^ ,. 
 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 SAe//. 
 
 BX 5937 .L779 
 
 Littlejohn, A. N. 1824-190 
 
 Condones ad clerum 
 
 Number. 
 
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CONCIONES AD CLERUM 
 
 1879-1880. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. N.^LITTLEJOHN, D.D. 
 
 Bishop of Long Island. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 AND 3 Bible House. 
 i88i. 
 
 
COPYBIGHT, 1880, 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER. 
 
TO 
 
 THE RT. REV. JOHN WILLIAMS, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Bishop of Connecticut, 
 
 from whom, during a period op more than thirty tears, 
 
 i have received many kindnesses that i can 
 
 never hope to repay, 
 
 and by whom i have been honored with a friendship 
 
 which, i pray, may be continued 
 
 to the end, 
 
 ©^s Volume is giffcctiottatelg Ittscribeb, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
of Pr//7/ 
 
 >v>^ ♦ 
 
 ^ ucT 1 r^5 "^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 On four occasions during Lent, 1879 and 1880, I 
 met tlie clergy of my Dioce|e for conference on the 
 duties and the labors of the Ministry. What I said to 
 them is contained in the following pages. I have 
 added nothing except a few notes and Appendices. 
 Knowing how much has been written on the same 
 subjects, and the difficulty of making any fresh 
 contribution to their discussion which would be of 
 much value, or would be likely to command at- 
 tention, I should not have published these Ad- 
 dresses but for the request of the Clergy who 
 heard them. 
 
 A. ^. L. 
 
 St. John Baptist's Day, 1880. 
 
r. 
 CLERGY AND PEOPLE. 
 
 II. 
 THE CURE OF SOULS. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE GRACE OF ORDINATION; 
 
 HOW TO QUICKEN A2:iD DEVELOP IT. 
 
I. 
 
 CLEEGY AND PEOPLE. 
 
 We are here for no general or uncertain purpose. 
 "We have met at the beginning of this solemn sea- 
 son of the Church's year, which has always been 
 used to quicken and refresh the spiritual life of 
 clergy and people, for three definite ends : (1) by 
 united prayers and supplications to obtain a fresh 
 baptism of the Holy Ghost for ourselves and for 
 those committed to our charge ; (2) by a devout 
 partaking of the Sacrament of Christ's body and 
 blood to draw nearer to Him from whom our com- 
 mission to minister in holy things is derived, to en- 
 ter more earnestly into His example, His character, 
 His work, as the Pattern Priest, Prophet, and Ru- 
 ler of a redeemed humanity, and so to stir up the 
 gift that is in us by the laying on of hands ; (3) as 
 the ordained officers of the kingdom of Christ to 
 take counsel together on certain questions of dut}^ 
 and work, which, though never absent from our 
 
8 Condones ad Clerzim. 
 
 thoughts, yet, at this time, have a special claim 
 upon our consideration. What I may be able to 
 say may be of comparatively little moment. Mj' 
 aim will be accompKshed if, as the result of this 
 assembling together, you shall be more deeply im- 
 pressed with a sense of the fellowship of the Chris- 
 tian Ministry, and of the duty and power of that 
 fellowship to bring you into closer sympathy, to 
 enable you to bear one another's burdens and so 
 fulfil the law of Christ — to give to the younger and 
 less experienced some light and courage and 
 strength drawn from acknowledged veterans in the 
 service. 
 
 The first subject to be handled is ourselves ; the 
 second, our flocks ; the third, our office, or at least 
 one phase or function of it. 
 
 Ourselves, ministers of Christ, stewards of the 
 Divine mysteries, priests of the Most High God, 
 leaders and teachers of the faithful, heralds of sal- 
 vation to the unbelieving and impenitent, by whom, 
 as in Christ's stead, God beseeches all men to turn 
 from their sins and be saved : as such, what are 
 our special duties and exercises at this time ? When 
 the Church solemnly calls upon her clergy and her 
 
Clergy and People. 
 
 people to examine and try their ways, to sanctify 
 a fast, to tlirust the world aside, and to enter upon 
 a severer discipline, it is plain that, whatever the 
 work, the leaders must go before the led, the shep- 
 herds must move in advance of the sheep, the com- 
 missioned officers must precede the rank and file of 
 the militant host. If the people are to be lifted to 
 a higher plane of duty and worship, their priests 
 must stand where they can beckon them up to it. 
 Therefore inquiry, scrutiny, judgments, reform, re- 
 vival must begin with them. 
 
 There is no time and, in your hearing, no need 
 to describe the ideal of the ministry as we find it in 
 the New Testament or in the hves of those who 
 have embodied it. We know that our ministry 
 should be a growth — if not in the gifts and faculties 
 which compose it, at least in the power to use 
 them. "What is human and earthly in it should be 
 all the while merging more and more into the di- 
 vine and heavenly. Its dominant motive should 
 be constantly changing from the less to the more 
 perfect. Beyond all else intrusted to us, it enfolds 
 the powers of the world to come, and witnesses to 
 the dispensation of the Spirit. As such, to be true 
 
lO Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 to its own law, it sliould find in each year the evi- 
 dence of higher purity of tone and increased fruit- 
 fulness in the grace and knowledge of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. This, we are all ready to exclaim, 
 should be the case. But, alas ! experience tells a 
 different story. "What a struggle to maintain even 
 a respectable average of gifts, motives, labors ! 
 How many fall below that average ! How few 
 rise above it ! How many decline from the fervor 
 of devotion and concentration of purpose with 
 which they began their ministry ! How few, af- 
 ter ten or twenty years of labor, can honestly 
 claim to have advanced in these qualities ! We 
 may say, this is not to be wondered at ; and it is 
 not. I may not dwell upon the causes. It is 
 enough to name them ; for the siifficient proof of 
 their power is in our own consciousness. There is 
 the deadening effect of routine. There is the hard- 
 ening influence of constant familiarity with holy 
 Ihings, either as objects of mental contemplation or 
 as themes of public speech. There is the subtle 
 temptation to merge a Divine vocation into a re- 
 spectable profession, which owes us a living. There 
 is the dull, steady attrition of the world, with its 
 
Clergy and People. ii 
 
 coarser aspirations, its lower motives, its selfish in- 
 stincts. There is the deterioration of spiritual 
 power that comes of obscurity, discouragement, ap- 
 parent failure, lack of appreciation among the flock, 
 poverty, and change, and the gradual paralysis of 
 faith in the triumph of good over evil, truth over 
 falsehood. It is not in human nature to be habit- 
 ually hopeful, habitually fervid, and habitually en- 
 ergetic, wlien it is found that these qualities do not 
 produce the results we anticipated. Now, these 
 are the facts ; this is the common experience. And 
 yet woe to that man of God set in official position 
 who succmnbs to them, who consciously allows this 
 deterioration of a Divine gift and commission to go 
 on. It must be resisted at all hazards ; and to re- 
 sist it successfully, a strong counter effort must be 
 put forth ; and it is part of the value of Lent that 
 it sets us at work in this direction, and provides 
 special helps and stimulants for doing it. This is 
 the time for self -scrutiny and introspection, for re- 
 examining the interior drift of our lives, for turn- 
 ing up to the eye of the memory and conscience 
 not only tlie original covenant obhgations put on 
 with our Christianity in Holy Baptism, but also ' 
 
12 Condones ad Cleruin. 
 
 the special, superadded vows of our priestly voca- 
 tion. 
 
 We once declared, at a very solemn moment, that 
 we beheved ourselves inwardly called by the Holy 
 Ghost to this oifice and ministry in the Church of 
 God. Has the evidence of that call strengthened 
 or weakened with the lapse of years ? Have we re- 
 gretted or rejoiced over the place and work which 
 that call assigned us ? "Was there a reality in the 
 words, ' ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost, ' ' or have we 
 doubted whether anything at all was received by us 
 at that moment ? We vowed to be diligent in 
 2Drayer and in the study of the Holy Scriptures, and 
 for this end to lay aside the study of the world and 
 the flesh. Have we done so ? I need not go over 
 the rest. I simply indicate the line of inquiry. 
 This is the time to compare what we have been and 
 have done with what we promised to be and to do. 
 As we do so, " Oh for one sight of the Cross, the 
 pierced hand, the wounded side ! Oh for one 
 keen throb of remembrance ! How shall I look on 
 Him whom I have betrayed ? How shall I, on 
 whom His hand was laid, to whom His powers 
 were granted," face the peril of having preached 
 
Clergy and People, 13 
 
 unto otliers, and in the end of being a castaway 
 myseK. 
 
 St. Paul was vigilant and bold in warning those 
 whom he set over the Churches under his care to be- 
 ware lest their ministry should be blamed. With- 
 out repeating his language, I may say that his warn- 
 ing is always timely, and especially now. To what 
 extent, if at all, the ministry is dechning in its in- 
 herent as well as traditional influence, it is needless 
 to inquire in this connection ; but that it is blamed, 
 among other things, for acquiescing in a standard 
 of professional demeanor and service below that set 
 forth in the Holy Scriptures, and observed by tlie 
 best and wisest in this Divine vocation in every age, 
 for allowing ^its rule of Hfe, and the minor morals 
 growing out of it, to be adulterated and enfeebled 
 by an undue conformity to the self-indulgent ways 
 of a social life, called Christian by courtesy — that 
 it is blamed for this there can be no doubt ; and to 
 the full extent that the blame is just, there is a loss 
 of spiritual power in every sermon that is preached, 
 in every office that is administered, in every case of 
 direct dealing with the individual soul. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the damage wrought 
 
14 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 among us by the false liberalism or avowed scepti- 
 cism of tlie day, or by the unfortunate divisions of 
 Christendom, with all their sect rivalries and con- 
 tentions, it is my belief that the weakest points in our 
 line, offensive and defensive, are precisely those 
 which have been created by the gradual intrusion of 
 tastes, methods, indulgences, practices, which, in 
 a hundred ways, are the known and accepted badges 
 of baptized worldliness. I need not stop for ex- 
 amples and illustrations in our general Church life. 
 I am speaking now of and to the clergy — the chosen 
 deputies of Christ — the commissioned shepherds of 
 the flock. And, to leave no doubt as to what I 
 mean, I will take a single case in point. It is 
 sometimes laid down as a sort of axiom, which no 
 one is likely to dispute, that nothing can be wrong 
 in a clergyman which is not just as wrong in a lay- 
 man. That priest has already become sadly demor- 
 alized who can find comfort in such a view, or who 
 can accept it as a convenie^it apology for doing 
 doubtful things, or being found in doubtful places 
 or in doubtful company. That man's eyes are al- 
 ready set, not on things above, but on things be- 
 neath. In his wish to lower for himself the minis- 
 
Clergy and People, 15 
 
 terial standard, he lias learned to reason backward 
 It is said, such and such amusements — theatre-go- 
 ing and opera-going, for instance — 'moderately en- 
 joyed, and with due discrimination, are clearly 
 not wrong in a layman if he is, in other re- 
 spects, a good man. Why, then, should they 
 be wrong in a clergyman ? Now, the true an- 
 swer is to be found not in a nice balancing of 
 opposing expediencies, nor in supposed conse- 
 sequences to others, one way or the other. The 
 answer is above and beyond all casuistry. If it be 
 the true answer, it will not be reasoned out. It will 
 come leaping like a spontaneous impulse from hearts 
 that have vowed to take up the cross, and, forsaking 
 all, to follow Christ. It is implied in every line of 
 the Ordinal, that there is no complete service for 
 Christ that does not begin, continue, and end in self- 
 sacrifice. The priest who means to be an ensam- 
 ple to the flock, and whose soul is aflame with the 
 holy fire that burned in the Master's soul, is never 
 casting about to find the last possible barrier that 
 separates him from unlawful or worldly indulgence, 
 never asking what he may do without disgracing 
 his vocation or creating scandal, never discussing 
 
1 6 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 the precise amount of conformity to the world 
 which he may venture upon without loss of reputa- 
 tion or influence. Oh, no ! The one question 
 with him is, how near he can get to the mind that 
 was in Christ Jesus. The roads lead in opposite 
 directions, and to travel the one is to give up and 
 move farther and farther away from the other.* 
 
 * " It generally happens that the majority of those who are 
 governed regard the manners of their rulers as a sort of model 
 image, and make themselves like them. How, then, can he 
 appease their passions who is swollen witli anger himself ? 
 Who among the multitude would straiglitway desire to be 
 moderate if he saw his ruler angry ? For it is utterly impossi- 
 ble for the failings of priests to be hidden ; but the very least 
 become immediately manifest. 
 
 " An athlete, so long as he remains at home and contends with 
 nobody, may conceal it, evju though he is very weak ; but 
 when he strips for the conflict he is easily found out. And 
 some men, who live a private and inactive life, have their se- 
 clusion as a veil over their faults ; but when they come into 
 the arena they are forced to strip off solitude as a garment, 
 and to show their naked souls to all men by means of their out- 
 ward movements. As, therefore, their right deeds have profited 
 many by provoking them to equal zeal, so have their short- 
 comings made men more indifferent to the practice of virtue, 
 and rendered them sluggish in their endeavors after what is ex- 
 cellent. The faults of ordinary men, which are as though 
 committed in the dark, ruin only those who perpetrate them ; 
 
Clergy ana People. 1 7 
 
 But there is another consideration involved. 
 The clergyman is the layman ^lus all that is given 
 and demanded in the loftiest and holiest calling 
 possible to man — the priesthood of Christ ; just as 
 the magistrate is the citizen flus all that makes the 
 magistrate, or the military commander the common 
 soldier 2^^'^'^^ the responsibilities of his position. 
 The minister cannot, at will, put on his office and 
 put it off according to his surroundings. His char- 
 acter, like his office, is indelible and continuous, 
 
 but the vices of a man "who is conspicuous inflict a common 
 injury upon all. And apart from these things, the faults of 
 the obscure, even if they come into notice, are punished with no 
 remarkable punishment ; but those who are seated on the 
 highest pinnacle of honor are, in the first place, manifest unto 
 all men, and in the next place, if they fail in the smallest mat- 
 ters, that which is small seems great toothers ; for all men esti- 
 mate an offence, not by the measure of the action, but by the 
 dignity of him who sins. 
 
 " So long as the life of the priest is well ordered in everyway, 
 it is invulnerable ; but if he overlooks ever so little, as easily 
 happens, since he is but a man, he derives no advantage from 
 the rest of his good deeds, for that little fault overshadows all 
 besides. All men will judge the priest, not as one arrayed in 
 flesh and inheriting human nature, but as an angel, and one 
 delivered from remaining infirmity." * 
 
 * Chrysostom on " The Priesthood," p. 88-89. 
 
Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 and that character, that office, is essentially spir- 
 itual ; and because it is spiritual it wields the pow- 
 ers of the world to come, or rather the powers of 
 the kingdom which is not of this world. It acts 
 for Christ, it acts with Christ, it acts under Christ. 
 He, by the Spirit, gives to its every function what- 
 ever virtue it has ; wherever it is, it is representa- 
 tive of that which is above itself and which speaks 
 through itself. And so office, character, conduct, 
 habit, influence, are in every priest but integral 
 parts of his priesthood, constituting an organic 
 whole that is one and inseparable. On both 
 grounds there are many things which a layman may 
 do or leave undone, but which a clergyman may 
 not do, or leave undone. The life of the former is 
 conditioned by his secular occupation as well as by 
 his Christian vocation ; the life of the latter by an 
 office which dominates all else, and must be judged 
 by a standard peculiar to itself. It must be in the 
 world, and of the world, yet above the world. 
 
 !No, to assume as our rule of life the prevail- 
 ing customs and standards about us, or to be content 
 with the verdict of public opinion on the morale of 
 our lives, or our work, is a degradation of the ideal 
 
Clergy and People. 19 
 
 ' of our holy office. If it be true that we have the 
 special grace of God, the special presence of 
 Christ, the special commission to represent the 
 kingdom which is not of this world, it is also true 
 that the rightful measure of our self-devotion and 
 non-conformity to the world can be determined 
 only by a rule of priestly conduct wliich will appear, 
 to the average of mankind, as fit only for ascetics 
 and abstinents. It is impossible to come to any 
 other conclusion, whether we consult the language 
 habitually used in Holy Scripture on the subject, 
 or the character and requirements of the work to 
 which we have been set apart. Self-indulgent and 
 easy hvers the clergy cannot be, unless they mean to 
 cut themselves off from one of the highest sources 
 of their influence. How shall they lift up others, 
 if themselves be not first lifted up ? They must 
 live as pilgrims and strangers here, if they would 
 teach others to live so. What matters it that soci- 
 ety — people criticise and sneer ? "What matters it 
 that such a course will be unpopular ? It is only 
 what we have to look for that the world should dis- 
 like most those who protest most against its spirit. 
 The salt has already gone out of a ministry that has, 
 
20 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 in its very tone and attitude, no power of rebuke, 
 no voice of chiding and remonstrance. 
 
 Again, let me say a word or two in regard to our 
 self-sacrifice in labors for Christ and for souls whom 
 He redeemed, as compared with the self-sacrifice 
 shown by men devoted to secular pursuits. The 
 comparison is not a pleasant one to make, and, if 
 pushed too far, it is even painful in what it reveals. 
 In every profession, in every calhng, in every trade 
 it is a common thing to find men of talent, earnest- 
 ness, and perseverance who allow no personal com- 
 fort or convenience to stand in the way of success. 
 So much are they absorbed, so ardently employed 
 in achieving distinction, wealth, and influence, that 
 ease and health are thrown away without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation. They seem not to reckon as of 
 any consequence the pleasures of society, or the 
 quiet and privacy of their homes. Their habits of 
 life, their arrangements of time are forced into 
 rigid conformity with their dominant j)urpose. 
 What cares the physician who loves his vocation, 
 and is bent on acquiring a professional fame, for 
 festive hours, or hours of repose, when his patient 
 summons him to his bedside ? Who thinks of see- 
 
Clergy and People. 21 
 
 ing the energetic advocate, resolved on winning his 
 way to reputation and influence, at social gatherings, 
 whiling away his time in gossiping talk with people 
 of fashion and jjleasure ? "Who does not expect, as 
 a thing of course, that the soldier will turn his back 
 on every call of the world for the higher ones of 
 professional duty \ So with the tradesman and me- 
 chanic, who mean to acquire a competence. It is 
 taken for granted that they will be at their work 
 late and early, shortening the hours of sleep, and, 
 if need be, imposing upon themselves habits of stem 
 self-denial. Can the same be said, as a ruie, of the 
 vocation specially commissioned of God to save im- 
 mortal souls and glorify the redeeming Lord ? 
 Alas ! how comes it that the clergy are expected to 
 take a different line, to be less intense, less absorbed, 
 less worn by the friction of ever-pressing cares and 
 obligations, to have one foot only in the sanctuary 
 and the other in the world ? How does it happen 
 that they are regarded as about the only class of 
 men in society who have time to pay and return the 
 ordinary visits of daily courtesy, to be frequent 
 diners out, to bestow a smiling and gracious grav- 
 ity on festive gatherings, and generally to afford to 
 
22 Condones ad Cleruni. 
 
 their neighbors an attractive example of respectabil- 
 ity and domestic comfort ? What a contrast ! And 
 let us be manly enough to face it. On the one side, 
 men sacrificing everything to wealth, ambition, the 
 praise of their fellows ; on the other, the ordained 
 servants of Christ — at least too many of them — 
 yielding, oh, how little ! to the demands of a calling 
 which ought to distance all others in denials and 
 hardships and self-abnegation. Complain not of 
 harsh judgments, wonder not at the decHning power 
 of the priesthood, or at the turning away of the 
 masses from our altars, or at anything else which 
 reflects upon the earnestness of the ministry or in- 
 flicts discredit and damage upon its traditional pres- 
 tige. The world is testing us by a standard our- 
 selves have raised ; and it will test us no otherwise 
 until ourselves break away from that standard. A 
 thousand times better were it that we should be 
 jeered at, ridiculed, denounced as enthusiasts, dev- 
 otees, ascetics, than that our mode of life, our way 
 of doing the Master's work, our tone of character 
 and conversation, should puzzle the self -pleasing 
 world to discover any radical difference between us 
 and itself . 
 
Clergy afid People. 23 
 
 As to the second topic proposed for consideration, 
 viz., the best means for awakening in the faithful 
 increased interest in the special teachings and ser- 
 vices of the Church at this time, that must be han- 
 dled at another time. 
 
 On the third and last topic I must ask your atten- 
 tion for a few moments. Nothing can be more im- 
 portant than the relations of our pastorate to indi- 
 vidual souls. It is clearly the mind and theory of 
 the Church that these relations should be very inti- 
 mate. And what the Church teaches on this sub- 
 ject is only a reflection of what is taught and re- 
 quired in Holy Scripture. Our Lord, as the Shep- 
 herd of the sheep redeemed by His blood, laiew every 
 one of the flock. He indeed took upon Him our 
 nature as a whole. He died for the race as a whole. 
 His atonement compassed the needs of humanity. 
 And yet He ministered to each soul as though it 
 stood alone. His sympathy and love were personal as 
 to their source, and personal as to their object. He 
 entered into the experiences common to all ; but He 
 also made room in His heart for what is peculiar in 
 every individual experience. If He spoke to men in 
 assemblies and in bulk, He also dealt with men as 
 
24 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 individuals — no two of whom were alike in their sin? 
 their doubt, their sorrow, their weakness, their ne- 
 cessity. So with apostles, teachers, pastors, evan- 
 gelists whom He commissioned. St. Paul, for ex- 
 ample, ruled over and disciplined the churches un- 
 der his care as churches ; he wrote to them as 
 churches. But in his relations to individual be- 
 lievers he declared, " Who is weak, and 1 am not 
 weak ? who is offended, and I burn not?" So it 
 ought to be with us ; but manifestly so it is not. 
 The Church invites her members not only to as- 
 semble in the sanctuary for joint acts of worship, not 
 only to organize into fellowships and brotherhoods 
 and congregations in order the better to hear God's 
 Word read and preached, and to partake of the Sac- 
 rament and profit generally by all duly appointed 
 means of grace, but she invites them as indimduals 
 to seek, when occasion may require, godly counsel 
 from their ministers, to open up to them the hurts 
 and wounds and griefs which shadow their faith 
 and hinder their joy. How seldom the invitation is 
 heeded I need not say. The claim for help and 
 guidance which the invitation implies is practically 
 forgotten by the people ; and the obligation to ren- 
 
Clergy and People. 25 
 
 der them is so seldom pressed upon tlie clergy tliat 
 they, in turn, have come to regard it as a very ex- 
 traordinary emergency which should induce any 
 parishioner to apply to them for this purpose. 
 When the clergy are so approached the inference is, 
 at once, that it must be a very unusual grief, a 
 strangely besetting sin, an overmastering sense of 
 guilt which could tempt the tossed and aching 
 heart to rend its veil of privacy and lay open its se- 
 cret struggles even to the ordained guide, the com- 
 missioned helper and counsellor of souls. What a 
 sad proof of the unfortunate drift in these times ! 
 What a revelation of the unused powers of our pas- 
 torate ! Nay, what a testimony to the barrenness 
 and inefficiency of our office on this whole side of its 
 work — this habitual remoteness of the flock from the 
 shepherd, these walls of separation reared by mod- 
 ern negligence and isolation ; the priest charged 
 with the care of souls, and yet the reality dwindled 
 into a figure of speech, a tradition of the past, an 
 empty utterance of the Ordinal ! Why, these are 
 facts which not only arraign, but impeach our ad- 
 ministration of the trust committed to us. Disuse 
 of the power to guide has been punished by feeble- 
 
26 Condones ad Cleruvi. 
 
 ness and vagueness and incompetency when the ex- 
 ercise of the power is demanded ; while among the 
 people the need of this power has been so long dor- 
 mant, so long stifled, that they have either hecome 
 unconscious of its existence, or have ceased to think 
 it of any moment. 
 
 Such has been our practice, or, rather, neglect of 
 practice, such our training for the holy office that 
 the average minister to-day rather dreads than 
 courts the exercise of this function of individual 
 guidance. He has come to regard his preaching as 
 quite sufficient for all needs ; and, when through 
 with that, he is through with his duty as an instruc- 
 tor and helper of souls. He may be strong in the 
 region of generalities, but he is weak when confront- 
 ed by particulars. He is clever at verbal description 
 of moral disease, but quite thrown off his balance in 
 the presence of a special distemper. Knife and cau- 
 tery, blisters and poultices, and all the thousand re» 
 sources of a spiritual materia medica have figured 
 in his rhetoric, but he has neither nerve nor skill to 
 handle fliem in a specific case of real trouble. The 
 true and complete physician, whether of soul or 
 body, should be a competent lecturer on the princi- 
 
Clergy and People. 27 
 
 pies involved in his work ; bnt lie must be at home, 
 apt, and well furnished for every crisis, at the bed- 
 side of the sick. No theoretical knowledge, no fac- 
 ulty of telling what he knows, can excuse him for 
 ignorant bungling when his finger is on the pulse of 
 his fever-stricken patient. 
 
 As for the causes of this state of things, the in- 
 quiry needed to compass them were too long and 
 devious to be entered upon here. There is the ab- 
 horrence of the Romish confessional, which, in guid- 
 ing and helping, does so much of both, and in such 
 a way as to undermine personal responsibility. 
 There are the unhealthy publicity and meddling, 
 morbid inquisitiveness of prayer-meeting and class- 
 meeting experiences, which tempt some people to 
 figure in the role of glorified angels, and others in 
 that of redeemed and sanctified devils — and all to 
 gratif}', sometimes, a craving for excitement, and at 
 others a passion for dramatic incidents, even in re- 
 ligion. And then there is the modern notion, so 
 much idolized in some quarters, that every soul with 
 the Bible in its hands not only can, when necessary^ 
 work out its own salvation, but, as a rule, ought to 
 do it independently of means which God would not 
 have ordained had they been needless — indepen- 
 
28 Condones ad Clcrum. 
 
 dentlj of tlie Cliurcli, 'wliicli is Christ's own body ; 
 independently of the priesthood, which is Christ's 
 own representative in the disciphne and nurture of 
 souls. But, be-ides, there is the latent, half -para- 
 lyzing, widely -prevalent doubt as to whether Chris- 
 tianity is what it seems ; a doubt which poisons the 
 very atmosphere breathed by whole masses wnthin 
 the pale of religion and sends its canker down to 
 the roots of the popular faith, 
 
 Howev^er we may describe or estimate the causes, 
 the state of things to which I have referred cannot 
 be too much deplored. Whether the fault be in the 
 people, or in the ministry, or in the unhapj^y tem_ 
 per of these days, or in all, the evil should be taken 
 in hand and a remedy applied. Let not the clergy 
 wait for the people, deeming it time enough to take 
 up the duty in earnest when they shall be pressed 
 to do so ; but rather, after making sure of the mind 
 of Scripture and the Church, let them speak plainly 
 to their flocks, reminding them of their right and 
 their privilege, and of the sore loss they suffer by 
 ignoring them ; and assuring them also of welcome 
 and symjiathy and of such careful, loving, conscien 
 tious treatment as will bring comfort and strength 
 to their burdened souls. 
 
II. 
 
 THE CUEE OF SOULS. 
 
 Of the three topics discussed in the previous con- 
 ference and then partially treated by me, I shall now 
 take up only the last, viz., " The proper and ef- 
 ficient exercise of that function of the priestly office 
 which not only entitles, but invites every member 
 of Chi'ist's body to seek, individually and privately, 
 for such godly counsel and help as he may require 
 because of the hurt or grief of his soul, or be- 
 cause of his pecuhar and besetting sins, or because 
 of spiritual dangers and trials of any sort with which 
 he may be too weak and inexperienced to deal." 
 The subject, as ^vill be noticed, is very broadly 
 stated, and purposely so. The recent attempts to 
 introduce among us the whole penitential system of 
 modem Romanism, of which habitual auricular con- 
 fession is the prominent feature, have made it diffi- 
 cult to treat the subject at all without arousing sus- 
 picion and fear in many minds. As it is here put, 
 
30 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 tlie subject embraces a great deal botb in tbe way of 
 needs and helps, for wliicli even a thorough and in- 
 quisitive confessional does not j)rovide. But mucli 
 as the Romish method of handling individual souls 
 may be dreaded, let it be remembered that no one's 
 dread will serionsly hinder its work. If we are to 
 check its advance, if we are to overthrow it in the 
 end, we must do it by putting a better method in 
 its place. The evil that is in it will be conquered 
 only by the good that we plant beside it. The same 
 is true of the opposite method, so common and so 
 much rehed upon among some of the Christian de- 
 nominations. The public recital of private and per- 
 sonal religious experience has developed dangers and 
 abuses to which we are more keenly alive, perhaps, 
 than are their immediate observers. And yet, how- 
 ever repugnant it may be to our taste, and even to 
 our convictions, it must not be forgotten that this 
 style of confession is grounded upon a too literal 
 rendering of the apostolic injunction. ' ' Confess your 
 sins one to another ;" just as the Romish is ground- 
 ed upon a too hberal, or too narrow, interpretation 
 of our Lord's words to His duly commissioned min- 
 istry (St. Matthew 16 : 19). Both methods are ex- 
 
The Cure of Souls. 31 
 
 aggerations, and lieiice corriiptions, of a divine direc- 
 tion and a divine promise. But as with the abuses 
 of the confessional, so with tlie abuses of tlie oppo- 
 site system, we are to correct them, not by denounc- 
 ing thein, but by setting up something better in 
 tlieir places. Finding so much to condemn in 
 both systems, some have given up the whole matter 
 in a spirit of despair, as though there were no third 
 course to pursue, no possibility of giving to the indi- 
 vidual Christian the private hel]) he may need, or 
 of enabling the guide of souls to do his full duty in 
 a relation of so much delicacy and difficulty with 
 safety to all the interests involved, and with benefit 
 to the members of the flock seeking his personal 
 care. 
 
 But the inaction, the indifference, the neglect pro- 
 duced by such a view are worse, far worse, than the 
 e\^ls complained of in either of the 0]3posing systems. 
 And yet just this is the ^dew practically to-day of a 
 very large majority of our clergy and people. We re- 
 j ect the confessional. We turn away almost with dis- 
 gust from the coarse publicity and the often cant- 
 ing garrulity of experience meetings. The one is 
 too secret, the other is too open ; the one puts too 
 
Condones ad CUrttm. 
 
 much, power over the conscience in the hands of the 
 priest, the other leaves no power at all in his hands ; 
 the one we denounce as tjrannj, the other we de- 
 scribe as liberty run out into license and anarchy ; in 
 the one the individual surrenders himself to 
 another's keeping, in the other the individual under- 
 takes to be his own keeper. 
 
 But merely finding fault witli what others do is 
 not the whole duty of those who pretend to maintain 
 a positive faith and to be engaged in aggressive 
 Christian work. It was a profound conviction of 
 the inconsistency and weakness of our position 
 touching this whole' subject that induced me to bring 
 it to your attention at this time. 
 
 Now, it is my belief that, as in polity, doctrine, 
 and worship, we hold a very definite and positive 
 ground, which none, except those who do it ignorant- 
 ly or wilfully, can confound with that of popery or 
 that of any or all the modern sects ; so in this mat- 
 ter of the guidance and help of individual souls by 
 the ministers of Christ there is abundant room for a 
 course of action which, while avoiding the evils 
 complained of in both the systems which have been 
 noticed, would assure to the faitlxfuJ the exercise of 
 
The C^cre of Souls. 33 
 
 their right to claim from their pastors a more de- 
 tailed and personal guidance, and would enable the 
 pastors, on their side, to respond to this claim with 
 benefit to themselves and to their flocks. As things 
 are, it may be hard to mark out at once and to ma- 
 ture in all respects this course of action. Both 
 clergy and people need special and perhaps long prep- 
 aration for it. The tone in both is slack even to 
 feebleness, if it be not loose even to demorahzation. 
 The people will be suspicious of any assumption of 
 authority by the clergy ; and yet the clergy can do 
 little in the way of reform in this direction unless 
 the people will see again, as in times gone by, more 
 authority in the priestly office than the temper of 
 these times is wilhng to concede to it. And then, 
 it may be said that if we are going into cases of 
 conscience with any sort of system ; if we are to in- 
 vite our people to bring before us privately all their 
 difficulties and trials, covering not only their re- 
 ligion, but their lives as affected by their religion ; 
 if every priest is to be not only a consolator rrKBren- 
 tium, but also a ductor dubitantiwm, and a con- 
 fessor penitentiuTn, let us first be prepared for such 
 dehcate and serious functions. We need rules to 
 
34 Condones ad Cleruni. 
 
 guide us in the performance of sucli functions. 
 There has been a shrinkage on this side of our pas- 
 torate, and before we enter upon such work we 
 must be trained and fitted to do it. We shall have 
 thrust upon us the tasks and duties of casuists. 
 But where is our casuistry ? Neither in the recent 
 education of the clergy, nor in the later literature of 
 the Church, do we find much to inspire a taste for, 
 or to furnish any practical guidance in, such duty. 
 I see the hindrance, and do not underrate it. 
 
 But let us remember in this case what is so true in 
 many others, that we shall never know what we 
 want, nor how to meet our want, nor the resources 
 at hand to enable us to meet it, until we seriously 
 and honestly take the work in hand. The very do- 
 ing of the duty, or the attempt to do it, in sjDite of 
 our inexperience and imperfect knowledge, will 
 throw a flood of light upon the now hidden ways and 
 means of success. We shall then find that God's 
 Word, when read by an open-eyed, sensitive, and 
 inquisitive conscience, has in it more casuistry (in a 
 good sense) than we have been wont to think. In- 
 deed, we shall be surprised to see how much in de- 
 tail, how deeply, widely, searchingly, exhaustively 
 
The Cure of Souls. 35 
 
 it deals witli the ins and outs of human nature, with 
 the hghts and shadows, the fluctuating currents, tlie 
 mysterious evokitions, the spasms and the stagna- 
 tions, the heats and chills, the infirmities and incon- 
 sistencies, the delusions and illusions, the fancies 
 and conceits, the sincerities and hypocrisies, of the 
 leading types of religious experience under which 
 nineteen twentieths of the Christians of every gen- 
 eration may be grouped. Moses and the prophets 
 were rather incisive casuists when they dealt with 
 the sins of the Israelites. David, in many of his 
 Psalms, evinced a singular aptness and versatility in 
 the same way. Our Lord himself was, as we might 
 expect, the chief and sovereign casuist, for none 
 ever spake as He spake, when He turned upon hu- 
 man nature the unshadowed light of God's law, and 
 opened upon the bewildered sight of humanity the 
 awful compass of its spiritual meaning. In His 
 hands, for the first time, things touching the moral 
 life seemed what they were, and were what they 
 seemed. St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, St. James, 
 have all left behind them the evidences of an in- 
 spired familiarity with the fife of God in the human 
 soul, its wants, trials, dangers ; and also with the char- 
 
36 Condones ad Clcrum. 
 
 acteristics of the discipline needed to meet them. 
 And without going back to tlie pages of what, in a 
 general way, is called Patristic literature, without 
 drawing upon the Schoolmen who dealt with theol- 
 ogy in its relations with metaphysics not more acute- 
 ly or learnedly than with practical ethics, we shall 
 find, if we diligently search after it among the illus- 
 trious group of our own Anglican divines, from the 
 sixteenth century down, no unworthy disciples of 
 the Apostles and early Fathers, both in the science 
 of moral theology and in the trained practical power 
 of apjDlying its rules and precepts to the individual 
 conscience. No age of the Church has had abler 
 men in this hue of thought than Bishops Taylor and 
 Sanderson, to mention no others among a hundred 
 lesser lights. There may be those upon whom the 
 minutely, morbidly inquisitorial spirit of the modern 
 confessional has thrust tasks which drive them for 
 help to the manuals of Dens and Liguori, et id omne 
 genus. But such helps are not needed by us, nor 
 will they be until some great corruption shall have 
 darkened our gaze, or some great convulsion shall 
 have loosened our hold upon the faith and practice, 
 the life and discipline of the ages when Apostles gov- 
 
The Ciire of Souls. '}^'] 
 
 erned and taught, or even of the later ones when the 
 fathers sat in undisputed oecumenical councils. 
 
 Casuistry is related to ethics as an art to a science. 
 The princijjles and rules of ethics being established, 
 casuistry brings them to bear on practical life. In 
 a general way, it deals with all duties and with all 
 things that hinder the performance of duties — i.e.^ 
 with states of mind, moods of feeling, weaknesses or 
 perversions of the will, evil habits, vices, sins, infir- 
 mities of temper, torpors of conscience. In fact, all 
 moral disturbances of the soul, all disorders and de- 
 pravities of heart, fall within its range. Though as 
 popularly understood, its chief task is with mixed 
 and doubtful questions of morals, the casuist, like 
 the lawyer and the physician, is engaged in apply- 
 ing general rales to particular cases, running through 
 all the varieties which are forever changing the face 
 of human actions and experience. Here is a law 
 and there is an action, and the question is whether 
 the action falls under the law, or only partly under 
 it, and partly under some other law. Guilt, in 
 every case, is determined by intention, by knowl- 
 edge, by the degree of responsibility, by surround- 
 ing circumstances. All these must be examined and 
 
38 Co7iciones ad Clerum. 
 
 weighed before an opinion can be pronounced. The 
 same action very often is not equally guilty in all 
 persons and under all conditions. " Out of these 
 cases^ i.e., oblique deflections from the universal rule 
 (which is also the grammarian's sense of the word 
 case), casuistry arose." It grows necessarily out of 
 the nature of moral rules and out of the ever-chang- 
 ing character of human conduct ; and its uses be- 
 come more urgent as society grows more complex 
 and allhfe more diversified. As has been well said, 
 ' ' We may reject the name ; the thing we cannot 
 reject." 
 
 For fully tliree hundred years, numerous and val- 
 uable as have been the contributions to moral science 
 by various Enghsh divines and moralists, it is note- 
 worthy how little comparatively they have done for 
 casuistry. In their treatises on ethics, they have 
 woven in a good deal of it in the way of special il- 
 lustration, but with no formal attempt to develop it 
 as a separate branch of research. If we study its 
 history, we find that it has had scarcely any system- 
 atic treatment outside of Italian, Spanish, and 
 French writers, with, perhaps, here and there an 
 exception among the Germans. Somehow, the ethi- 
 
The Ciire of Souls. 39 
 
 cal as subordinated to the ecclesiastical mind of 
 Southern Europe has taken to casuistry as by a sort 
 of instinct. This cannot be traced, among them, to 
 any special subtlety or refinement of the moral sense 
 in handling subjects germane to it, but is due more 
 likely to the exigencies of the confessional, an instru- 
 mentality more habitually used and more thoroughly 
 developed among these races than among those of 
 Northern Europe. This fact again, if traced far 
 enough, will be fomid to be largely due to marked 
 differences of moral temperament between the two 
 sets of people. 
 
 Among the works on the subject written by Eng- 
 lishmen, one appeared in 1698.* It is a collection 
 of tracts, essays, and discourses by several well- 
 known authors of the time, and exhibits great learn- 
 ing and ability in the line of investigation which it 
 pursues. But it is confined to cases of conscience 
 arising among Dissenters in regard to communion 
 with the Church of England. Still, there is no- 
 where to be found more acute reasoning, or more 
 exhaustive and subtle analysis of the functions and 
 obligations of conscience when at work on some of 
 * London Cases, 
 
40 Condones ad Clcrum. 
 
 tlie most tangled and difficult problems of religious 
 and moral duty. 
 
 Clearly, casuistry fell into disrepute during and 
 immediately after the Reformation, and there it had 
 continued until the recent revival of it in England 
 by the advocates of regular and habitual confession. 
 This revival has been formally signalized by the 
 publication in English of the Abbe Gaume's " Man- 
 ual for Confessors," edited by Dr. Pusey and pref- 
 aced by him with an elaborate defence of the con- 
 fessional in the Church of England.* 
 
 ]S"o one familiar with the history of modern cas- 
 uistiy can wonder that it has been under a cloud, or 
 that it has excited a profound antipathy throughout 
 the English-speaking world. It has been cultivated 
 with almost exclusive reference to its professional 
 use in auricular confession, and very la"svfully and 
 properly it has shared in the horror and hatred en- 
 gendered by the known abuses of the Popish con- 
 fessional. Some Komish writers have wrought at it 
 with simphcity of purpose and with an honest con- 
 science ; but there are others (and some of them, as 
 
 * Any number of minor tractates and manuals have ap- 
 peared, ■which it is needless to name. 
 
The Ci(re of Souts. 41 
 
 will be seen, just now in tlie ascendant) wlio, from 
 " lubricity of morals or the irritations of curiosity, 
 have pushed their investigations into unhallowed 
 paths of speculation. They have held aloft a torch 
 for exploring guilty recesses of human life which 
 it is far better for us all to leave in their original dark- 
 ness." But even the minute anatomy of monstrous 
 offences in themselves confessedly rare and anoma- 
 lous, or the vivid portraiture of extravagances of 
 passion often all but imaginary and unknown as pos- 
 sibilities to the young and innocent, or dastardly in- 
 vasions of the hallowed recesses of domestic hfe — 
 none, nor all of these have done so much to discredit 
 the casuist's office as the common belief, resting 
 upon too many facts to be denied, that its chief aim 
 and tendency have been to invent hair-splitting pro- 
 cesses by which doubts might be cast upon the 
 plainest duties of hfe, and this, for the benefit of 
 those who sought to evade them. The casuist is 
 regarded as a sort of ' ' shyster, ' ' a Tombs-lawyer, in 
 morals — given to special pleading and confounding 
 the plain distinctions of moral conduct, and so de- 
 feating the ends of truth and justice, by shielding 
 the offender from his proper deserts or plastering 
 
42 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 over his conscience with the salve of a false absolu- 
 tion.* 
 
 But however we may arraign casuistry for its 
 offences and abuses, it remains, and must, in the na- 
 ture of things, do so, a necessary part of the training 
 of every well -furnished guide of souls. It has its 
 good as well as its bad uses. It is the practical and 
 trained application of the fundamental principles of 
 Chrisiian morality to the affairs of life. The indi- 
 vidual conscience, so long as it is exposed 1o doubt 
 as 10 the quality of human actions, or as to the vary- 
 ing degrees of obligation amid the ever-shifting cir- 
 cumstances of life, must be tutored and guided ; 
 and clearly those who are ordained to the sacred 
 function of tutoring and guiding it, ought to under- 
 stand what they have to do and how to do it. The 
 utter abandonment of it by so many, as a distinct 
 branch of clerical study, is only one of the unhappy 
 fruits of our vague and loose methods of dealing 
 with individual souls. Whatever other results the 
 revived discussion of the duty and mode of confes- 
 sion may lead to, it will not be without at least one 
 benefit, if it shall induce the clergy to take up 
 the subject in a serious way, and as one which they 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
The Cure of Souls. 43 
 
 cannot neglect without damage to the sacred 
 interests committed to their keeping. Except as it 
 has been develojjed by such writers as Liguori and 
 Escobar, it is not necessarily the product or the ad- 
 junct of the confessionaL Its uses are older and 
 wider than that which the practical system of Ro- 
 manism has run out into so many dreadful corrup- 
 tions and abuses. 
 
 I have said that the pastorate can reach individual 
 souls and individual souls can reach the x^astorate, 
 without following in the ways of Rome or of an 
 ultra-Protestant emotionalism. Some of you may 
 desire to see the course marked out which promises 
 to be equidistant from both. This I shall undertake 
 to do, though of necessity so briefly as not to enable 
 me to remove all doubt, or to meet all questions on 
 the part even of those who are likely to sympathize 
 with the tone and purpose of this inquiry. It is 
 but an outline that I shall attempt to trace. To fill 
 it up with due gradation of color and proportion 
 among the parts would require a volume. I shall 
 suggest, not describe ; lay down certain general 
 propositions, without attempting to demonstrate 
 
44 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 tlieir truth ; erect landmarks without mapping in- 
 termediate spaces. 
 
 In such a cure of souls as I am now supposing to 
 be incumbent on us, the following points should be 
 kept in the forefront of our work, so that the people 
 may understand its conditions and limitations, and, 
 understanding them, may not be led to expect from 
 the clergy a sort of guidance and help which they 
 could not give without transcending their authority 
 as ministers of this Church. 
 
 (1) We are to do nothing that shall lessen in any 
 soul the sense of personal responsibility to God, 
 whether by a process of sapping and mining from 
 within, or by a demand from without for the keys of 
 the conscience. That responsibihty is the central 
 fact in our moral being ; and it must be protected 
 and upheld at all hazards. The Gospel magnifies 
 it, the Church develoj^s it. God himself respects 
 it as pai't of the foundation on which the works of 
 His grace and providence are built u]3, and also as 
 part of the dignity of a nature made in His own 
 image. Let, then, the soul that seeks helj) under- 
 stand that the help given wdll not jput another will 
 
The Czire^ of So2tls. 45 
 
 in the place of its own will, or another conscience in 
 the place of its own conscience. 
 
 (2) It should be clearly and strongly tanght that 
 the ideal spiritual life, the perfected life in Christ 
 Jesus, is the life that draws nearer and nearer to the 
 great end which the Gospel always aims at, viz. , the 
 gradual substitution in every soul of a character for 
 an outward law, the steady progress toward a habit 
 of loving obedience to God's will, which supersedes 
 external rules and statutes. For, as the Apostle says, 
 the law is dead to him that keeps it. But the more 
 an internal character takes the place of external 
 guidance, the less need will there be of outward 
 helps of all kinds. Christ formed in us brings 
 everything we need. The greater includes the less. 
 His is the only will. His is the only conscience. 
 His is the only personality in which ours can be 
 merged and yet not lost, can be brought into sub- 
 jection without hindrance or hurt to their liberty of 
 choice and responsibility of action. This is whole- 
 some doctrine for a certain class of minds who, be- 
 cause of disgust at their own weakness and vacilla- 
 tion, are always on the lookout for some strong hand 
 to take them into its keeping — sentimental souls, 
 
46 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 that crave the easy delights of noble dreams and 
 aspirations, that dread any grapple of the will with 
 evil, any pains of conscience engendered by remorse 
 for sin ; intellectual souls, fond of the cultus of 
 Christianity, passionate admirers of the unities and 
 catholicities so often treated in prose and song, yet 
 without nerve or backbone in any real conflict with 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil. Reh'giously, 
 spiritually characterless, they instinctively turn to 
 minute rules, to special directions, to artificial stays 
 and projos to brace their ravelling resolves and flab- 
 by, sinewless purposes. Sooner or later, if their 
 steps tend that way, they will hail w^itli joy the 
 sharp-cut management of the confessional, and ac- 
 cept it as the shield of their faith and the helmet of 
 their salvation. 
 
 (3) It is of moment that we prove to those who 
 come to ns for special counsel that in nine cases out 
 of ten of real difficulty, the ordinary means of grace 
 provided in the Church are sufficient ; that it is 
 often rather a craving for some new expedient, a de- 
 sire of change and novelty, than a real want that 
 puts sonls npon the search for special remedies and 
 extraordinary means. Here, for example, is a per- 
 
The Cure of Souls. 47 
 
 son who asks to be heard in private confession, and 
 longs to work out gome satisfaction for his supposed 
 aggravated guilt by a painful penance. If the case 
 be carefully inquired into, it will not unlikely be 
 discovered that the person so applying for special 
 care has not first in his own soul bewailed his sin- 
 fulness, nor confessed himself to Almignty God, 
 with full purpose of amendment of life ; has not, in 
 fact, done any one of many things within the reach 
 of every conscience troubled with the sense of sin. 
 No soul should be encouraged to rely upon the ex- 
 traoTdinary while the ordinary has not been ex- 
 hausted, to come to the minister to quiet his con- 
 science, when he has not done what he could, pre- 
 viously, to do so himself, or to open his grief when 
 he has only vague notions of what his grief is, and 
 leans upon the priest to tell him what it is. So, 
 with over-scrupulous persons, and persons given to 
 doubt and despondency on very slight grounds ; if 
 treated too seriously, made too much of, allowed to 
 tell their special trouble too often, they soon sink 
 into the tone of feeling exhibited by beggars who 
 parade their nakedness or deformity to excite the 
 charity of the passer-by. 
 
