PHASES OF FAITH

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PASSAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF MY CREED.

Francis William Newman, 1874

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

This is perhaps an egotistical book; egotistical certainly in its form, yet not in its purport and essence.

Personal reasons the writer cannot wholly disown, for desiring to explain himself to more than a few, who on religious grounds are unjustly alienated from him. If by any motive of curiosity or lingering remembrances they may be led to read his straightforward account, he trusts to be able to show them that he has had no choice but to adopt the intellectual conclusions which offend them;--that the difference between them and him turns on questions of Learning, History, Criticism and Abstract Thought;--and that to make their results (if indeed they have ever deeply and honestly investigated the matter) the tests of his spiritual state, is to employ unjust weights and a false balance, which are an abomination to the Lord. To defraud one's neighbour of any tithe of mint and cummin, would seem to them a sin: is it less to withhold affection, trust and free intercourse, and build up unpassable barriers of coldness and alarm, against one whose sole offence is to differ from them intellectually?

But the argument before the writer is something immensely greater than a personal one. So it happens, that to vindicate himself is to establish a mighty truth; a truth which can in no other way so well enter the heart, as when it comes embodied in an individual case. If he can show, that to have shrunk from his successive convictions would have been "infidelity" to God and Truth and Righteousness; but that he has been "faithful" to the highest and most urgent duty;--it will be made clear that Belief is one thing and Faith another; that to believe is intellectual, nay possibly "earthly, devilish;" and that to set up any fixed creed as a test of spiritual character is a most unjust, oppressive and mischievous superstition. The historical form has been deliberately selected, as easier and more interesting to the reader; but it must not be imagined that the author has given his mental history in general, much less an autobiography. The progress of his creed is his sole subject; and other topics are introduced either to illustrate this or as digressions suggested by it.

March 22nd, 1850.

PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION

I had long thought that the elaborate reply made for me in the "Prospective Review" (1854) to Mr. Henry Rogers's Defence of the "Eclipse of Faith," superseded anything more from my pen. But in the course of six years a review is forgotten and buried away, while Mr. Rogers is circulating the ninth edition of his misrepresentations.

As my publisher announces to me the opportunity, I at length consent to reply myself to the Defence, cancelling what was previously my last chapter, written against the "Eclipse."

All that follows p. 175 in this edition is new.

June, 1860.

CONTENTS.

I. MY YOUTHFUL CREED

II. STRIVINGS AFTER A MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

III. CALVINISM ABANDONED

IV. THE RELIGION OF THE LETTER RENOUNCED

V. FAITH AT SECOND HAND FOUND TO BE VAIN

VI. HISTORY DISCOVERED TO BE NO PART OF RELIGION

VII. ON THE MORAL PERFECTION OF JESUS

VIII. ON BIGOTRY AND PROGRESS

IX. REPLY TO THE "DEFENCE OF THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH"

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

PHASES OF FAITH.

CHAPTER I.

MY YOUTHFUL CREED.

I first began to read religious books at school, and especially the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer. But it was not until I was fourteen that I gained any definite idea of a "scheme of doctrine," or could have been called a "converted person" by one of the Evangelical School. My religion then certainly exerted a great general influence over my conduct; for I soon underwent various persecution from my schoolfellows on account of it: the worst kind consisted in their deliberate attempts to corrupt me. An Evangelical clergyman at the school gained my affections, and from him I imbibed more and more distinctly the full creed which distinguishes that body of men; a body whose bright side I shall ever appreciate, in spite of my present perception that they have a dark side also. I well remember, that one day when I said to this friend of mine, that I could not understand how the doctrine of Election was reconcilable to God's Justice, but supposed that I should know this in due time, if I waited and believed His word;--he replied with emphatic commendation, that this was the spirit which God always blessed. Such was the beginning and foundation of my faith,--an unhesitating unconditional acceptance of whatever was found in the Bible. While I am far from saying that my whole moral conduct was subjugated by my creed, I must insist that it was no mere fancy resting in my intellect: it was really operative on my temper, tastes, pursuits and conduct.

When I was sixteen, in 1821, I was "confirmed" by Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, and endeavoured to take on myself with greater decision and more conscientious consistency the whole yoke of Christ. Every thing in the Service was solemn to me, except the bishop: he seemed to me a made-up man and a mere pageant. I also remember that when I was examined by the clergyman for confirmation, it troubled me much that he only put questions which tested my memory concerning the Catechism and other formulas, instead of trying to find out whether I had any actual faith in that about which I was to be called to profess faith: I was not then aware that his sole duty was to try my knowledge. But I already felt keenly the chasm that separated the High from the Low Church; and that it was impossible for me to sympathize with those who imagined that Forms could command the Spirit.

Yet so entirely was I enslaved to one Form,--that of observing the Sunday, or, as I had learned falsely to call it, the Sabbath,--that I fell into painful and injurious conflict with a superior kinsman, by refusing to obey his orders on the Sunday. He attempted to deal with me by mere authority, not by instruction; and to yield my conscience to authority would have been to yield up all spiritual life. I erred, but I was faithful to God.

When I was rather more than seventeen, I subscribed the 39 Articles at Oxford in order to be admitted to the University. Subscription was "no bondage," but pleasure; for I well knew and loved the Articles, and looked on them as a great bulwark of the truth; a bulwark, however, not by being imposed, but by the spiritual and classical beauty which to me shone in them. But it was certain to me before I went to Oxford, and manifest in my first acquaintance with it, that very few academicians could be said to believe them. Of the young men, not one in five seemed to have any religious convictions at all: the elder residents seldom or never showed sympathy with the doctrines that pervade that formula. I felt from my first day there, that the system of compulsory subscription was hollow, false, and wholly evil.

