The reformers did not assume that no external infallible authority is necessary to faith. They denied the infallible authority of popes and councils, but asserted that of the written Word, interpreted by private judgment, or rather, by the private illumination of the Spirit, called by some in our day the Christian conscience, or consciousness. Our Puritan journalist, though he rejects not the Scriptures, very ably refutes this theory of the reformers:
"There lies before us a recent number of a religious quarterly containing an elaborate article entitled 'An Infallible Church or an infallible Book—which?' the great object of which is to dethrone the Pope and enthrone the Bible, as the subject of indubitable faith, with that religious certitude with which it may logically comfort the soul. To quote its own language, it would make the Bible 'the supreme and only arbiter in things spiritual.' And this, it thinks, would cause' divisions to cease among us for ever.' But this forgets that the Bible is always at the mercy of its interpreters, and that its unity becomes continual diversity—being all things to all men, as they compel it, by the manner in which they receive it. This is not true merely in the extreme cases of those who are—and who know that they are—'handling the Word of God deceitfully;' it is true, as well, of those who mean to treat it with extremest reverence and humility or receptive faith. Here, for example, are two meek and lowly, yet wonderfully clear-headed disciples, like Francis Wayland and Bela Bates Edwards; both able scholars and patient students of the Word; both, so far as human eye can judge, eminently seeking and securing the habitual guidance of the Holy Spirit: and yet, as a matter of fact, reaching, upon certain points which both feel to be of serious importance, conclusions as to what is taught in the Bible, diametrically opposite, and beyond possibility of reconciliation. And who can deny that the one—seeming to himself to find them in the Bible—was as sacredly bound to hold, practise, and teach Baptist, as the other, Pedobaptist views."
We need add nothing to this refutation. Protestants have had from the first all the Bible, all the private judgment, or private illumination, they now have or can hope to have; and yet they have never been able to agree among themselves on a single dogma of faith. The only point on which they have been unanimous is their hostility to the Catholic Church. They have no standard by which to try the spirit; and the Bible, not a few among them are accustomed to say, profanely, "is a fiddle on which a skilful player may play any tune he pleases." Protestants may go to the Bible to prove the doctrines they have been taught by their parents or ministers, or held from Protestant tradition; but they never, or rarely ever, obtain their doctrines from the study of the Holy Scriptures. Hence, sects the most divergent appeal alike to the Bible; and each seems to find texts in its favor. How can any thinking Protestant, who knows this, not be perplexed and uncertain as to what he should believe? The writer admits the difficulty, and asks:
"Are we to understand, then, that Christ is divided? Is there no such thing as absolute truth? This cannot be admitted, and we avoid the admission of it by the claim that God's absolute truth is a truth of love and life, through dogma yet not of dogma; so that it may be reached and realized by approaches not only from different but sometimes from opposite directions."
But this does not, as far as we can see, help the matter. Concede that charity or love is the fulfilling of the law, and that nothing more is required of any one than perfect charity, yet the love here asserted is, though not of dogma, "through dogma." Unless, then, we are sure of the absolute truth of the dogma, how can we be sure of the truth of the love and life, since there are many sorts of love? The dogma, according to the Puritan writer, is not the principle, indeed, but it is the medium of the love and life. Will a false medium be as effectual in relation to the end as a true medium? Can a falsehood be, in the nature of things, any medium at all? If we say the absolute truth is a truth of love and life through dogma, it seems to us absolutely necessary that the dogma should be absolutely true; but, whether the dogma is absolutely true or not, the writer concedes that those who reject the infallibility of the church have no certain means of determining. If it be said that the true love and life are practicable with contradictory dogmas, as is said in the last extract made, then dogmas are indifferent; and whether we believe the truth or falsehood of God or Christ; of the human soul; of the origin and end of man; of man's duties, and the means of discharging them,—can make no difference as to the truth of our love and life. The truth of love and life is not, then, an intellectual truth; a truth apprehended by the mind; but must be a mere affection of the heart, or, rather, a mere feeling, dependent on no operation of the understanding, but on some internal or external affection of the sensibility. The love will not be a rational affection, but a simple sentiment, sensitive affection, or sensible emotion, and as far removed from charity as is the sensuous appetite for food or drink.
