Yet some opponents have professed that Secular cannot be distinguished from Christian rights. Is this so? The right to think for ourselves has been emphatically and reiteratedly declared to be a Christian right:* it "belongs essentially to Christianity." Now Christianity has no such right. It has the right to think the Bible true, and nothing else.
* "Six Chapters on Secularism," by Dr. Parker, Cavendish
Pulpit, Manchester.
The Christian has no right to think Christianity untrue, however untrue it may appear. He dare not think it false. He dare no more think it false than the Catholic dare differ from the dictum of the Church, or the Mahomedan differ from the text of the Koran, or the Hindoo differ from the precepts of the Brahmin. Therefore, the Christian's right to think for himself is simply a compulsion to believe. A right implies relative freedom of action; but the Christian has no freedom. He has no choice but to believe, or perish everlastingly. The Christian right to think for himself is, therefore, not the same as the Secular right. We mean by the right to think, what the term right always implies—freedom and independence, and absence of all crime, or danger of penalty through the honest exercise of thought and maintenance of honest conclusions, whether in favour of or against Christianity. Our assertion is that "Private judgment is free and guiltless." The Christian is good enough to say, we have "a right to think, provided we think rightly." But what does he mean by "rightly?" He means that we should think as he thinks. This is his interpretation of "rightly." Whoever does not fall in with his views, is generally, in his vocabulary, a dishonest perverter of scripture. Now, if we really have the right to differ, we have the right to differ from the Minister or from the Bible, if we see good reason to do so, without being exposed to the censure of our neighbours, or disapprobation of God. The question is not—does man give us the right to think for ourselves? but, does God give it to us? If we must come to a given opinion, our private judgment is unnecessary. Let us know at once what we are to believe, that we may believe it at once, and secure safety. If possible disbelief in Christianity will lead to eternal perdition, the right of private judgment is a snare. We had better be without that perilous privilege, and we come to regard the Roman Catholic as penetrative when he paints private judgment as the suggestion of Satan, and the Roman Catholic no less merciful than consistent when he proscribes it altogether. We must feel astonishment at him who declares the Secular right to be essentially a Christian right, when it is quite a different thing, is understood in an entirely different sense, and has an application unknown and unadmitted by Christianity. This is not merely loose thinking, it is reckless thinking.
XVI.
It has been asserted that the second right, "the right to differ," is also a Christian right. "Christianity recognizes the claim to difference of opinion. Christians are not careful to maintain uniformity at the expense of private judgment." This is omitting a part of the truth. Christians often permit difference of opinion upon details, but not upon essentials, and this is the suppression made. The Christian may differ on points of church discipline, but if he differ upon the essential articles of his creed, the minister at once warns him that he is in "danger of the judgment." Let any minister try it himself, and his congregation will soon warn him to depart, and also warn him of that higher Power, who will bid him depart "into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth." With respect to the third right, "the right of asserting difference of opinion," this is declared to be not peculiar to Secularism; that "Christian churches, chapels, literature and services, are so many confirmations of the statement that Christians claim the right of speaking what they think, whether it be affirmative or negative." Yes, so long as what they speak agrees with the Bible. This is the Christian limit; yet this is the limit which Secularism expressly passes and discards. It is the unfettered right which makes Secularism to differ from Christianity, and to excel it.
XVII.
The right of private judgment, always in set terms conceded to us, means nothing, unless it leads to a new understanding as to the terms in which we are to be addressed. In the "Bible and the People," it is described as "an insolence to ignore Christianity."* We do not understand this language. It would be insolence to Deity to ignore a message which we can recognize as coming from Him, but it may rather imply reverence for God to reject the reports of many who speak in His name. Were we to require Christians to read our books or think as we think, they would resent the requirement as an impertinence; and we have yet to learn "that it is less an impertinence when Christians make these demands of us." If Christians are under no obligation to hold our opinions, neither are we under obligation to hold theirs.
* No. I. Vol. I., p. 8. Edited by the Rev. Brewin Grant.
By our own act, or at their solicitation, we may study "sacred" writings, but at dictation, never! So long as Secularists obey the laws enacted for the common security, so long as they perform the duties of good citizens, it is nothing to Christians what opinions they hold. We neither seek their counsel nor desire their sentiments—except they concede them on terms of equality. The light by which we walk is sufficient for us; and as at the last day, of which Christians speak, we shall there have, according to their own showing, to answer for ourselves, we prefer to think for ourselves; and since they do not propose to take our responsibility, we decline to take their doctrines. Where we are to be responsible, we will be free; and no man shall dictate to us the opinions we shall hold. We shall probably know as well as any Christian how to live with freedom and to die without fear. It is in vain for Christians to tell us that Newton and Locke differed from us. What is that to us unless Newton and Locke will answer for us? The world may differ from a man, but what is the world to him, unless it will take his place at the judgment-day? Who is Paul or Apollos, or Matthew or Mark, that we should venture our eternal salvation on his word, any more than on that of a Mahomedan prophet, or a Buddhist priest? Where the danger is our own, the faith shall be our own. Secularism is not an act conceived in the spirit of pride, or vanity, or self-will, or eccentricity, or singularity, or stiff-neckedness. It is simply well-understood self-defence. If men have the right of private judgment, that right has set them free; and we own no law but reason, no limits but the truth, and have no fear but that of guilt. We may say we believe in honour, which is respecting the truth—in morality, which is acting the truth—in love, which is serving the truth—and in independence, which is defending the truth.
XVIII.