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This is
a "University Sermon" (the last of his Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the
University of Oxford), not the more extended monograph of 1845. Although
delivered from the pulpit, the "University Sermons" were public lectures rather
than religious homelies.
A University Sermon Preached on the
Purification, 1843.
LUKE ii.
19.
"But Mary kept A these things, and pondered them in
her heart. "
Little is told us in Scripture concerning the Blessed
Virgin, but there is one grace of which the Evangelists make her the pattern,
in a few simple sentences-of Faith. Zacharias questioned the Angel's message,
but "Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy
word." Accordingly Elisabeth, speaking with an apparent allusion to the
contrast thus exhibited between her own highlyfavoured husband, righteous
Zacharias, and the still more highlyfavoured Mary, said, on receiving her
salutation, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb; Blessed is she that believed for there shall be a performance of those
things which were told her from the Lord."
2. But Mary's faith did not end in a mere acquiescence
in Divine providences and revelations: as the text informs us, she "pondered"
them. When the shepherds came, and told of the vision of Angels which they had
seen at the time of the Nativity, and how one of them announced that the Infant
in her arms was "the Saviour, which is Christ the Lord," while others did but
wonder, "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." Again,
when her Son and Saviour had come to the age of twelve years, and had left her
for awhile for His Father's service, and had been found, to her surprise, in
the Temple, amid the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions, and
had, on her addressing Him, vouchsafed to justify His conduct, we are told,
"His mother kept all these sayings in her heart." And accordingly, at the
marriage-feast in Cana, her faith anticipated His first miracle, and she said
to the servants, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."
3. Thus St. Mary is our pattern
of Faith, both in the reception and in
the study of Divine Truth. She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells
upon it; not enough to possess, she uses it; not enough to assent, she
developes it; not enough to submit the Reason, she reasons upon it; not indeed
reasoning first, and believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first believing
without reasoning, next from love and reverence, reasoning after believing. And
thus she symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the
doctors of the Church also, who have to investigate, and weigh, and define, as
well as to profess the Gospel; to draw the line between truth and heresy; to
anticipate or remedy the various aberrations of wrong reason; to combat pride
and recklessness with their own arms; and thus to triumph over the sophist and
the innovator.
4. If, then, on a Day dedicated to such high
contemplations as the Feast which we are now celebrating, it is allowable to
occupy the thoughts with a subject not of a devotional or practical nature, it
will be some relief of the omission to select one in which St. Mary at least
will be our example,-the use of Reason in investigating the doctrines of Faith;
a subject, indeed, far fitter for a volume than for the most extended notice
which can here be given to it; but one which cannot be passed over altogether
in silence, in any attempt at determining the relation of Faith to Reason.
5. The overthrow of the wisdom of the world was one of
the earliest, is well as the noblest of the triumphs of the Church; after the
pattern of her Divine Master, who took His place among the doctors before He
preached His new Kingdom, or opposed Himself to the world's power. St. Paul,
the learned Pharisee, was the first fruits of that gifted company, in whom the
pride of science is seen prostrated before the foolishness of preaching. From
his day to this the Cross has enlisted under its banner all those great
endowments of mind, which in former times had been expended on vanities, or
dissipated in doubt and speculation. Nor was it long before the schools of
heathenism took the alarm, and manifested an unavailing jealousy of the new
doctrine, which was robbing them of their most hopeful disciples. They had
hitherto taken for granted that the natural home of the Intellect was the
Garden or the Porch; and it reversed their very first principles to be called
on to confess, what yet they could not deny, that a Superstition, as they
considered it, was attracting to itself all the energy, the keenness, the
originality, and the eloquence of the age. But these aggressions upon
heathenism were only the beginning of the Church's conquests; in the course of
time the whole mind of the world, as I may say, was absorbed into the
philosophy of the Cross, as the element in which it lived, and the form upon which it was moulded.
