RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 2, 15 May 1863, Page 1 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY.

'(From the Queensland Guardian^

There can be little question that, in comprehensive grasp of intellct and in the disposition and capacity to adapt themselves to what is going on aroun(^ them, many of the religious teachers of our time are Umentahfy behind the age in which they live. Men of university education are no doubt highly trained so far as regards the learning of the cloister. They can define clearly the dogmas of the church, maintaining the traditions of the fathers, and reasoning in the one old groove along which theological argument has rolled backwards and forwards for so many hundred yeaTS. They have accepted a creed, and, no matter what new lights or modifications may present themselves, that creed they are determined to defend, even to martyrdom, down to its very smallest details. Compromise they will none of— not even though their refusal should split their church in two. They forget nothing, and learn nothing. What they have acquired they will hold ; if it is partial they will ' not extend it — if it is too sweeping they will not submit it to any limitations. These are the characteristics of too many of the men who ought to he the lights and guides of the world. They defend their unbending determination on the ground that they are the officers of a King who cannot err ; while, at the same time, they fail to show their commissions, or prove the authenticity of the orders they profess to obey. The vulgar ignorant enthusiast or impostor who holds forth in our streets, consigning to perdition every passer-by who will not stop to listen to his insane ravings and coarse blasphemy, is but a caricature of too many that have been better taught, and from whom w<j might therefore, have expected better results. How is it that clergymen generally have such horror of reason — the very word grating 1 on their ears with a harsh suspicious sound — while they seek to build the superstructure of piety and the religion of the heart on the infinitely worse foundation of formal dogmas and set creeds I We all run the risk of being made mechanical because our teachers are mechanics.

A great deal of disapprobation is generally expressed when a newspaper writer ventures to address the public on a religious subject; and. singularly enough, this dislike is most felt by those who would

desire to see religion form a component part of the conbtitution of the state. On this point we may content ourselves with simply remarking: that if the subject be handled in a becoming manner, and polemical controversy be avoided, there is nothing in religion itself which ought to exclude it from the columns of the broadsheet.

" The difficulties that spring from that unrestrained spirit of free enquiry which claims the right to sift and test all theories, and bows to no authority, however venerable, which cannot make pood by argument its claim on our allegiance,'*' — these difficulties have lately been faced in a very brave and generous manner by a dignitary of the Church of England, who certainly does not belong to that category which we have described as constituting perhaps the majority of the religious teachers of our day. Dr Tait, Bishop of London, has quitted himself like a man ; and would that there were many more of his noble stamp to stand up in times like these, and speak the words of truth and soberness. The charge delivered by his Lordship to his clergy at St. Paul's Cathedral in December last, was one of which the Church of England, if she understands her real position, may well be proud. The speaker alludes at length, and in- the most admirable terms, to the spirit of free enquiry into religious; subjects ■which has to so great an extent characterised the history of the last iew years. And before drawing attention to: :what- the jßishep has to say —to us as well as to his own clergy— let us remember what, sort of person he is that says it. That, he is a Bishop is nothing—rDr ; Colenso also is a Bishop, though whether he ought to be one ia

another question. "Am I convinced,' says Dr. Tait, "of the heavenly' origin of those great truths for which thp Church of England has been appointed by the Lord Jesus as the chief witness upon earth 2 " After this no one will doubt the thorough orthodoxy of the Bishop of London. And how does this out-and-out churchman deal with men who write essays and reviews, or who are contemplating secession to the Church of Rome, or who are impugning the authority of Moses, or who fail to perceive in the Church of England— or any other section of Christians — the chief witness of God upon earth ? What does he propose to do with the wretched herd ? That grand old institution, the stake, is of course out of the question ; our milk-and-water age can't support anything so effective and so sublime. But this modern Bishop really wishes to exterminate error —perhaps c • fervently as did Bonner and Gardiner themselves. What would he do then? Listen to him. As he believes in the magna est of truth, so he believes also in its prcevalebit. "Am I persuaded," he says, " that supernatural revelation and the natural discoveries of reason are two methods through which God makes himself known to man ? Then I caD have no doubt that ultimately the conclusions arrived at by the use of God's two instruments must agree." This is noble talk, and reminds one of the brave confidenca of Gamaliel in times of old. Almost every one will admit the truth of what the Bishop says, yet how few are ready to come forward and use such language — how few to act up to it ! Oh that our doctors were moulded more than they are after the type of Gamaliel and Dr. Tait? We should have more Pauls sitting at their feet. Having thus apprehended the grand principle on which the Bishop faces the difficulties arising from free discussion, let us enquire a little more particularly into his practical views.