Oxford is a pleasant place for making friends,--friends of all sorts that young men wish. One who is above envy and scorns servility,--who can praise and delight in all the good qualities of his equals in age, and does not desire to set himself above them, or to vie with his superiors in rank,--may have more than enough of friends, for pleasure and for profit. So certainly had I; yet no one of my equals gained any ascendancy over me, nor perhaps could I have looked up to any for advice. In some the intellect, in others the religious qualities, were as yet insufficiently developed: in part also I wanted discrimination, and did not well pick out the profounder minds of my acquaintance. However, on my very first residence in College, I received a useful lesson from another freshman,--a grave and thoughtful person, older (I imagine) than most youths in their first term. Some readers may be amused, as well as surprized, when I name the delicate question on which I got into discussion with my fellow freshman. I had learned from Evangelical books, that there is a twofold imputation to every saint,--not of the "sufferings" only, but also of the "righteousness" of Christ. They alleged that, while the sufferings of Jesus are a compensation for the guilt of the believer and make him innocent, yet this suffices not to give him a title to heavenly glory; for which he must over and above be invested in active righteousness, by all Christ's good works being made over to him. My new friend contested the latter part of the doctrine. Admitting fully that guilt is atoned for by the sufferings of the Saviour, he yet maintained, there was no farther imputation of Christ's active service as if it had been our service. After a rather sharp controversy, I was sent back to study the matter for myself, especially in the third and fourth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans; and some weeks after, freely avowed to him that I was convinced. Such was my first effort at independent thought against the teaching of my spiritual fathers, and I suppose it had much value for me. This friend might probably have been of service to me, though he was rather cold and lawyerlike; but he was abruptly withdrawn from Oxford to be employed in active life.

I first received a temporary discomfort about the 39 Articles from an irreligious young man, who had been my schoolfellow; who one day attacked the article which asserts that Christ carried "his flesh and bones" with him into heaven. I was not moved by the physical absurdity which this youth mercilessly derided; and I repelled his objections as on impiety. But I afterwards remembered the text, "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God;" and it seemed to me as if the compiler had really gone a little too far. If I had immediately then been called on to subscribe, I suppose it would have somewhat discomposed me; but as time went on, I forgot this small point, which was swallowed up by others more important. Yet I believe that henceforth a greater disposition to criticize the Articles grew upon me.

The first novel opinion of any great importance that I actually embraced, so as to give roughness to my course, was that which many then called the Oriel heresy about Sunday. Oriel College at this time contained many active and several original minds; and it was rumoured that one of the Fellows rejoiced in seeing his parishioners play at cricket on Sunday: I do not know whether that was true, but so it was said. Another of them preached an excellent sermon before the University, clearly showing that Sunday had nothing to do with the Sabbath, nor the Sabbath with us, and inculcating on its own ground a wise and devout use of the Sunday hours. The evidently pious and sincere tone of this discourse impressed me, and I felt that I had no right to reject as profane and undeserving of examination the doctrine which it enforced. Accordingly I entered into a thorough searching of the Scripture without bias, and was amazed to find how baseless was the tenet for which in fact I had endured a sort of martyrdom. This, I believe, had a great effect in showing me how little right we have at any time to count on our opinions as final truth, however necessary they may just then be felt to our spiritual life. I was also scandalized to find how little candour or discernment some Evangelical friends, with whom I communicated, displayed in discussing the subject.

In fact, this opened to me a large sphere of new thought. In the investigation, I had learned, more distinctly than before, that the preceptive code of the Law was an essentially imperfect and temporary system, given "for the hardness of men's hearts." I was thus prepared to enter into the Lectures on Prophecy, by another Oriel Fellow,--Mr. Davison,--in which he traces the successive improvements and developments of religious doctrine, from the patriarchal system onward. I in consequence enjoyed with new zest the epistles of St. Paul, which I read as with fresh eyes; and now understood somewhat better his whole doctrine of "the Spirit," the coming of which had brought the church out of her childish into a mature condition, and by establishing a higher law had abolished that of the letter. Into this view I entered with so eager an interest, that I felt no bondage of the letter in Paul's own words: his wisdom was too much above me to allow free criticism of his weak points. At the same time, the systematic use of the Old Testament by the Puritans, as if it were "the rule of life" to Christians, I saw to be a glaring mistake, intensely opposed to the Pauline doctrine. This discovery, moreover, soon became important to me, as furnishing a ready evasion of objections against the meagre or puerile views of the Pentateuch; for without very minute inquiry how far I must go to make the defence adequate, I gave a general reply, that the New Testament confessed the imperfections of the older dispensation. I still presumed the Old to have been perfect for its own objects and in its own place; and had not defined to myself how far it was correct or absurd, to imagine morality to change with time and circumstances.

Before long, ground was broken in my mind on a still more critical question, by another Fellow of a College; who maintained that nothing but unbelief could arise out of the attempt to understand in what way and by what moral right the blood of Christ atoned for sins. He said, that he bowed before the doctrine as one of "Revelation," and accepted it reverentially by an act of faith; but that he certainly felt unable to understand why the sacrifice of Christ, any more than the Mosaic sacrifices, should compensate for the punishment of our sins. Could carnal reason discern that human or divine blood, any more than that of beasts, had efficacy to make the sinner as it were sinless? It appeared to him a necessarily inscrutable mystery, into which we ought not to look.--The matter being thus forced on my attention, I certainly saw that to establish the abstract moral right and justice of vicarious punishment was not easy, and that to make out the fact of any "compensation"--(i.e. that Jesus really endured on the cross a true equivalent for the eternal sufferings due to the whole human race,)--was harder still. Nevertheless I had difficulty in adopting the conclusions of this gentleman; FIRST, because, in a passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the sacred writer, in arguing--"For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats can take away sins," &c., &c....--seems to expect his readers to see an inherent impropriety in the sacrifices of the Law, and an inherent moral fitness in the sacrifice of Christ. SECONDLY: I had always been accustomed to hear that it was by seeing the moral fitness of the doctrine of the Atonement, that converts to Christianity were chiefly made: so said the Moravians among the Greenlanders, so Brainerd among the North American Indians, so English missionaries among the negroes at Sierra Leone:--and I could not at all renounce this idea. Indeed I seemed to myself to see this fitness most emphatically; and as for the forensic difficulties, I passed them over with a certain conscious reverence. I was not as yet ripe for deeper inquiry: yet I, about this time, decidedly modified my boyish creed on the subject, on which more will be said below.

