A Meditation.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3933, 6 August 1881, Page 1

A Meditation.

Id the ordinary branches of human knowledge or enquiry, the judicious questioning of received opinions baa been regarded as the sign of scientific vitality, tie principle of scientific advancement the very source and root of healthy progress and growth. If medicine had been regulated three hundred years ago by Act of Parliament; if there had been Thirty-nine Articles of Physic, it is easy to conjecture in what state of health the people of this country would at present be found If the College of Physicians had been organised into a board of orthodoxy, and erery novelty of treatment had been regarded as a crime against society, which a law had been established to punish, the hundreds who die annually from preventible causes would hare been thousands and tens of thousands. Many reasons not difficult to understand hare long continued to exclude theology from the region where free discussion is supposed to be applicable. That so many persons hare a personal interest in the maintenance of particular views, would of itself be fatal to fair argument. Though they know themselves to be right, yet right is not enough for them unless there is might to support it, and those who talk most of faith show least tbat they possess it. But there are deeper and more subtle objections. The theologian requires absolute certainty, and there are no absolute certainties in science ; the conclusions of science are never more than in a high degree probable. Such hesitation is altogether unsuited to the theologian, whose certainty increases with the mystery and obscurity of his matter; his.convictions admit of noqualification ; he knows what he believes, for he has the evidence in his heart; if he enquire, it is with a a foregone conjV u> sJon,^d^serjous doubt with him is sin. The pllfb' peasant crawling with bare knees over the splintered rocks on Croagn Patrick, the new prostrate before the image of St. Mary, the Methodist in the spasmodic ecstacy of a revival, alike are conscious of emotions in themselves which correspond to their creed; the more passionate, or—as some would say —the more unreasoning the piety, the louder and more clear is the voice within. But these varieties are no embarrassment to the theologian. Whatever the party to which be himself belongs, he is equally i satisfied that he alone has the truth ; thej rest are under the illusions of Satan. Afl further cause which has operated to p~4fl vent theology, from obtaining the beif^l of free discussion is the interpretat^H popularly placed upon the constitutional the Church Establishment. For fif^H centuries of its existence, the Chris^H Church was supposed to be under immediate guidance of the Holy Sj^^f which miraculously controlled its de^^^M and precluded the possibility of e^^H This theory broke down at the Ref^^H tion, but it left behind.it a oonfused^^^H that theorical truth was in^^^^f way different from other trutl^^^^^ partly on grounds of public' po^^^^| State took upon itself to fir by sta^^^^H doctrines which should be^i^mH to the people. In {he Watter oF the thirty-nine articles the! idea of absolute inward belief has been substituted for that of obedience ; aad the man who, in taking orders, sif-ns the Articles and accepts the Prayer Book, does not merely undertake to use the services in the one, and abstain from contradicting to his congregation the doctrines contained in the other; but he is held to promise what no honest man, without presumption, can undertake to promise-—that he will continue to think to the end of his life as he thinks when he make his engagement. If the popular theory of subscription be true, and the Articles are articles of belief, a reasonable human being, when little more than a boy, pledges himself to

a long series of intricate and highly difficult propositions of abstruse divinity. He undertakes never to waver or doubt —never ,to ■ ttllot^fiis7 mind: to be ,shaken, whatever the weight of argument or evidence, brought to bear upon; him. That is to say, he promises to do what no living man has a right to promise to do; He is doing on • thq ; authority of. Parliament precisely what the. Church of Kome required him-tosdo on the authority of a Council. If a jcieigyman-—in trouble amidst the abstruse subjects with which he has to deal, or unable to reconcile , some new , discovered truth of science ..with the, established .formulas—puts for--ward his perplexities; if he ventures a doubt of the omniscence of the statesmen i and divines Of the sixteenth century, there is an instant cry to have him silenced, and if no longer punished in life and limb, to have <biri» "deprived of the means of support. !;Keligion from the beginning of time has r expanded and changed ,with the growth „of .knowledge. The religion of the pro--4 jphets was not the religion which was Adapted to the hardness of heart of the Israelites of the Exodus. The Gospel set aside the Law; the creed of the early - Church was not the creed of the Middle Agesanymore than the creed of Luther and Cranmer was-the creed of St. Bernard and Aquinas. Old things pass away, new things come in their place; and they in ,' turn grow old, and give place to others ; yet in each of the many forms which Christianity; has assumed in the world, holy men have lived and died, and have had the witness of the Spirit that they ,were r not far from the truth. It may be that the faith which saves is the something held in common by all sincere Christians, and by those as well as who should come from the East and the West, and sit down in the kingdom of God, ..when the children ; of the covenant would be cast out. It may be that the true teaching of our Lord is overlaid with doctrines; and theology, when insisting ,on the reception of its huge catena of formulas, may be binding a yoke upon our necks which neither we nor our forefathers were able to bear.

