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THE PEACE OP THE CHUECH 
 
The Church Idea: 
 Cloth 50 cents, paper 25 cents. 
 
 The National Church: 
 Cloth 50 cents, paper 25 cents. 
 
 The Peace of the Church: 
 
 Cloth $1.00, paper 50 cents. 
 
THE 
 
 PEACE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON 
 
 RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCH, NEW YORK. 
 
 In Veritate Victoria 
 
 Neto iorft 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1899 
 
••..••::•: /■.•.:;■■.,: 
 
 COPTBIGHT, 1891, BT 
 WILLIAM R. HUNTINGTON 
 
 AU rigTUs reserved 
 
TO 
 
 THE DEAR MEMORY OF 
 
 H. H. 
 
 WHO ALIKE BY PRECEPT AND BY EXAMPLE 
 TAUGHT ME HOPE. 
 
 275695 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A NATURAL comment upon the general drift of 
 argument and appeal in the following pages would 
 be that it is too conspicuously Protestant. Are the 
 children of the Reformation, the author might very 
 plausibly be asked, the only Christian folk to be 
 counted in forecasting the contour and proportions 
 of our national Church? Is no significance to be 
 attached to the marvellous growth and spread among 
 us of the Latin form of Christ's religion in these 
 recent days ? And have we no word of invitation 
 for those who differ with us in tlieir estimate of the 
 value of the results Luther and Cranmer brought to 
 pass ? Certainly there is force in these expostula- 
 tions. To wink the advance of Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion in this country out of sight is as foolish as 
 the letting ourselves be irritated by what we see is 
 weak. 
 
 Neither are those to be commended who can see 
 in the activity of the Papal forces nothing less 
 or other than a distinct menace to our civilization. 
 The real reason why the conciliatory effort of this 
 book bends wholly towards a different point of the 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 compass is that, for the present, any attempt from 
 without to influence the Roman Catholic Church is 
 absolutely hopeless. The Vatican decrees of 1870 
 have accomplished what the framers and promoters 
 of them doubtless meant that they should accom- 
 plish, — the utter overthrow of any hopes of " peace 
 with Rome " on ground other than that of uncondi- 
 tional surrender. Meanwhile there is much to en- 
 courage the belief that, in ways hidden from the eyes 
 of outsiders, a change is going on within the confines 
 of the Roman Church in this country, likely, at no 
 very distant day, to become knowable and readable 
 of all men. The German and the Irish elements, 
 there is reason to suspect, consort as ill together 
 within the one fold as ever did Guelph and Ghibel- 
 line of old ; and it would not be the strangest thing 
 in all the world, if the indisposition of the faithful 
 laity to receive their politics from Rome were to 
 expand into a large unwillingness to accept foreign 
 dictation in any department of thought and life. 
 " Ultramarine " may grow to be as obnoxious an ad- 
 jective in America as ever "ultramontane" was in 
 Europe. 
 
 With the upspringing of a genuine and general 
 " Old Catholic " movement among the Romanists of 
 the United States, many things now seemingly impos- 
 sible might become possible, — among them an Eng- 
 lished and reformed Missal, a modified Confessional, 
 and a rehabilitation of the primitive Creeds as the 
 only oecumenical symbols of binding force. When 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 this state of things shall have been reached (and 
 events in Europe as well as in America may be 
 hastening it more rapidly than we suppose), it will 
 be time enough to begin waving our olive branch 
 towards the extreme right; the two religions will 
 at least have come within speaking distance of each 
 other. 
 
 For the present, the only hopeful outlook for non- 
 Roman Christians seeking unity is in the direction 
 of the great, restless, ill-compacted and ill-contented 
 mass of reformed Christendom. To aid those who, 
 deeply dissatisfied with things as they are, are feeling 
 about in the dark for pillars strong enough to hold up 
 things as they ought to be, has been the author's one 
 endeavor. 
 
 The task set before the Christian Church in Amer- 
 ica is her familiar one of conquest ; but open-eyed 
 observers have to acknowledge that the conditions of 
 the warfare are, in many respects, unparalleled. What 
 we are witnessing is not the hopeful approach of a 
 new religion to minds wholly unfamiliar with its mes- 
 sage, but rather the painful endeavor of an old reli- 
 gion to maintain its hold upon a mixed multitude, 
 already nominally under its sway, but so situated as to 
 be peculiarly open to the temptation to revolt. The 
 suggestion that possibly America may not continue 
 permanently Christian is undoubtedly a painful one 
 whether to make or to receive; but honest students 
 of the signs of the times cannot, with a clear con- 
 science, refuse to take it into account. To a religious 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 mind, that horoscope of our national destinies looks 
 to be infinitely the most worthy which sees in the 
 land that has been given us an opportunity for the 
 upbuilding of the Kingdom of God on earth such as 
 never before was put within a people's grasp. No- 
 where, it would seem, so easily as here might Chris- 
 tian civilization, taught by the blunders of the past 
 and unimpeded by the rubbish of old failure, essay 
 to build anew the perfect city. The very fairness of 
 the vision is to some eyes sufficient evidence that the 
 dream is certain to come true. We stumble not at 
 believing what with the whole heart we most desire 
 to believe, except, indeed, when the obstacles to our 
 faith are of the overwhelming sort; and this ideal 
 picture of the new Civitas Dei destined to spring up 
 on a continent mysteriously kept out of sight until the 
 old errors of construction had betrayed themselves 
 and all things were ready for a new attempt, has 
 a subtile charm in it to which the imagination easily 
 succumbs. 
 
 But men engaged in the administration of impor- 
 tant trusts are bound to take counsel of their just 
 apprehensions as well as of their sanguine hopes; 
 and the Christian Church, as the trustee of the faith, 
 may not too confidently assume that all things will 
 fall out happily for her, and as they ought to do, in 
 this new world. Some fears are reasonable and 
 proper fears, and to shut our eyes on them is but 
 to invite them to fulfil themselves. 
 
 There are those of us who have become convinced 
 
PREFACE. xm 
 
 that only in a genuine, thorough-going, actual and vis- 
 ible unity is there hope for the survival of what is best 
 in the Christian life of the Republic. But we do not 
 desire to compass our end, or rather what we like to 
 think of as God's purpose, by any hypocritical veiling 
 of real difficulties, or insincere attempts to put obsta- 
 cles out of existence by putting them temporarily out 
 of mind. " Things are what they are," and no bandy- 
 ing of pleasant words or exchange of platform courte- 
 sies can alter the everlasting fact that unity, in order 
 to endure, must rest on truth. 
 
 W. R. H. 
 
 New York, May 1, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 -•- 
 
 *• PAGiB 
 
 A Protocol 3 
 
 n. 
 
 The Archives 51 
 
 III. 
 The Credenda 99 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Signs and Seals 139 
 
 V. 
 Pilotage 173 
 
 VI. 
 
 A Church by Love Established . . • • • 209 
 
THE QUADRILATERAL. 
 
 The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as 
 " containing all things necessary to salvation," and as being 
 the rule and ultimate standard of faith. 
 
 n. 
 
 The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol ; and the 
 Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 lU. 
 
 The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself, — Bap- 
 tism and the Supper of the Lord, — ministered with unfailing 
 use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements 
 ordained by Him. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods 
 of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and 
 peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church. 
 
L 
 
 A PROTOCOL. 
 
As the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole, and cannot be 
 provided for without government, either one or more or many, let us inquire 
 whether one good governmtnt is not, relative to the object in question, more 
 competent than any other given number whatever. — The Federalist. 
 
THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 I. 
 
 A PROTOCOL. 
 
 There was once what was known as " the peace of 
 the Empire." There is destined to arrive the peace 
 of the Church. The peace of the Empire meant a 
 civil tranquillity, brought about and held secure by 
 a strong central force posited at Rome. 
 
 From this huge dynamo went out the threads that 
 carried light and heat to the farthest extremities of 
 the old Mediterranean world. It was a powerful 
 plant that could propel energy along such tenuous 
 conductors, and to such distances. The strength and 
 wit of many generations had gone to the construction 
 of the machine ; but once created, it acquired a cer- 
 tain momentum of its own, a running force largely 
 independent of circumstances. It was not like one 
 of those delicate mechanisms which a grain of sand 
 or a knot in the thread brings to a stand-still; the 
 rollers kept their motion, and the long arms their 
 thrust, quite regardless of petty obstructions of what- 
 ever sort. The Ca3sars were merely men intrusted 
 
4 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 with the running of the dyaamc ; oftener than not, 
 they were themfeehes crushed among the wheels. So 
 impressive was this self-perpetuating aspect of the 
 Empire that men came to look at the vast organism 
 as immortal, a thing that could not die ; and secular 
 poets, eager to welcome back the Golden Age, could 
 picture to themselves no better fulfilment of their 
 hopes than such a stretching of the peace of the 
 Empire as would make it cover the whole earth. A 
 world 
 
 *' lapt in universal law," — 
 
 and that law Roman law, — was the goal of their 
 most sanguine dreams. 
 
 The Christian mind of to-day sees in all this a 
 divinely ordered preparation for the spread of the 
 gospel. The peace of the Empire made the spiritual 
 conquest of the Empire possible. The military roads 
 were as available for the evangelist as for the legion- 
 ary, and the imperial posts could carry epistles as 
 easily as rescripts. 
 
 Hence it is no wonder that when the time was 
 fulfilled for the so-called conversion of the Empire, 
 the notion should have taken possession of the minds 
 of many that the City of God was already come. But 
 really, in point of fact, the Empire never was con- 
 verted. Doubtless manners were softened, jurispru- 
 dence modified, the general look of things a good deal 
 altered for the better ; but the Empire, as such, ex- 
 perienced no change of heart. It continued what it 
 
A PROTOCOL. ^ 
 
 had always been, — a wonderfully well-contrived admin- 
 istrative framework, penetrated and backed by phy- 
 sical force. The painting of a new monogram on the 
 plate of the machine may have served in some meas- 
 ure to discredit Caesar ; it implied no real enthrone- 
 ment of Christ. 
 
 But just because the Empire was ineligible for 
 conversion, it became liable to fall, — and fell. 
 
 To the bulk of its immemorial possessions, — some 
 of them precious, a good many of them embarrassing, 
 a few deadly, — the Roman Church fell heir ; and nota- 
 bly to the old tradition that associated efficiency with 
 centralization. We have come, in modern times, to 
 know more about the structure of the human body 
 than the ancients did, and we have learned from that 
 best of all object-lessons to anticipate in a perfect 
 organism the distribution of centres of force. 
 
 To the Roman mind such a thought as this was 
 wholly foreign. Unless the law went forth from 
 Rome, how could there be unity ? As this question 
 had seemed to the emperors to admit of but one reply ; 
 so it came to seem also to the popes. Hence when 
 the consciousness of nationality awoke strongly in 
 the northern races, the clash followed that passes in 
 history under the name of the Reformation. 
 
 I am not attempting a complete statement of the 
 causes of that momentous quarrel. Besides its po- 
 litical character, the movement had also its still 
 more serious doctrinal aspects. The indictment 
 found ao^ainst the Latins included the charge of a 
 
6 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 superstitious adulteration of the ancient faith with 
 Pagan ingredients, as well as that of an infringement 
 of the ancient liberties. Were I inviting you to a 
 thorough analysis of the Roman Catholic controversy, 
 all this would have to be taken into account; but 
 for our immediate purpose, the effect of the Reforma- 
 tion upon polity is more important than its effect 
 upon dogma. 
 
 We are working our way towards an understanding 
 of the ecclesiastical state of things that confronts us 
 in America ; and it is essential to a just appreciation 
 of facts as they are that we should remind ourselves 
 of facts as they were. There was a time then, and 
 that not so very long ago, when there had succeeded 
 to the peace of the Empire something that was sup- 
 posed to be, in an equally real sense, the peace of the 
 Church. To be sure it was ruffled by disturbances 
 and heart-burnings not a few ; but so, for that matter, 
 had the peace of the Empire been, even at its best 
 estate. Nevertheless, the great fact stared men in 
 the face that there existed a region, bounded by geo- 
 graphical lines more or less definite, known under the 
 comprehensive name of Christendom. 
 
 Throughout this tract of country certain great re- 
 ligious institutes found unvarying recognition and 
 acceptance. 
 
 One could go from land to land and find every- 
 where the same priesthood, the same sacraments, the 
 same pious usages, with which he had been familiar 
 in his own home from childhood. I am not now 
 
A PROTOCOL. 7 
 
 speaking of the blemishes and drawbacks that at- 
 tached to this order of things ; I am calling attention 
 to what was attractive, and, upon the surface at least, 
 admirable in it all. Certainly a traveller would not 
 find such privilege of sanctuary amiss to-day if he 
 could share it. It would add to the enjoyment of 
 a journey in Spain, for instance, if in a homesick 
 moment one could cross the threshold of Cordova's 
 great church, or kneel down on the floor of some 
 lesser house of God by the roadside, and feel that he 
 did so by as good a right and with as sincere a wel- 
 come as if he were native to the soil. 
 
 How can we wonder, then, that devout minds of 
 a conservative cast, and keenly alive to the excellen- 
 cies of the then existing system, should have felt 
 disposed to fight to the death a movement which by 
 implication threatened, even if it did not avowedly 
 assail, the integrity of this same Christendom ? And 
 how can we wonder that in our own days ardent and 
 imaginative souls, viewing the past in the warm golden 
 light that smooths rough outlines and makes the hard 
 exterior of distant objects beautiful, should have felt 
 disposed to insist that only by retracing their steps 
 and going back to the Catholic beliefs and usages of 
 the old days before the quarrel, could Christendom 
 be re-achieved? 
 
 But before we take up with that timid philosophy 
 of history which can see in the Reformation nothing 
 better than a blunder, we must consider whether any 
 such return to cover as the one proposed is practicable. 
 
8 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 It is one thing to maintain an existing system against 
 innovation, it is another and much harder task to re- 
 establish a system that has suffered fracture. The 
 genie of the Arabian story was with difficulty coaxed 
 back into the casket that had been his prison. The 
 spirit set free at the Reformation is not incapable of 
 being housed, but it will never consent to return 
 to quarters no roomier than those from which it 
 broke away. Least of all can the proposal to rehabil- 
 itate the Christendom that was before Luther and 
 Cranmer, make a plausible showing in America. In 
 countries that once formed a part of the Roman sys- 
 tem, even though they lay upon the outer edge of it, 
 a plea for reconstruction upon the old lines can boast 
 a certain modicum of weight. When the leaders of 
 the Anglo-Catholic movement, for example, began 
 some fifty years ago to dream of carrying England 
 back into "the Latin obedience," the forlornness of 
 their hope was not at first apparent. All the forces 
 of romanticism were on their side ; they knew that 
 they could count upon considerable dissatisfaction, 
 born of despondency, in the liberal ranks, and there 
 was a rallying centre ready to their hands in the old 
 families among the nobility that through all fortunes 
 had remained loyal to the ancient order. England 
 had once held a place in the Roman framework ; why 
 might she not again ? 
 
 Far less excuse have they who, here in America, 
 turn for reconstructive help to Italy. Notions that 
 were tenable in the days when the earth was supposed 
 
A PROTOCOL. 9 
 
 to be the centre of the universe, ceased to be tenable 
 after the heliocentric astronomy had come in, and 
 notions that were tenable under the heliocentric hy- 
 pothesis as first understood, have ceased to be ten- 
 able now that we suspect that even the sun itself has 
 motion and an orbit. No more can an ecclesiastical 
 polity, originally fashioned to fit the Roman Empire 
 as closely as a cloud-bank moulds itself to the land- 
 scape on which it lies, answer for the needs of a world 
 dimensioned out of all proportion to the Christendom 
 that used to be. 
 
 This does not necessarily mean that the Americas 
 and Australia must needs construct for themselves 
 forms of Church life and governance that shall stand 
 wholly unrelated to what has gone before. That is 
 not God's way of working, nor the way of wise men 
 who seek to imitate the Maker's methods. The Co- 
 pernican astronomy, to go back to our parable, did 
 indeed displace, but it by no means wholly discredited 
 the Ptolemaic astronomy. All that was true in the 
 old system passed over into the new. The ancient 
 observations had not lost their value because a revised 
 grammar of their significance had come in. 
 
 There are structural principles the knowledge of 
 which is as old as human society itself, and which no 
 revolutions can supersede. In any future unification 
 of the Christian body these principles will have recog- 
 nition and play. They cannot be disowned, because 
 they are written on the nature of man, and rank among 
 the primal facts. To disentangle from whatever ought 
 
10 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 to be reckoned transitoiy, secondary, and adventitious, 
 these first principles of social house-building will be 
 my main endeavor in these lectures. It is always by 
 returning to the true principia, and never by a mere 
 going back to old times, that society, whether in its 
 civil or its ecclesiastical form, finds safety. 
 
 It will be well to begin by considering the magni- 
 tude and complexity of the problem that offers itself 
 for solution here in the United States, — a country 
 which is at once the hope and the despair of believers in 
 the reunion of Christendom ; their despair, because no- 
 where else has the process of division and subdivision 
 been further carried ; their hope, because nowhere is 
 there less of outward constraint to hinder a complete 
 reconciliation, if only the true basis of amity can be 
 found. 
 
 I invite you then to a quick review of our ecclesias- 
 tical past. 
 
 With the adoption of the Constitution, the United 
 States became a nation, and by a stroke of the pen 
 embarrassments innumerable that had vexed the life 
 of the ill-compacted Confederation were put away. 
 No such summary process of reconstruction and con- 
 solidation was possible for the scattered religious so- 
 cieties which from time to time during the colonial 
 period had been planted along the Atlantic seaboard, 
 and now found themselves, each with its own little 
 stock of inherited prejudices and convictions, maxims 
 of polity and formulas of faith, about starting on a 
 new career. The time had been in the Old World 
 
A PROTOCOL. 11 
 
 when the successful assertion hy a people of its 
 })roper civil unity would have been followed, as a 
 matter of course, by the establishment of a corres- 
 ponding unity ecclesiastical. The question with the 
 England of the seventeenth century had not been 
 whether there should or should not be an established 
 religion, but whether the religion to be established 
 should be Anglican, Presbytei'ian, or Papal. Such 
 was not the case with the newly liberated colonies 
 in the closing years of the century that followed the 
 seventeenth. The day for acts of uniformity had 
 manifestly gone by ; and although to religious minds 
 deeply impressed with the evils of sectarian strife 
 there must have come a mingled sense of envy and 
 self-reproach in noting the comparative ease with 
 which the State had accomplished oneness, all sensi- 
 ble people settled down to the conclusion that so far 
 as the Church w^as concerned the case was one in 
 which patience must be allowed to have her perfect 
 work. If it w^as a scandal, and a scandal it doubtless 
 was, to see religion arrayed in a coat of many colors, 
 rather than in her own proper seamless robe, there 
 was at least the comfort of remembering that foreign 
 weavers and old-time looms were responsible for the 
 garment's tints and texture. It is true that the deter- 
 mination utterly to free religion from State control 
 has the look of having been an after-thought with the 
 framers of the Constitution, appearing, as it does, in 
 the form of an amendment to that instrument, and" 
 not as one of the original articles. The fact, how- 
 
12 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ever, that the amendment, when proposed, excited no 
 active opposition, and was promptly ratified, shows 
 how wide-spread and deep-rooted in the mind of the 
 nascent republic was the conviction that Congress 
 ought to " make no law respecting an establishment 
 of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 
 That this view of the situation was shared by leading 
 minds among the Anglican portion of the community 
 is evidenced by the way in which the framers of the 
 American Prayer-book expressed themselves. There 
 were then present on our soil some ten or twelve forms 
 of organized Christianity, of which the Anglican was 
 one. In the face of this fact, what attitude did the 
 Church-of-England men think it becoming in them to 
 assume? Did they assert an ecclesiastical monopoly? 
 Did they put forward any imperious claim to suprem- 
 acy, or even to primacy ? Not at all ; they simply, in 
 all humility of mind, remarked that, as a result of the 
 political revolution that had taken place, " the different 
 religious denominations of Christians " in what had 
 been the Colonies, but had now become the States, 
 had been " left at full and equal liberty to model and 
 organize their respective churches and forms of wor- 
 ship and discipline in such manner as they might 
 judge most convenient for their future prosperity, 
 consistently with the constitution and laws of their 
 country." ^ 
 
 This paragraph has been criticised for its naivete. 
 and for a lack of that proper self-assertion which 
 ^ See Preface to the American Book of Common Prayer. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 13 
 
 Anglicans alive to their hereditary rights and privi- 
 leges should have maintained. It was. however, the 
 language of men who, before all else, were bent on 
 looking the actual facts of their position in the face, 
 undisturbed by any a 'priori theories of ecclesiastical 
 "mission and jurisdiction." 
 
 They may have entertained individually the very 
 strongest convictions as to the exclusive rightfulness 
 of the Episcopal regimen ; they may have held te- 
 naciously in their own minds to the apostolicity of 
 liturgical worship; but they had the good judgment 
 to perceive that to ask from their fellow-citizens any- 
 thing more than a fair field and no favor would be 
 folly. To have planted the Anglican standard in the 
 spirit in which the last of the Bourbons hoisted at 
 Frohsdorf the white flag of his house, crying to 
 Orleanists, Bonapartists, and Republicans alike, " This 
 or nothing," might have gained them the sort of 
 admiration we accord the captain of a sinking ship 
 who refuses to quit his quarter-deck, but it would 
 have cost us, the children, our inheritance. White 
 and his compeers chose a wiser course. Persuaded of 
 the innate vitality of their principles, they cheerfully 
 refrained from anything that might look like an arro- 
 gant assertion of them, well content to abide the 
 working of that law of survival which, though un- 
 formulated in their day, was, in its practical bearing 
 upon the affairs of human life, as clearly discernible 
 then as now. 
 
 But what, in point of historical fact, were the 
 
14 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 " different religious denominations," referred to in 
 the preface of the Prajer-book ? Roughly classified, 
 and named in the order of their earliest organized 
 beginnings they were these : Episcopalians (1607), 
 Congregationalists (1620), Reformed Dutch (1628), 
 Roman Catholics (1634), Baptists (1639), Lutherans 
 (1669), Friends (1672), Presbyterians (1684), Men- 
 nonites (1708), Moravians (1734), Methodists (1773).i 
 This list might be lengthened by expanding genera 
 into species, — particularly in the case of the Baptists 
 and of the Presbyterians, of which there were even 
 then several varieties; but for the purposes of a general 
 view the enumeration as it stands is adequate. 
 
 Ethnologically considered, the bulk of the people 
 were of English stock ; but the Dutch, German, and 
 Scandinavian elements were not inconsiderable, and 
 there was also a certain small though very precious 
 infusion of French Huguenot blood. It is evident 
 that this is a strong Protestant showing. With the 
 single exception of Maryland, itself largely Angli- 
 can, the newly enfranchised States may be said to 
 have stood for the Reformation. It looked as if the 
 two religions had divided the two Americas between 
 them, Protestant Europe having said, I will take the 
 North ; and Papal Europe, I will take the South. It 
 should be acknowledged, however, that with respect 
 to that one of the two continents with which we are 
 the more directly interested, this remark calls for 
 qualification. French Roman Catliolics flanked the 
 
 1 Dorchester's Christianity in the United States, pp. 35-43. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 15 
 
 infant republic on the northeast, and Spanish Roman 
 Catholics on the south, and both of these ante- 
 dated, the one by nearly a century, and the other 
 by some years, the Protestant occupancy of North 
 America. 
 
 Such, then, was the ecclesiastical state of things at 
 the time when this country first came forward to take 
 her place in the family of nations. We set out upon 
 our career pledged in the temporal order to unity, 
 but given over in the spiritual order to what might be 
 called, by a seeming solecism, classified confusion. 
 In a few of the States the sanction by government 
 of some one denomination to the discredit of the 
 others survived the shock of the Revolution; but it 
 was only for a little. The doctrine of establish- 
 ments had received its death-blow; and in a few 
 years all semblance of a desire on the part of the civil 
 authorities to control the religious affiliations of the 
 citizen vanished. Church and State became almost 
 as distinctly separated as they had been before Con- 
 stantino's day. I say " almost," because absolutely 
 separate Church and State never can become in any 
 country where the bulk of the people hold the Chris- 
 tian faith. Wherever property interests and questions 
 of contract come in, there the State has a hold. 
 Public worship calls for a roof and walls ; and where 
 these are there is property, with all its liabilities to 
 taxation, attachment, mortgage, confiscation and the 
 like. The fact that a house has been consecrated to 
 religious uses does not take it out of that area of 
 
16 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 things material in which the State enjo3's eminent 
 domain. Then there is marriage, a contract or a 
 sacrament according as we look at it from a common- 
 law or a canon -law standpoint. As an agreement 
 between two individuals, it is a matter for judges 
 and juries to pronounce upon; as a "holy estate" 
 it is the Church's affair, one of the sanctities with 
 which no extraneous power may intermeddle. With 
 limitations the same thing holds good of education 
 and of the administration of charity. These are 
 matters which the State may almost be said to have 
 taken up at the suggestion, or, at any rate, influenced 
 by the example of the Church. To put it in graphic 
 form, the one circle overlaps the other, and certain 
 interests are found resident in the space which belongs 
 exclusively to neither of them, while yet geometrically 
 a segment of each. 
 
 While, therefore, if we mean to be accurate, it is 
 necessary to remember that with the Christianized 
 peoples things secular can never be wholly severed 
 from things sacred, we have, speaking broadly, a 
 perfect right to say that the Revolution broke up 
 completely the old-time alliance between Church and 
 State, leaving the former of the two at perfect liberty 
 to build itself up as best it might. 
 
 Why is it then, that the Church has lagged so far 
 behind the State in the matter of achieving unity ? 
 For the simple reason that the State holds and wields 
 the power of the sword. The thirteen colonies did 
 not become a republic because the people a^ a whole 
 
.^A PROTOCOL. 17 
 
 wanted a republic, for it is notorious that many of 
 them Avere at heart warmly attached to the monarchy. 
 The republic was born of the wishes of the most part, 
 — a most part so strong that it would have been hope- 
 less for the lesser part to attempt resistance. The 
 framers of the Declaration of Independence had said 
 of governments that they derived '' their just powers 
 from the consent of the governed." By the " governed " 
 they must of course have meant the greater number of 
 the governed, for probably no government has ever 
 enjoyed the unanimous good-will of those who lived 
 under its laws. The State, in matters of the State, 
 does not and cannot tolerate organized dissent ; the 
 law of self-preservation compels it to insist on unity. 
 There may be, and in free countries there is entire 
 liberty to think, and a large liberty to speak in this 
 way or in that as to the wisdom of existing arrange- 
 ments ; but no attempt to act as if these arrangements 
 did not exist is tolerated for a moment. A citizen of 
 Pennsylvania is free to hold the opinion that the 
 Supreme Court of that State is an unjust tribunal, 
 and he is also free to exert himself in every way to 
 bring about the abolition of it by legislative process ; 
 but the moment he makes bold to act in defiance of 
 the judgments of that court he finds himself under 
 arrest. The Bourbons stamped their cannon with 
 the legend Regiim ratio ultima. They were not speak- 
 ing for monarchy only. All civil government, 
 whether it be called democratic or imperial, resorts 
 to force as its final argument. When discontent 
 
18 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 grows strong enough, and is sufficiently excited to 
 strike back, then we have riot, rebellion, or civil war, 
 as the case may be ; but ordinarily things go on much 
 as they would do if all men were agreed. There is ac- 
 quiescence even when there is not assent ; so evidently 
 true is it of a civil community, that in the ordering 
 of its affairs it is quite impossible that every man 
 should have his own way. That would be a singular 
 commonwealth, indeed, which should allow the impe- 
 rialists, the monarchists, the republicans, and the 
 socialists within its borders " full and equal liberty 
 to model and organize " their respective governments 
 " in such manner as they might judge most convenient 
 for their future prosperity." What keeps these 
 various groups of theorists from attempting of their 
 own motion so to embody their ideas, is the fact that 
 the government actually in possession is backed by 
 force, and will not let them do it. 
 
 But the spiritual society which we know under the 
 name of the Church is precluded, by the very law of 
 its being, from maintaining unity after this fashion. 
 The Church is a "union of hearts." The power of 
 the sword is nowhere discoverable in its charter. Its 
 only weapon is persuasion, its only fetter the bond of 
 charity, its only punishment a withdrawal of sacra- 
 mental privilege. We have to acknowledge that often 
 and again the Church has lost all this out of mind, and 
 acted as if fear rather than love were the real unify- 
 ing power ; but in the beginning it was not so. Christ 
 instanced the fact that his disciples were not fighting 
 
A PROTOCOL. 19 
 
 men as an evidence of the unworldly character of his 
 kingdom. The implication was that in the building 
 up of the new social order He had come to announce 
 and to begin, no reliance would be placed on force. 
 He put his followers upon their honor, and trusted 
 them to serve Him without fear. In a common loy- 
 alty to Himself they were to find the essential motive 
 to unity. The rest would follow in due time. 
 
 In the light of these thoughts the tardy pace at 
 which the Church moves here in America toward 
 the achievement of her own proper unity is easily 
 understood. In the matter of civil organization we 
 forced our way ; in the matter of ecclesiastical organ- 
 ization we are feeling our way. 
 
 First of all, there has had to be awakened in men's 
 minds a proper sense of the discredit that attaches to 
 our present broken estate. Since denominationalism 
 came in as a recognized state of things, all sorts of 
 pleasant parables have been devised to make it appear 
 lovely. Even the rainbow has been forced to lend 
 its manifold beauty in aid of the exigencies of the 
 argument, and we are exhorted to discern in our 
 wretched divisions a divinely ordered variety every 
 shade of which is essential to the full chromatic 
 effect. Since the fathers fell asleep, all things, for 
 the denominationalist, continue as they were from 
 the beginning. It is his steadfast averment that 
 matters are well enough as they are, and that it is 
 downright ecclesiastical Quioxtism to attempt to 
 better them. 
 
20 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Sometimes in defence of his view the denomination- 
 ahst presses the argument from design, sometimes 
 the argument from despair. The Creator, he reminds 
 us, has made men's temperaments as various as their 
 faces. If the familiar reminder that two blades of 
 grass are never found alike fails to convince us, we 
 are further referred to Charles the Fifth and the 
 story of the monastery clocks. Surely by such wealth 
 of illustration we ought to be persuaded that the 
 sects into which the Christian Church has let itself 
 be splintered are really no accident, but contrari- 
 wise the fruit of a beneficent purpose, an intelligent 
 and harmonious design. Let us school ourselves to 
 see in our denominations only so many flower-beds 
 in the great garden God has planted, and in which 
 He walks. Here are roses, there carnations, yonder 
 lilies of the valley that love the shade ; but it is all 
 one garden, planned by one mind, laid out by one 
 hand, fed by one sunshine. 
 
 All this has a familiar sound. "We have heard it, 
 time and again. But often when the difficulty of 
 reconciling this pretty parable, or these pretty para- 
 bles, with certain very distinct words of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, not to mention certain hard facts of human life, 
 has been pressed home so vigorously that there is no 
 escape, the denominationalist falls back on the argu- 
 ment from despair. True, he says, it would indeed 
 have been most delightful could the dream of the ear- 
 ly Fathers of the Church have been fulfilled ; could 
 Cyprian and Augustine have had their way. But it 
 
A PROTOeOL. 21 
 
 was not to be. The experiment was tried, and tried on 
 a large scale, and it failed, and that was the end of it ; 
 there is nothing more to be said or to be attempted. 
 
 Thus what the flower-garden was to the argument 
 from design, the shattered image becomes to the argu- 
 ment from despair. The experiment of unifying the 
 Church on the plan and by the method of imperialism 
 having come to nought, we must, forsooth, sit down 
 with folded hands convinced that because Christen- 
 dom is to-day divided, divided it must always be. 
 And yet, so flagrant are the practical evils of denom- 
 inationalism as a system ; so foolish does the awk- 
 ward contrivance look when we attempt to carry it 
 to the heathen ; so unsightly in real life is the result 
 of taking it for granted that the entreaties, " Be ye 
 all of one mind," " Mark them that cause divisions 
 among you," " Love as brethren," were never meant 
 to be literally understood, that even the apologists of 
 things as they are begin to speak in broken tones, 
 and to murmur under their breath that there must 
 be some more excellent way if only it could be found. 
 Not so often as of old Is the voice of the orator heard 
 on public days exulting over the number of the spires 
 in an American village, and drawing from the specta- 
 cle his bad inference that competition in religion is as 
 wholesome as in trade. As the battle with the com- 
 mon enemy waxes hot, the tactical advantage of the 
 " moving square " becomes manifest. Economic con- 
 siderations also have their weight in the mind of a 
 people naturally thrifty, and common-sense demands 
 
22 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 to be informed why it should be necessary to keep 
 three or four sets of parochial functionaries in pay, 
 merely to enable three or four groups of fellow- 
 townsmen, who differ in opinion on three or four 
 points of belief which nobody accounts essential, to 
 enjoy the luxury of being walled off from one another 
 w^hile they say their prayers. 
 
 It is no slight step taken towards unity, that this 
 mood of dissatisfaction with the actual state of things 
 should have become so generally prevalent. Made 
 aware of the existence of his ailment, the sick man 
 begins to bestir himself to find remedies ; so long as 
 the disease lies latent there is nothing to prompt his 
 going in search of a cure. We in America have at 
 last reached this stage of solicitude. For a long while 
 only a voice here and a voice there was to be heard 
 protesting against our state of schism ; but now the 
 complainants utter themselves in chorus. " Give peace 
 in our time," has become common prayer. 
 
 The practical methods of attaining the desired end 
 are reducible under three heads : — 
 
 First : The unconditional surrender of all to one. 
 
 Secondly: Confederation upon equal terms, each 
 denomination preserving its own proper identity, but 
 entering into formal counsel with the others with 
 respect to all common interests. 
 
 Thirdly: Consolidation under one self-consistent 
 and well understood system of polity and doctrine; 
 with ample constitutional guarantees for a permitted 
 diversity in the methods of worship and of work. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 23 
 
 To a study of the comparative merits of these three 
 methods, which for the sake of convenience may be 
 given the catch-words " Submission," " Confederation," 
 and " Consolidation," I propose devoting the remain- 
 der of this lecture. 
 
 The foremost representative of the doctrine of un- 
 conditional surrender as the only proper pathway 
 to unity is the Church of Rome. Let American 
 Christians, of whatever name, forthwith give in their 
 adhesion to the self-styled Queen and Mother of the 
 Churches, and the thing is done, the secret of reunion 
 has been found, the problem solved, the Ecclesia Ameri- 
 cana built. There is a simplicity in the suggestion 
 that commends it. So short a cross-path to his desti- 
 nation is singularly attractive to the foot-sore pilgrim, 
 who would gladly, if he might, sing his last song of 
 degrees, and enter with thanksgiving the city that is 
 at unity in itself. But the maxim, " All roads lead 
 to Rome," does not apply in lands severed from Italy 
 by the pathless sea, and certain facts both of ancient 
 and of contemporary history, to which we cannot 
 shut our eyes, make dead against the notion that 
 our help in this matter is coming to us from the 
 seven hills. 
 
 The Roman claim, subjected to analysis, resolves 
 itself into the following elements : (1) The a priori 
 necessity of one visible head, if the Church is to exist 
 as a corporate society on the earth. (2) The au- 
 thority given to Peter to act as such visible head. 
 (3) The transmission by Peter to his successors in 
 
24 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the see of Rome of the visible headship that was his 
 (4) The absence of rival claimants to the supremacy 
 
 Supplementary to these considerations, which bind 
 the whole world if they bind anybody, are certain 
 others, supposed to be specially applicable to the 
 United States, to wit : (5) The fact of the discovery 
 of the New World by a devout Roman Catholic, sail- 
 ing under Roman Catholic auspices. (6) The undis- 
 puted ecclesiastical jurisdiction exercised by the Holy 
 Father on this side of the ocean for more than a 
 hundred years before any dissentients had made their 
 appearance here. And finally, (7) the need of an au- 
 thority backed, in a sense, by the past of all Europe, 
 rather than by the traditions of only a single nation^ 
 if spiritual sovereignty is to be asserted over such a 
 medley of foreign stocks and races as the Republic in 
 this latter half of the nineteenth century has become. 
 
 It is manifestly impossible in a single lecture to 
 enter upon an exhaustive examination of the papal 
 claims ; but I can and will indicate briefly the weak 
 points of the arguments to which I have just referred. 
 To urge that a visible headship is, in the very nature 
 of things, essential to the being of such a body as the 
 Church of God on earth, is in reality to beg the ques- 
 tion at issue. When St. Paul speaks of the ascended 
 Christ as having been made "head over all things to 
 the Church," he does so without limitation or qualifi- 
 cation. He says nothing whatever about vicar or 
 vicegerent. He would seem to have been haunted 
 by no misgiving as to the impracticability of Christ's 
 
A PROTOCOL. 25 
 
 ruling his people from a heavenly throne. So far as 
 centres of administration are concerned, he betrays 
 no preference for one over another, although now 
 and then the special personal affection for Jerusalem 
 proper to every Hebrew heart asserts itself. 
 
 If, indeed, it could be shown that executive power 
 is never efficiently wielded save when lodged with a 
 dictator, then the a priori argument for the Papacy 
 would have weight. 
 
 But the facts of history are against the acceptance 
 of such a postulate. Venice under her Council and 
 France under her Directory, to go no farther afield, 
 are witnesses that administrative ability is not of 
 necessity beholden solely to the "one-man power." 
 Nothing could have been more natural than for 
 Romans, born under the Empire, to imagine that the 
 new society they saw emerging out of the invisible 
 would never attain the climax of efficiency without a 
 recognized and localized Imperator ; and if the theory 
 of papal origins outlined at the beginning of this 
 lecture be the true one, such was the way in which 
 they did actually reason. But to us looking at the 
 matter in the light of the Empire's decline and fall, 
 as well as of its birth and growth, it is by no means 
 axiomatic that human society to be well ordered must 
 needs discover and acknowledge in some one mortal 
 man its visible controller. The universe as a whole, 
 so Christians believe, is governed by council. We 
 recognize in Deity something other and better than 
 the bare expression of singleness. Why then assume 
 
26 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 that of necessity the oversight of the Holy Catholic 
 Church in order to be thorough must be lodged with 
 a solitary potentate ? The world secular is to-day 
 kept in tranquillity by forces emanating from London, 
 Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Washington, as 
 completely as it ever was when all power centred at 
 Rome. If such can be the case in the temporal order, 
 why not also in the spiritual? 
 