And how many centuries did this endure, and what vast ruins still remain of its
dominion! In the capitals of Christendom the high cathedral and the perpetual
choir still witness to the victory of Faith over the world's power. To see its
triumph over the world's wisdom, we must enter those solemn cemeteries in which
are stored the relics and the monuments of ancient Faith-our libraries. Look
along their shelves, and every name you read there is, in one sense or other, a
trophy set up in record of the victories of Faith. How many long lives, what
high aims, what single-minded devotion, what intense contemplation, what
fervent prayer, what deep erudition, what untiring diligence, what toilsome
conflicts has it taken to establish its supremacy! This has been the object
which has given meaning to the life of Saints, and which is the subject-matter
of their history. For this they have given up the comforts of earth and the
charities of home, and surrendered themselves to an austere rule, nay, even to
confessorship and persecution, if so be they could make some small offering, or
do some casual service, or provide some additional safeguard towards the great
work which was in progress. This has been the origin of controversies, long and
various, yes, and the occasion of much infirmity, the test of much hidden
perverseness, and the subject of much bitterness and tumult. The world has been
moved in consequence of it, populations excited, leagues and alliances formed,
kingdoms lost and won: and even zeal, when excessive, evinced a sense of its
preciousness; nay, even rebellions in some sort did homage to it, as insurgents
imply the actual sovereignty of the power which they are assailing. Meanwhile
the work went on, and at length a large fabric of divinity was reared,
irregular in its structure, and diverse in its style, as beseemed the slow
growth of centuries; nay, anomalous in its details, from the peculiarities of
individuals, or the interference of strangers, but still, on the whole, the
development of an idea, and like itself, and unlike anything else, its most
widely-separated parts having relations with each other, and betokening a
common origin.
6. Let us quit this survey of the
general system, and descend to the history of the formation of any Catholic
dogma. What a remarkable sight it is, as almost all unprejudiced persons will
admit, to trace the course of the controversy, from its first disorders to its
exact and determinate issue. Full of deep interest, to see how the great idea
takes hold of a thousand minds by its living force, and will not be ruled or
stinted, but is "like a burning fire," as the Prophet speaks, "shut up" within
them, till they are "weary of forbearing, and cannot stay," and grows in them,
and at length is born through them, perhaps in a long course of years, and even
successive generations; so that the doctrine may rather be said to use the ,
minds of Christians, than to be used by them. Wonderful it is to see with what
effort, hesitation, suspense, interruption,-with how many swayings to the right
and to the left-with how many reverses, yet with what certainty of advance,
with what precision in its march, and with what ultimate completeness, it has
been evolved; till the whole truth "self-balanced on its centre hung," part
answering to part, one, absolute, integral, indissoluable, while the world
lasts! Wonderful, to see how heresy has but thrown that idea into fresh forms,
and drawn out from if farther developments, with an exuberance which exceeded
all questioning, and a harmony which baffled all criticism, like Him, its
Divine Author, who, when put on trial by the Evil One, was but fortified by the
assault, and is ever justified in His sayings, and overcomes when He is
judged.
7. And this world of thought is the expansion of a few
words, uttered, as if casually, by the fishermen of Galilee. Here is another
topic which belongs more especially to that part of the subject to which I
propose to confine myself. Reason has not only submitted, it has ministered to
Faith; it has illustrated its documents; it has raised illiterate peasants into
philosophers and divines; it has elicited a meaning from their words which
their immediate hearers little suspected. Stranger surely is it that St. John
should be a theologian, than that St. Peter should be a prince. This is a
phenomenon proper to the Gospel, and a note of divinity. Its half sentences,
its overflowings of language, admit of development [Vide Butler's Analogy, part ii. ch. iii.]; they have a life in them
which shows itself in progress; a truth, which has the token of consistency; a
reality, which is fruitful in resources; a depth, which extends into mystery:
for they are representations of what is actual, and has a definite location and
necessary bearings and a meaning in the great system of things, and a harmony
in what it is, and a compatibility in what it involves. What form of Paganism
can furnish a parallel? What philosopher has left his words to posterity as a
talent which could be put to usury, as a mine which could be wrought? Here,
too, is the badge of heresy; its dogmas are unfruitful; it has no theology; so
far forth as it is heresy, it has none. Deduct its remnant of Catholic
theology, and what remains? Polemics, explanations, protests. It turns to
Biblical Criticism, or to the Evidences of Religion, for want of a province.
Its formulae end in themselves, without development, because they are
words; they are barren, because they are dead. If they had life, they
would increase and multiply; or, if they do live and bear fruit, it is but as
"sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." It developes into
dissolution; but it creates nothing, it tends to no system, its resultant dogma
is but the denial of all dogmas, any theology, under the Gospel. No wonder it
denies what it cannot attain.
