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LECTURES

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THEOLOGICAL PAPERS

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LECTURES

AND OTHER

THEOLOGICAL PAPERS

BY

J. B. MOZLEY, D.D.
LATE CANON OF CHRIST CHUECH, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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ADVERTISEMENT.
In the following volume of Dr. Mozley's literary remains,
the greater number of original papers are taken from the
Lectures delivered by him in the Latin Chapel, Christ Church,
as Regius Professor of Divinity : to which office he was
appointed in 1871. Of these a selection had to be made,
as the Author, having no thought of publishing his Lectures,
on some subjects availed himself freely of such passages
from his earlier works as expressed his thought and opinion
on the matter before him.
The paper on the Jewish and Heathen Conceptions of a
Future State, a question on which he evidently felt great
mterest, was probably written about the year 1866.
The Reprints will be felt by the reader as deserving a per
manent place among the Author's works, from the fulness and
originality of their treatment and the lasting importance of
their subjects. The Article on Dr. (now Cardinal) Newman's
Grammar of Assent, which appeared in the Quarterly Review
of July 1870, is given with Mr. Murray's kind permission.

CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. EVIDENCES,  i
II. PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY, . . . . 17
III. JEWISH AND HEATHEN CONCEPTIONS OF A FUTURE
STATE,  26
IV. ON THE SUPPOSED OBSCURITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, . 60
V. ST. PAUL'S TEACHING AN INTEGRAL PART OF HOLY
SCRIPTURE,  74
VI. THE DOGMATIC OFFICE— ITS SCOPE AND METHOD, . 86
VII. MYSTERIOUS TRUTHS, .... .102
VIII. OF CHRIST ALONE WITHOUT SIN, . . . . 116
IX. ORIGINAL SIN,  136
X. ORIGINAL SIN ASSERTED BY WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS
AND POETS,  148
XI. PERFECTIBILITY,  163
XII. MODERN DOCTRINE OF PERFECTIBILITY, . . . 169
XIII. THE ATHANASIAN CREED,  183
XIV. THE HOLY EUCHARIST,  200
XV. LETTER TO THE REV. PROFESSOR STANLEY ON THE
ARTICLES,  219
XVI. OBSERVATIONS ON THE COLONIAL CHURCH QUESTION, 240
XVII. REVIEW OF DR. NEWMAN'S GRAMMAR OF ASSENT, . 275
NOTE ON EGYPTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE, . 301

LECTURES AND OTHER THEOLOGICAL
PAPERS.

I.—E VIDENCE}
That which a general course of Lectures on Theology like
the present one naturally commences with, is the subject of
Evidence. I shall not, however, enter into the consideration of
the general fabric of the Christian Evidences, which is well
known to you from the works of many able writers who have
devoted themselves to that subject. I shall be doing perhaps
something more useful if I call attention to some particular
danger connected with the subject of evidence at this day,
and endeavour to throw some light on the way in which it is
to be met.
Apart from, and quite independently of, the particular
arguments which unbelievers may use, it is to be observed
that the mere existence of a large body of unbelief around us
is itself a danger and a disturbance to us. It impresses the
imagination. Such mere quantity of unbelief seems to be an
argument in itself against revelation. We are perpetually
reminded of it in the books of the day, in newspapers and
reviews. It does not allow itself to be passed over ; it obtrudes
itself upon us at every turn ; we cannot help observing it. All
this affects the imagination. Unbelief is a great fact; it
arrests us, and takes hold of our minds as such. It has a
, 1 The first of an official course of lectures delivered in the Latin Chapel,
Christ Church, Oxford. A

2 Evidence.
threatening aspect. It is thus that, before going into the
reasoning which it employs, a large mass of unbelief, as a simple
fact, tends to produce a disturbing effect upon us, — to unsettle
and to perplex us. As a mere fact it witnesses against religion.
We may remark that anything that is constantly repeated
tends to make itself credited, simply from the force of
impression. So any standing assertion, quite apart from the
grounds of it, influences us ; there is a tendency in us to give
way to the assertion itself, which gains its own admission in
time from the mere circumstance that it demands it.
Such, then, being the disturbing nature of a great mass of
unbelief, regarded simply as a fact, let us calmly consider
whether this fact has any right in reason to make such an
impression upon us. We shall find, I think, upon examina
tion, that like many other great spectres which have frightened
men, the terror of it goes upon a closer inspection ; and that
it ceases to possess any real pretension or right to unsettle and
disturb our faith.
It must be remembered, then, that the conclusions which
men arrive at are only valuable so far as they have possessed
and apprehended the full data for forming them. We con
stantly reduce the value of men's conclusions on particular
points on the ground either that they have not had oppor
tunity of knowing the facts which bear upon them, or that
they have not the special faculties and perceptions required
for forming correct judgments upon them. The opinions men
form on questions of poetry, philosophy, politics, trade, art,
have thus constantly their weight challenged on this ground,
i.e. that these men have not embraced certain preliminary
special truths in their departments, which are necessary to be
apprehended in order to the formation of correct conclusions
further on. Vast masses of even strong judgment are very
often set aside without any hesitation on this ground ; they do
not trouble at all those who arrive at different conclusions,
provided only they see that those who have formed these
judgments have not embraced certain principles necessary as
preliminaries, and are wanting in the previous and introductory
kind of truth.

Evidence. 3
To apply, then, these remarks to the subject before us :
Christianity is founded upon certain great primary affections
and wants of the human soul, which it meets, to which it
corresponds, and of which it furnishes the proper objects and
satisfactions. There is the feeling after a God ; there is the
instinct of prayer ; there is conscience, and the sense of sin ;
there is the longing for and dim expectation of immortality.
Christianity supplies the counterpart of those affections and
wants of the soul, and it is as supplying this counterpart that
it recommends itself in the first instance to us ; it appeals to
our belief upon the strength of its own characteristics at the
same time that it comes before us as a subject of external
evidence. The nature of Christianity, and its correspondence
to our own nature, has a legitimate influence upon our minds,
before any other consideration ; it is one part of the whole
Christian evidence, and a valid and necessary part, without
which the other or the historical proof is reasonably and
logically deficient.
For will any one consider the very nature of belief, and
how it is constituted and composed ? We never do, in fact,
believe anything upon external evidence only. Somebody
whom you meet in the streets tells you a piece of news;
you believe it instantly, and as a matter of course ; but
what is it that makes you so believe it; his own assertion
simply, without anything else ? By no means ; he might tell
you some things, and you would not believe them, or at any
rate you would remain a long time in suspense. There is
something, then,, besides the report of the witness, or the
external evidence, which enters into the grounds of your belief,
and that is the antecedent probability of the fact itself. If
this is complete, and it is a fact of a common everyday sort,
then you believe the report of it without the least hesitation.
Thus the very commonest sort of credence shows upon what
grounds belief is raised ; that it is partly antecedent probability,
and partly external testimony. Transfer the belief to a higher
subject, and let the grounds of probability be not the mere
experience of outward life, but certain inward instincts and
affections, and the law of credence still holds. Your ground

4 Evidence.
of belief is a sense of probability meeting and uniting with
external evidence. These instincts and affections are what
Christianity falls in with, and with which it coincides. This
gives a reasonableness, a common-sense meaning to Christianity,
that it does answer to our nature and gives the complement of
it. And it is the reasonableness in the truths themselves of
revelation, caused by this correspondence, which gives that
foundation of belief which external evidence consummates.
The two grounds, internal and external, make one whole.
And with respect to Christianity, as with respect to other
things, it is no mere report of facts which convinces us, it is
also a congruity in the matter of the revelation itself. When
ever we believe a thing, in short, there must be something
reasonable in it, reasonable to us. This is a primary con
dition. Nothing can engraft itself upon us which is alien to
us. There must be a congeniality between ourselves and it
before we can incorporate it by belief. We may not see the
whole reason of it, but there must be some part at which the
truth links itself on to our inward nature.
If, then, there are any considerable number of persons who
do not feel and are not affected by those instincts and desires
which form the preliminary argument for Christianity, and ¦
which are assumed in the effect of the external evidence upon
us, the unbelief of these persons is accounted for. - We know
the reason why they do not believe, and it is a perfectly sound
and valid reason. They are not, in fact, in possession of the
full data relating to the question, — in possession, in the sense
of inward apprehension of them. The same doctrines which
completely fall in with the whole antecedent thought and
feeling of some, and so to them are natural and reasonable, are
to these persons extraneous and artificial, because there is no
felt want and affection within them for the doctrines' to lay
hold of and join themselves on to. That law of belief then,
which requires a probability in the thing itself to unite with
the external evidence for it, is not complied with in their case
— is not satisfied in the premisses of revelation as they appre
hend them. There is no probability in the truths as they see
them ; they therefore disbelieve them.

Evidence. 5
Let us take the Comtists. Now, to the Comtists, every one
of those inner wants and affections, which I mentioned just
now as forming the introduction to Christian truth and
making it reasonable and probable to us, is wanting. The
Comtist says first, that to assert there is any sense of or
feeling after a God in our nature is a total mistake ; that it
does not exist, and that the whole notion of our having it is
an unfounded supposition put into our heads by theorists.
Accordingly they erase this religious instinct altogether from
the mind, and they stop at humanity. They deny of course,
consistently with this, the instinct of prayer, and instead of
praying they contemplate humanity. They do not acknowledge
again a sense of sin or guilt in man as we understand it. Nor
do they acknowledge an instinctive longing for, or expecta
tion of, immortality in man. That instinctive feeling is com
pletely obliterated in their system. The Comtists therefore are
clearly without, as a felt thing, that whole foundation of mind
upon which belief in Christianity arises. The conclusion of the
Comtists therefore against Christianity is no perplexity to a
Christian mind, because with them the premisses are wanting.
The Comtists then avowedly and formally maintain as tenets
those several denials of our instinctive feelings and instincts of
which the Christian is convinced to begin with ; but Comtism,
after all, only lets out a secret of the substantial state of mind
of a large number of those who do not call themselves
Comtists; and only gives formal expression to negations
which are practically entertained by a much more numerous
portion of society than the Comtist sect. Comtism indeed is,
in its blanks and erasures, the informal and unconscious
philosophy of all who are absorbed in the sense of life, and to
whom this world is the whole of existence.
But there is a portion of society also which, without calling
itself Comtist, adopts thejse principles more or less formally
and philosophically; which systematically does not concern
itself with another world, or hold by any mysterious revela
tions of nature respecting God, conscience, sin, judgment.
There are many in the first place who, without calling them
selves Atheists, still do not feel any want of a God : He does

6 Evidence.
not supply any need in their minds; they can do without
Him ; He is almost a superfluity in the world in their eyes ;
the world seems to go by laws of its own, and to be self-
sufficient. To such, of course, prayer is no need of the mind.
Again, the idea of morality which a great number entertain is
not an idea involving any such deep affection as that of con
science and sense of sin. It is a public and social idea, —
the idea of activity, public spirit, discharge of public duties,
propriety of conduct, and the virtues which belong to a useful
member of society. It goes a certain way in moral truth, but
not to the depth of conscience with respect to obligation, or
of sense of sin, supposing duty to have been violated or
omitted. The whole standard wants the element of sanctity. But
this being the case, how can such a moral standard agree with
or lead to Christianity ? How can it lead, in the first place,
toward a doctrine of an Atonement ? If we feel a depth and a
mystery in moral evil, then we are ready to accept a mystery
in the remedy for that evil, and the restoration of man ; but if
we do not, such a remedy becomes immediately wholly out of
place. It is eccentric and unmeaning, a simple anomaly, un
called for and joining on to nothing in our nature. Again,
there is no want of immortality felt by this class of minds.
One might suppose beforehand, indeed, that human nature
would long for an existence after death from the simple
instinct of self-preservation ; but as a matter of fact we find
that a sense of present life which Nature has fixed in us (if we
commit ourselves wholly to it) so completely shuts out the
idea of death, as a realised and felt idea, that we do not feel
any want of immortality. So long as we do* not realise or feel
that this life has an end, this life is endless to us ; we have
our immortality here, we do not want another immortality.
There is no internal premiss then in such minds as these, to
which the revelation of Eternal Life in the Gospel is a natural
finish, and the revelation comes to them as an unconnected
thing which their nature does not appropriate.
It is thus that the negations of Comtism, one after another,
become the virtual premisses of a large number of minds ; the

Evidence. 7
sense of God, the sense of sin, the sense of eternity, are done
away with as parts of human nature. The denials are not
put expressly forward as tenets, nor are they formally held ;
but the whole groundwork of thought is in this direction.
But if this is the case, the disbelief of such minds in Chris
tianity need be no surprise to us. That is to say, we need not
be surprised if such minds are not convinced by the external
evidence for Christianity, when they do not possess those
inward premisses without which the external are necessarily
defective ; if they do not in fact accept a conclusion for which
they have not the full argument. As was said just now, we
never do in fact believe upon external evidence only ; there is
always an antecedent ground of some kind : with respect to
common facts this is experience; in the case of religious
doctrines, it is certain instincts and affections. This is a law
of belief, and it argues no weakness in any given external
evidence that it does not convince of itself; it is only that
defect which constitutionally attaches to all external evidence
as such. The existence, then, of a certain quantity of in
fidelity in society is accounted for ; it need not trouble us as
a riddle and an unexplained thing does ; we can explain it,
we can trace it to an intelligible source.
But when we call attention to this structure of evidence,
we must be prepared to meet one common objection that is
made. When any appeal is made to the inward affections in
considering the grounds of Christian belief, it is commonly re
marked that this is prejudging the question. You must argue
the question of belief in Christianity, it is said, exactly as you
would argue any other question, whether of history, or natural
philosophy, or any other department. Questions of truth are not
decided by the affections, but simply and entirely by evidence ;
and therefore it cannot make any difference, as far as the ascer
tainment of truth is concerned, whether persons have such and
such affections, or are without them ; the Christian evidences
must be examined with perfect impartiality, like any other
question of fact, and any bias— it is boldly asserted— which may
arise from desire and affection must be altogether laid aside.
But where this objection is made to any appeal to the

8 Evidence.
affections of the soul in considering the evidences of religion,
it must be remembered that there is a vast difference between
some questions and others, with regard to the place which the
affections hold in the argument relating to them. It would
be absurd to say that the moral affections have any place in a
question of natural history, or chemistry, or mechanics, or any
department of science ; because the moral affections have no
thing to do with the faculties or perceptions which are concerned
with that subject-matter ; but in questions relating to religion,
the moral affections have a great deal to do with the actual
perception and discernment by which we see and measure the
facts which influence our decision. Let us take, for instance, the
question of a future life and the immortality of the soul. Now
it is obvious that one of the chief arguments for a future state
arises from human character — those high forms of it which we
meet and with which we become acquainted, whether by
personal knowledge, or by reading or hearing of them. But
we cannot possibly enter deeply into character without affec
tions ; we cannot estimate or comprehend truly, we cannot
embrace keenly, and with a living force, what is beautiful, pro
found, and touching in the mind and disposition of any person
of extraordinary goodness, unless there are affections in us
which enable us to seize hold of their moral traits, and inspire
us with a vivid admiration and appreciation of them. Put be
fore yourselves any one of the circle in which you have lived,
or whom accident has brought before you, whose whole type
has impressed itself upon you as uncommon, and who has stood
out from the mass of average life as a being of a higher mould.
Now it is evident that such a character as this is an argument
for immortality ; it is a reason to your mind for expecting it, be
cause the very idea of such a being as this perishing is a shock to
us. Was this spiritual creation made in order to come to nothing?
In the case of such a character the whole look of life as a prepara
tory stage is particularly obvious. Life has matured its good
tendencies, checked its wayward ones ; it has become more
perfect as it approached its departure from the world, more
answering to the design which is stamped upon it ; and the
very final stage of all has taken its part in the development

Evidence. 9
of it ; there it attains its highest growth ; the soul is more than
ever a living soul ; its feelings most alive and quick, the heart
most tender, thought most deep. Is all this for nothing ? Is
the structure with such pains built in order that it may be
overthrown, and the parts so elaborately and delicately put to
gether in order that one rude moment may shatter the work
in pieces ? Is the Universe in which we live a system of
treachery and mockery, of means for no end, frustrating every
hope, and balking every purpose marked upon it? It is,
if just when the character is formed the being is destroyed,
and existence is over. That such a being should be ex
tinguished, blotted utterly out of the tablet of the Universe
— this is a thought which communicates a shock to our whole
nature ; and that it does communicate such a shock is the
strongest of all arguments against such being the end of
creation. But can this premiss for a future life be apprehended with
out the affections ? The moral affections are the very in
struments by which we embrace it. This fact of human
character is quite a different fact to us according as we see it
with the affections or without. Without the affections we do
not apprehend it, grasp it, or possess ourselves of it ; we do not
take it in. And therefore to those who exhort us to divest
ourselves of the influence of the affections when we come to
judge of the evidence for Christianity and its doctrines, we
reply that with respect to very considerable parts of the evi
dence of Christian doctrine, very important premisses for it,
the affections are absolutely necessary even for the full force of
the understanding. Affection is part of insight ; it is wanted for
gaining due acquaintance with the facts of the case. Feeling is
necessary for comprehension ; we cannot know a particular in
stance of goodness, we cannot embrace the true conception of
goodness in general without it. Affection is itself intelligence ;
we cannot separate the feeling in our nature from the reason in it.
When we come to examine the argument for a life eternal, we
find that we cannot do it even bare justice without the help
of the affections. One of the very first considerations upon
the question of the destination of man to a state of eternal

10 Evidence.
happiness is human character, the kind of goodness it is
capable of, its worthiness of such a destination ; and this is
a matter which requires the affections as the condition of
deciding it.
But let us take another point in the consideration of a future
life, and in our relations of mind toward it ; and we shall see
a fresh reason why the affections are necessary for seeing pro
perly the evidence of Christian truth. It is impossible that
we can obtain a full insight into the evidence of the life eter
nal after death, unless there exists in our hearts the real and
earnest wish for that future life. It may be said, — a strong
wish prejudges the question, the wish is father to the thought.
Certainly there is a strong tendency in it to act so ; but on
the other hand, to be without the wish for immortality is to
be without the natural stimulus and motive to exert your
reason on the subject, and to see what there is to be seen on
the side of that doctrine. People are much mistaken if they
think that no stimulus is required for the discerning of truth,
for seeing the reasons and the evidences there are for any
great conclusions connected with our prospects. Would
Columbus, for instance, have seen all the evidences and pro
babilities which he did see of the existence of an unknown
hemisphere ; would he have elicited the different scattered facts
which threw light upon it, and traced out the faint lines which
converged in that direction, had he not been inspired with the
intense longing for discovery ? It was a great wish possessing
itself of his whole mind which enabled him to see all the
reasons there were for his conclusion. To have been without
the wish would have been to be without the power of seeing
them. But again the wish for the life immortal is obligatory upon
us ; nor are we in a proper moral or reasonable attitude of mind
upon this question unless we have it. If we ask a man to
believe, he may say, I cannot ; but he cannot say he cannot wish.
If, then, there is any final issue of the whole of human existence
which appears to be in the least possible, that is to say, our
ascent into a glorious and endless state, we are at any rate
bound, morally bound, to wish it to be true. We are under the

Evidence. 1 1
rational obligation of wishing that to be the real issue which
is obviously the best and highest. That the mere conception
is offered to the mind, unless indeed it is impossible and
involves a contradiction, constitutes an obligation to desire
its truth. A man, therefore, is not in a reasonable attitude of
mind, unless he has the strong wish that the idea of Eternal
Life after death should be true in fact.
As, then, we saw before that affection was necessary for
seeing the evidence for immortality, because we could not
embrace the argument from human character for that conclu
sion without it ; so now we see its necessity for that object, in
the fact that without affection we cannot wish for immor
tality, and that without the wish we cannot see the full argu
ment for immortality. Subjects of physical science do not
require the affections, because the affections throw no light
upon them, and are not wanted to understand them ; but the
truths of Christianity have a relation to our moral nature, and
our moral nature both consists of affections and requires the
affections to understand it.
When, then, the existence of a large mass of unbelief in
society is felt, as it should be, as a painful and grave fact,
let us at the same time remember that the real value and
weight of such a fact must be tested by the proper conditions.
Do these persons receive and acknowledge in the first place
those preliminary truths which are assumed in the evidences
of Christianity? Is there this sacred foundation of holy
sentiment and affection in their characters ? If there is not,
they want the first conditions upon which Christian belief is
formed ; and therefore, their unbelief being accounted for by
an actual want in their premisses, the value of the fact as a
witness against the Christian conclusion is annihilated. With
out the felt need for prayer, without the sense of sin, without
the wish for immortality, there is no antecedent ground of
probability for Christianity ; but there must always be some
antecedent probability to create belief ; we never in fact believe
' anything upon external evidence only.
I have called attention to one danger connected with the
subject of evidence at this day, namely, the omission of the real

1 2 Evidence.
place which the affections have in forming the ability to judge
of the evidences of religion. I will ask attention now to
another danger very much akin to this, namely, a narrow
idea of what does or does not make an argument. There is a
certain class of considerations which have a strong influence
upon the most rational minds in aiding the formal evidences
of religion, but if one of these is mentioned it will probably be
met by the reply that it is not an argument. For instance,
it is a consideration which makes a great impression upon
us, that, as was just now mentioned, the issue of things which
the Christian revelation teaches us, is the very highest issue
imaginable or conceivable. Other religions, indeed, have
taught various forms of a future life, but it has been either a
state of vanity and emptiness, as the pagan future state was ;
or it has been restless and fluctuating existence, going through
interminable changes and cycles, and connected with metem
psychosis, and the passage of the soul through different animal
and human lives, as the Egyptian and Oriental doctrines taught.
A glorious eternal state is the revelation of Christianity alone.
But when this is mentioned, that is, that the Christian issue of
things is the very best imaginable ; "This is not an argument,"
is the reply. That it is the best imaginable issue does not show
that it is the true one. Thus, though a consideration may be
one which we cannot help being impressed by, — and reasonably
impressed, — though it is one which must have some weight, and
a weight which, as far as it goes, is on the side of Christianity,
it is still set aside altogether and allowed to contribute nothing
to the Christian evidences, because it is not, as is said, an
argument. Now in answer to this, I think it may be fairly said that
anything is an argument which, as far as it goes, tends
rationally to bias the mind in a certain direction. We must
have no narrow definition of an argument. The question is,
Is there naturally any force in a given consideration — not an
actually deciding force, but a force ? — if so, it is an argument,
as far as it goes. Thus, in the present instance, we cannot help
ourselves being influenced by the consideration of the issue of
the Christian scheme, — what it ends in, — that its end is the best

Evidence. 1 3
possible one. It is so natural for us to think that this universe
must be for good, that life, with all its capacities of development
and discipline, must be for some great end, that when the
highest and best conceivable end is announced in a revelation,
its being the best end is a real argument to us that it is the true
end. So when we are arguing the doctrine of a future state
itself, and when we appeal to the natural wish and longing that
we find within us for that state, as one of the evidences of its
truth, we are met again with the reply, " This is no argument :
that you wish for it does not prove that it is true!' It may be
admitted that it is no proof : it would be absurd to say that it
was, taken by itself. And yet it would be as unnatural to say
that the innate hope we feel had no force whatever as an item
of evidence on the subject. That a man ought to wish for this
issue is clear, as I just said ; but now I say that the fact that
man, when his nature is not suppressed, does wish for it, that
he has a true longing and hope for it, is a real argument, as far
as it goes, for it. The existence of such a wish must reasonably
influence him. It is not a mere wish, such as we might have
for some impossible thing. No, the wish that we actually find
in our minds for a life to come is a wish accompanied with an
idea of the possibility of it ; it is a practical hope. And that
we have such a hope is an argument. Does Nature insert an
instinct without a use ? It may be said, indeed, the hope is
not in vain if it cheers people at the time, and that that is a
use for it. But is this the kind of use which we see in real
nature ; that it is useful by deceit and by illusion ; by giving
people ideas to which there is no responding reality merely
that they may have the comfort of the ideas ? That is not the
type of Nature's action. If she implants a presage or prognos
tication, it is that it may tell us of something. Her use and
truth coincide.
The hope in our nature then for a future life is a reason, in
a degree, for expecting that life ; it is a kind of forecasting of
the future fact. And this accounts for the more believing temper
which is often the effect of illness and approach of death.
When people are well and strong, and enclosed in the sense of
life, they entertain no real wish for another life, and have none

1 4 Evidence.
of this forecasting. Amid the fulness of physical power and
strength all these presentiments and presages are brushed aside
as superfluous unmeaning shadows ; but when this life is
deserting them, and they really want another, then these
presages and instincts come into force; then they have a
meaning. Unbelievers have changed often upon the approach
of death, and infidels say it is slavish fear, their understanding
giving way. But is it their understanding giving way, or not
rather their understanding awakening ? They see tokens then
within them to which their eyes were shut before, deep per
ceptions to what in the midday glare of life they were not alive.
And this may remind us again of another argument for reli
gion which many disallow, namely, its utility. We appeal to the
extraordinary utility of the Christian revelation, what motives
it has supplied to virtue and benevolence, what stimulus, its
hopes and anticipations have given to our moral nature. But
the answer is the same as before. Christianity may be useful,
but it is not therefore true. And yet though usefulness is not
formal proof, it is mockery to say that there is not something
in it bearing upon evidence. We feel that we cannot wholly
ignore utility in our estimate of the evidence of the truth of a
revelation. For if a revelation truly comes from God, it must
carry usefulness also as well as truth ; usefulness must be one
of its characteristics ; and therefore where we see extraordinary
and wonderful usefulness, we must take it as a note of truth.
And indeed the progress of thought on the whole has been a
decided testimony to utility as an argument. The philosophies
of the old world and the ancient schools of legislation main
tained the maxim of the utility of falsehood, and the great
expediency of established religions, though they were not true ;
but the growth of thought has run counter to this. Lucretius
condemned religion distinctly as being pernicious and injurious
to society, as if he saw that to admit its utility would have been
to go a long way in admitting its truth. And it is curious to
observe that in the present day the position of "false yet
useful " has been given up, and that modern Atheism expressly
charges religion with the evils and disasters of society, and the
grievances and miseries of humanity.

Evidence. 1 5
There is no mathematical criterion then of an argument.
Everything is an argument which naturally influences us in
one way rather than another ; to think one thing true rather
than another. In the preliminary region of evidence especially,
we meet with considerations which have such a natural influ
ence upon us in guiding our judgment, that it would be folly
to dispense with them. And yet if we listen to some persons'
objections, we shall have to believe there is nothing in these
considerations, because, as it is said, they are not arguments.
They do not indeed pretend to a technically conclusive force ;
and yet to shut them out from the judicial scope on account of
their informal character as arguments, would be to imitate
those narrow and pedagoguish tactics of law which fence in,
with scrupulous jealousy, what are called the rules of evidence,
till step by step they exclude as irregular the main and most
important inlets of truth and channels of proof.
I have confined myself in this Lecture to the preliminary
ground of Christian Evidence, and have called attention to some
important considerations belonging to that introductory section
of evidence. I have called attention first to the place which
the affections hold in the Christian evidence ; and secondly, to a
wider and truer definition of an argument, which takes it out
of a technical test, and makes it any consideration which
reasonably influences us. And under this head I have alluded
to the antecedent argument for Christianity contained in the
fact that it offers to us the highest possible issue of human life
and this whole scheme of things ; to the antecedent argument
of instinctive hopes ; to the antecedent argument of utility.
The substance of the Christian evidences of course lies in
positive testimony, and in the proof of those historical facts
upon which Christianity is based. But, referring you for the
positive structure of Christian evidences to those well-known
treatises which have issued at different times from our Church,
I have preferred on this occasion directing your thoughts to
those points connected with the introduction to Christian
evidences ; because, while antecedent ground is apt to escape
our notice, it is ground of which it is very important to retain
a proper hold and a just estimate. It is very material to

1 6 Evidence.
establish our right to all the argument with which that ground
supplies us,— not to allow ourselves to be deprived of it upon
technical reasons ; never to let a consideration of real weight,
which has a genuine and natural influence upon us, be
snatched out of our grasp upon the plea that it is not an argu
ment. Everything is an argument which has a natural in
fluence upon us in inducing us to think one way rather than
another. If any persons have a criterion of an argument in
their head, which lets all kinds of influential considerations slip,
— casting them aside, and preventing their being turned to any
use — because they do not come within this technical test ; it is
high time, not that we should give up these considerations, but
that they should alter their criterion of an argument. Let us
keep a firm hold upon the antecedent arguments for Christianity,
upon all those reasons which induce us to welcome Christianity,
and which prepare us for the reception of it when it is placed
before us by positive evidence. These form a genuine and
necessary part of the whole evidential structure, which is
maimed and halt without it. We must have probabilities to
aid external evidence in religion, just as in ordinary cases of
reported facts ; it is no fault of external evidence that it should
be so, it is a constitutional limitation which attaches to it, and
to which antecedent probabilities are the constitutional supple
ment. And as likelihood from experience is this supplement
in ordinary evidence, so likelihood from moral considerations
is in religious evidence.

i7

11.— PHYSICAL SCIENCE ANB THEOLOGY.*
There is a current assertion relating to the existence of a
Moral and Personal Deity, that the argument from nature for
this truth is weak, and that the professed proof of it is taken
from theological metaphysics. I will offer one or two con
siderations on this point. It may be admitted then that the
existence of the human soul clears up many questions respect
ing the Deity which were not fully decided when we had only
external nature before us. For example, as regards the question
of design — we undoubtedly see a plastic power at work in
nature before we take the human soul into consideration ; but
is this power intelligent or designing? We are involved
in some perplexity. Mere material law is methodical in its
operations, as in the case of crystals. Where do we get that
plain evidence of an end beyond the apparatus itself, an object
which is ulterior to the physical framework with which it is
connected, which is the test of true design in nature ? The
answer is in all sentient life in its degree ; but certainly the
highest evidence of such an ulterior end, which throws all other
evidence almost into the shade, is the human soul. That
stands in such bold relief to the bodily structure belonging to
it, as the end of that structure ; the final cause is declared with
such overpowering light, the purpose shines forth with such '
indubitable clearness and conspicuousness that the conclusion
is irresistible : that power which constructed this body in order
to the existence of myself — an intelligent being — must be itself
intelligent. Again, has the Deity will ? On this question, too, we are
much in the dark till we come to the human soul, which
speaks and says : — " I have will, therefore that power which
constructed this bodily apparatus for my existence has will too."
1 Read by the Author at the Church Congress held in Dublin 1868.
B

1 8 Physical Science and Theology.
Again, is the Deity moral ? Here we are entirely in the dark
before we come to the human soul, which says : " I am moral,
therefore the power that made me is moral." In a word, He
who thus obviously and elaborately provides for a moral and
personal existence must Himself be a moral and personal Deity.
It must, therefore, be admitted that man, or the human soul,
is the revelation of God in nature. Prior to this spiritual fact
in nature, the mechanical system of nature reveals a First
Cause of some kind, but it does not speak to the character of
that Cause whether he is intelligent, moral, and has a will.
We are groping in the dark amid the beginnings and
primordia of things before nature interprets itself, and decides
as to the character of its First Cause. But when we arrive at
man or the human soul, the authorship of nature comes out
like a disclosed secret, a light breaks forth which fills all space,
which illuminates the whole fabric of the physical universe,
and which reveals the moral source and end of nature. Of man
it may be said, that not only as investigating man, but that as
man, he is the interpreter of nature.
But is this proof of a moral Deity, as distinguished from law
or plastic power, a metaphysical argument ? Undoubtedly it
is, if for convenience' sake we choose to call one part of our
nature metaphysical ; but let us, as we have a right to do, claim
the term physical for all nature, and has not the human soul a
place in physics ? Is the instinct of any brute, any insect, to
rank as part of nature, and is the instinct of man — namely,
his soul — not to rank as such ? In physical treatises the in
stincts of animals are invariably treated as just as much a part of
physics as their bodies : the two are on a par as physical facts.
And the soul is the instinct of man. We know indeed that the
soul will one day exist out of this physical universe ; but so
long as it is in it, it is as plainly a part of it as the instinct of
an ant or bee. The theistic argument, then, from the human
soul is derived from something which is an element of this
physical world; an instinct, a life, a power, an insight, an
energy, going on in it, provided for by it, imbedded in the very
centre of this whole physical apparatus. The great user of
nature, the head and summit of nature, the rational soul which

Physical Science and Theology. 1 9
inhabits nature and reigns in nature, belongs to nature as much
as the mechanical laws of nature. It is a part of physics taken
as a whole. That marvellous spiritual insertion in this physical
world is yet one of the contents of that world. We look down
from the height of our own reason upon a vast shadowy scene
below of blind and groping instinct ;— instinct which may be
called subterranean, its processes are so dark, so hidden from
itself, so unconscious ; — a maze of motions in all shapes and
figures, following tame and homely or wild and eccentric lines,
but all going on in rigid grooves, between invisible walls which
bound the vision;, all the movements of a deaf, dumb, and
blind Spirit which does not perceive, which does not think,
which does not direct itself. All brute life has this sad impress
stamped even on its liveliest play and action, that it does not
know what it is doing. From this animal instinct in all its
stages, the leap is so sudden and immense to the human
instinct, with its inward light of self-consciousness, and all its
other glorious perceptions and faculties, that we forget that
that mental force which is so supreme in nature is still in
nature, and that it does not cease to be part of nature, because
it is the highest part. This enormous and prodigious instinct,
which is so different from the other instincts as to look
miraculous, is still within the system — though a spiritual
insertion in it, still in it; — the property of an inhabitant of nature,
a tenant of a physical frame — an animal— man. The First Cause
of this whole physical apparatus has connected this apparatus
with the human soul : and it is all one system, the physical
kosmos which encloses, and the spiritual life which is enclosed.
When, therefore, it is asserted that the argument from
nature for a moral and personal Deity is weak, it may be
replied that this assertion is only made true by robbing the
argument from nature of its principal contents. The human
soul does not come under the head of metaphysics only, but it
is a part of physics, or nature taken as a whole. But if, upon
the plea of its being a metaphysical element in the question,
it is excluded from a place in the argument from nature ; if the
spiritual is extracted from nature, before we are allowed to
argue from nature, the natural argument for a God may well

s>

20 Physical Science and Theology.
become weak. We reduce it then simply to an argument
from methodical matter, from mechanical adjustments ; and
thus narrowed and reduced, no wonder if the argument from
nature proves only a mechanical Deity.
I am aware, indeed, that this is only a question as to what
head a particular argument conies under : and that the human
soul is the same premiss under whatever head it may be placed ;
but I do not think the question is therefore unimportant. For
the practical influence an argument has upon the mind, a
great deal depends upon division. An arbitrary division
excludes some great premiss from an area and enclosure in
which it would have striking weight, banishes it from the field
before our eyes, ostracises it, removes it to some distant quarter
in which it is thrown entirely upon its own isolated strength
instead of having all the aid of a familiar and recognised sur
rounding. So if we make the great theistic argument nature,
the theistic evidence of the human soul is plainly disadvan
taged if it is not allowed to come under the head of nature.
As a metaphysical premiss only, it is deprived of a certain
matter-of-fact aspect and bearing which it possesses as a
physical. " Important in its place, but no part ofthe argument,"
is the reply to a proof which does not come under a main
heading; "we are arguing from nature, you are introducing
metaphysics." A premiss that is shut out of a great trunk
argument fares like an incidental visitor, to whom we say :
" Presently, — I will attend to you by and by." As soon as
ever a man has handed over some point to metaphysics, he
thinks he has entirely got rid of it, that he need not give him
self any further trouble about it, that it is removed to a region
of shadows. But remove mind or soul from its technical head
of metaphysics, and place it under its real head of nature, and
then we have at once two great facts of nature before us. All
soul says of itself " I will," and " I ought ; " and these two
facts re-act by a necessary law of thought upon the character
of the Divine Being. It is quite true that both of these are
mysteries. It is true no one knows what "ought" means;
no one has deciphered, no mortal key ever will decipher that
unfathomable enigma. No one knows what "will" is its

Physical Science and Theology. 2 1
source or basis ; that, too, is an inaccessible secret. But it
would be the greatest mistake in philosophy to say that
mysteries cannot be facts. With the innate impressions of "will"
and " ought " all nature vibrates ; all history is founded on them ;
they are inherent in us, rooted in us, no human being can
shake them off. When a man has deliberately and with choice
before him done a wrong act, can that man really make him
self think that he could not have done the right one? He
cannot. It is an impossibility of nature. Can he cast off the
sense of right and wrong ?. That too is an impossibility of
nature. These impressions of " will " and " ought " are as
plain, as obvious, as conspicuous facts of nature, — of physics in
the large sense, — as electricity or the circulation of the blood.
And with these two facts within us, we cannot, by a necessary
law of thought, rest in a God who does not respond to them.
If there is no God, there is no moral God ; but if there is a God
of some kind (as science admits), and the only question is what
kind, that question is settled by these facts.
Now to bring these remarks to bear upon one particular point.
1. Scientific men sometimes appeal to an inward certainty
which they feel, as to the impossibility of any interruption of
the order of nature. They do not profess to give the reason of
this idea ; they only say they are possessed by it ; that it is
an intuition, a forcible impression, which grows by conversance
with nature and insight into her laws. Now, with respect to
such an impression as this, I would remark that it is well
known as a truth of human nature, and one of wide application,
and attaching to all kinds of subject— that nothing does pro
duce a stronger sense of certainty in men's minds than forcible
impressions for which they can give no reason. It is curious
that the instant you begin to reason, in a certain sense you
begin to doubt. The element of doubt is introduced. If you
allege a reason for a thing, the question of proportion
immediately arises — is it reason enough ? is the premiss strong
enough to support the conclusion ? But if you have no pre
miss, and no reason, the whole element of doubt which arises
from this source is avoided. There are such multitudes of
examples of this species of certainty arising simply from

2 2 Physical Science and Theology.
forcible impression, that they may be said to compose a
chapter in the history of the human mind ; nor is there any
fact which experience teaches more strongly than that, for the
absolute sense of certainty, there is nothing like being without
a reason. Not, however, that I would exclude all forcible
impressions, which are unable to give a complete account of
themselves from philosophy; or say that because men have
them absurdly, men may not sometimes have them wisely ;
but I would only remind those who possess such impressions,
that the imagination simulates reason with wonderful success,
and has an extraordinary power in making the view it suggests
look like the only possible reality, and any other appear like
fiction. It is the special effect of forcible impressions pro
duced by the imagination, that it seems unnatural and artificial
to resist them ; — that imagination looks like reason, and reason
like imagination. Human nature is operated on by mighty
currents, which carry it in different directions ; nor can science
or philosophy, any more than action, be conducted without
such impulses. Which current shall we trust ourselves to ?
What is imagination, and what is reason within us ? The
appeal must be made to our whole nature — for nature as a
whole corrects the impetus of particular movements.
2. I would remark with great respect, and knowing that the
liability is shared by other departments of knowledge as well,
that physical science is capable — if I may dare to say such a
thing — of breeding crotchets. A curious attitude of opposi
tion to common sense is, I say, noticeable as an occasional
feature of the scientific mind, rising up at sudden turns. It is
a phenomenon to be attended to. We speak of poetry,
romance, religious enthusiasm, generating strange fancies ; but
nothing can exceed the odd and unaccountable convictions which
science sometimes takes up. Can there, for instance, be found a
more curious quarrel with common sense, than that antipathy
which some scientific schools, especially the French school
entertain to the idea of design in nature, so thrust upon us by
nature? The vindication of physical causes can hardly be
considered as more than a decent disguise for this grotesque
prejudice of science ; because it is so obvious that physical

Physical Science and Theology. 23
causes can produce a chaos just as much as they can produce a
harmony or system ; that they are common to arrangement and
disorder, and therefore cannot in themselves account for
arrangement. Again, take the strange antipathy of one great
inductive school to the idea of intuitive or necessary truth ;
everything with them is induction — even truths of mathe
matics, even truths of arithmetic. That two and three make
five has been " invariably observed :" in no single instance have
we seen them produce any other number. It is what is called
a " completed induction," that is, as far as our opportunities of
observation go ; but not necessary ; and if I understand Mr.
Mill aright, he thinks it conceivable that in one of the heavenly
bodies the result might be different. These curious scienti
fically generated points of view, these eccentric products of the
scientific mind, show that science has, as a mental pursuit,
its faulty habits, and that it can breed its own class of pre
judices — aspects of things, caught in the first instance by
the mind in peculiar junctures and angles of thought, and
then permanently stamped upon the intellect.
3. I would remark respecting this forcible impression as to
the impossibility of an interruption of the order of nature, that
scientific men are in this instance doing what they generally
disclaim doing — theologising : for unquestionably this is a
theological conclusion ; it affects the nature and the power of
the Deity. Their general posture is that of claiming the right
to investigate facts without being interfered with by theology ;
and there is justice in this claim ; but here they leave the
position of physical investigation, and diverge from the dis
covery of facts, to drawing a theological conclusion from them.
4. But, lastly, scientific men are not only theologising in
this instance, but theologising altogether prematurely ; they are
judging about the Deity before they have a revelation of Him.
The mechanical laws of nature do not of themselves reveal
Him ; man alone is the revelation of God. Let it be granted
then, that a person might argue from the material and
mechanical laws of nature, taken by themselves, to the
inviolability of the laws of nature. Allow him to say, looking
simply to these laws, " I do not catch here any glimpse of a

24 Physical Science and Theology.
power which can interrupt nature : I see motion, orderly
motion, but that motion does not hint at anything which can
stop it : I must regard, therefore, this as an alien, arbitrary
idea, and gratuitous fiction of the mind." But has he in these
laws the whole of nature before him ? No ; he omits the
human soul, which has a distinct, a strong and vigorous
argument of its own on this subject. All soul, being conscious
of will itself, declares for a Deity with will, upon which an
interrupting power necessarily follows ; and soul, as has been
said, is a fact in nature, its consciousnesses are facts in nature.
This, which is disdainfully called the "old theological
argument for miracles," is theological only in its conclusion ;
its premisses are, in the true sense, physical.
It must be observed that scientific men are by the order of
their task and pursuit placed at a disadvantage with respect
to a theological conclusion from nature — for this reason. A
mechanical First Cause does not interrupt nature, because it
has no will ; man, as I have said, reveals a will in nature, a
moral power. It is therefore not from the mechanical begin
nings and elements of nature, but from the user and the end
of nature — Man ; it is from the spiritual life in nature that we
obtain the idea of a First Cause that can interrupt nature.
But this being the case, scientific men have, by the very order
of their pursuit, to do with the beginnings of nature and not
with the end, with the mechanical and not with the spiritual
power in nature. They see the grand edifice, as it were,
upside down, they look away from themselves, from man, from
soul, from mind, to matter, to mechanism, to material law.
They look in a direction which is dictated by the very investi
gating purpose of their occupation itself, but which has still
the inherent defect of setting nature in a wrong position before
them. They look at nature, indeed, with the mind, with the
rational soul, but working with it as an instrument, not con
templating it as an object : as the eye sees other things, but
not itself, the soul overlooks itself in its survey of the universe.
This is an attitude essential for the purpose of investigation,
but an artificial and inverted one for the view of nature. It is
the higher part of nature which interprets the lower. Nature

Physical Science and Theology. 2 5
ascends from matter to its head and vertex, — Man; and we
ought to look at it in the direction of its ascent, from its base
to its summit, like a building, not reversely, away from its
vertex to its mechanical base. This is the upside-down posi
tion of nature in the process of physical analysis ; which
process therefore, however the fault may admit of being cor
rected, in itself puts man at a disadvantage with respect to
the idea of nature as a whole. It is like the case of some
peculiar occupation which may be necessary for the community,
but which disadvantages those employed in it in some particu
lar organ or function. Perpetual conversance with beginnings
operates in this way. An incorrect attitude which is assumed
for a special purpose, and thrown aside afterwards, does no
harm, but it is injurious if it becomes the habitual position of
the mind. He who looks always to the mechanics of nature
will never see a God there ; he looks far off, and does not see
what is close to him — the evidence of a God- which is within
him.

26

III.— fE WISH AND HEATHEN CONCEPTIONS OF A
FUTURE STATE.
It has been remarked by those who have wished to derogate
from the value and rank of the Jewish dispensation, that the
Jews were worse off than the Pagans in one important point.
namely, that they were without a doctrine of a future state,
whereas Paganism taught that doctrine. This is a question, then,
not only of speculative interest, but of great moment, consider
ing the estimate of a Divine dispensation is affected by it. ' But
in order to decide it, we must first have before us with some
accuracy what the Pagan doctrine was, and what the Jewish
absence of doctrine was ; for we must know both of these con
ditions of thought in order to compare them together; and
judge whether the positive conception of the Pagan was, being
compared with the absence of definite conception in Judaism,
a ground of superiority to him. Again we cannot estimate the
Jewish attitude towards a Future State without a reference to
the Christian conception of a Future State, for which the con
dition of the Jew was a preparation. Our subject therefore
ranges itself under the following heads : —
I. The Pagan conception of a Future State.
II. The Christian conception.
III. The Jewish preparatory absence of conception.
IV. Comparison of Judaism and Paganism on this point.
I. The Pagan conception of a Future State.
The doctrine of a Future State, or the Immortality of the
Soul, and the Gospel doctrine of Eternal Life, are two distinct
doctrines. The former is the general doctrine of a continuance

fewish and Heathen Conceptions of a Future State. 27
of the soul's existence, and is necessary for the doctrine of
Eternal Life ; because the soul must continue to exist first of
all, in order that it may exist in that way which is expressed
by the doctrine of Eternal Life. But the former is only the
substratum, or, as we may call it, the rough material out of
which the doctrine of Eternal Life is formed. That rough
material was worked up into many different forms, before the
ultimate and true or normal form of it was produced in the
Gospel. When persons speak then of the Pagan and the
Christian doctrines of a Future State as if Paganism had been
beforehand with the Gospel on this subject, and had made
the same discovery which the Gospel made before the Gospel
made it, they speak incorrectly. The two, the Pagan and
Christian, are not the same doctrines.
The general doctrine of a Future State or the immortality
of the soul was worked up in three principal forms in Pagan
ism, which we may call respectively the Future State of the
Poets, the doctrine of the Mysteries, and the doctrine of
Philosophy. The division will suffice for practical purposes,
although the heads of it run partially into each other, and both
the Mysteries, and, in time, Poetry, were coloured by Philosophy.
1. The Future State of ancient legend and poetry was a
state of shadowy, unreal, and ghost-like existence ; that is to
say, it was not existence, not true life at all. The inhabitants
of the other world were shades, that is, they were men deprived
of half their nature, and their existence was altogether without
solidity ; airy, dreamy, and deceptive, even in their own eyes.
They remembered what they had been, and how far they
fell short of that ; they remembered how truly alive they had
been upon earth, and what a solid reality their existence was
then, only to compare it with their present ambiguous condi
tion, which was half way between life and death ; not life, for
it wanted all the corporeal powers and sensations which were
essential to being properly alive ; ' not death, for they still, in
a sense, were; they were still themselves, and conscious of
themselves. The son in the old fables goes down to the
infernal regions, sees the shade of his father, and forgetting
for a moment the nature of departed spirits is going to embrace

28 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
him, but only clasps the air, and is bitterly reminded of the
truth that the form which is so dear to him is but a vision
that meets the eye, and wants the solidity of life.
The two great Epic poets of antiquity both describe the
state of the dead. Criticism has justly awarded to Homer's
representation the praise of life-like simplicity and vigour —
that it is the representation of a real world of ghosts with an
almost matter-of-fact truth imparted to it — such truth of con
ception, that is, as would naturally arise in a strong imagination
regarding the scene as a real one. The shades have such
ways and habits as gregarious ghosts might be supposed to
have; the agitation and impetuous flutter of airy shadowy
beings ; the rushings to and fro in crowds, the thick gather
ings, and the easy dispersions. They collect with excited
curiosity about the stranger who has arrived, and, incommoding
him by closing in upon him with their cloudy shapes, have to
be kept off at the sword's point : cu S' aykpovro
<pv)(ai vwe£ 'Epej3evs vckvidv KaraTedvrjoJTUiv. . . .
auros Se £«£os 6£v lpvarcrdfJ.£vo<s Trapa p,r]pov
VP-VV! ov$' e'(ov vckvuv dp.evrjva udpi^va
a'tfiaTos currrov t/xtv.1
Achilles expresses exactly the disgust which a hero and a
powerful man, with enormous muscular strength and activities,
fiery temperament and boundless courage, might be supposed
to feel at finding himself converted into a thin mist. Homer
thus communicates a genuine character and naturalness to
the other world as the habitation of a population of ghosts ;
he vivifies in its own way a subterranean world ; while, ou
the other hand, the touches of life and nature which occur in
Virgil's description belong to this upper world really, and not
to the subterranean one ; they are derived from the spectacles
of human sorrow around us, from the sad page of earthly
destiny, and the struggles of unhappy man in this mortal state.
1 Odyssey, Book xi. 36, 37, 48-50.
Forth from the infernal gloom the phantoms trooping poured,
Shadows that once were men. I drew my biting sword,
That hung anear my thigh, and sitting there forbade
If any feeble ghost to lap the blood essayed.

of a Futttre State. 29
The poet utters piercing notes, and living nature speaks in
the allusions to the griefs, sufferings, and wrongs of human life ;
but the subterranean world which he professes to describe lies
before him as a scene upon canvas rather than an actual scene,
displaying the softest and most delicate colouring, and the
most sublime lights and shadows, but asleep.
The poetical account, then, represented existence after death
as an unsubstantial shadow, and for that reason fell completely
short of the true doctrine of a Future State. To constitute a
true existence, such existence must convey to its possessor the
sense of its reality and solidity. A man made of shadow is
not a real man. Solidity is guaranteed to the Christian's
future life by the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
The resurrection of the body is indeed an insoluble mystery ;
the evidence of it rests upon the evidences of revelation ; but,
assumed to be true, the effect of this doctrine upon the nature of
a future state is plain, namely, that it provides for the solidity
of our existence in that state. It secures the truth and com
pleteness of the life in question ; that it will have everything
analogous to those properties of this earthly life which gives to
this earthly life its reality ; qualities which truly correspond to
the palpableness and tangibleness of our present corporeal
nature ; that there will not be the slightest sense of defective
ness in it on that score ; and that however spiritual it will not
be an atom less solid than this present life. This doctrine
provides in short that the life hereafter will be no halluci
nation, no deception, no half life, perplexing the possessor by
its ambiguity, and paining him with the sense of a void un-
supplied, and a natural appetite for life unsatisfied ; but that
we shall be and shall feel ourselves to be as thoroughly alive
then as we are now.
It has been remarked indeed by an acute writer that the
shadowy character which the ancients attributed to existence
after death' was a mode of betraying their own want of true
belief in that existence.1 When we reflect, we think of a person
1 Whately's Revelation of a Future State (Sect. 4). He is more discriminat
ing than Warburton, who is misled by the imagery of a future life in the
Pagan legends, and does not see the want of true belief contained in this
very imagery, and the peculiar characteristics of it.

30 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
either as existing or not existing ; we know that there is no
medium between the two, because, as Aristotle says, " substance
does not admit of degrees," and we know that doubt about a
person's existence can only arise from our ignorance which of
two alternatives, his existence or his non-existence, is true.
But though this state of the case is very clear to us when we
reflect, the loose imagination of mankind is apt to confuse
doubt and the object of doubt together, and to attribute to
the object of doubt that ambiguity and uncertainty which only
exists in our own minds respecting it ; and this confusion it
expresses by a compromise which gives to the object itself a
midway and half-existence between being and not being. Thus
inaccurate minds regard contingency as a quality inherent in
the contingent events themselves, instead of only, as it is, an
uncertainty in their own minds respecting those events, which
in themselves must either be or not be. And on the same
principle the heathen attributed a half existence to the
departed; by which they really expressed their own uncer
tainty whether they really did exist or not. Beflecting men
indeed put that doubt before them in its true light, as an
uncertainty residing in their own minds ; but the majority
made it an ambiguity and defectiveness in the future condition
itself. 2. If we go from the field of legend and popular fancy to a
more regular treatment of the doctrine, we come across corrup
tions which wholly degrade the doctrine. With respect to the
inculcation of a future state in the ancient mysteries, two
points must be observed.
In the first place it must be remarked that it was wholly
unnatural, and betrayed a want of real conviction of the truth
of the doctrine, that the doctrine of a future state should be
taught at all in the form of a mystery or secret. Why teach
such a doctrine in such a way ? The true evidence of a future
state was strictly public evidence, and lay in the instincts of
every heart. Why then adulterate by quackery a truth of
nature, and supplant the light of day by the fictitious charm of
a dark secret, if it were not that men believed this false evidence
more than they did the true? Let a mystagogue take them

of a Future State. 31
into the dark, conjure up an awful scene, and then tell them
as a secret that there is life beyond the grave, and they think
they believe ; but they do not believe the presage of their own
conscience which is the voice of God speaking to them. Now
this belief is not genuine belief, it is a counterfeit ; it is bred
out of the dark, and it vanishes with the day. True belief
rests upon a public ground, upon the evidence which is con
tained in our common human nature, human conscience, and
human reason. That faith which springs from stage mystery
is no faith to last in ordinary life. A secret indeed, and to be
kept as such, not to be promulgated, but to remain the privi
lege of the initiated ! what true belief would submit to such
terms as these ? It is the first impulse of the human heart,
when it really believes a truth of such universal interest, to
communicate it. All mankind are eager to know something
about what is to become of them when they die. It is the
pressing want of the human heart. If I really believe, then,
that there is a future life, shall I keep this a secret ? No,
I will tell it to the whole world. It is a proof that I only
half believe it myself, if I keep it shut up in my own
thoughts. It is of the essence of true belief to be commu
nicative ; as soon as man felt really convinced of a future life,
he preached it.
But in the next place the doctrine of a future state, as taught
in the mysteries, contracted that monstrous corruption, which
preyed like a cancer upon all the belief in the soul's immor
tality which existed in the ancient world, draining whatever
there was of natural truth in it — the doctrine of Metempsy
chosis; that the souls migrated at death into another body,
passing through a succession of earthly lives ; so that a man
went on being born into this world again as other men. The
doctrine of Metempsychosis is an organic corruption of the
conception of a future life, because it interferes with that which
lies at the very root of such a conception — personal identity.
I am the same person throughout the whole of my life here :
Eternal Life is being the same person throughout eternity. But
the doctrine of Metempsychosis utterly confounds, at the very
outset, this elementary notion. A man becomes several men

3 2 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
in succession. A man goes through in one life the conscious
ness of being Pythagoras ; he goes through another life with
the consciousness of being Pericles ; through a third life with
the consciousness of being Julius Csesar; he goes through a
fourth life with the consciousness of being Vespasian.
These successive divided periods of consciousness, in each
of which the man thinks himself to be the individual of that
period alone, are but the outer coat and film of one pervading
personality. Under the proviso of this one check upon his
own multiplication — that if he cannot be many men alive at
the same moment of time — he may become any number of
persons succeeding each other in unconscious unbroken succes
sion while the world lasts.1 But in this career of one person
who is an innumerable crowd of persons, personal identity is
confounded wholly, and so a future life at the root vitiated.
Shall I who live now be the same person that will live in a
future life, or will that person be different from myself? I
cannot understand upon this doctrine how he will be the
same person with myself ; but if he will be different persons,
I have no interest in the question of eternity at all.
The doctrine of Metempsychosis has appeared to some
a natural doctrine ; and they have accounted for its popu
larity in the ancient world on the score of its naturalness.
The notion did not launch the thought into another world,
but kept life within the region of sense and this world ; which
to some is more natural. But it is a natural doctrine in a
very superficial sense only. What becomes of a man when
he dies? It was an obvious and very easy conjecture to
suppose that he came up to the surface of life again in
another body ; into a world one endless succession of births
and deaths, where the sun of life is always setting in one form
and rising in another. A spectator then makes the off-hand
guess that Nature does not waste her old materials in supply
ing the perpetual demand upon her, but uses the treasury of
past life to fill up the void of the future. But though the
doctrine offers a coarse puerile solution to the enigma of human
life, it is totally repugnant to the inner instinct of man ; dis-
1 See Essays, Historical and Theological, vol. ii., " Indian Conversion."

of a Future State. • 33
organising his whole conception of himself, and cutting off
his communication with futurity. Brought to this inner
touchstone, it is a totally unnatural doctrine, one from which
Nature revolts ; no grosser corruption has ever issued out of
the chambers of speculation.
The idea, indeed, is singularly adapted to the Brahmanical
basis of total scepticism — that point of view from which the
whole of present existence, from the peel to the core, from the
coat of matter to the very centre of consciousness, is regarded
as a mere surface and film which rolls away in the presence of
the Infinite Mind. But it is melancholy to see Plato reversing,
remodelling, and constructing a scientific basis for the gross
and corrupt absurdity of Metempsychosis, establishing it upon
the principle of mutual generation of contraries, upon which
ensued an endless alternation of death issuing in life and life
in death; neither ending in itself, but always in its opposite.
The great vortex of the universe was thus always casting up
its waves to the surface, and re-absorbing them by turns into
the depths below ; discharging the vast resources of life, and
re-collecting them ; sending forth being into the upper world
and into corporeal frames, and gathering it back again into
the abyss of death, to send it forth again when wanted. The
mighty frame of the universe was thus sustained by an equi
librium which kept up an inexhaustible fund of production
ever equal to the demand, saved the old stock of life for fresh
supply, and instantly replenished the stream from the ancient
reservoir. Otherwise, if the old material failed and passed
away altogether, and was never available for use again, pro
duction must stop, and everything come to an end.
3. We come now from the popular legendary doctrine,
and from the mysteries, to the philosophical doctrine of a
future state. The ancient philosophers use sublime language
about the soul ; they assert the immortality of the soul ; they
speak of it as in its own nature indestructible. A person who
comes across this language says the ancient philosophers
believed in a future state. But when we examine what the
sense was in which they held the doctrine, what they meant
by the soul living after death, we find that the idea was a
c

34 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
totally different one from our own, we find that they meant
by a future state something which we should regard as a
denial of it ; namely, that the soul upon death was re
absorbed into the Universal Soul, and with all its individuality
decomposed and resolved into the great Unity and Whole.
The resolution into to Iv professed to preserve the essence or
substance of the soul, safe for ever from extinction, but
without distinct sensations, or consciousness, or any peculiar
and separate existence of its own ; stripped of all these, it was
reduced to its common life and elementary nature, and lived,
not as this or that soul, but as soul. The soul was thus
absorbed into the Deity at death, because it was a part of the
Deity. This latter idea was at the root of the philosophic
doctrine of resolution into to 'iv. The soul was, according to
ancient philosophy, a portion of God — not made or produced
by Him, but an absolute fraction of Him; the idea was
explained by the illustration of a vessel in the sea holding
water that has got into it out of the sea; which water floats
for a time within its receptacle distinct from the ocean around
it ; but upon a fracture of the vessel mingles with, the ocean
again. The soul is part of God, or the Universal Soul, just as
the water in the vessel is part of the sea ; it is contained for
a time within the receptacle of a human personality, and then
mingles with the Divine essence again.
Arrian, the interpreter of Epictetus, uses almost a bolder
image. I am, he says, as a man a part of the to irav, as an
hour is part of the day.1 That is to say, the whole, or to irav,
being God in this philosophy, a man is part of God, just as
an hour is part of the day. The soul, says Plutarch, is not so
much the work and production of God, as a part of Him, nor
is it made by Him, but from Him and out of Him.2 Plato
laid the foundation of this language in his JVoii? del 6eo<s.
Seneca says, "Why should you not believe something to be
divine in him who is part of the Godhead— Dei pars ? That
whole in which we are contained is One, and that One is God, ¦
1 YilpX HvOponros, /jJpos tuw tt&vtwv, (is &pa ijp,ipas.
2'H Je i/n>xh—ofa tpyov i<m rod 6eov y.bvav &\\a Kai /«?/>os— oi55"TIT airov
d\V 'An' oirov, Kai 'ES aOrou ytyovev.

of a Future State. 35
and we are His companions and members." 1 Epictetus says,
" The souls of men have the nearest relation to God, as being
parts or fragments of Him discerped and torn from His sub
stance."2 The soul being part of God, then, and separated
and broken off from Him at birth, is reunited to God, that is,
to to ev or to ttclv, at death ; as re-absorbed into the Universal
Soul from which it was divided. " You have hitherto existed
as a part" says Marcus Antoninus ; " you will therefore be
absorbed and lost in the substance that produced you. . . .
Every body will be soon lost and buried in the Universal
Substance. Every soul will be soon absorbed and sunk in the
Universal Nature."3
Such a doctrine of the immortality of the soul did not deceive
the Fathers, who attacked especially the blasphemy of the
foundation on which it rested, that the soul was part of God.
They saw the difference between the true and the false
sublime, and denounced that exaltation of the human soul to
the rank of a divine substance; which ended in its reduction
into nothing. Jerome protests against those "qui hominem
exotequant Deo, et de ejus dicunt esse- substantia."4, Tertullian
does the same ; Augustine tells those " who could not for
shame say that the body was God, and yet said that the soul
was," that they inserted mutability into the Divine nature.
What, he says, do you assert wanton, unjust, impious parts of
God ? do you mean to say, " Dei partem vapulare, cum puer
vapulat?"6 Some Fathers indeed went so far in this opposition
to the divinity of the soul, that they maintained its materiality,
and Dodwell, upon the strength of their language, actually
maintained the corporeal nature of the soul as a doctrine of
the Fathers.
If we turn to the origin of this assertion of ancient philo
sophy, that the soul was part of God, the ancients seem
to have considered that they were compelled to adopt this
position by two arguments of irresistible cogency from two
different quarters. One was from the nature of God, that the
' Ep. 92. 2 Epict. Diss. ii. 8, 12.
8 Eis 'Eavrbv, Lib. ii. cap. 12.
4 Ctesiphon adver. Pelag. ' * De Civ. Dei, viii. 5.

b

36 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
universal soul contained all individual souls as portions of
itself. The other was from the nature of the soul. The ancient
mind was imprisoned within the vice of that old axiom that
whatever is generated must decay. This being adopted as a
self-evident truth, it followed upon it. that the soul must
be ungenerated, that is, must have an eternal pre-existence
if it is to have an eternal after-existence. "It is a thing
very well known," says Cudworth, "that according to the
sense of philosophers, these two things were always included
together, in that one opinion of the soul's immortality, namely,
its pre-existence, as well as its post-existence. Neither was
there ever any of the ancients before Christianity that held
the soul's future permanency after death, who did not likewise
assert its pre-existence ; they clearly perceiving that if it was
once granted that the soul was generated, it could never be
proved but that it might not also be corrupted, and therefore
the assertors of the soul's immortality commonly began here, first
to prove its pre-existence."1 In what mode then did the soul
exist in this eternity, a parte ante ? " If eternal," says War
burton, giving the ancient argument, " it must be either inde
pendent of God or part of His substance. Independent it
could not be, for there can be but one independent being of the
same kind of substance. The ancients indeed thought it no
absurdity to say that God and Matter were both self-existent,
but they allowed no third ; therefore they must needs conclude
that it was part of God."2 The soul could not have lived from
all eternity a separate individual life of its own ; that would
be to make every soul a distinct God ; it must therefore have
existed in the universal soul. It was then at birth discerped
from the universal Substance, and at death it will be resolved
into it again. Such was the conclusion of the ancients, based
upon one, as it seemed, self-evident axiom, "whatever was
generated must decay :" therefore whatever was not to decay
must be ungenerated. We know what such axioms are worth,
but they were under the yoke of these semblances of truth ;
they could see no alternative, therefore, between makino- the
soul mortal and making it divine, and thought themselves
1 Intellectual System, p. 38. 2 Divine Legation, Book m. Sect. iv.

of a Future State. 37
obliged in self-defence, as claimants of immortality, to endow
the soul with original, self-existing, indestructible being ; that
is, with the attributes of God. The whole well-known demon
stration of the soul's immortality which Cicero adopts from
Plato derives its eternal existence from the premiss of self-
existence. But the usurpation recoiled upon itself in the
sequel ; that which was discerped from the Divine substance
was resolved into it at death, and the soul paid for its false
and illegitimate dignity by ultimate impersonality.
"Pythagoras and' Plato," says Plutarch, "held the soul to be
immortal, for that, launching forth into the Soul of the universe,
it returns to its Parent and Original."1 We must distinguish
between Plato the divine and Plato the philosopher. The
exponent of old Pagan theology, who remodelled and dressed
up afresh the old legendary material, took one ground ; the
philosopher took another. But the philosophy of Plato out
lasted his theology, and his metaphysical basis for a future
state produced its natural results in the doctrine of re-absorp
tion, upon which Plato himself verges, and which became the
declared doctrine of the Platonists. Socrates seems alone, of
all the ancient philosophers, to have rested the proof of a future
state upon a moral ground solely; and as a consequence,
although his belief of a future state was of the nature of a
conjecture rather than a conviction, still his idea of that state
was that of personal existence without speculative alloy.
Such was the ancient doctrine of a future state. As a
popular doctrine, derived from legend, it represented the
future life as an ambiguous and a half- existence, oppressing
the departed with the sense of an utter deficiency in their state
of being, — being indeed more dead than alive, — wandering as
they did to and fro as unsubstantial shadows and ghosts in
the subterranean realms. As a doctrine taught more formally
in the institutions of Paganism, it contracted the gross corrup
tion of Metempsychosis. As a doctrine of philosophy, it
deprived the future life of all personality, and represented it
as a mere absorption of the particular soul in the universal
soul. We have evidently, in the incoherent and debased mass
1 De Plac. Phil., Lib. iv. cap. vii.

