For Doctrinal Christianity (part 2 of 2)

Of course I do not forget that the root of the great evil which I deplore is unbelief, and that unbelief is one of the oldest diseases of human nature, and one which, in one form or another, is continually injuring the Church of Christ and ruining souls. I am not surprised at its continued existence. I expect to see it periodically appearing in some new dress, or under some new name, according as the prince of this world finds it expedient to use it for his soul-damaging work. I repeat that I always expect to see a vast amount of unbelief in this pleasure-loving, sensual, proud, money-worshipping world. I see it, and am neither surprised nor afraid.

I am not afraid, for instance, of that coarse, revived infidelity, on the lines of the men of the first French Revolution, which boldly denies the existence of God, and the reality of judgment, and a world to come; which scoffs at the Bible, and dares to place our blessed Saviour on a level with Mahomet and Tom Paine. Such unbelief will never satisfy that universal conscience of mankind, which, from ancient Egypt down to modern Australia, testifies to man’s rooted belief in the reality of an unseen world. The advocates of such infidelity have never answered the broad evidence of the Bible being the Book that it is, and Christ being the Person that He was, and the effects of Christianity on the world, and the continued separate existence of the Jews. I say they have never answered this evidence, and they never will.

Nor yet again am I afraid of the veiled scepticism of some men of science, which confuses so many minds in these latter times. There are scores of highly-educated men, nowadays, you must be aware, who are constantly making statements about things in heaven and earth, about the antiquity of man, about the origin of the human race, which cannot be reconciled with the Bible, if followed to their logical conclusions. Yet those who make these statements will not allow that they are unbelievers! They seem ‘willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.’ (Quoted from Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.)

Of men of this sort, I repeat emphatically, we need not be afraid. When we cannot reply to their statements, and explain the difficulties they raise, we may safely sit still and wait. ‘The highest philosophy in some cases,’ said Faraday, ‘is to keep our minds in a position of judicious suspense.’ For, after all, how little do the wisest philosophers know! How extremely limited is the horizon of our minds! How many ideas of modern science are entirely hypothetical! How many general conclusions are drawn most illogically from very slender particular premises! How often something has been brought to light, by the discoveries of travellers, which shivers to pieces the theories of sceptics! I say again, in this day of veiled scepticism we may quietly sit still and wait for more light. ‘All human knowledge,’ says Professor Rudolf Virchow ‘is only fragmentary. All of us who call ourselves students of nature possess only portions of natural science.’ (Freedom of Science, p. 20.)

What, then, is the evil of which I am afraid? I am afraid of an inward disease which appears to be growing and spreading in all the Churches of Christ throughout the world. That disease is a disposition on the part of ministers to abstain from all sharply-cut doctrine, and a distaste on the part of professing Christians for all distinct statements of dogmatic truth.

I ask your attention while I try to handle this subject for a few minutes. The disease before us is ‘a pestilence which walketh in darkness,’ and threatens to do immense mischief to Christ’s cause, because it is not realized and understood. I wish to raise a warning voice, and to show my clergy what reason there is to watch and be on our guard. The hidden enemy within the camp is far more dangerous than the foe outside.

The evidences of this dislike to distinct doctrine of which I speak are so abundant that the only difficulty lies in selection. Unless we are men who having eyes see not, and having ears hear not, we may see them on every side.

I might ask any intelligent man, for example, to mark the vague tone of some English newspapers when they touch religious subjects. He will find that while they are generally willing to praise Christian morality, they too often ignore Christian doctrine. I might ask him to observe the bitterness with which the advocates of School Boards have frequently spoken in the last ten years of what they are pleased to call ‘theology,’ and how ready they are to shovel it all aside under the vague name of ’sectarianism.’ I might ask him to analyse the most popular fictions and novels of the last forty years, which profess to paint Christians, and to notice how the portrait almost invariably avoids everything like doctrine, and exhibits the model Christian like a cut flower at a flower show, a mere bloom without root. I might ask him to look at the anxiety which some liberal speakers are constantly showing, in addressing popular audiences, to sweep away all ‘denominational Christianity,’ and to throw aside Creeds and Confessions as old worn-out clothes, which only fetter the limbs of modern Englishmen. In each of these cases let him note one common symptom: that is, a morbid, unreasoning desire to have the fruits of Christianity without the roots, to have Christian morality without Christian doctrine. And then let him deny, if he can, that a dislike to distinct doctrine is a widespread evil of our times.

