ANY body of people whatsoever has, of course, an undoubted right to
organize on the basis of any belief or principles which it may happen
to hold. This, always, on the supposition that those principles or
beliefs are not antagonistic to human welfare. They have a right to
establish the conditions of membership and limit their numbers as much
as they please.
For example, suppose a set of persons chanced to hold the belief that
the so-called Shakspere plays were written by Bacon. They have a
perfect right to organize a society, and to say that nobody shall be a
member of that society unless he agrees with them in this belief. If I
happen, as I do, to hold some other conviction about the matter, I have
no right to blame them because they do not wish me to be a member. I
can organize, if I please, another society that shall have for its
cardinal doctrinal statement the belief that Shakspere was the author
of these plays. There is no need that I should quarrel with people
holding these other ideas.
Or, if I am a laboring man, in the technical sense of the word that is
commonly used to-day, I have a right to organize a society devoted to
the furtherance of the eight- hour movement, or any other specific end
or aim which seems to me necessary to the welfare of society as
organized in the modern world.
All this we concede at the outset. People have a perfect right to
organize on the basis of their particular beliefs, and to keep out of
their organization those persons who do not happen to agree with them.
But, and here is a most important consideration, if these beliefs seem
to us who are outside to be vital; if they appear to concern us, to
touch our well-being, our future hopes, then we certainly have a right
to study those beliefs, to criticise them, to put them to the test to
see whether they are well founded, whether they have any adequate basis
of support.
And, still further, if the people holding a certain set of beliefs tell
us that they are inspired of God, that they are spokesmen for God, that
they have had committed to them a certain definite deposit of faith for
the benefit of the world; if they tell us that, unless we agree with
them, unless we accept the conditions and come into their organization,
then we are opposed to God, are endangering our own souls, and are
enemies of the human race, then it becomes not merely our right to look
into these matters: does it not become our most solemn duty? Are we not
under the highest of all obligations to decide for ourselves one way or
the other as to whether these claims are valid? For, if they are, then
there is nothing so important for us as that we should accept them and
live in accordance with them, join the societies that are organized on
them as a basis, do our utmost to extend their acceptance throughout
the world.
If they are not valid, then we ought to do our very best to prove this
also, and help those who are in bondage to these false ideas to attain
their liberty, in order that they may join with us in finding out that
which is true, in order that together we may work for the discovery of
the will of God, and that we may co-operate in helping the world to
find and obey that will.
You would suppose from the ordinary assumption of those who hold the
old creeds, and who have organized their churches on these creeds, as
foundation stones, that there had been at the outset a clear, a
definite revelation of truth, that it had been unquestioned, that it
had come with credentials enough to satisfy the world that the speakers
spoke by authority, and that the matter had from the beginning been
well understood.
It is assumed that we who do not hold these ideas are wilfully wrong,
that we are not inclined to accept the divine truth, that it is on
account of the hardness and wickedness of our hearts, and that we
prefer evil rather than good. We are told that we might know, if we
would, that the matter is definite, and has been perfectly well settled
from the beginning. This, I say, is the assumption.
Let us now, then, investigate the matter for a little while, just as
calmly, just as simply, just as dispassionately as we are able.
I confess to you, at the outset, that I do not like such a task as to-
day seems to be imposed upon me. I do not like to be put in the
position of seeming to criticise my fellow- citizens, my friends, and
neighbors; but it seems to me that it is more than a task, that it is a
duty, and one that I cannot readily escape. I mean as little as
possible even to seem to criticise people; but I must look into the
foundations of their beliefs, and see whether they are valid, whether
there is any reason why we should feel ourselves compelled to-day to
accept them.
Let us take our place, then, at the outset of Christianity by the side
of Jesus and the apostles. Now let us note one strange fact. For the
first two or three hundred years the belief of the Church was chaotic,
unconfirmed, unsettled. There was dispute and discussion of the most
earnest and most bitter kind concerning what are regarded to-day as the
very fundamentals of the Christian faith.
