{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_54793/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_54793","id":"gutenberg_54793","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54793","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Church of England -- Controversial literature","Paul, the Apostle, Saint","Protestantism","Puritans"],"text":"ST. PAUL & PROTESTANTISM\n\n\n    \"We often read the Scripture without comprehending its full\n    meaning; however, let us not be discouraged. The light, in God's\n    good time, will break out, and disperse the darkness; and we\n    shall see the mysteries of the Gospel.\"\n\n                                                BISHOP WILSON.\n\n\n    \"With them (the Puritans) nothing is more familiar than to plead\n    in their causes _the Law of God, the Word of the Lord_; who\n    notwithstanding, when they come to allege what word and what law\n    they mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote\n    by-speeches, and to urge them as if they were written in most\n    exact form of law. What is to add to the Law of God if this be\n    not?\"\n\n                                                HOOKER.\n\n\n    \"It will be found at last, that unity, and the peace of the\n    Church, will conduce more to the saving of souls, than the most\n    specious sects, varnished with the most pious, specious\n    pretences.\"\n\n                                                BISHOP WILSON.\n\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n ST. PAUL AND PROTESTANTISM\n\n\n _WITH AN ESSAY ON PURITANISM AND\n THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND_\n\n BY\n\n MATTHEW ARNOLD\n\n FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\n AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE\n\n _THIRD EDITION_\n\n LONDON\n\n SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE\n\n 1875\n\n (_The right of translation is reserved_)\n\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\nPREFACE.\n\n(1870.)\n\n\nThe essay following the treatise on St. Paul and Protestantism, was\nmeant to clear away offence or misunderstanding which had arisen out of\nthat treatise. There still remain one or two points on which a word of\nexplanation may be useful, and to them this preface is addressed.\n\nThe general objection, that the scheme of doctrine criticised by me is\ncommon to both Puritanism and the Church of England, and does not\ncharacterise the one more essentially than the other, has been removed,\nI hope, by the concluding essay. But it is said that there is, at\nany rate, a large party in the Church of England,--the so-called\n_Evangelical_ party,--which holds just the scheme of doctrine I have\ncalled Puritan; that this large party, at least, if not the whole Church\nof England, is as much a stronghold of the distinctive Puritan tenets as\nthe Nonconformists are; and that to tax the Nonconformists with these\ntenets, and to say nothing about the Evangelical clergy holding them\ntoo, is injurious and unfair.\n\nThe Evangelical party in the Church of England we must always,\ncertainly, have a disposition to treat with forbearance, inasmuch as\nthis party has so strongly loved what is indeed the most loveable of\nthings,--religion. They have also avoided that unblessed mixture of\npolitics and religion by which both politics and religion are spoilt.\nThis, however, would not alone have prevented our making them jointly\nanswerable with the Puritans for that body of opinions which calls\nitself Scriptural Protestantism, but which is, in truth, a perversion of\nSt. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. But there is this difference between\nthe Evangelical party in the Church of England and the Puritans outside\nher;--the Evangelicals have not added to the first error of holding this\nunsound body of opinions, the second error of separating for them. They\nhave thus, as we have already noticed, escaped the mixing of politics\nand religion, which arises directly and naturally out of this separating\nfor opinions. But they have also done that which we most blame\nNonconformity for not doing;--they have left themselves in the way of\ndevelopment. Practically they have admitted that the Christian Church is\nbuilt, not on the foundation of Lutheran and Calvinist dogmas, but on\nthe foundation: _Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart\nfrom iniquity._[1] Mr. Ryle or the Dean of Ripon may have as erroneous\nnotions as to what _truth_ and _the gospel_ really is, as Mr. Spurgeon\nor the President of the Wesleyan Conference; but they do not tie\nthemselves tighter still to these erroneous notions, nor do their best\nto cut themselves off from outgrowing them, by resolving _to have no\nfellowship with the man of sin_ who holds different notions. On the\ncontrary, they are worshippers in the same Church, professors of the\nsame faith, ministers of the same confraternity, as men who hold that\ntheir _Scriptural Protestantism_ is all wrong, and who hold other\nnotions of their own quite at variance with it. And thus they do homage\nto an ideal of Christianity which is larger, higher, and better than\neither their notions or those of their opponents, and in respect of\nwhich both their notions and those of their opponents are inadequate;\nand this admission of the relative inadequacy of their notions is itself\na stage towards the future admission of their positive inadequacy.\n\n[Footnote 1: II _Timothy_, ii, 19.]\n\nIn fact, the popular Protestant theology, which we have criticised as\nsuch a grave perversion of the teaching of St. Paul, has not in the\nso-called Evangelical party of the Church of England its chief centre\nand stronghold. This party, which, following in the wake of Wesley and\nothers, so felt in a day of general insensibility the power and comfort\nof the Christian religion, and which did so much to make others feel\nthem, but which also adopted and promulgated a scientific account so\ninadequate and so misleading of the religion which attracted it,--this\ngreat party has done its work, and is now undergoing that law of\ntransformation and development which obtains in a national Church. The\npower is passing from it to others, who will make good some of the\naspects of religion which the Evangelicals neglected, and who will then,\nin their turn, from the same cause of the scientific inadequacy of their\nconception of Christianity, change and pass away. The Evangelical clergy\nno longer recruits itself with success, no longer lays hold on such\npromising subjects as formerly. It is losing the future and feels that\nit is losing it. Its signs of a vigorous life, its gaiety and audacity,\nare confined to its older members, too powerful to lose their own\nvigour, but without successors to whom to transmit it. It was impossible\nnot to admire the genuine and rich though somewhat brutal humour of the\nDean of Ripon's famous similitude of the two lepers.[2] But from which\nof the younger members of the Evangelical clergy do such strokes now\ncome? The best of their own younger generation, the soldiers of their\nown training, are slipping away from them; and he who looks for the\nsource whence popular Puritan theology now derives power and\nperpetuation, will not fix his eyes on the Evangelical clergy of the\nChurch of England.\n\n[Footnote 2: In a letter to the _Times_ respecting Dr. Pusey and Dr.\nTemple, during the discussion caused by Dr. Temple's appointment to\nthe see of Exeter. Dr. Temple was the total leper, so evidently a\nleper that all men would instinctively avoid him, and he ceased to\nbe dangerous; Dr. Pusey was the partial leper, less deeply tainted,\nbut on that very account more dangerous, because less likely to\nterrify people from coming near him. A piece of polemical humour,\nracy, indeed, but hardly urbane, and still less Christian!]\n\nAnother point where a word of explanation seems desirable is the\nobjection taken on a kind of personal ground to the criticism of St.\nPaul's doctrine which we have attempted. 'What!' it is said, 'if this\nview of St. Paul's meaning, so unlike the received view, were the true\none, do you suppose it would have been left for you to discover it? Are\nyou wiser than the hundreds of learned people who for generation after\ngeneration have been occupying themselves with St. Paul and little else?\nHas it been left for you to bring in a new religion and found a new\nchurch?' Now on this line of expostulation, which, so far as it draws\nfrom unworthiness of ours its argument, appears to have, no doubt, great\nforce, there are three remarks to be offered. In the first place, even\nif the version of St. Paul which we propound were both new and true, yet\nwe do not, on that account, make of it a new religion or set up a new\nchurch for its sake. That would be _separating for opinions_, heresy,\nwhich is just what we reproach the Nonconformists with. In the seventh\ncentury, there arose near the Euphrates a sect called Paulicians, who\nprofessed to form themselves on the pure doctrine of St. Paul, which\nother Christians, they said, had misunderstood and corrupted. And we, I\nsuppose, having discovered how popular Protestantism perverts St. Paul,\nare expected to try and make a new sect of Paulicians on the strength of\nthis discovery; such being just the course which our Puritan friends\nwould themselves eagerly take in like case. But the Christian Church is\nfounded, not on a correct speculative knowledge of the ideas of Paul,\nbut on the much surer ground: _Let every one that nameth the name of\nChrist depart from iniquity_; and, holding this to be so, we might\nchange the current strain of doctrinal theology from one end to the\nother, without, on that account, setting up any new church or bringing\nin any new religion.\n\nIn the second place, the version we propound of St. Paul's line of\nthought is not new, is not of our discovering. It belongs to the\n'Zeit-Geist,' or _time-spirit_, it is in the air, and many have long\nbeen anticipating it, preparing it, setting forth this and that part of\nit, till there is not a part, probably, of all we have said, which has\nnot already been said by others before us, and said more learnedly and\nfully than we can say it. All we have done is to take it as a whole, and\ngive a plain, popular, connected exposition of it; for which, perhaps,\nour notions about culture, about the many sides to the human spirit,\nabout making these sides help one another instead of remaining enemies\nand strangers, have been of some advantage. For most of those who read\nSt. Paul diligently are Hebraisers; they regard little except the\nHebraising impulse in us and the documents which concern it. They have\nlittle notion of letting their consciousness play on things freely,\nlittle ear for the voice of the 'Zeit-Geist;' and they are so immersed\nin an order of thoughts and words which are peculiar, that, in the broad\ngeneral order of thoughts and words, which is the life of popular\nexposition, they are not very much at home.\n\nThirdly, and in the last place, we by no means put forth our version of\nSt. Paul's line of thought as true, in the same fashion as Puritanism\nput forth its _Scriptural_ _Protestantism_, or _gospel_, as true. Their\ntruth the Puritans exhibit as a sort of cast-iron product, rigid,\ndefinite, and complete, which they have got once for all, and which can\nno longer have anything added to it or anything withdrawn from it. But\nof our rendering of St. Paul's thought we conceive rather as of a\nproduct of nature, which has grown to be what it is and which will grow\nmore; which will not stand just as we now exhibit it, but which will\ngain some aspects which we now fail to show in it, and will drop some\nwhich we now give it; which will be developed, in short, farther, just\nin like manner as it has reached its present stage by development.\n\nThus we present our conceptions, neither as something quite new nor as\nsomething quite true; nor yet as any ground, even supposing they were\nquite new and true, for a separate church or religion. But so far they\nare, we think, new and true, and a fruit of sound development, a genuine\nproduct of the 'Zeit-Geist,' that their mere contact seems to make the\nold Puritan conceptions look unlikely and indefensible, and begin a sort\nof re-modelling and refacing of themselves. Let us just see how far this\nchange has practically gone.\n\nThe formal and scholastic version of its theology, Calvinist or\nArminian, as given by its seventeenth-century fathers, and enshrined in\nthe trust-deeds of so many of its chapels,--of this, at any rate, modern\nPuritanism is beginning to feel shy. Take the Calvinist doctrine of\nelection. 'By God's decree a certain number of angels and men are\npredestinated, out of God's mere free grace and love, without any\nforesight of faith or good works in them, to everlasting life; and\nothers foreordained, according to the unsearchable counsel of his will,\nwhereby he extends or withholds mercy as he pleases, to everlasting\ndeath.' In that scientific form, at least, the doctrine of election\nbegins to look dubious to the Calvinistic Puritan, and he puts it a good\ndeal out of sight. Take the Arminian doctrine of justification. 'We\ncould not expect any relief from heaven out of that misery under which\nwe lie, were not God's displeasure against us first pacified and our\nsins remitted. This is the signal and transcendent benefit of our free\njustification through the blood of Christ, that God's offence justly\nconceived against us for our sins (which would have been an eternal bar\nand restraint to the efflux of his grace upon us) being removed, the\ndivine grace and bounty may freely flow forth upon us.' In that\nscientific form, the doctrine of justification begins to look less\nsatisfactory to the Arminian Puritan, and he tends to put it out of\nsight.\n\nThe same may be said of the doctrine of election in its plain popular\nform of statement also. 'I hold,' says Whitefield, in the forcible style\nwhich so took his hearers' fancy,--'I hold that a certain number are\nelected from eternity, and these must and shall be saved, and the rest\nof mankind must and shall be damned.' A Calvinistic Puritan now-a-days\nmust be either a fervid Welsh Dissenter, or a strenuous Particular\nBaptist in some remote place in the country, not to be a little\nstaggered at this sort of expression. As to the doctrine of\njustification in its current, popular form of statement, the case is\nsomewhat different. 'My own works,' says Wesley, 'my own sufferings, my\nown righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God, so\nfar from making any atonement for the least of those sins which are more\nin number than the hairs of my head, that the most specious of them need\nan atonement themselves; that, having the sentence of death in my heart\nand nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no hope but that of being\njustified freely through the redemption that is in Jesus. The faith I\nwant is a sure trust and confidence in God, that through the merits of\nChrist my sins are forgiven and I reconciled to the favour of God.\nBelieve and thou shalt be saved! He that believeth is passed from death\nto life. Faith is the free gift of God, which he bestows not on those\nwho are worthy of his favour, not on such as are previously holy and so\nfit to be crowned with all the blessings of his goodness, but on the\nungodly and unholy, who till that hour were fit only for everlasting\ndamnation. Look for sanctification just as you are, as a poor sinner\nthat has nothing to pay, nothing to plead but _Christ died_.'\nDeliverances of this sort, which in Wesley are frequent and in Wesley's\nfollowers are unceasing, still, no doubt, pass current everywhere with\nPuritanism, are expected as of course, and find favour; they are just\nwhat Puritans commonly mean by _Scriptural Protestantism, the truth, the\ngospel-feast_. Nevertheless they no longer quite satisfy; the better\nminds among Puritans try instinctively to give some fresh turn or\ndevelopment to them; they are no longer, to minds of this order, an\nunquestionable word and a sure stay; and from this point to their final\ntransformation the course is certain. The predestinarian and solifidian\ndogmas, for the very sake of which our Puritan churches came into\nexistence, begin to feel the irresistible breath of the 'Zeit-Geist;'\nsome of them melt quicker, others slower, but all of them are doomed.\nUnder the eyes of this generation Puritan Dissent has to execute an\nentire change of front, and to present us with a new reason for its\nexisting. What will that new reason be?\n\nThere needs no conjuror to tell us. It will be the Rev. Mr. Conder's\nreason, which we have quoted in our concluding essay. It will be\nScriptural Protestantism in _church-order_, rather than Scriptural\nProtestantism in _church-doctrine_. 'Congregational Nonconformists can\nnever be incorporated into an organic union with Anglican Episcopacy,\nbecause there is not even the shadow of an outline of it in the New\nTestament, and it is our assertion and profound belief that Christ and\nthe Apostles have given us all the laws that are necessary for the\nconstitution and government of the Church.' This makes church-government\nnot a secondary matter of form, growth, and expediency, but a matter of\nthe essence of Christianity and ordained in Scripture. Expressly set\nforth in Scripture it is not; so it has to be gathered from Scripture by\ncollection, and every one gathers it in his own way. Unity is of no\ngreat importance; but that every man should live in a church-order which\nhe judges to be scriptural, is of the greatest importance. This brings\nus to Mr. Miall's standard-maxim: _The Dissidence of Dissent, and the\nProtestantism of the Protestant religion_! The more freely the sects\ndevelop themselves, the better. The Church of England herself is but\n_the dominant sect_; her pretensions to bring back the Dissenters within\nher pale are offensive and ridiculous. What we ought to aim at is\nperfect equality, and that the other sects should balance her.\n\nOn the old, old subject of the want of historic and philosophic sense\nshown by those who would make church-government a matter of scriptural\nregulation, I say nothing at present. A Wesleyan minister, the Rev. Mr.\nWilley, said the other day at Leeds: 'He did not find anything in either\nthe Old or New Testament to the effect that Christian ministers should\nbecome State-servants, like soldiers or excisemen.' He might as well\nhave added that he did not find there anything to the effect that they\nshould wear braces! But on this point I am not here going to enlarge.\nWhat I am now concerned with is the relation of this new ground of\nexistence, which more and more the Puritan Churches take and will take\nas they lose their old ground, to the Christian religion. In the speech\nwhich Mr. Winterbotham[3] made on the Education Bill, a speech which I\nhad the advantage of hearing, there were uncommon facilities supplied\nfor judging of this relation; indeed that able speech presented a\nstriking picture of it.\n\n[Footnote 3: Mr. Winterbotham has since died. Nothing in my remarks\non his speech need prevent me from expressing here my high esteem\nfor his character, accomplishments, oratorical faculty and general\npromise, and my sincere regret for his loss.]\n\nAnd what a picture it was, good heavens! The Puritans say they love\nrighteousness, and they are offended with us for rejoining that the\nrighteousness of which they boast is the righteousness of the earlier\nJews of the Old Testament, which consisted mainly in smiting the Lord's\nenemies and their own under the fifth rib. And we say that the newer and\nspecially Christian sort of righteousness is something different from\nthis; that the Puritans are, and always have been, deficient in the\nspecially Christian sort of righteousness; that men like St. Francis of\nSales, in the Roman Catholic Church, and Bishop Wilson, in the Church of\nEngland, show far more of it than any Puritans; and that St. Paul's\nsignal and eternally fruitful growth in righteousness dates just from\nhis breach with the Puritans of his day. Let us revert to Paul's list of\nfruits of the spirit, on which we have so often insisted in the pages\nwhich follow: _love_, _joy_, _peace_, _long-suffering_, _kindness_,\n_goodness_, _faith_, _mildness_, _self-control_.[4] We keep to this\nparticular list for the sake of greater distinctness; but St. Paul has\nperpetually lists of the kind, all pointing the same way, and all\nshowing what he meant by Christian righteousness, what he found\nspecially in Christ. They may all be concluded in two qualities, the\nqualities which Jesus Christ told his disciples to learn of him, the\nqualities in the name of which, as specially Christ's qualities, Paul\nadjured his converts. 'Learn of me,' said Jesus, '_that I am mild and\nlowly in heart_.' 'I beseech you,' said Paul, '_by the mildness and\ngentleness of Christ_.'[5] The word which our Bibles translate by\n'gentleness' means more properly 'reasonableness with sweetness,' 'sweet\nreasonableness.' 'I beseech you by _the mildness and sweet\nreasonableness of Christ_.' This mildness and sweet reasonableness it\nwas, which, stamped with the individual charm they had in Jesus Christ,\ncame to the world as something new, won its heart and conquered it.\nEvery one had been asserting his ordinary self and was miserable; to\nforbear to assert one's ordinary self, to place one's happiness in\nmildness and sweet reasonableness, was a revelation. As men followed\nthis novel route to happiness, a living spring opened beside their way,\nthe spring of charity; and out of this spring arose those two heavenly\nvisitants, Charis and Irene, _grace_ and _peace_, which enraptured the\npoor wayfarer, and filled him with a joy which brought all the world\nafter him. And still, whenever these visitants appear, as appear for a\nwitness to the vitality of Christianity they daily do, it is from the\nsame spring that they arise; and this spring is opened solely by the\nmildness and sweet reasonableness which forbears to assert our ordinary\nself, nay, which even takes pleasure in effacing it.\n\n[Footnote 4: _Gal._, v, 22, 23.]\n\n[Footnote 5: +dia t\u00eas pra\u00fct\u00eatos kai epieikeias tou Christou.+\nII _Cor._, x, 1.]\n\nAnd now let us turn to Mr. Winterbotham and the Protestant Dissenters.\nHe interprets their very inner mind, he says; that which he declares in\ntheir name, they are all feeling, and would declare for themselves if\nthey could. '_There was a spirit of watchful jealousy on the part of the\nDissenters, which made them prone to take offence; therefore statesmen\nshould not introduce the Established Church into all the institutions of\nthe country._' That is positively the whole speech! 'Strife, jealousy,\nwrath, contentions, backbitings,'[6]--we know the catalogue. And the\nDissenters are, by their own confession, so full of these, and the very\nexistence of an organisation of Dissent so makes them a necessity, that\nthe State is required to frame its legislation in consideration of them!\nWas there ever such a confession made? Here are people existing for the\nsake of a religion of which the essence is mildness and sweet\nreasonableness, and the forbearing to assert our ordinary self; and they\ndeclare themselves so full of the very temper and habits against which\nthat religion is specially levelled, that they require to have even the\noccasion of forbearing to assert their ordinary self removed out of\ntheir way, because they are quite sure they will never comply with it!\n\n[Footnote 6: II _Cor._, xii, 20.]\n\nNever was there a more instructive comment on the blessings of\nseparation, which we are so often invited by separatists to admire. Why\ndoes not Dissent forbear to assert its ordinary self, and help to win\nthe world to the mildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ, without\nthis vain contest about machinery? Why does not the Church? is the\nDissenter's answer. What an answer for a Christian! We are to defer\ngiving up our ordinary self until our neighbour shall have given up his;\nthat is, we are never to give it up at all. But I will answer the\nquestion on more mundane grounds. Why are we to be more blamed than the\nChurch for the strife arising out of our rival existences? asks the\nDissenter. Because the Church cannot help existing, and you can!\nTherefore, _contra ecclesiam nemo pacificus_, as Baxter himself said in\nhis better moments. Because the Church is there; because strife,\njealousy, and self-assertion are sure to come with breaking off from\nher; and because strife, jealousy, and self-assertion are the very\nmiseries against which Christianity is firstly levelled;--therefore we\nsay that a Christian is inexcusable in breaking with the Church, except\nfor a departure from the primal ground of her foundation: _Let every one\nthat nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity_.\n\nThe clergyman,--poor soul!--cannot help being the parson of the parish.\nHe is there like the magistrate; he is a national officer with an\nappointed function. If one or two voluntary performers, dissatisfied\nwith the magisterial system, were to set themselves up in each parish of\nthe country, called themselves magistrates, drew a certain number of\npeople to their own way of thinking, tried differences and gave\nsentences among their people in the best fashion they could, why,\nprobably the established magistrate would not much like it, the leading\npeople in the parish would not much like it, and the newcomers would\nhave mortifications and social estrangements to endure. Probably the\nestablished magistrate would call them interlopers; probably he would\ncount them amongst his difficulties. On the side of the newcomers 'a\nspirit of watchful jealousy,' as Mr. Winterbotham says, would thus be\ncreated. The public interest would suffer from the ill blood and\nconfusion prevailing. The established magistrate might naturally say\nthat the newcomers brought the strife and disturbance with them. But who\nwould not smile at these lambs answering: 'Away with that wolf the\nestablished magistrate, and all ground for jealousy and quarrel between\nus will disappear!'\n\nAnd it is a grievance that the clergyman talks of Dissent as one of the\nspiritual hindrances in his parish, and desires to get rid of it! Why,\nby Mr. Winterbotham's own showing, the Dissenters live 'in a spirit of\nwatchful jealousy,' and this temper is as much a spiritual\nhindrance,--nay, in the view of Christianity it is even a more direct\nspiritual hindrance,--than drunkenness or loose living. Christianity is,\nfirst and above all, a temper, a disposition; and a disposition just the\nopposite to 'a spirit of watchful jealousy.' Once admit a spirit of\nwatchful jealousy, and Christianity has lost its virtue; it is impotent.\nAll the other vices it was meant to keep out may rush in. Where there is\njealousy and strife among you, asks St. Paul, _are ye not carnal_?[7]\nare ye not still in bondage to your mere lower selves? But from this\nbondage Christianity was meant to free us; therefore, says he, get rid\nof what causes divisions, and strife, and 'a spirit of watchful\njealousy.' 'I exhort you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye\nall speak the same thing, and that there be not divisions among you, but\nthat ye all be perfectly joined in the same mind and the same\njudgment.'[8]\n\n[Footnote 7: I _Cor._, iii, 3.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I _Cor._, i, 10.]\n\nWell, but why, says the Dissenting minister, is the clergyman to impress\nSt. Paul's words upon me rather than I upon the clergyman? Because the\nclergyman is the one minister of Christ in the parish who did not invent\nhimself, who cannot help existing. He is not asserting his ordinary self\nby being there; he is placed there on public duty. He is charged with\nteaching the lesson of Christianity, and the head and front of this\nlesson is to get rid of 'a spirit of watchful jealousy,' which,\naccording to the Dissenter's own showing, is the very spirit which\naccompanies Dissent. How he is to get rid of it, how he is to win souls\nto the mildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ, it is for his own\nconscience to tell him. Probably he will best do it by never speaking\nagainst Dissent at all, by treating Dissenters with perfect cordiality\nand as if there was not a point of dispute between them. But that, so\nlong as he exists, it is his duty to get rid of it, to win souls to the\nunity which is its opposite, is clear. It is not the Bishop of\nWinchester[9] who classes Dissent, full of 'a spirit of watchful\njealousy,' along with spiritual hindrances like beer-shops,--a pollution\nof the spirit along with pollutions of the flesh;[10] it is St. Paul.\nIt is not the clergyman who is chargeable with wishing to 'stamp out'\nthis spirit; it is the Christian religion.\n\n[Footnote 9: The late Bishop Wilberforce.]\n\n[Footnote 10: I _Cor._, vii, 1.]\n\nBut what is to prevent the Dissenting minister from being joined with\nthe clergyman in the same public function, and being his partner instead\nof his rival? Episcopal ordination.[11] If I leave the service of a\nprivate company, and enter the public service, I receive admission at\nthe hands of the public officer designated to give it me. Sentiment and\nthe historic sense, to say nothing of the religious feeling, will\ncertainly put more into ordination than this, though not precisely what\nthe Bishop of Winchester, perhaps, puts; this which we have laid down,\nhowever, is really all which the law of the land puts there. A bishop is\na public officer. Why should I trouble myself about the name his office\nbears? The name of his office cannot affect the service or my labour in\nit. Ah, but, says Mr. Winterbotham, he holds opinions which I do not\nshare about the sort of character he confers upon me! What can that\nmatter, unless he compels you, too, to profess the same opinions, or\nrefuses you admission if you do not? But I should be joined in the\nministry with men who hold opinions which I do not share! What does that\nmatter either, unless they compel you also to hold these opinions, as\nthe price of your being allowed to work on the foundation: _Let every\none that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity_? To recur to\nour old parallel. It is as if a man who desired the office of a public\nmagistrate and who was fitted for it, were to hold off because he had to\nreceive institution from a Lord-Lieutenant, and he did not like the\ntitle of Lord-Lieutenant; or because the Lord-Lieutenant who was to\ninstitute him had a fancy about some occult quality which he conferred\non him at institution; or because he would find himself, when he was\ninstituted, one of a body of magistrates of whom many had notions which\nhe thought irrational. The office itself, and his own power to fill it\nusefully, is all which really matters to him.\n\n[Footnote 11: It has been inferred from what is here said that we\npropose to make re-ordination a condition of admitting Dissenting\nministers to the ministry of the Church of England. Elsewhere I have\nsaid how undesirable it seems to impose this condition; and to what\nrespectful treatment and fair and equal terms, in case of reunion,\nProtestant Nonconformity is, in my opinion, entitled. See the\nPreface to _Culture and Anarchy_. What is said in the text is\ndirected simply against the objection to episcopal ordination as\nsomething wrong in itself and a ground for schism.]\n\nThe Bishop of Winchester believes in apostolical succession;--therefore\nthere must be Dissenters. Mr. Liddon asserts the real\npresence;--therefore there must be Dissenters. Mr. Mackonochie is a\nritualist;--therefore there must be Dissenters. But the Bishop of\nWinchester cannot, and does not, exclude from the ministry of the Church\nof England those who do not believe in apostolical succession; and\nsurely not even that acute and accomplished personage is such a\nmagician, that he can make a Puritan believe in apostolical succession\nmerely by believing in it himself! In the same way, eloquent as is Mr.\nLiddon, and devoted as is Mr. Mackonochie, their gifts cannot yield them\nthe art of so swaying a brother clergyman's spirit as to make him admit\nthe real presence against his conviction, or practise ritualism against\nhis will; and official, material control over him, or power of\nstipulating what he shall admit or practise, they have absolutely none.\n\nBut can anything more tend to make the Church what the Puritans reproach\nit with being,--a mere lump of sacerdotalism and ritualism,--than if the\nPuritans, who are free to come into it with their disregard of\nsacerdotalism and ritualism and so to leaven it, refuse to come in, and\nleave it wholly to the sacerdotalists and ritualists? What can be harder\nupon the laity of the national Church, what so inconsiderate of the\nnational good and advantage, as to leave us at the mercy of one single\nelement in the Church, and deny us just the elements fit to mix with\nthis element and to improve it?\n\nThe current doctrines of apostolical succession and the real presence\nseem to us unsound and unedifying. To be sure, so does the current\ndoctrine of imputed righteousness. For us, sacerdotalism and\nsolifidianism stand both on the same footing; they are, both of them,\nerroneous human developments. But as in the ideas and practice of\nsacerdotalists or ritualists there is much which seems to us of value,\nand of great use to the Church, so, too, in the ideas and practice of\nNonconformists there is very much which we value. To take points only\nthat are beyond controversy: they have cultivated the gift of preaching\nmuch more than the clergy, and their union with the Church would\nrenovate and immensely amend Church preaching. They would certainly\nbring with them, if they came back into the Church, some use of what\nthey call _free prayer_; to which, if at present they give far too much\nplace, it is yet to be regretted that the Church gives no place at all.\nLastly, if the body of British Protestant Dissenters is in the main, as\nit undoubtedly is, the Church of the Philistines, nevertheless there\ncould come nothing but health and strength from blending this body with\nthe Establishment, of which the very weakness and danger is that it\ntends, as we have formerly said, to be an appendage to the Barbarians.\n\nSo long as the Puritans thought that the essence of Christianity was\ntheir doctrine of predestination or of justification, it was natural\nthat they should stand out, at any cost, for this essence. That is why,\nwhen the 'Zeit-Geist' and the general movement of men's religious ideas\nis beginning to reveal that the Puritan gospel is not the essence of\nChristianity, we have been desirous to spread this revelation to the\nbest of our power, and by all the aids of plain popular exposition to\nhelp it forward. Because, when once it is clear that the essence of\nChristianity is not Puritan solifidianism, it can hardly long be\nmaintained that the essence of Christianity is Puritan church-order.\nWhen once the way is made clear, by removing the solifidian heresy, to\nlook and see what the essence of Christianity really is, it cannot but\nsoon force itself upon our minds that the essence of Christianity is\nsomething not very far, at any rate, from this: _Grace and peace by the\nannulment of our ordinary self through the mildness and sweet\nreasonableness of Jesus Christ_. This is the more particular description\nof that general ground, already laid down, of the Christian Church's\nexistence: _Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from\niniquity_. If this general ground, particularised in the way above\ngiven, is not 'the sincere milk' of the evangelical word, it is, at all\nevents, something very like it. And matters of machinery and outward\nform, like church-order, have not only nothing essentially to do with\nthe sincere milk of Christianity, but are the very matters about which\nthis sincere milk should make us easy and yielding.