The only way, he says, in which a free inquirer, who has arrived at false ami dangerous conclusions, can be effectually met, is by those who are able to a certain extent to sympathise with them. Nothing is so likely to spread scepticism as an unintelligent and dogmatic mode of dealing with it — making arrogant claims to an unquestioning obedience and submission of the understanding, and sweeping accusations as to the corrupt state of the heart from which doubt and unbelief are supposed to spring. And the Bishop is right. There is truth in the remark of Novalis, — "to become properly acquainted with a truth, one must first have disbelieved it." Scepticism will never be cured by the arguments of men who have not themselves the sense to be suepticle. On the contrary, as the Lstshop himself i-emarks, the sermon of a shallow rash young clergyman on the evidence of Christianity might chance to shake the faith of a cool clear headed lawyer on points which previously he had never questioned. There is nothing more irritating to the reflecting mind than the " T tell you" of the pulpit — nothing: so winning as the gracious words of our Father in heaven, ''come now, and let us reason together." "We must not forget," says Dr. Tait, " the kindly consideration with which Archbishop ITowley made allowance for the youthful scruples of Arnold ; and certainly most good men will allow that the Church of England of this century would have been maimed if Arnold had been scared from its ministry." A^ns] how many Arnolds have been so scared for want of such archbishops ? We should form a very low opinion of the youthful student in theology who had no doubts. The evil is — not in entertaining them, for they must be entertained to be overcome — but in thrusting them conceitedly forward without anfficient consideration, and in opposition to the whole Christian world. But perhaps this would happen less if we had more men in authority of the Tait and Rowley school.

Having thus wisely dealt wifh the matter under one aspect, the Bishop nextproceds to a consideration of this spirit of free inquiry specially in relation to the clerev. The difficulty of course is this, that the clergy have professed their belief in certain fixed formularies of doctrine, and only hold their position in virtue of this uvofession. How then can they call this doctrine into question while retaining their position as its professors and defenders ? This is a delicate point, and the Bishop is not so successful in dealing with it as with the other. The reason is clear, and was so no doubt to the Bishop himself, although it would not have done for him to state it. The Church of England requires of her ministers, almost before the down of youth has left her cheeks, adherence to a diffuse detailed mass of religious doctrine, the result of the combined learning, study, and experience of ages. In exacting this, the Church confessedly exacts more than can be expected from reason alone. She demands faith — reliance or- her own wisdom and that of the fathers ; she looks for a motion of the heart, and that submission of the understanding which a child is expected to manifest towards its parents or those who are set in authority over it. This condition of pupilage many of its clergy are willing to maintain to the end, piously entrusting the keeping of their con sciences to the Church, and this is probably what the Church herself intended and desires. Others, however, of a different mental constitution, 6nd it absolutely impossible thus fo surrender their minds to others' direction, and these men begin to enquire The faith that they have professed they wish to strengthen by meeting rationally every doubt as it suggests itself, and in very many cases they must fail in some particular. The mischief is that they should ever have been required to give in so thorough an adhesion on so manj r minor and trivial points, about which, even as ministers of one Church, they might well have been allowed to differ. The Bishop is perhaps a little unorthodox, but he is very admirable when he says — " Even as to the declarations which the law of the land required to he made at ordination, I should be ready myself, even now, in spite of all temporary alarm as to unsound opinions, to relax rath>r than tighten the bond ;" and he adds— "the generous confiding policy is the best and the most Christian," No doubt. It as as futile in some some cases as it is pernicious in others to screw down the human intellect to any set formula, and bring all its faculties under one fixed rule of drill. The mind that does not enquire and judge is no mind at all, and the Church that would crush enquiry becomes in time, as we have seen it. a corrupt -engine of intellectual and moral despotism. The Bishop would have the clergy enquire, and he broadly hints that there should be a little more of this enquiry at the universities than there is at present.

There is one important consideration that should never escape as, and that is, thatreligious inamryshould always be conducted in a religious spirit. There should be no irreverence or rationalistic pride. Men should always remember the litfclenes

of their minds as compared with the vastness of a subject which thny can never hope to master. Reason itself will tell \is there are things we cannot reason. Humility and awe should go with us in all our investigations ; and if we find ourselves constrained to differ from the great, and the wise, and the grood, let us do so with the admission and the belief that, after alf, we n<ay very possibly be wrong and they right, although, so far as we can arrive at a conclusion by the conscientious employment of every means at our disposal, we are constrained to think otherwise. The man who disbelieves after this fashion will not be long in arriving: at the truth. If he discover it in the creeds and formulas of a church — if he have the happiness of finding that the independent, honest exercise of his judgment brings him into harmonious accord with a large company of wise and holy men — let him rejoice and be thankful ; but let him not harshly judge an equally earned and conscientious though mistaken brother, whose enquires may have landed him desolate and alone on a strange inhospitable shore.