STRIVINGS AFTER A MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.
My second period is characterized, partly by the great ascendancy
exercised over me by one powerful mind and still more powerful will,
partly by the vehement effort which throughout its duration urged me
to long after the establishment of Christian Fellowship in a purely
Biblical Church as the first great want of Christendom and of the
world.
I was already uneasy in the sense that I could not enter the ministry
of the Church of England, and knew not what course of life to choose.
I longed to become a missionary for Christ among the heathen,--a
notion I had often fostered while reading the lives of missionaries:
but again, I saw not how that was to be effected. After taking my
degree, I became a Fellow of Balliol College; and the next year I
accepted an invitation to Ireland, and there became private tutor for
fifteen months in the house of one now deceased, whose name I would
gladly mention for honour and affection;--but I withhold my pen. While
he repaid me munificently for my services, he behaved towards me as a
father, or indeed as an elder brother, and instantly made me feel as
a member of his family. His great talents, high professional standing,
nobleness of heart and unfeigned piety, would have made him a most
valuable counsellor to me: but he was too gentle, too unassuming, too
modest; he looked to be taught by his juniors, and sat at the feet of
one whom I proceed to describe.
This was a young relative of his,--a most remarkable man,--who rapidly
gained an immense sway over me. I shall henceforth call him "the Irish
clergyman." His "bodily presence" was indeed "weak!" A fallen cheek,
a bloodshot eye, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom shaven
beard, a shabby suit of clothes and a generally neglected person, drew
at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing-room.
It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a
halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar; and if not true, the story was
yet well invented. This young man had taken high honours in Dublin
University and had studied for the bar, where under the auspices of
his eminent kinsman he had excellent prospects; but his conscience
would not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his
talents to defeat justice. With keen logical powers, he had warm
sympathies, solid judgment of character, thoughtful tenderness, and
total self-abandonment. He before long took Holy Orders, and became
an indefatigable curate in the mountains of Wicklow. Every evening
he sallied forth to teach in the cabins, and roving far and wide
over mountain and amid bogs, was seldom home before midnight. By such
exertions his strength was undermined, and he so suffered in his limbs
that not lameness only, but yet more serious results were feared. He
did not fast on purpose, but his long walks through wild country and
indigent people inflicted on him much severe deprivation: moreover,
as he ate whatever food offered itself,--food unpalatable and often
indigestible to him, his whole frame might have vied in emaciation
with a monk of La Trappe.
Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists, who looked
on him as a genuine "saint" of the ancient breed. The stamp of heaven
seemed to them clear in a frame so wasted by austerity, so superior
to worldly pomp, and so partaking in all their indigence. That a dozen
such men would have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism,
than the whole apparatus of the Church Establishment, was ere long my
conviction; though I was at first offended by his apparent affectation
of a mean exterior. But I soon understood, that in no other way could
he gain equal access to the lower and lowest orders, and that he was
moved not by asceticism, nor by ostentation, but by a self-abandonment
fruitful of consequences. He had practically given up all reading
except that of the Bible; and no small part of his movement towards me
soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary study.
In fact, I had myself more and more concentrated my religious reading
on this one book: still, I could not help feeling the value of a
cultivated mind. Against this, my new eccentric friend, (himself
having enjoyed no mean advantages of cultivation,) directed his
keenest attacks. I remember once saying to him, in defence of worldly
station,--"To desire to be rich is unchristian and absurd; but if I
were the father of children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure
them a good education." He replied: "If I had children, I would as
soon see them break stones on the road, as do any thing else, if only
I could secure to them the Gospel and the grace of God." I was unable
to say Amen, but I admired his unflinching consistency;--for now,
as always, all he said was based on texts aptly quoted and logically
enforced. He more and more made me ashamed of Political Economy and
Moral Philosophy, and all Science; all of which ought to be "counted
dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord."
For the first time in my life I saw a man earnestly turning into
reality the principles which others confessed with their lips only.
That the words of the New Testament contained the highest truth
accessible to man,--truth not to be taken from nor added to,--all
good men (as I thought) confessed: never before had I seen a man so
resolved that no word of it should be a dead letter to him. I once
said: "But do you really think that _no_ part of the New Testament may
have been temporary in its object? for instance, what should we have
lost, if St. Paul had never written the verse, 'The cloak which I
have left at Troas, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the
parchments.'" He answered with the greatest promptitude: "_I_ should
certainly have lost something; for that is exactly the verse which
alone saved me from selling my little library. No! every word, depend
upon it, is from the Spirit, and is for eternal service."
A political question was just then exceedingly agitating Ireland, in
which nearly everybody took a great interest;--it was, the propriety
of admitting Romanist members of Parliament. Those who were favourable
to the measure, generally advocated it by trying to undervalue
the chasm that separates Romish from Protestant doctrine. By such
arguments they exceedingly exasperated the real Protestants, and,
in common with all around me, I totally repudiated that ground of
comprehension. But I could not understand why a broader, more generous
and every way safer argument was not dwelt on; viz. the unearthliness
of the claims of Christianity. When Paul was preaching the kingdom of
God in the Roman empire, if a malicious enemy had declared to a Roman
proconsul that the Christians were conspiring to eject all Pagans out
of the senate and out of the public administration; who can doubt what
Paul would have replied?--The kingdom of God is not of this world: it
is within the heart, and consists in righteousness, peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost. These are our "honours" from God: we ask not the
honours of empire and title. Our King is in heaven; and will in time
return to bring to an end these earthly kingdoms: but until then, we
claim no superiority over you on earth. As the riches of this world,
so the powers of this world belong to another king: we dare not try to
appropriate them in the name of our heavenly King; may, we should
hold it as great a sin to clutch empire for our churches, as to clutch
wealth: God forbid that we covet either!--But what then if the enemy
had had foresight to reply, O proconsul, this Paul talks finely, and
perhaps sincerely: but if so, yet cheat not yourself to think that
his followers will tie themselves to his mild equity and
disinterestedness. Now indeed they are weak: now they profess
unworldliness and unambition: they wish only to be recognised as
peaceable subjects, as citizens and as equals: but if once they grow
strong enough, they will discover that their spears and swords are
the symbol of their Lord's return from heaven; that he now at length
commissions them to eject you, as vile infidels, from all seats of
power,--to slay you with the sword, if you dare to offer sacrifice to
the immortal gods,--to degrade you so, that you shall only not enter
the senate, or the privy council of the prince, or the judgment seat,
but not even the jury-box, or a municipal corporation, or the pettiest
edileship of Italy; nay, you shall not be lieutenants of armies, or
tribunes, or anything above the lowest centurion. You shall become a
plebeian class,--cheap bodies to be exposed in battle or to toil in
the field, and pay rent to the lordly Christian. Such shall be the
fate of _you_, the worshippers of Quirinus and of Jupiter Best and
Greatest, if you neglect to crush and extirpate, during the weakness
of its infancy, this ambitious and unscrupulous portent of a
religion.--Oh, how would Paul have groaned in spirit, at accusations
such as these, hateful to his soul, aspersing to his churches, but
impossible to refute! Either Paul's doctrine was a fond dream, (felt
I,) or it is certain, that he would have protested with all the force
of his heart against the principle that Christians _as such_ have any
claim to earthly power and place; or that they could, when they gained
a numerical majority, without sin enact laws to punish, stigmatize,
exclude, or otherwise treat with political inferiority the Pagan
remnant. To uphold such exclusion, is to lay the axe to the root of
the spiritual Church, to stultify the apostolic preaching, and at this
moment justify Mohammedans in persecuting Christians. For the Sultan
might fairly say,--"I give Christians the choice of exile or death: I
will not allow that sect to grow up here; for it has fully warned me,
that it will proscribe my religion in my own land, as soon as it has
power."