I will then ask any intelligent man to examine the opinions commonly expressed in the talk of private life. You have only to bring up the subject of religion in society, and you will get further proofs still. In many houses, even houses where people make a decent profession of religion, you will find that they make an idol of ‘earnestness.’ They do not pretend to know anything about controversies and disputed questions, or to have any opinion as to who is right and who is wrong. They only know that they admire ‘earnestness’; and they cannot think that earnest, hard-working ministers can be unsound in the faith. Tell them that any ‘earnest,’ clever, eloquent clergyman whom they name does not preach the Gospel, and they are downright offended. Impossible! Whatever doctrines an ‘earnest’ man holds and teaches, they think it narrow and uncharitable and illiberal in you to distrust him. In vain you remind them that zeal and laboriousness are useless, if a minister does not teach Scriptural truth; and that Pharisees and Jesuits had zeal enough to ‘compass sea and land.’ They know nothing about that: they do not profess to argue! All they know is that work is work; and that an earnest man must be a good man, and cannot be in the wrong, whatever he teaches. And what does it all come to? They dislike distinct doctrine, and will not make up their minds as to what is truth.

Hitherto we have only seen the evil I am considering in solution, and in its most common and diluted forms. If we want to see it in its more solid and crystallized state, we have only to turn to the preaching and writings of a small but well-known school of Churchmen of our days. I will not weary you with a catalogue of the strange and loose utterances which come incessantly from this quarter about inspiration, about the atonement, about the sacrifice and death of Christ, about the incarnation, about miracles, about Satan, about the Holy Spirit, about future punishment. I will not shock you by quoting language frequently used about the Bible by men who seem to regard it as nothing better than an obsolete record of useless mythology, in which you may here and there pick up a few globules of truth. I will not pain you by recounting the astounding theories sometimes propounded about ‘the blood of Christ.’ Time would fail me if I tried to sketch the leading features of a misty system which appears to regard all religions as more or less true, and in which ‘tabernacles’ seem to be wanted for Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras and Seneca and Confucius and Mahomet and Channing and Theodore Parker, as well as for Christ and Moses and Elias, all, forsooth, being true prophets, great masters, great teachers, great leaders of thought! I shall content myself with the remark, that dislike of distinct doctrine is one prominent characteristic of the leaders and champions of the party to which I refer. Search their sermons and books, and you find plenty of excellent negatives, plenty of great swelling words about ‘the fatherhood of God, and charity and light and courage and manliness and large-heartedness and wide views and free thought,’; plenty of mere wind-bags, high-sounding abstract terms, such as ‘the true and the just and the beautiful and the high-souled and the genial and the liberal,’ and so forth. But, alas! there is an utter absence of distinct, solid, positive doctrine. And if you look for a clear systematic account of the way of pardon and peace with God, of the right medicine for a burdened conscience, and the true cure for a broken heart, of faith and assurance and justification and regeneration and sanctification, you look in vain. The words indeed you may sometimes find, but not the realities; the words in new and strange senses, fair and good-looking outside, like rotten fruits; but, like them, empty and worthless within. But one thing, I repeat, is abundantly clear: positive doctrinal statements are the abomination of a certain class of Christian teachers in this day.

The consequences of this widespread dislike to distinct doctrine are very serious. Whether we like to allow it or not, it is an epidemic which is just now doing great harm, and specially among young people. It creates, fosters, and keeps up an immense amount of instability in religion. It produces what I must venture to call, if I may coin the phrase, a ‘jelly-fish’ Christianity in the land: that is, a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power. A jelly-fish, as every one knows who has been much by the seaside, is a pretty and graceful object when it floats in the sea, contracting and expanding like a little delicate transparent umbrella. Yet the same jelly-fish, when cast on the shore, is a mere helpless lump, without capacity for movement, self-defence, or self-preservation. Alas! it is a vivid type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is--‘No dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.’ We have hundreds of ministers, both inside and outside the Church of England, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have no definite opinions; they belong to no school or party; they are so afraid of ‘extreme views,’ that they have no views at all. We have thousands of sermons preached every year, which are without an edge or a point or a corner, smooth as ivory balls, awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint. We have legions of young men annually turned out from our Universities, armed with a few scraps of second-hand philosophy, who think it a mark of cleverness and intellect to have no decided opinions about anything in religion, and to be utterly unable to make up their minds as to what is Christian truth. They live apparently in a state of suspense, like Mahomet’s fabled coffin, hanging between heaven and earth. Their high souls are not satisfied with arguments which satisfied Butler, and Paley, and Chalmers, and M’Ilvaine, and Whately, and Whewell, and Mozley. Their only creed is a kind of ‘Nihilism.’

