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DR CARPENTER AT SION COLLEGE;
OR, THE
VIEW OF MIRACLES
TAKEN BY
MEN OF SCIENCE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SOOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E. ■
1874.
Price. Sixpence.
�7
�DE CAEPENTEE AT SION COLLEGE ;
OR,
THE VIEW OF MIRACLES
TAKEN BY
MEN OF SCIENCE.
HE following correspondence originated from the
sending to Divinity
the
Tnotice which aappeared ProfessorIndex, copy of atime
in The
a short
since, of a lecture delivered by Dr Carpenter at Sion
College, on “The Reign of Law,” particularly in
relation to the efficacy of prayer, before an audience
two-thirds of which consisted of clergymen. As
exception has been taken to the notice referred to by
some who were present at the meeting, on the ground
that it was not strictly accurate, it may be well to
give the reader an authoritative summary of the
Doctor’s line of thought, by way of introduction to
the general discussion of the subject which succeeds.
No report of the lecture appeared in the English press
at the time, and no formal minutes were kept of the
proceedings by the officials of Sion College. It may
just be premised, further, that while the lecture went
to show that there was no proof of the uniformity of
law observable in the physical universe being in the
least altered by prayer, Dr Carpenter left his hearers
to infer, by natural sequence, that no evidence exists
of the course of physical nature ever having been
interrupted preternaturally from any cause whatso
ever. This latter principle underlies the whole argu
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On the View of Miracles
ment of the lecture, and interlaces Dr Carpenter’s
thought throughout. It may be otherwise defined
thus. The structure of the Universe seems, from all
that can be known of it, to be incompatible with the
occurrence of physical miracle ; and the investigation
of this principle will be chiefly kept in view by the
present writer.
Dr Carpenter began by expressing his entire
agreement with Dr Chalmers and other theologians
who have known what science means in regarding
“ the laws of nature ” as simply our expressions of
the uniformities observable in the phenomena of the
universe. The lecturer referred specially to Dr
Chalmers’s sermon, entitled “The Constancy of Nature:
a Testimony to the Faithfulness of God.” He showed
that the whole of our action in the world proceeds
upon the assumption of this uniformity; and whilst
he did not question that the Deity could depart from
it if he so determined, he did emphatically question
whether we had any ground to expect that he ever
would, in accordance with human entreaty.
“If the whole scheme of creation,” argued Dr
Carpenter, “ has been devised with a view to the
highest happiness and welfare of God’s creatures, any
departure from that scheme must be for the worse.
And so, if I ask God for something that I think would
be better for me, it must be at the expense (even
supposing that I should really be the better for it) of
some one else. But any one who really believes in the
infinite paternity of God would shrink from impor
tunity for any change that he may desire for himself;
just as much as a child who trusts implicitly in the
wisdom and affection of an earthly father will abstain
from importuning him, when told that what he asks
would be bad for him.”
“To importune God for any departure from his
uniform course of action seems to me tantamount to
saying either that we know better than he does what
�Taken by Men of Science.
$
is good for us, or that, knowing that his way is best
in the end, we prefer the immediate gratification of
our own selfish desires.”
“ In earlier times pestilences were supposed to be
punishments inflicted by the vengeance of an offended
Deity, who was to be propitiated by prayers and
sacrifices. Now, we regard them as the result of
habitual violations of the laws which God enables us
to read in the course of nature ; and when such occur,
we set ourselves to find out the misdoing and endea
vour to correct it.”
The Doctor then narrated a very remarkable case,
which occurred at Baltimore in the Cholera Epidemic
of 1849. “Though the Poor-House,” he said, “was
supposed to have been free from any special liability
to its attack, and there was no prevalence of cholera
in the town, yet at two or three miles distance from
Baltimore, and in an open salubrious situation, there
was a most fearful outbreak in this Poor-House,
thirty dying in a day out of about eight hundred.
This was traced to a defect of drainage, which was
at once rectified, and immediately the plague was
stayed.” With reference to this Dr Carpenter
asked:—“ Does any gentleman in this room believe
that, if all Baltimore had gone down on its knees for
a week, God would have been moved to avert the
visitation ? ” His argument was that, “ in regard to
the course of nature, it is for the man of science to
study the uniformities of the Divine action, and to
bring down his own into accordance with it.” He
drew, however, “a broad line between the action of
Deity in the physical universe and his spiritual agency
on the mind of man.” “ The religious experience of
ages,” he said, “sanctions the idea that prayer for
enlightenment to know the will of God, and for
strength to enable us to do or bear it, has an effect—■
how or
we cannot tell; and to this view he gave
his entire assent. “ Such prayer,” he maintained,
�6
On the View of Miracles
“ is in accordance with the deepest religious instincts,
and is expressed in the noblest passages of sacred
literature.” “ But, in regard to the work of life,” he
contended “ that laborare (on the highest principles of
action) est orare. ”
One clergyman said, at the close of the lecture,
that if Dr Carpenter’s position were correct he might
as well shut up his church. He said : “ I ask God
for things I want, and I expect to get them.” But
this did not seem the general impression, which was,
that “ prayer does not change the course of nature,
but that, in the ordination of Divine Providence,
Prayer is a condition of our obtaining what we ask.”
In a letter written afterwards by Dr Carpenter to
a friend, containing comments on this latter view of
prayer, he says: “ This is as much as to say that if
we did not ask we should not receive (yet we are told
that material blessings are bestowed alike on the just
and the unjust, on the thankful and the unthankful).
I should call this the mechanical theory of Prayer.
It puts us in the condition of children just learning to
talk, who are made to say ‘ Ta! ’ for a cake or a
sweetie; and it seems to me to lower the spiritual
value of prayer to the material, instead of raising the
material to the spiritual—or, as Miss Cobbe said to
me, to bring God down to us, instead of trying to lift
ourselves to God.”
“ Mr Llewellyn Davies expressed his general ac
cordance with me; and I had subsequent communi
cations from other clergymen to the same effect. I
believe that liberal and thoughtful men generally
would accept these conclusions, if not trammelled by
the letter of Scripture. Many have revolted at the
parables of the Unjust Judge and the Importunate
Widow, and of the Friend who yields to importunity
what he will not give to friendship; as conveying a
low idea of the Divine Fatherhood. Their best inter
pretation has, I think, been given by Robert Collyer
�Taken by Men of Science.
7
(of Chicago), in an admirable sermon entitled “ Knock
ing at the Gate of Heaven,”—their lesson being that
nothing good or great can be got without persevering
effort.”
Letter from the Lev. Dr ----- , Professor of Theology, to
Mr M---- .
----- College, 14 March, 1874.
My dear Mr M----- ,
If the report [from The Index] of which you have kindly
sent me a copy be correct . . . there must have been a most
melancholy exhibition of bigotry, narrowness and fanaticism.
. . . What a god in knowledge Dr Carpenter must be to
be able to use such words as:—“Nature represents a
kingdom of orderly evolution which has never been invaded
by anything preternatural or supernatural, and all liturgies,
litanies, collects, and prayers that were ever uttered never
had influenced—never could influence—the course of this
universe, nor mankind, nor a single individual in the slightest
degree.”*
Do you really think Dr Carpenter knows the entire history of
nature and humanity from the beginning down to this time,
so exactly as to be able of knowledge to affirm that ? If he
do not, such a statement, scientifically considered, is the pro
duct either of ignorance or fanaticism. If this be what is
called “Truth, whatever be the consequences,” the so-called
scientists are as self-deluded as they are fanatical—viewed
from the point of view of sober science. The paper you have
sent has supplied me with another proof that there are no
men more narrow and incapable of reasoning outside their own
limited department than the “scientists.” They are con
stantly protesting against metaphysics, philosophy, faith, &c.,
and yet they are perpetually making a system of the
universe out of the wee bit of earth to which they have
devoted special attention. Speaking solely from a scientific
point of view, I maintain that statements like Dr Carpenter’s
are as unscientific and fanatical as the crudest assertions ever
enunciated by a preacher. There is now far more real
scientific sobriety and caution in believing than in unbelieving
circles. Fanaticism is fast becoming—as has been foretold—
the specialty of those who do not believe. Excuse me
expressing myself plainly. I do so as a thinking man, not as
* These words are cited from the notice in The Index.
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On the View of Miracles
a Christian teacher. Wishing that you yourself may soon
again pass from darkness to the true light of life in Christ,
I am, &c.,
---------- .
Letter from Mr M---- to Dr------ .
B----- , 19 March, 1874.
My dear Dr----- ,
. . . The report of the proceedings at Sion College, which
I forwarded you, is substantially correct on the main points,
though faulty in omitting to record that one-third of the
audience was composed of laymen, in erroneously stating that
bishops were present, and in making too much of the protests
uttered by the clergy. Moreover, it puts the argument
of Dr Carpenter too baldly, and without due qualification.
The lecturer did not deny the possibility of Deity effecting a
physical miracle or acting discordantly with the uniform
operation of material law, though he asserted that there was
no ground to expect that the Deity ever would depart from that
uniformity in accordance with human entreaty. Again, in justice
to the Doctor it should have been stated in the report, that
he admitted prayer to be efficacious in the spiritual sphere as
far as to enable us to obtain “enlightenment ” respecting “the
will of God” and “ strength to do or bear it.”
Now one point is clear. Dr Carpenter practically recog
nises interference with the uniform operation of the laws of
nature as a conception at variance with the perfect wisdom
and beneficence he would attribute to the Deity; for he says
in his own account of the lecture written to a correspondent:
“If the whole scheme of creation has been devised with a
view to the highest welfare of God’s creatures, any departure
from that scheme must be for the worse.” In this view I entirely
concur, notwithstanding the epithets with which you gratui
tously bespatter the lecturer and the scientific laymen present
who shared his opinions. As for some of the worthy clergy
men present, their uneasiness under the statements to which
they listened is far from unaccountable. They are not accus
tomed to be contradicted by their people, and perhaps many
of them had not imagined that it was possible for their fond
traditions and devout faith in the miraculous, to receive so
rude a shock from the inexorable conclusions of science. Such
conclusions tended to disturb their faith, which is usually felt
by them to be consoling and strong in proportion as it is not
subjected to the test of historic criticism and to the antisupernatural analyses of science.
�Taken by Men of Science.
9
While virtually at one with Dr Carpenter on this head, I
should be disposed to define my position without his qualifying
considerations. He admits that whatever the Deity may have
the power to will, there is no proof that he has ever performed
a miracle in answer to human entreaty,—and I would venture
to add that there is no real proof that he ever performed a
miracle under any other condition. I believe nature to be a
system of orderly evolution, and in the very essence of the
constitution of the universe, the possibility of what is popu
larly understood as supernatural or miraculous interference
with its laws is necessarily precluded. Nature would cease
to be nature, and the universe to be the universe, on any
other supposition. This is the inductive view of the matter,
which one, unsophisticated by theological bias, instinctively
arrives at, as the result of intelligently observing the struc
ture, phenomena, and laws of the universe. And in this view
we are impregnably supported by the experience of the greatest
thinkers of modern days and by the testimony of all verifiable
history, as distinguished from incoherent, contradictory, and
half-mythical records which belong to unscientific and super
stitious times, and which relate, for the most part, to com
munities notoriously credulous and unacquainted with the
simplest facts of natural science. Niebuhr has played con
siderable havoc with some pleasant stories in the early history
of Rome; and, much to the dismay of those who have been
indulging similarly happy illusions affecting the professed
biographies of Jesus and his apostles, Strauss, Bauer, Schenkel, Meredith, Scott, and others have demonstrated many
historical statements in the four Gospels to be not only irreconcileable with each other, but incapable of proof. The
authenticity of these Gospels touches the very core of the
question of miracles, for they are claimed to be an inspired
history of a supernatural revelation from God; and for this
reason I must ask your permission to submit a few remarks
on these venerated documents in connection with this
subject.
Pagan, Jewish, and Christian writers alike, nearest to the
days of Jesus and his apostles knew nothing of the four
gospels. Moreover, as to the writing spoken of in the alleged
works of a certain Christian Bather, under the title of
‘ Memorials of the Apostles,’ there is no proof that these
‘ Memorials ’ ever existed; no trace of them can be found; and
it is quite possible that the single reference to them in early
Christian literature may be spurious. But even granting that
such ‘ Memorials ’ were genuine and authentic, there is nothing
to show that they were identical with the Gospels in the main,
or that they substantiate the claims of the latter. In no
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On the View of Miracles
instance do the Fathers for the first 150 years mention
Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, or quote words which can,
beyond dispute, be verified as of the authorship of the
“Evangelists.” There is no proof that the Gospels, in their
present shape, or in any real shape, were known to the
Fathers during the period above stated. Not till the time of
Irenceus (A.D. 180) does the doctrine of the Divine origin of the
Gospels begin to be propounded and believed, and even then Christians
were greatly divided as to which Gospels, and how many, were worthy
their acceptance. Nor can it be denied that the second
century was pre-eminent in Christendom for “pious frauds”
in connection with the “ sacred” records of the church,—these frauds being shamelessly practised and justified because
calculated to advance the material and external interests
of the Christian faith. A hundred years from the death of
the oldest apostle was surely a sufficiently long space,—
under such lax ideas of honesty as then prevailed among
Christian writers,—to bring to maturity a considerable
crop of fictitious narratives; and it is well known that tales
of this kind abounded in those times, respecting Jesus and
his immediate followers. A distinguished Church of England
theologian writes:—“Books, countless in number, were
written [in post-apostolic times], professing to give a history
of Jesus and his apostles. The authorship of these was attri
buted to Christ himself, or to some of his apostles and their
companions : our four Gospels were selected from this countless
number.” By.whom were they selected? When were they
selected? Why were they selected? Let Mosheim answer
these questions. “ As to the time when, and the persons by
whom, the books of the New Testament were collected into
one body, there are various opinions, or rather conjectures, of
the learned ; for the subject is attended with great and inexplicable
difficulties to us of these latter times.'’*
What then can really be known of how and by whom these
selected gospels were composed ? Is there no unmistakeable
source of information open to us as to when and how they
came into existence, and when and how the original autographs
of them were lost ? Such autographs are unknown to history.
The very earliest MS. of the gospels the world has, as yet,
had access to, is dated no further back than the beginning of
the fourth century.
Even orthodox theologians of repute saw away the branch
to which they cling, by the admissions which facts compel
them to make concerning the impenetrable obscurity and, I
might add, the strong doubtfulness in which the origin of the
gospels is shrouded. The late Dean Alford, in his ‘ Critical
* Eccles. Hist., vol. i., p. 93.
�Taken by Men of Science.
II
Introduction to the Greek text of the New Testament,
writes: “The Christian world is left in uncertainty
what its Scriptures are as long as the sacred text is full of
Various readings. Some one MS. must be pointed out to us which
carries the weight of verbal inspiration or some text whose authority
shall be undoubted, must be promulgated. But manifestly neither
'of these things can ever happen. To the latest age the reading of
■some important passages will be matter of doubt in the church,
and there is hardly a sentence in the whole of the
FOUR GOSPELS IN WHICH THERE ARE NOT VARIETIES OF
DICTION IN OUR PRINCIPAL MSS., BAFFLING ALL ATTEMPTS
to decide which was its original form.” A frank con
cession truly for a learned exegetical theologian who,
notwithstanding, strangely adhered to the notion that the
gospels were miraculously inspired!
Canon Westcott, who has bestowed, if possible, even more
attention upon the question of New Testament canonieity,
speaks in yet more decisive terms on this point. “It is cer
tainly remarkable,” he says, “that in the controversies of the
second century, which often turned upon disputed readings of
the Scripture, no appeal was made to the apostolic originals; the
few passages in which it has been supposed that they are referred to,
will not bear examination.”* Orthodox critics themselves being
witnesses, therefore, there is no evidence that the gospels
were written by those whose names they bear; there is a total
absence of contemporary testimony in their favour, and no
proof whatever in the next two generations, that the books
were veracious, or written by the persons to whom they are
ascribed. Canon Westcott himself admits that clear quota
tions from the gospels do not occur till the time of Ireneeus
(a.d. 180), Clement of Alexandria (a.d. 220), and Origen
(a.d. 250).
The accepted doctrine of the New Testament, as containing
a supernatural revelation, then, seems simply “to have had
its origin in tradition for at least the first hundred and
seventy years of the Christian era; for the following one
hundred and thirty years it was a matter of speculation, among
men whose ignorance was only equalled by their superstitious
credulity; and, finally, it was decreed to be a divine truth by
a majority of votes in one of those turbulent assemblies of
bishops, which too often had to be dispersed by military force,
after terrible rioting, which was sometimes attended with
bloodshed.”
Until the third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) numerous
gospels and epistles were in circulation and use among the
Christians, all claiming equally to be of inspired authority.
* Art. Smith’s Diet, of the Bible,vol. ii., p. 506.
�12
On the View of Miracles
By the bishops assembled at that Council a catalogue of the
books to be chosen and recognised as canonical, was drawn
up and passed, because found to serve best the ends of the
theological party then in power. All other books that
seemed to clash with the dogmas of this ruling party were
promptly burned. After much episcopal wrangling at the
*
Council on the subject, the number of gospels to be included
in the Canon was limited to four, with the consent of the
majority of the bishops, for the following ingenious reason,
which proved to be irresistibly conclusive to their orthodox
minds! Irenaeus was reported to have said, two centuries before :
“ It is impossible that there could have been more or less than
four. For there are four climates, and four cardinal winds,
and the church is spread over the whole earth ; but the gospel
is the pillar and foundation of the church, and its breath of
life. The church, therefore, was to have four pillars, blowing
immortality from every quarter, and giving life to men.”
Hence we happen to have inherited four gospels instead of
forty or fourscore I
Yet on the foundation of this arbitrary, conflicting, and
unproveable collection of narratives, you and your orthodox
friends expect Dr Carpenter to believe in the miracles ascribed
to Jesus and his colleagues, and you charge the Doctor with
“ narrowness, bigotry, and fanaticism ” because he rejects all
past accounts of miracles as improbable. We, who are called
rationalists, disbelieve in miracles (1) because it is of the
nature of supernatural interposition, were such to occur, to
introduce confusion and ruin into the whole indissolubly
connected chain of causes and effects throughout the Uni
verse ; and (2) because there does not exist in support of
religious miracles, or any other sort of miracles, any proof to
satisfy a mind free from traditional or sentimental fetters, and
bent on reaching fact by the only legitimate method—the
inductive method. I should be willing to leave it to any
twelve unprejudiced men of thought and judgment to decide
whether fanaticism lies in believing in miracles on the sandy
foundation of “pious frauds,” obscure superstitions, and con
flicting statements, pertaining to an age and a people remark
able for credulity and ignorance; or whether it lies in
rejecting tales of the miraculous, and trusting to the uniform
“Reign of Law” as essential to the well-being of the Uni
verse at all times and in all regions. If the question be
which side lays itself open to the imputation of fanaticism, I
should imagine the charge would most apply to those who
are satisfied to believe in stories of miracles which are said to
Draper’s Hist, of the Intel. Devpt. of Europe, vol. i., pp. 301-302.
�Taken by Men of Science.
T3
have happened nearly 2,000 years ago, on the authority of very
remote, incoherent, and unverifiable hearsays, coming down
from peasants living in ignorant times. The real fanatics are
surely those who, while so readily taking in those crude
narratives of far-off days, could not be convinced of the
supernatural occurring now, by almost any amount or kind
of testimony. How shall we characterise so singular a mode
of reasoning, except as fanatical ? Proof for an alleged miracle
in the nineteenth century, before it could be received by the
orthodox, must be indisputable; but the most hazy, mythwoven, and incongruous evidence is quite sufficient in their
view to support the affirmation of many miracles having taken
place among illiterate enthusiasts in the first century.
“Dq you really think Dr Carpenter knows the entire history
of nature and humanity from the beginning down to this
time so exactly as to be able of knowledge to affirm that ?
[viz., that a miracle never happened.] ” Such is your
question ; and it contains an intended quietus for the ration
alist which won some Evangelical fame for John Poster sixty
years ago, and the reply has been already given. There is no
proof that the regular course of nature has ever been departed
from, and yet the proof ought to be demonstrable in pro
portion to the extraordinary phenomena to which you invite
our credence. Nay, your question can be matched by another.
Do you really think that the planet Jupiter has the alterna
tion of day and night like our Earth ? Do you really think
that Neptune is influenced by the law of gravitation like this
“ wee bit of earth ” ? Can you say you know such to be the
case ? Have you personally been close enough to these stars,
and had such opportunities of studying their movements, that
you can demonstrate the assertion, of your knowledge, respecting
them ? Have you seen day and night on Jupiter ? Do you
possess tangible evidence that the laws of gravitation extend
to Neptune ? You know you cannot point to the clear evi
dence of your senses in proof of these things; and yet you are
prepared to assert emphatically that the phenomena I have
described belong as much to other planets as to our own.
You have the analogy of material law within the range of
your personal observation to guide you, and the tested con
clusions of science deepen your sense of the universality and
uniformity of law in its operations. But suppose I were to
hurl at you, for your supposed assertions about Jupiter and
Neptune, the ecclesiastical thunderbolt you aim at Dr
Carpenter and other men of science—whose pure, life-long and
successful devotion to the study of nature merits for them the
profoundest respect—for their denial of miracles, what then ?
And yet men of science have simply reached their conclusions as
�14
On the View of Miracles
to the order of nature excluding the occurrence of miracles
by the same inferential kind of reasoning which might lead you
to venture statements about something going on hundreds of
millions of miles away. There is, however, this difference. While
theologians and men of science in the case supposed would
equally base their reasonings on their convictions of an universal Cosmos, Dr Carpenter and his friends have had much
more experience than professors of theology in observing
the processes of nature, a higher scientific culture and a more
extensive and subtle apparatus for conducting scientific
research. _ Consequently I should feel quite as much justified
in accepting the statement of Dr Carpenter in his challenging
the proof of miracles, as I should in accepting your version of
certain natural events happening in very distant parts of the
universe. What think you now of the severe judgment you
have passed on scientific men as applied to yourself, mutatis
mutandis? “If he do not [i.e., know, by a personal inspection,
all departments of the Universe from the beginning, &c.] such
a statement [i.e., as the one the Doctor makes against
the occurrence of miracles], scientifically considered, is the
product either of ignorance or fanaticism. . . . The socalled scientists are as self-deluded as they are fanatical.
. . . No men more narrow and incapable of reasoning out
side their own limited department.”
Of course theologians (I suppose on Paul’s principle of him
that is spiritual being at liberty to judge all things) are
eminently capable of estimating accurately the profound
analysis of science, their “department” being so proverbially
expansive—especially where creeds, like high walls, attract
their, gaze to the vast range of metaphysico-theological
inscriptions written in these creeds—and shut out the region
beyond! A Pisgah-like prospect certainly, compared with
the “limited ” vista of science which has the grave disadvan
tage of beihg encompassed by no stereotyped creeds—
inventions so admirably adapted to enlarge human thought
and inspire a bold and wholesome love of ‘ ‘ truth, regardless
of consequences !! ”
I have seen, in my time, a good deal of philosophico-theological gymnastics performed round that word ‘ ‘ experience,”
as used by Hume tn relation to the subject of miracles. But
I have yet to find the dilemma in which that philosopher
put his supernaturalist critics, effectually answered by them.
■“ It is more probable (said he) that human testimony should
be false than that a miracle should be true; ” or as Paley
repeats Hume’s objection:—“It is contrary to experience
that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to experience
that testimony should be false.” This objection to miracles
�Taken by Men of Science.
i5
advanced by Hume before science had so completely disclosed
to us the uniform orderly development of nature as it has
since done—I say again has never been really confuted by
theology, but, on the other hand, has been confirmed by the
ever-accumulating verities of science.
Both on the principles, then, of true philosophy—the
philosophy of scientific fact — and on the principles of
scholarly historical criticism, the fairly intelligent mind of
our day, apart from traditional prejudices, cannot but have a
predisposition to trust the order of the universe as an uniform
whole, and as all-sufficient for every need of our race, and to
disbelieve in the aberglaube of supernaturalism.
When any class of men take it upon them to assert that
something miraculous took place somewhat frequently, 2,000
years ago in Palestine among a few obscure Jewish peasants,
of whom contemporary history says nothing, and of whom
trustworthy history takes no account for more than a century
afterwards ; when any class of men insist on our faith in this
preternatural interference on the authority of the most
unsatisfactory evidence ever produced—evidence which never
can be verified; when any class of men maintain that our
escape from eternal misery or eternal annihilation, as the case
may be, depends on our reception of vague and unverifiable
allegations about events avowedly contrary to the known laws
of nature and to the sum of trustworthy human experience,
and more particularly in the most enlightened ages and
countries, then unquestionably a very grave onus of proof
rests upon these believers in miracles. For my part I
unhesitatingly own that I regard miracles as impossible,
unnecessary, and superstitious, and while I see startling
presumption in any party proclaiming the necessity of
believing in them on a basis so frail—not to say illusory—as
the authority on which they are made to stand, I find every
thing harmonious with reason and with accredited and sober
human experience in the position of those of an inductive
habit of mind who disbelieve them.
Your mode of treating the subject calls to one’s mind the
legal exigency in which the policy is resorted to of abusing the
plaintiff’s attorney. You denounce the honest truth-seeking
“scientists,” as you call them, who have no creed to main
tain for pay, and who have consequently vastly less tempta
tion than theologians in the Christian sects have, to stick to a
dogma because it is the shibboleth of a party. We have had
enough of denunciation and reproach from orthodoxy. What
we want is honest and earnest discussion from your side; not
elaborate metaphysical dialectics or effusions of pious senti
ment, which are quite irrelevant, but calm, logical statements
�16
On the View of Miracles
offact in reply to the historical and scientific statements of fact
put forth by learned sceptics. Yet if we invite you to answer
Dr Carpenter and Professor Tyndall with science for science,
you choose either to evade the real point at issue or to assume
a scornful attitude and refuse our reasonable demand as if it
were malicious and profane. If we ask you to reply to
Spinoza’s ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,’ or Strauss’s ‘‘T/ife
of Jesus,’ or Colenso’s ‘Pentateuch,’ you simply point us to
Neander’s ‘Life of Christ,’ or ‘Aids to Faith,’ or to the
paltering lectures of the “Christian Evidence Society,” and
you go your way, reminding us that our “stale objections”
have been “answered over and over again.” But we will
continue to proclaim our dissatisfaction till the whole question
of the Christian miracles is dealt with by you in a purely
inductive fashion, and the scorn or pity you affect towards
“ scientists ” and “unbelievers” we will only regard as marks
of a weak cause. I recommend to your attention the reply
of Herder, in his ‘ Survey of Spinozism, ’ to the habitual
carping of priests at science in all ages. He argues truly
that just in proportion as physical science has progressed,
men’s ideas of God and nature have been purified and raised,
and the old fancies of “the faithful” respecting the universe
as subject to blind and arbitrary control, have been dispelled.
“The forces of nature,” he says, “are eternal as the God
head in which they inhere. All is, was, and ever will be in
conformity with beneficent, beautiful, necessary law, twin
sister of eternal power, mother of all order, security, and
happiness.”
How different this view from the persistent attempts of the
guardians of ecclesiastical interests everywhere, who can with
difficulty be got to speak kindly of the most disinterested and
reverent attempts to unveil the operation of natural law, unless
the. scientific student happen to profess unquestioning belief in
their metaphysical speculations at the same time. It has rather
been the habit of orthodoxy to refer to the framework of life
around us as God-forsaken, or as containing, at best, a cold,
marred, distant, and unsatisfying revelation of the First Cause;
and this disposition of priests to undervalue revelations of
universal law through science has usually been associated with
a tendency on their part to be most dogmatic and earnest
about things that are most inscrutable—most confident in
their hair-splitting definitions of what is most indefinable.
One of your ablest theological colleagues, I remember some
time ago, charged disbelievers in his view of the supernatural
with ‘ ‘ imprisoning God within a vast and immoveable system
of natural laws.” A strange and, I fear I must say, an
ungrateful conception for any man to have of the system of
�Taken by Men of Science.
*7
the Universe as based upon law,—so constant, progressive, and
infinite in its evolutions. Might we not, with some propriety,
reply: “Orthodox theologians have imprisoned God in a
narrow creed, and represented him as if he were a mere
impersonation of dogmatic theology, or a President of an
Ecclesiastical Assembly ?” Any one who considers the move
ments of the Almighty as unnaturally restrained. because
directed by invariable laws, indicates a state of mind very
becoming, perhaps, a retained counsel defending a cape in
which he has some substantial interest; but, in my . judg
ment, neither philosophical nor religious. The very principle
of undeviating uniformity which you and your friends oppose,
the loftiest scientific minds unite in acknowledging to be the
highest mark of infinite wisdom and goodness. Without it
prudent forethought in the conduct of human affairs would be
impossible. Have you ever been conscious of any experience
material, intellectual, or spiritual that can be proved to be
above and beyond the direction of fixed natural law ? Your
birth, your education, your physical and mental growth, the
formation of your religious convictions, the influences you
have exerted and received in your intercourse with your
fellow creatures ; your work as a Christian teacher—have not
all these things been under the dominion of natural law?
And have you felt the more on that account your legitimate
freedom and happiness limited ? Well, then, you have but
to project your finite experience, in these respects, upon an
infinite scale, to form some idea (remote, I admit, but suf
ficiently clear for the purpose of the present argument) of how
compatible the control of eternal and fixed law is with the
freest movements of the First Cause.
If English Church and Chapel-goers were to trouble them
selves less about what is beyond the sphere of rational proof,
and were to occupy themselves more with the study of
natural law, upon co-operation, with which the true regene
ration of humanity depends ; if the principles of natural
morality had always held sway as the religion of churchism
has done; if science and philanthropy had always wielded
among the masses as wide an influence as theology and priest
craft have done, there would now be immensely less social
vice, physical misery, and intellectual and moral degradation ;
better sanitary regulations; a nobler bodily and mental
organisation in our fellow creatures ; a keener appreciation of
aesthetics; a livelier sense of mutual obligations between
capital and labour, between the governing and the governed,
and between parents and children; a wider diffusion of useful
knowledge, and a worthier conception of religion.
I shoidd like to refer, in concluding my remarks on the
�18
On the View of Miracles
chief theme of Dr Carpenter’s lecture, to a concession which
he makes to orthodoxy, and to which I am obliged to take
exception. The Doctor admits that prayer is efficacious in the
spiritual sphere, as far as to enable us “to obtain enlighten
ment ” as to “the will of God and strength to do or bear it.”
This concession is remarkable as showing wherein the lecturer
is illogical and unscientific in the application of his principle
of natural law. He thinks that there is “ a spiritual action
of Deity on the mind of the devout petitioner.” He accepts
the testimony of “the Religious Experience of ages” in
support of this supposed direct operation of God on the devout
mind, and he writes in the letter quoted from at the beginning
of this paper, as if he held this direct operation of God as
outside the realm of law ; and yet, while finding it convenient
to bow to the authority of “the Religious Experience of
ages” on this head, he inconsistently rejects the very
same testimony in past times, where physical miracle is
concerned. To be logical, he ought to yield to the “sanc
tion” of the “Religious Experience of ages” equally for
both kinds of preternatural interference, or for neither; for
the testimony is equally weak or strong,—just as we may
please to regard it—for both. If “the Religious Experience
of ages ” may not be trusted by a scientific man when fer
vently adduced in support of the disturbance of physical law,
why should it be trusted when it asserts the influence of
prayer, in modifying the application of law in spiritual
matters? I venture to believe that neither in “Sacred
Literature ” nor in Ecclesiastical History can there be found
a single instance in which “Enlightenment” or “strength”
was ever realised by Saints—Catholic or Protestant,—as a
preternatural result of prayer, and which could not be
realised without it. Intense religious susceptibility will
readily catch fire, in certain moods of the mind, under any
pious act, whether secluded meditation or the strain of a
farm'liar hymn or an impressive sermon ; and the glow of the
feeling, thus excited, will communicate itself to the intellect
and the will, and create a spiritual atmosphere in which
spiritual objects will be vividly realised and spiritual pur
poses vigorously executed. The reflex influence of religious
enthusiasm when directed by pure desire to know and do what
is deemed right, will always be great upon the mind. But
for Dr Carpenter to admit ‘ ‘ the spiritual agency of Deity in
the mind of man,” as he expresses it, as if it were beyond law,
while “the action of Deity in the physical universe” as
according to law, is plainly a begging of the . question.
The
mind of man,”—whatever that may be—is a part of the
Universe, and if the Universe throughout be “a system of
�Taken by Men of Science.
19
orderly evolution,” the harmony of the Universe is broken if
we allow the spiritual department to be independent of law
and the physical to be under law; and surely such a conclusion
is quite contrary to the tendency and teaching of science.
The simple fact seems to be that Dr Carpenter has studied
law as evinced in physical science ; but with the characteristic
modesty of one who knows his own class of subjects well, but
who has not, perhaps, paid the same attention to the quality
of evidence furnished by ecclesiastical history in favour of
the efficacy of prayer for spiritual guidance, he excusably
hesitates, and especially with the solemn array of “the
Religious Experience of ages ” before him, to affirm, that pre
ternatural events may not have occurred in that experience.
It is not improbable, however, that had his analysis of
Ecclesiastical testimony been as thorough as it has been of
physical phenomena, he would not have been so timid in extend
ing the application of uniform law to the spiritual sphere, and
in excluding therefrom the efficacy of prayer as an agent
capable of inducing the direct action of the Deity. The early
history of all religions, it is now well understood, should be
received with extreme caution ; first, because sound modern
criticism has demonstrated that many of the narratives in the
so-called “Sacred Literature” of nations are incapable of
positive authentication both as to authorship and contents •
secondly, because the “sacred ” and “profane ” literature alike
which details “ the Religious Experience of ages,’’pertains, in
variably, to times, places, and societies, in which imagination has
played a mightier part than reason, and in which credulity
and priestcraft, with their attendant fanaticisms, have been
signally rampant. Indeed, one might safely add, without the
least disparagement of any existing sect of religionists, that
those who profess to rely on prayer in our time, as influencing
the Deity, to impart “enlightenment” and “strength” in
the spiritual sphere, are not, as a rule, persons the Doctor
would think pre-eminently distinguished for historic and
scientific attainment, or for the judicious management of their
faculties.
I must add a word on the concluding sentence in your
letter : ‘ ‘ Wishing that you yourself may soon again pass from
darkness to the true light of life in Christ.” The wish I
cannot doubt is sincere, but it surely is one of the marks of
an arrogant system to assume, as orthodoxy always does, that
one is only in a state to have a long face pulled at him, and to
be sighed over if his theory of the Universe be not according
to the Thirty-nine Articles, the Confession of Faith, or some
other sectarian creed. Again, I affirm that in this world of
varying religious ideas, where so-called “believers” are more
�20
On the View of Miracles
affected, I make bold to say, by sentimental associations than
by deep and rational convictions, and where it is not easy
for most men to find time and ability to struggle through the
stumbling blocks theologians have placed between them and
simple religious truth, it would be a slur on eternal justice
that men should be judged in relation to their moral state or
their future destiny, by their intellectual apprehension of the
things they hold to be religious. I have said elsewhere in this
series, and I make no apology for repeating the declaration
that I know no infidelity but treachery to conscience, and no
orthodoxy but loyalty to conscience. I have felt honoured
and privileged at home and abroad by the intimate friendship
of men of all the principal sects of Europe and America, and
of men standing very sincerely aloof from all, and the im
pression has been forced upon me by my study of character
generally, that in few cases is the ordinary moral conduct of
men influenced by their theological theories and Church prac
tices ; that while it is the tendency of exciting religious dogmas
and ceremonies to spoil the class who yield themselves up
absorbedly to them, the mass of well-meaning people happily
let creeds and churches sit very lightly on them, and depend
most for guidance on those principles of common sense and
human morality which imbue well-governed minds in all
countries.
You wish that I “ may soon pass out of darkness." If my
own consciousness may be allowed to attest the nature of my
changed theological perceptions (unless you suspect “the
natural man”—that much abused Pauline phrase—now rules
within me!) I can assure you that the very opposite of dark
ness would more fitly describe my condition. I have indeed
realised, most fully, in my experience, that description in the
Epistle in a sense not intended by the author: I have “passed
from darkness to marvellous light,” and the light shines
brighter and brighter every day. “ Life in Christ ?” What
is it ? Where shall I find it ? How shall I be sure that in
accepting it according to Evangelicals. I ought not rather to
have sought it among High Churchmen, or Broad Churchmen,
or Unitarians? All these sections of Christians invite us
“unbelievers” to share this life in Christ, and at the same
time involve us in a maze of bitter controversy as to which
party has the genuine thing to offer. You tell me to accept
the Christ of the New Testament. But is it to be the Christ
of the Gospels, the miracle-worker, or the Christ of the
Epistles—the atoning sacrifice for human sin? Am I to
follow the Christology of the Synoptic gospels or that of the
fourth gospel ? The Christology of Paul or of Peter ? Perhaps
you reply that I am mainly to follow the teachings of Christ.
�Taken by Men of Science.
21
But it cannot be proved that the words ascribed to Jesus
were ever used by him, and even if they were, some of his
precepts are for our age utterly impracticable. What Christian
citizen in our day pretends to follow carefully the mode of
life laid down by Christ? Who “takes no thought for the
morrow?” It is only by taking thought that the progress of
the world can be advanced. Who, among even the most
ardent of Christian enthusiasts are willing now “to make
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake?”
Perhaps you intend by “life in Christ” moral likeness to
Christ. But the question arises, in what are we to be like
Christ ? Are we to be like Christ in all that he clid or only in
those things we ourselves think good and excellent ? Does
the Christianity of Christlikeness include cursing fig-trees for
not having fruit on them out of their season? Does it
include whipping those we think impious with a whip of
small cords ? Does it include denouncing the inconsistent
as “whited sepulchres,” “hypocrites” and a “generation of
vipers ?” Does it include saying to one’s mother, when she
has failed to appreciate him, “Woman, what have I to do
with thee, mine hour is not yet come ?” Does it mean that
we are to tell women of other districts, when they ask for our
benevolence, “ it is not meet to take the meat of the children
and cast it to the dogs ? ” Does it include that we are to
exercise our powers to destroy 200 swine belonging to an
unoffending man ? Or does it mean that. we are to be so
little the friends of temperance as to produce 200 gallons of
good wine for our guests after they have already well drunk?”*
Whatever view, therefore, we take of “life in Christ,” we
shall meet with grave difficulties in forming a clear and defi
nite idea of what it means, and that consideration, if there
were no other, is sufficient to show that a religion so exten
sively the subject of dispute, and open to such conflicting
interpretations, was never intended to be as an organised and
a stereotyped system, the supreme, final, and exhaustive
revelation of moral and religious truth to mankind. Let it
not be understood that I undervalue the elevated tone of
spirituality and consecration attributed to Jesus in the gospels.
He, at all events, seems, above most, to have lived up to his
lights. Human life is incalculably enriched by many of the
sayings and doings ascribed to him in the New Testament.
But as far as these sayings are wise and good they contain
nothing original, and as far as the doings are noble and
historically true they are not without parallel. There is
something even broacler and more in harmony with the devout
* ‘ The Impossibility of Knowing what is Christianity,’ p. 12.
�22
On the View of Miracles, &c.
and cultured aspirations of humanity as a whole, than “life
in Christ.” I accept Jesus only as one of many prophets and
teachers necessary to the full discipline and development of
my intellect, conscience, heart, and will; but while pro
foundly grateful for the instructions of all great and good
men, I bind myself to accept implicitly and without qualifica
tion the teaching of none. Under the guidance of the best
judgment and sense I can command, I strive to discriminate
and arrive at a just conviction. The higher lights of the
nineteenth century enable me to see defects in the utterances
and conduct of the greatest sages of antiquity which their
standard of things—necessarily vague—-precluded them from
detecting. I believe in the gradual evolution of knowledge
and the gradual uplifting of the race in every department,
through human agency and in harmony with fixed law.
Owing to the natural limitation of men’s faculties, right views
in one direction will be mixed up with wrong views in another
direction, in the most valuable contributions to human
enlightenment and progress. But assertion, hypothesis and
theory in the advancement of knowledge, are sifted and
improved upon by successive great minds from age to age, and
thus the revelation of law, in its manifold applications, goes
on; man’s recognition of the vital importance of law is
quickened and deepened, and the general improvement of
mankind is the result. Life, according to the most philoso
phical understanding and practice of law in its varied relations
and bearings, is a far more healthful, rational, and useful
kind of life than the “life” which is limited by what was
thought, said, or done by “Christ,” or by any other single
man, be he ever so great or good.
Yours, &c.,
M. M.
PRINTED BY C. TV. KEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Dr. Carpenter at Sion College; or, the view of miracles taken by men of science
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 22 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Remarks and a correspondence on a lecture given at Sion College by W. B. Carpenter on "The Reign of Law." Includes bibliographical references. The piece is signed 'M.M'. KVK gives the author as William Benjamin Carpenter.
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M., M.
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1874
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Thomas Scott
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Miracles
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Miracles
Science
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PDF Text
Text
THE UTILISATION
OF THE
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT.
A
LETTER TO THOS. SCOTT, Esq.,
(OF RAMSGATE), BY THE
AUTHOR OF “THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE,”
“THE MEANING OF THE AGE,” &c.
“Now once again, by all concurrence of signs, and by the general
instinct of devout and holy men, as they daily and solemnly express
their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period
in His Church, even to the reforming of reformation itself. What
does he, then, but reveal himself to his servants, and, as his manner
is, first to his Englishmen ? ”
Milton, "Plea for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing."
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
1870.
Price Sixpence.
��THE UTILISATION
OF THE
CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT.
--------- 4.---------
Dear Sir,—
Knowing that you are in the habit of
putting before your readers some special subject for
thought at the season of Christmas, it has occurred
to me that you may like to extend the consideration
of a scheme which has long occupied my mind. I,
therefore, offer for your acceptance and that of your
readers, in case you approve, this letter on the im
portant question of redeeming the vast organisation
and resources of our National Church Establishment
from their present condition of uselessness, or worse,
and turning them to account in the promotion of
civilisation and practical religion.
I do not propose, in the remarks which I am about
to make, to bring any charge against the Church on
the score of its responsibility for the position which it
occupies. Suffice it to say on this head that if the
Church lags so far behind the age as to be no longer
capable of controlling or influencing it for good, it is
because the Church was modelled and constructed in
and by a previous age in such a way as to incapaci
tate it for the development and progress which were
necessary to enable it to hold its relative position,
�2
The Utilisation of the
should the age ever resolve to make a move. That
is, the secular Cosmos of which the Establishment
was a product denied to the Church the liberty which
it reserved to itself—that of motion.
Now, had our secular movement been a retrogres
sive one, that is, in the direction of less knowledge,
less morality, less religion, or towards a lower degree
or quality of civilisation, the Church, constituted as
it was, would doubtless have served an admirable
purpose: for it would have been both a drag upon
our downhill progress, and a fixed standpoint from
which we might be hauled back up to our previous
elevation. Again, had the age stood still, it would
have found the Church ever beside it, to cherish it in
sympathetic immobility. It so happened, however,
that the age neither went back, nor stood still, but,
as I endeavoured to show in a little tract to which
*
you gave circulation at this time last year, it went on
in all essentials of civilisation far beyond any pre
vious conception or anticipation. And so it happens
that the immovable Church, left behind solitary and
sad, not at its own incapacity for locomotion, but at
its desertion by its old co-ordinate and companion the
secular Cosmos, has ever since operated as a heavy
drag upon our uphill progress.
Thus our force is not merely wasted in overcoming
a superfluous resistance, but it is impaired through
its diffusion over the mass of a cumbrous appendage
which derives its vitality from our system. For we
must bear in mind the fact that the amount of vital
and other force possessed by any system is necessa
rily limited; and that if an undue proportion be
exerted in any one part of such system, the other
parts must suffer a corresponding deficiency, and
fail to perform their functions properly. There may
be, too, a morbid reaction upon the parts thus
* 1 The Meaning of the Age.’
�Church 'Establishment.
3
enfeebled, and of so serious a nature as to endanger
vitality altogether. Again, when any portion of the
system becomes congested, an excessive action is set
up in the region of the congested part, resulting, no
doubt, from the effort of nature to re-invigorate it,
but which develops into a dangerous inflammation if
continued so long as to reach a high pitch of inten
sity without having penetrated the seat of the morbid
inactivity.
Just such a congested mass in the midst of our
social and political system does our Church Esta
blishment present the appearance of having become.
We cannot cut it off, for it is part of ourselves,
deriving its nourishment from the sources of our own
vitality, in the same way as a deeply rooted cancer
from the unhappy victim of its growth. And we
suffer so much from the drain upon our system caused
by the constant direction of our vital forces towards
this morbid region, that we have not strength left to
allow us to do justice to our other and essential
functions. The returning currents, too, come back
vitiated to carry the evil into the rest of the system.
There is a theory among mesmerists that a healthy
circulation of the vital forces may be restored to
deranged organs by means of the magnetic traction
of the hand—that the passage of the fingers, espe
cially when accompanied by gentle pressure over
the inflamed and congested parts, will, by drawing
the vital currents along their proper channels of
communication, place the whole system once more in
a condition of harmonious sympathy with itself. I
desire to effect such a re-union between the Church
and the whole fabric of our body politic, and I pro
pose to follow the tactics of the mesmerist, and en
deavour, by the imposition of hands upon the
affected member, to reduce its arrested or disturbed
circulation to healthy harmony with that of the
system generally. A little judicious mechanical
�4
The Utilisation of the
pressure often facilitates the removal of an obstruc
tion upon which the whole interior force of the
system has been employing itself in vain. In fact,
Nature itself prompts the external application of the
hand to an affected part of the body in aid of those
internal forces which are striving to effect a cure.
In the case which I have proposed for present con
sideration, one fact must be specially kept in view.
The constitution of the patient has not merely
developed: it has undergone a change.
Figures
apart, the fundamental idea of the State is altogether
different from what it was when in earlier days it kept
company with the Church. It is necessary to infuse
that idea into the Church, if it is ever to be brought
forward and made available for the new uses of the
State.
The change to which I refer is this :—Under the
old regime, when knowledge was the monopoly of a
certain limited class, it was the custom to govern
men through their ignorance and superstitions. It
was not unusual to use the term “ Faith ” to express
the frame of mind which induced such submission. I
will not dwell upon terms, but allow that the qualifica
tion for submission was so universally possessed that
obedience was very general. The King and the priest
laid claim to a divine right to govern ; and the people
to a divine right to be governed; and so continued
together in tolerable harmony. But now the people
have woke up to the conviction that they are not
justified in thrusting the burden of their govern
ment from their own shoulders, and entrusting
their responsibilities to others.
The governors,
too, have failed to vindicate the divinity of their
claim to the satisfaction of the people. Thus, for
the Church as it was, the people know too much.
But they feel that they do not yet know enough
to be able to govern themselves as they desire to be
governed, and to realise the high conception of
�Church Establishment.
5
civilisation to which they aspire. They want all their
available force of knowledge to enable them to pro
ceed in the path of self-government; and the Church
absorbs and employs too much of their force in the
endeavour to keep them back in the old paths of
ignorance and submission. So that the nation is
really divided against itself, and that on a matter
which is vital to its continued prosperity and even
existence.
I am not going to show how or why we cannot be
expected to reverse the order of nature, and renounce
our development and its results. Rather shall I take
it for granted that if the Church is to continue to
endure at all as an Establishment, it must be re
modelled and re-constituted after the fashion of the
State. Neither shall I occupy my space and your
time with arguments to prove that inasmuch as it is
a creation and creature of the State, the latter has a
perfect right to deal with it, and either to abolish it
altogether, or to convert it into an useful engine of
civilisation.
There can be no doubt that if the Establishment
had no present existence, no attempt would be made
to create such an institution. But seeing that it
does exist, and is capable of being made a powerful
agent for good, it would surely involve vast waste
to throw it entirely away, and undertake the form
ation of another organisation in its place. I propose,
then, to convert our old fleet, instead of allowing it
to rot, and encountering the huge cost of building an
entirely new one. Many of the vessels maybe capable
of being made effective by the application of modern
armour; and, where a more radical change is re
quired, the timbers and other materials are yet sound
enough to be turned to account. But any scheme
for thoroughly reconstructing the Ecclesiastical Navy
must be so extensive that it is as much as one man
can do to suggest the idea, and make a few propo
�6
’The Utilisation of the
sitions by way of starting the work and enlisting the
support of others.
The principle of Church Establishments had its
origin in a time when the preservation of social order
was entrusted almost exclusively to two great classes
of public servants, the military and the clergy. It
was the function of the former to repress by physical
force all attacks on the lives and property of citizens
and all efforts to subvert the State, whether from
within or from without. And it was the function of
the latter to induce people by spiritual terror to
submit to the existing order of things. Gradually,
and under a process of natural development, the
function of the soldier came to have reference, ex
cept in very special emergencies, to external and
foreign dangers, the maintenance of domestic safety
and order being committed to a police composed of
civilians. Similarly, the function once exercised by
the clergy, of inducing people to be “ good ” by the
agency of spiritual terror, has gradually come to be
superseded in favour of a persuasion founded on the
early development of the rational faculties through
the agency of Schoolmasters. That is, for all pur
poses of domestic use, the Soldier and the Parson
have been superseded by the Policeman and the
Teacher. And one sufficient reason why it is im
possible to restore the authority of the clergy as
preservers of social order is, that under the influence
of the Teacher the general intelligence has so
advanced, that the ignorance which alone gave
efficacy to the system of spiritual terror, has almost
entirely disappeared. The change is recognised by
a large portion of the clergy, who, greatly to their
credit, have endeavoured to meet it in a becoming
spirit, and have set themselves with a will to assist
the diffusion of intelligence among their people. Too
many of them, however, are content to forego the
quiet fulfilment of their duties for the sake of the
�Church Establishment.
7
notoriety gained by their disputes among themselves.
Fighting was always easier than working, and not
only is there a greater pleasure of excitement in it,
but it is apt to gain recognition, honour, and pay,
while honest, useful industry passes unnoticed and
unrewarded.
Since the modern system of government rests upon
the general diffusion of intelligence, the first condi
tion essential to its efficiency consists necessarily in
the universality of a sound education; that is, an edu
cation which at once cultivates the intellect and instils
a knowledge of the principles of human association,
and of the mutual duties which grow out of a state of
society; and this, not merely in the narrow domain of
private life, but also in respect of public and political
relations. The more ignorant and incapable a people
are, the more arbitrary and despotic must be their
government in its conduct, and the more mysterious
in its sanctions. But now the people have so much
to do with their own government that it may be said
that they are the government. People and govern
ment are, therefore, alike interested in the question of
popular instruction, and the country is now happily
aroused to a sense of its deficiencies in respect
thereof. But with all the urging of the subject in
and out of Parliament, the particular scheme that I
am about to propose does not seem to have oc
curred to any of those who are putting themselves
forward as champions of National Instruction. Even
the newly formed “ National Education League,” with
its admirable aspirations and practical wisdom, has not
thought of utilising the gigantic Church Establish
ment by converting it into an engine of Education.
There is a reason for the League passing over an
already existing organisation, which must here be ad
verted to. The object of that body is to provide an
unsectarian educationfor every childin the country, and
it fears that it is vain to seek for such an education at
�8
The Utilisation of the
the hands of a clergy. That such a feeling should exist
at the present day is perhaps not to be wondered at.
The clergy have not striven to let the public know how
far they have become emancipated from the shackles
of ecclesiastical tradition. The disability under which
the clergy of the Establishment laboured has not been
confined to themselves. The Establishment was but
the largest of many religious sects, and the clergy of
all the sects shared the disability. Thus, as a body,
they are still credited with being under the influence
of those religious tenets which represent man as placed
on the earth, less to work out a desirable condition of
society than to dream of a future state of existence ;
and which regard a preparation for another and hypo
thetical world of which nothing can be known, as of
infinitely more consequence than an education for this
one. It was through acting under the influence of
the doctrinal bias of their particular sects that a past
generation of clergy gave occasion for the rebuke con
veyed in the following fable, the authorship of which
I have failed to ascertain, but which it may not be
without use to repeat even now :
“ One winter’s night a poor boy, worn out with cold and
hunger, lay senseless before a rich man’s door: and the rich
man seeing him, was moved with pity and carried him into his
house. In a little while the warmth of the fire, which was
blazing in the room where the boy was laid, restored
him to life, and, feebly opening his eyes and raising his
head from the ground, in a faint, low voice, he cried, ‘ I have
had nothing to eat these two days : give me food, or I shall
die.’ Bread and meat and wine were placed before him ; but
as he stretched forth his hands towards the food, the rich man
removed it from within his reach, saying, “ Stop : before you
eat you must say grace.’ And he repeated a form of grace
which he ordered the boy to say after him. But another man,
who was present, interrupted him, and cried, ‘Your words are
wicked, the boy shall not utter them: this is the grace which he
must pronounce ’----- and then he gave another form of words
which he would have the boy speak. And when he had finished
talking, a third man, more vehemently than the other two, ex
claimed, ‘ Both of you are wrong. I cannot suffer the boy to
�Church Establishment.
9
sin by doing as either of you would urge. This is what he
ought to say----- and he repeated in a loud voice a third form
of grace. And then all three spoke together, each one in
sisting that he alone was right. And they became angry, and
abused one another, and the altercation continued for more
than an hour, for they would come to no agreement. And as
they were still debating and quarrelling, they heard a groan.
Then suddenly they stopped talking, and turned towards the
boy and found that he was dead.”
Unfortunately, the Government of the country, by
its adoption of and alliance with one of the religious
sects, gave to the whole category of theological and
ecclesiastical questions an importance that was at
once factitious and injurious to the general welfare of
the community. What are in reality either mythologic fancies or metaphysical subtleties, and suitable,
perhaps, for intellectual exercises for wranglers in
schools of philosophy, thus came to be widely re
garded as matters of importance and essential to the
well-being of mankind.
Thus, even within the same sect, such vastly undue
preponderance has been given to differences of dog
matic opinion, that the attention of the whole
country has at times been diverted from matters
really essential to civilisation to watch with breath
less interest the progress of the contest and the
settlement of the points in dispute. The following
extract from a work recently published well illus
*
trates my meaning:—
“I remember being, as a boy, powerfully and painfully im
pressed by the circumstances of a police case which I read
in the newspapers. A ruffian, living in the back slums of
London, had, being mad with drink and jealousy, horribly
murdered his wife in a paroxysm of brutal fury. He was tried
for the crime and condemned to death on the clearest evidence.
Owing to various circumstances his execution was postponed.
In the short time which elapsed between the man’s condem
nation and his death, certain Bible-readers and other philan
thropic persons who had access to this condemned felon,
* ‘Orval, the Fool of Time.’ By Robert Lytton.
�IO
The Utilisation of the
succeeded in teaching him to read, and, in some degree, to
think. The man’s natural intelligence, when unobscured by
the fumes of alcohol, and withdrawn from the customary
savageries of a dissolute and desperate life, appears to have
been extraordinarily receptive. It was reported of him that,
under the care of these teachers, he learned to read so well
that, before he went to the scaffold, he could read the Bible
without assistance. His first page of that book was read, and
(so the public was informed) his first prayer was breathed,
almost within sound of the nails which were being driven into
the gibbet on which he was about to perish. Certain persons
were so strongly impressed by these facts that they forwarded
to Lord Palmerston, who was then Secretary for the Home
Department, a petition for mitigation of sentence. But the
crime was atrocious, clearly proved, and without ‘ extenuating
circumstances.’ The man was hanged. At that time, the
Church was vehement in her demand for exclusive jurisdiction
over the education of the people. Reading this horrible story,
one naturally asked, ‘In Heaven’s name, what is the Church
about ? ’ The question was answered at length by the ‘ Times’
newspaper,which contained the report of this man’s execution.
The greater portion of that paper—the space of several
columns at least—was occupied by an elaborate discussion
between the Rev. Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter as to
the vital Church question of the time—whether or not an
unbaptized infant is after death consigned by the Deity whom
Christians worship, to a place of eternal torment, in punish
ment of the omission by its parents of a prescribed ecclesias
tical ceremony.”
It is true that while I write are echoing in my ears
the cries of the combatants over the recent appointment
to the see of Exeter, with section denouncing section,
and each claiming for itself to be the real and only
Simon Pure in orthodoxy: until I am reminded of
Milton’s apothegm, that a prelatical Church “may
prove a nursing mother to sects, but it will be a step
dame to truth.” Nevertheless, the change that has
taken place in the last few years is of immense
extent and significance. Behind and beyond all the
blatant disputants who keep themselves ever before
the eyes of the public, lies a vast body of clergy
emancipated wholly or in part from the Egyptian
bondage of Article and Creed, endeavouring quietly
�Church Establishment.