This would hardly seem possible, would it, if Jesus had made himself
perfectly clear and explicit in regard to these matters? If Jesus were
really God, and if he came down on to this earth for the one express
purpose of telling humanity what kind of moral and spiritual condition
it was in, just what it needed in order to be saved, would you not
suppose that he would have been so clear that there could have been no
honest question about it?
If, for example, Jesus knew he was God, ought not he to have told it so
plainly that no honest man could go astray about it? If he knew that
the human race fell in Adam and was in a condition of loss under the
general wrath and curse of God, ought not he to have said something
about Adam, something about the Garden of Eden, something about the
fall? Yet it never appears anywhere that he did. If he knew it was
absolutely necessary for us to hold certain ideas about the Bible,
ought not he to have told us? If he knew that the great majority of the
human race was going to endless and hopeless torment in the future
unless they held certain beliefs, ought not he to have made it plain?
But take that which I read as a part of our Scripture lesson this
morning, that magnificent picture of the judgment scene, where he
divides the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Who are
the sheep, and who are the goats? Those who are to be admitted with
glad welcome to the presence of the Father are simply those that have
been morally good; and those who are told they must be shut out are
simply those who have bee morally bad. There is no hint of the
necessity of any belief at all. Nothing said about any Bible, about any
Trinity, about any faith, about anything that is supposed to be
essential as a condition of salvation, not a word. Only the good
receive the welcome, and the bad are shut out. That is all.
If this is not true, ought he not to have told us something about it,
and made it perfectly clear?
Now what was the condition of popular belief? Let me illustrate it by
one or two points. Origen, for example, one of the most famous of the
Church Fathers, believed and preached the pre-existence of the human
soul and universal salvation. Now, if Jesus said anything contrary to
this belief of universal salvation, either Origen did not know anything
about it or he did not regard it as of any authority, one or the other.
We cannot conceive of his holding a position of this sort if he had
known that Jesus had pronounced explicitly to the contrary.
Take another illustration. Two weeks ago this morning I had occasion to
quote to you a few words from another of the old Church Fathers, Justin
Martyr, who taught explicitly that Jesus was not the equal of the
Father, but a subordinate and created being. Now, if Jesus had clearly
taught anything approaching the doctrine of the Trinity, is it
conceivable that Justin Martyr had not heard of it, or, having heard of
it, had not accepted it?
At any rate, if these things were true and important, it is
inconceivable that the Church Fathers, the very founders of
Christianity, should have been all at sea in regard to them, should
have held divergent opinions, and should have been discussing these
questions one way and the other for three hundred years.
Let us now see what we have as a basis for belief in regard to what
Jesus really did say. The Gospels grew up in a time when there was no
shorthand writing, no reporting. Jesus does not say one word about
having any record made of his teaching, does not seem to have
considered it of the slightest importance. He simply talks and
converses as friend with friend, preaches to the crowds wherever they
gather, but says nothing whatever about founding any system of
doctrine, says nothing about the importance of having a statement of
his doctrine kept.
The Gospels, as a matter of fact, did not come into their present shape
for many years after his death. How long? The critics are not at one in
regard to it. A book has recently been translated from the German, by a
professor in the Union Theological Seminary in this State, which says
that not a single one of the Gospels was known in its present shape
until between the years 150 and 200 A.D. All scholars do not accept
this; but they are all at one in the statement that it was a great many
years after the death of Jesus before they came into the shape in which
we know them to-day.
There was, then, no clear record at the first in regard to these
matters of belief; and, as I said a moment ago, for the first two or
three hundred years the condition of the Church was chaotic. It was a
long time coming to a consciousness of itself.
Now let us note the time when a few of the creeds were formed, and what
are some of their characteristics.
Although the Apostles' Creed would seem to take us back to the
apostles, we are not to deal with that first, because it was not the
first one of the creeds to come into its present shape.
The oldest creed that we have to-day is the Nicene. When was that
formed? It was agreed upon at the Council of Nicaea, in the early part
of the fourth century. Now note, if you please, what influences shaped
and determined it.
Did those who proposed that this particular clause or that should enter
into it have any proof of their belief? Did they even claim to have?
