The Religious Life of London Part 9

Besides there was a chant, in which all joined, and a small band to sing the Amen. Two sermons were preached; one by the Rev. Athanase Coquerel, the far-famed leader of the section of the Reformed Church of France which does not sympathize with orthodoxy. In the personal appearance of this celebrated preacher there was little that was heretical or foreign.

With his round face and stout frame you might have taken him for one of the sleekest of Anglican divines. Nevertheless his sermon was French in its construction and style of delivery and emphasis. His text was-"One thing is needful." His argument went to show that that one thing needful was the love of G.o.d, and that forms of faith and ritualism were so many hills in our way, which blinded the view and impeded our appreciation of this grand fundamental truth. The discourse, which lasted half an hour, over, the Rev. W. Miall engaged in extemporaneous prayer, in which there was a special reference to the death of the Rev. Mr. Tayler, of Hampstead, one of the committee of the Union, and a Professor of Manchester New College, London; and then came the Rev. C. Kegan Paul, Rector of Upminster, in Dorsets.h.i.+re, with another sermon. It is scarce necessary to observe that Mr. Paul-a fine, tall, muscular man in the prime of life, with a black beard and with a voice almost as sonorous (a Frenchman's lungs always seem better than an Englishman's) as Pastor Coquerel himself-is a man much distinguished by collegiate success and Eton fame, and that his sermon evinced high intellectual culture. His text was, "He is not here, but is risen," and his aim was to show how men seek the dead Christ rather than the living one. The Reformation was an attempt to get rid of ritualism and formalism, and now again it is felt that religion can no longer be confined in an article. It is not only the Bible we must consult, G.o.d has written His Word in life and humanity.

They were not Theists; Christ was a name symbolical of humanity, and they were, as a matter of fact, Christian men. Nor would they get rid of Christian phraseology as long as the feeling of the heart clothes itself in language hallowed by the use of ages. A change is pa.s.sing over society, and we have now to study religion in connexion with nature, science, progress, life. Still, nothing that has nourished the soul of man can die. All that has been is a part of what is to come, and sustained by this truth we are not to faint or fail. And then came the benediction, and ministers and people went home. In this Church of the future, as it aims to be, it is clear there will be nothing derogatory to the ministerial office. The committee were seated in various parts of the hall, while the ministers in black gowns occupied the platform.

Apparently never in Freemasons' Hall had there met there men more spiritual and anxious for Divine guidance, and devout. As to the issue of it all we can safely and reverently wait.

There are two sides to every picture-two aspects, at the least, in which human schemes and organizations may be viewed. On the first night, as regards the Free Christian Union, we had the one view which must have cheered its promoters; on the next, when the business meeting was held, when we were told of what the Society had done and what it was going to do, an element of a very different character appeared. In this great capital, at this season of the year, when London is crowded with notabilities, the managers had to go to Cambridge for a young man to preside, who had-we say it respectfully-really a physical disqualification for the office. Then there was a very young gentleman, quite unknown to fame, called on to second a resolution, and forced on to the platform from the body of the hall to say that and nothing more. As a matter of fact, the Society had enrolled, we believe, a couple of congregations, and voted a grant of 5_l._ to the Free Christian Church at Lynn. Nevertheless, with a platform on which few men save those connected with the Unitarian denomination appeared, and with but little response even from that body, the Society aims to influence the public mind, especially by the press, by the publication of essays on the connexion between scientific theology and pure religion, the Bible as literature, dogma, prophecy, miracles, the possibility of a national formula of public devotion, the ethics of conformity, the place of religion in education, the limits of State action in ecclesiastical organizations. In some quarters it was evident that the feeling was that the Society had better aim at some practical work, such as the reconstruction of the National Church on the bases laid down in its own preamble; and one speaker, forgetful of the fact that the Church of Rome denied the right of private judgment in matters of religion _in toto_, asked whether any effort had been made to secure its sympathy and co-operation. It says little for the meeting that such a puerile question was politely received. As to speaking, indeed, the meeting was a failure, or would have been had it not been for the presence of Athanase Coquerel, who spoke in English at great length with the utmost freedom and warmth, and who had much to say of his own struggles on behalf of Free Christianity in France, of universal interest.