38 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
of sentiment and opinion with respect to the future state, the
wild and disordered guesses of the human mind, endeavouring
to construct a true doctrine of a future state before it had
the foundation on which to build one, — the foundation of an
enlightened conscience ; a moral foundation. In all this
accumulation of imagery and speculation, is a future life ever
once presented to us as a life that is worth living for ? Not
once. It was not presented in that aspect in the legendary
doctrine, for who could look forward with joy to being an
unsubstantial shadow ? It was hot in the gloomy migrations
of Metempsychosis, for who could entertain gladly, or even
properly entertain at all, the irrational conception of being
changed into a different unknown person, or into a brute?
It was not in the philosophical doctrine of futurity : for who
could look forward with pleasure to the loss of his personal
existence ? The Pagan turned his eye from the dreary pro
spect, and said, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,"
to-morrow we die to this life, and is there any other life to care
for ? What evidence is there of that point of view, in which
we regard a future life, existing in classical ages ? The crowd
played with the imagery of another world, but it had no place
as a truth in their hearts ; nobody lived for it. How could
anybody live for a future such as this ?
From this wild medley of delusion and speculation which
composed the Pagan doctrine of a future life, we shall have
to turn before long to the negative and neutral creed of the
ancient Jew. But before we can estimate properly the con
dition of belief on this subject, we must place before us that
doctrine for which the condition of the Jew was a preparation,
viz., the Christian conception of a future life. It is only when
the end is before us that the means towards it can be under
stood ; the germ of the true doctrine can only be judged of in
relation to the true doctrine itself.
II. The Christian conception of a Future State.
1. The Gospel made the announcement of the Life Everlast
ing ; no second mortal life which rises in birth and sets in death,
but an eternal and unclosing day which has no night. Once
does man die, but it is against the law of the Universe that

of a Future State. 39
lie should die again ; that the mystery of an end should be
repeated ; that an event which is single in his existence should
recur. After that one death he lives for ever ; and his life is
a state of glory, not merely a continuation, but an ascent ot
existence. Nor is this endless life of glory announced as a
vision or an ecstasy. By virtue of the article of the resurrec
tion of the body, all that is analogous to the substance, the
visibility, delineation of form, the distinction of local presence,
the sense of solidity, which attaches to this earthly life, belongs
also to the life everlasting. This was a doctrine divided the
whole width of the poles from the Pagan doctrine of a future
state. It was another truth, a different truth. The Pagans
held a future state, held the immortality of the soul, we are
told, as if, that said, the subject were all over. But the
subject, in fact, is only just begun. Is it enough that the
soul after death exists ? Is that all ; as if so long as it
existed it did not signify how it existed, what its life was ?
This is only the threshold of the true doctrine. The soul may
be allowed to exist, and that existence may be represented, as
it is represented in Paganism, as shadowy, or as impersonal, or
as a perpetual restless change and succession of lives, going on
through one condition of being after another by alternating
gateways of life and death ; the vagrant inhabitant of different
bodies, carried backwards and forwards by the interminable
flux and reflux of the great tide of existence, and the action
and reaction of contraries, life producing death, and death life,
for ever and ever. It is the questions which arise after the
admission of future existence that are the critical questions.
It is a poor thing to say that the soul exists after death, unless
you add the mode of existence.
The mode is the real point. But all these questions as to the
mode were decided wrongly in Paganism ; and therefore the
doctrine of a future life, in our sense of the phrase, had to be
reconstructed from the very base after the erection of the
Pagan fabric ; the very first step must be to cast off the whole
of Pagan tradition, in which there was nothing that could be
used, all which was so much obstructive matter in the way.
It was a preliminary absolutely essential for a true doctrine

40 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
to arise, that the ground should first be cleared and a clean
sweep made of this mass of rubbish. To build upon these
rotten premisses was useless ; a new and fresh foundation was
wanted ; and this was just what the Jewish dispensation, with
its tabula rasa, its vacancy, its want of all definite conception
of futurity, supplied.
2. This personal endless life in another world, which is the
announcement ofthe Gospel, is a most incredible idea at first
to human nature. To the simple imagination it is a wilder,
a more audacious flight, it more utterly leaves this world
and all its forms, its ideas, its types, and impressions behind
it than any of the three Pagan conceptions of immortality.
All those, with their monstrous and unnatural character, com
bine an evident timidity ; they cling to earth and shrink from
the soaring truth of a spiritual eternal world ; legend dared
not conceive of the future life as more than a shadow cast
off from the true life which it placed here ; Metempsychosis
evaded the conception of another and spiritual sphere of life
by providing a cycle of earthly lives, and keeping the
soul within the changing coil of mortal flesh; and in
philosophy another life evaporated altogether. None of these
conceptions then got out of the enclosure of this world. The
Gospel conception did. It is then the most astonishing con
ception of all ; the most overpowering to the imagination.
If we reflect how low a creature man naturally is in his own
eyes, how contentedly he measures himself by the span of this
life, and thinks himself as a matter of course a creature of to
day ; nay, who embraces his fate as a conclusion of common
sense, and philosophises upon it ; we must see how at once
he must regard the idea that he is to live for ever. That
period after period should pass, ages and countless millions of
ages, and still find him the same person that he is now, upon
the verge of no dissolution, approaching no close, looking to
as much existence as he has enjoyed, and indefinitely as much
more— how can he believe it? How incredible the total
unlikeness to all present experience, the release from all sense
of transiency, the withdrawal of the weight and presence of
mortality upon the heart, the absence of all anticipation of an

of a Future State. 41
end ! That the man should thus survive in a new and glori
ous world the total and dreadful ruin which death is, the blow
which shatters the mortal structure, and blots out the whole
visible man; — this might be the fitting vision of a fanatic
seeing, in second sight, on the other side the dark boundary of
life, his own form illuminated by a mystical light; but to
mere sober worldly common sense such an eternity would
appear an impossibility, a fancy and a dream, a thing to which
no belief could attach. Eegarded as a real prospect before us,
an actual life, which we may at some time, under the Divine
government of the universe, be admitted to, it even now tries
the faith of the Christian. As soon as he realises it he is
wonderstruck. And the mass can hardly be said to believe it.
One glimpse caught of the mere chance of this eternity as a
fact is superior to the most positive verbal conviction of many
— that stupor of certainty which is unbelief in disguise.
The conception of a personal endless life has indeed this
double character, and combines these two, at first sight,
opposites. It is the only genuine, the only natural conception
of a future, and at the same time it is the most stupendous,
most surprising, and overwhelming one. It is the only natural
conception, for what is the natural idea of immortal life, what
we mean by it in our own minds, but oneself living and con
tinuing to live, the same person as one is now, endlessly and
for ever. If existence ceases to be personal it ceases to be our
existence — what we mean by it. But this conception of
immortality is also the most stupendous and surprising. Thus,
not to embrace this conception of immortality is to confess to
our own annihilation, and yet to embrace it is to believe what
seems incredible. Hence the bold front of modern unbelief on
this subject. This infidel outbreak which is the visitation of
our day, is, after all, only human nature, escaped from disci
pline, speaking plainly out on this matter. The doctrine of
eternal life is, unless he is trained for the reception of it, simply
incredible to man. He cannot think himself as a being for
whom an endless personal being is designed. It is an absurdity
to him, this personal eternity ; a mockery offered to a poor
transient being, who lives his day and then vanishes.

42 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
III. Jewish preparatory absence of conception,.
1. To build up, then, the Christian doctrine of everlasting life,
so incredible to human nature, a new foundation was necessary ;
and that foundation was a moral one. And it was this moral
foundation which was laid in the Jewish law. It is as a moral
being that man feels his value ; that he feels himself not a
creature made for this life only, but for another ; that he feels
even everlasting life, sublime and transcendent thought as it
is, not unsuitable or unfit for him. The law was a schoolmaster
that gave man a knowledge of himself, that awakened his con
science, enlightened his perceptions, and revealed him to him
self ; acquainted him with the moral purpose of his creation,
and with his own moral nature and capabilities. The law
was thus a preparation, an education, and a discipline for the
revelation of this truth, and introduced man to the designs of
God for him.
It is true that heathen law and philosophy inculcated moral
duty and obligation, and so far as heathen law and philosophy
did this, so far they supplied a preparation and a training for
the Christian doctrine of Immortality. But there were two
great defects in heathen moral teaching which prevented solid
progress in it, and issued in a stunted growth ; these two defects,
which had a deep mutual connection, were first, the absence of
a junction between morality and religion ; and secondly, the
absence of the doctrine of repentance, or, what is the same
thing, the sense of sin. I read through Cicero's Offices, and see
much admirable teaching in it, but it is defective on both these
points. He teaches morality without any relation to God, and
as a consequence of this, without the sense of sin and the duty
of repentance in the case of moral transgression. But morality
cannot be a deep thing in man's nature apart from these two.
It is as conforming him to the will of God, and raising him to
communion with God, and in connection with our relations to
God, that the sense of duty becomes a penetrating and over
powering feeling. It only rests upon the surface of man's
nature and does not take hold of it otherwise. So again what
deep hold can moral ideas be said to have over man, if when
he acts immorally and wrongly he has not the sense of guilt,

of a Future State. 43
and does not see that repentance is necessary for him ? This
defect has its root in the former one : as an offence against
God immorality becomes sin, and needs the Divine pardon, but
if there is no God in the case, then there is no sin, and no need
of repentance. Now morality was taught in the Jewish law in its full con
nection with religion. Man was taught it as that which was
to make him acceptable to his Maker, and as a divine rule,
the violation of which exposed him to the wrath of God, and
therefore imposed on him repentance. The moral law thus
gained a marvellous and mysterious depth in man's eyes which
it wanted in paganism, even when paganism taught good
morals. Among the ancients, although we have scattered
traces in their traditions of a divine curse which pursued the
wicked, and although Plato partially joined morals and religion,
still on the whole morality tended towards being a political
and secular thing. In Judaism it was a profound essential.
It was armed with all the powers of the invisible world, it was
proclaimed with thunder and lightning by the voice of God
from Mount Sinai. Man became by the infraction of it a
guilty creature. That this infraction produced so terrible a
result only showed the sublimity of the law which was broken ;
and only disclosed the high nature of man as being made to
fulfil that law. Now this was a foundation for the doctrine of
eternal life because it was a revelation of man to himself, that
he was such a being as eternal life was suitable to. It was
also a revelation of God to him as a God who cared for man,
was intent on improving and purifying him, made him the object
of His counsels, magnified him, and regarded him with unspeak
able love. The Bible ever inculcates man's value in God's
sight. As the object of God's love, and admitted to communion
with God, and great in His sight, he could even think the
prize of everlasting life accessible "to him. And thus the
Jewish law, as a discipline which brought man to know God
and to know himself, was a preparation for the doctrine of
eternal life.
The gospel doctrine of justification was, as an exaltation
of man to the level of the life everlasting, to the condition of

44 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
perfect fitness for it, the completion of the Jewish law on this
point. The law was only an awakening of his moral nature,
and issued in exposing its weakness and inability : under the
gospel the defect was supplied by the justification of man, by
which he was clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and
made an heir of immortality.
2. But while the foundation of the doctrine of eternal
life was being laid in the Jewish law, the truth itself did
not rise to the surface. What was the actual state of belief
then in the pious Jew on this subject ? Let us put before
ourselves a religious Jew. It will be said, " Must he not think
of what is to become of him when he leaves this world ?
It is the question of highest personal interest to him. He
knows that life is short. He must therefore put the question
to himself, and if he does, how can he decide it but in one way \
Can he, with his faith in God, really think that the soul perishes
with the body ? And if he does not think that it perishes, he
must decide that it lives after death." These are questions
which arise when we think of the pious individual Jew. The
natural instincts of a pious heart appear at first sight to be
inconsistent with a neutral state of belief on this subject. It
would seem that natural curiosity itself must raise the question,
and that if the question is raised it must be decided, and can
only be decided in one way. On the other hand, if this is
our conclusion, we are immediately involved in the greatest
difficulties. No doctrine of a future state is revealed in the
Jewish law ; or definitely taught in any of the religious writings
of the Jews, till a late date. And yet, had it existed, must
it not have come to the surface ? Must it not, indeed, have
become the belief of the people ? — for the religious part of the
community formed the sentiment and set the standard ; and
the rest followed it if even only verbally.
These questions must be met by observing as accurately as
we can what was the actual state of mind of the Jew. On the
one side, then, his belief evidently stood upon the very edge of
the doctrine of a Future State. First the existence of a God
contained in itself the existence of an invisible world. God is
not part of this world. He exists out of this world. His sole

of a Future State. 45
existence is therefore an existence outside of visible nature.
His existence is therefore in itself an invisible world. The Jew,
in the very act of believing in God, believed in an unseen
immaterial world, in which was Will, Design, Foresight, Love,
Anger, Action ; because all these belong to God. He believed
in an inhabited invisible world because God was in it; an
infinite Being to whom any number of beings was as nothing.
Again, there being intelligent existence out of this world, as the
object of God's care he had an implicit pledge that God would
continue his existence out of this world, and not destroy him.
Would love blot its object out of being ? Had all been ex
tracted then out of these two premisses which was contained in
them, the Jew would forthwith have awakened to the conclusion
of his own immortality ; but inasmuch as no extracting pro
cess was applied to them, these premisses just stopped short
of the conclusion ; and the doctrine which trembled upon the
very edge of disclosure remained latent and unexpressed. Our
Lord extracted and brought to light the latent force of these
premisses in the saying that " God is not the God of the dead,
but of the living, for all live unto Him."1
In this latent doctrine, then, there was something of a sense
of security, a general consciousness of standing well upon
the question of existence, standing, as it were, upon terra
firma. In fixing her eye upon an Eternal Being, the soul
unconsciously engrafted herself upon Him, and in that junc
tion with the Invisible One was carried safe. The Jew would
obviously have lost much in the way of a general feeling of
security for himself, had he been without this hold upon an
Eternal Being. Indeed, in our own case, besides the distinct
image of a future life, there enters largely into our religious
support the trust in a present God, and the pledge contained
in His character that He will do the best for us. We cannot
easily distinguish how much we owe to the superstructure of
the doctrine, how much to the base.
But while the belief of the Jews trembled upon the edge of
the doctrine of a future life, it did not rise to the explicit
doctrine. If the question is asked — How could he go on so
1 Matt, xxxii. 32 ; Luke xx. 38.

46 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
long, not drawing the conclusion from the premisses before
him, holding the doctrine in the foundation only? the reply
must be a reference of the inquirer to the known habits of the
human mind. We know that the human mind is capable of
holding truth for a long time in an elementary stage in science
and in religion; and that premisses in many cases remain
unproductive for ages. One step is wanted to bring the
latent truth to light, but that step does not occur to the
human mind. It is, indeed, an enigma which follows us
everywhere in the history of man, whether we take the world's
progress, or the progress of individual minds — why people do
not think of things sooner than they do. As soon as the idea
has been caught, it then seems unaccountable how it has been
so long missed; and after the discovery we wonder at the
blindness which did not see it before, and passed over what is
now so plain. And yet, for all this surprise, we cannot say
that there may not be new truths close to our eyes now which
we do not catch because the moment of opportune quickness
has not yet come to the sight ; up to which moment they are
invisible. But though the reason of man moves slowly, how,
it may be asked, could the Jew resist the strong impulses of
curiosity and imagination ? A future life, it will be ob
served, is no remote and recondite conclusion of reason, which
it takes time and attention and effort to extract from dark
premisses ; but it is an idea to which the human mind has
leaped forwardly and impetuously, and in the treatment of
which it has rather needed a check, having not only eagerly
adopted the belief in a future state, but having allowed fancy
to invent the details of it, and illustrate it with most luxuriant
imagery. I reply to this question, that curiosity and imagination
could never have discovered the true doctrine of a future
state had the Jews given way ever so much to their impulses.
The doctrine of a personal endless life was too great a truth
to be prematurely seized by such a grasp ; only a moral pre
paration could lead to it, and the ancient Jew did not
discover it because his moral condition was not ripe for it.
But if it is asked why the Jewish mind did not yield to the

of a Future State. 47
natural impulse of curiosity and imagination to penetrate
further into this mystery; and how it was that the Jew
maintained such a suspense on this subject, stopping con
tentedly upon the very threshold of it, — we answer that, if the
reason of the Jew did not hurry him in this matter, his
curiosity and imagination fell under the check of duty. The
Jewish dispensation was a dispensation of waiting and sus
pense, — that was its fundamental character; it professed to
be incomplete and intermediate, wanting a head and consum
mation in the Messiah who was to be. The whole religion was
in its very nature expectant, acknowledging to itself its* own
want of finality — that it was but an instalment of the whole
Divine scheme, looking forward to its own future completion
in the fulfilment of the great promise upon which its eye was
fixed. It was the line of humility and obedience in the pious
Jew, and in keeping with the curb and check inherent in his
dispensation,- — in the absence of a revelation of a future
state, not to invent one for himself. It was his trial to restrain
curiosity and fancy, and submit quietly to a midway position.
It was a trial to the imagination analogous to that which Butler
lays upon the intellect in a particular case. The impulse of the
sceptical mind is to total disbelief as the decision of, and relief
from, doubt. The impulse of the imagination is to the very
contrary, not to illegitimate demolition but to illegitimate con
struction ; but the motive is the same, namely, that of obtaining
decision and relief. The false repose of the arbitrary settlement
of a question, and having done with it without regard to the evi
dence, is the same in either case ; and the discipline of resisting
either impulse, namely, the restraining of impatience, is the same.
I may observe, too, that the Jewish dispensation, besides
being a Divine dispensation, and as being a Divine dispensa
tion, was also a school of thought ; and a school of thought,
when it becomes established, has great permanent power over
men's minds, whether as an impulse or a check ; whichever
be its aim. The ancient lawgivers appear to have established,
by the side of the direct institutions they raised, certain
types of character and moulds of thought, which they were
able to impress permanently upon the states they founded or

48 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
remodelled. Lycurgus imprinted his own type upon Sparta ;
and both Mahomet and Confucius founded schools, and repres
sive and coercive schools of thought, — a fatalist and a utili
tarian ; both of which succeeded in repressing the spirit of
inquiry in the communities which accepted them. For the
Confucian maxim that man could not find out truth, and must
therefore attend to what is practical, interdicted the first
entrance upon the field of intellectual thought. If we want
an instance of the moderating and sobering power of a school
of religious thought, we have it close at hand in that school of
which the great exponent is Butler. No one who observes
can fail to see how deeply this school has struck its root among
us, the wide area of its influence, and the great strength with
which it moulds a large mass of thought in the English Church,
how early it instils into successive generations of minds a
certain attitude upon certain questions, a temper of content
under difficulties, a disposition to rest satisfied with positions
which stop short, and do not profess to be solutions, and the
acceptance of the duty of bearing with speculative suspense.
Such an instance may assist us to understand the in
fluence of the Jewish dispensation as a school of thought,
how it could sustain the midway and expectant attitude of the
pious Jew, his contented suspension of hope, stopping short
as he did of the definite conclusion of a future Hfe, of which
he held the premisses, because he had not authority to go
further. It is the natural wish of man to carry thought to a
conclusion. Stopping short is irritating to him, just like
breaking off from something one has to do when it is half
finished ; one likes to end one's work when one is about it ;
leaving off at a fragment is annoying. But the Mosaic
system was a school of thought which early used its disciples
to withstand this impulse, and habituated them to abstain
from conjecture. The nature of man is pliable ; and by reason
of this pliability, which within certain limits is advantageous
for him, and conduces to his instruction and improvement, he
is capable of receiving strong moulding and direction from
ruling minds and from founders of schools of thought. He
is susceptible of being permanently impressed; of being

of a Future State. 49
habitually prepossessed for or against any forms or directions
of thought; his mind is capable of being put under regula
tions and prohibitions which dictate to him his attitude,
whether of inquiry or suspense, and sustain him, if need be,
in particular positions, upon the edges of great questions where
he stops short with a trained content, in which he does not
chafe or struggle against his situation, but keeps at a safe
distance from temptations of curiosity or fancy. The Jewish
lawgiver told the Jew that he was not to think of certain
subjects ; that he was not to look into certain questions ; that
he was to avert his mental eye and not try to see ; — the very
opposite attitude of mind to that which the Pagan adopted, to
whom the impulse of curiosity was law, who rushed with
eager and impetuous speculation into the darkness beyond the
grave, and allowed his volatile fancy to revel in the fictitious
details of a world of which he knew nothing.
Such a trial of curiosity may perhaps be illustrated by a
trial of temper. When anger exists in tendency, solicited by
certain objects and events, but is not raised into an emotion,
there is this intermediate condition of passion. A religious
person, for example, sees what Scripture calls the triumph of the
wicked or the success of unprincipled men in this world ; but
though the scandal is permanently in sight, there is no indig
nant motion in the mind of the spectator, because this natural
effect of the sight is habitually kept at bay ; the feelings
appropriate to the facts are recognised but held in reserve.
Thus curiosity upon the subject of existence after death may,
without being suppressed altogether, be guarded off by an
habitual attitude of the mind.
This explanation applies to the backwardness of the Jew in
drawing a definite conclusion from the scattered disclosures of
the invisible world under the old dispensation. Enoch was
taken away from the world supernaturally ; Samuel was
called up from the realms of the dead ; Elijah was carried upon
a chariot to heaven. Angelic visitations were the visits of
the inhabitants of another world, though not belonging to the
race of man. But though scattered openings were given into
an invisible world, it was a further step to bring this fragmen-
D

50 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
tary knowledge to a point and bind it into the form of a
doctrine. It was a further step to see in these special cases a
law. The particular instances remained such in the mind of
the Jew ; they were not made into a whole, and interpreted
upon a principle. He did not see, in the persons of Enoch,
Samuel, and Elijah,1 mankind. Passing gleams of a future
world were the natural precursors of the mature truth ; but at
the time they were fragments of which the full meaning was
not realised, or the whole to which they belonged, discerned.
Truth breaks forth in sudden inspirations before it settles into
a doctrine; and thus Job bursts forth with that prophetic
utterance — " I know that my Bedeemer liveth, and that he
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth ; and though after
my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see
God." Here was the gleam of a future life ; but it would be
premature to argue from the gleam the existence of the full
doctrine. Warburton's interpretation of this passage as an
expectation of temporal deliverance is inconsistent with the
general argument of Job, who regards this world as a scene of
injustice. An interpretation of it as the assertion of a doctrine
of a future life would be also inconsistent with the argument,
which implies that Job does not possess the key to the enigma
of that injustice. But the interpretation of the passage as an
inspired gleam of the truth does not contradict the argument,
and gives a more natural sense to the words.
In describing the Jewish belief on the subject of a Future
Life as a state of suspense, we have at the same time to
recognise a good deal of language on the subject of death in
the Old Testament, which appears at first to go beyond a state
of suspense, and to exhibit death as the termination of exist
ence. " Shall thy wonders be known in the dark?" it is said
in the 88th Psalm ; " and thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness? wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall
the dead arise and praise thee ?" " The grave cannot praise
thee," says Hezekiah, "death cannot celebrate thee; they
that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth." But
1 Warburton admits a dawn of the truth in the ascent of Elijah, and
a gradual advance of the Jewish mind in that direction from that time.

of a Future State. 5 1
though this description of the state of death is in startling con
trast with that of the Gospel, in which the grave figures as the
gateway of heaven and the entrance into life and glory, we
see, when we examine it accurately, that it stops short of the
fact of what does really take place in the mystery of death.
These are simple descriptions of the phenomenon of death,
and do not profess to enter into the inner reality. To the eye
death is the phenomenon which they describe ; it is a with
drawal from the light of day, the effacement of all the sensible
tokens of existence. The dead cannot praise God because they
cannot speak ; they cannot be shown His wonders because they
cannot see ; they are in the land of forgetfulness because they
give no outward sign of recollection ; they are shut up in the
pit because they are buried in the earth ; they have no hope,
because the grave is the apparent end of everything. This is
a faithful picture of death as a visible change ; but this language
does not say more or enter into the question of what really
happens to the soul at death ; it is not a description of the real
truth but of the outward phenomenon. The language in
Ecclesiastes appears at first to place man on a level with the
beasts at death ; but the whole mode of speaking evidently
assumes the sphere of visible nature as the scene in which the
writer places himself, and to which he intends his observation
to apply. " All go unto one place, all are of the dust, and all
turn to dust again " — this is only the statement of a visible
fact. " Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and
the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ?" —
that is to say, there is an immense difference between the
spirit of a man and the spirit of a beast, the one is much
superior to the other ; the human soul having an alliance with
God and heaven, while the animal nature creeps on the
ground ; but though we see this difference we cannot follow it
beyond the boundary of this world, where both man and
beast vanish from our cognisance, and are reduced by death to
an outward equality. We must too, take the melancholy
description of death in the Old Testament combined with more
hopeful language which seems to pass beyond the line of
neutrality. The saying, "The spirit shall return unto God

5 2 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
who gave it," confines itself indeed to the resumption of the
gift of life by the giver, stopping short of the question, whether
this resumption is for continuation in another state ; but still,
as appertaining specially to man, this mode of speaking
declares the dignity and excellency, and favours the perma
nence of, the human soul. The language of the Old Testament
whieh points to the happy end of the righteous — " Let me die
the death of the righteous," " the end of that man is peace,"
does not of necessity contemplate consequences beyond this
life ; because the man who has the support of his conscience at
that awful moment, even without the distinct prospect of what
is to follow, cannot but enjoy a sense of security and feel that
in some way or other all will be well with him ; but such
language still borders upon the idea of a future life.
It is not, I say, the idea of annihilation which is expressed
in this language of the Old Testament, but the visible exterior
of death. If we want a specimen of language which does
express the idea of annhilation, we must go to Lucretius.
The language of Lucretius on the subject of death indeed, so
far as the mind of the poet is vigorously inspired, as we see
it to be, with the clear apprehension of the end of this life —
of a moment when that will be to us a past life, not belonging
to us — possesses a latent religion, and may be called spiritual
language. His words fix with an iron sharpness and strength
upon us the miserable thought that there is an end of this
world to us — that truth which Scripture appeals to as the
foundation of a religious life. The common mind does not
really apprehend what is so contradictory to experience as the
total cessation of its connection with this world; it cannot
embrace the true idea of an end; but dreams of another life
which is only the reflection in the glass of the life it knows.
Lucretius breaks in pieces this idol, and we see, as we have
said, a spirituality in the mind of a poet who is thus fiercely
at war with a dream of mortal flesh, and cuts with the unspar
ing edge of reason through the mistake and the delusion. He
takes indeed the particular case in which this mistake is a
source of fear to man, who wrongly identifies himself before
hand with that miserable spectacle of death which will only

of a Future State. 53
have begun when he will cease to be affected by it ; but this
sham eternity is much oftener a source of false comfort to man.
Yet though Lucretius, so far as he fastens upon his reader's
mind an end of this life, uses spiritual language, he goes
beyond this idea, and devotes his poetical rage to representing
the clear philosophical conception of total annihilation. And
we therefore see from him what language that is which does
express this latter idea, and we see how different it is from
that of the Old Testament description of the phenomenon
of death. IV Comparison of Judaism and Paganism with respect to
the belief of a Future State.
With the Pagan doctrine and the Jewish absence of
doctrine before us, we may now compare the two together as
religious conditions. How stands the case with respect to
the comparison of Judaism and Paganism on this point ? It
must be observed then, in the first place, that a great fallacy
is involved in the usual mode in which this comparison is
made. The case is stated as if the comparison lay between
a religion in which the true doctrine of a future life was not
taught, and a religion in which that doctrine was taught ;
but this is not the state of the case. The two beliefs between
which the comparison lies are, on the one side, a gross mis
conception of the future life, which is the Pagan; and an
absence of definite conception, which is the Jewish. We
have not here to answer the question why the true doctrine
of a future life was not revealed to the Jews ; that is a ques
tion which has to be answered in its proper place, and it is
incidentally answered in the course of this discussion ; it is
in fact part of the general question, Why was revelation pro
gressive ? Nor again have we to answer another question akin
to it. It may be asked why should there have been an
interval of complete vacancy? Granting that the Pagan
doctrine of a future life must be thrown aside, and that the
time was not yet ripe for the true doctrine ; — why should not
the element of truth which was in the Pagan creed have
been separated from its corruption and been inserted in the
Jewish Law ? There was still room, it may be said, for some

54 Jewish and Heathen Conceptions
declaration of a Future State, instead of the omission of it.
But we are not concerned here with the question why such
and such a piece of knowledge was withheld in the old dis
pensation: We are boncerned with no omission or defect in
Judaism on its own account which belongs to the other
general ground of progress of revelation ; we are only con
cerned with such an omission as compared with a Pagan
assertion ; whether the silence of the law were an inferiority
and a loss as compared with an erroneous and debased doctrine,
in the religion of the Heathen.
This question may be met, in the first instance, in some such
way as this. We know the religious belief of Abraham, of
Jacob, of Joseph, of Moses, of Samuel, of David, of Hezekiah,
and other saints of the Old Testament. Would it have been
any improvement to their belief in our eyes, if instead of that
state of mind with respect to futurity in which we perceive
them to be, they declared their belief in the doctrine of
Metempsychosis, or their belief in the legend of the infernal
regions; or their belief in the doctrine of absorption and
an impersonal existence of the soul in a future state ? Would
it add to the dignity, to the spirituality of their religious
condition in our eyes, that they should have the conception,
and definite conception, of a future life, but a conception of
one or other of these kinds? It is evident that it would
not ; on the contrary, that it would greatly lower our estimate
of the religious condition of these holy men. There is no
scandal in a simple stopping short of the truth in those who
held the solid groundwork of that truth. But to suppose, for
example, David, the holy Psalmist, to have believed in the cycle
of Metempsychosis, to have imagined that the human soul at
death passes into other bodies of men or brutes, would be a
conception so degrading to the spiritual character of David,
that we cannot state it without revolting from it.
Now, if this is so, the comparison between Paganism and
Judaism on this subject is decided, and decided in favour of
Judaism. The alternative is not between some true conception
of a future state and the want of a conception of it; but
between a false conception and the want of one. We must

of a Future State. 55
not, in this comparison, take some abstract doctrine of the
immortality of the soul to compare with the defect of one
in Judaism; we are comparing two actual systems, and we
must compare them as they stand. We must take the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul as it was actually worked up,
in the actual shapes in which it was held in Paganism. We
may, indeed, and sometimes do, substitute for the actual doctrine
of Paganism a philosophical abstraction of our own, and then
sharply objurgate the omission of this in Judaism ; but if we
do so we commence the comparison by wholly mistaking one
of the sides of it. It is the actual doctrine of Paganism and
the actual doctrine of Judaism which must be brought together
in this judgment and compared. The actual doctrine of
Paganism existed in those three shapes I have mentioned, the
life of shadows, the Metempsychosis, and the absorption into
the infinite. Did any one of these shapes give the Pagan the
superiority over the Jew ? Common reason answers, No.
Again, we have an additional aid and support to the Jew
in sustaining his position of suspense, and resisting the temp
tations of curiosity and fancy, in the opposition in which he
was placed to Paganism. He could not have indulged in
speculation and imagery without falling into the corrupt con
ception of a future state into which the Pagans had fallen;
but the Pagan corruptions of the doctrine were before him, to
deter him from such an attempt, and to warn him of his
danger. In the Pagan doctrine the pious Jew saw not the
elevation but the degradation of man ; and as he abhorred
the idolatry of the heathen so he would shrink from his idea
of futurity. The Pagan belief then might be thrust before
his eyes, but it would be before him not to captivate but
to disgust him. It is at first sight difficult to understand
how the Israelites could have had throughout their whole
abode in Egypt that very marked and elaborate doctrine of a
future life before them which stood out so prominently in the
religion and constitutions of that country ; and yet that the
fact should have been wholly ignored, and that in a law, the
institution of which followed almost immediately their exit
out of that country, so long their abode, not a single mention

56 J ewish and Heathen Conceptions
of a future state should be made ; but this is the answer. To
the pious Israelite the Egyptian doctrine on this point and
Egyptian idolatry and animal worship stood on exactly the
same footing. Could he believe in the transmigration of the
human soul at death into the bodies of brutes ? His purer
creed as to God and man would at once throw aside such an
idea as monstrous. But this was a prominent part of the
Egyptian doctrine of a future state, and could not be separated
from it. All went together. It no more occurred to the pious
Israelite to parley with the Egyptian doctrine of a future state,
than to enter into terms with his very theology. He no more
respected the Egyptian fancy when it played with futurity,
than when it played with the Divine Nature.1
But again, did the Pagans really believe after all in the
future state they talked about? or what was the sort of
belief they had in it ? A great drawback must be made on
this head, in comparing the Pagan and the Jewish states of
mind, as well as on the score of the debased conception of the
state itself. The crowd caught up the imagery which poetry
supplied. But it is not generally considered, as much as it
ought to be, how small an element in the real -belief of a future
state is the mere image of it. People see a luxurious growth of
imagery on this subject in Paganism, and leap to the conclusion
of a belief; but let us examine a mere image in the mind —
what is it ? What does it amount to ? If a man looks forward
to a future state he must have an image of himself as existing
or not existing. He takes of the two the image of himself as
existing. It requires no high state of mind to do this ; anybody
can do it, the merest savage can and does so image himself.
But there is no belief implied in what is a mere guess, a mere
choice of that alternative of the two which is most liked;
unless there are also some reasons, some principles in the con
science on which the mind goes. Yet. this image taken up
is expanded, is dressed out, is decked with the details of fancy
and of story, and becomes a popular doctrine of a future state.
After all, however, water cannot rise above its level; the
belief is at the root a guess, and however it may be orna-
1 See page 301.

of a Future State. 57
mentally developed does not rise to more. The whole Pagan
imagery was in reality an enormous advance upon their belief.
The superstructure was wholly disproportionate to the basis.
It was a luxurious growth of shell with hardly any kernel in
side. It is a striking contrast when we turn from the scenic
details, circumstantial disclosures, of another world in Paganism,
the personal adventures connected with it, the reports brought
back by visitors to the region of mystery, to the blank of the
Jewish law. But vivid imagery, though it shows a warm and
lively fancy, is very little index of faith. A pictorial creation,
when once begun, advances so fast and gets so far ahead of
conviction, that it ceases to be any guarantee for the latter.
Man can imagine endlessly. Vivacity will give the smallest
minutiae of any scene ; but it is mere picture-making. Do you
believe in the scene which your own fancy has conjured up ?
I may imagine a certain kind of life going on in the planet
Jupiter, animal forms, modes of nutrition totally different
from those of this earth. Or I may imagine states and societies
of men there, with a most elaborate geography. But I do not
believe in the creation of my own fancy. There was a founda
tion of belief in a future world among the heathen, but to
suppose that vivid and minute painting was any proof of the
depth and solidity of the belief would be to mistake the
habits of the human mind. There was entertainment, excite
ment, a gratification of the appetite for the marvellous in such
descriptions ; but to true belief they stood in the relation of
a monster mask, which was out of all proportion to the head
within it. It is not, then, the imagery of the Pagan — which is
quite another thing — but the belief of the Pagan which we must
consider in a comparison of Pagan and Jew upon this subject ;
we must take the small residuum of belief left after the deduc
tion of pictorial matter, and put it side by side with the solid
germ of the true doctrine of a future life in Judaism.
How stands the case then in the comparison of Paganism
and Judaism upon the point of the doctrine of a Future State ?
On the one side, it is true that we have the express adoption
of the doctrine, but it is grossly misconceived, while, moreover,
the general belief in it is so weak and unsettled as to be

58 J ezvish and Heathen Conceptions
hardly more than a name. On the other side, there is the omis
sion of it, but a foundation is being laid for the true doctrine.
Which of these two conditions or situations then is the better ?
I do not mean when the true doctrine came to light which
was the better of the two— that is taken for granted. But in
the interim, and while the truth was in its latent and
germinal stage, which was best : to have the superstructure
of the spurious doctrine, or the foundation of the true one ?
There can be no fair doubt on this point. The foundation of
the true doctrine which was being laid in the communion of
man with God, and the enlightenment of man's conscience by the
Law, was in itself and at the time a most signal elevation to
man, the most direct improvement of him. What if there was
no clear idea of a future state ? There was the actual present
belief in God, and in a God who governed by rewards and
punishments. To the authority of the divine law the direct
belief in a future state is not essential, but, first, the conscience
is bound by it prior to further sanctions ; secondly, although
the sanctions of rewards and punishment are practically
necessary to the support of human obedience, such sanctions
need not have express reference to a future life. The Divine
Law was in fact able to move man in the old dispensation, and
commanded in a pre-eminent degree, as compared with the Pagan
moral law, the springs of action in his heart. The Law was
a present effective influence. On the other hand, the practical
influence of a doctrine of a future life, as they held it, upon the
heathen was wholly inconsiderable. There is no evidence that
the sort of motive was in any operation among them, or was
known in classical times as a practical principle of life — the
aim at the reward of future happiness. There is no proof that
the living for another world was a recognised practical rule of
life. There is no sign of their understanding such a scope
and direction of life as this. Still less is there any sign that
such an aim created any mass or body of holy men, or church.
Whereas, under Judaism, we see a perpetual, standing body of
pious men, whose idea of life was obedience to the Divine Law ;
we see a Church. We need not then argue the case from pre
misses ; the proof lies in the facts. The Jewish belief bore

of a Future State. 59
fruits. The mere article of a future life is not in itself the test
of superiority of one creed over another, for besides that it may
be grossly misconceived, the bare image of a futurity is nothing,
and merely shows a different condition of the popular fancy —
unless it influences life. That is the criterion. But the Pagan
belief with this article did not answer this test, while the
Jewish belief without it did.

6o

IV.— ON THE SUPPOSED OBSCURITY OF HOLY
SCRIPTURE.1
There appears to have been a tendency lately to exaggerate
the obscurity of Scripture. I do not mean of particular texts
or departments, such as the typical language of Scripture, or
the prophetical section of Scripture, but of Scripture in matters
of faith. This has been alleged sometimes in the interests of
church authority, to create a more stringent view of its neces
sity, sometimes in the interests of doctrinal scepticism. Let
us take first the extreme school of tradition. What it lays
down is, that the language of Scripture is an indefinite ambigu
ous language, which is consistent with various interpretations ;
that, for instance, a Socinian could fix his own interpretation
upon it, and that it would be difficult to show that the language
itself did not admit of that interpretation, and that the reason
why the Socinian interpretation is not the right one, is not that
Scripture may not be so interpreted, but that it is not the in
terpretation of Tradition. Tradition determines the ambiguity
and neutrality of Scripture to one point, and out of all the
interpretations of which the language admits, assigns to it the
true one. This is a position which goes beyond the Anglican
doctrine of Tradition.
When these persons attribute this obscurity to Scripture, the
reason seems to be that they confound omission with obscurity.
Scripture, for instance, on the subject of the peculiar nature
and virtue of the sacrament of the Eucharist ; on the relation
in which infants stand to the grace of the sacrament of
Baptism ; on the point of the extent of the administration of
the Bite, whether it should be administered to infants or not,
there is an absence of exact statement ; Scripture lays down no
doctrine of church-government, and no formal doctrine of any
particular order of men as the channel of grace to the Church.
1 Delivered in the Latin Chapel.

On the Supposed Obscurity of Holy Scripture. 6 1
These are all points, however, upon which great dissension has
arisen, and great separations taken place. It may be almost
said that our Church separated from the Church of Borne at
the Eeformation upon the question of Trans ubstantiation, so
much had the movement of the Lollards which roused the
national mind hinged upon that doctrine, and so prominent was
its place in the whole crisis of the Eeformation. Upon the
Baptismal question again, and the question of church-govern
ment, not only great disputes, but separations also have arisen.
When persons observe then the different disputes and
schisms which have arisen upon these points they say generally
and indefinitely, How obscure is Scripture, which gives room for
so much difference ! But omission is one thing, and obscurity
is another. Before we pronounce the Bible to be an obscure
book, we must be sure that there is no distinction to be drawn
between its omission, its silence, or its reserve on some points,
and its substantial clearness and openness on others ; and we
must be sure too that those two styles of treatment in
Scripture do not respectively attach to fundamental matter of
belief on the one hand, and to non-fundamental on the other. A
book must not be called obscure because it leaves out some
points which it does not care to decide ; it is an obscure book
only if it is ambiguous, reserved, and wanting in expression
upon the great truths which it requires us to believe, and
leaves them matter of guess.
Whether these omissions in Scripture then do or do not
prove the obscurity of the Scripture, is not a question of the
language of Scripture so much as of the quality and com
parative importance of the truths omitted. The general
opinion in our Church is that the truths which are adequately
expressed in Scripture are the fundamental truths of the
Gospel ; and that that matter of belief which is passed by in
silence, or is not decisively stated, is non-fundamental matter
of belief. Those of our divines who maintained a certain
definition of the grace of the Eucharist, or who maintained the
necessity of Bishops for the Church, drew a distinction. It
was essential for the Christian status of a person that he should
be in a church thus organised, and that he should receive

62 On the Supposed Obscurity
true sacraments ; but it was not essential that he should believe
in the necessity of this church organisation, or in the true
nature of the sacraments.
Mr. Keble urges the distinction in his postscript to his
sermon on Tradition.1 Speaking of these two facts or truths,
just mentioned, relating to the Eucharist and Episcopacy, he says,
" The doctrines or propositions concerning them could not be
necessary ; it would be wrong to insert them as Articles of
the Creed. ... St. Ignatius writes, 'Let that Eucharist be
accounted valid which is under the Bishop, or some one
commissioned by him.' Wherein he lays down the rule
which we know was universally received in the Primitive
Church, that consecration by apostolical authority is essential
to the participation of the Eucharist, and so far generally
necessary for salvation." ' But,' adds Mr. Keble, this " could not
be turned into a proposition and put into the Creed, because that
would make, not only the rule itself, as observed by the Church,
but, the knowledge of it also by the individual, necessary to
salvation : and it may be thankfully admitted that knowledge
of the true nature of the sacraments is nowhere required in
Holy Scripture, as a condition of our receiving the grace they
impart."2 In the same way with respect to psedobaptism, which
is another omitted point in Scripture, our great authority
Wall says, " If it be not a fundamental point there is not . . . any
sufficient reason for men separating or renouncing one another "
upon it. And " I think that such a question about the age or
time of one's receiving baptism does not look a fundamental,
nor is so reputed in the general sense of Christians."8
Such omissions in Scripture then do not go any way to
prove that Scripture is an obscure book ; that is, that it does
not express with adequate clearness that which is essential,
that which it is necessary for its purpose that it should express.
Does not the admission which meets us on the very threshold
of the great Eoman controversies go to acquit Scripture on this
1 Primitive Tradition recognised in Holy Scripture, preached September
27, 1836. The postscript was to the third edition, 1837.
2 Postscript, pp. 13, 14.
3 W. Wall, History of Infant Baptism, vol. ii. p. 422 (Part n. ch. xi.), 4th
edition, 1819.

of Holy Scripture. 63
point of obscurity ? The Eoman Church professes to draw its
peculiar claims and dogmas not from Scripture, but from tradi
tion as an original independent source. But if this is so,
Scripture cannot be answerable for that material which is com
mitted to another authority altogether to communicate. If you
have to be clear on any subject you must in the first instance
have to speak about it.
I have tried to explain what appears to me to be a source of
confusion on this subject ; and one from which a prejudice has
arisen with regard to the language of Scripture — a pre-occupa-
tion of persons' minds with the notion that Scripture is, in the
matter of doctrine generally, a neutral and ambiguous docu
ment which tradition alone can interpret. I cannot but think
that if Scripture had been allowed to speak for itself without
any intercepting medium of this kind, it would have amply
vindicated its own language. Take it up, seriously of course,
and reverently, but still regarding it as a book which, like any
other book, is to declare its own meaning by its own words, and
I do not think that upon the great truths of the Christian
Creed there can be any fair doubt as to what it says.
With respect to the doctrine, for instance, of our Lord's
Divinity, it is difficult to understand how any one can read
St. John's Gospel, and not see that that truth is contained in
it ; that is, read in the way in which we should read any other
book. The same may be said of the doctrine of the Atone
ment ; we do not want any more than that Scripture should be
read according to those grammatical rules by which other
books are read. Imagine yourself taking the sacred books of
some pagan religion, for example the Hindoo, and finding some
sublime personage occurring in them, to whom such language
expressive of his being an Incarnation of the Deity was applied,
as is applied to our Lord in numbers of passages in the New
Testament, and you would not hesitate to say that such a
personage was in this mythological book put forward as an
Incarnation of the Deity.
Suppose any new Hindoo sacred book were discovered in
one of the Temples which contained deifying language as clear
regarding some person figuring in it, as that of Scripture con-

64 On the Supposed Obscurity
cerning our Lord : one of our Oriental scholars who was read
ing a paper on it before the Asiatic Society would not scruple
to say that that person was exhibited in that Oriental docu
ment as a Divine Incarnation. And so with respect to the
doctrine of the Trinity, if in any Mexican or ancient Persian
manuscript we found three great Divine Agents figuring, to
whom personal characteristics and acts were attributed as
openly as they are attributed to the three Sacred Persons in
Scripture, we should have no doubt that a Trinity was ex
hibited in that manuscript.
It is true that the word Trinity does not occur in the New
Testament, and this objection has been sometimes urged
(by advocates of the extreme school of tradition) as proving
that tradition alone communicates the doctrine of the Trinity.
But such an objection, in order to be of any value, must show
what Three Persons can be but a Trinity ; and if Scripture also
proclaims from first to last the Unity of God, the natural and
unavoidable interpretation of Scripture is a Trinity in Unity.
It must be remembered, and it is an important point to attend
to, that fulness and openness of language, such as leaves no fair
doubt as to meaning, is quite a different thing from formal pre
cision, and regulated accuracy of language. It is in the former
way and manner that we say Scripture is clear ; that it has a
good free body of expression which declares its own meaning.
Although the word Trinity does not occur in the Nicene
Creed, yet it would be an extraordinary assertion to make that
the doctrine of the Trinity was not obviously contained in the
Nicene Creed. It must be borne in mind that the Bible is
addressed to, and designed for, the use of every individual Chris
tian, to read with edification to himself, and with instruction to
himself regarding the great truths of his religion. But it is
difficult to see how the Bible can be an instructive and
enlightening book to the individual on the subject of the great
truths of revelation, if it does not declare those truths by its
language, taken in its natural and grammatical sense. A book
which admits of a number of alternatives of senses, and does
not decide itself the right one of all these, may afford to a
reader room for the exercise of his ingenuity in guessing at its

of Holy Scripture. 65
meaning, but can hardly be said to instruct and edify him.
For this purpose it is needful that there should be a sufficiently
copious and obvious body of expression.
It is an important thing to consider too, that as a matter of
fact a great variety of churches and communions do extract
the same doctrinal meaning from Scripture, so far as relates
to fundamental articles of belief. I do not see any reason why
they should do so, except it is that the language of Scripture
only admits properly of that meaning, and that that is the
natural meaning of the language itself. I know that Tradi
tion has great power in making people see that meaning in
a book which Tradition makes them expect to see in it ; but
there is a limit to such a power; nor can we suppose that
people could go on for ever saying that such and such language
meant so and so, and did not mean anything else, if the lan
guage did not, according to ordinary rules, express that mean
ing. And these communions have some of them broken with
Tradition on some things : why then should they be tied to
it upon others ? This unanimity and consensus then among
different communions is certainly a, tribute to the obvious
ness of that meaning of Scripture in which they agree. And
when we find on the other hand that the matter of belief upon
which they disagree is such as, being non-essential, Scripture
is under no obligation to express, the evidence becomes strong
for the acquittal of Scripture as an obscure book ; for a
book is not an obscure book because it omits certain sub
jects which do not come within its necessary scope, if it is
adequately clear and open upon those subjects which do.
There is one great exception indeed to this unanimity in the
interpretation of Scripture in fundamental matters of belief,
namely, the Socinians ; but is not their case one to which the
saying, exceptio probat regulam, may fairly be applied ? The
uphill battle which this sect has to fight in interpreting Scrip
ture, and the strain they apply to the words, is but too con
spicuous. Indeed, when we examine the case, as regards the mutual
relations of Tradition and Scripture, it becomes difficult to see
how Scripture could fulfil its necessary function of being a check
E

66 On the Supposed Obscurity
upon Tradition, unless it expressed the revelation with which
it was charged with an adequate openness and clearness. A
book which admits of many alternatives of meanings may
admit indeed of the right meaning, but cannot in the nature of
the case be a check upon the wrong ones. Let us imagine
Tradition having no check at all of a written word upon it.
How would the case stand ? Tradition then is undoubtedly a
perfectly natural channel of the communication of truth ; and
we all depend upon it in a hundred different ways every day.
But when people assert, as they have a full right to do, the
natural use of Tradition, they sometimes forget its qualifications
and its limits. It is evident that an oral tradition for twenty
years, and an oral tradition for two thousand years, are very
different things. We cannot argue because Tradition would
be a guide for a certain length of time after the lifetime of
the apostles, that it therefore would have been enough for the
Church to depend upon up to the present day. Imagine, then,
as I have said, for a moment, that there was no Bible, no
written word at all, and that the Christian revelation had been
committed to oral tradition, for men to hand down, generation
after generation, by speech. It would be evident that such
oral tradition would be only another name for corruption ; and
that, taking human nature as it is, such corruption of revela
tion would begin early, would expand largely, and would never
stop. But if the absence of a written word altogether would
leave Tradition an unchecked and uncontrolled course, a
written word of which the language was ambiguous and only
admitted of a true meaning, in common with erroneous ones,
would not have a very different result. Such a dubious litera
scripta would agree with wrong tradition as well as right,
and the traditional principle would be the real master of the
position ; and would ever, at every step, determine on its own
part the sense of the written word, instead of the written word
exercising a true veto or check upon the traditional prin
ciple. It would have an unrestrained course. The Anglican
doctrine of Tradition, which imposes scriptural limits upon it,
and erects Scripture into a decisive Court of Appeal, thus
requires for its working, in limine, an adequately clear and

of Holy Scripture. 67
not an obscure Scripture : the doctrine provides by its very
structure, for a free and open body of expression for the sub
stance of the faith ; because without this there would be no
check upon Tradition.
It may be said that in the statement just given of the
tendency of Tradition to corruption, it is forgotten that the
theological writings of the Church in each successive age are
a check upon the degeneracy of Tradition ; inasmuch as they
record the established doctrines of the Church in the age in
which they are written, and so expose the late origin, and
therefore falsehood, of the doctrines which rise up in a
succeeding age. It might thus be said that Tradition, even
without a written Bible to check it, is still coerced by the
natural course of theological literature and the inevitable
succession of writers in the Church ; that it is hindered from
having its full swing ; and that its tendency to corruption is
stopped from coming to a head. This argument of the check of
theological writings upon Tradition is used in T. C.'s reply to
Archbishop Laud's Eelation of his Conference with Fisher:
"Universal traditions," he says, "are recorded in authors of every
succeeding age, and it seems more incident to have the Bible
corrupted than them, because of its bulk and passing through
the hands of particular men, whereas universal and imme
morial traditions are openly practised and taken notice of by
every one in all ages."1
Stillingfleet, in his Vindication of Laud, answers this
argument by the reply that the traditions might corrupt the
writings, rather than the writings test and authenticate the
traditions : " You say, they are recorded in authors of every
succeeding age ; but if a book be written out of traditions,
will the very traditions preserve it pure?"2 The process of
corruption of doctrine is so gradual that, supposing no
original check provided for it, each succeeding age of writings
would record an addition to the last step in the progress,
rather than furnish an exposure and refutation of the next. In
1 Laud's Labyrinth, by T. C. P. 98. Paris, 1658.
2 Stillingfleet's Vindication .of Laud's Conference, vol. i. p. 389 ; Oxford,
1844.

68 On the Supposed Obscurity
a very gradual process, each step authorises the next as leading
to it, rather than disowns it as stopping short of it. And so
without a written Scripture in the first instance to seal the
genuineness of doctrine, the course of theological literature in
the Church would only reflect the gradual change which busy
and restless, or gross human, thought had wrought in Christian
doctrine instead of convicting it; would express corruption
instead of checking it.
The objection will perhaps be made : If Scripture is thus .
clear and open, if it sufficiently expresses its own meaning by
its own words, what use is there in Tradition at all ? I reply
that Tradition has an undoubted use and function still reserved
for it. " The sixth Article," says Mr. Keble, " leaves ample
scope for the province which Bishop Taylor assigned
principally to Tradition : practical rules relating to the Church
of Christ," — rules respecting which he adds, " the doctrines or
propositions concerning them would not be necessary,"1 but
which might still as rules be important. But even in funda
mental matter of belief, and on the supposition that Scripture
expresses and states this fully, a very important use is still
left for Tradition. The Bible may express certain truths per
fectly adequately as far as its own language is concerned ; we
may take it and say to ourselves, and have the right to say to
ourselves, This means so and so : it can mean nothing else ;
and yet there is that element of self-distrust in the human
mind, that even when it sees a thing quite plainly, and sees
nothing wanting to a conclusion, belief is still sensibly confirmed
and invigorated by another's agreement. When we are quite
sure of something from our observation or reasoning, we still rise
to another level of assurance, when there is concurrence with
it from without. Isolated reason is practically weak ; it wants
courage ; it needs reinforcing from another principle. Such is
the case with respect to the construction of Scripture. The
individual may feel certain that his construction is a good,
plain, natural construction of the words ; and yet the agree
ment of his fellow-Christians in that construction, the con
currence of the Christians of all ages — in other words, Tradition
1 Postscript to Sermon on Tradition, p. 13. 1837.

of Holy Scripture. 69
gives a new character to this assurance, and lifts it up to a
lcind of strength which it wanted before. Faith is social ; one
man's belief is increased by seeing another's.
I turn now to another side of this subject. The obscurity
of Scripture is sometimes alleged in the interest of a scep
tical religious philosophy; but we may remark first that,
in this quarter, it is not so much the obscurity of Scripture
itself that is asserted, as the existence of some intercepting
medium in ourselves, which hides the true idea of Scripture
from us. This intercepting medium is regarded as being caused
by the gradual growth and accumulation of a succession of
traditional interpretations of Scripture, with which Christian
society is penetrated ; a series of coatings as it were of human
thought, which must be peeled off, before we arrive at what is
the real core : — this core is the true idea of Scripture, but
before we reach it all is delusion and deception. The answer
then to such a position as this is, that we cannot be called upon
to entertain an hypothesis which is wholly gratuitous and
without evidence. This notion that we are prevented from
seeing the idea of the apostolical age by coatings of successive
interpretations which have got incrusted upon it in our minds,
is a mere assumption. I take up Scripture ; I see that, Like
any other book, it professes to express something that it wants
to tell us ; I look at one or another statement or sentence in
it ; the grammar of it is plain : according to ordinary rules of
construction it means so and so. You say that my thinking
so is owing to the medium through which I look : you refer
me to a succession of interpretative coatings ; all I can say
is, I know nothing about them ; I have no reason to suppose
that this is the case ; and until I have some reason I shall go
on thinking that I understand the passage so, because the
words mean it.
Or again, the philosophic charge of obscurity begins at the
other end, not with a veil upon the minds of the interpreters,
but with a veil upon the idea which is interpreted. According
to this latter method, the apostles themselves did not know their
own idea, that is, did not know what the true inner idea was,
which was the centre and essence of that general rough con-

jo On the Supposed Obscurity
ception which they put into language, and which they borrowed
from the ideas of the age ; but which was the popular, contem
porary clothing of the true idea rather than the true idea
itself. The apostles stand, according to this hypothesis, some
what in the same relation to the idea which their statements
fundamentally mean, as one theory of prophecy makes the
prophets stand to the subject of their own prophecies. The
prophets, according to some, made prophecies the true nature
of which they did not themselves understand, but which they
expressed as Divine instruments and mouthpieces. So the
apostles are supposed here to express, in the conceptional
language of their own day, fundamental truths or ideas, which
were not the ones actually present to their own minds; but
which the philosophical evolution of Christianity was subse
quently to bring out.
This hypothesis is not then strictly concerned at all with
the obscurity of Scripture, as a book expressing the idea which
it intends to express. If a book expresses those ideas which
are in the minds of the writers, then I do not call it an obscure
book. If you say that those ideas themselves must undergo a
process, that those ideas themselves must be translated into
other ideas, that is certainly an obscure and difficult proceeding,
an and interminable one. But we are not concerned with it
on the question of a book's obscurity. We have not here to do
with the mysteriousness of the ideas or their peculiarity, but
only with the fact, that in Scripture those ideas are expressed,
and that Scripture does not fail in the statement of them.
And though it may fairly be required that the ideas which a
book expresses, if it is to be acquitted of obscurity, should not
be mere caprices of individual mysticism, — mere eccentric and
isolated fancies, — so much requirement as this is undoubtedly
fulfilled in Scripture. The ideas of Scripture are large and
generally received ideas, they are ideas which are embraced by
the human race. The ideas of the Incarnation and the Atone
ment have a place in human nature and in the human mind ;
and though they are incapable of pure intellectual conception,
that is, no clear image or outline of them can be raised in the
mind, it would be absurd to say that on that account they

of Holy Scripture. 71
were not genuine legitimate ideas ; because otherwise we
should have to say that the soul was an illegitimate idea, or
that duty or " ought " was ; as we can raise no clear conception
of the soul, or of what we call " ought." Unless we admit ideas
which are not spurious, yet at the same time do not allow
of accurate conception, we cannot advance a step either in
natural religion or morals.
In conclusion, I will draw attention to a distinction between
the practical use of Tradition, for assuring our own individual
faith, and the conversion of it into a controversial fulcrum. In
controversy, and especially in an age of free thought like the
present, which deals with fundamentals, after asking you what is
your religion, the very next question is, Where is your religion ?
Now, with the greatest appreciation of the practical use of
Tradition for confirming our faith, I must yet make the remark
that for the controversial object just mentioned, the supposed
office of Tradition to select, out of the various meanings of
an ambiguous Scripture, the true one, is the most cumbrous
instrument that can well be imagined. It virtually sets up
Tradition as the seat of Eevelation, without the simplicity
of that theory ; but accompanied with an unwieldy apparatus
of selection of documentary senses. The true Anglican
doctrine of Tradition relieves us of this difficulty. Having
set aside for Tradition a compartment of secondary truth
not decided in Scripture, and having thus cleared the ground,
it then definitively asserts that there is in Scripture a clear, full,
and satisfactory statement of fundamentals ; that is, declares
there is a manifest statement — according to the natural meaning
of words — of the Christian Eevelation in Scripture. This then
is a compact and effective answer to him who asks, Where is
your revelation ? — It is in Scripture. Laud saw this, and he
made the natural sense of Scripture in our system correspond
to infallibility in the Eoman, as the indicator of Revelation.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that oral tradition is
the indicator of revelation in the Eoman system ; it has for
that purpose nothing so remote, so indefinite, so dim, so difficult
to trace : a present infallible guide decides that question. That
is the Church of Eome's controversial fulcrum. Scripture,

72 On the Supposed Obscurity
according to Laud, is this fulcrum in our system. " Sure Christ
our Lord," says his opponent Fisher, " hath provided some rule,
some judge, to procure unity- and certainty of belief." "I
believe so too," says Laud, " for he hath left an infallible rule,
the Scripture. Scripture, by the manifest places in it which need
no dispute, no external judge, is able to settle unity and certainty
of belief in necessaries to salvation. It hath both the conditions
which Bellarmine requires for a rule, namely, that it be 'certain
and that it be known,' for if it be not certain it is no rule, and
if it be not known it is no rule to us. Now the Bomanists
dare not deny but the rule of Scripture is ' certain] and that
it is sufficiently ' known ' in the manifest places thereof, and
such as are necessary for salvation, none of the ancients did ever
deny ; so there is an infallible rule." By infallible it must not
be supposed that Laud means anything mathematical, but such
practical certainty as naturally convinces a rational person.
He asserts that such practical certainty is to be found in the
statements of fundamental truth in Scripture ; and he claims
for this practical certainty of Scripture a rank and authority
higher than that of all councils. For " full church authority," he
says, " is but church authority ; and church authority, even
where it is at full sea, is not simply divine ; though no erring
disputer may be endured to shake the foundation which the
church in council lays. But plain Scripture with evident sense,
or a full demonstrative argument, must have room where a
wrangling and erring disputer may not be allowed it." x Such
is Laud's conclusion. We may not assign, it would be unworthy
and presumptuous to assign, poor polemical ends to Scripture ;
but I cannot but think that a great controversial object like
this — to indicate concisely the place where our revelation is —
comes clearly within the scope or design of Providence in
giving the tvritten Word. The divine dispensation has here
put a strong compact assertion in our hands, and if we do not
take advantage of it when we have it, if we do not wield it
effectively, it is our own fault and our own weakness. It is
indeed not seldom the case that powerful and effective asser
tions are also false ones. This is not to be denied. But I
1 Laud's Conference with Fisher, p. 163. Oxford, 1839.

of Holy Scripture. 73
maintain here that the view of Scripture which represents it
as obscure, as ambiguous and a mere recipient of alternatives of
meaning — that this is the untrue,- the artificial view of Scripture,
and that the real fact is the other way. Scripture is indeed
but too plain, its truths too express, if we are to judge by the
extraordinary difficulty there is in explaining them away.
Some minds, however, applying a really reverential spirit too
narrowly, seem to have been afraid that it would be disloyal
to tradition to admit openness and clearness in Scripture. And
so there has been a tendency, if I may say so, to make out
Scripture to be uncertain even against facts, in order to call in
tradition to decide. But it is hard upon us if we cannot use a
most valuable assertion when facts give it us, and if we must
fall back instead upon a controversial position, which is
unwieldy and also untrue.

74

V.— ST. PAUL'S TEACHING AN INTEGRAL PART
OF HOL Y SCRIPTURE.1
There is a good deal of theological opinion now, which,
though it may not express its decision openly, goes in the
direction of regarding the Christian Eevelation as stopping with
the Gospels, and the doctrine of St. Paul as being only one
exposition and interpretation of the real Eevelation, not part of
Eevelation. It is needless to remark upon this tendency (and
almost more than tendency) of thought in some quarters, that
if men once begin to cut off parts of that whole Scripture which
has come down to us as Divine Eevelation it is difficult to see
where such a process can stop. There is something so arbitrary
in the summary disposal of large parts of Scripture without any
evidence whatever that they stand upon different ground from
the rest of the Bible, simply by act of the will, that it is impos
sible but that the whole of Scripture must feel the blow. No
real faith can be left in the Bible generally, when such a step
has been taken. It becomes then a mere matter of a man's
own choice what he accepts of Scripture and what he does not ;
and all rests upon a footing, not of authority or command, but
only of a man's taste and predilection, which he gives some
parts of Scripture the benefit of, and does not give others.
What the Pelagian movement practically amounted to was a
rejection of St. Paul, and an exclusion of him from the canon of
Scripture. That whole body of thought and feeling which in
St. Paul's mind stood as the very sense and signification of the
Gospel Eevelation was cast aside : that whole deep view of sin
as rooted in man's nature here, and of the moral law as
unfathomable and beyond fulfilment — leaving in the minds of
the best a sense of void and gap, which no obedience man can
give here can fill up — all this was renounced : in consequence
' Delivered in the Latin Chapel.