48 Condones ad C/cricm. 
 
 (4) Let us leave notliing unsaid or undone that 
 will serve to show those who ask our special help in 
 dealing with their sins, what does, and what does not 
 belong to a healthj mode of self-examination. 
 There is a morbid kind of introspection which leads 
 to hrooding over sin apart from any honest efforts to 
 overcome it, or to exaggerating sin for tlie sake of 
 magnifying the difficulty of repentance, or to excus- 
 ing sin, in order to prove that no repentance is ne- 
 cessary. Before undertaking to help or comfort 
 such a conscience, it must be taught |)lainly what, 
 with an average of Christian knowledge, it ought to 
 know already, viz. , the nature of sin as defined by 
 God's Word, its hold upon the heart and life, the 
 ordinary forms it takes on in every soul, its degrees 
 of guilt, the penalties which await it ; next the sor- 
 row for it which worketh godliness, and the sorrow 
 for if ^Yhich needeth to be repented of ; and finally, 
 the forsaking of the evil, without which all repent- 
 ance is a hollow thing, not worth the breath it takes 
 to utter it. At every stage of the process self-ques- 
 tioning, self-examination is indispensable ; and it is 
 the duty of the wise guide of souls to push up stead- 
 ily and boldly into the eye of the memory and the 
 
The Ctire of Souls. 49 
 
 conscience tiie particulars into wliicli every one of 
 the Ten Commandments may be resolved, so tliat 
 by these the particulars of the soul's transgressions 
 may be ferreted out and exposed to condemnation. 
 And this is a task which earnest persons, in most 
 instances, when told how to do it, will do better 
 for themselves than any one else can do it for them. 
 (5) We must carefully distinguish between cases 
 of conscience which require the casuist's skill to 
 deal with them, and cases which can be met by a 
 proper understanding and use of the di\ane law as 
 developed in its spirit by the teaching of Christ. 
 The former are not so numerous as is often sup- 
 posed. Some inquirers for light, who profess to be 
 very eager for a solution of their difficulties, are 
 curiously fond of either subtlety or vagueness of 
 statement. There are few cases of conscience 
 which, when the enveloping mist of hazy language 
 is scattered, are not reducible to simple issues of op- 
 posing motives and of apparently contradictory obli- 
 gations. Somehow, there are many anxious and 
 troubled souls that do not take readily to the easiest, 
 most obvious way out of their difficulty. They like 
 to be reasoned with, to be examined, to be ana- 
 
50 Condones ad Clerui7i, 
 
 lyzed, sharply questioned, handled as though their 
 special grief was of the heaviest. They are scarcely 
 content without they feel the trained casuist's knife 
 dividing the joints from the marrow. One plainly- 
 spoken, thoroughly-applied law of morals, or truth 
 of the Gospel may be enough to meet their case ; 
 but, like the leprous Syrian, who, when told to 
 wash liimself seven times in the river Jordan and 
 be clean, was indignant at the prophet for pre- 
 scribing such simple treatment, so these persons will 
 have no trust in you as a guide unless you exhaust 
 upon them the fine-spun subtleties of a well-fur- 
 nished confessional. 
 
 (6) But there is one subject in particular which 
 should be fully and exphcitly treated in all our in- 
 structions, both public and private. Once properly 
 understood by the faithful, it saves them much 
 needless doubt and misgiving, and their guides 
 much time and trouble. There is nothing in the 
 Word of God, nothing in the Church's doctrinal, 
 liturgical, or practical system that appears more 
 plain and simple, when duly examined, than the 
 matter of forgiveness of sin. And yet there is 
 nothing, in fact, in either or all, about which there 
 
The CzLve of Souls. 51 
 
 are so many theories, so many schools of thought 
 and practice, and, generally, so much vagueness 
 and uncertainty among the people. I^o suitable 
 occasion should be neglected foi* clear and definite 
 teaching (1) as to the terms and conditions of for- 
 giveness, so far as they relate to the transgressor ; 
 (2) as to the ground and meritorious cause of for- 
 giveness ; (3) as to the pledges and assurances of 
 forgiveness — how it is conveyed and certified ; how 
 far, especially in the matter of assurance, the for- 
 given penitent may accept the witness of his own 
 feelings, and tyiay count upon the rapture of par- 
 don ; and how far, by divine arrangement, he must 
 rely not only upon the witness of the Holy Spirit 
 witnessing with his spirit internally, subjectively, 
 but also and eminently witnessing through the one 
 baptism for the remission of sins, and subsequently, at 
 stated times, all through the Christian life, through 
 the Holy Sacrament of Christ's body and blood, 
 which, besides being eucharistic, sacrificial, com- 
 memorative, a token of unity in Christ and the 
 Church, a bond of fellowship and communion be- 
 tween all believers, is also pre-eminently th# Sacra- 
 ment of forgiveness. In this connection we must 
 
52 Conciojies ad Cleruin. 
 
 not shrink from liandling fully and decidedly the 
 whole subject of Confession and Absolution, words 
 which some cannot even hear without nervous dread 
 and apprehension, and yet words the true force 
 and meaning of which the theological and moral 
 drift of these times will oblige us to study with far 
 more care than many have yet bestowed upon them. * 
 
 Thus far I have confined myself to directions 
 and limitations to be brought clearly before the 
 faithful who desire special pastoral help. But now 
 I turn to those which relate immediately to the 
 priest himself, and which he must obey if he hopes 
 to do his duty to edification. 
 
 (1) He must have clear notions as to the nature 
 and range of his authority. There are two kinds of 
 authority, the disregard of cither of which will im- 
 pair his influence and hinder his work. There is 
 moral authority, the essence of which is love, and 
 the outward form of which is character shaped by 
 love. This is the highest sort of power which one 
 soul can wield over another. Stubborn wills and 
 alienated hearts and soiled consciences bow down to 
 this \\4ien they would do so to nothing else. But 
 besides, there is the authority of a Divine Commis- 
 * Sec Appendix B. 
 
The Cure of Souls. 53 
 
 « 
 
 sion, of a Sacred Office, in virtue of wliich the priest 
 is required to exhort the people ' ' to obey them which 
 have the rule over them." The two authorities, 
 blended together so that we cannot precisely dis- 
 cern where the one begins and the other ends, 
 make the j)erfect guide of souls. Some are indif- 
 ferent to the authority of office, but none will be 
 indifferent to the authority arising from moral ele- 
 vation, loving sympathy, and an evident desire to 
 lighten the burdens of the weary and heavy laden. 
 Where the former will not serve us, the latter must, 
 be our resource. Christ proved His love to men 
 before He undertook to guide and govern them. 
 His rulership over humanity is supreme, because it 
 is bathed in the blood of His cross. No one can 
 challenge it, because no one can challenge the ser- 
 vice and sacrifice out of which it grew. The high- 
 est influence, the noblest authority of the ministry, 
 can be reached only on the same conditions. The 
 true shepherd must in some way give his life for 
 the sheep, if their hfe is to be put into his keeping. 
 (2) He who would have the cure of souls in any 
 worthy sense must familiarize himself not only with 
 theology as the science of revealed religion, but 
 
54 Co7icio7tcs ad Clerum. 
 
 "witli Christian etliics — the science of duty, whose 
 great aim is to form individual character after the 
 pattern character of Christ. On one side it is the 
 science of God's moral law ; on the other it is the 
 science of tlie human will, the conscience, the 
 moral affections, the propensities and appetites of 
 the flesh. 
 
 Omitting much that might be said under this 
 head, I leave it with one general direction, which I 
 deem of great moment. In questions of conscience, 
 as in wider ones, affecting the spiritual life, some 
 seem to think that their first duty is to break down 
 and set aside, as of no account, the suggestions and 
 motives of the natural conscience, the moral reason. 
 The Gospel, it is said, has nothing to do with con- 
 victions of duty or estimates of human action ema- 
 nating from so clouded and imperfect a source. 
 The old man is to be jjut away that the new crea- 
 ture may take his place. He is simply and alto- 
 gether ruin and. rubbish, and as such must be cast 
 out before the Holy Ghost can begin the masonry 
 of the new temple. Now, this is not the less an 
 exaggeration and a liindrance because it arises from 
 a "well-meant effort to assert the radical and absolute 
 
The Cure of Souls. 55 
 
 sway of God's trutli. Et is an error at the very- 
 point where grace impinges on nature, where Christ 
 touches the will and conscience. If we act upon it 
 in our dealing with souls inquiring the way to the 
 Cross, we are put at a serious disadvantage. We 
 destroy the eye whose blindness we attempt to heal. 
 "We cut up by the roots the tree whose branches are 
 to bear the grafts from the tree of life. Let us set- 
 tle it clearly and once for all that Christianity 
 does not claim to create morality, as though there 
 had been none but for its advent, and would be 
 none but for its presence. On the contrary, it 
 cheerfully accepts what it finds and makes the most 
 of it. It does not oppose natural morahty, it does 
 not accuse it of absolute inefficacy, it does not 
 outlaw the motives drawn from conscience and the 
 nature of things. Its great and peculiar office is to 
 lead forth the conscience into a stronger and all-em- 
 bracing hght, and to energize the morality that 
 springs from it with an irresistible motive power, 
 whose source is the Word, the Sj)irit, the Example 
 of Christ. Of this power the world knew nothing 
 until His coming. The setting forth of this power 
 and of its uses and modes of operation is the dis- 
 
56 Concio7ies ad Clcrum, 
 
 tinctive work of Christian etliics ; and the applica- 
 tion of it, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to 
 the indiv^idiial conscience is an essential part of our 
 work in the cure of souls. To perform this part 
 well requires a grasp of the soul's want and of 
 Christ's work, which too few of us possess. 
 
 (3) The kind of cure of souls about which I am 
 speaking demands a proxtical knowledge (to be 
 gained only by the study of our own liearts and 
 lives, as well as of the hearts and lives of others) of 
 the various pliases of rehgious experience as j)ro- 
 duced either by various temperaments, or by va- 
 rious moods of any one temperament. There are 
 the emotional and the unemotional, the quick and 
 the slow, the fervid and the cold, the hopeful and 
 the despondent, the reticent and tlie demonstrative, 
 and each very largely governs the Christian's inner 
 life. And then there are the shifting moods pass- 
 ing over each one of these types of character, of 
 which due account must be taken if we are to touch 
 their ills and aches and lapses with a discriminating 
 hand. All Christians are not Christians after the 
 same manner. Very often one element, moral, or 
 emotional, or doctrinal, predominates and some 
 
The Ctire of Sotils. 57 
 
 other suffers. There is no hfe without its weak 
 side, no armor witliout its loose joint, its broken 
 link. If we are to give the needed help, we must 
 know where the weakness is ; if we are to aid in 
 restoring a disturbed equilibrium, we must get at 
 the force which has disturbed it. 
 
 (4) They who will seek counsel and direction will 
 do so ordinarily on these five grounds : 
 
 I. Because of their besetting special sins and the 
 temptations which draw them into these sins. 
 
 II. Because of distressing fluctuations of feeling 
 arising from loss of poise and balance in their faith 
 — these in turn arising from exaggeration or defect 
 in one or more articles of the truth. 
 
 III. Because of ignorance or misconception affect- 
 ing some fundamental principle of faith or morality. 
 
 IV. Because of sorrow and suffering, whether 
 springing from their own conduct or from the visit- 
 ation of God. 
 
 V. Because of doubts, doctrinal or ethical. 
 
 The foregoing is by no means an exhaustive cat- 
 alogue of the grounds on which souls will come to 
 the priest of God for counsel and help ; but it is 
 
58 Conciones ad Clerum. 
 
 sufficiently complete for my present purpose. Let 
 me take them up in the order named. 
 
 I. He who is charged with the cure of souls must 
 know the sinfulness of sin not only as a general 
 proposition, but the comparative guilt of particular 
 kinds of sin and the peculiar guilt of this or that in- 
 dividual sin. It is one thing to know sin as it is 
 treated in the books, as the theme of metai^hysical 
 or ethical inquiry, or as the material which enters 
 largely into the construction of theological systems, 
 and quite another thing to know it in the bums and 
 bruises it inflicts on the soul. He must, therefore, 
 acquire the faculty of handling it in its concrete 
 shapes, as it issues, instinct with the life of wicked 
 ness, fresh from hving wills and living hearts. To 
 this end he must study it as God's law-expounders 
 — prophets and apostles — have dealt with it. They 
 do not so much denounce rebellion as rebels ; 
 not so much sin as sinners ; not so much evil 
 in general as evil-doers in particular. And coming 
 forth from God's Word, he must hft the veil 
 from the motives of men, and plant himself at the 
 very centre of the struggle between the law and the 
 law-breaker, between the individual will and the 
 
The Cure of Souls. 59 
 
 temptations whicli assail it. Thus only can he ap- 
 preciate tlie distinction between ordinary and special 
 besetting sins ; between sins of infirmity and sins of 
 presumption ; between sins of the flesh and sins 
 of the intellect and the will ; between the sin of the 
 hardened reprobate and the sin of the tender con- 
 science only for the moment gone astray. Until 
 this specific, concrete, practical, knowledge has been 
 attained, it will be only as a neophyte and a bungler 
 that he will be able to prescribe disciphnary reme- 
 dies for the penitent. 
 
 There is no casuistry so subtle, so ingenious, so 
 fertile of expedients, so unscrupulous about means, 
 as that wliicli the Devil supplies to the sinner to ena- 
 ble him to excuse himseK for the guilt, or to extri- 
 cate himself from the consequences of vicious or 
 ungodly living. Truth, honesty, purity, love, holi- 
 ness, are poor casuists. They move straight on to 
 their ends. They are children of the light and 
 dwell in the light ; and souls under their sway fall 
 spontaneously into their movement and aims. It is 
 not of the private Christian, but of the official one, 
 the ordained and trained physician of souls, that I 
 am speaking. He rhust be skilled in noting and 
 
6o Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 comparing symptoms, in timing pulse-beats, in dis- 
 cerning false curvatures, in detecting incipient de- 
 cay and gangrene. His business is to cu7'e souls, as 
 well as, in the exercise of another function, to feed 
 them. What wonder that there is so little curing 
 when so few put forth any serious effort to fit them- 
 selves for such a task ! 
 
 I have spoken of the need of understanding the 
 comparative guilt of certain classes of sins. Let 
 me give an illustration of what I mean. There are 
 the sins of the animal man and the sins of the spir- 
 itual man, those which mate us with brutes and 
 those which mate us with devils ; the former issu- 
 ing from the lusts of the flesh, the latter from the 
 intellect and the will. There are the sins of un- 
 chastity, uncleanness, drunkenness, gluttony, and 
 such hke ; and then there are the sins committed 
 under the influence of self-interest, hatred, envy, 
 jealousy, cruelty, perfidy, malice ; the sins, too, of 
 pride, ambition, and covetousness. ISTow, in the 
 shallow ethics of the world and in the distorted 
 ethics of many Christians, the brute-like sins are 
 deemed more wicked than the devilish — the un- 
 chaste, the drunken, the beastly sinner is thought to 
 
The Cure of Souls. 6i 
 
 be, and is treated practically as, a far worse offender 
 than tlie man of falsehood, perfidy, malice, jeal- 
 ousy, and revenge. The same set of people will 
 look with horror upon the inebriate and Avith a 
 very mild sort of indignation upon the cheat and 
 the liar. In the average judgment, the proud, 
 hateful, selfish character stands a much better 
 chance than the glutton and the fornicator. ]^ow, 
 the ethics of the Gospel, as reflected in the words 
 and deeds of Him to publish whom the Gospel was 
 given to the world, take a radically different view 
 of the comparative turpitude of these sins. There 
 we find the sins of the flesh treated almost with 
 leniency as compared with those of the will, those 
 which disembodied spirits can commit. They who 
 do the former shall, indeed, be excluded from the 
 kingdom of heaven. But who are they that are 
 condemned without qualification to everlasting fire ? 
 Who are they who are to be cast forth into outer 
 darkness ? Why, they who do not forgive as God 
 has forgiven them ; they who neglect to feed the 
 hungry and clothe the naked ; they who see Laza- 
 rus at the gate and do not pity him — the merciless, 
 the hard-hearted, the selfish. It is perfectly certain 
 
62 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 that our Lord considered an omission of charity a 
 darker fact than a sin of the flesh. In his eyes a 
 hypocrite was worse than a fornicator ; a hater of 
 his brother, than a ghittonous man and a wine -bib- 
 ber ; the covetous man going about with his heart 
 and his hand shut against the poor was the object 
 of a far more intense scorn than the miserable 
 wretch sleeping out his debauch in the gutter. To 
 the woman taken in adultery Christ says : " Neither 
 will I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more. ' ' To 
 the men who plundered the widow and the father- 
 less. He says : " How shall ye escape the damna- 
 tion of hell ?" The model social and moral reformer 
 of these days has forgotten this ; and it is to be 
 feared that many whose vocation it is to deal with 
 cases of conscience and to disciphne notorious of- 
 fenders, whose vices spot our feasts of charity and 
 defile our courts and sanctuaries, do not sufficiently 
 remember it. Even our Christian morality is in- 
 fected with the old Manichean heresy ; else how 
 should it have come to pass that a bad will, striking 
 at the very sovereignty of God and at the moral 
 order of the universe, should escape with a lighter 
 
The CtLve of Souls. 63 
 
 sentence from the tribunal of judgment than a law- 
 less lust of the flesh ? 
 
 II. In most manuals for private use, and in most 
 works treating of the interior religious Hfe, enough 
 has not been made of the imrest and anxiety, and 
 sometimes of the painful anarchy, engendered by 
 the loss of poise and balance between belief and 
 motives, between our creed as a whole and the parts 
 of it which actually sway our thoughts and feelings 
 and every-day life. A healthy spiritual life can be 
 the product only of the whole truth. A fragment- 
 ary and hence a restless and dirorderly life must re- 
 sult from a fragmentary conception of the truth. 
 It is the complete, not the broken, dismembered 
 Christ formed within us that issues in " the hope of 
 glory." Now, it is the task of the guide of souls 
 to correct this kind of disturbance, and to this end 
 he must press on until he find the errors, whether 
 of excess or of defect, in faith or in practice ; and 
 finding them, he must cure them by re-establishing 
 the equilibrium, and with it the regulating power 
 which can preserve it. He must recall what has 
 been forgotten, tone down what has been exagger- 
 ated, lift up what has been depressed. In the cm'e 
 
64 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 of souls no article of dogmatic or moral theology 
 can be overlooked. In preaching it is often other- 
 wise. Not doctrines, perhaps, are omitted, but 
 needful aspects and bearings of doctrines, points of 
 view, angles of insight, often are. It has been well 
 said that " it is with all individual Christianity as it 
 is with forms of human government. At first each 
 of them corresponds to the general idea of society, 
 then more particularly to some one of the condi- 
 tions of social life. Each has a principle from 
 which it borrows its form ; but each also tends to 
 exaggerate the principles on which it is founded, as 
 if that principle were the social principle itself. 
 Pure Christianity, which has been in some part 
 defined, Avhile pure society has been in no part, has 
 a principle which cannot be exaggerated, because it 
 includes all j)rinciples — that is to say, all the 
 weights and counter- weights of truth. But with 
 no individual has it this largeness and this perfec- 
 tion. All individual Christianity makes a principle 
 to itself, which it incessantly tends to exaggerate, 
 instead of tempering it with the opposite principle. " 
 To this contemperature, or harmony of the truth, 
 the individual must be recalled if he is to enjoy 
 real peace. 
 
The CzLre of Souls. 65 
 
 But, again, some persons throw themselves out 
 of balance, and so out of rest and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost, either by too much self -demonstration or by 
 too much self -concealment. Of the former no one 
 in this age needs to be reminded, though in many 
 it needs to be held in check. The latter is excep- 
 tional, but not infrequent, and deserves mention be- 
 cause commonly overlooked. There are those 
 whose life is so liidden with Christ that the world 
 knows little or nothing of them, and the Church it- 
 self takes little note of them. There is not only 
 the hidden life, but there are also hidden saints — 
 too much hidden for their own or the Church's 
 good ; shining with a strong light inwardly, out- 
 wardly in the shadow ; some among the poor, some 
 among the sick, some among the forsaken, some 
 among the rich, some among those in the high 
 places of learning and power, who veil themselves, 
 their motives, their deeds, their sacrifices, and are 
 content to go through life underrated, misunder- 
 stood, even misrepresented. The temple of their 
 faith is built up like that of old, without noise of 
 any tool — " rising like the flowers in the open spaces 
 of trackless forests, growing silently and unseen of 
 
66 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 men, casting tlie treasnre of their beantj and fra- 
 grance immediately into the arms of God. ' ' Many of 
 them, if it cannot be said that they are born Chris- 
 tians, certainly grow np into the fnll stature of 
 Christians, with little aj^parent effort, with almost 
 no painful conflicts, and with very little formal in- 
 quiry into the grounds of what they hold. They 
 think little of their religion, because it is not in their 
 nature to think much. They feel all that others 
 tlihik. Logically, they know nothing, but in the 
 sphere of conscience and will they know everything. 
 To the outward eye they have no method about it, 
 and yet they are under a severe self-discipline. 
 The Church needs to see more of them for its own 
 benefit. They need for their own health and peace, 
 as well as for their usefulness, more contact with 
 all hfe about them. Their hfe is timid, cramped, 
 powerless in its manifestations, because themselves 
 are abnormally placed. It is for us to search after 
 such souls and do what we can to press them more 
 to the front, where the light that is in them shall 
 be seen of men as the true light that cometh down 
 from above, 
 
 III. I come now to the case of those who will, or 
 
The Citre of Souls. 67 
 
 ought to seek counsel because of ignorance or mis- 
 conception touching some fundamental principle of 
 faith or morals. It is surprising how much of both 
 there is among those who have had the opportunity 
 (and who seem to have used it) of religious instruc- 
 tion. Both pass unnoticed, excite no remark, cre- 
 ate no discomfort, until something occurs to drive 
 the mind in upon itself for light and guidance. 
 Then for the first time it realizes how little it has 
 profited by what it has heard ; how, though it has 
 seemed to be all the while learning, it has never 
 come to the knowledge of the truth — an available, 
 coherent knowledge at all adequate to meet the in- 
 evitable seK-questionings of an awakened soul. 
 Arrested in its course, confronted with its half -re- 
 membered Baptismal obligations, or with the yet 
 more definite and pressing form of them developed 
 by Confirmation, compelled to find answers to a 
 score of questions respecting faith and practice, it 
 suddenly, and with pain, perhaps, awakes to the 
 fact that it has been for years using words and hear- 
 ing them used, words standing for matters of the 
 most vital moment, without any sense of their real 
 meaning. There may be a tolerably rich Christian 
 
68 Condones ad Clertcm. 
 
 vocabulary and yet no genuine knowledge. It is 
 astonisliing liow long we may toss words about, one 
 to another — words coined in tlie most approved 
 mints, even those of inspiration itseK — without be- 
 ing intelligently sure of what they really express. 
 Take, for example, the terms which embody the 
 objective verities of the Gospel, such as mediation, 
 sacrifice, atonement, redemption, regeneration, or 
 others representing subjective acts and frames, such 
 as faith, repentance, grace, love, or of any one of a 
 hundred others. Thousands of intelligent people 
 are perfectly familiar with the terminology of di- 
 vine truth so far as sound and spelling go. Its 
 words and phrases are heard so often that the hearer 
 drifts insensibly into certain vague notions based on 
 a sort of presumptive knowledge, which, in the 
 hour of trial, when the heart far more than the head 
 insists upon a clearer perception of its own ills and 
 lapses, and of God's remedies for them, is no more 
 the knowledge needed than the fog- wreaths around 
 the mountain-tops are the mountains themselves. 
 
 And while I am on this point, I may say, further, 
 that this vagueness of view as to the recognized and 
 accepted verbal pivots of God's truth, running aU 
 
The Cure of Souls. 69 
 
 the way from obscure apprehension down to positive 
 ignorance, hinders or defeats the preacher's work 
 far beyond what most of 11s imagine. A sermon is 
 carefully wrought out with the best learning and 
 the nicest rhetorical art. It marches steadily on, 
 at every step gaining in fervor and power, to its 
 concluding appeal, which is enforced with an unc- 
 tion of feeling and energy of manner that ought to 
 carry everything before them. When all is over, 
 the preacher is saddened, humihated, perhaps dis- 
 couraged, to find that his message has died away on 
 the hollow air, leaving behind it no sign, the souls he 
 expected to reach unmoved, nothing remembered 
 or spoken of except the style, the choice figures 
 of speech, the apt citations from the Scriptures or 
 from general literature. He endeavors to account 
 for the mortifying failure. He imagines every 
 cause but the true one. The sockets in which the 
 joints of liis sermon played, the nexus of his argu- 
 ment, in more than one instance consisted of single 
 words or phrases, which he used with a perfectly 
 definite meaning, but which, to the majority of his 
 hearers, were about as intelligible as would have 
 been so many algebraic signs. And what is more, 
 
JO Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 it will not be until the preacher has left study and 
 pulpit behind him and passed out into the actual 
 lives, the living experiences, the hidden wants of his 
 flock, taken up one by one, handled in individual 
 cases and in private, that he will see why his well- 
 forged shots have fallen short of, or missed the 
 target. 
 
 But this is not the only ignorance that will oblige 
 awakened souls to seek for special instruction and 
 guidance. There is another ignorance even more 
 difficult to deal with, because more subtle in its in- 
 fluences and less obvious in its forms. It is no 
 unusual thing to find a bright intellect mated with 
 a blind conscience, much culture dwelling in close 
 intimacy with dark and dull moral affections. Large 
 attainments in one direction may delude us into the 
 belief that they are equally so in another direction, 
 where our interest especially centres. This, truly, is 
 a reading generation. The popular curiosity wan- 
 dere at will. The press is ubiquitous, and though 
 not reverential on religious subjects, at times not 
 even decently respectful, yet it gives large space to 
 religious themes and interests. So that, though the 
 Sunday-school and the Pulpit be not taken into ac- 
 
The Cure of Souls. 71 
 
 count, and our view be confined to the secular and 
 the religious press, we may fairly assume the exist- 
 ence of a considerably high average of Christian in- 
 telligence among the people. And yet what pastor 
 has not been shocked at the ignorance on elementary 
 questions which he has unearthed in minds of more 
 than ordinary cultivation, and enjoying habitual 
 contact with the best sources of rehgious knowl- 
 edge ? 
 
 The Scriptures are not read, whatever else may 
 be, far less studied. The Church is known as very 
 little more than an existing institiition, without liv- 
 ing roots in the past, without a great and wonderful 
 history attesting God's presence not only in itself, 
 but in the affairs of the world. It is needless to 
 speak of the treatment given to the doctrines of 
 Christianity, for it has become the fashion to decry 
 these in favor of the moral, the sentimental, the 83s- 
 thetic side of it. Few there are who find their 
 duty or their pleasure in studying them. They are 
 set aside and even ridiculed in some quarters as 
 " the withered leaves," " the sapless husks," " the 
 dry bones " of religion, with which really cultured 
 and progressive minds have no vocation to meddle. 
 
Condones ad Cleruiit. 
 
 Tlie young, as a rule, have been for a generation 
 past, and are now being, reared in tlie same notions 
 and in tlie practice engendered by tlieni, and, I 
 may add, in the ignorance and misconception whicli 
 are the fruits of both. 
 
 But it is not so much of this sort of ignorance as 
 of moral ignorance, in the midst of much formal, 
 technical knowledge of the truth, that I wish to 
 speak. God's "Word, after it is done speaking to 
 us, and its task is finished, as a medium of light 
 from heaven to earth, reminds us that after all its 
 varied, vivid, complete communications of the di- 
 vine will to man, he may yet be almost as much in 
 the dark as though tliey had not reached him. The 
 natural man is at enmity with God ; his understand- 
 ing is darkened, his heart alienated, so that he can- 
 not perceive the things of God. S^^iritual truth, 
 because it is spiritual, must be spiritually discerned. 
 Now, it is this law which so many with whom we 
 have to deal are constantly, persistently disregard- 
 ing. They insist upon \vx\\^\\).^ intellectually yAx^i^ 
 if it is to liavc power over them, must be handled 
 sjnritually. The guide of souls has no more stub- 
 born difficulty to contend with. It meets him at 
 
The Cure of Souls, ^2) 
 
 every turn. There is only one tiling left for liim to 
 do. He must, by persuasion and entreaty, bring 
 the soul thus hindered to its knees in prayer for the 
 light in which alone it can see light. He must deal 
 with it as Christ dealt with those who gathered 
 about Him in the synagogue and the temple, on the 
 sea and the hill-side. The particulars of His deal- 
 ing would be too large a subject to go into in this 
 connection. The key to its marvellous magnetism, 
 its irresistible j^ower, its inexhaustible range of 
 adaptation will not escape us if, as His deputies and 
 ambassadors, we study as we ought the records of 
 His character and work. The love of both, wonder 
 at, gratitude for, both, drew men to Him, and, once 
 drawn there, they caught something by the contact, 
 call it what we maj' — grace, virtue, power, or what 
 not — something that lifted the heart above the in- 
 tellect, the conscience above the understanding, the 
 will above the jjropensities of the animal man, and 
 so enabled the deaf to hear, the blind to see, and 
 the lame to walk, and as both cause and effect of 
 the change, brought man into confoniiity with that 
 universal law of sj)iritual truth, viz. , that the things 
 of the Spirit must be spiritually discerned. Now, 
 
74 Condones ad Clcrum. 
 
 in tlie work of guiding individual souls, we, as tlie 
 ordained representatives of the ever-living Christ, 
 and empowered by the Holy Ghost to carry on His 
 ministry among men, must bring them to Him so 
 that He may do for them just what Ho did for those 
 who of old went forth from His presence and His 
 touch, crying out, " 1 was blind, and now I see ; 1 
 was lame from my mother's womb, and now I 
 walk ; I had an unclean spirit, and now I am 
 clothed and in my right mind." 
 
 Do you say such direction as this is too indefinite, 
 that it does not give the jDarticulars, step by step, 
 of the true mode of treating the ignorant and, be- 
 cause ignorant, the spiritually dead ? I reply, the 
 power derived upon us by Christ to teach and 
 guide, and upon the souls whom we teach and 
 guide, can no more be described in particulars or 
 resolved into simpler elements, and yet do its work 
 and be what it is, than the atmosphere which vitalizes 
 our lungs, and through them our blood, or gravity, 
 which holds all things in their places. It is to us 
 one force, one energy, just as Christ, its source, is 
 one. It is continuous in its manifestation and 
 ubiquitous in its presence. Its objective centre is 
 
The Ctire of Souls. 75 
 
 Christ Himself, its subjective, every soul, whether 
 priest or layman, high or low, bond or free, that ac- 
 cepts and reproduces it as the one living power 
 which can turn the sinner from his sin and bestow 
 upon him the gift of eternal life. There are differ- 
 ent degrees^ but not different kinds, of this power. 
 Some may have more and some less of it, but what 
 they have is all of the same kind. And woe to the 
 pastorate that has none of it ; woe rather to the 
 man who can be content with such a pastorate, the 
 form without the power, the body without the soul, 
 orders without grace, the holy priesthood without a 
 call. Erudition, culture, eloquence, personal gifts, 
 and attractions may float a man and give him some- 
 thing of a figure as a preacher, but in the actual 
 cure of souls all these are but the fringes of the gar- 
 ment of power. The garment itself must be woven 
 of the Holy Ghost after the pattern of that worn 
 by the Great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls. 
 
 ly. As Christianity is the religion ybr the trans- 
 gressor because it is the religion of a Divine Sa- 
 viour ; so it is the religion for the suffering because 
 it is the religion of a Divine Sufferer. Rich as it 
 is in its overtures to the sinner, it is not more so 
 
76 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 than it is in the helps which it offers to the troubled 
 and the sorrowing. And what it is in itseK, just 
 that it has been throughout its history. In every 
 age its formal theological literature has been no 
 more varied and abundant than its literature of con- 
 solation. That such should have been the case is 
 only what might be expected ; for as Christianity 
 was intended to j^rovide for all the moral needs of 
 man, so eminently was it intended to meet equally 
 those twin facts in his life — sin and sorrow. Of ne- 
 cessity, this dual function is repeated and exempli- 
 fied in the pastorate charged with the cure of souls. 
 Practically and theoretically considered, it would 
 be difficult to determine whether Christ^s deputies 
 are more occupied in the work of jDublishing the 
 terms of the remission of sin and administering the 
 seals of forgiveness, than in the work of comforting 
 the distressed and the afflicted. Certain it is that 
 no priest can be properly trained and furnished for 
 his high office who is not equally qualified for both 
 these tasks. To teach and to comfort are only dif- 
 ferent sides of the same commission, and the training 
 that fits him to do the one ought to fit him to do the 
 other. And yet many are they who are successful 
 
1 he Cure of So2iIs. 77 
 
 teachers, Imt unsuccessful comforters. Thej can 
 expound well the truths and promises of God's 
 Word revealed to lighten our darkness and soothe 
 our troubles, but they lack the gentle tact and the 
 quick sympathy needed to bring them home. How 
 many can preach patience and resignation with al- 
 most angelic tenderness, who fail in their pastoral 
 dealings to excite and develop these graces in indi- 
 vidual hearts. The fervid tongue in the pulpit 
 somehow dwindles away into cold silence in the 
 chamber of sickness and in the house of the mourn- 
 er. How sadly, sometimes, able and godly men dis- 
 appoint themselves and others in their private min- 
 istrations amid scenes of trial and grief, where ser- 
 mons about Christ the Consoler must give place to 
 counsels fresh from the heart of Christ and bound 
 upon the aching, lacerated soul as the skilful sur- 
 geon puts the lint into the gaping wound or the 
 bandage on the broken Kmb. Some lack nerve and 
 self-possession, and so are partially unmanned by 
 the emergency ; some lack the sjonpathetic temper- 
 ament, a deficiency which no amount of study and 
 experience can remedy ; while some again are in- 
 efficient because they have failed to draw up into 
 
78 Condones ad Cleruni. 
 
 their own hearts tlic wealth of consolation whose 
 golden threads are woven into every page of God's 
 Word. Now, the weaker we are on this side of 
 our pastorate, the harder Ave should apply ourselves 
 to overcome the weakness. Those, in effect, are 
 only half-truths which we proclaim in public and 
 fail to apply in private. We were ordained to con- 
 sole as well as to preach. Indeed, our ministry is 
 one of consolation, because it is one of reconcilia- 
 tion ; and the Holy Ghost, as the guide into the way 
 of all truth, is not more operative in the latter 
 than, as the Comforter, he is in the former. To 
 be lame in either ministry is, as ambassadors of 
 Christ and witnesses of the Holy Ghost, to present 
 to a world of gloom and wretchedness a broken im- 
 age of Him who came to be its light, and a stifled 
 message of Him who came to be its comfort. 
 
 It does not fall within my design to go into the 
 details of the training required by this side of the 
 sacred office, nor into particulars touching the exer- 
 cise of it when it has been duly trained. My pur- 
 pose will be met by calling attention to a few great 
 guiding principles. 
 
 (1) Most persons, so long as they are untouched 
 
The Cure of Souls. 79 
 
 bj serious trial, are content with a surface view of 
 the wretchedness that stretches out from them on 
 all sides of the world. It is simply one of the as- 
 pects of life with which they are not inclined to 
 meddle. The mystery, if not the agony, of it repels 
 them, and they take refuge, amid the dark questions 
 which it evolves, in a sort of tranquil vagueness of 
 conception, or in such 23latitudes and generalities as 
 have been made current by the customary lan- 
 guage of sorrow-smitten hearts in all ages of man- 
 kind. They behold, they pity, and then turn away 
 exclaiming : '*' Such is the world !" " So it always 
 has been, so it must be," "It is inscrutable; 
 there is no help for it." But when themselves are 
 broken upon the wheel, or scorched by the fire of 
 that experience which, sooner or later, comes upon 
 all, they are swept on as by an irresistible impulse 
 to questionings which bring them face to face with 
 that darkest of all problems — the origin of evil. 
 They pierce through, one after another, all the 
 deepening layers of thought, all the methods and 
 appliances of consolation, whether suggested by the 
 speculative reason, or the equally speculative imagi- 
 nation, or formally presented by Divine Revelation, 
 
8o Condones ad Clcrinn. 
 
 pushing on and on along the sliadowed path of in- 
 quiry, until the demand leaps imperiously from 
 their lips ; Whence came the hated, dreadful thing ? 
 Why is it here ? Why was it permitted ? What does 
 it mean ? How could human life and the world, 
 which is the scene of its development, have become 
 what they are under the government of a God of 
 love — if there be such a Being ? There is little sat- 
 isfaction in telling them that these questions have 
 been asked from the beginning, or that human rea- 
 son, often as it has grasped them M^itli passionate 
 eagerness and defiant resolve, has, after every at- 
 tempt, fallen back on itself in helpless perplexity 
 and in hopeless defeat. And the case practically is 
 not mended much by pointing them to the testi- 
 mony of Revelation. For that simply asserts the 
 facts in all their sharp antagonism, with no attempt 
 at what man considers an explanation. It tells who 
 God is and what He does ; it declares His absolute 
 perfections and guards them against assault at all 
 points. Whatever the evil, whatever the wretched- 
 ness, it affirms that He is not their Author. The 
 world has become what it is by the creature's, not the 
 Creator's, will. It is out of joint, unhinged, disor- 
 
The Cure of Souls. 8i 
 
 dered, groaneth and travailetli in pain, becanse man 
 has lapsed from what God made him, and in the ex- 
 ercise of his moral liberty has broken God's statutes. 
 The latest utterance of philosophical wisdom af- 
 firms that the world's fine of movement is that of 
 progress by evolution, that of growth toward per- 
 fection by the struggle and conflict of powers shut up 
 within itself, that the evil which disorders and poi- 
 sons and smites us is not what the Bible means by 
 sin, but the imperfection, bound up with limitations 
 of will and intelligence, which humanity somewhere 
 in the rolling ages is destined to overcome by the 
 gradual unfolding of what is in itself. Christian- 
 ity, on the other hand, affirms that the transgression 
 of the law, which is sin, is the parent of the anar- 
 chy and woe which shake the universe and rend the 
 heart of man, that the only real progress is of the na- 
 ture of a recovery of what has been lost, that man's 
 destiny can be reaHzed only by a restoration, to be 
 wrought out by a redemption offered to man by the 
 grace of God incarnated and j^ersonated in Jesus 
 Christ, His only begotten Son.* The two affirma- 
 
 * So great has been the progress of late of what is known as 
 " The Theory of Evolution," and such has been the dogmatic 
 
82 Condones ad Clertwt. 
 
 tions, the two theories, with their respective instru- 
 mentalities and methods, are in radical and irrecon- 
 cilable opposition. It is impossible to hold fast by 
 both, and the quality and degree of the comfort 
 wliich we can administer to disquieted or crushed 
 and bleeding hearts will be determined by our 
 
 assurance with which it has been taught, that not a few Chris- 
 tian teachers, if they have not lost, faith in the Christian doc- 
 trine that all true progress of the human race is of the nature 
 of a recovery of a lost perfection, or a restoration of a lost type, 
 have at least grown timid in asserting it. We have grown so 
 familiar with modes of speech implying or affirming the grad- 
 ual supplanting, throughout the world of organic existences, of 
 lower by higher forms, according to a universal law of devel- 
 opment or evolution, that we are falling, little by little, into 
 the way of giving a passive assent to what is so positively as- 
 serted, but what is as far off from demonstrative proof as when 
 it was first propounded. It is certain that this theory, when 
 summoned before the highest tribunals of criticism, has, it is 
 not too much to say, ignominiously failed to win a place among 
 ascertained and established truths. The latest verdict from the 
 best authorities relegates it to the list of clever but un proven 
 hypotheses. If there be subtracted from the process by which 
 it has been built up, what has been done by imagination and 
 dogmatism, and with this the dropped links in the chain of evi- 
 dence and the facts that yet stubbornly refuse to be dovetailed 
 into this pretentious speculation, there is not so much left of 
 it as some suppose. Of late, moreover, there are signs, not to 
 say solid proofs, of such a new and radically difierent reading 
 
The Ctire of Souls. Zt^ 
 
 choice of the one or the other of these concej)tioiis 
 of the world and of human life. If we accept the 
 latest philosophy, we must be content to stand 
 speechless amid scenes of suffering, to bind up no 
 wounds, to pour into aching souls no mollifying 
 
 of the facts accumulated with so much labor and research by 
 the advocates of evolution, as to portend a violent and de- 
 structive reaction against its triumphantly heralded conclu- 
 sions. The evolutionists have argued much in favor of their 
 theory from the long-received and long-undisputed undulatory 
 theory of light and sound. This theory has been fatally dam- 
 aged, not to say completely overthrown, by the recent investi- 
 gation and reasoning of A. WilfordHall in his " Problem of 
 Human Life" — a work that carries the war into the very heart 
 of Darwin's citadel. But more to my purpose is another able 
 and striking contribution to the literature of the general sub- 
 ject, by T. Warren O'Neill, entitled " The Refutation of Dar- 
 winism, and the Converse Theory of Development." His de- 
 sign is to show that " the very same facts which Darwin con- 
 fesses his inability to explain, yet upon which he relies to sus- 
 tain his theory, may be explained in a way which signally dis- 
 proves the theory that man and other species of animal and 
 species of plant were evolved from lower types." "All of 
 Darwin's facts are taken for granted, as are all his scientific 
 factors. The same facts, however, are differently apportioned, 
 with but a slight variation from Darwin's mode of distribution 
 of them." 
 
 Reversing the evolution view, this author insists that the proto- 
 type of each species was an organism oi a higher state of devel- 
 
84 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 ointment. We can only, with folded hands and 
 silent tongues, watch the mighty machine while it 
 grinds hearts and wills, flesh and spirit to powder, 
 telling those who are thus broken and triturated 
 under the ponderous hammer of invariable, inmiu- 
 
 opmenl than the type of such species as now found under na- 
 ture. Adverse conditions entailed the suppression of the char- 
 acters, and the mere restoration of the favorable conditions se- 
 cures their redevelopment. All reduction, as claimed by the 
 author, from the typical number of parts and suppression of 
 function counts as a degradation of the animal or plant, and 
 their recovery as an improvement, which favorable conditions 
 may secure. 
 
 It maybe that this writer's general view may be overthrown, 
 and his reasoning shown to be defective ; but it cannot be de- 
 nied that both are as plausible and apparently as well sustained 
 as the theory of Mr. Darwin aud the arguments by which he 
 supports it. I have referred to the work only as a sign of 
 the coming reaction, and as going to prove that the old doctrine, 
 that all true progress of the race is of the nature of a recovery 
 and a restoration, has a solid basis not only in Revelation, but 
 also in science. The issue between the two theories is by no 
 means settled, nor are the arguments and evidences all on one 
 side, as some seem to suppose. In fact, though much has 
 been said against the Bible view, yet not enough has been 
 inoved to shake our conviction of its truth, or to make us timid 
 and reluctant in asserting it. 
 
 Quite in harmony with this view of the origin and natural 
 history of man, are the results arrived at by M. Le Page 
 
The Citre of Souls. 85 
 
 table law, or whelmed in the bottomless gulf of a 
 fatalism which is only another name for this notion 
 of law, that there is no comfort for them save what 
 they can derive from a vague hope of a possible 
 perfection to be evolved afar off, in inconceivably 
 
 Renouf, in his " Hibbert Lectures" (1879), " On the Origin and 
 Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by the Religion of Ancient 
 Egypt." So far from Fetichism being the first step in the 
 growth of religion, he claims that the earliest religion of Egypt 
 (the earliest of known religions) was monotheistic, and that the 
 earliest developments of Monotheism were the noblest and 
 purest. "It is," he says, " incontestably true that the sub- 
 limer portions of the Egyptian religion are not the compara- 
 tively late results of a process of development or diminution 
 from the grosser ; and that its last stage — that known to the 
 Greek and Latin writers, heathen or Christian — was by far Iho 
 grossest and most corrupt. Renouf quotes with approval M. 
 de Rouge, who says: "It is more than five thousand years 
 since, in the valley of the Nile, the hymn began to the unity 
 of God and the immortality of the soul ; and we find Egypt in 
 the last ages arrived at the most unbridled Polytheism. The 
 belief in the unity of God and in His attributes as Creator and 
 Lawgiver of man, whom he has endowed with an immortal 
 soul — these are the primitive notions, enchased like indestruc- 
 tible diamonds in the midst of the mythological superfetatinns 
 accumulated in the centuries which have passed over that 
 ancient life." So that, religiously, man's life is a degenera- 
 tion, and his true progress now of the nature of a recovery or 
 a restoration. 
 
86 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 distant ages, from the embryos of to day passing np 
 by " the sm*vival of the fittest" into the completed 
 types of the future. How soothing and strength- 
 ening such comfort is, how efficacious it is in dry- 
 ing up human tears over the sick, the dying, and 
 the dead, or amid any of tlie trials which moisten 
 the brow as Avith the sweat of an insupportable ag- 
 ony, they only can tell who have tried it. It would 
 seem as though such a view could offer but two 
 things to be done — both involving a return to a 
 worn-out paganism — either with the stoic to despise, 
 or with the epicurean to laugh at, what we cannot 
 help. 
 
 (2) Now, these thoughts fairly pave the way to a 
 consideration of the two rival modes of dealing with 
 evil when developed into actual j)ain — the one that 
 of the natural reason, carrying essentially the same 
 idea through all its various treatments ; the other 
 that of Christianity. Pain is evil intensified and 
 at work upon sensitive beings. It is the wide-spread 
 disorder and unhingement of nature localized in 
 individual bodies and individual souls. As such, no 
 grade or aspect of human life escapes its visitation. . 
 It sweeps along the nerves, darts through every 
 
The Cure of Souls. 87 
 
 fibre of the flesh, nestles in the intellect, eats into 
 the will, and searches as with a point of steel the re- 
 cesses of the heart. J take it as a fact of experi- 
 ence, a fact bound up with our earthly inheritance, 
 and, wherever we find it, wet with tears and cloud- 
 ed with mystery. Accepting it as a fact, how do 
 the two rival systems — the one of nature, the other 
 of grace, the one of man, the other of God — handle 
 it ? If ours is to be a ministry of consolation, we 
 must see definitely and palpably the grounds on 
 which it rests, and the resources at its command. 
 There can be no more practical and urgent question 
 named in connection with the cure of souls. If the 
 painter must know his colors and the law of their 
 combination, if the physician must know the reme- 
 dies he apphes, the surgeon, the instruments he han- 
 dles, the chemist, the ingredients and properties of 
 matter, the lawyer, the statutes which regulate the 
 administration of justice, so must the priest under- 
 stand the means at his disposal when he deals with 
 bruised or broken hearts. 
 