 But what if our Lord, it is asked, did actually give 
 to Simon Peter the prerogative of supremacy ? Why 
 then, of course, for Christians the case is closed, and 
 a priori reasons either for or against become at once 
 irrelevant. We pass therefore from abstract to his- 
 torical ground, and look to see what the New Testa- 
 ment has to say, or may be supposed to say, in support 
 of the Roman claim. It would seem on general prin- 
 ciples as if the Epistles credited to St. Peter himself 
 ought to yield the desired evidence. The encyclical 
 letters of the pontiffs who are supposed to hold from 
 him have never been reticent with respect to prerog- 
 ative; and if St. Peter was conscious of possessing 
 rights of supremacy over the whole Church, nothing 
 could have been more natural than that the fact should 
 leave its impress on his correspondence. And yet we 
 look in vain to this quarter for a single sentence cor- 
 roborative of the claims of the Popes. The Apostle 
 does indeed exhort the elders of the Church, but he 
 is careful to do it as one who is " also an elder." In 
 fact, had he been expressly aiming to avoid the asser- 
 tion of an authority different from and superior to 
 
A PROTOCOL. 27 
 
 that of his fellow Apostles, he could scarcely have 
 chosen a tone better fitted for his purpose than that 
 which pervades the whole range of his writings. A 
 similar poverty of allusion, or rather entire absence of 
 allusion, to the Petrine claim is observable in the 
 other Epistles ; and when it comes to the Book of 
 Acts, Paul is so clearly the hero of the story that 
 Peter's prominence in the earlier chapters is almost 
 lost out of mind before we reach the end. When the 
 case has been narrowed down, as it must be, to the 
 four Gospels, we discover that the real issue hangs 
 on the right interpretation of three palmary passages ; 
 that which records Peter's confession of Jesus as the 
 Christ, and our Lord's answering declaration ; ^ that 
 in which Christ assures Peter of His having prayed 
 for him that his faith fail not ; ^ and that m which, 
 after the resurrection, Christ with a most noticeable 
 earnestness exhorts Peter by the love he bears Him, 
 "Feed my sheep." ^ 
 
 Upon these three texts the Scriptural argument for 
 the Papacy really rests. What shall we say to them? 
 Briefly this, that so far as the earliest commentators 
 on the New Testament are concerned, the Fathers of 
 the primitive Church, the weight of testimony is 
 wholly against the papal interpretation. It was only 
 after the Holy See had established itself by other 
 means that there was read into these passages the 
 
 1 St. Matt. xvi. 13-20 ; St. Mark viii. 27-29 ; St. Luke ix. 
 18-20. 
 
 2 St. Luke xxii. 31, 32. « St. John xxi. 15-18. 
 
28 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 sense which Roman controversialists now allege as 
 the only proper one. In the case of the first of the 
 three passages some of the Fathers see in Christ's 
 words " this rock " an allusion to Himself, that one 
 foundation other than which no man can lay ; some 
 understand it to signify the truth of our Lord's divin- 
 ity to which Peter had just borne the earliest human 
 witness ; while still others connect the promise with 
 those providential features in Peter's personal history 
 which made him the first stone in that great edifice, 
 the building of which is still in progress. In a true 
 sense the Church began with Peter, for it was he who 
 led at Pentecost, and it was he whose first use of " the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven" threw open to the 
 nations the door that had been shut against them so 
 long. But Jerusalem and C^esarea, not Rome, are 
 the geographical names we associate with these 
 greatest of the acts of Peter ; and there lies a wide 
 gap between assent to the primacy of this foremost 
 of the Twelve, and consent to the doctrine that 
 dominion has been given to the Bishops of Rome even 
 to the end of the world. 
 
 The fact of Peter's leadership among the disciples, 
 in itself sufficiently evidenced by the position given 
 to his name in all of the lists, is a sufficient clew to 
 the meaning of the second of the great papal texts. 
 Nothing could be more natural than the singling 
 out for special prayer the man who had been bold to 
 say," Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God,'* 
 and nothing could have been more natural than to 
 
A PROTOCOL. 29 
 
 select him to be the strengthener of his brethren in 
 their hour of need ; but that this strengthening function 
 was not peculiar to the Apostle Peter is evident from 
 its being associated m the New Testament with no 
 fewer than four of St. Peter's colleagues in the work 
 of evangelization. 
 
 With respect to the scene upon the shore of the 
 sea of Tiberias, where Jesus said to Simon Peter once, 
 *' Feed my lambs," twice, " Feed my sheep," the last 
 of the alleged Gospel evidences in behalf of the Pa- 
 pacy, it would seem to be enough simply to put in 
 contrast the view wdiich sees in it an exclusive be- 
 stowal of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and that which 
 discerns, rather, a singularly tender and touching sug- 
 gestion of a duty that appertains to every shepherd 
 of souls as such. Peter had three times denied his 
 Master ; three times, therefore, does the Master re- 
 establish Peter in his pastoral office ; but His doing 
 so in no sense disestablishes the rest. If any mystical 
 and symbolic inference with respect to the perpetual 
 government of the Church is to be forced out of this 
 beautiful closing chapter of the Fourth Gospel, it 
 would seem as if St. John, rather than St. Peter, 
 ought to have the benefit of it, for of him are those 
 strange words written, " If I will that he tarry till I 
 come, what is that to thee ?" If this thing had been 
 said of Simon Peter, what volumes of rhetoric might it 
 not have furnished to the upholders of the papal claim? 
 
 But the Roman Catholic argument from the New 
 Testament is supplemented by another from tradition. 
 
30 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 St. Peter, we are assured, was the first bishop of 
 Rome, and as such transmitted his plenary powers 
 to those who have succeeded him in that see, from 
 Linus, the first, to Leo XIIL, the latest of them. 
 
 Protestant writers who spend their strength in try- 
 ing to prove that St. Peter never was at Rome make 
 a mistake. Yery possibly they are right ; but it is pro- 
 verbially hard to prove a negative, and in making so 
 much effort to demonstrate this particular negative 
 they betray a misgiving that unless it can be done 
 the case is lost. Even when it has been conceded 
 that St. Peter, in the course of his travels, may have 
 visited Rome, it by no means follows that he was 
 either the exclusive founder or the first bishop of the 
 Roman Church. St. Paul prided himself on never 
 trespassing on the missionary fields of other Apostles. 
 But we have among St. Paul's writings a letter to 
 the Church of the Romans. Would he have been 
 likely to write his Epistle had there been a bishop 
 in charge at Rome ? And supposing that bishop to 
 have been no less a dignitary than the Apostle Peter, 
 should we find no reference made to him in the long 
 list of salutations with which the writer closes his 
 communication ? 
 
 An early author of repute (Irenseus) makes St. Peter 
 and St. Paul jointly the founders of the Roman Church. 
 According to him, Linus was the first bishop of the 
 series, not the second, and received his commission 
 at the hands of both of the great Apostles. A happy 
 omen this of the better day to come, when St. Peter, 
 
A PROTOCOL. 31 
 
 as the representative of ecclesiastical order, and St. 
 Paul, as the representative of the freedom that comes 
 with faith, shall strike hands in that " Holy Catholic 
 Church " in which, spite of all set-backs and discour- 
 agements, those who say the Apostles' Creed continue 
 to believe.^ 
 
 But it is still further urged that, in the absence of 
 any other claimant, Rome ought to hold supremacy 
 by virtue of her being, so to speak, the residuary 
 legatee. If Jerusalem, or Antioch, or even Alexan- 
 dria had maintained an unbroken line of bishops 
 from the beginning, there might be grounds for par- 
 titioning the sovereignty among all the survivors, but 
 inasmuch as Rome is actually the only survivor, ought 
 not the whole inheritance to be hers ?2, 
 
 Yes, perhaps so, if we can agree about what the 
 inheritance is. If it be simply an inheritance of fair 
 fame, certainly all who value what is ancient for its 
 own sake, and who hold that what is time-honored 
 ought to be by man honored as well, will concede the 
 thing asked for not only cheerfully but thankfully. 
 There never has been a time when the Church of 
 Rome, if content to be the Church of Rome, would 
 not have received from the rest of Christendom her 
 
 1 For an admirable summary of the heads of the Roman con- 
 troversy, see Dr. Salmon's " Infallibility of the Church," a work 
 characterized by the late Von Dollinger as one of the great polem- 
 ical achievements of the century. 
 
 2 See " A Letter to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, on occasion 
 of Mr. Gladstone's recent Expostulation," by John Henry New- 
 man, D.D., of the Oratory, London, 1875, p 26, § 3. 
 
32 THE PEACE OF THE CHl/RCH. 
 
 full measure of respect. It is not against the Church 
 of Rome, it is against the self-styled Mother and Mis- 
 tress of all the Churches that we have made war, or 
 rather are defending ourselves. 
 
 But just as the disproof of the Scriptural argument 
 for the supremacy of St. Peter turned the flank of the 
 argument from tradition, so the disproof of the aprioy^i 
 argument for the necessity of a single visible headship 
 over the Church, may be said to have anticipated the 
 defeat of this argument from survival. If it could be 
 proved that the Church absolutely required for its ef- 
 ficiency the recognition of a supreme Pontiff, why then 
 the fact that there lived within our horizon only one 
 pretender to the post would unquestionably make the 
 claim of such survivor a very strong one. But if, on 
 the other hand, the supposition in question be, as we 
 have seen that it is, a wholly gratuitous one, why then 
 Rome's cry, " Come unto me, for there is none other 
 whom it is possible for you to seek," falls dead. 
 
 There remain to be considered the supplementary 
 arguments that are supposed to make Rome's conten- 
 tion a particularly strong one in the case of the 
 United States. 
 
 It is hardly possible to take seriously the argument 
 that because Christopher Columbus was a Roman 
 Catholic, therefore all of us who occupy the new world 
 he discovered ought to be of his religion. In the fif- 
 teenth century all Europe was under the Papacy ; 
 the note of revolt had not yet been sounded, and if 
 America was to be discovered by a European it must 
 
A PROTOCOL. 33 
 
 needs be a Roman Catholic who should discover it. 
 The planting of the cross on the soil of San Salvador 
 was indeed an act of high significance ; but the Papacy 
 can scarcely claim an exclusive interest in the cross, 
 a symbol that had acquired its significance long before 
 St. Peter is alleged even to have seen Rome. 
 
 The claim founded upon a long continued assertion 
 of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the New World, would 
 carry greater weight in this connection than it does, 
 if it could be shown that the jurisdiction was ever to 
 any considerable extent either exercised or acknowl- 
 edged on the Atlantic seaboard in the colonial period ; 
 or in other words, had the people who in 1789 consti- 
 tuted themselves a republic, ever recognized the right 
 of the Roman Pontiff to reign over them. We know 
 that the contrary was notoriously the fact. Perhaps a 
 moiety of the Marylanders were Roman Catholic ; but 
 over against these stood multitudes whose very pres- 
 ence here was owing to their hatred of whatever even 
 so much as approximated to the religion of Rome. 
 In the Spanish possessions, and in what had been the 
 French, the Roman Catholic Church had an unques- 
 tioned foothold ; but Canada and Florida lay beyond 
 the limits of the Republic, and what was true of them 
 was not true of it. Substantially this was an Eng- 
 lishman's country when it set out upon its course, 
 and it was England that had been " the bulwark of 
 the Reformation." 
 
 Yes, the Roman Catholic replies, an Englishman's 
 country it was once, but an Englishman's country 
 
 3 
 
34 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 it long ago ceased to be. Europe has poured itself 
 into America, and to-day what is needed to effect 
 the unifying process is such a power as can appeal 
 to memories that are common to all the national- 
 ities of the Old World. There is no such power, 
 save the Papacy. 
 
 The answer to this is two-fold. A reconciliation 
 imposed upon us from abroad and by an extraneous 
 power is not the sort of reconciliation of which we 
 are in search. As a people, we think that we can 
 best settle our family quarrel among ourselves. But 
 aside from this, is there not good reason to think that 
 the extent of the Europeanizing process covered by 
 the last fifty years has been grossly exaggerated ? It 
 is true that there has been an immense infusion of 
 foreign blood ; but is it true that this has sufficed 
 really to overmaster the original strain? There is 
 good authority for the statement that of the people 
 now inhabiting the territory of the United States 
 considerably more than half are the direct descend- 
 ants of grandparents or great-grandparents who 
 were living here in the year 1800. Moreover, law 
 and language are forces that link us almost indis- 
 solubly to an English past. Our common law is 
 English. The " free institutions " of which we are 
 so proud are of English parentage. Above all, our 
 speech is English. The affectionate appeals of the 
 Holy Father calling us back to our allegiance have 
 to be translated. The ring of the sentences is so- 
 norous, but our ears miss the mother element. The 
 
A PROTOCOL. 35 
 
 children of our public schools, from whatever quarter 
 of the globe they may have come, are taught to think, 
 to speak, to write in English. Sentences from the 
 great masters of English letters, snatches of English 
 oratory, couplets of English verse creep into their 
 minds, and stay there moulding thought and action 
 in a thousand unsuspected ways. The importance of 
 this fact it is quite impossible to overstate. Here 
 and there in the vast stretch of our possessions little 
 areas are to be found where bi-lingual education has 
 to be tolerated for a time ; but it is only for a time. 
 The English language has a grasp upon this country 
 that can by no means be shaken off, and even race 
 distinctions, deeply rooted as they are, must sooner or 
 later inevitably yield to the formative touch of this 
 all-conquering tongue. As yet, the Roman ecclesias- 
 tics and theologians, born Roman, have not acquired 
 the power of writing English with much force. In 
 this department of their propaganda they have been 
 dependent on recruits from the Anglican ranks. Un- 
 til they shall have acquired this gift of utterance, the 
 mere fact that the population of the United States, 
 classified by its race affinities, represents the whole of 
 Europe, will not greatly help their missionary effort. 
 
 I have thought it right to deal thus promptly with 
 the Roman Catholic claims, for the simple reason that 
 if these are valid, any further discussion of means 
 and methods must prove superfluous. If our first 
 duty as Christians be to obey the voice that says to 
 us from Peter's chair, " Come unto me," why then 
 
36 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the ease is closed. America, on that supposition, has 
 only to do what England did when Queen Mary suc- 
 ceeded to King Edward, namely, to haul down the 
 flag of the Reformation, and to give up the ship. 
 
 There is, however, an alternative form of uncon- 
 ditional surrender to which I ought perhaps to make 
 at least a passing reference before we take our final 
 leave of this first of the three theories of unity, the 
 theory of submission. There are a few souls san- 
 guine enough to imagine it possible that the absolute 
 submission refused to the Roman Pontiff, may still 
 be secured at the dictate of the Anglican Episcopacy. 
 Let all dissentients at once give in their allegiance 
 to the Protestant Episcopal Church ; conform to the 
 canons of the General Convention, and consent to 
 worship publicly no otherwise than in accordance 
 with the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, and 
 the thing is done. We have our Church of America 
 off-hand and without vexatious delay. But if Angli- 
 canism pure and simple, with all the adventitious aids 
 it enjoys in the land of its birth, with all the charm 
 that ancient architecture can lend and all the pres- 
 tige old national traditions and long inherited titles 
 avail to foster, has nevertheless failed to keep within 
 one fold even the half of the people of Great Britain, 
 is it to be supposed that any new summons, issued at 
 this late day, " Go to, become forthwith what we 
 are," is likely to win submission. 
 
 Happily it has ceased to be any longer necessary to 
 argue seriously against this form of the doctrine of un- 
 
A PROTOCOL. 37 
 
 conditional surrender, for the reason that the bishops 
 of the English-speaking race, in council assembled, 
 have themselves given it a quietus. By the Declaration 
 set forth at Chicago in 1886, and ratified at Lambeth 
 in 1888, the Anglican Communion throughout the 
 world committed itself, so far as by the voice of its 
 chief pastors it could be committed, to a far larger 
 and more generous platform of unity than any of 
 which the framers of the Act of Uniformity ever 
 dreamed. But I am anticipating matters by this 
 reference. I was led into making it because other- 
 wise our study of the various phases of the submission 
 doctrine would have been incomplete. 
 
 We have next to consider the theory of ecclesias- 
 tical unity through confederation, the second of the 
 three methods that have found advocates. The con- 
 federative theory contemplates some such combina- 
 tion of the various religious bodies of the land as 
 would exist in the case of labor unions, were there a 
 single General Assembly empowered to legislate for 
 them all in matters of common interest, while yet 
 each separate union retained control over the affairs 
 of its own trade. Under this scheme denomination- 
 al ism would not cease to be, but its more flagrant 
 evils might conceivably be diminished; the conduct of 
 missions, for example, being relegated to the General 
 Assembly, and the heathen thus saved the scandal of 
 being called to look upon a piebald Christianity. In 
 short " confederation " is but' another name for some 
 
88 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 modus Vivendi under which we might live along to- 
 gether very much as we are living now, only in rather 
 pleasanter mutual relations than at present, with more 
 of concert and with less of friction. That the pro- 
 posal has a certain plausibility upon the face of it, 
 it is needless to deny. It has the great advantage of 
 involving a minimum of change. So deep rooted have 
 our denominational traditions grown to be, so vast are 
 the property interests at stake, so complicated is the 
 network of missionary and educational enterprise to 
 which the various religious bodies stand committed, 
 that any scheme of unity which proposes at the outset 
 to hold all these things harmless and to ensure their 
 integrity for an indefinite time future, is sure to win 
 at least a momentary approval. 
 
 But confederation weighed in the balances is found 
 wanting. In itself considered, it is the weakest of all 
 the forms of unity, and the least stable. Its proper 
 symbol is the fagot, which has unity indeed, but 
 unity of a very precarious sort, fragile, ill-compacted, 
 easily terminable. The parts of a confederacy are 
 mechanically not chemically combined ; they hold 
 together less by affinity than by cohesion. Confeder- 
 acy has no power to weather tribulation, the mere 
 touch of trouble makes shipwreck of it. We Ameri- 
 cans tried confederation as our first experiment in 
 the direction of national unity ; and a very poor thing 
 we found it. Our Constitution grew directly out of 
 a desire for " a more perfect union " than the mere 
 bundling process of confederation could bring to pass. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 39 
 
 In fact, there are no two words in the political vocabu- 
 lary of Americans more conspicuously ill-omened than 
 " confederacy " and " confederation." They are words 
 synonymous with transitoriness and failure ; no 
 slightest promise of permanence is to be found in 
 them. If all this be true of the confederative idea as 
 it stands related to national interests and the life of 
 states, how much more impracticable is the applica- 
 tion of the principle to our ecclesiastical condition. 
 If the confederation of communities each of which 
 occupies a well-ascertained geographical area, and 
 has a certain personal identity of its own, is a thing 
 compassed about with difficulty, what shall we say to 
 a scheme that proposes to bind together by treaty 
 ties social organizations that already cover the same 
 space, and recognize no territorial boundary lines ? 
 
 We can imagine France resolving itself into a con- 
 federacy, and giving to each one of its present De- 
 partments a sovereignty of its own. Such an act 
 would be a step backward, but it is conceivable. Is 
 it conceivable, however, that the French, in despair 
 over their partisan condition, should vote to allow the 
 adherents of each of the great parties to organize 
 according to its own notion of political wisdom, — the 
 Bonapartists carrying on an empire, the Legitimists 
 an absolute monarchy, the Orleanists a limited mon- 
 archy, the Moderates a republic, and the Reds a com- 
 mune, all at the same time, and within the limits of 
 the same France, — provided only they agree to fash- 
 ion themselves into a confederation ? This is really, 
 
40 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 when we look the facts in the face, what Christian 
 Unity would mean here in America under a scheme of 
 denominational confederation. It would be an attempt 
 to knit together for working purposes methods of 
 polity that from the very nature of things cannot 
 co-exist in one and the same system. It would be a 
 clearing-house, not a Church. 
 
 Denominational confederation has been ably urged 
 upon us under the attractive phrase, '' The United 
 Churches of the United States." ^ If one might be 
 permitted to drop out two letters from this taking 
 title, so that it should read " The United Church of 
 the United States," the words would then express the 
 very thing we need. But the lurking fallacy in the 
 expression as it stands is this ; a parallelism is sug- 
 gested which does not exist. The " States " that 
 make up the national Union are territorial and social 
 entities, each of which has its well-defined metes and 
 bounds ; whereas the Churches out of which it is pro- 
 posed to construct the ecclesiastical Union are bodies 
 of men scattered, with a greater or less evenness 
 of distribution, over the whole country, and, what is 
 still more to the point, each of them organized with 
 
 1 See " The United Churches of the United States," by the 
 Rev. Charles W. Shields, D. D., in the " Century Magazine " for 
 November, 1885. The allusion in the text must by no means be 
 understood as indicating any failure on the writei-'s part to appre- 
 ciate the immense value of the service rendered by Professor 
 Shields to the cause of Christian unity. Moreover, in simple jus- 
 tice to him, it should be added, that in a later article (Sept. 1890) he 
 has silently modified his phrase in the very manner above projjosed. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 41 
 
 a view to ministering to the spiritual needs of the 
 whole country. If the supposed case of the confed- 
 erated labor-unions be urged as furnishing a more 
 serviceable analogy, the reply is obvious, that the 
 various trades although not segregated in space are 
 segregated as respects the ends they have severally 
 in view. They have therefore a certain separateness 
 that makes confederation possible. The Bricklayers* 
 Union aspires to do all the bricklaying, and the Car- 
 penters' Union aspires to do all the joinery-work 
 needed by the people of the United States. The 
 bricklayers have no desire to touch a single stick of 
 timber, nor do the carpenters wish to lay a single 
 brick. Not such is the case as it stands between the 
 Baptists and the Presbyterians. The Baptists have it 
 for their aim, so far as in them lies, to make Christians 
 of all the people of the land ; and the Presbyterians 
 have it for their aim to do the very same thing. 
 Unless they can find a better sort of unity than " con- 
 federation " offers, they must from the very nature of 
 the case continue what they are now, rivals in the 
 same field, competitive rather than co-operant. 
 
 With " submission " and " confederation," both of 
 them discarded, there remains as a final resort the 
 method of consolidation ; more fully defined already 
 as a union under one self-consistent and well-under- 
 stood system of polity and doctrine, with ample con- 
 stitutional guarantees for a permitted diversity in the 
 methods of worship and of work. The theory of con- 
 solidation differs from the theory of submission which 
 
42 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 it may be charged with resembling in this, that al- 
 though it does undoubtedly presuppose the selection 
 of one denomination from among the rest to form 
 a rallying centre, it provides at the same time for the 
 generous inclusion and careful conservation of what- 
 ever the re-entering companies of believers count most 
 precious among their heirlooms. Every one of the 
 great denominations has its own hallowed memories, 
 its own roll of martyrs, its own cherished manner of 
 worship, its own long-tried methods of missionary 
 work, above all its own revered type of Christian 
 character. There is no reason why sudden violence 
 should be done to these sacred things. The theory 
 of submission would compel their prompt abandon- 
 ment. The theory of consolidation supposes not 
 only their permitted but their constitutionally guarded 
 continuance. Take divine service, for example ; con- 
 solidation would not involve the displacement of ex- 
 temporaneous methods of worship among those who 
 value them, by an insistence upon either the Missal 
 or the Prayer-book, but on the contrary would guard 
 the preferences of the non-liturgical families in the 
 one household as jealously as it would protect those 
 whose traditions were of the other sort. There would 
 be nothing to forbid the recognition, in a truly Catho- 
 lic American Church, of a Puritan rite, an Anglican 
 rite, a Latin rite, and a German rite. Such diversities 
 of method in the line of worship might perfectly well 
 co-exist under one general and comprehensive scheme 
 of polity. Such titles as " Episcopalian," and " Pres- 
 
A PROTOCOL. 43 
 
 byteriaii," and " Congregationalist " would have to go 
 by the board, because these would indicate a real 
 schism in the body, a state of things like that just now 
 supposed in the case of a re-organized France ; but 
 the disappearance of these names would by no means 
 necessarily involve the loss of anything that is really 
 l»recious in the spiritual possessions of the communions 
 at present burdened with them. In fact it would be a 
 distinct impoverishment, rather than a gain, were we to 
 lose the fine types of character which the denominations 
 I have mentioned have severally cultivated and ma- 
 tured. We should be merging our differences to little 
 purpose, if in the process we were to forfeit any con- 
 siderable portion of the treasures accumulated by the 
 several tribes during their years of exile and separa- 
 tion. In the Catholic Church of America there must 
 be room for the stern virtues of the Covenanter, as 
 well as for the gentler qualities that make the devout 
 follower of George Fox lovable, and the Anglican 
 type of sainthood attractive. True catholicity can 
 never come about as the result of either an eclectic 
 or a levelling process. There is nothing manufactured 
 or artificial about it. It never was or will be made 
 to order. It manifests itself spontaneously and grows 
 as the flowers grow, when once the multitude of the 
 brethren consent to dwell together in unity. How, 
 then, can even so much as a beginning be made? 
 Supposing what I have called consolidation upon a 
 definite and well-understood basis, or, as it might be 
 otherwise expressed, crystaUization about a fixed 
 
44 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 nucleus, to have been accepted as the true principle ; 
 by what law of natural or spiritual selection can we 
 imagine the desired discrimination wrought, the 
 right basis or nucleus determined ? We can think of 
 various possible criteria, by aid of which a decision 
 might be reached, if only all could be counted upon to 
 acquiesce in, and to abide by the result. There is, 
 for example, the criterion of antiquity. Were this 
 test accepted (as, taken by itself, it certainly would 
 not be), the question would be narrowed down to a 
 choice between the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic 
 Churches, both of which bodies have an historic life 
 that antedates the Reformation. Again, there is the 
 criterion of numbers, — a favorite standard of judg- 
 ment with all democracies. Were this accepted, the 
 Methodists or the Baptists would have claims such as 
 no competing organizations could dispute. Yet again, 
 Congregationalists and Presbyterians might very 
 properly plead the large influence their ideas have 
 exercised upon the growth of American institutions, 
 as a reason why one or other of them should be taken 
 as the basis of the United Church. Between them 
 these two bodies dominated the period of the Eng- 
 lish Commonwealth, and if the Republic be, as in a 
 real sense and in a certain measure it undoubtedly 
 is, the child of the Commonwealth and the heir of its 
 political philosophy, that in itself is a strong prima 
 facie argument in favor of entrusting our ecclesiasti- 
 cal destinies to the same hands that under God have 
 so largely shaped our national and civil fortunes. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 45 
 
 But even supposing ourselves to have reached a 
 point where we acknowledge that a choice between 
 these various rallying centres is desirable, there still 
 remains the stubborn question, Who is to choose ? 
 There is no dictator who can settle the point by 
 throwing his sword into the scale ; for we have agreed 
 that this is a matter to which the sword is wholly 
 irrelevant, and we have ruled dictators out of court. 
 Resort to the ballot would be ludicrous, and a general 
 election impossible. The putting of the Roman Em- 
 pire up at auction w^as a scandal, but the sending of 
 all Christians to the polls to vote upon a proposed 
 constitution for the Kingdom of Heaven would be 
 a greater. 
 
 No, there is nothing to be done, but for each of the 
 existing organizations of those within our borders 
 who profess and call themselves Christians, to apply 
 itself to the study of the problem, and having done 
 so to set forth in the fewest and plainest words pos- 
 sible, the result of its thinking. Let us hear from 
 each denomination what, in its deliberate judgment, is 
 the most generous platform of union it can conscien- 
 tiously offer to the rest. Once in possession of these 
 ultimata our American Christendom as a whole will 
 be in a far better condition to form a judgment than 
 it is to-day. When it is found, as doubtless it will 
 be found, that the resemblances between the various 
 formulas of concord are far more striking than the 
 differences, such a cry for unity will go up from the 
 whole nation as shall assuredly enter into the ears of 
 
46 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the Lord of Sabaoth and bring the answer He alone 
 can give. 
 
 One of our denominations, as it happens, has done 
 this very thing already, and is first in the field with 
 its suggestion of the true basis of unity. The sugges- 
 tion may be a mistaken one. There may inhere in it 
 some fatal logical or historical flaw. It claims no 
 note of infallibility, but as a suggestion it has at least 
 one merit, the merit of having been made. 
 
 The Chicago-Lambeth platform, as it may fairly 
 enough be called, sets forth that the data essential to 
 the establishment of a visible unity among Christians 
 are as follows : — 
 
 First. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testament as containing all things necessary to Sal- 
 vation, and as being the rule and ultimate standard of 
 faith. 
 
 Secondly. The Apostles' Creed as the Baptismal 
 symbol ; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient state- 
 ment of the Christian Faith. 
 
 Thirdly. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ 
 Himself, — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, — 
 ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of 
 institution, and of the elements ordained by Him. 
 
 Fourthly. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted 
 in the methods of its administration to the varying 
 needs of the nations and peoples called of God into 
 the unity of his Church.^ 
 
 This is the answer of the Bishops of the Anglican 
 
 ^ Official Report of the Lambeth Conference of 1888, p. 86. 
 
A PROTOCOL. 47 
 
 faith and order throughout the world to the question, 
 What do Anglicans account the minimum of agree- 
 ment prerequisite to any practical steps toward the 
 achievement of a bona fide unity ? My purpose in 
 these lectures will be to unfold the contents of this 
 utterance of theirs, and to set forth as clearly as 
 possible the bearings of it. Firmly persuaded myself 
 of the solidity of the ground taken by the Bishops, I 
 do not pretend to an attitude of indifferentism, but 
 frankly confess myself an advocate. It is needless to 
 say that I speak with no authority other than that of 
 one who has given the subject patient thought. In 
 the last resort the Bishops must be their own inter- 
 preters ; no commentator can force a meaning upon 
 their words which they themselves are unwilling to 
 avow. And yet it is to be remembered that the 
 general judgment of mankind is but the aggregate 
 of the personal judgments of the members of the 
 race ; and however valueless a solitary expression 
 of opinion or belief may seem, those who sit over 
 against the treasury of truth do ill to flout it 
 altogether. 
 
 The coral insect lives and dies far down under the 
 surface of the sea. A tiny speck of solid substance 
 hidden out of sight is all his memorial. By and by, 
 overhead there rises up an island ; groves of palm 
 are 6n it ; birds build their nests there, and at last 
 men their homes. 
 
II. 
 
 THE ARCHIVES. 
 
The Christian character in its completeness is the result and outgrowth 
 of all that series of events of which the Bible is in part, but in the most im- 
 portant part, the record . . . The Bible exhibits it in various stages, in 
 various forms, not always perfect, yet always going on to what is higher 
 and purer, and shown to us at last, after the passage of so many ages and 
 generations, so many efforts and failures and slow steps of progress, in its 
 finished and flawless perfectness in the person of the divine Son of Man. 
 
 — Richard William Church. 
 
 I have been forced bj' the peculiar circumstances of my work to regard 
 from many sides the difficulties which beset our historic faith. If I know 
 by experience their significance and their gravity; if I readily allow that on 
 many points I wish for fuller light ; then I claim to be heard when I say 
 without reserve that I have found each region of anxious trial fruitful in 
 blessing; that I found my devout reverence for every word of the Bible 
 quickened and deepened, when I have acknowledged that it demands the 
 exercise of every laculty with which I have been endowed, and, thnt as 
 it touches the life of man at every point, it welcomes for its fuller under- 
 standing the help which comes from every gain of human knowledge. 
 
 — Brooke Foss Westcott. 
 
 I have always been strongly in favor of secular education, m the sense 
 of education without theology; but I must confess I have been no less pct 
 riously perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling, 
 which is the essential basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the present 
 utterly chaotic state of opmion upon these matters, without the use of the 
 Bible. — Thomas Hknry Huxley. 
 
n. 
 
 THE ARCHIVES. 
 
 First in their list of essentials the Bishops at 
 Lambeth placed the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, 
 characterizing them thus : " The Holy Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testaments, as ' containing all things 
 necessary to salvationj' and as being the rule and ulti- 
 mate standard of faith J^ 
 
 The statement that Holy Scripture " containeth all 
 things necessary to salvation" has a positive and a 
 negative side. Positively, it asserts that in Holy 
 Scripture " things necessary to salvation " are to be 
 found ; negatively, it withholds from any and every 
 extra-Scriptural demand upon our faith, the power to 
 bind. The statement, on its affirmative side, does 
 not allege that a knowledge of all things in Holy 
 Scripture is necessary to salvation ; nor yet on its 
 negative side does it declare that nothing beyond the 
 range of Holy Scripture is good to be believed ; but 
 that which by implication is averred is, that if we 
 want to find the things essential to the soul's safety, 
 we shall do well to look into the Scriptures rather 
 than elsewhere to find them ; and that which by im- 
 plication is denied is, that anything over and above 
 what Scripture sets forth ought to be counted among 
 
52 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the possessions which the soul must have if it would 
 escape eternal loss. On the one hand, therefore, the 
 statement is exclusive of the merely literary view 
 which sees in the Bible only one among many collec- 
 tions of writings alleged to be sacred ; while, on the 
 other, it opposes itself to the Roman Catholic doc- 
 trine that we must supplement Scripture by Tradition 
 if we wish to be well assured of " all things necessary 
 to salvation." Accordingly, I propose to take up in 
 this connection the general question, — How ought 
 we of these times to think about the Bible ? Or, to 
 put it otherwise, Has anything occurred in the in- 
 tellectual movement of our day to compel a change 
 of attitude on the part of reasonable men towards the 
 book, or books, heretofore dignified by the title Word 
 of God ? Have such words as " revelation " and " in- 
 spiration " really become meaningless, or if not quite 
 meaningless, at any rate so thoroughly diluted as to 
 be void of any distinctive flavor ? In short, do the 
 Bishops betray themselves as men belated and be- 
 hind their time when they speak to us of the Bible as 
 being " the rule and ultimate standard of faith " ? I 
 make bold to answer these questions in the negative. 
 I hope to be able to give sound reasons for believing 
 that the unique character hitherto conceded to the 
 Christian Scriptures is destined to continue to attach 
 to them ; that the Bible substantially as it is may be 
 counted upon to survive the shock of criticism, and 
 to stand, as it has stood, the accredited classic of 
 religion, a hand-book of belief indispensable to man. 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 63 
 
 My method will not be that of minute inquiry into 
 questions of date and authorship connected with the 
 various books of the Bible, a task for which I am not 
 adequately furnished, and which I could only accom- 
 plish as a borrower; but, instead, such a discussion 
 of the first principles involved in the question at 
 issue, as will demand of those whom I address no 
 other preparative than that always praiseworthy pos- 
 session, an open mind. I cannot help thinking that 
 on such a line I shall better succeed in justifying the 
 prominence given in the Lambeth platform to the 
 Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, 
 than if I were to bewilder you with citations and 
 overload your memories with dates. 
 
 Can God disclose his mind to man ? 
 
 Has He at any time or times actually done so ? 
 
 Is there record of such disclosure or disclosures ? 
 
 Have we such a record in the writings that col- 
 lectively make up the Bible? 
 
 These are simple questions which it is perfectly 
 possible to deal with in a plain and intelligible way. 
 To have them answered for us is to have the mind 
 set permanently at rest with respect to what is most 
 central to religion. 
 
 I begin with the remark that so far as the intellec- 
 tual life of the race is concerned, there can be no 
 denying that it has, from time to time, received im- 
 pulse and acceleration from the impact of new truth 
 announced at the lips of men called discoverers. 
 Sometimes in groups and clusters, sometimes singly 
 
54 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 and at long intervals, men have come upon the scene 
 equipped to teach their fellow-men things not before 
 known. The gap that separates these men of genius, 
 as they are commonly called, from the rank and file 
 of their fellow-students in the lower class-room is 
 so portentously wide, that Evolution is overtaxed in 
 the effort to account for their appearance upon any 
 theory of progress by infinitesimal increments. It is 
 true that we must distinguish between such discov- 
 eries as are the product of profound and long-sus- 
 tained reflection, and those that have been happened 
 upon by what we call chance. In the case of certain 
 discoveries, that of anaesthesia, for example, there is 
 no evidence of genius whatsoever. The thing was 
 blundered into, not reasoned out ; and the same may 
 be said of countless chance findings that pass in the 
 books under the same general head with those great 
 disclosures that have followed upon hard thinking. 
 The mere discovery of a new star, or of a hundred 
 new stars, is a small matter as compared with the 
 glory of discerning, for the first time, one of the 
 structural principles involved in the celestial me- 
 chanics ; and even to have added an item to the cat- 
 alogue of the chemical elements is an achievement 
 in no measure comparable with the working out of 
 a fresh rationale of the molecular motions. Of the 
 discoverers of great principles my remark holds good, 
 that the difference between them and other men is 
 so sharply accentuated as almost to warrant us in 
 thinking it one of kind rather than of degree. 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 65 
 
 Of such men as Galileo and Newton, the most 
 natural account would seem to be that they were 
 sent mto the world so marvellously endowed for the 
 express purpose of communicating a message and 
 bestowing a blessing. If the universe had a con- 
 scious designer, and all theists, whether Christian 
 or not, must so believe, the great truths of the 
 mathematics are common to his mind and to ours. 
 That one after another of these truths should have 
 come to light among us, we are accustomed to 
 explain by saying that Euclid lived, that Kepler 
 lived ; but why not go farther back, and say : God 
 lives, who by the lips of his servant Euclid has taught 
 us the properties of angles, and at the mouth of his 
 servant Kepler has revealed to us the principles of 
 curves ? Of course it is possible for the materialist 
 to block any such movement back towards the pur- 
 poseful Author and Maker by a flat denial of any con- 
 sciousness in the universe other than that of which 
 each one of us knows himself to be possessed ; but, as 
 I just intimated, my appeal is to the theists, not to 
 the atheists. Under a theistic scheme of evolution, 
 nothing could be more reasonable than to picture 
 God educating his creature man by a succession of 
 messengers empowered to impart truth as fast as the 
 pupil shall be found " able to bear it." Not only so ; 
 we can imagine Him using races as well as individ- 
 uals for teachers, and as apprenticing man first to this 
 people, then to that, according to the need to be met. 
 Such a theory has, of course, its margin of unex- 
 
56 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 plained phenomena ; it does not satisfactorily account 
 for everything ; but is there a single one among the 
 great generalizations of science that can show a map 
 with no shadowed patches, no tracts or even zones 
 that have to be marked " unexplored " ? Accepted 
 as a working hypothesis, the theistic interpretation of 
 history clears up a greater number of dark places than 
 any other interpretation that has been suggested. As 
 a matter of fact, we find the world indebted for its 
 advancement to certain definite individuals, and to 
 certain definite races, as to no other individuals and 
 to no other races. The whole family has been in 
 pupilage to one great man after another ; to one 
 select race after another ; has gone to school, as we 
 may say, now in Phoenicia, now at Athens, now at 
 Jerusalem. To discover a purpose in all this, to 
 catch the outline of a plan, is surely not the unintel- 
 ligent thing some would have us account it. If there 
 be a more reasonable method of explaining what our 
 eyes see, let us by all means be told what it is. 
 
 The link between these thoughts and the subject in 
 hand is obvious. The Christian plea for the Scriptures 
 is that they contain disclosures not elsewhere to be 
 found with respect to the character and purposes of 
 God, and the duty and destiny of man. It is not 
 asserted that no intimations upon these weighty mat- 
 ters are to be found in literatures other than the 
 Hebrew, for one need only be tolerably well-informed 
 in order to know that the contrary is the fact. But 
 intimations are very different things from disclosures. 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 57 
 
 The Christian contention is that to one selected peo- 
 ple, there was given for the sake of, and with a view to, 
 all the other peoples of the earth, a knowledge of cer- 
 tahi great verities wholly undiscoverable by the ordi- 
 nary processes of human intelligence. It is one thing 
 for a document to be generally pervaded by what we 
 may call a religious or spiritual tone ; the sacred books 
 of the East give voluminous evidence that such is the 
 case. But it is quite another thing for a writing to 
 acquire sacredness because of the serious and down- 
 right way in which it sets forth such statements as 
 that God has sent his Son into the world, that Christ 
 is risen from the dead, that the time is coming in 
 which there shall be new heavens and a new earth. 
 These, and the like, are announcements as distinct, 
 and certainly as grave, as the announcement, " The 
 world goes around the sun ; '* " Every particle of 
 matter attracts every other particle with a force in- 
 versely proportional to the square of the distance." 
 Moreover, it is to be observed that the truths in ques- 
 tion are not presented to us in the Bible as the out- 
 come of the broodings of devout souls ; they are put 
 into the form of messages. God, it is declared, has 
 sent us word that things are thus and so between 
 Him and us, and that certain events are destined to 
 come to pass for which we are bound to be ready. 
 
 I lay stress upon this point in the hope that by doing 
 so I may disabuse some minds of the notion that if we 
 will only be patient, natural science, which has already 
 done so much to widen the area of our knowledge. 
 
58 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 will confer upon us the still further boon of a demon- 
 strable religion. Natural science deals with number, 
 mass, and force ; it can count and weigh and register ; 
 but of the relations of persons to one another it 
 neither knows nor professes to know anj^ thing at all. 
 No conceivable enlargement of our acquaintance with 
 the material world can ever give us the answer to the 
 weightier questions of religion, for these are all of 
 them personal. Even though the arithmetic of the 
 heavens and the earth were to be worked out to the last 
 figure, — every star tabulated, every period computed, 
 every atom weighed, — we should still be as far as ever 
 from finding the solution of the problems that lie 
 most heavily upon the mind. If God have what we 
 understand by personality, that is to say, self-con- 
 sciousness and will, we as persons must stand related 
 to Him in some definite way ; He must have a purpose 
 with respect to us, and we a duty towards Him. 
 