11
to do their duty in the rational teaching of the
people committed to their charge, wondering why the
Church as a depository of dead dogmas is kept up,
and what the nation is afraid of that it hesitates to
pull it down, or to convert it to uses commensurate
with its means. The press is almost entirely emanci
pated, and even its most liberal utterances are largely
the work of the clergy, numbers of whom hesitate
not to confess the relief and satisfaction which their
intellects and their consciences derive from such
opportunity of exercising without stint the truthful
ness that is in them.
This with very many. Others, of less decided
temperament, are anxiously awaiting such action of
the country as may withdraw them from a position
which they are disposed to regard as untenable in
itself. Pray do not understand me as charging the
clergy with insincerity. Their position is a suffi
ciently painful one without reproach being added
thereto. The nation required of them in their youth
a subscription to tests which their mature judgment
disapproves. In the meantime, they have married
wives and got families, for whose maintenance they
are dependent upon their vocation. They find, too,
that, notwithstanding all drawbacks, their position
generally is one which enables them to do much
good socially, and they would be sorry to lose such
vantage ground of usefulness. The one thorn in
their career is the enforced repetition of dogmas
which no longer command their belief. Laymen,
probably, do not fully realise the pain and mortifica
tion it is to a clergyman to have to stand up in the
face of his congregation and repeat a declaration of
his belief in things which he knows scarce any in
telligent person present either believes, or credits him
with believing—propositions which are by their very
nature totally unverifiable, but which he has con
stantly to declare that he believes, and that “ sted-
�•12
The Utilisation of the
fastly.” When I say that he knows that scarce an
intelligent person in his congregation credits him
with believing such things, I mean, of course, among
the masculine and educated portion; for of the
female part he does not value the assent one jot,
because he knows that the end and aim of a woman’s
education with us is to accustom her to accept, and
not to judge, that which is put before her. I have
little doubt that one of the reasons why so few men
go to church, besides that of their objection to mis
lead the ignorant by the sanction of their presence,
is their compassion for the clergyman, and their
unwillingness to subject him to the mortification of
seeing them there as conscious witnesses of his
humiliation. With regard to the feeling of clergy
men in respect of each other, it is scarcely an ex
aggeration to say that, as of old no two soothsayers
could meet without laughing, so now no two clergy
men believe in each other’s sincerity.
Thus, the imposition of tests in the National
Church is at the basis of the artificiality and false
hood which is the bane of modern society. The
morals of our whole system receive at their very
fount an infusion which taints them throughout. In
the very religion which forms a principal part of our
earliest education, as well as of our perpetual ad
monition, profession is placed above truthfulness.
It cannot be otherwise, so long as dogmatic
articles of belief are imposed as a condition of
sharing in the material advantages of a religious
order. With the Nonconforming bodies I am not
here concerned. They are private to the members
who compose them. The Establishment is a national
institution, and citizens are entitled to partake of
its benefits. Eor the Establishment to impose tests
of faith, is for the country officially to make itself a
party to falsehood. It matters little, in this view,
whether the particular items professed be true or
�Church Establishment.
13
not. The mere fact that they are of the nature of
dogmas, and, therefore, incapable of verification,
places the subscriber to them in the position of one
who leaves it to chance to determine whether that
which he professes be truth or falsehood. He asserts
that which cannot be proved, and, therefore, asserts
that which may be untrue. Let the condition of
orders in the Establishment be a certain proficiency
in certain branches of knowledge, if you will; but do
not continue to exact a profession of belief in parti
cular conclusions, for by so doing you place the
accident of correctness above the noblest of human
faculties—the faculty of truthfulness.
In spite of all drawbacks, however, the national
conscience is growing with the national intelligence.
Mythology and dogma are fast following astrology and
witchcraft. Music and various sensuous attractions
are being resorted to, in the hope of refilling the
churches to which belief is no longer able to compel
congregations ; and, in the meantime, whole classes
of the people starve for lack of knowledge. Church
and country are alike ready to own the touch of a
hand that shall bring them together again in the
bond of a common need. The enchanter has already
waved the wand of eloquence and justice over a great
wrong in a sister land. The birds of night flew
screeching away, and the right triumphed with un
anticipated ease. The Irish Church has shown us
what can be done with the English. It is no disendowment, no disestablishment that is needed here,
only the incubus of tests to be removed from its
clergy, and themselves converted into unsectarian
teachers and schoolmasters. Is the task beyond the
energy or the will of our present magician ? I think
not, or not for long. He grows apace. He has but
to see that to “ feed the lambs ” is even more than
to “feed the sheep,” and that under the ripening
influence of his voice the country would soon be
B
�14
The Utilisation of the
eager for the change, and wonder how it could have
delayed it so long. The principle of such a trans
formation—from repugnant professors, or bickering
disputants, into hopeful, eager, free, and actual
teachers of the people—is no new one. The Act of
Edward the Sixth (1, c. 14), for regulating the
Acts of Mortmain, and “ Uses, superstitious and
charitable,” has already led to the conversion of
many a “ religious foundation ” to purposes of educa
tion. To the operation of this Act in past ages we
owe the existence of many an endowed grammar
school, in place of a nest of indolence or superstition.
What is to prevent it from operating in the future
on a yet larger scale, and turning the entire institu
tion—which now ranks belief above knowledge, and
assent above conviction, which ministers to a morbid
emotionalism in women, and to a passive indifferentism, or active scepticism, in men—into an agent
for imparting a sound practical education to the
multitudes of our children ? Under such extended
operation of this Act, in place of the gloomy and
periodically opened church and its unpractical teach
ing, of the listless, perfunctory, or superstitious
parson, and of the unintelligent or carping congre
gation ; in place, too, of whole parishes being pauper
ised under the vicious operation of “ Founders’
Wills,” we should everywhere have schools with
their airy halls, their model fields and gardens, their
exercising grounds, and their workshops for training
up the young to be intelligent, healthy, skilful, in
dustrious, and frugal citizens.
“ And what when Sunday comes ? ” I think I hear
you ask. “Is thereto be no gathering for the worship
to which we are accustomed, under the presidency of
the old familiar parson ? No seventh day of rest,
recreation, and devotion to higher things ?”
I will answer the query by asking you, “ What, in
a condition of intelligent, educated, and unsupersti-
�Church Establishment.
15
lions society, will be needed as an equivalent for the
* religious worship ’ of previous times ? ”
I take for granted the retention of the seventh day
as a holiday when it derives its sanction from the rea
sonable and natural, instead of the mythical and super
natural. Under the regime I am supposing, there will
be small likelihood of making the seventh-day holi
day less prized through the institution of a number
of competing “ saints’-days.” When men are en
couraged to turn an intelligent eye to the heavens,
they will see that the revolutions of the moon have
been ordained in such close conformity with their
convenience, that they cannot do better than con
tinue to make her quarters the measure of their weeks.
France rejected human convenience and astronomical
fact as well as priestly fiction when she exchanged the
seventh day for the tenth.
With regard to an equivalent for the present ser
vices of the Church, I should say that, under the
system which I am anticipating, inasmuch as truthful
ness will be esteemed above opinion, the demand for
positive dogmas will give place to a demand for “ posi
tive philosophy ”—that is, for evidence. Thus the
“ sermons ” of the future will consist of deductions
from verifiable facts in morals and science applied to
the nature and duty of man. There will be no diffi
culty in making such selection of prayers and hymns
from existing rituals as will enable all who desire such
mode of expression to combine in a common worship.
And there will be no lack of educated men to hold
formal discourse on all edifying topics when every
village will have its qualified schoolmaster, and every
town its staff of highly educated instructors. People,
lay or cleric, of ultra-metaphysical dispositions will
still be free to confound “ religion ” with profoundest
problems in metaphysics—that which is of the heart
with that which is of the head ; and to puzzle them
selves about the composition of the Uodhead, the in
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The Utilisation of the
carnation of Deity, and the doctrine of atonement.
They may even be gratified, too, by occasional ad
dresses on such abstruse and abstract subjects, de
livered, at their special request, by the head of the
local schools, or any other whom they desire to hear.
It would be thoroughly in accordance with the spirit
of the converted Establishment to devote a consider
able portion of its funds to the maintenance of a body
of men (and perhaps of women) specially qualified by
attainments and natural gifts to exercise the office of
preacher or lecturer, and whose function it would be
to itinerate the country in promotion of higher educa
tion in religion and morals. It is not easy to value
the relief that congregations and parsons alike would
instantaneously feel were only they required to preach
who had something to say, and could say it so as to
be worth the hearing.
It is clear that a national system of education
must, to preserve its character of being national,
recognise only such principles and doctrines as are
capable of general comprehension and application. It
must, so far as it goes, be such that all can use it
without violation to their consciences. It is not bound
to come up to the full need of every one’s private con
victions ; but it must have eliminated from it all that
is doubtful or controverted, and all that appertains to
the province either of the mystic or of the mountebank.
Of course there are to be found in every community
persons of narrow and deranged comprehension, who
raise objections to every scheme that is propounded
for the general good. It will be open to these to
follow their own isolated course, or to supplement the
teaching of the public instructor by a teaching more
in accordance with their own preferences. But those
who obstruct and denounce a comprehensive scheme
of national instruction simply because it is compre
hensive and tends to foster amity and union between
all classes and sections of the people in place of the
�Church Establishment.
17
prevailing bitter divisions, and who desire to build up
a distinct imperium in i/mperio, must be disregarded as
bad citizens who avow an interest in direct antago
nism to the welfare of the State. Even these, how
ever, will be free to bring up their own children as may
seem best to them. They will only not be suffered to
vitiate and cripple the State system by an infusion of
their own anti-patriotic idiosyncracies.
I had written thus far when I lit upon the following
passage in a tract of Milton’s, which I find singu
*
larly appropriate to the present question, advocating
the institution of movable and itinerant ministers as
a more effective method of promoting religion and
civilisation than that of fixed incumbents, and desiring
at any rate to abolish the system of paid clergy.
He says :
“ Be the expense less or more, if it be found burdensome
to the churches, they have in this land an easy remedy in
their recourse to the civil magistrate, who hath in his hands
the disposal of no small revenues, left perhaps anciently to
superstitious, but meant undoubtedly to good and best uses,
and, therefore, once made public, applicable by the present magis
trate to such uses as the Church, or solid reason from, whomsoever, shall
convince him to think best. And those uses may be, no doubt, much,
rather than as glebes and augmentations are now bestowed, to
grant such requests as these of the churches; or to erect
in greater number, all over the land, schools, and competent
libraries to those schools, where languages and arts may be
taught free together, without the needless, unprofitable, and
inconvenient moving to another place. So all the land would
be soon better civilised........................Those public foundations
may be so instituted, as the youth therein may be at once
brought up to a competence of learning and to an honest trade;
and the hours of teaching so ordered as their study may be no
hindrance to their labour or other calling.”
The schools, to the foundation of which Milton would
thus appropriate the Church funds, had for their
special object the education of ministers, rather than
that of the people at large. But his proposition
* ‘The Likeliest Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church.’
�18
The Utilisation of the
contains the germs of the plan which I have set
forth, and contemplates the employment of Church
property by the civil magistrate for purposes of
Education, or such uses as solid reason from whomsoever
shall convince him to think best.
Great as Milton was, there was one respect in
which he failed to transcend the notion which has
long prevailed in men’s minds, the notion that people
may have Education, but must have religion. We
are learning now-a-days to transpose the terms, and
say, “ People may have religion, but they must have
Education.” And the change implies no derogation
to religion, inasmuch as the cultivation of the in
telligence which God has given us is in itself the
first of religious duties. It is, moreover, impossible
to impart the smallest degree of Education without
in some measure developing the whole hierarchy of
faculties of which the religious faculty is a member.
The fact is, that the sense in which the denouncers
of what, in the current slang of the day, is called
“ Godless education ” employ the term “ religion,”
has no real reference to religion whatever. They do
not mean by it the cultivation of a sense of duty to
man and responsibility to the Creator; these come
with every accession of knowledge and intelligence
in the most Cl Godless ” course of secular instruction.
Every newspaper, every story-book, is in this sense
a religious teacher. No : the term “ religious educa
tion ” in their mouths really means a bias in favour'
of some particular ecclesiastical sect. It means a
strait-jacket of dogmas and tenets so early imposed
that the young and flexible mind can by no means
struggle out of it, but is bound to grow to its shape
and stop at its limits. Thus, the word religion,
which properly signifies that which binds one back
from an impious and wrongful course, is transformed
into an agency for binding one up in narrow, un
natural, unwholesome restriction. It is made to
�Church Establishment.
i
constitute a training which is a system of repression
and distortion for the whole intelligence of its subject,
instead of an Education which is really a drawing out
of the whole powers of the mind.
To the authority of Milton I will add the weighty
judgment of Bishop Butler. The charge of “ sacri
lege,” so readily brought against those who would
turn to useful account property which has once been
dedicated to “the Church,” had no terrors for him.
“ Every donation to the Christian Church,” he main
tains, “ is a human donation and no more, and there
fore cannot give a Divine right, but such right only
as must be subject, in common with all other pro
perty, to the regulation of human laws.” “ The
persons who gave lands to the Church had no right
of perpetuity in them, and consequently could convey
no such rights to the Church.”
And even if it were not so; even if property once
dedicated to “ the Church,” or “ religious use,” of
the nation, could not rightly be appropriated to any
other use, there would still be no real obstacle
to the principle I am maintaining. A people con
verted from one religion to another carries over, as a
matter of course, the endowments of the former
religion to the service of the latter. Were this not
so, the alternative would be that if the whole nation
were converted with the exception of one single
person, that person would become the proprietor of
the entire religious endowments of the nation. And,
farther, if there were no such exception, there would
be no claimant whatever to the property. Well, the
religious revenues, then, follow the religion of the
nation. Suppose the nation does not merely reform
its old relig’ion, nor merely exchange it for a new
one, but shifts its whole idea of the subject of religion,
and comes to deem its best use to be one which is
altogether secular and unreligious, the same reason
ing requires that the old religious revenues shall still
�20
The Utilisation of the
accompany the nation in its new phase, and be legi
timately applicable to its new uses.
I claim the new phase upon which England is
entering to be an educational rather than a
“ religious ” one, that is, in the old, and what I deem
bad, sense of the term. To my mind the very act of
bringing together children of various sects and
ranks from their isolation of creed or of caste, and
placing them on a footing of school-fellowship, to
learn the same lessons, experience the same discipline,
and compete in the same classes and same games,
and of so recognising all, not merely as citizens
of the same country, but as members of the same
universal family, and children of the same universal
Parent—this very act is to me in itself and without
reference to the nature, however “secular,” of the in
struction given, a religious act infinitely transcending,
in its high religious character, the most fervid ex
pression of sectarian piety. Its very fundamental
principle is the recognition of the Brotherhood of
Man, and the Fatherhood of God. Under its influ
ence children would insensibly and without tedious
verbal repetitions of incomprehensible dogmas and
catechisms, come to regard the Almighty as truly the
Maker and Sustainer of all, and no sectary or par
tisan. Thus the more distinctively religious any sys
tem of Education is, the more essentially irreligious it
must, at the same time, be ; for its object is to rear
children to be not good men and women, but firm adhe
rents of a particular communion; to build up parti
tion walls between man and man, rather than to instil
comprehensive views of life and duty. And, moreover,
as such denominationalism is irreligious in respect of
God, so it cannot fail to be unpatriotic in respect
of the State, and a huge impediment to the advance
ment of mankind generally in civilisation. Beside
the divisions bred in the country, and the weakening
of the bonds of sympathy between citizen and
�Church Establishment.
21
citizen, it necessitates an enormous waste of power
in every respect in which union is strength. It is
owing to the inveterate sectarianism which has
hitherto prevailed, that the peace and security of the
community is perpetually invaded by a multitude of
Lazzaroni, who, by the default of an united and deter
mined effort, have been suffered to grow up among
us. England now no longer finds in her colonies an
outlet for her criminal population. They remain in
her midst, allowed to continue in ignorance and
pauperism, and to propagate, unrestrained, their own
bad kind. The very efforts made, not to improve
their condition, but to support them cheaply, have
had a pernicious result. For bad feeding weakens
both body and mind, and so tends to disqualify the
individual for supporting himself. Pauper parents, in
their turn, rear a race inferior even to themselves, with
organisations so defective as scarcely to be morally
responsible. In this way the number of the popula
tion possessing defective brains and morbid tempera
ments has perpetually increased, until the country is
overrun with pauperism, crime, and disease. “ Lon
don, in this aspect,” wrote several years ago one of
our most popular writers, “is so horrible to me, that
when I go into such quarters of the town using my
eyes, I lose the belief of the possibility of the
progress, or even of the long existence, of an empire
with such a mighty crime and danger at its heart. I
do not believe that any one can be well acquainted
with the sights of ignorant and neglected childhood,
which are hidden in the metropolis alone, and enter
tain within himself the possibility of any wealth,or any
power, or any spirit in a people, sustaining for many
generations longer,a State on which that wicked blight
is resting.” And the evil is by no means confined to
the towns. The reports furnished to the Govern
ment by its medical officers of health, reveal such a
state of abject ignorance, misery, and hopelessness,
�22
The Utilisation of the
existing among our lower agricultural populations,
ofttimes, too, even on the very skirts of noble estates,
that we may well doubt the stability of our social
system.
To the waste of power caused by our divisions I
attribute, at least, a very large proportion of these
evils. Party spirit in religion, infinitely more than
in politics, is the canker which must devour our
national prosperity until England becomes the husk
only of' what she has been; the caricature and
opposite of what she has it in her to be. It is a poor
sort of love to God that thus manifests itself in
hatred to man : if not in the actual feeling of hatred,
yet certainly in all the results thereof.
You will observe that I do not contemplate intro
ducing into the system of instruction provided by
the State any teaching which is opposed to the
tenets of any religious body, except in so far as the
development of the scholar’s intelligence generally
may be held to be inconsistent with the holding of
such tenets. But it is scarcely to be expected that
any sect will have the hardihood openly to raise
such an objection on its own account, whatever may be
the private opinion of its individual members on the
point. Except also in so far as concerns the pro
bability that the children of parents professing
different creeds may, through being instructed to
gether in secular matters on a common system, come
to attach less importance to religious differences
than their parents may deem desirable.
Two points in answer to these exceptions should
be carefully noted. One is, that no children will
be compelled to attend the common schools whose
parents choose to send them elsewhere. To all the
State will merely say, “ You maybe instructed where
you please, but instructed you must be.” The other
point is, that ample opportunity will be afforded to
parents, and their chosen agents, to supplement the
�Church Establishment.
23
common secular system by special instruction in the
religions tenets of their sects. It is by the adop
tion of this method that the colony of New South
Wales has, after years of agitation, finally solved the
problem of National Education. The plan was first
mooted there by myself in 1857, in a pamphlet
which you have seen, entitled ‘ A Plea for Common
Schools.’ In 1867 it became law. Its principal
opponents were the Roman Catholic clergy. To
the credit of their people it may be said, that not
only did the congregations keep almost entirely
aloof from the opposition, but they very generally
accepted the system for their children. And the
clergy, finding that they only exposed themselves to
the liability of being disregarded and set at nought
as bad citizens, either sullenly acquiesced, or con
tented themselves with uttering feeble protests.
In the meantime, the colonists are not slow to
avail themselves of the permission given to use the
school-rooms at certain stated periods, for the purpose
of having their children instructed in the peculiar
views of their respective sects. The week-day
curriculum is also largely supplemented by voluntary
Sunday-school teaching. Thus, owing to the parents
having sufficient good sense to reject the extreme
views of their priestly dictators, the system works
harmoniously and satisfactorily to the people at
large. And there is no reason to doubt that under
its beneficent influence the old divisions engendered
by a rigid sectarianism will gradually give place to
a closer union between the various constituents of
the nation, and the whole power of both Government
and people vastly strengthened for all purposes' of
mutual aid and advancement.
I do not pretend to enter minutely into any details
of the broad scheme which it is the purpose of this
letter to propound. Let it be once clearly seen by the
people of England that some thoroughly radical and
�24
The Utilisation of the
comprehensive change is absolutely necessary to enable
us, not merely to maintain our place among the nations,
but even to continue to exist at all as a civilised
people; let it be shown that we are in danger of
losing the benefit of all recent advance in knowledge,
and all recent refinement in sentiment, and of sinking
down suddenly and at once from the height to which
we have attained, unless with a bold and resolute
hand we impose upon all sections and classes of our
nation that moral and industrial instruction by which
alone a free people can long stand;—in short, let the
serious and startling nature of the present emergency
once be clearly comprehended, and there can be no
reason to fear that we shall prove unequal to its de
mands. Too long have men sacrificed their public
duties as citizens to their private duties as members
of religious corporations. The necessities of our
State are far too many, and complicated, to be
adequately served by a knot of politicians, while
the bulk of the community busy themselves about
matters of private concern.
While the congrega
tions have been praying prayers and listening to
sermons on Sundays, and working assiduously at
their particular callings on week-days, the greatest
interests of the country have been so neglected
that they have got far beyond the reach of ordinary
appliance and remedy. The question is no longer
one of mere patching and repairs. To those who
know and lament the present condition and imme
diate prospects of the country, I commend the
earnest consideration of the plan herein proposed
for the utilisation of our gigantic and comparatively
useless Church Establishment and revenues.
Please remember that it is not destruction but re
construction which I am contemplating. The plan has
in it nothing that is incompatible with really useful
parochial work. So far from pulling down one single
bishop, I would largely increase the Episcopate in
�Church Establishment.
25
this my Secular Church of the Future. The hier
archy of school-controllers would occupy a yet nobler
position in the senate and heart of the nation than
any other sort of prelacy whatever. Their main
function would consist in seeing that none lack in
struction, or suffer from incompetent instructors.
The bishop of the future would differ from the
bishop of the period, inasmuch as his task would be
rigidly to banish all doubtful disputations from the
common-school room, in place of having to adjust
them in the church. No longer compelled to be a
partisan in fratricidal conflicts of opinion, his real
work would consist in securing the efficient instruc
tion of his flock in those essentials concerning which
opinions do not conflict. But while the duties of his
office would be confined to the secular, there would
be no restriction placed upon the exercise of his
preferences in his private capacity. Bound by no
test, and subscribing to no hypothetical conclusions,
the teacher in the schools of the State, whether
bishop or simple schoolmaster, will be free to hold
what views he may please, and to inculcate them as
he may please, when not on duty. It will be required
of him only that he be a well-educated and repu
table man, and able to teach thoroughly the rudi
ments of learning required in the common-schools.
His philosophy, his “ religion,” his partisanship, will
all be matters apart, and of concern only to himself.
A teacher of secular learning in school hours, he may
be a zealous inculcator of dogmas, or whatever he may
deem to appertain to “ religion,” at all other times.
Solely responsible for his peculiarities, their manifes
tation will commit no one but himself. In short,
while the bishop, acting on behalf of the State, shall
see that in the common-schools of his diocese nothing
is taught beyond what the State requires, he shall
countenance the freest expression on the part of his
subordinates in all other respects. The only and suffi-
�0.6
Utilisation of the Church Establishment.
cient guarantees for their moderation and trustiness
will consist in their education and character. Here,
the man will be more than the office; for his func
tions, out of school, will be voluntary. If, under
such voluntary regime of free expression, an educated
people come to exhibit social, intellectual, or religious
developments varying from those of a previous age,
there will surely be no dereliction of “ religion ” in
ascribing such changes to the continued and con
tinuous operation of that “ spirit of truth ” which was
promised to guide men into all truth.
It will be a noble climax and crown to the work to
which you have dedicated yourself,—the establish
ment of “ Free Inquiry and Free Expression,”—■
should your promulgation of the suggestion herein
crudely put forth, first lead men to set about rescuing
the Church from its traditional function of conserving
dead dogmas and shackling opinion, and to make it
the efficient agent of the intellectual and moral
redemption of the vast mass of our population.
Christmas, 1869.
�
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The utilisation of the church establishment : a letter to Thos. Scott, Esq., (of Ramsgate) by the author of "The pilgrim and the shrine", "The meaning of the age" &c.
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Collation: 26 p. ; 19 cm.
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Maitland, Edward
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Thomas Scott
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Church of England-Disestablishment
-
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435095c688143ca92c352353a5985ad7
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RA/b/0
HOW TO COMPLETE
THE REFORMATION.
A LECTURE
EDWARD MAITLAND.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price, Sixpence.
�I
BS9SB
�HOW TO COMPLETE THE REFORMATION.
I.
T is nearly two hundred and thirty years since John
Milton uttered these words :—
I
“Now once again, by all concurrence of signs, and by
the general instinct of devout and holy men, as they daily
and solemnly express their thoughts, G-od is beginning to
decree some new and great period in his church, even to
the reforming of reformation itself. What does He then,
but reveal himself to his servants, and as his manner is,
first to his Englishmen ? ’’
Nearly two hundred and thirty years, and not only
has the Reformation never been reformed, it has
never even been completed. Two hundred and thirty
years since the signs of the times led one of the most
highly inspired of Englishmen to believe that God
was then decreeing to begin the reforming of the
Reformation, and there is scarcely a portion of our
vast social system into which the animating principle
of that Reformation has yet found its way : still are
our laws in many respects based upon principles
essentially antagonistic to it; still are our Churches,
whether established or independent, for the most
part but servile repetitions of that old Romish system
from the influence of which it was the express
function of the Reformation to detach them. Still
does our education, whether in family or school, con
sist mainly in the inculcation of habits of thought and
�6
How to Complete the Reformation.
tenets wholly inconsistent with the broad purpose of
the Reformation.
Not that the Reformation, either in its principles
or practice, has been formally repudiated or virtually
discontinued; except perhaps by an insignificant
section. So far from this being the case, the movement
of which it was the initiation, continues under a more
significant name and in a more comprehensive form
than ever was contemplated by its originators: being
known to us by the modern designation of Liberalism.
But this Liberalism, while demonstrated both by
family resemblance, pedigree, and character, to be
the one and true heir of the Reformation, and though •
a sturdy and capable stripling, and well fitted to
sustain and extend the honours of its ancestral line,
sadly needs schooling. Through want of a logical
comprehension of its real character and functions, it
not unfrequently turns its back completely upon
itself and its parent, setting their interests and
principles entirely at nought. Through lack of
thoroughness it halts and falls far short of its proper
goal; and a halting Liberalism signifies an incomplete
Reformation.
Regarding this young Liberalism as the hope of the
world to come, at once the Atlas on whose broad
shoulders the future of Humanity rests, and the
Hercules by whose labours it is to be purified from
the defilements of past ages of ignorance, superstition,
and barbarism; regarding, in short, Liberalism as
synonymous with the development of the human intel
ligence and moral sense,—I trust I may be allowed
to speak freely of the characteristics which appear to
me as marring its perfections, and to point out the
proper path to the fulfilment of its high destiny.
II.
It has long been generally agreed that the fun-
�How to Complete the Reformation.
7
damental principle of the Reformation was the right
of private judgment, and of action in accordance
therewith. The assertion of that principle was a
protest on the part of individual liberty against
an organisation that sought to engulph the world
beneath an overwhelming regime of uniformity.
It involved, moreover, the right of every indi
vidual to all possible means of developing and
informing his judgment.
The fundamental principle of Liberalism may be
broadly stated as consisting in the tenet that opinion
should govern the world, in all respects in which the
world needs governing, such opinion to be the result
of the free, genuine, deliberate thought of living men.
To accept these definitions,—and I <fb not see how
it is possible to decline them,—is to admit the
essential identity of Liberalism and the Reformation.
It is to recognise it as the function of Liberalism to
carry out the intention of the Reformation ; and it is
to admit that only by accomplishing the programme
of Liberalism is it possible to complete the Refor
mation.
In dealing, then, with the completion of the
Reformation, we deal really with the development of
the programme of Liberalism.
In this relation I propose to show, First, the main
respect in which both the Reformation and Liberalism
have as yet failed to carry out their own principles ;
and, Secondly, the precise and most necessary step to
be taken in reversal of such failure.
The subject of my Lecture is capable of expression
by a still more condensed term. The ability of the
individual to develop and use his own judgment
involves directly the question of the education of his
understanding. Do not recoil at the word education,
trite and hackneyed though it be. I have not
brought you here to take you over beaten paths. The
side from which I propose to attack this Matterhorn
�8
How to Complete the Reformation.
of our social system, has scarcely, if ever, yet been
assailed. And if the method employed seem at first
somewhat indirect or obscure, I must ask you to
consider that it is because the process I propose to
adopt is rather that, of piercing into the centre and
tunnelling upwards through the interior, than of
scrambling up by the outside ; and that when we do
attain the summit it will be without risk of a fall,
and at the gain of a suddenly revealed panoramic
view.
The view which I am desirous of presenting to
you is that of the possibility of realising all our
wishes, and more than our hopes, in the matter of
our National Education by means of the utilisation of
the Church-establishment: and this, not by destruction
or disestablishment, not by deprivation or spoliation,
but by conversion or re-construction. Even to its
own accepted definition of the original intention of
that vast organisation, but one word needs to be
added to make it all that we want. Originally
designed to minister to our moral and spiritual
necessities, it has only to be adapted to our moral,
spiritual, and intellectual needs, to insure at once the
fulfilment of the programme of Liberalism, and the
completion of the Reformation.
If it be the fact that the addition of this single term
intellectual to the category of the functions of the Church,
has the effect of reversing or modifying the whole of its
previous conditions of existence, and setting it to work
in a track that is in any degree strange and repugnant
to it,—we need no further proof that the Reformation
has never yet reached the Church, be it of England
or of Scotland, “ as by law established.”
And so also we may say of the independent
nonconformist churches, that if their spirit be anta
gonistic to that free intellectual development which is
absolutely inconsistent with dogmatic teaching in any
department of knowledge whatsoever, we need no
�How to Complete the Reformation.
9
farther proof that the Reformation has not yet reached
even the Protestant dissenting bodies. And these
form a class, be it remembered, that specially affects
Liberalism in its politics.
To appreciate the position I am here taking up, it
must be borne in mind that, though fighting Rome
with its own weapons, and using dogma to combat
dogma, the Reformation was essentially a repudiation
of all dogma. Using Biblical Infallibility as an
engine of destruction against Papal Infallibility, the
Reformation, by its very assertion of the right of
private judgment in the choice of Infallibilities,
struck at the principle of all Infallibility whatever.
III.
The Reformation, therefore, not only had, properly,
no dogma of its own, but it was a protest against all
dogma whatsoever. Of which of the Churches, or
sects, to which the Reformation gave birth, can it
now be said that it has no dogma 1 If there be one,
that one, and that only, is entitled to be called a
reformed church.
For, only where there is freedom to follow truth by
means of evidence, and without deference to ancient
authority or foregone conclusion, has the Reformation
been completed: only there are the principles of
Liberalism practised : only there is the judgment of
the individual subjected to a regime favourable to
the production of that genuine Opinion which, accord
ing to the doctrine of Liberalism, alone ought to
govern the world.
For ourselves as a nation we claim to be governed,
at least in matters of common concern, by the opinions
of the majority of our citizens. It is well known
that large numbers of those citizens are altogether
uneducated and illiterate; and that of those who
claim to be neither uneducated nor illiterate, a large
�io
How to Complete the Reformation.
proportion have no genuine opinions whatever ; but
derive that which they regard as their opinion,
from mere prejudice, habit, or authority, traditional
or other, and altogether independently of any known
facts. In short, judging by what we know of the
nature of the instruction given to our youth both at
home and in school, in college and university, in
church and in chapel, it is impossible to avoid the
conclusion that so far from really governing ourselves,
so far from carrying out the principle of the Reforma
tion and of Liberalism that Opinion ought to govern
the world, such opinion to be the result of the free,
genuine, deliberate thought of living men,-—we are
in reality governed by the dead, by means of tenets
adopted from them mechanically and retained by
habit.
It was Hegel who first, I think, taught us to see in
the papal system a continuation of the domineering
spirit of ancient Rome; spiritual terror being
substituted for material force as the basis and main
stay of its authority: and in the Reformation, an
assertion of the rights of individual nationalities
against Rome’s all-absorbing regime of uniformity.
If Liberalism be a step further in advance, it is so in
respect of its claiming a similar right on behalf of
every individual to judge for himself both indepen
dently of his nationality, and in all matters, secular,
as well as religious.
Now, let us consider the regime to which every one
of us has been subjected, and to which in turn
nearly every one of us subjects or has subjected his
children ; and ask whether there is a topic of import
ance concerning which we have ourselves grown up,
or we have allowed them to grow up, with unbiased
judgment to form an independent opinion. Is it not
notoriously the case that both in things political and
things social, in things religious and even in things
scientific, there is scarcely a child in the country that
�How to Complete the Reformation.
11
is suffered to grow up without having its mind so
fettered and moulded by foregone conclusions, based,
at least in great part, on dogmatic authority and not
on any impartial review of the balance of evidence,
as to be absolutely incapacitated for forming any
genuine independent opinion whatever? Defining
Dogma as doctrine claiming to be accepted in virtue
of the authority by which it is laid down, and by no
means in virtue of its being possible, provable, useful,
or true, it cannot be too persistently set forth that
every sect, every teacher, every parent, that rests the
education of a child upon a dogmatic basis, instead of
cultivating its power of independent judgment, is an
enemy to the principles of Liberalism and of the
Reformation, is still the servitor and agent of Rome.
Does it not now begin to appear that, so far from
the Reformation having ever been completed, it has
scarcely advanced a step beyond its initial movement?
By profession we hold it immoral to inculcate opinion
by compulsion of authority, yet in practice we do it
universally and constantly.
The fact is, that to the guiding spirits of the
Reformation, or at least to their immediate successors,
the emancipation of Thought was a Frankenstein from
which they shrank back in terror so soon as they
began to discern the giant’s real dimensions. They
could not re-inclose it in the narrow limits from
which it had so lately been released; but what they
could do to arrest its movements and restrain its
force, they did. Its chains, re-cast, re-gilt, and a
little stretched, were insidiously replaced. A new
tyranny was created, a new Trinity, as it were,
having three persons,—Articles, Creeds, and Tests;
and one God—Biblical Infallibility. To the com
pulsory service of this complex divinity was the
soul of every individual in the State by law devoted
the moment he drew the breath of life. Its require
ments, among which were included “all the Articles
�12
How to Complete the Reformation.
of the Christian Faith,” every helpless infant was
compelled by its sureties to promise and vow, that
when it should come of age, it would most surely
keep and perform. Passing from infancy into child
hood, the individual was bred up on, and so saturated
with, the dogmas of the Catechism, that, like an
insect taking its colour from the leaves on which
it feeds, he had no choice, on reaching youth, but to
take upon himself in Confirmation, under the delusion
that he was doing so voluntarily, everything his
sureties had pledged him to. Every essential func
tion of his nature was placed under ecclesiastical
control. Certificates of compliance with the require
ments of Orthodoxy were exacted before he was
permitted to earn an honourable living. Still deeper
implication in church dogma was necessary to enable
him to contract an honourable marriage. When in
health, he incurred penalties if he absented himself
from a place of the established worship. When sick,
a profession of Orthodoxy was necessary to entitle
him to spiritual consolation. When dead, to burial
among his fellows. When risen, to admission into
heaven.
It was Rome again, with its headquarters at home
instead of abroad. The Reformation was in ashes.
Out of its ashes rose Liberalism. Its commencement
was not propitious. Liberalism, it is true, released
the individual from compulsory compliance with the
State-Church regime; but it called forth a number
of competing regimes, each more or less inimical to
that liberty which consists in the development of
individuality. For each separate system required
conformity to special tenets. Membership was in
consistent with the love of truth for its own sake and
apart from the Cause. In thus requiring adherence
to any set of opinions, the non-conforming bodies
were constituted upon the precise model of the estab
lished church, as the Church was upon that of Rome.
�How to Complete the Reformation.
13
It pleases some of our most liberal clergy to call dis
senters by the name of Non-conforming Churchmen.
Far nearer the mark would it be to describe both
dissenters and members of the established churches
of England and Scotland as “ Non-conforming
Papists.” Protestantism equally with Romanism,
asserted as more than possible, the incompatibility of
Faith with Knowledge. Where the acquisition of
knowledge might lead to a modification or renuncia
tion of Faith, it became a necessary condition of
church membership, or Orthodoxy, that knowledge
be not pursued to a point at which it might become
incompatible with the faith of the sect. In thus
admitting this incompatibility the Reformation re
verted to Rome, in spite even of its new guise of
Liberalism.
The circumstance that adherence to any of these
associations was voluntary, so far as the law was
concerned, was something gained. Practically, how
ever, the gain was to a great extent neutralised by
the still backward state of the public mind. To
belong to the Establishment was alone considered
socially “ respectable; ” while for anyone to refrain
from identifying himself with some religious denomin
ation, was to incur universal reprobation : and to quit
one of them, having once been a member, was to insure
persecution and odium. And even if adults, if
parents were free, how was it with children ? What,
under the tuition of the Sects, was their chance of
growing up unfettered, and able to form their own
judgment ? Would it be greater than under the
tuition of the Church, or of Rome ? And if not,
where was the Reformation ? It may be true that
Legislation, even of the most advanced Liberal type,
cannot interfere to prevent parents from shackling
the minds of their children. But parents who do thus
shackle them, have no claim to be regarded as
Liberals, or followers of the Reformation. They are
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How to Complete the Reformation.
of Rome, Romish, no matter how bitter and bigoted
their so-called “ Protestantism.”
IV.
Let us take an illustration from Science, undeterred
by the recent dictum of a Cabinet Minister to the
effect that “Religion differs from Science in that
fresh discoveries can be made in Science but not in
Religion.” Though Secretary of State in a “ Liberal ”
Government, he forgot one very important discovery
that might be made in religion, namely, the discovery
that all existing religions are false religions. It is a
discovery that has been made more than once in the
history of the world, and more than once it has led to
the introduction of a new religion. What is to
prevent the same thing from happening again 1 But
it is an illusion to suppose that there is any such
essential distinction between Science and Religion.
The recognition of a truth, whether religious or
scientific, consists in an impression upon the mind.
The source and nature of the impression requires in
each case to be brought to the test of evidence,
that is, to be judged by the human understanding.
For the testing of evidence we have but one set of
faculties; and we have no faculty whereby we can
transcend those faculties. Certitude, or the conviction
that one is in the right, proves nothing beyond one’s
own individual sentiment; and nothing is more
common than for different people to be equally and
absolutely certain of the most opposite beliefs.
When I speak of dogma, I do not include beliefs
which we are forced, by their very nature, or by our
very nature, to hold without proof, simply because
we cannot conceive the opposite of them. For us
Space must be infinite, Time must be eternal, God
must exist, (if only as the nature of things,) because
these are among the necessary bases of our conscious-
�How to Complete the Reformation.
15
ness, and we cannot think otherwise. Dogmatism
would consist in imposing beliefs respecting them,
without regard to evidence or probability; not in
asserting their existence, for we cannot think of
them as non-existent.
As nothing is true for us unless capable of verifica
tion by evidence, so nothing is good unless capable of
justification by experience. It is as absurd and
immoral to dogmatise concerning metaphysical or
transcendental subjects, as concerning scientific ones.
And how absurd and immoral this would be, may be
seen by this illustration from astronomy. The effect
of requiring astronomers to pledge themselves always
to uphold a particular theory of the Solar System—as that the earth goes round the sun, or the sun round
the earth,—(it would make no difference in principle
which, for the instant even an ascertained truth is
converted into a dogma, it acquires all the pernicious
ness of a falsehood, inasmuch as it is received upon
grounds other than that of its truth)—the effect of
such a pledge would at once be to make Astronomy,
as a Science, altogether unreliable, and to expose its
professors to deserved suspicion that their teaching
was the result of self-interest, and not of the facts
they had ascertained. The extension of such a
system generally to other departments of knowledge
could have no other result than to convert the people
who were subjected to it, into a nation of liars.
Against its application to the more palpable truths of
Physical Science, both our sense and our moral sense,
so far developed under the Reformation, have with
considerable effect protested. Our legislature dare
not, if it would, countenance such dishonesty in the
department of Science. We have not yet attained
that degree of clear perception at which we should
equally prohibit its countenancing the like dishonesty
in the department of religion.
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How to Complete the Reformation.
V.
By this point I wish to bring you on the way to
the end I have in view. I wish you to discern dis
tinctly, as a landmark once seen never to be forgotten,
this axiom: That the, contract whereby the State recognises
and protects the endowment of dogma, is an immoral
contract. It is not only to institutions connected with
the State that this axiom has reference. It is equally
valid for all associations, public or private, which
invoke the public law to the enforcement of those
articles of their constitution which involve the
inculcation of dogma, whether in pulpit or schoolroom,
in science, religion, or morals.
The grounds on which the Church-establishment is
ordinarily attacked are many and various. Objection
is made that it is unfair to other dogmatic bodies that
any should be selected for the favour of the State :
that the State has no proper concern with religion :
that the church ought to be permitted to govern itself
without control by the secular power : that State
interference diminishes religious zeal: that its dogmas
are not true; and that the State, though quite right
to select a church for its exclusive patronage, has in
our case selected the wrong one. No objection has,
so far as I am aware, hitherto been taken on the
ground that all dogmatic teaching whatever is immoral,
independently of the nature of the thing taught, and
that the State has no right to countenance immorality.
What prevents this axiom from itself being a dogma,
is the simple but essential fact, that in support of it
the appeal is, not to authority, but to evidence, or exper
ience, and reason. There are among us intelligent and
active spirits who are striving to obtain the release of
the Established Church, not from the State, but from
its dogmatic trammels: some, on the ground that its
dogmas are false; and others on the ground that,
whether true or false, a national institution ought to
�How to Complete the Reformation.
17
be exempt from such limitation. With the end that
these have in view, I heartily coincide; but seeing
that they betray no conviction that those trammels
are immoral simply because they are dogmatic, I base
my adherence to their programme on other grounds.
VI.
I propose now to show, from the practical working
of the dogmatic spirit, how suicidal it is for a free
State to do aught to encourage its promotion.
It has often been said in ridicule of the principle
of democracy that truth and justice have nothing
to do with majorities. It certainly is characteristic
of minorities that the more insignificant they are in
point of numbers, the more confident they are apt to
be of their own infallibility. Fanaticism needs not
for its own satisfaction any confirmation by success in
winning adherents by conviction. The fanatic is
content to force his tenets down the throats of others,
careless of the slow process of the reason. Certain of
his own infallibility, the secular doctrinaire is but a
variation of the religious dogmatist. In so far as
political or social doctrinairism involves the submission
of the individual to a regime of uniformity, it savours
of mediaaval papalism. It becomes altogether of Rome
when it would impose that regime by force, whether
of physical violence, or the resistless compulsion of
early training. The spirit of fanaticism is everywhere
the same, and its root one, Infallibility, that
aged fiend which recognises its. divinely appointed
vanquisher and destroyer in modern Liberalism, and
shrieks and rages against it. No matter whether the
direction of a fanaticism be for or against the ancient
orthodoxy, it becomes one with it in spirit when it
adopts the tactics of that orthodoxy. Even the
fanatic for liberty turns renegade to the principles of
liberty when he seeks to compel others to be free.
B
�18
How to Complete the Reformation.
Liberty does not consist in releasing even slaves from
their fetters against their will. The liberal throws
his principles overboard, and turns bigot when he
seeks to propagate his creed by force. Infallibility,
having its basis in the emotions, and by no means in
reason, naturally sees no reason why it should not
force others to admit its claims. Liberalism, having
its basis in reason, is bound by the very constitution
of its being to repudiate compulsion as a legitimate
or even possible method of attaining success. Every
step won by such means is in reality several steps
backward. It is suicidal for reason to appeal to force.
Having to deal with reason and not with prejudice or
passion, it is eminently characteristic of true Liberal
ism to be patient. When in a minority, it has no
right to dominate by force. When in a majority, it
has no need to do so.
I have spoken of Liberalism as a capable and sturdy
stripling, but one that sadly needs schooling. Let
me indicate one of the blemishes by which the conduct
of its professors among ourselves has been marred of
late. The practice of holding great public meetings
in the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament, in
order, by a demonstration of physical force, to accelerate
the passage of a popular measure, is, for Liberals,
nothing less than a faithless abnegation of the funda
mental principles of Liberalism: for it involves an
appeal from the deliberate reason of the Legislature
to its fears:—fears of excesses that may be committed
by an excited multitude: such multitude itself pro
bably being for the most part utterly ignorant and
incapable of forming a sound judgment respecting any
great public question whatever. Be it once under
stood that the promotion of tenets or measures by
physical compulsion is the peculiar and especial
characteristic of Orthodoxy or Toryism, and it
becomes clear that however fair it may be to fight an
opponent with his own weapons, the cause of Liber-
�How to Complete the Reformation.
19
alism is only discredited and retarded by its adoption
of tactics which are inconsistent with its principles.
Besides, the adherence of an ignorant crowd proves
nothing beyond the fact that such a side has gained
its favour for the moment, a favour which is apt to
be far less dependent upon rational views, than upon
some shallow or deceptive consideration; a favour,
too, which may at any moment and upon slight pro
vocation be turned the opposite way. The worst
enemy of democracy is the Demagogue. By exciting
antagonism between class and class, he retards that
progress of conviction which is the only practical
test of the relative strength of opinions. Minds
forced into such an attitude, become necessarily nonreceptive as to new impressions. People are put
upon their mettle to resist conversion; recoiling from
violence, they recoil also from the doctrine of the
violent. And not only of the opposing parties, but
of the nation generally, is the capacity for deliberation
seriously diminished, when, instead of remaining calm,
clear and judicial in tone, it is stirred into turbidity
by noisy agitation. The fact that those who have
already been converted are impatient at the slowness
of others to be convinced also, constitutes no just
pretext for violence. The scholar does not the sooner
gain a knowledge of arithmetic through having his
slate broken over his head by an impatient master.
Indeed the violence of the latter is rather a confession
of his inability to teach. In a community in which
the governing power is vested in “the common-sense of
most,” the very use of force to effect a change is a
virtual confession that the advocates of that change
are still in a minority, and therefore, on the principles
of Liberalism, incompetent to demand that the change
be made at present. We shall indeed have reason to
congratulate Liberalism on its progress among us,
when we see the Legislature so imbued with its
principles as to vindicate them against all dema'
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How to Complete the Reformation.
goguery whatever, by boldly declaring, whenever it
may find itself menaced by demonstrations of physical
force, that it will postpone all consideration of the
questions at issue until such demonstrations shall
have wholly ceased. By such dignified assertion of
the rights of conviction as against compulsion in
matters eminently requiring the exercise of reason,
the cause of Liberalism would gain infinitely more
than it would lose by delay. It is in quietness and
confidence that its strength should lie.
It is in reality the Sectarian spirit that prompts the
demagogue to restrict the term people to a single class.
Forgetting that the people of any country consist of
the whole of its citizens, rich and poor, great and
small, learned and ignorant, those who have suc
ceeded, as well as those who have failed in life, the
demagogue delights in restricting it to the failures,
and strives ever to exasperate them against the rest,
and to obtain by dint of their uninstructed force that
which they have failed to demonstrate by reason to
be necessary and right. Impatience of the slow
process of reason, eagerness to seize results without
undergoing that preliminary discipline which is apt
to be even more beneficent than the results them
selves, is always characteristic of the shallow and
slenderly educated. One of the chief evils of dema
goguery, that is, of appealing to the passions rather
than to the reason of the community, consists in its
practice of stimulating this impatience among the
masses. Liberalism, aiming at reform, naturally com
mends itself in the first instance to those classes
whose condition is the most susceptible of improve
ment. Thinking more of the superficial and imme
diate than of the thorough and the permanent, and
knowing little of the patience whereby greatness,
whether individual or national, is alone to be
achieved, these classes are naturally liable to grasp
at any plausible measure that promises a temporary
�How to Complete the Reformation.
z1
alleviation of an evil, without considering what, in
the long run, may be the effect of the principle in
volved. When needed reforms fail to come from
above, that is, from the action of that educated class
which alone has leisure and culture sufficient to allow
of the necessary examination,—when, I say, reforms
fail to descend in beneficent dews and showers, they
are apt to be forced up from below with volcanic
destructiveness. The recent clamours for organic
changes on slight pretexts are an illustration of this.
The function of Liberalism is to enlarge, not con
tract our liberties. When the constitution of society
is such that it does not afford sufficient room for the
co-existence of two undoubted rights, Liberalism,
rather than sacrifice either of these rights, is bound
to enlarge the terms of the social contract, until it
can include and reconcile both. The masses, in their
keen appreciation of the evils of interference with
the liberty of election, have shown themselves ready
to sacrifice one of the most essential of a freeman’s
rights in order to secure another. There is strong
reason to fear that, by having recourse to compulsory
secrecy as a protection against interference, they are
seeking a remedy which will prove worse than the
disease. It is a far higher stage of liberty which
allows us to act as we please, openly and without fear
or favour, than that which allows us to act as we
please only on condition that we let nobody know
how we act. In demanding secrecy we abandon our
claim to this higher liberty, and with it the freeman’s
noblest privilege. I know well that it is through no
love of darkness for its own sake that our toiling
classes have clamoured for the Ballot. Far rather
would they, with our great Patriot-poet, cry, “ Hail!
holy light,” than with the arch-fiend call to the sun
to tell it that they “ hate its beams,” and prefer the
concealment of darkness. I know too that, thus far,
at least, it is the wealthy and so-called educated
�22
How to Complete the Reformation.
classes who, by their abuse of their privileges and
powers, have driven their poorer fellow citizens to
crave the shelter of secrecy. That this should be so,
is only a further proof of the worse than worthlessness
of much of the education hitherto given. It has
never comprised a knowledge of those first principles
of human association, which constitute the basis of
social morality, and the recognition of which con
stitutes the very alphabet of Liberalism. But to sub
stitute a compulsory secrecy for the publicity which
is the high privilege and distinguishing badge of the
Freeman, at least before the Legislature has exhausted
all possible means at its disposal, is to purchase one
right by the sacrifice of another, instead of endea
vouring to secure both. True thoroughgoing Liberal
ism, despising mere expedients, and repudiating
mechanical remedies for moral defects, ever aims at
the highest, and would rather endure a prolonged
condition of discomfort, than lower its aim to an
inferior standard.
VII.
The only wonder, however, is that the cause of
Liberalism has not been marked by far more and
greater errors. The “ Church ” of a country ought,
as its chief educational and civilising agent, to be
the leader and example to all parties. Such advan
tage our Liberalism has failed to enjoy. Where the
Church is dogmatic, it cannot influence Liberalism
for good. The two have no points of coincidence.
Where the Church’s own weapon is compulsion, it
cannot be expected to teach men the use of reason.
Our own day has witnessed a most startling instance
of the tremendous folly and wickedness of the appeal to
violence. France, as befits the elder son of a dog
matic Church, ever does appeal to force. As regards
her foreign relations, her hand is always on the hilt.
�How to Complete the Reformation.
23
And at home her minorities do not wait to convince,
but always strive to coerce the majority. Of all
those who in France are at issue with the Commune,
the Church is the least entitled to utter a word of
reproach. The Church has no right even to condemn
it as Atheistic. An infallible theory of Labour and
Capital may as fairly be regarded as a fitting object
of veneration by some, as an infallible priest or book
by others. The Communist of modern Europe may
have a vision of the possibilities of Humanity • bright
and glowing with blessedness in its exemption from
poverty and woe, and of the efficacy of his doctrines
to make that vision a reality. And the realisation of
his vision is as high and legitimate a subject of ambi
tion for him, as the establishment of the supremacy
of his church is for a cardinal archbishop. Each has
his ideal, at once the initial and the final cause of the
universe ; and his ideal ps to him as God. Call that
ideal what he will, Jehovah, Jesus, Church, or
Humanity, neither can substantiate the charge of
Atheism against the other. The sole radical differ
ence of faith lies between those who trust to reason,
and those who believe only in force. Violence is the
legacy of Cain, a legacy shared alike by Catholic and
Communist. In the long run it ever reacts upon its
employer. It is in more senses than one that the
blood of the martyr has proved the seed of the Church.
There is good reason for ascribing much of the suc
cess of the doctrine so shocking to the developed
moral sense of men, the doctrine of bloody sacrifices,
of a deity that requires to be propitiated towards
mankind by blood, even human blood, the blood of
his nearest and dearest, to the legend that represents
Abel as dying a martyr to his faith in it. A far hap
pier moral may be found in the tale which represents
the first man who wantonly sacrificed life, as the first
to lose his own. But however just and noble the in
dignation of the impetuous Cain, his appeal to force
�24
How to Complete the Reformation.
recoiled upon his own gentler faith, and thenceforth,
under the rule of a ferocious orthodoxy, blood took
the place of fruits and flowers, and terror the place
of affection, in the worship of the Supreme Being.
By its appeal to a force which is not that of Reason,
orthodoxy establishes its continuity with barbaric
antiquity. The invasion of Canaan, whether by
Israelites or Crusaders, was due to the aggressiveness
of an orthodox creed, and no mere struggle for exist
ence. The ground may be shifted from the next
world to this, and the motives be limited to the
secular, but Communism and Trades-Unionism have
shown themselves animated by the identical spirit of
fanaticism, which would subordinate the.individual to
a regime of uniformity, and use force to achieve its
purpose of subjugation. Even when engaged in
murdering priests and burning churches, it is still
Satan casting out Satan. The creed of both is dog
matic, and both use the same weapons. The Church
is the fountain even of the doctrinairism that would
commence with destroying the church. Indeed, they
are not without method in their madness who hold
that it was the Church’s chief apostle himself who
first set the example of massacring non-communists,
and that without regard to sex; and that the sudden
death miraculously inflicted upon two of them by
Peter, was the initiation of the atrocities which long
afterwards accompanied similar notions with the
Lollards and Anabaptists. The violence of Peter
proved as ineffectual to establish Communism within
the Church, as the gunpowder and petroleum of Paris
to establish it without the Church. The shrewd sense
of Paul gave another direction to the Christian move
ment, and saved it from the antagonism of Property.
But the direction in which that movement was turned
by the influence of Paul’s strong native bent towards
theological metaphysics, led to the creation of a
�How to Complete the Reformation.
25
systematised dogmatism, not less fatal to human
intellect and advancement, than ever the Communism
of Peter could have been. Both were alike destruc
tive of individual freedom and development. The
modern spectacle of Sacerdotalism—the Sacerdotalism
that has thriven upon St Bartholomew and a myriad
other massacres—affecting to be based upon primitive
Christianity, and at the same time denouncing and
slaughtering the Communists of Paris, is veritably
the spectacle of Saturn devouring his own children.
The whole principle of Dogma and of its enforce
ment by violence, is derivable from the Semitic
character of the church, which in respect of dogma
had its breeding-ground and nursery in Alexandria.
From Egypt came the Israelites of old with their
cruel Jehovistic alternative of conversion or destruc
tion, and the spirit which animates alike the ultramontanist of Rome, and the fanatic of the Revolution.
The wand that divided the Red Sea was the real
destroyer of Paris. And so long as we retain
in our midst an institution, bound by virtue of
its constitution, to maintain dogma and implant
the seeds of fanaticism, Egyptian darkness may be
truly said to dominate ourselves. The principle that
endows a dogma, enforces a creed, imposes a cate
chism, or pledges an infant in baptism, is identical
with the principle that massacres a tribe in Canaan,
explodes a bomb in the workshop of a non-union
artisan, or desolates a land by a religious war. In
each case alike the fanaticism is the offspring of
a claim to infallibility, and the result is the deter
mination to promote opinion by means other than
those of rational conviction. So that when wouldbe liberals appeal from reason to demonstrations of
physical force, they turn their backs upon liberalism,
and follow the fanatic and the bigot.
It is the Liberalism of the modern age that has
repudiated the ancient doctrine of the absolute pro-
�26
How to Complete the Reformation.
perty of parents in their children. The Church,
following the patriarchs, has ever asserted a similar
right on behalf, not of the parent, but of itself. As
it never occurred to Abraham that he had no right
to kill his son, so it seems never to have occurred
to the Church that no one has a right to dispose of
a child's mind and soul by pledging it to the
profession of any particular set of religious opinions.
VIII.
True Liberalism troubles itself little about forms.
In the State, it is neither monarchical nor re
publican.
In Society, it is neither aristocratic
nor democratic. In the Church, it is neither
established nor dissenting.
