' against election and reprobation, as contrary to the goodness 294 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of God. The Eeformed 'reason' against the nbiqnity of Christ's natural body, because it is against the nature of such a body to be in more places than one at the same time ; and both Lutheran and Eeformed ' reason' against transubstantiation, because it contra- dicts our very ideas of what constitutes bread and wine. The clergy may decry reason, yet they must use it. The second ' Fragment ' is on the ' Impossibility of a Eevelation which all men could receive in a Satis- factory Manner.' By 'revelation' we are evidently to understand revelation in the ordinary sense of an external or merely objective revelation. It is fii'st supposed as possible that God might give a super- natural revelation to all men at all times. But this would imply continual miracles, which would destroy the established order of nature. It would be against the wisdom of God, who, if divine knowledge was to be given to all men, would give it in a natural way. To work miracles continually would be like teaching men suj)ernaturally where to find fire and water, meat and drink, instead of giving them eyes which they could use for themselves. If all men had lost the use of their eyes by the fall, it is not likely that God would have sent angels to lead men, or indeed have adopted any supernatural way of compensating for the loss of sight. It is more likely, and more in accord- ance with divine wisdom, that He would at once have restored the use of their eyes. It is also possible that God would have given a supernatural revelation to some persons in every country, from whom all others were to receive it. But here again, as the object is GERMAN THEOLOGY. 495 that it should extend to all, the same improbability of frequent miracles is opposed. Moreover, in this case the miracles would not effect their object. Those who received the revelation at second-hand would not receive a divine revelation, but only the testimony of men that such a revelation had been made. The miracles, at first believed by only a few, as the case was with the JewQ, would become less credible to those who did not see them. The third case con- ceivable is that of God revealing Himself at certain times, and through certain persons, to one nation. This hypothesis has some advantage over the others, but it supposes that to be done by miracles which could be done through the ordinary working of nature. MoreoA^er, of the evidence of such a revelation not one in a million could have the opportunity of judging, so as to be reasonably convinced of its truth. This is not God's way of acting in the natural world. He does not suspend matters of great moment on mere accidents. If the revelation in the Bible is to be taken for this one revelation which is necessary for salvation, it was simply impossible that all men could know it. Noah and the patriarchs to whom it was first given took no pains to publish it. They culti- vated fields and planted vineyards. Even at the pre- sent day only a small number of the human race have heard the Gospel. St. Paul, indeed, speaks of its sound having gone out into all lands, and of its being preached to every creature under heaven. But many maps must have been missing in the apostle's atlas. He doubtless meant that the religion of nature was published in all lands. The voice of God, speaking 296 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to the reason of man, is the only Gospel that has been preached to every creature under heaven. The third ' Fragment ' is on the ' Passage of the Israelites through the Eed Sea.' The narrative says that there were 600,000 armed men. Eeckoning for wives, children, and unarmed, four to every armed man, we have a company of 3,000,000, which probably had 300,000 oxen, with 600,000 sheep and goats. For fodder and baggage they must have required about 5,000 waggons. Pharaoh's army had at least 600 waggons and probably 25,000 cavalry, with 100,000 foot soldiers. These followed close on the Israelites when they encamped on the shore of the Red Sea. The wind blew all night, which probably means till midnight, before the sea was dry. By the first watch — that is, in three hours' time — the Israelites had crossed the sea, and the Egyptians were in the middle of it, with their horses and chariots. The camp of the Israelites is reckoned to have covered at least nine square miles. The argument is, that it was just possible for one person to have walked the distance in three hours, but utterly impossible for such a multitude of people. In the fourth ' Fragment ' it is maintained ' that the Books of the Old Testament were not written to reveal a Eeligion.' This is shown from their silence as to any future life, which it is assumed must be the object of a supernatural religion. This was written in avowed opposition to Warburton's argument that the legation of Moses must have been divine because he said nothing of immortality, or of rewards and punish- ments in a life to come. The passages in Job and the GERMAN THEOLOGY. 297 Psalms, with some in the Prophets, which are gene- rally supposed to refer to a future life, are explained in another sense. The doctrine, if presupposed in the Scriptures, was certainly either not known or not believed amonc; the Jews. Some of the Old Testament writers plainly deny it. The Jews borrowed it from the Persians, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. In the time of Christ it was believed by the Pharisees, but denied by the Sadducees, who were the old orthodox Jews. The fifth ' Fragment ' was on ' The History of the Pesurrection.' This was the severest piece of criticism that had ever been applied to the Gospel histories. St. Matthew's account of the guard appointed by Pilate is not reckoned worthy of belief. It is not only not mentioned by any other evangelist, but no aj)ostle ever speaks of the guard as witnesses of the resurrection. There were many occasions when this might have been of great service to the apostles, especially when they were brought before the Eoman governors ; but never once do they allude to it. That the body was stolen is more probable than St. Matthew's story of the guard. It is asked why Jesus did not rise in the day-time, when the people might have seen Him ? why did He not, after His resurrection, show Himself before the officei's ? why He did not appear in the Temple, or in the public streets? It is strange that all His visits were to His disciples, and that they were made privately and mysteriously. The ' Frag- ment ' ends by pointing out ten palpable contradictions in the Gospel narratives. There was an additioual ' Fragment ' published after 298 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. these five. This was larger than all the others together, and appeared in the midst of the controversy which the others had created. It is generally sup- posed not to have been written by Eeimarns, or, if written by him, to have been intended chiefly to pro- voke the zealots. The scope of it is, that John and Jesus preached the kingdom of God in the sense understood by the old prophets of the restoration of the grandeur of the Jewish kingdom. The people who heard them, and even Christ's own disciples, always understood it in this sense. But after the failure to make Jesus a temporal king, they began to think of another kingdom, which was not to be on earth, but in heaven. Lessing published these ' Fragments ' expressly to have the questions raised in them more thoroughly discussed. He added notes of his own, expressing in many cases his dissent from the writer, and sometimes answering his objections. He rested the certainty of C^hristianity on the experience of those who have realised its sj)irit in their own consciousness. A paralytic, he says, who has felt the beneficial efiects of the sparks of electricity, is not concerned to loiow wdiether its discovery is due to Nollet or to Franklin. The letter is not the spirit, and the Bible is not the religion. Objections against the letter of the Bible are not objections against the sj)irit of the religion which is in the Bible. Almost in the words of Richard Baxter, Lessing says that the Scriptures contain more than what belongs to religion. There is a human element with the divine. Moreover, Christianity existed before either the Gospels or the E^iistles were GERMAN THEOLOGY. 299 written; and it was a long time in existence before the entire canon was formed. It is therefore impos- sible that the trnth of the Christian religion can depend on these writings. It is not true because it Avas taught by evangelists and apostles, but they taught it because it is true. These writings could not give it inner truth if it had none in itself. Assaults on the Bible merely affected the outworks of Chris- tianity and did not touch the citadel. On the first ' Fragment,' Lessing says that the clergy have entirely ceased to denounce reason. The chief thing heard in the pulpits is its agreement with faith. The common saying now is that revelation is nothing else but a renewed sanction of the religion of reason. The second ' Fragment ' is admitted to con- tain a multitude of things that are not to be questioned. Yet surely if a revelation is useful and necessary, it is better that it be given to some and not withheld altogether. The assumption that they only can be saved Avho have received this revelation is neither, Lessing says, the doctrine of Christ nor the universally acknowledged doctrine of the Chui'ch. On the third ' Fragment ' Lessing referred to the explanation that had often been given that the 600,000 might have been a mistake of the copyist for 600. He said that the miracle of Elijah dividing the waters of the Jordan with his mantle to make a passage for himself, was quite as wonderful as Moses dividing the Eed Sea that millions might pass over. He shows the conceivability of the Israelites having made the passage in the time mentioned. On the fourth ' Fragment ' Lessing admits that the Jews were 300 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ignorant of immortality. We may even, he says, go further, and admit that before the Babylonian captivity they had not a right conception of the unity of God. It is certain that the unity which they ascribed to God was not that transcendental metaphysical unity which is the foundation of all natural theology. Or if some did reach it, certainly it was not grasped by the people, who could not be restrained from falling into idolatry and going after strange gods, who were to them also gods, but not so powerful as Jehovah, theu- national Deity. To his remarks on this ' Fragment ' Lessing adds the famous treatise on the 'Education of the Human Eace,' which he says had been in cu'culation among some friends, and from which he confesses that he had himself borrowed some ideas. By regarding revelation as the education of the race, it is supposed that many difficulties in theology may be removed. By education we educe what is in an individual, and so revelation brings out what is already in the race. Human reason would itself have reached the conclusions of revelation, but it would have required a much longer time. The parallel, however, is jDreservcd. The mode of revelation like that of education is progressive. God begins with the Hebrew race and reveals Himself 'the God of their fathers.' By mii'acles He testifies that He is greater and mightier than any other god. It was not yet time to teach this race the immortality of the soul. They had not capacity to understand any higher good than temporal prosperity. When the child came of age it was sent into foreign countries. Here it GERMAN THEOLOGY. 301 learned the blessings of the home it had left, and yet it found some who had got beyond it in learning, just as some self-educated men surpass those who have been taught at the schools. The Jews learned from the Persians to think of God as ' Being of all beings.' This, indeed, they might have discovered in their own books had their reason been sufficiently developed, but it was not. Revelation hitherto had guided their reason, and now reason gives clearness to their revela- tion. Among the Persians and Chaldeans, and iu the schools of Alexandria, the Jews learned the doctrine of immortality. There may have been hints of it and allusions to it in their own Scriptures, but they were not clear, and so it never became the creed of more than a section of the Jewish peoj^le. The Old Testa- ment was to the Jews like a primer to a child. It only contained what they were to learn as children. It clothed in allegories such abstract truths as creation and the origin of evil. The primer served the child- hood of the race, but it was exhausted when Christ came. He tore it from the child's hands. Christ was the first certain teacher. Prophecies were fulfilled in Him, He wrought miracles, He revealed the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. It may not now be possible to 'prove Christ's miracles or His resurrection, or even to know who He was in the mysteries of His nature and person. But these have not the same importance for the recognition of truth which they once had. Christ was the first practical teacher, the first who taught men to live here as believers in a life to come. This doctrine is contained in the New Testament, the second primer which was given for the 302 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. instruction of the race in the second stage of its capacity. The possibility of a third age is mentioned when men will do right without reference to the future, but because it is right. Every individual of the race must travel over the same road of progressive education. To allow time for this it is supposed that men may have lived before, or that they may have opportunities of learning in the eternity that is to come. The objections of the Deists to Christianity, and the answers to these objections, reached their final stage in the Wolfenbiittel ' Fragments,' and the controversies which followed their publication. The Deists had made an ' Aufklaring,' but the philosophy of Kant, which went again to subjectivity and concerned itself with the nature of reason, cleared up a great deal which the Deists took for immovable certainty. Kant's philosophy had no immediate reference to religion, and was so far neither against Christianity nor for it. The service it rendered was an equal benefit to both sides. It cleared the ground, removed the dust, and distinguished between the moimtain and the mirage, or at least determined the conditions under which it was possible to make the distinction. Kant's problem in philosoj)hy was the parallel problem of theology. Philosophers and theologians had been making systems on the assumption that the objective, if not perfectly known, was, at least, perfectly know- able. The Deists contrasted the certainty of their reasonings with the uncertainty of the external evi- dences of Christianity. Kant showed the uncertainty of their reasonings. To set one uncertainty against another was not to increase the grounds of faith, but GERMAN THEOLOGY. 303 it taught men to look deeper into the foundations of what constitutes certainty. It turned the human mind to the examination of itself, and to estimate the value of subjective knowledge. Kant in this was a true German and a Lutheran too, for he shaped into the form of science what had been left indefinite by Luther. Kant himself rested religion on morality, that is, he found the proper basis of religion in the moral law within, which he held to be the most certain of all things. This moral law was God in the conscience. From it Kant learned the doctrine of immortality and of a judgment to come. In Christianity he found the religion which best answered to the moral nature of man. The historical Chi'ist was the ideal whom all men ought to have before them. The Church was an institution required by the condition of man in the world, and the doctrines of Christianity, such as original sin, moral freedom, and in a sense atonement, corresponded to the facts of man's moral nature. The law in the mind becomes, in Kant's philosophy, the schoolmaster which leads to Christ. But as that philosophy never reaches objective certainty as to the existence of God, much less can it ever reach the certainty of an external revelation. The religious part of Kant's system was only meagrely expressed by himself. Jacobi exchanged the word morality for faith, but the meaning remained in a great measure the same. This faith was a feeling or inward knowledge of re-creation — a sense of God abiding in the soul. Jacobi says that the great desire of his life had been to attain to certainty on the 304 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. anticipations of man. He believed in no philosophy except this. The certainty he desired he could only find within in his own spirit. There he found ' an ab- solute knowledge springing directly from the human reason.' Eevelation was made to man's inmost nature. It was perceived by reason, but never grasped by the understanding. It could not be shaped into a science. It could not become objective without suffering injury and perversion. A revelation from without, however it might be provided with miracles, could never be satisfactory. In Christ and Christianity Jacobi recog- nised all that the moral nature or higher reason required in us, but before Clmstianity can be really believed, all that is vital in Chi-ist must become living in us. Fichte, too, like Jacobi and Kant, found certainty only in subjectivity. For morality or faith, he sub- stituted love as the essential principle or basis of religion. This difference at first sight seems consider- able. To many, and even to Fichte himself, it was. Kant and Jacobi had recognised in Christianity, as contained in the whole New Testament, the religion suited to man's natiu-e. Fichte recognised in Christ the absolute perfection of love and purity. But starting as he did with love instead of morality, which with Kant was the sense of an absolute righteousness, he clung to John as the only true evangelist and interpreter of the mind of Jesus. This evangelist alone reports the words in which Jesus announced the principle of certainty — that he who did the will of the Father should know of the doctrine. With Fichte too, as with John, the subjectivity took a mystical GERMAN THEOLOGY. 305 form. The knowledge of things divine depended on the union of the soul with God ; on the finite passing into the Infinite. Thi'ough the deepest philosophy Fichte was led to the faith of the simple Christian, believing in eternal life because he had already realised its blessedness. In the last section of his work, Dr. Dorner treats of the regeneration of Protestant theology in the nine- teenth century. This has been effected by removing the partiality of the objectivity which prevailed from the beginning of the seventeenth centiu-y, and the partiality of the subjectivity which began with Kant and reached its climax in Fichte. In his philosophy the intellect of man projected the external world. The I alone existed, or, if it evoked an object, that object was the Infinite in which the I immediately disappeared. To determine the reality both of the subjective and the objective, the finite and the Infi- nite, their co-existence and mutual relations, was the object of Schelling and Hegel. The same was done by Schleiermacher in the sphere of religion. In this Dorner says, Schleiermacher only returned to the principle of the Reformation — that truth is authenti- cated to consciousness by the agency of the Holy Ghost. By that agency the contemplation of the historical Christ becomes a divine faith. It is a con- tact with the divine, and thereby a sense of delivery from sin and of reconciliation with the sinless. German Protestantism, after its long conflict, now rests on the truth of the subject-matter of the Scrip- tures, but certified through subjectivity leaving the form open to the freest criticism. X 3o6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. The same questions that have been dealt with by the Germans have come np in different forms and at different times in England. Their history is parallel in both countries, but the English mind has been more timid in its treatment of them. Theology with us has never been a science. The Church of England at the Eeformation followed the Lutheran confessions, and, like them, had at first no fixed canon of Scrip- ture. It was not till the reign of Elizabeth, when the second generation of Reformers returned from Switzer- land, that the Sixth Article was added to the Articles of Religion. The English Reformation then entered on the Helvetian stage, and rested like Calvin and the Church of Geneva on the objectivity of the Scriptures. The Sixth Article enumerates the canonical books of the Old Testament, and declares canonical those of the ISTew that are 'commonly received,' describing them as those ' of whose authority there never was any doubt in the Church.' Here we have a definite canon of Scripture with authority, and on the Scripture the Church itself was based. Nothing was to be taught which could not be ' read therein nor proved thereby.' The first defenders of Episcopacy, such as Whitgift, Hooker, and Bridges, drew their arguments from reason and antiquity. This was not indeed forbidden by the Article, but the Puritans had an apparent advantage in the simple fact that they rested solely on the Scriptui'es. The later defendants of EpiscoiDacy appealed to Scripture, but in connection with antiquity as the interpreter of Scripture. All parties kept to the canon, and to the Church only as resting on the canon. The dependence of the Church on the Scrip- GERMAN THEOLOGY. 307 tiires was a principle whicli some Churclimen from tlieii* position might have wished to deny ; but no such tendency was ever manifested by any of the old theologians of the Church of England. The Puritans intensified the spirit of the Sixth Article. In the Westminster Confession, all the books were enume- rated, both of the Old and the l^ew Testaments. They were expressly, even as to their form, declared the ' Word of God,' and said to be ' given by inspira- tion.' In accordance with the doctrine of Calvin, the assurance of their infallible truth is said to come from ' the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.' It is evident here that the inspii-ed rule of faith is not the subject- matter only but the formal canon. Towards the end of the seventeenth century some of the Puritans adopted from Buxtorf the doctrine of the inspiration of vowel points and Hebrew accents. The most eminent Churchmen, on the other hand, do not seem ever to have been believers in Bible infallibility. Brian Walton, like Beugel, believed that the original text was infallible, if it could be found. Jeremy Taylor advocated toleration for all sects and opinions, on the express ground of the uncertainty of the Scrip- tures. Stillingfleet says that in matters of history the writers of the Bible did not require inspiration ; and, from internal evidence, he concludes that it was not given, but that the writers were left to their own knowledge. Tillotson reasoned, that if the Scriptures had been infallibly inspired, the same Providence that had taken such care in their composition would have preserved them without corruption or interpolation. X 2 3o8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. All these writers rested certainty on the inward testi- mony of the Spirit. This, however, did not extend to the canonicity of books, but only to the truth and divinity of the Christian religion. In the next century the apologists for Christianity against the Deists pro- fessed to stand on the infallibility of the Scriptures, and yet they granted almost all that the Deists wished. In England theology made no progress after the Deist controversy. The books which we have placed at the head of this article give the results of German thinking since the Eeformation. It is impossible for us to take another step in theology if we ignore what the Germans have said and done. This presses on us at every hand. It is a normal part of the history and development of Protestantism. We have the alternatives of renouncing Protestantism and inventing for ourselves the idea of a Church on which we may lean so long as it will support us, or we can denounce all German theology as Rationalism, and take our stand on the Scriptures as if the canon were objectively certain and the in- spiration of every word infallible. One or both of these is generally done in England. Both methods are empirical — mere inventions that cannot be de- fended ; and the result, Dr. Dorner says, is that we in England are not beyond the danger of a return to Deism. Neither the Church party nor the Bible party can stand on theii- own ground. They mutually derive their strength from each other's weakness. The Church party, contrary to the old spirit of the Church of England, makes the Bible uncertain, that it may €xalt the Church, and the Bible party finds it easy to GERMAN THEOLOGY. 309 reduce the Church theory to an assumption which has no other foundation but the desire that it may be true. The English intellect is essentially empirical and utilitarian. It has never fairly given itself to the study of divinity forgetful of everything but truth. It has never looked in the face the real facts of the universe and of Grod's government. The first step of its reasoning in religion has always been an assumption that something must be as it is supposed to be, or if not we have no certainty. The German intellect, on the other hand, has never been afraid. It has laid bare every assumption. It has had the deep faith that if God's way be through doubt and difficulty, that way must be followed, just because it is God's way. The men to whom the regeneration of theology is due were mostly men who had been educated for the service of religion, and who preserved through life the character of earnest and devout Christians. At the very time when Fichte was publicly charged with atheism, he never omitted the morning and evening devotions in his family. Lessing was more secular, and his sym- pathies with the general world were wider, but the influence of his early education was never effaced. Schleiermacher, too, retained to his last days the Moravian piety which he had learned in his Other's house. In trying to sum up the results of the German regeneration of theology, it is necessary to give the first place to the doctj^ine of God. Dr. Dorner and Professor Hagenbach continue to use the word Pan- theism, and even to speak of the systems of Schelling 3 1 o CONrEMPORARY ESS A YS. and Hegel as Pantheistic. It is surely time that this word were either better defined or laid aside until a proper definition is found. To take an obscure part of a speculative system, or a system which perhaps in its completeness is but imperfectly understood, and to call it Pantheism, is not the way to make people wiser than they were before. It is notorious that the regenerating elements of German theology have come from what is called Pantheism. Fichte, Herder, and Schleiermacher had to bear the reproach of Pantheism as Avell as Schelling and Hegel. The old Deists and tlie old divines who fought the Deists could never rise above the conception of God as a personal Being. He was to them always a man, or at least a Being made in the image of man, dwelling in an inaccessible heaven outside the boundaries of time and space. The great question was, if this Being had ever visited this world or interfered with the order established at creation. The Pantheists, as they were called, opened their eyes upon that order, and saw that God had never been absent from it, that He constituted it, and that in a sense that order was God Himself. This idea was familiar to the Pagan world. Like the self- taught scholars in Lessing's theory, of the education of the race, they had outstripped both Christian and Jew. Schiller felt the higher truth of the Pagan idea of God over that of the Deists, and gave 023en expression to it in the ' Gods of Greece.' This conception of God as immanent everywhere in nature, changed the very meaning of the words natural and supernatm-al. Both were within the order of nature. The diff'erence was in the effects, and not in the mode of operation. GERMAN THEOLOGY. 311 Eevelation itself became conceivable as within the order of natm^e. It was an education, and the question is still open if we are to consider the education as extending to all by inward revelation, or if, with Lessing, we limit revelation to a special teaching which was to educe in a shorter time what was already in the reason. With this view of the identity of God and the orderly evolutions both of the natui'al and the super- natural, corresponds the German doctrine of the Scrip- tures, as expounded by Dr. Dorner. The certainty of their truth is derived from the Scriptures themselves. The formal princij)le is declared an insufficient founda- tion, and with this external evidences become incapable of producing faith. The truth of Christianity must be felt, and it can only be felt by those whose minds are prepared to feel it. This seems to be reasoning in a circle, as the disposition necessary for conviction is itself produced by the contents of the Scriptures ; but it only means that the certainty is mainly inward, or at most it is ' subjectively objective.' It is a work in the mind, without which ' it is not possible to perceive that there is a divine revelation, and that this is deposited in Holy Scripture.' It is a matter of faith and not of knowledge. The first thing to be evoked is ' not faith in the normative authority or inspiration of Holy Scripture, or of the Apostles, but faith in Christ as the Eedeemer ; in other words, experience of justification before God through faith in Him.' A man who has in himself the experience of being delivered fi'om evil, has no fears when he allows to criticism all its rights. Yea, criticism itself is an act '^,^^ CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of faith. ' This fact of salvation experienced by faith cannot be made untrue by any critical conclusions whatever.' "We are not ignorant of the reception which this doctrine of subjectivity commonly meets in England. The objection to it is that after all we may have nothing on which we can really depend. Our minds may only project illusions, and our inner consciousness may have no objective answer in the real world. But we must take the facts of religion as they are. This internal certainty may not be all that we could wish it to be ; but we are not on that account to make it less than it is, or invent an external certainty which does not exist. Eeligion in its true essence has ever come from within. It has been preserved by Mystics and Pietists, and most successfully preached by saints and prophets to whom the conviction of its truth was its power to renew the life. That which a man feels is to him the greatest certainty. Let Protestant England learn from Protestant Ger- many that the principle of resting Christianity on the formal canon of Scripture is hopeless. Let all theories of inspiration be dismissed, and the books which com- pose the Scriptures be received as what they are and what they profess to be. If this were done, the common reason of mankind would reject all such theories as that of Strauss concerning the Gospels, and all imaginary biographies of Jesus, like that by M. Eenan. Every theory concerning the Scriptures would be suspected just according to the measure of the ingenuity with which it is supported. It is time that we in England, especially the clergy and all teachei*s GERMAN THEOLOGY. ^it, of religion, should learn the real truth concerning the Scriptures, that every new work on Bible learning may not be, as in recent days it has been, the occasion of a religious panic, and a disturbance to the faith of Christians. XI. EECENT ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGMENTS.* IT used to be urged as a reproach against the Church of England that it was without law. It had often been compared to a ship without a mast or a rudder, driven to and fro by every wind ; or to a kingdom without a ruler, where every man did what was right in his own eyes. The diversity of doctrine was indeed great, and notwithstanding all Acts of Uni- formity, the modes of worship were many and widely varied. The idea of a comprehensive Church had been realised till the existence of the Chiu'ch itself seemed to many to be in danger by the very extent of its comprehensiveness. The cords were distended till they were about to break. It had become evident to most people that however wide the boundaries might be made, it was imperative for self-preservation that the line of demarcation be drawn somewhere. * Contemporary Review, February, 1872. The Sling and tfte Stone. Sermons by the Eev. C. Voysey. Triibner and Co. 1866—70. Appeal to the Judicial Committee, ix. By the Eev. C. Voyset. Triibner and Co. 1870. Freedom in the Church of England. Six Sermons suggested by the Voysey Judgment. By the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke. Henry S. King and Co. 1871. Judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in. the case of Hebert v. Purchas. Edited by Edward Bullock, Esq. Butterworth. 1871. RECENT JUDGMENTS. 315 This as a general principle must be admitted by all, even by those who are condemned by the Judgments. Mr. Yoysey, for instance, would exclude a clergyman who taught atheism ; and Mr. Purchas, we suppose, would not extend the shelter of the Church to Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, or any other Eoman dogma which is still ahead of English Ritual- ists. In their own particular cases they will think the judgments arbitrary. They can both quote men who have taught the same doctrines, or nearly the same, as they teach, and yet have remained in the Chui'ch without being molested. It does seem unjust that the law should fall upon one, while another has escaped. It does seem arbitrary that the law should speak at certain times and be silent at other times, or, as it may happen, at some futiu-e time pronounce a different judgment from what it has jjronounced at present. We may regret these things, but they are among the conditions of life. If the Church had any diff'erent government from that of the world, we might look for a fixed infallible judgment, but existence has to be accepted as it is, with its anomalies and imper- fections. We do not start with perfection. It is rather the goal to be reached at the end of the ages of progress. If Mr. Voysey had remembered this, he would not merely not have complained of the judgment passed on him, but he would never have provoked it. Pierre Leroux, speaking of the old religions of the world, says that we have had many to show us the falsehood of these old behefs, but we now want some one to show us their truth. Mr. Yoysey steps over the old 3i6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. theologies of saints and prophets like a giant stepping over the mud huts that are the dwellings of a feeble people. With the vehemence of a prophet of destruc- tion, he has told us of the falsehood and superstition of the popular beliefs. We should have been more thankful if he had told us how much truth was in them. The charges against Mr. Yoysey concerned the atonement, original sin, justification, the incarnation, and the Holy Scriptures. On all these subjects he maintained that in substance he agreed with the Articles of Eeligion. But the popular or traditional theology may fairly claim kindi'ed with the Articles. It is simply impossible to deny the one and yet hold by the other. It happens that on the fii'st subject, that of the atonement, one of the Articles says ex- pressly that Christ died to reconcile His Father to us. Another says that He was the propitiation for all the sins of the world, both original and actual. In the popular doctrine of the atonement, there is nothing really stronger than the words of these Articles. Mr. Yoysey quotes from the Homilies to show that the ' horrible doctrines ' in them, which are the counter- part of popular theology, are not in agreement with the Articles. But as the Homilies and the Articles had the same men for the most part as their authors, we should have reasoned that the one was the proper interpreter of the other. It is not, we confess, without very considerable effort that we have been able to make out Mr. Yoysey's position. So long as he was denouncing what he calls the popular theology, or commonly RECENT JUDGMENTS. 3 1 7 received opinions, we thought he might only have before him some extreme form of Calvinism. We can understand a man defending the Articles of Eeligion, and at the same time opposing doctrines which are mere glosses on the Articles. But the denial both of reconciliation, and the necessity of reconciliation, is contrary to all that we ever under- stood to be the doctrine of the Church of England. Moreover, we believe it to be impossible to deny, as Mr. Yoysey expressly does, the ' Pauline doctrines ' of atonement and reconciliation, and yet not contra- dict the Ai'ticles of Eeligion. The theology of the Eeformation was essentially Pauline, so that whatever interpretation be put on St. Paul, the same is appli- cable to the Articles of Eeligion. Mr. Yoysey's object, we imagine, was simply to avoid direct contra- diction of the Church's formularies, expecting that so long as he did this he would have liberty to preach against everything that the Church believed. The doctrine of the atonement is confessedly a doc- trine encompassed with difficulties. When we stand on the ground of simple Theism, it seems unnecessary. In the last century it became the final test of Deism. A man like Mr. Yoysey, who believed atonement unnecessary, however much he might have professed belief in Christianity, was regarded as a Deist. And the ground of this was, that the atonement not being a doctrine within the discovery of reason, was piu-ely derived from revelation, and so a matter of mere faith. The Deists, as they were called, rejected it because reason, they said, was against it. The igno- rant pagans offered sacrifices to appease their terrible 3i8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. deities, but the philosophers "W'ho believed in one God maintained that the only conditions of forgiveness were repentance and amendment of life. The Deists, therefore, rejected the atonement as allied to paganism, and only acknowledged Christianity as far as it was a rejDublication of the religion of nature. The men of that day were clear reasoners, but they were not profound. In the present time, whether a man believes or does not believe, what we shall call the Pauline doctrine of the atonement, he cannot say that it is contrary to reason. It will be objected that we merely put it in a rational form. Our answer is, that if it is capable of a rational form, it should not be denounced as ' horrible ' and ' hideous.' "We do not admit that reason is altogether on Mr. Yoysey's side. A doctrine which has taken such universal hold on the religious mind, must have some reason in it. That it has been connected with fearful superstitions it is not necessary to deny. All that we contend for is, that the abstract idea of atonement is in conformity with reason. The highest philosophical conception which we can have of Deity, is that of absolute imper- sonal justice. He is that Everlasting Order which opposes all disorder. If we look only to the course of this world, we cannot deny that one man suffers for the sins of another. The Divine law is broken, and like every violated law in nature, the consequent suffering falls on all who come within its reach. With this conception of God, we can understand the neces- sity of what we call an atonement. In Kant^s j)hilo- sophy there was a place found for satisfaction because of the absolute justice of Deity. On this ground, one RECENT JUDGMENTS. 3 1 9 school of his disciples were strenuous defenders of the orthodox faith. If we had capacities to form a theology in confor- mity with our conceptions of the Absolute, many of our present difficulties on subjects that refer to God and His attributes would disap2:)ear. But the question of the atonement is usually discussed in that lower sphere where we think of God as a Being with ' parts and passions.' The objections to the atonement are all antlu-bpomori^liic. They ignore the transcendental Unity in which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one. They make God a person as if He were a man, and take all ' passions ' that are ascribed to Him as if they were ascribed literally. When the orthodox say that we are children of wi'ath, or that Christ has delivered us from wrath, those who object to the atonement think it awful. But is there really anything meant more than that being in antagonism with everlasting Order, we were liable to destruction till Christ deli- vered us ? The ' wrath ' is a mere figure, which comes and goes with our conception of God as a person. The Pauline theology speaks of something which Christ did for man's redemption. This is put in so many forms that it is really impossible to take any of them literally. The cautious John Locke, after a careful study of St. Paul's Epistles, described the atonement as a ' transaction ' between God and our Saviour, beyond our ken or guess. We may dislike the word ' transaction.' It is quite as objectionable as price, substitute, or satisfaction. But if we really believe that C-hrist did something to deliver men from 320 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. evil, we may easily find a guide to the true meaning of the forms in wliich it has been clothed by the language of Pauline or pojiular theology. Perhaps the best form of expressing the atonement is that in John's Gospel, where Jesus says that He lays down His life for the sheep ; or, again, where He speaks of His death as that of one dying for his friends. The same is well expressed by a modern writer, who says that Christ went among ' the wheels of the disordered creation.' We are quite justified in interjDreting the language of the apostolic epistles as different modes of representing or illustrating the simple fact, that Christ in some way delivered men. The writers being Jews, and mostly writing for Jews, it is not surprising that they should take their language and their illustrations from the Temple service. It would doubtless be well if preachers would avoid language which shocks the moral sense, even though it may seem to be sanctioned by Evangelists or Apostles. It was indeed ' horrible ' for the late Bishop of Peterborough to describe the climax of Christ's sufferings as being reached when He fell into his Father'' s hands. Figures may be carried too far, and sometimes may even be taken for realities. But we think, in entire opposition to Mr. Yoysey, that the language of Pauline theology is not generally pressed to its literal meaning. It is used more frequently as the language of piety. Speaking personally, we have no belief in any form of Calvinism, but we should unwillingly exchange for anything in Mr. Yoysey's sermons — ' Rock of ages cleft for me, Let me hide mvself in Thee.' RECENT JUDGMENTS. 31 1 "We do not sup23ose that God ever literally required to be appeased, nor to have His wrath turned away in any human sense, yet we have no scruples to say or sing — ' Not all the blood of beasts On Jewish altars slain, Could give the guilty conscience peace Or wash away the stain. But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, Takes all our sins away ; A sacrifice of nobler name And richer blood than they,' Forms of speech that become popular do not convey to ordinary minds all that they do to those who press them to their last meaning. The verses just quoted do not make people think of wrath and revenge. They are not associated in the devout mind with any repulsive ideas of ' blood.' Their one idea is the fact of Divine forgiveness. John Wesley, who is respon- sible for half the popular religion of England, trans- lated and introduced into his hymn-book a hymn beginning — ' Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness My beauty are and glorious dress,' and yet it is well known that he entirely repudiated the whole doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness — 'It can never,' he said, 'consist with Ood's unerring wisdom to think that I am innocent, to judge that I am righteous, because another is so. He could no more in this manner confound me with Christ than with David or Abraham.' In the hymn we have an idea justifiable in the language of devo- tion, but which we must not convert into an article oi rigid theology. 322 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. It is not necessary to follow Mr. Voysey tkrough the whole scene of his warfare with orthodox modes of faith. But if the same principles which we have laid down are applied to the other subjects, it will be found that the orthodox side is not so destitute of reason as he wishes to make it appear. Some of our old divines, as Jeremy Taylor and Daniel Whitby, thought to escape charging original sin on God by charging it on natui-e, as if God were not responsible for what is done by natm^e. They admitted a taint or infection of nature which we have inlierited, but, like Mr. Voysey, they wished to deny that men are ' by natm-e children of God's wrath.' This doctrine Mr. Yoysey calls ' simply absurd,' and ' pure nonsense.