 But how can natural science help us here ? It can 
 indeed throw some light upon the care that must be 
 taken of the body, if it is to be kept healthy ; and 
 since man's trusteeship of his five senses is a doc- 
 trine of religion, we need not deny to such sciences 
 as anatomy and physiology, a certain auxiliary value 
 in making us more fully acquainted with our duty 
 towards God. But the care of the body is only one 
 department of religion. Man is not adequately con- 
 sidered when we think of him only in his solitariness 
 as an individual. Account has to be taken of the 
 thousand and one complications that arise as soon as 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 69 
 
 yoii bring man into contact with his fellow-men, and 
 look at him in the light of father, brother, neighbor, 
 townsman, citizen. 
 
 In this region of man's social relations, natural 
 science, strictly so called, can help us not at all. 
 Such mixed sciences as sociology and political econ- 
 omy can indeed throw light upon the matter ; they 
 can minister to the needs of the body politic, just as 
 we have seen that anatomy and physiology can minis- 
 ter to the needs of the body physical ; but even they, 
 when confronted with the blunt question, Why must 
 I do right, when every instinct in me is prompting 
 me to do otherwise ? are powerless to give a satisfac- 
 tory answer. Confessing no God, they have no room 
 in their vocabulary for the word Ought. But if 
 science, even when mixed with too many foreign in- 
 gredients to allow of our speaking of it as " pure," 
 is clearly unequal to the task of telling men in what 
 manner and on what terms they ought to live with 
 one another, how utterly incompetent it must be to 
 instruct them in the right way of living with their 
 God I Christians believe that upon this highest of all 
 subjects intelligence has been received by message. 
 God, they say, has declared his will, and given his 
 commandment ; nay, more than this, has to a certain 
 limited extent revealed his purpose. If there have 
 been disclosures in physics, why doubt that there have 
 also been disclosures in ethics ? Did Newton's Prin- 
 cipia throw any more light on the motions of stars, 
 than Moses in the Decalogue threw upon the relations 
 
60 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 of souls ? Is it not the better conclusion then, that 
 both men were revealers, chosen of God to be such, 
 sent here to tell us new truth ? Or, again, take such 
 questions as touch the future, and consider how help- 
 less we are, apart from the aid given us by disclosure. 
 Interesting as is the problem of origins, the problem 
 of destiny is more so. That our tenancy of this 
 planet had a beginning is demonstrable ; that it will 
 have an ending is therefore probable ; but what sort of 
 an ending ? Is there nothing better in store for the 
 round world than the becoming either an ice-pack or a 
 cinder ? To this question natural science, as at pres- 
 ent informed, says No. But Christians hold that 
 however things may turn out with the globe itself, 
 we who live upon it have received by message certain 
 definite and precious promises, that assure to the 
 family a brighter destiny than awaits the homestead. 
 
 In other words, natural science can predict the 
 world's physical future, with a certain measure of 
 accuracy ; but religion alone professes to have any- 
 thing to tell as to the moral and spiritual issues 
 wrapped up with the great fact that an end certainly 
 is to come. Science can prophesy in a sense ; there 
 are certain things it can foretell ; but if the prophecy 
 is to be translated, the meaning of the writing shown, 
 the real issues determined, a Daniel must be called to 
 judgment, one "in whom is the spirit of the holy 
 Gods," a messenger competent to interpret and to 
 declare. 
 
 The whole question, therefore, resolves itself into 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 61 
 
 one of credentials. Are these voices to which Chris- 
 tians have given assent trustworthy ? Can the mes- 
 sengers, the witnesses, the interpreters, call them 
 which you choose, stand the cross-questioning to 
 which the modern spirit is determined to subject all 
 comers who make a claim upon its confidence ? We 
 are living in the midst of this cross-questioning pro- 
 cess ; it is going on before our eyes ; the witnesses 
 are under fire ; and the world, looking on, abides the 
 result. But you and I cannot afford to sit aside with 
 folded hands, waiting for a verdict that may not be 
 announced at the lips of the learned for a century to 
 come. What are we to do ? How are we to settle 
 for ourselves the question of credibility ? In precisely 
 the same way, I venture to suggest, that the specta- 
 tors at an ordinary trial, who are not themselves in 
 the jury box, make up their minds as to the rights 
 and wrongs of the question at issue ; namely, by 
 looking the witnesses squarely in the face and forming 
 an independent judgment as to their honesty. In a 
 deeper sense than the poet himself imagined is " full 
 assurance " sometimes '' given by looks." It is possi- 
 ble with one's Bible in hand to look Moses, Isaiah, St. 
 John, St. Paul, not to name the holiest of all the 
 names, directly in the eye, and to answer to one's own 
 satisfaction the question. Is this man a deceiver, or do 
 his features bear the stamp of honesty ? Even in Old 
 Testament times, uncritical as we are assured those 
 times were, it was customary to subject all who gave 
 themselves forth as messeno-ers of God and unveilers 
 
62 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 of his mind, to very searching tests. They discrim- 
 inated carefully between prophets and " false proph- 
 ets," the men who had the genuine gift of vision and 
 the men who only pretended to have it. " Woe unto 
 the false prophets," vehemently exclaimed one of the 
 true ones, " who follow their own spirit and have 
 seen nothing." Doubtless the method of detecting 
 the false prophets was that simple one which I have 
 called " looking in the face." Insincerity has a way 
 of betraying itself, if not upon the moment, sooner or 
 later. The holy prophets which have been since the 
 world began, have held their own all these centuries, 
 because the successive generations of men have found 
 that good, and only good, came of taking them at 
 their word. To the argument in their favor afforded 
 by the very manner of their speech, has been added 
 the argument which credits a tree with goodness be- 
 cause of the goodness of the fruit ; and the two argu- 
 ments taken together have been very helpful to plain 
 people, as in fact they are likely to continue to be. 
 
 But we are told that the time has come when it is 
 fatal to the life of any religion that it should be under 
 the necessity of confessing itself a " book-religion " ; 
 and that since this is a confession which Christianity 
 must needs make, the inference necessarily follows 
 that the days of Christianity are numbered. What 
 shall we say to this ? First of all, that we are not in 
 the least degree ashamed of making our confession. 
 The fact is as alleged ; it is impossible to deny that, 
 for better or for worse, the fortunes of Christ's reli- 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 63 
 
 gion have been knitted to a book. There is no escap- 
 ing this. The real downfall of the Bible would mean 
 the break-up of Christendom. It is of no avail to 
 argue that because the Church was in existence before 
 the manuscripts, so equally it might endure and flour- 
 ish if bereft of them. A word-of-mouth gospel sufficed 
 so long as men who had had " perfect understanding 
 of all things from the very first " were still alive to 
 tell their story ; but with the passing away of that 
 generation there came in the need of an authenticated 
 record, a trustworthy chronicle, a written recital of 
 facts. This need has existed from then till now, and 
 must continue to exist so long as the conditions of 
 human life are what they are. 
 
 Equally futile is the assurance that no matter what 
 may happen to the letter of the Bible, the spirit of it 
 is certain to survive. Doubtless the spirit of ether 
 survives the breaking of the bottle in which it has 
 been kept ; but survives where ? A Christianity so 
 thinly diffused as to be nowhere definitely discover- 
 able will prove a sorry help in the work-a-day process 
 of bettering mankind. But the fact that the downfall 
 of the Bible would mean the break-up of Christendom 
 need not trouble us unless we have reason to fear 
 that the Bible is likely to fall down. We are accus- 
 tomed to speak well of bridges that carry us safely 
 over, and to give them the credit of soundness until 
 they have been proved rotten. The Bible enjoys an 
 established reputation of this sort, has, in fact, so 
 good a name, that we need not feel the slightest 
 
64 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 nervousness or anxiety about going down to the 
 bottom of things, and calmly considering the ques- 
 tion whether the bare fact that the Bible is a book 
 be or be not fatal to the continuance of the religion 
 whose book it is. 
 
 To charge Christianity with being a book-religion 
 is only another way of condemning it for being of an 
 historical character, and having a foothold in the 
 past. It is the fond conceit of some that a day is 
 coming when religion will be able to dispense with 
 documents altogether. Before very long, they hope 
 to see the matter in such a shape that a few simple 
 propositions, received on their own merits as self- 
 evident, and unincumbered by any wearisome appeal 
 to history, will be accepted as an all-sufficient basis 
 for the holy life, a trustworthy index of the perfect 
 way. Why, they ask contemptuously, should faith be 
 compelled to limp along fettered to a huge volume, 
 clogged by the weight of ancient chronicles, and bend- 
 ing beneath a burden of old prophecies hard to be un- 
 derstood ? The remonstrance has a plausible sound, 
 and for the moment we feel disposed to yield to it, 
 to throw away the parchments as things not worth 
 remembering, and to start out with a light heart in 
 search of this simple and easy religion of the future. 
 
 But when we sit down quietly to think the whole 
 matter over before actually committing ourselves to 
 this new departure, slowly it begins to dawn on us 
 that a religion which has nothing to tell about the 
 past ; which can point to no evidences of the working 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 65 
 
 of God in history ; affects to be beyond the need of 
 way-marks and footprints ; acknowledges no epochs 
 of unveiling, no seasons of special vision ; cannot 
 say, " There, there, and there He passed, and men 
 felt the breath of his presence as He went by," — it 
 begins to be made plain to us that a religion which 
 can do none of these things, but, instead, boasts of 
 itself as being wholly without records and quite free 
 from such troublesome impedimenta as sacred annals, 
 is scarcely a religion we can afford implicitly to trust. 
 A God who is " to everlasting " does not suffice us ; 
 we would have one who is " from everlasting " also. 
 The present is of immense importance, but somehow 
 it seems to lose vitality, to become anaemic, when the 
 ligaments that tie it to the past have been cut. If 
 religion were nothing more or better than theosophy, 
 nothing other, that is to say, than an attempt at un- 
 derstanding the inner nature of the Divine Being by 
 dint of blank contemplation, a patient sitting under 
 the fig-tree of pure thought, then, indeed, there might 
 be something to say in behalf of this proposal to break 
 wholly with the past, and to begin afresh, as it were, 
 with a newly-discovered God. But to the mind that 
 is in earnest, to the heart aflame with eager interest 
 to justify the ways of God to man, such a limiting 
 of religion's scope, such a narrowing of her range is 
 most distasteful and ominous. We crave evidence 
 that God has always " from the beginning " taken an 
 interest in the affairs of earth ; that the long story of 
 the world's troubles and triumphs has a thread of 
 
 5 
 
QQ THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 connection running through it ; that the generations 
 have been knit together by a tie of purpose; that 
 events are leading the race up to a definite crisis in 
 the future, for which the whole past has been a prep- 
 aration ; and that the things concerning us men have 
 an end. 
 
 This is the meaning of those strong appeals to God 
 in which the Christian Scriptures abound, as the God 
 of the ancient times and of the former peoples ; faith 
 in Him as the God of Abraham is strong, but faith in 
 Him as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob 
 is trebly strong. In other words, the argument for 
 belief is cumulative, gathering weight and momentum 
 as the cycles unfold. Listen to David at one of his 
 moments of distress when in the deep waters he is 
 grasping after some bit of floating truth, some frag- 
 ment of conviction buoyant enough to save him from 
 wholly going under, — "0 my God," he cries, " our 
 fathers hoped in thee, they trusted in thee, and thou 
 didst deliver them." He would have been all at sea 
 without the record, the memorandum. 
 
 Listen to Solomon at the dedication of the temple 
 gathering up his long supplication into one compre- 
 hensive suffrage, — " The Lord our God be with us as 
 He was with our fathers ; Let Him not leave us nor 
 forsake us." How came it to be possible for the one 
 monarch in his calamity, and for the other at his 
 supreme hour of triumph, thus to make identically 
 the same appeal to Deity as a *' God of the fathers " ? 
 Clearly because a tradition had been handed on, a 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 67 
 
 chronicle -maintained, a record kept. To enable sup- 
 pliants thus to press God with a major premise, to 
 urge upon Him old loving-kindnesses as a reason for 
 bestowing new ones, there must be a memory that 
 can and does reach far back into the past. Experi- 
 ence cannot be extemporized. The reach even of a 
 lifetime, if it be a disconnected lifetime, is insuffi- 
 cient to breed the confidence we hunger after. 
 
 The only trustworthy biisis on which to build the 
 fabric of hope is memory, and a far-reaching memory 
 at that, — " the foundations of many generations." 
 A religion tangent to human affairs at only one point 
 is inadequate ; we want one that coheres with all the 
 past. But such a religion will be from the very neces- 
 sities of the case a book-religion. If God be indeed 
 a conscious person who "at sundry times and in 
 divers manners " has from the beginning been com- 
 municating with his creature man, how should we of 
 this day be at all the better for that fact unless the 
 word spoken and the deed done had been chronicled ? 
 But the chronicle, whether it be graven on brass, or 
 cut in stone, or written on parchment, or printed on 
 paper, is, to all intents and purposes, the Book. 
 
 Moreover, not only are records essential to our 
 knowing God ; they are equally essential to our know- 
 ing man ; and the knowledge of our fellow-man is no 
 slight part of religion. Records help us to know man 
 by enlarging the mirror in which we study his re- 
 flected image. Nineteenth century man, taken alone, 
 is not man, he is a mere fragment of man. If we 
 
68 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 would know man in his entirety we must study 
 him in every ascertainable stage of his existence. 
 The cave-dweller whose likeness was opportunely 
 scratched for us on a bit of reindeer horn, the Egyp- 
 tian whose profile we know from wall paintings as old 
 as Thebes, the Assyrian warrior pushing on his char- 
 iot of stone and horses of stone against the stone 
 enemy he can never overtake, — these people have a 
 kinship with us as real as theirs who looked down on 
 us from the walls of last year's Salon. 
 
 But, it may be asked, why not prosecute this study 
 of man as he shows himself from China to Peru, and 
 as he has shown himself from the first day until 
 now ; in the pages of the so-called secular historians ? 
 Why should Biblical annalists be accounted especially 
 valuable in such an undertaking ? Arc not a Gibbon 
 and a Hallam as helpful as a Moses and an Ezra ? To 
 which the proper reply would seem to be. This ought 
 ye to have done and not to leave the other undone. 
 Doubtless all history is rich in the materials of a true 
 anthropology. But the noticeable characteristic of 
 the Bible writers is that they, in a unique sense, have 
 given us the biography of the human conscience. The 
 Greek tragedians can perhaps be said to come near 
 them in this line, but it is only with an occasional 
 approach. In what we know as "Holy Scripture," 
 and in that only of all the literatures of the earth, 
 man walks ever either in the approving or the con- 
 demning presence of a watchful Judge. In these 
 chronicles heaven's verdict is pronounced on every 
 
THE ARCHIVES. C9 
 
 mortal career with passionless precision. We are not 
 deceived by false epithets as in popular histories. 
 Jezebel is not named "the Fair" nor Herod styled 
 " the Great." The fact that " he did evil in the sight 
 of the Lord " constitutes in these pages the condem- 
 nation of a king, no matter how much he may have 
 added to the national territory or advanced the credit 
 of the tribes. Next in importance to the definite 
 announcements of fact, to which I have already re- 
 ferred as making the true differentia of the Bible, 
 ought to be reckoned this pervasive flavor of right- 
 eousness. Other sacred books contain in abundance 
 what we know as religious sentiment, vague aspira- 
 tion, pathetic unrest, the consciousness of insignifi- 
 cance, the sense of mystery ; the Bible alone insists on 
 knowing, first of all, whether the heart of the devotee 
 be set on doing the thing that is right. 
 
 Looked at as the literature of a people the Scrip- 
 tures have certainly much in common with other 
 literatures. There is poetry there, there is history, 
 there is biography, there is mental philosophy, there 
 is drama, there is correspondence, there are the pithy 
 sayings into which a people 's mind condenses its wise 
 conclusions, there is impassioned eloquence, there is 
 allegory, there are confessions, there are forecastings 
 of the future, there are commentaries upon the past, 
 there is a book of laws and there is a book of psalms. 
 Kings move across the pages ; soldiers and armies are 
 in motion hither and thither, courtiers and nobles, 
 laboring men and peasants, women, maidens, children. 
 
70 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 — all are there, coming and going. Sometimes the 
 scene lies in the city, sometimes in the fields, some- 
 times the background is of woods and mountains. But 
 even so are all great national literatures fashioned. 
 Into every one of them enter these component parts. 
 Across the field of each marches and countermarches 
 the like procession. How then differs the Bible from 
 them all ? What is that distinguishing note or mark 
 by means of which we distinguish the Book from all 
 books beside ? It is the presence throughout the 
 Scriptures of what we may call the flavor of right- 
 eousness. These sacred writers, as they are properly 
 named, all of them look at life and at the earth's vari- 
 ous history from a single standpoint ; they are critics 
 of conduct ; they not only narrate, they judge. 
 
 It is, indeed, conceivable that men may one day 
 rise up and banish religion in every form and shape 
 from the earth, sometimes it looks as if they were 
 really meaning to do that ; but if religion is to stay 
 with us, the Bible, simply by dint of its surpassing 
 spiritual vigor, and for lack of any adequate com- 
 petitor, is certain to outlive all rivals. The ethnic 
 scriptures have become easily accessible within recent 
 years, they are to be found in English translations on 
 the shelves of all well-appointed public libraries, and 
 it is possible for anybody to institute on his own ac- 
 count such a comparison as I have suggested. Look 
 for yourselves into the sacred books of Brahmins, 
 Buddhists, and Confucians, and see whether anywhere 
 you catch the peculiar quality of voice, at once manda- 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 71 
 
 tory and persuasive, so easily audible in our own 
 Scriptures. Where in them do we find anything 
 that strikes home to the conscience with the sturdy 
 strength that lives in the arm of Moses, man of God, 
 or lies back of the well-aimed blow of Paul, soldier 
 and servant of Jesus Christ? Many bitter things 
 have been said about the Bible, first and last, by 
 those who have had a grudge against it ; but no one, 
 so far as I know, has ever ventured upon calling it a 
 weak book. Virility penetrates every page of it ; for 
 any slightest trace of feebleness or sentimentality 
 we search the Scriptures to no purpose ; it is not 
 there. 
 
 To strength add delicacy. The Bible writers are 
 not only of stalwart breed, they show everywhere 
 what we may call religious refinement, a certain sen- 
 sitiveness of retina in the matter of discerning nice 
 shades of spiritual difference. Let the student of 
 comparative religion match if he can the dignity of 
 the Psalms ; the clear-voiced witness of the greater 
 and the lesser prophets against the materialism of 
 their times ; the lucid simplicity of speech in which 
 St. John, the eagle of the Evangelists, tells the story 
 of the Word made flesh. 
 
 But most of all, and with carefulest search, let him 
 try whether he can find elsewhere anything resem- 
 bling the Bible's guarantee of forgiveness and promise 
 of eternal life. Here we come back to what I have 
 already emphasized as the announcements of Scrip- 
 ture. With trifling exceptions, the parables of Na« 
 
72 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ture make strongly against belief in the forgiveness 
 of sins, and are subversive of " the blessed hope of ever- 
 lasting life." The Bible, with a voice of authority, 
 speaks to us and gives assurance of both pardon and 
 immortality. Here is the secret of the book's per- 
 petuity ; live it must, because of the good news in it. 
 Men's hearts are not so rich in hope that they can 
 willingly, or for any long time, shut their ears against 
 the only message annunciatory of better things to come 
 that has ever yet commanded and held the assent 
 of any considerable number of minds acknowledged 
 great. 
 
 Do not understand me as wishing to cast the slight- 
 est slur upon what is praiseworthy in the sacred 
 books of the heathen peoples. In order to prove our 
 own Scriptures invaluable, it is not necessary to de- 
 clare all other Scriptures valueless. Goodness and 
 truth, wherever we find them, and in whatever meas- 
 ure, are of God, and whenever we discover their pres- 
 ence, we are bound to acknowledge their origin. 
 We have St. Paul's warrant for believing that the 
 heathen have not been left wholly without witness, 
 so far as concerns one of the gravest interests of re- 
 ligion, moral responsibility ; and doubtless not a few 
 rays of the light which lighteth " every man," may 
 be found garnered in the Scriptures of faiths other 
 than ours. But voluntarily and gratuitously to pro- 
 pose to exchange our daylight for their twilight is to 
 flatter the heathen overmuch. Our safety does not 
 lie in eclecticism. Not by any piecing together of 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 73 
 
 fragments of religions, not by picking up a pebble 
 here and a pebble there, as artists in mosaic make 
 their pictures, are we to find our portraiture of the 
 God and Father of us all. No matching of selected 
 features gathered from all faiths, however ingeniously 
 put together, will ever work a displacement of the 
 likeness already accepted by the Christian conscious- 
 ness as true, so manifestly does the Bible picture of 
 the Divine Majesty surpass all competing attempts to 
 show us what God is like. The Christian Evidence 
 Societies could do the public no better service than to 
 print for purposes of contrast an edition, say, of the 
 Gospel of St. John, interleaved with the very best 
 sentences it is possible to gather from the sacred lit- 
 eratures of the East. The whole controversy would, 
 in that case, be condensed into a simple " Look here 
 upon this picture, and on this." 
 
 So far as we have as yet developed it, the argument 
 may be put into three sentences. First, the world 
 cannot live, at least cannot live contentedly, without 
 religion. Secondly, religion cannot live, at least can- 
 not adequately live, without records, without an 
 authenticated history, a book of words and acts. 
 Thirdly, among such books, and they are many, the 
 Christian Scriptures, even by the confession of un- 
 friendly critics, stand supreme. 
 
 I pass now to consider the function of criticism 
 with respect to the Scriptures, and the construction 
 that ought to be put upon the words Inspiration and 
 Revelation. It is obvious to remark that without 
 
74 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 what we understand by criticism we never should 
 have had the Bible in its present shape at all. Criti- 
 cism is the exercise of discernment ; as an instrument 
 it may be likened to the flail. The critic essays to 
 separate the more from the less precious, and to tell 
 us why he does so. In some instances criticism is 
 the work of an individual, sometimes of a delibera- 
 tive body supposed to be composed of qualified 
 judges ; and sometimes, again, it is the slow action 
 of a public opinion that makes itself heard in only 
 half articulate ways, and at odd intervals, but still 
 does, sooner or later, carry its point and hold the 
 field. 
 
 Beginners in theology are apt to be very much 
 disturbed in mind because nobody can give them a 
 hard and fast account of the precise manner in which 
 the canon of the Old Testament and the canon of the 
 New were originally determined. The instinct in us 
 that craves precision is piqued when it is discovered 
 that, in an important inquiry, day and date are miss- 
 ing. It is well known that in the early Church there 
 were differences of opinion with respect to the limits 
 of the canon. There were certain books universally 
 received ; there were certain others open to challenge. 
 In some congregations lessons were read from the 
 Shepherd of Hermas, for example, a Scripture with 
 which at present only patristic students are familiar. 
 How was it ever brought to pass that there did finally 
 emerge the collection we now have as the New Tes- 
 tament? An intelligent believer will be likely to 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 75 
 
 answer the question thus, The result was brought to 
 pass under the oversight of Ahnighty God by the 
 instrumentality of criticism. 
 
 The criticism was doubtless exercised by all three 
 of the methods I just named. Solitary scholars, each 
 man working by himself, had part in it ; councils of 
 bishops had part in it ; public opinion, declaring itself 
 in all sorts of unclassified ways, had part in it. Fin- 
 ally, as the result of the best judgment of the times 
 there came forth the colleclion as we have it; the 
 canon, as we say, was closed. A not wholly dissimi- 
 lar process gave us, in the region of secular literature, 
 what we know as " the classics." It is impossible to 
 say precisely wiio assorted the ancient authors, and 
 decided just which should be and which should not be 
 accounted classical. All the same we have the clas- 
 sics ; that they exist is an unquestionable fact ; no 
 one can shut his eyes to their presence in literature ; 
 they are here. Moreover, the fact is one that is not 
 at all imperilled by the confessed possibility of error 
 on the part of those who originally determined the 
 metes and bounds of classicality. Because the right 
 of tliis or that obscure poet of post-Augustan times 
 to a place among the Latin classics may happen to be 
 disputed, no one trembles for Catullus or for Virgil. 
 The Amen of many generations has given sanction to 
 the list as a whole, and though modern criticism 
 may nibble at the edges of the codex, the substance 
 remains. 
 
 We ought to be equally confident with respect to 
 
76 THE fEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the classics of religion, the Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testaments. Through aid of criticism they were 
 originally marked off from other Scriptures, and iso- 
 lated as having in them a certain distinctive some- 
 thins: not elsewhere to be found. If criticism did us 
 this good service some seventeen or eighteen hundred 
 years ago, why look askance at criticism when it 
 comes in nineteenth century guise proposing to re- 
 open questions of authorship and canonicity in con- 
 nection with our sacred books? It may be urged 
 against this way of looking at the matter that since 
 it has pleased God to shroud the beginnings of many 
 beneficent growths, that of the State, for instance, in 
 darkness, a reverent prudence would discountenance 
 any attempt to investigate the beginnings of the Bible. 
 The remonstrance has a certain measure of reason- 
 ableness in it, and deserves a hearing ; to sneer at it 
 as childish is more easy than wise. Doubtless it is, in 
 a sense, calamitous for society when the analytical 
 fit seizes it, and all life comes to be written over 
 with interrogation marks. There is a sickly as well as 
 a healthy curiosity, and that is by no means the best 
 horticulture which is for ever bent on pulling things 
 up by the roots with the professed object of seeing 
 how they began. On the compiler of every document 
 that in any measure is expected to bind posterity, be 
 it constitution, code, or canon, a specially solemn re- 
 sponsibility rests of doing what is to be done in such 
 a workmanlike manner that there will be slight need 
 of revision. Particularly in matters that touch the 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 77 
 
 conscience is it desirable that the presumption should 
 be as strong as possible in favor of things as they 
 are, and against the needless re-investigation of origins. 
 It is better to keep the Ten Commandments as they 
 stand, than to become so deeply versed in the methods 
 of ethics as to be doubtful whether the keeping them 
 or the breaking them makes very much difference in 
 the end. 
 
 But while all this is true, it is equally indisputable 
 that occasions do arise when the reinvestigation of 
 beginnings is imperative. A man whose house is on 
 the river's bank may live in it for years without a 
 moment's uneasiness ; but if by and by his neighbors 
 come to him, one after another, with the alarming 
 statement that the current is wearing away his foun- 
 dations, he is a fool if he refuses to allow an expert 
 to investigate the matter. He may personally feel 
 very sure that the neighbors are mistaken, and that 
 no real danger threatens ; nevertheless, if it be only 
 to set the mind of the community at rest, and to 
 quiet the clamor, he will do well not merely to allow 
 but to encourage investigation. The principle holds 
 good not of houses only but of treasures of all sorts ; 
 the owners of family diamonds who are afraid to sub- 
 mit them to the judgment of the lapidary, the coiner 
 who shrinks from letting the sharp acid touch his 
 gold, are persons of doubtful wealth. There is a cer- 
 tain holy intrepidity which thorough-going believers 
 are bound to cultivate. If the Bible have in it, as 
 Christians hold, an authentic message from heaven to 
 
78 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 earth, there is no corrosive known to scholarship that 
 can eat away the substance of it. When our Lord 
 Jesus Christ said " Search the Scriptures," he gave 
 biblical criticism its everlasting warrant. 
 
 The practical question, therefore, is this : Are pres- 
 ent circumstances such as make a reinvestigation of 
 the whole matter desirable ? A great company of 
 thoughtful and not undevout people are saying Yes ; 
 and whether they are right or wrong, more harm is 
 likely to come of trying to prevent their having their 
 way, than can possibly accrue from cordially letting 
 them have it, and starting them with a Bon voyage. 
 It is impossible that the friends of God should really 
 have anything to fear from what an honest scholar- 
 ship may attempt ; and that man, I do not hesitate to 
 affirm, who happens to be to-day the one who is doing 
 the most to throw white light upon the things written 
 in the Bible has better right than any other living to 
 be entitled Defender of the Faith. 
 
 A little more than fifty years ago, Arnold of Rugby 
 predicted the crisis in the midst of which we find 
 ourselves. '' Have you seen," he wrote to his friend 
 Mr. Justice Coleridge, " your uncle's ' Letters on In- 
 spiration,' which I believe are to be published ? They 
 are well fitted to break ground in the approaches to 
 that momentous question which involves in it so great 
 a shock to existing notions ; the greatest, probably, 
 that has ever been given since the discovery of the 
 falsehood of the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility. 
 Yet it must come ; and will end, in spite of the fears 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 79 
 
 and clamors of the weak and bigoted, in the higher 
 exalting and more sure establishing of Christian 
 truth." 
 
 So spoke a true prophet, little dreaming of the 
 parts a son and a granddaughter of his own were 
 destined to play in the commotion he foresaw. 
 
 The " existing notions " to which Arnold referred 
 were doubtless such as had to do with the nature and 
 methods of inspiration. That the words of Scripture 
 had been actually dictated, syllable by syllable, to the 
 writers of the several books by a voice from without 
 themselves; that for the purposes of composition 
 evangelists and apostles had been, to use the cant of 
 spiritualism, simply " trance mediums," unconscious 
 of what they did, — this was the notion upon which 
 the disciple of Niebuhr and the friend of Whately felt 
 sure that doom had been pronounced. No one whose 
 eyes are open to the movements of contemporary 
 thought can fail to see that the revolution predicted 
 is in progress. It is no longer held or taught by in- 
 telligent theologians anywhere that the writers of the 
 books of the Bible were mere amanuenses, no more 
 personally accountable for their words than the autom- 
 aton chess-player for his moves. On the contrary, 
 these authors are acknowledged to have been such in 
 the proper sense of the word. They are spoken of 
 as compilers ; they are compared one with another in 
 respect to the facilities they severally enjoyed for 
 gathering accurate information; each is recognized 
 as having his own proper literary style, and, in mat- 
 
80 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ters where temper and spirit come in, his own per- 
 sonal equation. 
 
 But because our estimate of the scope and manner 
 of inspiration has been modified, does it follow that 
 our faith in the Bible as a bona fide message from 
 God must suffer shipwreck ? By no means. When 
 we think of it we see that it is impossible for any 
 book, no matter how sacred, to be inspired. Only 
 that which has life can breathe, and breath enters 
 into the very definition of inspiration. It is men who 
 are inspired, not books ; prophets and saints who 
 breathe in the truth of God, not the papyrus or the 
 wax which serve them as their instruments of trans- 
 mission. The familiar phrase "the inspiration of 
 the Bible " must, therefore, in order to become intel- 
 ligible, be expanded into the inspiration of the men 
 who wrote the Bible. The evidence that the men 
 who wrote the Bible were, as a matter of fact, 
 breathed into by Almighty God in such a way as 
 to give to what they wrote a value wholly unique, 
 is to be sought for in the characteristics of the book 
 taken as a whole, and in the history of what it has 
 done for the peoples which have accepted it as trust- 
 worthy. 
 
 Of the characteristics of the Bible over and above 
 those that have been already emphasized, by far the 
 most striking is its unity. The book is symmetri- 
 cal and self-consistent to a wonderful degree. I am 
 aware that symmetry is sometimes an accidental pro- 
 duct. If I throw a thousand handfuls of sand succes- 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 81 
 
 sively upon the floor, it may happen in one instance 
 out of the thousand that the particles will be found 
 arranged in such a manner as to suggest a set pat- 
 tern. But the impression produced on the mind by 
 this result is very different from that which follows 
 from seeing the grains of sand sprinkled over the 
 surface of a metallic disk arrange themselves in a 
 particular geometrical shape in response to the par- 
 ticular note of sound that has set the disk to vibrat- 
 ing. In this instance we recognize a symmetry 
 intentionally brought to pass by the experimentalist, 
 who knew before striking the note just what result 
 would follow. I do not assert that the evidence of 
 unity of plan afforded by the symmetry of the Bible, 
 is such as to be overwhelmingly demonstrative. I do 
 say that to many minds it has commended itself as 
 singularly persuasive. 
 
 Had the Scriptures all of them been written within 
 a year or within ten years, or even within a single gen- 
 eration, there would be nothing wonderful about their 
 possessing unity of plan. In the case of a book like 
 the Koran the wonder is that it has not more sym- 
 metry than it has. But we are to remember that in 
 the case of the Bible, the dates of the authorship of 
 the various parts differ by centuries, and we must 
 reckon at least sixteen hundred years to get the span 
 of the whole arch. 
 
 Clearly the most reasonable hypothesis upon which 
 to account for the Bible's symmetry, granting that it 
 exists, is the supposition of an extraneous guidance 
 
 6 
 
82 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 that moved the authors in such manner, and with 
 such force, as to make all of them co-operant to a 
 common end. For such providential guidance, sup- 
 plied from above, there can be no better name than 
 inspiration, — that inbreathing of a more enlightened 
 spirit than man's own, whereby he is enabled to 
 "think those things that are good." 
 
 But more to the point by far than " inspiration " is 
 the allied word " revelation." What we really want 
 to know is whether the Bible writers do actually un- 
 veil to us certain facts of grave moment which we 
 could never know but for such help. The matters to 
 which I refer are such as these, the personality of 
 God, the pre-existence of Jesus Christ, man's survival 
 of death, the prospect of an ultimate restitution 
 of all things, the reality of heaven, the reality of 
 hell ; these are points with respect to which centuries 
 of philosophizing can help us not one whit. If such 
 truths, supposing them to be truths, are to be known 
 at all, they must become known by a drawing aside 
 of the curtain ; no otherwise is it conceivable that we 
 should become aware of them. The study of Nature 
 and of the human mind may furnish illustrations, and 
 what may even be charitably construed as corroborative 
 evidence, of the matters thus disclosed; but to disclose 
 them it is powerless. The logical mind is shut up to 
 a choice between Pyrrhonism and revelation. 
 
 The advantage gained by shifting the burden of 
 argument from inspiration to revelation is further evi- 
 dent when we consider that inspiration is a thing of 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 83 
 
 degrees, a matter of more and less, whereas, with re- 
 spect to revelation all we have to ask is, Has it or has it 
 not occurred ? There is a sense of the word in which 
 inspiration is credited to all men who accomplish 
 more than the common. Bezaleel is said in the Book 
 of Exodus to have been filled with the Spirit of God 
 " to work in gold and in silver and in brass, and 
 in cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of 
 timber." This is a definition of inspiration large 
 enough to cover the case of Leonardo da Vinci, the 
 Bezaleel of the Renaissance.- So then, if Christians 
 confine themselves to a claim of " inspiration " for 
 the authors of Scripture, they may find men putting 
 the Bible on the same shelf with other sacred books, 
 wedging it in between Plato and Confucius, and quite 
 content to claim for Isaiah and St. Paul only such 
 a measure of the Spirit as they are willing to concede 
 to Dante, Bunyan, and a-Kempis. A revelation, on 
 the other hand, does not admit of degrees. Either it 
 has been made or it has not been made ; either the 
 heavens have been opened and God has showed us the 
 truth, or they are brass over our head for ever. 
 
 To a mind studying the Bible from the point of 
 approach now indicated, many of the so-called diffi- 
 culties of faith shrink into insignificance. The in- 
 timation, for example, of little inaccuracies in the 
 record, whether of an historical, a geographical, or a 
 scientific sort, cease to alarm. Are the great struc- 
 tural lines of the whole fabric right and true ? is the 
 real question. Because I accept the erratum of some 
 
84 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 chronologist who has discovered a wrong date in the 
 Books of Chronicles, it does not follow that I am logi- 
 cally bound to welcome with open arms a whole troop 
 of interpreters who are bent on writing the Resurrec- 
 tion down a myth, and distilling the personality of 
 God into a figure of speech. Let every proposition be 
 tried on its own merits, and, above all, let us distin- 
 guish magnitudes. We are never really the poorer 
 for having been told the truth ; but we are sometimes 
 frightened into taking for true, statements contradic- 
 tory to cherished beliefs, when really it is the new- 
 announcement rather than the old faith that lacks 
 verification. We do not the less enjoy the glories 
 of the sunset because it has been discovered that 
 the going down of the sun means really the backing 
 around of the earth ; but every now and then credulous 
 people are thrown into a paroxysm of alarm by some 
 pseudo-scientific announcement that a great cosmic 
 disturbance is impending. There is a difference in 
 the two cases. In like manner, if I am asked to give 
 up the Bible as the Word of God because Solomon, 
 reputed the wisest of men and inspired, was cer- 
 tainly mistaken when he spoke of the clouds as 
 dropping down the dew, and probably mistaken in 
 what he said about the habits of ants, I decline to be 
 so foolish as to let my heart fail me on any such 
 grounds. My confidence in the Bible as an authentic 
 unfolding of the truth, the will, and the purposes of 
 God has anchorage deeper down. 
 The simple fact of tlie matter is this ; modern re- 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 85 
 
 search is modifying, — some say revolutionizing, but 
 it is more accurate to say modifying, old opinions as 
 to the process by which the various books of the 
 Bible were brought into their present combination, 
 and made into the volume as we have it now. Mod- 
 ern research, be it also observed, is doing what it is 
 doing after a fashion not unlike that in which Sedg- 
 wick, Murchison, and Lyell changed our old concep- 
 tions of the manner in which the globe was brought 
 to be what to-day it is. But the earth itself is pre- 
 cisely what it was before the geologists began to 
 investigate, and the book we know as the Bible is 
 precisely what it was before the critics began to criti- 
 cise. And just as there are those of us who while 
 thankfully accepting all that Geology can really prove 
 with respect to the formation of the earth's crust, 
 nevertheless hold fast the old-fashioned faith which 
 expresses itself in the words, " I believe in God, the 
 Father Almighty, Maker ; '* so there are those of us, 
 and their number is reckoned by tens of thousands, 
 who while ready cheerfully to concede whatever the 
 best critical scholarship may be able to establish 
 regarding the formation of the Scriptures as an his- 
 torical process, are not at all shaken in their 
 confidence that as the record of God's revelation of 
 Himself, the Bible, substantially as we have it now, 
 will stand to the end of time. 
 
 What I mean is that the man must be either of a 
 singularly sanguine temperament, or else strangely 
 forgetful of the oscillations of scholarship in the past, 
 
86 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 who fancies that the books of the Bible will ever be, 
 by general consent, redistributed and renamed to suit 
 the conclusions of contemporary criticism. All sorts 
 of theories may, from time to time, be set afloat as to 
 the proper chronological order of the volume's compo- 
 nent parts, and these theories may make converts 
 many and distinguished, but the volume itself will 
 continue, as at present, to begin with the book called 
 Genesis and to end with the book called Eevelation. 
 To the eye of criticism Jehovist and Elohist may grow 
 to seem more distinctly separable than ever, but like 
 flies in amber the two will continue to maintain their 
 twin existence in the narrative as at this day. It is 
 unlikely, in other words, that any scheme for remod- 
 elling the whole structure of the Bible will ever get 
 beyond the academic stage. The thing may be dis- 
 cussed and urged, but the moment action becomes 
 imminent a still more recent scholarship will step 
 in to affirm that, if change there is to be, it should 
 proceed on lines different from those proposed. In 
 saying this I am not charging scholarship with fickle- 
 ness, I am merely calling attention to the fact that in 
 the field of Biblical science absolute demonstration is 
 unattainable, and to the probability that since such is 
 the case, no one hypothesis will ever so effectually 
 distance all the others that the maintainers of it will 
 be allowed to reconstruct the canon at their pleasure. 
 The argument against the authenticity of II. Peter, for 
 example, and the argument in favor of the multiple 
 authorship of Isaiah may both of them become in the 
 
THE ARCHIVES. B7 
 
 future very much stronger than they are to-day, but 
 it is in the highest degree unHkely that such a com- 
 plete consensus of critical opinion will ultimately be 
 secured as to warrant, say, the Syndics of the Univer- 
 sity Press in dropping the one book and in subdivid- 
 ing the other. 
 
