THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
CHRISTIANITY v. ECCLESIASTICISM 
 
 OR 
 
 PAEOCHIAL PAELEYS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ECCLESIASTIC CREEDS AND ECCLESIASTICS 
 
 {KEBLE, PUSEY, NEWMAN). 
 
 ON 
 
 BIBLICAL INSPIRATION AND OTHER KINDRED SUBJECTS; 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 Rev. HUGH HIEROUS, m.a., m.c.u., 
 
 AND 
 
 His Parishioner, THEOPHILUS TRUMAN. 
 
 EDITED BY J. H.^^*"-- 
 
 PRO AMORE DEI. 
 
 ' Force never yet a generous heart did gain ; 
 We yield on parley, but are storm'd in vain.'— DryJ^n. 
 ' Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, 
 I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was 
 once for all delivered unto the saints.' — Epistle of Jude 3. 
 
 • Reason is the only faculty whereby we have to judge of anything, even revelation 
 itself.'— Bij/iop Butler. 
 
 ' At last he beat his music out, 
 There lives more faith in honest doubt. 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds.' — Tennyson. 
 ' I shut my grave Aquinas fast 
 The monkish gloss of ages past. 
 The schoolman's creed aside I cast. 
 'And my heart answered, " Lord, I see 
 How Three are One, and One is Three; 
 Thy riddle hath been read to me." ' — imttier. 
 ' I say, that in God's own good time you will know all things,* — the last -words oj a most 
 lo-ving and belo-ved luife. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 
 
 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, and 
 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 NORMAN ANU SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
OP 
 
 M. A. H. 
 
 THE BELOVED. 
 
 MARCH 24th, 1884. 
 
 SHE OPENED HER MOUTH WITH WISDOM 
 
 AND IN 
 
 HER TONGUE WAS THE LAW OP KINDNESS.' 
 
H S 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 ►*— 
 
 To soothe a deep sorrow, to cherish a beloved 
 memory, and to vindicate within a special circle, 
 a departure from old associations, creeds, and 
 practices this book has been written. It lays no 
 claim to literary distinction. The great store- 
 house of biblical literature and religious 
 biography has been searched for materials to 
 sustain and enforce his arguments, but the 
 Writer's obligations are too many and too 
 great to admit of individual references, except, 
 it may be, to Archbishop Tillotson, Bishops 
 Bull, Warburton, and Watson, to the Cardinal 
 Newman, and the Rev. Thos. Mozley, M.A. of 
 Oriel College, and the Rev. G. Vance Smith, 
 B.A, Ph.D. 
 
 It is, perhaps, right to state that italics have 
 been employed frequently in the text, even in 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 quotations from Authors who had not so used 
 them. They have been used, indeed, with 
 greater freedom than literary taste could 
 approve ; but, since the book has been written 
 for the special purpose of pointing out the 
 fallacies deduced by many from the words of 
 Scripture ; written, in short, to vindicate a 
 departure from a Creed, and to exhibit a more 
 rational and scriptural theory based on a correct 
 reading of the biblical text, the graces of com- 
 position and of type have been foregone, in the 
 wish of arresting attention, especially of persons 
 who have passively accepted ' scriptural texts ' 
 without a full consideration of their true 
 meaning. For a similar reason, and from a 
 strong .desire to rouse and fix the reflective 
 faculties of the Reader, the repetition of im- 
 portant matter, in various forms, or even in 
 identical phrases, has not been avoided, but 
 rather has the counsel of Isaiah, of ' precept 
 upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon 
 line, line upon line ; here a little, and there 
 a little' (Isaiah xxviii. lo), been followed. 
 
 To avoid local misapprehension, it is right to 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 State that the character of the Rev. H. Hierous 
 is intended to be generic, and that the personality 
 and the conversations are wholly imaginary. 
 The wish of the Writer has been, through Mr. 
 Hierous, to state most honestly and fully all 
 that could possibly be said in support of the 
 tenets in which he (the Writer), as a Member of 
 the Church of England, had been educated — to 
 which for many years he had been attached with 
 unquestioning devotion ; but which tenets he is 
 now compelled by facts — and by intellectual 
 and conscientious convictions — to abandon as 
 unsound. 
 
 The Writer feels most strongly that if the 
 Reader will, in a judicial spirit, ponder on the 
 facts and arguments brought forward in this 
 volume, he too will likewise think that such 
 tenets ought to be abandoned — abandoned as 
 untrue and dishonouring to the Most High, who 
 hath declared, * I am the Lord, and there is none 
 else ; beside me, there is no God : I will guide 
 thee, though thou hast not known me ; that they 
 may know from the rising of the sun, and from 
 the west, that there is none beside me : I am the 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 Lord, and there is none else ' (Isaiah xlv. 5, 6) ; 
 abandoned and forgotten, as being mistrustful of 
 our blessed Lord, who has so emphatically de- 
 clared, ' This is life eternal, that they should 
 know thee the only true God, and him whom 
 thou didst send (even) Jesus Christ ' (John 
 xvii. 3). 
 
 J. H. 
 
PAROCHIAL PARLEYS 
 
 INTERVIEW THE FIRST. 
 
 Vicar (the Rev. Hugh Hierous). I am glad 
 to have met you in this cool and secluded spot, 
 for I have been longing to speak to you on a 
 subject of some delicacy — a topic, indeed, which 
 has given me great anxiety, and which, even now, 
 I would not broach to a person of your age and 
 intelligence w^ere it not that I feel bound bv my 
 ordination vows to do so. 
 
 Parishioner (Mr. Truman). My dear Vicar, 
 you somewhat startle me ; but I am sure that 
 your motives are kindly, and as I have found this 
 small and beautiful flower (Partiassia pahistris) 
 — the object of my search — I have abundance 
 of time before me, and am quite curious to know 
 what in me has given you anxiety. 
 
 Vicar. Well, I have been concerned to ob- 
 serve that during the five years I have been 
 the vicar of this parish you have never once 
 
 I 
 
2 TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 
 
 attended the Holy Communion, although you are 
 a very regular attendant at church ; and my 
 appeals to the parishioners on the vital impor- 
 tance of this sacred rite have been most earnest 
 and frequent. Even these circumstances per se 
 would not have caused me to intrude on you, 
 because I feel that my strong appeals from the 
 pulpit exonerate me from responsibility in this 
 matter — liberavi aniinam meani ; but an intimate 
 friend of yours has informed me that you absent 
 yourself because you hold erroneous doctrine, 
 and that you cannot enunciate the ' Belief,' which 
 is an essential preliminary to the participation of 
 the Holy Sacrament ; that, in brief, you disbelieve 
 in the doctrine of the Blessed Trinitv, and are 
 even unwilling to address our Lord Jesus Christ 
 as ' God of God, Light of Light, very God of very 
 God; 
 
 Parishioner. Your informant is correct as to 
 the reasons which preclude my presence, but I 
 am not willing to admit that I hold ' erroneous 
 doctrine' ; on the contrary, I think it is the faith 
 which was ' once delivered to the saints,' and 
 that it becomes me ' to contend ' for it on those 
 rare occasions when I can do so without danger 
 of wrecking the simple faith of others in still more 
 important particulars; and as this appears to be 
 one of those occasions, I invite you, my dear 
 Pastor, to speak freely, and I assure you that I 
 shall accept with becoming reverence your ad- 
 
THE CREED OF ST. ATHAXASIUS. 3 
 
 monitions. In these solemn matters mv one sole, 
 prayerful wish is to be guided to what is true, 
 and when, as the Premier Apostle puts it, I am 
 unable ' to give an answer to every man that 
 asketh me a reason of the hope that is in me ' 
 (i Peter iii. 15), then will I bow with thankfulness 
 to him who has shown me the better wav. 
 
 Vicar. Your frankness relieves me of all em- 
 barrassment. I felt it to be my duty, at whatever 
 cost, to admonish you, on hearing what I did 
 from Mr. H. B., inasmuch as, with a solemnity 
 equivalent to an oath, I had promised the Bishop 
 * to use both publick and private monitions and 
 exhortations,' and ' to be ready with all faithful 
 diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous 
 and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word.' 
 And that these views, which you now acknow- 
 ledge to me, are so, the Church plainly, strongly, 
 yea, most emphatically, teaches in the grandest of 
 her utterances, and in words which no man living 
 can by possibility mistake. She says : ' TF//050- 
 ever^SSS. be saved, before all things it is necessary 
 to hold the Catholick Faith ; and the Catholick 
 Faith is this : That we worship one God in 
 Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ; that the Godhead 
 of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 
 is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eter7ial ; 
 the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy 
 Ghost is God ; and vet thev are not three Gods, 
 but one God ; ' and she closes her amplifications 
 
 I * 
 
4 TEACHINGS OF THE VHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 of this ancient Creed with the awful words, ^This 
 IS the Catholick Faith, which except a man 
 beheve faithfully he cannot be saved ! ' 
 
 Parishioner. Yes, sir ; no honest man can 
 say that it is not the teaching of the Church of 
 England. She received this metaphysical creed 
 from her venerable mother the Church of Rome, 
 and has given it a conspicuousness and a power 
 in her services higher than does the older Church, 
 dealing out its damnatory clauses with a fre- 
 quency and an audacity which her parent seems 
 to regard as imprudent. Indeed, it is a very 
 surprising thing that the Church of England 
 should retain only one day in the ecclesiastic 
 year, and that the first day in Lent, on which 
 to pass a formal ' Commination ' on great moral 
 crimes, such vile sins as idolatry, adultery and 
 murder, cursing parents and ' causing the blind 
 to go out of his way,' and the like : one day in 
 twelve months, and one day only (and that day 
 oftentimes a week-day, when comparatively 
 few persons are in the church), on which she 
 officially proclaims that ' Cursed is he that 
 taketh reward to slay the innocent,' and yet that 
 she should appoint no less than fourteen high 
 festival days, on each of which her priests should 
 formally proclaim that ' without doubt ' .... ^ he 
 shall perish everlastingly' who is unable to com- 
 prehend — or unwilling to confess — the ' Catho- 
 lick Faith ' in all its entirety — ' whole and unde- 
 
THE CREED OF ST. ATHANASIUS. 5 
 
 filed' — and to 'worship one God in Trinity, and 
 Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons 
 nor dividing the substance ' ! Thus placing the 
 man who is intellectually embarrassed by a 
 metaphysical paradox, in the same position as a 
 wilful murderer ; and announcing with ten times 
 greater frequency in the public services of the 
 Church, that ' without doubt ' he shall perish 
 everlastingly.' Surely, it is the deadening influence 
 of habit alone which enables sane individuals 
 to listen to, and approve of, such anathemas ! 
 One w^ould suppose that on the principles of 
 equity, not to say anything of Christian charity or 
 ' love,' the said services ought to be in the reverse 
 order of frequency. The venerable Church of 
 Rome is more reserved in her utterances respect- 
 ing this mysterious ecclesiastic dogma. Canon 
 Oakley of that Church informs us, that in their 
 ' liturgical systems the Athanasian Creed occupies 
 a place which secures it against the risk, and our 
 people against the temptation, of* criticism. 
 It forms part of an office which is rarely 
 recited in public except in cathedral chapters, 
 colleges, and religious communities.' Our 
 owm Church is more demonstrative — and the 
 creed is unmistakablv, as you say, ' the teach- 
 ing of the Church of England,' and the teach- 
 ing is clear, bold, and unmistakable ; it is 
 almost her characteristic mark among the 
 three great Churches of Christendom — the 
 
6 TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Roman, the Greek, and the AngHcan — for she 
 alone proclahns it aloud as a creed in the public 
 services of the Church at several great and 
 distinct festivals in the course of one year. The 
 ' Holy Orthodox Eastern Church ' never uses it ; 
 she could hardly do so, for she, with her tens 
 of thousands of followers in Syria, Palestine, 
 Russia, and elsewhere, falls under the condemna- 
 tion equally with myself ; she also is unable to 
 discover any apostolic authority for the statement 
 that ' the Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the 
 Son,' and because of this incapacity, all the 
 myriads who do, or have, accepted her teachings, 
 ' without doubt shall perish everlastingly.' The 
 Church of England decrees this appalling sen- 
 tence, and every priest in her pay is bound as an 
 honest man to sing or say it at Morning Prayer 
 on thirteen distinct and separate Feasts, among 
 which, as I have already said, stand out promi- 
 nently the very greatest and most solemn of her 
 festivals — Christmas Day, Easter Day, Ascension 
 Day, and Whitsunday. Yes, sir, I accept all 
 that you state as to the teachings of your 
 Church ; I recognize with full reverence that you 
 are simply performing your duty, as one of her 
 consecrated priests, to bring this fact before me 
 as a parishioner and an attendant at your church. 
 Yet, with all this, I fail to perceive that in not ac- 
 cepting such teachings I am espousing 'erroneous 
 and strange doctrines contrary to God's Word.' 
 
THE CREED OF ST. ATHANASIUS. 7 
 
 Vicar. We are distinctly told in God's Word 
 that ' There are three that bear record in Heaven 
 — the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost ; 
 and these three are one ' (i John v. 7). And as 
 to the damnatory clauses so called, which 
 evidently excite your indignation, St. Athanasius 
 in asserting them is simply following the very 
 words of Scripture, for in Mark xvi. 16, it is 
 stated distinctly that * he that believeth not shall 
 be damned.' 
 
 Parishioner. Certainlv your quotations are 
 very clear and explicit, and no one who accepts 
 the Bible, as we have it^ as the undoubted Word 
 of God, can do other than bow with reverence 
 to the statements and be silent evermore. I was 
 once in that happy condition. In common with 
 tens of thousands of my countrymen, I accepted 
 without question all the religious statements 
 made by my teachers. I heard them as others 
 hear them — at an age and under circumstances 
 which caused them to be received as ' a matter 
 of course ; ' and moreover, they did not rouse 
 sufficient feeling to make it a question of anxious 
 inquiry. I am sure that in these particulars I 
 formed no exception to my fellows — that is, I 
 had no doubts, because I had no continuous or 
 anxious thought upon the subjects, one way or 
 the other. 
 
 Vicar. I hope that I am not to understand 
 that you do not now accept the Bible as the 
 
8 TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Word of God, and that those clear statements 
 which I have given to vou are no longer 
 esteemed by you as of Divine authority. 
 
 Parishioner. The solemnity of your question 
 demands that I should give it the fullest thought, 
 and that my statements should be so simple and 
 clear as to leave no erroneous impression on 
 your mind ; and that I may not unduly excite 
 your indignation, or your pity, I should like to 
 give a slight sketch of the history of my opinions, 
 or, to use a well-known sentence, my ' phases of 
 faith.' 
 
 Vicar. There is scarcely need for this, and it 
 would occupy too long a time, to the exclusion 
 of more essential matters ; and I must frankly 
 tell you that I have no other, and desire no 
 other, arguments in defence of my position than 
 the plain statements of the written Word. The 
 opinions of the Fathers and the decrees of the 
 Church are weighty, most weighty; but, in our 
 respective positions, I shall not refer to them, 
 as I have reason to know that the Scriptures 
 will have greater weight with you than even the 
 decrees of Councils. 
 
 Parishioner. Yes. You understand me. Like 
 the Puritans of the Commonwealth, I prefer the 
 opinion of the ' grandfathers ' to that of the 
 ' fathers ' ; although even Cardinal Newman has 
 assured us * that Tertullian is heterodox on the 
 doctrine of our Lord's Divinity,' ' Origen is at the 
 
THE CREED OF ST. ATHANASIUS. 9 
 
 very least suspected,' ' and Eusebius was a semi- 
 Arian.' ' The creeds of that early day make no 
 mention in their letter of the Catholic doctrine 
 at all. They make mention, indeed, of a Three ; 
 but that there is any mystery in the doctrine 
 that the Three are one, that they are co-equal, 
 co-eternal, all increate, all omnipotent, all incom- 
 prehensible is not stated, and never could be 
 gathered from them.'* And as for 'Councils,' 
 their decrees have been so contradictory, and 
 have been so often influenced by State or secular 
 motives that they fail to inspire my reverence. 
 I have spent much time, unprofitably, in reading 
 the long and tedious discussions, spread almost 
 over centuries, by the Polemics of various 
 dogmatic theories, which were often decided by 
 the secular Power. I prefer, however, to give 
 the statements of learned theologians rather 
 than my own, and will again repeat the Cardinal : 
 ' There is one, and one only, great doctrinal 
 Council in ante-Nicene times. It was held at 
 Antioch in the middle of the third century, on 
 occasion of the incipient innovations of the 
 Syrian heretical School. Now, the Fathers there 
 assembled, for whatever reason, condemned^ or at 
 least withdrew^ when it came into the dispute, 
 the word ' Homoousian,' which was afterwards 
 received at Nicasa as the special symbol of 
 Catholicism against Arius.' And, as to Councils, 
 
 * Development of Christian Doctrine, p. i6. 
 
lo TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 even your great St. Athanasius, my dear sir, has 
 been disapproved by Councils at Tyre, Antioch, 
 Milan, Constantinople, and elsewhere. The 
 command of an emperor has more than once 
 decided a dogma or creed, and set aside the 
 statements of bishops avowedly made after 
 study, meditation, and prayer. In the fourth 
 century, even at the great Council of Nice, 
 where, and when, the Nicene Creed itself was 
 fixed, the final issue was dependent on the will 
 of the Emperor Constantine ; and by what 
 carnal weapons that incomprehensible creed was 
 enforced may be seen in his decree, in which 
 he commanded not only that all the treaties of 
 Arius should be burnt, but, further, imperiously, 
 nay ruthlessly, proclaimed that * if anyone shall 
 be detected concealing a book compiled by 
 Arius, and shall not instantly bring it forward 
 and burn it, the penalty for his offence shall be 
 death.' The learned historian Gibbon has writ- 
 ten truthfully on this subject — ' the decrees of 
 Heaven were enforced by the sword of the 
 soldier rather than by the arguments of an 
 apostle^ and another great historian of Christi- 
 anity, the pious and venerable Dean Milman, 
 tells us that the Roman world was ordered to 
 believe in a ' co-equal Holy Trinity upon the 
 authority of two feeble boys and a rude Spanish 
 soldier.' 
 
 Vicar. This is hghtly spoken on the part of 
 
THE CREED OF ST. ATHANASlUS. n 
 
 the Dean ; but this is not of much moment, 
 since, by whomsoever it may have been originally 
 enforced, it is now emphatically the creed of the 
 Church — the creed which ' before all things ' is 
 necessary to be holden, and of which our Holy 
 Church most solemnly declares, ' which Faith, 
 except every one do keep whole and undefiled, 
 without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.'' 
 
 Parishioner. You have made a most appalling 
 statement, but as a consecrated priest of the 
 Church of England, bound by promises, nay by 
 solemn vows, to recite this creed, it would be 
 dishonest in you not to do so. Those awful 
 words do not appal me as they once did. In the 
 present age of the world they alarm very few 
 indeed, because they can no longer ' be enforced 
 by the sword of the soldier.' The ' Anathemas ' 
 of the Church now merely excite a smile among 
 thoughtful and intelligent men in England, Ger- 
 many, and France, however deterrent they may 
 be among the uneducated classes of these 
 countries. The Church of England blundered 
 (as ecclesiastic bodies usually blunder in their 
 policy when matters of ' faith ' are discussed) in 
 1872, when even so * orthodox ' and pious a man 
 as the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury petitioned in 
 vain for the removal of the ' damnatorv clause 
 only ' — a petition got up in haste ; and yet it 
 contained between five and six thousand 
 signatures, among which were ten judges, two 
 
12 TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 hundred and thirty-six barristers and solicitors, 
 one hundred and eighty justices of the peace, 
 some eighty-one peers, and members of the 
 House of Commons, besides mayors, doctors, 
 officers, and churchwardens ' too numerous to 
 mention.' ' Reformed ' Church as she is some- 
 times called, she yet clings as tenaciously as 
 Rome herself to every word and tittle of this 
 mediaeval creed, even to assigning ' everlasting' 
 perdition to those whose reason and conscience 
 are unable to accept it. It has survived through 
 all the stormy conflicts of the Reformation, and 
 her bishops and clergy resolve that * it shall be 
 retained, and be in use by the Authority of 
 Parliament.' But, although 'retained,' and al- 
 though ' in use,' the ' anathema ' has become a 
 mere sound, almost resembling 
 
 a tale 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing. 
 
 It is received by nearly all, except the illiterate, 
 with indifference, because it is so generally felt 
 that it is not true. 
 
 Vicar. Not true ! No one who dares to say 
 this ought for a single moment afterwards to call 
 himself a member of the Church of England. 
 She teaches no doctrine so plainly, so unequivo- 
 cally as she teaches this, and to none other does 
 she as a Church declare with more emphasis that 
 it ' may be proved by most certain warrants of 
 
THE CREED OF ST. ATHANASIUS. 13 
 
 Holy Scripture,'* nor can I at this moment 
 recall any other matters of faith which she places 
 so distinctly and categorically before her people 
 in the solemn moments of Divine worship, and 
 declares so authoritatively, ' which Faith except 
 every one do keep whole and undefiled, without 
 DOUBT he SHALL PERISH everlastingly' 
 
 Parishioner. I honour you for your honesty, 
 your consistency, and your courage. This is a 
 time of equivocation, unreality, and untruth. 
 Men tamper with their consciences ; and to hide, 
 if possible, even from themselves the falseness of 
 their position, they give to words what is called 
 a 'non-natural' sense ; they invent 'theories of 
 development ;' they ' darken counsel by words 
 without knowledge ;' and after pledging them- 
 selves by vows and prayers so to ' minister the 
 doctrine and Sacraments and the discipline of 
 Christ as the Lord hath commanded, and as this 
 Church and realm hath received the same,' they 
 proceed to explain them away, or, as Archbishop 
 Tillotson said of the Athanasian Creed, they 
 'wish they were well rid of them ;'t and as 
 hundreds of the ' Evangelical section ' of former 
 days said of the plain words of the Prayer Book 
 in reference to baptismal regeneration and the 
 Supper of our Lord. This treachery to language, 
 
 * Article viii. 
 
 t In a Letter to Bishop Burnet from Lambeth House, October 
 23rd, 1694. 
 
14 TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 this ' mental reservation,' is observable in clergy- 
 men to a degree unknown among other men, 
 and lessens them much in the esteem of the 
 cultured classes. The effeminate puerilities, 
 genuflexions, and millinery of the High Church 
 party are less offensive (and must be less mis- 
 chievous in their result) than is the subtle 
 perversion of words, terms, and incidents observ- 
 able in the preachings and writings of the more 
 enthusiastic members of the ' Low ' and * Broad ' 
 sections in the Church of England ; for widely as 
 these two classes differ on doctrinal points, they 
 resemble each other in giving a ' non-natural 
 sense ' to words and a fictitious meaning to plain 
 incidents. Your courage and consistency in 
 adhering to the common sense meaning of the 
 lucid words of the Prayer Book please me much, 
 and I thank you. 
 
 Vicar. It would seem that I must accept your 
 praise for courage and honesty at the expense of 
 being puerile in my tastes and formal in my 
 worship ; but I do not own the soft impeachment. 
 I belong to no party, for I know ivho it was that 
 said, ' Every kingdom divided against itself is 
 brought to desolation, and every city or house 
 divided against itself shall not stand.' 
 
 Parishioner. Although you stand apart from 
 party squabbles and profess to have ' no views,' 
 yet it is in vain to disguise the fact that there are 
 at least three distinct ' parties ' in the Church of 
 
CHURCH DISSENTIONS. 15 
 
 England, with ' views ' as divided and distinct as 
 the Wesleyans from the Church of England, or 
 as the ' Independents ' in contrast with the 
 ' Baptists,' or as either of these with the National 
 Church. For general purposes, or in defence of 
 the ' Church ' in her connection with the State, 
 the clerg}^ n^^y, and do, assemble as one body ; 
 but between the respective parties in their daily 
 work, in their ministrations, and in their pulpit 
 teachings, it would seem * there is a great 
 gulf fixed.' In private intercourse with their 
 flocks each describes the other as ' unsound,' or 
 weak, or wicked. In one day I have heard the 
 good Dean Stanley called ' that wicked man ' by 
 a member of the ' Evangelical ' section, and, 
 worse still, charged with ' profligacy ' by a clergy- 
 man of the 'High Church' party ; the 'profligacy' 
 consisting in his pleading for a ' hearing ' on 
 behalf of an absent bishop charged with 'heresy.' 
 In short, the ' divisions ' in the ' Church ' are 
 well marked, conspicuous, nay rampant ; and 
 unfortunately for the Church as a national 
 institution, two of these ' parties ' have their own 
 special newspapers to support and disseminate 
 their special ' views.' The 'record ' which these 
 respective ' religious papers ' give of their 
 ' brethren ' is as damnatory as the early and 
 closing sentences of the Athanasian Creed itself. 
 If a portrait of the Church of England were 
 drawn from the description given by the 'High 
 
1 6 TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Church' division of the 'Low,' or from the 
 description of the ' Low Church ' of the ' High,' 
 and the people believed what their clergy said of 
 each other in these rival papers, the National 
 Church would become, like Babylon in the days 
 of Jeremiah, 'an astonishment and an hissing,' 
 yea, ' men would clap their hands at her and 
 would hiss her out of her place,' 
 
 Vicar. You speak strongly, but I cannot 
 gainsay your statements. The writings of the 
 so-called religious papers are a disgrace to our 
 age. There is not a trace of practical Christianity 
 in their columns. When writing of a clergyman 
 of opposite views to their own, they seem to 
 read all the instructions of our Lord in a contrary 
 sense, and to rebuke the things He praised, and 
 praise the things which He rebuked. The party 
 spirit of John appears to possess them in a 
 frantic form, and they loudly and proudly 
 proclaim that ' they saw one casting out devils ' 
 and ' we forbad him because he followeth not lis! I 
 am astonished at their virulence, but not so much 
 astonished at this as at the little effect their writ- 
 ings appear to have on the public mind. Party 
 zeal and hate are thereby intensified in the special 
 party, and the odium theologicum is vivified 
 among the priests. But despite all the theo- 
 logical thunders of the ' religious ' press each 
 individual parish seems content with its own 
 clergyman, even in places where he has been 
 
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS. 17 
 
 preceded by an incumbent of opposite ' views.' 
 In a neighbouring parish, where ' Evangelical 
 views ' had been preached and enforced in all 
 their gloomy intensity for nearly fifty years, a 
 minister of the opposite school, or rather clergy- 
 man of sound Church principles, holding up the 
 Prayer Book in all its integrity (as I strive to 
 do), fills his church with the same congregation 
 which listened with like reverential calm while 
 'apostolical succession,' 'baptismal regeneration,' 
 and ' priestly absolution ' were denounced with 
 the same fervour as they are now upheld and 
 enforced as the true teachings of the 'Catholic 
 Church ' and of the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 Parishioner. As regards the scornful contumely 
 and the reckless assertions of the * religious ' 
 newspapers, it is a fortunate thing for the 'Church 
 of England,' nor less so for the nation, that the 
 secular law enforces that each priest should have 
 his own distinctly defined local area of action, 
 within which no other priest of his own Church 
 can exercise priestly functions except by per- 
 mission. Hence theological strife is lessened, if 
 not removed, in the individual Church, and the 
 general moral tone of the incumbent, and his 
 social courtesy, and his friendly interest in the 
 secular affairs of the parish make each one 
 popular, or at least accepted with grace by his 
 own parishioners. Mankind (at least those who 
 dwell in villages) are as a class passive and 
 
 2 
 
1 8 RELIGIOUS NEWS PATERS 
 
 apathetic on the matters the newspapers wrangle 
 over. They may incidentally hear at their 
 market table that The Church Times or The 
 Record^ as the case may be, has painted their 
 respected vicar in very black colours ; but when 
 they learn that it was not because of 'a matter of 
 wrong, or wicked lewdness,' he had done, but 
 that the paper had fiercely assailed him because, 
 as it said, ' this fellow persuadeth men to worship 
 God contrary to law,' they at once conclude that 
 it 'is a question of words and names,' of which 
 they will be no judge ; like the prudent Gallio of 
 old, 'they care for none of these things' (Acts 
 xviii. 7). If he preach 'contrary to law,' they 
 know that he has been placed over them by the 
 ordinary custom, and mos pro lege is their axiom 
 in all things. He has become ^ their parson'; 
 he occupies the same house or ' parsonage ' as 
 his predecessor ; they hear the same chimes, on 
 the same dav, from the same place, and at the 
 same hour, calling them to prayer ; they go to 
 the same church, and to the same spot in the 
 church, as heretofore ; the same words are 
 addressed to them at the opening of the service, 
 and the old familiar prayers follow ; and, provided 
 that their senses are not offended by the sight of 
 new robes, new sounds, and new formalities, or 
 be grieved by the omission of something, how- 
 ever trivial, which they have been long accustomed 
 to, the old weekly routine of conduct will be 
 
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS. 19 
 
 followed, and they will walk contentedly along 
 the old paths to the old church in which their 
 forefathers worshipped. But both these things 
 must be observed. Country folk are not given to 
 change, and, as a rule, any change is distasteful — 
 whether of commission or of omission. The Hon. J. 
 Russell Lowell, American Minister, and the author 
 of the brilliant satire T/ie Biglow Papers^ tells a 
 story which illustrates perfectly the principle to 
 which I have been referring : he says, ' My father 
 remembered the last clergyman in New York 
 who continued to wear a wig; but the time 
 came when he thought it desirable to leave it off. 
 When he did so it was lamented by some of his 
 parishioners, and an old woman waylaid him as 
 he came out of church, and said, " Ah ! dear 
 doctor, I have alwavs listened to vour sermons 
 with the greatest edification and comfort, but now 
 that the wig is gone all is gone." ' On the other 
 hand, the turning to the east when the 'Belief 
 is read, and the wearing of a white surplice in the 
 pulpit, have excited the greatest commotion. 
 Most true is it, that if in an ordinary country 
 congregation the senses are not appealed to, 
 there will be no desertion of the ' parish church'; 
 for I speak from the long-accumulated experience 
 of years, when I say that in our small towns and 
 rural parishes the bulk of the congregation would 
 be equally content whether the sermon preached 
 was taken from the pages of Cardinal Newman, 
 
20 RELIGIOUS NEIFSPAPERS. 
 
 of Dr. Piisey, of John Wesley, of Charles Shneon, 
 or of Francis W. Rice. Only let the sermon not 
 be too long, and the incumbent take care not to 
 wear any robes strikingly distinct from those 
 worn by his predecessor, and then the slumbers 
 of his hearers will be equally sweet at night, 
 whether he faithfully observed the charter of his 
 Church, and taught them that in baptism ' they 
 were made members of Christ, children of God, 
 and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven,' or 
 whether, deserting this authority, he courageously 
 declared, as did the Rev. F. W, Rice, Vicar 
 of Fairford, that such statements ' lead men 
 to mistake nature for grace, to fancy them- 
 selves spiritual whilst they are carnal, and to 
 assume that they are the children of God whilst 
 they are in reality children of the wicked one.'* 
 As I have already said, it would be all the 
 same to such parishioners. The elder ones, if 
 appealed to, would probably say, ' I be noa 
 scholard,' and conclude that this solved their 
 responsibility, if indeed they thought at all on 
 such a subject. In the secluded villages of the 
 Cotswold Hills, during my youth, few, if any, of 
 the older farm-labourers could read, and I knew 
 not one who was forty years old and could write. 
 As a class, they are apathetic or most passive in 
 religious matters. Religion with them is a senti- 
 
 * Reply to Mr. Dodsworth on Baptismal Regeneration, by 
 Kcv. F. W. Rice, p. 3. 
 
APATHY OP PARtSHIOXERS. 21 
 
 ment with which the intellect has little to do. 
 They trouble not themselves about ' creeds ' or 
 ' doctrines,' but retain a general reverence for 
 the Bible — a kind of ' fetish ' worship or awe 
 difficult to describe, but manifest in times of 
 sickness or sorrow ; then ' the Bible ' is resorted 
 to, and, if not read beyond the verse or two 
 which may first fall under the eye, is kept near to 
 them, feeling, if not expressing, that it imparts a 
 protective influence or support, and to have it 
 near to them was a good thing, a religious act 
 acceptable to God, regarding it, in fact, with the 
 same emotion or sentiment as an unlettered but 
 a devout Papist would regard the presence of a 
 picture of ' the Virgin,' a crucifix, a rosary, or a 
 bottle of holy water. Whenever I found in this 
 class of people any special interest in religion, 
 they were usually ' chapel-folk ' — descendants of 
 men who in the long past had suffered from the 
 ' Act of Uniformity,' the ' Mile Act,' and such 
 unwise legislation. They were ' dissenters ' by 
 birth, and for the same reason as their more 
 numerous neighbours were Churchmen. It was 
 an hereditarv custom, which had become 
 instinctive. As a peasant once said to me, 
 'Why, zur, it be our way ; vathear and gran- 
 vathear did it afore.' It was a habit which had 
 become confirmed bv continuous hereditarv 
 transmission, an act prompted by an impulse 
 apart from mental convictions of any kind, a 
 
22 NATURAL FACTS. 
 
 habit produced by long-continued antecedents, 
 almost as much as the features of their faces. 
 
 Vicar. This is a very dangerous deduction of 
 yours. It strikes at the very roots of moral 
 responsibility, and makes men the creatures of 
 circumstances. 
 
 Parishioner. It mav be a dangerous state- 
 ment, but the consequences of any truth should 
 not deter us from seeking it. To broach an 
 * hypothesis ' may be wrong, but it never can be 
 wrong to state ?ifact in nature, for God has made 
 it. His word and His works cannot contradict 
 each other. We may be in doubt as to His 
 alleged word ; we may be deceived by the 
 statements of history, more especially when that 
 history comes down to us through long ages, 
 through various nations with all their complexi- 
 ties of language, with all the possible errors of 
 translators, and with all the bias of conflicting 
 religious creeds ; but a natural fact stands 
 before us in its integrity, and is as new at this 
 moment — as recent^ that is — as the words of 
 Moses were recent when spoken at Sinai three 
 thousand three hundred and seventy-five years 
 ago, or by Paul and Peter one thousand eight 
 hundred and twenty-four years ago. 
 
 Vicar. Time cannot aff"ect these statements ; 
 and you seem to forget that St. Peter distinctly 
 states that ' holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost ' (2 Peter i. 21). 
 
HEREDITARY TRANSMISSIOXS. 23 
 
 Parishioner. I will not now pause to say that 
 the second Epistle of Peter is one of those 
 epistles whose authenticity is questioned by 
 many pious men and ripe scholars, nor will I 
 espouse wholly the statement of the distin- 
 guished biologist Lawrance, or of the great Lord 
 Brougham (who, by-the-bye, edited with much 
 ability an edition of Paley's Natural Theology)^ 
 to the effect that a 'man was no more responsible 
 for his creed than for the colour of his skin,' but 
 I am not able to forget that one who was as 
 much inspired as Peter (even if the text you 
 quote be genuine) has said, ' Can the Ethiopian 
 change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? then 
 may ye also do good that are accustomed to do 
 evil' (Jeremiah xiii. 23) ; and another (the most 
 distinguished of all the apostles), in an epistle 
 whose authenticitv has never been questioned by 
 the most sceptical of historians, distinctly asks, 
 * Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest 
 against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him 
 that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ? 
 Hath not the potter power over the clay of the 
 same lump to make one vessel unto honour and 
 another unto dishonour f (Romans ix. 20, 21.) 
 And sure am I that I have seen men so organized 
 that in their cranial and facial configurations they 
 appear to approximate the brute creation, and 
 again and again in visiting a prison have I been 
 able to ' pick out ' the ' confirmed criminals ' from 
 
24 HEREDITARY TRANSMISSIONS. 
 
 these characteristics alone, and have gone away 
 saddened by the solemnity and the truth of the 
 words spoken amid ' thunders and lightnings, and 
 a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of 
 the tempest exceeding loud,' at Sinai some three 
 thousand years ago, to this awful effect : ' I the 
 Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the 
 iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 
 the third and fourth generation of them that hate 
 me ' (Exodus xx. 5). Here are statements made 
 by Jeremiah, by Paul, and by Moses, more 
 startling in themselves than the statements made 
 by Tyndal, by Darwin, and by . Spencer, which 
 have roused the indignation and evoked the 
 censure of many pious divines. That some per- 
 sons have been distinctly created and specially 
 ordained to be vessels of dishonour is affirmed 
 by Paul ; that you may as reasonably expect the 
 ' Ethiopian ' to ' change his skin ' as to think that 
 a certain class of habitual wrong-doers will ' do 
 good,' is implied by Jeremiah, and that the inno- 
 cent suffer not from any iniquity of their own 
 doing, but from the iniquity of their fathers com- 
 mitted before they were born, is pronounced by 
 Moses to be the decree of the Almighty Himself. 
 Moreover, any person of observation may see 
 proofs^ actual, positive, living proofs^ of the truth 
 of each one of the statements if he w411 look for 
 them in the society around him, in the gaols of 
 our land, or in the hospitals and lunatic asylums 
 
HEREDITARY TRANSMISSIONS. 25 
 
 of the kingdom. It is as true in the nineteenth 
 century after Christ as it was in the seventh 
 century before Him, that ' the fathers have eaten 
 a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on 
 edge ' (Jeremiah xxxi. 30). 
 
 Vicar. You use that passage very wrongly. 
 The prophet quotes the saying, expressly to 
 declare that it shall be said ' no more.' 
 
 Parishioner. The ' Bible ' being a collection 
 of many books, poems, histories, and essays, 
 written in different places, in ages far apart, 
 and by people of various positions, differing in 
 age, station, education, and knowledge, it often 
 happens that one statement or ' text ' is in 
 apparent contradiction to another ; but in this 
 particular instance there is no discrepancy either 
 as to fact or inference. Ezekiel, who wrote 
 somewhat later than Jeremiah, still called the 
 above saying a ' Proverb.' Now, a proverb is 
 always the fitting record of experience^ if it be 
 long current as a ' proverb ' among an intelligent 
 people. Jeremiah speaks as a prophet (pro, 
 before ; p/ieuii, to speak) concerning something 
 which is to come, and not of what is. ' Behold 
 the days come '/ and then, in reference to that 
 coming time, Jeremiah added : ' In those days 
 they shall say no more the above proverb.' So 
 that I do not feel that I have used the passage 
 * wrongly ' : although the time foretold has not 
 yet arrived in Europe. Moreover, I remember 
 
26 HEREDITARY TRANSMISSIONS. 
 
 that even when using this figurative language 
 the prophet distinctly enunciates that the event 
 foretold is to be brought about in strict accord- 
 ance with the same Divine law which had pre- 
 viously ordained that the ' sour grape ' should 
 produce special results, that the ' iniquity of the 
 father should be visited upon the child ; for, as 
 a necessary preliminary to the disappearance of 
 the proverb, a ' new covenant ' had to be made, 
 and ' the house of Israel and the house of Judah 
 had to be renewed^ the promised law that 
 ' whatsoever a man soiveth that shall he also 
 reap ' had to be acted upon, and the great 
 Eternal resolved ' to sow ' them with ' the seed 
 of man, and with the seed of beast,' and that as 
 heretofore they had been surrounded by agencies 
 (environments) ' to pluck up and break down, to 
 destroy and to afflict,' so henceforth should they 
 be watched over ' to build and to plant ' (Jeremiah 
 xxxi. 27, 28, 29), to become, in the words of 
 Oriental poesy, figs — ' very good figs, even like 
 the figs that are first ripe ' (Jeremiah xxiv. 2), 
 
 Vicar. These are deep mysteries, into which 
 I do not at this moment desire to enter, I am 
 not able to contradict you as to the unhappy 
 divisions which beset our Church. You have 
 yourself admitted that there are good men who 
 hold each of the various ' views ' which you have 
 taken such pains to set forth ; and I think you 
 must admit that when individuals have given 
 
THE CHURCH PRAYER BOOK. 27 
 
 their solemn pledge to uphold the teachings of 
 the Church, they are bound as honest men so to 
 uphold them, or to cease to take the pecuniary 
 endowments of that Church, and to resign the 
 office the duties of which they have failed to 
 fulfil. ' Scripta litem manet ' — the written 
 words remain. The Praver Book is the charter 
 of the Church. All its formulas are simple, 
 clear, and intelligible, so that * he may run that 
 readeth it' (Habakkuk ii. 2). Individually I 
 cannot accept the special pleadings and the 
 ingenious subtleties by which many of my fellow- 
 priests attempt to explain away, by ' non-natural' 
 verbiage, the simple and lucid statements of that 
 book. It has come down to us sanctioned and 
 hallowed by the practice of ages ; its creeds and 
 its formulas are the creeds and the formulas 
 of the Church long before it was distracted by 
 divisions — before the monk Luther of Erfurt 
 violated his vows, or the lustful arrogance of 
 Henry VIII., or the imperious w^U of Queen 
 Elizabeth, or the immature mind of Edward VI., 
 influenced by vile, ambitious, and political priests, 
 had attempted to ' explain,' dilute, modify, and 
 change them, or to nullify their import by * Acts 
 of Parliament ' and by an appendix of ' articles, 
 which for decency's sake, however, is not intruded 
 into the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, 
 and which articles are not heard of until the 
 exigencies of party strife drag them into the 
 
28 THE CHURCH PRAYER BOOK. 
 
 controversy. That book distinctly tells us that 
 there are two sacraments ' necessary to salva- 
 tion^ ' that is to say, baptism and the supper of 
 the Lord '; and it emphatically and unmistakably 
 declares that in the latter * the Body and Blood 
 of Christ are verily and indeed taken and 
 received by the faithful.' The Church, as if it 
 prophetically foresaw that in the ' latter days ' 
 some doubters or even ' scoffers ' may arise, was 
 not content simply to state that the Body and 
 Blood of Christ were taken in that blessed Sacra- 
 ment, but to place her decree beyond all possible 
 honest ' cavil,' emphasized^ nay reiterated her 
 emphasis, by two of the strongest, clearest, and 
 most unmistakable words our language possesses, 
 and added, ' are verily and indeed taken and 
 received! To controvert these words is wilfully 
 to trampel her language and her meaning under 
 foot, and practically to affirm that words were 
 meant not to express thoughts and wishes, but 
 to conceal them. And it grieves me, more than 
 I can tell, to observe the prevalence of such 
 casuistry — such torturing of words, to wrench 
 out a meaning, which shall conceal, or palliate, a 
 distinct departure from the primitive teachings 
 of the Church. It is one of the worst evils oi 
 the day, is this vile verbal legerdemain, and it is 
 spreading all too rapidly, both among Ritualistic- 
 Anglicans, and 'Broad Churchmen' or Latitudin- 
 arian * Liberals,' by which they, respectively, 
 
THE CHURCH PRAYER BOOK. 29 
 
 contrive to translate miracles into ' sensory 
 illusions,' and the solemn anathemas of the Atha- 
 nasian Creed into jubilant words of praise and 
 joy. Even, in moments of solemn debate, one 
 is absurdly reminded of the speech of the clown 
 in Shakespeare's Twelfth Nighty when asked for 
 the reason of something he had said. ' Troth, 
 Sir, I can yield you none without words, and 
 words are grown so false I am loath to prove 
 reason with them ' (Act iii. scene i ). This 
 playing with words is very shocking. It is a 
 crime against the distinguishing characteristic of 
 humanity ; that faculty of speech, which at once 
 elevates man above all other terrestrial creatures ; 
 but the words of the Church are too clear to 
 be travestied, even by such sophistry. And this 
 brings me to the object of my interview with 
 you, from which we have too long departed, 
 namely, to speak respecting your absence from 
 the Holy Communion, and to remind you that 
 the Church expects, nay demands, vour presence, 
 for in one of the most prominent of her rubrics 
 she says, ' and note that every parishioner shall 
 communicate at the least three times in the year, 
 of which Easter to be one.' 
 
 Parishioner. I am glad that you have returned 
 to it, although I do not feel that a sentence has 
 been spoken by either of us which is irrelevant to 
 that subject. I know that as a ' Churchman ' I 
 have failed in fealty to her commands ; but I 
 
30 REQUIREMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 have done so in obedience to a higher law, and 
 could, I think, justify the act — as a very large 
 number of Evangelicals,' clergymen even, justify 
 their corresponding procedure, in other depart- 
 ments of her liturgy — by quoting the twentieth 
 clause in her 'Articles of Religion,' to the effect 
 that although ' the Church hath power to decree 
 rites and ceremonies ' . . . ' yet it is not lawful 
 for the Church to ordain anything that is con- 
 trary to God's Word written., neither may it so 
 expound one place of Scripture that it be repug- 
 nant to another '/ but I shall not do so, because 
 I think it is subtle sophistry on their part so to 
 manipulate and parry with her plain instructions, 
 and because, moreover, I regard this particular 
 ' rite ' as one clearly commanded to be observed 
 by our Divine Master. My reverence and love 
 for Jesus of Nazareth are sincere and profound, 
 and I remember that on that august occasion 
 when He last partook of bread and wine with 
 His disciples. He said, ' This do ye as oft as ye 
 drink it in remembrance of me' (i Cor. xi. 25), 
 and in the most tender and touching of all His 
 speeches to His disciples He added, ' If ye love 
 me keep my commandments' (John xiv. 15). I 
 yearn to partake of that hallowed festival, but the 
 Church precludes me by the additions, and con- 
 ditions, and prefaces with which she surrounds it, 
 and by which she converts the sweet Memorial 
 of a dear Friend and great Deliverer into a 
 
REQUIREMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 31 
 
 theological dogma against which my mind and 
 mv conscience alike rebel. 
 
 Vicar. I am sorry to hear that yoii again 
 revert to this difficulty, because I had hoped that 
 the distinct Scriptural authority which I had 
 given to you from the words of the inspired 
 apostle John, that ' there are thi'ee that bear 
 record in heaven — the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost — and that these three are one,' would 
 have removed your objection, would have caused 
 you to abandon your position, and compelled 
 you to forsake the vain suggestions of a feeble 
 reason and to bow to the supreme authority of 
 the Divine Word. Moreover, I would add (and 
 the awful consequences involved compel me to 
 forego the shallow amenities of social life) that 
 the entire Christian world, north, east, west, and 
 south, with the exception of a small, cold, and 
 singular sect, numbering units among tens of 
 thousands, adopt this creed, and that it implies 
 something of arrogance and self-conceit in any 
 individual to withstand such a testimony, such ' a 
 cloud of witnesses ' ; and to think himself wiser 
 than the Fathers, wiser than the great Churches 
 of west and east, wiser (although it is certainly 
 lowering the standard) than all the Noncon- 
 formist bodies — Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Bap- 
 tists, Independents — and the shoals of sectaries, 
 who, however schismatic, rebellious, and heretical 
 in other particulars y accept this Divine tradition, 
 
32 REQUIREMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 and make the rebellious reason to bow before 
 the sublime authority of the Word of God. 
 
 Parishioner. The solemnity of these facts 
 impressed me so deeply, that, as I have already 
 said, it made me tremble to depart from the 
 teachings of my early life, and all the associations 
 which clung around an ardent Church-membership 
 of many years' duration. Having a deep reverence 
 for the past, all these influences peculiarly and 
 powerfully aff'ected me. Old ruins, stately ancient 
 edifices, chronicles, customs and traditions ap- 
 pealed, and still appeal to my feelings and 
 imagination with intense force ; and there was a 
 time when * Councils ' and ' Fathers ' possessed 
 an authority with me only short of direct inspira- 
 tion. These things bound me like a spell until 
 assiduous and honest research revealed to me the 
 true nature of ' Councils ' and their decrees, and 
 the fallacy of the ' Fathers.' When I read in 
 the writings of a ' canonized ' saint the general 
 character of ' Councils ' and of the ' Bishops ' and 
 soldiers and civilians which composed them, 
 spiritual awe and reverence passed away. When 
 Gregory could write, as Dean Stanley tells us, of 
 Councils, * as tho' a herald had convoked to them 
 all the gluttons, villains, liars, and false swearers 
 of the empire,' as men who were ' time servers 
 waiting not on God but on the rise and flow of 
 the tides, or the straw in the wind,' ' angry lions 
 to the small, fawning spaniels to the great,' 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 33 
 
 ' affecting manners not their own ' — ' the long 
 beard, the downcast look, the head bowed, the 
 subdued voice, the slow walk, the got-up devotee.' 
 And declares further, elsewhere, ' I will not sit in 
 one of these councils of geese and cranes.' ' I fly 
 from every meeting of Bishops, for I never saw 
 a good end of any such, nor a termination, but 
 rather an addition of evils.'* Their true nature 
 becomes revealed, common sense assumes its 
 sway, and we perceive that these ancient ' Coun- 
 cils,' around which ecclesiastics have thrown such 
 seeming holiness and wisdom, were precisely like 
 the stonily conventions of our own times, when 
 interested parties meet to discuss polemics or 
 politics. I am almost ashamed to confess to 
 you that the facts mentioned at the close of your 
 remarks kept my judgment in suspense for several 
 years, and even now, at this moment, it is to 
 me one of the most stupendously astounding facts 
 in the history of mental thought, that the great 
 majority of men ' who profess and call themselves 
 Christians ' should acquiesce in the wild, mystic 
 theory of the Trinity. The thought did weigh, 
 and weigh heavily, upon me, as to whether it was 
 not presumptuous in one so unlearned as myself 
 to diff'er in opinion from the Fathers and the 
 Councils of the Church, from the teachings of the 
 National Establishment of the Church of Eng- 
 land, and more especially from the tenets of the 
 * Ad. Episc, 206. De Rt. i., 855. 
 
 3 
 
34 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 tens of thousands of ' Nonconformists ' who are 
 so clamorous and so combative in respect to other 
 religious opinions and practices, which appear to 
 me so small and insignificant compared with 
 this momentous question ; for, as the eloquent 
 and learned Rev. Henry Melville once said, in a 
 sermon which became the ' momentum ' to my 
 mind, and fixed its conclusions for ever: ' It is a 
 fundamental doctrine. It is not a mere abstruse 
 and speculative matter on which your judgment 
 may be safely suspended'; and he added, ' Take 
 away the doctrine of the Trinity from the creed 
 of Christendom, and there is no resting-place for 
 jTuiltv sinners.'* 
 
 Vicar. In thus preaching, that learned divine 
 was faithfully enunciating the doctrines of the 
 Church, was honestly fulfilling his ordination vow, 
 was, in simple truth, reiterating the doctrine of 
 that holy, ancient, and august Creed, which, as I 
 have already told you, the Church of England in 
 the solemn moments of Divine worship places so 
 distinctly and categorically before her people, 
 and respecting which she declares more authori- 
 tatively than she does of any other belief, or rite, 
 or sacrament, that ' except every one do keep 
 whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall 
 PERISH EVERLASTINGLY.' The cloqucnt clergy- 
 man expressed no more than the Athanasian 
 
 * Preached at Camden Chapel, Camberwell, May 29th, 1831. 
 Published by Shtrwood, Gilbert, and Piper, 1838. 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 35 
 
 Creed does, or ought to do, and would do 
 thirteen times a year, and especially on the high 
 festivals, the great epochs of Christian history — 
 the celebrations of the Birth, the Resurrection, 
 and Ascension of our Lord, and the descent of 
 the Great Comforter, the Illuminating Spirit and 
 Guide of the Church : that is on Christmas Day, 
 Easter Day, Ascension Day, and on Whit-sunday 
 — if all her priests did their duty faithfully and 
 fearlessly. But how could such a statement as 
 this by Mr. Melville have become a ' momentum ' 
 to your mind and have brought about such sad 
 conclusions as those you now unhappily hold ? 
 
 Parishiojier. It did so. No enthusiastic Wes- 
 leyan is more conscious and more positive of the 
 birth-moment of his ' conversion ' and spiritual 
 life than am I of the cause, or ' momentum ' and 
 of the ' start-point ' of those readings, researches, 
 and prayers which have ended in demonstrating- 
 the fallacy of my former views — of those 
 * teachings ' which I accepted in childhood, 
 nurtured in youth, and kept unquestioned in 
 manhood until the moment Mr. Melville's state- 
 ments aroused my attention and demonstrated 
 the fallacy of my former views, revealing to me 
 the eternal truth as spoken by Moses — 'Hear, 
 O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord' \ 
 and as reiterated, and confirmed by Jesus 
 in one of the latest and most tender and im- 
 passioned of His prayers — ' And this is life 
 
 3 * 
 
36 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 eternal, that they might know thee, the only 
 TRUE GOD, AND Jesus Christ, wkom THOU hast 
 sent' (John xvii. 3). Until that memorable day, 
 I had passively received the ' incomprehensible ' 
 statement which declares ' the Father incom- 
 prehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the 
 Holy Ghost incomprehensible : the Father un- 
 create, the Son uncreate, the Holy Ghost un- 
 create : the Father eternal, the Son eternal ; the 
 Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost 
 is God, and yet there are not three incompre- 
 hensibles, nor three uncreated, nor three eternals, 
 nor three Gods, but one incomprehensible, 
 one uncreated, one eternal and one God.' This 
 extraordinary paradox of words had been ac- 
 cepted by me with the same simplicity as a good 
 ' Catholic ' accepts the ^/act ' of the flight of the 
 Virgin's house from Nazareth into Dalmatia, 
 from thence to Recanati, and thirdly to Loreto, 
 and all the miracles achieved therein. I had 
 never read a word of controversy on the subject, 
 had never heard a ' Unitarian ' preacher. My 
 faith was as serene andt orthodox as gross ignor- 
 ance could make it. Until Canon Melville's 
 sermon aroused and arrested my attention, I 
 entered my usual place of worship in the same 
 frame of mind as hundreds of my neighbours 
 enter their parish church every Sunday. I re- 
 peated the 'Athanasian' Creed with the same 
 intelligent and orthodox appreciation as the 
 
noCTRLXE OF THE TRINITY. 31 
 
 children in our parish church repeated the 
 ' Nicene ' on the Sunday following their * con- 
 firmation ' this summer. But alas for my ' or- 
 thodoxy ' ! The fervid and eloquent sermon 
 of Henry Melville, b.d., roused the startling 
 thought, If this dogma be ^fundamental^' if upon 
 it rest such tremendous consequences, that if 
 ' without the doctrine of the Trinity there is no 
 resting-place for guilty sinners,' how comes it 
 that it is so seldom referred to in Holy Writ ? 
 how comes it that in this Book, w^iich we have 
 been taught to regard as a Revelation of God, 
 from God Himself, the word Trinity is not to be 
 found, or the doctrine anywhere distinctly and 
 lucidly declared ? Surely, thought I, I have over- 
 looked large portions of its sacred pages. What 
 could I do if asked to-morrow by anyone for 
 Scripture proof of this solemn, this ^fundamen- 
 tal ' doctrine which alone secures a ' resting-place 
 for guilty sinners ' ? St. Peter has commanded 
 us to be ready to give an answer to ' everyone 
 that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in 
 you' (iii. 15); yet I could not supply even a 
 solitary 'text.' But I felt there must be niany texts ^ 
 clear, bold, explicit, but hitherto overlooked. 
 Some power bore in upon my soul the words 
 
 (.peviare rcic ypa^ac, 
 
 ' Search the Scriptures.' Days and months and 
 years I 'searched' prayerfully, searched solitarily, 
 independently searched, with a strong bias to 
 
38 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 sustain the idea associated with all my early ante- 
 cedents, yet with a stronger bias to accept simply 
 what the Scriptures might teach thereon, be it 
 what it may. The more I read the more was I 
 astonished to find so little that sustained a doctrine 
 of such overwhelming importance — a doctrine 
 which both my pastor and the Church regarded 
 as * fundamental ' ; and again and again had I 
 trembled lest my early bias should fade away for 
 want of Scriptural support, lest I should lose that 
 * faith ' ' which except everyone do keep whole 
 and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish 
 everlastingly ! ' No one around me seemed to 
 have enough interest in the subject to discuss it 
 at all. As you have now told me, only a very 
 small sect (and of these I knew nothing) dis- 
 sented from the doctrine. Noisy polemics, radi- 
 cal Ranters, Baptists, Independents, 'Methodists' 
 — all acquiesced in the decree of the Church 
 on this especial matter. And certainly if any 
 external authority ought to decide in matters of 
 faith, here was a case in point, per urbein et 
 orhem; here, if anywhere, was ^ Catholicity' \ 
 here Pius IX. and Mrs. Girling the Shakeress, 
 Dr. Pusey and the youngest recruit of the ' Salva- 
 tion Army,' Dr. Ryle (the Bishop of Liverpool) 
 and the Rev. A. Heriot Mackonochie, Canon 
 Liddon and the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon were in 
 perfect accord, and it seemed for a long^ long 
 time presumptuous in me to pause, to hesitate, 
 
SPIRIT OF TRUTH. 59 
 
 to doubt, where so many wise and good men 
 were confident and believing, where even the 
 ' Pharisees and Sadducees' were in accord, and 
 the Jews (metaphorically) could have dealings 
 with the Samaritans. Yes, mv struggle was 
 long and arduous ; but ' light came at eventide,' 
 and as Luther at Erfurt, after long prayers and 
 meditations, was suddenly illumined and directed 
 by the words the 'just shall live by faith,' even 
 so has it been mine to know that if we ' ask we 
 shall receive,' that if ' we seek we shall find.' 
 Long did the blessed words sustain me : ' If any 
 man of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, 
 that giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not ; 
 and it shall be given him ' (James i. 5) ; long was 
 I upheld by the assurance from Jesus that a 
 great ' Comforter ' would come ' from the Father, 
 even the Spirit of Truth, w^ho shall teac/i you all 
 things ' ; ardently did I pray God ' to send out 
 His light and His truth ' to lead me ; and as to 
 Luther there came like a voice from Heaven the 
 words, ' The just shall live bv faith,' even so 
 came to me the words of Jesus to the young man 
 seeking the way to eternal life, ' Why callest 
 thou me good? there is none good but God,' and 
 also His words to the adorins: Marv after His 
 Resurrection, ' Go to my brethren and say unto 
 them, I ascend unto my Father, and to yoitr 
 Father ; and to my God, and your God' (John 
 XX. 17). Thenceforth all was calm, clear, and 
 
4° SPIRIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 bright. Mists, doubts, and perplexities vanished. 
 The ' Great Comforter ' had come down upon my 
 soul. The Spirit of Truth had spoken. The 
 voice alike of Councils and mobs was silenced ; 
 they became to me as were the ' familiar spirits, 
 and wizards that peep, and mutter' to Isaiah 
 (viii. 19, 20); and if thousands, nay tens of 
 thousands, clamoured out their dogmas my spirit 
 would remain calm, because, with that great 
 prophet, it could say, ' To the law and to the 
 testimony : if they speak not according to this 
 word, it is because there is no light in them.' 
 
 Vicar. I have listened with great patience to 
 your long dissertation. I have done so because, 
 however erroneous your conclusions, I plainly 
 see that they have not been hastily and lightly 
 arrived at, and, moreover, they have cost you 
 some thought and research ; and when you add 
 that you have earnestly and continuously sought 
 guidance from on High through prayers in 
 private, my respect is enhanced ; although it 
 would have been better if, at first, when your 
 conscience was unquiet on this subject, and you 
 needed comfort or counsel, you had come to 
 me, ' or to some other discreet and learned 
 minister of God's Word, and opened your grief,' 
 so that by ' ghostly counsel and advice ' your 
 ' scruples and doubtfulness ' might have been 
 dispersed. I trust, however, that even now you 
 may be delivered from all false doctrine, heresy. 
 
HEAR THE CHURCH. 41 
 
 and schism, because you have admitted that the 
 great body of Christians and the most ancient of 
 Churches, or rather, I ought to say, the * one 
 CathoHck and Apostolick Church,' from the 
 earHest ages has decreed the Trinitarian doctrine 
 to be the 'true faith,' 'which faith except every- 
 one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt 
 he shall perish everlastingly.' You have said 
 that if ever there was ' Catholicity ' it is found 
 on this point, and if ' authority ' could determine 
 a question, here was the unanimous authority 
 not only of the Church, but of the numberless 
 schismatics who had separated themselves from 
 her pale ; and this being so, I hope you will 
 perceive that you must necessarily be wrong. It 
 is absolutely imperative that individuals should 
 be guided by authority ; it is schism and a sinful 
 thing to neglect to hear and obey the Church ; 
 and therefore, my dear friend, you are in the sad 
 position of those of whom St. Paul spoke in 
 writing to his beloved saints in Rome — ' I 
 beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause 
 divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine 
 which ye have learned, and avoid them ' (Rom. 
 xvi. 17) ; and our Divine Lord Himself has 
 declared of such, ' If he neglect to hear the 
 church, let him be unto thee as a heathen and a 
 publican' (Matt, xviii. 17). It pains me deeply 
 to have thus to speak, but I trust that you will 
 be able to see that it is a wicked thing to be at 
 
42 HEAR THE CHURCH. 
 
 variance with the Church ; that it ts not only 
 unbecoming, but arrogant, in an individual to 
 place himself in a matter of doctrine in oppo- 
 sition to an overwhelming majority. For I need 
 not remind you that in all the momentous 
 questions which spring up, even in matters of 
 life and death, such as trials by jury, decisions of 
 Parliament, and the like, the vote of the majority 
 is final. It is so likewise in spiritual things. 
 The Church at Jerusalem in the early days of 
 Christianity was the final appeal, and St. Paul 
 and St. Jude alike denounced those who despised 
 dominion and who separate themselves. But I 
 am unwilling to think that you have reached so 
 sad a stage. I shudder to think that one whom I 
 so much esteem should become ' a wandering star 
 to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness 
 for ever,' and as you still revere the Scriptures, 
 and say 'to the law and the testimony,' I hope 
 and pray that you may discard the pride of 
 reason, and be ' led to hear the Word, and to 
 receive it with pure affection,' and that it may 
 please God, although you have erred and are 
 deceived, to bring you back into the way of 
 truth. And since, my dear friend, you still 
 appeal ' to the law and the testimony,' let me 
 a^am remind you of the words of St. John — 
 ' There are three that bear record in heaven : 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost : and 
 t/iese three are oneJ 
 
THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 43 
 
 Parishioner, I thank you for you tender 
 sympathy, and I assure you that you do me no 
 more than justice when you say that I have not 
 adopted the opinions I have formed lightly or 
 without much hesitation, and without appealing 
 by prayer to the Great Source of all illumina- 
 tion. I have, indeed, prayed long and continu- 
 ously. I have pondered most profoundly on 
 the fact that my conclusions are at variance with 
 the decrees of Councils, with the writings of the 
 venerable Fathers, who in a dark age were the 
 chief sources of light and truth to the people 
 around them. I have felt, yea, keenly felt, who 
 and what am I that I should presume to differ 
 from the wise and holy men of the olden and the 
 present time ? Long, long have I kept silent 
 under the fear that it was possible that I might be 
 among those who cause ' divisions and offences' ; 
 for many weary and anxious months I said, ' I 
 will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with 
 my tongue : I will keep my mouth with a bridle 
 ... I was dumb with silence, I held my peace.' 
 But there came a time when, like unto David, 
 * My heart was hot within me, while I was 
 musing the fire burned ; then spake I with my 
 tongue ' (Ps. xxxix.). Yes. ' Blessed be God^ 
 even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort ' 
 (2 Cor. i. 3) ; a moment came to me, yea, even 
 to me, as it did to St. Paul, when ' I conferred 
 
44 TEACHINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 not with flesh and blood, neither went I to them 
 which were apostles before me' (Gal. i). My 
 prayers had been heard. Although * I lacked 
 wisdom, yet in this matter it was ultimately 
 given.' Most assuredly 'the eyes of the blind 
 were opened.' The path of truth was revealed ; 
 was made so plain and so smooth that 'the 
 feeble knees' and 'the fearful heart ' could march 
 forward, ' and the wayfaring man, though a fool, 
 could not err therein.' The subject became 
 clear and visible as did the outer world to the 
 blind man whose eyes the beneficent Jesus had 
 anointed with clay and then bade him wash in the 
 pool of Siloam. Like him, I could say : ' One 
 thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I 
 see ' (John ix. 25), and to feel with Paul, 
 ' Necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me,' 
 if I preach not the Gospel.' ' Woe unto me ' if 
 I do not proclaim with all my feeble powers the 
 sweet, the precious truth that GOD ' will have 
 all men to be saved, and to come unto the 
 KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH. For there is ONE 
 God, and one Mediator between GOD and 
 men, the MAN Christ Jesus ; who gave himself 
 a ransom for all^ to be testified in dtie time ' 
 (St. Paul to Timothy ii. 3, 4, 5, 6). That, dear 
 sir, is a statement plain and clear as the sun- 
 light, derived from no uncertain source of oral 
 tradition, coming to us from no doubtful epistle 
 or late gospel imbued with, if not interpolated 
 
THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 45 
 
 by, the philosophy of the Schools of Alexandria ; 
 coming from a source more trustworthy even 
 than the ' logia ' or sayings of the synoptic 
 gospels, for no historian has questioned the 
 genuineness of the Pauline Epistles ; they are 
 the most certain, as they are the earliest, 
 writings which have come down to us from the 
 Apostolic Age, and therefore I abandon for ever, 
 as erroneous and heretical, the statement that 
 ' The God-hedid of the Father, of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost, is all one ; the glory equal, the 
 majesty co-eternal,' and accept the statement of 
 Jesus (in one of His tender, prophetic addresses 
 to His disciples) : ' Let not your heart be 
 troubled, neither let it be afraid. ... If ye 
 loved me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go 
 unto the Father, for my Father is greater than 
 I ' (John xiv. 28). 
 
 Vicar. You are becoming somewhat too warm 
 — too impassioned in your arguments, and in 
 the confidence you place in the text you have 
 last quoted, you have forgotten a cardinal prin- 
 ciple in exegesis, namely, that you should not (as 
 the Church instructs us in her Twentieth Article) 
 so ' expound one piece of Scripture that it be 
 repugnant to another.' But this subject of the 
 Trinity is too profound to be dealt with sum- 
 marily by a single text, and for its full elucidation 
 requires a large survey, w4th the full aid of philo- 
 sophy and the teachings of nature and of natural 
 
+6 THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 science. I must remind you of some of your 
 favourite studies, and ask you to contemplate 
 history, and even the habits of Pagan nations, 
 for all these things contribute to elucidate this 
 profound mystery. Historians and travellers 
 have shown us that even among Pagans a triad 
 of gods was recognized. The philosophic Cud- 
 worth, in his great work on The Intellectual 
 System of the Universe, published in 1678, 
 affirmed that in the esoteric religion of the 
 Egyptians the Divine Nature was recognized as a 
 Trinity in Unity. The writings of the great 
 Egyptologists, Birch, Wilkinson, and Rawlinson, 
 accompanied by special drawings and descriptions 
 of the respective Gods which form the Trinity, 
 go far to sustain the idea which we know to be 
 prevalent in the mythologies of Egypt, Assyria, 
 and India, and would seem to predicate the 
 opinions, or rather the dogmatic beliefs, of the 
 Fathers of the Church. It is impossible to read 
 the writings of Herodotus, or even of Bunsen 
 and Wilkinson, without being impressed deeply 
 with the analogies which these ancient religions 
 possess in reference to the Catholic doctrine, to 
 the great Creed of St. Athanasius, which you 
 have so ruthlessly denounced. At Philoe we 
 have Osius, Isis, and Horus. Sir J. G. Wilkin- 
 son, in his great work on the Ancient Egyptians, 
 tells us ' In these triads the third member pro- 
 ceeded from the other two, that is, from the first 
 
THE D I FINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 47 
 
 and the second.' This idea being correspondent (if 
 one dare thus to associate Pagan superstitions with 
 the hallowed mysteries of the Catholic faith) with 
 the decree of the Fathers who presided at the 
 Council of Toledo in 1589, which determined for 
 ever that ' the Holy Ghost proceeded from the 
 Father and from the Son.' We have, furthermore, 
 the evidence of a like idea in the great temples 
 and palaces of Assyria, where colossal figures, 
 with a human head and face, a bull's body and 
 an eagle's wings, represent a Trinity of attributes, 
 as Wisdom, Power, and Omnipresence. In India, 
 again, we have Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, typical 
 of creative, preserving, and transforming powers. 
 But, leaving these facts as subsidiary and alto- 
 gether subordinate, and reverting to the most 
 Holy Scriptures, I must remind you that when 
 you quoted St. John, you altogether disregarded, 
 or overlooked, the very decisive words of that 
 Apostle which I recited to you as sustaining, 
 nay proving^ the ancient and catholic view of 
 the blessed doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 Parishioner. I have listened with great 
 satisfaction to your remarks on the statements 
 of the ancient historian, Herodotus, and the 
 researches of the distinguished Egyptologists, 
 Wilkinson, Birch, and Bunsen ; and more espe- 
 cially on those colossal figures from Assyria, 
 which, thanks to the energy and skill of Layard, 
 now adorn our British Museum. They are 
 
48 THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 superb effigies and very expressive types of 
 Wisdom, Power, and Swiftness of Presence. No 
 one can look at these sculptures without admira- 
 tion ; but your remarks have gratified me inas- 
 much as they so fully confirm my conviction that 
 the trinitarian idea is wholly Pagan in its origin, 
 and comes from the time and place when and 
 where there were ' gods many and lords many' : 
 when men assigned a god to every river and 
 every w^ood, to every mountain and every cave ; 
 in fact, perceived a Deity in all the changes of 
 seasons, and in every phenomenon of nature ; saw 
 a god ' in clouds and heard him in the winds.' 
 Still, all you have said once impressed me most 
 deeplv, and never more than when my mind had 
 recognized that there was no scriptural basis for 
 the primitive faith, and conscience had begun to 
 speak within on its sinfulness. As a drowning 
 man snatches at a straw for help, so does a sensi- 
 tive mind torn from its early convictions, grasp 
 eagerly at any fact which may seem to give 
 credibility to the fond associations of the past. 
 Believe me, my dear Vicar, it is a most painful 
 process, as I have already said, for the heart to 
 give up those impressions which have been made 
 upon it by kind parents and teachers in the plastic 
 days of childhood. Yea, most painful to the 
 loving and sensitive person whose memory clings 
 to the past and associates the teachers and their 
 teachings together. In such struggles, I repeat, 
 
THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 49 
 
 the mind clutches at any fact which would seem 
 to give support to its early belief ; and right well 
 do I remember how I pondered on such cir- 
 cumstances as that the ancient Egyptians often 
 decorated their temples with the three primary 
 colours, 'red, blue, and yellow,' and that philo- 
 sophic research had shown that these three 
 colours may be so blended as to become one ; 
 that the ' Triangle ' implied the ' Trinitv,' that man 
 himself, consisting of body, mind, and spirit, 
 became a living representative of this august 
 mystery ! Oh ! what semblance is there of any 
 kind which a heart clinging to and loving a 
 maternal creed will not seize upon for transient 
 support ? How long have I not dwelt upon such 
 dreamy analogies as that the world was formed 
 of ' earth, air, and water,' that the firmament was 
 built up of 'sun, moon, and stars,' and that the 
 earth as a unity was composed of ' minerals, 
 vegetables, and animals' ! And alas ! when once 
 the judgment yields to fancy, under the impulse 
 of the strong emotions to which I have referred, 
 how readily and universally do the senses and 
 other circumstances minister to its delusion ! As 
 Tertullian could see the symbol of the cross in 
 every buoyant bird, in every floating fish, in the 
 trunk and branches of a tree, and in the out- 
 stretched arms of a man, and in endless other 
 things, even so did I once perceive an ' argu- 
 ment ' for the Trinity, not only in the things I 
 
 4 
 
so THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 have named, but even in such far-fetched facts as 
 that in grammar ' a first, second, and third person,' 
 were recognized ; and also ' a positive, compara- 
 tive, and superlative degree,' ' good, better, and 
 best': and, more especially, in the 'length, 
 breadth, and thickness ' of the ' cube ' : and even in 
 the leaf of the shamrock (the alleged illustration 
 of St. Patrick) was I anxious to recognize and 
 welcome illustrations of an impossibility ! To 
 come to the most important part of your argu- 
 ment, important because it affects a scriptural 
 basis, I do not admit the words you give from 
 St. John to be authentic, whereas the words of 
 St. Paul to Timothy, ' There is one God, and one 
 Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ 
 Jesus,' belong to that higher 'law and the testi- 
 mony' from which there is no appeal, and from 
 which I dare not depart until a text as clear, as 
 explicit, and as unquestionably authentic can be 
 found to sustain the Athanasian Creed. Nav, it 
 should be more clear and more authentic — if that 
 were possible — for the first enumerates a fact, 
 which is not opposed to all the instincts of 
 common sense and to the conclusions of right 
 reasoning ; while the other can be accepted only 
 by the prostration of reason before a blind faith 
 • — faith which finds its best, as it has been its 
 most eulogized, commentary in the devotee who 
 cried, ' Credo quia impossibile est' (I believe 
 because it is impossible). 
 
THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 51 
 
 Vicar. Your last words are not quite respectful 
 to the Church from which you have not formally 
 and officially seceded, and I am therefore com- 
 pelled to remind you that the Thirty-fourth 
 Article of the Church of England decrees that 
 
 * Whosoever, through his private judgment ' [and 
 it is on this you are acting], ' willingly and 
 purposely doth openly break the traditions ' 
 {traditions^ mark] 'and ceremonies of the Church, 
 which be not repugnant to the Word of God, 
 and be ordained and approved by common 
 authority, ought to be rebuked openlv (that 
 others may fear to do the like) as he that 
 offendeth against the common order of the 
 Church.' Now, that which you have been 
 considering is most certainly ' ordained and 
 approved by common authority'; and you, in 
 common honesty, have been compelled to admit 
 that as a ' tradition ' it is of the most hoary 
 antiquity ; that it is all but universally accepted, 
 practically, one might say (to use one of vour 
 quoted phrases) per iirbem et orbem; that it is one 
 of the most catholic doctrines. And vet, alas ! 
 sad it is that against all these ancient, august, 
 and sacred authorities, you are rash enough, I 
 might say wicked enough, willingly to bring your 
 
 * private judgment' and 'purposely' and 'openly' 
 break its traditions. It is a fearful path you are 
 treading, and my interest in your welfare compels 
 me to use strong language and to spare no effort 
 
 4* 
 
;^2 THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 for your recovery. By-the-bye, in your sceptical 
 musings — to which vou have made so sad a 
 reference — did it never occur to you that the most 
 spiritual of the Greek philosophers recognized 
 and expressed a Trinity, in the compound 
 character of Man, as ' Being, Reason, Soul ' ; and 
 that, although in his writings the words vo[x<; and 
 X0709 are sometimes interchanged, yet that he 
 recognized in each spiritual unit, or entity, the 
 attributes of ' Being, Reason, and Soul'; and that, 
 over and above the many striking analogies which 
 vou brought forward from the records of history 
 and of science [only to refute, however, although 
 they once appeared weighty], there remained 
 many others? More especially the Scriptures 
 themselves contain many incidental statements 
 and facts which, although not immediately relating 
 to the subject, do in truth sustain it, acting, as it 
 were, like external buttresses to the citadel of 
 Truth. I allude to the Jewish benediction, in 
 which the solemn name of Jehovah was pro- 
 nounced three times — to the three benedictions 
 used by Jacob in blessing Joseph — and I will 
 add, the marvellous vision of Isaiah described in 
 the sixth chapter of his Prophecy — where the six 
 wings of the Seraphim were used in a triple 
 function, thus, ' with twain he covered his face ' 
 — 'with twain he covered his feet,' and 'with twain 
 did he fly ' ; but more especially that ' one cried 
 unto another, and said, "Holy," "Holy," "Holy" 
 
THE DIFIXE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. .53 
 
 is the Lord of Hosts.' This subhme utterance, 
 when remembered in conjunction with the august 
 words of the Most High [after the creation of the 
 earth and its denizens], ' Let us make man in our 
 own image," and subsequently the expression, 
 ' Behold, the man is become as one of us,' point 
 to a plurality of persons and contributed to the 
 induction of The Church, and which, at the 
 Council of Nicaea, she formulated and promul- 
 gated as a tenet of faith, so solemn, that except a 
 man 'keep' it 'whole' and undefiled without 
 doubt he shall perish everlastingly. 
 
 Parishioner. Permit me to say, that as vet 
 [for reasons which I have heretofore described 
 to you] I have not ' openly ' broken the ' traditions ' 
 of my baptismal Church ; and there is a clause in 
 the Article you have cited to mv reproof w^hich 
 robs it of all its sting and its power — inasmuch as 
 I am not desirous of breaking any tradition — 
 which in the words of the said Article ' be not 
 repugnant to the Word of God.' I dispute the 
 tradition of the Athanasian Creed solely and 
 exclusively, because I am sure it is 'repugnant to 
 the Word of God.' You admit St. Paul to be an 
 inspired Apostle, and you regard his writings as 
 a most important portion of 'the Word of God ' ; 
 and his \yords to the young minister he loved — 
 ' unto Timothy my own son in the faith ' — 
 were those which I have cited to you as the 
 justification of my contemplated secession, and 
 
54 THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 the foundation of my present faith — words bearing 
 directly on the question before us, surpassing in 
 clearness the words of the Greek sage Plato, and 
 drowning in the effulgence of their light such 
 far-off figurative expressions as those you have 
 quoted from Isaiah and from Genesis in support 
 of your ecclesiastic dogma. The quotation of 
 suck texts proves the weak support to be obtained 
 for it from the Scriptures ; yet these very texts, 
 and others like unto them, were accepted by 
 myself, until research and reflection proved their 
 futility for the purpose in question. Any student 
 of rhetoric may perceive that these reiterations 
 of Isaiah were used solely to make the expression 
 more august and more emphatic, in the same 
 manner as Jeremiah employs triple reiteration 
 when, uttering the judgments of Coniah, he 
 exclaims, ' O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word 
 of the Lord ' (Jeremiah xxii. 29) ; and the 
 eloquent Ezekiel also, when censuring some 
 ' profane wicked prince of Israel,' represents the 
 Lord God as saying, ' I will overturn, overturn, 
 overturn it'* (Ezekiel xxi. 27). Nor am I able to 
 accept the expressions you quote from Genesis, 
 as throwing light upon, or giving support to, the 
 Trinitarian hypothesis. It is not unusual for 
 Hebrews to use a plural word in describing 
 persons of great dignity, and even in our own 
 country royal personages, or rather the Queen or 
 the King in issuing a Proclamation, uses the word 
 
THE DiriNE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 55 
 
 'we' or 'our'; and further, it is an indefinite 
 plural : ^ o?u' image,' or 'as one of ?/5,' may 
 signify two, equally as well as three, or five, or 
 six. Some honest expositors of Scripture, like 
 unto Calvin, have set aside these texts from 
 Genesis as futile and delusive. A very able theo- 
 logian, Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen, in his lectures 
 on Systematic Theology, assures us that ' Luther 
 stood up for the Trinity from the word "Elohim," 
 but Calvin refutes his argument, or quibble rather, 
 at some length ' (p. 489) ; and even the orthodox 
 German Oehler, in his work on T/ie Theology of 
 the Old Testament^ tells us that ' the meaning of 
 this plural is not numerical, neither in the sense 
 in which some older theologians understand it, 
 who seek the secret of the Trinity in the name.' 
 'At present,' he adds, 'this view requires no 
 further refutation.' And Dr. Havernick, in his 
 erudite work, Historiscli-critische Einleitiing ins 
 alte Testament., while proposing the word 'Jahveh' 
 for 'Jehovah,' as meaning 'the Existing one^ 
 derives ' Elohim ' from an ancient Hebrew root, 
 ' coluit,' and thinks the plural is used to signify 
 the boundless richness contained in the Divine 
 Being. Oehler and Hengstenberg's strong [I 
 might almost say prejudiced] 'orthodoxy' makes 
 them reluctant to forego the text without wringing 
 something out of it in favour of their darling 
 ' doxy' ; and, therefore, we are quietly assured by 
 these writers ' that even this erroneous view has 
 
S6 THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 some truth at its foundation, since the plural 
 form, indicating the inexhaustible fulness of the 
 Divinity, serves to combat the most dangerous 
 enemy of the doctrine of the Trinity, viz., abstract 
 Monotheism' (p. 131). Such a powerful bias 
 must dim perception and vitiate conclusions. 
 Whenever an ' erroneous view ' is welcomed, 
 because ' it serves to combat ' the opponents of a 
 pet doctrine, the honesty or the judicial capacity 
 of the writers who welcome it must be of little 
 value. I confess again that my passive acqui- 
 escence in an ecclesiastic dogma was first disturbed 
 by a sermon made in its defence, and my present 
 convictions are, if possible, strengthened daily 
 by such inductions as those of Luther, and 
 by statements like unto those of Oehler and 
 Hengstenberg. 
 
 Vicar. Bias, strong, prejudiced, and blind, is 
 seldom confined to one party in a dispute, and 
 think you not that it is something akin to it which 
 blinds you to the illustrative importance of all 
 the facts which you yourself have enumerated ? 
 I need name two only of the many in which three 
 separate entities have blended or combined to 
 form a unity — as length, breadth, and thick- 
 ness to form a cube ; three distinctive colours 
 blending into one, forming what we call light. 
 Is it not something mentally akin to ' colour- 
 blindness' which disables you from perceiving 
 that the mythologies of Egypt and Assyria 
 
THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. s7 
 
 contained something of the germs of that develop- 
 ment of Christian doctrine which cidminated 
 in the decrees of the Nicene Fathers, or that 
 they might be the 'remains,' 'the relics,' the 
 * fossils,' if you will, of a purer and primasval 
 religion which had been departed from ? Does 
 it not strike you as a most remarkable circum- 
 stance that a writer of so philosophic, learned, 
 and intellectual calibre as Cudworth should 
 assert that, according to the Egyptian idea, the 
 Divine Nature was a Trinity in Unity ? All 
 these facts indicate that, however much the 
 theory may transcend the capacities of the human 
 reason, yet that it is not essentially contradictory 
 or repugnant to it. 
 
