The change we call "conversion" thus residing neither in the transfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth of ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption of Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere of action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet explored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls of men. "Give me thine heart," is her, is his demand, confident that if this be given all else is also gained. The change she seeks in those whom God would make her children is a change, not of opinion, not of tastes, not of behavior, but of heart and will; a change which reaches to the citadel of life, and thoroughly and permanently converts the man. With nothing less than this can she be satisfied. On nothing less than this can she securely build.
And this change is conversion.
Protestantism, so far forth as it is a religious system, is based upon two principles, from which have been developed all its influence and power, and to which may be traced the numerous and immeasurable evils whereof for many ages it has been a fruitful source. The first of these is: That the church, founded by our Lord, is an invisible church, to which every man who believes he is saved by Christ is by that sole belief united, whatever else his creed and religious observance may be. The second is: That every man, by his own reason working on the text of Scripture, is able to, and must determine for himself what his religious faith and moral code shall be. The inevitable consequence of the first principle is—that the doctrine and moral law of one man, so long as they embrace the Saviourship of Christ in any sense whatever, are matters in which his brother Christian can have no concern. The inevitable consequence of the second is—that the self-eliminated creed and rule of observance of each Christian are as correct and reliable as those of any or even of all others, and will be the only standard of his judgment at the bar of God.
This first principle and its logical deductions have resulted in simple religious individualism. "The communion of saints," in that sense in which St. Paul describes it, as a Christian society, whose members mutually depend upon each other, think the same things, believe the same things, speak the same things, preserving the unity of the Spirit as well as the bond of peace, has been rendered practically impossible; while for it has been substituted an ideal "Christian union" which consists either in the abnegation of all distinctive doctrines as mere human opinions, or in the toleration of them all as different methods of expressing the same religious truth. And even this "union" which might be possible if pride and self-will were eradicated from the heart of man, has become so far from a reality, that the very theories on which it is based have sected and bisected the original divisions of Protestant Christianity, until from five they have become five hundred, with every prospect of a similar multisection to the end of time.
This principle has done more. It has entered the bodies of the sects themselves, and repelled member from member, minister from flock. It has destroyed, in the collective sect, all sense of responsibility for the faith and conduct of its members; and, in the members, all sense of responsibility for their personal belief and morals to the sect at large. It has overturned [{465}] every tribunal established for the preservation of Christian discipline, and has abrogated "church authority" as wholly incompatible with purity of conscience and religious freedom. It has reduced the conditions of admission to the ecclesiastical fellowship to "the minimum of Christianity" and has abolished "terms of communion" and "professions of faith" as utterly subversive of denominational integrity. [Footnote 147] In this way it has made each man not only de jure, but de facto a spiritual autocrat, and has erected him into an isolated, independent religious body, depriving the sect of all real organic life, and degrading it from a church with head and members to a mere aggregation of discordant particles.
[Footnote 147: Vide New Englander for July, 1866, pages 477 to 487 et seq.]
The individual, being thus debarred of all external aid, is thrown upon his own resources for religious guidance. There is no living man upon the earth from whom he can receive an an authoritative enunciation of eternal truths. There is no set of men upon whose teachings he can rely as more perfect for more ultimately certain than his own. The common mouth of Christendom utters no voice that puts to rest the questions of his soul. All stand, like him, upon one level plain of human fallibility; a fallibility which no diffusion, however universal, can ever make infallible. All, whether singly or collectively interrogated, can answer his appeal for light only by giving their own human judgments in exchange for his.
And hence arises the necessity for that second principle on which, as well as on the first, the foundations of Protestant Christianity were laid; a principle which recognizes the intrinsic individualism that the first produces, and perfects it by removing from man every hope but one. That one hope is the Bible; a dead and speechless book; a body whose spirit hides itself in the interminable labyrinth of languishes long since unspoken; a star which gathers its reflected rays through paraphrases and translations as chromatic as the intellects that framed them or the pens that wrote them down.
"The Bible, and the Bible only," has been the banner-cry of Protestantism from the dawn of its existence. The first work of Luther, after his apostasy, was the publication of such parts of the New Testament as he considered best suited to his purposes; and the great aim of his successors, in all countries and in all ages, has been to flood the world with copies of the Scriptures, in such guise and such proportions as should soonest and most surely undermine the principles of church authority, and establish their version of the Bible as the sole acknowledged teacher of the truth of God. From the beginning, also, as a part of the same work, they have denied that God has furnished to mankind other interpreters of his revelation than the unaided intellect of man, and have declared the private judgment of the individual to be his all-sufficient and his only guide to the true meaning of the written law. It will not, therefore, nay, it cannot be disputed, that every man to whom the name of Protestant belongs, depends entirely for his knowledge of the truth which God commands him to believe, and of the laws which God commands him to obey, upon what he can learn, unled by note or comment, from that collective translation of ancient books to which he gives the name "[Greek text]," or "The Bible."
Now, were it certain that the Bible contained the entire canon of holy scripture, with every book and paragraph complete; were it certain that that Scripture was in every syllable the utterance of God; were it certain that no error in translation had modulated the clear voice which spoke from heaven; were it certain that no pride of self-opinion, no prejudice of early education, no ignorance of the true meaning and construction of the language, were able to distort the [{466}] spiritual vision; then might this principle, to some extent, subserve the purposes which Protestants allege it to fulfil. But, while no evidence, by them admissible, can determine beyond cavil the completeness of their canon, while divine inspiration remains a fact beyond the power of human testimony to establish; while that confusion of tongues which the centuries of barbarian incursion wrought has rendered more or less questionable all translations from ancient Greek or Hebrew to a modern dialect; while human pride and prejudice have lost none of their hold upon the heart of man; it is not in our nature to believe that God has left us to such a guidance as this principle asserts, and still holds us responsible for the truth of our opinions and the purity of our conduct at the peril of our eternal damnation. And thus each of these principles practically affirms and corroborates the other, and both unite to overthrow all definite revealed religion, and to prostrate at the feet of human reason the dicta of the everlasting God.