Its aim, following
the Reformation, is to bring about a liberty which
consists in the recognition of the right of
every person to develop his own individuality of
character and ability, to form and formulate his
own philosophy and faith, to work as best he likes
without the loss of caste, and earn as much as he
can, to enjoy the free disposal of his property, with
power to leave it to whom he will, to enjoy after
him :—for this is one of the highest incitements
to, and rewards of successful industry :—in short,
to regulate his life and faith in accordance with
his own tastes and his own deductions from the
phenomena of the world, the sole limit being the
equal liberty of others. Whatever forms of govern
ment or society best promote such liberty, these
are the forms approved by Liberalism. As the
genius of peoples and races varies, so also will these
forms vary. The detail must be a matter of experi
ence for each, not of dogma for any. All regimes
which fall short of such aims are, whether secular
or spiritual, political, industrial, or social, essentially
ultramontane in character, and antagonistic to Lib
eralism and the Reformation.
�How to Complete the Reformation.
ip
I have specified these details because there exists
among us a spirit which not unfrequently exhibits
itself in the form of class antagonism, seeking to
excite the animosity of the poor against the rich,
of the ignorant against the cultivated. I have
already designated the demagogue the worst enemy
of democracy. Liberalism is not the exclusive
appanage of those who call themselves by its name.
Sometimes it is not theirs at all. Liberals have no
monopoly of it in practice, whatever they may
pretend in principle. Those who endeavour to set
class against class, on the ground of the inequality
of their respective successes in the battle of life, are
the worst enemies of Liberalism and Liberty. To
have succeeded in that for which all are striving,
namely in winning exemption from a life of constant
hardship, and its degrading accompaniments, ignor
ance and coarseness, they pretend to account a
positive demerit and disqualification. Failing to
see that the chief glory of labour consists in its
capacity to enable men to live without excessive
labour, and to provide leisure for cultivation and
enjoyment, they would inflict penalties for all suc
cess beyond a certain mean standard. “ A man
ought not to be allowed to be so rich.” “ The law
should make him pay in taxes all that he has over
and above a certain income.” Such are the phrases
in which our Apostles of Communism in disguise
express themselves ; as if the success of one involved
the failure of another: not seeing that to lop off all
above a certain height would be, not to raise the lower
stratum,—for the poor are not poor through the
rich being rich,—but to make feebleness, stupidity,
ill-luck, or general incapacity, the universal mono
tonous rule, and to convert the nation into a com
munity of peasants and artisans, without space
for legitimate ambition or any ideal of life. It is
thus that the old dogmatic spirit is ever re-asserting
�28
How to Complete the Reformation.
itself under new forms. So soon as we make an
advance in the direction of greater liberty of indi
vidual development, a corresponding movement is
started to check it. The fanaticism bred by the
Church, takes the shape of doctrinairism in indus
trial, and intolerance of individuality in social, life.
The old orthodoxy, regarding all assertion of indi
viduality as heresy, measured all men by a standard
of religious doctrine ; this new one measures them
by a standard of wealth, or rather of poverty.
Thus the Church and the Commune are at one, for
their spirit is the same ; and “ Peter ” and “ Pet
roleum ” betray a mutual affinity in operation as
well as in name.
IX.
Similarly all existing fanaticism may be shown to
be an ecclesiastical product. Even those of our non
conforming sects which account themselves truest
heirs of the Eeformation, are lineally descended
from Pome, and partake the family features. It has
been shrewdly suggested that if, in their present tem
per, the Nonconformists obtain influence in the Univer
sities, any formal religious tests will be superfluous;
for liberal though they affect to be in their politics,
they make amends by being doubly narrow in their
religion. It is not for those who have acquiesced
in the exclusion of Nonconformists from the advan
tages of those institutions to taunt them on such score.
The fact, however, remains. And so long as we
suffer any of our national institutions to be conducted
on principles so much at variance with the principles
of Liberalism and the Reformation, as our Universities
have been and still are, we cannot boast of our
respect either for real education, for truth, or for
liberty. In Germany, the Universities, freed from
the trammels of dogma, are the homes and producers
�How to Complete the Reformation.
29
of the learning and science of the nation. A glance
at the roll of our great names reveals an almost total
divorce between the Universities and the genius
of the living generation. For a man of real science
and learning, even to retain his, connection with
them, it is needful that he, in part, either suppress
his convictions, or modify his utterances in deference
to their traditions. The vast bulk of the endow
ments, the honours, the emoluments, the prizes,
in our colleges are but means to enable dead bigots
to afflict the generations that come after them with
the perpetual reiteration of their own antiquated
tenets and obsolete arguments, and by no means
to enable men to follow the true, and utter their
own convictions. It was stated in evidence before
the Lords’ Committee on University Tests, that
it is considered necessary by the University Author
ities that parents should feel assured that their sons
will find nothing in the University System to inter
fere with the religious beliefs they bring from home.
It is in utter contradiction to all the principles both
of Liberalism and the Reformation thus to suffer the
understanding of our youth to be emasculated, their
morality to be depraved, and the whole future
of the nation to be held in leading-strings by the
stagnant or the dead.
X.
From the Universities let us glance to the next scene
in the career of those of their students who proceed to
take Orders in the Established Church. Constituted
as the Establishment now is, there can scarcely be, for
one thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of Liber
alism and the Reformation, a sadder spectacle than
that of an Ordination Service. It is not that the par
ticular doctrines, which the high-spirited and highly
cultivated youth have there assembled to pledge
�30
How to Complete the Reformation.
themselves to teach, are false and pernicious in them
selves. Even if they be so, this is not the worst
characteristic of the scene. It is because these youths
are pledging themselves to maintain those doctrines
whether they be true or not. It is because they are
bartering, as for a mess of pottage, their soul’s birth
right ; quenching the spirit of truthfulness within
them; binding themselves not to enquire further, lest
they come to see differently; binding themselves to
teach one thing, even when that thing shall have ceased
to be true for them; even to representing the character
and dealings of the Almighty as they no longer
believe them to have been ; binding themselves to
treat freedom of thought as licentiousness, freedom of
expression as blasphemy. To be true to their pro
fession and pledge there recorded, they must thence
forth treat the Universe as a sealed book ; for, were
they to explore it, they might, perchance, encounter
facts which refuse to square with their doctrines, the
doctrines to which they have vowed a life-long ad
herence, no matter how much in conflict with the
positive testimony of the rocks beneath, of the skies
above, or of the mind and soul within them. Call
such self-immolation what they will, it is essentially
irreligious in character. Religion has reference to
God, and it is not in God that they have undertaken
to place their trust, not in his “ invisible things made
visible ” in his works, and palpable to the developed
consciousness and conscience of man, as an index to
the divine nature; but in certain utterances, which
may or may not have been misreported or misinter
preted, of men who may or may not have been
mistaken or misinformed, utterances handed down
through conflicts of angry, unscrupulous partisans,
through changes of language and associations, through
a hundred troubled, distorting media; and these
utterances are to be, for time and for eternity, their
sole criterion of truth, and sole guide of life !
�How to Complete the Reformation.
31
Far different would be the moral aspect of the
spectacle, were each of these youths come thither to
devote himself, in the spirit of highest chivalry, to go
forth, no slave of a hierarchy, or bondsman of a
creed, but a knight-errant of light and liberty, in
pursuit of the Holy Grail of Truth, heedless whither
it might draw him; acknowledging no other allegi
ance, uttering no other watchword, but in perfect
confidence in his instinctive perception of the har
mony of the physical, moral, and spiritual universe,
the divinest of all bases of consciousness, fearing not
to face even the howling wilderness of absolute
negation: and, thus equipped with truest faith,
seek to lead his fellows on to those higher ranges of
the intellect and the moral sense, which are attain
able only by earnest and true spirits : seek too to
rekindle the flames of real patriotism, which consists
in that sincere and hearty comradeship which our
present fatal sectarianism, like an all-devouring acid,
seems to have eaten out of our national life.
XI.
It is a favourite way of defending certain of our
institutions, to say that, although it may be true that
were we suddenly placed on a desert island, and
forced to construct our system anew from the be
ginning, we should have many things different from
what they are, yet that, as our present institutions
have grown up with us as a part of ourselves, and in
accordance with our circumstances, it is better to
keep them, and patch and mend them as may be
found necessary, than to undergo the wrench and
discomfort of a total change, more particularly when
we know the limits of the disadvantages of the old,
and are not certain of the advantages of the new.
No doubt there are some of our institutions which
it may be better thus to put up with, rather than
�32
How to Complete the Reformation.
start on a quest of doubtful issue, to realise an ideal
of which we have no experience. But it does not
follow that all are of that character, or that we have
nothing that is not defensible for better reasons, or
capable of being, by practical reforms, adapted per
fectly to all our needs.
Let us suppose ourselves newly arrived, in con
siderable numbers, a free community, in some new
territory, in possession of a fair amount of intelli
gence, but compelled to construct our social and
political system without reference to traditions.
After making certain provisions in the interests of
security and order, there can be no doubt that one of
our first cares would be to provide for the education
of the young, and the general diffusion of useful
knowledge and sound principles of conduct among
all classes. To the first of these ends we should
create elementary common schools upon the broadest
possible basis throughout the whole settlement, with
trustworthy supervisors to ensure their efficiency.
Proceeding upon Liberal principles, and having
therefore no ulterior purpose, no traditional interests,
no particular form of society or government, or any
end whatever, to serve apart from its present or pro
spective utility, the main object of the education
given would be to develop the faculties and judg
ments of the scholars. The teachers would of course
be chosen for their special capacity, and as their
influence over the rising generation would necessarily
be great, the parents and the legislature would watch
most jealously over their exercise of it. The bulk of
the people would, of course, be engaged in industrial
pursuits, and have but little time to devote to their
own mental improvement. The second and remaining
division of our educational system, therefore, would
deal more especially with the adult population. In
order to develop and gratify the higher instincts of
our nature, of which the instinct of preservation,
�How to Complete the Reformation.
33
whether of self or of the species, forms only the basis,
we should encourage qualified persons to study for
our benefit, and to set before us, from time to time,
the results of their studies, in history, science, philo
sophy, literature, art, and religion; and, probably,
we should appoint certain periodical occasions, when
the whole population might rest from their physical
labours, and enjoy the mental recreation to be de
rived from listening to intelligent and cultivated
expositors in these various departments of knowledge.
Indeed, I should not be surprised to find certain
whole days, at convenient intervals, set apart for
such admirable purpose; and on the discussion
arising as to what those intervals should be, to find
that portion of the teaching class which more
particularly had devoted itself to the study of
meteorology and astronomy, suggesting that the
period of the moon’s quarters would make the
most convenient division of time, and recommending
that every seventh day be made the day of general
rest and recreation: in short, that something very
like the Sabbath should be instituted. We can
even understand the people becoming greatly at
tached to such an institution, and guarding it from
infringement by severe penalties, simply, of course,
because of .its human value. And we can imagine
with what zest the labourers in the various intellec
tual departments would work during the week to be
able to give of their best when the holiday came
round ; feeling that, on their earnestness and genuine
ness the higher life and happiness of their fellowcountrymen in great measure depended. We can
imagine, too, that the very buildings in which the
people and their instructors met for such purpose,
would become the objects of affection, and be con
structed and decorated in the most beautiful style
that could be devised.
C
�34
How to Complete the Reformation.
We can scarcely imagine, however, that these
various educational and recreational departments
would become jealous of each other; still less can we
imagine any one of them claiming such superiority
over the others as to seek to oust them altogether
from their share in the appointed ministrations, and
obtain a monopoly of the day to themselves. Neither
can we imagine that they would be suffered by the
community to prevail in such a demand were they so
unreasonable and arrogant as to make it. It would
be among the duties of the National Education over
seers,—who might fairly, in token of their function, be
distinguished by the title of Bishops, and would
doubtless comprise in their number the Mills, Hux
leys, and Tyndals of the community,—to see that
provision was made for the due satisfaction of every
side of man’s mental nature, and that neither secular
nor spiritual interests should usurp the place of the
other. It would also be among the duties of those
Bishops, as education controllers, to take care that
none but those who had first approved themselves
qualified by natural gifts and by culture, should fill
the office of teacher, under the recognition and remu
neration of the State : that their teaching did not
degenerate into trite common-place or dogmatic
assertion ; but that the same Liberal principle that
prohibits all pretension to be wise beyond that which
is written in the book of Nature, and can be plainly
read there, should pervade alike both higher and
lower departments of education. Not that opinion
and hypothesis should not be freely stated and can
vassed, but that while all have a hearing, none be
suffered to assume an authority beyond the fair
warrant of evidence and reason : so that there would
be no pretext for forming rival systems without the
general one in order to propound divergent doctrines.
�How to Complete the Reformation.
o>5
XII.
I can imagine, as the picture of such an ideal con
stitution grows and spreads before our minds, long
ings being excited for the realisation of such a happy
condition of things among ourselves to replace our
own distracted state. I can imagine, as we study the
details of such a system in order to compare it with
our own, and take account of the day we have set
apart, each seventh day, for physical, mental, and
spiritual renovation; of our army of preachers so
numerous and admirably organised as to have its
ramifications alike in populous city and remote
hamlet; of its hierarchy of overseers, ennobled as in
recognition of the loftiness of their functions; of the
vast revenues set apart for the higher education of the
whole people; and the vast multitude of edifices noble
and commodious devoted to their uses; I can imagine,
as we detect the many points of coincidence between
the ideal system I have attempted to describe, and
the real one which we already possess, the conviction
growing strong within us that we already have
in our possession not only such an ideal system, but
one far transcending in the perfection of its organisa
tion, the immensity of its appliances, the number and
quality of its agents, all that the most fertile imagin
ation could have devised without centuries of
experience : that we have already in possession and
operation a system of abundant capacity to lift the
dead weight of our most debased classes out of the
depths into which they have sunk, and sustain the
most elevated at their utmost height. And the con
viction would be a true one. For we, in very deed,
have in our possession an instrument, which like an
organ, magnificent in quality and unlimited in
capacity, but impaired with misuse, requires only to
be tuned up to the concert-pitch of our high needs
and aspirations, to produce in abundance the full rich
harmony of a perfect civilisation.
�2,6
How to Complete the Reformation.
It is by means of the Nationalisation of our Church
Establishment that I propose to complete the Reform
ation, and secure the final triumph of Liberalism.
To do this but one thing is needful. We have but
to purge it of its dogmatism to make it all that we have
been so long seeking for; all that the most developed
consciousness of our multiform deficiencies can require,
to minister to our educational needs high or low.
We have but to drive those thieves of the Intellect
and the Moral Sense, Creeds, and Articles and Tests,
out of the Temple of our Humanity, and replace them
by the simple Spirit of Truthfulness. In driving out
these, we shall drive out also from our midst the
malignant spirit of fanaticism which is ever the same
whatever the cause in which it is evoked; whatever
the means by which it works; whether it be to wage
a religious war, or to crush a soul’s freedom over
its whole career from the cradle to the grave.
Disestablish the Church, and we have what ? A
sect, a discord, the more. Perhaps three or four
sects the more. In any case a huge and wealthy
sect; for it could not be turned adrift bare, or with
out much wealth, corporately, of its own : it would
have, too, greater claim on the wealth of its mem
bers, and so be the richer in their zeal. It would
have power and prestige to arrogate superiority
over all other sects; and to develop, unmitigated
by the tempering influences of the State, into full
activity of fanaticism, all the fierce bigotries that
even now are glowing within its volcanic breast.
Let us never forget the utterance wherewith the
late Charles Buller pleaded against the separation
of the Church from the State : “ For heaven’s sake,
don’t meddle with the Church! It is the only
thing that stands between us and religion !” Even
now, while still connected with the State, such is
the power of dogmatism to generate and foster
bigotry that the Church fails to “ stand between us
�How to Complete the Reformation.
37
and religion,” or fanaticism. Numbers of its clergy
have taken the bit between their teeth, and are
boring ahead in all directions at once. Those who
once thought that they found in the State-religion
a harmless non-explosive compound, find it no such
compound now. Disestablished, and left to propa
gate unrestrained the spirit of dogmatism and
fanaticism, it will be impossible to over-estimate
the injury it will do to the State. The State
dares not risk such a danger to itself. It dares not
set up a vast imperium in imperio, endowed with
both will and power to withstand all progress in
the direction of Liberalism and Civilisation. It
dares not renew its immoral contract to recognise
and protect the endowment of dogma, when once
its eyes are open to the nature of that contract.
XIII.
There is but one condition upon which the State
can set the Church free, and allow it to retain a
particle of the property of the National Establish
ment : the condition that it abandons its dogmatic
character, and in place of constituting itself a huge
conspiracy against the intelligence and moral sense of
the nation, becomes co-extensive with the nation.
The retention by the Church of the national property
on any other terms, would be a perpetuation of the
robbery of the State by the Church.
But thus purged of these its defects and limitations,
all pretext for its disestablishment would cease
to exist, for it would then constitute, ready-made
in our hands, and in full operation, precisely the
organisation we require to crown and complete our
new national system of elementary education. Al
ready, by our creation of this system, we have
recognized and acted on two principles : First, that
no member of the State has a right to menace the
�38
How to Complete the Reformation.
safety and comfort of the community, or to sacri
fice his children, by allowing those children to
grow up as barbarians : and Second, that the com
pulsory inculcation of dogma is immoral and per
nicious. It needs but to extend the same principles
to the Establishment. It is true the State cannot
prevent people from being themselves dogmatic,
and fanatical, and otherwise immoral. But this
is no reason why the State should directly pro
mote, by immoral legislation, a temper so injurious
to the community. It has but to make its educa
tional system of a piece throughout, by banishing
dogma from the higher, as it has banished it
from the lower branch, its latest and purest creation.
Whether we keep the Church, or disestablish it, so
long as we suffer it to rest on a dogmatic basis, all
our efforts to educate our young on the principles of
a rational, manly Liberalism, will be vain. I do not
overlook all that its clergy have done for education.
I grant them, individually, fullest credit for their
earnest and self-denying labours in this behalf; but
it is not the less true that the system on which they
have worked is, both in its method and in its pur
pose, a system for producing, not men, but slaves
and cretins; for it is a system that sets the under
standing at nought, by blinding it to the meaning of
Natural law, to the significance of facts, the value
of evidence, and the very meaning even, and use of
the faculty of truthfulness. It is a system of
spiritual trades-unionism, regime at once of Sheffield
and of Rome, making the capacity of the feeblest and
stupidest the rule of all; for the regime is the same
that restricts the strength and genius of the workman
to the standard of the least capable, limiting the
number of bricks the builder shall carry in his hod
at a time, or lay in a day, the number of types the
printer shall set up, the number of hours each man
shall work, the amount of wage he shall earn; and
�How to Complete the Reformation.
39
that restricts his aspirations and advance towards the
universe of divine facts, by keeping him as a caged
squirrel, revolving within a little circle of artificial
beliefs and observances. The spirit is the same, and
the regime is the same. The end also is one. For
the spirit is that of cowardice and selfishness : the
regime, that of tyrannical repression of the human
faculties; the end, the advancement of a caste irre
spective of the cost to mankind.
XIV.
Stifled as the faculty of reason ever has been by
authority based upon dogma, it is no matter for wonder
that the revolts against that authority should ofttimes
fail to be governed by reason. Even the agitation
lately commenced for the disestablishment of the
Church indicates little appreciation of the principles
of Liberalism and of Liberty. The agitators are
divisible into two classes, of which one seeks but to
reduce the Establishment to the level of other sects,
and the other seeks to enable it to indulge its
sacerdotal predilections to the heart’s content of its
most bigoted adherents; while neither seems to care
for the moral character of our legislation, for the
waste of the nation’s resources, or how they are
directed against their proper function of promoting
■civilisation.
And what hinders us from completing the Refor
mation by such Nationalisation of the church estab
lishment as that which I am advocating ? Is it that
which people are pleased to call their Christianity—
their “ common Christianity” ? Admirable audacity,
to prate of a “ common Christianity; ” or even to
adduce what they possess under such name, as a
thing to be cherished and preserved at the cost of
all that is noblest in Humanity! For my part,
though I have been over a goodly proportion of the
�40
How to Complete the Reformation.
earth’s surface, I know not where in the world to look
to find a Christianity fulfilling its proper function, (if
such be its proper function,) of raising and sustaining
the moral, spiritual, and intellectual life of a people
by its hearty acceptance and wise application of the
only means that can tend to such ends. And if such
have as yet no existence anywhere, why may not
Milton’s prognostication turn out true, and “ God, as
His manner is, reveal Himself first to His English
men ?”
What hinders ? Is it the invincible attachment of
the clergy or the laity to their dogmas ? For the
laity, it is but necessary to point to the vast numbers
of men who abstain from the services, and reject the
teaching of the Church altogether, and that other
large proportion of men who attend them merely to
gratify the women of their families. For the clergy,
I need but specify the large and increasing number
who, longing to be delivered from their bondage, are
ever striving to infuse into the ancient forms, signifi
cations which are not altogether repulsive to their
intelligence or their moral sense, and who yet feel
that, jangle their fetters as they will, the music they
make is still but the clanking of fetters.
What hinders ? Is it a fear of being charged with
“confiscation” and “sacrilege?” If names import
anything, we have great names wherewith to confront
these loud sounding terms. We have Milton, the
soundness of whose orthodoxy no one is entitled to
question, for has he not, in his Paradise, Lost, Paradise
Regained, and Hymn of the Nativity, provided us with
a framework of mythology for our theology more
complex and perfect, even than that of the Bible
itself? Well, Milton advocated the application of
revenues “ left,” to use his own words, “ perhaps
anciently to superstitious, but meant undoubtedly to
good and best uses, and therefore applicable by the
present magistrate to such uses as the church, or
�How to Complete the Reformation.
41
solid reason from whomsoever, shall convince him to
think best •>” and enumerates among those legitimate
uses for church property, the 11 erection in greater
numbers all over the land of schools and libraries, so
that all the land would be soon the better civilised.” *
Milton, it is true, was a Nonconformist, but we find
the most eminent of our Bishops, Bishop Butler,
declaring that “every donation to the Christian
Church is a human donation and no more, and there
fore cannot give a divine right, but such right only as
must be subject, in common with all other property,
to the regulation of human laws. . . . The persons
who gave lands to the Church had no right of
perpetuity in them, and consequently could convey no
such rights to the Church.” t
But authorities are not needed to prove to us that
the religious revenues of a people not only may
follow, the religion of that people, but are applicable
to their “ good and best uses,” whatever the changed
sentiment of the people may come to consider those
uses bo be. To regard them otherwise would be to
let the dead, not bury the dead, but govern the living
for evermore, a principle at once fatal to Christianity,
to the Reformation, to Liberalism, to all advance and
improvement whatever in the world.
Neither do we require names or authorities to
convince us that the “ confiscation,” and the
“ sacrilege,” if any, would not be on our part, but is
on theirs already who have diverted the property of the
Establishment from its “ good and best uses,” to the
use of an association for the preservation of sectarian
dogmas and the observance of sectarian rituals. It is
not the “Church” that would suffer injustice : It
is the State that is robbed, under the present system,
and that would be robbed in perpetuity by the
* “The likeliest way to remove Hirelings out of the
Church.”
t “ Letter to a Lady. ”
�42
How to Complete the Reformation.
appropriation of its revenues to the purposes of a
sect.
XV.
It is not for man to live for ever in the nursery.
As in the history of an individual, so in that of a
people, there is a period when larger views must pre
vail and greater freedom of action be accorded ; when
life will have many sides, and hold relations with
a vast range of facts and interests, of which none
can be left out of the account without detriment to
all concerned. Formerly, it may be, men were able,
or content, to recognise their relations with the
infinite on but a single side of their nature. When a
strongly marked line divided the object of their
religious emotions from all other objects, when that
alone was deemed divine, and all else constituted the
profane or secular, there may have been excuse for
their accordance of supremacy to the one class of
emotions, and of inferior respect, or even contempt,
to the other. But we have passed out of that stage,
we know no such distinction in kind between the
various classes of our emotions. They all are human,
and therefore all divine. They all serve to connect
us with the universe of which we are a portion, the
whole of which universe must be equally divine for
us, though we may rank some of its uses above others
in reference to our own nature. Thus, if there is
nothing that is specially sacred for us, it is because
there is nothing that is really profane; but all is sacred,
from the least to the greatest. And this is the lesson
that the Churches have yet to learn. Let us com
plete the Reformation by freeing our own Church from
its ancient limitations, which are of the nursery. Let
us release our teachers from the corner in which they
have so long been cramped, and they will soon learn
to take greater delight in exploring the many
mansions which compose the whole glorious house of
�How to Complete the Reformation.
43
the universe, and unfolding in turn to their hearers
whatever they can best tell, whether of science,
philosophy, religion, art, or morality, not necessarily
neglecting those spiritual metaphysics to which they
have in great measure hitherto been restricted, and
the consequence of which restriction has been but to
distort them and all else from their due proportion.
In the Church thus reformed, all subjects that tend
to edification will be fitting ones for the preacher. But
whatever the subject, the method will have to be but
one, always the scientific, never the dogmatic method.
The appeal will be to the intellects, the hearts, and
the consciences of the living, never to mere authority,
living or dead. There will be no heresy, because no
orthodoxy; or rather, the question of heresy as
against orthodoxy will be a question of method, not
of conclusions. From the pulpits of such a church no
genuine student or thinker will be excluded, but will
find welcome everywhere from congregations composed,
not of the women only and the weaker brethren, but
of men, men with brains and culture ! Who knows
what edifices of knowledge may be reared, what
reaches of spiritual perception may be attained, upon a
basis from which all the rubbish of ages has been cleared
away, and where all that is useful and true in the
past is built into the foundations of the future ! Who
can tell how nearly we may attain to the perfections
of the blessed when, no longer straitened in heart and
mind and spirit by a narrow sectarianism, but with the
scientific and the 'verifiable everywhere substituted for
the dogmatic and the incomprehensible, the veil which
has so long shrouded the universe as with a thick
mist shall be altogether withdrawn, when the All is
revealed without stint to our gaze in such degree as
each is able to bear, and Theology no longer serves
but to paint and darken the windows through which
man gazes out into the infinite !
Thus reformed, amended, and enlarged, the estab-
�44
How to Complete the Reformation.
lished Churches of Great Britain will be no exclusive
corporations, watched with jealous eyes of less
favoured sects. Nonconformity will disappear, for
there will be nothing to nonconform to: Fanaticism,
for there will be no Dogma; Intolerance and Bigotry, for
there will be no Infallibility. Comprehensive, as all
that claims to be national and human ought to be,
no conditions of membership will be imposed to
entitle any to a share of its benefits : but every
variety of opinion will find expression and a home
precisely in the degree to which it may commend
itself to the general intelligence.
The bitterness of sectarian animosity thus extin
guished, and no place found for dogmatic assertion
or theological hatred, it will seem as if the first heaven
and the first earth had passed away, and a new heaven
and new earth had come, in which there was no more
sea of troubles, or aught to set men against each other
and keep them from uniting in aid of their common
welfare. Lit by the clear light of the cultivated
intellect, and watered by the pure river of the
developed moral sense, the State will be free to
grow into a veritable City of God, where there shall
be no more curse of poverty or crime, no night of
intolerant stupidity, but all shall know that which is
good for all, from the least to the greatest.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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How to complete the reformation
Description
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 44 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Maitland, Edward
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1871
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Thomas Scott
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Secularism
Church of England
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RA1610
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Church of England-Disestablishment
Conway Tracts
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GRACE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1876.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON
THINTED BY C. TV. REYNELL, LITTLE TULTENET STREET,
HAYMARKET.
�GRACE.
------ *-----VICTIM to the received system of religious
education, I have suffered considerably for socalled conscience’ sake. Finding nay questions as
irritating to my instructors as their answers were
unsatisfactory to me, I early sank down into the
mould prepared for me, and at nine years old was at
the top of the religious class in a school I attended.
An excellent memory, a distinct utterance, and a
sort of knack of finding out texts with great rapidity,
were points in my favour, and as I soon left
off asking what were called impertinent questions,
it was assumed that the process of thinking had,
by the merciful interference of a superintending
Providence, been checked ere it had developed into
an insurmountable hindrance to salvation. At first
I did not think very much, but I thought a little, and
to some purpose. I learnt a hymn which contained
these lines : “ I thank the goodness and the grace
which on my birth have smiled, and made me in
these Christian days a happy English child. I was
not born, as thousands are, where God was never
known,” etc. I did not sufficiently value my privi
lege of sitting in a close room learning abstruse texts,
and when I looked at the pictures of little negroes in
sugar-plantations I did not pity them at all, but
thought that they had the best of it.
A
�6
Grace.
To check the free expression of thought is an
admirable means towards the desired end—the an
nihilation of thought itself—and had not a counter
influence been at work out of school I should, doubt
less, have become a “ chosen vessel.” As it was, I
went about, as numbers do, under false colours, sup
posed to be very pious, because I had a good verbal
memory, a quiet, old-fashioned manner, and great
digital dexterity in finding out passages in the Bible.
I seemed, of course, like a piece of wax, as all good
children should be, ready to receive any religious
impressions stamped upon me by my teachers. I
was being educated in hypocrisy under the name
of religion. The system was calculated to foster
conceit, and, until a few years ago, I thought I under
stood all that is included in the comprehensive word
grace. I was called a child of grace, I coveted grace,
prayed daily for an increase of it, explained its sup
posed effects to others, pleaded with those who seemed
indifferent to it, and mourned over those who had
fallen from it. My teachers used grace as synonymous
with self-denial, self-control, patience, fortitude, re
signation, etc., and I was accustomed to attribute all
that is elevating to its influence, and all that is
degrading to its absence. But? when a mere child, I
had silently observed the supposed effects of grace in
those who never resorted to the “means ” of it, and
before I had attained maturity, I had, when away
from the restraints of school, indulged in many a
flippant remark as to the inefficacy of grace in those
who seemed indefatigable in their strivings after it.
I was puzzled and disappointed, but not until many
years had elapsed did it occur to me that I had been
deceived, deceived by well-meaning individuals who
were themselves deceived, and who, I have every
reason to suspect, preferred to be deceived, and
would have gone on deceiving others, even if
they had permitted themselves to be undeceived.
�Grace*
7
My spiritual masters and mistresses told me that
grace was “ a supernatural gift freely bestowed upon
me for my sanctification and salvation.” I was early
taught to seem grateful that, while thousands of chil
dren were suffered to live and die in heathen lands,
where grace was unknown, I had been elected by
special favour to be “a member of Christ, a child of
God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”
I knew that the unbaptized were the devil’s children,
that God hated them, that they could get no grace
because they were not in a “ state of grace,” and that
actions, to all appearance meritorious, were of no avail
at all towards salvation unless they were performed
in “ a state of grace.” I was exhorted to thank God
repeatedly for the grace of baptism and to look upon
the unbaptized with a mixture of pity and horror.
But for “ prevenient grace,” I should, they told me,
yield to the suggestions of my corrupt nature and
tell lies, give blow for blow, steal, cheat, and become
a hardened sinner.
At school I committed to memory a surprising
number of hymns. I knew that grace was “ a charm
ing sound,” that there was “a fountain filled with
blood,’’ and that I deserved “ his holy frown.” But
at an early age grace began to lose ground in my
estimation. At home hymns were not esteemed;
my parents never asked me to repeat them, and
of “ grace ” I never heard, save at school. I
had a playfellow, about my own age, named Bobby.
Bobby’s real father was the devil, but his reputed
father was a respectable and respected Quaker who
lived close to us, a widower, with two attractive
children, whose education was his sole occupation.
Bobby was a gentle, manly, intelligent child, the
peace-maker in all squabbles, and a great favourite
in the play-ground. In the person of this little
Quaker, Satan had succeeded admirably in transform
ing himself into an angel of light, for a superficial
�Grace.
observer might easily have mistaken. Bobby for “ a
member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor
of the kingdom of heaven.” I knew better—I knew
that he was a child of wrath—that God’s holy frown
rested upon him, and that unless God in his infinite
mercy should call him to the font, his portion would
be “everlasting pains, where sinners must with
devils dwell, in darkness, fire, and chains.” Bobby
never was taken to a place of worship; he was
taught no prayers, and knew no hymns. He squinted
abominably, and it was in consequence of that sad
blemish that my childish thoughts were drawn to a
common-sense view of grace. He was taken to an
oculist, and returned with a most disfiguring glass
over one eye, in comparison with which the squint
seemed almost an embellishment. Poor Bobby ! we
laughed at him, pointed at him, danced round him,
squinted at him, and called him “ old goggle-eye !” I
had frequently wondered at the engaging manners and
generous conduct of the devil’s little boy, but on this
occasion he surpassed himself. He turned red, his
lips quivered, the well-known “ ball ” rose in his
throat, but with steady voice he said, “ You have
nearly made me cry ; you do not know how painful
my eye is; the doctor said crying would make it
worse; I promised him I would not cry. See, I
have got a shilling, let us go and spend it and play
at something else.” “I’ll tell father, see if I don’t! ”
said Bobby’s brother, with fraternal indignation, “ and
he shall know how that shilling went.” “Ho, you
will not,” said Bobby, laughing, “ for a tell-tale is
even worse than a teaze ! ” Of course we all de
clared we were only in fun, etc., but I felt keenly
that the children of God had not set the devil’s little
boy a very good example, and I valued my religious
privileges less from that hour. I continued commit
ting many hymns and texts to memory, but I suppose
I had already “fallen from grace,” for though I
�Grace.
9
recited them with my usual accuracy, they interested
me less. I left off begging to be allowed to learn
some particular hymns, and many of my former
favourites faded unregretted from my memory. My
schoolmistress was an Evangelical gentlewoman, and
I was one of her most attentive pupils. Hearing me
say that Bobby could be good without grace, she
looked very grave, and, turning to an assistant
teacher, remarked, “ How amazing it is that parents
suffer their children to associate with the uncon
verted ! ” I repeated her words to my father. Un
like most parents, he spoke very openly, and explained
to me in very simple language that he had never
observed any moral superiority in the baptized, and
that in his own circle of acquaintances he had found
more genial characters among the unbaptized. He
drew my attention to a gentleman who was a con
stant visitor at our house, one who was in great
favour with all the children who knew him, in conse
quence of his imperturbable good humour and amiable
devotion to their little interests. “That man,” said
my father, “was brought up among the Quakers, and
though he is not a Quaker now, has never been bap
tized, and I cannot see in what respect he would
be a better member of society if he had.
The
gentleman in question was a great ally of mine, and
his children were my playmates. It would have
been difficult to find better people than were these
who had taken no pains to cleanse themselves from
their inherited filth, and it is not surprising that,
with such amiable associates, a child under twelve
should lose sight of the inestimable privilege of
“ grace ” and cease to attribute virtuous conduct to
its influence. I gave up caring about grace. I let
it go without a regret, little knowing that a few
years later I should give myself wholly to its sup
posed influence, and suffer exceedingly in mind and
body ere I succeeded in wrenching myself from a
�iO
Grace.
grasp which was crushing my individuality out of
me.
Before my childhood was quite over an incident
occurred which I shall relate, for it made an im
pression, and preserved me from rushing in after life
into certain extremes, towards which my devotional
acquaintances tended.
There was a lumber-room in Bobby’s house ; books,
pictures, ornaments and furniture, which had been
undisturbed since his mother’s death, were heaped
together in dusty confusion. The humour seized
Bobby to sort out the objects and put the room to
rights. He asked me to help him and we set to work.
I caught hold of a mutilated copy of a book called
‘ The Soul on Calvary,’ and my eyes fell upon the
following incredible and revolting passage:—
“ We will here relate the example of a most
heroic patience in sickness and of a most perfect love
of God in the heart. Perhaps it may wound the
delicacy of some ; but many others will have sufficient
greatness of soul to be edified and touched by it. A
person had fallen into a malady equally painful and
humiliating : a great sore was formed, which, in the
course of time, had engendered a quantity of worms.
This person was eaten up alive by them, and suffered
excessive pains ; yet her lively love of God surmounted
the violence of her sufferings to such a degree that
if any of her worms happened to fall, she picked them
up and replaced them in the sore, saying that she was
unwilling to lose any part of the merit of her suffer
ings, and that she considered those worms as so
many precious pearls which might one day adorn her
crown.” From the disgust excited in me by this
horrible statement, I never rallied, though I was sub
sequently thrown into daily contact with people whose
religious fervour would have inclined them to go and
do likewise.
‘ The Soul on Calvary ’ is a cheap book widely
�Grace.
ii
circulated among Roman Catholics, many of whom
would not shrink from putting into practice the wild
and filthy experiments suggested by the perusal of
that and similar fanatical works.
At a boarding-school, to which I was sent "for six
months for change of air, considerable attention was
paid to the religious instruction of the children. I was
slowly regaining my strength, after a long illness, and
was probably more susceptible to what are called spiri
tual influences than I should otherwise have been; more
over, I was at the impressionable age of fourteen, and
of a grave turn of mind. I was soon “full of grace;” that
is to say, I thought and heard of little else; answering
Scripture questions occupied a great portion of my
time, for, being very weak, I was not required to study
much, and it cost me but little trouble to get up all
the hymns, catechisms, texts, collects, etc., with which
I had formerly been somewhat overburdened. I was
soon a great favourite with my teacher, and to “ grow
in grace” once more became the great object of
my life. For a few years I had been neglecting
grace, but had not retrograded morally, and was
not a whit more unruly than my more persevering
companions.
Schooled in grace for the second time, and
thoroughly engrossed with self, I should, I ima
gine, have become very much like the ideal my
teacher had in view. . She tried hard to work upon
the feelings of her pupils, and I have seen a child of
seven years leave the class in tears, and retire sobbing,
at the thought of her ingratitude to her Saviour; and
we were taught to admire the “ workings of grace ”
in her heart, and to deplore our own indifference. Of
practical piety I do not remember hearing. Faith, grace,
hymns, Bible questions and the Church prayers seemed
all in all. We were not encouraged to make clothes for
the poor, or to deny ourselves anything for the sake
of others; for the souls of others we were earnestly
�12
Grace.
enjoined to pray, but of their bodily wants I neverheard. Once, in consequence of illness, I and another'
girl of sixteen were the sole occupants of a room.
I remarked with horror that she did not kneel downbefore getting into bed. “ Why, Emily,” said I,
f‘you have forgotten your prayers.” “You meanthat I have forgotten to kneel down. I never say
prayers, but I kneel down in the big room because of
the others; I do not mind you.” “ But do you not
mind God,” asked I, with sincere surprise. “ No,”
said she, “ God minds me ! ” I was too much grieved^
to notice the drollery of the remark. Presently she*
resumed, “ What do you. suppose becomes of the
sponge-cakes ? ” I knew dozens of them were con
veyed to the boarders through one of the ser
vants, and now I was informed that they were always
devoured during the extempore prayer made every
evening by a teacher; it lasted, with other devotions,
twenty minutes, and as the girls turned to the wall
during prayers the opportunity was favourable to the
enjoyment of soft cakes. Emily’s revelations sad
dened me indescribably. Had she been an unprin
cipled, unruly, low-minded girl, I should have been
relieved, but, like the graceless Bobby of my child
hood, Emily was superior to the other girls in moral
worth; she never copied sums, verbs, &c., from her
neighbour’s slate, and had often surprised me by her
readiness to admit ignorance, to offer an apology, and,
in short, to act as if this so-called grace had taken
firm hold of her ; but she did not care about grace,
she even called it “ a hoax,” and said that all the
religious people she knew were very disagreeable.
Her father had yielded to the wishes of his wife in
sending her to this school, and as she was soon about
to leave it, she spoke, as all girls do under such cir
cumstances, with reckless candour.
Hypocrisy must infect those who are taught so
many solemn and startling confessions, creeds, hymns.
�Grace.
and texts long before they can understand them..
Emily had discontinued her prayers because she did
not assent to the assertions in them. lc As God made
me,” said she, “ he must know me far better than I
know myself, and therefore it seems very silly to pre
tend to inform him. I am not going to say ‘ I have
followed too much the devices and desires of my own
heart,’ because it is not true; if I were to follow
those desires I should be off in the morning, in spite
of my influenza.”
All she said made me feel extremely uncomfortable,
—she had given up grace, and yet seemed thoroughly
good. However, my six months of school life were
fortunately over, and I returned to a home where all
that is estimable was inculcated without any allusion
to hymns, grace, or any other supernatural means of
arriving at the ordinary virtues which should dis
tinguish the members of a civilized community. I
do not think my father had a Bible ; I never saw him
use one, save to look out some disputed text.
Having been forced in his boyhood to read the Bible
exclusively, he made up for it in his manhood by
reading any book except the Bible. Away from the
gracious influences which for a brief season had
surrounded me, shaken somewhat by Emily’s ex
perience, and highly dissatisfied with my own
immature conclusions, I soon grew very lukewarm as
to prayer and other religious practices, and was
actually learning “ to be good and to do good ” with
out having recourse to the supernatural. I was,
however, ill at ease within, for I had been so
thoroughly impressed with the necessity of grace,
that I was quite alarmed to find how easily I had let
it go and how very well I could do without it. I was
afraid of myself knowing, or rather having been
taught, that in me “ dwelt no good thing,” and I was
greatly perplexed to find no unholy tendencies arise
now that grace had Jost its hold on me. I should
�>4
Grace.
have been quite delighted to have been able to detect
some moral retrogression, which I should have been
justified in attributing to a withdrawal of grace.
I ardently wished to believe in the efficacy of prayer
and indeed in all the doctrines I had been
taught in my childhood, but I was losing both
faith and confidence. I pretended I had not lost
either.
I was afraid to think anything out.
About that time I was invited to pass a few
weeks with a lady and gentleman at Sydenham.
Owing to curious circumstances the lady, though a
Protestant, had been educated in a convent, and was
quite familiar with all the tenets of the various
religious sects. She talked, and apparently thought
frequently about piety, grace, resignation, etc., and
said she intended to leave a large portion of her
wealth to those who had grounded her in religion.
She was, as far as I could judge, an essentially worldly
woman, and, owing probably to her wretched health,
of a singularly trying disposition. In her husband
all those virtues, specially intended, where Christian
virtues are named, shone conspicuously, and I shall
never forget my amazement when with the utmost
composure he informed me that he was hostile to
every form of religion, and that, though it grieved
him sorely to thwart his wife, he had absolutely for
bidden her to teach his little nephew, who lived with
them, any creed, catechism or hymn; she gained her
point as to the Lord’s prayer, which the boy repeated
every night in the drawing-room, beginning thus,—
“ Our Father charty neaven.”
Full twenty years have passed since the day when
I discovered that the man whose character I so much
admired, whose forbearance so much amazed me, and
whose abstemiousness bordered upon the marvellous,
was what is called an infidel! Would that I could
meet him now! How readily would I confess to
him that ‘'whereas I was blind, now I see,”—see that
�Grace.
J5
I was the real infidel, faithless to my own secret con
victions, and faithless to the tenets I was supposed
to have embraced. Fettered by formulas, vague
fears, and by a feeling of restraint which for years
prevented me from daring to be myself, I was unable
to assimilate the wholesome ingredients in the sensible
conversation of my infidel friend, who sought to wean
me from useless theological speculations, and en
deavoured to direct my attention to things practical.
I was then and for years afterwards in the position
which Fichte has so clearly described : “ Instructions
were bestowed upon me before I sought them; an
swers were given me before I had put questions;
without examination and without interest I had
allowed everything to take place in my mind. How
then could I persuade myself I possessed any real
knowledge in these matters ? I only knew what
others assert they know, and all I was sure of was
that I had heard this or that upon the subject. What
ever truth they possessed could have been obtained
only by their own reflection, and why should not I by
means of the same reflection discover the like truth
for myself, since I too have a being as well as they ?
How much I have hitherto undervalued and slighted
myself ! ”
My infidel friend was aware that I was by no means
blind to his many good qualities, for I was frequently
present, to my great discomfort, when he was severely
tried, and was forced to acknowledge that he behaved
like a saint.
“ Well, little lady,” said he one day when we were
speaking of grace, “ I hate the very word grace, I
don’t fully understand its meaning, and as lean do very
well without it, I should consider it a superfluity;
but tell me to what you attribute all that strikes you
as good in me, for as I am the only graceless dog you
know, myself must be my subject ? ”
I had repeatedly asked myself that question, and
�i6
Grace.
invariably winced at my own answer. According to
my religious notions he ought to have been conspicu
ous for moral depravity, but according to my common
sense it seemed to me that no amount of grace could
make him a more genial specimen of a moral man
than he was. However, I said that as he had been
baptized and had been taught to pray in his childhood,
he must have received many graces, and that his
avoidance of great sins was due to God’s grace, which
had preserved him from great temptations. He smiled
as he replied : “ I am afraid your surmise will fall to
the ground when you hear that I early gave up my
prayers. I had a great misfortune when quite a little
fellow. I smashed a most expensive and much-valued
old china jar to atoms. My thoughts instantly flew
to the omnipotent and benevolent Being whose eyes
were in every place, and I ran upstairs to my little
cot, by the side of which I knelt, and most earnestly
entreated God to mend the jar and replace it upon the
bracket before my father returned. Down I rushed, fully
expecting to find all as I wished, the fragments gone,
and the jar in its place. At the bottom of the stairs
stood my poor nurse, too agitated to scold me, feeling
that she would get most of the blame, and dreading
the return of ‘ Master.’ Ko words can convey my
bitter disappointment at seeing the fragments where I
had left them. I had prayed with faith and hope;
but there was no new jar upon the bracket, and never
again did I turn with confidence to that omnipotent
and benevolent Being who had not helped me out of
my terrible scrape.”
What good end Providence had in view by throw
ing me into contact with Bobby, Emily, and this
honourable infidel, pious people have never explained
to me. “ To try your faith,” they told me ; but seemed
at fault when I asked if Providence foresaw that I
should lose my faith.
My visit ended, I returned home ill at ease, honestly
�Grace.
!7
doubting, but dishonestly concealing my doubts for
so-called conscience’ sake. It would, I thought, be
awful to become an infidel, and thus expose myself to
the just indignation of my maker; but it did not occur
to me for some years that my insincerity must long
have rendered me odious in the eyes of the searcher of
hearts, the God of truth, and that I had been in jeo
pardy ever since I had dared to use my own judgment
concerning grace and its effects.
In looking over the past I can say, with the utmost
deliberation, that in my case religion was a hindrance
instead of a help, as it is intended to be. While re
calling my past experience I feel sincerely sorry for
myself and for those who, owing to my devout adhe
rence to sundry New Testament injunctions which I
had “ grace” enough to carry out, suffered acutely.
The certainty that but few have sufficient “grace” to
“ go and do likewise,” is a source of satisfaction to
me. Were I not convinced by hardly-earned experi
ence of the futility of prayer, I would pray with great
fervour that the meaning I discerned in Gospel teach
ing might be for ever hidden from their eyes lest they
should become “ converted” and show forth their
faith as I did. By nature frank and fearless, I early
profited by the lessons taught me by my ghostly coun
sellors, and learnt, like multitudes of other young
people, to conceal what passed within, and to be afraid
of my corrupt nature, and of all that emanated there
from. I was afraid of thinking, of using my own
mind, of following my own impulses, in short, of being
myself.
Conscious of insincerity, alarmed at the probable
consequences of sincerity, siding secretly with what
are called dangerous opinions, frightened at my ten
dencies, confessing with my lips what my understand
ing refused to digest, clinging to planks which I felt
could ill bear my weight, I went on praying that
infidels might be brought to the knowledge of the
�Grace.
truth, but never realising the melancholy fact that
I myself was an arch infidel, for I was a dissembler
before God and man ; reciting incredible creeds in the
house of the former, and carefully concealing my real
sentiments from the latter.
After a while, by dint of pious reading, pious
friends, and lonely visits to sundry churches, I shook
off for a season some of my most disturbing doubts,
and, during four or five years “grace” assuredly
triumphed over nature, and, but for the timely inter
ference of common sense, I too might have been dis
covered magnanimously replacing fallen creepers in
their home on my epidermis !
“ Grace” prompted me to despise “the world,” to
keep aloof from my fellow-creatures, to become
odiously unsociable, and, in adhering to what I con
ceived to be the strict line of duty to God, to disregard,
all the little courtesies and concessions to others as
“ Satanic varnish,” deviations from truth, worldly
wisdom, &c. Reproaches or remonstrances had the
effect of making me persevere still more obstinately
in the course I had chosen. I felt like a martyr
“ persecuted for righteousness ” sake, and was su
premely happy in the conviction that an unusual
amount of grace was bestowed upon me. My spiritual
advisers encouraged me in despising all human con
siderations, and in devoting myself exclusively to my
religious duties, assuring me that the world would
certainly hate me as it had hated Christ, but that I
must “ overcome the world.” In short, I acted upon
the conviction that “ the friendship of the world is
enmity with God,” and that unless I came “ out from
among them ” I was no worthy member of a Head
crowned with thorns. I had the sweet approval of
my own conscience, and felt sure that God was on my
side, so did not fear what man might do unto me.
The requirements of the Gospel seemed to me
peremptory and unmistakable, and as long as I re-
�Grace.
*9
mained under the absorbing influence of what is
called “ grace” I did my best to carry them out; but
a change came over me; old doubts assailed me with
fresh vigour; they took firm hold of me, and I could
not shake them off. During those years of religious
zeal I had been undisturbed by misgivings, and had
acted with sincerity. I look back upon them with
mingled amusement and regret, and rejoicing that I
was at length enabled to be as true to my doubts as
I bad been to my folly and fanaticism. Of course it
will be said by many that I had been guilty of absurd
exaggeration, and that true religion does not demand
that we should fly in the face of the world, that it is
possible to continue in “ grace” without sternly
abjuring “ the world,” &c. ; but such a compromise
seemed to me then impossible, and, to be perfectly
candid, I am still of opinion that to yield to the dic
tates of “ grace ” is to become what I was once, but
with my enlarged experience can never be again.
“ Grace,” as understood by the orthodox, had taken
great effect upon me; it had done its work right well,
and rendered me quite unfit for this world, and, there
fore, as I was persuaded, a worthier candidate for the
other. In my exuberant self-satisfaction, I failed to
see that by steady adherence to my favourite Gospel
texts I was daily sinking deeper into that slough of
selfishness, bigotry, and intolerance, in which the
“Lord’s people” are wont to wallow. I knowmany who
are “ full of grace ;” I avoid them, for a “ burnt child
dreads the fire.” Withdrawn from the pernicious
influence of “ grace,” I can now look dispassionately
on my former God-fearing self, and see myself in the
light in which I must have appeared to those who
deplored my “ supernatural ” tendencies, and des
paired of my return to common sense. Released
from the fetters which so tightly bound me, and
which in my blindness I hugged so fondly, I have
now the “ grace ” to see, and the candour to confess,
�20
Grace.
that I was the victim of a degrading delusion. I have
returned to the miserable “ worldlings,” who are onlydoing their duty, and striving to make the best of the
only world of which we have any knowledge, and in
which I hope I may have “ grace ” to lead a rational
life and set a natural example !
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Grace
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 18 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Published anonymously. Author believed to be Annie Besant. "A victim to the received system of religious education, I have suffered considerably of so-called conscience' sake". [Opening sentence]. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Besant, Annie Wood
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1876
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Thomas Scott
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Rationalism
Free thought
Education
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Grace), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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RA1609
CT183
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application/pdf
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English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
Religion
Religious Education
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Text
THE CHURCH,
AND
ITS
REFORM.
A REPRINT.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
1867.
Price, One Shilling, post free.
��THE
CHURCH, AND ITS REFORM.
■-------------- ♦--------------
T) ACON says, “ If St John were to write an Epistle
JD to the Church of England, as he did to that of
Asia, it would surely contain the clause, I have a few
things against thee / ” I am not quite of his opinion.
I am afraid the clause would be, I have not a few things
against thee.' These are the words of Dr Jortin.—
(See his Tracts, vol. i. p. 350.)
“ In England we certainly want a reform in the
ecclesiastical part of our constitution. Men’s minds,
however, I think are not yet generally prepared for
admitting its necessity. A reformer of Luther’s
temper and talents would, in five years, persuade the
people to compel the Parliament to abolish tithes, to
extinguish pluralities, to enforce residence, to confine
episcopacy to the overseeing of dioceses, to expunge
the Athanasian Creed from our Liturgy, to free Dis
senters from Test Acts, and the ministers of the
establishment from subscription to human articles of
faith. These and other matters, respecting the church,
ought to be done,” &c.
Thus Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, delivered his
sentiments, in a letter to the Duke of Grafton, in the
year 1791.*
One of the most remarkable of the sentiments here
expressed is the belief of the power which a single
advocate of reform, of the proper stamp, might exert
* See ‘Watson’s Memoirs,’ p 256.
B
�2
The Church, and its Reform.
on the public mind in England, and through the public
mind on the House of Commons, and through the House
of Commons on all that is faulty in our public institu
tions. “ A reformer of Luther’s temper and talents
would in five years ” (in 1791, be it observed, when
the minds of men were ill-prepared) “ persuade the
people to compel the parliament,” &c. The great
characteristics of Luther were courage, activity, and
perseverance ; for in intellectual endowments he was
equalled by many of his contemporaries ; and by some,
Melancthon and Erasmus for example, surpassed"
We mention this, and request attention to it, as a
matter of encouragement to those whose minds are
elevated and blessed with the love of reform. It re
quires, they may see, but the will in any individual of a
class, which now is numerous, to be the author of
blessings, analogous to those achieved by him who
among mortals was the greatest benefactor of the
human race.
Among the reforms which five years of proper exer
tion might bring about, in the ecclesiastical part of
our institutions, the Bishop enumerates the abolition
of tithes, the extinction of pluralities, the compulsion
of residence, the confinement of episcopacy (meaning,
literally, overlooking or superintinding) to the appro
priate function which the name denotes; besides
these, erasing the Athanasian Creed from the Liturgy,
abolishing the Test Acts and subscription to Articles
of Faith.
Forty-four years*’ have passed over our heads, and,
of all this, how much has been done ? We have
abolished the Test Acts ! And yet the people are
accused of being too impatient for reform ; as indi
cating, by their impatience, a desire to destroy religion
•—aye, and government along with it.—And so they
would be if they were only to complain of a single
bad thing once in a hundred years.
* "Written in 1835.
�The Church, and its Reform.
3
The Bishop is far from intending here a systematic
view of the bad things in onr ecclesiastical machinery.
He mentions a parcel of particulars, by way of exem
plification, and ends by saying, 1 these, and other
matters' &c. We know that he laid great stress on
one thing which is here not mentioned at all; reduc
ing emoluments of the overpaid priests of all descrip
tions, and giving something more to the class whom
the clergy think sufficiently paid with a beggarly
pittance.
The time is come, when a service of unspeakable
importance would be rendered to the community, by
a foil and detailed exposition of the good which might
be done by a well-ordered and well-conducted clergy;
of the want of good in any shape derivable from our
present ecclesiastical corporation, while it is the peren
nial source of evil to an incredible amount. We
shall enter into some details, to give a clearer view of
what we recommend to others, and earnestly desire to
see accomplished.
We shall begin with some illustrations of the pro
position, that the present ecclesiastical establishment
in England is a perfect nullity in respect to good, but
an active and powerful agent in the production of evil.
It is one of the most remarkable of all the instances
which can be adduced of the power of delusion, when
well supported by artifice and power—that, up to this
hour, an institute, truly characterized by the terms
we have just applied to it, should be still looked upon
as a fabric, venerable for the benefits which it confers
upon the people, at whose charge it is upheld.
It has not the look, the colour, not even one of the
outward marks, of an institution intended for good.
The world, at least the Protestant world, needs no
information respecting the abuses of the Romish
Church. That ecclesiastical establishment had been
reared up into a system, most1 artfully contrived for
rendering men the degraded instruments and tools of
�4
The Church, and its Reform.
priests; for preventing the growth of all intellect
and all morality ; for occupying the human mind with
superstition; and attaching the very idea of duty to
nothing but the repetition of ceremonies for the glori
fication of priests.
. At the time of the great revolt from the dornina,.
tion of the Romish priesthood, while other countries
broke down and struck off, some more, some less, but
all a great part of the machinery, by which the
Romish Church had become the curse of human
nature, the English clergy embraced that machinery
very nearly as it stood, have clung to it ever since
with the most eager attachment, praised it to the
skies, and done whatever they could in the way of
persecution against all who condemned it.
Look at the facts, and see how distinctly they sup
port this representation.
Did not our church-makers retain the same order of
priests? archbishops, bishops, deans, prebendaries,
rectors, vicars, curates; with the same monstrous
inequality of pay ?
Did they not retain the very same course of clerical
service—nay, the very same book of formularies,
doing little more than translate the Mass-book into
the English Liturgy ?
Renouncing allegiance to a foreign head was the
principal part of the change which took place in
England, and the abolition of the religious houses, to
satisfy the rapacity of the king and the nobles. But
the employment and duties of the clergy remained as
before, with some little alteration. The Church of
England parson has less to do than the Romish
priest; and being allowed to involve himself in the
cares of a family, has a mind less devoted to the con
cerns of his place.