St. Paul's Teaching an Integral Part of 'Scripture. 75
the faith in the sacrifice and obedience of Christ, as an atone
ment for the sins, not of the wicked only but of the good —
as a filling up of the defects of the saints, as a great imputation
of Another's righteousness to all who can lay hold of it ;— this
whole import and effect of the gospel revelation was abandoned.
In a word, the whole inward mystery of sin and of the redemp
tion was rejected, and what was reposed on and accepted was
that part of the gospel which was identical with the law of
nature, — the power of the will, the obligation of duty, the rule
of natural piety, and the acknowledgment of the goodness of
God. The Pelagian movement was thus virtually what the
present movement, to which I refer, is ;— a rejection of St. Paul
from the Canon of Scripture.
And yet when we go into the grounds there are for thus
making revelation stop with the Gospels, or I ought rather to
say with the simple morality of the Gospels, for if we go to the
depth of their teaching, we shall find that the Gospels contain
the whole foundation of St. Paul's doctrine; but deferring
this point, when we go into the grounds there are for. limiting
revelation to the Gospels, we shall find that such a supposition
is not only without any grounds, but that it is in the very teeth
of the plainest intimations and announcements of the Gospels
them.selves. The Gospels are explicit upon the very point that
they are not final statements of revealed truth, that there is
more to come after them, that there are reasons why the last
part of the disclosure is withheld, and that, in short, that dis
pensation which is to crown the gospel revelation, the dispen
sation, that is, of the Holy Ghost, has not yet begun. Thus it is
clearly and expressly stated in St. Luke that when He should
have departed from them, there would be still a continuance
of the revelation ; and that an Invisible Spiritual Power would
go on with the work which His visible teaching had begun.
" And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but
tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with
power from on high " (Luke xxiv. 49). No words could declare
more plainly that there was to be a continuation of super
natural influence and inspiration after the period which the
Gospels covered was closed. And in St. John's Gospel our

76 St. Paul's Teaching an Integral Part
Lord makes at greater length, and with more particulars, the
same announcement when He tells His disciples that when He
is gone He will send a successor who will continue the revela
tion, and carry on a special and fixed stage of it which could
not have been accomplished in His own lifetime.
It must be borne in mind that the very structure of the
new dispensation, — as requiring our Lord's atoning death before
its very nature could be disclosed, and its very purpose known,
— that this implies a new and second stage of revelation
after the flrst stage. The dispensation could not be under
stood till it had been completed and consummated in act ; but
that act was the death of the accomplisher of the dispensa
tion. The full enlightenment, therefore, of the mind of the
Church upon the subject of the dispensation, must take place
after our Lord had departed ; yet that could not be carried
on without a continuance of the revelation, and without the*
succession of a new Divine Power to impart it. Here, then,
is a second revelation after the first, a revelation to illuminate
man's understanding and disclose all the bearings of the great
fact of the Atonement, after the accomplishment of that fact
itself. Christ had announced the fact itself indeed when He
was upon earth. " From that time forth," we read in St.
Matthew (xvi. 21), "Jesus began to show uuto His disciples,
how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things,
. . . and be killed, and be raised again the third day." And to
the two disciples after His resurrection, He expounded, " how
Christ ought to have suffered these things and to enter into
His glory" (Luke xxiv. 26). But this great event of the Death
on the Cross had not as yet been brought out into its full
meaning, and in the light of all its consequences and fruits.
There was another Eevelation required to bring out all that
inner and hidden truth ; for man could not show it to himself.
And this fresh revelation was plainly announced by our Lord.
" The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,
He shall teach you and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you," that is, shall throw a new
light upon whatever I have told you in reference to myself and
to my work ; shall both bring back the words, and also teach

of Holy Scripture. 77
you their deep and mysterious import. " When He " — the Holy
Spirit of Truth — " is come, He will reprove the world of sin,
and of righteousness, and of judgment. When He, the Spirit
of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. ... He
shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show
it unto you " (John xvi.).
If, then, a new stage of the gospel Eevelation was to
begin upon the departure of our Lord from the world, if the
Holy Spirit was, after the consummating act of the Atone
ment had taken place, to illuminate the understanding of the
Church respecting that act, to seat it within the heart of the
individual Christian, to inspire him with the inward sense of
what had been done for him, and to implant in the individual
soul its relations to a Saviour, — why should not St. Paul have
been the great minister and mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit
chosen for this work? To place the apostle outside of the
office and channel of revelation, as if the revelation was over
when he began, is contrary, of course, to the whole of eccle
siastical testimony, and is to subvert at one blow the whole of
that basis of external evidence upon which the fabric of the
Canon of Scripture stands. That, of course, is its immediate
effect. But it must also be observed, as a most important
addition, that it is to go against the whole force of internal
evidence as well. The whole structure of the revelation made
in the Gospels pointed to another and a further stage of that
same revelation, when it had left the confines of our Lord's
earthly life : the closing act of the great Sacrifice required to
be brought out in its consequences, and the obligations it
entailed upon the heart of the individual. It was actually
announced that a further revelation, which would be an
extraordinary illumination of the individual Christian, a
guiding him into all truth, a revealing within his mind of
the glory of our Saviour and His work, would be made. And
this was what St. Paul so pre-eminently did, and what it was
his peculiar office to do. To stop revelation with the Gospels,
then, before it comes to the Epistles, is simply to divide two
parts of a great whole ; to break off prematurely at one
portion, which with its own mouth announces itself as re-

7 8 St. Paul's Teaching an Integral Part
quiring continuation ; to intercept the very professed adapta
tion by which the Gospels link on to the Epistles ; and to
impose on the former a finality which they disclaim, at the cost
of withholding from the latter a significance which they demand.
What is it which St. Paul does in his Epistles ? If one
were to express it shortly, does he not establish in the indi
vidual Christian that connection with, and relation to, Christ
as his Saviour, which the great act of Christ's sacrifice re
quires ? All those expressibns of St. Paul's which denote so
completely an individual interest in Christ's death, an indi
vidual life in Christ, and a union of the individual with Him,
as the source of his peace and favour with God here, and of
salvation in the world to come, what are they but a bringing
of the great act of Atonement, once performed upon the Cross
publicly, into the inner sphere of the individual soul ? — illu
minating individual life with those regards and relations which
come out of that great fact ; giving that development to the
truth of the Atonement which was necessary to its being
the real source of the individual's hopes and prospects. In a
word, was not that which was needed to plant the Sacrifice
of Christ in the Christian soul, as the root of his individual
spiritual life, the doctrine of Justification ? The doctrine of
Justification completely and decisively conducted the doctrine
of the Atonement into the sphere of, and moulded it into the
stay of, the individual spiritual' life. There was no mistaking
the nature of the doctrine of the Atonement, after it left
St. Paul's teaching, so as to suppose that it was only, so to
speak, a public doctrine, and not a private and personal one.
It was stamped with the ineffaceable seal of individuality, in
its application. The blood of the Atoning Sacrifice was ap
plied to the individual soul, and it issued in those emotions
of gratitude, joy, and hope which a rescued being must couple
with that fountain of cleansing and renovation.
Let us imagine for an instant, if it be allowable for the
sake of illustration to do so, what might have happened in the
Church's mind with regard to the fact of the Atonement, had
it been left simply in the form in which it leaves the gospel
history, of a public and general mystery. Let us imagine,

of Holy Scripture. 79
I say, for the sake of illustration, what would have happened
in the treatment of the general mystery, if St. Paul's teaching,
which gave it so pre-eminently an individual application, had
been omitted. Would not a tendency have been observed in
the mass of men, instead of seating the Sacrifice of the Cross
within the spiritual man, and giving it an operation in the
inmost corners of the soul, to have converted it into an
external commemorative spectacle? We can imagine the
mysterious event celebrated in striking form, made into a
great and solemn exhibition, and surrounded with grand and
imposing imagery to feed the religious imagination, and minister
to poetical emotion. We might conceive it to have been in
vested with the ceremonial of one of the ancient mysteries;
while all this time, — in the lack of Inspiration fastening on the
Church the idea of the individual soul as the sphere of the
operation of Christ's Sacrifice, — no one of all the crowds that
attended this striking celebration would have had any idea
whatever of this sublime mystical event having taken place for
him; and of him individually being the subject of a recon
ciliation by it ; and of receiving pardon and peace through it.
That it made all this difference to himself personally would be
far from being conveyed to him by the general pomp of a
mystical spectacle. It would be one thing to gaze at a grand
commemorative ceremonial which celebrates some general
mystery in the history of the world, and another to receive
that mystery into yourself — to regard it as applying to you,
and to look upon your own righteousness in God's eyes as
depending wholly on it. It is in its application to the indi
vidual that the yoke of this mystery upon faith begins to be
felt. It is not felt before. The mystery, if it is outside of you,
lodged in an exhibition, in a ceremonial, in a picture, is no
troublesome claimant upon faith ; and therefore men who are
without belief still often like religious spectacles ; they are con
venient ; they ask no questions. It is when a mystery comes
within the man that many a one feels, if he would openly say so,
that he hardly knows what to do with it, and wishes it outside
him. But St. Paul's exposition of the Great Sacrifice brings it
within the individual soul, with its whole application and

80 St. Paul's Teaching an fntegral Part
consequences. It then asks for belief, and asks in a way
which cannot be put off. It confronts you ; it comes face to
face with you ; it must be believed or disbelieved. And thus
some who could easily, and with a certain moral pleasure,
have thrown themselves upon the general symbolic spectacle
I have been supposing, are sometimes troubled and dis
quieted by a statement of St. Paul's. They feel awkward,
with his sentences in their mouths. The challenge to their
belief is insupportable. They shrink from uttering them, and
the words die away on their lips.
Hence then, and by this sign, we see the work which St. Paul
was inspired to do in his Epistles, for the establishing and
carrying out of the doctrine of the Atonement. It was just
that application of the doctrine to the inward man which was
wanted, if the revelation of the Atonement was to be saved
from evaporating into a dream, and growing into an outside
spectacular mystery, and an airy vision of the imagination ; if
it was to become anything more than this, it must be applied,
as St. Paul did apply it, to the individual, it must be inter
woven with all his spiritual longings, and intertwined with the
purposes of life. The individual must feel that the truth
belongs to him with all its comforts, all its stimulus, and all its
obligations on affection and gratitude. The doctrine of Justi
fication, then, is the revelation of the operation of the Atoning
Sacrifice of Christ in the individual. He is dead when this
Sacrifice is made for him ; and he becomes alive by means of
faith in it; when the Sacrifice becomes to him, not only
forgiveness for the past, but strength for the future, a
mysterious principle of life in him, inspiring him with new
spiritual energy. Our Lord's death figures throughout
St. Paul's Epistles not as an outside piece of history to affect
masses, but as an inner moving cause in each man, to which
he feels himself owing his religious zeal and affection.
Look at St. Paul's language. In it Christ has left the
historical sphere of the Gospels, and has entered into the human
soul, as its peace, righteousness, justification, and redemption.
" There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
. . . For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made

of Holy Scripture. 8 1
me free from the law of sin and death" (Eom. viii. 1, 2). "... If
Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the
spirit is life because of righteousness" (ver. 10). "Ye are in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption " (1 Cor. i. 30).
It is evident that all. this is the Mystery of the Atonement, not
kept outside as history necessarily represents it, but showing
itself forth as a principle within the man ; and it is evident
too, that this development of the great fact of the Atonement
in this inner world of man's soul was the very design of
Scripture, and was made to follow under the dispensation of
the Spirit, as soon as the Act itself of the Atonement was
visibly completed ; that as soon as the Gospels have done their
work, the Epistles intentionally come in with theirs, applying
the great Act of the Gospels to the individual.
This work of the Epistles could not have been done before, —
that is, could not have been simultaneous with the period of the
Gospels and with Christ's ministry on earth, in the very nature
of the case. He must have died, He must have risen again and
ascended, He must have finished His work and entered into
His glory, before He could reign in men's hearts, and before the
work He had done could become a living power within human
souls. Were the disciples, even the apostles themselves, equal
to entertaining such a spiritual view of our Lord while upon
earth ? In those intimate communications of our Lord with
His apostles which mark the close of St. John's Gospel, we do
indeed see the beginning of a disclosure of some inward con
nection between Christ and His disciples, which was not
accounted for, or contained in His visible earthly intercourse
with them. The relation of the Vine to the branches is more
than that of any teacher, however influential, to his followers.
" I am the vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in me,
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. Abide in me,
and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except
it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me "
(xv. 4, 5). This description of an inward and mysterious union
with Christ, given by Himself while He was upon earth, is an
anticipation of the fuller spiritual union of Christ with the
F

82 St. Paul's Teaching an Integral Part
individual Christian after he had left the world. Our Lord, if
we may say so, uses the language of His own apostle St. Paul,
but still not fully ; it was only when Christ's earthly life was
over, that the full relations of Christ to the individual soul
could be disclosed ; of which subsequent disclosure it was that
He said : — " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth. . . . He shall glorify
me ; for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you "
(xvi. 12, 13). Is not this an intimation which in the natural
course of Gospel development points to St. Paul ? It looks like
a prophecy of that revelation of the inward connection of
Christ with every true disciple, which it was St. Paul's office
to make known, and which was the glorifying of Christ in the
Church, and in every individual member of it. This sub
sequent revelation, our Lord specially says, was, among other
things, to convince the world of His righteousness, "because I
go to my Father, and ye see me no more." And what is more
sounded throughout St. Paul's Epistles than Christ's righteous
ness ? and that not in the way in which the righteousness of a
living person is exhibited, which operates by way of example ;
but celebrated as a righteousness of a higher and more mysti
cal power, as the righteousness of the Son of God, who had
left this lower world, and had gone to sit at the Father's
right hand : — as a righteousness which makes righteous — that
righteousness of one, which became the gift of righteousness to
others; that obedience of one which became the justification
of others. The teaching of St. Paul then not only rests upon exactly
the same external evidence of inspiration upon which the rest
of the New Testament rests, but it is incorporated in the New
Testament by the very internal structure of the New Testa
ment, and by the very framework of the Eevelation ; an earlieT
part of which pointed to a later and supplementary part. It
is evident from the very language of the Gospels themselves,
that the great Act in which the Gospels culminated, leaves the
Gospels with the rays of a very imperfect illumination thrown
upon them, and needing, after the Divine Actor has departed

of Holy Scripture. 83
from earth, a continuation of the course of revelation, in order
really to show the Church what had been done in the fact of our
Lord's death. That this fact was to be an Atonement is indi
cated by the Gospels themselves, which say that He was to
" save His people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21) ; that He was " to
give His life a ransom for many'' (xx. 28) ; " that He came to
save that which was lost " (Luke xix. 1 0). His own appli
cation to Himself of "all which was written in the law of
Moses, and in the Prophets" concerning Him, stamped His
death as a sacrifice ; as well as His own words, that " it be
hoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day,
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached
in His name among all nations ; " and the exclamation in St.
John's Gospel — " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world." But though Christ was proclaimed
a Saviour and a Sacrifice generally in the Gospels, what
were the relations to the individual into which this developed,
— how sinful man was to feel individually different from what
he had been ; what were the spiritual consequences and fruits
within the man — this must be a subsequent revelation. And
of this subsequent revelation St. Paul was the great instru
ment. Unless indeed this supplement was given, how was the
reality even of the Gospel truth to be kept up ? Unless the
Atonement of Christ was carried into the sphere of the
individual soul, and that was made to see the interest it had
in it, that His death was a remedy for sin, effacing the sting of
it, — unless this action of the Sacrifice upon the inward man
was revealed, and he was made to know it and feel it — what
was the Crucifixion but an outward simulacrum and spectacle
the meaning of which would vanish as the event receded into
history ? It was the entrance of this mystery into the human
heart, and the proof of its power by its struggle with the human
will, that made the difference between the Atoning Sacrifice
of the Gospel and the paschal solemnity of the Jewish Law ;
which raised it above a solemn exhibition, a representation, a
symbolic rite ; which made it more than a type and shadow.
Whence then arises that reluctance to use the language of St.

84 St. Paul's Teaching an Integral Part
Paul on the subject of the Atonement as it affects the indi
vidual soul, which some feel; at the same time that they
will throw themselves with fervour into the solemnity of a
Eucharistic service, which celebrates only the same mystery in
ritual which St. Paul's language does in the interior of man's
heart ? From St. Paul's language, if they would confess it,
some feel themselves divided by a kind of chasm ; they would
rather not use it ; if they do, they go through it as a trial, for
which they have to nerve their utterance. But let the Atone
ment be celebrated under the form of a rite, and they are at
home with it. This reluctance to use St. Paul's language
may indeed be partly attributable to the abuse which this
language has suffered in the mouths of extravagant zealots :
but is this all the reason ? I am afraid not. Language of
many kinds is abused, and yet we are not shy of the authentic
and true forms of it. It is some inward reluctance which
makes them shrink from this language, while they like the rite.
And yet there ought to be no division between rite and language
which have one common object, no discord in our hearts
respecting the two. If there is such a chasm there, is it not
because the language commits them to some positive truth,
which they only half believe, whereas the rite is only con
templated as vaguely symbolic ? they feel a resistance therefore
to the language which they do not to the rite. But this very
difference which they feel between the two, between the
Atonement of Christ as carried into the interior of the
individual by St. Paul, and as expressed in an outward service
or rite, shows that St. Paul's language was wanted in order to
give reality to the truth. For the true difference between the
language and the rite to them is that the rite is capable of being
taken in a vaguer and less solid sense than the language ; and
that the use of it therefore does not test belief, so much as the
sincere adoption of the language. Let no one suppose indeed
that in itself the Eucharistic service does not demand the most
profound assent to the doctrine of the Atonement : it is evident
that it is based upon it, and that every prayer in it implies it :
it is only that in the case of a service its external form gives the
opportunity of avoiding its inner assertion, and that therefore

of Holy Scripture. 85
as doctrine it sits easier upon many minds than religious state
ment does.
What Pelagianism practically did was to get rid of this
language. Their position iguored and subverted St. Paul's
teaching. All that idea of sin as a necessity of this mortal
state, of nature groaning under the yoke of it, of the weakness
of the will, and the void in the conscience, — all that inward
groundwork upon which the relation of the individual to
Christ as based in St. Paul's Epistles, was swept away by
Pelagian doctrine ; and with the premiss went the conclu
sion. The mystery of sin was abolished, and with it went the
mystery of a Eedeemer.
There being a tendency, then, in some quarters to consider
this language as only one theological exposition of the
Atonement, and not a real part of Scripture, I have given
reasons why such a view appears altogether untenable, and
incapable of being maintained without the entire disruption of
Scripture. The external evidence of the Sacred Canon only
concurs with the internal structure of the New Testament in
giving the full basis of inspiration and a genuine place in the
Bible to St. Paul's teaching.

86

VI.— THE DOGMATIC OFFICE, ITS SCOPE AND
METHOD.1
Dogmatism, dogmatising, dogmatical, etc., are terms which
have gradually contracted in common speech an unfavourable
meaning : however, what is denoted by these terms is not in
itself either good or bad; not in itself either advantageous
or disadvantageous; whether it is to be praised or blamed
depends entirely upon the object and end it has in view, and
the judgment and discrimination with which it is conducted.
It stands on a par in this respect with many other proceedings
and lines of action, which are in themselves indifferent, and
which are only proper or improper, serviceable or injurious,
according to the temper and aim with which they are adopted.
Is dogmatism good or bad? — speaking of it generally and
indefinitely — is a question which can no more be asked than
whether arguing is good or bad ; or whether philosophy is good
or bad ; or whether going to law is necessary or vexatious ;
or whether going to war is politic or impolitic. All these
processes and lines of action are neither one of these nor the
other in themselves ; it depends upon the modes of them,
whether they are right proceedings, or wrong ones. And so
with respect to whether dogmatism is wise and salutary, or
trivial and mischievous, all turns upon the particular occasion
and the object to which it is applied.
The dogmatic office has been sometimes regarded as the
creation or substantial development of theological truth ; and
writers have used language as if Christianity started with but
a seed or rudiment of that truth, which it subsequently, by the
successive statements and definitions of councils, attained.
The primitive Christian enjoyed, according to this view, a
1 Delivered in the Latin Chapel.

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 87
comparatively meagre share of the whole Christian Eevelation ;
he lived at its commencement, in the day of small things, in
the possession only of an elementary knowledge ; and what
had been revealed to him was but the root of that tree of
doctrine under the branches of which the world afterwards
rested. This subsequent growth was the fruit of the dogmatic
office ; the truths originally revealed by the new dispensation
waited to gain substance, expansion, and maturity upon this
soil and by this culture. According to this interpretation,
then, of the dogmatic function, all the successive definitions
and dogmatic statements of Councils in connection with Gospel
truth were actual additions to and enlargements of that truth ;
they increased the substance of the Christian Eevelation ; by
the gradual accumulations of these decisions the whole structure
of Divine knowledge advanced as well in its positive size as in
its connections and proportions ; and those who lived under
this completed formation had the advantage of a really higher
Christian light than those who preceded them. Fresh and
fresh enlightening truth streamed in successive ages from these
synodical sources, the heart of Christianity glowed with exact
definitions, and the stock of Eevelation was enlarged, and the
current of its life-blood made stronger, every time theological
accuracy advanced a step, and a formula gained in precision.
Such a view however of the purpose and effects of the dog
matic office as this must appear, upon examination, to be a
very mistaken one ; because, in truth, the stock of Eevelation
cannot be added to by any process short of a new Eevelation ;
and because too, when we examine, we find that this is not in
fact what the dogmatic office does, in dealing with doctrine.
The dogmatic office guards from error, but does not create or
reveal truth. Let us take the doctrine of the Incarnation,
which is a fact of Eevelation, and the very corner-stone of it.
This doctrine came several successive times under the dogma
tic office of the Church during the first centuries ; but what
was the purpose for which it came under it ? and what was
the manner in which it was actually dealt with ? It was dealt
with only in this way, namely, that certain false meanings
which were from time to time given to the doctrine were taken

88 The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
notice of and condemned. The false meanings thus excluded
left the original doctrine as it was ; the revealed truth was not
allowed to be interfered with, but this was all the result that
took place ; the revealed truth gained no addition to its own
substance, but only a protection against an error and a misin
terpretation. Nothing accrued in the way of augmentation, it
was only enabled to remain itself ; no fresh truth was created,
but only that continued which before stood. For instance, the
doctrine of the Incarnation implies one Person : for we mean
by the Incarnation the Union of God and man ; but if they
are two Persons they are not united; they are two and not
one; the union therefore implies the unity of person; and
that is the very idea of the Incarnation. Upon what principle,
then, can it be said that the decision of One Person in God
Incarnate was new truth, added to the truth of the Incarnation,
— an augmentation of the doctrine's substance ? The doctrine
only gained the advantage of standing as it was by it. It
vjas the doctrine always of one person. Our Lord is in the
Bible as plainly as possible One Person; no one thinks or
conceives of Him otherwise. But there came up the sect of
the Nestorians, who said He was two persons. That new idea
then was excluded from the idea of the Incarnation, but the
only effect of the exclusion was the old idea remaining, not
any new one added. The defined idea was exactly the same
as the undefined, the falsehood was warded off, but the truth
was not added to. Nor was the dogma of two Natures any more
addition of substance to the original idea of the Incarnation
than the dogma of One Person. The dogmatic office preserved,
by this definition, the truth of the two Beings that were
united, — that God and Man existed in the Incarnation, and
not any third nature which one middle Nature would be;
but this was all that was done : and that two natures, divine
and human, were joined in the Incarnation, was exactly the
same as saying that God and man were joined in it. There
was no fresh substance added to the truth : it remained exactly
the same that it was, only protected from being made what it
was not, and from being changed into another doctrine.
Nor was any fresh light thrown upon the doctrine any more

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 89
than any fresh substance added to it. No new knowledge was
communicated in these definitions ; no man could say, except
indeed he had a very ignorant and blind mind, that he knew
one iota more of the doctrine by these definitions than he did
before ; it remained exactly the same incomprehensible mys
tery that it was before, and just as inexplicable to the intellect.
It was no explanation of God being made man to say that God
and man were One Person, or that God and man were two
natures : the new statement imparted no light to the intellect ;
all that the new statement did was to preserve the original idea,
mystery as it was, unaltered, to keep truth as it stood.
It was a complete misrepresentation, then, of the use and
of the effect of the dogmatic office to exhibit it as an actual
growth of truth, and increase in the quantity of Eevelation.
Indeed, when we are told of such a result of the definitions ¦
of Councils, and congratulated on the treasure of Divine
knowledge, and the fresh accession of Divine light which
we acquire any time an accurate distinction is promulgated
by a council, and a new piece of terminology is constructed,
we are called on to believe a delusion. These erections
are necessary as defences of revealed truth, but to speak
of them as themselves radiating with Divine knowledge
and celestial light, as fresh affluences of Divine truth,
raising the level of the Christian believer, and filling the
world with an increasing atmosphere of illumination — this
is to make the fundamental mistake of confounding words
with things, and imagining you have got a new truth every
time you have got a new term. These defences are necessary
to guard the original truth, as ramparts are wanted for a city ;
but the ramparts are not the city; nor are these termino
logical structures truth's substance. The Truth is the original
revelation. There is a mystery upon which the Gospel is
founded, which is that of the Incarnation — of God having
become Man; which mystery has been supernaturally dis
closed. This then is the truth. But this truth cannot be
augmented by human definitions'. It must ever remain what
it was when it was communicated. No mysterious termi
nology which we construct can rise higher than the original

90 The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
mystery, as water cannot rise above its own level. Whatever
we say, we are confined within the precincts of an incompre
hensible idea which we cannot overstep. We may erect ever
so great a quantity of verbal machinery, but the truth is still
what it was at first ; the truth of God becoming man ; no more
and no less. This is the first and this is the last illumination
of man ; the primitive Christian used it as his inspiration, and
the latest generation of Christians must use it as theirs. All
Christians must use the one same mystical and incomprehen
sible but inspiring truth, as it came from the fountain-head ;
for the dogmatic office only preserves it, and secures it remain
ing the same truth.
It is true, dogmatism is incidentally a polemical process,
because it is only upon a theological difference arising
when there is a wish in some quarter to tamper with the
original revealed truth, that the necessity to protect it arises.
Nevertheless the aim of the dogmatical process is simply to
vindicate the idea, to clear it from disturbance, and to keep it
as it was originally communicated and revealed.
And these observations furnish an answer to the question
whether Theology is a science. If science is understood in the
sense in which it, is taken when we speak of science popularly,
using the term alone, and without an annex, such a claim
is of course utterly untenable. When we speak of Science thus
absolutely, we mean physical science ; and to claim scientific
knowledge as the property of Theology, in the sense in which
scientific is understood in Physics, would be an absurdity. In
Physics Science is the observation of facts, and the observation
of facts in certain relations and in a certain connection ; so
that some facts are made to appear the causes of other facts.
The chain of knowledge is thus ever lengthening in physics as
fresh facts are discovered, which stand in an antecedent or
casual relation to facts previously known, and it is the triumph
of science that systematised fact is ever gaining ground upon
disorderly and undisciplined fact, so that knowledge is ever
establishing fresh inroads upon the territory of ignorance.
The network of causes extends, and includes more and more
' of the empire of nature within its grasp, as new facts are day

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 9 1
after day observed, and observed in certain relations. Now all
this is as inapplicable, as can be conceived, to a Eevelation which
communicates in the first place not facts of observation, but
mysterious truths, and communicates these truths once for all,
to be transmitted as they were given, and handed down to all
subsequent generations, as they issued from the fountain-head.
There is no discovery of new truths in Theology : the same
creed which served for the apostolic age serves for every
age after. Why should it not? However this world may
develop, man's relations to the other world must always con
tinue the same. The wants of the human soul must be
ever the same. The capacity of man as a recipient of revelation
cannot be altered or enlarged by progress in physical know
ledge. If, then, God vouchsafed in a particular age to give
man a revelation, there can be no reason why that revelation
should not serve him in every age after. The analogy of
progress in physical knowledge which depends upon the use
of man's ordinary faculties, does not in the least apply when
we come to a revelation from above, which our ordinary facul
ties cannot add to. We use then that inspiring opening
into another world which is contained in the Gospel creed
exactly in the same way in which the Gospel age used it : the
intervening expansion of man's ordinary knowledge makes no
difference. That creed continues to be the same revelation
that it always was to everybody to whom it eomes; it has
exactly the same enlightening, the same elevating, the same
stimulating or nerving power. It is the same vision that it
always was, as fresh as ever to those who take it in.
Theology, then, may be called a science in the sense that its
truths, whether those of revelation or those of nature, can be
taught methodically, and with proper relation to each other.
There is an order and system in Divine things which can
be brought out and placed in the proper light, even with
our limited powers. All truths, ideas, or facts which stand
in mutual relation are capable of being treated with reference
to this, and in this sense treated or laid out scientifically.
Thus we speak of the science of morals, and of the science of
the law, and in this sense of order and arrangement Theology

92 The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
may be placed on the basis of a science, but Theology is not
a science in the sense that its truths admit of scientific proof
or scientific increase. The hypotheses of Science admit of
proof by experiment, or the observation of facts ; but the
truths of Theology, being truths of the invisible sphere, do
not admit of present scientific proof and verification, but await
a future one, when sight will supersede faith, and what are now
mysteries will be facts.
The proper scope of dogmatism then being simply to defend
truth, to preserve and maintain intact the original idea, we
must still see that there is a great deal to prevent the dogmati
cal task from being executed properly and justly. And the
reason is that amid the unavoidable passion and agitation
which attends theological conflict, we may make a mistake as
to what does actually interfere with an idea, what does conflict
with a truth or doctrine. We may think that something does
which does not. There is such a thing as a clear and indis
putable contradiction ; but it is possible also to imagine one
where there is not : and so to exclude as inadmissible and as
discordant with a truth of revelation something which is in
reality not so — something which co-exists with the truth, and
which is not inconsistent with it. It is not every modification
of a truth and every distinction which can be drawn in the
mode of carrying it out, which can make the difference of
corrupting the integrity of that truth ; it is only some importa
tions into a truth which can occasion this result. And there
fore it is the office of correct dogmatism to discriminate between
those differences which positively conflict with a truth of reve
lation, and those which do not, but leave the substance of it
unimpaired. Now this is an office in which dogmatism may
fail; and where it does fail, it does an injustice to those
members of the Church whom its decision affects ; because it
thrusts them out of the Church as holding an opinion which
is in contradiction with a truth of Eevelation; whereas the
opinion which they hold is compatible with that truth.
There is a notion, indeed, entertained by some that the
dogmatical principle acts mathematically, that it proceeds by
a succession of steps, each of which follows the other by

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 93
necessary sequence ; and that if we once begin we must accept
any fresh link of the chain of exposition, definition, and eluci
dation. Nothing can be further from the truth than such an
account of it, if the principle at least is carried out in that
way in which alone, consistently with truth and reason, it can
be. The dogmatical office with which the Church is invested
is especially one which is not conducted by mathematical proof
and an infallible evolution; it is peculiarly based upon the
practical kind of judgment which decides each case as it arises
upon its own evidence and merits. All true dogmatism —
for in lack of other terms I must use a popularly obnoxious
one — is specially an appeal to common sense. You are sum
moned in it to compare one idea with another ; an idea which
revelation has communicated, with another idea which it is
proposed in some quarter to combine with that revealed one ;
you are summoned to do this, in order simply to ascertain
whether in plain reason they agree or disagree ; whether the
new idea is inconsistent with, is tenable together with, the
old one, or is at discord with it. This is a kind of com
parison which as much hangs upon a sound practical judg
ment as multitudes of cases in ordinary life, in which we have
to compare two things together. But it is this comparison
and none other which is repeated in every successive decision
which is made in the course of the dogmatical defence of a
sacred truth. There is a recurrence at every fresh dogmatic
occasion to a fresh comparison of the original idea of revela
tion with some other idea brought forward ; to see if they agree
or disagree. There is a fresh recurrence every time to com
mon sense and practical judgment. Does this article of faith
which has been communicated to us, and which we naturally
understand as such and such a truth and no other, admit of
this proposed interpretation ? Let us compare the two ideas,
and see whether they can be held together, or whether one
does not subvert and supplant the other. This is a matter of
judgment. But in this comparison it is not certain that the
judgment will be always successful and make no mistake.
Nor will it follow that because truth has been secured, and
correct decision made in many instances, that therefore an

94 The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
incorrect one will not be made in another case of comparison
when it occurs.
The dogmatic decision, for example, which closed the Arian
controversy, was the result of a comparison of two broad and
clearly marked ideas, which obviously could not be combined
or reconciled. One plainly clashed with the other, both could
not be held together, and therefore if the first original idea
was to be retained, it was a matter of necessity that the new
and later idea must be excluded. The idea of Eevelation was
that our Lord was God. The Arian idea was that our Lord
was not God, but a transcendent and super-angelic created
Being, made at God's good pleasure before the world, upon
the pattern of the attribute of Logos or Wisdom existing in
the Divine Mind ; gifted with the illumination of it, and in
consequence called after it; the instrument of creation and
revelation ; and at length united to a human body, in the
place of a soul, in the person of Jesus Christ. The Being
which our Lord, upon this idea, was, had a beginning of exist
ence — there was a time when He was not, and He was formed
from what once was not.
Such a being was undoubtedly an extraordinary and per
plexing and an ambitious conception of the department of
mystical and speculative theology ; but nothing can be more
certain than that he was not God, as such a being was
fundamentally different from the Divine Being at every point
of the definition. The idea of Scripture then, and the Arian
idea, were absolutely at variance. In Scripture, " The Word
was God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ;"
the two elements Scripture admits in the idea of the Incarna
tion are God and Man; no other being is recognised. But
Arianism introduced into the structure of the Incarnation
another being who displaced both — both God and Man ;
a being whose conception was drawn from a Pagan source,
rather than a Scriptural one, and represented the monstrous
imagination of oriental religions — who was midway between
God and Man ; less than God, and more than angel — a coun
terfeit Divine Being whom simple minds would confound with
the true one ; who, without being God, was creator of heaven

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 95
and earth, and without being God or Man, was mediator
between God and Man.
The final decision, then, which pronounced that the idea
of Arianism was inconsistent with the Scriptural idea of the
Incarnation was undoubtedly a correct exertion of dogmatic
judgment ; because the two were really mutually contradictory;
and no other result could fairly be arrived at. On the other
hand, we meet with a doctrine in the early and especially the
ante-Nicene Fathers, which was concerned with and affected in
a certain sense the Godhead of our Lord, and which in later
ages brought down upon the earlier Fathers in some quarters
the charge of Arianism, but which did not in reality disagree
with our Lord's Godhead. I refer to the doctrine of the
subordinateness of the Son to God the Father, as being the
dpxn — the beginning and fountain-head of the Godhead —
subordinateness to Him in that one respect, that the Son's was
by its very nature a derived Godhead, which, though co-eternal
with the Father's, flowed forth and emanated from it ; whereas
the Father's Godhead was that which it emanated and issued
from — the source and fountain of the whole Divinity. The
language of some of the early Fathers insisted strongly on
this distinction, and even occasionally appeared, on a cursory
glance, to imply an essential inferiority in the nature of the
Son to that of the Father; though this inference was abun
dantly rectified by the context of the passages and by the whole
general language of the writers ; and it was obvious that the
subordinateness meant by them was a subordinateness of
derivation only, and not of nature or of power. The Church
accordingly never touched this particular language, because
there was no incongruity between our Lord's being a derived
Divinity and being Divinity.
And so with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity and
certain ideas which were introduced bearing upon the internal
structure of the doctrine and relations of the Three Persons.
When Sabellianism was submitted to the dogmatic office of the
Church, it was condemned, because the idea of the Three
Persons being only three characters or aspects of God was at
plain variance with their personality as described in Scripture.

96 The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
Whereas, on the other hand, the Procession question has never
been dogmatised upon by the whole Church, because that
did not, one way or another, interfere with the substantial
idea of the Trinity. In these cases the dogmatic judgment
of the Church pronounced in one of them a contradiction
to the revealed idea, and in the other case refused to pro
nounce it.
We are here indeed upon the threshold of a great question.
When a caution against an excess of dogmatism is given, when
a limit is enjoined, and when distinctions which lie beyond
that limit are condemned as subtleties and refinement, the
reply often is that upon the assumption which is made of a
mysterious truth to begin with, we are no judges of the limit
of that mystery, of the extent to which it is to be carried out,
or of the minutise and refinements of distinction which it is
necessary should be applied to it, in order to maintain it in
its integrity. A mysterious truth, it is said, is at the very
commencement, by our own confession, beyond our reason.
We therefore have committed ourselves to the abandonment
of reason as our test in the acceptance of it; and therefore
cannot claim the right to revert to reason for a limitation
and check upon the exposition and interpretation of it.
This is the argument, for instance, used in reply to the
objection we urge to the doctrine of Tran substantiation upon
this ground. We say that the Eoman divines push a mys
tery too far; that they carry it into subtleties and ex
tremes and particularities which were never contemplated in
it, which are over rigorous and artificially literal ; and that it
is an unreasonable and extravagant explanation of the change
of the bread and wine into the body and blood to suppose
that it necessitates the actual abolition of the material sub
stance of the former ; and they reply that the original doctrine
being a mystery and beyond reason, we have no right to
appeal to reason for the mode of explaining it. What is
this consequence, they say, that you call extravagant, more
than a mystery, and you acknowledge a mystery to be°-in
with ?
Let us examine this position, then, that Eeason is no judge

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 97
with respect to mysteries, and can therefore impose no check
in the exposition of mysteries. When we examine this matter,
it will not be found fairly possible, I think,, to maintain such
a position. It is quite true that mysterious truths are beyond
reason, they are beyond by the very fact that they are
mysterious. And yet it may be quite true too that reason has
certain rights appertaining to these mysterious truths, and that
we cannot possibly protect ourselves from the most extrava
gant and monstrous delusions, unless we are ready to assign
to reason some substantial functions and some power of
interpretation and check with respect to mysteries. In the
first place, with respect to a great class of mysterious truths,
which we call natural mysteries, reason has so much to do
with them, that though they are beyond reason, reason herself
is the very discoverer of them. We should know nothing of
them without reason. It is reason that imparts these incom
prehensible ideas to our minds ; and that which lies beyond
reason is still at the same time as much a part of reason itself
as any other of the materials and contents of this high faculty.
Thus the idea of Infinity, the idea of Cause, the idea of Eight
and Wrong, are utterly mysterious, inexplicable, and incompre
hensible ; and yet to say that Eeason judges with respect to
these ideas, judges respecting their validity, legitimacy, and
truth, would be much short of the fact, because, indeed, they
spring out of reason, and they enter into its very composition.
Nor when we come to supernatural mysteries can it be
said that reason has no office or function with respect to them ;
that it has no accepting and satisfying power, that it has no
concurring part to take, that it has no criterion by which it can
adopt some mysteries as reasonable, and reject others — if they
are proposed to it — as fanciful and monstrous. Unless we
admit some such discriminating office as this in reason with
respect to supernatural ideas communicated to us, we as good
as confess that, as far as internal evidence is concerned, all
mysteries are alike ; that they all stand on the same ground as
regards acceptance or rejection, and that they are all alike
unmeaning and senseless enigmas. But surely to say that in
respect of intrinsic acceptableness, propriety, suitableness, fitness,
G

98 The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
agreement with man's sense and reason, there is no difference
between the idea of the Incarnation and any other incompre
hensible conception which can be presented to the imagination,
is to say something at variance with the common sense of
mankind. God being invested by religion with special rela
tions to man, as being not only the creator and preserver of
the race of man, but as its inspirer and moral guide, it has
ever appeared a meet and congenial idea to the religious
thought and sentiment of the human race, that God should
come down from His high throne in heaven to assume a
greater fellowship with man, and to take upon Him his nature!
The idea of the Incarnation has thus always been a natural
idea to man, it has been incorporated in the religious imagina
tion ; and though it has taken often extravagant and grotesque
forms, the substance of the idea has united itself with the
deepest poetry and philosophy.
It would not be right then to put the idea of the Incarna
tion on a par with any other inconceivable idea, however
devoid of meaning, prodigious or frivolous, which might be
proposed to the human mind. But to say this is to say that
Eeason is a judge of mysteries, and has a right of discrimination
with regard to them. So the idea of an Atonement has
approved itself to the religious mind of man in all ages ; nor
would any one be borne out by the general voice of the
human race in saying that, because an atonement was an
incomprehensible idea, it was therefore on a level with any
other incomprehensible idea which human fancy could con
ceive. Yet to say this is. to say again that reason is a judge
of mysteries, a judge at the outset as to what it is in sympathy
with, and what, by an inner verdict, it discards ; what is a
rational mystery and what is an irrational one.
And as Eeason is not prevented by the incomprehensibleness
of mysterious truths from having a voice at the outset in the
acceptance and rejection of them, so it is not prevented, by the
same fact, from having a right to exercise a check upon the
mode of carrying out, developing, and interpreting mysterious
truths. Eeason does not grasp these truths; in the very
nature of the case it does not : and yet it may have a suffi-

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 99
cient practical insight into the meaning and scope of them to
know when an explanation and interpretation of these truths
agrees and coincides with this scope ; and when it goes beyond
it and runs into excess and minutiae irrelevant to the import
and design of these mysteries ; — to know when the substance
of the truth is adhered to, and when the substance of truth is
lost sight of, and the mind is diverted into inconsequent
subtleties and fine-spun distinctions carried out beyond all
the needs of truth, and therefore to the injury and misrepre
sentation of truth.
To say that a mystery is beyond reason, and that its
exposition cannot be regulated by reason, is one of those
abstract arguments which ought to have purely abstract
premisses to deal with. In the present case we are dealing
with nothing abstract, but with that actual relation in which
we stand intellectually to mysterious truths. This is an
actual matter of mental experience, and in examining it,
we find that it is a divided state of things. We know and
we do not know, we know in one sense, and we do not know
in another. A mystery is an enigma, and yet it is not wholly
an enigma. There are various truths which we partly con
ceive, and partly fail in conceiving. Eeason falls short, but
reason has still such an insight into the meaning of mysterious
truths as serves the practical purposes of religion ; and this
measure of insight is enough to warrant her right to impose a
check upon the dogmatic exposition of them, — to justify a
discriminating function on the part of reason, to distinguish
when explanation fulfils and when it exceeds its purpose.
I have thus endeavoured to explain the dogmatic office ;
first, the true scope of it, which is the preservation and defence
of, as distinct from adding to, the stock of revealed truth ; and
secondly, the mode in which it acts, namely, by a comparison,
— a comparison between some new proposed idea to interpret
revelation and the original idea of revelation itself. If in the
comparison it appears that one of these ideas is inconsistent
with, and contradictory to, the other, it is the part of the
dogmatic, office to exclude the new idea, in order to preserve
the original one. If, on the other, the two are tenable together,

ioo The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method.
then the dogmatic office allows and admits the new idea. No
guarantee, however, is given that the dogmatic office — whatever
be the zeal of men, and the goodness of men's intention — will
invariably be exercised with perfect accuracy ; and the com
parison, when made, lead to a correct result. The Church, as
keeper and guardian of the deposit of the faith, has undoubt
edly executed her trust with such a degree of fidelity, as that
that deposit has been preserved against the attacks of enemies ;
and the faith once delivered to the saints has not been lost, or
the gates of hell prevailed against it. But it would be a too
flattering description of the dogmatic career of the Church to
say that she has never erred on the side of over rigour and
strained exactness ; that while she has certainly secured the
perpetuity of the faith, she has not sometimes excluded legiti
mate opinion ; that while she has kept out what was contra
dictory to fundamental truth, she has not sometimes failed to
include what was admissible.
It must not, however, be supposed that where the Church
committed an error of judgment in the exercise of her dog
matic function, she always did it from despotic and arbitrary
motives. Doubtless those motives mingled with others in
determining her policy when it was too exclusive ; and they
became stronger as heresy advanced ; but in the earlier ages
at any rate such motives were tempered by more excusable
ones. The ferment of theological intellect, the interminable
agitation, the constant rise of heresies and the perpetual
necessity of resistance, imparted a strained and eager jealousy
to that watchfulness and guardianship which was, under all
circumstances, the Church's duty : the protraction of the
strife aggravated the temper of the defender, till the Church
grew suspicious and apprehensive, and began to detect a
heresy under every rising expression. It must be remembered
that if spiritual ambition is pushing and coercing, love sub
ject to human frailty is also fidgety and interfering. Such
love may indulge in a too constant manipulation of the sacred
deposit, may exult in new definitions, and show a sincere but
still weak fondness in a too lively pugnacity and a too restless
temperament in its defence. It is ever the natural tendency

The Dogmatic Office, its Scope and Method. 101
of love to suspect attacks which are not meant. Dogmatism,
then, even when strained, is not necessarily strained in simple
tyranny. The Creed was the joy, the hope, and the inspiration
of the Church, it contained everything she cared for. The
Truth was her one treasure; and if in her treatment and
defence of it she occasionally erred on the side of an excessive
watchfulness, her watchfulness was stimulated by affection;
it is natural to be busy and active, even over-anxious and
scrupulous about that which we love.

102

VII.— MYSTERIOUS TRUTHS.1
Certain truths or doctrines of Christianity are mysterious
ones, and we appeal to this characteristic of their mysterious-
ness in order to defend them from the charge of injustice
which is brought against them. Such are the doctrines of
Original Sin and the Atonement. When the charge is brought
against these doctrines that they are opposed to our natural
idea of justice, we reply that they are truths of which we have
not complete and distinct ideas, and that therefore we are not
in a position to bring such a charge against these truths.
They are truths with which the common sense and feeling of
mankind have sympathised, and which human nature has
adopted. They agree with human reason in a large and
general way. On the other hand there are certain difficulties,
and difficulties of a moral kind in them. What we say then
is — these truths are mysterious truths; they are truths of
which we have only aa indistinct perception intellectually.
We cannot attribute then any validity to the moral objections
raised against them, because we must have a definite intellec
tual idea of the truths themselves, we must know distinctly
what they are before we can say what objections they are
open to.
But we cannot enter fully into the position that these truths
are mysterious, that is, truths to which we have no distinct
corresponding ideas in our minds, without our attention being
awakened in the very act of embracing and dwelling on this
characteristic of these truths, to certain objections which have
arisen on this very ground, namely, on the ground of their
mystery or incomprehensibleness ; and especially to the imposi
tion of them as articles of faith. For however necessary such
1 Delivered in the Latin Chapel.

Mysterious Truths. 103
an explanation and statement of the mysteriousness of these
doctrines may be for the purpose of defending their truth, or
of guarding against particular objections, we cannot dwell
forcibly on the consideration that these truths are mysterious,
— in their own nature unknown or only half-known truths — we
cannot set forth, I say, this whole characteristic of these truths
without being aware that we are setting forth, and taking par
ticular pains to impose, just that aspect of them of which
objectors are most ready to lay hold, as a ground for rejecting
them altogether, or at any rate for not imposing them as essen
tial. This is the natural effect of endeavouring to steer a
middle course between two extremes, that of rejecting mystery,
and that of embracing it at the cost of reason. In arguing
against a false conclusion from an article of faith, such as
shocks our moral sense, it is necessary to show the incorrect
manner of holding such an article of faith, from which such a
conclusion arises; namely, that persons forget that they hold the 1
article as a mystery, and that consequently they cannot build '
upon it as if it were an ordinarily intelligible truth. But this
defence against erroneous inferences on one side exposes the
truths themselves to the attack I have just mentioned on the
other. For it may be asked, Why are these truths considered
of so much importance, when those who think them so are
obliged, in order to guard their own maintenance of them, not
only to admit, but to press the consideration that they are
truths at present incomprehensible to us, and that we have no
idea fully and distinctly corresponding to them in our minds ?
This use then which is made of the mysteriousness of
these doctrines for setting aside the importance of them
altogether must be considered in its place ; but I shall begin
with the general objections raised against this class of doctrines.
The first objection, then, usually brought against this class
of doctrines by writers of the Socinian School, is that they are
contrary to natural reason. But this cannot be justifiably said
apart from considering the sense in which these doctrines are
imposed. These doctrines are not imposed upon men to be
held in any sense contrary to natural reason, but only as
representations, accommodated to our limited faculties, of truths

104 Mysterious Truths.
which are beyond our reason. Indeed, we cannot but regard this
objection, — of these doctrines being contrary to reason, — as a
misconception at the outset ; a mistake as to a matter of fact,
as to what the Church's intention in imposing these doctrines
is ; and the mode in which the Church supposes them to be
received and entertained by believers. For can any one
seriously think that the Church requires men to believe what
is contrary to reason ? Can there be in truth any controversy
as to such a question, or will not any one admit at once that
no one ought to believe what is contrary to natural reason ? Our
reason is as much the gift of God, and is as sacred, as reve
lation ; to violate it therefore in any of our notions, in any belief
entertained by us, would be plainly as wrong as to disbelieve
any special revelation of God. Yet this mistake as to what is
required from us for belief in these doctrines is perhaps the
strongest, the most influential source of opposition to them.
This appears to be the great practical argument which settles
the question as regards them. The certainty of the principle
itself, that nothing is to be believed that is contrary to reason,
seems to prove its own application, and to supersede the
necessity of inquiry as to whether this rule is really opposed
in the case of belief in these doctrines. These truths do, indeed,
in their mode of expression, contain difficulties, but we must
not stop short at the outside, we must enter into the real
substance of the case, the mode and the sense in which these
truths are held, the real intellectual relations involved in this
belief. From this whole real interior of the question, the
objector's mind allows itself to be excluded by the bar of that
mere necessary imperfection of language in which these truths
are embodied. He satisfies himself with the truth of the
general formula he has adopted — that we must not contradict
reason — which is indeed unquestionable, without going into
the evidence as to the matter of fact, or ascertaining whether
we do contradict reason in the particular case. Indeed men
are generally very apt to rest in the assertion of some maxim
or principle, and think that that does everything for them ; as
if its intrinsic weight and strength were a pledge for the
correctness of their application of it. That men, however,

Mysterious Truths. 105
of great acuteness and much reflection should stop short in
such impressions with regard to these doctrines, is somewhat
surprising, and only shows what great force preliminary
impressions have, and what obstructions they raise,
This mistake in the Socinian School with respect to these
doctrines is not unlike some of those great current mistakes
on particular subjects, which operate, on a much larger scale,
upon whole portions of mankind ; mistakes which, once estab
lished, sustain themselves by their own weight. One con
solation, however, may perhaps be derived from such a state
of the case, namely, that as all such mistakes as to matter
of fact have really no ground in men's intellects, but only one
of particular prevalence and tradition, this amongst others may
some day recede to a considerable extent before the influence
of clear and reasonable explanation; when, of those who
believe in these doctrines, persons from time to time step
forward to show in what manner they are really held by those
who devoutly believe in them ; and that this manner involves
ho opposition to reason, in which case we may hope that the
objections of many to accept these doctrines will disappear.
For certainly when one sees the serious and conscientious type
on which the minds of some who have rejected and argued
against these doctrines, as contrary to reason, are formed ; their
deep sense of moral truth, their acknowledgment of Divine
influences, their strong religious instincts, and susceptibility to
all the mysteries of natural religion, one cannot but think that
it is some great misapprehension which keeps them from the j
truth, on the removal of which they would discover its real
congeniality with their minds. For what objection — I mean
what objection which operates to the positive rejection of these
doctrines — is left when the ground of their repugnancy to
reason is gone ? There is none. All that can then be said
is that they are beyond reason. And will any reasonable man
deny the possibility of there being truths beyond our reason, or
say that he certainly knows the human intellect is coincident
with all being ? And in the absence of alb positive ground of
reason against these doctrines, the evident witness — though not
in the same precise terms in which they are expressed in our

106 Mysterious Truths.
Creeds and Articles — of Scripture to them, and their early and
universal reception, must strike and impress all candid minds.
For Scripture is at present interpreted by these minds
according to a previous judgment that these doctrines are in
themselves unreasonable ; upon which judgment it is necessary,
however strong the language of Scripture may apparently be in
favour of such doctrines, to interpret it differently ; upon the
sound rule, that if Scripture appears to assert anything which
is contrary to reason, such apparent meaning cannot be the
real one. But if that judgment is displaced, then there will be
room immediately for the natural interpretation of Scripture.
But supposing due attention paid to the manner in which
these doctrines are held, and supposing it admitted in con
sequence that these doctrines are not contrary to reason, the
very argument which has cleared them of opposition to reason
exposes them to the other objection above mentioned, for
it may be said, " If you do not hold anything contrary to
reason, because you are holding what is not distinctly under
stood, — what is so dim and obscure that its meaning cannot be
grasped, — are you not under a mistake in imagining you are
holding anything at all? For what is the meaning of holding,
embracing, entertaining a truth, except that you first know
what that which is proposed to your acceptance is, and then
decide, on whatever evidence, that it is true ? Thus in believing
that a particular event took place, you have an idea in the first
instance of what such an event is, say a battle, an earthquake,
or any particular thing that this or that person has said or done,
and then you decide that such an event took place. You form
a conception in some rough way of what takes place in a battle,
or a convulsion of the earth's surface, or of a person's speech, or
of a person's action; and the conception formed, you believe that
of which it is the conception, to have occurred. But it may be
said if you have no idea in your mind, in the first instance, of
what a truth proposed to your acceptance is, you cannot
believe it, because there is nothing to believe. Belief implies a
subject of it, something with which it comes into contact, and
iu which it rests ; and this subject can only be provided by
your having the distinct idea of something or other, in which

Mysterious Truths. 107
you believe. One state of mind can only differ intellectually
from another by having some idea which the other has not ;
if a man holds a truth then without having the distinct idea of
it, how does he differ from one who does not hold it? They are
both in reality in the same state of mind, being alike without
the idea of the truth in question ; and they can only by some
great inattention and mistake imagine themselves to differ."
Upon the defence and vindication, then, of these Christian
doctrines on the ground of their mysteriousness, these doctrines
become exposed to such reasoning as this ; and it is objected in
the case of the mysterious truths of the Trinity, the Incarnation,
Original Sin, and the Atonement, that those who hold them
are under a serious mistake and delusion in imagining they are
really holding any truths at all, in holding truths of which they
profess not to have the distinct ideas. A Trinity, for example,
in the Unity of the Godhead is maintained, or, that in the One
Divine Being there are three Personal Beings. It is objected
that this is contrary to reason; the objection is met by the
answer that terms are used here in an unknown sense, in which
sense we cannot say it is impossible that this proposition can
be true ; for this simple reason, that the proposition itself is
not known. But then, it is rejoined, if the truth is unknown
we are holding nothing in holding it, and there is a simple void
in our minds while we entertain this article of faith. So in
the doctrine of the Incarnation, in which we hold that a Divine
and a human being are but one Being, the same objection is
made, and the same answer is returned, at the cost of the same
rejoinder. In the doctrine of original sin, again, according as
it is expressed, we hold an actual share in the sin of Adam
taken by all mankind, or a responsibility for another's sin : to
the objection that this is contrary to justice, we say that this
is mysterious sin, mysterious responsibility. In the doctrine of
the Atonement again we hold in the same way a mysterious sub
stitution of one person's merit for another's. With respect to this
whole class of mysterious truths, then, we are reminded that we
are under a mistake if we suppose that we are really holding
truths at all in holding them ; that we have not the distinct
ideas of them in our minds ; and therefore our minds are, in the

108 Mysterious Truths.
act of entertaining them, vacant, and devoid of ideas. Whatever
importance then, it is said, custom or tradition may have given
to these truths, however strong the habitual impression may be'
that our minds have hold of them, it is certain, on the simplest
philosophical principles, that as we have not the distinct ideas
of these truths, we do not and cannot hold these truths.
And if this is the case, it is added, if we cannot even in any
true sense hold these truths at all, how a fortiori can we impose
and enforce them as fundamental ones ? How can we make them
the very foundation of the Christian scheme, and build funda
mental religious distinctions upon them ? How can we draw a
barrier of separation between those who accept and those who do
not accept such truths as if there were the greatest possible
difference in their belief, when all the time, if we examine the real
state of mind of these two, we shall find that both are alike
without the distinct idea of what these truths are ?
The whole objection, then, which has been just described,
calls for our notice, and, if we can give it one, for an answer.
And the answer to it appears to me a very simple and plain
one. This whole objection appears to rest on the assump
tion that we cannot entertain truths of which we have not the
full idea or conception. Now, if by having no idea of a truth
be meant having no idea at all bearing upon it, — having no
thought of any kind in our minds regarding it, this assump
tion is true ; but then this assumption does not apply to
the case of these doctrines, for we plainly receive some ideas
or other into our minds connected with them. But if by having
no idea of these truths is only meant having no distinct or full
idea of them, then it is not true that we cannot entertain
truths of which we have no distinct idea ; and those who sup
pose so have an incorrect and defective notion of the constitu
tion of the human mind. The human mind is so constituted as
to have relations to truth without the medium of distinct ideas
or conceptions ; and that in two ways.
First then, we encounter in nature a class of truths of
which we have no distinct idea, truths of fundamental import
ance in philosophy. Besides the whole class of ordinary, dis
tinct, and plain ideas which we have, whether in the sphere of

Mysterious Truths. 109
sensation or of mathematics, we encounter also in our minds
another and a different class of ideas, to which I wish to call
attention here ; the characteristic of which is their very im
perfect, dim, and only incipient apprehension ; while at the
same time they are ideas to which we are constantly referring,
and on which we depend for our most important conclusions
in philosophy and religion. We know, and are convinced, that
we are able to hold and do hold these truths. Our minds are
so constituted that we have the knowledge of the existence of
certain truths, of which truths -themselves at the same time we
have no distinct idea or representation in our minds. The
constitution of our minds, I say, makes this mixed state of
ignorance and knowledge possible to us. Were the alternative of
pure ignorance or pure knowledge necessary, it is evident that,
when we left the sensible world, which supplies the subject-
matter of simple apprehension, and the sphere of demonstrative
meaning, we should be immediately in a state of absolute
ignorance and utter darkness ; we should not only be igno
rant of the nature of other truths, but should have no sort of
idea what those truths were of which we were ignorant, and
should be wholly unable to think of or discuss them on that
account. We should be cut off from the greater part of that
higher thought and philosophy which has occupied the human
mind in all ages ; and the science of metaphysics would not
exist. But this alternative is not necessary. We have an idea
ofthe existence of truths, of which truths themselves we cannot
form a true conception ; that is, we have some idea of truths, of
which we have no adequate or complete idea. We are not en
tirely cut off from them ; we have some kind of apprehension
of them. I will instance the ideas of Substance, Cause, Mind
or Spirit, Power, Infinity. We have evidently no distinct idea
of them ; at the same time we have some idea. We find that our
rational nature then introduces us to a set of truths which are
incomprehensible ; truths to which we have no corresponding
or proportionate ideas, though we have ideas just sufficient to
acquaint us with them ; that is to say, we find that our rational
nature introduces us to a class of mysterious truths. We are
conscious of various ideas and conceptions, which we cannot

110 Mysteriotis Truths.
open out, or realise as whole and consistent ones ; we feel our
selves reaching after what we cannot grasp, and moving onward
in thought toward something which we cannot overtake.
Mysterious truths are not confined to religion, but are extracted
by my reason out of this world of sense. I move in the direc
tion of a Substance in sensible Nature, which I cannot apprehend.
I move in the direction of a Cause which I cannot apprehend.
That very Space in which I am included is mysterious as soon
as I extend it in thought to Infinity. Wnak is an infinite number
of stars which we believe to exist but a simple mystery to me ?
It is a wholly incomprehensible fact, though we are sure it is a
fact, or at any rate have every reason to believe that it is.
Again, if the rational contemplation of simple nature leads
us to mysterious truths, certainly Natural Eeligion is a system
entirely based upon them. We cannot think for an instant of
so stupendous a truth as that of an Infinite Omnipresent Being
without seeing that in entertaining such a truth we are wholly
in advance of all our clear conceptions, and that we are without
the adequate idea or representation in our minds of that in which
we believe. It is evident that, while our reason has just light
enough to see its want of, and necessary movement toward, this
conclusion, it is still excluded by a veil from the truth itself,
unable to attain the vision of it, and entertaining it altogether
in a way quite opposite to the mathematical, or to clearness of
conception. The Divine Personality is another cardinal truth of natural
religion, and is a wholly incomprehensible one. Our reason,
independently of moral considerations, points to one Supreme
Intelligent Cause of the Universe, and intelligence implies
personality ; for we cannot think of a designing mind that
forms and executes plans and adopts means to ends without
attributing to it that kind of unity and individuality which we
find in ourselves, and which is expressed by the word Person
ality. And natural religion brings in the important consideration
of our moral nature, and the idea of God as the Moral Gover
nor of the world ; and this is a great addition of force and
substance to the idea of His Personality ; for God is represented
as being of a particular character. Natural religion too, brings

Mysterious Truths. 1 1 1
in the idea of Providence, and the constant superintendence of
God over the actions and affairs of mankind. A God who
takes an interest in all human events, who disapproves of the
evil and loves the good, is especially a Personal Being ; and
therefore natural religion may be said , to teach, in a way in
which the contemplation of external nature does not, the Deity.
But such personality is wholly incomprehensible in an In
finite and Omnipresent Being, and we can form no conception
of it. That idea of a personal being which we have in our
minds is uniformly taken from that kind of personal existence
with which we are acquainted ; nor can we form a conception
of any other. But the kind of personal existence with which
we are acquainted is a limited and local one ; it is included in
a particular form and confined to place. We possess the idea
of man as a person, as being bounded by a certain bodily
shape and outline, and only existing in one place at a time.
We can form no idea whatever of a person who pervades all
• space, and is in every part of the Universe ; and to apply our
thoughts to the Divine Omnipresence is always to diminish for
the time our idea ofthe Divine Personality.
To those, then, who object to the mysterious truths of
Christianity, who say that they are truths of which we have
no definite idea, and that therefore we cannot apprehend them
ourselves, and still less have the right to enforce them upon
others as fundamental articles of faith, this is the answer which
may be returned : Eeason itself suggests and obliges us to
entertain this mysterious class of truths : and so does Natural
Eeligion ; which is argument to those who admit Natural
Eeligion. But indeed, apart from reasoning, do not the plain and
broad facts of the case appear to prove what is here maintained
about these mysterious truths, and disprove the assertion
that these truths cannot be embraced and in a certain sense
apprehended by the human mind? An acute person may
doubt, upon metaphysical grounds, whether these truths
can be really entertained, whether the mind can have really
any hold of them ; but the fact which meets us every
where is that these truths do not only lay hold of the human

1 1 2 Mysterious Truths.
mind in some way, but take the most powerful hold of it.
It is a matter of fact that these doctrines have a most strong
influence, that they are practically very impressive ; that they
appeal to the feelings, and mould the minds and tempers of
mankind. Considering the great subtlety of philosophical
reasoning, and its proportionate liability to error, we ought
perhaps reasonably to doubt its conclusions, when they dis
agree with very strong apparent facts the other way. For the
supposition that mankind in general are so mistaken as to
their own ideas, as to suppose that they hold, and are strongly
impressed by certain truths with respect to which all the time
their minds are entirely void, is at any rate a difficult one.
The doctrine of the Trinity has indeed a place by itself, as
concerned with a truth so infinitely remote from us as the
nature of the Deity ; though even that doctrine was not main
tained in the early Church apart from a moral ground, a ground
of natural feeling, and religious instinct. For when the
Unity of the Deity was objected to by Pagan opponents of
Christianity, on the ground that it involved a solitary state,
and that a solitary state was not in agreement with our natural
idea of happiness, the objection was admitted as a natural one,
but the doctrine of the Trinity was adduced in answer to it ;
according to which the Deity was not represented as a solitary
Being, but as having a kind of society within Himself. And
certainly, whether we look to the popular or the esoteric ideas
of the Deity in the ancient world, to the established religions,
or to the theological systems of philosophical schools, the
notion of a solitary Deity does not seem to have approved
itself to the human mind. Those who asserted in opposition
to the polytheism of the mass, the Unity of God, still qualified
it; and it may safely perhaps be said that the doctrine of
the Trinity had some kind of anticipation of it in ancient
philosophy. The doctrine of the Trinity thus regarded, is
rather a concession to our reasonable and intellectual nature,
than a stumbling-block to it. Nor is it easy to understand
how persons can really consider it philosophical to reduce the
Unity of the Deity to such a Unity as we understand and
attribute to human persons.

Mysterious Truths. 1 1 3
But if the doctrine of the Trinity has a place by itself,
those doctrines which touch our own condition, the mysterious
truths of the Incarnation, Original Sin, and the Atonement, do
as a matter of fact appeal strongly to human feeling ; they
are truths to which mankind in their inmost spirits refer, and
which actually serve for the rest, the food, the support and
consolation of human souls. Original sin is felt within as a
mysterious guilt, coeval with our first reflection upon ourselves,
an unfathomable sinfulness, a condition of being which makes
it absurd for us to adopt any but the humblest ground, and
which alters our relations to, and our mode of approaching the
Deity. The Incarnation is received into the believer's mind
as an event which elevates him, and brings him into nearer
relations to God. He reposes in the Atonement as a sove
reign remedy and satisfaction for sin, a mystery of rectifying
love. And it is remarkable that these doctrines are not to be
found in Christianity alone, but, in some or other form, in
most of the religions of the world. The idea of the Deity
assuming the nature of man, and visiting the inhabitants of
earth, has been and is a leading one in the history of religion ;
it has been taken in by the human mind with enthusiasm, and
grasped with tenacity, as an idea of something of not merely
external interest, as the rise of any extraordinary man might
be, but of something which truly concerned us, and brought us
into a new and high relationship. The Eastern and the
classical religions have their respective modes of expressing
this idea, and ancient poetry, with the true skill which poetry
has always shown in detecting the deep instincts and yearnings
of the human heart, was much occupied with it ; conscious
that such a theme did not appeal in vain, but kindled, while
it gratified an innate longing, a noble spiritual ambition in
man to connect himself with the Divine. And the same
historical appeal to the actual working of the religious instinct
shows us human nature groaning under the sense of a necessary
and irremoveable sinfulness contracted by the soul on its very
entrance into this visible world ; and consoled by the doctrine
of sacrifices, that is, holding, in some vague or corrupted form,
the doctrine of Original Sin, and the Atonement. These doc-
H

114 Mysterious Truths.
trines, then, respond to some instinct in the human heart, some
fundamental wants. And that instinct which they respond
to in its turn embraces, apprehends, and practically understands
them. The religious mind enters into, and unites itself with,
these truths in the sense of religious sympathy, just as in
science the mind sees truths in the way of clear perception. To
suppose then that truths, which are in some form the creed of
the whole human race, though only perfectly revealed in
Christianity, and of which this is the power, effect, and
actual working, are not really entertained by the human mind
at all, and cannot be, because they are not represented by dis
tinct ideas, is to put ourselves in opposition to all the apparent
facts of the case. It is evident that there is some mode in
which the human mind comes into contact with those ideas, or
whatever we may call them, which these doctrines embody ;
though that mode may not be scientifically ascertainable, or
capable of expression in formal language. These truths and
doctrines show, by the general evidence of practical influence
and effects, that they are taken in and apprehended, — though
not with full intellectual grasp, still with a real solid percep
tion of some kind, by the human mind ; that though mysteries,
they are in some sense understood ; and that they are not
words only, but words which have a true meaning, and which
express strong and real, though indistinct, ideas.
If the question is asked then, why in religion we build
upon what we cannot understand, why we make incompre
hensible truths, truths of which we can form no accurate or
clear idea, the very foundation of religion, the answer is, that
those kind of truths are recognised by reason ; and that these
are the only truths which in the nature of the case admit of
a place in religion. Truths which are clear and distinct, that
is, the truths of sense, and the truths of mathematics, do not in
their own nature admit of being a basis of religion. The
truths which are at the bottom of all religion must in their
own nature be mysterious and indistinct truths, which we feel
and reach after rather than intellectually apprehend. Eeligion
must essentially be founded upon such truths as these. We
do not pretend that religion belongs to the sphere of sense or

Mysterious Truths. 1 1 5
of demonstration. It is, rather, of its very essence in this
present state of being, that it belongs to neither, but rests
upon the ground of faith. But faith, reasonable faith, does
not require full intellectual apprehension ; it would not be
faith if it did ; it requires such insight only, such perception of
truth, as practically influences and persuades us. The very
truths that lie deepest in our nature are just of this character,
they are not philosophically grasped, but they are taken in
with an indefinite but a true and substantial perception. These
are the truths upon which all our belief that we are any
thing more than material machines depends ; upon these rests
our hope for the future, our expectation of immortality ; our
spiritual nature rests entirely upon this kind of inward
evidence, and unless we allow the witness and validity of
mysterious truth, we cannot even say that we have souls.

n6

VIII.—' OF CHRIST ALONE WITHOUT SIN'*
A REPLY TO PROFESSOR TYNDALL.1
Professor Tyndall, in his remarks upon the Bampton
Lectures of 1865 in the Fortnightly Review, confined himselt
generally to a ground of science — a ground upon which he
justly felt himself strong, and in connection with which he has
won so high a name : though I should be disposed to draw a
broad distinction between the most intimate, subtle, and even
imaginative insight into the facts of science and — what the
Professor appears to claim — an exclusive right to the inferences,
whether physical or metaphysical, from them. Upon one
occasion, however, the Professor enters upon special theological
ground, and objects to miraculous evidence as applying to the
doctrine of our Lord's sinlessness : —
" Mr. Mozley demands a miracle as a certificate of character.
He will accept no other evidence of the perfect goodness of Christ.
' No outward life or conduct,' he says, ' however irreproachable,
could prove his perfect sinlessness, because goodness depends upon
the inward motive, and the perfection of the inward motive is not
proved by the outward act.' But surely the miracle is an outward
act, and to pass from it to the inner motive imposes a greater strain
upon logic than that involved in our ordinary methods of estimating
men. There is at least moral congruity between the outward good
ness and the inner life, but there is no such congruity between the
miracle and the life within. The test of moral goodness laid down
1 Reprinted from the Contemporary Review, April 1868.
2 The XVth Article.