 Not only so, but when it comes to fretting our- 
 selves over the detection of petty errors and faults in 
 the text of Scripture, we shall do well to re-read our 
 Butler, and having got ourselves thoroughly into the 
 spirit of the Analogy to make note of the singular 
 fact that none of the creations of God as we observe 
 them in the outer world are perfect, according to our 
 human conceptions and definitions of perfectness. Of 
 man it has been truly said, 
 
 " The type of perfect in his mind 
 In Nature can he nowhere find." 
 
 Why stumble then at discovering in the Book of 
 Revelation a characteristic equally discernible in the 
 Book of Nature, supposing the two books to have had 
 one and the same author ? Who, for instance, ever 
 saw an absolutely flawless petal on a stem ? But do 
 we, for that reason, doubt God's having made the 
 roses ? A draughtsman with a pencil and a ruler 
 can, in a few moments, plot for us on paper an out- 
 line of the perfect hexagonal prism which is the ideal 
 form of a quartz crystal,— the form in which, as we say 
 (greatly presuming in saying so), that quartz "ought" 
 to crystallize. But we may search the quarries and 
 
88 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 grottoes of the world in vain for any bit of actual 
 quartz that shall conform absolutely and without the 
 slightest deviation to the draughtsman's pattern. Are 
 we to assume for this reason that the draughts- 
 man has a better mind than God ? or account the 
 hand which can draw so easily the lines of an ideal 
 crystal defter than the Hand which has been shaping 
 the real crystal through uncounted ages ? Not if we 
 have weighed well the purport of that ancient chal- 
 lenge, — " He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? " 
 Scarcely enough seems to have been made of this 
 particular argument from analogy in recent apolo- 
 getics. For if we find what look to our eye blemishes 
 in workmanship which we know to be wholly God's, 
 such as the flowers and the rocks, ought we to be 
 troubled at discovering the like signs and tokens to 
 be characteristic of a book in the making of which 
 God may be said to have taken man into partnership ? 
 Why not have the good sense to look at the Bible 
 as we look at everything else that has been subject to 
 the necessary conditions of life and growth, and not 
 let the knees of our faith knock together in alarm the 
 moment this or that student of the text points out 
 to us some fleck or flaw, as he is pleased to think it, 
 in the workmanship of Almighty God ? Some lynx- 
 eyed Old Testament critic assures me, with the air 
 of a Samson pulling down the temple, that he has 
 discovered a discrepancy between a certain statement 
 in the Book of Leviticus and a certain other state- 
 ment in the Book of Deuteronomy. 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 89 
 
 First of all, I ask him whether he is quite sure that 
 he is right ; but even when convinced that his dis- 
 covery is genuine, 1 decline to feel as seriously con- 
 cerned over it as he would like to have me feel. If 
 God has seen fit to inject his revelation into the 
 midst of human affairs, I am not surprised to find 
 the history of it subject to the same disabilities that 
 attach to ordinary history. " I adore," says Athen- 
 agoras, " the Being who harmonized the strains and 
 leads the melody, not the instrument which he plays. 
 What umpires at the games, omitting to crown the 
 minstrel, place the garland upon the lyre." 
 
 The Bible, as we know it to-day, is an accomplished 
 fact, and what it is it is. It stands out before us like 
 a great tree that has attained its growth. As such it 
 has a complete contour of its own, and we might as 
 well attempt to kill a tree by criticism as hope to 
 make away with the Bible by philosophizing on the 
 method and order of its growth. On a sunny slope 
 in an English nobleman's park, flourishing far away 
 from the country and climate of its birth, we find a 
 stately, heavy-foliaged cedar, one of those great " trees 
 of the Lord " of which the Psalmists tell, the pride of 
 Lebanon. English soil of itself never could have pro- 
 duced the tree ; the land in which it first had root 
 and from which it was transplanted is the land of 
 Palestine, the land called " Holy." But is it here and 
 now any the less the cedar, any the less " tree of Je- 
 hovah " on that account? Does the fact of its being 
 an exotic destroy its beauty or its value ? No, if is as 
 
90 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 much a tree of God's planting in England as ever 
 it could have been in Syria. We notice, here and 
 there upon the trunk, gnarled spots that tell of an 
 irregular growth, and betray some past departure 
 from the normal movement of the juices within. 
 Is it the less a cedar, the less worthy to be called God's 
 tree for that reason ? At the extremity of one of the 
 limbs there happens to be a dead branch ; it suggests 
 curious thoughts. Why did that particular branch 
 wither ? All the adjoining foliage is quick and beau- 
 tiful and fresh as ever ; why should that one outer- 
 most shred of the tree's vesture thus have shrivelled ? 
 Did disease attack it from within, or has some blight 
 struck it from without ? We cannot tell ; we are as 
 much perplexed as we were by the flaws on the rough 
 surface of the bark. But what of that ? Do we for 
 a moment distrust the venerable cedar, question its 
 genuineness, deny its authenticity ? No ; we look at 
 it with reverent awe ; we glory in it just as it is ; 
 we say, — Truly it is the Lord's tree, all the marks of 
 his undoubted workmanship are here ; it is Jeho- 
 vah's cedar ; He made it. Under the shadow of the 
 branches 1 will lay me down and take my rest. 
 
 Our answer then to the question. How ought men in 
 these times to think about the Bible ? so far as the 
 positive side of the Anglican statement is concerned, 
 should be this. We ought to account the Bible to be 
 the permanent hand-book of authentic religion, — a 
 hand-book open always to new and larger interpreta- 
 tions as fast as human knowledge widens, a hand-book 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 91 
 
 which scholars must be permitted to criticise and re- 
 edit with the same absolute freedom with which they 
 criticise and re-edit the text of the secular classics, 
 but a hand-book destined to continue substantially 
 what it is to-day until the end of the age, still, as of 
 old, the Word of God to man. 
 
 But before this question of the Scriptures is wholly 
 left behind, something ought to be said with reference 
 to the alleged insufficiency of the Bible as a repository 
 of religious truth. Attention has thus far been en- 
 grossed with the arguments of the left, but what the 
 Bishops have to say upon this subject is also open to 
 attack from the extreme right. Roman Catholics take 
 the ground that the Scriptures unsupplemented by 
 something more are inadequate, that they are good as 
 far as they go, but that they do not go far enough. 
 
 This theory of a duplex revelation has been suc- 
 cinctly stated thus : " Every sort of doctrine which is 
 to be delivered to the faithful is contained in the Word 
 of God, which is divided into Scripture and Tradition." ^ 
 That tradition has been by most Protestant contro- 
 versiaUsts greatly undervalued, is doubtless true. In 
 matters secular we could ill afford to spare knowledge 
 that has come down to us in all sorts of informal and 
 irregular and unauthenticated ways. Even so precise 
 a thing as statute law demands of its interpreter some 
 acquaintance with old uses and time-worn consent, 
 with the things that " go without saying." We should 
 consider the historian foolish who based his account 
 1 Catechism of Council of Trent, Preface, Qu. xii. 
 
92 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 of a people's beginnings wholly upon folk-lore, with the 
 expectation of having what he wrote considered trust- 
 worthy, but on the other hand to rule out the folk-lore 
 altogether would be almost as great a folly. It would 
 be unsafe to assume, for instance, that the Arthurian 
 legend had no grain of truth in it ; and though the hero 
 of the Robin Hood ballads may never have existed, the 
 ballads themselves certainly throw Hght on the man- 
 ners and customs, the popular loves and hatreds of 
 Norman England. 
 
 If the Roman Catholic would be content to treat 
 tradition as illustrative, and not insist on our re- 
 ceiving it as demonstrative, we should have no quar- 
 rel with him. The Church of England avails itself of 
 tradition as a side-light when in the preface to its 
 Ordinal it calls in " ancient authors " to buttress by 
 their testimony the Scriptural argument for Episco- 
 pacy. Most Anglicans are also glad to take up with 
 such help as tradition has to give in the matter of infant 
 baptism, and the transference of the Sabbatical sanc- 
 tion from the last to the first day of the week. And 
 yet, on the other hand, it ought carefully to be observed 
 that the Church of England has nowhere given to any 
 . one of these contentions the dignity of an article of 
 the faith. The statement, " The baptism of young 
 children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, 
 as most agreeable with the institution of Christ," ^ is 
 not put upon a level with the statement, " The third 
 day He rose again from the dead." 
 
 1 Article xxvii. 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 93 
 
 Acceptance of the belief that "from the Apostles' 
 time there have been these orders of ministers in 
 Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons," 
 is not made a prerequisite to receiving the Holy 
 Communion. Only to such propositions as she has 
 held, whether rightly or wrongly, to be demonstrably 
 scriptural, has the Church of England ever demanded 
 the assent of all her children.^ 
 
 The necessity of taking this rigid attitude towards 
 tradition, if a religion is to be kept pure, is occa- 
 sioned by the fecundity that inheres in tradition by 
 the very nature of the thing. The Bible piques as 
 well as gratifies our curiosity. To one question that 
 it answers, it raises a dozen which it leaves unan- 
 swered. The curious mind of man cannot let these 
 unsolved problems alone; in fact, they are all the 
 more fascinating for having been left unsolved. The 
 interest in the Sibylline books that were bought must 
 have been as nothing compared with the longing 
 desire to know what had been on the pages of the 
 burned volumes. And as demand creates supply, 
 so is there great danger that in proportion to the 
 weight with which the silence of Scripture presses 
 on the mind, will be the effort of self-evolving tra- 
 dition to make good the deficiency. This has to be 
 acknowledged on all hands in the case of the elder 
 revelation. We have it upon the authority of Christ 
 Himself, that in his day the Word of God had been 
 ^^rnade of none effect," stifled, He seems to have 
 1 Article viii. 
 
94 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 meant, by the traditions. It is the old story of the 
 sleeping beauty in the wood. He who comes to seek 
 must cut his way through " bur and brake and briar," 
 before he finds himself even at the door of the en- 
 chanted palace. 
 
 A clever Mohammedan writer^ has lately told us 
 that the same thing holds good of Islam. 
 
 "You read the Koran," he says, " and you think you 
 know Islamism. That is a great mistake. . . . Besides 
 the Koran, there are traditions which are as powerful and 
 even more respected than the Koran itself. It is difficult 
 for a European to know these traditions. The whole 
 science of Asia, everything which is good or useful, has 
 been attributed to Islam. It is an ocean where you can 
 find everything which is good to be known ; and it offers 
 all kinds of facilities, not in the Koran alone, but in the 
 traditions, for the progress of the people." 
 
 This liability to overgrowth which neither Judaism 
 nor Islam has been able to escape, attaches to Chris- 
 tianity as well. Nor need the liability be greatly 
 deprecated or deplored so long as the traditions 
 pass for what they are worth and for no more. It 
 is only through gross carelessness on the part of cus- 
 todians, that the ivy and the lichen ever become the 
 destroyers of the masonry they adorn. There is a 
 great deal that is beautiful in the life of the Church 
 for which it would be difficult to find explicit Scrip- 
 ture warrant. It was narrow of the Puritans to think 
 1 Prince Malcohn Khan. 
 
THE ARCHIVES. 95 
 
 that no names were good enough for Christian chil- 
 dren but Bible names ; and it is silly of the ultra- 
 Protestant of our own day to demand a " proof text " 
 for every pious usage that former generations have 
 handed on. But it is neither narrow nor silly to in- 
 sist that when it comes to the ascertainment of the 
 essentials of our religion, regard shall be had only 
 to what stands unmistakably on record. Text and 
 margin are separable things, and should be kept 
 apart. 
 
III. 
 
 THE CREDENDA, 
 
The older I grew, the smaller stress I laid on those controversies and 
 curiosities (though still my intellect abhorreth confusion), as finding greater 
 uncertainties in them than I at first discovered, and finding less usefulness 
 where there is the greatest certainty. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and 
 the Ten Commandments are now to me as my daily bread and drink, and as 
 I can speak and write over them again and again, so I had rather read and 
 hear of them than of any of the school niceties. And this I observed also 
 with Richard Hooker and with many other men. —Richard Baxter. 
 
 I have found in this way the preciousness of the simple creeds of an- 
 tiquit}', the inward witness which a Gospel of facts possesses, and which a 
 Gospel of notions must always want; how the most awful and absolute 
 truths, which notions c isp'ace or obscure, are involved in facts and through 
 facts, may be entertained and embraced by those who do not possess the 
 faculty of comparing notions, and have a blessed incapacity of resting in 
 them. — F. D. Maurice. 
 
 No sober-minded man will hold an opinion against reason, no Christian 
 against Scripture, no lover of peace against the Church. — St. Augustine. 
 
m. 
 
 THE CREDENDA. 
 
 No memorandum of the first principles of Church 
 Unity is complete that leaves dogma wholly out 
 of the account. Men cannot act in concert without 
 credenda^ and since Christianity, looked at as a great 
 movement for the betterment of human life, of neces- 
 sity demands concert of action, of necessity also ere- 
 denda it must have. Aware of this, the Bishops at 
 Lambeth assembled set forth, under the head of dogma, 
 " The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol ; and 
 the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the 
 Christian Faith.^^ 
 
 We shall be the better able to appreciate the 
 strength of this position if, first of all, some thought 
 be given to the manner in which dogma, as such, 
 stands related to religion. It may be objected that 
 this is a question for the schools, and for the schools 
 only ; but the days of the discipline of the secret are 
 ended. Theology can no longer rest content with 
 sitting, in pillared seclusion, far away from the com- 
 mon resorts of men. The other sciences have quitted 
 their academic retirement and have come out into the 
 open. Queen of them though she be, Theology has 
 
100 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 no choice but to do as the}^ have done, or run the risk 
 of being thought to have abdicated her sovereignty. 
 In these democratic days queens who are only such in 
 posse make a poor showing. I venture therefore upon 
 a definition, and ask you to think of a dogma as a 
 statement set forth, either by an individual teacher or 
 by some teaching body, to be taken for true, while 
 confessedly not susceptible of logical demonstration. 
 
 It is evident that, as thus defined, dogmas are by 
 no means the exclusive possession of the Christian 
 Church. Pure science employs dogma very sparingly, 
 but the mixed sciences are tolerant of it in large 
 measure. Geometry, for example, a pure science, 
 makes use of dogma under the name of the " postu- 
 late ; " the postulate being an unproved assertion, the 
 taking of which for granted facilitates the proof of 
 other things, and thus by a sort of retroaction jus- 
 tifies itself. Nevertheless, Geometry, as a rule, is 
 shy of dogma, and deals for the most part with what 
 is directly provable. Not so Biology, and the mixed 
 sciences in general; — here dogma abounds, com- 
 monly veiled under the name of " working hypothe- 
 sis." The so-called " law " of natural selection is an 
 instance in point. No one alleges that natural selec- 
 tion has been demonstrated, or is demonstrable ; 
 nevertheless, it is taught, and taught with much posi- 
 tiveness, by those who hold it. In fact, to question 
 this particular working hypothesis brings down upon 
 the questioner in some quarters censure as sharp, if 
 not as heavy, as that which in old times fell to the lot 
 
THE CUEDEXDA. 101 
 
 of those who disparaged the dogmas of the Church. 
 Politics also and Sociology are full of dogma. The 
 proposition " Universal suffrage makes for the good 
 of a free people " is a dogma. The nation to which 
 we belong sets it forth as a thing to be believed, al- 
 though nobody pretends that it is susceptible of proof. 
 It is an American dogma. The different schools of 
 medicine again set forth dogma almost without stint. 
 There is, for example, the antiseptic dogma, and over 
 against it the aseptic ; the very fact of the co-exist- 
 ence of the two dogmas being of itself evidence that 
 neither the antiseptic nor the aseptic hypothesis ad- 
 mits of absolute proof. Should proof be ultimately 
 forthcoming, the dogma that triumphed would thence- 
 forth cease to be dogma, having become transmuted 
 into verified fact. Meanwhile, nevertheless, the sur- 
 geons, whether of the antiseptic or the aseptic way of 
 thinking, do not scruple to go on practising in accord- 
 ance with that one of the two dogmatic bases to 
 which they the more incline. 
 
 But if the thing itself be so obvious a necessity of 
 human thought and life, how, one may very naturally 
 ask, has the name for the thing come to incur the 
 odium which, as all must own, attaches to it ? 
 
 An easy way of answering the question would be to 
 attribute the unpopularity of religious dogma directly 
 to the hardness of men's hearts, to their obstinate 
 determination to stay in the dark when the choice of 
 walking in the light is offered them. But of the most 
 intci^selv dogmatic teacher that ever trod the earth, 
 
102 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 it is written that " the common people heard Him 
 gladly." He taught as one having authority, that is 
 to say, dogmatically, and the multitude followed Him 
 all the more gladly on that account. It is there- 
 fore only reasonable to suppose that some portion at 
 least of the disfavor in which dogma has come to be 
 held is a deserved disfavor, the unpopularity an un- 
 popularity merited and earned. 
 
 We shall be strengthened in this conviction if we 
 consider two or three of the ways in which the prin- 
 ciple of dogma has been abused, wounded in the 
 house of its friends. There has been, for instance, a 
 strong disposition always, on the part of opinionated 
 men, to set forth their own private notions upon all 
 sorts of subjects, as if, instead of being notions, they 
 were decrees. A dogma, like a projectile, has mo- 
 mentum in proportion to the amount and strength of 
 the explosive back of it. When a toy pistol is fired 
 off with all the pomp and circumstance that usually 
 attend the discharge of a three-hundred pounder, the 
 lookers-on smile, they cannot help it. The dogmatist 
 in this way does dogma more harm in a sentence 
 than he can undo in a volume ; for the thought of 
 authority enters into all our conceptions of dogma, 
 and for a personal utterance to carry authority the 
 man who makes it must convince us either that he is 
 inspired of some intelligence higher than the human, 
 or that he is an expert in the department in which 
 he undertakes to instruct us, or else that he is the 
 mouth-piece of a very considerable number of con- 
 
THE CREDENDA. 103 
 
 senting minds. Whoever ventures dogmatically to 
 address us simply in his capacity of brother-man 
 makes himself ridiculous, and does what he can to 
 make dogma as such ridiculous also. 
 
 But not only have individuals brought discredit 
 upon dogma by their misuse of the dogmatic method, 
 churches are in the same condemnation. Under the 
 somewhat misleading even though pleasantly allit- 
 erative title of The Creeds of Christendom, a living 
 divine has brought together dogmatic utterances, Ro- 
 man and Reformed, numerous enough to fill three 
 massive volumes. The compilation has proved a most 
 valuable help to the student ; but when it is considered 
 that the New Testament, the fountain-head of Chris- 
 tian doctrine, is commonly printed in one volume, and 
 a small volume at that, it becomes evident that the 
 makers of the Confessions have very considerably 
 overdone their work. Yes, it must be frankly ac- 
 knowledged that for no inconsiderable measure of the 
 unpopularity of dogma the teachers of religion have 
 been themselves to blame. They have tried to make 
 men believe too much. Really it has been against 
 the multiplicity of dogmas, rather than against the 
 dogmatic principle itself, that opposition has kindled 
 into flame. In order to form a just judgment in the 
 matter we must learn carefully to distinguish between 
 essential dogma, — those statements, that is to say, 
 which make the essence of Christian belief, — and the 
 many other propositions which from time to time 
 have been set forth as logical inferences from these 
 
104 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 first-hand truths. When a living poet, in a stanza 
 which has become hackneyed quite as much through 
 misuse as through right use, speaks of our " little 
 systems" having their day and ceasing to be, it is 
 not, we may be very sure, the articles of the Creed he 
 has in mind, but rather those complicated frame- 
 works of theological opinion which under the name 
 of platforms, confessions, and bodies of divinity have 
 been again and again clamped and riveted together, 
 only to fall in pieces as soon as there has been time 
 enough for the corrosive influences of the atmosphere 
 to eat away the bolts. 
 
 But the chief ground of complaint against Christian 
 dogma is of another sort. I have been making allow- 
 ance for what is justifiable in the unpopularity under 
 which the word labors ; let us now look at what is 
 unjustifiable in it. Men mislike Christian dogma be- 
 cause of its unchangeableness, its fixity. The politi- 
 cians have their dogmas, as we have seen ; but then 
 they alter them to meet fresh emergencies, and re- 
 make the platform as occasion may require. With 
 the philosophers and the naturalists there is the same 
 readiness to allow for revision. Our dogmas, say the 
 metaphysicians, we are at any moment willing to 
 throw into solution that they may crystallize afresh. 
 And ours, chime in the naturalists, are only acknowl- 
 edged stepping-stones to higher and larger and firmer 
 ground ; we can, and if occasion arises, we shall re- 
 vise them to-morrow. But the Church keeps on say- 
 ing the same thing. She alone among the teaching 
 
THE CREDENDA. 105 
 
 voices to wliich man is asked to listen has nothing 
 now to tell. Her dogma, like the Medo-Persian law, 
 altereth not, and that is why we weary of it and wish 
 it out of the way. 
 
 Here again the Church has a reason to give, and a 
 sound one, as we shall see. Return to the Apostles' 
 Creed, for a moment, and consider attentively of what 
 sort of statements it is made up. In the very first 
 clause of it we have no fewer than four dogmatic as- 
 sertions : namely, that there is a God ; that fatherli- 
 ness is one of his characteristics ; that infinite power 
 is another ; and furthermore that he puts this power 
 into active exercise. " I believe in God the Father 
 Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth." What is 
 there here that the Church can fairly be called on to 
 revise ? If she had gathered these dogmas, as the 
 political economist gathers his, by observation of what 
 goes on in human society ; if she had gathered them 
 as the metaphysician gathers his, by observing what 
 goes on in the mind of man ; if she had gathered 
 them as the naturalist gathers his, by observing what 
 goes on in the world material, why then it would be 
 perfectly proper to insist on frequently testing her 
 methods and verifying her results. 
 
 But the Church maintains that she came into pos- 
 session of her dogmas in another way altogether. 
 She did not find them out; they were told to her. 
 They are hers, not by right of discovery but by bene- 
 fit of gift. The first paragraph of the Creed is the 
 common property of the Jewish and the Christian 
 
106 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Churches, the second and the third owe their exist- 
 ence to the coming into the world of One who as- 
 serted Himself the Son of God ; but all three sections 
 are alike in this, that their contents rest for authority 
 on testimony, — the testimony of men who have some- 
 how made themselves believed. 
 
 But testimony once recorded must remain what it 
 is, unless indeed you can impeach the witnesses. 
 Here, for example, are certain definite statements 
 made by the first century writers as to what Jesus 
 said of Himself, of life, of death, of things present 
 and things to come. Out of them and other like 
 material the dogmas of the Church have been fash- 
 ioned. We may reject the dogmas, we may utterly 
 refuse to receive them ; but to ask the Church to alter 
 them merely in obedience to the popular demand for 
 change is most unreasonable. It is sometimes granted 
 us to forget what has been done, but never is it our 
 privilege to undo it. 
 
 *' Not Heaven itself upon tlie past hath power, 
 But what hath been, hath been." 
 
 The .chemist may reinvestigate the atomic weight 
 of silver, the astronomer may recompute the elements 
 of a planet's period of revolution, but who shall call 
 back from the dead, John, Apostle and Evangelist, that 
 he may be cross-questioned and re-examined ? 
 
 Has religion then nothing to learn from the new 
 pages man's finger is continually turning in the book 
 of knowledge ? Has the Church no share in the 
 
THE CREDENDA. 107 
 
 harvest of light in which the world of our time 
 rejoices ? 
 
 Most assuredly, Yes ; — but the way in which the 
 new knowledge is destined to help the Church is not 
 by destroying her dogmas, it is rather by illustrating 
 and enforcing them more powerfully than ever was 
 possible before. 
 
 There is not an article of the Creed that has been 
 shaken out of its place thus far by any thunderclap 
 of discovery ; neither is there one of them that has 
 not been rendered more significant, more comprehen- 
 sive, more august, by our knowledge of the things 
 discovered. Holding fast, then, whatever has been 
 with unanimity believed by Christians, let us read 
 into it deeper and still deeper meanings, as knowl« 
 edge grows " from more to more.'* The unpopularity 
 of dogma is but a passing phase of feeling. The 
 ages of faith have not really been outlived. Still, as 
 of old, it is man's best privilege in regions where 
 he cannot know, to trust ; where he cannot prove, 
 to hope. 
 
 Another way of reaching conclusions is by a study 
 of alternatives. Let us try the reductio ad absurdum. 
 Suppose that in a moment of disgust at dogmatism 
 we determine once for all to throw the dogmatic prin- 
 ciple overboard, how will it fare with us then ? Very 
 much, I fancy, as it might with an imperilled ship 
 whose frightened crew, not content with casting the 
 superabundant cargo into the sea, were to discharge 
 the ballast also. Even when relieved of what threat- 
 
108 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ened to sink it, a craft so circumstanced would still 
 need something to steady it. 
 
 Nothing is more instructive in this regard than the 
 experience of those who from time to time start out 
 full of hope and full of courage to establish and to 
 administer a purely undogmatic religion. Zeal for 
 ethical as distinguished from theological interests is 
 usually the mainspring of such movements. It is 
 a most praiseworthy incentive ; and whether the at- 
 tempt take the title of '* Free Religious Association " 
 or " Society for Ethical Culture " or " University Hall 
 Lectureship," we cannot but applaud the courage that 
 refuses to despair of goodness even after the cause 
 of theology has been given up for lost. But can an 
 undogmatic religion achieve organization ? Is it not 
 like asking a jelly-fish to walk ? The question is not 
 intended as a slur, I put it seriously. The movement 
 I am venturing thus incidentally to criticise is no out- 
 break of ignorant fanaticism ; it enjoys the leadership 
 of brilliant minds ; it has eloquence and learning and 
 moral earnestness enlisted in its support. What it 
 is dreaming of is a Catholic Church of humanity, a 
 fellowship into which Christian, Jew, and Moslem 
 may enter unchallenged, provided only each confesses 
 to an aspiration towards the true, the beautiful, and 
 the good. 
 
 This new remedy proposed for our spiritual ills 
 differs from what used to be called free-thinking in 
 its attitude towards Christianity. Free-thinking was 
 avowedly hostile to the received faith ; free religion, 
 
THE CREDENDA. 109 
 
 to choose for convenience' sake one out of the many 
 names the movement has taken on, disclaims hostihty 
 and mildly proposes conciliation. 
 
 Free-thinking was essentially destructive in its 
 aims ; free religion aspires, however hopelessly, to be 
 constructive. Free-thinking placed its dependence 
 on the head alone ; free religion both recognizes and 
 emphasizes the holy alliance between head and heart. 
 Free-thinking had a baldness eminently repulsive to 
 the imaginative mind ; free religion exalts the imagi- 
 nation, and appeals as readily to the poetical as to 
 the ratiocinative faculties of the soul. Your free- 
 thinker was disposed to shut men up to hard-and-fast 
 logic; your free-religionist is as ready as was Saint 
 Ambrose to insist that not by dialectics only has it 
 pleased God to save his heritage. In all this the free 
 religion of to-day has an apparent advantage over 
 the free-thinking of yesterday; it deals more fairly 
 by the facts of human nature, it breathes a better 
 flavor and seems to offer a richer promise. " These 
 Christians meant well," it says, " but they have lamen- 
 tably blundered. Listen, and let us make plain to you 
 the secret of their failure." Any voice that utters 
 itself after this fashion, especially if it be one that 
 has in it the unmistakable quality honest conviction 
 gives to voices, is sure of a certain measure of atten- 
 tion. No sensible person or careful observer is so 
 completely satisfied with things as they are as not to 
 be willing to acknowledge that they might conceivably 
 be bettered. "You may be right," society says to 
 
110 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 each new prophet as he appears. *' Speak out, tell us 
 what you think. Propound your plan." 
 
 I suggest therefore that we look a little carefully 
 into the case for free religion, as a preliminary step 
 towards a better understanding of the dogmatic posi- 
 tion taken up at Lambeth. 
 
 The initial point from which the anti-dogmatists 
 make their start, is the existence in man of a reli- 
 gious instinct. This instinct, so the argument runs, 
 is the universal heritage of the race. In greater or 
 less force it exists and has existed everywhere, and in 
 all. Climatic, temperamental, and other causes have 
 conspired to give to the external manifestations of 
 this instinct, which is still everywhere essentially the 
 same, a singular diversity. Religions, like plants, 
 have their classes and orders. One and the same 
 kind of life pervades all forms of vegetation from the 
 lichen to the cedar, and the scientific mind sees in 
 the countless faiths of the world only the parti-colored 
 clothing which the religious instinct of mankind has 
 wrapped about itself. 
 
 It would be doing injustice to the advocates of the 
 new religion to press this last illustration to extremi- 
 ties. " The meanest flower that blows " has as good 
 a claim to a continued existence in the world's flora 
 as any other. The Free Religionists would not say 
 this of the meanest superstition. They would, to be 
 sure, admit the representative of the superstition to 
 their conclave ; but they would do it in the hope that 
 the society of wiser and better souls would purge 
 
THE CREDENDA. Ill 
 
 his ignorance. Hence they would give him, so to 
 speak, a seat without a vote. They are not so weak 
 as to maintain that all religions are equally true and 
 equally good ; only they would make their amnesty, 
 at the outset, cover all, trusting to some happy law of 
 natural selection to weed out error in " the process 
 of the suns." 
 
 The illustration of the flora is, however, thus far 
 good that it does explain, unless I unintentionally 
 misconceive their theory, the notion of the advocates 
 of the new scheme with regard to the origin of the 
 existing state of things. Religions, so they argue, are 
 what they are because the laws of the universe are 
 what they are. "We human creatures are no more to 
 blame for not agreeing in one faith than the brute 
 earth is to blame because she finds herself belted 
 with zones of varying temperature, and districted 
 among families of men who cannot understand each 
 other's speech. 
 
 It is easy to see what place Christianity must hold 
 in such a scheme. It is at best a religio licita^ and 
 only a religio pro tempore licita at that. Jesus may 
 have his place in the new Pantheon, but the statue 
 must stand upon no raised dais. The Nazarene must 
 not overtop him of the Porch, or even him of the 
 Garden. Indeed a disciple of the new religion will, 
 if he be consistent, claim the right to sink Christi- 
 anity a little below the level of average religions. A 
 late leader of English thought plainly intimated that 
 in his judgment the religion of the cross would be 
 
112 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 improved by a larger infusion of pagan virtue ; and I 
 well remember the adroit way in which a New Eng- 
 land Brahmin years ago parried a question which 
 some of his speculations had called forth. " Will not 
 such reasoning," asked the disciple, " carry us back 
 again into heathenism ? " " Say rather forward into 
 heathenism," was the acute reply. Yes, let the Chris- 
 tian candidate for entrance into the fellowship of un- 
 dogmatic religion fully and clearly understand that 
 he goes as a contributor, nothing more. Whatever 
 else may be allowed, the claim of the Son of Mary to 
 universal kingship will never be. Our new prophets 
 simply propose to cast into the blast-furnace of public 
 opinion all the old worn-out creeds they can lay hands 
 on, in the vague hope that when, after fusion, the 
 molten stream of mingled faiths flows out, it may 
 spontaneously run itself into some shape of beauty 
 that shall entrance mankind. But the religion we 
 have thus far professed has ever shown itself un- 
 friendly to any amalgam or alloy. Christianity is at 
 once the most inclusive and the most exclusive of all 
 religions. It is inclusive, because it proposes to itself 
 no less a task than the conversion of the world ; but 
 then the world is to be converted to Christianity, not 
 to something else. Forget this, if you would enter 
 into the spirit and the life of the new movement. 
 
 But why do I say " movement " ? If the new re- 
 ligion were only what I have thus far pictured it, 
 would it deserve so dignified a name ? It might rank 
 as a fresh system of theological eclecticism, but 
 
THE CREDENDA. 113 
 
 scarcely as " a movement " in any adequate sense of 
 that word. And yet we shall see, as we look further 
 into our subject, that in the very fact of its being a 
 movement lies the really distinctive feature of the 
 scheme we have stepped aside to study. For a num- 
 ber of metaphysical minds to interest themselves in 
 following out certain processes of formal logic is one 
 thing. For these same minds to attempt important 
 changes in the structure of civil society, in order that 
 it may the better harmonize with their conclusions, is 
 quite another thing. Now this last is what the new 
 religion proposes. To its recognition of the religious 
 instinct in man, it superadds a recognition of the 
 social instinct, and, rightly persuaded that no good 
 results can follow unless these two instincts cordially 
 conspire, it says, " We must have organization." But 
 can there be organization with no formula of concord 
 upon which to build ? Can there be, I mean, any bet- 
 ter and more lasting organization than is implied in 
 getting together under one roof, choosing an officer 
 to preside over the meeting, and appointing a secre- 
 tary and a treasurer ? 
 
 Not if it be true, as true I have been maintaining it 
 to be, that all forms of associated life, whether secular 
 or religious, whether called churches, states, confed- 
 erations, fraternities, or leagues, owe their stability to 
 a corner-stone of dogma. 
 
 The apostles of ethical culture have a great many 
 beautiful and eloquent things to say about "work." 
 We ought to forsake controversy, they tell us, and 
 
 8 
 
114 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 take to working together in the fellowship of the 
 spirit to bless our fellow-men. Quite right. But 
 what is work ? Waiving the very highest definition 
 of all, — " This is the work of God, that ye believe on 
 Him whom He hath sent," take instead some such 
 interpretation of the word as all will be willing to 
 accept. Here is one : — " Pure religion and undefiled 
 before God and the Father is this ; to visit the father- 
 less and widows in their affliction." This is a kind 
 of " work " which all will agree ought to be done. 
 But how ? Not simply by carrying supplies of food 
 and clothing to the house of sorrow. If there be 
 poverty under the roof it may be well, delicately, to 
 do this ; but you are a sorry " worker " if you can do 
 no more. The fatherless and widows whom the au- 
 thor of our phrase had in mind were not neces- 
 sarily paupers. What these orphaned and desolate 
 fellow-creatures of yours have the most need of, and 
 the best right to ask for, is the ministry of comfort. 
 You enter determined, in a thoroughly anti-dogmatic 
 spirit, to exercise it. You discover, perhaps a little 
 to your dismay, that grief has questions to ask, urgent 
 questions, questions that will not be put by. How do 
 you propose to set to " work " to satisfy this widowed 
 soul? "Tell me, thou minister of comfort," the 
 woman vehemently demands, " is there any hope ? " 
 " Some have thought so," — you may answer, if you 
 will; but beware of letting any such tone of confi- 
 dence betray itself in your voice as might offend your 
 brother the Agnostic, or your brother the Pantheist, 
 
THE CREDENDA. 115 
 
 or your brother the Positivist. You are pledged to 
 " work " with them : " work " is the gracious object 
 that has brought you into one common fraternity; 
 possibly these brethren have happened to come with 
 you on this very errand of consolation. Remember 
 the terms of the compact. Your co-operation is to be 
 strictly " undogmatic," a working together in "the 
 fellowship of the spirit." Should you be rash enough 
 to tell those questioning souls anything defmite about 
 a living God and a life to come, these companions of 
 yours would, as they valued truth, be bound to declare 
 after you had gone that your " living God " and your 
 " life to come " were only make-believe. Would not 
 the widow and the fatherless have been the happier 
 had they been left unvisited ? Might not the doing 
 of such work as this more properly be called undoing? 
 This is not exaggeration ; it is the simple testing of 
 a theory by the acid of common sense. If three men 
 cannot " work " together in comforting one household, 
 is anything better to be expected from those more 
 ambitious efforts that look towards the amelioration 
 of the life of whole communities ? You may build a 
 benevolent institution as large as St. Peter's, and 
 write it all over with the catch-words of advanced 
 thought, but unless you have some better thing to say 
 to the unfortunates whom you put into it than merely, 
 " Be ye warmed and filled," it is a failure. The truth 
 is, this generation owes its aspirations after philan- 
 thropy to that very faith which it proposes to displace. 
 The first Napoleon has been called the matricide of 
 
116 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 democracy. The child of the Revolution, he scrupled 
 not to kill in cold blood the mother that bore him. 
 A ghost for ever haunts his dynasty. Even so, should 
 our new religion become the matricide of the Church 
 of Christ, the memory of the sweet mother slain 
 would follow it reproachfully to the end. 
 
 Another fatal defect in the practical working of 
 the proposed scheme must lie in its utter want of any 
 cultus worthy to be called such. By a cultus we un- 
 derstand that growth of usages, habits, observances, 
 and associations that springs up spontaneously around 
 any settled form of faith. The cultus may be said to 
 clothe the dogma, just as the flesh of a human body 
 clothes the hard, strong framework upon which it 
 rests. 
 
 Public worship, consecrated buildings, sacramen- 
 tal rites, holy days and seasons, these make a part of 
 the Christian cultus. But only think how it would 
 impoverish human life were all these things to be 
 obliterated. What would become of art and literature, 
 to say nothing of social intercourse, if all that they 
 have drawn from the treasure-house of the Christian 
 Church were to be disowned and put out of sight ? 
 Look, for instance, at the only substitute the new 
 religion has to offer for the time-honored observance 
 of public worship. A liturgy is out of the question, for 
 a liturgy must of necessity be inwrought with dogma. 
 Where there is uncertainty as to whether the God 
 addressed be personal or impersonal, all spoken 
 prayer is aimless ; it is impossible to give any pro- 
 
THE CREDENDA. 117 
 
 longed utterance to blank aspiration ; the list of the 
 interjections is brief. Take out of the Litany of the 
 Book of Common Prayer, for example, all that links 
 it to special circumstances, either in our Saviour's 
 life or in our own, and what is left ? Nothing. The 
 new religion must, therefore, limit its public exercises 
 to an exchange of thought between mind and mind. 
 Lectures and discussions are its only *' means of 
 grace ; " a club, a library, or a reading-room its holiest 
 sanctuary. Should we be gainers by the change ? I 
 venture to think not. Essays are entertaining and 
 instructive sometimes, and debates exciting ; but are 
 these things valid substitutes for the worship of the 
 ages ? Would they not be likely, in the long run, to 
 pall upon the taste even more seriously than the dull 
 sermons and formal prayers and lifeless hymns of 
 which we hear so much complaint ? The non-Chris- 
 tian critics are continually falling out of patience with 
 our " cant." Does it never occur to them that, one 
 day, they may fall out of patience with their own? 
 No cant is so unspeakably wearisome as the cant of 
 unbelief. We can bear to be reminded once and twice 
 and thrice that we are in leading-strings, that we are 
 clogs upon the wheels of progress, that we love dark- 
 ness rather than light, that the curse of barrenness is 
 upon all our thought ; but really we hear so much of 
 this that one questions what will be left in the Millen- 
 nium of the new religion to form the staple of dis- 
 course. It is worth thinking of whether it will not be 
 well, even when the golden year of Liberalism has 
 
118 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 come, to retain a few representatives of the old order 
 for the purposes of practice in rhetorical invective 
 if for nothing else ? 
 
 But it is said, What need of any cultus ? Let life 
 itself, the common daily life of men, answer for the 
 clothing of religion. When Sundays and Churches 
 and Sacraments and all such ancient superstitions 
 have been removed out of the way, then life itself 
 will be so pure, so beautiful, that no special cultus 
 will be needed to make it more so. Ah, we know 
 what that means. We know what human life would 
 be, robbed of all outward aids to holiness. We know 
 that it would speedily become self-centred, grasping, 
 churlish, sensual, devilish. Perhaps it is possible for 
 a few men of refined sensibilities and a naturally 
 quick moral instinct to cut themselves loose from the 
 old moorings and still remain themselves generous, 
 high-minded, and unselfish. But what is possible for 
 an individual may not be possible for a community. 
 We know that in England, for example, the refined 
 Positivism of the Universities as it filters down 
 through the strata of society thickens into secularism 
 in the class just above the lowest, and hardens into 
 animalism in the lowest class of all. And so we 
 might find that were the creedless religion to be gen- 
 erally accepted here in America, it would cease to 
 be, as it now is, eloquent in the praise of the Chris- 
 tian graces, and would become for the many the cloak 
 of selfishness and vice. Listen to what Sainte-Beuve 
 writes to M. Taine, — agnostics both of them. 
 
