retort. If any one becomes a Papist in consequence of my observations, the blame must be divided (though not in equal shares) between those Protestant divines who cherish the true root of popery in the supposed necessity of orthodoxy; and the delusion of such as can believe that the difficulty against Christianity, which arises from that supposition, is avoided by setting up an infallible church, without a clear and unquestionable appointment of it by God. The share of blame, however, which must fall to the Protestant divines who allow the snare of orthodoxy to lie before the feet of the laity, must be by far the greater. Within the reach, as they are, of mental freedom, and surrounded by the results of free inquiry in other branches of knowledge, they ought long since to have been struck by the mass of difficulties which the increase of knowledge accumulates, day after day, against Christianity, when it is identified with any of the scholastic theories which are embodied in the existing CONFESSIONS OF FAITH*. But no deep study or meditation is required, in order to be convinced that the necessity of orthodoxy for salvation is no part of the gospel of Christ. We need only notice the plain fact, that we have no revealed rule by which to ascertain, with moral certainty, which doctrines are right and which are wrong. As nothing relating to revelation can be more certainly known than the absence of such a rule, it must be evident to all who believe that the Gospel is the means appointed by God for our spiritual happiness, that SALVATION cannot depend on ORTHODOXY. The Gospel cannot consist in abstract doc * “We may talk, then, of the sufficiency of the scriptures as we please; but while the laws establishing subscription to human formularies remain, the voice of the Articles shall alone be heard the ignorance and superstition of mankind shall for awhile preserve the shadow of religion in our land, but its substance shall be nowhere found. Improvements in science and the arts shall, at length, disclose the astonishing absurdity of our national faith. The scriptures shall be disbelieved, because their genuine simplicity and excellence are concealed by designing men from human view : the Articles shall be disbelieved, because they are held forth to it."- Dr. John Jebb, Letters on Subscription, Letter III. I give the concluding part of the quotation in italics, to call the attention of the reader to the uncontrived coincidence of the passage in the text. trines, about which men of equal abilities, virtue, and sincerity, are, and have always been, divided. Once establish this principle, and the objection which, on the supposition of Orthodoxy, irresistibly opposes revelation, is instantly rendered powerless. "To what, then (it will be asked), is SAVING FAITH reduced if it does not consist in ORTHODOXY, or the belief of right doctrines?”—I answer, to an act which does not depend on the fallible understanding of man, but on his WILL, assisted by the ever ready grace of God. Since orthodox belief, without a divinely appointed judge to sanction it, is a matter of the greatest uncertainty, it is inconceivable that it should have been made the condition of eternal happiness by a merciful God. Eternal happiness must be independent of the innumerable and inculpable errors and weaknesses of the human understanding, when it employs itself upon things which, by the confession of those who propose them to be believed, are utterly inconceivable. The promises of the Gospel must have been attached to a MORAL, not to a LOGICAL act. It must be an act in which to fail is blameable: the failure must be not a mistake, but a sin. We cannot suppose SAVING FAITH to have its foundation in the understanding, without implying that God has made the chances of men's salvation commensurate with the strength of their intellectual powers, as well as with their opportunities of training those powers, and of assisting them by means of acquired knowledge-a supposition perfectly untenable for, putting aside the important consideration, that no moral responsibility can lie on the intellect, as a faculty; we know, by repeated experience, that men of the highest mental powers are opposed on points which most Christians deem essential. The only consistent theory of saving faith, as depending on doctrines, is that which contends for the existence of a divinely appointed judge. Could that appointment be proved, the acquiescence in the decisions of the infallible judge would be a moral act. Since, therefore, the non-existence of such a judge places us in the dilemma, that either Christianity is an imperfect work, or that saving faith does not consist in orthodoxy; every sincere believer in the Gospel, whose mental courage is not weakened by superstition, must unhesitatingly conclude, that no error on abstract doctrines can be HERESY, of a wrong belief which endangers the soul*. in the sense Happily the question, whether there exists a divinely appointed judge of orthodoxy, is one which may be solved without profound learning or a prolonged discussion. The non-existence of a judge divinely appointed to remove doubts becomes a certainty the moment that the appointment itself is proved to be doubtful. We cannot, without either folly or impiety, suppose that God would attempt to remove one uncertainty by another. The existence of a divinely appointed judge of doubtful points, is fully disproved the moment that any obscurity appears in the supposed commission. All Catholics, and most Protestants, will probably unite in the reply, that absolute certainty is inconsistent with our present state of existence. To this I answer, that, in regard to the appointment of any means to remove uncertainty, the All-wise Being could not want resources to produce in us the highest degree of moral confidence of which we are capable. But how short of that point fall the proofs which