Why, the idea of evidence, the thought of proof, was absolutely unknown
to the mind of Christendom at that time. Nobody thought of such a thing
as proposing to prove that this or that or the other was true.
The Nicene Creed came into existence very much, indeed, as does the
platform of a political party at the present time. One man fought for
this proposition, another man for that one; and at last it was a sort
of compromise decided by a majority. And how was the majority reached?
Friends, there were bribes, there were threats, there were all kinds of
intimidation, there were blows, there was wrangling of every kind,
there was banishment, there was murder. There has not been a political
platform in the modern world evolved out of such brutal, conflicting,
anti-religious conditions as those which prevailed before and in
connection with the Council of Nicaea.
Anything like evidence? Not heard of or thought of. Anything like quiet
brooding of those who supposed they were, under the influence of the
Holy Ghost, receiving divine and sacred truth? The farthest possible
from any conditions that could be suggested by such a thought.
And at the last, though undoubtedly the majority of the Church at that
time was Unitarian, as I told you the other day it was the decisive
influence of the Emperor Constantine which settled the controversy.
Thus came into existence in the fourth century the oldest of the church
Creeds which is recognized as authoritative in the Catholic, the
Anglican, and the Episcopal churches of the present time.
And this Nicene Creed, if I had time to go into it and analyze it, I
could show you contains elements which no intelligent man in any of
these churches thinks of believing at the present time; and yet nobody
dares suggest a change, or the bringing it into accord with what the
intelligence of the modern world knows to be true.
Let us pass on, and consider for a moment the Apostles' Creed, so
called. There was a time in the Church when people really supposed that
the apostles were its author. There are persons to-day who have not
discovered the contrary. I crossed the ocean a few years ago when on
board were a bishop of one of the Western States and a young candidate
for orders who was travelling with him as his pupil. I fell into
conversation with this young man, and found that he really believed
that the twelve clauses of the Apostles' Creed were manufactured by the
apostles themselves. He had never discovered anything to the contrary.
A still more astonishing fact came to my knowledge last year. During
that discussion over Ian McLaren's creed, in which so many people were
interested last winter, Chancellor McCracken, of the University of New
York, published a letter, in which he referred to the Apostles' Creed
as written eighteen hundred years ago. It took my breath away when I
read it. I wondered, Could the chancellor of a great University
possibly be ignorant of the facts? Would he state that which he knew
was not true? I could not explain it either way. I was compelled to
think, if he was thoughtless and careless about it, that he had no
business to be about a matter of such importance. But he said the
Apostles' Creed was written eighteen hundred years ago.
Now what are the facts? The apostles had nothing whatever to do with
the creed, as everybody knows to-day who chooses to look into the
matter. It grew, and was four or five hundred years in growth, one
phrase in one shape held in a certain part of the Church, another
phrase in another shape held in another part of the Church, people
holding nothing so sacred about it but that they were at perfect
liberty to change it and add to it and take away from it, until, as we
get it to- day, it appeared for the first time in history at about the
year 500. And yet it stands in the Church to-day claiming to be the
Apostles' Creed.
And this Apostles' Creed, if it were a part of the purpose I have in
mind this morning, I could analyze, and find that it contains elements
which nobody accepts to-day; and yet nobody dares to propose touching
it, such is the reverence for that which is old. So much more reverence
does the world have for that which is old than for that which is true.
If you approach a Churchman in regard to his belief in the resurrection
of the body, he will say, Of course, we do not believe in the
resurrection of the body: we believe in the resurrection of the soul.
But he does not believe in the resurrection of the soul, either.
Let me make two statements in regard to this. In the first place, if he
does not believe in the resurrection of the body, he has no right to
say it, because the House of Bishops, representing the whole Church of
the United states, in an authoritative pastoral letter issued within
three years, declares that fixity of interpretation is of the essence
of the creeds. No man, then, is at liberty to change the interpretation
to suit himself.
And then, again, nobody, as I say, believes in the resurrection of the
soul. Why? Because that statement, with the authority of the House of
Bishops that nobody has any business to change or reinterpret, carries
with it a world underneath the surface of the earth to which the dead
go down; and resurrection means coming up again from that underground
world. Nobody believes in any underground world to-day. You cannot be
resurrected. That is, you cannot rise again unless you have first gone
down. It is the ascent of the soul we believe in to-day, and not its
resurrection, much less the resurrection of the body.