^ But it does not appear that the fact of inherited cor- ruption is in any way less absurd than the doctrine of imputed sin. It is philosophically the same idea translated into the language of personification. That there are people who really regard God as a man, and ascribe to Him all the passions of men, is no doubt true, but this is not necessarily inferred from the use of words or ideas that refer to God under the concep- tion of Him as man. The truth in these conceptions is to be acknowledged, and the error to be corrected, by the higher but more difficult conception of God as transcending the limits of human personality. It would be unjust for any judge to impute to one man the sin of another, or to punish one man for the sin of another. But in the Divine proceedings we must look at the whole scheme. The natural world reveals the fact that men are born with inherited infirmities, that the sin of one is visited upon another ; in other RECENT JUD GMENTS. 3 2 3 words, is imputed. This fact, standing simply by itself, is equally against the justice of God in what- ever form it is expressed. But we have not yet seen the whole of the Divine procedure. It is true, indeed, that there are forms of the popular theology which absolutely prevent the possibility of the exercise of Divine justice. Such is the rigid doctrine of election, or the belief that men may suffer eternally for Adam's sin ; and perhaps the doctrine of never-ending suffer- ing, which would be an unjust infliction for anything that the worst of men could do in this brief and troubled life. Had Mr. Yoysey confined himself to denouncing doctrines absolutely irreconcilable with reason and our sense of justice, he would have been unmolested either by Church Association, Archbishop, or Privy Council. On justification our Articles clearly adopt the Pauline, Augustinian, or Calvinistic form of expres- sion, that for Christ's merits we are 'accounted righteous.' In other words, we are acquitted, or reckoned just. The idea is forensic, and so far it is a fiction, but the thing intended is no fiction. Mr. Voysey fights against the form as if it were a reality, which is simply the mistake of those who take justifi- cation only in a forensic sense. St. Paul's meaning, as addressed to Jews who looked for salvation by cere- monies, or who accounted themselves just, is not, apparently, difficult to discover ; and Mr. Yoysey seems to have discerned the great significance of this doctrine at the Eeformation, as opposed to the sacra- mental system of the Church of Eome. Indeed, with the light he has on this subject, we wonder what he y2 324 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. can mean by saying that ' we do not need atonement or justification.' The other judgments have to do with an entirely distinct class of otFenders. The same hands which introduced into our formularies the Reformed theology, made Articles and rubrics condemning and protesting against the peculiar doctrines of the Church of Eome. That these had been dealt with distinctly in express Articles, had always, until our day, been reckoned a sure barrier against their re-introduction into the Church of England. But a party has arisen that our fathers knew not. It affects, indeed, to find its genealogy in the High Church divines of the seven- teenth century. But these divines, even the most advanced of them, as, for instance, Andrewes, Laud, Cosin, and Bancroft, were decided Protestants. They were not ashamed of the English Eeformation. They reverenced the names of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. This party, on the other hand, finds in the Reformation only apostacy, and in the Reformers *• scoimdrelism.' It has been trying, first by stealth and now openly, to establish what it calls ' Catho- licism ' or ' Catholic truth ' within the bosom of a Church whose Articles of Religion are mainly occu- pied in repudiating the very heresies and superstitions which this party calls ' Catholic truth.' In addition to the Articles, changes were made at the Reformation in the services of the Church which were themselves a constant and public protest against the Roman doctrines rejected in the Articles. To undo these changes was, therefore, a great object for the party that was bringing back ' Catholic truth.' RECENT JUDGMENTS. 325 The clergy at St. Alban's, Holborn, had proceeded so far in the direction of the Eoman use as to elevate the consecrated elements, to use incense, to mix water with the communion wine, and to burn candles during the celebration of the Eucharist. At the request of the bishop of the diocese, and with a growing sense of their illegality, some of these practices were discon- tinued before the judgment was given in the Court of Arches. The charges, however, were proved, and a monition issued to the Incumbent that they be dis- continued. The monition was kept in the letter, but evaded in the spiiit. The candles were not placed on the table, but on ' a narrow movable ledge of wood resting on the table.' The cup and the wafer were elevated, but not ' over the head.' At a part of the consecration prayer the Incumbent bent ' one knee,' and in so doing he confessed that his 'knee might momentarily have touched the ground.' Notwith- standing the praiseworthy ingenuity of these devices, he was condemned by the Privy Council, their lord- ships assuring him that 'a mere evasive compliance with the monition would not suffice.' The Purchas case, like the St. Alban's, does not directly touch doctrine. It is only concerned with the legality of practices and di-esses which, however, are confessed on both sides to be connected with doctrine. The charges against Mr. Purchas were, mixing water with the wine in the Communion, stand- ing with his back to the people while reading the prayer of consecration, using wafer-bread, and wear- ing, or causing to be worn, sundry vestments utterly unknown in the service of the Church of England. 326 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS, There was also a charge of setting tip holy water for the use of the congregation ; but this was not proved. The really difficult part in this case was w^hat con- cerned the vestments. It is strange that though the black gown has been in use from time immemorial it is nowhere prescribed,* and yet there is a rubric which at first sight seems to prescribe vestments which, from the Eeformation, till the daj^s of Mr. Purchas and his friends, nobody ever saw in the Church of England. This rubric is that ' such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministrations, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this CTiurch of England, by the authority of Parlia- ment, in the second year of the reign of King Edward YL' The Prayer-book used in that year describes these ' ornaments ' as ' a white albe, plain, with a vestment and cope,' to be worn by the priest in the administration of the Communion ; and when there were other priests or deacons to assist, these were to wear ' the vestures appointed for their ministry, that is to say, albes with tunicles.' In the reign of Edward, the Prayer-book was revised (1552), when it was ordered that the minister was to wear ' neither albe, vestment nor cope,' but 'a surplice only.' In the Prayer-book of Elizabeth (1559) it was provided that ' the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of Edward YL' This Prayer-book, however, contained an Act of Parliament * This is evidently because it existed before any of the present prescrip- tiooujv RECENT JUDGMENTS. 327 known as Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity , which provided that these ornaments were to be retained * until other order shall be therein taken by the autho- rity of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of Her Commissioners.' During the reign of Elizabeth, as a simple matter of history, all these vestments dis- appeared, while her ' advertisement ' requires that in all prayers, rites of the Church, as well as in the Communion, the minister shall ' wear a comely surplice with sleeves.' At the Hampton Court Conference the Puritans objected to the surplice only, which is an argument that no other vestment was in use, except, of course, the gown to which they did not object. The Prayer-book was revised in 1604, and the orna- ments-rubric retained: but the canons published at the same time provided that, in cathedrals and col- legiate churches, the principal minister should wear ' a decent cojDe ' in the administration of the Com- munion; but in other churches, on all occasions, whether sacrament or prayers, the minister was to wear ' a decent and comely surplice with sleeves.' At the Savoy Conference (1662) the Pimtans objected to the ornaments-rubric as it stood in the old Prayer- books of Elizabeth and James. The rubric was then inserted as we now have it, which follows for the most part the words of Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity. In this rubric the ornaments of the ministers, whatever they may be, are not confined to the Communion, but are to be used ' at all times of their ministration.' They are to be ' retained,' which the judges say could not refer to some ornaments to be restored, but must have referred to those that had never been out of use. 328 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. These were the cope and the surplice. The judges, therefore, decided that these are the only legal vest- ments in the service of the Church. The time of preaching is, of course, excepted. In no case is preaching ever included as a ministration. The dress in the pulpit was a point on which discussion was never raised. The original question was concerning the vestments in the Communion, and the decision was that only the surplice is to be worn. The usual form of expression is — in the prayers, Communion, and ' rites,' which are the measure of what is meant by ' ministration.' The interpretation of the rubric which the judges have made is really the only one that, by a fair investigation of the whole case, they could have made. They confessed that their task was difficult, and though we approve of their judgment, we think there is still sometlij.ng about this rubric which is unexplained. We all know why Elizabeth wished the restoration of the ornaments that had been laid aside in the time of Edward, and we also know why her archbishops and bishoj^s were strongly opposed to them. By the time of James, as we have seen, they had ceased to exist, and though the rubric was retained, the canon specially regulating the dresses of the clergy gave it a definite meaning. Moreover, the changes made in the Prayer- book at this time were not properly changes. Those who made them expressly called them ' explanations.' But after the Puritans in 1662 had called attention to the danger of the rubric, and after the commissioners had been at the trouble to recast it, it is strange that any reference should have been made to any ornaments RECENT JUDGMENTS. 329 of the time of Edward VI. It is, of course, possible that the revisionists of 1662 had forgotten all that the rubric originally meant. They evidently supposed that the Puritans were aiming only at the surplice, and so determined that the rubric should '• continue as it was.' And yet they did not suffer it to continue as it was, but in that spirit of passion, prejudice, and love of opposition which, alas ! too clearly charac- terized other changes of this date, the rubric was made, if possible, more objectionable to the Puritans than it was before. This seems to be the whole secret of the history of this rubric. There is no evidence whatever that the revisionists who recast • it ever contemplated the restoration of the pre-Eeformation vestments. Mr. Purchas's other offences had not even the plea of an ambiguous rubric. Two indeed were dismissed for want of evidence. He carried a biretta in his hand, but it was not shown that he had put the fools' cap on his head. There was ' holy water ' in the Church for the use of the ' faithful ; ' but it was not proved that it had received consecration at the hands of Mr. Purchas. The judge in the Court of Arches had decided that Mr. Purchas could not lawfully mix water with the Communion wine at the time of the service, but that he might do it by stealth in the vestry, or in his own house. The judges in the Privy Council, however, decided that he must give the communicants imdiluted wine. They also pointed but to him that the rubric is very plain against wafer bread. It says that ' the bread shall be such as is usual to be eaten.' On the last and all-important question of how the 330 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ' priest ' should stand when he performs the awful act of consecration the judges had again to exercise their capacity for historical inquiry. Before the days of Bitualism, it was always supposed that the north meant the north, and so the minister stood as directed in the rubric, at the north side of the Communion- table. But Mr. Purchas and his friends were capable of a new idea. They said that a Communion-table had not four sides, but two sides and two ends, and as the table stood with one end towards the north and another towards the south, there was consequently no north side. And so they determined that the ' priest ' was to stand on the northern part of the west side with his back to the people. But the rubric says that he is to break the bread ' before the people,' which does not seem possible if the people are to be behind him, and his back turned ujDon them. The rubric involves the dilemma that either the north side must mean the north end, or ' before the people ' must mean with the priest's back to the people. But this was not the fault of the rubric-maker. The whole difficulty is cleared up by history. At the Eeformation, when the old stone altars were removed to signify the abolition of the sacrifice of the mass, tables made of wood were put in their places. These were to stand 'in the body of the Church or chancel.' As a matter of fact, in the time of the Communion they commonly stood with the two ends east and west and the two sides north and south. There was then a proper north side, where the minister standing could break the bread ' before the people.' But when Laud wished to re- convert the ministers into ' priests ' and the wooden RECENT JUDGMENTS. 3 3 1 tables into altars, he ordered the tables to stand ' altar- wise,' as they now stand, with the sides east and west and the ends north and south. He was resisted by- Bishop Williams and many of the bishops and clergy of his day ; but the tables are now nearly all turned as he wished them, and hence the impossibility of properly keeping a rubric which did not contemplate the tables standing as they now stand. The judges, after making themselves acquainted with this, had no alternative but to determine that the only way to keep the rubric was to stand at the north end of the table. The case of Mr. Bennet is at present before the • Privy Council. The Dean of Ai'ches has already acquitted him, but only on the ground of a retracta- tion in the way of correcting the words in the first edition of his pamphlet. At the Eeformation special care was taken to exclude from our formularies the doctrine of transubstantiation. Words more express than the Articles contain could not be devised, and facts more certain do not exist than that oui* Eeformers died at the stake rather than believe this doctrine. It is true that it can be modified. Because of our ignorance of what substance is, there may be a ques- tion as to what is changed. If the substratum of matter, as some metaphysicians have supposed, be merely spirit, then the presence of Christ's body may be only the presence of a spirit. This explanation may be found in some Eoman Catholic writers ; but it is not that of Trent. It was not that of the Eoman Catholic theologians in the time of Mary ; it was not even that of our Eeformers. This uncertainty of what substance is did not occur to them, certainly not as an 332 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. explanation of transubstantiation. Mr. Bennet did not scruple to write that we have the ' visible presence of our Lord upon the altars of our churches.' The Dean of Arches said he ' read these words with much surprise and soitow.' He said also, as he well might, that Mr. Bonnet's language was ' lamentably loose and inaccurate ; ' but as the words were withdrawn, he gave Mr. Bennet the benefit of a doubt that they may have meant more than he intended. The acquittal was, however, expressly grounded on the conclusion that our formularies teach an 'objective, 'actual, and real presence,' external to the communi- cant. This judgment the judges in the Privy Council cannot fail to reverse if they go into the subject as thoroughly as they have done in the Pui'chas case.* The Dean of Arches went through a multitude of arguments and materials as the ground of his judg- ment, but they were all borrowed at second-hand from Pusey, Hook, and some other writers of the same school, whose authority is the authority of moonshine. There are some theories which have come to be gene- rally received in the Church of England just because of the persistency with which they have been repeated by interested parties. One of these is the believe on which the Dean of Arches seemed chiefly to rest, thaTt Eidley believed in the real, that is the ' objective,' presence, and succeeded in instilling his view into Cranmer. There is no authority whatever for the supposition that Ridley believed in any 'objective' presence, and there is even less for the theory that * This judgment has been reversed, but Mr. Bennet has been acquitted, on account of the ambiguity of his language.— X. RECENT JUDGMENTS. 333 he in any way caused Cranmer to change his views. Cranmer and Eidley both persisted in using the rhetoric of the Fathers concerning Christ's presence in the sacrament. But they both added that they meant only a sacramental presence, and this they dis- tinctly explained as a mere figure, meaning that the bread was called Christ's body because it represented Christ's body. The examiners at Oxford took the ex- travagant language of the Fathers literally, and when they found that Cranmer, Eidley, and Latimer did not also take it literally, they condemned them as heretics. Eidley on his trial, made efforts to reconcile his views with the language of the Fathers, but the explanations were so violent that all the Catholics hissed him.* The Dean of Arches was misled by another theory, which is a pure invention of some of Mr. Bonnet's friends. This is that our formularies were so framed as to ' exclude the Zwinglian idea of a bare commemo- ration.' The truth is, that Zwingle never did teach any such doctrine of bare commemoration as is gene- rally ascribed to him. Moreover, whatever Zwingle' s doctrine was, our Eeformers embraced it in express words. Nor is it a difficult q^uestion to know what Zwingle' s doctrine was in its main idea. Cranmer said that Zwingle did not differ from fficolampadius, that Q^lcolampadius did not differ from Bucer, and that he himself did not differ from any of them. They * A remarkable case is the strange language of Augustine on Psalm xxxiv. (Vul. xxxiii.), which is supposed to refer to David at Gath ; an old version of 1 Sam. xxi. 13, reads, ' He carried himself in his own hands.' This was not true, Augustine says, of David, but it was true of Christ, for when He insti- tuted the sacrament ' He carried His body in His own hands.' Ridley explained Angustine as meaning the sacramental body, so that in a sense Christ carried His body in His own hands. 334 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. all taught a real presence, but only to the worthy recijiient. Christ was present to the faith of the believer. Hooker and Waterland, two of the best authorities on such a subject, both declare expressly that this is the true doctrine of the formularies of the Church of England. A real presence in this sense has always been admitted, and any extravagant or rhetorical language that may have been retained in our formularies, has been retained with the under- standing that it is to be interpreted only in this sense. The ' real presence ' of the Church of England is the presence which every Christian recognises in every act either of true faith or true worship. For all these judgments the Church of England has cause for devout thankfulness. It is now proved that there is a difference between license and lawlessness. The law of progress is not impeded, but it has been made to appear that there are conditions which must be obeyed. We have not to deal with mere abstract questions, but also with circumstances which we inherited and did not make. It is not allowed us to break away by a violent effort from the past. There may be occasionally prophetic teachers with new truth, or with what they suppose to be new truth, severed by a wide interval from all that we have hitherto believed. But the course of the world is that these teachers be martyrs for what they have to teach. In Mr. Voysey's case the judges wisely decided that though great license might be granted in the inter- pretation of the Articles, yet an entire departure from them could not be allowed. Those who see further than their contemporaries, or who think they see fur- RECENT JUDGMENTS. 335 tlier, have their choice either to break with the Church collective, or to wait till the light is more generally diffusedi There are periods in the history of progress when violent conflicts are inevitable. There may be circumstances that bring about a separation, as when the old prophets were stoned, or when the disciples of Jesus were thrust out of the synagogues. But there are other times when those who see beyond the present can quietly wait without poiu'ing contempt and scorn on the beliefs of those who do not yet see as they do. ' If,' Mr. Brooke says, ' one believes in the progress of revelation, one must also . hold that truth must be continually reclothing itself.' He that has such a belief — * Places his useless form upon the shelf, as he binds and lays by a book which he has loved and drained dry, for it forms part of the history of his own growth, and is part of the history of the world's religious growth. I cannot endure the abuse which is lavished by some on bygone religious systems, nor the virulence with which some turn upon their early beliefs ; it is the feeling of the mob and not of cultivated men.' There is a reverence due to old beliefs, and to those who still retain them. This is a reverence which has been yielded by all really wise reformers, except when their reforms have been like the ' crackling of thorns beneath the pot.' They have remembered the advice of Lessing : — ' Thou abler spirit who art fretting and restless over the last page of the primer, beware ! Beware of letting thy weaker fellow-scholar mark what thou perceivest afar off, or what thou art begin- ning to see I ' The result of these judgments is to determine what are the legal doctrines and practices of the Church. 336 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. It is well to know this, as a point from which to start. It does not follow that these doctrines are trne, or that the ritual may not be changed. But it is something to know our true position. That we have all departed from the theology of the Articles of Eeligion, should not be concealed. Nor is it necessary, for this is done by express permission of the law. But this should not lead us to ignore the truth concerning the Articles themselves. We are not bound to take them as they were meant by those who wrote them, but we are bound to know honestly what was their first original and natural meaning. To make them mean what they were never intended to mean is a greater sin than the sin of heresy itself. When we have seen faii'ly what is their proper meaning, we can determine for our- selves how far we have departed from them, and how far we are justified in using the license which is allowed by the law of subscription. When a clergy- man ceases to believe them as thoroughly as Mr. Yoysey appears to have done, and feels like him called in the spirit of a proi)het to denounce the theology which they teach, it is time for the law to speak. We admit, and the judges seemed to admit, that the line cannot be drawn with absolute justice. With the persons concerned, it is a matter of conscience ; with the Church it is a matter of duty for self-pre- servation ; and with the judges it is a matter of deter- mining what the doctrine or ritual of the Church is, and how far the law can give license. Mr. Yoysey was condemned because he rejected the authority of books in the Bible, and denied doctrines, not on *• critical grounds,' but according to his own ' private RECENT JUDGMENTS. 3 3 7 taste and judgment.' But the same thing might be said in some sense of every heretic, whatever his learning or his discernment. What are critical grounds to one are not critical grounds to another. The judges here plainly recognised a kind of con- sciuosness in the community of the Church, as repre- sented by the learning of the general body of the clergy. This is a vague rule, but sufficient for general use. When Mr. Yoysey was citing passages from other heretics of the Church, Sir E. Phillimore rightly said that all these men should be prosecuted too. Their heresies did not help Mr. Yoysey, who was on his trial. They had never been prosecuted, and if they had been, the law might have condemned them. It might, however, also have embraced them without being capable of extending comprehension to Mr. Yoysey. The result of the judgments as to doctrine plainly is, that the teaching of the formu- laries is to be the basis, that a wide margin will be left for freedom, and that the limits of this freedom will be fixed by a kind of common spirit of tho Church. In regard to ritual, the law allows considerably less latitude that in respect of doctrine. The same judg- ment which has come on Mr, Piu:chas may come on every other offender who has sinned after the simili- tude of his transgression. While unprosecuted, a clergyman may exercise liberty in ritual, and depart from the law of the Church, but if he provokes prose- cution, his condemnation is sure.* It may seem * The Bishop of Ely has recently given an instance of forbearance which, though, on the whole, both generous and prudent, is yet not what wo should 338 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. unfair to the High Church party that they are not to have the liberty in ritual which is given to the other parties in doctrine. It is now understood by all that ritual represents doctrine, that the vestments and posture bespeak a certain belief. The prohibition of them is, therefore, a denial that their doctrine is that of the Church of England. The inequality of free- dom is not, however, so great as it appears at first sight. High Churchmen are still at liberty by the license of law to hold their views of the Eucharist. They are only forbidden to be too obtrusive, to disturb the jieace of parishes, or by extravagance to provoke a prosecution. It is not to be regretted that this judgment sweeps far beyond mere ritualism. It justly embraces the whole High Church party whose inno- vations in the Eeformed Church of England are have recommended. The Vicar of St. Ives had introduced some novelties, and persisted in some of the practices condemned in the recent judgments. The parish churchwarden, Sir. Eead Adams, presented the ^acar at the bishop's visitation, and afterwards called upon the bishop to take action in the case. His lordship declined. The chui-chwarden again wrote to the bishop, enclosing the following quotation from a letter by the Archbishop of Canterbury : ' Can a bishop's authority stand still while the affections of the people are being alienated by practices intended to undo all the benefits which the Reformation has conferred upon this country ? If the bishop is called upon by a proper authority, it is evident that he must act, and it may be that he may find it necessary to act of his own accord. In judging what is lawful in the Church, he must remember that he is a bishop of the Church of England and not that of Eome.' The Bishop of Ely answered that he had resolved not to prosecute any of his clergy for small deflections from the rubric, and he was sure that the same course would be adopted by the arch- bishop. It cannot faii-ly be expected that the bishops should be involved in the expense of a legal prosecution, yet it is due to the people that they admonish offending vicars, and warn them of their danger in departing from the laws of the Church. If the last vestige of a bishop's authoritj' is not entirely gone, he ought to be able to compel his clergy to a strict observance of the rubrics, when any parishioner, much more a parish churchwarden, complains of their violation. This could be no hardship to the High Church- men if the same conformity were exacted from every clergyman of whatever party when novelties were introduced into the service that alienated or divided the parishioners. RECENT JUDGMENTS. 339 distinctly traceable in history. It has been a custom with this party from its earliest beginnings, which were towards the end of the reign of James I., to maintain that it represented the true Church of England. Its first movement was to deny the Calvin- ism of the Articles of Eeligion, and to invent a theory unknown to the Eeformers, that they were articles of peace intended to comprehend both parties. It then, as we have already seen, put the communion-tables out of their place, and on this followed, for the most part in our own day, the position of the clergyman out of his place also. But the law has met the trans- gressor, and determined that the High Church party, with its doctrines and customs, has never been more than a party tolerated in the Chui'ch. "We have to be thankful for these judgments, because they determine that we shall not go back to the theology of Eome, which has been already rejected, and because they leave room for progress under normal conditions. A relaxed subscription to the Articles, but still a subscription, combines a basis with freedom. Doubtless were the Articles to be written again, they would take another shape ; but this is scarcely to be expected. The alternatives are either to subscribe them or to set them aside. The latter, in some respects, would be the better if it were really practicable ; but this is doubtful. To subscribe them is not so great a hardshij) as to some men it appears. They embody substantially the doctrine which we still believe ; but under forms which the enlightened Christian consciousness has outgrown. It has often been proposed to reduce subscription z2 340 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. simply to the Canonical Scriptures ; but here we encounter the same difficulties. The senses in which the Scriptiu-es are believed are as varied as the senses put on the Articles of Eeligion. The canon itself has to be settled, besides the genuineness, authenticity, authority, and insj)iration of the different books. It is indeed an anomaly to subscribe to doctrines as if they were settled, and yet claim the freedom to regard them as open questions; but it is an anomaly from which at present there is no escape. Last of all, but not least, we have cause to be thankful for the judgments that they furnish a basis for the union and comprehension of all Christians within fixed yet wide boimdaries. The judgments in the cases of the Eitualists declare distinctly with legal and historical evidence that sacerdotalism is simply tolerated in the Church of England, but that its vagaries and eccentricities are not to be endui*ed. It is a great matter to have it distinctly proclaimed that the pretensions of a priesthood have no true home in the Church of England. We have borne with them hitherto because we knew that they had no real foundation, and were sometimes to be overlooked because of the sincerity of those who held them. Their only alarming feature was their claim to be essentially of the Church of England ; but this is now removed. The sacerdotal princij^le is incompati- ble with progress. It represents a view of revelation different from that which we must now embrace, and in which rests our only hojDC of an enlightened con- ception of Christianity, and a proper understanding between differing communities of Christian men. RECENT JUD G ME NTS. 3 4 1 Sacerdotalism must ever be in sharp opposition to all which, differs from it. In accordance with this, it now claims independence of the State, and refuses obedience to the law. It wishes to be a law to itself, on the ground of its supposed Divine appointment to be the channel of truth to the world. This claim is consistently made only by the Eoman Catholic, who holds with it belief in an infallible Church. But the Church of England as interpreted by the law of England is found to rest on another basis. It acknow- ledges no priesthood and no infallibility ; but submits to the same law of progress which rules alike the Church and the world. XII. FEENCH PEOTESTANTISM. A FEW weeks ago, one May morning, a multitude of well-dressed and apparently well-to-do people were coming out of an obscure chapel in Essex Street. The little street was lined with carriages, and busy men passing through the Strand turned hastily aside to ask what was the matter. Is it a marriage ? Is it a theatre ? were the most frequent questions. Those who knew answered that M. Coquerel, the French orator, had been preaching. The eloquent Huguenot preaching the anniversary sermon for the English Unitarians was a subject of study for all students of religious development. The special chapel in which the sermon was preached had been built by the exer- tions of a clergyman who seceded from the Church of England in the end of the last century, but most of the people present were lineally descended from the old Puritans. The representatives of Calvin's French and English disciples had met after the lapse * Contemporary Eeview, September, 1872. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 343 of three centuries, but so far are they from the theo- logy of Calvin, that in the common judgment of all Chi'istian men they are barely on the borderland of Christianity. When a man wants a theory to explain develop- ments of this kind, he has not far to go. Something in Calvin's Church or in Calvin's theology will be made to bear the burden. Half a century ago there was a great controversy between some English divines as to the causes of German Rationalism. One party traced its origin entirely to the want of a hierarchical episcopacy. The Lutherans, as well as the Calvinists, had set aside the constitution which Christ and His Apostles gave to the Church ; and the result was, a departure from the true faith. The apostacy, how- ever, was not general, and therefore the theory was not of universal application. The Presbyterians in Scotland, the Independents in England, and the ma- jority of the French Reformed still adhered to the theology of the Reformation. On the other hand, during the last fifty years, we have had a sturdy crop of Rationalism in the Church of England, and the Bishops have had no power against it. The Church of Rome, too, has had its Rationalism, and we have yet to see if the hierarchy, after all the toils of the Vatican, will succeed in suppressing it. What is called Rationalism is a natural growth, not peculiar to any Church or sect. The arguments by which one party fastens it as a reproach on another remind us of a story of Dr. Robertson, the celebrated Scotch divine and historian. He had come to England with Henry Dundas, Baron Cockburn, and Robert Sinclaii*. The 344 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. three last, seeing a gallows on a hillock, rode round it to get a nearer view of the felon. When they met at their inn, Dr. Robertson began a discourse on the character of nations, especially descanting on the bar- barity of the English. He had seen three English- men on horseback doing what no Scotchman would ever have done. ' Doctor,' said Dundas, with the face of a criminal, 4t was Cockburn and Sinclair and me.' This spoiled the theory of the development of the character of nations. Philosophies of the history of religion are like philosophies of history in general, made on very uncertain knowledge. The causes which affect religious belief are mostly from their very nature, unknown. A great work has yet to be done in the mere study of pheno- mena before a conclusion of any real value can be reached. There are few pages of ecclesiastical history so full of interest and instruction as those which concern the Reformed Church of France. When we look at the frivolous and volatile creature who is the typical Frenchman of the present day, we can scarcely believe that Calvin and Beza were Frenchmen, and that their countrymen formed the Church of the Huguenots. 13ut three centuries ago the Reformed Church of France promised to be the most powerful of those which embraced the Reformation. Whole towns de- clared themselves Protestants. WorshijDjjers to the number of 20,000 or 30,000 used to assemble in one place. Princes and nobles were among its members. The first Synod of Rochelle was attended by the Queen of Kavarre, the Prince of Navarre, the Prince FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 345 of Conde, the Prince of Nassau, Admiral Coligny, and many ' other Lords and Gentlemen.' Its perse- cutions have been the saddest in all history, yet it exists. The bush has burned, but has not been con- sumed. It survived the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the defection of Henry of N'avarre, the Revocation of the Edict of ^N'antes, and the proscription which fol- lowed for many generations. Dynasties have passed away, empires have risen and fallen, revolution has succeeded revolution, and still the C/hurch of the Huguenots exists. It meets in our day under the protection of the Eepublic, and holds the fii'st Synod which it has been allowed to hold for two hundred years. ' In my country,' said M. Coquerel, in his eloquent sermon in Essex Street, ' there was a time when a jjowerful king declared that Protestant Chris- tianity should be destroyed in his realm, and then all our temples were cut down even to the ground ; but the worship there offered was alive, and survived the temple, and there is a tradition in the mountains of the Cevennes, that when the Huguenots, after their temples had been destroyed, came by night to the ruins, and listened, they heard angels singing in the clouds the old cherished psalms which they had no right then to sing any more. They listened to them, and they went away comforted, hoj)ing that their temples would rise again some day ; and so they have, and at the present time from those temples which had been brutally overthrown, rise up in all parts of France our own psalms, and we do not want to hear voices in heaven singing them, for we sing them with all our heart, and all our faith, and all our mind, 346 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. because we have believed, and our belief could not be destroyed with our temple.' * M. Thiers, at the solicitation, it is believed, of M. Guizot, granted to the Eeformed Church permis- sion to hold a National Synod. The value of this measure is differently estimated by different parties. Ecclesiastical assemblies may be useful for conference, deliberation, or administration of business. They may be mischievous, like the Councils of Nice and Trent, or they may be harmless, like the Pan- Anglican, which gave amusement to a multitude of profane people, and immortality to an Archbishop of Canter- bury. In matters indifferent, where the minority is willing to submit to the decisions of the majority, general synods may be useful. But when this is not the case, there is an insoluble question of the power of majorities and the rights of minorities. The French nation, humbled by recent disasters, and taught, it is to be hoped, a salutary lesson, has wisely set itself to regulate its internal affairs. M. Thiers is administering the Eepublic on principles of liberty and equity hitherto unknown in the govern- ment of France. The last Synod met at Loudon, in the days of Louis XIV. When it was dissolved the royal commissioners told the members that they would meet again when the king thought proper to assemble them. To-day the Synod meets, as Pastor Babut said in his sermon at the Oratory, ' sous la protection de la Eepublique francaise, qui s'est montree aussi jalouse de proteger nos institutions religieuses que * The subject of the sermon was the death of Stephen and the destruction of the Temple worship. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. j^j Louis XI Y. de les detruire.' The first seance was on the 6th of June. The place of meeting was the Church of the Holy Spirit. Conspicuous on a chair was an open Bible, under a canopy of velvet. Behind it was a platform for the president and secretaries, and before it the tribune for the speakers. The ar- rangement was in imitation of the National Assembly at Versailles, and the members were grouped as in the Chamber of Deputies. On the left were the Liberals, their leaders, MM. Athanse and Etienne Coquerel, Pecaut, Colani, Fontanes, and Steeg, in the front rank. On the right the Orthodox, with the venerable Gui^ot at their head. On the centre left the best known were MM. Jalabert and Mon- taudon ; and on the centre right MM. Babut, Bois, Dhombres, and Breyton.* The constitution of an ecclesiastical synod as a government within the State is a subject that would perplex the keenest lawyers, if they were called upon to determine it. Where a Church is a conventional or free community, it may be supposed to exercise discipline with the utmost freedom. It may have a power to make decrees so long as the members are willing to obey its decrees, but any effort to enforce obedience would probably bring it in collision with the civil power. A Church connected with the State may, like the Church of Scotland, have an apparent or even an actual autonomy, and yet this freedom may depend on the mere will or indifference of the * Jalabert is a layman. The others are pastors, excepting, of course, M. Guizot. Colani, however, has resigned position as pastor, and wishes to be considered a layman. 