Of more immediate practical importance to me was the controversy concerning Infant Baptism. For several years together I had been more or less conversant with the arguments adduced for the practice; and at this time I read Wall's defence of it, which was the book specially recommended at Oxford. The perusal brought to a head the doubts which had at an earlier period flitted over my mind. Wall's historical attempt to trace Infant Baptism up to the apostles seemed to me a clear failure:[1] and if he failed, then who was likely to succeed? The arguments from Scripture had never recommended themselves to me. Even allowing that they might confirm, they certainly could not suggest and establish the practice. It now appeared that there was no basis at all; indeed, several of the arguments struck me as cutting the other way. "Suffer little children to come unto me," urged as decisive: but it occurred to me that the disciples would not have scolded the little children away, if they had ever been accustomed to baptize them. Wall also, if I remember aright, declares that the children of proselytes were baptized by the Jews; and deduces, that unless the contrary were stated, we must assume that also Christ's disciples baptized children: but I reflected that the baptism of John was one of "repentance," and therefore could not have been administered to infants; which (if precedent is to guide us) afforded the truer presumption concerning Christian baptism. Prepossessions being thus overthrown, when I read the apostolic epistles with a view to this special question, the proof so multiplied against the Church doctrine, that I did not see what was left to be said for it. I talked much and freely of this, as of most other topics, with equals in age, who took interest in religious questions; but the more the matters were discussed, the more decidedly impossible it seemed to maintain that the popular Church views were apostolic.

Here also, as before, the Evangelical clergy whom I consulted were found by me a broken reed. The clerical friend whom I had known at school wrote kindly to me, but quite declined attempting to solve my doubts; and in other quarters I soon saw that no fresh light was to be got. One person there was at Oxford, who might have seemed my natural adviser; his name, character, and religious peculiarities have been so made public property, that I need not shrink to name him:--I mean my elder brother, the Rev. John Henry Newman. As a warm-hearted and generous brother, who exercised towards me paternal cares, I esteemed him and felt a deep gratitude; as a man of various culture, and peculiar genius, I admired and was proud of him; but my doctrinal religion impeded my loving him as much as he deserved, and even justified my feeling some distrust of him. He never showed any strong attraction towards those whom I regarded as spiritual persons: on the contrary, I thought him stiff and cold towards them. Moreover, soon after his ordination, he had startled and distressed me by adopting the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; and in rapid succession worked out views which I regarded as full-blown "Popery." I speak of the years 1823-6: it is strange to think that twenty years more had to pass before he learnt the place to which his doctrines belonged.

In the earliest period of my Oxford residence I fell into uneasy collision with him concerning Episcopal powers. I had on one occasion dropt something disrespectful against bishops or a bishop,--something which, if it had been said about a clergyman, would have passed unnoticed: but my brother checked and reproved me,--as I thought, very uninstructively--for "wanting reverence towards Bishops." I knew not then, and I know not now, why Bishops, as such, should be more reverenced than common clergymen; or Clergymen, as such, more than common men. In the World I expected pomp and vain show and formality and counterfeits: but of the Church, as Christ's own kingdom, I demanded reality and could not digest legal fictions. I saw round me what sort of young men were preparing to be clergymen: I knew the attractions of family "livings" and fellowships, and of a respectable position and undefinable hopes of preferment. I farther knew, that when youths had become clergymen through a great variety of mixed motives, bishops were selected out of these clergy on avowedly political grounds; it therefore amazed me how a man of good sense should be able to set up a duty of religious veneration towards bishops. I was willing to honour a Lord Bishop as a peer of Parliament; but his office was to me no guarantee of spiritual eminence.--To find my brother thus stop my mouth, was a puzzle; and impeded all free speech towards him. In fact, I very soon left off the attempt at intimate religious intercourse with him, or asking counsel as of one who could sympathize. We talked, indeed, a great deal on the surface of religious matters; and on some questions I was overpowered and received a temporary bias from his superior knowledge; but as time went on, and my own intellect ripened, I distinctly felt that his arguments were too fine-drawn and subtle, often elaborately missing the moral points and the main points, to rest on some ecclesiastical fiction; and his conclusions were to me so marvellous and painful, that I constantly thought I had mistaken him. In short, he was my senior by a very few years: nor was there any elder resident at Oxford, accessible to me, who united all the qualities which I wanted in an adviser. Nothing was left for me but to cast myself on Him who is named the Father of Lights, and resolve to follow the light which He might give, however opposed to my own prejudices, and however I might be condemned by men. This solemn engagement I made in early youth, and neither the frowns nor the grief of my brethren can make me ashamed of it in my manhood.