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 1 1 7
by Mr. Mozley is not the test of John, who says, ' He that doeth
righteousness is righteous ; ' nor is it the test of Jesus, ' By their
fruits ye shall know them : do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs
of thistles 1 ' But it is the test of another : ' If thou be the Son of
God, command that these stones be made bread.' . . .
"Accepting Mr. Mozley's test, it is evident that, in the demon
stration of moral goodness, the quantity of the miraculous comes
into play. Had Christ, for example, limited himself to the conver
sion of water into wine, He would have fallen short of the perform
ance of Jannes and Jambres, for it is a smaller thing to convert
one liquid into another than to convert a dead rod into a living
serpent. But Jannes and Jambres, we are informed, were not good.
Hence, if Mr. Mozley's test be a good one, a point must exist on
the one side of which miraculous power demonstrates goodness,
while on the other side it does not. How is this ' point of contrary
flexure ' to be determined ? It must lie somewhere between the
magicians and Moses : for within this space the power passed from
the diabolical to the Divine. But how to make the passage — how,
out of a purely quantitative difference in the visible manifestation
of power, we are to infer a total inversion of quality — it is ex
tremely difficult to see. . . . Let us not play fast and loose with
the miraculous ; either it is a demonstration of goodness in all cases
or in none."

The question of evidence here discussed is one which, from
the peculiar nature of the subject-matter of it, I approach with
some reluctance. As, however, only a bare reference to the
subject was made in the Lecture, and as the whole question of
miraculous evidence, as applying to it, is so erroneously stated
by Professor Tyndall, I will take this opportunity of going
somewhat further into the statement of the Lecture, though at
the cost of treading upon ground where Christian reverence is
properly sensitive.
Professor Tyndall, then, here assumes that if miracles act
at all as evidence of Christ's sinlessness, they can only do so by
reason of the greater quantity of the miraculous in our Lord's
case. And upon that assumption he may well ask, What is
the quantity which decides sinlessness ? Some men who had
a certain amount of this power were bad men. " How is this

1 1 8 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
point of contrary flexure to be determined? How out of a
purely quantitative difference are we to infer a total inversion
of quality ? " But to make this assumption is to overlook the
fundamental idea of a miracle as evidence. A miracle, regarded
in its evidential function, is only a guarantee to an assertion.
It depends, therefore, on what the assertion is, what that is
which the miracle proves. Nobody before Christ asserted
himself to be without sin. No miraculous powers, therefore,
which were exerted before Christ, could be any evidence of the
sinlessness of those who exerted them. No miracle of itself
proves anything; no quantity of the miraculous proves any
thing; there must be an assertion made before there can be
anything for the miracle to verify or guarantee. Between a
miracle and a conclusion from it there is an important inter
vening term — namely, an asserted doctrine or fact.
Professor Tyndall says : ." There is at least moral congruity
between the outward goodness and the inner life." There is.
We can place before ourselves in imagination a certain outward
character between which and the supposition of inward sinless
ness, assuming the latter to be revealed to us, there would be
no disagreement. But between one of these being compatible
with the other, supposing the latter to be known and revealed
to us, and one of these being sufficient evidence or proof of the
other, there is a vast, an immeasurable interval. Take, for
example, our Lord's denunciatory language against the "Scribes
and Pharisees. To those who admit, upon the evidence which
is laid before them, our Lord's sinlessness, there is not the
slightest discord between such language and such sinlessness ;
but common reason tells us that had we to judge of such
language without the assumption of our Lord's sinless character,
we could not tell but that some element of imperfection, some
shade of prejudice, some passionate excess, might enter into
such censures, — such taint of mortal frailty as has entered into
the speeches and judgments of the best and most pure-minded
human reformers. The majesty, the integrity, the holiness of
our Lord's character is indeed conspicuous and obvious upon
the facts of the case ; but when we attribute absolute sinless
ness to Him, it is plain that by the laws of reason we must be

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 119
going upon some further evidence than that which is contained
in His outward life and deportment.
The statement in the Lecture that " we accept our Lord's
perfect goodness upon the same evidence upon which we admit
the rest of His supernatural character," assumes, indeed, that
sinlessness is a supernatural characteristic ; nor, when we
examine what we mean by supernatural, can we avoid giving
this designation to it. We do not, indeed, assert it to be a
Divine characteristic, or that it necessitates a Divine nature in
the possessor ; for Christians hold a past or paradisal and a
future or heavenly perfection of the simple man ; and two very
opposite schools have inserted even in this intermediate state
of things, and in the actual existing condition of human nature,
a sinless mere humanity : Socinians, that of a simply human
Christ ; a Eoman school, that of the Virgin Mary. But though
not necessarily a divine, it is a supernatural characteristic.
Both these schools connect the sinlessness which they respec
tively attribute to two human, personages with a supernatural
cause, not even entertaining the idea of such a characteristic
being a simply natural fact, or imagining the possibility of
mere human nature, or the human nature of experience, produc
ing it. The Eacovian Catechism asks the question, — "Was,
then, the Lord Jesus a mere or common man?" and answers,
" By no means ; " by reason of " his supernatural conception,
his resurrection, his being sanctified by the Father, and
separated from all other men, being distinguished by perfect
holiness," etc. All divines treat our Lord's sinlessness as part
of His supernatural character.
What, indeed, do we mean by supernatural or miraculous ?
We mean that which contradicts universal experience. But is
the field of experience confined to material nature ? Does it
not include just as truly, and just as strictly, the moral nature
of man, the region of his mind, his will, his conscience, his
moral feeling, his moral action ? Undoubtedly it does. But
what does universal experience assert with respect to this
moral nature, but that it never, as a matter of fact, does produce
a perfect moral condition of the man ; that it never produces any
other state of the moral being, but that in which, together with

1 20 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
whatever good he may be conscious of, he is also conscious of
evil — evil which he has done, and evil which exists in his
motives and springs of action ? We only know man as such a
being. Different accounts and rationales are given of this fact
by different religions and different philosophies, ancient and
modern. The doctrine of original sin is the Scriptural account
of this fact ; Manichseanism is another account of it ; Hegeli-
anism is another. But apart from any rationales of this fact,
whether false ones or the true one, we are now concerned
simply and solely with the fact itself. Using the term law, in
this moral sphere, in the same sense in which we use it in the
physical — viz., as uniform and constant fact — sin is the law of
human nature, regarded as a field of experience. The presence
of it in the individual is as much the law of human nature as
gravitation is the law of matter. That is to say, it is always
found there as a fact. The extent to which it is perceived by
the individual in himself depends upon the cultivation of his
conscience, but of its existence in him there is no doubt ; the
absence of the perception, if it is absent, only indicates the
firmer root of the disorder, although it may safely be asserted
that no single human being, however savage and rude his con
dition, is without some consciousness of it.
Again, no theoretical difference in the mode of describing
sin, whether as positive, or as a negation and privation of good ;
no difference even in the moral estimate of sin, whether. a
latitudinarian view of such sin as is universal, which represents
it as a less serious matter, or whether a profounder or more
condemnatory view of it is adopted ; — neither of these differ
ences affects at all the universal fact of sin. The most lati
tudinarian doctrine of sin admits that every man has cause for
moral regret ; it admits a struggle in every human heart in
which the will has often given way to temptation, and taken
the worse side instead of the better ; it confesses to an impedi
ment to goodness in every man, which has been yielded to
wrongly or sinfully. Even the Pantheistic Fatalist's view of
sin does not in the least interfere with the universality of sin.
He regards good and evil, indeed, as at bottom homogeneous
facts, the growth of one root, one great impartial discharge

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 121
from the machine and workshop of the universe ; but though
he explains away sin at the base, he admits the universal
phenomenon ; in spite of his own explanation, he cannot rid
himself of the sense of sin, of the inward confession of it, of
the burden of self-reproach, and the pains of conscience. The
poet of Pantheism makes it a matter of charge against the
constitution of the universe that he is subject to such a gall
ing yoke : —
" And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse . . .
And self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood."1
But in the very complaint at the injustice of it he admits its
inexorable pressure. In relief he turns accuser, and institutes
the contrast between man and nature. Nature is beautiful and
tender, majestic, sweet, elevating, calm, consoling ; man is un
just, grasping, cruel, mean, proud; a hypocrite, and an oppressor.
The Pantheist admits all the sensations, all the struggles, all
the defeat of a sinful nature. He regards the moral law as a
tyranny indeed, and he would wildly break through that
tyranny ; but he cannot help feeling himself condemned if he
does so. His theory of conscience is inexplicable ; he sees no
promise in it, no augury, no anticipation of a future ; he sees no
meaning in it ; it gives him no prospect and no hope ; but he
admits it as a blind force within him, and he expresses that force
and its movements with a strength which is all but religious.
This is so sure a law of our conscience, indeed, that we
count upon and expect a sense of sin and moral imperfection
in the very best man, with the same absolute certainty with
which we count upon the return of the equinoxes, the course
of the sun through the zodiac, or the alternations of the tides ;
we expect from him the consciousness that he has done wrong
actions, and that he has the element of evil clinging to his
motives and feelings. Free from this condemnatory conscious
ness, we cannot conceive ourselves to be for a moment without
being self-condemned for it ; to imagine ourselves without it
would be to imagine ourselves different beings from what we
are ; to escape from it is to escape from the consciousness of
1 Shelley's Promeilieus Unbound, Act n. Scene 4

122 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
ourselves. Consider the principle of impulse in human nature,
— how serviceable, how necessary it is to produce any sterling
virtue in man ! What man is worth anything without it ?
It is the root of all action ; but, if so, action is disordered at
the root. The very virtues of man have some obliquity or
excess in them, so that we could not extract the evil without
eviscerating the good. Whence it is that in works of fiction
we reject "too perfect" characters, knowing that such por
traiture is a delusion, and that strong virtue cannot grow up
in man without some erroneous manifestation of his nature
being produced in the very process. We want the fault, then,
for the sake of the virtue ; we need the shadow to express the
brightness ; we interpret perfection as a blank. And hence,
again, the rule of Scripture: "Be not righteous over much;"
which is directed, of course, not at real exactness of conduct,
but at the motive which sometimes stimulates an outward
exactness ; when men make it apparent that they really have
the idea that they can and will, by pursuing conduct into
minutiae, attain a perfection of character to which nothing will
be wanting. Consider again the indomitable internal wildness
of the human mind, its irrepressible volatility, which is a
constant fount of moral disorder; when it is hurried off by a
thought, fastened on by a retrospect, disturbed at a mere
glance of some casual obnoxious image that flits across its
horizon ; and the involuntary evil excitation is present before
the better can prevent it. This wild nature is a law of the
mind, because there is no perfect cure for it, no discipline
which quite corrects it.
It is thus the very law of the human conscience that the
better a man is, the more alive he becomes to the fact of evil
in his actions and motives ; and a sense of sin is part of the
morality of human nature. The very normal effect of good
ness in the human heart is the revelation of evil. Can any
apparent amount of goodness, any phenomenal sublimity of
character that we can picture to ourselves, cancel this law ?
Let us make the supposition of a man exhibiting the richest
and most splendid assemblage of virtues, the utmost purity of
life, largeness of heart, active zeal, love for others; let us

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 123
suppose the loftiest bearing, the most calm and imposing
wisdom, the most benevolent services to mankind ; but let us
suppose also this man asserting that he was without the sense
of sin. How should we regard such a character — I mean on
simply human principles ? Could we imagine it for an instant
as real, we could not contemplate it without consternation.
Such a man would be an enigma, and a portent to us ; wholly
unintelligible, but not the less condemned by the conscience
of humanity ; a rebel against the first law which is stamped
on human hearts, and an outcast self-excommunicated from
the society and fellowship of the righteous. Let the void
within be covered by ever so luxuriant a growth of out
ward virtue, we could not believe in the reality of such a man's
goodness ; his character could only appal ; and the one thing
wanting would destroy the most majestic external moral fabric.
It would be converted into an unsubstantial shadow ; and the
nobler the assemblage of virtues, the more portentous would be
the illusion and deception of the structure.
It may be asked, indeed, is there not a type of goodness,
different from and higher than any exhibited in human history,
which is capable of being manifested to human eyes, and which
would of itself prove sinlessness ? But the reply to such a
question is, that however high the type of goodness in the
person himself, it must still manifest itself to those without by
means of such expressions and modes of action as would be to
the human eye common to a perfect and to the highest imper
fect goodness. How, for example, could strong indignation be
the evidence of its own perfection, when the same expression
would suit it and also a high imperfection ? The obstruction
to the proof of sinlessness by outward life is thus the essential
invisibility of inward motives ; and to this we must add the
inexorable law of human goodness, in consequence of which
the higher the outward life of any one, the more we count upon
the sense of sin in that person.
If exception is taken at regarding anything so impalpable,
so inaccessible, so mysterious as right and wrong are in their
own nature, as holding a parallel position to physical fact, the
reply is that we are not here considering right and wrong in

124 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
their own nature, but only as fixed feelings or impressions of
the human mind. However mystical, transcendental, and
beyond analysis right and wrong may be in themselves, that
they exist as feelings and impressions of the human mind, and
that the impression of having done wrong is universal in the
human mind, is a plain and palpable fact. The pains of
conscience are sensible inward phenomena, they are special
known feelings, quite different from any other.
To return, then, to the point from which we started : if the
presence of sin is an universal fact or law of our moral nature,
regarded as a field of experience, it inevitably follows that the
absence of it is a contradiction to law ; that is to say, that it
is of the nature of a miraculous or supernatural fact. To be
without moral regrets, without sense of shortcoming ; for the
whole root of inordinateness and dissatisfaction to be extracted
from the soul, to be an ideal to yourself, to possess that which
the more it has been pursued the more has fled all human
grasp — the Crown of a Supreme Eighteous Self-approval —
suppose this, and you certainly suppose a marvel. It is an
unknown state of mind, totally unlike experience ; an anoma
lous insulation in the self-convicting conscience of humanity.
That pervading subtle ingredient of life — how are we to
imagine the total clearance of it out of the human interior ;
the removal of that part of man's self, the ever-accompanying
shadow, the unfavourable reflection upon himself ? Christ was
satisfied with Himself. That is, He witnessed to Himself that
His conscience was what no human conscience had ever been ;
that is, He witnessed to a contradiction to a universal law of
experience, or to a supernatural fact. When we realise under
what conditions we ourselves and the whole human race are
working out the problem of our moral being ; and that these
conditions as uniformly in fact involve in our case the con
sciousness of sin as the law of any species in nature involves
any characteristic of that species ; when we embrace, in short,
what is the experimental character of the moral struggle of
life in any human being ; and then turn to that fulfilment of
an ideal, that absolute purity, that immunity of an inward
life from all mixture and alloy, — we must see that all that

' Of Christ alone without Sin! 125
extraOrdinariness, that strangeness of type, that difficulty of
reception, attaches to the sinless state that attaches to a
miracle ; that it has that, at first sight, unreality, incredibleness,
effect of astonishing, which the violation of a law of physical
nature has ; and that it is in short a miracle, only a miracle
of the inner world instead of the outer.
Christ's sinlessness did not indeed imply a freedom from
the burden of resisting evil, — of maintaining a contest. But the
law of sin in. human nature is not the contest with evil, but
the failure more or less under the contest. It is this which
constitutes the subject of that self-reproach under which all
human nature labours : the immunity from this was immunity
from a law of human nature, a universal characteristic of it.
Let the test of the historical imagination, — I mean the
principle of deciding at once against the truth of facts, if, when
we realise what they are, we start at the unlikeness to, the
opposition to the experimental type, — let this test, which has
been applied to physical miracles, be applied to the sinlessness
of Christ, and does it meet that test ? Is there anything more
certain, more sensible, more palpable than this universal fact
of evil, this imperfect struggle with evil ? Is any geographical
fact, any historical fact, more absolutely taken for granted?
Is there anything imaginable wanting to the constancy of
experience, to the rigorousness of fact here, that out of this
vast mill of probation which the world is, all goodness comes
forth mixed with the "ineradicable taint"? — that no human
life is clear ? — that if any one said his was, we should not for
an instant believe him ? With this overpowering stamp, then,
of the actual, the real, upon his mind, with this strength of assur
ance from the world of fact, let any one turn to the thought of the
One Sinless Conscience, that marvellous interior of One Man.
Does not that paradisal insulation in humanity, the section of
the heavenly state crossing with the earthly, sinlessness co
existing with pain and resistance, challenge the same wonder,
the same astonishment, the same instinctive questions — Is it
real ? Is it possible ? — that a physical interruption of the order
of nature does ? Does it not excite the same antagonistic in
stinct of custom, the same jar with the experimental touchstone

126 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
of truth ? Has the one fact less of the, at first sight, incre
dibility than the other? If the resurrection of Christ was
an idea, was the sinlessness a fact ? The same antipathy of
unreason, or mechanical impression, to strange, unlike, un
known types, rejects both ; the same cultivation of true reason
retains both.
What I said, then, in the Lecture to which Professor Tyndall
refers, was, that sinlessness being an internal and supernatural
characteristic of our Lord, of which His outward life, sublime
as that was, could not in the nature of the case be adequate
proof, miracles were a guarantee to the truth of that assertiou
of our Lord respecting Himself, in the same way in which they
were a guarantee to the rest of His supernatural character.
Not that miracles could prove such an assertion without other
conditions co-operating ; but that they had an evidential force
with those other conditions concurring. And certainly what
ever theoretical difficulties may be raised with respect to the
mode in which miracles operate as evidence of that of which
they are alleged to be evidence, practically speaking, to say
that the whole of the miraculous circumstances of Christ's life,
supposed to be true, would operate in no way as evidence of
the truth of His assertion of His own sinlessness, would be
to contradict the common reason of mankind.
There are two corollaries which attach so naturally and
unavoidably to this statement ofthe superhaturalness of Christ's
sinlessness, that they should not be omitted.
1. The religious and philosophical position taken by the
late Mr. Baden Powell was, that the denial of supernatural
facts does not interfere with the doctrines or spiritual truths
of Eevelation. But here is a doctrine or spiritual truth, an
essential part of the doctrine of the Atonement, which such a
denial does touch immediately. The moral perfection of a
future state is no exception to this present order of nature ¦
because it is not inserted in it ; but if the fact of a sinless
Person is inserted in this order of nature, it is an exception to
it, or supernatural, and is therefore shut out by Mr. Baden
Powell's barrier.
2. It appears to be the notion of many — indeed, I may call

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 127
it a tendency of thought in the present day — to accept the
Gospel moral portrait of Christ, omitting His supernatural
character. Such a ground must be distinguished from the
liberty which Christian writers claim, to portray our Lord's
humanity, as for the time contemplated apart from His divinity.
The extent to which this may be done, the Incarnation being
a complex doctrine, made up of two great truths, is what may
be called an administrative question in theology, not capable
of any rigid definition. The notion, however, to which I am
referring is, that the Gospel moral portrait of Christ can be
fully and completely preserved, although permanently separated
from His supernatural character.
What I observe, then, is that upon this basis of omission
of the supernatural the sinless character of our Lord must
be omitted, as well as the physical supernatural attaching to
Him. A person might at first sight suppose that this basis
of omission would only apply to the body of outward mir
acles which glorified His birth and death, and accompanied
His ministry ; but, upon reflection, he must see that upon this
basis he must also omit another asserted characteristic of
Christ. For what are the contents of the supernatural? Do
the physical miracles, do these and the mediatorial and atoning
office of Christ together, constitute the whole of the super
natural ? No : the sinlessness is supernatural. Upon the
basis, then, of the omission of the supernatural, the sinlessness
must be omitted.
But does the omission of the sinlessness make no difference
in the moral portrait of our Lord ? That would be a strange
thing to say. Consider, the moral character of Christ was not
a mere exhibition or procession of actions ; it was not a mere
succession of abstract virtues ; it was not a mere external fabric
of virtue. There was behind all this manifestation of action a
Person. What was the moral condition of that Person ? It
must make a difference ; it must make a fundamental differ
ence in the moral portrait which we have in our minds of the
Person whether He was with or without the consciousness of
sin. This is no metaphysical distinction, it must be seen ; no

128 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
difference which can be set aside as belonging to the sphere of
unintelligible dogma ; it is the difference of a plain and palpable
matter of fact. As I have said, whatever be the impenetrable-
ness of the distinction of right and wrong in itself, the feelings,
the impressions, the consciousness in human nature with regard
to it are the most sensible facts possible ; they are actual men
tal sensations ; everybody knows what they are ; all the motions
and workings of these feelings are known ; they are assumed
in all conversation, in all history and biography. The alter
native here, then, is between there having been the absence in
that Person of a sensible known consciousness such as we all
understand to our cost, or the presence of it in Him, — no
speculative difference. The alternative lies between a sinless
goodness, or (if the sinlessness is omitted) a mixed and
alloyed goodness — the goodness of human experience. What is
the universal portrait of man good with the goodness of experi
ence ? This is his portrait : a man who has moral regrets, who
blames himself, who does not rise up to his own ideal, who did
something yesterday, this hour, which fell short of a standard
within him, who is not satisfied with himself. Was Christ — the
argument compels me to ask the question — such a man? Unless
sinlessness is attributed to Him, the only alternative, the only
possible alternative, is, that He was. Of all goodness which is
not exceptional, of all the goodness of experience, this unfavour
able consciousness is the uniform, the infallible, the inexorable
law ; its attendance is as certain as the most certain physical
conjunction in nature ; it is as certain as the succession of the
seasons, as the law of life and death, as the reproduction of
animal and vegetable types ; and we should as soon expect the
earth to roll back upon its axis as look for a contradiction to
this law in any human being. Upon the principle, therefore, of
omission of the supernatural characteristics of Christ, it follows
inevitably not only that He ceases to be God, not only that He
ceases to be mediator between man and God, not only that He
becomes only man, but that He becomes sinful man. Sin must
enter with the withdrawal of sinlessness, and sinlessness must
be withdrawn with the withdrawal of the supernatural. But
this is a fundamental subversion of the moral portrait.

' Of Christ alone without Sin ' 129
For— and it is necessary to state this distinctly, it is by no
means a superfluous thing to state, though it is a truism — there
is no medium between " no sin " in a man and sin. We are
apt to look upon the outside of goodness and to forget the in
side, the human interior out of which it proceeds, and the
conditions which accompanied it in the actual inward person
himself. So suppose a generous or a condescending unbeliever
drawing, as Eousseau and several have done, a portrait of Christ,
and describing His course here ; how it was characterised by
consummate benevolence, patience, moral dignity, etc. Would
he attribute to Christ a sinless character because he thus de
scribed Him ? No. Yet neither on the other hand would he
contemplate Him as having moral evil. He would stop short
at the outside of his picture. What he has in his mind is a
personification, an assemblage of various virtues, a spectacle, a
superficies. But was not the centre of that whole outward
erection of virtue a real Person ? And was there not a real
interior of that Person ? There was ; and we know with cer
tainty what that conscious interior, if it was not sinless, was :
that it was the sphere of moral regret, sense of shortcoming,
sense of failure, etc. Here, then, is a subversion of the moral
portrait. A person might say, indeed, I do not know what
this mystical sinlessness is ; I cannot form to myself a clear
conception of it ; therefore the absence of it is to me no absence
of a positive intellectually apprehended part of the portrait.
But to such a person I would say, Stop. Even supposing — for
I need not enter into that question here — that you do not know
intellectually what sinlessness is, you know the alternative
very well which exists in man, if he is not sinless. You know
that alternative intellectually ; you know it by experience ;
you know it by the most sensible and palpable experience.
This alternative is the difference of a broad fact ; because there
can be no neutral state : if not sinless, the man must have the
consciousness of sin and its concomitants.
It is the tendency of the historical school among us to
exhibit our Lord as a life without a Personality. They describe
a great moral spectacle, a great exhibition of the virtues, a great
procession of the highest attributes of humanity. But we want

1 30 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
a centre of all this fabric and edifice of high action — an Agent,
a Person, the Being who has inward life, soul, consciousness,
conscience. This is not included in the description ; and yet
to exclude it is to transgress against the historical principle.
That inward Man, the conscience of that Man, was as much a
fact as His outward life. Was it a sinless conscience, or — I
am obliged argumentatively to state the alternative — had it a
history of self-reproach and dissatisfaction? Its condition
must have been either the one or the other ; either the former,
which is supernatural, or the latter, which is a confession of
sin. The alternative between a Supernatural Christ and a sin-
conscious Christ cannot really be avoided; yet the historical
school stops short of this point, does not approach it, and draws
the moral portrait of Christ without the question being settled.
It avoids the inward Personality, and confines itself to mani
festations ; yet the centre of this whole outward moral erection
was not a void or cavity, like the Christ of the Docetae.
The moral estimate even of the manifestations must be
deeply affected by the rank of the person from whom they
proceed. Were the benevolent, the compassionate manifesta
tions, the condescensions of a Great One, a Superior, to frail,
weak, and miserable man; or did they represent the active
benevolence of a philanthropist to his fellows ? Upon the
latter supposition there would be an immediate difference in the
moral impression which those actions produce. They would
still be good, but their goodness would be different. There
would be a fall in the type ; a solemnity, a beauty, a depth of
moral interest would have vanished ; they would have ceased
to be what they are. Any common poor man would be sensible
of the alteration, as he read the Gospels. The acts of mercy
and sympathy as they come upon him make a peculiar moral
impression, and embody a higher moral type in his eyes,
in consequence of something in their background, in their
basis ; that they come from an Agent who is lifted up in the
nature of His goodness above mankind,— from an exalted
Personage. The love which descends from a mysterious height
is the greater and profounder love; because it is connected
with the supernatural, it is higher morally. The moral type

' Of Christ alone without Sin. 131
gains from the loftiness of the Agent, and the actions rise with
their fountain-head. They are the acts of the Unknown One
— unknown, though known as well ; the unknown moral state
from which they come gives an untold weight and meaning to
them. The philanthropy in our Lord's actions, supposed to
proceed from a philanthropist only, would fall flat upon the
mind. The omission of the supernatural, therefore, would be the
subversion of the moral portrait too, as being the omission of
the inward sinlessness. But, again, upon this basis not only is
the great internal characteristic of Christ abstracted, but there
is the total demolition of an actual, visible, outward portrait ;
for if the sinlessness is omitted, the next step is inevitable —
namely, that the assumption of it must be omitted too. But
although the characteristic itself is internal and supernatural —
that He professed to be sinless, that He made this pretension,
that He used this language, is part of the visible and external
character, as portrayed in the Gospels. The assumption per
vades His acts and speech; it is as much a portion of the
Gospel biography as His benevolence, His compassion, His
purity, His courage, His resignation ; as much as His judging
the scribes and Pharisees, instructing the poor, suffering for
righteousness' sake, witnessing to the truth, and delivering
Himself to death in behalf of His mission. What a man
thinks or says of himself, his view of himself, his estimate of
himself, is a most important characteristic ofthe man, in secular
biography. The writers of the life of Christ have transmitted,
as an essential portion of Him, this great act of self-assertion,
this tone about Himself, which was quite unique, and to which
there was no approach in human history. .Nor can this
characteristic be removed without a complete destruction of
the whole portrait, and the substitution of another Christ for
the Christ of the Gospels ; whose profound statement respect
ing Himself reappears in the Epistles, as believed and bowed
to by the Apostles, and made the foundation of a new message
to mankind. Let us place side by side this Character and another. In
St. Paul we have a participation in the lot of humanity, an

132 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
experience of a struggle, a sense of disappointment and short
coming, a sense of weakness joined to a triumphant sense of
strength ; we have the beauty and the interest of the simply
human character. He is akin to that " whole creation which
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," — to that
nature which says, " to will is present with me, but how to
perform that which is good, I know not." This is the goodness
proper to man. The sense of weakness, the humility of con
fession, the self-condemning type, is a fundamental requisite
for man's goodness; without it no apparent grandeur or
sublimity can satisfy us. No strength of will, no greatness,
no calmness of the philosopher, no zeal of the philanthropist,
without this, can gain our moral affections. It is impossible
to love a man because he is majestic, because he is wise,
because he is calm, because he is active, because, even, he is
philanthropicaL We demand from him first a participation
in the lot of humanity, a fellowship with it in confession of
sin and weakness — not the mere sympathy of a human bene
volence upon a high condescending ground with humanity ; —
that will not do ; that is not enough ; we must have confession.
St. Paul makes this confession, and acknowledges fellowship
with weakness and frailty. Now take the other Character.
There stands One, erect and unconfounded before the throne of
God. He casts off from Himself that whole fabric of language
toward God which the sense of sin had formed ; He throws off
for Himself the whole penitential type. His humility is the
humility of condescension, of magnanimity, of patience, of
long-suffering innocence, of dignity undisturbed by mockery
and insult ; it is the humility of good desert ; it is not the
humility of imperfection and frailty which is the characteristic
humility of man. The normal effect of sanctity is reversed,
and it reveals in Him no sin — righteousness only ; and that
while His own moral criterion searched the inmost corners of
the heart. A man may fulfil to the letter an outward cere
monial code ; but Christ's code was, " Ye have heard it said,
Thou shalt not kill ; but I say unto you," etc. ; " Ye have heard
it said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy ;
but I say unto you," etc. The more inward the touchstone,

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 133
the greater enigma the assumption of perfectly standing it ; the
more astounding the profession that the law was not death
but life to Him, because He fulfilled it wholly. Yet this Man
preached confession of sins ; He'preached it as the very criterion
of an accepted state, and denounced self-justification as the
condemnation of man. The publican was justified, because
he smote upon his breast and owned himself a sinner; the
Pharisee was condemned, because he thanked God he was not
like that sinner. The very form of prayer which he put forth
as the prayer of all mankind involved confession of sin. But
the same Man who laid down the law of self-abasement for
sin for every other human being disowned it for Himself; He
condemned the Pharisee, and He did what the Pharisee did,
justify Himself; He praised the publican, and declined to do
what the publican did, condemn Himself; His prayer made all
mankind sue for pardon, but He Himself did not pray to be
forgiven. He said to others, "Eepent;" but He Himself
explained why He submitted to the baptism of repentance.
That He disowned the confession of sin for Himself is the
fact it is, because the confession of it in others constituted
them the first objects of His love. There may have been
philosophical philanthropists who did not bow their necks to
the penitential yoke ; but then they were men who did not
accept the penitential type — who did not admit the truth of
that moral standard which imposes it — whose idea of morals
superseded it both for themselves and others — who thought it
imbecile and weak, and below the dignity of human nature.
But Christ's sympathy was with the penitential type solely;
He abhorred the righteous in their own sight, He loved those
to whom much was forgiven.
Now it is evident that these two characters cannot both be
right, except upon the assumption of some entire difference in
the basement or pedestal upon which each stands. They are
opposed in fundamental type. If both characters are attributed
then to the same ordinary humanity, if one is right the other
is wrong. It might appear at first sight that a criticism of a
character upon one basis was perilously near to a criticism of
it upon another; but in truth no two acts of criticism are

134 ' Of Christ alone without Sin.'
wider apart ; we are never further off from a character upon
its own appropriate basis than when' we regard it upon another
and improper one. We have never a more different character
than when we have the same pretensions with different rights.
The latter of these two characters is plainly enormous and
monstrous, except upon the supposition of a humanity morally
higher than all experience, — or supernatural.
But this is the claim and the assumption of the Christ of
the Gospels ; it is the basis of the whole moral portraiture in
the Gospels. This character has never indeed from the first
stood but upon one foundation ; the portrait has never, from
the time it was first drawn, belonged to any other than a
supernatural personage, it is given as the character of such a
Being ; that is its explanation ; that is historically its connection.
Eemoved from this basis, it does not correspond to our moral
sense, but this is its basis. The portrait that was drawn as a
contrast to human saintly characters cannot be proper as a
human saintly character ; but then it was drawn as a contrast.
Scripture is a succession of saintly biographies all upon one type,
the penitential. By a sudden transition there springs up one
solitary instance of a completely opposite type, which vanishes,
and never reappears. But the, solitary and insulated unpeni-
tential type makes also a solitary assumption of worth, and the
assumption is part of the portrait.
There is, then, a total demolition and destruction of this
visible Gospel portrait upon the principle now commented on,
because with the omission of the supernatural sinlessness must
go, and with the fact of sinlessness the pretension to it must go —
that is, the whole of that high and majestic assumption which
constitutes the peculiarity of the character of Christ in the
Gospels. For what is the character in the Gospels without this
claim ? Particular features might be left, but the whole would
be gone. We should have a different character. The super
natural in Him goes deeper than into His outward miraculous
life — namely, into the structure of His moral character.
One remark in conclusion. The liberty of permanently
omitting any elements in the Gospel life of Christ must assume
the spuriousness of those parts of the Gospels which contain

' Of Christ alone without Sin.' 135
those elements. The liberty to omit the outward miracles
must assume the spuriousness of the miraculous record. The
liberty to omit the supernatural offices of Christ must assume
the spuriousness of those parts which contain the mention of
those offices. The liberty to omit all the supernatural must
assume the spuriousness of all those parts in which a claim to
and assumption of the supernatural appears. And according
to the foregoing observations, the high moral assumption of our
Lord about Himself would be included under this head. The
Gospel moral portrait of Christ, considered in the light of a
whole, would thus have to be pronounced spurious. The whole,
therefore, of this subject belongs to, and must be handed over
to the jurisdiction of the department of Christian Evidences.

136

IX.— ORIGINAL SIN.1
The doctrine of Original Sin is sometimes stated as the
transmission of the sin of Adam, or hereditary sin; or as
the corruption of nature, and other equivalent phrases. These
are attempts at expressing the mode in which original sin
operates in the human race. But before we come to the mode
of operation on the part of original sin, there is a previous and
much more fundamental point to be stated, namely, what is the
fact which is involved in original sin, and which is at once its
actual substance and its evidence ? When we have got the fact
of the sin, the mode of it is another and further consideration
not of such fundamental importance.
Original sin then is, fundamentally, simply universal sin.
That is the fact which is at once the evidence and the substance
of it. We know that if sin is universal, and if there is no
instance of a human being without it, universal sin must
receive the same interpretation that any other universal does,
namely, that it implies a law, in consequence of which it is
universal. Nobody supposes that anything takes place uni
versally by chance, accident, or what we call curious coinci
dence. We know that there must be some law working in
the case. That is the reason why we talk of the laws of Nature.
The laws of nature are only, in their foundation, facts — facts
which always happen in certain circumstances ; but because
they are universal we invariably, and by the very construction
of our minds, infer that there is a cause for this universality ;
we cannot imagine that a thing occurs universally by chance.
A person may throw the same number two or three times run
ning by chance ; but if he threw it fifty times running, we
should be perfectly certain that it was not by chance, but that
there was a cause for it, or that it came up thus invariably by
a law. And so, before the physical cause of the different
1 Delivered in the Latin Chapel.

Original Sin. 137
seasons of the year was found out by astronomical discovery,
people knew that there must be a cause for this uniform
succession, or that it was by a law that the seasons always
followed each other in the same order. And so now, when
certain sequences in nature are universal, though the discovery
of the cause may not yet have taken place, we know there
must be a cause ; that these sequences take place by a law,
and not by chance.
And this consequence applies just as much to the fact of
sin in the human race, if it is universal. If it is universal, if no
man who ever lived was without it, and not only his whole life
without it, but if no man was ever without it altogether in any
moment of his life, — if not in act or word, still in thought or
some inner and latent desire and inclination of his mind ; — if
sin is thus universal, it must be so by some law. And this law
we call Original Sin : we say it is the fault or corruption of the
nature of every man ; that it is an inclination to evil belonging
to the nature. But before original sin becomes a law it is a fact
— it is the fact of universal sin. That is its visible and tangible
shape, — the shape in which we meet original sin actually.
We first observe the fact of universal sin ; and thence, as in
other cases of universal fact, we infer a law of sin. It is
evident, indeed, that there can be no ground for a law, unless
there is a universal fact of some kind in the first place. We
should feel no need for a law, and no dispute could arise about
original sin at all. Supposing the facts of the case were that
a few men only were sinners ; such a fact as this would be
accounted for by the ordinary action of free-will — that men had
free-will, and that some used it for good and others for evil.
There would be nothing but what could be explained upon
the common principle of contingency or an even chance. We
should feel, therefore, no need for a law. But if the facts of
the case are that all men are sinners, and that nobody could be
believed who said he was not, then we say there is a law
"on the subject. There must be some cause. The universal
fact cannot be by chance, or by the mere contingent action of
men's own wills. Supposing we knew nothing of the existing
facts of human nature, and were only told that a race of beings

138 Original Sin.
was created who had the power of acting well or ill, according
as they chose, and that the side each individual would take
was beforehand a contingency, could we prophesy that all would
be sinners ? We should have no ground for such a prophecy.
Beforehand each man would be as likely to avoid sin as to fall
into it. When then in matter of fact we find that all men are
under sin, and that nobody gets free from it, we find a state of
things that could not have been calculated upon, on the sole
hypothesis of a contingent action of free-will in each.
Let us take the old heathen proverb — ol TrXeiove? icaicoi — ¦
can we account for this result upon mere chance or contin
gency ? The heathen saying did not of course mean that the
majority were wicked in the sense of committing crimes and
gross offences which the civil law or society took notice of ;
but only that there was a taint in their aim and scope in life,
a low standard, an indifference to virtue. But why should
there be a much larger number of this sort than of the other
sort ? Why should those whose minds espouse virtue and are
congenial to it be the few, and those who are of the other
character be the great mass ? Why should it be so, rather than
that it should be equal both ways ? Upon the hypothesis of
simple contingency to start with, — a free-will in everybody,
and nothing more to take into consideration, the chances are as
much one way as the other. The existing state of things then is
not accounted for by mere free-will ; and mankind are in a con
dition in which they would not be upon the doctrine of mere
contingency. There must therefore be a reason for this. The
proverb of ol 7r\ei'oi>e? icaicoi implies a law in operation.
Such is the foundation upon which the doctrine of Original
Sin arises ; there is first the universal fact of sin ; and then the
interpretation, which always follows, of a general and acknow
ledged fact into a law. What we call that law is a secondary
question ; the great thing is to see that there is a law. If all
the individuals who come under the head of a certain nature
have sin in them, then one mode of expressing this law is to
say that it belongs to the nature ; the nature being the common
property -and ground in which all meet. If all are descended
from a common stock, then another form of expressing this law

Original Sin. 139
is that of transmission or descent — and we call it hereditary
sin, or birth- sin. But the acknowledgment of there being a
law is the first and most important matter ; the particular
way in which to express the law is, though not unimportant,
a subordinate question.
Now, then, let us turn to St. Paul's mode of treating
the subject, and to the order in which he proceeds. It is a
characteristic of St. Paul that he writes without outward
method ; and yet in the midst of the free and informal and
broken epistolary language of his letters, there is an order
very easily perceptible in his flow of thought on this subject ;
and that is the order which has been just spoken of, namely,
that there is first laid down by him the fact of universal sin,
and then and upon that fact is established a law of sin or what
we call original sin. St. Paul's broad statement of the facts
of the case, at the beginning of the Epistle to the Eomans, will
immediately occur to us. The first thing he does, on entering
upon the subject of that Epistle, is to look around him simply,
and see what the facts are.
He puts himself into the position of a spectator, and directs
his eye to the great trunk lines of human action and forms of
human character that have occupied the ground in all ages,
and under the Divine dispensation and covenant as well as
outside it. He looks on all sides of him, and he sees that
mankind as a mass have always acted in a way to offend their
Maker and violate their own consciences. All, both the Jews
and Gentiles, are proved under sin. " By the deeds of the law
there shall no flesh be justified" (Eom. iii. 20); — "all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God" (ver. 23); — "death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Eom. v. 12); —
"If one died for all men, then were all dead" (2 Cor. v. 14).
We can discern the universal assertion indirectly under other
forms. Thus : "the law worketh wrath" (Eom. iv. 15) ; that is,
no man fulfils the law, but is self-condemned under it ; which
is an assertion of the universal law of sin. Again : " while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us " (Eom. v. 8) ; — " you
who were dead in sins" (Eph. ii. 1); — "who hath delivered us
from the power of darkness '' (Col. i. 13); — "we'' and "you"

140 Original Sin.
are universals, meaning all of us; because those whom he
addresses are only samples of all mankind.
And while this is the broad historical view of mankind,
the great conclusion of observation, St. Paul also goes within,
and finds a universal consciousness of sin in the inward experi
ence of the soul as well ; that no man fulfils the law to his
own satisfaction ; but that there is a falling-off, a shortcoming
for which he reproaches himself. This is a universal fact of in
ward experience : " when I would do good, evil is present with
me ; . . . that which I do I allow not ; . . . for what I would,
that do I not; but what I hate that do I" (Eom. vii. 21, 15).
It is, then, upon the great and broad ground of experience
and observation that St. Paul founds the doctrine of Original
Sin. He first appeals to history and then to conscience for a
universal fact ; first comes the observation of what is without,
and then the examination of what goes on within the soul of
man. On the great stage of the world and history was open,
triumphant, and unresisted sin ; in the interior scene of the
human heart, where conscience has come into action, was sin
resisted, but still not subdued ; in both was sin, and both to
gether make the universal fact of sin ; and when he has got
the universal fact he lays down and expresses the law.
With respect then to this Law of sin, it must be observed
that St. Paul at first calls it simply a law — as in the remark
able passage Eom. vii., using the word in a sense somewhat
analogous to the modern, namely, that of an unknown cause at
work, which is shown by universality of experience. " I find
then a law, that when 1 would do good, evil is present with
me ;" — " I see another law in my members ;" — " the law of sin
which is in my members." But when he expresses that law,
which universal fact shows, more specifically and descriptively,
he expresses it under the form of a connection between our
selves and the first man, as the head of our race and its
representative, and this connection again either takes the form
of the first man's sin being imputed to us, or of the first man's
sin descending to us : — " By one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin;" — "for if through the offence of one
many be dead ;" — " the judgment was by one to condemnation "

Original Sin. 1 4 1
(Eom. v.) ; — " by one man's offence death reigned by one ; "
— by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to
condemnation ; " — " by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners" (Eom. v. 18, 19); — "in Adam all die" (1 Cor.
xv. 22). This is the language which describes the law, and
figures what kind of a law that is which the universal fact
of sin proves the existence of. It gives a certain specific shape
and outline to the law ; but that there is a law, he has said
implicitly before in the whole Epistle, in saying that sin is
universal. That is his staple mode of declaring and asserting
the existence of a law ; of maintaining and laying down the
principle of Original Sin. It is sometimes said, — St. Paul only
makes mention of original sin in four or five texts — as if it was
a slight exceptional and casual basis in the apostle's language
on which the Church had founded the doctrine of Original
Sin. But when we examine — although the actual law itself
is seldom laid down in terms, in reality and implicitly every
universal of St. Paul's is a law; for you cannot assert a
universal without tacitly asserting a law. In truth then the
doctrine of Original Sin is contained in that whole language
in which St. Paul asserts the universal fact of sin.
The language of St. Paul, then, which described the law of
sin which universal fact evidenced — which described this law
as the sin of the race in the first man, or the imputation of
the first man's sin to the race, was adopted and exemplified
by the Church. Original Sin indeed did not always stand,
either in the apostle's language or in patristic language, in
special or definite connection with Adam. The phrases which
St. Paul employs often have reference only to our nature
generally, without the mention of the person of Adam at all :
" we are by nature the children of wrath : " and the expression
the " natural man" implies the same general form of the law of
sin as adhering to the^nature. And the Fathers employ the
general phrases of " The Apostasy," " The Captivity," " Naturae
corruptio," and the like, which contain no reference to a personal
source of original sin. So Tatian says generally — r\ ^vyf\
%a/^at7reT7j9 : Athanasius — 17 "tyvyf\ aTroa-raaa. Basil — r) t/w^t;
¦n-apaTpatrelaa. Tatian again r\ irpooTn yeveai*; — rj irdkaia yevecrK

1 42 Original Sin.
without express reference to Adam. But still the idea of
transmission of hereditary sin was very prominent in the
patristic mode of describing Original Sin. " Fuit Adam et in
illo fuimus omnes," says St. Ambrose. "In lumbis Adam
fuimus," says Augustine. — "Unus quisque homo cum primo
nascitur" — " In illo qui hoc fecit, quando id egit, omnes eramus"
— "Ipsi atque ille adhuc unus fuerunt." He calls Original
Sin originis vitium, originis contagium, and explains — "Hoc
delictum alienum obnoxia successione fit nostrum." — "Cujus
male reatus non innocentibus, ut dicis, sed reis imputatur."
Original sin then is here described in language which is a
sort of paraphrase and amplification of the language of St. Paul,
and which puts the sin before us sometimes simply as the sin
of our nature, sometimes as sin contracted at our birth and by
our descent from Adam, who first sinned. But it must be
observed that all this was only a mode of describing a law,
the nature of which in itself is utterly unknown to us, but the
existence of which is implied in the fact of Universal Sin.
When a great philosopher of this country, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, came to consider the subject of Original Sin in his
Aids to Reflection — a book which has had great influence in
forming the religious philosophical mind of this country, he
undertook the office of forming a new language to express
that law of sin in the human race of which we have been
speaking, and it appeared of great importance to him entirely
to cut out of the description of Original Sin all reference to
the person of the first man — all idea of transmission or
hereditary sin ; all idea of an imputation, or of Adam's sin
being charged and reckoned as sin to his posterity. The idea
which he aimed at expressing was that of an apostasy of the
will — the whole and universal will of the human race. He con
sidered Adam's fall only as representing a fall in every individual
will, or in the Universal will of man ; and not as having any
actual effect peculiar to itself by transmission or imputation.
When we come then to the examination of Coleridge's
philosophy on the subject of Original Sin, we find in the first
place, that original sin is founded in his idea, as St. Paul
represents it as being, upon the universal fact of sin ; and is

Original Sin. 1 43
only a law representing that fact. He says, " Sin is evil,
having an origin. But inasmuch as it is evil, it cannot
originate in God; and yet in some Spirit it must. Sin
therefore is spiritual Evil ; but the spiritual in Man is the
Will. Now when we do not refer to any particular sins, but to
that state and constitution of the will which is the cause of
all sins ... in this case, we may with no less propriety than
force entitle this dire spiritual evil, and source of all evil,
— Original Sin."1 Here Coleridge in truth primarily calls
Original Sin simply universal sin. He says it is evil in the will,
only evil not in a particular will only, but in all will — that is,
not in any one man's will, but in all men's wills. This is to say,
he only speaks of it as a universal fact. But from the fact he
infers the law : from universal evil in men's wills, original sin.
" Let the grounds," he says, " on which the fact of an Evil
inherent in the Will is affirmable in the instance of any one
Man, be supposed equally applicable in every instance, and
concerning all men : so that the fact is asserted of the
individual, not because he has committed this or that crime, or
because he has shown himself to be this or that man, but
simply because he is a man. Let the evil be supposed such as
to imply the impossibility of an individual's referring to any
particular time at which it might be conceived to have com
menced, or to any period of his existence at which it was not
existing. Let it be supposed, in short, that the subject stands
in no relation whatever to Time, can neither be called in time
nor out of time ; but that all relations of Time are as alien
and heterogeneous in this question, as the relations or attributes
of Space (north or south, round or square, thick or thin)' are to
our Affections and Moral Feelings. Let the reader suppose
this, and he will have before him the precise import of the
Scriptural doctrine — or rather of the fact acknowledged in all
ages, and recognised, but not originating, in the Christian
Scriptures — of Original Sin."2 Again, " The actual existence of
moral evil we are bound in conscience to admit ; and that there
is an Evil common to all is a fact ; and this Evil must therefore
have a common ground. Now this evil ground cannot originate
1 Aids to Reflection, 2d edition, p. 263. » Ibid. p. 179.

144 Original Sin.
in the Divine Will ; it must therefore be referred to the Will of
Man. And this evil ground we call " Original Sin." l
The philosopher thus entirely agrees in the substantial
doctrine of Original Sin ; nor can we be otherwise than struck
with his deep sense of the unfathomable mystery of sin and of
the absolute necessity there is of acknowledging the existence
of a law of sin in human nature, which must be expressed in
some way or other. What he differs from the patristic and
received doctrine in is only the form of expression ; he objects
to considering original sin a transmission from one person to
another, and insists on having it regarded as the vice and cor
ruption of all Will in common, — all human wills, which have
concurred in contracting this nature, in bringing down upon
themselves this yoke, and in subjecting themselves by some
universal, inexplicable, and mystical act to the law of sin. The
corrupt nature of the will, Coleridge argues, must in some
sense or other be considered its own act, that is to say, the cor
ruption must have been self-originated. This he considers to
be a conclusion which follows from the very nature of the
case, because it would not have been the corruption of the will
if it had sprung from any other origin than the will. But
this act, in the case of a universal corruption, must be a
universal one, and such an act is a mystery and an enigma
just as much as sin by transmission is. It is true the law is
exemplified perpetually in human conduct, that the will can
by its own acts make a sinful nature for itself, can subject
itself to a law of sin which then domineers over and dictates
to it. We have not to go far for the proof of such a liability
in the will, for in truth every sinful habit a man contracts is
to a certain extent an instance of it. Habit is a second nature,
and in proportion as a man falls under the power of a bad
habit, in that proportion he loses the freedom of his will.
And our experience shows that bad habits once contracted may
become so strong, and may secure so deep a foundation in the
man, that practically he loses his free will, and becomes the
slave of his habit, bound to an irresistible law of sin within him :
while at the same time the slavery under which he has fallen
1 Aids to Reflection, 2d edition, p. 281.

Original Sin. 145
is strictly the consequence of his acts, and of the bad use of
his own free-will. The rule to which Augustine is so often
referring — of Peccatum poena peccati — that the punishment of
sin is sin, the punishment of sinful acts, a sinful habit, and
sometimes ultimately an irresistible sinful habit, is verified
constantly in the facts that come under our eyes.
But this, though it is a common-sense explanation of one
individual will contracting a sinful nature, such as we call an
irresistible bad habit, fails entirely as a solution of all wills
having done so. The difficulty now is the universality of the
action in the will, which brought on its corruption and degrada
tion. How is it that all wills have done this act; — have done
that which issued in a sinful nature ? If all wills have gone
"wrong, that cannot be by chance or mere coincidence; it must
be by a law. Thus what you want to account for is a law of
sin in the will ; and what you account for this law of sin by, is
a law too. The difficulty is thus as far from a solution as ever.
Coleridge's mode of expressing the doctrine of original sin
then has no advantage over that of the Fathers, and over the
ordinary language of the Church, in respect of being at all less
mysterious and incomprehensible. There cannot be a more
unfathomable and inexplicable mystery than what he assumes
— a universal act of self-corruption and self-degradation in the
will of the human race. The usual theological mode of
expressing the doctrine of Original Sin is by the supposition of
a transmission of sin from one person to another, or a descent
of sin through successive generations. Coleridge says not
that one will has inoculated another will, not that contagion
has spread from one being to another; but that all will has
gone wrong ; that universal will has, by a universal act, origin
ated its own corruption. But this act he describes himself as
a wholly mystical idea, and entirely out ofthe sphere of reason's
cognisance. It is an act, he says, which cannot be referred to
any particular time ; which " stands in no relation to Time, can
neither be called ,in time nor out of time," and to which "all
relations of Time are as alien and heterogeneous as the relations
and attributes of space are to our affections and moral feelings." x
1 Aids to Reflection, 2d edition, p. 279.
K

1 46 . Original Sin.
This is profound mysticism; and so he himself concludes,
" The fact," he says, " of a law in the nature of man resisting the
law of God" has been universally acknowledged as "a mystery,
and one which, by the nature of the subject, must ever remain
such,"1 — a problem of which any other solution than the state
ment of the fact itself is demonstrably impossible. The reason
why Coleridge prefers fixing the source of original sin in the
unfathomable abyss of universal created will to the ordinary
theological language of transmission, is that the statement does
not involve any difficulty on the score of justice, as the common
notion of transmission does. In this new philosophical
language, it is its own evil act for which all evil is punished —
punished with a law of evil. It is true that this act is out of the
sphere of time, is in no relation to time, and is totally incom
prehensible ; but the form of statement, the mode of speaking,
as such, avoids the collision with justice; which collision attaches
prima facie to the arrangement of one individual receiving his
sin from another. He supposes therefore that he gains an advan
tage by superseding this arrangement ; which is exposed to a
charge of injustice which one common universal lapse escapes.
In estimating the value of this difference, however, we must
consider to what extent we regard the ordinary theological
mode of describing original sin as really open to this charge.
It is a charge which only touches the mere surface of the
language, and not its substance. The surface of the language
is indeed open to the charge that one man is punished for the
sin of another ; but that is a language which we use with the
acknowledged understanding that we only use it to express an
unknown truth of which we have no actual idea. We are not
committed to an injustice by it, but only to a mystery. This
alone is the substance of the language.
But whatever perplexity attaches to the article of
original sin, or the corrupt and sinful nature of the human
will, the philosopher explains in a passage2 which I will quote
at length, " This is no tenet — and it will remove a world of
error to hear it — that was first introduced and imposed by
Christianity, and which, should a man see reason to disclaim
1 Aids to Reflection, 2d edition, p. 277. 2 Pp. 275, 276.

Original Sin. 147
the authority of the Gospel, would n6 longer have any claim ou
his attention. It is no perplexity that a man may get rid of
by ceasing to be a Christian, and which has no existence for a
philosophic Deist. It is a Fact, affirmed, indeed, in the Chris
tian Scriptures alone with the force and frequency pro
portioned to its consummate importance ; but a fact acknow
ledged in every religion that retains the least glimmering of
the patriarchal faith in a God infinite, yet personal ! A fact
assumed or implied as the basis of every religion, of which any
relics remain of earlier date than the last and total apostasy of
the pagan world, when the faith in the great I AM, the Creator,
was extinguished in the sensual polytheism which is inevitably
the final result of Pantheism or the worship of Nature. . . .
Thus in the most -ancient books of the Brahmans, the deep
sense of this fact, and the doctrines grounded on obscure tra
ditions of the promised remedy, are seen struggling, and now
gleaming, now flashing, through the mist of Pantheism, and
producing the incongruities and gross contradictions of the
Brahman Mythology. . . . From the remote East turn to the
mythology of Minor Asia, to the descendants of Javan, who
dwelt in the tents of Shem, and possessed the Isles. Here
again, and in the usual form of an historic solution, we find
the same fact, and as characteristic of the human race, stated
in that earliest and most venerable Mythus (or symbolic par
able) of Prometheus — that truly wonderful fable, in which the
characters of the rebellious spirit and of the Divine Friend
of mankind are united in the same Person : and thus in the
most striking manner noting the forced amalgamation of the
Patriarchal Tradition with the incongruous scheme of Pan
theism. . . . The fact of a moral corruption con-natural with
the human race was, however, recognised ; and in the assertion
of Original Sin the Greek Mythology rose and set."
Such is the position of Coleridge with reference to Original
Sin. I will conclude with the reflection that it is when we view
the consciousness of sin as the law of our nature in this life,
that the sinlessness of Christ appears in its true light as a
supernatural fact — an inward invisible miracle surpassing in
wonder any ofthe visible miracles which He wrought.

148

X.— ORIGINAL SIN ASSERTED BY WORLDLY
PHILOSOPHERS AND POETS.
The great characteristic of St. Paul's teaching is that he
brings out so prominently the mystery of Original Sin. It is
remarkable, and a circumstance which deserves notice, that in
this, the foundation mystery in St. Paul's teaching, St. Paul has
the support of the modern intellect ; and that modern analysis
of character — that singular and deep fruit of the recent mind
of the world, as dated from the era of the Eenaissance and the
Eeformation — is in extraordinary sympathy with St. Paul's
leading doctrine. It is singular to observe that upon the sub
ject of this law of sin in our nature, this root of evil in
humanity, the thought of modern times, so far from diverging
or loosening itself from the great Apostolic position, rather
fastens itself the more upon it ; and that there has been a most
remarkable development of this deep view of human life and
man's nature ; that the modern mind of the world has in its
way plunged far down into the mysterious idea of some in
soluble original mischief and corruption which lies at the bottom
of this whole visible system of the world and human life.
The Satirists of the ancient world commented on the vices,
faults, and errors of mankind, but their view of human nature
was altogether below that of the modern school of satire in
acuteness, depth, and the power of seeing facts as a whole.
Horace, drawing with vivid fidelity the portrait of mankind —
that part of it which came in his way, — and representing with
consummate lightness of touch, dexterity, and skill the levity
and folly of men ; yet but skimmed the surface of society, and
did not go any way into the darker part of man, and the under
ground of the structure. Juvenal denounced the criminal
classes, the slaves of luxury, intemperance, pride, and lust, the

Original Sin asserted by Philosophers and Poets. 1 49
court, the world of fashion, and the low adventurous life of
Eome. But when Satire was taken up under Christianity, and
under a later philosophical influence, it certainly penetrated
much deeper. It assumed a new function and office. It not
only censured, not only branded, not only denounced and
stigmatised men and classes of men, but it professed to lay bare
the foundations of human nature. Vices, meannesses, vanities,
were not single features, they belonged to a whole. There was
something wrong in man, whence all his thoughts proceeded.
It was accidental what particular line this radical wrongness
took ; it was there, and sometimes it manifested itself in one
way, and sometimes in another. Sin was Protean, it slided
into different shapes, it went from one opposite to another ; the
outward figure it took was not the important thing, but the
inner substance; the symptoms were various, but they were
only various as signs of the original disease, which was one and
the same. " In the human heart," said the philosopher, " there
is a perpetual generation of passions, so that the ruin of one is
almost always the foundation of another. Passions often pro
duce their contraries ; avarice sometimes leads to prodigality,
and prodigality to avarice ; we are often obstinate through
weakness, and daring through timidity." But again, what was
very important, and showed a far deeper and more subtle
power, satire in this new stage entered into the structure and
probed the root of human virtues. It tried them by a test
never tried at least with system and determination before —
the test of motive. The strength of this test is in proportion
to the knowledge which he who applies it has of the springs of
action in man ; of the foundations of character ; of the power of
latent wishes ; and the secret force of certain aims and objects
which adhere to man in spite of professions, and mingle
intimately even with his best actions. The modern school of
analysis of character dragged all this to light ; a deep know
ledge of human nature enabled it to detect fundamental
motives, which it then proceeded to fasten upon human
conduct, and even to append to the man's virtues. Such was
Eochefoucauld's philosophy of sin. He held that there was a

1 50 Original Sin asserted by
sort of sin in man which produced various outward forms of
sin, and particular vices, but which was in itself the substan
tial vice of man. And in this view human nature always
carried about this original fault with it ; that however it might
appear to be raised above low aims, a taint was still inherent
in man's motives, and a secret selfishness insinuated itself into
his most splendid actions.1 He probes with frigid accuracy the
soundness of the foundation, and his book is a succession of
maxims which remove the mask from human pretensions and
professions. We identify him with what is called the Cynical
Philosophy. His name is indeed a proverb : it stands for an
utter disbelief in the purity and simplicity of human nature,
for a complete scepticism as to the genuineness and sincerity
of men's virtues. But he was not this disbeliever in human
goodness from mere acrimony, from passion, from violence,
and a vituperative spirit. He had a philosophy, a theory of
human action ; he analysed its motives, and upon this analysis
he came to the result he did — that all human virtue had for
its motive some latent and refined form of selfishness.
When we enter, then, into this philosophy, it appears to us
to go into the error which many other philosophies do, namely,
that it is too complete and systematic, and consults unity at
the expense of truth. It is the ambition of theories to possess
simplicity. What this theory does, is that it lays down a
uniform root of human action ; not only this, but it represents
this root as acting with uniformity. It has somewhat of the
rigidity as regards virtues, that the Stoic rule had as regards
vices — omnia peccata paria— all virtues are alike as Eochefou-
cauld portrays them ; alike under the stimulus of a radical
selfish motive. The mode, then, in which the great men, who
conducted this analysis of human character, applied their dis
covery, admits of criticism; they applied it roughly and
indiscriminately, without exactness, and without those adapt
ations and accommodations with which all great maxims must
be applied. They applied their principle with a certain passion,
as men use a watchword, which calls forth some powerful
1 " L'amour propre fait tous les vices et toutes les vertus morales selon qu'il
est bien ou mal entendu." — Reflexions Morales, p. 75, ed. 1743.