THE CREDENDA. 119 
 
 " You make an observation upon my * Port Royal.' 
 . . . There is a fine basis, you say, a broad basis in 
 natural morality, in virtue as understood by Aristotle, 
 Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, etc. I must confess to you 
 that what has always embarrassed the expression of 
 my thought in this direction and kept my adhesion 
 back, is the fact that I have not as optimistic an opin- 
 ion of humanity as that which I see among all these 
 natural moralists. I am much more struck by the 
 miseries, the imperfections, the vices, the animal 
 coarseness, over which people imagine that it is easy 
 to triumph. This ' natural morality ' of which I de- 
 sire the reign, and which in antiquity was the lot of 
 an elite, seems to me very little advanced among the 
 moderns, especially if you consider the masses. The 
 nations which are praised sur parole and celebrated at 
 a distance, are found to be far in arrears. You must 
 be a Laboulaye before you believe that there is no 
 corruption in North America. Our Algeria is dy- 
 ing of absinthe ; so are our manufacturing cities of 
 the north. If Rome is rotting, Geneva is becoming 
 coarse. I see everywhere an animality and a brutal- 
 ity, which discourage me and adjourn my hope of 
 the triumph of a healthy and scientific morality ; I 
 am contented with admiring and respecting it in a 
 few." 
 
 This is honest certainly ; and we have from a writer 
 of similar genius on the other side of the English 
 Channel a like testimony. " The history of self-sacri- 
 fice during the last eighteen hundred years," writes Mr. 
 
120 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Lecky, in the closing paragraphs of the book that first 
 brought him into notice, " has been mainly the his- 
 tory of the action of Christianity on the world." He 
 glories over the great advances of modern civilization, 
 with which he credits the principle of free thought. 
 " But then, " he adds, " when we look back to the 
 cheerful alacrity with which, in some former ages, 
 men sacrificed all their material and intellectual in- 
 terests to what they believed to be right, and when 
 we realize the unclouded assurance that was their 
 reward, it is impossible to deny that we have lost 
 something in our progress." 
 
 Was there ever a better illustration than this scho- 
 lium affords of Moses' boast, — " Their rock is not as 
 our rock, even our enemies themselves being the 
 judges " ? 
 
 The pursuit of undogmatic religion entails yet an- 
 other disappointment. We have seen that without 
 dogma there can be no concert of action between man 
 and man and no cultus worthy of the name. These 
 are losses that concern associated life. But it is fur- 
 ther true that without dogma there can be for the 
 individual no such thing as intellectual peace. Se- 
 rious men are not content to catch at truth as chil- 
 dren catch at fire-flies, pleased with success and almost 
 equally content with failure. In the great emergen- 
 cies of life, the mind brought face to face with the 
 problem of destiny longs for the ability to say with a 
 clear voice, " I believe." To man thus circumstanced 
 the Christian Church exhibits her immemorial wit- 
 
THE CREDENDA. 121 
 
 ness; while free religion offers him only the sorry 
 comfort of a guess. 
 
 It is true that the " full assurance " secured by as- 
 sent to the Church's witness is " the full assurance of 
 faith," in contrast with the full assurance that follows 
 upon demonstration, but the certitude attained is none 
 the less satisfactory in the one case than in the other ; 
 it avails for the purposes of living, and that is the 
 main point. Christ's religion asserts that it has a 
 distinct message for us ; undogmatic religion boasts 
 that it has none, the broken chrysalis is its strongest 
 argument for immortality, a song-bird its best proof 
 that " God is love." The Christian Church meets a 
 man with the Creed in her hands, the simple Creed of 
 universal Christendom ; and she says, " I cannot force 
 this faith upon you, I cannot compel you to accept it. 
 I can only say that if you do welcome it, if you will 
 make it the foundation-stone of all your religious 
 thinking, there will follow, as consequence upon cause, 
 intellectual peace. Of course there rests with you, 
 in this matter, the power of contrary choice ; but on 
 the whole, considering how this Creed of mine stands 
 accredited by the past, considering all it has accom- 
 plished in the earth for peoples as well as for single 
 souls, is it not a more reasonable thing on your part 
 to believe than it would be to disbelieve ? Is not the 
 case for faith indefinitely stronger than the case for 
 no faith ? Does not the postulate justify itself in the 
 results ? " 
 
 The promise held out by the adversaries of dogma 
 
122 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 is an enticing one ; "Liberty " and " Truth " are their 
 favorite watchwords. But to be landed in nega- 
 tion is to find one's self fast bound in misery and 
 iron, — a strange sort of liberty ; and as for " truth/* 
 what is it worth to us if we are under oath never to 
 set it forth without an interrogation mark attached ? 
 Augustine puts it well in the Confessions. He also, 
 it appears, while philosophizing in the schools of Car- 
 thage, had heard this same illusive and elusive prom- 
 ise. " They cried out ' Truth ! Truth I ' and spake 
 much thereof to me ; yet it was not in them. 
 Truth ! Truth ! how inwardly did even then the mar- 
 row of my soul pant after thee, when they often and 
 in many books echoed of thee to me, though it was 
 an echo and no more ! " 
 
 Passing now from the negative line of reasoning 
 to the less ungracious and more congenial positive 
 method, I call attention to a certain close intimacy 
 that knits together two things, frequently, but 
 most unwisely, represented as mutually antagonistic, 
 "faith" and "the faith." Many persons now-a-days 
 who confess themselves eager for more faith turn 
 frigid at any mention of " the faith," as if an iceberg 
 had suddenly swum into their sea. But the New 
 Testament writers to a man are unconscious of the 
 supposed dissonance. They never weary of ringing 
 the changes on the possibilities of faith. Sometimes 
 they seem to be thinking of it as an appetency, some- 
 times as an energy of the soul, now as the hand 
 stretched out to grasp, and again as the mouth opened 
 
THE CREDENDA. 123 
 
 to receive ; but, be it this or that, be it active effort or 
 passive receptivity, faith as a spiritual characteristic 
 stands at the head of the list, the one indispensable 
 condition precedent to our knowledge of the God who 
 made us. 
 
 On the other hand, we kill the climax of one of 
 Paul's most animathig utterances if we disallow the 
 contrasted phrase, for he sums up the whole record 
 of his life's struggle thus, — "I have kept the faith." 
 Manifestly if he had kept the faith, there must have 
 been in his judgment a faith to keep, — a certain some- 
 thing to be most surely believed, most tenaciously 
 grasped, clung to through evil report and good. It is 
 the tone not of one who has guessed out a philosophy of 
 religion ; rather he speaks as the man into whose cus- 
 tody there has been given a definite deposit of truth. 
 Unless Paul in all this was utterly mistaken, it follows 
 that faith has an intellectual as well as an emotional 
 side, and that to define it as being wholly and only 
 " a feeling " is a weak concession to the demands of 
 the hour. The affections and the mind are both of 
 them beholden to faith, and faith to them. In these 
 days of easy divorce men clamor for a separation 
 between head and heart ; but woe be to him who puts 
 asunder those whom God has joined together. " Faith '* 
 is the offspring of wedded heart and head, and " the 
 faith " is the inheritance to which, by the terms both 
 of the Old Testament and of its codicil the New, this 
 child is heir. 
 
 Faith as an intellectual energy starts from the prop- 
 
124 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 osition " God is." Manifestly the mind must accept this 
 modicum of fact before the feelings and the will can 
 have anything to act upon. Whenever we see living 
 flowers upon a stalk, somewhere we may be sure there 
 either is or was a root. Dogma is the root of faith, 
 and there can be no blossoming of the religious affec- 
 tions that does not consciously or unconsciously draw 
 vitality through that. We risk nothing in thus conced- 
 ing to the mind an important part in the act of faith. 
 The vice of rationalism is not that it honors reason, 
 but that it confounds faith with knowledge, and de- 
 mands from God mathematical demonstrations of his 
 truth. There is a difference between believing and 
 knowing. Were there no difference we should not 
 need the two words. I know that the whole is greater 
 than any of its parts. I believe in the resurrection of 
 the dead. Yet the believing is just as much an intel- 
 lectual process as the knowing, and I cannot possibly 
 say the Creed without an exercise of the mind. 
 
 But is this all ? Have we exhausted the meaning 
 of faith when we have found that it is the assent of 
 the judgment, the acquiescence of the thinking part 
 of us ? Certainly not. Faith means more than this, 
 a vast deal more, otherwise might the demons who 
 believe no longer shudder. The biographer of Fred- 
 erick Robertson tells us in one place how it was a 
 characteristic of that sensitive and high-born spirit to 
 be for ever pondering the question. What constitutes 
 the essence of a '' saving " faith ? He rebelled, as well 
 he might, against the notion that correct thinking 
 
THE CREDENDA. 125 
 
 could of itself carry a man into the kingdom of God. 
 He was determined that his final definition of faith 
 should, when he formed it, do full justice to the 
 heart. And what docs faith mean to the heart ? 
 Evidently trust, confidence, reliance, loyalty, — feel- 
 ings all of them, and feelings moreover that call for 
 a person, a conscious some one, towards whom they 
 are to be exercised. A child clinging to his father's 
 hand in a forest-path at night and feeling safe be- 
 cause it is his father's hand to which he clings, — this 
 is faith. A woman believing in her lover's constancy 
 although oceans divide him from her, and no message 
 has come home for months, — this is faith. A boat's 
 crew saved from a wreck trusting themselves wholly 
 to the direction and control of one of their number, 
 because they believe him most fit from his experience 
 of seamanship to be their pilot, — this is faith. A 
 handful of soldiers following a brave man on some 
 forlorn hope, not forlorn for them because they love 
 their leader and hold his courage as the pledge of vic- 
 tory, — this is faith. Heart-work in every instance, 
 and heart-work moreover of a sort that necessitates 
 a personal object. It is only by a metaphor, a figure 
 of speech, that we can associate faith, the feeling, with 
 an inanimate object. We may say that a workman 
 has " confidence " in his tools, that a woodsman 
 " trusts " the bough by which he swings himself 
 across a mountain stream, that a capitalist " puts 
 faith" in his bank; Init in so speaking we use the 
 words "confidence" and "trust" and "faith" in a 
 
126 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 figurative sense. These words convey their full and 
 legitimate meaning only when it is a person in whom 
 we confide or trust or put faith, for we can only feel 
 towards one who is, or has been, himself capable of 
 feeling. 
 
 This position once accepted, — namely, that faith 
 means for the mind assent, for the heart trust, — it 
 follows as a matter of course that there cannot be head- 
 faith without a statement to be believed, or heart-faith 
 without a person to be believed in. Faith as an appetite 
 of the intellect demands for its food statements that 
 are true. Faith as an appetite of the heart calls for a 
 person worthy to be trusted. Truth and the true One, 
 these taken together are what faith demands. How 
 does the Christian religion set itself to the task of 
 meeting and satisfying this twofold need? Not in 
 any one-sided, scant, or partial way ; not by freezing 
 all religion into dogma, nor yet by melting it all into 
 emotion. How then ? Simply by so presenting what 
 Paul proudly calls " the faith" that men shall see and 
 own in it the living presence of the person Christ. 
 It is told us in connection with Paul's visit to Athens, 
 that the philosophers who met him in the market- 
 place were moved to curiosity and willingness to hear 
 him further, because he preached unto them " Jesus 
 and the resurrection." Here in four words lies wrapt 
 the secret after which many a weary seeker in our 
 day has toiled in vain. Flouted by Stoics and pitied 
 by Epicureans, Paul preached "Jesus and the resur- 
 rection." He slighted, that is to say, neither of the 
 
THE CREDENDA. 127 
 
 two claims of faith. To tlie mind he presented for 
 acceptance a new truth, " the resurrection " to the 
 heart a new object of affectionate confidence, " Jesus.'* 
 BeHeve the fact, believe in the person, — this was his 
 appeal. 
 
 Passing from Athens to Rome, what is it that we 
 find distinguishing Christian people from other people 
 in the days of the C^sars ? Clearly the holding of a 
 distinctive and a definable faith, and the holding it 
 with fervor. Whenever the populace raised the cry 
 " The Christians to the lions!" there was always one 
 way of escape, — renunciation of the faith. On one 
 side lay the implements of torture ; on the other, home, 
 friends, and a life of quietness. All hinged on the 
 answer to the judge's question, Wilt thou or wilt thou 
 not disown this faith ? Evidently an undogmatic re- 
 ligion would in those days have saved many a life. 
 But would the Church have lived? 
 
 "If blessed Paul had staid in cot or learned shade, 
 With the priest's white attire, and the saints' tuneful choir, 
 Men had not gnashed their teeth, nor risen to slay. 
 But thou hadst been a heathen in thy day." 
 
 We do ill, therefore, to set " faith " and " the faith " 
 in opposition, saying to the one, " Thy dominion is of 
 the heart," and to the other, " Thine is of the head." 
 A complete religion is one in which we see the faith 
 spelt out in words that may be known and read of all 
 men, while yet there is not one single letter in the 
 whole epigraph that does not glow with flame. 
 
128 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Bishops at Lambeth took up a definite position 
 with respect to dogma. Their estimate of the meas- 
 ure of dogmatic agreement antecedently essential to 
 the attainment of unity was expressed in the follow- 
 ing words, " The Apostles' Creed as the Baptismal 
 Symbol ; and the Nicene Creed as the sufficient state- 
 ment of the Christian Faith." 
 
 When we remember how large an amount of dogma 
 used to be insisted upon as necessary, this has, upon 
 the face of it, the look of taking in sail under stress 
 of weather, — and in that sense many observers, both 
 within and without the pale of the Christian Church, 
 have doubtless understood it. Here, they have said, 
 is a plain concession to the menaces of criticism. 
 Modern scholarship has proved itself too much for 
 the confessions, and the creed-principle is evidently 
 doomed. It is not to be yielded at once, but what we 
 see is the beginning of the end. 
 
 Such inferences have a plausible look, and yet, 
 when we think of it, all that the Bishops did was to 
 reaffirm the doctrinal position of the early Church. 
 Short confessions were the rule in the beginning ; to 
 return to them is unquestionably an acknowledgment 
 of having gained wisdom by experience, but is by no 
 means tantamount to a surrender of first principles, 
 — on the contrary, it is a solemn reassertion of first 
 principles. Were the Creed to be reduced to a single 
 proposition, that one statement would carry with it 
 as effective an assertion of authority, as four-score 
 sentences could do. The length of the armature is 
 
THE CREDENDA. 129 
 
 no test of the reality of the magnet. The question 
 is. What is resident in the steel ? 
 
 But over and above an implied insistence upon the 
 principle of dogma, we note in the Lambeth state- 
 ment an evident intention to discriminate between 
 classes of believers. The Apostles' Creed is spoken 
 of as a formulary for universal use ; it is the " baptis- 
 mal symbol," a thing to be written, as it were, on the 
 very door-posts of the Church, an entrance lesson, a 
 part of the initiative process itself. None is to be 
 accounted too ignorant to be taught so much as this, 
 none is to be thought of as so well-informed that with 
 this he may dispense; it binds all: it is the minimum 
 of Christian dogma. Equally evident is the intention 
 to set forth the Nicene Creed as the maximum of the 
 Church's doctrinal requirement, for this formulary 
 is declared to be the "sufficient" statement of the 
 Christian faith. In other words, the Apostles' Creed 
 is to be regarded as the popular, and the Nicene 
 Creed as the precise and, so to say, scientific setting 
 forth of " those things which are most surely believed 
 among us." It is not that the one Creed is supposed 
 really to contain any more truth than the other, but 
 only that the shorter of the two formularies is by its 
 wording the better adapted to the needs of all sorts 
 and conditions of men, while the longer more com- 
 pletely meets the requirements of those who critically 
 demand of the Church her " statement." And I say 
 this not forgetful of the fact that the difference be- 
 tween the two creeds finds its historical explanation 
 
130 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 in the contrast between Eastern and Western methods 
 of religious thought. The Nicene formulary germi- 
 nated in Asiatic, the Apostles' in European soil, and 
 each reflects the intellectual habitudes of the region 
 that gave it birth. In other words, the distinction I 
 have drawn between a scientific and a popular mode 
 of statement seems not to have been had in view at 
 the outset. Oriental teachers simply expressed them- 
 selves after their fashion, occidental teachers after 
 theirs. But seeing that the two creeds do really, both 
 in form and substance, suggest to a western eye such 
 a contrast as I have described, the Bishops at Lam- 
 beth chose wisely in phrasing their utterance as they 
 did. 
 
 Turning to the question of the adaptability of these 
 ancient formularies to present-day needs, I observe 
 that the ultimate analysis resolves each of them into 
 the Christian Name of God. Whether we take the 
 Apostolic or the Nicene symbol, we find in either case 
 th^t the three paragraphs answer severally to " Fath- 
 er," " Son," and " Holy Ghost." In the one formu- 
 lary the amplification is comparatively slight, in the 
 other comparatively full, but one and the same tri- 
 personal framework is common to them both. About 
 the name of the Father are grouped the thoughts 
 proper to creation, origin, and source ; about the 
 name of the Son, the characteristics of mediatorship ; 
 about the name of the Spirit, the unitive and energiz- 
 ing functions of the Eternal ; but it is all one Name 
 set forth in one strong confession ; it is the voice of 
 
THE CREDENDA. 131 
 
 (he Holy Church throughout all the world acknowl- 
 edging the Father, of an infinite Majesty, the ador- 
 able, true, and only Son, also the Holy Ghost the 
 Comforter. 
 
 The special value of the Apostles' Creed for popu- 
 lar use and as a doctrinal test of fitness for admission 
 to Church privileges reveals itself in these four fea- 
 tures, simplicity of language, brevity of compass, 
 positiveness of form, antiquity of origin. Because it 
 is simply worded, the unlettered can be taught it ; 
 because it is short, little children can have it stamped 
 upon their memories for ever ; because it is affirma- 
 tive, it encourages hope ; because it is ancient, it com- 
 mands confidence ; that which has outlasted the 
 wear and tear of many generations will, we are en- 
 couraged to believe, manifest the same staying pow- 
 er till the end. It is true that " the new Astronomy " 
 (scarcely any longer new) and " the new Chemistry " 
 and " the new Biology " have suggested certain diffi- 
 culties of interpretation in the case of two of the 
 articles of this Creed, the Descent into hell and the 
 Resurrection of the body, the stress of which was 
 hardly felt in former times; but the difficulties are 
 surface difficulties, and the putting them forward has 
 only served the purpose of making our insight into 
 the real meaning of the phrases themselves more 
 profound than was possible before. 
 
 The chief value of the longer Creed set forth at 
 Nictea in a.d. 325 and given its final form at Con- 
 t:'.antinople fifty-six years later, lies in its uncompro- 
 
132 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 mising assertion of the divinity of Christ. This is a 
 question that cannot be waived; it is the old test 
 question " Whose Son is he ?" To treat it as a point 
 of purely theological interest having no real contact 
 with practical religion is to mislead. Between the 
 two propositions, " Jesus Christ was a man, and a man 
 only," " Jesus Christ was man and God," there is a 
 great gulf fixed. Our whole attitude towards Jesus 
 Christ is affected and determined according as we 
 elect to throw in our lot with the one estimate or the 
 other. If it be urged, as urged it often is, that while 
 Christ was here in the flesh, the giving in of adhesion 
 to Him was a much simpler affair, involving only an 
 expression of personal confidence, the proper reply is 
 that the essence of discipleship is now precisely what 
 it was then, with this single point of difference, — that 
 the present withdrawal of the Christ from the field of 
 open vision necessitates our knowing Him by picture, 
 instead of by person. The Creed is this picture. 
 To wipe out of it the lines that indicate divinity 
 would mean not merely to impair, but to destroy the 
 likeness. Only occasionally, it is true, were even the 
 twelve disciples privileged to see 
 
 " . . . the God within Him light his face," 
 
 and before only three out of these twelve was He 
 transfigured ; and yet, just as we say of a portrait 
 that it ought to show a man at his best, so may we 
 say reverently of the Creed that unless it presents 
 Christ to us at his highest it fails. 
 
THE CREDENDA. 133 
 
 A criticism of a very different sort is sometimes 
 l)assed upon the Nicene Creed. Theologians of a 
 certain school insist that as a formulary it is inade- 
 quate to the needs of the modern Church, because it 
 has almost nothing to say about " the plan of salva- 
 tion," — lays so little stress on the natural depravity 
 of man, and observes complete silence with respect to 
 many of the points that seem essential for the strategy 
 of present-day controversialists. But, as a profound 
 religious thinker not so very many years ago re- 
 marked, " to base theology upon the dogma of sin, 
 instead of on the dogma of God, is a mistake." Per- 
 haps it was by their clear perception of this truth 
 that the Bishops were moved to choose the adjective 
 they did. " The Nicene Creed as the sufficient state- 
 ment of the Christian Faith " is their phrase. " Suf- 
 ficient " indeed it is, setting forth, as it so grandly 
 does, what God has told us of Himself, and leaving 
 unsaid what we may safely be trusted to find out for 
 ourselves, in our wretchedness and poverty, namely, 
 our sore need of the One who can be thus described. 
 Yes, anthropology can be trusted to teach itself, for 
 " what man knoweth the things of a man, save the 
 spirit of man which is in him ; " it is theology, the 
 knowledge of the true God, we need to have instilled 
 into us. Only let men become persuaded of the high 
 dignity of Him who for them and for their salvation 
 came down from heaven, and there will be little doubt- 
 fulness in their minds as to the gravity of the crisis, the 
 soreness of the emergency, that made such a humili- 
 
lo4 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ation necessary. Among ourselves, the spectacle of 
 another's greatness is often as effectual a lesson in 
 modesty as painful meditations upon our own little- 
 ness ; and it is equally true in religion that when once 
 convinced of the high lineage of Him whom the Nicene 
 Creed declares to be one with the Father in whatever is 
 essential to divinity, we cannot hesitate long as to the 
 attitude it behooves us to take as suppliants before 
 the throne. Was a person of this dignity " crucified 
 dead, and buried " ? The very statement carries with 
 it an implication of unworthiness on man's part such 
 as ten thousand penitential litanies would be insuffi- 
 cient to express. That " the Infinite " and " the Ab- 
 solute " of the philosophers is in reality such a one as 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, such a one as 
 the life pictured in the four Gospels would suggest, — 
 this is what we need to be told, and this is what the 
 Creed tells us. Having been told this, we may be 
 trusted to give the right shading to our doctrine of 
 human nature without help from formularies. When 
 once the sun has risen, the eye has little trouble in 
 picking out the dark spots in the landscape. We 
 conclude, then, that in spite of its silence upon human 
 nature and its depravity the Nicene Creed is a " suffi- 
 cient statement of the Christian faith." 
 
 Doubtless even after this shall have been conceded 
 there will remain for discussion and settlement sun- 
 dry important questions of detail. Historical scholars 
 will have to have their say as to the limits of the for- 
 mulary ; textual critics will wish to know all that can 
 
THE CREDENDA. 135 
 
 be known as to the authentic wording of it ; while 
 students of EngUsh are scarcely likely to rest satisfied 
 with the present inadequate and, in some points, ab- 
 solutely misleading translation. But these are fields 
 of discussion upon which I do not propose to enter. 
 Similar embarrassments have from the beginning be- 
 set all efforts to give currency to Holy Scripture, but 
 in spite of them the Bible has become the great book 
 of the people, and is certain to continue such. 
 
 The strong point of both the Apostles' and the 
 Nicene Creeds as respects fitness for the task of uni- 
 fying the believers is their sturdy realism. Modern 
 creed-makers have condescended to argument; these 
 ancient voices simply enunciate the facts. They set 
 forth certain great objects of faith, and say to man, 
 Look at them. They invite, not to the speculative 
 discussion, but to the reverent contemplation of things 
 that have been, are, and are yet for to come. The 
 manger, the cross, the broken sepulchre, these after 
 all are what make the real centre of unity. About 
 these sacred places men of the most divergent ways 
 of thinking may be well content to meet, suffering all 
 their controversies to be swallowed up in the glad 
 confession that " God has visited and redeemed his 
 people." 
 
 The time for originating creeds, if indeed there 
 ever was such a time, has gone by. You may make 
 a brand-new one to-day, and fondly flatter yourself 
 that you have put into it not only the accumulated 
 wisdom of the past, but also all the newer truth that 
 
136 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 modern discovery has unveiled ; to-morrow's critic 
 will find a flaw in your work, and before you are an 
 old man yourself your creed will have been forgotten. 
 Meanwhile, there will live on, while you live and after 
 you have gone, those ancient formularies, incompara- 
 ble for simplicity and sturdy strength, which have 
 been the shelter of holy and humble men of 'heart 
 through many generations, — "I believe in God the 
 Father Almighty " their first words ; " the life of the 
 world to come " their last. 
 
IV- 
 
 THE SIGNS AND SEALS, 
 
All things, as many as pertain to offices and matters ecclesiastical, be 
 full of divine significations and mysteries, and overflow with a celestial 
 sweetness; if so be that a man be diligent in his stud}^ of them, and know 
 how to draw honey from the rock, and oil from the hardest stone. . . . 
 Wherefore I, "William, by the alone tender mercy of God, Bishop of the 
 Holy Church which is in Mende, will knock diligently at the door, if so be 
 that the Key of David will open unto me; that the King may bring me in 
 to his treasury and show unto me the heavenly pattern which was showed 
 unto Moses in the mount. —Durandus. Preface to the Rationale. 
 
 Because there are two great sermons of the Gospel, which are the sum 
 total and abbreviative of the whole word of God, the great messages of the 
 Word incarnate, Christ was pleased to invest these two words with two sacra- 
 ments, and assist those two sacraments, as He did the whole word of God, 
 with the presence of his Spirit, that in them we might do more signally and 
 solemnly what was in the ordinary ministrations done plainly and without 
 extraordinary regards. — Jeremy Taylor. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 
 
 Having affirmed the relation of the Scriptures and 
 of the Creeds to unity, the Bishops at Lambeth give 
 tlie third place in their summary of essentials to " the 
 Sacraments." Their minimum under this head is thus 
 defined : — 
 
 " The two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself, — 
 Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, — ministered with 
 unfailing use of Chrisfs loords of institution, and of 
 the elements ordained by Himy 
 
 Thus addressed, we find ourselves face to face with 
 the great question of symbolism, — the origin of it, the 
 uses of it, the measure of it. In the whole territory 
 of religious thought there is scarcely a patch of ground 
 that has been more hotly contested. Some go the 
 length of making symbolism and religion contermin- 
 ous. Take away our tokens, they declare, and you 
 extinguish our faith. Others again are so nervously 
 sensitive to the peril of conceding to the outward 
 and visible sign the honors rightfully due only to the 
 inward and invisible thing signified, that they let 
 their dislike of symbolism carry them to the point of 
 setting aside, as having been intended for merely 
 temporary use, even the two sacraments ordained by 
 
140 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Christ Himself. Divergencies so grave as this are 
 never without cause ; the origin of them is usually 
 to be sought far back in the very groundwork of 
 human nature itself. But formidable though the 
 task of search may look, we are bound to undertake 
 it ; for we shall find it impossible to do justice to the 
 position taken up at Lambeth unless we can first 
 attain to clear notions with respect to certain prin- 
 ciples that underlie, not the two sacraments only, but 
 equally whatsoever else there may be in life that 
 deserves to be called sacramental. Undoubtedly the 
 nexus that binds symbolism to religion is a knotted 
 and tangled skein ; but unless we can somehow con- 
 trive to straighten out the threads, we shall have to 
 reconcile ourselves, as best we may, to a confused 
 theology. To so disappointing a conclusion we ought 
 not to let ourselves be shut up without effort. 
 
 By a symbol is commonly meant either an object or 
 an action understood to be emblematic and represen- 
 tative of some spiritual, or, if not spiritual, at any rate 
 invisible reality. Tersely defined, symbolism is that 
 whereby the outward eye of the body aids the inner eye 
 of the mind in the exercise of its own proper vision. 
 I say this, not forgetful of the fact that forms of words 
 are sometimes spoken of as symbols, and this too in 
 direct connection with theology. A writer on dogma- 
 tics, when he treats of symbols and symbolism, has in 
 mind creeds and the study of them; forms of faith, 
 and not at all such forms as come under the definition 
 I just now gave. Thus we read in Church history of 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 141 
 
 " the symbol of Nicsea," " the Athanasian symbol," 
 " the symbolical books of the Reformation ; " and, in 
 fact, this very smnmary we are studying has, as we 
 have just seen, the expression, " the Apostles' Creed, 
 as the baptismal symboV^ This is clearly a very dif- 
 ferent use of language from that which we follow 
 when we speak of incense as a symbol ; or of lights, 
 vestments, bowings, crossings, and genuflexions as 
 symbolic. 
 
 The reason why one and the same word should have 
 two such apparently dissimilar meanings, is not far to 
 seek ; and since it will involve no very prolonged 
 excursus into the region of etymology, I shall ask you 
 to go with me on the search. 
 
 " Symbol " comes from a familiar Greek verb, mean- 
 ing to throw together. But one of the commonest mo- 
 tives for throwing things together is that they may be 
 compared, and their points of likeness and of unlikeness 
 brought to view. This is just what is accomplished 
 by the material symbol. By aid of it the visible and 
 the invisible, the thing seen and the thing unseen are 
 thrown together, collated, so to speak, in order that 
 by the aid of the more familiar the less familiar may 
 be understood, as when we make black the symbol of 
 sorrow, or liglit the symbol of truth, or iveeds the 
 symbol of the spreading power that seems to inhere 
 in wickedness. This is plain enough ; but how came 
 creeds ever to be known as symbols ? What is there 
 about sharp-cut verbal statements of doctrine that en- 
 titles them to be given the same name by which we 
 
142 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 describe a token or emblem ? Why, indeed, unless it 
 be that words when we look at them long enough are 
 seen to be themselves nothing but emblems of the 
 unseen realities for which they stand ? All language 
 is in its very nature figurative, representative ; and, in 
 the last analysis, is found to be a mere aggregation 
 of symbols. This fact forces itself upon us in such 
 expressions as, " the head of the army " and " the 
 foot of the mountain." It is less evident when we 
 speak of an action as "sublime," or of a man as 
 " ambitious ; " but a glance at the Latin lexicon 
 shows us that these phrases are in reality every 
 bit as figurative as the others. The sentence " God 
 is a spirit " would seem to be, on the face of it, the 
 very negation of symbolism. What could be further 
 from our notion of material things than " spirit," 
 and yet — 
 
 *♦ The spirit doth but mean the breath." 
 
 Archbishop Trench, in his " Synonymes of the New 
 Testament," quotes approvingly Jerome's remark on 
 the Apocalypse : " There are in it as many sacra- 
 ments as there are words." But why not give to 
 Jerome's pithy statement a still wider application ? 
 Why limit it to the last book of the Bible ? Why 
 not say of "Webster's Unabridged," Quot verha.j tot 
 sacramenta ? For it certainly is true of all words, with- 
 out exception, that they are sacraments in the sense 
 of being emblems, — representative signs of the reali- 
 ties for which they stand ; the main difference between 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 143 
 
 them and other tokens being that in the one case it is 
 the eye, and in the other case the ear, that is addressed. 
 " Words," says Hobbes, " are wise men's counters, 
 . . . but they are the money of fools." The maxim is 
 harshly phrased, but it gives us the substance of the 
 whole matter in a nutshell, and abundantly justifies 
 the instinct that led the early Christians, with only a 
 dim consciousness perhaps of the reason why they did 
 so, to call their forms of sound words " symbols ; " for 
 a creed, regarded as a summary or compendium of 
 " the words of eternal life," is notably a symbol of 
 God's thought. 
 
 So then, if we cared to enlarge our first definition 
 so as to make it cover both the dogmatic and the 
 ritual uses of the word we are studying, we might 
 affirm symbolism to be the conversion of the invisible 
 into terms of the visible, whether by the agency of 
 objects or of sounds. 
 
 Profoundly studied, the two sacraments ordained 
 by Christ himself are seen to combine both of these 
 characteristics of symbolism, — were intended, that is 
 to say, to help us both by eye and ear. They are 
 not dumb tokens, they are vocal ; there are words 
 attached to each, and of these words the Lambeth 
 platform insists that they be unfailingly employed as 
 part and parcel of the actions to which they have 
 been by the voice of Christ authoritatively attached. 
 Both of the language of institution and of the elements 
 ordained, there is to be, so the Declaration runs, " un- 
 failing use." 
 
144 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 But while all this is true, we cannot help feeling 
 that in the case of the sacraments, the material 
 symbolism, as contrasted with the verbal, has the 
 predominance and was meant to have it. They are 
 never spoken of as doctrines, though they might very 
 properly have been called that, were the lessons con- 
 veyed in the respective formulas of institution the 
 only thing intended to be had in mind. In fact, they 
 are rather actions accompanied by words, than words 
 accompanied by actions ; neither word nor action, 
 however, having value of its own save as related 
 to the sacred reality to which the whole symbolism 
 points. 
 
 We return, therefore, for the present to the study 
 of material as distinguished from verbal symbolism, 
 persuaded that here, rather than elsewhere, the clew 
 to a just interpretation of the sacraments is to be 
 sought. 
 
 We must remember that whatever else and more 
 than signs the sacraments may be, signs, in the first 
 instance and upon the face of things, they unques- 
 tionably are. No alarmist cry of " Zuinglianism ! " 
 can put out of remembrance the fact that the Book 
 of Common Prayer answers the question, " What 
 meanest thou by this word ' Sacrament ' ? " as follows, 
 " I mean an outward and visible sign." 
 
 As to what the outward and visible sign imports 
 and conveys, that is a matter for further instruc- 
 tion; but that sacraments present themselves to our 
 attention first of all as signs, cannot be gainsaid. 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 145 
 
 I remark, then, that material symbols or signs may 
 best be classified, and most advantageously studied, 
 as (a) commemorative, {h) representative, and (0 
 effectual. A commemorative symbol is one that 
 serves to keep alive the memory of a past event. 
 Medals and monuments are of this order. Some- 
 times there is an evident connection between the 
 symbol and the fact commemorated, sometimes there 
 is none. Medals usually tell their own story to the 
 eye, but monuments have often to depend upon oral 
 tradition to interpret them. There is nothing for 
 example in the mere sight of the obelisk on Bunker 
 Hill to suggest to the mind of a wholly ignorant per- 
 son the fact that a battle was there fought. The 
 pillar Jacob set up at Bethel, and the heap of stones 
 he and Laban piled up and called Mizpah, were both 
 of them commemorative symbols, the one of a vision, 
 the other of a covenant. Joshua gave a like charac- 
 ter to the twelve stones he caused to be laid on the 
 bed of Jordan, when he said, " These stones shall be 
 for a memorial." 
 
 As civilization advances and history begins to take 
 the place of tradition, commemorative symbols, pure 
 and simple, fall more or less into disuse. Medals are 
 still struck and monuments built in connection with 
 historical events, but nobody accounts our need of 
 these things imperative, as it used to be accounted 
 before the invention of printing. In cases where the 
 ancients would have heaped up stones, we make a 
 book and store it in a library. Still the liking for 
 
 10 
 
146 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 symbols solely commemorative is by no means extinct, 
 as the countless memorial buildings and statues set 
 up in our own country since the civil war abundantly 
 testify. 
 
 What I have called a " representative " symbol is 
 one that images, not a past event as the commem- 
 orative symbol does, but a present though invisible 
 reality. The universe is full of symbolism of this 
 sort, and human speech is, as I have already pointed 
 out, largely if not entirely based upon it. Represen- 
 tative symbolism is, indeed, the very food and drink 
 of imaginative souls ; poets cannot live without it, 
 and philosophers and theologians are almost as 
 closely dependent upon it as they. In fact, some 
 have ventured to assert that the whole frame of 
 nature, rightly apprehended, is only one vast scheme 
 of representative symbolism, a delicately articulated 
 and carefully enunciated Word of God to man. " With- 
 out a parable spake He not unto them." We may not 
 be prepared to go all lengths with Swedenborg, and to 
 hold as he does that Nature is throughout, and in 
 the minutest details, a counterpart and metaphor 
 of things invisible ; still less may we be willing to 
 accept his arbitrary and often grotesque interpreta- 
 tions ; but no thoughtful student in any department 
 of human knowledge can go far without discovering 
 his dependence upon representative symbolism for 
 the very tools with which he is to work. 
 
 Effectual symbols (the expression has an Anglican 
 sanction) are those that not only represent outwardly 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 147 
 
 either a past event or an invisible fact, but more than 
 this are actually charged with power to bring about 
 results. The coromission of an army officer is a good 
 illustration. The commission is really given at the 
 moment when the appointing power, be it king or 
 governor, has decided upon its man, but the " effectual 
 symbol " of the commission is the signed and sealed 
 piece of parchment or paper that empowers the ap- 
 pointee to act in his new capacity. 
 
 Again, the essence of marriage undoubtedly lies in 
 the mutual consent of a man and a w^oman to be hus- 
 band and wife. This is what constitutes the spiritual 
 fact. Nevertheless society rightly refuses to recognize 
 any marriage as lawful or genuine when the " effectual 
 symbol " of some ceremony, either secular or religious, 
 has been omitted. The invisible fact must consent to 
 let itself be expressed by a tangible sign, ring, ser- 
 vice, certificate, what you please, or it passes for no 
 fact at all. 
 
 But while we distinguish between these three sorts 
 of symbols, the commemorative, the representative, 
 and the effectual, we must guard ourselves against 
 supposing that the three are necessarily exclusive of 
 one another. A symbol may be solely commemora- 
 iive, or solely representative, or solely effectual ; but it 
 is perfectly possible for any two of these character- 
 istics, or, indeed, for all three of them, to be com- 
 bined in a single act or object. A good instance of 
 such a combination is afforded by our national flag, 
 which exhibits the threefold symbolism in its com- 
 
148 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 pletencss. The thirteen stripes of alternate white 
 and red make the flag a commemorative symbol. 
 They recall the historical and unchangeable fact that 
 the Colonies from which the present States have 
 grown were, at the time of the formation of the 
 federal government, in number thirteen. But the 
 usage which provides that with the accession of 
 every fresh State a new star shall be added to those 
 already emblazoned on the field, makes the flag a 
 representative symbol as well, for the cluster is the 
 emblem of the present fact that in the unity of the 
 Republic as many commonwealths have place as there 
 are stars displayed. Thus the flag is seen to be at 
 once historically commemorative and politically repre- 
 sentative. But more even than this ; for the flag 
 becomes what we know as an effectual symbol when- 
 ever it is employed for the purpose of asserting sove- 
 reignty. When the stars and stripes were first hoisted 
 in Alaska, the flag served as the effectual symbol of 
 the transfer of that territory from Russian to Ameri- 
 can jurisdiction. Can we wonder at the power of 
 symbolism over the affections ? Can we wonder that 
 for a flag some " would even dare to die " ? I have 
 thus far intentionally drawn the most of my illus- 
 trations from the field of secular life, with a view to 
 making it plain that symbolism is not an affair of reli- 
 gion only, but that it enters and re-enters continually 
 upon the area of our daily interests and occupations. 
 
 Confining ourselves now to " effectual " symbols, with 
 a view to the concentration of our thought upon the 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 149 
 
 sacraments, we shall do well to make note of a cer- 
 tain diversity in the methods whereby the effectual 
 symbols bring their effects to pass. A symbol may be 
 of such a sort as to become effectual mainly through 
 its didactic power as an object-lesson ; or again through 
 its control over the heart, either as a pledge of reas- 
 surance or as a means for the actual conveyance of 
 blessing. 
 