 Parishioner'. There is no limit to the alle- 
 gorical fancy when once indulged, whether as 
 regards the meanings of Scripture words and texts 
 or the force of special illustrations like to those 
 enumerated. The words 'let us' in Genesis 
 sufficed, as we have seen, to establish the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity in many minds, and a Bishop 
 of Antioch in the second century, the pious and 
 zealous Theophilus, could even see the words 
 ' ev apxn' ' in the beginning,' to mean ' by Christ,' 
 while the three days preceding the creation of 
 the sun and moon, ' tuttol ecaiv rpla8o<i rod Qeov' 
 were expressive of the Trinity of God and His 
 Word and His wisdom ; and here, according to 
 the translators of Mosheim, in the edition edited 
 
58 THE D I FINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 by the learned Dr. Stubbs, we have the first use 
 of the word Trinity by the Fathers ; and a most 
 worthy origin it is of such a baseless dream ! And 
 as to the analogies which have been cited, each 
 analogy is a delusive analogy, a verbal ignis fatuiis 
 or ' will of the wisp,' and not a trustworthy light 
 to guide us. Each and all of them by their 
 respective combinations or separations produce 
 a tertiiim quid different to themselves. Length, 
 breadth, and thickness become in their combina- 
 tion a cube, and the prismatic decomposition of 
 a ray of light produces colour, and vice versd^ 
 and, therefore, in no manner represents the para- 
 doxical statement, ' the Father is Lord, the Son 
 is Lord, and the Holy Ghost is Lord, and yet not 
 three Lords but one Lord.' Were it not irre- 
 verent I would say that such illustrations are as 
 irrelevant to the purpose as the example I have 
 somewhere heard or read of as having been given 
 to Home Tooke. This witty clerical philologist 
 was speaking to a friend upon the self-contradic- 
 tory character of the statement I have just given 
 from the Athanasian Creed, when his friend 
 replied that, ' It was not contradictory at all, it 
 is only like the thing I have just witnessed in the 
 streets, three men riding in one cart.' ' It would 
 have been more to the purpose,' replied the 
 philologist, ' if you had seen one man riding in 
 three carts.' This is most true. Metaphor and 
 analogy are often so imperfect as to obscure 
 
THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 59 
 
 rather than enlighten a difficult subject. The 
 logical sequence of such analogies is over- 
 looked, and a perverse induction made, as by Mr. 
 Home Tooke's friend. In respect to Cudworth, 
 Mosheim subsequently demonstrated how that 
 philosopher had been misinformed and mistaken 
 in respect to the esoteric opinions of the 
 Egyptian priesthood, and that their mythology 
 had never included a 'Trinity' in the strict sense 
 of that term. That Pagan ' Triads' became trans- 
 formed by priestly ingenuity into the paradox of 
 a ' Trinity' I believe fully, for the entire idea 
 is antagonistic to the grand idea of the Hebrew 
 'Jahveh' — the One Supreme — and wholly con- 
 sonant with the alleged gods of Paganism, and 
 the verbal, empty, profitless subtleties of Greek 
 philosophy. It sprang up at a time when, to use 
 the words of Macaulay, * Christianity had con- 
 quered Paganism and Paganism had infected 
 Christianity. The Church was now victorious 
 and corrupt. The rites of the Pantheon had 
 passed into her worship, the subtleties of the 
 Academy into her creed. In an evil day, though 
 with great pomp and solemnity — we quote the 
 language of Bacon — was the ill-starred alliance 
 stricken between the old philosophy and the new 
 faith.' {Macaulay s Essays^ p. 395.) Anterior 
 to this mesalliance the creeds of the Church were 
 comparativelv clear and simple, although even in 
 Paul's day there was a tendencv to add to ' the 
 
6o THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS TEACHER. 
 
 truth as it was in Jesus,' so that he cautioned his 
 young and able disciple not to 'give heed to fables 
 and endless genealogies' ; he pointed out to him 
 some who, desiring to be teachers of the law,' 
 * have turned aside to vain jangling, understand- 
 ing neither what they say nor whereof they 
 affirm' (How very like the teachers who debate 
 and 'jangle' to the effect that 'there are not three 
 incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one 
 uncreated and one incomprehensible !') To this 
 ' dearly beloved son' he appealed, imploring him 
 to 'hold fast the form of sound words' which he 
 had heard from him, to avoid ' profane and vain 
 babblings and oppositions of science falsely so 
 called, and to commit that which he had heard 
 from him ' to faithful men who shall be able to 
 teach others also.' In his dying moments, so to 
 speak, when he was ' ready to be offered, and the 
 time for his departure was at hand,' Paul, in the 
 most impassioned manner, and dreading that the 
 time would come when men ' would turn away 
 their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto 
 fables! besought Timothy to ' preach the word,' 
 and, inasmuch as he ' had fullv known his doc- 
 trine,' 'to continue thou in the things which thou 
 hast learned and hast been assured of, know- 
 ing of whom thou hast learned them ' ; and this 
 ' doctrine ' and this ' truth ' — the cardinal spring, 
 ' the fundamental doctrine ' — was not the 'jangle ' 
 of ' there is one Father, not three Fathers ; one 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 6i 
 
 Son, not three Sons ; one Holy Ghost, not three 
 Holy Ghosts : in this Trinity none is afore or 
 after other, none is greater or less than another, 
 but the whole Three Persons are co-eternal 
 together and co-equal. So that in all things, as 
 is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity 
 in Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that 
 wi'// he saved : must thus think of the Trinity! 
 No, Paul did not thus address his dearly beloyed 
 son in the faith, to whom he bequeathed his noble 
 mission of carrying forward ' the faith once 
 delivered to the saints'; he did not hand down 
 to him the crude metaphysics of the Alexandrian 
 School of Philosophy, ' the babblings of science 
 falsely so called,' but he bequeathed to him 
 these clear and noble words : ' There is one God 
 and one Mediator between God and men, the 
 Man Christ Jesus, who gaye himself a ransom 
 for all, to be testified in due time' (i Timothy 
 ii. 5, 6). This statement is so definite, so unmis- 
 takable, is written so ' plain upon tables, that he 
 may run that readeth them' (Habakkuk ii. 5), 
 and the reyelation is complete. 
 
 Vicar. Some of the greatest saints, and Fathers 
 of the Church, and I may add, also, that some of 
 the greatest theologians and scholars, whom all 
 Christendom honours, haye accepted such like 
 analogies, which I haye giyen to you, as powerful 
 subsidiaries to the Scriptures in explaining and 
 sustaining the deep mystery of the Trinity, a full 
 
62 ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 
 
 faith in which is so necessary to salvation. The 
 principle which so many wise and good men have 
 found useful is entitled to more respect than you 
 have given it. Theophihis, Bishop of Antioch, in 
 the second century ; the holy Clement, Irenaeus, 
 Tertullian and Origen have employed analogy 
 and allegory largely in inculcating the various 
 truths of Christianity; and Justin Martyr, that 
 exalted saint, and early martyr to the Christian 
 faith, in chapter 55 of his first Apology to the 
 Roman Emperors, employs the form or figure of 
 the cross as a symbol and exposition of the 
 Christian faith of the highest meaning and im- 
 portance, and that the power and rule of Christ 
 is proved by the things which fall under our 
 observation. ' For the sea is not traversed 
 except that trophy which is called a sail abide 
 safe in the ship; and the earth is not ploughed 
 without it; diggers and mechanics do not their 
 work except with tools which have this shape. 
 And the human form differs from that of the 
 irrational animals in nothing else than in its being 
 erect, and having his arms extended, and having 
 on the face extending from the forehead what is 
 called the nose, through which there is respiration 
 for the living creature, and this shows no other 
 form than that of the cross. And so it was said 
 by the prophet : " The breath before our face is 
 the Lord Christ," ' and he concludes the chapter 
 with words which I would adopt and address 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 63 
 
 respectfully to you : ' Since therefore we have 
 urged you both by reason, and by an evident 
 form, and to the utmost of our ability, we know 
 that now we are blameless, even though you 
 disbelieve.' {^yustin Martyr s Writings, p. 55. 
 Clark, Edinburgh.) The accumulated mass of 
 symbolism which has been brought before you 
 illustrative of the Trinitarian Mystery, confirmed 
 as it has been by the long-continuous teachings 
 of the Catholic Church, and by Holy Scripture, 
 ought to suffice to disperse your doubts, and to 
 bring you home to the flock of the Lord. All 
 these things, as St. Paul assures us by a more 
 recondite and distant historv, even that of Agar 
 and Sarah, the bondwoman and the free, and the 
 symbolism of the two places Mount Sinai in 
 Arabia — the Jerusalem which now is, and the 
 Jerusalem which is above (Galatians iv.), are ' an 
 allegory' of hidden mysteries, even, indeed, as 
 were some of the parables of our blessed Lord. 
 Coming from such high sources, they ought to 
 be hand-posts and helps, as it were, to guide you 
 unto the truth. But passing from these great 
 collateral facts, I would remind you that Paul 
 not only wrote to Timothy the words you have 
 quoted so emphatically, and which seem to foster 
 your erroneous belief, but that he also wrote an 
 epistle to Titus, to which I draw your most 
 earnest attention. It contains a statement which 
 cannot fail, I think, to cause you to forego your 
 
64 ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 
 
 present conclusions, and to re-adopt those of 
 your earlier and better time. To embrace the 
 true faith, the Catholic faith, which is acquiesced 
 in, as I have again and again pointed out to you, 
 by the vast crowds of Nonconformists, by the 
 Councils of the past, and the great Oriental and 
 Occidental Churches, or, as I ought to have said, 
 by all the great branches of the supreme Church 
 Catholic. St. Paul in giving instructions on pas- 
 toral duties to Titus, even addressing his Epistle 
 thus, ' to Titus, my true child after a common 
 faith ' — bade him to be ' looking for that blessed 
 hope and the glorious appearing of the great God 
 and our Saviour Jesus Christ ' (ii. 13). Here the 
 attributes of God and the Son are distinctly 
 blended — the words, 'the Father is God, the Son 
 is God,' of the august Creed are reflected, and 
 yet the Unity of the Godhead remains. In this 
 text, quite irrespective of the powerful collateral 
 reasonings which have been supplied to you from 
 secular history, and from the strong ground of 
 * Analogy ' [which, in passing, I may remind you 
 was the basis on which was built up the great 
 philosophic work, Butler s Analogy^ for which 
 you have always expressed admiration], you have 
 a full authority for accepting the Athanasian 
 Creed, or rather the 'Catholic Faith'; — the 
 Catholic faith into which you were baptized, in 
 which you were ' confirmed,' in which you long 
 lived, and which I hope henceforth you will 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 6^ 
 
 ' keep whole and imdefiled ' to your everlasting 
 peace. 
 
 Parishioner. It will serve no useful purpose 
 to repeat and reiterate what I have already said 
 respecting symbols and allegories. They served 
 as feeble props to my faith for a time, but they 
 have become as broken reeds. The text you 
 have given from St. Paul's Epistle belongs to 
 another, and far more weighty, order of argu- 
 ments. Did it stand alone, with no other writinofs 
 of St. Paul with which to compare it, no other 
 expressions which could aid in unfolding its 
 purport, it would certainly uphold your state- 
 ments as to the equal Godhead of the Son, 
 although it would still leave the paradoxical and 
 unintelligible Creed of your Church practically 
 textless. Your quotation varies somewhat from 
 the revised version, which takes the adjective 
 * glorious ' from the word ' appearing,' and the 
 article from the words ' great God,' and causes 
 the text to read — ' and appearing of the glory of 
 our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.' Dean 
 Alford also translates it — ' the manifestation of 
 the glory of our great God.' And again, the 
 Rev. Sheldon Green, in a new text and trans- 
 lation published by Bagster, gives it — ' appearing 
 of the glory of the great God and our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ.' De Wette gives a corresponding 
 translation, which suggests two separate persons ; 
 but Canon Liddon, in his Bampton Lectures on 
 
 5 
 
66 ST. PAULS LUCIDITY. 
 
 the Divinity of our Lord, quotes it as ' the blessed 
 hope and appearing of the glory of our great 
 God and Saviour Jesus Christ.' This may have 
 been expected in one with such a powerful bias 
 and strong ecclesiastic feelings as the Canon, 
 but, in thus translating it, he has the powerful 
 support of the good Bishop Ellicott, of Glou- 
 cester, who, in his learned treatise on the 
 Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul, gives a precisely 
 similar version, but he tenders reasons for the 
 same in a more frank spirit, although a distin- 
 guished litterateur has told us that ' Everyone 
 remembers the Bishops of Winchester and 
 Gloucester making in convocation their remark- 
 able effort to do something for the honour of 
 our Lord's Godhead.' Still, with this alleged 
 bias, the good and conscientious divine gives 
 scholarly reasons for his conclusions, and recog- 
 nizes the fact that, viewed grammatically, the 
 Greek words would admit of another arrange- 
 ment ; indeed, in reference to rov fxeydXov k.t-i. he 
 writes, ' It must be candidly avowed that it is 
 very doubtful whether, on the grammatical prin- 
 ciple alluded to in the preceding note (the 
 identitv of reference of two substantives when 
 under the vinculum of a common article), the in- 
 terpretation of this passage can be fully settled ' 
 (p. 201). He properly states that the true ren- 
 dering of the clause really turns more upon 
 exegesis than upon grammar, and lays great stress 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 6y 
 
 upon the circumstance that ' e-Tnjxiveia,^ ' appear- 
 ance,' ' manifestation,' is a term specially and 
 peculiarly applied to the Son and never to the 
 ' Father,' and states further that /neyaXov would 
 seem uncalled for if applied to the ' Father,' and 
 he comes to the conclusion that ' the text is a 
 direct, definite, and even studied (which word 
 he emphasizes) declaration of the divinity of 
 the Eternal Son.' After his own ingenious' 
 reasonings and verbal criticisms to reach the 
 precise meaning of the words, few judicious 
 and impartial persons could assent to the 
 statement that the text is ' a definite., and even 
 studied declaration ' of the fact, which the 
 Bishop declares it to be ; however little they 
 may be inclined to dispute the fact itself. Had 
 St. Paul, or his amanuensis, ' studied ' in an 
 especial sense to make it the ' direct ' and ' definite 
 declaration of the Divinity of our Lord, would 
 he have left it in so obscure a form as to 
 be wrangled over by Greek scholars of such 
 high attainments as Ellicott, Winer, De Wette, 
 Meyer, and others? Wiclif, in his translation of 
 1380, I find, translates the text with a comma ; 
 and otherwise gives a different wording to the 
 Bishop. Thus, ' the blessid hope, and the 
 comynge of the glorie of the grete God, and of 
 oure sauyoure ihesus Crist.' Tyndale, in 1534, 
 also gives a comma — ' that blessed hope and 
 glorious apperenze of the myghty God, and of 
 
 5 * 
 
68 ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 
 
 our saviour Jesu Christ ' — and our authorized 
 version of 1611, as printed by Bagster, gives 
 the comma also, although it is omitted in 
 later copies issued by Her Majesty's Printers. 
 Winer, perhaps the highest authority in the 
 grammar of the New Testament, considers that 
 ' acoriipo'i ' is not a second predicate ; but that the 
 article is omitted because of the genitive rjfiMv. 
 He acknowledges, however, as does the learned 
 Bishop, that the meaning of the passage can be 
 definitely decided by exegesis only ; but just as 
 the Bishop makes ' e-m^uveLa' the guide of his 
 inference, so, in like manner, does Winer use the 
 word ' 6ec<i ' ; and argues, that as St. Paul in no 
 other of his writings applies this word to Christ, 
 it is not likelv that he should, in this Epistle, 
 have applied the exalted term, 'the ^r^^^^* God,' 
 to him ; and finds, in this fact, a justification for 
 his exegesis and resultant interpretation. The 
 Bishop in his notes on the phrase frankly informs 
 the reader that ' it ought not to be suppressed, 
 that some of the best versions, Vulgate, Syriac, 
 Coptic, Armenian (not however ^thiopic), and 
 some Fathers of unquestionable orthodoxy, 
 adopted the other interpretation : in proof of 
 which latter assertion Reuss refers to Ulrich, 
 NuiTi Christus in Tit, ii. 13 Dens appellatiir., 
 Tig. 1837 ; a treatise, however, which the 
 present editor has not seen ' {Pastoral Epistles^ 
 p. 201). But with all this, while feeling pro- 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 69 
 
 found respect for his Lordship's sincerity, it 
 becomes evident that he is under the powerful 
 bias of a preconceived and cherished idea, and 
 that the strictly judicial spirit is wanting. A 
 judicial exegesis demanded that something else 
 in addition to the word ' eirL^dveia^' should have 
 been remembered ; and that St. Paul, whose 
 epistle is being considered, never once, in all his 
 writings, applies the term ' 6e6^ ' to Christ ; and 
 therefore it was not probable that he would use 
 the term here, emphasized by the adjective 
 ' great ' as well as by the article ' rov, rov fj.eydXov 
 Oeov.' All things considered, my own reflec- 
 tions, aided by the observations of Meyer, De 
 Wette, and Winer, compel me to believe that, 
 in the text you have quoted, ^wo persons are 
 referred to ; and all the more do the observa- 
 tions of these learned men confirm my conviction, 
 because the ancient Greek MSS. are without 
 stops or punctuations, and hence, it is more than 
 probable that by the arrangement of a single 
 stop, and by this alone, the text you have quoted 
 possesses the solemn weight which a priori 
 appears to belong to it. At present, it stands in 
 direct contradiction to scores of other texts, and 
 to the whole tenour of the Scriptures. Especially 
 is it at variance with the words of St. Paul, which 
 I have given to you, from his epistle to Timothy, 
 whom he addressed with the same affectionate 
 terms as he did Titus, as ' my true child in faith.' 
 
70 ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 
 
 Indeed, the entire correspondence between Paul 
 and these his children, ' after a common faith,' 
 testifies that he regarded Timothy as more 
 directly, of the two, his especial successor 
 and representative. His letters to the latter 
 are almost impassioned. What can be more 
 touching than such appeals as these to his young 
 disciple — ' This charge I commit unto thee, my 
 child Timothy ' — ' O Timothy, guard that which 
 is committed unto thee ' — ' Thou therefore, my 
 child, be strengthened in the grace that, is in 
 Christ Jesus ' — ' Do thy diligence to come shortly 
 unto me : for Demas forsook me, having loved 
 this present world, and went to Thessalonica, 
 Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia ; ' and the 
 like. His epistles to Timothy are indeed the 
 overflowings of a tender heart — conscious that 
 the 'time of his departure was come,' and anxious 
 to confide in one he so much loved, the prosecu- 
 tion of the great task w^hich was dearer to him 
 than life. I cling, therefore, to the knowledge 
 and instructions he imparted to Timothy as being 
 the brightest outpourings of his inspired spirit. 
 I think this exceptional text (if it be exceptional 
 in its obscurity) may find a solution in the cir- 
 cumstance that it relates wholly to the second 
 coming of our Lord, when, as we learn from His 
 own words, He will be accompanied by ' the 
 Great God.' The text, therefore, may refer to 
 two Persons ; for St. Luke records (ix. 26) 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 71 
 
 Jesus as saying to the persons listening to Him, 
 ' Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my 
 words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed 
 when he cometh in his own glory, and the glory 
 of the Father, and the holy angels ' ; and it is 
 impossible to forget that the same Paul, when 
 writing to the Corinthians, expressly informs 
 them that when God said that He had put a// 
 things in subjection under the feet of Jesus, ' zV 
 IS evident that he is excepted who did subject 
 all things unto him. And when all things have 
 been subjected unto him, then shall the Son 
 also himself be subject to him, that did subject 
 all things unto him, that God may be all in all ' 
 (i Cor. XV. 27, 28). These statements are so 
 lucid, so emphatic, that, coupled with the clear 
 language which I have already cited from Paul's 
 Epistle to Timothy, leaves my conviction un- 
 shaken, and, as I think, unshakable. The more 
 I ponder on all the facts, the more vivid does 
 the real truth appear. I need not have said I 
 think. To my mind and to my conscience the 
 whole matter is clear. Demonstrated by Scripture 
 and by reason alike, my soul accepts the testi- 
 mony, accepts it absolutely ; and henceforward, 
 as I have already said, crowds, creeds, councils, 
 and Churches, by whatever name they are called, 
 have no ' authority ' with me upon this topic. 
 They are, as was the decree of Nebuchadnezzar 
 to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego : ' the law 
 
72 ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 
 
 and the testimony ' outweigh the clamour of 
 crowds. If priests or prelates proclaim dogmas 
 which are not in accord therewith, I am com- 
 pelled to say unto them as Peter and John said 
 to ' Annas the High Priest, and Caiaphas, and 
 John, and Alexander,' and other dignitaries, 
 'kindred of the High Priest,' who were gathered 
 together at Jerusalem : — ' Whether it be right in 
 the si'g/ii of God to hearken u7ito yoii more than 
 unto God^ judge ye' (Acts iv. 19). No, my dear 
 Vicar, from the above statement of Paul there 
 can be no appeal, for it is in harmony with all the 
 teachings of Holy Writ. ' Hear O Israel, the 
 Lord thy God is o)ic Lord ' (Deut. vi. 4), was the 
 old emphatic proclamation of the Old Dispensa- 
 tion, and * There is one God and one mediator 
 between God and men — the Man Christ Jesus ' 
 (i Timothy ii. 5, 6), is the equally positive 
 declaration of the New Testament. The words 
 in each case are simple, clear, and definite. No 
 language could by possibility be plainer. No 
 person hearing them in adult life for the first 
 time could mistake their meaning. It is astound- 
 ing to the unsophisticated understanding how 
 such a confused and mystic idea as the one 
 embodied in the Athanasian Creed could have 
 been concocted out of the book called the Bible. 
 In truth, it never was derived from that source. 
 It sprang out of the subtle disquisitions of so- 
 called Greek philosophers. One of the 'inspired' 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 73 
 
 writers of the Bible has told iis, ' Lo, this only 
 have I found, that God hath made men upright ; 
 but they have sought out many inventions ' 
 (Eccles. vii. 29) ; and of all the ' inventions ' and 
 the staggering statements which the subtlety and 
 the sophistry of speculative minds have spun from 
 their ' inner consciousness,' none can possibly 
 exceed in absurdity that paradox of words ' the 
 So7i is co-eternal with the Father' How amazed 
 would the learned Arabian Mohammedans of the 
 seventh century (these philosophers who, even at 
 that early date, had catalogued all the stars in 
 their visible heaven, had determined the true 
 length of the year, and other scientific matters) 
 have been to have heard ' a Christian,' or as 
 they would have called him, 'the infidel,' utter 
 such a statement ! How confirmed would they 
 have been in their superiority, and the superiority 
 of their creed over a race which chose to talk in 
 such a paradoxical manner and elevate into ' a 
 creed,' a ' shibboleth,' a statement which over- 
 turned the meaning of words and subverted the 
 order of nature and of things ! Indeed, daily 
 experience shows this, although dogmatic zeal 
 blinds the mind to the fact. An instance of 
 such obfuscating power has just occurred. That 
 enthusiastic Anglican, Canon Liddon, wrote the 
 other day to The Guardian^ complaining ' that 
 the divisions of Christendom, to which a new 
 impetus was contributed by Bishop Gobat's 
 Episcopate, do more to hinder conversions to 
 
74 ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 
 
 Christ than anything else,' more even than the 
 'trinitarian theory,' This popular preacher told 
 the readers of 77ie Guardian that ' a clever 
 Mohammedan, when meaning to pay a compli- 
 ment, said to me, " We look upon an English 
 Protestant as an imperfect kind of Moslem" ; and, 
 as a gibe upon the efforts of Protestants under 
 ' Bishop Gobat's Episcopate,' and as a sop to 
 Anglican bigots, the Canon added, ' If Protestant 
 missionaries tone down their teaching sufficiently 
 in an Arian or a still more purely deistic direc- 
 tion, they may gain the good opinion of Moslem 
 hearers.' This is gratifying testimony from such 
 a source, despite the frightful words ' deistic 
 direction,' which to many minds convey the very 
 opposite of its true meaning, and suggest a 
 progress Satan-wards. As a matter of practical 
 fact, it is the priestly invention of the trinitarian 
 dogma, and not the nature of the Christian doc- 
 trine in its purity, which has prevented its 
 progress among the myriads of the East. Mr. 
 Hugh Stannus, in a recent prize essay on the 
 * Origin of the Trinity,' tells that ' some years 
 ago, when there were disturbances in India as to 
 the Province of Oude, a proclamation was issued 
 by our Government in which the Christian 
 religion was referred to. This proclamation 
 called forth a counter-proclamation from the 
 Queen of Oude, to the effect, " In the Queen of 
 England's proclamation it is written that the 
 Christian religion is true, but that no other creed 
 
Sr. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 75 
 
 will suffer oppression, and that the laws will be 
 observed towards all. What has the administra- 
 tion of justice to do with the truth or falsehood 
 of religion ? That religion is true which acknow- 
 ledges ONE God, and knows no other. Where 
 there are three Gods in religion, neither Mussul- 
 mans nor Hindoos, nay, not even Jews, Sun 
 Worshippers, or Fire Worshippers can believe 
 it true." ' Ovid tells us ' jFas est ct ab hoste 
 doceri^' and this 'heathen' Queen teaches us a 
 grand lesson. ' He that hath ears to hear, let 
 him hear.' ' Not even Jews,' writes the disdain- 
 ful Queen, ' can believe it true.' Most assuredly 
 they cannot 'believe it true.' In the first 
 century of the Christian era, hundreds of Jews 
 became the believers in and followers of Jesus 
 Christ; but since the fourth century it has been 
 different. When the ' Church ' promulgated the 
 unscriptural doctrine, that the Father is God, the 
 Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God — ' and 
 in this Trinity none is afore or after the other ; 
 none is greater or less than another ; but the 
 whole three Persons are co-eternal together and 
 co-equal,' the ' conversions ' became very few 
 indeed, and these of a suspicious character. Can 
 it surprise any rational person that the Jews, who 
 reverence their ancient Scriptures, who honour 
 the wisdom of Moses and of Solomon, the piety 
 of David, and the sublime utterances of Isaiah 
 and Ezekiel, should for well-nigh two thousand 
 
76 ST. PAUVS LUCIDITY. 
 
 years turn with disdain from a religion couched 
 in such phrases ? Is it to be wondered at that 
 the gentle Hindoos and the thoughtful Buddhists 
 in their myriad numbers remain ' unconverted ' as 
 a people, despite the hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds and the many noble lives which Christian 
 England and other nations have poured forth for 
 their ' conversion ' ? Is it a marvel that in the 
 nineteenth century of the ' Christian era ' scep- 
 ticism swarms in our cities and saturates our 
 literature and our science ; that wise and good 
 and illustrious men like Sir Isaac Newton, the 
 discoverer of the law of gravitation, the pious 
 poet John Milton, and the moral and learned 
 philosopher John Locke should consent to be 
 branded as ' heterodox ' and ' unsound ' rather 
 than accept the idea that before all things it 
 was necessary tints to think of their Creator, or 
 without dotibt to ''perish everlastingly ' f The 
 marvel of marvels is, that for this fundamental 
 doctrine there is not one clear unequivocal verse 
 to be found in the entire range of Scripture ! 
 The most painstaking reader will search the 
 pages of the Bible in vain to find even the word 
 which has been ingeniously fabricated to express 
 the mystic and ' incomprehensible ' idea. Nor 
 was the word used in theological controversies, 
 as far as I know, until the two-hundredth year of 
 the Christian era. Tertullian used it ; and, in 
 the third volume of his immortal work, Gibbon 
 
ST. PAUL'S LUCIDITY. 77 
 
 writes, ' If Theophilus was the first to use it, 
 then this abstract term which was familiar in the 
 schools of philosophy must have been introduced 
 into the theology of the Christians after the 
 middle of the second century' (Cap. xxi.). Yet, 
 ' most strange, passing strange,' though the doc- 
 trine be absolutely textless, though it was 
 unknown in the pure and primitive periods of 
 Christianity, yet such is the infatuated intolerance 
 of the hour, that Jiot to express your belief in the 
 ' Trinity,' or rather to disavow a belief in it^ will 
 cause vou to be branded bv all the Christian 
 Churches of the realm as a ' heretic ' and a kind 
 of social Pariah ; and this notwithstanding that 
 from the first chapter of Genesis to the twenty- 
 second and last chapter of Revelation this all- 
 important word which embodies a ^fundamental 
 doctrine' is nowhere to be found / 
 
 Vicar. It is evasive and somewhat 'Jesuitical,' 
 as it is often called, that you should lay such 
 emphasis on the absence of the Latin word 
 ' Trinity,' which simply means ' three in one,' 
 when you are aware that the same thing is 
 distinctly stated in English ; and that in the 
 very early part of our interview I drew your 
 attention to it, and have since repeated it, and 
 had hoped, from the reverence you express for 
 the Scriptures, that it would have reconciled you 
 to the doctrine as being, in the words of the 
 Eighth Article of our Church, ' proved by most 
 
78 REVERENCE FOR SCRIPTURE. 
 
 certain warrants of Holy Scripture.' As you 
 have so long ignored it, and have brought for- 
 ward other texts with so much confidence, 
 altogether forgetful of the great law of Exegesis, 
 and of the ' Twentieth Article of Religion ' — not 
 ' so to expound one place of Scripture that it be 
 repugnant to another ' — I must remind you for 
 the third time that St. John, in the fifth chapter 
 of his first Epistle, distinctly states ' there are 
 three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, 
 the Word, and the Holy Ghost : and these three 
 are one.' This verse refutes your very strong 
 statements as to the entire absence of all Scrip- 
 tural authority for the doctrine, and also your 
 last assertion that the word ' Trinity ' (for the 
 words ' these three are one ' are more than an 
 equivalent for it) is not to be found from the 
 first chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter 
 of the book of Revelation. 
 
 Parishioner. I had by no means forgotten the 
 quotation in question. When my mind was first 
 directed to this question, under the circum- 
 stances I have detailed to you, this Epistle of 
 John came as a great solace to my mind, and for 
 many months sustained my primitive faith. I 
 had heard the especial verse read year after 
 year, on the first Sunday after Easter ; read, too, 
 from the very altar, as the most sacred spot 
 in the church, and immediately following the 
 collect in the communion service. It was read 
 
REFERENCE FOR SCRIPTURE. 79 
 
 also in due course on the 29th of April in the 
 service at Evening Prayer, The words are 
 certainly most clear, most distinct, and they 
 demonstrate the truth of the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, so far as an inspired Scripture stating a 
 fact must be accepted as a demonstration by all 
 (and most certainly I was then one of those) who 
 regard it as the Word of God. The enunciation 
 ' and these three are one ' leaves nothing to be 
 desired as to explicitness. I bowed with rever- 
 ence where I could not fully understand. I felt 
 that great was ' the mystery,' but I no more 
 questioned than Abraham questioned when he 
 climbed the mountain of Moriah on his painful 
 errand. God had spoken, and there was no 
 sacrifice, whether the offspring of Reason or the 
 offspring of the body, that could be withheld by 
 one who had a due sense of his creatorship, his 
 omnipotence, and his goodness. It was an un- 
 fathomable mystery, but so is the origin of God. 
 Believing the words to be the words of God, 
 through the immediate inspiration of His apostle 
 John, my ' doubts ' were annihilated, and I 
 listened to the ' damnatory clauses ' uttered by 
 the priest on those who did not believe in the 
 ' Catholic Faith ' with the same kind of emotion 
 I felt when reading of the curses of Ebal on 
 those who ' setteth light by his father or his 
 mother, who removeth his neighbour's landmark, 
 or maketh the blind to wander out of his way.' 
 
8o REVERENCE FOR SCRIPTURE. 
 
 For, at that time I had not perceived the tre- 
 mendous distinction between the two cases — one 
 (Ebal) dealing with overt ac^s, with demonstrable 
 deeds ; while the other deals exclusively with 
 the subtle and intangible speculations of the 
 mind. One ' curses ' wicked acts ; the other 
 * curses ' ideas. Each, however, appeared to he 
 the declaration of the Almighty One, and to 
 HIS command the response could only be as it 
 was at Ebal — ' Amen ! ' Imagine, then, my dear 
 sir, if you possibly can, the awful revulsion of my 
 feelings when the time came, as come it did., 
 when the words you have recited to me turned 
 out to be the interpolations., the forged utter- 
 ances of some enthusiastic copyist of MSS. in the 
 fourth century, who, seemingly, not finding any 
 verses sufficiently distinct and clear to uphold 
 the hypothesis of the ' Trinity,' deliberately in- 
 vented and added the one you have quoted to 
 me ; but, whatever may have been its origin, it 
 was wholly unknown to the followers of Jesus 
 until some hundreds of years after the ' inspired ' 
 apostle had 'slept with his fathers' ! Such a 
 discovery overwhelmed at once all my reverence 
 for the doctrine. It was the only spot of ground 
 on which I could rest my faith ; the one sole 
 atom of Scripture which seemed to demand that 
 reason should be prostrated to the requirements 
 of * faith ' ; the only verse which lifted the 
 mystery from the dogmas of priestcraft into the 
 
FALSEHOOD AND FORGERY. 8i 
 
 requirements of the Gospel ; and, lo and behold, 
 it was worse than a broken reed on which I was 
 leaning ! It was no more the Word of God than 
 were the words of ' Zedekiah, the son of Che- 
 naanah,' when he made him horns of iron, and, 
 standing before Ahab and Jehoshaphat in their 
 royal robes, sitting on their respective thrones as 
 the Kings of Israel and Judah, he said unto the 
 King Ahab, ' T/ins saith the Lord., With these 
 shalt thou push the Syrians until thou have con- 
 sumed them' (i Kings xxii. ii). In that case 
 it is sad to know that the Ivins^ statement 
 was repeated by all the prophets of Israel, and 
 that honest Micah, who protested against the 
 statement, was smitten on the mouth by the false 
 Zedekiah, without a word of remonstrance raised 
 either by kings or prophets ; and yet it is sadder 
 still to feel that for centuries in the Christian era 
 words equally false, and alike imputed to the 
 Most High, have been repeated and enforced 
 by Christian priests ; nor have manv (if any) 
 hesitated to smite on the mouth (nay, some have 
 not hesitated to burn slowly to death at the 
 stake, as Calvin did Servetus at Geneva) those 
 who have gainsaid their statements. It is a most 
 damaging fact against the Church in England 
 that her priests and her prelates have known for 
 years that verse to be a spurious introduction 
 into the chapter ; and yet to sustain a theory to 
 uphold a Church dogma, they have read it to the 
 
 6 
 
82 FALSEHOOD AND FORGERY. 
 
 people, even to this very Easter, as ' the Word 
 of God ' ! From the lowliest curate through all 
 the ranks of the priesthood up to the loftiest 
 archbishop, not one in the United Kingdom has 
 had the simple honesty and fealty to the truth to 
 pause in their public reading of the chapter, and 
 to sav of this verse, ' Here is something false and 
 wrong ; this verse does not occur in any of the 
 earliest manuscripts.' No, not one of the entire 
 Hierarchy ! If anything were wanting to prove 
 its spuriousness it would be found in the fact that 
 it was never once quoted by the partisans of 
 ' orthodoxy ' in the great Arian controversy in 
 the vear of our Lord 325. It amazes me that 
 this verse should be still read, in its turn, although 
 its spuriousness is so well known to the priests 
 who read it. Even ' orthodox ' writers are, by 
 the force of circumstances, compelled to admit 
 that it is spurious. Neander tells us in his 
 CliurcJi History^ ' This doctrine [the Trinity] 
 does not, it appears to me, belong strictly to the 
 fundamental articles of the Christian faith [are you 
 not ready to exclaim ' et tii, Brute ' ? But listen], 
 as appears from the fact that it is explicitly set 
 forth in }io particular passage of the New Testa- 
 ment, for the only one in which this is done, the 
 passage relating to the three that bear record, is 
 undoubtedly spurious' (Bohn's edition. Vol. II., 
 p. 286.) To me, this reticence — no, not reticence, 
 but wilful acquiescence in a fraud — this public 
 
FALSEHOOD AND FORGERY. 83 
 
 use of a falsehood (for ' Church ' purposes) in the 
 very ' House of God,' and in an act of adoration 
 and worship, is revolting, and would of itself 
 repel me from a creed in defence of which such 
 nefarious practices were resorted to. 
 
 Vicar. I do not think that I am acting rightly 
 in listening to such strong condemnation of the 
 bishops and pastors of the Church, with whatever 
 leniency I may be disposed to treat the censure 
 which has been indirectly passed upon myself. 
 I wish, however, to state that the grammatical 
 construction of verses 7 and 8 in the chapter to 
 which you refer would seem to ;/g^^ the presence 
 of the disputed passage ; for what can the article 
 TO ev at the conclusion of verse 8 have reference 
 to if not to the former ' eV ' in the preceding 
 verse ? Moreover, the learned Erasmus prints 
 the clause in the third edition of the Greek 
 Testament, 1522 ; and our own learned Bishop 
 Burgess, as also Horsley, and Bull, and Stilling- 
 fleet, and Pearson, are unwilling that the passage 
 should be considered spurious. In a bishop or a 
 priest to have done as you suggest, and to have 
 proclaimed the passage tintnie, would have been 
 to shake the confidence of the common people 
 altogether in the whole Bible ; or probably have 
 caused them to execrate the bishop in question 
 for himself daring to doubt the truth of anything 
 within the pages of that book, which from their 
 childhood they had been taught to reverence, 
 
 6 * 
 
84 FALSEHOOD AXD FORGERY. 
 
 and which many, if not most of them, considered 
 to be sacred, yea, as sacred as the consecrated 
 elements of the Blessed Sacrament. 
 
 ParisJiioner. My dear Vicar, you astound me ! 
 What is this but doing evil under the delusive 
 idea that it sustains a good object? Still, I ought 
 to have remembered that in the past there were 
 Apologists who endeavoured to explain the facts 
 that this spurious text ^vas not appealed to by 
 the Fathers for analogous reasons to those with 
 which vou justify its detention, and the silence 
 respecting its falsehood. Porson, in his erudite 
 letters to Archdeacon Travis in 1790, tells us of 
 one Kettner, who alle2:es that the reason whv the 
 Fathers refrained from appealing to the heavenly 
 ' witnesses ' was lest the text might seem to 
 favour Sabellianism, and lest ' Constantine the 
 Great being then a Catechumen should be 
 scandalized.' Kettner, by enforcing this text 
 thus prominently, thought he had done the 
 Church a great service, and he burst into a wild 
 rhapsody thereupon, which Porson has given at 
 length. Canon Liddon himself could not be 
 more exultant over a rhetorical triumph than is 
 Kettner over this said spurious verse ; he calls it 
 Johannine theology in a nutshell. It is like to a 
 star of the first magnitude in Scripture — a com- 
 pendium of the Trinitarian faith, ' et flos Novi 
 Testamcnti pulclicrrimiis' It is almost laughable 
 to read the recorded rhodomontade of Kettner 
 
FALSEHOOD AXD FORGERY. 85 
 
 over this spurious verse. He heaps eulogy upon 
 eulogy through a long series of sentences, such 
 as ^ Latct incxJiaustus scientiarinn thesaurus in 
 hoc excellentissiino dicto. Hie enim Theologi 
 tres articulos fidei : Jiirisconsiilti tres advocates 
 coelestes et testes siimmas. Medici tres animariim 
 medicas inveniunt^' and so forth. But all this 
 hyperbolical praise has become of none effect. 
 The Scripture star of first magnitude has waned 
 and set, the flower of the New Testament has 
 withered, and the compendium of the Trinitarian 
 faith has been cast aside by great scholars as a 
 large falsehood in a small space. But there 
 remains the distressing thought that this spurious 
 text was long used to confute honest inquirers, 
 and to be the pretext for their persecution 
 and imprisonment as ' blasphemers '! It was the 
 * scriptural text ' used in argument against the 
 pure-minded William Penn in the reign of the 
 profligate King Charles II. Hepworth Dixon, 
 in his graphic history of William Penn, tells us 
 at page 60 : ' Alone in that vast crowd of men, 
 the Quakers were obliged to vield, and let the 
 wrangle take such form as Vincent pleased. 
 Then Vincent rose and asked the two " blas- 
 phemers " whether they owned one Godhead, 
 consisting in three distinct and separate forms ? 
 Whitehead and Penn asserted that the dogma so 
 delivered by Vincent was not found in Holy 
 Writ. Vincent answered by a syllogism. Quoting 
 
8(5 FALSEHOOD AND FORGERY. 
 
 St. John, he said : "There are three that bear 
 record in heaven — the Father, the Word, and 
 the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." . . . 
 Penn ultimately published a pamphlet to refute 
 Vincent's statements and inferences entitled 
 The Sandy Foundation Shaken. This led to his 
 being placed in the Tower for a long period, 
 where Bishop Henchman and Canon Stillingfleet 
 were sent in vain to convert him.' ' In prison,' 
 says his eloquent biographer, ' Penn was free. 
 No gates could close upon his fancy ; no restraints 
 could chain his thoughts. The light of heaven 
 was on his window-panes ; the peace of God was 
 in his soul. The strength with which he bore 
 his trial brought him back his father's heart.' 
 Penn possessed the true martyr-spirit. ' No 
 cross, no crown,' was his theory and his ex- 
 perience. The very learned and very good 
 Canon Stillingfleet tried in vain persuasion and 
 entreaty and priestly authority to induce him to 
 abandon his opinions. ' At the age of thirty- 
 four,' says Dixon, 'the Canon was hailed as 
 Stillingfleet the Great.' This eminent divine, so 
 well prepared for argument with men like Penn, 
 repaired to his apartments in the Tower. Of 
 course, the prisoner was no match for him in 
 learning, but his gentleness and fortitude im- 
 pressed the Canon's heart. With nothing but an 
 open Bible, Penn contested every inch of ground 
 with one who had a perfect library of the Fathers 
 
FALSEHOOD AXD FORGERY. 87 
 
 and the Councils in his memory. He wanted 
 Penn to vield so far that Charles could set him 
 free as an act of grace. Penn wanted to confront 
 his enemies in a court of justice. 'Tell the King,' 
 he said to Stillingfleet, 'that the Tower is the 
 worst argument in the world.' His visitor would 
 not press that point. . . . The Canon spoke of 
 the King's favour to his family, of the admiral's 
 position in the service, of the prospects of 
 advancement he was casting to the winds. Penn 
 heard his plea in silence, for he held him, as all 
 good and intellectual people held him, in the 
 highest honour ; but the words he uttered in the 
 Tower were empty sounds. It was a case of 
 conscience, not of policv, and Penn was only 
 one of many who had been arrested for opinion's 
 sake. His private ease was nothing while so 
 great a principle was at stake. Penn could not 
 own a fault when he was not in fault, and bv his 
 weakness put his persecutor in the right. ' Who- 
 ever is in the wrong,' urged Penn, ' those who 
 use force in religion can never be in the right.' 
 The Canon carried these words to his royal 
 'master' (p. 85). Many, many times the good 
 Stillingfleet visited the Tower to hold discourse 
 with Penn, but the pious prisoner had obtained 
 his convictions from a source purer and higher 
 than Church Councils and Fathers, and he has 
 left on permanent record that the Trinitarian 
 doctrine ' is not from the Scriptures nor reason, 
 
88 FALSEHOOD AND FORGERY. 
 
 since so expressly repugnant ; although all 
 broachers of their own inventions strongly 
 endeavour to reconcile them with that holy 
 record. Know then, my friend, it was born three 
 hundred years after the ancient Gospel was 
 declared ; it was conceived in ignorance^ brought 
 forth and maintained bv crueltv.' These words 
 of Penn are being received as (they are) the 
 truth ; and for you, at this time of day, to retain 
 the spurious text as useful and expedient is very 
 wrong. It astounds me, for practically considered, 
 what is this conduct but the embodiment of the 
 great sin which Protestants allege continually 
 against the Church of Rome ? What is it but 
 carrying out to the full the daring maxim of the 
 fourth century — ' that it is an act of virtue to 
 deceive and lie when it could promote the 
 interest of the Church ' ? It is the upholding of 
 the very spirit of forgery. You have often spoken 
 with indignation of the shameful Decretals of 
 Isidore — documents said to be written by the 
 early pontiffs, containing grants to the Holy See 
 from Constantine, upholding the supremacy of 
 the Pope, and the like — which were proved by 
 the clearest evidence to have been forged. In 
 what does it differ from the degrading tricks of 
 the olden time, such as the showing of a coloured 
 fluid for manv, manv vears at Hales in this 
 county of Gloucester as the very Blood of Christ 
 brought from Jerusalem ? except, indeed, that it 
 
FALSEHOOD AXD FORGERY. 89 
 
 was worse, inasmuch as the Decretals were only 
 alleged to be the productions of ineii^ whereas 
 the blood was something visible to the senses 
 which could have been tested and determined- by 
 experiments, but here, here, horresco referens^ 
 was the daring impiety of giving the words of 
 men as the utterances of the Almighty and 
 Eternal God ; and you, sir, indirectly justify it as 
 being useful in sustaining the faith of the people 
 in a dogma and in a book ! Oh, this is pitiful — 
 most pitiful ! 
 
 Vicar. I did not admit that this important 
 verse was forged; on the contrary, I gave gram- 
 matical reasons to show that it might not have 
 been, and then pointed out the mischief which 
 might arise from the utterances of a contrary 
 opinion. Moreover, I told you that the passage 
 is to be found in an edition of the Greek Tes- 
 tament issued by the learned Erasmus in 1522, 
 and also that good and learned divines like unto 
 Bishop Burgess, and Horsley and Bull, and 
 Stillingfleet supported its authenticity. 
 
 Parishioner. Pardon me when I say that it 
 amazes me to observe how education, a special 
 profession and training, and party zeal can blind 
 even a man of good intentions and a pure purpose. 
 It saddens me to find what very shallow argu- 
 ments will satisfy a mind full of preconceived 
 notions and anxious to uphold a svstem to which 
 it is attached. On any other subject apart from 
 
90 FALSEHOOD AND FORGERY. 
 
 your priestly office and its relation^ you, my 
 dear Vicar, would smile at the simplicity of the 
 person who quoted as an authority for a disputed 
 statement that the statement was contained in 
 a book published, as was Erasmus' Greek Tes- 
 tament, one thousand years or more after the 
 alleged forgery had taken place ! Moreover, 
 Erasmus himself prevaricated much and varied 
 his words from time to time. As to your other 
 remarks, in a matter of Greek scholarship can 
 Bishop Burgess be compared for a moment with 
 Porson, who maintained the spuriousness of the 
 verse in question ? The other names given by 
 you appear very weak on such a subject, when 
 the learned Michaelis and the great investigators 
 of Greek MSS. Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, 
 Tischendorff, Tregelles, Alford, and Jowett have 
 shown that it is spurious, and opposed to the 
 authority of all authentic Greek MSS., of all 
 ancient MSS., of the Latin Vulgate, and of the 
 Greek, Latin, and Oriental Fathers. But what 
 is perhaps of more weight to the ordinary English 
 mind is the fact that an assemblv of the most 
 learned Greek scholars and devout divines of 
 the ninctccntJi century have unanimously agreed 
 that it is spurious and ought no longer to appear 
 in the pages of our Bibles. 
 
 Vicar. I did not at all expect that our inter- 
 view would end in this manner, nor was I in the 
 slightest degree prepared to enter into so elaborate 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 91 
 
 a discussion as you have opened up. Moreover, 
 you have used expressions which I hope, upon 
 reflection, you will feel to be unjust towards 
 myself personally, for I should scorn to use a 
 forged document for the purpose of argument if 
 I had known it to be so. After your statement 
 to the effect that it is excluded from the Revised 
 New Testament by such ripe scholars and pious 
 men as Bishop Ellicott and Bishop Lightfoot — 
 or, as I ought rather to say, by the Bishops of 
 Gloucester and Durham — and others possessing 
 profound Greek learning, I must admit it to be 
 spurious, and consequently not of the transcen- 
 dent value in support of the Athanasian Creed 
 as I had supposed. However, the doctrine does 
 not rest exclusively on the passage in question ; 
 although I know of no other that directly refers 
 to and declares it in the lucid, positive, and 
 explicit manner as does St. John in that Epistle. 
 
 Parishioner. I should be sorry indeed to hurt 
 your feelings, for I have great esteem, nav affec- 
 tion, for you, and will at once withdraw the 
 implication of folly in reference to your quotation 
 of Erasmus as an authority on this subject, and 
 will consider it an inadvertence, drawn forth by 
 the exigencies of your position at the moment. 
 You have certainly been unfortunate in your 
 scriptural quotation in defence of the Trinitarian 
 Creed, nor less so for the one given to justifv the 
 damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, for 
 
92 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 I am sure that I have only to mention it and you 
 will remember that the passage you quoted from 
 Mark xvi. i6, to the effect, 'he that believeth not 
 shall be damned,' is a/so an inte^'polation^ and 
 was iiot written by St. Mark. It was appended as 
 earlv as the time of Irenaeus, but was still absent 
 from the majority of codices so late as Jerome's 
 day. 
 
 Vicar. I have been conversing far too long, 
 and urgent duties call me away. I was reading 
 that chapter in Valpy's Greek Testament this 
 morning, and he gives the passage in full, and 
 makes no reference in his copious notes to any 
 doubt of the kind you refer to. Moreover, it 
 is certain, as you say, that Irenaeus, who was 
 acquainted with Polycarp, and is thus, through 
 Polycarp's knowledge of St. John, linked with 
 apostolic times, quotes from this portion of Mark 
 without hesitation ; and I am not, therefore, 
 willing at this moment to admit that the verses 
 are an unauthorized addition to the writings of 
 the Evangelist. 
 
 Parishioner. I myself appealed to Valpy on 
 this point, but obtained no information ; and also 
 to Wilkinson and Webster in their more recent 
 edition of the Greek Testament, with no satis- 
 factory result ; but Griesbach, Tregelles, Tis- 
 chendorff, and even Alford, declare that the 
 verses from the ninth are not written by Mark ; 
 and I think that this would be conclusive to any 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 93 
 
 mind, unbiassed by antecedents and thoroughly 
 Judicial in its nature, who would carefully read 
 the verses from the 9th to the 20th in that chapter, 
 and compare them with the preceding verses ; 
 for he would find in those twelve verses at least 
 sixteen words which are not to be found in the 
 other parts of this Gospel. 
 
 Vicar. Let me remind you that Dean Burgon 
 has written learnedly on this very subject, and 
 he is a better Greek scholar than even Alford, 
 and he strenuously maintains that St. Mark did 
 write those verses. They are contained in a vast 
 mass of ancient manuscripts, and the conclusion 
 of the narrative at verse eight seems to be 
 abrupt : indeed, powerful writers like unto 
 Michaelis and Hug, infer that the addition was 
 made at a later period of the Evangelist's life, 
 as St. John is said to have done in the 21st 
 chapter of his Gospel. A writer in T/ie Quarterly 
 Review (who I believe to be Dean Burgon) 
 alleges that Eusebius quotes these verses as 
 genuine, and that Victor of Antioch vouches for 
 their genuineness. Moreover, Canon Cook, the 
 learned editor of the Speaker s Commentary on 
 the New Testament^ does not hesitate to affirm 
 that the evidence of the immense majority of the 
 MSS. of ancient versions of earlv Fathers, and 
 of internal structure, is all in their favour. And 
 even if it were admitted that the verses in dis- 
 pute were not written by St. Mark, it does not 
 
94 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 destroy their authenticity. Professor Roberts, 
 of St, Andrew's University, one of the Revisers 
 of the New Testament, although he concludes 
 that the passage was not the immediate produc- 
 tion of St. Mark, regards it as possessed of full 
 canonical authority : and to refer to the critic 
 you have quoted — Dean Alford — he, I am sure, 
 considers the verses in question as an authentic 
 fragment, placed as a completion of the Gospel in 
 very early times, and that it has strong claims on 
 our reception and reverence. Moreover, every- 
 one receives the Epistle to the Hebrews as 
 authentic and part of the Inspired Word ; 
 although most, if not all, biblical scholars agree 
 in stating that it was not written by St. Paul. 
 
 Parishioner. The scholarship of Dean Burgon 
 no one would question ; but his ecclesiastic 
 bigotry is so profound as to vitiate his conclusions. 
 I could accept the opinion of Cardinal Newman 
 on the 'Immaculate Conception of the Virgin' as 
 readily as I could accept the evidence of Dean 
 Burgon on the concluding verses of the Gospel 
 of St. Mark. The fact is there are some minds 
 incapable of receiving evidence which clashes 
 with the impressions received in earlier life : 
 they resemble certain plastic materials upon 
 which an effigy has been imprinted, and subse- 
 quently baked or burnt in, so as to remain 
 changeless for ever. Like the Bourbons, who 
 are said to have remained unchanged in opinion 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 95 
 
 and conduct whatever may have been the new 
 facts, discoveries, or circumstances. Such men 
 are often genial, social, witty, and brave ; but are 
 blind guides under new conditions. A very 
 illustrative example of this was seen in the career 
 of the great Lord Eldon. Profoundly learned, 
 and in private life courteous and fascinating, yet 
 were certain impressions as stereotyped on his 
 mind as any figure or sign on a Babylonian brick. 
 ^ It now astounds a human mind to learn that both 
 Houses of our Parliament could defend and pre- 
 serve a law which inflicted a death penalty on 
 any person who stole five shillings from a shop, 
 and yet such a law was in existence during my 
 childhood. It was earnestly and warmly upheld 
 by Lord Eldon, and he prophesied fearful evils 
 from its repeal. Such minds powerfully influence 
 corporate bodies, and infuse in them a stolidity 
 of thought and feeling which renders it difficult, 
 nay, sometimes impossible for ages, to change a 
 creed like the Athanasian, or to remove an injus- 
 tice like to that of hanging a man for stealing 
 five shillings. Such an one was Eldon. Brougham 
 tells us, in his able and generous biography of 
 the great Idiwyer, ' such as he was when he left 
 Oxford, such he continued above sixty years after, 
 to the close of his long and prosperous life ; the 
 enemy of all reform, the champion of the throne 
 and the altar, and confounding every abuse that 
 surrounded the one or grew up within the pre- 
 
96 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 cincts of the other with the institutions them- 
 selves ; alike the determined enemy of all who 
 would either invade the institution or extirpate 
 the abuse.'* Corresponding and well-defined 
 types of this order of mind are familiar to all 
 of us — in the late Mr. Newdigate of Warwick- 
 shire, Archdeacon Denison of Taunton, and 
 Dean Burgon of Chichester, from whom, and the 
 immediate subject before us, I have too long 
 rambled. But to return to our subject. Apart 
 from the mental character which I have described 
 — a mental condition which baffles all arguments, 
 and is proof against demonstration itself, he would 
 be a bold man who should declare that the Dean's 
 critical scholarship, great as it is, surpasses the 
 combined attainments of Scrivener, Hort, Ken- 
 nedy, and the other great scholars who formed 
 the Revision Committee of the New Testament ; 
 for it must not be forgotten that no alteration, 
 no change in the text was adopted finally 
 except with the consent of two-thirds of the 
 Revisers present. This is a most weighty con- 
 sideration. As respects the number of MSS. 
 in which the verses are found, this is not of 
 great consideration, when it is absent from the 
 oldest, and the best, not that age, per se, can 
 decide the question, for Dr. Sankey, in his Gospel 
 of the second century, and Scrivener also in his 
 writings, have abundantly shown that the inter- 
 * Brougham, Slatesrnen of George III., and series, p. 6i. 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 97 
 
 polations, and 'the worst corruptions to which 
 the New Testament has ever been subjected, ori- 
 ginated within a hundred years after it was com- 
 posed.' The passage is absent from two MSS. 
 which are universally admitted to be most trust- 
 worthy, and other MSS. have the addition in 
 varying forms. Westcott and Hort, two most 
 orthodox divines, pronounce that the difference in 
 style produces an impression unfavourable to the 
 authorship ; and this must be felt by all who, with 
 unbiassed minds, compare the words of which the 
 * Appendix ' is composed with those used in 
 the body of the Gospel ; and as to the ' internal ' 
 evidence to which Canon Cook refers, few would 
 think it favourable. The discontinuity and abrupt- 
 ness of the ninth verse are obvious ; and especially 
 if Matthew's narrative of the same incidents be 
 read and compared with the alleged verses 
 of St. Mark. Dean Alford is in harmony with 
 several of the Revisers in regarding the verses 
 as ' authentic ' and as having strong claims on 
 our reverence ; but, with all respect to these 
 distinguished divines, I cannot accept their 
 conclusions ; for inasmuch as the external and 
 internal evidence is against the atithorsliip of 
 St. Mark [which they themselves admit], and as 
 the real author is unknown, then do I most 
 strenuously maintain that it ceases to be evidence. 
 I hold and affirm that when the author of a 
 statement is not known, and when the date or 
 
 7 
 
98 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 first appearance of the statement is also ttncer- 
 tain^ or unknown^ although it may be accepted 
 provisionally as to unimportant matters, yet, 
 when ' INSPIRATION ' is claimed for it, and it 
 contains solemn, nay awful statements, involving 
 the damnation of souls, and is quoted in defence 
 of the damnatory clauses in other works and 
 treatises, then I could not accept it as an 
 authority^ or admit that on such a point ' it has 
 strong claims on our reception and reverence.' 
 In fact, strict justice demands that it should 
 not be accepted as evidence. It would not he 
 accepted as evidence in any of our courts of 
 law. If a witness should say of any statement, 
 ' I do not know by whom it was said, or when it 
 was said,' he would be requested to withdraw, 
 and the statement in question would be set 
 aside, unless supported by some other direct, 
 positive, and personal testimony. These facts 
 compel me to repeat what I have already said : 
 that it is a moral delinquency on the part of the 
 bishops, priests, and deacons of the ' Catholic 
 Church ' (and I say ' Catholic ' to include all 
 who read the ' Bible ' in public places of worship) 
 that they practically hand on a falsehood from 
 generation to generation, and salve their con- 
 sciences under the idea that it is better for the 
 Church to do so lest ' the people ' should have 
 their ''faiths ' disturbed. I hold that every man 
 who in God's House reads the entire sixteenth 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 99 
 
 chapter we have been discussing as ' the sixteenth 
 chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark,' 
 believing at the same time that more than half 
 of it was written by someone else, is guilty of a 
 falsehood, has committed a wilful sin ; for St. 
 Paul himself declares, whatsoever ' is not of 
 faith is of sin.' As Jeremiah said of Judaea, so 
 may it be said of England in our day — 'A 
 wonderful and. horrible thing is committed in the 
 land ; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the 
 priests bear rule by their means, and my people 
 love to have it so : and what will ye do in the 
 end thereof? (v. 30, 31). It is a painful thought, 
 and a fact dishonourable to the clerical pro- 
 fession, that from the time of Edward VI. — to 
 go no further back — the priests and prelates of 
 the Church of England, and nearly all the Non- 
 conformist ministers, have been preaching as the 
 words of St. John that ' there are three that 
 bear record in heaven — the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost : and these three are one ' ; and 
 further, have also been preaching as the words of 
 St. Mark, ' He that believeth and is baptized 
 shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be 
 damned ' ; knowing all the time that neither 
 St. John nor St. Mark wrote or spoke the words! 
 This they have done, deeming it politic or 
 * expedient ' to give the sentences as they had 
 received them, because there were no other 
 words in the Bible which gave such immediate, 
 
 7* 
 
loo SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 direct, and lucid support to the doctrine of the 
 Trinity in the one case, and to the teachings of 
 the Church in respect to baptism in the other ! 
 Tliis broad historic fact is in itself damnatory of 
 the theory, and justifies scepticism on other 
 seeming corroborative testimony given by the 
 clergy as the testimony of Holy Writ. 
 
 Vicar. Neither the one nor the other doctrine is 
 dependent on the texts quoted. They rest on the 
 authority of the Church, on the decrees of Councils, 
 on the universal acceptance of the great majority 
 of Christians, and on the words of our blessed 
 Lord, His Evangelists, and His Apostles. More- 
 over, as you have yourself admitted, we have 
 the majority of professing Christians of nearly all 
 sects with us, besides the ancient Fathers, and 
 therefore the doctrines must be true. 
 
 Parishioner. I have very long and very pain- 
 fully felt all the facts and circumstances you state. 
 Your appeal touches me deeply ; but only as 
 a sentiment and a past memory — it no longer 
 possesses an intellectual and moral force, because 
 I now know that its premises are fallacious and 
 misleading. The primitive Church — the Church 
 of the Apostles and their immediate followers — 
 is in accord with me ; all recent discoveries 
 of very ancient MSS. testify to this ; and more 
 especially the priceless treasure discovered by 
 Bryennius, in the Jerusalem Monastery at 
 Stamboul, and called, Didaohe ; or^ The Teach- 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. loi 
 
 t?i£- of the Twelve Apostles. Many of the 
 Fathers, as I have shown from so biassed a 
 source as Cardinal Newman, were as heterodox 
 on many points as you deem me to be. Of all 
 the Fathers, none were more holy, learned, and 
 zealous than was Origen, and in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth chapters of his reply to Celsus, who 
 had taunted the Christians as worshipping others 
 than the one God, this great Father writes : 
 ' To this we reply, that if Celsus had known 
 this saying — " I and my Father are one," and 
 the words used in prayer by the Son of God, 
 " As Thou and I are one," he would not have 
 supposed that we worship any other besides 
 Him who is the supreme God. . . . And if any 
 should from these words be afraid of our going 
 over to the side of those who deny that the 
 Father and the Son are two persons, let him 
 weigh that passage, " and the multitude of them 
 that believed were of one heart and of one 
 soul," that he may understand the meaning of 
 the saying, "I and my Father are one," Grant 
 that there may be some individuals among the 
 multitudes of believers, who are not in entire 
 agreement with us, and who incautiously assert 
 that the Saviour is the Most High God ; however, 
 we do not hold with them, but rather believe 
 Him when He savs : " The Father who sent me is 
 greater than I." ' * The Scriptures wholly sustain 
 * The Writings of Origen. Vol. II., p. 105. 
 
J 03 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 my opinion and my statements. Paul, Peter, 
 James, John, and Jude, and, above all, Christ Him- 
 self, testify to the Unity and the Supremacy of 
 God, and the entire distinctiveness between Jesus 
 and the Most High. This is proved to an absolute 
 demonstration on the memorable occasion when, 
 in the course of an address. He had said : ' I and 
 the Father are one ' ; whereupon the irate, vindic- 
 tive, and bigoted Jews at once took up stones to 
 stone Him, although a moment before He had told 
 them 'My Father which gave them (His disciples), 
 he is greater than all.' When Jesus inquired ' for 
 which of the many good works he had shown 
 them from the Father they stoned him ' ? they 
 answered Him, 'for a good work we stone thee not, 
 but for blasphemy, and because thou, being man, 
 makest thyself God.' On such a supreme occasion 
 as this, if ever, a man would speak the truth, and 
 of all men Jesus was most truthful ; and, therefore, 
 He at once disclaimed having done anything of 
 the kind. So far from calling Himself ' God,' or, 
 'making himself God,' he had not even called Him- 
 self by so high a title as their forefathers and them- 
 selves had voluntarily bestowed upon many before 
 Him. With that wisdom and Godlike forbear- 
 ance which ever characterized Him, Jesus calmly 
 placed before them the words of their own law 
 and the practice of their forefathers. Although 
 they had so furiously assailed Him and declared 
 ' he had a devil and was mad,' He gently replied — ■ 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 103 
 
 ' If he called them Gods unto whom the word of 
 God came, and the scripture cannot be broken, say 
 ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and 
 sent into the world. Thou blasphemest because I 
 said (not that I am God — not even God the Son), 
 " I am the Son of God." ' This entire history shows 
 that there is not the slightest attempt to claim 
 Godhead. In fact, the entire opposite to such a 
 claim is everywhere implied. Through the entire 
 scene He shows Himself to be the Recipient of 
 the Father's bounty ; the Delegate of His Father's 
 will. His emphatic words are, ' My Father 
 which gave them is greater than all.' He said, 
 ' many good works have I showed you from my 
 Father; for which of these works do ye stone 
 me?' Here is seething irony., but no arrogant 
 claim. Further, he added, ' Say ye of him 
 whom the Father hath sanctified ' (that is, the 
 sanctity had been imparted and had not been 
 claimed as inherent) ' Thou blasphemest be- 
 cause I said I am the Son of God ' ? In your 
 ancient histories, as in the twenty-second chapter 
 of Exodus, even your judges were called ' gods,' 
 and your psalmist, even David himself, speaking 
 as the representative of God, of those who 
 should die like men : ' I have said ye are gods 
 and all of you are children of the Most High.' 
 In this very practical manner did Jesus show 
 that He could not possibly be guilty of blas- 
 phemy in thus speaking of Himself. All the old 
 
I04 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 Scriptures and the New Testament give clear 
 and decisive testimony that the appellation of 
 ' Son of God ' was no arrogant assumption on the 
 part of Jesus, but simply a name which had been 
 applied to others, and, as we know, was applied 
 to many afterwards ; but to which appellation 
 He Himself was pre-eminently entitled. Angels 
 and men are so called, frequently, in Holy Writ. 
 In the early history of the world we are informed 
 ' That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, 
 that they were fair, and they took them w^ves of 
 which they chose' (Genesis vi. 2). The book 
 of Job tells us — 'Now there was a day when 
 the sons of God ' came to present themselves 
 before the Lord, and Satan came also among 
 them' (Job i. 6). The Scriptures teem with illus- 
 trative proof that in calling Himself ' the Son 
 of God,' Jesus did not arrogate to Himself any 
 title which gave the Jews a right, or even an ex- 
 cuse, for saying that, ' thou, being a man, makest 
 thyself equal with God.' It was the mere pretext 
 for the gratification of preconceived envy and 
 hate. Their Prophets had enunciated the title 
 as among the privileges of the faithful and 
 obedient. Even Adam has been so described, 
 for the lineage of Enos informs us that he was 
 the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.' 
 The Prophet Hosea conveyed the glad intelli- 
 gence, that ' in the place where it was said unto 
 them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 105 
 
 said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living 
 God.' The priests and Pharisees knew the full 
 meaning of the words sons of God, and they 
 might have known that Jesus was especially ' the 
 beloved ' Son of God, to whom the great task 
 of revealing God to the world was intrusted, 
 for verily ' God was in Christ reconciling the 
 world unto himself, not reckoning unto them 
 their trespasses (2 Cor. v. 19) ; but envy and hate 
 can and do distort words and draw wicked in- 
 ferences. In his poem of Paradise Regained^ 
 Milton gives fully, by the mouth of Satan, 
 the effect this appellation ' Son of God ' had 
 upon him: 
 
 Till the ford of Jordan, whither all 
 
 Flock to the Baptist, I among the rest 
 
 (Though not to be baptized), by voice from Heaven, 
 
 Heard thee pronounced ' the Son of God beloved,' 
 
 Thenceforth, I thought thee worth my nearer view 
 
 And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn 
 
 In what degree, or meaning, thou art call'd 
 
 The Son of God ; which bears no single sense. 
 
 The Son of God I also am, or was ; 
 
 And if I was I am 5 relation stands 3 
 
 All men are sons of God 3 yet thee I thought 
 
 In some respect far higher, so declared : 
 
 Therefore I watch 'd thy footsteps from that hour. 
 
 And follow'd thee still on this waste wild.' 
 
 The title 'bears no single sense,' and to us, 
 under the New Dispensation, it has (or ought to 
 have) no tendency to suggest the idea of 
 
io6 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 supreme Divinity, as the Jews pretended to 
 assert, but it is full of the deepest consolation to 
 all faithful Christians ; it is indeed ' a Gospel,' 
 ' a message of gladtiding,' to learn, as St. Paul 
 told the Galatians — ' Ye are all the children of 
 God by faith in Jesus Christ,' and to be assured 
 by Jesus Himself ' that blessed are the peace- 
 makers, for they shall be called the children of 
 God.' Under the fearful charge of blasphemy, 
 with the vindictive Jews piling up stones to 
 stone him, Jesus was calm and truthful, even if 
 their dastardly and cruel conduct did prompt 
 Him, ironically, to inquire for which of the good 
 works He had done they wished to stone him ? 
 No truth is so fully and clearly established by 
 the Scriptures as that Jesus always testified 
 His power to be a delegated power. His 
 grateful heart was ever ready to exclaim, ' It is 
 my Father that glorifieth me ' ; and at the close 
 of His earthly career he comforted His followers 
 by the assurance, ' I go to my Father, and to 
 your 'Father^ to my God^ and to your God.' As 
 if by prophetic vision, Jesus foresaw that a time 
 would come when the natural tendency of the 
 human mind ' to make Gods ' and to cherish 
 the idea that ' there are Gods manv and Lords 
 many ' would reassert itself, and therefore He 
 was frequent in such assertions as these — ' I can 
 of mine own self do nothing ' (John v. 30). 
 ' The word which ye hear is not mine, but the 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 107 
 
 Father's which sent me ' (John xiv. 24). He 
 seemed to feel that a time would come when the 
 pure and simple faith (described years afterwards 
 by Paul to the Corinthian Church) ' to us — there 
 is one God, the Father of whom are all things, 
 and we unto him ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, 
 through whom are all things, and we through him ' 
 (i Cor. viii. 6) — would for a time be abandoned. 
 Hence, never once did Jesus claim for Him- 
 self the creative power of Deity, but seemed 
 ever desirous to give God the glory for all things. 
 He always impressed His disciples with the 
 solemn truth, ' My Father that dwelleth in me 
 he doeth the works ' ; He always taught them to 
 look to God as the supreme Arbiter of all things. 
 * To sit on my right hand, and on my left, is 
 7iot mine to give (Matthew xx. 23). No Omni- 
 science, or other attribute of the supreme God, 
 did He avouch as inherently belonging to Him ; 
 as He told His disciples, even the Judgment 
 hour itself was unknown to Him. ' Of that day 
 and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels 
 of Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father 
 only ' (Matthew xxiv. 36). So frequent and so 
 distinct and plain were these statements of our 
 Lord, that not even this powerful and oft-quoted 
 text, ' I and my Father are one,' is equal to the 
 support of so paradoxical a creed as the one 
 you espouse ; even if the above words had not 
 been explained by Jesus, as they were in His 
 
To8 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 last touching prayer for His disciples — ' Make 
 them one^ even as I and Thou art one ' ; even, I 
 say, if it stood in naked isolation, unopposed, as it 
 now is, by a series of other scriptural statements, 
 it would fail to build up the Pagan theory of the 
 Trinity. If the text demonstrated the identity and 
 equality of the Christ with God, yet it would 
 even then serve only to prove a ^ Duality ^^ and 
 the Ouiciinque viilt would be anti-scriptural and, 
 therefore, heterodox: all these are incontrovertible 
 facts and statements, but with a perversity which 
 will one day cause her ruin, the Church turns a 
 deaf ear, or rather, administers a scornful rebuke, 
 on anyone, however learned, or however pious, 
 who may respectfully suggest a reconsideration 
 of any of her tenets. She does not claim infalli- 
 bility, as does her Mother Church of Rome, yet 
 she always acts as if she wished and believed 
 that her people did so regard her, and feared that 
 any change of view may impress them with the 
 idea that she was not infallible. She disdains re- 
 form and will, at no distant day, reap revolution. 
 Fourteen years have elapsed since some of the 
 wisest and purest of her dignitaries suggested a 
 very modified arrangement in the wording of the 
 Athanasian Creed, but their mild suggestions 
 were crushed and passed over 'by Convocation,' 
 and even the prayer that the ' damnatory 
 clauses ' may be omitted in the public reading of 
 the * Creed ' was disregarded. The old leaven 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 109 
 
 of Priesthood, with its arrogant claims to implicit 
 submission, triumphed. As in an older Sanhedrim 
 Caiaphas was obeyed, and the majority held fast 
 the Athanasian Creed as the true test of ortho- 
 doxy. The counsel of the Bishop of St. David, 
 the wise, learned, and judicious Connop Thirlwall, 
 regarded everywhere (except in Convocation) as 
 the Nestor of the Episcopal Bench, was disre- 
 garded. The pious Bishop of Ripon, Dr. Bicker- 
 steth, and the sagacious and large-hearted Bishop 
 of Manchester, Dr. Eraser, pleaded in vain for its 
 modification ; and the Deans of Durham and of 
 Westminster (Lake and Stanley), with the 
 Christian courage which has characterized them, 
 testified also in vain to its falsehood ; the Dean 
 of Durham declaring that 'when the Clergy read 
 the Creed, they read what they themselves did 
 not believe ' ; the Dean of Westminster declar- 
 ing ' the damnatory clauses are not true, and are 
 known to be untrue by every clergyman ; by 
 them are condemned many eminent Anglican 
 writers, and the whole of the Greek Church.' 
 But ecclesiastic stolidity triumphed, and the 
 Church went on in her changeless mood to that 
 inevitable death which is the heritage of in- 
 sincerity and falsehood. The Petition of seven 
 thousand of the Laity, obtained hurriedly, and 
 of three thousand ordained Clergymen, was set 
 aside, and the so-called National Church of 
 England, fourteen times in a year declares that, 
 
no SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 ' without doubt, he shall perish everlastingly ' 
 who does not keep 'whole and imdefiled' a 
 creed wholly unknown to the first two centuries 
 of Christianity (according to some historians 
 not before the eighth century) — a creed com- 
 posed by no one knows whom, sanctioned by no 
 general Council, not understood [except in its 
 damnatory sentences] by five-sixths of the Laity 
 who listen to it ; disclaimed by the Eastern 
 Church ; and discarded also from all the usual 
 public services of the thousands of Christian 
 places of worship in the United Kingdom ! Is 
 not such conduct as unwise as it is ungenerous ? 
 Nay, is it not unwisdom ? Is it not an infatuation 
 which compels the thought, ^Quos Deus viilt 
 i)erdcrc, demcntat prius ' f 
 
 Vicar. Your zeal is prompting you to use hard 
 words, and you quote a line from ancient tragic 
 poetry to illustrate a condition and to pourtray 
 a doom. Is this right ? A steadfast adherence 
 to an established faith, and resistance to change 
 when asked for by a few pious, able persons, 
 and sustained by popular clamour, you indirectly 
 represent as a demented condition, to be followed 
 by a judicial death. You altogether overlook the 
 fact that such yielding may be a weakness and a 
 sin. Steadfastness has ever been regarded as a 
 virtue, and not as a demented condition. You 
 quote from the Latin a fragmentary piece of 
 Greek poetry. Permit me to remind you of the 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. m 
 
 classic ode of Horace in which he eulogizes the 
 virtue and extols the man who is regardless of 
 clamour : ' Civiiim ardor prava juhentium^ and 
 assures us that steadfastness is a high quality : 
 
 Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules 
 Enisus, arces attigit igneas j 
 
 Quos inter Augustus recumbens, 
 Purpureo bibit ore nectar. 
 
 But above all the dreams of Heathendom and its 
 poetry, we have the language of inspiration to 
 guide us. Solomon tells us—' meddle not with 
 them that are given to change.' David, in the 
 seventy-eighth Psalm, gives us a graphic sketch 
 of the miseries of the Israelites in consequence of 
 their vacillation. ' For their heart was not right 
 with (God), neither were they steadfast in his 
 covenant.' St. Peter, after relating in prophetic 
 vision the Judgment day and the physical doom 
 of the earth, besought the disciples in Pontus, 
 Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ' seeing 
 ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, 
 being lead away with the errors of the wicked, 
 fall from your own steadfastness ' ; and the ever- 
 vigilant, loving, and anxious Paul implores his 
 followers in Colosse to ' continue in the faith 
 grounded and settled,' and tells them of the joy 
 he felt in 'beholding your order, and the stead- 
 fastness of your faith in Christ.' And to the 
 Corinthians, after giving them a glowing descrip- 
 tion of the resurrection, he writes : ' Therefore, 
 
112 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovahle, 
 always abounding in the work of the Lord.' 
 The Church, therefore, in Convocation would 
 have done well in resisting the alteration 
 and spoliation of an ancient creed, even it 
 they had been unsupported ; but you forget 
 that thousands of other clergymen took an 
 opposite view to that of the three thousand you 
 have named ; and under the guidance of Canon 
 Liddon and Lord Salisbury determined that no 
 change should take place in the public use of the 
 Creed. Indeed, it was generally understood that 
 had there been any alteration by any authorized 
 official body, such as by Her Majesty in Privy 
 Council, the Church would have suffered loss by 
 the secession of two such distinguished divines 
 as Dr. Pusey and Archdeacon Denison. A great 
 loss this would have been, although you think so 
 much otherwise. Minds vary as much as faces. 
 Both Horace and Tacitus, although in different 
 words, inform us — ' Oiiot homines, tot sententice! 
 I reverence the fervour and learning of Dr. 
 Pusey, and do not dislike the tenacity and 
 courage of Denison. The Athanasian Creed was 
 dear to these men, as it was and is to Cardinal 
 Newman ; but perhaps it is not surprising that 
 the man who can feel ecstasy in the Mass, who 
 can write that ' to me nothing is so consoling, so 
 piercing, so thrilling as the Mass, said as it is 
 among us ; I could attend masses for ever and 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 113 
 
 not feel tired,' should say also of the Athanasian 
 Creed that ' it is the most simple and sublime, 
 the most devotional formulary to which Christi- 
 anity has given birth.' I myself regard the words 
 * the most simple ' as exaggerated language when 
 applied to this Creed ; but the language itself 
 proves how sweet, how dear, how precious is the 
 venerable Oiiicunque vult to some and what a 
 loss its removal from the service of the Church 
 would be to many pious minds. The saintly author 
 of the Christian Year reverenced it much, and 
 even called it 'the Anthem of the Blest' ; and this 
 reminds me, that when speaking of the many 
 symbols instructive and illustrative of the holy 
 mystery of the Trinity, I might have quoted 
 some verses of this charming poet's Ode or hymn 
 for 'Trinitv Sundav.' 
 
 From each carv'd nook and fretted bend, 
 
 Cornice and gallery seem to send 
 
 Tones that with seraph hymns might blend. 
 
 Three solemn parts together twine 
 
 In harmony's mysterious line ; 
 
 Three solemn aisles approach the shrine: 
 
 Yet all are One — together all, 
 
 In thoughts that awe but not appal, 
 
 Teach the adoring heart to fall. 
 
 These experiences of good and pious men, like 
 unto Newman and Keble, ought to show you 
 how rich in solace and sweetness is the mystery 
 
114 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 which, through some mistaken bias, appals you. 
 
 Keble could find in it a 
 
 Calm breathed warning of the knidhest love 
 That ever heaved a wakeful mother's breast. 
 