Worldly Philosophers and Poets. 151
sentiment and forcible association. The passionate mode of
the promulgation of this principle, as a truth respecting this
system of things, was indeed in the case of some of the re
markable preachers of it vehement almost to madness. They
looked upon the whole face of human society as a disguise,
which hid, underneath its high professions, a servile and vain
egotism — there was deception at the bottom of human life ;
and the original delusion, as it worked itself out, only added
to its intricacy, and multiplied the labyrinth of a fraud.
Rabelais wrote in a state of furious scorn and indignation,
which he expressed by a boundless laughter. And he has his
echo in our own literature, in him who drew in bitterness of
soul, and with lacerated heart, that picture of man which,
except to himself, gave mirth to the whole world.
Such is the disturbance and excitement with which the
perception of the root of evil in human society has operated
upon some minds, producing a commotion of the spirits like
that with which one hears some frightful news, or sees some
repulsive spectacle. Even Eochefoucauld's calm and imperturb
able precision of statement rather disguises passion than
suppresses it. It is in him ; he keeps it under, and does not
allow it to come up to the surface, but it is there, underneath
the polished brevity of maxim, underneath the oracular form
of judgment, underneath all his gravity and all his sententious-
ness. In the mode, then, of applying their analysis of man, this
school went wrong ; it erred in, the uniformity and sameness
of the result ; and the rule wanted flexibility and elasticity.
They omitted the important distinction in applying the
ordeal of motive ; — that while the mass of mankind were blind
to the motive on which they acted, and received into their
character the full depravation of its hidden working, in some
(though it acted by the faults of nature, which was too weak to
shake it off), it acted still under a protest. It had not that
dominion which a motive has when the man is utterly un
conscious that he is influenced by it : it then plays havoc indeed
in the soul, and is under no check. It was seen, the man was
conscious of it ; he confessed it, and that was in itself a kind of

1 5 2 Original Sin asserted by
disowning of it. Sin then did not reign over him, and though
every action was alloyed by the taint of some inward aim
which would not stand the test of open day, and shrank from
inspection; still the conscience, by its confession, relieved
itself of the guilt and condemnation of it.
But without entering at present into the rigours and ex
travagances of this philosophy, it is enough, for the purpose
before us, if it maintained in any shape the principle it did,
namely, that human conduct, even human virtue, was invari
ably accompanied by certain latent motives proceeding from
self-love; and these motives always mingled with, and corrupted
the actions of the man. For this, undoubtedly, is to assert
original sin. The alloy of the motive is represented by this
school as universal ; to attach to every man ; it therefore exists
by a law ; it belongs to the nature ; it is therefore the sin of
nature ; that is, original sin. Indeed, if a universal falsity, or
taint in the motive is so uniform that you may be certain that
a man, simply because he is a man, has it, if those who teach
this do not teach original sin, then St. Paul himself did not
teach it either.
We have, then, risen up in modern times, as the product of a
large observation and a keen philosophy, a school of analysis
of character which has had enormous influence, and whose
maxims have been incorporated with the world's wisdom ; and
this school turns out to be the unconscious disciple, though at
the same time distorter, of St. Paul ; and its system in a new
language, and under a peculiar philosophical dress, a republi
cation of original sin. Its maxims have been, to the extent
which is necessary to the present argument, received into the
whole of society. Its rigid extremes of statement may have
been avoided, but residuum enough has been adopted to
establish that truth. It cannot then be said that the doctrine
of St. Paul has become obsolete: it is new, it is fresh, it is
living, it mingles with the intellect of the modern world, and
comes out expressed anew from the search of modern analysis.
It falls in with the lines of modern thought, it unites with man's
introspection of himself in a new era of philosophy.
So with respect to the doctrine of perfectibility, by which

Worldly Philosophers and Poets. 153
we mean man's perfectibility in this life — the philosophy of
this school entirely ratified the scriptural position. In the
eye of Scripture, as we know, any mere man, fancying himself
sinless, is a rebel against the law of his present being ; or is
deprived of his reason, and is under captivity to some strong
delusion. And yet men have been deceived into the idea that
they have attained perfection, — that they are in a state pure
from all sin. Even the language of the first ages of the Church
was not wholly free from concessions to this feeling ; and
sects have from time to time been carried away by the
hallucination. Even very recent times show instances of it,
and have placed the attainment of perfection within their
system ; — only, as might have been foreseen, as the sad prog
nostics of terrible downfalls. How would the philosophy we
have been considering treat such an assumption? It would
hardly condescend to argue with it, but would set it down at
once among the delusions and madnesses of mankind. And
thus the old truth of Scripture collects, as it descends to this
modern era of the world, the suffrages of modern thought : the
latest maxims of philosophy concur with it, and it mingles
with the whole vein of recent search and analytical investi
gation into man.
We have nothing here to do with the characteristics of those
leading men themselves who thus analysed the action of man
kind, and formed the school of modern philosophical satire.
The wildness and extravagance with which some wrote gave
their philosophy the look of an enthusiasm ; nor were they men
whose lives corresponded with the antagonism in which they
stood to the corruption and selfishness of society. And in this
point of view, the scope of their philosophy totally differed
from the scriptural writer's. The latter saw through the
corruption and fall of man to a recovery beyond ; and only
insisted on the evil to direct to a restoration and redemption ;
but these philosophers only analysed human nature as
naturalists examine some species, to report the facts ; they had
nothing to do with religious hope. But this did not make
them the less true witnesses. They had gifts — extraordinary
faculties of insight and acuteness of perception ; but gifts never

1 54 Original Sin asserted by
have gone, and never will necessarily, go along with a life en
nobled by them. True prophets have been faulty men. These
men have done their part ; — we do not take them for patterns ;
— they had endowments ; they were enabled to see deeper into
human nature than ordinary people can. They saw that men
professed to be better than they were, and they took off the
disguise. They would not be deceived ; they would see things
as they were : " Decipi turpe est " was their motto. As a
school of teachers they brought man to his senses, they
estimated him at his value, and by determinate exposure of
the root of evil, they overthrew the whole perfectionist view
of human nature.
It is very remarkable, again, that in this latter age of the
world, when the mysterious truths of Scripture have been
subjected to intellectual analysis, and, upon not answering to
the test, have been thrown aside by so many, that a school of
poets should have arisen who should particularly have taken
up and been arrested by the incomprehensible spectacle of a
fallen world and a sinful nature. The very doctrine which
the sceptical intellect has ever criticised as an inconsistent,
self- contradictory one, not agreeing with itself, and therefore
such as reason must discard, was — enigmatical as it was — the
very truth which this school of poets, which I am speaking of,
saw. They looked within and without them, into themselves
and into society, and they saw a root of sin in human nature
which they could not explain ; and became the involuntary
witnesses to a great mystery on this subject. And thus arose
the remarkable spectacle of a school of infidel poetry giving
complete loose to its own thoughts, and yet issuing in an agree
ment with the scriptural oracle upon this great subject. It is
remarkable, I say, that at the very commencement of a sceptical
age, such a school should, in matter of fact, have taken up and
adopted this very mystical truth of original sin, with all its
sadness and perplexity, as its great subject; — the cardinal
material at once of all its fretful pangs of anger and irritation,
and of its gloom and despondence — and that the great fact
which elicited that torrent of emotion, and furnished that
grand scale of sentiment and passion, grief, and indignation

Worldly Philosophers and Poets. 155
which characterised their poetry, and gave it its hold upon the
popular mind, should have been the very fact which St. Paul
saw — "the whole creation groaning, and travailing in pain
together until now " — a world under a law of sin, and, as a
consequence, of misery. To say that Shelley's or Byron's poetry
is penetrated with a doctrine of original sin, may be an
assertion that will sound strange and incongruous : certainly
they had no intention of supporting and seconding St. Paul :
that is clear enough ; but, however, that was what they did do
in fact ; if unconsciously and without knowing what they did,
and what auxiliaries they were to the doctrine of Scripture, so
much the more valuable their evidence. What they did do in
fact was to proclaim human nature as involved in some
inextricable labyrinth of evil ; of which alike the source and
the issue was inscrutable. They did not see this law of
sin as reconcileable with a good God, as Scripture sees it ; but
in the acknowledgment of a law of evil itself — that the world
was under a yoke, and that human nature was under a cloud ;
that conscience at the best was restless and dissatisfied ; that
as human nature came out and its faculties and tendencies
developed in strength, they revealed a native corruption and
alloy ; and that a scene of enmity, of collision, of discord and
grief was the expansion of the original seed of human life ; —
in this they were at one with St. Paul ; and with him they
said, " The whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain
together until now." Had they been actual disciples of St.
Paul they could not have embraced more tenaciously the idea
of some universal evil in humanity which was moral and
touched the heart ; of some law, that is, of sin, in consequence
of which sin came up by a uniform emergence in the character of
mankind. A canker disclosed itself in the motive, a treachery
in the affection, there was an antagonism to good, working
within ; and the consequence was a universal disfigurement
and disorder, an embroilment of relations and a war of selfish
interests, which composed a moral chaos, and stamped
degeneracy and corruption in the human race. What is their
view of history then, but that of St. Paul ? What is their sad
interior of the human soul, with its unequal strife, and languish-

1 56 Original Sin asserted by
ing will, but that of St. Paul ? In their own language then,
and in the midst of wild outbreaks and desperate complaints,
these poets substantially preach with St. Paul the doctrine of
original sin. They declare an original deflexion in the human
race from right, and a divergence into error and vanity. They
appear in the unconscious character of witnesses to the truth
of Scripture, and to the profound depth of that law of sin which
Scripture has proclaimed. Everything has, they say, gone
wrong here ; we are in a maze of falsehood and deception.
Wherever they go they see before them a scene which disturbs,
confounds, and envenoms them — the sight of a fallen world.
The idea of original sin which we meet with in these poets,
is indeed fatalism ; but it agrees with St. Paul's idea so far as
this point is concerned, which is the principal one in the doc
trine of original sin ; — that of sin attaching to nature. This
has been the objection, as we have seen, to that doctrine;
that a man cannot help his nature, and that if he cannot help
it there is not sin. Now, however neat an argument this may
sound in naked philosophy, you may see how completely it is
brushed aside as soon as men come to actual facts — to the
facts of internal nature and moral sensation. Sin attaching
to nature appears as a regular and thoroughly recognised
combination in these poets. They see a great law of sin in
mankind, a seed of moral evil which develops into a corrupt
world, but do they, because sin is a law and a nature, regard it
not as sin ? By no means. It remains sin. It is because it
is sin that they complain. That is their grievance; — that
there is this fount of evil and corruption in nature, and that it
is felt to be evil and corruption. They see that there is con
sciousness of sin in man as such ; that he cannot rid himself
of it, he cannot get over it; — that there is this sin in his
nature ; and yet they feel it is sin. Could the poet vote it not
sin, he would have nothing to murmur about; there would
be nothing to excite his rebellion and sense of grievance as far
as this point is concerned ; it is because he feels it to be sin,
and cannot dismiss it, that he murmurs and rebels. So, I
repeat, sin is recognised by him in the nature of man, and still
it is recognised as sin. That is to say, the mysterious

Worldly Philosophers and Poets. 157
combination which rationalism discards, Pelagian rationalism,
and modern rationalism — the fundamental mystery of Scripture
— has been adopted by an infidel school of poets. Lord Byron
says : —
" Our life is a false nature — 'tis not in
The harmony of things, — this hard decree,
This uneradicable taint of sin,
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew —
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see —
And, worse, the woes we see not — which throb through
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new."1
Again : —
" How beautiful is all this visible world !
How glorious in its action and itself ;
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will,
Till our mortality predominates,
And men are — what they name not to themselves,
And trust not to each other."2
Byron then shows obviously enough, and by sufficiently
loud demonstrations, that the sense of sin which he feels is not
a mock sensation, though he regards it all the time as part of
a law which attaches to his being. He regards his life as a
chain which has wound round and round him with the force of
an irresistible fate, which he could not conquer, but at the
same time hated.
"For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run."3
It was a labyrinth out of the mazes and windings of which
he could not extricate himself, yet he had contracted the guilt of
it ; it was destiny, and yet it was sin. Any one indeed who is at
all acquainted with the life of Lord Byron knows the state of
1 Childe Harold, Canto iv. 126. 2 Manfred, Act i. Sc. 2.
8 Childe Harold, Canto i. 5.

158 Original Sin asserted by
almost furious anger which the remarks of society in this
country upon his profligate and disorderly life, produced in
him. And yet the remarks that were made were only obser
vations of the plainest facts, which he could not deny ; they
were patent and known to all the world. But it was because
they were facts, and undeniable facts, that the allusion to them
was so infuriating. He had, however, his own point of view,
in which this criticism appeared to him unfair. His life
had been, in his own view, the winding of a fatal chain round
him, coil after coil had fastened him in its odious grasp,
till he was its complete prisoner. He was miserable, he was
tormented with himself, he was full of discord, and torn with
self-reproach — not profitable self-reproach indeed, but still such
as embittered his whole life. Why, then, when he was thus
torn inwardly, was he to be the butt of the animadversions of
a commonplace world — more glad of an object of easy censure
than watchful over itself ? This was his point of view, and it
was like every attitude he took in his whole career — a rebellious
one. But one thing certainly was shown by it, namely, that
however he regarded sin as a hard decree, an uneradicable taint,
this boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, whose root is earth, —
however, that is, he regarded it fixed in nature, he still regarded
it as sin, otherwise it would not have goaded him. When
we come across the outbursts of the peculiar feeling just
described, which is nothing less than a denunciation of all
judgment and observation upon him, the remark indeed is
obvious that if a man acts quite publicly and openly in con
tradiction to morality, he has no right to object to the world at
large, at any rate, seeing what he does. We are only, however,
concerned here to extract out of this whole agitation and
demonstration of feeling, that ingredient in it which bears upon
tlie doctrinal subject on which we are engaged. The poet
believes in a great root of evil in nature — in original sin ; but
he is conscious that, though in nature, it is real sin. This is
a combination which Pelagianism resisted, but which St. Paul
preached. The other great poet of this school — Shelley — would seem
at first to deny a law of sin in the world, and to attribute the

Worldly Philosophers and Poets. 1 59
whole of man's sin to false teaching, and the ideas put into his
head by interested men, rulers and superiors ; he spurns the
doctrine of a sin of nature in terms as taught by the Church,
and says it is all owing to a bad 'education. But when we take
his philosophy as a whole, and see what it is, apart from words
that he teaches, what is the fact he maintains ? we find that it
is some evil and moral evil in man as a race which is equivalent
to a sin of nature, though he does not call it such. He says as
Byron does : " The universe
In Nature's silent eloquence declares
That all fulfil the works of love and joy,
All but the outcast man."1
In behalf of the whole human race he complains of the
consciousness of sin as a yoke which has been imposed upon
him as a hard necessity : —
"And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse,
Which from the links of the great chain of things
To every thought within the mind of man
Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels
Under the load towards the pit of death,
Abandoned hope and love that turns to hate ;
And self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood I"2
Now then examine this language, "Who made self-con
tempt ? " That is a remarkable question to ask. The whole
phrase is extraordinary. The phrase implies that man did not
make it for himself, but that it is annexed to his nature.
Translate this into religious language. There is a law of our
nature by which we never can gain self-approval ; we try, but
cannot ; we find ourselves obliged to condemn ourselves. The
human spirit pursues moral self-approbation in one stage of
action after another ; but the more man pursues it the more it
flies away from him, he cannot get up to it, reach it, or grasp
it. It is a will-of-the-wisp, which ever retreats, as the pursuer1
advances. What the poet asserts then is that self-disapproba
tion, a consciousness of sin, " self-contempt and remorse," he
calls it — cleaves to man as such, to the race ; but if this is not
to assert original sin, I know not what is.
1 Queen Mab, iii. p. 17. 2 Prometheus, Act n. Sc. 4, p. 216.

1 60 Original Sin asserted by
Thus again : —
" Monarch of Gods and Demons and all Spirits
But one, who throng these bright and rolling worlds,
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes ! regard this earth,
Made multitudinous with thy slayes, whom Thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,
With fear, and self-contempt, and barren hope." 1
Here again is the same complaint — that self-contempt is
annexed to human nature. It is the poet's term for that self-
disapprobation which figures as a law of conscience so promi
nently in the language of St. Paul.
It must be observed indeed that when Shelley makes this
assertion of original sin, he does not make it in the spirit and
temper of, or in concurrence with, the philosophy of Scripture.
Shelley's fierce and vehement fatalism makes sin not only a
part of this world, but actually a part of God. Our nature
inherits it, not only as something inherent in itself, but as
something inherent in the universe and in the Divine nature
itself. The doctrine of original sin in Scripture, as we know,
is guarded by checks on all sides from committing the Divine
Being, and implicating the Divine design in the creation.
Shelley too says there is original sin, but so far from guarding
or checking the doctrine, or wishing to do so, he includes all
the universe in it, together with its author. His system is that
absolute Pantheism which deifies and incorporates in God all
fact of whatever kind, good or bad; and he sees in the universe
an absolute chain of evil, the links of which hang on inextric
ably to each other, including the deceived and the deceiver, the
corrupted and the corrupter, the oppressed and the oppressor,
the despot and the slave, all in one dire embrace and one fatal
coil of necessity : —
" No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act.
Even the minutest molecule of light
Fulfils its destined, though invisible work :
1 Prometheus, Act 1., Opening Speech.

Worldly Philosophers and Poets. 1 6 1
The Universal Spirit guides : nor less
When merciless ambition or mad zeal
Has led two hosts of dupes to battle-field.
Necessity, thou mother of the world,
the poison tree
Beneath whose shade all life is withered up,
And the fair oak whose leafy dome affords
A temple where the vows of happy love
Are registered, are equal in thy sight."1
Now, then, separate from this philosophy all that is peculiar
to the blasphemy of Pantheism and the rebellion of fatalism ;
separate from it all that charge against the Divine Being, of
being a hard master whom it is impossible to please, and who
has unjustly implanted in man this root of evil, whereby man
is made a self-condemning being, displeasing to himself;
eliminate its impiety, and you have in the residuum the recog
nition of original sin. There is a root of evil in the world and
in man, and though it is sin in nature it is still in the poet's
eyes real sin, otherwise he would not care about it. It is that
very consciousness which is the torment and the grievance.
He finds he cannot escape. the consciousness of sin by appealing
to a law of sin that does not deaden or nullify it. He calls
self- contempt a law of our nature, but the very wrong which
he attaches to it still implies that the man bows to the verdict ;
the very yoke of sin assumes the fact that it is felt as such.
That is to say, he flings to the winds the cardinal argument of
the Pelagian and the rationalist, that sin in a nature cannot be
sin. Were the sense of sin a false sense, were it a deception,
he would not mind it ; it is because it is a true sense that it
frets and irritates, and embitters and envenoms. And so the
other great poet, though he regards sin as a law, shows obviously
enough, and by sufficiently loud demonstrations, that he does
not regard it as a mock sensation.
We have thus, while examining the sentiment and feeling
of one remarkable infidel school of poetry, had before us an
extraordinary and striking phenomenon, namely, a great and un
conscious testimony borne by that school to the profound oracle
1 Queen Mdb, vi. pp. 32, 33.
L

1 62 Original Sin asserted by Philosophers and Poets.
which speaks out of the sanctuary of Scripture. Throwing
aside their collateral points of view, they agree with the voice
of inspiration, in declaring a root of evil and corruption in man
which is involved in an abyss of mystery. And it may be said
that this sad and painful mystery is a considerable part of the
inspiration of their poetry — of the serious and strong-feeling
part of it. It is viewed indeed as an inexplicable injustice,
which demands their protest and indignant complaint, but still
it is there, and though they complain of it they cannot rid
their own conscience of it. It is indeed remarkable to see such
a theme of poetry. Other great poets have taken the heroic for
their subject. The great medieval poet took for his subject the
last Judgment on Man, and our own poet took the first Judg
ment on Man. But the subject of these two great modern poets
which penetrates their mind, and runs through all their
thought, is original evil — the sin of nature and of the world, in
which all present visible existence is implicated.
There is thus something in St. Paul which is ever fresh and
never can be obsolete, which is in sympathy with the modern
intellect as well as the old mind of the Church. New schools of
thought, new inspirations of poetry, unconsciously acknowledge
him, and he is a living oracle equal to all ages of the world.

163

XL— PERFECTIBILITY.

[In the Lent Term of 1874, Dr. Mozley gave a Course of Lec
tures to Graduates — delivered in his study — on the three great
controversies conducted and finished by St. Augustine ; the Mani-
chaean, the Pelagian, and the Donatist; the first of which — The
Manichazans and the Jewish Fathers — concludes the volume of
Lectures on the Old Testament, delivered in 1875. The series being
mainly occupied with the subjects treated in the author's Augus
tinian doctrine of Predestination, and illustrated by frequent extracts
from that exhaustive work, was not designed for publication, but
one Lecture dealing with the view of Perfectibility held by the
great founder of Methodism is not open to this objection, and is
therefore given here, introduced by a portion of the previous
lecture on the Pelagian doctrine of Perfectibility as refuted by St.
Augustine.]

The absolute power which the Pelagian set up of man to
act without sin, and be morally perfect, was evidently a fiction,
based on an abstract idea and not on the experienced faculty of
free-will ; and when he followed with his list of perfect men, he
simply trifled, and showed how absurd, fantastic, and unsub
stantial his position was. Human nature is too seriously alive
to the law of sin under which it at present acts, not to feel the
mockery of such assertions. Every one knows immediately
that if these men were perfect, they were dolls and not men ;
they had not the passions, the impulses, the forces and wants of
humanity ; that action was in them a totally different thing
from what it is in the mankind of experience, and was without
the stimulus and motive which produces action in the real
man. In all real men the same vigorous impulse which is
essential to strong action, is also sure to go beyond the mark,
and engender more or less of disorder. It is, practically speak-

1 64 Pelagian Doctrine of Perfectibility.
ing, impossible to help these excesses, greater or less, and dis
turbances which accompany action. Nobody does exactly what
he ought, nothing more or less. Every one leaves the region
of action with a sense of sin in his mind ; he has gone further,
or he has stopped short ; he halted here, he was precipitate
there. " It takes a great many particulars," says the author of
the Religio Medici, " to make a good action." A good action is
presented to our mind at first as much a unity as the number
1 in Arithmetic ; but if we once examine it, it turns into a
thousand things. In this intricate labyrinth of motions, who
is not conscious of distinct faults ? If a man says he is fault
less, we do not know what he means ; it is an unintelligible
assertion ; action is necessary for man, and all the modes we
have experience of are connected with faults, slide into faults,
and go out into what is a declination from the straight line.
If such an assertion of sinlessness, lying within the natural
power of man, had any scope or tendency beyond the mere
boast of it, it tended to a Socinian morality. People must
suppose that if this perfect state were in the natural power of
the will, it must be exemplified not with such absolute match
less rarity ; that it is an instance of a power which exists in
nature, and that when a power exists regularly in nature, it
may be expected to come out in a certain number of cases ; how
many we cannot say beforehand, but in a sufficient number to
answer to the expectation which we form when we know that
the facts in question spring out of the operation of a natural
principle ; it is a human characteristic ; everybody has the
source of it within him. We might therefore not unreason
ably expect that the quality of perfection would not be confined
to Enoch and Melchisedek, and a few patriarchs ; that it will
have its instances in all generations ; nay, and that these
instances would not be wholly wanting in number. It is difficult
to see upon what reason we can impose any rigid limit upon the
number of examples of it. Thus it ought not to surprise or
startle us if we met several perfect men in course of a morn
ing's walk ; if three or four sat opposite to us at a party, or we
were between two sinless men in a railway carriage, or in a
public room ; it ought not to astonish us if there were several

Pelagian Doctrine of Perfectibility. [65
perfect men in the House of Commons, several on the London
Exchange, several in the large Corporations. This, if we retain
the old religious sense of the word perfection, would be a rather
astonishing fact. But if we invent a new sense of perfection —
if we make it mean a high state of public virtue, an exemplary
discharge of a man's social relations, an eminent possession of
the useful and philanthropical class of good qualities — then
such, perfection is not impossible as a largely prevailing charac-'
teristic, even though springing entirely from the force of the
human will. The general tendency of the position of the
Pelagians was to a secular and Socinian idea of perfection. If
this moral condition was simply a natural growth, and came by
the law of nature, as applying to the will, then a considerable
quantity of persons of this condition was to be anticipated ; but
if a considerable quantity of perfect men were to be expected,
then it must be perfection in this lower sense, and with a
Socinian interpretation explaining it.
The theology of the early ages is not altogether free from
that superficial view of the law of sin, which maintains that
it can be shaken off in this life by remarkable saints, who can
attain to a freedom altogether from sin. It was a conception
of the law of sin which approaches to a childish one — thinking
that this deep root of sin in which human nature was founded
could ever be extracted out of it, leaving human nature
behind it. Writers speak of perfect men as if sin could be
drawn out of man without any radical revolution in his
nature, leaving him just what he was before, sin only being
taken away. But this removal is such an utter change in
man, that one does not know how one can contemplate it, but
in accompaniment with a totally different and new condition
of his whole being.
Augustine's view was a great modification of this assertion,
and expressed itself rather in suggesting possibilities, and pro
posing questions on the subject, than in any actual assertion.
First he denied absolutely and in toto that any one of the human
race has been or can be without sin from the first, all being
born in sin ; and that the only question is whether some have
not attained to sinlessness in the course of their lives. Non

1 66 Pelagian Doctrine of Perfectibility.
legitur sine peccato esse nisi Filius Hominis.1 Second, he
denied that anybody had in fact attained to a sinless state in
the course of his life, and as change from a sinful state. Si
autem quaeratur utrum sit, magis credo Scripturse dicenti, Ne
intres in judicium, etc.2 "If we collect," he says, "into one
assembly all the saintly men and saintly women who have ever
lived, would they not with one voice cry out, ' If we say we
have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'?" "
Having got this fact he then shuts up the question in this
dilemma, in which he destroys and refutes altogether the sup
position that they could make this confession humbly, but not
truly. " These men do not make it a part of humility to speak
falsehood. But either way they have sin. If they say this truly,
they have sin, because they say they have sin, and the truth is
in them. If they say this falsely, they have sin too, because
the truth is not in them."4 He reserves, however, the liberty
of excepting the Virgin Mary from this general assertion, —
"De qua, propter honorem Domini, nullam prorsus, cum de
peccatis agitur, haberi volo quaestionem."5 Thirdly, though he
denied the fact, he admitted the possibility of attaining to a
sinless state in this life, but this possibility is through the
Divine grace or power, and through a miraculous exertion of
that power. " Et ideo ejus perfectionem etiam in hac vita esse
possibilem negare non possumus, quia omnia possibilia sunt
Deo." 6 He denied any example of perfection having existed,
and yet he maintained the possibility of it : " Ecce quemad-
modum sine exemplo est in hominibus perfecta justitia, et
tamen impossibilis non est."7 " Fierit enim si tanta voluntas
adhiberetur quanta sufficit tantse rei."8 "Let them," he says
again, " if they can, find any one Uving to whom God has not
something to pardon. Truly they cannot ; yet it is by no means
to be said that in God there is not the power of so assisting the
human will, that not only that portion which is of faith, but
also that according to which we shall live in eternity, can be
fulfilled in us."9 Fourthly, Augustine thinks that to assert
1 De Perfect. Just. n. 29. « De Spiritu et Litem, n. 7.
2 Pecc. Merit. 2. 8. ' Ibid. n. 67.
° De Nat. et Orat. n. 42. 8 Ibid. n. 63.
* Ibid. 6 Ibid. 9 Ibid. n. 66.

Pelagian Doctrine of Perfectibility. 167
that there have been persons in this life who have attained
to the sinless state though an error is a venial error, an error
as to fact rather than to doctrine : " Quinetiam si nemo est aut
fuit, aut erit, quod magis credo, tali puritate perfectus ; et tamen
esse aut fuisse aut fore defenditur et putatur, non multum erratur
nee perniciose cum quadam quis benevolentia fallitur : si tamen
qui [hoc] putat seipsum talem esse non putet, nisi revera et
liquido talem se esse perspexerit 1 — an excellent piece of advice,
but one which does not throw much light on the doctrinal ques
tion. Again, " whether there has been or is or can be," he says,
"in this world, any one living so justly as to be wholly without
sin, is a point which can be left a question among true and
pious Christians. Yet any one is foolish who doubts that there
can be after this life!' . . . [Nobody disputed this, and therefore
the assertion is not to the purpose.] " But I do not wish," he
adds, " to raise a dispute even about this life. For though I
cannot understand in any other sense the text, ' No flesh shall
be justified in thy sight ' and others like it, still would that it
could be shown that these texts could be otherwise understood."2
Both St. Augustine and Pelagius had abundant power in
their respective theories to produce individual perfection in
this life : the one an unlimited strength in the human will, the
other an unlimited divine power or grace. But Pelagius in his
assertion of human perfectibility was met by a fact which he
could not oppose — the fact, namely, how very few there were to
whom that attribute could with any show of probability be
allowed. Thus common sense withdrew what theory maintained.
Yet he stuck to his theory, and dealt with common sense as he
could : he upheld his theory by the assertion of an unlimited
will, and deferred to common sense by contenting himself with
a small list of perfect men ; whereas either his theory strictly,
implied and carried a much larger list of men, or the smallness
of his list confuted his theory of an unlimited will. Augustine,
again, was provided with ample means for insuring human
perfection in this life, by the infinite Divine Power which had
direct control of the human will, and which could bend it to
good. But when he came to examine how this Divine power
1 De Spiritu et Lit. n. 3. 2 De Nat. e Orat. n. 70.

1 68 Pelagian Doctrine of Perfectibility.
acted on fact, and what was its matter-of-fact relations to the
human will, he saw that the Divine Being did not in fact use
His power to produce this effect : and that though the power
existed to produce any amount of perfection, as a matter of
fact the perfection itself did not exist. He drew in then, as
Pelagius did, only with much greater decision and more of
principle. He admitted a strong and rooted impediment to
perfection in human nature — an impediment which resided in
the nature in its present state. He talked, indeed, of the
possibility of it, and deferred to old language which had been
used by Fathers before his time ; but he denied the' fact past,
present, or to come ; and so left the possibility of it a name
rather than a reality. He even found a kind of reason for it,
in the admirable effect of the sense of sin upon the character —
that it created a humility which compensated for the source
and occasion of it, and founded a character which was a sort
of perfection based on imperfection.

169

XII.— MODERN DOCTRINE OF PERFECTIBILITY.
The subject of perfectibility in this life was discussed at
some Conferences of the early Methodist Society in 1760, and
subsequently; and we have contained in the Eeports of them the
opinions of John Wesley upon Christian Perfection, as a state
and habit of mind capable of being, and actually being, arrived at
in this life, by a certain proportion of Christians. It was indeed
unanimously agreed that every one must have this spiritual per
fection, that is to say, entire sanctification, at the hour of death;
that it was necessary to be purified from all sin at the time of
death, and that there was Scripture promise for this. But
while this was held to be necessary, it was also maintained that
a state of perfection was possible at any time of a person's life ;
and that that state might be entered upon instantaneously, if it
pleased God to bestow the gift by an immediate act ; but that
it was more generally a gradual process. The way in which it
is entered upon, when it is gradually attained, is described as
follows. The first step is the sense of justification, " knowing
they are justified freely through His blood they have peace with
God through Jesus Christ. ... In this peace they remain for
days, weeks, or months, and commonly suppose they shall not
know war any more, till some of their old enemies, their bosom
-sins . . . assault them again, and thrust sore at them, that
they may fall. Then arises fear that they shall not endure
to the end." Then the Lord comforts them. Then together
with this comfort "for the first time do they see the ground of
their heart, which God at first would not disclose unto them,
lest the soul should fail before Him, and the spirit which He
had made. Now they see all the hidden abominations there."
Then there arises an " inexpressible hunger after a full renewal
in His image, in righteousness and true holiness. Then God is

1 70 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
mindful of the desire of them that fear Him, and gives them a
single eye and a pure heart ; He stamps upon them His own
image and superscription, He createth them anew in Jesus
Christ, . . . and bringeth them to the rest which remaineth
for the people of God."1 Such are the steps to a state of
perfection. The state itself is thus described : " They are freed
from self-will, as desiring nothing but the holy and perfect
will of God ; not supplies in want, not ease in pain, nor life,
nor death, nor any creature, but continually crying in their
inmost soul, Father, thy will be done. They are freed from
evil thoughts so that they cannot enter into them, no not
for a moment. Aforetime, when an evil thought came in, they
looked up and it vanished away. But now it does not come
in, there being no room for it in a soul which is full of God.
They are free from wanderings in prayer. Whensoever they
pour out their thoughts in a more immediate manner before
God, they have no thought of anything past, or absent, or to come,
but of God alone. In times past they had wandering thoughts
which darted in, which yet fled away like smoke ; but now that
smoke does not rise at all. They have no fear or doubt as to
their state in general, or as to any particular action. . . . They
are in one sense freed from temptations, for though numberless
temptations fly about, yet they trouble them not. At all times
their souls are even and calm, their hearts are steadfast and
immoveable."2 A state of perfection is thus a state of sinlessness — of
deliverance from inward as well as from outward sin. Simply
not to commit sin is the privilege of a babe in Christ, but to be
without inward sin is a very high privilege.
But now is there any set-off of human infirmities and defects
in these persons, which, though not sins; — for they are by the
supposition freed from sins — still interfere with the impression
which this perfection makes upon others ? There are : " They
are not perfect in knowledge," says Wesley. They are not free
from ignorance, no, nor from mistakes. We are no more to
expect anything living to be infallible than to be omniscient.
They are not free from infirmities, such as weakness or slow-
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 381, ed. 1829. 2 Ibid. p. 379.

Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility. 1 7 1
ness of understanding, irregular quickness or heaviness of
imagination. Such are impropriety of language, ungracefulness
of pronunciation, to which one might add a thousand nameless
defects, " either in conversation or behaviour."
This list of extra-moral faults seems to have produced such
a strong impression on the mind of Gibson, Bishop of London,
that he would appear to have decided that such a list of ex
ceptions to Perfection was enough to make it a very attainable
condition. " He asked me," says Wesley, " what I meant by
perfection. I told him without any disguise or reserve. When
I ceased speaking he said, 'Mr. Wesley, if this be all you mean,
publish it to all the world.'" It is possible that Bishop
Gibson may have considered that this list of defects practically
involved some that were great disturbances to the completeness
of perfection ; and that therefore Perfection might be allowed,
with this list of irregularities to weight it, without conceding
anything which a Christian need object to conceding. Still it
may be doubted whether, when Wesley allowed this list of
imperfections and defects, he meant to concede quite enough
deduction from perfection to lower it into being an attain
able state in the common judgment of Christians. A slow
understanding, a heaviness of imagination, and an ungrace
ful pronunciation can hardly be called sins ; and therefore
if the admission is made that a man in a state of per
fection may still possibly labour under these defects, no
great admission is made. Bishop Gibson, however, might
possibly think that an unlimited dispensation for making
mistakes was a dangerous liberty to concede to the Per
fect man, and that in practice such a licence did border
upon what jarred with our ideas of perfection. For how much
of conduct depends upon a man forming, to begin with, a sound
judgment on the facts of the case ? Thus a man in a state of
perfection may blame another wrongly, and use strong lan
guage, upon the supposition of a mistake which he has
unblamably made as to some action of the person censured, or
as to his character generally. Still if these mistakes are often
made, and if the privilege is used beyond a certain point, it
must be seen that the impression that will be made on other

1 72 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
peoples' minds will not be favourable to the belief in the man's
perfection. The question of mistakes is more particularly dis
cussed under the form of question and answer.
Q. — " What is Christian Perfection ?
A. — The loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and
strength. This implies that no wrong temper, none contrary
to love, remains in the soul ; and that all the thoughts, words,
and actions are governed by pure love.
Q. — Do you affirm that this perfection excludes all infir
mities, ignorance, and mistake?
A. — I continually affirm quite the contrary, and always
have done so.
Q. — But how can every thought, word, and work be
governed by pure love, and the man be subject the same time
to ignorance and mistake?"
" A. — I see no contradiction here : a man may be filled
with pure love, and still be liable to mistake. ... I believe
this to be a natural consequence of the soul's dwelling in flesh
and blood. . . . We may carry this thought further. A mistake
iu judgment may possibly occasion a mistake in practice.
For instance, Mr. De Eenty's mistake touching the nature of
mortification arising from prejudice of education. . . . Every
one may make a mistake as long as he lives. Yet where
every word and action springs from love, such a mistake is not
properly a sin. However it cannot bear the rigour of God's
justice, but needs the atoning blood. . . Every mistake is a trans
gression of the perfect law : therefore every mistake, were it not
for the Blood of the Atonement, would expose to eternal dam
nation. . . . The most perfect . . . may they say for themselves
— Forgive us our trespasses. . . . This easily accounts for what
might seem otherwise unaccountable, namely, that those who
are not offended when we speak of the highest degree of love,
yet will not hear of living without sin. The reason is they
know all men are liable to mistake. . . . But they do not know,
or do not observe, that this is not sin, if love is the sole
principle of action."1
This was the judgment of all the brethren who met at
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. pp. 394, 395.

Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility. 173
Bristol in 1758. The question whether man could be perfect
or not in this life was thus reduced to the question whether
mistakes are sins or not. All people made mistakes, but it
was maintained that it was improper to call mistakes sins.
" Mistakes," it was , said, " and whatever infirmities necessarily
flow from the corruptible state ofthe body, are no way contrary
to love ; nor, therefore, in the scriptural sense, are they sin. . . .
They are deviations indeed from the perfect law, and conse
quently need an atonement ; yet they are not properly sins. . . ." l
Nevertheless, though perfection admits of mistakes, and mis
takes are not properly sins, still Wesley informs us that, in order
to be quite safe, he never speaks of " sinless perfection." He
goes a little further into the question : Mistakes are involuntary
transgressions. Involuntary transgressions " need the atoning
blood," but are improperly called sins. " I believe a person filled
with the love of God is still liable to involuntary transgressions.'
Such transgressions you may call sins if you please : I do not,
for the reasons above mentioned." And he concludes with a
judgment in which he mediates between the two sides on
this question. " Let those who do not call them sins, never
think that themselves or any other persons are in such a state
as that they can stand before infinite justice without a Media
tor. Let those who do call them so, beware how they confound
these defects with sins properly so called."1 It is evident
throughout these observations that Wesley is taking part with
both sides, giving each encouragement to think that he belongs
to it, and so retaining a hold upon both. With one side, he
says, a man may be in such a state in this life as to have only
involuntary transgressions ; with the other side he says, he will
still have transgressions which require the atoning blood of
Christ : with one side he says, he will not have sins ; with
another side he says, he will have what may be called sins,
though he does not admit quite properly ; with one side he
admits perfection ; with the other he does not admit sinless
perfection. It is plain, however, that a complicated state of
the question like this, full of artificial and fine distinctions,
and of balks to, and checks upon, both sides, is not one in
1 Ibid. vol. xi. p. 396.

1 74 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
which a doctrine of perfection can properly be put forward.
A doctrine of perfection ought to be a simple transparent
doctrine, otherwise it is not worth having. It is not worth
while calling a man a perfect man, only to be told immediately
he commits innumerable transgressions which require the
atoning blood of Christ to efface : perfection must disappoint
if it cannot be taken in its obvious sense ; — if though it does
not admit of sins, it admits of what may be improperly called
sins ; if though it is perfection, still it is dangerous to call it
sinless perfection : and he, Wesley, always cautiously avoids
calling it so. This may be a very diplomatic and sagacious
settlement of a controversy which has broken out in the
Wesleyan body, threatening a disturbance, and requiring the
calming and settling hand of a religious politician. But it is
impossible that such a perfection as that which raises an end
less discussion upon the nature of the transgressions it commits,
— which, though not properly sins, are still "deviations from
perfect law, and need an atonement," — can satisfy the aspira
tions of those who want a real perfection ; while it offends the
scruples of others who deny boldly the possibility of a state of
perfection in this life.
We see the distinction here between Augustine's judgment
on the subject of Christian perfection in this life and Wesley's.
Between Augustine's facts and Wesley's facts there is not so
much difference. One would like, indeed, to know what
authority Wesley has for saying that a man can arrive at a
state of perfection in this life, in which he only makes mistakes.
The great experience of human nature certainly is that there is
a sort of positive evil in human nature, which works in the
most perfected minds. Wesley may say this is involuntary
working, and therefore is not itself sin properly so called ; but
I am not aware that the working is so involuntary after all,
but that it implicates in some degree the responsibility of the
person himself. Old faults continue in men, they may be
good men, they may be saintly men, but we certainly see that
natural frailties continue, and they continue with a certain
identification of the man with them ; and his errors are not all
mere mistakes, but have something wrong about them. Yet

Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility. 175
on the whole one may say that Augustine's facts and Wesley's
facts are much the same. But what a difference in the judg
ment which is formed upon them ! Augustine, with a slight
reserve occasioned by deference to former writers, says that
what these facts amount to, is that human nature is under a law
of sin, and cannot wholly get free from it. Wesley draws
distinctions between perfection and sinless perfection, between
transgressions which require the blood of Christ to atone for
them, and sins. His judgment on the question is an obscure
and perplexed one, and obviously tempered by diplomacy.
And there is this difference between Wesley's and Augus
tine's theory, namely, that Augustine regards the perfect state
in this life, should it ever be realised, as a miracle, and con
trary to all the ordinary laws of God's working ; Wesley regards
it as only in keeping with, and consistently carrying out the
natural growth of Christian grace. It is the natural conclusion
of the proofs of sanctification. In the Conference of 1745, it
is asked when does inward sanctification begin? And the
answer is, In the moment a man is justified. From that time
a believer gradually dies to sin and grows in grace. Yet sin
remains in him till he is sanctified throughout.
" Q. — Is this ordinarily given jtill a little before death ?
A. — It is not to those who expect it no sooner.
Q. — But may we not expect it sooner ? " x
Here the .perfect state is made a necessity a little before
death, and as naturally to belong to a Christian at that time,
as ordinary sanctification does at any other time. The perfect
state, instead of being a supernatural fact, as it figures as in
Augustine's view, is the natural ascent of every Christian. But
upon what scriptural evidence does this supposition rest that
every Christian must be perfect before he dies? Why is it
necessary that people should be perfect just before they die ?
What is the meaning or sense of a momentary perfection like
this ? Is it that they must be prepared for heaven ? But that
need not be here. This is a gratuitous and arbitrary idea, as
if God could not supply in a future life what was wanting in
this, and purify the soul so as to prepare it for heaven. It is
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 387.

1 76 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
not to be wondered at, that' having made a perfect state
necessary a little before death, it should have occurred to the
Methodist that, after all, this was a very arbitrary time to have
assigned to it ; and that, if universal among Christians a little
before death, perfection should be at any rate rather prevalent at
a somewhat earlier date in life. So they think that " a believer
ought to come daily nearer and nearer to perfection, that he
ought to be continually pressing after it," until he actually
reaches it, which of course he will do, if he is a Christian at all,
some time before death, but which it is better he should do
sooner. " Before you die," says Wesley, " will that content you ?
Nay, but ask that it may be done now, to-day, while it is called
to-day. . . . Certainly to-day is His time, as well as to-morrow.
Make haste, man, make haste I"1 This is a coarse application
of the Scripture precept to aim at perfection; as if because
you aimed at, and did not leave off aiming at it, you must
therefore be lodged in it some time while you are alive here ;
and had the right to say, There, now you are perfect; you
have been aiming at it, and you have got it. Here is an
argument which just shows the rough texture of the fabric of
enthusiasm, — of what coarse earthenware it is composed. It
cannot treat any subject except in a hard technical way, and
its flights and extravagances are from its dry shallowness. The
aim at perfection goes on and on ; but to say you must get it
at last, and make yourself believe you have got it, because God
would not expect you to follow after it unless you could get
it, is a sort of bargaining logic which is utterly out of place in
such a mysterious matter. Yet when the Methodists come to
deal with Perfection, they quite forget the utterly mystical
state of being which it must be ; that it must be a contradic
tion to all known states of mind ; they deal with it as if they
could map it out, examine it, and make a report upon it ; they
make it quite common ; they append it to their system, and
make it follow its rules ; it is a gift of God which is received
by faith, and which may be received " instantaneously in one
moment ; and that we are not to expect it at death only, but
at every moment; that now is the accepted time, that now
is the day of salvation."2 Thus they sound the trumpet, pro-
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 403. " Ibid. p. 393.

Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility. 1 77
claiming the gift, and making anybody expect it in his own
case. It is his right as a Christian. This is to vulgarise and
degrade the very standard idea of perfection altogether, and
convert it into a different thing from that which Scripture and
moral sense pronounce of it.
But now for the tests of Perfection and of men being in
the Perfect State. It appears to me that Wesley is very unfair
upon the criticising public in the case of perfect men, that is,
those who profess to have entered into the state of perfection. It
seems to me that the public have a right to require a good deal
from perfect men. Yet Wesley is always checking the public
in its demands, and forcing his perfect men upon it ; insisting
on their swallowing them whole, blindly, and suppressing
remorselessly any suspicions and recalcitrations which may be
felt, after a certain number of tests have been fulfilled in the
opinion of the persons themselves. Thus —
" Q. — When may a person judge himself to have attained this?
A. — When, after being fully convinced of inbred sin by a
far deeper and clearer conviction than that he experienced
before justification, and after having experienced a gradual
mortification of it, he experiences a total death to sin, and an
entire renewal in the love and image of God, so as to rejoice
evermore, to pray without ceasing, and in everything to give
thanks."1 Yes, but how are we to believe that all this has
taken place, and what are the outward signs by which we
are to judge that it has ? Wesley evades this question, and
still refers us to the man's own testimony to himself. A man
can only be deceived, he says, if he limits his attention to
some of these points ; if he attends to them all, he cannot be.
" I know of no instance of a person attending to them all, and
yet deceived in this matter," says Wesley, " and I believe there
can be none in this world." 2
Wesley is indeed wonderfully content with assertions on
the part of those who profess to be perfect. " I rejoice that
this soul is happy in Christ. I rejoice that he feels no unholy
temper, but the pure love of God continually."
"Q. — Is there no danger, then, in a man being thus deceived ?
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 401. 2 Ibid. p. 402.
M

1 78 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
A. — Not at the time he feels no sin ; so long as he feels
nothing but love animating all his thoughts, words, and actions,
he is in no danger."1
But this after all only relates to the m,an's own satisfaction
as to the fact. What is to satisfy other people ? I see no answer
given to this question ; no test given by which other people are
to be assured that certain persons are in a state of perfection.
" Q. — How should we treat those who think they have
attained ?
A. — Examine them candidly, and exhort them to pray
fervently that God would show them all that is in their hearts
. . . with the most earnest exhortations to abound in every
grace, which are given in the New Testament to those who
are in the highest state of grace."2
Others, then, are not obliged to believe those who tell them
that they are in a state of perfection : for an " examination" of
them certainly implies a right to doubt their assertion. Wesley
indeed admits that whether a man is free from sin and perfect
cannot be certainly known to another.
" Q. — How may we certainly know one that is saved from
all sin ?
A. — We cannot infallibly know one that is thus saved, un
less it should please God to endow us with miraculous discern
ment of spirits."3
Still Wesley protects the professors of perfection with great
care against positive doubt, and critical remarks upon them.
" Q. — But what does the perfect man do more than others ?
A. — Perhaps nothing ; so may the Providence of God have
hedged him in by outward circumstances : perhaps not so
much, though he longs to spend and be spent for God . . .
Q- — But is not this proof against him — I feel no power
either in his words or prayer ?
A. — It is not ; for perhaps that is your own fault."4
Certainly it is possible it may be. And yet why is a man
to be allowed not only to believe himself to be perfect, which
nobody can prevent him doing, but to tell others that he is
perfect, and divulge his belief to the world, unless he can show
some signs and manifestations of so high a state ? A man says
'Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 405. 'Ibid. p. 403. 'Ibid. p. 398. 'Ibid. p. 400.

Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility. 1 79
he is perfect : another man says — " but he does not come up to
my idea of a perfect Christian." WeU, and that is a very natural
observation for any one to make to whose idea of a perfect
Christian he does not come up. How does Wesley meet it ?
" He does not perhaps come up to your idea ; and perhaps no
one ever did or ever will . . . Scripture perfection is pure love,
filling the heart ... If your idea includes anything more than
this, it is not scriptural."1 But the critic may say, My idea is
no more than this, and still I am not satisfied with him ; he
does not come up to my idea of a man whose heart is filled by
pure love. Wesley, however, has nothing more than a caution,
which is half a rebuke, for the critic. He supposes him to be
animated by jealousy in his examination of the case. He
says — " Suppose he is weighed in the balance and found
wanting, is this a matter of joy?2 Ought we not rather to
grieve, or be deeply concerned, to let our eyes run down with
tears ?" And though he says we cannot infallibly know that a
man is perfect, still, he adds, " we apprehend those (meaning
that list of tests to which we have referred) would be sufficient
proofs to any reasonable man, and such as would leave
little room to doubt." (1.) Exemplary conduct for a certain
time. (2.) If he could give a distinct account of the time and
manner wherein the change was wrought. (3.) If his subse
quent works and actions were holy and unblameable.3
Upon this general treatment of criticism on the claims of
this professor of perfection, it is enough to say, there is no neces
sity why those men should divulge the secret of their sinless
state ; it may remain a secret between God and themselves ; if
then they make it public, if they teU others about it, they must
expect that their claims to this high and privileged state should
be fully examined. And therefore a strong opinion seems to
have been expressed by some of the less enthusiastic members
of the Methodist body, that these persons should keep their
high and gifted condition to themselves, and not divulge it.
" Q. — But would it not be better to be entirely silent, not
to speak of it at all ?"
Wesley, however, discarded immediately and would not hear
of this yoke of silence. It was quite true that perfect men them-
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 401. 2 Ibid. p. 405. • Ibid. p. 398.

1 80 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
selves might suffer from the disclosure of their own high and
singularly privileged state to the world; they might shrink
from the pubUcation of it ; but then the glory of God must
be thought of. They must sacrifice themselves for the Divine
honour, which would be advanced so largely, and gain so con
spicuous an accession to itself, as soon as the exalted endow
ments of these men were known. The question is asked, Would
you advise him, one of this elevated class, to speak of it, and the
answer is — He could hardly refrain : his desire to declare
the loving-kindness of the Lord would carry him away like a
torrent. But afterwards he might shrink ; and then it would
be advisable not to speak of it to them who know not God,
nor to others without some particular reason. But if he had
particular reason then he must speak of it.
"A. — By silence, he might indeed avoid many crosses
which will ensue necessarily, if he simply declares even among
believers what God has wrought in his soul. If, therefore, such
a one were to confer with flesh and blood, he would be entirely
silent. But this could not be done with a clear conscience, for
undoubtedly he ought to speak. Men do not light a caudle
to put it under a bushel ; much less does the all-wise God.
He does not raise such a monument of His power and love to
hide it from all mankind . . . His wUl is ' that many shaU see
it' and rejoice, ' and shall put their trust in the Lord.'" . . .
" Q. — But is there no way to prevent those crosses, which
usually fall on those who speak of being thus saved from sin ?
A. — It seems it cannot be prevented altogether whUe so
much of nature remains even in believers."
Wesley then would not hear of a yoke of silence being
imposed upon this privileged class. They spoke then, and
when they spoke, one naturally expects to hear that the
believing public shall have the right, the full right allowed
them of judging their pretensions to the unique grace which
they profess to possess. But no, says Wesley practicaUy :
you must believe such a person ; he says he has it ; he con
ducts himself piously; his behaviour is exemplary; it is
not likely he should lie for God, but speak as he felt ;
I have abundant reason to beheve this person will not lie ;
he testifies before me, I feel no sin, but all love ; . . . now,

Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility. 1 8 1
if I have nothing to oppose to this plain testimony, I
ought in reason to believe it." x That is the way in which
Wesley settles the question. But this virtually gives any
man whatever the right of declaring himself a perfect man,
and throwing the onus probandi that he is not perfect upon
others. They must prove some definite sin against him. But
they have a right to say : No ; he has laid claim to a unique
character, and he must show it by a unique manifestation.
I have a right to require that he should prove it by impressing
me in a unique way, not that I should be bound to disprove it
by a special proof to the contrary. If he does not bring this
perfection home to me, I shall go on disbelieving it. Of course
a disbeliever in perfection altogether could use a much more
summary argument, but I assume here a member ofthe Metho
dist body who believes in the possibility of perfection. Wes
ley puts the society at the mercy of individual professions. A
man objects : This man does not pray like a perfect man, he
does not come up to my idea of a perfect man. That is all
nonsense, says Wesley. " It is your hardness of soul," perhaps,
that prevents your appreciating his prayer ; and as for your
idea of a perfect man, it is derived from all quarters in the
world but Scripture. The objector is prevented then from all
power of disproving the man's perfection, provided he only
abstains from open sins, and behaves with general fervour. The
gift is vulgarised and degraded by the low standard of proof
which is required for it. Wesley throws this whole' class of
pretenders, in short, upon the society, to make what of them
they can ; not compelling them indeed to believe them, but
insisting upon the most favourable construction of their claims.
They were doubtless a class to whom it was worth whUe accomr
modating things ; men of enthusiasm and power, who, if their
claims had been treated in a summary way, might have taken
themselves off elsewhere, and deprived the Methodist body of
so much strength. It was necessary, therefore, to please them
to a certain extent. Wesley put down in his community aU
" prejudice," as he calls it, against them, and provides them
with an indulgent form of proof, acting in favour of their
pretensions ; his principle being that if the man is deceived in
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 398.

1 82 Modern Doctrine of Perfectibility.
his estimate of himself no harm is done, if the mistake is
made through fervour.
" But he is deceived. What then ? It is a harmless mistake
while he feels nothing but love in his heart It is a mistake
which generally argues great grace, a high degree of holiness
and happiness. This should be a matter of real joy to
all that are simple of heart ; not the mistake itself, but the
height of grace which for the time occasions it." 1
This is a somewhat different estimate of the mistake of a
man thinking himself without sin from that which the Apostle
formed. Wesley says : " It is the height of grace which for the
time occasions it." The Apostle says : " If we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
But there is another point in this treatment of Perfection,
which vulgarises and empties the gift of reality.
" Q. — Can they fall from a state of perfection ?
A. — I am well assured they can ; matter of fact puts this
beyond dispute. Formerly we thought one saved from sin
could not fall ; now we know the contrary. We are surrounded
by instances of those who lately experienced all that I mean
by perfection ; they had both the fruit of the Spirit and the
witness, but now they have lost both. . . . There is no such
height or strength of holiness as it is impossible to fall from."2
Thus the state of perfection is one which, it appears, it is
quite common to fall from. But what is the state of perfection
when it is thus fallen from ; when a person has it this week,
and loses it next ? Is it not of the first elements of morality
that if a man turns out bad, he must have the seeds of that
badness in him now ; that he cannot be absolutely perfect now
and start from a fresh root to-morrow. There must be a line
of continuity in the human character. It cannot be thus
broken up. It is part of the technicality of Wesley's mind
that he can regard man as split into so many pieces — perfect
to-day, and withered to-morrow. It is a travesty of perfection
—supposing it is nothing but a feeling for the moment, or set
of formaUties performed, and stopping when these are over.
Christian perfection cannot be made an alternative of good
conduct with bad.
1 Wesley's Works, vol. xi. p. 405. 2 Ibid. p. 426.

i8-

Xlll.—THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
So much attention has been drawn lately to the subject of
the Athanasian Creed, that it is not unsuitable to give it a
place in the course of these Lectures ;x to notice the objections
that are made to some statements in it, and to explain the
relations in which the Creed stands to Scripture, as well as to
other parts of our formularies.
And the first thing we observe in the Creed is the impor
tant point that men are condemned in it on account of their
belief. We need not just at present examine the exact nature
of that beUef, but only attend to the general fact that a right
belief is assumed in this Creed to be a matter for which men
are responsible, and that men are exposed to Divine punish
ment and condemnation for the want of it. Before we go into
particulars of faith, this is the first and preliminary law which
is assumed in what are called the Damnatory Clauses ; but to
this principle, that men can incur Divine punishment for their
religious beUef, great objection is made. How then does
Scripture stand with respect to this general principle of pun-
ishableness for beUef ?
In examining Scripture, then, we can hardly fail to see that
not only does Scripture make express statements that men wUl
be condemned for their belief, but that the principle of men being
divinely punishable for their belief penetrates the whole of the
Bible from first to last, and is assumed in the whole teaching
of the Bible. It is evident, in the first place, that this principle
is at the bottom of the whole of the old Dispensation. The
old dispensation is founded upon the assumption that a belief
in the unity of the Divine nature was necessary for enjoying
1 Those delivered in the Latin Chapel.

184 The Athanasian Creed.
the Divine favour. A man was punished with death for
idolatry. The civil penalty was indeed a part of the Jewish
law which was not intended for permanence ; but the Divine
condemnation of the idolater, of which this was the temporary
expression, is a permanent and fundamental truth of Scripture.
But idolatry is an offence upon a point of faith, rather than of
morals. The worship of God and the worship of Him as a
Spirit and not embodied in any material object or form, is an
article connected with the nature of the Deity ; and the nature
of the Deity falls under the head of matter of faith.
The whole of the Old Testament dispensation, then, was
founded upon the principle that men are responsible for their
belief, and that false reUgious belief subjected them to Divine
punishment. Now it may be said, that when we come to the
New Testament we shaU find all this altered, and this principle
given up as an obsolete part of the old Law. But is it so ?
As the belief in the Unity of God had been imposed at the
cost of Divine wrath in the Old Testament, so in the New the
belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God was imposed at the
same cost. We have thus express damnatory language :
"He that rejecteth me, and receive th not my words, hath
one that judgeth him."1 " He that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God."2 St. Paul adopts from the old dispensa
tion the form of the Anathema — " Though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed." 3 "If any man love not
the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema : Maran-atha."4
What St. Paul demands is not love in general, the moral
affection, but the love of Christ, which requires to begin with
the article of belief to have been received that He is Christ ;
and thus in the latter text as well as in the former, faith is
guarded by an Anathema. But indeed that faith is necessary
for salvation is so completely the basis of the New Testament
that if we take away this principle the whole fabric of the
Gospel falls to the ground ; and the whole language of the New
1 John xii. 48. 2 John iii. 18.
8 Gal. 1. 8. « 1 Cor. xvi. 22.

The Athanasian Creed. 185
Testament becomes an unintelligible riddle. " Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved ; " 1 — this was the
necessary condition of salvation and of entering into the king
dom of heaven. The whole of St. Paul's Epistles would be
unmeaning, if he did not mean to assert and to teach in them
that faith in Jesus Christ was necessary for our justification,
without which justification we stiU remain under condem
nation. So far, then, as regards the objection to the Athanasian
Creed of condemning men for their belief, here is a clear and
distinct answer for those who acknowledge Scripture. It is
plain that Scripture makes a particular religious belief neces
sary for salvation. An unbeliever would indeed deal shortly and
summarily with this language of Scripture, and would treat it
as an antiquated part of religious language, which had ceased
with growing philosophy and civilisation : but we who accept
Scripture cannot treat this language as obsolete, while at the
same time we must see the fact of the language. We must see
that Eevelation not only declares its truth to the world, but
imposes that truth upon the world ; that it not only communi
cates itself, but asserts itself; that it claims as of absolute right
the belief of mankind, and makes that belief the condition of
salvation. The strongest damnatory language is applied to
those who do not beUeve — that they " shall be judged at the
last day ; " that they are " condemned already ; " and that
" he that believeth not shall be damned ; "2 that they who
preach any other Gospel are accursed. Our Church then could
not possibly admit any objection to the Athanasian Creed,
founded upon the principle that it made a particular faith, as
distinct from mere morals, indispensable for salvation, without
coming into colUsion with the plainest and most direct state
ments of Scripture, the constant assumptions of Scripture, and
the foundation of the whole doctrine and scheme of Scripture.
The condemnatory language of the Athanasian Creed is
regarded indeed by many as isolated language which can be
1 Acts xvi. 31.
"Mark xvi. 16 ["he that disbelieveth shall be condemned." Revised
Version, 1881,].

1 86 The Athanasian Creed.
cut whole out of the Creed without entailing any consequences,
and leaving all the surrounding ground untouched. But though
doubtless the introduction of these clauses into the Creed was
not in the first instance necessary, and the Apostles' and Nicene
Creeds are without them ; when they are once in the Creed, to
turn them out on the ground that such statements are wrong,
and ought not to be made, is to entangle ourselves in conse
quences, and to expose ourselves to encounter difficulties upon
surrounding ground, which wiU begin to open out upon us as
soon as ever the obnoxious matter has been removed from the
Creed. These condemnatory statements have indeed their root
deeper than in the Athanasian Creed ; and when we come to
extract them, we shall find that the process of extrication will
involve more unsettlement and tearing up than we anticipated.
For in truth these condemnatory statements are substantially
in Scripture : that is, we have in Scripture plain universal con
demnations which cannot be separated in principle from these
condemnations ; — general judicial sentences which involve the
same difficulties, moral and speculative, which these do. We
shall not find it easy then to do what we want without doing
more than we wTant ; to accomplish the extraction from the
Creed without touching the doctrine of Scripture too.
If an objection is to be maintained and made good against
the damnatory clauses, it must be, not upon the ground of their
adopting belief as the necessary condition of salvation, but
upon the ground of the particular belief which they adopt as
that condition. It must be said : Scripture undoubtedly asserts
the condemnation of those who disbelieve the doctrine of
Scripture ; but this is not the doctrine of Scripture, as Scripture
communicates it to us, and as Scripture states and expresses
it ; this is a human exposition of the doctrine of revelation,
adopted indeed by the Church, and applied for the purpose of
explanation and instruction, but it is not the original and
genuine doctrine of Scripture itself.
Undoubtedly, then, nothing less than a real difference
between the two doctrines, that of Scripture, - and that of the
Creed, would justify the distinction between the respective dis-
beUef in the two doctrines ; would justify the contrast that the

The Athanasian Creed. 187
doctrine of Scripture must be believed at the cost of Divine
condemnation, but the doctrine of the Creed need not be. But
when we come to investigate this question, and ascertain
whether the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed is the same with
or different from that of Scripture, we immediately find that
point decided by one of our Articles, which says of the Athana
sian Creed, that " its doctrine may be proved by most certain
warrant of Holy Scripture." What then is the state of the
case ? Scripture says that belief in the doctrine of Scripture
is necessary to salvation ; the Article says, this is the doctrine
of Scripture : — Scripture condemns for rejecting the faith ; the
Article says, this is the faith ; — Scripture is answerable for the
judicial principle, the Article for its subject-matter, and the
case to which it applies. Those who hold Scripture, then, and
do not hold the Article, are not prohibited from saying that the
Bible condemns for rejecting the faith, but that this is not the
faith. But it is not so easy to see how we, who admit both
the Article and Scripture, can take that course ; how we can
say that Scripture is right in asserting the necessity of holding
the doctrine of Scripture, the Article right, in saying this is the
doctrine of Scripture ; and the Creed wrong in asserting the
necessity of holding it.
A great deal indeed is thrown upon the distinction, which
was just noticed, that the Creed is an exposition ofthe doctrine
of Eevelation, adopted and sanctioned by the Church, but not
that doctrine itself. The doctrine of the Trinity in Unity does
indeed, it is said, lie at the bottom of the Christian dispensation,
but this is not only the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, but it
is that doctrine with something else added to it, other terms
and other language and phraseology.
But when we make a distinction between a doctrine and
the exposition of a doctrine, it must be remembered that an
exposition is not at all necessarily, not identical with the
doctrine, because it is an exposition of it. It would be
extraordinary if this were so. It is, indeed, quite possible
that an exposition may diverge in substance and meaning from
the doctrine which it professes to expound ; that it may intro
duce foreign matter, and that it may misinterpret a doctrine

1 88 The Athanasian Creed.
instead of representing it faithfully. But, on the other hand,
there is no reason whatever why an exposition may not be the
same identical set of assertions with the doctrine, so that it
would be impossible to establish any difference of truth or
meaning between the two. It is assumed that as soon as ever
there is a succession of statements there must be alien matter.
But this is a very erroneous and irrelevant test of alien matter.
The criterion of an exposition adhering to revealed doctrine or
departing from it is not a test of length, but of meaning ; one
statement may diverge from the doctrine and ten may keep
to it, one sentence may introduce foreign matter and human
conjecture, and ten may never give up their pure hold of the
original truth.
When then we take the doctrine, as ordinarily received and
stated, of the Trinity, on the one side, and the exposition in the
Creed on the other, we certainly find in every successive state
ment of the latter what looks like a very complete identity of
the two, the exposition and the doctrine. Let us take the
doctrine as expressed in our first Article : that " there is but
one living and true God," and that " in the unity of this God
head there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and
eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The
doctrine then is, that these Three are Three Persons, each of
whom is God, and there is only one God. What does the ex
position then say? 1. We must not confound the Persons, or
divide the one substance of the Godhead. Is this an addition
to the doctrine? No, it is exactly the same with it; for
if the Persons are confounded they cease to be Three, and if
the Substance is divided it ceases to be One. Again, " the glory
is equal, the majesty co-eternal." Is that an addition ? Or is
it possible that one Godhead can either be unequal to itself, or
not co -eternal with itself? Again, "Such as the Father is,
such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost." This is the
doctrine simply, and nothing more ; for this must be so, if each
is God. Again, " In this Trinity none is afore or after other,
none is greater or less than another." This, too, is the doctrine
simply, and no addition to it ; for if each is God, how can God
be greater or less than God, prior or posterior to God ?

The Athanasian Creed. 189
There has been a supposition then that the Athanasian
Confession is metaphysical ; and this supposition has so com
pletely occupied the very entrance of the subject that it has
been regarded as the simplest fact; and no aspect but that
of a chain of metaphysics has been allowed for this Creed.
But though there are doubtless metaphysics in this Creed, in
the sense in which there must be metaphysics in everything
which has to do with the Divine nature, in the sense in which
there are metaphysics in those parts of Scripture which relate
to the Divine Being, His incomprehensible attributes and mode
of existence ; in no other sense do there appear to be meta
physics in this Creed. The Creed is metaphysical in the sense
in which the doctrine of the Trinity itself is metaphysical ; but
the doctrine of the Trinity once assumed, there is nothing added
to it, and the exposition adheres as closely as words can do to the
original truth, only carrying it through different forms of lan
guage. If Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are each God, it can
be no addition to say that each is uncreated, that each is in
comprehensible, that each is eternal, that each is Almighty,
that each is Lord, that the Three are equal in majesty and
glory, that such as the One is, such is the Other. And again, if
these Three Persons are one God, it can be no addition to say
that there is but one uncreate, one eternal, one incomprehen
sible, one Almighty, one Lord. Any one sentence in this whole
succession involves every other. I cannot conceive a mind so
constituted as to believe really that there are Three Persons,
but that they ought to be confounded ; and One Substance, but
that it ought to be divided. I cannot conceive such a type of
reasoning power as would admit that the Son was God, and the
Holy Ghost God, and yet not allow them the attributes of God.
If a person, then, disbelieves the doctrine of the Trinity, he has
the best of all reasons for disbelieving the Athanasian Creed ;
but if he believes it, then I do not see what else he has to
believe in the Athanasian Creed but this. After lengthening
by reduplication, and unfolding by equivalent terms, after
affirming the positives of the truth, and denying the negatives,
the Creed shuts up into one assertion, namely, that of the
Trinity in Unity.

190 The Athanasian Creed.
What purpose, indeed, would it have answered to have
clothed and clogged an article of faith with philosophy ?
None at all ; on the contrary, philosophy would have been a
great deal in the way. It is plain, what is wanted in this
Creed is to fix the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity upon men's
minds, keeping them as close as possible to it from first to last ;
sustaining and prolonging the one great doctrinal assertion by
forms of statement ; heightening the dignity and solemnity of
it, but not interfering with, but only exhibiting, the original
truth. But this would have been prevented by the introduc
tion of metaphysics. It would have just disturbed the single
scope, the uniform impress, the determinate march of the Creed.
Thus it was the very interest of the Creed, if I may say so, to
avoid metaphysics. Specidation was foreign to its aim. The
orthodox doctrine of the Trinity assumed, every clause in the
exposition must simply coincide with it, purely echo it. That
was "the object ; and if that was the object, it is the Creed's
best guarantee that that one doctrine was all that was
expressed and contained in it. I do not know that it would
make any difference in this respect, even had the Creed been
composed, as a hostile writer has suggested, for a warning
against the Visigoths. For whomsoever it was composed, it was
composed for persons who wanted their ears to ring with the
doctrine of the Trinity, and did not much care to hear any
thing that would clash with the singleness of that appeal. It
would be to the last degree improbable that the Franks would
have understood one word of a scholastic argument ; it was
highly advisable therefore that any one who wanted to in
fluence their religion should abstain from metaphysics, and
adhere as closely as possible to a doctrine.
On one point, indeed, namely, that of the Procession ques
tion, the Creed gives the relations within the Trinity in the sense
of the Western, and not in that of the Eastern Church. But
the whole form of the Creed shows that what it insists on, and
what it guards by damnatory language, is the main doctrine of
the Trinity, and not any subordinate controverted distinction.
The step which was lately demanded from the Church is, in
substance, a judicial step ; it is a judgment upon, and against,

The Athanasian Creed. 191
the damnatory clauses, in effect declaring them to be illegiti
mate and wrong. I know that the act is not in form judicial ;
the Church is only asked to withdraw them, and not to say
anything. She is only asked to divest the Creed of statements
which it might without error have been made without. There
was no necessity that the damnatory clauses should have been
attached to the Creed in the first instance, no Church rule made
it obligatory, and the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds are without
them. But though no act would be done in form judicial, it
must be seen that when these clauses, are in the Creed, and
have been in ever since it was made ; to remove them now
could be no other than a condemnatory act on the part of the
Church. Had the Creed been made without these clauses, that
would have been no judgment at aU on the part of the Church
upon the condemnatory clauses themselves ; it would only
have been to say that there was no necessity to introduce them
in that particular place ; the Nicene Creed being without them
was no reflection upon them, because the Council proclaimed
them in another place. But the place in the Creed once given,
and held for ages, cannot be taken away without a judicial act
on the part of the Church upon and against the clauses them
selves. And though in some days such an act as this might be per
formed by a Church without having its strict intrepretation
pressed home to the actors, and without having any strong
consequences drawn out of it, such could not be expected to be
the case now. The American Church a century ago shelved
the Athanasian Creed, but it was at a time when people did
not go very accurately into the meaning of what they did, and
only aimed at a certain convenience in excluding anything
which had an explanation wanted for it. It would be impos
sible now to do the same act in the same easy and negative
spirit in which it was done in America at the end of the last
century. When two stormy currents, of religious belief on the
one hand, and unbelief on the other, have set in, each side at
once sees such an act illuminated by the powerful rays of an
intellectual focus. The undogmatic school will interpret the
Church as giving up doctrine, when she no longer dare annex

192 The Athanasian Creed.
a condemnation to the rejection of doctrine ; and this school
will prize the result. The dogmatic school will see the act in
the same light, and will reprobate the result.
The act, then, which was lately required from the Church,
being a judicial act, condemning the damnatory clauses as
wrong and mistaken, the first question is, Can the Church
do this consistently? It must be seen that the Church
cannot entertain a proposition like this without at the
same time having regard to the whole existing fabric of her
belief. Our Church has a constitution, formularies, and a de
clared body of rehgious doctrine. A Church cannot act in an
insulated way, but must consider what she is asked to do
with a reference to what is her own basis of teaching, and
structure of faith.
Upon what ground, then, could our Church take her stand,
in condemning the damnatory clauses of this Creed ? We have
seen that it could not be upon the ground that Scripture did
not condemn for a wrong beUef, and that it could not be upon
the ground that the doctrine of the Creed was not that of
Scripture. She herself declares that it " may be proved by
most certain warrants of Holy Scripture ; " and when we take
the doctrine of the Trinity laid down in the first Article, and
compare it with the Creed, we find that the Creed is nothing
but that doctrine carried through a series of identical forms of
statement. Although our Church, then, could indeed, by a special
insulated act, condemn as erroneous these clauses, what she
cannot do is take the step consistently, and in agreement with
her own premisses, with her own express body of teaching,
with her own declared fabric of doctrine ; with her articles
and formularies of faith. It would be a single inconsistent act
on her part.
But we are not confined to the Articles for the place which
our Church gives to the doctrine of the Trinity. It is in the
Prayer-book more than in the Articles. The three Persons in
the Trinity stand forth in our Prayer-book as the Objects of
every Christian's faith ; to Whom we are placed in the most
intimate relations, as Creator, Eedeemer, and Sanctifier. We

The Athanasian Creed. 193
know no God in the Prayer-book but that God who is Three
in One. We pray to the three Persons ; we address them ; we
speak to them ; we petition them ; we ask them for mercy, we
adore them, and we give glory to them.
Our Prayer-book, then, takes as its very foundation the
revelation of the Three Hypostases in the Deity ; it requires
that revelation to justify it. The whole Catholic Church of
Christ requires that revelation in order to acquit the acts of
the Church, and the acts which she makes every individual
member of the Church do. Unless the doctrine of the Trinity
is part of the true Christian Eevelation, and unless we have
that guarantee that the three Persons whom we address in our
Prayer-book, and in all Prayer-books, are real existences, what
right has the Church to make us address them ? It is evident,
then, that the Trinity in the Godhead is assumed by the Church
as an original revelation to mankind ; and the Church from the
first, in putting her children into relation to these mysterious
Divine Persons, directing their thoughts and affections towards
them, and teaching men to apply to them for the supply of their
spiritual needs, has done so upon the ground of the existence
of these Divine Persons having been revealed, and of the cer
tainty and strength of this revelation. The invisible presence
of the Three in One has thus penetrated every corner of the
Christian life, and the religious feeling has flowed forth in
hymns, supplications, and praises. "The essence of natural
Eeligion," says Bishop Butler, " may be said to consist in reli
gious regards to God the Father Almighty : and the essence of
revealed Eeligion, as distinguished from natural, to consist in
religious regards to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. And the
obligation we are under of paying these religious regards to
each of these Divine Persons respectively arises from the
respective relations which they stand in to us. . . . The
Son and Spirit have each his proper office in that great dis
pensation of Providence, the Eedemption of the world ; the one
our Mediator, the other our Sanctifier." . . . And " religious
regards . . . are thus obviously due to the Son and Holy Spirit,
as arising, not merely from command in Scripture, but from the
very nature of the revealed relations which they stand in to
N

194 The Athanasian Creed.
us, . ; . the relations they stand in to us being matter of pure
revelation."1 The doctrine of the Trinity, then, constituting, as it does,
not only one of the Articles of our Church, but the very
foundation of the Prayer-book, and of the devotional life of
her children; and the doctrine being thus plainly and
absolutely treated by her as a genuine and true part of the
Christian revelation ; — if condemnatory sanctions are to apply
to any Christian doctrine or truth at all, they must apply to this
doctrine. And how can she withdraw them, therefore, with
due regard to her own consistency and the unity of her own
teaching ? She has a certain constitution and fabric of belief,
with which this act of censure is plainly incompatible ; and
Scripture being answerable for the condemnation of wilful
rejection of revealed truth, and the Church confessing that
this is revealed truth, it is difficult to see how she could
harmonise the withdrawal of these clauses with her own con
stitution and fabric of faith.
It is, indeed, an acknowledged principle in the interpreta
tion of the damnatory language of Scripture regarding unbelief,
that it is to be understood with conditions ; and the same rule
of interpretation applies to the damnatory clauses of the
Athanasian Creed. The omission of conditions is one of those
expedients of which language has frequently avaUed itself for
the sake of convenience, — making absolute statements when that
which qualifies them is left to be understood. But this is so
common, so coeval with language, and so much a part of it,
that when it is said that to take language with this under
standing is a non-natural interpretation of language, we cannot
but consider that such an assertion is made in forgetfulness of
the whole growth, and of the plainest facts, of language. We
justly call it a non-natural explanation when the plain and
known meaning of a word is contradicted, and it is explained
to mean something else ; but simply to supply a condition to a
statement, which is understood in it, cannot be called a non-
natural interpretation of that statement ; rather the contrary
would be the non-natural interpretation ; rigidly to insist upon
1 Butler's Analogy, Part n. chap. i.

