Article VI. deals with "the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation," and lays down the Canon that anything not capable of proof from the Bible must not be "required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." The converse of this proposition, that dogmas that can be proved therefrom are necessary to salvation, is said not to be binding on the Church, and some notable "depravers" of the Scriptures have successfully slipped through this Article. The list of books given as those "of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church" seems open to grave objections, as the authority of many of the books now accounted canonical has been distinctly challenged. "The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible." "Job spake not therefore as it stands written in his book." "Isaiah hath borrowed his whole art and knowledge from David." Thus, among many other staid criticisms, wrote Luther. To go further back, is to find much sharp challenging. The Epistle to the Hebrews is of most doubtful authenticity. The 2nd Epistle of Peter and that of Jude are debatable. The Revelation of St. John the Divine was very slowly received, and the two shorter Epistles which bear his name are dubiously recognised. If only the books are to be received of which there "was never any doubt in the Church," the canonical list must be shorn of most of its ornaments. When Article VII. tells us that the ceremonial and civil precepts of the Old Testament are not binding upon us, it seems a pity that some test is not given whereby unlearned people may be able to distinguish between the "Commandments which are called moral" and the others. Is the command to persecute non-believers in Jehovah (Deut. xiii., xvii. 2—7) binding to-day? Is the command to put Witches to death (Lev. xx. 27) binding to-day? John Wesley said that belief in witchcraft was incumbent on all those who believed the Bible, and if witchcraft was possible then, why not now? or has God changed his mind as to the proper method of dealing with such persons? Are the commands enjoining and regulating Slavery (Ex. xxi. 2—6, and 20, 21; Lev. xxv. 44—46; Deut. xv. 12—18) intended for the guidance of slave-holders to-day? What is there to make the "Commandments which are called moral"—by which we may presume are meant the Ten Commandments—more binding on "Christian men" than the other parts of the law? The Fourth Commandment is essentially a Jewish one, and is not obeyed among Christians. The Second Commandment is invariably ignored, and the Fifth promises a reward which is not given. The Commandments touching murder, adultery, stealing, lying are not peculiar to the Mosaic code. They are found in all moral legislation, and are binding—not because taught by Moses or by Buddha, but—because their observance is necessary to the existence of society. Of the three Creeds of the Church we have already spoken, so pass to Article IX., "of Original or Birth-sin." It seems that a fault and corruption of Nature are naturally "engendered of the offspring of Adam," and that this fault "in every person born into the world deserveth God's wrath and damnation." That seems scarcely fair, since the infant's consent is not asked before he is born into the world, and the fault of being born is, therefore, none of his. How, then, can the babe deserve God's wrath and damnation? And seeing that the very next Article (X.) informs us that our condition is such that a man "cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God," it appears terribly unjust that either child or man should be held accursed because they do not do what God has made them incapable of doing. It would be as reasonable to torture a man for not flying without wings, as for God to punish man for being born of the race of Adam, and for not turning to God when the power so to do is withheld; for "we have no power to do good works.... without the grace of God by Christ," and when that grace is not given we lie helpless and strength-less, unable to do right. Nor can any deed of ours make us fit recipients of the grace of God, for (Article XIII.) "works done before the grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God.... neither do they make men meet to receive grace.... yea, rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but that they have the nature of sin." So that if a good and noble heathen, who has never heard of Christ, and whose good deeds cannot therefore "spring of faith in Jesus Christ," does some high-minded action, or shows some kindly charity, his good deeds are of "the nature of sin," and in fact make him rather worse off than he was before: as Melancthon said, his virtues are only "splendid vices" because done without faith in a person of whom he has never heard. For (Art. XVIII.) they "are to be accursed that presume to say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law, and the light of nature:" "we are accounted righteous before God (Art. XI.) only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works and' deservings." Thus we learn that God cares not for righteousness of life, but only for blind faith, and that he sends us out into a world lying under his curse, without any chance of salvation except by attaining a faith which he gives or withholds at his pleasure, and which we can of ourselves do nothing to deserve, much less to obtain. To crown this beautiful theory we learn,—Article XVII. "of Predestination and Election:"—predestination to life, it seems, "is the everlasting purpose of God whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour." But if this be true, man has no choice of any kind in the matter; for not only is grace to do right the gift of God, but man's acceptance of the gift is also compulsory. God has arranged, before he made the world how many and whom he will save. What, then, becomes of man's boasted free will? Before the creation God drew the plan of every human life, and as the potter moulds the ductile clay into the shape he desires, so God moulds his human pottery after his own will into "vessels made to salvation" or made to dishonour. To talk of man's freedom is a mockery. What freedom had Adam and Eve in Paradise? "They might have stood:" nay; for was not "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world?" Before the sin was committed God had made the atonement for it. If Adam were free not to sin, then it would be possible that he might not have sinned, and then God would have offered a needless sacrifice, and would have a Saviour with no one to save, so that it would have been necessary to provide a sinner in order to utilise the sacrifice. All idea of justice is here hideously impossible; God has predestinated some human beings out of mankind. These "in due season" he calls; "through grace they obey the calling;" "they be justified freely... and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity." And the rest—those who are not predestined; those who are not called; those to whom no grace is given; those who are not justified freely; those who have no God's mercy to aid them;—what of them? Made by God, the creatures of his hand, the vessels of his moulding, the clay of his shaping, are they cast into the lake of brimstone, into the fire that never shall be quenched, simply because God in "his sovereignty" put them—unconscious—under his curse and left them there, adding to the cruelty of creation the more savage cruelty of preservation? No! whether such deeds should be wrought by God or man, they would be wickedly wrong. Almighty power is no excuse for crime, and the God of the Articles of the Church of England is a gigantic criminal, who uses his Almightiness to make life that he may torment it, and to create sentient beings foredoomed to bitterest agony, to keenest woe. Such frightful misuse of power can only meet with strongest reprobation from all moral beings; unlimited power turned to evil purposes may trample upon and crush us into helplessness, but it can never force us to worship, nor compel us to adore.