If the Romish establishment was not framed for the
production of good, but was an exquisitely-fashioned
instrument for the production of evil, is it not certain
�The Church, and its Reform.
$
that the English establishment, which consists of the
same integrant parts, must very closely resemble it
in its tendencies ?
Let us look at this subject a little more closely.
Can anything be a greater outrage upon the sense of
propriety; a more profligate example of the contempt
of public good; than to see a concatenation of
priests, paid in proportions ranging from the height
of princely revenues, down to less than the pay of a
common footman ; without even a pretence that the
duties of the most miserably rewarded portion are
less onerous or less important than those of the set
who are paid with so immoral and disgraceful a
prodigality ?
The next thing which solicits the attention of all
rational men, is the work which the English clergy
are called upon to perform for this pay; exhibiting,
in their extreme, the opposite views of extravagance
and deficiency.
We undertake to maintain the two following pro
positions : First, that the only services which are
obligatory upon the Church of England clergy, and
regularly performed, are ceremonies, from which no
advantage can be derived. Secondly, that the ser
vices they might render, in raising the moral and
intellectual character of the people, are not obliga
tory, but left wholly to their option, to do, or not to
do ; that they are performed always most imperfectly,
and in general not at all. Let us go to the particulars.
The services obligatory on the Church of England
clergymen are, the Sunday service, performing the
ceremony of baptism, that of marriage, and that of
the burial of the dead.
To estimate the value of them, let us see wherein
they consist.
The Sunday service. That consists almost wholly in
the repetition of certain formularies; read out of a
book called, the Book of Common Prayer. On this
�6
The Church, and its Reform^
part of the duty (the work is actually called duty) of
the Church of England priest, the following observa
tions are inevitable.
1. The repetition of forms of words has a tendency
to become a merely mechanical operation, in which
the mind has little concern. To whatever extent the
repetition of religious formularies becomes mechani
cal, it is converted into an unmeaning ceremony.
2. The formularies themselves are of the nature of
mere ceremonies. They consist of creeds; of short
sentences called collects, which are commonly words
of Scripture thrown into the form of ejaculations, or
petitions to God; prayers, especially the Lord’s
Prayer ; and extracts from the Bible. It is needless
to mention the Communion Service, because, except
ing the purely mechanical part, handing what is to
be eaten and drank, it consists of the same things.
It is necessary to bestow a short examination on
each of those particulars.
Of the repetition of creeds, the best thing which
can be said is, that it is purely ceremonial. If it is
not ceremonial, it is far worse : it is a forced decla
ration of belief—in other words, an instrument for
generating the worst habit which can be implanted
in the human breast—the habit of saying the thing
which is not—the habit of affirming as a matter of
fact, that which is not a matter of fact—the habit of
affirming that a man is conscious of a state of mind,
when he is not conscious of it.* This is to poison
* There may be chicaning on this subject; but no candid man, who
really understands the human mind, will hesitate in assenting to the fact
which is here affirmed, that a man is not conscious of that state of mind,
called belief, with respect to everything contained in the several creeds
in the Prayer Book—perhaps in any one of them, every time he is called
upon to pronounce them : above all, when he is first called upon to do
so. A verbal assent is not belief. Belief implies ideas, and the perception
of their being joined together according to the principles of reason.
“Strictly speaking,” says Berkeley, “to believe that which has no mean
ing in it is impossible........... Men impose upon themselves, by imagining
that they believe those propositions which they have often heard, though
at bottom they have no meaning in them.”—Priwiples ofHuman Know
ledge, § 54.
�T he Church, and its Reform*
morality in the very fountain of life. The fine feel
ing of moral obligation is gone in a mind wherein
the habit of insincerity is engendered: nay, more—
every man who is possessed of that fatal habit pos
sesses an instrument for the perpetration of every
other crime. Mendacity is the pander to the breach
of every obligation.
The collects, which are short sentences—mostly
words of Scripture, thrown into the form of ejacula
tion or petition—we may take along with the
prayers ; and of the whole lot together we may affirm,
that if it is not ceremonial, and without meaning, it
is a great deal worse.
The most important, by far, of all the religious
sentiments is—the distinct, and steady, and perpetu
ally operative conception of what is implied in the
words, Almighty Being of perfect wisdom and good
ness. Without this, there is no religion. Supersti
tion there may be, in perfection. Priestism is its
nature; it is a contrivance of priests, and always
manufactured for their ends. When deluded people
are made to think ill of the Divine Being, they are
in the hands of the priests, and can be made to do
whatever the cunning of the order prescribes to
them.
The tendency of the Church of England prayers is
to give a wrong notion of the Divine attributes ; and
instead of the idea of a Being of perfect wisdom and
goodness, to present the idea of a being very imper
fect in both. To speak of them in the most general
way, we may observe, that perpetually to be asking
God for things which we want, believing that this is
a way to obtain them, implies the belief that God
is imperfect both in wisdom and goodness. Telling
God unceasingly of our wants, implies that he needs
to be told of them—otherwise it is an unmeaning
ceremony. Asking Him continually to do things for
us, implies our belief that otherwise he would not do
�8
The Churchy and its Reform.
them for ns; in other words, our belief, either that
God will not do what is right, if he be not begged
and entreated to do so—or that, by being begged
and entreated, he can be induced to do what is
wrong.
In like manner, in regard to praise, which is the
other element of what is called prayer: first, what
use can there be in our telling the Divine Being,
that he has such and such qualities; as if he was like
to mistake his own qualities, by some imperfection
in his knowledge, which we supply ? Next, what a
mean and gross conception of the Divine nature is
implied in supposing that, like the meanest of men,
God is delighted in listening to his own praises!
Surely, practices which have this tendency, if they
are considered as having any meaning at all, it is
much better to consider as having no meaning—that
is, as being mere ceremonies.
The Divine Author of our religion everywhere
indicates his opinion, that praying is nothing but a
ceremony: he particularly marks praying, as one
among the abuses of that sect among his country
men, who carried their religious pretensions the
highest, and whom he considered it his duty to repro
bate as the most worthless class of men in the
nation.
It is matter worthy of particular remark, that
Jesus nowhere lays stress on prayer as a duty: he
rarely speaks of it otherwise than incidentally. With
that condescension to the weakness and prejudices
of his countrymen, which is everywhere observable
in his conduct, he does not reprobate a practice, to
which he knew they had the attachment of an in-vin
cible habit; but by placing it among the vices of the
Pharisees, he indicated with tolerable clearness what
he thought of it.
It would seem, if we take his own words and ex
ample for authority, not the interested interpretation
�The Church, and its Reform.
9
of priests — that lie actually forbade the use of
prayer in public worship. Let us observe how he
gave warning against the abuse of this ceremony, in
the Sermon on the Mount, and how clearly and incontrovertibly he characterized it as a ceremony, and
nothing else: <£ And when thou prayest, thou shalt
not be as the hypocrites are : for they love to pray
standing in the synagogue ” (that is, in public wor
ship) “ and in the corners of the streets, that they
may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, they
have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and the
Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee
openly.”
Nothing can be clearer than this: all prayer is
reprobated but secret prayer, and even that is not
recommended. The words always are, “ when ye
pray ”•—that is, if ever ye do pray, do it in secret,
the whole turn of the expression being permissive
only, not injunctive. It is remarkable, with respect
to this limitation of prayer to secret prayer only,
that Jesus himself never makes a prayer on any
public occasion; and as often as he is represented in
the Gospels as praying, which is very rarely, he
withdraws even from his disciples, and does it in
absolute solitude. Jesus goes on—“ But when ye
“ pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do ;
“ for they think that they shall be heard for their
“ much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, like unto
“ them : for your Father knoweth what things ye have
“ need of, before ye ask him.”
This last expression is of peculiar force and signi
ficance : Be not ye like those who think they will be
heard for their much speaking ; since speaking at all
is of no use ; “ your Father knoweth what things ye
have need of, before ye ask him.” Can there be a
more distinct declaration, that prayer is a ceremony
�io
The Church, and its Reform,
only, and not very easy to be kept from being a
hurtful ceremony ?
Jesus subjoins to this declaration of the ceremonial
nature of prayer these words—“ After this manner,
therefore, pray ye ; ” and then comes the formulary
called the Lord’s Prayer, evidently intended as a
pattern to prevent the excesses into which the cere
mony was apt to run. And the words of the pat
tern itself, taken in combination with the words
spoken immediately before—“Your heavenly Father
knoweth,” &c.—afford sufficient evidence, when they
are minutely examined, of the character in which its
Divine Author meant it should be used.
But, as it is too evident to need any illustration
that the idea of the Divine Being, as a being of per
fect wisdom and goodness, so steadily and luminously
fixed in the mind, as to be a principle of action, is the
very essence of religion, and the sole source of all
the good impressions we derive from it, it is not less
evident, that every idea instilled into us, which im
plies imperfection in the Divine Being, is a perver
sion of the religious principle, and so far as it goes,
converts it into a principle of evil. Because, exactly
in so far as men set up for the object of their worship
a being who falls short of perfect wisdom and good
ness, so far they manufacture to themselves a motive
for the practice of what is contrary to wisdom and
goodness. Yet it is self-evident, that to offer peti
tions to the Divine Being, with the idea that they
will have any effect—that everything, being already
ordered for the best, will not proceed in the same
way exactly as if no such petition had been made, is
to suppose the petitioner either wiser or better than
his Maker—either knowing better what is fit to be
done, or more in earnest about the doing of it.
If these observations about the ceremonial nature
of prayer be admitted, there is not occasion to say
much about the rest of the Sunday service. Where
�I"he Church, and its Reform.
II
is the use of a priest to read a chapter of the Bible,
which every head of a family does to those who live
in his house? Besides, the Church of England
always reads the same chapters, thereby inevitably
converting the operation into a ceremony. Are these
the only chapters in the Bible which deserve to be
read ? If not, why read them only, casting a slur
upon the rest ? Again, when anything has been read
sufficiently often to have fixed the purport of it in
delibly in the mind, what is the use of more repe
tition ? It is evidently ceremonial only. With regard
to the Communion Service, we think it is, among
Protestants, considered as a ceremony. Mr Bentham
has endeavoured to show that it was never intended,
either by Jesus or his disciples, to be permanent, even
as a ceremony, and that it is peculiarly ill-fitted for
that purpose; and we have never met with anything
like an answer to his observations, which well deserve
the attention of all rational and honest-minded Chris
tians.
And now we come to the Sermon, the only part of
the Sunday performance which is not essentially cere
monial ; but which may, by misperformance, become
not only ceremonial, like the rest, but positively and
greatly mischievous.
A celebrated wit of the last age, known by the
familiar name of George Selwyn, had gone one day
to church, and was asked when he returned, by some
one in the family to which he was on a visit, of what
sort the sermon had been ? “ Oh,” said he, “ like
other sermons; palavering God Almighty ; and bull
ragging the devil.” This was said, of course, satiri
cally ; and it must be added, considering the subject,
that it was said profanely. But, nevertheless, it must
be confessed, that it describes with great point the
character of at least one grand class of Church of
England Sermons, which consist of terms of praise
heaped unceasingly on the Divinity—terms of con-
�12
The Church, and its Reform,
demnation heaped as unceasingly on the Personifica
tion of Evil: as if there could be supposed to be an
individual in a Christian congregation not already
prepared to bestow laudatory epithets upon God,
opprobrious epithets on the devil, as far as his power
of language would permit him to go. As no congre
gation, therefore, could possibly be the better for
hearing such a sermon, it is necessary to consider it
as a mere ceremony.
Another grand class of Church-of-England ser
mons consist of what, to borrow (as we may here do
without profaneness) the language of George Selwyn,
we may call palavering the Church of England, and
bullragging the Dissenters ; ascribing good qualities
without end to Church-of-Englandism—evil qualities,
in equal proportion, to Dissenter-ism. This is not
merely ceremonial, certainly; but we may safely pro
nounce it worse—something so bad, that hardly any
thing equal to it in atrocity can be conceived. It is
making religion, which ought to be a principle of
love among human beings, a principle of hatred ; and
that hatred turning upon what ? The great line of
distinction between moral good and evil ? That by
which He who is perfection is mainly distinguished
from the Prince of Darkness ? No, no ! But upon
some difference of opinion in matters of little import
ance, or some diversity in the use of cermonies. Is
not this to vilify, or rather to explode morality ?
setting above it such frivolous things, as sameness of
belief in dubious matters, or sameness of perform
ance in matters of ceremony ? Is not this to renounce
the good of mankind as the grand principle of action,
the main point of obedience to the will of God—
making the service of God a pretence for hostility to
a large portion of his creatures ? Is this a morality,
fit to be promulgated by a man, miserably, or exorbi
tantly paid, in every parish in the kingdom? We
restrain by punishment, and we do well, the publica-
�The Church, and its Reform.
13
tion of indecent books and prints, calculated to
inflame the passions of the inexperienced and unwary.
But these publications are innocent, compared with
the sermons read to congregations, or printed for the
public, to which we now allude.
The extent to which the exercise of this malignant
principle is carried cannot, perhaps, be more clearly
shown than by calling to mind that celebrated Charge
to the clergy of London, by the then Right Reverend
the Bishop of London, afterwards the Most Reverend
the Archbishop of Canterbury, to which Mr Bentham
makes such pointed allusion. “ The prostration of
the understanding and. the will,” there spoken of as
one of the desiderata, one of the objects of desire, and
of endeavour, to the Church of England, Mr Bentham
has commented on with his usual fulness and usual
effect. And all that is necessary for us, in regard to
that generous purpose, is, to refer our readers to the
treat prepared for them in his comment.* Another
expression in the said Charge—is that to which we
desire to direct the reader’s attention in this place.
We borrow the expression from Mr Bentham, other
means of reference not being at hand, but with per
fect confidence, knowing, as we do, what his care of
accuracy in such particulars was. “ In the Charge,”
says Mr Bentham, “we shall see Non-C hurch-ofEnglandists marked out as
and men of
‘guilt.’”—Why, in the name of all that is good,
should Church-of-England men treat as “ enemies ”
all men who cannot subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles, or join in the performance of their ceremonies ?
Is not this to make religion the curse of human nature
—the permanent fountain of discord—the extinguisher
of love and of peace ? Not to subscribe the ThirtyNine Articles, and not to join in certain ceremonies,
is “ guilt I ” This is to make the Church-of-England
man the general enemy of his species. Sermons, which
* 1 Church of Englandism Examined.’ By Jeremy Bentham, Esq.
�i4
Rhe Church, and its Reform.
propagate this idea, propagate a feeling of hatred, a
disposition of hostility, towards all men but those of
their own particular sect. Is not this to renounce
the religion of Jesus, which is a religion of peace ?
Is not this Antichrist ? Is not this to deny the Lord
that bought them ?—to crucify him in the house of
his friends ? Assuredly sermons of this cast had
better not be delivered.
Another class of sermons are the controversial:
those which undertake to settle points of dogmatic
divinity. We believe that all rational men are united
in opinion, that such discourses, addressed to ordinary
congregations, can be of no use, and have a strong
tendency to be hurtful. They have a direct tendency
to attach undue importance to uniformity of belief on
points on which it is not necessary. They have also
a direct tendency to lower men’s ideas of the Divine
character—representing the Almighty as favouring
those who adhere to one side in the controversy hos
tile to those who adhere to the other. This is to suborn
belief: to create in those who yield to such teaching
a habit of forcing a belief; that is, of dealing dis
honestly with their own convictions. To hold out
rewards for believing one way, punishment for
believing another way, is to hold out inducements
to resist the force of evidence, on the one side,
and lend to it a weight which does not belong
to it, on the other. This is a mode of attaching
belief to any opinions, however unfounded; and as
soon as a man is thoroughly broken in to this mental
habit, not only is the power of sound judgment de
stroyed within him, but the moral character does not
escape uninjured. The man in whose breast this
habit is created, never sees anything in an opinion,
but whether it is agreeable to his interest or not.
Whether it is founded on evidence or not, he has been
trained to neglect. Truth or falsehood in matters of
opinion is no longer with him the first consideration.
�The Churchy and its Reform.
*5
This is nearly the most immoral state of mind
which can have existence in a human being. No
other cause of criminal actions is of equal potency
with this. A man- in this state of mind has an opinion
ready to justify him in any profitable course of
villany in which he can engage. How great a propor
tion of Church-of-England teaching, in pulpits, in
schools, and in universities, has this tendency, and
no other, is a subject of immense importance. Oh,
for a Pascal! Oh, for a new set of Provincial Letters!
We shall pass by the other subdivisions of sermons,
and come to the moral. Though a man of the
proper stamp, residing among his fellow parishioners,
would have other and still more effectual means of
making the impressions on their minds which lead to
good conduct, we do not dispute that a discourse of
the proper kind, delivered to them when assembled
on the day of rest, would have happy effects. In the
first place, it would establish in their minds pure ideas
of the moral character of God; and would root out of
them every notion which implies imperfection in the
Divine Mind. This is a matter of infinite importance,
though neglected, or rather trampled upon by Churchof-England religion ; for exactly in proportion as the
model which men set up for imitation is perfect or
imperfect, will be the performance which takes place
in consequence. It is unavailing, it is pure childish
ness, to call the Almighty benevolent, when you
ascribe to him lines of action which are entirely the
reverse. It is vain to call him wise, when you repre
sent him as moved by considerations which have
weight with only the weakest of men.
We have already seen something of the extent to
which the religion of the Church of England tends to
imprint the notion of imperfection, both of the moral
and intellectual kind, in the character of the Deity.
But there is one particular to which we have hardly
as yet adverted, which deserves the deepest attention.
�16
The Church, and its Reform.
We mean the notions propagated about punishments
after death.
No wise and good man ever thinks of punishment
but as an undesirable means to a desirable end : and
therefore to be applied in the smallest quantity pos
sible. To ascribe to the Divine Being the use of
punishments in atrocious excess ; not applying it
according to the rules of the most perfect benevolence,
which is its character in the hand of a virtuous man,
but in the spirit of revenge, and to vindicate his dignity
is to ascribe to him, not the character of a civilized
man, but of an atrocious savage. Nor is the excess
of future punishments the only point of importance.
The uselessness of them also deserves the utmost
regard in tracing the ways in which priests, for their
own ends, have perverted men’s notions of the Divine
character. Punishment is employed by virtuous men
for the prevention of hurtful actions. But what is the
use of punishment when the time of action is gone by,
and when the doom of the wretched victim is fixed
for ever ? It is said that the apprehension of these
punishments is a restraint on men during their lives.
But to make this allegation is only another mode of
ascribing imperfection, both intellectual and moral,
to the Supreme Being.
It is a certain and undisputed principle, that prox
imity of punishment is necessary to its efficiency;
that if a punishment is distant, and hence the con
ception of it faint, it loses proportionally of its force.
As it is the great rule of benevolence to be sparing in
the use of punishment—that is, to employ it in the
smallest possible quantity which will answer the end
—it is the constant aim of benevolence to make it as
proximate as possible—that is, to make the smallest
possible quantity suffice. What would be thought
of a legislator, who should ordain, that the punish
ment of murder and theft should not take place till
twenty years, or so, after the commission of the
�'The Church, and its Reform,
ly
crime ; and that, for the distance of the time, compen
sation should be made in the severity of the punish
ment ? Is not this the atrocity into which those
theologians sink, who tell us that the punishments of
hell are intended for the prevention of evil in the
present life ? That this theory is not derived from
the Scripture, but is the pure forgery of priests, might
be inferred with certainty d priori, and could also
be easily proved by particular evidence. But the
authority of Bishop Butler will be sufficient for us on
the present occasion. He has given it as his opinion,
an opinion which has never been accused as unscriptural, that the change from the present to the future
life will not, in all probability, be greater than the
change from the state which precedes, to that which
follows the birth; that the individual will pass into
the future life with all the dispositions and habits
which he had acquired in his previous course, pro
ducing misery to him if they are bad, happiness if they
are good ; but with this advantage, that the circum
stances in which he will be placed will have an
irresistible tendency to correct bad habits, and
encourage good ones, whence in time it will be
brought about, that none but good habits will exist,
and happiness will be universal.
Next to the propagation of correct notions regard
ing the character of the Supreme Being, as the per
fection of wisdom and goodness, with warnings
against all such notions as imply imperfection in the
Divine nature, the object of discourses, calculated to
be of real utility to the majority of those who com
pose congregations, would be, to make, and as deeply
as possible, all the impressions which lead to good
conduct; to give strength and constancy to the kindly
and generous feelings; to stimulate the desire of
doing good, by showing the value of it, and the
amount of good which even a very poor man may
effect, in the course of his life, if he seizes the many
c
�i8
The Churchy and its Reform.
little occasions which he will find put in his way; to
make understood and felt the value of a good name r
how much of the happiness of each individual depends
upon the good-will of those among whom he lives;
and that the sure way of obtaining it is to show by
his acts his good-will to them. Such discourses
would put the people on their guard against the misleading affections ; would make them understand
how much is lost by giving way to them ; and with
what a preponderance of good, even to ourselves,
they are supplanted by those which lead us to rejoice
in being the instruments of happiness to others.
Above all things, such discourses would make parents
clearly understand, and acutely feel, the power they
have over the happiness or misery of their children
during the whole course of their lives. On the mode
of creating in their children the habits on which
their happiness depends, such discourses would enter
into the most minute detail. They would carefully
warn parents against every display of feeling or
passion, everything in word, or in action, having a
tendency to produce an undesirable impression on the
tender mind ; and would give them an habitual con
viction, and, as it were, a sense of the importance of
making none but the right impressions.
It is not necessary to go farther in illustrating
what sermons of the useful class would be. It is only
necessary to recollect what the moral class of Church
of England sermons are. Other people may have
been more fortunate than we ; but though we have
heard a good many of that class, we never heard one
which we thought good fcr anything. They may be
characterized as a parcel of vapid commonplaces,
delivered in vague and vapouring phrases, havingnot even a tendency to give men more precise ideas
of the good they may do, or to kindle within them a
more strong and steady desire of performing it. We
have often asked ourselves, after hearing such a ser-
�'The Church, and its Reform.
19
mon, whether any human being could by possibility
have received one useful impression from it; whether
any one could have gone away after hearing it a
better man than when he came; in the least degree
more alive to the motives to good conduct, more
capable of resisting the motives to bad ? Never, in a
single instance, do we remember having been able to
make an answer in the affirmative. For a confirma
tion of the opinion we have thus formed of Church
of England sermonizing, we appeal to the printed
specimens of them, some of which are by men of
considerable ability, skilful advocates of a cause, acute
and eloquent controvertists, but all of them defec
tive, or rather utterly worthless, in moral teaching.
We have now probably said enough to show how
entirely of the ceremonial kind, and ceremonial with
more or less of a hurtful tendency, the whole of the
Sunday services obligatory on the Church of England
clergyman are.
All that reinains is the ceremony of baptism, the
ceremony of marriage, and the ceremony of burying
the dead. These services are so much regarded in
the light of ceremonies, that they commonly go by
that name.
The Church of England indeed pretends, that bap
tism washes away original sin ; one of those cherished
opinions by which it ascribes weakness, both intel
lectual and moral, to the Supreme Being. In this
opinion it is reprobated by other churches, as retain
ing one of the errors of the Romish Church. For
the rest, it cannot be pretended that it is other than
ceremonial. To the infant, who knows nothing about
the matter, it would be ridiculous to suppose that
any good is done. And what can it be pretended is
the good which it does to any other body ? For a
full exposure of the Church of England proceedings
in respect to baptism, we refer to what is said by Mr
Bentham in his Examination of Church of England
�20
The Church, and its Reform.
Catechism, pp. 47 to 59, where the reader will find
both instruction and amusement.
About marriage it is not necessary to say much.
It is in its essence a civil contract; and few rational
men think that the religious ceremony is of any im
portance. It is very certain that nobody regards it
as any security for the better performance of the
duties which the contract implies.
The burial service consists in reading certain por
tions of Scripture and certain prayers. But to whom
.can this performance be considered as being of any
use ? Not certainly to the dead man; and certainly
not to any of the living, excepting those who are
present. And who are they ? Hardly anybody ;
some half-dozen of the dead man’s nearest con
nexions being excepted. If the ceremony were
believed to be of any use to those who witness the
performance of it, means ought to have been em
ployed to bring the people together for that purpose.
No such means have ever been thought of. What
does that declare ? One of two things. Either that
the Church of England clergy are utterly indifferent
to the good which the witnessing of it is calculated
to produce ; orthattbeydo not believe it is calcu
lated to do any good at all.
We have thus examined in some detail the duties
which are exacted of the Church of England clergy,
and the only duties which they can be really considered
as perfoming. The duties, the enforcement of which
is left to conscience, to the desire of doing good, in
the breast of the individual, are for the most part
neglected, and never otherwise than ill performed.
We are far from denying that there are good men
among the working clergy of the Church of England,
notwithstanding the obstruction to goodness which
their situation creates : men who reside among their
parishioners, go about among them, and take pains
to do them good. But these are the small number;
�¥he Church, and its Reform.
21
and they never act systematically and upon a welldigested plan. They are left, unguided, to follow
their own impulses; and often a great part of their
well-meant endeavours is thrown away. They receive
no instruction in the art of doing good. This is no
part of Church of England education. Yet it is an
art towards the perfection of which instruction is of
first-rate importance. Few men are aware of the
whole extent of their means in that respect; and still
fewer judge accurately in what applications of their
means they will prove the most productive.
It
follows, as a necessary consequence, that the amount of
good which a well-intentioned man produces is often
very short of what, if better directed, he would have
been able to effect.
Thus employed, and thus paid, is it any wonder
that the Church of England clergy should have lost
their influence among a people improving, now at
last improving rapidly, in knowledge and intelli
gence ? And when a clergy have lost their influence,
what is the use of them ? The evidence of their total
loss of influence is very striking, when it is faii’ly
looked at and considered. The first fact is the noto
rious one, that one-half of the population have
renounced them as utterly unfit to be their religious
guides, and have chosen others of their own. This
fact speaks inferences far beyond the numerical pro
portions. The Dissenters afford evidence of their
being in earnest about their religion. The Esta
blished Church is the natural sink of all those who are
indifferent about it, and belong to a church for the
sake of the name, as long as there is anything to be
got by it. To this number may be added all those
whose lives are too scandalous to let them be admitted
into any other Christian society. Now, if we say that
not more than every other man in a community is in
earnest about religion, we shall not perhaps be con
sidered as making a very unreasonable supposition.
�The Churchj and its Reform.
But if this be anything like an approximation to the
fact, the members of the Church of England are alm oat,
wholly men who adhere to it either for the sake of the
name, or for the good things which they owe to it, with
a small proportion indeed of those in whose adherence
to it regard for religion has anything to do. The Church
of England therefore exists in no other character than
that of a state engine; a ready and ever-willing instru
ment in the hands of those who desire to monopolize
the powers of government—that is, to hold them for
the purpose of abusing them.
It is useful to mark, among the proofs that the Church
of England exists for no good purpose, that those of the
common people who brutalize themselves with intoxi
cating liquors belong almost wholly to the Church of
England sect. A Dissenter is rarely a notorious drunkard,
with whatever other sins he may be tainted. The coster
mongers are never Dissenters. It would be important
to put means in operation to show what proportion of
the people convicted of crime are Churchmen, and what
Dissenters. Our conjecture would be, that nine in ten
at least are of the Church of England. It would be
easy to ascertain what proportion of parish paupers are
Church of England men, and what Dissenters. And
that, too, would be no insignificant article of evidence.
Though such, however, is the light in which the
Church of England, in its present state, must appear to
every intelligent and honest inquirer, we know what a
clamor will be raised against us for expressing oui’
opinion, by all those who derive their profit from what
is evil in things as they are ; who are therefore attached
to the evil, and bitterly hostile to all who seek to expose
it. With the reasonable and the sincere, we need no
other protection than the evidence we adduce. With
others, it may have some effect, to show them what
eminent men before us have said of the clergy, and of
the inevitable effect of the position in which they are
placed, by a viciously constructed establishment.
�The Church, and its Reform.
23
Dr Middleton, one of the greatest men whom the
Church of England ever produced, has spoken of one of
the most deplorable of the effects of their position, their
hostility to the interests of truth, in the following
terms :—
“Every man’s experience will furnish instances of the
wretched fruits of this zeal, in the bigoted, vicious, and igno
rant part, both of the clergy and the laity; who, puffed up
with the pride of an imaginary orthodoxy, and detesting all
free inquiry, as dangerous to their case, and sure to expose
their ignorance, take pleasure in defaming and insulting men
of candor, learning, and probity, who happen to be touched
with any scruples, or charged with any opinions which they
call heretical.” *
One of the most respectable names to be found in the
list of Church of England clergy is Jeremy Taylor. He
speaks to the same effect, in the following terms:—
“Possibly men may be angry at me, and my design; for I
do all them great displeasure, who think no end is then well
served, when their interest is disserved.” f
“ Opinions are called heresies, upon interest, and the grounds
of emoluments.” J
“ Our opinions commence and are upheld, according as our
turns are served and our interests are preserved.” §
To return again to Middleton, who saw this malignant
disease of the Church of England with peculiar clear
ness :—
“Ido not know how to account for that virulence of zeal,
with which it [the Free Inquiry] is opposed by those writers,
but by imputing it to their prejudices or habitual bigotry, or
to some motives especially of interest; which, of course, bars
all entrance to opinions, though ever so probable, if not
stamped by an authority which can sweeten them with
rewards.” ||
Nothing is of more importance than the repeated, and
earnest, consideration of the fact, that the interest of a
,* ‘Middleton’s Works,’ 4to ed., vol. ii. p. 117.
t ‘ Liberty of Prophesying.’ Epist. Ded.
t IJ>.
§ lb. Introd,
|l ‘ Preface to an Intended Answer to all Objections against the Free
Inquiry.’ Works, 4to ed., p. 374 ; where there is much more tothesame
purpose.
�24
Church, and its Reform,
clergy, in the circumstances in which the Church of Eng
land clergy are placed, is in direct opposition to their
duty, and makes them sworn enemies of the good of
their fellow creatures. They are hired, for the purpose
of propagating a certain set of opinions. They are
sworn to retain them: that is, to keep their minds
stationary in at least one department of thought. And
it is curious to observe how far that creates a motive to
exert themselves to keep the minds of other men station
ary, not in that department only, but in all the depart
ments of thought; to make the clergy the enemies of
all improvement of the human mind. If one set of
men stand still in this improvement, while other men go
on, these men see that they will soon become objects of
contempt. They are sworn to stand still; they, there
fore, detest all those who go on, and exert themselves to
impede their progress, and to discredit their design.
This motive has a cruel extent of operation. To be
bound to stand still, in any line of mental improvement,
is a state of great degradation. The progress of other
men in knowledge gives them a keener sense of this
degradation.
The clergy therefore perceive, that, in
proportion as other men grow wiser, they will sink
deeper in contempt. This gives them a hatred of the
pursuit of knowledge. The search of truth bodes them
evil, and not good : and therefore all their art is employed
to prevent it.
We think, however, that by changes—far from violent,
the Church of England might be converted from an
instrument of evil into an instrument of much good;
and to the consideration of this part of the subject we
now proceed.
We consider a local clergy, distributed everywhere
among the people, as the fundamental part of an insti
tute really intended for moulding the character of the
people, and shaping their actions, according to the spirit
of pure religion. The question then is, what is required
towards obtaining in greatest amount the beneficial
�The Church, and its Reform.
-5
services capable of being derived from such a set of men.
—The very first particular which comes to be noticed,
shows in what a different spirit from that of good to the
people everything relating to the Church of England has
been arranged. It is very clear, that in employing men
to the best advantage in any sort of service, each indivi
dual should have enough to do, and not more than
enough. This care has been wholly renounced by
Church of Englandism, which exhibits the most enormous
disproportions; in one place, parishes far too large for
any individual to manage ; in other places so small, that
a man has little to do in them. A good establishment
would correct this abominable instance of careless and
profligate management.
Next, the men who are to direct the people in the
right path, and make them walk in it as diligently as
possible, should be men capable of doing their work well:
that is, they should, at least, be men of good education
and good character. To this end, it is absolutely neces
sary that they should receive sufficient pay, to be an
inducement to men of that description to undertake the
duties. There is evidence enough to prove that this
need not be high. We do not adduce the curates;
because the baneful lottery of the over-paid places in the
Church draws into it too great a number of adventurers.
But the medical men, of whom one is to be found in
every considerable village, afford evidence to the point,
and that conclusive. Besides, the situation would be
one of great consideration and dignity, as. soon as it came
to be regarded as a source of great utility; and men
with property of their own would be desirous of filling it.
The situation of judges in France is strong evidence to
this point. The pay is so small, that the wonder of
Englishmen always is, how anybody can be found to
accept the situation ; yet the fact is, that it is in request;
and the problem is solved, by learning that men, having
a moderate property of their own, covet the dignity
which the office confers.
�0.6
The Church, and its Reform,
Thus far we have proceeded with no difficulty, and with
very little room for doubt; but having determined the
sort of men we ought to have, we come next to the
question by whom, in each instance, ought they to be
appointed. Three considerations obviously entered into
the solution of this question—the best means of securing
honesty in the selection—the best means of giving satis
faction to the parishioners, without incurring the evils
of a mistaken choice—the not giving too much power to
one individual. The best chance, perhaps, for having
honesty and intelligence in the selection, would be to have
a Minister of Public Instruction, by whom all the appoint
ments should be made. He would act under a stronger
sense of responsibility, conspicuously placed, as he would be,
under the eye of the public, than any other man ; and
in the majority of cases, would not have any interest in
acting wrong. But this would be a great amount of
patronage, possibly too great to exist without danger in
any single hand ; and it is not easy to find an unexcep
tionable mode of distribution. Suppose the patronage
were in each county given to the principal civil authority
in the county, he would be exposed to all the local in
fluences which are known to be so adverse to the virtuous
use of patronage; and acting in a corner with very little
of the salutary influence of publicity, where the choice
was not made by favouritism, it would be very apt to be
made in negligence.
Suppose, however, that this difficulty is got over (it
would interrupt us too much at present to show that it is
not insurmountable), we may assume, that where pro
vision is made for the appointment of a fit minister in
every parish, complete provision is made for the religious
instruction and guidance of the people—provided we can
depend upon the due discharge of the duties which those
ministers are appointed to perform. It has, however,
been generally believed, that the due discharge of the
■duties of the parochial ministers cannot be depended upon
without superintendence. A question then arises, what
�'The Churchy and its Reform.
is the best contrivance for the superintendence of a paro
chial clergy ?
Two methods have been thought of, and are at the
present hour in operation ; the one is, superintendence by
individual clergymen; the other is, superintendence by
assemblies, in which clergy and laity are combined. One
question is, which of these two methods is the best ? and
another question is, whether there may not be a third,
which is better than either ?
The two methods which are now in practice are
exemplified respectively in the churches of England and
Scotland. In England the scheme of superintendence by
individuals has been tried, in Scotland that of superintend
ence by assemblies.
If we were to judge by the event, in these two instances,
the question would be decided very rapidly. The Scot
tish system is proved by experience to have answered, and
not very imperfectly, its end, while it occasions no
expense whatsoever. The English system is at once dis
gracefully expensive, and totally inefficient to its end : it
is an absolute failure, with an enormous burden to the
nation.
We hardly suppose that the proposition we have thus
announced respecting those two churches will be disputed
in regard to either. The general good conduct of the
Scottish clergy, and the absence of flagrant abuses in that
church, is matter of notoriety. The lamentable want of
good conduct, though not universal, among the English
clergy, and the existence of enormous abuses in their
church, is matter of not less notoriety. There is no non
residence in Scotland, and no pluralities. Would such
things have ever begun to exist in England, if the
superintendence by bishops had been good for anything ?
The proportional amount of Dissenterism in Scotland is
small, compared with what it is in England; and has
arisen almost wholly from the people’s dislike of
patronage—a matter over which the clergy had no con
trol, and of which the consequences are not to be imputed
�8
'The Church, and its Reform.
to them. There is nothing of the sort to screen the
English clergy ; and the enormous extent of Dissenterism
in England is evidence—is proof, invincible proof—that
the clergy have not done their duty.
It is not, however, safe to ground a general conclusion
upon individual instances, unless where the reason__ the
rationale of the. instances, applies to other cases. With
respect to superintendence by individuals, the mode of
it adopted in England is so glaringly absurd, so little
leference has it to any rational purpose, that it never
can have been intended to be an instrument of good—to
be a means of obtaining from the local clergy the
greatest amount of useful service to the people at large.
The pay alone is perfect evidence to that effect. Who
ever thinks of getting laborious service from a man on
whom is bestowed an enormous income, which incessantly
invites him to the enjoyment of voluptuous indolence,
without any efficient call for exertion ? Nor is this the
only baneful effect of these enormous incomes : they
cieated a line of separation between the superintending
and the superintended clergy. They constituted them
two castes; and well is it known how their conduct has
conformed itself to the distinction. A. principle of
repulsion was created between them : often enough, it is
true, commuted for prostitute servility on the part of the
lower caste ; and thus morality, by Church of England
culture, was propagated and flourished. There could
rarely be any cordial communication between two classes
of men placed in such relation to one another. No
bishop has an intimate knowledge of the character or
turn of mind of any, except an accidental individual or
two, among those whom he superintends, He does not
go about into the several parishes, to see and inquire
how the clerical duties are performed; he knows nothing
at all about the matter, unless some extraordinary in
stance of misconduct, which makes all the country ring,
should come to his ears.
"
Nor could it be otherwise. Natural causes pride ce
�‘The Church, and its Reform.
q.9
their natural effects. A bishop was intended to be a
great lord: of course he would be governed by the
impulses which govern other great lords. Not one of
these impulses is to go about parishes, seeing whether
clergymen have been as effectual as they might, in train
ing the people under their tuition to bring their children
up well.
The very pretext of any such duty as this is absurd,
when we recollect that these reverend lords have to be
absent from their business of supeiintendence of their
clergy for one full half of their time, by attendance on
their duties (so by an abuse of language they are called)
in Parliament.
As we have seen how it is with the ordinary clergy of
the Church of England—that of the two classes of their
duties, one the ceremonial, another the useful, it is the
ceremonial only which means are used to make them
perform—the useful are left to themselves to perform,
or not perform, as they please ; so it is exactly with the
bishops. There are certain ceremonies they have to go
through: these are obligatory on them. The duty of
vigilantly looking after their clergy—of using means to
get them to do whatever it is in their power to do, to
make their people more virtuous and more happy—is
left to the bishops to do, or not do, as they please ; and
accordingly it never is done—at least, to any purpose :
by the greater part of them it is never thought of.
But it does not follow, because the plan of superin
tendence by individuals was so ill-constnicted by the
Church of England as to make it a source of evil and
not of good, that therefore it is in itself, and radically,
bad. We are inclined to think that it is radically good,
and might be so contrived as to be superior to the Scot
tish method.
We do not think that an assembly is well fitted for
minute inspection ; and that is the only inspection which
is sure of answering its end. An assembly cannot go
about visiting parishes, and ascertaining on the spot
�30
The Church, and its Refortn.
where the clergyman has been to the greatest degree,
where to the lowest degree, useful to his parishioners.
But if we are to employ individual inspectors (the
name bishop means inspector) by what scheme is the
greatest amount of good to be obtained from them ?
One thing is perfectly clear : you must not over-pay
them. An inspector, to be useful, must be a hard
working man : that a very rich man never is. This is
an established rule, though it does not altogether exclude
exceptions. They should be paid higher than the
parochial clergy, because they should be men of such
high character and attainments as might give weight to
their decisions.
Still the business of an inspecting
priest is so much of the same kind with the business of
a parochial priest, that the pay of the one should be a
sort of criterion by which to regulate that of the other.
If the highest pay of a parish priest were, say, 500Z. per
annum, we think 1,OOOZ. per annum should be the
highest pay of an inspector; for we allow no weight
whatsoever to the pretence which is set up with charac
teristic impudence by the friends of public plunder, that
wealth gives efficiency to superintendence. It does no
such thing. A man will pull off his hat with more
hurry, will bend his body lower, will speak in a softer
tone, before the man of great wealth; but he will not
trouble himself to do his bidding one atom the more for
his riches. Is any man so nearly deprived of intellect
as still, though grown to be a man, to need evidence on
this point ? Let him see how the rich are served, even
in their own houses. Are they better served than those
among us whose riches are less ? Do we not know that
the men best served in their houses are not the richest,
but the most sensible men ?
There is another thing to be regarded in the matter of
pay, which, though it appear small intrinsically, is great
by its mode of operation on the human mind. It is
infinitely better that the clergy should be paid in the
way of salary than in the way of estate. Between the
�T.he Church, and its Reform.
31
idea of salary, and the idea of service to be performed
for it, the association is close and strong. Between the
idea of living on the proceeds of an estate, and the idea
of having nothing to do, the association is equally powerful.
And so it must be. In all our experience, we regularly
observe that salary and service go together. We see that
commonly estate and service have no connexion. Hence
it comes, that a man who lives upon an estate seems to
himself to share in the common privilege of those who
live upon estates ; that is, to enjoy himself. No man
who has studied the human mind will doubt that this is
a matter of the greatest importance. If the Church of
England clergy had always been paid by salary, we may
be assured they would not have sunk into the state of
absolute uselessness in which we now behold them.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the scheme of paying
the clergy by that particular kind of estate called tithe,
because people now pretty well understand it. Of all
conceivable schemes for setting the interest and the
duties of the clergy in direct opposition, this is the most
perfect. And it makes a fearful revelation. It proves,
beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the clergy, and
all those who through so long a series of ages have had
in their hands the power of regulating the payment of
the clergy, have been void even of the desire that the
clergy should be useful. Oh, what an odious thing is
the pretence of caring for religion in the mouths of such
men! Contrast an establishment of men whose busi
ness it would be to go about their parishes, planting
themselves in the hearts of their people, and working
upon their minds to the performing of all good actions,
and the acquiring of all good habits, with an establish
ment of men who go about their parishes, indeed, but
go about raping and rending, demanding what others
are unwilling to pay, carrying strife and hatred along
with them, looked at by their people in the light of ene
mies, not of friends, the very sight of whom is odious,
and in whose mouths advice to their parishioners to be
�32
The Church, and its Reformt
mutually forbearing and helpful could only be treated
with ridicule; and say if the imagination of man can
present any two things of a more opposite character.
Reflect also deliberately who the men are who have so
long strained their lungs, and now do, proclaiming that
this church is “most excellent.” What a help-meet it
must have been for misrule to earn all the protection
which it has received ! That on any other score it has
deserved it, there is hardly impudence enough in the
world now to pretend.
But if it were determined that good inspection and
stimulation were more to be expected from individual
superintendents, properly paid and employed, than from
assemblies, another question would remain to be answered:
whether these inspectors should be clergymen or laymen ?
There are some reasons for thinking that laymen would
be the best. They would be less under the influence of
that feeling which men of a class commonly contract,
and which makes them willing to favour one another, to
make them sympathize with their self-indulgences, and
to screen their neglects. If it be surmised that such
men would be less acquainted than clergymen with the
supposed science of the theologians, we answer, that if
it were so, and it is by no means necessary that it should
be so, for that science is easily learned, it would not,
upon our scheme, be a matter of much importance. For
we do not mean that our parochial clergy should trouble
their parishioners with dogmas. Their business will be
to train them in the habits of a good life; and what is
necessary to that will be judged of fully as well by a
layman as by a clergyman.
Wc have now supposed, that a well-selected person
from the class of educated men has been placed as the
minister of religion in every conveniently-sized district,
called a parish. This we consider as the fundamental
part of a religious establishment. We have next sup
posed that a well-selected person from the class of men
of superior acquirements and intelligence has been
�The Church* and its Reform.
33
appointed the inspector and superintendent of a conve
nient number of clergymen everywhere throughout the
country. We have also spoken a little of the duties of
each, but it is necessary to speak somewhat more in
detail.
In the first place, it is a fundamental part of our
scheme, that a clergy, paid by the state, should, in their
instruction of the people, abstain entirely from the incul
cation of dogmas. The reasons are conclusive. They
cannot inculcate dogmas without attaching undue im
portance to uniformity of belief in doubtful matters ;
that is, classing men as good or bad on account of things
which have no connexion with good conduct; that is,
without derogating from morality, and lessening its
influence on the minds of men.
They cannot inculcate dogmas—at least they never do
—without attaching merit, and the rewards which belong
to it, to belief on one side of a question ; that is, without,
suborning belief, using means to make it exist independ
ently of evidence ; that is, to make men hold opinionswithout seeing that they are true—in other words, to
affirm that they know to be true what they do not know
to be true ; that is, if we may give to the act its proper
name—to He. But a clergy, paid for teaching the
people to live well, should assuredly not do what has a
tendency to make them habitual liars.
To preach the importance of dogmas, is to teach men
to impute imperfection to the Divine nature. It is
according to the perfections of the Divine nature to
approve in his rational creatures the love of truth. But
the love of truth leads a man to search for evidence, and
to place his belief on that side, whatsoever it be, on
which the evidence appears to him to preponderate. The
clergyman who tells him that God likes best belief on
one side, declares to him that God does not like the
honest search of truth.
Oh God! with what perse
verance and zeal has this representation of thy Divine
nature been maintained, by men who, with the same
D
�34
The Churchy and its Reform.
breath, and therefore in the spirit of base adulation, were
calling thee the God of truth!
Upon this ground it surely is proper to interdict the
use of articles. The Articles of the Church of England
are a set of propositions, the strangeness of which we
shall not dilate upon. That, and the history of them,
are both pretty well known. The clergy of the Church
of England subscribe them as propositions which they
are bound to believe. Anything more fraught with
injury to the intellectual and moral parts of man’s nature
cannot be conceived. This is to make men enemies to
truth.
We shall not repeat, what we have so immediately
said, and what we are sure must make a deep impression
on every untainted mind, on the atrocity of giving men
inducements to make a belief, which they have not
derived from evidence. The subscription of articles goes
beyond this. It vouches for future belief. It is a bond,
that the individual subscribing shall for ever after set
his mind against the admission of evidence ; that is,
resist the entrance of truth : in other words, make war
upon it, in the only way in which war upon truth is
capable of being made.
It is a deplorable fact,—which deserves the most pro
found attention, though hithei’to it has not received it,—
that the creation of effectual motives to the hatred of
truth in one department, creates effectual motives to the
hatred of it generally. We have touched upon this point
already. But it deserves further development; for it
stands first in point of importance.
The man who is reduced to the degraded condition of
resisting truth, lives under the painful assurance that he
will be held to be a degraded being, by every man who
sets a high value on truth, and is eager in the pursuit of
it. The pursuit of truth brings thus along with it a
consequence most painful to him. He therefore dislikes
it. He would prevent it, if he could ; and he is stimu
lated to do all that he can to prevent it. If the love
�Rhe Church, and its Reform.
35
•and pursuit of truth should become general, he sees
clearly that he must become an object of general con
tempt. What a motive is this to him to prevent its
becoming general; to smother it in the very birth, if he
can !—See in what perfect obedience to this impulse the
Church of England has always acted! Above all,
explore minutely the cruel ways in which, to this end, it
has abused its power over the business of education !
The whole bent of its tuition is to make its pupils
acquiesce slavishly in a parcel of traditional dogmas, and
instead of awakening the desire of farther progress, to
frighten them at the idea of it; training them to regard
it as a source of boundless evil; and all those who pursue
it, as villains, aiming at the destruction of whatever is
valuable among mankind.
They have thus been constituted the enemies of their
species. The advance of mankind in happiness has, by
a nefarious constitution of their church, been made a
■source of evil to them. And they have been, as it was
certain they would be, its strenuous, and, to a deplorable
extent, we must add, its successful opponents.
The steadiness with which the priests of this establish
ment have persevered in this course, is a point of great
interest in their history, and should be carefully set to
view. The barefacedness with which it is professed, up
to the present hour, and by some of the most respectable
among them, amounts to a striking phenomenon. They
even reprobate Locke, the cautious, the modest, the
sober-minded Locke, for that which is even A/s greatest
distinction, the trusting to evidence; the seeking after
truth ; the desiring to know something beyond the tra
ditional propositions of others; the taking the only
course which leads to the advancement of human know
ledge, the improvement of the human mind, the pro
gress of the race in happiness and virtue. Listen to
what Copleston, then Head of a House, afterwards
bishop, and peer of parliament, thought it not disgrace
ful to him to say a few years ago. “ His ” (Locke’s)
�36
<The Church, and its Reform.
•' own opinions would have been entitled to greater re
spect,” (observe for what) “ if he had himself treated with
more respect the opinions of those who had gone before
him,” (opinions, you see, are entitled to respect, not on
account of the truth of them, but something else) “ and
the practice of sensible men of his own time, whose
judgment was worth more, in proportion as it was con
firmed by experience.”—Locke misbehaved, you see, by
seeking for evidence, and yielding to it when found.
Had he disregarded evidence, that is truth, and taken
passively the opinions given to him, he would have
merited the praise of Church of England priests; by
taking the course he did, no wonder he has been always
unpopular among them. “ The fight freedom, indeed,
and the confidence with which this philosopher attacks
all established notions, is one of the principal blemishes
in his character.”—Is not this instar omnium ? That is
one of the principal blemishes in the character of one of
the greatest philosophers who ever lived—so says Church
of Englandism—which alone enabled him to do any
good; namely, calling for evidence, marking where he
did not find it, but only some man’s ipse dixit instead,
and then proceeding honestly in search of it himself!
Good God! what sort of a place of education is it, where
such a course is held up, not for imitation, but repro
bation ?
There is not a finer specimen of the arts of the clergy
than their new-born zeal for the religious education of
the children of the poor. The religious education of the
children of the poor is not among the objects of the
Church of England; there is no provision for it in that
establishment; it was never a practice. Though the most
eminently religious of all the possible functions of a
minister of religion, a clergyman of the Church of
England as little thought it belonged to him, as to make
shoes for the children of his parishioners. Till the
other day, there was in England no education for the
children of the poor. They were absolutely uneducated,
�The Church, and its Reform.
37
in religion. as in every thing else. During all the ages
in which this state of things continued, the clergy saw no
occasion for this religious education they are now so hot
about. It is only when education in general, that is
knowledge, begins to be, that they think education in
religion is required. Non-education in religion was not
an evil, when in union with ignorance ; in union with
knowledge it becomes direful.—Can any body need help,
in reading this passage of clergy ?
So long as the people were in gross ignorance, their
servility to their priests was to be depended upon. The
moment light began to dawn upon them, it was, it seems,
not to be expected, unless particulai' artifice was used.
An expedient was fallen upon—that of clamouring for the
union of religious education with other education.
This, in the first place, was a great impediment to
education. It rendered it impossible for the children of
people of different sects to be educated together. This
was a capital stroke. It rendered the education of the
people much more expensive, therefore much less likely
to be earned into effect. It had other important con
sequences. It made all those benevolent individuals,
whose partialities ran towards the Church, place the funds
which they were disposed to contribute towards the
education of the poor under' the control of the Church,
which was skilled in the art of giving education without
instruction. From the evidence extracted by the com
mittee of the House of Commons on Education, last year,*
it appears, that their endeavours in the National Schools
are remarkable specimens of that art. They thus made
sure of having all the children of those who nominally
belong to the church in their own hands; and all the
security against the desire of knowledge which education
without instruction can yield.
The hollowness of the pretence is further seen in this,
that all the education in religion which for ages the
clergy thought necessary for the children of the poor,
* The year 1834
�38
The Church, and its Reform.
was only to make them able to repeat a few questions
of the Catechism, before confirmation ; and surely this
it would not be difficult to attain, if they were educated
in schools for all. What should hinder the parson of
the parish (it is his business if anything be), to assemble
the children of his flock as often as needful, for the pur
pose of imparting to them much more religious instruc
tion than this ? That the clergy are not in earnest in
their talk about the necessity of schooling in religion, is
manifest from this, that they have done nothing to have
it given. They have made use of the cry solely for the
purpose of making schooling difficult. But where is the
parson of the parish who takes the trouble to instruct
the children of his parishioners in refigion ? Where is
there one ordinance of the bishops rendering it impera
tive upon their clergy to fulfil the great duty of admi
nistering religious instruction to the young ? The whole
thing is a farce.
Having thus seen the importance of relieving the
parochial ministers of religion from all concern with
dogmas, we come to another question of no small import
ance, whether their labours of love should not also be
relieved from the incumbrance of ceremonies ?
The example of our Saviour shows, that in certain
circumstances they cannot be dispensed with; that
where the human mind is spell-bound in old habits, you
cannot obtain access to it except through the medium of
some of these habits.
We persuade ourselves, however, that we have attained
in this country such a degree of advancement, notwith
standing the efforts of the Church of England to pre
vent it, that we may dispense with the performance of
ceremonies on the part of those ministers of religion
whom the state appoints for the pure purpose of making
the people conform to the designs of a Being of perfect
wisdom and goodness.
The importance would be immense of constituting a
church without dogmas and ceremonies. It would be
�'The Churchy and its Reform.
39
truly a catholic church. Its ministers would be minis
ters of good, in the highest of all senses of the word, to
men of all religious denominations. All would share in
the religious services of such a church, and all would
share in the blessings which would result from them.
This is the true idea of a State religion ; and there is no
other. It ought to be stripped of all which is separa
ting ; of all that divides men from one another ; and to
present a point whereon, in the true spirit of reverence
to the perfect being, and love to one another, they may
all unite. So long as there are men who think dogmas
and ceremonies a necessary part of religion, those who
agree about such dogmas and ceremonies may have their
separate and respective institutions of their own provid
ing, for their inculcation and performance. But this is
extraneous to the provisions which alone it is proper' for
the State to make, and which ought to be so contrived as
to embrace, if it were possible, the whole population.
This, the scheme of which we have been endeavour
ing to convey the idea, we think, would effect. There
is no class of Christians, who could not join in the
labours of love of one who was going about continually
doing good ; whose more solemn addresses to his assem
bled parishioners would never have any other object
than to assimilate them more and more in heart and
mind to Him who is the author of all good, and the
perfection of wisdom and benevolence. Men could not
long attend a worship of this description, worship of the
perfect being, by acts of goodness, without acquiring
attachment to it, and learning by degrees that it is the
one thing needful. All would belong to this church ;
and after a short time would belong to no other. Fa.miliarized with the true worship of the Divine Being, they
would throw off the pseudo worship, dogmas and cere
monies. This is the true plan for converting Dissenters.
There would be no schism, if men had nothing to scind
about.
If the ministers of the Established Church had
�40
The Church 3 and its Reform.
nothing to do with dogmas, and nothing to do with
ceremonies, how would we have them employed ?
We have already expressed the general idea of their
employment. It would be assiduous endeavour to make
all the impressions on the minds of their parishioners
which conduce to good conduct; not merely negative, in
abstaining from ill; but positive, in doing all the good
to one another which the means put in their power
enable them to do.
It is very evident, that rules for the making of those
all-important impressions cannot be given. General rules
would be too vague to be of any use ; and the variety of
differing cases is so great, that it can only be met by
the resources of zeal and discretion in the daily inter
course between the minister and the individuals of his
flock. There are, however, certain things which may be
assumed as tests, in each instance, of the manner in
which the duties of the parochial minister are performed,
and which afford a guide to the manner in which stimnlants may be applied to him.
For example; we would give annual premiums to
those ministers in whose parishes certain favourable re
sults were manifested—in whose parishes there was the
smallest number of crimes committed within the year—
in whose parishes there was the smallest number of law
suits—in whose parishes there was the smallest number
of paupers—in whose parishes there was the smallest
number of uneducated children—in whose parishes
the reading-rooms were best attended, and supplied with
the most instructive books. We mention these as speci
mens. If there were any other results of the same kind,
of which the evidence could be made equally certain, there
would be good reason for including them in the same
provision. In this manner, would pretty decisive evi
dence be obtained of the comparative prevalence of good
conduct in the different parishes, and a motive of some
importance would be applied to the obtaining of it.
We think that infinite advantage might be derived
�'The Churchy and its Reform.
41
from the day of rest, if real Christian consideration,
exempt from all superstitious feelings, by which the
clergy have hitherto converted it to their own use, were
applied to it.
We think it of great importance, that all the families
of a parish should be got to assemble on the Sunday—
clean, and so dressed, as to make a favourable appear
ance in the eyes of one another. This alone is amelio
rating.
An address delivered to these assembled neighbours,
by their common friend and benefactor, on their means
of lessening the evils, and ensuring the happiness of one
another, the motives they have to this conduct, its har
mony with the laws of that benevolent Being of whom
our lives are the gift, and who has made the connexion
between our own happiness and the aid we afford to the
happiness of others inseparable—would come powerfully
in aid of all the other means employed to make salutary
impressions on their minds.