\n\nIf there were no national and historic form of church-order in\npossession, a genuine Christian would regret having to spend time and\nthought in shaping one, in having so to encumber himself with serving,\nto busy himself so much about a frame for his religious life as well as\nabout the contents of the frame. After all, a man has only a certain sum\nof force to spend; and if he takes a quantity of it for outward things,\nhe has so much the less left for inward things. It is hardly to be\nbelieved, how much larger a space the mere affairs of his denomination\nfill in the time and thoughts of a Dissenter, than in the time and\nthoughts of a Churchman. Now all machinery-work of this kind is, to a\nman filled with a real love of the essence of Christianity, something of\na hindrance to him in what he most wants to be at, something of a\nconcession to his ordinary self. When an established and historic form\nexists, such a man should be, therefore, disposed to use it and comply\nwith it. But,--as if it were not satisfied with proving its\nunprofitableness by corroding us with jealousy and so robbing us of the\nmildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ, which is our\nmainstay,--political Dissent, Dissent for the sake of church-polity and\nchurch-management, proves it, too, by stimulating our ordinary self\nthrough over-care for what flatters this. In fact, what is it that the\neveryday, middle-class Philistine,--not the rare flower of the\nDissenters but the common staple,--finds so attractive in Dissent? Is it\nnot, as to discipline, that his self-importance is fomented by the fuss,\nbustle, and partisanship of a private sect, instead of being lost in the\ngreatness of a public body? As to worship, is it not that his taste is\npleased by usages and words that come down to _him_, instead of drawing\nhim up to _them_; by services which reflect, instead of the culture of\ngreat men of religious genius, the crude culture of himself and his\nfellows? And as to doctrine, is it not that his mind is pleased at\nhearing no opinion but its own, by having all disputed points taken for\ngranted in its own favour, by being urged to no return upon itself, no\ndevelopment? And what is all this but the very feeding and stimulating\nof our ordinary self, instead of the annulling of it? No doubt it is\nnatural; to indulge our ordinary self is the most natural thing in the\nworld. But Christianity is not natural; and if the flower of\nChristianity be the grace and peace which comes of annulling our\nordinary self, then to this flower it is fatal.\n\nSo that if, in order to gratify in the Dissenters one of the two faults\nagainst which Christianity is chiefly aimed, a jealous, contentious\nspirit, we were to sweep away our national and historic form of\nreligion, and were all to tinker at our own forms, we should then just\nbe flattering the other chief fault which Christianity came to cure, and\nserving our ordinary self instead of annulling it. What a happy\nfurtherance to religion!\n\nFor my part, so far as the best of the Nonconformist ministers are\nconcerned, of whom I know something, I disbelieve Mr. Winterbotham's\nhideous confession. I imagine they are very little pleased with him for\nmaking it. I do not believe that they, at any rate, live in the\nulcerated condition he describes, fretting with watchful jealousy. I\nbelieve they have other things to think of. But why? Because they are\nmen of genius and character, who react against the harmful influences of\nthe position in which they find themselves placed, and surmount its\nobvious dangers. But their genius and character might serve them still\nbetter if they were placed in a less trying position. And the rank and\nfile of their ministers and people do yield to the influences of their\nposition. Of these, Mr. Winterbotham's picture is perfectly true. They\nare more and more jealous for their separate organisation, pleased with\nthe bustle and self-importance which its magnitude brings them,\nirritably alive to whatever reduces or effaces it; bent, in short, on\naffirming their ordinary selves. However much the chiefs may feel the\ntruth of modern ideas, may grow moderate, may perceive the effects of\nreligious separatism upon worship and doctrine, they will probably avail\nlittle or nothing; the head will be overpowered and out-clamoured by the\ntail. The Wesleyans, who used always to refuse to call themselves\nDissenters, whose best men still shrink from the name, the Wesleyans, a\nwing of the Church, founded for godliness, the Wesleyans more and more,\nwith their very growth as a separate denomination, feel the secular\nambition of being great as a denomination, of being effaced by nobody,\nof giving contentment to this self-importance, of indulging this\nordinary self; and I should not wonder if within twenty years they were\nkeen political Dissenters. A triumph of Puritanism is abundantly\npossible; we have never denied it. What we, whose greatest care is\nneither for the Church nor for Puritanism, but for human perfection,\nwhat we labour to show is, that the triumph of Puritanism will be the\ntriumph of our ordinary self, not the triumph of Christianity; and that\nthe type of Hebraism it will establish is one in which neither general\nhuman perfection, nor yet Hebraism itself, can truly find their account.\n\nElsewhere we have drawn out a distinction between Hebraism and\nHellenism,[12]--between the tendency and powers that carry us towards\ndoing, and the tendency and powers that carry us towards perceiving and\nknowing. Hebraism, we said, has long been overwhelmingly preponderant\nwith us. The sacred book which we call the Word of God, and which most\nof us study far more than any other book, serves Hebraism. Moses\nHebraises, David Hebraises, Isaiah Hebraises, Paul Hebraises, John\nHebraises. Jesus Christ himself is, as St. Paul truly styles him, 'a\nminister _of the circumcision_ to the truth of God.'[13] That is, it is\nby our powers of moral action, and through the perfecting of these, that\nChrist leads us 'to be partakers of the divine nature.'[14] By far our\nchief machinery for spiritual purposes has the like aim and character.\nThroughout Europe this is so. But, to speak of ourselves only, the\nArchbishop of Canterbury is an agent of Hebraism, the Archbishop of York\nis an agent of Hebraism, Archbishop Manning is an agent of Hebraism, the\nPresident of the Wesleyan Conference is an agent of Hebraism, all the\nbody of the Church clergy and Dissenting ministers are agents of\nHebraism. Now, we have seen how we are beginning visibly to suffer harm\nfrom attending in this one-sided way to Hebraism, and how we are called\nto develop ourselves more in our totality, on our perceptive and\nintelligential side as well as on our moral side. If it is said that\nthis is a very hard matter, and that man cannot well do more than one\nthing at a time, the answer is that here is the very sign and condition\nof each new stage of spiritual progress,--_increase of task_. The more\nwe grow, the greater is the task which is given us. This is the law of\nman's nature and of his spirit's history. The powers we have developed\nat our old task enable us to attempt a new one; and this, again, brings\nwith it a new increase of powers.\n\n[Footnote 12: See _Culture and Anarchy_ (2nd edition), chap. iv.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Romans_, xv, 8.]\n\n[Footnote 14: II _Peter_, i, 4.]\n\nHebraism strikes too exclusively upon one string in us. Hellenism does\nnot address itself with serious energy enough to morals and\nrighteousness. For our totality, for our general perfection, we need to\nunite the two; now the two are easily at variance. In their lower forms\nthey are irreconcileably at variance; only when each of them is at its\nbest, is their harmony possible. Hebraism at its best is beauty and\ncharm; Hellenism at its best is also beauty and charm. As such they can\nunite; as anything short of this, each of them, they are at discord, and\ntheir separation must continue. The flower of Hellenism is a kind of\namiable grace and artless winning good-nature, born out of the\nperfection of lucidity, simplicity, and natural truth; the flower of\nChristianity is grace and peace by the annulment of our ordinary self\nthrough the mildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ. Both are\neminently _humane_, and for complete human perfection both are required;\nthe second being the perfection of that side in us which is moral and\nacts, the first, of that side in us which is intelligential and\nperceives and knows.\n\nBut lower forms of Hebraism and Hellenism tend always to make their\nappearance, and to strive to establish themselves. On one of these forms\nof Hebraism we have been commenting;--a form which had its first origin,\nno doubt, in that body of impulses whereby we Hebraise, but which lands\nus at last, not in the mildness and sweet reasonableness of Christ, but\nin 'a spirit of watchful jealousy.' We have to thank Mr. Winterbotham\nfor fixing our attention on it; but we prefer to name it from an eminent\nand able man who is well known as the earnest apostle of the Dissidence\nof Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion, and to call\nit _Mialism_. Mialism is a sub-form of Hebraism, and itself a somewhat\nspurious and degenerated form; but this sub-form always tends to\ndegenerate into forms lower yet, and yet more unworthy of the ideal\nflower of Hebraism. In one of these its further stages we have formerly\ntraced it, and we need not enlarge on them here.[15]\n\n[Footnote 15: See _Culture and Anarchy_ (2nd edition), chap. ii.]\n\nHellenism, in the same way, has its more or less spurious and\ndegenerated sub-forms, products which may be at once known as\ndegenerations by their deflexion from what we have marked as the flower\nof Hellenism,--'a kind of humane grace and artless winning good-nature,\nborn out of the perfection of lucidity, simplicity, and natural truth.'\nAnd from whom can we more properly derive a general name for these\ndegenerations, than from that distinguished man, who, by his\nintelligence and accomplishments, is in many respects so admirable and\nso truly Hellenic, but whom his dislike for 'the dominant sect,' as he\ncalls the Church of England,--the Church of England, in many aspects so\nbeautiful, calming, and attaching,--seems to transport with an almost\nfeminine vehemence of irritation? What can we so fitly name the somewhat\ndegenerated and inadequate form of Hellenism as _Millism_? This is the\nHellenic or Hellenistic counterpart of Mialism; and like Mialism it has\nits further degenerations, in which it is still less commendable than in\nits first form. For instance, what in Mr. Mill is but a yielding to a\nspirit of irritable injustice, goes on and worsens in some of his\ndisciples, till it becomes a sort of mere blatancy and truculent\nhardness in certain Millites, in whom there appears scarcely anything\nthat is truly sound or Hellenic at all.\n\nMankind, however, must needs draw, however slowly, towards its\nperfection; and our only real perfection is our totality. Mialism and\nMillism we may see playing into one another's hands, and apparently\nacting together; but, so long as these lower forms of Hellenism and\nHebraism prevail, the real union between Hellenism and Hebraism can\nnever be accomplished, and our totality is still as far off as ever.\nUnhappy and unquiet alternations of ascendency between Hebraism and\nHellenism are all that we shall see;--at one time, the indestructible\nreligious experience of mankind asserting itself blindly; at another, a\nrevulsion of the intellect of mankind from this experience, because of\nthe audacious assumptions and gross inaccuracies with which men's\naccount of it is intermingled.\n\nAt present it is such a revulsion which seems chiefly imminent. Give the\nchurches of Nonconformity free scope, cries an ardent Congregationalist,\nand we will renew the wonders of the first times; we will confront this\nmodern bugbear of physical science, show how hollow she is, and how she\ncontradicts herself! In his mind's eye, this Nonconforming enthusiast\nalready sees Professor Huxley in a white sheet, brought up at the Surrey\nTabernacle between two deacons,--whom that great physicist, in his own\nclear and nervous language, would no doubt describe like his disinterred\nRoman the other day at Westminster Abbey, as 'of weak mental\norganisation and strong muscular frame,'--and penitently confessing that\n_Science contradicts herself_. Alas, the real future is likely to be\nvery different! Rather are we likely to witness an edifying solemnity,\nwhere Mr. Mill, assisted by his youthful henchmen and apparitors, will\nburn all the Prayer Books. Rather will the time come, as it has been\nforetold, when we shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man,\nand shall not see it; when the mildness and sweet reasonableness of\nJesus Christ, as a power to work the annulment of our ordinary self,\nwill be clean disregarded and out of mind. Then, perhaps, will come\nanother re-action, and another, and another; and all sterile.\n\nTherefore it is, that we labour to make Hebraism raise itself above\nMialism, find its true self, show itself in its beauty and power, and\nhelp, not hinder, man's totality. The endeavour will very likely be in\nvain; for growth is slow and the ages are long, and it may well be that\nfor harmonising Hebraism with Hellenism more preparation is needed than\nman has yet had. But failures do something, as well as successes,\ntowards the final achievement. The cup of cold water could be hardly\nmore than an ineffective effort at succour; yet it counted. To disengage\nthe religion of England from unscriptural Protestantism, political\nDissent, and a spirit of watchful jealousy, may be an aim not in our day\nreachable; and still it is well to level at it.\n\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nST. PAUL AND PROTESTANTISM\n\nPURITANISM AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND\n\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nST. PAUL AND PROTESTANTISM.\n\n\nI.\n\nM. Renan sums up his interesting volume on St. Paul by saying:--'After\nhaving been for three hundred years, thanks to Protestantism, the\nChristian doctor _par excellence_, Paul is now coming to an end of his\nreign.' All through his book M. Renan is possessed with a sense of this\nclose relationship between St. Paul and Protestantism. Protestantism has\nmade Paul, he says; Pauline doctrine is identified with Protestant\ndoctrine; Paul is a Protestant doctor, and the counterpart of Luther. M.\nRenan has a strong distaste for Protestantism, and this distaste extends\nitself to the Protestant Paul. The reign of this Protestant is now\ncoming to an end, and such a consummation evidently has M. Renan's\napproval.\n\n_St. Paul is now coming to an end of his reign._ Precisely the contrary,\nI venture to think, is the judgment to which a true criticism of men and\nof things, in our own country at any rate, leads us. The Protestantism\nwhich has so used and abused St. Paul is coming to an end; its\norganisations, strong and active as they look, are touched with the\nfinger of death; its fundamental ideas, sounding forth still every week\nfrom thousands of pulpits, have in them no significance and no power for\nthe progressive thought of humanity. But the reign of the real St. Paul\nis only beginning; his fundamental ideas, disengaged from the elaborate\nmisconceptions with which Protestantism has overlaid them, will have an\ninfluence in the future greater than any which they have yet had,--an\ninfluence proportioned to their correspondence with a number of the\ndeepest and most permanent facts of human nature itself.\n\nElsewhere[16] I have pointed out how, for us in this country,\nPuritanism is the strong and special representative of Protestantism.\nThe Church of England existed before Protestantism, and contains much\nbesides Protestantism. Remove the schemes of doctrine, Calvinistic or\nArminian, which for Protestantism, merely as such, have made the very\nsubstance of its religion, and all that is most valuable in the Church\nof England would still remain. These schemes, or the ideas out of which\nthey spring, show themselves in the Prayer Book; but they are not what\ngives the Prayer Book its importance and value. But Puritanism exists\nfor the sake of these schemes; its organisations are inventions for\nenforcing them more purely and thoroughly. Questions of discipline and\nceremonies have, originally at least, been always admitted to be in\nthemselves secondary; it is because that conception of the ways of God\nto man which Puritanism has formed for itself appeared to Puritanism\nsuperlatively true and precious, that Independents and Baptists and\nMethodists in England, and Presbyterians in Scotland, have been impelled\nto constitute for inculcating it a church-order where it might be less\nswamped by the additions and ceremonies of men, might be more simply and\neffectively enounced, and might stand more absolute and central, than in\nthe church-order of Anglicans or Roman Catholics.\n\n[Footnote 16: See _Culture and Anarchy_, chap. iv.]\n\nOf that conception the cardinal points are fixed by the terms _election_\nand _justification_. These terms come from the writings of St. Paul, and\nthe scheme which Puritanism has constructed with them professes to be\nSt. Paul's scheme. The same scheme, or something very like it, has been,\nand still is, embraced by many adherents of the Churches of England and\nRome; but these Churches rest their claims to men's interest and\nattachment not on the possession of such a scheme, but on other grounds\nwith which we have for the present nothing to do. Puritanism's very\nreason for existing depends on the worth of this its vital conception,\nderived from St. Paul's writings; and when we are told that St. Paul is\na Protestant doctor whose reign is ending, a Puritan, keen, pugnacious,\nand sophisticating simple religion of the heart into complicated\ntheories of the brain about election and justification, we in England,\nat any rate, can best try the assertion by fixing our eyes on our own\nPuritans, and comparing their doctrine and their hold on vital truth\nwith St. Paul's.\n\nThis we propose now to do, and, indeed, to do it will only be to\ncomplete what we have already begun. For already, when we were speaking\nof Hebraism and Hellenism,[17] we were led to remark how the\nover-Hebraising of Puritanism, and its want of a wide culture, do so\nnarrow its range and impair its vision that even the documents which it\nthinks all-sufficient, and to the study of which it exclusively rivets\nitself, it does not rightly understand, but is apt to make of them\nsomething quite different from what they really are. In short, no man,\nwe said, who knows nothing else, knows even his Bible. And we showed how\nreaders of the Bible attached to essential words and ideas of the Bible\na sense which was not the writer's; and in particular how this had\nhappened with regard to the Pauline doctrine of resurrection. Let us\ntake the present opportunity of going further in the same road; and\ninstead of lightly disparaging the great name of St. Paul, let us see if\nthe needful thing is not rather to rescue St. Paul and the Bible from\nthe perversions of them by mistaken men.\n\n[Footnote 17: See _Culture and Anarchy_, chap. v.]\n\nSo long as the well-known habit, on which we have so often enlarged,\nprevails amongst our countrymen, of holding mechanically their ideas\nthemselves, but making it their chief aim to work with energy and\nenthusiasm for the organisations which profess those ideas, English\nPuritanism is not likely to make such a return upon its own thoughts,\nand upon the elements of its being, as to accomplish for itself an\noperation of the kind needed; though it has men whose natural faculties,\nwere they but free to use them, would undoubtedly prove equal to the\ntask. The same habit prevents our Puritans from being reached by\nphilosophical works, which exist in sufficient numbers and of which M.\nReuss's history of the growth of Christian theology[18] is an admirable\nspecimen,--works where the entire scheme of Pauline doctrine is laid out\nwith careful research and impartial accuracy. To give effect to the\npredominant points in Paul's teaching, and to exhibit these in so plain\nand popular a manner as to invite and almost compel men's comprehension,\nis not the design of such works; and only by writings with this design\nin view will English Puritanism be reached.\n\n[Footnote 18: _Histoire de la Th\u00e9ologie Chr\u00e9tienne au Si\u00e8cle\nApostolique_, par Edouard Reuss; Strasbourg et Paris (in 2 vols.\n8vo.) There is now (1875) an English translation of M. Reuss's\nwork.]\n\nOur one qualification for the business in hand lies in that belief of\nours, so much contested by our countrymen, of the primary needfulness of\nseeing things as they really are, and of the greater importance of ideas\nthan of the machinery which exists for them. If by means of letting our\nconsciousness work quite freely, and by following the methods of\nstudying and judging thence generated, we are shown that we ought in\nreal truth neither to abase St. Paul and Puritanism together, as M.\nRenan does, nor to abase St. Paul but exalt Puritanism, nor yet to exalt\nboth Puritanism and St. Paul together, but rather to abase Puritanism\nand exalt St. Paul, then we cannot but think that even for Puritanism\nitself, also, it will be the best, however unpalatable, to be shown\nthis. Puritanism certainly wishes well to St. Paul; it cannot wish to\ncompromise him by an unintelligent adhesion to him and a blind adoption\nof his words, instead of being a true child to him. Yet this is what it\nhas really done. What in St. Paul is secondary and subordinate,\nPuritanism has made primary and essential; what in St Paul is figure and\nbelongs to the sphere of feeling, Puritanism has transported into the\nsphere of intellect and made formula. On the other hand, what is with\nSt. Paul primary, Puritanism has treated as subordinate: and what is\nwith him thesis, and belonging (so far as anything in religion can\nproperly be said thus to belong) to the sphere of intellect, Puritanism\nhas made image and figure.\n\nAnd first let us premise what we mean in this matter by primary and\nsecondary, essential and subordinate. We mean, so far as the apostle is\nconcerned, a greater or less approach to what really characterises him\nand gives his teaching its originality and power. We mean, so far as\ntruth is concerned, a greater or less agreement with facts which can be\nverified, and a greater or less power of explaining them. What\nessentially characterises a religious teacher, and gives him his\npermanent worth and vitality, is, after all, just the scientific value\nof his teaching, its correspondence with important facts, and the light\nit throws on them. Never was the truth of this so evident as now. The\nscientific sense in man never asserted its claim so strongly; the\npropensity of religion to neglect those claims, and the peril and loss\nto it from neglecting them, never were so manifest. The license of\naffirmation about God and his proceedings, in which the religious world\nindulge, is more and more met by the demand for verification. When\nCalvinism tells us: 'It is agreed between God and the Mediator Jesus\nChrist, the Son of God, surety for the redeemed, as parties-contractors,\nthat the sins of the redeemed should be imputed to innocent Christ, and\nhe both condemned and put to death for them, upon this very condition,\nthat whosoever heartily consents unto the covenant of reconciliation\noffered through Christ, shall, by the imputation of his obedience unto\nthem, be justified and holden righteous before God;'--when Calvinism\ntells us this, is it not talking about God just as if he were a man in\nthe next street, whose proceedings Calvinism intimately knew and could\ngive account of, could verify that account at any moment, and enable us\nto verify it also? It is true, when the scientific sense in us, the\nsense which seeks exact knowledge, calls for that verification,\nCalvinism refers us to St. Paul, from whom it professes to have got this\nhistory of what it calls 'the covenant of redemption.' But this is only\npushing the difficulty a stage further back. For if it is St. Paul, and\nnot Calvinism, that professes this exact acquaintance with God and his\ndoings, the scientific sense calls upon St. Paul to produce the facts by\nwhich he verifies what he says; and if he cannot produce them, then it\ntreats both St. Paul's assertion, and Calvinism's assertion after him,\nas of no real consequence.\n\nNo one will deny that such is the behaviour of science towards religion\nin our day, though many may deplore it. And it is not that the\nscientific sense in us denies the rights of the poetic sense, which\nemploys a figured and imaginative language. But the language we have\njust been quoting is not figurative and poetic language, it is\nscholastic and scientific language. Assertions in scientific language\nmust stand the tests of scientific examination. Neither is it that the\nscientific sense in us refuses to admit willingly and reverently the\nname of God, as a point in which the religious and the scientific sense\nmay meet, as the least inadequate name for that universal order which\nthe intellect feels after as a law, and the heart feels after as a\nbenefit. 'We, too,' might the men of science with truth say to the men\nof religion--'we, too, would gladly say _God_, if only, the moment one\nsays _God_, you would not pester one with your pretensions of knowing\nall about him.' That _stream of tendency by which all things strive to\nfulfil the law of their being_, and which, inasmuch as our idea of real\nwelfare resolves itself into this fulfilment of the law of one's being,\nman rightly deems the fountain of all goodness, and calls by the\nworthiest and most solemn name he can, which is God, science also might\nwillingly own for the fountain of all goodness, and call God. But\nhowever much more than this the heart may with propriety put into its\nlanguage respecting God, this is as much as science can with strictness\nput there. Therefore, when the religious world, following its bent of\ntrying to describe what it loves, amplifying and again amplifying its\ndescription, and guarding finally this amplified description by the most\nprecise and rigid terms it can find, comes at last, with the best\nintentions, to the notion of a sort of magnified and non-natural man,\nwho proceeds in the fashion laid down in the Calvinistic thesis we have\nquoted, then science strikes in, remarks the difference between this\nsecond notion and the notion it originally admitted, and demands to have\nthe new notion verified, as the first can be verified, by facts. But\nthis does not unsettle the first notion, or prevent science from\nacknowledging the importance and the scientific validity of propositions\nwhich are grounded upon the first notion, and shed light over it.\n\nNevertheless, researches in this sphere are now a good deal eclipsed in\npopularity by researches in the sphere of physics, and no longer have\nthe vogue which they once had. I have related how an eminent physicist\nwith whose acquaintance I am honoured, imagines me to have invented the\nauthor of the _Sacra Privata_; and that fashionable newspaper, the\n_Morning Post_, undertaking,--as I seemed, it said, very anxious about\nthe matter,--to supply information as to who the author really was, laid\nit down that he was Bishop of Calcutta, and that his ideas and writings,\nto which I attached so much value, had been among the main provocatives\nof the Indian mutiny. Therefore it is perhaps expedient to refresh our\nmemory as to these schemes of doctrine, Calvinistic or Arminian, for the\nupholding of which, as has been said, British Puritanism exists, before\nwe proceed to compare them, for correspondence with facts and for\nscientific validity, with the teaching of St. Paul.\n\nCalvinism, then, begins by laying down that God from all eternity\ndecreed whatever was to come to pass in time; that by his decree a\ncertain number of angels and men are predestinated, out of God's mere\nfree grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works in\nthem, to everlasting life; and others foreordained, according to the\nunsearchable counsel of his will, whereby he extends or withholds mercy\nas he pleases, to everlasting death. God made, however, our first\nparents, Adam and Eve, upright and able to keep his law, which was\nwritten in their hearts; at the same time entering into a contract with\nthem, and with their posterity as represented in them, by which they\nwere assured of everlasting life in return for perfect obedience, and of\neverlasting death if they should be disobedient. Our first parents,\nbeing enticed by Satan, a fallen angel speaking in the form of a\nserpent, broke this _covenant of works_, as it is called, by eating the\nforbidden fruit; and hereby they, and their posterity in them and with\nthem, became not only liable to eternal death, but lost also their\nnatural uprightness and all ability to please God; nay, they became by\nnature enemies to God and to all spiritual good, and inclined only to\nevil continually. This, says Calvinism, is our original sin; the bitter\nroot of all our actual transgressions, in thought, word, and deed.\n\nYet, though man has neither power nor inclination to rise out of this\nwretched fallen state, but is rather disposed to lie insensible in it\ntill he perish, another covenant exists by which his condition is\ngreatly affected. This is the _covenant of redemption_, made and agreed\nupon, says Calvinism, between God the Father and God the Son in the\nCouncil of the Trinity before the world began. The sum of the covenant\nof redemption is this: God having, by the eternal decree already\nmentioned, freely chosen to life a certain number of lost mankind, gave\nthem before the world began to God the Son, appointed Redeemer, on\ncondition that if he humbled himself so far as to assume the human\nnature in union with the divine nature, submit himself to the law as\nsurety for the elect, and satisfy justice for them by giving obedience\nin their name, even to suffering the cursed death of the cross, he\nshould ransom and redeem them from sin and death, and purchase for them\nrighteousness and eternal life. The Son of God accepted the condition,\nor _bargain_ as Calvinism calls it; and in the fulness of time came, as\nJesus Christ, into the world, was born of the Virgin Mary, subjected\nhimself to the law, and completely paid the due ransom on the cross.\n\nGod has in his word, the Bible, revealed to man this covenant of grace\nor redemption. All those whom he has predestinated to life he in his own\ntime effectually calls to be partakers in the release offered. Man is\naltogether passive in this call, until the Holy Spirit enables him to\nanswer it. The Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, applies to\nthe elect the redemption purchased by Christ, through working faith in\nthem. As soon as the elect have faith in Jesus Christ, that is, as soon\nas they give their consent heartily and repentantly, in the sense of\ndeserved condemnation, to the covenant of grace, God justifies them by\nimputing to them that perfect obedience which Christ gave to the law,\nand the satisfaction also which upon the cross Christ gave to justice in\ntheir name. They who are thus called and justified are by the same power\nlikewise sanctified; the dominion of carnal lusts being destroyed in\nthem, and the practice of holiness being, in spite of some remnants of\ncorruption, put in their power. Good works, done in obedience to God's\nmoral law, are the fruits and evidences of a true faith; and the persons\nof the faithful elect being accepted through Christ, their good works\nalso are accepted in him and rewarded. But works done by other and\nunregenerate men, though they may be things which God commands, cannot\nplease God and are sinful. The elect can after justification and\nsanctification no more fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly\npersevere to the end and be eternally saved; and of this they may, even\nin the present life, have the certain assurance. Finally, after death,\ntheir souls and bodies are joyfully joined together again in the\nresurrection, and they remain thenceforth for ever with Christ in glory;\nwhile all the wicked are sent away into hell with Satan, whom they have\nserved.\n\nWe have here set down the main doctrines of Calvinistic Puritanism\nalmost entirely in words of its own choosing. It is not necessary to\nenter into distinctions such as those between sublapsarians and\nsupralapsarians, between Calvinists who believe that God's decree of\nelection and reprobation was passed in foresight of original sin and on\naccount of it, and Calvinists who believe that it was passed absolutely\nand independently. The important points of Calvinism,--original sin,\nfree election, effectual calling, justification through imputed\nrighteousness,--are common to both. The passiveness of man, the activity\nof God, are the great features in this scheme; there is very little of\nwhat man thinks and does, very much of what God thinks and does; and\nwhat God thinks and does is described with such particularity that the\nfigure we have used of the man in the next street cannot but recur\nstrongly to our minds.\n\nThe positive Protestantism of Puritanism, with which we are here\nconcerned, as distinguished from the negative Protestantism of the\nChurch of England, has nourished itself with ardour on this scheme of\ndoctrine. It informs and fashions the whole religion of Scotland,\nestablished and nonconforming. It is the doctrine which Puritan flocks\ndelight to hear from their ministers. It was Puritanism's constant\nreproach against the Church of England, that this essential doctrine was\nnot firmly enough held and set forth by her. At the Hampton Court\nConference in 1604, in the Committee of Divines appointed by the House\nof Lords in 1641, and again at the Savoy Conference in 1661, the\nreproach regularly appeared. 'Some have defended,' is the Puritan\ncomplaint, 'the whole gross substance of Arminianism, that the act of\nconversion depends upon the concurrence of man's free will; some do\nteach and preach that good works are concauses with faith in the act of\njustification; some have defended universal grace, some have absolutely\ndenied original sin.' As Puritanism grew, the Calvinistic scheme of\ndoctrine hardened and became stricter. Of the Calvinistic confessions of\nfaith of the sixteenth century,--the Helvetic Confession, the Belgic\nConfession, the Heidelberg Catechism,--the Calvinism is so moderate as\nto astonish any one who has been used only to its later developments.\nEven the much abused canons of the Synod of Dort no one can read\nattentively through without finding in parts of them a genuine movement\nof thought,--sometimes even a philosophic depth,--and a powerful\nreligious feeling. In the documents of the Westminster Assembly,\ntwenty-five years later, this has disappeared; and what we call the\nBritish Philistine stands in his religious capacity, sheer and stark,\nbefore us. Seriousness is the one merit of these documents, but it is a\nseriousness too mixed with the alloy of mundane strife and hatred to be\ncalled a religious feeling. Not a trace of delicacy of perception, or of\nphilosophic thinking; the mere rigidness and contentiousness of the\ncontroversialist and political dissenter; a Calvinism exaggerated till\nit is simply repelling; and to complete the whole, a machinery of\ncovenants, conditions, bargains, and parties-contractors, such as could\nhave proceeded from no one but the born Anglo-Saxon man of business,\nBritish or American.\n\nHowever, a scheme of doctrine is not necessarily false because of the\nstyle in which its adherents may have at a particular moment enounced\nit. From the faults which disfigure the performance of the Westminster\ndivines the profession of faith prefixed to the Congregational\n_Year-Book_ is free. The Congregationalists form one of the two great\ndivisions of English Puritans. 'Congregational churches believe,' their\n_Year-Book_ tells us, 'that the first man disobeyed the divine command,\nfell from his state of innocence and purity, and involved all his\nposterity in the consequences of that fall. They believe that all who\nwill be saved were the objects of God's eternal and electing love, and\nwere given by an act of divine sovereignty to the Son of God. They\nbelieve that Christ meritoriously obtained eternal redemption for us,\nand that the Holy Spirit is given in consequence of Christ's mediation.'