348 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. State. In England, where the State and the Church are so blended as to be in some respects the same community, the constitution of an ecclesiastical synod is more jDcrplexing. "When Convocation was restored in the reign of Queen Anne, during the few years of its fevered existence it did little else than set forth enormous claims concerning its rights and its duties. The Lower House maintained that it was independent, that it had its own prolocutor, and was not subject to the president of the Upper House. In the great con- troversy which arose about the powers of Convoca- tion, some maintained that it was one of the estates of the realm, and that its decisions had the same validity as Acts of Parliament. This view of Con- vocation, advocated by Dr. Atterbury, was contro- verted by Dr. Wake. Convocation found its actual power to be very small. The Lower House con- demned Bishop Burnet and John Toland. It after- wards arraigned William Whiston and Samuel Clarke. It was proceeding to condemn Bishop Hoadly's lu- minous exposition of the jDrinciples of the kingdom of Christ, in which the Upper House would probably have joined, when George L, in his great clemency, sent the idle talkers to their parishes, and prevented them doing mischief to themselves and other people. By an unaccountable law, ecclesiastical synods, left to themselves, are always conservative. They defend all received errors, and have a natural antipathy to reforms. When Tillotson persuaded King William to allow Convocation to meet, that they might sanction such a revision in the Prayer-Book as would con- ciliate the Nonconformists, he soon found that he had FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 349 taken the surest way to defeat himself. It must have been after this experience that he said he never knew any good come out of such assemblies. Since Tillot- son's day, all liberal theologians have had an in- stinctive dread of ecclesiastical synods. In England, Convocation is regarded as a conference chiefly of Church dignitaries, without power to do anything, but with the will to obey a being of whom it is said that he ' finds some miscliief still, For idle hands to do.' The proceedings of the old Huguenot synods do not seem to have been much more edifying than those of the English Convocation. At that of Poitiers, in 1561, canons were made against dancing, and pro- fessors of dancing were to be excommunicated if they did not quit their profession. At the Synod of Eochello, in 1571, the ' abominable errors and heresies' of the Socinians were condemned, and a committee was ap- pointed to desire the English bishops to repress the errors of Eichard Cosin, and ' other errors which had begun to be in vogue among them.' In the following year, at the Synod of Nimes, all kinds of theatricals were forbidden, whether public or private. It was also decreed that professors of divinity might retain theii- adulterous wives, which privilege was not granted to pastors, on the ground that they were to be exemplary in their families as well as in their persons. At St. Eoy, in 1578, the ministers were instructed not to recite profane authors or stories in their sermons, but to let the Scripture have full and sovereign authority. One minister was deposed as 350 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ' a common rogue,' who had iiitriicled himself into the ministry by means of forged letters, and who had been punished by a magistrate for clipping his Ma- jesty's coin and selling it to the goldsmiths. Never- theless, added the decree of the Synod, ' We do license him to keep school and instruct youth ! ' At the same SjTiod a canon was made concerning ' the immodest habits and fasliions of men and women,' and both sexes were enjoined 'to keep modesty in their hair.' In accordance with this canon, the pastor of Montauban refused the communion to the wife and daughter of Du Plessis because they refused to have tlieu' hair cut. Lord Bacon was then at Montauban, and suspecting that Madame Du Plessis had a design upon him with her daughter's long hair, he took the side of the pastor who censured the ' scandalous excess in head-attire.' The liberal theologians of the French Reformed Chui'ch showed an early di-ead of the National Synod. Letters and petitions were sent to M. Thiers from the liberal pastors and liberal consistories, setting forth that the gift of the Republic would only be used as an arm of oppression, to divide the Church, and to hinder freedom of inquiry. The President answered that he would treat them all with equity. If they remained one Church, they would be acknowledged as such by the Republic. If they divided, they would both be acknowledged. The Minister of Worship explained that it was impossible for the government to take cognisance of the questions on which Pro- testants were not agreed. His office was that of sentinel of the law. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 351 Evangelicals and Liberals met in the Sj^nod with very different feelings, the one hailing it as the restoration of the ancient heritage of the Church, and the other dreading it as a machinery that would inter- fere with the necessities of the present hour. These different feelings are quite in agreement with the different positions of the two parties. The one sup- poses a complete revelation of truth made once for all, and that this revelation is expressed definitely in the dogmatic standards of the Chiu-ch. With this view, the duty of a Protestant synod is to revise and enforce the dogmas of the Eeformers. The Liberals, on the other hand, not believing that revelation consists in definite dogmas, much less that the formulated dogmas of the confessions are a revelation, were afraid of the interference of a synod in matters of fath. The first subject of discussion was natiu'ally concerning the constitution of the assembly. M. Guizot proposed a vote of thanks to the Eepublic and to M. Thiers for restoring to the Church its right of self-government. M. Jalabert was not sure if this was a gift to be received with gratitude. M. Pecaut wished so to express theii* thanks as not to imply that the minority were to be bound by the decisions of the majority. M. Colani maintained that the Church could not be said to have self-government so long as it was not properly represented by the Synod. The form of thanks was left to a committee. On the third day there was some discussion as to the persons to be admitted to the assembly. M. Guizot opposed the admission of ladies, arguing that their presence would lessen the solemnity of the discussions. M. Colani 352 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. vindicated their admission, on the ground that they were more religious than men. The Synod decreed that they shouhi be admitted. On the 10th of June the discussion about the constitution of the assembly began in earnest. M. Jalabert explained that it was not the wish of the Left that the Synod should be dissolved. He hoped rather that the two parties would work together, and preserve the unity of the Church. The decree of the Eepublic cited the laws of the year X. and of 1852, and added a thii'd Article, which constituted particular synods electoral colleges. By this arrangement, consistories with six or seven thousand members had the same number of represen- tatives as consistories with thirty thousand. This fault in the decree need not, the speaker said, prevent fraternal discussion ; but the Synod could not have any other character than that of an assembly which the government might consult as to the welfare of the Church. M. Laurens,* on the other side, maintained the authoritative character of the Synod. We are not here, he said, for a new work. We do not inaugurate for the Eeformed Church of France a new govern- ment. We are but the continuators of a work of restoration begun under the first Eepublic in the year X., continued under the second EejDublic in 1852, and which now we are called to complete in 1872. Our Church, the speaker said, has a past history which shows it to have been in constant possession of its confession of faith, its discipline, its liturgy, and its hierarchical organization. When the Church was * A layman. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 353 iinitod to the State in the year X., the first Consul, in the j)rcface to the decree, recognised the discipline of the Church, M, Laurens cited also the words of the Count de Belbeuf in 1869 in the case of the Consistory of Caen : — ' La loi de I'an X., traite d'al- liance entre I'Etat et le Protestantisme, n'a done jm ni voulii innover. EUe a reconnu I'Eglise reformee comme communion chretienne, avec ses conditions cfeta- hlissement iJreexiBtantes^ avec les ijrinciiies et les regies de son ancien gouvernement.^ After explaining the whole government of the Church, the Count ended by saying : — ' Le Synode national represente en effet dans sa plus haute expression Vautorite religieuse^ dog- matique et disciplinaire.'' M. Jalabert disputed this authority, and M. Guizot supported it. M. Laurens further maintained that the President of the Eepublie intended to give Church authority in matters of faith and discipline independent of the State. M. Larnac answered that this independence was an illusion. He would not enter into the question of the rights of the ancient synods, but since that time the Church had become united to the State, and while that union remained; absolute, ecclesiastical independence was impossible. Two propositions were subsequently laid before the SjTiod — one by M. Jalabert, representing the Left, and another by M. Pernessin,* representmg the Eight. The first was this : — ■ ' L'Assemblee, appelee a se prononcer sur son caractere et sur ses attributions, reconnait que les bases electorales adoptees pour sa convocation ne peuvent donner la certitude que toutes les ten- * A layman. A A 354 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. dances du protestantisme fran9ais soient representees dans son sens en raison de leur importance relative. Mais sous cette reserve, elle se considere dans ses differentes fractions comme etant aupreg du gouvernement I'organe autorise des besoins, des vceux et des sentiments des diflferentes parties de I'Eglise ; — et comme appelee, a regard des communautes protestantes, a faire une oeuvre d'union et de pacification sous les inspirations de Jesus Christ, chef de I'Eglise invisible, dans la communion duquel elle veut travailler a I'avancement du regue de Dieu en toute verite et charite.' The second ran thus : — * L'Assemblee, considerant que le present Synode general a ete convoque, et s'est reuni aux termes des lois et decrets qui ont regie le regime de I'Eglise reformee de France depuis son retablisse- ment ; considerant que la convocation et I'election au dit Synode general reconnaissent et consacrent les libertes et I'autonomie de I'Eglise reformee de France en matiere religieuse ; considerant que les elections au present Synode general ont ete faites en pleine liberte, avec le concours de toutes les autorites religieuses appelee a y prendre part, et que le droit de I'Eglise reformee de France a modifier, s'il y a lieu, son regime interieur religieux, notamment son systeme electoral, quant a ses Synodes futurs, reste entire et pleinement reserve, passe a I'ordre du jour.' The discussion seemed nearly exhausted, when M. de Clausonne * gave it for a moment a new character. He thought it difficult to pass the order of M. Per- nessin. The arguments- by which it had been main- tained that the Church always had the right of synods in possession were ingenious, but not supported by history. For seventy years the government of the Churches had been congregational. Their reunion and whatever authority the Synod had were due to the sovereign generosity of M. Thiers. The speaker also objected to the motion of M. Jalabert, that it seemed to blame the Government for- giving them permission to meet as a National Synod. He recom- * A lajTuan. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM 355 mended both parties to accept tlie Synod as a boon, to use it for the good of the Church, and to maintain union by mutual concessions. The Left asked a moment for deliberation, and sub- stituted this motion : — ' L'Assemblee, prenant acte des reserves faites par un certain nombre de ses menibres sur le caractere et ies attributions du Synode, passe a I'ordre du jour.' It was maintained by the Eight that this would invalidate beforehand the pro- ceedings of the Synod. M. Jalabert's proposition being withdraTVii, that of M. Pernessin came fii'st, which was put to the vote and carried by a majority of sixty-one against forty-six. The Liberals thus far were defeated. The Synod claimed what the English Convocation once claimed, to be a legislative body, exercising ecclesiastical authority co-ordinately with the State. It regarded itself, and so far as the President of the Eepublic is concerned, apparently with justice, as having received power to govern the Church. A limit, however, was added, that in case of a division, the Liberals would receive the same treatment ds the Evangelicals. This equitable arrangement had the effect of reducing the practical question to the simple one of the expediency of a separation or of the two parties remaining in the same Church. As Congregationalists, it was not necessary that their differences should separate them, but as Presbyterians the minority might be com- pelled to submit to the decisions of the majority. The Liberals seem to have made it their chief business to prevent a schism, and the Evangelicals made it theirs to proclaim what they regarded as truth. aa2 356 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. At this point the discussions of the Synod have a universal interest. They touch on the great practical Church question of the day — how men of different religious sentiments are to work together in the same Church. We are trying to settle it in the Chiu-ch of England, where we have three parties with widely different' conceptions of the meaning of Christianity. "We meet each other as friends, and at times take part in the same services, where the trial to some is quite as much as human flesh can bear. A ' celebrant ' of the new school goes tlu'ough some extraordinary performances before the sacramental bread and wine, while an Evangelical or Broad Church helper is, as the case may be, either indignant or amused. An Evangelical teaches one way of salvation, a High Churchman another, and a Broad Churchman has a different idea of salvation altogether. In the French Eeformed Church the sacramental party is missing, but this is not due to the want of extravagant sacra- mental language in the old standards of the Church. The subtle explanations of a real but spiritual presence of a hody are plentiful in the old Calvinistic con- fessions. The Eeformers, though ready to go to the stake rather than believe transubstantiation, like a great many religious joeople in the present day, talked mysterious nonsense about eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood in the Eucharist.* A sacramental party, however, has not developed in the French Protestant Church. The main division * AVe maj' instance the lines written by Dr. Doddridge, and sung in all churclips — " Hail, sacred feast which Jesus makes, Mich banquet of His flesh and blood," FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 357 is into Evangelicals and Liberals. The Evangelicals adhere in the main to the old creeds of the Chnrch. Many of them are pietists that have been influenced religiously by the work of the Haldanes at Geneva, and by missionaries sent from England by the Wesleyans. Like all the zealous parties in England who come under the category of Evangelical, they regard their dogmatic creed as inseparable fi'om their religious life. To be saved implies with them receiving certain views concerning a certain way of being saved. Their antagonism to the Liberals, who regard their dogmas as mere temporary theological concretions, is natural and intelligible. The more earnest of the Evan- gelicals wish to be separated from the Liberals. They do not want to be identified with men who in their judgment are not believers in Chi'istianity. The Liberal sets aside the very beliefs which the Evan- gelical regards as the essence of the gospel. The only thing which he values is the religious life common to all good men. To promote this is his chief object, and his problem is how this religious life is to exist independent of what he regards as the un- tenable theologies. In reading the discussions in the Synod, the fii'st impression is the incapacity of the Evangelicals to understand the Liberals. This is due in some mea- sure to the very natiu*e of the positions held by the two parties. The Liberals do not formulate their beliefs. Like oiu* English Unitarians, they are not so much a dogmatic as a zetetic sect. They want many subjects to be left open; how many they scarcely know. An important part of their religion is fV-ee 358 --CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. inquiry, but free inquiry is nothing positive, and must appear a very poor religion in the judgment of those who hold certain dogmas as unimpeachable and necessary certainties. M. Colani defined a Christian as one who feels a joyful trust in God. M. Clamage- ran,* another Liberal, described the Christian as for ever seeking truth, but never able to say, ' I have foimd it.' He does not Avish formularies of faith, but the direct contact of the soul with the gospel and the person of Christ. The language of the Liberals some- times wants explanation. They confess that theii* dog- matic belief is variable. They feel truth, and feel also that truth cannot be bound up in definitions. To use the words of our poet, they ' have but faith,' they do not ' know.' This position is in the main intelligible, and there- fore the incapacity of the Evangelicals to understand it is, to sj^eak mildly, remarkable. Pastor Babut, in the opening sermon, divided Christians into three classes, whom he thus described : ' The Catholic Clu'istian puts the authority of the Church and the Pope above Jesus Christ. The Eationalist Chi-istian puts his reason or his conscience above Jesus Chi-ist. The Evangelical Christian believes in Jesus Christ, because of Jesus Christ Himself, because of His testi- mony.' If by Eationalist Chi'istians M. Babut means the Liberals, he could scarcely have made a more outrageous parody on their belief. Eeason and con- science are not put above Jesus Clmst, but they are recognised as the faculties by which alone we can believe in Jesus Christ. But for these faculties Jesus * A layman. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 359 Cliiist would be to us what any other man is, and His testimony no more than any other testimony. The argument might be turned against Pastor Babut. The Evangelical, it might be said, lays the foundation of his faith in histories, which he knows only by tradi- tion, and in doctrinal speculations, which are meta- physical, and belong chiefly to the region of mere reasoning. The Liberals, on the contrary, make these indifferent, and go at once to the invincible facts of a new life and the power of spiritual contact with the gospel. The greatest offender of all in the way of misapprehending or misrepresenting the Liberals was M. Guizot. He spoke in general terms about un- belief, impiety, German theories, and Pantheism, which he called Materialism and Atheism. The Protestant sage might have learned by this time that there is nothing more provoking, more misleading, or more absolutely mischievous than this use of a multi- tude of vague words, which may be applied to any- body or anything. On the subject of Pantheism, ha,<=v M. Guizot forgotten the words of the Abbe Maret : ' Cependant les theories de M. Guizot, comme celles des Eclectiques, comme celles de M. Michelet et de M. Lerminier, nous paraissent aboutir a ce terme inevitable.' * It is not sui'prising that M. Coquerel rose and demanded who were meant by M. Guizot when he spoke of some in the Eeformed Church that had violated the faith and overturned the foundations of Cliristianity. It was admitted that M. Coquerel was one of those intended, and yet the Synod decided that he should not be allowed a word in self-defence, * Essai bur le Pantheisrae, p. 48. 36o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. The object at which the Evangelicals aimed from the beginniug of the Synod was to vote a creed which would declare the faith of the Chui'ch. They could not compel those who were already preachers to sub- scribe it, but they might impose it on future candidates. At first sight a creed seems one of the best ways of preserving the orthodox faith of a community. It is, however, a fact that Churches without creeds, as, for instance, the English Independents, may for the most part remain orthodox, while Chui'ches with creeds, as the Church of England or the Lutheran Church in Germany, may find their creeds as straw and stubble before them. An Evangelical at the Synod was de- noimcing the HegeKans, and a Liberal answered that Hegel would have subscribed the most orthodox of the creeds. Any confession of faith will bear a great many meanings. The memorable feat of Dr. Newman with the Thirty-nine Ai*ticles has demonstrated that men cannot be bound by confessions of faith. Human language is necessarily imperfect, and forms of belief, like everything else in human nature, are continually imdergoing an imperceptible change. A century had not elapsed in England before Arminians not only subscribed our Calvinistic articles, but even denied that they were Calvinistic. Professor Nicolas, in a recent lecture on the history of the College of Montau- ban, traced three different stages in the views of the professors. The first were strict Calvinists, even believing ' la damnation eternelle des petits enfants.' The last were more moderate, yet always clinging to Calvinism. The school of Saumur was the first to make a great departure from the confession of Eochelle. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 361 The obstinately orthodox were at Sedan, while Mon- taiiban took a middle way between heresy and the old confession. M. Coquerel, in his speech at the Synod, traced the history of Liberalism tlu-ongh the past generations of the Eeformed Chnrch. ^ II y a toujours en des liberaux dans I'Eglise. Vons citerai-je les noms de Eabaud Saint-Etienne, qni reorganisa I'Eglise reformee de Paris en 1787 ; de Jean Fabre, le forcat pour la foi, Vlionnete crimind ; des savants j)asteurs Daille et Blondel ; d' Amyraut et de I'Ecole scientifique de Sanniur ; de I'illustre erudit Casaubon ; du jiiris- consulte Charles dn Moulin, et enfin du plus eclaire des reformateui's, Zwingli ? Ces hommes, dont nous sommes tons fiers, ont ete les heterodoxes de leur temps; les Synodes d'alors ne les ont pas exclus.' Orthodoxy, M. Coquerel went on to say, was some- thing foreign to him. He had never renounced it because he had never received it. He was a Hugue- not, proud of his descent. His fathers worshipped in the desert. Some of his more immediate ancestors were Liberal pastors. He might almost say that he was ' a Liberal before he was born.' For seventy years there had been no subscription to any confession, The preachers promised at their ordination that they would preach according to their conscience. Before this stage was reached, it is manifest that the creeds had ceased to serve the object for which they were written. This history has some similitude with the history of creeds in England. The Presbyterians, driven out of the Established Chiu'ch by the rigoui's of the Act of Uniformity, took a dislike to subscriptions altogether. 362 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. The State required them to subscribe thirty-tlu-ee out of the Thii'ty-uiue Articles, but beyond this they were free. When the Exeter controversy arose in 1719, and some of the ministers were charged with Arianism, the orthodox wished to renew subscription. The remedy has an odd history, but the lesson is the same — that creed or no creed, the beliefs of men will con- tinue to change. One party subscribed the first of the Thirty- nine Ai'ticles, and the answer to the question on the Trinity in the Westminster Assembly's Cate- chism, while another party protested against being bound by any subscription. This was the fatal moment for Presbyterianism in England. A large number of the ministers and students who were against this new subscription conformed to the Esta- blished Church. Among the number were some who rose to great eminence, as Bishop Butler, Archbishop Seeker, and Josiah Hort, Archbishop of Tuam, whom Dr. Watts, his fellow-student, describes as 'the first genius' in Mr. Howe's Academy. Dr. Calamy ex- pressed his surprise that men who scrupled to sub- scribe the first of the Articles, as Nonconformists, should yet be willing to conform and subscribe the whole Thirty-nine. The reason, however, is not difficult to find. It is simply that by this time, in spite of all the impositions of 1662, there was more actual freedom in the Established Church than among the ^N'onconformists. Subscription had ceased to be a bondage. The Exeter ministers were expelled, though they were scarcely Arian, certainly not more than Samuel Clarke was an Arian, who yet satisfied Convo- cation that he was orthodox. The successors, however. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 363 both of those who were expelled and of those who subscribed, became definitely Arians, and some of them Unitarians. The spirit of inquiry connected with these changes of belief originated in the Chui'ch of England, and was afterwards taken up by the Nonconformists. It is simple history that thi-oughout the eighteenth century the Church, with the imposed creed, and the creedless Churches, had their parallel parties of orthodox and Liberal. The proposition for a confession of faith was intro- duced into the French Synod by Professor Bois of Montauban. It declared the fidelity of the Eeformed Chui'ch to the principles of faith and liberty on which it had been founded — ' Avec ses peres et ses niart}TS dans la Confession de la Rochelle, avec toutes les Eglises de la Reformation dans leurs symboles, elle proclame VautoriU souveraine des salutes Ecritures en matiere de foi^ et le salut par la foi en Jesus Christy Fits unique de Dieu^ mort pour nos offenses et ressuscite pour notre justification. Elle conserve done et elle main- tient, a la bas de son enseignement, de son culte et da sa discipline, les grands faits Chi-etiens representes dans ses solennites religieuses et exprimes dans ses liturgies, notamment dans la confession des peches, dans le symbole des Apotres, et dans la liturgie de la Sainte Cene.' This was a brief creed, and considering it as coming from the orthodox side, it was very moderate. The disposition of the synod in this respect contrasts favourably with that of the English Convocation, which, to satisfy the scruples of the whole Broad Church party, with Lord Shaftes- bury's ' noble army ' of Evangelicals, refuses to sur- 364 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS, render even so much as one good Catholic curse. There is, of course, this difference, that the English Church is in possession of its creeds, while the French Eeformed is only striving to regain its creeds. The fii'st point in the new confession is the sovereign authority of the Scriptures in matters of faith. This is a point with which in one sense no Protestant Church can dispense. As against the authority of the Church of Eome, the Protestant has nothing on which he can lean but the Scriptures. Without the Scrip- tures he knows nothing of Chi'istianity. They are the original documents of his religion. If the authority of the Church is renounced, he must turn to the Scriptures, and deal with them according to the reality of the case. But sovereign authority is an expression capable of a very wide meaning. When applied to a book like the Bible, which was written ' at sundry times and in divers manners,' we must have a reason for ascribing it either to every individual book in the Bible or to the Bible as a whole. In the latter case we rest upon what is called the canon, the history and origin of which are involved in the deepest dark- ness. Without the authority of the Church, we can assign no reason for one book being in the canon, and other books, believed to have been written at the same time and by Apostolic men, excluded. The Protestant principle requires fi'ee inquiry as to the origin and character of the Scriptures, as the very first step after renouncing the authority of the Chui'ch. The authority of the canon as such failing, we must turn to that of individual books. But here again perplexity pursues us. Concerning the origin of many of the FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 365 books of the Bible, we have not even the pretence of a record. We come at last to the contents of the books, and for these we mnst bring with us the two great enemies both of the Catholics and the Evangeli- cals, reason and conscience. ' iS'o one,' said a Liberal speaker in the Synod, ' believes the sovereign authority of the Song of Solomon.' — ' I do,' replied an Evan- gelical ; ' I believe it.' We can scarcely estimate the value of the sovereign authority of a book whose meaning is past finding out, if it be not the obvious one which shows it to have been written on the de- lectable mountains of the pleasures of sense. But reason and conscience have to be still further employed before we can reach any conclusion con- cerning the divinity of the Scriptures. The proposition of M. Bois does not embrace any extravagant theory of inspiration. It does not claim authority for the Scriptures except in matters of faith. Histories, figm-es, science, and everything which is not a matter of faith is left open. What can any Liberal wish more than this ? How can any Evangelical be satisfied with only this ? But from the orthodox side is there really any ground for this distinction? The sovereign authority of the Scriptures is not limited to certain books, nor to certain parts of books, but to certain contents which are called matters of faith, and these matters of faith are not discernible by any external evidence. The impossibility of making the distinction between what is a matter of faith and what is not, shows clearly that the Scriptures do not claim that kind of sovereign authority which the Evangelicals ascribe to them, or rather the kind of authority which M, Bois's proposi- 366 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tion ascribes to the Scrijjtures, is no authority at all. It leaves the question open as to the meaning of the Scriptures, and the Liberals only ask that reason and conscience may be used to determine what contents of the Scriptures are divine. The first objection which the Liberals made to the creed was its vagueness. It was not worth the trouble of the orthodox to pass it. The only way left by which we can know the divine in the Scrip- tures is by what in England we call the ' verifying faculty' within. The Liberals at the Synod saw clearly that, after granting so much, it was illogical in the Evangelicals not to grant all that they wanted. M. Yiguie argued that the Liberal view of the Scriptures was fairly inferred from the confession of Eochelle. No question has been so trying to Pro- testants as the question how they know the Scriptures to be the Word of God. We are familiar with the sad shifts to which the old divines of the Church of England were di'iven when pressed by Eoman Catholic controversialists to answer this question. They did not, like the modern ' Catholic ' Anglicans, fall back on the authority of the Chui-ch. That could not be done logically by those who denied the infalli- bility of the Church. The only other alternative was that of the Calvinistic confessions, which relied on the testimony of the Spirit. To this Laud and Chillingworth and Stillingfleet appealed. But this testimony is internal. It speaks to something within man ; it is a renunciation of external testimony. M. Vaguie identified it with the testimony of con- science. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 367 It is not, of course, for a moment supposed that the men who wrote the Protestant Confessions, under- stood by the Spirit the human conscience. They meant that the Bible, as a whole book, had authority, and that the evidence of this was in the book itself. The Scriptures were even supposed to testify to their own genuineness and canonicity. But the theory broke down as soon as men had time to examine it. The Liberals maintain that their doctrine is the legitimate result. What the conscience feels to be true in the Scripture, that is true. They start with the facts of the spiritual life. The accuracy of the Gospel histories, or the correctness of doctrines taught by Apostles, is a matter indifferent. The Scripture contains the word of God, but it is not itself the word of God. The faith by which the Church is one is defined by Pastor Fontanes as ' ime acte de sentiment et de volonte, et non une question de 'doctrine :' a feeling of the soul, rather than a belief of the intellect. It is true that this feeling leads men to systematize their beliefs. But the root and essence is the religious sentiment. Christianity is this sentiment, as deter- mined by Jesus, who has given it a new life and a new seed. On this ground, M. Coquerel maintained that their differences were divinely appointed. Jesus wishes this variety. It existed in the Primitive Church. Peter and Paul were not agreed. James differed from Paul about faith and works. Two of the four Gospels contain no trace of the divinity of Jesus Christ or of His miraculous birth. It is St. John and St. Paul who speak of ' the Word made flesh.' ' If God,' said M. Coquerel, ' has put so many 368 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. diversities in His Scripture, it is not a synod which shall reform the work of Grod.' Some of the Liberals not only denied the accuracy of the Scriptures, but fell into the mistake natiu-al to negative teachers, of violently interpreting the Scrip- tures, to make them agree with their own belief. This is sm*ely uimecessary, after infallibility has been denied to the sacred writers. Few men are satisfied to estimate faiidy the precise amount of evidence that belongs to their side. M. Fontanes, who is evidently a young man, argued that the word 'resurrection,' in the New Testament, did not mean the return of a dead body to life. Now, whatever may be the belief of M. Fontanes as to resurrection, and whether his belief be the true one or not, it is not to be denied, nor is it necessary to deny, that the resurrection of the dead in the New Testament means what an ordinary person would understand by the words. It is perfectly likely that the material body will not rise again. St. Paul seems to say it will not, but rather what is sown a natural body, will be raised a spii'itual body. So long as we are ignorant, both of matter and of spirit, the nature of the resurrection is a subject evidently beyond oiu- knowledge. But St. Paul never intended that what he said of the resurrection of spiritual bodies should be so understood as to deny the resiu-rection of Christ's body, in the sense of the Evangelists. Whatever may be the explanation of the miracle of Christ's resurrection, St. Paul evidently believed it as a miracle. He believed that the body did not lie in the grave, but that it was seen by many persons, FRENCH PROTESTANTISM. 369 and filially ascended visibly into heaven. M. Fon- tanes argues more like an Evangelical than a Liberal, when he explains St. Paul's account of Christ's resur- rection, as merely the soul of Jesus ascending from 8heol to the place of blessedness. The rest of the confession was criticized in order. M. Colani objected to it altogether as too theological. It did not correspond to Alexander Yinet's description of a confession of faith, that it should ' flow from the lips of the child, the old man, or the dying.' It was, however, so simple, that M. Colani could not see how it could be identified with the Confession of Rochelle. The metaphysical doctrines were ignored. The Holy Spii'it was not mentioned. The divinity of Chi-ist was only alluded to under the vague phrase ' only Son of God.' Salvation by faith was mentioned, but did the Synod mean by salvation, what Eome or Calvin meant — hell escaped and heaven gained — or only a moral fact ? ' Died for our sins,' was also vague ; if it included the idea of expiation, that ought to have been stated. ' Eisen for our justifi- cation,' was one of St. Paul's obscure phi-ases, and nobody could say what it meant. M. Colani then noticed the untenable distinction between matters of faith, and matters not of faith. For the believer in inspiration, everything in the Bible is matter of faith ; history, astronomy, geology. If criticism may be exercised on the narratives of Scripture, where is it to stop ? Every mii-acle will be contested. If the Church does not interpret the Scriptures for the individual, the individual must interpret them for himself, and in that case what is the use of a creed ? 370 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. The Liturgy of a Communion, Colani described as Pelagian. He objected to the Apostles' Creed, even with explanations of the ' descent into hell,' and the ' resurrection of the flesh.' He did not believe in the supernatural, and he could say the same for some of his particular friends on the left. After making allowance for the peculiarities of individuals we may form some idea of the general scheme of the Liberals. Their conception of Chris- tianity is so different from what we have been taught to receive, that it is no wonder some should regard them as setting forth another Gospel. The Liberals, however, persist in maintaining that the difference between them and the Evangelicals is not so great as it is supposed to be. They see no necessity for sepa- ration. They believe in Chi-istianity. They believe that God through Christ has revealed Himself to the world, and that the greatest and most patent fact connected with this revelation is the resuiTCction of men to the life of righteousness. Christianity is to them a kingdom of God analogous to the kingdom of nature. They do not admit miracles. They deny, or at least doubt, the supernatural, that is, the super- natural in the ordinary sense. But they confess it again in another sense. The kingdom of God, though analogous to the natural, they find to be supernatural. It is there that God works in the hearts of men. It is there that God teaches men lessons which they could never learn in the realm of mere nature. It is a supematiu'al kingdom ; not that it is without law and order, not that it is imlike the natural, but that it is literally and truly cihove the FRENCH PRO TESTA XTLSM. 371 natural. The men who have come to this view of Christianity in France and Germany, as well as in England, are not men who have tlie spirit of unbelief. They cannot be denounced as mere Rationalists or Free-Thinkers. They are mostly men who have been penetrated with the deepest religious life of the Churches to which they belong. They have walked about Sion and marked well her bulwarks, anxious to find a sure foundation for religion without the necessity of denying the marvellous discoveries that have been made in the natural world. It would doubtless be a gain to Christianity if its truth could be established on the simple facts of religious expe- rience. The limits, however, of this experience must be acknowledged. Oiu' religious sentiments may be to us a personal assurance. They may be also a guide in life, but they can never give that for which the intellect craves — a demonstration of the truth of what religion promises. The orthodox side pretends to do this, but fails. Whatever rests on authority can have no more validity than the authority on which it rests. The infallibility of a church or a book must be proved before their authority be received. There are doubtless many questions to be settled before this view of Christianity can find its way in the world. It was repeated by several of the Liberals at the Synod that what we have really to do with is the practical part of Clu'istianity. Our theology •should be that of the Sermon on the Mount. Con- fessions of faith are metaphysical, and not suited to the understandings of the multitude. This is plausible, but there is another side. The religious mind has BB 2 372 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. always been tenacious of its creed. Metaphysics and mysteries are its natural nourishment. Eothe once said that if there were no miracles it would be necessary to invent some. Keligion hitherto has only existed in alliance with superstition. It is a question if the zeal of the first Christians could have been sustained without the belief in the supernatural as they understood it. It is a question if the piety of some of our High Churchmen could be sustained without the sacramental bread and wine. These are the little idols that serve for tangible deities. If taken away, they would exclaim, with Micah, ' Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more ? ' It is doubtful if some of our modern Eevivalists, who have contributed most largely to the religious life of our day, could have done anything without the meta- physical beliefs which the Liberals say are the great hindrances in the way of the reception of Chi'istianity. If the Liberals can give us Chi'istianity without the usual weaknesses of Christian men — if they can demonstrate the possibility of religion without super- stition, they will have solved the greatest problem that now perplexes the Christian world. After the hard things which some of the Evan- gelicals said against the Liberals, it is satisfying to find that the Synod has not taken measures which will compel their secession. ' We do not wish you to separate,' said M. Guizot, and this sentiment was repeated by many of the most decided on the orthodox side. The difiiculty of their working together has been already shown. When M. Coquerel pleaded for union, arguing that if the Evangelists had the truth, FRENCH PRO TESTA NTISM. 3 7 3 they should allow it to leaven the whole lump, he was shi-ewdly answered that the leaven should be prepared apart. Another speaker said that their remaining in one Church was not union, but discord. This was all right from the Evangelical stand-point. Wisdom, however, prevailed in the Synod. ' A separation,' said M. Pecaut, ' is the work of a moment — reunion requires centuries.' The united force of Protestantism is wanted in the conflict with Atheism and Catholic superstition. The past history of all Churches teaches that there is but little gain in thrusting out earnest men, whose services at any time the world can ill afford to lose. The Synod concluded by deciding that they should ask the separation of the Church from the State. Liberals and Evangelicals vied with each other in declaring this to be necessary for the prosperity of their Church. We have more than once said in this Eeview that the question of the union of Church and State is altogether a question of circumstances. In England it is the Evangelicals, and still more the Liberals, who are the most strenuous supporters of this union. The last regard it as the bulwark of liberal Christianity. The French State certainly has rarely been the expression of uprightness. Even the Catholic Church in France does not look back with any satisfaction on its connection with the State. It has learned that for its own interests it is safer to trust to the Pope and the Catholic hierarchy than to the favour of princes. We do not, however, believe it possible for Churches and States to be permanently separate. If they are not in imion they will come 374 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. into coUisiou. The Eeformed Church may be sepa- rated from the State under the presidency of M. Thiers, but the next government may regard it as a dangerous community, and even refuse it a concordat. This is not likely to be the case with the Eeformed Church. But it is quite likely that the Catholic Church may again possess wealth equal to what it had before the Eevolution. It may then be really dangerous to the State, and in self-defence the State may have again to take the Church's property, and in return to salary its priests, or perhaps to banish them, as Bismarck has had to do with the Jesuits. "We do not know what there is in the State-connection in France which makes the Eeformed Church desii'ous to be free from it, especially after the amount of liberty conferred by the President of the Eej)ublic. If there is any benefit in the State-connection, they renounce that and give it up to the Catholics. If, as the ^N'on- conformists in England say, the State-connection produces inequality among the ministers of the different Churches, the Protestants are giving up a vantage-ground which they now possess. If, as Matthew Arnold says, to be out of the national Church is to be separated from the currents of national life, then the French Protestants are taking steps to become a little sect as narrow and peculiar as some of the little sects [in England. But it is just possible that their future history may show that these theories are, like the webs of spiders, very fragile and very easily swept away. The Synod has acted deliberately, and has probably done what is best in the circumstances. FRENCH PROTESTANTISM, 375 There were deputations from many foreign Churches, but we have not read of one from the Houses of Convocation. This, however, is of small moment. The Church of England has not forgotten its old helper and ally, the Church of the Huguenots. "With theii* Evangelicals our Evangelicals have the deepest sympathy, and to their Liberals our Liberals wish health and prosperity. XIII. A VISIT TO MUNICH.* I MIGHT call my tour this year an Ecclesiastical joiimey. Its main object was to become per- sonally acquainted with the excommunicated Professors of Munich, but all the way, both going and retui-ning, places connected with Church history were to me the chief places of interest. I began with Eotterdam, the birthplace of Erasmus, and then proceeded to Dort, in memory of the famous Synod. I visited the island of Bommel, where Grotius was imprisoned, and Gorcum, the place from which he escaped, when he emerged from the chest in which, by his wife's strategy, he had been conveyed across the river. I came to Cologne with its old chm-ches, its strange legends, and its wonderful relics. This j^car the English traveller embarks on the Ehine with a feeling of thankfulness that it is still German. The Ehine is the highway of Europe, and Frenchmen cannot be entrusted with highways. I saw Germania ever present, with her sleepless eye and her powerful arm, * Sundciy Mafjadnc, NoTember, 1871. A VISIT TO MUNICH. 