 What, then, have these systems to say for them- 
 selves ? Pain, says reason, is a thing of mystery and 
 power ; whence it came and why it works cannot 
 
88 Coficiones ad Cleruin. 
 
 certainly be affirmed. There are some gromids for 
 believing it not utterly inconsistent with the justice 
 and benevolence of the Supreme Being, if there be 
 one. We know it has some uses, and it may have 
 others. It makes us vigilant and cautious against 
 danger. Itself, in part, the fruit of carelessness, or 
 ignorance, or excess in dealing with nature's laws, it 
 warns us not to repeat them. It is, therefore, mon- 
 itory and protective. But, besides this, pain adds 
 a relish to pleasure by now and then breaking its 
 current. It is the shadow needed to bring out the 
 light, the discord that enhances the harmony. And, 
 then, it gives a wholesome tone to some of the vir- 
 tues. It says to firmness, do not be shaken ; to 
 fortitude, hold fast ; to courage, do not be afraid. 
 Here, reason, in its moral use and exphcation of this 
 profound and universal fact, must stoj). It has no 
 other word for the suffering and anguish of mankind. 
 It has no voice of mercy, however it may have a look 
 of sympathy. Certainly it has no tears, no rescues, 
 no alleviations of love to offer. The torn body and 
 the stricken soul plead in vain for something more. 
 Man is left a stranger, an orphan, to decipher for 
 himself the dark handwriting of grief and ruin 
 
The Cure of Souls. 89 
 
 graven upon l>is life by an unseen power. What 
 matters it tliat lie is told by the epicurean to escape 
 pain by inventing new pleasures, or by the stoic to 
 disregard it as a thing too mean to make the will 
 tremble. This is only the comfort which the blind 
 give to the blind.* 
 
 Turn now to Christian teaching, and weigh what 
 it says and does in respect to this fact of pain. It 
 does not do away with its mystery, or reduce its 
 power, or lessen its bitterness as an actual, inevita- 
 ble experience, or in any way represent it to be 
 other than precisely what it is. It is inscnitably 
 and indissolubly linked to sin, and came into this 
 frame of things with a fatal lapse of our nature. 
 Under the first Adam, and as a fact of nature, it 
 was part of the wages of sin ; but in Christ, the sec- 
 ond Adam, from heaven, it became also a power of 
 cleansing and perfection. He permits it to abide 
 
 * " It is remarkable that men so acute as Zeno and many of 
 his disciples of the Stoic school did not perceive and ac- 
 knowledge that if 'pain were not an evil, cruelty would not be a 
 vice. One such consequence of their system was enough to 
 demonstrate its untenableness. " — Sir James Mackintosh's 
 " Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Retrospect of Ancient 
 Ethics" (p. 102). 
 
QO Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 in His kingdom, but He lias reduced it to subjec- 
 tion and converted it into a recognized instrument 
 in the discipline of His people. It is now the min- 
 ister not more of God's severity, than of God's 
 mercj. To the godless it is still what it once was 
 — a dark and crushing reality ; to the godly it is as 
 the refiner's tire, purging out the soils of the spir- 
 itual nature. The school of suffering is the school 
 of sanctity. The path of trial winds out of the 
 world up to our true home. Thus pain becomes the 
 surest and strongest bond of union with the true 
 and the perfect. We find it a fact of nature, an 
 experience of man, a thing sharp, searching, and 
 terrible. A divine faith takes it into its cnicible, 
 and it comes out a new power, baptized and or- 
 dained unto new ministries and fellowships. Thus 
 transformed, suffering rises to its noblest aspect and 
 re-appears in the form of self-sacrifice — the one irre- 
 sistible power in the conquest of moral evil. It 
 was the law of the new creation that our Divine 
 Saviour should be " a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief," and it is part of this law that they 
 whom He delivers shall be conformed to Him in 
 this quality of Ilis perfection. So deej) is this 
 
The Cure of Souls. 91 
 
 principle laid in the ethics of redemption that St. 
 Paul does not hesitate to argue, in the words, 
 " What son is he whom the Father chasteneth not ?" 
 that to be free from suffering, to know no chastise- 
 ment, is an exemption to be feared rather than cov- 
 eted, as clouding or excluding the brightest tokens 
 of sonship in the family of God. 
 
 These, then, are the uses and ends of pain in the 
 discipline of Christianity. It melts and casts out the 
 stubborn dross of nature. It transfigures the in- 
 ward life into the image of the Lord and Giver of 
 life. Its strokes are those of the cliisel rounding 
 the rough marble into heavenly sculpture. It gives 
 to unheeded truth a more piercing emphasis. It 
 strips life of its illusions and carries the soul down 
 into the region of reahty. It tames the will and 
 moderates the desires. By the things we suffer it 
 teaches obedience, clears the eye and strengthens 
 the wing of faith, reducing us to a childhke submis- 
 sion under the Father's hand. It presses upon us our 
 share in the struggle between good and evil, and in- ■ 
 terprets to us the dreadful problem which hangs so 
 heavily upon the world's life. It suggests, nay, de- 
 mands a future of rest as the sequel to the present 
 
92 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 trial. There is a glimpse, an intimation, of immor- 
 tality in its very affinity with death. Pain, the 
 dreadful, vivid, incomjjrehensible fact. It is no 
 longer the blind and aimless force which binds hu- 
 manity, like another Prometheus, to the rock of 
 torture. The Word of God gives it an origin, a 
 use, an end ; with every look of agony, every wail 
 of grief from the body or the soul, it blends the 
 tones of heavenly pity and spreads over them the 
 halo of divine promise. 
 
 Now, these general aspects of the subject have 
 been considered, only the better to prepare the way 
 for an examination of some points ^vith which we 
 are often required to deal in the discharge of our 
 pastoral duty, as guides and consolers of the trou- 
 bled and the sorrowing. 
 
 (3) Of all the forms of misery that can come upon 
 mortals, there is none like that which arises from 
 voluntary and conscious sin. Such sin leaves no 
 doubt as to our aecountabihty. Our own personality 
 •lies at its core, and no question can arise as to the 
 justice of the pain, whatever it be, inflicted upon 
 us. Ourselves and not another is the cause of our 
 suffering. If we yield to temptation and run into 
 
The Cure of Souls. 93 
 
 evil courses, it is our own act. "We can find no re- 
 lief in side issues, no comfort in blaming others. 
 When our sin finds us out, we must face it and own 
 it as the creature of our own making. After all 
 abatements and palliations have been pleaded, an 
 aroused conscience will go straight to its work and 
 will cry out : " Thou art the man. " Our offences 
 may be of a sort that will intensify hidden remorse 
 by pubKc disgrace, and stamp upon our misery the 
 penalties of violated law and the rebukes of the 
 honest and the pure with whom we have associated ; 
 or they may be secret, and, therefore, known only 
 to God. The guilt of the latter may be greater, 
 though the punishment, for the present, may be 
 less. The state of mind produced by these personal 
 gins runs all the way from passive regrets down into 
 piercing grief. Ui)on the blights and scars and 
 agonies they inflict it were needless to dwell. They 
 have been described almost as often as they have 
 been experienced, but no description ever given 
 can match the reality. No man knows how dee]) 
 and wide his soul is, or what are its capabilities of 
 suffering, until he has grappled with evil consciously 
 taken up into his own will, and there melted and 
 
94 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 coined into actual wickedness by the lieat of in- 
 dulged passion. No man knows, too, what the 
 keenest pain is until the sense of guilt clouds and 
 shakes and rends him, driving peace from his bor- 
 ders, turning all sweets into bitterness, and all hopes 
 into fears. To live with it is death, to run away 
 from it is impossible. No wonder that the world is 
 so full of fever and unrest, when it is so largely 
 made up of lives thus agitated and distressed. 
 
 To the cry, " Why art thou so vexed, O my 
 soul ! and why art thou so disquieted within me ?"* 
 the only answer, among all that can be given, that 
 goes to the bottom of the trouble, is that which de- 
 clares, " There is no peace, saith my God, to the 
 wicked. "t Now, of those thus driven and tossed, 
 some will seek us, but more will have to be sought 
 by us. In either case, our symj)athy and pity, how- 
 ever freely given, can do little more than remove 
 the barriers to a frank and full disclosure of the 
 soul's hurt. The priest is shut up to one way of 
 dealing with it. He is allowed no discretion as to 
 the remedy to be ap^Dlied, or as to the peace and 
 comfort which he is authorized to j)romise. He acts 
 * Psalm 42 : 14. f Isaiah 57 : 21. 
 
The Cure of Souls. 95 
 
 not in his own name, but in the name of the God 
 of all peace and comfort, and as the representative 
 of Him by whose mediation alone the offender can 
 have access to the Father of mercies. He mnst, 
 therefore, with as few preliminaries and as httle de- 
 lay as possible, lead the bruised and heavy-laden 
 into the very heart of the divine scheme for the re- 
 mission of sins. Laying aside the generalities of 
 pnlpit speech, and with them a good deal of the 
 knowledge gained by routine studies in theology, 
 and even in the Scriptures, and, besides these, most 
 of the technical directions and rules found in books 
 on personal religion, he must realize how, at the 
 first approach to the guilty soul, he is placed at the 
 very focus on which converge the antagonizing 
 forces of heaven and earth, of good and evil, of the 
 cross of Christ and a fallen Immanity ; and by the 
 sparks of fire thrown out by the colliding flint and 
 steel he must shape his connsels. Many a man is 
 wretched because of his guilt who has not taken 
 the first step toward a true penitence. The instinct 
 of self-defence, self-extenuation, will incline him to 
 invent excuses and apologies. All sin in general is 
 very wicked, but his sin in particular is not very 
 
96 Condones ad Clerum, 
 
 grievous because committed under peculiar circum- 
 stances of trial. He was sui*prised ; lie was taken 
 at the weak point ; lie was beguiled bj bad influ- 
 ences around liim ; be was led astray by vicious 
 companions ; be did not mean to tamper witb liis 
 conscience or to leave tbe door open to the enemy ; 
 the evil actually done is so mucb greater tban be 
 expected, at tbe start, tbat be cannot account for it ; 
 one step followed anotber so imperceptibly, tbat 
 none alarmed bim or summoned liim to put forth 
 any special resistance ; bad as the total result is, no 
 one is so perplexed and amazed at it as himself ; 
 sorry as he is at what has happened,- it cannot be as 
 bad as it seems because it has come ujDon him in 
 such a way, and the only palpable and disturbing 
 experience he has is that of the misery which it has 
 produced. 
 
 Now, in such a case, not a step can or will be 
 taken toward the comfort of forgiveness — tbe only 
 real comfort that can be had, until all this special 
 pleading has been brushed aside. Such a man must 
 be brought to see bis sin as it is in itself and as 
 God sees it, and not merely as himself may regard 
 it. To do this, tbe priest must leave nothing un- 
 
The Cure of Souls. 97 
 
 done. He mnst work on until lie can toncli tlie 
 mainspring of the conscience, and let loose its latent 
 power of exposure and rebuke- Alongside of it, and 
 as serving to cut away all obstructions to its verdict, 
 lie must put the violated law of God, speaking by 
 its spirit, not its letter ; and to both must be added, 
 as the final power of appeal and conviction, God's 
 hatred of all sin, as exhibited not only in his deal- 
 ings with men, but above all in that most awful 
 event in human history — the passion and death on 
 the Cross of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. 
 If none, nor all of these combined, create in the 
 offender's heart a moving, melting sense of the 
 enormity of his sin, the case, for the present, is 
 closed ; or, if continued, continued only by ]3rayer 
 that the Holy Ghost will do for it what He prom- 
 ises to do for all who are dead in their trespasses 
 and sins. But assuming that faith has begun to 
 work, and that some adequate sense of the power, 
 the guilt, the penalty of sin has been awakened by 
 these means, then will follow the several parts of a 
 true repentance — confession, contrition, satisfac- 
 tion, upon the details of which I need not dwell 
 further 'than to remark : (1) That if the confession 
 
98 Condones ad Clc7^2im. 
 
 made to God do not pacify the penitent, tlien let 
 him be moved to call in the aid of the priest to 
 help in lifting the burden from his soul, opening 
 np to him, as Christ's depnty, tlie hurt and griev- 
 ance under which he mourns ; (2) That the teach- 
 ing and direction shall be clear and positive, as 
 upon all the parts involved, so especially upon the 
 duties of reparation for wrongs done and of amend- 
 ment of life — the most difficult among the fruits 
 of repentance, and therefore the most likely to be 
 slurred or postponed. 
 
 The popular religion of the time treats thinly and 
 lamely many things in the Christian life, but none, 
 I think, so much so as the subject of repentance. 
 It is a subject especially attractive to the average 
 religious teacher, because it is so full of emotional 
 experience and abounds in frames and agitations 
 and tears. But these ordinarily may be left to take 
 care of themselves, if we can be sure of the ripened 
 fruit in the shape of restitution and amendment. 
 These are reached, in some cases, only through pro- 
 foundly disturbing exercises of the soul, and, in 
 others, through comparatively little outwardly- man- 
 ifested feeling. It matters little whether the emo- 
 
The Cure of Sotils. 99 
 
 tion involved be mucli or little, provided the result 
 be reached. But the requirements of faith and re- 
 pentance having been met, equal attention must be 
 given to the divine method for conveying and sealing 
 forgiveness v^'itli its peace and comfort, by the one 
 Baptism for the remission of sins, and then for 
 the deepening and strengthening of tliese gifts by 
 the grace of Confirmation, and then still further 
 on, for their perj^etual nourishment and growth by 
 the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood, and yet 
 further, for the continuous development of those 
 graces of the new life which, as evident tokens of 
 the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence, yield the 
 peaceable fruit of righteousness and with it the 
 highest joy, the sweetest comfort of the saints.* 
 
 (4) But when the guilt of sin has been par- 
 doned, and its penalty remitted, and the bitter sor- 
 row of it done away, some of its consequences still 
 
 * The treatmeut of sin after baptism is involved in the dis- 
 cipline apjjlicable to the Christian penitent. Ordinarily, this 
 discipline is part of the required preparation for the Holy 
 Communion, in which, by Christ's own appointment, all who 
 turn unto him, at any stage of the Christian life, with hearty 
 repentance and true faith, are assured of the remission of their 
 sins. 
 
lOO Condones ad Clertnn. 
 
 remain to trouble us. The scars are left tliougli 
 the wounds are healed. There are traces of the for- 
 mer darkness amid the radiance of the present light. 
 The ground-swell continues after the Master has 
 said to the upheaved waters, " Peace, be still." 
 The soul still mourns over what God has forgiven, 
 but what itself cannot forget. A chill and a sha- 
 dow fall upon it from even the memory of past 
 lapses and punishments. And as for the body, how 
 often that carries with it to the grave the cuts and 
 bruises, the aches and tribulations of vices long since 
 forsaken and appetites long ago brought into cap- 
 tivity to Christ, These need sometimes all the 
 comfort within our power to give, and God has not 
 left his priests ^vithout direction how to give it. 
 
 Sj^eaking under the dispensation of His grace, 
 we are authorized to declare in all such cases that 
 the consequences of repented and forgiven sin, how- 
 ever they may run on into after years, are not to be 
 regarded as penal inflictions of Divine justice. 
 What would have been punishment is translated by 
 God's mercy into chastisement. The present pain 
 is no longer the evidence of His wrath against sin, 
 but is chano;ed into the token of His love for the 
 
The C7L7^e of Souls. loi 
 
 ransomed and pardoned sinner. Whereas, before, 
 every throb of anguish carried with it a correspond- 
 ing pang of remorse, now it dies away into the 
 healing bahn of a disciphne which purifies while it 
 admonishes, and lifts the soul nearer heaven by the 
 very burden which it carries. Thus jjeace is born 
 of trouble, and rest issues from tumult and vexa- 
 tion, and so the Psalmist's words come true, " It 
 is good for me that I have been troubled, that I 
 may learn thy statutes."* 
 
 (5) But this question cannot be considered apart 
 from a larger one with which we are often called 
 to deal as ministers of consolation. There are those 
 who have not been required to pass through the 
 bitter experience of the openly wicked, the avow- 
 edly impm'e, whose lives have been soiled and 
 stained by sins which only tears and agonies as well 
 as God's mercy could wash away ; and yet who are 
 burdened and pained by consequences entailed upon 
 them by the offences of others, whether living or 
 dead. They have from the beginning striven for 
 innocency of Hfe, done justly, and walked humbly 
 with God, and yet they bear with them, and will 
 * Psalm 119 : 71. 
 
I02 Condones ad Cleruni. 
 
 do so to the end, the deep furrows cut into soul and 
 body by tlie vices of those gone before. Their suf- 
 ferinej is not of tlieir own creation. Their wills 
 and consciences hav^e had nothing to do with the 
 causes of it. The child is stung and poisoned by 
 the father's crime. Each generation runs its course 
 and passes away, but not without drawing those 
 that follow it into the lurid, blighting shadow cast 
 into the future by its wrongs and corruptions. 
 There is, there can be, no sharper trial of our faith 
 in the justice, to say nothing of the love, of God, 
 than that springing from this dreadful, often crush- 
 ing, experience. Can it be true, cries the soul, out 
 of the depth of its perplexity and from the midst 
 of sufferings which it feels that it does not deser^^e, 
 that I am to be broken on the wheel or cast into 
 the furnace for another's sin ? Can it be that a God 
 of love obliges the innocent to bear the punishment 
 of the guilty ? Why all this inherited wreck and 
 ruin, pain and tribulation, conflict and anarchy ? 
 How have these links been dropped in the chain of 
 moral justice, or these clouds crept over the sun of 
 righteousness ? Has God forgotten, or is He pow- 
 erless to do right, or has the world staggered 
 
The Ciire of Souls. 103 
 
 blindly, under some fatal blow, from its proper or- 
 bit ? These and like cries for liglit and comfort 
 rise every day from countless scenes of trial, from 
 pain-pierced bodies and stricken bearts. Eyes 
 wet with tears weep tbem, lips livid with grief re- 
 peat them, and the vexed and weary world, on all 
 sides, takes up the sad refrain in audible sobs of 
 anguish. Doubt, mystery, difficulty rise like walls 
 of flint around this problem as it appears to unas- 
 sisted nature. Faith gives the clue, which reason 
 cannot, to its solution. The God of Revelation, 
 sjDcaking by the incarnate Christ, takes us by the 
 hand and leads us out of the darkness. He assures 
 us of certain things which we are to receive as facts, 
 however difficult it may be to a23ply them to indi- 
 vidual cases. He does not absolutely dispel the 
 mystery of His government, but He kindles light 
 enough to enable us to draw comfort from what we 
 can understand and to be patient until what is hid- 
 den shall be cleared up. 
 
 {a) God is just and true in all His ways. He is 
 a God of justice, because He is a God of love, and 
 the two attributes, however they may seem to 
 work aj)art or to antagonize, must be coincident 
 aiid issue in harmonv of action and result. 
 
I04 Condones ad Clci^um. 
 
 (h) This present life is only a beginning and a 
 preparation. It is a school in which only the ru- 
 diments of knowledge are tanght, and the element- 
 ary conditions and forms of discij^line are enforced. 
 The evil of to-day may become the good of the 
 hereafter. The suffering that now seemeth griev- 
 ous can be so inflicted and so borne as to be the 
 seed-wheat of a harvest of happiness and glory be- 
 yond. 
 
 (c) All evil is traceable to fallen wills and all 
 pain is the fruit of sin committed somewhere along 
 the tortuous line of the will-power of the creature. 
 In the distribution among individuals of the vast 
 dividend representing the wages of sin, God has 
 other ends to serve than that of judicial punish- 
 ment. He admonishes and warns, corrects and 
 amends, chastens and purifies, weans us from the 
 world, and lifts us up to the plane of the powers of 
 an endless life, teaches man the tremendous conse- 
 quences of wickedness by the suffering it entails, and 
 publishes His own holiness, as well by the chastise- 
 ments of the good as by the punishments of the bad. 
 
 (d) No man liveth that sinneth not, and hence no 
 man liveth who can positively affirm that there is no 
 
The Ctire of Souls. 105 
 
 ground of reason and justice in himself for the in- 
 fliction of penalty. God sees life as it is ; man sees 
 it only as it appears to his own more or less igno- 
 rant and always fallible judgment. When we say 
 that such and such visitations are unmerited, that 
 we are victims to others' faults and crimes, that we 
 seem to be singled out especially as targets for the 
 arrows of affliction, that our innocence, not less than 
 others' guilt, invites the hailstones and coals of fire, 
 it would be wise to pause and ask whether we are 
 sure that we are so innocent, so meritorious, so 
 blameless in thought, word, and deed, as to make it 
 certain that we in no degree deserve what we get. 
 God acts upon His own, not our laiowledge and 
 judgment ; He takes in the whole case, we never 
 more than a part ; we compare ourselves with those 
 who seem to be worse. He compares us with those 
 whom He knows to be better ; we are always 
 tempted to clip, bit by bit, from our responsibiHty, 
 He holds it fast in its integrity. It may be true, 
 that to serve God's purposes, wliich embrace the 
 eternal as well as the temporal, we suffer more than 
 we deserve, but it is never true that any and all 
 suffering is absolutely unjust because absolutely un- 
 
io6 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 deserved. He alone can determine and apportion 
 wliat belongs to ns as penalty and what is needful 
 to us merely as warning and correction ; and, if 
 He be a righteous God, we must beheve that He 
 does it righteously. 
 
 {e) Ko temporal evil is simply and de toto gen- 
 ere a punishment. To make it so three things are 
 required : a, That it be painful and grievous to 
 suffer ; h, that it be inflicted for some fault ; c, 
 that it be involuntary and against the sufferer's 
 will. ' ' That, ' ' says Bishop Sanderson,* ' ' which has 
 but the first of these three conditions may be called 
 a kind of punishment ; but properly, that evil only 
 is a punishment wherein the whole three conditions 
 concur. Now, temporal evils, though they have the 
 first two conditions, all of them being grievous to 
 suffer, all of them being inflicted for sin, yet in 
 the third condition they fail, because they are not 
 involuntary simply, and perpetually, and de suo 
 genere (to omit also a kind of failing also in the seo- 
 ond condition ; not but that they are ever inflicted 
 for some sin deserving them, but for that there are 
 withal other ends or reasons for which they are in- 
 * Third Sermon, " Ad Populum." 
 
The Cure of Souls. 107 
 
 flicted, and whereimto tliey are intended, hesides 
 and above the punishment of the offence). It may 
 not be gainsaid, indeed, bnt these things are invol- 
 untary sometimes in the particular, and especially 
 to some men, even the least of them ; but simi)ly 
 and universally such they are not ; since by some 
 other men the greatest of them are willingly and 
 cheerfully not only suffered^ but desired. It must 
 needs be some grief to the merchant to see his 
 rich lading cast overboard, and to the patient to 
 have an old festered sore scorched and singed ; so 
 to the Christian to have God's correcting hand He 
 heavy upon him in some temporal affliction. The 
 Apostle telleth us plainly, ' No ajfUction for the 
 present is joyous, hut grievous. ' But involuntary 
 it is no more in him than those other things are in 
 them. . . . The Christian, though these tem- 
 poral evils somewhat trouble him, yet he is willing 
 to them and cheerful under them, and he acknowl- 
 edgeth God's goodness in them, and returneth Him 
 thanks for them ; because he knoweth they are 
 sent for his future good, and that they will at the 
 last ' yield him the peaceahle fruit of righteous- 
 ness,'' when he shall have been sufficiently exer- 
 
io8 Conciojtes ad Cler^im. 
 
 cised thereby. See Peter and John rejoicing when 
 they suffered for the name of Jesus, and St. Paul 
 so far from fearing, that he longed after his disso- 
 lution ; and the blessed martyrs running to a fag- 
 ot as to a feast. Yerily, God's children see 
 great good in these things, which others account 
 evils, and therefore they take them not as bare 
 punishments sent to afflict them, but as glorious 
 trials to exercise them, as gracious corrections to 
 humble them, as precious receipts to purge and re- 
 store and strengthen them." 
 
 And still farther, touching the difficult question 
 raised by the second commandment, " There is no 
 question de facto, but so it is, the sins of the fathers 
 are visited upon the children ; but de jure, with 
 what right and equity are they so visited ? First, 
 the punishments inflicted are temporal and out- 
 ward, not spiritual and eternal ; secondly, when 
 they are inflicted de jure, it is because the children 
 tread in their father's steps and continue in their 
 sins, being drawn thereto by nature, example, and 
 education ; thirdly, the sins of the fathers are vis- 
 ited upon the children sometimes as possessors of 
 something w^hich their fathers left them, with 
 
TJie Czire of Souls. 109 
 
 God's curse cleaving unto it. Finally, when tlie 
 children are punished for the father's sins, or in- 
 definitely any one man for the sins of any other 
 man, it ought to be imputed to those sins of the 
 fathers or others, Hot as the causes properly deserv- 
 ing them, but only as occasioning those punish- 
 ments. ' ' 
 
 Dr. Mozley has brought out with great clearness 
 and unanswerable logic the two sides of the second 
 commandment — the one judicial, the other didac- 
 tic 1 the one a "ruling idea in early ages," the 
 other the result of a clearer insight into God's nat- 
 ural i^rovidence ; the one implicating the children in 
 their father's guilt and punishing them for it, the 
 other affirming that the sins of the fathers are the 
 occasion, as Bishop Sanderson puts it, of misfor- 
 time to the children, but denying that, in the Ht- 
 eral sense, the misfortune is merited by the chil- 
 dren on account of those sins. The latter view did 
 not wait for the Gospel, working through a more 
 enlightened moral sense, to enforce it. No writer 
 of to-day could pat it more strongly than did the 
 Prophet Ezekiel.* As Canon Mozley says : "As 
 * Ezekiel 18 : 2. 
 
1 1 o Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 the law of Sinai worked in men's minds, it gradually 
 developed the deeper parts of his moral nature, 
 and the individuality of the human being came out 
 in its true form and with its true moral conse- 
 quences. The law of the second commandment 
 2)roves to be a law of God's natural providence, but 
 no judicial law. We recite it in our cl lurches now, 
 but we take it in a sense which satisfies the terms of 
 it, viz., the physical consequences, which, W'hile 
 they do not prove desert, still answer important 
 didactic pm-poses. ... Its law of visitation 
 of sins is regarded as sufficiently fulfilled if God 
 does so connect, i.e.^ as cause and efi^ect, sin with 
 misery for any wise purpose — any purpose wdiich 
 is instructive, though not implying anything judi- 
 cial. . . . The course of things in this 
 world is a great teacher. And among the modes 
 of teaching, one is the sight of the ruinous effects 
 of men's sins upon the condition of their families 
 and posterity. The sin is thus held up to the world 
 with a mark upon it, it is made to fasten on men's 
 eyes, and it is kept up in recollection when other- 
 wise it might be forgotten. Providence, if we may 
 use the expression, cannot afford to dispense wdth 
 
The Ctcre of Souls. 1 1 1 
 
 the ordinary weapons of instruction which chain the 
 attention of mankind to the consequences of sin, 
 thus putting the stamp of evil upon it, exhibiting 
 it to the world in a fearful and formidable light, 
 and converting it into a lasting spectacle of disaster 
 and sadness before men's eyes. The fact that sin 
 continues in its effects long after the act itself is di- 
 dactic and creates a deep image in men's minds."* 
 (6) But all this is only part of the general subject, 
 and we cannot leave it without passing out; into a 
 wider circle of thought. Good men are grieved 
 and perplexed not only because of God's mysterious 
 method of working out the punishment and suffer- 
 ing of sin among their posterities, but still more, 
 if possible, by that order of the world which allows 
 the wicked to prosper and the righteous to be 
 afflicted, despoiled, and trodden down. From the 
 lips of what holy man has not the cry gone up at 
 sundry times, " How long shall the wicked tri- 
 umph ?" How long shall evil have the uj^per hand 
 and apparently rule the world ? How long will it be 
 true that " God shall order a good man's going and 
 make his way acceptable to himself," yet permit 
 * Mozley's " Ruling Ideas," pp. 114-118. ' 
 
112 Condones ad Clertmu 
 
 the same good man to live in tlie shadow and be 
 cursed by the boastful pride and insolent contempt 
 of the bad man ? How long shall impiety be re- 
 warded and godliness be at a discount ? 
 
 " It was a stumbling-block to the heathen to see 
 good men oppressed and vice prosper ; it made 
 them doubt, some whether there be a God or no ; 
 others, nothing better, whether a providence or no. 
 But what marvel if they stumbled who had no right 
 knowledge either of God or of His providence, 
 when Job, and David, and other dear children of 
 God have been much puzzled with it. David con- 
 f esseth in Psalm 73 that His feet had well-nigh 
 slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked ; 
 and certainly down he had been, had he not happily 
 stepped ' into the sanctuary of Ood, and there 
 understood the end of these men.'' "* It was true 
 that he opened the 37th Psalm with the exhorta- 
 tion, ^^ Fret not thyself hecause of the ungodly, 
 neither he thou envious against the evil-doers ^''^ 
 and yet in the 73d he tells us how he was grieved 
 " hecause they come in no misfortxine like other folk, 
 neither are they 'plaguedlike other men y " Wliile 
 * Bishop Sanderson, Sermons, p. 317. 
 
The Cure of SotUs. 113 
 
 all the day lojig have I been punished, and chastened 
 every inorning. 
 
 David's feeling was natural and irrepressible ; and 
 this feeling ig as mucli so now as when he wrote these 
 words. It sways 11s more or less at all times ; and when 
 things go wrong about us, and our plans are brought 
 to naught, or when we are smarting under injustice 
 or adversity— the arrows of contrary fortune stick- 
 ing fast in us — it becomes a fruitful source of dis- 
 turbing tempers in the soul and even of rash and 
 wayward acts in external conduct. Some minds 
 are so affected by it as, when the shadows lie heavy 
 upon them, to be led off, first, into doubt, then 
 into despair, and finall}' into a passive, fatahstic ac- 
 quiescence in what cannot be helped, thus convert- 
 ing life into a riddle which cannot be solved or into 
 a bm'den to \)e borne hopelessly to the end. Others, 
 again, are simply soured and exasperated by it, drift- 
 ing away gradually into the mo^ds of hate and re- 
 taliation, or, wearying of these, into a settled mel- 
 ancholy that contents itself with a sentimental 
 brooding over what there is no longer strength or 
 inchnation to resist. Minds of either sort are pecu- 
 liarly open to the more subtle objections to Chris- 
 
1 1 4 Condones ad Clcriim. 
 
 tianity, as urged by tlie philosophical sentimentalism 
 or philosojDhical scepticism of the time. I^ either 
 theory may have any relief to offer, but their pur- 
 pose will be answered, if they can persuade such 
 jDersons to beheve that what they fail to do cannot 
 be done by the Christian religion. As well, then, 
 for the sake of the sympathy and comfort craved 
 by minds so troubled, as for the sake of rescuing 
 them from divers temptations, assailing them from 
 the stand-point of free thought on the problems of 
 human life and the world's vexed order, shouLi the 
 pastorate do all within its power to give them what 
 they need. Christianity is here to console men un- 
 der their troubles, as well as to enlighten them 
 upon the origin and end of those troubles. It has 
 consolation to offer on this subject, and we should 
 make it our duty to show men how to find it. This 
 is no easy task. The higher class of minds to be 
 dealt with will not be put off with stereotyped ex- 
 hortations to patience and resignation, or with the 
 platitudes of a wordy sympathy. The matters 
 that perplex and distress them are facts — stem, 
 gloomy, depressing facts ; and explanations and as- 
 surances, if attempted, must rest on solid ground 
 
The Cure of Souls. 1 1 5 
 
 and address reason and conscience as well as faith. 
 Wlien a soul is full of unrest, a very fever raging in 
 tlie blood, it is idle to say, " Be quiet," unless you 
 have a remedy at hand that will help it to be so. 
 
 Now, it is not to be disguised that only wide and 
 deep and most earnest and thoughtful studies of the 
 genius, not less than the onission of Christianity, can 
 qualify any guide of souls to do this kind of work 
 successfully. Many a one has gone through the 
 customary curriculum in theology, and yet found 
 himself, when tried, a mere child in this business, 
 and for the reason, in part, that he has given his 
 time and labor to the formulated doctrines rather 
 than to the ethical spirit of the faith. The 
 doctrines present God as an object of contem- 
 plation — as He is in His being and attributes, His 
 registered decrees and methods ; the ethics oblige 
 us to watch as well as to think of Him standing 
 out, as it were, from the background of eternity as 
 the personal Governor of the universe, moving upon 
 and moving through created and yet free wills, di- 
 recting events in liistory, presiding over the life- 
 plan of every human being, holding in His hand 
 every thread in the tangled web of earthly affairs, 
 
ii6 Condones ad Cle7^tLm. 
 
 and in every soul the scales of truth and falsehood, 
 right and wrong. If Christianity may be said to 
 have any philosophy, that philosophy must be at 
 our command unless we would prove ourselves such 
 counsellors and comforters as gathered around Job 
 in the time of his agony — their arguments, their 
 consolations serving only to darken the mystery and 
 to enhance the pain of his afflictions. 
 
 But it may be asked by some who have had no 
 actual experience in the matter, and only such will 
 ask the question, why sliould it be difficult to deal 
 with such cases ? What sort of Christian is that 
 who neither holds, nor can find the clue to lead him 
 out of the dark labyrinth ? What else has he to do, 
 when borne down, or cornered, or pierced and la- 
 cerated by the world's disorder and injustice, than to 
 fall back on the truths which he professes to hold ? 
 It is one thmg for the surgeon to look at his instru- 
 ments lying bright and keen in their case, and 
 another thing to use them as they were meant to be 
 used on the bleeding, fractured, groaning patient. 
 It is one thing to mano3uvre an army on parade day, 
 and another thing to do it on the battle-field amid 
 the thunder and carnage of an enemy's guns. So 
 
The Cure of Souls. i r 7 
 
 far as life's troubles go, we are all good enougli 
 Christians until tlie troubles are actually uj)on us. 
 Some truths, and very precious ones, we have seen 
 dimly ; some have been floating in brain and heart 
 for years, perhaps, only as solemn phrases, not as 
 solemn realities ; others, after keeping for a while 
 at the forefront of our thoughts, have droj^ped away 
 in sleepy vagueness, as the bright vapors of the sun- 
 set drop below the evening horizon — not utterly 
 vanished or dissolved, but no longer quite visible. 
 And so it often hap^^ens that they, who apparently 
 know the most about their faith, turn up weakest in 
 their faith when the bitter waters of ad\^ersity are 
 let loose upon them. Our task is to bring believers 
 to act under trial as though they really did believe, 
 to help them to see clearly and to apply firmly to a 
 present grievance, an overwhelming sorrow, a cruel 
 injustice, a dark wrong to themselves or to others, 
 the faith which, as a creed, they have been reciting, 
 and it may be teaching, for half their lives. To 
 adduce and examine in detail all tlie helps offered 
 us by Christianity, for the effective performance of 
 this task, would carry me beyond the limits marked 
 out by me in the treatment of this subject. It is 
 
1 1 8 Condones ad CIcriim. 
 
 enough, perhaps, that I dwell briefly upon the sali- 
 ent points, leaving the rest to be inferred. 
 
 (1) It has been the habit of the morbid schools 
 of poetry and philosophy to take it for granted that 
 the Holy ScrijDtnres could really teach them very 
 little, if anything, touching that side of the world's 
 life from which the evils and wrongs and sufferings 
 of mankind emanate. They declare that the Sacred 
 "Writings give no proper answer to their vehement 
 protests and indignant expostulations against the 
 wreck and disorder and pain produced by the moral 
 constitution of this world. They rail against it as a 
 hopeless enigma ; they attack it or retreat from it 
 as a scheme of blank fatalism that grinds on with 
 pitiless persistency, reducing the so-called liberty 
 of human wills to a mockery and a sham ; they 
 draw out gloom and death from every part and re- 
 cess of the scheme, and then and tliere parade as an 
 object of pity the diseased sensibility begotten of 
 their own lop-sided conceptions and angry dissents. 
 A veiy moderate acquaintance with modern litera- 
 ture renders needless any citation of particular exam- 
 ples to prove this. The Byrons and Shelleys of 
 the last generation have their counterparts to-day, 
 
The Cure of Souls. 119 
 
 thougli not quite so sardonic and bitterly passionate 
 as they. 
 
 Now, while it is a weakness in any Christian be- 
 liever to be influenced in such a matter by such 
 men, it is nevertheless true that many believers are, 
 and some of them deeply. They allow what they 
 have learned outside the pale of God's truth to 
 shape more or less their feeling and thinking inside 
 of it. 
 
 It is of consequence, then, to show, to begin 
 with, how profoundly, nay, exhaustively, the Word 
 of God, as elsewhere, so especially in the Book of 
 Job, has grappled with, turned over and over under 
 every possible side-light, our human sense of the in- 
 justice of this visible order of things, neither deny- 
 ing nor evading anything that can be truly said 
 about it. The Bible handles it as one of the earliest 
 of man's experiences. It did so far back in the 
 ages long before Greek or Latin thought took up the 
 dark parable, and did it so thoroughly that all mod- 
 ern handling, however stimulated by rasher specu- 
 lations, or by great passions set on fire by the gi- 
 gantic evils incident to shaken empires, colliding 
 civilizations, and vast social convulsions at the close 
 
1 20 Condones ad Chrum. 
 
 of the last and the opening of the present century, 
 has added nothing new. Whatever the difficulty, 
 it was as well known and as deeply looked into by. 
 tlie old patriarch of Iduniea as by the Sliakespeares 
 and Goethes of European thought. " It would 
 seem almost as if it were the intention of Scripture to 
 show to all generations of mankind how thoroughly 
 it understood this vein of thought, and, however 
 watchful over it, felt with it ; and how it was re- 
 solved to leave no excuse to the most sensitive to 
 say that their case had been overlooked and unpro- 
 vided for. One look into this book (Job) should 
 satisfy the most vehement, indignant, melancholy 
 natures of the existence of a religion which under- 
 stands them, and would direct them if they would 
 let it. Scripture is beforehand with its sympathy, 
 anticipates them jDcrfectly, reflects their keenest 
 thoughts." 
 
 It is certain, then, that a hand from without has 
 been stretched forth to lead us through the mazes 
 of an evil world, dark and tangled as they are, tliat 
 we are not left to our own conjectures and imagin 
 ings, nor even to our own moral or intellectual rea- 
 soning, nor yet to the fallible judgments of the tra- 
 
The CiLve of So7ils. 121 
 
 ditions and speculations of mankind at large. A 
 lig'lit is burning at the heart of the myster}", and that 
 light is the Word of Him who permits the mystery 
 and at the same time declares that it shall work out 
 an exceeding and eternal weight of glory to all who 
 love and trust Him. 
 
 (2) We now and then meet with a high-wi*ought 
 religion, a lofty, self- abnegating piety — which, in its 
 anxiety to vindicate the ways of God, as those ways 
 appear in the constitution and order of the world, 
 is disposed to question the integrity and purity of 
 the sense of justice in human nature and to range 
 under the head of distortions and exaggerations of 
 fact much of the wrong which the average man be- 
 lieves that he sees in the government of the world. 
 Unable to account for, or entirely to justify things 
 as they are, it takes refuge in imputations on those 
 instincts of justice in the soul which are as truly 
 the ordinance of God as is the order of things of 
 which they take cognizance — which is quite as "vvise 
 as it would be to try to disperse tlie darkness by 
 putting out the eye that goes up and down search- 
 ing for the light. In lieu of any such slight put on 
 our sense of justice, let every guide of souls insist 
 
122 Condones ad Clcrum. 
 
 rather upon its worth and power. However it may 
 go astray, in this or that particular, it is, after all, 
 the unsilenced and unsilenceable prophecy and 
 affirmation in man of the perfect righteousness 
 which God has pledged Himself to establish some- 
 where in the coming future. It is more, too, than 
 an attribute or function of the moral reason. It not 
 only sees and judges, rebukes and condemns, but 
 often glows, as with the fire of a sacred passion, 
 under the verdicts which itself pronounces or be- 
 lieves others ought to pronounce. It yearns to see 
 the balance struck and right and wrong, wherever 
 they prevail, get their due. It does vastly more 
 than express, or, under challenge and doubt, bear 
 witness to, our human conception of right and 
 wrong. For not seldom it ha23j)ens, amid those sol- 
 emn crises in history, when the race, no longer 
 willing to bear the yoke imposed by bad rulers, or 
 the corruptions rolled up out of the unhealthy ac- 
 cretions of the past, turns over like a giant in a fe- 
 ver — rending and crushing everything in its way — 
 that, then, this faculty, sentiment, instinct — call it 
 what you will — rises to the grandeur and wields the 
 power of an almost divine enthusiasm. " Such is 
 
The Cure of Souls. 123 
 
 tliat passion for justice which, sometimes loftj, 
 sometimes trivial in its subject-matter, sometimes 
 fearful and vehement, sometimes meek and patient, 
 according to individual character, lives on in the 
 minds of men, expecting some day its final rest and 
 fulfilment, and ever pressing toward it. Scrip- 
 ture apjDeals to it throughout, and represents the 
 world, with that whole course of events which 
 forms its history, and all the exhibition of character 
 which has taken place in it, as tending like some 
 drama, or some trial, to a great judicial issue at the 
 day of judgment." 
 
 But in marking out the sphere and setting forth 
 the riglitful ofiice of this sentiment, we must be 
 careful to insist upon the distinction so clearly 
 stated in Bishop Butler's Analogy. In treating of 
 the moral reason, of which tliis feeling is a constitu- 
 ent part, he allows it to judge of morality, but not 
 of expediency ; that is (to apply the principle to 
 the case in hand), to pass upon the justice or in- 
 justice of the world's order as we see it, but not 
 upon the construction of the whole system, which 
 covers eternity as well as time. In other words, it 
 may and it is bound to judge of the present fact of 
 
1 24 Condones ad Clernin. 
 
 evil and misery as the result of that system in time, 
 " But it is not competent to take in the whole of it 
 in itself, or in its ultimate consequences, and there- 
 fore not competent to criticise it as a whole. ' ' Other- 
 wise, it might claim, " That all creatures should at 
 lirst be made as perfect and as hapjjy as they were 
 capable of ever being, and that nothing of hazard or 
 danger should be j)ut upon them. " But to demand 
 this would be to demand the utter abrogation of all 
 moral ]3robation, with its liberty and risk, i. e., the 
 repeal of that constitution of the moral world which 
 God, in His perfect wisdom, has seen fit to estab- 
 lish. While it is true, then, that man may judge 
 moral facts as they occur, it is also true that he can- 
 not determine what is for the best in the long run. 
 
 (3) Now, alongside the fact that tins love of jus- 
 tice is an essential part of human nature, is the twin 
 fact that the world, at many points and on the most 
 serious matters, crosses and annoys that love, now and 
 then baffles it, tramples upon it, utterly crushes it. 
 So often, indeed, does this happen that some, in their 
 despair and anguish, are led to l)e]ieve that wrong is 
 the rule and right the exception, and so that the 
 world's order has been framed in the intei'est of 
 
The Cure of Soidsr 125 
 
 injustice. Now, leavinc^ out of view what the next 
 world will have to say about it, it is for us to do 
 what we can to save souls from so gloomy and dis- 
 tressing a creed of evil, by showing them that, bad 
 as things are, the system of this world, on the 
 whole, favors the good as regards happiness and sat- 
 isfaction in life, tends to eliminate wickedness and 
 promote righteousness, and gives ample proof that 
 all, or even the greater part, of the vindications of 
 truth, justice, and purity are not reserved for the 
 world to come. Evil no sooner starts in its career 
 than retribution fastens upon it. The will of man 
 no sooner signs a covenant with hell than remorse 
 • — one fonn of retribution — begins to gnaw at its 
 core. Sin is no sooner committed than it begins to 
 give the sinner notice that it will find him out. 
 The wicked, beneath what seems the untroubled 
 surface of their lives, carry a curse in their bones 
 and a plague in the marrow thereof. Human lan- 
 guage is full of maxims and instances resting on 
 man's instinctive conviction that every wrong has 
 its avenger. Even the Psalmist, whose " treadings 
 had well-nigh shj)ped, ' ' because he saw " the ungod- 
 ly in such prosperity," admits that the time came 
 
1 26 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 wlien lie saw ' ' the end of these men, ' ' This side 
 of the world's drift is touched by the great poet of 
 human nature with his wonted power : 
 
 " Innocent blood, 
 E'en like the blood of Abel, 
 Cries from the tongueless caverns of the earth 
 For justice and rough chastisement. ' ' 
 
 But the law of retribution applies as certainly and 
 universally to the good as to the bad. It is obscured 
 by many false lights and many plausible counter- 
 facts, but it asserts itself and comes more clearly to 
 the surface as our observation deepens, and so 
 enables us- to disengage it from misleading considera- 
 tions. 
 
 God has armed all virtue with an astonishing re- 
 siliency toward its proper orbit. Sooner or later it 
 cleaves its way through the incumbent darkness, 
 and starting from its own bright centre travels up 
 into the noonday light. It is only a misreading and 
 perversion of history that sees 
 
 " Rightforever on the scaffold — wrongforever on the throne." 
 
 Even that modern school that can find no place 
 in the world for the personahty of a righteous God 
 
The Cure of Souls. 127 
 
 is obliged to admit that the world's constitution ex- 
 hibits, as its profoundest and surest law, a certain 
 all-embracing " tendency to righteousness." 
 
 (4) But suppose the facts were other^vise, suppose 
 good and evil, justice and injustice, were, for the 
 present, locked in a sort of death-struggle — the 
 course of this world affording little or no indication 
 as to the side on which victory would finally settle — 
 it ought not very seriously to disturb the inan of 
 faith. His comfort is that liis faith obliges him to 
 concern himself, in the last resort, only with the 
 right of God's administration upon the whole and 
 eternally ; that faith cannot be overturned by what 
 happens here, because its eyes are fixed definitely 
 upon the hereafter. To it this world is only the 
 fragment of a larger system, the most of which is 
 now invisible. What is "wrong in the smaller parts 
 will be rectified in the greater. To a balanced 
 Christian what occasion is there for vehemence and 
 excitement ? There is no danger ; aU is safe ; a 
 good ultimate issue is sure and has only to be 
 waited for. There are believers who find no com- 
 fort in their Christianity because they have a ner- 
 vous dread lest somehow God will totter to His faU. 
 
128 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 and His magistracy break up and go to pieces 
 under tlie assaults of evil. Thej are excited at tlie 
 first news of any case of injustice and oppression, 
 and tliey clamor for punishment on the spot, as if 
 they doubted that punishment would come at all if it 
 did not come now and as the lightnings strike. But 
 such is not the true temper with respect to w^liat 
 ourselves or others suffer. We can afford to be 
 calm and self-jjossessed though the round world be 
 shaken by the powers of darkness, because we are 
 sure of the issue. Says another: " Rational justice 
 is a sober and tempered feeling, allowing time, pre- 
 aration, and trial ; introducing its operations with 
 preliminaries, conducting them by rule, and consum- 
 mating them w^itli gravity. And Christian justice 
 is — more than sober and tempered — passive and 
 self-denying. I^ow, Christian justice assumes its 
 most majestic temper, and feels the strength and re- 
 pose which mathematical science and logic do in 
 their respective spheres ; a strength and a repose 
 arising from clear-sightedness — the certainty that, 
 as the problem must produce its demonstration, the 
 argument its conclusion, so a moral constitution of 
 things must issue in a day of judgment. Acting . 
 
The C^tre of Souls. 129 
 
 in the highest stage of character, and become a 
 quality not of a simply y^^/m^, or of a simply Ta- 
 tional, but of a spiritual nature, it imitates the tem- 
 per of Him who, seated high above this world and 
 all its movements, and strong in His own omnipo- 
 tence, is supreme in His hatred and supreme also in 
 His toleration of evil : " Who maketh His sun to 
 shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain 
 on the just and on the unjust ;" " the Lord God, 
 merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant 
 in goodness and truth ; keeping mercy for thou- 
 sands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, 
 and that will by no means clear the guilty. ' ' 
 
 Yeiily, amid the tumult, vexation, doubt, and 
 sorrow arising from this visible, present order of 
 things, God has committed to us. His ordained ser- 
 vants a ministry of consolation not less than a minis- 
 try of reconciliation. And the fact that He has 
 done so is not more sure than the fact that goes 
 with it, viz., that in the new dispensation of His 
 love — even the Gospel of Jesus Christ — He has 
 given us all grace and truth necessary to make it 
 the noblest of powers, the greatest of blessings. 
 