When the parishioners are assembled, it is of import
ance to consider in what other ways the meeting can be
turned to advantage.
One thing is very obvious : the opportunity would be
favourable of doing something to add to their education.
As often as the means were available, useful lectures on
various branches of art and science might be delivered
to them. Of what importance would it be to the nume
rous classes of workmen who make use of tools, to be
made acquainted, in a general way, with the mechanical
powers. What interest might be excited by chemical
experiments ; and what benefit derived from the know
ledge of the composition and decomposition of bodies,
which that science imparts. The science of botany, to
all those whose employment is in the fields, and to the
females whose monotonous lives are confined to their
cottages, would afford a great source of interest and de
light. Why should not even the wonders of the distant
world—the magnitude and laws of the celestial bodies,
�42
The Churchy and its Reform.
be laid open to their minds ? It will not be disputed
that lectures on the art of preserving the health, point
ing out the mistakes which ignorant people commit in
the physical management, both of themselves and their
children, and both the preventive and curative means
which they might employ, would be of infinite import,ance to them.
It is impossible to estimate too highly the benefit
which would be derived from good lectures to those
parochial assemblies on the education of their children :
not merely in sending them to school, and getting them
taught to read and write, but in moulding their tem
pers ; in making them gentle, moderate, forbearing, kind,
and deeply impressed with the importance to themselves
of habits of industry and frugality.
Not merely the mode of conducting themselves towards
their children—the mode of conducting themselves to
wards their servants is an important topic. On the right
and the wrong in this matter, in which the grossest errors
are habitually committed, good teaching would be of the
greatest utility. Even in the mode of training and conduct
ing their beasts, there is great good to be done by proper
instruction—in order to habituate them to the thought
that gentleness is more effectual than cruelty—that
when the animal disappoints our expectation, it is not
by design, but by its not knowing what we desire, and
that beating it for it knows not what, is no means of
correction to the animal, but fuel to one of the worst of
our own distempers—the disposition to inflict evil upon
whatsoever or whosoever is the cause of immediate an
noyance to ourselves. No man practises ferocity towards
animals who would not, with a little more temptation,
practise it towards his fellow-men ; and this is a pro
pensity which may be effectually rooted out.
There are even branches of political science, in which
it would be of importance that the people should receive
instruction in their weekly assemblies. They cannot,
for example, be too completely made to understand the
�'The Church, and its Reform.
4.3
laws which determine the rate of wages—from ignorance
of which rise most of their contentions with their
masters, as well as the other evils which they endure.
Indeed, a knowledge of the laws of nature, by operation
of which the annual produce of the labour of the com
munity is distributed, is the best of all modes of recon
ciling them to that inequality of distribution which they
see takes place, and which there are people ignorant or
wicked enough to tell them, is all in violation of their
rights, because it is by their labour that everything is
produced.
We go farther: we say there is no branch of political
knowledge which ought not to be carefully taught to the
people in their parochial assemblies on the day of rest.
If it be an established maxim of reason, that there is no
security for the good use of the powers of government,
but through the check imposed upon it by the repre
sentatives of the people, and no security that the repre
sentatives will duly apply that check, unless the people
make them, by a right use of the power of choosing and
dismissing them, it is evident how necessary a condition
of good government it is that political knowledge should
be diffused among the people. •
And the elements of the politics are not abstruse.
There is nothing in them above the comprehension of a
sensible man of the most numerous class. They relate
to nothing but the common-sense means for the attain
ment of a common-sense object—the means of com
pelling those in whose hands the powers of government
are placed, to make the best use of them. Questions,
no doubt, arise in the exercise of those powers, which
are exceedingly difficult, and require the highest measure
of knowledge and understanding rightly to determine
them : the question of war for example. The decision
whether the known calamities of war, or the evils
threatened by the unchecked proceedings of another
state, are, in any instance, the greatest, may require the
most extensive range of knowledge, and the utmost skill
�44
The Church, and its Reform.
and sagacity in placing the exact value on the causes of
future events.
Even the elements of jurisprudence might be taught
to the people with great advantage in their Sunday
meetings. The art and science of protection might be
opened up to them in a manner which they would find
in the highest degree interesting. How usefully might
they be made to perceive that to them, above all others,
it is the most necessary ? The rich man can always do
a great deal for his own protection. The poor man—
unless the means of many, combined with art, are ap
plied to protect him—-is totally deprived of it. The in
stitution of laws and tribunals is that combination ; and
the essence of them it is not difficult to unfold. To
protect a man in the use of what is his own, the means
must be provided of determining what is his own—that
'is, a civil code must be constructed. To prevent viola
tions of what the law has declared to be a man’s own—
that is, declared to be his rights—the law must deter
mine what acts shall be considered violations of them,
and what penalty shall be annexed to each : that is, a
criminal code must be made. This is all plain : and the
development of it would convey, even to the common
people, the most useful ideas.
The necessity of a third party, to settle disputes, and
afford redress of wrongs, is a maxim of common sense,
familiar to all. This is the establishment of courts of
justice ; and the discussion of that subject is merely the
inquiry, by the instrumentality of what means can the
settlement of questions of right, and the redress of
wrongs, be most effectually and cheaply accomplished.
Not only is there nothing abstruse in this development
—it is a subject, the discussion of which, as coming
home to their businesses and bosoms, is calculated to
excite the most lively interest, and exceedingly to im
prove their minds.
So much, then, for the serious matters with which
the minds of the people might be usefully engaged in
�The Church, and its Reform.
45
their parochial meetings on the day of rest. But further
than this, it is well known to those who have made the
principles of human nature their study, that few things
tend more effectually to make impressions on the minds
of men. favourable to kindness, to generosity, to feeling
joy with the joys, sorrow with the sorrows of others ;
from which the disposition to mutual helpfulness mainly
proceeds,—than their being habituated to rejoice to
gether—to partake of pleasures in common. Upon this
principle it is that the amusements of the common
people are looked upon by philosophical minds as a
matter of grave importance. We think that social
amusements, of which the tendency would be amelio
rating with respect to the people, might be invented for
the parochial meetings. They should be of a gentle
character ; harmonizing rather with the moderate, than
the violent emotions ; promoting cheerfulness not pro
fuse merriment. We can enter but a very little way
into the details of this subject. When the time shall
come for thinking of it seriously, it will deserve a very
careful and minute consideration.
If there were as many people in earnest about religion
as there are who pretend to be ; if there were as many im
bued and animated with the spirit of true religion, as
there are besotted with dogmas and ceremonies, all the
difficulties which present themselves would be overcome.
Have not those who were interested in the work got men
to submit to whatever was most repugnant to their nature
and feelings ? to fall in love with propositions incredi
ble ? to practice tiresome, and endless, and often painful
tricks, in supposed service of the Deity, which sink the
performers of them to the level of monkeys ? And can
we despair if similar pains were taken, of getting them
to do what, at every step, would be delightful, and from
which they would derive the greatest of all conceivable
pleasures, the consciousness, the heart-felt assurance, of
rising higher and higher in the scale of virtue and intel
ligence every day ! Assuredly, the best means of carry-
�46
The Church, and its Reform.
ing on the moral culture of the people will not speedily
present themselves to the people, if they are not aided •
and if the influence of those whom they are always ready
to follow is not employed to put them in the right path,
and urge them forward in it to a certain extent. But for
the accomplishment of all this, we should rely much on
the efforts of such a class of parochial ministers as we
have just been describing ; who might be truly styled the
servants of God, and the friends of man ; who would do
much, by their own influence, and much, by stimulating
men of station, and wealth to employ their influence in
the same beneficent direction.
P. Q.
PRINTED BY C. W. KETNELL, LITTLE PCLTENET STREET, W.
�
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The church, and its reform
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Q., P.
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Church of England-History
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Text
^lloOl
AN
EXAMINATION
OF
SOME RECENT WRITINGS ABOUT IMMORTALITY.
By W. E. B.
“ Is it not unreasonable to expect to see clearly through such a veil as death ?”
“ Let me do the will of God, and be swallowed up in His work. Conscious that His
goodness is perfect, let me spend not a thought on the contingencies of my future,
which He will provide as His wisdon sees good.”—F. W. Newman.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence.
��AN
EXAMINATION
OF
SOME RECENT WRITINGS ABOUT IMMORTALITY.
----------- ♦----------- -
Modern Materialism and its Relation to Immortality. By John
Owen, Theological Review, October, 1869.
Practical Aspects of the Doctrine of Immortality. By Presbyter
Anglicanus, Theological Review, April, 1870.
Immortality and Modern Thought. By John Owen, Theological
Review, July, 1870.
The Doctrine of Immortality in its Bearing on Education. By
Presbyter Anglicanus. Scott, Ramsgate.
Is Death the End of all Things for Man ? By a Parent and
Teacher. Scott, Ramsgate.
A Reply to the Question, “ What have we Got to Rely on, if we
cannot Rely on the Bible? ” By Prof. F. W. Newman. Scott,
Ramsgate.
Another Reply to the Question, “ What have we Got to Rely on if
we cannot Rely on the Bible?” By Samuel Hinds, D.D.
Scott, Ramsgate.
A Reply to the°Qucstion, “ Apart from Supernatural Revelation,
What is Man’s Prospect of Living after Death?” By Samuel
Hinds, D.D. Scott, Ramsgate.
--------- ♦---------
Mr Owen’s first article was written in review of
Professor Huxley’s well known paper in the Fort
nightly Review for Feb., 1869, “ On the Physical Basis
of Life.” Mr Owen is very indignant with Professor
Huxley for having asserted that the “ matter of life ”
is composed of ordinary matter, “ differing from it only
in the manner in which its atoms are aggregated.”
Whether the Professor was or was not justified in
making this assertion we may fairly leave him to settle
if he can with Mr Owen. But after reading the after
part of Mr Owen’s paper, in which he elaborates an
argument in favour of immortality which he expressly
�4
An Examination of some
declares to be quite unassailable by any materialistic
objections, it is difficult to account for tbe reason of
his indignation with Mr Huxley for this statement,
and for other remarks about protoplasm. Future
scientific inquiry may throw more light upon Professor
Huxley’s protoplasmic researches, and may either con
firm or refute what his reviewer terms his ‘‘ dogma
tism ” concerning them. With no pretence to scientific
erudition, I should feel it to be presumptuous to hazard
a prediction either way, and am content with a simple
protest against Mr Owen’s assertion of the probable
finality of our knowledge in the direction referred to.
The main portion of Mr Owen’s Constructive argu
ments in favour of immortality seem to differ from
those which the most thoroughgoing materialist might
advance, chiefly, if not solely, in nomenclature. If he
would use “ force ” always, as he does generally, in
place of “ spirit,” all, or nearly all that he advances
with any pretence of logical demonstration, could be
endorsed by an advocate of materialism. Mr Owen
thus states his argument in its briefest terms :—“ The
spiritual force of the universe is eternal; man is an
unit of that spiritual force ; therefore man is immortal.”
The conclusion of this syllogism is somewhat incorrectly
stated. It should be, “ therefore man is eternal,” and
the necessity which Mr Owen evidently felt of substi
tuting one word for the other fairly illustrates what
appears to me to be the fallacy of his syllogism. Man
as man, that is as a combination of what is commonly
distinguished as matter and spirit, is not an unit of
any purely spiritual force, any more than man as man
is eternal. Mr Owen’s meaning would probably be
better represented as follows :—The spiritual force of
the universe is eternal; the spiritual force of man is
an unit of the spiritual force of the universe; therefore
the spiritual force of man is eternal. This argument
from a spiritualistic standpoint is of course unassail
able. The materialist would simply substitute material
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
5
for spiritual, and would then adopt the altered syl
logism as his own. The real dispute is whether there
exists any spiritual force in the universe (and inclusively
in man) at all. If then it be possible to demonstrate
scientifically by protoplasmic researches or otherwise
that what are now termed spiritual or mental forces are
precisely similar to material or physical forces, it seems
that, after all, Mr Owen’s claim for the security of his
argument from materialistic refutation would fall to
the ground. In fact he admits this when he says :—
“ If, indeed, it could be proved, as the materialist
assumes it can, that the force we call vital or mental is
of precisely the* same nature with what he terms
physical forces, no doubt the question might be
regarded as settled, so far at least as the human claim
to immortality is concerned (although even in that
case the mind, which finds expression through the
laws of the universe, would be left unaccounted for by
his theory, and an eternal witness against its unlimited
application).” But Mr Owen goes on to state his
belief, and li that of those who have most closely
surveyed it from either side,” that the gulf between
matter and mind “is primordial and utterly impass
able.” It is plain then at the outset that although
his arguments may help to strengthen the convictions
of those who already have faith in immortality, they
can be of no avail with people whom materialistic
probabilities or possibilities have rendered doubters,
since they rest on an assumption which begs the
question. He makes this plainer still as he proceeds ;
for not only does he assert that—“ Whoever ... re
cognises, whether in the operations of nature, or in the
course of history, or in the constitution of his own
being, a peculiar spiritual force which cannot even in
imagination be conceived as identical with such
material force as electricity or magnetism, will always
find a firm standing ground whereon to build his hope
of immortality; ” but he actually goes so far as to
�6
An Examination of some
assume “ the undeniable fact (the italics are mine) of
man possessing within him such a spiritual force, by
whatever name it is called, so distinguished from ail
other forces of which he can have any cognisance.” It
is not much to claim that an argument is impervious
to the assaults of opponents so long as it rests upon an
assumption which they at the outset deny. The
parenthesis of a previous quotation from Mr Owen to
the effect that on the materialistic basis “ the mind
which finds expression through the laws of the universe
would still be left unaccounted for,” exposing as it
does the most hopelessly weak point in the materialistic
theory, gives a. far sounder foundation to what, for
want of another name, we term spiritualism than does
the argument on assumption that Mr Owen deems
so thoroughly impregnable. This is in effect the
“ design argument.” which, in spite of a vast amount
of denial and ridicule, remains, and will remain, a
stronghold, if not the chief stronghold of anti-mate
rialistic faith.
Further on in his article, Mr Owen pleads for “ the
recognition of the essential unity of all spiritual
forces.” Why not of all forces spiritual or other
wise 1 Must not the creative or initiative force of the
universe include within itself, or contain the germs of,
the physical and organic as well as the mental and
“ spiritual ” forces which we are cognisant of 1 If this
be admitted, the syllogism of Mr Owen before quoted
must be extended, so as to include all material as well
as spiritual forces as units of the force of the universe.
In concluding his paper, Mr Owen remarks :—“ No
scientific discovery will ever suffice to prove that his
torical progress is the creature of physical forces, or
that virtue is an amiable manifestation of heat or
electricity. Hence the ground taken by Bishop Butler
in the well-known chapter of the Analogy, will always
be that which the more thoughtful of the defenders of
immortality will choose to occupy—the ground of pro-
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
7
bability supported by analogy. . . . Recognizing as
we do the scientific impossibility that the least part of
a physical force should be annihilated, we have en
deavoured to prove the analogical improbability that
any, even the smallest part, of divine energy can be
entirely and irreparably lost.” The conclusion, then,
to which Mr Owen’s clever arguments bring us is, that
all force is immortal. But does not his analogy carry
us too far—at least, if we wish to be convinced of in
dividual immortality? No particle of matter is an
nihilated although it is transformed, any more than an
unit of force is lost when it is transmuted. Then, does
not the argument from this analogy lead us to suppose
that as matter in the form of a human body certainly
does not everlastingly retain its individuality, so neither
does the force individualized in a human mind or
spirit ? In spite of some remarks by Mr Owen to the
contrary, this seems to me to be the only logical con
clusion of his argument from analogy. He indeed
admits that to him “ this qiiestion of personal, in
dividual existence in a future, world is of mere
secondary importance compared with the grand fact of
such existence,” and he quotes with approval Schleiermacher, whose arguments might comfort a Buddhist,
but would scarcely give consolation to a Christian.
Abrwana is not that for which those bereaved by
death so passionately yearn. The hope of immor
tality would lose by far its strongest and sweetest in
tensity with all but a few, at any rate amongst the
western nations, and would probably perish entirely
with the majority, if “incorporation into the divine
substance” could be proved to be the only Heaven
we may reasonably aspire to.
“ Presbyter Anglicanus,” in his paper on The Prac
tical Aspects of Immortality, is more occupied in
pointing out the effects that would result from the
acceptance of Mr Owen’s conclusions, than in con
troverting his arguments. It is always a subject for
�8
An Examination of some
regret when a controversialist introduces to the con
sideration of a question the bias which inevitably
results from taking into account the practical results of
the acceptance of such or such a conclusion, instead of
criticising it from the purely philosophical stand-point
of whether it is true or false. But in those portions
of his essay in which “ Presbyter Anglicanus” brings
his clear common sense to bear upon the mysticism of
a portion of Mr Owen’s argument, deprecates the in
troduction of scriptural teaching as of any supernatural
authority, and points out the unphilosophical nature
of the theory of immortality for the righteous and
annihilation for the wicked, he has done good service.
He has, however, in my opinion, done anything but
good service to the cause of a pure morality in those
remarks of his which point to the doctrine of a future
life as the only sound basis of moral teaching. “ That
the whole moral as well as the religious training of
Englishmen,” he states, “ rests on the belief of the
continued existence of each individual man after death,
no one will probably dispute. Whether we regret the
fact or not, the fact itself is patent; and the remark
applies equally to the instruction given by men of all
schools of thought (for it will not be pretended that
at the present time there is any systematic instruction
to the young based on the professed negation of con
tinued life).” In making this statement, “ Presbyter
Anglicanus” seems entirely to ignore the Utilitarian
school; for although the Utilitarian philosophy is not
systematically taught to the young on a large scale per
haps, it certainly has at the present time some influence
upon the moral training of Englishmen. The separation
of ethics from theology is one of the most promising
signs of the times, and I confess it is with surprise
that I find “Presbyter Anglicanus” holding to the
old mischievous combination. I altogether fail to see
that if we tell the young “ that acts tend to make
habits, that habits determine our character and affect
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
9
our spiritual condition indefinitely,—if we tell them
that right is to he done at whatever cost, and that
success here is to be to us as nothing in comparison
with our growth in all good and kindly qualities,—we
are using language every word of which implies not
only human immortality, but the continued existence
of each individual being whom we address.” It is as
well, however, to observe that the signification of the
expression (l success here ” involves a considerable
portion of the question at issue. That it is best in
the only true sense to be and do the best we can, is an
axiom of pure and enlightened ethics. If the majority
of men are not yet sufficiently enlightened to receive
it, let us try to educate them to it, and not teach down
to them a more sensual philosophy. It is a pity that
one so advanced in enlightened thought as “ Presbyter
.Anglicanus” undoubtedly is, should not know what
reply to make to one with “ a mind not yet matured,”
“ if he asks us why he should cause himself trouble
and discomfort by seeking to reach a high standard of
action, when life would be easier and pleasanter, and
probably more successful, by contenting himself with a
lower one, &c.” One who intelligently believes in the
present moral government of the world would reply
that life is not—cannot, in the order of Divine Pro
vidence, be easier, pleasanter, and more successful in
the highest and only true sense of those terms to the
man who contents himself with a low ideal, than to
him who strives to live up to a high one. For, are
not the eternal and divine laws of morality something
more than, or rather, quite different from mere arbitrary
restrictions upon the inclinations and pleasures of
human beings ? Should we not, on the contrary, be
lieve that we are only forbidden to do that which is in
the real sense injurious to us collectively as the great
family of God’s creatures, and to each of us individually
as a member of that family? Does not the highest
sense of ease, pleasure, and success consist in living, in
B
�IO
An Examination of some
accordance with our noblest instincts and tendencies ?
Is there not, for instance, a far nobler, sweeter ease in
the knowledge acquired at the cost of much labour
than in the gross indolence that rests stupidly content
in ignorance 1 Is not the pleasure derived from the
perhaps at first tiresome cultivation of music, or of
poetry, or of pure intellectuality, far superior to the
delights of the palate, or to the gratification of any of
the comparatively gross sensual faculties ? And is not
the success of a noble, beautiful life, such as is in
accord with all the most exalted attributes of our
nature, far more gratifying and satisfying than the
mere satiety of acquisitiveness, of love of fame, or of
desire for power ? To teach the converse of this—to
teach that this life is in itself a failure, and that a
supplementary life is necessary to compensate for the
bankruptcy of this is, in my opinion, one of the worst
forms of infidelity. I hold with Mr Owen, and against
“ Presbyter Anglicanus,” that whether we believe or
doubt future existence as individuals, we should live
precisely the same, that, to take the lowest view, virtue
pays in the only true and extended sense of the word,
and that consequently the belief in personal immor
tality can have no influence whatever upon a rightly
conceived and inculcated system of morality.
Mr Owen, in his reply to “ Presbyter Anglicanus,”
puts this truth concisely before his readers, when he
says :—Our most advanced and enlightened thinkers
have arrived at last at the conclusion that the morality
founded upon the assumed weal or woe of a future
world is not of the most noble or disinterested charac
ter ; and hence there have been various attempts to
place Christian ethics upon another and a sounder
foundation, adopting either the Utilitarian basis of the
welfare of humanity, or else insisting on the divine and
a priori immutability of ethical distinctions.” And
again :—“ In all our teaching (z.e., to the young) on this
subject, we should studiously avoid basing the simplest
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
11
ethical teaching upon their possible destiny in another
life. Our better aim, as well as that most in harmony
with the nature of the proof we assign to immortality,
would be to instil into them mere unselfish and
elevated rules of conduct, teaching them that, in any
case, it is better to be virtuous than the reverse, and
that the present is sacred, and has its hallowed duties
quite irrespective of what the future may happen to
be.” He well enforces this when he states :—“ Nothing
is more certain than that a child ” (and he might have
added, a man also) “ lives in the present, and is in
fluenced mainly by present and immediate considera
tions. Hence the reward that is future, or the
punishment that is distant, has but little effect on his
conduct. Present sanctions, such as honour, truth,
goodness, are therefore far better fitted to make an
impression on his character, than those which are
derived from a remote future with which he has little
or no sympathy.” A practical illustration of the truth
of this last statement is afforded by the fact that an
honourable “ man of the world,” who is but little if at
all influenced by doctrinal theology, is really, as the
popular estimate assumes him to he, more trustworthy
in all that relates to honour, truth, and magnanimity,
than is the representative “ religious ” man, as the
term is commonly applied.
Mr Owen seems to me to be a less reliable guide
when he reverts to his mysticisms—when, for instance,
in reply to the declaration of “ Presbyter Anglicanus”
that he does not understand what is meant by Schleiermacher’s definition,—“ In the midst of the finite to be
one with the Infinite, and in each passing moment to
have eternal existence, that is the immortality of re
ligion,” he says :—“ If ‘ Presbyter Anglicanus ’ could
by possibility have asked Schleiermacher himself what
was to be understood by these words, he would pro
bably receive for a reply, that they were to be inter
preted not by the intellect, but by the feeling.’
�12
An Examination of some
Nothing seems more certain than that feeling (i.e.,
sensation) alone can interpret no theory ; and the
appeal to the feelings, so common with those who are
pushed beyond the confines of logic by a sound argu
ment against vague or otherwise unsubstantiable
theological doctrines, is unworthy of a careful thinker
like Mr Owen. Equally objectionable is his further
elucidation of Schleiermacher’s formula, that “ it is a
necessary deduction from his (Schleiermacher’s) defini
tion of religion ; i.e., it consists in ‘ the consciousness
of the eternal,’ in the feeling (my italics) of per
manency, so to speak, which underlies our transitory
existence.” To this it must be objected that there is
no such intuition as “consciousness of the eternal,”
and that all belief is the result of thought, and not of
feeling, although our sentiments may welcome, and to
some extent give support to, a faith that is in conson
ance with them.
In disavowing the inference of Presbyter Anglicanus,
that if we accept Schleiermacher’s definition of immor
tality there are few who can hope for it, Mr Owen
affirms :—“ It must be borne in mind, the spiritual
energy with which we, on behalf of our race, claim
kindred, is revealed by more than one variety of
manifestation. On the one hand are its ethical ele
ments, duty, patience, love, self-denial; and on the
other, its intellectual elements, imagination, foresight,
hope, and desire.” If then he admits the intellectual
elements to kinship with the “ spiritual energy ” which
gives in his opinion a title to immortality, it is evident
that the brutes may put in their claim ; for whether or
not we allow that the lower animals possess any of the
ethical elements, we cannot deny that some of them
at least show capabilities of imagination, foresight,
hope, and desire. Indeed Mr Owen sees that his
arguments tend in this direction, and further on in
his paper, after speculating upon probable differences
in the condition of those who will enjoy a future
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
13
existence, he says :—“ And if this were once thought
reasonable and in accordance with what we now
observe of God’s operations in this world, one great
difficulty connected with a belief in a future existence
would be obviated; for we might then reasonably
extend it to imperfect types of intellectual or moral
growth, whether among our own race or among races
of animals which we, often unworthily, call c inferior.’”
Why not down to the lowest of the animals? It
would be difficult to find any creature of which it
could be absolutely declared that it possesses no
“ intellectual elements ” whatever. At least it would
be impossible for us to draw the line; and as animal
and vegetable life in certain forms are said to be indis
tinguishable, and as, further, organic force in its
simplest stage is as far as we can judge by observa
tion, identical with what is at present distinctively
termed physical force, Mr Owen’s arguments once
more lead us to a conclusion so broad that they lose
all value as supports to the belief in individual
immortality—namely, to that of the eternity of all
forces.
In some further remarks in reply to those arguments
of Presbyter Anglicanus against which I have strongly
protested, Mr Owen is most eloquent and impressive,
and it would be easy and pleasant to quote largely
from them. They are in the main an enlargement
upon the principle that “ evil is essentially antagonistic
to the divine energies which govern the world,” and
that therefore there is a firm basis for ethics altogether
apart from the doctrine of future retribution.
There is no portion of Mr Owen’s essay so weak as
that in which he exhibits a leaning towards the
illogical theory of the annihilation of the wicked.
This theory is of course strikingly incompatible with
that in which he bases the claim to immortality upon
the possession of some intellectual or moral elements
akin to the spiritual energy of the universe. But he
�T4
An Examination of some
veils the inconsistency in a cloud of mysticism. He
argues that “if there are individuals who do not
exhibit in any form or in the very least degree the
spiritual force of which we have been speaking, then
we are fully prepared to “ grant that nothing but non
existence can be predicated of such beings. But it
must be borne in mind that this is not annihilation as
commonly understood. Annihilation is generally used
of the entire extinction, the reducing to nothingness of
what once had existence. We, however, predicate of such
individuals as we have above mentioned, not their final
extinction, but their present non-existence” (my italics).
It is to be presumed that Mr Owen means their spiritual
non-existence in some mystical sense. Having spoken
of them as individuals, he cannot of course mean to
affirm their individual non-existence. Then their an
nihilation as individuals would after all be “the reducing
to nothingness of what once had existence,” the vulgar
conception of annihilation which Mr Owen disclaims.
But this is probably another of the beliefs that are “ to
be interpreted not by the intellect, but by the feeling
for it is obvious that there is nothing very rational in it.
The method of simply denying the existence of an
obstruction to the reception of a doctrine is, no doubt,
very convenient for the purposes of argument. It has,
however, in this case one drawback which, to thinkers
not mentally intoxicated by a wrapt contemplation of
German mysticism, detracts somewhat from its value,
and that is its utter unintelligibility. It is, moreover,
difficult to imagine why Mr Owen need have troubled
himself to introduce this extraordinary proposition.
It certainly was not necessary to the purpose of his
argument, since, according to his definition of the title
to immortality, the “ non-existent ” being becomes a
mere myth, the veriest madman, by the possession of
■imagination, having a claim to everlasting life.
In taking leave of Mr Owen as a contributor to
modern theories of immortality, I can only declare the
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
15
impression, which, a careful and unprejudiced considera
tion of his essays leaves upon my mind. It is this,
that however strong he may he against materialists—
and no doubt materialists as well as spiritualists assume
a great deal that they cannot sustain by proof—his
elaborate arguments give but little support to the only
doctrine of immortality which ninety-nine out of every
hundred perhaps of his readers would care to have
substantiated.
Presbyter Anglicanus, in his pamphlet on “ The
Doctrine of Immortality in its Bearing on Education,”
written mainly in further reply to Mr Owen, whilst
with some reason complaining of misrepresentation of
his views through miscomprehension, goes on to repeat
what I agree with Mr Owen in considering to be false
and mischievous theories concerning the basis of
morality. After in effect disclaiming the pessimism of
those who conceive of this world as a 11 vale of tears,”
in which the good man has much the worst of it, and
the wicked man triumphs, and from which the good
man must hopelessly turn off his eyes, and look to that
future life in which alone he can hope for compensation
for the wrongs of this—after affirming his belief that
the divine “ purpose which runs through all the ages,”
and which “ must be accomplished,” “ is the highest
good of every creature, and that this highest good lies
in the absolute harmony of the human will with the
will of God” (p. 6)—after declaring that he has
“nowhere spoken of either restraint or punishment,
or even of suffering, except in that sense in which
(he supposes) even M. Comte or Mr Congreve would
assert that the wilful disregarding or violation of our
duty brings with it, generally or always a sense of
dissatisfaction, remorse, or wretchedness” (p. 8)—after
all this it is passing strange that Presbyter Anglicanus
should still contend “ that no teaching which positively
asserts that death is the end of existence to the indi
vidual man can furnish an effectual motive, that no
ethical system can be based upon it, and that any
�An Examination of some
ethical system which is said to be consistent with it
lies really on a foundation of treacherous and shifting
sand” (p. 11).
The explanation of the apparent
inconsistency between the last quoted utterance and
the preceding extracts, lies evidently in the fact that
Presbyter Anglicanus does not believe that the divine
purpose—the highest good of every creature, is ever
completely accomplished in this life, nor even that it
is best in the only true sense, to be and do one’s best
as far as this life only is concerned. Now there is,
perhaps, no harm in teaching that this divine purpose
is not completely accomplished here, but that there is
a future life in which it culminates in a fruition of
bliss which is far beyond what any one pretends can
be enjoyed in this life ; but to teach, either directly or
by implication, that it is not best to be and do one’s
best here, even if there be no life to come, is, in my
opinion, a mischievous error, involving as it does
involve the infidel (although “orthodox”) assumption
that the spirit of evil is triumphant in this world.
Presbyter Anglicanus is further indubitably teaching
this erroneous doctrine, when he says that “ we dare
not tell ” the thoroughly vicious and degraded, “ that
they and many generations after them must, if they
care to get out of their slough of filth, toil on with
heroic energy for next, to no recompense here (the italics
are mine) and no recompense whatever hereafter”
(p. 12). I trust indeed that we dare not tell them any
such terrible falsehood.
I agree with Presbyter
Anglicanus too, that we should “ feel the inhumanity
of telling ” “ those for whom their physical life here is
one of protracted and hopeless suffering,” that “ they
have the highest consolation for their years of agony
in the thought that their patience, hope, and faith are
all to go for nothing (my italics) (p. 12). But does
Presbyter Anglicanus think that patience and hope
ever do go for nothing, even if a faith, possibly
mistaken may 1 And does he regard physical disease
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
17
(often, though not always in itself a punishment for
evil conduct) as a virtue that in justice demands a
reward ?
In making these latter remarks, however, I am far
from underrating the terrible difficulty which all
thoughtful men must feel in the contemplation of
these lives of protracted suffering (as in the contem
plation of many other apparently absolute evils of this
world), especially when traceable to no error of the
sufferers themselves. The visiting of the iniquities of
the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth
generation is, unfortunately for an easy faith, as true
as it is scriptural. Nevertheless, this does not affect
the question before us, for the difficulty remains,
whether we believe in a future life or not, since happi
ness in future life would not prove the justice of
punishing an individual here for sins that are not his.
I pass on with pleasure to those eloquent passages
in which Presbyter Anglicanus gives us the reasons
for his faith in immortality, and I gladly recognise in
some of them a far more forcible plea for individual
immortality than can be extracted from the ostensibly
more philosophical arguments of Mr Owen. I say in
some of the passages, because in others the plea is
based upon the same erroneous views of life which
have above been combatted. Presbyter Anglicanus
holds that the doctrine of immortality “ by no means
rests only on the foundation of probability supported
by analogy,” since “ the reduction of a proposition into
an absurdity is taken as a proof of its converse; and
the direct negation of immortality . . . involves a
series of absurdities which shock alike our mental and
moral sense ” (p. 18). I gladly admit the full force of
this passage :—11 It is shocking that the love which
has withstood the waves of a thousand griefs, tempta
tions, and disasters, and whose flame has burnt clearer
and purer with advancing years, should he rewarded
with extinction,” except that I must demur to the use
�18
An Examination of some
of the word rewarded. It is shocking to believe that
this love should ever be extinguished ; but surely it
brings its own reward in this life. Equally forcible is
this :—“ It is shocking that the thoughts, the aspira
tions, and yearnings of the wisest and best of men
should be a mere delusive dream—that the words
which bid us hope and strive on because we cannot
know here the fulness of blessing which God has
prepared for them that love Him, should be a mere
cheat and a cruel deception.” But with regard to the
other passages (see pp. 18 and 19 of the pamphlet) let
me ask—do the inferior forms of life have full scope
and exercise any more than man has ? How about
the worm crushed under foot, or cut through with the
spade ? Is there not a claim for “ compensation ” here
if anywhere ? And are not the faculties of animals
“ extinguished ” sometimes “just when they are rising
into vigorous activity ? ” Again, is iniquity ever truly
successful ? And do “ striving, and effort, and pur
pose, and will” ever go for nothing even in this
world ?
The writer of the pamphlet, “ Is Death the end of
all Things for Man ?” goes over much the same ground
as that traversed by Presbyter Anglicanus in the papers
already noticed, and his position on the question
exhibits in the main the same strength and the same
weakness.
Professor E. W. Newman in his Pamphlet disclaims
the authority of Scripture as an argument for immor
tality, and in reply to those who complain that the
discrediting of that authority has robbed them of a
“ delicious dream,” he eloquently observes: “ The true
heaven does not consist in aspirations quite ridiculous
in puny man, but rather in self-forgetfulness ; in that
faith which says, ‘ Let me do the will of God, and be
swallowed up in His work. Conscious that His good
ness is perfect, let me spend not a thought on the con
tingencies of my future, which He will provide as His
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
J9
wisdom sees good.’ ” This is an epitome of the sublimest piety and faith. “ But,” he proceeds, “ I am
gravely sensible that there is another view of immor
tality in which self is quite forgotten; in which the
enlargement of men’s destiny beyond the grave is
viewed as ennobling our nature and assuaging the
grief with which we see human afflictions end in dark
moral degradation. Such a doctrine of immortality is
encumbered with severe logical difficulties to a Theist,
but with fewer (I think) than with those which meet a
Biblical Christian” (p. 13). And surely it seems to
me this view of immortality is encumbered with fewer
difficulties than any other. Then follows a frank and
manly divulgence at once of the faith and the “ honest
doubt ” of an honest man. “ In my book called
1 Theism,’ I have elaborately developed all the argu
ments which commend themselves to me. When I
read them, I find them very powerful. Some of them
are even short enough, if sound, to generate vivid
electric faith. The discomfort to me is, that they do
not wholly refute, they rather outweigh, arguments on
the other side; and where you deal with a balanced
argument, you strike the balance differently, I believe,
in different frames of mind. Perhaps when I am too
much pre-engaged by sense, and too little devout, the
spiritual arguments for immortality lose force with me.
Whether that is the explanation I cannot tell; but I
frankly confess that what at one time I think to bring
full conviction, at another time seems overbalanced by
objections. I do not at all imagine that I have solved
the problem. I sometimes think that the half faith
which I sustain may be precisely the thing most whole
some to men; and, indeed, is it not unreasonable to
expect to see clearly through such a veil as death 1 ... .
Let your complainant exercise the grace of waiting for
light, and of hoping that more light may dawn on our
successors than God has yet granted to us” (pp. 13, 14).,
This is truly a noble confession of faith and of doubt
�20
An Examination of some
such as no mind but a large, brave and honest one
would ever have made. We feel as we read it that a
great soul has revealed itself to us, strengthening our
belief to a far greater extent than volumes of half sin
cere though more positive dogmatism can. Here at
any rate we have a mind which does not despair of
morality because it cannot demonstrate a future life.
And there is a faith beyond the faith of all the creeds
in the trust that the good Spirit, in whom we live, and
move, and have our being, has given to us all the light
that is necessary to guide us here, and that to Him
belongs the care of us hereafter. And this faith will
enable each one of us to say with the grand old Scotch
man in Alton Locke, “I have long left the saving of my
soul to Him who made the soul.” (Iquote from memory).
Dr. Hinds, in the first of his two interesting tracts,
reminds those who ask what we have to rely on
if we cannot rely on the Bible, that a question of like
import, and of equally vital interest to those who asked
it, has been answered in modern times to the satisfac
tion, at least, of all Protestants. That question was,
“If we cannot rely on the Church, what have we got
to rely on?” The reply was, “The Bible,” and an
infallible Bible accordingly was substituted for an
infallible church. Dr Hinds proceeds very ably to
advocate the giving up of the assumption, “ that God
must have provided an infallible teaching of religious
truth,” and to warn those who manifest a want of faith
by asserting that they recognise no foundation for
religion apart from the Bible, to be on their guard
“ against substituting a vain and presumptuous prying
into the hidden things of the Lord, for the desire to
know Him by seeking to conform to His will” (p. 13).
He thinks that “ the tree of knowledge in the garden
of Eden, the craving after which caused Adam and Eve
to be banished from the tree of life, may serve as an
emblem to us.” For, “ we too, in our eager pursuit
after forbidden knowledge, may find ourselves wander-
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
21
ing far away from the life which is destined other
wise to nourish and prepare us for heaven” (p. 14).
It is only, thus, indirectly that this pamphlet hears
upon the subject of immortality, which is directly
treated by Dr Hinds, in his “ Reply to the Question,
Apart from Supernatural Revelation, What is Man's
Prospect of Living after Death ? ” Dr Hinds limits
the scope of his reply to the question of individual
immortality, stating that to this only “ our thoughts
and aspirations are directed,” and that “to believe that
we shall revive from death in total oblivion of any
previous existence, would be as little consolatory as to
believe that the extinction of life is final.” “The
question, therefore,” he writes, “ which I am requested
to consider must be whether, excluding from the
inquiry all supernatural revelation on the subject,
there is any reason for believing that death is a
passage to a new phase of life, on which we enter with
the consciousness of personal identity with our former
selves” (p. 1). Proceeding to answer this question,
Dr Hinds says, “ Our reasonable course is to see, in the
first instance, what light is thrown on the subject by
the analogy of creation. And it must be admitted
that the result is disappointing to our hopes and
wishes. There is no annihilation of any part of the
material universe, so far as we can observe............... The
process which is going on, and has gone on, as it would
appear, through successive ages, is the continual dis
integration of the several substances of which the
world is composed, and the working of them up into
new combinations............... We do not perceive, as in the
case of the material substance, what becomes of the
principle of life ; but this principle is no less than the
component parts of the human body, or of a rock or
tree, a portion of the elements on which creative power
is exercised. Arguing then from what takes place in
the case of these elements which are seen and felt, to
that which is not an object of the senses, we should
�An Examination of some
infer that the same law of creation must be applicable
to that also, unless it can be shown that there are
different laws for the two. That the one is visible and
tangible, the other not, is a difference which does not
imply that the law of creation is not uniform” (pp. 1, 2).
I quote thus at length because it is impossible to put
into fewer words the sense thus simply and clearly
conveyed.
Dr Hinds goes on to discuss the question whether
there is anything in our human nature to lead us to
suppose that the analogy does not hold good with us,
“whatever may be the fate of the inferior creatures.”
He decides that the possession of a reasoning faculty
gives us no title to individual immortality, since it is ap
parently shared in an inferior degree by the brutes, and
only characterizes man “ as the highest in the scale of
that manifold creation, the general law of which is that of
a continual dissolution of its elements, and a recombina
tion of them.” He thinks that as far as the argu
ment from analogy goes, we must conclude that the
same law holds good with mind, even as, although less
palpably than it does with matter. But he argues,
“ there is a surer resting place for our hope, in the
desire for personal and conscious immortality which
the Creator has made part of man’s nature.” For, not
only does the possession of this desire “ distinguish us
from all the rest of earthly creation,” but we are
justified in arguing from it, “ that the Creator would
never have made it a part of our nature, if the object
to which alone the desire is directed were unattainable.”
(p. 5.) This argument is repeated with even greater force
a little further on : “ the strength of the argument lies
as I have observed, in our conception of the divine
nature as revealed to us in creation. To suppose that
the Creator has made man with a strong desire as part
of his nature, and that the object on which alone that
desire can be exercised, does not exist, is as incon
sistent with what we know of Him and His ways, as
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
23
to suppose that He might have given His creatures
eyes when there was no visible object, or ears when there
was no such thing as sound,” (p. 6.) This, then, is an
argument from analogy after all, only the analogy is
between one intellectual conception of the truth of
which we have ample evidence, and another which we
desire to substantiate, and not between a set of ob
served physical laws, and a spiritualistic theory. The
former, if it be sound, warrants us in sustaining a
firm hope of personal immortality ; the latter leads us to
quite a different conclusion. It will be observed,
however, that this argument of Dr. Hinds rests upon
an undoubted belief in an intelligent Creator and
Sustainer of the universe, and consequently that to
one who has no such belief, it possesses no cogency.
And it is well to recognize the fact that it is impossible
in the present state of knowledge to bring forward any
arguments in favour of individual immortality, that have
any force with a pure materialist. As pointed out in a
preceding portion of this paper, Mr Owen’s arguments
prove from analogy, as far as an argument from analogy
can prove anything, universal indestructibility, and
the materialist would be the first to admit this; but
they possess no validity if urged in favour of individual
immortality. The analogy to be of any use in this
direction, must be based, like that employed by Dr.
Hinds, upon a Theistic foundation. Indeed, we are
fully warranted in saying that a belief in a personal
God is indispensable to a faith in personal immortality.
For these reasons it seems to me that Mr Owen
has greatly underrated the effect which a future
development of such speculations as those of Mr.
Huxley on Protoplasm, may have upon the only faith
in immortality which is cherished by the vast majority
of religious thinkers, in what are called Christian
countries at least. For my own part, however, I have
no fear that the course of future scientific inquiry will
ever substantiate the theories of those gross materialists
�2.4
An Examination of some
who deny the immanence of a great Intelligence in
the universe. No Theistic theories seem to me so
utterly wild and unreasonable as those of the Antitheists. And so long as a reasonable belief in a
moral and intelligent Creator remains, so long will the
true analogical argument of Dr Hinds possess a force
which cannot be denied. But, forcible as it is, this
argument may, even on a Theistic basis, be disputed.
In the first place it may be questioned whether the
desire for personal immortality is so nearly universal
as to justify us in considering it to be a part of our
nature; and in the second place, it may be argued
that even admitting this, it does not follow that such
a desire will be realized in accordance with our present
conceptions. As to the first of these objections, it
must be admitted that we have ample evidence to
prove that some primitive races of mankind have no
belief in a future state of existence, and it is more than
doubtful whether the ancient Jews had. Nay, it may
even be that some who are advanced in the religious
thought of the present time, look upon the idea of a
life that will never, never end, with more of dread than
of delight. I sometimes think that if it were not for
the relatives and friends whom we lose by death,
most of us would have but little, if any, desire for a
future life. We cannot bear the thought of parting
for ever from those we love, and this makes us cherish
the hope of meeting them aJer death. This last con
sideration, however, only serves to strengthen Dr
Hind’s position.
With regard to the second objection that, admitting
the desire for immortality to be a part of our nature,
it does not follow that such a desire will be realized
in accordance with our present conceptions, there is
much that may be urged in its favour. The Indian’s
happy hunting ground is as truly an ideal of future
existence for him, as our hopes of Heaven are for us.
If his conception seems gross to us, may not ours seem
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
25
equally so to those who will live in a more enlightened
age to come ? Is it not possible that our yearning
for an extension of our poor individual lives beyond
the grave, may embody after all only a less gross
ideal of immortality than that of the Indian1? Mr
Owen at any rate seems to have some such idea as
this.
But Dr. Hinds thinks we have another indication of
personal immortality in “ the universal craving for
spiritual communion ” with God. And he goes on to
remark : “ However diverse may be the shapes which
the effort to satisfy this craving has taken, and still
takes, they all testify to the fact, that the Creator has
made the craving a part of man’s nature.” (p. 6).
This craving, he says, is not fully satisfied in this life.
However devout a man may be, and however great
the comfort which he derives from the measure of
intercourse with God that is vouchsafed to him here,
there is no true and full communion, since “ there is
no reciprocity.” Bor, although Christians believe
that God does in some way answer prayer, and may
“ substitute faith for conscious fruition of a Divine
intercourse with them when they address Him,” yet
there is not that interchange of communication which
we call communion when we speak of intercourse
between man and man, and for which Dr Hinds
thinks there is a natural craving.
The measure of force which this argument may
claim must obviously vary greatly with different minds,
and even with the same mind in different states of
feeling. I fear that the vast majority of human beings
have no conscious yearning for communication with the
Divine Being, though that is no proof that it is not
an undeveloped tendency of their nature—a tendency
perhaps stunted and all but destroyed by the influence
of gross and demoralising theological theories. As
soon as man emerges sufficiently from a state of
brutish savagery to speculate upon the origin of all
�26
An Examination of some
that he sees around him, he naturally begins in
some sense to feel after God ; hut the religious sen
timents must be considerably developed before he
will be conscious of any longing after divine com
munion. Such yearning, when it does come, is ap
parently the result of thought combined with religious
love and veneration. It can scarcely be considered as
a definite instinct of our nature, though it may be a
natural tendency, that only develops itself when our
noblest faculties have become paramount. And is it
not possible that the highest state of religious thought
and sentiment would give to us a satisfactory con
sciousness of actual reciprocity in a strong sense of
direct communication between the Divine Spirit and
our own ? May it not be that our present con
ception of communion with God is after all a low
one, and that a higher one is possible to us, which
would be capable of completely satisfying our re
ligious aspirations? That, Dr Hinds might reply,
would be heaven itself, and if it could be attained
here, no future state would be necessary to satisfy the
longing after divine communion. But then, he might
justly urge, the cessation of such a heaven in death
would be even more dreadful and incomprehensible
than the cessation of our life under existing conditions;
and, besides, how about those who had died with the
longing still unsatisfied ?
Dr Hinds further urges : “ There is this peculiarity,
too, about man, which, if there is no future state for
him, makes him an anomaly in creation. In all other
living creatures completeness characterises the Creator’s
work; in man, incompleteness. . . . The individual
is almost a different being, according as his spiritual
part has been cultivated by education and other social
influences ; progress of the inner man marks the his
tory of the human race; and still there must be an
-incompleteness in the work of his Creator, until he
reaches that further stage of existence in which the
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
desires that distinguish him from all other animate
beings on earth shall be provided with their appro
priate objects, and shall be fully developed in the
realization of those objects ” (pp. 8, 9). It would be
impossible for a theist to deny the force of this argu
ment. The atheist would reply that our desires are
now superstitiously misdirected, and therefore have no
claim to realization. This, then, like the rest of Dr
Hinds’ arguments, is calculated to strengthen the con
viction of the theist and spiritualist, but would have
little if any weight with the atheist and materialist.
For the latter, probably, Dr Hind does not write.
The plea for a future life to compensate for the
inequalities of this, I have already noticed in my
remarks in reply to Presbyter Anglicanus.
The
argument, considered by itself, has the fault of proving
too much, if it proves anything. Dr Hinds puts it
before us concisely enough, when he writes : “ There
are inequalities in the divine government of the world
which would seem to be inconsistent with the divine
nature and attributes as otherwise made known to us,
unless there is another life to complete the present, in
which their inequalities are to be redressed ” (p. 10).
But animals, and even vegetables, are subject to the
unequal conditions of existence here equally with man,
although they cannot, of course, be said to suffer
equally with man on that account. The poor donkey,
half starved and otherwise brutally treated ; the dog,
chained for the greater part of his existence to a
kennel in a back yard ; the half-killed pigeon, and
the often hunted fox,—all made wretched for the use
or sport of man, have surely, according to this argu
ment, a claim for future compensation, even if the
plant, stunted and starved on the barren rock, has not.
One more argument Dr Hinds briefly notices, namely,
that which he draws from “ the belief in the occasional
apparition of dead men.” Dr Hinds thinks that
whether this belief be a delusion or not, its existence
�28
An Examination of some
is “ one more evidence of the strong craving after that
future world of continued life, which God has made a
part of our nature ” (p. 12). The same remark applies
to the modern belief in so-called spiritualistic mani
festations. “ Spiritualists,” as the believers in these
alleged manifestations, with rather arrogant distinctive
ness, term themselves, claim for their new “ revela
tion ” that it has rescued hundreds of sceptics from
the doubt of immortality. Whether this be correct
or not, it is certain that many thoughtful men, in their
desire for certain evidence of independent spiritual
existence, were disposed to inquire with eager hope
into the nature of the manifestations, but soon became
disgusted with the imposture and buffoonery that are
so intricately mixed up with them, even if there be
anything genuine.
In concluding my imperfect review of this and the
other essays noticed, I wish to enlarge a little upon the
objection which I have taken to each and all of them,
namely, that they start from the spiritualistic thesis,
instead of endeavouring first to prove it. By this
method the real opponents of the belief in immortality
are merely passed, and are not encountered. The
primary question in dispute is not whether the soul is
immortal, or whether it dies with the body, but whether
there be a soul to live or die. The Materialists are the
real opponents of the doctrine of immortality, and they
deny the existence of the spiritual entity called the
soul. They deny that there is anything in man be
yond matter and force. The sublimest thoughts and
the devoutest aspirations are to their conception only
brain in action. It is useless to deny the strength of
their position, for they have much to urge in its favour
which it is difficult, if not impossible, entirely to re
fute, though it may be possible to overrule on the
ground of superior probability. Their arguments may
he briefly stated as follows:—We observe (they say)
that the character of a man depends upon the size and
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
29
conformation of his brain, and the nature of his tem
perament. If certain brain organs are defective in the
individual, we observe a corresponding defectiveness in
his mental and moral manifestations. Very defective
mental organs invariably co-exist with idiotcy, and
deranged ones with insanity. A brain otherwise de
fective—defective in what are termed the moral organs,
again, always indicates a low state of moral sensibility
in the possessor of it, and a derangement of these
organs manifests itself in what is called moral insanity.
The health of the body obviously influences not only
the intellectual but also the moral characteristics. A
blow on the skull benumbs all mental activity. Sleep,
drunkenness, over-eating, over-working, fasting, and
semi-poisoning distinctively influence what Spiritualists
term the “ soul.” If there be a spiritual entity in man,
it seems then that it is merely a characterless spiritual
force which can only manifest itself in accordance with
the constitution and varying conditions of the corporeal
organism. This we prefer (for want of a better name)
to call vital force, and we see nothing more spiritual
in it than we recognize in chemical, electric, muscular,
or nervous force. We fully admit the indestructibility
of all matter and force. Matter decays and forms new
combinations, and force is thereby transmuted. We
see no evidence of any different result with regard to
what we call the moral and intellectual organism, and
what you Spiritualists term the soul. Therefore we
find no ground for belief in personal immortality.
In reply to all this the Spiritualist may say:—You
Materialists assume too much when you infer from the
fact that what we call the soul can only manifest itself
by means of the material organs of the brain, that
there is nothing but these organs to be manifested—or
nothing beyond what you term vital force. In all
probability it is the character of the soul which de
termines the characteristics of the mental organism,
and not vice versa. Or, even if it be otherwise, it is
�30
” An Examination of some
obvious that if the Supreme Spirit Himself were to
became the occupant of a human frame, He could only
manifest Himself by means of the human faculties of
the particular individual so occupied. Each one of us
is able to think about his bodily frame and ailments as
something belonging to rather than constituting him
self. From this it seems reasonable to infer that there
is something within, and distinct from mere brain
matter which so speculates. The individual conscious
ness, or, in metaphysical terminology, the ego, is able
to take cognizance of and speculate about the material
brain organs through which alone it (or he, or she) can
be outwardly manifested—speculate even about their
possible future derangement. Does not this fact of
consciousness prove that there is an indwelling in
dividual spirit—not a mere vital force—"which per
meates the human organism, and acts upon and through
it, even as we believe there is a Divine Spirit per
meating, and acting upon and through the material
universe ?
Much more might be urged on either side. Self
consciousness is said by some to be distinctively
human, but this is a very questionable assertion. The
Materialist sees in it nothing more than thought turned
inward. He has, too, some questions to ask which it
is very difficult for the Spiritualist to answer. For
instance, he asks when the soul first takes up its abode
in the human frame. Is it in the foetus at the instant
of conception, and if not, at what stage in the growth
of the foetus, the child, or the man ? Inability to reply
adequately to a question, although a serious drawback
to a constructive theory, is not, of course, a proof
against it. But then the issue seems to be nothing
more than a balance of probabilities, and I fear that
this is the only available issue for us in the present
state of knowledge. For my own part, I do not feel
qualified to give full force to either side of the contro
versy, and can only state the difficulties of the situation
�Recent Writings about Immortality.
31
honestly and fairly as they present themselves to me,
leaving it to those who are more positive to teach with
more authority, or at least to blow the trumpet with
less uncertain sound.
One truth shines out clearly, and it is this, that as
our Creator has given us no absolutely certain evidence
of a future life, however strong the probabilities may
be, it is not intended that we shall base our rule of
conduct here on any future prospects that faith and
imagination may place before us. We have a life to
live in this world, at any rate, and to live that worthily
is full occupation for our energies. Those who despise
it are not taught to do so by God. If there be an
everlasting Heaven for us, we shall best prepare for it
by leaving it entirely out of consideration, as far as our
practical life is concerned. To do our duty according
to the purest light that is manifested to us, that is the
best preparation for life and death alike. The sublimest faith is that which sustains us in a perfect trust
in the divine government in this world, and which
will enable us fearlessly to resign ourselves to the care
of the living God in the hour of death, believing that
whatever may be in store for us will be best for us,
seeing that it will be what seemeth to Him fit.
POSTSCRIPT.
Since the above paper was written, a pamphlet in
reply to Presbyter Anglicanus, entitled “Does Morality
depend on Longevity?” by Edw. Vansittart Neale,
has been published by Mr Scott. It consists chiefly
of a very able and interesting historical argument
against the doctrine that morality depends upon a be
lief in immortality. Mr Neale not only shows that
the most moral of the ancient nations had no belief in
a future life, but that some of the most horrible wars
and cruel murders can be traced to the prevalence of
�32
Recent Writings about Immortality.
that belief. His motive for entering into the contro
versy seems to have been the same which has prevailed
with me, and affords that full justification for entering
publicly into so abstruse a subject which, in my own
case, I feel to be necessary. I here give, and fully
endorse his words :—“ It does appear to me . . .of no
small importance in the education of the young, that
we should rest the principles of conduct upon the
knowable and present, instead of upon a future, about
which we can only dogmatise, without knowing any
thing certain. With this view, I propose to adduce
some considerations, which seem to me to show that
there is no necessity for making this uncertain fore
cast in order to gain a solid foundation either for reli
gion or morality” (p. 5).
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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An examination of some recent writings about immortality
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. A review of eight articles which have appeared in earlier Scott pamphlets including work by John Owen, Francis William Newman and Samuel Hinds. Includes bibliography (p.[3]).
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Bear, William Edwin
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[187-?]
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Immortality
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Conway Tracts
Immortality
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Text
THE OPINIONS
OF
Professor DAVID F. STRAUSS,
AS EMBODIED IN HIS LETTER
TO THE BURGOMASTER HIRZEL,
PROFESSOR ORELLI,
AND PROFESSOR HITZIG, AT ZURICH.
WITH
AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF ZURICH,
By PROFESSOR ORELLI.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THOMAS SCOTT, WEST CLIFF, RAMSGATE,
1865.
�“ --------------------------------------------------- ------->
............
,
..J.
—
'W
W M
.P .II
H
I M .W M W
I
L
NII IM I.il
H
�PREFACE.
---------4,——
STRAUSS, the celebrated author of “ The Life
of Jesusf when elected, in 1839, by the proper
authorities to the then vacant chair of Professor of
Theology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland,
and ready to leave his abode in Germany for his new
place of destination, was prevented from doing so on
account of an insurrection of the people of Zurich
and of the surrounding country. Instigated and
headed by their clergy, they took up arms, and
declared their determination to prevent his coming,
calling him “ a heretic and an unbeliever.”
