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according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.' Nevertheless we are told that 'the purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.' This leaves the Church entirely without any collective organ of expression, and makes it impossible to trust the decisions of individual churches, which may happen to be synagogues of Satan. We are therefore thrown back on the infallibility of Scripture, which, however, is ultimately authenticated, not by the Church, but by the 'inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.'1 The only function allowed to the Church is that we may be moved and induced by its testimony' to a high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture.' The supreme Judge,' it is said, 'by which all controversies of religion are to be determined . . . can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.' But then who is to decide what it is that the Holy Spirit means, when different interpretations are given? Is not a solemn assembly of learned bishops more likely to be correct than a group of ignorant tinkers and cobblers?

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Must we acquiesce in this result, or can we find any function. for the dogmas of the Church within the domain of a scientific theology which has been forced to abandon the old basis of infallibility? We may venture to lay down the following proposition :-The dogmas of the Church, whether they express the contents of an original revelation in a more or less imperfect form, or are the result of earnest speculative and constructive thought, are deeply impressive as embodying the belief held by a vast body of religious men in different countries and through many ages, and they carry with them the natural authority of spiritual devotion, high character, and wide reception.

From this point of view the authority is similar to that which we recognize in other sciences. We never start our

1 Chapter I.

investigations as though there were no accumulated body of knowledge, and as though no one had theorized effectively before us. We build upon the foundations which have been laid by our predecessors; but nevertheless, in all sciences which are not mathematically demonstrative, previous observations are liable to correction by more exact methods, and past theories are liable to be dissipated by increased knowledge. So in religion it is reasonable for the mass of men, who are not specially educated in the subject, to rely upon the trained theologians; and he who would himself be an expert ought to treat with deference the opinions which are commended to him by a vast amount of reasoned conviction, and to make these the starting-points of his science, not indeed pledging himself to them as infallible axioms, but accepting, rejecting, or modifying them after due study of the evidence. Thus we do not start like some primeval savage, with no inherited experience behind us; but we find the ground mapped out, and the great problems of religious thought presented to us in an orderly system, and with at least a provisional solution.

The authority thus described, which I have called natural, in opposition to the supernatural authority claimed by the Catholic Church, cannot be limited to the members of a single denomination, but belongs to all theologians in proportion to their competence. One of the conditions of this. authority is mental freedom. An inquiry which is forced, under penalties, to arrive at prescribed results is not genuine ; and the individual assent which is given in submission either to an outward demand or to a deeply instilled prejudice, is of no value. The boasted unanimity of Catholic theologians ceases to be impressive as soon as we remember that all dissentients were ipso facto excluded from the Church, and that numbers of competent men have been unable to accept their conclusions. Thus the coercion arising out of the claim to supernatural authority has almost destroyed the natural authority which otherwise might have so much

weight, and ordinary men turn with greater confidence to the freer theologians who are found among the protestant sects. These last, however, have also resorted far too much to a system of compulsion; and hence has arisen, in the minds of many, an undue deference to those theologians who set themselves against received opinions, as though they alone uttered the oracles of unfettered scholarship.

There is another way in which the Church influences, indirectly, the formation of doctrine, namely, by its cultivation of the religious life. I use the word Church here in a large sense, of the general body of professing Christians, and especially of those, wherever found, who have manifested the finest and deepest character, and so approached most nearly the ideal of the Christian spirit. We have seen that the theology of individuals and of sects is affected by the quality of the inward life, of which it is, in part, the intellectual expression. We have seen also that the religious element in man is subject to growth, and slowly reaches higher degrees of perfection. The grand conceptions and aspirations of a spiritual monotheism require ages for their development; and accordingly the Church, quite apart from its teaching of particular doctrines, has an educative function in giving greater depth, power, and purity to the religious life, and so creating, or at least bringing into consciousness, the interior data on which a spiritual theology must be reared. We cannot apply this indirect influence at the moment when doctrines come severally under discussion; but by placing ourselves in sympathetic contact with the saints and heroes of Christianity, and (I may add) of other faiths, and so imbibing the deepest life of the Church, we strengthen and purify the organ of spiritual perception, and bring to each question such catholicity of mind and impartiality of judgment as the inevitable limitations of our mortal nature will permit.

From this survey of the sources we must now proceed to the construction of our body of doctrine.

PART II

DOCTRINE OF GOD

CHAPTER I

PRIMARY CONCEPTIONS OF GOD

IN proceeding to the doctrine of God I must assume that the more important questions connected with his existence, and with the intellectual idea which we form of him as the supreme Cause, will be studied, if my readers are so inclined, in books on the philosophy of religion.1 Here we are concerned with the more distinctively religious aspects of the subject, and with dogmas characteristically Christian.

Intellectual belief about God is not faith, and apart from the experiences and demands of man's religious nature the problems of theism, pantheism, and materialism would have merely a scientific interest. But in fact these problems go down into the deep places of our being; and while a discovery that the Newtonian law of gravitation was fallacious would excite our curiosity, and, if adequately proved, would soon be welcomed as an advance in science, a demonstration that there was no God would seem to rend us in two, and leave the higher part of us forsaken and dead. The source of faith is found in the activity of the religious element;

1 I may commend to the student the excellent Selections from the Literature of Theism, by Drs. Caldecott and Mackintosh, 1904, where he can read the arguments of several eminent thinkers, presented in copious extracts, and accompanied by useful notes.

and the intellectual arguments in support of theism are chiefly valuable in removing difficulties which put too severe a strain upon the pure heart and simple conscience. I suggest therefore the following proposition :

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The reality of God is implied throughout the whole range of the religious nature, which exists in relation to him, and seeks a supreme object of veneration, love, and worship.

This proposition is not invalidated by the phenomena of religious history. We have seen that the religious element is of slow growth, putting forth tentative efforts, and feeling after God if haply it may find him; and if religion began in the worship of ghosts or of dead ancestors, or of local and partial deities, still, if it was religion, it must have looked on these as superior to the worshipper, and the undeveloped instinct must have found some sort of satisfaction in the payment of this imperfect homage. But as the nature expanded, its vision was enlarged; and even as art grew from rude scratchings on a bone up to the masterpieces of Raphael, so religion grew from the dim guesses and rude ceremonies of the savage up to the worship of the infinite Spirit in spirit and in truth.

To the general and constant testimony of the religious element we must add more special and occasional experiences, which come in moments of high exaltation when men seem drawn into the more intimate presence of God, and the Divine call appeals to them with a clearness and power that cannot be resisted. We see prophets and saints filled with an energy of conviction which the world in arms could not daunt or silence. We see Christ, with his balanced character and his calm reasonableness, so assured of his life in God that his faith has become a quickening power for millions of men. And there is that within us which is akin to these things, at least a glow of admiration, chords which vibrate with responsive music, a voice whose tones become articulate as we listen to the words of these transcendent souls.

We must now go a step further, and say that the Divine

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