 (Y.) I come now to a branch of the subject involv- 
 
130 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 ing more difficulties and imposing a lieavier task 
 upon the guide of souls than any other. If our 
 people felt free to approach the clergy, and to open 
 up to them frankly and fully their hidden troubles, 
 there would be general astonishment at the revela- 
 tion that would be made, both as to the depth and 
 seriousness of the tendency to doubt, and as to the 
 number of minds more or less under its influence. 
 The common atmosphere is full of it. It is at work 
 in individual hearts, producing restlessness and anx- 
 iety. It crops out alarmingly in our homes, show- 
 ing itself in the questions asked by the young — 
 questions suggested by their companions or brought 
 away from the Sunday school — questions started, 
 but not answered, in the pulpit. It creeps stealth- 
 ily, silently through our parishes. It speaks more 
 freely in shops and counting-rooms and places of 
 popular resort. It impinges not merely on the out- 
 works, but on the citadel of the faith itself. It 
 does not formally examine, or analyze, or argue ; 
 but still in a very practical way it courts, not de- 
 clines, contact with issues which it has not learning 
 or logic enough, far less faith enough, to settle ; 
 and yet which it deals with just enough to catch 
 
The Cure of Souls. 1 3 1 
 
 the infection of secret distrust. In our congrega- 
 tions we know not liow many there are, who quietly 
 discount much that the preacher says, thro^\nng 
 aside this or that utterance, as though it were simply 
 a professional dictum which consistency obliged him 
 to pronounce, or a stray fragment of the Christian 
 tradition, which had passed for truth only because no 
 one had challenged it. While the preacher is ap- 
 pealing to the authority of the Scriptures, there are 
 scores in the pews who are asking : How about the 
 genuineness of the Gospels ? How about the moral 
 difficulties in the Old Testament, and the discrepan- 
 cies of texts and facts in the New ? While he is 
 taking for granted the divine origin and organization 
 of the Church, they are revolving the doubt as to 
 whether, after all, it be anything more than a long- 
 perpetuated and highly-dignified voluntary society. 
 While he is laboring to bring his hearers up to high- 
 er views of Sacramental grace, there will be a goodly 
 minority busy at the question whether it is possible 
 that God could, or, likely that He would convey 
 supernatural influence through water, and bread and 
 wine, or by the laying on of hands. And, observe, 
 I am not alluding to a class who are intentionally 
 
132 Condones ad Clcru^n. 
 
 captious, who are inclined to doubt because of the 
 pleasurable intellectual friction which it excites, or 
 because of the excuse it would afford for continuing 
 in an irreligious habit of mind or in the open ne- 
 glect of duty. On the contrary, I am referring to 
 minds who honestly desire to hold the truth, and 
 are ready to accept its consequences whether theo- 
 retical or practical — baptized, and confirmed, or even 
 communing members of the Church, who have been 
 reared in its bosom, instructed in its ways, and who 
 are attached to its worship and its history. There 
 are many such who need a sort of counsel which 
 they do not get, and crave a special individual care 
 and direction which not a few parish priests have 
 neither the training nor the ability, and, conse- 
 quently, not the inclination, to give. And, for the 
 want of them, there are lives among us that, amid 
 the surging cross-currents of modern thought, are 
 slowly, silently, but surely ravelling out and crmn- 
 bling to pieces beneath the shadows of our Church 
 spires, nay, amid the very pomp of our ceremonial 
 and within the sound of our preaching. It is, in- 
 deed, high time that parish ministers should arouse 
 from their lethargy on this side of their work, and 
 
The Cure of Soiils. 133 
 
 give more of their thoiiglit and effort to the task of 
 stopping these leaks in our ecclesiastical cisterns, 
 mending these hidden breaches in oar walls of de- 
 fence.* 
 
 There are doubters that do not fall within the 
 scope of the present inquiry. There is the abso- 
 lute 'sceptic, who, if he has not lost faith in the ex- 
 istence of all obhgatory truth, has lost it in all the 
 customary methods and instrumentalities for discov- 
 ering it. He distrusts his own reason, his own 
 moral intuitions, because of their occasional falli- 
 bility. He distrusts the evidences that are offered 
 because they are not free from difficulty, or because 
 they leave behind them unanswered objections. 
 With such, be he deist, pantheist, atheist, or what 
 
 * Dean Alford, in liis " Essays" (p. 147), says, speaking of 
 the condition of tilings on tliis subject in the Church of Eng- 
 land : " Our present training is very defective, and inability to 
 guide men who are, if not troubled, at least deeply affected by 
 the opposing blasts of doctrine on a thousand matters, is very 
 general on the part of our ministry." 
 
 Mr. Froude, in more than one place in his " Short Essays 
 on Great Subjects," affirms the same, though in much strong- 
 er, and even in contemptuous terms. 
 
 It is to be feared that ice have not much reason to ask for 
 any modiflcation of the Dean's language. 
 
134 Condones ad Clerunt. 
 
 not, we have no concern in tlie urgency now under 
 consideration. So with the frivolous, light-hearted 
 sceptic who has given up sober thought for a laugh 
 or a sneer, and who finds a certain compensation 
 for the anarchy in his own mind by denying or rid- 
 iculing the beliefs around him. As another has 
 well said : " When I hear some youth telling me 
 with a simpering face that he does not linow or pre- 
 tend to say whether there be a God or not ; or 
 whether, if there be, lie takes any interest in hu- 
 man aiiairs, or whether if he does, it much concerns 
 us to know, or whether, if lie has revealed that 
 knoweldge, it is j)ossible or impossible for us to as- 
 certain it ; when I hear him further saying, that 
 meantime he is disposed to make himself very easy 
 in the midst of these uncertainties, and await the 
 great revelation of the future with philosophical, 
 that is, being interpreted, with idiotic, tranquillity, 
 I see that in point of fact, he has never entered into 
 the question, that he has failed to realize the terri- 
 ble moment of the questions (however decided) of 
 which he speaks with such amazing flippancy." 
 
 Such a mind has no idea of what thinking is, or it 
 wishes to get rid of disquieting truths, or it has sur^ 
 
TIic Cure of Souls. 
 
 /rendered itseK to a foolish craving for paradox, or 
 perhaps, other excitement faihng, it ventilates its 
 f olUes with the amiable desire to stir up and frighten 
 ' ' mammas and maiden aunts and timid parsons. ' ' _ 
 There is no occasion for prescribing any special 
 handhng of such cases. Thej should be treated 
 just as we always treat childish levity and folly 
 when exhibited in grave matters. Unfortunately, 
 what has been attributed to " the simpering youth" 
 sometimes shows itself in grown-up men of some 
 intellectual pretension. When it does, the flippancy 
 is only all the more childish and deserves to be met 
 with an indignant rebuke.* 
 
 But this class of doubters is quite outside our 
 province, and I have alluded to them only in a 
 passing way. Our thought is turned to a very dif- 
 
 * The doubter of this kind reminds us of what Fuller says : 
 '* He keeps a register of many difficult places in Scripture ; 
 not that he desires satisfaction therein, but delights to puzzle 
 divines therewith ; and counts it a great conquest when he 
 hath posed them. Unnecessary questions out of the Bible are 
 his most necessary study ; and he is more curious to know 
 where Lazarus's soul was the four days he lay in the grave 
 than cai'eful to provide for his own soul when he shall be 
 dead." 
 
136 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 ferent cliaracter — one on which we cannot well be- 
 stow too much attention and sympathy — the mind 
 tliat doubts because it cannot help it, and is sad and 
 wretched because it doubts. Such a mind will 
 cherish the hope that it may be mistaken, will re- 
 joice to be answered and confuted, will keep back 
 its convictions as if they were a guilty secret, Avill 
 utter them only as the cry of an agonized heart, 
 will shrink from imparting them to others as though 
 they involved the danger of a contagion. There 
 are minds among us that enter into the feeling that 
 Pascal expressed when addressing the light-hearted 
 sceptic : "Is this, then, a thing to be said with 
 gayety ? Is it not rather a thing to be said with 
 tears, as the saddest thing in the world."* They 
 have not lost their hold on God ; they have not 
 
 * In "The New Republic" (page 359), this sad, serious 
 view of doubt is strongly put by one of the characters : 
 
 " Once I could pray every morning and go forth to my day's 
 labor stayed and comforted. But now I can pi'ay no longer. 
 You have taken my God away from me, and I know not 
 where yuu have laid him. My only consolation in my misery 
 is Ihat I am at least inconsolable for his loss. Though you 
 have made me miserable, I am not yet content with my mis- 
 ery ; and there is one fully that 1 will not give tongue to. I 
 will not say, peace, peace, when there is uo peace." 
 
The Ctire of So2ils. 
 
 0/ 
 
 drifted away from faitli in Christ ; fcliey have not 
 formally broken Avith any of the fundamentals of 
 Christianity ; but, like a vessel moored in a harbor, 
 yet dragging its anchor, with the open sea surging 
 just outside, they are drifting slowly into the storm 
 and toward the shipwreck of their beliefs and hopes. 
 ]^ow, with such, the sources, the forms, the de- 
 grees of doubt are various. One doubts because his 
 mental temperament inclines him to do so, another 
 because of an unsettled will and a hidden moral ob- 
 liquity, another because of his line of reading or 
 the influences of irreligious associates. There are 
 doubts which are rooted and doubts which are only 
 provisional, i.e.^ entertained as necessary prelimi- 
 naries to inquiry and reflection. There are moral 
 doubts, arising from the darkening of God's face in 
 the time of trouble and calamity ; doubts a3 to His 
 love, wisdom, and justice, springing from the harsh 
 inequalities of human lot and from what seems like 
 favoritism in the divine dealings. And then there is 
 that restless, numerous brood warmed into activity 
 by the conflict with the Christian traditions which 
 has been engendered by the progress of physical 
 knowledge — doubts as to the reality of Christianity 
 
138 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 as a wliole, donljts as to tlie reality of tliis or that 
 part of it, e.g., the derivation and authority of the 
 Priesthood, the efficacy of the Sacraments, the expi- 
 atory character of the sacrifice of Christ, the duration 
 of future punishment, the nature of the Church, 
 whether it was organized, equipped, and officered 
 by its Head, or whether all this was left to the shift- 
 ing circumstances and tastes of each generation — 
 whether our religion began as an idea, an influence, 
 or as a visible kingdom, with its essential order, as 
 well as its essential faith, established for all the ages 
 to come. 
 
 Thus far I have endeavored to state the case in 
 outline and somewhat in detail ; and now I turn to 
 consider the practical questions growing out of the 
 relations to it of the cure of souls. It is taken for 
 granted that, while lectures and discourses addressed 
 to assembhes and dealing with men in bulk may 
 accomplish much good, in most instances of real 
 difficulty, the only effectual treatment must be in- 
 dividual and private. Now, what are we to do ? 
 what must be the special training to qualify us for 
 these hand-to-hand conflicts with minds thus beset 
 and thus troubled coming to us for help ? No one 
 
The Ctii^e of Souls. 139 
 
 will feel more deeply tliaa I how far short of the 
 requirements of this grave and delicate duty my 
 suggestions will fall. If they have any merit, it 
 will be found in the honest recognition of the diffi- 
 culty and the want, and in the equally honest at- 
 tempt to find a remedy for both. 
 
 It is not my purpose to consider this or that spe- 
 cific doubt or objection, but rather aspects and 
 bearings of the sceptical drift cropping out here 
 and there, in minds which have taken upon them- 
 selves the sacrament'U7)% of faith and obedience, and 
 to indicate some lines of study and modes of treat- 
 ment by which it may be met. 
 
 (1) As a necessary part of our preparation for 
 this task we should enter upon a careful and com- 
 prehensive study of the history of modern doubt, 
 as also of the history of modern Apologetics. The 
 elements of Christian evidence are always the same, 
 but their combination and arrangement in every 
 age depend upon the points of attack and the new 
 weapons employed by the shifting tactics of unbe- 
 lief. The history of the evidences is divisible into 
 four chapters :* 
 
 * Vide Farrar's " Critical History of Free Thought," p. 453. 
 
140 Conciojies ad Clerum. 
 
 (1) That embracing the conflict of Christianity 
 with Judaism and Paganism. 
 
 (2) That embracing the contest with the various 
 forms of free thought in the Middle Ages. 
 
 (3) That developed by the unbelief of the 
 Kenaissance. 
 
 (4) That including the struggle against the De- 
 ism of England, the Atheism of France, and the 
 Rationalism of Germany — the three issuing in that 
 huge and stormy amalgam of doubt and denial 
 which, in our day, exhibits itself in all the aspects 
 of opposition, lying between a bald naturalistic 
 positivism on the one hand, and a spongy eclecti- 
 cism on the other. Positivism denies \hQ, jpossibil- 
 ity of revelation ; the instinctive, intuitional, spir- 
 itualistic philosophy denies its necessity ; while the 
 various eclectic schools accept only such parts of it 
 as chance to square with their own fluctuating 
 standards. The positivist, pushing to its logical re- 
 sult the intellectual and sensational method of the 
 old Deistic school of the eighteenth century, aflirms 
 that all outside the sphere of the senses and the 
 understanding is unthinkable and unknowable. The 
 intuitionalist declares that the only possible revela- 
 
The CtLi'e of Souls. 141 
 
 tion is that whicli God has written upon the tablet of 
 the human soul. The eclecticist admits the fact of 
 a book-revelation, but rejects such parts of it as 
 happen to disagree with his own self-created stand- 
 ard of judgment. To these must be added the sci- 
 entist, who discredits revelation wholly or partially, 
 because of its asserted contradiction of certain al- 
 leged results of modern discovery. I simply state 
 the best known, the most respectable, as well as the 
 most formidable, phases of existing unbelief. I 
 make no attempt to run them out into particulars 
 or to develop their characteristic bearings. I am 
 only insisting that every guide of souls shall thor- 
 oughly understand the assailants of the faith which 
 he is commissioned to defend, and also keep well 
 in hand the means of defense which the best Chris- 
 tian learning of the day has supplied. He is not, 
 observe, expected to deal with avowed unbelievers, 
 but with those of his Hock whose minds and hearts 
 are clouded and vexed by difficulties which them- 
 selves cannot answer, and yet which, if not an- 
 swered, will sooner or later weaken and perhaps 
 shatter their faith. Seldom will the theories of un- 
 belief above-named be found lurkine- as theories 
 
142 Condones ad Cler7t77i. 
 
 in the minds of the faithful. It is rather the atmos- 
 phere generated by them, and insensibly interfused 
 through the lungs of the popular faith, that will 
 chiefly confront us. This is something which can- 
 not be met by processes of argument, or by formal 
 arrays of evidence. The enemy is not one of flesh 
 and blood, with a local habitation and a name ; but 
 a temper of mind, a drift of feeling, a veiled dis- 
 trust, a suspicion that gradually comes to the front. 
 
 To meet these we must build up on the opposite 
 side. The currents of thought must be turned into 
 healthier channels. The mind's hold on the truth 
 must be strengthened and the atmosphere it breathes 
 must be purified. Scatter the mist by letting in the 
 light. Plant ladders in the dark places, up which 
 the troubled soal may climb, until it feels the 
 warmth and beholds the radiance of the sun. 
 
 In dealing with avowed unbelief, the best Chris- 
 tian apologists in all ages have relied sometimes 
 upon the philosophy, and sometimes upon the 
 facts of the Gospel. Either or both lines may 
 still be followed when necessary, but the first 
 'thing to be done in the cases now under review is 
 to check, or expel one temper or tendency by in- 
 
The CiLre of Souls. 143 
 
 troducing another and sonnder one. In doing this 
 the following considerations will be of great value. 
 
 (1) Resjjonsibility for opinions and heliefs. 
 
 There has arisen of late a perilous levity of tem- 
 per in dealing with questions that most profoundly 
 affect the present condition and future destiny of 
 the soul. In the general upheaval of the time, mul- 
 titudes have come to feel that there is little, if any, 
 responsibility attaching to what a man believes or 
 disbelieves ; that opinions may be embraced or set 
 aside very much as we put on or off our clothing, 
 according to the shifting caprices of fashion ; that 
 a true faith and a true life are not inseparable ; 
 and that while accountable for the life, we are 
 quite at liberty to do as we please about the faith 
 or no faith which we profess. It is impossible to 
 exaggerate the vicious influence of this fallacy. 
 
 It is said that we are bound to accept the current 
 Christian morality because in regard to that there is 
 an almost universal agreement ; but that there is 
 no such obligation in regard to any system of faith 
 or teaching, and this, for the reason that all Chris- 
 tian doctrines offered for our acceptance are more 
 or less doubted or denied ; that they are in fact all 
 
144 Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 resolvable into matters of opinion, concerning which 
 the widest freedom of criticism and dissent must be 
 allowed. The inference from this is that while a 
 man is responsible for his moral code, he need not 
 be so for his religious beliefs. Now, to this it may 
 be truly answered that the faith of Christianity is 
 the root and ground of Christian morality. We 
 may, indeed, differ on many unessential things in- 
 cluded in the vast circle of Christian teaching, and 
 yet not disturb the foundations of Christian mor- 
 als ; but it is impossible to reject the fundamentals 
 of that teaching and retain, for any length of time, 
 the morality which is part of its vital breath. It 
 often happens that a man keeps himself morally 
 healthy by habitually breathing the atmosphere cre- 
 ated by the truth, while he stands apart from the 
 truth itself. This may be true of an individual, 
 but not of a generation. It is an anomaly which 
 soon corrects itself. 
 
 The acceptance or rejection of the truth is simply 
 one mode of exercising our liberty of choice. 
 Every man's will has as much to do with his atti- 
 tude toward sjDiritual truth as his reason, his wishes 
 as his arguments, the state of his affections as the 
 
The Cure of Souls. 145 
 
 evidence that may be offered to liim. There never 
 was a greater mistake than to snpj)Ose that most 
 men's beh'ef is determined by the amount of evi- 
 dence advanced or by logical reasoning. A power 
 stronger than either lies back of both — the condi- 
 tion of the mind itself — its bias — its sympathies and 
 antipathies — its desires and prejudices. How often 
 do we see persons believing or denying -^athout evi- 
 dence, or in the teeth of evidence ! How often does 
 the most cogent argument split upon the underlying 
 rock of an averted will, or burn up and dissolve in 
 the flame of aroused passion ! How differently do 
 different minds interpret the same facts ! The 
 force of proof depends upon the degree in which it 
 helps or hinders the dominant wish, the ruling pur- 
 pose, of the mind to which it is addressed. Said our 
 Lord : " This is the condemnation, that the light is 
 come into the world, and men loved the darkness 
 rather than the light [and why ?] because their 
 deeds were evil. " (St. John 3 : 19.) He declares that 
 there are two states of mind. In the one we love 
 the darkness because it favors the vanities, the errors, 
 the wickednesses to which we are inclined. In the 
 other we prefer the light because it leads us toward 
 
146 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 what is purest and best. For botli states, however 
 they may have been prodnced, we are, in the last 
 resort, responsible. And if we carefully examine 
 the Scriptures, we shall find that they do not deal so 
 much with wrong opinions, with particular errors 
 in belief, as with the moral bias — the general con- 
 dition of mind and heart — which inclines us to them 
 and gives them their hold upon us. They take it 
 for granted that every mind to whom the Word of 
 truth is offered is under a moral obligation to accept 
 it ; and they also take it for granted that if we re- 
 ject it, it is because of a hostile temper of heart for 
 which we are accountable. It is idle for any man 
 to say that he ccmnot believe in Christ. For, if he 
 cannot, his very inability is of the essence of his sin. 
 This clearly is the teaching of Revelation. The 
 will has nothing to do with demonstrative truths. 
 If a man rejects them he is said to be an idiot, not 
 a transgressor. But sj)iritual truth, "the truth as 
 it is in Jesus," stands on different ground. The in- 
 tellect has far less to do with it than the heart. 
 Hence the denial of it impeaches a man's heart 
 rather than his brain. A man may be mentally 
 bright and morally bad. Pie may not be faulted 
 
The Cure of Souls. 147 
 
 because lie has a dull miud, nor praised because he 
 has a keen one ; but he must be faulted if he have 
 a bad heart, and, consequently, for what a bad 
 heart rejects. "We are told that a man must believe 
 as he thinks, that he cannot help the result of his 
 thinking, • that he must follow the lead of the argu- 
 ments jjresented to him, that if he reasons, he has 
 no more control over the conclusions to which his 
 reasoning may bring him than a printing machine 
 has over the impressions made by its types. " But,' ' 
 as has been well said, " the living mind does not so 
 act. If it cannot control the impressions made by 
 the types when once set up, it has, at least, a great 
 deal to do with setting them up. ' ' 
 
 On the other hand, let me not omit considera- 
 tions which may modify, though they cannot alto- 
 gether destroy, this responsibility for opinions and 
 beliefs. There are the discipline and training of 
 early years — the influence of the school, the society 
 in which we have been reared and in the choice of 
 which we had and could have no part. There are 
 the bands and fences of circumstances which we did 
 not create, and which we cannot entirely control. 
 There is the power over us of learning, logic, and 
 
148 Condones ad Clcrum. 
 
 eloquence, wielded in defence, it may be, of the 
 wrong side, of facts partially stated, or evidence 
 twisted out of its proper place and relations, of 
 personal character commanding our confidence and 
 yet arrayed against the truth. Again, the ages are 
 not the same in their influence over us. One will 
 be an age of faith, another an age of doubt ; one will 
 be quiet, another restless ; one will affirm and con- 
 struct, another will deny and destroy. There is an 
 ebb and there is a flow, an advance and retreat, an 
 action and reaction, in the opinions and beliefs of 
 ]nen, whose origin is as mysterious as their effects 
 are subtle and powerful. From these no mind, 
 however cautious and self-poised, can entirely dis- 
 sociate itself. We are flavored by what we feed 
 upon, and our food is more or less in the keeping of 
 the time in which we live/ And yet after all due 
 allowance is made for the operation of these causes, 
 the fact remains, that every man who stands in the 
 light, and has the opportunity and the means to 
 know the truth, is accountable for his mental and 
 moral attitude toward the great issues which con- 
 front him. If we scuttle the ark built for our 
 safety, we have only ourselves to blame if we sink 
 in the troubled waters. 
 
The Cure of Sotils. 149 
 
 Mucli more remains to be said on this point, but 
 it was my purpose to say no more than would serve 
 to bring it distinctly before you as a thing to be 
 urged very strongly upon those who come to you 
 for counsel and direction respecting their doubts. 
 Most persons would doubt less easily if they had a 
 due sense of their responsibility in matters of re- 
 ligious opinion and faith. Certainly, they would be 
 more cautious in taking up new theories, and more 
 reluctant in surrendering what they have been 
 taught to believe. There would be some hope of 
 persuading them that " they have duties toward old 
 truths as well as toward new ones ' ' ; that, to say 
 the least, the claim upon them of many of the 
 plausible and pretentious ventures of modern 
 thought, liable to be upset and swept away by some 
 single fact not unlikely to be discovered any day, 
 is no stronger than the claim upon their faith and 
 obedience of what was said and done in Judea more 
 than eighteen hundred years ago. 
 
 (2) A settled and definite mode of dealing with 
 that jpTohlem of all problems— ^the origin and exist- 
 ence of evil in a universe created and governed hy a 
 God of infinite power ^ wisdom, and love. I shall 
 
150 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 not repeat here tlie history of man's qnestionings 
 and speculations and faihn*es on this subject ; nor 
 dwell on its strange, and yet obvious fascination 
 for the human mind, at every stage and under 
 every phase of its development. On these points 
 tliere is easy access for all to abundant sources of 
 information. But even though I forbear to touch 
 upon these, I may be thought by some to have 
 wandered away needlessly into a field of inquiry 
 quite remote from the strictly practical aim of these 
 counsels to those charged with the cure of souls. 
 There are cases in which the practical can be safely 
 and truly reached only by digging down deep into 
 the realm of the hidden and obscure. Our work, 
 if it is to abide, must rest upon principles. Our 
 uses and methods in the guidance of the weak and 
 erring must be built up on a solid basis of truth 
 and fact, if they are to be genuine helps. With 
 this motive, then, clearly understood, let me ask 
 you to follow me, while I take up a few of the 
 links in the chain of abstract thought which we 
 should endeavor to keep always free from rust and 
 ambiguity. i 
 
 It matters not how we consider the evil that is in 
 
The Ctire of Souls. 151 
 
 our world and in ourselves, whether physical or 
 moral ; whether causing all life to travail and groan 
 with pain, or working itself out in individual na- , 
 tui'es in the darknesss which leads to despair, or in 
 the bitterness which forces from the hps even of 
 stoics the cry of anguish ; whether, again, massed 
 in universal and irreconcilable opposition to God's 
 righteous will, and shaking the world with the tread 
 of battle, or exhibiting itself in the same awful con- 
 flict within the narrower sphere of personal wills — 
 it matters not in which aspect it is contemplated, it 
 is not only the most difficult and baffling of all sub- 
 jects intellectually considered, but also the most 
 prohfic of all sources of moral doubt. We cannot 
 have a doctrine of sin or of holiness apart from a 
 doctrine of evil. We cannot interpret the key- 
 note, far less follow out the divine harmony, of 
 Christian morality, unless we shall first determine 
 what evil is, whether as temptation assailing the 
 will, or as ripened wickedness issuing from the will. 
 Now, of all the methods devised or known for 
 determining the nature, the essence, of evil, and its 
 place in the universe, there are only two that, in these 
 days, especially concern us and our work. And, 
 
152 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 speaking generally, 1 wonld say, before going fur- 
 ther into the subject, that we must understand these 
 rival methods so clearly and definitely as that we 
 shall be able to tell any inquirer, who craves to 
 know, why we reject the one and embrace the 
 other. For so ouly can we hope to meet success- 
 fully the gravest of all intellectual troubles on 
 moral subjects, and t]^e darkest of all doubts within 
 the sphere of the will and personal accountability. 
 I have said that just now, by reason of the drift 
 of living thought, there are only two theories of 
 moral evil which immediately concern us. An im- 
 passable gulf separates them. They stand facing 
 each other like Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. 
 The one flatters the strength and pride of the intel- 
 lect, is impatient of mystery, insists upon levelling 
 down what it cannot overpass, treats contradictory 
 things as though they had no right to exist, and 
 punishes their impertinent intrusion by denying 
 them a place in the field of legitimate thought, is 
 intolerant of facts which refuse to be squared and 
 jointed and piled into logical completeness. The 
 other assumes the existence of mysteries and con- 
 tardictions which, though they never cease to be 
 
The Cure of Sotds. 153 
 
 lawful objects of thought and healthy incentives to 
 the loftiest efforts of reason, are yet so far above 
 all possibility of precise, logical formulation as to 
 belong, in the last resort, to the domain of faith ; it 
 admits facts which it cannot reconcile ; it finds the 
 grounds of experiences and motives in the soul and 
 of obligations in men's outward life, away down or 
 away up, in a region whose air is too etherial for 
 the lungs of reason ; it trusts, believes, adores, in. 
 spite of the clouds and thick darkness which veil 
 the providences of the Almighty in a world of sin 
 and sorrow ; it sees the evil, yet casts no suspicion 
 on the perfect goodness of God ; it insists that what 
 is inscrutable in the divine administration can be 
 unravelled only by a moral chie, that it is only on the 
 spiritual side of our nature that the door of the 
 soul opens out upon the infinite ; recognizing the 
 hopeless incompatibility, in this life, between the de- 
 mand for abstract, logical completeness of state- 
 ment touching the meaning of moral evil, and the 
 demand of the two strongest moral instincts of na- 
 tui'e — that of contrition for wrong-doing and that of 
 aspiration after holiness and perfection — it regards 
 the practical satisfaction of the latter as of vastly 
 
154 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 more moment than that of the former, and declares 
 to every soul that in the end, whatever its doubts, 
 questionings, difficulties, speculations, it must choose 
 between the satisfaction of the intellect and the sat- 
 isfaction of the conscience, between the authority 
 of the intellectual and the authority of the moral 
 consciousness. Again, for the contrast is by no 
 means exhausted, the one theory is that of human 
 philosophy running through a long series of schools 
 — pantheistic, atheistic, materialistic, positivist, util- 
 itarian — cropping out in the dawn of the old pagan 
 thought, speaking out boldly in the measured think- 
 ing of Lucretius, reaffirmed with a wealth of subtle 
 and vigorous reasoning in the pages of Spinoza, ap- 
 proached from another side and under modern in- 
 jQuences again formulated by the faithless logic of 
 Comte and John Stuart Mill, it has been ever 
 changing its dress while itself has remained un- 
 chano'ed. Scholars and thinkers are familiar with 
 its processes and formulas, while common minds 
 are quite as much so with its practical conclusions. 
 This is not the place to recapitulate, far less de- 
 scribe, the former ; but it is properly and even ne- 
 cessarily a part of my task to advert to the latter. 
 
The Citre of Souls. 155 
 
 It is characteristic of this theory to bring down the 
 distinction of right and wrong from the region of our 
 personal relations with God to that of human ex- 
 pediency, to determine the moral character of hu- 
 man action by its consequences, not by antecedent 
 and immutable moral distinctions, to declare that 
 there is no evil in the universe which cannot be ex- 
 plained in some way as a step in the development of 
 good, that evil is only good in the making, that sin 
 is only that form of moral evil which arises of ne- 
 cessity from the present imperfections and limita- 
 tions of our being, that it will disappear somewhere, 
 as morning mists before the rising sun, in the 
 widening, ascending cycles of man's self-centred, 
 self-impelled evolution, and finally, that what we 
 understand by sin and hell, by eternal law, by pun- 
 ishment, by holiness, by redemption and everlasting 
 life are the dreams of a theological nightmare, 
 worthy of the childhood rather than the manhood 
 of the race. 
 
 The other theory, it might be enough to say, is 
 that of Christianity. The buttresses on which it 
 rests are what we believe to be the written Word of 
 God and the indisputable facts of our own moral con- 
 
156 Condones ad Clertim. 
 
 scionsness. In conformity with both, it declares 
 all moral evil to be an outrage on the perfect holi- 
 ness of God, that it is always and everywhere in 
 antagonism to His righteous will, that it not only 
 "is not," but "cannot be subject to His law," 
 that sin is the transgression of the law — the fruit of 
 a will hostile to the will of God, and hostile in such 
 a sense that, while its liberty lasts and itself con- 
 tinues to move on the same plane of mere nature as 
 now, no conceivable series of evolutions can alter its 
 character ; or emancipate it from its doom. The 
 mystery does not change the fact. Evil is evil, 
 sin is sin, whatever our inability to account for its 
 origin, or to reconcile it with the love and wisdom 
 and omnipotence of God. It is here, and no specu- 
 lations or inventions of man can make it otherwise 
 than it is. Its guilt does not arise from his im- 
 perfections or limitations, nor will it disappear as 
 they disappear. A lie is a lie always and every- 
 where. So with impurity, disobedience, stealing, 
 eovetousness, pride, selfishness, and the whole brood 
 of iniquity. The graces of a holy life are not the 
 vices of a wicked one purified and transformed by 
 growth and development. The Christian theory of 
 
The CzLve of Souls. 157 
 
 evil utterly and absolutely repudiates any sucli pan- 
 theistic legerdemain in shifting the lights and 
 shadows around the throne of God's immutable per- 
 fection, and so evolving 1he sweet from the bitter, 
 the true from the false, the good from the bad, 
 angels from devils. 
 
 Now, if we were to cross the threshold of many 
 hearts, and confront their deepest, sorest doubts, 
 touch the gnilty secret of a waning faith, the 
 worm gnawing at the vitals of their religion, we 
 should find, the moment the veil was lifted, that 
 while their feet rested on the Christian theory of sin 
 and evil, their heads and hearts were busy with 
 teachings, or were tossed and distressed by tempta- 
 tions, or were insensibly breathing an atmosphere 
 that had issued from its versatile and seductive an- 
 tagonist. Many a sheep is still in our fold, outward- 
 ly loyal to its Great Shepherd — apparently devout, 
 obedient, and penitent, bowing low in confessions, 
 listening to absolutions, partaking of the sacrifice, 
 and yet with the very foundations of his spiritual 
 life worm-eaten and honeycombed by confused no- 
 tions, vacillating views about sin and duty, about 
 God in Christ, about heaven and hell, and even 
 
158 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 about tlie life to come — all of tliein imported, per- 
 haps, into Ills lionseliold and then into liis mind, 
 without a suspicion of what was going on, by much 
 of the current hterature of the day, or by neighbors 
 and acquaintances whose good fellowship was al- 
 lowed to offset their intellectual and moral loose- 
 ness on all subjects of deepest moment to the char- 
 acter and work of a Christian man. 
 
 Much as the priest may do, as preacher, to check 
 this infection which travels almost upon the air-cur- 
 rents that sweep by us, he must do more, as the 
 pastor, who makes it his business to know his sheep 
 one by one, and to be known of them in all closest 
 and tenderest overtures of sympathy and guidance. 
 lie must, in times like these, sift, as well as num- 
 ber his people, searching out the weak among the 
 strong ; and where he finds one jjerplexed and half 
 shaken in his hold on the faith in regard to these 
 subjects, let him grasp that soul with a hand warm 
 with love, and yet firm with the authority that be- 
 comes the priestly office, and, pointing out the 
 peril, recall to him the terms of his Christian oath 
 as Christ's soldier and servant, and prove to him by 
 Scripture and right reason, as well as by the univer- 
 
The Cure of Sotils. 159 
 
 sal experience of the faithful, that unless what he 
 has believed and acted upon as a member of Christ's 
 Body be true, that unless sin and guilt, God's eter- 
 nal law, and man's immortal life be what they are 
 declared to be, then the haK of his moral nature 
 drops into a hopeless bank, and repentance, remorse, 
 the judgment to come, forgiveness in this world, 
 or condemnation in the next, from being among the 
 most awful realities, sink away into the category of 
 things that ouglit to die and make no sign. 
 
 (3) It is very needful that all coinmitted to our 
 cha/rge should he taught, as clearly as such an ab- 
 struse a/nd tangled subject will allow, the meaning 
 and scope of the supernatural. The question is a 
 large one — ]3erhaps the largest and, in many re- 
 spects, the most difficult that can engage our 
 thoughts. I shall treat only such asj)ects of it as 
 have an immediate bearing upon the practical duties 
 involved in the cure of souls. Both observation 
 and experience in pastoral work prove that many of 
 the most troublesome and formidable doubts 
 among our flocks arise not only from questions in- 
 volving the supernatural, but still more from 
 clouded and indefinite notions as to what reallv 
 
i6o Condones ad Clcriun. 
 
 constitutes the supernatural as contrasted with and 
 related to nature. The scepticism of the daj is 
 constantly assailing it as though it were a mortal 
 enemy to all certain truth. Christian apologists as 
 constantly defend it as of the last consequence to 
 the foundations of the faith. There is no argu- 
 ment, no dispute, on the border hne which divides 
 science from religion in which the reality of the 
 supernatural is not the foremost topic of debate. 
 But wide and deep, on all sides, as is the interest 
 attaching to the subject, I doubt whether more than 
 a small minority of Christians believers would be able 
 to give any intelligent and satisfactory description 
 of the supernatural, even as ordinarily stated or 
 implied in scientilic or practical theology. The 
 very ambiguity and vagueness of their views in re- 
 gard to it often puts them at the mercy of a class of 
 sceptics who win cheap victories over the unskilled 
 and the unwary, by a clever manipulation of 
 terms not exactly defined or understood ; or by 
 loading down with unfair uses and interpretations 
 some central and commanding word like that now 
 spoken of, trusting to escape rebuke or detection 
 
The Cure of Souls. i6i 
 
 because of the imperfect knowledge, or tlie abso- 
 lute io-norance of those whose faith is assailed. 
 
 It does not fall within my purpose to show how 
 largely the busy, restless, money-lo^^ng, pleasure- 
 seeking spirit of the age has depressed in some, 
 and deadened in others, the sense of things invisible 
 and eternal. It is enough that I allude briefly to 
 what is said of the supernatural by schools of 
 thought avowedly or covertly antagonistic to Chris- 
 tianity. These range all the way from absolute 
 denial of its existence to such limitations of it as 
 would exclude all the miraculous features of our 
 religion, and leave no room or chance for special 
 divine intervention of any sort. 
 
 There is the positivist, who restricts the source of 
 all certain knowledge to sensation. With him, na- 
 ture's laws are the only providence and obedience 
 to them the only piety. The order in nature, which 
 we are wont to regard as the sufficient proof of a 
 designing mind working behind and through nature, 
 is admitted by him, while in the same breath he 
 denies that it affords valid evidence of the existence 
 of such a mind, because the evidence is necessarily 
 of a kind which cannot be verified by proof refera- 
 
1 62 Conciottes ad Clerttm. 
 
 ble to sensation, From this it inevitably follows 
 tliat, as tliere is no sure proof of the existence of a 
 personal God, it may be lawfully questioned 
 whether there be any ; that as there is nothing bind- 
 ing upon us except what can be proved to exist, 
 there is neither ground nor room for faith ; and 
 that, as the future and invasible are uncertain, the 
 great business of man is to attend to the affairs of 
 the present world, which r.lone is certain. Thus the 
 realm of the supernatural is ehminated from the 
 universe by this remorseless and narrow logic of 
 materialism. There is nothing left but nature, 
 with its immutable order. Mind, as distinct from 
 matter, will and liberty and moral obligation, 
 whether as attributes of God or man, whether work- 
 ing above nature or through it, are swept out of 
 existence. The miraculous in any shape is impossi- 
 ble. 
 
 Next comes the schod of pantheistic naturalism 
 wdiich, moving from a different stand-point and 
 along a different road of argument, affirms the iden- 
 tity of mind and matter, of God and nature, and so 
 confounds the two as to leave no opportunity for 
 miraculous interposition in the order of the world — 
 
The Ctire of Souls. 163 
 
 no room for supernatural power of any kind what- 
 soever. After this, and as a somewhat milder, 
 though equally effective, denial of the supernatural, 
 we have the barren and illogical deism wliich, ad- 
 mitting the existence of a Creator, separates him 
 so far from the creature as to destroy the possibility 
 of intercourse between them. The universe is a 
 mere machine which, once built and wound up by 
 its Maker, has no further use for him. Law once 
 established passes beyond the reach of the Law-giver. 
 Nature's order is unchangeable and iucnpable of in- 
 terference from without. Here again, logically 
 considered, there is no place for will, liberty, moral 
 obligation, or supernatural manifestation. Neces- 
 sarily, it is a fundamental postulate of all these the- 
 ories that, if there be any relgion, it must be the 
 product of human consciousness, and can have, as 
 an object of worship, nothing higher than itself. 
 The stream cannot rise higher than its source. 
 
 Now, it is not these theories, as such, that find 
 a lodgment in the minds or endanger the faith of 
 believers in the divine and supernatural ; but the 
 half -diluted, half -concealed results of them, filtered, 
 as they generally are, through much of the current 
 
164 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 popular literature of the day. It is by these that 
 persons of simple faith are first perplexed, then de- 
 ceived, and finally misled. The poison is in their 
 Llood before they know it. With little or no antece- 
 dent thought or reasoning, quite unconscious of any 
 decided tendency in that direction, they find 
 themselves, with surprise and, perhaps, with pain, 
 induced to question the miraculous attestations of the 
 Gospel and to doubt the reality of all supernatural 
 signs. Before they know it, the head begins to con- 
 tradict the heart. Such reasoning as they are capa- 
 ble of, resting upon one-sided premises, begins to 
 be arrayed against the profound est instincts and as- 
 pirations of their souls. Carried thus far, it re- 
 quires but a few steps more to bring them face to 
 face with the broad issue whether Christianity it- 
 self be anything more than a respectable supersti- 
 tion or a fond dream — a sjDlendid delusion of the 
 human mind. But whether or no any are swept 
 out so far as this from their j)roper anchorage, it is 
 quite certain that not a few among the faitliful are 
 sorely troubled by difiiculties springing from this 
 source. It cannot be otherwise, and that guide of 
 souls is at once bhnd and foolish who ignores such 
 
The Cure of Souls. 165 
 
 difficulties, or fails to put himself in a condition to 
 grapple with them. In these days, it is quite im- 
 possible for the average believer to escape alto- 
 gether the influence of teachers and writers of com- 
 manding abilities and extensive scientific attain- 
 ments who insist that nature's unchangeable order 
 is the only providence ; that the world has in it no 
 active intelligent principle of causation, that phe- 
 nomena are the only things of which we have any 
 knowledge, and that these are bound together only 
 as sequences and by an invariable and endless suc- 
 cession. The moment the mind holds parley with 
 such notions or in any degree passes under their 
 sway, faith in the reality of a special providence 
 and in the value of prayer in reference to temporal 
 affairs begins to wither ; the ground and motive for 
 confiding petitions addressed to the Father of 
 heaven and earth are narrowed ; supernatural signs, 
 instead of becoming an evidence for religion, be- 
 come a difficulty ; the inspiration which guarantees 
 the truth of the Sacred Books evaporates into an 
 afflatus common to all the wise and good of every 
 age and every race. 
 
 Now, how are we to meet cases of this kind, 
 
1 66 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 which, ordinarily, will be revealed not to the 
 preacher, but to the pastor moving among the indi- 
 vidual members of his flock ? Some will saj, j)er- 
 liaps, with dogmatic promptness, denounce the ten- 
 dency as a sin ; drag forth the doubt from its hiding- 
 place, and transfix it with the arrow of priestly au- 
 thority ; assail the guilty thing as a temptation of 
 the devil. This will do where we are sure that the 
 mind we are dealing with has been culpably careless 
 in its reading or in its associates, or has knowingly 
 encouraged the evil, habitually welcomed the temp- 
 tation. But this is not the case I am sup230sing, 
 this is not the character that I am claiming to be 
 worthy of our sympathy and solicitude. Those 
 whom I have in mind would be driven first into in- 
 dignation, then into despair, and then into utter 
 unbelief by such treatment. The house has in it a 
 dangerous tenant, an unclean spirit. "We may drive 
 liim out for the moment by harsh blows.; but we 
 can keep him out only by putting a safe tenant, a 
 clean spirit, in his place. The bad can be expelled 
 only by the good, the false by the true. The teach- 
 ing — the influence which has produced the unhappy 
 results — must be overcome by the power of an oppo- 
 
The C^LTc of Sotils. 167 
 
 site teaching, an opposite influence. You will ex- 
 pect from me only tlie merest outline of what is re- 
 quired. This whole subject, in its principles and 
 its details, demands the closest study by every priest 
 having the cure of souls. He will be gnilty of in- 
 excusable negligence if he fail to go to the bottorji 
 of it, as well in its jDhilosophical as its theolgical and 
 ethical bearings. The perils of the time lift to the 
 gravity of a moral and intellectual crime all crude 
 and superficial knowledge in regard to it. 
 
 What, then, is nature ? What is the supernat- 
 ural ? iSTature is that which is perpetually being 
 born after its own type. It is the realm of invaria- 
 ble sequences. Given a certain antecedent, and 
 there will always be the same consequent. It has 
 no inherent, self-sustained power to make itself 
 other than it is. It is tied up to uniformities of 
 phenomenal succession. Law as applied to it stands 
 merely for the way in which one thing follows 
 another. It is simply a mode of subsistence and 
 of succession — the only fixed term between God 
 and man. Instead of being the whole universe, it 
 is only a part of it, and not unlikely a compara- 
 tively small part of it. 
 
1 68 Condones ad Cleruni. 
 
 On the other hand, the supernatural stands for the 
 whole realm of free agency, of will power, of moral 
 liberty, whether in God or man. All power that is 
 above nature, and that has the capacity to modify, 
 suspend, or in any way change nature by working 
 through or upon it from without, belongs to the 
 supernatural. In man that power is limited by con- 
 ditions which limit and define his agency in all 
 forms and in all directions. In God this power is 
 unlimited, and is subject to no conditions, knows 
 no control save that imposed by the supreme end 
 for which He created and governs the universe. 
 Though free, because voluntary and self -determin- 
 ing, it is amenable to motives and operates in obe- 
 dience to law — the law of moral being and moral 
 ends. The supernatural is always supermaterial 
 and often superhuTyian. It is always the latter 
 when God acts either immediately or mediately 
 through forms or agencies appointed by Himself, 
 these often including the free will of His creatures 
 as well as the functions and properties of matter. 
 Thus defined, it sweeps out inimitably on all sides be- 
 yond nature, and includes immeasurably the largest 
 as well as the' highest part of the universe. So far 
 
The Cure of Souls. 169 
 
 from being what those theories of which 1 have 
 spoken would represent it — a mere fog-land of un- . 
 reality, a region built upon the shadows and 
 dreams and imaginings of our own minds — the fa- 
 vorite home and refuge of magic and superstition, 
 of which we may with equal assurance affirm or deny 
 anything we please — so far from being this, it is the 
 region of realities which transcend those within the 
 domain of the senses, as much as the evidential au- 
 thority of our own moral and intellectual conscious- 
 ness transcends that of mere sensation, or that of 
 the empirical knowledge built upon sensation, or 
 that of the logical understanding, which cannot over- 
 pass the bounded sphere of such knowledge. Na- 
 ture is the slave. It is predetermined and cannot 
 of itself become other than it is. We do not find 
 freedom, self-determining power, or the truths and 
 motives, the energies and dignities, the lapses and 
 corruptions, inseparable from that freedom and 
 power, until we pass out of nature into the super- 
 natural. Man, then, belongs partly to nature and 
 partly to the supernatural. All not included in his 
 moral being belongs to the former ; all included 
 in his moral being — the will, and that which ought 
 
170 Condones ad Clerwn. 
 
 to govern the will, the conscience — belong to the 
 latter. God, on the other hand, though He is in 
 nature, though He is " all in all," is no part of na- 
 ture. The creature lives and moves in the Creator, 
 but is not, therefore, a part of the Creator, any 
 more than a house when finished is part of the man 
 who built it. Of all nature God is the maker and 
 builder. However we may reason from the power 
 that creates to the thing created, or vice versa^ 
 they are distinct entities, and cannot be confounded 
 without confounding the necessary laws of thought, 
 as well as the fundamental conditions oi mind and 
 matter. 
 
 Now, if the existence of a tree will in man be 
 granted, we have a ]30stulate on mIucIi the whole 
 fabric of the supernatural, so far as we require to 
 know it, whether merely supermaterial or entirely 
 superhuman, can be built. Aiftl, on the other hand, 
 if this be denied, " neither the supernatural in any 
 possible form, miraculous, or otherwise, nor any 
 other question of religion or morality, is worth con- 
 tending for." ]^ow, to give what has been said in 
 a general way, on this subject, a practical direction, 
 let us see in a few words, how it may IpQ made to 
 
The Cure of Souls. 171 
 
 disentangle and light ujj our thinking on that focal 
 point of supernatural power in its relation to Chris- 
 tianity, i.e., the miraculous. That we have a free 
 will is a matter of personal consciousness. It is as 
 indubitable as our personal identity. It is not more 
 certain that A is not B, than it is that A and B are 
 free agents. But in the free will of man we all 
 have tlie experience, and if experience, positive evi- 
 dence, of a power which, however inferior in its 
 range, is similar in kind to that which is supposed 
 to operate in producing a miracle. What the less 
 actually does within the domain of our experience, 
 the greater in degree, while the same in kind, may 
 do, for adequate reason, in the domain of faith. 
 " In the will of man we have the solitary instance 
 of an ehlcient cause in the highest sense of the 
 term, acting among and along with the physical 
 causes of the material world, and producing results 
 which would not have been brought about by any 
 invariable sequence of physical causes left to their 
 own action. We have evidence, also, of an elastic- 
 ity, so to sjDeak, in the constitution of nature which 
 permits the influence of human power on the phe- 
 nomena of the world to be exercised or suspended 
 
172 Condones ad Clerinn, 
 
 at will without affecting tlie stability of the whole. 
 We have thus a precedent for allowing the possibil- 
 ity of a similar interference of a higher Will on a 
 grander scale provided for by a similar elasticity of 
 the matter subjected to its influence. Such inter- 
 ferences (of the supernatural with nature), whether 
 produced by human or by superhuman will, are not 
 contrary to the laws of matter ; but neither are they 
 the results of those laws. They are the work of an 
 Agent who is independent of the laws, and who, 
 therefore, neither obeys nor disobeys them,* Again 
 says the same writer : " We may doubtless believe 
 that God from the beginning so ordered the consti- 
 tution of the world as to leave room for the exercise 
 of those miraculous jDowers which He foresaw would 
 at a certain time be exercised, just as He has left 
 similar room for the exercise, within narrower limits, 
 of the human will. The fundamental conception, 
 which is indispensable to a true apprehension of the 
 nature of a miracle, is that of the distinction of mind 
 from inatter, and of the power of the former, 
 as a personal, conscious, and free agent, to influence 
 the phenomena of the latter. We are conscious of 
 * Deaa Mausel on Miracles. " Aids lo Faith," pp. 28-30. 
 
