Scripture, confirmed, as we are told it is, by the actual fact of the
great disagreements among Christians, with a well-grounded mistrust of
its soundness; we feel sure that there is something in it which is
confused or sophistical. And considering the fact which appears to
confirm it, I mean the actual differences between Christians and
Christians, it soon appears by no means to bear out its supposed
conclusion. For the differences between Christians and Christians by no
means arise generally from the difficulty of understanding the Scripture
aright, but from disagreement as to some other point, quite independent
of the interpretation of the Scriptures. For example, the great
questions at issue between us and the Roman Catholics turn upon two
points,--Whether there is not another authority, in matters of
Christianity, distinct from and equal to the Scriptures,--and whether
certain interpretations of Scripture are not to be received as true, for
the sake of the authority of the interpreter. Now, suppose for a moment,
that the works of Plato or Aristotle were to us in the place of the
Scriptures; and that the question was, whether these works of theirs
could be understood with certainty; it would prove nothing against our
being able to understand them, if, whilst we look to them alone, another
man were to say, that, to his judgment, the works of other philosophers
were no less authoritative; or, if he were to insist upon it, that the
interpretations given by the scholiasts were always sure to be correct,
because the scholiasts were the authorized interpreters of the text. No
doubt our philosophical opinions and our practice might differ widely
from such a man's; but the difference would prove nothing as to the
obscurity of Plato's or Aristotle's text, because another standard had
been brought in, distinct from their works, and from the acknowledged
principles of interpretation, and thus led unavoidably to a
different result.
The same also is the case as to the questions at issue between the
Church of England and many of the Dissenters. In these disputes it is
notorious that the practice and authority of the church are continually
appealed to, or, it may be, considerations of another kind, as to the
inherent reasonableness of a doctrine; all which are, again, a distinct
matter from the interpretation of Scripture. One of the greatest men of
our time has declared, that, in the early part of his life, he did not
believe in the divinity of our Lord; but he has stated expressly, that
he never for a moment persuaded himself that St. Paul or St. John did
not believe it; their language he thought was clear enough, upon the
point; but the notion appeared to him so unreasonable in itself, that he
disbelieved it in spite of their authority. It is manifest, that, in
this case, great as the difference was between this great man's early
belief and his later, yet it in no way arose from the obscurity of the
Scripture. The language of the Scripture was as clear to him at first as
it was afterwards; but in his early life he disbelieved it, while, in
his latter life, he embraced it with all his heart and soul.
It must not be denied, however, that we are here arrived at one of the
causes which are likely, for a long time, to keep alive a false
interpretation of Scripture, and which do not affect our interpretation
of heathen writings. For most men, in such a case as I have referred to,
when they do not believe the language of the Scripture, but wish to
alter it, whether by omission or addition, do not deal so fairly with it
as that great man did to whom I have alluded. They have neither his
knowledge nor his honesty; a false interpretation is more easily
disguised from them, owing to their ignorance, and they let their wishes
more readily warp their judgment. Thus, they will not say as he did,
"The Scripture clearly says so and so, but I cannot believe it;" they
rather say, "This is very unreasonable and shocking, the Scripture
cannot mean to say this;" or, "This is very pious and very ancient, the
Scripture cannot but sanction this." And certainly, if men will so deal
with it, there remains no certainty of interpretation then. But this is
not the way that we deal with other ancient writings; and its unfairness
and foolishness, if ever attempted to be practised there, are so
palpable as to be ridiculous. No doubt it is difficult to convince men
against their will; nevertheless, there is a good hope, that, as sound
principles of interpretation are more generally known, they will put to
shame a flagrant departure from them; and that those who try to make the
Scripture say more or less than it has said, will be gradually driven to
confess that Scripture is not their real authority; that their own
notions in the one case, and the authority of the Church in the other
case, have been the real grounds of their belief, to which they strove
to make the Scriptures conform.