It appears in its early days the Protestant Church of France was entirely exclusive, and its confession of faith was drawn up by Calvin and Beza.

One of its forty articles decreed that the sword had been put by G.o.d into the hands of reigning princes, magistrates, &c., not only to enforce obedience to the second table of the Ten Commandments, but also to the first. Another article implied that little children, even unborn babes, are condemned to eternal perdition in h.e.l.l; and if they die without baptism can in no way whatever be saved. By-and-by a little more elasticity was imported into this creed, and the Liberal party continued to live, even when, as in 1685, Louis XIV. shut up all the Protestant academies in France. An English writer had truly remarked that no Church had suffered so long and so much from persecution as the Reformed Church in France, and he was right-the last pastor who was hung in Paris suffered that penalty only as recently as the year 1762. A young pastor preaching at Nismes had for one of his hearers Lafayette, and he and Lafayette got from Louis XVI., in 1787, an edict that gave the French Protestants civil rights, and since then the Church has revived, but at the same time it has steadily and consistently refused to re-enact the old rigid creeds. At present there were two parties in the Church, one orthodox the other Liberal. In the Church at Paris, consisting of bankers, with whom Guizot always acted, the Consistory is orthodox. That Consistory was formed in 1802 by Napoleon, who selected for that purpose the twelve persons most wealthy. In 1848 this Consistory was re-elected by universal suffrage, and this was the cause of great changes. The ultra-Conservative feeling of the day retained the old set in office, and they, feeling themselves invested with additional power, began that persecution of M. Coquerel's father which continued till the last hour of his life. Of that persecution he, the speaker, had his share, and at last to support him the Union Protestante Liberale was formed. In a little while after he had spoken, to a certain extent favourably, of Renan's work, he was excluded from the Church, and M. Martin Paschaud as well. As to himself he had obtained leave with two young ministers to commence preaching in a hired room. At the same time, as they had not been legally ejected from the Church, they can baptize, marry, perform funeral services-in short, do everything but preach. In conclusion, the speaker said how rejoiced he was to find in England an attempt made to establish such a Society. It was the want of the time, and long he trusted might they continue to uphold the banner of peace and love.

It is clear, outside the meeting at Freemasons' Hall the idea is entertained that this was simply a Unitarian movement. Evidently such is the feeling of leading Unitarians themselves. One of them, the Rev. Mr.

Ierson, who preaches in a beautiful and costly chapel in Islington, to a congregation that does not half fill the place, evidently so regards it.

After the annual meeting, from the text, "Blessed are the peacemakers,"

he preached a sermon on behalf of the new organization. He was delighted with what had been done. In the devotional service he had witnessed more life than he had ever seen in a Unitarian service before, and he was thankful for it. At the same time Mr. Ierson expressed his regret that the movement did not aim to accomplish something more, and also regretted that it did not succeed in enrolling beneath its banner men of sufficiently diverse sentiments. This was not difficult to account for, continued the reverend gentleman. The Independent Churches, meaning by that term Baptists and Congregationalists, have great fear of each other.

The ministers are afraid of the people, who look well after them. In many places, if a man shakes hands with a Unitarian he is straightway denounced as a Unitarian himself. Nor was this altogether wrong. The real fact was that it would be found, directly any one approximated in civility to the Unitarians, he had either given up the doctrine of eternal d.a.m.nation or some of the other dogmas of his body, and was not completely, and in the old-fas.h.i.+oned sense of the term, orthodox.

Meanwhile the duty of the Unitarians was very obvious. They had to be more than ever charitable and deferential to all Christians, whatever their denomination. It was something to get men to respect each other, to believe each other to be honest, however they differed in faith and dogma. In his own opinion the Free Christian Union would have had a better chance had it been originated by another body of religionists.

Even as regarded themselves he feared many of them were not sufficiently educated up to the mark; but at any rate it was something for the Unitarians to be a.s.sociated with such a catholic and Christian union.

