Theological Essays/I

St. Paul says, Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Charity, I am nothing.

Many a person in this day has exclaimed, when he has heard these words, "If the Apostle Paul always adhered to that doctrine, how readily one would listen to him,-what sympathy one would have with him! For this one moment he confesses how poor all those dogmas are, on which he dwells elsewhere with so much of theological refinement; Faith, which he told the Romans and Galatians was necessary and able to save men from ruin, shrinks here to its proper dimensions, and, in comparison of another excellence, is pronounced to be good for nothing. It is for divines to defend his consistency if they can; we are only too glad to accept what seems to us a splendid inconsistency, in support of a principle which it is the great work of our age to proclaim."

​I have been often tempted to answer a person who spoke thus, in a way which I am sure was foolish and wrong. I have been inclined to say, "The Charity which the Apostle describes is not the least that tolerance of opinions, that disposition to fraternise with men of all characters and creeds, which you take it to be. His nomenclature is spiritual and divine, yours human and earthly. If you could look into the real signification of this chapter, you would not find that you liked it much better than what he says of Faith elsewhere."

This language is impertinent and unchristian. We fall into it partly because we look upon objectors as opponents whom it is desirable to silence; partly because we suppose that there is a spurious Charity prevalent in our time, which must be carefully distinguished from real and divine Charity; partly because we think that the interests of Theology demand a more vigorous assertion of those distinctive Christian tenets which are often confounded in a vague all-comprehending philosophical Theory. I have felt these motives and arguments too strongly not to sympathise with those who are influenced by them. It is in applying them to practice that I have found how much I might be misled by them.

1. I know I can silence an objector by telling him that the Bible means something altogether different from that which it appears to mean. He does not care to discuss any question with me when he has understood that there is no medium of communication between us; that I am speaking a language which I cannot interpret to him. He believes the book I honour above all others to be a book of Cabbala, and he throws it away accordingly. And ​if I afterwards refer to any passages of beautiful human morality which I think may impress him in its favour, he tells me plainly, that I know the intention of those passages is not what the words indicate, and that the conscience of mankind responds to their apparent, not to their real, signification.

I have done this service to him by that method of mine. What have I done for the Bible? I have practically denied that its language is inspired, and that the truth which the language expresses is divine. I must suppose that inspired language is the most inclusive and comprehensive of all language; that divine truth lies beneath all the imperfect forms of truth which men have perceived, sustaining them, not contradicting them. If a particular temper or habit characterises a man, or a country, or an age, the believer in a Revelation would naturally conclude that there must be an affinity between this temper or habit, and some side of that Revelation;—he would search earnestly for the point of contact between them, and rejoice when he recognised it. He might find the temper or habit in question often confused, often feeble, often evil. His only hope of removing the confusion, strengthening the feebleness, counteracting the evil, would lie in the power which seemed to be given him of connecting it with that wider and deeper principle from which it had been separated. Every, even the slightest, inclination on the part of persons who were habitually suspicious of that which he regarded as truth, to acknowledge a portion of it as bearing upon their lives, he would eagerly and thankfully hail. So far from complaining of them because they fixed upon a certain aspect of the Revelation, remaining indifferent or sceptical about every other, he ​would consider this a proof that they were treating it in the most natural and sincere way,—accepting what in their state of mind they could most practically apprehend and use. If another side of it was for them lying in shadow, he might,—provided he had any clear conviction that God has His own way of guiding His creatures,—be content that they should not, for the present, try to bring that within the range of their vision. At all events, he would feel that his work was clearly marked out for him. In this, as in all other cases, he could not hope to arrive at the un- known, except through that which is perceived, how- ever partially. He would not quench the light by which any men are walking, under pretence that it is merely torch-light, lest he, as well as they, should be punished with complete darkness. If I have failed to act upon these maxims, I am certain that my faith in God's Revelation has been weak.

