own two primæval ordinances,--the spiritual observance of the Sabbath
and the sanctity of Marriage,--is quietly ignored. A youth utterly
degraded by sensuality[29], and blinded by unbelief[30], is a terrible
picture truly. Dr. Temple therefore boldly gives the lie direct to
History, sacred and profane; and insists that "side by side with freedom
from idolatry, _there had grown up in the Jewish mind a chaster morality
than was to be found elsewhere in the world_:" (p. 12:) that "_in
chastity the Hebrews stood alone_; and this virtue, which had grown up
with them from their earliest days (!!!) _was still in the vigour of
fresh life when they were commissioned to give the Gospel to the
nations_." (p. 13.)
Behold the Colossal Child therefore, now grown into a Colossal "Youth
too old for discipline." (p. 20, _bottom_.) "The tutors and governors
have done their work;" (p. 20;) and he is now to go through a distinct
process of training. Three tutors are now brought in to give the
finishing touches to the youth's education, and to inaugurate his new
career. Rome, Greece, and Asia,--which for some unexplained reason never
become (according to Dr. Temple) any part of the Colossal Man _at
all_,--now come in; "Rome to discipline the human will; Greece, the
reason and taste; Asia, the spiritual imagination." (p. 19.) The Law and
the Prophets had disciplined the Colossal Child's conscience,--with what
success we have seen. At all events, Moses and Isaiah are for infants:
we have passed the age for such helps as _they_ could supply. In a
word,--"The childhood of the world was over when our Lord appeared on
earth." (p. 20.) It was "just the meeting-point of the Child and the
Man; the brief interval which separates restraint from liberty." (p.
22.) "It was time that the second teacher of the Human Race should begin
his labours. The second teacher is EXAMPLE:" (p. 20:) and "the period of
youth in the history of the world, when the human race was, as it were,
put under the teaching of example, corresponds, of course, to the
meeting point of the Law and the Gospel. The second stage therefore in
the education of man was the presence of our LORD upon earth." (p. 24.)
Let not this stage of Dr. Temple's allegory suffer by being stated in
any language besides his own. "The world" had been a Colossal Child for
1490 years. It was to be a Youth for almost 100. "The whole period from
the closing of the Old Testament to the close of the New was the period
of the world's youth,--the age of examples: and our LORD'S presence was
not the only influence of that kind which has acted upon the human race.
Three companions were appointed by Providence to give their society to
this creature whom GOD was educating, Greece, Rome, and the Early
Church." (p. 26.) Behold then, our Blessed Redeemer with His "three
companions." (I reproduce this blasphemous speculation with shame and
sorrow.) What kind of Example _He_ was, Dr. Temple omits to inform us.
But Greece was "the brilliant social companion;"--Rome, "the bold and
clever leader;"--the Early Church was "the earnest, heavenly-minded
friend." (p. 26.) We are warned therefore against supposing that "our
Lord's presence was _the only influence of that kind_," (i.e. example,)
appointed by Providence for the creature whom God was educating. In a
word: "The world was now grown old enough to be taught by seeing the
lives of Saints, _better than by hearing the words of Prophets_."
(pp. 28-9.)
We come now to the conclusion of the allegory; and Dr. Temple shall
again speak for himself. "The age of reflection begins. From the
storehouse of his youthful experience the Man begins to draw the
principles of his life. The spirit or conscience comes to full strength
and assumes the throne intended for him in the soul. As an accredited
judge, invested with full powers, he sits in the tribunal of our inner
kingdom, decides upon the past, and legislates upon the future without
appeal except to himself. He decides not by what is beautiful, or noble,
or soul-inspiring, but by what is right. Gradually he frames his code of
laws, revising, adding, abrogating, as a wider and deeper experience
gives him clearer light. He is the third great teacher and the last."
(p. 31.)
And now, it will reasonably be asked,--May not the head-master of Rugby
write a weak and foolish Essay on a subject which he evidently does not
understand, without incurring so much not only of public ridicule, but
of public obloquy also? If his own sixth-form boys do not laugh at him,
need the Church feel aggrieved at what he has written? Where is the
special _irreligion_ in all this?
I answer,--The offence is of the very gravest character; and in the
course of what follows, it will appear with sufficient plainness wherein
it consists. For the moment,--singly considered,--it is my painful duty
to condemn Dr. Temple's Essay on the following grounds.
