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said they meaning that the followers of Paul and Apollos

were not so.

Probably the better part of those who take the name of Orthodox, or Evangelical, intend no such arrogance. All they want is some word by which to distinguish themselves from Unitarians, Universalists, &c. They might say, "We have as good a right to complain of your calling yourselves 'Rational Christians' or 'Liberal Christians'. assuming thereby that others are not rational or liberal. You mean no such assumption, perhaps; neither do we when we call ourselves Orthodox' or 'Evangelical.' When we can find another term, better than these, by which to express the We do not intend by

difference between us, we will use it. using these words to foreclose argument or to beg the question. We do not mean by Orthodoxy, right belief; but only a certain well-known form of doctrine."

This is all well. Yet not quite well- since we have had occasion to notice the surprise and disgust felt by those who had called themselves "The Orthodox," in finding themselves in a community where others had assumed that title, and refused to them any share in it. Therefore it is well to emphasize the declaration that Orthodoxy in the sense of "right belief" is an unmeaning expression, signifying nothing.

§ 4. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine of the Majority. Objections. The majority, in any particular place, is apt to call itself orthodox, and to call its opponents heretics. But the majority in one place may be the minority in another. The majority in Massachusetts is the minority in Virginia. The majority in England is the minority in Rome or Constantinople. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England, gave Mr. Curzon a letter of introduction to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Greek Church. But the Patriarch had never heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and inquired, "Who is he?"

Nevertheless, it is a very common argument that such and such a doctrine, being held by the great majority of Christians, must necessarily be true. Thus it is said that since the great majority of Christians believe the doctrine of the Trinity, that doctrine must be true. "Is it possible," it is said, "that the great majority of Christian believers should be now, and have been so long, left in error on such a fundamental doctrine as this?" Even so intelligent a man as Dr. Huntington seems to have been greatly influenced by this argument in becoming a Trinitarian. The same argument has carried many Protestants into the Roman Catholic Church. And, no doubt, there is a truth in the argument a truth, indeed, which is implied all through the present work that doctrines thus held by great multitudes during long periods cannot be wholly false. But it by no means proves them to be wholly true. Otherwise, truth would change as the majorities change. In one century the Arians had the majority; and Arianism, therefore, in that century would have been true. Moreover, most of those who adhere to a doctrine have not examined it, and do not have any defined opinion concerning it. They accept it, as it is taught them, without reflection. And again, most truths are, at first, in a minority of one. Christianity, in the first century, was in a very small minority. Protestantism, in the time of Luther, was all in the brain and heart of one man. To assume, therefore, that Orthodoxy, or the true belief, is that of the majority, is to forbid all progress, to denounce all new truth, and to resist the revelation and inspiration of God, until it has conquered for itself the support of the majority of mankind. According to this principle, as Christianity is still in a minority as compared with paganism, we ought all to become followers of Boodh. Such a view cannot bear a moment's serious examination. Every prophet, sage, martyr, and heroic champion of truth has spent his life and won the admiration and grateful love of the world

by opposing the majority in behalf of some neglected or unpopular truth.

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$5. Orthodoxy as the Oldest Doctrine. Objections. Some people think that Orthodoxy means the oldest doctrine, and that if they can only find out what doctrine was believed by the Church in the first century, they shall have the true orthodox doctrine. But the early Church held some opinions which all now believe to be false. They believed, for instance, that Jesus was to return visibly, in that age, and set up his church in person, and reign in the world in outward form-a thing which did not take place. They therefore believed in the early church something which was not true -consequently what they believed cannot be a certain test of Orthodoxy.

The High Church party in the Church of England, in defending themselves against the Roman Catholic argument from antiquity, have appealed to a higher antiquity, and established themselves on the supposed faith of the first three centuries. But Isaac Taylor, in his "Ancient Christianity," has sufficiently shown that during no period in those early centuries was anything like modern orthodoxy satisfactorily established. The Church doctrine was developed gradually during a long period of debate and controversy. The Christology of the Church was elaborated amid the fierce conflicts of Arians and Athanasians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Nestorians and Eutychians. The anthropology of the Church was hammered and beaten into shape by the powerful arm of Augustine and his successors, on the anvils of the fifth century, amid the fiery disputes of Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, and their opponents.

Many doctrines generally believed in the early church are

* Mr. Taylor shows that the Church, A. D. 300, was essentially corrupt in doctrine and practice; that the Romish Church was rather an improvement on it; that Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory, and Athanasius are full of false doctrine; and that a Gnostic theology, a Pagan asceticism, and a corrupt morality prevailed in the Church in those early centuries.

universally rejected now. The doctrine of chiliasm, or the millennial reign of Christ on earth; the doctrine of the under world, or Hades, where all souls went after death; the doctrine of the atonement made by Christ to the devil, such were some of the prevailing views held in the early ages of the Church. The oldest doctrine is not certainly the truest; or, as Theodore Parker once said to a priest in Rome, who told him that the primacy of Peter was asserted in the second century, "A lie is no better because it is an

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§ 6. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine held by all. But, it may be said, if Orthodoxy does not mean the absolutely right system of belief, nor the system held by the majority, nor the oldest doctrine of the Church, it may, nevertheless, mean the essential truths held in all Christian Churches, in all ages and times; in short, according to the ancient formula that which has been believed always, by all persons, and everywhere-"quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod ubique."

In this sense no one would object to Orthodoxy. Only make your Catholicity large enough to include every one, and who would not be a Catholic? But this famous definition, if it be strictly taken, seems as much too large as the others are too narrow. If you only admit to be orthodox what all Christian persons have believed, then the Trinity ceases to be orthodox; for many, in all ages, have disbelieved it. Eternal punishment is not orthodox, for that, too, has often been denied in the Church. Sacraments are not orthodox, for the Quakers have rejected them. The resurrection is not orthodox, for there were some Christians in the Church at Corinth who said there was no resurrection of the dead.

§7. Orthodoxy, as a Formula, not to be found. — Any attempt, therefore, rigidly to define Orthodoxy, destroys it. Regarded as a precise statement, in a fixed or definite form,

it is an impossibility. There is no such thing, and never has been. No creed ever made satisfied even the majority. How, indeed, can any statement proceeding from the human brain be an adequate and permanent expression of eternal truth? Even the apostle says, "I know in part, and I prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." The apostle declares that his sight of truth is only partial, and that everything partial is imperfect, and that everything imperfect must pass away; so that our present knowledge of truth is transient. "Whether there be knowledge, it shall pass away." If the apostle Paul declared that he had not the power of making a perfect and permanent statement of truth, how can we believe that any one else can ever do it?

§ 8. Orthodoxy as Convictions underlying Opinions. — If, therefore, every doctrinal statement is changeable and changing; if the history of opinions shows the rise and fall of creeds, one after the other becoming dominant, and then passing away; if no formula has ever gained the universal assent of Christendom; if the oldest creeds contained errors now universally rejected, what then remains

as Orthodoxy? We answer, no one statement, but something underlying all statements no one system of theology, but certain convictions, perhaps, pervading all the ruling systems. Man's mind, capable of insight, sees with the inward eye the same great spiritual realities, just as with his outward eye he sees the same landscape, sky, ocean. According to the purity and force of his insight, and the depth of his experience, he sees the same truth. There is one truth, but many ways of stating it—one spirit, but many forms.

"The one remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven's light forever shines, earth's shadows fly."

Are there any such great convictions underlying and informing all the creeds? I think there are. I think, for

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