 And a learned and eloquent archdeacon of our 
 county. Archdeacon Hay ward, has declared it to 
 be, when ' grammatically understood,' a beautiful 
 hymn of praise, which simple-minded Christians 
 may join in singing, as they now do the TeDeJtm, 
 or any other of our hymns. It is thus obvious 
 that to scholarly minds, and to minds illumined 
 by the spirit of poesy, and dowered with that 
 receptivity which the teachings of the Church 
 are designed to impart, the Athanasian Creed is 
 full of comfort and instruction ; and I even yet 
 hope that, as a candid and honest man, you will 
 perceive that its alteration, and especially its 
 removal, would be a painful loss to many. Let 
 me again ask you to pause and ponder on your 
 conclusions. The solemn decision of the ancient 
 Apostolic Church ought to be the source and 
 guide of vour convictions, and not your weak, 
 erring, individual reason. She is the depository 
 and exponent of God's Word, and on this solemn 
 subject she speaks clearly, positively, and authori- 
 tatively. Her council and her conduct ought to 
 be your guide in all the difficult problems of life 
 and conduct. It moves me deeply, my dear 
 friend, to have again to remind you that the 
 Church which received vou into her fold of 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. nS 
 
 Baptism, which consecrated your vo^v by the 
 ' laying on of hands ' in Confirmation, which has 
 so many times welcomed vou at the Sacrament 
 of the Supper of the Lord, and has so often and 
 so fervently prayed that the Body and the Blood 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for 
 thee and shed for thee, may preserve thy body 
 and soul unto everlasting life, should have now 
 to use the language of rebuke. Think of the 
 sainted dead who now sleep the sleep of the 
 just within her sanctuaries, at whose knees you 
 first lisped a praver, who brought you to her 
 baptismal font, there to be ' received into the 
 congregation of Christ's flock,' and 'to be grafted 
 into the Bodv of Christ's Church,' and prayed 
 that their child ' may lead the rest of his life 
 according to this beginning.' Think what would 
 now be the feelings of those honoured parents who 
 taught you to love the rites of the Church, who, 
 through their long and consistent lives, enjoyed 
 those rites and ceremonies, and died within her 
 fold, 'under the sure and certain hope of a jovful 
 resurrection.' Oh ! think of those respecting whom 
 you heard the white-robed priest ' give hearty 
 thanks to Almighty God, with whom do live the 
 spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord,' 
 and with whom the souls of the faithful ' are in 
 joy and felicity,' that it had pleased HIM to 
 deliver them out of the miseries of this sinful 
 world. Would they not mourn over your 
 decadence ? Sure am I that it would grieve 
 
ii6 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 them to know that you were standing in the 
 position condemned by the Thirty-fourth Article 
 of their beloved Church : 'Whosoever, through 
 his private judgment willingly and purposely 
 doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies 
 of the Church which be not repugnant to the 
 Word of God, and be ordained and approved by 
 common authority, ought to be rebuked openly.' 
 In that sad position, as I have already said, you 
 now are. I am compelled to repeat, that not 
 only has your own Church — the Church of your 
 forefathers — spoken emphatically on this cardinal 
 Christian doctrine, but also the great Church of 
 Rome ; and not only these, but the Eastern 
 Church also [to which you seem somewhat 
 favourably disposed] ; and even the Schismatics 
 also, in their tens of thousands, are confident of 
 the truth of that mystery, which you so per- 
 tinaciously refuse to accept ! You thus, I repeat, 
 incur a most fearful responsibilitv, at which I 
 tremble, and all the more, because through this 
 rash assumption you abstain from the holiest of 
 rites, the origin and importance of which you do 
 not deny. I cannot divest myself, moreover, of 
 the solemn responsibility which rests upon me 
 also, as your pastor, in respect to the views you 
 avow ; they are so contrary to the teachings of 
 the Universal Church, that I must, to free my 
 own soul, again implore you to abandon your 
 dangerous error. Believe me, dear sir, it is no 
 matter of form that I am anxious about. It is a 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 117 
 
 vital question, for on it hinges your eternal 
 salvation. The words of St. John, or rather of 
 Jesus, as reported by St. John, are absolute, and 
 they are so lucidly given that there is no escape 
 from their meaning. The Jews were, as you now 
 are, doubtful and disputatious, saying, ' Can this 
 Man give us his flesh to eat ?' Jesus therefore 
 said unto them, ' Verily, verily, except ye eat the 
 flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye 
 have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my 
 flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; 
 and I will raise him up at the last day' (John 
 vi. 54). This being so, I bid you in the name of 
 God, I call you in Christ's behalf, I exhort you, 
 as you love your own salvation, to abandon your 
 erroneous ideas, and come and be a partaker of 
 the most Holy Communion. 
 
 Parishioner. I agree cordially with all you 
 have said respecting steadfastness. You could not 
 accept more frankly than I do all that you have 
 quoted from Horace, Solomon, David, Peter, and 
 Paul in its praise. It is nearly four thousand 
 years ago since Jacob said of his first-born, Reuben, 
 ' unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,' and, 
 from that hour to this, mankind has ever regarded 
 the unstable man as fickle and untrustworthy. 
 As I have already observed, even a courageous 
 obstinacy has its admirers, as shown in the lives 
 of Newdigate, Burgon, or Denison. Neverthe- 
 less, the quality borrows its excellence from the 
 
ii8 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 cause or opinion with which it is associated. It 
 is no virtue to continue in wrong-doing, or obsti- 
 nately to cHng to an opinion which has been 
 fairly proved to be false. No one now blames 
 Paul because he abandoned the opinions of his 
 fathers and his teachers, and his own once zealous 
 feelings and opinions and acts, with which he 
 * persecuted the Church of God.' It often requires 
 higher courage and a more steadfast spirit to 
 change opinion and conduct than to adhere to 
 them. Martyrdom more frequently awaits the 
 Pauls than the Sauls of mankind. Christ was 
 crucified, and Stephen was stoned, not because 
 they ' profited in the Jew's religion ' above many 
 of their own nation, but because thev were 
 ' steadfast ' and ' immovable ' to a higher and 
 purer revelation. As the priest of a ' Reformed ' 
 Church, you would admit, probably, that Luther 
 exhibited a higher ' steadfastness ' when he burnt 
 the Pope's Bull at Wirtemburgh than when, 
 years before, he crawled on the ground ' bathed 
 with the blood of martyrs ' at the Convent of his 
 Order near the gate Del Popolo. We are in 
 perfect accord as to the supreme duty of remaining 
 steadfast and immovable to a true faith, and 
 ' always abounding in the work of the Lord,' but 
 we are wholly at variance as to the trinitarian 
 theory being a fundamental condition of the 
 saving faith. On this principle I hold that the 
 Convocation acted unwisely in disdaining and 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 119 
 
 rejecting the councils of such wise and good men 
 as Bishop Thirlwall and Dean Stanley, sustained, 
 as these were, by the petition of three thousand 
 clergymen and seven thousand of highly intel- 
 ligent laymen, including judges and others of the 
 learned professions. The threatened secession 
 of the Church dignitary. Dr. Pusey, who had 
 been suspended for preaching the doctrine of 
 * Transubstantiation,' and who wrote to the public 
 papers, declaring ' that he cannot and will not 
 subscribe to the Articles of the Church in the 
 sense in which they were propounded by those 
 who wrote them ' ; and of Archdeacon Denison, 
 who protested against the proceedings of the 
 Convocation of Oxford in respect to Mr. George 
 Ward, who advocated subscription to the said 
 Articles ' in a non-natural sense.' You are quite 
 right, my dear Vicar, in supposing that I have no 
 profound reverence for such men. What private 
 or individual opinion or feeling the Roman 
 Catholic Cardinal Newman, the Anglican poet 
 Keble, or the rhetorical Archdeacon of Cirencester 
 may indulge respecting the simplicity, the sweet- 
 ness, and the devotional character of the Atha- 
 nasian Creed concerns no one but themselves. 
 There is no explaining the mental idiosyncrasy 
 of individuals. The Creed must be judged by 
 its literal meaning as ' understanded by the 
 common people'; by such people as those to 
 whom our Divine Lord preached the Beatitudes 
 
120 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 on the Mount of Olivet. The records of fanati- 
 cism show that the continuous utterance of certain 
 cabalistic words has excited devotional ecstasy 
 akin to that so eloquently described by Cardinal 
 Newman, as has also the counting of a string 
 of beads, or the steadfast contemplation of a 
 special part of the human body (o/i^aXo9). 
 Travellers inform us that in Thibet, to the devout 
 Buddhist, the repetition, for many hundreds of 
 times in succession, of the four words, ' Om-Mani 
 Padme Hrum,' brings a sweet and sacred joy, and 
 that to have uttered them three hundred thousand 
 times secures to the worshipper a high place in 
 the favour of Buddha. Such idiosvncrasies as 
 these belong to the eccentric phenomena of psy- 
 chologv rather than to the practical domain of 
 sober religion. Therefore, your plea that the 
 mvstical ' Athanasian Creed ' should be retained 
 in the public religious service of the realm 
 because it has been pleasing and profitable to 
 certain poetic pietists, is as futile as would be 
 the argument that the blatant buffoonery of 
 * General Booth ' ought forthwith to be introduced 
 into our National Churches because it has brought 
 ' salvation ' and hvsteric raptures to some foolish 
 fanatics in the back slums and alleys of our large 
 towns. Your appeal to the authority of the 
 Church as the depository and exponent of the 
 truth and of Christian conduct is full of weight, 
 but that she has erred and errs has been abun- 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 121 
 
 dantly testified in the annals of our history. 
 How manv good and learned men like unto 
 Richard Baxter and Bishop Frampton, of Glou- 
 cester, have had to refuse her conditions ; and 
 the sermons of good Bishop Latimer tell how 
 deeply she has erred in theory and practice. I 
 cannot myself forget that she resisted all change 
 in our unjust ' criminal ' laws ; that she was the 
 upholder of the infernal Slave Trade, and other 
 iniquitous practices which have been set aside 
 by a humane and intelligent public. All that 
 you have so tenderly 'said respecting parental 
 love and its teachings ; all that you have graphi- 
 cally recited respecting Baptism, Confirmation, 
 the Holy Communion, and the Burial of the 
 Dead have, as you well know, touched me deeply 
 in the past, and have been, and are, the severest 
 trials and throes of my heart in its new birth to a 
 better faith. What you have said on all these 
 tender matters dim my eyes with tears, as the 
 last sight of his birth-cottage may swell the soul 
 of an emigrant with a throb of woe, but its acute- 
 ness passes away (however long its shadow may 
 remain) under the certainty that a brighter home 
 and happier circumstances await him in another 
 land. As respects the Thirty-fourth Article of the 
 Church of England, I know that I reject no tradition 
 * which is not repugnant to Scripture,' and claim 
 for myself the same freedom of interpretation on 
 this point as did Latimer and Ridley against the 
 
122 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 ' Church ' of their day, and as Gorham and Colenso 
 in modern times against the decrees of Bishops 
 or Convocations. As to the overwhelming 
 numbers from whose opinions I dissent, it is a 
 most grave and solemn matter, and has weighed 
 with me heavily, as I have more than once stated. 
 No one but myself can realize how presumptuous 
 it seemed in me to stand apart from all others. 
 For a long time I painfully felt all this, but when 
 a strong conviction takes possession of the soul 
 it becomes incontrollable. Observation soon 
 revealed to me that the majority of men are 
 gregarious in their opinions, and disposed to 
 follow a leader and be the slaves of a custom. 
 Thought and studious reflection are distasteful 
 to the many, they like others to think and to 
 determine for them, and hence they become the 
 echoes, the ' items ' of the leader in whom they 
 trust, and their 'paper' or their 'parson' becomes 
 their sole authority and their guide in religion and 
 politics alike. This being so, a preponderance of 
 numbers,/^;' sc, has long ceased to affect me. 
 The minority is often right : Jesus had not many 
 to sustain and carry forward His doctrines when 
 in the Garden of Gethsemane, ' All His disciples 
 forsook Him and fled.' The Christians were not in 
 , the ' majority ' when they returned from Olivet, and 
 sought an 'upper chamber' for counsel and prayer. 
 Paul, as he stood before the crowd of Greeks, 
 philosophers, and others on Mars Hill, would 
 
SPURIOUS TEXTS. 123 
 
 not have obtained a show of hands in his favour. 
 Necessarily, in the history of truth, there is a period 
 when its supporters are in a minority. Therefore, 
 mere numbers do not influence me. Christianity 
 itself is in a minority yet among the religions 
 of the world. The ' Bible ' has not displaced the 
 * Koran,' the ' Vedas ' of the East, or the writings of 
 Confucius. Facts^ and the conclusions derived 
 from them by the reason honestly and logically 
 applied, are of greater weight with me than the 
 opinion of the multitude. Vox popu It is not Vox 
 Dei. Barabbas was preferred to Jesus. Ecclesias- 
 tic authority has often, as I have said, condemned 
 that which was true and just. Witness the 
 Protestant Reformation, witness the condemna- 
 tion of Galileo, the abolition of slavery, and the 
 improvements in our ' Criminal Code.' But in 
 respect to my absence from the Lord's Table, I 
 am most trulv sorry to have caused you so much 
 anxiety, and grateful indeed do I feel towards you 
 for your friendly interest in my welfare. After 
 this warm and solemn appeal to me you will be 
 able to say, with a clear conscience, ' Liberavi 
 animam meam! You have done your duty as 
 a * watchman,' you have ' blown the trumpet,' 
 you ' have warned the people,' you can comfort 
 yourself with the words recorded by Ezekiel 
 xxxiii : * If thou warn the Avicked of his way to 
 turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he 
 shall die in his iniquity ; but thou hast delivered 
 
124 SPURIOUS TEXTS. 
 
 thy soul.' I repeat that a// the solemn responsi- 
 bility rests upon my own head. If ' eternal life' 
 depends exclusively upon partaking of this holy 
 rite in the manner, and method, and with the 
 preliminaries enjoined by the Church of England, 
 I am in a most perilous position. As I have 
 already told you, these things have weighed 
 heavily upon my soul ; it was with no light heart 
 that I ceased from the practice of many years, 
 from that ' communion ' which once brought peace 
 and consolation, and which recently I have been 
 invited to share with one who was dearer to me 
 than life itself. But a more imperious voice has 
 spoken ; and, as Christ said, ' He that loveth 
 father or mother, brother or sister, more than 
 me is not worthy of me,' and remembering that 
 whatsoever 'is not oi faith is of sin,' and, as St. 
 Paul said respecting a far inferior matter, namely, 
 that of partaking of a special kind of food, under 
 special circumstances, ' He that doiihteth is 
 damned if he eat, because he eateth not of 
 faith,' it is not possible that I should partake of 
 so solemn a feast as that to which you invite me. 
 
 Vicar. But why should you doubt ? 
 
 Parishioner. Because, as I told you, I could 
 not repeat the words, ' God of God, Light of 
 Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, 
 being of one substance with the Father,' and I 
 might have added that I could not ' acknowledge 
 one baptism for the remission of sins.' 
 
HOLY COMMUNION. 12^ 
 
 Vicar. Your state of mind grieves me much. 
 I had hoped that reflection upon the statements 
 I made earlier in our interview had dispelled your 
 doubts ; that ' increase of grace ' had been im- 
 parted to you, and that you were now prepared 
 ' to hear meeklv the Word, and to receive it with 
 pure affection,' and that it would have been my 
 joy to learn that my prayer had been in some 
 measure answered ; and that, if not ' all such as 
 have erred and are deceived had been brought 
 into the wav of truth,' vet that one I esteemed 
 had been brought into that happy condition. 
 
 Parishioner . I assure you, Mr. Hierous, that, 
 although my views of inspiration are wholly 
 changed, and I am no longer a Bibliolater, yet 
 am I still disposed to hear meekly the Word, 
 and to receive it with pure affection,' for, as I 
 have said, my convictions as to the nature and 
 character of Christ have been derived wholly 
 from the Bible ; and at the time when my 
 faith in the Trinity began to be unsettled I was 
 as complete a believer in the verbal inspiration 
 of the Scriptures as you are at this moment ; 
 but I have described this so fullv that I need 
 not, and hope not to enter upon this phase of the 
 subject again. It was the Bible^ and the Bible 
 alone that shattered my early opinions, and even 
 now I repeat, 'to the law and the testimony' ; 
 and if you can show me that the balance of 
 scriptural evidence in favour of the Athanasian 
 
126 HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 belief is such as to outweigh its logical and 
 intellectual difficulties I shall at once succumb. 
 Most gratefully then should I accept your invita- 
 tion, and in your own ' Communion Service ' 
 partake of 'bread and wine' in remembrance of 
 Him ' who grew in favour both with God and man,' 
 of whom it was said, 'never man spake like this 
 man,' 'who went about doing good,' and who was 
 'obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.' 
 
 Vicar. I am gratified to hear you thus speak, 
 and especially as, I must now" admit, you have 
 shown the untrustworthiness of the powerful 
 passages that I placed before you in the former 
 part of our conversation from i John v. 7, and 
 from the concluding portions of St. Mark's 
 gospel. Happily, as I said before, this essential 
 doctrine does not hinge on these strong texts, 
 nor yet wholly on the authority of the Church 
 and of the early Fathers, but upon clear and 
 indisputable statements of Holy Writ ; in truth, 
 upon the very words of Jesus Himself, for I will 
 again, irrespective of all that you have said, 
 impress upon you the solemn import of the 
 words, ' He that hath seen me, hath seen the 
 Father,' and not less, ' I and my Father are 
 one.' 
 
 Parishioner. The subject we are considering 
 is so solemn, has for so many ages occupied the 
 thoughts of good and wise men, that almost any 
 amount of repetition is justifiable in order to 
 
HOLY COMMUNION. 127 
 
 impress the facts indelibly upon the mind. 
 Therefore, I repeat that Christ and God were 
 one — but in no 'Athanasian' sense. They were 
 ' one ' even as in the later period of His history 
 Jesus prayed that all His disciples may be one. 
 In that tender prayer, when ' he knew that his 
 hour was come,' Jesus revealed His whole nature 
 to His disciples, and the words of the prayer 
 throw a flood of light on the words which you 
 have quoted, and settle for ever their meaning. 
 There is nothing more lucidly stated in the whole 
 range of Holy Writ than is the nature of that 
 unity, that oneness^ to which you have referred. 
 To me the exposition is complete — so complete 
 that loyalty, fealty to Jesus would compel me to 
 disregard all other statements, come from whom 
 they may. Popes, Councils, Doctors, Athanasius 
 or Augustine, Church Articles, Prayer Books, 
 and ' creeds ' clamour in vain. 77ie Master has 
 spoken^ and His words are a ' lamp unto my feet 
 and a light unto my path ' (Ps. cxix. 125). All 
 so-called ' authorities ' who speak at variance 
 with these words are to me ' as sounding brass 
 or a tinkling cymbal.' To repeat what I said at 
 a former part of our interview, Christ has spoken, 
 and all other voices are futile. I feel as Paul felt 
 (without using the maledictory phrase) when, 
 writing to the Churches of Galatia, he said, 
 * Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach 
 any other gospel unto you than that which we 
 
128 HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 
 . . . For I neither received it of man, neither was 
 I taught it, but by the revelation of Christ ' 
 (Galatians i. 8-12). Christ has been to me the 
 Expositor of the words you have quoted, and 
 therefore all else becomes, as I have said, ' as 
 sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.' 
 
 Vicar. Some words have, indeed, impressed 
 you strongly, but you have not given them ; and 
 really, at this moment, I cannot recall anything 
 — that is, any words of Jesus — which so clearly 
 define and explain the nature of the unity existing 
 between Himself and the Father, as could in anv 
 degree divest it of that mystery which appertains 
 to the Nicene or Athanasian Creed. Indeed, as 
 St. Paul said to Timothy, ' without controversy 
 great is the mystery of godliness ; God was 
 manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen 
 of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed 
 on in the world, received up into glory.' 
 
 Parishioner. I said they explained the mean- 
 ing of your text quoted. They unfold the nature 
 of the unity which existed between Him and the 
 Father, and they do this so completely that not a 
 single word needs to be added to or taken from 
 them to enhance their lucidity. They occur in 
 the impassioned prayer which, towards the close 
 of His ministry. He offered up for His disciples, 
 and they are these : ' Sanctify them through thy 
 truth : thv word is truth. As thou hast sent me 
 
THE TESTLMOXY OF JESUS. 129 
 
 into the \vorld, even so have / also sent them 
 into the world. Neither prav I for these alone, 
 but for them also which shall believe on me 
 through their word ; that they all may be 
 ONE ; as thoit, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
 that they also may be one in iis ; that the world 
 may believe that thou liast sent me. And the 
 glory which thou gavest me I Jiave given them ; 
 
 THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE : 
 
 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be 
 made perfect in one ; and that the world may 
 know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, 
 AS thou hast loved me ' ( John xvii. 17-23). Such 
 are the words, my dear Mr. Hierous. They 
 require no ingenious explanations, no verbal 
 sophistry, to elucidate their meaning ; they stand 
 out plain, clear, luminous, yea, as incisive and 
 distinct as the command of the Decalogue, ' Thou 
 shalt not kill.' These words are not plainer or 
 more clear to the simple mind than are the words, 
 'that they mav be one, even as we are one.' It 
 is a moral unity, a spiritual affinitv, to be under- 
 stood by everyone, and having no relation to 
 the ' substances,' ' the co-equalities,' and ' co- 
 eternities ' of a mystical creed. It is a ' unity ' 
 of thought, feeling, and purpose such as the 
 disciples might possess in relation to each other as 
 fully and as completely as Jesus with the Father 
 
 ' THEY MAY BE ONE, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE.' 
 
 Moreover,that nothing should be wanting in Christ's 
 
 9 
 
130 THE TESTIMONY OF jfESUS. 
 
 revelation to men as to His true relationship with 
 the Father, and the dignity and power which 
 respectively belonged to them, in this tender 
 address to His disciples (which possesses all the 
 pathos of a final farewell) Jesus said to them : 
 ' If ye iovcd me, ye would rejoice, because I 
 said, I go unto the Father : FOR MY FATHER 
 IS GREATER THAN L' I base my faith on 
 these clear, strong words of Jesus Himself. As 
 Luther said on a great occasion, ' Here I stand.' 
 Henceforth it matters not to me what Paul, or 
 Apollos, or Cephas, or ' even an angel from 
 heaven ' may say. All the Athanasiuses the 
 world has ever known, and all the priests of 
 Baal, of Rome, of Russia, of England — Pagan, 
 Papal, Eastern, and Anglican — may shout until 
 they are hoarse, ' Heretic ! ' and may say of me 
 because of f/iis, ' Without doubt he shall perish 
 everlastingly.' I should remain fearless and 
 calm. Jesus has spoken. His words are graven 
 on my soul deeper and more indeliblv than ' with 
 an iron pen.' Wherever from high altars and 
 priestly lips the words go forth — ' In this Trinity 
 none is afore or after another ; none is greater 
 or less than another ; but the whole three Per- 
 sons are co-eternal together, and co-equal : so 
 that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in 
 Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be wor- 
 shipped. He^ therefore^ that will be saved must 
 thus think of the Trinity ' — * a voice from heaven ' 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS. 131 
 
 seems simultaneously to say, ' My Father is 
 greater than I,' and, as a sweet antidote to the 
 anathema, there come the comforting words, 
 ' These things I have spoken unto you, that in me 
 ye might have peace. In the world ye shall 
 have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have 
 overcome the world.' 
 
 Vicar. I am almost embarrassed by your 
 earnestness, by the zeal and confidence with 
 which you express yourself. And indeed the 
 words you quote are emphatic and lucid ; but 
 you forget that when Jesus said, ' my Father is 
 greater than I,' He meant in reference to His 
 manhood — in the words of our Creed ' inferior 
 to the Father as touching His manhood'; that, 
 in fact, a double nature appertains to Christ as 
 declared at the Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451. 
 The words, therefore, as quoted by you, were 
 spoken in respect to His human nature — His 
 manhood.. You should remember that Jesus 
 was the Son of Mary, as well as ' very God of 
 very God,' and that, therefore, during His mis- 
 sion. He spoke sometimes as man, as in the 
 instance you have given — where Christ asserts the 
 Father to be 'greater' than Himself, that is, as 
 the Creed expresses it, ' inferior to the Father as 
 touching His manhood." 
 
 Parishioner. I have often heard clergymen 
 sav this, but I have never met with one who 
 could give the slightest scriptural authority for 
 
 9 * 
 
132 THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS. 
 
 the statement that Christ was in the habit of 
 speaking in two characters. I have heard it 
 said of one who claimed to be His viceregent on 
 earth — the infamous Pope Alexander VI. — that, 
 when he was swearing and cursing in a passionate 
 rage, and was reminded bv a pious attendant of 
 the ' holiness ' of his office, he exclaimed, ' I am 
 not swearing as Pope, but as Rodrigo Borgia,' to 
 which came the natural inquiry, ' When Rodrigo 
 Borgia is in Purgatory, where will the Pope be ?' 
 No, sir, this ' double nature ' is the subtle inven- 
 tion of a later time, a sophistry to mystify, an 
 expedient to explain the 'inexplicable '; and yet 
 this assertion of a ' double nature,' if viewed 
 philosophical Iv, is a weak expedient, for its 
 inventors seem to forget that if Christ was, as 
 they allege, ' a perfect man,' He must have been 
 endowed like other men with an immortal soul ; 
 and this being so, what became of this immortal 
 soul when, after His resurrection, Christ assumed 
 his Godhead ? This * double nature,' ingenious 
 and explanatory as it may appear to unreflecting 
 minds, practically leaves us with a mystery as 
 profound and as paradoxical as the one it was 
 invented on purpose to remove. Like all false- 
 hoods, it fails to effect the object for which it was 
 issued ! It is sad to find in ecclesiastic history 
 that enthusiasts have not seldom invented plau- 
 sible stories to uphold what they deemed a holy 
 cause, and have afterwards appeased their con- 
 
THE TESTIMOXY OF JESUS. ijj 
 
 sciences with the delusive idea that their object 
 or purpose justified and sanctified the means ! 
 Under this delusive belief zealots and creed- 
 makers and creed-believers have not only spoken 
 falsehoods, but, with greater daring, have even 
 introduced words and sentences into the MSS. 
 of the Gospels to sustain their aims. Whole 
 verses, even, as I have shown, have been thus 
 interpolated to serve 'a pious purpose': and not 
 only have these things been done, but subtle 
 ecclesiastics at Chalcedon availed themselves of 
 the fanciful speculations and scholastic crudities 
 of the platonic philosophers of Alexandria and 
 Egvpt, and invented for the ' Church ' a ' double 
 nature,' and a ' God-Man ' or a ' Man-God ' to 
 sustain and explain their schemes and theosophies. 
 Popes, like unto Alexander VI., may find it 
 convenient to have a ' double nature,' but not so 
 Jesus. He could sav, ' Which of vou convinceth 
 me of sin ? And if I sav the truth, whv do ve 
 not believe me?' (John viii. 46). Of Him it 
 could be said, in the words of the prophet 
 Malachi, ' Saith the Lord of Hosts. My covenant 
 was with him of life and peace ; and I gave them 
 to him for the fear ivlicrcwitJi Jic feared ine^ and 
 was afraid before my name. The hiw of truth 
 IV as ill his mouth , and iniquity was not found in 
 his lips : he walked with me in peace and equity, 
 and did turn many away from iniquity' (ii. 5, 6). 
 No, sir ; sophistrv and subterfuge did not belong 
 
134 THE TESTIMONY OF ifESUS. 
 
 to Jesus. At all times, and on all occasions, He 
 uttered the simple truth ; He never once claimed 
 to be God, and even when simply called ' good ' 
 by a young man earnestly seeking guidance and 
 information as to eternal life, Jesus at once 
 exclaimed, ' Why callest thou me good ? there is 
 none good but God' On another occasion, when 
 the Jews, furious and vindictive on the subject 
 of their descent from Abraham, were ready and 
 anxious to destroy Him, He calmly said, ' Now ye 
 seek to kill me, a MAN tliat hath told y on the 
 ■ truth, which I have heard of God : this did not 
 Abraham ' (John viii. 40). 
 
 Vicar. As I have said before, so must I repeat 
 now, that all these words were spoken by Jesus 
 in His character as a man, and not as God : He 
 had not at that time revealed Himself as God. 
 
 Parishioner. Most true. He had not at that 
 time revealed Himself as God, nor at any other 
 time did He do so. Being no impostor, but an 
 honest man, ' a teacher sent from God,' as Nico- 
 demus called Him, He told the people 'the truth, 
 which he had heard from God.' He was no dis- 
 sembler, but the fearless Truth-bearer and great 
 Revealer, and in that capacity He said, ' I can of 
 mine own self do nothing : as I hear, I judge : 
 and my judgment is Just, because I seek not 
 mine own will, but the will of the Father which 
 hath sent me ' (John v. 30). If Christ had been 
 the Almighty God would He have thus spoken ? 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF ^ESUS. 13.^ 
 
 Could He have so dissembled as to sav ' I can of 
 mine own self do nothing' f Lactantiiis, one of 
 the orthodox Fathers who wrote in the early part 
 of the fourth century, states ' Christ never calls 
 himself God.' Had He been the supreme God 
 — ' very God of very God ' — had He claimed to 
 be co-eternal and co-equal with the Highest — 
 would He, on this occasion, have veiled His Deity 
 — \\?ij vaoxQ^ falsified and denied His real cha- 
 racter by uttering the words, ' Ye seek to kill me, 
 a Man that hath told you the truth, which I have 
 heard of God ? Could HE have thus designedly 
 misled the Jews to their moral ruin ? It is a 
 clear impossibilitv ! Such a wild idea as that 
 of a ' double nature ' would never occur to any 
 educated European of this century who read the 
 New Testament for the first time in his adult 
 age, and whose mind in its early and plastic stage 
 had not been saturated and moulded by the 
 scholastic inventions of pedants and divines. 
 
 Vicar. If Christ had not been God how could 
 He have possibly said ' That all men should 
 honour the Son, even as they honour the Father'? 
 (John V. 20). 
 
 Parishioner. Surely the mystic dogma of a 
 Trinity cannot be based upon so sl&nder a foun- 
 dation as this? It is impossible that the very 
 plain statements which I have just given from 
 the speeches of Jesus can be nullified by the 
 phrase which you have just quoted. Why, a 
 
t36 THE TESTIMONY OF jfESUS. 
 
 corresponding incident occurs every day in the 
 political actions of all European nations. Has 
 not our own beloved Sovereign on more than 
 one occasion during the current year requested 
 that the nobility and gentry attending the Court 
 levees should honour the Prince of Wales even 
 as they honour her by attendance on the said 
 ceremonials ? and has she not affirmed that 
 introductions to the Prince should in all respects 
 convey the same honours 2ind privileges as if they 
 had been made to herself personally ? Are not 
 the myriads of her subjects in Hindustan and the 
 empire of India requested 'to honour the Viceroy 
 ^^ even as" they honour the Queen?' Are not 
 all those who attend the levees at Dublin Castle 
 requested to honour the Lord Lieutenant ' even 
 as ' they honour the Queen ? This is done, but 
 the homage given and received do not make the 
 Lord Lieutenant the King of Ireland, or the 
 Viceroy the Emperor of Hindustan. It has 
 according to the Epistle to the Hebrews pleased 
 God to elevate and dignify Jesus above ' all his 
 fellows.' The writer of that book, whether 
 Paul or Apollos, or whoever the ' inspired ' 
 author might have been, records the fact thus : 
 ' Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated 
 iniquity ; therefore GOD, even THY GOD, 
 hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above 
 thy fellows ' (Heb. i. 9). It was thus, you see, 
 a delegated honour^ precisely as were those 
 
DELEGATED FOJFER. 137 
 
 honours of the Viceroy, and of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant to which I have referred, and the verse I 
 have quoted (if there were no other in the whole 
 range of the inspired writings) is sufficient to 
 confute vour statements and to justify me in 
 asserting the sole and supreme Godhead of 
 the Father, and reiterating emphatically the 
 clear, unclouded statement of our Divine Lord : 
 ' This is life eternal, to know thee the only 
 TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast 
 sent ' (John xvii. 3). 
 
 Vicar. Let me remind you further that Jesus 
 claimed to be able to forgive sins, as when He 
 cured the sick man of the palsy ; as recorded 
 by St. Matthew, ix, 2, He said, ' Son, be of good 
 cheer ; thy sins are forgiven thee.' Surely, this 
 is arrogating a power surpassing all mere human 
 capacities. 
 
 Parishioner. Mr. Hierous, you astound me. 
 ' To forgive sins ! ' Was not this a power 
 possessed even bv His disciples ? Did He not 
 say to them, 'Whose soever sins ye remit, they 
 are remitted ; and whose soever sins ye retain, 
 they are retained ' ? (John xx. 23). Why, upon 
 this principle, and if I am to take these words as 
 a demonstrative proof that the person speaking 
 them is God, is the Almighty, I should have to 
 prostrate myself in reverence before you ; for 
 not a week since, in the cottage of Job Thresher, 
 when visiting him in his sickness, I distinctly 
 
138 DELEGATED FOIFER. 
 
 heard you say to him, ' I absolve thee from all 
 thy sins.' 
 
 Vicar. But you omit the very important words 
 that I used preceding these. I told him that 
 ' our Lord Jesus Christ had left power to His 
 Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent,' 
 and by His authority committed to me I absolved 
 him from all his sins. 
 
 Parishioner. Precisely so ; the cases are 
 exactly parallel ; as I have already said, the 
 power was a delegated power ; the honour 
 claimed in the words ' even as ' was a delegated 
 honour : and as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 
 and the Viceroy of India could by the authoritv 
 committed to them absolve from certain political 
 penal sins, so could Jesus ' forgive sins.' He has 
 Himself declared this — declared it so emphati- 
 cally that it cannot be gainsaid. It is among the 
 marvels, it is among the stupendous facts which 
 amaze the unsophisticated and philosophic mind, 
 that any other idea should have been formed 
 respecting it ; and it never could have been 
 formed by the tens of thousands who have 
 acquiesced in it had it not been enforced bv 
 powerful authority in the ages of barbarism and 
 ignorance by potentates in State and Church to 
 serve their own purposes. Children were trained 
 up to accept these inventions as truths, and this 
 system having been carried on for generations. 
 Error has usurped the place of Truth, and the 
 
FORCE OF HABIT. 139 
 
 minds of many are become so enfeebled and 
 timid, speaking generally, that they are no more 
 capable of investigating facts and drawing cor- 
 rect and logical conclusions in matters of 
 religion than are domestic geese capable of 
 flying in high air and for long distances as their 
 ancestors did. Just as man has so modified the 
 organizations of these creatures that thev can 
 now only waddle on the surface, instead of 
 winging their way through the clouds, as did 
 their remote forefathers, so has he, bv earlv 
 training carried on through a long series of 
 years, so moulded the plastic minds of his chil- 
 dren that they are now receptive of any absurdity 
 in one special direction. Their minds have 
 become as incapable of healthy and vigorous 
 action in theological matters as the domestic 
 goose in the matter of flying to high altitudes. 
 This training and its hereditary influence carried 
 on for ages have dwarfed the intelligence and its 
 perceptive power, so that it can now acquiesce 
 in the wildest phraseology and the most absurd 
 paradox. It cannot soar into the high and clear 
 regions of ratiocination. It ' waddles ' and 
 paddles in the muddy paradoxes of ' logomachv ' ; 
 can accept the proposition that one is three, and 
 three are one, and that Jehovah is God, Christ is 
 God, the Holy Ghost is God, and yet that there 
 are not three Gods, but one God ! This is a curious 
 phenomenon in psychology, more especially when 
 
140 FORCE OF HABIT. 
 
 there is no statement in history, there is no fact 
 in science, placed more clearly on record than is 
 the true nature of Jesus in the following words 
 of His biography by His disciple John : ' But 
 Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hither- 
 to, and I work. Therefore, the Jews sought the 
 more to kill him, because he had not only 
 broken the sabbath, but said also that God was 
 his Father, making himself equal with God. 
 Then answered Jesus and said unto them. 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you. The Son can 
 DO NOTHING OF HIMSELF, but what he sccth the 
 Father do : for what things soever he doeth, these 
 also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father 
 loveth the Son, and showeth hint all things that 
 himself doeth : and He will show him greater 
 works than these, that ye may marvel ' (John v. 
 18-20). Nothing can be more plain than these 
 words, and yet there are tens of thousands of 
 persons who do not accept them in their integ- 
 rity. To repeat a former illustration, they are 
 become like the ducks described by Darwin, 
 which by special environments and hereditary 
 transmission of habits have lost the capacity of 
 ducks, dread the water, and cannot swim. In 
 like manner and from like causes manv Christians 
 seem incapable of accepting plain words in 
 their plain meaning, and in ' matters of faith ' 
 have the same dread of honest research and 
 truthful investigation (which to a natural and 
 
TRANSMISSION OF PROPENSITIES. 141 
 
 healthful mind are genial and pleasant) as the 
 aforesaid ducks have of water. This fact seems 
 to have been recognized by the Greeks long ago, 
 for Archbishop Whately, in his first essay on the 
 love of truth, informs us that 'the illustrious 
 Greek historian expresses it in language 
 which ^vill hardly admit of an adequate trans- 
 lation. ' The generality of mankind are so 
 averse to the labour of investigating truth, that 
 they are willing rather to adopt any statement 
 that is ready prepared for their acceptance.'* 
 
 Vicar. I am distressed to observe how deeplv 
 you have fallen into heresy through abandoning 
 the authority of the Church. Not content with 
 bringing scriptural texts in support of vour 
 opinions, vou now daringlv bring in the material 
 conditions to explain personal characteristics, and 
 give to ' circumstances ' or, as you call them, 
 ' environments,' a potentiality which is startling to 
 listen to. I never in my life heard so bold — I may 
 say so rash — a statement as that the reason why 
 the mass of Christians accept the doctrine of 
 the Blessed Trinitv is that the doctrine havinjr 
 been handed down through manv generations, 
 and inculcated by authority on the plastic minds 
 of children, it has become a kind of instinct 
 to acquiesce in it ; and that were it not so the 
 mind would be staggered by its incongruity, and, 
 
 * ' 'AraXa(7ra>po£ to'iq iroWoiq »/ il{iTi](Ti<; rrjc: aX//0eiac, Kai iiz\ 
 tU iTOi^a [AuWov Tpi-Kovrai,^ p. 34. 
 
142 TRANSMISSION OF PROPENSITIES. 
 
 aided bv the facts you have quoted, would expel 
 it from the Christian Creed. 
 
 Parishioner. It may be all that you call it, 
 but it is nevertheless true. It is observable in 
 other ' religions.' How otherwise can be ex- 
 plained the fact that for many centuries tens of 
 thousands in China and elsewhere, when too poor 
 to have a special wheel to themselves, make 
 fatiguing journeys to temples where wheels are 
 kept — ''praying wheels ' — whose every revolu- 
 tion is considered as a prayer, and where man's 
 favour with Buddha or God is in exact propor- 
 tion to the number of pravers he can wheel 
 off — the prayers consisting of a shibboleth of 
 these words, 'Aum-mi-to fuh ' ?* If reason had 
 not been perverted into an ' instinct,' how could 
 such things go on for centuries among people 
 otherwise intelligent ? I did not obtain the 
 
 * Sometimes given as O-mi-to fu. In Thibet travellers 
 affirm that the words ' Om-Mani Padme Hrum ' are regarded as 
 a holy mystic charm of special sacredness, and are to be found 
 roughly carved on slabs of stones piled on high mountain- 
 passes, or the faces of rocks, and on pillars and terraces of 
 stones built especially for their accommodation ; as also, of 
 course, in temples and monasteries. To utter these words 
 three hundred thousand times gives the devout Buddhist a high 
 place in the favour of Buddha. ' Om ' is the equivalent of the 
 Hebrew Jahj ' Mani,' the Jewel j 'Padme,' Lotus; 'Hrum,' 
 Amen, or, So be it. The Japanese cry, ' Namu Amida Butzu,* 
 ' Save us, O Buddha ' ; the Chinese as given above. Millions 
 of Foists cry hourly, ' O-mi-to-fu.' The rosary is common 
 to the worshippers of East and West, to the Foists and to 
 
TRANSMISSrOX OF PROPEYSITIES. 143 
 
 notion of hereditary instinctive ideas from the 
 illustrious Darwin, but I was glad to have the 
 support of so accurate and acute an observer of 
 facts^ who has written, ' It is worthy of remark 
 that a belief constantly inculcated during the 
 eai'ly years of life, whilst the brain is impres- 
 sible, appears to acquire almost the nature of 
 an instinct ; and the very essence of an instinct 
 is that it is folloived independently of reason ' 
 (' The Descent of Man,' p. 100). 
 
 Vicar. It is a wicked and dreadful idea. 
 
 Parishioner. It is quite easy to apply the 
 words ' wicked and dreadful ' to anything. The 
 entire Christian world applied them to Galileo 
 in the seventeenth century (1634), when he said 
 that the earth moved round the sun. He 
 ' recanted ' to save his life, but in private he was 
 heard to mutter in his own Italian language, 
 
 the Papists ; and Gordon Gumming alleges that four hundred 
 and fifty millions of Buddhists find solace in counting such 
 beads. Mohammedans use it also. After the funeral of a 
 friend they cry, ' Allah el Allah ! ' three thousand times, and 
 check the number by beads. Hindoos follow the example of 
 the Buddhists, and the different sects have varying rosaries ; 
 among the very wealthy the beads are formed of various 
 precious stones. 
 
 The wheel had a mystic meaning from early times. In the 
 sixth century before Ghrist it formed a very prominent item 
 in the Visions of Ezekiel, such as, ' The wheels were full of 
 eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had. As for 
 the wheels, it was cried in my hearing, O wheel ' (Ezekiel x. 
 12, 13). 
 
144 FALLACY OF NUMBERS. 
 
 ^ e pur si miiove' (the earth does move). They 
 were applied to Latimer, and he was burned to 
 death because he could not recognize and would 
 not acknowledge that ' bread and wine ' had been 
 transformed by the utterances of a priest into 
 the body and blood of his Redeemer. Your 
 favourite theorv of numbers of the vast majority 
 of mankind as a test of truth was fallacious in 
 these and countless other instances. Five names 
 of dissentients occur to me which would counter- 
 balance some fifty of many others. Weight is a 
 force as well as are numbers. William Whiston, 
 M.A., in 1728, published a series of 'Records,' 
 in one of which he informs us that ' Sir Isaac 
 Newton had early discovered that the old 
 Christian faith had been changed ; that what has 
 been called Arianism is no other than old 
 uncorrupt Christianity ; and that Athanasius was 
 the grand and very wicked instrument of that 
 change.' The five Dissentients, then, are Sir 
 Isaac Newton, John Milton and John Locke, 
 Samuel Clarke, and the pious Dr. Watts, these 
 five renowned Englishmen, renowned alike for 
 intellectual power and moral worth, no more 
 accepted the Nicene Creed than I do. And as 
 a matter of ' authority,' I would rather bow to 
 them than to five thousand of the ordinary 
 people who throng church and chapel, and utter 
 phrases no more intelligible to themselves or to 
 others than the mystic w^ords, * Aum-mi-to fuh,' 
 
FALLACY OF NUMBERS. 145 
 
 babbled by the Buddhists of Asia, or whirled as 
 a printed prayer by rapid gyrations of the ' pray- 
 ing wheels.' 
 
 Vicar. The test of numbers may not be always 
 infallible, but, as I have already said, it is the only 
 possible practical way of deciding disputed matters. 
 
 Parishioner. And, as I have also shown, has, 
 on the most important occasions, decided them 
 ivrongfully. It was a very decided majority that 
 shouted on a solemn occasion, ' Not this man, 
 but Barabbas ! ' * Now Barabbas was a robber.' 
 
 Vicar. That was certainly an unjust decision, 
 but it was necessary to the scheme of salvation. 
 
 Parishioner , I will not believe it — you must 
 pardon my being thus abrupt. My whole nature 
 revolts against the supposition that, in the 
 councils of the Eternal, it was a necessity that 
 injustice should be perpetrated in order that God 
 ' might be just, and the Justifier of him that 
 believeth in Jesus' (Rom, iii. 28). 
 
 Vicar. That unfortunate axiom of the ' right of 
 
 private judgment,' so much insisted on at what has 
 
 been unfortunately called the ' Reformation,' is 
 
 leading you into sad errors, and is imbuing you with 
 
 a spirit most unfavourable to true piety. But, as 
 
 your spiritual pastor, as the priest appointed to 
 
 this parish, I must wrestle with your errors ; and 
 
 I must call back your mind from the new and 
 
 dangerous speculations of hereditary influence. 
 
 Parishioner. Pardon me for interrupting you, 
 
 but I must protest at once against the appellation 
 
 10 
 
146 'dangerous: 
 
 'new,' for they are not 'new,' and against their 
 being called 'speculations,' for they are not 
 ' speculations^' but facts. As to the word ' dan- 
 gerous,' it is the old cry of selfishness and 
 ignorance when any truth new to them is brought 
 forward which apparently clashes with their 
 interest. It was old when, eighteen hundred 
 years ago, Demetrius shouted as against Paul 
 in the streets of Ephesus, ' Not only this our 
 craft is in danger to be set at naught ; but also 
 that the temple of the great goddess Diana 
 should be despised, and her magnificence should 
 be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world 
 worshippeth ' (Acts xix. 27). It has been re- 
 peated ever since by the timid, the superstitious, 
 and those who adhere to old habits and custom in- 
 stinctively (that is, as Darwin says),' independently 
 of reason ' ; and it is especially clamoured forth 
 when any humble individual like myself presumes 
 to inquire into the truthfulness of any mystic 
 ' double nature,' or Trinitarian God, or goddess, 
 ' whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.' 
 
 Vicar. Your interruption is embarrassing, and 
 I hope that you will give me the same patient 
 hearing as I have always given to you, even 
 under circumstances of considerable provocation. 
 My thread of thought has been broken, but 
 show me in what sense your theory is not ' new'^ 
 and that it is not a ^speculation,' but a fact. 
 
 Parishioner. Yes, from a source more accept- 
 able to you than from Tyndall, or Huxley, or 
 
HEREDITARY PROPENSITIES. 147 
 
 Spencer, or the great and truth-loving Darwin ; 
 from no less a person than your charming Horace, 
 whose Odes are so dear to you, that you will be 
 surprised that the striking lines have not leaped 
 into your memory during this discussion. 
 
 Fortes creantur fortihus et lonis : 
 Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum 
 Virtus : neque imbellem feroces 
 Progenerant aquilae columbam. 
 
 {Curminum, Lib. IV. iv.) 
 
 That statement is at least nineteen hundred 
 years old. That young ducks, newly hatched 
 ducks, descended from ducks of natural habits, 
 rush into the water and swim merrily on its 
 surface from an inherited impulse, even if 
 hatched by a hen, who calls them in maternal 
 terror from the dangerous element ; that the said 
 ducks do not attempt to fly, although the wild- 
 duck, their remote ancestor, does ; that young 
 pointers who have never seen their parents ' point,' 
 do themselves point — are facts, and not specula- 
 tions. And that posthumous children often repeat 
 in their own lives the habits of their parents 
 whom they have never seen are also facts, and 
 not speculations ; and although the first-stated 
 * facts ' are taken from the ' lower animals,' and 
 not from the habits of mankind, they are not the 
 less germane to the subject ; for, as Pope has 
 said, and it bears repeating — 
 
 The first almlglity cause 
 Acts not by partial, but by general laws. 
 
 10 * 
 
148 REASON. 
 
 Vicar. We have dwelt too long on those 
 ' general laws ' in your desire to find a physiolo- 
 gical explanation for what you conceive an 
 anomaly, viz., that tens of thousands believe in 
 a faith which has been handed down to them for 
 ages, but from which you, in your intellectual 
 pride, recoil. Reason^ remember, was the ' god- 
 dess ' raised to honour when France, mad with 
 crime and blood, deserted all that was holy, and 
 appalled the nations by her demoniac frenzy. 
 You must place ' reason ' in the secondary place, 
 and approach the ' mystery of godliness ' in the 
 spirit of faith if you desire to profit by it. 
 ' Verily, I say unto you. Whosoever shall not 
 receive the kingdom of God as a little child^ he 
 shall not enter therein.' 
 
 Parishioner. The French Revolution of 1789, 
 most horrible as it was, has long ceased to be a 
 bugbear to religious inquirers, because its true 
 origin is now well known. It has been the policy 
 of priestly powers to descry ' Reason,' and they 
 do so with an intensity corresponding to the 
 unworthiness and rottenness of the system they 
 espouse. The system must be a bad one that 
 requires the prostration of the highest attribute 
 of Man. I am glad to know of some divines, 
 however, who take wiser and higher views of this 
 function. Warburtom, the Bishop of this 
 diocese in 1659 — certainly one of the most able 
 prelates the Church of England has produced — - 
 
REASON. 149 
 
 tells us 'that the image of God in which Man 
 was first created lay in the faculty of reason 
 only.' Archbishop Tillotson, in one of his 
 Sermons (Vol, III.), has said, ' he who sincerely 
 desires to do the will of God is not apt to be 
 imposed upon by vain pretences of Divine 
 Revelation ; but if any doctrine be proposed to 
 him which is professed to come from God, he 
 measures it by those sure and steady notions 
 which he has of the divine nature and perfection.' 
 I may add, also, that a great philosopher and 
 defender of the Christian faith, Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge, in the sixteenth of his Introductory 
 Aphorisms, writes : ' The word rational has been 
 strangely abused of late time«. This must not, 
 however, disincline us to the weighty considera- 
 tion that thoughtfulness, and a desire to bottom all 
 our convictions on grounds of right reason are in- 
 separable from the character of a Christian,' and 
 in the twenty-fifth of his Religious Aphorisms, he 
 tells us, ' He who begins by loving Christianity 
 better than truth, will proceed by loving his own 
 sect or Church better than Christianity, and end 
 in loving himself better than all.' The learned 
 Chillingworth has said : ' For my part I am certain 
 that God has given us reason to discern between 
 truth and falsehood : and he that makes not this 
 use of it, but believes things he knows not why, 
 I say that it is by chance that he believes the 
 
150 REASON. 
 
 truth, and not by choice ; and that I cannot but 
 fear that God will not accept the homage of fools.' 
 Moreover, on this topic, I can quote the words of 
 one whom you reverence, and whose orthodoxy 
 you, at least, will not question. William Ewart 
 Gladstone, in his controversy with the Vatican, 
 said : ' Authority can only be defended by 
 reason ; it is a part of what reason sanctions and 
 recommends. But there is no escape from this ; 
 it must be tried by reason^ as even the being of 
 God — with reverence be it spoken — must be tried 
 by reason, tried by reason under a great respon- 
 sibility, but under no coercion, either physical or 
 moral.' Moreover, the great Bishop Butler 
 has told us : ' By reason is revealed the relation 
 which God the Father stands in to us ' ; again, 
 ' Reason is the only faculty whereby we have to 
 judge of anything, even revelation itself.' And 
 in his essay on the Importance of Christianity, 
 p. 177, he writes : ' Indeed, if in revelation there 
 be found any passages the seeming meaning of 
 which is contrary to natural religion, we may 
 most certainly conclude such seeming meaning 
 not to be the real one.' 
 
 Vicar. I revere Coleridge, Gladstone, and 
 Butler; but a greater than Coleridge or Glad- 
 stone or Butler in a divine sense, even St. Paul 
 himself, has said, * The world by wisdom knew 
 not God.' 
 
REASON. 151 
 
 Parishioner. And St. Paul enunciated an 
 historical truth in that statement. The ' cro^o^^ 
 the wisdom, or the philosophy of the Greek 
 schools ; the quibbles of the Jewish Rabbis ; the 
 disputers of the age ('o-a^T/TT/r?/?'), the Stoics, Epi- 
 cureans, and other disciples of special schools of 
 philosophy had failed to reach the knowledge of 
 God : yet, nevertheless, is the Reason the ultimate 
 test of what is, and what is not spiritual ; and to 
 this faculty St. Paul appealed to the lovers of 
 disputation, 'the disputers of the age,' in the 
 Areopagus and elsewhere, and for the exercise 
 of this special faculty he praised the Bereans. 
 The Prophets of the older time censured the 
 priests for their ignorance. The mournful words 
 of censure uttered by Hosea occur to me. ' My 
 people are destroyed for lack of knowledge ; 
 because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also 
 reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me ' 
 (iv. 6). And Solomon, who ' was wiser than all 
 men,' has written : ' Fools despise wisdom ' ; but 
 a greater than Paul, and a wiser than Solomon, 
 even Christ Himself, has commanded — 'Be ye 
 wise as serpents ' (Matthew x. 16). Still, without 
 stopping to determine whether ' wisdom ' and 
 ' reason ' mean the same, I repeat that reason, 
 illumined by the Spirit of God, is man's sole 
 guiding star amid the perplexities of the Churches 
 and Creeds of Christendom. 
 
 Vicar. I hold, on the contrary, that God has 
 
i^a REASON. 
 
 appointed His Church to be the interpreter of 
 His Word, and that it becomes you and me to 
 bow to her authority. 
 
 Parishioner. Ah, me ! That, I am sorry to 
 say, is a dogma most pleasing to the mass of 
 mankind : for, strange as it may seem, the reason- 
 endowed man is reluctant to exercise habitually 
 this his highest and special faculty, and willingly 
 accepts the dogmas of others of seeming authority. 
 So much is this so, that Coleridge, in his day, 
 wrote : 'The indisposition, nay the angry aversion, 
 to think .... is the phenomenon that forces 
 itself on my notice afresh every time I enter 
 into the society of persons in the highest ranks ' 
 {Aids to Reflection^ p. 3). And this is especially 
 so, as I have already said, in religious matters. 
 Even John Milton has told us, * A man may be a 
 heretic in the truth ; and if he believe things 
 only because his pastor says so, or the assembly 
 so determines, without knowing other reasons, 
 though his belief be true, yet the very truth he 
 holds becomes his heresy. There is not any 
 burden that some would gladlier post off to 
 another than the charge and care of their religion. 
 There be (who knows not that there be ?) of 
 Protestants and professors who live and die in as 
 errant and implicit faith as any lay Papist of 
 Loretto." * Moreover, had there been but one 
 Church and, therefore, o::e authority, what you 
 
 * yJreopagitica, p. 85, Milton's Works, Vol. II. Bohn's Edition. 
 
REASON. 153 
 
 have said may have carried weight ; but as there 
 are two Churches on the Continent and one in this 
 island, that is, the Western, the Eastern, and the 
 Anglican, issuing conflicting decrees, the honest 
 man has still to call in his individual reason to 
 decide between their respective claims. 
 
 Vt'car. We have made a considerable excur- 
 s?(s from your last-quoted text, in which you 
 endeavoured to prove the humanity of Christ, to 
 the loss of His Godhead ; but that Christ was 
 superhuman was proved by the fact that He had 
 no human father, and by the circumstance that 
 this miracle was distinctly and unequivocally fore- 
 told by Isaiah some seven hundred years before, 
 viz., 'A virgin should conceive, and bring forth a 
 son, and that his name should be called Immanuel.' 
 
 Parishioner. I have not, as yet, stated that 
 Jesus was not ' superhuman,' and was simply 
 ' co-equal ' with all men ; on the contrary, I have 
 quoted a text to show ' that God^ even his own 
 God,' had ' anointed him with gladness above his 
 fellows ' ; but this is at an ineffable distance from 
 showing that He was ' co-equal ' and ' co-eternal ' 
 and ' co-almighty ' with God. 
 
 Vicar. It shows Him to be the Son of God, 
 with whom, we are assured, ' God was well 
 pleased.' 
 
 Parishioner. This has never been in dispute 
 between us : what I maintain is, that there is no 
 fact and no statement in the whole range of well- 
 
1^4 ' Emmanuel: 
 
 authenticated Scripture which would justify you 
 in calling Him * God the Son.' 
 
 Vicar. Yes ; the text quoted by me from 
 Isaiah, to the effect that the Child of the Virgin 
 should be called ' Immanuel,' ' which being inter- 
 preted is God with us.' 
 
 Parishioner. I am not concerned at this 
 moment to discuss the facts in relation to the 
 miraculous incidents which, according to St. 
 Matthew, preceded and accompanied the birth of 
 Jesus. All that I desire to say now is that the 
 circumstance of the Child being called 'Em- 
 manuel ' as a name is by no means equivalent to 
 the declaration that he was God ; for among the 
 Jews it was not an uncommon thing to give their 
 children names which should associate them with 
 the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. 
 Thus we have ' Elizabeth,' ' which being inter- 
 preted' is 'the oath of God' ; 'Elijah,' 'which 
 being interpreted ' is ' my God is Jehovah ' ; 
 ' Elidad,' ' which being interpreted ' is ' whom 
 God loves,' and so on, with a number of names 
 like unto Elisha, Elkanah, Elihu, and others. In 
 connection with what you have said, it appears to 
 me a most astonishing circumstance that in 
 neither of the synoptic gospels is the name 
 ' Emmanuel ' applied to Christ, and equally 
 astonishing is the fact that the angel which ap- 
 peared to Joseph, and the angel also who came 
 to Mary, directed that He should be called by a 
 
' Emmanuel: 155 
 
 very different name than ' Emmanuel,' Jesus ; 
 and more extraordinary still that Matthew him- 
 self, leaving the prophetic record, and becoming 
 the historian of the circumstances, writes of 
 Joseph, that when his first-born Son was brought 
 forth ' he called his name ' (not Emmanuel, but) 
 'Jesus.' 
 
 Vicar. You pass by the stupendous fact, the 
 holy mystery of the incarnation. You omitted 
 the circumstance which preceded and gave all 
 significance to the request that the Child should 
 be called 'Emmanuel' — namely, that the Prophet 
 said, ' A virgin should conceive and bear a Son.' 
 
 Parishioner. I intentionally avoided it, as I 
 did not wish to introduce matters affecting the 
 credibility of St. Matthew's gospel. It is well 
 known that the word ' Virgin ' in the Hebrew 
 language, and as used by Isaiah, does not convey 
 the same meaning as it does to us. Moreover, 
 good Hebrew scholars have maintained that the 
 article ' the,' and not ' a,' should have been 
 prefixed to ' virgin ' ; and instead of the future, 
 the present tense should have been used, and the 
 sentence translated into English thus — ' A virgin 
 is with child and beareth a Son.' The context 
 proves that the Prophet had no far-distant events 
 in his mind, and that his ' prophecies ' had a 
 direct and immediate relation to Ahaz, to the 
 kings of Samaria and Syria, and to the formidable 
 King of Assyria. In many so-called ' Messianic ' 
 
156 'Emmanuel: 
 
 prophecies, there is traceable in the interpreters 
 a disposition so to manipulate the Hebrew text 
 as to make it conformable to after-events. To 
 specify one instance: in our version of the second 
 Psalm the words are ' Kiss the Son,' whereas in 
 the Septuagint, received as the authority by the 
 Greek Church, the words are 'Apd^aaOe TratSeiW — 
 'Lay hold of instruction'; and even in our New 
 Testament translation, we find the same tendency 
 to exaggerate in this direction, for most assuredly 
 the Greek words, ' " Uv6v/J,a ayiov eirekevaeraL iirl ae," 
 KoX Svva/jii<i vylrLCTTOv CTTiaKiaaet croi/ do not critically 
 admit of the words, ' The Holy Ghost shall come 
 upon thee.' There is no article prefixed to 
 ' Uvevfia/ and nothing more can honestly be made 
 of the five first words than ' a holy breath shall 
 come to you.' It cannot be regarded otherwise 
 than as a singular fact that none of Christ's 
 disciples appear to have been aware of the 'miracu- 
 lous conception.' St. John, referring to the early 
 mission of Jesus, writes: ' Philip findeth Nathaniel, 
 and saith unto him, We have found him of 
 whom Moses in the law and the prophets did 
 write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.' It 
 is equally surprising that St. Paul never once in 
 all his energetic epistles to Rome, Corinth, 
 Ephesus, Galatia, and Thessalonica, refers to the 
 miracle, although it would have been useful to 
 him, probably at Mars Hill in Athens, as being 
 in harmony with much of Greek mythology ; and 
 
' Emmanuel: 157 
 
 the Jews might have welcomed it as an analogous 
 incident to that which raised the name of ' Sarai ' 
 to ' Sarah.' Moreover, His ' brethren ' and the 
 townsmen of Nazareth appear unconscious of the 
 stupendous miracle. There are several curious 
 anomalies in relation to it, for even St. Matthew, 
 who with Luke records the incident, writes thus 
 naively on another occasion, respecting Jesus, 
 ' When he was come into his own country^ he 
 taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that 
 they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this 
 man this wisdom, and these mighty works ? Is not 
 this the carpenter's son ? is not his mother called 
 Mary ? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and 
 Simon, and Judas ? And his sisters, are they not 
 all with us ? Where, then, hath this man all these 
 things ? And they were offended in him. But 
 Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without 
 honour save in his own countrv, and in his own 
 HOUSE ' (Matthew xiii. 54-57). In this narrative 
 there is not the slightest indication that the 
 writer was conscious of the supernatural circum- 
 stances attending the birth of Him whose wisdom 
 and mighty works ' filled the minds of his towns- 
 men and neighbours with wonder and astonish- 
 ment. Is it not, moreover, remarkable that in 
 no instance, when taunted by the Jews of His 
 humble birth, did Jesus assert His celestial . 
 origin ? On a memorable occasion, when the 
 Jews inquired, ' Is not this the son of Joseph, 
 
158 ' Emmanuel: 
 
 whose father and mother we know ? how is it, 
 then, that he saith, I came down from heaven'? 
 Jesus vouchsafed no information to them of the 
 alleged historic fact of His supernatural birth, 
 but told them, ' Murmur not among yourselves ' 
 (John vi. 42-43), and spoke to them metaphori- 
 cally respecting His mission, His relationship to 
 the Father and to mankind as their Teacher and 
 their Saviour. Still more embarrassing, in an 
 historical sense, is the fact that Luke, who alone 
 of the Evangelists gives the details of this mira- 
 culous event, when describing their first visit to 
 the Temple, says, when ' the parents,' and again, 
 'his parents,' '701^619' (Luke ii. 21), went to 
 Jerusalem every year.' Both parents, Joseph 
 and His mother marvelled at these things, which 
 Simeon, in prophetic vision, spoke of ' the child 
 Jesus ' ; again, when they had found Him after 
 His sojourn in the Temple, His mother said unto 
 Him ' Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us ? 
 hohoXdi thy father and I have sought thee sorrow- 
 ing,' and when the young Christ said, 'Wist ye not 
 that I must be about my father's business ? ' 'they ' 
 (neither father nor mother) ' understood not the 
 saying which He spake unto them ' (Luke ii. 50) ; 
 and, still further on in His ministry, when large 
 numbers had joined Him, and He had chosen 
 His twelve disciples, the Evangelist Mark tells us 
 that ' when his friends heard of it, they went out 
 to lay hold on him, for they said " He is beside 
 
* Emmanuel: 159 
 
 himself," ' and John informs us 'neither did his 
 brethren beheve in him ' (vii. 5), so that it is 
 evident that the Angel's announcement of the 
 ' Miraculous Conception ' had been kept a secret, 
 and was wholly unknown to ' James, and Joses, 
 and Simon, and Judas ' (Matt. xiii. 55). No 
 one reading the description of St. Matthew by 
 itself in reference to the Prophet in his own 
 country, and in his own house, could believe that 
 the historian was himself aware * whence ' and 
 wherefore the power and the wisdom came. 
 St. Matthew gives no indication that he himself 
 knew ' Where, then, hath this man all these 
 things ' ? He does not seem conscious that the 
 Teacher was not 'the carpenter's Son' ; moreover, 
 the incident is not in harmony with the historic 
 genealogy which Matthew gives of Jesus, who 
 traces His descent from David, through 'Joseph ^ 
 and not through the lineage of Mary. The 
 annunciation resembles those angelic communi- 
 cations in the Old Testament which related to 
 extraordinary births in this, that the angel com- 
 manded that the child be called Jesus, as the 
 respective angels who visited Hagar and Sarai 
 commanded special names to be given to the 
 children who were promised ; and as the angel 
 who appeared to the barren wife of Manoah 
 declared that the child to be born should ' deliver 
 Israel out of the hand of the Philistines,' so was 
 Jesus to ' save his people from their sins.' 
 
i6o ' Emmanuel: 
 
 Vicar. There is a dangerous tone in all that 
 you have just said to me. It certainly implies 
 that St. Matthew is not trustworthy so far as the 
 supernatural facts are concerned, and that you 
 are inclined to regard St. Mark and St. John as 
 the more historic, and that the narrative of the 
 first Gospel has been tampered with or added to 
 by the legendary fancies of a later time. I do 
 hope that this is not so. I have b^en particularly 
 struck — nav, I mi2:ht trulv sav that I have been 
 pained — by your implying that Matthew had 
 strained the facts to accommodate them to 
 prophecy ; that in doing so he had mistaken the 
 meaning of the word ' virgin ' ; and that all in 
 connection therewith may be regarded as a myth. 
 Parishioner. I will not disguise from you, my 
 dear Vicar, that such thoughts have crossed my 
 mind (although I purposely withheld them from 
 our discussion), for I cannot forget that what we 
 call the ' Inspired Word ' has, in the progress of 
 time, been wickedly tampered with ; while 
 errors innumerable have crept in undesignedly, 
 in the process of copying one MS. from another, 
 mistakes from marginal notes, from imperfect 
 writing, from defects of hearing when writing 
 from dictation, and many other well-known 
 causes. Hundreds of such errors have been too 
 slight practically to affect historic truth, or 
 influence dogma, as have these which appear to 
 have been inserted wickedly, with a 'pious 
 
'Emmanuel: i6i 
 
 purpose,' such as the statement which you, 
 reluctantly, have admitted to be an interpolation, 
 namely, the words imputed to St. John, 'There are 
 three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.' 
 It is universally admitted (I believe) by scholars, 
 that these words were not written in the original 
 Epistle, and I am convinced that they were 
 fraudulently inserted, at a late date, to support 
 the Church's dogmatic theory of the Trinitv. 
 This being so, I frankly admit that I am some- 
 times disposed to think with Sir Isaac Newton, 
 that ' the time will come when the doctrine of 
 the Incarnation, as commonlv received, shall be 
 exploded as an absurdity equal to transubstan- 
 tiation.'* 
 
 Vicar. How is it possible that such an irrever- 
 ent, such a wicked doubt could have been suffered 
 to dwell in your mind ? I say dwell^ because 
 transient doubts, possibly suggested by the powers 
 of darkness, will occasionally intrude upon our 
 souls ; but, unfortunately, you now say, ' I am 
 suspicious.' 
 
 Parishioner. I sav so because the narrative 
 partakes so largely of the character of the legen- 
 dary myths of the widespread ' religions ' which 
 you and I regard as false. I will mention only a 
 few. In the vast empire of China it is universally 
 
 * A Cordial for Low Spirits. Being a collection of curious 
 Tracts. London, 1763. P. xxiii. 
 
 II 
 
1(52 . 'Emmanuel: 
 
 alleged and universally believed of the birth of 
 Fohi, or Fow, that three nymphs descended 
 from heaven to bathe, that a lotus-plant adhered 
 to one, and that thus she became pregnant and 
 gave birth to a son, who became the founder of 
 a religion, and a law-giver. The birth of one 
 person is said to be the result of a virgin having 
 haunted a forest expecting the advent of a god 
 long predicted, and that she became pregnant 
 by the sunbeams ; and the great, almost unpro- 
 nounceable, Huitzilipoehtle in Mexico was born 
 of a woman who caught in her bosom a feather- 
 ball which descended from heaven ; and Ellis, in 
 his Polynesian Researches (good missionary as 
 he was), published in 1829, gives one or two 
 most beautiful legends of a like kind. One 
 is especially striking, namely, that Taaroa, the 
 creator of the earth, sent forth Oro to be the 
 medium between celestial and terrestrial things. 
 Now, the birth of Oro was in this wise : the 
 shadow of a bread-fruit leaf, shaken by the power 
 of the arm of Taaroa, passed over Hina (as we 
 read in St. Luke of Mary — ' the power of the 
 Highest shall overshadow thee '), and she after- 
 wards became the mother of Oro. Hina, it is 
 said, abode in Opoa at the time of his birth ; 
 hence Opoa was honoured as the place of his 
 nativity, and became celebrated for his worship 
 (p. 194, vol. ii.). The parallel is so striking 
 that Hina certainly suggests Mary, and the 
 
'EMMANUEL: 163 
 
 village of Opoa brings to mind the village of 
 Bethlehem, which the angel called the City of 
 David. 
 
 Vicar. Is it not more than probable that these 
 islanders have confused a true narration which 
 centuries ago may have reached them through 
 some travellers ; and that this historical truth be- 
 came converted into legend, and subsequently, by 
 continuous tradition and fancy, became a 'myth' ; 
 imagination or poetry substituting the beautiful 
 bread-fruit tree with which they are so familiar, and 
 the shadow of its leaf shaken by the arm of Taaroa, 
 for the sober facts of the Gospel narrative ? 
 
 Parishioner. I do not think it probable that 
 those beautiful islands of the Southern Seas were 
 ever visited by Europeans until the discovery of 
 Captain Cook in 1778 ; and even admitting the 
 possibility of such a visit, I think it still more 
 impossible that such visitors knew the language 
 of the Sandwich Islanders, or that the Sandwich 
 Islanders knew theirs. That the marvellous 
 story of St. Matthew should have been treasured 
 up by these simple idolaters through the rolling 
 centuries passes belief. But that the facts of 
 sober history do get transformed, magnified, and 
 blended into the mystic legends of fancy, has 
 been abundantly proved. Uncultured people, 
 and these constitute the vast majority of mankind, 
 love ' myths,' and upon them have based their 
 
 II * 
 
i64 'EMMANUEL: 
 
 'religions.' 'Immaculate Conception,' or its 
 equivalent, humanity springing directly from 
 Divinity, was a tenet of Paganism thousands of 
 years before it was enunciated as a dogma of 
 Catholic faith. Some Egyptian legends give the 
 birth history of Epaphus or Apis, who is said 
 to have been born of a Virgin Mother by 
 the breathing of Dyans. Indeed, the 'air,' the 
 'wind,' 'the breath' are closely associated with 
 the genesis of all things in ancient or pagan 
 religions. Virgil, in the third book of his 
 Georgics, tells us that sometimes mares became 
 impregnated by the gales of Spring — 
 
 Et saepe sine ullis 
 Conjugiis, vento gravidse (mirabile dictu). 
 
 {Lwe 275.) 
 
 Parthenogenesis was imagined by poets, and 
 engrafted in mythology, long before it became 
 recognized in the teachings of botanical or 
 biological science ; and it was a popular belief 
 among classic pagans that extraordinary men had 
 a Divine origin. Even one of the great Fathers 
 of the very early Church, Justin Martyr, in the 
 twenty-second chapter of his first Apology to the 
 Roman Emperor, in respect to this matter writes, 
 ' If we even affirm that he was born of a Virsrin, 
 accept this in common with what you accept of 
 Perseus.' And a later Father, Jerome, could write 
 of Plato thus, ''Sapientice principevi non alitcr 
 
* Emmanuel: \6<, 
 
 arbitrandttin, nisi de partu virginis editiiuiJ^ 
 This birth of Plato from a virgin, according 
 to the legend, resembles much the narrative of 
 St. Matthew. His father on his marriage was 
 warned by Apollo, in a dream, that his wife 
 Perictonia was with child, but that the babe was 
 of Divine conception, and that he must live apart 
 from her until the child had been born. All 
 these facts show that the world, through ' wisdom,' 
 knew not God. The ' philosophy ' of Zeno, and 
 of Epicurus, alike failed to teach that ' God is a 
 Spirit,' with all its ennobling consequences, as 
 Christ taught us, and until illumined by the 
 inspiration of God, men built, and build, their 
 ' religion ' upon myths and fables as baseless 
 as the story of Venus springing from the 
 spray of the sea or of Saturn devouring his 
 children. There have been writers who have 
 endeavoured to explain all the mysteries of the 
 Gospel histories by 'myths,' and their transfor- 
 mations. The German writer, David Strauss, has 
 written ably with this object, and followed as he 
 has been, on somewhat similar lines, by the 
 brilliant writer and learned Oriental scholar, E. 
 Renan, their writings combined have done more 
 injury to the popular Christian Creed on the 
 Continent than have the writings of the ' scien- 
 tists ' and ' biologists ' to the popular biblical 
 
 * Apologia des L. L, s, 92. 
 
i66 ' Emmanuel: 
 
 story of the Creation, in this country. But neither 
 the critical German, nor the French savant, nor 
 the English ' scientists,' nor all combined, have 
 done so much to disturb men's faith, and to 
 create distrust, as the extravagant statements of 
 the Church herself, and the audacity with which 
 her most zealous servants have declared that those 
 who cannot accept her statements ' shall without 
 doubt perish everlastingly.' 
 
 Vicar. I am ignorant of the writings of the 
 persons to whom you refer. I have heard of 
 them from time to time, but, knowing from the 
 writings of Jude that there 'should be mockers 
 in the last time,' I have most scrupulously and 
 conscientiously avoided them. I wish that you 
 had been equally prudent, for I fear greatly that 
 you have read them, and that they have influ- 
 enced your opinions. Let me beg of you to 
 read the Epistle of Jude at your earliest possible 
 opportunity. Ponder on its solemn prophecy, 
 and the doom which will befall the unbelievers, 
 on these unhappy beings who deny ' the only 
 Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.' I will 
 see you again shortly, but I cannot parley longer. 
 Important duties call me hence ; moreover, the 
 sun is going down, and a storm seems impending. 
 Parishioner. Farewell, and many thanks for 
 your time and attention. Still, let me ask you to 
 remember that I did not open the discussion, but 
 
'Emmanuel: 167 
 
 have been all along on the defensive, givmg my 
 humble reasons why I have hitherto been unable 
 to accept your pastoral invitation to the most 
 Holy Communion. Please accept my little flower; 
 it is very rare in this neighbourhood. I shall look 
 forward for your promised visit most anxiously. 
 Good-bye. 
 
PAKOCHIAL PAKLEYS. 
 
 INTERVIEW THE SECOND. 
 
 Rev. H. Hieroiis. Good morning. I hope 
 that I am not calling at an inconvenient time. 
 I perceive you are surrounded with books and 
 engravings ; you are always busy, and seem to 
 enjoy life quite as much as many young men. 
 My neighbour Thompson tells me that you were 
 quite enthusiastic last night, at the Anniversary 
 Meeting of the Mechanics' Institute, positively 
 fervid in your speech, not as [according to 
 Horace] one might have anticipated, 
 
 *' Laudator temporis acti 
 Sepnero, censor castigatorque minorum "j 
 
 but in praise of the present time in contrast with 
 the past, and sketching a still brighter future for 
 the rising generation. I was very glad to hear 
 it, because, as you were so hopeful, I trust that, 
 since I saw you, you may have discovered some 
 mitigating circumstances in the present seep- 
 
I/O MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 ticism which both of us were deploring, and 
 which had been prophesied in such dark colours 
 by the Apostle Jude, to whose Epistle I drew 
 your most serious attention. 
 
 Ml'. Truman. I thank you very much for 
 your kindly wish. ' The lines have indeed 
 fallen unto me in pleasant places,' and, thanks 
 to a merciful Providence, I can also sav with 
 Adam, the old servant, whom Shakespeare has 
 so well drawn in his play As Yoii Like It — 
 
 In my youth I never did apply 
 Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; 
 Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 
 The means of weakness and debility ; 
 Therefore my age is as a lusty winter^ 
 Frosty but kindly. 
 
 As to my enthusiasm of yesternight, it was 
 perhaps too jubilant through the joy the re- 
 trospect furnished, and the contagiousness of the 
 happiness around me. There is^ however, one 
 solemn, solid fact which weighs upon my mind, 
 otherwise the material prosperity and progress 
 of the productive and middle classes would be 
 exhilarating in the extreme. That fact is a ballast 
 to buoyancy of feeling. There is among the 
 aristocracy, or rather, I ought to have said in 
 the wealthy or ' plutocratic ' classes of the 
 country, a moral hebetude, a flabby faith either 
 in good or evil, a ' want of heart,' a cultured 
 passivity, a stoic apathy to holy or spiritual 
 
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 171 
 
 things* in their essence [although conforming 
 conventionally to aesthetic or sensuous forms of 
 worship] from which I fear much, as being the 
 ' little rift ' leading to great mischief. Were it 
 not for this stoic selfishness, so general in what 
 is called ' Society,' the beneficial changes which 
 have taken place in England within my remem- 
 brance, would prompt me to believe in the 
 realization of the golden age which has been 
 sung by poets from the days of Isaiah to those of 
 Browning and Tennyson. Even with this deep 
 shadow resting upon the surface, the advancing 
 years are ever filling me with wonder. The 
 discoveries and inventions of science, and of 
 mechanical skill, and the economic results which 
 have followed in their train, are simply astound- 
 ing. Distance has been practically diminished 
 fifty-fold. Verbal communication is so quickly 
 obtained from shore to shore of the widest sea, 
 that the fiction which Shakespeare had assigned 
 to Puck in the Midstimmer Night's Dream — 
 
 I'll put a girdle round about the earth 
 In forty minutes — 
 
 has become a reality, and this rapid transit of 
 thought and wish accompanied, as it has been, 
 by a corresponding development in the speed and 
 carrying power of vessels and carriages by sea and 
 land ; by a better knowledge of geography and 
 navigation, and by the repeal of unwise fiscal laws, 
 has efi'ected marvels in the physical development 
 
172 MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 and external surroundings of all the working 
 classes. The ' penny postage ' for letters has 
 in itself effected marvels in the education of the 
 people, in strengthening domestic moral ties, 
 and adding to the wealth and convenience of 
 Society. The younger recipients of these advan- 
 tages accept as a matter of course the things 
 which fill the mind of the septuagenarian with 
 wonder. Utility and beauty have gone hand 
 in hand, progress pervades all things, and the 
 aged man is impressed accordingly ; whether he 
 recalls the clumsy flint and steel and tinder 
 box of his earlier time, as he takes up a box of 
 Bryant and May's ' safety matches,' or makes a 
 comparison of the good things which one penny 
 can now secure in all directions, and contrasts it 
 with the little it could obtain some fifty years 
 ago. The contrast is great and wide-spreading, 
 from a box of lucifer matches, up to a high-class 
 newspaper bringing authentic intelligence daily 
 from all the capitals of Europe, as does The 
 Daily Telegraph. And nowhere does such a 
 mind behold a greater change than in the 
 homes, in the dress, in the food, and in the 
 manners of the people in agricultural towns and 
 villages, ' agricultural depression ' notwithstand- 
 ing. Whether it be that a class by necessity 
 accustomed to extreme thrift and prudence, was 
 the earliest to avail itself of the results of cheap 
 production and ready transit, I cannot determine, 
 
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 173 
 
 but most certainly the change for the better has 
 surpassed the expectations of the most sanguine, 
 not only at the close of the French War in 181 5, 
 but even at the passing of the Reform Act in 
 1832. Many cottages, I might almost have said 
 most cottages, possess a flower in the window, or 
 a picture on the wall ; and a large number of 
 these cottages, once with walls quite bare, or 
 glaring with the cold glare of whitewash, are now 
 bright and cheery with coloured papering ; and, 
 as I have said, the dress of the agricultural 
 labouring classes at holiday time represent a 
 corresponding increase in taste and comfort. It 
 makes the closing days of my life bright as a 
 summer sunset, to know and observe these 
 things. Miracles will never cease to those who 
 have eyes to see or ears to hear. Science has a 
 ' wonderland ' as rich, and far more useful, than 
 was ever conjured up by the wand of a fairy. 
 It might be said, almost without metaphor, that 
 the lightning and the sunshine are practically 
 made to illumine our rooms, and then to adorn 
 our walls and our portfolios w^th pictures. 
 What will not a few shillings now procure in the 
 way of art production ? Look at the beautiful 
 prints now before me, which have given me such 
 pleasure as to call up my retrospect. Look at 
 this fine autotype of the graceful ' Madonna del 
 Sisto,' by Rafaelle ; at this accurate transcript 
 in form and texture of the ' Doge Leonardo 
 
174 MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Landreno,' by Bellini ; and of this sweet and 
 touching ' Pieta/ by Francia. Would not the 
 great masters and teachers of taste in the past 
 generation, men like Archibald Alison, Payne 
 Knight, or Samuel Rogers have been astonished 
 to see such exquisite productions gracing the 
 homes of country surgeons and ill-paid curates ? 
 In all the facts I have narrated I seem to see 
 not only one of the factors of the changes which 
 have crept, and are creeping into the Ritualism 
 of our churches ; and of the love of the rising 
 generation for graceful robes, the 'pealing organ,' 
 rich flowers, light and colour, even while it 
 possesses no clear vivid realization of what the 
 service is intended to signify, or has but a very 
 dim sense of that which the aesthetic symbolism 
 professes to unfold. I feel assured also, that the 
 perplexing creeds and the coarse and revolting 
 theology w^hich have in the past caused so many 
 to abandon religion, even to the fearful extent of 
 denying the existence of God, will be blotted 
 out, or rather will be absorbed, as darkness by 
 sunshine, in the prosperity and culture which 
 are springing up around us. The ' sweetness 
 and light ' which have for a time obscured the 
 sense of reverence and of faith in the soul by 
 causing it to recoil from the horrors of a vin- 
 dictive God, and of a material burning hell of 
 everlasting torment, will, in its secondary and 
 more continuous action, reveal to the soul the 
 
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 175 
 
 permanent presence of One, of whom all purity, 
 and all sweetness, and all light are but emana- 
 tions. These, and such like thoughts, as I have 
 stated in our former interview, sustain one's 
 faith during the transient mists of darkness, and 
 give a * silver lining ' even to the prophecy of 
 Jude, which I had quoted at our former inter- 
 view, but have re-read under your counsel. The 
 contents of the Epistle are impressed on my 
 memory, and in common with the statements 
 of Paul and Peter, and James and John, have 
 tended to overthrow and dissipate my early faith 
 in that awful creed upon which we conversed 
 so long lavSt week. 
 
 Vicar. How is that possible ? I had relied on 
 its startling statements to check you in your 
 downward way and to bring you back into the 
 paths of truth. 
 
 Parishioner. I am glad, my dear Pastor, that 
 the reserve of mere courtesy has been set aside 
 between us. The subject we are discussing is 
 too solemn, too momentous, for etiquette. You 
 have from time to time spoken with warmth, and 
 I must plead guilty of having overlooked in some 
 moments our respective positions. My path may 
 — nay must — appear to you downward., and 
 your solemn oaths and your naturally kind dis- 
 position would alike make you desirous to bring 
 one ' who had erred and was deceived ' back 
 again ' into the path of truth.' But I fed that 
 
176 RAISING THE DEAD. 
 
 my progress is not ' downward,' but upward^ and 
 that I am 'in the path of truth.' Still more am 
 I confident that I am further removed even than 
 yourself from the condition of those whom Jude 
 has described with such graphic power ; inas- 
 much as those upon whom he poured forth his 
 indignation were those who were ' denying the 
 ONLY Lord God ' and ' our Lord Jesus Christ ' ; 
 and all my feeble efforts are devoted to affirming 
 instead of denying 'the only Lord God,' and to 
 recalling the solemn asseverations of Jehovah 
 (as recorded by Isaiah) — ' there is no God else 
 beside me ; a just God,' and 'there is none beside 
 me. Look unto wr, and be ye saved, all the 
 ends of the earth : for I am God^ and there is 
 none else' (Isaiah xlv. 21, 22), 
 
 Vicar. These words were spoken under the 
 Old Dispensation, before ' the fulness of time ' 
 had come, i.e., before the ' appearing of our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, 
 and hath brought life and immortality to light 
 through the Gospel' (2 Timothy i. 10). And 
 you seem to forget that, while the Creed states 
 that Christ is God, yet it states also that there is 
 ' not three Gods, but one God ' ; and that Christ 
 was God, is distinctly proved by two great facts : 
 He raised the dead, and He was distinctly seen to 
 * ascend into heaven.' Surely you do not mean 
 to assert that a man could raise the dead, and be 
 seen bodily to ascend into heaven? 
 