Among the religious authors whom I read familiarly was the Rev. T. Scott, of Aston Sandford, a rather dull, very unoriginal, half-educated, but honest, worthy, sensible, strong-minded man, whose works were then much in vogue among the Evangelicals. One day my attention was arrested by a sentence in his defence of the doctrine of the Trinity. He complained that Anti-Trinitarians unjustly charged Trinitarians with self-contradiction. "If indeed we said" (argued he) "that God is three in the same sense as that in which He is one, that would be self-refuting; but we hold Him to be three in one sense, and one in another." It crossed my mind very forcibly, that, if that was all, the Athanasian Creed had gratuitously invented an enigma. I exchanged thoughts on this with an undergraduate friend, and got no fresh light: in fact, I feared to be profane, if I attempted to understand the subject. Yet it came distinctly home to me, that, whatever the depth of the mystery, if we lay down anything about it at all, we ought to understand our own words; and I presently augured that Tillotson had been right in "wishing our Church well rid" of the Athanasian Creed; which seemed a mere offensive blurting out of intellectual difficulties. I had, however, no doubts, even of a passing kind, for years to come, concerning the substantial truth and certainty of the ecclesiastical Trinity.

When the period arrived for taking my Bachelors degree, it was requisite again to sign the 39 Articles, and I now found myself embarrassed by the question of Infant Baptism. One of the articles contains the following words, "The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ." I was unable to conceal from myself that I did not believe this sentence; and I was on the point of refusing to take my degree. I overcame my scruples by considering, 1. That concerning this doctrine I had no active dis-belief, on which I would take any practical step, as I felt myself too young to make any counterdeclaration: 2. That it had no possible practical meaning to me, since I could not be called on to baptize, nor to give a child for baptism. Thus I persuaded myself. Yet I had not an easy conscience, nor can I now defend my compromise; for I believe that my repugnance to Infant Baptism was really intense, and my conviction that it is unapostolic as strong then as now. The topic of my "youth" was irrelevant; for, if I was not too young to subscribe, I was not too young to refuse subscription. The argument that the article was "unpractical" to me, goes to prove, that if I were ordered by a despot to qualify myself for a place in the Church by solemnly renouncing the first book of Euclid as false, I might do so without any loss of moral dignity. Altogether, this humiliating affair showed me what a trap for the conscience these subscriptions are: how comfortably they are passed while the intellect is torpid or immature, or where the conscience is callous, but how they undermine truthfulness in the active thinker, and torture the sensitiveness of the tenderminded. As long as they are maintained, in Church or University, these institutions exert a positive influence to deprave or eject those who ought to be their most useful and honoured members.

It was already breaking upon me, that I could not fulfil the dreams of my boyhood as a minister in the Church of England. For, supposing that with increased knowledge I might arrive at the conclusion that Infant Baptism was a fore-arranged "development,"--not indeed practised in the first generation, but expedient, justifiable, and intended for the second, and probably then sanctioned by one still living apostle,--even so, I foresaw the still greater difficulty of Baptismal Regeneration behind. For any one to avow that Regeneration took place in Baptism, seemed to me little short of a confession that he had never himself experienced what Regeneration is. If I could then have been convinced that the apostles taught no other regeneration, I almost think that even their authority would have snapt under the strain: but this is idle theory; for it was as clear as daylight to me that they held a totally different doctrine, and that the High Church and Popish fancy is a superstitious perversion, based upon carnal inability to understand a strong spiritual metaphor. On the other hand, my brother's arguments that the Baptismal Service of the Church taught "spiritual regeneration" during the ordinance, were short, simple, and overwhelming. To imagine a twofold "spiritual regeneration" was evidently a hypothesis to serve a turn, nor in any of the Church formulas was such an idea broached. Nor could I hope for relief by searching through the Homilies or by drawing deductions from the Articles: for if I there elicited a truer doctrine, it would never show the Baptismal Service not to teach the Popish tenet; it would merely prove the Church-system to contain contradictions, and not to deserve that absolute declaration of its truth, which is demanded of Church ministers. With little hope of advantage, I yet felt it a duty to consult many of the Evangelical clergymen whom I knew, and to ask how they reconciled the Baptismal Service to their consciences. I found (if I remember) three separate theories among them,--all evidently mere shifts invented to avoid the disagreeable necessity of resigning their functions. Not one of these good people seemed to have the most remote idea that it was their duty to investigate the meaning of the formulary with the same unbiassed simplicity as if it belonged to the Gallican Church. They did not seek to know what it was written to mean, nor what sense it must carry to every simpleminded hearer; but they solely asked, how they could manage to assign to it a sense not wholly irreconcilable with their own doctrines and preaching. This was too obviously hollow. The last gentleman whom I consulted, was the rector of a parish, who from week to week baptized children with the prescribed formula: but to my amazement, he told me that he did not like the Service, and did not approve of Infant Baptism; to both of which things he submitted, solely because, as an inferior minister of the Church, it was his duty to obey established authority! The case was desperate. But I may here add, that this clergyman, within a few years from that time, redeemed his freedom and his conscience by the painful ordeal of abandoning his position and his flock, against the remonstrances of his wife, to the annoyance of his friends, and with a young family about him.

Let no reader accept the preceding paragraph as my testimony that the Evangelical clergy are less simpleminded and less honourable in their subscriptions than the High Church. I do not say, and I do not believe this. All who subscribe, labour under a common difficulty, in having to give an absolute assent to formulas that were made by a compromise and are not homogeneous in character. To the High Churchman, the Articles are a difficulty; to the Low Churchman, various parts of the Liturgy. All have to do violence to some portion of the system; and considering at how early an age they are entrapped into subscription, they all deserve our sincere sympathy and very ample allowance, as long as they are pleading for the rights of conscience: only when they become overbearing, dictatorial, proud of their chains, and desirous of ejecting others, does it seem right to press them with the topic of inconsistency. There in, besides, in the ministry of the Established Church a sprinkling of original minds, who cannot be included in either of the two great divisions; and from these à priori one might have hoped much good to the Church. But such persons no sooner speak out, than the two hostile parties hush their strife, in order the more effectually to overwhelm with just and unjust imputations those who dare to utter truth that has not yet been consecrated by Act of Parliament or by Church Councils. Among those who have subscribed, to attack others is easy, to defend oneself most arduous. Recrimination is the only powerful weapon; and noble minds are ashamed to use this. No hope, therefore, shows itself of Reform from within.--For myself, I feel that nothing saved me from the infinite distresses which I should have encountered, had I become a minister of the Episcopal Church, but the very unusual prematureness of my religious development.