 That symbolic actions and objects do have a didac- 
 tic or educational value, and that their effect in this 
 direction is a very real effect, Christian people now- 
 a-days are pretty generally agreed. It is in most 
 communions simply a question of more or less, — the 
 general principle is admitted. Time was when an 
 open Bible, an oil lamp of antique pattern, and a few 
 other emblems of the sort found in printers' sample 
 books, made up all the symbolism the average Prot- 
 estant would allow himself ; but now, even the icono- 
 clast, so soft have manners become, refuses to lay 
 about him indiscriminately and holds his hammer at 
 a poise before deciding to strike. Everybody knows 
 what fierce battles were fought in Reformation times 
 over the sign of the cross in baptism and the use of 
 the ring in marriage. We must not say too hastily 
 that these contests were idle. So long as the sign of 
 the cross was looked upon by multitudes of ignorant 
 people as a form of exorcism, and so long as the 
 ring was supposed to carry a charm with it, opposi- 
 tion to these really innocent tokens was certainly not 
 blameworthy, even though we may judge it to have 
 
150 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 been excessive. Men do right to resist stoutly what- 
 ever they honestly believe to be the symbolism of 
 falsehood. 
 
 As respects wealth of didactic power the two sac- 
 raments differ widely. The symbolism of Holy Bap- 
 tism is exceedingly simple ; the symbolism of Holy 
 Communion exceedingly complex. In Baptism, the 
 lustral feature is the main thing. The idea meant to 
 be suggested to the eye by the "water wherein the 
 person is baptized " is the cleansing of the soul. Our 
 Lord in his discourses uses water as the emblem of 
 that which alone can quench spiritual thirst ; but 
 such is clearly not the mystical or figurative value 
 of this element as employed in baptism. Here its 
 main purpose is to convey to the mind, through the 
 agency of the sense of sight, a firm persuasion that as 
 the body has been " washed with pure water " so the 
 soul has in some sense, actual or hypothetical, we will 
 not pause to argue which, similarly been made clean. 
 " Ye were washed, ye were sanctified," writes Paul to 
 his Corinthians, remonstrating with them for their 
 lapse into the impurities from which the water of 
 Baptism ought to have cut them off as by a Red 
 Sea flood for ever. 
 
 When Baptism is administered by immersion, there 
 comes in the secondary symbolism of burial. The 
 man goes down into the grave of waters in order that, 
 leaving there the dead tissues of a former self, he 
 presently may rise again into the pureness, freshness, 
 newness of the life called holy. But for the sanction 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 151 
 
 twice given to it in the writings of St. Paul, this in- 
 terpretation of the figurative significance of Baptism 
 would probably strike us as far-fetched. It certainly 
 cannot be said to commend itself to the mind of the 
 observer as promptly as the other and more familiar 
 translation of the sacramental action does. 
 
 Studied as an effectual symbol, Baptism is found to 
 have for a chief end and aim the transfer of the per- 
 son washed and cleansed from one environment to 
 another. At least this would appear to be the teaching 
 of Anglican theology, for, in answer to a question as 
 to the inward and spiritual grace or blessing conveyed 
 in this sacrament, the child is instructed in the Church 
 Catechism to reply, " A death unto sin and a new 
 birth unto righteousness." But the only thing that 
 death and birth may be said to have in common is this, 
 that each marks a transition from one stage or con- 
 dition of existence to another. By natural birth man 
 is brought into relations with society, he becomes a 
 recognized member of the human race. Similarly by 
 the new birth of Baptism he is brought into relations 
 with all the baptized, and from having been simply a 
 member of the race becomes also a member of the 
 society of Christ. So again with death ; that also as, 
 Christians believe, is an event as contrasted with a 
 condition ; it is not an eternal sleep, it is the gateway 
 from an old and inferior sort of life to a new and 
 different one. In so far then as the grace of Baptism 
 can properly be spoken of as a " death," we must be 
 meant to understand that by it as by a door we 
 
152 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 pass from the worse environment to the better, from 
 a state of existence clouded and clogged by "sin" 
 into a state of existence made luminous and free by 
 " rio-hteousness." All this of course is uttered in the 
 high and rarefied atmosphere of idealism. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, we do not always discern this edifying con- 
 trast between the lives of the baptized and the lives of 
 the unbaptized, — would that we did ! I am speak- 
 ing of the theory of the thing. Possibly if we were to 
 institute a like comparison between the theory of the 
 State and the practice of the State, we should find 
 an even more portentous gulf sundering things as 
 they are from things as they ought to be. And yet 
 both State and Church, be it never forgotten, are of 
 God. We must not let ourselves despair of either 
 of them. Of the whole body of the baptized we cer- 
 tainly may say with truthfulness, that as contrasted 
 with the whole body of the unbaptized, it gives evidence 
 of spiritual superiority. Armies have their poltroons 
 and families their black sheep ; but we do not for 
 that reason condemn the institute of family life as a 
 failure, or say of the army that as an instrument of 
 conquest it is useless. " The like figure thereunto, even 
 Baptism, doth also now save" society, for by it we are 
 born children into the family of God, and by it we are 
 enrolled soldiers in the army of his Christ. 
 
 I spoke of the symbolism of the second of the two 
 sacraments as being more complicated, and for that 
 reason more difficult of interpretation, than the sym- 
 bolism of the first. Baptism, for instance, cannot be 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 163 
 
 said to have any commemorative character, except, 
 indeed, ill so far as any usage whatsoever may be said 
 to commemorate the originator of it ; but in the case 
 of Holy Communion the commemorative feature is, as 
 we shall see, the most prominent ; I do not say neces- 
 sarily the most important, but certainly the most pro- 
 minent of all. Baptism, again, is representatively 
 symbolic in only two, or at most three senses. Holy 
 Communion, on the other hand, possesses a represen- 
 tative symbolism so manifold that it is perhaps im- 
 possible for any analysis to do it complete justice. 
 
 I have always been impressed by the suggestiveness 
 of that sentence in the Communion Office of the Book 
 of Common Prayer in which we pray God that, by 
 the merits and death of his Son Jesus Christ and 
 through faith in his blood, we and all his whole Church 
 may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits 
 of his passion. " All other benefits of his passion," — 
 it is as if the soul of the worshipper despaired of ever 
 being able thoroughly to search into all the wealth of 
 meaning and of blessing stored up in that transcend- 
 ent sacrifice. Remission of sin, — yes, that is one 
 thing ; but how much more, who knows ? And so also 
 with the sacrament designed to put that sacrifice as 
 it were before our very eyes ; is it not just what we 
 ought to expect that the sign, like the thing signified, 
 should be, with respect to its contents, unsearchable ? 
 
 Nevertheless, even as we may without presumption 
 or irreverence seek to look into the meaning and pur- 
 port of the sacrifice itself, although assured beforehand 
 
154 THE PEACE OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 that we can only know in part, so may we also with a 
 certain holy fearlessness essay to interpret the sym- 
 bolism prescribed by Christ himself as a help to our 
 better appreciation of the sacrifice. 
 
 I pause here to observe that the controversy with 
 the Church of Rome over the number of the sacra- 
 ments is, in great measure, a mere quibble of words. 
 Every theological student knows perfectly well that 
 other things besides Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
 passed among the primitive Christians under the 
 general name of sacrament. The Latin fathers seem 
 to have used the word in the sense of a sacred sym- 
 bol or religious emblem of any sort. The School- 
 men, with their love of exact classification, gladly 
 fastened the mystic number " seven " upon the sacra- 
 ments, but had five or nine been needed by the 
 Church authorities of their day, no doubt the meta- 
 physics of Peter Lombard and Saint Thomas would 
 have been equal to the emergency. Among the many 
 conceivable sacraments, Anglican religion recognizes 
 but two of which it is willing to say positively, first, 
 that they were " ordained " by Christ Himself, and 
 secondly, that they are " means of grace." 
 
 But to come back to our study of the Holy Com- 
 munion. The first and, as I have said, the most 
 obvious of the aspects of the eucharistic symbolism 
 is the commemorative one. The Book of Common 
 Prayer, the only authoritative mouthpiece of Angli- 
 can religion, insists upon this with doubled and re- 
 doubled emphasis. " Why," the child is asked hi the 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 155 
 
 Catechism, " was the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
 per ordained ? " The answer could not easily be 
 more explicit ; " For the continual remembrance of the 
 sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits 
 which we receive thereby." In the Exhortation of the 
 Communion Office we have the same point urged, for 
 we are there told that " to the end that we should 
 always remember " the exceeding great love of our 
 Master and only Saviour, he instituted and ordained 
 these holy mysteries. So then, whatever other and 
 further estimates of this sacrament's significance we 
 may be bound to form, it can never be right for us to 
 neglect or obscure the memorial signification. Neither 
 are we left in any uncertainty as to what that is which 
 is commemorated. This frequently recurring act of 
 reminder, this observance of which it has been pre- 
 dicted that it shall endure so long as man and the 
 earth maintain their present relations to one another, 
 is, in the language of St. Paul, a showing forth of the 
 death of Christ. Such language suggests, even if it 
 does not assert, that in that death there had lain some 
 marvellous significance, some singular efficacy, some- 
 thing to justify the calling it, as we do when speaking 
 devotionally and from the heart, a " precious " death. 
 Nothing is easier than to explain away by surface 
 reasoning the mystery of the great sacrifice. We may 
 accustom ourselves to speak of Christ on the Cross in 
 the same tone and manner in which we speak of More 
 on the scaffold and Cranmer at the stake ; but after 
 we have, as we fancy, emptied the whole thing of mys- 
 
156 THE PEACE OF THE CHUKCII. 
 
 tery, flooded the entire field with the dry light of the 
 reason, we look up and there, to our unfeigned sur- 
 prise, stands the Cross, still as of old riveting the gaze 
 of the whole human family, in no slightest measure 
 shaken or disturbed, but rooted to its ancient place, — 
 the same easily explainable thing which yet will not 
 be explained it always was. 
 
 The truth is, the essence of the Christian religion 
 lies in the principle of sacrifice. There is nothing 
 on earth so deep as sacrifice, nothing in heaven so 
 high. It is the secret of true life, the witness of sin- 
 cerity, the root and bond of love. We are constantly 
 reminded of this in our purely human relations. Sac- 
 rifice whenever and wherever seen, if believed to be 
 genuine, draws admiration. Look about over the 
 circle of your acquaintance. Which ai-e the lives 
 that challenge your reverence, — those in which sac- 
 rifice is prominent, or those from which it has been 
 sedulously banished ? It is needful for man's spirit- 
 ual well-being that his thoughts should be turned 
 as often as possible in the direction of sacrifice. 
 There is a call for some one perfect embodiment 
 and illustration of the principle, and it is found in 
 the person of Him who says in the hearing of us 
 all, '' Lo I come to do thy will, God." 
 
 Sacrifice has never been wholly absent from reli- 
 gion. We trace the history of it as a formal rite from 
 the earliest times. The smoke of altars rises all along 
 the line of human history. A very dim and confused 
 notion of the real meaning of what they did, those 
 
THE SIGIxS AND SEALS. 157 
 
 primitive worshippers may liavc had, yet must this 
 truth with more or less of distinctness have reached 
 them, that witli the giving up of life in God's ser- 
 vice there is associated the winning back of a better 
 life. The man who came to the altar, and left there 
 as an offering to God something that had cost him 
 toil and effort, and went away with a sense of par- 
 don and reconciliation, was still a long way olBf, we 
 must confess, from the point reached by him who 
 could say, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;" 
 but he was on the way to that point, he was being 
 made ready to receive that higher truth. In the 
 presence of the cross of Christ, high and lifted up, 
 henceforth to be for ever recognized as the one au- 
 thentic and supreme symbol of sacrifice, those old 
 altar fires flicker and die. There is no longer any 
 need of them ; for now the Son of God is come, and 
 in place of their dim adumbrations has given us 
 vision to discern that the real sacrifice is a thing 
 inward and of the will, only acceptable when pat- 
 terned after liis own. To keep always vivid before 
 the eyes of the mind, and ever printed freshly on 
 the remembrance, this truth that God's best revela- 
 tion of Himself to man has been effected through 
 sacrifice, this is what we may call the first intention of 
 the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. We 
 do what we do in perpetual memory of the arche- 
 typal sacrifice. Had the fortunes of that great ob- 
 ject-lesson we call the Cross been entrusted to 
 tradition, the thing might have been forgotten, for 
 
158 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 records are perishable, and manuscripts may suffer 
 mutilation; but the consecrated observance, the hal- 
 lowed use lives on. Not only so, but even had the 
 doctrine survived, what assurance have we that it 
 might not have dropped out of men's regard, lost 
 its hold on their affections, been distorted, cast aside 
 as obsolete, caricatured out of all likeness to itself ? 
 Such a fate has befallen doctrines not a few ; it might 
 have befallen this one. But somehow as sacrament 
 the thing endures, outrivalling tradition in persist- 
 ency, excelling dogma in many-sidedness, — a per- 
 petual witness to the love of Christ, an unfailing 
 memorial of the tender mercy of our God. 
 
 An ancient name for the Lord's Supper is the 
 Eucharist. The word has never fairly rooted itself 
 in English speech, and does not seem to lose with 
 time much of its foreign look. And yet it has a 
 very simple and precious meaning ; " Eucharist " is 
 thanksgiving. Under what title could we better 
 describe the true purport of a service from first to 
 last so eloquent of gratitude. 
 
 But Holy Communion has other aspects besides its 
 memorial and eucharistic ones. It ministers to that 
 need of the soul which is best described under the 
 similitude of hunger and thirst. Faintness and ex- 
 haustion are not confined to the body. The real self, 
 of which the body is but the tent or cottage, that also 
 has its seasons of weakness and insufficiency. The 
 law of nourishment binds everything that lives, be 
 it plant or soul. To possess vitality means, so far 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 159 
 
 as our human observation extends, to require food. 
 One feature, and it was a significant one, of the 
 ancient ritual of sacrifice was the feast upon the 
 victim. On what they slew they fed. They became, 
 as the phrase ran, " partakers with the altar." This 
 observance also Christ lifted up and glorified when, 
 in that upper room where He had gathered his dis- 
 ciples to eat the Passover with Him before He suf- 
 fered. He turned the paschal meal into a parable of 
 the true spiritual nourishment. " Take, eat," said 
 He, "this is my body." "Drink ye all of this." 
 " This is my blood." When we have become familiar 
 enough with Nature's processes to understand how 
 it is that common food is turned to flesh and bone, 
 and these mortal bodies of ours continually renewed 
 and built up by nourishment, it will be time enough 
 to start minute inquiries as to those more subtile 
 methods by which He " in whom all spirits live " 
 repairs the waste and loss to which the soul is sub- 
 ject. Meantime devout and trusting hearts will con- 
 tinue to take comfort, as for many generations they 
 have been taking comfort, in such sentences as these : 
 " I am the bread of life." " He that cometh to Me 
 shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me 
 shall never thirst." " I am the living bread which 
 came down from heaven." " If any man eat of this 
 bread he shall live for ever; and the bread that I 
 will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of 
 the world." It is not necessary that we should 
 thoroughly comprehend the methods of spiritual nutri- 
 
160 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 tion whereby such promises as these are made good ; 
 it is a great happiness to believe that as a matter 
 of fact they are made good, and that God does really 
 feed the soul. True, we ought never to forget that 
 the symbolism is representative, lest we fall into the 
 error of confusing the material with the spiritual, 
 so joining together things which God has put ever- 
 lastingly asunder ; but neither ought we to forget that 
 the symbolism is effectual as well. The symbolism 
 of parental love is effectual to the conveyance of 
 blessing though we know not how. It is said that 
 infants who struggle up into childhood without any 
 fondling and caressing, most commonly show by un- 
 mistakable signs that the loss of what they ought to 
 have enjoyed has told upon their constitutions. Bereft 
 of all the pledges of love, the poor little things show 
 like starvelings, even though they may have had as 
 much material food and drink as other children. 
 Disparage as vehemently as we may the value of 
 outward and visible signs, here is an instance in 
 which the lack of them has been well-nigh fatal to 
 life itself. The truth is, there is such a thing as 
 being too much on the alert against superstition. 
 To believe that when the soul hungers Christ can 
 feed it, that when the soul thirsts Christ can give 
 it drink, — surely there is no superstition in this; 
 nor do we superstitiously regard the symbolism of 
 Communion when we take it to be effectual through 
 the Spirit to this end. Christ is the real minister of 
 the Sacrament. It is He Himself who gives Him- 
 
THE SIGNS AXD SEALS. 161 
 
 self. The earthly priest hreaks perishahle bread ; it 
 is the heavenly Priest who says, " Eat, and thy soul 
 shall live." 
 
 The real danger-line in eucharistic symbolism ought 
 to be drawn at the point when a disposition to adore 
 what is on the altar begins to betray itself, for here 
 we do come in real peril of idolatry. With one con- 
 senting voice, the true prophets of God have from the 
 beginning warned man against the notion that God 
 can be worshipped under the form of any dead ma- 
 terial Avhatever. The Roman doctrine of the Mass 
 evades Isaiah's invective only by the forced conclusion 
 that what is on the altar after consecration is not what 
 the senses assert it to be, but " the veritable body of 
 our Lord and his veritable blood, together with his 
 soul and divinity." ^ Once persuaded that such is, 
 indeed, the fact, the worshipper may with an un- 
 troubled conscience adore what is on the altar. To 
 call such a one an idolater is slander. He is per- 
 suaded that Christ is there upon that spot as actually 
 as when his sacred feet touched the temple pavement 
 in Jerusalem ; and, what is still more to the point, he 
 is persuaded that nothing else is there. Why should 
 he not bend all his worship towards the divine person 
 so enthroned before his eyes ? 
 
 The case is otherwise when we are invited to 
 worship Christ under the "form" or "veil" of elements, 
 which it is frankly acknowledged are what they look 
 to be, namely God's " gifts and creatures of bread and 
 
 * Council of Trent, Sess. xiii., ch. 4. 
 li 
 
162 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 wine." The appeal to the ritual worship of the 
 Chosen People does not help the matter. It is true 
 that the Old Testament abounds in material symbolism. 
 The tabernacle and the temple were full of it. But 
 of what were these material emblems symbolic? — that 
 is the all-important point. Invariably they were sym- 
 bolical of relations between persons, never of personal- 
 ity itself. The ark of the covenant, the altar of incense, 
 the shew-bread and the lamps of fire, — these were 
 all of them material things made serviceable for the 
 instruction of the devout soul ; but not one of them 
 conveyed the suggestion of a Deity resident within or 
 beneath the form. They were but tol^ens intended to 
 reveal God's thought and his intention ; they were 
 in no sense the environment of his person. From 
 the suggestion that gold or needle-work could in any 
 way become the investiture of Jehovah, the pious 
 Israelite would have recoiled as if one of Astarte's 
 priests had touched him. In fact, it was their stout 
 refusal to allow God to be worshipped by symbol that 
 gave the Israelites the lonely pre-eminence they 
 enjoyed. They were not more brave in war, not 
 more skilled in the arts, not better versed in philos- 
 ophy, than some of the other nations their contempo- 
 raries ; but in their doctrine of God they stood alone. 
 The account given of the ark of the covenant, that 
 sacred receptacle which in their sanctuary occupied 
 the place of honor, brings out this point distinctly. 
 Other religions than the Hebrew made use of arks. 
 Sculptured representations of them may be seen upon 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 163 
 
 Egyptian monuments to-day. But what held they? 
 An ibis possibly, or a handful of scarabs, nothing 
 better; paltry images these of that divine Majesty 
 which neither the heaven nor the heaven of heavens 
 can contain. But listen to what the chronicler has 
 to tell us of the true ark of God. The sentence I 
 have in mind occurs in that magnificent chapter, 
 the finest perhaps of all the spectacular passages 
 of the Old Testament, the account of the dedica- 
 tion of the temple. Of this august scene the sacred 
 ark, set down in what it was fondly hoped would 
 prove its final resting-place, was centre. Stood there 
 or lay there in it any material token, sign, or emblem 
 of the adorable One ? No ; there was a symbol, but it 
 was not that. The sacred thing there hidden was the 
 expression not of the person, but of the will of the 
 Almighty. " There was nothing in the ark," writes 
 the historian with lofty simplicity, "save the two 
 tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb 
 when the Lord made a covenant with the children of 
 Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt." 
 
 One chief provocative of the great revolt against 
 mediaeval notions of religion that passes under the 
 name of the Reformation, was the desire on the part 
 of the best minds to escape from such symbolism as 
 was set forth by pyx and gong and monstrance, to the 
 true and safe — safe, because true — position, that 
 things spiritual can only spiritually be discerned. 
 
 Two other aspects of eucharistic symbolism remain 
 to be noted, namely the two that are associated with 
 
164 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the name " Communion." Even when the word is 
 understood only of such intercourse as we hold with 
 one another, we see easily how poor and tasteless a 
 thing human life would be without communion. The 
 greater part of such enjoyment as we have grows out 
 of the interchange of thought and feeling that goes on 
 between ourselves and those about us. Cut off from 
 society, man sinks to something less than man. This 
 is the reason why people are sometimes found declar- 
 ing that they would rather be blind than deaf; a 
 contention that looks at first sight insincere. And 
 this is the reason also why, next to death, banishment 
 has always been considered the capital punishment ; 
 even as excommunication was ever reckoned, in days 
 when the Church dealt more freely in penalties than 
 she now does, the extremest form of discipline ; for 
 excommunication is, after its kind, a banishment, 
 being the shutting out of the offender from the com- 
 munion, that is to say, the society of his fellow-believers, 
 — the declaring him an exile from the commonwealth 
 of God. We ought to think of Christ as coming in 
 the power of the Spirit to meet us in this sacrament, 
 as friend meets friend; not, indeed, as friends who 
 meet on equal terms, but in such fellowship as Lord 
 and liegeman have. There are those among our 
 fellow-creatures of whom we say that merely to come 
 into their presence is like receiving a benediction. 
 We certainly cannot think less gratefully or less 
 reverentially of his approach and nearness whose 
 very raiment's edge carried healing in it for the touch 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 165 
 
 of faith. No doctrine of a real presence is so health- 
 ful or so helpful as that which seeks to draw us into 
 the real presence of the living Christ. If we go back 
 in thought to the night when the sacrament was insti- 
 tuted, and ask the disciples gathered about that board, 
 wherein their chief joy lies while they look and listen, 
 there cannot be any doubt as to how they will reply. 
 " We are happy," they will say to us, " because He is 
 near ; our comfort is in his presence, our joy comes 
 'from his smile, our peace is in this holy communion 
 we are having with Him." This is what they would 
 say to us ; and what the real presence meant to them, 
 that it may best mean to us.^ We have his own war- 
 rant for believing that it is the Spirit which really 
 brings to us the treasure of a more abundant life. It 
 is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh (even were 
 their fable of transubstantiation true) could profit 
 nothing. 
 
 But besides this fellowship of the soul with the 
 Saviour, there lives in Holy Communion the further 
 
 1 Compare the story of the walk to Emmaus, as told by St. 
 Luke. The obvious inference with respect to the nature of "the 
 real presence " drawn from the facts of the Last Supper is some- 
 times evaded by arguing that our Lord spoke in an anticipatory 
 way, and indicated what the elements were destined to be after his 
 decease at Jerusalem should have been accomplished. But at 
 Emmaus we see Him again taking bread, blessing and breaking it, 
 and giving to his disciples. When it is written that immediately 
 " their eyes were opened and they knew Him," can it possibly 
 mean that they " knew Him " as being in any sense resident in 
 the bread ? And this, be it carefully observed, happened after the 
 resurrection. 
 
166 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 thought of a mutual fellowship among those who 
 in one another's presence take and eat. How scan- 
 tily this truth is realized, how feebly acted upon in 
 everyday life, we know to our mortification. And 
 yet even such a meagre embodiment of "the com- 
 munion of saints" as we do have is better than 
 nothing. We live by dreaming of golden times to 
 come. We are for ever reaching after and hasting 
 unto the vanishing horizon of our hopes. And of 
 nothing is this more true than of Christ's doctrine 
 of human brotherhood. It is spreading, slowly but 
 surely spreading everywhere. Little by little the 
 race is opening its eyes to the truth of the one 
 family. Purblind visions abound ; men are seen " as 
 trees walking," and all that; but the eucharistic 
 symbol of the one loaf is making itself understood, 
 and onward, through dark and light, we move steadily 
 to the end ordained. 
 
 Do we seem to have wandered a long way from 
 Lambeth and the Bishops ? It is an imaginary dis- 
 tance. At no moment since our first departure have 
 they been beyond call ; for dissent as vehemently as 
 you may from all that I have been saying about the 
 significance of sacraments, take a view as much 
 higher or a view as much lower as you choose, our 
 very differences will but illustrate the wisdom of 
 these peace-makers, the Bishops, who insist that pro- 
 vided men will only use the sacraments ; reverently 
 careful, in the using, not to omit the words and ele- 
 ments ordained by Christ, they may, if they will, go 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 167 
 
 on and philosophize about them to their hearts' con- 
 tent. Not so much by thoroughly understanding the 
 sacraments as by gladly availing ourselves of them 
 are we helped. The truth is, the sacraments are in- 
 stitutes not propositions. They cannot be explained 
 in a hard and fast way ; the manifoldness of their 
 significance forbids it. It may be possible, and at 
 times necessary, to say that they are 7iot this or that, 
 but to declare in set terms all that they actually are 
 is far from easy. In this respect they differ no whit 
 from other great institutes of human life. We speak of 
 "the press," of "the ballot," of "the jury system;" but 
 who will undertake to put into a single affirmative 
 sentence all that any one of these imports ? An insti- 
 tute is like a mountain or any other great object in 
 Nature, you get the effect of it in a hundred different 
 ways that utterly defy classification. I cannot say 
 in a sentence what Niagara does for me, nor formu- 
 late in set phrase the impression made upon mind, 
 heart and soul by a first look at the sea. Object- 
 lessons differ in kind from language-lessons, — they 
 are more intricate ; they appeal to a greater variety of 
 apprehensive powers within us ; they do not address 
 themselves exclusively to the logical faculty, but 
 are on good terms with the imagination also, and 
 take hold upon our lives, our hopes, our fears, in fact 
 all that is within us. You can dissect dead systems 
 of thought, you can run your knife edge between the 
 two premises of a syllogism ; but a living institute 
 must be studied in its movements and its processes, 
 
168 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 — at the too eager touch of a scalpel the life flies, and 
 the secret of which you are in search goes with it. 
 Try, for example, to analyze the process by which 
 that holy institute the Christian home exerts its 
 influence, — it cannot be done. All are agreed that 
 a good home is an outward and visible sign of an 
 inward and spiritual grace, but who will venture to 
 declare precisely how and why it is such ? 
 
 We have to content ourselves with saying to those 
 who would break down the institute, — Destroy it not, 
 for a blessing is in it. But how the blessing came 
 to be there, and by what delicate processes of trans- 
 mission it is conveyed, we cannot say in terms. 
 
 In a truly Catholic Church we shall have to recon- 
 cile ourselves to a very wide range of opinion with 
 respect to the rationale of the sacraments. We can- 
 not afford to purge out of our fellowship the great 
 company of the mystics, those to whose hearts the 
 eucharistic symbolism is as the very love language 
 of the soul. We may not be able to think about 
 Holy Communion precisely as they do, but that is 
 no reason why we should not partake of it together. 
 The man born without an ear for music does him- 
 self no credit, when out of his own ignorance he ridi- 
 cules the ecstasies of those who are living in a loftier 
 world than he knows anything about. Possibly there 
 may be similar differences of susceptibility in the 
 region of worship, and it is at least conceivable that 
 to certain natures the truth of God and the love of 
 God are brought home by sacramental symbolism 
 
THE SIGNS AND SEALS. 1G9 
 
 with a power Avhich, in their case at least, the sym- 
 bolism of spoken words is unable to exert. On the 
 other hand, let the mystical souls be themselves 
 charitable towards the non-mystical. Let them re- 
 member that to the rigid enforcement of a "sacra- 
 mental system," so called, the disruption of the former 
 Christendom was in great measure due. It would 
 be undoubtedly a hardship were poetry to be ruled 
 out of life ; but we are not for that reason to forget 
 that prose is what makes the common medium of 
 intercourse between man and man, and that it would 
 be an injustice to insist upon the exclusive use of 
 the more beautiful, and, if you will, more perfect 
 form of speech. 
 
 The Bishops have therefore done wisely in setting 
 the boundary pillars of sacramental usage wide apart. 
 On the one hand, they make Baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper an integral part of the Church's life, guard- 
 ing thus against the constant drift of theology towards 
 a philosophical idealism ; while, on the other hand, 
 they insist that, provided the words and elements 
 by Christ ordained be strictly held to, we ought not 
 to let ourselves be set asunder either by differences 
 of opinion as to the modus operandi of the sacra- 
 ments, or by differences of taste as to the ritual ad- 
 ministration of them. Idolatrous misuse is by the very 
 word " sacrament " ruled out on the right, a pseudo- 
 spiritual disuse is ruled out on the left, — another way 
 of saying that we are to use without abusing these 
 great institutes of God, suspicious alike of the old 
 
170 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 alchemy by which the mediaeval theologians sought 
 to transmute the elements into something that they 
 were not, and of the new chemistry which by a 
 wholly different process would vaporize them into a 
 metaphor. 
 
V. 
 
 PILOTAGE. 
 
It is a just and equal thing that every member of society should submit 
 to the laws and orders of it ; for every man is supposed upon those terms 
 to enter into, and to abide in it ; every man is deemed to owe such obedi- 
 ence, in answer to his enjoyment of privileges, and partaking of advantages 
 thereby. . . . 
 
 The same is also a comely and amiable thing, yielding much grace, pro- 
 curing great honor to the Church, highly advancing and crediting religion. 
 It is a goodly sight to behold things proceeding orderly ; to see every per- 
 son quietly resting in his post, or moving evenly in his rank ; to observe 
 superiors calmly leading, inferiors gladly following, and equals lovingly 
 accompanying each other. This is the Psalmist's Ecce quavi bonum! 
 
 Isaac Barrow. 
 
 The safety and preservation of the truth requires the ministerial office. 
 As the laws' of England would never be preserved without lawyers and 
 judges, by the common people; so the Scriptures and the faith, sacraments 
 and worship, could never have been brought to us as they are without a 
 stated ministry, whose interest, office, and work it is continually to use 
 them. — Richard Baxter. 
 
V. 
 
 PILOTAGE. 
 
 Over and above chart, rudder, and compass, a ship 
 requires the sort of personal supervision we call 
 pilotage. The safe conveyance of the passengers is 
 indeed the main point; but to this end officers and 
 a crew are needed. Hence the prominence given 
 in all consultations over the well-being of the Church 
 to the question, How shall the ship be manned ? We 
 have already discussed the Scriptures, the Creeds, and 
 the Sacraments, — possessions that correspond fairly 
 well to the various helps to seamanship of which 
 I just made mention ; it remains to consider pilotage, 
 or, as it is more commonly named, polity. Happily 
 there exists no difference of opinion as to the actual 
 headship ; we all agree j^that Christ is in the ship ; 
 and where He is, there controversy as to precedence 
 dies. It is a question as to how we may most ac- 
 ceptably and most efficiently co-operate with Him in 
 working sails and oars ; or, to go further back, it is 
 a question as to whether He made provision, before 
 his visible presence was withdrawn, for the main- 
 tenance of order and method in the execution of the 
 task in hand. 
 
174 TPIE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Whether rightly or wrongly, the Bishops at Lam- 
 beth thought it plainly incumbent on them to put 
 into what we may name their invitation an utterance 
 upon this subject. The fourth and last of their pro- 
 posed articles of peace reads thus : — 
 
 " The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the 
 methods of its administration to the varying needs 
 of the nations and peoples called of God into the 
 unity of his ChurchP 
 
 This opens the whole question of the Christian 
 Ministry, — its origin, its transmission, its proper 
 reach and scope. It is a large subject to be dealt 
 with in a single lecture. I have no right to be am- 
 bitious of doing more than to let fly a few winged 
 words of suggestion. Mere hints sometimes prove as 
 efficacious towards the actual reaching of a result 
 as labored proofs; at any rate, they are apt to be 
 more kindly received by minds of the better order, 
 for it is always pleasanter to be led to a conclusion 
 than to be driven to one. 
 
 It is deserving of remark as a thing not a little 
 singular that so few writers on the subject of the 
 ministry should have seen fit, in handling their ma- 
 terial, to begin at the beginning. Some start from 
 things as they are, and finding in the Christian com- 
 munity of to-day a great and greatly diversified 
 company of officials called variously priests, clergy- 
 men, and ministers, set themselves to constructing 
 some theory of the facts that shall show this to be 
 the best of all possible worlds ecclesiastical. Others 
 
PILOTAGE. 175 
 
 go back to that period of Church history at which the 
 ministry of the particular denomination to which they 
 are personally attached came into existence, and are 
 impatient of any doctrine upon the subject that would 
 suggest or involve the need of earlier origins. Still 
 others think, with a late Bampton lecturer, that if we 
 would find the fountain of trustworthy information 
 under this head, what remains of the literature of 
 the sub-apostolic period is our true resort ; though we 
 no sooner reach this ground than we are met by 
 a rival school, assuring us that we ought by no means 
 to stop here, but to push on until we come within 
 the actual circuit of New Testament times, and face 
 to face with the apostolic men themselves. 
 
 But even this is not to begin at the beginning. 
 I invite you to a line of search that runs back not 
 only of the second century, but of the first. I sug- 
 gest that we look for the initial impulse that finally 
 brought to pass what we know as the Christian min- 
 istry in those words of the great Householder, " I will 
 send my Son." Here we have an expression of pur- 
 pose that antedates Bethlehem itself. 
 
 What I mean is that Jesus Christ is to be accounted 
 the first Christian minister, not in rank only but in 
 time, and that if we would understand what " the 
 ministry " is in essence we must go straight to Him 
 and study Him. Head of the race, He was content 
 to call Himself our *' minister," and laid the foun- 
 dation of the " historic episcopate " by washing his 
 disciples' feet. I am not at all scandalized as some 
 
176 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 seem to be by the strong language of the Ignatian 
 Epistles with respect to the function and dignity 
 of the Bishop. Even if the words should turn out 
 to have been interpolated, a thing quite conceiva- 
 ble, notwithstanding the triumphant shouts of most 
 Anglican reviewers over Lightfoot's finished work,i 
 I should still be glad to accept them on their own 
 merits as testifying to a profound truth. To be sure 
 it startles one, for the moment, to be told that we ought 
 to think of the Bishop as representing Christ ; but 
 if I were to change the phrase a little, and declare 
 that no Bishop deserved the high title of " Minister '* 
 who misrepresented Christ, it would not seem an 
 over-statement. 
 
 The Christian ministry, — nay, I will put it more 
 strongly, — the Christian religion rests on the fact 
 that man is a creature who stands in continual need 
 of help. So plainly unequal is he to the task of self- 
 maintenance that he would long ago have perished 
 from the face of the earth but for aid rendered him 
 from without. I am speaking now of man in his 
 physical aspect, and as he finds himself besieged by 
 the forces of external nature. No animal compares 
 with man as respects the length of the period of 
 infancy. But even after he has been helped by 
 friendly hands over this long pathway of approach 
 
 1 Ignatian Difficulties and Historic Doubts. A Letter to the 
 Very Reverend the Dean of Peterborough, by Robert C. Jenkins, 
 M. A., Hon. Curator of the Library of Lambeth Palace. London ; 
 David Nutt, 1890. 
 
PILOTAGE. 177 
 
 to maturity, he would still have small chance for 
 survival in the face of the tremendous odds against 
 him, were it not for the assistance that comes to him 
 through society. Single-handed, man would inev- 
 itably have succumbed long ago ; he has kept his 
 foothold by dint of co-operation, and co-operation is 
 but another name for mutual help. What we know 
 as the Christian religion is best apprehended when 
 we conceive it as a divine provision for extending 
 to man in his spiritual relations a help akin to that 
 which in his temporal and wholly earthly affairs he 
 so evidently needs. It is pre-eminently a device for 
 seeking and saving what if unsought and unsaved 
 would inevitably perish. Christ comes into the world 
 as the great Helper. Quietly, through unobserved 
 years, He makes himself useful with his hands ; then 
 He comes out into the clear light of public life and 
 makes Himself useful by his words. '^ I am among 
 you as he that serveth," is his motto from first to last, 
 whether He speaks as carpenter's son or as Messiah. 
 The very word we use to describe the three years, 
 more or less, of his observable life tells the whole 
 story ; we name it his " Ministry." Christ then was 
 what 1 have called Him, the first of Christian minis- 
 ters, and the key-word to the innermost significance 
 of his work is helpfulness. 
 
 We have next to note the fact that in actively 
 carrying out this ministry of helpfulness, Jesus Christ 
 made use not only of words but of persons. Himself 
 the first of helpers. He must needs have those who 
 
 12 
 
178 THF PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 should help Him in helping. " He appointed twelve,^' 
 writes one of the evangelists, " that they might be 
 with Him, and that He might send them forth to 
 preach, and to have authority to cast out devils ; " 
 " whom also," adds another, " He named Apostles." 
 Here, then, is a leading fact, full of significance. 
 Jesus Christ appears among men and announces Him- 
 self the founder of a new social order, which He names 
 the Kingdom of Heaven; and one of his very first 
 acts, as legislator, is to appoint a "ministry." He 
 gathers about Himself a definite number of men, 
 invests them with definite privileges, and charges 
 them with definite duties. We are not to suppose 
 that these twelve men were the only ones in all Judea 
 who were willing to leave their farms and nets and 
 shops in order to be his companions. Neither are we 
 to suppose that they were the only ones among the 
 multitude of believers who possessed the requisite 
 qualities for missionary work. Others may have been 
 as devout, others as true-hearted, others as able ; but 
 He chose twelve, neither more nor less, and these 
 alone He named Apostles, that is to say, messengers. 
 It was not left to the chance impulse, no, not even to the 
 serious inward conviction of any man, to commission 
 himself a messenger: the appointment came in the 
 first instance from the Head. " These are the men 
 whom I accredit," He virtually said. We strike upon 
 a principle here ; we see that the Christian ministry 
 bore at the first the character not so much of a task 
 assumed, as of a duty assigned. The Twelve did not 
 
PILOTAGE. 179 
 
 say to Jesus ; " we have chosen you, and we will be 
 your ministers ; " but Jesus said to the Twelve, " I chose 
 you, and appointed you." So obvious a fact as this 
 would scarcely need to be stated, save for its bearing 
 upon other matters to which we shall come by and by. 
 That our Lord admitted twelve men to certain priv- 
 ileges, and laid upon them certain responsibilities 
 which the great body of the believers did not share, 
 must appear to everybody who accepts the Gospels as 
 authentic, to be beyond controversy. 
 
 But was it Christ's purpose that this ministry 
 should extend beyond the term of his own presence 
 on the earth, or was it to lapse with his departure ? 
 Clearly the former of the two intentions was his ; 
 since we find these same men, after the Resurrec- 
 tion, re-commissioned by the voice that first appointed 
 them to go out into the world in all directions in the 
 capacity of witnesses, preachers and absolvers. It 
 may be urged that it was only in their character of 
 men who had personally companied with Christ, and 
 could testify from memory to the fact of his Resur- 
 rection, that they were thus sent forth ; and that for 
 this reason they could have no successors, properly 
 so-called, in the generation that followed upon their 
 own. This objection certainly has weight, and does 
 avail to break in some measure the force of what 
 would otherwise be the unanswerable argument from 
 the case of the election of Matthias to fill the vacant 
 place of Judas ; for we are expressly told that the 
 election was narrowed to a choice from amon^}* those 
 
180 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 who had been personally known to the Lord Jesus, 
 and had been eye-witnesses of his risen life. But 
 when we pass to the Book of Acts, and to the unques- 
 tioned Epistles, and find, as we do find, an officered 
 body of believers gradually coming into existence 
 without break of continuity, we can scarcely refuse 
 to acknowledge that, whether or not the apostolate 
 was intended to last over under that name, a ministry 
 that had the countenance of the Apostles, and, as we 
 may say, held from them, did as a matter of fact 
 emerge, and did as a matter of fact proceed to carry 
 forward that very work of spiritual helpfulness which 
 the Twelve were originally appointed to discharge. This 
 is all I am concerned to insist upon for the present. 
 We have for starting-ground, first, the fact that a 
 ministry was by Christ Himself established to help 
 Him in the work of helping others ; and, secondly, 
 the fact that a ministry answering to this one in all 
 that was most essential, enjoyed general acceptance in 
 the very first age of all, — namely, the generation 
 covered by the New Testament writings themselves. 
 Christianity, that is to say, set out upon its course 
 equipped with a ministry as an integral part of its 
 provision for the saving of the world. Man was to 
 be helped in ways many and various ; but notably, as 
 in the day when Christ Himself was here, by chosen 
 and commissioned men. 
 