Now a word in regard to another of the great historic creeds.
The third one to be shaped was the Athanasian Creed. Curiously named
most of these are. There was a tradition in the Church that Athanasius,
who was one of the great antagonists of the Council of Nicaea, wrote
this creed called after his name; but, as a matter of fact, the creed
was not known in the Church in the shape in which we have it now until
at least four or five hundred years after Athanasius was dead.
The Athanasian Creed dates from the eighth or ninth century; and in
this for the first time there is a clear, explicit, definite
formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. It never had been shaped in
perfection until the time of the Athanasian Creed; and this creed
contains among other things those famous damnatory clauses? which the
Episcopal Church in this country, to their credit be it said, have left
out of their Prayer Book. But this Athanasian Creed is obliged to be
sung thirteen times every year in the Church of England; and you can
imagine with what grace and joy they must sing the statement that,
unless a man believes every single word and sentence of it, he shall no
doubt perish everlastingly.
The Athanasian Creed, then, takes us only to the eighth or ninth
century. You see, do you not, that, instead of there having been any
clear, explicit, definite statement of church beliefs on the part of
Jesus and his apostles, they are long and slow growths, and not built
up on the basis of proof or evidence, simply opinions which people came
to hold and fight for and preach, until at last they got a majority to
believe in them, and they were accepted by some council.
I wish now to ask your attention for a few moments to one or two of the
modern statements of beliefs. We are face to face here in this modern
world with a very strange condition of affairs. I wish I could see the
outcome of it. Here are churches printing, publishing, scattering all
over America and Europe, statements of belief which perhaps hardly one
man in ten among their pew-holders or vestrymen believes. They will
tell you they do not believe them; they are almost angry with you if
you make the statement that these are church beliefs; and at the same
time we are in the curious position of finding that the man who
proposes himself as a candidate for the ministry in any of these
churches dares not question or doubt these horrible statements. And, if
it is found that he does question them after he gets into the ministry,
he is in danger of a trial for heresy.
We have had a perfect storm here in New York in one of our greatest
churches over Dr. Briggs. And what was Dr. Briggs tried for? Simply for
raising the question as to whether every part of the Old Testament was
infallible. That was all. Another professor in a theological seminary
in the West was turned out of his professorship for a similar offence.
An Episcopal minister, a friend of mine in Ohio, was turned out of his
church for daring to entertain some of the modern ideas which are in
the air, and which intelligent people believe everywhere. One of the
best known Episcopal ministers in this city to-day has an indictment
over his head. It has been there for eight years; and it is only by the
good will of his bishop that he is tolerated. His crime is daring to
think, and to believe what all the respectable text-books of the modern
world teach.
And people in the pews are indignant if you say that their Church holds
these ideas! It is a curious state of affairs. How long is it going to
last? What is to be its outcome? I do not know.
But let us look for a moment at another. Let us note one or two points
in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith.
It teaches still, with what it claims to be absolute authority, that
God, before the foundation of the world, selected just the precise
number of people that he was going to save; that he did this, not in
view of the fact that they were going to be good people at all, but
arbitrarily of his own will, not to be touched or changed by anything
in their character or conduct. All the rest he is to "pass by "; and
they are to go to everlasting woe. The elect are very few: those who
are passed by are the many. And why does he do this? Just think for a
moment. There is no such colossal egotism, such extreme of selfishness,
in all the world as that attributed to God in this Confession of Faith.
The one thing he lives for, cares for, thinks of, labors after, is
what? His own glory. He saves a few people to illustrate the glory of
his grace and mercy. He damns all the rest purely to illustrate the
glory of some monstrous thing called his justice.
This kind of doctrine we are expected to believe to-day.
And worse yet, if anything can be worse. I wonder how many loving,
tender mothers in all these churches know it, how many know that the
little babe which they clasp to their bosoms with such infinite
tenderness and love, which they think of as a gift from the good God,
right out of heaven, is an enemy of God, is under the curse and wrath
of God? How many of you know that your creed teaches that God hates
this blessed little babe, and that, if he does not happen to be one of
the elect, he must suffer torment in darkness forever and ever?