Besides the great subject of Baptismal Regeneration, the entire Episcopal theory and practice offended me. How little favourably I was impressed, when a boy, by the lawn sleeves, wig, artificial voice and manner of the Bishop of London, I have already said: but in six years more, reading and observation had intensely confirmed my first auguries. It was clear beyond denial, that for a century after the death of Edward VI. the bishops were the tools of court-bigotry, and often owed their highest promotions to base subservience. After the Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and general view) might be described as a body of supine persons, known to the public only as a dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the Government. In the last century and a half, the nation was often afflicted with sensual royalty, bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies, bribery and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading all ranks, and insinuating itself into Colleges and Rectories. The prisons of the country had been in a most disgraceful state; the fairs and waits were scenes of rude debauchery, and the theatres were--still, in this nineteenth century--whispered to be haunts of the most debasing immorality. I could not learn that any bishop had ever taken the lead in denouncing these iniquities; nor that when any man or class of men rose to denounce them, the Episcopal Order failed to throw itself into the breach to defend corruption by at least passive resistance. Neither Howard, Wesley and Whitfield, nor yet Clarkson, Wilberforce, or Romilly, could boast of the episcopal bench as an ally against inhuman or immoral practices. Our oppressions in India, and our sanction to the most cruel superstitions of the natives, led to no outcry from the Bishops. Under their patronage the two old Societies of the Church had gone to sleep until aroused by the Church Missionary and Bible Societies, which were opposed by the Bishops. Their policy seemed to be, to do nothing, until somebody else was likely to do it; upon which they at last joined the movement in order to damp its energy, and get some credit from it. Now what were Bishops for, but to be the originators and energetic organs of all pious and good works? and what were they in the House of Lords for, if not to set a higher tone of purity, justice, and truth? and if they never did this, but weighed down those who attempted it, was not that a condemnation (not, perhaps, of all possible Episcopacy, but) of Episcopacy as it exists in England? If such a thing as a moral argument for Christianity was admitted as valid, surely the above was a moral argument against English Prelacy. It was, moreover, evident at a glance, that this system of ours neither was, nor could have been, apostolic: for as long as the civil power was hostile to the Church, a Lord bishop nominated by the civil ruler was an impossibility: and this it is, which determines the moral and spiritual character of the English institution, not indeed exclusively, but preeminently.

I still feel amazement at the only defence which (as far as I know) the pretended followers of Antiquity make for the nomination of bishops by the Crown. In the third and fourth centuries, it is well known that every new bishop was elected by the universal suffrage of the laity of the church; and it is to these centuries that the High Episcopalians love to appeal, because they can quote thence out of Cyprian[2] and others in favour of Episcopal authority. When I alleged the dissimilarity in the mode of election, as fatal to this argument in the mouth of an English High Churchman, I was told that "the Crown now represents the Laity!" Such a fiction may be satisfactory to a pettifogging lawyer, but as the basis of a spiritual system is indeed supremely contemptible.

With these considerations on my mind,--while quite aware that some of the bishops were good and valuable men,--I could not help feeling that it would be a perfect misery to me to have to address one of them taken at random as my "Right Reverend Father in God," which seemed like a foul hypocrisy; and when I remembered who had said, "Call no man Father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven:"--words, which not merely in the letter, but still more distinctly in the spirit, forbid the state of feeling which suggested this episcopal appellation,--it did appear to me, as if "Prelacy" had been rightly coupled by the Scotch Puritans with "Popery" as antichristian.

Connected inseparably with this, was the form of Ordination, which, the more I thought of it, seemed the more offensively and outrageously Popish, and quite opposed to the Article on the same subject. In the Article I read, that we were to regard such to be legitimate ministers of the word, as had been duly appointed to this work by those who have public authority for the same. It was evident to me that this very wide phrase was adapted and intended to comprehend the "public authorities" of all the Reformed Churches, and could never have been selected by one who wished to narrow the idea of a legitimate minister to Episcopalian Orders; besides that we know Lutheran and Calvinistic ministers to have been actually admitted in the early times of the Reformed English Church, by the force of that very Article. To this, the only genuine Protestant view of a Church, I gave my most cordial adherence: but when I turned to the Ordination Service, I found the Bishop there, by his authoritative voice, absolutely to bestow on the candidate for Priesthood the power to forgive or retain sins!--"Receive ye the Holy Ghost! Whose sins ye forgive, they are forgiven: whose sins ye retain, they are retained." If the Bishop really had this power, he of course had it only as Bishop, that is, by his consecration; thus it was formally transmitted. To allow this, vested in all the Romish bishops a spiritual power of the highest order, and denied the legitimate priesthood in nearly all the Continental Protestant Churches--a doctrine irreconcilable with the article just referred to and intrinsically to me incredible. That an unspiritual--and it may be, a wicked--man, who can have no pure insight into devout and penitent hearts, and no communion with the Source of holy discernment, could never receive by an outward form the divine power to forgive or retain sins, or the power of bestowing this power, was to me then, as now, as clear and certain as any possible first axiom. Yet if the Bishop had not this power, how profane was the pretension! Thus again I came into rude collision with English Prelacy.