One word more may be said. At the business meeting one of the speakers was the Rev. Leigh Mann. Distinctly he avowed a belief the reverse of Unitarianism, and distinctly he glorified the a.s.sociation as one in which men of the most opposite dogmas could meet. In such an utterance we have an indication, how significant or eccentric time alone can tell. At any rate, while confessing that hitherto there has been little of Christian union founded on dogma, we may anxiously ask, is there a better chance if the common bond be work?

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LONDON ECCLESIA.

In the independent way, Baxter, describing the Westminster a.s.sembly of Divines, says, "I disliked many things." After mentioning what those things were-their making too light of ordination, their unnecessary and unscriptural strictness about the qualification of church members-he adds, "I disliked also the lamentable tendency of this their way to divisions and subdivisions and the nouris.h.i.+ng of heresies and sects."

The soul of the good man was wearied, as well it might be, with these differences, so trifling yet so fiercely discussed, with this waste of power, with this spirit of wrangling and contention, with these quarrels of Christian with Christian, when the world was only to be made better, and the true Church only to be built up, by a holy life. In our time the tendency of some minds to fly off into fresh sects is greater, perhaps, than ever. In one street you see a placard up stating that here the Gospel is preached, and nowhere else. A good man says he is weary of all this sectarianism, and at once hires a room and starts a new sect. A man's conscience is too sensitive to allow him to wors.h.i.+p with a one-man ministry, or with any existing denomination. He shakes his head, and mourns over their worldliness, their carnality, their want of spiritual life; but does he better it by standing aloof, by shutting himself up with a few dismal-minded people, who come with their Bibles, and see in them, not what sound scholarly criticism teaches, but that which their own morbid fancy suggests? As men of the world, these things are to be looked at practically, and by the light of common sense. Here are certain religious agencies at work-by them people are being strengthened in the Christian life, trained to Christian work, in their way promoting the welfare of man, and glorifying G.o.d. I may affect a superior piety, I may refuse to a.s.sociate with common Christians, I may leave them; but what is the result? That as far as I can I put hindrances in their way.

Ignorant people look up to me as a saint, and the church and the minister where I have any influence are to the extent of that influence damaged.

A gentleman writes to me-"Those who now represent the London Ecclesia, in recognition of the const.i.tution and order of its organization, are, in this metropolis, myself and three others;" and then quotes-"'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.'" It is in Peckham this new religious body meets. At such meetings they do not admit strangers, in fulfilment of the ordinance of the Lord which enjoins us to a.s.semble "ourselves together to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in spirit and in truth," and commands us-"If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine (the doctrine of the Christ), receive him not into your house, neither bid him G.o.d speed."

For the doctrines of this new sect I must refer the inquirer to a pamphlet published at 22, Paternoster Row, called "The Truth as it is in Jesus, defined in the Const.i.tution and Order of the London Ecclesia, or immersed believers of the things of the Kingdom of G.o.d and the name of Jesus Christ." In this pamphlet we have a summary of the faith delivered to the saints contrasted with the erroneous dogmas of popular theology, and also the apostolic rules for an ecclesiastical organization. In America, and many parts of England, Ecclesias, as they call them, exist.

The doc.u.ment to which they subscribe their names is an exceedingly lengthy one, nor is it very intelligible. I should say that wherein they differ from other Christians in point of doctrine is this, that "everlasting life is the gracious gift of G.o.d through our Lord Jesus the Christ-the clothing upon the living soul or mortal body of life of a justified believer, with the quickening spirit or house which is from heaven, or the swallowing up of his death nature in the life of the Divine nature, so that this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this mortal puts on immortality by an impartation of spirit-life energy into every fibre of its organism, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, during the sounding of the last trumpet; and according to his type the Lord Jesus, the saint then becomes a son of G.o.d in power by a spirit of holiness, through a resurrection from among the dead, and cannot sin because he is born of G.o.d, and lives and moves and has his being in the essential goodness and peace and blessedness of the Divine existence."

Hence "the physical and moral impossibility of _an immoral agency of evil_ exercising the attributes of an uncreated spirit-omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence-emanating from the Supreme Good, to antagonize His purposes and defeat the counsels of His will concerning the redemption of the Adamic race for the glory of His name."