That is taught in your confession of faith, which I have right here at
my hand. The only mitigation of it that I have ever heard of on the
part of consistent believers is the saying of Michael Wigglesworth, a
famous alleged poet of the Puritan time in New England, when he states
explicitly that none of these non-elect children can be saved, but
since they are infants, and not such bad sinners as the grown up ones,
their punishment shall be mitigated by their having the easiest room in
hell.
Friends, you smile at this. This poem of Michael Wigglesworth's was a
household treasure in New England for a hundred years. No end of
editions was sold. It was earnestly, verily believed; and the doctrine
is still taught every time that a new edition of the Presbyterian
Confession of Faith? is issued in this country or in Europe.
Shall we escape these things by going into other churches? Some of
them, yes; but the essentials are there in all of them.
Take for one moment the Episcopal Prayer Book. I have had friends in
the old churches who have become Episcopalians for no reason that I
could imagine, except that it seemed to them they were escaping some of
the sharpest corners of the old beliefs; and yet, if you will read
carefully the form of service for the baptism of infants in the
Episcopal Prayer Book as held to-day and in constant use in every
Episcopal Church in this country and England and throughout Europe, you
will find that it is taught there in the plainest and most forcible way
that the unbaptized infant is a child of wrath, is under the dominion
of the devil, is destined to everlasting death, and is regenerated only
by having a little water placed on its forehead and by a priest saying
over him certain wonderful words.
Can you believe, friends, for one moment that a little child this
minute belongs to the devil, is under his dominion, hated of God,
doomed to eternal death, then the priest puts his fingers in some
water, touches its forehead, and says, "I baptize thee," etc., and the
child, after this is said, five minutes later, God loves, has taken to
his arms as one of his own little children, and is going to receive him
to eternal felicity forever?
Can we believe such things to-day? Do people believe them? If they do
not, are they sincere in saying they do, in supporting the institutions
that proclaim to the world every hour of every day of every week of
every month of every year that they do believe them?
I have now said all I am going to about these creeds in any special
way. I wish now to discuss the general situation for a little.
I have heretofore said, I wish to say it again, to make it perfectly
plain and emphasize it, that all these old Creeds are based on the
supposed ruin of the race. They have come into existence for the
express purpose of saving as many souls as possible from this ruin.
They never would have been heard of but for the belief in this ruin.
And yet to-day there is not a intelligent man in Christendom that does
not know that the doctrine of man's fall and ruin is not only doubtful,
but demonstrably untrue. It is not a matter of question: it is settled;
and yet these churches go on just as though nothing had happened.
Is it sincere? Is it quite honest? Is this the way you use language in
Wall Street, in your banks and your stores? Is this the way you
maintain your credit as business men?
Oh, let us purge these statements of outgrown crudities, cruelties,
falsities, blasphemies, infamies! Let us dare to believe that the light
of God to-day is holier than the mistakes about Him made by those who
walked in darkness.
Now let me suggest to you. Every one of these creeds sprang out of a
theory of the universe that nobody any longer holds. They are Ptolemaic
in their origin, not Copernican. They sprang out of a time when it was
believed that this was a little tiny world, and God was outside of it,
governing it by the arbitrary imposition of his law. Every one of these
creeds is fitted to that theory of things; and that theory of things
has passed away absolutely and forever.
Consider for just a moment. Why should we pay such extravagant
deference to the opinions of men who lived in the dark ages, of the old
Church Fathers, of Athanasius, of Arius, of Justin Martyr, of Origen,
of Tertullian? Why, friends, just think for a moment. There was hardly
a single point connected with this world that they knew anything about.
How did it happen that the whole modern world should get on its knees
in their presence, as though they knew everything about the Infinite,
when they knew next to nothing about the finite? Is there any proof
that they knew anything about it? Not one single particle.