RAISIXG THE DEAD. 177 
 
 Parishioner. Personally, I should not dare to 
 assert anvthins^ so contrary to all modern ex- 
 perience. But, most certainly, the Scriptures, 
 which you hold to be verbally and in their 
 entirety the inspired and infallible Word of God, 
 tell us of men who have raised others from the 
 grave, and also of a man who, with great pomp, 
 visibly ascended into the heavens. Moreover, as 
 regards the power of raising the dead, they tell 
 us that even the dead hones of a man sufficed to 
 do this ; for we read : ' they were burying a 
 man . . . they cast the man into the sepulchre 
 of Elisha : and when the man was let down, and 
 touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood 
 up on his feet' (2 Kings xiii. 21). One is not 
 surprised that the holv prophet, whose dead 
 bones effected such a miracle, had previously 
 raised to life again the dead child of a Shunam- 
 mite woman (2 Kings iv. 34, 35). As to the 
 ascension into heaven, Marks tells us of our Lord 
 that after He had spoken unto His disciples ' he 
 was received up into heaven.' Luke tells us that 
 ' he was parted from them, and carried up into 
 heaven.' Now, in neither of these accounts — 
 and they are all we possess from the Evangelists 
 themselves — is there that distinctiveness, that 
 absolute freedom from all possible optical illu- 
 sion, that explicit clearness of detail, which 
 marked the ascension of One whom, I think, 
 you will not claim to have been God. ]Mark 
 
 12 
 
178 RAISING THE DEAD. 
 
 tells that Jesus was received up into heaven. 
 May that not be said of any true Christian 
 dying in the faith ? St. Luke tells us ' that 
 he was carried up to heaven.' This is a more 
 striking statement than that of Mark, but it has 
 not the detail or the splendour of description 
 which has been given us of the ascension of 
 Elijah, of whom we read : ' And it came to pass, 
 as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there 
 appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, 
 and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went 
 up by a whirlwind into heaven ' (2 Kings ii. 1 1-). 
 So that we have in these records instances of the 
 dead being raised by men. Moreover, in your 
 eager desire to establish the Divinity of Jesus, 
 you have not only overlooked these remarkable 
 incidents in the history of Elijah, but have also 
 forgotten for a time the fact that Peter raised 
 Tabitha from the dead ; that Paul performed a 
 like act on the person of the young man Euty- 
 chus at Macedonia, who went into a deep sleep 
 while Paul was ' long preaching,' and ' fell down 
 from the third loft, and was taken up dead.' 
 Thus, neither the circumstance of the ascension 
 nor the raising of the dead to life again suffices 
 so to mark off Jesus from all other prophets and 
 saints of God as to justify us in addressing 
 Him as ' very God of very God.' And, more- 
 over, even apart from this circumstance, we have, 
 as I have again and again shown, the distinct 
 
RAISLVG THE DEAD. 179 
 
 and unmistakable words of Jesus Himself — ' the 
 Son can do nothing of himself.^ for, as the Father 
 hath life in hi^nself., so hath he given to the Son 
 to have life in himself ; and St. Paul is em- 
 phatic in his testimony to the Romans, to the 
 effect that, ' if thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
 the Lord yesns, and shalt believe in thine heart 
 that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
 shalt be saved.' How consolatory is such a clear 
 apostolical statement as this to one who, like 
 myself, has been awed by the maledictions of 
 ' the Church ' ; who, for long, distrusted his 
 ' private judgment ' because of the thousands 
 who appeared to acquiesce in the creed which, 
 in that 'judgment,' appeared contrary to the 
 Scriptures and to common sense ! Before I knew 
 that the said thousands were apathetic, passive, 
 and uninquiring as to religious theories and 
 dogmas, such a clear, lucid text was a consolation 
 and support. To all the Churches St. Paul has 
 spoken with equal plainness. 
 
 To the Romans 
 he writes, ' / thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for you 
 air (Rom. i. 8). 
 
 'To God only wnse, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever ' 
 (Rom. xvi. 27). 
 
 ' Much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace 
 of the one man Jesus Christ abound unto the many' (Rom. v. 15). 
 
 To the Church at Corinth. 
 'But I would have you know, that the head of every man is 
 Christ 5 and the head of the woman is the man, and the head 
 of Christ is God ' (1 Cor. xi. 3). 
 
 } 2 * 
 
i8o RAISJXG THE DEAD. 
 
 ' All are yours ; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's ' 
 (i Cor. iii. 23, 23). 
 
 * And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall 
 the Son also himself be subject Jfnto him that put all things 
 binder him, that God may le all in all ' (i Cor. xv. 28). 
 
 To the Church in Galatia. 
 ' Paul an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but 
 through Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from 
 the dead' (Gal. i. i). 
 
 To the Church at Ephesus. 
 
 ' Blessed be the God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing ' (Eph. i. 3). 
 
 ' One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of 
 all, who is aiove all, and through all, and in you all ' (Eph. iv. 5, 6). 
 
 To the Philippians. 
 ' And 7ny God shall fufill every need of yours according to his 
 riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now unto our God and Father 
 be the glory for ever and ever. Amen ' (Phil. iv. 20). 
 
 To the Colossians. 
 
 ' Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, we give 
 thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying 
 always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus ' 
 (Col. i. 2, 3). 
 
 ' And he is the head of the body, the church : who is the 
 beginning, the firstborn from the dead ; that in all things he 
 might have pre-eminence. For it ivas the good pleasure of the 
 Father, that in him should all fulness dwell' (Col. i. 18, 19). 
 
 To the Thessalonians. 
 
 * Unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in Cjod the 
 Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you, and 
 peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ * 
 (i Thess. i. i). 
 
 ' For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining 
 of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for ns. 
 
RAISIXG THE DEAD. i8i 
 
 that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with 
 him' (i Thess. v. 9). 
 
 ' So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which 
 ye were taught, whether by word, or by epistle of ours. Now, 
 our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our FatJicr which 
 loved us, and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through 
 grace, comfort your hearts and stablish them in every good 
 work and word' (i Thess. ii, 15, 16). 
 
 ' And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye 
 both do and will do the things which we command. And the 
 Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the 
 patience of Christ ' (3 Thess. iii. 5, 6). 
 
 To Timothy. 
 
 ' Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the command- 
 ment of God our Saviour, and Christ Jesus our hope; unto 
 Timothy my true child in faith : Grace, mercy, peace Jrom God 
 the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord ' (i Tim. i. i). 
 
 ' For there is one God, one mediator also between God and 
 men, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom 
 for air (i Tim. ii. 5). 
 
 * Now unto the King, eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only 
 God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen' (i Tim. 
 
 ' I charge thee in the sight of God, and Christ ^esus, and the 
 elect angels, that thou observe these things without prejudice, 
 doing nothing by partiality ' (i Tim. v. 21). 
 
 To Titus and to Philemon he makes saluta- 
 tions, as in my last quotation from the Epistle to 
 Timothy. Paul preserves the individualities of 
 'God, Christ Jesus, and the elect Angels'; so, to 
 Titus and to Philemon does he distinctly mark 
 off the respective distinctions of ' God the 
 Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ ' : and, the 
 unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 received bv the Church as ' canonical,' or 
 
i82 RAISING THE DEAD. 
 
 divinely inspired, keeps visibly before the 
 Hebrews the supremacy of the ' first Person,' 
 and writes, 'Now the Go(^ of peace who brought 
 again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
 shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the 
 everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every 
 good work to do his will, working in you that 
 which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus 
 Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. 
 Amen' (xiii, 20, 21). The stately and steadfast 
 Apostle James, also defines himself as a ' servant 
 of God^ and of the Lord Jesus Christ,' and writes, 
 ' Thou believest that God is one ; thou doest 
 well'; he implores the twelve tribes ' not to hold 
 * the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in respect of 
 persons,' and describes clearly the religion which 
 is pure and undefiled ' before our God and 
 Father,' and that every ' good gift and every perfect 
 boon' Cometh from 'the Father of lights, with whom 
 can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast 
 by turning' (i. 17). Peter in his epistles, equally 
 with Paul, observes the same principle, and all 
 whom he addresses are reminded of ' the fore- 
 knowledge of God the Father^ in sanctification 
 of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of 
 the blood of Jesus Christ ' : as Jesus Himself 
 assured Mary in the garden, that He was about 
 to ascend ' unto my Father and your Father, and 
 to my God and yo7rr God,' so does Peter keep 
 vividly before the recipients of his Epistle, that 
 
RAIShXG THE DEAD. 183 
 
 ' Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, 
 begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus Christ,' and calls upon them, that 
 * like as he which called you is holy, be ye 
 yourselves also holy in all manner of living,' 
 reminding them that they ' were redeemed not 
 with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from 
 your vain manner of life handed down from your 
 fathers ; but with precious blood, as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot, even the blood 
 of Christ . . . who through him are believers 
 ZH God, which raised him from the dead, and 
 gave him glory ; so that your faith and hope 
 might be in God ' (i Peter i. 21) ; always urging 
 them so to act and speak, 'that in all things God 
 may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose 
 is the glory and the dominion for ever and 
 ever. Amen' (i Peter iv. 11). And again, and 
 perhaps more instructive and decisive than all, 
 in the glow and fervour of recent events ; and 
 all the startling phenomena of the day of Pen- 
 tecost, when ' they were all filled with the Holy 
 Ghost,' Peter exclaimed, 'Ye men of Israel, hear 
 these words ; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved 
 of God among you by miracles and wonders and 
 signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, 
 as ye yourselves also know. . . . Whom God 
 hath raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, 
 because it was not possible that he should be 
 
i84 RAISING THE DEAD. 
 
 holden of it.' Can words be more plain and 
 explicit ? And when he, and John ' at the gate 
 of the Temple which is called Beautiful,' had 
 healed a ' certain man lame from his mother's 
 womb,' and the people all marvelled, and were 
 disposed to pay divine homage to Him, and to 
 John, He disclaimed it all, and showed that it was 
 through the fact that ' God Jiad glorified his son 
 Jesus ' this healing had taken place, and added, 
 ' for Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet 
 shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of 
 your brctJircn like unto me ; him shall ye hear 
 in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you ' 
 (Acts iii. 22), Is it possible to have more 
 demonstrative proof of any fact than is to be 
 seen in these words ? Of all the Evangelists and 
 Apostles, St. John seems to me to be pre- 
 eminently the exponent of the supremacy of 
 God, and of the relationship between HIM and 
 the beloved Son, whom He sent to be the 
 propitiation for ' the sins of the world ! ' Again 
 and again have I reiterated his grand statement 
 in the Gospel, which is the foundation of my 
 faith and my hopes, namely, the prayer of Jesus 
 that all His disciples may be one — ' That they 
 all may be one ; as thou. Father, art in me, and I 
 in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the 
 world may believe that Thou hast sent me ' — 
 because this plain statement elucidates and 
 clears up the paradoxical sophistries of the 
 
RAISING THE DEAD. 185 
 
 ' Athanasian Creed.' I have reiterated it again 
 and again, and shall continue to reiterate it, 
 because the dogmatic assertions of individuals, 
 and the decrees of Councils, melt away before this 
 enunciation, and all doubt of the future life is 
 expelled by St. John's record of other words of 
 Christ, namely, ' And this is life eternal^ that 
 they might know thee, the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent' (John xviii. 
 4). As in this Gospel so necessarily in his 
 epistles is the same note sounded, and the s'ame 
 doctrine enforced, and my soul clings with joy 
 to the emphatic statements, ' Herein is love, not 
 that we loved God, but that he loved us, and 
 sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' 
 ' And we have beheld and hear witness that the 
 Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of 
 the world' (i John iv. 10-14). In the sole 
 Epistle of St. Jude we have like ringing words, 
 like clear and succinct statements of what is 
 expected of man in doctrine and practice. 
 ' But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on 
 your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 
 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for 
 the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal 
 life.' ' Now unto him that is able to guard you 
 from stumbling, and to set you before the 
 presence of his glory without blemish in ex- 
 ceeding joy to the only God our Saviour, through 
 Jesus Christ otir Lord, be glory, majesty, domi- 
 
1 86 RAISING THE DEAD. 
 
 nion and power, before all time, and now, and 
 for evermore. Amen.' Jude's Epistle, and [as 
 if nothing whatever should be wanting to make 
 the testimony complete] even the mysterious 
 and mystical writer of the Apocalypse calls his 
 book ' The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which 
 God gave unto him^ to show unto his servants 
 things which must shortly come to pass,' and he 
 sends grace and peace to the seven Churches 
 which are in Asia, * from him which is, and 
 which was, and w^iich is to come ; and from the 
 seven spirits which are before his throne ; and 
 from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, 
 and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince 
 of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved 
 us and washed us from our sins in his own 
 blood, and hath made us kings and priests itnto 
 God and his Father ' ; and further informs us 
 that when in the spirit of prophecy he saw the 
 future as the present, and the kingdoms of the 
 world had become the kingdom of Christ, and 
 the time had arrived sketched by Paul in his 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, w^hen ' God should be 
 all in all ' ; then he saw that ' the four-and- 
 twenty elders which sit before God on their 
 thrones, fell upon their faces and worshipped 
 God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God, 
 the Almighty, which art and which wast, because 
 thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and 
 hast reigned' (Rev. xi. i6, 17). Thus do I show 
 
RAIShXCr THE DEAD. 187 
 
 to you the supremacy of God the Father, and the 
 delegated power and authority of the Son ; not 
 from an isolated, incongruous, individual text 
 snatched at random from the miscellaneous 
 writings of the Bible, but by the unanimous 
 testimony of the speakers and writers of the 
 entire New Testament ; a full ' consensus ' of 
 statement, and in systematic order as the writers 
 themselves are arranged in the Holy Scriptures. 
 Not o/ie ou/y, but all testify to the same historic 
 truth. On this rock, ' a Rock of Ages,' I take 
 my stand, and smile with compassionate pity at 
 all the anathemas of the Athanasian Creed. 
 Whenever priest, or whenever layman says of 
 me in respect to tJiis matter, ' without doubt he 
 shall perish everlastingly,' he, by a necessary 
 inference, says the same thing and assigns the 
 same doom to Peter and Paul, to James and 
 John, and Jude, yea, more (with all awe and 
 reverence be it spoken), to Jesus also, for the 
 whole of my ' creed ' is tabulated in His words, 
 * And this is life eternal, that thev should know 
 thee^ the only true God, and Him w^hom thou 
 didst send (even) Jesus Christ ' (John xvii. 3). 
 I have, therefore, now no awe from the censures, 
 or even the maledictions, of the ' Church ' Exter- 
 nal, sustained as I am by the Church Invisible, 
 whose head is Jesus Christ ; and the fact of 
 thousands acquiescing in the * creed ' Athanasian 
 gives me no more personal spiritual anxiety than 
 
1 88 RAISING THE DEAD. 
 
 that thousands and tens of thousands of ' Chris- 
 tians ' acquiesce in the doctrine of the ' Immacu- 
 late Conception of the Blessed Virgin,' and in 
 the absolute ' Infallibility of the Pope ' ! 
 
 Vicar. Your familiarity with the Scriptures 
 shows me that you have sought earnestly their 
 counsel. From the tones of your voice, from 
 the expression of your countenance, and from 
 my knowledge of your life, I am assured that 
 this is no mere polemic wTestle on your part. 
 Never having had a transient doubt myself, and 
 never having in the whole course of my ministry 
 been consulted upon it before, I have not given 
 the subject the minute attention which vou 
 appear to have done, and am therefore some- 
 what surprised at the number of quotations 
 from the Scriptures you have produced in 
 relation thereto. It is in my power, however, 
 through the advice of a learned brother in the 
 Church, to name to you a most orthodox" work 
 which fully sustains the Nicene and Athanasian 
 Creeds in all their integrity. Pray read it. It 
 is the Bampton Lecture by Canon Liddon ' On 
 the Divinity of our Lord.' I am assured on the 
 highest authority that it is wholly unanswerable. 
 I hope and believe that it will bring you the 
 intellectual satisfaction you need, and that we 
 shall soon have you in spirit, as in body, within 
 the pale of the Church, among the true believers, 
 and thus removed far, far away from the conse- 
 
RAISING THE DEAD. 189 
 
 quences of those anathemas which you condemn 
 so strongly as unscriptural and unjust. 
 
 Parishioner. I thank you very, very much for 
 your kind words and good wishes ; but, alas ! 
 your hope cannot be realized. The remedy you 
 prescribe has long since been tried, and found 
 impotent. I saw that a dignitary of the Church 
 had called the Canon a great champion of the 
 truth, and his book an invulnerable bulwark 
 against the encroachments of infidelity. I 
 hastened with joy to obtain it. My ' views ' at 
 that time were ' nebulous,' or rather like the first 
 stage of a transformation scene in a magic-lan- 
 tern ; the old convictions were become hazy and 
 dim, and no definite ones had taken their place. 
 I longed for light and guidance. I yearned for 
 some support to the cherished beliefs of my 
 earlier life. General report as to the power and 
 brilliancy of the lecturer made me hope that in 
 Canon Liddon I should find a Joshua to conduct 
 me from the wilderness of doubt into a bright 
 land of certainty and repose. In a sense, he did 
 this, for he convinced me that the subject 
 ' doubted ' was a mirage, an illusion, a baseless 
 vision. He helped me to reach a region of light 
 and peace, but he did this by unintentionally 
 revealing to me that, stript of all subtlety, and 
 read in a simple sense, with the aid of fit scholar- 
 ship, the Scriptures negative the Athanasian 
 theory, and lucidly proclaim ' One God and 
 
ipo CANON LIDDON. 
 
 Father of all, who is above all^ and through all, 
 and in you all' (Ephes. iv. 6). 
 
 Vicar. What can you mean ? Surely you do 
 not dare to gainsay the scholarship or the sin- 
 cerity of the eloquent Canon ? 
 
 Parishioner. Neither. The first thing that 
 disheartened me was, in cutting open the book, 
 to find no less than five hundred very closely 
 printed pages, together with some thirty or forty 
 others in the form of notes, and an appendix of 
 texts. Five hundred pages [equivalent in the 
 number of words to a thousand pages of some 
 books] to prove what Melville, another eloquent 
 Canon, called a fitndamental doctrine of the 
 Christian faith, were, a priori, a very suspicious 
 circumstance. However, the fascination of the 
 style, the dogmatic assurance of the lecturer, 
 and the thrilling importance of the question 
 discussed made me read on with avidity, although 
 with lessening ardour at every page, until at 
 length I closed the book, my mind and my con- 
 science uttering, * Unproven and unprovable.' 
 
 Vicar. As you are the first person I have 
 heard speak of the work except in praise, and 
 certainly the first that has intimated that the 
 Canon has not demonstrated to every candid 
 mind the Divinity of our Lord, I will ask you in 
 what particular you were disappointed ? 
 
 Parishioner. If brilliant diction : if eloquent, 
 poetic, and impassioned appeals to the sentiments 
 
CANON LIDDON, 19 1 
 
 and preconceived notions and feelings of his 
 hearers : if subtle scholarship and bold assump- 
 tions : if the concealment of negative evidence, 
 the skilful marshalling of facts, and the dazzling 
 display of forced inferences : if extravagant 
 eulogy of the Church and the Fathers as ex- 
 ponents of and authorities in determining doc- 
 trine : if the consummate skill of a forensic 
 advocate (with such scanty materials as the 
 Scriptures supply) could have proved the God- 
 head of our Lord, then would Canon Liddon 
 have proved it. He reminds me of a very dis- 
 tinguished special pleader — the late Serjeant 
 Scarlett. It requires the calm and the coolness 
 of a judicial mind, ' the clear cold light ' of the 
 intellect, and a firm grasp of the evidence of all 
 the witnesses, to withstand his personal fascina- 
 tion and his wealth of words : but, possessing 
 these, the verdict of everv honest mind will be, 
 * Not proven.' 
 
 Vicar. Give me some instance or instances of 
 what you call special pleading, the concealment 
 of negative evidence, or the ' subtlety ' of a 
 forensic advocate. 
 
 Parishioner. A very conspicuous example 
 occurs at page 250, where the Canon writes, 
 ' Accordingly, Jesus never calls the Father our 
 Father, as if he shared his Sonship with his 
 followers. He always speaks of " my Father." ' 
 Can you suppose that this master of dialectics 
 
192 CANON LID DON. 
 
 had forgotten the instruction given by Jesus to 
 Mary Magdalene after His Resurrection — ' go to 
 my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto 
 my Father, and yotir Father ; and unto my God, 
 and your God' (John xx. 17)? Ex uno disce 
 omnes. Further, the Canon heads a page with the 
 words * Our Lord reveals his Godhead explicitly ' ; 
 and then, after the mind of his reader has been 
 dazzled and dazed by a series of brilliant interro- 
 gatories, he is informed that ' although the 
 solemn sentences in which he (Jesus) makes that 
 supreme relationship ' [that of this ' Godhead ' 
 and that explicitly'] ' are comparatively few, it is 
 clear that the truth is latent in the entire moral 
 and intellectual posture which we have been 
 considering ' ; then follow the marshalling of the 
 confessions of Nathaniel, of Peter, and the words 
 of Nicodemus ; and at length comes (to me) the 
 long-wished-for fact or utterance bv or in which 
 'our Lord reveals his Godhead explicitly' ; and 
 lo ! behold the circumstance ! ' Philip preferred 
 to our Lord the peremptory ' [sic] ' request, 
 "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." ' 
 Well might the answer have thrilled those who 
 heard it. ' Have I been so long a time with you, 
 and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that 
 hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how 
 sayest thou then. Show us the Father. Believest 
 thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father 
 in me ? ' (p. 178). Thus it stands, with all the 
 
CAXON LID DON. 193 
 
 enforcement which capital letters to the pronouns 
 can give, although the capital letters are not 
 given in the received text of the Gospel. The 
 concealment of negative evidence and the 
 subtlety of the advocate are shown in the fact 
 that the Canon closes the speech of Jesus at this 
 especial point. Had he prolonged it, its meta- 
 phorical character would have been intimated 
 by the words ' the words that I speak unto you I 
 speak not of myself^ but the Father that dwelleth 
 in me, he doeth the works ' ; had the speech of 
 Jesus been continued to its end, it would have 
 ' explicitly ' demonstrated that He had been 
 speaking inetaphorically^ by the statement, ' At 
 that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, 
 and ye in me^ and / in yon.' In these words 
 are the proof that the truthful historian had been 
 converted into a subtle advocate of a special 
 theory. This shallow elucidation that our Lord 
 had ' explicitly revealed his Godhead ' disap- 
 pointed me much, after the bold and promis- 
 ing prologue. Despite the sacredness of the 
 theme, the pungent lines of Phaedrus obtruded 
 themselves on my mind, and I could not refrain 
 from uttering 
 
 Mons parturibat geinitus immanes ciens, 
 Eratque in terris maxima expectatio 5 
 At ille murem peperit. 
 
 The final result left upon me after the study of 
 this book was admiration of the Canon's scholar- 
 
J 94 CAiYOiX LID DON. 
 
 ship, his diction, and his ingenuity as an ' advo- 
 cate.' I felt that all that could he said had been 
 said ; but that facts were too stubborn to be 
 welded into sucli a theory, even by his titanic 
 energies. The truth emerges and shines forth 
 when the Canon writes, 'Certainly, our Lord 
 insists very carefully 2ipon the truth that the 
 power which he wielded was derived originally 
 from the Father'' (p. i8i). Surely no rhetoric 
 can enable the mind of a sane thinker to conceive 
 of a supreme God ' wielding a power ' derived 
 originally from a power apart from Himself. 
 
 Vicar. I deeply regret that you have remained 
 unconvinced even by Canon Liddon's eloquence 
 and fervid arguments ; but never shall 1 forget 
 you in my prayers, and when, in our daily ser- 
 vice in the sanctuary, our sublime Litany is read, 
 I shall have you especially in my mind and heart 
 as I utter the words, ' That it may please thee 
 to bring into the way of truth all such as have 
 erred and are deceived.' 
 
 Parishioner. No words of mine can sufficiently 
 thank you for your pure and kind motives ; and 
 believe me, my dear Vicar, when I say that I 
 too shall breathe out that prayer with equal 
 ardour, and that my response, ' We beseech thee 
 to hear us, good Lord,' will be in every way 
 as earnest and as loving as your own prayer. 
 
 Vicar. Then your case is not so hopeless as I 
 feared. So long as you feel the need of guid- 
 
'MORE light: 195 
 
 ance, so long as your conscience whispers that 
 all is not wcll^ there is hope ; and, remember 
 that our blessed Lord Himself has said, 'If ye do 
 mv will, ve shall know of the doctrine.' 
 
 Parishioner. My responsive prayer will be 
 for others rather than for myself. My troublous 
 doubts on this especial subject are quite gone. 
 I no longer ' sit in darkness ' ; the ' true light 
 now shineth.' In this particular matter, as I 
 have already said, I resemble the blind man 
 whose eyes Jesus had opened, and who, when 
 catechized and upbraided by the Pharisees 
 for his convictions respecting Jesus, answered, 
 ' One tiling I know ; that, whereas I was blind, 
 now I see ' (John ix. 25). 
 
 Vicar. Although I do not know any theologian 
 who could guide you into the truth more surely 
 that Canon Liddon, yet would I wish to suggest 
 that vou read Pearson on the Creed. 
 
 Parishioner. Happily, I know a far more 
 illuminating guide than either Liddon or Pearson. 
 But that you may know that I have not neglected 
 any source of information within my reach, I 
 will tell you, that before I ventured to speak in 
 the positive manner I am now compelled to do, 
 I had diligently sought counsel from the pages 
 of Pearson, Ellicott, Neander, Jeremy Taylor, 
 Yonge, Hannah, Chalmers, Palev, Farrar, Ben- 
 gel, Delitzsch, Davidson, Alford, Melville, New- 
 man, Milman, Pressense, Robertson, Lange, 
 
 13 * 
 
19^ AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. 
 
 Schleiermacher, Thompson, Westcott, Pliimptre, 
 Edersheim, and last, though not least, Geikie, 
 whose Life of C/irisf, on the orthodox side, is 
 worthy of comparison with any of the others 
 which I have named. 
 
 Vicar. It is a goodly array for a layman to 
 have studied ; but I fear that along with these, 
 and perhaps preferred before them, were many 
 of a heterodox character. 
 
 ParisJiioner. I have read some of the writ- 
 ings, which are so-called, of such as Matthew 
 Arnold, Baur, Strauss, Renan, Channing, and 
 Martineau ; but never with so strong a bias as I 
 read the writings of those you deem * ortho- 
 dox.' Not one of these writers originated in my 
 mind a conviction previously nnheld. My lapse 
 into ' heresy,' as you call it, is wholly due, as I 
 have alreadv said, to Mr. Melville's sermon 
 enforcing a belief in the Trinity, or rather the 
 impulse which that sermon gave me to ' search 
 the Scriptures daily ' in order to ascertain 
 'whether those things were so' (Acts xvii. ii), 
 and before that incident I had never read a page 
 of any Socinian writer whatever. 
 
 Vicar. Your last words painfully remind me 
 of a sentence in St. Paul's Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians, which asserts that there is a ' godly sorrow 
 which worketh repentance,' and also a ' sorrow of 
 the world which worketh death ' (2 Cor. vii. 10) ; 
 and so I perceive that there may be a reading of 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 197 
 
 the Scriptures themselves which leads to heresy 
 and all its fearful consequences. Had these holy 
 Writings been read in a proper spirit you could 
 not have failed to learn that the doctrine you 
 dispute ought (in the words of the Eighth Article 
 of Religion of our Church) thoroughly to be 
 received and believed ; for they may be proved 
 by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Parishioner. Your esteemed champion of the 
 faith, Canon Liddon, in his third sermon, speaks 
 of the Rev. John Keble as ' the boast and glory 
 of his university, great as a poet, greater still, it 
 may be, as a scholar and theologian^ greatest of 
 all as a Christian saint ' ; and yet, if my memory 
 does not greatly deceive me, he in his sermon 
 on tradition implies that this doctrine is not any- 
 where distinctly and clearly enunciated in Holy 
 Writ, but that it has been handed down to the 
 Church by tradition ; and in the writings of his 
 friend and admirer Cardinal Newman the same 
 fact is enunciated. If this be so — and I feel 
 assured that it is so — I cannot be blamed for not 
 finding it there ; and as to ' tradition,' I regard 
 it as a most unsafe guide, and, as Jesus said 
 to the ' Scribes and Pharisees which were at 
 Jerusalem,' so am I — with reverence be it 
 spoken — inclined to say of the Councils and 
 ' Fathers ' and dignitaries of the Church — ' Thus 
 have ye made the commandment of God of none 
 effect by your tradition ' (Matt. xv. 6). 
 
 Vicar. You have descended deeper into the 
 
ipS SCHISM. 
 
 depths of doubt and of heresy than even I had 
 feared ! You have abandoned not only the 
 Creed — which had given (I must now admit) 
 some perplexity and pain to more than one 
 bishop and archbishop of our Church, and which 
 perplexity, therefore, was in some measure to be 
 excused in a layman — but you disregard the 
 Church's authority, and even dare to place 
 * private judgment ' on an equality with her 
 decrees ! This is a sinful act of schism, which 
 calls for my reproof. The Thirty-fourth Article 
 of the Church directs and declares that ' Whoso- 
 ever, through his private judgment^ willingly and 
 purposely doth openly break the traditions of 
 the Church, which be not repugnant to the 
 Word of God, and be ordained and approved by 
 common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, 
 for he thus ofTendeth against the common order 
 of the Church, hurteth the authority of the 
 magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of 
 the weaker brethren.' Moreover, to reject the 
 ' traditions ' of the Church is in itself a sin. 
 Had the earlv Christians done so we should not 
 have possessed the Gospels themselves, inasmuch 
 as for several decades they were traditions only, 
 handed down orally by faithful men of one age 
 to those who followed them, until they became 
 embodied in manuscript, and have since reached 
 us as the Gospels of SS. Matthew, Mark, and 
 Luke. 
 
 Parishioner. And having been so embodied. 
 
SCHISM. 199 
 
 the authority of ' tradition ' has ceased, as far as 
 Protestants are concerned. I am aware that 
 this term ' Protestant ' is now disdained by 
 * AngHcans ' ; but it is the most explicit term 
 still to describe the countless Christians who are 
 without the pale of the Catholic, or perhaps I 
 ought to say the Roman Catholic, Church. But 
 in respect to your observation of my being 
 guilty of ' the sinful act of schism ' calling for 
 your reproof, I must demur to it. Some w^ords 
 of John Milton, in his noble defence for the 
 liberty of unlicensed printing, occur to me, and 
 I hope you will not deem me offensive if I repeat 
 them, as I wish to do, in support of a gxncral 
 principle. I do not quote them to you personally, 
 for it would be unjust as well as arrogant towards 
 you, but I recite them in justification of myself, 
 and argumentatively in defence of a tolerant 
 individualism as to what may, or may not, con- 
 stitute ' the sinful act of schism.' The great 
 Puritan wrote, * there be who perpetually claim 
 of schism, and make it such a calamity that any 
 man dissents from their maxims. It is their own 
 pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, 
 who neither will hear with meekness, nor can 
 convince, yet all must be suppressed which is not 
 found in their Svntagma. They are the troublers, 
 they are the dividers of unity ^ who neglect and 
 permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces 
 which are yet wanting to the body of truth ' 
 
2 00 SCHISM. 
 
 (p. 90). Such persons fail, as Milton writes, to 
 ' see that while we still affect by all means a rigid 
 external formality, we may as soon fall again into 
 a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead 
 congealment of " wood, and hay, and stubble," 
 forced and frozen together, which is more to the 
 sudden degenerating of a church than many sub- 
 dictotomies of petty schisms' (p. 97).* Moreover, 
 the Sixth Article of your Church has another aspect, 
 for the said Sixth Article of your Church affirms 
 distinctly that ' Holy Scripture containeth all 
 things necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever 
 is not read therein^ nor may be proved thereby, 
 is not to be required of any man that it should be 
 believed as an article of the faith, or be thought 
 requisite or necessary to salvation.' Therefore, 
 on the point we are debating I decline to accept 
 as an ^ article of the faith ' anvthing which has 
 tradition only for its support ; and this, I main- 
 tain, is the case with the Trinitarian doctrine ; 
 even some high Church divines have affirmed 
 that it has no other basis than the traditions and 
 decrees of the Church. The judicious Hooker, 
 without declaring so much as this, admits that 
 this doctrine can only be inferentially obtained 
 from Scripture. He states, ' For our belief in the 
 Trinity, the co-eternity of the Son of God with 
 the Father, the proceeding of the Spirit from 
 the Father and the Son, the duty of baptizing 
 
 * Areopagi'.ica. Vol. II. Bohn's Edition. 
 
SCHISM. 20 1 
 
 infants ; these, with such other principal points 
 the necessity whereof is by none denied (?) are 
 notwithstanding in Scripture nowhere to be found 
 by express literal mention^ only deduced they are 
 out of Scripture by collection ' {Eccles. Pol., Book 
 I. c. xix. s. 2). Cardinal Newman, in his history 
 of the Arians, says, 'The most accurate con- 
 sideration of the subject will lead us to acquiesce in 
 the statement as a general truth that the doctrines 
 in question (the Trinity and the Incarnation) 
 have never been learned merely from Scripture ' 
 (p. 55). My memory seems also to tell me that 
 Keble, in his sermon on ' Tradition,' alleges that the 
 doctrine of the Trinitv is based on the ' traditions ' 
 of the Church. But, be this as it may, I 
 challenge you, or any one else, to produce a 
 single, direct, literal text for the doctrine. 
 Surely, this is not too much to ask from a Church 
 which professes itself to be based on the Scrip- 
 tures, and in her Twentieth Article declares 
 that ' it is not lawful for the Church to ordain 
 anything that is contrary to God's word written, 
 neither may it expound one place of Scripture, 
 that it be repugnant to another,' and which, 
 many times a year, declares from her sanctuaries 
 that those who do not accept this creed ' shall, 
 without doubt, perish everlastingly.' Again do 
 I repeat that there may be scattered here and 
 there a 'text' or so which may appear to indicate 
 a duality^ but not one to affirm a Trinity save 
 
202 SCHISM. 
 
 the forgery in St. John's Epistle, which has now 
 been thrust out of the New Testament as it 
 stands revised by the greatest Greek scholars of 
 the present century. 
 
 Vicar. The Church places the doctrine of the 
 Trinity in the very first front of her Articles as 
 the one primary fundamental doctrine which she 
 expects and demands that her children should 
 accept ; and here, even if nowhere else, her 
 Article and her Formula, the first and second 
 Articles of her religion, and the dogmatic state- 
 ments of the Athanasian Creed are in perfect 
 accord. To dispute this doctrine, then, and to 
 affirm that it cannot ' be proved by most certain 
 warrants of Holy Scripture,' is an act of rebellion 
 against the Church, is treating with disdain her 
 * authority in controversies of faith,' and rendering 
 yourself liable to be ' excommunicated,' and to be 
 regarded by ' the whole multitude of the faithful 
 as an heathen and publican' until you 'be openly 
 reconciled by penance and received into the 
 Church by a judge that hath authority therein.' 
 This is the admonition of the thirty-third of the 
 Articles of our religion. 
 
 ParisJiioncr. All that you have now said is most 
 true ; and I must remind you that I emphatically 
 stated at our first interview that no honest man 
 — and I claim to be honest — could pretend to 
 affirm that it was not the clearest teaching of 
 the Church. And I went much further than you 
 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND— A PARADOX. 203 
 
 have now done in showing how she publicly 
 anathematizes all who do not accepthev teachings 
 in this particular. But here, as in some other 
 matters, the Church of England is a paradox ; her 
 theories and her practice often contradict each 
 other, and her ' authority ' is weakened thereby. 
 Her ' trumpet gives an uncertain sound ' ; nay, 
 ' her pipes and her harps ' are not only out of 
 tune, but are made to give out different tunes; 
 and the priest of one parish is ready to ' anathe- 
 matize ' the priest of the adjoining one. It has 
 been my lot to hear the author of The Christian 
 Year described by the vicar of his own parish 
 as ' a blind leader of the blind,' instead of being, 
 as Canon Liddon calls him, ' great as a poet, 
 greater still, it may be, as a scholar and theo- 
 logian, greatest of all as a Christian saint.' 
 Indeed,'the vicar of the parish and the ' Christian 
 poet ' mutually regarded each other as ' unsound 
 in the faith,' although both were ordained priests 
 of the Church of England. It is not pleasant to 
 think that the good John Keble (good in purpose, 
 but intensely bitter towards ' dissent and dis- 
 senters ') was not regarded by all as a prophet 
 * in his own country.' Thus, during the Agricul- 
 tural Riots of 1 83 1 the reverend poet kindly en- 
 deavoured to dissuade the agricultural labourers 
 of his neighbourhood from breaking threshing- 
 machines belonging to the farmers and others. 
 Their leader, a ' local preacher ' belonging to the 
 
204 PAROCHIAL PARLEYS. 
 
 Primitive Methodists, confronted him with a 
 Scriptural harangue — a ' bit of the Gospel,' as he 
 called it — and invited discussion, which Mr. 
 Keble most wisely declined. The ' Primitive,' 
 who had lived many years in the same parish 
 with Mr. Keble, then acting as curate at Coin St. 
 Aldwin's, had much to say respecting him, his 
 opinion of the learned ' parson ' being akin to 
 that which William Taylor, the ' Model Preacher' 
 of America, is said to have expressed respecting 
 the philosopher Emerson — ' He may be a good 
 man, but he is as ^''ignorant of the GospeV as 
 Balaam's ass was of the Hebrew grammar.' But 
 to return to our subject. The Church of England 
 suffers in authority because of the conflict between 
 her liturgy and her catechism and her ' Thirty- 
 nine Articles,' her avowed 'Protestantism' and 
 her dogmatic creeds. Her Sixth Article, which 
 makes the Scriptures the final appeal, goes far to 
 nullify her ' anathemas ' in other directions. It 
 is this Sixth Article which has enabled me to 
 continue a worshipper within her material fabric 
 and to accept with composure your intimation of 
 * excommunication.' 
 
 Vicar. I hope to be spared so painful a pro- 
 cedure ; and it is somewhat ungenerous in you 
 thus (at least indirectly) to taunt her for the 
 reverence and deference she manifests towards 
 the Holy Scriptures — those Scriptures which 
 you have heretofore so warmly espoused, as 
 
PAROCHIAL PARLEYS. 205 
 
 transcending in authority the decrees of Councils 
 and the statements of the Fathers. 
 
 Parishioner. And still do. What I have said 
 is in illustration of the Church's inconsistency in 
 speaking so dogmatically in her ' Creeds,' and, 
 like Saul, ' breathing out threatenings and 
 slaughter against the disciples of our Lord ' who 
 cannot accept them, and then, elsewhere, putting 
 another authority — the Holy Scriptures — -on the 
 same plane, or higher than herself, to declare 
 what is or what is not required ' to be believed 
 as an article of faith.' She thus provides an 
 imperiiim in imperio which leads to vacillation 
 and conflict even among her priests themselves. 
 
 Vicar. You surely would not have the Church 
 of England proclaim herself as being superior to 
 God's Word ? 
 
 Parishioner. Heaven forbid ! I wish to see 
 her in fact, as in name, the National Church — a 
 Church not of catechisms and creeds and of 
 articles, but a Church that could receive within 
 the amplitudes of her love all who loved God, 
 all who could ' worship HIM in spirit and in 
 truth.' But there never can be a National 
 Church — that is, a Church spiritually acceptable 
 to devout minds until some great teacher shall 
 arise with deep spiritual insight and energetic 
 will, who shall penetrate behind the ordinances, 
 forms, and ceremonies, and doctrines of 'the 
 Churches,' 'Established' and 'Nonconforming' 
 
2c6 PAROCHIAL PARLEYS. 
 
 alike, and show forth the true and inward prin- 
 ciple which can alone give them any value to the 
 souls 'which hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness.' The Fountain of the Gospel must be 
 sought and found, if we wish to obtain the ' water 
 of life ' in its perfect purity. I cannot always 
 sympathize with the 'Fathers,' but most certainly 
 do I believe with Erasmus, that ' the Church was 
 purest when its Creed was shortest.' As time 
 went on, and as the ' Church ' became thereby 
 removed further and further from our Lord's 
 personal presence on earth, so did the ' creeds ' 
 of Christianity increase in length and obscurity, 
 until they reached the complex subtleties and 
 perplexiveness of the Nicene and Athana- 
 sian Creeds. Now, no Church can become 
 popular (or national), that is — suited to the needs 
 and feelings of all — ' the masses and the classes ' 
 — which is based on abstruse, metaphysical, intel- 
 lectual propositions, and makes the acceptance 
 of these subtleties the condition of salvation. 
 The heart of the poor and illiterate man cannot 
 be comforted by such abstractions, and his needs 
 should be considered equally with the scholastic 
 cravings of the speculative ecclesiastic. The 
 * good news ' must be restored to its primitive 
 language ; a language 'understanded of the 
 common people,' a language as simple, clear, and 
 plain as the language spoken by Jesus on the 
 shore and lake of Galilee, and on the Mount of 
 
PAROCHIAL PARLEYS. 207 
 
 Olivet. We need an ' Established Church ' as 
 simple in its creed and in its ritual as was the 
 early Church at Antioch founded by Paul and 
 Barnabas, under the guidance of the Apostles at 
 Jerusalem, so lucidly described by Luke in the 
 fifteenth chapter of his history of the Acts of 
 the Apostles. I yearn and pray for the arrival 
 of another day of ' Pentecost,' when the Holy 
 Ghost shall come from heaven with a sound ' as 
 of a rushing, mighty wind,' driving before it and 
 dispersing for ever the mists and fogs and 
 dark exhalations from the bottomless pit, which 
 now shroud the so-called Christian Churches of 
 the realm ; so that all their ' apostles ' and 
 * prophets ' and ' evangelists ' and ' pastors and 
 teachers' maybe 'filled with the Holy Ghost,' 
 and may ' speak with other tongues as the Spirit 
 gave them utterance ' ; I yearn to see an ' Estab- 
 lished Church ' where ' the weary and heavy 
 laden ' \vould be received, and ' rest ' given to 
 them upon terms and conditions less perplexing 
 than this acknowledgment — * The Father incom- 
 prehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the 
 Holy Ghost incomprehensible ; and yet there 
 are not three incomprehensibles, but one incom- 
 prehensible ' ; an ' Established Church ' which 
 thundered forth no anathemas against those 
 whose intellects were too feeble to comprehend 
 the alleged divine arithmetical proposition, * The 
 Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy 
 
2o8 PAROCHIAL PARLEYS. 
 
 Ghost is God ; and yet there are not three 
 Gods, but one God'; an 'Established Church' 
 which would admit within its fold, for prayer 
 and praise and sacramental grace, and for the 
 full membership of Christian love, all w^ho 
 were willing to ' keep the unity of the spirit in 
 the bond of peace,' without the compulsory 
 acknowledgment of any ' creed,' with vain repe- 
 tition ; or, more elaborate and complex than 
 the words in which Jesus, when on the 'Mount 
 of Beatitudes,' instructed His disciples to pray 
 to their Father in heaven ! Why need there 
 be any theoretic religious test or ' creed ' for 
 admission and full recognition of brotherhood, 
 other than a prayer in which all could join, and 
 which Christ Himself composed and commanded? 
 The true spirit of Christianity is a love expansive 
 and all-embracing as the heavens, and ' creeds ' 
 should be as inclusive, and not as exclusive, as 
 possible. Would that our ' National ' or Estab- 
 lished Church might hear and joyfully act upon 
 the advice of the great son of Amoz : ' Enlarge 
 the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the 
 curtains of thine habitations ; spare not, lengthen 
 thy cords and strengthen thy stakes, for thou 
 shalt break forth on the right hand, and on the 
 left.' She should be well-nigh all-embracing. 
 At present she is far from this. In fact, logically 
 she is a paradox ; her practice, in many par- 
 ticulars, is better than her creed (the very 
 
PAROCHIAL PARLEYS. 209 
 
 opposite of too many of us) ; but still she is 
 not ' national ' ; nay more, she has much of 
 the exclusiveness and arrogance of the Romish 
 Church, with none of her consistency, her dis- 
 cipline, and authority. She is a house divided 
 against herself. She has no unity of creed 
 (practically) or purpose ; and, while frowning on 
 ' dissent,' dissentience and strife are rampant 
 within her own borders. In large cities there is 
 positive rivalry between sister churches — not as 
 to which shall best serve God, but which shall 
 obtain the larger congregation. The very tricks 
 of trade are employed to effect this unworthy 
 purpose ; choice music, floral decorations, gor- 
 geous robes, pompous, processions, with banners 
 and all the resources and fascinations of son 2: 
 and of choral harmonies, are brought into play 
 to achieve this end. The words of a hymn or a 
 psalm are secondary to the beauties and charms 
 of its musical composition. ' Singing with grace 
 in your hearts to the Lord ' can be cheerfully 
 dispensed with, provided onlv that your voice 
 be sweet, powerful, well-cultured, and well-con- 
 trolled ; for the scenic attractions of the theatre 
 and the sensuous sounds of the opera are 
 blended at these sabbath festivals, to attract the 
 fashionable, the idle, the wealthy, and the crowd. 
 Music, colour, and song are evoked to constitute 
 * a bright service ' which should move 
 
 Softly sweet in Lvdian measures, 
 
2IO ' ORNATE services: 
 
 to lull the soul into luscious repose or ' dissolve 
 it into ecstasies,' and make it dream, 'with sweet- 
 ness through the ear,' that it was treading a 
 flowery path to heaven. Churches crowded with 
 fair women, and coloured dresses glittering with 
 crosses of gold and gems, are the crowning result 
 to human vision. But if the utterance of the 
 name of the Most High in a thoughtless way, 
 and only with regard to musical notation, be 
 practically (as I believe it to be) a violation of 
 the third commandment, then is it a scene upon 
 which the angels of heaven must look w^ith 
 dismay, and One, higher than all angels, may 
 some day say, * Who hath required t/ii's at your 
 hand, to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain 
 oblations ; incense is an abomination unto me ; 
 the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of 
 assemblies, I cannot away with ; ?7 t's iniquity^ 
 even the solemn meeting^ (Isaiah i. 12, 13). 
 
 Vicar. I am really embarrassed to understand 
 you. At one moment you seem to me to belong 
 to the ' Rationalists,' and to set aside the high 
 mysteries of our most holy religion and the 
 supernatural facts and miracles of the Gospel, 
 or to explain them by the material or physical 
 laws which science reveals, as, when at our first 
 interview, you implied that there were men of 
 such cerebral organization that they could not 
 grasp and carry out the highest teachings of the 
 Gospel — men whom you termed, in the language 
 
PARADOXICAL STATEMENTS. 211 
 
 of Paul, ' vessels of dishonour ' ; and still lower 
 down in the materialistic or necessitarian scheme, 
 as when you implied that religious habits were 
 contingent on hereditary influence ; then you 
 seem to have gone off to the very opposite pole 
 of thought, as if vou wished the Church to 
 possess such an autocratic power that there 
 should be no marked difference between the 
 preachings of a priest in one parish and the 
 preachings of the priest in another — that all 
 should be bound in the same iron and inflexible 
 rule as in the Romish Church ; and then at the 
 close of your remarks vou exhibit all the fiery 
 zeal of the Puritan and condemn all ornate 
 service, forgetting the practice of the olden time, 
 when the church or temple was, so to speak, 
 under the immediate direction of Jehovah — the 
 people were invited to ' praise him with the 
 sound of the trumpet : praise him with the psal- 
 tery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and 
 dance : praise him with stringed instruments and 
 organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals : 
 praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals. Let 
 every thing that hath breath praise the Lord' 
 (Ps. cl.). Yes, disregarding the command ' Let 
 every thing that hath breath praise the Lord ' 
 would limit worship to a chosen few, and, like 
 John Knox in the time of the Stuarts, would 
 condemn music itself, and even banish the organ 
 ' as a kist of whistles.' 
 
 14 • 
 
212 'A BRIGHT SERFICE: 
 
 Parishioner. I deeply deplore my incapacity 
 to place my convictions in so lucid, logical, and 
 consistent a form as they appear to myself. 
 Nothing could possibly be further from my 
 wishes than that the worship of God should be 
 restricted to a few persons. The Psalmist him- 
 self could not be more ardent in his desire than 
 I am that ' every thing that hath breath should 
 praise the Lord.' My regret is that the trumpets 
 and cymbals and stringed instruments are 
 sounded by men who have no special desire to 
 * praise the Lord ' ; by many who ' are lovers of 
 pleasure more than lovers of God ' ; by some 
 men, indeed, who even deny his existence, but 
 who sound the stringed instruments for mere 
 pay — others do so 'to oblige the Vicar,' or some 
 female friend, or to gratify their love of music, 
 and to win praise as accomplished musicians. 
 My objection was that this ornate service should 
 be employed ostensibly ' to praise the Lord,' but 
 really to attract a congregation to a special 
 church. It was not the reality that I objected 
 to, but the 'simulacrum,' the 'sham,' the formality 
 of worship ! I fear that of too many of the 
 singers and of the musicians it may be truthfully 
 said, ' This people draweth nigh unto me with 
 their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips ; 
 but their //^czr/isfar from me ' (Matt. xv. 8). My 
 wish is that priest and people, pulpit and pew, 
 ^ employers and employed, should never forget 
 
' A BRIGHT service: 213 
 
 that ' God is a spirit, and they who worship him 
 must worship him in spirit and in truth ' (John iv. 
 24). In proportion as love grows cold ; in an 
 exact ratio as the spiritual sense and the spiritual 
 life become feeble and dull, does the craving for 
 external stiinulaiits and for material -did. in ivor- 
 ship spring up in the human heart. When jewels 
 and gems and cosmetics are needed to make the 
 bride attractive, then the love of the bridegroom 
 is growing, or has grown, cold. And so with the 
 higher, purer, deeper love of the regenerate soul 
 to its Redeemer and its God. When ' ornate ' 
 services are a ^ sine qua non^' when the attrac- 
 tions of the opera are needed to make it feel, 
 and to say, ' I was glad when they said unto me, 
 Let us go into the house of the Lord' (Ps. cxxii.) 
 — then that soul has fallen, or is falling, into the 
 condition of the Church at Ephesus, which ' had 
 left its first love.' Alas ! it is as true at this hour 
 as when Jesus trod the flowery fields of Galilee, 
 that ' many are called, but few are chosen.' The 
 solemn words uttered by our Divine Lord on 
 Mount Olivet need not to be modified. His true 
 disciples know all too well that ' strait is the gate 
 and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, 
 and few there be that find it,' Christ's flock is 
 stiir a little few,' amid the thousands w^ho ' profess 
 and call themselves Christians.' Pure spirituality, 
 the ' pure religion ' which is ' undefiled ' before 
 God, is slow to attain popularity. That ' God 
 
2 14 'A BRIGHT SERVICE: 
 
 is a spirit,' 'and they who worship him must 
 worship him in spirit,' is comprehended slowly by 
 the general mind. Poor, fallen, human nature 
 seems to crave for materialism and concrete 
 things. It is still at heart idolatrous, and craves 
 for a ' golden call ' in some form. Sensuous 
 things are dear to it, although these vary in 
 character with the culture of the individual, but, 
 ever sensual or appealing to the senses, the 
 emotions, and the sensual imagination only. The 
 Church of Rome knows this well, and acts 
 accordingly. Her extensive and deep knowledge 
 of human nature, gained by long experience in 
 the ' confessional ' and by her intercourse with all 
 the nations and tribes of the earth, causes her to 
 avoid the culture of the intellect in the masses, 
 to check absolutely all critical religious inquiry, 
 and to cause her religious ceremonies to be full 
 of dramatic effect, so as to gratify continually 
 the senses of sight and hearing, and to appeal 
 ever to the passionate emotions of the heart, 
 to the exclusion of all intellectual exercise. 
 Hence, the quiet acquiescence to her commands, 
 and the tranquil enjoyment of her sensuous 
 services, by the peasantry and inhabitants of 
 Spain, Italy, Austria, and the greater part of 
 Ireland. Early in her history, her penetrative 
 sagacity caused her to retain in the Pagan Tem- 
 ples of Rome, dedicated to Christianity, many of 
 the forms of the old pagan worship, and many of 
 
' .1 BRIGHT SERFICE: 215 
 
 the names with which the worshippers were 
 familiar, Rome in her decline abounded, as 
 you well know, in temples to pagan gods, as 
 modern Rome does to Christian saints ; and the 
 shrewd ecclesiastics, after Constantine, in the 
 fourth century, had seen the fiery cross in the 
 heavens, and had decreed the abolition of pagan 
 worship, and commanded that ' Christianity ' 
 should be the National Religion, took care that 
 the change should be as gradual as possible, and 
 that the special Christian saint to whom the 
 pagan temple should henceforth be assigned 
 should possess most of the qualities of the pagan 
 god who occupied it beforetime. Thus Romu- 
 lus was deified after his death, and the Romans, 
 like the Athenians, being 'in all things too super- 
 stitious,' dedicated a temple to him ; and, inas- 
 much as Romulus had been abandoned in his 
 infancy, and was subsequently providentially 
 suckled by a wolf, he, in his deified condition, 
 became the especial patron and benefactor of 
 little children. Mothers brought to his shrine 
 their sick children to be healed ; and, conse- 
 quently, a Christian saint was soon found who had 
 been in a like manner abandoned, and to him, 
 Theodorus, was the temple of Romulus assigned, 
 and mothers brought their children in a corre- 
 sponding manner, and received correspondent 
 blessings. Thus, antecedent customs and ' here- 
 ditary propensities ' received the least possible 
 
2i6 ' A BRIGHT SERVICE: 
 
 shock, and Paganism glided smoothly into the 
 profession of the Christian faith. The most 
 conspicuous of the Christian miracles, even at an 
 earlier stage, were reconciled to the Pagans by 
 comparing them with corresponding prodigies 
 in the history of their own divinities. Thus 
 Justin Martyr, in the early part of the second 
 century, in his Apology to Antonimis Phis, or 
 Marcus Aureliiis, could write for the Divine 
 ' Sonship,' and the immaculate origin of the 
 Virgin, and the ascension of Jesus, as follows: 
 ' We propound nothing different from what you 
 believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of 
 Jupiter ' ; and again, 'That the Word of God was 
 born of God ought to be no extraordinary thing 
 to you who say that Mercury is the angelic 
 word of God^ ' and, if we ever affirm that he 
 was born of a virgin, accept this as common with 
 what you accept of Perseus,' ' and, in that we 
 say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, 
 and those born blind, we seem to say what is 
 very similar to the deeds said to have been done 
 by Esculapius.' And to reconcile the opposing 
 Pagans to the fact of the ascension, the pious 
 Christian Justin Martyr writes, in the twenty-first 
 chapter of his first Apology, ' What shall I say 
 of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been 
 declared to be set among the stars ? And what 
 of the Emperors who died among yourselves, 
 whom you deem worthy of deification, and in 
 
' A BRIGHT service: 217 
 
 whose behalf you produce someone who swears 
 he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven 
 from the funeral pyre ' (p. 25). Thus has it ever 
 been, thus is it still, ' the carnal mind is enmity 
 against God,' and ' the natural man receiveth 
 not the things of the spirit of God ; for they 
 are foolishness unto him.' Professing them- 
 selves to be wise, they became fools, and 
 changed the glory of the incorruptible God 
 into an image made like to corruptible man. . . 
 Changed the truth of God into a lie and 
 worshipped and served the creature more than 
 the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen ' 
 (Rom. i.). ' Carnal ordinances,' the observation 
 of davs and months and vears, ' the weak and 
 beggarly elements ' of the senses are fascinating and 
 dear to the multitudes high and low. The things 
 which are seen, dominate over the Unseen. And 
 thus, true and spiritual worship is not sufficiently 
 dramatic to meet the desires of either the 
 ' classes or the masses,' as a whole. Hence the 
 ' masses ' crowd in their hundreds to the military 
 buffoonery of ' General Booth,' with its drums 
 and 'shrill, piercing-fife,' its flags, red waistcoats, 
 sashes, marches, titles, and noise, while, on the 
 other hand, incense and bright-robed priests and 
 surpliced processions and banners and crosses, 
 and the choicest and choralled chants by cultured 
 voices, are demanded by the ' classes.' A refined 
 
21 8 ' A BRIGHT SERPICe: 
 
 taste and a cultured intellect, if not a devout 
 heart, cause them to say — 
 
 Let my due feet never fail 
 To walk the studious cloysters' pale, 
 And love the high -embo wed roof. 
 With antick pillars massy proof. 
 And storied windows richly dight, 
 Casting a dim religious light : 
 There let the pealing organ blow. 
 To the full-voiced quire below, 
 In service high and anthems clear. 
 As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
 Dissolve me into ecstacies. 
 And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 
 
 All these things I deplore, as alien to the Spirit 
 of Christ, but as to binding all in an iron and 
 inflexible rule, you must know that this is the 
 very exact opposite of my wishes, for no one 
 living can be more thoroughly impressed with 
 the belief that ' Where the Spirit of the Lord is^ 
 there is liberty ' (2 Cor. iii. 17), and my remarks 
 as to a 'national' Church should have caused 
 you to refrain from hinting it. 
 
 Vicar. Why, then, draw such a picture of the 
 trumpet, and its uncertain sound, and of the 
 conflicting parties you say exist in the Church ? 
 
 Parishioner. To show the inconsistency and 
 the fallacy of your urging upon me to accept of 
 a paradoxical creed (a creed irreconcilable with 
 the reasoning faculty) upon the authority of the 
 
CARDINAL KEIVMAN. 219 
 
 Churchy when, in fact, she has no controlling 
 ' authority ' over the preachings of her ministers 
 and the conflicting deductions they draw from 
 her creeds and formulas. Her inconsistency and 
 weakness in this particular I have already pointed 
 out, and they are almost the ' gibes ' of her 
 foes. The eloquent Cardinal Newman, in one of 
 his Discourses to Mixed Congregations^ says, 
 'Attachment is not trust, nor is to obey the 
 same as to look up to and to rely upon ; nor do 
 I think that any thoughtful or educated man can 
 simply believe or confide in the ivord of the 
 Established Church. I never met any such per- 
 son who did or said he did, and I do not think that 
 such a person is possible.' This is severe, but not 
 more severe, and certainlv not more true, than 
 when, in again speaking of the Church of England, 
 he proceeds : 'Does not its essence lie in its recog- 
 nition by the State ? is not its establishment its 
 YQxy form f What would it be, would it last ten 
 years, if abandoned to itself? In the same address 
 he said : ' Strip it of this world, and you have 
 performed a mortal operation upon it, for it has 
 ceased to be. You know that, did not the State 
 compel it to be one, it would split at once into 
 three ' [High, Broad, Low, he means] ' several 
 bodies, each bearing vv^ithin it the elements of 
 further division. It moves because the State 
 moves ; it is an appendage whether weapon or 
 decoration of the sovereign power ; it is the 
 
2 20 CARDINAL NEIVMAN. 
 
 religion not even of a race, but of the ruling 
 portion of a race.' 
 
 Vicar. Well may you call the Cardinal 
 eloquent ; he exceeds all men in the smoothness, 
 the rhythm, the poetry of his sentences ; and his 
 silvery voice adds to their fascination and charm. 
 It was a great, a deep misfortune to lose him 
 from our midst — for who could have foreseen the 
 depths into which he has fallen ! ' O what a 
 noble mind is here o'erthrown ' by credulity and 
 superstition ! How little did any of us deem 
 that the slashing critic of the Church of Rome, 
 the puissant pamphleteer, the trenchant ' tractar- 
 ian,' the chieftain of the British Critic^ should 
 become the abject slave and sycophant of the 
 Church he censured ! The man of all others 
 who exercised his mind, who applied the teach- 
 ings of history with such energy and power to 
 the intellect and reason of his fellows, now, 
 alas ! pours scorn on the noblest attribute of 
 man, accepts with reverence the wildest credu- 
 lities of the ' dark ages,' and clothes the silliest 
 superstitions with all the graces of poetry ! 
 ' Great wit to madness nearlv is allied.' Who 
 could have thought it possible that the man who 
 drew crowds of the most learned members of one 
 of the most renowned universities in the world 
 to listen to his sermons in St. Mary's, Oxford, 
 would live to write such eloquent nonsense as 
 the following : ' The store of relics is inexhaus- 
 
CARDINAL NEIFMAN. 221 
 
 tible ; they are multiplied through all lands, and 
 e^ich par fi'c/e oi each has in it at least a dormant^ 
 perhaps an energetic^ virtue of supernatural 
 operation. At Rome there is the true Cross, the 
 crib of Bethlehem, and the chair of St. Peter ; 
 portions of the crown of thorns are kept at Paris ; 
 the holy coat is shown at Treves ; the winding- 
 sheet at Turin ; at Monza the iron crown is 
 formed out of a nail of the Cross ; and another 
 nail is claimed for the Duomo of Milan ; and 
 pieces of our Lady's habit are to be seen in the 
 Escurial. The Agnus Dei, blessed medals, the 
 scapular, the cord of St. Francis — all are the 
 medium of Divine manifestations and graces. 
 Crucifixes have bowed the head to the sup- 
 pliant, and madonnas have bent their eyes upon 
 assembled crowds. St. Januarius's blood liquefies 
 periodically at Naples, and St. Winifred's Well is 
 the scene of wonders even in our unbelievinjr 
 country ! ' {^Present Position of Catholics^ p. 
 .290.) Is it not most sad ? does not this very 
 record of the signs and wonders of the Popish 
 Church bring to mind with irresistible force the 
 prophetic words of St. Paul : ' Then shall that 
 Wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall con- 
 sume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
 destroy with the brightness of his coming : Even 
 him^ whose coming is after the working of Satan 
 with all power and signs and lying wonders^ ? 
 (2 Thessalonians ii. 8, 9). Since the Fall and 
 
2 23 CARDINAL NEWMAN. 
 
 the Crucifixion I know nothing more sad, more 
 appalling in the spiritual history of man than this 
 spectacle ! Does it not shock you ? 
 
 Parishioner. I am grieved, but not shocked ; 
 that is, I am not surprised, because it is the 
 practical outcome of dogmatic teachings upon 
 an inquiring, honest, and devout spirit. By 
 inheritance, by disposition, by training, and every 
 social surrounding, John Newman was from his 
 earliest years imbued with a spirit of devout 
 reverence. He has undergone three stages ; but 
 the first and last are analogous in this respect, 
 that they are based on th.Q feelings and sentiments 
 alone, and hold the intellect and the reasoning 
 powers in aversion and dread. At a time when 
 society around was cold and worldly his home 
 was the abode of piety and of fervid belief in the 
 ' doctrine of grace ' and ' of the new birth.' His 
 literary guides were Venn, Simeon, Milner, Scott; 
 and the person who was the human means of his 
 'conversion' and the beginning of 'divine faith in 
 him ' was Walter Meyers of Pembroke College. 
 Of this 'conversion' he has said he 'was more 
 certain than that he had hands and feet.' Under 
 these influences he went to the University of 
 Oxford ; while there he became acquainted with 
 Whately (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin), 
 who, he says, ' emphatically opened my mind and 
 taught me to think and nse my reason ; and thus 
 he soon became dissatisfied with the narrowness, 
 
CARDINAL NEJFMAN. 223 
 
 the fanaticism, the sour creed, and the mental 
 mediocrity of the ' Evangelicals,' and abandoned 
 them as a party, although their early influence on 
 his nature abides to this hour. He then became 
 distinguished as a polemical preacher and an 
 ardent critic, making vigorous onslaughts on 
 Dissent, Protestantism, and the Papacy ; and as 
 upholding Church principles (Anglican) against 
 Papacy and ' Dissent ' alike — his great dialectic 
 work on The Prophetical Office being then 
 thought a certain bulwark against the encroach- 
 ments of the Papal power, as it certainly was 
 destructive, generally speaking, in the Church of 
 England of the ' low ' views of Evangelicalism — 
 this middle stage of his thought, like his Via 
 Media^ soon merged again into abject submission 
 to dogma and authority. Whately's influence 
 passed away ; and ' to open the mind,' ' to teach 
 to think,' ' to use the reason,' again became as 
 repellent to him as to any ' Evangelical.' The 
 fanaticism of feeling and sentiment regained its 
 ascendency. Hereditary influence and the plastic 
 mouldings of childhood reasserted themselves, 
 and the saying of Horace, ' Naturani expelles 
 fiircd, tamen usque reciirret^ was realized. The 
 Pope usurped the place of the Bible. This last 
 ' conversion ' (regarded psychologically) was 
 simply a recurrence to the emotions and feelings 
 of his earlier days. In Cardinal Newman we 
 observe one of those impassioned souls which 
 
2 24 CARDINAL NEWMAN. 
 
 become * possessed ' with an idea, which thence- 
 forth dominates over ' common sense ' and every 
 judicial attribute. His fanaticism is absokite. 
 His judgment is as feeble as that of a child. 
 Were the Pope to issue an ' Encyclical ' to- 
 morrow, declaring that the sun went round the 
 earth, and that the theory of gravitation was 
 sinful, the Cardinal would bow to it with abject 
 submission, like as the Jesuits, when issuing an 
 edition of Newton's works in 1742, stated that 
 they did not accept his description of the move- 
 ment of the earth because the Pope had pro- 
 nounced it false. In him emotion and sentiment 
 are supreme, and therefore mystic rites and cere- 
 monies become the joy of his existence. ' To me,' 
 he writes, ' nothing ts so consoling, so piercing, so 
 thrilling, so overcoming as the Mass. I could 
 attend Masses for ever and not be tired ' (Loss 
 and Gain^ p. 290). ' Masses ' have become to 
 Newman what wild hymns and rapturous exclama- 
 tions are to the ' Salvation Army ' ; or the 
 ' unction ' sermons of Spurgeon on ' predestina- 
 tion,' ' special election,' and the like are to 
 ' God's elect ' who throng the ' Metropolitan 
 Tabernacle.' Still, with this mental defect, John 
 Henrv Newman is an honest man, and as such to 
 be respected. In violating his vows and in aban- 
 doning the Church of his fathers and in going 
 over to the Church whose doctrines he once 
 described as * impious, heretical, and damnable,' 
 
CARDINAL NEIFMAN. 225 
 
 he has consistently carried out the teachings 
 which in these interviews you have earnestly 
 impressed upon me. 
 
 Vicar. When have I ever impressed upon 
 you, or upon anyone else, such absurdities as 
 that ' the iron crown at Monza had been formed 
 out of one nail of the Cross,' ' that crucifixes have 
 bowed the head to suppliants, and madonnas 
 had bent their eyes upon assembled crowds ' ? 
 Your statement as to my teachings is prepos- 
 terous and most unjust. 
 
 Parishioner. You may not intentionally have 
 wished for such results, but the acceptance of 
 such fables as truths is the necessary corollary of 
 your teaching. Whenever the ' reason^' or dis- 
 cerning power in man, is forbidden to be exer- 
 cised ; whenever it is demanded that the intellect 
 should bow to 'tradition' and to the dogmatic 
 'authority'; whenever ;;/cz/^/7'c7/ things are repre- 
 sented as the special media ' of Divine manifest- 
 ations and graces ' — it does not matter much 
 whether it be ' an iron nail,' ' a bit of wood,' ' a 
 piece of our Lady's habit,' ' a blessed medal,' or 
 ' a piece of bread and a drop of wine ' — when, 
 in short, a man is assured, amid all the holy 
 solemnities of public worship, that, except at the 
 command of the ' Church,' he implicitly believes 
 and holds a faith which to him is absurd and 
 incomprehensible, ' without doubt he shall perish 
 everlastingly'; then there can be no limit to 
 
 15 
 
226 DIFFICULTIES OF FAITH. 
 
 credulity. I myself could more easily believe in 
 any one of the so-called miracles recited by 
 Newman, and in its spiritual potency, than I 
 could comprehend and believe in the phraseology, 
 or, as it might be called, the ' logomachy,' of the 
 Athanasian Creed. 
 
 Vicar. It is almost — nay quite — profane to 
 compare the facts and the circumstances. In the 
 Holy Creed only Divine Persons are referred to, 
 not even the Virgin Mary herself, much less ' a 
 portion ' ofher 'habit.' 
 
 Parishioner. On this fact we are at issue. 
 You regard Jesus as God, and the Holy Ghost as 
 God ; and to these propositions I demur, and 
 am not more willing to accept and use these 
 words than I am to receive and reverence the 
 term ' mother of God,' by which the more vener- 
 able, more powerful, and larger Church designates 
 the Virgin. No, sir. Cardinal Newman is more 
 consistent, and infinitely more frank, than any 
 bishop or priest I know of in the Church of 
 England. He is anxious to preserve the tradi- 
 tions, the creeds, and the authority of his Church, 
 and he very wisely writes : ^ Avoid, I say, inquiry; 
 for it will but lead yon thither, where there is no 
 light, no peace, no hope; it will lead you to the 
 deep pit, where the sun, and the moon, and the 
 stars, and the beauteous heavens are not, but 
 chilliness and barrenness and perpetual deso- 
 lation ' {Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 
 
FAITH AND FACTS, 227 
 
 p. 283). I regard these eloquent words as most 
 wise, sagacious, and shrewd from lu's standpoint ; 
 wise as was the advice of the monk who, soon 
 after Gutenberg's printing-type came into use, 
 said, ' We must root out this press, or it will root 
 out us.' There is, there can be, no alliance 
 between the principles of Protestantism, which 
 suggest ' inquiry,' and the principles of a Church 
 which demands that all the reasoning faculties 
 should succumb to her dogmatic 'faith'; hence 
 the consistency of strictly forbidding all 'inquiry,' 
 and demanding absolute submission, without any 
 of the qualifying circumstances which, verbally, 
 the Articles of our Church admit. As I have 
 already stated, these qualifying circumstances are 
 illusory and out of place so long as the ' Com- 
 mination Service ' and the ' Athanasian Creed ' 
 form important parts of the public worship. 
 
 Vicar. There is a bitter perverseness in your 
 frequent comparison between the two Churches. 
 Anglican and Roman, and their respective modes 
 of maintaining their tenets, to the disadvantage 
 of the former. If we had an audience, few 
 would admit that you were sincere in affecting 
 not to see more difficulty in accepting and 
 believing the childish puerilities of Newman than 
 in accepting and believing the sublime mysteries 
 of the Creed of St. Athanasius ; and I could 
 recognize no more puerile credulity in accepting 
 and believing the wild legends of the ' coat of 
 
 15 * 
 
228 ROiMAN CATHOLIC MIRACLES. 
 
 Treves,' 'the iron nail' of Monza crown, and 
 such-like follies, than in accepting and reverenc- 
 ing the ineffable dogma that in the Trinity none 
 is afore or after other, none is greater or less than 
 another, but the whole three Persons are co- 
 eternal together and co-equal ; that in all things, 
 as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the 
 Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. 
 
 Parisliioncr. Probably, in an audience 'few' 
 would sympathize with me. The audiences I 
 have known have preferred that others should 
 think for them rather than thev should think for 
 themselves, and have always been ready to accept 
 of platitudes, if they were only clothed with 
 propriety and grace. But to myself, there is 
 less difficulty in believing the Romish miracles 
 than in accepting the Athanasian mystery. The 
 miracles appear inost iinprohablc^ but still within 
 the extreme limits of the possible ; and the other 
 is not. Take the iron crown of Monza, made 
 out of one nail of the Cross, for instance. The 
 iron nail may have been very large, and the 
 crown may have been small and thin, and we all 
 know that iron is a very ductile material. But 
 be this as it may, it certainly does not appear so 
 difficult to believe as if it had been said : ' There 
 were three pieces of iron, and each piece of iron 
 was made into a nail : the first was a nail, the 
 second was a nail, and the third was a nail ; and 
 yet there were not three nails, but one nail.' 
 
CREDULITY AND CREED. 229 
 
 And even such a proposition or statement is 
 more simple and more easily to be understood 
 than the statement which you have given as 
 necessary for a man to believe if he ' will be 
 saved'; because there is not superadded to the 
 genesis of the nails that the first nail was made 
 of 7ionc, that the second was derived from the 
 ore of the first, and that the third ' proceeded ' 
 from the other two ; and yet ' none of the nails 
 is afore or after other,' that ' none is greater or 
 less than another, but the whole three nails are 
 co-eternal together and co-equal.' The reverence 
 and awe which have been transmitted to us, and 
 the religious training of childhood, prevent us 
 from laughing at this paradox of things ; but if 
 we had never heard it until our manhood, we 
 should have been more inclined to smile at it 
 than we should at the alleged opening of the 
 eyes of a painted madonna in the Roman States 
 or at the wild flight of the ' coat of Treves ' over 
 the waters. I cannot, however, conceive that 
 the salvation of an immortal soul is contingent 
 upon the belief of all or any of these absurdities. 
 Vicar. I am so distressed by your statements 
 that I know not how to treat them. Your 
 enthusiasm, or, I might have said, party spirit, 
 seems to carry you away so as to cause you to 
 palliate the errors of an apostate from his ordi- 
 nation vows, and actually to place the spurious 
 miracles of the Church of Rome on a plane with 
 
230 CREDULITY AND CREED. 
 
 the holy verities of oar Church ; nay worse, even 
 to prefer them, and to regard the ' iron crown of 
 Monza' as less of an intellectual paradox and 
 ' stumbling-block ' to an inquiring mind than the 
 mvsteries of the Catholic Faith. This is most 
 perplexing and painful. As respects the late 
 Vicar of St. Mary's, much as I admire his mar- 
 vellous mastery over the English language, and 
 often as I have been fascinated by his poetry 
 and power, I cannot but feel that his ' Egoism ' 
 has been excessive, and chiefly in consequence 
 of the profound reverence we all at one time 
 paid him ; that his self-conceit has become great ; 
 and that, in the language of St. Paul, 'for this 
 cause God has sent him strong delusion, that he 
 should believe a lie.' I confess that I sometimes 
 tremble for his destiny. 
 
 Parishioner. That is strong language. The 
 silly liquefaction of the so-called blood of St. 
 Januarius at Naples, the bowing heads of the 
 crucifixes, and the opening, beaming eyes of the 
 madonnas are indeed dismal 'delusions'; and in 
 all of these the celebrated convert has publicly 
 proclaimed he ' believes^ Stilly credulity, how- 
 ever crass and childish, so long as it does not 
 injure the community, or culminate in an act 
 which is likely to do so, and remains simply as a 
 ' crotchet ' of the individual, ought, I think, to 
 be treated with compassion. I know of no 
 instance in Holy Scripture where credulity or 
 
DUTY OF INQUIRY. 231 
 
 creed has been condemned. In the great pro- 
 phetic panorama which Jesus portrayed (as 
 recorded by Matthew) of the Judgment Hour, 
 the one thing, and the one thing- onlv^ which 
 called forth the censure and the sentence of the 
 Judge was, that the hungry and the thirstv and 
 the naked and the captive had been neglected ; 
 no creeds were called for, no doctrines denounced 
 or applauded. Not even the ' prophesying in 
 his name,' or ' casting out devils,' or doing 'won- 
 derful works in his name,' whether at the font, 
 confessional, or altar, availed anything, but simply 
 beneficent acts and a pure life ; and, therefore, I 
 have no anxiety respecting the ultimate destiny 
 of one so pious and good. Moreover, St. Peter, 
 under special illumination, declared, ' I perceive 
 that God is no respecter of persons, but in 
 every nation he that feareth him, and workcth 
 righteousness, is acceptable with him.' These con- 
 ditions the renowned Oratorian certainly fulfils, 
 yet is he an unsafe guide in all religious per- 
 plexities. My praise, such as it was, had reference 
 to his astuteness as a partisan, like unto the 
 astuteness of the ' unjust steward ' in the parable. 
 I have shown by quotations from his published 
 sermons that he is no longer a safe teacher under 
 religious perplexity. He is the slave of dog- 
 matic authority, and his instruction in the words 
 ' Avoid, I say, inquiry,' are in direct contradiction 
 to the teachings of his august Master, who said, 
 
232 DUTY OF INQUIRY. 
 
 ' Search the Scriptures,' do not accept any pre- 
 tensions without inquiry; you have confidence in 
 the Scriptures, ' search,' ' inquire and see whether 
 they do not testify of me.' Newman is also 
 practically opposed to the historian of the Acts, 
 who declared that the people of Berea ' were 
 more noble than those in Thessalonica,' in that 
 they ' searched the Scriptures daily, whether those 
 things were so! It is an abject philosophy which 
 inculcates the closing of the eyes that you may 
 not see. And the consequences of ' inquiry,' ' the 
 leading into the deep, where there is no light, no 
 peace, no hope, no beauteous heavens, no sun, 
 moon, or stars, but chilliness, barrenness, and 
 desolation,' have no foundations except in the 
 poetic and romantic mind of the writer. We 
 know that by ' inquiry ' all the material blessings 
 of the world have been obtained, and that sun, 
 moon, and stars were never seen in half their 
 greatness, their grandeur, and effulgence until 
 the telescope of 'inquiry' had been directed 
 towards them. The writings of Isaiah and of 
 Paul prove to us that God desireth to be honoured 
 not with the heart onlv, but with the ' under- 
 standing also,' and Hosea even declares : ' My 
 people are destroyed for lack of knowledge : 
 because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will 
 also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to 
 me' (iv. 6). This blind, uninquiring, passive piety, 
 this piety of priests and ritualists, has been well 
 
DUTY OF IXQUIRY. 233 
 
 described by a divine (who is as great a master 
 of logic, rhetoric, and style as Newman himself, 
 and far more profound in the domain of philosophy 
 and science) as ' a refuge for the weakness, not 
 an outpouring of the strength, of the soul ; it 
 takes awav the incubus of darkness, without 
 shedding the light of heaven ; lifts off the night- 
 mare horrors of earth and hell, without opening 
 the vision of angels and of God.' (Martineau, 
 Studies of Christianity^ p. 39.) 
 
 Vicar. Dr. Martineau certainly gives us a 
 very graphic contrast between spiritual and 
 formal worship ; but his remarks are applicable • 
 only to superstitious phases of religion, or to 
 those abject forms of Christian devotion seen in 
 some parts of Ireland, and in other countries 
 where the people are very ignorant, poor, and 
 superstitious, and where religious services are con- 
 ducted in an ' unknown tongue,' as our Article states 
 — in 'a tongue not understanded of the people.' 
 In places and churches where this wise resolution 
 of Paul is disregarded — ' I will pray with the spirit, 
 and I will pray with the understanding also : I 
 will sing with the spirit, and I will sing w4th the 
 understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless 
 with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the 
 room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of 
 thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou 
 sayest' ? (i Cor. xiv. 15). 
 
 Parishioner. I am sorrv, mv dear Vicar, that 
 
234 AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 
 
 the resolve of St. Paul is overlooked and un- 
 practised not only in the wild districts of 
 Connaught, and in Basque Provinces, but much 
 nearer home ; for practically there is little 
 to choose between ' a tongue ' described as 
 'unknown' — or, as we may say, a 'foreign 
 language ' — and native words so connected to- 
 gether in sentences, and having such mystic 
 meanings attached to them, that they cease to 
 convey a comprehensible idea to the mind. 
 When you, in your official robes, and in the 
 performance of your holy office, tell your people 
 that ' ivhosocver will be saved, before all things 
 it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith,' 
 and you proceed to define that faith in the M^ell- 
 known manner, ' how shall he that occupieth the 
 room of the unlearned say Amen, seeing he 
 under standeth not ^vhat thou sayest ' ? 
 
 Vicar. I do not admit the applicability of vour 
 remarks. Every statement made by me under 
 such circumstances is as plain and as easily 
 to be understood as the nature of the subject 
 admits. 
 
 Parishioner. Perhaps it might equally have 
 been said of the shouting of ' unkno^vn tongues ' 
 in the Church at Corinth, that it was made as 
 easy ' to be understood ' as the ' nature of the 
 case ' admitted. Nevertheless the nature of the 
 case was such that St. Paul has himself recorded 
 that ' he that speaketh in an unknown tongue 
 
AN UNKNOJVN TONGUE. 235 
 
 speaketh not unto men . . . for no man imder- 
 standeth him ; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh 
 mysteries! The cases appear to me to be 
 parallel. Certainly, when you are reciting the 
 * mysteries ' of the faith one of your audience 
 feels assured ' no man understandeth him.' 
 Leaving myself, however, out of the question, 
 and taking a single sentence only of that detailed 
 'faith' which 'except everyone do keep whole 
 and undefiled, ivithout doubt lie shall perish 
 everlastingly^' how manv, think you, of your 
 congregation nnderstandetJi vou when vou ad- 
 monish them ' that we worship one God in 
 Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confound- 
 ing the Persons nor dividing the substance ' ? 
 Even removing the incomprehensible first clause, 
 how many ' understandeth ' ' confounding the 
 Persons^ or ' dividing the substance ' ? They 
 have learnt from the Articles that ' there is but 
 one living and true God, everlasting, without 
 body^ parts ^ or passions.' What, then, is their 
 perception of ' Person ' as applied to the 
 Almighty Father ? And as to substance^ they 
 have read in Genesis that ' every living substance 
 was destroyed,' and in Deuteronomy that ' the 
 earth opened her mouth and swallowed Dathan 
 and Abiram up, and their houses, and their tents, 
 and all the substance that was in their possession ' ; 
 and in twenty other places in the Old Testament 
 they have seen the word ; but never once in that 
 
2,36 AN UNKNOJVN TONGUE. 
 
 venerable Book have they read it except in a 
 sense contrary to that in which, I presume, it is 
 used in the above instance. In the philosophic 
 sense, ' substance is that which underlies the 
 attributes by which alone we are conscious of 
 existence,' or ' the unknown, unknowable sub- 
 stratum on which rests all phenomena.' Thus 
 viewed, substance is difficult to ' understand.' 
 Methinks, ' trinity, person, and substance,' as 
 they stand in your creed, with their ' confound- 
 ing' and 'dividing,' may be classed among the 
 ' unknown tongues ' of the Pauline Epistles. 
 Most certainly, as ' one that occupieth the room 
 of the unlearned,' I am unable to say Amen, 
 ' seeing I understand not what thou sayest ' ; and 
 I think my condition would be represented by 
 the greater portion of your congregation. 
 
 Vicar. Neither is it necessary that they should 
 understand it. It is enough that they receive it 
 with reverence and godly fear, and with becoming 
 submission to their 'teachers and spiritual pastors 
 and masters.' It is the meek and lowly who are 
 accepted of God. Our Lord has told us that 
 unless a man receive the Kingdom of God in the 
 same simple spirit of trust as a little child, ' he 
 shall not enter therein ' ; and the bold inquiring 
 Thomas, who wanted such full proof, both from 
 his senses and his understanding, of the resurrec- 
 tion of his Master, did not receive any special 
 praise, but the Lord said, ' Blessed are they that 
 
' BLESSED ARE THE MEEK. 237 
 
 have not seen^ and yet have believed.' God 
 looks at the motive, accepts the intent, and 
 blesses the deed which springs from a loving and 
 a grateful heart, however futile, or even silly, it 
 may appear in the eyes of the scornful. ' She 
 has done what she could ' may be the record and 
 the trophy in heaven of many a deed which on 
 earth has met onlv with scoffins: smile or stern 
 rebuke. 
 
 Parishioner. Most true: thrice blessed are the 
 'poor in spirit,' and the 'pure in heart,' and the 
 ' humble and contrite,' and all ' the weary and 
 heavy laden ' ones who pour out their sorrows 
 before a merciful God ; yea, much to be envied 
 are those meek and lowly ' babes ' to whom has 
 been ' revealed ' these ' things ' which ' the wise 
 and the prudent ' have failed to perceive and to 
 grasp. Thev may not be able to syllable a 
 prayer, and yet, with a deep consciousness of 
 need and an unfaltering faith and trust in some 
 great Helper of the helpless, may ' count their 
 beads ' even in the poor mud huts on the wild 
 moorlands of Connaught or elsewhere, as a reli- 
 gious and prayerful act acceptable to the Great 
 Spirit ' in whom they live and have their being,' 
 and not count them in vain. But then, what 
 becomes of your previous remarks which called 
 forth mine ? St. Paul never said, and I am sure 
 I never thought, that prayer in an ' unknown 
 tongue ' was unheard by the great Hearer and 
 
238 RECEPTIVITY. 
 
 Answerer of prayer ; but it becomes the teacher 
 to speak with ' understanding,' and not in an iin- 
 known tongue^ lest ' he who occupieth the room 
 of the unlearned should not be able to say Amen, 
 seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest.' 
 Moreover, there is no possible contact, there is 
 no semblance of similarity between the acceptance 
 of a paradoxical creed as a condition of salva- 
 tion^ and the outpourings of a ' broken and a 
 contrite spirit' seeking pardon and solace from 
 its Maker and its God. No, sir, I feel that your 
 antipathy to Roman Catholicism, your mental 
 vision of ' relics ' and all the paraphernalia of 
 superstitious worship, coupled with a sense of 
 desertion and wrong inflicted by a once powerful 
 advocate of your own Church, caused you to 
 confound creed and prayer, and to obtrude upon 
 and to censure me for notions which I never 
 entertained. Most heartily do I accept and 
 adopt all that you say respecting the meek and 
 the lowly ; and I will go further and say that a 
 bold and arrogant spirit never can learn the lore 
 of ' the kingdom of heaven.' It is the humble 
 mind and the loving heart to v>^hich are revealed 
 things hidden from the wise and prudent. It 
 was to shepherds in the field rather than to the 
 philosopher in his study to whom the ' good- 
 tidings of great joy' first came. I think there is 
 a divine truth, as well as sweet poetry, in the 
 lines of Coleridge — 
 
THE TRINITY TEXTLESS. 239 
 
 He prayeth best who loveth best 
 All things both great and small ; 
 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all. 
 
 Vtcar. You brought forward two distinguished 
 clerical authors to sustain your assertion that in 
 the whole range of Canonical Scripture there 
 was not a verse which, per se, clearly established 
 the doctrine of the Trinity ; proved it, that is, in 
 an unequivocal manner such as might be expected 
 in a book pronounced to be 'a revelation^ and 
 * the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ ' ; therefore, I felt it my duty to 
 point out to you that one of these divines was 
 untrustworthy and to be avoided, inasmuch as, 
 although he was once ' numbered with us, and 
 had obtained part of this ministry,' yet had he 
 forsaken that 'ministry,' become a 'false teacher,' 
 ' bringing in destructive heresies,' and otherwise 
 proving himself an apostate from the true faith. 
 
 Parishioner. Yet, nevertheless, as he was, and 
 is^ like Apollos of Alexandria — ' an eloquent man 
 and mighty in the Scriptures ' — his authority for 
 the purpose I quoted remains unimpeached, and 
 is the more weighty and ' mighty ' from the fact 
 that he, Newman, of all persons, is the most 
 determined opponent of the views I hold. On 
 this especial subject he is severely indignant. It 
 accords with the character I have assigned to him 
 that he should be so. As the Athanasian Creed 
 
240 THE TRINITY TEXTLESS. 
 
 is the most mystic and incomprehensible of the 
 creeds of the Church, it becomes ipso facto the 
 subject of his most rapturous praise. He tells us 
 that ' it is a hymn of profound self prostrating 
 homage; it is the war-song of faith. For myself 
 I have ever felt it as the most simple and sub- 
 lime, the most devotional formulary to which 
 Christianity has given birth, more so even than 
 the Veni Creator and the Te Deum ' ( Grammar 
 of Assent, p. 128). But, Newman and Keble 
 aside, I repeat that with the exception of the 
 verse which the Revisers of the New Testament 
 have thrust out as spurious, there is no verse, or 
 consecutive verses, which in their plain, gram- 
 matical, and vernacular sense show forth a 
 Trinity. It is this fact which emboldens me 
 to declare that it is presumptuous audacity in 
 any man or priest to declare that whosoever doth 
 not accept that creed, ''without doubt shall perish 
 everlastingly' I maintain that so fiindamentaV 
 a doctrine would have been — nay, in accordance 
 with the eternal princples of justice must have 
 bee7i — made as plain as the decrees of the Deca- 
 logue ; made as emphatic, unequivocal, and ex- 
 plicit as were the words of Jesus when He ' lifted 
 up his eyes to heaven, and said. Father, the hour 
 is come ; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may 
 glorify thee : as thou hast given him power over 
 all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as 
 many as thou hast given him. And this is life 
 
THE TRINITY TEXT LESS. 241 
 
 eternal, that they might know THEE the ONLY 
 TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ, whom THOU 
 hast SENT' (John xvii. i, 2). 
 
 Vicar. I am not surprised at your bringing 
 these verses with the same emphasis as heretofore, 
 but they must be interpreted by other texts, 
 which modify and explain them. I am myself 
 astonished that during our long colloquies I have 
 not brought under vour notice the clear statement 
 of St. Thomas as to the Divinity of our Lord, 
 recorded by St. John (xx. 28). The emphatic 
 words, ' My Lord and my God,' of the once 
 sceptical but now believing disciple ought to 
 dispel your doubts and restore your faith in the 
 blessed Trinity. In those few expressive words 
 St. Thomas furnishes us with a perfect ' catena ' 
 of theologv, a terse summary of the orthodox 
 creed. I hope that these words of the once 
 doubting disciple will be blessed to you, as was 
 the testing of the wounds in the hands and side 
 of Jesus to him, and cause you also to receive 
 the faith which is ' necessary to salvation.' Let 
 me earnestly remind you that in his adoration, 
 St. Thomas recognized alike the Humanity and 
 the Godhead of Christ, by the two distinctive 
 words, 'My Lord (Kupio?) and my God' (0 Oeo?). 
 In your professed reverence for the words of 
 Scripture, I base my hope that in this pregnant 
 sentence vou will find a solution for all vour 
 doubts, and that henceforth you will become a 
 
 16 
 
242 THE TRINITY TEXTLESS. 
 
 partaker in all the rites and ceremonies of the 
 Church so much loved by your forefathers. 
 
 Parishioner. This expression of St. Thomas 
 never impressed itself strongly upon my attention, 
 inasmuch as it seemed an exclamation common 
 enough in a moment of intense surprise and 
 wonder. I have been accustomed to hear such 
 expressions in moments of intense alarm. Not 
 long since, a mother seeing her young child 
 rushing from the cottage with her clothes on fire, 
 exclaimed, in her agony, 'O, my God, my child' ! 
 The labouring classes, when suddenly surprised, 
 so often couple the sacred name with other 
 names and things, that the words you have 
 quoted seemed to me simply an instinctive 
 exclamation on the part of the astonished Apostle. 
 It was not until I had heard the utterance used 
 for controversal purposes, and for the defence of 
 the doctrine for which you have now used it, that 
 I gave the words any special attention. As I 
 have said, the frequency with which the Holy 
 Name is uttered caused the sentence to be read 
 and understood by me as a simple exclamation 
 under intense surprise ; although, of course, it 
 showed that this direct appeal to the evidence 
 of his senses had removed the previous doubts 
 of Thomas as to the identity of Jesus and the 
 Vision which had appeared to 'the other disciples.' 
 After most careful consideration, and after all 
 that you have now said, I am unable to conclude 
 
THE TRIXITY TEXTLESS. 343 
 
 that these words prove a recognition on the part 
 of Thomas of the Godhead of Christ. Admitting 
 that the words may imply the acknowledgment 
 of some previous error on the part of Thomas, this 
 clearly had reference exclusively to the identity 
 and re-appearance of Jesus. The Apostle had pos- 
 sibly heretofore regarded Him as the Messiah and 
 Redeemer of Israel, and His death had frustrated 
 these hopes — hopes which came rushing back on 
 beholding his risen Lord. He could never have 
 regarded Jesus as God Almighty, or he could 
 not have felt so strong a doubt of his re-appear- 
 ance to 'the other disciples' when reported by 
 them to him. Moreover, I cannot fail to remember 
 that in the later months of Thomas's intercourse 
 with his Divine Master, the true relation of Jesus 
 to 'the Father' had been often dwelt upon, and he 
 had been accustomed to hear the two names of 
 Jesus and God associated ; he had been in the 
 habit of calling Jesus ' Lord,' and had received 
 approval for the same : ' Ye call me Master and 
 Lord, and ye say well, for so I am ' (John xiii. 13). 
 And hence the two ideas rush into his mind at 
 this startling crisis. A very short time indeed 
 before His crucifixion Jesus had most tenderly 
 besought Thomas and the other disciples in the 
 words, ' Ye believe in God, believe also in me^ 
 and in the jovous flush of his returning belief 
 ^in me,' no marvel that this pathetic entreaty 
 should occur to the mind of the Apostle, and 
 
 16 * 
 
244 THE TRINITY TEXT LESS. 
 
 that he should have exclahned, ' My Lord and 
 my God'; thus fulfilling the almost 'dying' 
 request of his ' Master and Lord,' and doubtless 
 not forgetting that when he was entreated to 
 believe ' also ' in Jesus, because he believed ' in 
 God,' he and the other disciples were, on that 
 very occasion, informed that if they loved Him 
 they would rejoice, because He (Jesus) said, 
 ' I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater 
 than /' (John xiv. 28). This exegesis is, I think, 
 decisive ; but admitting as a passing argument 
 your inference, the words or exclamation would 
 fall under the category of those ' texts' which 
 may possibly imply a duality, but would be 
 futile as an argument to sustain the Trinitarian 
 assumption. In no court of honest judicial 
 inquiry would these hasty words of the Apostle 
 outweigh the testimony which the Scriptures 
 afford of the fallacy of the paradoxical Creed or 
 * Faith' of which the Church of England declares, 
 ' except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, 
 without doubt he shall perish everlastingly ' ! 
 The first thing that struck me in examining the 
 passage under these new conditions, was that the 
 cry was not in the vocative case, as a direct 
 prayer in classic Greek would have been, and 
 the absence of which has caused some expositors 
 to consider the words merely as an exclamation. 
 This, however, may be waived, inasmuch as the 
 New Testament language varies much and 
 
THE TRIX/TY TEXT LESS. 245 
 
 frequently from the Greek of Herodotus or 
 Homer. Moreover, the words ' said unto hmi ' 
 {elirev avrd) are decisive that Jesus was 
 addressed by Thomas. Still, the words show 
 no more than that Thomas recognized in the 
 person before him ' The Lord ' (0 Ki'pi09), the 
 Master, whom he had loved and followed ; and 
 in His resurrection the power and almightiness 
 of the God (o ©eo? ixov) who had raised Him, as 
 Lazarus also had been raised by the prayer of 
 Jesus to the same God. Jesus, in His message 
 to the disciples conveyed by Mary Magdalene, 
 had informed them that He was about to ascend 
 ' unto my Father, and to your Father; and to my 
 God, and your God,' so that we need not be 
 greatly astonished at the fervour of the Apostle's 
 language at again seeing his beloved ^KvpLo^;' in 
 the flesh, and in recognizing the power of HIM 
 who, in the language of Peter subsequently, 
 ' hath raised him from the dead ; whereof we 
 are witnesses' (Acts iii. 15). While candidly 
 admitting, then, that an exclamation common 
 enough among the villagers of the Cotswold 
 hills would be an unusual thing in Judea, where 
 the name of the All Holy One is rarely 
 pronounced — foregoing for the present what 
 others, in common with myself (even very able 
 men), have maintained that it was the mere 
 instinctive utterance of agitated surprise — I yet 
 maintain that when all the circumstances are 
 
246 THE TRIXITY TEXTLESS. 
 
 rightfully considered, the words do not admit of 
 the ' exegesis ' you have given to them ; and 
 although not baseless, visionary, and false as the 
 alleged statements of St. John, that there are 
 three that bear record in heaven, and that ' these 
 three are one,' yet are they useless for your 
 purpose ; and the readiness with which such 
 words are brouc^ht forward bv ' Trinitarians ' 
 testify how exigent is their need of scriptural 
 * texts ' to uphold their theory. But, in respect 
 to Church authoritv, decrees of Councils, and 
 more especially the vast majority of professing 
 Christians holding the doctrine, these facts have 
 impressed me deeplv, and, as I have repeatedly 
 said, long delaved my utterance of vital truths. 
 
 Vicar. These quotations of vours from St. 
 John as to the * only true God and Jesus Christ 
 whom he has sent,' and your plausible explanation 
 of the words of St. Thomas, if they stood alone, 
 would almost compel me to fall back exclusively 
 upon the authority of the Church and the Fathers 
 for the grounds of my Faith. Indeed, it would 
 be well, perhaps, if we all possessed the defer- 
 ential spirit of St. Augustine, who said, ' I should 
 not believe the Gospel were I not moved by the 
 authority of the Catholic Church.' This^ more- 
 over, is the safer guide amid the conflicts, the 
 discrepancies, the deficiencies, and the literal 
 errors of the Scriptures themselves, as we now 
 possess them. But in respect to the especial 
 
THE TRINITY TKXTLESS. 247 
 
 matter before us, I have only to remind you that 
 our Lord on finally leaving His disciples, com- 
 manded them, ' Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' 
 This of itself is a complete refutation of your 
 position on scriptural grounds ; and the com 
 mand has been carried out through all the 
 Christian centuries to this hour, so that it reaches 
 us with the combined authority and weight of 
 the Scriptures and of the Church. 
 
 Parishioner. I have heard that a distinguished 
 Unitarian — [I dislike the term as I do that of 
 Quaker, Baptist, Methodist, and the various other 
 nicknames under which many so-called Chris- 
 tians carry on their petty strifes and warfare — ] 
 had said that this was the only statement in 
 Holy Writ that gave him any anxiety. Why this 
 in its isolated peculiarity should have done so I 
 know not, even if it had been more distinctive of 
 the three-in-one and one-in-three theory than it 
 is. The record comes down to us with some 
 suspicious circumstances. * Some ' of the dis- 
 ciples who were present on the occasion ^ doubted' \ 
 and further, there is no distinct record (that I 
 know of) of the formula having been used by the 
 immediate disciples of Christ ; and neither Mark 
 nor Luke, in describing the Ascension, reports 
 the words ; and John, I need not say, omits 
 the circumstance of the Ascension altogether 
 
2 48 THE TRINITY TEXT LESS. 
 
 from his narrative. It would have been much 
 strengthened as an authoritative statement if in 
 the early baptisms recorded by Luke in his ' Acts 
 of the Apostles ' the formula had been repeated. 
 On the Pentecostal occasion, however, when ' about 
 three thousand souls' were added to the Church, 
 we read only that they had been called upon to 
 ' repent ' and to be ' baptized, every one of you, 
 in the name of J^esiis Christ for the remission 
 of sins.' The name only of Jesus appears to have 
 been used. The baptism of Simon the sorcerer, 
 and also those of the people of Samaria to whom 
 Peter and John were sent, appear to have been 
 conducted solely ' in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus.' The special condition which Philip 
 exacted from the distinguished officer of great 
 authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethio- 
 pians, in order that he might be baptized, was that 
 he should ' believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of 
 God.' When Ananias restored Saul's sight we 
 learn that Paul arose and ' was baptized,' but we 
 have no detail of the ceremonv. When under 
 the preaching of Peter the ' Holy Ghost fell ' 
 upon many people in Caesarea, the Apostle com- 
 manded them 'to be baptized in the }iamc of the 
 Lord' In none of these primary baptisms have 
 we the triple combination of ' Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost.' Again, the people at Ephesus 
 whom Paul baptized ' in the name of Jesus ' had 
 not so much as heard that ' there be a Holy 
 
THE BAPTISMAL FORMULA. 249 
 
 Ghost.' These three names do not prove the 
 theory of three-in-one, still less a 'Trinity' as 
 defined in the Athanasian Creed. No great Act 
 of Parliament is valid — that is, it does not become 
 a part of the statutory laws of the realm — until it 
 has been passed ' in the name of the Queen, the 
 Lords, and the Commons ' — analogous to the 
 form you have given as necessary for the due 
 fulfilment of the baptismal rite ; but this fact 
 does not prove the equality of each body or 
 determine anything beyond the fact that the 
 consent of the three powers which constitute the 
 one government is necessary for the permanent 
 ordination of a law. The parallel seems to me 
 to be complete. The argument is powerless for 
 the purpose you quote it, inasmuch as the words 
 Jesus used, immediately preceding this parting 
 instruction, set aside wholly and absolutely all 
 pretensions of an inherent, underived, co-eternal 
 and co-equal Godhead. His precise words were: 
 ' All power is given nnto me in heaven and in 
 earth ' ; thus forcibly reiterating at the very close 
 of His ministry what He had told some of His 
 disciples at its commencement — ' as the Father 
 hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to 
 have life in himself ; and hath given him authority 
 to execute judgment also, because he is the Son 
 of man' (John v. 27). 
 
 Vicar. The manner in which you, and others, 
 bring one passage of Scripture into collision with 
 
250 THE BAPTISMAL FORMULA. 
 
 another, and thus, as it were, throw a suspicion 
 on both, convinces me that Luther and the so- 
 called reformers erred greatly in giving the 
 Scriptures precedence over the authority of the 
 Church ; and never was a more unfortunate 
 aphorism than that of Chillingworth, which be- 
 came almost a war-crv amons: the ' Evangelicals ' 
 — ' The Bible, I say, the Bible only is the 
 religion of Protestants,' for in tens of thousands 
 of instances it has caused that Book to become, 
 as it were, a charm, a ' fetish,' and as much an 
 object of superstition, as you have already stated, 
 as a relic of St. Peter, or a 'rosary,' or a cup of 
 'holy water'; but still, where its enunciations 
 are clear and harmoniously sustained throughout, 
 they must be authoritative with all professing 
 Christians. I must therefore again impress upon 
 you this clear statement of St. Matthew, and 
 correct you in your notion that it is isolated or 
 unsupported, for we have a corresponding state- 
 ment in many places, and especially in this 
 striking passage of St. Paul in his second Epistle 
 to the Corinthians : * The grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the com- 
 munion of the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 Parishioner. There is an aspect in which I 
 can sympathize with you in your remarks as to 
 the supremacy given by Protestants to what they 
 call the Bible ; but to ' the law and the testi- 
 mony ' is wvj present appeal, and I must not be 
 
BIBLICAL AUTHORITY. 251 
 
 carried away by a side issue. You have quoted, 
 in vindication, or rather I ought to say, as an 
 enforcement oi the ' Athanasian Creed,' the bap- 
 tismal formula as given by St. INIatthew ; and I 
 admit that it is, among weak ones, the most 
 weighty text for its authority that I am acquainted 
 with ; but, as I have already said, not so over- 
 whelming as to crush the numerous ' texts ' which 
 have a different issue, and more especially as the 
 precise words are not again repeated ; and, so far 
 as we know, every baptism reported in the 
 Scriptures was performed without them. Baptism 
 was certainly the initiatory rite into many forms 
 of religion ; was, in fact, the outward seal that 
 the special faith or religion had been adopted, as 
 when John baptized. But that it had not the full 
 significance and vital importance with which the 
 Church of a later age has invested it, becomes, I 
 think, clear, from the fact that Paul even ^thanked 
 God ' that he had baptized none of them except 
 Crispus and Gains and the household of Ste- 
 phanas. Moreover, the Jews, ' all our fathers,' 
 as Paul called them, were ' baptized unto Moses.' 
 This baptism unto Moses shows, with other 
 things, that being baptized in the name of a person 
 does not establish the divinity of that person. 
 On the contrary, it brings forcibly to mind the 
 prophecy recorded by Moses of the coming 
 Christ, which nnllifies the idea you wish to 
 enforce by the text ; for the Lord said unto 
 
252 BAPTISMAL FORMULA. 
 
 Moses^ ' I will raise them up a Prophet from 
 among their brethren^ like unto thee., and will 
 put my words in his mouth ; and he shall speak 
 unto them all that I shall command him.' Thus 
 Jesus was to be * like unto MosesJ selected from 
 the brethren, and what He should speak was to 
 ' be put into his mouth,' and He would speak all 
 that God should command Him, and no more ; 
 and then, after centuries had rolled away, and the 
 Prophet Jesus had been raised up, we hear Him 
 saying, in exact fulfilment of the above prophecy : 
 ' Then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do 
 nothing of myself ; but as my Father hath 
 taught me, I speak these things' (John viii. 28). 
 This, I think, is demonstrative evidence that the 
 verse cannot sustain the doctrine you wish to 
 inculcate. The order of the names may signify 
 the distinctive precedence of the Holy Beings 
 named — the Father first, as the primary source 
 of all power ; the Son and the Holy Ghost 
 following, as the recipients and dispensers of that 
 power. Be this as it may, it is to me a most 
 impressive fact that although Peter must have 
 been present on the occasion referred to by St. 
 Matthew — and it is almost morally impossible 
 that lie should be included in the phrase ' some 
 doubted' — yet did he not use the formula on 
 the memorable occasion at Caesarea, but ' com- 
 manded them to be baptized in the name of the 
 Lord.' This circumstance cannot be otherwise 
 
BAPTISMAL FORMULA. 253 
 
 than most weighty to any honest and discrimi- 
 native person. It would, I firmly believe, be 
 conclusive to any judicial mind before which the 
 question came, untainted by previous education. 
 Ponder, reflect ! There is the chief of the 
 apostles, the one especially selected by Jesus to 
 build up His Church, to whom the very ' keys of 
 heaven' had been given, performing or directing 
 the rite of baptism soon after the alleged utter- 
 ance of the command and the Ascension of his 
 Lord. Is it in the least degree probable — I had 
 almost said, Is it morally possible — after his mar- 
 vellous experiences, after his thrilling ecstasy 
 of joy on the Mount of Transfiguration, and his 
 anguish and remorse in the palace of the high 
 priest, that he should, in his very first official 
 administrative act as chief of the apostles, fail 
 to carry out faithfully, implicitly, and exactly 
 the instructions of his beloved Master ? Utterly 
 improbable ! Moreover, what he did subsequent 
 to their conversion was in exact harmony with 
 his speech which ' pricked their heart' — a speech 
 which nullifies all the subtle dogmas and all 
 the ' damnatory' creeds of the after-ages of the 
 Church — a speech which sets forth in simple 
 yet graphic and lucid language the real nature of 
 'Jesus of Nazareth,' His mission, and His destiny. 
 * Ye men of Israel, hear these words ; Jesus of 
 Nazareth, a man approved of God amofig yon by 
 miracles and wonders and signs, which God did 
 
2^4 TRINITARIAN TEXTS. 
 
 by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also 
 know : Him, being delivered by the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, 
 and by wicked hands have crucified and slain : 
 whom God hath raised tip, having loosed the 
 pains of death : because it was not possible that 
 he should be holden of it' (Acts ii. 22-24). I 
 must ask you to pardon this long disquisition ; 
 the apparent force of the verse long since im- 
 pressed me, and gave me much prayerful study ; 
 and the result I have now given. There is but 
 ojie other verse which has presented so great a 
 perplexity, and that one is still 'nebulous,' yet — 
 cannot upon any ' doctrine of probabilities ' be 
 made to outweigh ' the cloud of witnesses ' which 
 testify that Jesus knew^ ' that the Father had 
 given all things into his hands, and that he was 
 coiriQ from God, and w^ent to God' (John xiii. 3), 
 
 Vicar. To what text do you refer ? 
 
 Parishioner. To the first verse of the first 
 chapter of John, in connection with the fourteenth 
 verse of the same chapter ; for although it is 
 insufficient to sustain the Trinitarian theory — in 
 other words, the Athanasian Creed — yet do these 
 first fourteen verses require the illumination of 
 many others, and of much reflection on the sacred 
 history for their full elucidation. Individually, I 
 do not care to shun the difficulty by asserting — • 
 with Bretschneider, Schwegler, and Strauss — that 
 the Gospel is of late date and has not apostolic 
 
ERRONEOUS TEXTS. 255 
 
 authority ; for, although it is certain that the 
 writer has been influenced by the philosophy of 
 Alexandria and the writings of Plato, yet is he 
 full of the true spirit of Christ ; and if his intro- 
 duction be mystic, yet are his subsequent state- 
 ments so lucid and plain that to forego them 
 would be a great loss to my argument. 
 
 Vicar. Certainly the fourteenth verse with the 
 peculiarly Johannine expression ^ sarx egeneto^ is 
 a strong scriptural basis for the faith, but not 
 more so than the assertion of Paul to Timothy — 
 'Without controversy great is the mystery of 
 godliness : God was manifest in the flesh, justi- 
 fied in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto 
 the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received 
 up into glory' (i Timothy iii. 16) ; or his equally 
 clear statement to the saints and brethren at 
 Colosse, as to how anxious he was that ' their 
 hearts might be comforted, being knit together in 
 love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of 
 understanding, to the acknowledgment of the 
 mystery of God, and of the Father^ and of Christ ; 
 in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge' (Colossians ii. 13). 
 
 Parishioner. To those who have seen only 
 their English New Testaments, and are in happy 
 ignorance of hoiv their Bibles and Testaments 
 reached them — who to this moment read with 
 implicit faith in St. John's Epistle, that there are 
 three that bear record in heaven, and that ' these 
 
2S6 ERRONEOUS TEXTS. 
 
 three are one' — the address to Timothy would 
 be very weighty, and approximative to the verse I 
 have referred to. But i^avepwdr] iv aapKi is a very 
 different expression to a-ap^ iyivero ; and, sad to 
 tell, in the verse you have given the word ' God' 
 is not present in the best texts. Our good Bishop 
 Ellicott, with all his strong Trinitarian faith, after 
 minute personal inspection of the Alexandrian 
 manuscript, declares implicitly for 'who' (6'?), 
 and no other uncial manuscript pretends to have 
 the word. In no very ancient version can it 
 be found, nor in the quotations by the earliest 
 Fathers of the Church. Mr. Sheldon Green, in 
 his very excellent text and translation, published 
 by Bagster, gives the words ' He that was mani- 
 fested in the flesh' ; and in the ' Revised Version' 
 — which, unfortunately, comes slowly into general 
 use — we read, * He who was manifested in the 
 flesh ' ; and thus it loses every atom of power for 
 the purpose you have quoted it. Nor has the 
 latter quotation, for the readings of the most 
 ancient manuscripts differ exceedingly, some 
 excluding the word ' Christ,' many the word 
 ' Father,' besides arranging the order of the words 
 differently. Mr. Green, to whom I referred just 
 now, gives this passage ' unto acquaintance with 
 the mystery of God ; in which are all the treasures 
 of wisdom and knowledge in hidden store ' ; and 
 the most learned Revisers, who have recently 
 finished their labours, omit the word 'Father' 
 
ERRONEOUS TEXTS. 257 
 
 from the sentence, and assure us that the ancient 
 authorities vary much in the text of this passage. 
 Vicar. All these facts show the necessity and 
 the wisdom of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 decreeing that the Church should be the sole 
 interpreter of the Scriptures, and fully justify 
 the warmth with which Pope Pius the Ninth 
 combated the 'Bible Societies' and forbad the 
 reading of the Scriptures by the laity except 
 under the immediate guidance of the priests. I 
 have never felt this so strongly as since our 
 discussion. When it is known that the oldest 
 manuscripts w^e possess, from which our New 
 Testament Gospels have been derived, date 
 nearly or quite four hundred years after the 
 Christian era ; when we ponder on all the pos- 
 sible — nay probable — sources of error in the 
 copying of so large a mass of writing ; when we 
 reflect on the fact that the oldest, or ' Uncials,' 
 are written wholly in capital letters, without any 
 kind of pause to mark the termination of a word, 
 and remember how strongly religious feeling 
 biases the mind, and that this feeling was mani- 
 fested even in the days of Peter and Paul, and 
 led to their disagreement and separation ; when 
 to these facts w^e add that the first written Gospel 
 did not appear until some fifty years after the 
 death of Christ, and that a message conveyed 
 through many persons for many years does, by 
 default of memory or trick of the imagination, 
 
 17 
 
258 ERRONEOUS TEXTS. 
 
 become greatly modified or changed : then must 
 we acknowledge the great need there is that the 
 Church should be our guide and teacher in all 
 these matters ; nor can we be too thankful for 
 the promise of Christ that He will be with her 
 even unto the end of the world. 
 
 Parishioner. The Church of Rome in this, as 
 in many other matters, is sagacious, consistent, 
 and logical ; but we are bound, as members of the 
 Church of England, if we are loyal to her Pro- 
 testant origin, to maintain the supremacy of the 
 Scriptures. There is, however, no gainsaying 
 the truth of your statements respecting the many 
 sources of error in the transmission of these 
 documents, and the last few years have shown 
 how countless these errors have practically been. 
 Indeed, it seems the condition of things that 
 errors should creep in when the structure of 
 ancient Greek MSS. is understood. The equal 
 size of the letters in a word, their continuous 
 lines and close contiguity without any distinctive 
 punctuation or pause. The mistakes which are 
 possible and probable from confusing the mar- 
 ginal notes of some previous amanuensis, from 
 imperfect dictation by a reader, or the imperfect 
 hearing of a copyist, or defective formation of 
 letters and words in the MS. copied, and scores 
 of other causes. No one v\^ho has himself copied 
 much from the writings of others, or has had 
 others copy from his dictation, or has received 
 
ERRONEOUS TEXTS. 259 
 
 'copy' of his own writings from printers, will 
 be surprised that errors have crept into ancient 
 MSS. from each of these causes (except that of 
 the printers, who were non-existent). Uninten- 
 tional errors have changed the entire purport of 
 a document as completely as the wilful design 
 of the dishonest copyist. Witness the printer's 
 error in ' King James's Bible ' printed by Barker 
 and Bill, in 1631, in which the word 'not' is 
 left out in the seventh commandment (Exod. 
 XX. 14), and in some others, where the word 
 'righteousness' occurs in Romans vi. 13, in the 
 place of ' unrighteousness,' making it to read — 
 ' neither vield ve vour members as instruments 
 of righteousness.' The very expressive little word 
 ' not' has been omitted, even in works treating of 
 the revision of the Holy Scriptures ; for example, 
 in the learned work by Drs. Milligan and Moulton, 
 entitled International Revision Commentary on 
 St. jfohn's Gospel^ it is there written, ' yet we 
 should overlook,' instead of 'yet we should not 
 overlook ' (p. 341). And, as for oral transmission, 
 no one could accept it as unerring [who has 
 observed much of human habits] after it has 
 passed through many minds and for over long 
 periods of time. There is a 'parlour game' which 
 illustrates this forcibly. A short phrase is written 
 on paper and read to the first silently ; this person 
 transmits it in a whisper to the second, the second 
 to a third, and so on to a dozen persons ; and I 
 
 17 * 
 
26o PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
 have rarely known it to be accurate when given 
 out aloud by the last person. How much more 
 inaccurate would it have been had the message 
 from one to the other extended over months and 
 years instead of as many minutes? Everyone is 
 familiar with the illustrative tale in which 'some- 
 thing as black as a crow' became by transmission 
 ' f/irec black crows! As regards the great lapse 
 of time between the appearance of the Synoptic 
 Gospels in a written form and the occurrence of 
 the facts recorded in them, we are relieved very 
 much by the circumstance that St. Paul's Epistles 
 reach us, as it were, contemporaneously with their 
 issue from his pen, or the pen of his amanuensis. 
 
 Vicar. As you attach this importance to the 
 Epistles of St. Paul, permit me to draw your 
 attention to his positive assertion of the Divinity 
 of our Lord in his address to the Philippians — 
 ' Let this mind be in vou, which was also in 
 Christ Jesus : who, being in the form of God, 
 thought it not robbery to be equal with God ' 
 (Philippians ii. 5, 6) ; and further, to an equally 
 strong expression in his Epistle to .the Colossians 
 — ' For in him ' [Christ] ' dw^elleth all the fulness 
 of the Godhead bodily' (Colossians ii. 9). 
 
 Parishioner. We both of us have had occasion 
 to remark that by isolating a ' text ' from its 
 context great liability to error is incurred. This 
 IS especially the case in your quotation from 
 St. Paul's letter to the Philippians. The very 
 
PAULINE EPISTLES. 261 
 
 tone of the passage shows that there is some 
 moral to be inculcated ; and by reading the four 
 verses preceding the two you have given we 
 learn that in this portion of his Epistle the 
 Apostle is earnestly imploring the saints and the 
 bishops and deacons of Philippi to live in amity 
 together, to banish strife, to be like-minded, and 
 to cultivate the grace of ]iuinility\ and each to 
 ' esteem others better than themselves ' ; and to 
 enforce these precepts he brings forward the 
 example of Jesus, who, although He was the 
 ' first-begotten Son of God, in whom he was well 
 pleased,' yet ' made himself of no reputation, 
 taking even the form of a bond-servant' (SoOXo?), 
 nor considering it ' a prize ' or ' a thing to be 
 grasped aV (as some versions have it) to be on 
 an equality with God. As it pleased the Most 
 High that in Christ should ' all fulness dwell,' 
 and that men should ' honour the Son even as 
 they honour the Father,' there could be no 
 'robbery' in his claim; and as to being in the 
 form, or shape, or image of God, this statement 
 can hardly be startling, still less confirmatory 
 of any special divinity, to those who ' believe 
 their Bibles' and have learnt therefrom that 'God 
 said. Let us make man in our imagc^ after our 
 likeness . . . so God created man in his own 
 image : in the image of God created he him ' 
 (Genesis i. 26, 27). This explains all that is 
 implied in the words being ' in the form of God '; 
 
2(5a PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
 while his words to the Colossians which you have 
 given would be fully understood by them in 
 consequence of what he had previously said in 
 the same Epistle ; for after having described 
 Jesus as ' the image of the invisible God,' he 
 instantaneously adds 'the first-born of every 
 creature' This idea was also present in the 
 mind of the writer of the Apocalypse, for he 
 calls Jesus 'the faithful and true witness — the 
 beginning of the Creation of God ' (Rev. iv. 14). 
 St. Paul proceeds to call Jesus also the ' head of 
 the Church,' as well as * the first-born from the 
 dead.' [This phrase is somewhat perplexing, 
 because it would almost seem that Paul was 
 ignorant of the many persons who had been 
 raised from the dead prior to the resurrection of 
 Jesus — such as by Elijah, by our Lord himself, 
 and others] ; * that in all things he may have 
 the pre-eminence,' ^ for ' [mark the word] ' it 
 pleased the Father that in him should all fulness 
 dwell.' Thus the Colossians could by no possi- 
 bility have been impressed with the idea, which 
 possessed your mind when you quoted to me the 
 words you have done. Moreover, he earnestly 
 implored them to continue in Christian fellow- 
 ship, and prayed that their hearts may 'be 
 comforted, being knit together in love, and unto 
 all riches of the full assurance of understanding, 
 to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, 
 and of the Father, and of Christ ; in whom are 
 
PAULINE EPISTLES. 263 
 
 hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' 
 Here you cannot fail to notice the pre-eminence 
 and the distinctiveness given to 'God,' and also 
 the source from which Christ obtained the ^ prc- 
 eminence in all things ' ; and vv^iatever the 
 ''fulness of the Godhead'' may mean, it was a 
 virt2ie which Paul earnestly hoped might be 
 possessed by ' the saints and the faithful in 
 Christ Jesus ' at Ephesus, for in his Epistle to 
 them he said that ' he bowed his knees unto the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' that they 
 ' might be filled with all the fulness of God ' 
 (Ephesians iii. 14, 19). These statements of St. 
 Paul are (if possible) more weighty because of 
 his known learning, his zeal, and above all the 
 honesty of his -character. We feel assured 
 that St. Paul was not willingly reticent of any 
 important fact in the Gospel scheme. When 
 at Miletus, in his most touching appeal to the 
 elders of the Church in Ephesus whom he had 
 called unto him, he said, ' I am pure from the 
 blood of all, for I have not shunned to declare 
 unto you all the counsel of God . . . and kept 
 back nothing that was profitable unto you' (Acts 
 XX. 20-27). St. Luke in his Gospel, and more 
 especially in his history of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, shows to us that verily Paul ' kept 
 nothing back' that was profitable to the followers 
 of Jesus. As a man of consummate wisdom, he 
 adapted himself to circumstances, and ' made 
 
264 PAULINE EPISTLFS. 
 
 himself servant unto all that he might gain the 
 more ' ; and he informs us that, ' unto the Jews 
 I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews.' 
 So passionately did he yearn for their salvation, 
 that he actually tells the Church in Rome, ' I 
 could wish that myself were accursed from 
 Christ for my brethren — my kinsmen according 
 to the flesh ' (Rom. ix. 3). To these Jews, there- 
 fore, he must have been especially anxious so to 
 present Christ, that they should form a correct 
 idea of His (Christ's) relationship to God; and 
 he has so presented Christ, that they, the true 
 believers in the ' only true God,' are without 
 excuse in rejecting ' Him whom God did send,' 
 even Jesus Christ (John xvii. 3). From these 
 statements to the Church at Colosse, as to 
 Ephesus, and from the large numbers of like 
 utterances which I have given from time to time 
 from these and other sources, it is evident that 
 the followers of Jesus became blessed by God 
 with the same or like privileges with which HE 
 had endowed the ' first-born,' thus realizing the 
 pathetic and impassioned prayer of Jesus and 
 consummating His tender utterance, ' The glory 
 which THO U gavcst me I have given them ; 
 that they may be one, even as we are one : I in 
 them and thou in me, that they may be made 
 perfect in one ; and that the world may know 
 that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as 
 thou hast lovedme ' (John xvii. 22, 23). 
 
PAULINE EPISTLES. i^<> 
 
 Vicar. I have listened with patience and, 
 indeed, with interest to your interpretation of 
 the texts I gave to you, and to the collateral 
 texts by which you strengthened your arguments ; 
 and I did so because all your remarks have 
 tended to help me to a decision on a point about 
 which I have for some time been doubtful, 
 namely, the value of the Scriptures as a final 
 appeal in matters of doctrine apart from the 
 interpretations and decrees of the Church thereon. 
 Our discussion has convinced me it is a mistake, 
 and the sooner we claim and adopt the principle 
 of the Roman Catholic Church in this particular 
 the better for ourselves, our people, and the 
 common Faith. Your illustration derived from 
 so common or humble a source as a parlour 
 game is demonstrative, in my opinion, of the 
 improbability of oral tradition being quite 
 accurately conveyed through many individuals 
 for long times, and also of any manuscripts being 
 copied faithfully for many years in succession. 
 It is obvious that it would require a pcipctual 
 miracle — an ' infallibility ' — based on a stronger 
 assumption than the Church claims, as the 
 teacher and guide of mankind in spiritual things, 
 to have secured for us an exact and literal 
 transcript of the words and acts of Christ and 
 His Apostles, as tens of thousands of Protestants 
 regard the ' Bible ' to be. Their opinion rests 
 upon the most profound ignorance ; and of those 
 
266 PAULINE EPISTLES. 
 
 who become enlightened by history, research, 
 and common sense, and learn the true nature of 
 the Bible, too many of them at once fly off into 
 absolute scepticism on all matters of religion ; 
 just as the French people, on finding out the 
 fables and mummeries of Papacy, declare at 
 once, 'There is no God !' and become Anarchists 
 in all things. Your arguments have not influenced 
 my judgment in the deep mysteries and verities 
 of the Faith ; but they have certainly proved to 
 me that the Queen and Convocation erred when, 
 in drawing up 'The Articles of Religion' for 
 the ' Church of England,' they gave so much 
 supremacy to Scripture as to declare that it 
 should ' not be required of any man to accept 
 as an ''article of faith" whatsoever is not read 
 therein, or may be proved thereby,' without 
 having declared more distinctly and sharply with 
 whom 'the proof should finally rest ; for at the 
 present moment we have one bishop proclaiming 
 the falsity of the Pentateuch, and another 
 denouncing him as a heretic for his assertions ! 
 Can a house be more ' divided against itself ? 
 
 Parishioner. Nothing can be more true than 
 that the wild views held respecting ' inspiration ' 
 and the idolatrous reverence for the Bible incul- 
 cated by the ' Evangelicals ' and the founders of 
 ' the Bible Society ' upon the rising generation 
 of the first half of the present century, begat a 
 state of religious feeling and opinion, unfavour- - 
 
niBLlOLATRY. 267 
 
 able to manliness and morality. It diffused a 
 morbid and morose feeling, engendered pharisa- 
 ism and spiritual pride, banished all aesthetic 
 feeling and appreciation of art, created a dislike 
 to intellectual research of all kinds, gave rise 
 to set phrases in religious discourse which cul- 
 minated in cant, and caused religion to consist in 
 emotion, sentiment, and a fixed ' doctrine,' to the 
 discouragement of practical piety and usefulness. 
 Further, it transformed the ' Bible ' into some- 
 thing more hallowed and potent than ' the Ark 
 of the Testimony ' ; a sealed book in its meanings 
 to the myriads, although clear and infallible to 
 * the children of grace ' ; and thus it became a 
 kind of ' fetish ' to that large class, the low^er 
 middle class, whom Matthew Arnold calls 
 ' Philistines ' ; the practical outcome being that 
 the artisans, mechanics, and labourers of our 
 large towns capable of reading and fond of 
 listening to voluble and frothy demagogues have 
 become 'secularists' and scoffers on finding 
 that the idolized ' book ' was not, as they had 
 been taught to regard it, ' the immediate, un- 
 adulterated, unchanged, and infallible Word of 
 God.' Mischief of the direst kind has befallen 
 our operative classes from this cause. In the 
 past generation the ' plenary inspiration ' of the 
 Bible, that is, that every word was Divine, was 
 everywhere taught. To demur to the statement 
 excited the greatest indignation among the 
 
268 BIBLIOLATRY. 
 
 followers of Simeon, Venn, and Scott. It was 
 to the ' Evangelical ' as profane a thing as to 
 doubt the bodily presence of Jesus in a ' conse- 
 crated ' wafer would be to a devout ' Anglican 
 priest ' at the present time ! When the spread 
 of education through Board schools and other 
 influences caused men to know that the ' Bible ' 
 was an aggregation of books, written some of 
 them hundreds of years apart, containing the 
 history and the poetry of various individuals in 
 various nations ; that they had been translated 
 from several languages, and, therefore, subject 
 to the same errors as other books which have 
 been written and printed in one language, and 
 after the lapse of years have been translated, and 
 WTitten, and printed in the language of another 
 country, the effect was most sad. The pious 
 error zealously fostered by earnest and ignorant 
 men has (as is always the case with falsehood) 
 culminated in calamity. The scientific errors, 
 the histories of immorality and crime, which are 
 to be found within its pages, have been distorted 
 and exaggerated, and the volume which was 
 once reverenced as a sacred thing is treated with 
 scorn, even as a savage has battered to pieces 
 some ' graven image ' to which he had prayed in 
 vain for rain, food, or revenge on his foes. The 
 ' Bibliolatry ' of the past, this mistaken fanati- 
 cism, has produced such a revulsion of feeling 
 that it has now come to pass that the grandest, 
 
SCEPTICISM. 269 
 
 the best of books, the book verily containing the 
 words of God, is treated by tens of thousands 
 of persons with neglect, and by hundreds with 
 ridicule or scorn. 
 
 Vicar. The picture you have drawn is a sad 
 one, dark ' as earthquake and eclipse,' but I fear 
 that it is a true one. The literature of the day, 
 whether we look at the daily newspapers, the 
 monthly magazines, or the quarterly reviews, 
 is marked by a ' scepticism ' which would have 
 shocked our forefathers. If we listen to conver- 
 sation at the clubs by leading politicians, judges, 
 barristers, and physicians of the day, we cannot 
 but observe that the old reverence for, and 
 belief in, many of the statements of Holy Writ 
 have passed away. The vulgar scoff of the 
 early Georgian era may not be heard (the cour- 
 tesy which high culture creates forbids this), but 
 it would be sheer folly to conceal the fact that 
 many a Biblical record received with reverence 
 by our forefathers is relegated to the chronicle 
 ' of old wives' fables ' by the cultured minds of 
 the present generation. No marvel, then, that 
 smatterers in science, whom ' a little knowledge 
 pufFeth up,' that designing demagogues and 
 ' agitators ' should inflame and intoxicate the 
 minds of the ignorant and discontented with 
 statements and theories calculated to subvert 
 and destroy respect for all order and authority, 
 whether religious or social. The outlook of the 
 
2/0 SCEPTICISM. 
 
 future is most gloomy, but may the Great Con- 
 troller of all events, who can cause ' the wrath 
 of man to praise him,' and ' hath made all things 
 for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of 
 evil,' direct it to His glory, and the happiness of 
 mankind. 
 
 Parishioner. Deeply and devoutly do I re- 
 spond to the words you have just spoken. The 
 moral outlook of the future is, indeed, gloomy. 
 In all our large cities the revulsion from religious 
 credulity is excessive and w^idespread. It is, 
 indeed, correspondent with that great law of 
 physics which enforces that the rebound shall be 
 proportionate to the momentum of the original 
 force applied, and the fanaticism in respect to 
 the immediate verbal inspiration, and consequent 
 sacredness of the ' Bible,' was extreme. Biblio- 
 latry — for this it was — prevailed almost uni- 
 versally. To be engaged reverentially in any 
 manner with the Bible, no matter how mechani- 
 cally, w\as deemed a pious act ; a work not 
 simply ' well pleasing in the sight of God,' but 
 more so than a faithful performance of the secular 
 duties of life ; and consequently they employed 
 themselves in counting its chapters and verses 
 and duly recorded them. Nothing in relation 
 thereto was frivolous, but all was 'holy.' Con- 
 sequently we are gravely informed that the 
 conjunction 'and' occurs thirty -five thousand five 
 hundred and thirty-five times in the pages of the 
 
SCEPTICISM. 271 
 
 Old Testament, and that in the New Testament 
 it occurs ten thousand six hundred and eighty- 
 four times. Further, we have been told that the 
 twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of Ezra 
 contains all the letters of the alphabet ; and, not 
 contented with numbering the books, chapters, 
 and verses, devotees have assured us that there 
 are seven hundred and seventy-three thousand 
 words ; and, further still, that there are three 
 million five hundred and sixty-six thousand four 
 hundred and eighty letters in the ' Holy Bible.' 
 ' Churchmen ' and ' Dissenters ' alike smile or 
 pity, according to the depth of their Christianity, 
 when such things are told of Mohammedans in 
 respect to the ' Koran,' wholly unconscious in 
 respect to this kind of idolatry, of ' the beam in 
 their own eye,' while so very cognisant of ' the 
 mote ' in the eye of their Mohammedan brother. 
 The revulsion has, however, set in, and the scep- 
 tical feeling is evident, more or less, in all classes. 
 From the theories and conclusions of scientific 
 men, even atheistic notions have been deduced ; 
 but, as you justly observe, the smatterers, whom 
 'a little knowledge puffeth up,' have been chiefly 
 conspicuous in diffusing their platitudes, and have 
 not hesitated to deduce atheistic notions from the 
 writings of Darwin, and to publish them as essays 
 in magazines, or to proclaim them in discourses 
 at lecture halls ; although the great philoso- 
 pher himself has not authoritatively announced 
 
273 SCEPTICISM. 
 
 such conclusions. Indeed, so far from avowing 
 atheism as his creed, this accurate observer in his 
 monumental work on llie Origin of Species^ in its 
 third edition, writes, 'I see no good reason why 
 the views given in this volume should shock the 
 religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory 
 to know, as showing how transient such im- 
 pressions are, to remember that the greatest 
 discovery ever made by man — namely, the law of 
 the attraction of gravity — was also attacked by 
 Leibnitz " as subversive of natural, and inferen- 
 tially of revealed religion." A celebrated author 
 and divine has written to me that he has gra- 
 dually learnt to see that it is just as noble a 
 conception of the Deity that he created a 
 few original forms capable of self-development 
 into other and needful forms, as to believe that 
 HE required a fresh act of creation to supply the 
 voids caused by the action of his laws. . . . To 
 my mind it accords better with what we know of 
 the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, 
 that the production and extinction of the past 
 and present inhabitants of the world should have 
 been due to secondary causes like these deter- 
 mining the birth and death of the individual ' 
 (pp. 5 1 5-24). No ' atheism ' is to be found in these 
 grand words, nor do I think that the specula- 
 tions of biologists have been half so mischievous 
 as the wild theories of theologians, and the 
 perversion of the true meaning of words to 
 
SCEPTICISM. 273 
 
 sustain a pre-conceived or accepted belief. It 
 has been chiefly through theories of the Divine 
 Government, which shock the moral sense and dis- 
 gust the rational and instinctive attributes of man- 
 kind, that the widespread atheism of the hour has 
 taken its rise, and finds its sustenance. Let us 
 hope, however, that the swing of the pendulum 
 will right itself ; that the darkness may be the 
 precursor of a purer and greater light ; that the 
 widespread infidelity may be of short duration ; 
 and that the removal of this vast Biblical error 
 will be like the removal of some huge tumour 
 by a skilful surgeon, which, although painful and 
 bewildering in its immediate action, is followed 
 by vigorous health and lasting vigour. The 
 Great Arbiter doeth all things well. I often 
 think that great poets are true prophets, for 
 even the timid and despondent Cowper, despite 
 his Calvinistic creed, could in his wiser moments 
 WTite : 
 
 Hcavemvard all things tend. For all were once 
 Perfect, and all must be at length restored. 
 So God has greatly purposed ; who would else 
 In his dishonoured works himself endure 
 Dishonour, and be wronged without redress. 
 
 These lines seem to convey a sublime truth, 
 however much we may demur to the incidental 
 statement ' for all were once perfect.' The 
 modern teachings of ' biological ' science assure 
 us thi'it Tennyson was the more accurate, who, 
 
 18 
 
2 74 SCEPTICISM. 
 
 while accepting the theory that heavenward all 
 things tend, tells us — 
 
 They say. 
 The solid earth whereon we tread 
 
 In tracts of fluent heat began, 
 
 And grew to seeming-random forms, 
 The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 
 
 Till at the last arose the man ; 
 
 Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, 
 The herald of a higher race, 
 And of himself in higher place, 
 
 If so he type this work of time 
 
 Within himself, from more to morcj 
 Or, crown'd with attributes of woe 
 Like glories, move his course, and show 
 
 That life is not as idle ore, 
 
 But iron dug from central gloom. 
 And heated hot with burning fears, 
 And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 
 
 And latter' d with the shocks of doom 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and fly 
 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
 Move upward, working out the least, 
 
 And let the ape and tiger die. 
 
 Vicar. The lines yoii quote teem with thought 
 and poesy ; but I must protest against them as 
 most erroneous and heterodox, warring against 
 the very first principles of our faith, against the 
 teachings of the Bible as to the creation and the 
 prime perfection and fall of man ; and as a 
 corollary, against the great Atonement as a pro- 
 
SCEPTICISM. 275 
 
 pitiation for sin, and the redemption of mankind 
 from the consequences of the Fall. 
 
 Parishioner. As you have already said, the 
 Bible needs an interpreter. If we sought in its 
 pages for an authentic statement of the creation 
 of man, where should we look — to the first 
 chapter of ' Genesis,' or to the second chapter of 
 that book ? for the description of the creation 
 differs in each, and has evidently been written 
 by two distinct historians. I will not, however, 
 attempt to disguise from you that I accept 
 neither as accurate literal descriptions of the 
 creation and fall of man. I look upon the story 
 as an imaginative narrative akin to that of 
 Paradise Lost^ which Milton has based upon it. 
 No geologist of repute will admit that this world 
 is not six thousand years old, as the chronology 
 of our Bibles would imply. Indeed, most of the 
 ' defenders of the faith ' have given this up as a 
 baseless proposition ; and to reconcile the state- 
 ments of the Bible with the known facts of 
 geology various devices have been resorted to. 
 As in aid of the doctrine of the Trinity words 
 and verses have been forged and added to the 
 manuscripts, so to reconcile the first chapter of 
 Genesis with the indisputable facts of science, 
 word-torture has been used. ' In the beginning ' 
 has been wrested from its context and "made to 
 mean or signify a period of aeons, prior to the 
 creation of day and night. The word ' day ' has 
 
 18 * 
 
276 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 been made to do duty for thousands of years, or 
 any indefinite time ; although we are distinctly 
 told that the ' evening and morning were the first 
 day,' and so on through a consecutive series of 
 days and creative acts until we reach the seventh 
 day ; and then we learn that ' God blessed the 
 seventh day and sanctified it, because that in 
 it he had rested from all his work which God 
 had created and made' (Genesis ii. 3). This 
 perversion and trifling with words for theological 
 purposes has been sanctioned by the highest 
 dignitaries of the Church, notwithstanding that 
 the same Moses* who tells of this procedure of 
 creation also tells us after his interview with God 
 on the top of Sinai that the seventh day was to be 
 hallowed for ever, because God had in six days 
 created the world and its denizens, and rested 
 on the seventh day. For centuries this com- 
 mandment has been literally observed by the 
 Hebrews, to whom it was given, in whose lan- 
 guage it was writ/c/i, and the word ' day ' has 
 been by them regarded as the time between the 
 rising and setting of the sun. A book that needs 
 sncli manipulation cannot be of Divine origin. 
 To ' reconcile ' ^jwwn/acfs with Biblical history, 
 Dean Buckland, in his great Bridgewater Trea- 
 tise, resorted to this tricksy expedient ; and to 
 reconcile the irreconcilable, the scholarship of 
 many divines (good Bishop Ellicott among the 
 * Exodus xix. 20. 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 277 
 
 number) and the marvellous talents and skilled 
 geological labours of Hugh Miller have been 
 employed in vain. ' The testimony of the rocks ' 
 was adverse, and the zealous advocate of a 
 ' pious ' theory died overwhelmed with despair. 
 As the sunlight first illumines the mountain-peaks, 
 and then diffuses itself over the less elevated 
 regions, and subsequently sheds its splendour over 
 the valleys, until every knoll and every rivulet are 
 bathed in light, so is it with the birth and diffu- 
 sion of knowledge. The light of science is now 
 radiant in the higher regions of human thought, 
 and here and there we have even bishops, who 
 can gaze upon it without flinching, while others, 
 owlet-like, hover in the twilight, or shut their 
 eyes in dislike or dismay. Knowledge, like light, 
 is diffusive, and ignorance and falsehood disappear 
 before it, as darkness melts into the sunshine. 
 Superstition recedes, as the ghostly fears of 
 children vanish with the approaching day, and 
 thus it comes to pass that the awe with which 
 the ' Bible ' was regarded, and the dread of 
 investigating any of its statements, are disappear- 
 ing in the cultured classes. The good Bishop 
 Colenso, long since, had the honesty and the 
 courage to declare in a missionary address ' It is 
 impossible to believe in that traditionary notion, in 
 which, I suppose, we have most of us been trained, 
 of the whole human race having sprung from the 
 three sons of Noah about four thousand years 
 
278 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 ago, as well as of all animals having been derived 
 from those which were preserved with Noah in 
 the ark, when we know that on the monuments of 
 Egypt, dating shortly after the scriptural date of 
 the Flood, if not even before it, there are depictQd 
 the same distinctly marked features as charac- 
 terizing the different races of men and animals just 
 exactly as we see them now.' There is nothing 
 new in this statement, except as having been 
 spoken by a bishop of the Church of England, 
 and hence will arrest an attention from hundreds 
 who look to ' clerical ' authority for guidance ; 
 reflected from such a mountain-peak, the peasant 
 in the valley may observe the light, and profit 
 accordingly. It is in this region that I have 
 hope ; tradition, education, custom, and ' caste ' 
 make such enlighted dignitaries rare ; yet still, as 
 one great mind after another becomes imbued 
 with some individual truth, and has the courage 
 to enunciate its opinions, the light must increase 
 and the darkness disappear in a corresponding 
 degree. The ' morning stars ' visible, are as yet 
 few, but they are of the ' first magnitude,' and 
 Farrar, and Jowett, and Colenso, and Stanley, 
 augur the approach of day ; at present, however, 
 the dawn is feeble, for their ecclesiastic brethren 
 as a class, like dense clouds, intercept their beams. 
 As the cultured secular mind has become toler- 
 ant of the idea, that for untold millions of years 
 this earth has been the theatre of life and death, 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 279 
 
 foolish expedients have been resorted to, as I 
 have shown, to reconcile such statements with 
 the Mosaic record, and very recently, I am quite 
 sorry to say, forty bishops and scores of clergy- 
 men have testified their approval of the book 
 of a pseudo-scientist, who, adopting the pretty 
 theory of Kurst, of a series of panoramic visions 
 passing before the mind of a tranced seer, has 
 daringly stated that the description ascribed to 
 Moses harmonizes in every particular with the 
 facts of geology and biological science. By such 
 expedients the tales of Baron Munchausen and 
 the travels of Samuel Gulliver may be made to 
 appear as veritable history. 
 
 Vicar. When I said that many a Biblical 
 record accepted as a fact by our forefathers had 
 been relegated to the regions of * old wives' 
 fables ' by scientific persons, I did not anticipate 
 that you would throw aside the authority of 
 Revelation, because throughout our discussion 
 you have persistently said to ' the law and the 
 testimony,' and by the Scriptures, and the Scrip- 
 tures only, you declared that you would justify 
 your non-acceptance of one of the oldest creeds 
 of the Holy Catholic Church. Am I to under- 
 stand that vou have ceased to res^ard the Book 
 as Divinely inspired — as bein-g, in fact, t/ie Word 
 of Godf 
 
 Parishioner. I think I have already proved — 
 demonstrated, in fact, as far as words can demon- 
 
28o GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 strate anything — that the Holy Scriptures give no 
 support to what is called 'The Athanasian Creed.' 
 I have shown from its hallowed words — hallowed 
 by age and by the reverence and the love of the 
 highest and purest minds of our race — that the 
 doctrines or ideas contained in that Creed are 
 opposed to the words and the acts of our blessed 
 Lord, to the sayings of the Evangelists, to the 
 teachings of Paul and Peter and James, and to 
 the inspired utterances of the sages and prophets 
 of the Old Testament. I have shown conclu- 
 sively from the Gospels and Epistles of Holy 
 Scriptures — that the Athanasian Creed is Anti- 
 biblical. That in the ' Law and Testimony ' it 
 finds no support. It is wholly textless, and with- 
 out an atom of Scripture Authority — and by the 
 Scriptures and the Scriptures in their entirety, I 
 have justified, and that most fully, my non- 
 acceptance of the creed — which you are pleased 
 to call ' one of the oldest creeds,' although, as 
 a matter of historic accuracy, you might have 
 called it ' one of the youngest.' But as respects 
 the Bible, as it is not^ as its name implies it to be, 
 one book but many books, written by various 
 writers; as the writers of some of the books are 
 unknown ; as they were written in different 
 places and hundreds of years apart ; as some of 
 them contain descriptions of things which we now 
 know, from like things under our own immediate 
 observation, to be inaccurate ; as the books vary 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 281 
 
 in moral qualities, and are sometimes contra- 
 dictory the one to the other; as they have been 
 changed verbally in most important particulars 
 by passing from one language to another, and by 
 the design as well as by the unintentional errors 
 of copyists: as some of the acts applauded therein 
 are revolting to the highest and purest feelings 
 which Christianity inculcates and fosters, I cannot 
 regard the whole Bible as ^ the Word of God,' 
 although I most sincerely believe that in no other 
 book in the world can we find the words of God 
 so frequently and so clearly enforced. 
 
 Vicar. St. Paul, in his second Epistle to 
 Timothy, distinctly writes that ' all scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
 doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for 
 instruction in righteousness ' (iii. 16). 
 
 Parishioner. There again is an illustration of 
 the need of an authentic interpreter of the Scrip- 
 tures, and also an illustration of how fallacious 
 the Bible may, and has, become in the hands of 
 the masses. The text you have given is most 
 misleading through an erroneous translation ; it 
 should not have been printed ^All scripture is 
 given by inspiration,' but, as it was written by 
 Paul, ''Every scripture inspired of God is pro- 
 fitablej which is a very different matter. I 
 joyfully and most gratefully accept the fact 
 recorded by James, ' that every good gift and 
 every perfect gift is from above, and cometh 
 
282 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 down from the Father of Lights, with whom is 
 no variableness' nor 'shadow of turning.' Not 
 only in the ' old time,' but in the present^ do I 
 firmly believe that ' holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost ' (2 Peter 
 i. 21). God is 'the same to-day, yesterday, and 
 for ever'; and as His wisdom is infinite, His power 
 boundless, and His love such that ' his mercy 
 endureth for ever,' ivJiat HE inspires must ever 
 be in principle changeless.^ harmonious, and con- 
 sistent with HIS own attributes of justice and 
 truth. His decrees cannot be contingent on 
 circumstances, or change with clime or time. 
 But it seems to me absolutely monstrous that 
 men and women should, as they practically do, 
 bow with slavish fear to every word contained in 
 a bundle of numerous books which, being bound 
 in one cover, is called ' The Bible,' written they 
 know not when or by whom, and yet at the same 
 time believe that the operation and teachings of 
 the Most Holy Spirit of God were limited to the 
 land of the Hebrews, and to an epoch which 
 ended with the life of the writer of the mystic 
 book called ' The Revelation of St. John the 
 Divine.' This ' Bibliolatry,' this clinging to mere 
 material forms, this reverence for a printed book, 
 this training, this union of superstition and ignor- 
 ance, have caused ' Christians ' (as I have shown) 
 to equal the lowest savages in barbarous feelings. 
 Few savage lands have more painful records than 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE^ 2«3 
 
 has ours in Foxes Book of Martyrs ; and in The 
 History of Witchcraft we have also an equally 
 painful record of the effects of an exaggerated 
 and erroneous view of ' Inspiration,' and the con- 
 sequent idolatrous reverence for every word 
 contained in the Bible. 'Bibliolatrv' has exacted 
 its victims, and subjected them to cruelties as 
 barbarous as has ' Idolatry.' In Protestant Eng- 
 land, yea, even in Protestant Scotland, have 
 hundreds of persons been put to death by the 
 most excruciating tortures under the belief that 
 they wxre ' witches,' and therefore to be de- 
 stroyed, in obedience to the inspired (?) Mosaic 
 Law, ' Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ' 
 (Exodus xxii. i8). Instead of testing the Divine 
 origin of a book by the eternal laws of justice^ 
 the laws of justice have been made conformable 
 to the statements contained in a book alleged by 
 its votaries to be in every syllable the ' Word of 
 God,' although admittedly derived from a lan- 
 guage other than their own, therefore neces- 
 sitating a translation^ and as a corollary, the 
 inspiration of the translator. Even so honest, 
 and legally so learned a judge as Chief Baron 
 Hale could tell a jury : ' That there arc such 
 creatures as witches I make no doubt at 
 all ; for, first, the Scriptures have affirmed so 
 much ; secondly, the wisdom of all nations hath 
 provided laws against such persons, which is an 
 argument of their confidence of such a crime.' 
 
284 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 (Campbell's Lives of the Quecii s Justices^ Vol. I.) 
 The two poor women were hung accordingly. 
 Luther had heartily advocated the burning of 
 witches on the same grounds. For a time, in 
 our own country, the iniquitous laws demanding 
 such barbarities were repealed in the reign of 
 the Roman Catholic Queen Mary ; but during 
 the reign of ' Good Queen Bess,' at the instigation 
 of bishops and priests, the cruel laws were re- 
 enacted. In Bishop Jewel's sermons, published 
 by the Parker Society, we learn this : preaching 
 before Her Majesty, he said : ' May it please 
 your Grace to understand that witches and 
 sorcerers within these few years are marvellously 
 increased within your Grace's realm. Your 
 Grace's subjects pine away even unto the death : 
 their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their 
 speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft'; 
 and then, with consummate cunning, the wily 
 bishop adds : ' I pray God they never practice 
 further than upon the subject.'' Well might this 
 ' pious' prayer startle Her Majesty. No marvel 
 that after this appeal hundreds of aged, ignorant 
 women were condemned to death. Hanging 
 and burning were sometimes, nay often, preceded 
 by ingeniously contrived, excruciating torture. 
 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland contain 
 harrowing details. One case will suffice as 
 detailed by Lecky in his History of Rationalism 
 in Europe. One Dr. Fian was suspected of 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 285 
 
 h.iving aroused the wind, and a confession was 
 wrung from him by torture, which, however, he 
 ahnost immediately afterwards retracted. Every 
 form of torture was in vain employed to vanquish 
 his obduracy. The bones of his legs were broken 
 into small pieces in the ' boot.' All the torments 
 that Scottish law knew of were successivelv 
 applied. At last the King, James I. (who per- 
 sonally presided over the tortures), suggested a 
 new and more horrible device. The prisoner, 
 who had been removed during the deliberation, 
 was brought in, ' his nails upon all his fingers 
 were riven and pulled off with an instrument 
 called in Scottish a tiirkas, which in England we 
 call a pair of pincers, and under every nail there 
 were thrust in two needles over even up to the 
 heads.' Notwithstanding all this torture, the 
 quaint contemporary narrative adds, ' so deeply 
 had the devils entered into his heart, that he 
 utterly denied all that which he had before 
 avouched,' and he was then burnt unconfessed. 
 The storm which this doctor was said to ' have 
 raised ' was one which hindered the matrimonial 
 arrangements of King James with the Princess 
 of Denmark, by driving back the Princess, after 
 putting to sea, to Upslo, in Norway. A great 
 foe to witches was James ; and soon after his 
 accession to the throne, a law was enacted which 
 subjected witches to death on the first conviction, 
 ' even though they should have inflicted no injury 
 
285 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 upon their neighbours.' Twelve bishops sat upon 
 the Commission to which this law was referred ; 
 but, sad also to say, that even under Cromwell 
 the same system prevailed ; in fact then, and 
 long after, such cruel persecutions were deemed 
 expedient and just by all who regarded the 
 Bible, presented in our own language, as verily 
 and actually in every word the command of the 
 Almighty and Eternal God, and tens of thousands 
 still so regard it. Hence it often happened that 
 an unfortunate old woman, ugly, deformed, or 
 insane, was deemed to be a ' witch,' and therefore 
 it became wicked that she should ' be permitted 
 to live,' and holy men like unto Richard Baxter 
 rejoiced in their destruction. In his book, World 
 of Spirits^ he 'almost revels over the death of 
 ' an old reading parson (reading is usually an 
 antidote to witchcraft) named Lowis, not far from 
 Framlingham,' who was hanged as a witch. By 
 that ghastly perversion of logic and sound rea- 
 soning, namelv, testing the soundness of a doctrine 
 by the tenets of an ancient book, rather than the 
 truthfulness of the book, by the common sense 
 and justice of its tenets, all the said miseries 
 came to pass ; and even the saintly John Wesley 
 has left on record in his Journal, ' the English in 
 general, and indeed most of the men of learning 
 in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches 
 and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. They 
 w^ell know (whether Christians knew it or not) 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 287 
 
 that the giving- up witchcraft is in effect giving 
 up the Bible.' Yet has this manner of ' giving 
 up the Bible ' by the ' giving up of witchcraft,' 
 saved the lives of tens of thousands of persons. 
 It is appalling to know that in one year, in the 
 district of Como, one thousand persons were 
 burnt as witches, and that this stupendous crime 
 was common to all 'Christian' countries. During 
 the ' Long Parliament ' in England, three thousand 
 witches are said to have been destroyed ; and 
 from ' first to last in Presbvterian Scotland some 
 four thousand,' and this murderous thing would 
 have gone on even until now had not ' sceptics ' 
 (that is, men so called by others whom the said 
 ' sceptics ' might pity as ' fanatics ') protested 
 against the further continuance of the Mosaic 
 Law : ' Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' 
 With the abolition of the law the witches have 
 disappeared, although they were said to have 
 existed by thousands in Europe during the Middle 
 Ages, and by hundreds in England and Scotland 
 during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and 
 the Commonwealth ; and those who doubted 
 their existence were deemed by the clergy, and 
 even by so intelligent a layman as Sir Thomas 
 Browne, to be sinful people, or, in the words of 
 the latter, ' a sort not of infidels but atheists.' 
 [The said nomenclature applied to the ' unbe- 
 lievers ' in witches is still retained for use to 
 those who are unable to comprehend that ' three 
 
288 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 are one ' and ' one is three.'] As wolves and 
 other noxious creatures have disappeared in this 
 country under ' the resources of civilization, even 
 so have the grosser phantoms of the mind vanished 
 under the tuitions of observation and science ; 
 so, in due time, will also the baseless subtleties 
 and irrational paradoxes of the creed of St. 
 Athanasius, Our Divine Lord in His day abro- 
 gated the Mosaic code of ' eye for eye, tooth for 
 tooth, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound 
 for wound, stripe for stripe ' (Exod. cxxi. 24, 25) ; 
 and, guided by His teachings, and His practice, 
 the more courageous and truthful of His disciples 
 have in process of time rescinded the companion 
 law of ' Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ' 
 (Exod. xxii. 18). Thus truth and justice survive 
 and triumph. Thus do mischievous fallacies 
 ultimately fade from the minds of men, whether 
 they exist under the name of witchcraft, or 
 'inspired texts,' or the ' Catholic doctrine ' of the 
 Trinitv. Neither our blessed Redeemer, who 
 abrogated the vengeful code of ' eye for eye, 
 tooth for tooth,' or His faithful and true followers 
 who enforced the repeal of the death-sentence 
 in witchcraft, could have accepted the theory of 
 the 'plenary' inspiration of the Bible, as under- 
 stood by the 'Evangelical' section of the Church 
 of England, or by the crowds which hang upon 
 the lips of Charles H. Spurgeon, or follow the 
 drum and banners of ' General ' Booth. Jesus 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 289 
 
 came to fulfil and not to destroy the law of His 
 God, and therefore would not have dared to 
 condemn that which had been directly commanded 
 by HIM. Christ knew full well that the com- 
 mand issued by Moses was finite in its nature 
 and its purport, and therefore was not ' the Word 
 of God ' in the rigid sense taught by enthusiasts. 
 God is omniscient and Almighty, and therefore His 
 words and His laws are changeless and eternal. 
 Jesus would have said with Isaiah : ' The grass 
 withereth, the flower fadeth ; but the word of our 
 God shall stand for ever' (Isaiah xl. 8). These 
 clear facts being so distinctly impressed upon my 
 mind, I marvel that it has not aroused hundreds 
 of others besides George Fox into a state of 
 spiritual indignation and frenzy that men should 
 thus limit to place and time the operations of 
 that Divine agency which Jesus told Nicodemus 
 ' bloweth where it listeth.' Moreover, it seems 
 verging on profanity that the external works of 
 God, the eternal laws of justice and morality, 
 the voice of conscience, and the teachings of 
 nature should be tested exclusively by this 
 ancient volume, composite in language and theme, 
 rather than that these great principles should in- 
 themselves be the tests of the truthfulness or 
 untruthfulness of a record written by many men 
 at various times and various places. God is 
 revealing Himself continuously throughout the 
 ages, and therefore the present, as compared 
 
 19 
 
2go GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 with any preceding age, is one of light and reve- 
 lation, and has a higher claim to the phrase of 
 'wisdom of antiquity,' as being in reality the 
 more ' ancient,' or aged. 
 
 Vicar. My fears are greatly intensified by your 
 remarks. I regret deeply that you do not regard 
 the whole of the canonical books as received by 
 the Church of England as directly and exclusively 
 inspired, and not to be contravened by anything 
 whatever. Certainly it would have been better 
 for the avoidance of confusion and the check of 
 schism if the interpretation or meaning of the 
 Scriptures had been exclusively vested in the 
 Church ; but I shall be unable to recognize you 
 as a Christian, still less as a member of the ' holy 
 Catholic Church,' if (as I understand) you do not 
 accept the general sense of all the canonical 
 books as undoubtedly inspired and every way 
 indisputable. I hope I may have misunderstood 
 you in this matter. 
 
 Parishioner. In frankness I must say that you 
 have not misunderstood me. My desire is to be 
 lucid and plain. Truth is dear to me as life 
 itself. To use Bacon's metaphors, I am battling 
 for no ' idol,' whether of the ' den,' the ' market,' 
 or the 'theatre.' I have nownotheory to uphold. 
 The superstitions, dreams, and convictions of my 
 youth and middle age have been wrenched from 
 my soul; a 'new birth' has been realized with 
 sobbing and pain, as all births are. But this is 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 291 
 
 past. I have learnt to know that God is ever 
 ready to commune with the spirit of man, ' to 
 send forth his light and his truth' to all who 
 yearn for them, inasmuch as ' God is Love,' and 
 since ' God is our Father in Heaven,' this neces- 
 sarily must be so, and one is not now surprised 
 that Paul should have told the Athenians that 
 ' in him we live and move and have our being, as 
 certain even of your own poets (Aratus) have 
 said, '' for we are also his offspring.'" The great 
 Apostle of Christ thus endorsed the utterance of 
 the secular poet, and used it to illustrate his own 
 inspired statement. God has spoken in all ages 
 to the listening soul. Even Seneca, born though 
 he was before the Christian era, could write, 
 *Ita, dico, Lucili, sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, 
 malorum, bonorumque nostrorum observator et 
 custos. Hie prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos 
 ipse tractate. Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est' 
 (Epistle 41) ; and centuries after the days of 
 Seneca there arose in another land a great 
 teacher, Mahomet, who, in summing up his 
 teachings in the eighteenth chapter of the 
 Meccan series of the Koran, writes, ' Say, I am 
 only a mortal like yourselves.^ I am inspired 
 that your God is only one God. Then let him 
 who hopes to meet his Lord act righteous acts.' 
 To worship ' only one God, and to act righteous 
 acts' was the sentence or commandment which 
 Mahomet considered he was * inspired ' to utter, 
 
 19 * 
 
292 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 and we learn from trustworthy historians that 
 his teachings have been accepted by tens of 
 thousands, and are the guide through life and 
 the solace in death of most of the inhabitants of 
 Turkey, India, and many other parts of Asia 
 and Africa. Thousands of Her British Majesty's 
 subjects in India live and die in the 'Moham- 
 medan' faith — the faith which Mahomed claims 
 to have been given by inspiration from God, 
 although carefully avowing himself * a mortal like 
 unto yourselves.' But, leaving this illustrative 
 passing thought of the inspiration of the great 
 ' Prophet of Arabia,' I maintain that the Spirit of 
 God is a continuously operating power, that the 
 inspiration of the Almighty is ceaseless, and as 
 efiicacious and as immanent now as ever it was 
 in the grey morning of the world. Did I not 
 believe this I could not, as now, pray in your 
 church for ' the healthful spirit of God's grace ' ; 
 I could not, as I do now, almost daily adopt the 
 words of David, ' O send out thy light, and thy 
 truth — let them lead me,' ' Open thou mine eyes 
 that I may behold wondrous things out of thy 
 law' ; I could not gather, as now, cheerfulness 
 and comfort from the belief that Christ is ' a true 
 light which lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world' ; that ' God who commanded the light 
 to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts 
 to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ' ; that, as in the 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 293 
 
 olden time there were prophets, so are there now 
 many ' who are light in the Lord' ; and as Beza- 
 leel was ' filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom 
 and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in 
 all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning 
 works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in 
 brass' (Exodus xxxi.), so are men now, in like 
 manner, filled with ' the Spirit of God ' to do great 
 and good acts for the benefit of their kind. Yes, 
 that good Spirit speaks to pure and receptive 
 souls at the present time as clearly and as fully 
 as HE did when the young Samuel, from his 
 sleeping cot in the temple, cried, ' Speak, Lord, 
 for thy servent heareth.' But there are delusive 
 voices as there are ' lying spirits,' and it becometh 
 the wise not to believe * every spirit, but try the 
 spirits whether they are of God : because many 
 false prophets have gone out into the world' 
 (i John iv. i) ; and one infallible test is con- 
 sistency, the never-failing consentient harmony 
 between all the words and all the works of God 
 * in all places of his dominion,' whether in the 
 domain of nature, or the spiritual kingdom, or the 
 heart of man. You speak of ' canonical books ' 
 as ' inspired.' Who decreed, out of the num- 
 berless 'gospels' which existed in the earliest 
 centuries of Christianity, which of the many 
 should be 'canonical' and which excluded? 
 Perhaps one of the most august, certainly one of 
 the most influential, of the numerous 'Councils' 
 
294 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 of the Church was the eighteenth, or General 
 Council of Trent, which assembled in a.d. 1545, 
 and continued (with interruptions through the 
 pontificates of Pope Paul III., Julius III., 
 and Pius IV., to 1563. This Council decreed 
 what books out of the mass of so-called ' Scrip- 
 tures ' before them should be canonical, and 
 pronounced an anathema of eternal condemnation 
 upon all who decline to accept any one of them 
 so decreed. The CJiurch of England has ex- 
 cluded several of the books thus authorized from 
 ^canonical' rank, and yet, with her accustomed 
 inconsistency in spiritual things, she authorizes 
 some of these very ' uncanonical ' books (canoni- 
 cal according to the Council of Trent) to be 
 read at her daily services, but will not allow 
 them to be read on the Sabbath Day. Do you 
 expect me to accept these books, which are 
 sufficiently good to be read on 'week-days,' but 
 not sufficiently 'holy' to be read on Sundays, as 
 ' inspired' ? 
 
 Vicar. Most decidedly not. I distinctly said 
 the whole of the * canonical books' as received by 
 the ^Church of England,' and not to accept them 
 is, ipso facto, to exclude yourself from the ranks 
 of her sons. 
 