The Congregationalist and Recorder seems aware that it has not yet found a solid ground to stand on, and fairly abandons its pretension to be able to arrive at absolute truth at all without the pope. It says:
"It is, then, both the privilege and the duty of every man to be a law unto himself; and out of his own reason and conscience, enlightened from all knowledge that can be made available by his own researches and those of his fellows, and more especially by the patient and docile study of the Bible—all in the most profound, uninterrupted, and prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit—to judge what is right. From the decision which he thus reaches there can be, for him, no appeal. Whether it is anybody's else duty to follow the course prescribed therein, or not, it is his duty to do so. He has plead his cause before his infallible tribunal, and its decision over him is necessarily supreme and inexorable. Not to obey it, would be to be false equally to God and to himself. If it be not absolute right which he has reached, it stands in the place of absolute right for him; and only along its road, however thorny, and steep, and high, can he climb up toward heaven. Practically, then, we insist upon it, there is no infallibility possible to man, but that which is resident in his own soul."
The conclusion is that to which all who seek their rule of faith in private judgment and private illumination, or inside the soul, must come at last; namely, the man is a law unto himself; that is, is his own law, and, therefore, his own truth. Out of his own reason and conscience, enlightened by the best study he can make, he is to judge supremely what is right. This, we need not say, is pure rationalism. It is man's duty to abide by the conclusion at which he arrives; for although it may not be the absolute right, yet it is the absolute right for him. This makes truth and duty relative; what each one, for himself, thinks them to be. What infallibility is here to oppose to the infallibility of the church? Suppose it is announced to a man that God has established a church which he by his presence renders infallible, to teach all men and nations; will it not be the duty of that man to listen to the announcement, and to investigate to the best of his ability, and with all diligence, whether it be so or not? If, through prejudice, indifference, or any other cause, he fails to do so, will his conviction against such church be excusable, and absolute truth or right, even for him? The article continues:
"And, in the matter of systems, we submit that there is no logical pause possible between the two extremes to which we referred, near the beginning of this article—that each man's own conscientious reason be his umpire, or that that reason be implicitly surrendered to some sole arbiter without. It must be pope or people; the absolutism of the papacy or the democracy of Congregationalism. There is no intermediate stand-point on which the aristocracy of Presbyterianism, or the limited monarchy of Methodism, or Episcopacy, can solidly build itself. And this is, in point of fact, the unintended confession of actions that are louder than words, in all these systems; inasmuch as an appeal to the people in their individuality is their quick, sharp sword which cuts every knot that draws hard and cannot be untied."
But we do not see how this follows. The writer, if he has proved anything, has proved, not that Congregationalism is a ground on which one can stand, but that the individual is. He places the infallible tribunal in the inside of the individual soul; Congregationalism places it, if anywhere, in the congregation or brotherhood. He should have said, therefore, that it is either pope or individualism. We readily agree that there is no solid ground between the pope and the people, taken individually, on which any third or middle party can stand; but is individualism, or the individual soul, a solid ground on which any one can stand, without danger of its giving way under him? We have seen that it is not, because an external standard is needed by which to try the internal; and the writer himself concedes it, if he understands the force of the terms he uses. He confesses that a man, after due investigation, with all the helps he can derive from the Holy Scriptures and the Spirit, cannot be certain of arriving at absolute truth—that is, at truth at all; he can only arrive at what is true and right for him, though it may not be so for any one else. At best, then, he attains only to the relative, and no man can stand on the relative, for the relative itself cannot stand except in the absolute. His whole doctrine amounts simply to this: What I honestly and conscientiously think is true and right, is true and right for me; that is, I may follow what I think is true and right with a safe conscience: but whether I think right or wrong; in accordance with the objective reality or not, I do not and cannot know. What is this but saying that infallibility is both impossible and unnecessary? Relying on what is inside of the soul, then, without any authority outside of it, we cannot attain to that certainty the writer began by affirming to be necessary, and craved by the soul; and which he proposed to show us could be had without the pope. All the writer does, is to show us that without the infallibility of the pope or church, we cannot have infallible faith; and to attempt to prove that we do not need it, and can do very well without it. What does he establish, then, but what Catholics have always told him, that there is no alternative but pope or no infallibility? He says: