Loss and Gain Part 23

"Well, I will speak more precisely," said Sheffield: "an Oxford man, some ten years since, was going to publish a history of the Nicene Council, and the bookseller proposed to him to prefix an engraving of St. Athanasius, which he had found in some old volume. He was strongly dissuaded from doing so by a brother clergyman, not from any feeling of his own, but because 'Athanasius was a very unpopular name among us.'"

"One swallow does not make a spring," said Charles.

"This clergyman," continued Sheffield, "was a friend of the most High-Church writers of the day."

"Of course," said Reding, "there has always been a heterodox school in our Church--I know that well enough--but it never has been powerful.

Your lax friend was one of them."

"I believe not, indeed," answered Sheffield; "he lived out of controversy, was a literary, accomplished person, and a man of piety to boot. He did not express any feeling of his own; he did but witness to a fact, that the name of Athanasius was unpopular."

"So little was known about history," said Charles, "this is not surprising. St. Athanasius, you know, did not write the Creed called after him. It is possible to think him intemperate, without thinking the Creed wrong."

"Well, then, again; there's Beatson, Divinity Professor; no one will call him in any sense a party man; he was put in by the Tories, and never has committed himself to any liberal theories in theology. Now, a man who attended his private lectures a.s.sures me that he told the men, 'D'ye see,' said he, 'I take it, that the old Church-of-England mode of handling the Creed went out with Bull. After Locke wrote, the old orthodox phraseology came into disrepute.'"

"Well, perhaps he meant," said Charles, "that learning died away, which was the case. The old theological language is plainly a learned language; when fathers and schoolmen were not read, of course it would be in abeyance; when they were read again, it has revived."

"No, no," answered Sheffield, "he said much more on another occasion.

Speaking of Creeds, and the like, 'I hold,' he said, 'that the majority of the educated laity of our Church are Sabellians.'"

Charles was silent, and hardly knew what reply to make. Sheffield went on: "I was present some years ago, when I was quite a boy, when a sort of tutor of mine was talking to one of the most learned and orthodox divines of the day, a man whose name has never been a.s.sociated with party, and the near relation and connexion of high dignitaries, about a plan of his own for writing a history of the Councils. This good and able man listened with politeness, applauded the project; then added, in a laughing way, 'You know you have chosen just the dullest subject in Church-history. Now the Councils begin with the Nicene Creed, and embrace nearly all doctrinal subjects whatever.'"

"My dear Sheffield," said Charles, "you have fallen in with a particular set or party of men yourself; very respectable, good men, I don't doubt, but no fair specimens of the whole Church."

"I don't bring them as authorities," answered Sheffield, "but as witnesses."

"Still," said Charles, "I know perfectly well, that there was a controversy at the end of the last century between Bishop Horsley and others, in which he brought out distinctly one part at least of the Athanasian doctrine."

"His controversy was not a defence of the Athanasian Creed, I know well," said Sheffield; "for the subject came into Upton's Article-lecture; it was with Priestley; but, whatever it was, divines would only think it all very fine, just as his 'Sermons on Prophecy.' It is another question whether they would recognize the worth either of the one or of the other. They receive the scholastic terms about the Trinity just as they receive the doctrine that the Pope is Antichrist.

When Horsley says the latter, or something of the kind, good old clergymen say, 'Certainly, certainly, oh yes, it's the old Church-of-England doctrine,' thinking it right, indeed, to be maintained, but not caring themselves to maintain it, or at most professing it just when mentioned, but not really thinking about it from one year's end to the other. And so with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, they say, 'the great Horsley,' 'the powerful Horsley;' they don't indeed dispute his doctrine, but they don't care about it; they look on him as a doughty champion, armed _cap-a-pie_, who has put down dissent, who has cut off the head of some impudent non-protectionist, or insane chartist, or spouter in a vestry, who, under cover of theology, had run a tilt against t.i.thes and church-rates."

"I can't think so badly of our present divines," said Charles; "I know that in this very place there are various orthodox writers, whom no one would call party men."

"Stop," said Sheffield, "understand me, I was not speaking _against_ them. I was but saying that these anti-Athanasian views were not unfrequent. I have been in the way of hearing a good deal on the subject at my private tutor's, and have kept my eyes about me since I have been here. The Bishop of Derby was a friend of Sheen's, my private tutor, and got his promotion when I was with the latter; and Sheen told me that he wrote to him on that occasion, 'What shall I read? I don't know anything of theology.' I rather think he was recommended, or proposed to read Scott's Bible."

"It's easy to bring instances," said Charles, "when you have all your own way; what you say is evidently all an _ex-parte_ statement."