Whereas the Church inculcates the paramount necessity of _an external
authoritative Law_ to guide all her members;--Creeds to define the
foundation of their Faith,--a Catechism to teach them the necessary
elements of Christian Doctrine,--the several forms of Prayer contained
in the Prayer Book to instruct them further in Religion, as well as to
prescribe their exact mode of worshipping ALMIGHTY GOD: whereas too the
Church requires of her ministers subscription to Articles "for the
avoiding of Diversities of Opinions, and for the establishing of Consent
concerning true Religion;"--above all, since all Christian men alike are
taught to acknowledge the external guidance of the Divine Law itself
contained in Holy Scripture,--and every Minister of the Church of
England is further called upon to admit the authority of that Divine Law
as it is by the Church systematized, explained, upheld,
enforced:--notwithstanding all this, Dr. Temple, who has solemnly taken
the vows of a minister of the Church of England, and writes after his
name that he is _Sacræ Theologiæ Professor_, in his present Essay more
than insinuates, he openly teaches that Man "draws _the principles of
his life_," (not from Revelation, but) "_from_ the storehouse of
_experience_:" that we live in an age when "the spirit or conscience
having come to full strength, assumes the throne intended for him in the
soul." This "spirit or conscience" "legislates _without appeal except to
himself_." "He is the third great teacher and the last." (p. 31.) The
world, in the days of its youth, could not "walk by reason and
conscience alone:" (p. 21:) but it is not so with us, in these, the days
of the world's manhood. "The spiritual power within us ... must be the
rightful monarch of our lives." (p. 14.) _We_, (he says,) "walk by
reason and conscience _alone_." (p. 21.)
Now this is none other than a deliberate dethroning of GOD; and a
setting up of Self in His place. "A revelation speaking from without and
not from within, is an external Law, and not a spirit,"--(p. 36,) says
Dr. Temple. But I answer,--A revelation speaking from within, and not
from without, is _no revelation at all_. "The thought of building a
tower high enough to escape GOD's wrath, could enter into no man's
dreams," (p. 7,) says Dr. Temple in the beginning of his Essay, in
derision of the Old World. But he has carried out into act the very
self-same thought, himself; and his "dreams" occupy the foremost place
in 'Essays and Reviews.' He teaches, openly, that henceforth Man must
learn by "_obedience to the rules of his own mind_." (p. 34.) He is
express in declaring that "an external law" is for the age which is
past, (pp. 34-5.) Ours is "an internal law;" "which bids us
yield,"--not to the revealed Will of GOD, "but,--to the majesty of truth
and justice; _a law which is not imposed upon us by another power, but
by our own enlightened will_." (p. 35.) In this, the last stage of the
Colossal Man's progress, Dr. Temple gives him four avenues of learning:
(1) Experience, (2) Reflection, (3) Mistakes, (4) Contradiction. By
withholding from this enumeration _the Revealed Will of GOD_, and _the
known sanctions of the Divine Law_, he _thrusts out GOD_ from every part
of his scheme; denies that He is even one of the present teachers of the
Human Race,--explaining that the time has even gone by when CHRIST could
teach by example[31],--"for the faculty of Faith has turned inwards,
and cannot now accent any outer manifestations of the truth of GOD[32]."
(p. 24.)--By this Essay, Dr. Temple comes forward as the open abettor of
the most boundless scepticism. Whether or no his statements be such as
Ecclesiastical Courts take cognizance of, is to me a matter of profound
unimportance. In the estimation of the whole Church, it can be entitled
to but one sentence. "We use the Bible," (he tells us,) "not to
override, but to evoke the voice of conscience." (p. 44.) "The current
is all one way,--it evidently points to the identification of the Bible
with the voice of conscience. The Bible, in fact, is hindered by its
form from exercising a despotism (!) over the human spirit; if it could
do that, it would become an outer law at once." (p. 45.) Even if men
"could appeal to a revelation from Heaven, they would still be under the
Law (!!!); for a Revelation speaking from without, and not from within,
is an external Law, and not a Spirit." (p. 36.) "The principle of
private judgment puts conscience between us and the Bible; making
conscience the supreme interpreter, whom it may be a duty to enlighten,
but whom it can never be a duty to disobey." (_Ibid._)--Even those who
look upon the observance of Sunday "as enjoined by an absolutely binding
decree," are reproached as "thus at once putting themselves under a
law." (p. 44.) ... Dr. Temple has written an Essay which he calls "an
argument," and for which he claims "a drift." (p. 31.) _That_ argument
is neither more nor less than a direct assault on the Faith of Christian
men; and carried out to its lawful results, _can_ lead to nothing but
open Infidelity;--which makes it a very solemn consideration that the
author, (whose private worth is known to all,) should be a teacher of
the youth of Christian England. _That_ drift I deplore and condemn; and
no considerations of private friendship, no sincere regard for the
writer's private worth, shall deter me from recording my deliberate
conviction that it is wholly incompatible with his Ordination vows.