Footnote ‘Nihilism’ (Latin nihil:nothing): a name given by the novelist Turgenev to an extreme form of Socialism, the prelude to Bolshevism, which was very active in Russia in the 1870s.

They are sure and positive about nothing. And last, and worst of all, we have myriads of worshippers, respectable church-going people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that differ, any more than colour-blind people can distinguish colours. They think everybody is right and nobody wrong, everything is true and nothing is false, all sermons are good and none are bad, every clergyman is sound and no clergyman unsound. They are ‘tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine;’ often carried away by some new excitement and sensational movement; ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old; and utterly unable to ‘render a reason of the hope that is in them.’ All this, and much more, of which I cannot now speak particularly, is the result of that unhappy dread of distinct doctrine which has been so strongly developed, and has laid such hold on many churchmen, in these latter days.

I turn from the picture I have exhibited with a sorrowful heart. I grant it is a gloomy one; but I am afraid it is only too accurate and true. Let us not deceive ourselves. Distinct and positive doctrine is at a discount just now. Instability and unsettled notions are the natural result, and meet us in every direction. Cleverness and earnestness are the favourite idols of the age. What a man says matters nothing, however strange and heterogeneous are the opinions he expresses! If he is only brilliant and ‘earnest,’ he cannot be wrong! Never was it so important for laymen to hold systematic views of truth, and for ordained ministers to ‘enunciate doctrine’ very clearly and distinctly in their teaching.

After all, have Churchmen any reason to be ashamed of distinct doctrinal statements? Is the wisdom of the nineteenth century so great that we ought to dispense with sharply-cut truth? Is the good old Church of England a dogmatic Church or not? I answer these questions without hesitation. In spite of all the hard words poured on ‘dogma’ as effete, worn out, injurious to free thought, unsuited to the nineteenth century, and so forth, there remains a catena of acts in support of ‘dogma,’ which I believe it is impossible to explain away. In short, there is a mass of evidence which cannot be refuted. (1) First and foremost, we can turn boldly to our Thirty-nine Articles. Is distinct doctrine there or not? I do not forget that many think very little of that admirable Confession of Faith. Some coolly say that ‘nobody really believes all the Articles.’ Some tell us plainly that they regard the Thirty-nine Articles as a burdensome stone, and an incubus on men’s consciences, and that we should do far better to abolish them, throw them overboard, and be content with subscription to the Apostles’ Creed. But all this time the law of the land, and of the Church, stands firm and unrepealed, and every incumbent on taking possession of a living is obliged to declare publicly that he will teach and preach ‘nothing contrary to the Thirty-nine Articles.’ Yet what are these Articles but a wise compendium of dogmatical statements? With few exceptions they are a series of doctrinal assertions, carefully drawn out of Scripture, which the Church regards as of special and primary importance. Where, I should like to know, is our honesty, if we shrink from ‘enunciating dogma’ after pledging ourselves to the Articles? Where is plain faithfulness to our ministerial engagements if we do not teach and preach distinct, systematic doctrine? As for those clergymen who hold livings, and retain positions in our Church, while they openly contradict the Articles, or deliberately sneer at their statements of doctrine as ‘narrow, and illiberal, and unsuited to the nineteenth century,’ I can only say that their conduct is most inconsistent and unsatisfactory. I can admire their zeal and cleverness; but I cannot see that they are in their right place in the pulpit of the Church of England. He that is for no distinct doctrine, no Articles, and no Creeds, in my judgment is no true and loyal Churchman.