2. I do not deny that there is much in the feelings which we of this age associate with the word Charity, that is artificial, fantastical, morbid. Most will admit this respecting the charity of others,—some about their own. I do not deny that the talk about Charity, the sensation about it, even the attempt to practise it, is compatible with a vast amount of uncharitableness. That also will be generally admitted; perhaps, the confession is more sincere than any other which we make. It is equally true that each school has its own notion of Charity, that the definitions of it are unlike, that the limitations of it are various and capricious. The point to be considered is, whether all these diversities, subsisting under a common name, do not prove, more than anything else, the tendency of the time in which they are found,—the direction in which our ​thoughts are all moving. The conscience of men, asleep to many obligations, is awake to this. All confess that they ought to have charity of some kind. Portraits of dry, hard, cold-hearted men, who have in them, possibly, a sense of justice and right, are sure to produce a revolting, as from something profoundly and essentially evil, even in spectators who can look upon great criminals with half-admiration, as gigantic and heroical. The formalist has become almost the name for reprobation among us; that from which every one shrinks himself, and which he attributes to those whom he execrates most, precisely because it denotes the man in whom charity has been sacrificed to mere rule. The more you look into the discussions of different parties in our time, the more you will find that, however narrow and exclusive they may be, comprehension is their watchword. We separate from our fellows, on the plea that they are not sufficiently comprehensive; we strive to break down fences which other people have raised, even while we are making a thicker and more thorny one ourselves.

If there is any truth in the observations which I made under the last head, these indications might appear almost to determine the course which a divine in the nineteenth century should follow, though by adopting it he departed from the precedents of other times. The same motive which might have led one of the Reformers to speak first on Faith,—because all men, whether Romanists or Anti-Romanists, in some sense acknowledged the necessity of it,—should incline a writer in this day to begin his moral or theological discourses from Charity, at whatever point he may ultimately arrive. But there would be no deviation from precedent. The doctors of the first ages, ​and of the middle ages, continually put forth the Divine Charity as the ground upon which all things in heaven and earth rest, as the centre round which they revolve. And this was done not merely by those who were appealing to human sympathies, but in scientific treatises. What is more to our purpose, the compilers of our Prayer-book, living at the very time when Faith was the watchword of all parties, thought it wise to introduce the season of Lent with a prayer and an epistle which declare that the tongues of men and of angels, the giving all our goods to feed the poor, the giving our bodies to be burnt, finally, the faith which removes mountains, without Charity, are nothing. This Love was to be the ground of all calls to repentance, conversion, humiliation, self-restraint; this was to unfold gradually the mystery of the Passion and of the Resurrection, the mystery of Justification by Faith, of the New Life, of Christ's Ascension and Priesthood, of the Descent of the Spirit, of the Unity of the Church. This was to be the induction into the deepest mystery of all, the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. If it is asked what human charity can have to do with the mysteries of the Godhead, the compilers of the Prayer-book would have answered, "Certainly nothing at all, if human charity is not the image and counterpart of the Divine; if there can be a charity in man which beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things, unless it was first in God, unless it be the nature and being of God. If He is Charity, His acts must spring from it as ours should; Charity will be the key to unlock the secrets of Divinity as well as of Humanity." As a Churchman, I might, perhaps, venture to follow out a hint, which rests on such ​an authority, and comes to us supported by such a prescription, without being suspected of innovating tendencies.

3. But I know why many will think that such a course may have been adapted to former days, and yet be unsuitable for ours. I shall be told "that it was very well to speak of Charity, divine or human, when the importance of dogmas and of distinguishing be- tween orthodox and heretical dogmas was admitted, nay, if that is possible, exaggerated; but that now, when all dogmatic teachings are scorned, not by a few here and there, but by the spirit of the age; when it is the minority who plead for them and feel their necessity; and when the popular cry is for some union of parties in which all barriers, theological, nay, it would seem sometimes, moral also, shall be thrown down:—at such a time to speak of putting Charity above Faith, or of referring to Charity as a standard for Faith, is either to palter with words in a double sense, pretending that you agree with the infidel, while you keep a reserved opinion in your own heart which would repel him if you produced it;—or else it is to give up your arms to him, owning that he has vanquished."

I feel as strongly as these objectors can feel, that this age is impatient of distinctions—of the distinction between Right and Wrong, as well as of that between Truth and Falsehood. Of all its perils, this seems to me the greatest, that which alone gives us a right to tremble at any others which may be threatening it. To watch against this temptation in ourselves, and in all over whom we have any charge or influence, is, I believe, our highest duty. In performance of it, I should always denounce the glorification of ​private judgment, as fatal to the belief in Truth, and to the pursuit of it. We are always tending towards the notion that we may think what we like to think; that there is no standard to which our thoughts should be conformed; that they fix their own standard. Who can toil to find, that which, on this supposition, he can make? Who can suffer, that all may share a possession which each man holds apart from his neighbour?

