THREE SONGS.
Captain Cary had been three weeks in Seaton, and was to sail in two
days for New York, where the _Halcyon_ was sold, taking Dick Rowan
with him. From New York, Dick was to sail immediately, on a three
years’ voyage, in the _Edith Yorke_. The captain did not say
definitely what his own plans were, perhaps did not know them himself.
“I did think of settling down on shore,” he said to Mrs. Yorke. “But
one person doesn’t make a home, and all my people are dead. I’d half a
mind to ask Rowan to take me as a passenger. He has a splendid ship.”
They were all in the garden that last evening but one. Edith sat on a
bench beside Melicent, and looked intently at Dick Rowan, who was
talking with Clara and Mrs. Yorke. She was thinking over all his
goodness, all his affection for her, studying his personal beauty, his
frank, bright face and athletic form, and trying to excite in herself
some enthusiasm regarding him. Carl stood near, listening to, but not
joining in, the conversation. She compared the two young men. Their
height, their form, were very nearly the same; but Carl had the proud
and measured tread of one bred to the parlor and the promenade, Dick
the free and springing step of the mountaineer. This was distinctive,
yet each had moods like the other. On the deck of his own ship, the
sailor trod like a king; and the man of the world could bound as
lightly up a steep, or vault as lightly over an obstacle, as though
his life had been spent in athletic sports. Dick Rowan’s eyes sparkled
like the ripples of his own blue sea, and looked _at_ people, not
through them; Carl’s careless glance could become piercing and keen as
a two-edged blade. It was useless to compare them, the one as direct
and transparent as a child, the other noble, indeed, yet subtle, as
one aware of the world’s ways, and guarded at every point.
“I must be very hard and cold,” Edith thought, finding herself
unmoved, in spite of her efforts. “Or, perhaps, it may be because I
have always known and been sure of him.”
Looking her way, Dick met that steady gaze, and flushed with pleasure.
If the expression was grave and regretful, what then? Were they not
about to part? He led Mrs. Yorke to her, and the others followed, to
make arrangements “for a sail they were to have the next day.”
“You had better wear dresses that wetting will not hurt,” Dick said;
“for you will be likely to get a little scud-water in your laps.”
“And, pray, what is scud-water?” Mrs. Yorke asked.
Dick explained that it was spray blown off.
“How pretty!” exclaimed Clara. “You may fill my lap with it.”
They separated again, and Dick was left with Edith.
“What shall I bring you from Calcutta?” he asked.
“Bring me Dick Rowan safe back again,” was the answer.
Both were silent a little while, then he spoke in a quiet voice: “Ask
God to do that, Edith. He has been so good to us, I think he will
refuse nothing.”
She looked at him wistfully. “Are you very happy, Dick?” 483
“Happy!” he exclaimed. “Dear, my very finger-nails shine! Edith, I am
so happy that I should be afraid, if I would allow myself to be. But,
no; I will trust God when he gives me joy, as well as when he gives me
pain.”
While they talked, Mrs. Yorke was walking aside with Clara, and
questioning her. “What is the matter with Captain Cary?” she asked.
“He has grown very sober lately.”
Clara laughed, rather consciously. “How should I know, mamma?”
Mrs. Yorke looked displeased. “I wish for a frank answer,” she said.
“What is the meaning of this? It isn’t possible that there has been
any trifling on your part!”
The girl blushed deeply, but told what little there was to tell,
including that unlucky question: “How would you like to be a sailor’s
wife?”
“He hadn’t the slightest personal meaning, mamma,” Clara added
hastily, seeing her eyes open with something like a flash. “He told
Edith afterward that it was a slip of the tongue.”
“Then why should not that have been the end of the matter?” Mrs. Yorke
asked, rather peremptorily. “You had but to assume that such a thing
was impossible, not to be thought of, and be just as courteous to him
as before.”
“But you see, mamma,” Clara replied, looking a little frightened, “it
isn’t as impossible as it is unlikely. Stranger things have happened
in the world, and will again, and the world is and will be no worse
for them. You know I have never been able to acquire the fine art of
assuming that ninety-nine facts make a truth.”
“My dear,” said the mother with precision, “please not to be
grandiloquent. Let us confine ourselves to the case in hand. Your
sublime generalizing has done you very little credit if it has led you
to disturb the peace of a good honest man, and put our own delicacy in
question. Coquetry is not only cruel, it is mean and vulgar. Of course
you are ready with the childish excuse that you meant no harm. That is
not enough for one who has arrived at years of discretion and has a
conscience. You must mean something one way or the other.”
Clara’s eyes were suffused with tears. “I think that you misunderstand
me, mamma,” she said in a low voice. “I was never in my life so much
pleased to have any one like me.”
Mrs. Yorke stopped, and looked at her daughter in astonishment.
“Oh! I know all that you would say, mamma,” the girl went on, half
laughing, half weeping. “He is a sailor, which is as if a bird should
say, ‘He is a fish.’ He has only a common-school education, as far as
books go, and he has none of our ways. But all that doesn’t make his
esteem any less worth having. Men of the world often give only a tame,
half affection, and are, perhaps, almost sorry when they are accepted.
They think of themselves, they think of a thousand other things: he
would think of me. When Edith sang, the other evening,
‘Oh! wert thou in the cauld blast,
I saw his eyes fill with tears. He would take all the roughness, and
danger, and hardship, I know. But men of the world are as dainty as
women. If they give us the inside of the pavement, and let us enter a
room first, they have gone the length of their chivalry. Then, there
is the effect on myself. In the society of such a man”--glancing to 484
where Captain Cary stood--“I should be gentle and feminine. But with
the wilted specimens of humanity I see ordinarily, I am in imminent
danger of becoming a strong-minded woman. One must keep up a balance,
mamma, and it is weak men make bold women.”
Mrs. Yorke sank on to a bench. “What do you mean to do? What am I to
think?” she exclaimed.
Clara laughed. “Don’t be afraid, mamma. If this Neptune should offer
himself to me--he will not!--I should refuse him, and then cry my eyes
out afterward. But if he should take me by force, pirate-fashion, and
run away with me, so that I could not help myself nor be responsible,
I should be delighted. Now, don’t say any more about it, please.”
Mrs. Yorke threw off her fears with a shrug of the shoulders. It was a
mere theory. It was one of Clara’s enthusiasms. “Well, my dear,” she
concluded, rising, “all I have to add is that I hope your admiration
of the rough diamond will not lead you to consume it in the blowpipe.”
And so the subject dropped.
“There is a party of Indians camping out on the Point,” Mr. Yorke said
to them that evening. “You might find it interesting to visit them
to-morrow. I met one in the woodland, this morning, cutting down a
tree for basket-wood. I asked him who gave him permission to cut trees
on my land. ‘It was all ours once,’ he growled out, and gave me a look
that I shouldn’t like to meet, unless I had friends near. I told him
to take all he wanted.”
The little sailing-party, only six with a sailor from the _Halcyon_ as
assistant, started early in the afternoon. The crew of the _Halcyon_
gave them a hearty cheer as they slid down past the wharf where she lay;
the fresh breeze, blowing off shore, smoothed the waves, and,
overhead, light clouds ran races with them. Out of one cloud, that
seemed scarcely a hand’s breadth, a shower of large, sun-lighted drops
came clattering down. In the midst of it they reached the Point, and
stepped out on to the rocky shore. A clumsy old Indian woman had just
kindled a fire, and piled brush over it. Not a spark was visible, but
thick white smoke gushed out through the green, curled over into a
shifting Corinthian capital, and rose into air, and in another instant
it topped a shaft of flame. The woman took no notice of the visitors
standing near her, but stood tossing twigs into the fire. Her face was
ugly, her dress careless, but her small brown hands and moccasined
feet were models of beauty. Two or three men were lying about lazily,
waiting for their dinner, and a mischievous little girl was weaving a
basket. She alone noticed the strangers, the others wore a look of
disdainful unconsciousness. The ladies talked with the child, and
bought baskets of her; the gentlemen made themselves acquainted with
the elders, and found them not insensible to the charms of tobacco and
coffee. Under these persuasive influences, their taciturn hosts
melted, and became almost friendly. Presently, another Indian appeared
from the woods, came straight toward them, and dropped a long string
of quivering, rainbow-colored trout at the old woman’s feet. A
whispered exclamation broke from the lips of the visitors as they saw
this dusky young Adonis. The Greek outlines, with more than Grecian
richness of color, the plumy, clustering hair, from which a few
raindrops slid as from a bird’s wing, the eagle eyes, the fanciful
dress, beaded and fringed, that air of superb repose and 485
unconsciousness which civilization only imitates, but does not
attain--all were fascinating and _unique_. He stood one moment as some
exquisite bronze, then stepped lightly over the springy moss, lifted
the fold of a tent, and disappeared. This was her brother, Philip
Nicola, the little girl told the ladies, and her name was Malie. Edith
gave the child an Indian prayer-book, prepared by their patlias; then
the party embarked again, spread their sail to the breeze, and sped
down the bay.
Dick Rowan, standing to unfurl the sail, sang out joyously, in a
clear, ringing voice, an old French song:
“‘Si le roi m’avoit donné
Paris sa grand’ ville,
Et qu’il me fallût quitter
L’amour de ma mie,
Je dirois au roi Henri:
Reprenez votre Paris,
J’aime mieux ma mie, oh, gay!
J’aime mieux ma mie.’”
Edith turned her head aside, and watched their sparkling wake subside
to a milky path. If she was pleased, no one could see. But as they
approached that low, sandy island that three of them had visited
before, she rose, and leaned on Dick’s arm, and gazed on it with him.
“God have mercy on him!” they whispered; and both Dick and the captain
removed their hats, and remained uncovered till they had passed by.
The others did not know what it meant, but they asked no question, and
soon all was gay again.
They landed a few miles down the bay, wandered awhile on the shore,
took their luncheon there, and sat to see the sun go down, reddening
all the water. Then a bright pallor succeeded, tingling with unseen
stars, and the bay became a silver mirror. The breeze went down with
the sun, and only a soft breath out of the south pressed their sail
as they started to return. Between two fleckless, transparent abysses,
they floated, as through ether, and might, it seemed, be drawn up or
sink down at any moment. The night deepened, and became a crystalline
darkness, with stars above and stars below, and then the east grew
radiant with a soft aurora.
As the light increased, they saw a speck on the water, and, leaning
low, Captain Cary espied Philip Nicola in a bark canoe, dancing across
the bay, skimming the water like a bird. The imp of mischief, or of
vanity, seemed to possess the fellow. He shot across their prow, so
near as almost to catch the foam it threw up, he zigzagged ahead of
them, he slid into their wake on one side, and flew past them on the
other. Lastly, he dropped far behind, and they heard him singing over
the water. The song was some wild chant in his own language,
piercingly sweet, and full of a barbarous pathos and power. As they
listened, convention dropped from them like a garment. They were
simple children of nature, and creation was full of mysteries for
them.
A golden splendor filled the east, a disk of burning gold showed above
the woods, and kindled their feathery tops, a crinkling flame ran
round every ripple of the bay, and their prow tossed off sparks
instead of foam. Then the moon sailed majestically upward, and made an
enchanted day about them. As she rose, the blue of the sky drew back,
like the fold of a curtain, and left a pathway of mellow light for her
feet.
Not a word was said by any one. The scene was too beautiful for
praise. Edith and Carl sat opposite each other, and Dick Rowan stood
between them, leaning against the mast, and looking down on that fair
head with its crown of braids. She leaned over the boat-side, and 486
trailed her hand in the water, nor spoke a word, nor once lifted her
eyes. As the water-lily, growing to maturity through unconscious sun
and dew, when its appointed sunrise comes, shines through all its
snowy petals, and opens to disclose another sun hidden within its
folded whiteness, so her soul, now its time was come to know itself
and be known, stirred through all its calm reserves and
unconsciousness at the sound of that savage chant. She forgot, for the
time, all that was cramping in her life, and had a new sense of
freedom and joy.
The song ceased. They neared the Point, and a path of crimson trembled
out from the camp-fire there and crossed the moonlight. Clara leaned,
and whispered to Carl. He hesitated a moment, then, with a gesture
that showed a sort of defiant resolution, acquiesced in her demand.
Carl seldom sang, and, when he did, it was for the words rather than
the music, and his style was that of an improvisator. He sang:
“The moon is climbing up the sky,
Back rolls the ether blue.
The folded roses stir and sigh,
With droppings of the dew;
The tide runs up to meet the stream,
And bear her to the sea:
Downward, as in a happy dream,
They’re floating silently.
“The slumb’ring deeps of life upbreak,
Our childish play is o’er.
The footsteps of the future shake
The lintel of our door!
Awake, sweetheart! thou giv’st to-day
A soul, and not a toy:
Wake! lest the child’s hand fling away
The woman’s crowning joy.
“Cast off the dreams of childish days,
Take on thy woman’s state.
Search thine own spirit’s deeper ways,
Ere yet it be too late.
The time is come for thee to give--
The time for me to take:
Lift up thy lids, and bid me live!
O woman’s soul, awake!”
Slowly Edith lifted her drooping head, her heavy eyelids, and looked
at Carl, and he looked at her. The full moon shone in their faces, and
they saw only each other, and were conscious only of each other. The
lily had bloomed.
Some sharp sound, like breath drawn through teeth, was heard, and
Melicent cried out, “Mr. Rowan!”
They looked just in time to see Dick’s white face as he staggered
backward. His eyes closed, and, before they could reach him, he fell
over the boat-side, with a heavy splash, and sank.
Captain Cary threw off his coat, and was overboard in a second, and
soon they saw him bearing up a pallid face on his arm. “Haul in sail,
and row ashore!” he called out, and himself struck out for the Point,
which they were close upon.
Philip Nicola met him there, and the other men came down, and, when
the party had stepped on shore, Dick was in one of the tents. Captain
Cary came out to meet them. “He has come to,” he said, “and will soon
be all right. But you had better go home. I will stay and take care of
him. He doesn’t wish to go up now.”
“I must see him, I shall certainly see him,” Edith said resolutely,
stepping forward.
“I wouldn’t to-night, Miss Edith,” the sailor replied, standing in her
way. “He doesn’t feel like talking.”
“I shall go in!” she said, and waved him aside, and went into the
tent.
Dick Rowan lay on the low pallet, with his face turned away and hidden
in his arms. Edith knelt beside him. “Dick!” she said, in an imploring
voice.
He started slightly. “Don’t speak to me! Please go home now,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“I mean to be true to you, Dick,” she sobbed, without rising. “I will 487
never see nor speak to any one you wish me to avoid. I will go away
with you this time, if you say so.”
His only reply was to bid her go. “Give me time to think,” he said, “I
will tell you afterward.” And there was no way for her but to go.
“I am going to walk home,” Carl said, and started off through the
woods.
When, the next morning early, they sent down to the village for news,
the _Halcyon_ had sailed, and Dick Rowan had sailed in her.
----------
BETHLEHEM.
Bethlehem--House of bread:[105]
Of the Bread that came down from heaven,[106]
“For the life of the world ‘tis given:
Eat of it,” Jesus said.
“Father,” he bade us pray,
“Give us this heavenly bread.”
“Ours” we must call it, he said.
“Give us it day by day.”
Knelt in the midnight cave
The shepherds and sages three--
_Theirs_ (do we envy?) to _see_
The Bread which the Father gave:[107]
_We_ in the faith’s broad day
Kneeling--nor once, but at will--
Take of that Bread our fill,
None “sent empty away.”
How should we envy _them_?
Yet as the grace the shame,
If but in boast we claim
The goodlier Bethlehem.
ADVENT, 1871.
[105] The literal signification of Bethlehem.
[106] John vi. 33, 51, 52
[107] Ibid. v. 32.
----------
THE PROTESTANT RULE OF FAITH[108] 488
Dr. Hodge is an Old School Presbyterian, and a sturdy opponent of what
among Protestants is called the “New England theology.” He is a man of
learning and ability, and one of the most distinguished theologians in
the Presbyterian Church. If he has failed to reduce Protestantism to a
system, complete, uniform, and coherent in all its parts, it is not
his fault, but undeniably the fault of Protestantism itself, which is
not all of a piece, which consists of fragments only of truth, with no
genetic relation one to another, or connecting links, and which no
mortal man can mould into a systematic whole. What man can do with so
untoward a subject Dr. Hodge has done, if we may judge from the volume
before us, and, as far as our knowledge goes, his work is the least
unsuccessful attempt to construct a complete and consistent system of
Protestant theology that has as yet been made.
Neither our space nor our leisure permits us to review the entire
volume, or to discuss the author’s system in its several bearings; a
better opportunity to do that will be presented when we have the
completed work before us, of which only the first volume has as yet
been published. We shall confine ourselves for the present to a single
question, namely, the Protestant rule of faith. The author devotes the
entire Chapter V. of his Introduction to the statement and refutation,
as he understands it, of the Catholic, or, as he says, the Romanist
rule of faith; but as his objections to that rule and his supposed
refutation of it presuppose the truth of Protestantism, and are of no
account if the Protestant rule of faith is invalid or inadequate, we
need not stop to defend it, but are free to pass at once to the
examination of the Protestant rule which he opposes to it. If that can
be asserted and maintained as a rule of faith, or authority for
determining what is the faith God has revealed and commanded us to
believe, the Catholic rule is indefensible, or at least unnecessary.
The author is not very clear and definite in his statement of the
Protestant rule of faith. He says (p. 150), “All Protestants agree in
teaching that ‘the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments is the only infallible rule of faith and
practice’;” but from his assertion of the right of private judgment
and several of his objections to the Catholic rule, we may, without
danger of error, take the Protestant rule of faith to be the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, or the Bible interpreted by
private judgment--that is, interpreted without any public or catholic
authority--as the Protestant rule or standard of faith. But this is
rather the denial than the assertion of a rule, because it presents no
rule or standard to which private judgment must conform in order to be
anything but naked opinion. The Bible, even conceding its divine
inspiration and sufficiency, cannot be the rule or standard for
private judgment, if it is to be interpreted by private judgment, for 489
that would require private judgment to judge what the faith is, before
it has any rule by which to judge what it is. The Protestant doctrine
confounds the rule of faith with the place of faith, and private
judgment with individual judgment. In private judgment, the individual
judges by no objective rule or standard, and his judgment is purely
subjective, and is worth nothing even for himself; but an individual
judgment is not necessarily private, for it may be by a rule or
standard common to all men, what we call a public or catholic rule. A
judgment dictated by reason, or the reason which is common to all men
and the same in all, is not a private but a public judgment, and binds
all men to whose knowledge it comes as much as it does the individual
who renders it. Men may sin against reason as well as against faith.
Men are bound to exercise their reason, the reason common to all men,
in all questions submitted to reason or within its province, and are
bound to do so in interpreting the Bible so far as its interpretation
comes within the province of reason, and may abide by its decisions,
unless overruled by a higher authority--as the lawyer has the right to
abide by his own judgment of the meaning of a statute, or as to what
the law is, till the court decides against him; but private judgment
is a private opinion, and binds nobody.
Dr. Hodge holds that the Scriptures contain not all the revelation
Christ and his apostles made, but all that is now extant. But, even if
so, his doctrine only makes them the _place_ of faith; it tells where
the faith is, but not what it is. They may be the fountain, but they
cannot be the rule or standard, of faith. The rule is precisely that
which is necessary to enable us to draw the faith from the Scriptures,
and determine that it is the faith God has revealed and commanded us
to believe as his word. The Protestant rule as given, then, is no rule
of faith at all, and it is impossible to elicit by it an act of faith.
The author is too hasty, then, in setting aside the Catholic rule on
the authority of his Protestant rule, which, in order to be a rule,
demands a catholic rule of judgment, as he himself virtually concedes
(p. 127).
Dr. Hodge makes it a grave objection to the church that she does not
allow private judgment as a rule of faith; yet it is only as against
the church or Catholics that he himself allows it. When his aim is to
destroy Catholic faith or to detach Catholics from their fidelity to
the church, he asserts the unrestricted right of private judgment;
but, when he wishes to build up faith or to establish Protestantism as
a positive doctrine, he restricts it, and confines it to the
regenerate. It is not every one who is free to interpret the faith or
the Scriptures according to his own private judgment; but only those
who have been regenerated, and are enlightened and led by the Holy
Ghost. But even this does not help him, for he has no public or
catholic rule by which to determine who are or who are not
regenerated, and the individual himself has only his own private
judgment by which to test the spirits, and to determine whether the
spirit by which he is led is the spirit of truth or the spirit of
error. The blessed Apostle John tells us not to believe every spirit,
but to try the spirits, for there are many false prophets gone out
into the world. Now, what is wanted is an objective test or touchstone
of truth by which to try the spirits. This cannot be the subjective
leadings of the spirit, for they are precisely what is to be tested in
order to determine that they are from God, and not from the enemy of 490
souls taking the guise of an angel of light in order to deceive. The
learned professor, then, even with the restriction of private judgment
to the regenerate, and the assumption of the interior assistance and
guidance of the Spirit, though contradicting himself, gets no rule of
faith, and has at best only the place of faith.
The learned author is aware that the Bible interpreted by private
judgment is no rule, at least no adequate rule, of faith, and so he
seeks to supply its deficiency by tradition. He says, “Protestants
admit there has been a stream of traditionary teaching flowing through
the Christian church from the day of Pentecost to the present time.
This tradition is so far a rule of faith that nothing contrary to it
can be true. Christians do not stand isolated, holding each his own
creed. They constitute one body, having one creed. Protestants admit
that there is a common faith of the church, which no man is _at
liberty to reject, or can reject and be a Christian_” (pp. 113, 114).
This would seem to make the Protestant rule not the Bible interpreted
by private judgment and private illumination, but the Bible
interpreted by the traditionary teaching of the church or the common
faith of the Christian body. This, if it meant anything, would be
fatal to Protestantism. The author says (_ubi supra_), “Christians
constitute one body with a common creed. Rejecting this creed, or any
of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians,
incompatible with the communion of saints or membership in [of] the
body of Christ.” It is undeniable that the Catholic Church included at
the epoch of the Reformation the whole Christian body, except those
cut off from that body as heretics and schismatics; and it is equally
undeniable that the Reformers or first Protestants did reject what was
then the creed of this body, or at least important parts of it, and,
therefore, did reject what our Princeton professor says “no man is at
liberty to reject, and which no man can reject and be a Christian.”
The Reformers, then, were not, and Protestants who held from them are
not and cannot be, Christians.