I forbear to dive into the depth of irreligion and unbelief implied in
what is contained from p. 37 to p. 40, and other parts of the present
Essay: but I cannot abstain from asking why does this author,--who, in
all the intercourse of private life, is so manly a character,--fall into
the _un_manly trick of his brother-Essayists, of insinuating what they
dare not openly avow? The great master of this cloudy shuffling art is
Mr. Jowett. Even where he and his associates in "free handling," are
express and definite in their statements, yet, as their rule is
prudently to abstain from adducing a single example of their meaning, it
is only by their disingenuous reticence that they escape punishment or
exposure. Thus, Dr. Temple speaks of "many of the doctrinal statements
of the early Church" being "plainly unfitted for permanent use;"
(p. 41;) but he prudently abstains from explaining _which_ of those
"doctrinal statements" he means. He goes on to remark:--"In fact, the
Church of the Fathers claimed to do what not even the Apostles had
claimed,--namely, not only to teach the Truth, but to clothe it in
logical statements ... for all succeeding time." He is evidently
alluding to "the forms in which the first ages of the Church defined the
Truth;" [i.e. to the Creeds;] of which he says, we "_yet refuse to be
bound by them_." (p. 44.) He goes on,--"It belongs to a later epoch to
see 'the law within the law' which absorbs such statements _into
something higher than themselves_." (p. 41.) But the writer of that
sentence ought to have had the manliness to explain _what_ that "higher
something" _is_.
Dr. Temple's estimate of the corruptions of the Papacy is of a piece
with the rest of what I must be excused for calling a most unworthy
performance. "Purgatory," &c. (he says) "was in fact, neither more nor
less than _the old schoolmaster come back_ to bring some new scholars to
CHRIST." (p. 42.) (Is the Romish fable of Purgatory then to be put on
the same footing as the Divine Revelation to Moses on Sinai?) It
follows,--"When the work was done, men began to discover that the Law
was no longer necessary." (_Ibid._) (Is it thus that the head-master of
Rugby accounts for, and explains the Reformation?) "The time was come
when it was fit to trust to the conscience _as the supreme guide_."
(_Ibid._) "At the Reformation, it might have seemed at first as if the
study of theology were about to return. But in reality an entirely new
lesson commenced,--the lesson of toleration. Toleration is the very
opposite of dogmatism." (p. 43.) "Its tendency is to modify the early
dogmatism by substituting the spirit for the letter, and practical
religion for precise definitions of truth." (_Ibid._) "The mature mind
of our race is beginning to modify and soften the hardness and severity
of the principles which its early manhood had elevated into immutable
statements of truth. Men are beginning to take a wider view than they
did. Physical science, researches into history, a more thorough
knowledge of the world they inhabit, have enlarged our philosophy beyond
the limits which bounded that of the Church of the Fathers. And all
these have an influence, whether we will or no, on our determinations of
religious truth. There are found to be more things in heaven and earth
than were dreamt of in patristic theology. GOD'S creation is a new book
to be read by the side of His revelation, and to be interpreted as
coming from Him. We can acknowledge the great value of the forms in
which the first ages of the Church defined the truth, and yet refuse to
be bound by them." (p. 43-4.) ... Who so unacquainted with the method of
a certain school as not to understand the fatal meaning of generalities,
false and foul as these?