But Dogmatism is not the antagonist of private judgment. The most violent assertor of his private judgment is the greatest dogmatist. And, conversely, the loudest asserter of the dogmatical authority of the Church is very apt to be the most vehement and fanatical stickler for his own private judgments. His reverence for the Church leads him to exercise in his individual capacity, what he takes to be her function in her collective capacity. He catches what he supposes to be her spirit. He becomes, in conse- quence, of all men, the most headstrong and self- willed. There must be some other escape than this from the evils of our time; this road leads us into the very heart of them.

It seems to me that, if we start from the belief— Charity is the ground and centre of the Universe: God is Charity,"—we restore that distinctness which our Theology is said to have lost, we reconcile it with the comprehension which we are all in search of. So long as we are busy with our theories, notions, feelings about God—so long as these con- stitute our divinity—we must be vague, we must be exclusive. One deduces his conclusions from the Bible; one from the decrees of the Church; one from his individual consciousness. But the reader of the Bible ​confesses that it appeals to experience, and must in some way be tested by it; the greatest worshipper of the Church asks for a Bible to support its authority; the greatest believer in his own consciousness perceives that there must be some means of connecting it with the general conscience of mankind. Each denounces the other's method; none is satisfied with his own. If Theology is regarded not as a collection of our theories about God, but as a declaration of His will and His acts towards us, will it not conform more to what we find in the Bible-will it not more meet all the experiences of individuals, all the experiences of our race? And to come directly to the point of the objection which I am considering, will it not better expound all the special articles which our own Church, and the Christian Church generally, confesses? This at least is my belief.

I have tried to understand these articles when they have been interpreted to me by some doctor or apologist who did not start from this ground, and I frankly own I have failed. Their meaning as intellectual propositions has been bewildering to me; as guides to my own life, as helps to my conduct, they have been more bewildering still. But seen in this light, I have found them acquiring distinctness and unity, just in proportion as I became more aware of my own necessities and perplexities, and of those from which my contemporaries are suffering. They have brought the Divine Love and human life into conjunction, the one being no longer a barren tenet or sentiment, the other a hope- less struggle.

I wish that I might be able to set them before some whom I know, as they present themselves to me. do not think that I have anything rare or peculiar to ​tell; I believe I have felt much as the people about me are feeling. I might therefore address myself to many of different classes with a slight hope of being listened to; but I have one most directly and prominently before me while I write.

The articles of which I shall speak are precisely those which offend the Unitarian; in defending them I shall certainly appear a dogmatist to him, however little I may deserve that name from those who regard it as an honourable one. He either repudiates these articles absolutely, and considers that it is his calling to protest against them; or he repudiates them as distinct portions of a creed, holding that all the spiritual essence which may once have been in them, departs when they assume this character. I differ from those who take up the last position, quite as much as from those who maintain the first; but I have points, strong points, of sympathy with both, and I have profited by the teaching of both. I am not ashamed to say that the vehement denunciations of what they suppose to be the general faith of Christendom which I have heard from Unitarians—denunciations of it as cruel, immoral, inconsistent with any full and honest acknowledgment of the Divine Unity, still more of the Divine Love,— have been eminently useful to me. I receive them as blessings from God, for which I ought to give Him continual thanks. I do not mean, because the hearing of these charges has set me upon refuting them;—that would be a very doubtful advantage (for what does one gain for life and practice, by taking up the pro- fession of a theological special pleader?)—but because great portions of these charges have seemed to me well-founded; because I have been compelled to confess that the evidence for them was irresistible. And I ​have been driven more and more to the conclusion that that evidence does not refer to some secondary subordinate point,—which we may overlook, provided our greater and more personal interests are secured,—or to some point of which we may for the present know nothing, and be content to confess our ignorance; but that it concerns the grounds of our personal and of our social existence; that it does not touch those secret things which belong to the Lord, but the heart of that Revelation which He has made to us and our children. I owe it very much to these protests that I have learnt to say to myself:—"Take away the Love of God, and you take away everything. The Bible sets forth the Revelation of that Love, or it is good for nothing. The Church is the living Witness and Revelation of that Love, or it is good for nothing."