On such grounds I looked with amazement and sorrow at spiritual
Christians who desired to exclude the Romanists from full equality;
and I was happy to enjoy as to this the passive assent of the Irish
clergyman; who, though "Orange" in his connexions, and opposed to
_all_ political action, yet only so much the more deprecated what he
called "political Protestantism."
In spite of the strong revulsion which I felt against some of the
peculiarities of this remarkable man, I for the first time in my life
found myself under the dominion of a superior. When I remember, how
even those bowed down before him, who had been to him in the place of
parents,--accomplished and experienced minds,--I cease to wonder in
the retrospect, that he riveted me in such a bondage. Henceforth I
began to ask: what will _he_ say to this and that? In _his_ reply I
always expected to find a higher portion of God's Spirit, than in any
I could frame for myself. In order to learn divine truth, it became to
me a surer process to consult him, than to search for myself and wait
upon God: and gradually, (as I afterwards discerned,) my religious
thought had merged into the mere process of developing fearlessly
into results all his principles, without any deeper examining of my
foundations. Indeed, but for a few weaknesses which warned me that
he might err, I could have accepted him as an apostle commissioned to
reveal the mind of God.
In his after-course (which I may not indicate) this gentleman has
every where displayed a wonderful power of bending other minds to his
own, and even stamping upon them the tones of his voice and all sorts
of slavish imitation. Over the general results of his action I
have long deeply mourned, as blunting his natural tenderness and
sacrificing his wisdom to the Letter, dwarfing men's understandings,
contracting their hearts, crushing their moral sensibilities, and
setting those at variance who ought to love: yet oh! how specious
was it in the beginning! he _only_ wanted men "to submit their
understandings _to God_" that is, to the Bible, that is, to his
interpretation! From seeing his action and influence I have learnt,
that if it be dangerous to a young man (as it assuredly is) to have
_no_ superior mind to which he may look up with confiding reverence,
it may be even more dangerous to think that he has found such a mind:
for he who is most logically consistent, though to a one-sided theory,
and most ready to sacrifice self to that theory, seems to ardent youth
the most assuredly trustworthy guide. Such was Ignatius Loyola in his
day.
My study of the New Testament at this time had made it impossible for
me to overlook that the apostles held it to be a duty of all disciples
to expect a near and sudden destruction of the earth by fire, and
constantly to be expecting _the return of the Lord from heaven_. It
was easy to reply, that "experience disproved" this expectation; but
to this an answer was ready provided in Peter's 2nd Epistle, which
forewarns us that we shall be taunted by the unbelieving with thin
objection, but bids us, _nevertheless_, continue to look out for
the speedy fulfilment of this great event. In short, the case stood
thus:--If it was not _too soon_ 1800 years ago to stand in daily
expectation of it, it is not too soon now: to say that it is _too
late_, is not merely to impute error to the apostles, on a matter
which they made of first-rate moral importance, but is to say, that
those whom Peter calls "ungodly scoffers, walking after their own
lusts"--were right, and he was wrong, on the very point for which he
thus vituperated them.
The importance of this doctrine is, that _it totally forbids all
working for earthly objects distant in time_: and here the Irish
clergyman threw into the same scale the entire weight of his
character. For instance; if a youth had a natural aptitude for
mathematics, and he asked, ought he to give himself to the study, in
hope that he might diffuse a serviceable knowledge of it, or possibly
even enlarge the boundaries of the science? my friend would have
replied, that such a purpose was very proper, if entertained by a
worldly man. Let the dead bury their dead; and let the world study the
things of the world: they know no better, and they are of use to the
Church, who may borrow and use the jewels of the Egyptians. But such
studies cannot be eagerly followed by the Christian, except when he
yields to unbelief. In fact, what would it avail even to become a
second La Place after thirty years' study, if in five and thirty years
the Lord descended from heaven, snatched up all his saints to meet
him, and burned to ashes all the works of the earth? Then all the
mathematician's work would have perished, and he would grieve over
his unwisdom, in laying up store which could not stand the fire of
the Lord. Clearly; if we are bound to act _as though_ the end of all
earthly concerns may come, "at cockcrowing or at midday," then to work
for distant earthly objects is the part of a fool or of an unbeliever.
I found a wonderful dulness in many persons on this important subject.
Wholly careless to ask what was the true apostolic doctrine, they
insisted that "Death is to us _practically_ the coming of the Lord,"
and were amazed at my seeing so much emphasis in the other view. This
comes of the abominable selfishness preached as religion. If I were
to labour at some useful work for ten years,--say, at clearing forest
land, laying out a farm, and building a house,--and were then to die,
I should leave my work to my successors, and it would not be lost.