These first eighteen Articles of the Church may be said to contain the more salient points of the Church's teaching, and it is needless to point out the utter impossibility of reasonable and gentle-hearted men and women believing in the "plan of, salvation" sketched out in them. They are instinct with the cruel theology of Calvin and of Zwingli, and imply (though they do not so plainly word) the view of the Lambeth Articles of 1595, that "God from eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life; certain he hath reprobated." These Anglican Articles must be taken as teaching predestination to damnation as well as to salvation, since those not called to life must inevitably fall to death. The next section—so to speak—of the Articles deals with Church affairs, defining the authority of Churches and of Councils, and explaining the 'doctrine of the Sacraments. It is with these that the High Church party chiefly fall out, for the Twenty-first Article, acknowledging that General Councils may err and have erred, strikes at the root of the infallibility of the Church Universal, so dear to the priestly soul. The Articles on the Sacraments also tend somewhat to the Low Church view of them, and dwell more on the faith of the recipient than on the consecration of the priest. The Article (XXXIII.) levelled against "excommunicate persons," commanding that such an one shall "be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance," is duly believed and subscribed by clergymen, but has no real meaning to-day. If the Thirty-fifth Article were acted upon, some curiosities of English literature would enliven the Churches; for this Article bids the clergy read the Homilies: "we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people." It is really a pity that this direction is not carried out, for some of the barbarous doctrines of popular Christianity would then be seen as they are described by men who thoroughly believed in them, instead of being known only as they are presented to us to-day, with some of their deformity hidden under the robes woven for them by modern civilisation, wherein humanity has outgrown the old Christianity, and men's reason chastens their faith. The last three Articles touch on civil matters, acknowledging the Royal Supremacy and dealing with other matters pertaining to Caesar, but on the borderland between him and God.
Such are the Articles of the Church; believed by few, unknown to many, winked at by all, because religion is practically a matter of indifference to most, and while custom and fashion enforce conformity with the Church, the brain troubles not itself to analyse the claim, or to weigh the conditions of allegiance. Men have become so sceptical as to regard all creeds with indifference, and the half-conceived unbelief of the clergy, sighing with mental reservations, and formally asserting belief where the thought and the lips are at variance, appears to have eaten the heart out of all religious honesty in England, and men lie to God who would revolt at lying to man. If belief in the Articles is now a thing of the past, then the Articles should also pass away; if Churchmen have outgrown these dogmas, why do they suffer them to deface their Prayer-Book, to barb "the shafts of the sceptic, and to give power to the sneer of the scoffer?"
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CATECHISM
WISE men, in modern times, are striving earnestly and zealously to, as far as possible, free religion from the cramping and deadening effect of creeds and formularies, in order that it may be able to expand with the expanding thought of the day. Creeds are like iron moulds, into which thought is poured; they may be suitable enough to the way in which they are framed; they may be fit enough to enshrine the phase of thought which designed them; but they are fatally unsuitable and unfit for the days long afterwards, and for the thought of the centuries which succeed. "No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred; but new wine must be put into new bottles." The new wine of nineteenth century thought is being poured into the old bottles of fourth century creeds: and sixteenth century formulas, and the strong new wine-bursts the bottles, while the weak new wine that cannot: burst them ferments into vinegar in them, and often becomes harmful and poisonous. Let the new wine be poured into new bottles; let the new thought mould its own expression; and then the old bottles will be preserved unbroken as curious specimens of antiquity, instead of being smashed to pieces because they get in the way of the world. Nothing is more to be deprecated in a new and living movement than the formulating into creeds of the thoughts that inspire it, and the imposition of those creeds on those who join it. The very utmost that can be done to give coherency to a large movement is to put forward a declaration of a few cardinal doctrines that do not interfere with full liberty of divergent thought. Thus, Rationalists might take as the declaration of their central thought, that "reason is supreme," but they would be destroying the future of Rationalism if they formulated into a creed any of the conclusions to which their own reason has led them at the present time, for by so doing they would be stereotyping nineteenth century thought for the restraint of twentieth century thought, which will be larger, fuller, more instructed than their own. Freethinkers may declare as their symbol the Right to Think, and the Right to express thought, but should never claim the declaration by others of any special form of Freethought, before acknowledging them as Freethinkers. Bodies of men who join together in a society for a definite purpose may fairly formulate a creed to be assented to by those who join them, but they must ever remember that such creed will lose its force in the time to come, and that while it adds strength and point to their movement now, it also limits its useful duration, if it is to be maintained as unalterable, for as circumstances change different needs will arise, and a fresh expression of the means to meet those needs will become necessary. A wise society, in forming a creed, will leave in the hands of its members full power to revise it, to amend it, to alter it, so that the living thought within the society may ever have free scope. A creed must be the expression of living thought, and be moulded by it, and not the skeleton of dead thought, moulding the intellect of its heirs. The strength of a society lies in the diversity, and not in the uniformity, of the thought of its members, for progress can only be made through heretical thought, i.e., thought that is at variance with prevailing thought. All Truth is new at some time or other, and the fullest encouragement should therefore be given to free and fearless expression, since by such expression only is the promulgation of new truths possible. An age of advancement is always an age of heresy; for advancement comes from questioning, and questioning springs from doubt, and hence progress and heresy walk ever hand-in-hand, while an age of faith is also an age of stagnation.
