Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

both positive and negative, and asserts, that, to be a Christian believer, it is necessary not only to believe truth, but truth without mixture of falsehood. A very important position, and one on which much of our subsequent reasoning depended, and designed to meet the very doctrine contended for by the Observer, namely, that we have all the faith required of us, if we believe Christian truth, though we believe it mixed with error, in an inexact or false sense. Did it not perceive this? If so, how could it promise itself the pleasure of refuting us, without refuting the reasons by which we established the position itself? Does the Observer flatter itself that to ignore an argument is to refute it?

After having established the four positions just enumerated, we proceed, in the second division of our article, to state the necessary conditions of faith in truths pertaining to the supernatural order, or what we need in order to be able to elicit an act of faith in a revelation of supernatural truth. Under this division, we attempt to establish, 1. That faith demands an authority on which to rest, extrinsic both to the believer and the matter believed; 2. That the only, but sufficient, authority for the intrinsic truth of the matter of supernatural revelation is the veracity of God; 3. That a witness to the fact that God has actually revealed the matter in question, that is, a witness to the fact of revelation, is also necessary; 4. That this witness must be not merely a witness to the fact that God has made a revelation, or to the fact of revelation in general, but to the precise revelation in each particular case in which there may be a question of what is or is not the revelation of God, — therefore an interpreter, as we expressed ourselves, of the genuine sense of the revelation; 5. That this witness must be universal, subsisting through all times and nations; 6. Unmistakable, with ordinary prudence, by the simple and illiterate; and, 7. Infallible.

Now, of these seven positions, the writer in the Observer objects expressly to the fourth, and, by implication, to the seventh. But he takes no notice of our definition of faith, namely, that it is a theological virtue, which consists in believing, without doubting, explicitly or implicitly, all the truths Almighty God has revealed, on the veracity of God alone," -on which, he must be aware, rests nearly the whole of our argument for the necessity of an infallible witness to the fact of revelation; for, if faith consists in believing without doubting, it is obvious that it is impossible to elicit an act of faith on the au

thority of a fallible witness. It can be possible only where there is no reasonable ground for doubt as to what God has actually revealed; and there always is reasonable ground for doubt, where the reliance is on a fallible witness, that is, a witness that may deceive or be deceived. Our conclusion, then, that the witness must be infallible, or faith is not possible, must be admitted, if our definition of faith is accepted. We were not to be refuted, then, on this point, except by a refutation of our definition of faith. But the writer in the Observer does not refute this definition, for he does not even notice it. How, then, can he claim to himself the "pleasure" of having refuted us?

But the writer in the Observer objects strongly to the fourth position of the second division of our article. He says we affirm that we need an interpreter of the genuine sense of what God has revealed, because God has made faith the condition sine qua non of salvation; and if we should mistake the propositions actually contained in God's revelation, or substitute others therefor, since it is only through the formal proposition we arrive at the matter revealed, we should not believe the revelation God has actually made, but something else, and something for which we cannot plead the veracity of God, and therefore something for which we have no solid ground of faith." The portion of this sentence in Italics the writer discreetly omits in his quotation. Our doctrine was this: The ground of faith in the truth or matter revealed is the veracity of God revealing it. But when we believe the matter revealed in a false sense, not in its genuine sense, we do not, in fact, believe what is revealed, but something else, and, therefore, something which God has not revealed, and for the truth of which we have not his veracity. Consequently, we need an interpreter, that is, some means, or, as we say in the article, "some authority, extrinsic or intrinsic," that is, in the individual, or out of him, to say what is or is not the revelation in its genuine sense; which is only saying, what is or is not the revelation Almighty God has actually made. Is it not so? Are we not right in this? The writer in the Observer says no. He objects to this, because we here, he says, assume "three things. . . . . which need a little looking after: 1. That God's revelation to man is not intelligible. 2. That a human interpreter can make it plain. 3. That, unless the nice theological shades of meaning in God's word are appreciated, one cannot be saved. In general terms, we deny all these propositions. So do we; and, moreover, we deny that we assume, or that our argument implies, either one or another of them.

[ocr errors]

The Observer contends that God's revelation is made to us in terms as express and as intelligible as human language can make it." "Natural reason," it says, "teaches us enough of God to know that he is infinitely wise, benevolent, and good. An infinitely wise, benevolent, and good being, in making a revelation to dependent and erring creatures, could not do otherwise than adapt it, in the most perfect manner, to their condition." Be it so; we said as much, more than once, ourselves. But what is "the most perfect manner"? "A revelation," continues the Observer, "coming from such a being, would be conveyed in intelligible propositions, so expressed and arranged as to be least liable to be misunderstood." In propositions intelligible through the ministry of the ecclesia docens, we grant it; otherwise, we deny it, because he has not so conveyed, expressed, and arranged it. "Then, if a revelation have come from God, it must be as clear and intelligible as human language can make it." Through the same ministry, we concede it; otherwise, we deny it, and for the same reason.

