unsuspected index to what we are. A belief which takes its form from a heart sincere before God and pure and true, whatever that belief may be, will not ruin the soul. What Richard Baxter wrote of his Papist opponents two hundred years ago, may be applied with a difference to not a few whose theological errors we are constrained to-day to condemn : 'I doubt not that God hath many sanctified ones among them, who have received the true doctrine of Christianity so practically that their contradictory errors prevail not against them, to hinder their love of God and their salvation; but that their errors are like a conquerable dose of poison, which a healthful nature doth overcome. And I can never believe,' Baxter adds, 'that a man may not be saved by that religion which doth but bring him to the true love of God and to a heavenly mind and life ; nor that God will ever cast a soul into hell that truly loveth Him.'1 This is as true as it is finely said. But it forms no such apology for hesitancy on matters of faith as is often pleaded in these days; as though it were somehow to a man's 1 Baxter's Life and Times (Sylvester, 1696), p. 131. See Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion, viii. note. Has not a credit not to have made up his mind. great poet written There lives more faith in honest doubt, The comparison is, indeed, a little difficult to understand. 'Doubt' is an attitude of mind: 'the Creeds' are documents. The things con trasted are not upon the same plane. But what is meant, I suppose, is that the doubt which is sincere has more of the element of faith in it than unthinking acquiescence in any creed. To the dictum, so put, we should all assent. Only this is no reason for cherishing doubt, for resting in doubt. If there is a faith that 'lives in doubt,' it is the faith that there is a solution which the earnest inquiring spirit will not fail to find. It is believing in the light, although the light for the time may be eclipsed. The word sceptic, we are often reminded, literally means 'inquirer'; and, if we are honest, our purpose in inquiring is to get our questions answered. To linger in the twilight of half-convictions is but a melancholy position, especially for those who are to be the 1 Tennyson, In Memoriam xcvi. (too often quoted apart from the context). C Their highest hope may be resolved, teachers and guides of others. must be that their doubts through earnest endeavour and prayer. Then, indeed, that twilight will prove to have been the twilight of the morning; and the dawn of day will bring to the inquirer the priceless blessing of an honest Faith. So And here we meet the demand for verification, often pressed upon theologians by scientific thinkers. For, in science, this is the one sufficient test of any propounded doctrine. We believe in gravitation, because the theory is verified by every experiment that we try. We believe in the revolution of the earth round the sun, because all the known phenomena are thus explained. in other than scientific beliefs. I trust the disinterested affection of my friend, because it has been tested and may be tested again. It stands as a truth of daily life, as much as of religion, that we walk by faith '-faith, that we are always of necessity putting to the proof, for verification, or else for disillusion and disappointment. what of the supersensuous facts which the Christian Creed affirms ? Can we test them by But any analogous methods of proof? Now, in meet ing this question, we do not in the least surrender the other arguments by which our belief is confirmed. Our Apologetic is manifold. The Revelation that wins our belief commends itself on historical grounds; and its external evidence is reinforced by its intrinsic qualities, its self-consistency, its moral perfection, its accord with a sound philosophy, its proved adaptation to the spiritual needs of man.1 These points may all be reasoned out, but still the chief attestation is in the experience of those who have accepted the Revelation as true, and can show what it has wrought in their own hearts and lives. To trust this answer is in accord with the highest Reason. God speaks within us, and we hear His voice. This again gives weight and cogency to the historical proof. The realities to which it bears attestation are closely, inseparably connected with the facts and events to which Revelation bears 1 See Dr. A. B. Bruce: Apologetics, or Christianity Defensively Stated, ch. v. Prebendary Wace well remarks: The testimony of Christians to the fact that in their personal experience they have found the promises of the Gospel fulfilled, must carry, and does carry, the greatest possible weight, but it can only afford indirect support to the truths beyond their experience which are alleged in the Creeds.' The attestation, however, is primâ facie. witness. It is thus that they are accounted for, and in no other way. opening of the lock. The key is verified by the indirect, but it is sufficient and triumphant. Such verification is to be trusted, beyond all processes of the understanding. To those who impugn our faith in the Son of God, we have the answer ready with which the man to whom He had given sight met the cavils of Jewish rationalism. 'Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes.' '1 So in moments when we are tempted to doubt or to distrust: If e'er, when faith had fallen asleep, I heard a voice: 'Believe no more'; A warmth within the breast would melt And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answered: 'I have felt.' 2 For the sake, then, of a man's own self, for his salvation in the highest sense, it is of importance that he should be led into the Truth, that his 1 John ix. 30. 2 In Memoriam, cxxiv. |