* * * * *
It may occur to some persons to inquire whether St. Paul, in a
well-known place, does not affirm, (somewhat as it is affirmed in this
Essay,) that "the heir, as long as he is a child, ... is under tutors
and governors until the time appointed of the father?" And that, "Even
so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the
world: but when the fulness of time was come, GOD sent forth His SON
... to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons?" Does not St. Paul also go on to reproach men for
"turning again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto they desired
to be again in bondage?" saying, "ye observe[33] days, and months, and
times, and years[34]." It is quite true that St. Paul says all this: and
I would fain believe that a puerile misconception of the Apostle's
meaning has betrayed the misguided author of the present Essay into a
notion that he enjoys a species of Divine sanction for what he has
written concerning "the Education of the World." I may add that St. Paul
also declares, (in the same Epistle,) that "the Law was our _pædagogus_
to bring us to CHRIST.... But after faith is come, we are no longer
under a _pædagogus[35]_." He further adds an exhortation to the
Galatians, (for it is still _them_ whom he is addressing,)--"Stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith CHRIST hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage[36]."--St. John moreover, in
many places, insists upon the spiritual powers and privileges of
believers, in a very remarkable manner,--the same St. John, the same
'Apostle of Love,' who says of a certain Doctrine which 'Essayists and
Reviewers' write as if they disbelieved,--"If there come any unto you,
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither
bid him GOD speed: for he that biddeth him GOD speed is partaker of his
evil deeds[37]."
But it does not require much knowledge of Divinity to make a man aware
that St. Paul's meaning and intention is as widely removed from Dr.
Temple's, as Truth is removed from falsehood: or rather, that the
Apostle is flatly against him. St. Paul is not bent on explaining what
has been _the Education of the World_, but on pointing out in what
relation _the Gospel of CHRIST stands to the Law of Moses_. He is
reproving men who, having been converted to Christianity, were for
lapsing into Judaism. Certain of the Circumcision had been striving, in
St. Paul's absence, to bring his Galatian converts under the bondage of
the Levitical Law; assuring them that the Gospel would avail them
nothing unless they were circumcised and obedient to the Jewish ritual.
Hence the Apostle's vehemence, and the peculiar form which his
instruction assumes.
The Christian dispensation, (the scheme of Man's Justification by Faith
in CHRIST,) is the fulfilment, (St. Paul says,) of the covenant which
GOD once solemnly made with Abraham. The Mosaic Law, (which was not
given till 430 years after the time of Abraham,) is powerless to cancel
that earlier covenant of Faith. What was the use of the Law, then? some
one may ask. It was a supplementary, parenthetical, superadded thing,
which came in, as it were, accidentally, for certain assignable
purposes. But now that the original covenant of Faith has at length
found fulfilment in the person of CHRIST, it were monstrous (argues the
Apostle) to revert to Judaism: which was a species of prison-house where
we suffered bondage until MESSIAH came to set us free. We were _as
prisoners_, says the Apostle. We were also _as children_, (who,
anciently, from the age of six to fourteen, used to be consigned by
their father to the care of a slave called a 'pædagogus;' who was
neither qualified nor allowed to teach them anything; but whose office
it was _to conduct them to school_.) So _brought to the School of
CHRIST_, where learning comes _by Faith_, (such is his argument,) let
men beware how they revert to the carnal ordinances of the Jewish Law.
How different a view of our true state is thus discovered, from that
which Dr. Temple describes! A glorious liberty is _in reserve_ for us
indeed[38]: a precious freedom is ours already. But it bears no
resemblance whatever to that _lawlessness_ (=anomia=) with which Dr.
Temple seems to be enamoured. It is the correlation of _slavery_, not of
obedience. It implies emancipation from the _Levitical_ Law, not from
the sanctions, however strict, of the _Christian Church_. The Doctrines
of Christ's kingdom are the Christian's crown and joy. _His_ "service is
perfect freedom," and imparts to life all its sweetness.--Not only,
therefore, (according to St. Paul's view of the matter,) were men _not_
released from school at "the meeting point of the Law and the Gospel,"
(p. 24,) but they only _began_ to go to School _then[39]_!
How different a view of the Education of the World does the HOLY
SPIRIT,--does our LORD Himself--furnish, from that which Dr. Temple here
advocates!... Fallen, in the person of Adam, and made subject to the
penalty of eternal death, behold Mankind from the very first taught to
believe that they should be ultimately redeemed by One born of woman.
Under the image of a son who remained in his father's house, the
favoured descendants of Abraham are set before us: while the rest of the
world is pourtrayed in the person of another son, who goes into a far
country, and there wastes his substance with riotous living. _Not_ when
grown into a colossal "youth too old for discipline," (p. 20, _bottom_,)
but in the day of his dire necessity, and when he begins to be sensible
of his utter need, behold the heathen nations, (in the person of the
poor prodigal,) arising, and going to their true Father, and in the
fulness of their misery asking for a hired servant's place in the
household. Behold too GOD'S mercies in CHRIST set forth by "the first
robe," (_that_ robe of innocence which when Adam lost he knew that he
was naked!) and the ring, and the shoes, and the fatted calf! Lastly, in
the embrace which the Father, (while yet the offending but repentant son
is a long way off,) _runs_ to bestow,--behold _how_ GOD loved the World!