I owe also much to those Unitarians, who, being less strong in their condemnation of the thoughts and language of books written by Trinitarians, and avowing a sympathy with some of the accounts which they have given of their own inward conflicts, nevertheless hate Orthodoxy, as such, with a perfect hatred, affirming it to be the stifler of all honest convictions, and of all moral growth. I have not been able to gainsay many of their assertions and arguments. I cannot say that I have not seen and felt these effects following from what is called a secure and settled profession. I cannot say that the events of the last twenty years in the English Church do not convince me that it is God's will and purpose that we should be shaken in our ease and satisfaction, and should be forced to ask ourselves what our standing-ground is, or whether we have any. I cannot dissemble my belief, that if we are resting on any formulas—supposing they are the best formulas that ​were ever handed down from one generation to another—or on the divinest book that was ever written by God for the teaching of mankind, and not on the Living God Himself, our foundation will be found sandy, and will crumble under our feet. For telling me this, for giving me a warning which I feel that I need, and that my brethren need, I thank these Unitarians, and all others not called by their name, who have, in one form or another, in gentle or in rough language, united to sound it in our ears. I can say honestly in the sight of God, I have tried to lay it to heart, though not as much as I might have done, or as I hope to do. And now I wish to show that my gratitude for these benefits is not nominal but real, by telling the men of both these classes what they have not taught me, what I have been compelled to learn in another school than their's.

To the first, then, I say:—You have urged me to believe that God is actually Love. You have taught me to dread any representation of Him which is at variance with this; to shrink from attributing to Him any acts which would be unlovely in man. Well! and I find myself in a world ruled over by this Being, in which there are countless disorders; yes, and I find myself adding to the disorder—one of the elements of it. My heart and conscience demand how this is. I want to know,—not for the sake of a theory, but for the most practical purposes of life,—I want to know how these disorders may be removed out of the world and out of me. You are, I am aware, benevolent men, a great many of you eager for sanitary, social, political reformation. That is well, as far as you are concerned; but is the Ruler of the Universe as much interested in the state of it as you are? Has He done anything ​adequate for the deliverance of it from its plagues? is He doing anything? I have not found you able to answer these questions; and I do not think other people find that you are able. Men who have to sorrow, and suffer, and work, may accept your help in improving their outward condition, but they do not accept your creed; it is nothing to them. Atheism is their natural and necessary refuge, if the only image of God presented to them is of One who allows men to be comfortable,—who is not angry with them,—who wishes all to be happy, but leaves them to make themselves and each other happy as well as they can. They can meditate the world almost as well without such a Being as with him. I say this because it is true, and because the truth should be spoken. God forbid that I should say for a moment that it is true for you. I know it is not. I know the vision you have of God is consolatory to you; that it would be a loss to all of you,—to some a quite unspeakable loss,—to be deprived of it. Not for the world would I rob you of it, or of one iota of strength and comfort which you derive from it. Not for the world would I persuade you that your belief in a God of infinite Charity is not a precious and divine gift. But, remember!—infinite Charity. Charity is described as bearing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. Any Charity which is not of this character, I am sure you would cast out of your scheme of ethics; you would feel it could not be an ideal for men to strive after; you do wish, in your own case, not to give barren phrases to your fellows, but to "suffer with your suffering kind." I have a right to claim, that you should not think more meanly of the God whom you condemn other sects for misrepresenting, than you do of an ordinarily benevolent hero, nay, than ​It is all I ask of you before we engage in our present inquiry.

You, again, who think that there is some important truth in the doctrines we confess, but are convinced that we hold the shell of it, while you are possessing, or at least seeking for, the kernel; and that no fellowship will ever exist among human beings till they have been persuaded to cast the shell away; you who support this sentiment by evidence, all too clear and authentic, drawn from the records of the controversies between Churchmen, and from the feebleness of their present condition; you who bid us always keep our eyes upon some good time coming, when such controversies will cease, and another kind of Church will emerge out of those which you tell us are crumbling into dust; you, I have asked what the substance is within the shell; and the best answer I have got is, —"a certain religious sentiment—a tendency, that is, or bias or aspiration of the soul towards something." And that is—what? Is it known or unknown, real or fantastic, a Person or an abstraction? It is not a trifle to me whether I know or not; the world, too, is interested in the question. We cannot be told that our words and phrases are worthless, and then be put off with other words and phrases which are certainly not more substantial. You declare aloud how divided Churches are: will you tell us what has prevented them from being wholly divided; what has kept the members of them from being always at war? Has it been a religious sentiment? Has it been a philosophical abstraction? Are you afraid to join with me in considering that question?

Lastly, you look for a better day, and a united Church—so do I. But I want to know whether the ​foundation is laid on which that Church is to stand, or whether it is to be laid; whether the Deliverer and Head of mankind has come, or whether we are. to look for another? Your speculations have left me quite in the dark on this subject. I cannot bear the darkness. Shall we try if we can grope our way into the light?