Some men work for higher, some for lower, earthly ends; ("in a great
house there are many vessels, &c.;") but all the results are valuable,
if there is a chance of transmitting them to those who follow us.
But if all is to be very shortly burnt up, it is then folly to exert
ourselves for such objects. To the dead man, (it is said,) the cases
are but one. This is to the purpose, if self absorbs all our heart;
away from the purpose, if we are to work for unselfish ends.
Nothing can be clearer, than that the New Testament is entirely
pervaded by the doctrine,--sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes
unceremoniously assumed,--that earthly things are very speedily to
come to an end, and _therefore_ are not worthy of our high affections
and deep interest. Hence, when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion,
I looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its energies on
any distant aim of this earth. For a statesman to talk about providing
for future generations, sounded to me as a melancholy avowal of
unbelief. To devote good talents to write history or investigate
nature, was simple waste: for at the Lord's coming, history and
science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours.
Thus an inevitable deduction from the doctrine of the apostles, was,
that "we must work for speedy results only." Vitæ summa brevis spem
nos vetat inchoare longam. I _then_ accepted the doctrine, in profound
obedience to the absolutely infallible system of precepts. I _now_ see
that the falsity and mischief of the doctrine is one of the very many
disproofs of the assumed, but unverified infallibility. However,
the hold which the apostolic belief then took of me, subjected my
conscience to the exhortations of the Irish clergyman, whenever he
inculcated that the highest Christian must necessarily decline the
pursuit of science, knowledge, art, history,--except so far as any
of these things might be made useful tools for immediate spiritual
results.
Under the stimulus to my imagination given by this gentleman's
character, the desire, which from a boy I had more or less nourished,
of becoming a teacher of Christianity _to the heathen_, took stronger
and stronger hold of me. I saw that I was shut out from the ministry
of the Church of England, and knew not how to seek connexion with
Dissenters. I had met one eminent Quaker, but was offended by the
violent and obviously false interpretations by which he tried to
get rid of the two Sacraments; and I thought there was affectation
involved in the forms which the doctrine of the Spirit took with him.
Besides, I had not been prepossessed by those Dissenters whom I had
heard speak at the Bible Society. I remember that one of them
talked in pompous measured tones of voice, and with much stereotyped
phraseology, about "the Bible only, the religion of Protestants:"
altogether, it did not seem to me that there was at all so much of
nature and simple truth in them as in Church clergymen. I also had
a vague, but strong idea, that all Dissenting churches assumed some
special, narrow, and sectarian basis. The question indeed arose: "Was
I _at liberty_ to preach to the heathen without ordination?" but I
with extreme ease answered in the affirmative. To teach a Church, of
course needs the sanction of the church: no man can assume pastoral
rights without assent from other parties: but to speak to those
without, is obviously a natural right, with which the Church can have
nothing to do. And herewith all the precedents of the New Testament so
obviously agreed, that I had not a moment's disquiet on this head.
At the same time, when asked by one to whom I communicated my
feelings, "whether I felt that I had _a call_ to preach to the
heathen," I replied: I had not the least consciousness of it, and knew
not what was meant by such language. All that I knew was, that I was
willing and anxious to do anything in my power either to teach, or to
help others in teaching, if only I could find out the way. That after
eighteen hundred years no farther progress should have been made
towards the universal spread of Christianity, appeared a scandalous
reproach on Christendom. Is it not, perhaps, because those who are
in Church office cannot go, and the mass of the laity think it no
business of theirs? If a persecution fell on England, and thousands
were driven into exile, and, like those who were scattered in
Stephen's persecution, "went everywhere preaching the word,"--might
not this be the conversion of the world, as indeed that began the
conversion of the Gentiles? But the laity leave all to the clergy, and
the clergy have more than enough to do.
About this time I heard of another remarkable man, whose name was
already before the public,--Mr. Groves,--who had written a tract
called Christian Devotedness, on the duty of devoting all worldly
property for the cause of Christ, and utterly renouncing the attempt
to amass money. In pursuance of this, he was going to Persia as a
teacher of Christianity. I read his tract, and was inflamed with the
greatest admiration; judging immediately that this was the man whom
I should rejoice to aid or serve. For a scheme of this nature
alone appeared to combine with the views which I had been gradually
consolidating concerning the practical relation of a Christian Church
to Christian Evidences. On this very important subject it is requisite
to speak in detail.
* * * * *
The Christian Evidences are an essential part of the course of
religious study prescribed at Oxford, and they had engaged from an
early period a large share of my attention. Each treatise on the
subject, taken by itself, appeared to me to have great argumentative
force; but when I tried to grasp them all together in a higher act
of thought, I was sensible of a certain confusion, and inability to
reconcile their fundamental assumptions. _One_ either formally
stated, or virtually assumed, that the deepest basis of all
religious knowledge was the testimony of sense to some fact, which is
ascertained to be miraculous when examined by the light of Physics or
Physiology; and that we must, at least in a great degree, distrust and
abandon our moral convictions or auguries, at the bidding of sensible
miracle. _Another_ treatise assumed that men's moral feelings and
beliefs are, on the whole, the most trustworthy thing to be found;
and starting from them as from a known and ascertained foundation,
proceeded to glorify Christianity because of its expanding,
strengthening, and beautifying all that we know by conscience to be
morally right. That the former argument, if ever so valid, was still
too learned and scholastic, not for the vulgar only, but for every man
in his times of moral trial, I felt instinctively persuaded: yet my
intellect could not wholly dispense with it, and my belief in the
depravity of the moral understanding of men inclined me to go some way
in defending it. To endeavour to combine the two arguments by saying
that they were adapted to different states of mind, was plausible;
yet it conceded, that neither of the two went to the bottom of
human thought, or showed what were the real _fixed points_ of man's
knowledge; without knowing which, we are in perpetual danger of mere
_argumentum ad hominem_, or, in fact, arguing in a circle;--as to
prove miracles from doctrine, and doctrine from miracles. I however
conceived that the most logical minds among Christians would contend
that there was another solution; which, in 1827, I committed to paper
in nearly the following words:
"May it not be doubted whether Leland sees the real circumstance that
makes a revelation necessary?