But the author would avoid this conclusion by making the tradition he
concedes mean nothing, or at least nothing tangible. When Protestants
speak of the common consent of Christians, he says (p. 115), “they
understand by Christians the true people of God,” that is, “the truly
regenerate, holy men, the temples of the Holy Ghost.” They understand
not a public external organic body, but an invisible and inorganic
body of believers, confined to no one external communion, that is, men
who belong to what Catholic theologians call “the soul of the church.”
Yet even these prior to Protestantism were, if not the whole body of
Catholics, in the Catholic Church, and held firmly, and more firmly
than others, the very creed, or the very parts of it, which
Protestants reject as Roman or Papal corruption. Even conceding this
restriction, the author would hardly be able to avoid the conclusion
that Protestants do reject the common creed of the true people of God,
for these true people of God, whoever they might be, were included in
the visible Catholic Church, and held its faith. But let this pass.
How is the Protestant to ascertain who these people are? Or how
ascertain what is their creed or common faith, if he does not
determine it by the creed publicly professed by the external or
visible church in which they are concealed?
Here is a grave difficulty, and much graver than our Protestant
professor would seem to regard it. The Scriptures interpreted by 491
unregenerate men, he holds, are no rule or criterion of faith; it is
only the private judgment of the regenerate, of those who are led by
the Spirit, that is to be heeded, and the common faith of all such,
the true people of God, is obligatory, and the faith which no one can
reject in whole or in part and be a Christian. But we cannot avail
ourselves of their traditionary teaching or common consent as a rule
of faith, or for the interpretation of Scripture, unless we know who
they are. But, as they are not an outward visible public body, but an
invisible, inorganic, and, so to speak, a private body, we cannot know
who they are without some rule or criterion by which we can
distinguish them from the ungodly, or from those who, according to St.
Augustine, are _in_ the church, but not _of_ the church. Hence the
difficulty. We must have, prior to the application of the Protestant
rule, another rule, a catholic rule, by which to determine and apply
it. We cannot use the Protestant rule unless we know what it is, and
we cannot know what it is without a prior rule for determining who are
the true people of God, the elect, and what is their common creed, or
traditionary teaching from the day of Pentecost down to our times. But
our learned professor has neglected to give us this antecedent rule,
without which the one he gives us is no rule at all. He gives no mark
or sign by which we can recognize the invisible people of God, and we
do not think he can; for we do not believe anybody knows or will know
who they are till the last judgment, when the secrets of all hearts
will be laid open.
It will not do here to refer us to the Bible for the rule by which to
ascertain them; for we must know them and their common faith in order
to obtain our guide to the sense of the Bible. We cannot take the
sense of the Bible to determine them, and then take them to determine
the sense of the Bible. It will not do, again, to say they are they
who are led by the Spirit, for it is precisely those who are led by
the Spirit that we wish to ascertain; nor will it do to appeal to
religious experience, for it is only the religious experience of the
true people of God that can avail, and that would be referring us to
the people of God to tell us who are the people of God. It would be to
reason like the poor Anglican, who makes orthodoxy the test of the
church, and the church the test of orthodoxy. “Jack, where is the
hoe?” “Wid de harrow, massa.” “Where is the harrow?” “Wid de hoe,
massa.” The Protestant, in any case, gives no more satisfactory
answer; for, with all his pretensions, he can only tell us that the
true faith is the faith held and followed by the true people of God,
and the true people of God are they who hold and follow the true
faith.
The author, as we have seen, says: “When Protestants plead the common
consent of Christians--the common faith of the Christian body--they
mean by Christians the true people of God. Romanists, on the other
hand,” he continues, “mean the company of those who profess the true
faith, and who are subject to the Pope of Rome. There is the greatest
difference between the authority due to the common faith of truly
regenerate, holy men, the temples of the Holy Ghost, and that due to
what a society of nominal Christians profess to believe, the great
majority of whom may be worldly, immoral, and irreligious.” But where
did the professor learn that the authority of the teaching depends on
the personal virtue of the teacher? How does he know that they who 492
recognize the authority of the Pope are only nominal Christians? or
that the Pope is not led and assisted by the Spirit in his office of
teacher of the universal church? Nay, how does he know, or how can he
prove to us or anybody else, that there are any of the true people of
God among Protestants at all? He must prove his rule of faith before
proceeding to apply it.
Dr. Hodge continues, on the same page (115): “The common consent for
which Protestants plead concerns only essential doctrines; that is,
doctrines which enter into the very nature of Christianity as a
religion, and which are necessary to its _subjective_ existence in the
heart, or which, if they do not enter essentially into the religious
experience of believers, are so connected with vital doctrines and
precepts as not to admit a separation from them.”
Here is the same difficulty again. What is the Protestant rule for
distinguishing among revealed doctrines those which are essential and those
which are not essential? Will the author tell us the essentials are those
doctrines which all Protestants agree in teaching, and that those in which
they do not agree in teaching are non-essentials? But who are Protestants?
All those who agree in teaching the essentials? Where is the hoe? With the
harrow. Where is the harrow? With the hoe. This would be only to adopt the
principle of poor Jack’s replies to the questions of his master.
But no. The essentials are “those doctrines which enter into the very
nature of Christianity as a religion, and which are necessary to its
_subjective_ existence in the heart.” But how determine what these
are, unless we know the very nature of Christianity? And how can we
know or determine what is the very nature of Christianity, unless we
have a rule or standard of faith? But the essentials are those
doctrines which “are necessary to its subjective existence in the
heart.” What doctrines are these? Have Protestants any objective rule
for determining them? The professor gives none except the Scriptures,
which do not suffice, because, as we have seen, the Scriptures are the
place, not the rule of faith, and what we are seeking is the rule or
authority for determining what is the faith they contain. Among
Protestants there is a very great diversity of views as to what is
necessary to the subjective existence of religion in the heart.
Schleiermacher, in his _Discourses on Religion, addressed to the
Cultivated among its Despisers_, maintains that only the sense of
dependence is necessary to the subjective existence of religion;
Twesten, as cited by the author, maintains the same, and that in a
subjective sense all religions are equally true, though not equally
pure; some Protestants place the essence of religion in reverence; Dr.
Channing seemed to place it in philanthropy, or in a sense of the
dignity of man; others in “self-culture,” in “self-worship”; and a
distinguished Protestant minister maintained to us, some years ago,
that a pantheist, like Spinoza, or an atheist, like Shelley, might not
only be truly religious, but a good Christian. There are thousands and
thousands in all Protestant denominations who, virtually at least,
regard the subjective existence of religion in the heart as nearly, if
not totally, independent of all objective doctrines or faith. Such is
at least the tendency of modern Evangelicalism, Bushnellism,
Beecherism, and from which even our author himself is not always free.
He makes, indeed, a brave fight for dogmatic theology or objective
faith, but his concessions to Whitfieldian and Wesleyan notions of 493
religious experience place him on the declivity to pure religious
subjectivism. All these have the Scriptures, and profess to take them
for their rule of faith and practice; but it is evident from what we
have said that the Scriptures are not a sufficient rule by which to
determine what are essentials and what are not. What rule, then, have
Protestants by which to make the distinction?
Dr. Hodge says, in refutation of the Catholic rule, which, by the way,
he does not correctly state: “Our Lord, in promising the Spirit to
guide his people into the knowledge of truths necessary to their
salvation, did _not_ promise to preserve them from error in
subordinate matters, or to give them a supernatural knowledge of the
organization of the church, the number of the sacraments, or the power
of bishops” (pp. 115, 116). Then, on these matters, the organization
of the church, the number of the Sacraments, and the power of bishops,
Protestants have no promise of exemption from error, and hence it is
quite possible that they err in rejecting the Catholic doctrine of the
church, of the hierarchy and the sacraments. But the professor’s
limitation of the promise of our Lord is not warranted by his own
professed rule. The promise, as recorded by the Evangelists is
unlimited: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you _all_ things, and bring _all_
things to your mind _whatsoever_ I shall have said to you” (St. John
xiv. 26). This is explicit enough. But, again, “But he, the Spirit of
truth, when he shall come, will teach you _all_ truth” (_ib._ xvi.
13). Therefore, our Lord said to his apostles, “Go ye, and teach all
nations ... to observe all things _whatsoever_ I have commanded you,
and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the
world” (St. Matt, xxviii. 19, 20). This is a promise of guidance of
the Spirit into all truth, and of exemption from error, in anything
which our Lord has said or commanded.
If we were defending the Catholic rule, we should remind the author
that this promise was made to the _ecclesia docens_, and only through
that to the _ecclesia credens_; but, as we are not defending the
Catholic rule, we suffer him to apply it to what he calls the true
people of God. Yet, if he accepts the plain declaration of our Lord
himself as recorded in the Gospels, he has no authority for
distinguishing between essentials and non-essentials in the revelation
of God, and none at all for restricting the promise of spiritual
guidance and assistance to a promise of preservation from error only
in certain fundamental truths of revelation. The author must either
give us the rule or authority on which he makes the distinction and
limitation, or concede that he makes it by no rule, and, therefore, on
no authority.
Dr. Hodge tells us (p. 151) that “all Protestants agree in teaching
that the word of God, as contained in the Old and New Testaments, is
the infallible rule of faith.” He should have said _some_ Protestants;
for many who claim to be Protestants do not agree in teaching that.
Will the professor say that those who do not so agree are not
Protestants? By what authority? By the authority of the Bible,
interpreted by private judgment? But they have the Bible and private
judgment as well as he, or those who agree with him. Will he appeal to
tradition? But tradition taken as a whole condemns him as well as
those who differ from him. Then he must discriminate in tradition
between what is to be followed and what is to be rejected. But this 494
discrimination demands a rule of judgment. But what rule can the
author allege? Private judgment? But that is no rule, for private
judgment is by its very definition a judgment without any rule or
standard of judgment, and, besides, those who differ from him have
private judgment, and theirs is worth as much as his. Will the author
answer again--The tradition or common consent of the true people of
God? But who are they? Here, then, we are back in the old difficulty.
Protestantism moves always in a vicious circle; proving its rule by
its faith, and its faith by its rule. We see no way by which it can
get out of this circle. It is not only as a Catholic we have felt this
difficulty; we felt it as a Protestant, when we had the misfortune to
be a Presbyterian, like our learned friend the Princeton professor.
We are sure the fault is not the professor’s, for he doubtless sees
that he moves only in a vicious circle as clearly as we do, and no
doubt would come out of it and move forward in a straight line, if he
could. The fault is in Protestantism itself, which is essentially
illogical, and does not conform to the divine order or the truth of
things. The Reformers themselves started without seeing whither they
were going, and without seeing that the Catholic system, parts of
which they rejected, was a systematic whole, and that, if one part was
retained, the whole must be retained, and, if one part was rejected,
the whole must be rejected. This is what Moehler has so admirably
shown in his _Symbolik_. But the Reformers did not wish to reject the
whole; they wished to reject only a part, and in the beginning only a
small part. They wished to remain Catholics, _minus_ one or two
dogmas, and, after the condemnation of Luther by Leo X., _minus_ the
Pope and the Roman curia. But they were driven onward farther than
they intended, and farther than they foresaw or were prepared for.
They constructed no rule of faith beforehand, and adopted one only as
the exigencies of the controversy with Catholics made one necessary;
still, except on certain points, they continued using the old Catholic
rule. Hence their Protestantism was patched up with shreds of the old
religion, eked out by such new cloth as they were able to supply to
meet the pressure of the occasion. It was formed not all at once, nor
all of one piece. It was formed little by little in the struggle to
maintain themselves against their Catholic adversaries, and to retain
as much of what had always been the faith of Christendom as was
possible in the position they assumed. In forming it, they were much
more intent on demolishing what our professor calls “Romanism” than on
laying a solid foundation for a Protestant superstructure.
The simple fact is, the Protestant movement could find no solid
foundation except in pure rationalism, or, rather, in pure
individualism, in which every man is his own church, his own rule of
faith, his own law, and his own God--a conclusion from which Luther
and Calvin would have recoiled with horror, as recoils Dr. Hodge
to-day. The Reformers did not see, for they were, as all Protestants
are, sad logicians in matters of religion, whither their movement
tended, nor dream that one day they would be called on to show that
their religion rests on a solid foundation, or a bottom of its own,
irrespective of any relation to the Catholic Church, and when they
must prove that it is something besides a mere protest against the 495
Church of Rome. They thought they could throw off Rome and a few
dogmas, and still remain true Christian believers. In this they were
deceived; for they were too little for Christianity and too much for
its full denial. They retained certain positive Christian doctrines,
but they had no authority for them except the Catholic authority which
they madly rejected. Hence, when we press them for the authority on
which they assert these doctrines, they fall into the vicious circle
in which we find them for ever gyrating, and from which not even Dr.
Hodge can relieve them.
The author says (p. 104), “Romanists agree with Protestants in
teaching the plenary inspiration and consequent infallible authority
of the sacred writings.” But this is a mistake. Catholics do not
agree with Protestants, but some Protestants--by no means all
Protestants--agree with the church in maintaining the Catholic
doctrine of the “plenary inspiration and consequent infallible
authority of the sacred writings.” It is simply a Catholic doctrine
retained by the Reformers from the church, which taught it nearly
fourteen hundred years before Protestantism was born. The able and
learned professor, we are sorry to observe, forgets that the church is
some centuries older than the oldest Protestant sect, that the
founders of Protestantism had all been reared in her communion, and
separated from her. Protestants have undeniably no historical
connection with our Lord and his apostles, save through the Catholic
Church, or the church in communion with the See of Rome. Whatever
doctrines Protestants hold that the church always held and taught are
hers, not theirs; and it is a grave mistake to pretend that they are
Protestant doctrines. Protestantism consists essentially and solely in
those things which distinguish it from Catholicity, or in what is
peculiar to it and constitutes its _differentia_--in what it
denies that the church asserts, and it asserts that she denies. If
they have stolen some of her doctrines, that does not make them any
the less hers by right, nor give them the right to appropriate them as
their own. There is not a single doctrine which Protestants profess to
hold--which she teaches, and always has taught--to which they, as
Protestants, have any title, or which they can prove to be revealed
truth independently of her testimony and authority. It is disregarding
this truth that gives to Protestantism the appearance of being a
religion.
We return to the word of God as contained in the Old and New
Testaments. Before the author can assert the Scriptures as the
infallible rule of faith, he must settle, first, the canon; second,
the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures; third, the completeness or
sufficiency of the Scriptures; and, fourth, the true sense of the
Scriptures. Now, not one of these points is it possible for a
Protestant to settle independently of the witness and authority of the
Catholic Church, and Dr. Hodge confirms our assertion by his manifest
failure to settle any one of them on Protestant grounds. They are all
questions of faith, and not one of them can be settled prior to or
without the rule of faith; and yet on Protestant grounds they must all
be settled before the rule of faith can be ascertained and applied.
Protestants exclude from the canon of the Old Testament several books
called by some the Deutero-canonical books, which are included in it
by the Catholic Church, and even the schismatic churches of the East,
and they are far from being agreed among themselves as to what books 496
are or are not canonical. Some would exclude the Book of Ruth and the
Canticle. As to the New Testament, Luther had doubts, if our reading
or memory be not at fault, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that of
St. Jude, and rejected the Epistle of St. James, which he called an
epistle of straw, probably because it flatly contradicts his doctrine
of justification by faith alone; others have doubted the canonicity of
these, and, in addition, of the Apocalypse, the second Epistle of St.
Peter, the second and third of St. John, and that of St. Paul to
Philemon; others still reject the Gospel according to St. John, and
indeed the whole New Testament, except the Synoptics--and these, while
they admit them as authentic, they deny to be inspired. The Princeton
professor may deny these to be Protestants, but they have as good a
right to exclude from the canon such books as they judge proper as had
Luther and Calvin; and there is no rule by which he can make out that
he is a Protestant that will not equally serve to prove that they are
Protestants. The only rule available is Catholic tradition, and that
condemns him as well as them.
The professor does not rely on the authority of the Synagogue, though
he adduces it, to settle the canon of the Old Testament, for that
would be anti-Protestant; but attempts to settle it by the authority
of the New Testament. Such books as he finds a text quoted from by our
Lord or his apostles he assumes to be canonical and inspired; but such
as he does not find thus quoted from, he rejects from the canon. But
this is not conclusive, for the author concedes that our Lord and his
apostles said many things that are not recorded in the New Testament,
and how does he know that in those many unrecorded discourses the books
which he rejects as uncanonical, and which Catholics hold to be
canonical, were not quoted? Then, by what authority does he pretend
that a citation of a text from a book proves the book to be canonical
or the whole book to be inspired? St. Paul, at Athens, cites the Greek
poet Arrian, and in his Epistle to the Hebrews he manifestly adopts a
phrase and a sentiment from Plato’s _Republic_: must we therefore
conclude that the poems of Arrian and Plato’s _Republic_ are
canonical, and Arrian and Plato to be included in the list of divinely
inspired writers? Has the professor any assertion of our Lord or of
any writer in the New Testament that a Jewish or any other book cited
by him or by his apostles is canonical and divinely inspired?
Certainly not. St. Paul says in his second Epistle to Timothy, “All
Scripture divinely inspired is profitable,” etc., but he does not say
what Scriptures are or are not divinely inspired.
Then, again, as to the New Testament, the author concedes that, during
the first century and later, the canon of the New Testament was
uncertain. It, then, was not settled by our Lord or his apostles
themselves. On what authority, then, was it settled? Manifestly only
on the authority of the church, that is, of popes and councils. But
our Princeton professor denies the authority of popes and councils;
denies the infallibility of the church; nay, he denies that the
church, Catholic or Protestant, has any teaching authority, fallible
or infallible. The canon neither of the New Testament nor of the Old
is settled, then, by any infallible rule or authority. How, then, can
the professor maintain that Protestants have, in the Scriptures, an
infallible rule of faith? No fallible rule suffices for infallible
faith.
As Protestants are unable, without the authority of the church or 497
tradition, to settle the canon, so are they unable, without the same
authority, to determine what books are or are not divinely inspired.
The author contends that it suffices to prove that the writers were
messengers from God, and commissioned to speak or write in his name.
But that cannot be proved unless they accredited themselves as such by
their miracles, and not even then, unless the miracles are attested to
us by a competent and credible witness of them. Who or what, for
Protestants, is that witness? The Record! But the record may have been
forged or interpolated, and must, before it can be adduced as
evidence, be authenticated. How can the Protestant authenticate it,
except by showing that it has been carefully and vigilantly guarded
from the first till now by an official keeper with whom it was
deposited? Deny the church as the depositary of the record, as the
Protestant does, and there is no certain means of authenticating the
record, and then none of authenticating the miracles; then none of
establishing the fact of the divine commission of the sacred writers,
and consequently none of proving the divine inspiration of the sacred
writings, since inspiration is a supernatural fact.
But did it ever occur to our learned professor that he has, in order
to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures, not only to take the
authority of the church for so much, but to prove, before he can
allege the authority of the Scriptures, all the Catholic has to prove,
in order to prove the divine authority and infallibility of the
church? He must prove that our Lord and his apostles spoke and wrote
by divine authority, and that is all the Catholic has to prove. In
either case, the authority, whether of the church or of the Bible,
turns on the fact of the divine commission, which the Protestant must
prove in the very outset as well as the Catholic, and which he cannot
prove if he rejects the testimony of the church as the contemporary
and living witness of the facts. The church, having been founded by
and grown out of that commission, and continuing without interruption
from the apostles down to us, is herself the living witness of the
facts which prove the commission. She authenticates the record; but
the Protestant has, in addition to authenticating the record which
proves the commission, to establish the genuineness, integrity, and
authenticity of the sacred writings before he can infer their divine
inspiration and infallible authority, or use them as a rule of faith,
and not even then unless their writers expressly declare them to be
inspired, for it is possible for divinely commissioned men to write at
times on matters not covered by their commission.
But we are not yet through with the Protestant’s difficulties, if he
is to proceed independently of Catholic tradition. Supposing him to
have proved all this, he still has to prove the completeness or
sufficiency of the Scriptures. Dr. Hodge does not pretend that the
Scriptures contain all the revelations made by our Lord to his
apostles, but only what is now extant. “It is not denied,” he says
(pp. 182, 183), “that there may have been, and probably were, books
written by inspired men which are no longer in existence. Much less is
it denied that Christ and his apostles delivered many discourses which
were not recorded, and which, could they now be known, would be of
equal authority with the books now regarded as canonical.” But how
does he know that these discourses or the instructions they contained 498
are now lost, or that they are not preserved and as well-known and
authenticated in the traditions of the church as the canonical books
themselves? Furthermore, how does he know that it is not precisely in
these discourses which were not recorded that is to be found the key
to the sense of those which were recorded? The church has always so
held and taught; indeed, the author himself concedes that, at the
first, the whole revealed word, whether written or unwritten, went by
the name of the tradition, and the written tradition was not
distinguished from the unwritten. He says:
“In the early church, the word [tradition] was used in this wide
sense. Appeal was constantly made to the traditions, that is, the
instructions the churches had received. It was only certain
churches at first that received any of the written instructions
of the apostles. And it was not till the end of the first century
that the writings of the Evangelists and apostles were collected
and formed into a canon or rule of faith. And when the books of
the New Testament had been collected, the fathers spoke of them
as containing the ‘traditions,’ that is, the instructions derived
from Christ and his apostles.... In that age of the church, the
distinction between the written and unwritten word had not yet
been distinctly made. But as controversies arose and disputants
on both sides of all questions appealed to ‘tradition,’ that is,
to what they had been taught; and when it was found that these
traditions differed, one church saying their teachers always
taught them one thing, and another that theirs had taught them
its opposite, it was felt that there should be some authoritative
standard. Hence the wisest and best of the fathers [who were
they?] insisted on abiding by the written word, and receiving
nothing as authoritative not contained therein. In this, however,
it must be confessed, they [the wisest and the best of the
fathers] were not always consistent. Whenever prescription,
usage, or conviction founded on unwritten evidence was available
against an adversary, they did not hesitate to make use of it.
During _all the early centuries_, therefore, the distinction
between Scripture and tradition was not so sharply drawn as it
has been since the controversies between Romanists and
Protestants, and especially since the decisions of the Council of
Trent” (pp. 108, 109).
There are several inaccuracies in this passage. In the early ages of
the church, when controversies arose and contradictory traditions were
alleged, appeal was not made to the written word, but to the churches
founded by St. Peter, or by his immediate authority, that is, to
Antioch, Alexandria, or Rome, or to a council, provincial, plenary, or
œcumenical, as can hardly be unknown to so learned a theological
scholar as Dr. Hodge.[109] But two facts are conceded in the passage:
first, that the church for a hundred years or more had only unwritten
tradition or the oral instructions of its pastors as its rule of
faith; and, second, that the written and the unwritten traditions of
the word were deemed of equal authority by the wisest and best of the
fathers, and were not as to their authority distinguished, at least
not sharply distinguished, before the rise of Protestantism. The
professor, then, must prove that the whole church was wrong prior to
Luther in recognizing the authority of the unwritten traditions before 499
he can assert that the Scriptures contain all of the revealed word
extant, or maintain the completeness or sufficiency of the Scriptures
as the rule of faith. How will he do it, after conceding that they do
not contain the whole revelation that was made, nor even the whole
extant in the opinion of the church or the great body of Christians
prior to the rise of Protestantism? Does the written word anywhere
declare its own completeness or sufficiency, and that the portions not
recorded are of no importance?
But the difficulties of Protestantism do not end even here. The Bible
is no rule of faith except in its true sense, or as rightly
interpreted according to the meaning of the Holy Ghost. The author
says (p. 183): “The Bible is a plain book. It is intelligible by the
people. And they have the right and are bound to read and interpret it
for themselves, so that their faith may rest on the testimony of the
Scriptures, and not on that of the church. Such is the doctrine of
Protestants on this subject.”
But is it true? If so, how happens it that among Protestants we can
hardly find two, when left to themselves, without any parental or
pastoral instruction, who agree in their interpretation of the written
word, or as to the doctrines to be deduced from it? Yet the author
himself can hardly believe what he asserts to be the Protestant
doctrine on the subject is true. “It is not denied,” he adds (pp. 183,
184), “that the Scriptures contain many things that are hard to be
understood; that they require diligent study; that all men need the
guidance of the Holy Spirit to a right knowledge and true faith. But
it is maintained that in all things necessary to salvation they are
sufficiently plain to be understood even by the unlearned.” What! even
by those who are unable to understand a word of the language in which
the Scriptures were written, and must depend on the fidelity of
translations made by fallible men, and vouched for by no infallible
authority? By those who do not know how to read at all in any
language? Then how does the professor know what things are or are not
necessary to salvation? That the things necessary to the right
apprehension of the mysteries of the faith are not contained in those
very parts of Scripture which are hard to be understood, or that the
proper explanation of those parts is not necessary to the proper
understanding of the other parts, which he judges to be intelligible
even to the unlearned? The author here must either borrow from the
Catholic rule, which condemns his Protestantism, or else admit that he
has no satisfactory answer to give to these and kindred questions.
But all these questions are quite unnecessary, for the author
obligingly refutes his own rule of faith, and acknowledges that the
Scriptures interpreted by private judgment or by human reason itself
are not sufficient to give a “right knowledge of the true faith.”
Neither learning nor diligent study, nor the perspicuity of Scripture,
suffices; for “all men,” he says, “need the guidance of the Holy
Spirit in order to a right knowledge of the true faith.” This is
conclusive against the Protestant rule; and confesses that no man can
arrive at the knowledge of the true faith without the supernatural
assistance of the Holy Spirit. Let us hear no more, then, of the
Scriptures interpreted by private judgment, or of the ability or the
right of every individual to read and interpret the Scriptures for
himself and to form from them his own creed.
It is worthy of remark here that our Protestant professor is obliged 500
throughout to adopt the principle of the Catholic rule of faith, only
he applies it differently. The Catholic asserts the infallibility of
the Pope in matters of faith and morals by virtue of the assistance or
guidance of the Holy Spirit; the Protestant professor claims the same
infallibility, by virtue of the same supernatural assistance, for each
one of the people of God taken individually. But the Pope is a public
personage, all the world knows or may know who he is, and can recur to
him, and, supposing him to be assisted as claimed, all the world may
know from him the true faith; but in the Protestant sense there is no
public means of knowing who the people of God are, and, consequently,
no public means of knowing what the Spirit teaches, or whom he guides
or assists to a knowledge of the true faith, since he guides or
assists only private individuals, not a public personage or a public
body. It can be no public rule of faith, and, as we have shown, none
for the individual himself, for he has no objective and independent
rule for determining whether the spirit that leads him is the spirit
of truth or the spirit of error. The professor has refuted his own
doctrine in his refutation of the Quaker rule of faith. The interior
illumination, he asserts, is private, and can be brought to no public
or catholic test. Not the church, both because the church the
Protestant recognizes is invisible, and recognizable by no external
marks or notes, and because the church, according to him, has no
teaching authority or faculty. Not to the Scriptures, because it is
the test of the right understanding of them that is required, and to
take them as the test of this is to reason in a vicious circle.
Protestants, historically considered, arrived at their rule through
Protestantism, not at Protestantism through the application of their
rule, and the fact is, they cannot logically assert their rule till
they have proved or obtained _aliunde_ their Protestantism. They are
obliged to prove their Protestantism in order to prove their rule, and
they must prove their rule in order to prove their Protestantism. This
is a grave inconvenience. But, assuming without proof that the
Scriptures are the sufficient and only rule of faith, they conclude,
against undeniable facts, that the Bible is a plain book, and
intelligible to the people, to even the unlearned, as it should be if
intended by its divine Author to be the sufficient and only rule of
faith. They find their conclusion untenable, and modify their
statement, and say that their conclusion is true as to all things
necessary to salvation. But, finding no agreement among Protestants
themselves who take the Bible as their sufficient and only rule of
faith as to what things are necessary to salvation, they divide. One
class declares more or less distinctly that no objective faith is
necessary to salvation, and another class, in which is included our
author, asserts, while maintaining the right of private judgment, the
private illumination of the Holy Ghost as the rule for interpreting
the Scriptures, apparently not perceiving that they are in flagrant
contradiction with themselves.
The professor objects (p. 127) to tradition as the rule of faith that
it is not adapted to that purpose: “A rule of faith to the people must
be something they can apply; a standard by which they can judge. But
the unwritten tradition is not contained in any one volume accessible
to the people and intelligible by them.” This were a valid objection,
if the people had to seek through all history to find and verify the 501
tradition; but is no objection at all, if we suppose an infallible
teacher, always present, who preserves and applies the tradition for
the people. But does the Protestant escape his own objection by
rejecting all unwritten tradition, and making the Bible alone the rule
of faith, which is at least as unintelligible to the people as is
unwritten tradition explained and applied by duly authorized preachers
of the word?
That the Bible ought, on Protestant principles, to be a plain book,
interpreting itself to every person of ordinary sense, or who has
enough sense to be a moral agent, we concede, and Protestants should
actually derive their doctrines from it. But nobody knows better than
our author that neither is a fact. He knows that the Protestant
people, however much they may read and praise the Bible, do not form
their own opinions from it, but from their pastors or teachers, or the
community in which they are brought up. He knows, also, that the
people could never of themselves derive even the doctrines which he
holds to be essential and necessary to salvation from reading the
Bible alone. Unitarians and Universalists deny that the Bible teaches
them, and the people, as a matter of fact, take them from the
tradition of their sect, and at best only find confirmation of them in
the Scriptures; and yet such are the exigencies of Protestantism that
the ablest and most learned Protestant professors are obliged, in the
face of these facts, to say with Chillingworth, “The Bible, the Bible
alone, is the religion of Protestants.”
But Protestants should bear in mind that Catholics have the Bible as
well as they--had it ages before Protestantism was ever heard of, and
that it was from Catholics that they obtained it--strictly speaking,
from the church _stole_ it. How, then, can it be their religion any
more than it is the religion of Catholics? Catholics, if they have not
admitted it to contain the whole revealed word, have always held it,
before Protestantism and since, to be divinely inspired, and, as far
as it goes, the infallible word of God. They have always held that all
Christians are bound to believe whatever it teaches, and forbidden to
believe anything that contradicts it. This is all that Protestantism
can really say. The church contends that in no respect does her
doctrine conflict with the written word, and is in most respects, if
not in all, positively sustained by it. Suppose her as fallible as
Protestants confess themselves to be, what can Protestants have in the
Bible that Catholics have not? or what have they from any source that
can override the Catholic understanding of the Scriptures, or
authorize them to say that it is a misunderstanding? Catholics may
have more than Protestants, but in no case have they or can they have
less. By what rule or standard, then, do Protestants judge the
Catholic understanding of the Scriptures to be false and the
Protestant understanding to be true? Private judgment is no rule, and,
if it were, Catholics have private judgment as well as Protestants;
they have, too, reason, Biblical, historical, and all other sorts of
learning, as well as they, and, at least, in as eminent a degree. By
what rule or standard of judgment, then, is Protestantism to be
pronounced more Biblical than is Catholicity?
The professor says: “The people have the right of private judgment,
and are bound to read and interpret the Bible for themselves.” In
matters left to private judgment, in regard to which there is no 502
public or catholic rule, be it so. But, when the people have a public
or catholic rule, they are bound to judge by it, and the right of
private judgment ceases. Protestants either have such a rule or they
have not. If they have, they are bound to judge by it, and have no
right of private judgment in the case. If they have not these, they
have no rule or standard by which to judge, no rule of faith, and that
ends the matter. We beg the professor to understand that all this
Protestant rationalistic talk about private judgment is mere
moonshine. He may allow it against what he calls “Romanism,” but he by
no means allows it against what he holds to be the word of God. As for
the people being bound to read or interpret the Bible for themselves,
it is sufficient to ask what would become of the professor’s own
vocation if it were so? Were the people who lived before the New
Testament was written, or its several books collected into a volume as
the rule of faith, bound to read and understand it for themselves? Are
those bound to read or interpret the Bible for themselves who know not
even how to read? These are reckoned to be at least nineteen-twentieths
of mankind; shall they receive no religious instructions till they
have learned to read? What shall we say of those who--and they are the
bulk of mankind--obliged to toil incessantly to sustain their bodily
existence, have no time to learn to read, much less to study
diligently the sacred Scriptures, even if they could read? What are we
to say of children who are too young to read and understand the Bible
for themselves, and yet are old enough to sin? Can these all be saved
without the knowledge of the truth? or are they excluded by an
inexorable decree and no fault of their own from salvation? The fact
is, Protestants, whatever the fuss they may make about the Scriptures
and private judgment, adopt, in practice, as their rule of faith, the
Bible interpreted by the learned, or those they hold to be learned,
the rule Dr. Döllinger would force the church to adopt. Catholics are
not more dependent on the church than Protestants are on their
pastors. But as their doctors cannot agree among themselves, they have
no resource but to divide with their doctors, and divide they do, each
division following its favorite doctor, and founding with him a new
sect, which allows no private judgment against itself. Even
Unitarians, who believe hardly anything, tolerate private judgment
only when it makes for them, and are as intolerant of those who deny
anything they hold to be essential as an Old or New School
Presbyterian. The worst of it is that, while Protestants yield a
slavish submission to their ministers, they deny that their ministers
have any authority from God either to teach or to govern them, and,
like the old carnal Jews, boast that they are free and in bondage to
no man. The most degrading and debasing slavery into which mortals can
be plunged is that of Protestants to their favorite ministers, unless
it be that of the heathen to their idols or false gods.
