"HABIT, is second nature," saith a wise old saw, so it must be from
custom that it has become natural to Church people to repeat placidly,
week after week, the same palpable self-contradictions and absurdities.
A sensible, shrewd man of business puts away his papers on the Saturday
night, and apparently locks his mind up with them in his desk; certain
it is that he
"Goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,"
and yet never discovers that his boys are repeating the most
contradictory responses, while the parson is enunciating as axioms the
most startling propositions.
When the preliminary silence in church is broken by the "sentences,"
the first words that fall from the clergyman's lips are a distinct
declaration of the conditions of salvation: "When the wicked man turneth
away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which
is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive;" and we are further
instructed as to our sins, that "if we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness." These very plain statements take high and
comprehensible ground. God is supposed to desire that man should be
righteous, and is, therefore, naturally satisfied when "the wicked
forsakes his way and the unrighteous man his path." We proceed, then, to
confess our sins, and after Mrs. A., whose eyes are straying after her
neighbour's bonnet, has confessed that she is erring and straying like a
lost sheep, and Mrs. B., who is devising a way to make an old dress look
new, has owned plaintively that she is following the devices of her own
heart; and Squire C, of the rubicund visage and broad shoulders, has
sonorously remarked that there is no health in him, and his son, with
the joyous face, has cheerfully acknowledged that he is a miserable
sinner--after these very appropriate and reasonable confessions, to a
Divine Being who "seeth the heart," and may therefore be supposed to
take them for what they are worth, have been duly gone through, we are
somewhat puzzled to hear the clergyman announce that God "pardoneth and
absolveth all them that truly repent, _and unfeignedly believe His holy
Gospel._" What is this sudden appendix to the before-declared conditions
of salvation? We had been told that if we confessed our sins God's
faithfulness and justice would cause him to forgive us; here we have
duly done so, and surely the language is sufficiently strong; we are
yet suddenly called upon to believe a "holy Gospel" as a preliminary
to forgiveness. But we are not yet, to use a colloquialism, out of the
wood; for while we are moodily meditating on this infraction of our
contract the time slips on unobserved, and, it being a feast-day, we
are startled by a stern voice conveying the cheerful intelligence,
"Whosoever will be saved, _before all things_, it is necessary that he
hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and
undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." "Before all
things?" before repentance? before turning away from our wickedness?
before doing that which is lawful and right? And what is this "Faith"
which we must keep whole and undefiled if we would save our souls alive?
A bewildering jumble of triplets and units, mingled in inextricable
confusion. But as he that "will be saved must thus think of the
Trinity," we will try and disentangle the thread of salvation. "The
Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God," says the
parson. "They are not three Gods, but one God," shout out the people.
We are compelled "to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and
Lord," reiterates the parson. "We are forbidden by the Catholic Religion
to say there be three Gods or three Lords," obstinately persist the
people. Then, after some rather intrusive particulars about the family
(and very intricate) relations of the Father to the Son, and of both to
the Holy Ghost, we are told that "so"--why so?--"there is one Father,
not three Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost, not three
Holy Ghosts." In so far as we have been able to follow the meaning, or
rather the no-meaning, of the preceding sentences, no one said anything
about three Fathers, three Sons, or three Holy Ghosts. The definite
article _the_ had been used in each case with a singular noun. We
imagine the clause must have been inserted because all ideas as to the
meaning; of numerals must have been by this time so hopelessly lost by
the congregation, that it became necessary to remark that "the Father"
meant one Father, and not three. The list of necessaries for salvation
is not yet complete, for "furthermore it is necessary to everlasting
salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord
Jesus Christ." So far, then, from its being true that the wicked man who
turns from his sins shall save his soul alive, we find that our sinner
must also believe the Gospel, must accept contradictory arithmetical
assertions, must think of the Trinity in a way which makes thought a
ludicrous impossibility, and must believe _rightly_ all the details
of the method by which a Divine Being became a human being. If a sinner
chances to go out of church after the first sentence, and from being
a drunkard becomes temperate, from being a liar becomes truthful, from
being a profligate becomes chaste, and foolishly imagines that he
is thereby doing God's will, and thus saving his soul alive, he will
certainly, according to the Athanasian Creed, wake up from his pleasant
delusion to find himself in everlasting fire. As sceptics, we need offer
no-opinion as to which is right, the creed or the text; we only suggest
that both cannot be correct, and that it would be more satisfactory if
the Church, in her wisdom, would make up her venerable mind which is
the proper path, and then keep in it. After all this, we are in no way
surprised to learn from a collect that being saved is dependent on quite
a new support, namely, on the knowledge we have of God. How many more
things may be necessary to salvation it is impossible to say at this
point, but the office for Morning Prayer, at any rate, gives us no more.