Think for a minute. We know to-day unspeakably more about the origin of
the Bible, how it grew, how it came into its present shape, than any
man from the first century until a hundred years ago could by any
possibility know. We know a good deal more than Paul, though he was one
of the writers, unspeakably more. He had no means of knowing. We have
sifted every particle of evidence, every source of knowledge that the
world has to show. We know unspeakably more about this universe than
any man of the olden time had any way of knowing. He had no way of
knowing anything.
I said something recently about the origin and nature of man. Very
little was known about this until within the present century. We know
something about how religions grow. We have traced them, studied them,
not only Christianity and Judaism, but all the religions of the world
back to their origin, and seen them coming into shape. We can judge
something about them to-day. You want the antiquity of the world?
People are bowing in the presence of what they suppose to be the
antiquity, that is, the hoary-headed wisdom, of the world. Why,
friends, as you go back, you are not going back to the old age of the
world: you are going back to its childhood. The world was never so old
as it is this morning. Humanity was never so old, never had such
accumulated experience, such accumulated knowledge, as it has this
morning.
If you want the results of the world's hoary-headed antiquity, its
wisdom, its accumulated experience, its knowledge, then get the very
latest results of the very finest modern investigations; for that is
where you will find them.
Then let us note in just a word some other reasons why we cannot hold
these old creeds. The statements that are made about God are horrible.
The statements that are made in regard to the method by which God is
going to deal with his creatures are horrible; and then what they tell
us in regard to the outcome of human history is pessimistic and
hopeless in the extreme.
Where do they claim to get the authority for these old beliefs? They
tell us they find them on the one hand in the Bible. What do you find
in the Bible? You find almost anything you look for. Is it not
perfectly natural you should? The Bible was written by ever so many
different writers during a period covering nearly a thousand years.
Would you expect to find the same ideas throughout it? The book of
Ecclesiastes teaches that man dies like a dog. The Bible upholds
polygamy, slavery, cruelty of almost every kind. You might prove almost
any kind of immorality from the Bible if you wished to.
But take the highest and noblest conception of the Bible you can have.
I was talking with an eminent and widely known clergyman of the
Presbyterian Church during the present year; and we were speaking about
the Bible. I tell you this to show how modern ideas are permeating the
thoughts of men. He said: I confess that, if God had ever given the
world an infallible book, I should be utterly appalled and
disheartened; because it is perfectly clear that we have no such book
now. And, if God ever gave us such a book, then he has lost control of
his universe, and was not able to keep us in possession of it.
Here are Quakers and Methodists proving their beliefs, the Baptists
proving theirs, the Episcopalians proving theirs, the Presbyterians
theirs, all of them different in some particular, and each of them
getting their proof from the Bible.
Let us remember that the Bible is simply a great body of national
literature, and that you can prove anything out of it. Then remember
that it has been proved over and over again by the facts of the
handwriting of God himself to be mistaken and wrong in any number of
directions.
God is writing his own book in the heavens, in the earth, in the human
heart; and we are reading the story there. No creed, then, particularly
if it be infamous and unjust and horrible, can prove itself to us so
that we are bound to accept it to-day on the basis of an appeal to any
book. But the Catholic Church claims not only that the book is
infallible, but that their church tradition is infallible too. Is it?
How can a church prove that its declarations are infallible? Is there
any way of proving it? Think for a moment. It can make the claim: the
only conceivable way of proving it is by never making a mistake. Try
the Catholic Church by that test. It has committed itself over and over
and over again to things which have been demonstrated beyond question
to be mistakes. It has made grave mistakes, not only as to fact, but as
to morals as well.
On what, then, shall we base any one of these "infallible" creeds?
There is no basis for any such claim; and thank God there is not. For
now we are free to study, here, there, everywhere; to read God's word
in the stars; to read it in the rocks; to read it in the remains of
old-time civilizations; to read it in the development of education, the
arts, science; to read it in the light of the love we have for each
other, the love for our children, and the growing philanthropy and
widening benevolence of mankind.
We have thus perfect freedom to listen when God speaks, to see when he
holds a leaf of his ever-growing book for our inspection, and to
believe concerning him the grandest and noblest and finest things that
the mind can dream or the heart can love.