There was no occasion to assert the intelligibleness of divine revelation against us, for that we conceded. The real question at issue is not whether the revelation be intelligible, but whether it be intelligible without the aid of the ecclesia docens. The Observer was bound to show that no such aid is needed, or else not secure the "pleasure" of refuting us. We knew beforehand the only argument he could adduce, and that argument we ourselves adduced and replied to. The Observer has merely brought against us this objection, without noticing our reply to it. We stated, "It may be said that God is just, that he has made us a revelation, commanded us to believe it, and made belief of it the condition sine qua non of salvation; but that he would not be just in so doing, if this revelation were not infallibly ascertainable in its genuine sense by the prudent exercise of natural reason." Here is the argument of the Observer, taken in connexion with what we had previously said of what natural reason teaches us of God, as clearly and as forcibly put as the Observer itself has put it; and here is our reply: "Ascertainable by natural reason, in one method or another, we grant; by private reason and the Bible alone, we deny the consequence for God may have made the revelation ascertainable only by a divinely commissioned and supernaturally guided and protected body of teachers, and the office of natural reason to be to judge of the credibility of this body of teachers." This reply is conclusive, at least till shown to be inconclusive; consequent

[ocr errors]

ly the writer in the Observer was precluded, by the most ordinary rules of logic and morals, from insisting on the objection, till he had not only noticed, but refuted, the reply. He has done neither. He has taken an objection which we had anticipated and replied to, urged it against us, without deigning to notice our reply, and this he calls refuting us! It is at any time easy to secure the "pleasure" of refuting any opponent on these conditions; but the reality of such refutation, its creditableness, its moral honesty, we leave to the logicians and casuists of the Protestant Episcopal Church to settle.

The writer in the Observer proceeds in his argument against a position he says we assume, but which we do not assume, on the assumption that the revelation Almighty God has made to us is made exclusively in the written word, and is made "in intelligible propositions, so expressed and arranged as to be least liable to be misunderstood," "as clear and as intelligible as language can make it." This assumption we met and refuted, or attempted to refute, in our article; but the Observer, according to its custom, takes no notice of our refutation, or attempted refutation. This assumption is provable only in two ways: 1. A priori, by reasoning from the known character of God; 2. A posteriori, by reasoning from the character of the revelation actually made. The first method can avail it nothing, for the reason we before assigned, and have just now repeated. We adduced, in our article, several arguments and facts to show that the second method can avail it just as little. These facts and arguments it does not set aside, does not attempt to set aside, for it does not even notice them, or make an effort to show that its assumption may be true in spite of them. And yet it purposed to have the pleasure" of refuting us and we are gravely assured by another Episcopal organ, The Christian Advocate and Witness, that it really has refuted us, and in a masterly manner turned our logic against us. Really, these Episcopalians have queer notions of what constitutes a refutation of an opponent.

But we deny the assumption of the Episcopal Observer, and call upon upon the writer who promised himself the "pleasure" of refuting us to reply to the facts and arguments we adduced against it. Will he, dare he, in open day, maintain, in general thesis, that the several articles of Christian faith, even as he holds them, are expressed in the Sacred Scriptures in propositions as clear and intelligible as human language can make them? He is an Episcopalian, and therefore believes, we are

bound to presume, in the Nicene creed. Will he tell us where in the Sacred Scriptures the consubstantiality of the Son to the Father, or the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son,- Filioque, is expressed in terms as clear, as intelligible, and as unequivocal as in the creed? It will not be enough to adduce passages which teach or imply one or the other of these doctrines, but he must adduce passages which teach them as expressly, in a manner as clear and intelligible, as they are taught in the creed; for his assumption is, that they are expressed in the Sacred Scriptures in a manner as clear and intelligible as they can be in human language. Adduce the passages, Mr. Observer, if you please. You, as an Episcopalian, are bound to admit infant baptism as an article of the Christian faith. Do you find this expressed in the Bible in a manner" as clear and intelligible as human language can make it"? If so, why have you not been able, long ere this, to settle the dispute with your Baptist brethren, who have as much reverence for the Bible as you have, are as learned, and no doubt as honest? If the articles of Christian faith be expressed in the Sacred Scriptures in propositions as clear and intelligible as language can make them, how happens it that men dispute more about their sense as contained in the Sacred Scriptures than they do about their sense as drawn out and defined in the creed? Is there an article of faith held to be fundamental by the Episcopal Observer that has not been disputed on what has been conceived to be the authority of Scripture itself? Yet all is in Scripture as clear and as intelligible as human language can make it! Who is at a loss to know what the Catholic Church means by her decisions? Who questions the sense of the dogma as given in her definition of it? If she can define an article of faith so as to end all dispute concerning its sense, so far as she defines it, it follows that articles of faith can be expressed in language, for her definitions are expressed in language, so as to preclude uncertainty as to their meaning. But this cannot be said of the articles of faith as expressed and arranged in the Sacred Scriptures, because men have doubted and disputed from the first, and do now doubt and dispute, as to what they are, as is proved by the number of ancient sects, and the some five hundred or more Protestant sects still extant; and also by the violent controversy, concerning what the writer in the Observer must regard as fundamentals, now raging in his own Church, both in this country and in England. Nay, the Scriptures themselves are ex

[ocr errors]
« AnkstesnisTęsti »