(1870.)
The essay following the treatise on St. Paul and Protestantism, was meant to clear away offence or misunderstanding which had arisen out of that treatise. There still remain one or two points on which a word of explanation may be useful, and to them this preface is addressed.
The general objection, that the scheme of doctrine criticised by me is common to both Puritanism and the Church of England, and does not characterise the one more essentially than the other, has been removed, I hope, by the concluding essay. But it is said that there is, at any rate, a large party in the Church of England,—the so-called Evangelical party,—which holds just the scheme of doctrine I have called Puritan; that this large party, at least, if not the whole Church of England, is as much a stronghold of the distinctive Puritan tenets as the Nonconformists are; and that to tax the Nonconformists with these tenets, and to say nothing about the Evangelical clergy holding them too, is injurious and unfair.
The Evangelical party in the Church of England we must always, certainly, have a disposition to treat with forbearance, inasmuch as this party has so strongly loved what is indeed the most loveable of things,—religion. They have also avoided that unblessed mixture of politics and religion by which both politics and religion are spoilt. This, however, would not alone have prevented our making them jointly answerable with the Puritans for that body of opinions which calls itself Scriptural Protestantism, but which is, in truth, a perversion of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. But there is this difference between the Evangelical party in the Church of England and the Puritans outside her;—the Evangelicals have not added to the first error of holding this unsound body of opinions, the second error of separating for them. They have thus, as we have already noticed, escaped the mixing of politics and religion, which arises directly and naturally out of this separating for opinions. But they have also done that which we most blame Nonconformity for not doing;—they have left themselves in the way of development. Practically they have admitted that the Christian Church is built, not on the foundation of Lutheran and Calvinist dogmas, but on the foundation: Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.[1] Mr. Ryle or the Dean of Ripon may have as erroneous notions as to what truth and the gospel really is, as Mr. Spurgeon or the President of the Wesleyan Conference; but they do not tie themselves tighter still to these erroneous notions, nor do their best to cut themselves off from outgrowing them, by resolving to have no fellowship with the man of sin who holds different notions. On the contrary, they are worshippers in the same Church, professors of the same faith, ministers of the same confraternity, as men who hold that their Scriptural Protestantism is all wrong, and who hold other notions of their own quite at variance with it. And thus they do homage to an ideal of Christianity which is larger, higher, and better than either their notions or those of their opponents, and in respect of which both their notions and those of their opponents are inadequate; and this admission of the relative inadequacy of their notions is itself a stage towards the future admission of their positive inadequacy.
In fact, the popular Protestant theology, which we have criticised as such a grave perversion of the teaching of St. Paul, has not in the so-called Evangelical party of the Church of England its chief centre and stronghold. This party, which, following in the wake of Wesley and others, so felt in a day of general insensibility the power and comfort of the Christian religion, and which did so much to make others feel them, but which also adopted and promulgated a scientific account so inadequate and so misleading of the religion which attracted it,—this great party has done its work, and is now undergoing that law of transformation and development which obtains in a national Church. The power is passing from it to others, who will make good some of the aspects of religion which the Evangelicals neglected, and who will then, in their turn, from the same cause of the scientific inadequacy of their conception of Christianity, change and pass away. The Evangelical clergy no longer recruits itself with success, no longer lays hold on such promising subjects as formerly. It is losing the future and feels that it is losing it. Its signs of a vigorous life, its gaiety and audacity, are confined to its older members, too powerful to lose their own vigour, but without successors to whom to transmit it. It was impossible not to admire the genuine and rich though somewhat brutal humour of the Dean of Ripon's famous similitude of the two lepers.[2] But from which of the younger members of the Evangelical clergy do such strokes now come? The best of their own younger generation, the soldiers of their own training, are slipping away from them; and he who looks for the source whence popular Puritan theology now derives power and perpetuation, will not fix his eyes on the Evangelical clergy of the Church of England.