8. Heresy denies to the Church what is wanting in
itself. Here, then, we are brought to the subject to which I wish to give
attention. It need not surely formally be proved that this disparagement of
doctrinal statements, and in particular of those relating to the Holy Trinity
and Incarnation, is especially prevalent in our times. There is a suspicion
widely abroad,-felt, too, perhaps, by many who are unwilling to confess
it,-that the development of ideas and formation of dogmas is a mere abuse of
Reason, which, when it attempted such sacred subjects, went beyond its powers,
and could do nothing more than multiply words without meaning, and deductions
which come to nothing. The conclusion follows, that such an attempt does but
lead to mischievous controversy, from that discordance of doctrinal opinions,
which is its immediate consequence; that there is, in truth, no necessary or
proper connexion between inward religious belief and scientific expositions;
and that charity, as well as good sense, is best consulted by reducing creeds
to the number of private opinions, which, if individuals will hold for
themselves, at least they have no right to impose upon others.
9. It is my purpose, then, in what follows, to
investigate the connexion between Faith and Dogmatic Confession, as far as
relates to the sacred doctrines which were just now mentioned, and to show the
office of the Reason in reference to it; and, in doing so, I shall make as
little allusion as may be to erroneous views on the subject, which have been
mentioned only for the sake of perspicuity; following rather the course which
the discussion may take, and pursuing those issues on which it naturally opens.
Nor am I here in any way concerned with the question, who is the legitimate
framer and judge of these dogmatic inferences under the Gospel, or if there be
any. Whether the Church is infallible, or the individual, or the first ages, or
none of these, is not the point here, but the theory of developments
itself.
10. Theological dogmas are propositions expressive of
the judgments which the mind forms, or the impressions which it receives, of
Revealed Truth. Revelation sets before it certain supernatural facts and
actions, beings and principles; these make a certain impression or image upon
it; and this impression spontaneously, or even necessarily, becomes the subject
of reflection on the part of the mind itself, which proceeds to investigate it,
and to draw it forth in successive and distinct sentences. Thus the Catholic
doctrine of Original Sin, or of Sin after Baptism, or of the Eucharist, or of
justification, is but the expression of the inward belief of Catholics on these
several points, formed upon an analysis of that belief*. Such, too, are the
high doctrines with which I am especially concerned.
[* The controversy between the English Church and
the Church of Rome lies, it is presumed, in the matter of fact, whether such and such developments are true,
(e.g. Purgatory a true development of the doctrine of sin after bap. tism,) not
in the principle
of development
itself.]
11. Now, here I observe, first of all, that, naturally
as the inward idea of divine truth, such as has been described, passes into
explicit form by the activity of our reflective powers, still such an actual
delineation is not essential to its genuineness and perfection. A peasant may
have such a true impression, yet be unable to give any intelligible account of
it, as will easily be understood. But what is remarkable at first sight is
this, that there is good reason for saying that the impression made upon the
mind need not even be recognized by the parties possessing it. It is no proof
that persons are not possessed, because they are not conscious, of an idea.
Nothing is of more frequent occurrence, whether in things sensible or
intellectual, than the existence of such unperceived impressions. What do we
mean when we say, that certain persons do not know themselves, but that they
are ruled by views, feelings, prejudices, objects which they do not recognize?
How common is it to be exhilarated or depressed, we do not recollect why,
though we are aware that something has been told us, or has happened, good or
bad, which accounts for our feeling, could we recall it! What is memory itself,
but a vast magazine of such dormant, but present and excitable ideas? Or
consider, when persons would trace the history of their own opinions in past
years, how baffled they are in the attempt to fix the date of this or that
conviction, their system of thought having been all the while in continual,
gradual, tranquil expansion; so that it were as easy to follow the growth of
the fruit of the earth, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full
corn in the ear," as to chronicle changes, which involved no abrupt revolution,
or reaction, or fickleness of mind, but have been the birth of an idea, the
development, in explicit form, of what was already latent within it. Or, again,
critical disquisitions are often written about the idea which this or that poet
might have in his mind in certain of his compositions and characters; and we
call such analysis the philosophy of poetry, not implying thereby of necessity
that the author wrote upon a theory in his actual delineation, or knew what he
was doing; but that, in matter of fact, he was possessed, ruled, guided by an
unconscious idea. Moreover, it is a question whether that strange and painful
feeling of unreality, which religious men experience from time to time, when
nothing seems true, or good, or right, or profitable, when Faith seems a name,
and duty a mockery, and all endeavours to do right, absurd and hopeless, and
all things forlorn and dreary, as if religion were wiped out from the world,
may not be the direct effect of the temporary obscuration of some master
vision, which unconsciously supplies the mind with spiritual life and
peace.
12. Or, to take another class of
instances which are to the point so far as this, that at least they are real
impressions, even though they be not influential. How common is what is called
vacant vision, when objects meet the eye, without any effort of the judgment to
measure or locate them; and that absence of mind, which recollects minutes
afterwards the occurrence of some sound, the striking of the hour, or the
question of a companion, which passed unheeded at the time it took place! How,
again, happens it in dreams, that we suddenly pass from one state of feeling,
or one assemblage of circumstances to another, without any surprise at the
incongruity, except that, while we are impressed first in this way, then in
that, we take no active cognizance of the impression? And this, perhaps, is the
life of inferior animals, a sort of continuous dream, impressions without
reflections; such, too, seems to be the first life of infants; nay, in heaven
itself, such may be the high existence of some exalted orders of blessed
spirits, as the Seraphim, who are said to be, not Knowledge, but all
Love.
13. Now, it is important to insist on this
circumstance, because it suggests the reality and permanence of inward
knowledge, as distinct from explicit confession. The absence, or partial
absence, or incompleteness of dogmatic statements is no proof of the absence of
impressions or implicit judgments, in the mind of the Church. Even centuries
might pass without the formal expression of a truth, which had been all along
the secret life of millions of faithful souls. Thus, not till the thirteenth
century was there any direct and distinct avowal, on the part of the Church, of
the numerical Unity of the Divine Nature, which the language of some of the
principal Greek fathers, prima facie, though not really, denies. Again, the
doctrine of the Double Procession was no Catholic dogma in the first ages,
though it was more or less clearly stated by individual Fathers; yet, if it is
now to be received, as surely it must be, as part of the Creed, it was really
held every where from the beginning, and therefore, in a measure, held as a
mere religious impression, and perhaps an unconscious one.
14. But, further, if the ideas may be latent in the
Christian mind, by which it is animated and formed, it is less wonderful that
they should be difficult to elicit and define; and of this difficulty we have
abundant proof in the history whether of the Church, or of individuals. Surely
it is not at all wonderful, that, when individuals attempt to analyze their own
belief, they should find the task arduous in the extreme, if not altogether
beyond them; or, again, a work of many years; or, again, that they should
shrink from the true developments, if offered to them, as foreign to their
thoughts. This may be illustrated in a variety of ways.
15. It will often happen, perhaps from the nature of
things, that it is impossible to master and express an idea in a short space of
time. As to individuals, sometimes they find they cannot do so at all; at
length, perhaps, they recognize, in some writer they meet, with the very
account of their own thoughts, which they desiderate; and then they say, that
"here is what they have felt all along, and wanted to say, but could not," or
"what they have ever maintained, only better expressed." Again, how many men
are burdened with an idea, which haunts them through a great part of their
lives, and of which only at length, with much trouble, do they dispossess
themselves? I suppose most of us have felt at times the irritation, and that
for a long period, of thoughts and views which we felt, and felt to be true,
only dimly showing themselves, or flitting before us; which at length we
understood must not be forced, but must have their way, and would, if it were
so ordered, come to light in their own time. The life of some men, and those
not the least eminent among divines and philosophers, has centred in the
development of one idea; nay, perhaps has been too short for the process.
Again, how frequently it happens, that, on first hearing a doctrine propounded,
a man hesitates, first acknowledges, then disowns it; then says that he has
always held it, but finds fault with the mode in which it is presented to him,
accusing it of paradox or over-refinement; that is, he cannot at the moment
analyze his own opinions, and does not know whether he holds the doctrine or
not, from the difficulty of mastering his thoughts.
16. Another characteristic, as I have said, of
dogmatic statements, is the difficulty of recognizing them, even when attained,
as the true representation of our meaning. This happens for many reasons;
some-times, from the faint hold we have of the impression itself, whether its
nature be good or bad, so that we shrink from principles in substance, which we
acknowledge in influence. Many a man, for instance, is acting on utilitarian
principles, who is shocked at them in set treatises, and disowns them. Again,
in sacred subjects, the very circumstance that a dogma professes to be a direct
contemplation, and, if so be, a definition of what is infinite and eternal, is
painful to serious minds. Moreover, from the hypothesis, it is the
representation of an idea in a medium not native to it, not as originally
conceived, but, as it were, in projection; no wonder, then, that, though there
be an intimate correspondence, part by part, between the impression and the
dogma, yet there should be an harshness in the outline of the latter; as, for
instance, a want of harmonious proportion; and yet this is unavoidable, from
the infirmities of our intellectual powers.
