Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

by James Freeman Clarke

An American Protestant bishop once forbade a clergyman of his church to officiate again, because this clergyman had invited a Methodist minister to assist him in the administration of the sacrament. This is backsliding a good way from the position of Him who said, “Forbid him not: he that is not against us is with us.” And again: “Whosoever wishes to do the will of God, the same is my mother, my sister, and my brother.” Dear Master! is thy Church so broad as to include all who desire to do the will of God, and are our churches so narrow that they cannot hold any but those who agree with us in our little notions about ceremony and form? Hast thou been so long time with us, and yet have we not known thee?

The Church Actual is a timid Church. It is afraid of truth, and afraid of love. Its creed is full of mysteries too solemn and sacred to be examined. They are the sealed book of the prophet, which is given to the learned clergy, and to the unlearned laity; and the answer of the unlearned laity is, “We are not learned.” And the answer of the learned clergy is, “It is sealed. It is a mystery. We must not even try to understand it.” The Actual Church is not fond of a free examination of its tenets, but rather represses it by the flaming terrors of perdition impending over honest error.

The Church Actual sticks in the letter. How it idolizes [pg 415] the Bible! But when you ask, What? you find it is rather the letter of the Bible than its manly, generous, humane, and holy spirit. It babbles of verbal inspiration and literal inspiration, which are phrases as absurd as it would be to say “bodily spirit.” Question the inspiration of the letter, and a thousand voices cry, “You are cutting away the very foundations of our faith. If we cannot believe every letter of the Bible to be from God, we have nothing to hold by.” But the apostle Paul thought somewhat differently, when he said, “Who hath also made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

The American Bible Society appointed a committee of learned persons to revise the present translation of the Bible—not to make a new translation by any means, but merely to correct palpable blunders of the press, palpable errors in the headings of chapters, or universally admitted mistakes of the translators. The learned men did their work. It was examined, printed—about to be published. But an outcry was made, that the Bible Society, in taking away these few errors of the press, was taking away our Bible. The Christian public, in the middle of the nineteenth century, has been so instructed, that when a few errors in the letter of the outward word are corrected, it cries out, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”

The Church Actual is sectarian. Every church is trying to swell its numbers at the expense of its neighbors. We do not think that a Christian Church should be constructed on the principle of a mouse-trap, which it is easy enough to get into, but hard to get out of. We do not think it right that young persons, in the glow of their piety, should be drawn into a church, without being told that if they should change their views on any important point, they cannot leave it except by being excommunicated publicly. But there are churches in New England which have many very easy and agreeable [pg 416] entrances, but only two exits—very difficult and disagreeable. If one wishes to leave, he is dismissed with a letter directed to some other church of the same creed, and not till he has joined some such church, and a certificate is sent back to that effect, is he released from his obligations. The Church is therefore like a city on a hill, with a palisade fence all round, with openings by which one can get in, but not out; and having only two outlets—one by a gate kept carefully locked, and the other over a steep wall, fifty feet high. You have your choice of three things: 1. Stay where you are; 2. Go through the gate into another palisaded enclosure; 3. Be pitched down the Tarpeian rock of excommunication.[71]

Thus we see that the Church Actual differs much, and often for the worse, from the Church Primitive. It is not now a home or a fraternity, for its members often do not know each other by sight. It is not a school of disciples, for it is thought necessary to take your whole creed at once, ready made, and not learn it by degrees. The worship is too often by the minister and choir, the people being only spectators. Instead of the simple original faith in Jesus as the Christ, the people are taught long and complicated creeds. Instead of a unity of conviction, seeing the same things, there is only a unity of expression, saying the same things. Instead of seeking to save the outcasts, infidels, vicious; churches are built and occupied by Christians themselves, as though Christ came to call only the righteous to repentance. There may be, in our great cities, a church to every two thousand persons; but every seat in every church is bought and occupied by the respectable and comfortable classes. The gospel is preached, but no longer to the poor. There is something wrong in all this.

§ 9. The Church Ideal, or Church as it ought to be.

The Church Ideal is full of life, power, love, freedom. It is a teaching Church; calling men out of darkness into marvellous light, throwing light on all the mysteries of human existence. It takes the little child and teaches it concerning its duty and destiny. It organizes schools through every Christian nation, so that all Christian children shall be taught of God, and that great shall be their peace. It teaches systematically and thoroughly all classes of society; so that all, from least to the greatest, know the Lord. It organizes missions to all heathen lands, and its missionaries are so true, noble, kind, so reflect the life of Jesus in their own, that the heathen come flying like clouds, and like flocks of doves, to the windows of the holy home. The dusky, and swarming races of Hindostan, the mild and studious Chinamen, come flowing to Christ, as the long undulating clouds of pigeons darken along the October sky in our western forests. The ideal Church is a loving Church. It loves men out of their sins. It seeks the poor and forlorn, the hard-hearted and impenitent, and by unwearied patience soothes their harsh spirit. Enter its gates, and you find yourself in an atmosphere of affection. The strong bear the infirmities of the weak. Each seeks the lowest place for himself. They love to wash the disciples' feet.

The Ideal Church is an active Church. All the members work together for the building up of the body; some after this fashion, others after that. “So the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,” is built up in love. Is there any ruinous vice, any corroding sin, any festering moral disease in the land? The Ideal Church searches for its root, and finds its cure. It takes the intemperate man by the hand, and will not let him go till he abstains. It penetrates into every haunt of sin and pollution, and brings forth the half-ruined child, triumphantly leads out the corrupt woman, and places them [pg 418] in new homes. The Ideal Church does not dispute about doctrines or dogmas. It says to each, “To your Master you shall stand or fall, not to me.”