\nThe essential points of Calvinism are all here. To this profession of\nfaith, annually published in the _Year-Book_ of the Independents,\nsubscription is not required; Puritanism thus remaining honourably\nconsistent with the protests which, at the Restoration, it made against\nthe call for subscription. But the authors of the _Year-Book_ say with\npride, and it is a common boast of the Independent churches, that though\nthey do not require subscription, there is, perhaps, in no religious\nbody, such firm and general agreement in doctrine as among\nCongregationalists. This is true, and it is even more true of the flocks\nthan of the ministers, of whom the abler and the younger begin to be\nlifted by the stream of modern ideas. Still, up to the present time, the\nProtestantism of one great division of English Puritans is undoubtedly\nCalvinist; the Baptists holding in general the scheme of Calvinism yet\nmore strictly than the Independents.\n\nThe other great division of English Puritanism is formed by the\nMethodists. Wesleyan Methodism is, as is well known, not Calvinist, but\nArminian. The _Methodist Magazine_ was called by Wesley the _Arminian\nMagazine_, and kept that title all through his life. Arminianism is an\nattempt made with the best intentions, and with much truth of practical\nsense, but not in a very profound philosophical spirit, to escape from\nwhat perplexes and shocks us in Calvinism. The God of Calvinism is a\nmagnified and non-natural man who decrees at his mere good pleasure some\nmen to salvation and other men to reprobation; the God of Arminianism is\na magnified and non-natural man who foreknows the course of each man's\nlife, and who decrees each of us to salvation or reprobation in\naccordance with this foreknowledge. But so long as we remain in this\nanthropomorphic order of ideas the question will always occur: Why did\nnot a being of infinite power and infinite love so make all men as that\nthere should be no cause for this sad foreknowledge and sad decree\nrespecting a number of them? In truth, Calvinism is both theologically\nmore coherent, and also shows a deeper sense of reality than\nArminianism, which, in the practical man's fashion, is apt to scrape the\nsurface of things only.\n\nFor instance, the Arminian Remonstrants, in their zeal to justify the\nmorality, in a human sense, of God's ways, maintained that he sent his\nword to one nation rather than another according as he saw that one\nnation was more worthy than another of such a preference. The Calvinist\ndoctors of the Synod of Dort have no difficulty in showing that Moses\nand Christ both of them assert, with respect to the Jewish nation, the\ndirect contrary; and not only do they here obtain a theological triumph,\nbut in rebutting the Arminian theory they are in accordance with\nhistorical truth and with the real march of human affairs. They allow\nmore for the great fact of the _not ourselves_ in what we do and are.\nThe Calvinists seize, we say, that great fact better than the Arminians.\nThe Calvinist's fault is in his scientific appreciation of the fact; in\nthe reasons he gives for it. God, he says, sends his word to one nation\nrather than another at _his mere good pleasure_. Here we have again the\nmagnified and non-natural man, who likes and dislikes, knows and\ndecrees, just as a man, only on a scale immensely transcending anything\nof which we have experience, and whose proceedings we nevertheless\ndescribe as if he were in the next street for people to verify all we\nsay about him.\n\nArminian Methodism, however, puts aside the Calvinistic doctrine of\npredestination. The foremost place, which in the Calvinist scheme\nbelongs to the doctrine of predestination, belongs in the Methodist\nscheme to the doctrine of justification by faith. More and more\nprominently does modern Methodism elevate this as its essential\ndoctrine; and the era in their founder's life which Methodists select to\ncelebrate is the era of his conversion to it. It is the doctrine of\nAnselm, adopted and developed by Luther, set forth in the Confession of\nAugsburg, and current all through the popular theology of our day. We\nshall find it in almost any popular hymn we happen to take, but the\nfollowing lines of Milton exhibit it classically. By the fall of our\nfirst parents, says he:--\n\n                    Man, losing all,\n    To expiate his treason hath nought left,\n    But to destruction sacred and devote\n    He with his whole posterity must die;\n    Die he or justice must; unless for him\n    Some other able, and as willing, pay\n    The rigid satisfaction; death for death.\n\nBy Adam's fall, God's justice and mercy were placed in conflict. God\ncould not follow his mercy without violating his justice. Christ by his\nsatisfaction gave the Father the right and power (_nudum jus Patri\nacquirebat_, said the Arminians) to follow his mercy, and to make with\nman the covenant of free justification by faith, whereby, if a man has a\nsure trust and confidence that his sins are forgiven him in virtue of\nthe satisfaction made to God for them by the death of Christ, he is held\nclear of sin by God, and admitted to salvation.\n\nThis doctrine, like the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, involves a\nwhole history of God's proceedings, and gives, also, first and almost\nsole place to what God does, with disregard to what man does. It has\nthus an essential affinity with Calvinism; indeed, Calvinism is but this\ndoctrine of original sin and justification, _plus_ the doctrine of\npredestination. Nay, the Welsh Methodists, as is well known, have no\ndifficulty in combining the tenet of election with the practices and\nmost of the tenets of Methodism. The word _solifidian_ points precisely\nto that which is common to both Calvinism and Methodism, and which has\nmade both these halves of English Puritanism so popular,--their\n_sensational_ side, as it may be called, their laying all stress on a\nwonderful and particular account of what God gives and works for us, not\non what we bring or do for ourselves. 'Plead thou singly,' says Wesley,\n'the blood of the covenant, the ransom paid for thy proud stubborn\nsoul.' Wesley's doctrines of conversion, of the new birth, of\nsanctification, of the direct witness of the spirit, of assurance, of\nsinless perfection, all of them thus correspond with doctrines which we\nhave noticed in Calvinism, and show a common character with them. The\ninstantaneousness Wesley loved to ascribe to conversion and\nsanctification points the same way. 'God gives in a moment such a faith\nin the blood of his Son as translates us out of darkness into light, out\nof sin and fear into holiness and happiness.' And again, 'Look for\nsanctification just as you are, as a poor sinner that has nothing to\npay, nothing to plead but _Christ died_.' This is the side in Wesley's\nteaching which his followers have above all seized, and which they are\neager to hold forth as the essential part of his legacy towards them.\n\nIt is true that from the same reason which prevents, as we have said,\nthose who know their Bible and nothing else from really knowing even\ntheir Bible, Methodists, who for the most part know nothing but Wesley,\ndo not really know even Wesley. It is true that what really\ncharacterises this most interesting and most attractive man, is not his\ndoctrine of justification by faith, or any other of his set doctrines,\nbut is entirely what we may call his _genius for godliness_. Mr.\nAlexander Knox, in his remarks on his friend's life and character,\ninsists much on an entry in Wesley's Journal in 1767, where he seems\nimpatient at the endless harping on the tenet of justification, and\nwhere he asks 'if it is not high time to return to the plain word: \"He\nthat feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.\"' Mr.\nKnox is right in thinking that the feeling which made Wesley ask this is\nwhat gave him his vital worth and character as a man; but it is not what\ngives him his character as the teacher of Methodism. Methodism rejects\nMr. Knox's version of its founder, and insists on making the article of\njustification the very corner-stone of the Wesleyan edifice.\n\nAnd the truth undoubtedly is, that not by his assertion of what man\nbrings, but by his assertion of what God gives, by his doctrines of\nconversion, instantaneous justification and sanctification, assurance,\nand sinless perfection, does Wesley live and operate in Methodism. 'You\nthink, I must first be or do thus or thus (for sanctification). Then you\nare seeking it by works unto this day. If you seek it by faith, you may\nexpect it as you are; then expect it now. It is of importance to observe\nthat there is an inseparable connection between these three points:\nexpect it _by faith_, expect it _as you are_, and expect it _now_. To\ndeny one of them is to deny them all; to allow one is to allow them\nall.' This is the teaching of Wesley, which has made the great Methodist\nhalf of English Puritanism what it is, and not his hesitations and\nrecoils at the dangers of his own teaching.\n\nNo doubt, as the seriousness of Calvinism, its perpetual conversance\nwith deep matters and with the Bible, have given force and fervency to\nCalvinist Puritans, so the loveliness of Wesley's piety, and what we\nhave called his genius for godliness, have sweetened and made amiable\nnumberless lives of Methodist Puritans. But as a religious teacher,\nWesley is to be judged by his doctrine; and his doctrine, like the\nCalvinistic scheme, rests with all its weight on the assertion of\ncertain minutely described proceedings on God's part, independent of us,\nour experience, and our will; and leads its recipients to look, in\nreligion, not so much for an arduous progress on their own part, and the\nexercise of their activity, as for strokes of magic, and what may be\ncalled a sensational character.\n\nIn the Heidelberg Catechism, after an answer in which the catechist\nrehearses the popularly received doctrine of original sin and vicarious\nsatisfaction for it, the catechiser asks the pertinent question: '_Unde\nid scis?_'--how do you know all that? The Apostle Paul is, as we have\nalready shown, the great authority for it whom formal theology invokes;\nhis name is used by popular theology with the same confidence. I open a\nmodern book of popular religion at the account of a visit paid to a\nhardened criminal seized with terror the night before his execution. The\nvisitor says: '_I now stand in Paul's place_, and say: In Christ's stead\nwe pray you, be ye reconciled to God. I beg you to accept the pardon of\nall your sins, which Christ has purchased for you, and which God freely\nbestows on you for his sake. If you do not understand, I say: God's ways\nare not as our ways.' And the narrative of the criminal's conversion\ngoes on: 'That night was spent in singing the praises of the Saviour who\nhad purchased his pardon.'\n\nBoth Calvinism and Methodism appeal, therefore, to the Bible, and, above\nall, to St. Paul, for the history they propound of the relations between\nGod and man; but Calvinism relies most, in enforcing it, on man's fears,\nMethodism on man's hopes. Calvinism insists on man's being under a\ncurse; it then works the sense of sin, misery, and terror in him, and\nappeals pre-eminently to the desire to flee from the wrath to come.\nMethodism, too, insists on his being under a curse; but it works most\nthe sense of hope in him, the craving for happiness, and appeals\npre-eminently to the desire for eternal bliss. No one, however, will\nmaintain that the particular account of God's proceedings with man,\nwhereby Methodism and Calvinism operate on these desires, proves itself\nby internal evidence, and establishes without external aid its own\nscientific validity. So we may either directly try, as best we can, its\nscientific validity in itself; or, as it professes to have Paul's\nauthority to support it, we may first inquire what is really Paul's\naccount of God's proceedings with man, and whether this tallies with the\nPuritan account and confirms it. The latter is in every way the safer\nand the more instructive course to follow. And we will follow\nPuritanism's example in taking St. Paul's mature and greatest work, the\nEpistle to the Romans, as the chief place for finding what he really\nthought on the points in question.\n\nWe have already said elsewhere,[19] indeed, what is very true, and what\nmust never be forgotten, that what St. Paul, a man so separated from us\nby time, race, training and circumstances, really thought, we cannot\nmake sure of knowing exactly. All we can do is to get near it, reading\nhim with the sort of critical tact which the study of the human mind and\nits history, and the acquaintance with many great writers, naturally\ngives for following the movement of any one single great writer's\nthought; reading him, also, without preconceived theories to which we\nwant to make his thoughts fit themselves. It is evident that the English\ntranslation of the Epistle to the Romans has been made by men with their\nheads full of the current doctrines of election and justification we\nhave been noticing; and it has thereby received such a bias,--of which a\nstrong example is the use of the word _atonement_ in the eleventh verse\nof the fifth chapter,--that perhaps it is almost impossible for any one\nwho reads the English translation only, to take into his mind Paul's\nthought without a colouring from the current doctrines. But besides\ndiscarding the English translation, we must bear in mind, if we wish to\nget as near Paul's real thought as possible, two things which have\ngreatly increased the facilities for misrepresenting him.\n\n[Footnote 19: See _Culture and Anarchy_, chap. v.]\n\nIn the first place, Paul, like the other Bible-writers, and like the\nSemitic race in general, has a much juster sense of the true scope and\nlimits of diction in religious deliverances than we have. He uses within\nthe sphere of religious emotion expressions which, in this sphere, have\nan eloquence and a propriety, but which are not to be taken out of it\nand made into formal scientific propositions.\n\nThis is a point very necessary to be borne in mind in reading the Bible.\nThe prophet Nahum says in the book of his vision: '_God is jealous, and\nthe Lord revengeth_;'[20] and the authors of the Westminster\nConfession, drawing out a scientific theology, lay down the proposition\nthat God is a jealous and vengeful God, and think they prove their\nproposition by quoting in a note the words of Nahum. But this is as if\nwe took from a chorus of \u00c6schylus one of his grand passages about guilt\nand destiny, just put the words straight into the formal and exact cast\nof a sentence of Aristotle, and said that here was the scientific\nteaching of Greek philosophy on these matters. The Hebrew genius has\nnot, like the Greek, its conscious and clear-marked division into a\npoetic side and a scientific side; the scientific side is almost absent.\nThe Bible utterances have often the character of a chorus of \u00c6schylus,\nbut never that of a treatise of Aristotle. We, like the Greeks, possess\nin our speech and thought the two characters; but so far as the Bible is\nconcerned we have generally confounded them, and have used our double\npossession for our bewilderment rather than turned it to good account.\nThe admirable maxim of the great medi\u00e6val Jewish school of Biblical\ncritics: _The Law speaks with the tongue of the children of men_,--a\nmaxim which is the very foundation of all sane Biblical criticism,--was\nfor centuries a dead letter to the whole body of our Western exegesis,\nand is a dead letter to the whole body of our popular exegesis still.\nTaking the Bible language as equivalent with the language of the\nscientific intellect, a language which is adequate and absolute, we have\nnever been in a position to use the key which this maxim of the Jewish\ndoctors offers to us. But it is certain that, whatever strain the\nreligious expressions of the Semitic genius were meant, in the minds of\nthose who gave utterance to them, to bear, the particular strain which\nwe Western people put upon them is one which they were not meant to\nbear.\n\n[Footnote 20: _Nahum_ i, 2.]\n\nWe have used the word _Hebraise_[21] for another purpose, to denote the\nexclusive attention to the moral side of our nature, to conscience, and\nto doing rather than knowing; so, to describe the vivid and figured way\nin which St. Paul, within the sphere of religious emotion, uses words,\nwithout carrying them outside it, we will use the word _Orientalise_.\nWhen Paul says: 'God hath concluded them all in unbelief _that he might_\nhave mercy upon all,'[22] he Orientalises; that is, he does not mean to\nassert formally that God acted with this set design, but, being full of\nthe happy and divine end to the unbelief spoken of, he, by a vivid and\nstriking figure, represents the unbelief as actually caused with a view\nto this end. But when the Calvinists of the Synod of Dort, wishing to\nestablish the formal proposition that faith and all saving gifts flow\nfrom election and nothing else, quote an expression of Paul's similar to\nthe one we have quoted, 'He hath chosen us,' they say, 'not because we\nwere, but _that we might be_ holy and without blame before him,' they go\nquite wide of the mark, from not perceiving that what the apostle used\nas a vivid figure of rhetoric, they are using as a formal scientific\nproposition.\n\n[Footnote 21: See _Culture and Anarchy_, chap. iv.]\n\n[Footnote 22: _Rom._ xi, 32.]\n\nWhen Paul Orientalises, the fault is not with him when he is\nmisunderstood, but with the prosaic and unintelligent Western readers\nwho have not enough tact for style to comprehend his mode of expression.\nBut he also Judaises; and here his liability to being misunderstood by\nus Western people is undoubtedly due to a defect in the critical habit\nof himself and his race. A Jew himself, he uses the Jewish Scriptures in\na Jew's arbitrary and uncritical fashion, as if they had a talismanic\ncharacter; as if for a doctrine, however true in itself, their\nconfirmation was still necessary, and as if this confirmation was to be\ngot from their mere words alone, however detached from the sense of\ntheir context, and however violently allegorised or otherwise wrested.\n\nTo use the Bible in this way, even for purposes of illustration, is\noften an interruption to the argument, a fault of style; to use it in\nthis way for real proof and confirmation, is a fault of reasoning. An\nexample of the first fault may be seen in the tenth chapter of the\nEpistle to the Romans, and in the beginning of the third chapter. The\napostle's point in either place,--his point that faith comes by hearing,\nand his point that God's oracles were true though the Jews did not\nbelieve them,--would stand much clearer without their scaffolding of\nBible-quotation. An instance of the second fault is in the third and\nfourth chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians, where the Biblical\nargumentation by which the apostle seeks to prove his case is as unsound\nas his case itself is sound. How far these faults are due to the apostle\nhimself, how far to the requirements of those for whom he wrote, we need\nnot now investigate. It is enough that he undoubtedly uses the letter of\nScripture in this arbitrary and Jewish way; and thus Puritanism, which\nhas only itself to blame for misunderstanding him when he Orientalises,\nmay fairly put upon the apostle himself some of its blame for\nmisunderstanding him when he Judaises, and for Judaising so strenuously\nalong with him.\n\nTo get, therefore, at what Paul really thought and meant to say, it is\nnecessary for us modern and western people to translate him. And not as\nPuritanism, which has merely taken his letter and recast it in the\nformal propositions of a modern scientific treatise; but his letter\nitself must be recast before it can be properly conveyed by such\npropositions. And as the order in which, in any series of ideas, the\nideas come, is of great importance to the final result, and as Paul, who\ndid not write scientific treatises, but had always religious edification\nin direct view, never set out his doctrine with a design of exhibiting\nit as a scientific whole, we must also find out for ourselves the order\nin which Paul's ideas naturally stand, and the connexion between one of\nthem and the other, in order to arrive at the real scheme of his\nteaching, as compared with the schemes exhibited by Puritanism.\n\nWe remarked how what sets the Calvinist in motion seems to be the desire\nto flee from the wrath to come; and what sets the Methodist in motion,\nthe desire for eternal bliss. What is it which sets Paul in motion? It\nis the impulse which we have elsewhere noted as the master-impulse of\nHebraism,--_the desire for righteousness._ 'I exercise myself,' he told\nFelix, '_to have a conscience void of offence towards God and men\ncontinually_.'[23] To the Hebrew, this moral order, or righteousness,\nwas pre-eminently the universal order, the law of God; and God, the\nfountain of all goodness, was pre-eminently to him the giver of the\nmoral law. The end and aim of all religion, _access to God_,--the sense\nof harmony with the universal order--the partaking of the divine\nnature--that our faith and hope might be in God--that we might have life\nand have it more abundantly,--meant for the Hebrew, access to the source\nof the _moral_ order in especial, and harmony with it. It was the\ngreatness of the Hebrew race that it felt the authority of this order,\nits preciousness and its beneficence, so strongly. 'How precious are thy\nthoughts unto me, O God!'--'The law of thy mouth is better than\nthousands of gold and silver.'--'My soul is consumed with the very\nfervent desire that it hath alway unto thy judgments.'[24] It was the\ngreatness of their best individuals that in them this feeling was\nincessantly urgent to prove itself in the only sure manner,--in action.\n'Blessed are they who hear the word of God, and _keep_ it.' 'If thou\nwouldst enter into life, _keep_ the commandments.' 'Let no man deceive\nyou, he that _doeth_ righteousness is righteous.'[25] What\ndistinguishes Paul is both his conviction that the commandment is holy,\nand just, and good; and also his desire to give effect to the\ncommandment, to _establish_ it. It was this which gave to his endeavour\nafter a clear conscience such meaning and efficacity. It was this which\ngave him insight to see that there could be no radical difference, in\nrespect of salvation and the way to it, between Jew and Gentile. 'Upon\nevery soul of man that _worketh evil_, whoever he may be, tribulation\nand anguish; to every one that _worketh good_, glory, honour, and\npeace!'[26]\n\n[Footnote 23: _Acts_, xxiv, 16.]\n\n[Footnote 24: _Ps._ cxxxix, 7; cxix, 72; _Ibid._, 20.]\n\n[Footnote 25: _Luke_, xi, 28; _Matth._, xix, 17; I _John_, iii, 7.]\n\n[Footnote 26: _Rom._, ii, 9, 10.]\n\nSt. Paul's piercing practical religious sense, joined to his strong\nintellectual power, enabled him to discern and follow the range of the\ncommandment, both as to man's actions and as to his heart and thoughts,\nwith extraordinary force and closeness. His religion had, as we shall\nsee, a preponderantly mystic side, and nothing is so natural to the\nmystic as in rich single words, such as faith, light, love, to sum up\nand take for granted, without specially enumerating them all good moral\nprinciples and habits; yet nothing is more remarkable in Paul than the\nfrequent, nay, incessant lists, in the most particular detail, of moral\nhabits to be pursued or avoided. Lists of this sort might in a less\nsincere and profound writer be formal and wearisome; but to no attentive\nreader of St. Paul will they be wearisome, for in making them he touched\nthe solid ground which was the basis of his religion,--the solid ground\nof his hearty desire for righteousness and of his thorough conception of\nit,--and only on such a ground was so strong a superstructure possible.\nThe more one studies these lists, the more does their significance come\nout. To illustrate this, let any one go through for himself the\nenumeration, too long to be quoted here, in the four last verses of the\nfirst chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, of 'things which are not\nconvenient;' or let him merely consider with attention this catalogue,\ntowards the end of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, of\nfruits of the spirit: 'love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness,\ngoodness, faith, mildness, self-control.'[27] The man who wrote with\nthis searching minuteness knew accurately what he meant by sin and\nrighteousness, and did not use these words at random. His diligent\ncomprehensiveness in his plan of duties is only less admirable than his\ndiligent sincerity. The sterner virtues and the gentler, his conscience\nwill not let him rest till he has embraced them all. In his deep resolve\n'to make out by actual trial what is that good and perfect and\nacceptable will of God,'[28] he goes back upon himself again and again,\nhe marks a duty at every point of our nature, and at points the most\nopposite, for fear he should by possibility be leaving behind him some\nweakness still indulged, some subtle promptings to evil not yet brought\ninto captivity.\n\n[Footnote 27: Verses 22, 23.]\n\n[Footnote 28: _Rom._, xii, 2.]\n\nIt has not been enough remarked how this incomparable honesty and depth\nin Paul's love of righteousness is probably what chiefly explains his\nconversion. Most men have the defects, as the saying is, of their\nqualities. Because they are ardent and severe they have no sense for\ngentleness and sweetness; because they are sweet and gentle they have no\nsense for severity and ardour. A Puritan is a Puritan, and a man of\nfeeling is a man of feeling. But with Paul the very same fulness of\nmoral nature which made him an ardent Pharisee, 'as concerning zeal,\npersecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law,\nblameless,' was so large that it carried him out of Pharisaism and\nbeyond it, when once he found how much needed doing in him which\nPharisaism could not do.\n\nEvery attentive regarder of the character of Paul, not only as he was\nbefore his conversion but as he appears to us till his end, must have\nbeen struck with two things: one, the earnest insistence with which he\nrecommends 'bowels of mercies,' as he calls them: meekness, humbleness\nof mind, gentleness, unwearying forbearance, crowned all of them with\nthat emotion of charity 'which is the bond of perfectness;' the other,\nthe force with which he dwells on the _solidarity_ (to use the modern\nphrase) of man,--the joint interest, that is, which binds humanity\ntogether,--the duty of respecting every one's part in life, and of doing\njustice to his efforts to fulfil that part. Never surely did such a\ncontroversialist, such a master of sarcasm and invective, commend, with\nsuch manifest sincerity and such persuasive emotion, the qualities of\nmeekness and gentleness! Never surely did a worker, who took with such\nenergy his own line, and who was so born to preponderate and predominate\nin whatever line he took, insist so often and so admirably that the\nlines of other workers were just as good as his own! At no time,\nperhaps, did Paul arrive at practising quite perfectly what he thus\npreached; but this only sets in a stronger light the thorough love of\nrighteousness which made him seek out, and put so prominently forward,\nand so strive to make himself and others fulfil, parts of righteousness\nwhich do not force themselves on the common conscience like the duties\nof soberness, temperance, and activity, and which were somewhat alien,\ncertainly, to his own particular nature. Therefore we cannot but believe\nthat into this spirit, so possessed with the hunger and thirst for\nrighteousness, and precisely because it was so possessed by it, the\ncharacteristic doctrines of Jesus, which brought a new aliment to feed\nthis hunger and thirst,--of Jesus whom, except in vision, he had never\nseen, but who was in every one's words and thoughts, the teacher who was\nmeek and lowly in heart, who said men were brothers and must love one\nanother, that the last should often be first, that the exercise of\ndominion and lordship had nothing in them desirable, and that we must\nbecome as little children,--sank down and worked there even before Paul\nceased to persecute, and had no small part in getting him ready for the\ncrisis of his conversion.\n\nSuch doctrines offered new fields of righteousness to the eyes of this\nindefatigable explorer of it, and enlarged the domain of duty of which\nPharisaism showed him only a portion. Then, after the satisfaction thus\ngiven to his desire for a full conception of righteousness, came\nChrist's injunctions to make clean the inside as well as the outside, to\nbeware of the least leaven of hypocrisy and self-flattery, of saying and\nnot doing;--and, finally, the injunction to feel, after doing all we\ncan, that, as compared with the standard of perfection, we are still\nunprofitable servants. These teachings were, to a man like Paul, for the\npractice of righteousness what the others were for the\ntheory;--sympathetic utterances, which made the inmost chords of his\nbeing vibrate, and which irresistibly drew him sooner or later towards\ntheir utterer. Need it be said that he never forgot them, and that in\nall his pages they have left their trace? It is even affecting to see,\nhow, when he is driven for the very sake of righteousness to put the law\nof righteousness in the second place, and to seek outside the law itself\nfor a power to fulfil the law, how, I say, he returns again and again to\nthe elucidation of his one sole design in all he is doing; how he\nlabours to prevent all possibility of misunderstanding, and to show that\nhe is only leaving the moral law for a moment in order to establish it\nfor ever more victoriously. What earnestness and pathos in the\nassurance: 'If there had been a law given which could have given life,\nverily, righteousness should have been by the law!'[29] 'Do I condemn\nthe law?' he keeps saying; 'do I forget that the commandment is holy,\njust, and good? Because we are no longer under the law, are we to sin?\nAm I seeking to make the course of my life and yours other than a\nservice and an obedience?' This man, out of whom an astounding criticism\nhas deduced Antinomianism, is in truth so possessed with horror of\nAntinomianism, that he goes to grace for the sole purpose of extirpating\nit, and even then cannot rest without perpetually telling us why he is\ngone there. This man, whom Calvin and Luther and their followers have\nshut up into the two scholastic doctrines of election and justification,\nwould have said, could we hear him, just what he said about circumcision\nand uncircumcision in his own day: 'Election is nothing, and\njustification is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.'\n\n[Footnote 29: _Gal._, iii, 21.]\n\nThis foremost place which righteousness takes in the order of St. Paul's\nideas makes a signal difference between him and Puritanism. Puritanism,\nas we have said, finds its starting-point either in the desire to flee\nfrom eternal wrath or in the desire to obtain eternal bliss. Puritanism\nhas learned from revelation, as it says, a particular history of the\nfirst man's fall, of mankind being under a curse, of certain contracts\nhaving been passed concerning mankind in the Council of the Trinity, of\nthe substance of those contracts, and of man's position under them. The\ngreat concern of Puritanism is with the operation of those contracts on\nman's condition; its leading thought, if it is a Puritanism of a gloomy\nturn, is of awe and fear caused by the threatening aspect of man's\ncondition under these contracts; if of a cheerful turn, of gratitude and\nhope caused by the favourable aspect of it. But in either case, foregone\nevents, the covenant passed, what God has done and does, is the great\nmatter. What there is left for man to do, the human work of\nrighteousness, is secondary, and comes in but to attest and confirm our\nassurance of what God has done for us. We have seen this in Wesley's\nwords already quoted: the first thing for a man is to be justified and\nsanctified, and to have the assurance that, without seeking it by works,\nhe is justified and sanctified; then the desire and works of\nrighteousness follow as a proper result of this condition. Still more\ndoes Calvinism make man's desire and works of righteousness mere\nevidences and benefits of more important things; the desire to work\nrighteousness is among the saving graces applied by the Holy Spirit to\nthe elect, and the last of those graces. _Denique_, says the Synod of\nDort, _last of all_, after faith in the promises and after the witness\nof the Spirit, comes, to establish our assurance, a clear conscience and\nrighteousness. It is manifest how unlike is this order of ideas to\nPaul's order, who starts with the thought of a conscience void of\noffence towards God and man, and builds upon that thought his whole\nsystem.\n\nBut this difference constitutes from the very outset an immense\nscientific superiority for the scheme of Paul. Hope and fear are\nelements of human nature like the love of right, but they are far\nblinder and less scientific elements of it. 'The Bible is a divine\nrevelation; the Bible declares certain things; the things it thus\ndeclares have the witness of our hopes and fears;'--this is the line of\nthought followed by Puritanism. But what science seeks after is a\nsatisfying rational conception of things. A scheme which fails to give\nthis, which gives the contrary of this, may indeed be of a nature to\nmove our hopes and fears, but is to science of none the more value on\nthat account.\n\nNor does our calling such a scheme _a revelation_ mend the matter.\nInstead of covering the scientific inadequacy of a conception by the\nauthority of a revelation, science rather proves the authority of a\nrevelation by the scientific adequacy of the conceptions given in it,\nand limits the sphere of that authority to the sphere of that adequacy.\nThe more an alleged revelation seems to contain precious and striking\nthings, the more will science be inclined to doubt the correctness of\nany deduction which draws from it, within the sphere of these things, a\nscheme which rationally is not satisfying. That the scheme of Puritanism\nis rationally so little satisfying inclines science, not to take it on\nthe authority of the Bible, but to doubt whether it is really in the\nBible. The first appeal which this scheme, having begun outside the\nsphere of reality and experience, makes in the sphere of reality and\nexperience,--its first appeal, therefore, to science,--the appeal to the\nwitness of human hope and fear, does not much mend matters; for science\nknows that numberless conceptions not rationally satisfying are yet the\nground of hope and fear.\n\nPaul does not begin outside the sphere of science; he begins with an\nappeal to reality and experience. And the appeal here with which he\ncommences has, for science, undoubted force and importance; for he\nappeals to a rational conception which is a part, and perhaps the chief\npart, of our experience; the conception of the law of _righteousness_,\nthe very law and ground of human nature so far as this nature is moral.\nThings as they truly are,--facts,--are the object-matter of science; and\nthe moral law in human nature, however this law may have originated, is\nin our actual experience among the greatest of facts.\n\nIf I were not afraid of intruding upon Mr. Ruskin's province, I might\npoint out the witness which etymology itself bears to this law as a\nprime element and _clue_ in man's constitution. Our word righteousness\nmeans going straight, going the way we are meant to go; there are\nlanguages in which the word 'way' or 'road' is also the word for right\nreason and duty; the Greek word for justice and righteousness has for\nits foundation, some say, the idea of describing a certain line,\nfollowing a certain necessary orbit. But for these fanciful helps there\nis no need. When Paul starts with affirming the grandeur and necessity\nof the law of righteousness, science has no difficulty in going along\nwith him. When he fixes as man's right aim 'love, joy, peace,\nlong-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control,'[30]\nhe appeals for witness to the truth of what he says to an experience too\nintimate to need illustration or argument.\n\n[Footnote 30: _Gal._, v, 22, 23.]