RELIGIOUS "APOSTASY."

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2784, 16 January 1878, Page 2

RELIGIOUS "APOSTASY."

A question—or, as some prefer to call it, a scandal—of doctrinal "apostasy" has of late agitated the mind of the Presbyterian church; and as the General Assembly of the church at its late sittings carefully shunned any illusion to the subject, no reason for observing reticence about it, as a case tub judiee, any longer exists. The matter was first brought under the notice of the public by a pamphlet bearing the title, Presbyterian Apostacy, and-written in the form of a letter to toe Moderator of the General Assembly. The pamphleteer writes in a style that relieves us from the necessity of careful attention-to his statements or conclusions. He has evidently at* tended .the sermons of certain divine with the set purpose of obtaining materials for an acousation of heresy, and everything which exhibitedrecognition of thedemands of reason, or showed that the preacher was acquainted with, or-influenced by, the thought of his day^SllA^arefully noted aa evidence of his "apostasy" from the standards of the church. '1 here has been a second pamphlet, published by Dr. Cairns, on the same subject, whiob, as it seems to usi is as wanting in proper manly feeling as that of the anonymous pamphleteer. Dr. Cairns, indeed, only differs from his predecessor by the fact that he signs his pamphlet with his own name. But he is as careful as the other to deal in generalities, to avoid naming the. persons pointed at, and to evade the responsibility, while casting the imputa« tibns, of a public accuser.. In fact, the whole drift of his paper is to show that no accuser is required, and that the Presbytery can, and ought, to deal with the matter on the fama clamosa, or public rumour, that has arisen. . Bather a sir proceeding from a belligerent divine that often claims the credit of plain speakina regardless of consequences. We cannot pass from the notice of Dr Cairns' paper without referring to a story it tells, by way of example and encouragement; of the manner in which the Presbyterian Church of North America dealt with one of its ministers who had "in preaching denied the eternity of the K^-iSP**""*'""'** the wicked." The offending clergyman, it seems; when pressure was brought to bear upon-him; proved open to conviction on this essential point. He amiably recanted his errors: and, says Dr. Cairns, "the court gave thanks to God for so signal a proof otHif

loring. kindness, ending with a song of praise suitable to the occasion." To any person possessing the slightest sense of the ludicrous, this curious proceeding — the re-estahli9hmpnt, so to speak, of Hell by a Tote of confidence and ihe chanting of a grim song of thanksgiving, " suitable to the occasion," around the mouth of the Bottomless Pit—all quoted as a proof of Divin«» " loving kindness"—is ope of the most grotesque pieces of pious ribaldry which it ever entered even the brain of a theologian to conceive.

But passing from these outbreaks of the spite of outraged orthodoxy, angry to gee itself left; iti the rear, let us look a little at the real question involved. We do not doubt that there is a real question. These productions, however worthless in themselves, may serve as a proof of the existence of a practical problem in the Victorian Presbyterian Church. We may fairly take it for granted that the ministers pointed at, but not named, have given evidence in their preachings that they live in the nineteenth century, and not in the seventeenth. Quite possibly they have, with many of the best minds of the Christian church of the present day, felt that many matters look differently now from the way in which they looked 200 years ago. In these latter days, light has been let in upon many old subjects from many unexpected quarters. We have «one to and fro through the fields of thought and of nature, and knowledge has been increased. Historical and literary criticism, comparative mythology, _ researches into the genesis of religious beliefs, have combined with the vast acquisitions won in natural science to revolutionise our way of thinking, even with regard to the most ancient problems. Even the very machinery and implements of thought have been changed. Language has become specialised to a high degree, words —the currency of thought—have received new values, and a great idea— that of evolution —has profoundly transformed all of our mental operations. | By changes akin to that which followed the discovery of Copernicus, the centre of the universe of thought has been shifted, and all lines of measurement and coordination have been altered by the transfer. It is a mere truism to say that it has become impossible for any man who really thinks at all to think in the same formulas which served several centuries ago. All such formulas—all creeds and doctrines—as products of human thought, inevitably share in the mutability and transitoriness of all human things. The fact that they were an adequate expression of such thought centuries ago is conclusive evidence that they cannot be adequate now, when all of ihe factors have so profoundly changed. " But, our pamphleteers may say, " the question is not a mental one, but a moral one. We waive discussion" of the new ideas. All we say is that those who cannot teach the doctrines, of our church, as defined in its standards, should go out of our pulpits." This is so doubt a plain and trenchant way of solving a difficult question, but it is doubtful whether such a solution does not leava out of view the most important elements of the problem. We take it that the case of conscience presented to a man who during bis career as a clergyman has come to take a different view of the formulas of faith which he subscribed just after his school days is a very intricate one. It is one that is not touched by.the rough bludgeon methods of Dr Gairns and his brother pamphleteer. It is one that claims sympathy in proportion to its difficulty. If a man in such a position has come to feel and to see that the thought of the world has outgrown the doctrines j thus formulated, and that they fundamentally require re-stating, and determines to keep his intellectual and moral consistency unimpaired by leaving his church, it is plain that his act is unchallengeable. Such a course is direct, honest, candid, and high minded. So far as be is concerned it terminates many difficulties and ambiguities. But it by no means follows that it is the best thing he could do. Possibly* by taking such a step he leaves a position of great usefulness, and is not readily able in any other to bring his powers so directly and beneficially to bear on the minds and hearts of men for good as he could before. Moreover, by his retirement the church has lost an element of progress. If all the enlightened, progressive miuds retire from it, it must eventually become but a mere musty lumber-room of worn-out beliefs and dead formulas, without any reference to the thought of its day, or any influence on the life of mankind.

And in what interest is all this denunciation of apostasy? What are these standards, the desertion of which 19 made bo much of P They are the compilation of a number of men, who, in framing them, laid great stress on certain distinguishing .and defining doctrines, about which the 'opinion of even their professing followers has materially changed. Well, what prerogative has the seventeenth century, in legislating for itself in matters of faith, to legislate also v for all posterity P The ▼asfc body of the knowledge and thought which now sways the intellectual life of men has accrued since that period. These acquisitions have changed our views on many subjects—have made much credible, and much incredible, that did not seem so before. No system of faith can maintain its hold over the minds and consignees of men.which does not keep itself in sympathetic relation with the vital and dominant part of human mental activity. It is only by bringing the mind and feeling of the world of thought outside to bear on the mind and feeling of the church that the latter can retain its place as a teacher of mankind. And the church which seeks to cut off from itself the teachers who embody this element of progressive thought, thereby dooms itself to sterility and petrifaction, and can exist only in a fossilised form, utterly devoid of power on the intellect and heart of its generation.—Australasian.