"No revelation is needed to inform us,--of the invisible power and
deity of God; that we are bound to worship Him; that we are capable of
sinning against Him and liable to his just Judgment; nay, that we have
sinned, and that we find in nature marks of his displeasure against
sin; and yet, that He is merciful. St. Paul and our Lord show us that
these things are knowable by reason. The ignorance of the heathens is
_judicial blindness_, to punish their obstinate rejection of the true
God."
"But a revelation _is_ needed to convey a SPECIAL message, such as
this: that God has provided an Atonement for our sins, has deputed his
own Son to become Head of the redeemed human family, and intends to
raise those who believe in Him to a future and eternal life of bliss.
These are external truths, (for 'who can believe, unless one be sent
to preach them?') and are not knowable by any reasonings drawn from
nature. They transcend natural analogies and moral or spiritual
experience. To reveal them, a specific communication must be accorded
to us: and on this the necessity for miracle turns."
Thus, in my view, at that time, the materials of the Bible were in
theory divisible into two portions: concerning the _one_, (which I
called Natural Religion,) it not only was not presumptuous, but it was
absolutely essential, to form an independent judgment; for this was
the real basis of all faith: concerning the _other_, (which I called
Revealed Religion,) our business was, not to criticize the message,
but to examine the credentials[1] of the messenger; and,--after the
most unbiassed possible examination of these,--then, if they proved
sound, to receive his communication reverently and unquestioningly.
Such was the theory with which I came from Oxford to Ireland; but
I was hindered from working out its legitimate results by the
overpowering influence of the Irish clergyman; who, while pressing
the authority of every letter of the Scripture with an unshrinking
vehemence that I never saw surpassed, yet, with a common
inconsistency, showed more than indifference towards learned
historical and critical evidence on the side of Christianity; and
indeed, unmercifully exposed erudition to scorn, both by caustic
reasoning, and by irrefragable quotation of texts. I constantly had
occasion to admire the power with which be laid hold of the moral
side of every controversy; whether he was reasoning against Romanism,
against the High Church, against learned religion or philosophic
scepticism: and in this matter his practical axiom was, that the
advocate of truth had to address himself to the _conscience_ of the
other party, and if possible, make him feel that there was a moral and
spiritual superiority against him. Such doctrine, when joined with
an inculcation of man's _natural blindness and total depravity_,
was anything but clearing to my intellectual perceptions: in fact,
I believe that for some years I did not recover from the dimness and
confusion which he spread over them. But in my entire inability to
explain away the texts which spoke with scorn of worldly wisdom,
philosophy, and learning, on the one hand; and the obvious certainty,
on the other, that no historical evidence for miracle was possible
except by the aid of learning; I for the time abandoned this side of
Christian Evidence,--not as invalid, but as too unwieldy a weapon
for use,--and looked to direct moral evidence alone. And now rose the
question, How could such moral evidence become appreciable to heathens
and Mohammedans?
I felt distinctly enough, that mere talk could bring no conviction,
and would be interpreted by the actions and character of the speaker.
While nations called Christian are only known to heathens as great
conquerors, powerful avengers, sharp traders,--often lax in morals,
and apparently without religion,--the fine theories of a Christian
teacher would be as vain to convert a Mohammedan or Hindoo to
Christianity, to the soundness of Seneca's moral treatises to convert
me to Roman Paganism. Christendom has to earn a new reputation before
Christian precepts will be thought to stand in any essential or close
relation with the mystical doctrines of Christianity. I could see
no other way to this, but by an entire church being formed of new
elements on a heathen soil:--a church, in which by no means all
should be preachers, but all should be willing to do for all whatever
occasion required. Such a church had I read of among the Moravians in
Greenland and in South Africa. I imagined a little colony, so animated
by primitive faith, love, and disinterestedness, that the collective
moral influence of all might interpret and enforce the words of the
few who preached. Only in this way did it appear to me that preaching
to the heathen could be attended with success. In fact, whatever
success had been attained, seemed to come only after many years, when
the natives had gained experience in the characters of the Christian
family around them.
When I had returned to Oxford, I induced the Irish clergyman to visit
the University, and introduced him to many of my equals in age, and
juniors. Most striking was it to see how instantaneously he assumed
the place of universal father-confessor, as if he had been a known
and long-trusted friend. His insight into character, and tenderness
pervading his austerity, so opened young men's hearts, that day after
day there was no end of secret closetings with him. I began to see the
prospect of so considerable a movement of mind, as might lead many in
the same direction as myself; and _if_ it was by a collective
Church that Mohammedans were to be taught, the only way was for
each separately to be led to the same place by the same spiritual
influence. As Groves was a magnet to draw me, so might I draw others.
In no other way could a pure and efficient Church be formed. If we
waited, as with worldly policy, to make up a complete colony before
leaving England, we should fail of getting the right men: we should
pack them together by a mechanical process, instead of leaving them to
be united by vital affinities. Thus actuated, and other circumstances
conducing, in September 1830, with some Irish friends, I set out to
join Mr. Groves at Bagdad. What I might do there, I knew not. I did
not go as a minister of religion, and I everywhere pointedly disowned
the assumption of this character, even down to the colour of my dress.
But I thought I knew many ways in which I might be of service, and I
was prepared to act recording to circumstances.
* * * * *
Perhaps the strain of practical life must in any case, before long,
have broken the chain by which the Irish clergyman unintentionally
held me; but all possible influence from him was now cut off by
separation. The dear companions of my travels no more aimed to guide
my thoughts, than I theirs: neither ambition nor suspicion found place
in our hearts; and my mind was thus able again without disturbance to
develop its own tendencies.
I had become distinctly aware, that the modern Churches in general by
no means hold the truth as conceived of by the apostles. In the
matter of the Sabbath and of the Mosaic Law, of Infant Baptism, of
Episcopacy, of the doctrine of the Lord's return, I had successively
found the prevalent Protestantism to be unapostolic. Hence arose in me
a conscious and continuous effort to read the New Testament with fresh
eyes and without bias, and so to take up the real doctrines of the
heavenly and everlasting Gospel.
In studying the narrative of John I was strongly impressed by the
fact, that the glory and greatness of the Son of God is constantly
ascribed to the will and pleasure of the Father. I had been accustomed
to hear this explained of his _mediatorial_ greatness only, but this
now looked to me like a make-shift, and to want the simplicity of
truth--an impression which grew deeper with closer examination.