\n\nThe best confirmation of the scientific validity of the importance which\nPaul thus attaches to the law of righteousness, the law of reason and\nconscience, God as moral law, is to be found in its agreement with the\nimportance attached to this law by teachers the most unlike him; since\nin the eye of science an experience gains as much by having\nuniversality, as in the eye of religion it seems to gain by having\nuniqueness. 'Would you know,' says Epictetus, 'the means to perfection\nwhich Socrates followed? they were these: in every single matter which\ncame before him he made the rule of reason and conscience his one rule\nto follow.' Such was precisely the aim of Paul also; it is an aim to\nwhich science does homage as a satisfying rational conception. And to\nthis aim hope and fear properly attach themselves. For on our following\nthe clue of moral order, or losing it, depends our happiness or misery;\nour life or death in the true sense of those words; our harmony with the\nuniversal order or our disharmony with it; our partaking, as St. Paul\nsays, of the wrath of God or of the glory of God. So that looking to\nthis clue, and fearing to lose hold on it, we may in strict scientific\ntruth say with the author of the Imitation: _Omnia vanitas, pr\u00e6ter amare\nDeum, et illi soli servire_.\n\nBut to serve God, to follow that central clue in our moral being which\nunites us to the universal order, is no easy task; and here again we are\non the most sure ground of experience and psychology. In some way or\nother, says Bishop Wilson, every man is conscious of an opposition in\nhim between the flesh and the spirit. _Video meliora proboque, deteriora\nsequor_, say the thousand times quoted lines of the Roman poet. The\nphilosophical explanation of this conflict does not indeed attribute,\nlike the Manich\u00e6an fancy, any inherent evil to the flesh and its\nworkings; all the forces and tendencies in us are, like our proper\ncentral moral tendency the desire of righteousness, in themselves\nbeneficent. But they require to be harmonised with this tendency,\nbecause this aims directly at our total moral welfare,--our harmony as\nmoral beings with the law of our nature and the law of God,--and derives\nthence a pre-eminence and a right to moderate. And, though they are not\nevil in themselves, the evil which flows from these diverse workings is\nundeniable. The lusts of the flesh, the law in our members, _passion_,\naccording to the Greek word used by Paul, _inordinate affection_,\naccording to the admirable rendering of Paul's Greek word in our English\nBible,[31] take naturally no account of anything but themselves; this\narbitrary and unregulated action of theirs can produce only confusion\nand misery. The spirit, the law of our mind, takes account of the\nuniversal moral order, the will of God, and is indeed the voice of that\norder expressing itself in us. Paul talks of a man sowing to _his_\nflesh,[32] because each of us has of his own this individual body, this\n_congeries_ of flesh and bones, blood and nerves, different from that of\nevery one else, and with desires and impulses driving each of us his own\nseparate way; and he says that a man who sows to this, sows to a\nthousand tyrants, and can reap no worthy harvest. But he talks of sowing\nto _the_ spirit; because there is one central moral tendency which for\nus and for all men is the law of our being, and through reason and\nrighteousness we move in this universal order and with it. In this\nconformity to _the will of God_, as we religiously name the moral order,\nis our peace and happiness.\n\n[Footnote 31: _Col._, iii, 5.]\n\n[Footnote 32: _Gal._, vi, 8.]\n\nBut how to find the energy and power to bring all those self-seeking\ntendencies of the flesh, those multitudinous, swarming, eager, and\nincessant impulses, into obedience to the central tendency? Mere\ncommanding and forbidding is of no avail, and only irritates opposition\nin the desires it tries to control. It even enlarges their power,\nbecause it makes us feel our impotence; and the confusion caused by\ntheir ungoverned working is increased by our being filled with a\ndeepened sense of disharmony, remorse, and dismay. 'I was alive without\nthe law once,'[33] says Paul; the natural play of all the forces and\ndesires in me went on smoothly enough so long as I did not attempt to\nintroduce order and regulation among them. But the condition of immoral\ntranquillity could not in man be permanent. That natural law of reason\nand conscience which all men have, was sufficient by itself to produce a\nconsciousness of rebellion and disquietude. Matters became only worse by\nthe exhibition of the Mosaic law, the offspring of a moral sense more\npoignant and stricter, however little it might show of subtle insight\nand delicacy, than the moral sense of the mass of mankind. The very\nstringency of the Mosaic code increased the feeling of dismay and\nhelplessness; it set forth the law of righteousness more authoritatively\nand minutely, yet did not supply any sufficient power to keep it.\nNeither the law of nature, therefore, nor the law of Moses, availed to\nblind men to righteousness. So we come to the word which is the\ngoverning word of the Epistle to the Romans,--the word _all_. As the\nword _righteousness_ is the governing word of St. Paul's entire mind and\nlife, so the word _all_ is the governing word of this his chief epistle.\nThe Gentile with the law of nature, the Jew with the law of Moses, alike\nfail to achieve righteousness. '_All_ have sinned, and come short of the\nglory of God.'[34] All do what they would not, and do not what they\nwould; all feel themselves enslaved, impotent, guilty, miserable. 'O\nwretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this\ndeath?'[35]\n\n[Footnote 33: _Rom._, vii, 9.]\n\n[Footnote 34: _Rom._, iii, 23.]\n\n[Footnote 35: _Rom._, vii, 24.]\n\n\nHitherto, we have followed Paul in the sphere of morals; we have now\ncome with him to the point where he enters the sphere of religion.\nReligion is that which binds and holds us to the practice of\nrighteousness. We have accompanied Paul, and found him always treading\nsolid ground, till he is brought to straits where a binding and holding\npower of this kind is necessary. Here is the critical point for the\nscientific worth of his doctrine. 'Now at last,' cries Puritanism, 'the\ngreat apostle is about to become even as one of us; there is no issue\nfor him now, but the issue we have always declared he finds. He has\nrecourse to our theurgy of election, justification, substitution, and\nimputed righteousness.' We will proceed to show that Paul has recourse\nto nothing of the kind.\n\n\nII.\n\nWe have seen how Puritanism seems to come by its religion in the first\ninstance theologically and from authority; Paul by his, on the other\nhand, psychologically and from experience. Even the points, therefore,\nin which they both meet, they have not reached in the same order or by\nthe same road. The miserable sense of sin from unrighteousness, the\njoyful witness of a good conscience from righteousness, these are points\nin which Puritanism and St. Paul meet. They are facts of human nature\nand can be verified by science. But whereas Puritanism, so far as\nscience is concerned, ends with these facts, and rests the whole weight\nof its antecedent theurgy upon the witness to it they offer, Paul begins\nwith these facts, and has not yet, so far as we have followed him,\ncalled upon them to prove anything but themselves. The scientific\ndifference, as we have already remarked, which this establishes between\nPaul and Puritanism is immense, and is all in Paul's favour. Sin and\nrighteousness, together with their eternal accompaniments of fear and\nhope, misery and happiness, can prove themselves; but they can by no\nmeans prove, also, Puritanism's history of original sin, election and\njustification.\n\nPuritanism is fond of maintaining, indeed, that Paul's doctrines derive\ntheir sanction, not from any agreement with science and experience, but\nfrom his miraculous conversion, and that this conversion it was which in\nhis own judgment gave to them their authority. But whatever sanction the\nmiracle of his conversion may in his own eyes have lent to the doctrines\nafterwards propounded by Paul, it is clear that, for science, his\nconversion adds to his doctrines no force at all which they do not\nalready possess in themselves. Paul's conversion is for science an event\nof precisely the same nature as the conversions of which the history of\nMethodism relates so many; events described, for the most part, just as\nthe event of Paul's conversion is described, with perfect good faith,\nand which we may perfectly admit to have happened just in the manner\nrelated, without on that account attributing to those who underwent them\nany source of certitude for a scheme of doctrine which this doctrine\ndoes not on other and better grounds possess.\n\nSurely this proposition has only to be clearly stated in order to be\nself-evident. The conversion of Paul is in itself an incident of\nprecisely the same order as the conversion of Sampson Staniforth, a\nMethodist soldier in the campaign of Fontenoy. Staniforth himself\nrelates his conversion as follows, in words which bear plainly marked on\nthem the very stamp of good faith:--\n\n    'From twelve at night till two it was my turn to stand sentinel\n    at a dangerous post. I had a fellow-sentinel, but I desired him\n    to go away, which he willingly did. As soon as I was alone, I\n    knelt down and determined not to rise, but to continue crying\n    and wrestling with God till he had mercy on me. How long I was\n    in that agony I cannot tell; but as I looked up to heaven I saw\n    the clouds open exceeding bright, and I saw Jesus hanging on the\n    cross. At the same moment these words were applied to my heart:\n    \"Thy sins are forgiven thee.\" All guilt was gone, and my soul\n    was filled with unutterable peace: the fear of death and hell\n    was vanished away. I was filled with wonder and astonishment. I\n    closed my eyes, but the impression was still the same; and for\n    about ten weeks, while I was awake, let me be where I would, the\n    same appearance was still before my eyes, and the same\n    impression upon my heart, _Thy sins are forgiven thee_.'\n\nNot the narrative, in the Acts, of Paul's journey to Damascus, could\nmore convince us, as we have said, of its own honesty. But this honesty\nmakes nothing, as every one will admit, for the scientific truth of any\nscheme of doctrine propounded by Sampson Staniforth, which must prove\nitself and its own scientific value before science can admit it.\nPrecisely the same is it with Paul's doctrine; and we repeat, therefore,\nthat he and his doctrine have herein a great advantage over Puritanism,\nin that, so far as we have yet followed them, they, unlike Puritanism,\nrely on facts of experience and assert nothing which science cannot\nverify.\n\nWe have now to see whether Paul, in passing from the undoubted facts of\nexperience, with which he begins, to his religion properly so called,\nabandons in any essential points of his teaching the advantage with\nwhich he started, and ends, as Puritanism commences, with a batch of\narbitrary and unscientific assumptions.\n\nWe left Paul in collision with a fact of human nature, but in itself a\nsterile fact, a fact on which it is possible to dwell too long, although\nPuritanism, thinking this impossible, has remained intensely absorbed in\nthe contemplation of it, and indeed has never properly got beyond\nit,--the sense of sin. Sin is not a monster to be mused on, but an\nimpotence to be got rid of. All thinking about it, beyond what is\nindispensable for the firm effort to get rid of it, is waste of energy\nand waste of time. We then enter that element of morbid and subjective\nbrooding, in which so many have perished. This sense of sin, however, it\nis also possible to have not strongly enough to beget the firm effort to\nget rid of it, and the Greeks, with all their great gifts, had this\nsense not strongly enough; its strength in the Hebrew people is one of\nthis people's mainsprings. And no Hebrew prophet or psalmist felt what\nsin was more powerfully than Paul. 'Mine iniquities have taken hold upon\nme so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of\nmine head; therefore my heart faileth me.'[36] _They are more than the\nhairs of mine head._ The motions of what Paul calls 'the law in our\nmembers' are indeed a hydrabrood; when we are working against one fault,\na dozen others crop up without our expecting it; and this it is which\ndrives the man who deals seriously with himself to difficulty, nay to\ndespair. Paul did not need James to tell him that whoever offends on one\npoint is, so far at least as his own conscience and inward satisfaction\nare concerned, guilty of all;[37] he knew it himself, and the unrest\nthis knowledge gave him was his very starting-point. He knew, too, that\nnothing outward, no satisfaction of all the requirements men may make of\nus, no privileges of any sort, can give peace of conscience;--of\nconscience, 'whose praise is not of men but of God.'[38] He knew, also,\nthat the law of the moral order stretches beyond us and our private\nconscience, is independent of our sense of having kept it, and stands\nabsolute and what in itself it is; even, therefore, though I may know\nnothing against myself, yet this is not enough, I may still not be\njust.[39] Finally, Paul knew that merely to know all this and say it,\nis of no use, advances us nothing; 'the kingdom of God is not in word\nbut in power.'[40]\n\n[Footnote 36: _Ps._ xl, 12.]\n\n[Footnote 37: _James_, ii, 10.]\n\n[Footnote 38: _Rom._, ii, 29.]\n\n[Footnote 39: I _Cor._, iv, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 40: _Ibid._, 20.]\n\nWe have several times said that the Hebrew race apprehended God,--the\nuniversal order by which all things fulfil the law of their\nbeing,--chiefly as the moral order in human nature, and that it was\ntheir greatness that they apprehended him as this so distinctly and\npowerfully. But it is also characteristic of them, and perhaps it is\nwhat mainly distinguishes their spirit from the spirit of medi\u00e6val\nChristianity, that they constantly thought, too, of God as the source of\nlife and breath and all things, and of what they called 'fulness of\nlife' in all things. This way of thinking was common to them with the\nGreeks; although, whereas the Greeks threw more delicacy and imagination\ninto it, the Hebrews threw more energy and vital warmth. But to the\nHebrew, as to the Greek, the gift of life, and health, and the world,\nwas divine, as well as the gift of morals. 'God's righteousness,'\nindeed, 'standeth like the strong mountains, his judgments are like the\ngreat deep; he is a righteous judge, strong and patient, who is provoked\nevery day.'[41] This is the Hebrew's first and deepest conception of\nGod,--as the source of the moral order. But God is also, to the Hebrew,\n'our rock, which is higher than we,' the power by which we have been\n'upholden ever since we were born,' that has 'fashioned us and laid his\nhand upon us' and envelops us on every side, that has 'made us fearfully\nand wonderfully,' and whose 'mercy is over all his works.'[42] He is\nthe power that 'saves both man and beast, gives them drink of his\npleasures as out of the river,' and with whom is 'the well of\nlife.'[43] In his speech at Athens, Paul shows how full he, too, was of\nthis feeling; and in the famous passage in the first chapter of the\nEpistle to the Romans, where he asserts the existence of the natural\nmoral law, the source he assigns to this law is not merely God in\nconscience, the righteous judge, but God in the world and the workings\nof the world, the eternal and divine power from which all life and\nwholesome energy proceed.[44]\n\n[Footnote 41: _Ps._ xxxvi, 6; vii, 11.]\n\n[Footnote 42: _Ps._ lxi, 2; lxii, 6; cxxxix, 5, 14; cxlv, 9.]\n\n[Footnote 43: _Ps._ xxxvi, 6, 8, 9.]\n\n[Footnote 44: _Rom._, i, 19-21.]\n\nThis element in which we live and move and have our being, which\nstretches around and beyond the strictly moral element in us, around and\nbeyond the finite sphere of what is originated, measured, and controlled\nby our own understanding and will,--this infinite element is very\npresent to Paul's thoughts, and makes a profound impression on them. By\nthis element we are receptive and influenced, not originative and\ninfluencing; now, we all of us receive far more than we originate. Our\npleasure from a spring day we do not make; our pleasure, even, from an\napproving conscience we do not make. And yet we feel that both the one\npleasure and the other can, and often do, work with us in a wonderful\nway for our good. So we get the thought of an impulsion outside\nourselves which is at once awful and beneficent. 'No man,' as the Hebrew\npsalm says, 'hath quickened his own soul.'[45] 'I know,' says Jeremiah,\n'that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to\ndirect his steps.'[46] Most true and natural is this feeling; and the\ngreater men are, the more natural is this feeling to them. Great men\nlike Sylla and Napoleon have loved to attribute their success to their\nfortune, their star; religious great men have loved to say that their\nsufficiency was of God.[47] But through every great spirit runs a train\nof feeling of this sort; and the power and depth which there undoubtedly\nis in Calvinism, comes from Calvinism's being overwhelmed by it. Paul is\nnot, like Calvinism, overwhelmed by it; but it is always before his mind\nand strongly agitates his thoughts. The voluntary, rational, and human\nworld, of righteousness, moral choice, effort, filled the first place in\nhis spirit. But the necessary, mystical, and divine world, of influence,\nsympathy, emotion, filled the second; and he could pass naturally from\nthe one world to the other. The presence in Paul of this twofold feeling\nacted irresistibly upon his doctrine. What he calls 'the power that\nworketh in us,'[48] and that produces results transcending all our\nexpectations and calculations, he instinctively sought to combine with\nour personal agencies of reason and conscience.\n\n[Footnote 45: _Ps._ xxii, 29.]\n\n[Footnote 46: _Jer._, x, 23.]\n\n[Footnote 47: II _Cor._, iii, 5.]\n\n[Footnote 48: _Eph._, iii, 20.]\n\nOf such a mysterious power and its operation some clear notion may be\ngot by anybody who has ever had any overpowering attachment, or has\nbeen, according to the common expression, in love. Every one knows how\nbeing in love changes for the time a man's spiritual atmosphere, and\nmakes animation and buoyancy where before there was flatness and\ndulness. One may even say that this is the reason why being in love is\nso popular with the whole human race,--because it relieves in so\nirresistible and delightful a manner the tedium or depression of\ncommon-place human life. And not only does it change the atmosphere of\nour spirits, making air, light, and movement where before was stagnation\nand gloom, but it also sensibly and powerfully increases our faculties\nof action. It is matter of the commonest remark how a timid man who is\nin love will show courage, or an indolent man will show diligence. Nay,\na timid man who would be only the more paralysed in a moment of danger\nby being told that it is his bounden duty as a man to show firmness, and\nthat he must be ruined and disgraced for ever if he does not, will show\nfirmness quite easily from being in love. An indolent man who shrinks\nback from vigorous effort only the more because he is told and knows\nthat it is a man's business to show energy, and that it is shameful in\nhim if he does not, will show energy quite easily from being in love.\nThis, I say, we learn from the analogy of the most everyday\nexperience;--that a powerful attachment will give a man spirits and\nconfidence which he could by no means call up or command of himself; and\nthat in this mood he can do wonders which would not be possible to him\nwithout it.\n\nWe have seen how Paul felt himself to be for the sake of righteousness\n_apprehended_, to use his own expression, by Christ. 'I seek,' he says,\n'to apprehend that for which also I am apprehended by Christ.'[49] This\nfor which he is thus apprehended is,--still to use his own words,--_the\nrighteousness of God_; not an incomplete and maimed righteousness, not a\npartial and unsatisfying establishment of the law of the spirit,\ndominant to-day, deposed to-morrow, effective at one or two points,\nfailing in a hundred; no, but an entire conformity at all points with\nthe divine moral order, the will of God, and, in consequence, a sense of\nharmony with this order, of acceptance with God.\n\n[Footnote 49: _Philipp._, iii, 12.]\n\nIn some points Paul had always served this order with a clear\nconscience. He did not steal, he did not commit adultery. But he was at\nthe same time, he says himself, 'a blasphemer and a persecutor and an\ninsulter,'[50] and the contemplation of Jesus Christ made him see this,\nimpressed it forcibly upon his mind. Here was his greatness, and the\nworth of his way of appropriating Christ. We have seen how Calvinism,\ntoo,--Calvinism which has built itself upon St. Paul,--is a blasphemer,\nwhen it speaks of good works done by those who do not hold the Calvinist\ndoctrine. There would need no great sensitiveness of conscience, one\nwould think, to show that Calvinism has often been, also, a persecutor,\nand an insulter. Calvinism, as well as Paul, professes to study Jesus\nChrist. But the difference between Paul's study of Christ and\nCalvinism's is this: that Paul by studying Christ got to know himself\nclearly, and to transform his narrow conception of righteousness; while\nCalvinism studies both Christ and Paul after him to no such good\npurpose.\n\n[Footnote 50: I _Tim._, i, 13.]\n\nThese, however, are but the veriest rudiments of the history of Paul's\ngain from Jesus Christ, as the particular impression mentioned is but\nthe veriest fragment of the total impression produced by the\ncontemplation of Christ upon him. The sum and substance of that total\nimpression may best be conveyed by two words,--_without sin_.\n\nWe must here revert to what we have already said of the importance, for\nsound criticism of a man's ideas, of the order in which his ideas come.\nFor us, who approach Christianity through a scholastic theology, it is\nChrist's divinity which establishes his being without sin. For Paul, who\napproached Christianity through his personal experience, it was Jesus\nChrist's being without sin which establishes his divinity. The large and\ncomplete conception of righteousness to which he himself had slowly and\nlate, and only by Jesus Christ's help, awakened, in Jesus he seemed to\nsee existing absolutely and naturally. The devotion to this conception\nwhich made it meat and drink to carry it into effect, a devotion of\nwhich he himself was strongly and deeply conscious, he saw in Jesus\nstill stronger, by far, and deeper than in himself. But for attaining\nthe righteousness of God, for reaching an absolute conformity with the\nmoral order and with God's will, he saw no such impotence existing in\nJesus Christ's case as in his own. For Jesus, the uncertain conflict\nbetween the law in our members and the law of the spirit did not appear\nto exist. Those eternal vicissitudes of victory and defeat, which drove\nPaul to despair, in Jesus were absent. Smoothly and inevitably he\nfollowed the real and eternal order, in preference to the momentary and\napparent order. Obstacles outside him there were plenty, but obstacles\nwithin him there were none. He was led by the spirit of God; he was dead\nto sin, he lived to God; and in this life to God he persevered even to\nthe cruel bodily death of the cross. As many as are led by the spirit of\nGod, says Paul, are the sons of God.[51] If this is so with even us,\nwho live to God so feebly and who render such an imperfect obedience,\nhow much more is he who lives to God entirely and who renders an\nunalterable obedience, the unique and only Son of God?\n\n[Footnote 51: _Rom._, viii, 14.]\n\nThis is undoubtedly the main line of movement which Paul's ideas\nrespecting Jesus Christ follow. He had been trained, however, in the\nscholastic theology of Judaism, just as we are trained in the scholastic\ntheology of Christianity; would that we were as little embarrassed with\nour training as he was with his! The Jewish theological doctrine\nrespecting the eternal word or wisdom of God, which was with God from\nthe beginning before the oldest of his works, and through which the\nworld was created, this doctrine, which appears in the Book of Proverbs\nand again in the Book of Wisdom,[52] Paul applied to Jesus Christ, and\nin the Epistle to the Colossians there is a remarkable passage[53] with\nclear signs of his thus applying it. But then this metaphysical and\ntheological basis to the historic being of Jesus is something added by\nPaul from outside to his own essential ideas concerning him, something\nwhich fitted them and was naturally taken on to them; it is secondary,\nit is not an original part of his system, much less the ground of it. It\nfills a very different place in his system from the place which it fills\nin the system of the author of the Fourth Gospel, who takes his\nstarting-point from it. Paul's starting-point, it cannot be too often\nrepeated, is the idea of righteousness; and his concern with Jesus is as\nthe clue to righteousness, not as the clue to transcendental ontology.\nSpeculations in this region had no overpowering attraction for Paul,\nnotwithstanding the traces of an acquaintance with them which we find in\nhis writings, and notwithstanding the great activity of his intellect.\nThis activity threw itself with an unerring instinct into a sphere\nwhere, with whatever travail and through whatever impediments to clear\nexpression, directly practical religious results might yet be won, and\nnot into any sphere of abstract speculation.\n\n[Footnote 52: _Prov._, viii, 22-31; and _Wisd._, vii, 25-27.]\n\n[Footnote 53: _Col._, i, 15-17.]\n\nMuch more visible and important than his identification of Jesus with\nthe divine hypostasis known as the Logos, is Paul's identification of\nhim with the Messiah. Ever present is his recognition of him as the\nMessiah to whom all the law and prophets pointed, of whom the heart of\nthe Jewish race was full, and on whom the Jewish instructors of Paul's\nyouth had dwelt abundantly. The Jewish language and ideas respecting the\nend of the world and the Messiah's kingdom, his day, his presence, his\nappearing, his glory, Paul applied to Jesus, and constantly used. Of the\nforce and reality which these ideas and expressions had for him there\ncan be no question; as to his use of them, only two remarks are needed.\nOne is, that in him these Jewish ideas,--as any one will feel who calls\nto mind a genuine display of them like that in the Apocalypse,--are\nspiritualised; and as he advances in his course they are spiritualised\nincreasingly. The other remark is, that important as these ideas are in\nPaul, of them, too, the importance is only secondary, compared with that\nof the great central matter of his thoughts: _the righteousness of God,\nthe non-fulfilment of it by man, the fulfilment of it by Christ_.\n\nOnce more we are led to a result favourable to the scientific value of\nPaul's teaching. That Jesus Christ was the divine Logos, the second\nperson of the Trinity, science can neither deny nor affirm. That he was\nthe Jewish Messiah, who will some day appear in the sky with the sound\nof trumpets, to put an end to the actual kingdoms of the world and to\nestablish his own kingdom, science can neither deny nor affirm. The very\nterms of which these propositions are composed are such as science is\nunable to handle. But that the Jesus of the Bible follows the universal\nmoral order and the will of God, without being let and hindered as we\nare by the motions of private passion and by self-will, this is evident\nto whoever can read the Bible with open eyes. It is just what any\ncriticism of the Gospel-history, which sees that history as it really\nis, tells us; it is the scientific result of that history. And this is\nthe result which pre-eminently occupies Paul. Of Christ's life and\ndeath, the all-importance for us, according to Paul, is that by means of\nthem, 'denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly,\nrighteously, and godly;' should be enabled to 'bear fruit to God' in\n'love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness,\nself-control.'[54] Of Christ's life and death the scope was 'to redeem\nus from all iniquity, and make us purely zealous for good works.'[55]\nPaul says by way of preface, that we are to live thus in the actual\nworld which now is, 'with the expectation of the appearing of the glory\nof God and Christ.'[56] By nature and habit, and with his full belief\nthat the end of the world was nigh at hand, Paul used these words to\nmean a Messianic coming and kingdom. Later Christianity has transferred\nthem, as it has transferred so much else of Paul's, to a life beyond the\ngrave, but it has by no means spiritualised them. Paul, as his spiritual\ngrowth advanced, spiritualised them more and more; he came to think, in\nusing them, more and more of a gradual inward transformation of the\nworld by a conformity like Christ's to the will of God, than of a\nMessianic advent. Yet even then they are always second with him, and not\nfirst; the essence of saving grace is always to make us righteous, to\nbring us into conformity with the divine law, to enable us to 'bear\nfruit to God.'\n\n[Footnote 54: _Tit._, ii, 12; _Rom._, vii, 4; _Gal._, v, 22, 23.]\n\n[Footnote 55: _Tit._, ii, 14.]\n\n[Footnote 56: _Ibid._, 13.]\n\n'Jesus Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from\niniquity.' First of all, he rendered an unbroken obedience to the law of\nthe spirit; he served the spirit of God; he came, not to do his own\nwill, but the will of God. Now, the law of the spirit makes men one; it\nis only by the law in our members that we are many. Secondly, therefore,\nJesus Christ had an unfailing sense of what we have called, using an\nexpressive modern term, the _solidarity_ of men: that it was not God's\nwill that one of his human creatures should perish. Thirdly, Jesus\nChrist persevered in this uninterrupted obedience to the law of the\nspirit, in this unfailing sense of human solidarity, even to the death;\nthough everything befell him which might break the one or tire out the\nother. Lastly, he had in himself, in all he said and did, that ineffable\nforce of attraction which doubled the virtue of everything said or done\nby him.\n\nIf ever there was a case in which the wonder-working power of\nattachment, in a man for whom the moral sympathies and the desire of\nrighteousness were all-powerful, might employ itself and work its\nwonders, it was here. Paul felt this power penetrate him; and he felt,\nalso, how by perfectly identifying himself through it with Jesus, and in\nno other way, could he ever get the confidence and the force to do as\nJesus did. He thus found a point in which the mighty world outside man,\nand the weak world inside him, seemed to combine for his salvation. The\nstruggling stream of duty, which had not volume enough to bear him to\nhis goal, was suddenly reinforced by the immense tidal wave of sympathy\nand emotion.\n\nTo this new and potent influence Paul gave the name of _faith_. More\nfully he calls it: 'Faith that worketh _through love_.'[57] The word\n_faith_ points, no doubt, to 'coming by hearing,' and has possibly a\nreminiscence, for Paul, of his not having with his own waking eyes, like\nthe original disciples, seen Jesus, and of his special mission being to\nGentiles who had not seen Jesus either. But the essential meaning of the\nword is 'power of holding on to the unseen,' 'fidelity.' Other\nattachments demand fidelity in absence to an object which, at some time\nor other, nevertheless, has been seen; this attachment demands fidelity\nto an object which both is absent and has never been seen by us. It is\ntherefore rightly called not constancy, but faith; a power,\npre-eminently, of _holding fast to an unseen power of goodness_.\nIdentifying ourselves with Jesus Christ through this attachment we\nbecome as he was. We live with his thoughts and feelings, and we\nparticipate, therefore, in his freedom from the ruinous law in our\nmembers, in his obedience to the saving law of the spirit, in his\nconformity to the eternal order, in the joy and peace of his life to\nGod. 'The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' says Paul, 'freed\nme from the law of sin and death.'[58] This is what is done for us by\n_faith_.\n\n[Footnote 57: _Gal._, v, 6.]\n\n[Footnote 58: _Rom._, viii, 2.]\n\nIt is evident that some difficulty arises out of Paul's adding to the\ngeneral sense of the word faith,--_a holding fast to an unseen power of\ngoodness_,--a particular sense of his own,--_identification with\nChrist_. It will at once appear that this faith of Paul's is in truth a\nspecific form of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness; and that\nwhile it can properly be said of Abraham, for instance, that he was\njustified by faith, if we take faith in its plain sense of holding fast\nto an unseen power of goodness, yet it cannot without difficulty and\nrecourse to a strained figure be said of him, if we take faith in Paul's\nspecific sense of identification with Christ. Paul however, undoubtedly,\nhaving conveyed his new specific sense into the word faith, still uses\nthe word in all cases where, without this specific sense, it was before\napplicable and usual; and in this way he often creates ambiguity. Why,\nit may be asked, does Paul, instead of employing a special term to\ndenote his special meaning, still thus employ the general term faith? We\nare inclined to think it was from that desire to get for his words and\nthoughts not only the real but also the apparent sanction and\nconsecration of the Hebrew Scriptures, which we have called his tendency\nto Judaise. It was written of the founder of Israel, Abraham, that he\n_believed_ God and it was counted to him for righteousness. The prophet\nHabakkuk had the famous text: 'The just shall live by _faith_.'[59]\nJesus, too, had used and sanctioned the use of the word _faith_ to\nsignify cleaving to the unseen God's power of goodness as shown in\nChrist.[60] Peter and John and the other apostles habitually used the\nword in the same sense, with the modification introduced by Christ's\ndeparture. This was enough to make Paul retain for that vital operation,\nwhich was the heart of his whole religious system, the name of faith,\nthough he had considerably developed and enlarged the name's usual\nmeaning. Fraught with this new and developed sense, the term does not\nalways quite well suit the cases to which it was in its old sense, with\nperfect propriety, applied; this, however, Paul did not regard. The term\napplied with undeniable truth, though not with perfect adequacy, to the\ngreat spiritual operation whereto he affixed it; and it was at the same\ntime the name given to the crowning grace of the great father of the\nJewish nation, Abraham; it was the prophet Habakkuk's talismanic and\nconsecrated term, _faith_.\n\n[Footnote 59: _Gen._, xv, 6; _Habakkuk_, ii, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 60: _Mark_, xi, 22.]\n\nIn this word _faith_, as used by St. Paul,[61] we reach a point round\nwhich the ceaseless stream of religious exposition and discussion has\nfor ages circled. Even for those who misconceive Paul's line of ideas\nmost completely, faith is so evidently the central point in his system\nthat their thoughts cannot but centre upon it. Puritanism, as is well\nknown, has talked of little else but faith. And the word is of such a\nnature, that, the true clue once lost which Paul has given us to its\nmeaning, every man may put into it almost anything he likes, all the\nfancies of his superstition or of his fanaticism. To say, therefore,\nthat to have faith in Christ means to be attached to Christ, to embrace\nChrist, to be identified with Christ, is not enough; the question is, to\nbe attached to him _how_, to embrace him _how_?\n\n[Footnote 61: With secondary uses of the word, such as its use with\nthe article, '_the_ faith,' in expressions like 'the words of the\nfaith,' to signify the body of tenets and principles received by\nbelievers from the apostle, we need not here concern ourselves. They\npresent no difficulty.]