the Catholics give us of the appointment of their infallible judge? How extremely feeble are the attempts of those Protestants who wish to find a church somewhere, which, though liable to error, is nevertheless to settle our doubts, as if it were infallible! Yet such things are seriously proposed by men of talents and learning! How can we be surprised to find that a great portion of the most intelligent part of the world turns away with pity or disgust from theological writers? But to return to our principal subject: These lamentable attempts to find a rule of Orthodoxy arise from the false notion that the union of Christians into a moral body, must depend on unity of doctrine. And here I wish it to be observed, that, if such unity had been intended by Providence, it might have been attained with the highest degree of moral certainty, by means of such an appointment as that which took place in the old dispensation, in regard to the Jewish priesthood. Such a method of producing unity of doctrine is not only conceivable, * See note at the end. but obvious; and, indeed, to none so obvious as to the founder of Christianity and his immediate disciples, as Jews by birth and education. It is not necessary, in this place, to appeal to the supernatural wisdom of Christ and his apostles. Even men of no uncommon capacity could not, in their circumstances, have overlooked the means employed by Moses to give UNITY to the Jewish theocracy. A solemn consecration of a POPE, and of a certain number of BISHOPS, as distinct from PRIESTS; a formulary for keeping up a legitimate succession, and a few rules for the external conditions by which Christians might, at all times, know both whom they were to follow as their infallible guides, and in what circumstances those guides should be considered in a state of supernatural enlightenment, would have reduced the question of Heresy and Orthodoxy to a degree of simplicity fully adapted to the practical purpose of DOCTRINAL UNITY. Since, therefore, the true means of producing and perpetuating that unity were so obvious, and since those supposed to have been appointed have, on the contrary, proved wholly ineffectual, we must inevitably conclude, that doctrinal unity was not intended by Christ. To assert that such unity was desired by him, and that he nevertheless overlooked the obvious means by which his object might have been accomplished, is to make him inferior to any man of common penetration. The FAITH, therefore, proclaimed in the New Testament, cannot be ORTHODOXY; the Heresy deprecated in a few places of that collection of writings, cannot be LOGICAL ERROR*. But, if ORTHODOXY cannot be the principle of union * That the word heresy was used by St. Paul in the sense of practical dissension, can hardly be doubted. The only writer in the New Testament who uses that word, besides St. Paul, is the author of the 2d Epistle attributed to Peter, a document whose authenticity is more than suspected by some of the best and most pious critics. In this latter passage alone it seems to mean false doctrine. But as the notion of practical dissension necessarily embraces the notion of opinion (sense, in Latin placitum), and it is clear that the divisions and disturbances, which may be expressed by the word dissension, cannot take place without the dissenting parties charging each other with error, the two notions have very naturally been mixed up together. among Christians, upon what are men to agree in order to belong to the CONVOCATION* or people of Christ? I believe that the apostle Paul has said enough to answer this question. When, by using the word anathema, he rejects from his spiritual society even an angel from heaven, were it possible that such a being should "preach another Gospel," he lays down the only principle, without which there can be no communion among Christians. Unhappily the word GOSPEL, like the word Faith, is constantly understood, as expressing a certain number of dogmatical articles. Owing to this perversion of the original meaning, these very passages of Paul are conceived to support the long-established notion that Orthodoxy is the only condition of Christian communion; and want of it, a sufficient cause for anathema. I have, however, already proved, that Orthodoxy, without a supreme judge of religious opinions, is a phantom; and since it is demonstrable that no such judge has been appointed, it clearly follows that the apostle Paul, by the name of Gospel, could not mean a string of dogmatic assertions. It is necessary, therefore, to ascend to the original signification of the word Gospel, if we are not to misunderstand the reason of the anathema pronounced by Paul. Let such as wish to rise above the clouds of theological prejudice, remember that the whole mystery of godliness is described by the expression "glad tidings." Sad, not glad tidings, indeed, would have been the apostles' preaching, if they had announced a salvation depending on Orthodoxy, for (as I have said before) it would have been salvation depending on chance. But salvation promised on condition of a change of mind from the love of sin to the love of God (which is repentance); on a surrender of the individual * It is very difficult to discard from the mind the wrong associations which the English word CHURCH attaches to the notion expressed by the original word innλnia, in Latin ecclesia. If church, as some etymologists believe, comes from a Teutonic root (kirk) of the same signification as the Latin circus, and the English circle, its signification might originally have been similar to that of ecclesia, in consequence of the same mental process which made corona a crown, a ring, express a collected multitude: vulgi stante corona. But nothing is more remote from the ideas raised in the mind by the word church, than this. Convocation seems to approach the nearest to the original signification of ecclesia. |