The year after taking my degree, I made myself fully master of Paley's acute and original treatise, the "Horæ Paulinæ," and realized the whole life of Paul as never before. This book greatly enlarged my mind as to the resources of historical criticism. Previously, my sole idea of criticism was that of the direct discernment of style; but I now began to understand what powerful argument rose out of combinations: and the very complete establishment which this work gives to the narrative concerning Paul in the latter half of the "Acts," appeared to me to reflect critical honour[3] on the whole New Testament. In the epistles of this great apostle, notwithstanding their argumentative difficulties, I found a moral reality and a depth of wisdom perpetually growing upon me with acquaintance: in contrast to which I was conscious that I made no progress in understanding the four gospels. Their first impression had been their strongest: and their difficulties remained as fixed blocks in my way. Was this possibly because Paul is a reasoner, (I asked)? hence, with the cultivation of my understanding, I have entered more easily into the heart of his views:--while Christ enunciates divine truth dogmatically; consequently insight is needed to understand him? On the contrary, however, it seemed to me, that the doctrinal difficulties of the gospels depend chiefly either on obscure metaphor or on apparent incoherence: and I timidly asked a friend, whether the dislocation of the discourses of Christ by the narrators may not be one reason why they are often obscure: for on comparing Luke with Matthew, it appears that we cannot deny occasional dislocation. If at this period a German divinity professor had been lecturing at Oxford, or German books had been accessible to me, it might have saved me long peregrinations of body and mind.

About this time I had also begun to think that the old writers called Fathers deserved but a small fraction of the reverence which is awarded to them. I had been strongly urged to read Chrysostom's work on the Priesthood, by one who regarded it as a suitable preparation for Holy Orders; and I did read it. But I not only thought it inflated, and without moral depth, but what was far worse, I encountered in it an elaborate defence of falsehood in the cause of the Church, and generally of deceit in any good cause.[4] I rose from the treatise in disgust, and for the first time sympathized with Gibbon; and augured that if he had spoken with moral indignation, instead of pompous sarcasm, against the frauds of the ancient "Fathers," his blows would have fallen far more heavily on Christianity itself.

I also, with much effort and no profit, read the Apostolic Fathers. Of these, Clement alone seemed to me respectable, and even he to write only what I could myself have written, with Paul and Peter to serve as a model. But for Barnabas and Hermas I felt a contempt so profound, that I could hardly believe them genuine. On the whole, this reading greatly exalted my sense of the unapproachable greatness[5] of the New Testament. The moral chasm between it and the very earliest Christian writers seemed to me so vast, as only to be accounted for by the doctrine in which all spiritual men (as I thought) unhesitatingly agreed,--that the New Testament was dictated by the immediate action of the Holy Spirit. The infatuation of those, who, after this, rested on the Councils, was to me unintelligible. Thus the Bible in its simplicity became only the more all-ruling to my judgment, because I could find no Articles, no Church Decrees, and no apostolic individual, whose rule over my understanding or conscience I could bear. Such may be conveniently regarded as the first period of my Creed.

[Footnote 1: It was not until many years later that I became aware, that unbiased ecclesiastical historians, as Neander and others, while approving of the practice of Infant Baptism, freely concede that it is not apostolic. Let this fact be my defence against critics, who snarl at me for having dared, at that age, to come to any conclusion on such a subject. But, in fact, the subscriptions compel young men to it.]

[Footnote 2: I remember reading about that time a sentence in one of his Epistles, in which this same Cyprian, the earliest mouthpiece of "proud prelacy," claims for the populace supreme right of deposing an unworthy bishop. I quote the words from memory, and do not know the reference. "Pleba summam habet potentatem episcopos seu dignos eligendi seu indignos detrudendi."]

[Footnote 3: A critic absurdly complains that I do not account for this. Account for what? I still hold the authenticity of nearly all the Pauline epistles, and that the Pauline Acts are compiled from some valuable source, from chap. xiii. onward; but it was gratuitous to infer that this could accredit the four gospels.]

[Footnote 4: He argues from the Bible, that a victory gained by deceit is more to be esteemed than one obtained by force; and that, provided the end aimed at be good, we ought not to call it deceit, but a sort of admirable management. A learned friend informs me that in his 45th Homily on Genesis, this father, in his zeal to vindicate Scriptural characters at any cost, goes further still in immorality. My friend adds, "It is really frightful to reflect to what guidance the moral sentiment of mankind was committed for many ages: Chrysostom is usually considered one of the best of the fathers."]

[Footnote 5: I thought that the latter part of this book would sufficiently show how and why I now need to modify this sentiment. I now see the doctrine of the Atonement, especially as expounded in the Epistle of the Hebrews, to deserve no honour. I see false interpretations of the Old Testament to be dogmatically proposed in the New. I see the moral teaching concerning Patriotism, Property, Slavery, Marriage, Science, and indirectly Fine Art, to be essentially defective, and the threats against unbelief to be a pernicious immorality. See also p. 80. Why will critics use my frankly-stated juvenile opinions as a stone to pelt me with?]

CHAPTER II.

STRIVINGS AFTER A MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

My second period is characterized, partly by the great ascendancy exercised over me by one powerful mind and still more powerful will, partly by the vehement effort which throughout its duration urged me to long after the establishment of Christian Fellowship in a purely Biblical Church as the first great want of Christendom and of the world.

I was already uneasy in the sense that I could not enter the ministry of the Church of England, and knew not what course of life to choose. I longed to become a missionary for Christ among the heathen,--a notion I had often fostered while reading the lives of missionaries: but again, I saw not how that was to be effected. After taking my degree, I became a Fellow of Balliol College; and the next year I accepted an invitation to Ireland, and there became private tutor for fifteen months in the house of one now deceased, whose name I would gladly mention for honour and affection;--but I withhold my pen. While he repaid me munificently for my services, he behaved towards me as a father, or indeed as an elder brother, and instantly made me feel as a member of his family. His great talents, high professional standing, nobleness of heart and unfeigned piety, would have made him a most valuable counsellor to me: but he was too gentle, too unassuming, too modest; he looked to be taught by his juniors, and sat at the feet of one whom I proceed to describe.

This was a young relative of his,--a most remarkable man,--who rapidly gained an immense sway over me. I shall henceforth call him "the Irish clergyman." His "bodily presence" was indeed "weak!" A fallen cheek, a bloodshot eye, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom shaven beard, a shabby suit of clothes and a generally neglected person, drew at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing-room. It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar; and if not true, the story was yet well invented. This young man had taken high honours in Dublin University and had studied for the bar, where under the auspices of his eminent kinsman he had excellent prospects; but his conscience would not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his talents to defeat justice. With keen logical powers, he had warm sympathies, solid judgment of character, thoughtful tenderness, and total self-abandonment. He before long took Holy Orders, and became an indefatigable curate in the mountains of Wicklow. Every evening he sallied forth to teach in the cabins, and roving far and wide over mountain and amid bogs, was seldom home before midnight. By such exertions his strength was undermined, and he so suffered in his limbs that not lameness only, but yet more serious results were feared. He did not fast on purpose, but his long walks through wild country and indigent people inflicted on him much severe deprivation: moreover, as he ate whatever food offered itself,--food unpalatable and often indigestible to him, his whole frame might have vied in emaciation with a monk of La Trappe.

Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists, who looked on him as a genuine "saint" of the ancient breed. The stamp of heaven seemed to them clear in a frame so wasted by austerity, so superior to worldly pomp, and so partaking in all their indigence. That a dozen such men would have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism, than the whole apparatus of the Church Establishment, was ere long my conviction; though I was at first offended by his apparent affectation of a mean exterior. But I soon understood, that in no other way could he gain equal access to the lower and lowest orders, and that he was moved not by asceticism, nor by ostentation, but by a self-abandonment fruitful of consequences. He had practically given up all reading except that of the Bible; and no small part of his movement towards me soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary study.

In fact, I had myself more and more concentrated my religious reading on this one book: still, I could not help feeling the value of a cultivated mind. Against this, my new eccentric friend, (himself having enjoyed no mean advantages of cultivation,) directed his keenest attacks. I remember once saying to him, in defence of worldly station,--"To desire to be rich is unchristian and absurd; but if I were the father of children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure them a good education." He replied: "If I had children, I would as soon see them break stones on the road, as do any thing else, if only I could secure to them the Gospel and the grace of God." I was unable to say Amen, but I admired his unflinching consistency;--for now, as always, all he said was based on texts aptly quoted and logically enforced. He more and more made me ashamed of Political Economy and Moral Philosophy, and all Science; all of which ought to be "counted dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord." For the first time in my life I saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others confessed with their lips only. That the words of the New Testament contained the highest truth accessible to man,--truth not to be taken from nor added to,--all good men (as I thought) confessed: never before had I seen a man so resolved that no word of it should be a dead letter to him. I once said: "But do you really think that no part of the New Testament may have been temporary in its object? for instance, what should we have lost, if St. Paul had never written the verse, 'The cloak which I have left at Troas, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.'" He answered with the greatest promptitude: "I should certainly have lost something; for that is exactly the verse which alone saved me from selling my little library. No! every word, depend upon it, is from the Spirit, and is for eternal service."

A political question was just then exceedingly agitating Ireland, in which nearly everybody took a great interest;--it was, the propriety of admitting Romanist members of Parliament. Those who were favourable to the measure, generally advocated it by trying to undervalue the chasm that separates Romish from Protestant doctrine. By such arguments they exceedingly exasperated the real Protestants, and, in common with all around me, I totally repudiated that ground of comprehension. But I could not understand why a broader, more generous and every way safer argument was not dwelt on; viz. the unearthliness of the claims of Christianity. When Paul was preaching the kingdom of God in the Roman empire, if a malicious enemy had declared to a Roman proconsul that the Christians were conspiring to eject all Pagans out of the senate and out of the public administration; who can doubt what Paul would have replied?--The kingdom of God is not of this world: it is within the heart, and consists in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. These are our "honours" from God: we ask not the honours of empire and title. Our King is in heaven; and will in time return to bring to an end these earthly kingdoms: but until then, we claim no superiority over you on earth. As the riches of this world, so the powers of this world belong to another king: we dare not try to appropriate them in the name of our heavenly King; may, we should hold it as great a sin to clutch empire for our churches, as to clutch wealth: God forbid that we covet either!--But what then if the enemy had had foresight to reply, O proconsul, this Paul talks finely, and perhaps sincerely: but if so, yet cheat not yourself to think that his followers will tie themselves to his mild equity and disinterestedness. Now indeed they are weak: now they profess unworldliness and unambition: they wish only to be recognised as peaceable subjects, as citizens and as equals: but if once they grow strong enough, they will discover that their spears and swords are the symbol of their Lord's return from heaven; that he now at length commissions them to eject you, as vile infidels, from all seats of power,--to slay you with the sword, if you dare to offer sacrifice to the immortal gods,--to degrade you so, that you shall only not enter the senate, or the privy council of the prince, or the judgment seat, but not even the jury-box, or a municipal corporation, or the pettiest edileship of Italy; nay, you shall not be lieutenants of armies, or tribunes, or anything above the lowest centurion. You shall become a plebeian class,--cheap bodies to be exposed in battle or to toil in the field, and pay rent to the lordly Christian. Such shall be the fate of you, the worshippers of Quirinus and of Jupiter Best and Greatest, if you neglect to crush and extirpate, during the weakness of its infancy, this ambitious and unscrupulous portent of a religion.--Oh, how would Paul have groaned in spirit, at accusations such as these, hateful to his soul, aspersing to his churches, but impossible to refute! Either Paul's doctrine was a fond dream, (felt I,) or it is certain, that he would have protested with all the force of his heart against the principle that Christians as such have any claim to earthly power and place; or that they could, when they gained a numerical majority, without sin enact laws to punish, stigmatize, exclude, or otherwise treat with political inferiority the Pagan remnant. To uphold such exclusion, is to lay the axe to the root of the spiritual Church, to stultify the apostolic preaching, and at this moment justify Mohammedans in persecuting Christians. For the Sultan might fairly say,--"I give Christians the choice of exile or death: I will not allow that sect to grow up here; for it has fully warned me, that it will proscribe my religion in my own land, as soon as it has power."