The
authorities tried all possible means to tranquillize
them, to convince them of their being wrong,
and of the groundlessness of their apprehensions ;
but in vain : the people remained firm in their reso
lution, obeying their spiritual leaders. It was at this
critical time that the following letter of Dr Strauss
was written, in order to reconcile the people to his doc-
�4
Preface.
trines, which, he thought were misunderstood by them,
because misrepresented by their clergy. Nothing,
however, could induce them to retrace their steps ;
and at last they actually succeeded in forcing
the authorities to institute a new election, the result
of which was, that another Professor, whom they did
not object to, was chosen, and thus the peace of the
country restored. The letter of Strauss, though not
of very recent date, conveys the clearest idea of his
views in regard to the Christian religion, and for that
reason it may just now be read by some with no small
degree of interest.
*
�A
PROFESSOR ORELLl’S ADDRESS
TO THE PEOPLE OF ZURICH.
Dear Fellow Citizens!
EAD, I beg and entreat you, read quietly and
dispassionately, this little book, in which the
enlightened Doctor Strauss propounds and explains
the tendency of his theology, and of his Christian
belief, in a manner quite intelligible to every one.
With the same candour and clearness did Zwingli
and Luther, those highly enlightened men of God,
formerly communicate their religious persuasions to
the people, in opposition to popcry, when a new and
more beautiful life began to dawn upon them.
After having read the letter, examine first the doc
trine of Doctor Strauss yourselves with all conscien
tiousness : do so in the retirement of your closets,
when the peace of God reigns over you and in your
hearts. Hold fast what is good, that is to say, what
ever appears to you, as rational Christians, to be true,
and good, and beautiful ; reject the rest, which may
seem to you untrue, un Christian, or at least doubtful.
Ask also your ministers by their synodical vow,
R
�6
Professor Orell?s Address.
and on their conscience, what in the letter accords
with the doctrine of our divine Saviour; what, on
the contrary, is opposed to it, and therefore heretical
and condemnable.
Entreat your ministers to enter quietly, and with
a mild spirit, honestly, and without any disguise, as
becomes ministers of Christ, upon whatever points
you may confidently consult them.
Entreat them not to cast angry imprecations
against Doctor Strauss and this little book: such a
proceeding would only become the Pope of Rome.
Beseech your pastors to refute those parts of the
Letter of Strauss which they think to be false, with
sound reasons, and with valid proofs, taken from the
treasure of their erudition.
Dear fellow-citizens, I say with the holy Apostle
Paul (1 Cor. vii, 23-24) : “ Ye are bought with a price ;
be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every
man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.”
Take to heart, without any passion, what an old
friend of religious liberty, of the constitution and
laws, which all of us have confirmed by oath, and
especially also of the freedom of popular education,
kindly advises you to do.
Your’s,
Johann Kaspar Orelli;
�LETTER
OF
PROFESSOR DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS.
----------- *-----------
HEN I read in the public papers of the disturb
W ance which my election to the University of
Zurich has created in your town and in your canton
—of the meetings held on that account—of the
speeches which are made—of the writings which are
exchanged ; when I consider the attacks made upon
you, most honourable men, and upon all those who
assisted in bringing about my election—the invectives
thrown out against you, the injuries done to you
from so many sides,—a deep and just sorrow comes
over me, that men to whom I feel myself so highly
indebted should have to pay so dear for their kind
interest in my behalf. And I, for whom you expose
yourselves to the boisterous waves of a popular com
motion, am lying quietly all the while in a calm
harbour, scarcely hearing from afar the roaring storm
and the resounding breakers, and only able to send
you a sympathizing word, but not to appease the
wild waters.
�'The Opinions of
When after a Jong and obstinate resistance my
election was at last brought about, I thought your
struggle would now be at an end, and I flattered
myself with the hope of being now soon to be placed
personally in the midst of you, and of being able to
begin gradually paying you the debt of gratitude
which has run up so high, by meeting you in the
kindest manner—by shewing you every respectful
attention, and giving you the most friendly assistance
for the common purpose of diffusing truth and light.
But, behold! it was only the beginning of your
troubles ; and the time when I shall be able to shew
myself personally grateful to you—who knows when
it will come ? for it would be in vain for me to sow
the seed of knowledge on a soil overflown by so
many wild waters. Noah was also obliged to wait
till the flood had subsided before he could cultivate
the field and plant vineyards. But why do I speak
to you of gratitude ? Men of your disposition, if
unfavourable circumstances render active gratitude
impossible, are satisfied with that gratitude which
lives in the heart, and that, you may rest assured,
will only be extinguished with life itself.
But how am I to justify it before the tribunal of
the public weal and of science, that on account of
my election men like you are disturbed in their
activity for both in such a deplorable manner ? How
many a fruit, carefully cultivated for the general good
by your active attention, most honourable Burgo
master, is torn unripe from the tree, or, at least, delayed
in ripening by the present storms ! How many an hour
�Professor David F. Strauss.
9
which you, most honoured Orelli, would have dedi
cated to the ancients, for the benefit of all friends of
classic literature, is embittered to you by these nego
tiations, or by indignation at the circumstances in
question! And you, dear Hitzig, how often may
your faithful acting or feeling for me have hindered
you in those labours through which you diffuse such
a, pleasing light in the hitherto darkest parts of the
Old Testament' But here may my desire for the
promotion of the public weal and the progress of
science hold me excused before their united tribunal,
for you intended to do a service to both by bringing
me to your University ; and though, perhaps, you
may have overrated my powers of execution, in my
good-will you were certainly not mistaken. But at
present I am not even allowed to try how far I might
be able to answer your expectations; and so it seems
that you have in vain withdrawn your time and
labour from your more important occupations.
Do not think so, honoured gentlemen! Your
voices have found an echo far and wide, and, still
more, silent sympathy, though they may have no
resting-place in your own immediate neighbourhood :
like the feathered seed of plants, appearing, indeed,
to be blown away by the wind, but often alighting on
a little piece of earth in a distant country, where it
can take root and spring up- Now, or later, through
me, or through another one, at Zurich, or wherever
else in Germany, or in Switzerland, no matter, but
the day will certainly come, when we shall be able to
think and speak rationally and freely of religion,
�IO
The Opinions of
without being called ungodly; and to be really pious
and godly, without abusing reason and condemning
science.
Of this the present occurrences, the
discussions of the three councils, the speeches and
opinions which were heard there, are forebodings not
to be mistaken. Even without any immediate success,
it is, nevertheless, infinitely much that once, in an
assembled council of the people, thoughts have been
uttered like this,—“ that you may be a Christian
without believing in all the words and relations of
the Bible.” They are now wishing, from certain
quarters, to have the results of those discussions, and
the resolutions of those assemblies, repealed. I hope
they will not succeed; but even suppose they do,
those who brought it about would have little reason
to triumph. If they were more judicious leaders than
they appear to be, they would say, in case of success,
with that ancient general, “ another such victory,
and we are lost.” For a single victory and a single
defeat decides nothing yet; the germ of future
defeats lies often concealed in a victory: on the
contrary, the surety of future victories in a defeat—
all depends on the manner in which the contest was
carried on. On the side of those whom they are now
endeavouring to overpower, it was carried on
in open deliberation, where speech was opposed
to speech, where the defender stood up against
the accuser, and where the assembly, as judge,
after having heard both parties, decided for
him who was accused and defended;—an honest,
open contest, an impartial sentence. But on the side
�Professor David F. Strauss.
11
of those who would fain annul this sentence, the
contest is carried on, as on that side all contests have
been carried on at all times. The council-hall is for
certain people unwelcome ground to fight upon,
because there each thrust has to expect a counter
thrust : a much more convenient scene of action for
them is the church, where the breastwork of the
pulpit forms an invincible barrier, and where the
orator must be in the right, because nobody is
allowed to contradict him. This is a court where
only the accuser is heard, but not the accused and his
defender; where the judging congregation pronounce
their “ guilty ” on the mere statement of the former.
A just judgment, an honourable contest, it cannot be
denied!—if the good congregation, who are here to
decide on the Christianity and admissibility of an
elected Professor at the University had only acquired
from elsewhere a knowledge of their own concerning
his doctrines, that they might be able to compare
what their clergymen accuse him of, with what they
know of him themselves, and judge of it accordingly!
But if you ask these people, What do you think that
Strauss really does, teach ? I cannot help smiling
when I fancy what their -answer may be. The
modest and simple burghers who form the greater
part of those communities, will, I am sure, be ready to
confess that they have not read and scarcely seen
the book in question* ; and also the better educated
amongst them, as far as they are not of a learned
profession, should at least confess that, although they
* The Life of Jesus.
�I2
The Opinions of
may have read it, they have not possessed the means
of thoroughly understanding and justly appreciating
it. There remains, therefore, only the judgment of
the clergyman, who, the judges having no judgment
of their own in this affair, is of course accuser and
judge in one person.
But should not the communities be able to rely
with security on the judgment of their clergy ?-—
Certainly, in all those points which refer to the indi
vidual salvation of the members of the community.
On the question, What shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life ? the clergymen have to give an answer
to those committed to .their care, and, without
particular reasons for the contrary, it is always to be
supposed that they will give the right one. But who
would appoint a clergyman, as such, to judge, for
instance, of the best manner of cultivating the soil,
of establishing manufactures, of governing the State ?
“ Well,” you will say, “ that is not his business ; but
the clergymen must certainly know how to judge of
the orthodoxy of a professor of theology, as they have
studied theology themselves.” That they have ; but
will you permit me to make a comparison, in order
to show that nevertheless the majority of the clergy
are at present the least qualified to be impartial
judges in this cause, in which they are themselves so
much concerned. When Guttenberg invented the
art of printing, who were at the time the bitterest
adversaries of the new art, but those who had till
then been engaged in copying books ? And, to
choose some instances of our own days, who opposed
�Professor David F. Strauss.
13
the spinning-engines with the greatest zeal, but those
who had hitherto also been employed in spinning,
but without engines? Who did most passionately
curse the steam navigation? Was it not those who
were also navigators, but only prepared to go by
means of oars and sails ? Would ever a printingoffice have been established if the copiers of books
had been listened to ; or a steam-carriage constructed,
if it had depended on the decision of the coachmen ?
These instances shew sufficiently that the most
implacable adversaries of every new invention, in any
line of business, are for the first time the very mem
bers of the corporation who have hitherto carried on
the same business without the new contrivance.
This may be fully applied to the behaviour of most
of the clergy with regard to those alterations which,
a,mangst others, I am also endeavouring to introduce
in the science of theology. It was at all times, and
it will also in future continue to be, the duty of the
clergy to excite pious feelings in their auditors, to
strengthen their virtuous resolutions, to implant in
children the fear of God, to guard the same in grown
persons against the impulses of passion and of worldly
occupations, to comfort the sick through the word of
God, and to inspire the dying with blissful hope, as a
companion on their last journey.
The Protestant
clergy were, till now, accustomed to perform this task
in the following manner:—They took the Bible in
hand, and said, Behold ! there is a God who in ancient
times created this world in six days, and rested on
the seventh, in commemoration of which the seventh
�14
The Opinions of
day was sanctified for the believers as a day of rest.
At that time God also made man of the dust of the
ground; but man, first innocent and without fault,
was persuaded by a serpent, behind which, perhaps,
the devil was concealed, to eat of a forbidden fruit;
whereupon he was driven out of the garden of Para
dise, and the earth was cursed for his sake. All men,
descended from him, are born sinners since that time,
on account of which hereditary sin they would have
justly incurred eternal damnation from their very
birth; but God revealed Himself henceforth to several
members of the corrupted race;—He appeared to
Abraham in the form of man, wrestled in person with
Jacob and dislocated his thigh: through Moses He
led His people out of Egypt, and gave them the law
from Mount Sinai with His own audible voice. A
series of miracles runs from thence through the whole
history of this people. Balaam’s ass spoke on their
account; Joshua ordered the sun and the moon to
stand still in their course; Elijah obtained fire from
heaven through his prayers, and went up thither in a
fiery chariot. Then the Prophets rose one after
another, foretelling the coming of Christ; and when the
time was fulfilled, Christ appeared himself. He was
in all things like the rest of mankind, with the ex
ception of sin, and of the circumstance that he had
not, like all of us, with a human mother also a human
father; but, in his case, the Divine Spirit supplied
the place of a father. Angels announced his birth at
Bethlehem to the shepherds, and a star guided the
wise men from the distant east, like a torch carried
�Professor David F. Strauss.
15
before them, to the place and the very house of the
Divine Child. When he had grown a man, and was
being baptized by John the Baptist, the Spirit of God
descended npon him in the visible shape of a dove, and
God the father Himself said, in audible words, that He
was well pleased in him. From that time his life was
a succession not only of beneficent actions, but also
of miracles : he raised the dead, fed thousands of
people with a few loaves, walked upon the sea, and
turned water into wine. But he fell into the hands
of his enemies: he died on the cross; he shed his
blood for the atonement of the world. However,
after three days he rose again from the dead, and after
forty more he visibly, and before the eyes of his dis
ciples, ascended into heaven ; from whence he poured
down upon them the Holy Ghost in a rushing mighty
wind, and in tongues of fire ; and from whence he
will come back one day to resuscitate the dead, and
to judge them, together with those who shall then be
still living.
This is the old Christian belief; and who would
be insensible to the elevating beauty and comfort it
contains ? We, certainly not; but for that reason
they ought to be fair enough on the other side also
to acknowledge its insurmountable difficulties, which
are more clearly developed as time advances. God
is said to have walked with Adam in Paradise, and
appeared to Abraham in a visible form, though St
John says that no man has seen God at any time:
and our reason agrees with the Apostle. God formed
man of the dust of the ground: is He not there
�i6
The Opinions of
represented as a human being with hands ? He took
food with one of the Patriarchs, and wrestled with
the other; does not that suppose Him possessed of
bodily limbs ? In Paradise the serpent spoke, and
afterwards the ass of the heathen seer; but is a
speaking animal anything which we are able to
imagine, far less to have a clear idea of ? The sun
stood still in his course ; or, rather, the earth was
stopped in its daily revolution round its own axis.
We know what happens when a carnage is suddenly
stopped at its full speed through some obstacle ;—a
shock ensues, which throws him who has not a very
firm hold out of the carriage; and when, at that
time, the earth was stopped in its incomparably
quicker movement, would Joshua, with his troops,
have been able to pursue the enemies unshaken ?
Would not Israelites and Amorites, together 'with
the towers and houses, not only of Gibeon, but of
the whole earth, have fallen to the ground, from a
shock stronger than that of the most violent earth
quake ? Then, the ascension of Elias and of Jesus;
is, then, the throne of God really above the clouds ?
Do not stars surround the terrestrial globe above
as well as on all other sides ? And are not the stars
worlds ? and is not God everywhere ? If, according
to the Apostle Paul (Acts xvii, 28), we live and move
and have our being in God, what occasion has He
to remove whomever He wants to call to Him
self from the surface of the earth, be it in a fiery
chariot or on a cloud ?
“ But these,” they reply, “ and all other parts of
�Professor David F. Strauss.
17
sacred history which you are offended at—for
instance, the casting out devils, the healing the sick,
the raising the dead—are the very miracles through
which God has proved that it is He who has made
heaven and earth, and all things therein.” What!
would it be impossible, then, to know, by the existing
regulation and the ordinary course of the world
and of nature, that it is God who has created it ?
Who is ungodly enough to dare such an assertion ?
or, shall I rather say, childish enough ? For, indeed,
such a judgment is exactly like the behaviour of
children, who do not think anything of it, when
they are told that the clock, whose pendulum you see
vibrating with such uniformity, and which you hear
striking so regularly every hour, was made by this
artist here; but as soon as this man condescends to
lift up the hammer of the bell with his hand, and
to let it strike out of the common way, once, twice,
01* as often as the child wishes, then the clockmaker
is with the children the celebrated and favoured
man. It is a pity that mankind should be so slow in
putting away childish things. The miracles in the
sense of the old popular belief cannot be of any
particular value but to him who is unable to discover
the power and wisdom of the Creator in the natural
regulation of the world; and we, who are accused
of not believing those miracles which God performed
in Judea at the time of Moses and the prophets—of
Jesus and the Apostles—we do not think much of
them, only because to us they are lost, like a drop in
the ocean, amongst the innumerable wonders which
B
�18
(The Opinions of
God is daily and hourly performing in all parts of
the world created and supported by Him. “ Behold
the finger of God,” they cry ; “ he has stopped the
sun and the moon at the time of Joshua! ” What!
only his finger ? we reply: we see the whole hand,
the powerful arm of Him, who not only stopped the
sun and the moon once for some few hours, but who,
from the creation of the world until now, has upheld
and supported all suns, and moons, and earths, and the
whole host of stars, moving them in their right orbits.
According to your belief, dumb animals have spoken
like men, and thereby proclaimed the glory of God ;
also, according to ours, do the animals proclaim the
glory of God through the artificial construction of
their limbs, through their wonderful instinct and
their various abilities. Why force us to believe that
an animal has spoken with human language, since the
truly great and glorious thing in the creation of God
is this,—that He is praised by each creature in its
own language, by a chorus of beings of so many
voices? You find it particularly elevating, that
Christ has twice fed thousands of people with a
small provision, through the power of his Father.
What, only twice ! and a long time ago, has your
God been doing what ours is doing every year—yea,
every day ? For it is, indeed, but a small provision
which we intrust every year as seed to the soil of
our fields and gardens ; but the seed brings fruit, as
Christ says, “some an hundred fold, some sixty,
Some thirty,” (Matth. xiii, 23) satisfying every
day far more than only four or five thousand, so that
�Professor David F. Strauss.
19
many fragments are remaining. In short, you cannot
mention any miracle which we have not also, and
even greater and more splendid.
“ But is, then, our Saviour no longer anything
extraordinary ? ” they ask. “ Is the Son of God
nothing but a common man ? ”—A. man, a real man ?
yes ! but a common one ? No! the Son of God
he is also to us, only not in that coarse sense which
must always be an offence to reason. Tell me, is
Christ called only Son of God in the Scripture ?
Is he not quite as often called the son of man ? And
is this not a sufficient proof that it must be possible
for an individual to be the Son of God, and yet at
the same time the son of man ? Therefore, to us
Christ is the son of Joseph and Mary : God sanctified
the fruit of their union; He breathed into it the
beautiful and pure soul, the high and powerful spirit
which the child showed already at an early age; and
for that reason we call the son of man very justly also
the Son of God. And so the other miraculous events
of his life. God himself is said to have pronounced
upon him twice, that he was His beloved Son in
whom He was well pleased, adding that mankind
ought to listen to him. What do we lose by doubting
these relations? Having removed the offence we
took in fancying God speaking with human voice,
we certainly do not feel inclined to call that a loss.
But we do not lose anything else; for, considering
the godliness and purity of the life of Jesus, and
then thinking of God and his holiness on one side,
and of our destination on the other, we know,
�20
The Opinions of
without a positive declaration, that God must have
been pleased with a life like that of Jesus, and that
we cannot do anything better than adhere to him.
We do not, therefore, lose more with those voices
from, heaven than is lost for a beautiful picture from
which a ticket is taken away that was fastened to it,
containing the superfluous assurance of its being a
beautiful picture. Whether Christ has healed sick
persons through a mere word or touch—what is that
to us, who are no longer benefited by it, and who
will never be able to do the same ? God may have
endowed him with particular powers for the purpose of
such performances : that was calculated for those who
were his contemporaries. He does not help us any
longer by means of those powers, like the blind man
at Jericho, or the leper and the lame man at
Capernaum, or the dead at Nain and Bethany ■ but
he opens our eyes through his doctrines, that we may
know the holy will of God; he strengthens our feeble
endeavours to follow his example through exhorta
tions and promises; he purifies our hearts through
his Spirit, and awakens us through the communion
of his life, into which he receives us, to a new life of
holiness and righteousness.
“ But what,” they ask us, “ becomes of the atoning
death of Jesus according to your creed ? Is he to
you as well as to us the Lamb of God, slain for the
sins of the world ? ” Here we must ask you a
question in return : Do you consider the atonement
in this way, that God was during the whole time of
the Old Testament always an angry and jealous God,
�Professor David F. Strauss.
21
seeking vengeance on mankind, and that only the
blood of Christ appeased his wrath and softened his
disposition towards the human race ?
Whoever
considers it thus is, not to speak of the unreasonable
ness and unworthiness of the whole idea, contradicted
by Jesus himself, who declared that the love of God
towards the world was the principal motive why God
gave his only begotten Son (John iii, 16). If,
therefore, God was already beforehand merciful and
inclined to forgive, it is impossible to conceive that,
besides repentance and improvement on the side of
man, the death of an innocent person should have
been required, and that without it God should not
have been able to indulge in his mercy, and really to
pardon the sins of those that are penitent. Never
theless, the death of Jesus is also to us an image
and surety of our forgiveness and salvation. If that
man whose mind was one with God did not desist
from loving sinful mankind even unto death, yea,
prayed to God for his murderers, we are able by the
mildness of this godly man to measure the mercy of
God Himself, and His willingness to pardon even
those who have most grossly offended Him, provided
only they repent. If an Elias, who caused fire to
fall from heaven upon those who were sent out to
apprehend him, seemed to teach an angry God
(though the Lord had revealed himself even to him
in a still small voice, 1 Kings, xix, 12-13) we
see, by the forbearing and placable disposition of the
dying Christ, that God is love.
According to the old Christian belief, Christ rose
�22
The Opinions of
again from the dead, and ascended into heaven. So
he did also according to ours; but not only once,
and at the end of his life; but at all times he arose
from those dead, whom he orders to bury their dead
(Matth. viii, 22), and to such a life he awakens
already at this side of the grave all those who follow
him; for he says himself, “ He that heareth my
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath ever
lasting life, and is passed from death unto life.”
(John v, 24). In like manner there was no occasion
for his being carried up to God into heaven by a
cloud at the end of his career, as he soared thither
already during his lifetime in each prayer which he
said at night on lonely mountains, or in the day,
surrounded by his disciples.
Moreover, what St
Paul demands of the Christians (1 Thess. v, 17)
being fully the case with him, that is to say, his
life being a praying without ceasing, he was
continually with God, which he intimates himself
by saying to Nicodemus, “ The Son of man which is
in heaven ” (John iii, 13), where also the conversation
of the true Christian is already in this life, according
to St Paul (Phil, iii, 20).
“ But do you also believe,” they ask us, “ that
Christ will come back to judge the world ? ” We do
believe it, we reply; only, his coming to judge is to us
not, as it is to you, such a one that is always delayed
from century to century, and never takes place:
but in us the Lord passes judgment every day, for he
has given his spirit into our hearts to judge us,
punishing us when we are doing or coveting’ evil, and
�Professor David F. Strauss.
23
rewarding us with peace and happiness, when we are
guided and governed by it. And since thus our
inward judge, our conscience, purified and sharpened
by the spirit of Christ, is adjudging and preparing to
us already in this life reward or punishment, happi
ness or sorrow, according to what we deserve, does
not this clearly indicate that also in a future fife the
Divine Judge will assign to each of us that mansion
in his Father’s house which he has made himself
worthy of here upon earth ? Is there any occasion
for a particular solemn day of judgment to do this ?
I do not think so: the rich man was at least con
demned, and the poor Lazarus made happy, imme
diately after death, and without any day of judgment.
“ But are also our bodies to be raised again to eternal
happiness or damnation ? ” The apostle Paul speaks
of a trance, in which he was caught up to the third
heaven; adding, whether he was in the body or out
of the body, he could not tell, God knew it; but he
knew that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard
unspeakable words (2 Cor. xii, 2). We do also hope
with the Apostle to enjoy bliss and happiness in a
future life; but whether in the body or out of the
body, we leave to God, who will arrange it so as it is
best for us.
“ All this sounds well enough,'5 perhaps many a
one will say to us, who thinks more clearly and more
quietly about the matter; “ but still you throw away
too much of what is related and taught in the Bible,
and you despise the Divine revelations, the collection
of which you convert into a book of fables.” We do
�24
The Opinions of
not despise the revelations and their records ; we
only try to obtain a more correct idea of them.
We do certainly not believe that God spoke like a
man with Abraham and Moses, nor that he sug
gested to those who composed the writings of the
Old and New Testament, word for word, what they
were to write. But God revealed Himself to mankind
at all times in their own minds, in the works of
the creation (Rom. i, 19), in the history of the
nations, and finally in some particularly gifted men,
whom he raised amongst them as lawgivers and
prophets, as teachers and apostles. Such men rose
amongst all nations, but chiefly amongst the JewSy
who very early entertained the notion that there is
but one God, that He is the Almighty Creator of
heaven and earth, that He is not to be repi’esented
by any image or likeness, that He is the holy Law
giver and the just Ruler of the destinies of mankind.
The religious writings of the ancient Jewish nation
being the only ones in which this foundation of true
religion is to be found so pure and strong (for which
reason even the New Testament relies on and appeals
to the Old in this respect), they are also holy to us ;
and the books of Moses and Samuel, the Psalms and
the Prophets, are indispensable to our edification.
But it is a mistake to think that the holiness of those
books obliges us to consider every idea which they
contain, and every history they relate, as literally
true. Poi* instance, the history of the creation,—a
pious Israelite, lost in contemplation of the wonderful
works of God, and reflecting upon their origin,
�Professor David F. Strauss.
imagined the particulars of this event in his peculiar
way. With simplicity of mind he divided the labours
of God, as we men do ours, into daily portions;
he related the formation of the inorganic and of the
organic worlds in corresponding verses or sentences ;
and, as a Jew, being accustomed to the celebration of
the seventh day, he made also the Creator rest on
this day. Afterwards he, or another one, reflected
on the immorality and misery of mankind : he could
not believe that they had been originally created by
the good God in such corruption and for such misery :
their getting into such a bad state he thought must
have been their own fault, and so he wrote down the
history of the fall of our first parents. Several
remarkable events had happened to the Israelitish
nation, chiefly in the earlier period of their history ;
they had escaped from servitude in Egypt under
strange circumstances, and after a long migration
they had conquered the land of Canaan in bloody
wars. These occurrences, of course, continued to
live in the mouths of the people from generation to
generation. They were right in seeing the finger of
God in these events : but being unable to see that the
very doing of God had been this, that He had let the
people grow strong during their servitude in Egypt,
that hereafter at the right time He caused a man like
Moses to rise, and endowed him with all the gifts
necessary for the deliverance of His people, moreover
thatHeletthe Israelites meet in Canaan with corrupted
tribes, divided amongst themselves—being unable to
understand this invisible influence of God, and yet
�i6
The O'pinions of
being justly convinced of a co-operation of God,
they imagined the Divine activity with regard to
the departure from Egypt in this way, as if God had
ordered Moses in an oral conversation to deliver His
people—as if He had visibly, in the pillar of cloud
and of fire, marched before the army, and so forth.
This was written down in after-times, which is the
real origin of the relations thereof in those writings
that are commonly called the books of Moses. It is
a similar case with the New Testament. Thus, the
first Christians asked themselves, whence in Christ
comes this clearness of mind, this sublimity of spirit,
this purity of heart, which is nowhere else to be
found in any human being ? He was not produced
by sinful seed, was their answer; he immediately
descended from God, the fountain of all light,—which
gave rise to the relations of his supernatural produc
tion, contained in the Gospels of St Matthew and St
Luke. As a higher’ spirit, he appeared to have come
down upon this earth for a short time; but after his
departure from it, to have returned to God, whence
he came; which caused the relations of his resur
rection and ascension, and so forth.
By this view of the matter the Bible is by no
means degraded, nor are Christians dissuaded from
reading it; on the contrary, it is the only point of
view from which the reading of the Bible will be truly
edifying for a thinking Christian. As long as he
fancies himself bound to believe literally in all the
histories of the Bible, he finds with every step a
stumbling-block for his reason, the removal of which
�Professor David F. Strauss.
27
causes him. so much trouble, and puts his mind into
such a state of doubt and disquietude, that the best
profit from reading the Bible is lost to him. How
many a one has never yet attempted to consider the
moral doctrines of Jesus on account of his mind being
constantly occupied with the miracles, either faithfully
admiring or curiously reflecting on them ! How many
a one, on the contrary, has thrown aside the whole
Bible with scorn and indignation, because its miracu
lous stories offended him! The view we take of it
prevents both these results. He who adopts it will no
longer be induced by the splendour of the supernatural
to turn away from the less shining but more important
parts of the contents of the Bible ; nor will he be
deterred from reading it by the incongruities
in its relations. We rejoice in the piety and
simplicity of its authors, and in the deep meaning
of their narratives, though often obliged to con
sider them as mere tradition or poetry.
The
author of the Gospel of St Matthew tells us, and
certainly believed himself, that some heathen wise
men of the east had been guided by a star to the
newly-born babe Jesus : we do not take this literally,
but we explain it as a beautiful symbol of the light
which, in Christ, dawned also upon the heathen. In
like manner, the relation of the fall of man in the Old
Testament, if it does not teach us how the first man
fell, certainly shews us, as it were in a mirror, how
men are led, by consciousness of present misery and
imperfection, to picture to themselves a forfeited
prior state of innocence and happiness ; and also how
�28
"The Opinions of
it is that at this day we bi’ing ourselves to fall, or
suffer ourselves to be led away to siu. Thus the
Bible remains to us a fountain of edification: but
we are also edified through the creation, and through
the way in which mankind is guided in great as well
as in small things ; of which the Bible forms only
one single part, but the most remarkable and the
most instructive one. These three books, that of
Nature, that of History, and the Bible, must supply
each other. We ought not to neglect one on account
of the other, for only together do they constitute the
one entire revelation of God.
But where have I got to ? All this I certainly do
not wish to tell you, most honoured gentlemen, who
know it as well as I do, and who know also very
well that these are my opinions. My words have
insensibly turned to others who cannot know this
as well as you do, and who may, perhaps, still take
your advice about it. I do not, indeed, expect this
of that excited multitude, who, glowing with a hatred
of heresy by no means Christian-like, are now pre
paring, under the cloak of piety, to defend all other
worldly interests whatsoever: to these I have
nothing to say, remembering the words of Christ,
which expressly forbid us to lay the treasure of
religious persuasion before such people. But the
chief thing which I wanted to say to you, and from
which I made this digression, was, that the aversion
of the greater part of the clergy to the new view of
the Christian religion is as little to be wondered at,
as everywhere the irritation of the members of a
�Professor David F. Strauss.
29
corporation against a new invention, by means of
which their business is carried on in a simpler way
than that in which they learned it. Most of the clergy,
I said, are accustomed to excite pious feelings in
their auditors by means of clinging to the letter of
the Bible relations and ideas: our professing to
be edified and to edify others with a more liberal
view of the same narratives, puzzles them and excites
their indignation, because they are not prepared for
such a thing.
Let them be as angry as they like, and let them
abuse and calumniate us as much as they please,
they or their successors will at last as surely be
obliged to accommodate themselves, and to come
round to our new method, just as any new inventions
in the department of mechanical business, such as we
mentioned above for the sake of comparison, must
at last be adopted, even by those who at first most
objected to the inconvenient innovation. Of course ;
for who orders now-a-days a book to be copied by
hand which he may have cheaper and handsomer in
print? In like manner, it must, sooner or later,
come to this, that nobody will condescend to listen to
a clergyman who thinks of edifying his auditors by a
sermon in which the dry passage of the children of
Israel through the Red Sea—the walking of Jesus
upon the water—the finding of the piece of silver in
the fish’s mouth by Peter — are defended and
explained as real miracles. Then they will ask the
clergyman,—Are you not able to tell us something
more important of Jesus and Peter than this ? Can
�30
Opinions of Professor Strauss.
you not prove the divine omnipotence through some
thing greater than what he is said to have done once
at the time of Moses ? When it shall have come to
this—though it may yet require a good while, for
daily experience shows that God has not in mankind
a pupil who makes too rapid steps in learning—
whether they will then still think of us I do not
know, nor is it of any consequence; but we are even
now permitted to give ourselves this testimony, that
we have done what was in our power to bring about
the time promised by Christ, when God shall be
worshipped in spirit and in truth.
May the consciousness of this elevate you, most
honoured gentlemen, above the many adversities
that now surround you, as it has in similar disappoint
ments kept up the spirits of
Your sincerely devoted servant,
and, I may say, colleague,
though at present still in partibus,
David Friedrich Strauss.
Stuttgart, 1st March, 1839.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PDLTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The opinions of Professor David F. Strauss, as embodied in his letter to the Burgomaster Hirzel, Professor Orelli, and Professor Hitzig, at Zurich : with an address to the people of Zurich
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Printed by C.W. Reynell of Little Pulteney Street, Haymarket. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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David Friedrich
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1865
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Thomas Scott
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Theology
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Orelli, Johann Kaspar von and Strauss (ed)
Church Controversies
Conway Tracts
Theology
Zurich
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WH>05
PREFACE.
HILE the proof sheets of “ Our First Century ”
(published in this series in July 1873) were
being corrected, a stranger drew the writer’s attention
to a variety of matters connected with documents
supposed to belong to the first half of our second cen
tury. The stranger in question was William J. Birch,
of Florence, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar, who
carefully examined, and furnished the writer with
notes on the works of the Antenicene Fathers. The
mere reduction of those notes into a readable form ap
peared a Herculean task. For a time despair prevailed.
But in a happy moment the writer recollected the
admirable plan by which Mr F. A. Paley reduced
the Homeric chaos to order, and perceived, that since
the publication, in January 1866, of Mr Paley’s “In
troduction ” to his edition of our Iliad, every philolc gieal treatise should be modeled in accordance with
that “ Principia ” of the philological world. M r
Birch has been the originator of this tract, and the
plan of Mr Paley’s “Introduction” has been the
author’s model. The task has been a difficult one,
but the subject is important. For many thoughtful
readers of Church history have remarked that none of
the ecclesiastical historians have given a verified or
satisfactory account of the Christian Church during
the first two centuries of its supposed existence. In
stead of beginning their histories by explaining who
constituted the members of the primitive Christian
Church,—what they did,—what doctrines they taught,
—what became of the original founders,—when they
died,—where they were buried,—'who were their immediate successors,—and what became of them also,
church historians almost invariably commence by
W
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Preface.
giving an account concerning the systems of Grecian
philosophy and religion prevalent in the Roman
empire about the 202nd Olympiad, or a.d. 1 to 5,—
the ignorance and vice that then prevailed throughout
that empire,—the wretched condition of Rome (re
sembling very much the condition of all large Chris
tian communities in our own day, according to the
police reports),—the corrupt and harassed condition
of the Jews,—and concluding their commencement
with an essay on the assumed urgent necessity for the
promulgation of some new form of witchcraft in
Christian attire. But the ecclesiastical historians du
not give any evidence in support of the romance
which they try to dignify by naming it the “ history”
of the Christian Church during those two centuries.
They content themselves with grounding their state
ments on the first six books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesias
tical History,” and on our “ New Testament,” al
though neither of these works, as we have them, can
be proved to be older than our fourth century ; and
although Eusebius expressly avows that he had scarcely
any trustworthy materials at all for the early part of
his history. In short, those historians treat Eusebius
as if he were an almost infallible guide regarding
matters for which he himself states he had not any
evidence or authority ; while they refuse his own
honest and explicit declarations that he knew virtually
nothing about that part of his history.
In the following pages an attempt has been made
to give to any one who may have a desire to write an
honest and well-grounded history of the Primitive
Christian Church, a suggestion regarding the difficul
ties of the subject, and a key to a rational method of
treating it.
Kilferest,
Feast of Assumption of B. F. Mary, 1874.
�PRIMITIVE CHURCH HISTORY.
EUSEBIUS.
O well as our materials afford scope for using our judg
ment, Eusebius, a.d. 315, appears to be not only
the earliest historian of the Christian Church, but also
almost the only authority we have regarding the per
sons, documents, events, and chronology relating to
that period, from a.d. 1 to a.d. 249, which is commonly
regarded as the subject of Primitive Church History.
Dr James S. Reid in his edition of Mosheim’s “ Insti
tutes,” p. 132, styles Eusebius, “this chief source of
our knowledge of ecclesiastical history.” Believers in
nearly all the great works which at one time or other,
have been considered to be of oracular authority, have
claimed for such works divine authority or inspiration.
Thus, it was said that Apollo dictated our “ Iliad ” to
“ Homer,”—that Jehovah dictated our “ Pentateuch ”
to “ Moses,”—that the “ Septuagint ” version of the
Old Testament was written under the influence of divine
illumination; (“for,” says Clemens Alexandrinus, Stro
mata, i. 22, “it was the counsel of God carried out for
the benefit of Grecian ears,”)—that the Holy Spirit dic
tated to the various writers the various tales and tracts
contained in our, “ New Testament,”—that the Arch
angel. Gabriel assisted Mohammed in the composition
of the “ Koran,”—and last, not least, that Constantine
the Great (“ 0, what a falling off was there ! ”) assisted
Eusebius in the compilation of his “ Ecclesiastical His
tory.” It is stated (Dr William Smith’s “ Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology ”), by
the late Mr George E. L. Cotton, that “ when Con
stantine visited Csesarea, he offered to give Eusebius
S
�6
Primitive Church History.
anything which would be beneficial to the Church there;
Eusebius requested him to order an examination to be
made of all documents connected with the history of
martyrs, so as to get a list of the times, places, manners,
and causes of their deaths from the archives of the pro
vinces. On this the history is founded, and of its
general trustworthiness, with the limitation necessary
from the principle of omission noticed above [referring
to “E. H.” viii. 2, of which more hereafter,] there can
be no doubt whatever! ”
Unfortunately, we do not know how far this story is
to be depended on,—if at all; because Mr Cotton has not
given his authority, and as he is dead we are not likely
to find it. Still less likely are we to find what was Mr
Cotton’s reason for believing that regarding the general
trustworthiness of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesiastical History,” at
least as we have it, 11 there can be no doubt whatever.”
We do not know even what means Constantine had at
his disposal for assisting Eusebius. We do not possess
any proof whatever that there were documents con
nected with the history of martyrs stored in the archives
of the provinces within the Roman Empire. It is also
entirely an assumption to say that Christianity as we
have it, possesses a historical existence as old as is
commonly supposed; for we know (‘ Our First Century/
p. 12), that “ All Jewish and heathen writers who
flourished during the first seventy years of our first
century are completely silent on the existence of the
Christian Church, and they appear utterly ignorant of
the miracles, doctrines, persons, and events related in
the narratives both of the now rejected and the received
gospels.” Moreover, to assume that the narratives con
tained in the first six books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesiastical
History,” are substantially authentic and historical
would be an equally arbitrary assumption; for, in fact,
we know that the very reverse is the case. For those
narratives are stuffed with references to spurious docu
ments, to names of unknown men, with improbable and
�Eusebius.
7
ungrounded statements, and stories about miracles.
Eusebius’ want of sound critical judgment is so pain
fully manifest throughout his “Ecclesiastical History,”
that even his good faith has been called in question. His
accuser, Gibbon, (“Decline and Fall,” ch. xvi.,)says, “The
gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself,
indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might
redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all
that could tend to the disgrace of religion.” But this
accusation is scarcely honest. The “confession” re
ferred to occurs in “Ecclesiastical History,” bk. viii.,
ch. ii., and is avowedly applicable only to the last three
books of Eusebius’ “ Ecclesiastical History.” Just be
fore relating the persecution that commenced under
Diocletian, Eusebius says, “But it is not our part to
describe the unsatisfactory results of the inquiry into
these matters which meet us at the end, in addition
to those which occurred at the outset; nor is it our
part to hand down to memory their differences from
each other, or their inconsistencies. Therefore, we have
resolved not to make any further inquiry about them,
than in so far as we are likely to prove the divine
judgment to be true. Therefore, we have resolved not
to mention even those who have been sorely tried by
the inquiry [or persecution], or those who have made a
complete shipwreck of their salvation, and have been
cast away in the depths of the billows ;. but we will
add to the general inquiry only those points which are
likely to prove of use, in the first instance, to ourselves,
and in the second, to those who will succeed us.”
Having regard to the very imperfect literary morality
which prevailed among ancient writers, (sec “The
Iliad of Homer, with English notes,” by F. A. Paley,
M.A., vol. ii., Preface, p. xxxvi.,) this “confession”
of Eusebius is entitled to be regarded as a piece of
eximious literary honesty. For, having put his readers
on their guard, he had a perfect right to shape his
history with a view to any object he pleased.
�8
Primitive Church History.
So far as we are concerned, however, a much more
important subject is here involved—namely, what mate
rials Eusebius had for compiling his history. As he
nourished about a.d. 315, he, by himself, could not be
an authority of any value for events supposed to have
taken place about a.d. 100, still less could he be an
authority for events supposed to have taken place
about a.d. 60, or a.d. 30, or a.d. 1. Therefore with
out the external aid of genuine and authentic docu
ments, Eusebius could not have any better means
than we have for writing the primitive history of the
Christian Church. On this subject, a rational man
might think that Eusebius’ own declarations should be
sufficient. Yet, strange to say, those declarations have
been utterly ignored by writers on Eusebius, and on
ecclesiastical history. Nevertheless, they hold a con
spicuous place in Eusebius’ history; for, in the very
first chapter of the first book, he declares that he was
the first historian ■who had undertaken to write a his
tory of the Christian Church,—that it was beyond his
power to present that history in a full and continuous
state (svrsXT) %ai avapaXsivrov^—that in attempting the
subject, he was entering on a trackless and unbeaten
path,—that he was utterly unable to find even the bare
vestiges
yv^va) of those who may have toiled
through the way before him,—and that he had not
been able to find that any of the Christian Ecclesiasti
cal writers had directed their efforts to present any
thing carefully in this department of writing.
Now, with this candid and explicit declaration before
us, let us ask ourselves honestly, Why are we to suppose
that Eusebius had better materials for the compilation
of his history than those which he says he had ? The
answer is not by any means a difficult one. If the
trustworthiness of Eusebius be disproved, the history
of the Christian Church during our first two centuries,
as it is popularly believed, would be at an end. Euse
bius is our only authority for that period of Church
�Eusebius.
9
history, properly so called. Consequently the genuine
ness and the accuracy of his history have been regarded
as written under the influence of all but verbal inspira
tion. Moreover, Eusebius wrote his history in the very
manner calculated to make a history popular among
those who take an interest in it. A wrriter who wishes
to flatter the vanities and prejudices of nations, sects,
corporations, or families—if he have skill and fluency
—can easily attain his object by assigning dates, ex
ploits, and localities to certain names supposed to repre
sent real or imaginary heroes, martyrs, predecessors or
ancestors who figure in old legends. Speaking of the
legend regarding the settlement of Aeneas and his
Trojans in Latium, Niebuhr (“History of Rome,”
Vol. I., p. 188) says: “A belief of this sort does not
require a long time to become a national one, in spite
of the most obvious facts and the clearest historical
proofs; and then thousands would be ready to shed
blood for it. They that would introduce it need but
tell people roundly that it is what their forefathers
knew and believed, only the belief was neglected and
sank into oblivion.” In like manner, Eusebius has
not only assigned dates, exploits, martyrdoms, and
localities to various and illustrious names supposed to
represent the eponymous founders of Christianity during
our supposed first and second centuries ; but he has
also framed a history of those names which presents to
us a perspicuous and harmonious narrative so long as
we do not examine the doctrinal development and the
philological contradictions and inconsistencies contained
in the writings attributed to some of these names.
Bacon (Novum Organum, I. 88) says: “ It is the
greatest proof of want of skill to investigate the nature
of any object in itself alone; for that same nature,
which seems concealed and hidden in some instances,
is manifest and almost palpable in others, and excites
wonder in the former, whilst it hardly attracts attention
in the latter.” In like manner, Eusebius’ assignment
�io
Primitive Church History.
of dates in ecclesiastical history cannot be relied on as
being truly historical any more, for instance, than a
similar assignment of dates made by the compilers of
classical dictionaries to the Cyclic Poets.
Of course it was easy for Dr John Lempriere to state
that Stasinus wrote the “Cypria,” b.o. 900 ; that
Arctinus wrote the “ JEthiopis” and “Ilioupersis,” B.c.
776; that Agias wrote the “Nostoi,” b.c. 740; that
Lesches wrote the “Little Iliad,” b.c. 708; and that
Eugammon wrote the “Telegonia,” b.c. 566. But there
is not any contemporary evidence for these dates. The
state of penmanship in Greece prior to the time of
Herodotus, b.c. 443, and in the Christian Church prior
to the time of Origen, a.d. 220, are matters regarding
which we have not any direct evidence. Moreover,
what could Lempriere, or Aristotle, or even Herodotus,
know or prove regarding the occurrence of events sup
posed to have taken place in Greece at such remote
periods as those assigned to Arcturus and Stasinus ?
And, in like manner, what could Eusebius or even
Origen know regarding the occurrence of events sup
posed to have taken place among an obscure and insig
nificant sect, calling themselves “ Christians,” more
than two centuries before their time 1 At all events,
the sort of knowledge Eusebius had on the subject is
proved by his utterly uncritical perusal of the writings
attributed to names stated to have been contemporary
with each other, but which writings must have been
written at periods widely distant in time from each
other. As the Jews of Eusebius’ time regarded our
“Pentateuch,” finally revised about B.c. 400 (see Kalisch
on Leviticus, II. 639) as the identical words of Moses,
B.c. 1500, and the fountain-source of all Jewish litera
ture ; as the Greeks of Eusebius’ time regarded our
“Iliad” and “Odyssey,” really “epitomized and selected
from the general mass of ‘Homeric’ or ‘Cyclic’ ballad
poetry, not very long before Plato’s time,” or, say, B.c.
420 (see Paley’s “Iliad,” Introduction, Vol. I., p. xxvi.),
�Lemma.
11
as the work of Homer, b.c. 950, and the fountain-source
of all Greek literature; so, in like manner, Eusebius
took our “New Testament,” compiled probably as late as
a.d. 200, as the work of men supposed to have flourished
about a.d. 40, and the fountain-source of all Christian
literature !
To arrive at any clear approximation to the true state
of Primitive Church History, we must disregard all
mere text-books, since the oldest authority is too modern
and too erroneous to be depended on; and we must ex
amine the earliest extant and authentic works of the
Christian Fathers, and from the contents of these works
we must draw inferences and arrive at conclusions
grounded on sound philological principles.
LEMMA.
When we find a Christian ecclesiastical writer, of our
*
supposed second century, the author of a systematic
treatise of admitted genuineness, and which we have
ground for believing has been handed down to us with
out any serious corruption—(1) calling himself a Chris
tian; (2) explaining that he does so because he had
been “anointed”
but without mentioning or
giving any other indication that he had ever heard of
a person called Christ, or Jesus Christ; and, at the same
time, (3) attributing sayings (sometimes resembling,
but for the principal part differing from sayings put by
the writers of our New Testament into the mouth of
Jesus Christ) to the “Logos,” as an entirely spiritual
being or influence,—we are forced to the conclusion
that the writer in question must have been a Christian,
without any knowledge regarding the existence of the
.Jesus Christ mentioned in our ecclesiastical history;
and the fact of such an omission by such a writer sug
gests forcibly the probability (a) that there was not any
such person as Jesus Christ in existence before that
* For instance, Tatian.
�Primitive Church History.
writer’s time; (Z>) that the existence of such a person,
and all minute records of his life and career, were the
inventions of a later age; because such a writer must
have been aware of the existence of Jesus Christ and
of our “New Testament,” if such a person and such a
compilation had been in existence at or before the
writer’s time; and if the writer had been aware of their
existence, and had admitted their authority, he would
have referred to them specifically, and not to the vague
impersonalities termed “He,” “the Son,” “the Gospel,”
and “the Logos.” Also (c) we should be led to the
conclusion that such a writer must likewise be more
ancient than the writers of our “New Testament;” be
cause, when examining ancient literary works, we find
invariably that a written composition which is vague
in expression and scanty in details is older than another
written composition, on the same subject, which is
definite in expressions and copious in details.
Let us begin by applying these principles to the ex
tant apologies for the Christians by Tatian, Athenagoras,
and Theophilus. These writers are generally considered
to have flourished during our second century. Their
apologies are ominously silent on certain most important
matters. And if our philological principles be correct,
those apologies are most probably the oldest extant
writings produced by the Christian Church.
TATIAN.
Eusebius (“Ecclesiastical History,” IV. 29) tells us
that “Tatian having formed a certain collection of
gospels, I know not how, has given it the title diate-ssaron (“ by four ”), which is in the possession of
some even now.” Of these four gospels we do not
know anything. The only work of Tatian which has
come down to us is his “Address to the Greeks.” In
it he frequently mentions the Logos of Philo and
“Wisdom.” He says (5)—“The Logos, begotten in
�Athenagoras.
13
the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first
created for himself the necessary matter.” But Tatian
never mentions Jesus or the Christ, or Jesus Christ,
or miracles; nor is there anything in his “Address”
that shows he knew anything of our New Testament,
or of the narratives contained in it.
It is impossible to fix a date for Tatian; but as he
does not mention the Christians by name, nor attack
the Jews, it is probable that he may have flourished
before the destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian, a.d.
135, prior to which time there does not appear to have
been any hostility between the Jews and the Christians.
ATHENAGORAS.
Athenagoras calls himself a Christian in his “Plea
for the Christians.” Yet he never mentions Jesus or
the Christ, or miracles. The authorities he quotes are
remarkable, namely, Homer, Hesiod, the Greek Tragics,
the Septuagint, and the sayings of the Logos.
In his “Plea,” § 32, he quotes, as a precept of the
Logos, “He that looketh on a woman to lust after her,
hath committed adultery already in his heart.” And
“ the Logos again says to us, ‘ If any one kiss a second
time, because it has given him pleasure, he sins,’.adding,
‘ Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation, should be
given with the greatest care, since if there be mixed
with it the least defilement of thought, it excludes us
from eternal life.’”
Athenagoras does not attack the Jews. Eusebius
does not even mention him. His “Plea” is addressed
to Aurelius and Commodus. This, however, is a matter
of very little weight. What is of much more conse
quence is the fact that while Tatian does not mention
any persecution of the Christians, Athenagoras alludes
to persecution, but only in one passage, namely, § 1,
and even there he does not speak of persecution unto
death; and the style of the passage is different from
�14
t Primitive Church History.
that of the rest of the work.
have been contemporaries.
He and Tatian seem to
THEOPHILUS.
Theophilus, of Antioch, has left us a defence of Chris
tianity in three books, addressed to his friend Autolycus.
Although he calls himself a Christian, he never men
tions Jesus or the Christ. Like Athenagoras, his
authorities are Homer, Hesiod, the Greek Tragics, and
the Septuagint, to which he adds prophecies of the
Sibyl; but he does not appear to have been acquainted
with our New Testament.
His definition of Christianity (I. 12) is remarkable.
He says to Autolycus—“About your laughing at me,
and calling me ‘Christian/ you know not what you are
saying. First, because that which is anointed is sweet
and serviceable, and far from contemptible. For what
ship can be serviceable and seaworthy, unless it be first
anointed with oil ? Or what castle or house is beauti
ful or serviceable when it has not been anointed ? And
what man, when he enters into this fife or into the
gymnasium, is not anointed with oil ? And what work
has either ornament or beauty, unless it be anointed
and burnished? Then the air and all that is under
heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit;
and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of
God? Wherefore we are called Christians on this
account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.”
Theophilus treats the subject of miracles with con
tempt. Speaking (§ 13) concerning the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body, he says—“Then, as to your
denying that the dead are raised—for you say, ‘ Show
me even one who has been raised from the dead, that
seeing I may believe’—what great thing is it if you be
lieve when you have seen the thing done ?”
Eusebius makes Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus
of Lyons contemporaries. But this is most improbable;
�Silence of Our Second Century.
!5
because, while Theophilus apparently does not know
anything of Jesus, or the Christ, or our New Testament,
all these matters are perfectly well known by Irenseus,
who, therefore, we may reasonably infer to have been
a much later writer than Theophilus. For Christian
apologists could not have been ignorant of and silent
concerning Jesus Christ, if our New Testament had
been in existence and received in the Church when
they wrote.
SILENCE OF OUR SECOND CENTURY.
But not only are Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theo
philus silent regarding Jesus Christ, but all the Pagan
writers who flourished during our second century are
silent, not only regarding him, but regarding the Chris
tians. Now, is it probable that Josephus, Suetonius,
Pliny (junior), and Tacitus really knew more about
Jesus Christ than those early apologists for the Chris
tians who never name him ? Or is it probable that if
“great multitudes of Christians” during our first century
attracted the attention of one Jewish and three Pagan
writers, who flourished towards the end of that period,
that not even one Pagan writer would have taken
notice of so remarkable a sect during the whole of our
second century? These improbabilities amount to
almost an impossibility. And the fact (1) that there
is not any Pagan writer of our second century who
mentions the Christians, and (2) that those early apolo
gists never mention Jesus or Christ, amount almost
to positive proof that the passages regarding the Chris
tians now found in Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny (junior),
and Tacitus, are forgeries.
To this may be added the consideration that although
an uncritical antiquity might not instinctively anticipate
the doubts of modern criticism regarding the personality
of Jesus Christ, yet it should be borne in mind—(1)
That the historical reality of the gospel stories was
�16
Primitive Church History.
assailed at an early period, even before the time of
Tertullian; (2) That the early Christians were con
stantly altering, and frequently adding to, the narratives
and doctrines contained in their various and very different gospels ; and (3) That during several centuries the
Church had uncontrolled possession of all the remains
of Pagan literature now extant, and frequently corrupted
it for apologetic purposes.
Scarcely less remarkable is the fact that while Tatian,.
Athenagoras, and Theophilus scarcely ever mention the
Jews, and never with any expressions of hostility,
and while they are wholly silent regarding the destruc
tion of Jerusalem, the hostility between the Jews and
Christians and the destruction of Jerusalem are matters
which are perfectly familiar to our Matthew (xxiv. 1,2),
Mark (xiii. 1, 2), and Luke (xix. 44, xxi. 5, 6); while
the writer of our first epistle to the Thessalonians (ii.
16), speaking of the Jews, says—“The wrath is come
upon them to the uttermost,” and thereby shows plainly
that he was acquainted with the fact that Jerusalem
had been destroyed utterly, a.d. 135, by Hadrian. If
these latter writers flourished before the former, then
these latter writers could have acquired their knowledge
only by means of a miracle, which is a thing that has
never yet been proved to have occurred.
These facts (pointed out above) are very important,
and yet they do not appear to have attracted the serious
attention of the numerous and learned scholars who
have written against the supposed truth of Christianity.
Can it be that Primitive Christianity was a shadowy
system of mere asceticism and monotheism embodied
in the collections of sayings attributed to the Logos
who is mentioned by Philo and the writer of “The
Wisdom of Solomon,” xviii. 14-16 ; that those
“sayings” were expanded into the recondite doctrines
of baptismal regeneration, justification by faith, the
efficacy of the sacraments, electing grace, the final
perseverance of the saints, the verbal inspiration of
�Silence of our Second Century.
*7
holy scripture, salvation by means of a human sacrifice,
overlasting torments, inherited guilt, priestly remission
■of sin, and the like ; that, in course of time, this Logos
was, by some writers, identified with the Jewish
Christ; that these two ethereal beings were identified
with a mythical Jewish carpenter, who, it was pre
tended, bore the name of Jesus ; that this Jesus, for
the purposes of the mythology, was pretended to have
flourished at least seventy years before any person
heard of him; that the fabulous and rude exploits
attributed to this Jewish carpenter were invented by
the writers of the so-called Apocryphal Gospels; that,
*
in course of time, to those rude exploits more benevo
lent exploits were added ; that to identify the Jesus of
the Apocryphal Gospels with the Christ of the
Septuagint all the exploits of Jesus were referred sub
sequently to events, supposed prophecies, laws and
imagined allegories contained in the Septuagint; and
that from those expanded doctrines and a selection
from those exploits our New Testament has been
manufactured—in short, that our New Testament is a
growth from the Apocryphal Gospels and the Septua
gint 1 Startling as this hypothesis may appear to those
who see it here for the first time, it is strongly sup
ported by the remains we possess of the writings
attributed to those Fathers of the Christian Church,
who are supposed to have flourished during the first
two centuries of our era.
Among these remains are the writings known as the
Clementine “ Homilies ” and the Clementine “ Recog
nitions,” supposed originally to have been written by
the Clement mentioned in Philippians iv. 3. They
certainly represent the strong antagonistic views held
by the Petrine and Pauline parties in the early Chris
* Throughout tliis tract the word “ apocryphal” is used in the
conventional sense of ecclesiastical usage. If everything in this
world received its strictly just rights, it is wr four gospels that
are entitled to that epithet.
B
�18
Primitive Church History.
tian Church, and they must be very old productions.
By the best authorities they are considered to have
been written at a late part of our second century.
