[1889]
Those who passed from Dr. Wace's article in the last number of the
"Nineteenth Century" to the anticipatory confutation of it which
followed in "The New Reformation," must have enjoyed the pleasure of a
dramatic surprise--just as when the fifth act of a new play proves
unexpectedly bright and interesting. Mrs. Ward will, I hope, pardon
the comparison, if I say that her effective clearing away of
antiquated incumbrances from the lists of the controversy, reminds me
of nothing so much as of the action of some neat-handed, but
strong-wristed, Phyllis, who, gracefully wielding her long-handled
"Turk's head," sweeps away the accumulated results of the toil of
generations of spiders. I am the more indebted to this luminous sketch
of the results of critical investigation, as it is carried out among
these theologians who are men of science and not mere counsel for
creeds, since it has relieved me from the necessity of dealing with
the greater part of Dr. Wace's polemic, and enables me to devote more
space to the really important issues which have been raised.[64]
Perhaps, however, it may be well for me to observe that approbation of
the manner in which a great biblical scholar, for instance, Reuss,
does his work does not commit me to the adoption of all, or indeed any
of his views; and, further, that the disagreements of a series of
investigators do not in any way interfere with the fact that each of
them has made important contributions to the body of truth ultimately
established. If I cite Buffon, Linnæus, Lamarck, and Cuvier, as having
each and all taken a leading share in building up modern biology, the
statement that every one of these great naturalists disagreed with,
and even more or less contradicted, all the rest is quite true; but
the supposition that the latter assertion is in any way inconsistent
with the former, would betray a strange ignorance of the manner in
which all true science advances.
Dr. Wace takes a great deal of trouble to make it appear that I have
desired to evade the real questions raised by his attack upon me at
the Church Congress. I assure the reverend Principal that in this, as
in some other respects, he has entertained a very erroneous conception
of my intentions. Things would assume more accurate proportions in Dr.
Wace's mind, if he would kindly remember that it is just thirty years
since ecclesiastical thunderbolts began to fly about my ears. I have
had the "Lion and the Bear" to deal with, and it is long since I got
quite used to the threatenings of episcopal Goliaths, whose croziers
were like unto a weaver's beam. So that I almost think I might not
have noticed Dr. Wace's attack, personal as it was; and although, as
he is good enough to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the
modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not come
under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I further
venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expenditure of
twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would have enabled
Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conventions as to direct my
attention to the fact that he had attacked me before a meeting at
which I was not present? I really am not responsible for the five
months' neglect of which Dr. Wace complains. Singularly enough, the
Englishry who swarmed about the Engadine, during the three months that
I was being brought back to life by the glorious air and perfect
comfort of the Maloja, did not, in my hearing, say anything about the
important events which had taken place at the Church Congress; and I
think I can venture to affirm that there was not a single copy of Dr.
Wace's pamphlet in any of the hotel libraries which I rummaged, in
search of something more edifying than dull English or questionable
French novels.
And now, having, as I hope, set myself right with the public as
regards the sins of commission and omission with which I have been
charged, I feel free to deal with matters to which time and type may
be more profitably devoted.
I believe that there is not a solitary argument I have used, or that I
am about to use, which is original, or has anything to do with the
fact that I have been chiefly occupied with natural science. They are
all, facts and reasoning alike, either identical with, or
consequential upon, propositions which are to be found in the works of
scholars and theologians of the highest repute in the only two
countries, Holland and Germany,[65] in which, at the present time,
professors of theology are to be found, whose tenure of their posts
does not depend upon the results to which their inquiries lead
them.[66] It is true that, to the best of my ability, I have satisfied
myself of the soundness of the foundations on which my arguments are
built, and I desire to be held fully responsible for everything I say.
But, nevertheless, my position is really no more than that of an
expositor; and my justification for undertaking it is simply that
conviction of the supremacy of private judgment (indeed, of the
impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the
Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by the
vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that backsliding
towards the "beggarly rudiments" of an effete and idolatrous
sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with the saddest
spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Englishmen in this
generation. A high court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with a host
of great lawyers in battle array, is and, for Heaven knows how long,
will be, occupied with these very questions of "washing of cups and
pots and brazen vessels," which the Master, whose professed
representatives are rending the Church over these squabbles, had in
his mind when, as we are told, he uttered the scathing rebuke:--
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
This people honoureth me with their lips,
But their heart is far from me.