On such grounds I looked with amazement and sorrow at spiritual Christians who desired to exclude the Romanists from full equality; and I was happy to enjoy as to this the passive assent of the Irish clergyman; who, though "Orange" in his connexions, and opposed to all political action, yet only so much the more deprecated what he called "political Protestantism."

In spite of the strong revulsion which I felt against some of the peculiarities of this remarkable man, I for the first time in my life found myself under the dominion of a superior. When I remember, how even those bowed down before him, who had been to him in the place of parents,--accomplished and experienced minds,--I cease to wonder in the retrospect, that he riveted me in such a bondage. Henceforth I began to ask: what will he say to this and that? In his reply I always expected to find a higher portion of God's Spirit, than in any I could frame for myself. In order to learn divine truth, it became to me a surer process to consult him, than to search for myself and wait upon God: and gradually, (as I afterwards discerned,) my religious thought had merged into the mere process of developing fearlessly into results all his principles, without any deeper examining of my foundations. Indeed, but for a few weaknesses which warned me that he might err, I could have accepted him as an apostle commissioned to reveal the mind of God.

In his after-course (which I may not indicate) this gentleman has every where displayed a wonderful power of bending other minds to his own, and even stamping upon them the tones of his voice and all sorts of slavish imitation. Over the general results of his action I have long deeply mourned, as blunting his natural tenderness and sacrificing his wisdom to the Letter, dwarfing men's understandings, contracting their hearts, crushing their moral sensibilities, and setting those at variance who ought to love: yet oh! how specious was it in the beginning! he only wanted men "to submit their understandings to God" that is, to the Bible, that is, to his interpretation! From seeing his action and influence I have learnt, that if it be dangerous to a young man (as it assuredly is) to have no superior mind to which he may look up with confiding reverence, it may be even more dangerous to think that he has found such a mind: for he who is most logically consistent, though to a one-sided theory, and most ready to sacrifice self to that theory, seems to ardent youth the most assuredly trustworthy guide. Such was Ignatius Loyola in his day.

My study of the New Testament at this time had made it impossible for me to overlook that the apostles held it to be a duty of all disciples to expect a near and sudden destruction of the earth by fire, and constantly to be expecting the return of the Lord from heaven. It was easy to reply, that "experience disproved" this expectation; but to this an answer was ready provided in Peter's 2nd Epistle, which forewarns us that we shall be taunted by the unbelieving with thin objection, but bids us, nevertheless, continue to look out for the speedy fulfilment of this great event. In short, the case stood thus:--If it was not too soon 1800 years ago to stand in daily expectation of it, it is not too soon now: to say that it is too late, is not merely to impute error to the apostles, on a matter which they made of first-rate moral importance, but is to say, that those whom Peter calls "ungodly scoffers, walking after their own lusts"--were right, and he was wrong, on the very point for which he thus vituperated them.

The importance of this doctrine is, that it totally forbids all working for earthly objects distant in time: and here the Irish clergyman threw into the same scale the entire weight of his character. For instance; if a youth had a natural aptitude for mathematics, and he asked, ought he to give himself to the study, in hope that he might diffuse a serviceable knowledge of it, or possibly even enlarge the boundaries of the science? my friend would have replied, that such a purpose was very proper, if entertained by a worldly man. Let the dead bury their dead; and let the world study the things of the world: they know no better, and they are of use to the Church, who may borrow and use the jewels of the Egyptians. But such studies cannot be eagerly followed by the Christian, except when he yields to unbelief. In fact, what would it avail even to become a second La Place after thirty years' study, if in five and thirty years the Lord descended from heaven, snatched up all his saints to meet him, and burned to ashes all the works of the earth? Then all the mathematician's work would have perished, and he would grieve over his unwisdom, in laying up store which could not stand the fire of the Lord. Clearly; if we are bound to act as though the end of all earthly concerns may come, "at cockcrowing or at midday," then to work for distant earthly objects is the part of a fool or of an unbeliever.

I found a wonderful dulness in many persons on this important subject. Wholly careless to ask what was the true apostolic doctrine, they insisted that "Death is to us practically the coming of the Lord," and were amazed at my seeing so much emphasis in the other view. This comes of the abominable selfishness preached as religion. If I were to labour at some useful work for ten years,--say, at clearing forest land, laying out a farm, and building a house,--and were then to die, I should leave my work to my successors, and it would not be lost. Some men work for higher, some for lower, earthly ends; ("in a great house there are many vessels, &c.;") but all the results are valuable, if there is a chance of transmitting them to those who follow us. But if all is to be very shortly burnt up, it is then folly to exert ourselves for such objects. To the dead man, (it is said,) the cases are but one. This is to the purpose, if self absorbs all our heart; away from the purpose, if we are to work for unselfish ends.