Ancient Faiths And Modern Part 25

Excommunication easier than refutation. What an honest merchant and divine should do when they discover a diamond to be paste. Ought the divine to be less honest than the merchant? The Author's challenge. Conclusion.

I am now about to propound a question which I have heard mooted in quiet by many, but for which publicity seems to be dreaded by all--_viz_., "Is there honesty amongst Christians, and especially amongst the hierarchy of the Churches of England and Rome?"

No one can doubt the importance of the subject; there is not a thoughtful person who does not, in words at least, scorn to build up his everlasting belief upon a fable, and who does not affect to be disgusted with everyone who is deliberately untruthful I speak not now of those time-servers who regard every artifice to be fair in love, war, and theology; but only of those earnest minds who are anxious to seek out and to hold fast that which is true, and who, under all circ.u.mstances, resolve to be honest with themselves. That there may be no doubt as to the sense in which I use the word, the following may be regarded as, in my opinion, the synonyms which are properly given in _Webster's Dictionary_--"Integrity, probity, uprightness, trustiness, faithfulness, honour, justice, equity, fairness, candour, plain dealing, veracity." To this may be added--"not bearing false witness."

Presuming that English scholars agree in this definition, let me now inquire whether "we"--by which term I mean the non-theological cla.s.s by profession--have a right to expect "honesty" amongst our teachers--be they Roman, Anglican, Hibernian, Scottish, Unitarian, Wesleyan, or of any other body? and, in the next place, whether we get that to which we are ent.i.tled? Presuming that it is necessary to begin with the foundation, let us first inquire into "our rights," and whence they are supposed to be derived.

The positions of a learner and a teacher--or a disciple and a master--are, in some cases, different to what they are in others; for example, I need not, unless I think it desirable, learn astronomy, chemistry, the art of telegraphing, or that of s.h.i.+p-building; but if I do elect to learn any of these matters, and engage a man to instruct me, I have a legal claim upon him for his services. There is, indeed, a contract between us--he engaging to teach me, and I agreeing to pay him for his labour. In my selection of a professor, it is quite possible that I have not chosen the best; nay, seeing that I require to be taught, it is nearly certain that I cannot a.s.sume the position of a judge as regards the superiority of one teacher over another. But when the agreement is once entered into, each of the parties is bound to perform his part of the contract to the best of his ability. If, for example, I bargain with a master to teach me Spanish, and I, being wholly ignorant thereof, am instructed in Portuguese, I have a definite legal claim for redress.

If, on the other hand, the law, or the custom of the country, compels me to take a certain cla.s.s of teachers, whether they are competent or worthless, I, as one of the community, am justified in investigating the intellectual power of the professors, individually and collectively, in every way in my power.

At one period, when autocracy, or tyranny, was supreme, this right was denied, and the legislators made it a criminal matter for any one to call in question the nature of the instruction which was given to the people in matters of politics, religion, and other things, wherein the government was concerned. At the present time there are few, if any, states whose ruling powers demand from the people such an abject submission.

But, although a republic may allow unlimited lat.i.tude of opinion in matters of political economy, there may be a religious section within it, which consists of those who consent to be led, in matters of faith, by certain individuals, who, on their parts, are declared to be, by some power that the laity are disposed to submit to, the only persons competent to conduct persons to a happy eternity.

Every individual in such a family is a.s.sociated with the rest by voluntary ties. He may, if he chooses, inquire into the capacity of his guide; he is at perfect liberty to a.n.a.lyse his arguments, to inquire into his allegations, and, speaking generally, to test his truth. If, as a result of the investigation, any one is satisfied that the teacher is incompetent, the two are perfectly clear to make new engagements. There has been no definite contract, nor can there be any legal claim for a presumed breach thereof.

When, on the other hand, there is a State Religion, supported by Parliamentary authority, and to which, in one way or another, the majority of the people must subscribe, each man has as perfect a right to see that he gets what he pays for, as he has to see that the member of parliament for whom he votes, does not neglect the interests of the town which he represents.

As an Englishman, I have no right to call in question the power of the Pope of Rome, the Patriarch of the Greek Church, the Elder of the Mormon Communion, the Arch-Pneuma of the Spiritualists, or any other religious head, to teach his followers any doctrine that he may please. I may laugh at the "false decretals" of the papacy, and the charlatanerie of the clairvoyants; but no political right supports me in my calling them to account for their stewards.h.i.+p.