The Athanasian Creed. 195
interpreting a statement according to its pure grammar, when
the usage of language admits an understanding in the
interpretation of it. It is this which is to interpret the state
ment non-naturally. It is non-natural because it is not a.
carrying out of the intention of language, but a thwarting of that
intention. Take, for instance, one of those pieces of instruction
which we meet with in Scripture — " Give to him that asketh
thee." Here is an instance in which the grammar covers any
case whatever, and of what kind soever, and whensoever,
and wheresoever, of asking : the naked construction logically
contains and includes the universal area of begging. Do we
then interpret this precept non-naturally when we take it
as understanding conditions, and not as applying indis
criminately to all cases whatever of asking? It appears to
me that we should interpret it very non-naturally if we did
not take it as understanding conditions. That would be the
artificial, the strained, the violent interpretation — the ' inter
pretation that went against the natural meaning ofthe language,
considered in connection with the known and familiar practice
of language. So of the precept, " Eesist not evil." It is obvious
that the precept only means to inculcate in a forcible way,
generally, the duty of resignation ; that the universal form in
which it is put is made necessary by the exigencies of the
case, because a short and, pithy precept was essential to the
purpose of instruction; and that the hearer was intended to
carry away from the universal precept — " Eesist not evil," the
main lesson, and to supply of his own common sense the
necessary exceptions. It is the Quaker's interpretation of
" Eesist not evil " that is the non-natural interpretation : upon
principles of common sense nobody could so understand the
command; it is the strained exposition of a' sect. Language
cannot be held in such a vice. And just as moral instruction
requires its liberty of speech, and has modes of statement which
must not be tied to the letter, so has judicial and condemnatory
language. The Athanasian Creed uses a universal formula of
condemnation. But to take this formula as excluding all
conditions in the application of it is to commit exactly the
same mistake in the interpretation of it that we should

196 The Athanasian Creed.
commit in insisting on the literal interpretation of " Swear not
at all," or "Pray without ceasing," or any other summary
dictum of instruction. The formula is not intended for this
strain upon it, and such strain would be in real truth a most
non-natural interpretation of it. It is meant to express the
truth that eternal punishment is the sentence upon all who
reject the true faith, being really responsible for this rejection,
and having nothing to, excuse them in the circumstances of
their education and situation, and the influences to which they
have been exposed. But to suppose that because the statement
is made in a universal form, therefore it is intended to apply
to all heretics without discrimination, — to those who have
been educated in heresy, and who only hold the creed in which
they have been brought up ; to those even who have never
heard of any other faith ; — this is so monstrous an assertion,'
that we ought not to suppose that the whole Church could
have made it, unless there were overwhelming evidence that
she accepted this statement in that sense. But the only
evidence offered is the universal form of the statement itself.
This is no evidence at all, because it is certain that univer
sal statements, intended to be modified and understood
with conditions, are incorporated in language, are a part of
language, and are coeval with the very structure of language.
Were there indeed no controversy stirring, ninety-nine out of
a hundred would interpret it so as a matter of course; and
they would think it an twinatural interpretation of it to insist
upon tying the statement to the rigid letter. They would be
right in thinking so. There is no greater non-natural inter
pretation than the forced and rigid avoidance of qualified
interpretation. On the other hand, we cannot call that a forced
and strained explanation which we are giving constantly to
language, and giving with general consent. This qualifica
tion of sense is a treatment of language which we are apply
ing to it almost every hour of our lives. Why, then,
should it be non-natural when it is applied to the Athanasian
Creed ?
The damnatory language of the New Testament is put into
this universal form ; but the universal damnatory assertions

The Athanasian Creed. 197
of the New Testament have always been understood with tacit
conditions ; nor has this ever been regarded as a non-natural
interpretation of them, but, on the contrary, this interpretation
has always been given to them as a matter of course. Our
Lord says : " He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words,
hath one that judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the
same shaU judge him in the last day."1 This is a damna
tory assertion applying in terms to all who reject our Lord ;
but has this assertion been ever taken in a sense of literal
universality ? It never has been. It has never been supposed,
even, that all the Jews in Jerusalem who lived in our Lord's
own day and actuaUy heard, or knew of, His preaching, but
did not in fact accept it, wiU be eternally punished. This and
other like assertions have been always understood with a con
dition that such rejection of Christ as is spoken of, is from
causes for which the individual himself is moraUy responsible,
and not from any irresistible influence of education and
circumstances. Thus our Lord says again : " If ye believe not
that I am He, ye shall die in your sins."2 This also is a
universal damnatory assertion, reprobating all who did not
believe in Him. But this has also been always understood in
the same qualified sense. And so to Nicodemus our Lord's
announcement is : " He that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God." This too is a universal damnatory
assertion, which has been always understood with conditions.
And so when our Lord says in the last chapter of St. Mark,
" He that believeth not [or disbelieveth] shall be damned," that
too is a damnatory assertion which has never been taken in
the absoluteness of the letter, but always as tacitly coupled
with a condition.
When, then, we see that universal statements which admit
of being understood in a qualified sense have a recognised place
in language; and when we see that Scripture itself has
adopted that form of statement ; and when we see that it uses
that form of statement in the very department, with which
we are now concerned, of damnatory language ; and when we
1 John xii. 48. 2 John viii. 24.

198 The Athanasian Creed.
ourselves understand these assertions of Scripture in this sense,
and so far from thinking it a non-natural sense, would without
any hesitation regard the contrary or rigidly literal interpretion
as non-natural — as artificial, forced, strained, and unnatural;
how can we with this introduction, and having adopted this
course in language and in Scripture, twist the whole principle
of interpretation right round as soon as we come to the
Athanasian Creed ? How are we justified in saying that the
letter of the grammar is an artificial and false sense in Scripture,
and the true and natural sense in the Creed ? How are we
justified in fastening the epithet non-natural upon the very
same interpretation in the Creed for which in the New
Testament we have claimed the attribute of natural ? Does
Scripture, when it says that everybody is condemned who does
not believe aright, mean that he is condemned conditionally —
if it is his perverseness, if it is his individual sin, if it is his
wilfulness, if it is his pride : and does the Athanasian Creed,
when it says the same thing, mean that he is condemned
whether it is his sin or not that he does not beheve, whether
he is wilful or not, whether he is proud or not, and whether
he is perverse or not? Such interpretative judgment would
involve a conspicuous contradiction and absurdity.
The New Testament lays down one general law upon this
subject, and states one fundamental condition upon which all
the damnatory language, applied to those who do . not hold a
right faith, is used ; and that is, that the error in faith proceeds
from something wrong morally. " This is the condemnation that
light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil."1 The rule of eternal
condemnation is here expressly declared to be a moral one ;
and as this rule of Scripture lies at the bottom of all the
damnatory language of Scripture, so it underlies also all the
damnatory language of the Church. The Church assumes the
rule of Scripture, and makes every universal assertion of this
kind with this fundamental condition attaching to it, by the
necessity of her very root which is in Scripture.
It is sometimes said those who drew up this Creed
1 John iii. 19.

The Athanasian Creed. 199
obviously did not intend the damnatory clauses to be understood
in any qualified sense. But we have nothing to do with the
sense in which the compiler of this Creed understood these
clauses ; even if we could ascertain who the compiler was.
This is the Church's Creed, and these clauses are imposed upon
us to be understood according to the Church's rule of inter
pretation, and not according to any private interpretation, or
any individual's sense : and the Church's rule of interpretation
is the rule by which we interpret the like statements in
Scripture, which, as we know, is the conditional rule of moral
responsibility.

200

XIV.— THE HOLY EUCHARIST1
The great result of our Church's review of the doctrine of
the Eucharist at the Eeformation was to recall the doctrine
from the technical and artificial precision and completeness
which mediaeval philosophy had imparted to it, to a more vague
and indefinite, but at the same time more genuine form, and one
more like the original. Mediaeval thought found the doctrine
with a certain obscurity, shadowiness, and incompleteness
attaching to it, and left it exact, systematic, and vigorous, every.
chasm filled up, and the whole rounded and compacted. To
our Church, on the other hand, the undefined form of the
doctrine appeared to be the designed form. This incomplete
ness was intended. It had been officiousness to meddle with
it, to improve upon it. Our Church then restored the doctrine
to its original and more undefined state, and rejected the new
supplementary matter.
1. Tkansubstantiation.— In the first place, it rejected
Transubstantiation. The primitive doctrine of the Eucharist
was undoubtedly that of a change in the elements, whereby
from being mere bread and wine they became the body and
blood of Christ, to the strengthening and refreshing of our
souls. The early Church, then, was content with the simple
and indefinite idea of a change, a material and natural food, —
the food of the body, — being converted into another kind of
nourishment, the nourishment of the soul. But when a later
age came to the consideration of this subject, it discovered that
the idea of change — the change of bread and wine into the
body and blood — was incomplete, and stopped short unless it
was distinctly stated as a change of substance ; that the sub
stance of the former bodies was converted into the substance
ofthe latter. Unless this took place, it was said, there was no
- Delivered in the Latin ChapeL

The Holy Eucharist. 201
change of one body into another ; but a change was granted ;
therefore this must take place ; the substance of the bread and
wine must cease, and in its place must be the substance of the
Body and Blood — which is Transubstantiation. The doctrine
of Transubstantiation was thus in its aim a logical filling-up of
the indefinite idea of a change ; it resulted from a process of
reasoning — that, if there was a change of the material food into
the spiritual at all, there must be a change of its substance,
and that if one substance was changed into another, the first
substance could no longer exist.
But though the idea of change was sharpened, and an
apparent void filled up by this logical step, it appeared, as soon
as ever a revision took place, that it was a precision gained
where it was not wanted. It was not wanted, for what could
be more irrelevant to the truth of the spiritual substance, in
the sacrament, than the question about the material substance
of the bodily food ? The spiritual substance was clearly the
one important element in the Sacrament, for which the
Sacrament was instituted, and whether or not the material
substance had been abstracted in the act of change, or remained
after it, would not make any difference to the inward part of
the Sacrament or the res sacramenti. The distinction was
entirely a metaphysical one, and had no spiritual relevance ; it
did not affect, one way or another, the effect and virtue of the
Sacrament. The Body and Blood of Christ has just the same
nourishing effect whatever becomes of the substance of the
bread; and the notion of substance in distinction to accidents
was purely a notion of philosophy introduced into a spiritual
subject, where it was altogether an incongruous consideration.
The whole was simply a subtle and barren philosophical
speculation, ending in mere words, without sense or meaning,
and entirely foreign to a spiritual ordinance, and to a channel of
divine grace. Our Church therefore, at the Eeformation, rejected
Transubstantiation, and fell back upon the earlier and more in
definite idea of a change in the elements — as a change, namely,
which was true and real for all the purposes of the Sacram,ent,
by which the elements became, from being mere physical food,
spiritual food. " If these things be true," says Thorndike, " it
will be requisite that we acknowledge a change to be wrought

202 The Holy Eucharist.
in the elements by the consecration of them in the Sacrament.
For how should they come to be that which they were not
before, to wit, the Body and Blood of Christ, without any change ?
And in regard of this change, the elements are no more called
by the name of their nature or kind after the consecration, but
by the name of that which they are become. Not as if the sub
stance thereof were abolished, but because it remains no more
considerable to Christians, who do not, nor are to, look upon
this sacrament with any account of what it may be to the
nourishment of their bodies, but what it may be to the
nourishment of their souls." l
Again, with respect to another important point relating to
the Sacrament, the primitive doctrine had less speculative
consistency, while by that very twofold direction which ,it
took, it comprehended more truth, and reflected more faithfuUy
the nature of the Sacrament itself. I refer to the point of the
objectiveness of the res sacramenti. Certainly the ground
taken by the early Church with respect to the spiritual part of
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper— the Body and Blood of
our Lord — was not that that spiritual part was only an internal
matter, a moral effect of the act of participation upon the
mind. The Lord's Body and Blood was regarded as a reality
external to the mind, even as the bread and wine was ; it was
considered as joined to the bread and wine, and co-existing
with it in one Sacrament. " The eating and drinking of it in
the Sacrament," Thorndike says, "presupposed the being of
it in the Sacrament ; . . . unless a man can spiritually eat
the Flesh and Blood of Christ in and by the Sacrament, which
is not in the sacrament when he eats and drinks it, but by
his eating and drinking of it comes to be there."2 The
language of the early Church on this subject is so well known,
and so large a body of it meets us in the writings. of the early
ages, that we need not dwell long upon this characteristic of
early teaching on the subject of the Eucharist. But whUe the
early ages held, as we call it now, the objectiveness of the
inward part or thing signified in the sacrament, or that the
Body and Blood was the concomitant of and adhered to an
external and material thing to which it was united in the
1 Thorndike, Laws ofthe Church, c. iii. § 1. 2 Ibid. c. ii. § 12.

The Holy Eucharist. 20

o

Sacrament, we see at the same time, upon examination of
their language, that this objectiveness was held with a very
important modification, which gives a double aspect to the
doctrine of the Fathers. The modification was this, that the
Body and Blood of Christ could not be eaten except by faith,
which was the medium by which this spiritual food had any
operation or function as food. Although, then, the Body and
Blood itself followed an external test of presence, as being
the concomitants of the material elements, the eating of this
Body and Blood followed an internal test, and was the con
comitant entirely of the state of mind of the recipient of the
Sacrament. Thus as food abstractedly the Lord's Body was
objective, as eaten food it was subjective, and the result of the
faith of the partaker. As eaten food it parted company with the
material elements, as the guarantee, and was transferred to a
totally different test to be applied to it, the moral and spiritual
test, namely, of the disposition of the receiver. And yet the
capacity for being eaten is so identical with the very nature of
food, that where this capacity is made to foUow a moral and
internal test, and not an external or objective one, it must be
granted that a large qualification has taken place of the objec
tive character of the spiritual food in the Sacrament. Let us
not indeed put aside that aspect of the Sacrament, that is, the
spiritual food, as it is an external reality, but neither let us
dispense with the other aspect of it, namely, that the eating of
that food is subjected to a moral test.
The language of the Fathers is not indeed free from some
real and much more apparent disagreement on this subject. On
a subject where language has so many nice distinctions to keep,
it will not always keep them ; nor avoid indiscriminateness,
saying one thing when it means something else close and con
tiguous to it, but still quite different from it. Thus the rule
or custom by which the bread itself was caUed the Body, as
being the figure of the Body ; and by which the whole Sacra
ment, not distinguishing its material part from its spiritual,
was called the Body, as containing the Body, necessarily led to
occasional confusion of language ; writers saying that the Body
was always, and in any case, eaten together with the reception
of the Sacrament, without any condition, when they really

204 The Holy Eucharist.
meant that the bread, which was the Sacrament of the Body,
was eaten. Where, however, this distinction was in the writer's
mind, a large mass of language shows that the true Body of
Christ in the Sacrament could not be eaten except by the
medium of faith. St. Augustine, who is quoted in our Article1
on this point, has frequent similar statements. St. Hilary says
— " The bread which cometh down from heaven is not received
except by him who is a member of Christ." 2 St. Jerome says —
" Those who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,
neither eat His body, nor drink His blood;"3 though he also
speaks of the polluted and unworthy approaching the altar and
drinking His blood. But the connection which this latter
assertion has with the visible altar and the open reception of
the sacrament gives the body and blood here rather the open
and sacramental sense just mentioned, than the true sense.
" He who obeys not Christ," says Prosper, " neither eats His
flesh nor drinks His blood."4 "He receives who approveth
himself," says Ambrose. "The wicked cannot eat the word
made flesh," says Origen.5
This modification indeed of the objective character of the
spiritual food in the Sacrament, involved in the eating of it
not being tied to the Sacrament, but depending on the faith of
the individual, is an essential consequence of the very nature
of the heavenly food itself. The Body and Blood of Christ is
not a natural, but a spiritual substance. It can only therefore
be eaten spiritually. To suppose that a man's natural mouth
and teeth can eat a spiritual thing, would be a simple confusion
of ideas. The eating of it must be wholly in the sense of, and
correspond to the nature of, the food. It is in a spiritual sense
alone that a spiritual substance can be eaten. Although,
then, the natural mouth and teeth can eat the bread and wine,
which is the sign of the Body and Blood, and the sign to which
it is by the divine ordinance joined, the natural organs cannot
eat the Body and Blood of Christ, which is wholly spiritual.
Only the soul or spirit of man can take in and feed upon a
1 Article xxrx. S. Aug. in Joann. Tract, xxvi. g 18.
2 S. Hilary de Trinitate, lib. viii. » S. Jerome in Isai. lxvi. 17.
4 Sent. 139. 6 Origen in Matt. xv.

The Holy Eucharist. 205
spiritual nutriment. Faith, therefore, as being the spiritual
faculty in man, must in its own nature be the medium by
which the Body of Christ is eaten; and that Body, though
present in the Sacrament, must remain wieaten by the par
taker of the sacrament unless he has faith. Without faith it
can only be eaten sacramentally, by eating the bread which is
the sign or sacrament of it.
None indeed have ever maintained that the body and blood
of Christ are eaten profitably except through the medium of
faith, or spiritually. It is admitted (even where it is maintained
that the Body and Blood are reaUy, and in fact, eaten by carnal
and wicked men in the Sacrament), that they are stiU eaten
unprofitably, and to the condemnation of the persons. But
nowhere in Scripture do we hear of an eating and drinking of
the true Body and Blood of our Lord which is not profitable.
The Body and Blood are of that nature, that they are in the
reason of the case, by the simple fact of being eaten and drunk,
beneficial ; aud no such thing is contemplated as a real eating of
them, which is not a beneficial eating of them also. " Whoso
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood," saith the Lord, " hath
eternal Ufe. ... He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my
blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. . . . He that eateth me,
even he shall live by me."1 The spiritual food of our Lord's
Body and Blood cannot, as has been said, be eaten except
spiritually; it cannot, be eaten carnally by the mere natural
mouth and teeth ; such an idea is a discord and a contradic
tion in reason. But if it cannot be eaten except spiritually,
how does the carnal man supply the spiritual medium and
instrumentality of eating? The carnal man has only the
natural mouth and teeth to apply; this is all he has; but
this is totally irrelevant to spiritual food. Undoubtedly the
carnal man has a spiritual principle in him, in common with
the spiritual man in this sense, that he has an immaterial soul ;
even his wickedness is in this sense spiritual, that it is the
wickedness of a spirit, because none but a spirit can be wicked ;
a man can only be wicked by means of his will, and the will
is a property of spirit and not of matter. Thus the devils are
1 John vi. 54, 57.

206 The Holy Eucharist.
spiritual beings in the sense of being immaterial, and St. Paul
says : " We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
spiritual wickedness in high places."1 But it is not spirituality
in this sense, which is all that is meant, when it is said that
the Body and Blood of our Lord can only be eaten spiritually ;
the spirituality requisite for the eater is more than the mere
immateriality of a natural soul ; and a wicked man could not,
by means of his wicked spirit, though it is spirit, spiritually
eat our Lord's flesh. To partake of our Lord's Body and Blood
implies union with our Lord ; it implies the fruition of Him,
it implies a cognateness of the eater to the food. The Body and
Blood of our Lord are not spiritual food in the immaterial sense
only, but they are spiritual food in the moral sense, as being
moral aliment and nutrition, the goodness and holiness of our
Lord infusing itself into the human soul. But to eat what is
in this sense spiritual requires a state of mind which is spiritual
in this sense. " The Body and Blood," says Thorndike, " is not
spiritually eaten and drunk till living faith make them spiritu
ally present to the soul, which the consecration maketh sacra-
mentally present to the body."2 The wicked then cannot eat them
spiritually, but the spiritual is the only way in which they can
be eaten ; the wicked therefore cannot eat them at all.
Hence our divines, who maintain with the Catechism that
the inward part of the Sacrament is the Body and Blood of
Christ, still hold with the Article, that without faith that Body
and Blood of Christ is not eaten or partaken of. " Evil men,"
says Eidley, " do eat the very true and natural body of Christ
sacramentally and no further, as St. Augustine saith ; but good
men do eat the very true Body both sacramentally and spiritually
by grace."8 " Those who eat unprofitably," he says again, " eat
the Sacrament ;" the very flesh of Christ to be eaten must be
eaten spiritually. "I say," says Cranmer, "that the same
visible and palpable flesh that was for us crucified, is eaten of
Christian people at His Holy Supper ; . . . the diversity is not
in the body, but in the eating thereof; no man eating it carnally,
but the good eating it both sacramentally and spiritually, and
Eph. vi. 12.
Laws ofthe Church, u. iii. § 5. » Works, Parker Society, p. 246.

The Holy Eucharist. 207
the evil only sacramentally!'1 "All that are partakers of this
sacrament," says Jackson, "eat Christ's body and drink His blood
sacramentally, that is, they eat that bread which sacramentally
is His body, and drink that cup which is , sacramentally His
blood, whether they eat and drink faithfully or unfaithfully." 2
He limits the eating and drinking of those who are without
faith, to eating and drinking the sacramental sign. Those,
says Thorndike, that receive in a dead faith, " cannot be said to
eat the body and blood of Christ, which is only the act of a living
faith, without that abatement which the premisses have estab
lished, to wit, in the Sacrament."2, "Since I proved," says the
author of the Unbloody Sacrifice, "that what is eaten and
drunk in the Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ
before it is administered and received, ... it may with appear
ance of truth be from hence inferred that I believe the Body
and Blood to be received by the wicked hypocritical communi
cants, as well as by those who receive it with true faith and
devotion ; and therefore to silence this objection, I shall show
from the writings of the ancients (1.) that the wicked com
municant does externally eat and drink the Body and Blood,
but (2.) that he does not do it internally. . . . Although -there
are very few indeed that cannot externally eat the sacramental
Body as to its gross substance, which is bread, yet there are very
great numbers of men that cannot receive it internally, as it is
the mysterious body of Christ, ... for it is a spiritual Body,
not so much intended for the repast of our palates and stomachs
as of our minds."4 Between such a doctrine as this of faith, as
the necessary means by which the Body of Christ is eaten, and
Hooker's doctrine, there is some but no very wide interval —
the position I mean of Hooker, "that the real Presence of Christ's
Body and Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in
the worthy receiver of the Sacrament,"6 at the same time that
he held a true mystery in the Sacrament itself — that it did
not "import a figure only," but had an instrumental virtue and
1 Cranmer, On the Lord's Supper, Parker Society, p. 224.
2 Jackson, On the Creed: Works, vol. x. p. 51, ed. 1844.
8 Thorndike, Laws ofthe Church, c. iii. § 6.
4 J. Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, ch. iv. § 5.
5 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, v. lxvii. 6.

208 The Holy Eucharist.
power attaching to it. "These holy mysteries," he says,
" received in due manner do instrumentally make us partakers
of the grace of that Body and Blood which were given for the
life of the world."1
It is not, however, to be inferred, because the wicked do
not eat the very Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament,
that therefore they only eat common bread and wine. They
eat consecrated material elements, to which the mysterious
property has been imparted that the faithful receive and eat
in them the Body and Blood of Christ. Common bread has not
this property imparted to it, but the bread in the Sacrament
has. When the wicked eat the sacramental bread, then,
though they do not eat the Lord's Body, they eat bread which
is in a certain intimate and mystical relation to our Lord's
Body. But for the wicked to eat bread which is in such a
relation to that sacred and mystical Body is a profanation. It
is a pollution of a hallowed sign and symbol, and an effective
sign and symbol, by their unholy touch ; and such desecration
and profanation of the consecrated elements endowed with so
divine a property justly turns to their condemnation. Thus
when St. Paul says to the Corinthians, that " whosoever shall
eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord; ... and
eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the
Lord's body,"2 it does not by any means necessarily imply that
this profanation arises, and this condemnation arises, from the
actual eating of our Lord's true Body, but it does undoubtedly
imply that there is some sacred and close relation in which the
bread and the cup of the Lord do stand to His Body and Blood,
which gives to the former a true sanctity, and so renders them
capable of pollution and desecration. The wicked eat that to
which a divine virtue is joined, even the property of becoming
to the faithful the Body of our Lord. This virtue is joined to
the consecrated bread, independently of our faith, and the
wicked who eat it eat it with this virtue attaching to it, which
cannot leave it, namely, that the very same bread, if eaten by the
faithful, would be spiritual nourishment to them, which common
1 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, v. lxvii. 8. 2 1 Cor. xi. 27.

The Holy Eucharist. 209
bread could not be. And it appears to me that this is substan
tially what is meant by the strong statements of Bishop Poynet,
with respect to wicked men's mode of partaking ofthe sacrament,
— statements which claim for the material elements a junction
with the thing signified by them even while the wicked eat
them. " As to the denial," he says, " that the wicked can eat the
body of Christ, we must make a distinction. For if we regard
the nature of the Sacrament, divine virtue cannot be absent
from the sign in so far as it is a Sacrament ;" and he quotes
Cyprian, who says, "Sacraments cannot exist without their own
virtue, nor can the Divine Majesty be ever absent from the
mysteries." " The Sacraments," he continues, " so long as they
are Sacraments, retain their own virtue, nor can they be separated
therefrom. For they always consist of their own parts, an
earthly and a heavenly, and an inward and an outward, whether
the good take them or the bad, whether the worthy or the un
worthy. Howbeit that commutation of the signs and transition
of the elements into the inward substance, which everywhere
occurs in the ancient writers, cannot exist, if we separate the
virtue from the sign, and attempt to take the one apart from
the other. But this is to be understood, so long as the sign
serves its use and is adapted to the end for which it was
destined by the Word of God. . . . Should there be any who
think that there is too much here ascribed to the elements, it
is not so, but its due reverence is given to the external symbols
on account of their sacred use, and the inward virtue which is
added by the power of the divine words."1 What this language
appears to mean is, that the material symbols are ever accom
panied by a divine virtue and property, which adheres to them,
by the very nature of the sacraments, and that therefore even
when the wicked eat and drink them, that virtue stiU belongs
to and accompanies them ; the invisible part is stUl joined to
the visible, but it does not imply that the wicked eat the thing
signified itself, — that they eat the Body and Blood which is the
inward part of the Sacrament.
1 Bishop Poynet, Diallacticon de veritate natura, atque substantia corporis et
sanguinis Christi in Eucharistia (first published, 1557), pp. 76-78, 81, ed.
London, 1688. 0

2 io The Holy Eucharist.
The primitive doctrine, then, of the Eucharist, thus introduc
ing faith as the medium by which the body of Christ is eaten in
the sacrament, that is, applying a modification to the external
or objective character of the res sacramenti, this was departed
from in the later and mediaeval doctrine. It appeared to be a
more whole, complete, and consistent view of the Sacrament, to
regard the eating of the Body of Christ as essentially and in
variably attending upon the Sacrament itself. And the doctrine
of Transubstantiation which inserted the Body of Christ in the
place of the very substance of the Bread, thus making it succeed
to the position of the very material substratum of the bread,
necessarily carried with it this result. But when the doctrine
of the Eucharist came under revision at the Eeformation, our
Church reverted to the original and more modified condition
and form of the doctrine, by which, on the one hand, the Body
and Blood of our Lord was by the act of consecration, indepen
dently of the faith of the individual, the inward part of the
Sacrament, and on the other hand, that Body and Blood were not
eaten in the Sacrament except by the medium of faith. This
was a qualification of the rigorous and c'ompact whole which
later speculation had made, — a departure from that unity which
one-sided theorising creates; but it wasareversion to the original
and genuine doctrine, which, as being less definite and precise,
and more twofold in its statements, was also the truer and more
authentic. Spiritual truth does not consult the intellectual
and philosophical standard, and aim at a systematic unity, but
is truth of a vaguer and more natural and more inclusive sort.
2. Adoration. — Again, upon another subject connected
with Eucharistic doctrine, our Church reverted to an earlier
application and interpretation of the principle maintained
upon this subject. I refer to the question of the adoration
paid to Christ's Body in the Sacrament. When we examine
ancient language on this subject, we find large differences
in its composition ; that it contains a great quantity of irre
levant statement which does not really apply to the point at
issue, mixed— in a way which makes it very difficult to
extricate it— with the really relevant and pertinent kind of
statement. Thus there is a large mass of statement to the

The Holy Eucharist. 211
effect that Christ should be specially and peculiarly worshipped
in the whole act of partaking of the Sacrament of His Body
and Blood. But this language has nothing whatever to do with •
the worship of Christ under material sacramental elements.
There are thus two wholly different kinds of statements mixed
together in the general language relating to adoration of our
Lord in the Eucharist. One of these kinds of statement expresses
only an adoration accompanying the act of receiving, the other
expresses an adoration of Him as contained in some sense in
that which is received : one denotes only the worship of Christ
as generally present in and at the Eucharistic rite ; the other
signifies a worship of Him as specially present under the
species of bread and wine. Of these two kinds of statement
one, as I have just said, has no real bearing upon the particular
question of adoration in the Eucharist, as that phrase is under
stood in controversy. All Christians, of whatever Church or
party, would admit the adoration of our Lord in this general |
sense in the Eucharist : namely, that when a man partakes of the
Eucharist, he does worship Christ. But this is not worshipping
Him as present or in any way contained in the bread and
wine. " We worship Christ," says Eidley, " wheresoever we
perceive His benefits, but we understand His benefits to be
greatest in the Sacrament."1 And in the following extract
Thorndike does not express more than what any Christian
would admit : — " I suppose," he says, " it is the duty of every
Christian to honour our Lord Jesus Christ as God subsisting
in human flesh, whether by professing Him such, or by praying
to Him as such, or by using any bodily gesture, which may
serve to signify that worship of the heart which inwardly
commands it. This honour, then, being a duty, .... what
remains but a just occasion to make it requisite ? . . . . And
is not the presence of Christ's flesh in the sacrament of the
Eucharist a just occasion to express, by the bodily act of
adoration, that inward honour which we always carry towards
our Lord Christ as God ?"2 In this passage then the worship
paid to Christ in the Sacrament is not a worship paid to Him
as present under the form of the sacramental elements ; but it
1 Works, Parker Society, p. 236. 2 Laws ofthe Church, c. xxxi. § 3, 4.

&

2 1 2 The Holy Eucharist.
is only the worship which is always paid to Him, as existing
invisibly always in the form of man and human nature, only
paid to Him upon the particular opportunity of the Sacrament.
The Body and Blood in the Sacrament is not the object of the
worship, but only the occasion of it. " The celebration of the
Eucharist," he says, " is a competent occasion for executing that
worship which is always due to our Lord Christ Incarnate."1
" Place thyself upon thy knees," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, " in
the humblest and devoutest posture of worshippers, and think
not much in the lowest manner to worship the King of men
and angels, the Lord of heaven and earth, the great Lover of
souls, and the Saviour of the body. . . . For if Christ be not
there after a peculiar manner, whom or whose body do we
receive ? But if He be present to us not in mystery only but
in blessing also, why do we not worship?"2 The worship
described in this passage is the worship of Christ present in a
special way in the great act of Christian communion, but it is
not the worship of Christ under the outward form of the
material elements. There is a great difference of course between
a general presence of Christ in the act of communion, and a
particular presence united to the bread and wine.
Separating this general language then from that particular
body of language which asserts an adoration in special con
nection with the material elements, we find in the first place
that in all earUer language, and in the language of our own
divines which represents the earlier ages, adoration is addressed
to the Body and. Blood of our Lord, and that that, and that only,
is the object to which it is addressed. Our divines, indeed,
when speaking of the partaking in Communion, speak of Christ
simply being received, not making any distinction between the
Body and Blood and the divinity of Christ ; nor is such an
extension of the res sacramenti other than natural, nor can
any injurious consequence follow it, in connection with the
sacrament as spiritual food ; the boundaries and limitations
of mystical language are not to.be very accurately restricted
where no practical danger can ensue. But as regards the
adoration in the Eucharist, the act of adoration has been
• Laws ofthe Church, c. xxxi. § 6. a Taylor's Worthy Communicant.

The Holy Eucharist. 2 1 3
assigned specially to the Body and Blood of Christ as its object ;
that being the strict and proper res sacramenti; and not to
the divinity of Christ, which is not properly or strictly the res
sacramenti, or united with the material elements. The whole
language of antiquity establishes the Body and Blood as that
which is in sacramental connection with the bread and wine.
The divinity is not represented as placed in this sacramental
union with the material elements. It is quite true indeed that
wherever the Body and Blood of Christ are, there by strict
reasoning must be the human soul and the Divinity of Christ ;
it is impossible to separate what are in their own nature united.
But it must be remembered that this is a mystical subject,
and that in mystical doctrine we cannot proceed in this way
by logical steps. In mystical doctrine we must take the form
of statement which is given to us, and not exceed it; because
if the truth is given in a certain form and measure, and with
certain limits and confines, we must assume that it is inten
tionally so given, and for a divine purpose. Earlier writers
and our own divines then adhere cautiously and faithfully to
Scripture, in speaking of the Body and Blood of Christ as the
res sacramenti in the Eucharist, and in assigning the act of
adoration in the Eucharist to the Body and Blood. It was
therefore a qualified and conditioned kind of adoration which
patristic theology connected specially with the Eucharist.
For the Body and Blood of Christ are not in themselves objects
of divine adoration and worship; they only admit of a worship
which is paid to them indirectly by reason of their intimate con
nection with that which is an object of direct adoration, namely,
the Divinity of Christ : they can only receive that reflected
Divinity which comes from thePersonof Christ, and consequently
only a secondary worship. " The Body and Blood of Christ,"
says Thorndike, " is not adored nor to be adored by Christians for
any endowment residing in it . . . but in consideration of the
Godhead, to which it remains inseparably united ... in which
Godhead therefore that honour resteth and to which it tendeth.
— So the Godhead of Christ is the thing that is honoured, and
the reason why it is honoured both."1 Thus the very constitution
1 Laws of tlie Church, c. xxx. § 2.

2 1 4 The Holy Eucharist.
of the Sacrament contained in itself a check upon any idolatrous
use of it ; because by the very law of the Sacrament that which
was the inner part or thing signified was confined and restricted
to the Body and Blood ; which material part of our Lord did
not admit of direct adoration being paid to it. The sacramental
connection with the material elements only covered an object
of indirect worship ; the object of direct worship or the
Godhead was not contained under the material elements. The
Body and Blood admitted indeed only of a higher degree of that
worship and reverence which is paid to all objects intimately
joined by service or dedication to the Divine Majesty. " The
saying, ' worship His footstool,' " says Bishop Poynet, " many
understand of the ark of the covenant . . . which was to be
worshipped on account of the presence of the Divine Majesty.
And in the same manner," he says, " we may worship the
Eucharist on account of the ineffable and invisible grace of
Christ joined to it. ' He,' says Augustine, ' who venerates a
useful sign instituted by God, does not venerate the transient
thing which he sees, but rather that to which all such things
are to be referred.'"1 "There is a deceit," says Eidley,
"in this word 'adoramus! We worship the symbols, when
reverently we handle them. ... If you mean the external sacra
ment, I say that also is to be worshipped as a sacrament."2
The reverence then that is paid to sacred signs and symbols,
and to all objects which are associated with the Divine Majesty,
is a worship or adoration in a secondary sense ; and a fortiori
may our Lord's Body and Blood, as being joined not by
association, but by the truth of nature, with His - Divinity,
receive that worship. But the worship given specially in the
Eucharist was such subordinate worship — worship paid to that
which was intimately connected with Divinity, not to the
Divinity itself. The mind of the worshipper was necessarily
carried indeed to the direct worship of the Divinity of Christ,
but in so doing it went out of the area and limits of the
sacrament, and worshipped the God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of Very God, by whom all things were made.
But when later theology took up the subject of the adora-
1 Bp. Poynet, Diallacticon, p. 75, ut supra.
2 Ridley's Works, Parker Society, p. 236.

The Holy Eucharist. 215
tion in the Eucharist, it instituted a very different kind of
adoration. In later theology, in the first place, the res sacra
menti was not only the Body and Blood of Christ, but was the
whole Christ, Body, Soul, and Godhead. " Totus et integer
Christus," says the CouncU of Trent, " sub panis specie, et sub
quavis ipsius speciei parte ; totus item, sub vini specie et sub 1
ejus partibus existit." The CouncU includes expressly "sub
specie panis et vini " not only the Body and Blood, but the
Soul of Christ, and the Godhead of Christ — " propter admira - '
bilem Ulam eius cum corpore et anima hypostaticam unionem."1
But, the inward part of the sacrament being thus defined,
when it came to the adoration of the res sacramenti, that
adoration necessarily became, not the indirect worship of what
was in natural conjunction with the Divinity, but the direct
adoration of the Godhead itself, existing under the species of
Bread and Wine. But without entering into the question of
the criterion by which we define idolatry, or at all asserting
that the worship of the true God, though under an unauthorised
material form, is idolatry, we must stUl see that this express
adoration of the Godhead, as subsisting under the visible
material form of bread, holds a place very distinct from, and is
divided by a great interval from, the primitive adoration of the
Body and Blood. The Eoman definition of the res sacramenti
clears away all modification, frees the worship in the sacra
ment of all check, and establishes a distinct localised object of
divine adoration which the genuine constitution of the sacra
ment had implicitly provided against.
A different character, again, was given to the act of adora
tion by insulating it, by making it independent of the act of
communion, and separating it from all its natural place in the
Sacrament. In early writers it is subordinated to the main
object and scope of the Sacrament, namely, a partaking of the
spiritual food of Christ's body and blood. Thus St. Augus
tine's expression, " No one eats that flesh without first adoring,"
while it inculcates an adoration, at the same time, by its very
form, implies that it is an adoration given in the course of the
act of communion, and in connection with that reception of the
1 Concil. Trident. Canones et Decreta, Sessio xiii., cap. iii. ad finem
(p. 67, ed. Lovanii, 1567).

2 1 6 The Holy Eucharist.
food which is the main design of the Sacrament. But later
and mediaeval practice divided the adoration from the Sacra
ment. The Bread was kept for adoration; was elevated,
carried in processions, and offered to the worship of the people,
apart from, and wholly disconnected with, its office and use
in the Sacrament as spiritual food. Our Church recalled the
worship not only to its proper kind and nature, as indirect ;
but also to its proper place, as an act connected with, but sub
ordinate to, the main purpose of the sacrament ; and in the
28th Article declared that the "sacrament of the Lord's Supper
was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up
and worshipped."
III. Sacrifice. — We come to another point. On the sub
ject of the Eucharistic Sacrifice the language of our divines has
been very consentient and uniform ; they have almost with one
voice maintained a commemorative and representative Sacrifice,
in agreement with the belief of antiquity. The popular beUef
of later times exaggerated the Eucharistic Sacrifice till it
became, to all intents and purpose, a real one, and " the priest
offered up Christ on the altar for quick and dead, to have
remission of pain and guilt ;" that is to say, offered Him up as
a Victim, in a sense which could not be distinguished from
that in which He was offered up by Himself on the Cross. It
is true that the decree of the Council of Trent just saves itself
by cautious, not to say dissembling, language, from the extreme
and monstrous conclusion that the Sacrifice of the Mass is the
very same with that upon the Cross. It distinguishes between
a bloody and an unbloody oblation ; and it states that the fruits
or consequences of the Bloody Oblation or the Sacrifice on the
Cross are "received through the unbloody one"— Oblationis
cruentae fructus per hanc incruentam percipiuntur : but at the
same time it asserts that the sacrifice of the mass is a really
propitiatory sacrifice — vere propitiatorium. Now undoubtedly
there are two distinct senses in which an act may be said to
be propitiatory. The act of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross had
an original propitiatory power ; that is to say, it was the cause
of any other act, or any act of man, or any rite being propitia
tory, that is, appeasing God's anger, and reconciling Him to
the agent. We may allow that in common language a man

The Holy Eucharist. 217
may do something which will reconcile God to him, and restore
him to God's favour ; but then all the power that any action
of man can have for this end is a derived power, derived from
Christ's sacrifice, from which any other sacrifice, the Euchar
istic one included, borrows its virtue, and without which it
would be wholly null and void. There is, then, an original
propitiation and a borrowed propitiation, a first propitiation
and a secondary one. Why then did the Fathers of Trent,
when they had all human language at their command, deliber
ately choose to caU the Sacrifice of the Mass vere "propitia
torium ? They may have said that it was vere propitiatorium
in the secondary sense ; but no one can 'fail to see the mis
leading effect of such language, and that nothing could have
been easier to the divines of Trent, had they chosen, than to
draw a far more clear distinction than they did between the
Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacrifice on the Cross. It is
evident that, as ecclesiastical statesmen, they were afraid of
interfering with the broad popular established view of the Mass,
while as theologians they just contrived to secure themselves
from the responsibility of a monstrous dogmatic statement.
It was thus that our Church at the Eeformation recalled
the doctrine of the Eucharist to its proper proportions, and
corrected the errors and extravagances into which later theo
logy had been led. She relieved the change in the elements
from the interpolation of Transubstantiation, and from that
false, rigid completeness and system which the schools of the
Middle Ages had given it. She restored Faith as the medium
by which the Body of Christ is eaten. She restored the true
limits of the adoration in the Eucharist, and of the sacrifice
of the Eucharist.
I will conclude with the reflection, that amid the various
explanations of the manner in which the mystery of this
Sacrament is to be expressed, the mode of change, the kind of
change, the relation of the material element or sign, to the
inner part or thing signified ; the relation of the whole Sacra
ment to the mind and faith of the partaker ; one central truth
remains, retaining which we retain the true substance of the
doctrine of the Eucharist, namely, that it is a true participation
of the Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed

2 1 8 The Holy Eucharist.
taken and received by the faithful in that Sacrament. Various
degrees of importance may attach to circumstantial points — to
Transubstantiation in the Eomanist's view, to Consubstantiation
in the Lutheran; and different ideas may be entertained
among ourselves as to the sense in which the Body and Blood
are contained in the Sacrament, or the Sacrament transmuted
into them, antecedently to the participation of the receiver. I
do not by any means intend to say that upon this latter
question there is not a grave truth and a grave error ; but I
must say with Hooker that the question does not relate to
necessary belief in regard to the doctrine of the Sacrament ;
and that a true participation of the Body and Blood of Christ
is the fundamental truth of the Eucharist. In Hooker's
language — " Whereas therefore there are but three expositions
made of ' this is my body ;' the first, ' this is in itself, before
participation, really and truly the natural substance of my
Body by. reason of the co-existence which my omnipresent
Body hath with the sanctified element of bread,' which is the
Lutheran's interpretation : the second, ' this is itself, and before
participation, the very true and natural substance of my Body,
by force of that Deity which with the words of consecration
abolisheth the substance of bread, and substituteth in the
place thereof my Body,' which is the Popish construction : the
last, ' this hallowed food, through concurrence of Divine Power,
is in verity and truth, unto faithful receivers, instrumentally
a cause of that mystical participation, whereby, as I make
myself wholly theirs, so I give them in hand an actual posses-
\ sion of all such saving grace as my sacrificed Body can yield,
and as' their souls do presently need, this is to them and in
them my Body.' Of these three rehearsed interpretations the
last hath in it nothing but what the rest do all approve and
acknowledge to be most true, nothing but that which the
words of Christ are on all sides confessed to enforce, nothing
but that which the Church of God hath always thought
necessary, nothing but that which alone is sufficient for every
Christian man to believe concerning the use and force of this
Sacrament."1 1 Ecclesiastical Polity, v. lxvii. 12.

2ig

XV.— LETTER TO THE REV. PROFESSOR STANLEY
ON THE ARTICLES.
(1863.)
My dear Professor Stanley, — You will not, I am sure,
be surprised if the appearance of your Letter to the Bishop of
London on the State of Subscription in the Church of England
excites great attention. The proposal to do away with the
whole of our existing subscriptions, coming from one of such
position — academical and ecclesiastical — such wide and justly-
acquired influence, and a personal character which has won the
attachment of so many of all parties in the Church, must raise
serious thought. You also quote the important observation of the
Bishop of London, made in his Lordship's recent Charge, that
"the whole subject of what our subscriptions ought to be
requires, and must receive, immediate attention " — an obser
vation which, coming from so high a quarter, indicates a critical
state of things — that this question is now removed from the
settled basis upon which it has so long rested, and is, to a
certain extent, re-opened.
I will, therefore, with your kind permission, address a few
remarks to you on this subject ; and first, I will state the limits
which I propose to myself. It is not my intention to go into
the whole of the contents of this momentous question, which
would be too large a field for a pamphlet. There are particular
statements in our Articles connected with the Eoman contro
versy ; and there is also the subscription to the Prayer-book,
as imposed by the Act of Uniformity. Both of these calls for
assent are supposed to constitute a grievance in two different
quarters. But I shall take a set of Articles, the characteristic
difficulty of which is their apparent collision, not only with
tenets of divines, but with common sense and natural feeling —

220 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
a ground of objection felt by a larger class than the theological
one. I refer to the Articles from IX. to XVII., relating to the
process of man's salvation, and containing statements apparently
opposed to free will and to the existence of the slightest
goodness in man in a state of nature. This is my field of
material, then, and with respect to this material I shall limit
myself to one point of view which I will explain, and for the
explanation of which I will ask a little preliminary space.
It appears to me a point which has not been sufficiently
attended to in our controversies on the subject of Subscription,
that where the language of a doctrinal formulary and the
language of the Bible are the same, whatever explanation we
give, in case there is a difficulty, of the language of the Bible
is applicable to the language of the formulary as well ; and that,
therefore, in such a case, the statement in the formulary is no
fresh difficulty, but only one which we have already surmounted
in accepting the same statement in the Bible. In such a case
the formulary is not, in truth, responsible for the apparently
obnoxious nature of the assertion it makes ; nor does a person
who has already assented to the same declaration in Scripture
incur any new responsibility when he assents to the formulary.
This appears to be a very simple and natural rule, and yet it
is one which a great many serious and most intelligent persons
never think of applying when they encounter difficulties in our
formularies. Their minds are in a different state and attitude
when they read the Bible from that in which they read a doc
trinal formulary. I do not mean simply that they know the
Bible to be inspired, and the other document not ; but that, as
readers, they are freer, more natural, more liberal in interpreting
the meaning of Scripture, than they are in interpreting the mean
ing of a formulary, even when it is exactly the same language
which is used in both. They come with the expectation of
finding ugly and repulsive matter in the human document;
and when, therefore, they do find what at first sight is such,
they fasten upon it that primd facie meaning as the true and
real meaning of the formulary, and will not let it go. No ; that
is its meaning, and that shall be its meaning, and nobody shall
persuade them that it is not. Whereas, when they came across

on the Articles. 221
the very same statement in the Bible, they accepted it with
a natural and obvious qualification.
To take the commonly- quoted instance of the damnatory
clauses, as they are called, in the Athanasian Creed, which
assert of the " Catholic faith," that " except a man believe it
faithfully he cannot be saved." The difficulty which is felt
about this assertion in the Athanasian Creed does not at all
relate to the nature of the credendum, or subject-matter of
belief — the doctrine of the Trinity — but to condemnation on
account of simple belief. Yet this point of condemnation on
account of belief is stated in Scripture as strongly as in this
Creed. It is asserted in terms, absolutely and positively, " He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shaU be damned." How is it, then, that when
those who object to the statement of condemnation on account
of beUef, when they meet it in the Athanasian Creed, did not
object to the same statement when they encountered it in
Scripture ? The reason is obvious — that when they met this
statement in Scripture they gave it the benefit of a liberal
interpretation. They did not suppose for an instant that this
text could mean that God, who is just and merciful, would
condemn a man simply on account of his not believing certain
truths, apart from all consideration of disadvantages of educa
tion, early prejudices, and want of opportunities and means of
enlightenment. They therefore regarded it immediately, I
might say unconsciously, as containing the unexpressed con
dition of moral responsibility, and understood the condemnation
only to apply to such as did not believe in consequence of
faults of their own. But if they gave the assertion this liberal
interpretation when they met it in the Bible, why cannot they
give it the same interpretation when they meet it in the
Athanasian Creed ? And if they do, this assertion in the Creed
can be no burden to them: it only asserts what Scripture
asserts, and need only mean what Scripture means.
It often depends entirely on the simple eye with which we
look upon a statement, whether we see in it a reasonable or a
monstrous assertion. In reading Scripture, these interpreters
saw the statement I am referring to in a natural light; it

b

222 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
never occurred to them to suppose that it could mean, really,
what it did mean rigidly and literaUy; they used a free
rational discretion in the way in which they understood it.
But when they came to the same statement in a Creed, they
forgot natural interpretation, and adopted artificial. I say
artificial, because there is nothing in fact so contrary to natural
interpretation, in many cases, as naked literal interpretation.
This latter is often the most artificial, far-fetched, and distorted
kind of interpretation we can give. Human language is an
imperfect instrument ; it is obUged to adopt many short and
summary forms of speech and modes of statement, leaving the
reader to supply of his own understanding the proper and
intended qualifications. I say, it is obliged to do this, because
indeed it is necessary for our practical convenience that it
should. It must limit itself in expression. Were language
really to express the whole amount of unexpressed conditions
which are contained ordinarily in it, it would become too
cumbrous an instrument for use. AU communication between
man and man would be clogged. It would take half an hour
to make a remark. To ask a question, we should have to
start we do not know whence, and end we do not know where.
Nor should we gain in perspicuity what we lost in despatch.
Language would then be uninteUigible from its very fulness and
cram. No head could take in such a crowd of detail. How
difficult of comprehension, for instance, is a legal document, not
from its defect, but its enormous supply of expression, resulting
from the cautious determination to state everything which in
ordinary language is left to be understood. Human language,
therefore, shortens and abridges itself; and it would surprise us
if we were to examine, and see how much we leave out in
ordinary speech and writing, which the hearer or reader is
intended to supply. When then language, by its normal con
struction, constantly leaves these unexpressed quaUfications for
us to supply, if we insist on that particular kind of interpreta
tion which does not supply them, we do not fulfil our part of
the arrangement. The bare literal interpretation in such cases
is not a tribute, but a positive injustice, to the statement to
which it is applied, misrepresenting its purpose, and distorting

on the Articles. 223
its meaning. The Uteral meaning is just the very opposite to
that which it especiaUy pretends to be — the natural meaning.
It is an ^natural meaning. It is artificial, when we know —
know by familiar and practical experience — that language is a
system of understandings, as well as of expressions, to insist, in
aU cases, upon the bare expression or the naked letter as its
adequate exponent. Yet we see on all sides persons rejecting
the warnings, the rules, and the checks of common sense, to
exult in this unreasonable law of interpretation.
I do not undertake here to define all the conditions under
which the principle of qualification should be applied, and the
guarantees for its legitimate operation : I only, as a matter of
common sense, assert the existence of such a principle. If a
man accepts the Gospel history with the qualification that it is
only mythical or symbolical narrative, that appears to me an
illegitimate quaUfication, whether applied to the Gospels or to
Lord Clarendon's History. But if either Lord Clarendon or an
inspired writer uses some particular expression which seems
obviously intended to be taken with a qualification, I would let
either have the benefit of it.
I might iUustrate this rule of appeal to Scripture by another
case, that of the Bishop's address to the Priest in the Ordina
tion Service — " Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ;
and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained." The
hesitation to accept this statement arises, I apprehend, from
the impossibility that a mere man can, under any circumr
stances, possess what is naturally meant by the power to forgive
sins — a power which is an attribute of the Deity alone. But
that men — some men, who were mere men, — did forgive sins, is
the express statement of Scripture. "Whosesoever sins ye
remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye
retain, they are retained." It is true that the authority which
communicates this power is different in Scripture and in the
Prayer-book, being in the one case our Lord, in the other the
Church ; and it is true that the men to whom it is communicated
are also different, being in the one case Apostles, in the other
priests : but the difficulty that its possessors were men is the
same in both cases. When we come then to the attribution of

224 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
this power to men in the Prayer-book, there is, on this head, no
fresh difficulty to which we are subjected, but only one which
we have already surmounted in accepting the same attribution
in Scripture. In Scripture, we of course assented to it, with
the reservation, — "Who can forgive sins but God only?"
That is to say, we took it in some sense consistent with that
truth ; and we have only to give the same explanation to it in
the Prayer-book.
Having explained then what I mean by this rule of inter
pretation, I will proceed soon to apply it to the Articles in
question. But, first of all, I must speak of these Articles
themselves, and show that they come under that head of
formulistic language to which this rule is applicable, namely,
that they speak the language of Scripture.
These Articles, then, have been sometimes represented as
simply scholastic and controversial ; the productions of the
laboratories of professional divines : distantly connected, indeed,
with some real and essential truth at the fountain-head ; but
so far removed from it by the successive stages of human
speculation through which they have passed, and the human
media which have coloured and modelled them, that they have
practically ceased to belong to the sphere of revelation, and
become a simply human and polemical fabric. Whatever
element of divine truth there may be in them has been so
completely metamorphosed in the passage, and so buried in the
incrustations of foreign matter from the department of specu
lative thought, that it has virtually lost its identity. But
though this is the theological description which is sometimes
given of this section of our Articles, I must frankly confess
that they appear to me to be, every one of them, the actual
statements of St. Paul. For identity of statement Uteral
tautology is not necessary ; it is enough if the evident sense
and meaning are the same. These Articles appear to me, then,
to say exactly the same thing that he does.
I will take the three which contain the substance of the
whole— Arts. IX., XI., and XVII. The first of the cardinal
statements of the IXth Article is, that " man is very far gone
from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to

on the Articles. 225
evil." Now what does St. Paul say ? I will quote one passage,
which only represents more vividly the general purport of his
language. In that passage the Apostle is evidently not
speaking of any particular corrupt state of society, or corrupt
age, or vicious circle ; he is speaking obviously of man alto
gether, of man as such in his natural state, and impersonating
such universal man, and therefore, speaking in the first person,
he says — " I am carnal, sold under sin . . . For I know
that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing . . .
For the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would
not that I do ... I see another law in my members warring
against the law of my mind, and bringing me into capitivity to
the law of sin. 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death ?" If man in the flesh, or natural
state, is under actual captivity to sin ; if he is sold under sin, and
if no good thing dwelleth in him, so that he never does the good
thing, and always does the evil thing ; then man — the natural
man — is certainly " very far gone from original righteousness."
He is even, if we are to press the term, " as far as possible
[quam longissime] gone from original righteousness :" for we
cannot imagine a condition more remote from righteousness
than this. No acts proceeding out of such a condition as this
can, of course, be " pleasant to God," as a subsequent Article
says. The other cardinal statement of the IXth Article is, that
this sinfulness of the natural man is not the mere fault of the
individual, but the " fault of his nature, as engendered of the
offspring of Adam." But St. Paul says exactly the same thing.
The universal sinfulness of the natural man is indeed, ipso facto,
a fault of nature ; for a universal result must proceed from
some law, and cannot be simply an "extraordinary coincidence "
— so many separate individuals happening to fall into the same
sinful character. But he also states this truth expressly,
sending us to Adam as the origin of the sin of aU mankind, —
" We are by nature the children of wrath . . . The old man is
corrupt . . . By one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin . . . By one man's offence death reigned by
one . . . Through the offence of one many be dead ... By
p

226 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemna
tion ... By one man's disobedience many were made sinners . . .
For since by man [by the analogy, an individual] came death, by
man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam
aU die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
The Xlth Article asserts the doctrine of justification by
faith only ; but this is so constantly asserted totidem verbis by
St. Paul, that I think anybody will admit that the language of
this Article is the language of St. Paul.
The XVIIth Article has been a great bone of contention.
Understood grammatically, this Article represents both the
ultimate salvation and also the preparatory Ufe and actions of all
who are saved, as the certain results of an eternal decree of
Predestination. " They which be endued with so excellent a
benefit of God are caUed, obey the calling, are justified," etc.
This statement, then, encounters the very natural objection
that it is opposed to the self-determination, or, as it is called,
freedom ofthe will, and to the Divine justice and impartiality :
it is, nevertheless, almost word for word, the statement of St.
Paul, — " whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son " — where that to which the
elect are predestinated is evidently not merely the happy end
on supposition of the qualification for it, but to the means or
qualification itself — being conformed to the image of Christ.
And so he continues,—" Whom He did predestinate them He
also caUed, and whom He called them He also justified : and
whom He justified them He also glorified."
I have just touched upon these Articles enough to show
the matter they contain; and now I must repeat, that they
cannot be regarded as dry formulae, structures of logic, and the
products of scholastic brains. They shoot up straight from the
very fount of Pauline teaching, are fresh from the vital source,
and are living and working doctrine, connected with the
spiritual sense of Christians. I need not say, in writing to
one who has gone so ably into the temper and genius of St.
Paul, and described so vividly the characteristics of that
Apostle's thought, that it is impossible to read his Epistles
without seeing that the mind of this inspired writer was put

on the Articles. 227
in possession of a most remarkable body of doctrine respecting
the nature and salvation of man — a doctrine substantiaUy the
same with that of the rest of Scripture, but certainly assuming
in his teaching a developed form. Human nature is first seen
in his revelation utterly prostrate and helpless ; unable to do
anything but sin; but still "alive," in this miserable sense,
that it is unconscious of its own degradation, and does not even
wish to rise. But then the Law comes and gives the finishing
stroke to m&n.,-^slays him, transfixing him with the sharp con
sciousness of his guilt, and then leaving him to himself. This
completes the work of death. In this state of things, then,
the mighty Deliverer appeared, wiped off man's guUt by the
unspeakable Sacrifice, and offered to recreate him : — but only on
one condition, namely, that the change should be acknowledged
as entirely His doing, and not man's. This is the act of justify
ing faith, which disowns works ; upon which act of self-rejec
tion the soul is new-created, and is endowed with a Spirit not
its own, which impels, sustains, and elevates it with irresistible
might, so that it rises above earth and mounts heavenwards.
But why are not all saved thus ? It is the " purpose of God
according to election . . . having mercy on whom He will
have mercy." St. Paul thus begins and ends alike with a pro
found mystery : he begins with the mystery of the Fall, and he
ends with the mystery of Predestination. And in this sphere
of inspiration he shoots from depth to height, descends to the
lower parts of the earth, and ascends far above aU things ; sits
in the dust with faUen nature, and soars beyond the clouds
with renewed nature ; not in regular alternations, but with the
zigzag of lightning in a storm, giving full vent to that quick
and lively principle of openness which expresses every paren
thetical emotion as it rises ; and makes his style so free and
flexible an instrument of his mind, almost like thinking aloud.
And both his depth and his height, both his picture of vile and
helpless man, and his picture of man upraised and carried on
by a divine impulse, have a response in the human heart.
They are the doctrines of human nature as well as of revelation.
For, in truth, the sense of sin in man is infinite, and the sense
of dependence in him and of invisible support is infinite too.