The Cure of Souls. 173 
 
 this power in ourselves ; we experience it in onr 
 every-day life ; but we experience also its restric- 
 tion within certain narrow limits, the principal one 
 being that man's influence upon foreign bodies is 
 only possible through the instrumentality of his 
 own body . Beyond these limits is the region of 
 the miraculous. In at least the great majority of 
 the miracles recorded in Scripture, the supernatural 
 element appears, not in the relations of matter to 
 matter, but in that of matter to mind — in the exer- 
 cise of a personal power transcending the limits of 
 man's will." This is the key to the philosoj)hical 
 side of the whole Christian argument for miracles. 
 It may be put in other forms and greatly expanded 
 in various directions, but substantially this is the 
 ground on which it rests. 
 
 But from this particular application of the super- 
 natural in its relation to nature, we may advance to 
 one vastly broader and deeper — to one which, when 
 really apprehended, not only fortifies our behef in 
 the supernatural as a realm above nature, but our 
 almost instinctive conviction that there is no com- 
 petent interpreter of nature but the supernatural, 
 of the seen but the unseen, of the material but the 
 
174 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 spirJtnal, of tlie temporal but the eternal. And 
 just this, broadly stated, is the teaching of the 
 written Word of God. If proof were needed that 
 mind is a truer image of God than nnattei^^ and 
 that it is only as we know mind that we can know 
 matter, it is found in the fact that what are called 
 the sciences of invariable succession have borrowed 
 the 7ery terms they use, i.e.^ law, order ^ andcaws^, 
 froj 1 the science which has to do with will-power 
 aG'f^ conscience, moral action and moral duty. As 
 applied to nature — to matter — they have a figurative 
 meaning, and it is only when they are used in con- 
 nection with moral existence and relation they have 
 a literal meaning. " What do we know of law as 
 law except by and through our personal conscious- 
 ness of duty ? The conception comes to us not 
 through our knowledge of what is, but through our 
 knowledge, or raX\\Qv feeling — discernment — of what 
 ought to he. Again, what know we of causation 
 save by our experience of the creative, fashioning 
 energy of our personal wills ? So with order 
 unity, totality. We find them in nature only be- 
 cause they are antecedently in our own consciousness 
 as the witnesses of the indivisible seK — the human 
 
The Cure of Souls. 1 75 
 
 personality." It is that in man which is above na- 
 ture — supermaterial, supernatural, the very image 
 of the God and Father of all, as wiU, wisdom, good- 
 ness, speaking through man, as well as through 
 Providence and Revelation, of law, causation, order, 
 unity — ^it is this that lifts "all that we see from 
 Chaos into Cosmos, from the many into the one, ' ' 
 and spreads out all nature as one mighty parable 
 of the attributes and purposes of God. 
 
 Much as I have said under this head, I am aware 
 that I have scarcely accomj)lished the aim I had in 
 view, which was to indicate the line of thouglit and 
 inquiry to be taken up by the#guide of souls who 
 seeks to be even tolerably well equipped for his 
 work. The desire for brevity has, I fear, deprived 
 some of these statements — not my logic (for that has 
 not been attempted) — of the clearness needful to 
 their value as helps to the further prosecution of 
 the subject by those charged with the cure of souls. 
 
 (4) " I conclude what I have to say on the general 
 mode of dealing with sceptical tendencies among 
 our flocks, with a few suggestions on several closely 
 'elated topics. 
 
 Before we appeal to, or attempt to put in con- 
 
176 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 ^ncing array, the Cliristian evidences in any given 
 case, the following points should be tlioroughly 
 cleared np, and definitely established in the minds 
 with whom we have to deal. 
 
 (1) Leave no doubt as to the kind of evidence of 
 which alone the subject is susceptible, and which 
 alone can be expected. No moral or religious sub- 
 ject is capable of demonstrative proof. The only 
 approach possible to what is equivalent to such 
 proof is necessarily along the road of cumulative 
 probability. One line of proof standing apart may 
 be too weak to establish conviction, though strong in 
 itself. The same nr^y be true of even two or three. 
 But when one individual part, or many individual 
 parts of the whole scheme may fail, all the parts, 
 bound together in organic unity, the whole com- 
 pacted and strengthened by that which each joint 
 supplies, will not, cannot fail. One single strand 
 or a score of strands may not hold the ship to lier 
 moorings, but the cable woven of a hundred strands 
 will. 
 
 Again, not only must the proofs be collected and 
 organized into a single whole in order that the 
 blows they deliver shall be effective, but the qxial- 
 
The Cure of Souls, 177 
 
 ity of the evidence, as a whole ^ must be clearly 
 manifested. The evidence which sustains Chris- 
 tianity is all such as man is competent to consider. 
 It invites him to calculations of probability precise- 
 ly similar to those which enter into his every-day 
 life, and without which he would be powerless to 
 direct his private affairs for a single hour. It is 
 but the repetition of the task familiar to courts and 
 juries in meting out justice between man and man. 
 The verdict is given on the facts as adduced, and 
 after sifting, and weighing what sundry witnesses 
 testify about the facts. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be shown and insisted 
 on that the objections to Christianity spring mainly, 
 if not entirely, from our ignorance and presumption. 
 They assume that we know more than we do or 
 can know of the modes of the Divine administra- 
 tion — of what God may have permitted — of what 
 is possible and impossible — of the ultimate develop- 
 ment of an imperfectly developed system and of its 
 relations with the whole universe. It scarcely need 
 be added that these considerations, which are of 
 such vital moment in all sound and candid thinking 
 on this great theme, were developed and enforced 
 
178 Condones ad Cleritm. 
 
 by the masterly genius of Bishop Butler, and with 
 a style of reasoning which, though now quite out 
 of fashion in some quarters, is as invincible to-day 
 as it was in the generation in which it first appeared, 
 (2) The rule so universally observed in the affairs 
 of life, viz., that our beliefs and convictions must 
 be determined by tlie weight of evidence^ even though 
 every difficulty l)e not met. The only question fairly 
 at issue must ever be, whether the general evidence 
 for Christianity outweighs the difficulties which 
 cannot be separated from its truths. It opened, as 
 from its nature it must do, a wide field for objec- 
 tions. These objections are not only numerous, 
 but in some instances unanswerable by finite knowl- 
 edge. If set aside at all, it must be by proofs so 
 comprehensive as to sweep around them, while per- 
 mitting them to stand as rocks in mid-ocean, which, 
 though themselves unmoved, do not hinder the 
 currents rolling around and by them ; or as cavern- 
 ous depths in the mountain, which, though them- 
 selves unlighted, raise no question that the great 
 mass within which they are buried is bathed by the 
 rays of the sun. "While it is the avowed aim of un- 
 belief not only to discover objections, but to mag- 
 
The Ctire of Souls. 1 79 
 
 nif J and exaggerate them when discovered, it is no 
 part of our duty to ignore or belittle thera, however 
 we may seek to reduce them to their pro2)er limits. 
 The religion of Christ is here, and it has been here 
 for a long series of centuries. It has proved itseK 
 to be, beyond all doubt, the most commanding and 
 continuous force in all history. This is the fact. 
 How can it be accounted for ? It claims (and the 
 claim is an integral part of the fact itself), a super- 
 natural, a Divine origin, certified by the miraculous 
 interventions of its Author, as well as by its own 
 contents. Kow, the one broad, fundamental issue 
 is, whether there is any satisfactory way of explain- 
 ing the fact except by admitting this claim, in spite 
 of all the objections that human ingenuity can al- 
 lege against it. Determine this, and all side-issues 
 drop into their place and may be left to take care 
 of themselves. 
 
 (3) Passing over textual, chronological, historical 
 discrepancies in the Bible, of which modern criticism 
 has made the most in its power, as a subject too 
 intricate and extensive to be treated in this connec- 
 tion, I come to what are known as the moral diffi- 
 culties of both Testaments — difficulties which, more 
 
i8o Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 than any other, trouble the faithful in their own 
 thinking and in their discussions and controversies 
 with unbelievers. 
 
 These difficulties are connected, in the Old Testa- 
 ment, with God's dealings and commands and with 
 the conduct and character of agents chosen by 
 Him to execute special missions or to indite por- 
 tions of the Sacred Records ; also with the tone and 
 language of certain books — as the imprecatory pas- 
 sages in the Psalms ; and in the !New Testament, 
 with our Lord's ignorance of things which, on the 
 supposition of His omniscience, He could not but 
 have known ; with the alleged radical diversities 
 and personal changes of tone, of doctrine, and of 
 expectation among the apostles, notwithstanding 
 they had the promise that they should ' ' be guided 
 by the Spirit into all truth. ' ' And then there is:' 
 the difficulty of explaining the Anthroj)omorjphism 
 under which God appears in the Bible, and of de- 
 termining how far the Christian theory of it is ap- 
 plicable to other things mentioned in the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 There is the difficulty, too, arising from the Di- 
 vine commendation of persons as just and righteous. 
 
The Cure of Soids. 1 8 1 
 
 some of whose acts are known to have been unjust 
 and unrighteous ; or that arising from the case of 
 Abraham sacrificing his son, or from the case of the 
 •judicial action of thelsraehtes in extirjDating various 
 nations under the command of a God of righteous- 
 ness, or from that of Jael in the treacherous mur- 
 der of Sisera, or, generally, from the moral imper- 
 fection of the Mosaic system, notwithstanding it 
 claimed to be at once the revelation and ordinance 
 of God, who ie perfect in all His ways. 
 
 I state some of the worst of this class of difficul- 
 ties, not with a view to attempting tlieir sohition, 
 but simply for the jDurpose of insisting that it is the 
 duty of every guide of souls, in these troubled days, 
 to qualify himself, by reading and study, to answer 
 them wherever they may be met. They are serious, 
 but not insuperable. They may perplex, but they 
 should not distress, any soul. They may excite 
 doubt , but they should not shake conviction. Our 
 recent hterature has taken up the whole subject, and 
 argued and reargued it, with profound learning and 
 convincing logic. What has been done in this line 
 should be as familiar to us as the alphabet. Every 
 difficulty has not vanished, but certainly the most 
 
1 82 Concioiies ad Clerum. 
 
 formidable, and those over which modern douht has 
 uttered its most triumphant cries, are, in virtue of 
 what has been written of late, very much less for- 
 midable than they once seemed.* 
 
 (4) No pains should be spared in urging wise and 
 timely cautions upon those of our people, who are 
 unduly moved by the various phases of the conflict 
 now going on between the recent knowledge gath- 
 ered from all the fields of modern exploration, and 
 the Holy Scriptures. What I mean will sufficiently 
 appear in very few words. All knowledge claim- 
 ing to be such is not yet finally ascertained to be 
 knowledge, t The present tone and attitude of sci- 
 
 * It is enough to mention with special commendation, for 
 their clear style and vigorous treatment of these questions, 
 " The Bo3'le Lectures for 1871 and 1873," by James Augustus 
 Hessey, D.C.L., Archdeacou of Middlesex, and with still 
 more emphatic approval, Canon JMnzley's " Ruling Ideas in 
 Early Ages, and their Relation to Old Testament Faith" — a 
 work the gravity and power of whose reasoning recall the no- 
 blest pages of Bishop Butler's " Analogy." 
 
 f A recent able writer says : " It is remarkable how far 
 physical science often falls short of satisfying the require- 
 ments it rigorously imposes upon itself, although some men 
 of science seem to be singularly unmindful of the fact. " 
 
 There is scarcely any limit to the instances that might be 
 cited in proof of this. Haeckel's " History of Creation" is a 
 
The Cure of Souls. 1 83 
 
 ence toward the Scriptures are not borne out by its 
 actual achievements. Every day discloses how 
 much it has given way to dogmatism, and how 
 much it has drawn upon conjecture and imagina- 
 tion. It is yet busily engaged in revising many of 
 its over-confident conclusions, as well as in pushing 
 
 noteworthy case. It is simply auiaziug with what audacity 
 this author assumes tlie unreasoning credulity of his readers. 
 His mechanical and monistic theory of the origin of the uni- 
 verse rests largely on unsupported, unverified conjecture as to 
 the spontaneous generation of the first life-cell, and as to a con- 
 tinent of fossil manlike apes buried somewhere under the In- 
 dian Ocean, and as to a hundred other things whicli have 
 hardly the plausibility of clever guesses. 
 
 Professor Huxley, notwithstaudiug he saw " Extinguished 
 theologians lying about the cradle of every science as the 
 strangled snakes lay beside that of Hercules," is a very con- 
 spicuous transgressor in this way. No one who heard his 
 American addresses will soon forget his illogical and unscien- 
 tific treatment of his famous primitive American horse, whose 
 five toes were evoWed ioto a club-foot, as he claimed, this 
 club-foot being triumphantly cited as the sufiicient demonstra- 
 tion of the hypothesis of creatioa by evolution, i.e., a very 
 limited variation of species being assumed as the proof of the 
 transmutation of species throughout the universe. 
 
 Professor Tyndall has also grievously broken the funda- 
 mental canon of modern investigation. In his celebrated ad- 
 dress at Birmiugham, a few years ago, while admitting that 
 the phenomena of mind and will could not be amenable to the 
 
184 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 its advance into new realms, where, any day, it 
 may suddenly drop upon some secret of nature 
 Avliich will modify radically tlie whole fabric of its 
 labors. 
 
 On the other hand, let us remember that it would 
 be sreat rashness in us to affirm that we have ex- 
 
 canons of physical science, be yet went on to discuss with the 
 coolest assurance these same phenomena precisely as though 
 they could be tested and judged by the laws of matter. Again, 
 not a little of Herbert Spencer's pretentious scepticism fades 
 away under the application of his own declaration as to " Ex- 
 cessive confidence in reason, as compared with simpler modes 
 of intellectual activity." The illustrations might be indefi- 
 nitely multiplied from the pages of the most reputable scientists 
 of the day. We have had instructive essays on the mutability 
 and mortality of literature. We might have still more in- 
 structive ones on the mutability and mortality of the achieve- 
 ments of science. The Ptolemaic gave way to the Copernican 
 theory of the universe, Descartes' theory of vortices to Sir 
 Isaac Newton's theory of attraction, the corpuscular hypoth- 
 esis of light to the undulatory hypothesis, the convulsionists 
 in geology to the uniformitarians. And now we are in the 
 midst of the war between creationists and evolutionists in nat- 
 ural history— both parties being equally sanguine of victory. 
 Mental science has exhibited even greater vicissitudes and 
 fluctuations, having passed, within a century, from the highest 
 ground of supernaturalism to a point where the instincts of 
 animals and the moral nature of man threaten to become one 
 and the same general subject of study. 
 
The Cure of Souls. 185 
 
 hausted the meaning of the whole of God's writ- 
 ten Word.* Long-received interpretations of a 
 few passages have ah*eady been changed. Doubt- 
 less, some interpretations now current will un- 
 dergo a like change in the near or far-off future. 
 
 But thus far no changes have occurred which 
 have affected one hair's breadth the fundamental 
 
 In connection with this line of thouglit it would be well to read 
 carefully Professor Jevons' " Principles of Science," whicti 
 has passed into a text-book of scientific method. He does not 
 hesitate to say, as his deep conviction, " that before a vigorous 
 logical scrutiny the reign of law will prove to be an unveri- 
 fied hj'pothesis, the uniformity of nature, an ambiguous ex- 
 pression, the certainty of our scientific inferences, to a great ex- 
 tent, a delusion. " Andfurther, " That our experience is of the 
 most limited character compared with what there is to learu, 
 while our mental powers seem to fall infinitely short of the task 
 of comprehending and explaining fully the nature of any one 
 object." 
 
 * " It is not at all incredible that a book, which has been so 
 long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths 
 as yet undiscerned. For all the same phenomena and the same 
 faculties of investigation, from which such great discoveries in 
 natural knowledge have been made in the present and in the 
 last age, were equally in the possession of mankind several 
 thousand years before."— Bishop Butler. 
 
 The truth of these words has been often illustrated since his 
 day, and it will be so quite as often in coming time. 
 
1 86 Co7iciones ad Clcrum. 
 
 principles, tlie essential mysteries, of the faith ; and 
 it is, in the nature of tlie ease, impossible that any 
 discoveries in the world of sensation, of physical 
 fact, of necessary material sequences, can undermine 
 things belonging to a totally different order of be- 
 ing — the kingdom of moral liberty and of God's 
 dealings with His own children whom He hath re- 
 deemed unto life eternal by the precious blood of 
 His own dear Son.^" 
 
 * The chief characteristic of whjit is called " the modern 
 spirit" is the demand for verification by an appeal to facts. 
 Theology is perfectly willing to submit to this appeal. As 
 much as any other science, it is deduced from facts, however 
 its mysterious foundations may rest upon authority. As much 
 as any other science, it offers to verify its doctrines by facts — 
 facts which are not the less facts because they belong to the 
 realm of the supernatural. 
 
 But in this process of verification it insists upon the vigor- 
 ous observance of that fundamental canon of all sound inves- 
 tigation, viz., that all facts and doctrines, whether of religion or 
 of science, must be verified within the sphere to wliich they re- 
 spectively belong. Those of science cannot be verified within 
 the domain of religion, and, xice versa, those of religion cannot 
 be verified within tlie domain of science. A late profound 
 thinker has justly said, and it is a proposition which cannot 
 be disputed, that one department of knowledge cannot give 
 laws to another. " Mathematics cannot receive laws from 
 chemistry, nor physics from biology. Phenomena are inde- 
 
The Cure of Souls. 187 
 
 Speaking generally, it may be safely affirmed 
 that, wide-spread and profound as may have been 
 the agitations and upheavals produced in the do- 
 main of religion by the progress of modern knowl- 
 edge, the grand result thus far has been, not to un- 
 settle, but more firmly to establish, the foundations 
 of Christianity. Certainly, it has more disciples, is 
 attracting more of the world's attention, enters 
 
 pendent as well as inlerdependeut. " The conclusions arrived 
 at in every science are valid only within the range of the data 
 on which they rest. Now religion, or theology, the scientific 
 form of it is ready to verify itself in answer to the demand of 
 the modern spirit, if this canou be duly observed. Its truths 
 belong to the sphere of inward experience ; they are spiritual, 
 and thej^ must be spiritually discerned. " If any man will do 
 the will of my Father, he shall know of the doctrine whether 
 it be of God." History has its own tests of the facts within 
 its domain ; so likewise chemistry, physiolog}', geology, as- 
 tronomy. Religion stands upon the same footing. Its tests 
 are its own, and none others can be used. The religious life 
 must be lived by him who seeks to verify the truths out of 
 which that life springs. As well judge the laws of color by 
 the laws of sound, as the doctrines of Christianity by experi- 
 ments in the laboratory of science. Nothing is more unfair, 
 more uncritical, more unscientific in the whole course of mod- 
 ern free thought, than its systematic and contemptuous disre- 
 gard of this indisputable canon of verification in all depart- 
 ments of inquiry. 
 
Cojtczones ad Cleruni. 
 
 more largely into the tliouglit and conduct of man- 
 kind, is more frequently brought to the front for 
 praise or blame, is pushing its conquests over dis- 
 tant continents and far-off islands of the sea more 
 vigorously, is, in all ways, doing more to elevate 
 and comfort humanity, than in any past century of 
 its existence. These surely are strange symptoms 
 of that moribund condition into which certain ad- 
 vanced thinkers insist that it has passed. If these 
 be the signs and proofs of decay, where shall we 
 look for those of growth and power ? 
 
 At the beginning of tlie discussion of this part of 
 my general subject, I gave it as my opinion that 
 the tendency to doubt this or that part, or the whole 
 of our religion, was gaining ground among those 
 within our borders, and that the evidences of it were 
 too apparent to be denied. If it be, it constitutes 
 the worst peril that we have to deal with, because it 
 is an enemy concealed within the camp, moving 
 about in silence and disguise, and, because so mov- 
 ing, all the more dangerous. My conviction is the 
 result of extensive observation of the habits, the 
 sympathies, the moral and intellectual drift, of those 
 under twenty-five years of age— of us and among us 
 
The C2Lre of Souls. 1 89 
 
 by Baptism and Confirmation, the sign of tlie Cross 
 on their brows, the badge of the Christian voca- 
 tion on their lives, the standard of Christ's king- 
 dom in their hands ; and yet away down below the 
 surface, coiled up among their secret thoughts, some- 
 times ominously lisped with bated breath among 
 their companions or in the family circle, seldom con- 
 fessed to those ha%ang authority in the Church, lies 
 a more or less vaguely shaped distrust, a half para- 
 lyzing suspicion of great truths, 
 
 " Which make us to ourselves 
 Aud to our God more dear." 
 
 It is high time, indeed, that our pastorate should 
 arouse from its apathy and gird on the weapons of 
 its power. It must not wait to hear ; it must go 
 out and listen. It must not wait to be sought by, 
 it must go out and seek, the souls over whom this 
 cloud is settling, and pour into them the light of 
 Him who declared Himself the true " light that 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world. ' ' 
 
 It has been my wish and purpose not only to call at- 
 tention to this danger and to speak of it in terms of 
 grave apprehension ; but also to offer such consid- 
 erations as would serve to show the proper tone and 
 
190 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 direction of our efforts to stay the evil ; -vvitliout at- 
 tempting a full discussion or an elaborate treatment 
 of any one of the topics under review. However I 
 may have failed in the latter, I shall, at least, have 
 discharged my duty as to the former. 
 
III. 
 
 THE GKAGE OF ORDINATION: 
 
 HOW TO QUICKEN AND DETELOP IT. 
 
 "We come together on divers occasions and for 
 divers purjjoses unlike the present. We meet in 
 Convention to transact tlie business of the Diocese. 
 We meet socially to strengthen the bond of good- 
 fellowship, and to stimulate mental activity by the 
 interchange of the fruits of study and scholarship. 
 We meet often to care for our Charities and Mis- 
 sions. I am thankful for so many opportunities 
 for assembling together to consider joint interests 
 and to set in order the things committed to our offi- 
 cial guardianship. Each and all do good, and none 
 of them should be neglected. But the present oc- 
 casion stands widely apart from the rest. The call 
 for it is a peculiar one, the attendance is voluntary, 
 the Conference is private in the sense of not being 
 open to reporters for the press, the bishop sits in 
 the midst of his presbyters to give counsel on sub- 
 
192 Condones ad Cleruin. 
 
 jects j)ersonal to lis all, as ambassadors of Christ and 
 stewards of the Divine Mysteries. God grant tliat 
 none may go away without feeling that it was good , 
 to be here. 
 
 I. The ministry is a vocation, but before tliat it is a 
 gift of the Uoly Ghost ; and we are here to inquire 
 of one another, in sincerity of heart and with a deep 
 sense of our infirmities, how it fares with that gift, 
 what we are doing or leaving undone in that voca- 
 tion. Every calling has an outer crust of routine 
 which offers a genial soil for the growth of mechan- 
 ical and perfunctory action. In spite of its sacred 
 source, its holy surroundings, and its lofty purpose, 
 tlie Christian ministry is no exception. To rise to 
 its level requires an effort that overtasks even the 
 devoutest minds. To bring it down to our own level 
 is the inevitable and often the successful temptation 
 pressing heavily upon us all. How we have met 
 this temptation belongs to the secret record of our 
 lives, open only to the eye of God. " Who art thou 
 that judgest another ?" But while we may not at- 
 tempt this, we may consider the common peril that 
 besets us and try to take up one another's burdens. 
 Scarcely any two of us are strong or weak, tried or 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 193 
 
 comforted, blinded or enlightened, in the same way 
 or in the same degree. If, then, onr mutual counsel 
 is to be wise and useful, it must be thought out and 
 given on the principle of compensation — each offer- 
 ing somethins: of his O'wti to him that hath not. It 
 is by this law that Christ's Body as a whole minis- 
 ters of its power and riches to all its members, and 
 then calls upon them to minister to each other ac- 
 cording to the measure which the Spirit of God 
 hath dealt to every man. 
 
 None in our calling, in any age, can think deeply 
 of its wants and trials and dangers without falling 
 back upon St. Paul's words to Timothy. Certainly, 
 there are no other such Avords in Christian history. 
 They have the freshness and fitness of to-day and 
 bum with a fire which will never die. Among 
 them is that exhortation which sj)ecially pertains to 
 us here and now. ' ' Therefore I put thee in remem- 
 brance that thou stir up the gift of God that is in 
 thee by the laying on of my hands. ' ' (2 Timothy 
 1 : 6.) The force of the original is somewhat tamed 
 by the translation, because it does not give the full 
 figure used by the Apostle, ava<l,co7tvf)nv., to give 
 new life to a flame already burning, to intensify an 
 
194 Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 already kindling heat, to push aside the embers and 
 open up the live coals to tlie outer air. The gift of 
 God is not only the outward commission, the Priest- 
 ly Office, but the Grace which sanctifies it and fills it 
 with divine energy. There was no reason to doubt 
 Timothy's abundant zeal, and yet he was told there 
 was room for more ; and if this was said to him, it 
 may certainly be said to the most earnest among us. 
 How, then, are we to push aside the smouldering 
 ashes that have gathered upon that holy flatne 
 kindled within us by the Grace of Ordination. This is 
 the question which I shall do wliat I can to answer, 
 craving your help to remedy wdiat I fear will prove 
 the poverty and insufficiency of my own thoughts. 
 To meet this question no novel expedients, no 
 fresh inventions, no original devices, can be found. 
 It is idle to consult the spirit of the age, as we are 
 bidden to do in so many matters requiring to be set- 
 tled in these strange times. It is equally idle to ran- 
 sack the stores of lecently- acquired knowledge and 
 experience. There has been a great deal of prog- 
 ress in many ways within our own generation, but 
 none of it throws additional light upon this subject. 
 So with all our modern studies and pursuits, whether 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 195 
 
 in the line of religion or of scliolarship. We are 
 shut up to what the Gospel, the Church, the Priest- 
 hood, the human heart have known and tried ever 
 since the holy office was instituted. It is, indeed, 
 an old story, and can become new only as it is in- 
 laid with the life of our own souls. If our ministry 
 is not the power it ought to be, the ideal of it is be- 
 fore us. If it be weak, if its tongue falter, if its 
 divine fire be going or gone out, if it be soiled and 
 hindered by the world and the flesh, if sinners do 
 not hear, and saints are not edified by its message ; 
 the cause should be unearthed and set so plainly be- 
 fore us that there could be no chance for mistakes 
 as to its character or its power. ]S[o two generations 
 try the stuff our ministry is made of in precisely the 
 same way. Peculiar and pressing as may be its 
 temptations in our day, there is at least a family 
 likeness between them and those of all the ages 
 gone before. The ordeal may be different, but it 
 is in no respect harder than it has been in every 
 period of the Church's conflict with the world. 
 Sjjeaking generally, then, the cause is not to be 
 found in any or all antagonisms specially character- 
 istic of our time. In searching for the cause, it is 
 
196 Condones ad Clcrinn. 
 
 better to turn from tlie times in wliicli our lot is 
 cast to ourselves. The lioly office is so constituted, 
 and in every case is so conferred, that the highest 
 range of its power, the purest type of its influence, 
 can be attained only by observing the conditions in- 
 separably bound up with it by its Author. N^o 
 man can lawfully take the office unlesss he enter into 
 a covenant with God to do the things which God 
 declares, both in Scripture and in the settled judg- 
 ment of the Church, must be done to make it what 
 it was meant to be. The question, then, for us to 
 meet is, have we kept these necessary conditions ? 
 have we done these necessary things ? The answer 
 will open up the whole subject, and as part of it the 
 true cause of the partial paralysis which, there is 
 grave reason to fear, has crept over " the gift that 
 is in us by the laying on of hands. ' ' 
 
 II. It is the will of God that we shall conceive 
 rightly of the sacred office itself. Can we claim to 
 have done so ? Have we not rather fallen away 
 from the lofty vantage ground on which He has 
 placed it ? Do we feel habitually its dignity and 
 importance as He intended we should ? Is it in 
 reality, to us not only Christ's chosen ambassador- 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 197 
 
 ship to liumanitj, but also the living voice of His 
 Eternal Priesthood among men ? Is it verily in our 
 habitual thought the appointed instrument by which 
 the Holy Ghost brings to bear on this world the hid- 
 den powers of the world to come ? Does it, in our 
 current estimate or in our actual administration, 
 wield the solemn function of beseeching men, as in 
 Christ's stead, to be reconciled unto God ? Do the 
 majesty of its source and the grandeur of its aim in- 
 spire us with a zeal which the world can neither 
 give nor take away ? Does it wear to our eyes the 
 halo, does it cause our hearts to glow with the heav- 
 enly fervor of the Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists of 
 old, or of the goodly fellowship of God's servants 
 who all along the ages have glorified it by their la- 
 bors ? Or is it, on the other hand, to some of us 
 only one of many lawful callings in life, a vocation 
 seasoned with the sweets of intellectual leisure, a 
 profession of calm and respectable surroundings, to 
 which all truth is equally dear and all sides of hu- 
 man nature of equal interest ? 
 
 In the long run, the Ministry will rise no higher 
 as a practical power than our conception of it. It 
 will take the color, breathe the spirit, wear the gar- 
 
198 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 ments, of those wlio exercise it. Tlioiigli of God and 
 for God, it becomes in our keeping what we are our- 
 selves. N ow, none of us can help but remember how 
 St. Paul magnified his office. There is nothing more 
 characteristic of his Apostolate than his unspeakable 
 sense of the glory and greatness, as well as of the 
 matchless responsibihty, of tlie Ministry. His very 
 conception of it reacted upon his soul and gave to 
 his words and his deeds a strange power over the 
 minds and hearts of men. He might speak of himself 
 as of little account, as strong only because of his 
 weakness, as rude of speech, as less than the least of 
 the Apostles ; but when he spoke of his Office he 
 seems to have been unable to convey to others the 
 profound awe which it excited. It was this that gave 
 him, amid the very heat and tumult of his eloquence, 
 the calm fervor, the poised purpose, the steady cour- 
 age before which fell back, as angry waves from a 
 rock-bound shore, Jewish factions clamoring for his 
 blood and Gentile crowds exasperated at his fiery re- 
 bukes of their sins. It was this, more than anything 
 else, that induced Felix to hand him over to Festus, 
 and Festus in turn to hand him over to King Agrip- 
 pa, and King Agrippa in liis turn to exclaim, ' ' al- 
 
The Grace of Oi'dination. 199 
 
 most thou persiiadest nie to be a Christian. " So with 
 the epicureans and the stoics on Mars Hill. They 
 were awed by his doctrine, but still more by the 
 authority with which he spoke. At last they stood, 
 face to face, with one who bore down upon them as 
 one conscious of a sublime commission, and laden 
 with the supernatural power of a function which 
 neither angels nor men could confer. For the first 
 time, captains, and governors, and kings, philoso- 
 phers, and sophists, and rhetoricians fell back be- 
 fore one whose only claim to a hearing rested upon 
 the simple aflfirmation, " Paul, an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ by the will of God." 
 
 But as then, so now, the power of high office, the 
 influence of commanding authority depends largely 
 upon the personal mecKness of its possessor. We 
 must magnify the gift that is in us, but we may not 
 magnify ourselves. It is, alas ! a common weak- 
 ness to confound our own pride and self-sufficiency 
 with the intrinsic greatness of our priestly authoi'i- 
 ty. The true priest of God rules only as he serves, 
 and comprehends his mission only as he forgets self. 
 Many a priest, in his endeavor to think grandly of 
 his office, ends in thinking grandly of himself. All 
 
200 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 of us, I suppose, are now and then chafed and hum- 
 bled by the pres^aiUng popular indifference to the 
 authority of our Office, l^o one can go much among 
 men without discovering mortifying proofs of this 
 feeling. Bad as it is, there is but one way to cor- 
 rect it. We may preach the true doctrine of the 
 Ministry, we may give any number of reasons why, 
 as a Sacred Office, it ought to be more highly es- 
 teemed and more loyally obeyed ; but the average 
 man of this generation will believe what we say 
 only as he sees it reproduced in our character and 
 work. And yet it is nevertheless true, that a good 
 share of our patience under difficulties and our 
 courage amid opposition must arise from our hold- 
 ing fast a conception of the Office which the world 
 refuses to accept. In our own thinking and feeling, 
 we cannot take too high ground with regard to it. 
 Sin does not cease to be sin because fools mock at 
 it ; neither does what is divine in this Holy Office 
 collapse because the outside crowd doubt, or deny, 
 or sneer at it.* 
 
 * The authority of the Holy Office arises not only from its 
 divine institution, but from the power it was commissioned to 
 exercise. This power, because it is the power intrusted to the 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 201 
 
 III. Again, it is the will of God that no priest 
 shall think of, or treat his priesthood as an isolated 
 thing, as a function standing apart from other 
 
 governors of the Church — a spiritual body, is spiritual, and 
 consists chiefly of the following particulars. 
 
 It is a power to admit into the Church of God such as are fit 
 to be members of so holy a society, to teach and to exhort 
 with wholesome doctrine, to tell men what tliey ought to do 
 to be saved, to pray for the souls committed to our charge, to 
 support and comfort the weak, to offer to God the oblations of 
 the people, and to administer the sacraments which are gener- 
 ally necessary to salvation. It is a power moreover to warn 
 and rebuke with authority, as being assured that God will rat- 
 ify what we do in his name and for his honor ; to deny the 
 sacraments to all such as render themselves unworthy of them, 
 and to shut out of the Church the obstinately wicked, that they 
 may no longer scandalize the Christian profession ; and to 
 charge all other Christians not to have fellowship with them. 
 And, on the other hand, it is a power to receive the penitent 
 and to give them the comfort of absolution and guidance. 
 And then, still further, there is the power to bind and loose, to 
 remit and retain — the power of the keys. This power is in- 
 cluded, indeed, in the particulars before-mentioned, but it is 
 so eminent and peculiar a power of the Christian priesthood, 
 and is so strongly and plainly set forth by Christ himself, 
 that it deserves to be treated with special care. It is all the 
 more needful that it should be so treated, because of the dispo- 
 sition, now so common, to reduce it to utter impotence, or to 
 explain it away altogether. The words of the Ordinal that ac- 
 company the imposition of hands can scarcely be uttered now- 
 
202 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 functions of the kingdom which, in its degree, it was 
 ordained to represent. If the Church were only a 
 voluntary society resting on a compact between in- 
 
 adays, in some quarters, without excitiug a shudder of dissent, 
 or an open protest. And yet nothing can be more certain than 
 that, as used by our Lord, they were intended to convey a dis- 
 tinct and positive authority to bind and to loose the sinner. 
 The passion of Christ is the only ransom and propitiation for 
 sin. But it is not more clear that he alone could and did offer 
 them, than it is that he established a connection between the 
 application of them to individual cases and the ofBcial ministra- 
 tions of his deputies and ambassadors. " The power to loose, 
 to put away sins, is exercised in many ways. (1) By bap- 
 tism : 'I believe one baptism for the remission of sins,' so 
 saith the Creed. (2) By the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper : 
 ' This is my blood which is shed for you, and for many for 
 remission of sins ; ' so said our Saviour. (8) By prayer : ' Call 
 for the presbyter of the Church ; the prayer of faith shall save 
 the sick ; and if he have committed sins they shall be for- 
 given him.' (4) By preaching the Word of reconciliation: 
 " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not 
 imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath committed 
 unto us the Word of reconcihation." (5) By absolution. The 
 priest absolves, or, to say more properly, God absolves by the 
 priest. God remits sovereignly, imperially, primitively, abso- 
 lutely ; the priest's power is derivative, delegate, dependent, 
 ministerial, conditional." 
 
 Archbishop Bramhall, from whom this statement is quoted, 
 goes on to say : " It is true the Protestants differ among them- 
 selves whether the absolution of the priests be declarative or 
 
The Grace of Oj'dination. 203 
 
 dividiials, then the individual, whether only a mem- 
 ber or an officer, could receive from it only what lie 
 gives to it, or if more, then only the same in kind. 
 
 operative ; that is about the manner ; and so do the Romanists 
 (of his day) likewise one with another."* But he implies 
 that there is no dispute as to the fact that absolution is part of 
 the official power of the ministry, -and that by Christ's warrant 
 It is connected with the remission of sins. We find substan- 
 tially the same teaching on this subject in the writings of 
 Lancelot Andrews,! Jeremy Taylor, :j: William Beveridge,§ 
 .Isaac Barrow.ll Thomas Wilson, T and Joseph Bingham,** also 
 of John Jewell f f and Richard Hooker ; %% the last three, how- 
 ever, insisting that absolution is a declaratory, not a judicial 
 and operative act. 
 
 Now, if we believe in the authority of the priesthood at all, 
 we must believe that it carries with it the power to do these 
 things. And if it do, what a power is that which inheres in 
 our orders ! How awful, how sacred, how far-reaching in its 
 results, how tremendous in its responsibility ! It matters not 
 iu what ways the spirit of this age may attempt to dwarf, or 
 
 * "Archbishop Bramhall's Protestant Ordination Defend- 
 ed." Works, v., 213 (Ed. Oct., 1844). 
 
 f Bishop Andrews' sermon, " Of the Power of Absolution." 
 X Bishop Taylor's " Divine Institution of the Office Minis- 
 tries." 
 
 § Bishop Beveridge's sermon, " On Ministers of the Gospel, 
 Christ's Ambassadors." 
 
 II Dr. Isaac Barrow's " Power of the Keys." 
 
 ■|[ Bishop Wilson's sermon, on " Church Discipline." 
 
 ** Joseph Bingham's " Sermon on Absolution." 
 
 ++ Bishop .lewell's " Apology of the Church of England." 
 
 \\ Richard Hooker, " Eccl. Polity," Book vi., chap, vi., 3. 
 
204 Condones ad Cleru77i. 
 
 Nature can get from nature only wliat is in nature. 
 But the Churcli is something else and sometliing 
 more, even the habitation of God through the Spirit 
 — the very body of Christ, of wliich lie is the Head 
 and we are the members, having its living root in, 
 and drawing its type and energy of growth from, his 
 incarnation. Not only its corporate life centres in 
 Him, bat all its offices and ministrations derive their 
 virtue from Him, and so derive it as that each is 
 strengthened by the strength given to all and filled 
 with the fulness of power with which all are en- 
 dued. As no grace of a sanctified life can stand 
 apart from the family to which it belongs, so no 
 attribute, gift, or function of this kingdom can 
 reach the limit of its force except by its organic 
 union with all kindred attributes, gifts, and func- 
 tions. Recent science accounts it one of its noblest 
 triumphs to have discovered the principles of the 
 correlation and transmutation of physical forces. 
 Each is what it is because the rest are what they are. 
 
 dilute, or altogether set it aside as incompatible with the pre- 
 vailing individualism in religion, its hold on the world is as 
 indestructible as that of the Kingdom of God itself. The whole 
 scheme of Christian redemption must dissolve and perish be- 
 fore it can pass away. 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 205 
 
 And so eacli is tributary to all, and all are tributary 
 to each. The organization of the Church antici- 
 pated this discovery. It could not have been what 
 it is had it not done so ; for the spiritual world is 
 older and larger than the world of nature, and is so 
 related to it that the world of nature is, in its high- 
 est aspect, only one continuous parable of the world 
 of spirit. Hence, we can neither rightly conceive 
 of, nor rightly administer the priesthood, except we 
 view it as correlative with and dependent on all the 
 powers clustered together in the Church. The 
 Holy Ghost unifies, because it permeates them all, 
 and what He gives to each. He gives for the suste- 
 nance and benefit of all. 
 
 Our Ministry, then, is distinct, but not separate. 
 It is fed by the Sacraments, CDlightened by the 
 written Word, invigorated by the joint worship of 
 believers, and strengthened by every saintly life in 
 the kingdom of God. So we must regard it, if 
 we would stir up its gifts and fully develop its latent 
 power ; so, too, we must learn not to isolate the 
 individual priest from the collective priesthood, nor 
 the priesthood of any one age from the gathered 
 experience and accumulated wisdom of the priest- 
 
2o6 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 liood of all the Christian centuries. No member of 
 the Order fit to be such but has contributed his quota 
 in some form to the common stock. What any one 
 ]3riest has been, all priests may possibly become. 
 I^one liveth to himself, none dietli to himself, but 
 all help to swell the current of spiritual power and 
 to give direction to every separate drop that falls 
 into it. Here, again, matter is a parable of sj)irit. 
 What an inspiration ! what an imj)etus have we 
 from this fact ! No priest is alone. A mighty 
 fellowship encompasses him. A power not liis own 
 is derived upon him as an heir of the labors, sacri- 
 fices, triumphs, griefs, joys, of all who have gone 
 before in this holy vocation. Tender voices plead 
 with him, if he will but hear them, from out the 
 near or the distant past. Great names, pure lives, 
 precious and honorable services for Christ and 
 humanity gather about him to cheer his loneliness, 
 to soothe his trials, to brace his courage, to anoint 
 his lips, to make him patient under hardships, and 
 valiant in every battle with the doubtiug and the 
 ungodly. It is not only the angels, not only the 
 spirits of just men made perfect and the general as- 
 sembly of the first-born that look down upon him ; 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 207 
 
 but in that hovering cloud of witnesses are hands 
 and feet, faces and hearts whose tasks have been 
 what his are to-day. Eyes are there whose tears he 
 is only weeping again, and ears into which the Mas- 
 ter poured the same command to go forward, the 
 same commission to preach, and baptize, and min- 
 ister the bread of life. Cold must be that heart 
 that finds no comfort in, gathers no unction from, 
 this thought. Alas ! that all of us should not see 
 more in it. How forlorn, how pitiful, how hope- 
 lessly weak that priest of God who, amid his awful 
 responsibilities, drifts off from the great body of his 
 brethren, living and dead, and lapses into some soli- 
 tary corner of the vast field — a soldier severed from 
 the army to which he belongs and uncheered by the 
 standard which has so often led to victory— a mem- 
 ber of an order peerlessly rich in its own history and 
 unspeakably so in the blessing and honor of its eter- 
 nal Head, and yet cut off from the common heri- 
 tage. Oh, brethren, we are too much parted, too 
 much scattered, too much isolated ; and so neither 
 in will nor affection, in faith nor charity, in wor- 
 ship nor work are we what we might be. Half bro- 
 ken in spirit, half hopeless of bearing up under our 
 
2o8 Condones ad Cler2im. 
 
 burdens, needing help and not getting it, sometimes 
 driven to the verge of despair by the sense of the 
 loneliness of onr lot, let ns close ranks and draw 
 nearer, heart to heart, and shoulder to shoulder. It 
 is all one and the same priesthood, one and the 
 same labor, and we all need the same help. Thus 
 shall we be enabled, in one way at least, to quicken 
 the languishing flame of the Grace of our Orders. 
 
 lY. But 1 now come to certain bearings of my 
 theme that relate more immediately to the interior, 
 personal life of every deputy and steward of Christ. 
 God can work, we know, by the ministry as an in- 
 strumentality external to ourselves. He can make 
 the holy office effective and impart to it all virtue 
 necessary to its end, apart from the spiritual condi- 
 tion of its incumbents. The individual priest may 
 be an unworthy, even a vicious man, but the Holy 
 Ghost can stand between him and the inherent 
 power of his priesthood and cause it to do what it 
 was ordained to do. Baptism, the Eucharist, and 
 even Preaching and the more private ministrations 
 to souls, will be what He makes them to be, though 
 the human ministrant be a godless infidel. And 
 yet ordinarily the Holy Spirit takes into account 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 209 
 
 not only the faculties and affections of the officiant, 
 but his life and character also. Aside from the di- 
 rect efficacy of priestly acts in this or that particu- 
 lar case, there is the influence flowing out upon 
 neighboring souls from the iiriest's own spiritual 
 condition, which lias much to do with helping or 
 hindering the overtures of divine mercy and the 
 processes of divine grace. There is a difference quite 
 immeasurable between the power of the ministry as 
 exercised by a good man, and the power of it as ex- 
 ercised by a l)ad one. Hence, both Holy Scripture 
 and the discipline of the Church are never weary of 
 setting forth and insisting upon the fullest internal 
 furnishing and the highest possible spiritual training 
 of every ambassador of Christ. They not only re- 
 mind him that he must go beyond the private 
 Christian in grace and knowledge and purity ; but 
 they press upon him the use of the means by which 
 he is enabled to do so. All must be diligent in 
 prayer, but he must be conspicuously so. All must 
 know the ScrijDtures, but he must know them with 
 the fulness and accuracy of an expert. All must 
 draw freely from the Church's treasury of grace, 
 wisdom, and experience, so as to be imbued with the 
 
2IO Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 spirit of its worsliip and discipline, bnt lie must do 
 so with such diligence and zeal as will render him a 
 leader and ensample to the flock. 
 
 I have sj)oken first of prayer, and rightly so, for 
 of all things, next to the immediate working of the 
 Spirit of Clod, it is the foremost quickener and edu- 
 cator of the spiritual life. It were needless, surely, 
 in your hearing to argue its power, or to cite the 
 language of Scripture to prove its marvellous influ- 
 ence, or to appeal to experience in illustration of 
 the wonders it has wrought. !Nor need I recall 
 what it has done for saintly lives from the begin- 
 ning, nor how it has been the strength, the com- 
 fort, the refuge of God's true servants in every 
 age. It is enough to know that it is plainly impos- 
 sible to be a man of God, and far more to be a true 
 priest of God, without it. As air is to the lungs, 
 light to the eye, food to the blood, water to thirst, 
 motion to the limbs, so is prayer to the soul. If low 
 thoughts, carnal imaginations vex us ; if vanity and 
 pride and self-consciousness seize upon us ; if way- 
 wardness and ambition push us down into the realm 
 of mixed or positively debased motives ; if discon- 
 tent and discouragement, or doubt deepening into 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 2 1 1 
 
 unbelief, or failure darkening into despair cripple 
 and distress us ; if trial of any sort, or sin of any 
 name, or Satan himself assail us, prayer, beyond any- 
 thing else, is the arm of our strength, the rock of 
 our defence. Without it the ministry as a whole 
 and the ministry in every part withers and dies. If 
 our religion have any axioms, these are among them, 
 and if we forget or disregard them we violate the 
 command and throw to the winds the promises of 
 God. It is not for me to indicate either the times, 
 or the places, or the modes of prayer. I wish to 
 do no more than insist upon its vital bearing upon 
 our office and work. We are ordained to be leaders 
 of the faithful in all acts of public worship. We 
 pray for, as well as with them. In us their sacri- 
 fices of praise and thanksgiving, their supplications 
 of penitence, their cries of intercession, their invo- 
 cations and litanies are gathered up and voiced and 
 presented to God through the one Advocate and In- 
 tercessor, the eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ. 
 But how can we do for them what we have not first 
 done for ourselves ? How can we ask them to con- 
 fess and bewail their sins, when we have not done so 
 ourselves ? How can we bring them to feel the 
 
212 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 awakening breath of the Spirit, when we have not 
 felt it in our own hearts lirst ? How can we infuse 
 into them the holy unction and solemn fervor of 
 the Church' s voice, while our own souls, for lack of 
 living, habitual commmiion with God, are cold and 
 dark and dead ? They have a right to look to us, 
 not only to utter in advance of them the forms of 
 devotion, not only to recite audibly in the sanctuary 
 the words of the hturgy, but, b}^ the contact with 
 them of our own hearts, to fill them with sacred fire, 
 to interpret their deep meanings, and bring home 
 to the listening assembly their solemn appeals for 
 help and jaardon, mercy and comfort. But tell me 
 who can do this if he has not first schooled liimself 
 for it by wrestling with the Spirit in secret prayer ? 
 No man can give to another more than he has in 
 liimself. But in himself no man has more of the 
 things of the Spirit than the Spirit gives him. But 
 the Spirit giveth to no man of the riches of His 
 grace that seeketh Him not. Hence it is inevitable 
 that a prayerless priest shall be cursed with sj)iritual 
 impotence, and that the noblest acts which he un- 
 dertakes to perform shall dwindle into a dumb 
 show — an unholy pantomime. 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 2 1 3 
 
 Again, as heralds of Clirist, it is required of us 
 rightly to divide the Word and to feed the flock 
 with food suited to their needs'. Not only is the 
 truth to be preached, but it is to be preached in due 
 season. Now this phase of it, and now that. All 
 need, indeed, the same truth, because all need the 
 whole counsel of God ; but amid the strange and 
 fitful fluctuations of the spiritual life, amid special 
 and urgent besetments of doubt, or worldliness, or 
 sin of any sort, some souls hunger after certain parts 
 of the truth more than others, and they must be 
 cared for accordingly. Whether regard be had to 
 the Gospel itself or to the human need of it, its 
 adaptations are almost infinite ; and that is a 
 wretchedly-discharged ministry that does not habit- 
 ually watch for the times and places which bring 
 them into play. We can, if we choose, pile up the 
 principles of theology and ethics like so much cord- 
 wood, but we cannot so pile up souls or the tempta- 
 tions to which they are exj)osed. We have living 
 wills to deal with, not fixed states of mind, and our 
 work must be as flexible and versatile as the condi- 
 tions which affect them. Now, it is only the Spirit 
 of God, who knoweth what is in the hearts and lives 
 
214 Condones ad Cleritm. 
 
 of men and what is contained in the treasury of 
 God's truth, that can direct us in the task of selec- 
 tion and adaptation ; and tlie only means open to 
 us to secure such guidance is private entreaty, per- 
 sonal supplication. To neglect this, then, or to be 
 careless and indolent about it, is to undermine the 
 fundamental condition of our pow'er and usefulness. 
 No attainments in divinity, no furnishing of the in- 
 tellect, no gifts of culture, no devotion to the arts 
 of eloquent speech, no exhibitions of personal en- 
 ergy, no industry or labor, can affect this kind of 
 unfaithfulness. If, then, we would preach well, we 
 must pray well. It is God's will that it shall be so, 
 and it were better to renounce our commission than 
 to go counter to it. 
 