The emphatic declaration of Christ, "My Father is greater than I,"
especially arrested my attention. Could I really expound this as
meaning, "My Father, the Supreme God, in greater than I am, _if you
look solely to my human nature?_" Such a truism can scarcely have
deserved such emphasis. Did the disciples need to be taught that God
was greater than man? Surely, on the contrary, the Saviour must have
meant to say: "_Divine as I am_, yet my heavenly Father is greater than
I, _even when you take cognizance of my divine nature._" I did not
then know, that my comment was exactly that of the most orthodox
Fathers; I rather thought they were against me, but for them I did not
care much. I reverenced the doctrine of the Trinity as something vital
to the soul; but felt that to love the Fathers or the Athanasian
Creed more than the Gospel of John would be a supremely miserable
superstition. However, that Creed states that there is no inequality
between the Three Persons: in John it became increasingly clear to me
that the divine Son is unequal to the Father. To say that "the Son of
God" meant "Jesus as man," was a preposterous evasion: for there is
no higher title for the Second Person of the Trinity than this very
one--Son of God. Now, in the 5th chapter, when the Jews accused Jesus
"of making himself equal to God," by calling himself Son of God Jesus
even hastens to protest against the inference as a misrepresentation
--beginning with: "The Son can do nothing of himself:" and proceeds
elaborately to ascribe all his greatness to the Father's will. In
fact, the Son is emphatically "he who is sent," and the Father is "he
who sent him:" and all would feel the deep impropriety of trying to
exchange these phrases. The Son who is sent,--sent, not _after_ he was
humbled to become man, but _in order to_ be so humbled,--was NOT EQUAL
TO, but LESS THAN, the Father who sent him. To this I found the whole
Gospel of John to bear witness; and with this conviction, the truth
and honour of the Athanasian Creed fell to the ground. One of its main
tenets was proved false; and yet it dared to utter anathemas on all
who rejected it!
I afterwards remembered my old thought, that we must surely understand
_our own words_, when we venture to speak at all about divine
mysteries. Having gained boldness to gaze steadily on the topic, I
at length saw that the compiler of the Athanasian Creed did _not_
understand his own words. If any one speaks of _three men_, all that
he means is, "three objects of thought, of whom each separately may
be called Man." So also, all that could possibly be meant by _three
gods_, is, "three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be
called God." To avow the last statement, as the Creed does, and yet
repudiate Three Gods, is to object to the phrase, yet confess to
the only meaning which the phrase can convey. Thus the Creed really
teaches polytheism, but saves orthodoxy by forbidding any one to call
it by its true name. Or to put the matter otherwise: it teaches three
Divine Persons, and denies three Gods; and leaves us to guess what
else is a Divine Person but a God, or a God but a Divine Person. Who,
then, can deny that this intolerant creed is a malignant riddle?
That there is nothing in the Scripture about Trinity in Unity and
Unity in Trinity I had long observed; and the total absence of such
phraseology had left on me a general persuasion that the Church had
systematized too much. But in my study of John I was now arrested by
a text, which showed me how exceedingly far from a _Tri-unity_ was the
Trinity of that Gospel,--if trinity it be. Namely, in his last prayer,
Jesus addresses to his Father the words: "This is life eternal, that
they may know _Thee, the only True God_, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent" I became amazed, as I considered these words more and more
attentively, and without prejudice; and I began to understand how
prejudice, when embalmed with reverence, blinds the mind. Why had I
never before seen what is here so plain, that the _One God_ of Jesus
was not a Trinity, but was _the First Person_, of the ecclesiastical
Trinity?
But on a fuller search, I found this to be Paul's doctrine also: for
in 1 Corinth, viii., when discussing the subject of Polytheism, he
says that "though there be to the heathen many that are called Gods,
yet to us there is but _One God_, the Father, _of_ whom are all
things; and _One Lord_, Jesus Christ, _by_ whom are all things." Thus
he defines Monotheism to consist in holding the person of the Father
to be the One God; although this, if any, should have been the place
for a "Trinity in Unity."
But did I proceed to deny the Divinity of the Son? By no means: I
conceived of him as in the highest and fullest sense divine, short
of being Father and not Son. I now believed that by the phrase "only
begotten Son," John, and indeed Christ himself, meant to teach us that
there was an unpassable chasm between him and all creatures, in that
he had a true, though a derived divine nature; an indeed the Nicene
Creed puts the contrast, he was "begotten, not made." Thus all Divine
glory dwells in the Son, but it is _because_ the Father has willed
it. A year or more afterward, when I had again the means of access
to books, and consulted that very common Oxford book, "Pearson on the
Creed," (for which I had felt so great a distaste that I never before
read it)--I found this to be the undoubted doctrine of the great
Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, who laid much emphasis on two
statements, which with the modern Church are idle and dead--viz. that
"the Son was _begotten_ of his Father _before all worlds_," and that
"the Holy Spirit _proceedeth from_ the Father and the Son." In
the view of the old Church, the Father alone was the Fountain of
Deity,--(and _therefore_ fitly called, The One God,--and, the Only
True God)--while the Deity of the other two persons was real, yet
derived and subordinate. Moreover, I found in Gregory Nazianzen and
others, that to confess this derivation of the Son and Spirit and the
underivedness of the Father alone, was in their view quite essential
to save Monotheism; the _One_ God being the underived Father.
Although in my own mind all doubt as to the doctrine of John and Paul
on the main question seemed to be quite cleared away from the time
that I dwelt on their explanation of Monotheism, this in no respect
agitated me, or even engaged me in any farther search. There was
nothing to force me into controversy, or make this one point of
truth unduly preponderant. I concealed none of my thoughts from my
companions; and concerning them I will only say, that whether they
did or did not feel acquiescence, they behaved towards me with all
the affection and all the equality which I would have wished myself
to maintain, had the case been inverted. I was, however, sometimes
uneasy, when the thought crossed my mind,--"What if we, like Henry
Martyn, were charged with Polytheism by Mohammedans, and were forced
to defend ourselves by explaining in detail our doctrine of the
Trinity? _Perhaps_ no two of us would explain it alike, and this would
expose Christian doctrine to contempt." Then farther it came
across me; How very remarkable it is, that the Jews, those strict
Monotheists, never seem to have attacked the apostles for polytheism!