(2) In the second place, we can turn boldly to the Prayer-book. Is distinct doctrine there or not? That famous book, with all its unquestionable imperfections, finds favour in the eyes of all schools of thought within our pale, and of myriads outside. You rarely meet with any one, however broad and liberal, however inimical to Creeds and Articles, who quarrels with our time-honoured Liturgy, or would like to see it much altered. Week after week its old familiar words are read all over the globe, wherever the English flag flies, and the English language is spoken. The older the world grows, the more men seem disposed to say, with George Herbert on his deathbed, ‘The prayers of my mother, the Church of England, there are none equal to them!’ Yet all this time it is a curious fact that an immense amount of dogmatic theology runs through the Prayerbook, and underlies its simple petitions. He that sits down and makes a list, will be surprised to find what a large amount of doctrinal statements the old book contains about the Trinity, about the proper Deity of Christ, about the personality of the Holy Ghost, about the sacrifice and mediation of Christ, about the work of the Spirit, and many other points. They occur again and again in sentences with which we are so familiar that we overlook their contents. Take, for a single instance, the doctrine of eternal punishment. The question has been raised of late whether the Church of England says anything about it in her formularies. Yet all this time the Prayer-book contains three singularly strong expressions on the subject. In the Litany one of the first petitions is, ‘From everlasting damnation, good Lord, deliver us.’ In the Burial Service we say, by the side of the open grave, ‘Deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.’ Even in the Church Catechism we teach children that in the Lord’s Prayer they ask to be ‘kept from our ghostly enemy and everlasting death.’ Once more I say, he that thinks little of distinct doctrine, and yet uses the Prayer-book of the Church of England, is very inconsistent, and is occupying, whether he knows it or not, a most untenable and unreasonable position. I assert, confidently, that the Prayer-book is full of dogmatic theology. (3) Let us turn, in the third place, to the whole history of the progress and propagation of the Gospel from the time of the Apostles down to the present day. I affirm, unhesitatingly, that there never has been any spread of the Gospel, any conversion of nations or countries, any successful evangelistic work, excepting by the ‘enunciation of distinct doctrine.’ I invite any opponent of dogmatic theology to name a single instance of a country, or town, or people, which has ever been Christianized by merely telling men that ‘Christ was a great moral Teacher, that they must love one another, that they must be true and just and unselfish and generous and brotherly and high-souled,’ and the like! No! no! no! Not one single victory can such teaching show us: not one trophy can such teaching exhibit. It has wrought no deliverance on the earth. The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology; by telling men of Christ’s vicarious death and sacrifice; by showing them Christ’s substitution on the cross, and His precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Saviour; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen serpent; by telling men to look and live--to believe, repent, and be converted. This, this is the only teaching which for eighteen centuries God has honoured with success, and is honouring at the present day both at home and abroad. Let the clever advocates of a broad and undogmatic theology, the preachers of the Gospel of earnestness and sincerity and cold morality, show us at this day any English village or parish or city or district, which has been evangelized, without distinct doctrinal teaching, by their principles. They cannot do it, and they never will. Christianity without dogma is a powerless thing. It may be beautiful to some minds, but it is childless and barren. There is no getting over facts. The good that is done in the earth may be comparatively small. Evil may abound, and ignorant impatience may murmur and cry out that Christianity has failed. But, we may depend on it, if we want to do good and shake the world, we must fight with the old apostolic weapons, and stick to ‘distinct doctrine.’ No dogma, no fruits! No positive doctrine, no evangelization!

(4) In the last place, let us turn to the death-beds of all who die with solid comfort and good hope, and appeal to them. There are few of us who are not called on occasionally, as we travel through life, to see people passing through the valley of the shadow of death, and drawing near to their latter end, and to those ‘things unseen which are eternal.’ We all of us know what a vast difference there is in the manner in which such people leave the world, and the amount of comfort and hope which they seem to feel. Can any of us say that he ever saw a person die in peace who did not know distinctly what he was resting on for acceptance with God, and could only say, in reply to inquiries, that he was ‘earnest and sincere’? I can only give my own experience: I never saw one! Oh, no! The story of Christ’s moral teaching and self-sacrifice and example, and the need of being ‘earnest’ and sincere, and like Him, will never smooth down a dying pillow. Christ the teacher, Christ the great pattern, Christ the prophet, will not suffice. We want something more than this! We want the story of Christ dying for our sins, and rising again for our justification. We want Christ the mediator, Christ the substitute, Christ the intercessor, Christ the redeemer, in order to meet with confidence the King of terrors, and to say, ‘Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?’ Not a few, I believe, who have gloried all their lives in rejecting doctrinal religion, have discovered at last that their ‘broad theology’ is a miserable comforter, and the Gospel of mere ‘earnestness’ is no good news at all. Not a few, I firmly believe, could be named, who at the eleventh hour have cast aside their favourite, new-fashioned views, and have fled for refuge to ‘the precious blood,’ and left the world with no other hope than the old-fashioned doctrine of faith in a crucified Jesus. Nothing in their life’s religion has given them such peace as the simple truth grasped at the eleventh hour--

Just as I am: without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee-- O Lamb of God, I come.

Surely when this is the case, we have no need to be ashamed of doctrinal theology.