But in vain do they worship me,
Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.
(Mark vii. 6-7.)
Men who can be absorbed in bickerings over miserable disputes of this
kind can have but little sympathy with the old evangelical doctrine of
the "open Bible," or anything but a grave misgiving of the results of
diligent reading of the Bible, without the help of ecclesiastical
spectacles, by the mass of the people. Greatly to the surprise of many
of my friends, I have always advocated the reading of the Bible, and
the diffusion of the study of that most remarkable collection of books
among the people. Its teachings are so infinitely superior to those of
the sects, who are just as busy now as the Pharisees were eighteen
hundred years ago, in smothering them under "the precepts of men"; it
is so certain, to my mind, that the Bible contains within itself the
refutation of nine-tenths of the mixture of sophistical metaphysics
and old-world superstition which has been piled round it by the
so-called Christians of later times; it is so clear that the only
immediate and ready antidote to the poison which has been mixed with
Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of mankind, lies in
copious draughts from the undefiled spring, that I exercise the right
and duty of free judgment on the part of every man, mainly for the
purpose of inducing other laymen to follow my example. If the New
Testament is translated into Zulu by Protestant missionaries, it must
be assumed that a Zulu convert is competent to draw from its contents
all the truths which it is necessary for him to believe. I trust that
I may, without immodesty, claim to be put on the same footing as a
Zulu.
The most constant reproach which is launched against persons of my way
of thinking is that it is all very well for us to talk about the
deductions of scientific thought, but what are the poor and the
uneducated to do? Has it ever occurred to those who talk in this
fashion, that their creeds and the articles of their several
confessions, their determination of the exact nature and extent of the
teachings of Jesus, their expositions of the real meaning of that
which is written in the Epistles (to leave aside all questions
concerning the Old Testament), are nothing more than deductions which,
at any rate, profess to be the result of strictly scientific thinking,
and which are not worth attending to unless they really possess that
character? If it is not historically true that such and such things
happened in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of
Christianity? And what is historical truth but that of which the
evidence bears strict scientific investigation? I do not call to mind
any problem of natural science which has come under my notice which is
more difficult, or more curiously interesting as a mere problem, than
that of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels and that of the historical
value of the narratives which they contain. The Christianity of the
Churches stands or falls by the results of the purely scientific
investigation of these questions. They were first taken up, in a
purely scientific spirit, about a century ago; they have been studied
over and over again by men of vast knowledge and critical acumen; but
he would be a rash man who should assert that any solution of these
problems, as yet formulated, is exhaustive. The most that can be said
is that certain prevalent solutions are certainly false, while others
are more or less probably true.
If I am doing my best to rouse my countrymen out of their dogmatic
slumbers, it is not that they may be amused by seeing who gets the
best of it in a contest between a "scientist" and a theologian. The
serious question is whether theological men of science, or theological
special pleaders, are to have the confidence of the general public; it
is the question whether a country in which it is possible for a body
of excellent clerical and lay gentlemen to discuss, in public meeting
assembled, how much it is desirable to let the congregations of the
faithful know of the results of biblical criticism, is likely to wake
up with anything short of the grasp of a rough lay hand upon its
shoulder; it is the question whether the New Testament books, being,
as I believe they were, written and compiled by people who, according
to their lights, were perfectly sincere, will not, when properly
studied as ordinary historical documents, afford us the means of
self-criticism. And it must be remembered that the New Testament books
are not responsible for the doctrine invented by the Churches that
they are anything but ordinary historical documents. The author of the
third gospel tells us, as straightforwardly as a man can, that he has
no claim to any other character than that of an ordinary compiler and
editor, who had before him the works of many and variously qualified
predecessors.
* * * * *
In my former papers, according to Dr. Wace, I have evaded giving an
answer to his main proposition, which he states as follows--
Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one
practically doubts that our Lord lived, and that He died on
the cross, in the most intense sense of filial relation to
His Father in Heaven, and that He bore testimony to that
Father's providence, love, and grace towards mankind. The
Lord's Prayer affords a sufficient evidence on these points.
If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole unseen
world, of which the Agnostic refuses to know anything,
stands unveiled before us.... If Jesus Christ preached that
Sermon, made those promises, and taught that prayer, then
any one who says that we know nothing of God, or of a future
life, or of an unseen world, says that he does not believe
Jesus Christ (pp. 354-355).