Every argument that can be brought against a stereotyped creed for adults, tells with tenfold force against a stereotyped catechism for children. If it is evil to try and mould the thought of those whose maturity ought to be able to protect them against pressure from without, it is certainly far more evil to mould the thought of those whose still unset reason is ductile in the trainer's hand. A catechism is a sort of strait-waistcoat put upon children, preventing all liberty of action; and while the child's brain ought to be cultured and developed, it ought never to be trained to run in one special groove of thought. Education should teach children how to think, but should never tell them what to think. It should sharpen and polish the instruments of thought, but should not fix them into a machine made to cut out one special shape of thought. It should send the young out into the world keen-judging, clear-eyed, thoughtful, eager, inquiring, but should not send them out with answers cut-and-dried to every question, with opinions ready made for them, and dogmas nailed into their brains. Most churches have provided catechism-sawdust for the nourishment of the lambs of their flock; Roman Catholics, Church of Englanders, Presbyterians, they have all their juvenile moulds. The Church of England catechism is, perhaps, the least injurious of all, because the Church of England is the result of a compromise, and has the most offensive parts of its dogmas cut out of the public formularies. It wears some slight apron of fig-leaves in deference to the effect produced by the eating of the tree of knowledge. But still, the Church of England catechism is bad enough, training the child to believe the most impossible things before he is old enough to test their impossibility. To the age which believes in Jack-and-the-bean-stalk, and the adventures of Cinderella, all things are possible; whether it be Jonah in the whale's belly, or Tom Thumb in the stomach of the red cow, all is gladly swallowed with implicit faith; the children grow out of Tom Thumb, in the course of nature, but they are not allowed to grow out of Jonah.
When the baby is brought to the font to make divers promises, of the making of which he is profoundly unconscious—however noisily he may at times convey his utter disgust at the whole proceeding—the godfathers and godmothers are directed to see that the child is "brought to the bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose." It is scarcely necessary to say that these words—being in the Prayer-Book—are not meant to be taken literally, and that the bishop would be much astonished if all the small children in the Sunday School who can glibly repeat the required lesson, were to be brought up to him for confirmation. As a matter of fact, the large majority of godfathers and godmothers do not trouble themselves about seeing their godchildren brought to confirmation at all, and the children are sent up when they are about fifteen, at which period most of them who are above the Sunday School going grade, are rapidly "crammed" with the Catechism, which they as rapidly forget when the day of confirmation is over.
The Christian name of the child being given in answer to the first question of the Catechism, the second inquiry proceeds: "Who gave you this name?" The child is taught to answer—"My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." Thus, the first lesson imprinted on the child's memory is one of the most objectionable of the dogmas of the Church, that of baptismal regeneration. In baptism he is "made" something; then he becomes something which he was not before; according to the baptismal office, he is given in baptism "that thing which by nature he cannot have," and being under the wrath of God, he is delivered from that curse, and is received for God's "own child by adoption;" he is also "incorporated" into the "holy Church," and thus becomes "a member of Christ," being made a part of the body of which Christ is the head; this being done, he is, of course, an "inheritor of the kingdom of heaven" through the "adoption."
Thus the child is taught that, by nature, he is bad and accursed by God; that so bad was he as an infant, that his parents were obliged to wash away his sins before God would love him. If he asks what harm he had done that he should need cleansing, he will be told that he inherits Adam's sin; if he asks why he should be accursed for being born, and why, born into God's world at God's will, he should not by nature be God's child, he will be told that God is angry with the world, and that everyone has a bad nature when they are born; thus he learns his first lesson of the unreality of religion; he is cursed for Adam's sin, which he had no share in, and forgiven for his parent's good deed, which he did not help in. The whole thing is to him a play acted in his infancy in which he was a puppet, in which God was angry with him for what he had not done, and pleased with him for what he did not say, and he consequently feels that he has neither part nor lot in the whole affair, and that the business is none of his; if he be timid and superstitious, he will hand over his religion to others, and trust to the priest to finish for him what Adam and his parents began, shifting on to them all a responsibility that he feels does not in reality belong to him.