It would have been so plausible an imputation, one that the instinct
of party would so readily suggest, if there had been any external
form of doctrine to countenance it. Surely it is transparent that the
Apostles did not teach as Dr. Waterland. I had always felt a great
repugnance to the argumentations concerning the _Personality_ of the
Holy Spirit; no doubt from an inward sense, however dimly confessed,
that they were all words without meaning. For the disputant who
maintains this dogma, tells us in the very next breath that _Person_
has not in this connexion its common signification; so that he is
elaborately enforcing upon us we know not what. That the Spirit of God
meant in the New Testament _God in the heart_, had long been to me a
sufficient explanation: and who by logic or metaphysics will carry us
beyond this?
While we were at Aleppo, I one day got into religious discourse with
a Mohammedan carpenter, which left on me a lasting impression. Among
other matters, I was peculiarly desirous of disabusing him of the
current notion of his people, that our gospels are spurious narratives
of late date. I found great difficulty of expression; but the man
listened to me with much attention, and I was encouraged to exert
myself. He waited patiently till I had done, and then spoke to the
following effect: "I will tell you, sir, how the case stands. God has
given to you English a great many good gifts. You make fine ships, and
sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons; and you have rich nobles
and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books:
(dictionaries and grammars:) all this is of God. But there is one
thing that God has withheld from you, and has revealed to us; and that
is, the knowledge of the true religion, by which one may be
saved." When he thus ignored my argument, (which was probably quite
unintelligible to him,) and delivered his simple protest, I was
silenced, and at the same time amused. But the more I thought it over,
the more instruction I saw in the case. His position towards me was
exactly that of a humble Christian towards an unbelieving philosopher;
nay, that of the early Apostles or Jewish prophets towards the proud,
cultivated, worldly wise and powerful heathen. This not only showed
the vanity of any argument to him, except one purely addressed to
his moral and spiritual faculties; but it also indicated to me that
Ignorance has its spiritual self-sufficiency as well as Erudition; and
that if there is a Pride of Reason, so is there a Pride of Unreason.
But though this rested in my memory, it was long before I worked out
all the results of that thought.
Another matter brought me some disquiet. An Englishman of rather low
tastes who came to Aleppo at this time, called upon us; and as he
was civilly received, repeated his visit more than once. Being
unencumbered with fastidiousness, this person before long made various
rude attacks on the truth and authority of the Christian religion,
and drew me on to defend it. What I had heard of the moral life of the
speaker made me feel that his was not the mind to have insight into
divine truth; and I desired to divert the argument from external
topics, and bring it to a point in which there might be a chance
of touching his conscience. But I found this to be impossible. He
returned actively to the assault against Christianity, and I could
not bear to hear him vent historical falsehoods and misrepresentations
damaging to the Christian cause, without contradicting them. He was
a half-educated man, and I easily confuted him to my own entire
satisfaction: but he was not either abashed or convinced; and at
length withdrew as one victorious.--On reflecting over this, I felt
painfully, that if a Moslem had been present and had understood all
that had been said, he would have remained in total uncertainty which
of the two disputants was in the right: for the controversy had turned
on points wholly remote from the sphere of his knowledge or thought.
Yet to have declined the battle would have seemed like conscious
weakness on my part. Thus the historical side of my religion,
though essential to it, and though resting on valid evidence, (as I
unhesitatingly believed,) exposed me to attacks in which I might incur
virtual defeat or disgrace, but in which, from the nature of the
case, I could never win an available victory. This was to me very
disagreeable, yet I saw not my way out of the entanglement.
Two years after I left England, a hope was conceived that more friends
might be induced to join us; and I returned home from Bagdad with
the commission to bring this about, if there were suitable persons
disposed for it. On my return, and while yet in quarantine on the
coast of England, I received an uncomfortable letter from a most
intimate spiritual friend, to the effect, that painful reports had
been every where spread abroad against my soundness in the faith.
The channel by which they had come was indicated to me; but my friend
expressed a firm hope, that when I had explained myself, it would all
prove to be nothing.
Now began a time of deep and critical trial to me and to my Creed; a
time hard to speak of to the public; yet without a pretty full notice
of it, the rest of the account would be quite unintelligible.
The Tractarian movement was just commencing in 1833. My brother
was taking a position, in which he was bound to show that he could
sacrifice private love to ecclesiastical dogma; and upon learning that
I had spoken at some small meetings of religious people, (which he
interpreted, I believe, to be an assuming of the Priest's office,)
he separated himself entirely from my private friendship and
acquaintance. To the public this may have some interest, as indicating
the disturbing excitement which animated that cause: but my reason for
naming the fact here is solely to exhibit the practical positions into
which I myself was thrown. In my brother's conduct there was not a
shade of unkindness, and I have not a thought of complaining of it. My
distress was naturally great, until I had fully ascertained from him
that I had given no personal offence. But the mischief of it went
deeper. It practically cut me off from other members of my family,
who were living in his house, and whose state of feeling towards me,
through separation and my own agitations of mind, I for some time
totally mistook.
I had, however, myself slighted relationship in comparison with
Christian brotherhood;--_sectarian_ brotherhood, some may call it;--I
perhaps had none but myself to blame: but in the far more painful
occurrences which were to succeed one another for many months
together, I was blameless. Each successive friend who asked
explanations of my alleged heresy, was satisfied,--or at least left
me with that impression,--after hearing me: not one who met me face to
face had a word to reply to the plain Scriptures which I quoted.
Yet when I was gone away, one after another was turned against me by
somebody else whom I had not yet met or did not know: for in every
theological conclave which deliberates on joint action, the most
bigoted scorns always to prevail.
I will trust my pen to only one specimen of details. The Irish
clergyman was not able to meet me. He wrote a very desultory letter
of grave alarm and inquiry, stating that he had heard that I was
endeavouring to sound the divine nature by the miserable plummet of
human philosophy,--with much beside that I felt to be mere commonplace
which every body might address to every body who differed from him.
I however replied in the frankest, most cordial and trusting tone,
assuring him that I was infinitely far from imagining that I could
"by searching understand God;" on the contrary, concerning his higher
mysteries, I felt I knew absolutely nothing but what he revealed to
me in his word; but in studying this word, I found John and Paul to
declare the Father, and not the Trinity, to be the One God. Referring
him to John xvii, 3, 1 Corinth. viii, 5, 6, I fondly believed that one
so "subject to the word" and so resolutely renouncing man's authority
_in order that_ he might serve God, would immediately see as I saw.