Others think that they belong to a still later date. Be
that as it may, they are very remarkable. The writer
quotes freely from Apocryphal Gospels and other
sources which have been long extinct, and he never
quotes from our New Testament. So, the later the
date of these “Homilies” and “Recognitions,” the
stronger is their evidence of the fact that our New
Testament is a collection of writings of much later date
than is usually supposed. As the Homilies contain the
more remarkable passages, only they shall be examined
here.
CLEMENTINE HOMILIES.
It is remarkable that in the second apology attributed
to Justin there are not any quotations from the sayings
of the Logos or from our New Testament. But in the
last section it aims a blow at Simon Magus who in the
Clementine Homilies xvii. 19, is generally admitted to
be identical with Paul. Referring to the opinion in
the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, bk. 1, “It was
necessary that Jesus should preach only a year; this
also is written (Isaiah Ixi. 2; Luke iv. 18, 19), ‘ He
hath sent me to proclaim the acceptable year of the
Lord.’ This both the prophet spake and the gospel.”
Peter says to Simon, “ If our Jesus appeared to you in
a vision, made himself known to you, and spoke to you,
it was as one who is enraged with an adversary; and this
is the reason why it was through visions and dreams, or
through revelations that were from without, that he
spoke to you. But can any one be rendered fit for
instruction through apparitions ? And if you will say
1 it is possible,’ then I ask, ‘Why did our teacher abide
and discourse a whole year to those who were awake? ’
*
* If the writer knew of our fourth gospel, why did he not say
three years ?
�Clementine Homilies.
And how are we to believe your word, when you tell
us that he appeared to you 1 And how did he appear
to you, when you entertain opinions contrary to his
teaching ? But if you were seen and taught by him,
and became his apostle for a single, hour, proclaim his
utterances, interpret his sayings, love his apostles, con
tend not with me who companied with him.”
There is here evidently an allusion to some version
of the legend known as “ The Conversion of St Paul,”
which is related in our book called “ The Acts of the
Apostles,” ix. 1-19, in an improbable manner:—Paul
was leading an armed band to Damascus to make havoc
of the Christians there. Suddenly there shone about
him a light from heaven. He fell to the earth blinded,
and heard a voice saying to him, “ Saul! Saul! why
persecutest thou me?” Paul said, “Who art' thou,
Lord ?” And the Lord said, “lam Jesus whom thou
persecutest. ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the
goad.'’” Paul, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do ? ” And the Lord said
unto him, “ Arise, and go. into the city, and it shall be
told thee what thou must do.” His companions
stood by speechless, hearing a voice, but not seeing any
man. Paul arose blinded, and was led by his com
panions into Damascus. After three days the Lord
appeared in a vision to a disciple at Damascus, named
Ananias, whom he informed that he intended to send
Paul as an apostle, to the Gentiles, and he directed
Ananias to restore eyesight to Paul, who had already
seen Ananias in a vision. Ananias, after seeing hisvision, went his way, and, putting his hands on Paul,
said, “ Brother Saul I the Lord hath sent me that thou
mightest receive thy sight.” Immediately there fell
from Paul’s eyes a substance like scales, and lie received
sight, and was baptized. Then Paul remained some
days with the disciples who were at Damascus, and in
the synagogues he preached that Jesus is the son of
the Deity. The whole of this last clause is at variance
�20
Primitive Church History.
with the story in Galatians i. and ii., especially that
part i. 16, where Paul says that when he was converted
■“immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood,”
but, 17, “I went into Arabia!”
Taking the foregoing incidents in the order in which
they are related in the “Acts,” we have (1), a super
natural light from heaven,—(2), among the number
who saw it, only one man was blinded by it,—(3), a
voice whose words were heard by only that one man,—
(4), quoting from JEschylus’ Agamemnon, 1624, Dindorf, a precept exhorting Paul “not to kick against the
goad,”—(5), the immediate recognition of Jesus by
Paul, who had never seen or heard Jesus previously,—
<(6), the immediate conversion of Paul without any
reasons or arguments,—(7), the creation of Ananias,—
(8), a supernatural vision to Paul introducing him to a
knowledge of the yet unseen Ananias,—(9), a vision to
Ananias, introducing him to the as yet unseen Paul,—
■(10), and the restoration of Paul’s eyesight by the
mere touch of Ananias’ hand.
Here we have, firstly, a miracle overdoing its object;
because, by blinding Paul, his conversion was of but
little use to any one except himself, and as it was in
tended that he should become an apostle of Christianity,
more than half his worth would have been lost if his
■eyesight had not been restored.
Then, secondly, we have five miracles converting
Paul, but malignantly excluding his companions from
a, knowledge of the saving truth.
Thirdly, as it seems to be implied, Galatians ii. 18,
that the Lord could not undo his own work whether it
were bad or good, it became necessary to create Ananias
(verse 10), a man never heard of before or afterwards !
“ Oh ! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive.”
Fourthly, we have two visions preparing Ananias
and Paul for each other. And the whole is wound up
�Clementine Homilies.
2I
with the tenth miracle by which Ananias restores sight
to Paul! Five miracles to convert Paul, and five to
restore his eyesight.
Not to dwell on the idea that, in order to give force
to his own language, Divine Providence required to
quote from 2Eschylus, just as if an Englishman were to
say he heard him quoting from Shakspere—-can any
one for a moment doubt that such a complication of
miracles, involving the commission and correction of a
blunder, is a positive proof that they did not emanate
from Omniscience?
Regarding the age of these “ Homilies,” there is a
remarkable passage, Homily iii. 50, which throws some
light on the subject:—“Then Peter said: That the
true is mixed with the false. I remember on one occa
sion, that he said, in finding fault with the Sadducees,
‘ On this account you are in error, because you do not
know the true sayings of the Scriptures; for which
reason you are ignorant of the power of God.’ Now,
if he thought they ‘ did not know the truths of Scrip
ture,’ it is clear that he said this on the assumption that
there were falsehoods. Indeed, this appears in his
saying, ‘ Be ye well-approved money-changers,’—on the
view that there were both genuine and spurious sayings.
And by saying, ‘ Why do ye not perceive the reason
ableness of the Scriptures ? ’ he makes the intellect of
him who voluntarily exercises sound judgment a surer
guide [than that of him who does not.] ”
Some writers try to identify the first of the above
quotations with our Matthew xxii. 29, and with our
Mark xii. 24. But the expression, “ the true sayings
of the Scriptures,” is not to be found in our Matthew
or Mark. The writer of the passage above quoted
must have had a well known edition of that speech by
Jesus containing these words ; because otherwise the
whole argument which the writer puts into Peter’s
mouth would not have possessed any weight whatever.
From this circumstance, it may be inferred safely, that
�22
Primitive Church History.
■when the author of the Clementine Homilies was writ
ing, there was not attributed to our New Testament
that exclusive authority which it acquired subsequently :
if, in fact, at that time our New Testament, in its pre
sent shape, had any existence whatever. The hypo
thesis that it had not any existence is corroborated by
an examination of the references to the precepts of
Jesus, and to the incidents in his history contained in
the extant remains of the Fathers who are supposed to
have flourished during our first and second centuries.
If those Fathers were acquainted with our New Testa
ment, why do they systematically ignore it? Nay, why
do they use invariably the Apocryphal Gospels and
other lost sources of Gospel doctrine and history ?
REFERENCES.
Whatever may be thought concerning the silence of
the Pagan world regarding Christianity during our
second century, the silence of the earliest Christian
Fathers regarding our New Testament, is a matter of
undeniable importance. There are extant remains of
Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Hernias, Clement the
Homan, Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Hegisippus, Justin Martyr, The Clementine Homilies and
Recognitions, the Epistle to Diognetus, Basilides,
Valentinus, Marcion, Dionysius, Melito, Claudius, the
Epistle of Vienne and Lyons, the Canon of Muratori,
Ptolemseus, and Heraclion. These are virtually all the
remains we have of Christian literature during our
second century, except, perhaps, some quotations from
the attack made on Christianity by Celsus, who
flourished towards the end of that century. Whether
any of these remains contains a reference to our New
Testament is a question which has been much disputed.
But, it is generally admitted, that if they do, then, such
references are very few when compared with the vast
number of references contained in those remains to other
�References.
23
Gospels, and other now lost and unknown sources re
garding the sayings and history of Jesus.
That there were a great number of other Gospels and
other now unknown sources in existence during our
second century is proved by the direct reference to
“many” who had taken in hand the history of Jesus
and Christianity prior to the compilation of our third
Gospel. See Luke i. 1. The author of “ Supernatural
Religion,”!. 218-9 says, “Looking at the close simi
larity of large portions of three synoptics, it is almost
certain that many of the croXXo/ here mentioned bore a
close analogy to each other, and to our Gospels; and
this is known to have been the case, for instance,
amongst the various forms of the 1 Gospel according to
the Hebrews,’ distinct mention of which we meet with
long before we hear anything of our Gospels. When
therefore, in early writings, we meet with quotations
closely resembling, or, we may add, even identical with
passages which are found in our Gospels, the source of
which, however, is not mentioned, nor is any author’s
name indicated, the similarity or even identity cannot
by any means be admitted as evidence that the quota
tion is necessarily from our Gospels, and not from some
other similar work now no longer extant, and more
especially not when in the same writings there are other
quotations from apocryphal sources different from our
Gospels. Whether regarded as historical records, or as
writings embodying the mere tradition of the early
Christians, our Gospels cannot for a moment be recog
nised as the exclusive depositories of the genuine say
ings and doings of Jesus; and, so far from the com
mon possession by many works in early times of such'
words of Jesus in closely similar form being either
strange or improbable, the really remarkable phenome
non is, that such material variation in the report of the
more important historical teaching should exist amongst
them. But while similarity to our Gospels in passages
quoted by early writers from unnamed sources cannot
�24
Primitive Church History.
prove the use of our Gospels, variation from them
would suggest or prove a different origin, and at least
it is obvious that quotations which do not agree with
our Gospels, cannot, in any case, indicate their exist
ence. ... In proportion as we remove from apostolic
times without positive evidence of the existence and
authenticity of our Gospels, so does the value of their
testimony dwindle away.” Further on (ii. 248-50),
the writer says, “ After having exhausted the literature
and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not
found a single distinct trace of any one of those [synop
tic] Gospels during the first century and a-half after
the death of Jesus. Only once during the whole of
that period do we find any tradition even, that anyone
of our evangelists composed a Gospel at all, and that
tradition, so far from favouring our synoptics, is fatal
to the claims of the first and second. About the middle
of the second century, Papias, on the occasion to which
we refer, records that Matthew composed the Discourses
of the Lord in the Hebrew tongue : a statement which
totally excludes the claim of our Greek Gospel to
apostolic origin. Mark, he said, wrote down from the
casual preaching of Peter the sayings and doings of
Jesus, but without orderly arrangement, as he was not
himself a follower of the Master, and merely recorded
what fell from the apostle. This description, likewise^
shows that our actual second Gospel could not, in its
present form, have been the work of Mark. There is
no other reference during the period to any writing of
Matthew or Mark, and no mention at all of any work
ascribed to Luke. If it be considered that there is any
connection between Marcion’s Gospel and our third
synoptic, any evidence so derived is of an unfavourable
character for that Gospel, as it involves a charge against
it, of being interpolated and debased by Jewish ele
ments. Any argument for the mere existence of our
synoptics based upon their supposed rejection by her
etical leaders and sects has the inevitable disadvantage
�References.
0.5
that the very testimony which would shew their exist
ence would oppose their authenticity. There is no
evidence of their use by heretical leaders, however, and
no direct reference to them by any writer, heretical or
orthodox, whom we have examined. We need scarcely
add that no reason whatever has been shown for ac
cepting the testimony of these Gospels as sufficient to
establish the reality of miracles and of a direct Divine
revelation. It is not pretended that more than one of
the synoptic Gospels was written by an eye-witness of
the miraculous occurrences reported, and whilst no evi
dence has been, or can be, produced even of the histo
rical accuracy of the narratives, no testimony as to the
correctness of the inferences from the external pheno
mena exists, or is now even conceivable. The discre
pancy between the amount of evidence required, and
that which is forthcoming, however, is greater than,
under the circumstances, could have been thought pos
sible.” And (ii. 387), regarding our fourth Gospel he
says, “ For some century and a half, after the events
recorded in the work, there is not only no testimony
whatever connecting the fourth Gospel with the apostle
John, but no certain trace even of the existence of the
Gospel. There has not been the slightest evidence in
any of the writings of the Fathers which we have ex
amined, even of a tradition, that the apostle John had
composed any evangelical work at all; and the claim
advanced in favour of the Christian miracles of con
temporaneous evidence, of extraordinary force and
veracity, by undoubted eye-vritnesses completely falls
to the ground.”
Justin Martyr, in his “ First Apology,” sect, xv.,
enumerates several doctrines which Jesus Christ taught.
Amongst others, Justin says, “And of our love to all,.
He taught thus : £ If ye love them that love you, what
new thing do ye ? for even fornicators do this. But I
say unto you, pray for your enemies, and love them
that hate you, and bless them that curse you, and pray
�16
Primitive Church History.
for them that despitefully use you.’ ” The apologists
for Christianity refer this passage to our Matthew,
v. 46, 44 ; Luke vi. 28. These are fair specimens of
patristic quotation and apologetic reference. The re
semblances and the variations are patent to any one
who is able to read. Some readers will think the
differences so slight as to suggest that the passage was
a quotation from memory, while other readers will per
ceive that since the precept “ Pray for your enemies”
is not to be found in our New Testament, the passage
must have been taken from some other source.
In one of the very few fragments which we possess
from the Cyclic Poems, and also in our “ Iliad,” v. 83,
xvi. 334, xx. 477, the following line occurs,—
“Him dark death seized and the strong grasp of fate.”
To assume that the writer of the lost Cyclic borrowed
this line from our “ Iliad,” or vice versa, is to beg the
point in dispute. Under existing circumstances, it is
impossible to give a decided answer. It may be that
the line in question was a well-known formula taken by
both writers from some third source.
*
In our New Testament we have distinct references
-to apocryphal writings, Matthew xxiii. 35, Romans xv.
19, 24, 1 Corinthians xv. 6, Jude 14, 1 Peter iii. 19,
Ephesians iv. 9, &c., &c. While the writer of our
canonical book of “ Acts,” xx. 35, actually quotes from
an apocryphal writing when he gives us, as the words
of the Lord Jesus, the precept “ It is more blessed to
give than to receive.”
Sometimes the references in question exhibit only
slight variations from passages in our New Testament.
Regarding these variations, the writer of “ Supernatural
Religion,” with slight correction, ii. 17, 18, says, “The
* From Jerome’s Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians
we learn that the Apostle John, towards the close of his life, used
to quote, as a commandment of Jesus, the words, “ Little children,
love one anotherWhere did the framer of this story find that
quotation ?
�References.
variation in these passages, it may be argued, are not
very important. Certainly, if they were the exceptional
variations amongst a mass of quotations perfectly agree
ing with parallels in our Gospels, it might be exaggera
tion to base on such divergences a conclusion that they
were derived from a different source. When it is con
sidered, however, that the very reverse is the case, and
that these are passages selected for their closer agree
ment out of a multitude of others either more decidedly
differing from our Gospels, or not found in them at all,
the case entirely changes, and variations being the rule
instead of the exception, these, however slight, become
■evidence of the use of a Gospel different from ours.
As an illustration of the importance of slight variations
in connection with the question as to the source from
which quotations are derived, the following may at
random be pointed out. The passage, ‘ See thou say
nothing to any man, but go thy way, shew thyself to
the priest,’ occurring in a work like the Homilies,
would, supposing our second Gospel no longer extant,
be referred to Matthew viii. 4, with which it entirely
agrees, with the exception of its containing the one
extra word ‘ nothing.’ It however actually corre
sponds with Mark i. 44, though not with our first
Gospel. Then again, supposing that our first Gospel
had shared the fate of so many others of the -roXXo/ of
Luke (i. 1), and in some early work the following pas
sage were found : £ A prophet is not without honour
except in his own country and in his own house,’ this
passage would undoubtedly be claimed by apologists as
a quotation from Mark vi. 4, and as proving the exis
tence and use of that Gospel. The omission of the
words 1 and among his own kin’ would, at first, be ex
plained as mere abbreviation, or defect of memory ;
but on the discovery that part or all of these words are
omitted from some MSS., that, for instance, the phrase
is erased from the oldest copy known, the Codex
Sinaiticus, the derivation from the second Gospel would.
�28
Primitive Church History.
be considered as established. The author, notwith
standing, might never have seen that Gospel, for the
quotation corresponds with Matthew xiii. 57.”
In short, the author of “Supernatural Religion”
makes out a good case, which may be taken as proved
at least provisionally, for holding that the remains of
the Fathers in question (i.) mention incidents in the
Gospel history recorded in our New Testament, but
describe them differently. That (ii.) they mention in
cidents which are not recorded in our New Testament.
That (iii.) they quote precepts and sayings which partly *
agree and partly disagree with some of the precepts
and sayings contained in our New Testament. That
(iv.) they quote precepts similar in sense, but different
in words, from some precepts in our New Testament.
That (v.) they quote precepts similar in words, but
different in context, from some precepts in our New
Testament. That (vi.) they quote precepts which are
not in our New Testament. And (vii.), that they refer
frequently to (a.) other Gospels not now extant; to (6.)
other epistles not now extant; to (c.) other revelations
different from our Apocalypse; to (cZ.) other works,
now extant, as “ scripture,” but which works are not
now considered to be “scripture;” to (e.) works not
now extant, which those Fathers considered to be
“scripture,” and (/.) they never quote from our NewTestament ; on the contrary, as the author of “ Super
natural Religion,” i. 244, observes, “ AR the early
writers avoid our ^Gospels, if they knew them at all,
and systematically use other works.” Which “ other
works ” shall now be considered under the title of
THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.
So long as a family has been always poor the mem
bers of it are indifferent to their genealogy. In like
manner nations, so long as they are depressed by igno
rance and want of home and foreign commerce, have
�The Apocryphal Gospels.
not any history. In hotli cases it happens that when
the family or nation become “ respectable,” which is a
euphemism for “ rich,” they search for their history
and origin. But by that time discovery may be vir
tually impossible. However, kind nature lias given
man faculties sufficient to provide for all his wants.
Where perception fails him fancy consoles him. Hence,
has arisen the vast mass of clannish, religious, and
national legends which exist even in the present day,
as well as the countless myriads of them which are ex
tinct. From these, therefore, all that a really veracious
historian can achieve is to point out the earliest histo
rical trace he can discover of the family, the. religion,
or the nation. Unfortunately, this method of proceed
ing is regarded by the persons interested as disrespect
ful : so disagreeable is truth to the human mind, even
though that mind be illuminated by the light of the
Gospel. There are, however, some people who prefer
truth to flattery, and
will not be shocked to hear
that before the time of Origen, a.d. 220, the Christian
Church has not any reliable history.
Unvarying tradition represents the founders of that
Church as “ unlettered and unskilful clowns,”—Acts
iv. 13, avdpa-roi aypayyaroi xai idiw-ai,—men, therefore,
who were utterly unable to write. Consequently the
original Gospel relating the doctrines, discourses, and
exploits of Jesus must have been preserved orally. If
so, variations in that Gospel must necessarily have
arisen, unless they were prevented by a miracle, and
we know from our fourth Gospel that such a miracle
was not called into existence, by the fact that the
writer of that Gospel took the liberty of making his
Gospel differ from all the extant Gospels, apocryphal
and canonical,—from every lost Gospel of which we
have any definite knowledge,—and from every extant
quotation from any other Gospel.
Even when reduced to writing, that original Gospel
would naturally be in an uncouth state, recoiding vindic-
�30
Primitive Church History.
live as well as beneficent exploits. Preaching puerile
doctrines (Luke xii. 33), and (Luke xiv. 26) impossibili
ties. Recording mere thaumaturgies,—Matthew xvii.
2, xxi. 19; Thomas i. 2,—such as the transfiguration
of Jesus, his withering of the barren fig tree, and his
giving life to twelve sparrows which he made of clay.
The utterly useless nature of these miracles renders it
highly probable that they are fragments of the primi
tive Gospel.
Several of the names, given in the Gospels to the
heroes and heroines who figure in them, savour strongly
of personification. To give a few instances
Jesus
means a “ Saviour;” Peter means a “ rock;” Paul means
a “worker;” St Perpetua is merely the first part of
perpetua felicitas, “eternal happiness.”
She and
Potentiana, “ power,” figure in the Acts of Peter and
Paul. Perpetua is retained in the Church of England
calendar (7th March), as are also St Prisca (18th Janu
ary), which is merely the first part of prisca fides,
“ancient faith,”—St Faith (6th October) and Lucy
(13th December), which is merely lux, “light,” speak
for themselves. St Felix, “ fortunate,” the saint that
brings good luck, has in some calendars not less than six
festival days. (See De Morgan’s “Book of Almanacs.’ )
The story of St Veronica is told in the Gospel regarding
“ The Avenging of the Saviour.” The name is really
a corruption of Bernice, but was afterwards ignorantly
supposed to be a jumble of vera, “ true,” and s/xuv, “ a
likeness,” meaning a true likeness of Jesus, and was
given to a holy woman who, it was said, had taken the
precaution of preserving the true likeness, miraculously
impressed on the handkerchief with which she wiped
the perspiration from his face.
Out of such shadows to manufacture anything re
sembling flesh and blood was a task of the very greatest
difficulty, requiring the inventive genius of anJEschylus.
Such a genius was not given to the Christian Church,
and the construction of the Gospels fell to the lot of
�‘The Apocryphal Gospels.
li
very inferior workmen. Nevertheless, although their
task was a very difficult one, their performances are not
wholly destitute of merit. On the writers of the oldest
Apocryphal Gospels, for instance “ The Gospel accord
ing to the Hebrews,” the task was laid of inventing
incidents, combining those incidents with the sayingsof the Logos, and weaving them into a self-consistent
although very improbable narrative. That their suc
cess, and even that of our later four evangelists, was
only partial, is a fact that was patent to the perception
of Origen, who (De Principiis, book iv., chap. i. § 16) tells
us repeatedly that the “ Scriptures do not contain
throughout a pure history of events, but of such as are
interwoven indeed according to the letter, but which
did not actually occur.” And he says, “ The Gospels
themselves are filled with the same kind of narratives :
v. c., the devil leading Jesus into a high mountain, to
show him from thence the kingdoms of the whole
world, and the glory of them. For who is there among
those who do not read such accounts carelessly, that
would not condemn those who think that with the eye
of the body—which requires a lofty height in order
that the parts lying under and adjacent may be seen—
the kingdoms of the Persians, and Scythians, and
Indians, and Parthians, were beheld, and the manner
in which their princes are glorified among men 1 And
the attentive reader may notice in the Gospels innu
merable other passages like these, so that he will be
convinced that, in the histories that are literally re
corded, circumstances that did not occur are inserted.”
From the writings of Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theo
philus, it is evident that the “ sayings” of the Logos
preceded the history of Jesus. That history—even as
represented in our four Gospels—is so conflicting with
itself, and the events related are so improbable, that,
among the events related, we strain our sight in vain to
distinguish between the false and the true ; if, in fact,
any of the events be true. That history was related in
�32
Primitive Church History.
a number of Gospels which are now lost. Among these
was the above-mentioned “ Gospel according to the
Hebrews,” which is quoted by Ignatius, who never
quotes from our Gospels. As before-mentioned, these
so-called Apocryphal Gospels were very numerous. We
know of Gospels according to Peter, to Thomas, to
James, to Judas, to Nicodemus, to Barnabas, to Mat
thias, to the Egyptians, to the Ebionites, to the Nazarenes, to the Twelve Apostles, &c., &c. In short, every
man who thought himself able to write a Gospel cleverly
felt himself at liberty to do so, and from what we know
regarding some of the incidents contained in them, it
is evident that the writers did not feel in the least con
strained to follow any particular model. There was
not any New Testament canon in existence until a
canon was framed by the council of Laodicea, a.d. 362.
So that during centuries the Christian Church had not
any reliable history of its founders or of itself. This
alone was a source of disagreement, uncertainty, doubt,
and confusion.
But in addition to this, we know from the Clemen
tine Homilies, and the canonical Acts and Pauline
Epistles, that there were two hostile parties in the
primitive Church which threatened to exterminate each
other. The one party, said to be headed by Peter, con
sidered Christianity a mere continuation of the Jewish
law j the other, said to be headed by Paul, represented
the glad tidings as the introduction of an entirely new
system of salvation, applicable to all mankind, and
superseding the dispensation of the law by a dispensa
tion of grace.
By these means Christianity came into the world
amidst a whirlwind of heresy, insubordination, schism,
and controversy. It may be, but we do not know,
that there was a time when the original founder of
Christianity, whoever he was, had not any followers.
If so, then, there was a time when the whole Christian
•Church was of one mind. Of course, to this time we
�The Apocryphal Gospels.
33
cannot assign any certain date, and it is quite possible
that it may not have had any existence. And unless
it can be shown that there has been such a time, these
controversies prove that there never was in the Church
any universally received account of Jesus Christ: the
idea of him was a myth from the beginning. The extant
remains of the Fathers, supposed to have flourished
during our first two centuries, abound with disputation,
malignity, superciliousness, and denunciation. It is
plain that the writers of those remains were men wholly
unacquainted with literary criticism, and with philology
as a science. Many of their arguments are extremely
puerile. But from these very circumstances they have
preserved to us the outline of a Gospel which may be
regarded as an edition, at least, of the primitive Gospel.
An intelligent, virtuous, zealous, and eminent Chris
tian of his day was one Marcion, said to have been
born at Sinope, in Paphlagonia, during the early part
■of our second century. He belonged to the Pauline
school of Christianity. He rejected the teaching of all
the apostles except Paul’s. This drew on him the
hatred of many contemporary writers. But so high
was his character, and so well did he support his views
that, even in the time of Epiphanius, A.D. 367, the fol
lowers of Marcion were said to be found throughout
the whole Christian world.
It is said that Marcion regarded as his sources of
Christian doctrine a Gospel and ten epistles supposed
to have been written by Paul, namely, Galatians, two
Corinthians, two Thessalonians, Romans, Laodiceans,
answering to our Ephesians, Philemon, Colossians, and
Philippians. The writer of “ Supernatural Religion,”
ii. 81, &c., says, “ None of the other books which now
form part of the canonical New Testament were either
mentioned or recognised by Marcion. This is the old
est collection of apostolic writings of which there is
any trace, but there was at that time no other ‘ Holy
Scripture’ than the Old Testament, and no New Testac
�34
Primitive Church History.
ment canon had yet been imagined. Marcion neither
claimed canonical authority for these writings, nor did
he associate with them any idea whatever of inspiration.”
Any remains of Marcion’s Gospel exist only in the
extant writings of his bitter and unphilological oppo
nents. It appears from those writings that Marcion’s
Gospel resembled our third Gospel, but was consider
ably shorter. Marcion held that matter is essentially
*
sinful, and that although material acts and functions
were in his Gospel assigned to Jesus, yet that He was
not a material being; a doctrine which has, at least,
the merit of accounting for the incident (John xx. 19)
that Jesus was able to glide, without causing disturb
ance, through a wall. Marcion’s opponents accused
him of having mutilated and adulterated our third
Gospel to support, his own views. But the fact is, that
passages in our Luke, said to have been omitted by
Marcion, are often not opposed to his system at all,
and sometimes even in favour of it; and, on the other
hand, passages which were retained in his Gospel are
contradictory to his views. This is not intelligible
upon any theory of arbitrary garbling of a Gospel in
the interest of a system. It is much more probable
that those unphilological Fathers mistook, and, with
characteristic assumption, asserted that the shorter, but
earlier, Gospel of Marcion was an abbreviation of our
much later canonical Gospel, instead of recognising the
latter as an extension of the former. It is not only
possible but very probable that, in the remote region
of Paphlagonia, the Gospel, used by Marcion, had re
mained unaltered, in sacred quietness, on the outskirts
* This Gnostic doctrine occurs more than once in our New Tes
tament. (See “The Jesus of History,” bk. iii., ch. 2, &c.) It lies
at the root of our John i. 3, where the writer (after saying that
the Logos was a god) adds, “all things were made by him, and
without him was not anything made that was made,” in order to
keep the Supreme Deity free from the pollution of touching matter,
and at the same time to keep the Logos in his proper place of
inferiority,
�The Apocryphal Gospels.
35
of Christianity; whilst, in the more active religious
centres of the Church, into the other Gospels there had
been infused fresh matter which had modified and in
creased their earlier forms. In the time of Irenaeus, a
comparatively late writer, it was easy to join him in
asserting that, because Marcion recognised only one
Gospel, he rejected our Gospels. But Irenaeus has not
even attempted to prove that Marcion was acquainted
with our Gospels, or that in Marcion’s day they had
any existence.
*
During all the controversies and debates, before the
time of Irenaeus,! we never hear our Gospels quoted.
It is to the lost Gospels and the Apocryphal Gospels
that those early Fathers appeal as containing “ The
Gospel.” This is an argument of very great weight,
and well worthy of the reader’s most serious considera
tion. For, there are writers who seek to disparage the
Apocryphal Gospels, and assert our much more modern
Gospels to be genuine, original, apostolical, and written
under the guidance of divine inspiration. Amongst
the number of such writers is Mosheim (“ Institutes,”
* Marcion’s so called l< heresy,” and the slanders heaped on him,
form a fair sample of the uncritical manner in which orthodoxy
treats mere difference. Marcion’s certainly old, and probably
genuine, edition of “The Gospel” was asserted to be a garbled
novelty, merely because it partly differed from our Luke’s Gospel,
which avowedly (i. 1) had “many” predecessors !—See the admir
able treatise on “Supernatural Religion,” part ii., ch. vii. Speak
ing of “a learned mythologist who had long laboured to rebuild
the fallen temple of Jupiter,” and who, to some persons, “ appeared
to be non compos,” Peacock says, “He has a system of his own,
which appears, in the present day, more absurd than other systems,
only because it has fewer followers. The manner in which the
spirit of system twists everything to its own views is truly wonder
ful. I believe that in every nation of the earth th e system which
has most followers will be found the most absurd in the eye of an
enlightened philosophy.”—Melincourt, ch. vi.
p It is impossible to assign an exact date to Irenaeus. The stories
which make him a contemporary of Tatian, and at the same time
relegate him to Gaul, are great nonsense. Prom his knowledge of
the greater part of the writings in our N ew Testament, it is probable
that Irenaeus flourished during our third century—a short time
before Origen.
�36
Primitive Church History.
century i., Part ii., chap, ii., sec. 17). According to
these writers, the Apocryphal Gospels are full of im
positions and fables, composed by persons of not any
bad intentions, perhaps, but who were superstitious,
simple, and addicted to what we should consider pious
frauds, although not so considered by those ignorant
and simple people. Such writers also inform us, in the
words of Mosheim, that the rulers of the Church sea
sonably interposed, and “ caused books which were
truly divine, and which came from apostolic hands, to
be speedily separated from that mass of trash into a
volume by themselves.” Such writers are bound to
explain how it came to pass that the early Fathers
invariably used that “ mass of trash,” and never noticed
those “ books which were truly divine, and which came
from apostolic hands! ” On the contrary, if those
“truly divine books” had any existence at that time,
those Fathers studiously avoided them. Just as Pindar
and the Greek Tragics “avoid” our Homer, and use
systematically the much older Cyclic Poems, if, in fact,
they knew our Homer at all, or if our Homer, in their
day, had any existence.
This omission by the early Fathers is a strong proof
that the works we have, purporting to be their remains,
are the genuine remains of at least a time prior to the
existence of the writings contained in our New Testa
ment. Because if those remains had been forgeries,
invented after the appearance of our New Testament,
assuredly the quotations found in those remains would
have been altered to correspond with the partly similar
and partly dissimilar passages in our New Testament,
while the other quotations would have been obliterated
altogether.
Nevertheless the old Apocryphal Gospels were so
imperfect in affording materials for proving that their
Logos or Jesus was identical with the Christ of the
Septuagint, that several of the early apologists for the
Christians were compelled to have recourse to the
�The Exaltation of Prophecy.
37
Greek Tragics, ecclesiastical miracles, Sibylline verses,
Hesiod, and even onr “ Homer,” to eke out their theory.
In the meantime—until more artistically framed Gospels
had been constructed—all writers of a Gospel considered
themselves at liberty to write a life of Jesus as best
they could, and without feeling themselves in the least
restricted by the contents of any previously existing
Gospel: just as prior to the time of Plato all the nume
rous Grecian “ Homers” considered themselves at
liberty to construct, and, as we know, did construct,
just as they pleased, any “Tale of Troy,” likely to
prove a good hit, without being restricted by the con
tents of any previously existing “ Ajaciad,” “ Achilliad,”
or “ Iliad."
Subsequently the great point with writers of Gospels
became the identification of Jesus, his exploits, and the
incidents in his mythical career, with certain incidents,
statements, supposed prophecies, and allegories con
tained in the Septuagint. The absence of all real facts
relating to a character so purely mythical as Jesus
Christ rendered this a difficult task. All great achieve
ments of the human mind must originate in very rudi
mentary beginnings. The formation of our Gospels is
not an exception to that rule. Their commencement
is clearly traceable to a mental phenomenon which
next manifested itself in the Church, namely,
THE EXALTATION OF PROPHECY.
Trypho, “Dialogue,” sec. viii., says to Justin, “But
if Christ be come and is anywhere, he is unknown,
nor does he know himself, nor can he be endued with
any power till Elias shall come and anoint him, and
make him manifest to all men. But you having re
ceived an idle rumour, shape a Christ for yourselves,
and for his sake lose utterly the present time.” To
this argument Justin does not reply by adducing any
miracle attributed to Jesus Christ, or any passage
from our New Testament, or the evidence of any
�38
Primitive Church History.
apostle, or of any person supposed to have been a con
temporary of Jesus.
*
But in reply, sec. xi., Justin
quotes Isaiah li. 4, 5, “ Hearken to me my people, and
give ear unto me, 0 ye kings : for a law shall proceed
from me, and my judgment for a light to the Gentiles.
My righteousness approaches speedily, and my salva
tion shall go forth, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles
trust.” And Justin quotes Jeremiah xxxi. 31, 32, to
* It is important to note here the omission of any reference to
Jesus’ baptism by J ohn the Baptist. Certainly that incident in
the life of Jesus was known to Justin, who relates it, “Dialogue,”
sec. lxxxviii., and states that on that occasion a fire was kindled
in the river Jordan, and that a voice came from heaven and
quoted from our second Psalm the words, “ Thou art my Son,
this day I have begotten thee.” This account of the incident is
in conformity with the record of it contained in Marcion’s Gospel,
Codex Bezae, and from what we know concerning “ The Gospel
according to the Hebrews,” it is extremely probable that Justin
quoted his account of that incident from the last-mentioned source.
The omission of it here suggests the idea that Justin did not
attach any weight to an unction in the administration of which
there was not any physical oil used. The neglect, by the primi
tive Christian mythologists, to cook a story to the effect that some
high priest, or other competent functionary, anointed Jesus, cre
ated an insuperable difficulty.
It is gravely asserted in Dr Wm. Smith’s “ New Testament
History,” p. 222-4, that the difficulty was surmounted (Luke vii.
36-50) by the easy and convenient, but not strictly legal interposi
tion of a prostitute ! But all really moral readers will prefer the
more dignified attempt to overcome the difficulty made in the
“Clementine Recognitions,” i. 45, where Peter says that “after
God had made the world .... he set an angel as chief over the
angels, a spirit over the spirits, a star over the stars, a demon
over the demons, a bird over the birds, a beast over the beasts, a
serpent over the serpents, a fish over the fishes, over men a man
who is Jesus Christ. But he is called Christ by a certain excellent
rite of religion ; for as there are certain names common to kings,
as Arsaces among the Persians, Caesar among the Romans, Pharaoh
among the Egyptians, so among the Jews a king is called Christ.
And the reason of the appellation is this : although, indeed, he
was the Son of God and the beginning of all things, he became
Man ; him first God anointed with oil which was taken from the
wood of the tree of life; therefore, from that anointing he is
called Christ.”—Q.E.D.
A disinterested looker-on may well be excused if he regard the
modern rejection of all the extant remains of Christian literature
that are older than our New Testament, as being virtually a piece
of critical suicide.
�The Exaltation of Prophecy.
39
the like effect. And then from these supposed pro
phecies Justin draws the following characteristic and
inconclusive inference : “ Therefore, if God did foretell
that he would make a new covenant, and that it should
he for a light of the Gentiles, and we plainly see and
are fully persuaded that, through the name of that
Jesus Christ, who wras crucified, men turn from idols
and all iniquity to the living God, and continue even
nnto death in the profession and in the practice of
piety ; both from the performance of such good works,
and also from the mighty miracles that followed, it was
easy for all men to perceive that this is the new law
and the new covenant, and the expectation of those
who, out of all nations, expected to receive bless
ings from God. For we are the true and spiritual
Israel.”
In like manner the writer of our second Peter i.
16-19, says, “We have not followed cunningly-devised
fables when we made known unto you the power and
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-wit
nesses of his majesty; for he received from God the
Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice
to him from the excellent glory, 1 This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And this voice
which came from heaven we heard, when we were
•with him in the holy mountain; also we have a more
sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dirty place,
until the day dawn, and the light-bringer arise in
your hearts.” So, according to this -writer, supposed
prophecies contained in the Septuagint were “more
sure ” than the evidence of “ hearers ” and of “ eye
witnesses.”
Gibbon, “Decline and Fall,” ch. xv., observes cor
rectly regarding these apologists, that “ when they
would demonstrate the divine origin of Christianity,
they insist much more strongly on the predictions
�40
Primitive Church History.
which announced than the miracles which accompanied
the appearance of the Messiah.”
But the very idea of a prediction or prophecy in
volves a miracle, which, to say the least, is an event
the existence of which has never yet Been proved.
According to the logic of these Christian apologists,
passages in the Septuagint, written by persons and
under circumstances utterly unknown, are supposed to
be supernatural predictions necessarily involving the
future occurrence of certain other supernatural events.
Thus the former class of miracles prove the latter class
of miracles, while the former class of miracles rest on
an arbitrary interpretation of old and obscure writings.
But the weakness of this system of logic soon became
unsatisfactory. And the next development in the
Christian Church was a readiness to assert and a will
ingness to believe that the Christian religion proved
its divine origin because it had spread very widely.
This development gave rise to
ECCLESIASTICAL EXAGGERATION.
Justin in his “ Dialogue,” sec. cxvii., says, “ speak'
ing generally, there is not any race of men—either
foreign or Greek—or, in one word, by whatever name
called, either living on wains, or without houses at all,
or dwelling in huts as breeders of cattle, in which in
the name of the crucified Jesus, prayers and thanks
givings are not made to the father and creator of all.”
This assertion the learned and candid Mosheim, in his
“ Commentaries,” characterises as an “ exaggeration.”
Tertullian, in his tract, “ Against the Jews,” says :
“ In whom but the Christ now come have all nations
believed ? For in whom do all other nations (except
the Jews) confide? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and
the dwellers in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia,
Cappadocia, and inhabitants of Pontus, and Asia, and
Pamphylia; the dwellers in Egypt, and inhabitants of
�Ecclesiastical Exaggeration.
41
the region beyond Cyrene; Romans and strangers ; and
in Jerusalem, both Jews and Proselytes; so that the
*
various tribes of the Getuli and the numerous hordes
of the Moors ; all the Spanish clans, and the different
nations of Gauls, and those regions of the Britons
inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ, and
of the Sarmatians, and the Dacians, and Germans, and
Scythians, and many unexplored nations and provinces,
and islands unknown to us, and which we cannot
enumerate: in all which places the name of Christ,
who has already come, now reigns.”
Commenting on this passage, Mosheim (p. 4) says :
“ What Tertullian here says of Christianity’s having in
his time been professed by various nations of the
Gauls, is directly contrary to the fact. In the time of
Tertullian the church of Gaul had not attained to any
degree of strength or size, but was quite in its infancy,
and confined within the limits of one individual nation,
as the inhabitants of the country themselves acknow
ledge. What he adds about Christ’s being acknow
ledged in those parts of Britain to which the Roman
arms had not penetrated, is still more widely removed
from the truth. Finally, his assertion that many
unexplored nations and unknown provinces and islands
had embraced Christianity, most plainly evinces that
lie suffered himself to be carried away by the warmth
of imagination, and did not sufficiently attend to what
he was committing to paper. For how could it be
possible that Tertullian should have been made
acquainted with what was done in unexplored regions
and unknown islands and provinces 1 In fact, instead
of feeling his way by means of certain and approved
testimony, he appears, in this instance, to have become
the dupe of vague and indistinct rumour.”
So far as Britain is concerned, a very different view
from that given by Tertullian is given by Mr Thomas
* It is a notorious fact that at this time, A.D. 220, there werenot any Jews permitted to even enter Jerusalem !
�42
Primitive Church History.
Wright in his admirable treatise, “ The Celt, the
Roman, and the Saxon,” p. 299, 300. Mr Wright says,
“It cannot but excite our astonishment that among
such an immense number of altars and inscriptions of
temples, and with so many hundreds of Roman
sepulchres and graves as have been opened in this
country, we find not a single trace of the religion of the
Gospel. We must bear in mind, moreover, that a
large proportion of these monuments belong to a late
period of the Roman occupation ; * in many of the
inscriptions relating to temples, the building is said to
have been rebuilt after having fallen into ruin through
its antiquity—vetustate collapsum—and the examina
tion of more than one of the more magnificent villas
has proved that they were erected on the site of an
older villa, which had probably been taken down for
the same reason. We seem driven by these circum
stances to the unavoidable conclusion that Christianity
was not established in Roman Britain, although it is a
conclusion totally at variance with the preconceived
notions into which we have been led by the ecclesiasti
cal historians.”
The writer of our epistle to the Colossians, i. 23,
says that “ the gospel was preached to every creature
which is under heaven.”
But the writer of our epistle to the Romans com
bines ecclesiastical exaggeration with the exaltation of
prophecy in a unique manner. The writer of the
nineteenth “Psalm” says, “The heavens declare the
glory of God.......... their voice is gone forth into all
the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
Meaning thereby that the regular movements and the
splendour of the heavenly bodies proved them to be
the work of a great and superhuman intelligence. The
writer of our Epistle to the Romans, x. 18, quotes this
passage to prove that Christianity had been proclaimed
nil over the earth. He says, “Faith cometh by hear* That occupation terminated a.d. 4IS.
�Allegory.
43
ing, and hearing by the word of God. Bnt I say, have
they not heard ? Yes, verily, 4 their sound went into
all the earth and their words unto the ends of the
world.’ ” This curious and, in fact, childish sort of
reasoning was very prevalent among the Jews of
Alexandria; and as in our fourth gospel, xix. 36, we
have a ceremonial law perverted allegorically into a
prophecy concerning an incident in the mythical
history of Jesus, so here we have a statement concern
ing the heavenly bodies perverted allegorically into a
prophecy regarding the spread of Christianity. The
argument, such as it is, may be stated thus :—The
writer of our nineteenth “ Psalm ” foretold allegorically
the spread of Christianity over all the earth; that
writer wrote under the influence and with the aid of
divine guidance ; Christianity has been proclaimed;
therefore Christianity has spread over all the earth 1
Here, in addition to prophecy and exaggeration, we
have that distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish
philosophic school in Alexandria, namely, the
dement of
ALLEGORY.
It is difficult to understand how the human mind
could ever have thought that a description of one thing
under the image of another—that is to say, allegory—
-could possibly increase knowledge or diminish ignorance.
All allegorical interpretationsandillustrations are ground
less, uncertain, fanciful, and indistinct. The real par
allels they contain are mostly few and trifling. They
cannot prove anything. And, worst of all, the few
similitudes that allegories contain are invariably accom
panied by divergences, and in most cases the divergences
preponderate. In fact, nothing except extensive ac
quaintance with the phases of human folly could lead
a sensible man to believe that such a system of inter
pretation ever prevailed anywhere on earth. Never
theless such has been the case, nor is it yet wholly
extinct.
�44
Primitive Church History.
Dr Kalisch (“Leviticus,” i. 143, et seqi) says: “As
in nature, so in history, the same things are often
repeated at different times and in different degrees of
perfection; the development of nations and of mankind
advances in rhythmic cycles, each complete in itself,
and each analogous, hut superior, to the preceding..
The Hebrew mind, in the period of the old canon, had
created for itself a certain system of religious thought
and public devotion, compact and consistent, and for
the time entirely satisfactory. But the Jews advanced;
they unfolded the germs of the earlier literature, and
they assimilated to their own views ideas borrowed
from the creeds of other nations. Yet they had long
learnt to look upon the Old Testament as the allembracing code of wisdom and knowledge, which must
contain—it may be in obscure allusions or hidden
allegories—all truths that can ever be discovered by
the human intellect to the end of time; they acted
upon the conviction, ‘Turn it and turn it, for every
thing is in it.’ Therefore they strove to corroborate
any new conception or opinion by connecting it with
some really or apparently kindred passage of the Scrip
tures ; and they introduced that connection by the
word, ‘As it is written.’ For instance, Ben Zoma said,
‘ Who is wise ? He who learns from every body ■ forit is written, I acquired knowledge from all whotaught me’ (Psalm cxix. 99), though the words em
ployed have in the Psalms where they occur a very
different meaning, viz., ‘I have more knowledge than
all my teachers.’
“ Such midrashic elements began to appear from very
early times; in fact, not long after the completion of
the second Temple. ... At first the Jewish doctors
were cautious in this method : preserving the conscious
ness that the combinations were the work of their own
judgment, they desired the Scriptural passage to be
regarded as no more than, a mere ‘ support ’ of their
own view, or as implying, at best, only a ‘ hint ’ in
�Allegory.
45
reference to it; and the Mishna, still sparing in that
process, speaks of many new laws that ‘fly in the air
and have no Biblical foundation; ’ and of others that
are ‘like mountains suspended by a hair, as they are
little alluded to in the Bible, yet developed into
numerous ordinances.’ But gradually, though not
without opposition from some more sober sects, as the
Sadducees and Bseothusians, they pursued the same
path with greater boldness and assurance; they con
sidered no opinion safe against later fluctuations unless
guarded by Scriptural authority; they deemed it,
therefore, necessary to trace all the innumerable ex
pansions of the Law to the Bible, which they diligently
searched and unscrupulously employed for that object;
and they seriously and confidently pointed to their
discoveries, no matter how strange soever, as ‘ proofs ’
of the doctrines they were anxious to diffuse. In this
manner, that which at first was understood merely
as a happy and welcome parallel was imperceptibly
converted into an irrefutable argument. . . . Every
trace of sound comment vanished, and the Bible was
•overgrown with the weeds of eccentric paradox. All
the conclusions so obtained were endowed with tlie
same authority and holiness as the clear utterances of
the Bible. They were regarded not only as justified,
but as so excessively genuine and infallible, that Tal
mudists could propound the surprising rule, ‘He who
renders a verse according to its plain form (that is,
literally) is a falsifier,’ although they had the boldness
to add, ‘ He who makes any addition is a blasphemer.’
“ The history of the Christian or typical interpreta
tion of the Bible was in many respects analogous to
that of the Jewish schools. . . . The Hew Testament
offers numerous instances both of ‘ the support ’ and
‘ the proof: ’ the former is, as in the Mishnah and
Talmud, introduced by ‘ as it is written ’ or ‘ spoken; ’
the latter usually by ‘ that it might be fulfilled, what
was spoken or written.’
�46
Primitive Church History.
11 In narrating the life of Jesus, the Evangelists
introduce a series of events which, though they had
happened in previous times, occurred again in the
[supposed] history of Christ, but in a manner so
much more real that they were considered as the
‘fulfilment’ of the former. Jesus was born of the
Virgin Mary, that a corresponding promise given to
Isaiah more than seven hundred years before, and at
that time literally realised, might be fulfilled (Matthew
i. 23, ii. 15; Isaiah vii. 14; Hosea xi. 1). He was
taken to Egypt as a child and brought back to Pales
tine, that he might ‘ fulfil ’ in a deeper sense the words
of the prophet Hosea, originally applied to the
Hebrews, ‘out of Egypt have I called my son.’ The
child-murder at Bethlehem which he occasioned, was
the ‘fulfilment’ of the carnage perpetrated by the
Babylonians in Jerusalem at the time of its destruction,
about six centuries before; although the former was
utterly insignificant compared with the fearful blood
shed of the latter. . . . But the New Testament
proceeded even further in this direction.
The
principle of fulfilment was applied not only to events
but to laws. The command to roast the paschal lamb
entire, so that no bone of it is broken—to symbolise
the unity of the families and the nation-—-found its
true fulfilment (Exodus xii. 9, 46 ; John xix. 36),
when the legs of Christ were not broken after the
crucifixion. . . .
“A number of objections against these and all
typical views must at once crowd upon the reader’s
attention. He will first of all be struck by the
uncertainty and indistinctness of the interpretations.
Can Christ be at the same time the victim and the
mediating priest 1 If the victim, how can he inter
cede ? If the high-priest, how can his blood be shed
for atonement ? Yet he is represented both as the
one and the other; in either case the parallels are
worked out into microscopic details; and the inevitable
�Allegory.
Agy
result is a most perplexing confusion both in the
sacrificial rites and in the attributes of Christ. The
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews seems indeed to
have felt this difficulty; for he represents Christ as
the victim on earth, but as the high-priest after his
crucifixion in heaven, which is the holy of holies
where he performs his ministrations ; but if so, where
is the analogy between the ordinary sacrifices and that
of Christ ?
That one and chief inaccuracy led
naturally to unlimited and almost universal identifica
tions. Christ was contended to be, in his own and
sole person (Hebrews v. 9, 10, vi. 19, 20, vii. 26,
viii. 4), ‘victim, sacrifice, priest, altar, God, man, king,
high-priest, sheep, lamb, in fact, all in all, that he may
be our life in every respect; ’ till in this maze of
entanglement every landmark disappeared, and all
connection with the Old Testament was utterly lost.
Occasional similarities may be discoverable, because,
as -we have above remarked, historical events repeat
themselves within certain conditions; but even a
cursory examination will generally prove the decided
preponderance of the divergences. If Christ be the
‘ Passover,’ how can his life, even by the remotest
allegories, be harmonised with the requirements of the
paschal lamb, which was to be roasted, consumed
entirely, without the least portion being left, eaten
with bitter herbs, and killed annually ? Typical
explanations cannot be consistently followed out
without leading to absurdities, of which a treatise
(Quadratus quomodo Christus fuerit, by J. J. Cramer, in
his work De ara exteriori, xii. 1), entitled ‘ How Christ
-—the altar—was square ? ’ is but one specimen in a
large class. If their adherents gave due weight to this
consideration, they would attempt to test their re
ligious tenets by their own intrinsic merits, rather than
by unnaturally grafting them upon the Old Testament.
As many theologians, therefore, had not the courage
to interpret typically all details, they selected some as
�48
Primitive Church History.
adapted for that method, while they understood the
rest literally; but a principle which is not generally
applicable is not any principle at all, and reveals its
fatal weakness.”
OUR NEW TESTAMENT CANON.
So well as experience can guide us, and as (p. 37)
we have before observed, all great works are the
growth of human efforts from very small beginnings.
They are the joint production of time, study, per
severance, leisure, and skill. We know from their
own avowals that most of the great dramas of
JEschylus and of Sophocles were manufactured out
of the old Homeric ballads and the Cyclic Poems.
We know from the references contained in our “ Old
Testament” that it is for the most part a work
compiled after the return of the Jews from Babylon,
and manufactured out of between twenty and thirty
old works long since lost, such as “ The visions of
Iddo the Seer,” 2 Chron. ix. 29 ; “ The book of the
Wars of the Lord,” Numbers xxi. 14; “The book of
Jashur,” Joshua x. 13, &c. We know that there is
not any trace of our “Homer’s Iliad” until about the
time of Plato. Those who have made Shakspere their
study are generally agreed that his plays are to a very
considerable extent manufactured out of previously ex
isting ballads and dramas. Sir Isaac Newton was aided
in the composition of his Principia by the previous
works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. And our
“ New Testament” was compiled out of previously ex
isting compilations, long ago either lost or destroyed,
and some still remaining, such as “The Gospel of the
Infancy,” “The Gospel of Nicodemus,” &c., * between
* See “The Book of Days,” Dec. 28, where, in an article by the
late Mr Wm. Pinkerton, the origin of the noble and unparalleled
game of Whist is traced, about a.d. 1740, from the puerile and
vulgar games called “ Whisk” and “Swabbers.”
�Our New Testament Canon.
49
the second and fourth centuries of the Christian
era.
Uncouth and worthless old ballads, and marvellous
tales, are highly prized, so long as those who read them
or listen to them have not anything better. In like
manner, during our second and third centuries there
existed a considerable quantity of what is now called
apocryphal ecclesiastical literature, which was then
decidedly popular, and at least a portion of it was by
many Christians regarded as scripture. So lately as
our fourth century, Athanasius, in his tract on the
“ Incarnation of the Word,” refers to the downfall of
idols in Egypt when Jesus went thither: a story re
corded in the gospel of the now called Pseudo Mat
thew. And in his fourth oration against the Arians
also, Athanasius mentions the fear of the keepers in
Hades when Jesus descended to the under world: a
story recorded in our Gospel of Nicodemus, and re
ferred to clearly in Ephesians iv. 9, 10, and 1 Peter
iii. 19, 20.
Of course it may be argued that our “ New Testa
ment” was written about a.d. 50,—that it sunk into
oblivion,—remained in utter obscurity for upwards of
a century and a half, in fact until the time of Irenaeus,
whatever time that may be,—and rose again after the
Apocryphal Gospels, &c., had enjoyed their little day of
popularity. But there is not any evidence to prove this.
There is not any analogous instance of such an occur
rence in the history of literature. And as the earliest
specimens of apocryphal Christian literature are silent
regarding the existence of Christ, this supposed long
slumber of our “New Testament” renders all knowledge
of him by Pliny junior, and Tacitus virtually impos
sible. While, on the other hand, there is such a close
relationship between parts of our “New Testament,”
and some sayings of the Logos quoted by the early
Fathers and parts of the gospel of Nicodemus, the
“Infancy,” &c., that reason compels us to infer that as
D
�50
Primitive Church History.
the great works of zEschylus, Sophocles, Shakspere,
“Homer,” our “Old Testament,” Newton, &c., arose
out of the older and inferior collections of literature
above mentioned; so the writings contained in our
“ New Testament ” arose out of the inferior and older
apocryphal Christian literature, which had been highly
prized by the members of the primitive Christian
Church so long as they had not any more skilfully
written doctrinal tracts or tales of thaumaturgy to read
or listen to. The world’s history shows us invariably
that ignorance must precede knowledge, that inefficiency
must precede skill, and that the human race must be
educated before the individual can achieve anything
useful or enduring.
Furthermore, the Logos, Jesus, Paul, and the Twelve
Apostles are shadowy personages, like all the unreal
heroes of the mythological world. Some of them—
such as Jesus, Peter, &c.—are made to pass through
three or four editions, just as the Homeric heroes Ajax,
Achilles, &c., are made to pass. It is admitted by all
advocates of Christianity that outside our “New Testa
ment” there is not any genuine and authentic account
of the heroes who flourish in that collection of writings.
Did those heroes, then, as well as our “New Testament,”
flourish, sink into oblivion, remain unknown dming a
century and a half, and rise again after the heroes and
heroines, Abgarus or Agbarus, Polycarp, Ignatius,
Thecla, Perpetua, Papias, Potentiana, Veronica, Felicitas, Lucy, Flora, &c., had enjoyed their little day of
notoriety ? This supposition is quite as untenable as the
former; because several documents, even in the extant
remains of the apocryphal Christian literature, mention
Jesus, Paul, Thomas, Peter, &c., but the writers of
those documents do not appeal to our “New Testament”
as being invested with exclusive authority, for the very
good reason (as stated before) that there is not any
trace of its having been so regarded by the Church
prior to the Council of Laodicea, a.d. 362. The apocry
�Our New Testament Canon.