' : Bat it is not the object of this paper to put forward either : ihis or any other particular opinion. The writer is conscious only that he is passing fast towards the dark gate which soon will close behind him. He believes that some kind of sincere and firm conviction on these things is of infinite moment to him, and, entirely diffident of his own power to find his way towards such a conviction, he is both ready and anxious to disclaim all right of private judgment in the matter. He wishes only to learn from those who are able to teach him. The present writer, while he believes generally that reason, however inadequate, is the best faculty to which we have to trust, yet is most painfully conscious of the weakness of his own reason ; and once let the real judgment of the best and wisest men be declared— let those who are most capable of forming a sound Opinion, after reviewing the whole relations of science, history, and what is now received as revelation, tell us fairly ( how much of the doctrines popularly taught they conceive to be adequately established, how much to be uncertain, and how much, if anything, to be mistaken, there is scarcely, perhaps, a single serious enquirer who would not submit with delight to a court which is the highest on earth. "We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty so far as it professes to be a faith at all or it is nothing. It may be .that all intellectual efforts to arrive at it are in vain ; that it is given to those to whom it is given, and withheld from those from whom it is withheld. It may be that the existing belief is undergoing a silent modification, like those to which the dispensations of religion have been subjected ; or again, it may be that to the creed as it is already established there is nothing to be added, and nothing any more to be taken from it. At this moment, however, the most .vigorous minds appear to see their way ileast to a conclusion ; and notwithstanding all the .school and church buildings, the extended episcopate, and the religious newspapers, a general doubt is coming up like a thunderstorm against the wind, and blackening the . sky. Those who cling most tenaciously to the faith in which they were educated, yet confess themselves perplexed. They know what they believe, but why they believe it, they cannot tell or cannot agree. Between the authority of the church, and the authority of the Bible, the testimony of history, and the testimony of the spirit, the ascertained facts of science and the contradictory facts which seem to be revealed, the minds of men are tossed to and fro, harrassed by the changed attitude in which'scientific investigation &as placed us all towards account* %{ supernatural occurrences. We trust the subject aside ; we take refuge in practical work; we believe, perhaps, that the situation is desperate and helpless of improvement; we refuse to let the question be disturbed. But we cannot escape from our shadow, and the spirit of uncertainty will haunt the world like an uneasy ghost, till we take it by the throat like men. It is idle i to say peacejprhen there is ho peace ; the L law in this country has postponed our I trial but cannot save us from it; and the questions which have agitated the conare agitating us at last. The who twenty years ago was conwith the Greek and Latin fathers, the Anglican divines, now reads and Benan. The church author!still refuse to look their difficulties in face; they prescribe for : mental the established doses of Paley Pearson ; they refuse dangerous as sinful, and tread the round commonplace in placid comfort. it will not avail. Their grow to manhood, and fight for themselves, unaided by who ought to have stood by them in and could not or would not; 9HHOte bitterness of those conflicts, and "theencl of most of them in heartbroken uncertainty or careless indifference, is too notorious to all who care to know about such things. We cannot, afford year after year to be distracted with the tentativel scepticism of essayists and reviewers. When questions rose in the early and middle ages of the Church, they were decided by councils of the wisest; those best able to judge met togetheri 'and compared their thoughts, .and conclusions were'arrived at which individuals could accept and act upon. Counoilßjwiliino;longer,anawer the purpose ;, the clergy have no longer a superiority of intellect or cultivation, and a conference of prelates from all parts of Christendom, or-even from all' departments of the English Church, would not pjrese.nt' an spectacle. Parliament niay-no longer meddle witli s opinions unless it be to untie the chain* which it

forged three centuries ago. But better than Councils, better than sermons, better than Parliament, is that free discussion through a free press, which is the fittest instrument for the discovery of truth, and the most effectual means for preserving it. We shall be told, perhaps, that we are beating the air—that the press is free, and chat all men may and do write what they please. It is not so. Discussion is not free so long as the clergy who take any side but one are liable to be prosecuted and deprived of their means of living ; it is not free so long as the expression of doubt is considered as a sin by public opinion, and as a crime by the law. So far are we from free discussion, that the world is not yet agreed that a free discussion is desirable; and till it be so agreed, the substantial intellect of the country will now throw itself into the question. The battle will continue to be fought by outsiders, who suffice to disturb a repose which they cannot restore ; and that collective voice of the national understanding, which alone can give back to its a peaceful and assured conviction, will not be heard.— Fbotjde.

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