"Take again Shipton, who died lately," continued Sheffield; "what a high position he held in the Church; yet it is perfectly well known that he thought it a mistake to use the word 'Person' in the doctrine of the Trinity. What makes this stranger is, that he was so very severe on clergymen (Tractarians, for instance) who evade the sense of the Articles. Now he was a singularly honest, straightforward man; he despised money; he cared nothing for public opinion; yet he was a Sabellian. Would he have eaten the bread of the Church, as it is called, for a day, unless he had felt that his opinions were not inconsistent with his profession as Dean of Bath, and Prebendary of Dorchester? Is it not plain that he considered the practice of the Church to have modified, to have re-interpreted its doc.u.ments?"

"Why," said Charles, "the practice of the Church cannot make black white; or, if a sentence means yes, make it mean no. I won't deny that words are often vague and uncertain in their sense, and frequently need a comment, so that the teaching of the day has great influence in determining their sense; but the question is, whether the counter-teaching of every dean, every prebendary, every clergyman, every bishop in the whole Church, could make the Athanasian Creed Sabellian; I think not."

"Certainly not," answered Sheffield; "but the clergymen I speak of simply say that they are not bound to the details of the Creed, only to the great outline that there is _a_ Trinity."

"Great outline!" said Charles, "great stuff! an Unitarian would not deny that. He, of course, believes in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; though he thinks the Son a creature, and the Spirit an influence."

"Well, I don't deny," said Sheffield, "that if Dean Shipton was a sound member of the Church, Dr. Priestley might have been also. But my doubt is, whether, if the Tractarian school had not risen, Priestley might not have been, had he lived to this time, I will not say a positively sound member, but sound enough for preferment."

"_If_ the Tractarian school had not risen! that is but saying if our Church was other than it is. What is that school but a birth, an offspring of the Church? and if the Church had not given birth to one party of men for its defence, it would have given birth to another."

"No, no," said Sheffield, "I a.s.sure you the old school of doctrine was all but run out when they began; and I declare I wish they had let things alone. There was the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession; a few good old men were its sole remaining professors in the Church; and a great ecclesiastical personage, on one occasion, quite scoffed at their persisting to hold it. He maintained the doctrine went out with the non-jurors. 'You are so few,' he said, 'that we can count you.'"

Charles was not pleased with the subject, on various accounts. He did not like what seemed to him an attack of Sheffield's upon the Church of England; and, besides, he began to feel uncomfortable misgivings and doubts whether that attack was not well founded, to which he did not like to be exposed. Accordingly he kept silence, and, after a short interval, attempted to change the subject; but Sheffield's hand was in, and he would not be balked; so he presently began again. "I have been speaking," he said, "of the liberal section of our Church. There are four parties in the Church. Of these the old Tory, or country party, which is out-and-out the largest, has no opinion at all, but merely takes up the theology or no-theology of the day, and cannot properly be said to 'hold' what the Creed calls 'the Catholic faith.' It does not deny it; it may not knowingly disbelieve it; but it gives no signs of actually holding it, beyond the fact that it treats it with respect. I will venture to say, that not a country parson of them all, from year's end to year's end, makes once a year what Catholics call 'an act of faith' in that special and very distinctive mystery contained in the clauses of the Athanasian Creed."

Then, seeing Charles looked rather hurt, he added, "I am not speaking of any particular clergyman here or there, but of the great majority of them. After the Tory party comes the Liberal; which also dislikes the Athanasian Creed, as I have said. Thirdly, as to the Evangelical; I know you have one of the Nos. of the 'Tracts for the Times' about objective faith. Now that tract seems to prove that the Evangelical party is implicitly Sabellian, and is tending to avow that belief. This too has been already the actual course of Evangelical doctrine both on the Continent and in America. The Protestants of Geneva, Holland, Ulster, and Boston have all, I believe, become Unitarians, or the like. Dr. Adam Clarke too, the celebrated Wesleyan, held the distinguishing Sabellian tenet, as Doddridge is said to have done before him. All this considered, I do think I have made out a good case for my original a.s.sertion, that at this time of day it is a party thing to go out of the way to read the Athanasian Creed."

"I don't agree with you at all," said Charles; "you say a great deal more than you have a warrant to do, and draw sweeping conclusions from slender premisses. This, at least, is what it seems to me. I wish too you would not so speak of 'making out a case.' It is as if these things were mere topics for disputation. And I don't like your taking the wrong side; you are rather fond of doing so."