 But if what has been said be true of worship and 
 teaching, it is equally true of all duties involved in 
 the cure of souls. Excejit as men of prayer, we 
 have no warrant for claiming or expecting a clear 
 insight into spiritual diseases, or a skilful hand in 
 treating them. If we are not such, we are fated to 
 be intruders and blunderers in the affairs of souls, 
 and the fruit of our follies and mistakes will soon be 
 apparent in the weakness and failure of our pastorate. 
 
The Graee of Ordination. 215 
 
 The force, tlie reaUtj of what has been said 
 cannot and will not be questioned. Theoretically 
 no one would think of denying it, but jpractically 
 how does the matter stand ? We may not 
 judge one another. Every one shall give account of 
 himself to God. But if I go no further than what 
 seems to be the average tone and habit of the min- 
 istry, I shall be borne out by your own observation 
 and experience, when I say that the best among us 
 have much to repent of in their discharge of this 
 duty. Some have neglected it because of too 
 much devotion to the studies of the world and the 
 flesh. Some have neglected it because too much 
 cumbered with serving, too much absorbed in 
 affairs, too much occupied with the external and 
 routine activities of the holy office ; and still others 
 because the duty is irksome and themselves are 
 wantonly careless and indolent. That we would be 
 diligent in prayer was part of our vow at the sol- 
 emn hour of Ordination. Among all vows which 
 can be assumed in the Kingdom of Christ, this 
 towej's above them all. It follows us at every step, 
 overshadows us every moment, repeats itself in 
 every line of the secret diary of our private and 
 
2i6 Condones ad Clertnn. 
 
 official life. It is nobody's pious exhortation, it is 
 not even a bisliop's admonition, it is neither, more- 
 over, altogether the momentous demand of God's 
 Word. It is the recorded and deliberate utterance 
 of our own lips, at a moment, when the Church asks 
 to know what is in our mind before conferring 
 the gift of Orders. It is a covenant with her, 
 and through her with Christ Himself. To break it 
 is a crime whose woe and j)enalty God only can 
 measure. 
 
 I have abstained from details, as to how much, 
 and when, and after what rule we should pray. I 
 have dwelt mostly upon our promise — our obligation 
 to be diligent in prayer. Diligent ! Am I asked what 
 it is to be so ? I answer in the memorable words of 
 a pure and noble soul now in paradise : " It is not 
 merely the giving of much time, or the stated hours 
 and forms. There must be that full application of the 
 heart and mind, that lifting up of the soul to God, 
 that drawing out of the affections after Him, that 
 cleaving of the desires to Him, that ardor and yet 
 that j)atience, that humility and yet tliat boldness, 
 which time cannot measure, which make long 
 prayers seem short to him who offers them, and 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 217 
 
 sliort prayers, if necessity shall make them such, 
 count as long prayers with Him who for Christ's 
 sake receives mercifully the soul that followeth 
 hard after Him."* For the sake of our ministry, 
 then, and in order to quicken its holy fire, to stir 
 up to a mightier energy its peerless gift ; for the 
 sake of souls given into our charge ; for the greater 
 increase of the Gospel's power and the Church's 
 honor ; for our own growth and the grace and 
 knowledge of Jesus Christ, let us, " continuing in- 
 stant in prayer,' ' pray for the spirit of prayer and 
 for ihQ power to pray, for both are the gifts of God ; 
 and let us so use both the spirit and the power, 
 when given, as to blend our poor, stammering 
 cries with the prayers of all saints, and both with the 
 divine pleadings before the throne of our eternal 
 High Priest, " who ever liveth to make intercession 
 for us. " 
 
 y. I come now to speak on another topic of ex- 
 ceeding gravity and importance, viz., how we may 
 kindle the Grace of Orders by the diligent study of 
 the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures themselves 
 
 * Bishop "Wilberforce. 
 
2i8 Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 and the Cliurch in her Ordinal, which may be re- 
 garded as her own formal and condensed reiteration 
 of the mind of the Scriptures on this subject, j^resent 
 it with so much fulness and emphasis that, having 
 duly recited and urged ujDon you their testimony, I 
 might be charged with presumption in adding any 
 words of my own. No one would feel this more 
 deeply than myself, if the matter could be treated 
 apart from the times in which we live. But it can- 
 not be so treated, if it is to be treated to edifica- 
 tion. It is idle to repeat what has been said by 
 the Scriptures or the Church touching the general 
 topic which has been proposed for consideration ; 
 unless it be with a view to show not only how far 
 we have drifted from their requirement under the 
 ordinary downward tendencies of human nature 
 common to all ages of the j)riestliood ; but also how 
 far this drift has been helped on by tendencies more 
 or less peculiar to our own day. It is not so much 
 a question what the written Word and the Ordinal 
 say, as it is how what they say affects us — our train- 
 ing, our temper of mind and heart, our estimate 
 and our use of the means appointed of God for the 
 (juickening of the ministerial gift imparted to us by 
 
The Grace of O^'dination. 219 
 
 tLe laying on of hands ; how it bears npon the cir- 
 cumstances in which Ave must exercise the holy 
 office, and npon certain misleading influences that 
 press upon us as silently, but as steadily and pow- 
 erfully as the atmosphere we breathe. The only 
 authorities that have any right to address us have 
 spoken. Tlieir witness, their counsel, their direc- 
 tion are before us, we know them as we Icnow our 
 alj)habet. But, as a whole, the clergy do not as 
 they promised they would. If so, why ? There is 
 the question, " Will you be diligent in reading the 
 Holy Scriptures and in such studies as help to the 
 knowledge of the same ?" and there is the answer. 
 But what, in too many cases, has come of the an- 
 swer ? It is generally agreed that the clergy, as an 
 order, are not strong in the Scriptures in the sense 
 'they once were, and if we trust the Scriptures and 
 the Church, it is certain that no priest can be what 
 he promised to be, what he ought to be, what he 
 must be, if he is to do his work, unless the warp 
 and woof of his teaching be woven of the threads 
 and dyed in the color of God's Word. 
 
 (1 ) First, then, why have the clergy in our time 
 fallen off in the reading of the Scriptures and in 
 
2 20 Condones ad Clernm. 
 
 sucli studies as help to a knoweldge of the same ? 
 Bj some, I am aware, it will be denied that they 
 have, and in support of the denial, it will be asked, 
 when has there been a more varied and profound 
 study of the Scriptures ? When has biblical criti- 
 cism commanded more attention, or drawn to itself 
 more learning and labor than in the present genera- 
 tion ? Has there ever been such tliorough work in 
 examining the text, in comparing the various read- 
 ings, in tracing the origin and formation of the 
 Canon, the history and the relations of the several 
 books ? What question, what doubtful point, what 
 issue of evidence external or internal, what omis- 
 sion or interpolation has escaped the keen and ex- 
 haustive inquiry of the time ? Has not the mod- 
 ern learning done so much as to cause the old 
 learning to appear by comj)arison quite superficial 
 and valueless ? Have there ever been such appli- 
 ances for sacred studies, or could they have been 
 more industriously and effectively used ? Has 
 there not been such progress of late in Philology 
 and Ethnology, and all kindred branches of knowl- 
 edge as to render them, in the solution of the prob- 
 lems presented by the sacred writings, practically 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 221 
 
 new sciences ? Surely, it will be said, the clergy 
 cannot but have profited by both the advanced crit- 
 icism, and by the new fields of inquiry which that 
 criticism has disclosed. And if they have, what 
 ground can there be for affirming that they have 
 declined either in the desire or in the actual work 
 of Scriptural study ? 
 
 Now, without the slightest wish to abate the force 
 of all that can be said in this direction, but, on the 
 contrary, freely assenting to every reasonable claim 
 put forth by the most ardent votary of the new 
 learning, I am bold to affirm that, parallel with 
 this progress, and partly as a consequence of it, a 
 serious decline has been going on in that phase of 
 sacred studies to which, more than to any other, the 
 Ordinal refers. And that phase, let it be known, is 
 the one compared with which all others are of in- 
 ferior moment. We are to be diligent in reading 
 the Scriptures and in such studies as help to a 
 knowledge of the same. The Ordination vow binds 
 us to do both. But both may be done in various 
 ways and for various purposes. Thousands have 
 done both, and yet failed of the end which the 
 Church has in view in imposing tliis vow. The 
 
22 2 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 Scriptures may be diligently read and studies 
 illustrative of tliem be pursued with zeal, and yet 
 only on the ground that they form one of the most, 
 perhaps the most, interesting chapter in the religious 
 history of the race. If the Greek and Roman lit- 
 eratures have their own place and value, the He- 
 brew certainly, in some of its characteristics, sur- 
 passes them both. Indeed, while it attracts all ed- 
 ucated minds, it has an extraordinary fascination 
 for some. But clearly it is not merely as a well- 
 defined and even splendid body of literature that 
 the Church calls upon her priests to read and study 
 it. 
 
 Again, though she would have them duly fur- 
 nished and equipped in controversial divinity, and 
 quick to discover and repel the approaches of er- 
 roneous and false doctrine, she does not command 
 them to read and study chiefly for this end. A 
 sound and comprehensive theology is of great value, 
 as providing an authorized compend of settled prin- 
 ciples, and yet even this is not the primary ground of 
 her requirements. She demands, rather, that we 
 shall be diligent in the Scriptures in order that we 
 may catch the teachings of the Holy Spirit which 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 223 
 
 underlie the Christian hfe in the individual soul, 
 those utterances of inspiration which fill the heart 
 with a sense of the need and of the gift of a per- 
 sonal Saviour, those revelations of the means of 
 grace by which sinners are moved to repentance and 
 saints are built up in an ever-increasing faith in 
 the trutb which is the power of salvation, and 
 throng'; that into the stature of Christ Jesus. 
 The?e are various kinds and degrees of Scriptural 
 knov/ledge, all of tliem important and, taken to- 
 gether, embracing every possible aid to their acquisi- 
 tion. But there is one kind, one degree, which no 
 criticism, however acute and -exhaustive, can give, 
 because it is beyond the reach of any art or appli- 
 ance of the intellect, and can be attained only by a 
 deep and habitual communion with God's Word as 
 a strictly spiritual act — a communion resting on the 
 guidance of the Holy Ghost and on our inward like- 
 ness to the mind of Christ. So only can we pierce 
 through the letter to the spirit, through the out- 
 ward record to the inward truth, and even through 
 the inward truth to the life of God, which is its ani- 
 mating soul. So only, too, can we feel the throbs 
 and catch the rhythm of the Divine movement 
 
2 24 Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 through the ages from Paradise lost to Paradise re- 
 gained — a movement, which, because it is one of 
 grace, not of nature, is discernible by faith rather 
 than by reason, a movement, moreover, of which 
 the written Word is God's own record, sketched by 
 prophets, evangelists, and apostles, speaking at sun- 
 dry times and in divers manners, as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost. This is the knowledge 
 which transcends all else, no scholarship can win it. 
 It lies beyond the range of the best critical apparatus 
 invented by this, or any past generation. It comes 
 of the study of forces, not of words ; of facts, not 
 of style ; of Divine thoughts and purposes, and of 
 the human needs which evoked them, rather than of 
 the articles and conjunctions, the nouns and verbs 
 through which they speak. Do not understand me 
 as underrating the value of verbal criticism or of ex- 
 egetical studies generally. I only insist that, need- 
 ful as they may be in their place, there is a higher 
 knowledge of God's word than any that they can 
 give, a knowledge that vanishes from the attempted 
 grasp of any purely mental process, and yields it- 
 self, as a thing of the spirit, only to a spiritual 
 mind. 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 225 
 
 (2) And this brings me to notice the character- 
 istic difference between the Patristic and the Modern 
 critical handling of tlie Scriptures. The former 
 was bent on getting at the inner life, the hidden 
 soul of the Scriptures ; the latter is bent on taking 
 to pieces, and putting together again the language 
 in which that life, that soul, is enshrined. The 
 former struck down to, and moved on with, the 
 hidden current of the divine thought ; the latter 
 anatomizes the flesh tissues and nerve threads 
 and bone articulations that make up the channel 
 through which that current flows. The former 
 saw as many meanings as it could, the latter sees 
 as few as it can. The former bored down through 
 one stratum after another until it reached the 
 deepest reservoirs ; the latter is content to stop 
 with the first water it finds, and believes every 
 spring-head the purer in proportion as it is found 
 near the surface. With the f onner the letter is but 
 the starting-point for excursions into the world be- 
 hind it ; with the latter it is a sort of ratchet to the 
 wheel of suggestion and meditation. The differ- 
 ence between these methods, radical as it is, is sub- 
 stantially the difference between two widely-sun- 
 
2 26 Condones ad Cleruni. 
 
 dered, almost antagonistic, conceptions of the actual 
 nature and functions of Holy Scripture — the one re- 
 garding it as a revelation of the mind of God given 
 under supernatural conditions, and therefore not to 
 be treated as any merely human literature may be 
 treated ; the other regarding it practically as only 
 one of many rival religious records, and therefore 
 subject to precisely the same canons of interj^reta- 
 tion as any other product of the human mind. If 
 the latter conception be the correct one, then it is 
 quite consistent that no attempt should be made to 
 find any more meaning in the Scriptures, than the 
 human mind can find in itself, or in the history of 
 its own development. 
 
 None of the clergy, I suppose, would acquiesce in 
 such a view unless they would be ready to admit 
 that the Bible is God's Word only figuratively and 
 b}'' courtesy. Stated thus grossly, and thus nakedly 
 outlined, it certainly would have no chance of ac- 
 ceptance by men who retain any respect for their 
 vows of Ordination. But commonly it is not so pre- 
 sented. Like many things of like sort, it usually 
 comes to us more or less veiled in the hazy phrases 
 of rationalistic rhetoric, which glories in under- 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 227 
 
 mining, without shocking, the traditional faith of 
 the simple and unwary. However disguised or di- 
 luted, it is found on every thoroughfare and in 
 many of the by-ways of the religious thought of the 
 time ; and, I fear, has made serious inroads upon 
 some also who little suspect how near is the goal to 
 which its logic will lead them. It is impossible to 
 reckon up the causes which liave drawn so many of 
 the clerg}'- away from the Church's requirement, and 
 from their own promise touching the diligent read- 
 ing and study of God's Word without placing this 
 among the chief. I do not mean what is called 
 rationalism, pure and simple, wrought out into defi- 
 nite method and assuming the pretension of a formal 
 philosophy. I refer rather to a mode of bibhcal 
 criticism which it has helped, directly or indirectly, 
 to produce, and whose aim seems to be to see as 
 little as possible, in the text, and to sneer at the Fa- 
 thers, whose mode of interpretation was exactly the 
 opposite, and for a reason which I have already 
 given.* It seems impossible but that this bald 
 
 * la speaking of the exegetical value of Patristic Antiquity, 
 it may be well to recall a fact familiar to every Churchman, 
 viz., that when the Church appeals to the Ancient Fathers, she 
 
2 28 Co7iciones ad Clerum. 
 
 and barren style of handling God's "Word should, 
 in all who accept it, chill their interest in sacred 
 studies and tempt them to acquiesce in the mini- 
 mum, rather than excite them to labor for the max- 
 imum, of Scripture knowledge. It is only subjects 
 abeadj dead, or subjects whose life is expected to 
 
 does not refer to well-knowa names in the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries — such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of 
 Aquinum, but to the Fathers of the first four or five centuries, 
 and eminently to those of ike ante-Nicene age. It is the boast 
 of a numerous and pretentious school of interpreters and critica 
 that they have shaken themselves free from the mystical method 
 of the early Fathers. It seems not to have occurred to them 
 that in doing so, they have, at the same time shaken them, 
 selves free from the method of interpretation — call it mystical, 
 or anything else — habitually adopted by Christ and His apos- 
 tles. One cannot but remember in this connection the lan- 
 guage of Bisbop Pearson,* "' Philosophia quotidie progressu, 
 theologla nisi regressu non crescit. " " You who either fill the 
 venerable office of the priesthood or intend it, and are here- 
 after to undertake the awful cure of souls, rid yourselves of 
 that itch of the present age, the love of novelty. Make it your 
 business to inquire for that which was from the beginning. 
 Resort for counsel to the fountain-head. Have recourse to 
 antiquity. Return to the holy Fathers. Look back to the 
 Primitive Church. In the words of the Prophet, ' Ask for the 
 old paths.' " 
 
 * See Appendix C. * Minor Works, vol. 2, p. 10. 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 229 
 
 vanisli under the knife, that are fit for sneli an ana- 
 tomy. The Patristic handling may have led off, as 
 it did among the Alexandrian school, into many 
 fancies and idle dreams but wherever it wrought it 
 deepened and widened the spiritual world. This 
 other handling, however, by its hard, technical lit- 
 eralism, first muddies and then dries up the very 
 fountains of spirituaKty. 
 
 (3) Let me now call attention to another influ- 
 ence that has helped to bring into more or less dis- 
 favor the diligent reading and study of Holy Scrip- 
 ture. The history of sacred thought is full of re- 
 actions from extremes. The too much is followed 
 by the too little, and the too httle in turn by the 
 too much. Just now we seem to be reacting, on 
 the one hand, from the too much as regards the 
 office of Scripture, and, on the other hand, from the 
 too little as regards the office of the Church. Those 
 are still living who can recall Christian scholars and 
 tliinkers who so elevated the written "Word above all 
 else as to be named, and with some justice, bibliola- 
 ters. They held the strongest possible doctrine of 
 plenary Inspiration both as to the form and the sub- 
 
230 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 stance of Revelation. They fonnd in itself not only 
 the sufficient witness of its genuineness and authen- 
 ticity, but also in itself the sufficient, nay the com- 
 plete, canon of interpretation. They declared it self- 
 evidencing and self -explaining. Its meaning might 
 be simple or manifold, literal or mystical ; it mat- 
 tered not whether it concerned prophecy or doc- 
 trine, morals or worship, discipline or history, from 
 the most hidden sayings to the plainest pre- 
 cepts : one only faculty was needed to develop and 
 expound it — private judgment, with such guidance 
 and help as it could obtain. The consequences are 
 too well known to require any formal reference to 
 them here. The factor which this school left out — 
 the living, historic, universal Church, to whose 
 keeping and witness the written Word has been 
 committed from the start — had to be brought for- 
 ward, and its rightful, Christ-given, necessary 
 office to be insisted upon. 
 
 But here again the equilibrium between the Word 
 and the Church — both alike of God, both alike in- 
 dispensable, both so bound together by their Author, 
 that to sunder them is to cripjjle both, permanently 
 to neglect either is to destroy the other — has been 
 
TJie Grace of Ordination. 231 
 
 sadly disturbed in some minds. To the cry, ^' The 
 Bible, the Supreme Rule of Faith !" (which it is, 
 properly understood) ; the " Scriptures all in all !" 
 not only in the sense of their sufficiency for every 
 human need of divine knowledge, but also in the 
 sense that every individual believer was sufficient for 
 their explication — to this succeeded the cry, " The 
 Church ; the living organ of God's will ! " The 
 Chm'ch whose consciousness embraces at once the 
 contents of the Word and all besides which the Holy 
 Ghost has imparted under the fluctuating emergen- 
 cies of history ! The Church the only safe guide, 
 whether we affirm of it an a ])riori infallibility or an 
 a posteriori inerrancy ! The Church, which, in her 
 Creeds and Confessions and Liturgies and Canons of 
 discipline, gives us the essential mind of Scripture 
 with her own varied experience of its use super- 
 added ! Why go back, it is said, to writings the 
 latest of which are nearly two thousand years old, 
 when we have a living voice to guide us ? Why 
 spend our days on Greek particles and tenses, when 
 we have all we want ready at hand and duly certi- 
 fied by the only authority competent to speak. The 
 voice of God, it is said, reaches us to-day under 
 
232 Condones ad Cle7''ti'm. 
 
 higher conditions of certitude, through the Body of 
 Christ, tlian through records which have given rise 
 to endless disputes concerning a thousand points 
 which, individually, we are powerless to decide. 
 "Why give laborious years to harmonizing and uni- 
 fying scores of writers, even though inspired, when 
 the truth is offered us in all its harmony of parts 
 and unity of aim, in the testimony of a living society, 
 which enjoys the divine promise of guidance into 
 the way of all trutli ? The Scriptures have their 
 place and use. They are to be preserved with the 
 utmost care. They are to be reverenced by believ- 
 ers and defended against enemies. We should be 
 familiar with their diction, because it is that which 
 holy men chose as they were moved by the Hd.y 
 Ghost. We should have their precepts on our 
 tongues, because they are sententious and sublime. 
 We should have in our minds the connections of the 
 books and the characteristics of each. In short, we 
 should have all knowledge of them that can be had 
 without laborious and painstaking scholarship), and 
 without binding ourselves too closely to a very high 
 notion of the Ordination vow. ' 
 
 I do not aim at precise definitions. I speak of a 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 233 
 
 tone of tlioiight, a habit of mind, just now becoming 
 more and more prevalent among priests under thir- 
 ty years old, and among candidates for Holy Orders. 
 It is, I need hardly say, the outcome of one-sided 
 and extravagant views of the mission and functions 
 of the Church. Just in proportion as it spreads 
 will it make our preaching lean and flabby, our 
 theology lop-sided and superficial, our spiritual life 
 loose and languid, and, as a final result, our min- 
 istry an arm of power bei-eft of bone and sinew. 
 
 "We want neither hihllolatry nor ecclesiolafry. 
 "We are to be on our guard alike against the shrink- 
 age, the disuse, the distortion of every vehicle of 
 God's will. If we know the Bible and the Church 
 as we ought, we know what they are — each in itself 
 and each to the other. It is impossible for them to 
 antagonize, and it is equally imposible for either to 
 supplant the other. As well say the stars are not 
 needed because we have the sun, or the sun is of 
 little account because we have the stars.* The 
 
 * It is our duty to be zealous tor llie sufficiency and suprem- 
 acy of Scripture. It is our only Eule of Faith. To it every 
 doctrine must be conformed ; by it every doctrine must be tried. 
 But we must remember that the Bible itself teaches us that 
 
234 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 folly is apparent, the danger not so much so. It is 
 one of the worst of the many bad fruits of unbal- 
 anced thinking and misdirected zeal on sacred sub- 
 jects, that they mar or break up entirely the ex- 
 quisite equilibrium of divine gifts. It would seem 
 as though this was the least pardonable of all the 
 disturbances of that heavenly adjustment and har- 
 monious balance. At what a cost were the Scrip 
 tures given us as part of our inheritance ? At what 
 a cost, too, was the Church given as another part ? 
 
 God has not only given the Bible as a rule, but has also given 
 us the Universal Church to guide us in the right use and appli- 
 cation of the rule. (Chr. Wordsworth's Bishop of Liucolu's 
 Miscellanies, vol. 2, p. 93.) 
 
 Our knowledge on this subject, however confirmed and il- 
 lustrated by human inquiry, comes to us, or rather is given to 
 us, by a Divine warrant. St. Paul, in his two letters specially 
 devoted to the instruction and guidance of the ministry — the 
 teaching order — says first of the Church to which the Scrip- 
 tures were committed : " The Church of the living God, the 
 pillar and ground of the truth."* Then farther on, " All Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doc- 
 trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
 ness : that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur 
 uished with all good works, "f The two cannot be separated 
 from, nor confounded with, nor opposed to one another. 
 
 * 1 Timothy 3 : 15. f 2 Timothy 3 : 16, 17. 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 235 
 
 How marvelloiisly do tliey speak the one for the 
 other ? How else than as the narrowness born of 
 ignorance and conceit shall I characterize the tern- 
 per which says, on the one hand, here is the Word 
 — I want nothing but that, it is my confession of 
 faith, it is enough for me and I am enough for it ; 
 or, on the other, here is the Church — tell me what 
 she says, and I care for nothing more. Surely it is not 
 for me, in such a hearing, to point out how the 
 Church intends us to use the summaries and com- 
 pends of truth, the Creeds and Offices she puts into 
 our hands. If they bear the stamp of her universal 
 consent, they are of the highest authority ; not 
 merely because at certain crises in her history she 
 has framed and published them, but, before all else, 
 because they were originally di'awn from Scripture 
 and may now be proved thereby. They are, indeed, 
 more than a help and convenience, as some are con- 
 tent to esteem them. They are absolutely necessary, 
 if the faith of Christ is to be incorporated into a 
 kingdom and transmitted as a continuous force in 
 history. But whatever their need, their use, their 
 influence, their authority, they have a hold on us 
 because they have a yet stronger hold on the mind 
 
236 Condones ad Clerttm. 
 
 of Clirist as set fortli in certain " Scriptures given 
 bj inspiration of God" — Scriptures, be it remem- 
 bered, of which Christ Hinnselfis tlie interpreter^^ 
 speaking audibly to men wbile he was yet in the 
 Hesh, speaking afterward and always, nnto the end, 
 by the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, in and through 
 His own body, the Church. It is of these Creeds 
 and Confessions and Offices that we are told, as of 
 all other utterances claiming to be divine, " Prove 
 all things. " It is the duty of all to attempt it / it 
 is the duty of some to do it. Every private Chris- 
 tian should do what he can to analj'ze his belief and 
 resolve every article of it into the elements of which 
 it is composed. Every official Christian is bound to 
 
 * Christ the everlasting "Word, is the expounder of the writ- 
 ten Word. He inteipreted the Old Testament in person when 
 He was on earth. He sealed it with His own seal, and deliv- 
 ered it as God's Word to the Church, and by the Church to 
 the world. After His ascension He explained the meaning of 
 the New, as well as the Old Testament, by His Spirit and His 
 apostles. And when, after their departure, heresies arose. He 
 declared the true meaning of Holy Scripture by Creeds and 
 Confessions of Faith, received by His Church Universal, to 
 which He has promised His presence even unto tlie end of the 
 world." (Chr. Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln's Miscellanies, 
 vol. 2, p. 99.) 
 
The Grace of Ordinatzon. 237 
 
 do it, and if he do it not, he violates his promise to 
 the Church, and, if disciph'ne could be enforced, he 
 should be stripped of his office and sent back to the 
 ranks. 
 
 (4) Again, we are likely to wdtness a declining 
 interest in the written Word because of the special 
 prominence given of late to the Sacramental system 
 of the Church. This is a point of much delicacy 
 and difficulty ; and while my own views are clear 
 and positive, I desire to state them with the utmost 
 care and moderation. I would warn you against a 
 certain tendency, but I have no wish to intensify 
 the warning b}^ exaggerating the tendency. We 
 are living in a time of reactions, or, some say, of 
 transitions, from extremes produced by antecedent 
 conditions of religious thought. If we have had 
 too much of the subjective, the emotional, the ex- 
 perimental, we are now threatened with too much 
 of their opposites. If we have had too much indi- 
 viduahsm, it is only natural that we should look 
 for high- wrought assertions of what is corporate and 
 organic in our Christianity. If our spiritual life, 
 for a time, unduly dej)reciated the Sacraments in 
 favor of other and less formal and outward means 
 
238 Condones ad Cleriwi. 
 
 of grace, the drift now is not only to restore the 
 bahmce, but to overload the hitherto neglected side 
 of the scales. I may be mistaken, but it has seemed 
 to me that sin regarded as personal guilt, and faith 
 and rei^entance regarded as the inward conditions of 
 pardoning grace, are not now so strongly or habitu- 
 ally dwelt upon as the channels and seals of that 
 grace. It is not so much what man is and what 
 man needs,- nor what God actually does, as the way 
 in which He does it, the ordinances through which 
 He specially covenants to act, that chiefly engages 
 attention. 
 
 So the overfilled fields give way to the fallow 
 ones, and the Church's husbandry instinctively 
 shifts backward and forward, not only to secure 
 the needed variety, but also the needed rotation 
 of crops. It is idle to complain of this law of 
 thought and life in things spiritual. God is in it as 
 much as He is in the things affected b}'' it. It is 
 for us to study its metes and bounds, and, so far as 
 we can, to save its several orbits of movement from 
 mutual encroachment. Now, I submit to you, as 
 men having understanding of the signs of the times, 
 whether there is not danger, lest the constantly in- 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 239 
 
 creasing emphasis with which many of our teachers 
 dwell upon the surpassing virtue of the spiritual 
 food received in the Holy Eucharist shall create a 
 partial disrelish for the spiritual food which resides 
 in the Holy Scriptures ? Are there not those among 
 us, and a growing company too, who teach and live, 
 pray, and practise as though it were a settled fact 
 that tJiere is only one sort of feeding on Christ — 
 (and that a sacramental one), which can. really 
 nourish and edify the soul ? Nay more, has it not 
 come to tliis in some quarters, that the only really 
 vital and efficacious approach to Christ, as our High 
 priest and Saviour, is the approach to Him as pres- 
 ent on the altar under the forms of the consecrated 
 elements ? 
 
 Observe, I do not question the intrinsic great- 
 ness of the gift conferred by the Sacrament, nor 
 the dignity of the Altar, nor the virtue of what is 
 done upon it and around it. Even Chrysostom's 
 language about " the empurpling blood of sacriiice, 
 and tiie priest standing over the sacrifice and pray- 
 ing, and all stained with that precious blood, ' ^ are not 
 too strong for me as picturing figuratively to the 
 devout eye the mystery and glory and power of this 
 
240 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 eliief memorial of tlie crucified. But I do question 
 the riglit and the truth of so presenting this Sacra- 
 ment as to dwarf and obscure other and, in their 
 time and place, equally needful means of grace. I 
 am not willing to sanction a school of thought, or a 
 style of ritual which, in order to magnify our Lord's 
 presence and work in these His " creatures of bread 
 and wine," has little, by comparison, to say of Him 
 as the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls walking 
 in the green pastures of the written Word ; or as the 
 one Advocate and Intercessor who gathers up our 
 prayers and entreaties wherever we are, whether in 
 the sanctuary, or in the desert, or on the lonely 
 seas, or in the chamber of sickness and sorrow, and 
 pleads them over again in the ear of the Almighty 
 Father ; or as the Lamb of God moving among the 
 golden candlesticks, Head over all things to His 
 Church. It may be claimed that theoretically and 
 as a matter of theological principle, there is no 
 conflict between the higliest conception of the nature 
 and uses of this Sacrament and other means of grace. 
 It may be claimed, too, as evidence of this, that 
 other means of grace are either preparatory, or aux- 
 iliary, or supplementary to the Eucharist. In one 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 241 
 
 or the other of these ways Baptism, Confirmation, 
 the Holy Scriptures, prayer render essential service, 
 and, rightly treated, fall into harmony of relation 
 and unity of jDurpose. This may hold true in the 
 case of carefully educated and thoroughly disci- 
 plined minds, that can keep in plain sight the entire 
 scheme of redemption as a v»^hole and in all its parts. 
 But certainly it is not true of the average Christian. 
 With most persons this remarkable and habitual ex- 
 altation of one part of the scheme tends strongly to 
 the disparagement and ultimately to the neglect of 
 other parts. Especially is this so when it is iterated 
 and reiterated to believers : Come often and reg- 
 ularly to the Sacrament, and your chief duty is 
 done. Christ is in that as He is in nothing else. 
 The fulness of His grace is there, and having found 
 Him there, you need not be solicitous to find Him 
 elsewhere. There you have all necessary spiritual 
 food. There and there only are the most gracious 
 promises fulfilled, whether relating to remission of 
 sin, or to sanctification, or to growth generally in 
 the graces of the divine life. There you can wor- 
 ship as nowhere else. There you can believe and 
 repent and pray with an efficacy and comfort assured 
 
242 Coiiciones ad Cle7^7im. 
 
 in nothing else. There can be no doubt, as I have 
 alleged, that this line of teaching, when pressed so 
 ardently and almost exclusively, does help to dwarf 
 the current estimate and practical use of many other 
 provisions of our religion in the mind of the aver- 
 age believer, and eminently that provision which 
 asserts the preciousness of the Scriptures to a sym- 
 metrically-developed Christian life. 
 
 Our supreme want is Christ as the way, the truth, 
 and the life. Once grafted into Him by baptism, and 
 strengthened in confirmation by the sevenfold gifts 
 of the Holy Ghost, and so made partakers of His 
 divine nature, the soul draws near and feeds on Him 
 as its Saviour in all the various modes of His mani- 
 festation. All the blessings of redemption are from 
 God the Father, tlirough the incarnate Son, by the 
 Holy Spirit, in the Church, which is Christ's body, 
 and therefore the habitation of the Spirit, This 
 one channel divides off into many subordinate chan- 
 nels. Through all the grace we need flows freely. 
 Through some it flows regularly and by reason of 
 special promise and appointment. Faith, repent- 
 ance, charity are at once gifts of the Spirit and essen- 
 tial elements of spiritual life. They must be ours 
 
The Graee of Ordination. 243 
 
 before we can go to tlie Sacrament. So far from 
 being the fruits, they are tlie forerunners of the 
 Sacrament, For all this side of the new life there 
 must be due provision. To say the least, it is as 
 important as any other side of that life, and the 
 things which God has ordained to minister to it are 
 as needful, have as vital an efficacy, as any other 
 thing (the Sacrament included), which He has 
 ordained to minister to another, but not higher 
 side of that life. 
 
 ISTow, the written "Word is simply the "Word in- 
 carnate set forth to us by the pen of inspiration 
 — set forth too in the transcendent and unspeak- 
 able fulness of all His offices as Prophet, Priest, 
 and King — set forth as teaching and ruhng, guid- 
 ing and comforting, suffering, crucified, risen, and 
 ascended into heaven. The Sacrament, too, sets 
 forth the incarnate "Word, contains Him, if you 
 please, after a mystical manner, offers Him in a 
 special way as our spiritual food and sustenance. 
 He comes to us in a visible, and vivid memorial 
 appointed by Himself and to continue until He 
 come again — a memorial which is the sign, the seal, 
 the pledge of our incorporation with Him and with 
 
244 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 all faithful people, and of tlie blessings that arise 
 from such incorporation, including that of the pres- 
 ervation of body and soul unto everlasting life. It 
 is a distinct and abundant, but not exclusive, chan- 
 nel of the blessings it conveys. At no stage of our 
 spiritual life does the one Yine pour through it into 
 the branches all its saving and sanctifying virtue. 
 Assuming what will not be denied, that not only 
 "the truth as it is in Jesus,'* but that Jesus Himself 
 is in the Scriptures as well as in the Eucharist, it 
 would be presumjDtion in me to comment upon the 
 comparative fulness and power with which each 
 presents Him to Christian believers. It is enough 
 tliat the conclusion be established that neither so pre- 
 sents Him as, in the divine intent, to interfere with, 
 or displace the office of the other. In saying thus 
 much, 1 have not meant to assert or imply that the 
 minds, in which this drift lurks, consciously feel it 
 or deliberately further it. It is what I deem an in- 
 evitable and harmful result of a certain tone of 
 thought, and, sometimes, method of teaching, against 
 which I have warned you. If I have overrated it, 
 no one will be more glad to knov*'" it than I. I leave 
 this branch of the subject with one more remark. 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 245 
 
 There was a long stretch of centuries in the Church's 
 history when, owing to the practical burial or wide- 
 spread oblivion of the written Word, it was only 
 natural that believers should turn to, and be taught 
 so to do, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as the 
 only mode of witnessing to His presence and His 
 work. We should be thankful that such a witness 
 survived in ages so dark with ignorance and super- 
 stition. But what was natural then is strange now, 
 when the Word lies open to every eye that chooses 
 to read it. 
 
 (5) I pass to another and very different phase of 
 my subject. Among the causes helping on the de- 
 chne of a devout and diligent study of the Holy 
 Scriptures, is the multiplicity and attractiveness of 
 the intellectual pursuits ojDened up by the widening 
 fields of knowledge. New themes, and new modes 
 of handling old themes, are constantly pressed upon 
 our attention. Every day is adding to the stock of 
 general truth. Inquiry is pushed in all directions, 
 and that week is a blank which does not announce 
 some fresh discovery. Even our ascertained knowl- 
 edge in history, philosophy, physics, literature is all 
 the while threatened with revisions and amend- 
 
246 Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 ments. No study can be named, relating to man or 
 nature, that has not been indefinitely extended within 
 our own generation. So true is this that most edu- 
 cated men despair of keeping up with the progress of 
 all branches of knowledge, and are dropping off into 
 specialists. Excellence is attainable ho longer in all 
 fields of inquiry, and with difficulty in any one. 
 Scientists and litterateurs are prompt to announce 
 each his special pursuit, and are not aggrieved when 
 reminded of their ignorance of other pursuits. 
 They are content to do some one thing well. IN'ot 
 only divisions, but subdivisions of labor have be. 
 come an imperative necessity in our modern life. 
 But what other vocations do freely and openly, ours 
 timidly shrinks from doing. The average clergy- 
 man thinks it a disgrace not to be accounted as one 
 not only well furnished in his own calling, but up 
 to the times in all ways. He fancies that he must 
 be a man of wide information and varied culture if 
 he would not lose caste. He knows that a lifetime 
 given to theology alone would be too short to com- 
 pass the vast area of thought and learning over 
 which it spreads. He knows what an inexhaustible 
 realm is thrown open to him by the Scriptures and 
 
The Grace of Ordznatzon. 247 
 
 the studies whicli help to a knowledge of the same. 
 He knows what lies behind him, too, in sacred his- 
 tory. Each of these might claim the devotion of 
 his best years and the noblest energies of his mind, 
 and yet leave him only partially schooled in their 
 lessons. And yet he does not face the issue as other 
 men do, by settling down calmly and patiently to 
 his own line. He is tempted into compromises and 
 compromises sweep him out into shallowness. He 
 diffuses and dilutes himself until a certain weakness 
 overtakes him in everything. He is neither strong 
 in the pulpit, nor strong in scholarship, nor strong 
 in exact knowledge of anything. The pains and 
 penalties of the smatterer dog his steps turn where 
 he will. ]l^ow, in this profitless scattering of mental 
 force we have an explanation of the shm attain- 
 ments in sacred lore of not a few of our clergy. 
 In attempting to grasp too much, they let slip the 
 one sort of knowledge the want of which is inex- 
 cusable. It is unpardonable for a minister of Christ 
 to find time for reviews and newspapers and novels 
 and fugitive essays on a thousand topics, and it may 
 be for the more sober and thoughtful issues of cur- 
 rent literature, and then to plead lack of time for the 
 
248 Condones ad Clertun. 
 
 regular and diligent study of God's Word. That 
 study and the studies affiliated with it are the 
 solemnly enjoined, publicly declared, sacredly 
 pledged business of his life. They must precede 
 and, if need be, supplant and exclude all others. No 
 side excursions can be undertaken while the main 
 road is untra veiled. To be strong in the Scriptures is 
 the one thing needful. The promise to be so is the 
 only one the Church exacts from us in the whole 
 round of mental equipment, and if we fail to keep 
 it, it matters not what reputation we may gain else- 
 where. Close thinking, philosophical subtlety, wide 
 reading, varied culture, sesthetic taste are all desir- 
 able, but they are no substitute for a devotional and 
 critical knowledge of the one message that w^e are 
 commissioned to deliver. The memories of Ordi- 
 nation are simply insulted by the man who prides 
 himself on his French and German, and knows next 
 to nothing of the tongues in which propluts and 
 evangelists and apostles recorded the wonderful 
 works of God. 
 
 Still further, while it would be unwise and un- 
 safe to isolate ourselves from, or be regardless of , 
 the main currents of thought sweeping by us — for 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 249 
 
 if we are to serve man we must know what is 
 uppermost in his brain as well as in his heart — 
 yet if any class toiling for his elevation have 
 a right to be specialists that class are the clergy. 
 They cannot be altogether students. The cloistered 
 retreats of scholarship are not for them. As much 
 at least as those of any other vocation, their duties 
 are practical. A thousand things call them down 
 from the higher walks of thought. A sick man 
 tossing with fever in a by street, a death in the ten- 
 ant house attic or in chambers painted with ver- 
 miHon, a waj^ward member of the flock falling off 
 into vice and wretchedness, the unrepentant and the 
 ignorant needing to be admonished of their sins and 
 taught the way of life, households shutting up 
 within their walls domestic unfaithfulness, dissen- 
 sion, and wretchedness, weary souls seeking com- 
 fort and guidance amid hfe's trials, hungry souls 
 asking to be fed, little by little, as they have time 
 and opportunity, with the bread of life, frequent 
 services in the sanctuary, and the orderly instruction 
 of the assemblies of God's people — these are calls 
 not to be put aside on the plea of quiet hours and 
 uninterrupted studies. They are voices of God 
 
250 Condones ad Cleriim. 
 
 throiigli His suffering children, sometimes jarring 
 and unpleasant, but always sacred, whicli a true 
 priest had better himself perish than disregard. 
 How they break in on our dreams of high thinking 
 and our self-chosen schemes of systematic literary 
 work ! How imperatively they shut up the just- 
 opened book that has begun to absorb us, and com- 
 mand us to lay down the pen at the very moment 
 when the mind pulsates with the throbs of a long- 
 looked-for inspiration ! It is our lot to be teachers, 
 not discoverers, to be doers rather than thinkers, to 
 apply the truth already in hand rather than to explore 
 new fields of truth, to represent a Master already 
 enthroned, a kingdom already established, and to 
 utter the finished message of the one and the com- 
 pleted law of the other, rather than to speculate 
 about the possibilities of other leaderships and other 
 empires. I say this is our lot, our vocation, our 
 ministry. Is it too exacting and irksome ? Is the 
 path too steep or too narrow ? Do flesh and blood 
 chafe under it ? There is but one answer. The 
 one High Priest of the ages so ordered it, and He 
 calls no man to follow Him in it to whom self is 
 dearer than the glory ot God and the gift of eternal 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 251 
 
 life to a dying world. Intellectually, then, we 
 cannot, more than others, do all things well. It is 
 enough that we do that well unto which we were 
 set apart, finding in it our strength and our joy, 
 meanwhile neither coveting nor despising other 
 men's goods, 
 
 (6) 1 have now called attention to several influ- 
 ences more or less unfavorable to such a study of the 
 Holy Scriptures as is required by our Ordination en- 
 gagements. It remains for me to speak of another, 
 of the prevalence of which I shall venture no opin- 
 ion. I would rather speak of it as a temptation than 
 as an actual fault, as an enemy to be watched rather 
 than as one already within the camp. Whatever 
 the power over us of the tendencies which have just 
 been considered, none of them throws a doubt upon 
 our good intentions, or questions our devotion to 
 God's word, or impeaches our industry in acquiring 
 the collateral knowledge which shaU fit us to under- 
 stand and expound it. But can I with candor stop 
 here ? Are not some of us tempted to be careless 
 and indolent in the performance of this duty ? Do 
 all of us turn to account, as we might, the resources, 
 and opportunities that we possess ? After allowing 
 
252 Condones ad C lev urn. 
 
 for the thousand distractions and hindrances that 
 beset us, do we throw the time and labor at our 
 command into this duty as we ought ? Are our 
 Bibles well worn with use ? Have they been taken 
 up into us and we into them by such a constant, life- 
 giving reciprocity as will express and complete it- 
 self, sooner or later, in mutual assimilation and 
 finally in identity of tone and purpose ? Are the 
 needed helps always at our side ? Are the words 
 ever recurring to our lips, " Open now mine eyes 
 that I may see the wondrous things of thy law ?" 
 Or, on the other hand, do we study the Word only 
 as the humor takes us, or under some special urgency 
 of preparation for the pulpit or the lecture-room, 
 or when some inquiring parishioner crowds upon us 
 a special difficulty or a troublesome doubt ? Do 
 we seek to be wise in the Scriptures, fully armed at 
 every point, saturated through and through with 
 their spirit, or are we content with not seeming to 
 others to be ignorant of what, professionally, we are 
 bound to know ? I shall not presume to answer 
 these questions. Each must do so for himself and 
 to the Searcher of all hearts. But it will be no 
 breach of charity, certainly, to say that there are 
 
The Grace of Ordinatio7t, 253 
 
 some painful proofs of negligence in this matter, 
 wliicli the honor of the Church, the credit of the 
 ministry, and the good of souls call upon us to re- 
 move without stopping for explanations or apologies. 
 To this counsel I add another by way of cau- 
 tion. The most thoughtful among the clergy are 
 the ones to be most affected by, because most sen- 
 sitive to, the doubting tone of the time. "Whereas, 
 in the past generation, this or that Christian dogma 
 was assailed, now the very records of Christianity 
 are pushed to the front of the battle between the 
 Church and her adversaries. I need not recount 
 the characteristics of the several hostile schools of 
 criticism and philosophy, nor describe their various 
 modes of attack. The fact that they have sown 
 beside all waters the seeds of distrust and suspicion 
 is enough for my purpose. It is only what might 
 be expected that all the studies of the clergy, whether 
 exegetical, or dogmatic, or historical, should have 
 more or less reference to this fact ; some of us hardly 
 work out a sermon without having in mind some 
 one of the recent doubts touching the Faith or the 
 Scriptures. It may be that we do not overrate the 
 prevalence of these doubts in the general mind or 
 
254 Co7iciones ad Clerum. 
 
 In the minds of our own people, nor the importance 
 of meeting them ; but I am quite sure that we do 
 allow them too much influence, as well upon our 
 own frame of mind, as upon the aim and mode in 
 which we study God's word. Difficulties there are, 
 and we should be ready to meet them. But it is 
 one thing to read the Word that we \n.2c^ find Gocfs 
 message to maoi, and quite another thing to read it 
 that we may find ansioers to what man has to say 
 against it. Man's objection may be very serious, 
 but God's truth is of vastly more consequence. 
 There never was a positive that was not followed 
 by eviscerating negatives, and it is quite possible that 
 in our zeal to cut away the latter we may loosen our 
 hold on the former. It is God's own law that no 
 man is qualified to study what He has revealed un- 
 less he can first believe that a revelation has been 
 given. God speaks to faith, and what He says can 
 be known only by faith. This law, and no special 
 emergency of doubt, no transient phase of human 
 thought, no demand, of unbelief on this side or that, 
 no new criticism or philosophy, no fresh ventures of 
 infidelity, be they English, or French, or German, 
 or Dutch, must determine our mental attitude and 
 
The Grace of Ordmation. 255 
 
 fix, as a lighthouse upon the rock, the dominant 
 aim of our studies. Kot a few active and energetic 
 temperaments are restive under the restraints which 
 this law imposes. They have a combative turn and 
 enjoy the exercise of the controversial faculty in 
 the stir and din of conflict. There is something 
 that wakens them to unusual effort and brings into 
 play the weapons slowly forged by years of study. 
 Some new line of doubt, some freshly-planned as- 
 sault, some starthng cry of the enemy advancing to 
 breach the walls where they seem most unprotected, 
 is to them the coveted signal for taking down from 
 the shelf helmet and shield and sword. If there 
 were no dangers, no friction, no conflict, their theo- 
 logical life would stagnate and their vocation would 
 be robbed of one of its dearest charms. Others, 
 again, put forth a distinct effort to bring themselves 
 into intellectual sympathy with assailants of the 
 faith. Their sense of candor and fairness is grati- 
 fied by imagining themselves in the place of their 
 foes with a view to testing the strength of their 
 position. Tliey fancy that they must first realize 
 the doubt, domicile it in their hearts, before they can 
 Bucceesfully cope with it. As to know what temp- 
 
256 Condones ad Cleritm. 
 
 tation is we must first be tempted, so with the doubts 
 and difiiculties of minds that thej desire to lift up 
 to the plane of faith. 
 