Another point where a word of explanation seems desirable is the objection taken on a kind of personal ground to the criticism of St. Paul's doctrine which we have attempted. 'What!' it is said, 'if this view of St. Paul's meaning, so unlike the received view, were the true one, do you suppose it would have been left for you to discover it? Are you wiser than the hundreds of learned people who for generation after generation have been occupying themselves with St. Paul and little else? Has it been left for you to bring in a new religion and found a new church?' Now on this line of expostulation, which, so far as it draws from unworthiness of ours its argument, appears to have, no doubt, great force, there are three remarks to be offered. In the first place, even if the version of St. Paul which we propound were both new and true, yet we do not, on that account, make of it a new religion or set up a new church for its sake. That would be separating for opinions, heresy, which is just what we reproach the Nonconformists with. In the seventh century, there arose near the Euphrates a sect called Paulicians, who professed to form themselves on the pure doctrine of St. Paul, which other Christians, they said, had misunderstood and corrupted. And we, I suppose, having discovered how popular Protestantism perverts St. Paul, are expected to try and make a new sect of Paulicians on the strength of this discovery; such being just the course which our Puritan friends would themselves eagerly take in like case. But the Christian Church is founded, not on a correct speculative knowledge of the ideas of Paul, but on the much surer ground: Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity; and, holding this to be so, we might change the current strain of doctrinal theology from one end to the other, without, on that account, setting up any new church or bringing in any new religion.
In the second place, the version we propound of St. Paul's line of thought is not new, is not of our discovering. It belongs to the 'Zeit-Geist,' or time-spirit, it is in the air, and many have long been anticipating it, preparing it, setting forth this and that part of it, till there is not a part, probably, of all we have said, which has not already been said by others before us, and said more learnedly and fully than we can say it. All we have done is to take it as a whole, and give a plain, popular, connected exposition of it; for which, perhaps, our notions about culture, about the many sides to the human spirit, about making these sides help one another instead of remaining enemies and strangers, have been of some advantage. For most of those who read St. Paul diligently are Hebraisers; they regard little except the Hebraising impulse in us and the documents which concern it. They have little notion of letting their consciousness play on things freely, little ear for the voice of the 'Zeit-Geist;' and they are so immersed in an order of thoughts and words which are peculiar, that, in the broad general order of thoughts and words, which is the life of popular exposition, they are not very much at home.
Thirdly, and in the last place, we by no means put forth our version of St. Paul's line of thought as true, in the same fashion as Puritanism put forth its Scriptural Protestantism, or gospel, as true. Their truth the Puritans exhibit as a sort of cast-iron product, rigid, definite, and complete, which they have got once for all, and which can no longer have anything added to it or anything withdrawn from it. But of our rendering of St. Paul's thought we conceive rather as of a product of nature, which has grown to be what it is and which will grow more; which will not stand just as we now exhibit it, but which will gain some aspects which we now fail to show in it, and will drop some which we now give it; which will be developed, in short, farther, just in like manner as it has reached its present stage by development.
Thus we present our conceptions, neither as something quite new nor as something quite true; nor yet as any ground, even supposing they were quite new and true, for a separate church or religion. But so far they are, we think, new and true, and a fruit of sound development, a genuine product of the 'Zeit-Geist,' that their mere contact seems to make the old Puritan conceptions look unlikely and indefensible, and begin a sort of re-modelling and refacing of themselves. Let us just see how far this change has practically gone.
The formal and scholastic version of its theology, Calvinist or Arminian, as given by its seventeenth-century fathers, and enshrined in the trust-deeds of so many of its chapels,—of this, at any rate, modern Puritanism is beginning to feel shy. Take the Calvinist doctrine of election. 'By God's decree a certain number of angels and men are predestinated, out of God's mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works in them, to everlasting life; and others foreordained, according to the unsearchable counsel of his will, whereby he extends or withholds mercy as he pleases, to everlasting death.' In that scientific form, at least, the doctrine of election begins to look dubious to the Calvinistic Puritan, and he puts it a good deal out of sight. Take the Arminian doctrine of justification. 'We could not expect any relief from heaven out of that misery under which we lie, were not God's displeasure against us first pacified and our sins remitted. This is the signal and transcendent benefit of our free justification through the blood of Christ, that God's offence justly conceived against us for our sins (which would have been an eternal bar and restraint to the efflux of his grace upon us) being removed, the divine grace and bounty may freely flow forth upon us.' In that scientific form, the doctrine of justification begins to look less satisfactory to the Arminian Puritan, and he tends to put it out of sight.