 We have now to look with as close a scrutiny as 
 possible into the nature of this ministry of help. The 
 thing has scope and reach, method and manner, and 
 
PILOTAGE. 181 
 
 these, to be appreciated, must come under analysis 
 both quantitative arid quaHtative. 
 
 Of course that function of the ministry which at 
 the first found exercise in bearing testimony from 
 memory to the fact of the Resurrection, soon fell into 
 abeyance. The body of men for whom it was possi- 
 ble in that sense to preach the Gospel of the Resur- 
 rection, died out. There were none left who could 
 say, " I saw Him, spoke with Him, was blessed by 
 Him after He rose from the dead." This is not to 
 affirm that the place of the Resurrection, in the order 
 of Christian preaching, has ceased to be a foremost 
 place. Never since the beginning has there been a 
 time when the duty of preaching Christ risen and 
 living was more imperative upon his ministers than 
 to-day. But what I mean is that in making up our 
 estimate of characteristics vital to the very idea of 
 the Christian ministry, and of necessity lastingly resi- 
 dent in it, this element of eye-witness is to be left out. 
 
 How and wherein may one who has never " seen 
 Christ after the flesh," make full proof of his minis- 
 try, — fill out, that is to say, the circle which his 
 helpfulness ought to cover ? In seeking an answer to 
 this question we might, if we chose, place our main 
 reliance on the evidence of tradition. What men 
 have always thought about the ministry and its work, 
 that it will be safe for us to think. There is a good 
 deal to be said for this method. The great callings 
 of human life do retain their main characteristics 
 through long stretches of time, and in spite of the 
 
182 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 changes that pass upon the world. In matters of detail, 
 in things accidental and incidental, there is altera- 
 tion ; but not in the proper work of the calling itself. 
 Battles are fought with different weapons, according 
 to changed tactics, cases are tried under new codes, 
 diseases are treated by novel methods ; but the soldier, 
 the lawyer, the physician stand, in the main, in the 
 same relation to modern society in which they stood to 
 ancient. Their profiles are as distinctly outlined against 
 the background of human life in general as ever they 
 were. So true is this felt to be, that we are not for a 
 moment surprised when we find the dramatists of two 
 thousand years ago putting into the mouths of their 
 soldiers, lawyers, and physicians just such character- 
 istic sayings as we are accustomed to hear from the 
 men who follow these same callings to-day. 
 
 There is no reason why we should not look to find 
 the like persistency of type in connection with the 
 Christian ministry ; in fact, we do find it. Chaucer's 
 parish priest draws our affections and holds our confi- 
 dence as closely as if no great gulf of Reformation lay 
 between him and us. Nay, St. Paul himself, were he 
 to come back to us to-morrow, and resume his inter- 
 rupted work, would find it in all essential points just 
 what he left it, notwithstanding the changes that have 
 come over the complexion of society meantime. 
 
 But this appeal to tradition would hardly be in 
 accord with the canon we laid down for ourselves at 
 the outset, which was to keep as close as possible to 
 the fount of ministerial authority, — Jesus Christ 
 
PILOTAGE. 183 
 
 Himself. When He used the memorable words, " As 
 my Father hath sent Me, even so I send you," He gave 
 us the golden key to the inner significance of every 
 minister's work, and a standard by which to measure 
 the completeness of it. For since we know from his 
 own lips his functions as the eternal Minister to man, 
 we cannot help inferring what it must mean for 
 modern ministers properly to represent Him. 
 
 The Son of God has given us to understand that 
 He holds to the human race three distinct relations, 
 which, taken together, make up the whole of his 
 ministry. He is our Prophet, our Priest, our King. 
 As Prophet, He unfolds to us the truth ; as Priest, in 
 our behalf He offers sacrifice ; as King, He rules us. 
 All these functions of His He exercises in the world 
 spiritual ; out of the darkness comes the voice that 
 teaches us ; against a sky we cannot see rises the 
 smoke of incense ; on supports no mortal hand has 
 builded rests the throne. But these things are not 
 unreal because invisible. This threefold work of 
 Jesus Christ in men's behalf is as real as real can 
 be, and it is for the purpose of making us the more 
 sure of this that the ministry stands ordained. Those 
 who receive it are charged as the representatives of 
 Christ, his disciples, with a work closely correspond- 
 ing in this feature of manifoldness with his work. 
 The same law of triplicity that makes such a striking 
 note of his mission is the note also of his represent- 
 atives' mission. Answering to Christ's function of 
 prophecy, stands the minister's function of preach- 
 
184 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ing ; answering to his priesthood, is the minister's 
 leadership of worship; answering to his royalty, is 
 the minister's responsibility for pastoral care. In 
 what respect has lapse of time, the passing of many 
 generations, altered or abridged this classification of 
 ministerial duty ? In no respect, save only in giving 
 the modern Church a deeper and richer conception of 
 what the preachership, the priesthood, and the pastor- 
 ate should be. 
 
 Take the first of the three departments of minis- 
 terial duty, instruction in things spiritual, is it not 
 in its essence just what it always was? Man has 
 still to be persuaded to believe in God, still to be 
 persuaded that this God in whom he believes so 
 loved the world as to send into it his Son to suffer 
 with and for us, still to be persuaded that fellowship 
 with the Spirit of holiness is the only guarantee of 
 peace of mind in this or in any world. These per- 
 suasions do not come by nature : men are not born 
 with these convictions rooted in their minds; they 
 have come, if come they have, through the aid of 
 others, who as God's messengers have spoken to 
 them, told them the truth. If these beliefs were 
 really native to the soul, we should find them as- 
 serting themselves everywhere, without respect to 
 race or climate, or the measure of civilization. They 
 would be as rife in China and Japan as in America 
 and Europe. In point of fact, we know that such 
 is not the case. We know that these beliefs prevail 
 in lands where the Christian pulpit has been set up, 
 
PILOTAGE. 185 
 
 where the voice of prophecy has made itself heard, 
 not elsewhere. Moreover, they are truths of which 
 the human heart and conscience have need. In that 
 sense it is true that they are native to us. They are 
 recognized, when once fairly seen, as being the xcry 
 food we require to keep our spirits from sinking 
 into death. But until they have been set before us 
 we do not see them ; and the setting them before us 
 in such fashion that we shall know them to be what 
 they are and value them for what they are worth, 
 is the preacher's task. He does but take of the 
 things of Christ and show them to us, prophet in 
 his name. 
 
 Some are of opinion that this work of preachership 
 is coming to an end. Partly because the clergy 
 have ceased to be what they were once, the only 
 educated class, and partly because such wealth of 
 new knowledge is pouring into man's possession 
 that old faiths seem likely to be flooded and sub- 
 merged, the pulpit we are assured is doomed. The 
 conclusion is a rash one. As for the rise in the 
 general level of intelligence, so far from being a 
 discouragement to the preacher it ought to prove and 
 will prove his stimulus and spur. The preacher 
 differs from other teachers, in that his work is not 
 merely to instruct but to persuade. The truth he 
 has to convey requires a certain preparation of the 
 heart in the receiver, — the feelings must be touched, 
 the conscience wakened, the will moved, the whole 
 man roused into activity ; and it is hard to see how 
 
186 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 any increment of intelligence can free a community, 
 any more than it frees an individual man, from the 
 necessity of being brought under the personal influ- 
 ence of one who has been himself persuaded, if per- 
 suasion is to be made effectual. The teacher's chair 
 can never take the place of the preacher's pulpit. 
 How was it at the beginning? Andrew persuaded 
 finds his own brother Simon, and persuades him. 
 Philip persuaded finds Nathaniel, and persuades him. 
 Here lies the central power in preachership ; it is 
 persuasion. How then can any access of intellect- 
 uality avail to make persuasion needless, or to su- 
 perannuate the preacher's work? Then as to this 
 promised inflow of new and unsuspected truth, this 
 enlarged knowledge of the universe and its laws, 
 why should that unsettle for a moment the founda- 
 tions of the pulpit? Whatever goes to enrich the 
 common treasury of wisdom enriches at the same 
 time the teacher of religion. The discovery of new 
 truths puts no strain upon the Creed of Christendom ; 
 that Creed is not a brittle thing that it should break. 
 What happens to the Creed when larger knowledge 
 comes to man, is simply what happened to it in your 
 mind and mine when we passed from childhood into 
 maturity, — it takes on a grander meaning, is inter- 
 preted by a more worthy standard, in a word, is better 
 appreciated than before. Christianity is the religion 
 of light. It has everything to hope and nothing to 
 fear from more light. Time may irradiate the Creed, 
 it never will annul it. 
 
PILOTAGE. 187 
 
 To the prophetic or teaching office the minister as 
 reflecting or representing Christ adds intercession, 
 priesthood. He is the recognized leader of his peo- 
 ple's worship. Here again we come upon the ques- 
 tion of transitoriness or permanency. Is worship on 
 the decline ? Are men ceasing to care to pray ? 
 Has the altar become a meaningless symbol ? and 
 will the voice of supplication presently be hushed 
 through all the world ? Some are faint hearted enough 
 to think so. But philosophy and history, let alone 
 theology, ought to make us ashamed of entertaining 
 such a fear. Man is a worshipping creature. The 
 book of his biography is full of the proofs of this. 
 As well forbid the smoke to rise, as forbid the 
 heart to pray. The great needs of the soul are per- 
 manent, — forgiveness, quietness of mind, courage 
 to bear the ills of life, comfort in bereavement, 
 guidance amid the difficulties of the way, — can we 
 imagine a state of civilization, no matter how far 
 advanced, in which man will cease to feel a hunger- 
 ing desire for these? No student of liturgies can 
 fail to be impressed by the marvellous vitality of 
 certain ancient prayers. Most of them were origi- 
 nally put into w^ords by men who lived and died 
 more than a thousand years ago. Within that period 
 many growths have had time to spring up and to pass 
 away, empires have risen, flourished, and decayed, but 
 these simple forms of supplication have not become 
 antiquated ; no man wearies of the Collect for Peace, 
 and the Collect for Grace ; no one desires any new 
 
188 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 thing in their stead. They are as fresh as they were 
 when they fell from the lips of the men who made 
 them. The very reason why they were treasured up, 
 accepted as the family jewels of the household of God, 
 was their indestructibility. Men saw that they had 
 in them that which could not die, and time has 
 justified the judgment. No doubt priesthood like 
 prophecy must adapt itself in some measure to the 
 circumstances of season and place. The temper of 
 one generation may be more friendly or more hostile 
 than was the temper of its predecessor to simplicity 
 and plainness in the forms of worship. One race 
 may take more kindly than another to ritual and 
 ceremonial. But these considerations are foreign to 
 the main point, which is, that the instinct of wor- 
 ship, the disposition to look up, the desire to plead 
 with the mysterious power that holds the keys of 
 life and of death, is in us as a part of ourselves, 
 not to be criticised as if it were a passing fashion, 
 not to be ridiculed out of existence or bargained 
 with to come to an end and cease. Priesthood, then, 
 like prophecy is permanent so long as the age en- 
 dures. What shall happen to them after that hid- 
 den day when " cometh the end " none can tell ; but 
 while the world continues, and seed-time and harvest, 
 summer and winter, day and night, are what they 
 are, the pulpit and the altar will hold their places. 
 
 But what now of the third great office of the one 
 Mediator, the kingship ? Is there anything answer- 
 ing to that in the work of the Christian ministry ? 
 
PILOTAGE. 189 
 
 At first we are disposed to cry, " Certainly there is 
 not, and cannot be. We are the citizens of a Re- 
 public. There must be no ingredient of royalty in 
 any ministry that attempts to minister to us." And 
 yet if the main thought which has underlain all that 
 I have been saying be a true thought, if the ministry 
 of man to his fellow-man be indeed meant to shadow 
 forth and represent the work of Christ Himself, it 
 must be that there is something in this sacred office 
 answering to the kingship of the Lord. You will, I 
 am sure, acquit the suggestion of any taint of arrogance 
 or pride when I define that answering something as 
 being, what it is, the minister's pastoral duty. It is 
 hard to associate absolutism, or any of the offensive 
 features of royalty, with so simple, so inoffensive a 
 symbol as the shepherd's crook. And yet the best 
 and purest tradition of royalty after all is that which 
 identifies the sceptre with the pastoral staff. The 
 Homeric monarch is the shepherd of the people. 
 No fault can be found with a kingship which glories 
 in making itself useful. What more Christlike in 
 the line of conduct has been seen in these times than 
 the spectacle of the man whose style declares him 
 " by the grace of God and by the will of the people, 
 King of Italy," going deliberately into the city of the 
 plague, determined there to remain allaying panic by 
 his presence until the pestilence should be stayed. 
 The sceptre of such a monarch is transfigured into 
 the pastoral staff, and men see in him a fulfilment 
 of the gracious words, " the good Shepherd giveth 
 
190 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 his life for the sheep." Will any one care to deny 
 to the minister of Christ this royal prerogative of 
 service ? 
 
 Our own times have witnessed very considerable 
 modifications in the department of pastoral care, — 
 in large cities especially the change has been most 
 noticeable. There is about it vastly more of what 
 must be called, though with no disparaging intent, 
 machinery. We classify and specialize in the work 
 of doing good to a degree never known before, and 
 what used to be regarded as the simple task of 
 caring for the flock has become so complicated a 
 thing, that administrative gifts and executive ability 
 have acquired a market value, and are accounted 
 almost as essential in the Christian minister as good- 
 ness of heart. And yet, after all, it is goodness of 
 heart that must lie behind all the activity and ani- 
 mate all the mechanism, or presently we find the rat- 
 tle of the wheels and shafts drowning the music of our 
 worship. As with the prophetic and the priestly sides 
 of the minister's work, so with the pastoral side ; the 
 pith, the heart of the thing has been the same from 
 the beginning, in spite of shifting forms and chan- 
 ging methods and new names. The essence of pas- 
 toral duty is sympathy ; in the eye of the true 
 shepherd his own flock is always his "beautiful 
 flock." To care for the needy in his distress, to 
 comfort the sorrowful, to cheer the desponding heart, 
 to win back the wandering, to seek the lost, and to 
 do this for the love of it, — such is true pastoral sue- 
 
PILOTAGE. 191 
 
 cess, such the kind of service that best reflects the 
 royalty of Christ. 
 
 The question next presents itself, — and a deeply 
 interesting question it is, — Did Christ intend this 
 Ministry of his to abide in the world as an institute 
 or as a succession ; which ? By an institute I mean 
 a form or mode of life which has permanency for one 
 of its main characteristics, but which is not so ab- 
 solutely dependent upon a continuous existence that 
 it can by no means be reproduced or reconstructed 
 if once broken up. Take monarchy, than which 
 there could not be a better illustration of my thought. 
 We speak of the institute of monarchy, meaning by 
 the phrase that method of civil government which 
 accords supreme authority to one person who is 
 theoretically irremovable. It is of the utmost im- 
 portance to the prestige of monarchy that there 
 should be associated with it the legend of a long past 
 during which power has been handed on from ruler 
 to ruler without break. Legitimacy is another thought 
 that consorts easily and pleasantly with monarchy. 
 Kings have always felt themselves strengthened, and, 
 in point of fact, have been greatly reinforced by the 
 prevalence of a popular belief in their divine right to 
 rule. As the anointed of the Lord, a king may do 
 and dare many things which subjects sceptical of 
 his being such, would not tolerate. And yet mon- 
 archy pure and simple, monarchy the institute, is 
 really independent of both of these adjuncts of an- 
 tiquity and legitimacy ; it can be established where 
 
192 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 it has never existed, and it can be restored in lands 
 where after having once flourished it was overthrown 
 and put away. We speak of the English monarchy 
 as having lasted a thousand years ; but this does not 
 mean that during that long period there has been 
 a continuous and unbroken line of kings and queens 
 whose titles to the crown were flawless. It is the 
 institute of monarchy that has endured ; the princi- 
 ple of legitimacy has suffered violence more than 
 once. Again, we have distinctions between different 
 kinds of monarchy : there is absolute monarchy, lim- 
 ited monarchy, hereditary monarchy, elective mon- 
 archy ; — these are all of them varieties of the one 
 institute, the only essential requirement of which is 
 that the social system shall be pyramidal, with one 
 man at the top. 
 
 Very unlike what I have called the institute is 
 the body known in law as the close corporation. 
 Here the element of succession is paramount. A 
 close corporation is made up of members empow- 
 ered to fill the vacancies in their own number as they 
 arise, and who are thus enabled to secure for the or- 
 ganism of which they are parts, a kind of earthly 
 immortality. But if, by any chance, death does be- 
 fall the corporation, there is then an utter end. The 
 institute, as we saw, may be revived, restored, re- 
 established; but the close corporation once dead is 
 dead for ever. This is the penalty it pays for resem- 
 bling so nearly as it does, in assimilative and repara- 
 tive power, the human body, and for enjoying a sort 
 
PILOTAGE. 193 
 
 of personal identity to which the institute lays no 
 claim. Under one or other of these two heads, most 
 of the existing opinions about the nature of the min- 
 istry may be marshalled. Men incline to think of 
 the thing either as admitting of revival and recon- 
 struction when occasion calls, or else as a succession 
 to which the characteristic of unbroken continuity 
 is all essential. Which of the two theories is right, 
 and which is wrong ? With some diffidence I ven- 
 ture to suggest that neither view is defensible unless 
 account be also taken of the other. Before hastily 
 stigmatizing this line of remark as unworthy, it may 
 be well to consider what there is to be said in behalf 
 of each of the two sides. It will facilitate the discus- 
 sion to call the one conception of the nature of the 
 ministry the institutional, and the other the succes- 
 sional idea. 
 
 In favor of the institutional idea may be pleaded, 
 first of all, the analogy of civil government, which is 
 itself plainly an institute rather than a succession. 
 The notion of a " social contract," as an historical 
 event of the remote past, in virtue of which man 
 came under government, has indeed been laughed 
 out of court ; but that it is possible for men to band 
 together, originate courts of justice, choose rulers, 
 and set up a state wholly out of continuity with any 
 previously existing authority, is too plain to need 
 demonstration. What is known in diplomacy as the 
 recognition of a new sovereignty — an act of frequent 
 occurrence — is evidence in point. But if the civil 
 
 13 
 
194 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 society may, under the stress of necessity, or of what 
 looks like necessity, make to itself rulers and guides 
 who stand in no direct successional relation to any 
 antecedent authorities, why may not the spiritual 
 society do the same? If a company of explorers, 
 adventurers, if you will, have the right, in entering 
 upon possession of some newly discovered and wholly 
 unoccupied territory in Central Africa, to set up a 
 civil order in virtue of their manhood, and of the 
 social bond that necessarily exists where two or three 
 are gathered together, why may they not also set up a 
 holy order, and call upon it to minister the word and 
 sacraments ? " Authority " is a subtle word not easy 
 to define ; but whatever it may mean, it is difficult to 
 see how anybody who believes both Church and State 
 to have come from God can deny under the one form 
 of social order what he concedes under the other ; can 
 admit, that is to say, the possible origination of a king, 
 while refusing to admit the possible origination of a 
 priest. Not to revive the somewhat stale illustration 
 of the desert island and the Bible washed ashore, let 
 us suppose every minister of the Christian religion, of 
 whatever name, the world over, were to be struck dead 
 to-night, would not the spiritual society, in virtue of 
 the powers lodged in it by the Head, be able to 
 reproduce the institute of the Ministry? Hooker, 
 than whom the science of Pohty owns no greater 
 master, evidently was of opinion that this question 
 should be answered in the affirmative. • This is what 
 he says : — 
 
PILOTAGE. 195 
 
 " Another extraordinary kind of vocation is, when the 
 exigence of necessity doth constrain to leave the usual 
 ways of the Church, which otherwise we would willingly 
 keep ; where the Church must needs have some ordained 
 and neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to or- 
 dain ; in case of such necessit}^, the ordinary institution 
 of God hath given oftentimes, and may give, place. And 
 therefore we are not simply without exception to urge a 
 lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continued 
 succession of bishops in every effectual ordination." ^ 
 
 Again, there is the very powerful argument deriva- 
 ble from observation of results. If a piece of steel is 
 shown me, I do not deny it to be steel merely because 
 1 happen to know that it was made by the Bessemer 
 process. That process was for some time looked at 
 suspiciously as an innovation ; but it held its ground, 
 and secured establishment and recognition, and for 
 the sufficient reason that the steel made in accordance 
 with its formula was found to be good steel. It is not 
 to be wondered at that men should reason after a like 
 fashion with respect to the ministry and the products 
 of the ministry. The proper product of the minis- 
 try is character. Bishops, priests, and deacons exist 
 primarily in order that souls may through their 
 instrumentality be rounded into symmetry, — made 
 what God meant them to be. Any ecclesiastical phi- 
 losophizing that tends to blur this great central fact 
 of all, is self-condemned. The Church is God's device 
 
 1 Eccles. Polity, Book VII. xiv. [11 j. 
 
196 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 for bringing spiritual fruit to perfection. If ever the 
 under-gardeners forget this, and from fear of " the 
 wild boar out of the wood " turn all their attention 
 to keeping the hedges in repair, the purpose of the 
 Householder is thwarted. 
 
 When, therefore, we see, as we cannot help seeing 
 unless our eyes are wilfully and persistently shut, 
 that unique product known as Christian character 
 abundantly developed under a ministry of the word 
 and sacraments that does not claim for itself succes- 
 sional validity, we are moved to cry. What does it 
 matter whether Holy Orders have the sort of legiti- 
 macy conferred by unbroken continuity of transmis- 
 sion or not? — here is the thing itself to produce which 
 Holy Orders were originally designed ; let us reason 
 back from the fruit to the tree, from the cluster to the 
 vine ; if the thing borne is good, it must be that the 
 stock from which it sprang is healthy. Moreover, this 
 position appears to be strongly buttressed by a most 
 suggestive precedent in Christ's own ministry. I 
 mean, of course, the case of the man whom even the 
 beloved Apostle desired to see formally condemned, 
 because, while following not with the Twelve, he yet 
 ventured upon casting out devils in the holy Name. 
 The parallelism here would seem to be perfect ; and 
 is, in fact, so singularly striking, that for those who 
 believe the Gospels to have been written for our learn- 
 ing, it must be hard not to see in it an intended lesson 
 for us of these denominational days. The man was 
 in the strictest sense of the word a volunteer. He 
 
PILOTAGE. 107 
 
 had received no commission, not even the most in- 
 formal one. But he had, so to say, all alone by him- 
 self, fallen in love with Jesus Christ ; and finding- 
 himself, like Stephen, full of faith and of the Holy 
 Ghost, had assumed to exercise that primary function 
 of the ministry of help, — the driving out of those 
 evil tenants that bar the gate of the soul against God's 
 entrance. 
 
 Very possibly some of the Apostles, with the story 
 of Dathan and Abiram fresh in mind, had looked to 
 see the earth open and swallow him up ; failing this, 
 the least they could expect was that his mouth should 
 be officially shut, and his exorcisms declared invalid. 
 But no, nothing of the sort ensued ; Christ was con- 
 tent simply to utter that weighty sentence, which 
 ought to be named the golden rule of ecclesiastical 
 polity, — "Forbid him not, for there is no man which 
 shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak 
 evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our 
 part." It is true that we have in another connec- 
 tion the contrasted saying, " He that is not for me 
 is against me ; " but there is no real conflict of pur 
 port in the two dicta. In declaring that whoever 
 is not for Him is against Him, Christ speaks in the 
 singular number, and what He has in mind is the 
 necessity of whole-heartedness in religion. Personal 
 loyalty, He is reminding us, admits of no compro- 
 mises. "No man can serve two masters" is his other 
 way of putting the same thought. But in his com- 
 ment on the doings of the self-appointed minister 
 
198 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 whom the duly authorized Apostles desired to see put 
 out of countenance, our Lord uses not the singular 
 but the plural. The word is not '' me " but " us," 
 and for the simple reason that in this case the ques- 
 tion of personal allegiance is not raised at all. It is 
 not so much as alleged that the man is casting out 
 devils boastfully in his own name ; he is confessedly 
 doing it in Christ's name. But if so he must be 
 personally on Christ's side, and wholly on Christ's 
 side. He would be powerless to cast out devils if he 
 were not. The only trouble with him is that he has 
 failed to discern, and to identify himself with, the 
 true " stream of tendency." And yet, in spite of this, 
 wliat he does is not thrown away ; the little tribu- 
 tary rills that flow with but slight momentum into 
 the river as it moves strongly on, may not seem to 
 add very much eitlier to the volume or to the swift- 
 ness of the current ; but in so far as they are " not 
 against" it, they may fairly enough be said to be 
 " for " it. The river could flow without any partic- 
 ular one of them; but they all help. Not to any 
 voluntary association for the promotion of Christian- 
 ity does the promise run that the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail against it, and yet there is nothing to 
 forbid that the rivers of the flood thereof should 
 make glad the city of God. Surely this is a better 
 way of estimating modern denominationalism in its 
 relation to Christendom as a whole, than to go rum- 
 maging about among the early centuries, bent on dis- 
 covering the particular heresies and sects to which 
 
PILOTAGE. 199 
 
 present-dav forms of Christianity may with most of 
 likelihood be compared. 
 
 And this gives me an easy point of transition to 
 the other side of the argument, for the argument, as 
 I began by insisting, has its two sides. Although 
 Christ was full of charity for the volunteer exorcist, 
 and flatly refused either to censure or to silence him. 
 He showed by the very language He employed that 
 He considered the advantage to lie with the main 
 body, — with those who were serving under a system 
 of orderly appointment. What other meaning can we 
 attach to those phrases, " with us," " on our side " ? 
 Who are included in these plurals ? Clearly and 
 beyond all question the Apostles themselves. There 
 is a side ; God's battle has begun ; and the Leader 
 says to his staff. Don't quarrel with anybody whom 
 you find fighting in my name, even if he be nothing 
 more than a skirmisher ; he is on our side. 
 
 Let us look then at some of the strong points of 
 the successional idea. The great advantage of strict 
 notions with respect to the orderly handing on of 
 authority is that they make for the interest of rever- 
 ence and tranquillity. Grant that there may be times 
 when it is needful to shock reverence and to break 
 up tranquillity, concede in other words the abstract 
 " right of revolution" for cause ; nevertheless, It will 
 hardly be disputed that alike in State and Church 
 reverence and tranquillity are desirable possessions 
 where they may be had. Hence even democracies 
 are careful not to dispense wholly with the visible 
 
200 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 and audible welding process whereby the incomhig 
 administration is fastened to the outgoing one. No 
 appearance of absolute fracture is permitted ; the gov- 
 ernment is, as we say, handed on. This conserves 
 reverence for authority, and helps the maintenance 
 of quietness ; for legitimacy takes sanction from the 
 past, and even Republics grow stronger after they 
 have had time to age. The mere fact of our know- 
 ing that not a civil government on earth can boast 
 of having held its authority in unbroken continuity 
 from time immemorial, does not nullify this sort of 
 reverence in us. True, we say to ourselves, there is 
 but one river of authority that flows on endlessly; all 
 power is of God ; but it is well to approximate as 
 nearly as we can to the stately movement of that 
 eternal stream. We will not needlessly and wantonly 
 break with the past. Hence we have in ecclesiastical 
 history the noteworthy fact, that spiritual commu- 
 nities to whom what I have called the successional 
 idea is bitterly repugnant because they cannot with- 
 out torturing the record reconcile it with their actual 
 beginnings, are often markedly tenacious of whatever 
 prestige may have come to the body denominational 
 by dint of long survival and continuance. They feel 
 that a slur is cast upon their ministry if it be ranked 
 with that of a sect born yesterday. But if there be 
 nothing at all in the successional idea, if the whole 
 notion of transmitted holy orders be delusive, anti- 
 democratic, and unspiritual, why should there be, 
 under the supposed circumstances, any such pride 
 
PILOTAGE. 201 
 
 of place, any disposition to look patronizingly on tlie 
 latest born in the denominational family ? Ouglit it 
 not rather, in its role of infant Church, to be wel- 
 comed and to have everything made pleasant for it ? 
 It would appear, therefore, that even those who repu- 
 diate in terms the successional principle, do tacitly 
 attach a certain amount of importance to it. They 
 are unwilling to base their ministry upon that idea ; 
 but neither do they object to seeing that idea become 
 historically associated with their ministry. Other 
 things being equal, they hold it desirable that author- 
 ity should be transmitted in an orderly and peaceable 
 manner, although if it were necessary to fight for the 
 institutional as against the successional conception of 
 the nature of the ministry, fight they would. 
 
 Broadly speaking, we may say that one of these 
 two ways of looking at the thing is characteristic of 
 the Catholic ; the other, of the Protestant mind. All 
 Romanists, most Anglicans, many Presbyterians, 
 make much of the successional aspect of the minis- 
 try. With more or less of insistence they demand of 
 any one who proposes to exercise what are commonly 
 known as sacred functions, his ecclesiastical creden- 
 tials. By what authority doest thou these things? 
 they ask ; And who gave thee this authority ? In 
 the other Christian communities the full proof of a 
 man's ministry is looked for in the present rather 
 than in the past. Can he and does he, as a matter of 
 fact, convert souls from sin to righteousness ? If he 
 can and does, then let there be no minute investiga- 
 
202 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 tion into pedigree, or captious search for title ; but let 
 the work authenticate the worker. 
 
 In the face of such divergencies as these, it would 
 seem as if any attempt at reconciliation must bear 
 failure written upon its face. The case looks still 
 more hopeless when we remind ourselves that these 
 contrasted estimates of the nature of the ministry 
 have their roots deep down in that subsoil of human 
 nature, which the ploughshare of logic does not so 
 much as touch. The causes that make some rnen 
 Nominalists and others Realists in philosophy, the 
 causes that have made your neighbor a conservative 
 and you a radical in politics, or vice versa, are resident 
 in a region back of consciousness. 
 
 *• Out of darkness come the hands 
 That reach through Nature, moulding man." 
 
 If therefore anybody imagines that it is in the power 
 of council, conference, or synod to put forth an utter- 
 ance potent to convert all the adherents of the institu- 
 tional view to the successional idea, or all the adherents 
 of the successional view to the institutional idea, I can 
 simply answer that, for myself, I am under no sach hal- 
 lucination. I have no faith in any possible emulsion 
 of oil and water ; and while I admire the industry, I 
 have small respect for the judgment of those sanguine 
 mathematicians, who in their devotion to impossible 
 tasks emulate Sisyphus and his rolling stone. I am 
 contented to believe that parallel lines continued to 
 infinity can never meet, transcendentalists to the con- 
 
PILOTAGE. 203 
 
 trary notwithstanding. And yet ideas that cannot be 
 theoretically reconciled admit sometimes of practical 
 adjustment. The solvltur amhulando principle applies 
 to other problems than that of motion. The differ- 
 ences of opinion that divide men upon the subject of 
 Church polity are really no wider than those that 
 sunder them in the region of political philosophy. 
 Engage a group of statesmen in a discussion of the 
 principles of international law, provoke a club of 
 political economists into a debate over the definition 
 of wealth, propound at a social science congress the 
 question of the true nature of punishment, and straight- 
 way almost as many judgments will emerge as there 
 are brains working. Nevertheless, the nations for the 
 most part live together in peace ; wealth, whatever 
 may be the true theory of it, is quietly amassed and 
 securely held ; and prison disciphne is maintained. 
 It is true, as I have already admitted, that behind our 
 unity in these civil and social matters there lies the 
 hidden arm of force, ready at any moment, as repre- 
 senting the convictions of the greater number, to pound 
 us into unity if we attempt anything subversive of 
 the established order. Yet, surely. Christians ought, 
 sooner or later, to learn under the compulsion of love 
 the lessons which citizens have to be taught by the 
 compulsion of force. 
 
 At any rate the men of the Lambeth Conference of 
 1888 were sanguine enough to account such an im- 
 proved state of things at least imaginable, even if not 
 imminent or probable. Their utterance upon the sub- 
 
204 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ject of the ministry has been, as was naturally to be ex- 
 pected, more sharply criticised than any other portion 
 of their platform. Some have seen in it an offensive 
 assertion of prerogative ; others have interpreted it 
 as an invitation to all men to turn Anglican without 
 delay ; still others have been moved to ask. Who are 
 these Bishops that they should venture thus to speak 
 before they have been spoken to ? And yet these 
 ministers of Christ in conference assembled could 
 scarcely have used more carefully guarded language, 
 supposing them to have felt it their duty to say any- 
 thing at all upon the subject. All they did was to 
 suggest a modus vivendi. Carefully avoiding the well- 
 known phrase " Apostolical Succession," which would 
 have committed them hopelessly to a particular phi- 
 losophy of the ministry, and made the winning of those 
 who hold to the institutional idea impossible, they 
 fastened on certain words, the characteristic of which 
 is, that they express a fact without at all insisting 
 upon any theory of the fact. " The Historic Episco- 
 pate," they said, " locally adapted in the methods of 
 its administration to the varying needs of the nations 
 and peoples called of God into the unity of his 
 Church." That government by oversight, which is 
 what " episcopacy " when translated means, has been 
 historically the prevailing method of polity in Chris- 
 tendom, certainly from the second century onwards, is 
 beyond dispute. That associated with this episcopacy 
 there has been a constant endeavor (whether success- 
 ful or no, I am not now arguing) to maintain orderly 
 
PILOTAGE. 205 
 
 succession, nobody denies. To what then does the 
 Bishops' suggestion amount except to this, that if we 
 are to have organic unity at all, it is more reasonable 
 to expect that it should be brought about under this 
 method of pilotage than under any other. There would 
 seem to be nothing either unreasonable or arrogant 
 in this. It is a simple falling back on fact. Think 
 as you please, the Bishops seem to say, about the 
 nature and the sanction of the Christian ministry. 
 All we have to urge is that if a harmonious and self- 
 consistent method of administering the word and the 
 sacraments is the thing sought, the voice of human 
 experience uttering itself through history suggests 
 that a system of oversight safe-guarded by careful- 
 ness in the transmission of authority is the more 
 excellent way. Had the Bishops said, " Take our 
 word for it, there has been no break anywhere in 
 our dynasty;" had they said, "Be ye sure of this, that 
 unless you company with us there is no grace in you," 
 they would, indeed, as seekers after reconciliation, have 
 made themselves a gazing-stock. But these are the 
 things, be it observed, which they did not say. 
 
 If it be urged that there is a little interval of cloudi- 
 ness between the New Testament days, when we see 
 Christ appointing Apostles and St. Paul appointing 
 deputies, and those not much later days, when by the 
 acknowledgment of all historians the system of over- 
 sight is found everywhere established throughout 
 Christendom, the answer is, that however fatal this 
 circumstance may be to alleged demonstrations of 
 
206 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 " apostolical succession," it does not lay so much as 
 a feather's weight of opprobrium upon the argument 
 for " the historic episcopate." As is well known, the 
 authentic Christian literature of the times immedi- 
 ately subsequent to the Apostolic age, is not abundant. 
 The Church grew noiselessly. 
 
 " The towers of IHum like a mist arose.'* 
 
 The city of God came not with observation, and the 
 builders were more careful to do their work than to 
 leave records of the process. If, however, as soon as 
 we come to the place where hints and vestiges begin 
 to abound, we again find the method of appointment 
 and commission as evidently the prevalent one, as we 
 saw it to be in the days on the other side of the cloud, 
 certainly the presumption, to use no stronger word, is 
 in favor of the belief that what was historical before, 
 and has been historical since, was also historical dur- 
 ing that interval period upon which doubt has, in post- 
 Reformation times, been cast. And yet a presump- 
 tion, strong as it may be, cannot be made the basis of 
 a proof ; and the Bishops did that for which posterity 
 will thank them, when they took the Historic Episco- 
 pate rather than the Apostolical Succession for the 
 key-note of their appeal. 
 
VI. 
 
 A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED, 
 
Politics are from God; not only allowing and approving governments, 
 but commanding them, for the better manifestation of his own glory, and 
 men's greater good, temporal and spiritual. Hence it is evident that 
 POLITICS, both CIVIL and ecclesiastical, belong unto theology, and 
 are but a branch of the same. — George Lawson. 
 
 Yes, by willing angels; by the Holy Ghost; by the inspired Word; by 
 indestructible sacraments; by many instruments and intermediates; but 
 chiefest of all by his own direct power in men both good and bad, in one 
 inspiring and in the other restraining, — He triumphantly defends the 
 Church and turns all her defeats into victories ; putting her out among the 
 instabilities of the world and the whirl of its mutations as one thing that 
 cannot be shaken; overthrowing nations, but preserving her; rolling a tide 
 here, in which empires, races, tongues, philosophies, arts, landmarks, codes, 
 thrones, and every conceivable grandeur and fancied immortality are 
 made to sink and disappear like foundered ships, while on this same tide, 
 and over its peopled sepulchres, He causes this one indestructible to ride. 
 
 N. J. Burton. 
 
VI. 
 
 A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 
 
 In commending to English-speaking Christendom 
 a particular form of governance and ministry as most 
 agreeable to past precedent taken in the large, the 
 Bishops at Lambeth were careful to speak guardedly. 
 Had they supplemented their mention of the Historic 
 Episcopate with nothing more gracious than Pilate's 
 peremptory "What I have written I have written," 
 the utterance which they intended as an invitation 
 would certainly have been construed as a demand. 
 As men appreciative of contemporary fact, while not 
 irreverent towards old tradition, they chose other- 
 wise. Cheerfully tolerant of those lines of national 
 diversity which they knew it to have been the con- 
 stant endeavor of the papal policy to wipe out, they 
 phrased their thought about governmental unity as 
 follows : " The Historic Episcopate ^ locally adapted in 
 the methods of its administration to the varyiyig needs 
 of the nations and peoples called of God irito the Unity 
 of his Church.''^ 
 
 Nothing could be more evident than the intention 
 here to distinguish between what is permanent and 
 what is variable in connection with the episcopal 
 
 14 
 
210 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 regimen. We have already studied the essentials of 
 episcopacy, as such, and found them to be reducible 
 under the two heads of Christlikeness as respects the 
 exercise of a threefold function, and continuity, pre- 
 sumable even if not demonstrable, as respects the 
 tenure and transfer of authority. These central char- 
 acteristics admit of no subtraction, they are of the 
 essence of the thing; but whatever is more than 
 these may count for surplusage. 
 
 Few Americans, for instance, a hundred years ago, 
 had any more adequate notion of a bishop's attributes 
 than was conveyed by the engraved portraits of emi- 
 nent prelates of the Georgian period that, here or 
 there adorned the walls of some colonial governor or 
 Church-of-England townsman. The prim episcopal 
 wig and ample display of lawn that made the body 
 of the picture, together with the mitre and pastoral 
 staff skilfully worked in as marginal features of the 
 plate, were most impressive in their way ; but the 
 savor was distinctly a savor of the things seen and 
 temporal. This disposition to look askance at epis- 
 copacy as being presumably first cousin to royalty, 
 was, of course, strongest in the States that had been 
 originally founded in the anti-prelatical interest ; but 
 no doubt it was well-pronounced all along the coast. 
 
 It must be confessed that the solicitude of the 
 new democracy was not unnatural. Those were 
 Erastian days ; and the very mention of episcopacy 
 carried with it thoughts of lions, unicorns, kings, 
 lords, and commons. As well might an ardent non- 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 211 
 
 juror of Sussex or Kent have tried to persuade the 
 village squire at a parish dinner to make two separ- 
 ate toasts of Throne and Altar, as White or Seabury 
 have labored to convince the Americans of their day, 
 that episcopacy was not in some sense an appanage 
 of the British Crown. How strongly this was felt by 
 White himself is evident throughout his pamphlet. 
 '* The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United 
 States Considered.''^ In the Preface to this brochure 
 he writes: "A prejudice has prevailed with many that 
 the Episcopal Churches cannot otherwise exist than 
 under the dominion of Great Britain. A Church 
 Government that would contain the constituent prin- 
 ciples would remove that anxiety which at present 
 hangs over the Church of England, and yet be inde- 
 pendent of foreign jurisdiction and influence on the 
 minds of many sincere persons." The very fact that 
 it had been found necessary to expurgate the Prayer- 
 book in order to banish the Royal Family from the 
 thoughts of the worshipping congregation, was of it- 
 self prima facie evidence that episcopacy ought to 
 be reckoned as part and parcel of the old order of 
 things now put away for ever. Moreover, were there 
 not here and there in parishes, all the way from 
 Portsmouth to Savannah, glebes, parsonages, Queen 
 Anne Bibles and communion plate, and other visible 
 possessions, the legal title to which had, since the 
 surrender at Yorktown, rested solely upon the un- 
 derstanding that the body claiming them as its prop- 
 erty was historically and actually the successor and 
 
212 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 legatee of the organization before known as The 
 Church of England in the Colonies ? And yet, in 
 spite of all the prejudices, convictions, and associa- 
 tions thus engendered, no intelligent American to- 
 day considers that there is any necessary connection 
 between a bishop, a powdered peruke, and a seat in 
 the House of Lords. We have learned something, 
 and are learning more. We perceive that the dis- 
 tinction between the transient and the permanent, so 
 valuable in our studies of all things else, has value 
 also in the criticism of episcopacy. It is evident that 
 the acceptance by a people of this particular polity 
 does not necessarily involve a reception of all the 
 concomitants that in the mind of another people 
 may have been wrapped up with it. 
 
 An interesting question now presents itself. In the 
 case of the nation to which we ourselves by birth or 
 by adoption belong, what are the special " needs " to 
 w^hich, in the "methods of its administration" the 
 Historic Episcopate might fairly be expected to 
 "adapt" itself? Here is this American people "called 
 of God into the unity of his Church," how shall the 
 Historic Episcopate mould itself into harmony with 
 the race instincts it here encounters ? 
 
 There is, of course, a base and unworthy sense in 
 which this notion of adaptation may be entertained ; 
 with that we have nothing to do. Any modification 
 of polity that should involve the lowering by a hair's 
 breadth of the standard of holiness whether for priests 
 or people would be fatal. There are American char- 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 213 
 
 acteristics to which the Historic Episcopate could 
 never adapt itself without playing traitor to the 
 Bishop of bishops, the Shepherd of all souls. 
 
 But what are the great structural principles of 
 social life to which this nation, as a nation, stands 
 committed ? What maxims with respect to govern- 
 ance and polity and organization have become such 
 current coin among us as to seem axiomatic ? Ac- 
 curately to distinguish these Americana will be to 
 take a long step towards understanding what, in our 
 own case at least, the Lambeth language means. 
 
 Prominent among the better characteristics of our 
 national mind stands reverence for what is constitu- 
 tional, as contrasted with what is arbitrary, in the 
 exercise of power. This trait came to us with our 
 English blood, having been perhaps intensified by a 
 century of life under a written constitution. Not 
 that there is any special efficacy in written consti- 
 tutions which unwritten ones may not and do not 
 share ; only it will scarcely be denied that the em- 
 bodiment of great constitutional principles in actual 
 terms, known and read of all men, does tend to con- 
 centrate, and by concentrating to intensify, a people's 
 reverence for its organic law. The document be- 
 comes the visible symbol of that peculiar combination 
 of thoughts and feelings which gives a nation its 
 personal identity, and is cherished accordingly. The 
 Count de Maistre, a profound thinker on this sub- 
 ject, in his dislike for whatever he suspects of hav- 
 ing been extemporized, goes the length of denying 
 
2U THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 that there ever was or can be any such thing as a 
 written constitution in the true sense of the word.^ 
 Had he hved to see the centenary of the Consti- 
 tution of the United States, he might possibly have 
 modified the harshness of his utterances upon this 
 point. He was fond of buttressing his statements 
 with citations from Holy Scripture, and, had he 
 looked, he might have found a precedent for written 
 constitutions as far back as the days of the Judges. 
 " Then Samuel," the record runs, " told the people the 
 manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and 
 laid it up before the Lord." And yet, no doubt, the 
 material out of which Samuel made his book was con- 
 stitutional material ; there was precedent, more or less 
 abundant, for the " manner of the kingdom ; " and De 
 Maistre must be allowed to be right, at least so far 
 as this, that when wise men write constitutions they 
 never do it off-hand and de novo, but only seek to put 
 into words things already found by experience to be 
 true. 
 
 The great value of a constitution, whether writ- 
 ten or only traditional, lies in its efficacy as a barrier 
 against despotism. This is what it means for a mon- 
 archy to be "limited ;" the thing that limits is the con- 
 stitution, which imposes on the kingdom its "manner" 
 or fixed form, to wit, the boundary lines that may not 
 be overstepped. We are accustomed to speak of the 
 United States as being that phenomenal thing, a na- 
 
 1 Essai sur le Principe Generateur des Constitutions Politiques, 
 § ix. 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 215 
 
 tion "born in a day," and we pride ourselves on being 
 able to name the day ; but this is questionable talk. 
 The blossom of the century plant, when at last it 
 bursts, has all the suddenness of a miracle ; but only 
 the patient absorption of much now forgotten sunshine 
 has made the flowering possible. The Constitution 
 of the United States was not created instantaneously 
 out of nothing. Genius had much to do with it, but 
 Divine Providence had more. Its very first para- 
 graph presupposes a knowledge of antecedent facts. 
 Pentecost rather than the Fourth of July is the day 
 that ought to be honored as the real birthday of what 
 we now know as civil liberty. It was then, to speak 
 accurately, that Christendom began to be. For is 
 it not clear that only by such a general diffusion of 
 right-mindedness as Christ's religion has brought to 
 pass, can government of a people by laws of its own 
 making, and rulers of its own choosing, be possible ? 
 Just in proportion as God pours out his spirit on all 
 flesh, can all flesh be trusted to walk alone. The 
 old attempts at free government perished, " having 
 not the Spirit." Even Samuel's limited monarchy 
 came to naught. But for a world baptized with the 
 Holy Ghost, better things are possible. Government 
 of the many by the few is necessary when the many 
 are in the dark, and only the few have light ; but when 
 the many get the light, then government by the few 
 becomes an anachronism, the hour for self-government 
 has struck. The de-Christianized race or nation loses 
 this self-governing faculty ; and that is the very peril 
 
216 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 which is confronting us to-day. The human body, as 
 St. Paul so clearly discerned, is the only adequate 
 emblem or parable of the perfect social state, and 
 the human body, as we know, is governed in all its 
 motions by a pervasive indwelling spirit. The power 
 that opens or shuts the hand is a power transmitted 
 along threads of communication which are hidden, and 
 it asserts itself from within. When the crutch and 
 the splint are brought into use, it is instantly per- 
 ceived by observers that something has gone w^rong. 
 Hurt of one sort or another must have befallen the 
 man, we say, or these outward assistances would not 
 have been needed. The healthy body has all the es- 
 sential mechanism of motion within itself. This is 
 the image of the thoroughly Christianized community, 
 every member of which speaks and acts as he is 
 moved to do by the spirit of God uttering itself in 
 and through the conscience. That we are far enough 
 from this ideal condition, I need not waste breath in 
 showing, but that this is the only working hypothesis 
 upon which a democracy can hope to enjoy perma- 
 nence is a point which Christian teachers ought to 
 emphasize more strenuously than they do. 
 
 Now the constitution of the Church — 1 mean the en- 
 tire Church, "Holy Church throughout all the world" 
 — is an unwritten body of practical maxims which have 
 accumulated under the teaching of the Spirit. There 
 is, as we know, electricity in action, and again there 
 is electricity stored, put away in reserve for use when 
 needed ; there is light in action, and again there is 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 217 
 
 light garnered and laid up in the veins of coal. So 
 with the spirit of wisdom, for the Spirit of God is 
 the spirit of wisdom, — this also admits of accumula- 
 tion ; this also may be put away in store, secreted. 
 Thus the constitution of any given State — and the 
 same can be said of the constitution of any national 
 Church — is simply so much accumulated wisdom as it 
 may have been given to that State or to that Church 
 to discern and to embody. The constitution is to the 
 government, whether civil or ecclesiastical, precisely 
 what the balance-wheel is to the watch ; it secures 
 the administration of affairs upon settled principles, 
 rather than by freak or whim or passing impulse. If 
 America and England deserve to be called the freest 
 countries of the earth, it is because they, more con- 
 sistently and more thoroughly than any of their sister 
 nations, have carried out and embodied this concep- 
 tion of what government ought to be. This Anglo- 
 American ideal stands forth the most clearly when we 
 contrast it with absolutism on the one hand, and with 
 out-and-out democracy on the other. Under absolu- 
 tism, the ruler is supposed to hold a deposit of power 
 directly intrusted to him by the Almighty, and what 
 he says is law ; under democracy pure and simple, 
 the voice of the people is alleged to be the only au- 
 thentic voice of God, and though it shout one thing 
 to-day and the contradictory of it to-morrow, it must 
 be accepted as God's voice all the same. But under 
 a free government, properly so-called, the voice of the 
 people is accepted as the trustworthy index of the 
 
218 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 divine mind only in so far as it may be found upon 
 examination to be in harmony with the great sum 
 total of accumulated wisdom into possession of which 
 the children of men have, through the experience of 
 many generations, been gradually brought. This la- 
 boriously earned increment of wisdom is what makes 
 a constitution. Doubtless, that is the supremely-fav- 
 ored society in which " the common sense of most " 
 avails to hold in check the inevitable irrationality and 
 waywardness of some ; only in defining and determin- 
 ing our " most," we must be very careful not to be 
 misled by merely temporary majorities ascertained by 
 cast of ballot, count of heads, or show of hands, but 
 to look rather to that great multitude of the wise and 
 good of all times, times present and times past, whose 
 judgment on the points at issue stands recorded. 
 
 In view of the profound attachment entertained 
 for these principles by the American people, it is 
 plain that no episcopate how historical soever will 
 be likely to commend itself to them as having been 
 locally adapted in the methods of its administration 
 to their own particular need, unless it be a constitu- 
 tional episcopate. 
 
 This is the secret of the deep distrust entertained 
 by many, of the unitive schemes urged by the lov- 
 able and saintly Muhlenberg and his associates, in 
 the so-called " Memorial Movement " of forty years 
 ago. The plan was for the Bishops of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church to go forward on their own re- 
 sponsibility, and quite independently of any powers 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 219 
 
 conferred on them in terms at their consecration, 
 to ordain ministers of the Gospel who should serve 
 wholly on the outside of Anglican lines. But it 
 was felt, and I venture to think rightly felt, by the 
 greater number, that however desirable it might be 
 for the Episcopal Church to come into closer com- 
 munication with those beyond its pale, it could not 
 be right for any Bishop who had taken upon his lips 
 
 the words, " In the name of God, Amen, I, N , 
 
 do promise conformity and obedience to the doctrine, 
 discipline, and worship of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in the United States of America," — that it 
 could not be right, I say, for any Bishop, so pledged 
 and sworn, to perform acts of which neither the Con- 
 stitution nor the Ordinal of the Church whose Bishop 
 he was, made any mention. To the working of a 
 constitutional episcopate it is essential that Bishops 
 speak and act constitutionally. 
 
 We shall return by and by to this question of 
 the connection between constitutional methods and 
 eirenic plans ; but, meanwhile, I note a second gov- 
 ernmental principle as one to which the American 
 mind is indissolubly wedded, namely, legislation by 
 representation in contrast with legislation by edict. 
 As the constitutional principle is the guarantee that 
 power, whether legislative, judicial, or executive, shall 
 not be arbitrarily employed regardless of the com- 
 mon understanding, either tacitly maintained or else 
 registered in some great charter, so the representa- 
 tive principle is our guarantee that the current laws 
 
220 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 of the land shall be the expression of the people's will 
 and hear the stamp of their assent. Here, as before, 
 the Christian religion enters in as the controlling 
 factor in the problem. How is it conceivable that 
 any people can safely be entrusted with the making 
 of its own laws, except it be a people in whose heart 
 are God's ways? Just as really, therefore, may it 
 be said of representative as of constitutional govern- 
 ment, that without a doctrine of the Spirit it is futile. 
 At any rate, whatever may be thought of the applica- 
 tion of this doctrine to the State, there ought to be 
 no doubt of our duty to recognize its workings in the 
 Church. Certainly to the body of believers, if not to 
 the Commonwealth, the Pentecostal promise runs that 
 the law from having been an imposition from with- 
 out shall become an utterance from within. It is this 
 reversal of the point of view that really makes the 
 difference between the two Testaments, and it was 
 upon this issue that Moses, man of God, went out of 
 the world's premiership, and Jesus, Son of God, came 
 in. This is the democracy of the Magnificat^ and the 
 only democracy that can stand. To this idea of law- 
 making by fairly elected representatives, the Anglo- 
 American mind is knitted by tendons that bleed if 
 you cut them, and no episcopate that should seek to 
 waive or to nullify this feature of our social life could 
 for a moment allege with any show of reason that 
 it had been locally adapted in the methods of its ad- 
 ministration to the needs of the people of the United 
 States. 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 221 
 
 And here I bid you note the encouraging fact, that 
 with respect to the desirability of law-making by repre- 
 sentation, American Christendom, with the exception 
 of the Roman Catholic portion of it, is already prac- 
 tically at one. Churches organized on the principle 
 of independency cannot of course permit the exercise 
 of legislative power by any body larger than the local 
 congregation ; though even these have their councils 
 and conferences, membership of which is conferred by 
 the representative method. But when it comes to the 
 case of those denominations that aim at organizing 
 themselves on national lines, it is safe to say that 
 the difference of principle involved in their respective 
 methods of legislation is so slight as to be inappre- 
 ciable. Save for a few catch- words of no importance 
 worth the mentioning, a man with his eyes shut would 
 scarcely know whether he were in the Presbyterian 
 General Assembly, the Methodist General Conference, 
 or the Episcopal General Convention. What does it 
 matter whether a measure pending in a deliberative 
 body be called a " canon " or an " overture " ? It is 
 substantially the same thing in both cases, namely, 
 an attempt to give shape to w^hat is believed to be 
 the popular will, by the representative method. It is 
 true that in one of the bodies 1 just mentioned, — the 
 Episcopal General Convention, — the law-making has 
 to be done by what is known as the concurrent action 
 of two houses, each of which has a power of veto 
 upon the decisions of the other ; but this, instead of 
 makin": it the less American, only makes it the more 
 
222 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 SO ; for legislation by single chamber has never found 
 favor in this country, but, on the contrar}^, our civil 
 laws, both State and Federal, have to run the gaunt- 
 let of two sets of critics before they can be engrossed. 
 For ecclesiastical purposes either "council" or "synod" 
 is a far better word than " convention," which to the 
 American sense smacks of a political flavor ; and it is 
 pleasant to think how entirely at home in the popular 
 branch of the national synod or council of " The 
 United Church of the United States " we should all 
 find ourselves. 
 
 A third American characteristic is fondness for a 
 strong executive, when this may be had without any 
 sacrifice of the guarantees of constitutional and legisla- 
 tive freedom. Our people almost worship efficiency. 
 They like the man who in times of dimness and diffi- 
 culty can say, I take the responsibility. In this re- 
 gard episcopacy needs no adaptation ; it is adapted 
 already, and it is this very characteristic that to-day 
 is commending it to the American mind. Fatherhood 
 and leadership make the very essence of episcopacy, 
 and in the task of prosecuting spiritual conquests, 
 winning a people for God, fatherhood and leadership 
 are what are needed most. The father's love and wis- 
 dom, the leader's clear-sightedness and dash, — what 
 missionary qualifications are there that compare with 
 these ? In fact, is it not true that every denomination 
 of Christians has already, in one shape or another, an 
 episcopate of its own ? Is there one among them all 
 that does not look with more or less of deference to 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 223 
 
 its leading spirits, its controlling minds ? So true is 
 this, that the late Dean of Westminster with char- 
 acteristic ingenuity proposed that the argument for 
 episcopacy should be shifted from sacerdotal grounds 
 altogether, and made to rest on the well-established 
 sociological fact that power of leadership is the in- 
 heritance of only a certain percentage of human kind. 
 
 With St. Paul to back me in my choice of words, 
 I cannot think that 1 shall seem to you to be lower- 
 ing the subject, if, while dwelling upon this phase of 
 it, I call attention to the way in which efficiency is 
 secured in handicrafts. In the familiar titles " fore- 
 man," "journeyman" and "apprentice," do we not see 
 reflected Bishop, Priest, and Deacon ? And is it not 
 true that such a partitioning of functions, such a 
 distribution of effort, lies bedded in the very nature 
 of things, quite apart from all question of apostolical 
 precedent and canonical usage ? Contractor, carpen- 
 ter, helper, — can you build your house without these ? 
 Yes, perhaps, after a fashion ; but in house-building 
 on a large scale it is wise to allow for the employ- 
 ment of all these. It is a homely illustration, I 
 grant you, of the truth that a three-fold cord is not 
 quickly broken, but then we must remember that the 
 highest verities and the humblest often lie close to- 
 gether. The parables of our Lord are in the same 
 condemnation, if condemnation it be. 
 
 The Hegelian philosophy of the Trinity finds strength 
 in the fact that it makes appeal to the familiar data of 
 consciousness, and it may be that my work-a-day argu- 
 
224 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ment for Bishops, Priests, and Deacons may not prove 
 the less persuasive for having been based upon the 
 experience of common life. Efficiency is intrinsically 
 a homely theme, and must needs draw its illustra- 
 tions from the prosaic side of life ; but then we have 
 to remember that Martha's place in the one house- 
 hold of God is as real and as necessary as Mary's. 
 The ministers of Christ are servers always, and of 
 servers it is required that they be found efficient. 
 
 Another principle very precious to the Anglo- 
 American mind is that of the maintenance of or- 
 ganic unity by what is known as the federal method, 
 — the combination, that is to say, of the two ideas of 
 sovereignty and of what has been happily called " sub- 
 sovereignty ; " the sovereignty being resident in the 
 Union, and the sub-sovereignty in the States. Here 
 again we shall discover that episcopacy suffers no vio- 
 lence by adaptation, but, on the contrary, lends itself 
 with cheerful readiness to meet what is required of it. 
 For, when we think of it, every rightly-ordered com- 
 munity is a union of households, each of which has 
 its head. Just as the molecule is the unit of crystalline 
 structure and the cell the unit of vegetable structure, so 
 is the family the unit of social structure. The aggre- 
 gate may be larger or smaller, so small perhaps as to 
 be called a tribe, so large as to be called a nation ; but, 
 whether tribe or nation, when analyzed it is found to 
 be made up of families, each one of which, while con- 
 ceding sovereignty to the aggregate, retains meanwhile 
 a sub-sovereignty proper to itself, each father being 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 225 
 
 the head of his own household. In ecclesiastical 
 sociology, what would seem to answer best to this 
 relation between the family and the aggregate of 
 families ? Most evidently a like relation between 
 the group that clusters itself about one spiritual 
 leader who answers to the father, and the aggregate 
 of such groups. If now for leader or father, we read 
 bishop ; and for aggregate, read national or provincial 
 Church, as the case may be, have we not the very 
 thing that corresponds perfectly with the American 
 conception of organic unity through federalism ? 
 
 I should like to pause here and dwell upon the 
 highly suggestive and sympathetic bearing of all 
 this on the ecclesiastical system known as Con- 
 gregationalism, or, in its still more elementary form, 
 as Independency. The great truth embedded in Inde- 
 pendency, and it cannot be too strongly emphasized, 
 is the sacredness of the ecclesiastical unit, and the 
 insistence that this unit shall be maintained by a 
 personal bond, an actual tie knitting the teacher to 
 the taught. Independency insists that without the 
 molecule there can be no crystal, without the cell no 
 plant; and if in its zeal in this direction it has suf- 
 fered the crystal and the plant themselves to fall out 
 of mind and be forgotten, we ought not for that reason 
 to be indifferent to the value of the lesson which the 
 story of Congregationalism in America, and especially 
 in New England, teaches. The Massachusetts or 
 Connecticut parish of early eighteenth-century days, 
 conterminous as it was with the township, and so 
 
 15 
 
226 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ordered that the whole population, men, women, and 
 children, came under the spiritual headship and guid- 
 ance of one pastor, was probably the best illustration 
 of the ideal of what I have called the ecclesiastical 
 unit, that Christianity in this country has ever seen. 
 Assuredly no bishop of Anglican lineage has ever, on 
 this side of the ocean, exercised a territorial episco- 
 pate (understanding the word for the moment in its 
 simple sense of spiritual oversight) that could com- 
 pare for general acceptance with the unchallenged 
 rule of an Edwards or a Davenport. That Congre- 
 gationalism even on its own chosen ground should 
 have failed to maintain its standing order, is a fact 
 for which those who account the system an imperfect 
 and one-sided one, have of course their own explana- 
 tion. Upon this phase of the subject it would be un- 
 gracious to dwell ; my main purpose in referring to 
 Independency at all having been my wish to bear 
 testimony to the unspeakable value of the" principle 
 by which it has ever set such store ; namely, the truth 
 that the rudimentary unit of the visible body of Christ 
 is the group of souls clustered about one personal 
 centre, himself father or shepherd according as we 
 account his group to be " family " or " flock." 
 
 Whatever bright prospects may be beckoning for- 
 ward the Episcopal Church in the United States, of one 
 thing we may be sure, that if this primeval truth concer- 
 ning the unit is forgotten, there is nothing but disaster 
 in store. No aggrandizement of the diocese can possi- 
 bly make up for the loss of the personal tie that ought 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 227 
 
 to link a shepherd of souls to every separate soul in 
 the flock over which the Holy Ghost may have made 
 him overseer. Should God grant this unity move- 
 ment success upon a large scale, the number of souls 
 to be cared for would be so great that bishoprics 
 would shrink to very modest territorial limits indeed. 
 In that event Counties might become Dioceses, and 
 States Provinces, — a reversion in one respect to the 
 well-known purpose of the organizers of the American 
 Episcopal Church, who were ever solicitous to observe 
 State lines. Under such an arrangement, the organi- 
 zation of the Cluirch would answer to the organization 
 of the country almost as face to face, the aggregates 
 of the ecclesiastical units corresponding to the aggre- 
 gates of civil units perfectly. 
 
 But what of the difficulty at the other end of the 
 line ? When it comes to the matter of aggregating 
 our ecclesiastical units, where, some one may very 
 naturally ask, are we to stop? What logical land- 
 ing-place is there short of the seven hills where Leo 
 sits ? Why should the Christian Church, spiritual 
 corporation that it is, take any notice of civil bound- 
 ary lines, which, as we know, are here to-day and 
 there to-morrow? Would it not be better to accept 
 the principle of oecumenicity as the Roman Church 
 presents it to us, and consent to merge all our 
 units in the one great Latin union which is so ready 
 to receive and to absorb them ? This raises a point 
 so interesting that we cannot but wish to consider 
 it, so crucial that we have no right to shun it. The 
 
228 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 philosophy of national churches, the whole question of 
 their genesis and their right to be, is a matter that 
 greatly needs clearing up. As everybody knows, they 
 are the hete noire of Rome. It was the national char- 
 acter of the English Church that made it what, before 
 these Tractarian days, good Anglicans delighted to 
 call it, " the bulwark of the Reformation." To fight 
 a nation up in arms for what it believed to be its spiri- 
 tual liberties was found even by a world-monarch no 
 laughing matter. 
 
 But why, if we admit the desirability of any ag- 
 gregation of local churches, is not Rome right in 
 the contention? Why is not her inviting oecumen- 
 icity a better and truer thing than our eagerly 
 sought, and as yet confessedly not found national- 
 ity ? National Churches, I answer, find their sanction 
 and warrant in these words of Jesus Christ, "My 
 kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom were of 
 this world, then would my servants fight." Rome 
 has misconceived this sentence as seriously as ever 
 Pilate did. Its true import is to this effect, that 
 since Christ's kingdom is a spiritual organism it 
 cannot push itself by material methods, but, so far 
 as localization and delimitation are concerned, must 
 conform itself to such boundary lines as the civil 
 power for its own purposes may have drawn. The 
 State is the great force-organization, the Church is 
 the great love-organization, and the moment the love- 
 organization begins to say, " I insist that the territory 
 shall be divided thus and so," that moment it usurps 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 229 
 
 the functions of the force-organization, discredits its 
 own title of " kingdom of heaven " and lapses into 
 worldliness. The papal theologians are fond of see- 
 ing in the two swords the disciples in the Garden of 
 Gethsemane offered Christ, a symbol of the combined 
 temporal and spiritual authorities ; but it is more nat- 
 ural to infer from our Lord's words, " It is enough," 
 that his purpose was to disavow swords altogether. 
 " What have I to do with weapons such as these ? " 
 He seems to say ; and his healing of the hurt of Mal- 
 chus on the spot points to the same conclusion. For 
 that kind of work, He would have them understand, 
 He was not responsible ; his servants had misunder- 
 stood Him. How they have gone on misunderstand- 
 ing Him through all the so-called Christian ages, we 
 know only too well. The true answer, therefore, to 
 Rome's demand that there shall be a world-wide 
 visible Church is this, — Your motive is good, but 
 your endeavor is premature. (Ecumenicity is of itself a 
 most desirable thing ; but you are in too great a hurry 
 to catholicize the world. The love-organization can- 
 not hope to be visibly unified over the whole globe, 
 until the force-organization shall first so have unified 
 itself. Hear what St. Paul saith, " That is not first 
 which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after- 
 ward that which is spiritual." This is as true of the 
 ecclesiastical as it is of the human organism. Our 
 aggregate of units can be no larger than civil govern 
 ment will let it be. We Christians desire to see the 
 aggregates become as large as may be, and we should 
 
230 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 hail with joy that advent of the " parliament of man " 
 which would make oecumenicity possible ; but, for the 
 present, the national church is the largest union at- 
 tainable, and with this we must rest content. There 
 being no united world there can be no united church 
 of that dimension ; but no such moral impossibility 
 forbids our hope of a United Church of the United 
 States, for the course of this nation has happily been 
 so peaceably ordered by God's governance, that it 
 ought to be possible here for his Church to serve Him 
 " in all godly quietness," which is but another name 
 for unity. This is our answer to Rome, and it is a 
 sufficient answer. 
 
 We come back to the point from which we started, 
 namely, the feasibility of unifying American Chris- 
 tianity by the method known as consolidation. In 
 the light of all that has been said, what practical 
 measures would seem to be possible ? One resort is 
 ever open to us, and perhaps, in the immediate pres- 
 ent, only one, " Men ought always to pray." Nor do 
 we need, for that matter, to frame any new or un- 
 tried supplication ; " Thy kingdom come," covers it 
 all. But how may we best follow up our prayer ? We 
 are American Christians, with certain grave respon- 
 sibilities resting on us in virtue of our being Ameri- 
 cans rather than Latins or Orientals ; what may we do 
 to make possible that concerted action on the part of 
 God's people in this land, the lack of which entails 
 such scandal ? This much, at least, to start with, — 
 We may recognize the fact that the material for the 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 231 
 
 United Church of the United States is already pro- 
 vided in the persons of all those who b}" whatever 
 hand have been baptized into the Name of the Father, 
 tlie Son, and the Holy Ghost. These constitute that 
 Church in posse which we would see become the 
 Church in esse. These make the citizenship of the 
 Kingdom. But how may the existing organizations 
 help the movement on ? Here are these ten or twelve 
 great churches ; what can they severally do to bring 
 to pass the one still greater Church ? I cannot without 
 presumption venture upon offering counsel to any 
 save that single one of the too numerous group to 
 which I am personally attached. To her, as her 
 loyal minister, I have a perfect right to speak, so 
 that I do it modestly and out of an honest heart, no 
 matter how little the thing said may deserve to 
 engage her thought. 
 
 My belief is that the Episcopal Church may best help 
 forward the movement we have been studying, by a 
 gradual and tentative moulding of her present Con- 
 stitution into a closer conformity with the principles 
 formally enunciated at Lambeth. This statement of 
 essentials, although never given the force of statute 
 law by binding enactment, has, nevertheless, met 
 with such complete acquiescence on the part of the 
 clergy and people of the Anglican Communion through- 
 out the world, that it may almost be said to have 
 been adopted by general consent. What now would 
 it mean to conform the written Constitution of the 
 American Episcopal Church to the principles of the 
 
232 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Lambeth platform ? This one thing it would mean if 
 no more ; the doing so would be the best possible 
 evidence of our sincerity and good faith in putting 
 forward the proposal in question. Some may think 
 that to let this consideration sway us would be a com- 
 promise of our self-respect, — a sort of acknowledg- 
 ment that others had had a right to suspect us of 
 shamming. But if our chief solicitude in this mat- 
 ter be to preserve our dignity intact, we shall ac- 
 complish little. The question is, Have not others a 
 perfect right to expect that, after having said we 
 would unite with them on certain terms, we should go 
 on and provide some method of making the accept- 
 ance of the terms a practicable thing ? There is no 
 such method, nor can there be, unless by way of 
 constitutional enactment. Again I throw out the 
 caution, Let us shun the rock on which the Memorial 
 Movement split. Lot all things be done in order. 
 Since the year 1789 the Constitution of the American 
 Episcopal Church has been amended fourteen times. 
 No proposal still further to amend it can therefore prop- 
 erly be stigmatized as presumptuous or unprecedented. 
 One great improvement, entirely in the line of the 
 Lambeth proposals, would be to place at the very 
 beginning of the instrument the confession of our 
 faith.i Surely the constitution of a Church is the 
 natural place to look when one is seeking to find out 
 
 ^ The Council of Trent set a good example in this respect, if 
 in no other. In the forefront of its dogmatic utterances it plants 
 the Nicene Creed. 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 233 
 
 what such Church considers fundamental to her very 
 being. But what do we find greeting us at the thresh- 
 old of the Constitution of the American Episcopal 
 Church ? We find certain provisions regulating the time 
 and place for the meeting of the General Convention, 
 and specifying what shall be done in case of the break- 
 ing out of an epidemic disease in the town or city pre- 
 viously designated for such meeting. This is lament- 
 ably, and but for the seriousness of the subject, I should 
 say, ludicrously inadequate. Doubtless, what prevented 
 the framers of the Constitution from putting anything 
 doctrinal into the first article of that instrument was 
 the sense of a certain ill-defined duty of allegiance to 
 the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. 
 They failed to perceive, and considering the novelty 
 of the situation we cannot wonder at it, — that, in 
 drawing up a written constitution for a new national 
 Church, they were doing a thing that ought to work 
 the supersession of the Thirty-nine Articles altogether.^ 
 They were undertaking to do for the Church what the 
 members of the Constitutional Convention, about the 
 
 * So long ago as 1782, Bishop, then Doctor, White wrote as 
 follows with respect to the status of the Thirty-nine Articles : 
 " For the doctrinal part, it would perhaps be sufficient to demand 
 of all admitted to the ministry, or engaged in ecclesiastical legis- 
 lation, the questions contained in the Book of Ordination, which 
 extends no further than an acknowledgment of the Scriptures as a 
 rule of faith and life ; yet some general sanction may be given to 
 the Thirty-nine Articles, so as to adopt their leading sense, which 
 is here proposed rather as a chain of union, than for exacting 
 entire uniformity of sentiment." (The Case of the Episcopal 
 Churches in the United States considered, 1).13). 
 
234 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 same time, did for the State, — namely, to put in writ- 
 ing the organic law. Their duty with respect to the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, then as now a part of the 
 organic law of the Church of England, was to incor- 
 porate into the new Constitution of the Church so 
 much of their substance as they held to be essential, 
 and to let the rest drop. Instead of doing this, they 
 allowed the question of the true status of the Articles 
 to drag along in an indeterminate way until the year 
 1801, when at last a formal recognition was accorded 
 them. But it must be confessed that ever since their 
 transfer from English to American soil, the Tliirty- 
 nine Articles have had a provisional and transitory 
 look. One of them has a title with nothing after it. 
 To another a saving clause has been added, to warn 
 readers of the Second Book of Homilies against cer- 
 tain references therein contained to the constitution 
 and laws of England. Surely it can never have been 
 imagined that of such sort would be the permanent 
 dogmatic constitution of a great Church. Why not 
 look facts in the face ? The Thirty-nine Articles were 
 originally drawn up by the English Church as a defence 
 against the Rome of the sixteenth century. Rome 
 having deliberately changed her base in the year of 
 our Lord 1870, does not our elaborate battery look, to 
 the critical eye of present-day strategists, a little out of 
 range ? Would not the embodiment in the first Article 
 of our Constitution of what the Bishops at Lambeth laid 
 down with respect to the Scriptures and the Creeds, 
 completely meet our needs ? In fact, upon any hy- 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 235 
 
 pothesis of consolidation, are we not in honor and 
 in duty bound, if we propose to stand by what these 
 Bishops said, to make this very adaptation ? It may be 
 that the time will come when' the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 bound up with the Westminster Confession (not thrown 
 aside, but laid aside), will be given a place of honorary 
 retirement amont!- the thcolo2:ical archives of the Enji:- 
 lish-speaking peoples. To disown these old confessions 
 would be for the great communions with whose history 
 they are respectively associated an act of deep ingrati- 
 tude ; to disuse them might be an act of discriminating 
 wisdom. 
 
 One other, and only one other, constitutional 
 point needs mentioning, and that is the matter of 
 worship. Probably no single feature of the unity 
 movement has occasioned more disquietude to con- 
 servative minds in the Episcopal Church than the 
 absence from the Lambeth platform of any saving- 
 clause with respect to a prescribed form of worship. 
 Except as respects the actual words of institution in 
 the case of the two sacraments, the silence of the plat- 
 form upon the subject of devotional formularies is com- 
 plete. But does this mean that the favorers of unity 
 upon the Lambeth lines desire to alter by so much as 
 a letter the Book of Common Prayer, or to abridge in 
 the slightest degree the privileges of those to whom 
 the aroma of its devotions is as the breath of life ? 
 Certainly not. Perhaps no greater calamity could 
 befall either English or American religion than would 
 be involved in the disappearance of that particular 
 
236 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 type of Christian character which a loyal and faithful 
 use of the Book of Common Prayer engenders. The 
 really desirable thing is, not the destruction, but the 
 conservation of any and all types that are good. But 
 what is to hinder that within the pale of a consoli- 
 dated Church various methods of worship should be 
 in use side by side — at least, until by general consent, 
 and in virtue of the law of the survival of the fittest, 
 one or another of them had come to be recognized as 
 the more excellent way ? A practical method of con- 
 stitutionally carrying out this inclusive policy would be 
 the one already suggested, namely, that of classifying 
 local churches under such titles as Congregations of 
 the Anglican Rite, worshipping in accordance with the 
 Book of Common Prayer ; Congregations of the Ger- 
 man Rite, worshipping in accordance with what are at 
 present known as Lutheran forms ; and Congregations 
 of the Puritan rite, worshipping without any liturgy 
 at all, except in so far as the sacramental words of 
 institution may be said of themselves to make a lit- 
 urgy. This would not be absolute uniformity, I grant ; 
 but is anybody expecting absolute uniformity ? Is any- 
 body desiring it ? To reduce the competing houses of 
 worship in our country villages even to three, would 
 be a distinct gain ; and with constitutional provision 
 made for " high ritual," ''low ritual" and "no ritual," 
 such a reduction ought, in a United Church of the 
 United States, to become possible. In that event no 
 Episcopalian need lose what is most precious to him ; 
 nor any Presbyterian, Congregationalist, or Methodist 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 237 
 
 suffer forfeiture of those precious associations that in 
 his mind are indissolubly linked to what he accounts 
 the simpler method of approaching the throne of God. 
 Meanwliile, the whole ^^llage would be the stronger for 
 knowing that one communion held both the Anglican 
 and the Covenanter in its embrace, — nothing having 
 been lost, much having been gained. 
 
 It will be said that the country is not prepared for 
 this. Nothing could be truer. The question is, — 
 Could we be better employed than in furthering the 
 needed preparation ? That a desired consummation 
 is a hundred years away, ought not to discourage 
 brave men from breaking ground and beginning the 
 approach ; and at any rate 
 
 " It never yet did hurt 
 To lay down Hkelihoods and forms of hope." 
 
 Of course, if one is persuaded that nothing in the 
 present state of things needs mending, his strength is 
 to sit still. But it is difficult to understand how such 
 a longing for a more perfect union, as evidently is in 
 the minds of many, should have arisen without cause. 
 So woe-begone and pitiful to some of us does the pres- 
 ent broken, nay shattered, condition of contemporary 
 Christendom appear, that, as believers in the divine 
 origin of our religion, we cannot but seem to ourselves 
 to be shut up to one or other of two conclusions, — 
 either that Almighty God is bent on bringing to pass, 
 through all this disintegration, a better and truer unity 
 than has ever been before ; or else that what we see 
 
238 THE PEACE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 going on before our eyes is the slow merging of the 
 ecclesiastical in the civil order, — the coming in of the 
 so-called "gospel of the secular life," the practical 
 obliteration of the Church, as of an institution that 
 has fulfilled its mission for the sanctifying of society. 
 For this latter alternative, in the face of a whole 
 world lying in wickedness, we are not prepared ; there- 
 fore, we take the former. This drives us into build- 
 ing-projects whether we will or no ; hence, if we vex 
 you by our importunity, try to think of us as of men 
 upon whom a necessity is laid ; if we seem the vic- 
 tims of " a craze," try to remember that so Paul 
 looked to Festus, and Simon Peter to those who on 
 the day of Pentecost thought him " full of new wine." 
 
 To those of his Anglo-Catholic friends who with 
 indecent haste are for burying the Lambeth Platform 
 out of sight as a dead failure, because it has not 
 brought Christendom into unity within the space of 
 four years, the writer would commend one of George 
 Herbert's Jacula Frudentum, " Evening words are not 
 like to morning." 
 
 But, if build we must, only one point has to be de- 
 cided. On what lines and according to what dimen- 
 sions ought our edification to proceed ? 
 
 There are two perspective drawings of the Church 
 of Christ often hung up for us to look at and admire, 
 but neither of which, I venture to insist, deserves our 
 unqualified approval. One is a dreamy, Turneresque 
 representation of a building, large enough to be sure, 
 and lofty enough, but so completely wrapped about 
 
A CHURCH BY LOVE ESTABLISHED. 2o9 
 
 with wreaths of mist, that we are left very much in the 
 dark as to what the structure is ; we cannot tell where 
 it begins or where it ends. The thought of the archi- 
 tect is hopelessly concealed by the water-colorist's 
 too generous fog ; the whole thing is a suggestion, 
 nothing more. The other picture represents a tidy 
 little building, snug and compact, jauntily balanced 
 upon a narrow ledge of rock. There is no mystery 
 about it at all. We see the whole thing at a glance. 
 It evidently will not accommodate many people ; but 
 then, nobody can deny that the outline is faults 
 less, the symbolism correct, and the masonry beyond 
 reproach. There is no mist in the air, there are no 
 clouds in the sky ; the whole thing is distinct, well- 
 defined, pretty to look at, small. 
 
 The one picture is from the hand of the liberalist, 
 the other from the hand of the sectarian, — Anglican- 
 sectarian, or another, it matters not. The former of 
 them gives us largeness without definitencss ; its com- 
 panion, definitencss without size. 
 
 In our endeavors at unifying the national religion 
 and helping forward the People's Church, it will be 
 wise of us to take neither of these architectural 
 attempts for our accepted model, but rather to aim at 
 such lines of structure as shall impress themselves on 
 all observers as being alike generous and clean-cut. 
 
 THE END. 
 

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