377 keeping religious watch over the noble river, while the very waves seemed to join in chorus to the patriotic song : — -' Sie soUen ihn nicht haben Den freien, deutachen Rhein, Bis seine Fluth begraben Des letzten Mann's Gebein.' One morning, by winding paths, encircled by vines and embosomed by oaks, I ascended the Drachenfels. In the afternoon I w^as at Yelmich, un- frequented by toiu'ists. I wished to visit the Mouse. After a long scramble up a steep path by the help of some bramble bushes, I was inside the ruined castle. It was now near sunset, and a little" bird on the top of the old wall was singing a plaintive song in the calm evening solitude. The tower is high above the rock, but it is the opening into a pit whose bottom, it is said, is far beneath the Rhine, and from the depths of that pit at eventime is heard the tinkling of a bell, the memorial of an evil deed in a dark age. The Church of Yelmich had a silver bell, which was coveted by Falkenstein, the Lord 'of the Mouse. He removed it from the church to the castle. The Abbot, vested in liis robes of office, and with the cross borne before him, went to demand the bell. But, Falkenstein, who believed in neither God nor devil, caused the Abbot, Avith the bell tied round his neck, to be cast into the pit of the tower. And ever since, yea, whenever the chimes of the bells of a village church arc wafted up the mountains, the traveller, with his ear at the top of the turret, may hear from below the mysterious music of the silver bell of the Abbot of Velmich. On the afternoon of the next dav 378 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. I ascended to the Cat, and continued my walk over the summit of the Lui-lei, till the shadows of the vines had ceased to lengthen, and the nymph of the rock had gone to her evening repose. My next stage was Wiesbaden, and from thence I went to Homburg, where I saw the German Kaiser. He was in the theatre when I entered the town. I was very tired, but I sat down upon the grass amid the crowd, and waited till I heard the cry, ' The Kaiser comes.' Next day, I walked to Friedrichsdorf, a village where a colony of Huguenots settled after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It was a primitive village, with no sign of any improvement since the first advent of the exiles. I visited the school, and found the schoolmaster in an arm-chair, smoking a prodigious pipe, as he imparted knowledge to the young inhabitants of Friediichsdorf. A desire to avoid travelling on Sunday caused me to stop one Saturday evening at a quiet country town called Gunzenhausen, about midway between Wurzburg and Munich. As *! entered the town, a multitude of geese were coming from the fields. They divided themselves into little companies, every goose knowing the goose that belonged to its company, and every company knowing its own resting-place for the night. Next morning, the goose-woman marched thi-ough the town, and everybody's goose joined the other geese till they made a great flock, and cackled up the hill to the stubble-field. At half-past eight, the church bells were ringing, and the inhabitants of Gunzenhausen were hastening to their morning ser- vice. I followed their examj)le, and found the old A VISIT TO MUNICH. 379 churcli in every corner full. The people sang lustily, as only Germans can sing. In the centre of the chui'ch, over an altar, was a huge crucifix. On the ■walls were the two familiar portraits of Luther and Melancthon, and beneath Melancthon's portrait, in an opening in the wall, the statue of an old crusader. Two clergymen in black gowns read prayers, mostly with their backs to the people, and crossed themselves as frequently as if they had been Eoman Catholic priests. The service was unmistakably Protestant, and yet it cut with sharp angles into all the peculi- arities of English Protestantism. The prayers were read, yet the people had no prayer-books. The service therefore was not common prayer as in the Chiu'ch of England, while the interest of extemporaneous or um-ead prayer was wanting. The sermon was followed by the coramimion. The question of the ' north side ' does not seem ever to have distiu-bed the German Protestant. The minister consecrated standing before the high altar, with his back to the people ; the crossings were frequent, but he never knelt. The people came up in threes, made a bow to the minister, knelt on the north side and received the bread. They then walked behind the altar to the south side, bowed to the other minister, and kneeling, received the wine. There were no rails in front. After the service I went over the church. The sacristan told me that the great crucifix had been allowed to stand at the Eeformation, and had not since been removed. The altar was stone the same high altar which had been in the church time out of mind. The wine used was the ordinary white wine of the district. This I thou^^rht must bo a 38o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Protestant innovation, but I was wrong. The same white wine, a Catholic priest told me, only mixed Avitli a few drops of water, was used in the Catholic chui'ches. On reaching Munich I found that the Professors whom I wished to visit were all out of town. Dr. Frohschammer, whom I knew best, was spending his college vacation at Kreuth ' Bad,' in the Bavarian Highlands. I went by train to Holzkirche, and next day the omnibus moved slowly up the hill by the Lake Tigernsee, and into the bosom of the Alps. The waters of Kreuth, with the little Catholic chapel, were consecrated together by the Abbot of Tigernsee in the beginning of the last century. It is a place fortunately unknown to the English, frequented entirely by Ger- mans, and where German life and manners reign in their uncorrupted simplicity. Among the visitors were Prussian Ministers of State, Professors from various Universities, Protestant clergymen and Catholic priests. Frohschammer is not immediately connected with the present Catholic movement in Bavaria. He was excommunicated seven years ago for maintaining the independence of science and the right of free in- quiry, as opposed to Church authority. He represents a tendency which has always distinguished German Catholics from other Catholics — the tendency or dis- position to find the grounds of Christianity, and even of Catholicism, in reason itself The Catholic intellect of Germany has really been created by the Protestant- ism of Germany, and it has clung to Catholicism on supposed grounds of reason. But with these reasoning Catholics the authorities of Eome have ever been in conflict. The Church is founded on obedience to A VISIT TO MUNICH. 381 authority, or what is called faith, in opposition to reason. That reason should ever lead to Catholic doctrines is a thesis which no Protestant could possibly maintain. And in this judgment those who rule the Church of Eome entii'ely agree with Protestants. Frohschammer was logical, and his logic led him to positions which the Church of Eome does not allow any priest to maintain. The open advocacy of the freedom of science by Gennan priests and professors was one of the causes which led to the Vatican Council, which has determined with indisputable clearness that divine knowledge is not revealed through the intellect of man, but that it comes in- fallibly from the mouth of the Bishop of Eome. Frohschammer is really at the head of a great but unorganized movement, which is anterior to Dollin- ger's, and to which at one time Dollinger was greatly opposed. He is at present in feeble health, and has almost lost his eyesight thi'ough close study. He has had to fight single-handed against a powerful hierarchy, and seems to bear the marks of one who has had a severe conflict. Before his excommunication he was preacher to the university and a popular professor, but after the frown of the Church fell upon him all candi- dates for the priesthood were forbidden to attend his lectures. In England persecution generally creates sympathy, but that stage of civilisation has not yet been reached in Catholic Bavaria. The professorship which Frohschammer holds is that of philosophy, and his theology is that which in England would be called the theology of a very advanced liberal. He maintains that the Church of Eome haviua: erred in matters of 382 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. science which impinge on religion, has sufficiently dis- proved its claims to infallibility. He believes, also, that the leading dogmas of the Church of Eome, as well as many doctrines held by Protestants, are untenable in the face of modern science. In the Contem'porari) Review for August, the same month in which I was in Bavaria, there was an article by Father Dalgairns, written from the side of English Ultramontanism, in which his theology was compared to that of Professor Maurice. Prohschammer described the article as mere rhetoric, intimating that the English priest had yet to study the subject. I spent a week at the Bad, and had many conversa- tions with all kinds of people on the events Avhich are now agitating Catholic Bavaria. Our favourite place of meeting was the Eauch-Saal, which in plain English means the smoking-room. Here Protestant pastors sat close by Catholic priests, and profound professors poured out treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The hilarity was sometimes redundant, as German mirth often is, but not always disagreeable after quiet wan- derings over the tops of mountains and up sequestered valleys. I embraced every opportunity of making acquaint- ance with the priests. They are generally men of simple manners, within certain limits intelligent, and always willing to converse on subjects relating to the Church. They have nothing of that reserve or dis- trust of Protestants which priests in England seem to have. It was gratifying altogether to see the cor- diality with which all parties conversed, the freedom with which they expressed their opinions, and the A VISIT TO MUNICH. 383 entire absence of everything like passion or bad feeling. On making a new acquaintance among the priests I generally asked if he was an old Catholic or a ncAV Catholic. The answer invariably was an old Catholic. ' You are then,' I would say, ' a follower of Dollinger.' ']N^o, no,' was sure to follow. 'Dollinger is not Catholic. He is a heretic, condemned and excom- municated by the Church.' The ' Beneficiat ' of Xreuth, like most of the young priests in Bavaria, was a thorough Ultramontane. He always sat next to me in the Eauch-Saal, to make sure, as he said, that I got correct information concerning the Catholic Church. He was a very intelligent man, with an open generous face, and a high sense of his duty as a Catholic priest. He had been a puj)il of DoUinger's, but could only lament the ' sad ' aberration of his master. I could not despise the sincerity, nor in every case the logic of those who took the Ultramon- tane side. From the stand-point of what I always understood to be Catholicism they seemed to be right. The Catholic Church, they said, is committed to the new dogma, and before all things it is necessary to abide by the Catholic Chiu'ch. I could not help admitting that if I were a Catholic I would go in for the new dogma, and for every new dogma which the Church decreed. Of Bollinger's movement the priests spoke as of the movement of any other heretic. It dis- turbed men's minds for a time, but the Catholic Church could afford to wait. It outlives all heresies and all heretics. The new dogma, one priest said to me, is strange at first, but it is not strange when it is ex- plained. The Catholic mind, he added, must accept it 384 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. as soon as it regains its Catholic balance. From this he concluded that Bollinger's movement, as regards Catholics, was virtually at an end. The blind believ- ing tendency of the Catholic mind was to me only too obvious. The priests themselves seemed to be all of the character of simple believers. All parties testified that their lives were irreproachable, and in the main their influence good ; but their believing was of that kind which has no foundation. Like the geese at Gunzenhausen their Catholicity consists in following the same goose-woman. A liberal priest, who had ceased to believe in the Pope, said to me that he regarded the faith of the multitude of the priests as unbelief, for they take it as a matter of course, and think nothing at all about it. After leaving Kreuth, I retiu*ned to Munich. Next morning I had some conversation with Professor Friedrich, who gave me all the information that I desired concerning his part in the ' Old Catholic ' movement. Friedrich is a young man, with a remarkably bright and intelligent face. In my judg- ment the future of the movement rests in a great measure with him. He has less of DoUinger's cautious diplomacy, but more of the eagerness and decision which are necessary to make a successful reformer. When the Archbishop of Munich pronounced the excommunications, Friedrich's counsel Avas to disregard them, and continue their clerical duties as before. Part of them, I believe, he has continued. It Avas reported while I Avas in Bavaria that he had performed the marriage service under the protection of the chief magistrate, who had caused the door of the church to A VISIT TO MUNICH. 385 be forced open, the archbishop having taken posses- sion of the keys. My interview with Professor Friedrich was short. I rose in haste, saying that I must go to Tutzing to find Dr. Dollinger. ' He is here,' said the Professor.; 'he returned yesterday.' I was glad to hear these words, and glad that I had not already started for Tutzing. Dr. Dollinger, whose reputation at the present moment is not merely Eiu'opean, but as exten- sive as Christendom, does not live in a palace. He has no fine deanery or reictory house. He has not even a lodge, like our ' heads of Houses ' in Oxford and Cam- bridge. He lives up a stair, in what is called in Scot- land a ' flat.' Professor Friedrich lives above him in the third story. In a few minutes after leaving Professor Friedi-ich I was in the presence of Dr.Dollinger. I hap- pened to have in my hand a copy of the August number of the Contemporary Review, of which I requested his acceptance. He took it gladly, expressing his thanks, and saying that he was glad to see it. ' I have heard,' he continued, ' that it contains an article, by Father Dalgairns, on Papal Infallibility, and abusing us poor Germans.' He had evidently heard of the article from some one who had not read it. I said that the article had no immediate reference to him ; it was rather intended for Professor Frohschammer and the liberal theologians. There was of course the further infer- ence that the free exercise of reason which Frohscham- mer demanded for science Dollinger demanded for history, and so they were both in the same category as rebels against the authority of the Church. I merely intimated this inference without putting it so as to c c 386 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. evoke an answer. Dollinger asked if I was a collahora- teur on the Review, which I answered in the affirma- tive. He then inquired for the Dean of Westminster, calling him with apparent pride his friend, and saying that he understood he also wi'ote for the Contemporary Review. He then spoke of the late Dean Alford, and, noticing an article by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, he spoke of Dr. Ellicott's works as if he were familiar with them. I told him that in England we were in great dark- ness as to his position, that all sects and parties took an immense interest in the movement with which he was connected, hut that we could not get any authori- tative or reliable account of what he intended to do. He answered, that the position he had taken up was a very difficult one. The Catholic mind was trained to cling to the Church, and to sacrifice all for unity. He would not form a sect, he would not leave the Church, but the protest which had been made would stand in history as a witness that the new dogma was not the doctrine of the Catholic Chiu-ch. ' But how,' I said, ' can you defend the oecumenicity of Trent and deny that of the Yatican?' The answer was, that all the bishops did not vote for the dogma of infallibility. ' But,' I said, ' they have since all, or almost all, sub- mitted. The voice of the Episcopate is the voice of the Church on the " Old Catholic " theory of the Chui'ch, and now that the bishops of the opposition have submitted, the "infallible Church " has declared for the infallibility of the Pope.' I said that Dr. Dorner, of Berlin, had recently written an article for the Contemporary Reviev'', in Avhicli he demonstrates A VISIT TO MUNICH. 387 that on the very principles of Gallicanism the new dogma must be received. The Church itself has voted for it. Dolliuger said that he had not seen Dorner's article, but that he knew the Protestants did not wish him success. The bishops who had submitted were not to be reckoned. They submitted as Catholics for the sake of peace and unity, but they have not declared for papal infallibility. I Av\as certainly not prepared for this argument ; but as my object was to learn, I listened. I however intimated that Protestants did wish him success, but they could not see that he had sufficient ground on which to stand. If the dogma was a false dogma, and yet was received to the extent it is by the Catholic hierarchy, then most assuredly the gates of hell have prevailed against the Catholic Church. The oj^position to the dogma which at one time seemed to be formidable is now almost nothing. I expressed a wish to see the ' Old Catholics ^ more decided in their opposition to the Church of Eome. It was now in the hands of the Ultramontanes ; in fact, had become Ultramontane. It was no longer the Catholic Church which ' Old Catholics ' had supposed it to be. I expressed doubts if by adhering to the Church they were not supporting that very Ultramontanism which they meant to oppose. Dr. Dolliuger answered that the human mind craved rest in religion. It must lean upon something objective. Protestantism was too subjective. The mind of the worshipper was always liable to be disturbed by the individuality of the minister. This Avant in Protestantism, he said, had given rise to the powerful party in the Church c c 2 388 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. of England, at the head of which was Dr. Pusey. I admitted that in religion the multitude are governed more by feeling than by reason. From this I argued that they are thus very liable to become an easy prey to the Ultramontane powers. These powers will train the priests even more than they do now to absolute obedience, and segregate them more than ever from the influences of secular life and secular- learning. Without a decided oj)position to the Chiu'ch of Eome the breach between reason and religion, already far too wide, will widen every day. The party of whom he spoke in the Church of England did not probably themselves see it, but they were among the best supporters of Ultramontanism. Dr. Dollinger ad- mitted the truth of a great deal that I said ; but from his own stand-point he made a long and clear answer. He contended that the opposition to Ultramontanism would be more eff'ective by their continuing in the Church. He said that in Germany the consequences which I anticipated were impossible. The education of the people is in the hands of the State, so that Ultramontanism can never have even the power which it has among the Catholics in England. He spoke of the indifference of the educated laity as one of the greatest hindi-ances in his way. Those who could not reason regarded him as a destroyer of the Church, and those who could reason did nothing. He was not disposed to measure the success "of his cause by the number of priests either for it or against it. He illustrated this by the case of the English priests at the time of the Reformation. They were Protestants under Edward, Catholics imder Mary, and again A VISIT TO MUNICH. 389 Protestants under Elizabeth. When the tide set in with the hiity, the priests would go with the stream. I di'ew arguments from the very facts which Dollinger had mentioned. The influence of the schoolmaster is only negative. It creates that very indifference which looks on and does nothing. The only effectual opposition to the Chiu'ch of Eonie must be a religious opposition. The religious element in man must be satisfied with a rational religion, other- wise it will feed on superstition. These views I expressed freely, but with the consciousness that I was in the presence of a man who had weighed well the words which he uttered. He was fighting with his own sword, clad in his own armoiu*, and with the discretion and caution for which he is renowned, in agreement with his own motto — ' Nil temere, nil timide, sed omnia concilio et virtute.' Yet to a Protestant, Dr. Dollinger can only appear as one whose eyes are but half opened, and who as yet can only see men as trees walking. The multi- tude of his supporters, I was told, are even now beyond him. The rational Catholics who agree with Frohschammer hail him only in expectation that he will and must take up a more decided position. The policy of staying in has been tried by all reformers, but unexpected circumstances have determined their action. Luther wished to remain in the Catholic Chiu-ch. His demand was a free general council which would represent the Church. The same demand is made by the ' Old Catholics ; ' but where is the council to come from if the bishops go with the Pope ? Our o^vn Eeformers wished to remain in 390 CONTEMPORARV ESSAYS. the Cathdic Cliurcli. Even under Elizabeth they complained that they had been excluded from the Council of Trent ; but Eome was resolute, and their only choice was separation or anniliilation. Eenelon, Quesnel, and in later times La Mennais, remained in the Chiu-ch, but only to give the Church more power of boasting how thoroughly their heresies had been crushed, and, I may add, the men too, especially when I think of the sad end of the great La Mennais. My interview with Dr. Dollinger had a sudden, almost a ludicrous, ending. I had just begun to think about leaving, when the door-bell rang, and the servant brought in a card. The old professor adjusted his spectacles, but failed to be able to read the name. ' Some of your countrymen ! ' he said ; and handing me the card asked if I could read the name. But even at the request of Dr. Dollinger I could not utter it. It was the name of an English Eitualist who has made himself vile by reviling the Eeformers. There are many strange delusions in this world, but surely one of the oddest is the supposition that there is really anything in common between the English Eitualists and the excommuni- cated professors of Munich. They are like men who have met each other on the highway. For a moment they are on the same spot, but their faces are in opposite directions. The Eitualist is the Ultramon- tane of the Church of England. His spii'it is that of the Ultramontane. He has turned his back on light and reason, and is gone in search of darkness and authority. He is opposed to the very influences which have put the Munich professors where they are. A VISIT TO MUNICH. 391 After leaving Dr. Dollinger I visited the chui'clies and public places of Munich. There were not many people in the churches, and to me the worship was not edifying. The priest in every church was going through that strange performance which is called the mass, ' And muckle Latin he did mumble, But I heard nought but hummel bummel.' The wonder in my mind was not that Frohschammer, Dollinger, and Friedi'ich had opposed the dogma of papal infallibility, but that they had ever encouraged such superstition as I saw in the Mimich churches. In some of them the 'idols' are more grotesque and more hideous than those which the missionaries bring from China and Hindostan. In the ' Theatiner Kirche ' there were several women bowing and cross- ing themselves like lunatics before a mulatto image of the Virgin Mary, which had a round laughing face like the full moon. Did Dr. Dollinger, I asked myself, ever witness the like of this without a fiercer indignation than he has manifested against the new dogma of infallibility ? Did Professor Frohschammer, with his clear reasoning intellect, ever go to and fro before an altar making odd muttermgs, as if he had converted bread and wine into the Deity ? Is the new dogma more irrational than transubstantiation ? Is it more irrational than the dogma of the im- maculate conception ? It is to me inexplicable that any Catholic can receive the decrees of Trent and stumble at those of the Vatican. But surely now the consummation has been reached. I rejoiced that the new dogma had been proclaimed, for by it the 392 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. whole Church system is stultified, and every pretence to Catholicism in any intelligible sense logically annihilated. Dr. Dollinger told me of a great congress that was soon to be held in Munich, when the' movement would take a more definite form. That congress has since been held, and its proceedings published, but they do not yet point to any definite course of action. The ' Old Catholics ' still dream of reforming the Church of Eome, of making it the true home of pure and undefiled religion, and of adapting it to the necessities of this age of the world. To make the great communion which goes by the name of the Eoman Catholic Church the teacher of a rational theology, and the champion of ' science, freedom, and the truth in Christ,' is indeed a glorious dream. • There is not a Protestant living, worthy of the name, who does not in this wish them the utmost success. But we separated from the Church of Eome at the Eeformation, and we remain separate from it still, just because we believe that the whole tendency, character, constitution, and all which really makes the Chui'ch of Eome what it is, as distinct from other Churches, is totally opposed to all which the ' Old Catholics' wish it to be. The stand-point of Pro- testantism was a true one, and multitudes of Catho- lics who opposed the Eeformation would have been on its side had the real character of the Chui'ch of Eome been as definite as it is to-day. From Munich I went to Augsburg, famous in the history of the Eeformation, and from Augsburg to Lindau. Next day I crossed the Lake to Constance, A VISIT TO MUNICH, 393 famous in the history of the ' Infallible Church.' The building in which the great Council met still stands by the lake, but it is now a warehouse with lines of rail for the conveyance of goods passing thi'ough the centre. I visited the minster, to see the shi'ine of Bishop Hallam, of Salisbury, the chief of the English deputation to the Council of Constance. In the St. Paul's Strasse I saw the house where John Huss lived. There is a rude effigy of the reformer over the door with a verse of poetry in old German. In a field outside of the to^vn is the place where he was burned. It is surrounded with a rail- ing, and guarded as a sacred spot by those who reverence the memory of the early martyr. The friendly Rhine rushing from the lake carried me from Constance to Shaffhausen. Next day I walked to the Ehine Falls, to see the river sj^lashing over the rocks as it bids farewell to Switzerland. After visiting Basel I came to Strasburg, where the workmen were all busy restoring the houses that had been destroyed in the war. By Saarbruck and Saargemund I came to Treves, where the ghost of the old Roman empire still lingers amid the ruins of baths and amphitheatres. At the Luxembourg I saw the workmen beginning to dismantle the fortifications, which are one of the wonders of the world. It is worth recording that during this long journey I never had cause to complain of any overcharge till I came to Constance. The hotel-keeper was a Frenchman, and a Frenchman can cheat a guest with a dash of his pen, irrespective of conscience or consequences. The landlord of ' The Pike,' like that voracious fish, 394 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. lurketh in secret places and ' ravisheth the poor when he gctteth him into his den.' I expressed a- hope that he was patriotic enough to be collecting the milliards for Bismarck. The only other trouble I had in my travels was from another Frenchman, who sold the tickets at the railway station in Strasburg. He wanted to have an English sovereign for twenty francs, and when I objected he refused the sovereign at any price. It was the first time that I had seen the image and superscription of Queen Yictoria dis- honoui-ed. Fortunately I had time to go to an exchange office. When I returned I told the clerk, before a company of Strasburghers, that it was a good thing they would soon be under Grerman rule, and I hoped that they would make some progress under the administration of Bismarck, so that English travellers might no longer be annoyed with French folly and French perversity. XIY. THE JANSENISTS AKD THE OLD CATHOLIC CHUECH OF UTEECHT. THE recent visit of the Archbishop of Utrecht to the Old Catholics of Bavaria brings to memory a very interesting chapter in ecclesiastical history. It is natural for Protestants to suppose that since the Eeformation the Church of Eome has had no varieties. Certainly it has not wished to have any. Its final ideal is uniformity of opinion, and to accomplish this it inculcates absolute submission to authority in matters of faith. But differences have arisen not only as to doctrines, but even with reference to this submission and the nature of this authority. We wish at present to avoid passing any judgment on the doctrines of Jansen. He revived in the Church of Eome what are sometimes called the doctrines of grace. It has been the misfortune of theology to get encumbered with words and phrases that require elaborate explanations. Grace and faith seem very simple words in the New Testament, and doubtless they are very simple to many ordinary Clnistians, but 396 C0NTE3IP0RARr ESSAYS. iu controversial divinity they are very complex. The controversy between the Jansenists and the Jesuits was in substance the same as that among Protestants under the names of Calvinists and Arminians. And both of these were but renewals of the old warfare between Augustine and Pelagius. When Luther began to preach justification by faith, he did not suppose that he was preaching any new doctrine. He found it in Fathers and Schoolmen. It had been approved by Popes and Councils. But the question was easily raised, if Luther meant the same thing as they did by the same words. We do not know that Luther ever satisfactorily answered this question. We do not know if his explanation of justification by faith be capable of defence in all its theological relations. But practically he had got hold of a doctrine which moved the world. Its real meaning was actual inward religion. The error he had to combat was not peculiar to the Chui'ch of Rome. It was the old error of the Jews, who ex- pected to be saved by the ceremonial law, while their hands were full of wickedness. It was the same error which made Italian banditti the strictest ob- servers of the injunctions of the Church. It is a very natural error, and very common in some measui-e to all men. It puts mere religion in the place of right- eousness. It makes men suppose that the moral law may be violated, and atonement made by some external religious duties. Luther said no. Religion to be real must be inward. St. Paul said the same to the Jews in his day. So did Isaiah and all the prophets. They made righteousness more acceptable to God than THE JANSENISrS. 397 sacrifice, and a contrite heart of more value than rivers of oil. After the Eeformation there were still two parties in the Church of Rome, who differed about the theo- logical doctrine of justification by faith. One party said that the surest way to check the spread of Luther- anism was to preach the doctrines of the Church, which were those of St. Augustine. But the siDirit of opposition has always been a malignant spiiit. Luther had taught justification by faith, and there- fore the Clnu'ch of Rome must now declare for justi- fication by works. At the Council of Trent the Jesuits determined to condemn Luther's doctrine without mitigation or modification. The Archbishop of Sienna and some other bishops maintained that justification was solely due to the merits of Christ through faith. Cardinal Pole entreated the Council not to condemn a doctrine merely because it was held by Luther. But the Jesuits were immovable. They were able to pass decrees with anathemas, declaring that man was justified by works, and not by faith alone. The minority had recourse to explanations. They ex- plained the decrees of Trent so as to agree with Augustine, and by the same arguments they could have made them agree with Luther and Calvin. The Jesuits continued to go still further from justification by faith alone. Molina said that free-will, without the aid of grace, could produce good works, and that it was not till free-will produced faith, love, and re- pentance that grace was bestowed. The Dominicans opposed the Jesuits. An appeal was made to Rome to have the dispute settled. Pope Clement VIII. 398 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. agreed Avitli the Dominicans, bnt he postponed his decision, as the Jesuits were the best friends of the Papacy. Under the next Pope, Paul Y., it was decided that the Jesuits should be condemned, and when the ' proper time ' came the decision was to be published. The ' proper time,' however, has not yet come. Cornelius Jansen, or, as we would say in English, Johnson, was born at Leerdam, in Holland. He studied at the universities of Utrecht and Louvain. His health was feeble, but his devotion to study was unceasing. At Louvain he met Jean Baptiste du Yergier Hauranne, afterwards known as St. C^yran. They met again at Paris, and for six years they liA^ed together at M. de Haia-anne's house in Bayonne. Jansen undertook the mastership of the new college at Bayonne, and his friend was chosen a canon of the cathedral. Theii' chief studies for these years were the writings of the Fathers, and esj)ecially of St. Augustine. In 1617 Jansen returned to Paris, and soon after to Louvain, where he was made dii-ector of the College of St. Pulcheria. In Louvain he was successful in preventing the Jesuits from establishing professorships in the university. His great learning was soon known thi'oughout Eiu'ope. Yarious bishop- rics were designed for him. But he had powerful enemies in Cardinal Eichelieu and the Jesuits. He was made Chancellor of the University, and in 1636 was consecrated Bishop of Ypres. The French Chiu'ch at this time had but few bishops like Jansen. Out of the twenty - four hours he slept only four, and that frequently in the same chair in which he read and THE JAIVSENISTS. 399 wrote. He was never weary in serving the poor. He began a great reformation in his diocese ; bnt he had not been long bishop when the plague broke out in Flanders. The inhabitants fled in every direction ; but Jansen fulfilled his ofiice, standing continually by the sick and the dying, dressing their wounds, giving them food and medicine, and administering the last consolations of religion. But the dire contagion did not spare the devoted bishop. He died in 1638, before he had presided two full years over the see of Ypres. Jansen died in the faith of the Catholic Chiu'ch as he understood it. More than this, he was willing to accept as the Catholic faith whatever was decreed to be so by the Eoman See. He left ready for publica- tion a work called ' Augustinus,' on which he had spent twenty years. With his dying hand he wrote to Pope Urban YIII., submitting the important work to his judgment, and requesting the Pontifl" to alter or rescind any part of it which did not meet his approba- tion. To the same efi'ect, he wrote in his will that he was an obedient son of the Chiu'ch, and if the Eoman see wished an}i:hing in his book to be altered, it would be altered. The letter to the Poj^e was sup- pressed by Jansen' s executors. Fearing the procrasti- nation of the Eoman Court and the wiles of the Jesuits, they determined to have the work published at once. In 1640 it appeared at Louvain, and in 1642, it was condemned in a Bull by Pope Urban. The Coiu't of Eome, it is said, decided to condemn ' Augustinus ' because of a passage in which Augustine was quoted as authorising a point already condemned 400 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. at Eome. The Jesuits, however, were not content. Jansen was an old enemy, and they must make the most of theu' victory. They proclaimed him a heresi- arch, and seventeen years after his death, the in- scription over his tombstone was defaced, the tomb demolished, and the body of the sainted bishop removed from the Cathedral. This had been done secretly, but by permission of his successor in the see of Ypres. As Protestants, we might suppose that when the Papal Bull came, the matter was ended. But it re- quires a long time to understand the casuistry of the Eoman Catholic Church. There are Catholics who believe that they are not obliged to receive a Bull, and there are so many senses in which a Bull may be received, that only those skilled in the Canon law can form a judgment of what a Bull really means. The strife went on till all France was troubled. An appeal was again made to Eome. Father C/ornet drew up five propositions, which he said were taken from Jansen's work. These j)i*opositions were condemned by Innocent X. as heretical, false, rash, impious, and blasphemous. The subject of them was grace and merit. They were expressed in such language as would be used by an extreme or unguarded Calvinist. When the Jansenists were called upon to agree to the condemnation of the five propositions, they did so at once, but with the qualification that they did it only in theii- heretical sense, denying that the propositions were in Jansen. Meantime, the Jan- senists, who had become very learned in antiquity, published anonymously an Epistle of St. Prosper to THE /ANSENISTS. 401 Buffinus. The Jesuits immediately condemned it as a new piece of Jansenist heresy. When it was known to be the work of a disciple of the great Augustine, it was soon discoA^ered that it might be taken in an orthodox sense. The Jesuits were not to be beaten. They appealed to Eome again, to determine if the five propositions were really in Jansen's work. The Pope, extending his infallibility to matters of fact, decreed that they were. The Jansenists showed, from the highest authorities of the Church, that the Pope's infallibility did not reach to matters of fact. But this availed nothing. All were heretics who denied that the five propositions were in Jansen. In 1620, three years after Jansen left Paris, M. de Hauranne was appointed Abbe of St. Cyran. To the earnest study of the Fathers, he added that of the Holy Scriptures, in which he found all truth. The Church, he said, is founded on the Scriptures, and by them God converts Jews and Gentiles. At Paris, he earned a great reputation for sanctity and learning. Cardinal Pichelieu introduced him at Court as the most learned man in Europe. He was ofi'ered eight bishoprics in succession, but he sought seclusion. He retired to a Carthusian convent to spend his days in prayer and study, never appearing in the streets except on errands of piety and mercy. But his influence was not lost. It reached many persons of high rank in Paris who had been notorious for vice and profligacy, but who became sincere Christians. He insisted on the necessity of real repentance, and not a mere abstinence from outward sins. The Jesuits regarded this as a heresy. He was also charged with D jD 402 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. denying that a priest can absolve from sin. He was finally accused of Jansenism, and immured as a heretic in the dungeon of Yincennes. Here, for a time, he was deprived of his books, and of pen and paper. His friends were not allowed to visit him. It is said that .John de Wert, the Spanish General, was invited by Cardinal Eichelieu to a magnificent ballet at his resi- dence in Paris. Next day, the Cardinal asked the General what he considered the most marvellous spectacle he had ever seen. De Wert answered, ' that of all wonders he had ever seen, none had so much astonished him as to see, in the dominions of his very Christian Majesty, bishops amusing them- selves at theatres, whilst saints languished in prison.' St. Cyran was released after five years' confinement, but his health was broken by the hardships he had endured in a damp cell. He had to undergo a surgical operation, and he was soon after seized with apoplexy. His sufferings were great, but he bore them patiently. ' What the Lord has permitted,' he said, ' we must receive with the same submission as what He has appointed.' He died in 1643, and was buried in the church of St. Jaques du Haut Pas, amid a great concourse of people, who revered him as a saint. But the propaganda of Jansenism was the celebrated Abbey of Port Eoyal. It was situated in a wooded valley, near Chevreuse, about six leagues from Paris, and within view of St. Lambert and Yaumurier. It was founded in 1204, by Mathilde de Garlande, wife of the Lord of Marli, a younger son of the house of Montmorency. Whatever convents may have been at THE JANSENISTS. 403 their fii-st institution, there is no controversy as to what they were in the sixteenth century. Self- indulgence had taken the place of self-denial, and the spirit of 'the world, the flesh, and the devil,' from which they were intended as a refuge, had made them its chief abode. In 1602 Marie Angelique Amauld was appointed abbess. Marie was a very young abbess, for she had not yet completed her eleventh year. The authorities who had the appointment certified to the Pope that she was seventeen. Catholics in that day, it would seem, made no scruple to impose on the ' Holy Father,' and the Pontiff had not yet declared his infallibility as to matters of fact. The nuns were delighted to have their little sister made abbess, for now they could do as they liked. This license, however, was of short dura- tion. When Marie was seventeen the monastery was visited by a Capuchin friar. This man afterwards became a Protestant, and it is said that he had already resolved on this step. He preached in the church, and the abbess was deeply moved by his words. This was followed by an illness which lasted for some months. Henceforth she began a new life. Mere Angelique, as she was called, immediately set about a reformation in the convent. She refused to admit within the walls even her own father and mother. In a few years the monastery became, what at first it was intended to be, a house of piety, charity, and industry. It was soon evident that the Mfere Angelique was no ordinary woman. Other abbesses came to consult her about the reformation of their convents. The members of Port Eoyal became so numerous that it was necessary to D D 2 404 CONTEMPORARY ESSAFS. open another house in Pans. To this the nuns migrated in 1625. The Mere Angelique had six sisters, who were all nuns of Port Eoyal. She had also three brothers in eminent positions in the world. The eldest, Arnauld d'Andilly, was commissary-general to the army ; another was Bishop of Angers ; and the third was the great Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne and champion of the Jansenists. She had introduced to her brothers her friend St. Francis de Sales, and after his death her eldest brother introduced her to St. Cyran, who became henceforth the spiritual director of Port Eoyal. The men who came under St. Cjrran's influence retired as recluses to the Convent des Champs, where they devoted themselves to study and the education of youth. Among these recluses were Pascal and Arnauld, Le Maitre and Nicole, Lancelot, De Sacy and Fontaine. The names also of Tillemont and Eacine are asso- ciated with the seclusion of Port Eoyal. This powerful abbey was extending its ioiiuence over all France. It had now groAvn rich in temporal goods as well as in the moral and spiritual wealth of its members. It educated the children of the nobility. It provided schools for the poor. It distributed the Holy Scriptures, and it employed physicians to heal the sick. But the sting of all was that from within these walls came forth the terrible ' Provincial Letters ' of Blaise Pascal. The Jesuits had no resource but to take ven- geance by physical force. While the matter of the Pope's infallibillity in matters of fact was imder dis- cussion the Duke of Lioncourt was refused absolution by a priest of St. Sulpice if he did not remove his THE JANSENISTS. 