Nothing that I have said is, in any degree, meant to countenance the
opinions of those who talk of the Bible,--or rather, our translation of
it,--being its own interpreter; meaning, that if you give a Bible to any
one who can read, he will be able to understand it rightly. Even in this
extravagance, there is indeed something of a truth. If a man were so to
read the Bible, much he would, unquestionably, be able to understand;
enough, I well believe, if honestly and devoutly used, to give him, if
living in a desert island by himself, the knowledge of salvation. But
when we talk of understanding the Bible, so as to be guided by it
amidst the infinite varieties of opinion and practice which beset us on
every side, it is the wildest folly to talk of it as being, in this
sense, its own interpreter. Our comfort is, not that it can be
understood without study, but with it; that the same pains which, enable
us to understand heathen writings, whose meaning is of infinitely less
value to us, will enable us, with God's blessing, to understand the
Scriptures also. Neither do I mean, that mere intellectual study would
make them clear to the careless or the undevout; but, supposing us to
seek honestly to know God's will, and to pray devoutly for his help to
guide us to it, then our study is not vain nor uncertain; the mind of
the Scriptures may be discovered; we may distinguish plainly between
what is clear, and what is not clear; and what is not clear will be
found far less in amount, and infinitely less in importance, than what
is clear. I do not say, that a true understanding of the Scriptures will
settle at once all religious differences;--manifestly, it cannot; for,
although I may understand them well, yet if a man maintains an opinion,
or a practice, upon some other authority than theirs, we cannot agree
together. Nevertheless, we may be allowed to hope and believe, that in
time, if men could be hindered from misinterpreting the Scripture in
behalf of their own opinions, their opinions themselves would find fewer
supporters; for, as Christianity must come, after all, from our blessed
Lord and his apostles, men will shrink from saying that that is no truth
of Christianity which Christ and his apostles have clearly taught, or
that that is a truth of Christianity, however ancient, and by whatever
long line of venerable names supported, which they have as clearly, in
our sole authentic records of them, not taught. It is not, therefore,
without great and reasonable hope, that we may devote ourselves to the
study of the Scriptures; and those habits of study which are cultivated
here, and in other places of the same kind, are the best ordinary means
of arriving at the truth. We are constantly engaged in extracting the
meaning of those who have written in times past, and in a dead language.
We do this according to certain rules, acknowledged as universally as
the laws of physical science: these rules are developed gradually,--from
the simple grammar which forms our earliest lessons, to the rules of
higher criticism, still no less acknowledged, which are understood by
those of a more advanced age. And we do this for heathen writings; but
the process is exactly the same--and we continually apply it, also, for
that very purpose--with what is required to interpret the Word of God.
After all is done, we shall still, no doubt, find that the Scripture has
its parables, its passages which cannot now be understood; but we shall
find, also, that by much the larger portion of it may be clearly and
certainly known; enough to be, in all points which really concern our
faith and practice, a lantern to our feet, and an enlightener to
our souls.
LECTURE XXXVIII.
* * * * *
ISAIAH v.1.
_Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his
vineyard_.
Whatever difficulties we may find in understanding and applying many
parts of the prophetical Scriptures, yet every thinking person could
follow readily enough, I suppose, the chapter from which these words are
taken, as it was read in the course of this morning's service; and he
would feel, while understanding it as said, immediately and in the first
instance, of the Jewish Church or nation, seven centuries and a half
before the birth of our Lord, that it was no less applicable to this
Christian church and nation at the present period. We cannot, indeed,
expect to find a minute agreement in particular points between ourselves
and the Jews of old; the difference of times and circumstances renders
this impossible; both they and we stand, on the one hand, in so nearly
the same relation to God, and we both so share, on the other hand, in
the same sinful human nature, that the complaints, and remonstrances of
the prophets of old may often, be repeated, even in the very same words,
by the Christian preacher now.
If this be so, then the language of various parts of the service of the
Church in this season of Advent ought to excite in us no small
apprehension; for whilst the lessons from the Old Testament describe
the evil state of the Jewish people in the eighth century before Christ,
and threaten it with destruction, so the gospels for this day, and for
last Sunday, speak of the evil state of the same people when our Lord
was upon earth; and the chapter from which the gospel of this day is
taken, contains, as we know, a full prophecy of the destruction that
was, for the second time, going to overwhelm the earthly Jerusalem. We
cannot but fear, therefore, that if our state now be like that of God's
people of old, eight centuries before our Lord's coming, and again like
their state at his coming: and if, after the first period, their city
and temple were burnt, and they were carried captive to Babylon,--and
again, after the second period, the city and temple were burnt again,
and the people were dispersed, even to this day,--that, as the
punishment has twice surely followed the sin, so it will not fail to
find it out in this third case also.
And be it remembered that the people, or church of God, as such, can
receive their punishment only in this world: for, taken as a body, it is
an institution for this world only. We each of us, no doubt, shall have
our own separate individual judgment after death; and, in the mean time,
our fortunes and our character often bear no just correspondence with
each other. But nations and churches have their judgments here: and
although God's long-suffering so suspends it for many generations that
it may seem as if it would never fall, yet does it come surely at the
last; and almost always we can ourselves trace the connexion between the
sin and the punishment, and can see that the one was clearly the
consequence of the other. And thus our church and nation may feel their
national judgments in this world quite independently of the several
personal judgments which will be passed upon us each hereafter
individually, when we stand before Christ's judgment seat.