228 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
A man cannot measure his sin and say that it is so much and
no more ; and a man cannot limit that sense of being elevated
by a Power outside of him which he has when he emerges from
sin; that feeling of dependence which is helplessness and
strength combined; which is not sadness, but exultation,
because everything seems to be done for him, and he is carried
along by an unfailing impulse from without : — a feeling which
even great men of the world have often had in their own sphere
of action, and which has invariably been, when they had it,
their great source of strength. For it is a known fact of human
character, that a man is never so vigorous, so decided, so
unchangeably resolute and determined, so inaccessible to every
attempt to divert him, and so elevated above every Obstacle
and barrier in his way — if it happens to be a wrong cause —
so deaf to all reason, and so irrevocably and incorrigibly per
tinacious and obstinate, as when he declares that he himself
does nothing and wills nothing, but is only following and
receiving an unseen motion from without. I say, then, that
the sense of sin in man and the sense of dependence are both
infinite. It is this latter principle of self-rejection which
constitutes the essence of that act of faith which is said by
St. Paul to be justifying. It is a matter of simple feeling and
common sense that mere works do not satisfy us, as marks of
goodness. Nature herself desiderates a certain running accom
paniment of self-rejection, emptying every good work, as fast
as it is done, of its merits in the doer's eyes : and this ulterior,
more remote, and deeper principle is the secret of that type
of character which is an object of love. Do we not sometimes
meet persons who suggest the remark, how much more we
should justify them, or account them righteous, if they would do
fewer good works, and do them better ; if their left hand did
not know so accurately what their right hand did ? It was this
deep, ulterior principle, to which good works are but the ante
chamber, which Luther pursued with eager penetration, grasped
with extravagant force, and expressed with bUnd and headstrong
audacity, in some of his well-known dicta in disparagement of
works. Such is the witness of nature to St. Paul's doctrine of justi
fication, which embodies a great truth of morals as well as of faith.

on the Articles. 229
This set of Articles, then, appears to me to give a plain,
unpretending summary of this language of St. Paul. They
adopt the range of St. Paul, beginning with the mystery of the
Fall, and ending with the mystery of Predestination, and they
foUow him throughout. Human nature is prostrate in the
IXth Article ; it throws itself upon a Eedeemer in the Xlth,
and performs the act of self-abandonment ; it is raised to the
heavenly life here in the XHIth ; and it ascends to glory in
the XVIIth. It is quite true that we miss in them the
peculiarly poetical effect which we have in the Epistles of
St. Paul. But the defect is one of form rather than of substance.
The Book of Job, for example, is a book which, contains the
most striking, beautiful, and majestic truths respecting Provid
ence, human destiny, and design of our present existence ; but
these truths owe a good deal of the impression they make upon
our imagination to the form in which they come before us —
the wUdness, the abruptness, the quick exclamation, the
impassioned complaint, the angry self- vindication ; the indigna
tion turning suddenly into the cry of the suppliant, obstinately
unyielding, but conscious of utter helplessness ; knowing that
it is useless to contend against Infinite Power ; and so tenderly
deprecating, while he all but defies, the Hand that crushes
him. If all this was transformed into twelve propositions with
headings, the effect on the imagination would be a good deal
impaired. And yet every truth that is contained in the book
might be stated correctly in this shape, and might demand our
assent as the evident doctrine of the Book of Job.
Although, therefore, one school in the Church is charged
with too exclusive a devotion to St. Paul, we must stUl all
acknowledge his teaching to be part and parcel of Christianity.
And, therefore, had the Articles stopped with the historical or
Gospel account of our Lord, and not gone on to St. Paul's doctrine,
they would have been plainly quite defective as a representa
tion of Christianity ; giving a part and not the whole. This
great Apostle has indeed moulded and worded the theology of
Christendom in its internal, or, as it is called, subjective region.
We meet him in every Confession of Faith, Eomanist and
Puritan, and all agree in understanding him to say what these

230 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
Articles understand him to say. They extract the same main
doctrines from him.1 Indeed, the most difficult doctrine — that
of Predestination— has been interpreted as CalvinisticaUy by
the greatest Eoman doctors as by Calvin himself.
These Articles, then, being solid portions of Scripture, I
will now apply that rule of interpretation to them to which I
have called attention, — viz., that in whatever sense, and with
whatever explanation, we accept these statements in Scripture,
we may understand them in that sense, and apply that explana
tion to them, when we meet them in the Articles. We cannot
suppose that this language has one meaning in the Articles
and another in Scripture. It is quite true, that if we interpret
Scripture wrong, then, by the application of this rule, we shall
interpret the Articles wrong : but this is no fault of the rule
itself, but of the particular interpretation of which it is made
the channel : no fault of the rule of transferring the sense of
Scripture to the Articles, but only of the particular supposed
sense which is transferred.
Let us take the IXth Article. Here is the statement that
man, in his natural state, is very far gone — quam longissime —
from original righteousness. Was Socrates, then, was Plato,
was Phocion, was Titus, was Trajan, was Marcus Antoninus,
1 " Si quis non confitetur primum hominem Adam, quum mandatum Dei
in paradiso fuisset transgressus . . . mortem incurrisse, et cum morte captiv-
itatem sub ejus potestate qui mortis deinde habuit imperium, hoc est diaboli . . .
anathema sit.
"Si quis inquinatum ilium mortem tantum in omne genus humanum
transtulisse, non autem et peccatum quod mors est animse ; anathema sit." —
CouncU of Trent, Sess. v.
" Gratis autem justificari ideo dicamur, quia nihil eorum quse justifica-
tionem pnecedunt, sive fides sive opera, ipsam justificationis gratiam prom-
eretur. Si enim gratia est jam non ex operibus, alioquin, ut Apostolus
inquit, gratia jam non est gratia." — Council of Trent, Sess. vi. 0. 8. In
Chapter v. the Council denies that any works done before the bestowal of
grace merit that grace. ' ' Declarat justificationis exordium in adultis a prse-
veniente gratia sumendum, hoc est, ab ejus vocatione, qua nullis eorum
existentibus meritis, vocantur." The modification of merit de congruo,
entertained by one party in the Roman Church, was denounced by another.
" Sunt alii non contenti gratia gratis, data, sed volunt quod vendatur a Deo,
et ematur ab eis aliquo pretio licet viii, congruo tamen ut asserunt, non
condigno. Dicunt enim homines ex solis propriis viribus gratiam Dei mereri
de congruo, non autem de condigno. Et quia iste error est famosior cseteris
his diebus, etc.'.' — Bradwardine, lib. i. c. 39.
Bradwardine, called the Profound Doctor, was Archbishop of Canterbury
in the reign of Edward III.

on the Articles. 231
as far as possible gone from original righteousness ? Were
they each and all of them as wicked as they could possibly be ?
I answer this question by asking another. Were they sold
under sin, were they under captivity to the law of sin, and did
no good thing dwell in them ? These statements of St. Paul
apply to all mankind in their natural state ; and therefore they
include, in their literal scope, Socrates, Phocion, Marcus
Antoninus, and every virtuous heathen that ever lived. But
when we accepted these statements of St. Paul, we accepted
them with the interpretation that they were not intended by
the inspired writer to conflict with the plain fact of experience,
that men, even in a state of nature, have a certain power of
doing right actions and avoiding wrong ones ; that some are
better than others ; and that some have been very good men —
a fact which St. Paul himself recognises elsewhere, in the
allusion " to the Gentiles, which do by nature the things con
tained in the law." We have only to apply, then, the same
explanation to the same statements in the Articles. It is a
right, and a duty as well, to do so ; otherwise we make the
language of Scripture mean differently in Scripture and out
of Scripture ; that is, when, simply for convenience' sake, it is
extracted from the page of the Bible and put in a separate
passage before us. We cannot do this. The language of
Scripture is, in truth, always in Scripture : if it be separated
from it to the eye, it is incorporated with it to the mind. It
must always have that meaning which we give to it when we
read the Bible and come across it there. We give St. Paul's
language, when we meet it in his Epistles, the benefit of what
is, in the particular case, a natural interpretation : natural,
because not rigidly literal. We may give the same to theArticle.
We come to another statement in the same Article, that this
sinfulness of the natural man is the fault of his nature, that
is, to the doctrine of Original Sin, or of the Fall of the whole
human race in Adam. How is this consistent with the Divine
justice ? I answer this question also by asking another. How
is the same language in St. Paul consistent with Divine justice?
When we accepted that whole body of language in St. Paul,
which plainly asserts the spiritual death of the whole human

232 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
race in Adam, we accepted it either in a sense which reconciled
it to our own understanding with the Divine justice, or in a
mysterious and incomprehensible sense. We can apply the
same senses to it when we meet it in the Article.
We come to the Xlth Article. Here is the great theme of
so many controversies, — the assertion of Justification by Faith
only. How is this to be explained in consistency with the
express declaration of St. James, that a man is justified by
works ? I answer this question, too, by asking another. How
is St. Paul to be explained in consistency with St. James ?
When we came across the doctrine of Justification by Faith
only in St. Paul, we explained it — as we were bound to do —
in some way which made it consistent with St James's literal
assertion of the contrary ; " for we may not so expound one
place of Scripture as to be repugnant to another." We have
onlythen to apply the same interpretation to that doctrine when
we meet it in the Article. As encountered in St. Paul, it is
ipso facto consistent with St. James, by reason of the unity of
Scripture : and what it means in St. Paul it means in the Article.
We come to the XHIth Article. Here is the statement
that " works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration
of His Spirit are not pleasant to God, but rather have the
nature of sin." Was no act, then, of a heathen, however
generous and heroic, ever pleasant to God? I answer this
question, also, by asking another — the same I asked before,
— Was every heathen sold under sin, in captivity to the law
of sin ? If so, then every act of his must have corresponded
to that condition. The literal sense of St. Paul is evidently
opposed to the performance of any good action by man in a
state of nature. But we have'taken the language of St. Paul
with a qualification : and we can take the language of the
Article with the same.
We come to the XVIIth Article, and the known crux it
offers. Is everlasting happiness, then, the result of an eternal
and sovereign decree on the part of God, predestinating certain
persons to it, and to the quaUfications for it, — the call, the
obeying the call, justification, conformation to Christ's image,
and good works ? I can reply, what is simply, the truth, that

on the Articles. 233
St. Paul says exactly the same thing. His language and the
Article's language are the same. We have only, then, to give
the same meaning to it in the Article that we have given to it
in St. Paul. One who thinks with Bishop Tomline, that by
those who are " predestinated to be conformed to Christ's image,"
to be called, justified, and glorified, St. Paul only means " that
part of mankind to whom God hath decreed to make known
the Gospel," will, of course, give that meaning to the same
language in the Article. One who adopts the interpretation
noticed by Bishop Burnet, that when St. Paul describes
holiness of Ufe or conformity to Christ as the effect of pre
destination, he means that it is the cause of it, will explain the
assertion of the Article in the same way. One who adopts the
Calvinistic interpretation of St. Paul will give the Calvinistic
interpretation to the Article. One who adopts the last-named
interpretation of St. Paul, with the reserve that it only expresses
one side of a great mysterious truth, will adopt the same
interpretation of the Article with the same reserve.
I will venture to hope that my argument up to this point
contains a good deal which wiU more or less meet with your
concurrence. And I will hazard the prophecy that you will
not stop me if I go a step further, and say that these Articles,
interpreted in this way, do not impose any great difficulty upon
the subscriber. The difficulty, whatever it may be, has been
forestalled ; it has been met and dealt with in a prior stage
of this business, so that when we come to the Article the
encounter is past and over. There is no fresh stumbling-block,
but only one which we have already surmounted ; nor have
we to originate an explanation, but only to repeat one. The
whole brunt of the struggle has been borne by Scripture, and
under the shelter of that intervening barrier the Articles
reclined in peace, and only awaited the issue of the combat
outside of them which was to decide their explanation. That
is the peculiarity of the position, if we may call it so — the
military position of these structures. Their battle is fought
upon the ground of Scripture. They are saved the exposure to
the open sea of interpretation, the waves of which dash upon
the rock of inspiration before they reach them, and having

234 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
spent their force leave a comparative haven for hard- worked
and exhausted exegesis.
And this peculiarity in the position of the Articles should
perhaps be remembered when surprise is expressed at the fact
that so large a number of propositions should be accepted by
so large a number of men. This fact in itself, and indepen
dently of its antecedents, would indeed be astonishing, and
might well excite an ironical curiosity. But this fact has one
very remarkable antecedent, which goes some way in explain
ing it, and makes it more natural and less extraordinary than
it otherwise would be ; and that is, that a particular book or
collection of writings, namely, the Bible, has been accepted by
all Christians as an inspired book, and though we differ among
ourselves as to the points to which inspiration extends, all
would acknowledge doctrine as coming under the guarantee of
it. When a set of articles, then, is constructed, so far as their
statements are in the language of Scripture, so far they are
ipso facto statements universally accepted. The agreement as
to accepting them pre-exists in the universal acceptance of
Scripture. We start with a common reservoir and depository
of language, which at once secures a common reception for all
the language taken from it. The meaning will be disputed
because the meaning of the Bible is disputed, but the state
ments are of common acceptance because the statements in the
Bible are.
This peculiarity, too, in the position of the Articles, should
perhaps be remembered when notice is taken of the great
diversity of senses in which the Articles are subscribed.
" What discord — what variation," it is said, " what a mockery
of agreement is here ! — people accepting the same statements,
but every one understanding them in his own sense." But
does not all this go on long prior to the Articles in the treat
ment of Scripture ? Would not all this go on if the Articles
were swept out of existence to-morrow, and expunged from the
Church's tablet? There would be still the statements of
Scripture accepted by all, but in different senses by different
schools. There would be still that formal profession of agree
ment so far in advance of the reality, which some might call a

on the Articles. 235
mockery and pretence, and which, indeed, would be this, as
much as, and no more than, our agreement in the Articles.
Should not this peculiarity, too, in the position of the
Articles be remembered, when the complicated nature of the
structure is noticed ? It is true it is a complicated fabric, but
is not Scripture as much so — indeed more so — by how much it
is, in terms, more comprehensive than the Articles ? Upon the
subject, for example, of Justification, the letter of the Articles
is less complicated than the letter of the Bible ; the latter con
sisting of two apparently opposite assertions, the former con
sisting of only one assertion. But does the attribute of
simplicity really belong to the scheme of human salvation, as
described in the page of Scripture ? — a scheme which, starting
with a mysterious depravation of our nature, as mysteriously
remedies it, and brings things to their issue by a circuitous pro
cess of rectification, instead of by a straight and direct course ?
I take the actual language of the Bible, as it meets my eye, and
I say, it is not simple language. It is complicated language.
It is language which expresses a complication of some kind or
other in the invisible world of man's relations to God and
God's relations to man ; something out of order in nature which
requires to be met by supernatural means. And St. Paul dis
closes a human interior corresponding to this intricacy of
Divine truth, and Uluminates with his torch a cavern awful in
its depths and recesses, when he reveals man to himself. And
are there not oppositions which can only be harmonised by
interpretation in that Volume, which expresses doctrinal truth
by statement and counter- statement, but not always by
simplicity and unity of statement ?x
It appears to me, then, that whatever became of the Articles,
the self-same difficulties, and the self-same way of meeting
them, would go on amongst us ; that we should still accept a
complicated mass of statement, and that we should accept that
1 The Bishop of Oxford (Bp. Wilberforce), speaking of our Formularies,
says : ' ' Such a state of things is rather a combination than » compromise.
And this is the special character of Catholic Truth. For all revealed religion
rests upon certain great principles ; which the human mind can hold together
in what it knows to be a true concord, whilst yet it cannot always by its intel
lectual processes limit^ define, and reconcile what its higher gift of intuition
can harmonise. " — Charge, 1860.

236 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
mass of statement in a variety of senses according to the par
ticular school to which we belong. The Articles are, many of
them, but a reflection of Scripture, and their interpretation but
the reflection of the interpretation of Scripture. Were the
representative document to go, the original document itself
would stiU remain to be the subject-matter of conflicting ex
planations, to be language accepted by aU alike and understood
by different sections differently, and to be the basis of doctrinal
variety under the form of one and the same subscription.
There is, indeed, a difference between the language of these
Articles and that of Scripture, to which I have alluded. I
observe that you characterise the set of Articles which has
formed the subject of these remarks as " polemical." I should
not myself apply that term to them, but I should admit that
they gave a special prominence to one side of Scripture language.
I should admit, for example, what is a simple fact, that the
Xlth Article reflects the language of St. Paul on Justification,
and does not reflect that of St. James ; and that the XVIIth
Article represents the Predestinarian side of Scripture, and
not the free-will side of Scripture. But Articles, which are
" polemical " only in this sense, that they give prominence to
certain statements of Scripture and keep others in the back
ground, offer no difficulty to a subscriber on that account.
Because the only question which he has to consider is not
whether other statements are not in Scripture, but whether these
statements are. If they are there he has accepted them in
their place in Scripture, and he has only to accept them in
the same sense in the Articles. He has accepted, for instance,
St. Paul's assertion of Justification by faith only. Wherever,
then, and whenever, he meets that assertion afterwards, he can
accept it. It makes no difference to him that St. James's state
ment is absent, if the statement which is present is St. Paul's.
I gather, however, from some observations I have met with,
that what is called the " act " of subscribing, as distinguished
from a general obligation to hold a certain collection of doctrine,
is very distasteful to some. I can allow this feeling to be con
sistent with perfect honesty of subscription. We are accus
tomed to the private act of understanding language with a

on the Articles. 237
certain liberty, and qualifying the letter ; and we could not get
on without a moderate Ucence of this kind in our reading or
intercourse. I need not repeat the remarks I made some pages
back on this point. But when we are — to use a coUoquial
expression — "pulled up" by a form — a solemn act in the
presence of others, we would certainly rather have language
which did not require qualification to subscribe to. We are,
for example, all agreed upon the qualification we give to the
Scripture precept, "Swear not at all;" but had any of us to
declare solemnly in an assembly of Quakers that he believed it
to be wrong to " swear at all," he would do it with the unpleas
ant consciousness that everybody present regarded him as
taking an unwarrantable liberty in making that declaration in
the sense in which he did. Could we caU up from their sleep
the scholastic doctors of a thousand years, there would be the
same feeling in declaring before that venerable assembly our
belief in the truth that "he that believeth not shall be
damned," because we do not take this text literally, and they
did. And so in the case of the Articles — a public act of sub
scription, even if made only in the presence of a few officials,
conjures up in imagination a dissentient row, who would look
upon the sense in which we accepted one or other Article as
an evasion. But if we are conscious of our own integrity, this
feeling, though not unnatural, is easily met.
The formal " act " of subscription, again, in the presence of
officials, conjures up the idea of lawyers' documents and
lawyers' forms, to which class of compositions qualification
does not apply, because it is their very purpose to express all
that in ordinary language is left to be understood. But this is
not the language in which the Articles of which I am speaking
are drawn up. They are drawn up substantially in the language
of Scripture ; and the language of Scripture is not " lawyers'
language," but the natural language of mankind, which some
times leaves room for qualification. They represent the full
and literal sense of St. Paul; but St. Paul writes in natural
language, not in "lawyers' language.",
Although, therefore, the " act " of subscribing may involve —
in an atmosphere of difference of opinion, — a sense of collision

238 Letter to the Rev. Professor Stanley
with others which is not agreeable, it must be remembered that
this coUision has really gone on before in the interpretation of
Scripture, and that our subscription has virtually been made
prior to the formal act, in our own rooms, over our books, in
our own thoughts.
It does not appear to me, then, that in the compartment
which I have been reviewing, subscription presses hard. I
have selected one set of Articles, those relating to the process
of man's salvation, because here are statements which come
into apparent coUision, not only with the tenets of particular
schools, but the natural feelings of mankind. And it appears
to me that these Articles copy St. Paul's doctrine so faithfuUy,
that we have accepted them in accepting St. Paul, and have
only got to understand them in the same sense in which we
understand him. — " But if you claim the acceptance of these
Articles on the ground that they are the language of the Bible,
why not be satisfied with the acceptance of the Bible ?" That
is a proper question in its place, but I have only to deal here
with an alleged difficulty or grievance ; and I say that there is
no grievance in subscribing to these statements if these state
ments are in Scripture. "But you are virtually maintaining
the German ' quatenus,' that the subscriber's assent to the
Articles is only assent to them so far as they are in Scripture."
No ; the rule which I have been applying is the rule, that if
the language of an Article and Scripture is the same, the sense
is the same. The " quatenus," on the other hand, gives the
individual the liberty to decide for himself that the language of
the two disagrees, and to take the one and reject the other.
The conclusion which I arrive at, then, is that, over the
ground on which I have been travelling, relief from subscription
is not wanted. We may, I think, be quite sure that a very
large amount of forbearance will always be secured for the
results of individual speculation by the natural operation of
reasonable feelings in the members of the Church, without
instituting any organic change. Our system is one which
raises the greatest possible difficulties in the way of prosecu
tion of individuals — not only formal difficulties, but difficulties
of feeling. Ours is a system which encourages inquiry and

on the Articles. 239
sets minds to work. When, then, we have sanctioned an
active principle of examination at the outset, and when we
have Uved side by side with the gradual growth of individual
thought, in the same institution, under the same roof, the
sanction of the process must, to a certain extent, affect us even
in dealing with its results, when they are erroneous, and must
operate as a great practical check upon the temper in which we
condemn them. A limit of course there must be to freedom
of opinion within a communion which professes a definite
creed. I cordially agree with the remarks of the Bishop of
London,1 made with much vigour and naturalness, upon this
combination of duties which devolves upon us. But philoso
phical feelings, social feelings, and equitable views, will always
be a strong self-acting barrier against the impatient treatment
of the errors of inteUectual men, without recourse to a formal
alteration of our ecclesiastical basis.
I am, Yours very sincerely,
J. B. MOZLEY.
1 Bishop Tait.

240

XVI.— THE COLONIAL CHURCH QUESTION.
The crisis through which the Colonial Church is now
passing is the result of a collision between two great principles,
one in the faith, the other in the working constitution of our
Church ; one a religious principle, the other a legal one ; one
the doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture, the other "the
legal principle of construction," as applied to our Formularies.
Were a person asked offhand what the motive working in the
present critical movement of the Colonial Church was, he
would reply, perhaps, that it was a wish to free itself from the
Eoyal Prerogative. But this would not be a proper description
of it. The Colonial Churches do not object to the Eoyal Pre
rogative as such ; rather they would gladly accept it as a
centre around which to gather, uniting them with each other,
and with the Church at home, in one ecclesiastical system.
What is objected to is a particular legal mode of working the
Eoyal Prerogative ; a particular judicial principle with which
it is now identified. Nor is it this principle itself, that is, not
its ordinary action, which is objected to, but its working in one
particular case, and upon one particular question, with which it
is in its very nature unfitted to deal.
When we speak of the " legal principle of construction," in
its primary sense, we mean a very natural and equitable prin
ciple, namely, that when the Church makes a statement, that
statement should be interpreted according to its literal meaning.
There can be no doubt as to the justice of this principle as
applied to all truth which can be put into documentary shape,
that is, can be formally stated. " The legal principle of con
struction" is in these cases only another name for the principle
of correct and natural interpretation of language. But when we

The Colonial Church Question. 241
speak of " the legal principle of construction " in a secondary
sense, we mean by it another thing — we mean the confinement
and restriction of the Church to this' naked documentary
criterion. The use of the documentary criterion is one thing,
the confinement of the Church to it is another thing. " Our
ecclesiastical judges," says the Bishop of London,1 " without
absolutely committing themselves to it in the abstract, have
practically acted on the principle that they must be guided
entirely by the written law of the Church, known and under
stood and acquiesced in by all who are subject to their
authority." 2 In other words, a man is only bound not to
contradict the written statements of the Church; if any
assertion does not contradict these, he may make it. But in
this secondary sense, or as a confining principle, "the legal
principle of construction" is defective as an instrument of
defence to the Church. For though it deals well enough
with truth which can be put into documentary shape or be
formally stated, what if there is truth which cannot be put
into documentary shape, or cannot be formaUy stated, but yet
for the security of which the Church ought to provide ? This
becomes then an insufficient instrument, and there is some
thing which has to be guarded, but which is not guarded by
this defence. But such a truth is the doctrine of the inspiration
of Scripture. When I say that the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture
is not capable of being formally stated, I mean this : — Did the
Church impose upon her members the position that the infal
libility of Scripture covers every single statement in it without
exception, for example, the minutest genealogical and chrono
logical statement, every physical and astronomical statement ?
Such a doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture could be stated,
because it was thus universal in application, and covered every
particular. But without going into a great and profound contro
versy, it is enough, in the present instance, to say that the Church
does not impose this interpretation of the infallibiUty of Scrip
ture as necessary, and therefore the doctrine of the Inspiration
of Scripture, which has to be laid down or assumed in an Article
1 Bishop Tait. 2 Charge, p. 45, delivered 1867.
Q

242 The Colonial Church Question.
of the Church, is a modified and qualified doctrine, or admitting
of a modified and qualified interpretation. Such a doctrine is
laid down or assumed in our Articles, in which the Bible is
said to be " the Word of God." The statement that Scripture
is " the Word of God " certainly attaches a general infallibility
to Scripture ; but it does not in the meaning of the Church
oblige the extension of the cover of infaUibility to every single
physical, astronomical, genealogical, chronological statement of
Scripture. Again, the Church requires " belief in all the
Canonical Scriptures ; " but the belief of the person carries the
same latitude as the infallibility of the book.
But because the Church thus leaves a margin — if I may be
allowed to use such a term upon such a subject — in her doctrine
of the infallibility of Scripture, does she acquiesce in the
rejection of the historical and other general truth of Scripture
to any extent and amount whatever ? in a general liberty to
attribute error to Scripture judgments on persons and things ?
in the treatment, in short, of Scripture as an ordinary book
generally, only reserving the authority of certain specific
statements in it ? This is a question of fact, and the answer to
it depends on what is, as a matter of fact, the nature of the
belief which has been held, and is held now, in the Christian
body respecting the inspiration of Scripture. What is the
character of this belief? Is it such a belief as does not feel
itself at all contradicted or challenged by a wholesale rejection
of the truth of Scripture, but feels itself fitting in and uniting
with such a rejection ? taking it easily, and as a matter of
course, as something which came within its own scope, and for
which it already allowed ? or, on the contrary, is it such a
belief as, upon the supposition of Scripture being largely false
or fabulous, feels an immediate shock, and revolts from the
idea? This being a question, then, relating to a matter of fact, there
can be no reasonable hesitation how it must be decided. I can
no more doubt as to the general character of the belief which
has been in possession of the Christian body from the first, and
is in possession of it now, on the subject of the Inspiration of
Scripture, than I can doubt about the plainest facts of history

The Colonial Church Question. 243
or society. The Christian Church has been always penetrated
with an idea of the Inspiration of Scripture which utterly
refuses to amalgamate with this critical conception of Scripture,
and which demands another attitude towards the Bible. This
book stood alone in the world, as bearing the Divine stamp, and
being an authoritative account of the dealings of God with man
in the great matter of human salvation. This was its great
communication; but inasmuch as this extended through a
succession of revelations, and involved the career of a whole
people, and the varied contributions from national history and
personal history to the one leading purpose of God ; and inas
much as all that contributed to the execution of the great plan
came under the cover of it, and partook of its spiritual
providential character, the seal of inspiration did not attach
to one or other part, or to one or other ingredient in the book
only, but it attached to the book as a whole. Thus the belief
of the Church fits in with one measure of latitude on the sub
ject of inspiration, it does not fit in with another. Differences
of degree are not always mere differences of quantity. One
measure of personal' liberty is consistent with civil government,
another is not; one degree constitutes temperance, another
intemperance. Distinctions of degree, then, may be distinc
tions of principle. The Church has treated the difference "
between one measure of latitude on the subject of inspiration
and another as a distinction of principle ; and has regarded
one latitude as inconsistent (and indeed in the actual history
of men's minds it appears to be so) with the belief even of a
true revelation in Scripture.
But though the distinction between one latitude and
another in the treatment of Scripture is a real one, and a
real practical part of the belief of the Church, it is a distinction
which is utterly incapable of being stated in an Article. If a
margin on this subject is allowed at all in the belief of the
Church, that margin cannot be defined. The merest slip of
logical territory, and the breadth which covers the whole
domain but the merest slip, come exactly under the same formal
statement or absence of statement. The infringement of the
merest edge of the field of inspiration and the irruption into

244 The Colonial Church Question.
its very centre come under the same definition or absence of
definition. If the most insignificant genealogical fact, or
chronological fact, or physical fact, is allowed to escape out of
the shield of infallibility, the same opening which lets out
these facts lets out logically a thousand more. A chronolo
gical fact, a genealogical fact, and even a physical fact, it will
be said, is an historical fact ; if one kind of historical fact may
be wrong, another may be ; if one fact may be wrong, a whole
history may be.
It is impossible, therefore, to draw a line in an Article
between a margin and any invasion the most extensive of the
historical infallibility of Scripture. From which it foUows
that, our Articles leaving a margin, no such invasion contradicts
the Articles ; and that, " the legal principle of construction "
admitting anything which does not contradict the Articles, no
such invasion is prohibited by the " legal principle of construc
tion." This legal principle must interpret an opening, as
literally as it interprets a statement ; it binds itself not to
meddle with anything ; as the opening is, so must it admit ;
anything is to go through it which can go through it.
The prohibition, indeed, of one measure of latitude, as dis
tinguished from another, being wanted, people have gone to
the Articles for it. " It must be in the Articles ; is it in the
first, is it in the second, is it in the third ?" The truth is, it is
not in any Article, it cannot be in any Article ; the very nature
of the subject excludes it from the defining grasp of an Article.
How can a distinction of measure, of degree, of application,
admit of formal definition ? If there is a difficulty inherent in
the subject of Inspiration which throws the doctrine upon the
common sense and the fundamental belief of Christians for its
treatment, such a circumstance would have a parallel in many
parts of the Divine dispensations ; but it would plainly take
the doctrine out of the sphere of formal propositions. It is
sometimes said that the questions connected with the doctrine
of Inspiration were not mooted in the days when our Articles
were written ; and the omission of any statement in them to
meet the excesses in the historical criticism of the Sacred
Volume has been accounted for on that ground. But the cause

The Colonial Church Question. 245
of the omission in the Articles lies far deeper ; it springs from
the very root, and out of the intrinsic complexity of the subject.
Were a whole Synod of divines, with the full knowledge of the
latest inroads upon the historical region of Scripture, to deliberate
together to frame a formula to express the doctrine of the infaUi-
bility of Scripture, the formula they would devise, if it did
not trench upon the designed latitude of our Articles, would
express just as much as, and no more than, the phrase in the
Article expresses, namely, that the Bible is the " Word of God."
It would be chargeable with just the same defect as a guarantee
which accompanies the existing formula. It is no fault of our
Articles that they do not state what is incapable of being
stated ; but that does not alter the matter-of-fact result, namely,
that the Articles in their legal construction do not prohibit the
^extent of criticism now spoken of.
We have got then as far as this — that the Church has a
decided belief on the subject of the Inspiration of Scripture ;
but that, as that belief is incapable of being defined and stated
in an Article, the Article in its legal construction does not
guard that belief. But, arguing upon principles of equity,
does the Church lose her right over truth because she cannot
formally state it ? That is the next question which comes.
Does it debar her in justice from requiring from her ministers
a certain mode of treating the inspiration of Scripture, that she
cannot formally define that mode ? I cannot see, myself, the
necessary connection between these two. When the Christian
Church started upon her career she found herself in custody of
different kinds of sacred deposits. She was, in the first place,
the guardian of various doctrines which were capable of being
formally stated. These doctrines then were stated in Creeds,
Confessions, Articles, Formularies ; and the doctrines having
been stated, those statements are the proper subject of legal
construction. No unexpressed intention on the part of the
Church has the right to insinuate itself here ; she has no right
to play fast and loose with the principle of Creeds and Articles ;
to put forth explicit doctrine and supplement it where she
pleases by implicit ; when she has made her statements she
must take her stand upon them, or, if they are defective, alter

246 The Colonial Church Question.
them ; and the grammatical, the literal, the legal interpretation
of these statements is the just one. But there was another
sacred deposit which could not be treated in this way. This
was .not a doctrine or collection of doctrines, but a Book or
collection of books. The attitude of the Church toward this
Book was what was above described. An infallibility attached
to the Book as a whole, but that infallibiUty at the same time
was not, as a matter of necessary belief, strained to include
particular minutiae, where the enforcement of it would indeed,
in the opinion of some, have detracted from, rather than added
to, its dignity and grandeur. Simply then, and in a word, the
doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture could not be stated.
But there was a doctrine of it, a strong, a vigorous, a deep
doctrine of it in the mind of the Church. A certain attitude
was taken toward the Bible, and that attitude was as well
understood as anything in religion. A certain mode of treating
Scripture would at once have been denounced as in utter
discord with the character of the Book. Because then the
Church has only stated and documentary rights over truth
which she can state and put into a documentary shape, has she
no rights which are not stated, and are not documentary, over
other truth which is incapable of such expression ? Because
the general mode of treatment due to the inspiration of Scrip
ture cannot be defined, does she possess no jurisdiction what
ever with respect to the general treatment of the Inspiration
of Scripture ?
I do not see, as I have just said, what is the connection
between those two ; or that the right to guard certain truth,
and require the practical recognition of it, depends upon the
circumstance of such truth's capability of being formally stated.
This circumstance with regard to the right to guard does not
appear relevant. If there is a belief respecting Scripture which
is deep in the Church's mind, which is a thorough part and an
inseparable part of her belief in Eevelation, which touches the
foundation of her whole faith, which it is all-important and
positively necessary to guard for the security of the faith of her
members, — to say that this belief cannot be defended because
it cannot be put into a formal proposition does seem a kind of

The Colonial Church Question. 247
pedantry. You have the right to the thing ; the thing exists
all the same, whether or not it can be logically defined. True,
if you can formally state a truth, you are bound upon the
principle of Creeds and Articles to do so, and in lack of such
statement you must take the consequences, because the
omission is your own fault. But here it is no fault of yours
that you do not state the truth, you are not able, the truth is
of such a nature ; you are not responsible for the nature of the
truth. The only form, therefore, in which the right can exist,
being that of a right over an unstated and undefined truth, the
right is justified in existing in that form. The impossibiUty
of defining the truth constitutes it legitimate to guard it
undefined. You have a right, I say, to the thing. You have a right to
many things which you cannot define in terms ; you have a
right to be fairly treated, to be civilly treated. What con
stitutes honesty, candour, liberality, openness, in any particular
case, cannot be defined. A Christian congregation, 'then, with
respect to a certain general treatment of Scripture, says, I have
a right to the thing, whether I can formally define it or not is
nothing to the purpose. Nor is it anything to the purpose, in
considering the question of right, whether this idea of the
community is logical or illogical ; we have nothing to do with
criticising this idea. It is enough that this is the idea of the
community. It must be remembered that we assume in this discussion the
place which the Bible holds in a Christian community, as being
such a Book as that the treatment of it like an ordinary book,
which carries with it a general exposure to criticism, is irreligious
in the eyes of the community. This place, this rank, this
character of the Book in the eyes of the community is assumed.
Do you mean to say then, that, this being the case, a Christian
community has not a right to maintain as a community its own
fundamental idea of that Book by requiring that that Book
shall be treated in a certain general way, answering to this
fundamental idea of it existing in the community? To say
this would be to interfere with obvious rights ; for what is the
object of persons meeting together in a religious community,

248 The Colonial Church Question.
unless they can secure a common general ground in the treat
ment of certain subjects ? When they do meet then, the
community has a right to make its own terms with its own
ministers and officers, to which the latter need not agree unless
they please, but by which, if they do agree to them, they are
bound. This right applies, then, as to other things, so to the
general treatment of Scripture. But if this general treatment
cannot be formally stated ? The community still does not lose
the right, it exists all the same. The fundamental idea which
the community entertains of " the Word of God " attaches and
adheres to the phrase " Word of Gbd " as the sense and import
of that phrase. The sense does not the less go along with the
words because it cannot be formally stated. And this being
the case, the community has the right to defend, along with the
phrase, the sense which attaches to it, and to see that that sense
is not violated in the public expressions and ministrations of
its own ministers.
The principle of enforcing claims and rights, which are of
such a nature that they cannot be formally stated, is well known
to law : take, for example, the law of libel. No statute does or
can define what a man may say, and what a man may not say
about his neighbour. He may certainly say a great many
things which his neighbour will not like, and which yet will
not bring him under an action of libel. This standard then of
illegality in speech and writing affecting our neighbour, which
is undefined by statute, exists as a sense and understanding in
our courts, and is enforced by the discretion of the jury and
judge. The Articles of War do not define what is conduct
unbefitting an officer ; the criterion exists in an unexpressed
shape, and is enforced in the particular case by the discretion
of a court.
The standard idea of the Bible as an inspired book thus
exists as a fundamental idea or sense attaching to the phrase,
in the Christian body ; and this sense is defended by a discre
tionary jurisdiction in the body, which must decide in a
particular case whether it has been violated or not. I do not
speak of the function of a hierarchy here, but of a public right
of a community. The right of requiring a certain mode of

The Colonial Church Question. 249
treating Scripture, although that mode cannot be defined, is
indeed in practical force in every dissenting community in this
country. Every Methodist congregation, every Baptist con
gregation, every Independent congregation exercises it. None
of these religious communities have in their written formularies
or articles — even if they possess formularies or articles — any
definition of the mode of treatment due to Scripture ; their
ministers therefore subscribe to no such statemeut : yet it never
occurs to any member of these bodies to question the right of
the community to claim a certain treatment of Scripture from
its ministers. This is assumed as a primary law of the
community, which must be known to all who undertake the
ministerial office in it.
The same right then exists radically in our own Church,
and, what is more, it exists in the bosom of the Eoyal
ecclesiastical supremacy as described in our Statutes.
For indeed, so far from the Eoyal supremacy being in itself
chargeable with the legal principle of the reduction of every
thing to a documentary criterion, a strong general interposing
power was the marked characteristic and a chief function of
the Prerogative for a long time in practice, and it is even now
so by the letter of our Statutes. By 1 Eliz. c. 1, it is enacted
that "such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities, and pre
eminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any spiritual or
ecclesiastical power or authority have heretofore been, or may
lawfully be, exercised or used for the visitation of the eccle
siastical state and persons, and for reformation, order, and
correction of the same, and of aU manner of errors, heresies,
schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, enormities, shall for ever
be united and annexed unto the imperial Crown of this realm!'
" There is required," says Hooker, " an universal power which
reacheth over all, importing supreme authority of government
over all courts, all judges, all causes ; the operation of
which power is as well to strengthen, maintain, and uphold
particular jurisdictions, which haply might else be of small
effect, cts also to remedy that which they are not able to help . . .
when in any part of the Church errors . . . are grown which men
in their several jurisdictions either do not or cannot help ; what-

250 Tne Colonial Church Question.
soever any spiritual authority or power (such as legates from, the
See of Rome did sometimes exercise) have done- or might heretofore
have done for the remedy of those evils ... as much in any
degree our laws have fully granted that the King for ever may
do." x This is the state of the case then. There has always
resided in the Universal Church a jurisdiction of a general
kind, to supplement her formal statements and written rules,
and to act in cases which were incapable of being brought under
definite terms. This general jurisdiction is referred to in the
statute just quoted as " having been exercised heretofore " in
the Church of England by certain " spiritual or ecclesiastical
powers " which it does not describe, but which were powers
resting ultimately upon the Papacy; and it is asserted that
this general jurisdiction has now passed into the hands of the
Crown. There can be no doubt that in this general jurisdic
tion which was exercised in our Church before the Eeformation,
and to which the Crown succeeded at the Eeformation, was
included the requirement of a certain mode of treating the
inspiration of the sacred volume ; and that under that juris
diction the violation of that treatment would have been dis
allowed. It is important, I say, in order to have a true idea of the
basis and constitution of our Church — its Reformation basis
and constitution — to remember that the Articles and Formul
aries did not stand alone ; that there ran parallel with them,
by statute and by canons, a recognised and an active general
interposing and discretionary power, as a branch of the Eoyal
supremacy, to act in material which could not be provided for
in Articles. A power which had always resided in the Church,
which resides in every Christian community, by the compact
of that day took a particular form, and was transferred to the
Crown as its administrator. The secular hands in which it
was lodged have disguised it as a Church jurisdiction, and the
arbitrary way in which it was often exercised have not recom
mended it. It was, nevertheless, in however secular a form, in
substance a general Church jurisdiction, over and above the
1 Vol. iii p. 543,

The Colonial Church Question. 251
tie of Formularies. And it does now by statute exist, though
it is not in force.
For it was indeed inevitable that this general interposing
power of the Crown must go. The use of such a power was
wholly unfitted to the executive of a popular constitution and
a parliamentary majority ; and the rights of property, which
attached to the tenure of benefices, acted as another obstruction
to the use of it. This most important branch of the Crown's
ecclesiastical supremacy, which had been so active a branch
too, and played so conspicuous a part in our Church history for
more than a century after the Eeformation, thus fell into
absolute desuetude. The letter of our statutes is the only trace
we have now of its existence ; and with the practical abrogation
of a general jurisdiction, the Courts could only fall back upon
the written documents of the Church, and their literal or legal
construction. Such is the history of this legal principle, viewed in its
technical confining sense. It is an artificial restriction of the
Church's area of judgment ; the sediment and residuum of
jurisdiction which the political circumstances of the .country
have left in the hands of the Church Courts ; the ultimate
position which the supremacy has been compelled to take up
when driven from its wider range ; the gradual formation of
legal tradition and caution, when successions of lawyers were
obliged step by step to reduce an authority which they
were bound to wield with a general regard to the modified
constitution of the country. It was thus inevitable that a
collision must one day take place between the faith of the
Church, on one great subject, and the Church's legal machinery.
What the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown would grow
into under our popular constitution was inevitable ; by no fault
of courts, or judges, or of any body, but by the inexorable
action of events, it has become the " legal principle of con
struction," simply because its supplement in the Crown's
general ecclesiastical interposing power could not be retained.
On the other hand, nothing could have prevented the great in
spiration question from breaking out some day. The legal
loophole was thus inevitable ; the question that should slip

252 The Colonial Church Question.
through it was inevitable. Certain principles working blindly
have produced this issue in fact ; constitutional liberty, when
it attacked the Prerogative, hit something which it did not aim
at, but which happened to be in the Prerogative, this general
Church jurisdiction.
And thus the secret has come out, the disclosure of which
was only a matter of time, that the subject of the general treat
ment of the inspiration of Scripture is not provided for within
the legal machinery of our Church. There are all kinds of
influences in the Church, the popular faith, the weight of
persons in authority, the zeal of the clergy, to compensate for
the omission, but the system does omit the point. The system
allows a margin, and there stops short : it does not interfere
with the degree, the extent, the quantity of that margin ; it
allows a principle of latitude, but says nothing about its appli
cation. But upon this subject, degree, extent, quantity, ap
plication, are everything ; and to abdicate authority on these
points is to surrender the treatment of the inspiration of
Scripture as a subject of Church jurisdiction. And this, as I
have just said, not from any wish or intention on the part of
Church or State, but only because, by the inevitable force of
¦events, the discretionary jurisdiction of the Church is gone, the
formulary alone is left. Whereas a discretionary power can
alone in the nature of the case deal with this subject ; a for
mulary is wholly unequal to it.
The effect of the " legal principle of construction " is, there
fore, an abeyance of a branch of Church jurisdiction, of a
Christian community's jurisdiction. I cannot deny that this
is a serious result, although it is relieved and counterbalanced'
.practically. This legal principle acts with the rigidity of a
single angle of fortification, which cuts off one approach, and
leaves every other open. There is nothing so mathematically
strict and impartial as the action of a negative principle, whose
prohibitive side being confined to special points, allows a uni-
versaUty on the admitting side, except upon those points ;
which throws open by the very mode in which it excludes, and
liberates by the very conditions by which it ties. One point of
view monopolises the ground, — decides legality. Does so and

The Colonial Church Question. 253.
so contradict the Formularies ? Certain special, historical, and
other statements of Scripture are in the Articles ; the legal
principle protects them; that is the prohibitive side of the
principle. But with the general body of Scripture, consist
ing of history, prophecy, teaching, comment upon men and
upon events, it has for all this one general test — belief in
the Canonical Scriptures, leaving the whole ground of the
application of this test to particulars and to details open.
Now I wiU, in justice to some who, as learned specu
lators, apply an expunging criticism to Scripture, say that
as parish clergymen they would shrink from using such a
criticism as a basis of popular teaching ; and that their good
taste and common sense would put a veto upon any inculcation
and exposition of it in parish discourses. Still I cannot conceal
from myself that we should be indebted for that salvo to the
good feeUng of individuals, and not to the " legal principle of
construction." That must act with an absolute and geometrical
impartiality, let the material of criticism, or its taste and
refinement, or its sphere vary ever so much. A university and
a parish are the same to it. It could not recognise or take
cognisance of any such distinction. The law could not pro
hibit a clergyman from asserting, as the vicar of a parish, what
he had a right to assert as a theological writer. A court could
not suspend a clergyman for telUng his parishioners what he had
a full right to tell the public. When it came to the question
of the conditions upon which an incumbent" held his benefice, a
sermon must be judged exactly by the same criterion as a book,
and the only question that could be asked about it would be —
Is there anything in it which contradicts the Formularies ?
I have before me now two published parish sermons, which
will do for an illustration. They are entitled "Apostolical
Judgments reversed." In the first the preacher comments
severely upon the statement in the Second Epistle of St. Peter,
that " Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness, and was re
buked for his iniquity " — an assertion which he terms "a libel."
This " seems to me," he says, " quite a libel upon the honesty
of the man, and his straightforward honourable conduct." He
passes the same judgment upon the writer of the Book of

254 The Colonial Church Question.
Numbers, whom he considers, besides having misrepresented
the character, and misinterpreted the acts of Balaam, to have
made a positively false statement as regards the commands of
God to him ; first, not to " go," and then to " go with the men."
"It is here," says the preacher, "that we must begin our
quarrel with the writer. Whatever may have passed between
the soul of Balaam and his God, we cannot possibly believe
what the writer here says." He "points out two marks, by which
we may clearly perceive how little God had really to do with
transactions in which the mistaken writer has so constantly
mixed up His Holy Name." And he considers that, though
the narrative contains a valuable warning, the warning which
it conveys is to avoid the sin of the narrator, not the sin of the
-subject of the narrative, who is highly commended. " It [this
narrative] is of great value as a record of early error on the
subject of God's dealings with men ; and it would be
difficult to find another narrative in the Bible so full of warn
ing against the sin of taking God's Holy Name in vain." The
next sermon is on the characters of Esau and Jacob — a subject
on which he wholly disagrees with St. Paul, as upon the
oharacter of Balaam he differed from St. Peter. " A good deal
has been said about Esau selling his birthright ; he has been
described as 'profane' for doing this, and it has been com
mented on as a grievous sin. Now, whatever may have been
the value of that birthright (and we have no means of dis
covering now), Esau's answer is a good excuse for his selling
it. He says, ' Behold, I am at the point to die, and what profit
shall this birthright do me?' . . . Esau was right in his
answer — what good could his birthright do him when he was
dying of hunger ? There is one sense, of course, in which we
ought all to face danger, loss, and even death for God's sake,
for the sake of our duty. But from this story we cannot
possibly discover any particular value in the birthright which
should have made Esau care to keep it."
Now this is a specimen of parish teaching which is, I should
think, quite unique in our Church. I merely quote it for the
illustration of a principle. Most people would say that it
ought not to be dependent on the option of the individual

The Colonial Church Question, 255
clergyman — though it would be very rarely abused — whether
such a treatment of Scripture was adopted or not, but that
some jurisdiction in the Church ought to prohibit it. But the
statements I have quoted are not, as far as I can see, pro
hibited by the "legal principle of construction," the rigid
nature of which restricts it to one single point of view. The
preacher indeed "quarrels" with the writer of the Book of
Numbers, and with two apostles ; but upon what subject does
he " quarrel" with them ? Upon any statement of the sacred
writer adopted into the Articles? No, upon no doctrine what
ever, but only upon a question of fact, relating to the character
of two persons. That apostles may not err, and express that
error in the canonical Epistles, when the error only relates to
a fact of biography, is nowhere stated or implied in any
Article or Formulary in its legal sense.
I have been thus particular in describing the working of
the " legal principle of construction" in the Inspiration ques
tion, because the desire to be relieved from this principle
upon this question is at bottom the motive in the present
critical movement in the Colonial Church.
When we come to inquire what the question is which has
produced this remarkable and critical movement in the Colonial
Church, we find it is the question of which we have all along
been speaking here — the great question of the Inspiration of
Scripture. It so happens that the first great and extensive
invasion, in our Church, of the historical truth of Scripture,
has been the act of a Colonial Bishop. The Colonial Church,
that is, the collection of Churches to which Bishop Colenso
belonged, had to deal with that act. That Church consid-
ered, then, that the mode of treating the Bible, or the " Word
of God," which Bishop Colenso had adopted, was contrary to
the whole Christian idea of, and Christian sense attaching to,
the " Word of God." The Colonial Church in Africa therefore
condemned him, and in condemning him fell back upon its
independent basis as a Christian community. There were
some complications indeed at the time in the legal grounds
which the Church took ; it partly rested upon Letters Patent ;
but even then it took the ground of a Church not subject to

256 The Colonial Church Question.
the Eoyal supremacy; and it has since fallen back upon a
wholly independent ground.
The foregoing pages, then, give us the point of view at
which to look at the present critical movement in the Colonial
Church. And here I will say, in limine, that I am only con
cerned with the Colonial Church's proceedings against Bishop
Colenso upon one ground : there were certain doctrinal charges
against him, and some have risen up lately ; but I only take
the inspiration ground of the proceedings, which was of course
the main one.
1. It is a great question — the question upon which the
Colonial Church moves, and no subordinate or technical one.
2. Upon this question of the treatment of the Inspiration
of Scripture the Colonial Church wants to act as a community.
Certainly it could — it is optional to it— take the line of leav
ing the whole treatment of Scripture, with respect to its
inspiration and infallibility, entirely to the discretion of the
individual minister; but it considers this too fundamental a
question to treat in this way. It finds itself possessed of a
certain idea of what the Bible is, which has come down to
it with Christianity, and which indeed is the rooted idea of
every orthodox dissenting body as well. This idea of
Scripture, therefore, and a corresponding treatment of Scripture,
are considered to be essential. And that being the case, the
community considers that there is an obligation upon it, as a
community, to secure the observation of this treatment of
Scripture on the part of its own ministers and spiritual officers.
It may be said, few would make a wrong use of the liberty
were the subject left free ; but whether this is true or not, the
community considers that upon a question of such vital import
ance it is charged with a responsibility as a community; and that
it is its duty to treat a compliance on this subject as one of the
conditions of the tenure of spiritual office within its pale.
3. But the community could not thus deal with this great,
question, tied to the legal machinery of the Church at home,
which may be very well fitted for securing such Christian
truth as can be stated in Articles, but is not equal to the
purpose, where the truth is of such a nature that it cannot be

The Colonial Church Question. 257
thus stated. The Articles and Formularies, in their legal
sense, do not appear to touch Bishop Colenso. The Article
says the Bible is the Word of God. Bishop Colenso says the
same. He excepts, indeed, from the infallibility of Scripture
history a large quantity of historical matter ; but the latitude
with respect to particulars allowed in the Article is not defined
in a way prohibitory of the extent and dimensions to which
Bishop Colenso has stretched it, because it is not defined at
alL Again, our Formularies impose the "belief in all the
Canonical Scriptures." But just the same latitude which
attaches to the infallibility of the book attaches to the belief
of the individual. " The declaration," says Dr: Lushington,
'"I do believe,' must be considered with reference to the
subject-matter, and that is the whole Bible, the Old and New
Testament. The great number of these books, the extreme
antiquity of some ; that our Scriptures must necessarily con
sist of copies and translations ; that they embrace almost every
possible variety of subject, parts being all-important to the
salvation of mankind, and parts being of an historical and less
sacred character, certainly not without some element of alle
gory and figures — all these circumstances, I say, must be borne
in mind when the extent of the obligation imposed by the words
'I do believe,' has to be determined. Influenced by these
views, I, for the purpose of this cause, must hold that the
generality of the expression ' I do believe,' must be modified
"by the subject-matter; that there must be a bond fide belief
that, the Holy Scriptures contain everything necessary to
salvation, and that to that extent they have the direct sanction
of the Almighty."1 The field of Scripture which is thrown
open to criticism by this particular criterion and limitation of
the necessity of belief in Scripture is certainly wide enough
for aU the purposes of an historical critic, who does not con
cern himself with the doctrines of Scripture, but only with
the narrative and description of events. Indeed it is impos
sible to see how Articles which admitted of any latitude or
margin on this subject could exclude, by their letter, Bishop
Colenso's latitude and margin. The degree of the margin is
1 Judgment on Essays and Reviews.
R

258 The Colonial Church Question.
incapable of being stated in an Article. The opening which
admitted others could not be logicaUy constructed so as not to
admit him.
4. The Colonial Church, then, in condemning Bishop Co
lenso, applied a sense to the Formularies which was in excess
of the legal sense ; but which was the sense which attached to
the phrase " Word of God" in the mind of the community,
and a sense which had been handed down with Christianity.
The effect of applying this sense was to restrict and modify a
latitude which the letter of the Formularies left undefined ;
and this restriction condemned Bishop Colenso. But this
result could not possibly have been obtained under the legal
conditions of the Church at home. The " legal principle of con
struction" utterly forbids such a proceeding ; enforcing the strict
alternative — is Bishop Colenso deposed outside of these legal
conditions, or not deposed at all ? A person may — some do
— maintain both that he ought not to be a Bishop, and also
that he ought not to be deposed. They object to the result
at the cost of the conditions. It is open to them to take either
side of the alternative, but is not this the alternative ?
5. The Colonial Church only resumes, in this proceeding,
its natural jurisdiction as a Christian community. A jurisdic
tion beyond the letter of Articles, in such matter as cannot be
stated in Articles, is inherent in every Christian community.
It is acknowledged by every divine of every school who ever
wrote about the jurisdiction of the Church : it has always
been taken for granted ; it has been exercised in the Church
Catholic from its very foundation ; it is exercised in every
dissenting community; and lastly, it resides now, at this
moment, in this very EstabUshed Church of England, within
the bosom of the Eoyal supremacy, by the authority of Act of
Parliament. It is true the Act of Parliament is upon this
point a dead letter, but it witnesses to a principle. It is true,
there is established by circumstances in the mother Church,
and we have become accustomed to, an artificial and conven
tional disuse of this jurisdiction; but an artificial and con
ventional disuse naturaUy terminates with the circumstances
which produce it; and the use of the natural faculty and

The Colonial Church Question. 259
right of the community comes back. The right is gained by
taking no new positive step at aU, but only by efe'susing a dis
use, and ^continuing a discontinuance.
6. The Colonial Church may well ask — " Why should an
old legal instrument, which is made to fit to an old state of
things in the mother country, an old forensic formation, an old
compact which is part of a past history, be transplanted to the
fresh and native soil of the Colonial Church ? It may be the
duty of you at home to acquiesce in a legal principle which
has grown up upon home ground ; the more because on the
ground on which it has grown up there are many compensa
tions for it ; there are old grooves in which things work, long
routine, established institutions, venerable customs, ancient
seats of learning, the solemnity of old architecture, the Church,
the Cathedral, the College, sacred objects and sights, and
sources of sacred impressions, on all sides of you, which act as
' aids to faith,' and tend to sustain old ground, when new
speculations break out. But we should start clear, we want
all the strength we can get, and cannot afford to part with
any natural right of a Christian community." This is the
point of view in which the Eoyal supremacy is regarded in
the' Colonial Church. It is no theoretical, it is no canonical,
it is no formal ecclesiastical objection to the Eoyal supremacy
which influences her in this mode. It is entirely a practical
objection, namely, that the Crown does not, as an existing legal
power, possess the means for dealing with this question of
Inspiration ; that a broader ground is wanted to stand upon
than the Crown by legal tradition can use, or aUow to itself.
It so happens, then, that just at the time the Colonial
Church wants this natural internal jurisdiction for the purpose
of dealing with the Inspiration question, this very jurisdiction
is apparently, and without any struggle, conceded to it by our
courts of law. It is hardly necessary to quote again the stated
ment to which such frequent reference has been made, in the
judgment of the Privy CouncU on Long v. Bishop of Capetown,
that "the Church of England, in places where there is no
Church established by law, is in the same position with any
other religious body, in no better but no worse position ;. and

260 The Colonial Church Question.
that the members may adopt, as the members of any other
communion, rules for enforcing discipline within their body,
which will be binding on those who expressly or by implica
tion have assented to them," — a statement which has been
confirmed and carried out by the further position, so well
known, laid down in the judgment on the case of Bishop
Colenso — " that the Crown, as legal head of the Church, has a
right to command the consecration of a bishop, but has no
power to assign him any diocese, or give him any sphere of
action within the United Kingdom ... or in a Colony or
Settlement which is possessed of an independent Legislature."
These judgments obviously give the Church in the Colonies
the right to adopt the status and enjoy the full rights of a
voluntary society, while on the other hand they declare that
any legal status which it may appear to have derived from the
Crown Letters Patent is wholly iUusory, the Crown having
no right to create it.
It is true, indeed, that side by side with these important
positions laid down by the Privy Council, judgments were
given in particular cases which appeared at first sight to be
out of keeping with them ; but if we examine those particular
judgments attentively, we shall find that they are in no real
contradiction to these positions. The first case is that of Long
v. Bishop of Capetown. In the judgment in this case there is
no contemplation of the Church in Africa as a voluntary com
munity, having its own rules, obligatory upon Mr. Long as a
consentient member. On the contrary, the whole matter
between him and the Bishop is looked at from a strictly
Church of England point of view. Attendance on diocesan
synods is no part of the obedience of a clergyman to a bishop
in this country ; and therefore it was decided that what was
connected with this attendance was no part of the obedience
due from Mr. Long to the Bishop of Capetown.
But the peculiar circumstances of the case entirely account
for the adoption of an Established Church criterion in this
judgment, and omission of a voluntary ground. In fact no
voluntary community was before the Court. The Colonial
Church in Africa had not formed or organised itself as a

The Colonial Church Question. 261
voluntary community. It did not stand before the Court as
a body which had adopted by voluntary agreement terms of
union and tribunals of discipline. It was not such a body.
It was in fact at that very time committed in part to another
and contrary aspect of itself, namely, as possessing jurisdiction
from the Crown ; for the dioceses, the metropolitanship stood
upon the Letters Patent. But under this idea of a Crown
jurisdiction, it could not weU construct a consensual jurisdic
tion. The Court, therefore, could not and did not take cogni
sance of it as a voluntary association ; and therefore applied a
different mode of treatment to the case, than it would in the
instance of a voluntary association have applied. The ground
of contract with a society is the basis of all judgments with
respect to voluntary societies. If an individual enters a
society having certain rules and terms of membership, to
which he gives explicit or implicit assent, he makes a contract
With that society, and that contract is enforced by a Court, by
a reference to the rules of the society. But here, there being
no organised voluntary society before the Court, the form of
the contract underwent a modification and became, from a
contract of an individual with a society, the contract of an
individual with an individual. And this contract between
individuals was interpreted by a reference to custom and
usage. There were two individuals, two single ecclesiasti
cal persons, before the Court, Mr. Long, a clergyman, and
Bishop Gray, a Bishop. Mr. Long enjoyed the endowment
of the Church of Mowbray, on the condition of obeying
Bishop Gray ; what was the particular nature of the obedience
due, and did it involve anything connected with Synods?
Well, then, if there is any dispute about conditions of appren
ticeship, farm service, household service, a Court, in lack of
definite terms of engagement, goes to the custom and rule of
the district; when a contract involves the employment of
certain material, and this is indefinitely expressed, the reference
is often the same. In the contract, then, between Mr. Long
and Bishop Gray, the condition of obedience was, in the
absence of exact specification, construed by a reference to the
custom and rule of the district whence the two parties came.

262 The Colonial Church Question.
Bishop Gray was consecrated in England by Eoyal mandate,
the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating. The Court, there
fore, interpreted the obedience which Mr. Long had bargained to
pay to Bishop Gray by an English Church standard ; which, as
it did not involve the special claim about Synods now made,
ruled the case in favour of Mr. Long. No corporate body
appeared in this case ; there was nobody over a diocese ; there
was nobody in a diocese ; there was no diocese ; there was no
Church; there was no community; there were two men; and
the engagement between them was interpreted by this criterion.
It must be observed that the pecuUar form of contract, namely,
between two individuals, to which the Court was here reduced,
was selected because it had to fit on to a peculiar, an inter
mediate, and a temporary state of things. There are two
permanent and regular bases on which religious communions
stand ; one, that of establishments ; the other, that of organ
ised voluntary societies ; but here was a communion going on,
popularly by the name of the English Church, which did not
come under either of these heads, — was not an establishment
no the one hand, or an organised voluntary association on the
other. It had parted from the former status to which it only
hung on by an illusory thread ; it had not yet assumed the
latter ; it was in a neutral intermediate condition. How was it
to be treated legally ? Had it been an establishment, the ques
tion would have been decided by law ; had it been a voluntary
society, by the terms of the contract with the society; as
it was, the fertile imagination of our lawyers hit upon a con
tract between individuals, which, as a legal contrivance, just
caught the Church in transitu, and answered the occasion.
The issue then of this judgment was important, as practi
cally interpreting the great dictum in it, " The Church (in the
Colonies) is in the same position with any other religious
body, no better but no worse, the members of which may adopt,
as the members of any other communion, rules for enforcing
discipUne, which will be binding on those who have assented
to them." The Colonial Church "is" in the same position,
etc. : this does not mean that the Church is in that position, if
it. does nothing at all to put itself in such a position, if it goes

The Colonial Church Question. 263
on loosely, in the same state in which it left this country. No :
it " may adopt," and if it wants to gain such a position, it must
" adopt rules for enforcing discipline, which will be binding on
those who have assented to them," — it must formally organise
itself as a voluntary communion. There has been, I think, a
popular idea that this dictum gives the position of a regular
voluntary communion actuaUy to the Church in the Colonies,
existing any how, but it does not : it only gives the Church the
right to put itself in that position. The Church- cannot put
itself into this position in England ; it can in the Colonies ;
that is the difference. We remember the case of Mr. Shore.
No section of bishops and clergy could by law establish itself
as a voluntary communion upon our diocesan area at home.
This prohibition is removed when we get upon Colonial ground.
But the Colonial Church is not in this position unless it
puts itself into it. Dissenting bodies come into court with
their deeds which show their internal government, and justify
the act of authority. The Colonial Church must show its
rules and tribunals agreed upon by the society. Lord Eomilly
lays down this right of the Colonial Church just as the Privy
Council does. " The members of the Church in South Africa
may create an ecclesiastical tribunal to try ecclesiastical
matters between themselves, and may agree that the decisions
of such tribunals shall be final, whatever be their nature or
effect. Upon this being proved, the civil tribunal would
enforce the decisions against all the persons who had agreed to
be bound by those decisions," and it will do so without
inquiring into those decisions. Again, — " If they adopted the
Church of England Creed and doctrines, but repudiated a part
of its rules and ordinances, they would be bound by those
which they had adopted, and not by those which belonged to
the Church of England, but which they had rejected. It
would, however, be incumbent upon them fully and plainly to
set forth what these rules and ordinances were, and who
accepted them ; in order that this might prevent doubt when
the Courts of Law were called upon to enforce obedience to
these rules and ordinances."
Had the Colonial Church in Africa, then, been an organised

204 The Colonial Church Question.
voluntary communion, with certain final episcopal tribunals for
the trials of ecclesiastical offences, when Mr. Long entered its
ministry; the sentence of one of those tribunals would have
been accepted by the Court, and the case would have been
decided against Mr. Long. But no such body being before the
Court, the case was tested by another criterion, which decided
it in his favour.
The other judgment of Privy CouncU, which took no
cognisance of a voluntary communion in Africa, was that
given in the matter of the deposition of Bishop Colenso. This
judgment only took cognisance of two grounds, that of the
Letters Patent, which was the chief and main ground noticed,
and that of a contract between two persons, or the alleged
engagement of Bishop Colenso to Bishop Gray, by reason of
having taken the Suffragan's oath. No voluntary communion
ground of the right of deposition was taken cognisance of.
But the same reason for the omission of the ground existed in
this case that did in the other, namely, that the Church in Africa
had not organised itself as, and did not stand before the Court
as, a voluntary communion. The African Metropolitan, indeed,
while he stated three grounds for the vaUdity of his own
jurisdiction, and the act of deposition to rest upon, — his
appointment as MetropoUtan by Letters Patent, — his mission
as Metropolitan from the Church at home, supposed to go along
with the Letters Patent, — and the engagement which Bishop
Colenso had made in the Suffragan's oath, — did not maintain
any ground derived from the agreement of a voluntary com
munity in Africa. Indeed the Church there has suffered all
along from what was the result of circumstances — a stand upon
two conflicting grounds, either of which incapacitated it for
taking advantage of the other. The Letters Patent establishing
an Episcopal and a Metropolitan jurisdiction were assumed as
legal ground and authority, upon which the Church could act,
and it did act upon them tUl their nullity was exposed. Mean-
whUe an Episcopacy, with its Metropolitan head, standing as
it did upon the legal warrant of the ecclesiastical supremacy
of the Crown, did not trouble itself to construct and secure the
basis of a voluntary community.

The Colonial Church Question. 265
Again, the right of the Colonial Church to do that which no
section of the Church at home can do, namely, to put itself into
the position of a voluntary community, is not at all affected by
the recent judgment of the Master of the Eolls. I have quoted
above passages from that judgment, which lay down exactly the
same law with respect to this right of the Colonial Church,
which the Privy Council has laid down. Upon another question
however, which is not in the long-run of so much importance,
namely, what the status of the Colonial Church in Africa is now
at this moment, Lord EomUly appears to be at direct issue with
the Privy Council. Contemplated as a formed voluntary
association, organised upon a basis of self-government, neither
the Privy Council nor Lord EomUy have a shadow of a doubt
as to the legal status of the Colonial Church, namely, that it is
not legaUy a part of the Church of England, but " in the same
position with any other religious body." But the particular
question which Lord EomUly had to decide took him mainly
upon other ground, and directed his attention to another point
of view. He had to consider the Church in Africa not as to
what it might be if it chose, — as what it had a right to make
itself if it pleased ; but he had to consider it as it actually was
at that moment. Trust money had been made over to a
Bishop of the Church of England ; it was due now. Was an
African Bishop a Bishop of the Church of England ? It was a
possible opinion then, even if an off-hand and incorrect one,
that the popular sense was enough in the present case, and that
he was such in the popular sense. Other grounds, wide of the
legal identity of the two Churches, upon which the pecuniary
right of the Bishop might be placed, are imaginable. But Lord
EomiUy decided that the money was due to him, and decided
it upon the particular ground of a legal identity — that the
Colonial Church in Africa was now, at this moment, legally a
part of the United Church of England and Ireland.
Perfectly agreed then about a supposed Colonial Church, —
supposed to be organised as a voluntary self-governing body,
Lord EomUly and the Privy Council appear to differ toto coelo
about the actual existing Colonial Church. The Privy Council
says that " the Crown has no power to assign a Bishop any

266 The Colonial Church Question.
diocese, or give him any sphere of action in the United King
dom ... or a Colony which is possessed of an independent
Legislature." The denial of a legal diocese and a legal juris
diction to the Colonial Church at once cuts asunder the legal
identity of that Church now at this moment with the Estab
lished Church of England. On the other hand, the Master of
the Eolls bases the legal identity of the two upon the affirma
tion of a legal diocese. " The law leaves all these [Episcopal]
functions exactly as by the law of the Church of England they
belong to that office. He may as a Bishop visit, he may call before
him the ministers within his diocese." He is a titular Bishop aU
the world over, "he is a territorial Bishop within his see or
diocese." Certain considerations bearing upon an African
diocese cannot, he says, " annihilate the see, or make it cease
to be a legal diocese." The legal identity of the Colonial Church
with the Church in England foUows. " The Church of England
may extend and have branches in places where it is not
estabUshed by law." "The Colony of Natal is a district
presided over by a Bishop of the Church of England, which is
properly termed a see or diocese," and " the Church in Natal
is not a Church in union or full communion with the Church
of England, but a part of the Church of England itself ... in
the strict sense of the term." — " So far from no legal identity
existing between the Church presided over in the Colonies,
and the United Church of England and Ireland, I have arrived
at the very opposite conclusion," etc.
Without presuming to criticise legally the judgment of so
distinguished a lawyer, I may yet make the observation that
such a judgment does run counter to some very natural and
ordinary tests.1 It would ordinarily be thought a condition
necessary to being the same legal body, that there should be a
corporate unity, — one organisation ; that it should be under one
common head or supreme jurisdiction. The Established Church
is under the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. Is the
Colonial Church under the same ecclesiastical supremacy ? The
1 Mr. Bernard's legal criticism, in his Remarks on some late Decisions,
etc., brings out with singular acuteness the legal aspects of the case, and the
legal principles which militate against this judgment.