405 grand-daughter from the school of Port Eoyal. Arnauld wrote two letters in defence of the Jansenists. The propositions extracted from these letters were con- demned by the theological faculty of Paris, and Arnauld was excluded from the Sorbonne. With the condemnation of the Jansenists came the greatest trials of Port Eoyal. In 1660 the Archbishop of Toulouse prepared a formulary which declared that the five propositions were in Jansen as the Pope had decreed, and that they were not the doctrine of Augus- tine. This formulary was to be subscribed not only by the clergy, but by all schoolmasters, and all mem- bers of religious houses, even by nuns. The Jansenists unanimously refused to subscribe. The novices and scholars were immediately expelled. The directors and confessors were banished. Both houses were visjted by a troop of horse under the direction of the lieutenant of police, and such of the recluses as were able fled for their lives. The Mere Angelique had now reached threescore and ten, and had braved a per- secution of five -and- twenty years. She had spent the winter at Port Eoyal des Champs in feeble health, suffering from age and infirmity. But old and afflicted as she was, she judged that when the hour of trial came her presence would be most required at Port Eoyal de Paris. Before her departui'e she assembled the whole community of Port Eoyal des Champs. She exhorted them to be constant, instructed them how to act in the approaching crisis, charged them to be faithful to the end, and with a steadfast tenderness she took her final leave, telling them that they would see her face no more. As her brother Arnauld d'Andilly 4o6 CONTEMPORA RY ESS A YS. helped her into the carriage she said, ' Farewell, brother,' ' be of good cheer.' D'Andilly answered, ' Never fear, sister, my courage is perfectly firm and undismayed.' She replied, ' My dear brother, let us be humble, let us remember that if humility without constancy is vilely casting away the impenetrable shield of faith, that courage without deep self-distrust is that ungodly presumption and pride which cometh before a fall.' She reached Paris in time to see the scholars and the novices dispersed. A few weeks later she was on her death-bed, surrounded by her weeping nuns. With many pious words she exhorted them to be steadfast, calmly telling them that her earthly work was done, and that eternity was at hand. The Bastille was soon filled with Jansenists. Four bishops, who refused to subscribe the formulary of the Archbishop of Toulouse, were condemned by, a Papal brief, sent forth by Alexander YII. when he lay on his death-bed. The next Pope, Clement IX. ^ made peace with the Jansenists. He was satisfied with the subscription, which simply declared that the five propositions were heretical, without reference to their being either in Jansen or Augustine. For a time persecution ceased ; Jansenists were not con- sidered heretics by the authorities of the Church. The schools of Port Eoyal again flourished, and the Scriptiu'es were busily circulated in France. This continued from 1668 to 1679. In the last j^ear the Duchess of Longueville died. She had protected Port Eoyal from the displeasure of the King. In the same year Pope Innocent XL condemned sixty-four propositions in the authoritative writings of the THE JANSENISTS, 407 Jesuits. In the examination of these writings great use had been made of what had been written against them by Arnauld and Nicole. The Jesuits retaliated by procuring an order from the King that the recluses should quit the valley of Port Royal at once and for ever. The nuns were forbidden to receive scholars or novices. The Jansenists were scattered. The Edict of Nantes, which gave liberty to Protestants, was revoked. Fenelon was banished. The power of the Pope was restrained, and the Jesuits ruled France. Quesnel's ' Eefiexions Morales ' was condemned. De Naoilles, when Bishop of Chalons, had recommended this book to his clergy, but, as Archbishop of Paris and servant of the King and the Jesuits, he wrote its condemnation. In 1707 Clement XL issued another Bull against the Jansenists. The nuns refused to receive it, and in 1708 a Bull came for the entire suppression of the convent. The Abbess was kept in confinement at Blois, where she died, after six years' captivity. The Bishop of Blois refused her the last sacrament, unless she would renounce the doctrines of Jansen. She replied that she had made her peace through the blood of the cross, and besought the Bishop, with many tears, to give her the last office of the Church. He reviled her for a heretic; and she, at length taking courage, and wiping away her tears, answered, 'Well, my lord, I am content to bear with resignation what- ever deprivation my God sees meet. I am convinced that His divine grace can supply even the want of sacraments.' In 1709 the cloister of Port Royal was destroyed. 4-08 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. In 1711 the bodies were cast out of the buiying- grouncl. In 1713 the church was razed to the ground, and the site of the centre buiklings was ploughed as a field, that no stone might be left to mark the place where they stood. The Archbishop of Paris, who had issued the decree, went to see it executed, and as the walls were thrown down he exclaimed, * 0 God, these dismantled stones shall rise against me in the day of judgment.' The rest of the nuns were imprisoned in other monasteries, and treated as heretics. Quesnel and the leading Jansenists fled to Holland. Their doc- trines were so well received that by the end of the seventeenth centmy the Eoman Catholics of Holland were generally reckoned Jansenists. Under a Pro- testant Grovernment the Jesuits could not raise a persecution. Their only chance was to bring the bishops of Holland into collision with the Pope, and so get the Eoman Catholics of Holland immediately under the government of the Eoman Curia. It was tliis scheme which has brought the Church of Utrecht into its present j^osition. The see of Utrecht was foimded in 696 by Willibrord, an English missionary. The bishop was a suffragan of the Archbishop of Cologne. At the Eeformation it was found that Protestantism made most progress where the dioceses were large. For this reason Pope Paul IV. created Utrecht an archbishopric, with four sufli'agans. After the seven imited provinces threw off the yoke of Spain, the Archbishops of Utrecht, under other names, exercised their authority over the Eoman Catholics of Holland ; but the suffragans ceased to be appointed. THE JANSENISTS. 409 The Jesuits wished to be iudependent of the arch- bishops. They said that they were direct missionaries fi'om the Pope, and under the government of the general of their order. During the episcopate of M. de ^Neercassel the Jansenists came into Holland. Arnauld, after his expulsion from the Sorbonne, found a refuge in the diocese of Utrecht. This arch- bishop died in 1686. The chapter of Utrecht, with that of Haarlem, appointed as his successor M. Van Heussen. But the appointment was not confirmed at Eome. The Jesuits wished an archbishop of their own choosing. The chapters reassembled, and for- warded to the Pope the names of three others. The Pope chose M. Codde, who was consecrated with the title of Archbishop of Sebaste. He was foimd to favour the Jansenists; but as he could not be con- demned without a trial, he was invited to Eome. When there he was treated with great tenderness, and kept in confinement for three years, till his case could be investigated in a friendly way. In the meantime the Pope appointed Theodore de Cock Yicar Apostolic in Holland. But Archbishop Codde made his escape from Eome, and returned to his diocese. The scheme succeeded. Diu'ing these three years the Jesuits had made a party who were opposed to the Jansenist prelates. Archbishop Codde, supposing that he personally was the object of the Jesuits' hatred, retired from the archbishopric, allowing the chapters to govern the see by vicars-apostolic. But the Papal nimcio at Cologne claimed that he had a commission from the Pope to govern Utrecht. Arch- bishop Codde died in 171<>. The chapters continued 410 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to appoint vicars-apostolic. In 1719, failing to be heard at Eome, they appealed to the next General Council that should be held. In 1721 they wrote to Innocent XIII., requesting that no difficulties might be thi'own in the way of their choosing an archbishop. They received no answer. They wi'ote again in 1722, but still received no answer. In 1723 they elected as their archbishop Cornelius Steenhoven. They applied to the Pope for confirmation ; but their letters were unnoticed. They sent a circular letter to all the neighbouring bishops, on whom the responsibility of consecration devolved, in accordance with the ancient canons. At the same time the internuncio at Brussels issued an inhibition absolutely forbid- ding the neighbouring bishops to take part in the consecration. There was but one resource left. Do- minic Yarlet, Bishop of Babylon, in partihus., who had been deposed for Jansenism, had taken refuge in Holland. In 1724 Yarlet consecrated Steenhoven. A notification was sent to the Pope, which his Holiness answered by anathemas and briefs of ex- communication. Steenhoven died next year, and was succeeded by Archbishop Barchman, who was also consecrated by the Bishop of Babylon. A brief of condemnation was the only notice received from Rome. The Archbishop and his consecrator, with the clergy of Utrecht, appealed against the Bull Unigenitiis by which Quesnel had been condemned. Barchman was succeeded by Van der Coon, and in 1739 Archbishop Meinwaarts was consecrated also by the Bishop of Babylon. He restored two of the suffragan sees, Haarlem and De^ eneter. By means THE J A NSENISTS. 4 1 1 of the bishops of these sees the succession has been preserved. The consecrations have always been fol- lowed by Paj)al excommunications. Dr. Tregelles* gives an interesting account of an interview which he had in 1850 with Yan Santen, Archbishop of the Old Catholics of Holland. The Archbishop told him that they did not acknowledge the name of Jansenist, but they did not consider that it implies any reproach. They regard themselves as hold- ing the doctrines of the Catholic Chui'ch as set forth in the writings of St. Augustine, and which the Chui-ch of Rome once maintained in opposition to Pelagian and semi-Pelagian errors. The whole of the Arch- bishop's conversation savoured of the theology of Calvin. Grace, efficacious grace, were his favoui'ite words. By this he said the glory of salvation belongs to God only. He gave an account of an effort which the Pope had made in 1827 to get the Old Catholics of Holland to subscribe the formulary which declares the five propositions to be in Jansen, and to receive the Bull Unigenitus. Cappucini, the Paj)al nuncio, invited the Ai-chbishop to a conference, and explained how he might subscribe the formulary as a mere form. The Archbishop answered that he had more than once read the ' Augustinus.' He was convinced that the five propositions were not there, and he could not subscribe what he knew to be false. ' The Pope, and the whole Church,' he added, 'cannot alter a matter of fact.' 'But,' said the nuncio, 'a child is bound to believe his parent. If a parent says that a piece of green cloth is red, the child has no right * "The Jansenists," by S. P. Tregelles, LL.D. 412 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. to believe his own eyes.' The uuiicio iuciilcated the duty of implicit obedience to the ' Holy Father,' and the Archbishop used his own judgment. Thus the Church of Utrecht continues holding fast, as it says, to the unity of the Catholic Church, till the Pope is brought to reason. It is an odd unity certainly. But their plea is that for whatever disunion exists the Papal Court is responsible. The Archbishop told Pr. Tregelles that he did not believe there would be a really united Christian Church till the coming of Elijah and the conversion of the Jews as a nation. Then Jesus Chi-ist would be glorified on the earthy and reign on the tlirone of His father David. There is much in the Church of Utrecht to interest all Protestants. At the present time it is brought into prominent notice thi'ough its possession of Epis- copal order. To some persons this is the part of least importance. But in estimating movements among Eoman Catholics we must try to look at them from their stand-point as well as from our own. The Old Catholics of Bavaria believe in the necessity of Epis- copal offices. It is not to be expected that they can all at once change their views on every point. But there are symptoms, both in Bavaria and Utrecht, that mere Episcopacy is regarded as a very sub- ordinate matter. Bollinger's sympathies ostensibly are with English High Chui'chmen, Irvingites, and other hierarchical sects, but in reality his views are wider and deeper. It is not too much to hope that after renouncing Papal infallibility the Old Catholics will see the futility of trying to establish Christianity on the aiithoritv of a visible Catholic Chiux'h. XV. THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGEESS. THE Old Catholic movement was of sufficient interest to induce me this year to postpone my annual holiday till September. The second Congress was appointed to be held in the ancient city of Cologne. I was there in the beginning of the month, and was able to spend a fortnight in the Ehine district before the time of the Congress. This fortnight was chiefly employed in conversing with different classes of people about the prospects of the movement. I found it everywhere the chief subject of interest. The Protestants were watching it care- fully, not at all sanguine of its success, and rather doubtful what judgment they should pass upon it. The Ultramontane Catholics confidently predicted its speedy annihilation. But the Old Catholics, many of whom I met accidentally in hotels and other places, were enthusiastic in their work, and spoke of their victory as certain. In the beginning of the week in which the Con- gress was to be held I returned to Bonn. I had a 414 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. card of introduction to Professor Knoodt, which I presented on the Tuesday morning. The servant told me that the Professor was in conference with several gentlemen who had come to attend the Con- gress. Fearing any intrusion, I sent in the cards, saying that I would call again when it would be convenient for the Professor to see me. I had not waited a second when a door opened. The Professor embraced me with both hands, and reading my name from the card introduced me to the company as ' An Anglican Clergyman from London.' All present rose to their feet to receive me. It was a few seconds before I learned all their names, and I waited a minute to breathe before I could realise the fact that I was in the presence of the chief leaders of the Old Catholic movement. At one end of the table sat Professor Von Shulte, and at the other Professor Eheinkens. Beside Shulte was Professor Michelis, of Braunsberg, with Professors Eensch and Langen, of Bomi. On one side of Eheinkens was Professor Huber, from Munich, and on the other side Professor Maasen, from Prague, and the Abbe Michaud, late Yicar of the Madeleine in Paris. We had a second meeting in the afternoon, when we were joined by the Eussian deputation, which consisted of the High Priest, Johann Jany- schew, from St. Petersburg, and Alexander Kirejew, Aide -de -Camp to the Grand Duke Constantine. Janyschew is also Director of the Academy in St. Petersburg, and has some reputation as a meta- physician. He spoke several times at the different meetings during the Congress, and always with great wisdom and earnestness. Kirejew, though a military THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 415 man, takes a great interest in all religious matters, and is Secretary of an important Society called ' The Society of the Friends of Eeligious Enlightenment ' (Geistliaher Anfhlarung). Dm-ing the sitting Pro- fessor Friedrich arrived from Munich, accompanied by Pastor Kiihn, from the Eheinfalls. Soon after a telegram was received that the Bishop of Lincoln would arrive at Bonn by the ten o'clock train next morning. The conversations at these preparatory meetings were all of course private. They revealed what, however, was sufficiently manifest at the public assemblies, that there are great varieties of opinion among the Old Catholic leaders. It had been agreed that we should all meet the Bishop of Lincoln at the railway station on his arrival at Bonn. I was there perhaps the first. But soon after, I found Dr. DoUinger, who had arrived the night before, taking a solitary walk under the chestnut trees that adjoin the station. He looked much older than when I saw him last year in Munich, and his strength is evidently not what it was. On returning towards the station we met Friedrich, and by ten o'clock a considerable company had gathered on the platform. We received the Bishop with all the respect which is due to his office, and he received us with all the amiable courtesy which marks his character. The meetings at Professor Knoodt's house on the second day took a different turn fi'om those of the first day ; the German language gave place to the French, and the chief speakers -were the Bishop and Dr. Dollinger, with an occasional address from Von Shulte. There was an interesting conversation between Dr. Dollinger 416 CONTEMPORARV ESSAYS. and Dr. Wordsworth, on the nature of the Sacrament of the Supper. This arose out of an announcement that part of the proceedings at Cologne was to be a holy mass in St. Pantaleon's Church. It is not re- vealing any secret to say that the Bishop took a clear and decidedly Protestant view, such as became a digni- tary of the Reformed Church of England. Another change which the Bishop introduced, was, to begin the meeting with prayer for the divine guidance. Of his exhortations, I «nay have occasion to speak again. They all turned on the Catholicity of the English Church, and the necessity of adhering to the doctrine and discipline of the first ages of Chi'istianity, as the Church of England had ever done. At the close of this conference, he distributed copies of our Prayer- Book in the German language, begging that the members of the Congress might read them, and see for themselves that our doctrine and discipline were Apostolic, Primitive, and Catholic. Before the after- noon sitting, a Professor came to me with a Prayer- Book in his hand. 'I will give you,' he said, 'my opinion. Your Prayer-Book consists of three parts. It is part Catholic, part Lutheran, and part Calvin- istic. The prayers are from the old Catholic Church ; the doctrine of the Eucharist (Ai-ticles XXVIII. and XXIX.) is Lutheran, and the other doctrines (Articles IX. to XVIIL), are fi'om John Calvin.' Another Professor read over Articles XXVIII. and XXIX. ' That,' he said, ' is not Luther's doctrine ; it is also from Calvin. The whole of these Articles are Calvin- istic' He then quoted passages from Calvin on the Eucharist, which corresponded with the language of THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 417 our Articles. He also quoted passages from Luther, wliicli did not correspond with what the Articles said. With this Professor I quite agreed. I have always maintained that our doctrine of the Eucharist, as well as all our other doctrines, are taken, not from Luther, but from Calvin. Our next meeting was in Cologne, on the Thui's- day evening, in the Wiener Ilof. The object of this meeting was to welcome the guests. The most pro- minent of these were, the Archbishop of Utrecht, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Bishop of Ely, the Bishop of Maryland, and the Dean of Westminster, with the re- presentatives of the Bussian Church. Pere Hyacinthe was also present, but he did not speak at any of the meetings. His recent marriage has put him a step beyond the most advanced leaders of the Old Catholic movement. The President was the Chief Councillor Wiilffing, who spoke of the great progress the move- ment had made since last year. All the bishops made speeches, and an American clergyman, long resident in Florence, brought salutations fi'om many Italian Catholics, who were prevented attending the Congress by political circumstances. In the early morning of Friday, I was present at a mass in the Council House Chapel, which has been given to the Old Catholics by the Burgomeister of Cologne. The officiating priest was Dr. Tangermanu, who also delivered an address suitable to the occasion. By half-past seven, the little chapel was densely crowded, and many were unable to obtain admission. The service was the mass pure and simple, with the bowings, the crossings, the bell-ringings, all without E E 4 1 8 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. change. This was the prelude to the clay's proceedings. Here were assembled for early prayer most of the Old Catholic leaders, and many devout laymen. At nine o'clock, we were in the great hall of the Giirzenich for the first meeting of the delegates. The Giirzenich is an old town building, Avhich has been recently restored, and is generally used for concerts, and other great public meetings. It seemed to be associated in the mind of every inhabitant of Cologne, with the masked balls in the time of the Carnival before Lent. Through the attention of Professor Huber, I was provided with the chief seat at one of the reporters' tables. Pro- fessor Von Shulte was voted to the chair. This choice was unanimous. It was not necessary to see more than I had seen at Bonn, to know that Shulte had won his way to a high place among the leaders of the Old Catholic movement. His calm clear intellect, his readi- ness of speech, and his lawyer-like capacity for business, marked him out at once as the most eligible man to be President of the Congress. Shulte is Professor of Canon Law at Prague, and bears some personal resemblance to Bismarck. The business administration of the Congress was admirable. There was free dis- cussion, but under fixed laws ; and the President showed wonderful capacity in keeping the speakers to the laws, and preventing the introduction of questions for the discussion of which the proper time had not yet come. After a few words from the Archbishop of Utrecht, who seems to be a simiDle-minded, pious man, the Bishop of Lincoln read a Latin oration, several printed copies of which were distributed among the delegates. The scope of it was a justification of the THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 419 English Eeformation on Catholic principles. We kept to primitive doctrine and discipline. We did not make a schism, but the Bishop of Eome thrust us out from communion with him, and we have had to endure a schism. The bishops now in communion with Eome were comiDared to the bishops in the time of the Arians. They are valid bishops, but tainted with heresy. The Old Catholics were exhorted to come out of the Church of Eome, that they 'be not par- takers of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.' This, however, was accompanied with admonitions to caution, and not rashly to invade dioceses already assigned to other bishops. After the Bishop of Lincoln's address. Professor Eeusch entered on an examination of the resolutions which constituted the first part of the programme. These related to the immediate action of the Old Catholics, as a community. Their policy is to make no changes at present, but to maintain their position as Old Catholics, agreeing with the Catholic Church before the Vatican decree of July, 1870. The neces- sity, however, for reform was not ignored, and many of the speakers spoke out with a boldness and a decision that would have delighted the most Protestant heart in England. In the programme itself special mention was made of the necessity of reform in the selling of masses, the abuse of indulgences, the worship of saints, the scapulary, medallions, &c. In the course of the discussions, some other things were mentioned as demanding reformation, as soon as it could be legally effected. Prominent among these was the whole system of confession and the enforced celibacy of the E E 2 420 CONrEMPORARY ESSAYS. clergy. The resolutions, with some unimportant changes, were all agreed to. One of them was the appointing of a committee of canonists and theolo- gians to elect a bishop for the Old Catholic com- munity. The other subjects discussed at the meeting of the delegates, were the re-union of the separated Churches of Christendom, and the rights of the Old Catholics as against the State and the Vatican Church. The first public meeting was on Saturday after- noon, when the speeches were of a more popular character. The immense hall of the Giirzenich was densely crowded. It required but a glance at the bright intelligent faces of the men and the women who constituted that assembly, to see that no small part of the Catholic intellect of Cologne was on the side of the Old Catholics. The Bishop of Ely, in a brief but judicious address, made clear the ground on which the Church of England stood in relation to the movement. We had come to express our sympathy, and as far as in us lay to give our help, but we had not come to dictate or to interfere. This was the tone of the Bishop's speech. He was followed by Professor Huber, a little dark fiery man, whose words ara sharp arrows. Huber recounted the successes which the movement had met since the congress of last year. He spoke thankfully of the expulsion of the Jesuits, whom he regards with the same feelings of distrust and antipathy which we find in an English Dissenter or an Irish Orangeman. This was followed by lusty bravos from the assembly, whose love to the Jesuits was evidently a love that wished THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS, 421 them far away from the German Fatherland. Huber also sj)oke some noble words on the necessity of reform. The infallibility dogma was bnt the starting- point for reformation. It was itself the cnlmination of a false hierarchical principle, the outcome of a corrupt development, that has been at work for more than a thousand years. External authority, he said, has now placed itself in sharp opposition to conscience and thought. The words of Jesus were spirit and life, but for these the Church of Rome has substituted a mechanical hierarchy and the reign of death. Pro- fessor Knoodt followed. The Pope, he said, decreed infallibility and the Council gave their consent. The only argument the Pope could use was, ' I say I am infallible — therefore I am infallible.' The Professor believed that God's Spirit guided the Church, but that Spii'it only heljDed those who helped themselves. Divine guidance was not given to men who disregard written revelation, who despise reason, and wage war with the mental and moral progress of the human race. In the Arabian Gospel there is a passage where Jesus says that He could heal the sick and raise the dead, but one thing He could not do. He could not put brains into a fool's head. Professor Michelis spoke of the influence of scholastic philosophy which was still in the way of progress. Thomas Aquinas as well as the Jesuits must be banished from the Catholic Church in Germany. Scholasticism took shelter under the great name of Aristotle, but it was really built on a very incorrect Arabian translation of Aristotle's philosophy. Michelis, perhaps the most ardent apostle of the cause, is a man of prodigious 422 COISTEMPORARY ESSAYS. physical strength, and when he speaks it is with the ardour and vehemence of a Demosthenes. The Sunday was a strange Sunday for an English- man, not to say an English clergyman, but there were circumstances which authorised a departure from English customs. It was part of the arrangements of the English bishops to have daily services in the Temple House, and not to attend the religious services of the Old Catholics. It would justly have been a scandal for an English bishop, under any cir- cumstances, to have been present at the celebration of a mass. The day began well. Of its ending I shall have to speak again. At half-past seven, we had an early communion in the side chapel of the church of St. Pantaleon. Here in the early morning many English laymen of different classes, clergymen of all ranks and representatives of all parties, had assembled in a Catholic chapel to celebrate the English com- munion. At that moment our own differences seemed forgotten and an important step taken towards union with those who are not visibly one with us. This service was scarcely concluded, when the people were streaming into the chitrch of St. Pan- taleon for the nine o'clock mass, which was part of the programme of the Congress. It was calculated that not less than three thousand peoj)le were present at this service. The mass was musical, the grand C major bass of Beethoven was exquisitely performed by an accom- plished choir. The sermon was preached by Dr. Tangermann, the Old Catholic pastor of Cologne. Tangermann is a priest of whom any Church might be proud ; calm, thoughtful, poetical, and in the pulpit a THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. ^23 tongue of fire. Under the name of Victor Granella, he has j)ublished a small volume of patriotic songs,* full of love for Fatherland and hatred for the Italian usui'pation over the German Church. In one of these poems, on the Vatican Council, he expresses in epigrammatic words the different tone of the Ultra- montane and the German intellect. While the German meditates a calm solution of the difficult problems of our time, the Vatican, despising all past experience, solves them by enforcing a new dogma. An anathema is sufficient to overcome all difficulties, but, alas ! the poet says, the problems remain where they were. Tangermann was formerly Pfarrer of Unkel, a small parish in the neighbourhood of Bingen. He refused submission, and was excommunicated by the Arch- bishoj) of Cologne. In two sermons which he preached in the church of Unkel, on ' Peter and Paul,' he sets aside the external hierarchy as not of the essence of the Church, which is built, not on Peter, but on the truth which Peter confessed. The same doctrine runs through some other sermons and pamjDhlets, where the Church is defined, not as the bishojDS and priests, but the faithful people. It is the living kingdom of God in the hearts of men. To this kingdom the Eoman hierarchy is now opposed, and is striving to substitute darkness for light. The sermon on Sunday morning was on the essential living essence of the Clmstian religion, and the war now being waged in its defence on the banks of the Ehine. With the eloquent ardour of a Christian patriot, the preacher prayed for the divine blessing on the Protes- * ' Patriolisehe Liudcr und Zeitgedichte.' Cohen and Son, Bonn- 42+ CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. tant rulers of Germany, and for divine strength and guidance in the present warfare against ignorance and superstition. The second public meeting was also in the Great Hall of the Giirzenich, on Sunday afternoon at five o'clock. An hour before the time the people were pouring into the building, which was, if possible, even more densely crowded than on the day before. The chief sjDcakers were Professors Friedrich, Maasen, Eeinkens, and Von Shulte. Friedrich is the youngest of all the leaders. He has not seen more than six and thirty summers. But, as he said in his speech, though still young, he has lived much, perhaps too much. As theologian to Cardinal Hohenlohe, he attended the Vatican Council. He is an eminent scholar, and has written several important works in theology and history. In an outburst of enthusiasm he thanked God that his lot was cast in these days, when the empire was being restored and the C-hurch reformed. Friedrich is a universal favourite. This is visible in the very way in which everybody mentions his name, in the way that others cluster round him wherever he is seen, and in the rapturous salutations which he receives when he rises to speak. There is a softness in his features and a vivacity in his countenance which recall the portraits of Schiller. He said many things which indicated that he is prepared to go very far in the way of reform. The necessity for this did not begin with the Vatican decree. It was older by many centuries. We contend, Friedi'ich said, not merely against Papal infallibility, but against the whole Papal system, against the errors that have been accu- THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 425 miilating for a thousand years. We come back to the ground on which our Lord and Master stood. We do not want so many things interposed between us and Christ. He spoke of the Old Catholic movement as having already made greater progress than the Ee- formation did in the same time. He advocated the abolition of the Confessional and the Eeligious Orders, with the ultimate, but not immediate, removal of celi- bacy, and he wished to have the service of God in the language of the people. Professor Maasen is a cautious but sure reformer. Like Shulte he has a lawyer's brain, and steadfastly insists on first securing the civil rights of the Old Catholics. When this is done he believes that many of the other priests will join them. The Vatican Church, he said, is not the true Church. Christ's Church is not constituted by Popes and Bishops and Clergy, but by the true doctrine of Jesus Chi'ist. The great speech of the evening was that of Pro- fessor Eeinkens, from Breslau. Eeinkens is a tower of strength to the Old Catholic cause. His views are fixed and clear. He is a ready and fluent speaker, mingling with his speech a continual stream of good- natured sarcasm. He is genial and humorous, with a benignant smile perpetually on his face. The Old Catholic movement he compared to a river. The fountain is opened by conscience. Its content is faith in the light of eternal truth, its moving power is moral freedom and reason. This is a German way of speaking which must not frighten us. I^Tone of the Old Catholic leaders has declared more clearly than Professor Eeinkens that Cliiist's gospel is a power in 42 6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the hearts of men, that the Church is not an outward kingdom, not a visible hierarchy, but that it consists of those who are called to eternal life. In this speech he enumerated the hindrances which prevent the kingdom of God coming into the hearts of the Catholic millions. They look for it in some visible authority, but Christ says it is ' within you.' They are told to hear mass, to receive sacraments, to pay according to order, to keep fasts, to believe miracles, and then they will be justified. In Chi'istianity, religion is a life, but with the multitude of Catholics it is a mere performance of prescribed ceremonies. Eeligion is measured by the number of prayers repeated. Christ made the highest commandment, love to God and our neighbour, but the Ultramontane Church makes it the highest act of faith to think as the Pope thinks. Another hindrance is the power of the priests over women in the confes- sional. Thousands of upright women, who regard the priest as standing in the place of God, obey him in every- thing, and thereby break the peace of their families. A third hindi-ance is the difficulty of providing for the priests who leave the Vatican Church. A fourth is indifference to truth. The Church is fruitful in dogmas. It has so many that all the bishops in Germany could not tell how many there are. The Bishop of Breslau complained to the s^Deaker that at Eome he had placed before him a whole volume of scholastic formulas to be received as dogmas. The Pope is the interpreter of Scripture. The Pope is tradition. Whether or not he agrees with the Fathers is altogether unimportant. Another great hindrance is the conduct of the opposition bishops. They had THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 427 declared in their dioceses that the new dogma was the destruction of souls, and now they enforce it as necessary for eternal salvation. I almost tremble to record how the Sunday even- ing was spent. The public meeting ended about nine o'clock, when two hundi'ed of the delegates adjourned to a casiuo for a banquet. I was the only Englishman present, and I waited to see the last of it. Anything more incompatible with English ideas of Sunday it is impossible to conceive. Toasts were di'unk and glasses rattled against glasses while two hundred strong-lunged Germans shouted iu chorus, '• Hoch, hoch, hurra ! ' for Bismarck, for Dollinger, for Shulte, and others in succession. I should probably not have attended this banquet but for some Crefeld merchants whom I met at my hotel. When I returned to the tahle cVliHe after the English service, I found a great company of about fifty persons making the usual obstreperous commotion which the Germans think a necessary accompaniment to a comfortable dinner. I soon discovered that they were delegates to the Congress. I had been seen in the Giirzenich and our friendship was immediate. They asked how I was to spend the evening after the meeting was over. There was, they said, something very good at the theatre, would I be one of a party to go there ? I told them that in England we did not go to theatres on Sunday. I expressed my inability to understand how men who in the morning had been to such a solemn religious service as they regarded the mass to be, could find pleasure in the theatre on the evening of the same day. The impressions produced iu the church 4 28 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. would in my judgment be effaced by the excitement of the theatre. The men laughed at my idea as if I had said something singular. Their wives, however, seemed to feel that there was some truth in what I said. 'You are right, Herr Pastor,' cried one lady from the other side of the room. ' You are right. We have far too much noise on Sunday, too much theatre going, and too much public-house going, but our priests have not taught us any better.' I said that I had conversed with many of the priests on that subject, and though they did not see their way to break in upon present customs, yet there was a general desii-e among them to see a iDetter observance of Sunday, as a day of rest and worship. This is really the case with some of the most Ultramontane. I declined to go to the theatre, but I agreed to attend the banquet, which was really a part of the proceed- ings of the Congress. On our way to the Giirzenich, after dinner, my friends proposed a visit to a cafe. This place was full of people drinking beer and coffee and playing cards. My lessons as yet had but little effect. A gentleman took a pack of cards from his pocket, and addressing me as Herr Pastor, asked if he would have the pleasure of a game with me. ' No, my friend,' I said. ' No, I have come here purely to see how you spend your Sunday, but to play cards with you is too much.' I intimated the probable presence of an individual who was so troublesome to Luther that the Eeformer once aimed an inkstand at his head. I have never seen the customs of the two countries come so thoroughly in collision as during the meet- THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 429 iugs of this Congress. In our first meeting at Bonn, the hospitable Professor supplied us with wine, beer, and cigars. On the second day, when the Bishop of Lincoln was reading his Latin prayers, the servant came into the room with the glasses rattling ; but the moment was inopportune, and the conversation followed with such unceasing earnestness that the wine and the beer never found an entrance. In the afternoon, however, the Professor's generous heart was in anticipation of business. The table was prepared. We all took our cigars. The box was duly ]3i'e- sented to the Bishop, but his Lordship thi-ust it from him in a way that left no doubt of the measure of his appreciation of a cigar box. Every one waited for his neighbour to light first, but no man took the lead, and the Bishop's triumph was complete. Next evening,' however, in the Wiener Hof in Cologne, Teutonic customs prevailed. The guests were received in true German fashion, and the bishops had to make their speeches amid the rattling of plates and glasses and dark surging clouds of tobacco smoke. While the Bishop of Lincoln was discoursing- in the French language on the necessity of bishops, priests, and deacons, a hotel waiter was justling aside the Dean of Westminster, to convey beefsteaks and Brauen- berger to a German Professor. I told the waiter to wait a minute till the Bishop had finished, but he was only restrained by the strong arm of Professor Michelis, who at the time was standing beside me. It must have been an immense joy to the Bishop of Lincoln, as he entered the Giirzenich next morning, to find notices all over the building that smoking was 430 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. strictly forbidden. The custom is in no way, I suppose, incompatible with religion, but the Germans have no conception how droll to an English assembly would have been the scene at the evening banquet. The Venerable Archbishop of Utrecht, with one of his canons, sat in a prominent place, provided with the interminable cigar, and participating in the boisterous hilarity of the evening. The Bishop of Lincoln ab- sented himself from all the Sunday meetings of the Old Catholics, a plain intimation that in his judgment they must reform their Sunday as well as their mass. The conduct of the English bishops and clergy throughout the whole proceedings was commendable. Those who went to mass did so as spectators, with the exception of perhaps not more than two Eitualists, who tried to show their acquaintance with Catholic crossings, bowings, and genuflexions. The Bishop of Ely was very unobtrusive, and seemed anxious to ap- pear, not so much as a bishop, but as plain Dr. Harold Browne, The presence of the Bishoj^ of Lincoln was a great good. His visit to the Cologne Congress is one of the best acts of his life. I am far from agreeing with the position he took up, but the genuineness and earnestness of his character impressed all who were present, and amply condoned for the want of logic in his arguments, and a little Episcopal mannerism, which, however, is quite in keeping with his views of the office of a bishop. The sight of the crozier at the morning communion was a little amusing. It was perhaps profane at an English service in a Catholic chapel, to be thinking of a Methodist hymn, but there is one that says : — THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 431 ' With my pastoral crook, I went over the brook.' One of our greatest duties in the present clay, I was going to say, is to let the bishops have their way. ' Why should kings and nobles have Pictured trophies to their grave, And we, churls, to thee deny Thy pretty toys ? ' I heard the Bishop's sermon on Sunday morning in the Temple House, but I would rather not criticize it. He spoke strongly on the necessity of separating from bishops who do not hold the truth, and he re- flected on John Wesley for disregarding the Episcopal order, and consecrating bishops for America. But "Wesley, from his own stand-point, simply followed the course recommended by the Bishop. There was no Episcopate in America, and after the revolution there were no clergy. He could not prevail on the English bishops to ordain some of his preachers who were willing to go to America, and he saw no prospect of a church being established according to the order of the Church of England. If a certain order is absolutely a part of Christianity, there can be no circumstances in which that order can be set aside. Shulte, referring to the Bishop of Lincoln's speech, said that he had been reproached with allowing attacks on the Catholic religion. The real meaning of these words I was never able to learn. Everybody had a different version and a different interpretation. It was even said that Dollinger was greatly offended with the address; but my own opinion is, that Shulte' s 43 2 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. words were taken for a great deal more than they were intended. I asked a Bonn Professor, whom I met in the Arcade on Monday morning, what was the point to which excei)tion was taken ? He said he did not know. I asked if the Bishop's speech was too Pro- testant, and he answered, no, it was not Protestant enough. ' Do you really,' I added, 'go as far from the Vatican Church as the Bishop of Lincoln ? ' ' We go further,' was the answer. I believe this. The Bishoj) of Lincoln's stand-point is the same in kind as the authority which the Old Catholics are rejecting. Another Professor said that the Bishop's address was only a bit of Puseyism. I corrected this. It was not quite Puseyism. There is no fear of the Old Catholics substituting Episcopal authority in the place of the authority of the Pope. They are not likely to join the simple people in England who talk of the re-union of Episcopal Churches as the re-union of Chi'istendom. The same door which is opened to receive the English bishops, will admit the German Protestant and the English Dissenter. The interest which this Congress excited in Cologne was compared by some of the peojDle to the excite- ment of the war with France. On the following Mon- day I strolled thi'ough the streets, and had many un- expected proofs of the interest which the townspeople took in the Congress. If I went into a shop to buy anything, the Old Catholic movement was certain to be the subject of conversation. If I stood at the end of a street, I was sure to be saluted by some ardent Old Catholic who had seen me in the Giirzenich. ' I was born a Catholic,' said a respectable merchant to THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 433 me, ' and I mean to die a Catholic. Not three months ago I baptized my child myself, rather than have it baptized by an Ultramontane priest.' Another man, who held a responsible situation in the post office, told me that the priest of the parish where his parents lived taught him when a boy that Protestants Avould be saved as well as Catholics ; but now he said the Syllabus sets forth that only those who belong to the Catholic Church can be saved. I told him that the primary difference between a Catholic and a Pro- testant was, that the one obeyed, and the other reasoned. By ceasing to believe what the authorities of the Church decreed, he ceased to be a Catholic. He did not want to be reasoned out of his Catholicism. 