But Dr. Temple may say,--_My_ parable relates to one person: that which
you have quoted pourtrays two, and thus all parallelism is lost. (In
other words, _our LORD'S picture_ of "the Education of the World" _is
altogether unlike Dr. Temple's_!)--Take, however, a parable which ought
to suit exactly; for in it mankind are exhibited in the person of "a
certain man."
This individual is represented as one who, as he travels, is by thieves
stripped, wounded, and left half dead. Such then, by nature, is the
state of the human race! Priest and Levite, who "look on him," but "pass
by on the other side," set forth the Education of the World (!) until
CHRIST came. A certain Samaritan, who has compassion on the naked and
wounded wretch, goes to him, binds up his wounds, pours in oil and wine,
sets him on his own beast, brings him to the inn, and takes care of
him:--_this_ one is CHRIST. The stranger's pence, and his promise to
repay at his second coming what shall have been over-expended,--set
forth, I suppose, _that_ ministration of CHRIST'S Word and Sacraments
which Dr. Temple exercises.... Let me dismiss the subject by remarking
that I find no countenance given by Holy Scripture to Dr. Temple's
monstrous notions concerning the Infancy, the Youth, and the Manhood of
the Colossal Man.
Our SAVIOUR CHRIST is indeed set before us in Scripture as our great
Exemplar[40]; and St. Paul calls upon us to be followers, or rather
imitators, (=mimêtai=), of himself; even as _he_ was of CHRIST[41]. But
this walking by example, did not supersede the walking by precept;
neither was it to endure, (GOD forbid!) (as Dr. Temple emphatically says
it was), (pp. 26: 28-9,) only for about a hundred years: still less was
"Example," (the second Teacher of the Human Race,) straightway to find
itself supplanted by "the Spirit or Conscience" of Man,--"the third
great Teacher, and the last." What need to say that until His Second
Coming to judge the world, we shall have _no_ Teacher but CHRIST,--_no_
other way proposed to us to walk in, but that which the Gospel
discloses?
Neither is it true that the world has been old enough, for the last 1800
years, to be taught by "_seeing the lives of Saints_," (a sentiment
worthy of the weakest of Romanists!) "_better than by hearing the words
of Prophets_." (pp. 28-9.) The Church of CHRIST will for ever listen to
the blessed accents of that "goodly fellowship," until she beholds Him
by whose Spirit they spake[42], coming again to judgment. True that the
object with which she will all along _inform_ her children, will ever be
that they may become _conformed_ to the model of her Divine LORD. But
"sound doctrine[43],"--embodied in a "form of sound
words[44],"--constitutes that =parakatathêkê=, or "deposit," which is her
proudest inheritance and her greatest treasure[45]: and impatience of it
is a note of evil men, and of a season at which Prophecy points her
awful finger[46].... "Lawlessness," (=anomia=,) is discoursed of by the
SPIRIT with a mysterious earnestness which it seems to me impossible to
survey without mingled awe and terror lest one may become oneself
involved in the threatened condemnation. I allude of course especially
to what St. Paul says in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians; the
language of which, to be understood, must be studied in the
original[47].
Conscience has her office, doubtless; and a most important one it is.
Conscience is the very candle of the LORD within us. But, (as I have
elsewhere shewn,) it were base treason to speak of conscience as
Essayists and Reviewers speak of it. With _them_, it is indeed
impossible to argue. They must first withdraw from the cause which they
have betrayed; cease to profess the teaching which they disbelieve;
resign their commission in a Church to whose Doctrine and Discipline
they openly proclaim themselves to be opposed. I will not argue _with
them_, while they presume to write B.D. and D.D. after their
names,--hold Chaplaincies,--preside over Schools and Colleges,--profess
to lecture in Divinity,--officiate at the altars of the Church of
England,--by virtue of their sacred office, _and by virtue of that
only_, are instructors of youth. They _cannot_, (if they are in the full
enjoyment of their faculties,) they _cannot_ imagine, for a moment,
that, as honest men, they can remain where they are! They _must_ either
recal their words or resign their stations!