It would be rash to conclude, however, that we have fulfilled all, for
the Church has some more scattered up and down her Prayer-Book; the end
of all which double-dealing is, that we can never be sure that we have
really fulfilled every condition; sad experience teaches us that
when the Church says, "do so-and-so, and you shall be saved," she is,
meanwhile, whispering under her breath, "provided you also do everything
else."
We fail also to see the reasonableness of the constant cry, "for the
sake of Jesus Christ," or "through Jesus Christ." We ask that we may
lead "a godly, righteous, and sober life" _for His sake_; but this is
just what we are told God wishes already, so why should He be asked to
grant it for some one else's sake, as though He were unwilling that we
should be righteous, and can only be coaxed into allowing us to be so by
a favourite son? In the same way we are to come to God's "eternal joy,"
through Jesus, which is, by the way, another of these endless conditions
of salvation. We ask to be defended from our enemies "through the might
of Jesus Christ," as though God Himself was not strong enough for the
task; and God is urged to send down His healthful Spirit for the "honour
of our advocate and Mediator," although that very advocate told His
disciples that God would always give that spirit to those who asked
for it. To the outside critic, these continual references to Jesus,
as though God grudged all good gifts, appear very dishonouring to the
"Father in Heaven."
Is it considered necessary to press God vehemently to hurry himself?
"O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us." Will
not God, of his own accord, do things at the best possible time? and
further, is it possible for a Divine Being to make haste?
It will, perhaps, be considered hypercritical to object to the
versicles: "Give peace in our time, O Lord, because there is none other
that fighteth for us but only thou, O God." What more do they want than
an almighty reinforcement? "None other?" Well, we should have fancied
that God and somebody else were really more than were needed. At any
rate it sounds very insulting to say to God, "please give us peace,
since we cannot count on any assistance except yours."
We have nothing to say about the prayers for the Royal Family, except
that they do not show any very attractive results, and that it must have
much edified George IV. to hear himself spoken of as a "most religious
and gracious king." Never surely was a family so much prayed for, but
_cui bono?_ If the "Bishops, Curates, and all congregations" truly
please God, he is about, the only person that they succeed in pleasing,
for the Bishops abuse the clergy, and the clergy abuse the Bishops,
and the congregations abuse both. Of the last prayer, we must note
the exceeding failure of the petition to grant the Church knowledge of
truth, and we cannot help marvelling why, if they really desire to know
the truth, they so invariably frown at and endeavour to crush out every
earnest search after truth, every effort for clearer light. Of all
things that can happen to the Church, the knowledge of the truth would
be the least "expedient for" her, for she would fade away before the
sunshine of truth as ghosts are said to fly at the cockcrow which
announces the dawn.