'I am a Catholic,' he said, with emphasis; then standing for a moment, and pointing to one of the impure puddles which still adorn the ancient city of Cologne, he added, ' God has given me reason as a gift, to be used and not to be thrust into the gutter.' In the afternoon I was walking down a narrow street in a poor part of the town, when an old man with a basket on his back came towards me smiling. I thought at first that he might be begging, but he took off his hat, and addressing me as Mein Herr, he said, ' I saw you in our Congress. We'll beat the Ultra- montanes.' He then called to his wife who was standing at the door, 'Here is an English pastor come to help us to beat our Ultramontanes.' His wife came, and some of the neighbours came, till a little company was collected. A young priest passed at the time, who politely took off his hat to me, and looked as if he wanted to know what was the matter. ' I r Y 434 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. am an Old Catholic,' cried the old man ; '■ my wife is an Old Catholic; we are all Old Catholics.' The priest smiled and passed on. Soon after I walked away, but was followed by an intelligent seafaring man, who had been in England, and wished to give me his opinion of the Congress. He was a zealous Old Catholic, and spoke with enthusiasm of the certainty of success. When I left my hotel, the Crefeld ladies cried, ' Adieu, Herr Pastor. Give our Gru8s (greeting) to England, and our thanks to the English bishops for coming to our Congress.' As I wished to hear all sides that I might form an impartial estimate, during my wanderings in the Rhine district I visited the Jesuit Fathers in the cloister of Bornhoffen. As an English clergyman I was re- ceived by them with great politeness. Two of the priests entered into conversation with me on the religious questions that are now agitating Germany. They managed the conversation with great tact, and spoke freely without any a2:»parent reserve. One of them quoted in Latin the words of Jesus, that we must become as little children, which he interpreted as in- culcating submission to the authority of the Church. The cause of all heresy and of all religious dissension he found in the pride of the human intellect. Of the Old Catholic movement, he said, ' I give it three years to continue, and then it will be as little heard of as the once famous movement of Johann Eonge.' ' It is strong,' he added, ' among the wealthy, the educated, and in the journals ; but the leaders have no humility, and the people are mostly those who have been long indifferent about religion.' I thought it probable that THE OLD CATHOLIC CONGRESS. 435 there might be a difference as to the sense in which the word religion was nsed. I intimated that, perhaps, those who were called indifferent, might not be in- different to religion, but only to certain prescribed ceremonies which went under the name of religion. The ignorant liked rites and shows, the educated did not. 'Then,' said the priest, 'we must have two re- ligions, one for the educated, and one for the unedu- cated.' The problem was manifest, but we did not attempt a solution. The fact was confessed that Catholics depart from Catholicism as understood by the Ultramontanes, just in the degree that they become educated. I mentioned a conclusion to which I had come from my study of the religious history of Germany, which is that, but for the Jesuits, Germany would have been lost to Catholicism, and that they have done for the Catholic Church in Germany what our Eitualists are doing on a smaller scale for the Church of England. 'You are right,' said the priest, 'the Protestants in Germany had religion at one time, but it died out among them, and we rekindled the lamp, and have kept it burning in the Catholic Church.' The Jesuits have preserved Catholicism in Germany, but evidently not that kind of Catholicism in which the Old Catholics believe. To whatever this movement comes, there are no signs of its dying out in the space of tlu'ee years. It has shown an amount of vitality for which few in England were prepared to give it credit. The active leadership has passed from Dollinger to younger and more vigorous men. Its great champions are now the hard-headed Prussians, who are as determined to sweep FF 2 436 CONTEMPORARV ESSAYS. Ultramontanism from the empire, as they were to keep the French from Berlin. The canse has not declined in Mnnicli, but the great battle will be on the banks of the IMiine. The movement is snpported by half the educated Catholics of Germany. In Cologne two thousand two hundred persons have subscribed them- selves Old Catholics, and these are mainly from the professional and trading classes. If the movement fails, it will not be for want of ability in its leaders, nor of enthusiasm in its adherents. XYI. THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT.* IT was with no ordinary interest that many English clergymen, in September this year, tnrned their steps towards the ancient city of Cologne. It had been announced that the second Congress of the Old Catholics was to meet there, and that there were to be present representatives from nearly all the Chui'ches not in communion with the See of Eome. It would not be an easy task to trace all the remote causes which contributed to the congregating of so many men of such widely divergent religious opinions as were assembled at the Cologne Congress, But two of them, we think, are supremely manifest. One is a growing desire for unity among all the separated Chui'ches ; and the other a desii-e to study and understand the real character of the Old Catholic movement. We are often reminded that as Englishmen we are only islanders, and that too high an estimate of them- selves and their own ways is one of the failings of people who live in an island. It is quite true that to * Cviitcmporayij Re vine, November, 1872. 438 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. understand many things on the Continent we must put oiu'selves, as it were, outside of English life, and even, if possible, of English ideas. We must learn to see things as they are in themselves, avoiding the common mistake of confounding similarity with iden- tity. The development of ideas in different countries has the same variety as the developments of history. Even in the same country phases of thought belonging to different eras must not always be regarded as iden- tical. Every river has its own channel, and every bii-d its own course through the air. The Old Catholic movement is a reformation. It has many things in common with the Eeformation of the sixteenth century. But there are also many things in which it differs. It was impossible that it could be the same after three hundred years of world progress. Since that time the whole realm of nature has been explored. We have measured the stars, and weighed the mountains, and for nearly these three hundred years the earth has been going round the sun instead of the sun going round the earth. Many religious persons in England will be disappointed that the Old Catholics do not appeal to the Bible, and the Bible alone, and many more will wonder at the prominence given to reason and science. All parties in England will be disappointed till they have learned to look upon the Old Catholic movement as it is in itself, and to follow it in its own natural course of development. By reading the Bible Luther saw. the errors of the Chiu-ch of Eome. But the Bible is only one of the ele- ments that have given life to the present movement. To trace its entire history it would be necessary to go THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 439 back almost, if not altogether, to the time of the Eeformation. The residue of Catholics who withstood Luther expected to maintain Catholicism in Germany without the presence of that Ultramontanism wliich, in the sixteenth century, had been the chief cause of the corruption of the Church. They struggled for reformation on what they called Catholic grounds, but no reformation ever came. The Jesuits were of great service to the Church externally. They reconverted whole districts of Protestants, and gave Catholicism a new influence over the uneducated. But the Jesuits were Ultramontanes, and even while they were con- verting Germany to Catholicism they were hated by the Old German Catholics. During the last centmy and the beginning of this, Germany has come into the possession of a rich litera- ture. It has taken the first place for intellect among the nations. The fame of its scholars is recorded in all lands. It is true that, with but few exceptions, the great thinkers of Germany — the metaphysicians, the theologians, the historians, yea, even the poets — - have been Protestants. But the thoughts of these men have become the thoughts of the nation. They have moulded Catholics as well as Protestants. This was a new element that helped to widen the breach between the Old German Catholics and the Ultramon- tanes. Efforts were made to separate the Catholic population from the influence of the free Protestant spirit. These efforts had great success, but theu- sue- cess was not complete. Catholic professors were in the same Universities with Protestant professors, and Catholic laymen of the higher classes received the 440 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. same education as Protestant laymen. The result was inevitable. Educated Catholics ceased to believe dogmas or to regard rites that depended solely on the authority of the Church. The substance of Christianity was more- esteemed than ceremonies, and the light of reason preferred to Papal decrees. Horace says of nature that, though thrust out with a pitchfork, it will ever retui-n ; and so with these Catholics conscience and reason asserted their claims, and refused to be expelled. The crisis had really come some years before the assembling of the Vatican Council. There were ear- nest men in the Catholic Chiu'ch who saw the absolute necessity of not ignoring the lessons of science. Some of these lessons were supposed not to be in accordance with all the doctrines of the Church, and the question was raised whether science should yield to faith or faith to science. The Pope and the Ultramontanes took the first alternative. Science in this connection meant not only all natural knowledge, but all the lessons of reason and conscience. Faith meant the authority of the Church, which, with the Ultramon- tanes, was the authority of the Pope. The Liberal Catholics had before them the same problem which has occupied the minds of many earnest men in Eng- land— the reconciliation of science with religion. They expected that, with time and thought and the divine guidance which is promised to patient inquiry, the apparent divergence would be removed. It was, however, certain that some of the doctrines of the Church would have to yield. But these, the Liberal Catholics maintained, were merely doctrines that de- THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 441 pended on the authority of the Pope, and had really no place in the essential constitntion of the Chiu-ch. The storm had been raging for many years in Catholic Germany. Paj)al briefs and excommunications had become frequent. At length the final step was taken of convening an (Ecumenical Council, which would decree that the Pope was infallible, and that, there- fore, doctrines resting on liis authority were doctrines of the Church. This was the legitimate climax of the principles of Ultramontanism. The Vatican Council was the decla- ration of a war of extermination against Liberal Catho- licism. It excluded not merely theologians like Dr. Frohschammer, who had maintained the necessity of all dogmas undergoing a scientific dissolution, that the Chui'ch might be brought back to the simple Chris- tianity of Chi'ist ; but it excluded, also, men like Dr. Dollinger, who rested their Catholicism on the science of history. The Council said to all alike that Catholi- cism was authority, and that the Catholic faith was to believe in the Pope's decrees. This is our interpretation of the origin of the move- ment. But we shall follow briefly the account given by Professor Eeinkens in a lecture specially on the subject. He describes the movement as the voice of God in man striving against the voice of the tempter from without, or conscience against compulsion in matters of religion. The new dogma is the legitimate result of the system of Church policy that for cen- turies has been pursued by the Eoman Curia. It has been the means during these centuries of thrusting one half of Clu'istendom out of communion with the 442 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Eoman See. Before July 18, 1870, Protestants be- lieved that Catholics had no more freedom of conscience than they have now. Professor Eeinkens denies this. The Popes have acted as if they were infallible, and their briefs against such men as Hermes and Giinther have found ready executors in such bishops as Von Geissel and Forster. The same happened in former times with the Papal Constitutions against Bajus, Jansenius, and Quesnel. The bishops enforced them, with, however, the honourable exception of the Epis- coj)ate of Utrecht. Before the Vatican Council the Pope had claimed to be the final arbiter of all differ- ences, and this position he made good by the help of temporal princes. Something like this had been ascribed to the Bishops of Rome by the Council of Sardica in the fourth century. In the eleventh century the Bishops of Eome, as Patriarchs of the West, claimed jurisdiction over the whole Western Church. In the beginning of the fifteenth century there were three Popes contending for the supremacy. The Coun- cils of Constance and Basel decided that the sovereign authority over the Church did not rest in the Pope, but in General Councils. The Roman Curia, how- ever, learned nothing. Reforms were still refused. The Reformation followed, which divided the Western Church. This only led to a still greater centralization on the part of the Roman Curia. The Pope, by the help of the Jesuits and of temporal rulers, both Pro- testant and Catholic, was able to bring all the bishops into vassalage to himself. Henceforth there was nothing said of their duties towards their flocks, but only of theii' duties towai'ds their ' Lord,' the Bishop THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 443 of Eome. The unity and life of the Church depended now on obedience to authority. But in spite of all this, Professor Eeinkens says, individual Catholics had still liberty of conscience. For the sake of Chui'ch privileges and civil rights they were compelled to bow to Eome. Yet in conscience they were not compelled to believe that what the Pope decreed was in itself true and right. Even Herzen- rother, a famous theologian on the side of the Curia, admits that the bishops received the doctrinal deci- sions of the Pope, not because they were right, but because of the authority of the Chair of Peter : that is, Eeinkens says, because of the de facto power of the Popes. But this did not disturb the consciences of the faithful. They still rested on the authority of the Councils of Constance and Basel. By these the supre- macy of Councils to Popes had been decreed, and their decrees, with the confii-mation of the Pope, had become law for the German people. Frederick III. would not give up the supremacy of Councils, and Eugenius IV., who eight years before had held the Council of Flo- rence, to which infallibilists appeal for infallibility, yielded to the Emperor. Lainez, the General of the Jesuits, denied, at the Council of Trent, the divine institution of bishops, that he might exalt the Pope over General Councils ; but his views were strenuously resisted. Whatever, therefore, the Pope might decree, a Catholic could always appeal to a General Council, and so save his conscience. He could still say, as St. Bernard of Clairvaux said to Eugenius III., ' You have the power, but you have not the right. You do what you ought not to do.' A Catholic submitted to 444 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the Papal decrees as a citizen to an unjust government, under appeal. Since the Vatican Council all this is changed. Submission to a decree is now a confession that it is true and right. The Pope demands the sub- jection of reason and conscience. This is the acknow- ledged doctrine of the Jesuits, who inculcate the sacrifice of reason. Eeinkens illustrates this by a cloister rule. If a superior tells an inferior to take some flowers and plant them with the roots upwards, the inferior must obey. If he is further told that it was the design of the Creator that the roots should grow upwards, and that the contrary is against the laws of nature, the inferior must believe that this is true. In former times Catholic youths were taught even out of their catechisms that the voice of con- science is the voice of God ; but now Bishop Krementz, of Ermland, for instance, says that the Church is above conscience. Conscience, as the old Fathers said, is the Logos, the Word of God within us, and no external authority can be above it. Conscience judges every word and every law that comes from without, and tries it if it be from God. It can only receive what comes to it through the medium of reason and free- dom, and not what comes in the way of force. Every authority must approve itself to conscience. Chi-ist's words make our hearts burn within us, and therefore we obey the voice out of the excellent glory which bids us ' Hear Him.' While the Council was sitting, and the German bishops were determined in their opposition to the new dogma, there was hope of the Liberal party being able to maintain their ground, liut when the bishops THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 445 submitted, the cause of the Old Catholics was almost wi-ecked. The leadership devolved on Dr. Dollinger, but Dollinger was not Luther. A man of books and thought, rather than of action, he pursued a cautious — some say a timid — policy. He was afraid of making a new sect. He wanted to reform the Catholic Church, not to destroy it. All this was praiseworthy, but in the meantime he was missing his opportunity. He discontinued his sacerdotal functions. He raised no standard around wliich other priests could rally. At the moment when the Government would have secured excommunicated priests in their parishes, Dr. Dollinger was studying how to avoid a schism. It is true that his- position was difficult. The crisis came suddenly when there was no organized party ready to act. The men who refused submission were not all of one mind. The time that should have been spent in action was required for deliberation. But, in spite of all these chances, the movement lives. It is only since the Cologne Congress that we haA^e had any idea how deep, how intelligent, and how widely spread was the German dissatisfiiction with many of the doctrines and practices of the Eoman Catholic Church, and how great the indignation at the conduct of the Vatican Council. The Congress discussed the jDastoral organization of the Old Catholics, their relation to other Confessions, the reforms which they wish to see effected in the Catholic Church, and their o\\ti rights in relation to the State as against the Vatican Church. From the first the Old Catholics have tried to avoid a schism. But they are excommunicated, and so far they have to 446 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. endure a schism. The Abbe Michaud and Pastor Kaminiski recommended taking theii* stand on the first seven Councils, and so declaring themselves, on this ground, a separate party from the Vatican Church. But the position advocated by the other leaders, and adopted by the Congress, was that they declare them- selves Old Catholics, agreeing with the Church as it existed before the new dogma of July 18, 1870. The reasons for this course were many, and show the prudence and sagacity of the leaders. In the first place, they are not prepared to make any reforms. The time is not come. They must do nothing to com- promise their position as Old Catholics. They must not give the Vatican Church the opportunity of saying they have changed, nor must they do anything to inter- fere with their rights in relation to the State. The series of resolutions which concerned their pastoral organization embraced only those things which were necessary for existence. They consisted for the most part of vindications of the right of the Old Catholic priests to continue their functions, disregard- ing the prohibitions of bishops who have fallen fi'om the faith. It was decided that a bishop should be elected for the community. One resolution reserved ' for the constitutional organs of the Church the reform of deeply-felt abuses,' adding ' that for the present a salutary and undoubtedly justifiable reform is to be aimed at in the abolition of surplice fees, the sale of masses, abuses and corruptions of the system of indul- gences, veneration of saints, scapularies, medals, &c.' The ' constitutional organs,' to whom reform is ulti- mately referred, we suppose to be the ' organs ' of the THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 447 Old Catholic community, after the election of a bishop. They will, of course, include any other bishops who may be willing to make these reforms. There was a curious discussion about the marriages of Old Catholics. It was finally decided that marriage by a Vatican priest was not ecclesiastically valid. On this decision the Congress was not unanimous, and it has been noticed that it is not in accordance with the principle of not separating from the Catholic Church. It was, how- ever, explained in the discussion that the Vatican priest's act is regarded only as not valid for Old Catholics. They must repudiate the Vatican Church as fallen from the faith. The question of union with other Confessions was a natui'al sequel to the settlement of their own internal organization. But here, again, the Old Catholics could as yet take no final step. While they claimed the ground of Catholics as the Catholic Church stood before the Vatican decree, they were bound by the Articles of the Creed of Pope Pius IV. The Bishop of Lincoln, in his letter accepting the invitation to the Congress, pointed out that this is, and ever must be, a barrier to their union with the English Church. He exhorted them in all his addresses to go back to the Holy Scriptures, as interpreted by the unanimous con- sent of the Primitive Church. Bollinger had set forth as a possible ground of union the Scriptm-es, the Fathers, and the first seven Councils. The Greek Clim'ch already occupied nearly the same ground. But the Old Catholics cannot move from the position where present circumstances compel them to stand. And when they do moA^e, it will probably be to make 448 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. a more thorough reformation than even that of the sixteenth century. If the authority of the Vatican Chiu'ch is rejected, the authority, as such, of the Tridentine Church must go with it ; and if the authority of the Councils of Trent and the Yatican is not to be received, the authority of no other Council can be received, except on the ground that its de- cisions approve themselves to reason and conscience. The moment men reject that kind of authority claimed by the Vatican Council, they pass over to the category of those who claim the right to use their own judgment. This was implied, though perhaps not admitted, in the whole of the Bishop of Lincoln's argument. The doctrine of those whom he recognised as legitimate rulers in the Church was to be tried by Scripture and the Primitive Church. Even the Eussian High Priest Janyschew begged that the representatives of German Catholic science would work together with him and other theologians of his Church for a scientific inquiry into Christian truth in the interests of union. The comprehensive and truly Catholic spirit of the Congress was manifest in inviting not merely repre- sentatives of the Oriental and Anglican Churches, but also ministers of the Protestant Church in Germany. It was significant also that the two who came — Dr. Schenkel and Dr. Bluntschli — were both of what is called the Rationalist party. They are both men who have spent their lives in the study of dogma, and have been working out the great problem which Professor Huber set forth as that specially before the Old Catho- lics— the separation in Chiistianity of the jiermanent from the transient, the essential from the accidental. THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 449 Blimtschli recognised the original tendency of the Old Catholics to make common cause with the Churches that rested on dogmas and hierarchies. They ap- proached nearer to the Greek Church and the High Church party in the Church of England than to the German Protestants. This was natural for men who had been born and educated in a hierarchical Church. But they were Germans. Here was a bond of union already existing between the Old Catholics and the German Protestants. They had a common cause as fellow-countrymen, and they were both penetrated with the sjm'it of German science. Dr. Bluntschli expressed his belief that no union was possible on the basis of dogma. Every formulary of the truth is relative and not absolute. Dogmas are but the dif- ferent colours through which the light falls on the eyes of individual men. We cannot even hope for unity in modes of worshij), or in the same Church con- 's titution, but we have a clear ground in morality and Chiistian life. On the subject of Christian union, the speakers on the Old Catholic side uttered some noble words. The Corypheeus was Professor Eeinkens. He at once set aside the idea that union was uniformity. Different nations must be allowed fi'ee scope for the develop- ment of national peculiarities. Differences and dis- tinctions in many points must remain. ' The ground of reunion,' said the orator, ' lies in the hearts of the faithful, in the consciousness that we are God's chil- cben, of the household of God, and that we should have no strife one with another.' It could not pro- ceed from states or hierarchies, but must come from 450 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the inward realisation of Christian life and love. Pro- fessor Michelis, in one of his bold illustrations, com- pared the present state of the Christian Church to that of the great Cathedral of Cologne, as he saw it when a student thirty years ago. It was then in ruins, hung over with many things that did not belong to a cathe- dral. But that morning he had seen it rising to a glorious completion. Its stately grandeur was being restored, and day by day it was coming to the realisa- tion of a beautiful and a perfect unity. And so he hoped it would yet be with the now divided and almost ruined Church of Christ. ' I add,' said the speaker, ' that but for the good Protestant King Frederick William IV. the cathech'al would not have been what it now is. And I am convinced that without the help of Protestantism the great work begun in the Catholic Church in Germany will never be completed.' The fol- lowing are the resolutions on the subject of reunion : — * The Congress reiterates the expression of hope for a reunion of the now divided Chi*istian Confessions, as contained in the Munich programmes of Whitsuntide and September, 1871. It expresses the wish that the theologians of all Confessions may direct their attention to this point, and it elects a Committee to which the commission is given — ' 1. To put itself in communication with the already existing Societies (or those in the course of formation) for the removal of Schism. ' 2. To promote scientific examination into the existing differ- ences, and to show the possibility of their removal ; also to publish the results of these examinations in theological scientific works and journals. ' 3. To promote by means of popular writings and essays the knowledge of the doctrines, usages, and condition of the separated Churches and Confessions ; to properly estimate the existing points of unity and difference, and to awaken and to maintain in wider circles an interest in Christian union. THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 451 On the Monday morning the representatives of the different Churches hekl a meeting in the small room of the Glii'zenich. Secretaries were apj)ointed, to corre- spond with each other for the furtherance of union. The English clergy reminded the committees that they had no executive power. With this explanation Lord Charles Hervey accepted the office of Secretary for the English and American Churches. The Old Catholic movement would have but little interest for us if its reforms did not go beyond those which were voted at the Congress. But the avowed sentiments of the leaders give us hope for far greater things than any which are now proposed. Men whose opposition to Eoman authority had its ground in con- science, when they have begun to move are not likely to stop at any half reformation. A priest who, under the signature of ' A Bavarian Catholic,' wrote an article in a recent number of this Eeview on the Old Catholic movement, reproached the leaders, especially Dr. Dollinger, with timidity and halfness. This reproach has been repeated in Germany by those who, like this writer, have bounded from Roman Catholicism to what would be called a rationalistic view of Christianity. It was urged that many of the educated Catholic laity had so entirely departed from the dogmas of the Church that they only smiled at any movement which merely rejected the dogma of Papal infallibility. This reproach was specially noticed by Professor Huber. Their ' halfness,' he said, meant that they were on the way, and had not yet reached the goal. Every true movement, every true development must have stages. Their 'halfness' was not half-heartedness. They G G 2 452 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. wished the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the trutli. They were engaged in separating that in Clu-istianity which was iicrmanent from that which was changing ; and this was a work which ' required time, with the whole force of German earnestness and German thoroughness.' This was not indeed a con- fession that the goal towards which they were aiming is what is called Eationalism, but it was a confession that if at the end of their inquiry this should appear to be the truth, they will not scruple openly to embrace it. The movement is a movement, and not a finality — a process, and not the proclamation of a dogma. Professor Knoodt, in a brilliant speech, laid down the principle that divine guidance was only given to those who first make use of their natural faculties. The Vatican Council made no examination into what was the doctrine of the Old Church, of the Fathers, or of the Holy Scriptures. The Pope at once took the place of these, declared himself infallible, and the Council gave their consent. This was in contradiction to revelation, to reason, and to the entire culture- development of the human race. Professor Friedrich also noticed the reproach, that they were fighting only against Papal infallibility ; and he added, ' We oppose the whole Papal system as a system of errors which has been growing for the last thousand years, and has only reached its climax in the dogma of infallibility.' These errors must be swept away, that we may get back to the simple doctrine of Jesus Christ. He enumerated many things which demanded reformation as soon as the reforms could be legitimately secured. Among these were the performance of divine service THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 453 ill the language of the peoj^le, the abolition of the Confessional, of religious orders, and of the celibacy of the clergy. Professor Michelis wished to be regarded no more as a Eoman Catholic, but simply as a Catholic holding the Catholic doctrine of Jesus Chi'ist. Professor Eeinkens declared that God's voice in the conscience is the only sovereign authority over the human soul. The kingdom of God does not consist of bishops and priests. It is no dead external mechanism, but a living power in the hearts of men. Wherever Jesus Chi-ist is, there is the Church. Dr. Tangermann, in all his sermons and addresses, is con- tinually repeating the same truth. The Church of Chi'ist is built not on the man Peter, or any visible hierarchy, but on the truth which Peter confessed, and the power of that truth in the human soul. His favourite text is, ' The kingdom of God is within you.' The crying necessity for reformation was set forth by Shulte, in language as clear, and in denuncia- tion as strong, as anything ever heard even in Exeter Hall. He did not scruple to sj)eak of the Confessional as the means of the moral corruption of Catholic society. Childi'en had thoughts put into their heads which woidd never have been there but for the priests' questions ; and the peace of families was destroyed through the insinuations of the confessors. He said that morality in the Catholic parts of Germany was immensely below the standard of morality among German Protestants, and this he ascribed mainly to the practice of confession. It is worthy of notice that there are men in the Church of England earnestly labouring to introduce 454 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the very things peculiar to the Eoman Catholic reli- gion which educated Catholics in Germany are reject- ing. There is something attractive in seeing the masses of the people coming to church and being subject to the authority of the clergy. A Protestant can scarcely enter a Eoman Catholic church without at least a transient feeling that in matters of external service Protestantism has something to learn from Catholicism. This is our excuse for the Eitualists. It is this which never allows us to refuse them credit for sincerity and self-devotion. But experience has its lessons. The Catholics of Germany have seen the work of the Jesuits and its fruits. They have seen the uneducated attached to the Church by means of processions, shows, and ceremonies. They have seen the peoj)le made Catholic and becoming very religious without their being made moral. This is the testi- mony of the Old Catholics. We cannot speak of the facts, for they are beyond the reach of our examina- tion. But this is why the Old Catholics wish to be rid of that merely ceremonial Catholicism which they say the Jesuits have imported into Germany. Hitherto in England religion has gone hand-in-hand with morality, and the inference was for us a natural one that the increase of even ceremonial religion would be followed by improvement in the manner of life. We as little doubt the sincerity and self-denial of the Jesuits as of the Eitualists ; but sincerity and self- denial have not always desii-able results. The following resolutions were passed on the last Hiibject—thc relation of the Old Catholics to the State : — THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 455 ' Tlie Congress confidently expects that the Governments of the German and Austrian States, as well as that of Switzerland, will take a firm and clear position in the present religious troubles, not only that they will uphold the declaration contained in official decrees, " That no legal eflicacy is to be attached to the Vatican decrees of the 18th July, 1870 ; ' but that they will also give practical realisation to the difference — which was the basis of this declaration — between the Catholic Chui'ch, legally and historically founded, and as such recognised by the State, and the Ultramon- tane-Roman Church, constituted by those decrees, and devoid of every dogmatic and historical basis. It is expected that the Governments will i^A) Consider the Catholics holding fast to the Old Catholic Church, and who repudiate the Vatican decrees as an innovation, as members of the Church recognised by the State, and as such to be protected. (i>) On the other hand, that they will consider the bishops who have adopted the Vatican innovation — and their organs — as deprived of all jurisdiction over the Old Catholics, who without this are declared in the Vatican decrees as not belonging to the New Catholic sect. ' That, as a necessary consequence — * 1. The bishops elected and consecrated among the Old Catholics shall be recognised as bishops of the Catholic Church: — (1.) As endowed with the same competency over the Old Catholic com- munities as belongs to Catholic bishops according to the exist- ing laws. (2.) As having a right to dotations from the State Treasury. (3.) The Old Catholic priests as entitled to appointments to the livings under the patronage of the State, and to the institu- tions of the State, and to dotations from the funds of the State. (4.) For the present, an Old Catholic bishop, though residing in another State, as legitimatised for the exercise of Episcopal jurisdiction. (5.) The elected bishops to take the oath of loyalty. And further, ' 2. The priests chosen by the Old Catholic communities are to be recognised as priests competent to perform all acts with legal efficacy to which the State attributes civil effects, especially the celebration of marriage and the keeping of the civil register, according to custom, or to the laws of the State. ' 3. The general introduction of the obligatory civil marriage, and the surrender of the civil register to civil officials, are declared by the Congress to be urgently necessary. ' 4. The Old Catholic communities are, as such, by reason of the recognition of the Catholic Church in the State, and without any special grant of corporative rights, subjects legitimate for the 456 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. exercise of those rights which the law of the State permits to religious communities, or which belong to them, according to the ecclesiastical law. '5. Ihe Old Catholics are not bound to contribute to the eccle- siastical objects of the New Catholics. * 6. The Old Catholic communities are urgently recommended to strive for the repossession of the property of the Catholic Church, by administrative and legal proceedings. * 7. The Old Catholics have the unqualified right to demand the joint use of all churches consecrated to the Catholic service, since the same are consecrated to the Catholic worship, whether we assume that the church belongs to itself, or adopt the theory that the end would justify us in demanding it, or whether, according to the law of the land, the religious community is the possessor, since the apostacy of the one cannot rob the other of its rights. ' 8. The Old Catholics retain all rights to the other Church properties, livings, schools, &c. ' 9. The Old Catholics have retained the claim to demand sums granted by the budget for Catholic worship and instruction. ' 10. For the carrying out of points 5 to 7 the Old Catholic Central Committee for each country will enter into an understand- ing with the State.' M. cle Pressense, criticizing the proceedings of the Congress in the Journal des Debats^ describes this anxiety abont the relations to the State as the weak side of the Okl Catholics. There is something about it peculiarly German. In England it is a vexed question if the State connection does good or harm. In France the Protestant Synod decreed to ask sepa- ration from the State. In Germany it is altogether different. There every reforming party believes in the State, and in the power of the State for good. The relation of Churches to civil governments is by no means a question so easily solved as some persons suppose. A State must protect itself. This it cannot always do if it is indifferent to what the people are taught. A Church established in an empire, and THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 457 simply having unrestricted religious liberty, may become dangerous to that empire. There may come a contest for right, which can only be settled by might. The State relations with Chiu'ches in Germany are complex, and of that kind which amply justify the Old Catholics in appealing to Caesar. All persons have to pay a tax on their income for religion. If they are Catholics, the tax goes to support the Catholic religion, and if they are Protestants, it goes to the support of the Protestant religion. It would of course be simpler if they all subscribed voluntarily to the form of religion which each approved. But it is here that the State protects its rights. It holds by this means the chiu'ches and all Church property as State property. This is its power over the Chiu'ch. This is its check upon the priesthood and the hier- archy. In theii" circumstances it is something for the Old Catholics to be able to maintain their position in the Church. Apart from the advantage of having the State on their side, they save themselves from the reproach of being the party that has changed. This might be nothing in itself, but it is something in the judgment of the people. The decision to appoint a bishop did not meet with universal approbation. So far as it goes, it is a measure of separation. The bishop cannot be conse- crated by the other bishops, and in their judgment he will be no more a true bishop than Dr. Wordsworth or a Lutheran superintendent. The succession may be secured thi'ough the Archbishop of Utrecht, who traces his tlu'ough an excommunicated Jansenist. It is ecclesiastically an irregularity, and can only find its 458 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. justification in the same kind of necessity which caused Calvin to establish a government by presbyters, or Wesley to consecrate bishops for America. The step is taken by the Old Catholics as a necessity. They give their community an episcopal form merely as a matter of order, and not at all from the stand-point of our Anglican High Churchmen that episcopacy is necessary to the constitution of a Church. A Synod, consisting partly of laymen, is to share with the bishop the ecclesiastical government. Professor Friedi'ich declared his conviction that a priest could confirm as well as a bishop ; and Professor Eeinkens, in a lecture delivered at Crefeld, expressly denies that there is any particular gift of grace connected with the office of a bishop. After hearing the speakers in the Old Catholic Con- gress, it is not difficult to see the object at which they aim. They have broken away from authority, and have claimed as their Christian inheritance freedom to think for themselves. According to Eeinkens, this freedom has always existed in the Catholic Church. It has only been taken away by the long and at last successful efforts of the Eoman Curia. They separate from the Yatican Church only so far as they are compelled to protest against its errors. Their hope is ultimately to effect reforms, not merely in their own community, but throughout the entire Eoman Catholic Church. Their prospect of success in this is only small. That same Ultramontane spirit which in the sixteenth century sacrificed England and the half of Germany is not likely to promote reforms that will conciliate the Old Catholics. It is, however, impos- THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT. 459 sible to say how great a conflagration may yet arise out of this little spark of living fire. "Were the government — as a writer in the Times supposes might be the case — to appoint reformers like Dollinger or Eeinkens over such sees as Cologne or Breslau, we should have a repetition of what haj)pened in England when Henry YIII. elevated Cranmer to the Primacy. It is true that the Ultramontanes are on the watch. They have united their entire wisdom, which will scarcely, we think, allow such a repetition of history. But on the other hand they are not on the best terms with any of the great governments of Europe, and they have put themselves in sharp opposition with the spirit of progress and human develoj^ment. A Jesuit father said to the present writer, that the Old Catholic movement was merely a movement of educated laymen, and that it does not touch the masses. This, in a general sense, is clearly true : yet in places where the priests have gone with the movement, the people have gone with the priests. It is mainly at jDresent a move- ment of professors, supported by the intelligent and trading classes. The other side has its strength in the priests and the uneducated. It is confidently asserted by the Old Catholics that many of the priests will join the movement if the governments secure them against being deposed by the bishops. In tliis case there is little doubt that the uneducated classes would go with the priests. We cannot isolate the study of this movement from the study of other religious movements in other parts of the world. It is but a phase of the great upheaving of modern intellect on the subject of religion. The 46o CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ( )ld Catholics have before them all the complex im- solvecl problems of the age. The natui-e of external authority in religion in its ultimate and logical form has been forced home to them, and they have repelled it with all the indignation of men who feel that they have hearts and souls. But the path of authority once abandoned, there is a long journey before rest can be Ibund, and then it is another kind of rest from that which depends on authority. Councils, Apostles, Fathers, the Bible itself, cease to be authorities in the sense that the Church of Eome understands authority. Their words find entrance into the human heart just in the degree that they have a divine power, and that that power is felt. Cluist's words are spirit and life. The w^ords of all good and true men are spirit and life. That spiiit becomes one with our spiiit, and that life invigorates our life. All external authority apart from this is a dead mechanism — a letter which killeth, and not a spirit that giveth life. The Old Catholics may not have seen this in its rigidly logical form, but they have felt it, and some of them have certainly expressed it. The multitude of people would prefer that religion came to them externally. This would save them all the trouble and anxiety involved in thinking over hard and difiicult problems. And in one aspect human necessities seem to demand this. But our thoughts are not always God's thoughts. There are two alternatives : we can either, like the Vatican Council, invent a way for God and say this must be right ; or we may look humbly and patiently at what really is, and in the world of facts find out God's way. XYII. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. IT is probable that there never was an age of the worhl when men were so much in earnest about religion as the present. Other ages may have had more zeal, more worship, and more decision, but they must all yield to the jpi'esent in a simple, unbiassed deter- mination to know the truth and to follow it. This is pre-eminently true in England. We may credit equally the sincerity of those who have left the Pro- testant Church for the Church of Rome, of those who have embraced a newer form of Christianity, or who have renounced Christianity in every form. We do not mean that in every case the inquirer has been without a bias, or that no motive, unknown perhaps even to himself, may have been at work ; but we do mean that the great majority of men who have thought about religious questions at all, have thought about them with earnestness, and that their great desire has been to know the truth. We do not admire the spirit in which Monsignor Chapel lately treated the Ritualists. It is no doubt 462 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. very provoking to be imitated by those who have no right to imitate. But whatever may be the follies of the Eitiialists, they are sincere. They may be fairly the subjects of ridicule for Protestants, but from Eoman Catholics they have a right to every sympathy. In England they have rehabilitated the idea of Catholicism, and in some measure wiped away the reproach connected with the very name. Between the Catholic who yields implicit obedience to the Eoman see in matters of faith, and the Catholic who uses his private judgment in interpreting the Fathers, there must ever be a wide distinction. But both will be ultimately found together in one of the two great classes into which the world is rapidly being divided in its estimate of Christianity. The Eoman Catholic and the Anglo-Catholic both rely on authority. They both profess to possess what all men naturally wish to have. But notwithstanding the assurance with which they boast of their Catholicism, they are not agreed as to where this authority is to be found. We use the word ' Catholic ' not only convention- ally, but as yet indefinitely. We mean by it the general idea of a Church claiming authority to speak with certainty. The name was appropriated by many of the ancient sects. The Arians and the Donatists equally with the Orthodox claimed to be Catholic. In our own time neither the name Catholic nor the claim involved in the name is limited to the Church of Eome. We say nothing at present of the sense recognised in the Prayer-Book, in which all who pro- fess and call themselves Christians are admitted to be members of the universal or C^atholic Church. We CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 463 only speak of the idea of authority implied in the word Catholic in its conventional sense. The idea has a philosophical side. It is supposed to rest on the common sense or reason of men. This was Augus- tine's argument when he said, ' Judicat securus orbis terrarum.' It was weak in the way that Augustine applied it ; but there was philosophy in the idea. In fact, it was borrowed from the philosophers whose dogmas were truths of the universal or Catholic reason. Seneca recognises the principle, and like a true Catholic finds in it the end of all controversy, that authority which gives us tranquillity, and by which we arrive at that truth which is otherwise beyond our reach.* The same defence has been made in modern times by some of the ablest advocates of the Church of Eome.f It is an appeal to common sense on the ground that what is generally believed, or rather what is generally agreeable to the reason of mankind, must be true. The principle, especially in morals or as a rule of life, must be admitted to be correct. There is a common sense, as it were, outside of us as individuals which is treasured up in the experience of society. The individual mind might, if it had opportunities, reason it out ; but we are generally safest at once to fall in with the Catholic sense of the community. It applies in politics as well as in morals. We look to Acts of Parliament for the sense of the nation, and in the same way, according to * 'Non contingit tranquilHtas nisi immutabile certumque judicium ad( ptis, ceteriqne decidunt subinde et reponuntur, ct inter omissa appetitaque alternis fliictuantur,' &c. (Ep- xcv.) t ' La seule foi est celle qui repose scion le genre de verite qui en est I'objet, sur la plus grande authorite on sur la raison la plus general.' — ' Essai sur rindifferance,' par M. L'Abbc de La Mennais, vol. ii. p. IR.j. 464 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. Eoman Catholic writers, we look to the Church as the spiritual society for decisions or dogmas in religion.* That an idea with so much truth in it should have early found a place in Christianity is not surprising. It is scarcely marvellous, all things considered, that men should cling to it even under forms that experience itself has refuted. It gives a practical rule. In fact, the first error is its transference from the practical to things out of the reach of experience. If the Church were merely a society which prescribed a rule of spiritual life, the analogy of a common reason would be correct. Our individual reason would lead us to the reasonableness of falling in w^th the life of the spiiitual society. And this, in reality, is what we all do; but this is far short of the ordinary claims of a Catholic Church. The certainty of what is generally received as right, either in social or civil life, is only of a regulative character. It is not necessarily abso- lute, nor is it necessary that it should be. In religion we crave more, and men reason that if this craving is to be satisfied the authority must be infallible, the rule perfect, and the certainty absolute. To satisfy this craving the idea of following a general consent or common reason is connected with some corporate body. As we are not to follow a multitude to do evil, it cannot be merely the voice of mankind as expressed by the majority that is to be our guide. So far we are fairly at liberty to depart from the Catholic voice of humanity. The phenomena of the mind of the human race must be taken from * ' Essai sur rindifferance," vol. ii. pp. 183 — 6. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 465 the general judgment or agreement of educated and earnest men. But we cannot take the educated and earnest men of all religions, so that here the law of Catholicity in its proper and primary sense absolutely fails. To come at the Church we must first suppose Christianity true, and the Catholic or universal reason must be that of Christians only. The idea of Catho- licity is further limited not merely to Christianity, but to the Church, sect, or party which claims the title of Catholic. The philosophical idea of a common reason is lost in the demand of a corporate body to instruct with authority even this universal, common, or Ca- tholic reason. This will be evident if we trace historically the idea of Catholicism in Clnistianity. We may grant that Jesus Christ established a Church or society. That Church was to consist of teachers and learners. It had a constitution or government, and Christ promised His presence with it to the end of the world. If we have in our minds the Eoman Catholic idea of a Church these words will convey one meaning, if we have the Protestant idea they will convey another meaning. A society might be established which was not always to continue in the same form. It might have teachers commissioned by Christ without these teachers being infallible. It might have a government without any necessity of that government being always the same. Chi-ist might be with His disciples always without giving them immunity fi'om error in every question of doctrine. What the words really meant must in this case be determined by the facts of histor}' so far as we know them. H 11 4f)6 CONTEMPORARY ESSAIS. It has often been remarlvcd tliat the word Catholic applied to the Church never occurs in any of the ^n:\i- ings of the !N'ew Testament. It came in later with the rise of controversies. It originated with the desire for an arbiter of differences, and with the half truth that the general sense of the Christian community was more likely to be right than individual reason. We have already seen how far the principle is true. It was not sufficient to repress private judgment, for, though deserving respect, it could not speak with authority. It often became a mere question of a majority, and, in some cases — notably in the case of the Arians — the majority was on the wrong side. In the writings of the earliest Christian Fathers it took the form of tra- dition. The Church was to believe all that had been believed aud taught by Christ and His Apostles. The credenda were to be found in Scripture and tradition. But so early as the time of Irenoeus heretics appealed to tradition even in preference to Scripture. ' When they are confuted from the Scriptures,' Irenoeus says, ' they turn round and accuse these same Scriptiu-cs as if they were not correct nor of authority, saying that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition.'* These are the very words which Catholics now use in defence of their tradition. The principle as further expounded by the Yalentinians was that Christ and His Apostles spoke wisdom ' among them that were perfect,' that is, the initiated, and that in this esoteric teaching committed to the Church as a society, we are to look for doctrine rather than to tlie * Irena^us, ' Advor.sn.s TTnToses,' iii. p. ii. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS, 467 Scriptures. On the other hand, the tradition to which Ireneeus appeals is not something distinct from the Scriptures themselves^ which he calls ' the pillar and ground of truth,'* but the Scriptures as understood and handed down by the Churches that were established by the Apostles. The principle of Iren?eus we find strongly m-ged by Tertullian, although not unmixed with the idea of a secret tradition like that of the Yalentinians. That the Catholic Church was right, Tertullian regarded as a conclusion certain j)revious to all reasoning. Tradi- tion, aj)art from the Scriptiu-es, or the Church as an authority above the Scriptures, was plainly his rule of faith. We do not expect in a man of Tertullian's fiery and turbid character any calm or placid statement of princijDles. He writes Avith the vehemence of a controversialist. What he believes must be the Catholic faith, and by this a man is to be saved, and not by knowledge of the Scriptures.")* He will not reason on the Scriptures with heretics. They do not belong to heretics. They are the property of the Catholic Church; that is, of those who hold the right faith. J Churches founded by Apostles were the ' wombs and original fountains of faith, '§ so that whoever held a doctrine different from these Churches could not be of the true Church, nor have any right of appeal to Scripture. In fact, the Scriptures were so written by the will of God as to produce heretics, and but for the Scriptiu-es heretics would never have existed. || We are therefore to look for truth in Churches founded by * Iren.ipus, iii. c. i. t De Pries. HsBiet., c. xiv. t Ilnil., c. xi\. \ IbiJ., c. 21. II Ibid., c. xxxix.' \l II o 4^8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. AjDOstles. The truth is not to exist by its own force, nor to be committed to books. It is to be handed down from bishop to bishop, and from presbyter to presbyter — ' Let them ' (the heretics), says TertuUian, ' produce the original records of their Churches ; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such manner that their first distinguished bishop should be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the Apostles, or of apostolic men — a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For this is the manner in which the Apostolic Churches transmit their registers — as the Church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed there by St. John ; as also the Church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter.' * This was accompanied by arguments from the priority of truth to error, and the existence of God before the devil. These were borrowed from paganism, or at least from pagan philosophy. In the ' Octavius ' of Minutius Felix, the plea for the old worship) is anti- quity, which is called 'the chief priestess of truth.' t The Gentiles asked the Christians where their reli- gion was before Jesus Christ, just as now Catholics ask Protestants where their religion was before Luther. In the fifth centmy we have the treatise of Yincen- tius Lirinensis expressly on the rule of faith. This he finds first in the Scriptures, and secondly in the tradition of the Catholic Church. The second is added because of the difficulty of understanding the Scrip- tures. To escape heresy we must take the sense of the Catholic Church as the rule of interpretation. The sum of what is taught in Scripture is to be mea- * De Pr.-PR, Ha^rot., c. xxxii. f C. v. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 469 siired by what has been believed ' everywhere, always, and by all,' in the Catholic Church. We have here universality, antiquity, and unanimous consent. To make the argument worth anything we should have a religion that consists of a set of dogmas or doctrines with all these three marks. But Yincentius saw that we had not this, and so he goes from the one to the other in strange confusion. He lived after the rise of the Arians, and knew, as St. Jerome confessed, that the whole world had become Arian.* In this case, he said, where universality fails, we must go to antiquity. Yincentius adopted this rule purely to escape from the diificulty presented by the spread of Arianism. In fact, Arianism was the great error which he seems to have had in view when writing his book. From it he appealed to antiquity precisely as the modern Anglo- Catholic appeals to antiquity against the Church of Eome. But they both violate Tertullian's rule, who makes the appeal to those Chiuxhes which were founded by Apostles, and which could show their succession of bishops from the Apostles' time to the present. The prevalence of Arianism in the fourth century, and of Koman errors in the present day in Apostolic sees, annihilate Tertullian's principle of Catholicity. Yin- centius was conscious that universality was wanting to what he considered the true faith. He made, there- fore, another rule, which limited the Fathers, among whom we were to seek unanimous consent, to those who ' had lived and died in the faith and communion of the Catholic Church. 't To find the faith which was * ' Ingemuit totus oibis, et Arianum so esse miratus est.' — Dial. adv. Lucif., c. viii. t C. xxiii. 470 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. received ' everywhere, always, and by all,' we are to go to those who believe as we do, that is, we are to determine which is the Catholic faith before we go in search of it. The two claimants for Catholicity with which we are specially interested are the Roman Catholics and a party in the Church of England. "We repeat again that we use the word Catholic conventionally. The Church of England, like all other Protestant Churches, has always claimed to be of the universal or Catholic Church, that is, among the number of those who ' profess and call themselves Christians.' The Church of Eome, in claiming to be the Catholic Church, to the exclusion of all other Christians as heretics, founds its claim on the supremacy of the Eoman See. It also holds the Yalentinian principle, condemned by Irenseus, that there is a doctrine, or set of doctrines, committed to it independent of the Scriptures. This it calls ' the unwritten word of God.'* Yincentius did not ask more for tradition than the place of an interpreter of Scripture, a conservator of the Catholic sense or meaning of the sacred books. The modern Church of Eome means by tradition something in addition to these books. According to Yincentius, the Church had a deposit of Catholic doctrine committed to it in the Scriptures. He does not speak of a living organ by wdiich the Church is to declare truth infallibly, but only of a method by which the deposit of truth is preserved. With the claim of the Church of Rome to have ' an unwritten word,' apart from the word wiitten, * See Wiseman's Lectures on the Catholic Church,' p. 60 ; also the Canons of the Council of Trent. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 471 it can have no anxiety to establish the supremacy of the Eoman See out of the Scriptures. That task woukl be confessedly hopeless. The Chui'ch is not dependent on the early Fathers, or, if it were, its case would be still more hoj)eless. Clemens Eomanus writes a letter from ' the Chui'ch of God which sojourns at Eome,' to ' the Church of God sojourning at Corinth.' * He speaks of being ' consulted ' by the Church of Corinth about some things, but he gives no intimation of authority over them. Tertullian, re- counting the Apostolic sees, speaks of Pliilippi, Ephe- sus, and Eome, but gives Eome no pre-eminence, except for the blood of so many martyrs. "j* Cyprian has a remarkable passage on the unity of the Church,^ where he rests this unity on Peter, but he says nothing of its being continued through the bishops of Eome. In an ej)istle to Antonianus he speaks of Cornelius, Bishop of Eome, as his ' colleague,' saying that to be in communion with him was to be in communion with the Catholic Church. The passage read aj)art from the context might be made to mean a great deal for the Church of Eome, but as it stands it avails nothing. Cyprian opposed Pope Stephen on the question of rebaptizing heretics, and Stephen called Cyprian on this account ' a false apostle and a deceitful worker. '§ The eighty-seven bishops who assembled in the Council of Carthage to settle the same question decided contrary to the Bishop of Eome. The passage in the early Fathers which seems most in favour of the Eoman claim is in Ireneeus, where he speaks of the * Ep. i. t De PraBS. Hseret., c. xxxvi. X Treatise v. § Epislic of Firmilian to Stephen. 47 2 CONTEMPORARY ESS A 1 IS". Church of Eome having * ' ijre-eminent authority.' The passage is not clear, and we only have it in a Latin version, vs^itli no trace of the Greek words as they were written by the author. Lirinensis, describ- ing the Council of Ephcsus, calls it Catholic because it represented the doctrine both of the East and the West. The letters of Felix and Julian were read at this Council not for authority, but as part of the universal consent on which Catholic doctrine was to rest. The Catholicism of Irenseus, Cyprian, and Yincen- tius Lii'inensis is plainly the Catholicism of the Anglo-Catholic. He holds the theory, however, under circumstances which make it less tenable than with these Fathers. Anglo-Catholics have not an Apostolic see, and they are separate from that see through which they received Chi'istianity. The theory of an old British Church avails nothing here ; for the question is one of sees and successions. Can- terbury, to which Anglo- Catholics must look, depends on Eome. If it does not agree with the Apostolic seat from which it is derived, by TertuUian's rule it is not Catholic, t It cannot trace a succession of bishops to an Apostolic see with Avhicli it is in com- munion. The Anglo-Catholic has here his quarrel with the Eoman Catholic. It is certain that both cannot be right. The Anglo-Catholic appeals to the Fathers. He knows nothing of an 'unwritto:! word,' distinct from the Scriptures. He is not, like the Eoman Catholic, a Yalentinian. The succession of bishops is to him the guardians and interpreters of * Bk. iii. c. iii, f De Prjcs. Ilceret., c. xxi. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS- 473 what is committed to the Church in the Scriptures. He is, of course, perplexed with the discordancy of modern bishops. The spirit of grace and supplication has long since departed from them. They ought to have received the tradition of the elders ; but they have not, excepting only some exceptions. The ' everywhere, always, and by all ' can scarcely have a meaning to the Anglo- Catholic in the face of the existence of the Church of Eome. Like the old Donatist, he calls himself a Catholic, though the ' orbis terrarum ' of Chi'istendom is against him. But his hope is in the Fathers. Often has he proved that the Catholicism of the Church of Rome is not to be found in them. In fact, the Church of Eome has avowedly ceased to rest on the Fathers. It does not require tlieir help. It has an independent life and tradition of its own. But the Angio-Catholic must take his choice of the Scriptm-es interpreted as he is able to interpret them, or as he can find them interpreted by antiquity. It is not to be denied that he has many disadvantages. He does not, we hope, forget that in going to the Fathers to get the opinions prevailing in their time, he has to trust mainly to frag- ments. The Fathers of the first three centuries are not numerous. Their works are not plentiful ; some of them are corrupted ; and it is only by an effort that any approach to an agreement in doctrine can be found among them. Moreover, they do not discuss directly any of the questions that are now in dispute, at least not in the same forms, so as to enable us to know precisely what their opinions were. "VYe need not dwell on the fact that without the disputed and 474 CONrEMPORARY ESSAYS. certainly corrupted epistles of Ignatius there would be difficulty in establishing the Church on bishops as a distinct order from presbyters. Indeed the eleva- tion and importance which these epistles give to a bishop, when compared with the writings of the other Fathers, is no small evidence of their not being the work of Ignatius. The theory of being guided by the early Fathers is, that they lived so near the time of the Apostles that they must have understood the Scriptures better than we have the means of doing. And this we should beforehand have supposed a right principle, but it is overturned by facts. The oldest of the Fathers is Pajjias, who is admitted by all to have been such a weak man that no one would think of taking his authority for anything. Irenseus says that he was a disciple of St. John, but Pa^jias himself speaks of deriving the sayings of the Apostles from those who heard them. This he reckoned more satisfactory than trusting to books. We have only a few fragments of his writings, but we can judge of the value of tradition from what he says of Judas. The betrayer, it appears, did not hang himself ; but, by divine vengeance, his body grew to such a size, that one day meeting a chariot which he could not pass in a narrow street he was crushed to death, and all his bowels gushed out. Irenasus was a cotempo- rary of Papias, and a disciple of Polycarj), who was a disciple of St. John. He was intellectually much superior to Papias, and yet Irenteus maintains, both by interpretation of the Gospel history in St. Luke and by tradition received from St. John and other apostles, that Jesus lived till He A^as between forty and CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 475 fifty years of age, and that He thus became ' an old man for old men.' * It is true that the interpretations of the Fathers are reasonable compared with those of the early heretics ; but we misunderstand the whole case of the Fathers if we suppose that they can be competent guides to the understanding of the Scriptures. They evidently had not the same canon that we have, for many of them quote from books of Scrij)ture not in our canon. They rarely quote the same words, as if they either quoted from memory or from a different version. Not more than one or two of the Fathers could read Hebrew, and some at least of the Latin Fathers were ignorant of Greek. They were there- fore dependent for their knowledge of Scripture on the Greek Septuagint or on Latin versions made from it. Tertullian proves the resurrection of the flesh from the Greek version of Psalm xcii. 12 : ' The righteous shall flourish like the phoenix.' f For the divinity of Christ he quotes the Greek version of Isaiah xlv. 14, 15 : ' The Sabeans, men of stature, shall pass over to Thee, and they shall follow after Thee ; for Thou art our God, yet we know it not. Thou art the God of Israel.' % Justin Martyr showed that there were twelve apostles fi-om the twelve bells carried by the priest, but where he read of the twelve bells we do not know. Ignatius found the institution of the Chi'istian Sabbath in the inscription over one of the psalms, which he translated ' To the first after the seventh.' Augustine proved the ' real presence ' * C. xxii. t Dc Ilcsurr. Carnis, c. xiii. X Ad. I'raxean. c xiii. 476 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. ironi an old Latin version of the Bible, which said that David in the presence of the King of Gath carried his body in his own hands. But as this was not true of David it must have been true of Christ.* When the Fathers forsook the plain sense of Scripture, the fertility of their imagination often produced rare flashes of originality. Irenasus found in the story of Lot and his two daughters the two Churches of Jews and Gentiles, who had chikben to their father.j* Balaam riding on his ass was the world resting on the body of Christ.:}: Hij^polytus said that Antichi'ist was to be of the tribe of Dan, because Jacob said of Dan that he should be a serpent in the path,§ Ter- tullian finds Christ in all the Psalms, like the old Puri- tans, who said that in reading the Psalms we should keep the right eye on David and the left eye on Chi'ist. The psalmist, TertuUian says, was speaking of the bii'th of Christ when he said, ' Thou art He that took me out of my mother's womb.'|| 'I am come to save that which was lost ' proves the resurrection of the flesh, for the flesh was lost.H Cyprian says that IsToah being drunk with wine and lying unco- vered in his tent was the prefiguration of Christ's passion, to be celebrated by drinking wine.** ' Thy inebriating cup,' the psalmist exclaims in the 23rd Psalm, ' how good is it ? ' ft It is the same cup, says St. Cyprian, even the cup of the Lord which inebriated Noah when he was drunk with wine. J J The same * Ennaratio ii. Psalm xxxii. f Book iv. c. xxxi. + Fragment xxiii. § De Anti-Chiisto, c. xvi. II De ResuiT. Carnis, c. xx. H lb., c. xxxiv. ** 'Ep. ad Ccecilium,' Ixiii. tt Latin version. XX Va., c. viii. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 477 Cyprian proves that Christ is God's hand becanse it is written, ' Is His right hand shortened that it cannot save ? ' and again, when the psahnist says, ' My heart is inditing good matters in a song,' Cyprian makes the matter to be speech or wisdom, and that speech or wisdom to be Christ. If we take the doctrine which the Fathers professed to di'aw from the Scriptures, we shall not find them much wiser than in their interpretations. Notwith- standing the labours of Bishop Bull, it is still a question if the ante-IS'icene Fathers really agreed with the doctrine of the Council of Nice. The one centripetal power which really gives them the shadow of agreement is the Platonic idea that the Son of God was the wisdom of God, and the wisdom must have been eternal. Beyond this it would be difficult to find any agreement, not only between the ante-Nicene Fathers and the Council of Nice, but between these Fathers themselves. Tertullian, who is eloquent on the wisdom of God as the eternal manifestation of Deity, yet falls into the speech of the Arians, saying that there was a time when the Son was not.* Again, he says that ' the Father is the entii-e sub- stance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole.' t Cyprian, too, makes the wisdom of God created. + In fact, the Fathers were led into this error by their ignorance of Hebrew. Where Wisdom says in the book of Proverbs, ' The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways,' the Septuagint reads, ' The Lord created me.' Hence the Arian conclusion * Advorsus Hermogcncm, c. iii. t Adversus Praxean, c. ix. I Adversus JiidsBOS, ii. o. i. 478 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. that the Son or Wisdom of God was created. We pass by Tertullian's well-known heresy of the cor- poreity of Deity and of the human soul. He explains this, indeed, so as to refute himself. Cyprian's rebap- tizing of heretics was substantially the same heresy which afterwards made the schism of the Donatists. On other questions we might find many contradictions in the writings of the early Fathers, sometimes of each other and sometimes of themselves. On the great question of salvation, whether by works or by faith, which is still supposed to divide Catholics and Pro- testants, we may find the same diverse views in the Fathers that we find in the present day. The Eoman Clement says that we are not justified by works but bj^ faith.* The Alexandiian Father of the same name says that we may purchase heaven by ' oiu* own resources.'! Any man who carefully studies the Fathers must come to the conclusion that the advice of Justin Martyr is safest, not to follow the ancients one step further than they are followers of truth. + The Church of Eome, as we have intimated, rests essentially on a secret tradition independent of the Scriptures. Cardinal Wiseman § went so far as to identify this with a secret tradition which he supposed to have existed in the Jewish Church. This tradition, the Cardinal said, ' contained more vital dogmas than are wi'itten in the inspired volume.' It became the inheritance of the Catholic Church under Christianity, where it was more fully developed. The Catholic Church thus becomes a secret society, to which is * Ad Coiintliios Epistola Prior, c. xx,xii. f Adnionitio ad Giiecos, c. ix. X Apologia Prima, c. ii. \ Li,ctur< s on the Catholic Cliurch, p. 70. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 479 committed a hidden mystery, deeper far than any- thing recorded by the pen of Evangelists or Apostles. Protestants stand aghast when they hear the claims of the Church of Eome, and yet they never seem to realise the boundless chasm between its pretensions and those of all other Chnrches. They cannot even believe that it professes to be a supernatural institu- tion. They ask it, since it claims infallibility, to give an infallible exposition of the Scriptures, to settle the genuineness of some disputed books, to give a history of the canon, and explain why some books were accepted and some rejected. But those who make this demand forget that none of these things is really the necessary work of the Catholic Church. It pro- fesses to be a living organism, under no obligation even to be able to give a history of its past life. It is unfortunate that a Church with such powers has no capacity of demonstrating them to the world. Dr. Wiseman lamented this, and could only find the reason of it in the inscrutable ' decrees of Eternal Providence.' * Men on the very verge of despair, conscious of the difficulties that beset them on every hand, examine the claims of the Church of Eome with the earnestness of life and death, but they find no ground on vrhieh for a moment they can rest the sole of the foot. The}^ want a reason for faith, and they are told that the fii'st step must be faith. Tertullian says that this is the custom of the Yalentinian Gnostics ; ' they persuade men before they instruct them, while truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by * Lectures on tin; Catholic Chuich. p. 207. 48o CONTE]\rPORARY ESSAYS. first persuading.' * Dr. Wiseman in the same way, on the ground of a secret tradition like that men- tioned by the Yalentinians, explains the Protestant method to be that of inquiry, but the Catholic that of ' entire submission to the authority of the Chiu'ch.' f To the same effect Dr. Newman argues that if a man is an inquirer he cannot be a believer, for by the very act of inquiry he has withheld what is necessary to constitute a Catholic, that is, assent.:}: At every point where the Church of Rome demands our assent it is not in virtue of a sufficient reason, but that we may be taught, and at every point where it claims to put forth supernatural power it keej)s the evidence of the supernatural out of the reach of reason. In the daily miracle which it professes to Avork there are no signs to inform the senses or the reason of its reality. The bread has all the qualities of bread, and the wine of wine. The consciousness of the faithful making, by a natural law, the ideal into a real, often supposes the presence of flesh and blood, and in some cases the transformation is said to have been visible, but the miracle in this form is rarely credited even by Catholics. We want a test of the Church's infalli- bility, but it is found nowhere. The Chiu^ch refuses to settle any question that may be proposed to it con- cerning any problem of history or science, or to shed light on any of the hard and perplexing questions of daily life. Even on subjects on which it does speak, it gives no certainty that it has spoken the right word. The evidence of its supernatural power is not * Adversus ValentiniMnos, c. 1. f P. 27. I CTi-ainiiiar of A.'5^-CIlt, p. 184. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 481 only beyond the province of that reason which inves- tigates, but the power itself is rendered doubtful by its own voluntary acts. The Councils which claim to represent the Church have all shown the usual mea- sure of human frailty, and the Popes, by the admission of Catholics themselves, have not been free from the infirmities common to man. All these things, and many more, have long been in the way of earnest men believing the Church of Eome to be what it professes to be. But the events con- nected with the recent Council of the Vatican have raised a new and impassable barrier in the way of any man who wishes his assent to be preceded by investi- gation. We do not speak merely of the new dogma. That in itself is the same in kind with other dogmas. If it is a novelty, if it is contradicted by facts, if the programme was imposed in the Council, the same might be said of other dogmas which the Church has decreed in other ages. It is an old taunt against Protestants that their ' variations ' of doctrine are many — even one of the old Fathers reproached the heretics that they all differed from each other. But now we have a new revelation of ' variations ' within the fold of the united Catholic Church. ' The Lucifer of Christendom has thus far fallen from his pride of place, and become as one of us.' * But it is not a mere question of variations. It is now evident that the great leaders and champions of Catholicism are at variance as to the very essence of Catholicism. They have not all understood the secret tradition which * Dean of Westminster in Edinburgh Rcriew, 'The Viitican Council,' July, 1871. I I 4R 2 CO NT EM FOR A RY ESS A 1 'S. makes the Chiu-eh iiul(^pendent of Scriptiu'e and Fathers. Some supposed that the Church rested entirely on the past, but it is found that it has a life independent of the past. It is possible, it is even probable, that celebrated Catholics who have boasted so much about the tradition of the Church had no definite idea of what they meant by this tradition. "We have seen Dr. Wiseman comparing and identify- ing it Avith the tradition of the Jews, by which they knew of such doctrines as the immortality of the soul which were not revealed in the canonical Scriptiu-es. But Dr. Wiseman again tells us that the ' unwritten word' of the Church is written in the Fathers. If a difficulty were to arise about any doctrine, and the Church thought it necessary to define what is held, ' the method,' he says, ' would be to examine most accurately the w^ritings of the Fathers of the Church, to ascertain what, in diff'erent countries and different ages, was by them held, and then collecting the suffrages of all the Avorld and of all times — not indeed to create a new article of faith, but to define what has already been the faith of the Catholic Church. It is concluded in every instance as a matter of historical inquiry, and all human prudence is used to arrive at a judicious conclusion." * T^o man can undertake to say beforehand w^hat a Eonian Catholic may do in reference to his Church, but if Dr. Wiseman had lived to see the Vatican Council he would have found that dogmas are not made by a careful examination of the Fathers, but by votes of the majority of bishops. And the Council was wise in its generation. Tlie * Lectures on tliu Calholir Cliurcli, p. Gl. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 4R3 infallibility of the Pope was as little known to the Fathers as the adventm-es of Robinson Crusoe, or the history of Sinbad the Sailor. In England the new dogma was regarded by many who had gone from the Church of England as a calamity to '^h'^ Catholic Church. Dr. Newman, who had left the Church of England after he was per- suaded that the Fathers were on the side of the Church of Rome, prayed to Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil, that they would arrest ' the great calamity ; ' but these saints were either asleep, or they had gone on a journey. And so an ' insolent faction,' as Dr. Newman called the promoters of the new dogma, were allowed to postpone the ' triumph ' of the Catholic Church. Mr. Maskell, another pervert, who found Anglo -Catholic- ism unsupported by the Fathers, adduced the ' practice of the whole Catholic Church, for scores of genera- tions, that the Pope alone was not infallible.' * Mr. Maskell, evidently at his wits' end, and finding the same uncertainty in the Church of Rome that he had found in the Church of England, has since submitted, with the understanding that, ' if a Pope contradicted any clear article of faith, he would, instead of being infallible in so doing, ipso facto cease to be Pope.' In Germany, where the Catholic clergy may lay claim to greater learning than in any other country, the new dogma met the greatest opposition. The opposition bishops have since submitted, not because they are convinced of the truth of the Vatican decrees, but for the sake of peace and not to break the unity of the * A Lettor to the Editor of the Duhlin Rcrieir, ii2 484. CONTEMPURARV ESSAYS. (,'hurch. They are convinced that an QEcumenical Council has proclaimed a false doctrine, yet they either explain it in an unnatural sense, or they submit to it for the sake of peace. This is the certainty, this is the unity, this is the concord of the Catholic Church ! Dr. Dollinger, the greatest champion of Catholicism in modern times, a man to whom the whole history of the Church is as familiar as the events of the passing hour, cannot conceal the fact, even from himself, that the Catholic Church which he has defended is not the Church represented by the Yatican Council. He understood by this Catholic Church a society which could show identity of doc- trine with the Church of past ages ; but the majority of the members of the Council meant a supernatural institution, whose decree alone was greater evidence of truth than all history. In France, where the denial of Papal infallibility had long been a charac- teristic of the N^ational Church, there were still some who saw in the proceedings of the Yatican Council the destruction of what they had always regarded as the Catholic Church. Pere Hyacinthe has remained faithful to his convictions ; but it is to be feared that the bishops and leaders of the clergy have renounced their national traditions, and submitted to receive .from Rome what in their own consciences they know to be false. The Catholicism which Bossuet defended is no longer Catholicism, and the great champion of the faith is himself deprived of the name of Catholic* * As a specimen how French Catholics regarded Ultramontanes before the decision of the Vatican, we quote from the Abbo de Saint-Pol, in his criti- cism of the sajings and doings of Arclibishnp Jlanning : ' L'ecole extreme dont I'Archeveque de Westminster se fait, on Anglcterre, I'organe et I'aputre, CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 485 But the ' variations ' of Catholicism are really nothing new to Protestants. Bossuet himself would not have been ignorant of them had he not wilfully shut his eyes. I^o Catholic can be ignorant of them who is familiar with Augustine, whose views of grace were declared by Pope Hormisdas to be the doctrine of the Catholic Chiu'ch.* M. Simon had shown f that on the subject of grace the Church had never been united. The same diverse sentiments that divided Protestants into Calvinists and Arminians have existed from very early times in the Clu-istian Church. This is a matter so easily tested that any ordinary man has only to read Augustine on predesti- nation, and compare what he says with Chrysostom's exposition of the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans, Here we have the two representative fathers of the East and the West. Augustine is plainly on coupe en deux, si I'on peut ainsi dire, I'Eglise universelle ; elle separe le chef des niembres ; elle mutile I'oeuvre de Jesus-Christ ; elle opere une veritable decapitation ! Si de pareilles tendances pouvaient prevaloir, I'heure ne serait pas eloignee ou I'Eglise, deposedee des conditions essentielles de sa veritable vie, tombcrait dans un malaise incurable, dans un etoilement chronique. qui aboutiraient fataliment a la mort ! jMais les promesses sent certaines Jesus- Christ no maiiqnera pas a son Eglise, et les tendances nouvelles neprevaudront pas.' (' L'Ultra- Catholicisme en Angleterre,' par JF. I'Abbe A. de 8aiut-Pol.) This was written before the new dogma was proclaimed, so that, according to the Abbe, the promises of Christ have failed. The Church has received an incurable woiind. Dr. DoUinger used the same words to the present writer last summer. 'The Catholic Chui-ch,' he said, 'has received a wound which it cannot survive.' The same Abbe recognising the vast difference bttween the Catholicism of Manning and Bossuet, exclaims in another page : ' Notre gra^.d Bossuet, 1-^ dcfenseur le plus devouc, le (ihampion le plus opiniatre des droits certains et des privilegi^s legitimes du Saint-Siege, Bossuet lui-meme n'est pas epargne ! Ni son immortel genie, ni son immense amour de I'Eglise n'i>nt pas lui faire trouver grace devant les severites cruelles de Mgr. Man- ning ! ' * See Bossuet ' Defense de la Tradition et des Saints Peres,' p. 265, vol. v., of the Versailles edition of his works. t ' Histoire Critique des Principaux Commentateurs du Nouveau Testa- ment,' iS;c., par M. Simon. 