But we are exceeding our limits. We have said enough, we think, to
show that Protestants have no independent rule of faith--independent
of the Catholic Church, we mean. In so far as they hold Christian
truth or positive faith at all, they hold it on the authority of the
Catholic rule, which they reject; and when deprived of what they stole
from us, and to which they have no right, they have nothing to prevent
them from running into pure rationalism on the one hand, or into 503
mysticism and transcendentalism on the other. The germs of both were
in the original Protestant movement, and may be easily detected even
in our Princeton professor. Into one or the other he must run, if he
ever gets out of the vicious circle in which Protestantism, pretending
to be Christian, necessarily gyrates, unless the grace of God relieves
him and enables him to return to the bosom of the Catholic Church,
where alone he will find true freedom and truth in its unity and
integrity.
[108] _Systematic Theology._ By Charles Hodge, D.D.,
Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J. Vol.
I. New York: Scribner & Co. 1872. 8vo, pp. 648.
[109] If the written word had been regarded as the
sufficient and only rule of faith, there could have been no
occasion to appeal to apostolic churches or to councils to
ascertain the evangelical or apostolical traditions. It
would have been simpler to appeal to the written word
itself. The reason of the council, as its purpose, was to
collect by the testimony of the pastors of the several
churches what was the tradition that was handed over to each
by its apostolic founder, and which it had preserved. By
ascertaining thus by the testimony of each the traditions
common to them all, the controversy was settled. The
frequency of councils in the early ages proves that during
those ages, at least, Christians did not adopt the
Protestant rule of faith, and that they were by no means
Protestants. The pretence of the Reformers that they were
restoring primitive Christianity, primitive faith and usage,
is to be taken as a pretence only.
----------
DANTE’S PURGATORIO.
CANTO SECOND.
This Canto of the _Purgatorio_ is the one which contains that episode
of the music-master, Casella, to which Milton alludes in his
celebrated Sonnet to Henry Lawes, and perhaps all the more celebrated
from this allusion to the passage in Dante.
Casella was a dear friend of Dante’s, and used to set his _canzoni_ to
music, and sing them with a voice which it must have been delicious for
Dante to have made immortal. Dante supposes in the poem that Casella
had gone to Rome in the year of the Jubilee, and, coming thence by
sea, had perished near the mouth of the Tiber.
For Canto I. of this translation, see CATHOLIC WORLD for November,
1870.
Now that horizon whose meridian arch
Hangs o’er Jerusalem its topmost height
The sun had reached: while opposite, her march
Holding in countercourse, the circling Night
Walked forth from Ganges, bearing in her hand
The Scales that she lets fall with her advance,
So that the morning’s cheeks where I did stand
From white and red grew orange to my glance.
Beside the sea we made a brief delay,
Like lingering men, that on their journey dream,
Who go in spirit, but in body stay:
And lo! as when, surprised by morning’s beam,
Through the gross vapors Mars doth redly burn
Down in the west upon the ocean floor;
A light appeared--oh! may that light return--
So rapidly those waters travelling o’er,
That to its motion flying were but slow:
Then, having momently withdrawn my gaze
To question of my Guide, I looked, and lo!
Larger it burned, and seemed almost ablaze!
Soon from each side thereof, although I knew
Naught what they were, something appeared of white,
And underneath another of like hue
Little by little grew upon my sight.
My Master spake not: I meantime could spell 504
Wings in those first white objects at the side:
Soon as he recognized the pilot well,
“Behold God’s Angel!--bend thy knees!” he cried:
“Lift up thy palms to him--now in thy ken
See one of heaven’s high ministers indeed!
Look, how he scorneth all device of men;
He nor of oars nor any sail hath need
Save his own pinions (while he beats the air
And heavenward stretches those eternal pens),
From shore to shore so distant--plumes that ne’er
Moult like the changing tresses that are men’s.”
Then as more near and nearer to us drew
That divine bird, so grew the splendor more
Till scarce the eye could bear a closer view:
I bent mine down, and he arrived ashore
With a fleet skiff, so light upon the flood
That without wake it skimmed the water’s breast:
High on the stern the heavenly helmsman stood,
In aspect such as Holy Writ calls Blest.[110]
More than an hundred spirits in one band
Within sat blending in one voice their strains,
“_In exitu Isràel_--From the land
Of Egypt”--and what else that psalm contains.[111]
The sign of holy cross he made them then,
Whereat they bounded all upon the strand,
And he, swift as he came, sped back again.
The crowd that stayed looked wildly round, and scanned
The place like strangers coming to things new.
Now on all sides had Phœbus pierced the day
With his keen arrows, which so fiercely flew
That Capricorn was chased from heaven’s midway,
When the new-comers raised their brows to us,
Saying: “Show us the pathway, if ye know,
Up to the mountain.” Virgil answered thus:
“Perchance you think us dwellers here? Not so.
We, like yourselves, are only pilgrims here:
Just before you, and by another way,
We came, a road so rugged, so severe,
That climbing this will seem thereto as play.
The spirits, by my breathing who could guess
That I was living, wan with wonder grew;
And just as people round a herald press
Who comes with olive wreaths, to hear what new
Tidings he bears, regardless how they tread, 505
Thus gathering round, those favored souls eyed me;
Each one, as ‘twere, forgetful how he sped
Towards where they go, more beautiful to be.
One I beheld before the rest, who came
As to embrace me, with such look intense
Of love, it moved me to return the same.
Oh! save in aspect, shadows void of sense,
Three times my hands around his form I threw,
And thrice received them back upon my breast.
I think my face was tinged with wonder’s hue;
For the shade smiled as after him I pressed,
And, I still following, he so sweetly said:
“Follow no longer;” whose that voice must be
I knew full well, and begged him, ere he fled,
To stay a little while to speak with me.
He answered me: “As in my mortal part
I loved thee once, I love thee loose from clay,
And therefore stop; but thou--why wandering art?”
“My dear Casella, I come not to stay,
And must return where I am dwelling still.
But tell me what has so delayed thy bliss?”
“If he who taketh whom and when he will
Refused my passage oft, no wrong was this,”
The shade replied: “To Heaven’s his choice conforms:
These three months freely he hath carried o’er,
At their own pleasure, the peace-parted swarms:
Whence I, too, coasting homeward by the shore,
Where Tiber’s waves grow salt, with gracious hand
Was gathered. Titherward he now has gone,
Bending his pinions towards the sacred strand
Where all those meet who seek not Acheron.”
Then I: “Unless the new laws here forbid
Memory or use of that love-laden style
Which all my longings once full gently chid,
Soothe with one song, beseech thee, for awhile
This soul of mine, which, dragging here its clay,
Is so worn out.” Directly he began
“_Love reasons with me_,” in so sweet a way
That the same sweetness I could hear--I can.
We stood, my Master and myself, as though
Naught else possessed us, and that shadowy swarm,
Rapt, listening round him to his notes: and lo!
That noble old man’s venerable form[112]
Came crying: “How now, tardy spirits--why 506
This negligence? why lingering do ye plod?
Run to the mountain, that from every eye
The scales may fall that seal your sight from God.”
As doves in barley, gathering grain or tares
(Busy at pasture in a single flock,
Quiet, nor showing their accustomed airs),
If aught approach the timid tribe to shock,
Fly from their food, assailed by greater care,
So quit the song this new-come troop, and started
Hillward, like one who goes unknowing where:
And with no less a pace we, too, departed.
[110] “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see
God.”
[111] Psalm cxiv.
[112] The spirit of Cato of Utica, introduced in the First
Canto.
----------
THE LATE GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
The doings of a body so large, and in a worldly point of view so
respectable, as the Episcopal Church, ought to be of some consequence
to the public. Unfortunately, however, the negative character of its
legislation prevents it from reaching the wants of the day, or
speaking to the heart of a restless age which is bent on physical
progress. The gentlemen who form the convention meet together every
three years, and spend three weeks in moving the interesting machinery
of legislation, without doing anything whatever, and in disappointing
every one who asks for a positive statement in matters of doctrine or
discipline. Their body is formed after the plan of the United States
Congress, and has no counterpart in any period of ecclesiastical
history. The bishops form the upper house or senate, and the clerical
and lay deputies constitute the lower or more popular house, one half
of which is composed of ministers and one half of laymen. Each house
acts as a restraint upon the other, and no law can be passed without
the agreement of the two branches. The bishops might be disposed to
change the creed or make some new article of faith for their
communion, but they cannot do so without the consent of the deputies.
The same thing is true of the ministers in the convention. The laymen
have a veto upon their pastors, who in turn can tie up the legislation
of their flock. A negative lay-vote in the lower house will nullify
even the action of the bishops in council, as well as the wishes of
the reverend clergy. If, for example, the Episcopal body should
propose to pass a law on ritual, and the ministers were agreed to it,
the lay deputies could defeat it by an adverse vote. There is
something very peculiar in this equalization of ecclesiastical
prerogatives between ministers and laymen, which strikes the
unpractised eye as unique and strange. The constitution of the
Protestant Episcopal Church was formed, as we have intimated, after 507
the model of the American Republic. There is, however, no executive,
the presiding bishop being only a chairman of a meeting; and the power
of putting into effect the action of the convention lies wholly in the
convention itself, which has no existence after it adjourns _sine
die_. We believe, however, that the different dioceses feel bound to a
certain kind of obedience, the nature of which will depend upon
individual bishops.
In regard to the late convention, we have little to say, and yet some
good may result from putting on record what Catholics think of a body
of Christians which makes such large pretensions, and at the same time
is so utterly helpless, and useless as a teacher of truth. Our purpose
in this article will be accomplished by a brief view of the
impressions produced by this council upon the Episcopalians and the
world; by a consideration of what has been done negatively and
positively; and a few remarks upon the position in which the
Protestant Episcopal Church stands before mankind.
I. The impression produced upon Episcopalians, as far as we can learn
it from themselves, is very singular, and seems to differ with
different minds. The only satisfaction expressed in any of their
journals is that the convention did not do any more harm. The
_Church Journal_, of November 1, speaks of the “tomb of the Capulets”
to which so many important measures were consigned. “That vast
mausoleum,” it says, “well stored at the close of the session of 1868,
received a large accession in 1871.” It also terms the whole thing a
_fiasco_, and pitifully remarks that “the mind of the church must be
well informed in 1874 if we would not pave the way to another _fiasco_.”
“In the matter of tone, temper, and decorum, _with slight exceptions_,
the convention was worthy of the respect of the church.” There were,
therefore, exceptions in which it is not deserving of any respect. The
_Church Weekly_ rejoices that no great evils have come from this
council of their _branch_ of the one (_invisible_) church, and
attributes this to the good sense of the deputies, who generally were
“wise and conservative men.” “It was only by the _non-concurrence_ of
orders that action was not had on ritual, and in the form proposed by
the House of Bishops.” The same journal says that the bishops are
utterly unfitted for action on any of the subjects which came before
the convention. “They are chosen,” it remarks, “for any reason rather
than knowledge of _liturgies_, _ritual_, _canon law_, _or theology_.”
What these reverend fathers are expected to know we are left to
imagine, and it is a great strain upon our powers; for we are somewhat
bewildered by the observation “that they are chosen for their
practical common sense, which is American English for success in life.”
The _Christian Witness_ feels happy that there is “such elaborate
discussion on the smallest points, and that questions of order take
much of the time in their disposal.” The result, however, is not so
pleasant, because “the most important subjects are left to the end of
the session, when the haste of the members to return home cuts short
the discussion, and _dissatisfaction_ is the result.”