On the other hand, when I know that the bishops of the Church of England are parties to the formation of our laws, and I find myself called upon to pay t.i.thes or dues to individuals of the same establishment, I have a political right to ascertain, that the persons actually do what they profess to do for their money or position. If, for example, I live in a spa.r.s.ely populated district, I and all my family are dependent upon the parson of the parish for instruction how to get to heaven; or, as an alternative, if I do not agree with his doctrine, I may abstain from being instructed at all. If, on the contrary, I inhabit a large town, still I am dependent for religious teaching upon the state clergyman, unless I elect to do without him, and any one else of the same persuasion, or select some non-conformist preacher who is to me no less offensive than the parliamentary parson.

When a confraternity has obtained, no matter how, or by what means, a definite prescriptive right to sell a certain material to the community at large, the latter have certainly a legal power to see that the stuff given is according to contract. If a company of millers engage, for certain privileges, to sell good wheat flour to all comers, the last can deprive them of their exclusive right, provided that it can be proved either that the flour is bad, or that it comes from barley, rye, oats, or potatoes, or is adulterated with gypsum, &c.

Presuming that this argument is tenable, our next inquiry is into that which our national church professes to sell, or to impart, in return for its privileges. In the fewest possible words we may say, that its duty is to impart "truth," or to teach what is, in its learned and educated opinion, the true religion for life and eternity.

The word truth is one which lies at the root of our question respecting honesty. Pilate is reported to have said--"What is truth?" We may put the same question now.

Without saying what "truth" is, we can readily declare what is "untruth." It is not truth if we, in argument, misrepresent an adversary; affirm that he made a certain statement, and then oppose--not the thing said--but some other matter which was not spoken of at all, and then a.s.sert that we have confuted him.

It is not truth to affirm, that observations recently made have been oftentimes presented before, and always successfully refuted, when the remarks in question are novel, never have been controverted, and apparently, are not capable of being disproved.

It is not truth to affirm, that human "authority," which, has been long acknowledged, can falsify "a fact," or make an unfounded a.s.sertion equal to a reality; or to declare, that one religion is good and another bad, simply because the speaker believes the matter to be so.

It is not truth to a.s.sert, that a certain book, and every part of it, is the revealed word of G.o.d, when it is known to be contradicted by science--i.e.t by a knowledge of the laws imposed on creation by its Maker, to be inconsistent with itself, and to contain internal evidence that it was composed by men of small knowledge and of grovelling disposition.

It is not truth to affirm, that if G.o.d's world proves what is called G.o.d's Book to be wrong, science must be neglected and the Bible upheld.

It is not truth to affirm that G.o.d spoke exclusively to one people, when it is known that the race in question drew nearly, if not quite, all their religious beliefs, from the neighbours amongst whom they were thrown.

It is not honest to propound in the pulpit the propriety of examining the Scriptures daily, and yet to persecute any one who by doing so becomes convinced of their human origin.

It would be honest, and prove the existence of a love of truth, if every preacher of every denomination spent as much time in trying the value of his text-book, as he does now in expounding it and explaining it away.

We should imagine that a minister loved truth, if he were first to ask himself how he treats the Vedas and Puranas, the Avesta, the Koran, the Apocryphal Gospels, the Apocrypha, the Book of Mormon, the visions and prophecies of "Latter-day saints," "Friends," Roman visionaries, and the oracles delivered at Delphi and elsewhere, and then to treat his own book with the same measure as he used with the others.

On the other hand, we should regard him as untruthful and dishonest, if he weighed the books and belief of others with weights and scales different to those with which he tried his own.

From each minister of religion the people have a right to demand an impartial inquiry into the absolute value of the doctrines which he teaches, and an investigation into the foundation, as well as the superstructure; and they may require, still further, that he, like Great-heart in Bunyan's story, shall do battle with a.s.sailants. When such a leader professes to fight, but always avoids the shock of battle, he cannot be regarded either as honest, or as comparable with Valiant-for-truth in the _Pilgrim's Progress_.

We are then, as laymen, justified in requiring that our spiritual leaders shall take a conspicuous part in examining the grounds of the faith which they teach, and that the leaders of the Established Church shall seek to establish its doctrine upon as firm basis as it is possible to obtain.