So far I quote what the followers of this new sect call their Marturion.

As people generally can neither understand nor find time to read such verbose and minute confessions of faith, let me add that they believe that punishment on the finally impenitent is "the infliction on him as a living soul or mortal body of life of the many or few stripes in execution of his sentence until the appointed hour of his final doom arrives-to utterly perish in his own corruption." Furthermore, I glean that with them the Devil simply means sin in the flesh. As the reader will have gathered from the t.i.tle of their confession, they baptize with immersion; they deny, amongst other things, the common doctrine of the Trinity, or that Christ is G.o.d and had an existence independent of the Father; that the Holy Ghost operates of His own power as G.o.d; that G.o.d fas.h.i.+oned man after His own image; that the serpent was an incarnation of an immoral intelligence; they deny the common ideas of heaven and h.e.l.l; that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the sin of the whole world, so that infants, idiots, and believers obtain eternal salvation under the covenanted and uncovenanted mercies of G.o.d; or that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas, through the instrumentality of the orthodox ministry as amba.s.sadors of Christ, beseeching men in His stead to be reconciled to G.o.d by believing in the Gospel, and in the Jesus they present as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that Christ is with them always, even to the end of the world. Their appeal is, however, to the Bible, and its inspiration is one of the cardinal articles of their creed.

Let me now speak of their order. They meet every Sunday for wors.h.i.+p, and for the purpose of celebrating the Lord's Supper, and have, besides, occasional meetings for the exposition and study of Scripture. The executive consists of a presiding elder and deacons elected by the members. A candidate for church members.h.i.+p is required to make a written confession, and every one joining the Ecclesia, either by immersion or by admission from other Ecclesias, is to sign the articles of const.i.tution and order of which I have given a brief outline.

As regards the service, any brother is at liberty to take a part. Of course this is the defect of this system-as of all such, where the public are concerned. As a rule, nothing can be more inedifying or dreary or repelling than amateur preaching, and this is manifestly the weak point of all the good people who find preachers so unprofitable, and who so delight in the sound of their own voices. As evangelizing agencies they are a failure. They produce no impression on the world. Men of sense want something more thoughtful, more in accordance with the facts of life, and the young are driven to the other extreme. I believe this remark will hold good of most of these super-refined Christians. They have a wonderful command of Scripture language. They can talk by the hour, and they are intensely ignorant, as all people who shut themselves to one book and ignore G.o.d's Word in His works must be. They may edify each other, they certainly have no power of edifying any one else.

The rules of their Sunday service are-Prayer, singing, comprehensive prayer, offered up by one of the brethren at the instance of the presiding brother on behalf of the members of the one body, the administration of the Lord's Supper, exhortation from or exposition of the Word by any brother who wishes to respond to the invitation of the presiding brother, and the Lord's Prayer in conclusion. After the communion, there is a box placed on the Lord's table to receive, at the close of the service, the free-will offering of the brethren for the common good of the Ecclesia in every work of faith and labour of love.

Besides, there is a monthly charge made to each of the brethren which is handed over to the brother responsible for its satisfaction on the last Sunday of every month. I find I have omitted to state that one article of faith is the restoration of the Jews, and the reign of Christ and His saints upon the earth for a thousand years. Already there has been, as was natural, division in the camp. The Christadelphians are an offshoot, as I understand. They are very adventurous people, these Christadelphians. They welcome strangers in their midst. The original Ecclesias contend for the application of the principle of separation in communion wors.h.i.+p.

THE CHRISTADELPHIANS.

The love of names is one of the strongest pa.s.sions of which human nature is susceptible. In starting a newspaper, in publis.h.i.+ng a book, in opening a shop, a good name is half the battle. Years and years ago there was an individual advertising his academy as Hogflesh. How disgusting! Respectable parents objected, and the name became Hoflesh.

A little while since a poor fellow, tortured by the jeers of the world, advertised that, for the future, instead of bearing the monosyllable unpleasantly suggestive bequeathed him by less scrupulous or thicker-skinned parents, he would henceforth call himself, and be called by others, Mr. Norfolk Howard. (I should not wonder if by this time, with his new name, the man has married an heiress.) Poor Charles Lamb once wrote a farce, but as it turned out that the hero of it was Mr.