The _Protestant Churchman_ is the only paper we have seen which seems
really gratified. The convention did not do anything, but showed a
spirit which, if not quenched, will yet accomplish much:
“No one who was present could fail to be struck with some very
remarkable developments, the full significance of which does by
no means appear in what the convention actually did or left
undone. Although the convention did not pass any of the 508
proposed canons against ritualism, it is yet true that an
anti-ritualistic spirit was disclosed, which was entirely
unexpected, and in the presence of which scarcely any one, in
either house, dared to avow himself a ritualist. Although the
convention did not repeal the restrictive and exclusive canons,
still the evidence was most marked of the progress of liberal
sentiments. If the questions involved in these canons had come
fairly before the convention, we believe that the result would
have surprised every one, and satisfied those who have been
hopeless of favorable action.
“In our view, this convention has marked a transition period in
the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The old ruts have
been obliterated, and new paths of progress have been opened. It
is our profound conviction that there has not been a convention
for many years which has revealed a prospect so encouraging for
truly liberal and evangelical principles.”
The internal spirit of a legislative body is, however, hard to
understand except from its public acts, and when there are no such
satisfactory acts, honest observers may differ in their judgment. The
High Churchmen felicitate themselves that their tenets were not pulled
to pieces, while Low Churchmen see a _spirit_ which accords with their
sentiments, and so take courage for the future.
In spite of all these causes of happiness, the advanced ritualists
find much to complain of, because the bishops, _though apostles_, did
not realize their dignity, and the ministers, though _actually Catholic
priests_, did not seem to know it. Besides their ignorance of
“liturgies, ritual, canon law, and theology,” they were not reverent
in the house of God, nor did they seem to feel that they were, what
the _Churchman_ calls them, “apostles, occupied with the faith and
practice of the apostolic age, and framing their conduct and teaching
according to a model seventeen hundred years older than the systems
represented by Protestant names.” In church they seemed to forget the
“real presence,” and to be only polite and sociable gentlemen, very
glad to meet their friends of the nineteenth century. So says the
_Church Weekly_:
“Men and women seem too tired and excited for reverent devotion;
and not merely was loud talking and laughter going on at one end
of the building before the blessed sacrament was consumed, but,
within the very sanctuary, even bishops were seen exchanging the
courtesies of society with one hand, while with the other they
were holding the Lord’s body and blood. The truth is, there
cannot be proper reverence when a building which is during one
hour the scene of exciting debate and the arena of unrestrained
conversation is, during the next, devoted to what ought to be the
solemn worship of Almighty God. Nearly all the clergy and laity,
ritualists included, seemed at times to forget that Emmanuel
Church, though used as a convention hall, was a consecrated house
of prayer. Constant introductions, subsequent chattings, mild
flirtations with ladies, and the frequent use of opera-glasses,
did a great deal towards destroying reverence for God’s
sanctuary; and I could not but feel the evil habit engendered
there found its way into many of the churches in which divine
worship was held on the following Sunday.”
As for the impression produced upon the world, we can take the spirit
of the press, which has amused itself much in studying the science of
using words, and saying nothing, which the Protestant Episcopal
council possesses in the highest degree. Every one of the other
Protestant bodies has a distinctive character, and uses words
according to the received interpretation of the dictionaries. The
Episcopalians, however, sit upon the fence, and turn their faces now
to the north, and now to the south, and speak like the Sibyl, so as to
be on the safe side with every one. No one would venture to abridge 509
their liberty, or even laugh at their peculiarities, if they did not
pretend to be above their brethren, and ape the exterior of the old
church. Their phylacteries are many and large, and so not a few of
them carry a sign to prove that they are what they profess to be. In
spite of what the world thinks, they are _priests_ and _bishops_, and
theirs (O tempora, O mores!) is the only pure _branch_ of the Catholic
church. Their coats and cassocks beat us out-and-out, and they are
_Catholics_, the only true Catholics, while we are Romanists.
When we behold such a remarkable body, which claims, through its
ardent children, to be the most primitive and only pure church in
existence, we naturally are curious to find out what the doctrine of
this church is. Then, when it speaks enigmas, and has a language of
its own, with no published dictionary, we are somewhat bewildered.
Seriously, we think we have not exaggerated the sentiment of the
journals of the day. They are amused at the spectacle of three weeks’
work which has accomplished nothing, and at definitions of doctrine
which can be construed in two contradictory senses. We do not believe
there is a living man who can tell what the doctrine of the Episcopal
Church is, nor a single member of that communion who has any clear
ideas on the subject. Each one may tell us what he believes for
himself, but his private opinion is not necessarily the creed of his
church. If the Redeemer of men has left his religion in such hands, we
can only say that he has not shown human wisdom, and that his Gospel
will be of little use to mankind. Our further remarks will justify
these conclusions, and show that never since the creation has there
been a body with so great pretensions and so little foundation for
them. This is not because the authorities do not sometimes speak
plainly, but because the members of the church insist on interpreting
whatever they say according to their own ideas, and there is no final
tribunal.
2. With the exception of a few local canons on matters which have no
general interest, the convention, as such, has done nothing. We shall
try to give a fair synopsis of its doings, and let them speak for
themselves. As the _Christian Witness_ tells us, great attention has
been paid to points of order, and the rules for the trying of bishops
and ministers. This would lead us to conclude that either these canons
had been very imperfect, or that there are many and difficult cases of
delinquency. We incline to think, however, that there are not many bad
ministers, but that the wish to make laws and to speak on them is the
parent of all these emendations of their code. Very few of the
resolutions referred to the committee on canons have seen the light,
but are consigned to that “tomb of the Capulets” of which the
_Church Journal_ speaks.
The different dioceses in the State of New York have been desirous of
having a “federate council” of their own, and some action was taken on
this subject. Not much satisfaction has been derived from this,
because the journal most interested is acutely grieved. “It is sad,”
it says, “to think that what is called the mind of the church is not
yet ready for the _Provincial System_, or even a court of appeals. The
federate council of New York is granted sufficient power to keep it
from dying of atrophy or inanition, but we fear it will prove only a
sickly sort of existence after all.” The particular benefit of the
provincial system in the Episcopalian hierarchy we do not see; but 510
this is none of our business. Our sympathies are with those who want
it, and are unable to get it.
A joint committee of bishops and ministers has been appointed or
continued on _religious reform_ in Italy.
As far as we can learn, the labor of this committee will be very
arduous. They are to watch for Catholics and infidels in Italy who
turn Episcopalians. There are not many of these converts, but for this
very reason they will be all the more difficult to find and provide
for.
We would humbly suggest that a _branch_ of their _branch_ of the _one_
church be established there, with a bishop whose travelling expenses
should be prepaid, no matter what the cost may be. A committee in the
United States can hardly be adequate to this critical work, for if
there is no Episcopalian minister at hand when a man or woman is at
the point of converting, he or she may be gathered in by a sect of
Protestants who have no bishops. We should also have recommended that
this committee have power to act in Bavaria, especially as there is no
time to lose. Still, as our advice may not be understood, we do not
press the subject. Old Dr. Döllinger has valid orders, and so has poor
Father Hyacinthe, and might possibly be saved for the cause of
Episcopacy.
Another thing which moves us very much is the magnitude of the work
again thrown on the committee who are to seek for union with the
Eastern heretical churches. So little has been accomplished beyond an
exchange of courtesies that we fear the means are not adequate to the
end.
Anglicans have already signified their willingness to throw the
“Filioque” out of the creed, and to give up thus the doctrine of the
Trinity, but this does not seem to bring the two or four bodies any
nearer together. The Eastern churches still call the Anglicans
heretical, and say they have no orders, while in all humility they
prostrate themselves before the walls of Constantinople or St.
Petersburg, and ask for the smallest smile of recognition. We do not
think the committee have done their duty, and, as the prophet urged
the priests of Baal, we beg them to persevere. These venerable
patriarchs may possibly be asleep, or absent on a journey. If they
would ordain one of the Episcopal ministers, he would certainly be a
priest, and perhaps the American Branch might be ordered to adopt the
Russian Pontifical. It is very like the Roman, but then it could be
translated into English. The same doctrines are more palatable in
Russian or in Greek than they are in Latin, and the Eastern is a “Holy
Orthodox Church,” while the Roman Catholic Church is _schismatical_
and in great error. The Holy Orthodox Church, having anathematized the
Thirty-nine Articles, has touched rather severely the Anglican
pretensions, but our good friends here are able to bear more than this
without being discouraged. Before these words reach the public, we
trust the Episcopal Committee will have had the opportunity to wait
upon the Grand Duke Alexis and offer him Trinity Church for his
cathedral during his stay in New York. A _branch_ that has been cut
off from the parent trunk can be carried even some distance to shade a
sprout that comes out of the ground of its own responsibility and from
its own little root. “How good and pleasant a thing it is to see
brethren dwelling together in unity!”
At the next convention, we hope to hear something of the effect of the
regular resolutions which have been passed the last fifty years, and 511
to hear if the old _branch_ will at last recognize the new branch
planted by Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth, and watered by
Luther and Calvin and their friends. A small casket containing the
ashes of Cyril Lucar might be carried in procession on this grand
occasion, still in the future, with a tablet bearing in bold relief
the canons of the Synod of Bethlehem.
We pass to another of the doings of the convention, which has our
unqualified approbation, accompanied only with the fear that the
project may not be successful.
We refer to “the revival of the _Scriptural diaconate_ of women,” as
the bishops call it in their pastoral.
The Scripture here alluded to is probably the ninth to thirteenth
verses of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to
Timothy:
“Let a _widow_ be chosen, not under threescore years of age, who
hath been the wife of _one_ husband; having a testimony of her
good works, if she have educated children, if she have exercised
hospitality, _if she have washed the saints’ feet_, if she have
ministered to them that suffer tribulation, if she have
diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows shun,
for when they have grown wanton in Christ, they will marry,
having damnation because they have made void their first faith.
And withal being idle, they learn to go about from house to
house, not only idle, but tattlers also, and inquisitive,
speaking things which they ought not.”
The bishops do not say whether they propose to carry out these rules
of St. Paul literally, but they seem to “feel an earnest desire that
prudence and good sense may preside over every _effort_.” The
committee, whose report was substantially accepted, do not fix any
rules as to the age of the postulants, nor do they utter one word
about widows. They use the term “sisterhoods” in connection with
remarks upon “the Phœbes and Priscillas of apostolic times,” while
without explanation they condemn “the false and pernicious system of
the Church of Rome.” (A rose under any other name will _not_ smell so
sweet.) These sisterhoods are to be established everywhere in
hospitals and benevolent homes, and a central house or training school
is recommended to fit the candidate for the various works of mercy.
These sisters are to be without vows, and so free to come and go,
leave their various convents, and marry whenever they please.
The rule of obedience depends upon their own consent, and so they are
their own masters, even when they live in community. We confess a
great anxiety to see this system thoroughly tried, and to know, in the
course of a few years, how many will remain and die in their
conventual habit. Even if it fail, it is a step in the right
direction, and we are glad the committee did not rigidly adopt the
rules of St. Paul. For if they were restricted to widows over sixty
years of age, they might not find many subjects, and in this climate
the deaconesses might be incapable of much work.
The action of the convention in regard to _ritualism_ is so remarkable
that we hardly know how to describe it.
The bishops in their pastoral have something to say on it, which we
shall notice afterward. They, however, are only one-third of the
convention, and cannot of themselves pass any laws which shall have
binding force. It seems that, three years ago, when the matter was
discussed, a committee was appointed to examine the subject, and
report a canon or canons to be enacted which might produce uniformity.