 Still others, again, who have, as they believe, 
 their feet firmly poised on the truth, are moved by 
 a certain chivalry of intellect, a sort of passion for 
 adventure in putting the claims of faith alongside 
 the problems of sceptical criticism. They are not 
 willing that all the boldness and courage should be 
 on the side of the assailing party. They are ready 
 to take up a position, however hazardous, provided 
 only it be outside the customary defences. 
 
 ]^ow,with all these types of character the tenden- 
 cy is to drift away from habits of quiet study and 
 tranquil meditation. They ponder the Word of Life 
 as close thinkers and acute inquirers, but their line 
 of thought has more to do with qualifying them to 
 do battle /br the faith, than with building them up 
 in the life which is the fruit of faith. It is their 
 misfortune to gather all other fruits from the Scrip- 
 tures but " the peaceable fruit of righteousness." 
 Missing this, they miss what the Scriptures were 
 intended, before all else, to yield. It may be 
 doubted, therefore, whether the most scholarly and 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 257 
 
 gifted minds are always tlie ones that derive the 
 most spiritual benefit from their own v/ork. Some 
 things are withheld from the wise which are revealed 
 nnto babes. Aright attitude, a proper frame tow- 
 ard the truth as it is in Jesus, is of more conse- 
 quence than great learning ; and if this be true of 
 all believers, it is eminently so of those ordained to 
 be pastors of the flock. For how shall they duly rep- 
 resent Christ unless, above and beyond all else, they 
 have in them the mind of Christ ? 
 
 In all that has been said, it has been my purpose 
 to deal with the hindrances to the diligent and right- 
 minded study of the Holy Scriptures, Though often 
 tempted to enlarge upon its attractions and advan- 
 tages as well on purely intellectual, as on moral and 
 spiritual grounds, I have thought it best to con- 
 fine myself to a view of the subject that could not 
 fail to be of practical moment, because suggested by 
 tendencies without and by experiences within, of 
 which, in these days of reactions and transitions in 
 nearly all matters of religion, none of us could be 
 ignorant. I hav^e tried, moreover, to avoid all dog- 
 matism of thought and language, striving above all 
 for such candor and moderation of statement as 
 
258 Condones ad Clerum. 
 
 would commend what I have deemed it my duty to 
 say to all who desire to think fully and fairly on 
 this and kindred subjects. 
 
 I conclude with the wDrds of a learned and dis- 
 tinguished biblical student whose soundness in the 
 faith and earnestness of Christian living are the best 
 evidence of the scope and spirit of his studies. 
 
 "It is not merely to inform the understanding that 
 Holy Scripture is to be read with such consummate 
 attention and studied with such exceeding care. It 
 is not for the illustration of history, or in order that 
 it may be made a test of the value of other systems 
 of morals ; or to render a man's pulpit addresses at- 
 tractiv^e, or even to enable a parish priest to teach 
 with confidence and authority, that he is entreated 
 now ' to prevent the night watches,' if need be, 
 that he may be occupied with God's Word, Oh no ! 
 It is in order that his inner hfe may be made con- 
 formable to that outer law ; that his aims may be 
 ennobled, and his motives purified, and his earthly 
 hopes made consistent with the winning of an im- 
 perishable crown ! It is in order that when he 
 wavers between right and wrong, the unutterable 
 canon of God's Law may suggest itself to him as a 
 
The Grace of Ordination. 259 
 
 constraining motive. Its aim and real function is 
 that the fiery hour of temptation may find tlie Chris- 
 tian soldier armed with ' the sword of the Spirit, 
 which is the Word of God, ' that the dark season 
 of adversity may find his soul anchored on the Eock 
 of Ages, which alone can prove his soul's sufiicient 
 strength and stay. Under every form of trial, 
 under every strange vicissitude, in sickness and in 
 perplexity and in bereavement and in the hour of 
 death, ' Lord — to whom shall we go ? Thou, 
 tTiou hast the words of eternal life ! ' " * 
 
 * Burgon's " Inspiration and Interpretation," pp. 21, 22. 
 
APPE^^DIX A. 
 
 An at once proof and illustration of tlie low estate 
 into wliicli the dominant casuistry of the Church of 
 Rome has fallen in these days, I cannot forbear to 
 quote certain statements in a late work which are 
 as true and timely, as they are trenchant.* 
 
 " The Roman Church Uncertain in Morals " is 
 the heading under which the following appears : 
 
 " One great use of religion — in one sense the very 
 greatest use — is to guide and govern men's conduct 
 and TTiorals. It is of the utmost importance, seeing 
 how man's own standard of right and wrong shifts 
 and wavers, according to the fashion of the day — as, 
 for example, in the last century, drunkenness was 
 popularly thought no disgrace — that the Church 
 should have a fixed and certain rule of morals, and 
 that rule as pure and lofty as God's own Word. 
 Tet the Roman Church not only has got no such 
 
 * "Plain Reasons against Joining the Churcli of Rome.' 
 By Dr. Littledale. (Pp. 10-13.) 
 
262 Appendix A. 
 
 standard now, but Las actually set up one which is 
 lower and baser and more uncertain by far than the 
 popular one of ordinary folk who make no pretence 
 to bo religious. It has come about in this way — 
 partly in order to make religion a very easy thing, 
 so as to prevent man from shaking it off altogether ; 
 but partly also to provide excuses for many evil 
 things constantly said or done to promote the inter- 
 ests of Romanism itself — a system has been steadily 
 built up called casuistry, for dealing with separate 
 cases of sins which at any rate seem to be condemn- 
 ed by broad general laws of God. And this casuis. 
 try is now governed by a principle called probahil- 
 ism, the simple meaning of which is this : That if 
 something be plainly forbidden by God's law of 
 morals, and you have a mind to do it, you may do 
 it in tlie teeth, not only of the Bible, but of most of 
 the chief writers on morals, provided you can get 
 the opinion of one casuistical writer in your favor, 
 even though it be plainly weaker and less probable 
 than that of those who bid you obey God's la,w. It 
 is just as if a man could claim acquittal of any crime 
 die had committed, though forbidden by the laws of 
 Great Britain, and punished scores of times over by 
 
Appendix A. 263 
 
 the courts of justice, if he would plead that he got 
 an opinion from some tenth-rate barrister that there 
 was no wrong-doing in it. If, as a matter of fact, a 
 high hne were taken by Roman casuists on moral 
 questions, perhaps no great practical harm could be 
 done by this theory ; but there is hardly any sin, 
 however heinous, for which they do not find ex- 
 cuses. And the chief authority on morals now in 
 the Roman. Church is St. Alfonso Liguori, whose 
 teaching all Roman CatJiolio confessors are noio 
 hound to follow in the confessional, since he has been 
 raised to the rank of a ' Doctor of the Church. ' 
 
 "Asa saint, according to the Roman doctrine, 
 there can be no error in his writings, but as a doctor^ 
 not only is there no error in his writings, but it is nec- 
 essai^y to submit to his teachings. (Benedict XIV. , 
 " De Canonizatione, " iv. 2 ; xi. 11.) J^ow, he says, 
 for example : (1) That the actual assassins of a man 
 are not equally guilty with their instigator, whom he 
 admits to incur excommunication (" Theol. Moral." 
 iv. 364) ; (2) That if A murder B, in order that C 
 may be suspected of the murder, and thereby suffer 
 loss of any kind, A is not bound to make C any 
 compensation unless he be a ' worthy person ' (iv. 
 
264 Appendix A. 
 
 587) ; (3) That if a clerical adulterer be caught by 
 the husband, he may lawfully kill the husband, and 
 does not incur ' irregularity' tliereby, provided 
 his visit was secret, so that he had a reasonable ex- 
 pectation of escaping detection ; though, if he have 
 openly braved the diuiger, he does incur ' irregular- 
 ity ' (iv. 398) ; (4) That an adultei'ess may deny 
 her sin on oath, either by saying that she has not 
 broken the marriage tie (since adultery does not void 
 it), or, if she have gone to confession, that she is 
 innocent of the sin because it has been waslied away 
 in confession ; or, again, that she has not committed 
 it, i.e.^ so as to be bound to acknowledge it (i v. 162) ; 
 
 (5) That a man may swear aloud to any false state- 
 ment, provided he add some true circumstances in 
 an undertone, unheard by the bystanders (v. 108) ; 
 
 (6) That it is lawful to swear to a quibble or to per- 
 jure one's self before a judge, if any great loss or in- 
 convenience would follow to a witness from speak- 
 ing the truth (iv. 151-6) ; (7) That a nobleman 
 ashamed to beg or work, may steal to supply his 
 needs if he be poor (iv. 520). 
 
 ' ' Further, Liguori republished as a text-book and 
 dedicated to Pope Benedict XI Y., the ' Marrow of 
 
Appendix A. 265 
 
 Moral Theology,' by Biisenbaum, the Jesuit, from 
 which the following maxims are taken : 
 
 " (1) Avery poor man may steal what is necessary 
 for the relief of his own want ; and what a man may 
 steal for himself, he may also steal for any other 
 very destitute person ; (2) Any one trying to pre- 
 vent such a theft may be lawfully killed by the thief 
 (Tom. iii. lib. iii. par 1, Tract 5, c. 1). 
 
 ' ' Escobar, another famous casuist, lays down that 
 a member of a religions order who lays aside his 
 habit for a short time, in order to commit some sin 
 undetected, does not sin heinously nor incur ex- 
 communication {Theol. Moral, I. xliv. 213). 
 
 " These are only," adds the writer, " a very few 
 examples out of many affecting every one of the 
 moral commandments." 
 
APPEIs^DIX B. 
 
 In a note, page 10, stating the powers and func- 
 tions of the priesthood, that relating to the remit- 
 ting of sins was included, together with a brief ref- 
 erence to the several authorized methods of exer- 
 cising this power, the last named of which was Ab- 
 solution. This, with its immediately affiliated top- 
 ics, has, of late years, and for reasons known to all, 
 been pushed into great prominence in all discus- 
 sions touching the powers of the priesthood and the 
 discipline of the Church. The time has come 
 when it is imperatively necessary for the clergy to 
 displace vague impressions and crude or uncertain 
 opinions on it by definite and positive convictions, 
 resting upon the mind of Scripture as interpreted 
 and practised by this branch of the Catholic Church. 
 It is impossible to thrust it aside ; indifferent we 
 cannot be. Whatever a particular school may hold, 
 and whatever may be the doubt lingering in some 
 minds in regard to it, there is no question as to the 
 
Appendix B. 267 
 
 attitude or tlie testimonj of tliis Cliurcli concerning 
 it, so far as they are capable of authoritative defini- 
 tion , apart from the action of a duly called and duly 
 organized synod of the whole Anglo-American 
 Church. Only less than the formal authority of 
 such a hody was that of the late Lambeth Confer- 
 ence (1878), composed of Archbishops, bishops 
 Metropolitan, and other bishops of the Holy Catho- 
 lic Church, in full communion with the Church of 
 England, one hundred in number, all exercising 
 superintendence over dioceses or lawfully commis- 
 sioned to exercise episcopal functions therein, many 
 of them from the most distant parts of the earth, 
 and assembled under the presidency of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. This Conference, among 
 other important acts, put upon record and pub- 
 lished to the Church with a unanimous approval, 
 the following declaration which, in covering the 
 subject of Confession, covers also, by necessary in- 
 ference, that of Absolution, for the view of Con- 
 fession which it condemns has neither force nor rel- 
 evancy except as it is connected with a correspond- 
 ing view of Absolution. 
 
 (1) It affirmed " that in the matter of Confession 
 
268 Appendix B. 
 
 the Churclies of the Anglican Communion hold fast 
 those principles which are set forth in the Holy 
 Scriptures, which were professed by the Primitive 
 Church, and which were reaffirmed at the English 
 Reformation. 
 
 (2) ' ' That no minister of the Church is authorized 
 to require from those who may resort to him to 
 open their grief a particular or detailed enumeration 
 of all their sins ; to require private confession pre- 
 vious to receiving the Holy Communion ; or to en- 
 join or even encourage the practice of habitual con- 
 fession to a priest ; or to teach that such practice of 
 habitual eonfesson, or the being subject to what has 
 been termed the direction of a priest, is a condition 
 of attaining to the highest spiritual hfe. 
 
 (3) ' ' That at the same time they are not to be un- 
 derstood as desiring to limit in any way the pro- 
 vision made in the Book of Common Prayer, for 
 the relief of troubled consciences." 
 
 It would seem impossible to use plainer or 
 stronger language. When this declaration was put 
 forth, it was expected that it would provoke criti- 
 cism and dissent among those whose teaching and 
 practice were rebuked with so much emphasis, but 
 
Appendix B. 269 
 
 it was not expected that any attempt would be 
 made to evade or explain it away. And yet sueli 
 attempts liave been made and witli a boldness and 
 assurance simj^ly astounding. 
 
 Having given the Declaration of the Conference, 
 I think it well to give the grounds on which it was 
 based, and I shall do this in the admirable words of 
 Dr. Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, who is not 
 more renowned for his learning than for his sound- 
 ness in the faith. I do not mean that what follows 
 was actually presented to the Conference and for 
 mally adopted by it, but merely that it states with 
 substantial correctness the views held by ninety-five 
 hundredths of those whose names were signed to 
 the letter of wliich the above declaration formed a 
 part. 
 
 It will be observed that the Bishop introduces 
 what he has to say on Confession with some general 
 observations on Absolution. 
 
 " Unhappily the forms of public absolution, in the 
 Church of England, are now undervalued by some, 
 on two pleas ; 
 
 (1) Because they are declaratory and precatory, 
 that is, because in them the priest declares and pro- 
 
270 Appendix B. 
 
 nounces forgiveness in God's name, and for 
 Christ's sake, as in the daily office ; or because (as 
 in the Communion Service) he prays for the be- 
 stowal of pardon from God on those who have con- 
 fessed their sins, but does not say ' ' I absolve thee 
 from thy sins," and because in their opinion (as in 
 that of the Trent Council*) the principal force of 
 the form of what the Church of Rome calls the 
 Sacrament of Penance consists in the use of those 
 words, " Ego dbsolvo ^e," and because consequently 
 the use of that form is necessary ; and further, 
 
 (2) Because the above words of absolution are 
 spoken in piiblic to many persons confessing their 
 sins to God, and not in private to one singly con- 
 fessing his sins to the priest. 
 
 With regard to the first of these reasons we may 
 reply, that, if it had any weight, there was no ab- 
 solution of sins pronounced in the Church for eleven 
 hundred years after Christ, inasmuch as it is un- 
 questionable that all the forms of absolution used 
 in the Church during that time were declaratory^ 
 
 * Concil. Tridentin. Sess. xiv. cap. 3, and Thomas Aquinas, 
 Sumnia, Pars iii. qu. 84 ; cp. Hooker, VI. iv. 3. 
 f Peter Lombard, one of the greatest Roman Catholic 
 
Appendix B. 271 
 
 or precatory, 2ii:\di the form,"/ absoUe thee'^ 
 (altliough an allowable form* wlien rightly ap- 
 plied), was not used till the eleventh century after 
 Christ, and has not been used in the Greek Church 
 to this day. 
 
 divines and schoolmen of the twelfth century, the scholar of St. 
 Bernard, and professor of theology at Paris, afterward bishop 
 there (a.d. 1160), and commonly called the " Master of the 
 Sentences," affirmed that all forms of absolution were in fact 
 declaratory. (See the remarkable words in hig " Libri Seuteu- 
 tiarum," Lib. iv., Distinct. 18, p. 375, ed. Paris, 1841.) He 
 thus speaks : '* It is evident from what has been said, that God 
 himself releases the penitent from liability to punishment ; and 
 he releases him then when he enlightens his soul and gives him 
 true contrition of heart. Therefore, he is not loosed from 
 everlasting wrath by the priest to whom he confesses his sin, 
 but he is already loosed by God, to whom he has made his 
 confession." And Peter Lombard then quotes St. Ambrose, St, 
 Augustine, and St. Jerome to the same effect ; and compares 
 the work of absolution to the raising of Lazarus from the 
 grave. Lazarus was raised by Christ, who afterward com- 
 manded his disciples to loose him from his grave-clothes, and 
 let him go. (John 11 : 44.) So it is with the penitent. And 
 (following St. Jerome in his note on Matt, 16) he illustrates it 
 by the act of the Levitical priest, avIio declared the leper to be 
 clean, and to be restored to communion with the people of 
 God ; but the act of healing was the act of God, and of God 
 alone ; and " God regards not so much the sentence of the 
 priest as the heart and life of the penitent." 
 * See Bingham, xix. ii. 6. 
 
2/2 Appendix B. 
 
 This is acknowledged by tlie most learned divines 
 of the Church of Rome herself,* and has been 
 shown at large by our own writers, f 
 
 The second allegation is, that the virtue of abso- 
 lution consists in Wio, jprivate exercise of the priestly 
 office on the souls of individuals in the Confes- 
 sional ; and that our Lord's words had special refer- 
 ence to that exercise. 
 
 This, then, brings us to examine the question of 
 private confession. 
 
 What is to be said concerning it ? 
 
 First, let it not be supposed:}: that we would dis- 
 parage that sober and comforting use of " the min- 
 istry of reconciliation, "§ which Holy Scripture and 
 
 * E.g., Morinus, " De Penitentia," lib. viii. c. 8. The work 
 of Thomas Aquiuas in dufeuce of that form may be seen in his 
 ■works, vol. xix. p. 17G, ed. Venet. 1787. 
 
 f E.g. Abp. Ussher, " Answer to a Jesuit,'-' p. 89 ; see also 
 Bp. Fell in his edition of St. Cyprian, " De Lapsis," p. 136 ; 
 and Marshall in his learned work on the " Penitential Dis- 
 cipline of the Ancient Church," chap. iii. sect. iv. ; Bingham, 
 " Antiquities," xix. ii., and vol. viii. p. 450-454. 
 
 X Some sentences which follow have been printed by the 
 author in the Twelve Addresses delivered at his visitation in 
 1873. 
 
 § 2 -Cor. 5 : 18. 
 
Appendix B. 273 
 
 the Primitive Church sanction, and which the 
 Church of England commends to her children, in 
 special cases, in the Exhortation to the Holy Com- 
 munion, and in the Office for the Yistation of the 
 Sick.* "We do not forget that our best divines have 
 recommended it, in certain circumstances, and under 
 certain conditions, f and that the most celebrated 
 foreign Reformers, Calvin, Beza, and the authors 
 of the Lutheran "Confession,":}: have done the 
 same. On the contrary, we feel persuaded that in 
 this as in other matters, the abuse of what in special 
 cases and under certain restrictions is good and 
 wholesome, holy and wise, has created a prejudice 
 against the use of it. 
 
 The Church of England, in her Exhortation to 
 the Holy Communion, recommends private confes- 
 sion of sin to those of her children who " cannot 
 otherwise quiet their own consciences, but require 
 
 * Compare Hooker, VI. iv. 6 and 15. 
 
 t E.g., Bp. Jewel, " Apol.," p. 158, ed. 1611 ; Hooker, VI. 
 vi. 5, especially Ridley, " Life of Bishop Ridley , " pp. 136, 145, 
 153, 236. 336, 578. 
 
 X Calvin, " Institut.," iv c. 1 ; Beza, Homil. 16, in " Hist. 
 Resurrect.," p. 394, 395 ; " Confessio Augustan.," Art. xi. xii. 
 Cheranit. Cou. Trid. pp. 878, 894. 
 
2 74 Appendix B. 
 
 further comfort and counsel. ' ' And in her Office 
 for the Visitation of the Sick she says that if the 
 sick person feels his conscience troubled with any 
 weighty matter, he is to be moved by the priest to 
 make a special confession of his sins. 
 
 The reasons why she does this in the former of 
 these two special cases are clearly stated by herself, 
 in that Exhortation ; and the causes why she does 
 it in the latter are declared by Hooker,* as fol- 
 lows : " They who during life and health are never 
 destitute of ways to elude repentance, do, notwith- 
 standing, oftentimes when their last hour draweth 
 on, both feel that sting which before lay dead in 
 them, and also thirst after such helps as have been 
 always till then unsavory. . . . Yea, because 
 to countervail the fault of delay, there are in the 
 latest repentance, oftentimes, the surest tokens of 
 sincere deahng, therefore, upon special confession 
 made to the minister of God, he presently absolv- 
 eth, in this case, the sick party from all his sins 
 by that authority which Jesus Christ hath com- 
 mitted to him. ' ' But surely, to infer from these two 
 exceptional cases that the Church of England 
 
 * Hooker, VLiv. 5. 
 
Appejtdix B. 275 
 
 authorizes her ministers to recommend private con- 
 fession as a regular practice is strangely to pervert 
 her words, and to affirm that she intends her clergy 
 to feed her children with medicines which she has 
 provided for the sick. 
 
 Again, she exhorts those who are troubled in 
 mind, and who cannot quiet their own consciences, 
 to resort ' ' to some discreet and learned minister of 
 God's Word, and open liis grief ; that by the min- 
 istry of God's Holy Word he may have the benefit 
 of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and ad- 
 vice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding 
 of all scruple and doubtfulness. ' ' But some among 
 us would invert this order ; they would constrain 
 the people of a parish to come habitually and con- 
 fess to their minister, who may be some youthful 
 priest, perhaps neither learned nor discreet, and 
 who may be more able to create scruples and doubt- 
 fulness in the minds of others than to quiet them 
 by the ministry of God's Holy Word. And some 
 would persuade us that the solemn words of our 
 Blessed Lord, pronounced at the Ordination of 
 Priests at the laying on of hands, have been spoken 
 to little purpose unless the newly-made priest ap- ' 
 
276 Appendix B. 
 
 plies himself at once to exercise liis ministry by hear- 
 ing private confessions and by pronouncing private 
 absolutions. 
 
 The Church of Rome wsiely requires that a per- 
 son who undertakes the difficult and responsible 
 office of hearing confessions should be eminent in 
 theological science, learning, and wisdom,* 
 
 This is a grave and serious matter. In the med- 
 
 * See the Trent Catechism, pt. ii. cap.v, qii. 49, where this 
 rule is laid down, " Ut hujus sacramenti minister tuni scienlia. 
 et eruditione lum prudentia. praeditus sit. Judicis euim et 
 medici simul personam gerit. Ex quo i^oterunt fideles intel- 
 ligere, cuivis maximo studio curandum esse, ut eum sibi 
 sacerdotem eligat, quem vitue iutegrilas, doctrina, prudens 
 judicium, commendet, qui, quai cuique sceleri poena conveniat, 
 et qui vel solvendi vel ligaudi sint, optime noverit. " Carlo 
 Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, in his " Monita ud Confes- 
 sores" of his diocese, thus writes : " Let no secular or regular 
 priest presume to minister the sacrament of penance (in this 
 diocese) unless he has first obtained from us a written license 
 and faculty to do so, as the Council of Trent prescribes ; other- 
 wise he will have incurred excommuuication ipso facto." It 
 would be well if priests of the Church of England, who are 
 eager to constraia others to come to them for confession, 
 would carefully read these " Monita ad Coufcssores" of one of 
 the wisest and holiest bishops of the Church of Rome. In the 
 Greek Church (says Dr. Covel on the " Greek Church," p. 
 353), " II confessor ought to be a most expert casuist, and be at 
 'fea^t forty years old» 
 
Appendix B. 277 
 
 ical treatment of our perisliable bodies, quackery is 
 punishable by law. Surely, spiritual empiricism, 
 which may jeopardize the health of immortal souls, 
 ought not to escape scot-free. The physician of the 
 body is not allow^ed to write a prescription without 
 having obtained a diploma ; and shall any one ven- 
 ture to undertake the office of a penitentiary in the 
 Church of God, without being duly qualified and 
 authorized to do so ? Heaven forbid ! I confess 
 that when I think of devout persons, especially 
 young women of ardent affections and delicate sen- 
 fiibilities, being invited, and almost constrained, per- 
 haps, by some youthful priest, to resort habitually 
 to private confession, I shudder at the thought. 
 By so doing, instead of looking up to God as their 
 loving Father, having His ear open to their prayers, 
 and ever ready to receive them on their faith and 
 repentance, as His dear children in Christ, they are 
 led to look to a man, and to seek comfort and for- 
 giveness of him. They put themselves under his 
 dominion, and thus submit tlieir will, reason, and 
 conscience to him^ and rob Christ of themselves, 
 whom He has purchased with His own Blood.* 
 
 * 1 Ccr. 6:20; T : 83 Oal. 5:1. 
 
278 Appendix B. 
 
 And further, Ly being tempted to brood over tlieir 
 own sj)iritual sensations, emotions, and symptoms, 
 and to talk or write of tliem to tlieir chosen spiritual 
 guides, they are in danger of acquiring an egotisti- 
 cal spii'it of seK-consciousness, and of morbid and 
 hypochondriacal sentimentalism, and to lose that 
 healthful vigor and genuine freshness and holy 
 beauty of soul which are produced and cherished by 
 direct communion with God, and by looking up- 
 ward to Him, and by losing self in adoration of 
 Him, and in zeal for His glory, and in love for His 
 presence in the heart — which is the life of angels. 
 I shrink from the thought of the anatomical dissec- 
 tion of consciences to which such votaries are re- 
 quired to submit, and from that long catalogue of 
 interrogatories which may be seen in some " Man- 
 uals of Confession" — as taught and practised by the 
 Church of Rome* — and which are an outrage 
 against purity, modesty, and virtue. 
 
 It is earnestly to be hoped, for reasons such as 
 these, that the desires and intentions of some per- 
 sons to introduce the practice of private confession 
 
 * E.g., that of Peter Dens. 
 
Appendix B. 279 
 
 into Englisli scliools, public and private, may 
 never be realized. 
 
 But let the clergy be exliorted to cultivate liabits 
 of personal intercourse with their parishioners, 
 especially the young, in preparing them for Confir- 
 mation^ and as members of communicant classes. 
 And let them urge upon them the importance and 
 necessity of regular self-exam^ination y and for this 
 purpose let them recommend to each of them some 
 good manual of self-examination, such as may be 
 found in Bishop Ken's "Exposition of the Church 
 Catechism. ' ' 
 
 Private confession is exacted by the Church of 
 Kome, which has converted penance into a sacra- 
 ment ; and she, by requiring private confession as a 
 prerequisite to the Ploly Communion, places one 
 sacrament, made by herself, as a bar to the recep- 
 tion of the Sacarament of the Lord's Supper, insti- 
 tuted by Christ.* And whereas the Holy Spirit 
 says, by St. Paul, " Let a man examine himself^ 
 and so let him cat of that bread and drink of that 
 
 * " Concil. Lateran." IV. a.d. 1215, can. 21; " Concil. 
 Trident.," Sess. xiii, cap. 7, can. 11; "Catechism. Rom,.," 
 Part II., cap. iv. qu. 43. Cp. Hooker, VI. iv. 3. 
 
28o Appendix B. 
 
 cup,"* she says, "Let a man confess to a priest 
 and submit himself to be examined by a priest, and 
 so let him come to Comnmnion ;" and also, where- 
 as St. Johnf says, " If we confess our sins, God is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins," she ven- 
 tures to say that it is necessary to resort to the 
 human minister in order to obtain pardon from 
 God, whose servant he is. And confession in the 
 Church of Rome is not so much a voluntary unbur- 
 dening of sorrow on the part of the penitent, as an 
 inquisitorial scrutiny of the penitent on the part of 
 the priest. 
 
 Holy Scripture speaks much concerning the duty 
 of repentance, but in no case does it require con- 
 fession, as a matter of necessity, to any one but 
 God. 
 
 The examples of acknowledgments of sin which 
 are mentioned in the New Testament as being made 
 to men are either public avowals of public sin, as 
 that of those who came to St. John's Baptism,:}: 
 and of the men at Ephesus,§ and of St. Paul at 
 Jerusalem, for his share in the death of St. Stephen, || 
 
 * 1 Cor. 11 : 28. f 1 John 1:9. % Matt. 3 : 6. 
 
 § Acts 19: 18. \ Acts 23:20. 
 
Appendix B. 281 
 
 -^ 
 
 or else they were confessions of wrong clone to a 
 brother, and with a petition for pardon from him, 
 as those specified by St. James,* To cite again the 
 words of Richard Hooker :t " There are men that 
 would seem to honor Antiquity, and none more to 
 depend on the reverend judgment thereof. 1 dare 
 boldly affirm that for many hundred years after 
 Christ, the Fathers held no such opinion concern- 
 ing our Saviour's words, ' Whose sins ye remit they 
 are remitted, and whose sins ye retain they are re- 
 tained ' (John 20 : 23) ; they did not gather by our 
 Saviour's words any such necessity of seeking the 
 priest's absolution from sin by secret and (as 
 they now term it) sacramental confession ; public 
 confession they thought necessary by way of dis- 
 cipline, not private confession as in the nature of 
 a sacrament, necessary." Again, he says, (YI. 
 4 : 14) : "In the times of the Holy Fathers it was 
 not the faith and doctrine of God's Church, as it is 
 of the Papacy at the present time, (1) that the only 
 remedy for sin after baptism is sacramental peni- 
 tency ; (2) that confession in secret is an essential 
 part thereof ; (3) that God himself cannot now for- 
 * James 5 : 14, 16. f Hooker, YI. iv. 6. 
 
282 Appendix B. 
 
 » 
 
 give sin with out the priest ; (4) that because for- 
 giveness at the hands of the priest must arise from 
 confession in the offenders, therefore confession 
 unto him is a matter of such necessity as being not, 
 either in deed or at the least in desire, performed, 
 excludeth utterly from all pardon. jSTo, no ; these 
 opinions have youth in their countenance. An- 
 tiquity knew them not ; it never thought or 
 dreamed of them. ' ' 
 
 Public confession is recommended to penitents 
 by Tertullian* and by Cyprianf and St. Ambrose, :j: 
 with a view of obtaining the benefit of the prayers 
 of the Church. In the third century, as it seems, § 
 in order to obviate the scandals that arose " from 
 the multitude of public penitents,"" the Greek 
 Church appointed some one presbyter to be a peni- 
 tentiary in each church, to receive voluntary con- 
 fessions in j)rivate, with a view to public penance, if 
 
 * Tertullian, " De Poenitent.," c. 9 and c. 10 ; Bingham, 
 Book VII. chap. iii. 
 
 t St. Cyprian, " De Lapsis," c. 14 
 
 X St. Ambrose, " De Pcenitentia," ii. 7; Quid tereris apud 
 honum Dominum tuas iniquitatesfateri? and ii, 10, Fleatpro te 
 Mater Ecclesia ; amat Christus ut pro uno muUi rogent. 
 
 § See Mr. Keble on Hooker, VI. iv. 9. 
 
Appendix B. 283 
 
 requisite, and consequent absolution by the bishop. 
 But this office was abohshed by Nectarius, Patri- 
 arch of Constantinople, at the end of the fourth 
 century,* and the successor of Nectarius, St. Cliry- 
 sostom, in several places gives as his counsel to pen- 
 itents to confess their sins to God ; but disclaims 
 any desire of making them confess to man.f Let 
 the reader refer to the testimonies collected by 
 Bingham on this subject.:}: At that time, confes- 
 sion of secret sins to God alone was the practice of 
 the Church. § Public offenders were put to 
 public penance, but the confession of secret sins 
 
 * Socrates, H. E., v. 19 ; Sozomen vii. 16. Cp. Hooker, 
 VI. iv. 
 
 f St. Chrysostom, " Homil." xxxi. " Epist. ad Hebroeos," 
 torn. xii. p. 289, ed. Montfaucon, and " De Incomprehensibili 
 Deinatura," Horail. v. sec. 7, torn. i. p. 490, where lie says, " I 
 do not lead theo into a theatre of thy fellow-servants, or compel 
 thee to reveal thy sins to men ; unfold thy conscience before 
 God, and show thy wounds to him, and beseech him to heal 
 them." 
 
 • X Cp. Bingham, Book XV. chap. viii. sec. 6, and Book 
 XVIII. chap. iii. 
 
 § See Bingham, chap, iii., and Marshall's " Penitential Dis- 
 cipline," chap. ii. sec. i. p. 43, ed. Oxford, 1844. 
 
284 Appendix B. 
 
 was left to the discretion and conscience of those 
 who committed them.* 
 
 Indeed, if private confession and private abso- 
 lution were, as some allege, necessary to the spirit- 
 ual health of the soul, it must be acknowledged that 
 the Church of God was in a state of spiritual sick- 
 ness from the time of the Holy Apostles for 1200 
 years ; for it was not till the year after Christ 1215 
 that private confession was made obligatory even 
 "by the Church of Rome ,t and then only once a 
 year. 
 
 And now, let me say a few words in conclusion. 
 
 In the controversies on this subject which now 
 agitate the minds of many among us, let us endea- 
 vor, with God's help, to cherish a spirit of calm- 
 ness and of love. In the strifes of earth, let us lift 
 up our hearts to the peace of heaven. Let us 
 praise God for the blessings He has bestowed on us 
 in the Church of England, where we enjoy, by His 
 
 * Marshall, p. 44. Bingham, Book XV. chap. viii. sec. 6. 
 
 f At the Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 21, Concil. ed. 
 Labbe, xi. p. 172. That private confession was not enforced 
 in the twelfth century is clear from the words of Gratian, in 
 Jus Canonicum, " Dist. de PoenitentiS," c. 79. 
 
Appendix B. 285 
 
 mercy, all things necessary for our growth in grace 
 on earth and for the attainment of everlasting glory 
 in heaven. Let ns bless Him for the wisdom He 
 has given to the Church of England to pursue a 
 middle course between two opposite extremes. 
 
 On the one side, let us shun the error of those 
 who do wrong to Him, and injure their own souls 
 and those of others, by scorning those spiritual 
 comforts which He offers by the ministry of the 
 Christian priesthood, deriving its authority from 
 Christ, who breathed on the Apostles and said, 
 " Receive the Holy Ghost ; whosesoever sins ye re- 
 mit, they are remitted unto them." 
 
 On the other side, let us avoid the dangerous de- 
 lusion of those who do dishonor to God and to 
 Christ, and restrain and curtail His free grace and 
 mercy to the wounded and bleeding soul, by teach- 
 ing that there is no remedy for mortal sin after bap- 
 tism but by ' ' the Sacrament of Penance ' ' ; and 
 that no contrition of the heart, and no confession of 
 the Kps, are of any avail, without the intervention 
 of a spiritual guide ; and that no reparation of 
 wrong, no amendment of life, no works of piety 
 and mercy, no fasting, no almsgiving, are of use 
 
286 Appendix B. 
 
 10 the penitent, except imposed by a confessor ; and 
 who bind all men npon pain of everlasting condem- 
 nation to make private confession of every great 
 offence tbat they know and remember that they 
 have ever committed against God, and who affirm 
 that He will never pardon our sins imless we first 
 reveal them to a priest, or earnestly desire to do 
 so.* 
 
 Of these two errors, that which I have just de- 
 scribed has, by an excess of reaction common in 
 human affairs, produced the former. If, therefore, 
 we are desirous for the sake of Christ and of His 
 Church, that the Christian priesthood should re- 
 ceive due honor from the people, let us beware of 
 claiming more for it than has been granted to it by 
 Christ, lest by lording it over God's heritage (1 Pet. 
 5 : 3) we forfeit the reverence of those whose love 
 is a precious talent entrusted to us by Him. 
 
 * See " Concil. Tridentiu.," Sess. xiv. chap. 1-9; " De 
 Sacramento PiKnitentise;" Bellamiiuelib. iv. " DePceniteutia," 
 torn. iii. ed. 1615, pp. 376-483, especially lib. iii. p. 435, where 
 he says that "no one who has sinned after baptism can be 
 "irrstored without the ministry of the priest." Perrone, " De 
 Pojaiteutia," pp. 344-354, ed. Paris, 1843. Cp. Hooker, VI. 
 Vi. Bingham, vol. iii. p. 432. 
 
Appendix B. 287 
 
 The gift of pardon for sin is from God alone. 
 But the assurance of the bestowal of the gift is con- 
 veyed to us by the ministry of the priesthood ; the 
 act of which, in pronouncing absolution, is a proof 
 to us of the reahty of the gift, because the ministry 
 of the priesthood was instituted and appointed by 
 Christ, and is commissioned by Him to certify us 
 of the fact of the gift. The act of the Priest or 
 bishop, standing up in the congregation, while we 
 are kneeling on our knees, and in that attitude of 
 authority pronouncing absolution and invoking 
 God's pardon upon us, in the name of God, ' ' who 
 hath given power and commandment to his minis- 
 ters to declare and pronounce to his people, being 
 penitent, the absolution and remission of their 
 sins," is like a royal seal and authentic sign-manual 
 attached to a reprieve, brought by a royal officer 
 and delegate to a penitent criminal, and assuring 
 him of pardon from his sovereign."* 
 
 * Bishop of Liucolu's Miscellanies. 
 
APPENDIX C. 
 
 I HAVE, in general terms, contrpisted the Mystical 
 and Patristic with the Modern or Literal method of 
 biblical interpretation. The subject demands a 
 more particular treatment. It is, indeed, surpris- 
 ing, when we consider its grave importance, how 
 little attention it has excited of late years among 
 even the most vigilant observers of the religious and 
 theological symptoms of the times. The two 
 methods have their root and ground in widely-sun- 
 dered views of the rules of biblical interpretation, 
 as well as of the fundamental canons of theology. 
 The ancient method is deductive and inductive, the 
 modern inductive ; the ancient method accepts the 
 faith as a completed thing from the start, and regards 
 theological science as performing its highest func- 
 tion when it commits itself to the task of handing 
 on the Catholic tradition of revealed truth, and of 
 ascertaining the fidelity with which that tradition 
 has been transmitted unchanged from age to age. 
 
Appendix C. 289 
 
 The modern method, on the other hand, treats the 
 faith as practicallj a progressive science, and as ca- 
 pahle of indefinite improvement — as beginning in 
 crude imjjerfection and as gradually evolving itself 
 nto completeness under the conditions and with the 
 helps of human thought ; and by necessary conse- 
 quence it conceives of Holy Scripture as not only con- 
 taining the subject-matter of a formulated faith, but 
 as emerging more and more out of the shadows of 
 past errors of interpretation, and, as it does so, min- 
 istering to the advance of theological science, and 
 compelling more or less radical modifications in the 
 current statement and formulation of the essentials 
 of the faith. It cannot be denied that the Sacred 
 Record itself affirms that the faith was once and for- 
 ever delivered, and that, as so delivered, the j)eople 
 of God are exhorted not only to profess but ear- 
 nestly contend for it. And yet, somehow, the mod- 
 ern method does not deem it inconsistent with this 
 fact to insist that the faith includes within itself the 
 possibilities of indefinite improvement, and hence 
 of indefinite change. 
 
 Again, the ancient method relied largely upon 
 the testimony of the Church to the meaning of the 
 
290 Appendix C. 
 
 Scriptures, and accepted as its supreme canon of in- 
 terpretation " the analogy of faitli " — a pervading 
 unity in God's Word to wliich all particular exposi- 
 tions of tlie 'Word must be conformed. Tliere was, 
 it believed, a continuous witness, an incorporated, or- 
 ganic voice of tbe body of Christ, from which no 
 individual interpreter of the Word was at liberty to 
 depart. The modern rule, on the other hand, if it 
 does not reject this voice of the whole Body, at 
 least subordinates it to the mind of the individual 
 expositor. By this ruling every critic renounces 
 his prerogatives who does not bear himself as 
 though he were a sufficient rule in himself. 
 
 Thus, these methods are radically oj:)posed to one 
 another : 
 
 (1) In their conception of the Church in its rela- 
 tions to the Scriptures. 
 
 (2) In their conception of the ancient creeds as 
 the formal and systematic expression of the mind 
 of the Scriptures. 
 
 (3) In their estimate of the authority of the indi- 
 vidual judgment upon the teaching of the Scriptures. 
 
 (4) In their view of the process, whether deduct- 
 ive or inductive, by which the fundamentals of 
 
Appendix C. 291 
 
 Christianity are to be discovered in and elaborated 
 oiit of the Scriptures, 
 
 (5) (And this is the difference now especially un- 
 der consideration), the two methods are opposed in 
 their conception of the Word of God itself — the 
 one insisting that besides the literal, it has often an 
 occult or mystical meaning ; the other that it has 
 but one sense and that the literal one. 
 
 (6) As an inevitable logical as well as exegeti. 
 cal result of these characteristic differences, the 
 ancient method rests on the assumption that 
 the Word of God is in essence and form the Word 
 of God, and hence that it is not to be handled 
 as any other book may be ; that as the work of the 
 Holy Spirit, it has attributes peculiar to itself, 
 and that these attributes must be admitted and 
 duly respected by any and all criticism that hopes to 
 do it justice ; whereas, the modern, while admit- 
 ting, in a somewhat general way, that such is its 
 character, claims that we cannot deal justly and 
 truthfully with it unless we hold it to be amenable 
 to precisely the same rules and appliances of inter- 
 pretation which are applicable to the pages of Ho- 
 mer and Cicero. • 
 
292 Appendix C. 
 
 So much by way of general and prefatory state- 
 ment, before entering upon the particular questions 
 now to be discussed. 
 
 Historically, the Patristic or Mystical method has 
 held a large place in the mind of the Church and 
 exercised a powerful influence over its theology, its 
 worship, and its life. This is undeniable. But the 
 issue now raised at the very threshold of the subject, 
 obliges us to ask whether it has any place in reason 
 as well as in history. Has it a philosophy, a ra- 
 tionale behind it ? Or, is it at once a creature and 
 a delusion of the imagination ? Certainly, by the 
 modern school it is accounted at once a folly and an 
 impertinence ; and the fact that it held sway so long 
 is cited as only another evidence of the j)atient ser- 
 vility of the human intellect when once brought 
 under the domination of estabhshed errors. That I 
 may do no injustice to the general attitude, or to the 
 characteristic utterances of this school, let me quote 
 its own language. 
 
 It is now more than twenty years ago since " Es- 
 says and Reviews " appeared — a volume which, 
 c >ming as it did, from seven well-known clergymen 
 of the Church -of England, shocked the conscience 
 
Appendix C. 293 
 
 and puzzled the common sense of Englisli-speakinp; 
 Christians throughont the world. It is now p:ir- 
 tially forgotten, or, at any rate, seldom recalled, 
 and chiefly for the reason that it has been supplant- 
 ed by the more advanced and honest scepticism of 
 to-day, of which, in the Anglican Communion, it 
 was the half disguised and crafty avant courrier. 
 Though many, at the time it appeared, could not 
 persuade themselves or be persuaded of its mischiev- 
 ous character, there were others, who had already 
 sunk to a lower depth of unbelief, that did see and 
 expose it. The Westminster lieview, No. 3-4, in 
 an able and trenchant article on " New Christian- 
 ity," declares that this work had "discarded in 
 their ordinary, if not plain, sense, the Word of 
 God, the creation, the fall, the redemption, justifi- 
 cation, regeneration, and salvation ; miracles, inspi- 
 ration, prophecy, heaven, and hell, eternal punish- 
 ment and a day of judgment, creeds, liturgies, and 
 articles, the truth of Jewish history and of Gospel 
 narrative ; leaving a doubt even as to the incarna- 
 tion, resurrection, and ascension, the divinity of the 
 Second Person, and the personality of the Third. ' ' 
 " It may be," says the article, " that this is a true 
 
294 Appendix C. 
 
 view of Cliristianity ; but we insist, in the name of 
 common-sense, that it is a new view. Surely, it is a 
 waste of time to argue that it is agreeable to Scrip- 
 ture." And further : " That of all recent adapta- 
 tions [of Christianity to science] it is at once the 
 most able, the most earnest, and the most suicidaiy 
 Taking up the volume to-day, and with a knowl- 
 edge of the effect it has produced, certainly there is 
 no reason for altering this verdict. 
 
 Yery appropriately, the most notewothy writer 
 (Professor Jowett) in the volume chose for himself 
 the most noteworthy theme, i.e.^ " The Interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture," involving as it did the question 
 of inspiration, and hence that of the authority, 
 meaning, and value of the "Word of God. No im- 
 partial mind can examine this essay without being 
 forced to the conclusion that in effect, if not in 
 design, it is an artfully and elaborately con- 
 structed denial of inspiration. With this view, 
 and .with this only, its most significant and pivotal 
 statements harmonize. Let us see what some of 
 these are. 
 
 In one brief sentence, " Interpret the Scripture 
 like any other book," he lays down the fundamental 
 
Appendix C. 295 
 
 rule whicli governs his method of criticism ; and if 
 ■we examine what he proposes and the practical ap- 
 plication of this rule, we find tliat the Scripture is 
 to be so interpreted because it is like any other 
 book. The rule does not refer so much to the 
 qualities of candor, honesty, logical consistency, and 
 exact thorouglmess which ought to be exercised in 
 criticising any other book, but to the alleged fact 
 that there is no radical difference between the Bible 
 and other books. 
 
 " The true glory and note of Divinity in these 
 [Scriptures] is not that they have hidden, myste- 
 rious, or double meanings, but a sinvple and univer- 
 sal one, which is beyond them and will survive 
 them." " The Scripture has one and only one true 
 meaning.''^ "To attribute to St. Paul or the 
 Twelve the abstract notion of Christian truth which 
 afterward sprang up in the CathoKc Church . . . 
 is the same error as to attribute to Homer the ideas 
 of Thales or Heraclitus, or to Thales the more de- 
 veloped principles of Aristotle and Plato." ISTo rec- 
 ognition is made of the fact that inspiration in St. 
 Paul and the Twelve, and the want of it in the 
 others, creates a difference between them, and ac- 
 
296 Appendix C. 
 
 counts for a knowledge in the former wliicli could 
 not be looked for in tlie latter. 
 
 " The old " explanations of Scripture " are no 
 longer tenable. They belong to a way of thinking 
 and speaking which was once diffused over the 
 world, but has now passed away. And what we 
 give up as a general principle, we shall find it im 
 possible to maintain partially, e.g., in the types of 
 the Mosaic Law, and the double meanings of 
 prophecy, at least in any sense in which it is not 
 equally apjilicable to all deep and suggestive writ- 
 ings.^^ It is implied, moreover, that as the Scrip- 
 tures have but one se7ise, and that a shn])le and 
 universal one., there neither is, nor ought to be any 
 more difficulty in interpreting them, than in inter- 
 preting the pages of Sophocles or Plato. 
 
 Now, it may be said that Professor Jowett is an 
 advanced thinker, a concealed or a partially avowed 
 rationalist, that as such he takes unwarrantable lib- 
 erties with Scripture and with the modern method 
 of handhng it, and therefore that he cannot be ac- 
 cepted as a fair expounder of the literal., one-sense 
 rule. Let us, then, recede from the extreme limits 
 on which he plants himself, and quote the language of 
 
Appendix C. 297 
 
 one on tliis side tlie water, who occupies a position 
 of injiuence among us, and adorns that position by 
 his admitted scholarship and abihty. 
 
 The Princeton liemew, July number, 1879, con- 
 tains a carefully-written article " On the Aim and 
 Influence of Modern Biblical Criticism." A few 
 quotations will sufiiciently indicate its drift and, 
 generally, the author's theory. Biblical criticism is 
 treated as one of the departments of human knowl- 
 edge, subject to the same law of growth as other 
 sciences, and having its several stages of progress, 
 from a crude beginning to its present comparative 
 perfection, distinctly marked by successive eras of 
 discovery and scholarship. He concedes to the ear- 
 liest Fathers of the Church who sat at the feet of the 
 Apostles considerable spiritual insight, but owing 
 to their entire lack of critical knowledge, regards 
 them as entitled to little consideration. They had 
 not the means of knowing the Word which they 
 handled, and hence were quite excusable for their 
 ignorance. That they should have been betrayed 
 into many crudities and follies of interpretation was 
 only what was to be expected in view of their prox- 
 
298 Appendix C. 
 
 imity to tlie inspired, apostolic expounders of the 
 Scriptures. That the mystical method had its ori- 
 gin in the time of those expounders is reason enough 
 for its untrustworthiness. "It is tiuie that all the 
 fathers were not such mystics in their exposition as 
 Origen, yet all held the same idea of the Scrip- 
 tures. ' ' But inasmuch as ' ' the simplest laws of 
 knowledge are always the latest," '' as alchemy 
 must precede chemistry, and astronomy must grope 
 its way through the fancies of the astrologer," so 
 the mystical, patristic method naturally preceded 
 the modern, literal, one-sense method which is to 
 usher in (if itself be not that already) the true and 
 perfected science of interpretation. Again, as if to 
 leave no possible doubt as to his meaning, this writer 
 says : " As biblical scliolars all [the early Chris- 
 tian writers] were simply of a time when true criti- 
 cism was hardly known,"' "we may excuse the 
 early methods of the Fathers ; but it is astonishing 
 to-day, when a Christian scholar forces on the 
 Word of God that style of exposition. Criticism can 
 admit no such mystical canon.'" He quotes with 
 admiring approval what he calls the true principle 
 as announced by TJ^ldall, ' ' Understand that Scrip- 
 
Appendix C. 299 
 
 ture liatli but one sense, and tliat the literal sense." 
 Our Anglican divines fall under his condemnation 
 because they taught and wrote after '' the mystical 
 canon," and not after Tyndall's ''^ one- sense'''' 
 canon. He objects to " a Christology built out of 
 any plain Psalm of David or any rite of the temple 
 "worship. ' ' He rejects also without qualification the 
 analogiafidei as having any authority over the sci- 
 ence of interpretation. No one who would do his 
 work well as a critic must allow any pre-established 
 dogmas, i.e., any creed, whether that of the Apos- 
 tles or that of Nicea to regulate his judgment or 
 modify his conclusions. It should be added, that, 
 unlike Professor Jowett, this writer distinctly 
 affirms the divine and supernatural character of the 
 Scriptures, and admits ' ' t^^ical features in the He- 
 brew worship and prophetic passages which clearly 
 point to the Christ of the New Covenant" — admits, 
 in fact, the existence of a Scripture typology, and 
 this in spite of the T}mdall ^^ one-sense, literal'''' 
 canon. 
 
 It is quite likely that this writer would not care to 
 accept any sponsorship for Professor Jowett's opin- 
 ions ; and that, in not a few things connected with ' 
 
30O Appendix C. 
 
 theology and sacred criticism, the two would not 
 agree. But certainly tliere is a marked similarity 
 in their conclusions, if not in their premises and 
 logic, touching this whole subject. Both agree, (1) 
 that the Scripture has but " one senfte and that a 
 simple one"; (2) so far as can be gathered, both 
 agree that the Scripture " should be intei-preted like 
 any other book "; and that,_^^6/' se, it should be no 
 more difficult to get at the full and exact meaning 
 of Scripture than of any reputable Greek or Latin 
 author ; (3) both agree, too, that the critic should 
 free himself from all dogmatic restraints and give 
 no heed to the ancient creeds of the Church, but 
 should go at his woi'k in a spirit of absolute inde- 
 pendence and as feeling that nothing had ever 
 been settled by competent authority — so settled as 
 not to be re-opened and disputed by anybody's pri- 
 vate judgment ; (4) both agree, moreover, that Bib- 
 lical science was of no account in the earliest ages 
 of the Church, and that, for the same reasons and 
 in the same general manner as all the inductive sci- 
 ences, it has been immensely advanced by the appa- 
 ratus of modern inquiry. As to some of the results 
 of this advance, I take it for granted that these two 
 
Appendix C. 301 
 
 Avriters would differ somewhat, probably very radi- 
 cally. For, as has been seen, in the judgment of 
 very competent authority. Professor Jowett has ex- 
 cited grave suspicion that he no longer holds the dis- 
 tinctive doctrines of the faith as they are under- 
 stood and received by the common -sense of Chris- 
 tendom ; while it is certain that this writer 
 would resent as entirely unwarrantable any imputa- 
 tion upon the soundness of his faith. 
 
 Per contra, let us inquire Whether the mys- 
 tical method has not some ground in reason, in 
 the nature of things— some respectable philoso- 
 phy at its l>ack, enough at any rate to prove that it 
 is not altogether the childish folly of uncritical 
 minds, or the crude offspring of misguided though 
 devout imaginations, which it is the special office ot 
 our advanced science of biblical criticism to rele- 
 gate to the limbo of exploded conceits. 
 
 Outward nature and Holy Scripture stand side 
 by side as revelations of the eternal Godhead. How 
 they differ it is not material just here to define. As 
 expressions, though in different spheres and for 
 different ends, of the Divine mind, they have, at 
 least, a family likeness, a general analogy. What 
 
302 Appendix C. 
 
 tlie one sajs obscurely, the other says plainly. 
 Where the one stops, the other may be said to be- 
 gin. Man has a natural relation to the one, a su- 
 pernatural to the other. From the one he learns 
 the powers belon<Ting chiefly to the life that now is ; 
 from the other he learns " the powers of an end- 
 less life. ' ' But behind both is the same God, and 
 through both, the same God speaks. The analogy 
 extends further than we can trace it, and shades off 
 in countless directions beyond the boundaries of 
 human knowledge ; but enough of it is known to 
 give a solid basis for reasonings which lawfully in- 
 terpret much that is in Scripture by nature, and 
 much that is in nature by Scripture. 
 
 Now, nature is one vast symbol of the God who 
 made it, the work of the "Workman, the creation of 
 the Creator. It has a double language, because it 
 has a double aspect. It speaks for itself as an ef- 
 fect, and for a power which is its cause. ' ' The in- 
 visible things of Him from the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
 that are made, even His eternal power and God- 
 head. "* Nature, then, on this ground, is more 
 * Romans 1 : 20. 
 
Appendix C. 303 
 
 than a '' one-sense, literal " fact. It lias its out- 
 ward and its inward meanings, a voice of matter and 
 a voice of spirit, the plain letter and the mystical 
 life nnder the letter — the visible symbol and the 
 inner power enshrined in the symbol. 
 
 But it is more than a ^^ one-sense'''' existence on 
 another ground and in another way. Dr. Mozley, 
 in one of his University Sermons (vi.), has reasoned 
 out and illustrated what I mean with so much power 
 of logic and f ehcity of statement, that I gladly avail 
 myself of his remarkable analysis and amplification 
 of the thought. 
 
 " Kature has two great revelations — that of use 
 and that of beauty. It would not be true, indeed, 
 to say that use was univ^ersally accompanied by 
 beauty ; still, upon that immense scale upon which 
 nature is beautiful, she is beautiful by the self -same 
 material and laws by which she is useful. The 
 beauty of nature is not, as it were, a fortunate acci- 
 dent, which can be separated from her use. The 
 beauty is just as much a part of nature as the use ; 
 they are only different aspects of the self- same facts. 
 But if they are united in their source, in themselves 
 they are totally separate. The beauty is as imme- 
 
304 Appendix C. 
 
 diate a derivation from the divine mind as the util- 
 ity ; as much a vision of the divine raising as the 
 solid structure is a machinery of the divine contriv- 
 ance." It follows from this that the poet is, to 
 say the least, as true and as necessary an interpreter 
 of nature as the scientist. The only difference is 
 that the one does his work by intuition, by feel- 
 ing, by tnysticciZ communion with the sights, the 
 pictures, the appearances of nature ; the other by 
 search, by analysis, by induction, by generalization. 
 But again " when the materialist has exhausted 
 himself in efEorts to explain the utility in nature, it 
 would appear to be the peculiar office of beauty to 
 rise up suddenly as a confounding and baffling extra, 
 which was not provided for in his scheme. Physi- 
 cal science goes back and back into nature, but it is 
 the aspect and front of nature which gives the chal- 
 lenge ; and it is a challenge which no backward train 
 of physical causes can meet. The physical causes 
 are only all the separate items traced back step after 
 step, which is no explanation of their adjustment 
 and collocation so as to produce beauty. Thus, the 
 more men retreat into the interior, the farther they 
 fly from the true problem. " Further, this writer 
 
Appendix C. 305 
 
 goes on to show that, while contrivance has a com- 
 plete end and account of itself v/ithont any refer- 
 ence to the understanding of man, it being enough 
 that it works and that we profit bj its use whether 
 the use be seen or no, it is essential to the verj 
 sense and meaning of beauty that it shoidd be seen, 
 and inasmuch as it is visible to reason alone, we 
 have thus in the very structure of nature a recogni- 
 tion of reason, and a distinct address to reason ; a 
 thing wholly unaccountable unless there is a higher 
 reason or mind to make it. For what but reason can 
 address reason. 
 
 '' Beauty stands upon the threshold of the inysti- 
 cal world. Mystical thought quickens worship, and 
 the beauty of nature raises mystical thought. The 
 mystical idea of the Deity is only, in fact, the moral 
 idea of Him with curiosity superadded. " Again, 
 " the manifestation of the Deity which takes place 
 in the beauty of nature rests upon the ground and 
 the principle of language. It is the revelation of 
 the character of God in the only way a material type 
 or similitude can be. But a type is a kind of distinct 
 language — the language of obhque and indirect ex- 
 pression, as contrasted with direct. Imagine, then, 
 
3o6 Appendix C. 
 
 tliis language, this transparent veil of enigma or liint, 
 carried into tlie exalted region of communication 
 between tlie Supreme Being and the creature, and 
 we have what is in fact the language of nature as a 
 picture. If symbolism, indeed, has no natural basis, 
 if the association of material images with moral is 
 entirely ai-bitrary and artificial, then there is no 
 language in nature ; but if, on the other hand, 
 there is a consensus and uniformity in the inter23re- 
 tation of physical things, i.e., the mode in which 
 our feelings are affected by them ; if no people have 
 ever existed to whom the sky has not suggested one- 
 set of ideas ; if God has always spoken with one 
 voice — not literally in the thunder— but in the im- 
 press of awe and solemnity which He has attached 
 to the thunder ; if love, joy, peace, hope have 
 attached to the same features of nature everywhere ; 
 if there is general agreement in these impresses, if 
 they proceed inevitably from God's own work and 
 the construction of our own minds, then there is 
 language, and language in something more than a 
 metaphorical sense, a true indication and communi- 
 cation according to the medium employed. The 
 cipher is not unintelligible ; it lets out something. 
 
Appendix C. 307 
 
 Tlie great Spirit, speaking by dumb representation 
 to other spirits, intimates and signifies to them some- 
 thing about Himself. The Deity, over and above 
 our inward conscience, wants His external world to 
 tell us He is moral. He therefore creates in nature 
 a universal language about HimseK. ' ' 
 
 The writer guards against abuses of this language. 
 "Certainly," says he, "no person has a right to 
 fasten his own fancies upon the visible creation and 
 say that its various features mean this and that, re- 
 semble this and that in the moral world ; but if the 
 association is universal, if we cannot even describe 
 nature without the help of moral terms — solemn, 
 tender, awful, and the like — it is evidence of a nat- 
 ural and real similitude of physical things to moral. '' 
 
 Nature, then, has, at least, two faces, two voices, 
 two meanings, two functions. She is literal fact, 
 simple being, with certain properties, relations, and 
 uses, and these are for science to investigate and 
 classify. She is also a symbol, a picture, a thing of 
 beauty, an oracle of moral feeling, witnessing to a 
 Being who is the supreme object of that feeling, and 
 these are for the poet and the prophet to interpret by 
 a process which they cannot explain and by a faculty 
 
3o8 Appendix C. 
 
 half-hidden from themselves. Nature herself is 
 mystical in her highest aspect, and mnst be mysti- 
 cally interpreted to the full extent that this aspect 
 prevails. 
 
 But if this be true of the lower revelation of 
 God, what right has any one to saj that a priori, 
 or a posteriori, there is no mystical element in the 
 higher revelation ? The lower speaks for the moral 
 and spiritual, though vaguely and by dumb signs ; 
 the higher speaks for the same attributes by the 
 arbitrary symbols of a written language ; speaks 
 positively and as definitely and completely as its 
 imperfect medium of communication will permit. 
 If nature' s language is mute, clouded, uncertain, 
 sometimes disguised, and misleading, written lan- 
 guage is weighted vrith the same drawbacks, though 
 in a far less degree. As a vehicle of divine thought, 
 written language, while it is the best that can be 
 had, is inevitably cumbered with imperfections. It 
 may give us all of the tb ought and purpose of God 
 that we require to know in this stage of being ; but 
 it can never give us the whole. It suggests more 
 than it can express, points to depths and heights 
 beyond its own reach, never tells the whole story of 
 
 \ 
 
Appeitdix C. 309 
 
 Him vvlio tlirougli it finds the needed contact witli 
 the creature, lifts the mind to a range of desire and 
 contemplation which itself cannot ascend to, opens 
 out into realms which itself cannot enter. The 
 spirit is always mightier than the letter, accepts the 
 restraints of syllables, words, sentences, and yet 
 vastly transcends them, not only making room for, 
 hut necessitating mystical meanings and, by necessary 
 consequence, mystical interpretations. 
 
 "Written language, whatever its origin and laws of 
 growth, is so largely the product of the human mind, 
 that it must do what it undertakes, subject to the 
 conditions and limitations of its human source. 
 vVnd yet the Infinite One cmploj^sit as the medium 
 of communication with man. Language, as a pow- 
 er of expression, is affected by three relations : 
 (1) by that which connects it with the phenomena 
 which it is so largely occupied in naming — phenom- 
 ena, first of the outer world and then of the inner 
 world of thought and feeling ; (2) by that which 
 connects it with the mind, which is all the while 
 at work under its own laws and requirements in 
 subliming and refining physical, material desig- 
 nations into the abstract terms of things, and into 
 
3 1 o Appendix C. 
 
 processes and powers included in the domain of tlie 
 I'ational and moral and spiritual ; (3) by its rela- 
 tion to the Divine Intelligence who uses it to com- 
 municate with ourselves. Scripture language is 
 affected by these relations to the full extent that 
 it is the language of a revelation of the unseen, the 
 eternal, and the infinite. 
 
 Again, not only is language itself largely com- 
 posed of signs and symbols, but God in reveal- 
 ing Himself has seen fit greatly to enlarge its 
 capacity for expression by using it to describe char- 
 acters, scenes, pictures, events, aspects, and relations 
 of human life selected by His inspired prophets, if 
 not immediatel}" by Himself, to shadow forth or 
 openly exhibit the hidden things of His own 
 spiritual kingdom. So He crowds into earlier dis- 
 pensations, types, and parables, the reality and 
 fulfilment of which wait for a later one. Shadows 
 go before the substance, the prophetic pictures be- 
 fore the things pictured. Messianic adumbrations 
 before the Messiah, the ritual of the Law before the 
 ritual of the Gospel. On these grounds, grounds 
 turning on the reason and fitness of things, it is im- 
 possible to exclude mystical renderings, and, contrary 
 
Appendix C. 311 
 
 to facts, to affirm, that Scripture lias only one se7ise, 
 and that the obvious one, precisely as thouo-h it 
 were composed under the same limitations and for 
 the same purpose as any work of a human author. 
 
 But from a view of the case suggested by our own 
 reasonings, the force and relevancy of which may 
 be disputed, I turn to the facts involved in the 
 essential nature of the Scripture. Within certain 
 limits it may be handled as any other book may be. 
 It is a book while it is a revelation. It employs 
 human language. That language has its syntax, etc. 
 It stretches over on all sides into history, is colored 
 by events, and manners, and institutions of contem- 
 poraneous empires and civilization, impinges on, 
 nay draws into itself, many results and peculiarities 
 of collateral hteratares. In these and kindred ways 
 it is like any great product of the human mind, and 
 may be so treated. But, on the other hand, it has 
 characteristics of its own which distinguish it above, 
 and separate it from, all other books ; and because it 
 has them, it cannot lawfully or properly be criti- 
 cised, or interpreted by the same canons as any other 
 book. It is enough for my purpose to name a very 
 few out of many of these s^d genejns peculiarities. 
 
312 Appendix C. 
 
 (1) The Bible is tlie work of some forty different 
 authors, all of whom claimed to speak, or at least an 
 inspired apostle declares that they did speak, as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost. They did so in 
 such a sense as to justify the aflSrmation that all 
 Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Their 
 writings cover a stretch of fifteen centuries, and for 
 fifteen centuries past, they have been collected into 
 one volume, and have been regarded, durino; nearly 
 all that time, as the Booh by the Churcli Universal. 
 
 (2) It consists of two Testaments, the Old and 
 the ISTew. One dominating purpose pervades both. 
 They are so bound together that it is impossible to 
 separate them without leaving each an inexplicable 
 enigma. The one is the necessary key to the other ; 
 the meaning of both is the same ; foreshadowed in 
 the Old, revealed in the New. '' The Law is the 
 Gospel foretold ; the Gospel is the Law fulfilled." 
 
 (3) Both Testaments profess to record the workPs 
 life from a heavenly standpoint. Both go upon the 
 presumption tliat they knew what God did and pur- 
 posed to do from the beginning, how He looks upon 
 the characters, the transactions, the events of tliis 
 earth, and how the unseen world is related to this 
 
Appendix C. 313 
 
 world. They treat tins world as God's world, in a 
 way which distinguishes them as essentially/ unlike 
 all other hooks, " except such," as Bishop Butler 
 remarks, "as are copied from them." 
 
 (4) Above all we have in the ISTew Testament 
 exhibited, as matter of fact, the Word made flesh, 
 God incarnate. 
 
 (5) It is implied or expressed all through this 
 Book that God, not man,- is its author. 
 
 It is, then, radically unlike any other book, and, 
 a priori, ought to be interpreted by canons of crit- 
 icism that apply to itself alone. From its constitu- 
 tion, its purpose, its general character, it is, more- 
 over, only reasonable to suppose that it contains a 
 hidden or mystical, as well as a literal meaning. 
 All the probabilities make strongly against ' ' the 
 one sense only' ' theory. 
 
 Such, I say, are the probabilities. But these 
 probabilities are advanced to certainty — to a mat- 
 ter of fact — when we come to see how our Lord and 
 His apostles interpreted Scripture. It is beyond 
 all possible dispute that their method of handling 
 the Old Testament was as far removed as well could 
 be from the literal, one-sense notion. It is the 
 
314 Appendix C. 
 
 favorite saying of the one-sense school that " only 
 out of the Scriptures can you interpret the Scrip- 
 tures." It is, therefore, of great moment to ascer- 
 tain how the Scriptures interpreted themselves 
 under the handhng of Christ and His apostles. 
 Kow, if one thing be plainer than another in this 
 liandling, it is that they interpreted the Bible as no 
 other book can be. They found meanings that 
 were not simple and obvious to the ordinary reader. 
 They confounded the Jews, time and again, by 
 finding under the letter what the Jews had never 
 dreamed of. The whole Messianic argument was 
 an utter surprise to thera. God's purposes were 
 brought out in absolutely new asjjects. The !aw 
 put on another front, prophecies familiar to the 
 Jews as their alphabet were found to have de pths 
 of meaning — one lying upon another — into which 
 their traditional surface study had never carried 
 them. The signs and symbols, the characters and 
 events of hundreds of years gone before were trans- 
 lated into tlie startling events of the hour. The 
 veil of tlie old letter was rent asunder, and, for the 
 ilrst time, human eyes looked into the invisible and 
 eternal world, The spiritual reality burst out 
 
Appendix C. 315 
 
 tlirougli the external wrappage of language like a 
 long-pent-up flood. Tlie hidden meaning displaced 
 and overlaid tlie obvious, one-sense meaning, as tlie 
 plant displaces and overlays the cerements of the 
 dead germ out of which it sprang. Never was 
 there such an exhibition of the mystical method of 
 interpretation as wlien., " beginning at Moses and all 
 the prophets. He [Christ] expounded to them in all 
 the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." 
 How the apostles imitated His example, in this, it 
 were needless to tell in detail. In fact, there is no 
 more marked, constantly-recurring feature of the 
 !N^ew Testament than the use of this method. To 
 escape its consequences, to escape the thing itself, 
 regarded in the light of an authority, such advo- 
 cates of the one-meaning hypothesis as Professor 
 Jowett have not hesitated to set it aside completely 
 as a mere '■'' after -tliought accomtnodation'''' of the 
 Old to tlie New. It was not, tlien, mystical inter- 
 pretation at all, though coming from the lips of our 
 Lord Himself, but " an accommodation (!) of the 
 meaning of the Old Testament text to the thoughts 
 of other times." And as if to leave no doubt as to 
 the wide, radically destructive sweep of the one- 
 
3i6 Appendix C. 
 
 ff^n.S6 sclienic and of this notion of "accommoda- 
 tion," this writer (and witli regard to the Ked 
 Sea question, the Princeton reviewer agrees with 
 him) says, ' ' If we attribute to tlie details of the 
 Mosaic ritual a reference to tlie New Testament, or 
 suppose the passage of the Ked Sea to be regarded 
 not merely as a figure of baptism, but as a pre-or- 
 dained type, the principle is conceded." " A little 
 more or a little less of the method does not make 
 the difference. ' ' 
 
 But if the mystical method was, in fact, the 
 method of our Lord and His apostles, what becomes 
 of the statement of Professor Jowett, that " the 
 mystical interpretation of Scripture originated in 
 the Alexandrian age ;" or that of the other writer 
 referred to, that "the mystical principle was es- 
 tablished when there was but little critical knowledge 
 of history or language ;" and that " we can never 
 understand the early Fathers unless we .read the 
 works of Philo, the earlier master of symbolic 
 wisdom." It is no doubt true that Philo had an in- 
 fluence, even a marked one, but the method came 
 from another and greater Master. 
 
 Now all this may be regarded as prefatory to the 
 
Appendix C. 317 
 
 inquiry that is of so much moment to a riglit iinclei'- 
 standing of the subject, viz., how and what did the 
 early Fathers learn from these inspired expounders 
 of Holy Writ. They invented nothing essential to 
 the method of interpretation which they followed. 
 They walked in a path already marked out, and 
 worked out results from premises already established. 
 Their labors did not stand apart from what had gone 
 before, but were cast in a mould that had been 
 shaped by the highest possible authority. Mr. Bur- 
 gon (now Dean of Chichester) has treated this point 
 with great force and clearness, and I cannot do bet- 
 ter than to quote his language : 
 
 " There is a family resemblance in the method of 
 all early expositions of Holy Scripture which vindi- 
 cates for them, however remotely, a common ori- 
 gin, and which can be satisfactorily explained only 
 by sujDposing that the remote type of all was the 
 oral teaching of the Apostles themselves. In 
 truth, is it credible that the early Christians would 
 have been so forgetful of the discourse of the men 
 who had seen the Lord, that no trace of it — no tra- 
 dition of so much as the manner of it — should have 
 lingered on for a hundred years after the death of 
 
3i8 Appendix C. 
 
 the last of the Apostles — down to the time when 
 Origen, for example, was a young man ? It cannot 
 possibly be. 
 
 " '• The things which thou hast heard of among 
 many witnesses,' writes the great Apostle to his 
 son Timothy, ' the same commit thou to faithful 
 men who shall be able to teach others also.' Pro- 
 vision is thus made by the aged saint, in the last of 
 his epistles, for the transmission of his inspired 
 teaching to a second and a third generation. Kow, 
 the words just quoted were written about the year 
 65, at which time Timothy was a young man. Un- 
 less we suppose that Almighty God curtailed the 
 lives of the chief depositaries of His "Word, Tim- 
 othy will have lived on till a.d. 100 ; so that 
 ' faithful men, ' who died in the middle of the 
 next century might have been trained and taught 
 by him for many years. It follows that the faithful 
 men last spoken of will have been ' able to teach 
 others also,' whose writings (if they wrote at all) 
 would range from a.d. 190 to a.d. 210. Now, just 
 such a writer is Hippolytus — ^who is known to have 
 been taught by that ' faithful man, ' Irenaeus, to 
 whom, as it happens, the deposit was ' committed ' 
 
Appendix C. 319 
 
 by Polycarp, who stood to St. John in the self -same 
 relation as Timothy to St. Paul. 
 
 ' ' Our Saviour is repeatedly declared to have in- 
 terpreted the Old Testament to His disciples ; for in- 
 stance, to the two going to Emmaus. Moreover, 
 before He left the world, He solemnly promised 
 His Apostles that the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
 should send in His name, ' should teach them all 
 things, and bring to their remembrance all things 
 which He had spoken to them. ' Shall we believe 
 that the treasury of Di^dne Inspiration thus opened 
 by Christ Himself was straightway closed up by 
 its human guardians, and at once forgotten ? The 
 great fact to be borne in mind (and it is the great 
 fact which nothing can ever set aside or weaken) is, 
 that for the tirst century at least of our era, there 
 existed within the Christian Church the gift of 
 prophecy / that is of Inspired Interpretation. The 
 minds of the Apostles Christ Himself ' opened to 
 understand the Scriptiiref<.'' Can it be any matter 
 of surprise that men so enlightened, when they had 
 been miraculously endowed with the gift of tongues, 
 and scattered over the face of the ancient civilized 
 world, should have disseminated the same princi- 
 
320 Appendix C. 
 
 pies of Catholic interpretation, as well as the same 
 elements of saving ti'utli ? When this miraculous 
 gift ceased, its results did not also come to an end. 
 By what possible logic can the teaching of the early 
 Church be severed from its source ? It cannot be 
 supposed for a moment that such a severance ever 
 took place. The teaching of the Apostolic age was 
 the immediate parent of the teaching of the earliest 
 of the Fathers — in whose schools it is a matter of 
 history that those Patristic writers with whom we 
 are most familiar, studied and became famous, Ac. 
 cordingly, we discover a method of interpreting 
 Holy Scri23ture strictly resembling tJiat employed 
 hy our Saviour and His apostles, in all the eay'liest 
 Patristic writings. As documents increase the evi- 
 dence is multiplied, a»d at the end of two or three 
 centuries after the death of St. John the Evangelist, 
 voices are heard from Jerasalem and other parts of 
 Palestine ; from Antioch and from other parts of 
 Syria ; from the eastern and western extremities 
 of North Africa ; from many regions of Asia Mi- 
 nor ; from Constantinople, and from Greece ; 
 from Rome, from Milan, and from other parts of 
 Italy ; from Cyprus and from Gaul — all singing in 
 
Appendix C. 321 
 
 unison, all singing the same heavenly song ! In 
 what way but one is so extraordinary a phenome- 
 non to be accounted for ? Are we to believe that 
 there was a general conspiracy of the East and the 
 "West, the North and the South, to interpret Holy 
 Scripture in a certain way ; and that way the 
 wrong way ?"* 
 
 The mystical canon of interpretation has been 
 disparaged and held up to ridicule, because of the 
 extremes to which it has been pushed and of the 
 abuses to which it is liable. Without denying 
 these extremes and abuses, nay, rather admitting 
 all that can be said about them, it must be remem- 
 bered that if the mystical canon is to be set aside 
 on this ground, the literal, '' one- sense " canon 
 must share the same fate and on the same ground. 
 For not much learning or research is needed to put 
 in array the barren and shallow renderings of the 
 sacred text by the latter. The masters of the Pa- 
 tristic method may have crowded too many mean- 
 ings in this and that passage of God's Word — may 
 have run out into many indefensible fancies of al- 
 legory and parallelism ; but the masters of the new 
 * Burgon on Inspiration. 
 
32 2 Appendix C. 
 
 method have sinned quite as grievously, only in 
 the opposite direction. For example, it has al- 
 ways been thought that our Lord's words to Nico- 
 demus about the new birth had a good deal to do 
 with a very deej) view of regeneration by baptism 
 and involved a direct reference to that unspeakable 
 mystery of the Holy Sjiirit. But it seems, under 
 the new light thrown upon those words, that this 
 was all a mistake and that our Lord meant when 
 He used them to do no more than declare the in- 
 coming of a kingdom of more spiritual gifts than 
 John taught in baptism by water. 
 
 Again, it has generally been believed by the best 
 scholars of the old sort that the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans (8 : 28-30) does refer to certain Divine de- 
 crees or predetermined plans of God respecting the 
 calling and saving of mankind, however they may 
 be interpreted, whether by Calvin, or Arminius, or 
 by anybody else. " But it now appears, according to 
 
 * There has never been any question but that the Scriptures 
 — eminently this passage in the Epistle to the Romans — teach 
 tis concerning the election and predestination of God. All 
 Christians accept the doctrine of election, and the only con- 
 tention has been as to the meaning of the doctrine. 
 
 Calvin gave it one meaning, Araiinius another, Locke 
 
Appendix C. 323 
 
 tlie new canon of criticism, that this, too, was all a 
 mistake, and all the grave, profound thinking on 
 this j)assage from Augustine down is to be con- 
 signed, as simply " our metaphysics," to the com- 
 mon warehouse of defunct and useless speculation. 
 
 Again, considerable importance has always been 
 attached to our Lord's words to Peter about " the 
 keys of the kingdom of Heaven." But it now 
 appears that Dean Stanley, an enterprising student 
 
 another, Faber another, Richard Baxter still another. 
 But the fact that God does elect and predestinate none 
 have doubted. It matters not how these theories have suc- 
 cessively collided with or, for the time being, displaced each 
 other ; no recent criticism of the sacred text has discovered 
 anything that prevents, or renders improbable, the revival of 
 any one of these views of election, at dny time. There are 
 even now some symptoms of a return to the Calvinistic i.iea — 
 a return likely to be more or less stimulated by the extrava- 
 gant assertion of the doctrine of individualism now so preva- 
 lent — a doctrine which threatens to build all modern life on the 
 hypothesis that man is self -evolving, self-governing, self-suf- 
 ficient — that there is no rightful challenge to his liberty so 
 long as the exercise of it does not infringe upon the peace and 
 order of society ; and this, for the reason (given by at least one 
 popular school of philosophy), that, if there be a God, his 
 freedom expresses and completes itself (in the only form tliat 
 ■we can know it), in and through the free will of humanity. 
 The pendulum is sure to swing back sooner or later. 
 
324 Appendix C. 
 
 of the new school, has lately discovered that " this 
 classic text for absolution " is no more than the 
 mistaken phrase of the Rabbis, who meant bj 
 " binding and loosing " the action of their courts 
 of law. A vast deal more of the same sort of evis- 
 cerating criticism might easily be cited ; but ex 
 tiiio disce omnia. 
 
 But granting, what is a fact, that both the meth- 
 ods are open to abuse, it is of moment to inquire 
 what safeguards and checks (if any) against perver- 
 sions and extremes each provides. The new method 
 felicitates itself on its complete emancipation from 
 what it calls " the after-thoughts of theology," i.e.^ 
 the restraints of Christian dogma, wherever found 
 and however formulated. ' ' The simplest laws of 
 knowledge are always the latest." A decent re- 
 spect must be paid to what has, in thoughtful ages, 
 passed for learning ; but this must not be allowed 
 to dictate conclusions to the riper learning of to- 
 day, whose good fortune it is to have eliminated by 
 a progressive evolution the crudities of bygone 
 schools. Scripture is safely and truly interpreted 
 only when it interprets itself, the only outside fac- 
 tor required being the private judgment of the 
 
Appendix C. 325 
 
 critic, aided by tlie best implements of interpreta- 
 tion which the latest learning can supply. Little 
 account is made of the fact that no student, no 
 critic, or inter23reter can resolve himself into a col- 
 orless medium, or divest himself of a bias one way 
 or the other. No scholar or thinker stands apart 
 from the intellectual or religious life circling around 
 him. Some theory of truth, some scheme of specu- 
 lation, some sort of philosophy, some phase of re- 
 ligion is always behind him, looking through his 
 eyes, breathing through his breath, speaking 
 through his voice. And so it not seldom haj^pens 
 that the most self-centred critic in profession is the 
 least so in reality. So true is this, that it is only 
 necessaiy that a historical critic j^ut in a special 
 claim to independence, to create suspicion of his 
 candor. The checks and safeguards, then, pro- 
 vided for itself by the new method are practically 
 nothing more than individul knowledge permeated 
 and swayed by this or that set of tendencies, or 
 phases of the age. But what, on the other hand, 
 are those of the old method — call it the traditional, 
 the patristic, the mystical, or what not, as you 
 please ? It may not be so well up in exact learn- 
 
326 Appendix C. 
 
 ing, or in recent discoveries in pliilology, etlmol- 
 ogy, arcliseology, etc. , it niaj not have the highest 
 measure of common- sense, it may have no special 
 genius ,f or taking sentences apart and putting them 
 together again, like a Chinese puzzle, or for punc- 
 turing as with a needle the nerve tissues of indi- 
 vidual M'ords ; it may he lacking in many desirable 
 helps and chargeable with many damaging deficien- 
 cies. But it does one thing, erects one safeguard, 
 imposes one restraint worth more than all others. 
 There is one law, one authority that it obeys, as a 
 fundamental duty, and that is the law, the authority, 
 of the Analogia Fidei. And what is this ? Let me 
 trace, in as few words as possible, its ground, its ori- 
 gin, how it took shape, how it expresses itself, and 
 the scope of its operation, in the sphere of Biblical 
 interjD rotation. It is more than a vaguely conceived, 
 unshapen basis of doctrine laid in the deep founda- 
 tions of Scripture— a basis that with spongy flexi- 
 bility offers itself as a convenient corner stone on 
 which any and all religious thinkers may build. 
 Tlie successive schools of controversial divinity, 
 during the last fourteen hundred years, have aimed 
 to establish this Analogy of the Faith, or to correct 
 
Appendix C. 327 
 
 violations of it, or to reconcile with it tlieir re- 
 spective peculiarities. It lias always been -under- 
 stood to forbid tlie interpretation of Scripture ac- 
 cording to men's private notions, also the deduction 
 of doctrine from one or two texts or chapters taken 
 singly and by themselves ; and to imply the gen- 
 eral symmetry and harmony of the whole body of 
 Christian doctrine, and the relation or proportion of 
 each special doctrine preached, or text expounded, 
 to that entire body of doctrine. It started with a 
 body of truth possessed of the attributes of unity, 
 nniversahty, and jDerpetuity, and rests upon the 
 fact that the Church has never been without such 
 a body of truth whose parts were duly propor- 
 tioned to each other and to the whole. * 
 
 Historically, it is not difficult to trace and ac- 
 count for the Ancdogia Fidel. " The origin and 
 first establishment of Christianity were by the 
 preaching of living men, who said they were com- 
 missioned to proclaim it. There is a vague and 
 unreasoning notion that Christianity was taken 
 from the New Testament. The notion is historically 
 untnie. Christianity was widely extended through 
 * Eomans 12 : C ; 2 Timothy 1 : 13 ; 2 Timothy 2 : 2. 
 
328 Appendix C. 
 
 the civilized world before the New Testament was 
 written ; and its several books were successively 
 addressed to various bodies of Christian believers ; 
 to bodies, that is, who already possessed the faith 
 of Christ in its integrity. "When, indeed, God 
 ceased to inspire persons to write these books, and 
 when they were all collected together into what we 
 call the ISTew Testament, the existing faith of the 
 Church, derived from oral teaching, was tested by 
 comparison with this inspired record. And it 
 henceforth became the standing law of the Church 
 that nothing should be received as necessary to sal- 
 vation which could not stand that test. But still, 
 though thus tested (every article being proved by 
 the New Testament), Christianity is not taken 
 from it, for it existed hefore it. 
 
 " What then was the Christianity which was thus 
 established ? Have we any record of it as it ex- 
 isted before the New Testament became the sole 
 authoritative standard ? 1 answer, "We have. 
 The creeds of the Christian Church are the record 
 of it. That is precisely what they purport to be ; 
 not documents taken from the New Testament, 
 V)nt documents transmitting to us the faith as it was 
 
Appendix C. 329 
 
 held from the beginning ; the faith as it was 
 preached by inspired men, before the inspired men 
 put forth any writings ; the faith once for all de- 
 livered to the saints. xVccordingly you will find 
 that onr Church, in her Eighth Article, does not 
 ground her affirmation that the creeds ought to be 
 ' thoroughly received and believed ' on the fact that 
 they were takeii out of the New Testament (which 
 they were not), but on the fact that they may he 
 proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture. 
 The fall of man, original sin, the atonement, the 
 Divinity of Christ, the Trinity, all have their place 
 in the faith held from the beginning. They are 
 imbedded in the creeds, and in that general scheme 
 of doctrine which circles round the creeds and is 
 involved in them."* 
 
 All essential truths, then, were, as matter of 
 history, gathered up into " a form of sound 
 words," and were "the things that [as St. Paul 
 wrote to Timothy] thou hast heard of me among 
 many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful 
 men, who shall be able to teach others also." If 
 
 * From a sermon by the Rev. F. B. Woodward. 1861 (Riv- 
 ingtons.) 
 
T,T,o Appendix C. 
 
 thej were tlms gathered and arranged by inspired 
 wisdom, there can be no doubt that they were ad- 
 justed to each other in their true proportion and 
 with a view to the unity and harmony of all the 
 parts of the body of sound doctrine. JSfothing was 
 in excess, nothing in defect, nothing essential to 
 salvation left out, nothing needful to express the 
 mind of Scripture, when Scripture should appear 
 in its completed form, omitted. Now it is only 
 reasonable to suppose that a body of truth thus 
 f I'amed to exhibit the analogy or proportion of the • 
 faith would be of the greatest service, in all ages, 
 in the interpretation of God's written Word. It 
 was actually so regarded and used by all branches 
 of the Patristic school, and all of this school who 
 applied it with requisite skill and discretion found 
 in it not only very valuable and real aid, but also a 
 restraint and safeguard which, if they did not pre- 
 vent their running into some fanciful renderings 
 of the Scripture, did prevent their lapse into teach- 
 ings that contradicted the fundamentals of the faith. 
 The method of this school was from the start de- 
 ductive, not inductive. It received all the princi- 
 ples of saving truth as already established, and made 
 
Appendix C. 331 
 
 it its chief business to run them oiit into particu- 
 lars, to trace them through the Scripture, and to 
 prove them thereby. In contrast with this, the 
 modern method accounts it its chief distinction to 
 proceed inductively, i.e., to inquire into and mar- 
 shal the particulars of God's Word first, then to 
 generalize them, and then to formulate them into 
 principles ; each inquirer or critic doing the work 
 independently, and according to tests and standards 
 approved by his own individual judgment. 
 
 Though the fact may not weigh much with some, 
 it should be understood that this method is opposed 
 to the rule adopted at the time of the Reformation, 
 which appealed to the Scriptures as interpreted by 
 the Fathers of the first four centuries — a rule which 
 has determined ever since not only the tone and 
 spirit, but the formal teaching of the most learned 
 and best accredited commentators in the Church of 
 England. And to go still further back, it is op- 
 posed to the uniform consensus of the Church Uni- 
 versal, to the practice of Patristic antiquity, to the 
 witness and decision of the early councils — i.e., 
 the primitive creeds — to the constant use of the 
 Apostles, and finally, to the method of our Lord 
 
332 Appendix C. 
 
 Himself. Very solid, indeed must be the gromids, 
 very urgent the needs, which would justify us in 
 turning our backs upon such an array of adverse 
 authorities, in order to embrace the doubtful ad- 
 vantages of this literal, "one-sense," inductive, 
 private-judgment method of Biblical interpretation. 
 The ^analogy of faith and the method based upon 
 and regulated by it cannot be lightly put aside by 
 the new learning. No possible increase of knowl- 
 edge, however drawn from the various fields of in- 
 vestigation, can displace a principle which, from the 
 beginning, has been immovably rooted in the mind 
 and practice of the Church of God. 
 
 The new school seems to take it for granted that 
 the old one has been lacking in careful and accurate 
 learning, as also in enterprising inquiry and minute, 
 painstaking, verbal criticism. It announces itself, 
 with an assured confidence, as having already done 
 much to supply this deficiency, and as promising to 
 do a vast deal more in this direction. If one cred- 
 ited the half that is claimed in this way, he would 
 be forced to admit that Hermeneutical studies had 
 been greatly neglected in the most scholarly and 
 thoughtful ages of the Church, and that somehow 
 
Appendix C. 333 
 
 the best Cliristian learning liad spent itself in a sort 
 of treadmill life, showing constant motion, but no 
 advance. Xow, in themselves considered, there is 
 no reason why the new method should be more 
 learned, minute, accurate, and exhaustive in its 
 scholarshii?, or in its actual handling of the sacred 
 text, than the old. The process of generahzingfrom 
 particulars or of inductive inquiry involves no more 
 care, supplies no sharper incentives to elaborate and 
 accurate learning, than the opposite process of 
 tracing out into, and verifying by particulars, cer- 
 tain fundamental truths accepted, at the very start, 
 on competent authority. 
 
 "What we might expect, a priori^ is true in fact. 
 The science of Biblical interpretation is not the 
 creature of this or of the last century, or of both. 
 It has been professed, cultivated, and practised in 
 every country of Christendom and in every age of 
 the Church, and has always been esteemed one of 
 the noblest and best understood. It has had a long 
 line of illustrious masters, who in power of intellect 
 and vastness of attainment, as well as in piety and 
 devotion, compare, to say the least, very favorably 
 with those of to-day, of whatever school. If there 
 
334 Appe7tdix C. 
 
 are giants now in tins field, their stature certainly is 
 not magnified when put alongside such men as Hilary 
 of Poictiers, Basil, and the two Gregories, Theodo- 
 ret, Epiphanius, Ambrose, John Chrysostom, Je- 
 rome, Augustine, Athanasius, and Cyril of Alex- 
 andria, and so on down (not to name other strong 
 links in the mighty chain) to the time of Andrewes, 
 and Bull, and Pearson, and Mill. And, to-day, what 
 superiority, in any of the requirements for scholarly 
 and exhausti'/e sacred criticism, have Jowett and 
 Alford over Wordsworth and Pnsey ? 
 
 I am not unaware either of the claims, or the 
 achievements of the various schools of interpretation 
 which it is part of the pride and glory of Germany 
 to have produced in the century past. I would 
 speak of both only in terms of profound respect and 
 even of grateful homage. Their patience and 
 thoroughness, and often the novelty of their 
 inventions and the genius exhibited in vindi- 
 cating their plausibility, if not their truth, have 
 justly excited the admiration of Christian scholars 
 of every land. And yet now that the time has 
 come for sifting the chaff from the wheat, the 
 actual harvest to be stored away in the grana- 
 
Appendix C. 335 
 
 ries of tlie Church for the future feeding of the 
 people of God does not seem to be as prom- 
 ising as many once believed it would be. The 
 scaffolding is being taken down little by little ; the 
 noise of the new tools employed is dying away on 
 the ear ; and, as the building comes out more and 
 more upon the eye, we begin to see that it is 
 neither so solid in its masonry nor so spacious in its 
 dimensions, as was anticipated. In fact, a careful 
 scrutiny of results shows that nothing has been 
 added to our saving knowledge, that no essential of 
 the faith has been displaced or seriously modified, 
 that the great Christian Tradition of God's truth 
 leaves the century substantially as it entered it, 
 that the constituent elements and average condi- 
 tions of personal religion are undisturbed, and the 
 original Institutions and Offices of the Church still 
 abide in their integrity and do the work as of old, 
 whereunto they were appointed. What the Chris- 
 tian world will remember longest, next to the 
 prodigious learning expended, will be certain for- 
 midable attacks upon the inspiration, the authen- 
 ticity, and genuineness of many books of the Canoni- 
 cal Scriptures ; and certain self-devouring, or mu- 
 
2,'^^ Appendix C. 
 
 tnally annihilating tlieories toucliing the Divine 
 Person and miraculous attestations of the Church's 
 eternal Head ; it being the memorable character- 
 istic of most of these attacks and theories that they 
 have been already, in one way or another, partially 
 or wholly abandoned by the great learning, the 
 marvellously-equipped science under whose auspices 
 they were originally inaugurated. 
 
 It is said that " the exposition of the New Testa- 
 ment has within these forty years had a wonderful 
 progress." No doubt of it ; but so far as this prog- 
 ress has been real and healthy, as well as " won- 
 derful," it has by its efforts to freshen and enlarge 
 our knowledge of Scripture details, served to bring 
 out only in a stronger light the primitive verities of 
 the ancient Catholic tradition. So far as it has 
 affected the general body of doctrine current in our 
 day, its influence has been shown in helping to 
 break through and sweep aside the dogmatic sys- 
 tems of modern sectarian growth which, like so 
 many incrustations, had fastened on the old Nicene 
 faith. 
 
 Affain, it is said that " the masters of modern 
 exegesis are working together toward a biblical 
 
Appendix C. 337 
 
 theology which will hold up to dogmatics and ethics 
 the real, and in many regards more complete, model, 
 wherein they have their standard." It is, then, the 
 grand aim of modern exegesis to work out a theol- 
 ogy which shall in some sense, not hitherto exempli- 
 fied, be essentially biblical. Now, it is not appar- 
 ent exactly what is meant by such a theology ; for 
 all Christian theologies, however metaphysical or 
 speculative in their reasonings, have professed to 
 claim no authority or value save as they were 
 grounded upon the Word of God. The only re- 
 spect in which this is likely to differ from the rest 
 must consist in the rigid exclusion of all such rea- 
 sonings. It enters into the very conception of this 
 coming theology that it shall be the result not only 
 of a more exhaustive study of Holy Scripture, but 
 of the thorough use of the inductive method, i.e., 
 first a critical examination of all the individual 
 items of revelation, and then a systematic classifi- 
 cation of these items, and then a deduction from 
 them of the verities which form the subject-matter 
 of theology. 
 
 Now, so far as this process will lead us back to 
 the fresh, vitalizing views of the person and work 
 
;^2,^ Appendix C. 
 
 of Christ — his character, teaching, and offices ; 
 also of what inspired Apostles said and did ; 
 also of what they said and did who sat at the 
 feet of the Apostles — so far as it shall do this, it 
 will render a most valuable service to " dogmatics 
 and ethics. ' ' But to the full extent that it does so, 
 it must inevitably simply reproduce the mind of 
 Scripture as they originally interpreted it ; and so 
 reproduce in modern dress theante-Nicene theology 
 — thus returning to the fountain-head for all its gov- 
 erning principles, i.e., to the Primitive and Catholic 
 Analogia Fidei. The only other rule which it can 
 adopt, as its norma normans, is the items of the 
 Scripture wrought up into systematic shape by in- 
 dividual critics, each acting independently on his 
 own judgment, and of course more or less biased 
 by the general temper and genius of the present 
 age. 
 
 But the result of this process will be as many 
 biblical theologies, as there are theological builders, 
 and therefore an aggravation of the present confu- 
 sions and contradictions. But, what is more likely 
 to happen, these individual critics and builders will 
 divide up into schools according to some law of in- 
 
Appendix C. 339 
 
 tellectual or religious affinity ; and so we shall be 
 brought back to substantially the same state of 
 things from which this theology of the future, rest- 
 ing on an improved exegesis, proposes to extricate 
 us. The fact is, it matters not how much the mod- 
 ern exegesis promises to accomplish toward the 
 elimination from all existing theologies of their 
 strictly human or positively alien elements, the 
 real value of its work will depend on the extent to 
 which it accepts, as its guiding principle, the very 
 Analogia Fidei which its chosen advocates and ad- 
 mitted masters profess to have partially or wholly 
 rejected. 
 

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