A criticism on the office of Morning Prayer is scarcely complete
without a few words upon the canticles appointed to be daily sung by
the faithful to the glory of God. Any thing more ludicrously absurd than
these from the lips of our congregations it would indeed be difficult to
imagine. The _Venite_ (Ps. xcv.) is the first we are called upon to take
part in, and the first shock comes when we find ourselves-chanting
"The Lord is a great God and a _great king above all gods_." "Above
all Gods!" what terrible heresy have we been unwittingly committing
ourselves to? Is there not only one God--or, at least, it may be
three--but, if three, they are co-equal, and no one is above the other;
who are these "all gods" that "the Lord" is "king above?" We remember
for a moment that when this psalm was written the gods of the nations
around Israel were believed to have a real existence, and that,
therefore, it was no inconsistency in the mouth of the Hebrew to rejoice
that his national god was ruler above the gods of other peoples. This
explanation is reasonable, but then it does not explain why we, who
believe not in this multiplicity of deities should pretend that we do.
Our equanimity is not restored by the next phrase, "In his hand are all
the corners of the earth;" but the earth is a globe, and has no corners.
A misty remembrance floats through our mind of Iraeneus stating that
there were four gospels because there were four corners to the earth and
four winds that blew; but since his time things have changed, and the
corners have been smoothed off. Is it quite honest to say in God's
praise a thing which we know to be untrue, and must we be unscientific
because we are devotional? We then hear about our fathers being forty
years in the wilderness, although we know that they were not there at
all, unless the people--generally looked upon as amiable lunatics--are
correct, who assert that the English nation is descended from the ten
lost tribes of Israel. Why should we pretend to God that we are Jews,
when both He and we know perfectly well that we are nothing of the kind?
We come to the _Te Deum_, said to have been composed by S. Ambrose for
the baptism of S. Augustine:--"To thee cherubin and seraphin continually
do cry." Putting aside the manifest weariness both to God and to the
cryers of the never-ceasing repetition of these words, and the degrading
idea of God implied in the thought that it gives Him any pleasure to
be perpetually assured of His holiness, as though it were a doubtful
matter--we cannot help inquiring, "Who are these cherubin and seraphin?"
According to the Bible, they are six-winged creatures, who cover their
faces with two wings, and their feet with two more, and fly with the
remaining pair: they may be seen in pictures of the ark, balancing
themselves on their feet-covering wings, and preventing themselves
from falling by steadying each other with another pair. "Lord God of
Sabaoth," or of "Hosts;" is this a reasonable name for one supposed to
be a "God of peace?" The elder Jewish and the Christian ideas of God
here come into direct collision: according to one, "the Lord is a man
of war" (Ex. xv.), while the other represents him as "the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isai. ix.). The _Te Deum_ midway changes
the object of its song, and addresses itself to the Son instead of to
the Father. How far this is permissible is much disputed, for certain
it is that in the early ages of Christianity prayer was addressed to the
Father _only_, and that one of the Fathers* sharply rebukes those who
pray to the Son, since they thereby deprive the Father of the honour due
to Him alone. How this can be, when Father and Son are one, we do not
pretend to explain. Then ensue those curious details regarding Christ
which we shall touch upon in dealing later with the Apostles' Creed.
We find ourselves, presently, asking to be kept "this day without sin;"
yet, we are perfectly well aware, all the time, that God will do nothing
of the kind, and that all Christians believe that they sin every day.
Why does the Church teach her children to sing this in the morning, and
then prepare a "confession" for the evening, unless she feels perfectly
sure that God will pay no attention to her prayer? The wearisome
reiteration in the _Benedicite_ is so thoroughly recognised that it is
very seldom heard in the church, while the _Benedictus_ (Luke i.) is
open to the same charge of unreality as is the _Venite_, that it is a
song for Jews only.
* Origen.
Many other faults and absurdities might be pointed cut which disfigure
Morning Prayer, even if the whole idea of prayer be left untouched.
The prayers of the-Prayer-Book are dishonouring to God from their
childishness, their unreality, their folly, their conflict with sound
knowledge. Allowing that prayer may be reasonable, these prayers are
unreasonable; allowing that prayer may be reverent, these prayers are
irreverent; allowing that prayer may be sincere, these prayers are
insincere. They are fragments of an earlier age transplanted into the
present, and they are as ludicrous as would be men walking about in
our streets to-day clad in the armour of the Middle Ages, the ages of
Darkness and of Prayer.