This committee reported very plainly, and gave an opinion which can be 512
understood. They recommended a canon which should forbid all the
peculiar actions of the ritualists, such as “the use of incense, the
placing or retaining a crucifix in any part of the church, the use of
lights about the holy table, the elevation of the _elements_ in
holy communion for the purpose of adoration, the mixing of water with
the wine, the washing of the priest’s hands, the ablution of the
vessels, the celebration of holy communion when there is no one to
receive, and using any prayers or services not contained in the
_Book of Common Prayer_.” This recommendation was referred to a joint
committee, who, not being able to agree perfectly, brought forth as
the result of their labors the draft of a law which makes the rule of
ritual the _Prayer-Book_ and “the canons of the Church of England in
use in the American Provinces before 1789, and not subsequently
superseded, altered, or repealed.” Then, as few seemed to know about
these canons, it was determined to appoint a new committee to find out
about them, and inform the next General Convention. In the meantime,
all mixed questions were to be settled by the bishops in their various
dioceses, should it please them to interfere, or should any brother be
offended by excess or defect of ritual. The evident result of all this
legislation was to leave the whole matter just where it was before.
This canon did not, however, seem to please. Some of the members
wished to know what these “customs before 1789” were, before they
could intelligently act, and on a division of the house the project
was lost. Substitutes a little more decisive were offered, and they
did not meet with favor. The bishops, anxious as it would seem to have
some action taken on the subject, sent down to the deputies the
following resolution, which they had passed, and for which they asked
the concurrence of their brethren:
“_Resolved_ (the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies
concurring), That the following canon be adopted and enacted, to
be entitled Canon ----:
“The elevation of the elements in the holy communion in such
manner as to expose them to the view of the people as objects
toward which adoration is to be made, in or after the prayer of
consecration, or in the act of administering them, or in carrying
them to or from the communicants, and any gesture, posture, or
act implying such adoration, and any ceremony not prescribed as
part of the order of the administration of the Lord’s Supper or
holy communion in the _Book of Common Prayer_, and the
celebration or reception of the holy communion by any bishop or
priest when no person receives with him; likewise, the use, at
any administration of the holy communion, of any hymns, prayers,
collects, epistles, or gospels other than those appointed in the
authorized formularies of the church or under § 14 of canon 13,
title 1, of the Digest, are hereby forbidden.”
This resolution was put to vote, and lost by a small majority on the
clerical vote. The following proposition was then offered and adopted
unanimously, which, so far as we know, was the end of the matter in
the convention:
“_Resolved_, That this convention hereby expresses its decided
condemnation of all ceremonies, observances, and practices which
are fitted to express a doctrine foreign to that set forth in the
authorized standards of this church.”
A slight review of this remarkable action on the subject of ritual
will show that the bishops were anxious to pass a law against the
practices peculiar to the few good people who are called ritualists,
but that they were outvoted by the clerical deputies, and that nothing 513
has been done which will have any weight. For who knows what the
doctrine set forth in the authorized standards of the Episcopal Church
is? And who will determine when ceremonies contravene the doctrine
about which no one is certain? The Thirty-nine Articles speak plainly
enough when they tell us that “the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was
not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or
worshipped,” and that “the sacrifices of Masses were blasphemous
fables and dangerous deceits.” Yet we are told that these words do not
mean anything which could forbid the elevation and adoration of the
Holy Eucharist, or the private celebration of the sacrifice of the
Mass.
We are moreover informed that these articles are of no authority,
although confessedly they are the only creed which the Protestant
Episcopal Church possesses. So, when men can thus seriously argue, and
quietly look each other in the face, we despair of finding any words
which cannot be misinterpreted. So, as they say, with thanks to God
for his great mercy, our ritual friends will go on, and do as they
have done, interpreting the standards to suit themselves, and, above
all, taking advantage of that blessed _Use of Sarum_ which has been
to them a source of so great consolation.
Appropriately of all this, we give an extract from the _Church
Weekly_, regulating the order of service for the third week of
November.
[Column Header Key:
A = Day of Month.
B = Day of Week.
C = Concordance.
D = Observance.]
KALENDAR FOR THE WEEK.
+----+-----+--------------------------------+--------+--------------------+
| | | | | |Altar Color.|
| A | B | NOVEMBER. | C | D +------+-----+
| | | | | |Sarum.| Rom.|
+----+-----+--------------------------------+--------+-------+------+-----+
| 19 | S. | 24th after Trinity, | .. | Feast.| R. | G. |
| 20 | M. | [S. Edmund, K. M., | A[113] | .. | R. | R. |
| 22 | W. | [S. Cecilia, V. M., | C[113] | .. | R. | R. |
| 23 | Th. | [S. Clement, Bp. Rome, M., | .. | .. | R. | R. |
| 25 | S. | [S. Katharine, V. M., | C[113] | .. | R. | R. |
| 26 | S. | Sunday next before Advent,[114]| .. | Feast.| .. | G. |
+----+-----+--------------------------------+--------+-------+------+-----+
It must be observed that “Calendar” is spelt with a K, which is more
ancient, and that the “authorized standards” of the Episcopal Rite
have nothing about S. Edmund, S. Cecilia, S. Clement, nor S. Catharine
(spelt with a K). The “altar color” is also very useful, especially as
they give at the last column the Roman Rite. A friend of ours told us
of a very solemn marriage which he witnessed in Trinity Church the
other day. The Rev. Dr. Dix was the celebrant (as he thought), with a
deacon and subdeacon, all beautifully vested, and the candidates were
a young priest and a young lady, who in this most impressive manner
was to become his wife. Oh! what will the Greeks say to this? We fear
they will be scandalized, and that even the giving up of the
“Filioque” will not prevent them from staring with eyes wide open. The 514
priest said the nuptial mass, and the other priest and his wife
received the holy communion and the sacrament of matrimony. How does
this compare with the services before 1789?
We cannot, however, pass over the action and language of the bishops
in this matter. We suppose our Anglican friends will admit that
neither priests nor laymen are by any rule of ecclesiastical antiquity
allowed to judge in council on points of faith. This has generally
been left to the episcopate, to which, in union with its head, Christ
committed the government of his church. Now, for the advanced High
Churchmen it is a sad fact that the bishops of their church have
unqualifiedly condemned them. They have done this, first in the canon
which they passed and sent down to the House of Deputies, and,
secondly, in the language of their pastoral, which is the accurate
expression of their doctrine. We know that their words can be
explained away, but we respectfully submit that this time the attempt
to do so will be dishonesty. If these reverend fathers in God can
speak at all, then they have spoken. We give their words, and pray
they may fall upon the open ears of their children who bow down before
them as “apostles”: “The doctrine which chiefly attempts to express
itself by ritual, in questionable and dangerous ways, is connected
with the Holy Eucharist. That doctrine is emphatically _a novelty in
theology_. What is known as eucharistical adoration is undoubtedly
inculcated and encouraged by that ritual of posture _lately_ introduced
among us, which finds no warrant in our ‘Office for the Administration
of Holy Communion.’” They then go on to say that whatever presence of
Christ there may be is such as does not allow him to be there
worshipped, and that to adore the elements is “an awful error.” We
give an extract from a writer in one of our New York journals, who
seems, up to this time, to be honest in his understanding of his
spiritual fathers:
“3. There are bishops and--bishops; there are doctors
and--doctors. Here is the Bishop of Arizona, for instance, who
says that ‘that doctrine (eucharistic adoration) is a _novelty in
theology_.’ But there is St. Ambrose, whilom Bishop of Milan, who
says, ‘We adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries.’ Here is
the Bishop of Central New York, who declares that ‘the doctrine
and the practice which it implies are most certainly unauthorized
by Holy Scripture, and entirely aside from the purposes for which
the holy sacrament was instituted.’ But there is St. Gregory of
Nazianzum, not recently, indeed, but most truly Bishop of
Constantinople, who used this expression, ‘Calling upon him who
is worshipped upon the altar.’ Here is the Bishop of Delaware,
who unites with the Bishop of Connecticut in saying that ‘the
doctrine and the practice which it implies are most dangerous in
their tendencies.’ But there is the poor Bishop of Hippo,
Augustine by name, who, unfortunately for his reputation,
committed himself to the declaration that ‘no one eateth that
flesh till he have first adored.’ And how many other bishops,
great and small, there are who have acted upon that dictum of the
misguided African, God only knows!”
His appeal is from bishop to bishop, and from doctor to doctor,
according to his own private judgment. We are pained more than we can
express at the malicious quibbles which distort words so emphatically
plain. We submit that, if Jesus Christ _is_ present in the Eucharist,
he _must_ be adored by all but infidels; and, secondly, that, if the
bread is his body, as he said it was, it cannot at the same time be
bread, since two substances cannot coexist in the same space. All
changes of words upon the terms “spiritual and corporal” are only the
unfortunate sophistries of a deceiver or of the deceived. If our 515
ritualistic brethren have any doubt as to the meaning of the bishops,
let them go and ask Dr. Smith, or Drs. Lee and Coxe, Potter and
McIlvaine. They will give a clear reply, we do believe.
We approach another and most important act of the Council of Episcopal
bishops which will certainly render this convention memorable for all
time. They have, in the most solemn manner, given their definition of
the term “regeneration” which is used in the offices of their church.
The Twenty-seventh of the Thirty-nine Articles was probably framed to
suit different opinions among the followers of the Reformation of
Luther. There baptism is called “a sign of regeneration,” though it is
not declared to be the instrument of regeneration, and may be only a
mere sign without the substance. But the Office for Baptism in the
_Prayer-Book_ is in no way equivocal. There it is distinctly taught
that the child baptized is regenerated by the Holy Spirit. According
to all the received acceptation of words and the doctrine of
formularies from which this office was derived, regeneration means the
new birth by which through divine mercy the child, naturally born of
Adam, is supernaturally born again of water and the Holy Ghost,
receives the new life of grace, and becomes really the child of God.
Such are our Lord’s words to Nicodemus, wherein he instructs him
concerning baptism: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Ever since the formation of the Episcopal Church the great majority of
her members have found the words retained in the baptismal service
onerous and out of place. For they do not believe in any such
doctrine, since they have adopted the heretical notions of Calvin and
Luther concerning the new birth. Only a few High Churchmen have ever
held to baptismal regeneration, yet they have had the language of the
_Prayer-Book_ to sustain them in controversy. One of the best and most
learned of the Episcopalian ministers, for many years professor in the
General Theological Seminary, taught that “regeneration” in the
baptismal service, by a special use of terms, meant only a “_change of
state_,” and that the doctrine that baptism was the new birth was
utterly untenable in the Episcopal Church, and contrary to the whole
spirit of its creed. The united voice of the bishops now comes to
declare the same opinion, and to make of the regeneration taught in
their offices only such an external change by which the child is
promised unto God, and, without any interior operation, is adopted
into the visible fold of Christ. We give the language of this most
remarkable definition:
DECLARATION OF THE BISHOPS IN COUNCIL,
OCTOBER 11, 1871.
“We, the subscribers, Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in the United States, being asked, in order to the quieting of
the consciences of sundry members, of the said church, to declare
our convictions as to the meaning of the word ‘regenerate’ in the
‘Offices for the Ministration of Baptism for Infants,’ do declare
that in our opinion the word ‘regenerate’ is not there so used as
to determine that a moral change in the subject of baptism is
wrought in the sacrament.”