"Reding," answered Sheffield, "I speak what I think, and ever will do so; I will be no party man. I don't attempt, like Vincent, to unite opposites. He is of all parties, I am of none. I think I see pretty well the hollowness of all."

"O my dear Sheffield," cried Charles, in distress, "think what you are saying; you don't mean what you say. You are speaking as if you thought that belief in the Athanasian Creed was a mere party opinion."

Sheffield first was silent; then he said, "Well, I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to annoy you, or have expressed myself intemperately. But surely one has no need to believe what so many people either disbelieve or disregard."

The subject then dropped; and presently Carlton overtook them on the farmer's pony, which he had borrowed.

CHAPTER VIII.

Reding had for near two years put aside his doubts about the Articles; but it was like putting off the payment of a bill--a respite, not a deliverance. The two conversations which we have been recording, bringing him to issue on most important subjects first with one, then with another, of two intimate friends, who were bound by the Articles as well as he, uncomfortably reminded him of his debt to the University and Church; and the nearer approach of his examination and degree inflicted on him the thought that the time was coming when he must be prepared to discharge it.

One day, when he was strolling out with Carlton, toward the end of the Vacation, he had been led to speak of the number of religious opinions and parties in Oxford, which had so many bad effects, making so many talk, so many criticise, and not a few perhaps doubt about truth altogether. Then he said that, evil as it was in a place of education, yet he feared it was unavoidable, if Carlton's doctrine about parties were correct; for if there was a place where differences of religious opinions would show themselves, it would be in a university.

"I am far from denying it," said Carlton; "but all systems have their defects; no polity, no theology, no ritual is perfect. One only came directly and simply from Heaven, the Jewish; and even that was removed because of its unprofitableness. This is no derogation from the perfection of Divine Revelation, for it arises from the subject-matter on and through which it operates." There was a pause; then Carlton went on: "It is the fault of most young thinkers to be impatient, if they do not find perfection in everything; they are 'new brooms.'" Another pause; he went on again: "What form of religion is _less_ objectionable than ours? You _see_ the inconveniences of your own system, for you experience them; you have not felt, and cannot know, those of others."

Charles was still silent, and went on plucking and chewing leaves from the shrubs and bushes through which their path winded. At length he said, "_I_ should not like to say it to any one but you, Carlton, but, do you know, I was very uncomfortable about the Articles, going on for two years since; I really could not understand them, and their history makes matters worse. I put the subject from me altogether; but now that my examination and degree are coming on, I must take it up again."

"You must have been put into the Article-lecture early," said Carlton.

"Well, perhaps I was not up to the subject," answered Charles.

"I didn't mean that," said Carlton; "but as to the thing itself, my dear fellow, it happens every day, and especially to thoughtful people like yourself. It should not annoy you."

"But my fidget is," said Charles, "lest my difficulties should return, and I should not be able to remove them."

"You should take all these things calmly," said Carlton; "all things, as I have said, have their difficulties. If you wait till everything is as it should be or might be conceivably, you will do nothing, and will lose life. The moral and social world is not an open country; it is already marked and mapped out; it has its roads. You can't go across country; if you attempt a steeple-chase, you will break your neck for your pains.

Forms of religion are facts; they have each their history. They existed before you were born, and will survive you. You must choose, you cannot make."

"I know," said Reding, "I can't make a religion, nor can I perhaps find one better than my own. I don't want to do so; but this is not my difficulty. Take your own image. I am jogging along my own old road, and lo, a high turnpike, fast locked; and my poor pony can't clear it. I don't complain; but there's the fact, or at least may be."

"The pony must," answered Carlton; "or if not, there must be some way about; else what is the good of a road? In religion all roads have their obstacles; one has a strong gate across it, another goes through a bog.

Is no one to go on? Is religion to be at a deadlock? Is Christianity to die out? Where else will you go? Not surely to Methodism, or Plymouth-brotherism. As to the Romish Church, I suspect it has more difficulties than we have. You _must_ sacrifice your private judgment."

"All this is very good," answered Charles; "but what is very expedient still may be very impossible. The finest words about the necessity of getting home before nightfall will not enable my poor little pony to take the gate."

"Certainly not," said Carlton; "but if you had a command from a benevolent Prince, your own Sovereign and Benefactor, to go along the road steadily till evening, and he would meet you at the end of your journey, you would be quite sure that he who had appointed the end had also a.s.signed the means. And, in the difficulty in question, you ought to look out for some mode of opening the gate, or some gap in the hedge, or some parallel cut, some way or other, which would enable you to turn the difficulty."

Charles said that somehow he did not like this mode of arguing; it seemed dangerous; he did not see whither it went, where it ended.