 Parishioner. The Church of England has 
 deliberately refused to accept into her canon as 
 inspired several books which the more ancient 
 Church (from whom she derives all her pre- 
 
GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 29.5 
 
 tensions to be regarded as a Church having 
 apostolical succession and all that it involves) 
 declares to be ' canonical,' nay, assures us that 
 they ' have been dictated either by Christ's own 
 word of mouth or by the Holy Ghost, and 
 preserved by a continuous succession in the 
 Catholic Church,' and has declared with the same 
 emphasis as the younger Church has of the 
 Athanasian Creed, ' If anyone receive not as 
 sacred and canonical these same books entire, 
 with all their parts, let him be anathema ! ' As 
 an individual, upon ' Protestant ' principles, i.e. 
 the right of private judgment, I claim the same 
 privilege of selection as did the ' Reformation ' 
 Committee upon the books which the ancient 
 Church had in the most solemn manner declared 
 to have been derived from ' Christ's own word of 
 mouth ' or ' by the Holy Ghost.' I do so because, 
 after all, both in the * Council of Trent ' and the 
 ' Reformation ' Chamber the reason or judgment 
 of man was the final appeal as to which of the 
 books were ' inspired,' and which were not, and 
 most certainly some of the books which the 
 * Protestant ' Church refused to receive into her 
 canon are far ' more profitable for doctrine, for 
 reproof, for correction, and for instruction in 
 righteousness ' than others which she has accepted, 
 and which you call upon me to receive as directly 
 and wholly the inspired Word of God. 
 
 Vicar. What can you mean by such a daring 
 
1^6 GEOLOGY AND SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Statement ? Surely you do not presume to say 
 that the ' books of Maccabees ' and the history of 
 ' Bel and the Dragon ' are to be compared, for 
 the purposes described by Paul to Timothy, with 
 the writings of Isaiah and David ? 
 
 Parishioner. No, but I say that the ' book of 
 Solomon ' and ' Ecclesiasticus,' approved by the 
 Council of Trent, are better adapted for such 
 purposes than is ' The book of Canticles,' which 
 has been preferred before them, w^hich has been 
 retained as ' inspired,' while the other two are 
 denied that distinction. It is an insult to common 
 sense to hold up the Canticles as the direct 
 * Word of God.' I know what to expect from 
 the credulous, the ignorant, and the fanatical in 
 speaking thus of this book ; a book which, by- 
 the-bye, used to be an especial favourite among 
 the ' Evangelicals,' and over which I have known 
 more than one young lady go into hysterical 
 raptures. The two books I have named abound 
 in sublime thoughts and words full of wisdom, 
 whereas the ' Canticles ' read like voluptuous 
 love-songs, and never could have been considered 
 anything otherwise than an amatory poem had not 
 some interpolator introduced parenthetically into 
 a manuscript the words ' Vox Christi,' and some 
 other * pious ' copyist divided the songs into 
 chapters, and put plausible 'headings' to each 
 chapter, by which Christ and the Church are 
 made to take the places of the lover and his 
 
CANONICAL BOOKS. 297 
 
 beloved. Origen calls it an epithalamium in the 
 form of a drama: he soon, however, clothes it with 
 allegory. Theodore, Bishop of Mopsiiestia, the 
 friend and schoolfellow of St. Chrysostom, wisely 
 sets aside the allegory, and regards them as a 
 series of amatory poems written by Solomon to 
 win the affections of an Ethiopian princess ; a 
 description which the entire language of the 
 book fully justifies. Be this as it may, when 
 two great Churches like the Western and the 
 Anglican differ as to which books of the Bible 
 are inspired, and which books are not inspired, a 
 prudent and conscientious man will exercise his 
 own judgment as to which of the decrees he shall 
 accept. In Solomon's Song I recognize strong 
 and passionate love, exquisite poetry, and most 
 voluptuous imagery — imagery not exceeded in 
 lyric sweetness by Anacreon or Moore. What 
 more amatory than, * Behold, thou art fair, my 
 love ; behold, thou art fair ; thou hast doves' 
 eyes within thy locks : thy hair is as a flock of 
 goats, that appear from Mount Gilead. Thy 
 teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even 
 shorn, which came up from the washing ; 
 whereof everv one bear twins, and none is barren 
 among them. Thy lips are like a thread of 
 scarlet, and thy speech is comely : thy temples 
 are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks. 
 Thy neck is like the to\ver of David builded for 
 an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand 
 
298 CANONICAL BOOKS. 
 
 bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two 
 breasts are like two young roes that are twins, 
 which feed among the lilies. Until the daybreak 
 and the shadows flee away I will get me to the 
 mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankin- 
 cense. Thou art all fair, my love ; there is no 
 spot in thee.' Do not these words breathe of 
 ' the clime of the East, the land of the sun ' ? 
 The metaphor of the ' two young roes that are 
 twins, which feed among the lilies,' seems to me 
 unsurpassed for sensuous beauty in the odes of 
 Horace, the poems of Byron, or the songs of 
 Sappho ; but, in the words of St. James, ' this 
 wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly 
 and sensual,' whereas in the thirteenth chapter 
 of The Wisdom of Solomon I read noble w^ords, 
 which, like Adam's morning hymn in Milton's 
 Paradise Lost^ appear instinct with ' inspiration 
 of the highest kind. ' Surely vain are all men 
 by nature who are ignorant of God, and could 
 not out of the good things that are seen know 
 him that is ; neither by considering the works 
 did they acknowledge the workmaster, but 
 deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the 
 circle of the stars, or the violent waters, or the 
 lights of heaven to be the gods which govern the 
 world ; with whose beauty if they being delighted 
 took them to be gods, let them know how miicli 
 better the Lord of them is, for the first author 
 of beauty hath created them. But if they were 
 
CANONICAL BOOKS. 199 
 
 astonished at their power and virtue, let them 
 understand by them how much flightier he is 
 that made thej?i. For by the greatness and 
 beauty of the creatures proportionally the Maker 
 of them IS seen.'' Here is the philosophy of 
 Paley and Ray, and the best of the Bridgewater 
 Treatises condensed in a passage of poetic prose 
 which clings to the memory for ever. 
 
 Vicar. You seem to forget that the ' Canticles,' 
 which you regard as simply a human composi- 
 tion, have been accepted as ' canonical' by both 
 Churches^ and ought therefore to be received 
 by you with reverence and unquestioning faith. 
 Moreover, the one from which you quote with 
 approval has been dismissed as apocryphal by 
 your own Church. It grieves me, however, to 
 observe that you make so little distinction be- 
 tween what is ordinarilv called ' o^enius ' and that 
 
 J o 
 
 which Christians of all denominations regard as 
 * inspiration,' namely, the infusion of ideas into 
 the mind by the holy Spirit of God ; your 
 reference to Milton's poem, for instance, and 
 again the fearlessness with which you bring 
 the most solemn records to the test of some 
 experiment or the facts of physical science. 
 
 Parishioner. A fact is a fact — nothing can 
 gainsay or overthrow it. I do ^dij fearlessly and 
 confidently that if a legend, tradition, or ' historic 
 statement ' come down to us, no matter for how 
 long a period or under whatever authority^ 
 
300 CANONICAL BOOKS. 
 
 alleging something which is contrary to the 
 evidence of our senses as corrected by experi- 
 ence, by mental analysis, and by all the tests 
 which cumulated science has provided for that 
 end, an honest, God-fearing man cannot do other- 
 wise than disbelieve it. No matter how loud 
 may be the cry, ' Touch not, taste not, handle 
 not,' he will not be ' beguiled ' by a show of 
 wisdom in will, worship, and humility ; for he 
 will be unable to feel that there is tnte reverence 
 in accepting such legends, ' such ordinances,' as 
 St. Paul says, ' after the commandments of men,' 
 or, as Isaiah puts it, ' as is taught by the precepts 
 of men.' A legend, tradition, or command 
 opposed to such evidence is Juunan^ and not 
 divine^ no matter how clothed with seeming 
 sanctity, hoary antiquity, and priestly authority. 
 The words and the works of the Almighty ninst 
 he consistent and harmonious. In the very nature 
 of things — from the absolute perfection which is 
 inseparable from Godhead — they cannot contra- 
 dict each other. The child of God recognizes in 
 this great truth the handwriting of his FatJier^ 
 and knows therefore the alleged ' inspired ' 
 tradition, which is in conflict or contradiction to 
 some known natural fact, to be a human fallacy 
 or a forgery. To accept it would be to dishonour 
 his Father, to place himself in a like position to 
 the Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem to whom 
 Jesus said, ' Ye have made the commandment of 
 
CAXOXICAL BOOKS. 301 
 
 God of none effect by yonr tradition ' (Matt. 
 XV. 6). So long as we are ignorant of the facts 
 which do stand in opposition to the alleged 
 inspired tradition, as is the case with thousands 
 of simple believers, t/ieji is our faith honest and 
 sincere, and cannot be offensive to a just God ; 
 but when t/ic fact and the alleged word are 
 known to be irreconcilable, then to accept the 
 latter becomes 'voluntary humility' to a mere 
 human decree ; it is ' to bow down his head as a 
 bulrush,' to the mere ' ordinances of men ' ; it is 
 to reverse the noble conduct of Peter and the 
 other Apostles who answered and said to the 
 Council and High Priest, ' We ought to obey 
 God rather than men.' Yea, it is as wrongful a 
 thing as to worship ' the circle of the stars, or the 
 violent waters, or the lights of heaven ' rather 
 than ' the Author of beauty who has created 
 them.' For a geologist to ignore the facts of 
 geology because they war against the legend of 
 Moses is to honour Moses rather than the Great 
 Creator of whom Moses wrote. 
 
 Vicar. Am I to understand vou that if Charles 
 Lyell or Charles Darwin say one thing, and 
 Moses or Ezekiel state something which is not in 
 accordance with the theories of these philoso- 
 phers, then the assertions of the prophets are to 
 be disregarded ? This is indeed displacing ths 
 Bible from the high place it has held for centuries 
 and clothing it v>'ith dishonour. 
 
302 FACTS AND FAITH. 
 
 Parishioner. I took great pains to emphasize 
 the word ^ fact^ because, with the distinguished 
 German scientist Virchow, I affirm that the 
 speculative ideas of philosophers should be kept 
 wholly distinct from scientific /J^c/^. Their theo- 
 ries do not come within the assured domain of 
 science ; they may contain possible truth, but 
 cannot be regarded as truth until they have 
 passed the region of speculation, and by accu- 
 rately tested demonstrative evidence — evidence 
 sifted and tried under every possible condition — 
 are shown to be not ideas only, but facts, or 
 truths. David tells us in the nineteenth Psalm 
 in respect to the sun, ' His going forth is from 
 the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the 
 ends of it ' — whilst most intelligent persons know, 
 from the teachings of astronomers, that the 
 Psalmist was in error; that the sun makes no 
 such circuit, but the earth revolves around the 
 sun. Joshua and Habakkuk also tell us that 
 'the sun stood still.' The former writes : — ' The 
 sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the 
 people avenged themselves upon their enemies. 
 Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So 
 the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and 
 hasted not to go down about a whole day. And 
 there was no day like that before it or after it, 
 that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man, 
 for the Lord fought for Israel' (Joshua x. 13, 14). 
 Isaiah tells us that the Lord 'will gather together 
 
FACTS AND FAITH. 303 
 
 the dispersed of Judah from ^/le four corners of 
 the earth' (Isaiah xi. 12) ; and St. John the Divine 
 assures us that he 'saw four angels standing on 
 the four corners of the earth, holding the four 
 winds of the earth, that the wind should not 
 blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any 
 tree' (vii. i). Now, these historic details do not 
 war against a theory^ or theories^ of any kind, 
 but taken literally they are misrepresentations 
 of existing things, and could not, therefore, be 
 received by me as the inspired utterances of the 
 Almighty, but merely the figurative expressions 
 or poetic descriptions of the respective writers. 
 It has been established beyond all cavil that the 
 sun does not move round the earth in twentv-four 
 hours, and that it is the earth which revolves 
 around the sun. It is only a few monomaniacs 
 who think that the earth is a square plain, having 
 ' four corners,' and therefore I say that the above 
 utterances are the statements of fallible men like 
 unto Herodotus or Livy. Moses describes the 
 coney, or rabbit, and also the hare, as ' unclean 
 . . . because he cheweth the cud, but divideth 
 not the hoof (Leviticus xi. 5, 6). So in reference 
 to another department of natural history, in the 
 third chapter of the first book of Moses, called 
 'Genesis,' it is written of the serpent, ' and dust 
 shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.' At the 
 present time, naturalists know that the serpent 
 does not ' eat dnsf in the strict sense of the 
 
30+ FACTS AND FAITH. 
 
 words, or swallow it, to a greater extent than 
 many other creatures. It is narrated as a portion 
 of the curse, and decreed also as a punishment 
 ' upon thy belly shalt thou go.' Bible commen- 
 tators like unto Scott inform us, that previous to 
 ^ the fall^ the stature of the serpent was (pro- 
 bably) erect, his appearance beautiful, and his 
 habits innoxious, but because of his participation 
 in the primal sin, because of his disobedience, 
 ' bccimse thou hast done this, thou art cursed 
 above all cattle, and above every beast of the 
 field ; upon thy belly shalt thou go ; and dust 
 shalt thou eat all the days of thy life' (Genesis 
 iii. 14). D'Oyly and Mant, in their Bible, pub- 
 lished under the sanction of the Society for the 
 Propagation of Christian Knowledge, tell us 
 that the curse of the serpent consisted in bringing 
 down his stature, \vhich was probably in great 
 measure erect before this time ; and in the mean- 
 ness of its provision, ' and dust thou shalt eat,' 
 inasmuch as creeping upon the ground it cannot 
 but lick up much dust together with its food." 
 All this comment is contrary to fact. No crea- 
 ture living is more exquisitely organized for its 
 habits and sphere of life than is the serpent. One 
 of the greatest of European naturalists. Professor 
 Richard Owen, thus eloquently describes the 
 form and character of the serpent : — ' It is true 
 that the serpent has no limbs, yet it can outclimb 
 the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the zebra, 
 
FACTS AND FAITH. 305 
 
 and suddenly loosing the close coils of its crouch- 
 ing spiral, it can spring so high in the air as to 
 seize the bird upon the wing ; thus all these 
 creatures fall its prey. The serpent has neither 
 hands nor claws, yet it can wrestle with the 
 athlete, and crush the tiger in the embrace of its 
 overlapping folds. Far from licking up its food 
 as it glides along, the serpent lifts up its crushed 
 prey, and presents it grasped in the death coil as 
 in a hand to the gaping mouth. It is truly 
 wonderful to see the work of hands, feet, fins 
 performed by a mere modification of the ver- 
 tebral column. But the vertebras are especially 
 modified to compensate by the strength of their 
 individual articulations for the weakness of their 
 manifold repetitions, and the consequent elonga- 
 tion of the slender column.' [Lecture to Young 
 Men s Christian Association^ 1864.] As Joshua 
 and Moses and David erred in all these state- 
 ments, so St. Paul has erred in his strong expres- 
 sion, in his sublime epistle, where he writes, 
 ' Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not 
 quickened except it die.'' All these statements 
 are contrary to fact. The hare does not chew 
 the cud ; the sun does not go round the earth ; 
 the serpent does not live upon dust ; the seed 
 which reappears as grain does not die ; the outer 
 wrappers of the germ die, but the germ, the 
 essential seed, remains alive, and develops, first 
 the blade^ then the ear, after that the full corn in 
 
 20 
 
3o6 FACTS AND FAITH. 
 
 the ear. Now, as I know from the evidence of 
 my senses, corrected by my reason, that the sun 
 does not sensibly move along the heavens, that 
 the earth is 7iol a square plain with 'fom' corners,' 
 that the hare does 7iot 'chew the cud,' and that a 
 corn seed does ?/o/ die before it becomes fruitful, 
 I say that the writers of these statements — Moses, 
 Isaiah, St. John the Divine, and Paul of Tarsus — 
 were not divinely inspired to write them, but 
 wrote them simply as truthful nien anxious to 
 convey the truth to their hearers or readers, and 
 that they did convey a truth, but associated with 
 so much error as to demonstate that ' plenary 
 inspiration' did not belong to them; their lan- 
 guage was truthful so far, as they, fallible men 
 possessing only the knowledge of their age and 
 race, could make it ; their words were not false 
 words ; they were intended to convey, and did 
 convey, the convictions of the speakers. As 
 good men unaided by special Divine power, they 
 could not have done otherwise than they did ; 
 they dealt honestly with the semblances of 
 things : for the sun does appear to move, the 
 earth does appear to have four corners — North, 
 East, West, and South — the hare does move his 
 jaws like unto a ruminating animal, and the grain 
 does appear to die; yet, notwithstanding, and 
 nevertheless, this confusion of appearance and 
 reality proves that for us to reverence the Bible 
 as an organic whole, to receive each and every 
 
FACTS AND FAITH. 307 
 
 Statement of every writer therein as the immediate 
 inspired Word of God, is to commit the same 
 error in respect to the words of these men — to 
 the words of Paul, for instance — as did the men 
 of Lycaonia in respect to the persons of Paul and 
 Barnabas when they ' lifted up their voices, and 
 said, The gods are come down to us in the like- 
 ness of men' (Acts xiv. 11). Individually, I cannot 
 perceive the necessity of a man being 'inspired' 
 to narrate truthfully a fact within his own cog- 
 nizance : the fact, if reported by several eye- 
 witnesses, may be reported in varying forms, 
 with more or less lucid detail, according to 
 the observing power and narrative skill of the 
 respective writers ; but, as the reports of honest 
 men, each report, for the purpose it was given, 
 would be substantially true ; and the very 
 difference of statement would tend to confirm, 
 in judicial minds, the substantial truth of the 
 narrative. But all this becomes changed, when 
 direct, Divine Inspiration is claimed for the 
 narrator — for then, verbal error, or discrepancy 
 in detail, would justify a doubt as to the Divine 
 character of the narrated statement ; — would 
 become, in fact, the test of the Inspiration both 
 of the Writer and the writing ; inasmuch as the 
 all-wise and omniscient God could not err in 
 word or fact. To illustrate what I mean, I will 
 name the varvino^ verbal differences in the 
 narratives of St. Matthew, Mark and Luke, as to 
 
 20 * 
 
3o8 FACTS AND FAITH. 
 
 the Gadarese Demoniac. Viewed simply as an 
 historical narrative by ordinary 'uninspired' men, 
 there is no difference which may not be explained 
 by the respective knowledge and the degree of 
 education in the individual narrator. Thus, St. 
 Matthew and St. Mark tell us that the swine rushed 
 down into the sea ' ecar-rjv OaWaaaav ' — whereas 
 St. Luke, the most educated man of the three 
 narrators, tells us that ' the herd rushed down 
 the steep into the lake ' eLaTi]v \i[xv7]v. The 
 water in question is undoubtedly a lake. You 
 may, perhaps, call it a trifling difference ; but I 
 deem it a crucial distinction^ when plenary 
 inspiration, i.e. verbal and actual, is claimed for 
 the narrative, for it shows that the respective 
 narrators described the incidents much in the 
 same manner as thev would have been described, 
 at this hour, by reporters as varying in their 
 antecedents and circumstances as did Mark and 
 Luke. If all the three narrators had been under 
 the guidance and control of one Divine illumi- 
 nating Power, a lake would not have been 
 called a sea, neither would a sea have been 
 called a lake. In the meantime, I have no 
 desire to retract my statements as to ' Inspira- 
 tion,' its nature and its continuity ; for I believe 
 that all men are alike inspired who have clothed 
 pure thoughts in noble language ; like unto the 
 Grecian peasant Cleanthes, who, three hundred 
 years before the Christian Era, could address 
 
FACTS AiXD FAITH. 309 
 
 Him whom he believed to be the Divine 
 Power : 
 
 Hail ! for to bow salute to Thee, 
 
 To every man is holy. 
 For we, from Thee an offspring are, 
 
 To whom, alone of mortals 
 That live and move along the Earth, 
 
 The mimic voice is granted ; 
 There/ore, to Thee I hymns will sing, 
 
 And always shout thy greatness. 
 X- -x- * * 
 
 Nor upon Earth is any work 
 
 Done without Thee, O Spirit ! 
 Not at the aether's utmost height 
 
 Divine, nor in the Ocean, 
 Save whatsoever the infatuate 
 
 Work out from hearts of evil. 
 Thou orderest disorder, and 
 
 The unlovely lovely makest. 
 * * * X- 
 
 But, Jove all bounteous ! Who in clouds 
 
 Enwrapt, the lightning wieldest ; 
 May'st thou from baneful Ignorance 
 
 The race of men deliver ! 
 This Father ! scatter from the soul 
 
 And grant that we the wisdom 
 May reach, in confidence of which 
 
 Thou justly guidest all things ; 
 That we, by thee in honour set, 
 
 With honour may repay Thee, 
 Raising to all thy works a hymn 
 
 Perpetual ; as beseemeth 
 A mortal soul ; since neither man 
 
 Nor God his higher glory, 
 Then rightfully to celebrate 
 
 Eternal Law, all ruling. 
 
310 FACTS AXD FAITH. 
 
 In that prayerful hymn, I humbly opine, are 
 thoughts as tender, and more pure than many 
 which are recorded in the canonical book, called 
 ' The Song of Solomon.' Rawlinson, in his work 
 on ancient Egypt, records devotional hymns of the 
 most lyric beauty and pathos ; and Max Miiller 
 gives us, from the ' Rig-Vedas ' of India, prayers 
 breathed by mortals some three thousand years 
 ago, as touching and as ' inspired,' as tender 
 and prayerful in thought and expression, as some 
 of the exquisite Psalms of David. Here is one 
 of many — ' If I move along trembling like a cloud 
 driven by the wind ; have mercy. Almighty, have 
 mercy ! Through want of strength, thou strong 
 and bright God, have I gone astray ; have mercy, 
 Almighty, have mercy ! Whenever we men, O 
 Varuna, commit an offence before the heavenly 
 host, whenever we break the law through 
 thoughtlessness, punish us not, O God, for that 
 offence ' (Rig-Veda viii. 89). From Egypt, we 
 hear a voice, of which some verses in the 
 1 1 8th Psalm seem like an echo — ' Let no prince 
 be my defender in my troubles ; let not my 
 memorial be placed before men. My Lord is 
 my defender : I know his power : He is a strong 
 defender : there is none mighty beside him. 
 Strong is Amnion and knoweth how to make 
 answer. He fulfilleth the desire of all those 
 who pray to him ' [Records of the Past, Vol. VI. 
 pp. 99, 100). How like to the words — ' It is better 
 
FACTS AND FAITH. 311 
 
 to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in 
 man : it is better to trust in the Lord than to 
 put confidence in princes.' All these plaintive 
 records tell us that, instinctively, the human 
 heart turns to the great God, and breathes the 
 language of prayer — of prayer like unto that 
 which in the Bible we call inspired ! The Zeus 
 of Cleanthes — the Varuna of the Hindoo — the 
 Ammon of the Egyptian, are names of the same 
 significance to those respective individuals, as is 
 that of Jehovah to the Hebrew, or of God to our- 
 selves. They are, respectively, the names of a Power 
 — the very highest Power which the mind and the 
 heart of each individual is able to conceive ; the 
 Power in which he ' lives and moves and has his 
 being,' and by whom his destiny is determined. 
 It is a shallow, a very shallow philosophy — nay 
 culpable ignorance — which would brand such 
 persons as Idolators. Each individual practi- 
 cally worships the same Great Being under 
 a different name. Imperfect intelligence has 
 assigned absurd attributes to Zeus, or Jupiter, 
 to Varuna and Ammon ; and alas ! has not the 
 same cause ascribed an unholy character, and 
 malignant acts, to the all Holy One whom we 
 call God ? Yer. I must return to the direct 
 thread of my observations, and repeat, that 
 ' Inspiration ' has come to all who have clothed 
 pure thoughts in noble language, or who have 
 been prompted to self-sacrificing and noble 
 
3i2 FACTS AND FAITH. 
 
 deeds — as Paul before Felix, Festus, and 
 Agrippa on Mars Hill, and in the dungeon 
 at Rome ; Servetus at Geneva ; Huss at 
 Constance ; Luther at Erfurt, and before the 
 Diet at Worms ; Howard in the prison dens of 
 England and Europe, and the plague-smitten 
 regions of Tartary ; Clarkson as he sat on a 
 stone-heap on the road-side in Cambridgeshire, 
 and vowing a vow to grapple to the death with 
 slavery ; Latimer in the Star Chamber, and on 
 the burning pile at Oxford ; Ambrose as he con- 
 fronted the bloodthirsty Emperor Theodosius ; 
 John Wesley among the miners in Cornwall ; 
 Henry Martyn translating the Scriptures into 
 Oriental languages under the burning sun of 
 Persia ; John Williams at Rarotonga and Erro- 
 manga ; and Moffat and Livingstone in the far- 
 off barbarous regions of Southern Africa. 
 
 Vicar. Really these are bold statements from 
 one who so positively stated his great reverence 
 for Scripture and was so emphatic in his appeals 
 ' to the law and the testimony ' in support of his 
 arguments. Therefore I must remind you that 
 the proJ}/iets could not have been otherwise than 
 Divinely inspired ; the future which they por- 
 trayed was hidden from mere mortal vision or 
 mental foresight. Moreover, we have the direct 
 authority of Scripture itself on this point, for 
 Peter tells us : ' The prophecy came not in the 
 old time by the will of man : but holy men of 
 
FACTS AND FAITH. 313 
 
 God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost' (2 Peter i. 21) ; and so all-important to 
 the sustenance of the faith is this word of 
 prophecy, that St. Peter calls it ' a more sure 
 word ' even than his own personal testimony as 
 to the voice of recognition, which from heaven 
 proclaimed Jesus as God's beloved Son, in whom 
 he was well pleased, and which he and his com- 
 panions, James and John, ' heard when we were 
 with him in the Holy Mount.' This very state- 
 ment shows that the words of prophets, inspired 
 thus, transcend all Jiumaii testimony ; for 
 assuredly no higher human testimony could 
 hardly be asked for — or if asked for, obtained — 
 than that of three men of moral worth testifying 
 to a fact seen and heard by all three of them 
 simultaneously. 
 
 Parishioner. This is the second or third time 
 you have been somewhat satirical as to my 
 varying estimate of the Scriptures ; but I fail to 
 recognize any inconsistency on my part. As 
 I have already said, I rely wholly on their 
 teaching as to the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, 
 and shall vet revert to them in connection with 
 
 J 
 
 these ; although to do so furtlier seems super- 
 fluous iteration, for the texts already quoted 
 render my position scripturally unassailable. To 
 quote more texts certainly entitles me to the 
 satire, 'And thrice he routed all his foes, and 
 thrice he slew the slain' Yet, to show to you 
 
514 VERBAL INSPIRATION. 
 
 what a wealth of evidence sustains my conclusions, 
 more scriptural proofs shall be forthcoming. I 
 have no desire (for it is no part of my present 
 purpose) to controvert the powerful passage 
 you have given as to the ^ sure word of 
 prophecy,' although it is taken from an Epistle 
 which has been more discussed, perhaps, than 
 any other in the Canon, and that Eusebius, 
 Didymus of Alexandria, and St. Jerome regarded 
 it with more than distrust. Whether Peter, at 
 the time of stating the words, if he did state 
 them, began to feel that his experience in the 
 Mount may have been illusorv, I cannot say ; 
 but of all the stupendous illustrations of human 
 weakness I have ever heard, none approaches 
 this alleged fact in the life of Peter : that he, 
 who had seen with his bodily eyes Jesus trans- 
 figured before him, so that ' his face did shine as 
 the sun and his raiment was white as the light' — 
 saw and heard Moses and Elias (who had been 
 dead for centuries) talking with Jesus — that this 
 very Peter who so appreciated the celestial 
 manifestation as to exclaim to Jesus, 'Lord, it 
 is good for us to be here ' ! and to propose 
 the building of three tabernacles, 'one for 
 thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias'; and 
 heard, moreover, 'a voice out of a bright cloud, 
 which said, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
 am well pleased; hear ye him'' (Matt. xvii. 
 1-4) — that alone, of all the disciples of Jesus, this 
 
ST. PETER ON PROPHECY. 3 ' 5 
 
 very Peter, after tJiis august experience and 
 celestial demonstration^ should ' curse and swear, 
 saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak,' 
 is the most marvellous fact recorded in the 
 annals of history. Your narration of the circum- 
 stance, however, is hardly accurate, for we have 
 not tlirec men testifying to a fact which they saw 
 simultaneously ; for it is most astonishing that 
 neither John in his Gospel nor James in his 
 Epistle alludes to this miraculous manifestation 
 of Divine power, this stupendous attestation 
 of the relation in which Christ stood to the 
 SUPREME. 
 
 Vicar. It is painfully evident to me that, 
 however much, for the end you have in view, 
 you may quote the Bible, there is a large portion 
 of the ' Canonical ' Scriptures which you have 
 ceased to accept as authentic. You state that 
 you have no desire to controvert the powerful 
 passage I gave as 'to the sure word of prophecy' ; 
 but you immediately hinted that it w^as obtained 
 from a doubtful source, or a source more doubtful 
 than other portions of the Scripture. But even 
 if it came from a solely secular source, it recites 
 a fact which is historically true, for most assuredly 
 men in * the old time ' did prophesy ; and that 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost is proved 
 by the circumstance that their 'prophecies' fore- 
 stalled history by many centuries, and yet were 
 they verbally accurate and true. Thus, Jacob, 
 
3i6 PROPHECY. 
 
 in his dying moments, more than sixteen hundred 
 years before the coming of Christ as the Messiah, 
 distinctly assured his sons that ' the sceptre shall 
 not depart from Judah . . . until Shiloh come ' 
 (Genesis xlix. lo) ; and as respects the history 
 of the Transfiguration, if neither James nor John 
 refer to this sublime incident, it is most fully 
 recorded by <2//of the synoptic writers — Matthew, 
 Mark, and Luke ; so that the event has three 
 historians, besides that of one of those immediately 
 at the scene. 
 
 Parishioner. My views on inspiration have 
 been expressed already ; and if the Church had 
 adopted centuries ago the opinions which are 
 now published by some of her most advanced 
 theologians, the unbelief which now pervades the 
 minds of the vast majority of the intellectual 
 classes and the mechanics and artisans of Europe 
 would never have sprung up. If irrational and 
 absurd theories, and equally absurd facts, had not 
 been pressed upon them by authority ; if the 
 ' Bible ' had not been represented to them as 
 the * Koran ' is to myriads of Mohammedans — as 
 Divine and sacred to its ininiitcst syllabic— \\\ej 
 would never have turned upon it with the disdain 
 and contempt they now do. If its true character 
 had been taught them they would have accepted 
 the good and rejected the evil ; but as all is 
 proclaimed as the infallible ' Word of God,' 
 they turn with disdain from the 'Word,' and. 
 
PROPHECY. 3\^ 
 
 alas ! even dispute the existence of its alleged 
 Author. But to revert to your statement as to 
 the literal fulfilment of Jacob's prophecy after 
 the lapse of so many centuries, even this prophecy, 
 vv^hich has for ages been quoted by divines as 
 a most illustrative proof of ' the sure word of 
 prophecy,' is melting away under the advanced 
 and advancing knowledge of the present day. 
 It happened to me individually that nearly thirty 
 years ago I was acquainted with a most intelligent 
 Jew, and I asked him whether he had ever read 
 the ' Old Testament ' in the English language, 
 and in the version generally accepted by the 
 Protestants of this country. He said he had 
 read it most carefullv. I then asked him whether 
 it accorded with the Hebrew Scriptures as he 
 read them. He replied, ' For the most part, but 
 there is one most momentous misstatement as to 
 what Jacob said respecting the coming of Shiloh. 
 If our Hebrew records contained it we could not 
 be as now, hoping that a Messiah would yet come 
 to the redemption of the Jews from their long 
 wanderings, and their restoration to power, 
 prosperity, and greatness in Palestine ; for most 
 assuredly hath "the sceptre departed from Judah," 
 and there is no " gathering of the people," and 
 they are now as much as ever scattered and 
 dispersed over every nation of Europe and Asia, 
 although not now treated as they once were, 
 except perhaps in the dominions of Russia, 
 
3i8 VERBAL INSPIRATION. 
 
 Many individual Jews are very wealthy and most 
 influential in various countries ; but as a nation 
 we are kingless and without a sceptre, and yet 
 the Messiah has not come to us.' Since this 
 conversation, I have been informed by good 
 Hebrew scholars that the verse, properly trans- 
 lated from the Hebrew into English, would give 
 to ' Shiloh ' the meaning of a place^ and not a 
 person. The very oldest version of the Old 
 •Testament, the Septuagint, gives the verse as 
 lollows: *A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor 
 a captain out of his loins, until the things come 
 that are laid up for him.' This is by no means so 
 definite a prophecy of the realized Messiah. But 
 on this subject, as on several others, I am waiting 
 patiently for the revision of the ' Old Testament ' 
 by those learned Hebrew scholars and critics 
 who are now engaged upon this most important 
 and most serious labour.* 
 
 Vicar. Looking at the ripe scholars and sound 
 divines who have been so long labouring at this 
 important task, there is not the slightest proba- 
 
 * More than eighteen months have passed since the above 
 was written, and the new revision of the Old Testament has 
 since appeared, and the words 'until Shiloh come' remain as in 
 the old, but in a marginal note the following words are given : 
 ' till he come to Shiloh ' j and for the sentence ' Unto him shall 
 the gathering of the people be,' the revised Bible gives ' Unto 
 him shall the obedience of the people be,' while a marginal note 
 reads * having the obedience of the peoples.' Moreover, as a 
 matter of historical fact, the ' sceptre ' had departed from Judah 
 many years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
BIBLIOLATRY. 319 
 
 bility of the general text being so altered as to 
 harmonize with your statements. 
 
 Parishioner. It may not be so altered in its 
 general statements, but I shall certainly be sur- 
 prised if the individual text to which I have 
 referred be not altered in the manner I have 
 indicated. The days of ' bibliolatry ' are, how- 
 ever, numbered. The manner in which even 
 clergymen abstain from reading in their families 
 the whole Bible : the fact that, instead of being 
 as formerly the chief book read in schools, it is 
 now, by statute, made exceptionable in Board 
 schools, and indeed optional with each individual 
 scholar: the dread which many intelligent mothers 
 have of their daughters reading many of the 
 chapters of the Old Testament : the fact that 
 dignitaries of the Church, such as a prebend of 
 a cathedral and a chaplain in ordinary to the 
 Queen, have felt it prudent to publish 'A School 
 and Children's Bible,' ' shorter, and at the same 
 time better adapted for the use of children or 
 young persons' : all show that the superstitious 
 reverence of the past is fading away, and that the 
 most thoughtful and pious Christians are recog- 
 nizing the truth written by Professor Jowett, the 
 Regius Professor of Greek in Oxford University, 
 more than twenty years ago (which then roused 
 indignation), namely, that ' the Bible should be 
 interpreted like any other book! Because it has 
 not been so, it has, to use the words of that 
 
320 BIBLIOLATRY. 
 
 profound scholar, come to pass that ' the Book 
 in which we believe all religious truth to be 
 contained is the most uncertain of all books, 
 because interpreted by arbitrary and uncertain 
 methods.' I am firmly convinced, from the 
 observations and reflections of forty years, that 
 the unbelief, the ' agnosticism ' which now 
 pervades the intellectual professions, and the 
 ' upper ' and ' lower ' classes of society, is due 
 almost exclusively to the teaching and practice 
 of the ' Evangelical ' or ' Low ' Church parties 
 during the first half of the present century. The 
 extravagant notions they held respecting the 
 Bible; the bitterness with which they attacked 
 all who questioned the accuracy of any of its 
 statements, now almost surpass belief. Trained 
 under these constricting influences, I have lis- 
 tened with apathy to pulpit utterances, which 
 would now fill me with pain and disgust. One 
 of the most eloquent pulpit orators I have ever 
 known, and to hear whom I have walked several 
 miles, Sunday after Sunday, preached from the 
 pulpit at Camden Chapel, Camberwell, in the 
 January of 1836, as follows (and not only did 
 this, but assented to its publication), 'There is so 
 much of comfort and so much of innocent delight 
 derived from the Bible to all who take it as 
 God's Word, that to attempt to disseminate 
 scepticism is worthy of nothing but the fiend ; 
 and that the man who devotes himself to this 
 
BIRLIOLATRY. 321 
 
 endeavour, even if he had truth on his side, 
 should be driven out by acclamation as a pest to 
 society, as the monster who would strip his 
 followers of a consolatory and harmless posses- 
 sion, and give nothing in exchange but the most 
 dreary and blighting forebodings' (Sermons , by 
 H. Melville, b.d. London, 1838, p. 228). This 
 fanatical reverence for the Bible by the ' Evan- 
 gelicals,' the superstitious exaltation of it in the 
 place of Papal Infallibility, and the cruel intoler- 
 ance and persecuting spirit which they manifested 
 toward those who honestlv pointed out the errors 
 and untrue statements which were found within 
 the pages of the 'authorized English Bible'; this 
 their conduct, together with their fanatical per- 
 version of St. Paul's teachings, were the germs 
 of the present widelv diffused scepticism. The 
 scornful indifference with which they treated 
 deeds of beneficence and moral excellence, 
 through their dogma ' that works done by unre- 
 generate men, although they ?nay be things which 
 God commends, and of good use to themselves 
 and others, yet because they proceed not from a 
 \\.Q7\xX. purified by faith (i.e., by the acceptance of 
 their theory) they are therefore sinful, and can- 
 not please God, or make a man meet to receive 
 grace from God ': this conduct, coupled with the 
 more audaciously presumptive statements that 
 * they who, having never heard the Gospel, know 
 not Jesus Christ, cannot be saved, be they never 
 
 2\ 
 
322 BIBLIOLATRY. 
 
 so diligent to frame their lives according to the 
 light of nature or the laws of that religion they 
 profess,' and not being saved they are cast out 
 ' from the comfortable presence of God,' to 
 endure ' most grievous torments in soul and body, 
 without intermission, in hell-fire _/br ever.' For 
 ever ! as a popular preacher of this School in our 
 day has said, ' When the doomed jingle the 
 burning irons of their torment, they shall say, 
 " For ever ! " While they howl, echo cries, 
 " For ever" — 
 
 ' " For ever " is written on their racks, 
 
 " For ever " on their chains : 
 " For ever " burneth in the lire, 
 
 " For ever " ever reigns.' 
 
 It is difficult to suppose that Mr. Charles H. 
 Spurgeon (or any other man) can believe such 
 horrible statements in the same sense as he 
 believes that if he put his finger into a fire he 
 would suffer excruciating pain. ' Church-going,' 
 'chapel-going,' and the listening for a special 
 time to ' a sermon,' have become habits of routine, 
 so that men speak of and listen to things the full 
 meaning of which they do not realize, when 
 spoken at a special time, on a special occasion, 
 and in a special place. The words spoken, as a 
 rule, from a pulpit on a Sunday, to a ' Sunday 
 congregation,' have not the same influence as if 
 they had been spoken by a ' lavman ' on a week- 
 day from a public platform. That is, speaking 
 
BIBLIOLATRY. 3^3 
 
 generally, although such teachings have aroused 
 the virtuous indignation of a few individuals, and 
 these again have aroused the attention of others 
 beyond the pale of the Church, and hence the 
 result I have stated. Such statements as those 
 of Melville and Spurgeon have aroused the 
 virtuous indignation of hundreds, nay thousands 
 of honest men, and have led to the consequences 
 I have described. It was this kind of teaching 
 that made the intelligent Mi'I/ (according to his 
 own statement) an Atheist. And I doubt not 
 that it was through such perverse teaching that 
 one so gifted, so amiable, and so philosophic as 
 the late Professor Clifford, could have been 
 induced deliberately to describe Christianity as 
 ' that awful plague which has destroyed two 
 civilizations and but barely failed to slay such 
 promise of good as is now struggling to live 
 amongst men.' 
 
 Vicar. I have long mourned over the fact that 
 the teachings of the ' Low Church ' party well- 
 nigh deprived the Church of England of her 
 highest gifts — the apostolic succession and the 
 sacramental graces involved therein, the regene- 
 ration by baptism, absolution of sins, and the 
 blessed efficacy of the Holy Eucharist — but I 
 have not credited them with the fearful conse- 
 quences to which you refer. I know their 
 doctrine was exclusive and selfish, and their 
 worship cold and negative, preaching being 
 
 21 * 
 
324 'EVANGELICALISM' AND UNBELIEF. 
 
 considered of more importance than prayers or 
 praise. But where do you obtain the dogmas 
 you ascribe to them ? 
 
 Parishioner. Ah^eady have I given you some 
 appalling ones from the sermons of Melville and 
 Spurgeon, from church and from chapel ; state- 
 ments which would have filled you and me with 
 indignation had we heard them now for the first 
 time. No adult human heart, untrained in such 
 horrors, could dilate with satisfaction on such 
 grievous torments besetting soul and body with- 
 out intermission, ' in hell-fire for ever.' No 
 African savage, except under the fierce feelings 
 of revenge, could thus dilate on his doomed 
 fellow-creatures 'jingling the burning irons of 
 their torments for ever' ! The transforming 
 influence of habit (as I have before shown) alone 
 enables men to utter and to hear such things 
 without deep emotion, but thi$ enables them to 
 do both with no more feeling than an ordinary 
 Chinese would watch the gyrations of a praying- 
 wheel. I have illustrated it before by facts in 
 natural history described by Darwin, but I will 
 narrate more direct human testimony, showing 
 how passive, or rather apathetic, the trained mind 
 becomes while listening to statements which fill 
 the young and unsophisticated with dismay. Mr. 
 Brooke Herford tells us that when Mr. Ellery 
 Channing was a little boy his father took him in 
 the chaise for a drive, when he himself was going 
 
' EFANGELICALISM' AND UNBELIEF. 325 
 
 some distance to hear a famous preacher. The 
 lad had heard the preacher much spoken of at 
 home, and really felt, young as he was, an interest 
 in the forthcoming sermon. It was what is called 
 'a fine sermon' of its kind. It described in very 
 flowing language the lost state of man, his utter 
 abandonment to evil, the eternal doom that hangs 
 over him, his helplessness to avert it, and the 
 method of salvation held out in Christ to those 
 who would wish to escape the everlasting tor- 
 ments of hell. The youth was terrified, for he 
 naturally accepted every word as true, and 
 thought that all around him would henceforth 
 give up all amusements and business, and give 
 their entire thoughts and devote all their energies 
 to escape ' from the wrath to come.' When he 
 and his father went out of the church some 
 neighbour inquired of his father what he 
 thought of the sermon, to which he replied, in 
 an emphatic manner, ' Sound doctrine, sir.' This 
 remark from his own father increased his awe, 
 because it seemed to stamp its truth with 
 increased vividness. He thought his father 
 would speak to him, but when he (the child) 
 got into the carriage he was so full of awe that 
 he did not speak a word to his father, who also 
 remained silent for a time, but presently he 
 began to whistle. When he reached home even 
 the father did not impart the appalling intelligence 
 to his family, but sat down at the fire, took off his 
 
,325 'EFANGELICALISM' AND UNBELIEF. 
 
 boots, put his feet on the mantelpiece and began 
 to read a newspaper as if nothing was the matter. 
 At first William was surprised, but not being 
 given to talking, he asked no explanation. Soon, 
 however, the question rose, ' Could what he had 
 heard be true' ? He answered himself, No. His 
 father did not believe it, other people did not 
 believe it, it was not true. And the lad felt 
 he had been trifled with and deceived. What 
 appalled the child, in that ' sound doctrine,' had 
 become of ' none effect' to the man, and the effect 
 of such statements diminishes by transmission from 
 parents to whom such phrases have become habi- 
 tual, although they have ceased to call up any 
 feeling in correspondence with their own education. 
 Hence the present generation are not thrilled by 
 them as was the past. To the last generation they 
 were a reality, and, therefore, a power. Such 
 dogmas as I have given you specimens of are to 
 be found in the writings or preachings of all 
 the Evangelical divines at the beginning of this 
 century, and were an arousing and transforming 
 power under the preachings of Wesley, of Whit- 
 field, of John Newton, Simeon, Venn, and others. 
 I have been familiar with their doctrines and ser- 
 mons, as I have so often said, from my childhood ; I 
 was nurtured in that creed, and, just as the animal 
 taste for some special kind of food in early child- 
 hood rarely, if ever, forsakes the adult, however 
 changed his circumstances may be, so in early 
 
' EFJNGELICALISM' AXD UNBELIEF. 327 
 
 manhood, and long after, I advocated them by 
 pen and word, in the page and on the platform. 
 Such things cleave to vou with almost the tenacity 
 of your bodily skin. These national and heredi- 
 tary beliefs are seldom set aside ; never, I believe, 
 after the ao^e of fiftv vears. The chancres w^iich 
 do ensue are the results of a general intelligence 
 acting on the minds of a rising generation. 
 Harvey said no physiologist over the age of 
 forty years accepted his theory of the circulation 
 of the blood, demonstrated as it was to the very 
 senses of men ; and the testimony of our fathers 
 and our own experience have shown that the 
 universal belief in witches was not overthrown 
 by the arguments of any individual, but has 
 disappeared (except in remote villages among 
 the very ignorant) as the minds of men have 
 become enlightened on the general laws of 
 nature and of life. It is in this manner that 
 ' Evanfrelicalism' and manv other 'isms' are 
 fading from the minds of men ; it is by the 
 operation of this law that Paul is receding 
 before Christ, or rather, I ought to say, that 
 the teachings imputed to Paul are fast disap- 
 pearing and the true meanings of that brave and 
 ardent apostle are becoming understood and 
 accepted. The great and eternal truths whrch 
 Paul, in common with his Lord and Master, 
 taught — namely, that ' God is not mocked,' and 
 that 'whatsoever a man soweth^ that shall he 
 
328 ' EFANGELICALISAr AND UNBELIEF. 
 
 also reap ' ; that ' love is the fulfilling of the 
 law'; that 'blessed are the merciful, for they 
 shall obtain mercy'; that 'now abideth faith, 
 hope, love, these three ; but the greatest of these 
 is love' — are rapidly becoming the simple creed 
 of the intelligent and good in all nations. 
 
 Vicar. What do you mean by Paul receding 
 before Christ ? 
 
 ParisJiioiier. I have already told my meaning. 
 If I must be more explicit, I say that in all the 
 more powerful or popular pulpits of the time to 
 which I have referred, the life and teachings of 
 Christ were seldom referred to, although His 
 name was constantly on the lips, yea, uttered 
 with a frequency — I had almost said flippancy — 
 which deprived it of all reverence ; His words. 
 His teachings were ignored, and the theory of 
 ' justification bv faith ' was interminably dwelt 
 upon, and carried to such an excess that deeds, 
 acts, services, were practically despised, nay, 
 regarded as hindrances to salvation, and the 
 reprobate and openly profane were pronounced 
 to be in a safer position than the known moral 
 man or philanthropist. Doctrine was placed first 
 in the category of requirements, instead of in the 
 second ; as Jesus said, ' If ye do my will ye 
 shall know of the doctrine.' Clergymen regarded 
 preaching as their first and highest duty. In 
 truth their views were precisely those expressed 
 by the Presbyterians in their ' Catechism ' to 
 
HEREDITARY BELIEFS. 329 
 
 the following question, ' What are the outward 
 means whereby Christ communicates to us the 
 benefits of his meditation ? — The outward and 
 ordinary means are all Christ's ordinances, es- 
 pecially the Word, sacraments, and praver ; all 
 which are made effectual to the elect for their 
 salvation. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, 
 but especially the preaching of the Word 
 an effectual means of enlightening.' The keep- 
 ing of the 'Lord's day" in a super-Jewish manner, 
 and especially by listening to long gloomy ser- 
 mons, and by introducing into ordinary speech a 
 number of set phrases linked to the holy name 
 of ' Jesus,' were considered the chief character- 
 istics of ' a child of God,' the mark of ' one of 
 the elect ' who had been ' saved bv grace.' To 
 expatiate on the parables of the Samaritan and 
 the Good Shepherd ; to tell ' of ninety and nine 
 just persons which need no repentance,' and 
 of those in the Judgment hour who professed 
 ignorance of Jesus and yet were rewarded for 
 their * good deeds,' while those who had cried 
 • ' Lord, Lord,' who had prophesied ' in his name,' 
 and in His 'name had cast out devils,' and 'in 
 his name done many wonderful works,' were not 
 accepted — was to be reproached by the popular 
 clergy of that day as ' unsound,' ' self-righteous,' 
 and ' without the pale of the covenanted mercies 
 of God.' 
 
 Vicar. You have given me a very gloomy 
 
3^0 ' efangelicalism: 
 
 picture, but as a young priest I am glad to hear 
 of the experience of one who felt an interest in 
 religious things before the great ' Tractarian ' 
 movement in Oxford, to which the Church and 
 the nation owe so much. Will you tell me some- 
 thing further of the broad .distinctions which 
 marked the conduct of the parochial clergy and 
 the more serious or religious members of the 
 Church of England prior to that event ? 
 
 Parishioner. The change is so great, the 
 distinctions are so vast and so numerous, that I 
 seem to be living in another age or in another 
 country. From 1830 to 1845, for instance, the 
 sermons that I heard occupied from forty minutes 
 to an hour in their delivery, instead of, as now, 
 from fifteen to thirty minutes. Although I rarely 
 missed a morning service I never once heard any 
 illusion to passing events or national incidents, 
 except occasionally to the death-scene of some 
 parishioner. I never once heard the love of 
 money denounced, or the importance of any 
 special- social virtue, except the support of 
 ' Missions to the Heathen ' may be considered 
 such. The utter depravity of man, the glorious 
 privileges of the elect, the all-sufficiency of faith, 
 and the eternity and torments of hell for the 
 ' unregenerate,' were the staple and almost 
 unvarying themes. Sunday after Sunday these 
 subjects were given in long dull discourses, 
 seldom varied even in their sentences, and never 
 
' LOfF church: .331 
 
 in their illustrations. Then the najnc of Jesus 
 formed a portion of every third or fourth para- 
 graph ; now I frequently hear sermons in which 
 the name is not uttered, although the spirit of 
 His teaching is always apparent : then a greater 
 portion of the hour's essay consisted in the 
 quotation of isolated texts of Scripture ; now I 
 seldom hear these profusely introduced, except 
 by some young and timid curate preaching soon 
 after his ordination : then the Devil as a person- 
 ality and the physical torments of hell were 
 preached with ' much unction ' ; whereas for the 
 past five years I have not heard one or the other 
 minutely and specifically described : then the eter- 
 nity and never-ending torments of the ' damned ' 
 was a frequent theme ; now it is seldom or 
 only incidentally referred to, and not once during 
 five years have I known it used as an inducement 
 to repentance and newness of life : then the 
 ' fierce anger ' and the ' wrath of God ' were 
 continuously preached ; now the ' love of God ' 
 and the ' mercv which endureth for ever ' are 
 the most frequent themes from the pulpit : tJicn^ 
 as I have already said, the national, political, and 
 social incidents of life were not used to inculcate 
 lessons of warning or encouragement ; now they 
 are frequently brought forward, and efforts are 
 made to convince the hearers that the spirit of 
 Christianity should pervade and influence all the 
 transactions of the senate, the mart, the counting- 
 
33^ ME LI OR A. 
 
 house, and the family life : t/icn the terrors of 
 Sinai were brought forward and enforced with 
 all the passionate rhetoric the preacher could 
 command ; 7iow the Beatitudes of the Mount 
 are dwelt upon with all the tenderness and per- 
 suasive eloquence which a loving father might 
 employ in addressing his own children : t/ien the 
 hymns were seldom exultant and grateful, often 
 simply doctrinal, and frequently painful and 
 ghastly in their rhythmical descriptions and con- 
 trasts of God's wrath and Christ's love, of the 
 Judgment-day and the torments of the damned ; 
 now, happily, they are often sweetly prayerful 
 and loving, like unto Newman's ' Lead, kindly 
 light,' Mrs. Adam's ' Nearer, my God, to Thee,' 
 and Bishop Heber's ' Thou art gone to the 
 grave,' and Mr. Lyte's * Abide with me.' The 
 three first-named hymns, moreover, imply and 
 predicate the coming of even a better time, inas- 
 much as they are nsed in all Churches, although 
 they are written respectively by a ' Roman 
 Catholic,' a ' Unitarian,' and a bishop of the 
 ' Church of England.' As I have said before, 
 the wish of my life has been to see a National 
 Church, in which all could pray and worship in 
 a spirit of catholic unity ; that some form or 
 system could be adopted which all God-fearing 
 men could accept as readily as they now accept 
 the same hymns for praise — notably, 'Lead, 
 kindly light' and 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,' 
 
CATHOLIC UNITY. ^33 
 
 whose authors are separated as ' far as the poles 
 asunder' by their respective Churches at the 
 present moment. 
 
 Vicar. This is what our Church continually 
 prays for in accordance with the teachings and 
 prayers of her Divine Head ; her litany breathes 
 it, as I have already pointed out to you ; and if 
 I may use such a phrase, she pours out a very 
 diapason of prayer for this result in her noble 
 Collect on Good Friday, where she says, ' Have 
 mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and here- 
 tics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness 
 of heart, and contempt for thy Word ; and so 
 fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that 
 they may be saved among the remnants of the 
 true Israelities, and be made one fold, under one 
 Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord.' 
 
 Parishioner. Yes, the Church prays for this 
 desirable result, or I ought to have said the 
 Churches^ for each one, of the seventy or eighty, 
 offers to the Great Eternal some such prayer ; but 
 in each case it is meant that the ' one fold ' is 
 their own special sect, Church, or conventicle, 
 and the condition of entrance is the adoption of 
 their especial ' shibboleth ' or creed. The ^ great 
 Western Church ' will exclude the ^ great 
 Eastern Church ' so long as it refuses to add the 
 word ' Filioque ' to its elaborate creed ; the 
 ' Church of England ' and the ' Independent 
 Church ' stand aloof on the question of ' elder,' 
 
334 CATHOLIC UNITY. 
 
 *■ presbyter,' or ' bishop ' ; and the ' Baptist ' 
 shudders with horror at the idea of * suffering 
 Httle children ' to be baptized ; and so on 
 through the whole series of sects and Churches. 
 The Roman soldiers cast lots as to which of them 
 should possess the seamless robe of Christ, 
 rather than tear it into parts and each take a 
 share ; but modern ' Christians,' less respectful 
 of Christ's ' seamless ' doctrine than the Pagans 
 of His seamless robe, have torn it into many 
 fragments, each taking a part, and then holding 
 up his little fragment as the whole garment, or 
 the most essential part of it ; and ' to put on 
 Christ' is to accept this scrap of theirs as the 
 whole garment of truth, wholly regardless of 
 the other fragments which are to be found else- 
 where, and which are cherished with equal 
 fanaticism by their possessors. I have heard of 
 sailors who are fearless in every storm because 
 they possess a ' bit of the true Cross,' and ' that 
 never goes down in the most troublous ocean.' 
 And so it is with the sects : each one has ' a bit 
 of the truth ' (many who have only a fragment 
 look at it through so magnifying an illusion as to 
 consider it the whole), which they regard as so 
 potent as to enable them above all others to sail 
 in safety amid all the storms and tempests of life 
 to the Land of Eternal Peace. 
 
 Vicar. These are painful delusions. There 
 can be but one faith, one hope, one baptism ; 
 
THE 'TRUE church: 33^ 
 
 there can be but one Church of Christ. It may 
 admit possibly of some controversy as to whether 
 the Anglican or the Roman be the Church ; but 
 the question is limited to that postulate. But I 
 have no desire to discuss this matter now, as I so 
 much wish to hear of your past experiences in 
 the practice and teachings of our Church. I 
 especially wish you to give me some illustration of 
 what you have yourself heard from a pulpit in 
 the Church of England as to ' original sin ' and 
 the ' eternity of torment.' 
 
 Parishioner. Of the first I have heard nothing: 
 inconsistent with the Ninth Article of your 
 Church ; and all that now appears to me erro- 
 neous, viewed in the light of Christ's teaching, 
 was in perfect accord with the ninth, tenth, and 
 thirteenth Articles of your Church. In truth, 
 preachers were consistent in their theories ; and 
 although I believe the effects of their sermons 
 were ultimately mischievous, as, being opposed 
 to the great principles of justice and mercy, and 
 the innate sense of these qualities in the rightlv 
 cultured mind, they have led to the present 
 widespread apostacy throughout Europe, vet 
 were they most logically consistent with the 
 ' Articles of Religion ' to which they had pledged 
 themselves, with, perhaps, the exception of the 
 manner in which they dealt with the punishment 
 of the unconverted and unregenerate, for neither 
 the ' Articles ' nor the ' Catechism ' of the Church 
 
33^^ 'TO PERISH EVERLASTINGLY: 
 
 of England pronounce on this awful subject 
 except inferentially. It is unfortunately true 
 that such preachers co?^/^ quote the Eighth Article 
 of their Church as authorizing them to pronounce 
 an eternity of punishment to the misbelieving, 
 for it asserts that the Athanasian Creed ' ought 
 thoroughly to be received and believed/ and this 
 Creed affirms that those who do not believe it 
 ' shall without doubt perish everlastingly.' 
 
 Vicar. ' To perish everlastingly ' does not 
 necessarily include an eternity of torment ; and 
 the sacrament of baptism is the antidote to the 
 consequences of original sin. But I should like 
 you to avoid discussion and to give me an illus- 
 tration from your own experience of the manner 
 in which the awful subject of a never-ending 
 personal torment was treated in the pulpit of the 
 Church of England more than a quarter of 
 a century ago. 
 
 Parishioner. ' To perish everlastingly ' may 
 admit of two interpretations, but I question 
 whether you would accept the doctrine of per- 
 sonal annihilation. I feel assured that the 
 Church meant by these words those horrible and 
 never-ending tortures so graphically described 
 by Tertullian, and depicted with such force by 
 the pencil and brush of Orcagna on the walls of 
 Santa Maria Novella in Florence. As for the 
 merciful qualification you suggest for many, 
 through the sacrament of baptism, the clergymen- 
 
SA CRA MENTARY. ,3 3 ; 
 
 under ' whose ministry I sat ' did not admit of 
 the sacramental grace of baptism as appHcable to 
 all who were baptized : one of them published 
 a book on the subject, from which I have already 
 quoted. He was a sincere and earnest man. 
 He declared ' all my prejudices both by nature 
 and education were in favour of baptismal re- 
 generation ; and I used earnestly to contend for 
 that w^iich I now believe to be a theory of man s 
 inventing! In few things is there a greater 
 revulsion of opinion in the Church than on the 
 subject of ' sacramental ' grace. In my humble 
 judgment it is a retrograde action. Materialism 
 appears to be gaining an ascendency over the 
 spiritual life — a reaction like unto that w^hich 
 Paul feared in the Church at Galatia when he 
 wrote, ' After that ye have known God, or rather 
 are known of God, how turn ye again to the 
 weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye 
 desire again to be in bondage ' ? (Gal. iv. 9). 
 However, we are not dealing with this now, or, 
 I must declare that there was more of personal 
 piety ^ more of the deep sense of spiritual tilings^ 
 a more vivid realization of the presence and 
 power of the Most Holy Spirit^ than is now 
 recognizable in many of the so-called ' priests ' of 
 the Church of England, with whom forms and 
 ceremonies and ' beggarly elements ' seem to be 
 the aim and the end. To return to your question, 
 and to be a faithful chronicler of my experience. 
 
 22 
 
.338 'PREACHING THE GOSPEL: 
 
 I must say that although the clergy of my earlier 
 days shrunk from calling themselves ' priests,' yet 
 was the term ' a preacher of the Gospel ' a mis- 
 nomer. It was no eitangelioii^ no ' good tidings 
 of great joy which shall be to all people'^ that 
 they preached. ' Does he preach the Gospel ' ? 
 became a cant question. A ' sound man ' and 
 a ' Gospel minister ' became cant phrases to 
 describe the clergymen who preached in all their 
 bold unmitigated form ' original sin,' ' entire de- 
 pravity,' 'predestination,' 'election,' 'sovereign 
 grace,' and, to the many, ' reprobation ' and an 
 ' eternal hell.' The Gospel {euangelwn, the good 
 message), the 'good tidings of great joy which 
 shall be to all people^' as proclaimed by angel 
 voices over the fields of Bethlehem, was seldom 
 preached in its integrity and fulness. As I have 
 already said, ' gospel ' became a cant word, and 
 signified the very opposite of its original meaning, 
 as completely as in common parlance the word 
 ' prevent ' now differs and has become degraded 
 from its primitive meaning of ' going before ' — to 
 aid, assist, and further. That beautiful word 'gos- 
 pel' had ceased to mean 'good news' or 'tidings of 
 great Joy to all people.' ' Preaching the Gospel ' 
 meant, in the ' vernacular ' of the ' Evangelical ' 
 party, the ' Clapham Sect ' (which became for 
 some years the most influential ' section ' of the 
 Church of England), the preaching of all those 
 ' horrors ' which I have already described, and 
 
' election: 339 
 
 which may be epitomized by stating that it 
 implied that the Great Creator of all men had 
 created many millions of souls which would 
 * without doubt perish everlastingly ' — no, not 
 ^ perish^' but suffer, and shriek, and writhe with 
 the most excruciating agonies for ever and for 
 ever — while He had also created a comparative 
 few (of whom the preacher was invariably one) 
 whom He had ' predestined ' and ' elected ' ' to 
 be saved ' * through the precious Blood of Christ '; 
 further, that the more heinous and criminal the 
 lives of the ' elect,' the ' greater glorv to God ' ; 
 further, that the bulk of mankind had not, and 
 could not have, the ivill or the power to turn 
 to God. But I cannot trust myself to speak on 
 this subject ; but happily I have here the exact 
 answer given categoricallv on this question by a 
 great ' Evangelic ' authority : ' What is effectual 
 calling ? Effectual calling is the work of God's 
 almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his 
 free and special love to his elect, and from nothing 
 in them moving him thereunto) he doth in his 
 accepted time invite and draw them to Jesus 
 Christ, by his word and spirit savingly enlighten- 
 ing their minds, renewing and powerfully deter- 
 mining their wills, so as they (although in 
 themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing 
 and able freely to answer his call, and to accept 
 and embrace the grace offered and conveyed 
 therein. All the elect, and they only, are 
 
 22 * 
 
340 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 
 
 effectually called, although others may be, and 
 often are, outwardly called by the ministry of 
 the Word.' As I have already said, there is 
 really nothing in this fearful statement which 
 is not embodied in the Seventeenth and Eigh- 
 teenth Articles of the Church of England. The 
 ' Articles ' in the present day are practically 
 buried in the pages of the Prayer Book ; but these 
 men made them a living power. I heard a lady — 
 a most diligent attendant at her parish church — 
 say, the other day, that she had never seen or 
 heard of ' the Articles ' ! I am glad that this is 
 so. In mv earlv manhood it was far otherwise. 
 Yet still the fact remains that these ' Articles,' 
 and these Articles only, are the legal tests of 
 orthodoxv in our law courts whenever the 
 question of doctrine becomes the subject of 
 judicial inquiry. It is one of the many logical 
 inconsistencies of practical life that hundreds — 
 nav thousands — call themselves, or are called 
 by others without contradiction, ' members ' of a 
 Church of whose doctrines they are in absolute 
 ignorance. This fact leads me to hope that as 
 thousands thus 'worship' in 'the Church,' with- 
 out any knowledge of ' the Articles,' and with 
 little conception of the meanings of the words of 
 the ' Creeds,' the time may come when neither 
 creeds nor articles will be demanded of priest or 
 people beyond the simple confession, ' I believe 
 that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,' upon which 
 
THE LITURGY. 341 
 
 Philip the Apostle, when under the special 
 guidance of 'the Spirit,' baptized the treasurer 
 of Candace, the Queen of the Ethiopians. 
 
 Vicar. You have spoken at great length, but 
 have hardly complied with my request. I wished 
 you to tell me how the subject of eternal tor- 
 ment was dealt with by Anglican preachers of 
 your earlier day, and you have dwelt long upon 
 subjects which the more influential and, I may 
 add, the more cultured of our priesthood have 
 agreed as far as possible to ignore and never refer 
 to. I think the doctrine on which you have 
 spoken a very fearful one when separated from 
 the sacramentarian system, which is the antidote 
 of the many evils which afflicted the Church 
 during the latter parts of the Georgian period. 
 I have not read the ' Articles ' since my ordina- 
 tion, and t/icii only for ' pass ' purposes ; but I 
 cannot think thev state in any distinctive form 
 the doctrines which you quoted as a categorical 
 replv to the questions of ' election ' and ' pre- 
 destination ' ; but as thev belong: to the misnamed 
 ' Reformation ' period of our Church they never 
 attracted and rivetted my attention as did our 
 glorious liturgy, and thus I have largely forgotten 
 them. But do vou seriously mean that the 
 doctrines which you have delineated can be fairly 
 drawn from them ? 
 
 Parishioner. Yes, and no others. The ' Prayer 
 Book,' if its appendix, the" Articles (and, as I 
 
342 THE LITURGY. 
 
 have said, these are the title deeds of voiir office 
 and its rights), is a part of it, is as twofold and as 
 antagonistic the one to the other as are the 
 ' High ' and ' Low ' Church clergy whose duty it 
 is to read it. The Church is nobly consistent in 
 her catechism, her liturgy, and all her formularies. 
 The priest who accepts her ' catechism ' can 
 perform all her rites and ceremonies with hearti- 
 ness and probity, without the * mental reserva- 
 tion ' and word-torture which others resort to to 
 justify their inconsistency. From the moment 
 he takes the infant in his arms to bless it with 
 the holy rite of baptism and thereby make it ' a 
 member of Christ, a child of God, and an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,' to the day 
 when he in his official capacity proclaims that ' it 
 hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to 
 take unto himself the soul of our dear brother 
 here departed,' and gives hearty thanks 'that it 
 hath thus pleased him to deliver this our brother 
 out of the miseries of this sinful world,' all his 
 acts are consistent and harmonious. The litur- 
 gical offices of the Church are a beauteous unitv, 
 full of brightness, of hope, of calm contentment 
 and peace. But her 'Articles of Religion,' so 
 dear to the ' Evangelists ' as being ' according to 
 the Word of God,' are not so tranquillizing by 
 reason of their espousing in all its fierceness the 
 doctrines of 'predestination,' 'election,' and 
 ' grace ' to which I ' have referred. The Eigh- 
 
STERXXESS OF THE EIGHTEEXTH ARTICLE. 343 
 
 teenth Article, for instance, embodies the spirit 
 of every phrase which I quoted, and which 
 seems to be so very repulsive to your feelings. 
 All the myriads of human beings who follow 
 Brahma, Buddha, Confucius, and Mahomet, all 
 the tens of thousands in Africa and elsewhere 
 who have never heard the name of Jesus, are 
 left in a hopeless condition ; nay further, the 
 Article hurls its anathema against those who, 
 remembering the words of Paul, should presume 
 to say that ' there is no respect of persons with 
 God ' ; that those ' who have sinned without law 
 shall also perish without law ' ; that ' when the 
 Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature 
 the things contained in the law, these, having 
 not the law, are a law unto themselves.' This 
 'Article,' like to the 'Westminster Confession,' 
 pours contempt on such a notion. It has, how- 
 ever, the great merit of clearness and plain 
 speech ; it is not ' Jesuitic,' equivocal, or beset 
 with that vile philosophy which gives to words 
 a ' non-natural ' sense and an ' inner meaning.' 
 Moreover, it has this merit: it is not written 'in 
 a tongue not understanded of the people,' but 
 all is clear, terse, and forcible — as follows : 'They 
 also are to be had accursed t\\?it presume to say 
 that every man shall be saved by the law or sect 
 which he professeth, so that he be diligent to 
 frame his life according to that law and the light 
 of nature.' 
 
344 THE SACRAMENTARIAN SYSTEM. 
 
 Vicar. Really this appears very repellent. I am 
 glad that I have never from the pulpit — or, indeed, 
 anywhere else — enunciated such views. I think 
 they are calculated, as you say, to cause people 
 to distrust and to disbelieve, when opinions so 
 at variance with the natural sense of justice (to 
 say nothing of mercy) are taught by persons in 
 authoritv. 
 
 Parishioner. Alas ! my dear friend, we can all 
 of us see the minute mote in our brother's eye 
 more readily than we can behold the beam which 
 is in our own eye. Candour compels me to say, 
 in the words of your favourite classic, Horace, 
 
 Mutato nomine de te 
 Fabula narrator. 
 
 As I have already said, the doctrines of predes- 
 tination, and election, and ' sovereign grace ' have 
 led to fearful statements. For instance, I have 
 known an ' Evangelical ' preacher say that 'there 
 were infants in hell not a span long,' But your 
 doctrine on the all-importance of baptism has 
 produced exactly the same results. The emphatic 
 statement of the Nicene Creed which thousands 
 of ' Church people ' utter every Sunday, ' I 
 believe in one baptism for the remission of sins ^ 
 and which faith has been the faith of centuries, 
 has produced results as tragic as any which 
 have arisen practically from the theory which 
 has excited your displeasure. The 'Evangelical' 
 theory has never in England been aided in its 
 
THE SACRAMENTARIAN SYSTEM. 2,^S 
 
 tyranny by the civil power, and all its preachings 
 have had reference solely to the spiritual or 
 eternal state ; whereas this creed respecting 
 baptism to this hour inflicts on the iinbaptized 
 babe the same ignominy which falls to the lot of 
 the murderer or suicide, namely, to be interred 
 without any religious rites, and, in fact, to be 
 buried, to say the least, as a pet dog. In fact, 
 the history of infant baptism teems with ridiculous 
 as well as tragic stories. I know few things which 
 so blend the laughable and the horrible as the 
 teachings of ' the Fathers ' in this matter ; and it 
 has, as I have said, exerted its influence for ages. 
 As a student I once had to read Wall's History 
 of Infant Baptism^ in which he states that with 
 the exception of Vincentius, who speedily re- 
 tracted his 'heresy,' he was unable to discover 
 anv orthodox divine durinc: the first ei^ht cen- 
 turies of the Christian faith who believed other- 
 wise than that unbaptized infants never entered 
 heaven. Indeed, Saint Fulgentius (happily his 
 work is in Latin), in his treatise De Fide, 
 preceded by many centuries my Evangelical 
 friend in his notions of the baby habitants of the 
 infernal world, for he says, * Be assured, and 
 doubt not, that not only men who have obtained 
 the use of their reason, but also little children 
 who have begun to live in their mother's womb, 
 and have there died, or who, having just been 
 born, have passed a\vay from the world without 
 
34'5 THE SACRAMENTARIAN SYSTEM. 
 
 the sacrament of holy baptism, must be punished 
 by the eternal torture of undying fire! Can it 
 be wondered at that the Hindoos and Moham- 
 medans shrink aghast from a ' rehgion ' which 
 teaches such things ? or that English philosophers 
 like Mill and Clifford turn from it with disdain ? 
 I said that some ridiculous results ensued from 
 this ' dogma,' and assuredly they did ; but the 
 horror which springs up in my own soul from this 
 theory of ' baptism ' prevents mv enumerating 
 them. The mental anguish which a mother nur- 
 tured in such a faith must have felt when ' her 
 hour was come ' (more especially if it had come 
 prematurely), and she far away from priests, 
 passes the power of words to describe. No, my 
 dear Mr. Hierous, vou are not in a position to 
 cast a stone at your ' Evangelical ' brother on the 
 cruel consequences of vour respective beliefs. 
 But I cheerfully admit that it has not occurred 
 to you., as it did not occur to them^ to realize in 
 full the absolute horror which such theories 
 inspire in unsophisticated minds. They ask you 
 to believe the respective doctrines to be the 
 teachings of Holv Writ — believe that they are 
 the ordinances of the Most High God — and 
 teach them accordingly ; the result being that 
 intellectual men whose plastic childhood has not 
 been moulded into such dogmas, and also hun- 
 dreds of other reflecting minds who Jiave been 
 reared under such theories, but who have bv 
 
THE SACRAMENTARLIX SYSTEM. 347 
 
 natural, intellectual, and moral force emerged 
 from the thraldom of hereditary ideas, turn alike 
 from the Church and from the Book Avhich incul- 
 cate, or are supposed to inculcate, such ideas. 
 Thev know them to be at variance with the 
 intuitions of a sound mind and a sound heart, 
 and with the courage that appertains to rectitude 
 thev denounce them as false, and say with 
 emphasis, ''Fiatjiistitia.^ niat coeliim! 
 
 Vicar. Your notions are very painful to me, 
 and I ought not to listen to such implied heresy. 
 The creeds which have come down to us through 
 so many centuries, hallowed as they have been 
 by the acceptance of some of the most wise and 
 most holy of men, cannot be otherwise than 
 true, from that very circumstance. Had they 
 been false and untrue they would long since have 
 come to an end. Are you aware that Dr. Pusey, 
 one of the most pious and most learned theo- 
 logians of the present day, has written a profound 
 and elaborate volume sustaining and enforcing 
 those very views which you say have produced 
 such dangerous results ? and, further, that the 
 saintly poet of The Christian Year recognized 
 the transforming power of the most holy rite of 
 baptism? I can never forget his expressive 
 lines — 
 
 A few calm words of faith and prayer, 
 
 A few bright drops of holy dew. 
 Shall, work a wonder there 
 
 Earth's charmers never knew. 
 
348 SA CRA MENTA RIA N FA NA TIC ISM. 
 
 What sparkles in that lucid flood 
 Is water, ty gross mortals cy\l ; 
 
 But, seen by Faith, 'tis blood 
 Old of a dear Friend's side. 
 
 And then, as if he were well-nigh transported 
 with the transforming and transfiguring influence 
 of this rite upon the babe visible before him, he 
 sings — 
 
 O tender gem, and full of Heaven ! 
 
 Not in the twilight stars on high, 
 Not in moist flowers at even, 
 
 See we our God so fiigh. 
 
 Parishioner. The writings of these men are 
 not unknown to me, nor the men themselves. 
 Neither possessed a judicial mind. Each was 
 incapable of weighing evidence — nay, would not 
 listen to, much less accept, evidence which 
 seemed to militate against their preconceived 
 notions. Although kindly in their family and 
 social relations, both would have persecuted as 
 bravely as Bonner himself had the civil laws 
 permitted them. Witness their conduct towards 
 Hampden, the late Bishop of Hereford, and 
 towards others. As I have already said, I lived 
 in the same town as Keble, and know that he 
 avoided, as he would avoid a poisonous snake, 
 some of the clergymen in the district who held 
 views on baptism and 'sacramental grace' different 
 from his own. I know that it would be ' as a 
 voice crying in the wilderness ' to say anything 
 which implied that the ' saintly Keble ' could be 
 
JOHN KEBLE. 349 
 
 sullen and morose, and it would serve no useful 
 purpose to proclaim it. In truth, I rejoice in 
 the great results which his widespread fame pro- 
 duced after his death, and that tens of thousands 
 of pounds were lavishlv poured in hY partisans 
 and others to found and sustain a memorial 
 college to his perpetual honour. He possessed 
 great qualities of mind and heart, but certainly 
 not so great as the reverence felt towards him 
 by Cardinal Newman and others w^ould seem to 
 indicate. But he was peculiarly deficient in the 
 cool mental qualities which would have fitted 
 him for the judicial bench or have enabled him 
 to attain rank as a 'scientist.' By living a life of 
 seclusion from his earliest childhood, under the 
 constant hourly supervision of an affectionate and 
 learned father, bv incessant application and study 
 under the same father's guidance, through natural 
 reserve and shyness shunning the companionship 
 of boys of his own age and the sports of boys, he 
 gave himself whollv up to reading. I rarely saw 
 him without a book in his hand, whether riding 
 on horseback or walking ; and by these unusual 
 circumstances he attained, as might have been 
 expected, a large amount of learning of a special 
 kind at a very early age ; he had, in fact, been 
 ' coached ' from his infancy for that particular 
 ' scholarship ' which he gained before he had 
 quite completed his fifteenth year. His father 
 bad himself been a successful competitor for the 
 
350 JOHN KEBLE. 
 
 same ' scholarship ' in his own youth ; and, more- 
 over, to arrive at a strictly accurate conclusion 
 as to the precise merit of the attainment, it must 
 not be forgotten that ' Corpus ' was a small 
 college ; that in awarding the ' scholarship ' there 
 was always a strong bias on the part of the 
 examiners in favour of youth in the candidates ; 
 that these circumstances, together with the special 
 studies and special conduct likely to attain 
 success, were known thoroughly to the youthful 
 Keble's preceptor, his own father, who had always 
 kept up his intimacy with * Corpus ' and its ' heads.' 
 The father personally accompanied his highly- 
 trained son to Oxford when he went up for the 
 examination. So excellent a ' coach ' was Mr. 
 Keble for this particular ' scholarship,' that both 
 John Keble and his brother Thomas were suc- 
 cessful competitors for it. These exceptional 
 and peculiar advantages do not, of course, deprive 
 the ' boy-Fellow ' of a great honour, but they go 
 far to intimate that there was no ' prodigious ' 
 marvel about it, requiring an intellect of excep- 
 tional power or genius to achieve it. His great 
 attainments afterwards, such as winning ' double 
 first class ' in his university, were such as few 
 men reach ; and few there are who have been so 
 earlv, so exclusively, and so persistently trained 
 for a given end. However, to have achieved in 
 his university the same distinction which shed 
 honour on the illustrious statesman Sir Robert 
 
JOHN KEBLE. 351 
 
 Peel entitles Keble to a high niche in the temple 
 of fame, and will ' keep his memory green ' in 
 the hearts of Eno^lish 'Churchmen.' His friendly 
 biographer, Sir J.T. Coleridge, writes that Keble's 
 fame ' must rest upon his sacred poetry.' This 
 is probably true ; yet any impartial critic must 
 admit that the ' sacred poetry ' owes much of its 
 popularity, and its writer his extensive influence, 
 to the same causes which made the hymns of 
 John Wesley so popular, and John Wesley the 
 power he was, and is, among teeming thousands 
 of his countrymen — namely, the poetry of Keble 
 and of the Wesleys was popular because it 
 ministered to the feelings, the desires, and opinions 
 of large ' religious ' bodies holding special religious 
 theories, which they rejoiced to see championed 
 in melodious verse. In poetic power, per se, 
 The Christian Year is not equal to many poems 
 which have not attained the half of its popularity ; 
 and even as ^ sacred poetry,' were it not linked to 
 a large and enthusiastic section of the Church of 
 England, it would not be regarded as superior 
 to the poems of James Montgomery, the modest 
 poet of Sheffield. 
 
 Vicar. Really your views of poetry are as 
 heretical as your opinions on other subjects. 
 Surely you do not mean seriously to state that 
 John Keble was not distinguished for his extreme 
 humility and modesty ? And may I ask you to 
 take an early opportunity to read his beautiful 
 
352 JOHN KEBLE. 
 
 hymn for ' St. Mark's Day' (which, by-the-bye, was 
 his own birthday), and you will then see what 
 a fine spirit of Christian sympathy and catholic 
 tolerance he possessed. Moreover, when you 
 allege that his was not a judicial mind, I think 
 you ought to have given some fact or facts in 
 illustration of this ; and as vou vourself claim to 
 be liberal and tolerant, may I be allowed to 
 remind you of the just sentiment, ^De mortuis nil 
 nisi honiun ' ? 
 
 Parishioner. I have great admiration for the 
 life and some of the writings of the author of 
 The Christian Year. What I wished to convey 
 is, that he was no Colossus, either in intellectual 
 power, moral attainments, or administrative 
 capacity, as the lavish honours which have been 
 paid to his memory would implv. His fame is 
 the fame of a party chieftain, and \vill wane as 
 the opinions of the party recede before the 
 advancing intelligence of the age. As for his 
 humility, I have no desire to question it. He 
 was, constitutionally, the most shy man I have 
 ever known — so shy that it was embarrassing to 
 him even to write in the presence of strangers 
 — so much so that he has been known to say, 
 * I hate any one to see how I hold my pen ' ; and 
 this congenital shyness, timidity, or diffidence — 
 by whatever name you call it — helped to swell 
 the chorus of praise which was bestowed upon 
 him for his ' Christian humilitv ' and modestv. 
 
JOHN KEBLE. s^2> 
 
 Moreover, all persons — princes, potentates, or 
 pigmies — gain immeasurably in renown by privacy 
 and seclusion. The Latins inculcate this in the 
 proverb '' Onuie ignotiim pro magiiifico^ as the 
 English do by saying of its opposite, ' Familiarity 
 breeds contempt.' We learn from various bio- 
 graphies that John Keble was less frequently in 
 the ' common room ' at Oriel than was any of 
 the very distinguished Fellows of his time, and 
 a Fellow of the same college, in his charming 
 Reminiscences^ has pertinently observed that 
 ' the slightest word he dropped was all the more 
 remembered from there being so little of it^ and 
 from it seeming to come from a different and 
 holier sphere.' This retiring habit enabled him 
 to sustain unimpaired the great reputation which 
 his 'youthful Fellowship' had procured. Fortune 
 favoured him. The ' Tractarian movement ' at 
 Oxford welded a chain which linked him to the 
 esteem of a powerful party. Tlie Christian Year 
 and the Prayer Book speedily became twin 
 companions in the esteem and reverence of 
 hundreds, both in the sanctuary and the home. 
 The two books became as symbolic of the 
 ' Puseyite ' and ' High Church ' parties as the 
 unctuous phrases of the ' Blessed Gospel,' 
 ' sovereign grace,' ' the Lord's Day,' and the like 
 were of the Evangelical, or 'Low Church,' party. 
 At a time when the 'Evangelical' party excluded 
 everything ornamental — music, painting, and 
 
 23 
 
354 ' THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.' 
 
 sculpture — and held the material ' cross ' in 
 special dislike as symbolic of Popery, excluding 
 it from their churches, and when possible from 
 the graveyards, the covers of 77ie Christian 
 Year became ornamented with a gilt cross, or 
 with some other symbolic monogram device, and 
 its pages were duly adorned with * church red 
 lines,' and the like ; thus enhancing its sale by 
 thus becoming more expressive of party zeal 
 and purpose. Such ornaments are common to 
 religious books now, but it was very different 
 fifty years ago. The white surplice in the pulpit 
 and the ' cross ' on the altar-cloth or book-cover 
 were as ^war-paint'' to an Indian savage, exciting 
 the warmest emotions, and thus enhanced the 
 sale of The Christian Year and the popularity of 
 its author. As party zeal toned down, the book, 
 from its attractive appearance, and the tranquil 
 nature of its themes, came to be adopted as a 
 ' gift book ' among ' Church people ' generally, 
 who, without strong ' views ' of any kind, were 
 still desirous that such books as they did give 
 to their young friends should be religious and 
 ' proper,' and consistent with their own position 
 as ' Church-going people.' In addition to these 
 circumstances, the ' Christian renaissance,' so to 
 speak, which has diffused itself among all classes 
 of society in reference to symbolic ornament, has 
 had its influence in inducing such purchasers to 
 select a ' religious ' book which at the same time 
 
yOHN KEBLE. 365 
 
 had the 'nicest-looking covers.' From all these 
 causes T/ie Christian Year attained a circulation 
 which is unparalleled in the annals of poetry ; 
 but, I repeat, it is not its ' poetry,' but its 
 character as a ^Church book' and a party-poem, 
 that has kept it alive and maintained its sale. 
 