The Colonial Church Question. 267
test is an exceedingly simple one, and lies in the powers of the
Bishop's Court. A Bishop's court, which is under the ecclesi
astical supremacy of the Crown, must derive powers from that
supremacy — legal powers from its legal head; it cannot be
under it, without being empowered by it : it is, as being under
the supremacy, the agent and the executive of it. A Bishop's
court in this country is thus a court of law, because it is under
the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. If a Bishop's court,
therefore, in the Colonies is under the same ecclesiastical
supremacy, it too must be a court of law. But the Master of
the Eolls says that it is not, and indeed the fact is very obvious :
— " The tribunal of the Bishop [Colonial] is a forum domesticum,
and not a State tribunal." The Colonial Bishop's tribunal
thus derives no powers from the ecclesiastical supremacy of the
Crown : the Colonial Bishop's tribunal, therefore, is not under
that supremacy; the Colonial Church is not under it; and
therefore the Colonial Church is not one legal body with the
EstabUshed Church. The two bodies do not belong to the
same organisation. The Colonial Church is outside of that
great legal structure which culminates in the Eoyal supremacy.
All that is not under the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown
is not the United Church of England and Ireland or an integral
portion of it.
This link between legal powers and legal dependence in
the case of the Church is important. There is abundance of
language in all quarters to the effect that the Established
Church is no part of the constitution of the Colonies, that the
Church there has no legal powers ; but this language just stops
short of the inevitable consequence, namely, that the Church has
no legal dependence. There is a half-notion that the supremacy
there has rights over the Church, without at the same time
giving powers. But the powers and the dependence are but,
different sides of the same fact, one of which is not had without
the other.
But has the Colonial Bishop no kind of jurisdiction because
he has not a " coercive " jurisdiction? Undoubtedly he has ; but
the jurisdiction which flows and is received from the ecclesiastical
supremacy of the Crown is coercive. If the Bishop's tribunal

268 The Colonial Church Question.
then has no coercive jurisdiction, it receives no jurisdiction from
the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. But the criterion
of being under the supremacy is receiving jurisdiction from it.
" But the Bishop can, for the enforcement of his sentence,
resort to the Civil Court." Yes; he can get his sentence
enforced, but plainly, by the very terms of the statement, not by
the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Crown. The Master of the
Eolls says with perfect truth, " the Bishop is not left powerless,
nor can persons with impunity resist his authority. ... He
can exercise all the functions of a Bishop of an English diocese
with this exception, that his orders are enforced by a civil
tribunal." But upon the special point now at issue, is not this
" exception " everything ? The above statement would leave
upon a casual reader the impression that the Eoyal ecclesiastical
supremacy was substantially in the same force in the Colonies
that it is in England, only that it acted by a different legal
medium, a different instrumental process. But nothing can
show more clearly and more directly that the Colonial Church
is not under the Eoyal supremacy than the single circumstance
of the interposition of a Civil Court in the matter. The
ecclesiastical jurisdiction ofthe Crown puts itself 'into execution :
it flows down in one continuous line from its head and spring
in the Crown itself to its terminus in the individual who is the
recipient and subject of it. The break of an intervening
Civil Court, therefore, is fatal to such a jurisdiction, and nullifies
it from the very root ; for if it existed it would not want that
Court to reinforce it. The same Crown ecclesiastical jurisdic
tion which tries the case enforces the sentence ; but here, one
Court tries, another enforces.
It is not then that the Crown's ecclesiastical supremacy is
maintained in a different way in the Colonies, by a different
medium. This language is sometimes used, but such language
in truth disguises the real fact, namely, that no supremacy exists
at all there but that which is especially not ecclesiastical, but
only civil ; no supremacy but that under which a Baptist con
gregation comes just as much as the Colonial Church. The
Crown has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Established Church ;
it decides strictly ecclesiastical questions as the ultimate and

The Colonial Church Question. 269
supreme tribunal of that Church : the Crown has not ecclesias
tical jurisdiction over a Baptist community, because it does
not decide the religious questions of that body. But the
Crown has a civil jurisdiction over a Baptist community, to see
that it fulfils its engagements to individuals, and does not
violate them. That jurisdiction of the Crown, then, which a
Baptist congregation is under, the Colonial Church is under,
and np other. It would be evidently incorrect to say that the
Eoyal supremacy was maintained in a different way, over a
Baptist congregation, from that in which it was maintained
over the EstabUshed Church ; because it is another supremacy,
another jurisdiction altogether which is maintained. And the
same expression, if applied to the Colonial Church, is incorrect
for the same reason.
Lord EomiUy bases his assertion of the legal identity of the
two Churches upon the affirmation of a " legal diocese." The
jurisdiction of the Colonial Bishop is non-legal indeed, and only
that of a forum domesticum, but his diocese is legal. I am
unable to understand how a legal diocese can go along with a
non-legal jurisdiction. A diocese is a local area within which
a Bishop's jurisdiction is confined. A legal diocese is this area
as marked out by law. But a non-legal jurisdiction stands, in
the eye of the law, upon a contract between two parties. Can
the law then affix a local area and limitation of place to con
tracts, and say that two parties shall only contract with each
other, for their own private convenience, within certain limits ?
Such a local limitation appears incongruous. It is therefore
difficult to understand how a " legal diocese " can be affixed to
a non-legal jurisdiction. But supposing one could be, it still
would not be a legal diocese in the sense which is here wanted ;
it would not be a legal diocese in such a sense as to constitute
a legal identity of the Colonial Church with the Established
Church. To constitute that identity, a legal Colonial diocese
in the sense of the sphere and area of a legal jurisdiction is
wanted ; in which case a common jurisdiction received from
the Supremacy places both Churches alike under the Supre
macy, and so satisfies the ordinary test of legal identity. But
a " legal diocese," which receives no such jurisdiction from the

270 The Colonial Church Question.
Supremacy, does not place under the Supremacy, or therefore
satisfy the ordinary and natural test of legal identity.
Lord EomiUy has made the supposition of a voluntary
religious communion in a Colony founded upon the one wish,
duly and formally stated, to be in every respect whatever,
doctrinal and other, like the Church of England. Such a
religious association, he says, would be " strictly " part of the
Church of England — by strictly meaning, I presume, legally.
" If certain persons constitute themselves a voluntary associa
tion in any Colony, as members of the Church of England,
then, as I apprehend, they are strictly brethren and members of
that Church. They are bound by the same doctrines, the same
rules, ordinances, and discipline. If any recourse should needs
be had to the civil tribunals, the question at issue must be tried
by the same rules of law which would prevaU if the question
were tried in England." I will- take his Lordship's authority
for the latter point, namely, that such an association would have
its questions decided by Privy Council sitting as a court of
civil appeal, exactly as the same questions would be decided
by it, sitting as a court of ecclesiastical appeal, upon cases
belonging to the Established Church. But I do not understand
how this would make the association legally part of the
Established Church of England. The resolution to be alto
gether like the Church of England does not make this body
the Church of England. It is stUl a voluntary association ;
its very Ukeness to or resolution to be like the Church of
England stands upon a voluntary basis : it may change that
basis any day that it likes without the consent of the Crown.
It is totally separated from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the
Crown, which takes no cognisance of its existence.
I am unable to see again what support Lord EomUly can
extract for his position from the Long v. Capetown Judgment.
" This whole judgment," he says, " proceeds on the assumption,
and is based on the foundation that the Church [the Colonial
Church in Africa] is a portion of the Church of England . . .
that the Colony [African] is presided over by Bishops of the
Church of England, who have sees and dioceses properly so
termed." I am unable to see any diocese in that judgment ;

The Colonial Church Question. 2 7 1
only two individuals. It must be admitted, indeed, that that
case was decided by a reference to the Established Church's
standard of what was comprised in the Episcopal claim of
obedience. But was that because the Church in Africa was
regarded as part of the Church of England ; or because the
terms of a private contract were interpreted by the rule and
custom of the Church of England ?
The theory of legal identity, then, which the Master of the
EoUs has propounded, is one which I am unable to understand.
But had his Lordship put a theory of identity into the form of a
simple practical assertion, that the Church in our Colonies,
until it organises itself as a voluntary association, will be
treated in our Courts, as if it were part of the Church of England,
it does not appear to me that much fault could have been
found with his judgment. It is but too likely that this wiU
be the case ; the judgment in Long v. Capetown speaks to this
point in a way that cannot be mistaken. Where no organised
voluntary society is before the Court, the principle of a con
tract between two individuals wiU be applied, and the condi
tions of that contract wiU be interpreted by an Established
Church criterion and standard. The practical result then wUl be
the same that is arrived at upon Lord EomiUy's theory ; and
the Privy Council wiU give, as a civU court of appeal from
the Colonies, the same judgments that it would have given
had the same questions come before it as the ecclesiastical
court of appeal at home. The Colonial Church then must not
go relying on that dictum of the Privy CouncU, that the
Church of England in the Colonies " is in the same position
with any other reUgious bodies," as if that dictum did any
thing for it without any steps on its own part. It must put
itself under that dictum, by organising itself as a voluntary
religious body. The dictum supposes this to be done, and
does not apply to it existing in a loose unformed state.
The Church in Africa has not hitherto, so far as I am able
to recollect, organised itself formaUy upon a voluntary basis.
What it has done has doubtless represented the wUl, and the
intention, and the spirit of the body. Its ecclesiastical struc
ture as a collection of- Churches under a Metropolitan, has

272 The Colonial Church Question.
doubtless been implicitly consented to and adopted by the
body. Still this structure hitherto wants a formal consensual
basis, as well as a formal basis of another kind. It was not
erected by Eoyal Prerogative ; it was not erected by any
home Church authority, acting along with, and side by side
with, the Eoyal Prerogative, for the Church at home can
only act formally through the Eoyal Prerogative; it has not
been erected by the voluntary act of the African body ; it has
only been implicitly acquiesced in by that body after having
been erected illusively by Letters Patent. That is the state
of things. It is a question, therefore, which deserves the con
sideration of that body, whether it would not be acting well
to rectify the defect, whatever it may be, in its position ; and
to give this ecclesiastical structure a definite basis, and itself
a regular standing of a voluntary communion before our
Courts, by organising itself. And, particularly, it is worth con
sidering whether it would not be wise to do this before taking
a new important step.
The ground is certainly open, if we are to adopt the plain
construction of Privy Council law, for the erection of a new
bishopric in substitution for that of Natal ; nor can this ground
be affected by any doubts that may be raised as to the validity
of the deposition of Bishop Colenso. For if, as the Privy
Council declares, the Episcopal jurisdiction of the latter never
existed, the deposed gains nothing, and the deposer loses
nothing, by the defective validity of his deposition from it.
His place is, by the original nullity of the creation of it, vacant.
Whether we take a legal, or whether we take a consensual
ground, the same defect that applies to the position of the
Metropolitan who deposed applies to the position of the
Suffragan deposed ; whose office is on either ground null and
void, for the very reason that his deposition is. But though
the ground is open, and though a very able person has been
chosen to fill it, should not the African Church, before adopt
ing this step, put itself in such a position as not only to be a
voluntary society, but to be cognisable as such by our Courts ;.
by organising itself upon a voluntary basis, and by putting its
rules and regulations, and the constitution of its tribunals, into

The Colonial Church Question. 273
a documentary shape ? The Canadian Church appears already
to have put itself in that position.
I am glad to see that the Bishop of Capetown, whose
energy and lofty spirit, firmly supported by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and Bishop of Oxford, have so sustained his
Church under difficult circumstances, announces the design of
an assembly, although not an immediate one, of the whole
African Church in order " to perfect its organisation." " As to
action here," says his Lordship, " I do not think myself the
time has yet arrived for our meeting together to consider the
state of the Church, or to perfect its organisation. ... If the
time had arrived for action, I should be prepared to invite the
clergy and the representatives of the laity to a provincial
gathering."1 A regular organisation would place the African
Church upon a totally different ground, with respect to our
courts of law, from that upon which it at present stands. No
courts take cognisance of it as a voluntary communion now ;
not the Privy Council, not the Eolls Court. Upon that point
both Courts agree. But let it only organise itself, and it
stands clear of the obstructions which arise in both Courts to
its free action. The effect of the judgment of the Master of
the Eolls, regarded in a practical light, has perhaps been
exaggerated. It only touches, it only professes to touch, the
African Church in its state at the moment. It does not touch
it as an organised voluntary communion which it may become.
On the contrary, nobody could state in clearer language than
the Master of the Eolls has done, that that Church, as an
organised voluntary communion, will be an independent body,
and will be treated by a Court of law as such, without reference
to any other rules and regulations than its own. His judg
ment, therefore, only touches the Church in transitu, in a
passing state, in the interim before the Church takes to another
basis. If, as must surely sooner or later be the case, the
whole Colonial Church does take this other basis, then his
judgment in the long-run does not affect it. It only affects it
now. It is natural of course that people's minds should be
1 Letter to the Members of the Church in the Diocese of Capetown by
the Bishop of Capetown. S

2 74 The Colonial Church Question.
much absorbed in whatever applies to the existing moment ;
but still whatever admits of being rectified by the work of the
future is only a passing concern.
We need not underrate the difficulties of such a future
work, or shut our eyes to the important circumstance that
there are two parties in the Colonial Church upon this very
question of the ground to be adopted by it. We cannot deny
the perfect right of any number of members of the Church of
England in Africa now to adopt, if they please, and if they can,
the Established Church and the Eoyal supremacy ground, as
distinct from the ground of a voluntary communion. If a
strict legal unity with the 'Established Church is closed by
staying outside of any African organisation, or by forming
themselves, according to the supposition of the Master of the
Eolls, into a society which would say in terms — I wish to be
in everything similar to the Established Church, they might
practically pursue this object ; and if they did so, they would
be only exercising an option and a preference to which they
had a perfect right. There would, however, be great difficulties
in the way of such object ; one especially — notwithstanding
the accident of one existing Bishop — the want of Bishops and
of Clergy. Such a body would not probably be forthcoming.
The cause with which such an attempt would be associated is
opposed to the faith of the people. The existing body of
Bishops and Clergy has weight and prestige. All these and
other considerations point to but one solution of the question
before us, namely, the ultimate organisation ofthe whole Colonial
Church upon a voluntary basis. There are difficulties at first
starting, but they are only the difficulties of a start ; they are
complications and intricacies naturally attending the transition
from one situation to another. The legal identity of the two
Churches is not a favourable ground for trust property to stand
upon — as much of it, that is, as would be affected by such a test.
I will not, however, anticipate the course of law or legislature.
It is only reasonable to hope that things will right themselves ;
that no unfair advantage will be taken of the complications of
an intermediate stage ; and that the Colonial Church will
ultimately find and fix in her proper position.

2 75

XVII.— DR. NEWMANS GRAMMAR OF ASSENT.1
Those who open this book with the expectation of finding
it a controversial treatise in favour of the peculiar doctrines of
Eome, wiU find themselves mistaken. Its purpose is a much
larger one ; it vindicates the claims of Christianity generaUy
upon human belief. But it deals with the inner foundations
of belief, with those processes in the mind which lead to assent,
and its great object is to free those processes from the yoke of
formal and technical logic. All reasoning, Dr. Newman admits,
ought to be prepared to undergo the test of verbal statement, and
the external ordeal of syllogism and proposition ; and if it is
not capable of being drawn out in this form, when the demand
is made, he gives it up as unsound reasoning. But he denies
that this is the way in which reasoning actuaUy goes on in the
mind, even when it is sound and correct. It has short cuts, he
says, it puts things quick together, it seizes the conclusion in
the premiss, and combines, by a rapid survey, and by an instinc
tive estimate, the various points of the case in one nucleus,
which the individual carries about him, and which constitutes
at once his reasons and his belief. He gathers all into a point,
instead of drawing it out into divisions and compartments;
and the work is done almost intuitively.
" To this conclusion he comes, as is plain, not by any possible
verbal enumeration of all the considerations, minute but abundant,
delicate but effective, which unite to bring him to it; but by a mental
comprehension of the whole case, and a discernment of its upshot,
sometimes after much deliberation, but, it may be, by a clear and
rapid act of the intellect, always, however, by an unwritten sum
ming-up, something like the summation of the terms of an algebraical
series. . . .
" Such a process of reasoning is more or less implicit, and with-
1 An Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent. By John H. Newman, D.D.

276 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
out the direct and full advertence ofthe mind exercising it. As by
the use of our eyesight we recognise two brothers, yet without being
able to express what it is by which we distinguish them ; as at first
sight we perhaps confuse them together, but on better knowledge,
we see no likeness between them at all ; as it requires an artist's
eye to determine what lines and shades make a countenance look
young or old, amiable, thoughtful, angry or conceited, the principle
of discrimination being in each case real, but implicit ; — so is the
mind unequal to a complete analysis of the motives which carry it
on to a particular conclusion, and is swayed and determined by a
body of proof, which it recognises only as a body, and not in its
constituent parts."
This is the aim, then, with which this treatise is penetrated
— to bring out the reality of reasoning, as it actuaUy goes on
within us; its natural and instinctive and intuitive kind of action,
which contains aU the pith and truth of it, in a more genuine
and powerful shape, in consequence of its very condensation,
than technical statements and argumentative formulae do ; in
which the pungent point of actual nature is drawn out, and
weakened by its very extension and its connection with outside
casing, and all the leathern apparatus of verbal logic. The mode
in which this appeal to Nature assists the Christian argument will
appear shortly ; but, in the first place, Dr. Newman has to meet
and deal with some curious problems which attach to the found
ation of human belief, and especially the question, — What right
have we to found upon only probable evidence unconditional
assent ? All assent, says the Pyrrhonist, must be proportioned
to the evidence ; and therefore, when there is room for greater
proof, assent can only be provisional and conditional : uncondi
tional assent is in its very nature an excess — an advance beyond
the evidence. A hasty faith is logically forbidden, and a sus
pense of judgment is imposed. Dr. Newman meets this diffi
culty with practical answers, but also with a philosophical one
of remarkable subtlety and ingenuity. He separates "inference "
from "assent," and throws all the burden of obligation to pro
visional and conditional limits upon " inferences," liberating
"assent" fromit. While youare reasoning and weighing evidence,
while you are deducing from your premisses, you must keep
close to your premisses, and what you infer from them must

Newmans Grammar of Assent. 277
exactly reflect them in degree : but when reasoning is over, the
assent which is the consequence of it shakes off the trammels
of the subterranean process out of which it has emerged, and
the mind having got to the top of the edifice of reasoning,
kicks down the ladder by which it ascended. This hardly
appears to us a satisfactory explanation of this difficulty— the
difficulty that as a matter of fact we do believe with practical
certainty upon grounds which theoretically are only grounds of
probability. It is quite true that when we obtain our con
clusion, we often forget the process of inference and argument
by which we reached it ; we are lifted up by a happy act of
oblivion out of the region of comparison and estimate ; stiU
our conclusion is based upon this process, and must be always
ready to obey the logical command to recall it when circum
stances require. But whUe we cannot agree with Dr. Newman's
solution of this crux, perhaps any other definite rationale for it
would equally fail. The truth is, Nature takes this matter out
of our hands, and upon every plain probability appearing to be
on the side of some conclusion in practical life or history, en
ables us to proceed upon that conclusion as if it were thoroughly
ascertained. The pure reason — abstract and unquaUfied reason
— is insatiable and ever hungry for additions to proof ; even
when gorged with arguments, if it sees but a hollow corner any
where, it clamours for a supplement ; nay, and so ungrateful is
its appetite, that it will forget and expunge out of its tablet all
past proof, in the eager craving for the further addition, dis
contented with any amount of actual evidence, so long as it is
not all the evidence which is conceivable. The pure reason is
thus morbid reason, it weakens whUe it informs ; it paralyses
action, and just steps in after all the premisses it has gathered
to prevent the person from making any use of them. It wants
the balance of some other element in our nature, which is not
so much an intellectual principle as salutary impulse. The
conditions of life and the necessities of action are such, that we
ihust be content with and accept as practical certainty a large
amount of probability ; and we are enabled in some way, by
some machinery in our nature, which is perhaps out of the
reach of all analysis, to do this, and to supply by our own con
fidence the void in the ground of pure reason. It should not

278 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
be lost sight of that there is, besides the reason, a large, we will
not caU it irrational so much as non-rational, department in
the constitution of the human being which is essential to the
success of the rational. We see men who are defective in this
supplement to the reason, and who consequently fail in the use
of their reason. No evidence gives them strength to act ; how
ever massive a body of premisses they have coUected, upon the
casual glimpse of an unanswered objection, they drop in an
instant their conclusion, as if it burnt their fingers, and would
expose them to total annihilation at the hand of some master
of logic ; whose blow would in fact be as light as a feather,
did not his antagonist fall down flat on the ground before he
gave it.
Supposing, then, a certain amount of probable evidence
exists for the truth of revelation, we have not got to prove our
right to a positive belief in revelation. That is given us by
the constitution of our nature, and the only question we
have to decide is, whether there is or not that amount of pro
bable evidence. Upon this question, then, Dr. Newman first
observes the plain fact, that what is evidence to one man is not
evidence to another. How is this ? It is, that judgment upon
facts, inference from facts, interpretation of premisses, extraction
of conclusions, is after all a personal operation. It depends
upon the antecedent assumptions, the knowledge, the disposi
tion of mind, and certain fundamental modes of looking on
things, which exist in the mind of the reasoner. Dr. Newman
sums up all this in the personal and individual character of
what he calls the Illative sense : —
'It is in fact attached to definite subject-matters, so that a
given individual may possess it in one department of thought, for
instance, history, and not in another, for instance, philosophy. . . .
" Hence it is, that nothing I have been saying about the
instrumental character or the range of the Illative Sense inter
feres with its being, as I have considered it, a personal gift or habit :
for, being in fact ever embodied in some definite subject-matter,
it is personal, because the discernment of the principles con
nected with that subject-matter is personal also. Certainly, how
ever we account for it, whether we say that one man is below the
level of nature, or another above it, so it is that men, taken at

Newmans Grammar of Assent. 2 79
random, differ widely from each other in their perception of the
first elements of religion, duty, philosophy, the science of life, and
taste, not to speak here of the differences in quality and vigour of
the Illative Sense itself, comparing man with man. Every one, in
the ultimate resolution of his intellectual faculties, stands by him
self, whatever he may have in common with others."
The Illative sense, then, is the same, as regards its own
functions, in all cases ; but it differs in its conclusions accord
ing to the special training and previous experience of the
individual and the subjects with which life has made him con
versant. It receives its direction from the particular knowledge,
taste, and sentiment of the reasoner. It acts well in the
individual's special department of art or science, or in his
trade and profession, because there he knows the province of
his inferences, and starts from correct principles : when it
leaves the area of his knowledge it makes mistakes. And
when it acts correctly it often acts instinctively and intuitively.
The chapter on "Natural Inference" particularly brings out
this point. Dr. Newman illustrates this whole subject with
all the fertility and vivacity which immense information and
a rich imagination impart. He brings his analogies, instances,
and parallel cases from all quarters of the philosophical, social,
and historical heavens ; the reader has a perpetual change, and
never knows what fact may turn up next ; it may be one at
first sight the most utterly removed from the field of discussion.
The detection of resemblances amid staring incongruities is one
of the most popular and happy gifts of an author ; it produces
the effect of a constant surprise upon the reader, and some
thing of that gratification which a good puzzle gives.
So far, however, Dr. Newman's vindication of an instinctive
and intuitive reason, and of a reasoning faculty which only
acts correctly, or obtains sound and true conclusions in the
area of the individual's special knowledge, does not come into
collision with the position of the religious sceptic. The
philosopher will readily admit that reason does act in this
instinctive way ; and he will also admit that previous experi
ence and special knowledge must make all the difference in the
correctness of the conclusions which a person draws from any
data which are placed before him. What he objects to is the

2 80 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
application of this general position to the religious question.
He will not allow to the believer in revelation the right to say
that he is in possession of any special knowledge or principles
of thought and feeling, any primary judgments which place
him at an advantage in the estimate of Christian evidence, and
convert that into real evidence which is not evidence to another
devoid of these primary ideas and principles. He will not
admit any parallel between the knowledge of special depart
ments in the field of life and nature, and the strong hold of
certain deep principles and fundamental conceptions which the
Christian brings with him to the consideration of the Christian
evidences. That there are then certain primary assumptions or beliefs,
which do make an immense difference in the estimate we form
of the Christian evidences — which create a presumption in
favour of revelation in the minds of those who have embraced
them, and which thereby facUitate for those minds the recep
tion of the proof of revelation — is a simple fact which both
sides will admit. It signifies little by what name we call these
primary beliefs, if we only understand what they are ; but Dr.
Newman calls them the principles of Natural Eeligion. These
primary beliefs are : —
" A belief and perception of the Divine presence, a recognition
of His attributes and an admiration of His person viewed under
them, a conviction of the worth of the soul and of the reality and
momentousness of the unseen world, an understanding that, in pro
portion as we partake in our own persons of the attributes which
we admire in Him, we are dear to Him, a consciousness on the con
trary that we are far from partaking them, a consequent insight
into our guilt and misery, au eager hope of reconciliation to Him,
a desire to know and to love Him, and a sensitive looking-out in
all that happens, whether in the course of nature or of human
life, for tokens, if such there be, of His bestowing on us what we
so greatly need. These are specimens of the state of mind for
which I stipulate in those who would inquire into the truth of
Christianity ; and my warrant for so definite a stipulation lies in
the teaching, as I have described it, of conscience and the moral
sense, in the testimony of those religious rites which have ever
prevailed in all parts of the world, and in the character and conduct

Newman's Grammar of Assent. 281
of those who have commonly- been selected by the popular instinct
as the special favourites of Heaven."
Dr. Newman contrasts this genuine and authentic with a
pseudo-natural religion : —
" I do not address myself to those, who in moral evil and
physical evil see nothing more than imperfections of a parallel
nature; who consider that the difference in gravity between the
two is one of degree only, not of kind ; that moral evil is merely
the offspring of physical, and that as we remove the latter so we
inevitably remove the former; that there is a progress of the
human race which tends to the annihilation of moral evil ; that
knowledge is virtue, and vice is ignorance ; that sin is a bugbear,
not a reahty ; that the Creator does not punish except in the sense -
of correcting ; that vengeance in Him would of necessity be vindic-
tiveness; that all that we know of Him, be it much or little,
is through the laws of nature ; that miracles are impossible ; that
prayer to Him is a superstition ; that the fear of Him is unmanly ;
that sorrow for sin is slavish and abject; that the only intelligible
worship of Him is to act well our part in the world, and the only
sensible repentance to do better in future; that if we do our
duties in this life, we may take our chance for the next ; and that
it is of no use perplexing our minds about the future state, for it is
all a matter of guess. These opinions characterise a civilised age ;
and if I say that I will not argue about Christianity with men who
hold them, I do so, not as claiming any right to be impatient or per
emptory with any one, but because it is plainly absurd to attempt
to prove a second proposition to those who do not admit the first."
That these elementary convictions of the mind, then, do
make a fundamental difference in our estimate of revelation,
wiU hardly be denied. Supposing them, for the sake of
argument, to be true principles, so much with respect to their
operation as premisses will be conceded. Let us take the
single principle of the moral sense, as it is felt in those minds
to which we have been alluding, which constitute, in fact, the
great mass of mankind ; felt, namely, as conscience, sense of
sin, an acknowledgment of an external Judge : how at once
does this principle act in the way of preparing the mind for a
revelation, favouring the need of revelation, justifying the
doctrines of revelation; and so facilitating legitimately the
acceptance of the evidence of revelation. M. Comte has

282 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
indeed made us familiar with a moral sense, which is a simple
materialist force, and a physical phenomenon, coinciding, like
heat or electricity, with the vanishing bodily life ; presaging
no Divine Judge, and aspiring to no upper world. Nobody
can deny that something within us, which distinguishes
between some actions and others : to say all actions are
morally the same, or that there is no such thing as morality,
would be denying a palpable fact, like the fact of thought, or
will, or sensation. There is, therefore, a moral sense. How,
then, is it that this moral sense admitted, stops short, in the
philosophy of so many, with being a mere physical pheno
menon, and an element of sensible life ? The answer is, that
this is a true fact about the moral sense as far as it goes ; and
that men have a power of stopping short, and not going on
beyond the bare outside of an idea. The ideas in our minds
have, if we may borrow a representation from external nature,
their coatings ; we may go only as far as the coating, or we
may go into them, and receive into our minds the full internal
substance of them. There runs throughout intellectual nature
a use and application of what we may call the shavings of
truth, as distinguished from its solid substance. It is this
principle or arrangement in nature which enables so many
persons of the most different grasp of mind to read the same
book, and extract a common meaning and a common criticism
from it. The deep man and the shallow man both understand
the same character, the same event, the same sentiment, in
their respective degrees ; and though they come to a point at
which one cannot follow the other, they can find a common
ground up to that point. It is this provision of nature which
enables us to read the same book as children and as grown
men, at neither time of life wholly unprofitably, nor without
drawing a meaning from it. The child reads Shakespeare and
Milton, and skims off a sense from them. Many a one looks
back with surprise now at the genuine appetite with which he
devoured Scott's novels at twelve or thirteen; and with
a feeling of wonder and perplexity as to what it was which he
understood in them which arrested him so potently. It is
quite impossible that he could have really understood the
humour ; humour, as distinguished from the mere images

Newmaris Grammar of Assent. 283
which the animal spirits of boys raise, is a discovery of later
years, and requires the insight of experience. It is impossible
that he could have understood really the characters ; and as for
the allusions constantly turning up, they must have been a
simple enigma to him. Nevertheless, he extracted a meaning
out of the scenery and dramatis persona: which engaged him
and absorbed him. The truth is, what he understood was a
meaning which belonged to the book ; but it was the coat of
the meaning, and not the substance of it. It is the same with
an idea.
The moral sense or the moral idea contains in the sub
stance of it conscience, self-condemnation, repentance, the
appeal to an external judge ; but there is an outer film and
superficies of the idea which the human mind peels off from
the body of it, when men give a place, in rerum natura, to the
phenomenon, and at the same time ignore the substance :
when just so much of it as agrees with physical utility and
the wants of the visible system is allowed, and all the rest is
thrown aside as superstition. Take the moral idea as it stands
in natural religion. It is a principle of immortality, it
indicates a spiritual being, destined to an existence beyond the
confines of this material world. Take it as it stands in M.
Comte's philosophy, and it is a simple element in a physical
system and a vanishing life. The being who has it came up to
the surface yesterday, and sinks into the abyssal void to-morrow.
The philosopher just sees the idea in that aspect in which it is
a necessity of the social fabric ; he just cuts off that aspect
from it ; he peels off the mere simulacrum of the idea, he roUs it
up as in the story of " the Shadowless Man " the demon rolled
up Peter Schlemihl's shadow ; and he presents it to the world
as the moral sense. Such a coating of the idea is like the flat
surface of the mist, which hid the gorgeous tracery and pillared
architecture of the stupendous cavern. As you approach, the
unreality of the veil appears, and the real contents of the sub
terranean vista emerge ; yet, at a distance, .the surface of mere
vapour was the true rock, and the interior was a buried scene.
M. Comte, in his moral sentiment, presents to the world a mere
superficies, torn from the solid block of the idea, an outer film,
which ignores and hides all the depths of the idea, all in it

284 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
that carries the mind beyond a perishing humanity, all in it
that spiritualises and immortalises.
" One man," says Dr. Newman, " deduces from his moral sense
the presence of a Moral Governor, and another does not : in each
case there may be an exercise, and a sound exercise, of the
illative sense ; but the one recognises the principle of conscience in
his moral sense, and the other does not recognise it, — the illative
sense of the one is employed upon and informed by the emotions
of hope and fear and the sense of sin, whereas the other discerns
the distinction of right and wrong in no other way than he dis
tinguishes light from darkness, or beautifulness from deformity.
That is (identifying the apprehension of the subject-matter with the
faculty using it), we might say that the one man had the Eeligious
Sense, and the other the Moral."
But although a checked and stunted stage of the moral
sense can exist in which it is no introduction at all to revelation
— although an abortive form of it can be exhibited in which it
is consistent with Atheism and with no future life — although
there is a moral sense, which, as Dr. Newman says, " a so-called
civilisation recognises, while it ignores the conscience " — still
in the way in which the moral sense works in that class of
minds which accepts revelation, the moral sense develops and
declares itself from the first in the direction of revelation ; the
moral sense becomes an introduction to the doctrines of
revelation. Take the sense of sin. What an enormous differ
ence that makes in our view of the doctrine of the Atonement !
It involves the idea of sin as a mystery ; we know sin, and yet
we do not know it. What is it ? The weight of it is a great
power within us ; it can dispirit ; it can crush and prostrate ;
it can cloud a life ; it can produce agony ; and lastly, it can
fill us beyond recovery with the idea that it is all over with us,
and can wind up our mortal existence in despair. But what is
sin ? If sin is a mystery, then we cannot be surprised that
the remedy to it should be a mystery too. An atonement is a
natural doctrine of restoration, if we start with the original
disease as an enigma. How can we possibly tell, if some
incomprehensible entanglement and confusion has taken place,
what may be wanted to set it right again ? The case is like
some difficult piece of business in actual life, when a raw

Newmari s Grammar of Assent. 285
inexperienced mind summarily decides on some one single
easy step, which is all that is necessary to rectify the mistake
made : but the man of experience says " No ; something more
is wanted than that — the solution is more complex than you
think ; a succession of steps will be requisite." So, in the matter
of sin, one man says he' sees no difficulty — the Divine forgive
ness effects the cure in a moment. Another sees in sin " a
difficult business," that may not be capable of being set right
by one simple step, but may require a complex means for its
rectification. Take another effect of the sense of sin, which is also
auxiUary to revelation. It is often said, in arguing against
materialism, that the sublime goodness of which man is
capable shows that he is a spiritual being. Matter cannot be
heroic, cannot be angelic. But may it not also be said that
the wickedness of which man is capable establishes the same
conclusion ? Matter cannot be diabolic. Put before your mind
a bad man — armed with all the force and the determination,
all the craft and guile, of a corrupt wiU, devoted inexorably to
selfish ends, remorselessly thrusting aside all scruples which
threaten to interfere with them, designing and malicious, deep
in aU the subtle intricacy of vile plots and artful strategics, a
miracle of duplicity and dissimulation, a miracle of plausibility
and power of self-defence — can this man be a lump of matter?
No ; he must be a spirit. None but a spirit can be such as he ;
wickedness is the property of a spiritual nature. Brute matter
has, at any rate, the involuntary honesty of invincible stupidity.
Its passiveness, its inertness, rescues it from the perU of such
guilt. Its torpor is so far its safety. Although a wicked man
then undoubtedly presents himself to us in visible form and
throu°-h a fleshly medium, we are assured that behind the veU of
matter there thinks, contrives, and acts a spirit. But such a
line of thought as this obviously prepares us for, and inclines us
towards, the great disclosures of Scripture as regards the worlds
of departed spirits ; as well as of good and bad spiritual beings
who have not passed through this mortal state ; it gives a
leaning to the understanding on the side of those agencies not
of flesh and blood, against which Christianity in the Apostolic
writings struggles,— those " principalities and powers, the rulers

286 Newman s Grammar of Assent.
of the darkness of this world," the "spiritual wickedness in
high places."
The sense of sin, again, must affect fundamentally our
estimate of revelation ; because this profound affection of the
mind must make all the difference in our idea of God : and our
judgment on that which professes to be a communication from
God must depend upon our idea of Him. There are two ideas
of the Divine Being which spring respectively from two sets of
first principles — one of which gathers around conscience, the
other around a physical centre. There is the idea of Him as
a Moral Governor and Judge, expressed in the majestic
language of inspiration, which proclaims the " High and lofty
One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." And
there is another idea of Him as the Supreme Mundane Being,
the Impersonation of the causes which are at work in the
development and - completion of the visible world ; who looks
— we cannot say from Heaven — with calm satisfaction upon
the successful expansion of the original seed which commenced
the formation of the vast material organism ; — the universal
Spectator of the fabric of Nature, the growth of art and the
progress of civilisation. These two ideas of the Deity must
make all the difference in the aspect in which a revelation pre
sents itself to us : the former will recommend such a revelation
as that in the Old and New Testament to us ; the latter will
create a whole foundation of thought in preUminary conflict
with it.
Nor does the recommendation which the ideas and
sentiments of natural religion give to revelation stop with the
doctrines ; it applies also to the external evidences and to the
testimony upon which revelation is presented to us. We
cannot arbitrarily check the influence of first principles ; they
have a natural and legitimate bearing upon all the circumstances
of the case which they support, and among the rest, upon our
estimate of the character of the witnesses in the case.
Supposing we are in the first instance deeply impressed with
certain views of conscience and sin ; if the witnesses to a

Newman s Grammar of Assent. 287
revelation respond to these views, and if it is the scope of their
testimony to acquaint us with a Divine message that meets
them ; this cannot be other than a favourable mark of, and in
a degree a guarantee for, themselves personally. We agree
with their tone of mind, their characteristic mould of thought
and sentiment, their peculiar moral inspiration, and the pro
found current of joy and grief, of fear and hope, which runs
through the religious composition of their minds. But
agreeing with all this, we cannot but repose the greater con
fidence in them on account of it. The nature of our first
principles affects and bears upon the evidence as well as the
doctrines of Christianity.
These primary religious assumptions, then, become a basis
upon which those who accept the doctrines and evidences of
revelation go in the act of accepting them. And to those who
have embraced and adopted them this is a philosophical and
correct effect of them. They act philosophically, they fulfil
philosophical conditions of thought, when they use them in
this way, when they give them this recommendatory and pre
paratory force. We must judge of revelation according to
certain antecedent premisses which exist in our minds, according
to certain primary notions and impressions existing in us. If
these are wrong ones, we are in collision with philosophy in
adopting them ; but having adopted them, it is quite
philosophical in us to argue and judge from them as a starting
point — an dfyopuri, and intellectual base. We cannot do other
wise. But now the further great question arises — What is the
character of these first principles, and what is the justice of
their pretension to compose a commencement and a base of
reasoning ? Do they constitute a legitimate and philosophical
ground for the mind to go upon, or are they a foundation of
mere blind superstition, delusion, and fancy ? It will be said
the assumptions and first principles which obtain credit in
special departments of knowledge, and which direct the
illative sense in those departments, are principles which sooner
or later approve themselves to the whole of mankind ; they are
principles which are the result of observation and induction ;
they stand public investigation, and although they may not at

288 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
the present gain universal reception, they only wait the sure
effect of time, which wiU establish them satisfactorily and
invincibly. Such principles and assumptions as these, it will
be said, are a philosophical foundation to go upon, but this
cannot be said of the untested and obscure impressions of the
rehgious imagination, pretending to divine what it cannot
apprehend, and guessing where it cannot observe, — that
collection of dim notions which you call natural religion.
Here, then, the individual and personal character of true
reasoning which Dr. Newman has laid down, comes in with
remarkable force and point, to sustain those original premisses
in the human heart upon which the reception of the proof of
revelation is based. He says at once, the truth, the force, the
weight, the authority of these premisses is a personal matter.
I have these intuitive convictions ; others have them. The
strength with which these primary ideas are held, the degree
in which they penetrate the man, possess him, inspire him ;
the assurance which they beget, the sense of their reality, the
conviction that they cannot be spurious ideas, but represent
the truth of things — aU this is what makes the very essence of
their place as a premiss; and at the same time all this is
strictly personal. Formal statements can enumerate and
denote, for the purpose of discussion, the ideas of natural
religion ; they cannot possibly express the depth and intensity
with which they are entertained by the individual, or the
peculiar significance which they possess in his mind; and
their whole weight as a basis depends upon these circum
stances. "Every one," says Dr. Newman, "who thinks on
these subjects takes a course of his own : every one must use
the medium of his own primary mental impressions ; I offer
my own witness in the matter in question ; though, of course,
it would not be worth while my offering it, unless what I felt
myself agreed with what is felt by hundreds and thousands
besides me." " Conscience is a personal guide, and I use it,
because I must use myself ; I am as little able to think by
any mind but my own, as to breathe with another's lungs.
Conscience is nearer to me than any other means of knowledge.
And as it is given to me, so also it is given to others : and

Newmans Grammar of Assent. 289
being carried about by every individual in his own breast, and
requiring nothing besides itself, it is adapted for the communi
cation to each separately of that knowledge which is most
momentous to him individuaUy. ... I may say all this with
out entering into the question how far external assistances are
in all cases necessary to the action of the mind, because in fact
a man does not live in isolation, but is everywhere found as a
member of society. I am not concerned with abstract
questions." Dr. Newman's appeal, then, to the individual and personal
character of all genuine reasoning is attended by this advan
tage to the Christian argument, that the fundamental pre
misses of that argument are seen by means of this appeal in
all the cogency and force which they possess as strong indi
vidual convictions, as distinguished from their comparatively
tame pretensions when they are laid down as propositions and
statements. You are carried into a living world of belief.
When truths are put forward as statements only, we look on
them apart from their vital seat in the individual ; they are
suspended in the air, and seem to supplicate a proof and a
basis; that is therefore a weak aspect of them. But turn to
them as they exist in the individual, and the individual is a
basis. He can say, " I find these particular original convic
tions in me, that is, I find a belief in me ; it is, therefore, too
late to ask me to account for my belief; there it is, I have it, I
cannot help myself, it is a fact of my own mind, it is part of
myself; if I believe I believe. It is true I cannot prove them
to others, but that does not prevent their self-witness to me ;
if I cannot help a certain belief, that is the fuUest justification
of myself that there can possibly be." When truths are put
forward as propositions, they suggest our going further, getting
behind them, or underneath them ; they challenge inquiry, and
in the anticipation of this inquiry they lack the confidence of
a strong position. But as felt in the individual, they are a
belief to begin with ; the step is taken, their position is as
strong as it can be made by a decision for them at their very
starting. Nobody can say a word against a man for being
convinced of his own convictions. T

290 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
The primary ideas and sentiments, then, which constitute
natural religion, are a legitimate basis for the mind to proceed
upon in its estimate of the proof of revelation ; they correspond
to the principles in special departments of knowledge, which
enable those who are acquainted with those departments to
judge of evidence on matters belonging to them; only with
this difference, that the principles of science ultimately compel
universal reception, the moral set of principles does not. But
this distinction does not interfere with the right of assertion,
as regards those principles; on the part of those who have
them ; they have a right to assert as truth what is irresistibly
true to themselves and which others cannot disprove. Those
who find these original convictions in them have a right to
appeal to them as their starting-points and their reasoning
base. They cannot of course appeal to their own original beUef
as binding others, but they can appeal to it as the full justifica
tion of themselves, and of that favourable attitude toward reve
lation which may be drawn from it. Such a primary belief is,
therefore, a strictly philosophical premiss, for the purpose for
which it is used. Were it used indeed for the purpose of
proving revelation to those in whom the belief does not exist,
no premiss could be more unphilosophical : but it is not used
for this purpose ; it is only used for the purpose of recom
mending revelation to ourselves, and to others who have the
same primary belief with ourselves, and for this purpose it is
a philosophical premiss.
Take, for example, the instance which we used lately — the
sense of sin. This is a knowledge which those who possess
it start with as an advantage in the estimate of the Christian
revelation, that is, they have the right to say that they do.
It is not knowledge in a scientific sense, but it is knowledge
in such a sense as that those who have it are instinctively as
sured that they are in possession of some truth, and are influ
enced by it in their judgment of revelation and its proof. It
is knowledge so far as it is a kind of insight, partial, but real
as far as it goes, into the nature of something in which we
are fundamentally concerned, and on which God's dealings with
us in revelation profess to hinge. It corresponds, in its place

Newmans Grammar of Assent. 291
¦and results, to a principle of knowledge in some special depart
ment. It is impossible not to see what a strong root of
Christian conviction and belief, what an introduction to the
Christian dispensation, this sense of sin in the mind of St.
Paul was. St. Paul filled two remarkable places ; he was at
once the first phUosophical teacher of Christianity, and the
first great convert of promulgated Christianity. What is the
most conspicuous premiss, then, which we observe working in
his mind, to beget his belief in the Christian dispensation, and
assure him of its being a real authentic revelation from -God?
We see it in the Epistles which succeeded his conversion. It
is the sense of sin. The apprehension of the tremendous,
mysterious fact of sin pervades all his Epistles, as the great
preliminary to the acceptance of the Gospel. It was an assur
ance in his mind, which was of the nature of a profound
knowledge, answering to the accurate acquaintance with some
truth in some special department. Could any human being
have persuaded St. Paul that he knew no more about sin than
GaUio or Herod, and that he and the Sadducee Ananias stood
exactly on the same level upon this article of knowledge ? He
felt he had a knowledge of this subject which other people had
not. This formed the basis of the Christianity which he
preached and propagated ; and if he persuaded himself by the
same arguments by which he persuaded others, it was the
basis of his own conversion to Christianity.
These moral and religious starting-points present them
selves indeed to us in the first instance as belonging rather to
the department of the affections than of knowledge ; and we
are asked — What have the affections to do with deciding a
question of reason, such as that of the evidence of revelation ?
We are not concerned with the affections here, it is said, but
with the understanding only. It is the understanding alone
which judges about truth ; and to introduce the affections into
the inquiry is to mislead the judgment, and to carry it away
from evidence to enlist it unlawfully on the side of mere
wishes, fears, and hopes. But the truth is, that in moral
subjects we cannot separate the understanding from the affec
tions. The affections themselves are a kind of understanding ;

292 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
we cannot understand without them. Affection is a part of
insight, it is wanted for a due acquaintance with the facts of
the case. The moral affections, for instance, are the very
instruments by which we intellectually apprehend good and
high human character. All admiration is affection — the admira
tion of virtue ; the admiration of outward nature. Affection
itself, then, is a kind of intelligence. Feeling is necessary
for comprehension, and we cannot know what a particular
instance of goodness is, we cannot embrace the true conception
of goodness in general, without it. These primary convictions
of which we are here speaking, then, are not prevented by
being affections from being knowledge — knowledge in the
sense of a certain kind of insight, — which those who have it
are justified in acting upon as knowledge, in regarding as
authoritative and qualified to command their acts.
Dr. Newman's appeal to the personal and individual
character of true reasoning thus combines the strength of an
enthusiastic ground, on the side of revelation, without its
weakness. It is a common remark that the enthusiast is logi
cal upon his premisses. Grant him the intensity of his own
primary convictions — the truth of his own starting-points —
and you cannot confute his conclusions from them ; but his
position has the great defect, that his primary convictions — his
starting-points — are his own and nobody else's; they are
singular and eccentric : he cannot appeal to any witness in
human nature, to any either whole or partial consensus ; he is
an isolated man, and there is no body of sentiment and belief
in the world which he can claim as concurring with him. His
premisses, therefore, are fantastic, and with them his conclu
sions. But the appeal to the individual in the matter of the
primary truths of natural religion gains one of these results,
without incurring the other. It gains the strength of the
enthusiast's ground, because the enthusiast's strength lies not
in his being eccentric, but in his being internal: if he is
internal, an ordinary believer is as strong in his belief as an
enthusiast. And it avoids its weakness, because the indivi
dual is in concurrence and agreement with a whole world of
other individuals who think with him. In the fundamental

Newmans Grammar of Assent. 293
ideas of natural religion there is something approaching to a
consensus, and his own personal conviction finds an echo in
the voice of human nature. His principles, then, have all the
strength of the enthusiast's, while they are the premisses, at
the same time, of the great body of mankind. The individual's
strong sense of them justifies their influence, while such
general concurrence in them is a guarantee against their
fanaticism. The logical posture, then, of the Christian and infidel
toward each other, is, according to Dr. Newman, this : One of
the parties taking certain fundamental perceptions — or what
appear to him to be such — which form the substance of natural
religion, as his starting-points, and judging from them as a
reasoning base, accepts from that base of judgment the evi
dences of Christianity. Can the other refute his inference ?
He cannot, for he does not know his base. He knows the
truths of natural religion in the form of propositions ; he can
not possibly know them as they exist in the individual's
mind. He cannot know then how much legitimate force they
exert in the estimate of the evidences of revelation. Can he
then disprove the principles themselves ? He cannot, for they
are not in opposition to any known truth ; while the immense
concurrence in them, and the homage of the great mass of
mankind to them, protects them from the charge of fanaticism.
The inward premisses, then, and the conclusion, are alike out
of reach of refutation, and safe from the disputant's assault.
In this state of the case the Grammar of Assent may be
usefully studied by those who direct the sceptical press in this
country. They wiU not be converted to the belief of Chris
tianity by it, but they will perhaps be able to understand that
Christianity has something more to say for itself than they
suppose. They assume a tone of very comfortable certainty,
that the evidences of Christianity have been tried and found
wanting. These gentlemen recommend a philosophical sus
pense of judgment, and declaim against positive conviction ;
but their own minds are entirely made up. The age of
Pyrrhonism is past ; men could be Pyrrhonists in the groves of
Academia ; but in the roar and conflict of the hodiernal arena

294 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
of opinion they find that the voice of doubt is not heard, and
that decision is in request. They bow, and apparently without *
any great reluctance, to the public need. They assume the
falsehood of Christianity, that reason rejects its doctrines, and
experience its evidences. The dogmatic infidel suggests sus
pense of judgment to the Christian beUever, but as for himself
he is far in advance of the beggarly elements of doubt and
inquiry, and with downright assertion as his own weapon, he
gags his antagonist with Pyrrhonism. This is the philosophy
of the sceptical press. We do not know whether it is intended
to be looked upon as literary pleasantry ; but the conductors
of it must have a very low idea of the intellect of their
opponents if they think that it can be contemplated as serious
controversy. For how stands the matter ?
There is a certain set of fundamental ideas which, when
embraced with a depth and reality of conviction, practically
leads to the acceptance of Christianity and its evidences.
They have done so with an almost unbroken uniformity;
they do now ; and consequently we have every reason to
expect that they always will do. The connection, then, of
these ideas with the acceptance of Christianity cannot be
set aside as the result of fancy or chance ; the foundation
supposed, the edifice stands legitimately upon it. But these
writers look upou the evidence of Christianity as it presents
itself to themselves without this preliminary foundation, and
by it judge the evidence as it presents itself to others
with it. They apply their estimate of a structure of belief,
which has not a basis of introductory truths, to a structure
of belief which has one. They forget that they are not in
the same position, and do not stand on the same ground, as
judges of evidence, with their opponents. But if they ever
do remember that there is such a thing as a ground of natural
religion, if they ever do bring themselves to recognise the
existence of a certain class of primary ideas and instinctive
impressions which exist in the human mind, the mode in
which they treat the fact when they take cognisance of it, is
worse than their blindness when they forgot it. They, treat
these rooted convictions as if they were only plastered upon the

Newmans Grammar of Assent. 295
surface of man, and could be taken off. These ideas must be
simply erased, effaced, and expunged from the tablet of the
human mind. But what process has been invented for erasing
and expunging what is de facto part of human nature ? And
what ground is there for the assumption which is constantly
made that the progress of science and civilisation will destroy
these fundamental sentiments and convictions ? Let us take
first practical civUisation. By this we mean the multiplication
of the resources of society, facilities for doing things, means
of communication, comforts, accommodations, conveniences.
They assume a hostile logic in these facts to that original creed
of the human heart. Yet it is difficult to see why a man's
expectation of a future judgment should be altered, because he
can get to Australia in two months, whereas some years ago
he could only reach it in eight. A belief in heaven and hell
cannot at all depend on the success or backwardness of steam
navigation. It is as little easy to see why the same beUef
should be affected by postal communication, the submarine
telegraph, the tubular bridge, the discovery of a new propul
sive power, the purification of gas, draining, the steam-plough,
and sanitary improvements. If there is any argument against
that primary creed in these facts, the human mind is so
incorrigibly illogical that one man was an atheist under the
reign of packhorses, and another man is a believer in the era
of goods trains. It is as difficult to see what is the logic in
physical science which is in antagonism to natural religion, or
to revealed either. The truths of these respective departments
are the truths of two different spheres, which cannot come
into contact with each other. If men feel a conscience within
them, if they acknowledge its presages, and respect its voice
as judicial ; they must do so all the same under the Ptolemaic
and Copernican theories of the Solar System. If they derive
from conscience the sense of sin, they must derive it whether
light is explained upon the theory of emission, or the theory of
undulation. There are difficulties in a Personal Deity, and
there are difficulties in a personal immortality : there are
difficulties attaching to prayer, and there are difficulties attach
ing to special providences ; but those difficulties are exactly

296 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
the same, whether the cellular theory is true or false, and
whether the sun is fed by the mechanical collision of aster
oids, or by the continuous condensation of its own matter.
FreewiU is not contradicted by the Uniformitarian in geology,
and Predestination is not contradicted by the Eevolutionist in
geology. Scientific analysis cannot possibly discover any
fresh objection to the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of
the Atonement, the doctrine of Grace, or the doctrine of the
Sacraments. If the Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacraments is
our1 conclusion, — it is our conclusion whether there is a space
filling ether, or whether there is a total vacuum in space ; if the
Anglican theory is our decision, it is our decision whether we
accept or not the convertibility of heat into motion, and motion
into heat ; and if Transubstantiation is true, it is true whatever
hypothesis we maintain as to the ultimate indivisibility and
weight of atoms.
Sometimes, indeed, science appears to threaten the very
foundation of a spiritual existence, and some theory pushes
forward into the first ranks which seems to convert our very
personality into a development and form of matter. Men
tremble at the approach of the giant who comes, with uplifted
arm, to aim his blow ; but if they only stand their ground the
spell is broken, the descending stroke falls harmless upon us,
and the spectre vanishes. We shake ourselves, and feel whole
and untouched. All that is required for successful resistance
in these encounters is distinctly to see that A is not B. The
theory of the correlation of vital, physical, and chemical forces,
while it reduces some life to the same head with material pro
perties, does not touch the spiritual being or self ; consciousness
witnesses to that ego as distinct from the mere living bodily
organism. The theory, again, that a living organism can
develop itself from inorganic matter deals with the origination
of one fact, while that which we are conscious of is another
fact. Thus material science, even granting its pretensions,
only advances as far as some facts which come under the head
of life ; it then stops upon the outer brink, and can only look
from thence upon an unsolved personal being.
No reason, then, can be given why the progress of civilisa-

Newman's Grammar of Assent. 297
tion or science should expunge from the human mind the ideas
of conscience, sin, repentance, judgment, which, as a matter of
fact, lead to the Christian belief, and feed the Christian Church.
But when reasoning ceases, prophecy begins. There are no more
persistent and determined prophesiers in the world than infidels;
they make sure of the future. Mankind do not at present think
with them, but they wUl do. The day is coming ; the edifice
of superstition wiU fall; principles long rooted in man will
disappear ; it will be seen that their lurid and misty light is a
deception ; the human mind will be rescued from the thraldom
of them. This will be the issue of civilisation ; this wiU be
the history of mankind. Thus when logic fails, they foresee ;
and when science refuses to contradict religion, they discern
the rupture in a vision. We have two great prophets among
us who prophesy resolutely and prophesy perpetually, — the
Infidels and Millennarians.
We could wish, however, that Dr. Newman had treated the
exceptional case of those who, while they would profess a code
of natural religion approaching to his own, still do not proceed
thence to the acceptance of the Christian evidences. There
are those who believe in morals and in religious morals, but
shrink from miracles or doctrines. There are those even who
accept Eoman morals, who admire the ascetic type, who em
brace counsels of perfection, who stiU decline to believe either
in the Gospels or the Epistles. The Gospels deter them by
their outward miracles, and the Epistles by their inward —
by forgiveness, justification, and salvation, through the blood
of an Atoning Sacrifice. The acceptance, indeed, of an ascetic
standard of morals by persons is quite compatible with
cowardice and weakness in the acceptance also of the yoke
of physical impression ; — is compatible with a dogmatic ima
gination binding their sense of possibility to the routine of
material laws, and disabling them from believing miracles
in Nature or mysteries in truth. The more we know of prac
tical human nature, the more we become alive to its piecemeal
composition, and to the mistake of taking men as consistent
wholes. They are often collections of fragments, reflecting
a past succession of different and discordant influences, like

298 Newman's Grammar of Assent.
geological compounds, which represent the action of past dis
turbing forces.
We could wish, again, that Dr. Newman had treated the
case of some who even admire the distinctive mysteries of
Christianity, but who have not come to an understanding with
themselves whether those mysteries are sublime truths or
sublime fictions. They are captivated by devotion, and by
devotion founded on certain ideas and upon the existence of a
certain supernatural world ; but whether the truths exist or the
world exists anywhere else than in the worshipper's own mind
they are not prepared to say. They will follow, with even the
enthusiasm of partisans, the devotional assertions of a high
religious rite, while they do not, at the same time, think it
particularly signifies whether these assertions are true or not :
their intellect inclines to the latter alternative. The doctrine
of the Atonement is true to them in a ritual, and false as a
statement in Scripture or in a Creed. The appeal to the " Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world " is quite correct
in a litany ; but when they meet with the same truth in a
theological book, they turn away from an assertion with which
-their intellect is not in harmony. Our own Eucharistic service
and the Eoman Mass alike are founded upon the doctrine of an
Atoning Sacrifice : that doctrine is the very fibre of them, and
they are utterly hollow and mere unmeaning structures of
words without it ; yet one of these minds wiU respond to the
service and reject the doctrine. Why so ? The dignity of
language is its truth ; and if an idea is false it ought not to be
in a ritual — if it is true, it ought to be accepted as a statement.
Why should ritual enjoy the very unenviable privilege of false
assertion ? And why should the language of prayer and
supplication be esteemed noble and sublime if it issues out of
the worshipper's mouth directed to a personage who does not
exist, on account of an office which does not exist ? The fact
is, however, that ritual is regarded by this class of minds only
as the expression of subjective religious truth. It relieves the
worshipper's mind by the vocal and symboUc utterance of
certain religious conceptions, profoundly poetical, and stimu
lative of deep emotion; and the whole adoration of the

Newman's Grammar of Assent. 299
congregation goes out toward a mysterious personage, who has
done a mysterious work for them ; but whether there are in
the invisible world any realities which correspond to these
ideas, whether there is any such personage or any such
work, whether there is any objective truth which answers to
this subjective is another question, which they prefer not
having to deal with. A statement in Scripture, a Creed, or an
Article, puts this question before them, and therefore they dis
like a statement in Scripture, a Creed, or an Article. A Creed
asserts an objective truth, a ritual to them asserts a subjective
one ; and subjective truth is interesting to them as reveal
ing the fertility and wealth of the human mind, its poetry and
its fancy ; objective truth is a duU dry formula. Even a
Eesurrection and Eternity are dull and insipid to these minds
as Articles in a Creed : if they are ideas enriching a ritual, they
welcome them ; if they are really to be believed, they give
them but a freezing reception. Yet it was in this very
character, as the vehicle of objective truth, that the formulary
of faith appealed of old to Christian poetry and imagination.
It was not treated like a dry skeleton and framework of words,
but the statement was glorious and elevating because a positive
statement ; it asserted the objective reality of the thing stated ;
it gave an opening into another world, and an absolutely real
world. Contemplate the grave, precise, and formal statements
of a Christian Church in this aspect, and they lighten up with
beams from the very fountain of light. They represent the
faith of generations of Christians in the ineffable condescension
of God and the highest destiny of man. They announce by
their very rigidity the external seat of truth ; that truth is a
fact which exists independently of us, our own belief, or our
own imagination.
We do not profess to have given our readers more than a
slice of Dr. Newman's elaborate and acute investigation into
the processes of the reasoning faculty ; and the part we have
taken has been that which combines the writer's application of
the general principles he has laid down in the body of the
treatise to the particular case of the evidence of revelation.
For Dr. Newman's treatment of the whole department of

300 Newmans Grammar of Assent.
reasoning we must refer our readers to the treatise itself, which
brings to the subject the subtlest discrimination and most
penetrating force, and an eye for the nicest distinctions, aided
by the richest imagination and the most inexhaustible fertUity
of illustration. We cannot part from Dr. Newman without
assuring him how glad we are to meet him on common ground.
We do not, of course, agree either with all his philosophical
positions, or with various particular observations which we
come across in the treatise. He sometimes speaks from the
basis of his own communion, and of course all his defence of
the Christian revelation he himself considers to belong to
the Eoman interpretation of that revelation. We have pre
ferred, however, to call attention to agreement rather than to
differences ; and we have treated his Essay as what it really
and in substance is, a defence, and powerful defence, of a
common Christianity ; which has filled up a vacant place in
Christian apologetics, and has given a substantial position to a
part of the Christian argument which had only received an
informal and allusive notice before, namely, the antecedent and
introductory principles which lead to the acceptance of the
Christian evidences.

EGYPTIAN DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE.
(Note to page 56.)
The doctrine of Metempsychosis was less in conflict indeed with the
truth of human personality, when it employed the brutes as its
instruments, and represented the souls of men as passing upon death
into the bodies of animals ; for the man prevailed over the lower
personality or impersonality of the brute, and was safer from a rival
self. But the doctrine of animal metempsychosis could not at the same
time exist without degrading the human soul ¦ in its own eyes, and
polluting the sense of immortality. Something is due to the human
soul even in a state of sin and degeneracy ; to unite it to the nature
of brutes and send it through an almost endless cycle of brute life,
migrating into one animal after another, was to degrade not only the
guilty soul but the soul. M. Bunsen indeed says, — " the groundwork
of this doctrine is a consciousness of moral responsibility, and a belief
in the personal indestructibility of the human soul. A judgment is
passed upon it at the point of death, the punishment in its being
condemned to be lowered from human to animal life."1 But even
punishment, and especially purifying punishment, should be something
that is suitable to man, nor should the nature be degraded in chastising
the sin. M. Bunsen sees indeed in the doctrine of animal metempsychosis
the foundation of the whole Egyptian animal worship. " This
community between the human and animal soul once admitted, one
can understand how the Egyptians at last arrived at the idea of
worshipping in animals a living manifestation of the Divinity."2 But
he could hardly have given a greater proof of the degrading character
of the doctrine, than that it involved the principle of " a community
between the human and animal soul," and laid the basis for the
revolting animal worship of ancient Egypt.
M. Bunsen is disposed to excuse the animal metempsychosis of the
Egyptians in consideration of their idea of a personal immortality.
He regards the truth in the system as atoning for the corruption, the
corruption as merged in the truth ; and so he arrives at a very high
estimate of the Egyptian doctrine of a Future State. But upon this
plan we may raise the rank of any religious teaching whatever, that is,
if we sink the bad parts, and only judge by the good. We must not
1 Bunsen's Egypt, vol. iv p. 641. 2 Ibid.

302 Egyptian Doctrine of a Future State.
do this, but we must take the system as a whole. All Pagan teaching
on this subject had its good side ; it contained the idea of a personal
eternity ; but this high idea was debased by the mode in which it was
dealt with. So with the Egyptian doctrine in particular — it had this
idea in it ; but this idea was joined to the vilest corruptions. Could any
community, that had the slightest pretence to advancement in religion,
hold the Egyptian doctrine of a future state as a whole — with its animal
metempsychosis attaching to it ? If this is impossible, then the Egyptian
doctrine was a low one as a whole. In these combinations the good
parts raise the bad a great deal less than the bad parts drag down the
good. If there is a strong vile idea in a religion, we may be quite sure
that that in some way impregnates the whole. A spurious form of a
truth is at great distance from that truth. The Pagan mythology con
tained the idea of the unity of God. Mohammedanism recognises
Christianity. Fragmentary truth, — a high idea existing in the distance,
while all the near ground is occupied with the grossest matter, —
is a very weak thing. Animal metempsychosis filled the whole fore
ground of the Egyptian doctrine, — it was the strong coarse material
which came in contact with the popular mind, and made the impres
sion ; the eternal world was in the remote horizon of the system.
M. Bunsen indeed appeals to the recently discovered piece of
Egyptian Ritual, called the " Book of the Dead," in which a soul is
represented as urging its claim before the supreme tribunal of the
invisible world to eternal communion with " its father Osiris," in heaven.
It recounts all its own merits, and asseverates its own purity with the
solemn repetition, " I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure ; "
the Judges assent ; " it is stripped of its body and makes its way to its
father, the self-created soul of the Universe ; " when it sings in ecstasy,
"I am the ruling spirit of Osiris who loves me."1 It is not indeed easy to
repose a perfect faith in hieroglyphics, or to understand what all this
means, even if we do ; but if this piece of ritual means that some souls
enter, immediately on death, upon an eternal and heavenly life, we
must take this doctrine as interpreted by antiquity ; and the state
ment of antiquity is that the eternal life beyond the stars to which
select souls ascended immediately upon death was a divine, rather than
a strictly human state. " There was another state," says Warburton,
who here reflects antiquity, " in the ancient pagan mythology, which had
the same relation to Elysium that Tartarus had to purgatory, the extreme
of reward, as Tartarus of punishment. But then this state was not in the
infernal regions, but in Heaven. Neither was it the lot of common
men, but reserved for heroes and demons."2 And again, — " We are
to know that the Ancients distinguished the souls of men into three
1 Bunsen's Egypt, vol. iv. pp. 644, 646, 665.
2 Divine Legation, vol. ii. p. 125.

Egyptian Doctrine of a Future State. 303
species, the human, the heroic, and the demonic. The two last, when
they left the body, were indeed believed to enjoy eternal happiness for
their public services on earth ; not in Elysium, but in heaven, where
they became a kind of demigods."1 The heavenly eternity, then, to
which some souls were admitted at death, was a Divine rather than a
human state in the Egyptian system, if we are to interpret that system
by antiquity at large. , The semi-divine life soared instantly to its
native empyrean, but the human future life opened upon the gross
earthly cycle of the animal metempsychosis. We see in such an arrange
ment a latent indulgence to human disbelief. It provides a future human
fife indeed, but at the same time it encloses this life within the bounds
of this material world ; it lodges departed souls in tabernacles of brute
flesh, till the end of an enormous cycle, when what becomes of them is
too distant a thing to be taken in by the imagination. Its real future
is thus in this world ; while its eternal world is an abstraction, an ideal
sphere of gods and godlike beings, and not a human eternal residence.
What is at the bottom of such an arrangement ? Obviously, the
difficulty of entertaining the idea of a real world of departed men.
They live indeed, but it is under different forms in this world, or as
ideal beings in another. Egypt could make them gods, or make them
brutes, but could not make them eternal men.
1 Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 136. He quotes Cicero : — " Omnibus qui
patriam conservarint, adiuvarint, auxerint, certum esse in coslo ad definitum
locum, ubi beati sevo sempiterno fruantur. " — Somn. Scip. c. iii.

TIIOMAS AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.