But I assured him, in all the depth of affection, that I felt how much
fuller insight he had than I into all divine truth; and not he only,
but others to whom I alluded; and that if I was in error, I only
desired to be taught more truly; and either with him, or at his feet,
to learn of God. He replied, to my amazement and distress, in a letter
of much tenderness, but which was to the effect,--that if I allowed
the Spirit of God to be with him rather than with me, it was wonderful
that I set my single judgment against the mind of the Spirit and of
the whole Church of God; and that as for admitting into Christian
communion one who held my doctrine, it had this absurdity, that while
I was in such a state of belief, it was my duty to anathematize _them_
as idolaters.--Severe as was the shock given me by this letter, I
wrote again most lovingly, humbly, and imploringly: for I still adored
him, and could have given him my right hand or my right eye,--anything
but my conscience. I showed him that if it was a matter of action,
I would submit; for I unfeignedly believed that he had more of the
Spirit of God than I: but over my secret convictions I had no power.
I was shut up to obey and believe God rather than man, and from the
nature of the case, the profoundest respect for my brother's judgment
could not in itself alter mine. As to the whole _Church_ being against
me, I did not know what that meant: I was willing to accept the Nicene
Creed, and this I thought ought to be a sufficient defensive argument
against the Church. His answer was decisive;--he was exceedingly
surprized at my recurring to mere ecclesiastical creeds, as though
they could have the slightest weight; and he must insist on my
acknowledging, that, in the two texts quoted, the word Father meant
the Trinity, if I desired to be in any way recognized as holding the
truth.
The Father meant the Trinity!! For the first time I perceived, that so
vehement a champion of the sufficiency of the Scripture, so staunch
an opposer of Creeds and Churches, was wedded to an extra-Scriptural
creed of his own, by which he tested the spiritual state of his
brethren. I was in despair, and like a man thunderstruck. I had
nothing more to say. Two more letters from the same hand I saw, the
latter of which was, to threaten some new acquaintances who were kind
to me, (persons wholly unknown to him,) that if they did not desist
from sheltering me and break off intercourse, they should, as far as
his influence went, themselves everywhere be cut off from Christian
communion and recognition. This will suffice to indicate the sort of
social persecution, through which, after a succession of struggles, I
found myself separated from persons whom I had trustingly admired,
and on whom I had most counted for union: with whom I fondly believed
myself bound up for eternity; of whom some were my previously intimate
friends, while for others, even on slight acquaintance, I would have
performed menial offices and thought myself honoured; whom I still
looked upon as the blessed and excellent of the earth, and the special
favourites of heaven; whose company (though oftentimes they were
considerably my inferiors either in rank or in knowledge and
cultivation) I would have chosen in preference to that of nobles; whom
I loved solely because I thought them to love God, and of whom I asked
nothing, but that they would admit me as the meanest and most frail of
disciples. My heart was ready to break: I wished for a woman's soul,
that I might weep in floods. Oh, Dogma! Dogma! how dost them trample
under foot love, truth, conscience, justice! Was ever a Moloch worse
than thou? Burn me at the stake; then Christ will receive me, and
saints beyond the grave will love me, though the saints here know
me not But now I am alone in the world: I can trust no one. The new
acquaintances who barely tolerate me, and old friends whom reports
have not reached, (if such there be,) may turn against me with
animosity to-morrow, as those have done from whom I could least have
imagined it. Where is union? where is the Church, which was to convert
the heathen?
This was not my only reason, yet it was soon a sufficient and at last
an overwhelming reason, against returning to the East. The pertinacity
of the attacks made on me, and on all who dared to hold by me in a
certain connexion, showed that I could no longer be anything but a
thorn in the side of my friends abroad; nay, I was unable to predict
how they themselves might change towards me. The idea of a Christian
Church propagating Christianity while divided against itself was
ridiculous. Never indeed had I had the most remote idea, that my
dear friends there had been united to me by agreement in intellectual
propositions; nor could I yet believe it. I remembered a saying of the
noble-hearted Groves: "Talk of loving me while I agree with them! Give
me men that will love me when I differ from them and contradict them:
those will be the men to build up a true Church." I asked myself,--was
I then possibly different from all? With me,--and, as I had thought,
with all my Spiritual friends,--intellectual dogma was not the test
of spirituality. A hundred times over had I heard the Irish clergyman
emphatically enunciate the contrary. Nothing was clearer in his
preaching, talking and writing, than that salvation was a present
real experienced fact; a saving of the soul from the dominion of baser
desires, and an inward union of it in love and homage to Christ, who,
as the centre of all perfection, glory, and beauty, was the revelation
of God to the heart. He who was thus saved, could not help knowing
that he was reconciled, pardoned, beloved; and therefore he rejoiced
in God his Saviour: indeed, to imagine joy without this personal
assurance and direct knowledge, was quite preposterous. But on the
other hand, the soul thus spiritually minded has a keen sense of like
qualities in others. It cannot but discern when another is tender
in conscience, disinterested, forbearing, scornful of untruth and
baseness, and esteeming nothing so much as the fruits of the Spirit:
accordingly, John did not hesitate to say: "_We know_ that we have
passed from death unto life, _because_ we love the brethren." Our
doctrine certainly had been, that the Church was the assembly of the
saved, gathered by the vital attractions of God's Spirit; that in it
no one was Lord or Teacher, but one was our Teacher, even Christ: that
as long as we had no earthly bribes to tempt men to join us, there was
not much cause to fear false brethren; for if we were heavenly minded,
and these were earthly, they would soon dislike and shun us. Why
should we need to sit in judgment and excommunicate them, except in
the case of publicly scandalous conduct?