 Vicar. You deal with the beautiful poem of 
 The Christian Year in the same daring manner, 
 and explain its popularity and that of its Author 
 on the same principles, as Gibbon had the audacity 
 to do in reference to the spread of Christianity 
 itself; that is, you explain it by secondary causes 
 rather than from its own inherent excellence and 
 diffusive power. This must be prejudice on your 
 part. You have not, however, ventured to dispute 
 the Christian, catholic, tender, and tolerant spirit 
 of Keble for which I reverence him, and which 
 breathes so holy a fragrance from every line of 
 his beautiful hymn on St. Mark's Day. I observe 
 also that vou have evaded mv remonstrance in 
 respect to the opinion you have given as to 
 Keble's not possessing that honest and robust 
 mind which would enable him to be strictly 
 judicial in his conclusions. For my own part, 
 I believe him to have been so God-fearing a man 
 as to prefer truth before all things, and that, 
 like unto his beloved Master, his ' zeal ' for his 
 Father's house made him wish to purge the 
 Church of ' all them that sold and bought in the 
 temple,' and of all other polluting things ; that 
 
 23 * 
 
356 JOHN KEBLE. 
 
 self-advancement and ' love of money ' were 
 things which he never coveted after ; that he 
 fled 'these things and followed after righteousness, 
 godliness, faith^ love, patience, and meekness.' 
 
 Parishioner. You have formed no inaccurate 
 opinion of Keble as to his zeal for his Father's 
 house, and of his desire to purge his beloved 
 Church from all polluting things. He w^as ordi- 
 narily as meek as was becoming in a man ; he 
 was tender as a child in all his family relations ; 
 he was very benevolent to his parishioners at 
 Coin St. Aldwin's. Although his father was 
 legally ' vicar,' yet, for all practical purposes, ' 
 the poet was the vicar and pastor of the place all 
 the time that I knew him. His family means 
 enabled him to be a liberal almoner of blankets 
 and coals at Christmas, and he w^as therefore 
 held in great reverence and esteem by the 
 humble villagers in that place ; yet his excessive 
 shyness often caused him to be awkward, distant, 
 and reserved in his personal intercourse with 
 them, and many even of his charities w^ere per- 
 formed by deputy. He had real sympathy for 
 the suffering and respect for the lowly, but the 
 great seclusion in which he had been nurtured 
 from earliest childhood, his practical inexperience 
 of 'life' in its various phases, his ignorance of its 
 necessities and business requirements often made 
 him confused and embarrassed in conversation 
 and in his private ministerial addresses. He w^as 
 
yOHX KEBLE. 357 
 
 frequently glad under such circumstances to fall 
 back upon the Book of Common Prayer and to 
 * read the Offices.' This excessive shyness — and 
 it was almost morbid — even so late as 1833 
 caused him to be very little at Oxford, where his 
 distinction as the 'boy-Fellow' and 'Professor 
 of Poetry' had been deservedlv gained. He 
 preferred the seclusion of his most secluded home 
 at Fairford, and when compelled by duty to be 
 in Oxford he sought not rooms in far-famed Oriel, 
 but in a private house in the citv. I am quite 
 sure that this excessive ' nervousness,' as it is 
 miscalled, served to heighten his reputed humility 
 and modesty, humble and modest as he certainly 
 was. In respect to my seeking for secondarv 
 causes to explain many of Keble's qualities, I 
 avow at once mv full belief in the formative 
 influences of a man's environments. No nun- 
 nery was more secluded from observation or 
 more shut off from the power of observing inci- 
 dents external to itself than was John Keble's 
 birth-place and home at Fairford. I knew it well, 
 having lived in it for several years, and spent 
 many hours of reading in the little room in which 
 a great portion of 7716 Christian Year was 
 written. The house was shut in by a lofty wall 
 from the high road which passed in front of it. 
 At the outer side of the western boundary of the 
 patrimonial property there were four or five cot- 
 tages, but these were scarcely visible from the 
 
3S^ yOHN KEBLE. 
 
 grounds, and their occupants could not, even 
 from the upper windows, catch a glimpse of the 
 garden opposite, because of the lofty wall, high 
 elms, and other trees. In other directions were 
 fields and gardens only, and Mr. Keble's ' pad- 
 dock,' which joined his garden, was rendered 
 quite 'private' by walls and lofty trees, which 
 formed an oblong embowered parade very dear 
 to the musing poet. The approach to the resi- 
 dence was at one end of it, and from its own 
 grounds, and no one approaching the house could 
 see its inmates, except by the rarest chance, as 
 only one window at the corner of the dining- 
 room was visible in this direction. The town . 
 itself afforded few, if any, visitors, for the Vicar 
 of Fairford and his parishioner Mr. Keble were 
 not on cordial terms of friendship. There were 
 very few young men of his own status in society 
 in the neighbourhood with whom he desired to 
 associate ; hence the shyness, reserve, and love 
 of solitude which marked his after-career. 
 When this shyness was surmounted by personal 
 intimacy, he became genial, pleasant, and, as is 
 frequently the case with shy people, even demon- 
 stratively exuberant with fun. In the family of 
 a dear friend of my own, I am told that, when he 
 was young and frequently visited them, after the 
 reserve of the few first hours had been melted 
 away by their geniality, welcome, and kindness, 
 he could, and did, become very merry and 
 
yOHN KEBLE. .3.,9 
 
 exultant; that before he was 'ordained' he 
 enjoyed a dance with their daughters very 
 much ; and afterwards he often displayed much 
 merriment, was fond of giving them grotesque 
 riddles to solve, and was otherwise very diverting. 
 His letters at that period — about 1820-21, I 
 think — were much appreciated by them, as they 
 abounded in humour, quaint descriptions, and 
 scraps of poetry; while over all was diffused, as 
 it were, a spirit of purity ; and the peroration of 
 each letter, if one may so describe it, almost 
 invariablv referred to hijjh and holv matters. 
 
 J CI . 
 
 His pathetic nature and reserve were, I think, 
 intensified very much after the death of his father, 
 although he had reached his ninetieth year ; and 
 among the other influences which helped to 
 mould his character were the frequent illnesses 
 of his sisters, to whom he was warmlv attached : 
 one, Sarah, he lost early from consumption ; 
 Mary Ann, his favourite sister, the most cheerful, 
 bright, and sparkling of the three sisters, died in 
 1826. So fond, indeed, was he both of Mary 
 Ann and Elizabeth that in writing to my friend 
 Mrs. P. purposing to introduce Mary Ann to her, 
 he said, ' Not mv wife Elizabeth, but mv sweet- 
 heart Mary Ann.' It was with her that he 
 walked and rode most, and she was (to use his 
 playful words) his 'sweetheart'; but in Elizabeth 
 also he had a ' wife who sympathized with him in 
 all reverence of holy things, and in loving care 
 
36o yOHN KEBLE. 
 
 of the humble, the sick, and the needy.' She 
 lived long — yea, even to three-score years and 
 ten. Although in comparatively early life she 
 had to undergo the amputation of a leg, and was 
 in other respects an invalid, yet was she habitu- 
 ally cheerful and serene, ever reflecting the purity 
 and goodness of her Divine Lord. She passed 
 away in peace — so peacefully that her loving 
 brother, who was, in his hoary age, reading to 
 her a psalm, was unconscious that her spirit had 
 fled until the attendant nurse informed him that 
 Miss Keble had been dead some minutes. He 
 buried her at his dear village of Horsley. Sarah 
 and Marv Ann sleep beneath the shadow of the 
 beautiful church at Fairford, whose ' storied 
 windows' are a pictorial illustration of the life of 
 Jesus whom they loved so well. Not the house 
 of Bethany, when Mary and Martha and Lazarus 
 lovingly ministered to their gracious benefactor, 
 was the home of purer and more Christian aff"ec- 
 tion than was the home of Keble at Fairford, 
 when in 1823 he gave up the office of tutor in 
 Oxford and returned flushed with honours to his 
 aged father and beloved sisters — ' his sweetheart 
 and his wife,' as he so happily and affectionately 
 described them. 
 
 Vicar. You have interested me intensely in 
 your later remarks, as they seem to me an apolo- 
 getic recantation of your previous deprecatory 
 remarks on The Christian Year, and of its 
 
JOHN KEBLE. 361 
 
 sainted author. Your tone then was such as to 
 suggest that you must have been smarting under 
 some personal feeling which excited prejudice 
 and caused you to take a harsh, and therefore an 
 unjust, view of the poetry, as also a very exag- 
 gerated view of the spiritual defects of the writer. 
 Your reference to the home of Bethany and its 
 inmates whom Jesus loved prompts the thought 
 that, after all, you regarded the Keble family 
 as peculiarly and especially Christ-like, with an 
 abiding, steadfast, even joyous sense of the 
 immediate presence of their Lord. 
 
 Parishioner . I repeat I have no bias. I strive 
 to hold the balance steadilv and uprightly. If it 
 did oscillate it would be in the direction of 
 undue praise. A man would be indeed crass, 
 stupid, and unjust were he to deny merit to a 
 book which has found hundreds of thousands of 
 purchasers, and which continues to be in demand 
 in the households of pious Churchmen. As to 
 the writer, I personally know that he was kind, 
 pious, generous, and sympathetic ; and further, 
 zealous in the extreme for the honour and the 
 power of the Church of which he was a priest ; 
 but I know, also, that the very ardour of his 
 piety and the positiveness of his convictions 
 made him harsh, morose, nav severely unjust 
 towards those who held other views, and were, 
 like himself, positive in their convictions, and 
 eager to impress them upon others. I have 
 
3'52 JOHN KEBLE. 
 
 never heard, and have never read of, more than 
 one man who could be jiist and tender and true 
 under all circumstances of conflict of opinion 
 and personal wrong, and, alas ! 
 
 Now he is dead ! Far hence he lies 
 
 In the lorn Syrian town ; 
 And on his grave, with shining eyes, 
 
 The Syrian stars look down. 
 
 Vicar. You should give some facts illustrative 
 of Keble's aversion to others, more especially of 
 the priesthood, which you think at variance with 
 my opinion of his very large-hearted. Christian 
 catholicity — that spirit of love which is greater 
 than faith and hope — the spirit which prompted 
 and gave utterance to these beautiful lines in his 
 poem on ' St. Mark's Day ' : 
 
 And sometimes e'en beneath the moon 
 The Saviour gives a gracious boon. 
 
 When reconciled Christians meet, 
 And face to face, and heart to heart. 
 High thoughts of holy love impart 
 
 In silence meek or converse sweet. 
 O then the glory and the bliss. 
 When all that pain'd or seem'd amiss 
 
 Shall melt with earth and sin away ! 
 When saints beneath their Saviour's eye, 
 Fill'd with each other's company. 
 
 Shall spend in love th' eternal day ! 
 
 Here, as it seems to me, is the true spirit of 
 Christian love and of catholic unity, the fore- 
 taste and joyful recognition of the ' communion 
 of saints,' far removed from that jealous and 
 invidious spirit to which you have so often 
 
yOHN KEBLE. 363 
 
 referred. What can be further apart in sphit 
 than these lines and the conduct of John, who 
 forbad one from casting out devils in Jesus's 
 name 'because he followeth not with us/ and 
 what more in harmony with HIM who said, 
 * Forbid him not : for he that is not against us is 
 for us ' ? I wish also to remind you that you 
 have not given me any fact corroborative of your 
 idea that Keble was too timid — in other words, 
 not robust enough — honestly and judicially to 
 investigate facts^ and to accept the consequences^ 
 whatever they may be, as ' scientists ' or the 
 great investigators into natural phenomena claim 
 to do. 
 
 Parishioner. I could give some which have 
 fallen under my own immediate observation, and 
 which would prove that, in 1835, it was not only 
 the fault of the then Vicar of Fairford that there 
 was no realization of the beautiful lines you have 
 quoted — the 
 
 gracious boon, 
 When reconciled Christians meet, 
 And face to face, and heart to heart. 
 High thoughts of holy love impart 
 In silence meek or converse sweet. 
 
 The said Vicar believed and published that the 
 views on baptism promulgated by Dr. Pusey and 
 espoused by Keble were unscriptural ; and this 
 proceeding excited in the latter an ' aversion ' or 
 repulsion of the kind which I have stated. Sir 
 J. T. Coleridge, in his biography of Keble, refers 
 
.364 yOHN KEBLE. 
 
 to it as a ' discomfort which would have decided 
 him now, of itself, against choosing Fairford as 
 his residence when his choice was free.' The 
 ' discomfort ' must have been considerable, when 
 it is remembered that Fairford was the ' birth- 
 place ' and the * burial-place ' of his family, and 
 the ' home ' his own personal property or that of 
 his brother. But you seem to forget that I have 
 instanced his conduct towards Hampden and 
 also to Arnold, with whom he was at one time 
 friendly ; from both of these men he became 
 estranged because they chose to think differently 
 on ' Church matters.' But, as bearing on this 
 particular, I might quote Newman, who in his 
 Apologia, writing of John Keble, for whom he 
 once had a reverence almost idolatrous, says, 
 ' He was shy of me for years in consequence 
 of the marks which I bore upon me of the 
 Evangelical and Liberal schools ; at least, so I 
 have ever thought' (p. 18). In fact, like too 
 many saints of whom history tells, Keble was too 
 apt to associate intellectual difficulties, and the 
 conscientious scruples and inquiries springing out 
 of them, with a sinful heart and * the pride of 
 reason,' and was by no means so quick to 
 perceive that ' intolerance ' and a lack of charity 
 sometimes spring from ' spiritual pride.' In fact, 
 as even his all-too-partial biographer states, 'those 
 with whom he lived and of v/hom he saw most 
 had such a reverence for him, that his opinions 
 
JOHN KEBLE. 365 
 
 were seldom canvassed with that freedom in 
 conversation with himself which is good for the 
 wisest of men ' ; and again the writer thinks that 
 the qiieriiloiis diVLdLsevere spirit which he sometimes 
 manifested would have been kept in abeyance, 
 and that it would ' have conduced to the holding 
 of opinions with more charity, if honours had 
 been offered to and accepted by him.' In short, 
 what I may have said which appears to you 
 unfair to the reputation of Keble, and which I 
 know to be the shade necessary to make the 
 picture lifelike and true, can be substantiated by 
 two or three little incidents : for simple circum- 
 stances occur sometimes which lift the veil and 
 reveal the true character of a man. In a letter 
 to a friend he writes, ' I don't care to read Ecce 
 Homo, but it will be a very agreeable disappoint- 
 ment if the writer turns out a Christian at last, 
 and I will pull off my hat to him and beg his 
 pardon.' Here is an illustration of a conclusion, 
 not altogether charitable, drawn of a man (how- 
 ever right it may accidentally have proved) 
 because of the writing of a book he deemed 
 heretical, although he had not cared to read it. 
 Again, here is a statement, written by the son of 
 Keble's most friendly biographer, of an interview 
 he had enjoyed with the poet and divine : ' I 
 was telling him how much I had been impressed 
 with the difficulties as to the inspiration of {loly 
 Scripture, which were growing stronger and 
 
.^66 yOHN KEBLE. 
 
 spreading more widely day by day ; and that it 
 seemed to me this would shortly become (this 
 was in the year 1851) the great religious question 
 of the time. I added that there was not, so far as 
 I knew, any theory or statement on the subject 
 which even attempted to be philosophical, except 
 Coleridge's, in his Confessions of an Inquiring 
 Spirit^ and that I wished Mr. Keble,orsome one 
 as competent as he, would take up the subject 
 and deal with it intellectually and thoroughly. 
 He showed great dislike to the discussion and 
 put it aside several times, and on my pressing it 
 upon him, he answered shortly that most of the 
 men who had difficulties on this subject were too 
 wicked to be reasoned with.' Surely, here was 
 the spirit of Torquemada ; here the idea and the 
 principle upon which the Spanish Inquisition was 
 founded, through which the auto-da fe was lighted 
 up, and bv which the Massacres of Bartholomew 
 were perpetrated and justified. One sees not in 
 this speech the Christian love which ' hopeth all 
 things,' but rather the mischievous zeal and 
 sectarian discipleship which prompted James and 
 John to go to their Divine Master and to implore 
 from HIM permission to ' command fire to come 
 down from heaven and consume ' those who did 
 not further their wishes, and which called forth 
 from the Holy One the severe rebuke, * Ye know 
 not what manner of spirit ye are of.' 
 
 Vicar. You have, indeed, come to startling 
 
yOHN KEBLE. 367 
 
 conclusions respecting the holy man whom the 
 Church, at least a large section of it, has honoured 
 for these twenty years as pre-eminently distin- 
 guished for tenderness and humility. It would 
 excite the indignation of tens of thousands had 
 they heard, as I have been pained to hear, the 
 name of the sainted Keble associated with the 
 blood-stained name of Torquemada. I must ask 
 you to withdraw the comparison for your own 
 sake, if you desire to be thought truthful and 
 just, and to escape the strong censure of the 
 religious world. 
 
 Parishioner. There is one Tribunal before 
 which I am anxious to appear truthful and just, 
 because before that Tribunal appearances and 
 realities are one and the same thing. Other 
 tribunals are influenced almost exclusively by 
 appearances, and they may misjudge me, and 
 they would do so if they thought, as you appear 
 to do, that I placed the popular poet of The 
 Christian Year on the same plane of moral 
 worth as the notorious Torquemada. As to the 
 indignant ' censure of the religious world,' this is 
 one of the inflictions which the truth-seeker and 
 the truth-lover must expect. For example, were 
 he to say in Cairo, or Constantinople, or within 
 the precincts of the Grand Mosque of the Omar, 
 or even in Jerusalem itself, that ' Mahomet was 
 an impostor,' he would possibly be stoned to 
 death or trampled under foot by ' the religious 
 
368 JOHN KEBLE. 
 
 world.' ' The chief priests and the scribes' of 
 every religion have been, in every country and in 
 every age, prone to the cry of ' Crucify him ' 
 against all ' who have difficulties on the subject ' 
 of their dogmas, ' They are too wicked to be 
 reasoned with ' is their general feeling ; and if 
 these 'too wicked' ones cannot now be beheaded 
 or burnt in London, Oxford, or Gloucester, as 
 were More, Latimer, and Hooper, and scores of 
 others in other places, yet are they ' ostracized ' 
 by such 'priests,' and 'boycotted' from all social 
 intercourse with ' the religious world.' Yea, even 
 now in the nineteenth century such truth-seekers 
 ' are too wicked to be reasoned with ' by the 
 ' unco' gude ' of all sects ; and hence their 
 doctrines spread among the majority of the laity; 
 and thence it has come to pass that in this 
 country that which in 1851 was 'a little cloud 
 out of the sea like unto a man's hand ' has now 
 spread far and wide, and pervades the highest 
 literary reviews and journals of the time, and 
 dominates powerfully the minds of some of the 
 hio^hest officials in the State. It is verv sad, but 
 it IS tJie fact^ that some of the kindest and most 
 tender men in their family circles have from 
 religious zeal become great persecutors ; yea, in 
 persecuting the lowly followers of the Prince of 
 Peace they have thought ' they were doing God 
 service.' Some of the most benevolent men 
 I have known in private life have been the most 
 
JOHN KEBLE. 3^9 
 
 Strenuous upholders of the doctrine of eternal 
 torment ; yea, Keble himself was one of these ; 
 and I have heard the gentle Wriothesley Baptist 
 Noel dilate upon this theme with a zeal which 
 has sent a thrill of anguish through my soul. 
 These are the men who unconsciously spread 
 'agnosticism ' and atheism over our land. Dr. Pusey 
 even, tender as he was in his domestic relations, 
 did, by this very idea — by mistaking ' difficulties ' 
 for 'wickedness' (like his friend Keble) — exercise 
 a priestly sternness and reproof which hurried 
 one agitated soul into the public avowal of 
 atheism. As Polonius said of Hamlet's madness, 
 so say I of this priestly intolerance — 
 
 'Tis true ; 'tis true 'tis pity 5 
 And pity 'tis "tis true.' 
 
 Vicar. As followers of Him who said it was 
 ' better to pluck out an offending eye or to cut 
 off an offending hand rather than the whole body 
 should be cast into hell,' they could not do other- 
 wise than thus speak and act towards those who 
 disturb faith and are given to change, and with 
 whom you sympathize too much. Your reference 
 to Dr. Pusey seems to me pointedly precise. 
 Are you at liberty to name the special instance 
 of a person who was led to the public avowal of 
 atheism, or, to use your words, was ' hurried ' on 
 to its ' avowal ' through want of tender sympathy 
 and Christ-like love on the part of that venerable 
 and venerated man you named ? 
 
 24 
 
370 MISCHIEVOUS ZEAL. 
 
 Parishioner. It has not very much astonished 
 me that even you, habitually kind as you are, 
 should so readily acquiesce in, and even espouse, 
 this stern and cruel conduct ; although I did not 
 quite expect that your thoughts would so quickly 
 rush to the extreme of ' casting into hell ' those 
 who, having ' difficulties ' on the subject of the 
 ' inspiration of Holv Scripture,' and who, con- 
 sequently, ' were too wicked to be reasoned with.' 
 It would seem as if there were something special 
 in the studies and training for the priesthood 
 which disposes men to become intolerant and 
 punitive in respect to speculative thought ; and 
 further, to associate and link together sin and 
 punishment, to regard all suffering as the direct 
 penal result of sin in a punitive sense, as did the 
 early disciples of Jesus when they asked Him 
 ' who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he 
 was born blind ? ' Jesus answered, ' Neither 
 hath this man sinned, nor his parents : but that 
 the works of God should be made manifest in 
 him ' (John ix. 2, 3). The feelings of 'Caiaphas '» 
 seem to be indigenous to the priestly mind : as a 
 class, they are quick to discern when a man 
 'hath spoken blasphemy,' to become intensely 
 excited — if not, as Caiaphas, so as to ' rend their 
 clothes,' yet, like him, to be disposed to say 
 to those who resort to advice and persuasive 
 argument, ' Ye know nothing at all, nor consider 
 that it is expedient for iis^ that one man shoiild 
 
FANATICISM CRUEL. 371 
 
 die for the people, and that the whole nation 
 perish not.' General experience has shown that 
 not even in the cruelty and shame of slavery did 
 the ecclesiastic mind perceive anything hostile 
 to the spirit and teaching of Jesus. The large- 
 hearted American poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, 
 tells us that in the report of a pro-slavery 
 meeting at Charleston on the fourth of the ninth 
 month, 1835, in The Courier paper it is stated, 
 * The clergy of ail denominations attended in a 
 body tending their sanction to the proceedings, 
 and adding by their presence to the impressive 
 character of the scene.' This sad fact stirred his 
 soul deeply, and he wrote some scathing lines on 
 the circumstance. I remember two verses : — 
 
 Pilate and Herod friends ! 
 Chief Priests and Rulers as of old combine ! 
 
 Just God and Holy ! is that church which lends 
 Strength to the spoiler, thine ? 
 
 Woe to the Priesthood ! woe 
 To those whose hire is with the price of blood — 
 
 Perverting, darkening, changing as they go 
 The searching truths of God ! 
 
 I must say, also, that in our own country neither 
 the harsh penal code of our forefathers, nor in 
 the severity and unwholesomeness of our prisons, 
 nor in the ignorant barbarities of our lunatic 
 asylums, did the clerical mind so quickly and 
 clearly recognize iniquity as it did in a speculative 
 ' dogma ' ; nor did thev protest against them 
 
 24* 
 
372 PRIESTLY FANATICISM. 
 
 until Clarkson, and Romilly, and Howard, and 
 ConoUy raised their voices and wielded their 
 pens, and devoted their lives to their removal 
 or reform. Indeed, that distinguished philan- 
 thropist Dr. Conolly, who stripped every strap, 
 manacle, and chain off every lunatic in ' Hanwell,' 
 and never once permitted one to be placed on 
 the many hundreds who were under his care, has 
 again and asrain told me that he never knew a 
 clergyman who, when in official capacity, did not 
 uphold the idea of physical force and punishment. 
 He had known many who in their private 
 capacities were kind and beneficent, but never 
 one who as member of a committee, or in 
 any administrative capacity, did not advocate 
 'restraint ' in all its material forms, and ' chastise- 
 ment ' as the most efficient corrective of evil. 
 My own experience, which has not been slight, 
 confirms his so far as it relates to the treatment 
 of the insane. The idea that ' this man had 
 sinned ' — that the malady differed in essence 
 from other diseases, and was moral rather than 
 physical — seemed generally present to them 
 w^hen going through the wards of a lunatic 
 hospital. Consequently they always favoured 
 the repressive svstem in all its varied forms. 
 ' Demoniac possession ' seemed to be present to 
 their minds, and they appeared unable to detach 
 the demonized from the ' demon.' Often have 
 clergymen reminded me by their inquiries and by 
 
PRIESTLY FANATICISM. 375 
 
 their conduct of the vigorous monk Luther, who 
 is reported to have said, ' Idiots are men in 
 whom devils have estabHshed themselves ; and 
 all the physicians who heal those infirmities as 
 though they proceeded from natural causes are 
 ignorant blockheads, who know nothing about 
 the power of the demon. Eight years ago, I 
 myself saw, and touched, at Dessau, a child of 
 this sort which had no human parents, but had 
 proceeded from the Devil. He was twelve years 
 old, and in outward form exactly resembled 
 ordinary children. He did nothing but eat, 
 consuming as much every day as four hearty 
 labourers or threshers could. In most external 
 respects he was, as I mentioned, just like other 
 children ; but if anvone touched him he yelled 
 out like a mad creature, and with a peculiar sort 
 of scream. I said to the Princes of Anhalt, with 
 whom I was at the time, "If I had the ordering 
 of things here I would have that child thrown 
 into the Moldau at the risk of being held its 
 murderer." But the Elector of Saxony and the 
 Princes were not of my opinion in the matter.' 
 Fortunately for the poor child, the ' lay ' Elector 
 of Saxonv and the Princes of Anhalt had not had 
 their minds and their hearts hardened by ' dog- 
 matic ' training in their childhood, and were 
 therefore unwilling, I presume, to believe that 
 the child ' had no human parents,' or that it 
 could claim direct descent from his Satanic 
 
3 74 PRIESTL y FA N. 1 TIC ISM. 
 
 Majesty. My experience has probably been 
 ' unfortunate ' in respect to the clergymen and 
 the Dissenting ministers I have known ; but 
 certainly the greater proportion of them were 
 very intolerant of opinions adverse to their own, 
 and, like Keble, were prone to regard their 
 opponents as ' too wicked to be reasoned with.' 
 You may be sure that I intend no personal 
 discourtesy if I say that this strong theological 
 bias so often perverts the judgment, that it has 
 become a proverb that in secular things the 
 clergy generally give a wrong decision. The 
 satirical jokes of the hour illustrate this state- 
 ment. It has been said that a distinguished 
 professor, when lecturing at South Kensington, 
 told his pupils that in his early days he was often 
 perplexed as to the precise position of the 
 ' mitral valve ' in the human heart, until the 
 happy idea occurred to him that ' mitral ' was an 
 adjective formed from ' mitre,' which was the 
 crowning ornament of a bishop, and as bishops 
 were usually on the wrong side, he had hence- 
 forth no difficulty in remembering that the 'mitral' 
 valve was on the left side of the heart. But all 
 this raillery apart, it is a sad historic fact that 
 ecclesiastics have been the opponents of progress 
 and of reform on almost all occasions. While 
 ready 'to compass heaven and earth' to retain, or 
 make ' proselytes,' ecclesiastics of all kinds have 
 been comparatively indifferent to conduct, so 
 
PRIESTLY FANATICISM. ,375 
 
 long as their friends were ' sound in their faith ' 
 and strict observers of the forms, ceremonies, 
 and sacraments of their respective Churches. 
 Thev were alwavs readv to believe s^ood of those 
 who were ' of the household of faith,' but not so 
 ready to believe in the good motives and pure 
 conduct of those ' of the contrary part,' not so 
 ready implicitlv to accept the teaching of the 
 Great Master — ' A good tree cannot bring forth 
 evil fruit, neither can a cornipt tree bring forth 
 good fruit. . . . Wherefore, by their //v/zV^ .s//^?// 
 ye know them! 
 
 Vicar. There is a covert satire in your remarks 
 which I shall not endeavour to imitate. Neither 
 lay nor clerical finds it easy to act up to the 
 sublime doctrine which vou have quoted from 
 the Gospel of St. Matthew, and I will admit that 
 it is the highest attainment in the Christian life. 
 But just now I am wishful to hear of the incident 
 vou referred to in the conduct of that holy man 
 Pusey, whose teachings and \vhose conduct I 
 reverence onlv short of the teachings and conduct 
 of our blessed Lord and His immediate apostles. 
 
 Parishioner. It is no secret now" ; it has been 
 published to the world. iNIrs. Besant, the wife 
 of a clergyman, was beset with difficulties in 
 respect to the deity of Christ. She had in past 
 years great reverence for Pusey, who had 
 wielded a great influence over her, and whose 
 writings had taught and guided her for many 
 
376 DR. PUSLY AND MRS. BESANT. 
 
 years. She corresponded vvith him, receiving 
 many letters, and subsequently received a kindly 
 invitation to a personal interview, which she 
 joyfully accepted. I need not recite all the 
 details, but will give the closing part of the 
 interview in her own words, as given in the 
 journal she iioiv edits, entitled Our Corner. 
 ' He had no conception of the feelings of the 
 sceptical spirit ; his own faith was solid as a 
 rock, firm, satisfied, unshakable; he would as 
 soon have committed suicide as have doubted 
 of the infallibility of the " Universal Church." 
 " It is not your duty to ascertain the truth,'' he 
 told rue sternly. "It is your duty to accept 
 and to believe the truth as laid down by the 
 Church ; at your peril you reject it: the respon- 
 
 sibilitv is not vours so long as vou dutifullv 
 
 ■J ^ <j J J 
 
 accept that which the Church has laid down for 
 your acceptance. Did not the Lord promise 
 that the presence of the Spirit should be ever 
 with his Church to guide her into all truth ? " 
 " But the fact of the proi?iise, and its value, are 
 the very points on which I am doubtful," I 
 answered. He shuddered. " Pray, pray," he 
 said; "Father, forgive her, for she knows not 
 what she says." It ^vas in vain I urged that I 
 had everything to gain and nothing to lose by 
 following his directions, but that it seemed to me 
 that fidelity to truth forbade a pretended accept- 
 ance of that which zuas not believed. " Everything 
 
DR. PUSEY AND MRS. BESAXT. 377 
 
 to lose ? Yes, indeed. You will be lost for time 
 and lost for eternity." "Lost or not," I rejoined, 
 " I must, and ivi'//, try to find out what is true, 
 and I will not believe until I am sure." " You 
 have no right to make terms with God," he 
 answered, "as to what vou will believe and what 
 you will not believe. You are full of intellec- 
 tual pride." I sighed hopelessly. Little feeling 
 of pride was there in me just then, and I felt 
 that in this rigid unyielding dogmatism there was 
 no conipycJicnsion of my difficulties, no help for 
 me in my striigglings. I rose, and thanking him 
 for his courtesy, said that I would not w^aste his 
 time further, that I must go home and just face 
 the difficulties out, openly leaving the Church 
 and taking the consequences. Then for the first 
 time his serenity was ruffled. " I forbid you to 
 speak of your disbelief^'' he cried. " I forbid you 
 to lead into your own lost state the souls for 
 whom Christ died." Slowly and sadly I took 
 mv way back to the station, knowing that my 
 last chance of escape had failed me.' 
 
 The emphases are my own. To me this scene 
 appears like to some poor creature sinking into 
 the wave and clinging to a person on the shore, 
 who, failing to wring from her a specific promise, 
 shakes her off from him wath horror and leaves 
 her to perish. Well might Mrs. Besant add, ' I 
 recognized in this famous divine the spirit of the 
 priest which could be tender and pitiful to the 
 
3/8 DR. rUSEY AND MRS. BESANT. 
 
 sinner repentant, humble, submissive, craving 
 only for pardon and guidance, but which was 
 iroji to the doubter, to the heretic, and would 
 crush out all questionings of " revealed truth," 
 silencing by force, not by argument, all challenge 
 of the traditions of the Church,' That opinion 
 of Mrs. Besant respecting the character of Dr. 
 Pusey is precisely the opinion which personal 
 knowledge, information derived from friends who 
 knew him intimately, and the perusal of his 
 writings have compelled me to form of the 
 author of The Christian Year, and which I have 
 endeavoured to convey in our long and rambling 
 ' parley ' respecting him. 
 
 Vicar. I recognize nothing in the conduct 
 of the saintly Pusey towards Mrs. Besant as 
 described by you which derogates from his high 
 character. As a _priest of the Most High God, 
 pledged by solemn vows to be ready with all 
 faithful diligence to banish and drive away all 
 erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to 
 God's Word, he could not have acted otherwise 
 than he did. You seem to forget that the divine 
 Paul, when he ordained Timothy to the priest- 
 hood, commanded him to reprove and to rebuke, 
 and to Titus also he emphatically said, ' Speak, 
 and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let 
 no man despise thee.' It is evident that some 
 strong, unhappy bias influences your judgment, 
 when the acts of mv clerical brethren are in 
 
DR. rUSKY AXD MRS. BESAXT. :■,-() 
 
 question. You must perceive, bv my reference 
 to the instructions which Paul gave to Timothy 
 and to Titus, that the conduct which you have 
 condemned in them was simply the discharge of 
 a solemn duty; the earnest appeal of a responsible 
 person trembling for the destiny of those com- 
 mitted to his care. Discharging this high duty 
 by 'exhortation,' and if failing in this, by 'rebuke,' 
 Dr. Pusey's conduct in the case of Mrs. Besant 
 calls for my esteem, rather than my disapproval. 
 ' Strange doctrines ' lead to wicked acts, and, 
 therefore, especially demand ' rebuke,' that such 
 acts may be prevented. The aforesaid case was 
 a verv extreme one, for, if her views became 
 generally accepted, the entire hopes of all 
 Christendom would have been destroyed. Your 
 opinions must totter and fall, if based solely on 
 the conduct of Dr. Pusev towards Mrs. Besant. 
 What other evidence are you able to give as to 
 the sensitiveness and cruel intolerance of the 
 clergy in matters of opinion, as compared with 
 their conduct in reference to moral habits and 
 customs ? 
 
 Parishioner. The evidence is embarrassing 
 because of its redundancy. I feel that I have 
 been redundant in illustrations alreadv, and if 
 that which I have already given does not suffice 
 to confirm my statement and influence your 
 judgment, no further facts will, I fear, suffice to 
 do so. I have shown alreadv, bv broad facts 
 
SSo DR. PUSEY AND MRS. BESANT. 
 
 from the history of progress, from the history 
 of the slave trade, Political Reform, the Penal 
 Code, the treatment of the insane, and from 
 the history of the acceptance and appliances 
 of scientific discoveries, how ' clericalism ' has 
 blocked the way, until vanquished by numbers. 
 As, however, you ask for further evidence, I 
 would name the outcry against and the perse- 
 cution which followed the scholarly Essays of 
 Professor Jowett, Temple, Rowland Williams, 
 Baden Powell and others, in i860. Their 
 clerical brethren stigmatized the seven writers 
 as the ' Septem vci'siis Christum ' — and every 
 available means of persecution were then resorted 
 to ; although, in accordance with the change- 
 less law, ' Truth is great and will prevail ' — the 
 clamour has died awav, and one of the seven 
 alleged opponents of Christ now holds the dis- 
 tinguished position of Bishop of London. From 
 this high pre-eminence, Dr. Temple must often 
 smile at the futile, frantic efforts made by the 
 * High Church ' clergy to prevent his ordination 
 to the See of Exeter, in 1869, under the adminis- 
 tration of Mr. Gladstone, because of his essay in 
 the said Essays and Reviews ; and the smile 
 might justly mount to laughter, as he calls to 
 remembrance the opposition of the burly Arch- 
 deacon of Taunton, and his farcical mimicry of 
 papal powder in the parish church of East Brent, 
 when on the fourth Sunday in Advent in 1869 
 
DR. PUSEY AND MRS. BESANT. 381 
 
 [to use his own words] he made ' public protest 
 at Morning and Evening Prayer against the con- 
 secration of Dr. Temple to the office and work 
 of a bishop in the Church of God,' The most 
 lynx-eyed hunters of heresy would have to 
 exercise ingenuity to find heresy in the essay 
 On the Education of the World — unless it be 
 heresy to write that ' Life, indeed, is higher than 
 all else ; and no service that man can render to 
 his fellows is to be compared with the heavenly 
 power of a life of holiness. But next to that 
 must be ranked, whatever tends to make men 
 think clearly and Judge correctly ' — and yet, for 
 writing this pure and moral essay, the doctor 
 excited the bitter hostility of the archdeacon, 
 who with five or six intolerant bishops, pro- 
 tested, as aforesaid, against his consecration. 
 Another instance of clerical malevolence and 
 the tendency of ecclesiastics to overlook great 
 public services in the presence of ' unsound 
 opinion,' or ' heresy, was the case of Colenso, 
 Bishop of Natal. Instead of relying on their 
 own scholarship and knowledge, and showing, 
 by facts and arguments, that his statements in 
 respect to the Pentateuch, and his deductions 
 from the writings of Paul were erroneous, his 
 clerical brethren at the Cape, and subsequently 
 in England, did all they possibly could [but 
 happily in vain], by legal procedure, to deprive 
 him of his bishopric. Dr. Colenso was first 
 
382 DR. PUSEY AXD MRS. BESAXT. 
 
 arraigned before the Bishop of Cape Town — it 
 was a long and dreary affair, for although the 
 learned Colenso wisely declined to accept as 
 an authority the tribunal before which he was 
 summoned, and appeared only by proxy to 
 protest against the whole proceeding ; yet, 
 does the account of his clerical inquisition 
 occupy some four hundred pages of close 
 print, as published in a book at the time. 
 ' The very Reverend the Dean of Cape Town ' 
 was the chief accuser — and one reads with 
 amazement, at the present day, that any man 
 should attempt to deprive another of his priestly 
 office, because the other, ' taking his stand upon 
 the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood, sees all 
 doctrines and examines all theories only in 
 the light of God's love' {Trui/ of Dr. Co/eiiso, 
 Bishop of Natal. London. P. 44). In 1880 
 the Church ' Society for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel ' met in full conclave ; and the pious 
 soul which sees 'God in history,' must rejoice 
 that it was so ; because the proceedings of that 
 body called forth the holy courage of Dean 
 Stanley, one of the noble spirits which consti- 
 tute the ' salt ' of the Church, by whose ' active 
 savour ' it is preserved from entire corruption. 
 The example and the words of this pure-minded 
 Christian will shine as a beacon light to guide 
 manv meek and lowly spirits into the way of 
 truth. The Dean stood almost alone, amid the 
 
DR. rUSEY A.\D MRS. BESAXT. ,38.3 
 
 frowning conclave, but with a saintlv courage, 
 like to that displayed by Paul before Festus, he 
 upheld the great principle of liberty, ' the liberty 
 wherewith Christ has made us free,' and vindi- 
 cated the oppressed. ' I am ashamed,' he said, 
 ' that these questions should occupy your atten- 
 tion, relating as they do to one, who, as a propa- 
 gator of the Gospel, will be remembered long 
 after vou are all dead and buried. I know that 
 everything I say will be received with ridicule 
 and contumely ; nevertheless, I say, that long 
 after we are dead and buried, his memory will 
 be treasured, as that of the one missionary- 
 bishop in South Africa who translated the 
 Scriptures into the language of the tribes to 
 which he was sent to minister ; the one bishop 
 who, assailed by scurrilous and unscrupulous 
 invective unexampled in the controversy of this 
 country, and almost in the history, miserable as 
 it is, of religious controversy itself — continued 
 his researches in a manner in which he stood 
 quite alone, and never returned one word of 
 harshness to his accusers ; the one bishop that 
 was revered by the natives, who asked him to 
 intercede for them with the Government, and 
 that without reference to any other bishop of 
 South Africa ; the one bishop to whom the 
 natives came long distances to place themselves 
 under his protection, or even to have the 
 pleasure to look upon his face. You need not 
 
384 DR. P USE Y AND MRS. BESANT. 
 
 call " order ' ! I will not be restrained by this 
 mockery, these jeers, this ridicule, these gibes ! 
 I say, there will be one bishop who, when his 
 own interests were on one side, and the interests 
 of a poor savage chief on the other, did not 
 hesitate to sacrifice his own, and with a manly 
 generosity, for which this society has not a word 
 of sympathy, did his best to protect the suppliant ; 
 did not hesitate to come over from Africa to 
 England to plead the cause of the poor unfriended 
 savage, and when he had secured the support of 
 the Colonial Office, unlike other colonial bishops, 
 he immediately went back to his diocese. For 
 all these things "The Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel " appears to have no sympathy ; 
 but, you may depend upon it, outside these walls, 
 in the world at large, whenever Natal is men- 
 tioned, they will win admiration ; and posterity 
 will say that, among the propagators of the 
 Gospel in the nineteenth century, the Bishop of 
 Natal was not the least efficient ' [EdinhurgJi 
 Review^ October 1881, p. 318). I have now, I 
 think, in the history of The Essays and Reviews^ 
 and in the noble episode of Colenso and Stanley, 
 shown how disposed theological sectaries are to 
 persecute ' opinions ' and how ready to overlook 
 great services in the persons of 'those wdiose 
 ' opinions,' are different from their own, and, 
 therefore, ' heretical ' — placing doctrine before 
 practice — reversing the order of Christ, who said, 
 
DR. rUSEY AXD MRS. BESANT. 38^ 
 
 if ye ' do my will ye shall know of the doctrine.' 
 In vindication of your position I must say vou 
 did well to quote Paul, for in his early career he 
 was a good type of the Puseys, the Denisons, the 
 Capetown Greys, the Kebles, and other good 
 men, who were, or ' who seemed to be. Pillars of 
 their Church,' and yet never reached (so far as 
 we know) that virtue which St. Paul in his later 
 days called the greatest of all the Christian virtues 
 — namely, love — 'ayaTTT?.' The Pharisee of Pha- 
 risees : the zealous Saul, the man who ' made 
 havoc of the Church, entering into every house, 
 and taking men and women, committed them to 
 prison': the man who, 'breathing out threaten- 
 ings and slaughter against the disciples of the 
 Lord, went' [most wisely for his purpose] 'unto 
 the high priest, and desired of him letters 
 to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he 
 found any of t/iis way, wJietlier they were men 
 or ivomeii, he might bring them bound unto 
 Jerusalem' : the man who, after being struck to 
 the earth as a 'persecutor,' rose again with new 
 ideas, but with the old, ardent., zealous, perse- 
 cuting, self-confident spirit, so that he could 
 as confidently and as heartily 'breathe out' 
 threatenings against the co-believers of his 
 former 'faith' as heretofore against the Christians ; 
 and exclaim, ' If an angel from heaven, or if any 
 man preach any other gospel than that which we 
 have preached, let him be accursed' : is a fair 
 representative of the divine who was ' iron to the 
 
 25 
 
386 SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT OF PAUL. 
 
 doubter,' and would crush out all questioning of 
 revealed truth, ' silencing by force, not by argu- 
 ment,' all who opposed him. Paul should have 
 remembered his own sincerity and honesty of 
 purpose when he ' profited in the Jew's religion,' 
 and was ' exceedins^lv zealous of the traditions of 
 his fathers,' and not have been so ready to pour 
 out anathemas on others ; should have remem- 
 bered that his Divine Master looked upon and 
 loved the young ruler who had sought of Him the 
 way to inherit eternal life, although he was 
 unable or unwilling to obey Jesus and to sell all 
 he had and give to the poor, ' and come, take up 
 the cross, and follow me.' I have said, in my 
 haste, that Paul should have remembered the 
 conduct of his Lord; but Paul was human, and in 
 him, as in others, Christianity is a principle of 
 growth, and has its stages of perfection, which no 
 man has more fully described than himself. I 
 had, in my warmth, forgotten for the moment that 
 a time did come when Paul noblv reco2:nized the 
 rights of the individual conscience, and placed on 
 record rules and principles which will ultimately 
 crush all religious intolerance and establish the 
 reign of equity and love. All I have said is 
 apposite and true, but for the moment his great 
 after-growth in holiness and spiritual insight had 
 been forgotten, and I sketched his defects and 
 errors as one might have spoken of Peter only 
 in his hour of cowardice, falsehood, and denial, 
 instead of remembering him in later vears when 
 
SPIRITUAL DEVELOP MEXT OF PAUL. 387 
 
 penning his noble epistles. Paul's persecuting 
 zeal was fiery and wrong, but it belonged to those 
 weaker moments when ' the law in his members 
 warring against the law of his mind' was tempo- 
 rarily triumphant. Never may it be forgotten of 
 him that, ' although he knew and was persuaded 
 by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean 
 of itself,' yet could he bear with the weaker 
 brother who did regard a thing as unclean 
 (Rom. xiv. 14). Here was an inspired man, 
 inspired as to this very subject, bearing with an 
 erring and ignorant brother. It is an unparal- 
 leled example among Christian teachers, for even 
 the ' Pilgrim Fathers ' who left our shores to find 
 a land where they could escape tyranny, and, 
 like Paul, ' worship the God of their fathers ' 
 after the wav ' which thev call heresv,' became 
 in their turn intolerant, despotic, and cruel, 
 exceeding in their bitterness — towards the 
 ' Quakers,' for instance — all the ' persecutions for 
 Christ's sake' which they themselves had received 
 at the hands either of Queen Elizabeth, Kinij 
 James, or Charles the First. Irrational zeal too 
 often blinds the intellect and hardens the heart, 
 and causes a poor purblind mortal to usurp the 
 authority of the Most High, and practically to 
 sav to HIM, Be it mine 
 
 thy bolts to throw 
 And deal damnation round the land 
 On each 1 deem thy foe. 
 
 2^ * 
 
388 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 Vicar. I fear that the latitudinarianism of 
 your views has destroyed in you that reverence 
 and zeal for Gocfs law which are necessarily 
 entertained by all good men. The awfulness of 
 violating any law of God is with them so intense 
 that they feel that the wrongdoer must be 
 punished for his sin, otherwise the sovereignty 
 of God is impugned, the distinction between sin 
 and holiness is dimmed, and the kingdom of 
 Satan is made to throw its pernicious shadow 
 over the kingdom of God. All demarcations are 
 confused, and right and wrong become inter- 
 changeable Avords. You seem wholly to forget 
 that there never was a time in the whole range 
 of Bible historv when the disobedience and 
 infraction of anv Divine law went uncensurcd 
 and iinpunishcd. Each sin had its penalty : the 
 Sabbath-breaker was stoned to death, nor less so 
 those — whether son, daughter, brother, ' or the 
 wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine 
 own soul ' — who endeavoured to entice others to 
 a worship other than that which had been pre- 
 scribed to them by Moses. To spare, to conceal, 
 to pity such an one became a sin of the deepest 
 dye. The language of the Divine command is 
 clear, explicit, and stern as to how the faithful 
 Israelites are to act under such circumstances : 
 ' Thou shalt surely kill him ; thine hand shall he 
 first upon him to put him to death, and after- 
 wards the hand of all the people. And thou 
 
ZEAL AXD PERSECUTION. 389 
 
 shalt stone him with stones, that he die ; because 
 he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord 
 thy God, which brought thee out of Egvpt, from 
 the house of bondage.' And the explicit reason 
 for this condign punishment is fullv and distinctly 
 given, namely, that ' all Israel shall Iicar^ and 
 fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness 
 as this is among you ' (Deut. xii. 9-1 1). ' Moses 
 was very meek, above all the men which were 
 upon the face of the earth,' yet he displayed a 
 holy zeal in carrying out these commands ; and 
 Pusey was following in his footsteps by the con- 
 duct which has called forth your condemnation. 
 It is good not to be wise above that which is 
 written. Strict and literal obedience to God's 
 command is the best sacrifice that man can offer, 
 as Saul had to learn when he spared the best of 
 the sheep and of the oxen of the Amalekites, 
 even though they were reserved * to sacrifice 
 unto the Lord God' (i Sam. xv. 15). To crush 
 one's ow^n feelings, even though they appear to be 
 right and tender and just, as did Abraham when 
 he climbed the mountain of Moriah in obedience 
 to the command, ' Take now thy son, thine only 
 son Isaac, zuhom thoii lovest, and get thee into 
 the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a 
 burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which 
 I will tell thee of (Genesis xxii. 2), is the 
 becoming conduct of man. Abraham did not 
 stop to inquire of the proud reason whether it 
 
390 ZEAL AND PERSECUTION. 
 
 was right to be cruel, nay, whether it might not 
 be murder which he was about to commit. The 
 acts and words vou have censured in Keble and 
 Pusey became them as saints of God, and the 
 impulse which swayed their souls was precisely 
 the same feeling which prompted David, the 
 ' man after God's own heart,' to sing ' Do not I 
 hate them, O Lord, that hate thee ? and am not 
 I grieved with those that rise up against thee ? 
 I hate them with perfect hatred : I count them 
 mine enemies ' (Psalm cxxxix. 21, 22). You seem 
 to have forgotten that the humble and the meek 
 can be heroic and judicially severe, and who it 
 was that made ' a scourge of cords,' ' overthrew 
 the tables,' ' poured out the changers' money,' 
 and drove the ' money-changers ' out of the 
 temple pell-mell with ' sheep, and oxen, and 
 those that sold doves.' And, remember that, 
 paradoxical as it may seem, it was not from the 
 wrath of the lion, but from the wrath of the Lamb., 
 that ' the kings of the earth and the great men, 
 and the rich men, and the chief captains., and //^e 
 mighty men' hid themselves in dens and in the 
 rocks of the mountains, when the prophetic seer de- 
 scribed the awful vision of the opening of the sixth 
 seal. It was because of ' the wrath of the Lamb ' 
 that the ' chief captains ' and the ' mighty men ' im- 
 plored the mountains and the rocks to fall upon and 
 hide them, ' for the great day of his wrath is come ; 
 and who shall be able to stand ? ' (Rev. vi. 15-17). 
 
PERSECUTIOX OF IDEAS. 591 
 
 ParisJiioner. I have listened patiently to your 
 justificatory plea for persecution ; although, not- 
 withstanding your somewhat bitter remark on my 
 latitudinarianism, there was nothing new in it, 
 and very little from which I should dissent, 
 provided the conditions^ or rather the circum- 
 stances, were always as clear and indisputable 
 as in the cases to which vou have referred. The 
 * good ' and ' gentle ' persecutors to whom you 
 have alluded, wished to persecute because of the 
 opinions held by certain individuals ; whereas 
 nearly every scriptural incident that you have 
 brought forward in support of your theory had 
 to do with deeds^ not ideas^ with facts and overt 
 deeds, and is thus altogether in another category 
 from the cases condemned by me. The Sabbath- 
 breaker, the picker-up of wood, violated the laiu 
 of his tribe by an overt act, and thus became 
 amenable to the punishment which the special 
 law prescribed. The case might have been 
 approximatively parallel to the cases of uncharit- 
 able judgment to which I have alluded if the 
 wood-gatherer had been punished — not for 
 gathering up the wood, but for disputing with 
 his tribe whether such a Sabbath law had ever 
 been promulgated by '^eJiovaJi. The ' enticing ' 
 to a strange worship approaches somewhat nearer, 
 but is still removed or separated by an immense 
 distance, and by the huge contrast in value, as 
 evidence.^ between the testimony of a man who is 
 
39a OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 
 
 an eye- or car-witness of a fact and the man who 
 receives something as an alleged fact centuries 
 after its occurrence, and after it has been trans- 
 mitted through two or three distinct and separate 
 languages. The enticer and enticed were contem- 
 poraneous with the miraculous events by which 
 they were brought ' out of Egypt and from the 
 house of bondas^e ' ; and certainlv, if not contem- 
 poraneous, they were the offspring of those who 
 were so, and their great leader Moses was still 
 with them. Gratitude, reverence, and parental 
 obedience all indicated and urged obedience, 
 and the ' enticer ' was committing treason against 
 God, their innnediate ruler, and despite also to 
 his human parents and to the appointed ruler 
 of the people. Of course in the long ages this 
 condition of things would have changed ; but, in 
 anv wav, all mv reasoning has been to the effect 
 that full, absolute, immediate obedience to a 
 command of God is the imperative dnty of all 
 mankind. The subject respecting which we are 
 at issue z'^-. What lias been, what is., the conduct 
 demanded of us by the Most High f We are at 
 one in all that you have said respecting Abraham 
 and the conduct of Saul. I do not see what 
 bearing they have on our discussion, I have not 
 consciously once argued against persons making 
 iustice precede mercy, or that any feeling., how- 
 ever benevolent in itself, should cause us to 
 forego a clear and unequivocal command of our 
 
PHARISAIC INTOLERANCE. 393 
 
 Maker. I battle for freedom of thought and 
 opinion as to tvJiat constitutes such a command. 
 The command being known — knoivn to have 
 emanated from the source of all wisdom in 
 the form which it is presented now to the 
 individual — tlicn obedience — absolute, uncon- 
 ditional obedience — becomes us, and this only. 
 If you will do me the favour to recall my 
 earlier statements you will perceive how sin- 
 cerely I have upheld this principle : that it is 
 the very basis on which I have proceeded, 
 and for which I contend ; it is not only the 
 foundation-stone, but the foundation itself, upon 
 which all my arguments have rested. 
 
 Vicar. Your tone in reference to the sainted 
 champions of our Church, Dr. Pusey and the 
 gentle Keble, justified me in my remarks, 
 because you certainly more than implied that 
 they were wrong in their deportment towards 
 unbelievers, and it was needful for me, in justice 
 to their memories, to show that they were acting 
 as holy men of old had acted under similar 
 circumstances. I was jealous of their reputation. 
 I was unwilling that they should be charged 
 with imperfections so gross as those which you 
 implied, and I found it easy to show that kind- 
 and /c//c/e/'-hearted men could keep those feel- 
 ings in check under their high sense of duty to 
 God. I wished to assert, and most emphatically 
 to assert, that both were truly Christian men, 
 
39+ PHARISAIC INTOLERANCE. 
 
 thoroughly anxious to know the truth, and to 
 value it above all things. 
 
 Parishioner. And I was equally anxious to 
 show that, good in a sense as each of them 
 was, they fell far short of that high standard of 
 Christian excellence to which you thought they 
 had attained. Both were self-confident. Each of 
 them partook somewhat of the spirit of the 
 Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as 
 other men, or even as tJiat publican. In their 
 priestly arrogance they could treat others who 
 took intellectually a different view of the require- 
 ments of the Christian life with harshness and 
 personal dislike. Under such circumstances they 
 became too quickly indignant ; too ready, if 
 need be, to ' rend their robes ' in furious protest 
 against ' the'blasphemy ' which their imaginations 
 had conjured up ; and in other respects to show 
 an unmistakable ' sacerdotal succession ' from the 
 high priest Caiaphas to whom I have referred. 
 As I have said, and cannot refrain from repeating, 
 it is the sense of 'expediency' — the 'necessity' 
 to destroy the individual to ' save the nation,' to 
 ' put out of the synagogues ' those that bow not 
 to their authority, to kill ' heretics ' and ' think 
 that he doeth God's service ' — which cause vain 
 men who ' have a zeal for God, but not according 
 to knowledge,' to become 'persecutors of the 
 Church of God.' Hence the feeling towards 
 the Huguenots, which made Alva exclaim, ' Kill 
 
yOHN KEBLE. 393 
 
 them all : God will know his own/ and induced 
 Pope Gregory the Thirteenth, in his confidence, 
 self-glorification, and blind zeal, to have a medal 
 cast as a triumphant commemoration of the 
 
 * Massacre of St. Bartholomew ' — that ' glorious 
 victory ' when at least 70,000 persons were mur- 
 dered in the name of Jesus ! ! But to revert again 
 to our immediate subject, to return to our 
 estimate of the character of John Keble. I am 
 compelled to say that he had not the courage to 
 grapple personally with arguments adverse to his 
 own creed. He loved the placid calm which 
 comes from an unquestioning faith ; it was so 
 even in secular matters. He was once travelling 
 with the brother of an acquaintance of my own. 
 When they came in sight of Lichfield Cathedral, 
 Keble was charmed with the west front of that 
 beautiful structure, and expatiated on its excel- 
 lence, on the devotion and skill which it indicated 
 on the part of the designers and builders of 
 churches and cathedrals in the past ; and then, 
 as if mourning over the degeneracy of the present 
 time, and exulting in the ' ages of faith,' he 
 exclaimed, ' Thev do nothing like that in these 
 days.' When his companion assured him that he 
 had seen the entire front chopped away and 
 
 * sheets of copper laid on the rough wall, big 
 nails driven in, tarred cords stretched from nail 
 to nail, and all the niches, saints, and angels of 
 the old work reproduced in Roman cement upon 
 
39^ JOHN KEBLE. 
 
 this artificial banking,' so far from being grateful 
 for the information, as a man ' thoroughly anxious 
 to know the tnitJi ' and ' to value it above all 
 things ' would have been, and as you say Keble 
 was, he became annoyed, and rebuked his com- 
 panion sharply ' for not letting him rcinain under 
 an illusion! 'What good could it do to him to know 
 how the thing was done ? ' ^ Ex iino disce ojnnes! 
 This incident reveals fully, entirely, completely 
 the innate character of the man. In that fact any 
 observer and reflecting psvchologist would find 
 the key to all his conduct as a ' Churchman,' 
 and a rational exposition of his theological tenets. 
 Vicar. Are vou quite sure that the incident is 
 authentic ? I mav, perhaps, have to take your 
 own line of argument and be exceedingly desirous 
 for clear proof for every statement. Still it is 
 not improbable that the poet of TJic Christian 
 Year would form a very different estimate of 
 the inquisitive spirit than you do. He knew well 
 that it was the craving for the ' knowledge of 
 good and evil ' — the desire to ' be as gods, knowing 
 good and evil ' — that led to 
 
 man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe. 
 
 Every poem he wrote breathes of faith, of 
 humility, of trust, and reverence. I regard him 
 with love and honour because of this dislike of 
 questioning, and the child-like spirit of accep- 
 
yOIIX KEBLE. . 397 
 
 tance of the teachings of the Church which he 
 everywhere, at least indirectly, inculcates. * In 
 quietness and confidence shall be your strength ' 
 was the ' motto ' of his banner — was the special 
 ' sword of the spirit ' which he loved to wield in 
 moments of distrust or difficulty. He would, I am 
 sure, have asked in the words of Job, * Canst thou 
 by searching find out God ? canst thou find out 
 the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high as 
 heaven ; what canst thou do? deeper than hell ; 
 w^hat canst thou know ? ' (Job xi. 7, 8). Yes, 
 Keble had heard and obeved the voice of Him 
 who said, ' Come unto me . . . for I am meek 
 and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto 
 your souls.' Thrice happy in this well-founded 
 faith himself, he wished others to find it also. 
 Like Andrew of old, he was anxious to tell all, 
 'We have found the Christ' and 'to bring them to 
 Jesus.' From his own spiritual experience he could 
 write, as in his exquisite poem for Christmas Day — 
 
 Thee, on the bosom laid 
 
 Of a pure virgin mind, 
 In quiet ever and in shade 
 
 Shepherd and sage may find — 
 They ■who have bowed untaught to Nature's sway, 
 And they who follow truth along her star-paved way. 
 The pastoral spirits lirst 
 
 Approach thee. Babe divine. 
 For tkey hi lowly thoughts are niirs'd 
 Meet for thy lowly shrine : 
 Sooner than they should miss where Thou dost dwell. 
 Angels from heaven will stoop to guide them to thy cell. 
 
398 yOHN KEBLE. 
 
 His was the spirit of those blessed ones who 
 ' have not seen and yet have beHeved,' and his 
 dishke, if he had it, to ratiocination was from 
 the consequences it led to by disquieting the 
 minds and hearts of many. 
 
 Parishioner. I admit and admire all that you 
 say respecting the actual desires of Keble. 
 Doubtless he wished that all should possess his 
 own serene belief and his own theological 
 theories. His intentions were pure, and the 
 spirit inculcated in the sweet poem you quoted 
 is Christ-like and captivating. What I deplored, 
 and deplore, was the bitter, narrow, persecuting 
 feeling which sprung up when others were 
 unable to see mentally as he saw, or to accept 
 the doctrines which he believed to be essential to 
 salvation. He could not rise to that philosophic 
 spirit which breathes in the fourteenth chapter of 
 St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans ; he was too 
 apt to forget that each individual soul had its own 
 perceptions of right and wrong, and that ' to his 
 own master,' and to his ' own master ' alone, ' he 
 standeth or falleth ' ; ' yea, he shall be holden 
 up, for God is able to make him stand.' Perhaps 
 all may have been different — I need not say 
 perhaps, for his conduct won Id have been different 
 — had he been trained under scientific rather 
 than ecclesiastical influences ; for, as I have 
 before intimated, with the first doubt is a stimulus 
 to inquiry, with the latter it is regarded as a 
 
yOHX KEBLE. 399 
 
 ' sin.' The first accepts no ' authority ' as final 
 apart from facts ; and as for ' reverence of the 
 past,' he thinks with Lord Verulam that 'we have 
 a mistaken apprehension of antiquity, caUing that 
 so which in truth is the world's nonage — " Aiiti- 
 qiiitas scEculi est jiivcntus inundiy ' Ecclesias- 
 tical training, as I have already said, is the opposite 
 of all this ; obedience to authority is here a 
 virtue, and the ironical sarcasm of Juvenal — 
 ' Marcus dixit. Ita est' — reads to them like a 
 truism. Some of Keble's earlier college asso- 
 ciates had not this slavish respect for ' authority ' 
 and disdain of ' rationalism ' — notably Arnold of 
 Rugby ; and, singularly, the 'judicious Hooker,' 
 whose works Keble so lovingly edited, could 
 write, ' For men to be tied and led by authoritv, 
 as it were with a kind of captivity of judgment, 
 and though there be reason to the contrary not 
 to listen unto it, that to follow like beasts 
 the first in the herd — they know not, nor care 
 not, whither — this were brutish.' Again : ' That 
 authority of men should prevail with men either 
 against or above reason is no part of our belief ; 
 and further : ' Companies of learned men, be 
 they ever so great or reverend, are to yield unto 
 reason.' Moreover, with all his powerful plead- 
 ings for the authority of the Church, Hooker 
 can yet write, ' Be it in matter of the one kind 
 or the other ' [doctrine or order], ' what Scripture 
 doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both 
 
400 'yuDicious hooker: 
 
 of credit and obedience is due ; the next where- 
 iinto is whatsoever any man can necessarily con- 
 clude bv force of reason ; after these the voice 
 of the Church succeedeth ' (Vol. I. p. 446). In 
 these sentences are to be found the ' potentiality 
 and the power ' of developing all I wish in respect 
 to the rights of the individual ' Churchman ' as 
 in opposition to the practical conduct of Keble 
 towards the doubting and inquiring minds about 
 him. 
 
 Vicar. You somewhat surprise me by these 
 quotations ; but still, no honest man can read 
 Hooker carefully without being impressed with 
 the power, the lucidity, and the earnestness with 
 which he upheld the ' ecclesiastical policy ' of 
 our Church, and defended that policy as against 
 the Papacy on the one hand and Puritanism on 
 the other. While Jewel wrote apologetically 
 for his Church, Hooker established a basis for it, 
 on the broad principles of universal law, which 
 showed that the Church of England needed no 
 apology inasmuch as she was 'built upon the 
 foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
 Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.' 
 
 Parishioner. Perhaps so. I do not feel that 
 I am in a position to discuss the point further 
 than to reiterate my belief that the quotations I 
 have given would not have been endorsed by 
 your hero. In those phrases of Hooker are the 
 germs of that ' freedom of faith ' for which I con- 
 
'JUDICIOUS hooker: 40 i 
 
 tend. It is possible that, like other men of 
 profound wisdom before him, Hooker uttered 
 truths of which he himself was not fully conscious 
 of the greatness and ultimate fruition. Men of 
 thoughtful and philosophic minds have, indeed, 
 often done so. They have been the unconscious 
 prophets of the science of the future. Long 
 before the now-accepted facts of psychology 
 were known, Parmenides said the ' highest degree 
 of organization gives the highest degree of 
 thought ' — a fact which has since widened the 
 whole domain of scientific research, and which 
 at this moment is the basis of the philosophy of 
 Darwin, Spencer, Huxley and others. Parme- 
 nides' statement was like gold hidden in a mass 
 of ore, which concealed it, and thus a long age 
 of bewildering metaphysics occupied the study 
 and thoughts of mankind. It has been so even 
 in the regions of physics and material things. 
 Centuries before Watt utilized the powers of 
 steam, its power had been indicated by Hero of 
 Alexandria (200 years b.c.) ; and in our own 
 country the Marquess of Worcester, in the seven- 
 teenth century, had detailed experiments which 
 are now seen to contain the elements of all that 
 has since been achieved bv Papin, Savory, New- 
 comen, and Watt. The progress of knowledge 
 is slow although sure, and even the greatest 
 minds cannot whoUv emerge from their ' environ- 
 ments.' Even Newton thought and wrote 
 
 26 
 
402 KNOJFLEDGE PROGRESSIVE. 
 
 foolishly on some topics ; and Sir Thomas Browne, 
 perhaps the most learned physician of his age, 
 Sir Matthew Hale, and even William Shakespeare, 
 thought, spoke, and acted on the subject of 
 witches in a manner which would now create a 
 smile on the face of a boy in the ' sixth standard ' 
 of a charity school. Thus 
 
 All throughout the ages an increasing purpose runs. 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widened by progress of the suns. 
 
 Vicar. And what has been the practical result 
 of this widespread knowledge of material things ? 
 An increase of irreverence, self-confidence, and 
 irreligion ; a willingness to rest wholly in a 
 knowledge of secondary causes ; a substitution 
 of nature for God, of a blind, impelling, imper- 
 sonal force in lieu of a creative and upholding 
 will. Even in its least repellent form — I mean 
 that which one of Her Majesty's inspectors of 
 schools (who is the distinguished son of an 
 illustrious divine) calls ' the eternal power, not 
 ourselves, that makes for righteousness ' — it is a 
 frightful dream, of which one might almost say, 
 as of Ezekiel's roll, that it is replete 'with 
 mourning, lamentation and woe.' A frightful 
 dream, because the ' eternal power ' which this 
 literary athlete has so misnamed is described by 
 himself as a powxr which does not ' think, or 
 will, or love,' and essentially, therefore, is the 
 same blind ' necessity ' of which Lucretius wrote 
 some nineteen hundred years ago — 
 
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 403 
 
 Since too of its own nature the vast mass 
 Sprang forth spontaneous, rousing every power 
 To every mode of motion, rashly oft, 
 Oft vain and fruitless, till at length it formed 
 Th' unchanging rudiments of things sublime. 
 And heaven and earth, and main and mortals rose. 
 
 ******* 
 
 These truths avowed, all Nature shines at once. 
 Free in her acts, no tyrant to control. 
 Self-potent, and imhifluenced by the gods. 
 
 (Book 2.) 
 
 The cold blighting materialism, the godless uni- 
 verse, which seem generally to be the offshoot 
 'of science, falsely so called,' were an ample 
 apology for Keble's dislike to it. I think more 
 is lost than gained when the rainbow, for instance, 
 is simply looked upon as the necessary prismatic 
 result of light shining through water, and nothing 
 more. I sympathize from my soul with Campbell 
 in the lines : 
 
 Triumphal Arch, that fillest the sky 
 
 When storms prepare to part, 
 I ask not proud Philosophy 
 
 To teach me what thou art. 
 
 JF/ien Science from Creation s face 
 Enchantment's veil withdraws, 
 
 JVhat lovely visions yield their place 
 To cold material laws ! 
 
 And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, 
 But words of the Most High, 
 
 Have told why first thy robe of beams 
 Was woven in the sky. 
 
 26 * 
 
^o4 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 When o'er the green undehiged earth, 
 Heaven's covenant, thou didst shine, 
 
 How came the world's grey fathers forth 
 To watch the sacred sign ! 
 
 *• tP tF ■?[• w 
 
 How glorious is thy girdle, cast 
 O'er mountain, tower, and town ; 
 
 Or mirror'd in the ocean vast, 
 A thousand fathoms down ! 
 
 * * * # * 
 
 As fresh in yon horizon dark. 
 
 As young thy beauties seem, 
 As when the eagle from the ark 
 
 First sported in thy beam : 
 
 For, faithful to its sacred page. 
 
 Heaven still rebuilds thy span, 
 Nur lets the type grow pale ivith age 
 
 lliatjirst spoke peace to 7nan. 
 
 Parishioner. I sympathize no less than your- 
 self with those exquisite lines. They are very 
 beautiful, even if not true in all their details. 
 They were true to the writer, and poetry does 
 not cease to be poetry in every case, even 
 
 When Science from Creation's face 
 Enchantment's veil withdraws. 
 
 For my part, I consider Shakespeare's lines on 
 adversity, in the play of As You Like It, very 
 poetical, although I know that the simile he 
 uses is no longer accepted by naturalists. When 
 Shakespeare wrote it was fully believed ; and if 
 ' Science has withdrawn the veil of enchantment,' 
 and the alleged fact is fact no longer, yet has 
 
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 405 
 
 Shakespeare wedded it to a moral in such con- 
 summate language that the wand of his genius 
 restores the glamour of 'enchantment' — 
 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity ; 
 Which, like the toul, uglij and venomous , 
 IVears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 And so with the image in that exquisite comfort- 
 giving Psalm of David's, in which he sings, 'Who 
 redeemeth thy life from destruction ; who 
 crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender 
 mercies ; who satisfieth thy mouth with good 
 things ; so that thy youth is renewed like the 
 eagle s.' We feel the illustrative force of the 
 simile, although a scientific experience may tell 
 us that the youth of the eagle is simply like the 
 youth of other creatures — a ' golden age ' of 
 sunshine, happiness, and power ; an evanescent 
 season of love and joy ; never to ' be renewed,' 
 although in a subdued form it may, when past, 
 linger for awhile in the memory as a sweet 
 remembrance, as the after-glow of an autumn 
 eve may brighten the horizon for a time with the 
 gorgeous hues and reflections of a sun that has 
 set with a golden glory, to be followed speedily 
 by the darkness of a night of never-more. 
 Science may tell us all this, but Hope will 
 whisper of a ' life saved from destruction,' and 
 the soul will cling to the image ' of a youth 
 renewed like the eagle's,' to the fond dream of a 
 Psyche emerging from the chrysalis of death, 
 
4o6 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 clothed with immortal youth, and dowered with 
 every capacity for rapture and love. 
 
 Vicar. I have listened with a pleasant surprise 
 to this outburst of emotion on your part, so far 
 removed from all your previous pleadings for 
 knowledge, so different from your strong wish 
 that the clear cool light of science should be 
 thrown upon the mists of theology to dispel their 
 
 * mirage ' and to open up the realities of life and 
 experience. The ' increasing purpose ' and the 
 ' widening thoughts ' which come ' with the 
 progress of the suns ' do not, then, it appears, 
 meet every w^ant of the human soul : there are 
 requirements and needs which neither the scales 
 and the tests of the chemist, the scalpel of the 
 anatomist, the microscope and researches and 
 experiments of the biologist, nor the batteries, 
 the cells, and the coils of the physicist can 
 supply ! I hope, even yet, that increased and 
 increasing reflection, joined with that honesty of 
 purpose w^hich you claim, may show you that 
 divines have not been wrong in resisting in every 
 possible way the assumptions of science and the 
 
 * dogmatism ' (for dogmatism is not confined to 
 clerical circles) of too many of its professors. I 
 believe that not only has the teaching of the 
 modern school of biologists and physicists tended 
 to dry up the sources of poetry, but that it is also, 
 as I have said before, the main cause of the 
 irreverence and irreligion which characterize 
 
RELIGIOX AND SCIENCE. 407 
 
 alike the ' club circles ' and the workshops and 
 factories of our large and flourishing towns at 
 the present moment. 
 
 ParisJiioner. That oratory and poetry alike 
 flourish best in the earlier stages of civilization, 
 as do the singing of birds and the fragrance 
 of flowers in the spring-time and early summer, 
 I will not dispute. Knowledge has certainly a 
 tendency to diminish wonder and to check the 
 
 J 
 
 exuberance of fancy; and the songs of the syrens 
 and the dances of Pan and the dryads and 
 nereids disappear from our shores and our 
 forests when the geologists and the botanists 
 explore their recesses. Still, poetry is not likely 
 to leave the earth so long as the human heart 
 beats with the emotions of passion, of hope, of 
 fear, and of ambition ; and the very discoveries 
 and expositions of science will furnish their own 
 marvels and their own attractions and beauties. 
 One of our very greatest poets has, in sooth, sung 
 of philosophy itself in the following lines : — 
 
 How charming is divine philosophy ! 
 
 Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 
 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 
 And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets. 
 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. 
 
 It becomes, therefore, a man of prose to be silent 
 on this topic after so poetic a defence from such 
 a source ; but I demur wholly to your statement 
 as to the advance of scientific knowledge being 
 
4o8 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 th.Q primary cause of the irreverence and irreli- 
 gion to which yoii refer. We have already 
 spoken on these topics, and 1 shall not open 
 them up further than to state that advancing 
 knowledge, and the rigid, impartial, and fear- 
 less research which science enjoins, did cause 
 thoughtful and reflecting minds to question some 
 of the dogmatic statements of divines ; and these 
 statements, havinof been fiercelv defended and 
 upheld by theologians as all-important, and 
 among the very essential truths of revelation, 
 led to an investigation which caused their over- 
 throw and abandonment. In brief, the injustice 
 and general wrongfulness of some of the leading 
 tenets of what is accepted as orthodox Chris- 
 tianity, and a belief in which is ' necessary to 
 salvation,' have led to a very considerable revolt 
 from the ranks of popular Christianity; but I do 
 not consider that the progress of science is to be 
 blamed for this disturbance. Ahab, in his mental 
 blindness and self-complacency, could say to 
 Elijah, 'Art thou he that troubleth Israel?' over- 
 looking that the true and primary source of the 
 trouble was the conduct of his father and him- 
 self; as Elijah said, 'in that ye have forsaken the 
 commandments of the Lord, and hast followed 
 Baalim' (i Kings xviii. 17, 18). So advancing 
 science has tried, as by fire, every dogmatic 
 tenet; 'of what sort it is,' and the wood, and the 
 hay, and the stubble have suffered loss.' Their 
 
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 409 
 
 disappearance has caused too many to think 
 that other constituents of the foundation will 
 disappear, overlooking the fact that the ' gold 
 and the silver' admit of purification 'by fire,' 
 and are made more resplendent by the very 
 agency which has destroyed the ' hay and the 
 stubble.' We are living in a state of transition, 
 of doubt, and of agitation ; but good men should 
 remember Who is the refiner. Who it is that, in 
 the language of Malachi, ' sits as a refiner and 
 purifier of silver,' who shall purge even the gold 
 and silver from dross, and thus restore a condi- 
 tion of things when ' the offering of Judah and 
 Jerusalem shall be pleasant unto the Lord,' as in 
 the days of old, and as in former years. Yes, 
 when the 'wood,' and the 'hay,' and the 'stubble,' 
 so dear to persons of mere routine and habit, 
 shall ' have suffered loss,' shall, in fact, have dis- 
 appeared in the act of purification ; the ' gold 
 and silver,' as I have said, will have become 
 more resplendent by the process. Science has 
 been a handmaiden to purify, but she has not 
 been, as you think, the chief agent in dissemi- 
 nating the sad scepticism, which we both deplore, 
 and which has become so general among the 
 educated classes of society, and which is even 
 to be found in some of the most eloquent and 
 popular preachers in the Church of England. 
 The views you deem so erroneous are held 
 by some good men, ordained members of the 
 
4JO RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Church ' EstabHshment,' who are anxious to rid 
 her formularies of tenets which they know to be 
 false, and which, practically, are causing many 
 of the laity to accept of her services, as a form 
 useful in a police sense among the ' masses ' of 
 the people in the present state of education, but 
 by no means conducive to that high and pure 
 worship which St. Paul inculcateth on the 
 Church at Corinth, when he wrote ' I will pray 
 with the spirits, and I will pray with the wider- 
 standing also.' As I have said repeatedly, the 
 chief cause of the evils you deplore have been 
 the monstrous doctrines I have described to 
 you, aided by the persecuting spirit of the clergy 
 as represented by Convocation. My faith, how- 
 ever, in the future remains firm. Dark as is the 
 present hour, light must come, inasmuch as the 
 word and the works of the Almiditv cannot con- 
 
 o J 
 
 tradict each other. Science and religion must 
 ever be the handmaidens of God. Wherever 
 there is direct contradiction between these 
 respective principles, there must be error, either 
 as to the alleged word, or the supposed fact, 
 and time will determine to which factor the 
 error appertains. Reconciliation is inevitable. 
 As the Psalmist, in his day, sang ' Mercy and 
 truth are met together, righteousness and peace 
 have kissed each other' — so do I now believe 
 that there ' shall be light at eventide,' and that 
 'divines' and 'scientists' will alike perceive that 
 
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 4^" 
 
 there is no antagonism between their respective 
 pursuits, and alike rejoice in the fulfihnent of 
 the prophecy which informs us, ' Truth shall 
 spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall 
 look down from heaven' (Psalm Ixxxv. ii). 
 
 Vicar. It grieves me to find that you still 
 regard the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, which 
 are the holiest expressions of the true faith, as 
 co-equal causes in developing distrust and dis- 
 belief in many minds, with the appalling doc- 
 trines of which you have given specimens from 
 earnest preachers in various schools of thought ; 
 and, as alike contributory to the irreverence in 
 respect to holy men and holy things of which I 
 complain. I do not think it can be so, or that 
 these combined causes have acted, even to a 
 tenth degree, with the scientific writings to which 
 we have so often referred in our protracted 
 parleys. The doctrine of ' Evolution,' so widely 
 accepted, depriving man, as it does, of his divine 
 origin — tracing his source from a slimy mollusk — 
 and placing him in the same category as apes 
 and monkeys, is the clear and palpable cause of 
 the godless feeling of the ' masses ' in the metro- 
 polis and elsewhere. So long as science enun- 
 ciates such things as facts, it must have the 
 condemnation of the ministers of God, and 
 Convocation would be faithless to its highest 
 duty if it did not by tongue and pen denounce 
 such fatal falsehoods. However much the 
 
412 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 intolerance and injustice of clerical bodies in the 
 long past maybe deplored, all recent transactions 
 of Convocation must be commended, for, while 
 pointing out and rebuking erroneous doctrines, 
 they have been studiously considerate of the 
 rights of individuals, ever reverencing the moral 
 law, even at the cost of being deemed too lenient 
 to the special heresy condemned. 
 