5i
phal gospels—at least those according to “the Hebrews,"
“the ^Egyptians,” &c., &c.—were used not only by
heretical writers, but they were used by the whole
Christian Church down to the end of our second cen
tury, and by several orthodox writers after that time
Our four gospels were not able, at their first appearance,
to supersede the inferior, but really older, gospels which
were already in possession of authority and of the affec
tions of believers. The recognition of merit is a work
of time. No doubt so far back in the history of the
Church as the times of Irenaeus and Origen those
eminent writers perceived the great advantage which
our gospels gained over the older gospels, by rehabili
tating the memoirs of Jesus and his immediate followers,
and making the incidents therein contained identical
with some incident, prophecy, or allegory contained, or
supposed to be contained, in the Septuagint: in short,
in proving that “Jesus was the Christ;” that is to say,
identifying the Jesus of the apocryphal gospels with
the Christ of the Septuagint. But this superiority was
not at first recognized by those who had not the ability
to perceive it. They were contented with the rude
models which our evangelists rehabilitated. So lately
as our fourth century Eusebius (“E. H.,” iii. 25) tells
us “there are some who number among these [genuine
books of our New Testament] the Gospel according to
the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews that
have received Christ are particularly delighted.” That
gospel is much the most ancient of which we have
any distinct traces. It appears to have been the model,
not only of the other old apocryphal gospels, “the
Gospel according to Peter,” that “according to the
-Egyptians,” that “according to the Nazarenes,” &c.,
&c.; but it appears to have been the model of our first
three gospels. Those gospels are remarkable for traces
of ingenuity, rather than originality; for old precepts
dressed in new words; for old stories with a new in
flexion given to them; personifications, and the like,
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Primitive Church History.
When these gospels gained ground, the temptation to
make Jesus no longer a man, but a demigod, and to
surround him with a dramatic narrative, relating super
natural incidents and nothing else, became irresistible.
In short, Jesus was now rendered a fit subject for a
romance, a tragedy, or an epic poem. The old “Gospel
according to the Hebrews ” furnished too tame a model
for the writer of our fourth gospel. It is remarkable,
moreover, that our fourth evangelist considered himself
quite free to clothe Jesus with any narrative he pleased,
provided he made a good hit. It is also remarkable
that the result verified the anticipation of the evangelist.
He appears to have taken as his model “Prometheus
Bound,” or “CEdipus Coloneus.” At all events, in our
fourth gospel all history, all realities of every kind, are
excluded utterly. And here the question arises, Could
such a being as Jesus ever have existed ? It is quite
plain that even the members of the early Christian
Church paused before they ascribed divine authority
to any of the numerous gospels that were afloat during
our second, third, and the greater part of our fourth
centuries. Credulity itself was startled! This is a
remarkable fact, and an important one also. It explains
why the formation of our New Testament canon was
postponed to so late a period as the council held at
Laodicea, a.d. 362. Time, and only time, can give an
appearance of reality to the supernatural; and, aided by
allegory, time can effect wonders. For it does not
require any great effort of sagacity to discern in the
Jesus of our New Testament the personification of the
head of the Jewish nation: in the Church, the personi
*
fication of that nation; in the twelve apostles, the
personification of the twelve tribes of Israel; and in
the doctrines of our “ New Testament,” a republication,
in a different form, of the doctrines contained in the
* The members of which nation, during centuries, have been
persecuted for putting to death a man of whom they never knew
anything, and who never had any objective existence.
�Our New Testament Canon.
53
Septuagint. Our “New Testament” does not contain
any useful moral precept not to be found in Pindar,
the Greek Tragics, and the Septuagint; and, conse
quently, it has not any valid claim to be considered a
revelation. It is merely a compilation of writings
selected by the Christian Church at various times
during the second, third, and fourth centuries, until—
as we have it, with the exception of the so-called
“Apocalypse”—it was sanctioned as the canon of faith
by the Council of Laodicea, about a.d. 362. The
“Apocalypse” having found its way into the version
known as the Latin Vulgate, obtained by that circum
stance a dubious sanctity. From the silence of ecclesi
astical history regarding any rational principle of selec
tion used by the Church in council, when arranging
our “New Testament” canon, it may be inferred
reasonably that the selection was not arrived at by
any rational principle, but that the question, in each
case, was put to the votes of the Council’s members,
and carried merely by the vote of the majority.
To say the least, the foregoing explanation is the
most probable approximation to the real history of our
“ New Testament,” and the date of its canonical
authority. That the compilations of narratives con
cerning the supposed life of Jesus contained in our
“New Testament” canon were in general circulation in
the Church during our second century, and more espe
cially that any one of our gospels was known to an
apostle and acknowledged by him, has never been
proved. The vast mass of Apocryphal gospel narra
tives, and epistles, and “Acts” from which our “New
Testament ” has been compiled resemble exactly those
masses of old, rude, uncouth, and legendary documents
from which the Greek Tragics, our “ Old Testament,”
our “Iliad,” Chaucer, and Shakspere have been com
piled. In all those cases the respective compilations
can be accounted for and explained in a natural
manner by treating them as selections, modifications,
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Primitive Church History.
adaptations, and reconstructions made skilfully from
rude legends. This explanation is complete in itself,
and does not leave us any improbability to wonder at,
or any miracle to believe. Those who receive that
explanation are not required to recognise in our “ New
Testament” anything except the natural career of
myths and legends again and again altered, modified,
improved, and reconstructed, until that compilation
enabled the Christian Church to model its system of
doctrine and Church government agreeably to the
Levitical system. That explanation possesses the
further merit, namely, that by means of it we can
discern the growth of Christianity. Of course we
cannot assign particular and specific dates to the
various documents we have passed under review; but
by means of that explanation we can perceive that
between the years a.d. 70 and a.d. 362 there took
place in the Christian Church the following
DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT.
A glance at the development of doctrine in the
Christian Church, as shown in the writings of those
Fathers who are supposed to have flourished from
Tatian to Origen, will help the student of Primitive
Church History to arrive at a true perception regarding
the growth of the Christian doctrines.
Firstly, we have Tatian, Hermas, Athenagoras, and
Theophilus, who knew of Christians and the Logos,
but did not know anything about Jesus, or the Christ,
or our New Testament. Their distinguishing doctrines
were (1) Monotheism and (2) Asceticism.
Secondly, we have Barnabas, James, the Clementine
Homilies and Recognitions, Clement the Roman, the
Apocalypse, Jude, Peter, Papias, Ignatius, Polycarp,
and Justin, who heard of Jesus Christ, knew the
sayings of the Logos and the history of Jesus, as
�Christian Mythology.
55
related in the Apocryphal Gospels, but they had not
any narratives of him corresponding with those in our
New Testament.
Thirdly, we have the epistles attributed to Paul and
our fourth Gospel. The writers of these works knew
most of the doctrines held by modern Christians, but
they did not know the narratives contained in our
first three Gospels.
Fourthly, we have the writings attributed to Nico
demus, Matthew, Luke, the writer of “ Acts,” and
Mark. The writers of these works were in possession
of a detailed history concerning the doctrines, preach
ings, genealogy, and exploits of Jesus. That history
was very far from being consistent. It contained as
many various reflections as the fragments of a broken
mirror. Though these writers knew most of the books
contained in our New Testament, yet they considered
other works not contained in that collection as equal in
authority. Both the history and doctrines of these
writers were different from those of the third class.
And, fifthly and lastly, we have the writings of
Irenseus and Origen, which show a knowledge of
everything contained in our New Testament, and of all
the principal doctrines held by modern Christians.
But now arises the question, How were these doc
trines and stories invented ? The answer is that they
were invented partly by zeal and partly by disordered
imagination. When they were believed they were
modified gradually by increase of labour and by in
crease of care and skill. We know in the present day
that savage tribes have their apostles and prophets, and
we know something of the method whereby those
worthies manage their affairs. So our next inquiry
shall be into
CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY.
More curiously nonsensical than the principle of
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Primitive Church History.
allegory is the principle of mythology. To account for
the origin of fire the myth was invented that
Prometheus stole it from heaven, a place which has not
any existence. To account for the origin of evil the
myths of Pandora’s box and Eve’s forbidden fruit were
invented. Whatever satisfies the minds that accept
such stories will be received, no matter what may be
the differences of time and place.
As we have seen, the 11 sayings ” of the Logos pre
ceded his biography. In Christianity the moral and
the philological preceded the historical; the abstract
preceded the concrete. This gave rise to endless
variations, differences, and contradictions in the history
of Jesus after he had been identified with the Logos.
Every incident of his life was related variously. Even
the date of his supposed crucifixion was disputed; for
we know from Eusebius (“ E. H.,” i., 9) that even in
his day some persons denied that Jesus suffered under
Pilate. Hence it was that in the so-called “Apostles’
Creed,” among remarkable and miraculous events, we
have the tame circumstance insisted on, namely, that
Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
But in addition to this, the primitive Christian liter
ature was formed under a combination of circumstances
which introduced fresh elements of discord and obscu
rity. In ancient times, among both the Greeks and
the Jews, there was developed very remarkably a ten
dency to ascribe modern writings to ancient names.
(See “ Our First Century,” pp. 8-11.) Among the early
Christians, the self-same tendency was developed.
Although all the doctrines contained in the writings of
the early Fathers, and, at a later period, in our “ New
Testament,” are to be found in the ancient Septuagint,
(see “ Our First Century,” pp. 19-30), yet, among the
early Christians, whenever a writer made what the
Church considered to be a good hit, he was allowed to
ascribe his effusion to any ancient name he pleased ;
because the early Christians adopted the very illogical
�Christian Mythology.
57
principle of criticism, that whatever was edifying was
true, whatever was true was genuine, whatever was
genuine was old, whatever was old was apostolic, what
ever was apostolic was authoritative, and whatever
was authoritative was considered to he clothed with
Divine authority. This fanciful and puerile method
of criticism became a fruitful source of error, mysti
cism, nonsense, fable, fraud, and forgery. The texts
of the older Christian writers were thereby corrupted.
The corruptors introduced into the works of pagan
■writers, passages framed by Christians in order to
make those pagans, like the thief at the crucifixion,
testify to the divine origin of Christianity. (See ££ Our
First Century,” pp. 12-19.) And the writings, forming
the cycle of ancient “ New Testament ” literature, were
increased without restriction, and were allowed to be
ascribed to Jesus and his mythical followers : just as
the Greeks attributed any works they pleased to“ Hesiod” or ££ Homer,”—as the compilers of the Sep
tuagint attributed works to “ David ” * or “ Solomon,”
—and as the post-BabyIonian Jews, who compiled the
Hebrew Testament, attributed works to the very con
venient names of ££ Moses,” ££ Joshua,” and ££ Samuel.”
In this way spurious writings, attributed to Barnabas,
Hermas, Thomas, Clement, &c., &c., were regarded as
authoritative, long before our “ New Testament” had
any existence. And several of those spurious writings
were quoted as ££ Scripture,” or “ as it is written,” down
to the time of Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria,
and even Athanasius. And there was not any attempt
made in the Christian Church to fix a canon of ££ New
Testament ” Scripture during the first three centuries of
our era. As before mentioned : such an attempt was
first made at the Council which assembled at Laodicea,
A.D. 362.
* See Psalm cli. in the Septuagint collection : it is there stated
that “ this is a genuine psalm of David, although supernumerary,
when he fought in single combat with Goliad.”
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Primitive Church History.
But the most difficult thing connected with this
business is to understand how these mythologists
deceived themselves into a belief in their own myths,
inventions, frauds, fables, and forgeries. Yet some of
these mythologists did believe their own myths : such
is the force of human imagination ! For there need
not be any doubt that the writer of our second epistle
to the Corinthians, xii. 2, 4, was quite sincere when
he said that he had been “ caught up into the third
heaven,” and “ into paradise.” The writer of our
“Apocalypse,” i. 10, informs us that he was “in the
spirit”—that is to say, in a trance—while he received the
communications mentioned in that tract. We read in
our “ Acts,” x 9, 10, that “ Peter went up upon the
housetop to pray, about the sixth hour; and he became
very hungry and would have eaten : but, while they
made ready, he fell into a tranceand while he was
in that state he learned, 28, “ that he should not call
any man common or unclean: ” a salutary truth, although
he learned it while in a state of imperfect conscious
ness : just as (see Martineau’s “ Rationale of Religious
Inquiry,” p. 100) the duty of testifying to the truth
was a virtue bom of the superstition that all men, who
will be saved, will owe their salvation to a certain pro
cess of witchcraft known as “justification by faith.”
That there were Freemasonlike secrets in the early
Christian Church we know from the Clementine
Homilies. Arguing against St Paid or Simon Magus,
Homily xix. § 20, “ Peter said : we remember that our
Lord and teacher, commanding us said, 1 Keep the
mysteries for me and the sons of my house.’ Where
fore, also, he explained to his disciples privately the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to you who
do battle with us, and do not examine into anything
except our statements, whether they be true or false, it
would be impious to explain these.” Perhaps the art
of falling into a trance was one of these mysteries. If
so, the secret was preserved for a considerable time.
�Christian Mythology.
59
Mosheim, “Institutes,” century xiv., ch. v., sec. 1, 2,
tells us that “the Hesychasts, or as they may be called
*
in Latin the Quietists, gave the Greek Church much
employment. Barlaam, a native of Calabria, a monk
■of the order of St Basil, and afterwards bishop of
Geraci in Calabria, travelling over Greece to inspect
the conduct of the monks, found not a few things
among them which were reprehensible ; but in none of
them more than in the Hesychasts at Mount Athos in
Thessaly, who were mystics or more perfect monks, who
sought for tranquillity of mind and the extinction of
all the passions by means of contemplation. For these
Quietists, in accordance with the prescription of their
early teachers, who said that there was a divine light
hid in the soul, seated themselves daily in some retired
corner, and fixed their eyes steadfastly for a consider
able time upon the navel of their belly; and in that
situation they boasted that a sort of divine light beamed
forth upon them from the mind itself, which diffused
through their souls wonderful delight. When asked
what kind of light this was, they answered that it was
the glory of God ; and they appealed for illustration to
the light which appeared at the transfiguration of Christ.
Barlaam, who was ignorant of the customs of mystics,
regarded this as absurd and fanatical; and to the monks
who followed this practice he applied the names of
Massalians and Euchites, and also the new name of
Navel-souls. On the other hand, Gregory Palamas,
archbishop of Thessalonica, defended the cause of the
monks against Barlaam. To put an end to this con
test a council was held at Constantinople, a.d. 1314,
in which the emperor Andronicus junior, and the patri
arch presided. Here the monks, with Palamas at their
head, were victorious: Barlaam 'was condemned, and,
leaving Greece, he returned to Italy.”
In the case of Peter we perceive there was the ele
ment of fasting. From what we know of the habits of
* From the Greek
“ tranquillity.”
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Primitive Church History.
savage nations, we learn that their sorcerers always fast
before doing anything of much importance. And we
may infer safely that in all the foregoing cases of fall
ing into a trance, the element of fasting was very
powerful. In this manner, then, a man might put
himself into a trance, and in that state he might con
ceive anything, whether useful or nonsensical, and be
lieve it to be a divine revelation. And if the revela
tion give satisfaction to the companions of the inspired
ones, the revelation will have plenty of true believers.
It thus appears that the Christian mythology is
essentially like those of all other known religions. It
is the offspring of disordered imagination. But it has
been said that Christianity is the only religion which
yields consolation to the believer. But all religions
give consolation to their believers. We do not know of
any man who died more firmly and finely than Socrates.
And not only is this the case, but even witchcraft yields
consolation to those who believe in it. In the “ Book of
Days,” under the date of the 21st of February, the reader
may find an elaborate article on “ The Folk Lore of Play
ing Cards,” by the late Mr William Pinkerton, F.S.A.
Towards the end of the article he says : “A few words
must be said on the professional fortune-tellers. That
they are, generally speaking, wilful impostors, is per
haps true. Yet, paradoxical though it may appear, the
writer feels bound to assert that these ‘card-cutters/
whose practice lies among the lowest classes of society,
really do a great deal of good. Few know what the
lowest classes in our large towns suffer when assailed
by mental affliction. They are, in most instances,
utterly destitute of the consolations of religion, and in
capable of sustained thought. Accustomed to live from
hand to mouth, their whole existence is bound in the
present, and they have no idea of the healing effects of
time. Their ill-regulated passions brook no self-denial,
and a predominant element of self rules their confused
minds. They know of no future, they think no o her
�Christian Mythology.
61
human being ever suffered as they do ; as they term it
themselves, ‘ they are upset.’ They perceive no resource,
no other remedy than a leap from the nearest bridge, or
a dose of arsenic from the first chemist’s shop. Haply
some friend or neighbour, one who has already suffered
and has been relieved, takes the wretched creature to a
fortune-teller. The seeress at once perceives that her
client is in distress, and shrewdly guessing the cause,
pretends that she sees it all in the cards. Having thus
asserted her superior intelligence, she affords her sym
pathy and consolation, and points to hope and a happy
future : blessed hope ! although in the form of a greasy
playing card. The sufferer, if not cured, is relieved.
The lacerated wounds, if not healed, are at least dressed :
and, in all probability, a suicide or a murder is pre
vented. Scenes of this character occur every day in the
meaner parts of London.”
It is a well known fact that the much reviled
Epicurean philosophy—the only true philosophy that
has yet been published—afforded consolation to those
who held it. Virgil (Georgies, ii., 490-2) says :—
“ Happy is he who, searching Nature’s laws,
Through known effects has traced the secret cause ;
Has trampled on all fears, relentless fate,
And the idea of a future state.”
Aristotle (Ethics, x., 9) says:—“He, then, who
exercises himself in the way of thought, and does his
best to improve it, and has the best mental disposition,
seems also to be the most beloved by the gods.” Com
menting on this passage, an eminent scholar says “ A very noble and consoling sentiment to those who
care little for popular notions, but everything for
Truth. It is humiliating to think how immeasurably
the Greek philosophers surpassed us of the present day
in this best and holiest of all virtues, love of Truth.”
But another item of Christian mythology is the asser
tion that the spread of the Christian religion was so great
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Primitive Church History.
that it must have received supernatural aid. Mosheim
(“Institutes,” century ii., ch. i., sec. 6) says:—“This
[supposed] rapid propagation of Christianity is ascribed
by the writers of the second century almost exclusively
to the efficient will of God, to the energy of divine
truth, and to the miracles wrought by Christians.”
These miracles, as mentioned by Tertullian, Origen,
&c., &c., and duly recorded by Dr Augustus Neander,
may be briefly explained as follows:—Arrangements
were made with certain members of the Christian
Church to say that they had died, and had been raised
from the dead. On being interrogated in the presence
of credulous persons, such as Tertullian and Origen,
these “resurrection-men” avowed the truth of that
which had been told concerning them. In this way
men who never had died, were pointed out, by second,
or third century apostles, as being walking testimonies
to the miraculous powers of the Christian Church
during our second century. But the fact is, that,
according to the latest statistics, while the number of
Christians on earth number about 353,000,000, the
Buddhists number about 483,000,000. There are
about 500,000,000 of other sectaries. And, in addi
tion to these facts, there is not anything supernatural
in the rise and progress of the Christian sect when we
investigate its history and explain its
ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANISATION.
As in the Jewish Church, organised after the return
from Babylon, and subsequently aided by the compila
tion of our Pentateuch, the public functions of religion
were intrusted solely to the priests and Levites, so in
the Primitive Christian Church those functions were
intrusted solely to the bishops and presbyters. At an
early time the bishops began to preside at the assem
blies of the Christians. Each assembly governed itself.
�Ecclesiastical Organisation.
63
By letters and deputations these assembles maintained
a mutual and friendly, but rather loosely connected,
intercourse with each other. So early as towards the
end of our second century provincial councils were
instituted, modeled probably partly on the Jewish
synagogues and partly on traditions regarding the
Amphictyonic Council, the Achaean League, and the
assemblies of the Ionic cities. At these councils or
synods decrees were enacted which were styled canons,
and which regulated every important controversy
regarding faith and discipline. The institution of
synods or councils succeeded so well that in a short
time their influence spread widely throughout the
Christian Church. A regular correspondence was
established between the provincial councils, which
mutually communicated and approved their respective
proceedings; and the Primitive Christian Church
assumed the form and acquired the strength of a fede
rative republic. Even a philosopher of the most scep
tical school must recognise the vast superiority of
Asceticism and Monotheism over uncritical polytheism,
and the revolting impurities of nature worship. The
Christians who held the former doctrines were inspired
with zeal for the promulgation of those tenets. A
consciousness of superiority inspires courage. A per
ception that we are fighting the cause of Virtue against
Vice inspires self-sacrifice. And there can be but very
little doubt that this union of exalted zeal and skilful
church organisation gave the primitive Christians that
almost insuperable power which even a comparatively
small force of well-trained and courageous volunteers
has so frequently exhibited when brought in contact
with an undisciplined multitude, ignorant of the sub
ject in dispute, unaware of its importance, and indif
ferent to the event.
So far the success of the primitive Christian Church
must be regarded as having been beneficial to the human
race. But “ the pulses of ambition may beat as freely
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Primitive Church History.
under sleeves of lawn as under an ordinary habit.” * The
bishops established gradually a difference among them
selves in dignity, and afterwards in authority; and the
titles of Metropolitans, and afterwards of Primates,
showed the success of individual ambition, and the
numerical increase of the Church.
Thus this progress of ecclesiastical organisation
showed also the power of the Church to resist any force
that might be brought against it either to exterminate
or persecute it. Before the Church was attacked it was
strong. This is the real secret of its success. It re
sisted successfully the exterminating persecution of it
by Decius, a.d. 249-251. The admiration this resist
ance drew forth increased its strength. It was recog
nised as a power in the state. The “ happy family ”
whose discordant elements composed the dominions of
Rome required daily some bond of union to assist the
Imperial Army in keeping together that once mighty
empire. The established Paganism was intended to be
such a bond of union. But the members of the various
religions that passed under the name which we call
Paganism, and which were tolerated and recognised at
Rome, were, for the most part, destitute of zeal, indif
ferent to the cause of Truth, without patriotism, and
addicted to luxury. Only Roman citizens had a free
country. The rest of Rome’s subjects were careless of
any interests except their own : they were selfish. The
Christians, on the other hand, were in the Roman Em
pire in a position analogous to the primitive Spartans
in Laconia. They were an organised, zealous, com
pact, and united band of warriors in a country whose
inhabitants were hostile but disunited, listless, and de
moralised. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that
when seeking to render the established religion of the
Roman Empire conducive and effective to the purposes
of imperial union, a.d. 313, Constantine should have
* Earl Grey, in reply to a bishop during the debates on the
Reform Bill of 1832.
�First Historical Glimpse of the Christians. 65
substituted Christian zeal and witchcraft for Pagan in
difference and idolatry.
*
Nevertheless, and notwith
standing the boastings of Tertullian, Justin, Paul, &c.,
&c., down to the time of Decius, the Christians were
not only an obscure but also an unobtrusive sect; and
they existed a considerable time before any one in the
present day could catch in civil history the
FIRST HISTORICAL GLIMPSE OF THE
CHRISTIANS.
So much has been written on the history of the
Christians, that a student, beginning his inquiries,
might well be excused if he supposed that the first men
tion of them, outside their church, had been accurately
ascertained long ago. Yet (strange as it may seem) it
would be difficult to mention a subject more enveloped
in disagreement, doubt, difficulty, and error. When
we attempt to examine it we are unable to see it du ring
the first two centuries of the commonly received Chris
tian era. But while the latter part of our first century
is adorned with forgeries introduced into the works of
one Jewish and three Pagan writers, the second century
is enveloped in a darkness that is more opaque than
that of the first. As the writer of our Odyssey says of
the Cimmerians, so we may say of our second century,
“ There darkness as of death is spread over wretched mortals.”
There does not appear to have been any attempt
made to introduce even one forgery into the writings of
the pagans who flourished during our second century.
This is a serious omission. It was a much greater
mistake than tampering with the works of Josephus,
Suetonius, Pliny junior, and Tacitus; because the gap
that occurs in our second century is more modern than
* Of course this substitution was effected by means of Constan
tine’s army, the soldiers of which did not much care about any
particular form of religion. The Christians were only a very small
fraction of his subjects.
E
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Primitive Church History.
the gap in the first seventy years of our first century,
and, consequently, is rendered more conspicuous. As we
have seen, Eusebius furnishes us with names analogous
to the names furnished to us by the biographers and
commentators on the Cyclic Poets; but those names
are “without form”—they are as unreal as chaos—
their times and their places have not any existence—
all we have are names which, like the shades in Hades,
flit about “ with an unearthly squeak.” No doubt
Eusebius sometimes quotes authorities, but they give
us little if any information regarding primitive church
history, and we know little if anything about them.
All the names assigned to Christians during~our first
and second centuries, flit about in shade, mist, gloom,
and darkness. They are names of persons supposed to
have been Christians, because they called themselves
by that name. But we know that some of them
attached very different meanings to the word “ Chris
tian.” They are pushed about at the pen points of
writers who compile unreal histories. And these
names are rocked up and down in the ocean of igno
rance, and on the waves of nonsense they are
“ Toss’d to and fro with jaculation dire.”
Outside the Church we have not any authorities for
the supposed persecutions of the Christians by Nero,
Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Aurelius, Severus, and
Maximin. After celebrating the felicity and increase
of the church, under good princes, Lactantius, who
died a.d. 325, in his work De Mortibus Persecutorum,
c. 3, 4, says—“After many years that execrable animal
appeared, Decius, who persecuted the church.” Gibbon
says, “ Decline and Fall,” chap, xvi, “ The fall of
Philip [a.d. 249, who is represented as being favour
able to the Christians] introduced, with the change
of masters, a new system of government, so oppres
sive to the Christians, that their former condition,
ever since the time of Domitian, was represented as
�First Historical Glimpse of the Christians. 67
a state of perfect freedom and security, if compared
with the rigorous treatment which they experienced
under the short reign of Decius.” Mosheim, Insti
tutes, century second, ch. i., and century third, ch. ii.,
says, “ Most of the Roman emperors of this [second]
century were of a mild character. .... Through this
lenity of the emperors, Christians living in the Roman
empire suffered far less than they would have done if
they had been under severer rulers. . . . But when
Decius Trajan came to the imperial throne (a.d. 249),
war, in all its horrors, burst upon the Christians."
Eusebius (“E. H.,” vi. 39) says: “Philip, after a
reign of seven years, was succeeded by Decius, who,
in consequence of his hatred to Philip, raised a perse
cution against the Church.” And he says, “The
number and greatness of Origen’s sufferings during
this persecution . . . the many epistles of the man
detail with not less truth than accuracy.” And
(“Roman History,” Vol. V. p. 322) Niebuhr says that
Decius “was the first who instituted a vehement per
secution of the Christians, for which he is cursed by
the ecclesiastical writers as much as he is praised by
the Pagan historians [the writers of the ‘Historia
Augusta ’ and Zosimus.] The cause of this persecution,
I think, must be sought for in the feeling antagonistic
to the tendency of his predecessor. The accounts
which we have of earlier persecutions are highly ex
aggerated, as Henry Dodwell has justly pointed out.
The persecution by Decius, however, was really a very
serious one ; it interrupted the peace which the Chris
tian Church had enjoyed for a long time.” It may be
concluded safely that there was not any persecution of
the Church before that by Decius. The Christians had
not any existence prior to a.d. 70. See “Our First
Century,” p. 51. All the writers on Church history
admit that prior to the accession of Decius to the
throne, a.d. 249, the Church enjoyed a long period
of repose. The stories regarding the martyrdoms of
�68
Primitive Church History.
James, Peter, Paul, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Stephen—
if, indeed, there ever were any such persons—are
stories, and nothing more. They have not any real
foundation. Even the martyrdom of Justin, called
the martyr, is more than doubtful. Of course he may
have been killed; but that circumstance, by itself,
would not prove the existence of a persecution directed
against, the whole Christian Church. The truth is that
from a.d. 70 to a.d. 249 the Church was unmolested,
and prior to A.D. 135 the Church was unknown to the
Pagan world. During that long period, extending over
a century and a half, the Christian Church, with its
skilfully contrived organization, had ample time to
become so strong, that its extirpation, even by a
Roman emperor, would be a matter requiring con
siderable time, expense, and exertion.
Be that as it may, one thing is certain, namely, that
outside the Church there does not appear to be any
trace of the Christians prior to the persecution of them,
a.d. 249, ordered by Decius, with a view to the utter
extermination of a sect which, since his time, has sur
vived to cause more bloodshed and misery to the human
race than any other sect which exists on the records of
history.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Text
POSITIVE RELIGION:
ITS BASIS AND CHABACTEBIST1CS.
LECTURE IV.
BY THE LATE
REV. JAMES ORANBROOK,
EDINBURGH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��POSITIVE RELIGION—ITS BASIS AND
CHARACTERISTICS.
E are to travel together to-night over a region where
VY you will require patient thought; not so much
because the subject is especially difficult or recondite,
as because it is one not very generally familiar. The
result, however, will repay, I think, any amount of
attention you may expend, as it will show us the possi
bility of worship even under the stringent conditions
imposed by the phenomenal philosophy.
We must begin by recognising a curious faculty or
tendency common to our human nature, but much
more active amongst some individuals and some races
than others. I mean the faculty or tendency which
leads us to objectively represent, and indeed to vitalise
and give a personal existence, or, at all events, personal
relations, to our general and abstract ideas. Under
its impulse the mind becomes impatient of base and
pure thought, simple ideas collected in classes and
bound together by a common or general name, and by
the instrumentality of fancy hastens to represent them
in concrete forms, and to give them some personal
relation to itself. Indeed, the tendency is not confined
to the sphere of ideas alone, in the strict sense of the
term; it leads us also, in some states of culture, to
ascribe vitality to the inanimate objects of nature,
and to place them in personal relations to ourselves.
And thus, where it predominates, the whole universe
�4
Positive Religion:
becomes living, and man’s affections or personal feel
ings are elicited by every object around him.
But the activity of the tendency greatly varies in
different races, at different periods, under different
temperaments, and with different degrees of culture.
It is predominantly active in childhood. The feelings
the child experiences within itself are promptly trans
ferred to whatever it comes into contact with, and
hence its passions reciprocate the supposed intentions
of all the objects around it according as these objects
become to it the source of pleasure or pain. The
tendency is also generally very active amongst people
in a low and barbarous state. They infuse their own
personality into all the great objects and all the
powerful forces of nature, and seem, therefore, to
themselves, constantly living in the presence of wills
as active as their own. More extended observation
sets limits upon, and in a measure corrects, its action.
The distinction between things animate and inanimate
are more accurately discerned, and the predication of
will is withdrawn from the inanimate objects and
forces themselves and is transferred to some being or
beings standing outside and directing them.
This limitation of the tendency necessitates an im
portant change in the religious conceptions. So long
as it is unrestrained, and every object is vitalised,
fetishism is possible and natural. Immediately a
distinction is drawn between things animate and
inanimate, the fetishism passes into polytheism or
monotheism. A god or gods directing the forces of
nature, and not the forces themselves, become the
objects of worship.
The limitation, however, is not the destruction of
the tendency. It often continues as active as ever,
but in new conditions. There is the same impatience
with abstract ideas; the same effort to embody them
in a concrete form; the same yearning after personal
relations to the objects. Hence, in religion, the god
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
5
or gods are realised as vividly as ever, and are recog
nised and addressed as intimately and personally
present. More than this, the mere mental conception
of them is a cross the soul becomes impatient to bear,
and therefore the fancy strives to embody the concep
tion in some outward form.
It is at this point (I wish you especially to observe,
because of its subsequent application) that this ten
dency gives rise to art. The inward impulses urge to
an outward objective representation of the ideas and
feelings. Efforts are made to realise them by means
of sculpture, music, and poetry, architecture, and
painting. None of the arts were introduced to accom
plish a purpose. They were, and are still, when
genuine, the single, pure, and spontaneous products
of this impulse or tendency towards objective repre
sentation. Whoever had attempted to accomplish
some secondary end by them has always failed in the
art. He who has painted a picture or wrought a
piece of sculpture to gain a pound has never done
anything worth the pound he has gained. Those who
compose a song, or a piece to be played on an instru
ment, in order to make music, will be sure to com
pose what will deserve to be hissed out of creation.
That does not of course refer to singing or playing
what others have composed, much less to learn the
manual art, but to the origination of the work itself.
All art work must be from irresistible impulsion of
the spirit—sculpture, because the spirit is burdened
until it can embody its idea in substantial form;
music, because the spirit cannot restrain the har
monious emotions from uttering themselves ; painting,
because the spirit must proclaim what nature and life
are to it; poetry, because the frenzied love of the
beautiful would cause one to die if it could not find a
rhythmical expression. Accordingly, that which has
ever called forth the most urgent ideas and emotions
has from the beginning constituted the primary
�6
Positive Religion:
materials of art. And so tlie history of genuine art
has been scarcely anything but the history of religious
ideas and emotions striving to embody themselves in
an objective form. This has led some critics to call
religion the parent of art. What I have said will
show you the appellation is incorrect, and that it was
merely the strength and urgency of the religious ideas
and emotions above others which compelled the ten
dency to objective representation to make them the
first objects of its representing efforts; for the ten
dency must needs manifest itself according to the
character of the ideas or emotions most occupying and
burdening the soul, and in all the great eras of art
these ideas and emotions were religious. Hence art
has become the clearest and most distinct record of a
nation’s religious life—the conceptions and sentiments
upon which it was founded. It is not in Thucydides
and Heroditus—not in Plato and Aristotle even, but
in Homer, JEschylus, and Sophocles, in the Apollo
Belvedere, the Venus de Medici and de Milo, the
Laocoon and the Niobe—that the real inner life of the
ancient Greeks is revealed to us and to their profound
religious ideas. In strict keeping with this too is the
fact that the most artistic nations have ever been
the most given to what is called idolatry, and to
elaborateness of religious forms and ceremonies. The
Hebrews and Persians, the most strict of monotheists,
and to whom abstract ideas were least oppressive, had
no idols in their advanced period, and were nearly
destitute of the artistic faculty. The Egyptians, Hin
doos, and Greeks multiplied their idols and brought
art to perfection. The same contrasts exist between
the northern and southern races of Europe, of which
you may take Scotland and Italy as the extreme types.
In Scotland the religion is embodied in the abstract
notions of the Confession of Faith and the Longer and
Shorter Catechisms; in Italy it is embodied in the mass
and Mariolatry; Scotland lias erected Free kirks at so
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
7
many pence per foot; has given birth to Burns and
killed him ; has of late years produced some men who
could paint a little, and sent them to get their living
in London. Italy has erected St. Mark’s and St.
Peter’s (amongst others), has given birth to Dante,
Tasso, and Petrarch: has nurtured Titian, Pra An
gelico, Raphael, and I know not how many others of
the same sort, and claims as her own Palestrina and
Mozart. If religion were the parent of art this con
trast would prove the religion of the Italians to be
stronger, more fervent, more productive than that of
the Scotch. But religion is not the parent. As we
have seen, art is the consequence of an impatience with
abstract ideas and feelings, giving rise to a tendency
to seek for them any kind of outward impression and
embodiment; and in the case of the Italians it assumed
the particular forms we have alluded to in virtue of the
special culture of the times.
But now, it is important to observe, the force of this
tendency to objective expression seems directly con
nected with the depth and intensity of our sense
emotions, i.e., of those emotions or feelings which are
directly excited through our various senses ; and also,
the perfection of the expression depends primarily
upon their purity, adequateness, and full culture.
The ancient Hindoos and Egyptians would both fur
nish us with convincing illustrations of this truth.
But I refer now to the Greeks alone because they are
better known. In them the culture of the senses was
carried to its utmost perfection—-their whole nature
was in complete harmony. They were the most ra
tional and the most sensuous race that ever lived. No
people have surpassed them—I would scarcely say any
have equalled them—in intellect; and no people have
had such eyes to see, such deep emotions to feel, the
beauty and sensuous glory of all nature. In gigantic
stature of intellect no human being that ever lived
came up to Aristotle by the whole head and shoulders ;
�8
Positive Religion:
and yet no other people ever seem to have dreamed of
such exquisite forms as those of the Apollo and the
Venus. In everything they did and said you see the
depth and intensity, the purity and culture of their
sensuous emotions. Accordingly, in keeping with the
principle I have asserted, no people were ever more
impatient of unembodied, unrepresented, abstract ideas
and feelings. They were always striving after objec
tivity; their philosophy no less than all their other
works proves this—Plato, the idealist, no less than
Aristotle, the realistic. Their method of philosophical
inquiry was purely subjective; but the subjective crea
tions to which it led were instantaneously projected
upon the outward world of sense, and existed for them
not as abstractions of the fancy, but as realities of
nature. In religion this comes out still more pal
pably. In their inmost thought and feeling the Greeks
were always pantheistic. The gods of their polytheism
were the mere offspring of their impatience to embody
the pantheistic conception in form. Over them all,
over all the universe, was that awful, terrible, incom
prehensible power they called Fate or Destiny. This
was their real, their universal god. It gave birth to
all things, gods and men not less than the physical
forces of nature, and yet against it both gods and men
had to maintain a perpetual struggle, and to them the
struggle seemed most awful. With the thought of
Zeus they could toy; but the thought of this mys
terious, all-creating, all-determining Fate caused thenwhole being to melt with the most intense and
profound emotion. Impatient of the mere thought,
however, they embodied it in everything. It is the
sublime idea which inspires the tragedies, and moves us
so deeply in the representations of Hecuba, Medea,
Electra, and the rest. And it is this which most of
all we feel in the statues of the gods, in whose coun
tenance and form the individualities of the character
are subdued by that sublime calmness and indifference
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
9
which can only come from a nature at one and in haimony with destiny. Why has the world never since
seen such perfection in Art 1 Because never since
has it possessed a race with ideals of humanity so lofty,
and at the same time with the senses and the sense
emotions so refined, so developed, and so richly cul
tured. The only approach ever made to the perfection
of Grecian religious art was by the Italianised-Gothic
people of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth cen
turies. But their intense sensuousness was tainted
by the Christian notions of asceticism, and therefore
never attained to that full culture which alone could
have brought their art to a level with the Grecian..
But, enticing as the theme is, these observations
must suffice us now in illustration of the principle I
have been endeavouring to establish. I trust enough
has been said, however, to show you that there is in
men a tendency to embody their abstract ideas and
feelings in outward forms and expression, through this
embodiment, and to bring all things into personal lelations to themselves; that this tendency gives rise to
art in its various departments, and some religious ideas
and feelings have hitherto been the most predominant
and so the most urgent for outward embodiment. Art
has hitherto in all its great eras been mainly con
cerned with the expression of religious ideas and feel
ings; and finally, that the urgency and strength of
this tendency to objective expression, and the per
fection of the art, by means of which the expression
is made, seem mainly to depend upon the intensity,
fulness, development, and perfect culture of the senses
and the sense emotions.
Now, these principles being, in my judgment, clearly
and irrefutably established by an analysis of our human
nature, and by the history of all people in the past, I
think they furnish us with data from which we may
derive some tolerably accurate conclusions with regard
to the possibilities and conditions of worship under
�IO
Positive Religion:
that form of religion determined by the phenomenal
philosophy. At present, no doubt, the tendency
amongst those who have embraced the philosophy is
to abandon all kinds of worship. The old forms are
felt to be perfectly incompatible with the new con
ditions of thought. And in itself, at first sight, it may
well appear that the worship of what is unknown and
unknowable is an absurdity and a superstition. Hence
the majority either give up all idea of worship whatso
ever, or attempt to substitute for the old something
which possesses none of the characteristics of worship
excepting the name. At this, however, those will not
be surprised who remember that, until the system of
philosophy has been generally diffused, and it has
become a form of national life, its full, permanent
tendencies cannot be known (excepting by inference),
and a great deal will seem to result from it which are
only peculiarities of the individuals adopting it under
their isolated circumstances. I cannot stay to illus
trate this remark now; but it will be found applicable
to all systems of religion and philosophy in the early
and struggling periods of their history, and fully
explains why phenomenalists so generally abjure all
worship, and yet without making it necessary to
suppose they must continue to do so.
On the other hand, the principles I have expounded
to-night justify the assertion that worship will be
found as inevitable under the influences of pheno
menalism as under every other form of thought. For
worship is nothing but an attempt to objectively
embody or express the religious ideas and feelings.
Unless, therefore, it could be shown that the pheno
menal philosophy destroys all such ideas and feelings,
or else destroys the tendency to objective expression,
worship must be as inevitable under its forms of
thought as under every other. Now, that it does not
destroy the religious ideas and feelings, I think I
clearly showed in the last lecture. It rather deepens
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
11
them, and gives them a sublimer reality. When it
proves to us that we have no faculties to penetrate
the great mystery of existence and to know God, it
deepens and intensifies our sense of that mystery ; and
in the awe, reverence, and conscious littleness which
spring up within us, we have the essence of all religion.
We cannot but believe in a something which is the
determined condition of the universe j that we cannot
know it only makes us realise the thought more
vividly, and feel its mystery and awfulness more
deeply. And this is religion, in its truest, inmost
sense. The phenomenal philosophy, therefore, does not
destroy, but fosters, religion.
But now, seeing it does not destroy religion, the
primary element in worship, the ideas and feelings
working in the mind, let us ask if it destroy the
second element, that tendency to embody or express
our ideas and feelings in all objective form, the nature
of which I have endeavoured to explain. Clearly it
cannot, if that tendency arise out of a primary law of
our nature, as I think every one must own that it
does, seeing it is common to all people, although in
different degrees, and manifesting itself under different
conditions. Nay, if it be conceded that I am correct
in those assertions I have made respecting the connec
tion between the culture of our senses and sense
emotions and the strength and intensity of the tendency,
then most assuredly the phenomenal philosophy must
have the direct effect of greatly intensifying the ten
dency. And the reason of this appears in the fact
that the philosophy must necessarily lead to a culture
of our whole physical nature, and so of our senses and
sense emotions to a degree. and in a rational manner
which has not been known since the times of the
ancient Greeks. Indeed, you already see this conse
quence of it in active operation. Biological studies,
which have done so much to foster the phenomenal
philosophy, and which, on the other hand, are almost
�12
Positive Religion:
entirely due to the influence of its spirit, have already
revealed facts connected with sense and sense emotions
which not only show their importance in our system,
but the absolute necessity to our full development of
their culture upon rational principles. Accordingly,
attention on every hand is awakening up to this
subject, and even those still bound to the old orthodox
and metaphysical doctrines cannot escape the influence,
And hence, in keeping with the principles I have
expounded, there is also a great awakening in the
taste or love for art, and especially in those nations
most coming under the phenomenal spirit. Every
where music, painting, sculpture, architecture, are
more sought after; everywhere true poetry is better
appreciated. If Art be yet wavering, uncertain, and
unsatisfactory, and we have still to go back to the
older springs to slake our thirst for poetry, the fact
arises out of circumstances I may at some future
time explain. But the revival of the taste, the
longing after such things, comes to us as proof of the
intensifying of the tendency to objectivity, and to that
the extending influence of the phenomenal philosophy
is operating in favour of that tendency.
I think, then, that these considerations, amongst
others, serve to prove that worship will still be neces
sary to us in the new era of thought upon which we
are entering, and that the phenomenal philosophy
strengthens and intensifies both the elements of which
it is constituted, £.e., the deep, religious emotion, and
the tendency to give that emotion an outward, objec
tive expression.
But you will recollect that I have already pointed
out that the precise form the outward expression
assumes must depend upon the general culture. Or
perhaps I should say rather, that the general culture
or method of thought will necessarily influence the
ideas and conceptions; these ideas and conceptions
will modify the character of the emotions; and thus
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
13
the objective expression of them will, in proportion to
its truthfulness, vary with the ideas and conceptions.
Accordingly, when the state of culture allowed men to
think every object around them possessed a will like
their own, the emotions each object called forth weie
expressed in the form of fetish worship. Wlien theii
culture allowed them to suppose the conceptions of
their fancies possessed a substantive existence, and
their religion in consequence became polytheistic, then,
as amongst the Greeks, it became possible to worship
these fanciful conceptions by prayer and songs, to
represent them in statues, and consecrate to them the
services of Art. When men came under the Christian
culture, the ideas of God in a bodily form were pro
scribed, and consequently all material representations
were excluded from the worship j but the ideas of God
as possessing mental and moral qualities were allowed ;
the corresponding emotions reciprocating the divine
affections were cherished, and the worship became an
expression of this mental conception accordingly. It
would considerably help my exposition, and be exceed
ingly interesting, if I had time for it, to point out how
the introduction of the metaphysical and yet material
ising doctrine of transubstantiation necessitated a
gorgeous ceremonial, and how the Protestant-attempted
recurrence to the purely mental idea of God necessi
tated the bald forms of Presbyterian and Congrega
tional worship. But I trust you will follow out the
clue I have given you to the explanation for your
selves.
Upon the principles thus far explained, it will at
once be seen how the phenomenal philosophy must
still more than Christian monotheism limit these
objective expressions of worship. For, limiting the
ideas to the phenomenal, and declaring that God is in
Himself unknown and unknowable, merely the con
ceived something to which the phenomena of the uni
verse is referred as its unascertainable antecedent, the
�r4
Positive Religion:
emotions excited by them can have in their character
nothing of the affections called forth by human beings
and therefore all the direct expressions of them objec
tively can be nothing else than the pure outpouring of
the feelings of wonder, awe, and reverence, which the
sense of the great mystery calls forth. Now, even if
there were nothing else possible, since in these feelings
the essence and primary elements of all religions are
contained, the outward worship would be as real as in
any other religions. Nor would the objective expres
sion be confined to one form. Not only poetry and
song, but sculpture, painting, and, above all, architectuie, might be used as freely as under the Grecian
conceptions, and much more freely than is consistent
with Christian monotheism. But of this I shall speak
again.
But observe this is not all. I have shown that this
great mystery is not only spread over the universe as
a whole, but encompasses every particular particle and
every particular force. Each aspect of nature thus
becomes identified with it, and moves our emotions
according to the relations which under its deter
mination thus become evolved. The emotions thus
awakened also seek their objective expression and
mingle in the worship of the one great mystery. The
expression thus becomes a glorification and adoration
of the mystical in the powers of universal nature and
may even assume the forms of trust, longing, and
desire, according to the relations those powers sustain.
And I take it, it was the perception of this truth
which led a certain metaphysical school in Germany,
approaching the subject under pantheistic forms, to
propose, a few years since, the restoration of the
Grecian Cultus as the only possible religion for the
cultivated. The phenomenal philosophy could not do
so. Its method excludes the conception of all fancied
beings whose existence cannot be proved; but it takes
up into its knowledge those forces of nature, the
�Its Basis and Characteristics.
15
Greeks personified and deified ; it views them in their
relations to man and in their relation to the great
mysteryit could not and would not check those
natural emotions they inspire, and thus the worship of
all that is great, beautiful, and good becomes in
evitable. And when Nature, the Universe, God, is
viewed under these aspects, another source of emotion
is speedily opened. The mystery which enshrouds all
things we still 1 ong to penetrate. The longing quickens
our thirst for the knowledge of the laws and succes
sions within our horizon. Especially we long to be
come so conformed with these laws that we may move
in harmony with that destiny which determines all
things, and so have the blessedness of a free and indif
ferent life. Now, in worship, these longings take the
form of aspiration—aspiration after the fuller and a
perfect knowledge ; aspiration after complete conform
ity with the highest laws of our being ; aspiration
after the free, indifferent, blissful life of humanity in
repose with destiny. The aspiration creates for itself
a lyrical expression. The deepest, purest, noblest
worship is in the lyrics it creates.
Nor is it necessary to worship of this kind that an
auditor should be assumed. The true lyric is often
inspired in absolute solitude. It pours itself forth in
overwhelming feeling like the mountain spring, freely
and without reflection. Its essence is not in address,
but in utterance. Like the Hebrew lyrist, who ex
claimed, “ Whilst I was musing the fire burned, then
spake I with my tongue,” so all such utterances, when
real, well up irresistibly and impulsively from the
depths of feeling within, and flow forth independently
of all outward circumstances.
In these later sentences I have spoken I may have
seemed to be thinking only of the worship which
makes use of words for its utterance. But I have
already expounded to you principles which will warn
you that such could not be the case. Still more than
�i6
Positive Religion.
other religions the religion founded on phenomenalism
will be sure to appropriate to its use everything true
in thought, lofty in aspiration, noble and glorious in
life, beautiful and lovely in form ; for to it every such
thing in nature becomes an inspiration, and every such
thing becomes to it a symbol of its deepest emotions.
It must needs therefore lay an embargo upon all nature
and all art and make them subservient to its purposes.
It is therefore that I anticipate an era which, because
of its truer knowledge and method, shall surpass the
most golden period of Grecian culture—when religion
freed from superstition shall once more, not in phrase
merely but in very deed, consecrate all nature as a
sacred temple, and everything noble and beautiful and
good, whether in humanity or the physical world, as
an object before which one may bow down to invoke
his adoration and love; and when Art, no longer
raising a feeble hand in wearying mutation, inspired
with a new life, shall consecrate her genius to the
glorification of the great All-in-all, that Power we
cannot comprehend, but which not the less we wor
ship from the inmost depths of our being.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Positive religion : its basis and characteristics. Lecture IV
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cranbrook, James
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874?]
Identifier
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G5512
Subject
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Positivism
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Positive religion : its basis and characteristics. Lecture IV), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Positivism
-
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PDF Text
Text
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE
TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
A FAREWELL ADDRESS.
T is now more than fifteen years since I began the
work, which,—so far as regards the periodical
issue of my publications,—I must now relinquish, in
consequence of continued ill-health and increasing
bodily infirmity.
The spectacle of millions of my fellow-countrymen,
bound hand and foot by metaphysical and priestly
exclusiveness, made so painful an impression upon my
mind that I felt irresistibly impelled to expose dog
matic assumptions and promote free theological in
quiry as the undoubted right of all thoughtful minds.
I
�2
Without under-estimating the formidable difficulties
which clerical prejudice and bigotry might be expected
to interpose in the way of such an enterprise, I
entered upon it single-handed and entirely on my
own responsibility; resolved in a courteous but un
compromising spirit to do my utmost to bring all my
forces to bear upon the errors and superstitions so
degrading to man’s highest nature, and to follow
truth, and truth only, wheresoever it might lead me.
In reviewing the past I contemplate with extreme
satisfaction the remarkable strides which Free
Thought has made in all orthodox sects; but espe
cially in the Church of England. The present agita
tion among a considerable section of the clergy in
favour of Ritualism, which at first sight might be
regarded as a retrograde movement, I look upon as
necessarily transient, and having no influence upon
the highest intellect within the Church. It is but the
last convulsive effort of priestcraft to keep hold of
the mind of the country, which is fast growing dis
satisfied with the arid pastures of ecclesiasticism, and
repairing to the spacious and fertile meadows of
reason and science.
Even at the period when my labours commenced,
intelligent persons interested in the relation of ortho
doxy to the age could not fail to observe that the
artillery of Science and advanced Biblical scholarship
had already been directed against Church dogmas.
Secret doubts and difficulties respecting the doc
trines of Biblical inspiration, the atonement, and
supernaturalism, here and there disquieted both lay
�3
and clerical minds ; but the war was, for the most
part, limited to learned critics in the hostile camps.
The conviction was forced upon me that a series of
pamphlets discussing the vexed questions in a search
ing yet reverent manner would be welcomed by large
numbers of thoughtful inquirers, and stimulate those
who might be desirous of obtaining satisfaction to
the free and independent scrutiny of theories errone
ously held by the churches to be founded on the
“Word of God.”
My first efforts met with a much wider and more
cordial reception than in my highest expectations I
had reason to anticipate.
On the first appearance of my publications, expres
sions of sympathy with my design and offers of co
operation in the work reached me from what seemed
to be the most unlikely quarters, and, for a consider
able period afterwards, able and highly-educated
clergymen forwarded me manuscripts for publication,
containing attacks on the false bulwarks of ecclesiasticism, and expositions of absolute moral verities.
Cultivated and earnest laymen, capable of dealing
with the points at issue, also came forward volun
tarily and contributed useful papers to the series.
While the movement has been under my direction,
essays on every branch of theology have been issued,
illustrating the unhistorical character of many Bible
records, the gradual development of beliefs and cere
monies from Solar and Phallic worship to Christianity,
the Priestly Origin of creeds, and the true inductive
method of investigation. But while destructive criti-
�4
cism has been freely employed against the mythical
element in the Old and New Testament, and the
legendary traditions of the Church, which have been
put forward by the orthodox as facts, there has been
in many of the pamphlets a due recognition of Natu
ral Law and essential Morality as the only solid and
sufficient principles for the government of human
conduct.
It is one of the most striking evidences of the wide
spread scepticism throughout Protestant Christendom
respecting the foundations of religious faith, that
many thousands of persons in all classes of society,
—and in all parts of the world,—lay and clerical,
have applied to me for my pamphlets, notwithstanding
that I have never made use of any other medium of
advertising them than their own contents.
The work in which I have been engaged has brought
me into very extensive correspondence and personal
intimacy with officials and adherents of various
churches, and afforded me special opportunities for
studying current ecclesiastical and theological move
ments, and I am forcibly, impressed with the belief
that there are influences at work which are destined,
sooner or later, to cause the disintegration of all
existing systems of religion that are based on mere
traditional authority, and to emancipate the human
mind from the thraldom of priestcraft in every form.
Experience and observation combine to convince me
that the tendencies of the age point to the ultimate
substitution of the authority of reason for that of
alleged book revelation.
�5
The persuasion gains ground everywhere that
the only true orthodoxy is loyalty to reason, and
the only infidelity which merits censure is dis
loyalty to reason. The exaltation of blind and un
thinking sentiment above calm and clear judgment
constitutes the real offence which the orthodox have
unwittingly branded as the “ sin against the Holy
Ghost.”
. It is no little gratification to me to note how
many clergymen and ministers, now liberated from
the bondage of creeds and detached from the
worse than useless occupation of teaching dogmas,
received their first impulse to free inquiry from the
perusal of my publications. Recent charges delivered
by Archbishops and Bishops unmistakably convey the
impression that they are beginning to tremble for
the Ark of Orthodoxy. The most observant digni
taries of the Church openly confess that it is not
Ritualism so much as Rationalism which they fear.
Nor is their alarm groundless, for the rapid diffusion
of the light of science and criticism will eventually
disclose the hollowness of the pretensions on which
are based the claims of the Christian Scriptures to
the attributes of authenticity, genuineness, and mira
culous inspiration. No leader of theological opinion
affects to deny that the work which, at my own risk,
I have carried on, has been an appreciable factor in
the general movement of Free Thought within the
Church and Nonconformist bodies.
The seed which has been sown, must, in the nature
of things, remain for a time, in some instances, appa
�6
rently unproductive. There is a rapidly increasing
number of Liberal thinkers who continue to occupy
pulpits, and many more who frequent places of wor
ship, that can hardly be expected to sever suddenly
their connexion with their ecclesiastical associations.
There are preachers convinced of the false position
they hold who, from regard to social standing or from
the imperious necessity of earning a living for their
families, persist in doing violence to their intellectual
and moral nature by reiterating creeds and enforc
ing dogmas which they have inwardly renounced.
There are Liberal thinkers in every sphere of
life who keep up a questionable semblance of
evangelical devotion from fear of the social “Mrs.
Grundy,” and in order to avoid injuring the
prospects of their sons and daughters in the walks
of fashion. But over all such untoward agencies the
cause of Freedom of Thought and Freedom of Expres
sion will certainly triumph ; and every anathema of
priests and denunciation by bigots will but tend to
accelerate its progress.
My work has absorbed most of my time and thought
and a considerable portion of my private means from
the outset. At the same time it has been to myself,
as well as to Mrs. Scott, who has throughout ren
dered me unremitted assistance, a source of unspeak
able pleasure. But the work is now done as far as
I am concerned, and has already been followed by
results far surpassing any expectations I may have
ventured to entertain when I began it. I can only
trust that genuine sympathy with the object for
�7
which I have laboured may incite others to redoubled
zeal in the same cause; for many a blow will still have
to be levelled at the fortress of superstition ere it be
finally razed to the ground. To those who have aided
me with able pen and liberal purse I tender my most
hearty and grateful thanks. For the unfailing cour
tesy and assistance ever rendered me in my work by
my printers my sincere acknowledgments are justly
due. It is with the deepest regret that I feel myself
compelled, most reluctantly, to bid my readers
farewell.
While life remains, however, I shall cherish a
watchful interest in the movement which I have
done my best to promote. Nor can I doubt that those
who have derived mental benefit from my labours
will do their utmost to guide others, who are seek
ing the light, towards that simple code of religion
and morals which is comprehended in being good and
doing good, not in hope of reward, not from fear of
punishment, but because it is good.
THOMAS SCOTT.
11 The Terrace, Farquhar Road,
Upper Norwood, London, S.E.,
March, 1877.
C. W. REYNELL, PRINTER, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET, W.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A farewell address
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Scott, Thomas [1808-1878.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 7 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. "It is now more than fifteen years since I began the work, - so far as regards the periodical issue of my periodicals.- I must now relinquish ... increasing bodily infirmity'. [Opening paragraph]. A reference possibly to Signs of the Times. Signed and dated March 1877.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1877]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5460
Subject
The topic of the resource
Free thought
Publications
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A farewell address), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
Press
Thomas Scott