The man who without prejudice reads and understands the Old and New
Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian.
THE Archdeacon says that he cannot pretend to imagine what my definition
of an orthodox Christian is. I will use his own language to express my
definition. "By an orthodox Christian I mean one who believes what is
commonly called the Apostles' Creed. I also believe that the essential
doctrines of the church must be judged by her universal formulae, not by
the opinions of this or that theologian, however eminent, or even of
any number of theologians, unless the church has stamped them with the
sanction of her formal and distinct acceptance."
This is the language of the Archdeacon himself, and I accept it as a
definition of orthodoxy. With this definition in mind, I say that
the man who without prejudice reads and understands the Old and New
Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian. By "prejudice,"
I mean the tendencies and trends given to his mind by heredity, by
education, by the facts and circumstances entering into the life of man.
We know how children are poisoned in the cradle, how they are deformed
in the Sunday School, how they are misled by the pulpit. And we know how
numberless interests unite and conspire to prevent the individual soul
from examining for itself. We know that nearly all rewards are in the
hands of Superstition--that she holds the sweet wreath, and that her
hands lead the applause of what is called the civilized world. We know
how many men give up their mental independence for the sake of pelf
and power. We know the influence of mothers and fathers--of Church and
State--of Faith and Fashion. All these influences produce in honest
minds what may be known as prejudice,--in other minds, what may be known
as hypocrisy.
It is hardly worth my while to speak of the merits of students of Holy
Writ "who," the Archdeacon was polite enough to say, "know ten thousand
times more of the Scriptures" than I do. This, to say the least of
it, is a gratuitous assertion, and one that does not tend to throw the
slightest ray of light on any matter in controversy. Neither is it true
that it was my "point" to say that all people are prejudiced, merely
because they believe in God; it was my point to say that no man can read
the miracles of the Old Testament, without prejudice, and believe
them; it was my point to say that no man can read many of the cruel
and barbarous laws said to have been given by God himself, and yet
believe,--unless he was prejudiced,--that these laws were divinely
given.
Neither do I believe that there is now beneath the cope of heaven an
intelligent man, without prejudice, who believes in the inspiration of
the Bible.