\n\nA favourite expression of popular theology conveys perfectly the popular\ndefinition of faith: _to rest in the finished work of the Saviour_. In\nthe scientific language of Protestant theology, to embrace Christ, to\nhave saving faith, is 'to give our consent heartily to the covenant of\ngrace, and so to receive the benefit of justification, whereby God\npardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous for the righteousness\nof Christ imputed to us.' This is mere theurgy, in which, so far as we\nhave yet gone, we have not found Paul dealing. Wesley, with his genius\nfor godliness, struggled all his life for some deeper and more edifying\naccount of that faith, which he felt working wonders in his own soul,\nthan that it was a hearty consent to the covenant of grace and an\nacceptance of the benefit of Christ's imputed righteousness. Yet this\namiable and gracious spirit, but intellectually slight and shallow\ncompared to Paul, beat his wings in vain. Paul, nevertheless, had solved\nthe problem for him, if only he could have had eyes to see Paul's\nsolution.\n\n'He that believes in Christ,' says Wesley, 'discerns spiritual things:\nhe is enabled to taste, see, hear, and feel God.' There is nothing\npractical and solid here. A company of Cornish revivalists will have no\ndifficulty in tasting, seeing, hearing, and feeling God, twenty times\nover, to-night, and yet may be none the better for it to-morrow morning.\nWhen Paul said, _In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything\nnor uncircumcision, but faith that worketh through love; Have faith in\nChrist!_ these words did not mean for him: 'Give your hearty belief and\nconsent to the covenant of grace; Accept the offered benefit of\njustification through Christ's imputed righteousness.' They did not\nmean: 'Try and discern spiritual things, try and taste, see, hear, and\nfeel God.' They did not mean: 'Rest in the finished work of Christ the\nSaviour.' No, they meant: _Die with him!_\n\nThe object of this treatise is not religious edification, but the true\ncriticism of a great and misunderstood author. Yet it is impossible to\nbe in presence of this Pauline conception of faith without remarking on\nthe incomparable power of edification which it contains. It is indeed a\ncrowning evidence of that piercing practical religious sense which we\nhave attributed to Paul. It is at once mystical and rational; and it\nenlists in its service the best forces of both worlds,--the world of\nreason and morals, and the world of sympathy and emotion. The world of\nreason and duty has an excellent clue to action, but wants motive-power;\nthe world of sympathy and influence has an irresistible force of\nmotive-power, but wants a clue for directing its exertion. The danger of\nthe one world is weariness in well-doing; the danger of the other is\nsterile raptures and immoral fanaticism. Paul takes from both worlds\nwhat can help him, and leaves what cannot. The elemental power of\nsympathy and emotion in us, a power which extends beyond the limits of\nour own will and conscious activity, which we cannot measure and\ncontrol, and which in each of us differs immensely in force, volume, and\nmode of manifestation, he calls into full play, and sets it to work with\nall its strength and in all its variety. But one unalterable object is\nassigned by him to this power: _to die with Christ to the law of the\nflesh, to live with Christ to the law of the mind_.\n\nThis is the doctrine of the _necrosis_,[62]--Paul's central doctrine,\nand the doctrine which makes his profoundness and originality. His\nrepeated and minute lists of practices and feelings to be followed or\nsuppressed, now take a heightened significance. They were the matter by\nwhich his faith tried itself and knew itself. Those multitudinous\nmotions of appetite and self-will which reason and conscience\ndisapproved, reason and conscience could yet not govern, and had to\nyield to them. This, as we have seen, is what drove Paul almost to\ndespair. Well, then, how did Paul's faith, working through love, help\nhim here? It enabled him to reinforce duty by affection. In the central\nneed of his nature, the desire to govern these motions of\nunrighteousness, it enabled him to say: _Die to them! Christ did._ If\nany man be in Christ, said Paul--that is, if any man identifies himself\nwith Christ by attachment so that he enters into his feelings and lives\nwith his life,--he is a new creature;[63] he can do, and does, what\nChrist did. First, he suffers with him. Christ throughout his life and\nin his death presented his body a living sacrifice to God; every\nself-willed impulse blindly trying to assert itself without respect of\nthe universal order, he died to. You, says Paul to his disciple, are to\ndo the same. Never mind how various and multitudinous the impulses are;\nimpulses to intemperance, concupiscence, covetousness, pride, sloth,\nenvy, malignity, anger, clamour, bitterness, harshness, unmercifulness.\nDie to them all, and to each as it comes! Christ did. If you cannot,\nyour attachment, your faith, must be one that goes but a very little\nway. In an ordinary human attachment, out of love to a woman, out of\nlove to a friend, out of love to a child, you can suppress quite easily,\nbecause by sympathy you enter into their feelings, this or that impulse\nof selfishness which happens to conflict with them, and which hitherto\nyou have obeyed. _All_ impulses of selfishness conflict with Christ's\nfeelings, he showed it by dying to them all; if you are one with him by\nfaith and sympathy, you can die to them also. Then, secondly, if you\nthus die with him, you become transformed by the renewing of your mind,\nand rise with him. The law of the spirit of life which is in Christ\nbecomes the law of your life also, and frees you from the law of sin and\ndeath. You rise with him to that harmonious conformity with the real and\neternal order, that sense of pleasing God who trieth the hearts, which\nis life and peace, and which grows more and more till it becomes glory.\nIf you suffer with him, therefore, you shall also be glorified with him.\n\n[Footnote 62: II _Cor._, iv, 10.]\n\n[Footnote 63: II _Cor._, v, 17.]\n\nThe real worth of this mystical conception depends on the fitness of the\ncharacter and history of Jesus Christ for inspiring such an enthusiasm\nof attachment and devotion as that which Paul's notion of faith implies.\nIf the character and history are eminently such as to inspire it, then\nPaul has no doubt found a mighty aid towards the attainment of that\nrighteousness of which Jesus Christ's life afforded the admirable\npattern. A great solicitude is always shown by popular Christianity to\nestablish a radical difference between Jesus and a teacher, like\nSocrates. Ordinary theologians establish this difference by\ntranscendental distinctions into which science cannot follow them. But\nwhat makes for science the radical difference between Jesus and\nSocrates, is that such a conception as Paul's would, if applied to\nSocrates, be out of place and ineffective. Socrates inspired boundless\nfriendship and esteem; but the inspiration of reason and conscience is\nthe one inspiration which comes from him, and which impels us to live\nrighteously as he did. A penetrating enthusiasm of love, sympathy, pity,\nadoration, reinforcing the inspiration of reason and duty, does not\nbelong to Socrates. With Jesus it is different. On this point it is\nneedless to argue; history has proved. In the midst of errors the most\nprosaic, the most immoral, the most unscriptural, concerning God,\nChrist, and righteousness, the immense emotion of love and sympathy\ninspired by the person and character of Jesus has had to work almost by\nitself alone for righteousness; and it has worked wonders. The\nsurpassing religious grandeur of Paul's conception of faith is that it\nseizes a real salutary emotional force of incalculable magnitude, and\nreinforces moral effort with it.\n\nPaul's mystical conception is not complete without its relation of us to\nour fellow-men, as well as its relation of us to Jesus Christ. Whoever\nidentifies himself with Christ, identifies himself with Christ's idea of\nthe solidarity of men. The whole race is conceived as one body, having\nto die and rise with Christ, and forming by the joint action of its\nregenerate members the mystical body of Christ. Hence the truth of that\nwhich Bishop Wilson says: 'It is not so much our neighbour's interest as\nour own that we love him.' Jesus Christ's life, with which we by faith\nidentify ourselves, is not complete, his aspiration after the eternal\norder is not satisfied, so long as only Jesus himself follows this\norder, or only this or that individual amongst us men follows it. The\nsame law of emotion and sympathy, therefore, which prevails in our\ninward self-discipline, is to prevail in our dealings with others. The\nmotions of sin in ourselves we succeed in mortifying, not by saying to\nourselves that they are sinful, but by sympathy with Christ in his\nmortification of them. In like manner, our duties towards our neighbour\nwe perform, not in deference to external commands and prohibitions, but\nthrough identifying ourselves with him by sympathy with Christ who\nidentified himself with him. Therefore, we owe no man anything but to\nlove one another; and he who loves his neighbour fulfils the law towards\nhim, because he seeks to do him good and forbears to do him harm just as\nif he was himself.\n\nMr. Lecky cannot see that the command to speak the truth to one's\nneighbour is a command which has a natural sanction. But according to\nthese Pauline ideas it has a clear natural sanction. For, if my\nneighbour is merely an extension of myself, deceiving my neighbour is\nthe same as deceiving myself; and than self-deceit there is nothing by\nnature more baneful. And on this ground Paul puts the injunction. He\nsays: 'Speak every man truth to his neighbour, _for_ we are members one\nof another.'[64] This direction to identify ourselves in Jesus Christ\nwith our neighbours is hard and startling, no doubt, like the direction\nto identify ourselves with Jesus and die with him. But it is also, like\nthat direction, inspiring; and not, like a set of mere mechanical\ncommands and prohibitions, lifeless and unaiding. It shows a profound\npractical religious sense, and rests upon facts of human nature which\nexperience can follow and appreciate.\n\n[Footnote 64: _Eph._, iv, 25.]\n\nThe three essential terms of Pauline theology are not, therefore, as\npopular theology makes them: _calling_, _justification_,\n_sanctification_. They are rather these: _dying with Christ_,\n_resurrection from the dead_, _growing into Christ_.[65] The order in\nwhich these terms are placed indicates, what we have already pointed out\nelsewhere, the true Pauline sense of the expression, _resurrection from\nthe dead_. In Paul's ideas the expression has no essential connexion\nwith physical death. It is true, popular theology connects it with this\nalmost exclusively, and regards any other use of it as purely figurative\nand secondary. For popular theology, Christ's resurrection is his bodily\nresurrection on earth after his physical death on the cross; the\nbeliever's resurrection is his bodily resurrection in a future world,\nthe golden city of our hymns and of the Apocalypse. For this theology,\nthe force of Christ's resurrection is that it is a miracle which\nguarantees the promised future miracle of our own resurrection. It is a\ncommon remark with Biblical critics, even with able and candid Biblical\ncritics, that Christ's resurrection, in this sense of a physical\nmiracle, is the central object of Paul's thoughts and the foundation of\nall his theology. Nay, the preoccupation with this idea has altered the\nvery text of our documents; so that whereas Paul wrote, 'Christ died and\nlived,' we read, 'Christ died and rose again and revived.'[66] But\nwhoever has carefully followed Paul's line of thought as we have\nendeavoured to trace it, will see that in his mature theology, as the\nEpistle to the Romans exhibits it, it cannot be this physical and\nmiraculous aspect of the resurrection which holds the first place in his\nmind; for under this aspect the resurrection does not fit in with the\nideas which he is developing.\n\n[Footnote 65: +apothanein syn Christ\u00f4+, _Col._, ii, 20; +exanastasis\nek nekr\u00f4n+, _Philipp._, iii, 11; +aux\u00easis eis Christon+, _Eph._, iv,\n15.]\n\n[Footnote 66: _Rom._, xiv, 9.]\n\nNot for a moment do we deny that in Paul's earlier theology, and notably\nin the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, the physical and\nmiraculous aspect of the resurrection, both Christ's and the believer's,\nis primary and predominant. Not for a moment do we deny that to the very\nend of his life, after the Epistle to the Romans, after the Epistle to\nthe Philippians, if he had been asked whether he held the doctrine of\nthe resurrection in the physical and miraculous sense, as well as in his\nown spiritual and mystical sense, he would have replied with entire\nconviction that he did. Very likely it would have been impossible to him\nto imagine his theology without it. But:--\n\n    Below the surface-stream, shallow and light,\n    Of what we _say_ we feel--below the stream,\n    As light, of what we _think_ we feel--there flows\n    With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,\n    The central stream of what we feel indeed;\n\nand by this alone are we truly characterised. Paul's originality lies in\nthe effort to find a moral side and significance for all the processes,\nhowever mystical, of the religious life, with a view of strengthening,\nin this way, their hold upon us and their command of all our nature.\nSooner or later he was sure to be drawn to treat the process of\nresurrection with this endeavour. He did so treat it; and what is\noriginal and essential in him is his doing so.\n\nPaul's conception of life and death inevitably came to govern his\nconception of resurrection. What indeed, as we have seen, is for Paul\nlife, and what is death? Not the ordinary physical life and death.\nDeath, for him, is living after the flesh, obedience to sin; life is\nmortifying by the spirit the deeds of the flesh, obedience to\nrighteousness. Resurrection, in its essential sense, is therefore for\nPaul, the rising, within the sphere of our visible earthly existence,\nfrom death in this sense to life in this sense. It is indubitable that,\nso far as the human believer's resurrection is concerned, this is so.\nElse, how could Paul say to the Colossians (to take only one out of a\nhundred clear texts showing the same thing): '_If ye then be risen with\nChrist_, seek the things that are above.'[67] But when Paul repeats\nagain and again, in the Epistle to the Romans, that the matter of our\nfaith is 'that God raised Jesus from the dead,' the essential meaning of\nthis resurrection, also, is just the same. Real life for Paul, begins\nwith the mystical death which frees us from the dominion of the external\n_shalls_ and _shall nots_ of the law.[68] From the moment, therefore,\nthat Jesus Christ was content to do God's will, he died. Paul's point\nis, that Jesus Christ in his earthly existence obeyed the law of the\nspirit and bore fruit to God; and that the believer should, in his\nearthly existence, do the same. That Christ 'died to sin,' that he\n'pleased not himself,' and that, consequently, through all his life\nhere, he was risen and living to God, is what occupies Paul. Christ's\nphysical resurrection after he was crucified is neither in point of time\nnor in point of character the resurrection on which Paul, following his\nessential line of thought, wanted to fix the believer's mind. The\nresurrection Paul was striving after for himself and others was a\nresurrection _now_, and a resurrection to _righteousness_.[69]\n\n[Footnote 67: _Col._, iii, 1.]\n\n[Footnote 68: See _Rom._, vii, 1-6.]\n\n[Footnote 69: It has been said that this was the error of Hymen\u00e6us\nand Philetas (II _Tim._, ii, 17). It might be rejoined, with much\nplausibility, that their error was the error of popular theology,\nthe fixing the attention on the past miracle of Christ's physical\nresurrection, and losing sight of the continuing miracle of the\nChristian's spiritual resurrection. Probably, however, Hymen\u00e6us and\nPhiletas controverted some of Paul's tenets respecting the\napproaching Messianic advent and the resurrection then to take place\n(I _Thess._, iv, 13-17). If they rejected these tenets, they were\nright where Paul was wrong. But if they disputed and separated on\naccount of them, they were _heretics_; that is, they had their\nhearts and minds full of a speculative contention, instead of their\nproper chief-concern,--_putting on the new man_, and the imitation\nof Christ.]\n\nBut Jesus Christ's obeying God and not pleasing himself culminated in\nhis death on the cross. All through his career, indeed, Jesus Christ\npleased not himself and died to sin. But so smoothly and so inevitably,\nas we have before said, did he always appear to follow that law of the\nmoral order, which to us it costs such effort to obey, that only in the\nvery wrench and pressure of his violent death did any pain of dying, any\nconflict between the law of the flesh and the law of the spirit, in\nChrist become visible. But the Christian needs to find in Christ's dying\nto sin a fellowship of suffering and a conformity of death. Well, then,\nthe point of Christ's trial and crucifixion is the only point in his\ncareer where the Christian can palpably touch what he seeks. In all\ndying there is struggle and weakness; in our dying to sin there is great\nstruggle and weakness. But only in his crucifixion can we see, in Jesus\nChrist, a place for struggle and weakness.[70] That self-sacrificing\nobedience of Jesus Christ's whole life, which was summed up in this\ngreat, final act of his crucifixion, and which is palpable as sacrifice,\nobedience, dolorous effort, only there, is, therefore, constantly\nregarded by Paul under the figure of this final act, as is also the\nbeliever's conformity to Christ's obedience. The believer is crucified\nwith Christ when he mortifies by the spirit the deeds of\nunrighteousness; Christ was crucified when he pleased not himself, and\ncame to do not his own will but God's.\n\n[Footnote 70: +estaur\u00f4th\u00ea ex astheneias+, II _Cor._, xiii, 4.]\n\nIt is the same with life as with death; it turns on no physical event,\nbut on that central concern of Paul's thoughts, righteousness. If we\nhave the spirit of Christ, we live, as he did, by the spirit, 'serve the\nspirit of God,'[71] and follow the eternal order. The spirit of God,\nthe spirit of Christ is the same,--the one eternal moral order. If we\nare led by the spirit of God we are the sons of God, and share with\nChrist the heritage of the sons of God,--eternal life, peace, felicity,\nglory. The spirit, therefore, is life _because of righteousness_. And\nwhen, through identifying ourselves with Christ, we reach Christ's\nrighteousness, then eternal life begins for us;--a continuous and\nascending life, for the eternal order never dies, and the more we\ntransform ourselves into servants of righteousness and organs of the\neternal order, the more we are and desire to be this eternal order and\nnothing else. Even in this life we are 'seated in heavenly places,'[72]\nas Christ is; so entirely, for Paul, is righteousness the true life and\nthe true heaven. But the transformation cannot be completed here; the\nphysical death is regarded by Paul as a stage at which it ceases to be\nimpeded. However, at this stage we quit, as he himself says, the ground\nof experience and enter upon the ground of hope. But, by a sublime\nanalogy, he fetches from the travail of the whole universe proof of the\nnecessity and beneficence of the law of transformation. Jesus Christ\nentered into his glory when he had made his physical death itself a\ncrowning witness to his obedience to righteousness; we, in like manner,\nwithin the limits of this earthly life and before we have yet persevered\nto the end, must not look for full adoption, for the glorious revelation\nin us of the sons of God.[73]\n\n[Footnote 71: According to the true reading in _Philipp._, iii, 3.]\n\n[Footnote 72: _Eph._, ii, 6.]\n\n[Footnote 73: _Rom._, viii, 18-25.]\n\nThat Paul, as we have said, accepted the physical miracle of Christ's\nresurrection and ascension as a part of the signs and wonders which\naccompanied Christianity, there can be no doubt. Just in the same manner\nhe accepted the eschatology, as it is called, of his nation,--their\ndoctrine of the final things and of the summons by a trumpet in the sky\nto judgment; he accepted Satan, hierarchies of angels, and an\napproaching end of the world. What we deny is, that his acceptance of\nthe former gives to his teaching its essential characters, any more than\nhis acceptance of the latter. We should but be continuing, with strict\nlogical development, Paul's essential line of thought, if we said that\nthe true ascension and glorified reign of Christ was the triumph and\nreign of his spirit, of his real life, far more operative after his\ndeath on the cross than before it; and that in this sense, most truly,\nhe and all who persevere to the end as he did are 'sown in weakness but\nraised in power.' Paul himself, however, did not distinctly continue his\nthought thus, and neither will we do so for him. How far Paul himself\nknew that he had gone in his irresistible bent to find, for each of the\ndata of his religion, that side of moral and spiritual significance\nwhich, as a mere sign and wonder, it had not and could not have,--what\ndata he himself was conscious of having transferred, through following\nthis bent, from the first rank in importance to the second,--we cannot\nknow with any certainty. That the bent existed, that Paul felt it\nexisted, and that it establishes a wide difference between the earliest\nepistles and the latest, is beyond question. Already, in the Second\nEpistle to the Corinthians, he declares that, 'though he had known\nChrist after the flesh, yet henceforth he knew him so no more;'[74] and\nin the Epistle to the Romans, shortly afterwards, he rejects the notion\nof dwelling on the miraculous Christ, on the descent into hell and on\nthe ascent into heaven, and fixes the believer's attention solely on the\nfaith of Christ and on the effects produced by an acquaintance with\nit.[75] In the same Epistle, in like manner, the kingdom of God, of\nwhich to the Thessalonians he described the advent in such materialising\nand popularly Judaic language, has become 'righteousness, and peace, and\njoy in the holy spirit.'[76]\n\n[Footnote 74: II _Cor._, v, 16.]\n\n[Footnote 75: _Rom._, x, 6-10.]\n\n[Footnote 76: _Rom._, xiv, 17.]\n\nThese ideas, we repeat, may never have excluded others, which absorbed\nthe most part of Paul's contemporaries as they absorb popular religion\nat this day. To popular religion, the real kingdom of God is the New\nJerusalem with its jaspers and emeralds; righteousness and peace and joy\nare only the kingdom of God figuratively. The real sitting in heavenly\nplaces is the sitting on thrones in a land of pure delight after we are\ndead; serving the spirit of God is only sitting in heavenly places\nfiguratively. Science exactly reverses this process. For science, the\nspiritual notion is the real one, the material notion is figurative. The\nastonishing greatness of Paul is, that, coming when and where and whence\nhe did, he yet grasped the spiritual notion, if not exclusively and\nfully, yet firmly and predominantly; more and more predominantly through\nall the last years of his life. And what makes him original and himself,\nis not what he shares with his contemporaries and with modern popular\nreligion, but this which he develops of his own; and this which he\ndevelops of his own is just of a nature to make his religion a theology\ninstead of a theurgy, and at bottom a scientific instead of a\nnon-scientific structure. 'Die and come to life!' says Goethe,--an\nunsuspected witness, assuredly, to the psychological and scientific\nprofoundness of Paul's conception of life and death:--'Die and come to\nlife! for, so long as this is not accomplished, thou art but a troubled\nguest upon an earth of gloom.'[77]\n\n[Footnote 77: Stirb und werde!\n              Denn so lang du das nicht hast,\n              Bist du nur ein tr\u00fcber Gast\n              Auf der dunkeln Erde.]\n\nThe three cardinal points in Paul's theology are not therefore, we\nrepeat, those commonly assigned by Puritanism, _calling_,\n_justification_, _sanctification_; but they are these: _dying with\nChrist_, _resurrection from the dead_, _growing into Christ_. And we\nwill venture, moreover, to affirm that the more the Epistle to the\nRomans is read and re-read with a clear mind, the more will the\nconviction strengthen, that the sense indicated by the order in which we\nhere class the second main term of Paul's conception, is the essential\nsense which Paul himself attaches to this term, in every single place\nwhere in that Epistle he has used it. Not tradition and not theory, but\na simple impartial study of the development of Paul's central line of\nthought, brings us to the conclusion, that from the very outset of the\nEpistle, where Paul speaks of Christ as 'declared to be the son of God\nwith power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the\ndead,'[78] to the very end, the essential sense in which Paul uses the\nterm _resurrection_ is that of a rising, in this visible earthly\nexistence, from the death of obedience to blind selfish impulse, to the\nlife of obedience to the eternal moral order;--in Christ's case first,\nas the pattern for us to follow; in the believer's case afterwards, as\nfollowing Christ's pattern through identifying himself with him.\n\n[Footnote 78: _Rom._, i, 4.]\n\nWe have thus reached Paul's fundamental conception without even a\nglimpse of the fundamental conceptions of Puritanism, which,\nnevertheless, professes to have learnt its doctrine from St. Paul and\nfrom his Epistle to the Romans. Once, for a moment, the term _faith_\nbrought us in contact with the doctrine of Puritanism, but only to see\nthat the essential sense given to this word by Paul Puritanism had\nmissed entirely. Other parts, then, of the Epistle to the Romans than\nthose by which we have been occupied must have chiefly fixed the\nattention of Puritanism. And so it has in truth been. Yet the parts of\nthe Epistle to the Romans that have occupied us are undoubtedly the\nparts which not our own theories and inclinations,--for we have\napproached the matter without any,--but an impartial criticism of Paul's\nreal line of thought, must elevate as the most important. If a somewhat\npedantic form of expression may be forgiven for the sake of clearness,\nwe may say that of the eleven first chapters of the Epistle to the\nRomans,--the chapters which convey Paul's theology, though not, as we\nhave seen, with any scholastic purpose or in any formal scientific mode\nof exposition,--of these eleven chapters, the first, second, and third\nare, in a scale of importance fixed by a scientific criticism of Paul's\nline of thought, sub-primary; the fourth and fifth are secondary; the\nsixth and eighth are primary; the seventh chapter is sub-primary; the\nninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters are secondary. Furthermore, to the\ncontents of the separate chapters themselves this scale must be carried\non, so far as to mark that of the two great primary chapters, the sixth\nand the eighth, the eighth is primary down only to the end of the\ntwenty-eighth verse; from thence to the end it is, however eloquent, yet\nfor the purpose of a scientific criticism of Paul's essential theology,\nonly secondary.\n\nThe first chapter is to the Gentiles. Its purport is: You have not\nrighteousness. The second is to the Jews; and its purport is: No more\nhave you, though you think you have. The third chapter announces faith\nin Christ as the one source of righteousness for all men. The fourth\nchapter gives to the notion of righteousness through faith the sanction\nof the Old Testament and of the history of Abraham. The fifth insists on\nthe causes for thankfulness and exultation in the boon of righteousness\nthrough faith in Christ; and applies illustratively, with this design,\nthe history of Adam. The sixth chapter comes to the all-important\nquestion: 'What _is_ that faith in Christ which I, Paul, mean?'--and\nanswers it. The seventh illustrates and explains the answer. But the\neighth, down to the end of the twenty-eighth verse, develops and\ncompletes the answer. The rest of the eighth chapter expresses the sense\nof safety and gratitude which the solution is fitted to inspire. The\nninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters uphold the second chapter's\nthesis,--so hard to a Jew, so easy to us,--that righteousness is not by\nthe Jewish law; but dwell with hope and joy on a final result of things\nwhich is to be favourable to Israel.\n\nWe shall be pardoned this somewhat formal analysis in consideration of\nthe clearness with which it enables us to survey the Puritan scheme of\noriginal sin, predestination, and justification. The historical\ntransgression of Adam occupies, it will be observed, in Paul's ideas by\nno means the primary, fundamental, all-important place which it holds in\nthe ideas of Puritanism. 'This' (the transgression of Adam) 'is our\noriginal sin, the bitter root of all our actual transgressions in\nthought, word, and deed.' Ah, no! Paul did not go to the Book of Genesis\nto get the real testimony about sin. He went to experience for it. '_I\nsee_,' he says, 'a law in my members fighting against the law of my\nmind, and bringing me into captivity.'[79] This is the essential\ntestimony respecting the rise of sin to Paul,--this rise of it in his\nown heart and in the heart of all the men who hear him. At quite a later\nstage in his conception of the religious life, in quite a subordinate\ncapacity, and for the mere purpose of illustration, comes in the\nallusion to Adam and to what is called original sin. Paul's desire for\nrighteousness has carried him to Christ and to the conception of the\nrighteousness which is of God by faith, and he is expressing his\ngratitude, delight, wonder, at the boon he has discovered. For the\npurpose of exalting it he reverts to the well-known story of Adam. It\ncannot even be said that Paul Judaises in his use here of this story; so\nentirely does he subordinate it to his purpose of illustration, using it\njust as he might have used it had he believed, which undoubtedly he did\nnot, that it was merely a symbolical legend, having the advantage of\nbeing perfectly familiar to himself and his hearers. 'Think,' he says,\n'how in Adam's fall one man's one transgression involved all men in\npunishment; then estimate the blessedness of our boon in Christ, where\none man's one righteousness involves a world of transgressors in\nblessing![80] This is not a scientific doctrine of corruption inherited\nthrough Adam's fall; it is a rhetorical use of Adam's fall in a passing\nallusion to it.\n\n[Footnote 79: _Rom._, vii, 23.]\n\n[Footnote 80: _Rom._, v, 12-21.]\n\nWe come to predestination. We have seen how strong was Paul's\nconsciousness of that power, not ourselves, in which we live and move\nand have our being. The sense of life, peace, and joy, which comes\nthrough identification with Christ, brings with it a deep and grateful\nconsciousness that this sense is none of our own getting and making. No,\nit is grace, it is the free gift of God, who gives abundantly beyond all\nthat we ask or think, and calls things that are not as though they were.\n'It is not of him that willeth or of him that runneth, but of God that\nshoweth mercy.'[81] As moral agents, for whom alone exist all the\npredicaments of merit and demerit, praise and blame, effort and failure,\nvice and virtue, we are impotent and lost;--we are saved through that in\nus which is passive and involuntary; we are saved through our\naffections, it is as beings _acted upon_ and _influenced_ that we are\nsaved! Well might Paul cry out, as this mystical but profound and\nbeneficent conception filled his soul: 'All things work together for\ngood to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his\npurpose.'[82] Well might he say, in the gratitude which cannot find\nwords enough to express its sense of boundless favour, that those who\nreached peace with God through identification with Christ were vessels\nof mercy, marked from endless ages; that they had been foreknown,\npredestinated, called, justified, glorified.\n\n[Footnote 81: _Rom._, ix, 16.]\n\n[Footnote 82: _Rom._, viii, 28.]\n\nIt may be regretted, for the sake of the clear understanding of his\nessential doctrine, that Paul did not stop here. It might seem as if the\nword 'prothesis,' _purpose_, lured him on into speculative mazes, and\ninvolved him, at last, in an embarrassment, from which he impatiently\ntore himself by the harsh and unedifying image of the clay and the\npotter. But this is not so. These allurements of speculation, which have\nbeen fatal to so many of his interpreters, never mastered Paul. He was\nled into difficulty by the tendency which we have already noticed as\nmaking his real imperfection both as a thinker and as a writer,--the\ntendency to Judaise.\n\nAlready, in the fourth chapter, this tendency had led him to seem to\nrest his doctrine of justification by faith upon the case of Abraham,\nwhereas, in truth, it needs all the good will in the world, and some\neffort of ingenuity, even to bring the case of Abraham within the\noperation of this doctrine. That righteousness is life, that all men by\nthemselves fail of righteousness, that only through identification with\nJesus Christ can they reach it,--these propositions, for us at any rate,\nprove themselves much better than they are proved by the thesis that\nAbraham in old age believed God's promise that his seed should yet be as\nthe stars for multitude, and that this was counted to him for\nrighteousness. The sanction thus apparently given to the idea that faith\nis a mere belief, or opinion of the mind, has put thousands of Paul's\nreaders on a false track.\n\nBut Paul's Judaising did not end here. To establish his doctrine of\nrighteousness by faith, he had to eradicate the notion that his people\nwere specially privileged, and that, having the Mosaic law, they did not\nneed anything farther. For us, this one verse of the tenth chapter:\n_There is no difference between Jew and Greek, for it is the same Lord\nof all, who is rich to all that call upon him_,--and these four words of\nanother verse: _For righteousness, heart-faith necessary!_--effect far\nmore for Paul's object than his three chapters bristling with Old\nTestament quotations. By quotation, however, he was to proceed, in order\nto invest his doctrine with the talismanic virtues of a verbal sanction\nfrom the law and the prophets. He shows, therefore, that the law and the\nprophets had said that only a remnant, an _elect remnant_, of Israel\nshould be saved, and that the rest should be blinded. But to say that\npeace with God through Jesus Christ inspires such an abounding sense of\ngratitude, and of its not being our work, that we can only speak of\nourselves as _called_ and _chosen_ to it, is one thing; in so speaking,\nwe are on the ground of personal experience. To say, on the other hand,\nthat God has blinded and reprobated other men, so that they shall not\nreach this blessing, is to quit the ground of personal experience, and\nto begin employing the magnified and non-natural man in the next street.\nWe then require, in order to account for his proceedings, such an\nanalogy as that of the clay and the potter.\n\nThis is Calvinism, and St. Paul undoubtedly falls into it. But the\nimportant thing to remark is, that this Calvinism, which with the\nCalvinist is primary, is with Paul secondary, or even less than\nsecondary. What with Calvinists is their fundamental idea, the centre of\ntheir theology, is for Paul an idea added to his central ideas, and\nextraneous to them; brought in incidentally, and due to the necessities\nof a bad mode of recommending and enforcing his thesis. It is as if\nNewton had introduced into his exposition of the law of gravitation an\nincidental remark, perhaps erroneous, about light or colours; and we\nwere then to make this remark the head and front of Newton's law. The\ntheological idea of reprobation was an idea of Jewish theology as of\nours, an idea familiar to Paul and a part of his training, an idea which\nprobably he never consciously abandoned. But its complete secondariness\nin him is clearly established by other considerations than those which\nwe have drawn from the place and manner of his introduction of it. The\nvery phrase about the clay and the potter is not Paul's own; he does but\nrepeat a stock theological figure. Isaiah had said: 'O Lord, we are the\nclay, and thou our potter, and we are all the work of thy hand.'