Hogsflesh, good society would have none of it, and straightway it vanished into limbo. Our fathers can remember what ridicule was showered down on Dissenters by the _Edinburgh Review_, and what laughter there was at them all over the land when the Rev. Sydney Smith told how Mr.

Shufflebottom was ordained at Bungay. It is to be feared that in the religious world names have had even a greater influence than amongst the profane. What good men have been persecuted and suffered wrong because they bore the name of a sect distasteful to an imperious majority! How the mob have thirsted for their blood! "These are Christians-away with them to the lions," said they of old Rome. "Down with the Roundheads!"

was the cry of country squire and rural parson when a few devout men such as Richard Baxter and others more or less known to fame met in a small room to keep alive the spirit of piety and prayer amongst themselves. It was the same when Wesley and Whitefield, often at the peril of life, proclaimed in parishes of England sunk in ignorance Gospel truths. There are thousands who, like the late Isaac Taylor, of Ongar, could tell how a "Church and King mob" kept them in perpetual fear, because they were "Meetingers." There are yet parishes in Suffolk and Norfolk where to go to chapel is to insure your being despised as a "Pogram," and cut by all the dignities of the village, even if you have the learning of a German professor and the piety of a saint. In the Babel of London, however, it is different; here, there is a rage for new names, and there are preachers and people ever ready to resort to a new name, as if novelty were a possibility in our day, after eighteen hundred years of theological hair-splitting and thres.h.i.+ng of straw. The Christadelphians are the latest production in this way. They meet in Crowndale Hall, Crowndale Road, St. Pancras Road, every Sunday; in the morning, at eleven, for the breaking of bread, and wors.h.i.+p; in the afternoon at three, when there is a Bible-cla.s.s especially for inquirers, when opportunity to ask questions respecting the one faith is afforded; and at seven in the evening, when we are told the Word of G.o.d is expounded in harmony with the things concerning the kingdom of G.o.d and the name of Jesus anointed. One of the most active teachers is Mr. Watts, late of Vernon Chapel, King's Cross Road. The Athenaeum Hall, Temple Road, Birmingham, seems to be the headquarters of Christadelphian publications.

There are published there the _Christadelphian s.h.i.+eld_, the _Biblical Newspaper_, and the _Amba.s.sador_, monthly periodicals, and other publications more expensive, and aiming to be standard works.

This, I take it, is the epitome of their faith:-

"One G.o.d, the Eternal Father, dwelling in heaven in light of glory inconceivable; one universal irradiant Spirit, by which the Father fills all and knows all, and when He wills, performs all; one Lord Jesus Christ, Son of G.o.d, begotten by the Spirit of the Virgin Mary, put to death for sin, raised from the dead for righteousness, and exalted to the heavens as a Mediator between G.o.d and man; man a creature of the ground, under sentence of death because of sin, which is his great enemy-the devil; deliverance from death by resurrection, and bodily glorification at the coming of Christ and inheritance of the kingdom of G.o.d, offered to all men on condition-1, of believing the glad tidings of Christ's accomplishment at His first appearing, and of His coming manifestations in the earth as King of Israel and Ruler of the whole earth at the setting up of the kingdom of G.o.d; 2, of being immersed in water for His name; and 3, of continuing in well-doing to the end of this probationary career."

This is the teaching of the new sect. They rejoice in their emanc.i.p.ation from the bondage of orthodoxy. Mr. Watts says:-"My past nineteen years of religious life I regard as so much lost time taken up with the fables and follies of man's fleshly mind, systematized upon a pagan theology; and although I honestly thought myself right, and strove hard to lead others, yet I am now fully persuaded it was all done in ignorance of the true knowledge of G.o.d." He tells us the Evangelical party in the Church or Dissent do not know the Gospel. "Nothing can be more clear," he says, "than that this (their doctrine of the resurrection) first item of the Gospel as preached by Jesus and the Apostles does not form any part of the teaching either of those who pretend to be the successors of the Apostles, or the sects and parties of Dissenters who have imbibed their system of theology from the same polluted stream." The doctrine of the soul's essential and inherent immortality is a pagan myth. For the heathen there is no future life; for them what Macbeth wished has come to pa.s.s, and life is indeed

"The be all and the end all here."