I have thus ventured to bring the condition of the church as a body
before our minds, although well knowing how much more we are concerned
with the state of our own souls individually. Yet still the more general
view is not without great use; and indeed it bears directly upon our
individual state: our actions and our feelings having often a close
connexion with, general church matters; and these actions and feelings
being necessarily good or bad, according to the soundness of our
judgment on the matter which occasions them. Besides which, it seems to
me that general views, rather than what relates to particular faults,
may be with most propriety dwelt on by those who have no direct
connexion with the congregation which they are addressing.
In the first place, then, whenever we think of the state and prospects
of Christ's church, whether for good or for evil, it is most desirable
that we should rightly understand our own relations to it. "The vineyard
of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel;" or, in the language of the
New Testament, "Christ is the vine, and we are the branches." Men
continually seem to forget that they are members of the church;
citizens, to use St. Paul's expression, of Christ's kingdom, as much as
ever they are citizens of their earthly country. But they speak of the
church as they might speak of any useful institution or society in their
neighbourhood, whose object they approved of, and which they were glad
to encourage, but without becoming members of it, or identifying
themselves with its success or failure. For example, they speak of the
church as they might speak of the universities, which indeed are
institutions of great importance to the whole country, but yet they are
manifestly distinct from the mass of the community: they have their own
members, their own laws, and their own government, with which, people in
general have nothing to do. And so many persons speak and feel of the
church, regarding it evidently as consisting only of the clergy: our
common language, no doubt, helping this confusion, because we often
speak of a man's going into the church when he enters into holy orders,
just as if ordination were the admission into the church, and not
baptism. Now, if the clergy did indeed constitute the church, then it
would very much resemble the condition of the universities: for it would
then be indeed a society very important to the welfare of the whole
country, but yet one that was completely distinct, and which had its
members, laws, and government quite apart: for men in general do not
belong to the clergy, nor are they concerned directly in such canons as
relate to the peculiar business of the clergy, nor does the bishop's
superintendence, as commonly exercised, extend at all to them. But God
designed for his church far more than that it should contain one order
of men only, or that it should comprise commonly but one single
individual in a parish, preaching to and teaching the rest of the
inhabitants, like a missionary amongst a population of heathens. Look at
St. Paul's account of the church of Corinth, in the 12th chapter of his
1st epistle to the Corinthians, and see if any two things can be more
different than his notion of a church, and that which many people seem
to entertain amongst us. Compare the living body there described, made
up of so many various members, each having its separate office, yet each
useful to and needed by the others and by the body,--and our notion of a
parish committed to the charge of a single individual: as if all the
manifold gifts which the church requires could by possibility be
comprised in the person of any one Christian; as if the whole burden
were to rest upon his shoulders, and the other inhabitants might regard
the welfare of the church as his concern only, and not theirs.
But not only is the church too often confined in men's notions to the
single class or profession of the clergy, but it has been narrowed still
farther by the practical extinction of one of the orders of the clergy
itself. Where the laity have come to regard their own share in the
concerns of the church as next to nothing, the order of deacons,
forming, as it were, a link between the clergy and the laity, becomes
proportionably of still greater importance. The business of the deacons,
as we well know, was in an especial manner to look after the relief of
the poor; and by combining this charge with the power of baptizing, of
reading the Scriptures, and of preaching also, when authorized by the
bishop, they exhibited the peculiar character of Christianity, that of
sanctifying the business of this world by doing everything in the name
of the Lord Jesus. No church, so far as we know, certainly no church in
any town, existed without its deacons: they were as essential to its
completeness as its bishop and its presbyters.
Take any one of our large towns now, and what do we find? A bishop, not
of that single town only, but of fifty others besides: one presbyter in
each, church, and no deacons! Practically, and according to its proper
character, the order of deacons is extinct; and those who now bear the
name are most commonly found exercising the functions of presbyters;
that is, instead of acting as the assistants of a presbyter, they are
often the sole ministers of their respective parishes; they alone
baptize; alone offer up the prayers of the church, alone preach the
word: nothing marks their original character, except their inability to
administer the communion; and thus, by a strange anomaly, the church in
such parishes is actually left without any power of celebrating its
highest act, that of commemorating the death, of Christ in the Lord's
supper; and if it were not for another great evil, the unfrequent
celebration of the Communion, the system could not go on: because the
deacon would be so often obliged to apply to other ministers to perform
that duty for him, that the inconvenience, as well as the unfitness, of
the actual practice, would be manifest to every one.
Again, what has become of church discipline? That it has perished, we
all well know: but its loss is the consequence of that fatal error which
makes the clergy alone constitute the church. It is quite certain that
men will not allow the members of a single profession to exercise the
authority of society; to create and define offences; to determine their
punishment, and to be the judges of each particular offender. As long as
the clergy are supposed to constitute the whole church, church
discipline would be nothing but priestly tyranny. And yet the absence of
discipline is a most grievous evil; and there is no doubt that, although
it must be vain when opposed to public opinion, yet, when it is the
expression of that opinion, there is nothing which it cannot achieve.