[83]\nJeremiah had said, in the Lord's name, to Israel: 'Behold, as the clay\nin the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.'[84]\nAnd the son of Sirach comes yet nearer to Paul's very words: 'As the\nclay is in the potter's hand to fashion it at his pleasure, so man is in\nthe hand of him that made him, to render to them as liketh him\nbest.'[85] Is an original man's essential, characteristic idea, that\nwhich he adopts thus bodily from some one else? But take Paul's truly\nessential idea. 'We are buried with Christ through baptism into death,\nthat like as he was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,\neven so we also shall walk in newness of life.'[86] Did Jeremiah say\nthat? Is any one the author of it except Paul? Then there should\nCalvinism have looked for Paul's secret, and not in the commonplace\nabout the potter and the vessels of wrath. A commonplace which is so\nentirely a commonplace to him, that he contradicts it even while he is\nJudaising; for in the very batch of chapters we are discussing he says:\n'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'[87]\nStill more clear is, on this point, his real mind, when he is not\nJudaising: 'God is the saviour of all men, specially of those that\nbelieve.'[88] And anything, finally, which might seem dangerous in the\ngrateful sense of a calling, choosing, and leading by eternal\ngoodness,--a notion as natural as the Calvinistic doctrine of\npredestination is monstrous,--Paul abundantly supplies in more than one\nstriking passage; as, for instance, in that incomparable third chapter\nof the Philippians (from which, and from the sixth and eighth chapters\nof the Romans, Paul's whole theology, if all his other writings were\nlost, might be reconstructed), where he expresses his humble\nconsciousness that the mystical resurrection which is his aim, glory,\nand salvation, he does not yet, and cannot, completely attain.\n\n[Footnote 83: _Is._, lxiv, 8.]\n\n[Footnote 84: _Jer._, xviii, 6.]\n\n[Footnote 85: _Ecclesiasticus_, xxxiii, 13.]\n\n[Footnote 86: _Rom._, vi, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 87: _Rom._, x, 13.]\n\n[Footnote 88: I _Tim._, iv, 10.]\n\nThe grand doctrine, then, which Calvinistic Puritanism has gathered from\nPaul, turns out to be a secondary notion of his, which he himself, too,\nhas contradicted or corrected. But, at any rate, 'Christ meritoriously\nobtained eternal redemption for us.' 'If there be anything,' the\nquarterly organ of Puritanism has lately told us in its hundredth\nnumber, 'that human experience has made certain, it is that man can\nnever outgrow his necessity for the great truths and provisions of the\nIncarnation and the sacrificial Atonement of the Divine Son of God.'\nGod, his justice being satisfied by Christ's bearing according to\ncompact our guilt and dying in our stead, is appeased and set free to\nexercise towards us his mercy, and to justify and sanctify us in\nconsideration of Christ's righteousness imputed to us, if we give our\nhearty belief and consent to the satisfaction thus made. This hearty\nbelief being given, 'we rest,' to use the consecrated expression already\nquoted, 'in the finished work of a Saviour.' This doctrine of imputed\nrighteousness is now, as predestination formerly was, the favourite\nthesis of popular Protestant theology. And, like the doctrine of\npredestination, it professes to be specially derived from St. Paul.\n\nBut whoever has followed attentively the main line of St. Paul's\ntheology, as we have tried to show it, will see at once that in St.\nPaul's essential ideas this popular notion of a substitution, and\nappeasement, and imputation of alien merit, has no place. Paul knows\nnothing of a sacrificial atonement; what Paul knows of is a reconciling\nsacrifice. The true substitution, for Paul, is not the substitution of\nJesus Christ in men's stead as victim on the cross to God's offended\njustice; it is the substitution by which the believer, in his own\nperson, repeats Jesus Christ's dying to sin. Paul says, in real truth,\nto our Puritans with their magical and mechanical salvation, just what\nhe said to the men of circumcision: 'If I preach resting in the finished\nwork of a Saviour, _why am I yet persecuted? why do I die daily? then is\nthe stumbling-block of the cross annulled._'[89] That hard, that\nwell-nigh impossible doctrine, that our whole course must be a\ncrucifixion and a resurrection, even as Christ's whole course was a\ncrucifixion and a resurrection, becomes superfluous. Yet this is my\ncentral doctrine.'\n\n[Footnote 89: _Gal._, v, 2.]\n\nThe notion of God as a magnified and non-natural man, appeased by a\nsacrifice and remitting in consideration of it his wrath against those\nwho had offended him,--this notion of God, which science repels, was\nequally repelled, in spite of all that his nation, time, and training\nhad in them to favour it, by the profound religious sense of Paul. In\nnone of his epistles is the reconciling work of Christ really presented\nunder this aspect. One great epistle there is, however, which does\napparently present it under this aspect,--the Epistle to the Hebrews.\n\nPaul's phraseology, and even the central idea which he conveys in that\nphraseology, were evidently well known to the writer of the Epistle to\nthe Hebrews. Nay, if we merely sought to prove a thesis, rather than to\nascertain the real bearing of the documents we canvass, we should have\nno difficulty in making it appear, by texts taken from the Epistle to\nthe Hebrews, that the doctrine of this epistle, no less than the\ndoctrine of the Epistle to the Romans, differs entirely from the common\ndoctrine of Puritanism. This, however, we shall by no means do; because\nit is our honest opinion that the popular doctrine of 'the sacrificial\nAtonement of the Divine Son of God' derives, if not a real, yet at any\nrate a strong apparent sanction from the Epistle to the Hebrews. Even\nsupposing, what is probably true, that the popular doctrine is really\nthe doctrine neither of the one epistle nor of the other, yet it must be\nconfessed that while it is the reader's fault,--a fault due to his fixed\nprepossessions, and to his own want of penetration,--if he gets the\npopular doctrine out of the Epistle to the Romans, it is on the other\nhand the writer's fault and no longer the reader's, if out of the\nEpistle to the Hebrews he gets the popular doctrine. For the author of\nthat epistle is, if not subjugated, yet at least preponderantly occupied\nby the idea of the Jewish system of sacrifices, and of the analogies to\nChrist's sacrifice which are furnished by that system.\n\nIf other proof were wanting, this alone would make it impossible that\nthe Epistle to the Hebrews should be Paul's; and indeed of all the\nepistles which bear his name, it is the only one which we may not,\nperhaps, in spite of the hesitation caused by grave difficulties, be\nfinally content to leave in considerable part to him.[90] Luther's\nconjecture, which ascribes to Apollos the Epistle to the Hebrews,\nderives corroboration from the one account of Apollos which we have;\nthat 'he was an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures.' The Epistle\nto the Hebrews is just such a performance as might naturally have come\nfrom an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures; in whom the\nintelligence, and the powers of combining, type-finding, and expounding,\nsomewhat dominated the religious perceptions. The Epistle to the Hebrews\nis full of beauty and power; and what may be called the exterior conduct\nof its argument is as able and satisfying as Paul's exterior conduct of\nhis argument is generally embarrassed. Its details are full of what is\nedifying; but its apparent central conception of Christ's death, as a\nperfect sacrifice which consummated the imperfect sacrifices of the\nJewish law, is a mere notion of the understanding, and is not a\nreligious idea. Turn it which way we will, the notion of appeasement of\nan offended God by vicarious sacrifice, which the Epistle to the Hebrews\napparently sanctions, will never truly speak to the religious sense, or\nbear fruit for true religion. It is no blame to Apollos if he was\nsomewhat overpowered by this notion, for the whole world was full of it,\nup to his time, in his time, and since his time; and it has driven\ntheologians before it like sheep. The wonder is, not that Apollos should\nhave adopted it, but that Paul should have been enabled, through the\nincomparable power and energy of religious perception informing his\nintellectual perception, in reality to put it aside. Figures drawn from\nthe dominant notion of sacrificial appeasement he used, for the notion\nhas so saturated the imagination and language of humanity that its\nfigures pass naturally and irresistibly into all our speech. Popular\nPuritanism consists of the apparent doctrine from the Epistle to the\nHebrews, set forth with Paul's figures. But the doctrine itself Paul had\nreally put aside, and had substituted for it a better.\n\n[Footnote 90: Considerations drawn from date, place, the use of\nsingle words, the development of a church organisation, the\ndevelopment of an ascetic system, are not enough to make us wholly\ntake away certain epistles from St. Paul. The only decisive\nevidence, for this purpose, is that internal evidence furnished by\nthe whole body of the thoughts and style of an epistle; and this\nevidence that Paul was not its author the Epistle to the Hebrews\nfurnishes. From the like evidence, the Apocalypse is clearly shown\nto be not by the author of the fourth Gospel. This clear evidence\nagainst the tradition which assigns them to St. Paul, the Epistles\nto Timothy and Titus do not offer. The serious ground of difficulty\nas to these epistles will to the genuine critic be, that much in\nthem fails to produce that peculiarly _searching_ effect on the\nreader, which it is in general characteristic of Paul's own real\nwork to exercise. But they abound with Pauline things, and are, in\nany case, written by an excellent man, and in an excellent and large\nspirit.]\n\nThe term _sacrifice_, in men's natural use of it, contains three\nnotions: the notion of winning the favour or buying off the wrath of a\npowerful being by giving him something precious; the notion of parting\nwith something naturally precious; and the notion of expiation, not now\nin the sense of buying off wrath or satisfying a claim, but of suffering\nin that wherein we have sinned. The first notion is, at bottom, merely\nsuperstitious, and belongs to the ignorant and fear-ridden childhood of\nhumanity; it is the main element, however, in the Puritan conception of\njustification. The second notion explains itself; it is the main element\nin the Pauline conception of justification. Jesus parted with what, to\nmen in general, is the most precious of things,--individual self and\nselfishness; he pleased not himself, obeyed the spirit of God, died to\nsin and to the law in our members, consummated upon the cross this\ndeath; here is Paul's essential notion of Christ's sacrifice.\n\nThe third notion may easily be misdealt with, but it has a profound\ntruth; in Paul's conception of justification there is much of it. In\nsome way or other, he who would 'cease from sin' must nearly always\n'suffer in the flesh.' It is found to be true, that 'without shedding of\nblood is no remission.' 'If you can be good with pleasure,' says Bishop\nWilson with his genius of practical religious sense, 'God does not envy\nyou your joy; but such is our corruption, that every man cannot be so.'\nThe substantial basis of the notion of expiation, so far as we ourselves\nare concerned, is the bitter experience that the habit of wrong, of\nblindly obeying selfish impulse, so affects our temper and powers, that\nto withstand selfish impulse, to do right, when the sense of right\nawakens in us, requires an effort out of all proportion to the actual\npresent emergency. We have not only the difficulty of the present act in\nitself, we have the resistance of all our past; fire and the knife,\ncautery and amputation, are often necessary in order to induce a vital\naction, which, if it were not for our corrupting past, we might have\nobtained from the natural healthful vigour of our moral organs. This is\nthe real basis of our personal sense of the need of expiating, and thus\nit is that man expiates.\n\nNot so the just, who is man's ideal. He has no indurated habit of wrong,\nno perverse temper, no enfeebled powers, no resisting past, no spiritual\norgans gangrened, no need of the knife and fire; smoothly and inevitably\nhe follows the eternal order, and hereto belongs happiness. What sins,\nthen, has the just to expiate?--_ours._ In truth, men's habitual\nunrighteousness, their hard and careless breaking of the moral law, do\nso tend to reduce and impair the standard of goodness, that, in order to\nkeep this standard pure and unimpaired, the righteous must actually\nlabour and suffer far more than would be necessary if men were better.\nIn the first place, he has to undergo our hatred and persecution for his\njustice. In the second place, he has to make up for the harm caused by\nour continual shortcomings, to step between us foolish transgressors and\nthe destructive natural consequences of our transgression, and, by a\nsuperhuman example, a spending himself without stint, a more than mortal\nscale of justice and purity, to save the ideal of human life and conduct\nfrom the deterioration with which men's ordinary practice threatens it.\nIn this way Jesus Christ truly 'became for our sakes poor, though he was\nrich,' he was truly 'bruised for our iniquities,' he 'suffered in our\nbehoof,' 'bare the sin of many,' and 'made intercession for the\ntransgressors.'[91] In this way, truly, 'he was sacrificed as a\nblameless lamb to redeem us from the vain conversation which had become\nour second nature;'[92] in this way, 'he was made to be sin for us, who\nknew no sin.'[93] Such, according to that true and profound perception\nof the import of Christ's sufferings, which, in all St. Paul's writings,\nand in the inestimable First Epistle of St. Peter, is presented to us,\nis the expiation of Christ.\n\n[Footnote 91: II _Cor._, viii, 9; _Is._, liii, 5; I _Pet._, ii, 21;\n_Is._, liii, 12.]\n\n[Footnote 92: I _Pet._, i, 18, 19.]\n\n[Footnote 93: II _Cor._, v, 21.]\n\nThe notion, therefore, of _satisfying and appeasing an angry God's\nwrath_, does not come into Paul's real conception of Jesus Christ's\nsacrifice. Paul's foremost notion of this sacrifice is, that by it Jesus\ndied to the law of selfish impulse, parted with what to men in general\nis most precious and near. Paul's second notion is, that whereas Jesus\nsuffered in doing this, his suffering was not _his_ fault, but ours; not\nfor _his_ good, but for ours. In the first aspect, Jesus is the\n_martyrion_,--the testimony in his life and in his death, to\nrighteousness, to the power and goodness of God. In the second aspect he\nis the _antilytron_ or ransom. But, in either aspect, Jesus Christ's\nsolemn and dolorous condemnation of sin does actually loosen sin's hold\nand attraction upon us who regard it,--makes it easier for us to\nunderstand and love goodness, to rise above self, to die to sin.\n\nChrist's sacrifice, however, and the condemnation of sin it contained,\nwas made for us while we were yet sinners; it was made irrespectively of\nour power or inclination to sympathise with it and appreciate it. Yet,\neven thus, in Paul's view, the sacrifice reconciled us to God, to the\neternal order; for it contained the means, the only possible means, of\nour being brought into harmony with this order. Jesus Christ,\nnevertheless, was delivered for our sins while we were yet sinners,[94]\nand before we could yet appreciate what he did. But presently there\ncomes a change. Grace, the goodness of God, _the spirit_,--as Paul loved\nto call that awful and beneficent impulsion of things within us and\nwithout us, which we can concur with, indeed, but cannot create,--leads\nus to _repentance towards God_,[95] a change of the inner man in regard\nto the moral order, duty, righteousness. And now, to help our impulse\ntowards righteousness, we have a power enabling us to turn this impulse\nto full account. Now _the spirit_ does its greatest work in us; now, for\nthe first time, the influence of Jesus Christ's pregnant act really\ngains us. For now awakens the sympathy for the act and the appreciation\nof it, which its doer dispensed with or was too benign to wait for;\n_faith working through love towards Christ_[96] enters into us, masters\nus. We identify ourselves,--this is the line of Paul's thought,--with\nChrist; we repeat, through the power of this identification, Christ's\ndeath to the law of the flesh and self-pleasing, his condemnation of sin\nin the flesh; the death how imperfectly, the condemnation how\nremorsefully! But we rise with him, Paul continues, to life, the only\ntrue life, of imitation of God, of putting on the new man which after\nGod is created in righteousness and true holiness,[97] of following the\neternal law of the moral order which by ourselves we could not follow.\nThen God justifies us. We have the righteousness of God and the sense of\nhaving it; we are freed from the oppressing sense of eternal order\nguiltily outraged and sternly retributive; we act in joyful conformity\nwith God's will, instead of in miserable rebellion to it; we are in\nharmony with the universal order, and feel that we are in harmony with\nit. If, then, Christ was delivered for our sins, he was raised for our\njustification. If by Christ's death, says Paul, we were reconciled to\nGod, by the means being thus provided for our else impossible access to\nGod, much more, when we have availed ourselves of these means and died\nwith him, are we saved by his life which we partake.[98] Henceforward\nwe are not only justified but sanctified; not only in harmony with the\neternal order and at peace with God, but consecrated[99] and\nunalterably devoted to them; and from this devotion comes an\never-growing union with God in Christ, an advance, as St. Paul says,\nfrom glory to glory.[100]\n\n[Footnote 94: _Rom._, v, 8.]\n\n[Footnote 95: _Acts_, xx, 21.]\n\n[Footnote 96: _Gal._, v, 6.]\n\n[Footnote 97: _Eph._, iv, 24.]\n\n[Footnote 98: _Rom._, v, 10.]\n\n\n[Footnote 99: The endless words which Puritanism has wasted upon\n_sanctification_, a magical filling with goodness and holiness, flow\nfrom a mere mistake in translating; +hagiasmos+ means _consecration_,\na setting apart to holy service.]\n\n[Footnote 100: II _Cor._, iii, 18.]\n\nThis is Paul's conception of Christ's sacrifice. His figures of ransom,\nredemption, propitiation, blood, offering, all subordinate themselves to\nhis central idea of _identification with Christ through dying with him_,\nand are strictly subservient to it. The figured speech of Paul has its\nown beauty and propriety. His language is, much of it, eastern language,\nimaginative language; there is no need for turning it, as Puritanism has\ndone, into the methodical language of the schools. But if it is to be\nturned into methodical language, then it is the language into which we\nhave translated it that translates it truly.\n\nWe have before seen how it fares with one of the two great tenets which\nPuritanism has extracted from St. Paul, the tenet of predestination. We\nnow see how it fares with the other, the tenet of justification. Paul's\nfigures our Puritans have taken literally, while for his central idea\nthey have substituted another which is not his. And his central idea\nthey have turned into a figure, and have let it almost disappear out of\ntheir mind. His essential idea lost, his figures misused, an idea\nessentially not his substituted for his,--the unedifying patchwork thus\nmade, Puritanism has stamped with Paul's name, and called _the gospel_.\nIt thunders at Romanism for not preaching it, it casts off Anglicanism\nfor not setting it forth alone and unreservedly, it founds organisations\nof its own to give full effect to it; these organisations guide\npolitics, govern statesmen, destroy institutions;--and they are based\nupon a blunder!\n\nIt is to Protestantism, and this its Puritan gospel, that the reproaches\nthrown on St. Paul, for sophisticating religion of the heart into\ntheories of the head about election and justification, rightly attach.\nSt. Paul himself, as we have seen, begins with seeking righteousness and\nends with finding it; from first to last, the practical religious sense\nnever deserts him. If he could have seen and heard our preachers of\npredestination and justification, they are just the people he would have\ncalled 'diseased about questions and word-battlings.'[101] He would have\ntold Puritanism that every Sunday, when in all its countless chapels it\nreads him and preaches from him, the veil is upon its heart. The moment\nit reads him right, a veil will seem to be taken away from its\nheart;[102] it will feel as though scales were fallen from its eyes.\n\n[Footnote 101: I _Tim._, vi, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 102: II _Cor._, iii, 15, 16.]\n\n\nAnd now, leaving Puritanism and its errors, let us turn again for a\nmoment, before we end, to the glorious apostle who has occupied us so\nlong. He died, and men's familiar fancies of bargain and appeasement,\nfrom which, by a prodigy of religious insight, Paul had been able to\ndisengage the death of Jesus, fastened on it and made it their own. Back\nrolled over the human soul the mist which the fires of Paul's spiritual\ngenius had dispersed for a few short years. The mind of the whole world\nwas imbrued in the idea of blood, and only through the false idea of\nsacrifice did men reach Paul's true one. Paul's idea of dying with\nChrist the _Imitation_ elevates more conspicuously than any Protestant\ntreatise elevates it; but it elevates it environed and dominated by the\nidea of appeasement;--of the magnified and non-natural man in Heaven,\nwrath-filled and blood-exacting; of the human victim adding his piacular\nsufferings to those of the divine. Meanwhile another danger was\npreparing. Gifted men had brought to the study of St. Paul the habits of\nthe Greek and Roman schools, and philosophised where Paul Orientalised.\nAugustine, a great genius, who can doubt it?--nay, a great religious\ngenius, but unlike Paul in this, and inferior to him, that he confused\nthe boundaries of metaphysics and religion, which Paul never\ndid,--Augustine set the example of finding in Paul's eastern speech,\njust as it stood, the formal propositions of western dialectics. Last\ncame the interpreter in whose slowly relaxing grasp we still lie,--the\nheavy-handed Protestant Philistine. Sincere, gross of perception,\nprosaic, he saw in Paul's mystical idea of man's investiture with the\nrighteousness of God nothing but a strict legal transaction, and\nreserved all his imagination for Hell and the New Jerusalem and his\nforetaste of them. A so-called Pauline doctrine was in all men's mouths,\nbut the ideas of the true Paul lay lost and buried.\n\nEvery one who has been at Rome has been taken to see the Church of St.\nPaul, rebuilt after a destruction by fire forty years ago. The church\nstands a mile or two out of the city, on the way to Ostia and the\ndesert. The interior has all the costly magnificence of Italian\nchurches; oh the ceiling is written in gilded letters: '_Doctor\nGentium_.' Gold glitters and marbles gleam, but man and his movement are\nnot there. The traveller has left at a distance the _fumum et opes\nstrepitumque Rom\u00e6_; around him reigns solitude. There is Paul, with the\nmystery which was hidden from ages and from generations, which was\nuncovered by him for some half score years, and which then was buried\nwith him in his grave! Not in our day will he relive, with his incessant\neffort to find a moral side for miracle, with his incessant effort to\nmake the intellect follow and secure all the workings of the religious\nperception. Of those who care for religion, the multitude of us want the\nmaterialism of the Apocalypse; the few want a vague religiosity.\nScience, which more and more teaches us to find in the unapparent the\nreal, will gradually serve to conquer the materialism of popular\nreligion. The friends of vague religiosity, on the other hand, will be\nmore and more taught by experience that a theology, a scientific\nappreciation of the facts of religion, is wanted for religion; but a\ntheology which is a true theology, not a false. Both these influences\nwill work for Paul's re-emergence. The doctrine of Paul will arise out\nof the tomb where for centuries it has lain buried. It will edify the\nchurch of the future; it will have the consent of happier generations,\nthe applause of less superstitious ages. All will be too little to pay\nhalf the debt which the church of God owes to this 'least of the\napostles, who was not fit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted\nthe church of God.'[103]\n\n[Footnote 103: I _Cor._, xv, 9.]\n\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nPURITANISM\n\nAND THE\n\nCHURCH OF ENGLAND.\n\n\nIn the foregoing treatise we have spoken of Protestantism, and have\ntried to show, how, with its three notable tenets of predestination,\noriginal sin, and justification, it has been pounding away for three\ncenturies at St. Paul's wrong words, and missing his essential doctrine.\nAnd we took Puritanism to stand for Protestantism, and addressed\nourselves directly to the Puritans; for the Puritan Churches, we said,\nseem to exist specially for the sake of these doctrines, one or more of\nthem. It is true, many Puritans now profess also the doctrine that it is\nwicked to have a church connected with the State; but this is a later\ninvention,[104] designed to strengthen a separation previously made. It\nrequires to be noticed in due course; but meanwhile, we say that the aim\nof setting forth certain Protestant doctrines purely and integrally is\nthe main title on which Puritan Churches rest their right of existing.\nWith historic Churches, like those of England or Rome, it is otherwise;\nthese doctrines may be in them, may be a part of their traditions, their\ntheological stock; but certainly no one will say that either of these\nChurches was made for the express purpose of upholding these three\ntheological doctrines, jointly or severally. A little consideration will\nshow quite clearly the difference in this respect between the historic\nChurches and the churches of separatists.\n\n[Footnote 104: In his very interesting history, _The Church of the\nRestoration_, Dr. Stoughton says, most truly of both Anglicans and\nPuritans in 1660: 'It is necessary to bear in mind this\ncircumstance, that _both parties were advocates for a national\nestablishment of religion_.' Vol. i, p. 113.]\n\nPeople are not necessarily monarchists or republicans because they are\nborn and live under a monarchy or republic. They avail themselves of the\nestablished government for those general purposes for which governments\nand politics exist, but they do not, for the most part, trouble their\nheads much about particular theoretical principles of government. Nay,\nit may well happen that a man who lives and thrives under a monarchy\nshall yet theoretically disapprove the principle of monarchy, or a man\nwho lives and thrives under a republic, the principle of republicanism.\nBut a man, or body of men, who have gone out of an established polity\nfrom zeal for the principle of monarchy or republicanism, and have set\nup a polity of their own for the very purpose of giving satisfaction to\nthis zeal, are in a false position whenever it shall appear that the\nprinciple, from zeal for which they have constituted their separate\nexistence, is unsound. So predestinarianism and solifidianism, Calvinism\nand Lutherism, may appear in the theology of a national or historic\nChurch, charged ever since the rise of Christianity with the task of\ndeveloping the immense and complex store of ideas contained in\nChristianity; and when the stage of development has been reached at\nwhich the unsoundness of predestinarian and solifidian dogmas becomes\nmanifest, they will be dropped out of the Church's theology, and she and\nher task will remain what they were before. But when people from zeal\nfor these dogmas find their historic Church not predestinarian or\nsolifidian enough for them, and make new associations of their own,\nwhich shall be predestinarian or solifidian absolutely, then, when the\ndogmas are undermined, the associations are undermined too, and have\neither to own themselves without a reason for existing, or to discover\nsome new reason in place of the old. Now, nothing which exists likes to\nbe driven to a strait of this kind; so every association which exists\nbecause of zeal for the dogmas of election or justification, will\nnaturally cling to these dogmas longer and harder than other people.\nTherefore we have treated the Puritan bodies in this country as the\ngreat stronghold here of these doctrines; and in showing what a\nperversion of Paul's real ideas these doctrines commonly called Pauline\nare, we have addressed ourselves to the Puritans.\n\nBut those who speak in the Puritans' name say that we charge upon\nPuritanism, as a sectarian peculiarity, doctrine which is not only the\ninevitable result of an honest interpretation of the writings of St.\nPaul, but which is, besides, the creed held in common by Puritans and by\nall the churches in Christendom, with one insignificant exception. Nay,\nthey even declare that 'no man in his senses can deny that the Church of\nEngland was meant to be a thoroughly Protestant and Evangelical, and it\nmay be said Calvinistic Church.' To saddle Puritanism in special with\nthe doctrines we have called Puritan is, they say, a piece of unfairness\nwhich has its motive in mere ill-will to Puritanism, a device which can\ninjure nobody but its author.\n\nNow, we have tried to show that the Puritans are quite wrong in\nimagining their doctrine to be the inevitable result of an honest\ninterpretation of St. Paul's writings. That they are wrong we think is\ncertain; but so far are we from being moved, in anything that we do or\nsay in this matter, by ill-will to Puritanism and the Puritans, that it\nis, on the contrary, just because of our hearty respect for them, and\nfrom our strong sense of their value, that we speak as we do. Certainly\nwe consider them to be in the main, at present, an obstacle to progress\nand to true civilisation. But this is because their worth is, in our\nopinion, such that not only must one for their own sakes wish to see it\nturned to more advantage, but others, from whom they are now separated,\nwould greatly gain by conjunction with them, and our whole collective\nforce of growth and progress be thereby immeasurably increased. In\nshort, our one feeling when we regard them, is a feeling, not of\nill-will, but of regret at waste of power; our one desire is a desire of\ncomprehension.\n\nBut the waste of power must continue, and the comprehension is\nimpossible, so long as Puritanism imagines itself to possess, in its two\nor three signal doctrines, what it calls _the gospel_; so long as it\nconstitutes itself separately on the plea of setting forth purely _the\ngospel_, which it thus imagines itself to have seized; so long as it\njudges others as not holding _the gospel_, or as holding additions to it\nand variations from it. This fatal self-righteousness, grounded on a\nfalse conceit of knowledge, makes comprehension impossible; because it\ntakes for granted the possession of the truth, and the power of deciding\nhow others violate it; and this is a position of superiority, and suits\nconquest rather than comprehension.\n\nThe good of comprehension in a national Church is, that the larger and\nmore various the body of members, the more elements of power and life\nthe Church will contain, the more points will there be of contact, the\nmore mutual support and stimulus, the more growth in perfection both of\nthought and practice. The waste of power from not comprehending the\nPuritans in the national Church is measured by the number and value of\nelements which Puritanism could supply towards the collective growth of\nthe whole body. The national Church would grow more vigorously towards a\nhigher stage of insight into religious truth, and consequently towards a\ngreater perfection of practice, if it had these elements; and this is\nwhy we wish for the Puritans in the Church. But, meanwhile, Puritanism\nwill not contribute to the common growth, mainly because it believes\nthat a certain set of opinions or scheme of theological doctrine is _the\ngospel_; that it is possible and profitable to extract this, and that\nPuritans have done so; and that it is the duty of men, who like\nthemselves have extracted it, to separate themselves from those who have\nnot, and to set themselves apart that they may profess it purely.\n\nTo disabuse them of this error, which, by preventing collective life,\nprevents also collective growth, it is necessary to show them that their\nextracted scheme of theological doctrine is not really _the gospel_; and\nthat at any rate, therefore, it is not worth their while to separate\nthemselves, and to frustrate the hope of growth in common, merely for\nthis scheme's sake. And even if it were true, as they allege, that the\nnational and historic Churches of Christendom do equally with Puritanism\nhold this scheme, or main parts of it, still it would be to Puritanism,\nand not to the historic Churches, that in showing the invalidity and\nunscripturalness of this scheme we should address ourselves, because the\nPuritan Churches found their very existence on it, and the historic\nChurches do not. And not founding their existence on it, nor falling\ninto separatism for it, the historic Churches have a collective life\nwhich is very considerable, and a power of growth, even in respect of\nthe very scheme of doctrine in question, supposing them to hold it, far\ngreater than any which the Puritan Churches show, but which would be yet\ngreater and more fruitful still, if the historic Churches combined the\nlarge and admirable contingent of Puritanism with their own forces.\nTherefore, as we have said, it is out of no sort of malice or ill-will,\nbut from esteem for their fine qualities and from desire for their help,\nthat we have addressed ourselves to the Puritans. We propose to complete\nnow our dealings with this subject by showing how, as a matter of fact,\nthe Church of England (which is the historic Church practically in\nquestion so far as Puritanism is concerned) seems to us to have\ndisplayed with respect to those very tenets which we have criticised,\nand for which we are said to have unfairly made Puritanism alone\nresponsible, a continual power of growth which has been wanting to the\nPuritan congregations. This we propose to show first; and we will show\nsecondly, how, from the very theory of a historic or national Church,\nthe probability of this greater power of growth seems to follow, that we\nmay try and commend that theory a little more to the thoughts and favour\nof our Puritan friends.\n\nThe two great Puritan doctrines which we have criticised at such length\nare the doctrines of predestination and justification. Of the aggressive\nand militant Puritanism of our people, predestination has, almost up to\nthe present day, been the favourite and distinguishing doctrine; it was\nthe doctrine which Puritan flocks greedily sought, which Puritan\nministers powerfully preached, and called others _carnal gospellers_ for\nnot preaching. This Geneva doctrine accompanied the Geneva discipline.