486 COXTEMPORARY ESS A VS. the side of Calvin, while Chrysostom makes election to depend on the divine fore-knowledge of the persons elected. God foresaw that Jacob Avas to be a good man, therefore God loved him ; while Esau was hated because of his foreseen wickedness. Augustine denies free-will, Chrysostom defends it. Augustine com- pares the elect and the reprobate to two malefactors. Because of Adam's sin they are under condemnation. God pardons one, but suffers the law to be executed on the other. He cannot escape, for he never re- ceives that grace which is necessary to repentance. He sins indeed, but he came into the world so in- fluenced by Adam's transgression that he could do nothing but sin, and for this sin he is reprobated for over. Clii-ysostom, on the other hantl, supposes all men to be so tar restored by grace, that their final standing or falling depends on themselves. The doctrine of Chrysostom is now unquestionably that of the Church of Eome, while the doctrine of Augus- tine was condemned in the condemnation of the Jansenists. Roman Catholics try to escape these conclusions by refined distinctions. They deny the identity of the doctrine of Augustine with that of Jansen in the same way as Pascal, a Jansenist, to save himself from the charge of heresy, tried to distinguish between the doctrine of Jansen and that of Calvin, by Ijrofessing to rely on Augustine. The plea was that grace efi'ectually disposed the will without interfering with its freedom,* which is simjDly the explanation of irresistible grace that we hear every day from the disciples of Calvin. This system of theology in spite * 'Lotties rruvincials,' No. xvii. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 487 of all efforts to make distinctions, is altogether dif- ferent from the theology now sanctioned in the Church of Eome. The Eliemes commentators, for instance, say that '■ the pardoned work by their own free-will, and thereby deserve their salvation, and the other no less by their own free-will of themselves procure their o^vn damnation.' * The Council of Trent decreed, ' Whosoever shall affirm that all works done before justification, in whatsoever way performed, are actually sins, and deserve God's hatred ; or that the more earnestly a man labours to dispose himself for grace, he does but sin the more, let him be accursed ; ' and again, ' Whosoever shall affirm that the ungodly is justified by faith only, so that it is to be understood that nothing else is to be required to co-operate there- with in order to obtain salvation, and that it is on no account necessary that he should prepare and dispose himself by the effect of his own will, let him be accursed.' We are not passing any judgment on this doctrine in itself, but no unbiassed mind could ever pronounce it the doctrine of Augustine. The decrees were evidently made with special reference to the Augustinian theology of the Protestant Confessions, and were probably expressly aimed at the Calvinistic Articles of the Church of England. We cannot shut our eyes to these facts. They render it impossible for rational men to believe in the supernatural character of the Church of Rome. We look for evidence, but at every step we find traces of error and infirmity. Dr. Newman still adlieres to the Church of Rome, though the ' insolent faction,' as he * The Rhemes New Testament, note on Eomaiis ix. 488 CONTEMPORARY ESS A VS. once called the Ultramontanes, have now made a com- plete conquest of the entire Church. He continues to write books for the benefit of Protestants, and such is our esteem for Newman, that if he really had an argu- ment to offer, he would have a more respectful hearing than any Catholic in England. But he only gives us dialectics, subtle distinctions which we are disposed to question, and conclusions in favour of the religion he has adopted, which scarcely follow even from his ques- tionable premises. He tells us for instance that the religion of England is notional, while that of Catholics is real ; the one is only a sentiment, the other founded on an assent, a conviction, or realisation of the object of faith. What he means may not be altogether evi- dent, for he excepts all the great religious movements, and all the men who have had a great religious influ- ence, in England. Protestant piety is certainly dif- ferent in type from Catholic piety; but the distinction of notional and real is altogether inaj)plicable. The Catholic has perhaps a deeper sense of the super- natural, for he believes a supernatiu^al working in his daily worship, but the Protestant has a deeper faith. He sees God in the daily working of nature and Pro- vidence, and in spite of many difiiculties he trusts on. The feeling of certainty is often as strong, but it is internal certainty, and this may be a supernatural work in a higher sense than what Dr. Newman means by the real assent of a Catholic. It is to the credit both of Dr. Newman and Dr. Manning that they have never allowed their Catholic zeal to do injustice to the religious worth and moral influence of Protestantism in England. Our nationally CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 485 practical character would lead us to look favom-ably on the Chui'ch of Eome if its fruits were visibly better than those of Protestantism. We expect that a super- natural Chiu:ch would produce better and higher results than a Church which does not claim that cha- racter. If the poj)ulation of Eoman Catholic countries showed any moral superiority to our own population, we should be willing to take this as so much evidence of the truth of Catholicism. But for this we look in vain. The same humanity is in all countries, and the same varieties of good and evil wlrich are often deter- mined in a greater measure by other circumstances than the mere presence of either Protestantism or Catholicism. 'There are,' says Dr. Manning, 'in the Anglican communion, and among Nonconformists, millions who believe in Jesus Christ, His person, and His redemption, with a heartfelt and loving faith, and theii' faith bears noble fruit.'* On the other hand. Dr. Newman says that in a Catholic community there may be all the vices to which a Protestant community are liable. There may be scandals in monasteries, officials in cathedrals who are a dishonour to the place, and priests who set a bad example to their flocks, and are the cause of anxiety and grief to their bishops, j* When we compare the fruits of the two religions we find no such balance in favour of the Catholic Church as to become an evidence of its supernatural character. Mr. Ffoulkes and Mr. Capes left the Church of Eng- land expecting to find more of heaven upon earth in the Church of Eome. Like many others, they were * 'The (Ecumenical Council,' a pa&toral letter, p. 10. t 'Anglican Difficulties,' p. 227. 490 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. disappointed. They have both returned, and published to the workl that they found the tone and practice of morality not so high in Catholic countries as in Pro- testant England. And even the religious tone seems in some cases to be lower than in England. Mr. Efoulkes says that when he described to the priest who received him into communion on the continent the ' daily round ' of Christian life in the Church of Eng- land,— ' our femily prayers, our grace before and after meals, our reading of the Scriptures, our observance of Sunday, our services at Church, our Sunday-schools,' — the priest, on the following Sunday, embodied it all in a fervent sermon, telling his congregation how ' many lessons of piety they had to learn from their separated brethren in England.'* When we try to gather from Eoman Catholic writers what are the real advantages of theii* Chui-ch, we find them in many cases such as we reckon no advantages at all. Dr. Newman and Dr. Manning both tell us that the great work of the Church is to fight against the spirit of the age, in fact, to make war against the divine progress of the world. This, too, the Vatican Council has declared in no ambiguous or doubtful language. The old spirit of the Manichees seems to have taken possession of the Catholic Church. It has given up the world of nature to the dominion of the adversary, and seeks to cast out the evil one by magic and divination. The sacraments are made charms, and when we say that the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant population is not visible, we are told that the Catholic has ' the grace of baptism, * ' The Church's C'leed and the Crown's Creed,' hy E. S. Ffoulkes, p. -50. CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 4.Q1 the germ or power of all superiiatui'al- virtues.'* Again, Dr. Newman tells us that Catholics 'worship the crucifix,' however profligate they may be. A Catholic may be a highwayman, but he is devout to the Ma- donna. He may swear by the ' Blessed Mother,' but he pays for his mass, and if he be a wicked peasant any one can put him to flight by a ' Hail Mary, holy water, or the sign of the cross.' An old woman who ' genuflects before the Blessed Sacrament ' and then steals her neighbour's handkerchief is still ' a believer.' A Catholic ' may sing jocose songs about the Blessed Virgin and the saints, 'j" and in levity tell good stories about the devil; he may neglect his Easter duties, laugh at the priest, and cease going to mass ; but when he is dying, 'he addresses himself to the crucifix, interests the Blessed Virgin in his behalf,' gets abso- lution from his priest, and dies in the faith. This is the superiority ; this is the advantage of Catholicism over Protestantism. + Let a wicked man give what Dr. Newman calls a ' real assent ' to the Catholic religion, and he is ' safer ' than a Protestant whose life is irreproachable. This principle, too, is inherited from Paganism. The Pagans preferred men, however profligate, if they adhered to the old religion, to any Christians, however good their lives might be.g ' Judicat securus orbis terrarum,' St. Augustine wrote when he reckoned up the Christians throughout * Dr. Newman's 'Anglican Difficulties,' p. 226. t The same religious phenomenon is iioied in the ' Octaviiis ' of Minutius Felix: ' Etiam per quietans deos videmus, audimus, aguoscimuH, quos impio per diem negamus, noluiuus, pejeramus.' + 'Anglican Difficulties,' pp. -230—42. \ See Teilulliau's ' Apology,' o. iii. 492 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. the world, and put them in the scales against the Donatists of the north of Africa. It was beautiful rhetoric, and when it rung in Dr. Newman's ears he could not resist its charms. The intellect of the great dialectician had become so childlike that it was ' Pleased with a feather, tickled with a straw.' It was a great leap in Augustine to suppose that the Church in his day was co-extensive with the world, and a greater leap still to suppose that it had a judg- ment at all, much less a unanimous judgment, on the question which caused the separation of the Donatists. Moreover, the Donatists might have answered on the principle of Yincentius of Lerina, that when the greater part was corrupted they were to appeal to antiquity ; and they could have appealed to their own Cyprian, to the great Council of Carthage, and to the tradition of the African Church. Certainly in their case, in theory at least, reason and Christian charity were on the side of Augustine and the Eoman Church. The argument, however, though one of numbers, was founded on a principle which has truth in it. The general judgment or Catholic reason of mankind may not be infallible. It may not be always the same, yet it must always be a check upon the individual reason. In the surroundings of the common reason that of the individual is most likely to receive its normal develop- ment. In the common thoughts of the race and the common experience of mankind we are more likely to find such truth as may be known than in the decisions of Popes and Councils. This is the true Catholic faith. This is the universal Church of which all men are CATHOLICS AND CATHOLICS. 493 members iu virtue of their being born into the world. It is well for Protestants to see clearly how entire is their dissent fi-om the whole theory of the Church of Eome. That Church supposes faith to be measured by the assent given to its dogmas. Faith is reckoned greater the less the evidence for the truth of what the Church teaches, and by this kind of faith ' the soul is to be saved.' Dr. Newman seems to be possessed by the conviction that the more he believes, and the less ground he has for believing it, the more acceptable will he be in the sight of God. In this kind of faith, and in prayer and ceremonies founded on it, the Catholic, departing entirely from the universal reason, places the substance of religion. The Protestant, on the other hand, measures his assent to any doctrine by the amount of evidence which it carries with it. There is a Hindoo legend that when the Supreme Deity first essayed creation. He made ten men who did nothing but praise Brahma. It might have been supposed that this was the most commendable thing for men to do ; but the legend adds that they were such idiots that Brahma immediately destroyed them, and created in their place a race of rational beings. The service wliich the Deity wants is a reasonable service. The Protestant recognises the mysteries by which he is surrounded, but he strives to see iu nature a divine order, and to learn what is his present duty. His faith is not an ' assent,' but a trust. He believes that since there is so much wisdom in what he now sees, there will at last be found no less wisdom in that wliich is dark and full of mystery. The faith of 404 C ONTEMPORA R 1 ' ESS A } 'S. Catholics is like that of Job's friends. They profess certainty at every stejD. They cannot suppose that the Divine Being would suffer anything to be other- wise than as they imagine it to be. But the faith of the Protestant is like that of Job admitting the dark where it is dark, marvelling at God's incomprehen- sible ways, yet believing that after the clouds there will be sunshine, and that His dealings with men will be according to a wisdom that is boundless and a justice that is infinite. XVIII. AN EAENEST MINISTER * ONLY a small number of our readers have ever heard of the Rev. John Milne, of Perth ; and but for the circumstance that he was for some years the successor of Dr. Duff at Calcutta, that number would have been smaller still. Yet Mr. Milne in his own way was a rare man. About thirty years ago there was in some towns in Scotland what is called a ' great revival ' of religion. It began with a young preacher named William Burns, and it was carried on with the assistance of Mr. Milne, of Perth ; Mr. M'Cheyne, of Dundee ; and some other ministers of less note. M'Cheyne died in his youth. He had often prayed that he might depart and be with Christ, for that, he said, was far better. His prayer was early answered. William Burns, with a strange heroism, left the work he was doing in Scotland and became a laborious mis- sionary among the Chinese. He died in the early part of last year, not much over fifty years of age. Two * Contemporary Review, March, 1869. Ta/a of the lii'v. John iT'd.ie, of Perth. By HoiiAT7Tm BoxAU, D.I). London : Jiimes Xisbrt & Co. 496 CONTEMPORARY RSSAJ'S. months later died Mr. Milne, who had been minister of St. Leonard's, Perth, from 1839 up to 1853, Dr. Duff's successor in Calcutta from that time till 1858, and for the last ten years minister again of his old congrega- tion in Perth. The ' revival ' took place about thi'ee years before the disruption in the Church of Scotland, when the minis- ters were sharply divided into Evangelicals and Mode- rates. Mr. Milne and his friends belonged to the former. They were not only excluded from the pulpits, and by the parochial law of ' use and wont ' from the parishes of the Moderates, but their ' revival ' doings subjected them to strict presbyterial examina- tions, and to the usual measure of public criticism and censure. The writer of this can remember William Burns preaching in St. Leonard's, Perth, and the strange influence he had over the people. There was no noise, and, saving the soft accents of the preacher's voice, with here and there a subdued sobbing, the silence was breathless and deathlike. Crowds flocked to the church every evening, and often when the preacher had flnished and retired to the vestry, the people remained. He had to return and continue the service sometimes till past the hour of midnight. The Avhole town was excited, and all the neighbourhood for miles round. There were prayer-meetings in every street. Tracts were distributed at every corner, servant girls were dis- coursing seriously to each other about being ' saved,' and little boys were singing jDsalms and holding prayer-meetings by the road-sides, under hedgerows and in sand-pits. There was much evil mingled with all this. People wore using language which expressed AN EARNEST MINISTER. 497 what they did not feel, aud were making professions beyond their actual experience. But it was here as in all other 'revivals' — the good is known chiefly to those who have experienced it, while the evil is mani- fest to all men. The excitement passed away. There had been stony- ground hearers, and some of the seed fell among thorns. But some also fell on good ground and brought forth good fruit. The story of Mr. Milne's life is soon told. He was a gentle, amiable boy, whose highest ambition was to be a ' minister.' In his school days he found his plea- sure in his lessons rather than in play. He was sent to the University of Aberdeen, where his industry gained him the highest prizes in classics and mathema- tics. Before beginning his ministry he came to Eich- mond as tutor to the family of a Mr. Snow, a clergyman of the Church of England. Under Mr. Snow's preach- ing his religious feelings deepened. It was here, he says, that he passed from ' darkness to light.' He thought of taking orders in the Church of England ; but on further study of the question of Church polity, he decided for Presbyterianism. Eeturning to Aber- deen in 1835, he was appointed to a Sunday evening lectureship, which he held till 1839, when he came to Perth. St. Leonard's Church is what is called in Scotland a quoad sacra — that is, a district church without parsonage or endowment. William Burns was with Mr. Milne at the very beginning of his Perth ministry. The church soon filled. The pews were all taken, and a long list was kept in the vestry of the names of per- sons waiting for vacancies. Mr. Milne's heart Avas in K K 498 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. his work in right earnest. He gave himself wholly to it, and the people clung to him with a devotion which no earthly power could change. It was a time of trouble in the Church of Scotland. The question of patronage, or the right of the patron to intrude his jyresentee on a parish against the will of the people — that withering evil of all State Churches — was rending the Church asunder. How it ended in 1843 is a matter of history ; but only those who witnessed the strife can have any conception of the wrath, the malice, and bitterness which accompanied it. Ministers, pa- rishes, families, were divided ; and for a time the Gospel was not peace, but a sword. Perth has often been closely connected with great religious questions. It was here that John Knox began the Eeformation. It was here that Ebenezer Erskine began the Secession in the early part of the last century, and on this same question of the abuse of patronage. In 1842 Perth was one of the strongholds of the !N'on-Intrusionists. Mr. Milne was a decided Free Churchman, but never mingled in the strife. He was firm when the hour came, and went forth bravely to do as conscience dictated, followed by almost his entire congregation; but he never reproached the ministers that remained in the Establishment, and they never reproached him. Each party ascribed to the other the most unworthy motives ; but no one ever questioned the integrity, the sincerity, and the disinterestedness of John Milne. This was a rare triumph of the spirit of Christ in the man. In 1847, in the fortieth year of his age, Mr. Milne married. It was scarcely expected that a soul so A.V EARXEST JI//X/STEE. 499 sublimated would ever have so far conformed to that vile world, which eats and drinks, marries and is given in marriage. But the holiness of celibacy was not an article of his creed. After five years of great domestic happiness and great prosperity in his work, one of his children died, then his wife died, and, soon after, his other child died, and his house was left desolate. The entry in his family Bible of his marriage and the deaths of his wife and children is very affecting, ' The Lord,' he said, ' setteth the solitary in families, and He makes them solitary again.' He found many words of Scripture to express his grief and to describe his feel- ings; for all Scriptm-e, if rightly taken, is truly human ; but his humanity shines out in the words of Tennyson, wdth which he concludes: — ' Better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.' The immediate result of this bereavement is a con- viction that he is called to India. But how is he to know that the call is really divine ? He consults his brethren, who mostly try to persuade him that he is not called. ' The simple fact is,' said Andrew Gray, one of his oldest and most trusted friends, ^ t/ou took it into your head^ and so the thing began.' The con- gregation were opposed to it, every man and every woman of them. All entreated him not to leave them, not to break a bond so close, not to leave work in which he had so eminently prospered, and to which he was so evidently called. But Mr. Milne was resolved for India, and he could only answer them, 'What mean ye to weep and to break my heart ? ' And to India he went. Here he married again. His wife's K K 2 500 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. health failed, and after nearly five years of Indian work he returned to Scotland, and was again called to be the minister of Free St. Leonard's. Since that time he had been a leader of ' great revivals of reli- gion ; ' but whether or not these ^ revivals ' were genuine, we have not the means of forming an impar- tial judgment. Mr. Milne was not an ' intellectual ' preacher. He did not understand ' doubts ' or ' difficulties of be- lief.' He felt none of these himself, and could only regard them in others as the ' fruits of sin.' He was so far out of sympathy with what we call the wants of the age, that but for the single fact that his ministry was successful, we should not . have thought his bio- graphy deserving more than the briefest notice. He was eminent. Dr. Bonar says, as a pastor, a minister, and an evangelist. He knew all his congregation fami- liarly— every member of every family. He had con- versed and prayed privately with almost every one, introducing them to that spiritual region in which his own life was passed. He was always and everywhere ' the minister ; ' never for a moment forgetting his calling, and never forgetting that every moment he was exercising influence. His sermons were simple, earnest, and always studied with the circumstances and wants of his congregation before his mind. He never used a manuscript or notes, and an ordinary hearer might have thought that he was speaking without pre- paration ; but he made too much conscience of his work to do any of it negligently. All the week was spent in preparing for the Sunday. He prayed, he read, he wrote, he meditated, he gathered spiritual AN EARNEST MINISTER. 501 strength every day, and what he gathered he gave to his people when Sunday came. The work of minister- ing to a large congregation was enough in itself for any ordinary man, but Mr. Milne's zeal knew no limits. He never refused invitations to preach for his neigh- bours. He went out on missionary tours, holding ' revival ' meetings, preaching in barns, or in the open air, or to the workpeople in factories. He never missed an opportunity of trying to do good. If travelling in a railway carriage, he would engage the passengers in religious conversation. If he hired a cab, he would speak to the cabman about being ' saved.' If he saw a poor woman carrying a basket, he would offer to help her, saying, that we ought to bear one another's burdens. If a man begged from him, he would give a coin, and tell him to 'beg for his soul.' To fishermen mending their nets he would say that he too was a fisherman, and he wished to catch men. To stone-breakers he would say that he was a stone- breaker, trying to break stony hearts. He would often accompany the policemen in their night rounds, and with the help of the lantern read to them verses out of the New Testament. He has been known to travel amid the smoke and soot of a railway engine, that he might ' convert ' the stoker. He would tell boys selling newspapers that he had a newspaper that never grew old, meaning his Bible. When he saw any one in mourning, he would go up to them, speak of their bereavement, say that he sympathized with them, and so did Christ. When the Queen came to Perth to uncover a statue of Prince Albert, Mr. Milne was anxious that she should receive some spiritual benefit 502 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. at his hands. He wished to present her with a copy of a favourite hymn. He found no opportunity of doing it personally, but Lord Mansfield introduced him to General Grey, who assured Mr. Milne that the hymn would be presented to the Queen. When Mr. Milne went to India, he began his work as soon as he was on board ship. He conversed with the passengers, held meetings with them, and preached to them. He watched for opportunities of speaking to the seamen. He gave the boys sixpences to learn verses of the Scriptures, and he even succeeded in getting the cap- tain to join with him in private prayer. In Calcutta he visited through the lanes and gullies of the old town — a place unknown to most of the European popu- lation. He made his way into several families, in spite of what he called ' worldly etiquette,' when he knew they were in trouble, or on the occasion of sickness or death. Many a time, now more than twenty years ago, did Mr. Milne stop the writer of this on Perth Bridge, on the North Inch, or by the river side, look at his bundle of books, and ask how he was getting on with Ovid, or Virgil, or Homer. Then would follow an invitation to his Bible class. His manner was so simple, his character so transparent, that as soon as he spoke it was evident he had but one object. We have said that Mr. Milne's ministry was suc- cessful. He had no great gifts of intellect ; he had no eloquence ; his learning was not extensive ; in fact, his reading seems to have been unusually limited. What, then, was the secret of his power ? We might say at once it was that he preached religion rather than theology; and he lived what he preached. If he AN EARNEST MINISTER. 503 did not know the difficulties that beset men who think, he yet knew the wants of men in general. He knew the power of sympathy, and he knew that the story of the life and the death of Jesus will reach men's hearts to the end of time. And then he had mastered the evil that was in himself, l^o one ever knew him to be angry. Even his wife could only once remember any approach to hastiness, and it was when the servant had omitted to tell him of a case of sickness to be visited. He could bear opposition ; he could suffer to see himself despised or thrust aside if any good came by it. He used to buy things at a shop in Perth where the shopkeeper was not civil to him. He was asked why he continued to go where his custom was not wanted ; and he answered that he was trying to soften that man by kindness. He could not enter into the thoughts of men who are perplexed with the ways of Providence, or have doubts about revelation, or who do not understand revelation in the same way as he understood it ; but he did not rail against them as atheists, infidels, neologians, or sceptics. He knew that men were not to be won by hard names. Nor did he speak evil of Christians who did not belong to his own party. Writing to a servant in England who had been a member of his congregation, he said, 'You must not despise the Church of England. If I know the Lord at all, it was in her that He was first revealed to me.' In India he sometimes preached in the chapels belonging to the Church of England, getting a civilian or an ofiicer to read the liturgy. His religion was not made up of certain opinions ; it was a life. It appears that in his youth Mr. Milne had a fall 504 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. which affected his head. How far this served as a thorn in the flesh to crucify him to the world we do not know. His zeal often seemed to surpass the bounds of reason. He refused to go into society where he could not make religion the sole subject of conversation. He was out of sympathy with what is secular or ' worldly.' In some company, when a favourite Scotch song was sung, beginning ' There's nae luck aboot the house,' Mr. Milne said it was only true of King Jesus, to whom also all the Jacobite songs were applicable. To little boys in the street he would speak of a little boy in Germany who wrote a letter to the ' dear Lord Jesus.' Walking in a friend's garden, he found the gardener lamenting that the frost was destroying the strawberries ; he took the gardener into the summer-house and prayed for a good season. He lived in daily expectation of the second advent. Mr. Milne was one of those happy souls over whose head heaven is still open, and the angels of God ascending and descending. The Bible was to him a book of which every letter is divine, and all its figures realities. His faith was that of a child — as simple, as sincere, as living, as earnest. "While reading Mr. Milne's Life we have been thinking of another man very unlike him, and yet in some respects very like. This is no other than Jacob Eohme, the shoemaking philosopher of Gorlitz. When Bohme's hour of de- parture was at hand, he called his son Tobias, and asked him whether he heard that sweet harmonious music? He replied, 'No.' 'Open the door,' said he, 'that you may the better hear it.' And asking what o'clock it was, he told him it was two. 'My AN EARNEST MINISTER. 505 time,' he said, ' is not yet ; three hours hence is my time.' Then he spoke these words, — ' 0 Thou strong God of Sabaoth, deliver me according to Thy will ! Thou crucified Lord Jesus, have mercy on me and take me into Thy kingdom ! ' When six in the morning came, he took leave of his wife and son, blessed them, and said, ' ISTow I go hence into Paradise ;' and bidding his son turn him, he fetched a sigh and departed. "We say of John Milne, in the words of Professor Maurice, ' We may be glad, like Bohme's son Tobias, to open the door and see whether any of the music which soothed him on his deathbed can reach us. Without adopting any of his speculations, we may be thankful if our pilgrimage is as honest and as toilsome as his was, our faith of the way which has been opened into Paradise as well-grounded and as child-like.' XIX. THE EDUCATION OF THE CLEEGY.* IT has often been remarked that there are no clergy in the world so well educated as those of the Church of England ; and yet there are none whose education has so little reference to the special duties of their profession. The study of theology, with the sacred languages and literature, is almost entirely neglected, or at the most extends only to attendance on one or two short courses of routine lectures. A student destined for the Church is scarcely ever called upon to write sermons or homilies until the bishop's examination, and his first effort at reading or speak- ing in public is not until after he has taken deacon's orders. The result is that the clergyman as a public teacher, is unable, with all his education, to compete Avith the most uneducated preacher that harangues in the neighbouring Bethel or Bethesda. These are facts admitted alike by all parties in the Church, and out of it. Mr. Michell compares the educatioij of the English clergy with that of the Eoman Catholic clergy * Contemporary Review, October, 1868. Kotes and Thoughts on the Education of the Clergy at Home and Abroad, and on the Scarcity of Candidates for Holy Orders. By WiLLiAM MiCHELL, M.A., Incumbent of Chantzy. London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. THE EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY. 507 in France and the Protestant Episcopal clergy in the United States. The chief thing which distinguishes the French and American clerical education from that of England is its exclusively ecclesiastical character. In France the priests are mostly selected from the humbler classes ; they are marked out for the priest- hood while mere boys, and sent to schools and colleges where they undergo a long course of training before they are admitted to full orders. The Church never loses sight of them. They are watched over in youth. They are specially cared for at the time of their ordi- nation, and as young priests the bishop finds them employment according to their capabilities and their particular gifts. In England the whole condition, education, and relation of the clergy is the entire reverse of this. As a rule they come from the middle and higher classes of society. They are sent to the great public schools and universities, where they mix with those of their own age who are destined for other professions or for no profession at all. They pui'sue the same studies, indulge in the same sports, and fall into the same sins as their fellow-students. Their testimonials are signed, as a matter of course. Their si quis is read, to which no one pays any atten- tion. They are examined by the bishop — an exami- nation which is often the merest imaginable pretence ; they are ordained, and go to work in their parishes, often to preach a Gospel which they have never learned, to expound Scriptures which they have never studied, and to address, as consolation to the sick and dying, words that would bring no consolation to themselves. Should they have the means of reaching 5o8 CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS. a benefice, the bishop will make a further acquaintance with them ; but should they remain cui-ates they are too insignificant for his lordship to take further notice of them either for good or for evil. A French bishop, according to Mr. Michel 1, knows all his clergy ; and when a rector wants a curate, he applies to the bishop. In England all these things are done by means of registry offices, advertisements in ecclesiastical news- papers, and sometimes by agents, who get a per- centage for their work. If a curate were to ask an English bishop to help him to find a curacy, he would receive a polite answer saying that a memorandum had been made of his request. He would never, of course, hear from the bishop again ; in fact, the epis- copal answer would be written with a coldness which intimated that not being a beneficed clergyman, the bishop did not consider him as particularly belonging to his diocese, or indeed to the Church at all. We cannot advocate the Eoman Catholic system of train-: ing the clergy in schools and colleges where they are shut out from all intercourse with the actual world. They may thus become more devoted servants of the Church, but not of mankind. No man requires more universality of knowledge and experience than the religious teacher. He should be physician, philo- sopher, and farmer, as well as pastor and preacher. Some vague idea of this is at the foundation of the system which makes the education of an English clergyman a secular rather than a theological educa- tion ; but it is deficient in two ways — it never reaches the ideal, and it fails even of the good which the other system ensures. It might be said, speaking THE EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY. 509 generally, that the Catholic education of the clergy is part of the Catholic system — the training of men who are to live celibate lives, whose sympathies are not to be with the world, but whose will, reason, and intel- lect, body, soul, and spirit, are given up to the service of the Church as an institution. The Protestant clerical education is necessarily different, and ought to be ; yet we agree with Mr. Michell that there is great room for improvement, and for improvement, too, in no way incompatible with the Protestant character of the Church of England. But the evils of which we have to complain are not isolated. We can trace their connection with other and higher evils, which bear relation to them as causes to effects. And this brings us to the second part of Mr. Michell's pamphlet — the scarcity of candi- dates for holy orders. It seems at first sight a strange fact that in the richest Church in the world, the Church in which the clergy are held in the highest honour, and which gives them the highest social position, there is not found a sufficient number of properly qualified men to come into her service and do the work which her very existence requires to be done. Mr. Michell assigus for this a great many reasons. The principal of them, we think, may bo reduced to two. The first is the expense of education. It is almost impossible for any but the monied class to get the advantages of Oxford or Cambridge. This excludes all the material from which the Churches in all other countries, Catholic or Protestant, derive their clergy. This makes the Church more aristocratic, doubtless ; but what right has a national Church to 5IO CONTEMPORARY ESSAVS. separate itself from the largest class in the nation '? And what is the consequence ? Just as the humbler classes are not represented in the service of the Church, so are they absent from its worship. It is true the bishops can ordain ' literate persons,' and there are clerical colleges where the necessary train- ing is within the reach of men who cannot afford the expense of the universities. Yet these colleges are mostly failures. St. Aidan's has been closed. St. Bees, the oldest of them, has been brought into disgrace by the incaf)acity of the men whom it has sent to the Bishops' Examinations. Some of the others are mere schools for training men in party principles, imitated from the Catholic seminaries. They are unable to do the necessary service for the Church. This, also, is worth inquiring into, and the reason will be found in connection with something else. When it is said that St, Bees has been a failure, a question immediately follows, Has the Church been just towards St. Bees ? Is it not the custom to despise even good, well quali- fied, yes, and able men, because they have been at St. Bees ? Moreover, while the great colleges where only the wealthy can go, are richly endowed, St. Bees, which is to educate a class more in need of assistance, is left to depend on the fees paid by the students. Now the establishment must be supported ; and grant- ing that the principal and tutors had consciences as tender as those of saints or seraphim, yet the tempta- tion is there to give the most hopeless man a trial. And no easy or desirable responsibility can it be to decide among such a heterogeneous gathering of men as may be seen at a clerical college, — Welshmen, some THE EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY. 511 of them fresh from the national school, after two years' training, to be sent back for the edification of the prosperous Episcopal Church in the Principality ; officers tired of the army ; sailors weary of the navy ; surgeons sick of their profession ; schoolmasters bent on improving their position in the world ; Dissenting ministers renouncing heresy and denouncing schism ; Wesleyan local preachers whose hopes lay in another direction till the decision of the last Conference ; shop- keepers that have failed in business ; adventurers that have travelled the world over, tried everything, and got tired of everything, but are now at last seek- ing repose in the bosom of mother Church ; with perhaps one or two self-taught working men, strug- gling against fearful odds, it may be only to rise in the world, or it may be earnestly to consecrate them- selves to the service of religion. Only a few of this multitude should ever be admitted to orders ; but there are men among them whose services it would be a pity to lose. It is not, we repeat, the fault of the college that a better class of men are not pro- duced. It is the fault of the Church and its rulers that the college is not better encouraged and better patronised. If it were endowed, and more distinctly and fully recognised as a Church institution, it would get better material and be able to send out better men. But the whole spirit of the Church is opposed to the education of the clergy anywhere but in the universities. Many of the bishops will not ordain a man who has not taken a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. Many incumbents will not employ a curate who is not a member of one of the universi- 5 1 2 CONTEMPORARY ESSA }'S. ties. The counterpart of ' No Irish need apply,' is often appended to an advertisement for a curate by the incumbent of some miserable district church. "We sometimes imagine William Warburton, Eichard Baxter, John Newton, or Edward Bickersteth, apply- ing for a curacy to some of these worthies, and being refused on the ground that they were not university men ; the incumbent, who himself was probably plucked at college, returning after an interview to tell his wife that a Mr. Warburton or a Mr. Newton had been applying for his curacy, but the one was once an attorney's clerk, and the other had been a sailor, neither of them was ' a university man,' and consequently neither of them was a ' gentleman ' ! A Church like the Church of England should open its arms to educated men, wherever they have obtained their education, and it should support colleges that, of all sorts of material, drawn from all classes of society, will produce gentlemen of the right kind. We have scarcely any space left for the second reason of the scarcity of candidates for the ministry. It is the difficulty of success. This is twofold : the difficulty of getting a living, and the consequent difficulty of getting a sphere in which a man may put forth all his strength. An incumbency in the Church of England is a castle, an impregnable fortress to defend the holder of it, and to bar out all others. This may be for good or evil as the case may be. Now unless a man has a fair prospect of getting an incumbency he is an unwise man if he takes orders in the Church of England. His chances of getting a living by merit are very few. He is a fortunate man THE EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY. 513 if he ever gets a chance of showing that he has any merit. The men who take orders, then, are those who have livings already provided for them, or whose friends will buy at the first opportunity. This is a very large class. The Church gets their service, such as it is, and they manage to get well paid for it. Another class is those who do well at the university and may fairly calculate on a college living. A third class includes some well-meaning men who have faith either in themselves or in the future, and it also includes the incapables, who, unfit for anything else, get into the Church in virtue of their being University men. With the exception of those who obtain fellow- shijDS or take such a position at college as secures their preferment, the really good, that is educated, men of the two Universities do not take orders. This calculating principle, which prevents men entering the service of the Church because they have no prospect of preferment, Mr. Michell classes among the causes which he ascribes to ' the lowest motives.' We may grant that it does seem a ' low motive ' which prevents a man becoming a preacher of the Gospel because he has no prospect of a living. We really ought to sacrifice something for Christ, and unless we are ready to sacrifice all, how can we be His disciples ? This is very well said, but sacrifice for Christ is not the same as sacrifice to uphold an insti- tution that allows its property to be appropriated, and the care of parishes to be sold to those whose interest it is to buy. The Church of England is a reformed chui-ch. It has stringent laws against livings being bought and sold. These laws are violated every day. I. L 514 C ON TEMPORARY ESS A VS. The rulers of the Church know this and wink at it. The government of the country knows it and attempts no remedy. It has even come to be supposed that it is for the good of the Church that the livings be in the hands of those who can buy them. For a clergy- man to be rich is a better recommendation than for him to be a good preacher or an industrious pastor. Ovid said of the god Terminus that when the capitol was built — ' Conventus in JBde Eestitit, et magno cum Jove templa tenet.' What the poet says of Terminus is true of another deity. We are becoming established in the faith that there is but one God and that Mammon is His prophet I Mr. Michell admits that it is good reasoning for a man to hesitate to take orders when he sees no prospect of success, yet he recommends sacrifice and even celibacy, pointing to the Catholic clergy. We scarcely think the cases are parallel. The Catholic clergy sacrifice for the good of the Church, and are celibate, from the Pope downwards. Mr. Michell asks some to sacrifice that others may enjoy — some to be celibate that others may have wives, and perchance out of the substance of the Church leave an inheritance to their babes. THE END. ViRlUE ASD CO., PHINTKBS, LITY I'.OAD, LOSlJON. 23b t]b£ same ^utljor. Vols. I. and II. Now ready, Vol. III. in March. EELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE EXD OF LAST CENTURY. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF THEOLOGY. 3 Vols. Demy 8vo. 21s. each. 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