The mere belief of this doctrine relieves orthodoxy of the perplexing problem, What becomes of the heathen? and of course strikes at the foundation of the doctrine of purgatory. Yet we are not to suppose there will be no punishment for the wicked and the disobedient; they shall beaten with stripes, and then, according to the righteous Judge, enter upon that second death state, from which there shall be no resurrection-an opinion the direct opposite of that of Origen and Archbishop Tillotson, first promulgated in modern times by Dr. Rust, Bishop of Dromore. The Calvinistic formula is also, in the opinion of the Christadelphians, a mere travesty of the subject of the atonement.

As to man in general, he is born to die. G.o.d treated the first man federally. He put him on probation, and in him all his successors stood or fell. We never read of immortal, never-dying souls in Scripture, and to foist such a meaning on 2 Cor. v. 8, as that it proves the existence of a separate state of disembodied spirits, is to handle the Word of G.o.d deceitfully. Once Mr. Watts believed in a kingdom in the sky, a throne in the heart, a seed of Israel, a New Jerusalem and promised land, all mystically referring to something at present existing in the so-called Christian Church. He does so no longer. His eyes are opened, the light is come, and he and his friends, chiefly juveniles, rejoice; and if they have the true light, who shall say they have no reason to rejoice?

Farewell, writes Mr. Watts, in a poem considered poetically of doubtful merit-

"Farewell to the false, I welcome the true, And begin the year with Christ anew."

This reference to poetry reminds me that the Christadelphians have a hymn-book of their own, to frame which appears to have been a matter of no little trouble. With the hymns used by Christian churches in general they find much fault. They require something manly and robust, whereas the churches of all denominations rejoice in what is sentimental, and their songs of praise and devotion are described as "oceans of slops."

Whether the Christadelphians have much improved theirs, I leave the reader to judge. As a specimen I quote one verse from Montgomery's well-known poem, "The Grave." In their hymn-book I find it printed thus.

I quote from memory:-

"There is a calm for saints who weep, A rest for weary Weyyah found; In Christ secure they sweetly sleep, Hid in the ground."

At present the Christadelphians do not seem very flouris.h.i.+ng. In their little room-which is miscalled a hall-there are about forty of them of an evening, quibbling earnestly, and to the best of their ability.

In taking leave of the Christadelphians, let me refer to a pa.s.sage in our Church history. It is notorious that the celebrated Henry Dodwell, Camden Professor of History in the University of Oxford, in order to exalt the power and dignity of the priesthood, endeavoured to prove that the doctrine of the soul's natural mortality was the true and original doctrine, and that immortality was only at baptism conferred upon the soul by the gift of G.o.d through the hands of one set of regularly ordained clergy.

CHAPTER XVII.

SOME MINOR SECTS.

There are two cla.s.ses of people of whom a wise man should be wary. He who comes to you in a jolly, confidential sort of way, and tells you that you know that he never pretended to be much of a saint, and he whose saints.h.i.+p is so sublimated that he finds all denominations in grievous error, and must form a new sect for himself. It is to be feared that such men are in a very bad way, and have most erroneous conceptions of G.o.d and His dealings. It is certainly remarkable that they are chiefly to be met with in the most ignorant sections of professors-amongst the

"Petulant capricious sects, The maggots of corrupted texts."

Any liberal culture seems fatal to them. As soon as they manage to p.r.o.nounce their h's and to talk grammatically, they can wors.h.i.+p with other Christians, can rejoice in the magnificent inheritance which has come down to the Church of our day from the sanctified intellect of former times-can derive edification from an educated ministry-possibly may sing the songs of a Keble, and may be able occasionally to join in a form of prayer which was found adequate for the expression of the spirituality of a Martyn or a Wilberforce.

THE PECULIAR PEOPLE.