And now, as I leave the subject, let me wind up all I have said with an expression of my earnest hope that all who wish to be honest, true-hearted clergymen in the Diocese of Liverpool will hold fast their Creeds and Articles, will walk in the steps of their forefathers, and stick to the old weapons which they wielded so well and successfully. Let no scorn of the world, let no ridicule of smart writers, let no sneers of liberal critics, let no secret desire to please and conciliate the public, tempt us for one moment to leave the old paths, and drop the old practice of enunciating doctrine--clear,, distinct, well-defined and sharply-cut doctrine--in all out utterances and teachings. Let us beware of being vague, and foggy, and hazy in our statements. Let us be specially distinct and clear about such points as original sin, the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the finished work of Christ, the complete atonement made by His death, the priestly office which He exercises at the right hand of God, the inward work of the Holy Ghost on hearts, the reality and eternity of future punishment. On all these points let our testimony be not Yea and Nay, but Yea and Amen; and let the tone of our witness be plain, ringing, and unmistakable. ‘If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?’ (1 Corinthians 14:8) If we handle such subjects in a timid, faltering, half-hearted way, as if we were handling hot iron, and we had not made up our minds as to what is truth, it is vain to expect people who hear us to believe anything at all.

Let me conclude this Charge with two special words of warning. They are warnings so closely connected with my subject that I dare not keep them back. They are cautions for the times.

(1) On the one hand, I desire to raise a warning voice against the growing disposition to sacrifice dogma on the altar of so-called unity, and to give up distinct doctrine for the sake of peace and cooperation. The tide is running strongly in this direction: we must mind what we are about. Peace and unity are excellent things, but they may be bought too dear. And they are bought too dear if we keep back any portion of Gospel truth, in order to exhibit to men a hollow semblance of agreement. The divisions of the Church of England are unhappy and dangerous. They are the strength of Liberationism and the laughing-stock of the world. They are an evil omen. God sees them, and is displeased. When children fight about the candle they are often left in the dark. But for Christ’s sake let us beware of trying to heal our breaches by lowering our standard of doctrine, and watering our statements of truth in order to avoid giving offence. To skin over a wound externally while mischief is going on inside, is poor surgery, and not a cure. Let our principle be, ‘Amicus Socrates, amicus, Plato, sed magis amica veritas.’ (‘Dear to me is Socrates, dear to me is Plato, but truth is dearer still’.) Let us be kind and courteous to every one, however much we may disagree with him. Let us not forget Luther’s maxim: ‘In quo aliquid Christi video, illum diligo.’ (‘I highly esteem him in whom I see anything of Christ’.) But never, never let us compromise and give up one jot or tittle of doctrinal truth. Let us boldly ‘declare all the counsel of God.’ Well says Martin Luther: ‘Accursed is that charity which is preserved by the shipwreck of faith or truth, to which all things must give place; whether charity, or an apostle, or an angel from heaven.’ Well says Dr. Gauden: ‘If either peace or truth must be dispensed with, it is peace and not truth. Better to have truth without public peace than peace without saving truth.’ Well says Gregory Nazianzen: ‘That man little consults the will and honour of God, who will expose the truth in order to obtain the repute of an easy mildness.’ (Morning Exercises, vol. IV, p. 221.)

(2) On the other hand, at the same time, I desire to raise a warning voice against the growing tendency to be dogmatical about things which are not necessary to salvation, to be positive where the Bible is silent, to condemn and anathematize those whom God has not condemned, and to exalt things indifferent and secondary to a level with the primary verities and weightier matters of the Gospel. By all means let us be bold, firm, and unbending as steel, about every jot and tittle of Christ’s truth; but let us not cultivate the detestable habit of excommunicating every man who does not see everything, in the ‘adiaphora’ of worship, exactly with our eyes, who does not support our favourite Societies, who does not conduct his services precisely as we do, who does not work his parish exactly on our lines. Let us always remember it is possible to be too narrow as well as too broad. For Christ’s sake let us make allowances for slight varieties of opinion in non-essential matters. Let us not out-ritualize those who are called ritualists in over-scrupulousness and particularity. Let us not squabble about straws when the Canaanite and Perizzite are in the land, or bite and devour one another, like the wretched Jewish factions in the siege of Jerusalem, when the Romans were thundering at the gates. Never, never, I am persuaded, was the old saying of Rupertus Meldenius so worthy of daily remembrance: ‘In necessariis sit unitas; in non necessariis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas.’ In the necessary things of religion let there be unity; in things not necessary, liberty; in all things, charity.