This certainly involves inquiry and discussion upon those points which modern criticism has prominently advanced.

When we turn to the "Prayer Book," we find that Deacons are required to say, that they unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures. Priests are obliged to affirm that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ, &c. In the consecration of bishops the same, or nearly the same, formula is gone through. Thus, at the outset of their career, the ministers of the Church of England commit themselves to, or are required by law to make, a declaration which will preclude inquiry into the value of the book on which their teaching is founded; their first step in the ministry puts it out of their power to be honest, if experience should teach them more than they knew when young. The bishops and priests, however, when they subscribe to the opinion that the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation, do not pledge themselves to the belief that every sentence, part, division, book, or arrangement of the Canonical Scriptures is, and must of necessity be, true. Even in the dawn of ecclesiastical information in England, there was not a belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible.

Of late years, when habits of thought and the art of printing have increased, the knowledge, and consequently, the power of the laity disproportionally to the advance made by clerics--a strong propensity to acc.u.mulate facts, and to argue thereupon has been very generally developed, and the increased information obtained has induced steadily increasing numbers to doubt, not only the verbal inspiration, but even the historical truth of the Scriptures. When this difficulty occurred, or rather, when it became recognized, scholars, no matter whether they were professional or amateur ecclesiastics, divided themselves involuntarily (we may fairly say, unknowingly, inasmuch as each individual worked quite independently, in the first place, of another) into those who believed that, if the Holy Spirit dictated the Scriptures, he must have seen that his amanuensis wrote correctly; those who imagined that the Bible was to be taken "in the lump;" and those who considered that the Scriptures are entirely of human origin, and absolutely valueless as a guide of faith. Consequently, three schools have arisen, two of which are essentially ecclesiastic. Of these, one regards all inquiry into the accepted text as improper, the other considers that everything should be done to verify the value of the so-called original Scripture.

Amongst the latter, Dr Colenso, Bishop of Natal, stands out conspicuously. Of the highest intellectual attainments, trained to close and scientific inquiry; able, far better than men of meaner capacity, to weigh the value of "evidence," whether "ancient or modern," he has drawn the conclusion that the Bible is not what it is generally supposed to be; in other words, that its historical portions are not trustworthy, and that there is grave reason to believe its writings to have been produced for a purpose, which involved dishonesty in the scribe, and in the promulgator of his writings. The learned doctor was honest in his investigation, and fearless in announcing his conclusions.

As an upright man, the Bishop of Natal is as completely justified in his inquiry into the validity or importance of an ancient book, alleged to be a pearl of great price, a gem or diamond of the first water, as the official curator of a museum would be, in determining whether a certain ruby, given into his charge, were real or artificial. Of the necessity of such an inquiry, the following anecdote, which was told me by the gentleman concerned, will convince the reader:--

A wealthy lady, of high position in life, sent to a museum, for exhibition, a number of "precious stones." If they were really what they were supposed and stated to be, their value would have been reckoned by thousands of pounds sterling. If accepted as genuine, and found, upon their restoration to the depositor, to be imitation jewels, the curator would be liable, not only for their value, but his character for honesty would be gone; consequently, ere he gave a receipt for the lot, he tested each. Not one was real!

This man was in the position which Dr Colenso occupies now. The owner of the jewels was indignant at the idea that the stones were false, and the apparent insinuation that imitations were being foisted on the public as realities; but her fury did not alter the fact. If she were artful, her plan was detected; if she had been deceived, her anger, though useless, was justified.

On the other hand, there are many Bishops who uphold the verbal inspiration of the Bible, and will not inquire if the gem be real, or only test it by plans known to be valueless for the purpose. Some do not go altogether so far as this, They consider it obligatory upon them to examine just a little bit, but not to go too deeply, lest they should be forced to believe that there never was such a man as Moses--a man who is commonly reported to have written certain books at a distant period.

Some persons seem to think that their hope of happiness in this, as well as in another world, and not only their own, but that of everybody who is under their instruction, depends upon their feeling sure that Israel was once in Egypt--that Abraham begat Isaac, and became the progenitor of an innumerable offspring, exceeding in number the Indians of Hindostan, the a.s.syrians of Mesopotamia, the Egyptians of the Nile, and the Romans of Italy. Between these two inquirers, if the latter cla.s.s can fairly be called such, the issue is distinct. There can be no difficulty amongst scholars as to the means by which the question ought to be settled.