 Parishioner. All will be well ! Sad as it is to 
 know that even learned men, even an upright 
 and distinguished judge can write, and publish 
 in a widespread Journal, ' The world seems to 
 me a very good world, if it would only last. It 
 is full of pleasant people and curious things, and 
 I think that most men find no great difficulty 
 in turning their minds away from its transient 
 character. Love, friendship, ambition, science, 
 literature, art, politics, commerce, trade and a 
 thousand other matters will go on equally well, 
 as far as I can see, whether there is or is not a 
 God, or a future state.' The present stage of 
 thought is transient, and is, as I have so fre- 
 quently said, the revulsion of feeling, the result of 
 disgust excited by the description of God, as given 
 in the impassioned harangues of preachers and 
 the writings of 'theologians.' The intellect en- 
 lightened ' bv the progress of the suns ' could not 
 accept, as God, a being endowed with attributes 
 repellent to every sense of justice, and of human- 
 ity ; and, in the recoil, doubted the existence of 
 
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 413 
 
 a God at all. Atheism is unnatural to man ; his 
 tendency is to be, ' in all things too superstitious,' 
 and to have Gods many and lords many. Neither 
 his reason nor his feelings will long accept such 
 wild chimeras as to his origin, as you have 
 sketched from pseudo-scientific writers. Some 
 of our best men of science, the Owens, the 
 Spottiswoodes, Mivarts, Carpenters, and other 
 distinguished Members of ' The Royal Society,' 
 have shunned such a theory ; and I have given 
 you before the words of the great High Priest of 
 Biology, Darwin himself, as to creation. In all 
 the minute microscopic phases of his embryonic 
 life, and even through the whole of his fcetal 
 existence, Man may in all the organs appertaining 
 to mere animal life exhibit ' homologues ' of lower 
 creatures, and of the ape ; but no sooner does 
 he breathe the air of heaven than he becomes 
 endowed with ' potentialities ' which no known 
 animal possesses, or can possess. Man standing 
 erect, self-conscious, and speaking his thoughts 
 in articulate language is enthroned in a sphere, 
 which no other known creature has attained to. 
 When, in some far-off* future, an ape struggling 
 with self-consciousness, and with the thought of 
 the 'Ego,' shall exclaim spontaneously, in articu- 
 late words. Whence ? What ? Whither ? then and 
 not until then, the doctrine of human ' Evolution ' 
 will cease to be a mere hypothesis. To repeat 
 a former expression, there is the widest pos- 
 
414 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 sible distinction between theory and established 
 science ; and the lovers of true science are 
 slow to accept even plausible ' theories,' testing 
 them soberly and seriously by all known 
 methods of experiment before they remove them 
 from the region of plausible conjecture or 
 ' hypothesis.' Therefore have I said, * All will be 
 well,' so far as the deductions of science may 
 affect a true theoloo:v. I wish I could endorse 
 your opinion as to the conduct of ' Convocation ' 
 in recent times. I see in it still the old spirit 
 which, as I have before said, prompted Caiaphas 
 to say, ' Ye k^ow nothing at all, nor consider that 
 it is expedient for its, that one man should die 
 for the people, and that the whole nation perish 
 not ' (John xi. 49, 50). You seem to have 
 forgotten the painful episode of Colenso, but, in 
 its essence, the whole thing was repeated years 
 after in respect of the Revisers of the New 
 Testament ; with a like gratifying evidence in 
 the person of Dean Stanley that the spirit of a 
 Micaiah, an Elijah, a Paul, may still dwell in the 
 heart of the true sons of God. When the Con- 
 vocation had deliberately determined that ' the 
 Revisionists of the New Testament should be 
 chosen on grounds of special learning or scholar- 
 ship, to whatever nation or religious body they 
 may belong,' it was, of course, opposed by 
 George Anthony Denison, the Archdeacon of 
 Taunton [who was opposed to all revision), 
 
RELIGIOX AND SCIENCE. 415 
 
 proposing as an amendment the words, ' save only 
 and except such as deny the divinity of Christ.' 
 This amendment was lost by a majority of 
 twenty-three against seven : this majority being 
 secured in the idea, that the aid of learned Jews 
 might in some directions prove useful. Some 
 months afterwards, when it w^s discovered that 
 under this clause a learned Unitarian had been 
 elected into the Committee of Revisers, the 
 indignation of many of the bishops became very 
 great. Some, even of those who had formed a 
 part of the majority, were greatly perplexed 
 and eager for the exclusion of Mr. Vance Smith, 
 the scholar elected. ' I am sorry,' ' I regret,' 
 'I retreat,' 'I have passed a perpetual Lent,' 
 exclaimed Dr. Harold Browne, since Mr. Vance 
 Smith has been admitted to Communion at 
 Westminster. Bishop after bishop wished all 
 their pledged action to be rescinded, and the 
 learned critic elected to be expelled. ' Good 
 faith and pledged faith,' shouted one, which was 
 echoed bv manv others, must be thrown over- 
 board 'to make reparation to the injured honour 
 of our Lord and Saviour.' The Bishop of 
 Chichester added not only ' good faith, but 
 logic and consistency,' and that in the renuncia- 
 tion of these things, his brother bishops had 
 done ' a noble act of self-sacrifice.' Thus, my 
 dear Sir, the Convocation overlooked a ' moral 
 law,' and then^ arose once again, like inspired 
 
4i6 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Elijah in the presence of King Ahab, the high- 
 souled Dean Stanley, and in burning words ex- 
 claimed, ' Alas ! and has it come to this, that our 
 boasted orthodoxy has landed us in this hideous 
 heresy ! Is it possible that it should be supposed 
 that we can consent for a moment to degrade the 
 Divine attributes of our Lord Jesus Christ to the 
 level of a mere capricious heathen deity ? Can 
 we believe that anything but dishonour can be 
 conferred on him by making his name a pretext 
 for inconsistency, for vacillation, for a breach of 
 faith between two contending parties ? I have 
 read in that sacred book, the meaning of which it 
 was the object of this revision to bring out more 
 clearly to the people of England, — I have read in 
 that sacred book that one of the characteristics 
 of those who dwell on God's holy hill is " whoso 
 sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him 
 not, though it be to his own hindrance." I have 
 also found in the other part of the sacred book 
 it is declared, " Not every one that saith unto me 
 Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my 
 Father," and we know that the will of the Father 
 is — ^judgment, justice, and truth "shall enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven." I for one lift up my 
 voice against any such detestable doctrine, and 
 that our Lord and Saviour can be honoured in 
 any way but by a strict adherence to the laws 
 of honour, integrity, and truth. I repudiate the 
 notion that anything but dishonour can be 
 
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 417 
 
 brought on his sacred name, by that which from 
 every recorded word, and every act of his sacred 
 life, we must be certain he would have entirely 
 opposed.' {Contemporary Essays in Theology^ 
 by Rev. J. Hunt, p. 119). As is usual, fanati- 
 cism for a time triumphed ; notwithstanding this 
 impassioned utterance of Divine remonstrance on 
 the part of the Dean, the resolution was carried 
 by ten bishops as against four, but the four were 
 Mackarness, Hervey, Temple, and Cannop Thirl- 
 wall. Bishops of Oxford, Bath and Wells, Exeter, 
 and Llandaff. It is a matter for thanksmvine 
 that neither in the case of Colenso, nor in the 
 more recent case of Mr. Vance Smith, did 
 fanaticism ultimately gain its object : and in the 
 latter instance the intellectual power and judicial 
 qualities of these four dignitaries give great 
 moral force to the minority, but the immediate 
 actual result testifies to the unchanged spirit of 
 ' Convocation ' as a corporate body, justifies my 
 statement in reference thereto, and is my 
 response to the latter part of your question. 
 
 Vicar. I am gratified by your remarks on the 
 ' Evolution ' hypothesis, and by the broad lines 
 of demarcation which you have drawn between 
 Man and the animal world generally, and also 
 that you recognize so distinct an epoch in his 
 life history, at which this vast change takes 
 place, because it accords so fully with the belief 
 of a purer age, and regulated the practice of its 
 
 27 
 
4i8 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 divines in the rite of the Holy Sacrament of 
 Baptism. I still consider the popular writings 
 on Biology and Geology to be the great causes 
 of the widespread distrust in religious matters ; 
 and of that irreverent spirit which you admit 
 prevails in respect to holy men and holy things: a 
 spirit in sad contrast to that reverential, humble, 
 and child-like spirit displayed by Keble, and by 
 other distinguished sons of our venerable Church. 
 Parishioner. I am not aware that I said 
 much about 'holy men' and 'holy things,' or 
 ' reverence ' and ' irreverence,' for it grieves me to 
 observe that our noble language is, as it were, 
 being defaced, if not degraded, by fashionable 
 slans: on the one hand and the cant terms of 
 religious sects on the other. Words of the 
 gravest import are foolishly travestied, and 
 effeminate men and masculine women toss them 
 about incessantly in their glib and jejune utter- 
 ances. The young school-girl thinks it indicates 
 vromanly wisdom and limit ton to talk to her 
 brothers and others of being 'awfully jolly,' of 
 an 'awful swell,' or a 'jolly boss,' and the like ; 
 and in your own ranks the words ' holy ' and 
 ' reverence ' in various combinations have 
 become well-nigh as marked a shibboleth of your 
 party as were the words 'the Gospel,' 'the 
 Lord's day,' ' the grace of God,' and ' the blessed 
 Jesus ' — pronounced with a special nasal unction 
 — the characteristics of the Evangelical section 
 
MISCHIEF FROM MISUSE OF JFORDS. 419 
 
 when, some thirty or forty years ago, it was a 
 power in the State. I wish that all this mischief 
 to om" literature and language could be pre- 
 vented ; for sublime words lose their sublimity 
 and their meaning when so long made the vehicle 
 of brainless folly, and their place can never be 
 filled up. The linguistic cant I have named 
 repelled many persons of culture and taste from 
 the Evangelical party who had no special dislike 
 to their theory of salvation ; and the fine adjective 
 ' holy ' is becoming tarnished by its too frequent 
 use among the ' f^uilds' and 'fraternities' of vour 
 section or regiment of the Church militant. 
 
 Vicar. Without discussing this matter, it is 
 everywhere felt that the reverential spirit is 
 fading from our midst ; it is perceptible even in 
 the family circle, and, as in other spheres, a mis- 
 chievous slang is its exponent, and, as I believe, 
 often its instigation. We are in accord as to 
 the infinite importance of words. The solemn 
 utterance of our Divine Master on this topic 
 seems to be wholly forgotten by society. In 
 presence of the universal flippancy of speech, it 
 is a fearful thought to remember that ' for every 
 idle word that men shall speak, they shall give 
 an account thereof in the day of judgment.' 
 Habit or custom may, perhaps, mitigate its 
 irreverence : but it is difficult to believe that a 
 son who habitually speaks of his father as ' the 
 governor ' or ' the boss ' possesses that filial piety 
 
 27 * 
 
430 IRREVERENCE. 
 
 or reverence which he ought to have ; or think 
 otherwise than tliat the fifth commandment is for- 
 gotten, and therefore disregarded and violated. 
 As I have said, you may see this want of rever- 
 ence even in families ; it is still more conspicuous 
 in the deportment of children towards their 
 seniors ; still more so in the deportment of 
 labourers, mechanics, and others towards their 
 superiors who are not their immediate employers. 
 The Catechism, learnt and acted upon by a past 
 generation, is shamefully forgotten in the present 
 day. Keble, when at Horsley, was indefatigable 
 in instructing the rising generation in this, the 
 Church's noble epitome of religon ; and as he 
 was himself pre-eminently distinguished for 
 his reverence and humility, I should hope that 
 in that district the peasantry are exceptions to 
 the denizens of our large towns, who seem 
 never to have known what is their duty to their 
 neighbour. How few, if asked the question, 
 would individually and cheerfully say, ' To love, 
 honour, and succour my father and mother ; to 
 honour and obey the Queen, and all that are put 
 in authority under her ; to submit myself to all 
 my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and 
 masters ; to order myself lowly aiid reverently 
 to all my betters.' Irreverence and a disregard 
 of ' authority ' (which, by-the-bye, you seem to 
 regard as a virtue) are the earlier outcomes of 
 that teaching (not immediately by our schools) 
 
SIGXS OF THE TIMES. 421 
 
 in our papers and reviews to which I have so 
 frequently referred : the ultimate fruit of which 
 will be agnosticism, atheism, and anarchy. 
 
 Parishioner . The outlook is most serious, as I 
 have already said. We are for some time likely 
 to suifer from the consequences of the past. 
 Erroneous teachings, the love of mammon, the 
 wealth and luxury which that love has created, 
 the huge and hideous contrasts which exist among 
 us of enormous wealth and extreme indigence, 
 of voluptuous magnificence and unutterable 
 squalor and wretchedness, grovelling superstitions 
 and brazen-faced atheism, make up a condition 
 of things at which the stoutest heart might 
 tremble. I cannot, and I do not, wish to dis- 
 guise from my view the facts of irreverence 
 and insubordination to which you have referred. 
 But the case is far from hopeless. We may 
 rest in the assurance that God is supreme ; 
 and though ' the earth may be removed, and the 
 mountains be carried into the midst of the sea,' all 
 humble and trusting souls may safely say, * The 
 Lord of Hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is 
 our refuge.' But apart from these personal con- 
 siderations, there is a line of conduct to be 
 pursued which may avert the national calamity 
 w^hich seems impending. There is such a thing 
 as a grovelling reverence and a blind submission 
 to authority, which is a stupendous evil ; and 
 these two evils have, I repeat, been largely con- 
 
42 2 'extremes: 
 
 tributary to the .calamity which now threatens us. 
 I maintain that your views are too constricted, and, 
 if I may say so without offence, too clerical or 
 priestly. There is no reason why we should dash 
 against Scylla merely to avoid Charybdis, for our 
 duty is to steer between them. Their position 
 is well known. Virgil tells us : 
 
 Dextrum Scylla latus, laevum implacata Charybdis 
 Obsidet ; 
 
 and, as Ovid properly says : 
 
 Medio tutissimus ibis. 
 
 One divine at least in our own day has clearly 
 and wisely described the limits of that 'reverence' 
 on which you so fondly expatiate. Arnold of 
 Rugby, in his Lectures on Modern History^ 
 said : ' Reverence shown for that which does not 
 deserve it is no virtue ; no, nor even an amiable 
 weakness, but a plain follv and sin. But if it be 
 meant that he is wanting in proper reverence, 
 not respecting what is really to be respected, that 
 is assuming the whole question at issue ; because 
 what we call divine he calls an idol ; and, as, 
 supposing that we are in the right, we are 
 bound to fall down and worship, so, sup- 
 posing him to be in the right, he is no less 
 bound to pull it to the ground and destroy it' 
 {Modern History^ pp. 210,211). That is the 
 sentence of a wise man and a just man. The 
 blind reverence, or rather the slavish reverence, 
 ' to authority' inculcated by the Church of Rome, 
 
THE FEELING OF REVERENCE. 423 
 
 and by her admirers and secret disciples in the 
 Church of England, will never be accepted by 
 the present generation ; and our prospects would 
 now be brighter if it had never been accepted 
 in the past. There are some minds prone to 
 reverence, and it is a beautiful quality when 
 under the control of the intelligence ; otherwise 
 it degenerates rapidly into slavish and abject 
 awe. Gall, Spurzheim, and Combe have all 
 published ' casts ' and portraits of men distin- 
 guished for this feeling ; thev called the ' organ ' 
 'veneration,' and placed it high up on the head. 
 The portrait of John Frederic Oberlin, the good 
 and benevolent pastor of the Ban de la Roche, 
 was, I well remember, selected as a ' fine example ' 
 of this configuration ; and the handsome head 
 of Cardinal Newman meets all the requirements 
 of the late phrenologists in this particular. 
 If Spurzheim were now living he would like a 
 cast of it, and he would tell his followers to 
 observe how large was the organ of ' veneration,' 
 and he would then ask them to listen to the 
 following facts in the Cardinal's autobiography 
 as demonstrative that the material configuration 
 and the mental attribute associated with it were 
 in accord : ' The first time that I was in a room' 
 with him ' [Keble] ' was on the occasion of my 
 election to a Fellowship in Oriel, when I was 
 sent for into the Tower, to shake hands with the 
 Provost and Fellows. How is that hour fixed 
 
424 REVERENTIAL AJVE. 
 
 on my memory after the changes of forty-two 
 years — forty-two this very day on which 1 
 write ! I have lately had a letter in my hands, 
 which I sent at the time to my great friend 
 John William Bowden, with whom I passed 
 almost exclusively my undergraduate years. " I 
 had to hasten to the Tower," I say to him, "to 
 receive the congratulations of all the Fellows. 
 I bore it till Keble took my hand, and then felt 
 so abashed and unworthy of the honour done to 
 me, that I seemed desirous of quite sinking into 
 the ground^ . . . When one day I was walking 
 in High Street with my dear earliest friend just 
 mentioned, with what eagerness did he cry out 
 "There's Keble!" and with what awe did I 
 look at him ! ' [Apologia pro Vita). These 
 incidents reveal the essential character of the 
 man as clearly and truly as a chemical test, or 
 tests, reveal the constituents of a fluid. This 
 anecdote is as expository of Newman's charac- 
 ter as was the Lichfield incident that of Keble's. 
 Newman was profoundly reverential, and, as I 
 have alreadv said, \\\s feelings are the same now 
 as heretofore ; differently directed^ but in them- 
 selves unchanged, as the zeal of ' Saul of Tarsus' 
 differed only in direction from the zeal of ' Paul 
 called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.' 
 
 Vicar. I have been waiting for you to de- 
 scribe the tenets w^iich you think have conduced 
 or contributed to the widespread infidelity of 
 
FORM AND CHARACTER. 4^5 
 
 the present time, and my incidental praise of the 
 reverential spirit has caused you unduly to expa- 
 tiate upon it, and has ultimately brought you 
 round again to your too favourite theory of the in- 
 terdependence of cerebral organization and mental 
 attributes — a theory which I have censured as 
 destroying free will and being otherwise most 
 mischievous to the spiritual interests of mankind. 
 Parishioner. As to the matter of ' free will,' 
 I must leave you to discuss it when you have 
 occasion to deal with the ninth of the Articles of 
 your religion ; or if you are desirous of combating 
 it, I can refer you to a combatant worthy of 
 your steel in Martin Luther, and his commentary 
 on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. And 
 speaking of Martin Luther, it may be an interest- 
 ing exercise to you some day to compare an 
 authentic portrait of that pugnacious polemic 
 with one of Melancthon. As a preliminary 
 study, I would suggest that you look also at the 
 portrait of some prominent pugilist, like to 
 Sayers, or, as a true transcript from nature, at the 
 head of Charles the Wrestler in Maclise's fine 
 picture from Shakespeare's play of As Vou Like 
 It, and then, recalling the life, the 'table talk,' 
 and general conduct of Luther to your mind, 
 contrast the form of his head with the large, 
 full-fronted, well-domed, lofty head of Melanc- 
 thon, and see whether there is not something in 
 tliat contrast of form and contrast of character 
 
426 ORGANIZATION AND THOUGHT. 
 
 which will justify a further research on your 
 part as to the relation between ' matter and 
 spirit,' between ' mind and organization.' I shall 
 feel personally very grateful to you whenever 
 you will show to me a person distinguished for 
 his religious toleration, his benevolence, his 
 great intelligence and reverent spirit — men, I 
 mean, like unto Melancthon, Oberlin, Heber, 
 Dean Stanley, and the late Frederick Robertson, 
 of Brighton — in whom the anterior and superior 
 portion of the head is not large, handsome, and 
 smoothly arched ; it whom, that is, a perpendicu- 
 lar line, carried upwards from the opening of the 
 ear to the top of the head, and an horizontal 
 line taken from the same spot to a point corre- 
 sponding with the anterior termination of the 
 forehead, would, by having a third annexing- 
 line drawn from a level with the second at the 
 middle of the anterior base of the forehead, form 
 a smooth convex outline, thus,' j^ ; or — what 
 would be an equivalent fact — show me a person 
 possessing a like character to Melancthon, to 
 Stanley, or to Robertson, having a low and 
 narrow forehead — low and narrow as compared 
 with the large and protuberant mass of skull 
 behind a line drawn vertically from the apex of 
 the head to the opening of the ear ; and I will 
 abandon immediately my present firm conviction 
 ' that the highest degree of organization gives 
 the highest degree of thought ' ; yes, will abandon 
 
ORGANIZATION AND THOUGHT. 4^7 
 
 it for ever as a mischievous heresy, and will 
 endeavour to believe that when Paul wrote to 
 the Romans respecting the potter having the 
 ' power over the clay, of the same lump to make 
 one vessel unto honour, and another to dishonour'; 
 and again to Timothy, concerning the vessels in 
 a great house ' of gold and silver, but also of 
 wood, and of earth, and some to honour and 
 some to dishonour,' he did not mean to imply 
 any material or physical distinction, or any insu- 
 perable obstacle to the formed lump making itself 
 into some other vessel, or that the ' wood and the 
 earth,' the * gold and the silver' were permanent 
 forms having fixed and unchangeable qualities ; 
 but, //;//// then — until you, or someone else has 
 shown me an individual in whom very high 
 qualities have been associated with the low 
 configuration I have described — I shall continue 
 to accept the lessons which nature and obser 
 vation have hitherto taught me ; viz., that there 
 are men, as there are vessels, of whom some are 
 made ' unto honour,' and others ' unto dishonour.' 
 Perhaps I ought to apologise for having dwelt 
 so much upon this theory, because in it, and in 
 it alone, I find a solution for what is otherwise a 
 deep and insoluble mystery, namely, the different 
 conclusions to w^hich men come from the satne 
 facts. We find it so in all matters, whether 
 they relate to conduct, to sermons, books, 
 speeches, works of art, or any other thing to which 
 their attention is drawn. This difference of 
 
428 ORGANIZATION AND THOUGHT. 
 
 opinion has existed through all time. In the 
 classic ages, Terence tells us, ' Quot homines, tot 
 sententiae ' ; and Horace, in the second book of 
 his Epistles, writes : 
 
 Denique non omnes eadem mirantur anmntque : 
 Carmine tu gaudes ; hie delectatur iambis ; 
 Ille Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro. 
 
 And only a few days ago a most striking illu stra- 
 tion — perhaps the most instructive that could be 
 possibly given — occurred in the great judicial 
 Court of Appeal (where, alas! it was no rare 
 thing), where men of the highest attainments," 
 and with minds perfectly unbiassed and of the 
 most honourable purpose, were in absolute agree- 
 inent as to the facts^ but came to opposite con- 
 clusions respecting them. A daily paper states 
 as follows : ' Lord Coleridge, in giving judgment 
 on Saturday in the case of Regina versus Powell, 
 said the case exhibited a very serious instance of 
 the different conclusions which educated minds 
 could come to on one state of facts. The ques- 
 tion to be decided was whether on the facts of 
 the case, there was a false pretence. He and his 
 brothers Huddleston and Mathew were strongly 
 of opinion that there was, while his brothers 
 Grove and Manisty were as strongly of opinion 
 that there was not. Neither party could under- 
 stand the decision arrived at by the other! 
 These Judges are differently organized, and 
 hence the above condition of things. This being 
 so with contemporaneous facts, with facts which 
 
ORGANIZATION AND THOUGHT. 429 
 
 all accepted as facts, does it not become us to 
 be absolutely tolerant one of another in respect 
 to conclusions on religious matters ? Does it 
 not become a crime — yea, a murder — to destroy 
 a fellow-creature because he draws ' conclusions ' 
 from ancient history which we choose to brand 
 as ' heresy ' ? If two judges, equally able, equally 
 just, draw different conclusions and give a 
 different decision on the facts (the same facts 
 respecting ivhich all are agreed) from the deci- 
 sion of three other judges, and ' neither party 
 could understand the decision of the other,' how 
 absurd, how mad is it to expect uniformity of 
 opinion on the conflicting facts and conflicting 
 statements of a history transacted centuries ago ! 
 If the constitution of human nature precludes 
 unanimity on earthly matters, how can it be in 
 perfect accord on ' heavenly things ' ? Well 
 might the great ' teacher come from God ' say, 
 ' If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe 
 not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly 
 things ? ' A generous toleration of religious 
 opinion ought to be — yea, I will venture to say, 
 even to atheism — the most universal of senti- 
 ments, instead of being the most rare. It is sad 
 to think that even John Locke, in writing his 
 noble work on ' Toleration,' could not ' rise to 
 the height of his great argument,' but must 
 needs except the Papist for political, and the 
 Atheist for moral reasons. 
 
430 DUTY OF TOLERATIOX. 
 
 Vicar. Such a universal toleration can only 
 co-exist with a universal indifference to religion 
 and an utter disregard of the glory and honour 
 of God. Very different was the spirit of 
 Hezekiah, and Josiah, and Jehosaphat, who 
 broke down the altars, burnt the groves, and 
 destroyed the sepulchres of those who had held 
 in honour the ' gods of the heathen.' Moreover, 
 it is directly antagonistic to the commands of 
 the Most High as given in ' Exodus ' and ' Deu- 
 teronomy,' where the command to the Israelites 
 is imperative to ' destroy their altars, break their 
 images, and cut down their groves : for thou shalt 
 worship no other god : for the Lord, whose name 
 is Jealous, is a jealous God' (Exodus xxxiv. 14). 
 
 Parishioner. If we were now under a theocracy 
 as the Israelites were at that time, I should not 
 have said anything respecting toleration ; but all 
 the circumstances are altered — so changed that 
 the .true worshippers of God are not always dis- 
 tinguishable ; so changed, indeed, that centuries 
 ago the very high priest of the temple ^of God 
 could charge Jesus Himself with blasphemy, 
 while the common people shouted, ' We found 
 this fellow perverting the nation. . . . Away 
 with him. . . . Crucify him, crucify him ' ; while 
 later on, priests and people alike, under the same 
 frenzy, shouted against the holiest man of the 
 time, Stephen, ' Away with such a fellow from 
 the earth ; for it is not fit that he should live.' 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERAXCE. 431 
 
 From that unhappy hour, through long ages, the 
 blind, infatuated zeal of theologians has caused 
 them to act on a like principle and to shout the 
 same cry. The ascendency of the secular power 
 has during the past century controlled this zeal, 
 and rendered it civilly impotent as regards 
 inflicting penalties on life or property : yet many 
 pious men and thousands of pious women still 
 regard themselves as exclusively right, and 
 others who differ from them as wickedly wrong. 
 There are few lives known to me so religious, 
 so holy in its general career, as that of Cardinal 
 Newman, and yet how painful it is to read some 
 of his addresses and essays, and to observe how 
 an ecclesiastical system and theory have steeled 
 a heart naturally susceptible and kind. In his 
 essay on Anglican Difficulties^ he gives us most 
 touching details of the sayings of many good men 
 in their dying hour — sayings which would have 
 demonstrated to any impartial observer how 
 great was their faith, their trust in and love for 
 God. The dying words of such men as Bunyan, 
 Harvey, Whiteiield, Walker, Arnold, and Scott, 
 have been gleaned from their respective biogra- 
 phies to show their futility. There is scarcely 
 a word of sympathy ; they are given to show 
 how delusive such expressions and feelings are 
 apart from the belief in a special ecclesiastical 
 system of 'sacramental grace.' He depicts the 
 end of one well known to him — one who was 
 
432 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 beloved by such men as Whately and Max 
 Miiller — one whose whole life was a life of self- 
 sacrifice to what he believed to be the truth (and 
 Newman has done no more) — one who breathed 
 thoroughly and truly in all his actions the prayer- 
 ful spirit of the hymn composed by Newman 
 himself — . 
 
 Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom. 
 
 Lead thou me on ; 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home, 
 
 Lead thou me on. 
 Keep thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me. 
 
 So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still 
 
 Will lead me on 
 O'er moor andifen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 
 The night is gone, 
 And with the morn those angel-faces smile 
 Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. 
 
 Yes, of the good Blanco White, whose bodily 
 sufferings were most intense and prolonged, the 
 Cardinal wrote thus : 'Alas ; there was another, 
 who for three months " lingered," as he said, "in 
 the face of death." " O my God," he cried, " I 
 know thus dost not overlook any of thy creatures. 
 Thou dost not overlook me. So much torture. 
 ... to kill a worm ! Have mercy on me ! I 
 cry to thee, knowing I cannot alter thy ways. 
 I cannot if I would, and I would not if I could. 
 If a word would remove these sufferings I would 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 433 
 
 not utter it." "Just life enough to suifer," he 
 continued, "but I submit, and not only submit, 
 but rejoice." One morning he woke up, and, 
 with firm voice and great sobriety of manner, 
 spoke only these words : " Now I die ! " He 
 sat as one in the attitude of expectation, and 
 about two hours afterwards it was as he had 
 said. And he was a professed infidel, and worse 
 than an infidel, an apostate priest ' {Anglican 
 Difficulties). Such is the point of callousness to 
 which ecclesiastical training can reach ! It can so 
 operate on the mind and the heart of a naturally 
 kind man as to enable him to pen such sentences 
 as those I have related, and ' to think that he is 
 doing God service.' It certainly wrung from his 
 instinctive natural conscience the words, ' Of 
 course, we think as tenderly of them as we can ' 
 [but, alas ! then came the awful ' but '], ' hut the 
 claim in their behalf is unreasonable and exorbi- 
 tant if it is to the effect that their state of mind 
 is to be taken in evidence, not only of promise 
 in the individual, but of truth in his creed. . . . 
 The Catholic, and he alone, has within him that 
 union of external with internal notes of God's 
 favour which sheds the light of conviction over 
 his soul, and makes him both fearless in his faith 
 and calm and thankful in his hope ' {Anglican 
 Difficulties, p. 70). Newman would be startled 
 and pained, grievously pained, if he were charged 
 with falsehood ; and yet, practically, the most 
 
 28 
 
434 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 wilful fictionist could not more falsify truth than 
 the Cardinal has done in the above passages of 
 his essay. His casuistry may, perhaps, enable 
 him to defend himself successfully in a conclave 
 of cardinals or in a ' convocation ' of York or 
 Canterbury, but certainly not before a jury of 
 twelve men trained to weigh and balance evi- 
 dence and to sift the alleged facts upon which 
 the evidence is based. His own narrated facts, 
 given for a different purpose, prove to the 
 extreme point of demonstration that others 
 beside ' the Catholic ' possess every grace which 
 ' can shed the light of conviction over their souls, 
 and make Xh^va fearless in their faith and calm and 
 thankful in their hope! He records of Bunyan 
 that his last words to his friends, sorrowing 
 around him, were, ' Weep not for me ' [as if he 
 had been a saint !], 'but for yourselves. I go to 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, doubt- 
 less, through the mediation of his Son, will 
 receive me, though a sinner, when we shall ere 
 long meet, to sing the new song and be happy 
 for ever.' * Mr. Whitefield rose at four o'clock 
 on the Sabbath day, went to his closet, and was 
 unusually long in private ; laid himself on his 
 bed for about ten minutes, then went on his 
 knees and prayed most fervently he might that 
 day finish his Master's work.' Then he sent for 
 a clergyman, ' and, before he could reach him, 
 closed his eyes on this world, without a sigh or a 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 435 
 
 groan, and commenced a sabbath of everlasting 
 rest ' (Sidney's Life of Hill). What ' notes,' 
 internal or external, are wanting in the above 
 instances ? Where did the ' light of conviction ' 
 shine brighter on the soul, where was ever a more 
 ' fearless faith,' where a more ' calm and thankful 
 hope,' than the conviction, than the faith and the 
 hope displayed by Bunyan and Whitefield ? My 
 soul writhes with the mingled feelings of pain 
 and indignation as I reflect on the cold, scathing 
 words of Newman over the memory of Blanco 
 White — * worse than an infidel, an apostate 
 priest ! ' Terrible words to be uttered of one 
 who had displayed such sublime submission to the 
 will of his Father and his God' — a submission 
 reminding one again of the tender words of Job : 
 * Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him ! ' 
 More terrible still that they should have been 
 written by one who, if not ' an apostate priest ' 
 himself, had * apostatized ' from the Church to 
 which he had bound himself by sacred vows ; 
 who had ' apostatized ' from the ' order and 
 ministry of priesthood of the Church of England ' 
 — by the man and priest who, to use the words 
 of the historian Carlyle, had ' apostatized from 
 his old faith in facts ^ and took to believing in 
 semblances.^ All this is most sad and most 
 mischievous, provokes a bitter spirit, and urges 
 to an unchristian-like retaliation. When I read 
 these cold and cruel words of Newman over 
 
 28 * 
 
436 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 
 
 Blanco White, whose spirit had undergone 
 like conflicts with the soul of Newman, although 
 they led to a more manly issue, the words 
 of Hamlet came rushing to my lips, and I 
 could have said to him : 
 
 I tell thee, churlish priest, 
 A minist'ring angel shall (this nian) be 
 When thou liest howling. 
 
 Vicar. It certainly seems a sad thing thus to 
 speak, more especially of one who, like himself, 
 had foregone the most solemn vows in obedience 
 to strong convictions and the irresistible voice of 
 conscience. Still, as the Cardinal maintains, 
 there is a standard of truth wholly apart from 
 the convictions and the feelings of individuals ; 
 and it would be a most dangerous principle to 
 accept what you imply — that so long as a man is 
 in earnest and personally truthful, it would 
 matter little what his creed may be. Such a 
 system would abolish order and lead directly to 
 anarchv and chaos. You should not forget that 
 tender and loving and charitable as was our 
 Divine Lord, His utterances towards the Phari- 
 sees were scathing and terrible, and exceeded 
 in their condemnation all the phrases that you 
 have reported as bitter and wrong in the pious 
 Cardinal. 
 
 Parishioner. I accept your statements as 
 regards the procedure of our Divine Lord. 
 
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 437 
 
 Thev are veritable history, and if the Cardinal 
 possessed the same power of reading the heart, 
 and the same Divine intuition of knowing what 
 was truth, as did Jesus of Nazareth, I should 
 recall my statements. Moreover, could it be 
 shown that in drifting from ' Evangelicalism ' to 
 ' Anglicanism,' and from ' Anglicanism ' to the 
 most gross tenets of Popery, he had sought 
 guidance with greater humility and with a more 
 intense desire to reach the truth than did Blanco 
 White under corresponding conditions of spiritual 
 perplexity : or could it be proved that Blanco 
 White sought guidance from any other source 
 than from the great God who made him : I should 
 at once acknowledge that your defence is just 
 and irrefutable ; but as the case stands, I reiter- 
 ate mv statements that the Cardinal's remarks 
 are severe, yea, presumptuous. The sentences 
 which he has given us as proceeding from Blanco 
 White in his bodily anguish indicate a sublime 
 submission and a noble faith. They remind one, 
 as I have said, of the grand utterance of Job in 
 his affliction : ' Thou^jh HE slav me, vet will I 
 trust in him.' The same pious thought — that 
 seeming loss may prove great gain, that the 
 withholding or withdrawal of light may lead to 
 still higher revelations of God's love — breathes 
 in one of White's sonnets — as grand a sonnet as 
 human poet ever penned, called 
 
438 BLANCO IFHITE. 
 
 Night and Death. 
 
 Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew 
 Thee from report divine, and heard thy name. 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ! 
 
 Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came. 
 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, O sun ! or who could find 
 
 Whilst^?/ and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ! 
 
 Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? 
 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? 
 
 Vicar. Certainly, that is a highly poetic sonnet, 
 full of philosophic thought ; and, with the author's 
 unsettled yet conscientious mental history, and 
 his great and long-continued bodily suffering, can 
 hardly fail to make all kindly hearts sympathize 
 with him — that is, so far as to compassionate and 
 to be sorry for him. To use Newman's words, 
 ' Of course, we think of him as tenderly as we 
 can' ; but there remains the excruciating thought 
 that he died without the pale of the Church, with 
 no direct acknowledgment of the sole ransom 
 for guilt which has been provided against the 
 consequences of the primaeval sin, and no sacra- 
 mental grace for the blotting out of the numerous 
 sins w^hich he had committed subsequent to his 
 baptismal regeneration. But this sad episode is 
 
BLANCO WHITE. 439 
 
 carrying us somewhat beyond our subject ; and, 
 moreover, I am anxious again to enter my solemn 
 protest against your materialistic theory, which 
 links mind inseparably with matter, and intrudes 
 into the spiritual kingdom by limiting the capa- 
 cities of individuals for spiritual attainments in 
 this life, and thus inferentially their enjoyment 
 of celestial happiness and bliss. 
 
 Parishioner. Pardon me, for my warmth com- 
 pels me to say that it matters little what measure 
 of ' tenderness ' vou and the Cardinal ' can think ' 
 of that struggling, heroic, yet submissive man of 
 whom we have been speaking : his spirit has 
 gone up to the Tribunal of ' his Father, and your 
 Father ; of his God, and your God,' and, even in 
 this life, not Paul himself could say more heartily 
 than he, ' With me it is a very small thing that I 
 should be judged of you, or of man's judgment : 
 yea, I judge not mine own self ; and had he 
 made direct verbal prayers to the Great Ransom 
 you refer to, it would not have ' lightened ' his 
 darkness in the estimation of the Cardinal, who 
 places in the same category of doubtful condi- 
 tions some who died uttering tones of triumphal 
 trust in the ' Redeemer.' The authority of ' the 
 Church,' with all the attributes annexed to it, has 
 no firmer basis than the 'faith of those men 
 whose testimony to their creed is so worthless' in 
 the estimation of a presumptuous priesthood 
 which arrogates for itself an apostolic descent. 
 
440 BLANCO WHITE. 
 
 The enlightened reason of men must necessarily 
 be the final test of any 'religious tenet,' whether 
 it be discussed in Councils, in the closet of the 
 Pope, the Westminster Assembly, or the Privy 
 Council of Her Majesty. Butler and Hooker are, 
 I think, in accord on this matter. My ' material- 
 istic theory,' as you are pleased to define it, has 
 no further limitations to the spiritual capacities 
 of individuals, or to their celestial enjoyments, 
 than have the metaphors of Paul to which I have 
 referred, and find its prototype in these words of 
 Jeremiah : ' Then I went down to the potter's 
 house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the 
 wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay 
 was marred in the hand of the potter : so he 
 made it again another vessel, as seemed good to 
 the potter to make it. Then the word of the 
 Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, 
 cannot I do with you as this potter ? saith the 
 Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter s hand, 
 so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel ' 
 (xviii.). It is because each individual has been 
 thus especially moulded — some 'marred' in the 
 moulding, some remoulded ' again into another 
 vessel,' 'some to honour and some to dishonour,' 
 while another shall be ' a vessel unto honour, 
 sanctified and meet for the Master's use ' — that 
 the satnc facts and the same arguments from 
 the same facts produce such different convictions 
 on different minds, and lead to all the varieties 
 
MIND AND MATERIALISM. 441 
 
 in the forms and tenets of religion which are 
 scattered through Christendom. This has ah'eady 
 been sufficiently dwelt upon ; but I must remind 
 you, in passing, that the ' vessels of wood and of 
 earth' have their respective uses in the 'great 
 house ' ; that they are under the same roof and 
 the same guardian or ownership as are the 
 ' vessels of gold and silver.' And as to limitation 
 of ' celestial happiness,' I cannot think of a more 
 apt illustration of the joys of heaven in relation 
 to individuals than one used by Samuel Johnson: 
 ' People of varying capacity reach heaven, where 
 all will be full of happiness, but, like great and 
 little bottles, some will contain much more than 
 others.' Surely, to be full is all-sufficing ; as 
 ' limitless ' as heart could wish so far as measure 
 or quantity is concerned. ' Materialist ' and 
 ' materialism ' have been made to signify oppro- 
 brious terms ; but there is nothing inherently 
 base in matter, and its indestructibilitv is com- 
 plete, inasmuch as it takes the same Almighty 
 Power to destrov as it did to create it. No 
 reverential mind need shrink from it as a base or 
 unworthy thing, for the Almighty Being can 
 clothe it with whatever attributes it may please 
 HIM. It was an act of reverential faith, entail- 
 ing salvation from suifering and death, in the 
 time of Moses to look upon a brazen serpent ; 
 seven hundred years later, in the days of Heze- 
 kiah, it became an act of righteousness well 
 
442 MATERIALISM. 
 
 pleasing in the sight of God to break it into 
 pieces, inasmuch as in ' those days the children 
 of Israel did burn incense to it.' Legend, tradi- 
 tion, credulity, superstition, had in the course of 
 ages, then as now, perverted what was once a 
 proper and religious act into gross idolatry. The 
 image had for centuries ceased to fulfil a good 
 purpose ; it had become what King Hezekiah 
 called ' Nehushtan,' a piece of brass ; and ' he did 
 right in the sight of the Lord ' ' to break it into 
 pieces,' although it was once ' the brazen serpent 
 that Moses had made.' ' Relics ' like unto this, 
 and like unto those which the Cardinal extols — 
 the nails of the Cross, the crib at Bethlehem, the 
 winding-sheet at Turin, and ' pieces of our 
 Lady's habit to be seen at the Escurial,' near to 
 which the poor dupes see ' incense burnt,' and of 
 which" they are told ' each particle of each has in 
 it at least a dormant, perhaps an energetic, virtue 
 of supernatural operation ' — should always be 
 broken to pieces when they have become simply 
 ' Nehushtan,' for who other than a ' materialist ' 
 in its w^orst sense could now attach ' a super- 
 natural operation ' to ' relics ' so legendary, so 
 widespread, and so numerous as those which the 
 priestly imagination of the Cardinal has described 
 with such glowing eloquence as among the ' para- 
 phernalia ' of the Church he has so warmly 
 espoused — paraphernalia none the less precious to 
 him although despised by the ' Spouse ' to whom 
 
• nehushtan: 443 
 
 he (the Cardinal) pledged his earliest love and 
 his earliest vows, from whom he has divorced 
 himself in order to espouse another of whom he 
 once deliberately said, and swore, that she ought 
 not to have any ' authority, ecclesiastical or 
 spiritual, within this realm. ' So Jielp me, God! 
 When the mighty thus fall, how tolerant ought 
 we to be one to another, how slow to brand as 
 ' worse than an infidel, an apostate priest,' a 
 fellow-priest or layman who has seceded from 
 our creed. How ready ought we to be to deal 
 with ' such an one in the spirit of meekness, 
 considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.' 
 I have nothing further to say as to the efficiency 
 of direct spiritual guidance to each inquiring 
 soul : ' the quietness and the confidence ' which 
 come down upon a soul so blessed ; the ' doc- 
 trine ' and the 'speech,' 'which drop as the rain 
 and distil as the dew ' — ' as the small rain upon 
 the tender herb, and as the showers upon the 
 grass ' — upon the heart and intelligence of one 
 in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells. 
 
 Vicar. You appear to me, my dear friend, 
 quite unconscious of the heresy you have im- 
 bibed. It seems to me that you are in ignorance 
 of the sole scheme of religion which God has 
 provided for the redemption of mankind. You 
 are in the same condition spiritually as were 
 bodily the countless persons who were struggling 
 in the primaeval flood around the floating ark, 
 
444 'HEAR THE CHURCH.' 
 
 after ' Noah had entered, and the Lord shut hmi 
 in.' There z's, there can be, no safety external to 
 the Church ; she is the depository of God's truth, 
 the exponent of His Word, the preserver and 
 distributor of His sacraments, and must ever 
 be so, else would God be without trustworthy 
 witnesses in this world. It is by virtue of the 
 grace of apostolical succession that a due order 
 of ministers has been preserved throughout the 
 Christian ages, and without such qualified and 
 authorized ministers the sacraments could not be 
 administered, which sacraments, as the Church 
 has diligently taught you, are ' generally neces- 
 sary to salvation — that is to say, baptism and the 
 supper of the Lord ' — by the first of which you 
 were ' made a member of -Christ, a child of God, 
 and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,' and 
 the second is that in which ' the Body and Blood 
 of Christ are verily and indeed taken by the 
 faithful, and by which their souls are strengthened 
 and refreshed,' as are our bodies by the bread 
 and wine. It is by accepting these propositions 
 as absolute facts, without cavil or dispute, that 
 you can ever attain peace. Dark bewilderment, 
 confusion, chaos, anxiety, mental distress, 7ntist 
 ever follow all attempts to decide by ' private 
 judgment.' Intellect, however great ; purity of 
 intention, however sincere, even when combined, 
 are fallacious guides. Uncertainty, discrepancv, 
 schism, are the results. Ponder on the conclu- 
 
'PRIVATE judgment: 44.'; 
 
 sions of the men for whom and for whose writings 
 you have to high an esteem. How different, 
 how discrepant are their opinions on holy things! 
 Observe the honest philosopher Faraday joining 
 himself to a small obscm'e sect calling themselves 
 * Sandemanians ' (the latter part of the name 
 very suggestive), w4iile on the very opposite pole 
 of thought and feeling we see Darwin and 
 Tyndall, almost deifying matter, and the mar- 
 vellous mathematician Clifford pouring scorn 
 and censure on ' Christianity ' as the destroyer 
 of ' civilizations.' Even the greatest of all great 
 scientists, Sir Isaac Newton, forewent the creed 
 of his fathers, and accepted, as I fear you do, the 
 negations of a cold and sterile Arianism ; and 
 almost sadder still, the pure-minded Matthew 
 Arnold, one of the great leaders of ' Oxford 
 thought,' the eloquent advocate of ' sweetness 
 and light,' denies the existence of any God 
 who ' thinks and loves,' and has in elegiac 
 strains thus described the hopes and aspirations 
 of the followers of Jesus (as, indeed, you 
 have before related) : 
 
 That thorn-crowned Man ! 
 He Hved while tee helieved. 
 
 While we helieved, on earth he went. 
 
 And open stood his grave. 
 Men called from chamber, church, and tent 
 
 And Christ was by to save. 
 
446 'PRIVATE JUDGMENT: 
 
 Now he is dead ! far hence he lies 
 In the lorn Syrian town. 
 
 And on his grave with shining eyes 
 The Syrian stars look down. 
 
 Ah, o'er that silent sacred land 
 
 Of sun, and arid stone, 
 And crumbling wall, and earthy sand. 
 
 Sounds now one word alone ! 
 
 From David's lips that word did roll, 
 
 'Tis true, and living yet : 
 No man can save his brother s soul. 
 
 Nor pay his brother s debt. 
 
 Alone, self-pois'd, henceforward man 
 
 Must labour, must resign 
 His all too human creeds, and scan 
 
 Simply the way divine. 
 
 Such, yea, such are the sad results of ' private 
 judgment.' I have referred to these men (al- 
 thou2:h scores mav have been taken from other 
 departments of human science) because they 
 belong to a class whose special training and pur- 
 suits you yourself honour, to show that there is 
 no logical resting-place between scepticism and an 
 implicit adoption of all the dogmatic teachings of 
 the Catholic and Apostolic Church. The scores 
 of wild sectarians demonstrate this to be a truth. 
 Out of consideration to your views, I have named 
 men accustomed to investigate facts, and to 
 weigh evidence — Faraday, Darwin, Clifford, 
 Tyndall, Newton, and Arnold — and have shown 
 
' PRIVATE yUDMENT: 447 
 
 to what different conclusions they have come in 
 reUgioiis opinions or convictions. I selected 
 these men of science as being less prone to be 
 swayed by the feelings, less disposed to be 
 credulous, or what, perhaps, you might term 
 fanatical, than others ; had I looked for ordinary 
 individuals anxious respecting their spiritual state 
 and their future life, the divisions would have 
 been almost endless. There are more than two 
 hundred places of meeting for religious worship 
 in England and Wales certified to the Registrar- 
 Genaral on behalf of persons calling themselves 
 by different names, such as ' Believers in the 
 Divine Visitation of Joanna Southcote,' ' Sande- 
 manians,' ' Inghamites,' * Old Baptists,' 'Strict 
 Baptists,' 'King Jesus' Army,' 'Ranters,' 'Hu- 
 manitarians,' ' Recreative Religionists,' and the 
 like. To avoid all this awful confusion, there is 
 but one resource to cleave to, and implicitly to 
 follow — the ' one Catholic and Apostolic Church ' 
 appointed by Christ when He said unto Peter, 
 ' Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and 
 blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my 
 Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto 
 thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
 build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever 
 thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : 
 and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be 
 
448 THE ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 loosed in heaven.' Into that Church you have 
 been baptized, and from which you have not 
 openly seceded, although you have been culpably 
 negligent of some of her most important rites ; 
 and to her I now invite you to come peniten- 
 tially. As a faithful although unworthy ser- 
 vant of that Church ; as a priest to whom the 
 Holy Ghost has been given by the imposition of 
 apostolic hands, for the special purpose that I 
 should thereby become a faithful dispenser of 
 the Word of God and of His holy sacraments, 
 and to be enabled to forgive or to retain sins, I 
 implore you to lead a new life, and henceforth 
 to walk in holy ways by partaking habitually of 
 that Holy Sacrament which has been specially 
 ordained ' to preserve thy body and soul unto 
 everlasting life.'' This is my last, my most 
 urgent appeal to you as your pastor and priest. 
 ' Liberavi animani meani! And may the 
 merciful God, to whom the Church ever prays 
 to have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, 
 and heretics, take from you all ignorance, 
 hardness of heart, and contempt of His Word, 
 and bring you fully home to His fold, the Church, 
 so that you may be saved among the remnant of 
 the true Israelites, and not be among those un- 
 happy ones who, not ' holding the Catholic Faith 
 whole and undefiled, shall without doubt perish 
 everlastingly.' 
 
 Parishioner. I thank vou verv much. Your 
 
' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 449 
 
 arguments and your words, touched with such 
 deep emotion, would have operated powerfully 
 upon me some years ago — as, indeed, they now 
 would upon hundreds who are willing to accept 
 of an external authority rather than have to 
 think and study and pray for themselves. But 
 your pleadings, kindly meant as they are, neces- 
 sarily fail to produce a like sudden effect upon a 
 mind which, possessing the Berean spirit, inquires 
 ' whether these things were so,' and more es- 
 pecially on any one who had accepted the 
 teachings of the Divine One who, instructing 
 His disciples on teachers and ' rabbis ' and 
 * masters,' said, ' Call no man your father upon 
 the earth.' Were I, my dear Vicar, to adopt 
 your arguments, I could not seek the ' fold ' you 
 represent, but should forthwith repair to the 
 older, more consistent, and more logical Church 
 from which ' the Church of England ' has se- 
 ceded. To the ' Berean '-like mind, under such 
 appeals as you have made to me, there comes 
 the inevitable inquiry, IV/ience t's this 'authority' 
 derived? Such an anxious soul, if in anv 
 degree cultured or educated, at once seeks 
 information from the earliest records of the 
 Christian life — the sayings (^ logia ') of Christ 
 and the ' Acts of the Apostles ' — and in these he 
 cannot find an ' atom ' of ' authoritv ' for the 
 dogmas you inculcate and the ' creed ' you en- 
 force with such appalling conditions. On the 
 
 29 
 
450 ' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 
 
 contrary, as I have so profusely shown — from the 
 Old Testament, from the Gospels, from all the 
 Epistles, and even from the Apocrypha itself, or 
 the book of Revelations — the Scriptures in their 
 integrity sustain my opinions and condemn your 
 own, participated in although they are by nearly 
 all the sectarians of the kingdom. Minorities 
 are almost always in the right, and therefore 
 I will not use — what I might to parallel your 
 argument — the fact that Monotheists exceed in 
 number the Trinitarians, taking the world at 
 large, and in the great Church of Rome there 
 are as many who believe by ' authority ' in the 
 Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin 
 as in the Church of England believe by a like 
 authority that the Father is God, the Son is 
 God, the Holy Ghost is God, and yet there are 
 not three Gods, but one God. I yield to your 
 entreaty when you can show me a single authentic 
 scriptural statement in which Christ as clearly 
 indicated that He was God — as plainly, I mean — 
 as He declared that He was not^ in the words, 
 * Why callest thou me good ? there is none good 
 but one^ that is, God : but if thou wilt enter into 
 life, keep the commandments' (Matt. xix. 17); 
 and, in the words recorded by Mark as to the 
 coming of the Judgment day, ' But of that day 
 and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
 angels which are in heaven, neither the Son^ but 
 the Father ' ; and again, ' If ye loved me, ye 
 
' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 451 
 
 would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the 
 Father: for my Father is greater than I '(John xiv. 
 28). ' To sit on my right hand, and on my left 
 hand, is not mine to give, but it is for them for 
 whom it hath been prepared of my Father ' (Matt. 
 XX. 23). There stands also the historic fact, that 
 even the ' false witnesses ' did not charge Jesus 
 with saying that He was God, but only that 'this 
 fellow said I am able to destroy the temple of 
 God and to build it in three days,' which false 
 asseveration Jesus treated with silence. How 
 eloquent is that fact, that Jesus never called 
 Himself God. The Trinitarian doctrine, all 
 essential, as you declare, to salvation — without 
 holding which in one especial form of words, 
 you declare that a man, ' without doubt, shall 
 perish everlastingly,' is, I repeat again, absolutely 
 textlesSy and without an atom of authority either 
 from the words of Jesus or the Epistles of His 
 disciples. My position, therefore, remains un- 
 shaken, based upon the infallible words, 'The 
 testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the 
 simple ' (Psalm xix. 7), but it would also remain 
 unshaken if tested by the records of the first 
 century of the Christian Era, before the pure 
 and simple faith of the primitive Christians had 
 become corrupted by intercourse with pagan 
 scholars, or contaminated by the influence of 
 wealth and earthly power. The active research 
 of scholars and philologists of all schools of 
 
452 ' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 
 
 thought, 'secular' as well as ' divine,' penetrating 
 remote and ancient places, convents and libraries, 
 is often bringing to light MSS., tablets, monu- 
 ments, mural inscriptions, and the like, which 
 inform us of the theories and practice of the 
 immediate Apostolic Age. One of the most 
 valuable of these MSS., published by the 
 Metropolitan of Nicomedia, Philotheos Bryen- 
 nius, and which was discovered by him in ' The 
 Jerusalem Monastery of the most Holy Sepulchre 
 at Stamboul,' and called the ' Didache ; or. The 
 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' gives us the 
 * beliefs ' and the devotional practices of the 
 Christians soon after the martyrdom of ' James, 
 the Lord's brother,' even if not of an earlier 
 date. Professor Schaff calls it ' The Oldest 
 Church Manual,' and it describes the holy rite to 
 which vou invite me, and which I long to 
 participate in, but am shut off by awful dis- 
 quisitions of ' very God of very God,' * one 
 substance with the Father,' and such like 
 'scholastic' and 'philosophic' terms, which, while 
 they transcend my powers of comprehension, 
 shock my moral sense and baffle my understand- 
 ing.' In ' The Oldest Church Manual,' that rite, 
 ' The Agape and the Eucharist,' are not preceded 
 by any such paradoxical and perplexing pro- 
 positions of belief as are included in the ' Nicene 
 Creed,' nor accompanied by priestly variegated 
 robes, candles, lighted or uiilighted, eastward 
 
' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 453 
 
 positions, elevations, and frequently repeated 
 ' genuflexions' ; but the disciples, in all humility 
 one with another, met in their respective homes 
 and ' continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine 
 and in breaking of bread, and in prayers ' (Acts ii. 
 42). The ' priest ' was then unknown at this 
 rite, and I think that I have somewhere read 
 that even Bishop Lightfoot believes ' that this 
 introduction was probably of heathen origin, 
 though seeking support in Old Testament analo- 
 gies.' In that ' Oldest Christian Manual,' with its 
 second title, 'The Two Ways, the Way of Life and 
 the Way of Death,' we are instructed as follows : 
 ' Now as regards the Eucharist (the Thank- 
 offering), give thanks after this manner — First for 
 the Cup : We give thanks to Thee our Father for 
 the holy vine of David Thy servant, which Thou 
 hast made known to us through Jesus, Thy 
 Servant : to Thee be the glory for ever.' And 
 for the broken bread : We give thanks to Thee 
 our Father, for the life and knowledge which 
 Thou hast made known to us through Jesus, Thy 
 servant : To Thee be the glory for ever. ' As 
 this broken bread was scattered upon the moun- 
 tains and gathered together became one, so let 
 Thv Church be gathered together from the ends 
 of the earth into Thy kingdom, for Thine is the 
 glory and the power through Jesus Christ for 
 ever. But let no one eat or drink of your 
 Eucharist, except those baptized into the name 
 
 30 
 
454 ' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 
 
 of the Lord ; for, as regards this also the Lord 
 has said : Give not that which is holy to the 
 dogs.' Then is added the following simple 
 command, ' Now after being filled give thanks 
 after this manner: We thank Thee, Holy Father, 
 for Thy holy Name which Thou hast caused to 
 dwell (tabernacle) in our hearts, and for the 
 knowledge and faith, and immortality which 
 Thou hast made known to us through Jesus Thy 
 Servant, to Thee be the glory for ever. Thou, 
 O Almighty Sovereign didst make all things for 
 Thy Name's sake ; Thou gavest food and drink 
 to men, for enjoyment that they might give 
 thanks to Thee ; but to us Thou didst freely 
 give spiritual food and drink and eternal life 
 through Thy servant. Before all things we 
 give thanks to Thee that thou art mighty ; to 
 Thee be the glory for ever. Remember O 
 Lord, Thv Church to deliver her from all evil, 
 and to perfect her in Thv love ; and gather her 
 together from the four winds, sanctified for Thy 
 kingdom which Thou didst prepare for her ; 
 for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. 
 Let grace come and let this world pass away. 
 Hosanna to the God (Son) of David. If any 
 one is holy let him come, if any one is not holy 
 let him repent. Maranatha. Amen.' Such is 
 the beautiful Service in its entirety. Simple, 
 scriptural, touching. There is some difference of 
 opinion among critics as to whether the word 
 
' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.' 455 
 
 ' God ' or ' Son ' ' of David ' is the more correct. 
 The MS. contains rco ^ew (God), but even Bryen- 
 nios, the discoverer, thinks it 7nay have been an 
 error in the writer for t« vtco (Son). It cannot be 
 of great moment either way, but most persons 
 unbiassed would, I think, agree with Professor 
 SchafF, that it would be much easier to account 
 for the change of S^ew into vi6o than vice versa. 
 But, oh! my dear Vicar, what would I not 
 give to join such a service in your Church ! 
 I should spring to your tender invitation, and 
 ' habituallv partake of that Holy Sacrament,' but, 
 alas for me ! the holy rite has ' been made of 
 none effect by your tradition.' The preliminary 
 confessions demanded of the recipients shut me 
 off as completely as did the ' Cherubims and a 
 flaming sword which turned every way,' shut off 
 the sorrowing Adam from the tree of life.' But 
 for this loss, and also for consolation and guid- 
 ance in all controversy, I return, in these my last 
 words, to Him who is ' The Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life,' to the ' true Light which lighteth every 
 man that cometh into the world,' who hath given 
 us ' power to become the sons of God,' in whose 
 name, and by whose words, I have been enabled 
 to meet all your admonitions ; because, through 
 antecedent circumstances, education, and priestly 
 office, you have all unconsciously been ' teaching 
 for doctrines the commandments of men ' (Mark 
 vii. 7). J^Ioreover, from the same great Teacher 
 
456 ' THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 
 
 I have learnt the gratifying fact, that there is 
 sent to each earnest, anxious, prayerful mind, a 
 Power, a Spirit which ' will guide you into all 
 truth.' I have already shown that even such 
 profound divines as Butler and Hooker admit 
 that the ' private judgment ' of the individual — 
 that is, the reason of the enlightened conscience — 
 must be the deciding power in the ultimate 
 appeal of the course to be pursued. It was so 
 even with Cardinal Newman. Although he has 
 since crushed into abject slavishness the highest 
 attribute of humanity, and his reason now lies 
 prostrate under the Papal toe, yet was it by this 
 very faculty that he detected (assumed he 
 detected) and adopted the Romish Church as the 
 infallible guide and source of all ' authority ' in 
 spiritual things. Having abandoned his own 
 prerogative of inquiry, the Cardinal (as the fox 
 in ^sop's Fables, when deprived of his tail, 
 expatiated on its inconvenience and useless- 
 ness, and urged upon all other foxes to deprive 
 themselves of such distinguishing appendages) 
 now denounces all inquiry in matters of faith as 
 impious, and, in reference to his adopted Church, 
 writes, ' Let a man cease to inquire, or cease to 
 call himself her child.' But let this pass. In 
 ' my mind's eye,' as Hamlet said, the opinions of 
 even Butler and Hooker, still more the abject 
 utterances of Newman on this point, pale and 
 fade away before these words of the great 
 
. 'THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH: 4.^7 
 
 Nazareiie, ' When he, the Spirit of truth, is 
 come, he will guide yoit into all truth ' ; ' The 
 Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, ^vhom the 
 Father will send in my name, he shall teach you 
 all things ' ; and all these sublime statements 
 are confirmed by the Apostle who spoke latest in 
 this world of all the immediate disciples of Christ 
 — even the ' disciple whom Jesus loved ' — who 
 told his Christian followers, ' Ye have an unction 
 from the Holy One, and ye know all things' 
 ' Know all things ' — these are his words ; not 
 think^ opine, speculate, infer, but ^ know' Such 
 Christians need not, therefore, the councils of 
 'pope,' 'priest,' 'monk,' 'father,' or 'confessor,' 
 to guide them through the labyrinths of para- 
 doxical creeds — creeds by which monk and priest 
 alike err in ' teaching for doctrijiesXh^ command- 
 ments of men' (Matt. xv. 9). '■ Know all things' 
 necessary to salvation. Blessed, thrice blessed, 
 is this revealed truth. The ' Holy Spirit ' is 
 indeed the ' Comforter ' also to weary and anxious 
 souls ; yea, the Comforter as well as the one sole, 
 safe, and steadfast Light which, amid the mists 
 of doubt and the waves of perplexity and trial, 
 shines with unclouded ray to guide them safely 
 to their home of everlasting rest. The words of 
 the beloved disciple, my dear Vicar, will still 
 sustain me, because they tell of ' the Comforter^ 
 and declare that ' the anointing which ye have 
 received of him ahideth in. you, and ye need not 
 
4^8 ' THE comforter: 
 
 that any man teach you : but as the same anoint- 
 ing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and 
 is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall 
 abide in him ' (i John ii. 27). Under such 
 teachings, forms, ceremonies, 'vain oblations,' 
 'incense,' 'appointed feasts,' 'beggarly elements,' 
 'new moons,' 'the calling of assemblies,' 'even 
 the solemn meeting,' take a subordinate position. 
 The spirit-illumined soul is ' made a priest to 
 God ' by an ' anointing ' more sacred than the 
 ' laying-on of hands ' of any pontiff, prelate, or 
 pope, and may therefore fearlessly cast aside the 
 metaphysical jargon of an alleged Athanasius, 
 or any mere human ' dogmas,' and disregard the 
 threats of all who in sacerdotal garb are, to use 
 the words of Jesus, ' teaching for doctrines the 
 commandments of men.^ Accepting in all their 
 tenderness, their beauty, and their holiness the 
 teachings of its Divine Master, clasping the sacred 
 truth, that ' this is life eternal, that they might 
 know Thee the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ, whom Thou hast sent' (John xvii. 3). 
 The Soul mav well smile at the anathemas of 
 those who declare that unless it accept their 
 paradoxical and irrational creed, ' whole and 
 undefiled, it shall without doubt perish everlast- 
 ingly.' The Soul taught by that Spirit which 
 Jesus told His disciples the Father would send 
 to them, ' the Comforter, which is the Holy 
 Ghost, He shall teach you all things,' knows^ yea 
 
'THE comforter: 459 
 
 verily knows^ ''the Lord our God is one Lord' 
 (Deut. vi. 4). It has read and cherished the 
 unchangeable words, ' Unto thee it was showed 
 that thou mightest know that the Lord he is 
 God ; THERE IS NONE ELSE bcside HIM ' (Deut. 
 iv. 35). Yes, the Soul upon whom ' the sun of 
 righteousness has arisen,' reverently listens to the 
 words and accepts the teachings of its Divine 
 Master, as given to the woman of Samaria — 
 ' the hour cometh, and now is when the true 
 worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit 
 and truth : for such doth the Father seek to be 
 his worshippers ' (John iv. 23, 24). Enough. ^ Sic 
 itiir ad astra.' Farewell. 
 
 31 
 
IISTDEX. 
 
 Alexander, Pope, VI., 'double 
 
 nature,' 132. 
 Alford, Dean, on Paul to Titus, 65. 
 Allegory used by the Fathers, 62. 
 Apathy of Parishioners, 21-23. 
 Apostolic testimony to Divine 
 
 Unity, 179-182, 183. 
 Arnold, Matthew, Poem by, 445. 
 Article 18, Church of England, 
 
 Sternness of, 343. 
 Assyrian Sculptures, 48. 
 Athanasian Creed, Anti-biblical, 
 
 230. 
 Athanasian Creed, 7-13. 
 Athanasian Creed and Church of 
 
 England, 11. 
 Audi alteram partem, 196. 
 Authority, Church, Necessity of, 
 
 258. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baptism, Rite of, no support to 
 doctrine of Trinity, 251-252, 253. 
 
 Baptismal formula and doctrine of 
 Trinity, 247-249. 
 
 Baptism, Infant, 345, 346, 347. 
 
 Baxter, Richard, on Witchcraft, 
 285. 
 
 Besant, Mrs., and Dr. Pusey, 
 
 375-379- 
 
 Bible subordinate to Church Autho- 
 rity, 257. 
 
 Bible Society disapproved by 
 Popes, 257. 
 
 Biblical errors in Natural History, 
 302-307. 
 
 Bibliolatry, 267, 282, 283,319,320, 
 323- 
 
 Bibliolatry leads to Scepticism, 268. 
 
 Blanco White, 432, 434, 439. 
 
 Browne, Rev. Harold, and Re- 
 visers of New Testament, 415. 
 
 Browne, Sir Thos., on Witchcraft, 
 287. 
 
 Bright Service, A, 212, 213. 
 
 Bryennios, P., Discovery of the 
 ' Didache,' 100. 
 
 Burgess and Bull on text in St. 
 John's Epistle, 89, 90. 
 
 Burgon, Dean, on chapter in St. 
 Mark, 93, 94. 
 
 Cabalism and Fanaticism, 120. 
 Canonical Books, 295, 297, 300. 
 Canticles, Book of, 296-299. 
 Catholic Unity, 334. 
 Chalcedon, Council of, 131. 
 Character and Form, 425, 426. 
 Chichester, Bishop of, and Revision 
 
 of New Testament, 415. 
 Chillingworth's Aphorism deplored, 
 
 250. 
 Church, The, as Ark of Noah, 444, 
 
 445- 
 Church, The, and Fathers as 
 
 Authorities of Faith, 246. 
 Church of Rome and Athanasian 
 
 Creed, 5. 
 Church of England and Athanasian 
 
 Creed, 5-13. 
 Church of England, Inconsistency 
 
 of, 108, 109. 
 Church of England, Cardinal New- 
 man on, 219. 
 Church of England and Doctrine of 
 
 Trinity, 202. 
 
462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Church of England, Practical 
 
 Errors of, 121. 
 Church of England as an Autho- 
 rity, 41-51. 
 Church of England Dissensions, 15. 
 Church of England a Paradox, 203. 
 Church of England as Interpreter 
 
 of Scripture, 257. 
 Church of England : a personal 
 
 Appeal, 115. 
 Church of England Prayer Book, 
 
 27, 28, 29. 
 Church of England Commination 
 
 Service, 4. 
 Church of England Communion 
 
 Service, 126. 
 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, on Nicene 
 
 Creed, 144. 
 Clerical Intolerance and Cruelty, 
 
 378-380. 
 Colenso on Genesis, 277. 
 Colenso, Persecution of, 382, 383. 
 Coleridge, Lord, on Differences of 
 
 Opinion, 428. 
 Comforter, The, 455-459. 
 Conception, Immaculate, 155-159. 
 Conclusion, Final, 458, 459. 
 Credulity and Creed, 228, 229, 232. 
 
 D. 
 
 ' Dangerous,' the Bigot's cry, 146. 
 
 Darwin on Transmission of Pro- 
 pensities, 143. 
 
 Delegated honour and power, 136. 
 
 Denison, George Anthony, and 
 Convocation, 414. 
 
 ' Didache,' The, 100. 
 
 Durham and Westminster, Deans 
 of , on the Athanasian Creed, 109. 
 
 D'Oyly and Mant on the Serpent, 
 304- 
 
 Ecclesiastical Authority adverse to 
 
 Freedom, 123. 
 Ecclesiasticus, Book of, 296, 298. 
 Ellicott, Bishop, Pastoral Epistles, 
 
 66, 67. 
 Ellicott, Bishop, on I Timothy iii., 
 
 16, 
 Eldon, Lord, Prejudice of, 95. 
 
 ' Emmanuel,' 154, 155. 
 
 ' Equal with God,' Philippians ii. 5, 
 
 260. 
 Erasmus on Epistle of St. John, 83. 
 Errors, Textual, Numerous, 257. 
 Essays and Reviews, Persecution 
 
 of Writers, 380-383. 
 Eucharist, Vital Importance of, 117. 
 Evangelical Teaching of the Past, 
 
 328-331. 
 ' Even as' delegated Honour, 186. 
 
 Facts and Faith, 227, 301-307. 
 Falsehood and Forgery, 80-87. 
 Fanaticism and Cabalism, 120. 
 Fanaticism, Cruel, 370-373. 
 Farrar, Jowett, Colenso, 278. 
 ' Forgiveness of Sins' and Divi- 
 nity, 137-139- 
 Form and Character, 425, 426. 
 Fox, George, as a Reformer, 289. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galileo, Imprisonment of, 123. 
 Gregory, St., on Councils, 32, 33. 
 Green, Rev. Sheldon, on Texts in 
 
 Titus and Timothy, 65, 256. 
 Griesbach on Spurious Texts, 90. 
 
 H. 
 
 Habit, Force of, 139, 140. 
 
 Hale, Chief Baron, on Witches, 
 
 283. ^ _ 
 Harvey's Discovery of Circulation 
 
 of Blood, 327. 
 Havernick on the word ' Elohim,' 
 
 Hayward, Archdeacon, on the 
 
 Trinity, 114. 
 Hear the Church, 41, 42, /| /[ [ ■ 
 Hereditary Influence, 22, 23, 24, 
 
 139. 147- 
 
 Hooker, the Scriptures and doc- 
 trine of Trinity, 201, 400. 
 
 Homoousian, 9. 
 
 Horace on Differences of Taste, 
 428. 
 
 Human and Divine Nature of 
 Christ, 132. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 I. 
 
 Inspiration of Humanity, 308-313. 
 Inspiration of Scripture, 281-296. 
 Intolerance of Cardinal Newman, 
 
 430. 432. 
 Intolerance of Rev. J. Keble, 394. 
 Intolerance of Dr. Pusey, 375-377. 
 Intelligence, General effect of, 288. 
 
 J. 
 
 James, St., Testimony to Divine 
 
 Unity, 182. 
 Ideas, Persecution of, 391. 
 Jesus, Delegate of His Father, 103. 
 Jesus as a Reformer, 238, 289. 
 Jesus disclaims supreme Godhead, 
 
 106, 107. 
 Jesus, Testimony to Divine Unity, 
 
 129. 
 Jewel, Bishop, on Witchcraft, 284. 
 John, Epistle of, 31. 
 John, Epistle of, Spurious Text in, 
 
 78-80, 81. 
 John, Testimony to Divine Unity, 
 
 185. 
 Jowett, Professor, on spurious 
 
 Text, 90. 
 Jowett, Professor, as a biblical In- 
 terpreter, 278. 
 Judgment, Private, Evils of, 445, 
 
 447- 
 Judgment, Private, Final Appeal, 
 
 40-44, 449. 
 Justin Martyr on Virgin Mothers, 
 
 164. 
 
 K. 
 
 Keble, John, Scripture and the 
 
 Trinity, 113, 201. 
 Keble, John, on Baptism, 347. 
 Keble, John, Character of, and 
 
 ' Christian Year,' 249-354. 
 Keble, John, Seclusion and shyness 
 
 of, 353-357- 
 Keble, John, charitable in Gifts, 
 
 356. 
 Keble, John, Home and early 
 
 Environments, 358, 359. 
 
 463 
 his 
 
 Keble, John, Affection for 
 
 Sisters, 359, 360. 
 Keble, John, Religious Intolerance 
 
 of- 361-363. 
 Keble, John, prejudicial Bias, 365- 
 
 395- 
 Keble, John, dislike to intellectual 
 
 Research, 395-399. 
 Knowledge, Progressive, 402-403. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lachmann on Spurious Text, 90. 
 Legends of Miraculous Births, 162- 
 
 164. 
 Lichfield Cathedral and Rev. J. 
 
 Keble, 395. 
 Liddon, Canon, on Text to Titus, 
 
 66. 
 Liddon, Canon, on Divinity of 
 
 Christ, 188-194. 
 Liddon, Canon, and Rev. J. Keble, 
 
 197. 
 Lightfoot on Spurious Text, 90. 
 Liturgy, The, 342 
 Locke on the Trinity, 76, 144. 
 Lowell, Russell, Hon., Anecdotes 
 
 by, 19. 
 Luther on ' Elohim,' 55. 
 Luther on Witches, 284. 
 Luther, Fanatic Cruelty, 373. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macaulay on Christianity and the 
 
 Church, 59. 
 Manual, Church, The oldest, 452. 
 Mark, St., concluding verses, 96, 
 
 97, 98. 
 Martineau on Duty of Inquiry, 
 
 233 
 Mechanical Prayers, 142. 
 Melville, Rev. H., on the Trinity, 
 
 34.. 35- 
 Melville, Perverse Bigotry of, 320, 
 
 321. 
 Melioza, 332. 
 Meyer on our Text of St. Paul, 
 
 69. 
 Miller, Hugh, on Geology and 
 
 Genesis, 277. 
 Milman, Dean, on the Trinity, 10. 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Milton, John, on the Trinity, 75, 
 144. 
 
 Milton, John, on Schism, 199, 200. 
 
 Milton, John, on Popular Beliefs, 
 152. 
 
 Mind and Materialism, 439-444. 
 
 Misuse of Words, Mischief of, 418, 
 419. 
 
 Modern Miracles v. Trinity, 228, 
 229. 
 
 Mohammedans adverse to the 
 Trinity, 73, 74. 
 
 ' More Light,' 195. 
 
 Moses, Errors of, in Natural His- 
 tory, 303. 
 
 ' Mystery of Godliness,' 255, 
 
 Mythic Legends, 162. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nahushtan, 443. 
 
 National Church, The, 205-211. 
 
 National Church, The, Cardinal 
 
 Newman on, 219. 
 Nature, Double, The, of Christians, 
 
 131-135- 
 Neander on the Trinity, 82. 
 Newman, Cardinal, on the Trinity, 
 
 201. 
 Newman, Cardinal, Character of, 
 
 220-240, 423. 
 Newman, Cardinal, on the Deaths 
 
 of Pious Men, 433-438. 
 New Testament, Greek, 245. 
 Newspapers, ' Religious,' 17. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 77. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, on Arianism, 
 
 144. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, on the Incarna- 
 tion, 161. 
 Numbers, Fallacy of, as Test of 
 
 Truth, 122, 144, 145, 179. 
 
 o. 
 
 Oberlin, John Frederic, 423. 
 Oehler on the word ' Elohim,' 55. 
 Oldest Church Manual, 452. 
 Organization and Thought, 425- 
 
 429. 
 Origen on the Trinity, loi. 
 Origen on the Canticle , 296. 
 
 Oude, Queen of, on the Trinity, 
 75- 
 
 P. 
 
 Pagan Triads, 46, 59. 
 Parmenides and Biology, 401. 
 Parties in the Church of England, 
 
 Parishioners, Apathy of, 17-20. 
 
 Passive Piety, 232. 
 
 Pauline Epistles, 260-265. 
 
 Paul to Timothy and Titus, 64, 65, 
 
 Paul on Doctrine of Divine Unity, 
 
 179, 182. 
 Paul, Lucidity of, 71, 74. 
 Paul receding before Christ, 328. 
 Paul, Spiritual Development of, 
 
 386, 387. 
 Pearson on Text in St. John's 
 
 Epistle, 83. 
 Penn, William, on the Trinity, 86- 
 
 88. 
 Peter, St., Testimony to the Divine 
 
 Unity, 182-184. 
 Petition of Laity against Athanasian 
 
 Creed, no. 
 Poloyarp, 92. 
 Porson on Spurious Text in St. 
 
 John's Epistle, 84. 
 ' Poor in Spirit,' ' Pure in Heart,' 
 
 237. 238. 
 Prayer Book, The, 27, 28, 29. 
 Praying Wheels, 142. 
 Preaching the Gospel, 338, 339. 
 Priestly Fanaticism, 372-377. 
 Private Judgment, Thirty-fourth 
 
 Article on, 198. 
 Private Judgment, 444, 445. 
 Progress, Modern, 170-174. 
 Prophecy and Inspiration, 317, 
 
 318. 
 Pusey, Dr., and Mrs. Besant, 375- 
 
 379- 
 
 Q- 
 
 ' Quicunque vult,' Cardinal New- 
 man on, 112. 
 
 ' Quicunque vult,' Pusey and 
 Denison on, 113. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth and Witchcraft, 
 287. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 465 
 
 R. 
 
 Raising the Dead, 177, 178. 
 Reason and the French Revolution, 
 
 148. 
 Reason, Warburton, Bishop, on, 
 
 14S, 
 Reason, Tillotson, Archbishop, on, 
 
 149. 
 Reason, Coleridge, Taylor, on, 149. 
 Reason, Gladstone, Ewart, on, 150. 
 Reason, Bishop Butler on, 150. 
 ' Religious ' Newspapers, 16, 17. 
 Religious Intolerance, 388, 390, 
 
 431. 434- 
 Religion and Science, 403, 409, 
 
 414, 438. 
 Reverence, Want of, 420. 
 Reverence, Feeling of, 422, 423. 
 Reverence, Feeling of, in Cardinal 
 
 Newman, 423. 
 Revisers of New Testament, 414. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sacramental Grace, 337. 
 
 Sacramentary System, 345, 346. 
 
 Scepticism and Bibliolatry, 268. 
 
 Scepticism, Spread of, 269-275. 
 
 Scepticism and Evangelical Teach- 
 ing. 323- 
 
 Schism, 199. 
 
 Scholz on Spurious Text, 90. 
 
 Science and Religion, 405-414. 
 
 Scripture interpreted by the 
 Church, 45. 
 
 Scripture Authority slight in 
 support of the Trinity, 201 
 
 Scripture as a Final Appeal, 265. 
 
 Scripture and Geology, 276-279. 
 
 Sculptures of Assyria, 47, 48. 
 
 Search the Scriptures, 232. 
 
 Sects, numerous. The, 447. 
 
 Seneca and Mahomet, 291. 
 
 Sensuous Services, 214-217. 
 
 Serpent of Scripture, 303,365. 
 
 Smith, Rev. Vance, Reviser of 
 New Testament, 414, 416. 
 
 'Son of God,' Appellation of, 
 104, 105. 
 
 Speculation and Fact, 146. 
 
 Spirit of Truth, The, 449-456. 
 
 Spiritual Service Distasteful, 214. 
 
 Spirit, Holy, as Teacher, 39-44. 
 
 Spurgeon, Rev. C, on eternal 
 
 Torment, 322. 
 Spurious Texts, 80-91. 
 Stanley, Dean, on Councils, 32. 
 Stanley, Dean, Noble Conduct of, 
 
 382-384. 
 Stanley, Dean, Defence of Religious 
 
 Liberty, 415-417. 
 Steadfastness, Christian, 111-118. 
 Sternness of Eighteenth Article, 
 
 343- 
 ' Stubbs, Dr.,' on the Trinity, 5. 
 Subtlety of Church of Rome, 215. 
 Supremacy of Jesus over Councils, 
 
 126, 127. 
 Symbols of the Trinity, 49-63. 
 
 T. 
 
 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 
 
 100. 
 Tenacity of Early Belief, 48. 
 Tertullian on Divinity of Christ, 8. 
 Tertullian on Symbols of theTrinity, 
 
 62. 
 Texts in Defence of the Trinity, 
 
 54-57. 
 Textual Error, Difficulty of Avoid- 
 
 259- 
 Theory of Trinity Textless, 239, 
 
 240. 
 Theophilus on the Trinity, 57. 
 Thirlwall, Bishop, on Athanasian 
 
 Creed, 119. 
 Thought and Organization, 425- 
 
 429. 
 Thomas, St., Exclamation of, 241. 
 TischendorfT on Spurious Text, 90. 
 Toleration, Duty of, 429. 
 Torment, Eternal Doctrine of, 321, 
 
 323-341. 
 Torture Employed on Witches, 285, 
 
 286. 
 Transmission of Propensities, 143. 
 Tregelles on Spurious Text, 90. 
 Trinity, The, Practically Textless, 
 
 239, 240. 
 Trinity, Doctrine of, 36, 37, 38. 
 Trinity recognized by Pagans, 46. 
 Trinity, Egyptian, Grecian, and 
 
 Assyrian Symbols of, 49-54. 
 Truth -versus Numbers, 122, 123. 
 Truthfulness of Jesus, 133, 134. 
 
466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tyndale on a Text of St. Paul, 
 67. 
 
 U. 
 
 Unbelief and Evangelicalism, 325, 
 
 327- 
 Unity, Divine, described by Jesus, 
 
 129, 130. 
 Unity and Supremacy of God, 102. 
 Unknown Tongue, 234. 
 
 V. 
 
 Valpy's Greek Testament, 92. 
 Virchow on Theory and F"acts, 302. 
 Virgin Mothers, 162-165. 
 
 w. 
 
 Webster's and Wilkinson's Greek 
 
 Testament, 92. 
 Wesley on Witchcraft, 28j. 
 Wette, De, on a Text of St. Paul, 
 
 65. 
 Whately, Archbishop, on Man's 
 
 Dislike to Investigate Religious 
 
 Truth, 141. 
 Wheels, Praying, 142. 
 Whittier, J. G., on Priestcraft, 371. 
 White, Blanco, Sufferings and Faith, 
 
 432-439- 
 Winer on Text of St. Paul, 68. 
 Wisdom of St. Paul, 151. 
 Wisdom of Solomon, Hosea, Jesus, 
 
 Wisdom, John Milton on, 152. 
 Wisdom versus Church Authority, 
 
 158. 
 Witchcraft, 2S4-287. 
 Words, Torture of, 29. 
 
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