\nPuritanism's first great wish and endeavour was to establish both the\none and the other absolutely in the Church of England, and it became\nnonconforming because it failed. Now, it is well known that the High\nChurch divines of the seventeenth century were Arminian, that the Church\nof England was the stronghold of Arminianism, and that Arminianism is,\nas we have said, an effort of man's practical good sense to get rid of\nwhat is shocking to it in Calvinism. But what is not so well known, and\nwhat is eminently worthy of remark, is the constant pressure applied by\nPuritanism upon the Church of England, to put the Calvinistic doctrine\nmore distinctly into her formularies, and to tie her up more strictly to\nthis doctrine; the constant resistance offered by the Church of England,\nand the large degree in which Nonconformity is really due to this cause.\n\nEverybody knows how far Nonconformity is due to the Church of England's\nrigour in imposing an explicit declaration of adherence to her\nformularies. But only a few, who have searched out the matter, know how\nfar Nonconformity is due, also, to the Church of England's invincible\nreluctance to narrow her large and loose formularies to the strict\nCalvinistic sense dear to Puritanism. Yet this is what the record of\nconferences shows at least as signally as it shows the domineering\nspirit of the High Church clergy; but our current political histories,\nwritten always with an anti-ecclesiastical bias, which is natural\nenough, inasmuch as the Church party was not the party of civil liberty,\nleaves this singularly out of sight. Yet there is a very catena of\ntestimonies to prove it; to show us, from Elizabeth's reign to Charles\nthe Second's, Calvinism, as a power both within and without the Church\nof England, trying to get decisive command of her formularies; and the\nChurch of England, with the instinct of a body meant to live and grow,\nand averse to fetter and engage its future, steadily resisting.\n\nThe Lambeth Articles of 1595 exhibit Calvinism potent in the Church of\nEngland herself, and among the bishops of the Church. True; but could it\nestablish itself there? No; the Lambeth Articles were recalled and\nsuppressed, and Archbishop Whitgift was threatened with the penalties of\na _pr\u00e6munire_ for having published them. Again, it was usual from 1552\nonwards to print in the English Bibles a catechism asserting the\nCalvinistic doctrine of absolute election and reprobation. In the first\nBibles of the authorised version this catechism appeared; but it was\nremoved in 1615. Yet the Puritans had met James the First, at his\naccession in 1603, with the petition that _there may be an uniformity of\ndoctrine prescribed_; meaning an uniformity in this sense of strict\nCalvinism. Thus from the very commencement the Church, as regards\ndoctrine, was for opening; Puritanism was for narrowing.\n\nThen came, in 1604, the Hampton Court Conference. Here, as usual,\npolitical historians reproach the Church with having conceded so little.\nThese historians, as we have said, think solely of the Puritans as the\nreligious party favourable to civil liberty, and on that account desire\nthe preponderance of Puritanism in its disputes with the Church. But, as\nregards freedom of thought and truth of ideas, what was it that the\nChurch was pressed by Puritanism to concede, and what was the character\nand tendency of the Church's refusal? The first Puritan petition at this\nConference was 'that the _doctrine_ of the Church might be preserved in\npurity according to God's Word.' That is, according to the Calvinistic\ninterpretation put upon God's Word by Calvin and the Puritans after him;\nan interpretation which we have shown to be erroneous and unscriptural.\nThis Calvinistic doctrine of predestination the Puritans wanted to plant\nhard and fast in the Church's formularies, and the Church resisted. The\nPuritan foreman complained of the loose wording of the Thirty-nine\nArticles because it allowed an escape from the strict doctrine of\nCalvinism, and moved that the Lambeth Articles, strictly Calvinistic,\nmight be inserted into the Book of Articles. The Bishops resisted, and\nhere are the words of their spokesman, the Bishop of London. 'The Bishop\nof London answered, that too many in those days, neglecting holiness of\nlife, _laid all their religion upon predestination_,--\"If I shall be\nsaved, I shall be saved,\" which he termed a desperate doctrine, showing\nit to be contrary to good divinity, which teaches us to reason rather\n_ascendendo_ than _descendendo_, thus: \"I live in obedience to God, in\nlove with my neighbour, I follow my vocation, &c., therefore I trust\nthat God hath elected me and predestinated me to salvation;\" not thus,\nwhich is the usual course of argument: \"God hath predestinated and\nchosen me to life, therefore, though I sin never so grievously, I shall\nnot be damned, for whom he once loveth he loveth to the end.\"' Who will\ndeny that this resistance of the Church to the Puritans, who, _laying\nall their religion upon predestination_, wanted to make the Church do\nthe same, was as favourable to growth of thought and to sound\nphilosophy, as it was consonant to good sense?\n\nWe have already, in the foregoing treatise, quoted from the complaints\nagainst the Church by the Committee of Divines appointed by the House of\nLords in 1641, when Puritanism was strongly in the ascendent. Some in\nthe Church teach, say the Puritan complainers, 'that good works are\nconcauses with faith in the act of justification; some have oppugned the\ncertitude of salvation; some have maintained that the Lord's day is kept\nmerely by ecclesiastical constitution; some have defended the whole\ngross substance of Arminianism, that the act of conversion depends upon\nthe concurrence of men's free will; some have denied original sin; some\nhave broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate\ndoctrine, that late repentance,--that is, upon the last bed of\nsickness,--is unfruitful, at least, to reconcile the penitent to God.'\nWhat we insist upon is, that the growth and movement of thought, on\nreligious matters, are here shown to be in the Church; and that on these\ntwo cardinal doctrines of predestination and justification, with which\nwe are accused of unfairly saddling Puritanism alone, Puritanism did\nreally want to make the national religion hinge, while the Church did\nnot, but resisted.\n\nThe resistance of the Church was at that time vanquished, not by\nimporting strict Calvinism into the Prayer Book, but by casting out the\nPrayer Book altogether. By ordinance in 1645, the use of the Prayer\nBook, which for churches had already been forbidden, was forbidden also\nfor all private places and families; all copies to be found in churches\nwere to be delivered up, and heavy penalties were imposed on persons\nretaining them.\n\nWe come to the occasion where the Church is thought to have most\ndecisively shown her unyieldingness,--the Savoy Conference in 1661,\nafter King Charles the Second's restoration. The question was, what\nalterations were to be made in the Prayer Book, so as to enable the\nPuritans to use it as well as the Church party. Having in view doctrine\nand free development of thought, we say again it was the Puritans who\nwere for narrowing, it was the Churchmen who were for keeping open.\nTheir heads full of these tenets of predestination, original sin, and\njustification, which we are accused of charging upon them exclusively\nand unfairly, the Puritans complain that the Church Liturgy seems very\ndefective,--why? Because 'the systems of doctrine of a church should\nsummarily comprehend all such doctrines as are necessary to be\nbelieved,' and the liturgy does not set down these explicitly enough.\nFor instance, 'the Confession,' they say, 'is very defective, not\nclearly expressing original sin. The Catechism is defective as to many\nnecessary doctrines of our religion, some even of the essentials of\nChristianity not being mentioned except in the Creed, and there not so\nexplicit as ought to be in a catechism.' And what is the answer of the\nbishops? It is the answer of people with an instinct that this\ndefinition and explicitness demanded by the Puritans are incompatible\nwith the conditions of life of a historic church. 'The Church,' they\nsay, 'hath been careful to put nothing into the Liturgy but that which\nis either evidently the Word of God, or what hath been generally\nreceived in the Catholic Church. The Catechism is not intended as a\nwhole body of divinity.' The Puritans had requested that 'the Church\nprayers might contain _nothing questioned by pious, learned, and\northodox persons_.' Seizing on this expression, wherein is contained the\nground of that _separatism for opinions_ which we hold to be so fatal\nnot only to Church life but also to the natural growth of religious\nthought, the bishops ask, and in the very language of good sense: 'Who\nare _pious, learned, and orthodox persons_? Are we to take for such all\nwho shall confidently affirm themselves to be such? If by orthodox be\nmeant those who adhere to Scripture and the Catholic consent of\nantiquity, we do not yet know that any part of our Liturgy has been\nquestioned by such. It was the wisdom of our reformers to draw up _such\na liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly except\nagainst_. Persons want the book to be altered for their own\nsatisfaction.'\n\nThis allegation respecting the character of the Liturgy is undoubtedly\ntrue, for the Puritans themselves expressly admitted its truth, and\nurged this as a reason for altering the Liturgy. It is in consonance\nwith what is so often said, and truly said, of the Thirty-nine Articles,\nthat they are _articles of peace_. This, indeed, makes the Articles\nscientifically worthless. Metaphysical propositions, such as they in the\nmain are, drawn up with a studied design for their being vague and\nloose, can have no metaphysical value. But no one then thought of doing\nwithout metaphysical articles; so to make them articles of peace showed\na true conception of the conditions of life and growth in a church. The\nreadiness to put a lax sense on subscription is a proof of the same\ndisposition of mind. Chillingworth's judgment about the meaning of\nsubscription is well known. 'For the Church of England, I am persuaded\nthat the constant doctrine of it is so pure and orthodox, that whosoever\nbelieves it and lives according to it, undoubtedly he shall be saved;\nand that there is no error in it which may necessitate or warrant any\nman to disturb the peace or renounce the communion of it. _This, in my\nopinion, is all that is intended by subscription._' And Laud, a very\ndifferent man from Chillingworth, held on this point a like opinion with\nhim.\n\nCertainly the Church of England was in no humour, at the time of the\nSavoy Conference, to deal tenderly with the Puritans. It was too much\ndisposed to show to the Puritans the same sort of tenderness which the\nPuritans had shown to the Church. The nation, moreover, was nearly as\nill-disposed as the Church to the Puritans; and this proves well what\nthe narrowness and tyrannousness of Puritanism dominant had really been.\nBut the Church undoubtedly said and did to Puritanism after the\nRestoration much that was harsh and bitter, and therefore inexcusable in\na Christian church. Examples of Churchmen so speaking and dealing may be\nfound in the transactions of 1661; but perhaps the most offensive\nexample of a Churchman of this kind, and who deserves therefore to be\nstudied, is a certain Dr. Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford\nand Dean of Gloucester, who was put forward to thwart Tillotson's\nprojects of comprehension in 1689. A certain number of Dr. Janes there\nhave always been in the Church. There are a certain number of them in\nthe Church now, and there always will be a certain number of them. No\nChurch could exist with many of them; but one should have a sample or\ntwo of them always before one's mind, and remember how to the excluded\nparty a few, and those the worst, of their excluders, are always apt to\nstand for the whole, in order to comprehend the full bitterness and\nresentment of Puritanism against the Church of England. Else one would\nbe inclined to say, after attentively and impartially observing the two\nparties, that the persistence of the Church in pressing for conformity\narose, not as the political historians would have it, from the lust of\nhaughty ecclesiastics for dominion and for imposing their law on the\nvanquished, but from a real sense that their formularies were made so\nlarge and open, and the sense put upon subscription to them was so\nindulgent, that any reasonable man could honestly conform; and that it\nwas perverseness and determination to impose their special ideas on the\nChurch, and to narrow the Church's latitude, which made the Puritans\nstand out.\n\nNay, and it was with the diction of the Prayer Book, as it was with its\ndoctrine; the Church took the side which most commands the sympathy of\nliberal-minded men. Baxter had his rival Prayer Book which he proposed\nto substitute for the old one. And this is how the 'Reformed Liturgy'\nwas to begin: 'Eternal, incomprehensible and invisible God, infinite in\npower, wisdom and goodness, dwelling in the light which no man can\napproach, where thousand thousands minister unto thee, and ten thousand\ntimes ten thousand stand before thee,' &c. This, I say, was to have\ntaken the place of our old friend, _Dearly beloved brethren_; and here,\nagain, we can hardly refuse approval to the Church's resistance to\nPuritan innovations. We could wish, indeed, the Church had shown the\nsame largeness in consenting to relax ceremonies, which she showed in\nrefusing to tighten dogma, or to spoil diction. Worse still, the angry\nwish to drive by violence, when the other party will not move by reason,\nfinally no doubt appears; and the Church has much to blame herself for\nin the Act of Uniformity. Blame she deserves, and she has had it\nplentifully; but what has not been enough perceived is, that really the\nconviction of her own moderation, openness, and latitude, as far as\nregards doctrine, seems to have filled her mind during her dealings with\nthe Puritans; and that her impatience with them was in great measure\nimpatience at seeing these so ill-appreciated by them. Very\nill-appreciated by them they certainly were; and, as far as doctrine is\nconcerned, the quarrel between the Church and Puritanism undoubtedly\nwas, that for the doctrines of predestination, original sin, and\njustification, Puritanism wanted more exclusive prominence, more\ndogmatic definition, more bar to future escape and development; while\nthe Church resisted.\n\nAnd as the instinct of the Church always made her avoid, on these three\nfavourite tenets of Puritanism, the stringency of definition which\nPuritanism tried to force upon her, always made her leave herself room\nfor growth in regard to them,--so, if we look for the positive\nbeginnings and first signs of growth, of disengagement from the stock\nnotions of popular theology about predestination, original sin, and\njustification, it is among Churchmen, and not among Puritans, that we\nshall find them. Few will deny that as to the doctrines of\npredestination and original sin, at any rate, the mind of religious men\nis no longer what it was in the seventeenth century or in the\neighteenth. There has been evident growth and emancipation; Puritanism\nitself no longer holds these doctrines in the rigid way it once did. To\nwhom is this change owing? who were the beginners of it? They were men\nusing that comparative openness of mind and accessibility to ideas which\nwas fostered by the Church. The very complaints which we have quoted\nfrom the Puritan divines prove that this was so. Henry More, saying in\nthe heat of the Calvinistic controversy, what it needed insight to say\nthen, but what almost every one's common sense says now, that 'it were\nto be wished the Quinquarticular points were all reduced to this one,\nnamely, _That none shall be saved without sincere obedience_;' Jeremy\nTaylor saying in the teeth of the superstitious popular doctrine of\noriginal sin: 'Original sin, as it is at this day commonly explicated,\nwas not the doctrine of the primitive church; but when Pelagius had\npuddled the stream, St. Austin was so angry that he stamped and puddled\nit more,'--this sort of utterance from Churchmen it was, that first\nintroduced into our religious world the current of more independent\nthought concerning the doctrines of predestination and original sin,\nwhich has now made its way even amidst Puritans themselves.\n\nHere the emancipation has reached the Puritans; but it proceeded from\nthe Church. That Puritanism is yet emancipated from the popular doctrine\nof justification cannot be asserted. On the contrary, the more it\nloosens its hold on the doctrine of predestination the more it tightens\nit on that of justification. We shall have occasion by and by to discuss\nWesley's words: '_Plead thou solely the blood of the Covenant, the\nransom paid for thy proud stubborn soul!_' and to show how modern\nMethodism glories in holding aloft as its standard this teaching of\nWesley's, and this teaching above all. The many tracts which have lately\nbeen sent me in reference to this subject go all the same way. Like\nLuther, they hold that 'all heretics have continually failed in this one\npoint, that they do not rightly understand or know the article of\n_justification_:' 'do not see' (to continue to use Luther's words,)\n'that by none other sacrifice or offering could God's fierce anger be\nappeased, but by the precious blood of the Son of God.' That this\ndoctrine is founded upon an entire misunderstanding of St. Paul's\nwritings we have shown; that there is very visible a tendency in the\nminds of religious people to outgrow it, is true, but where alone does\nthis tendency manifest itself with any steadiness or power? In the\nChurch. The inevitable movement of growth will in time extend itself to\nPuritanism also. Let it be remembered in that day that not only does the\nmovement come to Puritanism from the Church, but it comes to Churchmen\nof our century from a seed of growth and development inherent in the\nChurch, and which was manifest in the Church long ago!\n\nThat the accompaniments of the doctrine of justification, the tenets of\nconversion, instantaneous sanctification, assurance, and sinless\nperfection,--tenets which are not the essence of Wesley, but which are\nthe essence of Wesleyan Methodism, and which have in them so much that\nis delusive and dangerous,--that these should have been discerningly\njudged by that mixture of piety and sobriety which marks Anglicans of\nthe best type, such as Bishop Wilson,[105] will surprise no one. But\nyears before Wesley was born, the fontal doctrine itself,--Wesley's\n'_Plead thou solely the blood of the Covenant!_'--had been criticised by\nHammond thus, and the signal of deliverance from the Lutheran doctrine\nof justification given: 'The solifidian looks upon his faith as the\nutmost accomplishment and end, and not only as the first elements of his\ntask, which is,--_the superstructing of good life_. The solifidian\nbelieves himself to have the only sanctified necessary doctrines, that\nhaving them renders his condition safe, and every man who believes them\na pure Christian professor. In respect of solifidianism it is worth\nremembering what Epiphanius observes of the primitive times, that\n_wickedness was the only heresy_, that impious and pious living divided\nthe whole Christian world into erroneous and orthodox.'\n\n[Footnote 105: For example, what an antidote to the perilous\nMethodist doctrine of instantaneous sanctification is this saying of\nBishop Wilson: 'He who fancies that his mind may effectually be\nchanged in a short time, deceives himself.']\n\nIn point of fact, therefore, the historic Church in England, not\nexisting for special opinions, but proceeding by development, has shown\nmuch greater freedom of mind as regards the doctrines of election,\noriginal sin, and justification, than the Nonconformists have; and has\nrefused, in spite of Puritan pressure, to tie herself too strictly to\nthese doctrines, to make them all in all. She thus both has been and is\nmore serviceable than Puritanism to religious progress; because the\nseparating for opinions, which is proper to Puritanism, rivets the\nseparatist to those opinions, and is thus opposed to that development\nand gradual exhibiting of the full sense of the Bible and Christianity,\nwhich is essential to religious progress. To separate for the doctrine\nof predestination, of justification, of scriptural church-discipline, is\nto be false to the idea of development, to imagine that you can seize\nthe absolute sense of Scripture from your own present point of view, and\nto cut yourself off from growth and gradual illumination. That a\ncomparison between the course things have taken in Puritanism and in the\nChurch goes to prove the truth of this as a matter of fact, is what I\nhave been trying to show hitherto; in what remains I purpose to show\nhow, as a matter of theory and antecedent likelihood, it seems probable\nand natural that so this should be.\n\nA historic Church cannot choose but allow the principle of development,\nfor it is written in its institutions and history. An admirable writer,\nin a book which is one of his least known works, but which contains,\nperhaps, even a greater number of profound and valuable ideas than any\nother one of them, has set forth, both persuasively and truly, the\nimpression of this sort which Church-history cannot but convey. 'We have\nto account,' says Dr. Newman, in his _Essay on Development_, 'for that\napparent variation and growth of doctrine which embarrasses us when we\nwould consult history for the true idea of Christianity. The increase\nand expansion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations\nwhich have attended the process in the case of individual writers and\nchurches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which\ntakes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or\nextended dominion. From the nature of the human mind, time is necessary\nfor the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas. The highest\nand most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all\nby inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the\nrecipients; but, as admitted and transmitted by minds not inspired, and\nthrough media which were human, have required only the longer time and\ndeeper thought for their full elucidation.' And again: 'Ideas may remain\nwhen the expression of them is indefinitely varied. Nay, one cause of\ncorruption in religion is the refusal to follow the course of doctrine\nas it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past. So our Lord\nfound his people precisians in their obedience to the letter; he\ncondemned them for not being led on to its spirit,--that is, its\ndevelopment. The Gospel is the development of the Law; yet what\ndifference seems wider than that which separates the unbending rule of\nMoses from the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ? The more\nclaim an idea has to be considered living, the more various will be its\naspects; and the more social and political is its nature, the more\ncomplicated and subtle will be its developments, and the longer and more\neventful will be its course. Such is Christianity.' And yet once more:\n'It may be objected that inspired documents, such as the Holy\nScriptures, at once determine doctrine without further trouble. But they\nwere intended to create _an idea_, and that idea is not in the sacred\ntext, but in the mind of the reader; and the question is, whether that\nidea is communicated to him in its completeness and minute accuracy on\nits first apprehension, or expands in his heart and intellect, and comes\nto perfection in the course of time. If it is said that inspiration\nsupplied the place of this development in the first recipients of\nChristianity, still the time at length came when its recipients ceased\nto be inspired; and on these recipients the revealed truths would fall\nas in other cases, at first vaguely and generally, and would afterwards\nbe completed by developments.'\n\nThe notion thus admirably expounded of a gradual understanding of the\nBible, a progressive development of Christianity, is the same which was\nin Bishop Butler's mind when he laid down in his _Analogy_ that 'the\nBible contains many truths as yet undiscovered.' 'And as,' he says, 'the\nwhole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, so, if it ever comes to\nbe understood, before the restitution of all things and without\nmiraculous interpositions, it must be in the same way as natural\nknowledge is come at,--by the continuance and progress of learning and\nof liberty, and by particular persons attending to, comparing, and\npursuing intimations scattered up and down it, which are overlooked and\ndisregarded by the generality of the world. For this is the way in which\nall improvements are made; by thoughtful men's tracing on obscure hints,\nas it were, dropped as by nature accidentally, or which seem to come\ninto our minds by chance.' And again: 'Our existence is not only\nsuccessive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our life and\nbeing is appointed by God to be a preparation for another, and that to\nbe the means of attaining to another succeeding one; infancy to\nchildhood, childhood to youth, youth to mature age. Men are impatient\nand for precipitating things; but the author of nature appears\ndeliberate throughout his operations, accomplishing his natural ends by\nslow successive steps. Thus, in the daily course of natural providence,\nGod operates in the very same manner as in the dispensation of\nChristianity; making one thing subservient to another, this to somewhat\nfurther; and so on, through a progressive series of means which extend\nboth backward and forward, beyond our utmost view. Of this manner of\noperation everything we see in the course of nature is as much an\ninstance as any part of the Christian dispensation.'\n\nAll this is indeed incomparably well said; and with Dr. Newman we may,\non the strength of it all, beyond any doubt, 'fairly conclude that\nChristian doctrine admits of formal, legitimate, and true developments;'\nthat 'the whole Bible is written on the principle of development.'\n\nDr. Newman, indeed, uses this idea in a manner which seems to us\narbitrary and condemned by the idea itself. He uses it in support of the\npretensions of the Church of Rome to an infallible authority on points\nof doctrine. He says, with much ingenuity, to Protestants: The doctrines\nyou receive are no more on the face of the Bible, or in the plain\nteaching of the ante-Nicene Church, which alone you consider pure, than\nthe doctrines you reject. The doctrine of the Trinity is a development,\nas much as the doctrine of Purgatory. Both of them are developments made\nby the Church, by the post-Nicene Church. The determination of the Canon\nof Scripture, a thing of vital importance to you who acknowledge no\nauthority but Scripture, is a development due to the post-Nicene\nChurch.--And thus Dr. Newman would compel Protestants to admit that\nwhich is, he declares, in itself reasonable,--namely, 'the probability\nof the appointment in Christianity of an external authority to decide\nupon the true developments of doctrine and practice in it, thereby\nseparating them from the mass of mere human speculation, extravagance,\ncorruption, and error, in and out of which they grow. This is the\ndoctrine of the infallibility of the Church, of faith and obedience\ntowards the Church, founded on the probability of its never erring in\nits declarations or commands.'\n\nNow, asserted in this absolute way, and extended to doctrine as well as\ndiscipline, to speculative thought as well as to Christian practice, Dr.\nNewman's conclusion seems at variance with his own theory of\ndevelopment, and to be something like an instance of what Bishop Butler\ncriticises when he says: 'Men are impatient, and for precipitating\nthings.' But Dr. Newman has himself supplied us with a sort of\ncommentary on these words of Butler's which is worth quoting, because it\nthrows more light on our point than Butler's few words can throw on it\nby themselves. Dr. Newman says: 'Development is not an effect of wishing\nand resolving, or of forced enthusiasm, or of any mechanism of\nreasoning, or of any mere subtlety of intellect; but comes of its own\ninnate power of expansion within the mind in its season, though with the\nuse of reflection and argument and original thought, more or less as it\nmay happen, with a dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself,\nand with a reflex influence upon it.'\n\nIt is impossible to point out more sagaciously and expressively the\nnatural, spontaneous, free character of true development; how such a\ndevelopment must follow laws of its own, may often require vast periods\nof time, cannot be hurried, cannot be stopped. And so far as\nChristianity deals,--as, in its metaphysical theology, it does\nabundantly deal,--with thought and speculation, it must surely be\nadmitted that for its true and ultimate development in this line more\ntime is required, and other conditions have to be fulfilled, than we\nhave had already. So far as Christian doctrine contains speculative\nphilosophical ideas, never since its origin have the conditions been\npresent for determining these adequately; certainly not in the medi\u00e6val\nChurch, which so dauntlessly strove to determine them. And therefore on\nevery Creed and Council is judgment passed in Bishop Butler's sentence:\n'_The Bible contains many truths as yet undiscovered._'\n\nThe Christian religion has practice for its great end and aim; but it\nraises, as anyone can see, and as Church-history proves, numerous and\ngreat questions of philosophy and of scientific criticism. Well, for the\ntrue elucidation of such questions, and for their final solution, time\nand favourable developing conditions are confessedly necessary. From the\nend of the apostolic age and of the great fontal burst of Christianity,\ndown to the present time, have such conditions ever existed in the\nChristian communities, for determining adequately the questions of\nphilosophy and scientific criticism which the Christian religion starts?\n_God_, _creation_, _will_, _evil_, _propitiation_, _immortality_,--these\nterms and many more of the same kind, however much they might in the\nBible be used in a concrete and practical manner, yet plainly had in\nthemselves a provocation to abstract thought, carried with them the\noccasions of a criticism and a philosophy, which must sooner or later\nmake its appearance in the Church. It did make its appearance, and the\nquestion is whether it has ever yet appeared there under conditions\nfavourable to its true development. Surely this is best elucidated by\nconsidering whether questions of criticism and philosophy in general\never had one of their happy moments, their times for successful\ndevelopment, in the early and middle ages of Christendom at all, or have\nhad one of them in the Christian churches, as such, since. All these\nquestions hang together, and the time that is improper for solving one\nsort of them truly, is improper for solving the others.\n\nWell, surely, historic criticism, criticism of style, criticism of\nnature, no one would go to the early or middle ages of the Church for\nillumination on these matters. How then should those ages develop\nsuccessfully a philosophy of theology, or in other words, a criticism of\nphysics and metaphysics, which involves the three other criticisms and\nmore besides? Church-theology is an elaborate attempt at a philosophy of\ntheology, at a philosophical criticism. In Greece, before Christianity\nappeared, there had been a favouring period for the development of such\na criticism; a considerable movement of it took place, and considerable\nresults were reached. When Christianity began, this movement was in\ndecadence; it declined more and more till it died quite out; it revived\nvery slowly, and as it waxed, the medi\u00e6val Church waned. The doctrine of\nuniversals is a question of philosophy discussed in Greece, and\nre-discussed in the middle ages. Whatever light this doctrine receives\nfrom Plato's treatment of it, or Aristotle's, in whatever state they\nleft it, will anyone say that the Nominalists and Realists brought any\nmore light to it, that they developed it in any way, or could develop\nit? For the same reason, St. Augustine's criticism of God's eternal\ndecrees, original sin, and justification, the criticism of St. Thomas\nAquinas on them, the decisions of the Church on them, are of necessity,\nand from the very nature of things, inadequate, because, being\nphilosophical developments, they are made in an age when the forces for\ntrue philosophical development are waning or wanting.\n\nSo when Hooker says most truly: 'Our belief in the Trinity, the\nco-eternity of the Son of God with his Father, the proceeding of the\nSpirit from the Father and the Son, with other principal points the\nnecessity whereof is by none denied, are notwithstanding in Scripture\nnowhere to be found by express literal mention, only deduced they are\nout of Scripture by collection;'--when Hooker thus points, out, what is\nundoubtedly the truth, that these Church-doctrines are developments, we\nmay add this other truth equally undoubted,--that being _philosophical_\ndevelopments, they are developments of a kind which the Church has never\nyet had the right conditions for making adequately, any more than it has\nhad the conditions for developing out of what is said in the Book of\nGenesis a true philosophy of nature, or out of what is said in the Book\nof Daniel, a true philosophy of history. It matters nothing whether the\nscientific truth was there, and the problem was to extract it; or not\nthere, and the problem was to understand why it was not there, and the\nrelation borne by what was there to the scientific truth. The Church had\nno means of solving either the one problem or the other. And this from\nno fault at all of the Church, but for the same reason that she was\nunfitted to solve a difficulty in Aristotle's _Physics_ or Plato's\n_Tim\u00e6us_, and to determine the historical value of Herodotus or Livy;\nsimply from the natural operation of the law of development, which for\nsuccess in philosophy and criticism requires certain conditions, which\nin the early and medi\u00e6val Church were not to be found.\n\nAnd when the movement of philosophy and criticism came with the\nRenascence, this movement was almost entirely outside the Churches,\nwhether Catholic or Protestant, and not inside them. It worked in men\nlike Descartes and Bacon, and not in men like Luther and Calvin; so that\nthe doctrine of these two eminent personages, Luther and Calvin, so far\nas it was a philosophical and critical development from Scripture, had\nno more likelihood of being an adequate development than the doctrine of\nthe Council of Trent. And so it has gone on to this day. Philosophy and\ncriticism have become a great power in the world, and inevitably tend to\nalter and develop Church-doctrine, so far as this doctrine is, as to a\ngreat extent it is, philosophical and critical. Yet the seat of the\ndeveloping force is not in the Church itself, but elsewhere; its\ninfluences filter strugglingly into the Church, and the Church slowly\nabsorbs and incorporates them. And whatever hinders their filtering in\nand becoming incorporated, hinders truth and the natural progress of\nthings.\n\nWhile, therefore, we entirely agree with Dr. Newman and with the great\nAnglican divines that the whole Bible is written on the principle of\ndevelopment, and that Christianity in its doctrine and discipline is and\nmust be a development of the Bible, we yet cannot agree that for the\nadequate development of Christian doctrine, so far as theology exhibits\nthis metaphysically and scientifically, the Church, whether ante-Nicene\nor post-Nicene, has ever yet furnished a channel. Thought and science\nfollow their own law of development, they are slowly elaborated in the\ngrowth and forward pressure of humanity, in what Shakspeare calls,--\n\n      ... the prophetic soul\n      Of the wide world dreaming on things to come;\n\nand their ripeness and unripeness, as Dr. Newman most truly says, are\nnot an effect of our wishing or resolving. Rather do they seem brought\nabout by a power such as Goethe figures by the _Zeit-Geist_ or\nTime-Spirit, and St. Paul describes as a divine power _revealing_\nadditions to what we possess already.