An appeal to hard and dry facts is the plan adopted by philosophers. For men, who have a single eye to discover the truth, it matters little in what direction their inquiries lead them. Metaphorically speaking, they may begin a series of investigations, expecting that everything will lead them northwards, and they end by reaching the south; just as many an enthusiastic, but little instructed, man has acc.u.mulated "pyrites,"

under the impression that it was an ore of gold, and found, on inquiry, that the material was a sulphuret of iron, and of small commercial value.

But it is this very possibility of research bringing them to an undesirable goal, which deters so many of our divines from making any inquiry. Outwardly, they allow that it is their duty, as leaders, to examine, not only the condition of their own forces, but the position and power of those who a.s.sail the army which they profess to guide.

Inwardly they find reasons for remaining quiet, and excuse themselves to their followers in some plausible fas.h.i.+on.

Why, however, should any goal be undesirable which leads us nearer to truth? Why should any body of professedly learned-men run the risk of being considered wanting in honesty, or candour, by avoiding their opponents, whom they are in honour bound to encounter?

The reply to these questions generally runs thus:--"We, as ministers of the Established Church of England, are bound to be faithful to the Bible, and to it we must adhere, whatever our own private judgment may be. We did not make the law; we simply take it as we find it, and, having sworn to obey it, we do so." This answer would be exhaustive, if it were the fact that the laity made the law for the theologians. But, as we know, that the ecclesiastics have, in the last resort always made laws for themselves, the rejoinder is not conclusive History tells us how ministers of religion have instructed the people, and how these, again, have legislated under the tuition of their advisers. When Paganism was supplanted by Christianity, the change was effected by preachers, who taught the populace to believe the new doctrine, and who influenced the minds of the lawmakers. In like manner, when Popery in England was put down by the Protestants, each party was headed by its priests. Many a minister, at that period, felt bound to follow what he believed to be truth, rather than to abide by a vow made in youth; and they who had upheld the authenticity of Popish miracles, and of Apocryphal Scriptures, ceased to give credence to them, or to use them as authorities in matters of religion. These men were honest.

That which has been done by men aforetime, may be done or imitated in our own day; and our divines have as great a power to examine into the value of the Bible now, as they had at the Reformation. If they refuse to make the inquest suggested--in what way, may we ask, do they differ from the Romanists in the time of Luther, who would not inquire into the truth of his arguments lest they should be convinced? Can any one who professes to be a Protestant--a child of the Reformation--honestly refuse to investigate the grounds of the faith which is in him, and shelter himself, as Bonner and others did, under the pretext of a declaration or vow made at ordination?

If those who make the excuse just referred to, are honest, they are bound to reject every doctrine which they, or their predecessors, have received from Romish priests, who propounded in adult life, doctrines different to those which they professed when yet almost children.

To ill.u.s.trate the tendency of our remarks still further, let us, for a moment, suppose that the captain of a s.h.i.+p has, from any cause whatever, adopted a particular "compa.s.s" by which he directs his course, and which perhaps he calls by the name of Faith. All in the vessel are, to a great extent, dependent upon him for a successful voyage, and a safe arrival at the desired haven. Seeing how the master-mariner honours the magnetic needle, every thoughtful pa.s.senger will probably consult it in like manner. One more advanced in knowledge than the rest may desire to test the instrument by the position of the pole star, and thinking that he could recognize the latter, might infer that the magnet did not point truly. This doubt, we will imagine still further, he imparts to the captain, who, disinclined to distrust his compa.s.s, endeavours to demonstrate that the position of the pole star is doubtful.

In the place of the mariners' compa.s.s let us read the "Bible," and, instead of the pole star, let us subst.i.tute "science." We shall then recognize the position of such men as the Bishop of Winchester and Dr Colenso--the latter endeavours to test the value of the instrument which is most used by churchmen by certain well-known means; the former, on the contrary, aims to demonstrate that what he regards as a true indicator is so in spite of all which the planets prove to the contrary.

