Social truth has three marks,—it must be explicit, relevant to the question in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires some intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.
CHAPTER XV. MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY
"Religion, as dealing with the confessedly incomprehensible,
is not the basis for human union, in social, or industrial,
or political circles, but only that portion of old religion
which is now called moral."
—Professor Francis William Newman.
BISHOP ELLICOTT was the first prelate whom I heard admit (in a sermon to the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science) that men might be moral from other motives than those furnished by Christianity. Renan says that Justin Martyr "in his Apology, never attacks the principle of the empire. He wants the empire to examine the Christian doctrines." A Secularist would have attacked the principle, regarding freedom as of more consequence to progress than any doctrine without it. Those who seek to guide life by reason are not without a standard of appeal. "Secularism accepts no authority but that of nature, adopts no methods but those of science and philosophy, and respects in practice no rule but that of the conscience, illustrated by the common sense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past, and looks to tradition as presenting a storehouse of raw materials for thought, and in many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it utterly disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether miracles and supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its side. No sacred Scripture or ancient Church can be made a basis of belief, for the obvious reason that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot without absurdity be assumed. The association leaves to its individual members to yield whatever respects their own good sense judges to be due to the opinions of great men, living or dead, spoken or written; as also to the practice of ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical. But it disowns all appeal to such authorities as final tests of truth."*
* I owe the expression of this passage, whose
comprehensiveness and felicity of phrase exceed the reach of
my pen, to Professor Francis William Newman.
Morality can be inspired and confirmed by perception of the consequences of conduct. Theology regards free will as the foundation of responsibility. But free will saves no man from material consequences, and diverts attention from material causes of evil and good. Under the free will doctrine the wonder is that any morality is left in the world. It is a doctrine which gives scoundrels the same chance as a saint. When a man is assured that he can be saved when he believes, and that, having free will, he can believe when he pleases, he, as a rule, never does please until he has had his fill of vice, or is about to die,—either of disease or by the hangman. If by the hangman, he is told that, provided he repents before eight o'clock in the morning, he may find himself nestling in Abraham's bosom before nine. Free will is the doctrine of rascalism. It is time morality had other foundation than theology. The relations of life can be made as impressive as ideas of supernaturalism. But in this Christians not only lend no help, they disparage the attempt to control life by reason. When Secularism was first talked of, the President of the Congregational Union, the Rev. Dr. Harris, commended to the Union the words of Bishop Lavington of a century earlier (1750): "My brethren, I beg you will rise up with me against mere moral preaching."* A writer of distinction, R. H. Hutton, writing on "Secularism" in the Expositor so late as 1881, argues strenuously that moral government is impossible without supernatural convictions. The egotism of Christianity is as conspicuous as that of politics. No ethic is genuine unless it bears the hall-mark of the Church. Secularism does not deny the efficacy of other theories of life upon those who accept them, and only claims to be of use as commending morality on considerations purely human, to those who reject theories purely spiritual. Any one familiar with controversy knows that Christianity is advertised like a patent medicine which will cure all the maladies of mankind. Everybody who tries reasoned morality is encouraged to condemn it, and is denounced if he commends it.
* British Banner, October 27, 1852.
It is a maxim of Secularism that, wherever there is a rightful object at which men should aim, there is a Secular path to it.
Nearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical improvability, which improvability can be indefinitely advanced by supplying proper material conditions.