It is true, that I fully believed certain intellectual convictions
to be essential to genuine spirituality: for instance, if I had
heard that a person unknown to me did not believe in the Atonement of
Christ, I should have inferred that he had no spiritual life. But if
the person had come under my direct knowledge, my _theory_ was, on
no account to reject him on a question of Creed, but in any case to
receive all those whom Christ had received, all on whom the Spirit of
God had come down, just as the Church at Jerusalem did in regard
to admitting the Gentiles, Acts xi. 18. Nevertheless, was not this
perhaps a theory pleasant to talk of, but too good for practice? I
could not tell; for it had never been so severely tried. I remembered,
however, that when I had thought it right to be baptized as an adult,
(regarding my baptism as an infant to have been a mischievous fraud,)
the sole confession of faith which I made, or would endure, at a time
when my "orthodoxy" was unimpeached, was: "I believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God:"[2] to deny which, and claim to be acknowledged as
within the pale of the Christian Church, seemed to be an absurdity. On
the whole, therefore, it did not appear to me that this Church-theory
had been hollow-hearted with _me_ nor unscriptural, nor in any way
unpractical; but that _others_ were still infected with the leaven of
creeds and formal tests, with which they reproached the old Church.
Were there, then, no other hearts than mine, aching under miserable
bigotry, and refreshed only when they tasted in others the true
fruits of the Spirit,--"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control?"--To imagine this was to
suppose myself a man supernaturally favoured, an angel upon earth. I
knew there must be thousands in this very point more true-hearted than
I: nay, such still might some be, whose names I went over with myself:
but I had no heart for more experiments. When such a man as he,
the only mortal to whom I had looked up as to an apostle, had
unhesitatingly, unrelentingly, and without one mark that his
conscience was not on his side, flung away all his own precepts,
his own theories, his own magnificent rebukes of Formalism and human
Authority, and had made _himself_ the slave and _me_ the victim of
those old and ever-living tyrants,--whom henceforth could I trust? The
resolution then rose in me, to love all good men from a distance, but
never again to count on permanent friendship with any one who was not
himself cast out as a heretic.
Nor, in fact, did the storm of distress which these events inflicted
on me, subside until I willingly received the task of withstanding it,
as God's trial whether I was faithful. As soon as I gained strength
to say, "O my Lord, I will bear not this only, _but more also_,[3] for
thy sake, for conscience, and for truth,"--my sorrows vanished, until
the next blow and the next inevitable pang. At last my heart had died
within me; the bitterness of death was past; I was satisfied to be
hated by the saints, and to reckon that those who had not yet turned
against me would not bear me much longer.--Then I conceived the
belief, that if we may not make a heaven on earth for ourselves out of
the love of saints, it is in order that we may find a truer heaven in
God's love.
The question about this time much vexed me, what to do about receiving
the Holy Supper of the Lord, the great emblem of brotherhood,
communion, and church connexion. At one time I argued with myself,
that it became an unmeaning form, when not partaken of in mutual
love; that I could never again have free intercourse of heart with any
one;--why then use the rite of communion, where there is no communion?
But, on the other hand, I thought it a mode of confessing Christ, and
that permanently to disuse it, was an unfaithfulness. In the Church of
England I could have been easy as far as the communion formulary was
concerned; but to the entire system I had contracted an incurable
repugnance, as worldly, hypocritical, and an evil counterfeit. I
desired, therefore, to creep into some obscure congregation, and there
wait till my mind had ripened as to the right path in circumstances so
perplexing. I will only briefly say, that I at last settled among some
who had previously been total strangers to me. To their good will
and simple kindness I feel myself indebted: peace be to them! Thus I
gained time, and repose of mind, which I greatly needed.
From the day that I had mentally decided on total inaction as to all
ecclesiastical questions, I count the termination of my Second Period.
My ideal of a spiritual Church had blown up in the most sudden and
heartbreaking way; overpowering me with shame, when the violence of
sorrow was past. There was no change whatever in my own judgment, yet
a total change of action was inevitable: that I was on the eve of
a great transition of mind I did not at all suspect. Hitherto my
reverence for the authority of the whole and indivisible _Bible_ was
overruling and complete. I never really had dared to criticize it; I
did not even exact from it self-consistency. If two passages appeared
to be opposed, and I could not evade the difficulty by the doctrine
of Development and Progress, I inferred that there was _some_ mode
of conciliation unknown to me; and that perhaps the depth of truth in
divine things could ill be stated in our imperfect language. But from
the man who dared to interpose _a human comment_ on the Scripture, I
most rigidly demanded a clear, single, self-consistent sense. If he
did not know what he meant, why did he not hold his peace? If he did
know, why did he so speak as to puzzle us? It was for this uniform
refusal to allow of self-contradiction, that it was more than once
sadly predicted of me at Oxford that I should become "a Socinian;"
yet I did not apply this logical measure to any compositions but those
which were avowedly "uninspired" and human.
As to moral criticism, my mind was practically prostrate before the
Bible. By the end of this period I had persuaded myself that morality
so changes with the commands of God, that we can scarcely attach any
idea of _immutability_ to it. I am, moreover, ashamed to tell any
one how I spoke and acted against my own common sense under this
influence, and when I was thought a fool, prayed that I might think it
an honour to become a fool for Christ's sake. Against no doctrine did
I dare to bring moral objections, except that of "Reprobation." To
Election, to Preventing Grace, to the Fall and Original Sin of man,
to the Atonement, to Eternal Punishment, I reverently submitted my
understanding; though as to the last, new inquiries had just at this
crisis been opening on me. Reprobation, indeed, I always repudiated
with great vigour, of which I shall presently speak. That was the full
amount of my original thought; and in it I preserved entire reverence
for the sacred writers.
As to miracles, scarcely anything staggered me. I received the
strangest and the meanest prodigies of Scripture, with the same
unhesitating faith, as if I had never understood a proposition of
physical philosophy, nor a chapter of Hume and Gibbon.
[Footnote 1: Very unintelligent criticism of my words induces me to
add, that "the _credentials_ of Revelation," as distinguished from
"the _contents_ of Revelation," are here intended. Whether such a
distinction can be preserved is quite another question. The view
here exhibited is essentially that of Paley, and was in my day the
prevalent one at Oxford. I do not think that the present Archbishop
of Canterbury will disown it, any more than Lloyd, and Burton, and
Hampden,--bishops and Regius Professors of Divinity.]
[Footnote 2: Borrowed from Acts viii. 37.]
[Footnote 3: Virgil (Æneid vi.) gives the Stoical side of the same
thought: Tu ne cede malis, _sed contra audentior ito_.]