\n\nBut sects of men are apt to be shut up in sectarian ideas of their own,\nand to be less open to new general ideas than the main body of men;\ntherefore St. Paul in the same breath exhorts to unity. What may justly\nbe conceded to the Catholic Church is, that in her idea of a continuous\ndeveloping power in united Christendom to work upon the data furnished\nby the Bible, and produce new combinations from them as the growth of\ntime required it, she followed a true instinct. But the right\n_philosophical_ developments she vainly imagined herself to have had the\npower to produce, and her attempts in this direction were at most but a\nprophecy of this power, as alchemy is said to have been a prophecy of\nchemistry.\n\nWith developments of discipline and church-order it is very different.\nThe Bible raises, as we have seen, many and great questions of\nphilosophy and criticism; still, essentially the Church was not a\ncorporation for speculative purposes, but a corporation for purposes of\nmoral growth and of practice. Terms like _God_, _creation_, _will_,\n_evil_, _propitiation_, _immortality_, evoke, as we have said, and must\nevoke, sooner or later, a philosophy; but to evoke this was the accident\nand not the essence of Christianity. What, then, was the essence?\n\nAn ingenious writer, as unlike Dr. Newman as it is possible to conceive,\nhas lately told us. In an article in _Fraser's Magazine_,--an article\nwritten with great vigour and acuteness,--this writer advises us to\nreturn to Paley, whom we were beginning to neglect, because the real\nimportant essence of Christianity, or rather, to quote quite literally,\n'the only form of Christianity which is worthy of the serious\nconsideration of rational men, is Protestantism as stated by Paley and\nhis school.' And why? 'Because this Protestantism enables the saint to\nprove to the worldly man that Christ threatened him with hell-fire, and\nproved his power to threaten by rising from the dead and ascending into\nheaven; _and these allegations are the fundamental assertions of\nChristianity_.'\n\nNow it may be said that this is a somewhat contracted view of 'the\nunsearchable riches of Christ;' but we will not quarrel with it. And\nthis for several reasons. In the first place, it is the view often taken\nby popular theology. In the second place, it is the view best fitted to\nserve its Benthamite author's object, which is to get Christianity out\nof the way altogether. In the third place, its shortness gives us\ncourage to try and do what is the hardest thing in the world, namely, to\npack a statement of the main drift of Christianity into a few lines of\nnearly as short compass.\n\nWhat then was, in brief, the Christian gospel, or 'good news'? It was\nthis: _The kingdom of God is come unto you_. The power of Jesus upon the\nmultitudes who heard him gladly, was not that by rising from the dead\nand ascending into heaven he enabled the saint to prove to the worldly\nman the certainty of hell-fire (for he had not yet done so); but that\n_he talked to them about the kingdom of God_.[106] And what is the\nkingdom of God or kingdom of heaven? It is this: _God's will done, as in\nheaven so on earth_. And how was this come to mankind? Because _Jesus is\ncome to save his people from their sins_. And what is being saved from\nour sins? This: _Entering into the kingdom of heaven by doing the will\nof our Father which is in heaven_. And how does Christ enable us to do\nthis? By teaching us _to take his yoke upon us, and learn of him to deny\nourselves and take up our cross daily and follow him, and to lose our\nlife for the purpose of saving it_. So that St. Paul might say most\ntruly that the seal of the sure foundation of God in Christianity was\nthis: _Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from\niniquity_: or, as he elsewhere expands it: _Let him bring forth the\nfruits of the Spirit,--love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness,\ngoodness, faith, mildness, self-control._[107]\n\n[Footnote 106: Nothing can be more certain than that the _kingdom of\nGod_ meant originally, and was understood to mean, a Messianic\nkingdom speedily to be revealed; and that to this idea of the\n_kingdom_ is due much of the effect which its preaching exercised on\nthe imagination of the first generation of Christians. But nothing\nis more certain, also, than that while the end itself, the Messianic\nkingdom, was necessarily something intangible and future, the _way_\nto the end, the doing the will of God by intently following the\nvoice of the moral conscience, in those duties, above all, for which\nthere was then in the world the most crying need,--the duties of\nhumbleness, self-denial, pureness, justice, charity,--became from\nthe very first in the teaching of Jesus something so ever-present\nand practical, and so associated with the essence of Jesus himself,\nthat the _way_ to the kingdom grew inseparable, in thought, from the\nkingdom itself, and was bathed in the same light and charm. Then,\nafter a time, as the vision of an approaching Messianic kingdom was\ndissipated, the idea of the perfect accomplishment on earth of the\nwill of God had to take the room of it, and in its own realisation\nto place the ideal of the true kingdom of God.]\n\n[Footnote 107: II _Tim._, ii, 19; _Gal._, v, 22, 23.]\n\nOn this foundation arose the Christian Church, and not on any foundation\nof speculative metaphysics. It was inevitable that the speculative\nmetaphysics should come, but they were not the foundation. When they\ncame, the danger of the Christian Church was that she should take them\nfor the foundation. The people who were built on the real foundation,\nwho were united in the joy of Christ's good news, naturally, as they\ncame to know of one another's existence, as their relations with one\nanother multiplied, as the sense of sympathy in the possession of a\ncommon treasure deepened,--naturally, I say, drew together in one body,\nwith an organisation growing out of the needs of a growing body. It is\nquite clear that the more strongly Christians felt their common business\nin setting forward upon earth, through Christ's spirit, the kingdom of\nGod, the more they would be drawn to coalesce into one society for this\nbusiness, with the natural and true notion that the acting together in\nthis way offers to men greater helps for reaching their aim, presents\nfewer distractions, and above all, supplies a more animating force of\nsympathy and mutual assurance, than the acting separately. Only the\nsense of differences greater than the sense of sympathy could defeat\nthis tendency.\n\nDr. Newman has told us what an impression was once made upon his mind by\nthe sentence: _Securus judicat orbis terrarum_. We have shown how, for\nmatters of philosophical judgment, not yet settled but requiring\ndevelopment to clear them, the consent of the world, at a time when this\nclearing development cannot have happened, seems to carry little or no\nweight at all; indeed, as to judgment on these points, we should rather\nbe inclined to lay down the very contrary of Dr. Newman's affirmation,\nand to say: _Securus delirat orbis terrarum_. But points of speculative\ntheology being out of the question, and the practical ground and purpose\nof man's religion being broadly and plainly fixed, we should be quite\ndisposed to concede to Dr. Newman, that _securus =colit= orbis\nterrarum_;--those pursue this purpose best who pursue it together. For\nunless prevented by extraneous causes, they manifestly tend, as the\nhistory of the Church's growth shows, to pursue it together.\n\nNonconformists are fond of talking of the unity which may co-exist with\nseparation, and they say: 'There are four evangelists, yet one gospel;\nwhy should there not be many separate religious bodies, yet one Church?'\nBut their theory of unity in separation is a theory palpably invented to\ncover existing facts, and their argument from the evangelists is a\nparalogism. For the Four Gospels arose out of no thought of divergency;\nthey were not designed as corrections of one prior gospel, or of one\nanother; they were concurring testimonies borne to the same fact. But\nthe several religious bodies of Christendom plainly grew out of an\nintention of divergency; clearly they were designed to correct the\nimperfections of one prior church and of each other; and to say of\nthings sprung out of discord that they may make _one_, because things\nsprung out of concord may make _one_, is like saying that because\nseveral agreements may make a peace, therefore several wars may make a\npeace too. No; without some strong motive to the contrary, men united by\nthe pursuit of a clearly defined common aim of irresistible\nattractiveness naturally coalesce; and since they coalesce naturally,\nthey are clearly right in coalescing and find their advantage in it.\n\nAll that Dr. Newman has so excellently said about development applies\nhere legitimately and fully. Existence justifies additions and stages in\nexistence. The living edifice planted on the foundation, _Let every one\nthat nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity_, could not but\ngrow, if it lived at all. If it grew, it could not but make\ndevelopments, and all developments not inconsistent with the aim of its\noriginal foundation, and not extending beyond the moral and practical\nsphere which was the sphere of its original foundation, are legitimated\nby the very fact of the Church having in the natural evolution of its\nlife and growth made them. A boy does not wear the clothes or follow the\nways of an infant, nor a man those of a boy; yet they are all engaged in\nthe one same business of developing their growing life, and to the\nclothes to be worn and the ways to be followed for the purpose of doing\nthis, nature will, in general, direct them safely. The several scattered\ncongregations of the first age of Christianity coalesced into one\ncommunity, just as the several scattered Christians had earlier still\ncoalesced into congregations. Why?--because such was the natural course\nof things. It had nothing inconsistent with the fundamental ground of\nChristians, _Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from\niniquity_; and it was approved by their growing and enlarging in it.\nThey developed a church-discipline with a hierarchy of bishops and\narchbishops, which was not that of the first times; they developed\nchurch-usages, such as the practice of infant baptism, which were not\nthose of the first times; they developed a church-ritual with ceremonies\nwhich were not those of the first times;--they developed all these, just\nas they developed a church-architecture which was not that of the first\ntimes, because they were no longer in the first times, and required for\ntheir expanding growth what suited their own times. They coalesced with\nthe State because they grew by doing so. They called the faith they\npossessed in common the _Catholic_, that is, the general or universal\nfaith. They developed, also, as we have seen, dogma or a theological\nphilosophy. Both dogma and discipline became a part of the Catholic\nfaith, or profession of the general body of Christians.\n\nNow to develop a discipline, or form of outward life for itself, the\nChurch, as has been said, had necessarily, like every other living\nthing, the requisite qualifications; to develop scientific dogma it had\nnot. But even of the dogma which the Church developed it may be said,\nthat, from the very nature of things, it was probably, as compared with\nthe opposing dogma over which it prevailed, the more suited to the\nactual condition of the Church's life, and to the due progress of the\ndivine work for which she existed. For instance, whatever may be\nscientifically the rights of the question about grace and free-will, it\nis evident that, for the Church of the fifth century, Pelagianism was\nthe less inspiring and edifying doctrine, and the sense of _being in the\ndivine hand_ was the feeling which it was good for Christians to be\nfilled with. Whatever may be scientifically the merits of the dispute\nbetween Arius and Athanasius, for the Church of their time whatever most\nexalted or seemed to exalt Jesus Christ was clearly the profitable\ndoctrine, the doctrine most helpful to that moral life which was the\ntrue life of the Church.\n\nPeople, however, there were in abundance who differed on points both of\ndiscipline and of dogma from the rule which obtained in the Church, and\nwho separated from her on account of that difference. These were the\nheretics: _separatists_, as the name implies, _for the sake of\nopinions_. And the very name, therefore, implies that they were wrong in\nseparating, and that the body which held together was right; because the\nChurch exists, not for the sake of opinions, but for the sake of moral\npractice, and a united endeavour after this is stronger than a broken\none. Valentinians, Marcionites, Montanists, Donatists, Manich\u00e6ans,\nNovatians, Eutychians, Apollinarians, Nestorians, Arians, Pelagians,--if\nthey separated on points of discipline they were wrong, because for\ndeveloping its own fit outward conditions of life the body of a\ncommunity has, as we have seen, a real natural power, and individuals\nare bound to sacrifice their fancies to it; if they separated on points\nof dogma they were wrong also, because, while neither they nor the\nChurch had the means of determining such points adequately, the true\ninstinct lay in those who, instead of separating for such points,\nconceded them as the Church settled them, and found their bond of union,\nwhere it in truth really was, not in notions about the co-eternity of\nthe Son, but in the principle: _Let every one that nameth the name of\nChrist depart from iniquity_.\n\nDoes any one imagine that all the Church shared Augustine's speculative\nopinions about grace and predestination? that many members of it did not\nrather incline, as a matter of speculative opinion, to the notions of\nPelagius? Does any one imagine that all who stood with the Church and\ndid not join themselves to the Arians, were speculatively Athanasians?\nIt was not so; but they had a true feeling for what purpose the Gospel\nand the Church were given them, and for what they were not given them;\nthey could see that 'impious and pious living,' according to that\nsentence of Epiphanius we have quoted from Hammond, 'divided the whole\nChristian world into erroneous and orthodox;' and that it was not worth\nwhile to suffer themselves to be divided for anything else.\n\nAnd though it will be said that separatists for opinions on points of\ndiscipline and dogma have often asserted, and sometimes believed, that\npiety and impiety were vitally concerned in these points; yet here again\nthe true religious instinct is that which discerns,--what is seldom so\nvery obscure,--whether they are in truth thus vitally concerned or not;\nand, if they are not, cannot be perverted into fancying them concerned\nand breaking unity for them. This, I say, is the true religious\ninstinct, the instinct which most clearly seizes the essence and aim of\nthe Christian Gospel and of the Christian Church. But fidelity to it\nleaves, also, the way least closed to the admission of true developments\nof speculative thought, when the time is come for them, and to the\nincorporation of these true developments with the ideas and practice of\nChristians.\n\nIs there not, then, any separation which is right and reasonable? Yes,\nseparation on plain points of morals. For these involve the very essence\nof the Christian Gospel, and the very ground on which the Christian\nChurch is built. The sale of indulgences, if deliberately instituted and\npersisted in by the main body of the Church, afforded a valid reason for\nbreaking unity; the doctrine of purgatory, or of the real presence, did\nnot.\n\nHowever, a cosmopolitan church-order, commenced when the political\norganisation of Christians was also cosmopolitan,--when, that is, the\nnations of Europe were politically one in the unity of the Roman\nEmpire,--might well occasion difficulties as the nations solidified into\nindependent states with a keen sense of their independent life; so that,\nthe cosmopolitan type disappearing for civil affairs, and being replaced\nby the national type, the same disappearance and replacement tended to\nprevail in ecclesiastical affairs also. But this was a political\ndifficulty, not a religious one, and it raised no insuperable bar to\ncontinued religious union. A Church with Anglican liberties might very\nwell, the English national spirit being what it is, have been in\nreligious communion with Rome, and yet have been safely trusted to\nmaintain and develop its national liberties to any extent required.\n\nThe moral corruptions of Rome, on the other hand, were a real ground for\nseparation. On their account, and solely on their account, if they could\nnot be got rid of, was separation not only lawful but necessary. It has\nalways been the averment of the Church of England, that the change made\nin her at the Reformation was the very least change which was absolutely\nnecessary. No doubt she used the opportunity of her breach with Rome to\nget rid of several doctrines which the human mind had outgrown; but it\nwas the immoral practice of Rome that really moved her to separation.\nAnd she maintained that she merely got rid of Roman corruptions which\nwere immoral and intolerable, and remained the old, historic, Catholic\nChurch of England still.\n\nThe right to this title of _Catholic_ is a favourite matter of\ncontention between bodies of Christians. But let us use names in their\ncustomary and natural senses. To us it seems that unless one chooses to\nfight about words, and fancifully to put into the word _Catholic_ some\noccult quality, one must allow that the changes made in the Church of\nEngland at the Reformation impaired its Catholicity. The word _Catholic_\nwas meant to describe the common or general profession and worship of\nChristendom at the time when the word arose. Undoubtedly this general\nprofession and worship had not a strict uniformity everywhere, but it\nhad a clearly-marked common character; and this well-known type Bede, or\nAnselm, or Wiclif himself, would to this day easily recognise in a Roman\nCatholic religious service, but hardly in an Anglican; while, on the\nother hand, in a Roman Catholic religious service an ordinary Anglican\nfinds himself as much in a strange world and out of his usual course, as\nin a Nonconformist meeting-house. Something precious was no doubt lost\nin losing this common profession and worship; but the loss was, as we\nProtestants maintain, incurred for the sake of something yet more\nprecious still,--the purity of that moral practice which was the very\ncause for which the common profession and worship existed. Now, it seems\ncaptious to incur voluntarily a loss for a great and worthy object, and\nat the same time, by a conjuring with words, to try and make it appear\nthat we have not suffered the loss at all. So on the word _Catholic_ we\nwill not insist too jealously; but thus much, at any rate, must be\nallowed to the Church of England,--that she kept enough of the past to\npreserve, as far as this nation was concerned, her continuity, to be\nstill the _historic Church of England_; and that she avoided the error,\nto which there was so much to draw her, and into which all the other\nreformed Churches fell, of making improved speculative doctrinal\nopinions the main ground of her separation.\n\nA Nonconformist newspaper, it is true, reproaching the Church with what\nis, in our opinion, her greatest praise, namely, that on points of\ndoctrinal theology she is 'a Church that does not know her own mind,'\nroundly asserts, as we have already mentioned, that 'no man in his\nsenses can deny that the Church of England was meant to be a thoroughly\nProtestant and Evangelical, and it may be said Calvinistic Church.' But\nnot only does the whole course of Church-history disprove such an\nassertion, and show that this is what the Puritans always wanted to make\nthe Church, and what the Church would never be made, but we can disprove\nit, too, out of the mouths of the very Puritans themselves. At the Savoy\nConference the Puritans urged that 'our first reformers out of their\ngreat wisdom did at that time (of the Reformation) so compose the\nLiturgy, as to win upon the Papists, and to draw them into their Church\ncommunion _by varying as little as they could from the Romish forms\nbefore in use_;' and this they alleged as their great plea for purging\nthe Liturgy. And the Bishops resisted, and upheld the proceeding of the\nreformers as the essential policy of the Church of England; as indeed it\nwas, and till this day has continued to be. No; the Church of England\ndid not give her energies to inventing a new church-order for herself\nand fighting for it; to singling out two or three speculative dogmas as\nthe essence of Christianity, and fighting for them. She set herself to\ncarry forward, and as much as possible on the old lines, the old\npractical work and proper design of the Christian Church; and this is\nwhat left her mind comparatively open, as we have seen, for the\nadmission of philosophy and criticism, as they slowly developed\nthemselves outside the Church and filtered into her; an admission which\nconfessedly proves just now of capital importance.\n\nThis openness of mind the Puritans have not shared with the Church, and\nhow _should_ they have shared it? They are founded on the negation of\nthat idea of development which plays so important a part in the life of\nthe Church; on the assumption that there is a divinely appointed\nchurch-order fixed once for all in the Bible, and that they have adopted\nit; that there is a doctrinal scheme of faith, justification, and\nimputed righteousness, which is the test of a standing or falling church\nand the essence of the gospel, and that they have extracted it. These\nare assumptions which, as they make union impossible, so also make\ngrowth impossible. The Church makes church-order a matter of\necclesiastical constitution, is founded on moral practice, and though\nshe develops speculative dogma, does not allow that this or that dogma\nis the essence of Christianity.\n\n'Congregational Nonconformists,' say the Independents, 'can never be\nincorporated into an organic union with Anglican Episcopacy, because\nthere is not even the shadow of an outline of it in the New Testament,\nand it is our assertion and profound belief that Christ and the Apostles\nhave given us all the laws that are necessary for the constitution and\ngovernment of the Church.'[108] 'Whatever may come,' says the President\nof the Wesleyan Conference, 'we are determined to be simple, earnest\npreachers of _the gospel_. Whatever may come, we are determined to be\ntrue to _Scriptural Protestantism_. We would be friendly with all\nevangelical churches, but we will have no fellowship with the man of\nsin. We will give up life itself rather than be unfaithful to _the\ntruth_. It is ours to cry everywhere: \"Come, sinners, to _the\ngospel-feast_!\"' And this _gospel_, this _Scriptural Protestantism_,\nthis _truth_, is the doctrine of justification by 'pleading solely the\nblood of the covenant,' of which we have said so much. Methodists cannot\nunite with a church which does not found itself on this doctrine of\njustification, but which holds the doctrine of priestly absolution, of\nthe real presence, and other doctrines of like stamp; Congregationalists\ncannot unite with a church which, besides not resting on the doctrine of\njustification, has a church-order not prescribed in the New Testament.\n\n[Footnote 108: Address of the Rev. G. W. Conder at Liverpool, in the\n_Lancashire Congregational Calendar_ for 1869-70.]\n\nNow as Hooker truly says of those who 'desire to draw all things unto\nthe determination of bare and naked Scripture,' as Dr. Newman, too, has\nsaid, and as many others have said, the Bible does not exhibit, drawn\nout in black and white, the precise tenets and usages of any Christian\nsociety; some inference and criticism must be employed to get at them.\n'For the most part, even such as are readiest to cite for one thing five\nhundred sentences of Scripture, what warrant have they that any one of\nthem doth mean the thing for which it is alleged?' Nay, 'it is not the\nword of God itself which doth, or possibly can, assure us that we do\nwell to think it his word.' So says Hooker, and what he says is\nperfectly true. A process of reasoning and collection is necessary to\nget at the Scriptural church-discipline and the Scriptural Protestantism\nof the Puritans; in short, this discipline and this doctrine are\ndevelopments. And the first is an unsound development, in a line where\nthere was a power of making a true development, and where the Church\nmade it; the second is an unsound development in a line where neither\nthe Church nor Puritanism had the power of making true developments. But\nas it is the truth of its Scriptural Protestantism which in Puritanism's\neyes especially proves the truth of its Scriptural church-order which\nhas this Protestantism, and the falsehood of the Anglican church-order\nwhich has much less of it, to abate the confidence of the Puritans in\ntheir Scriptural Protestantism is the first step towards their union, so\nmuch to be desired, with the national Church.\n\nWe say, therefore, that the doctrine: 'It is agreed between God and the\nmediator Jesus Christ the Son of God, surety for the redeemed, as\nparties-contractors, that the sins of the redeemed should be imputed to\ninnocent Christ, and he both condemned and put to death for them upon\nthis very condition, that whosoever heartily consents unto the covenant\nof reconciliation offered through Christ shall, by the imputation of his\nobedience unto them, be justified and holden righteous before God,'--we\nsay that this doctrine is as much a human development from the text,\n'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,' as the doctrine of\npriestly absolution is a human development from the text, 'Whosesoever\nsins ye remit, they are remitted unto them,' or the doctrine of the real\npresence from the text, 'Take, eat, this is my body.' In our treatise on\nSt. Paul we have shown at length that the received doctrine of\njustification is an unsound development. It may be said that the\ndoctrine of priestly absolution and of the real presence are unsound\ndevelopments also. True, in our opinion they are so; they are, like the\ndoctrine of justification, developments made under conditions which\nprecluded the possibility of sound developments in this line. But the\ndifference is here: the Church of England does not identify Christianity\nwith these unsound developments; she does not call either of them\n_Scriptural Protestantism_, or _truth_, or _the gospel_; she does not\ninsist that all who are in communion with her should hold them; she does\nnot repel from her communion those who hold doctrines at variance with\nthem. She treats them as she does the received doctrine of\njustification, to which she does not tie herself up, but leaves people\nto hold it if they please. She thus provides room for growth and further\nchange in these very doctrines themselves. But to the doctrine of\njustification Puritanism ties itself up, just as it tied itself up\nformerly to the doctrine of predestination; it calls it _Scriptural\nProtestantism_, _truth_, _the gospel_; it will have communion with none\nwho do not hold it; it repels communion with any who hold the doctrines\nof priestly absolution and the real presence, because they seem to\ninterfere with it. Yet it is really itself no better than they. But how\ncan growth possibly find place in this doctrine, while it is held in\nsuch a fashion?\n\nEvery one who perceives and values the power contained in Christianity,\nmust be struck to see how, at the present moment, the progress of this\npower seems to depend upon its being able to disengage itself from\nspeculative accretions that encumber it. A considerable movement to this\nend is visible in the Church of England. The most nakedly speculative,\nand therefore the most inevitably defective, parts of the Prayer\nBook,--the Athanasian Creed and the Thirty-nine Articles,--our\ngeneration will not improbably see the Prayer Book rid of. But the\nlarger the body in which this movement works, the greater is the power\nof the movement. If the Church of England were disestablished to-day it\nwould be desirable to re-establish her to-morrow, if only because of the\nimmense power for development which a national body possesses. It is\nbecause we know something of the Nonconformist ministers, and what\neminent force and faculty many of them have for contributing to the work\nof development now before the Church, that we cannot bear to see the\nwaste of power caused by their separatism and battling with the\nEstablishment, which absorb their energies too much to suffer them to\ncarry forward the work of development themselves, and cut them off from\naiding those in the Church who carry it forward.\n\nThe political dissent of the Nonconformists, based on their condemnation\nof the Anglican church-order as unscriptural, is just one of those\nspeculative accretions which we have spoken of as encumbering religion.\nPolitics are a good thing, and religion is a good thing; but they make a\nfractious mixture. 'The Nonconformity of England, and the Nonconformity\nalone, has been the salvation of England from Papal tyranny and kingly\nmisrule and despotism.'[109] This is the favourite boast, the familiar\nstrain; but this is really politics, and not religion at all. But\nrighteousness is religion; and the Nonconformists say: 'Who have done so\nmuch for righteousness as we?' For as much righteousness as will go with\npolitics, no one; for the sterner virtues, for the virtues of the Jews\nof the Old Testament; but these are only half of righteousness and not\nthe essentially Christian half. We have seen how St. Paul tore himself\nin two, rent his life in the middle and began it again, because he was\nso dissatisfied with a righteousness which was, after all, in its main\nfeatures, Puritan. And surely it can hardly be denied that the more\neminently and exactly _Christian_ type of righteousness is the type\nexhibited by Church worthies like Herbert, Ken, and Wilson, rather than\nthat exhibited by the worthies of Puritanism; the cause being that these\nlast mixed politics with religion so much more than did the first.\n\n[Footnote 109: The Rev. G. W. Conder, _ubi supra_.]\n\nPaul, too, be it remembered, condemned disunion in the society of\nChristians as much as he declined politics. This does not, we freely\nown, make against the Puritans' refusal to take the law from their\nadversaries, but it does make against their allegation that it does not\nmatter whether the society of Christians is united or not, and that\nthere are even great advantages in separatism. If Anglicans maintained\nthat their church-order was written in Scripture and a matter of divine\ncommand, then, Congregationalists maintaining the same thing, to the\ncontroversy between them there could be no end. But now, Anglicans\nmaintaining no such thing, but that their church-order is a matter of\nhistoric development and natural expediency, that it has _grown_,--which\nis evident enough,--and that the essence of Christianity is in no-wise\nconcerned with such matters, why should not the Nonconformists adopt\nthis moderate view of the case, which constrains them to no admission of\ninferiority, but only to the renouncing an imagined divine superiority\nand to the recognition of an existing fact, and allow Church bishops as\na development of Catholic antiquity, just as they have allowed Church\nmusic and Church architecture, which are developments of the same? Then\nmight there arise a mighty and undistracted power of joint life, which\nwould transform, indeed, the doctrines of priestly absolution and the\nreal presence, but which would transform, equally, the so-called\n_Scriptural Protestantism_ of imputed righteousness, and which would do\nmore for real righteousness and for Christianity than has ever been done\nyet.\n\nTillotson's proposals for comprehension, drawn up in 1689, cannot be too\nmuch studied at the present juncture. These proposals, with which his\nname and that of Stillingfleet, two of the most estimable names in the\nEnglish Church, are specially associated, humiliate no one, refute no\none; they take the basis of existing facts, and endeavour to build on it\na solid union. They are worth quoting entire, and I conclude with them.\nTheir details our present circumstances would modify; their spirit any\nsound plan of Church-reform must take as its rule.\n\n'1. That the ceremonies enjoined or recommended in the Liturgy or Canons\nbe left indifferent.\n\n'2. That the Liturgy be carefully reviewed, and such alterations and\nchanges be therein made as may supply the defects and remove as much as\npossible all ground of exception to any part of it, by leaving out the\napocryphal lessons and correcting the translation of the psalms used in\nthe public service where there is need of it, and in many other\nparticulars.\n\n'3. That instead of all former declarations and subscriptions to be made\nby ministers, it shall be sufficient for them that are admitted to the\nexercise of their ministry in the Church of England to subscribe one\ngeneral declaration and promise to this purpose, viz.: _That we do\nsubmit to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church of England\nas it shall be established by law, and promise to teach and practise\naccordingly_.\n\n'4. That a new body of ecclesiastical Canons be made, particularly with\na regard to a more effectual provision for the reformation of manners\nboth in ministers and people.\n\n'5. That there be an effectual regulation of ecclesiastical courts to\nremedy the great abuses and inconveniences which by degrees and length\nof time have crept into them; and particularly that the power of\nexcommunication be taken out of the hands of lay officers and placed in\nthe bishop, and not to be exercised for trivial matters, but upon great\nand weighty occasions.\n\n'6. That for the future those who have been ordained in any of the\nforeign churches be not required to be re-ordained here, to render them\ncapable of preferment in the Church.\n\n'7. That for the future none be capable of any ecclesiastical benefice\nor preferment in the Church of England that shall be ordained in England\notherwise than by bishops; and that those who have been ordained only by\npresbyters shall not be compelled to renounce their former ordination.\nBut because many have and do still doubt of the validity of such\nordination, where episcopal ordination may be had, and is by law\nrequired, it shall be sufficient for such persons to receive ordination\nfrom a bishop in this or the like form: \"If thou art not already\nordained, I ordain thee,\" &c.; as in case a doubt be made of any one's\nbaptism, it is appointed by the Liturgy that he be baptized in this\nform: \"If thou art not baptized, I baptize thee.\"'\n\nThese are proposals 'to be made by the Church of England for the union\nof _Protestants_.' Who cannot see that the power of joint life already\nspoken of would be far greater and stronger if it comprehended Roman\nCatholics too. And who cannot see, also, that in the churches of the\nmost strong and living Roman Catholic countries,--in France and\nGermany,--a movement is in progress which may one day make a general\nunion of Christendom possible? But this will not be in our day, nor is\nit business which the England of this generation is set to do. What may\nbe done in our day, what our generation has the call and the means, if\nonly it has the resolution, to bring about, is the union of Protestants.\nBut this union will never be on the basis of the actual _Scriptural\nProtestantism_ of our Puritans; and because, so long as they take this\nfor the gospel or good news of Christ, they cannot possibly unite on any\nother basis, the first step towards union is showing them that this is\nnot the gospel. If we have succeeded in doing even so much towards union\nas to convince one of them of this, we have not written in vain.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:-\n\nText originally written in Greek has been transliterated and framed\nbetween plus marks, thus: +hagiasmos+.\n\nMinor punctuation errors and omissions corrected.","title":"St. Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism and the Church of England","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":49237}