The superiority of Theism to Deism simply consists in its being more
Christian. With the ideas of God which 'Theists' hold, we can, as
Christians, most cordially sympathise. We can sincerely say, 'Hold to
them firmly, they are your life: let no man rob you of {165} them by
any vain deceit.' But we cannot help also asking, 'Whence have you
drawn those lofty ideas? where have you obtained so exalted a
conception of the Divine Being in His mingled Majesty and lowliness, in
His inconceivable greatness, and His equally inconceivable compassion?
We turn from the picture of God which, with so much labour, so much
skill, so much moral earnestness, you have exhibited, and we behold the
Original in Christ and His Teaching. However unconsciously, it is His
Truth, it is His Features, that you have reproduced. You have been
brought up in the Church of Christ, or you have been brought into
contact with its influences, and you have imbibed its teachings,
perhaps more deeply than some who would not dare to question its
smallest precepts. Still, Christ's teaching you have not outgrown,
from Christ Himself you have not escaped. You cannot go from His
presence or flee from His Spirit. Those {166} views which you hold so
strongly, which are to you the most ennobling that have ever been given
of God and of religion, where is it that alone they are to be found?
In places where Christianity has gone before.
No doubt, belief in God is not confined to Christian countries: worship
of the Maker of heaven and earth exists where the name of Christ has
never been heard, but not such belief, _such_ worship, as that for
which those persons contend. The God Whom they adore will not be found
anywhere save where Christianity has penetrated. In this country it is
the desperate clinging to one portion of the Christian Faith when all
else has been abandoned: in other lands, in India, for example, where
representatives of this way of thinking are not uncommon, it is the
rapturous welcome of one of the sublime truths of Christianity before
which the idolatries of their forefathers are passing away. It is safe
to call it a transition stage: {167} it will either part with the
fragment of Christianity which it retains and become merged in doubt
and speculation and unbelief; or it will include yet more of the
Christianity of which it has grasped a part: its belief in God will be
crowned and confirmed by its belief in Christ.
For, speaking to those who cherish faith in the All-Righteous and
All-Loving God as the only hope for the regeneration of mankind, we
cannot shut our eyes to the fact that where faith in Christ fades,
faith in God has a tendency to become vague and dim. He ceases to be
thought of as a Friend and Help at hand: He is resolved into a Creator
infinitely distant or into a Law, immovable, inexorable, a blind,
unconscious Fate. It is Christ Who gives life to the thought of God.
It is the Word made Flesh that makes the Eternal Word more real. The
attempt of the Deists to purify religion by the preaching of a God who
had not {168} revealed Himself, and could not reveal Himself, in a Son,
came to nothing. Voltaire's chapel at Ferney still stands, but nobody
worships in it. Religion seemed to slumber: belief in God seemed to be
decaying, when the preaching of the name and the work of Christ again
aroused it into life. And so it is now. Whatever the ability,
whatever the sincerity of the advocates of belief in God without
reference to Christ, it lacks motive-power, it lacks the missionary
spirit. If we may judge by the past, Theism without Christ is a faith
which will not spread, which will not lay hold on the labouring and the
heavy laden: which may be maintained as a theory, but which will not be
as a fire in the souls of men diffusing itself by kindling other souls.
It is from Christ alone, from Christ the manifestation of what God is
in Heart and Mind, from Christ the manifestation of what man ought to
be, from Christ Who said, 'In My Father's house are many {169}
mansions: he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' that there comes
with an authority to which, in face of the difficulties besetting the
present and the future, the human soul will bow, with a soothing power
to which the human spirit will gladly yield--it is from Christ alone
that there comes the Divine injunction, 'Let not your heart be
troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me.' It is as He is
clearly seen and truly known that the clouds of error and superstition
vanish from the Face of God, and men are drawn to worship and to trust.
[1] Longfellow, _Song of Hiawatha_.
[2] Keble, _Christian Year_.
[3] Bishop Gore, _The Christian Creed_.
[4] Appendix XX.
[5] _Phases of Faith_.
[6] _The Soul: its Sorrows and Aspirations_.
[7] _The Soul: its Sorrows and Aspirations_.
[8] _The Soul_.
[9] _Alone to the Alone_.
[10] _Alone to the Alone_.
[11] _Alone to the Alone_.
[12] Appendix XXI.
[13] _The Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit_.
[14] J. Warschauer, _Coming of Christ_.
[15] Whittier, _Our Master_.
[16] R. B. Bartlett, _The Letter and the Spirit_: Bampton Lecture.
[17] Appendix XXII.
[18] Tennyson, _In Memoriam_.
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