To carry on our metaphor a point further, let us imagine that the captain and the doubting pa.s.senger appeal to the seamen and the other people on board the barque--the latter telling in simple terms the grounds of his belief, whilst the former appeals to the pa.s.sions of those who have long trusted him, and only notices the arguments of his opponent to misrepresent them. This is what was done by the Papists, in every country, at the time of the Reformation, and which more recently has been done by the Bishops and Archbishops of the Church of England, when in controversy with the Bishop of Natal Dr Colenso has in voluminous works, and with a precision which every scholar must admire, shown that the Old Testament--the "compa.s.s" of churchmen--is not what it is supposed to be. Against his views a new "Bible commentary" has been issued, with the sanction of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries; and in it the authors stoop to misrepresentation! If there were no pretence of joint authors.h.i.+p, one might imagine that each writer was responsible only for his own shortcomings; but when there is a parade of great names, which is intended to demonstrate the almost infallible truth of everything (except typographical errors), one is bound to treat the contributors as being on a level with each other, and all hierarchical coadjutors. How can any one, with a tendency towards fair dealing, characterize but with the epithet "contemptible dishonesty," a deliberate quotation from Dr Colenso, which is falsified, that the fabrication may be refuted? The Bishop of Natal's argument is a just one, and, although it is only contained in a note and not in the text itself, is of great weight. It runs thus (Part v., p. 97)--"Of course the fact that the tabernacle at s.h.i.+loh had _doors_ (1 Sam. iii. 15)-- that the lamp was allowed regularly to _go out_ in it (1 Sam. iii. 3), and that Samuel _slept_ in it, and apparently Eli also (1 Sam. iii. 2, 3), are sufficient to show that this could not have been the 'Mosaic Tabernacle.'" This is a fair and scholarly statement; the layman recognizes it as such, and looks to his ecclesiastical superior for an honest opinion on its value. What does he find? Simply this--Bishop Browne answers: "The objection (Colenso, Part v., p. 97) that the Tabernacle (at s.h.i.+loh) could not be the tabernacle, in the wilderness, because it had a 'door' (1 Sam. ii. 22) is rather singular, if we observe that the words in Samuel, on which the objection is founded-- 'The women that a.s.sembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation'--are literally a quotation from Exod. x.x.xviii. 8--'The women a.s.sembling, which a.s.sembled at the door of the tabernacle of congregation.' Of course the word door, fine _pethah_, is as applicable to a tent door as to a house door, and is constantly used of the door of the Tabernacle in the Pentateuch."

In this observation of the Bishop of Winchester a false issue is deliberately raised; the quotation given by Colenso is not touched, and for it another, wide of the mark, is subst.i.tuted! In the verse referred to by the Bishop of Natal the words are--"And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the Lord," &c.--"doors"

being in the original, _dalethoth_--a different word altogether to _pethah_, and certainly in the plural number. In other language, we may say that in the _Speaker's Bible_, almost every argument and criticism of Colenso and his German authorities are left unnoticed and unanswered; and this, almost the only quotation made, is not a true one! Is this honest? So gross, in my opinion, is the want of candour shown in this case, that I, for one, cannot trust a single a.s.sertion of the Bishop of Ely, now translated to Winchester, even when he quotes chapter and verse, until I have verified the extract.

But the flagrancy of the proceeding is, if it can be, heightened by a reference to the subject Dr Colenso was endeavouring to show, by those undesigned coincidences, that hierarchs profess to love so much, and which they parade with great earnestness when it suits their purpose, that the tabernacle at s.h.i.+loh was not that described in the Pentateuch.

It was perfectly open to Dr Browne to adduce evidence that it was the same. This he does not do--the scholar can well understand the reason why, viz., that a close inquiry supports the Bishop of Natal's view. For example, in 1 Sam. L 9, we find that Eli is sitting "upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord." This sentence is significant in English, it is much more so in Hebrew. The words "post" and "temple"

certainly are quite incompatible with a tent or tabernacle. In the Hebrew, the tabernacle is generally spoken of as _ohel_, whilst "temple"

is _heckal_. Still further, the expression, "post of the temple," is peculiar, because a corresponding one is found only once in the Old Testament--viz., in Ezek. xli. 21, where the English version has "the posts of the temple," whilst the marginal reading has "post" The word _heckal_ is in constant use throughout the later Jewish books, but does not occur once in the Pentateuch; and it is a significant fact that, in 1 Kings xxi. 1, 2 Kings xx. 18, Ps. xlv. 8, cxliv. 12, Pro. x.x.x. 28, Is.

xiii. 22, x.x.xix. 7, Dan. i. 4, the word in question is translated in our authorized version _palace_.