But public opinion cannot enforce church discipline now, because that
discipline would not be now the expression of the voice of the church,
but simply of a small part of the church, of the clergy only.
So deeply has this fatal error of regarding the clergy as the church
extended itself, that at this moment a man's having been baptized is no
security for his being so much as a believer in the truth of
Christianity: no matter that he was made in his baptism a member of
Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; no
matter that at a more advanced period of his life he was confirmed, and
entered into the church by his own act and deed; still the church
belongs to the clergy; they may hold such and such, language, and teach
such and such doctrine; it would be very improper in them to do
otherwise; and he has a great respect for the church, and would
strenuously resist all its enemies, but truly, as for his own belief and
his own conduct, these he will guide according to other principles, as
imperative upon him as the rules of the church upon churchmen. Well
indeed, do such men bear witness that they are not of the church,
indeed; that their portion is not with God's people; that Christ is not
their Saviour, nor the Holy Spirit their Comforter and Guide: but what
blasphemy is it to call themselves friends of the church! as if Christ's
church could have any friends except God and his holy angels: the church
has its living and redeemed members; it may have those who are craving
to be admitted within its shelter, being convinced that God is in it of
a truth; but beyond these he who is not with it is against it; he who is
not Christ's servant, serves his enemy.
Farther, it is this same deadly error which is the root and substance of
popery. There is no one abuse of the Romish system which may not be
traced to the original and very early error of drawing a wide
distinction between the clergy and the laity; of investing the former in
such a peculiar degree with the attributes of the church that at last
they retained them almost exclusively. In other words, the great evil of
popery is, that it has destroyed the Christian church, and has
substituted a priesthood in its room. This is the fault of the Greek
church, almost as much as of the Roman; and the peculiar tenet of the
Romish church, that the supreme government is vested in one single
member of this priesthood, the Bishop of Rome, is in some respects
rather an improvement of the system, than an aggravation of it. For
even an absolute monarchy is a less evil than an absolute aristocracy;
and an infallible Pope is no greater corruption of Christ's truth, than
an infallible general council. The real evils of the system are of a far
older date than the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and exist in places
where that supremacy is resolutely denied. And if we attend to them
carefully, we shall see that these evils have especially affected the
Christian church as distinguished from the Christian religion. It is
worth our while to attend to this distinction; for the Christian
religion and the Christian church together, and neither without the
other, form the perfect idea of Christianity. NOW, by the Christian
religion, I mean the revelation of what God has done or will do for us
in Christ; the great doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, the
atonement, the resurrection, the presence of the Holy Spirit amongst us,
and our own resurrection hereafter, to an existence of eternal happiness
or misery. And these truths, if revealed to any single person living in
an uninhabited island, might be abundantly sufficient for his salvation;
if God disposed his heart to receive them, and to believe them
earnestly, they would be the means of his overcoming his corrupt nature,
and of passing from death unto life. But because men do not generally
live alone, but with one another; and because they cannot but greatly
hinder, or help each other by their mutual influence, therefore the
Christian church was instituted for the purpose of spreading and
furthering the growth of the Christian religion in men's hearts; and its
various ministeries, its sacraments, its services and festivals, and its
discipline were all designed with that object. And it is all these which
popery has perverted; popery, whether in the Roman church or in the
Greek church, or even in the Protestant church, for it has existed more
or less in all. But even in the Roman church, where the perversion has
been most complete, it has comparatively affected but little the truths
of the Christian religion; all the great doctrines, which I mentioned,
are held as by ourselves; the three creeds, the Apostles' creed, the
Nicene, and the Athanasian, are used by the Roman church no less than by
our own. Thus it often happens that we can read with great edification
the devotional works of Roman Catholic writers, because in such works
the individual stands apart from the Christian church, and is concerned
only with the Christian religion: they show how one single soul, having
learnt the tidings of redemption with faith, and thankfulness, improves
them to its own salvation. But the moment that he goes out of his
closet, and begins to speak and act amongst other men, then the
corruption of popery shows itself. The Christian church was designed to
help each individual towards a more perfect knowledge and love of God,
by the counsel and example of his brethren, and by the practices which,
he was to observe in their society. But the corrupt church exercises its
influence for evil; it omits all the benefits to be derived from a
living society, and puts forward, in their place, the observance of
rites and ceremonies; knowledge and love are no longer looked to as the
perfections of a Christian, but ignorance and blind obedience; not the
mortifying all our evil passions universally, but the keeping them
chained up, as it were under priestly control, to be let loose at the
priest's bidding, against those whom he calls the church's enemies; that
glorious church which he has destroyed and converted it into an idol
temple, in that he, as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God.