17. Again, another similar peculiarity in developments
in general, is the great remoteness of the separate results of a common idea,
or rather at first sight the absence of any connexion. Thus it often happens
that party spirit is imputed to persons, merely because they agree with one
another in certain points of opinion and conduct, which are thought too minute,
distant, and various, in the large field of religious doctrine and discipline,
to proceed from any but an external influence and a positive rule; whereas an
insight into the wonderfully expansive power and penetrating virtue of
theological or philosophical ideas would have shown, that what is apparently
arbitrary in rival or kindred schools of thought, is after all rigidly
determined by the original hypothesis. The remark has been made, for instance,
that rarely have persons maintained the sleep of the soul before the
Resurrection, without falling into more grievous errors; again, those who deny
the Lutheran doctrine of justification, commonly have tendencies towards a
ceremonial religion; again, it is a serious fact that Protestantism has at
various times unexpectedly developed into an allowance or vindication of
polygamy; and heretics in general, however opposed in tenets, are found to have
an inexplicable sympathy for each other, and never wake up from their ordinary
torpor, but to exchange courtesies and meditate coalitions. One other remark is
in point here, and relates to the length to which statements run, though,
before we attempted them, we fancied our idea could be expressed in one or two
sentences. Explanations grow under our hands, in spite of our effort at
compression. Such, too, is the contrast between conversation and epistolary
correspondence. We speak our meaning with little trouble; our voice, manner,
and half words completing it for us; but in writing, when details must be drawn
out, and misapprehensions anticipated, we seem never to be rid of the
responsibility of our task. This being the case, it is surprising that the
Creeds are so short, nor surprising that they need a comment.
18. The difficulty, then, and hazard of developing
doctrines implicitly received, must be fully allowed; and this is often made a
ground for inferring that they have no proper developments at all; that there
is no natural connexion between certain dogmas and certain impressions; and
that theological science is a matter of time, and place, and accident, though
inward belief is ever and every where one and the same. But surely the instinct
of every Christian revolts from such a position; for the very first impulse of
his faith is to try to express itself about the "great sight" which is
vouchsafed to it; and this seems to argue that a science there is, whether the
mind is equal to its discovery or no. And, indeed, what science is open to
every chance inquirer? which is not recondite in its principles? which requires
not special gifts of mind for its just formation? All subject-matters admit of
true theories and false, and the false are no prejudice to the true. Why should
this class of ideas be different from all other? Principles of philosophy,
physics, ethics, politics, taste, admit both of implicit reception and explicit
statement; why should not the ideas, which are the secret life of the
Christian, be recognized also as fixed and definite in themselves, and as
capable of scientific analysis? Why should not there be that real connexion
between science and its subject-matter in religion, which exists in other
departments of thought? No one would deny that the philosophy of Zeno or
Pythagoras was the exponent of a certain mode of viewing things; or would
affirm that Platonist and Epicurean acted on one and the same idea of nature,
life, and duty, and meant the same thing, though they verbally differed, merely
because a Plato or an Epicurus was needed to detect the abstruse elements of
thought, out of which each philosophy was eventually constructed. A man surely
may be a Peripatetic or an Academic in his feelings, views, aims, and acts, who
never heard the names. Granting, then, extreme cases, when individuals who
would analyze their views of religion are thrown entirely upon their own
reason, and find that reason unequal to the task, this will be no argument
against a general, natural, and ordinary correspondence between the dogma and
the inward idea. Surely, if Almighty God is ever one and the same, and is
revealed to us as one and the same, the true inward impression of Him, made on
the recipient of the revelation, must be one and the same; and, since human
nature proceeds upon fixed laws, the statement of that impression must be one
and the same, so that we may as well say that there are two Gods as two Creeds.
And considering the strong feelings and energetic acts and severe sufferings
which age after age have been involved in the maintenance of the Catholic
dogmas, it is surely a very shallow philosophy to account such maintenance a
mere contest about words, and a very abject philosophy to attribute it to mere
party spirit, or to personal rivalry, or to ambition, or to covetousness.
19. Reasonable, however, as is this view of doctrinal
developments in general, it cannot be denied that those which relate to the
Objects of Faith, of which I am particularly speaking, have a character of
their own, and must be considered separately. Let us, then, consider how the
case stands, as regards the sacred doctrines of the Trinity and the
Incarnation.
20. The Apostle said to the Athenians, "Whom ye
ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you;" and the mind which is habituated
to the thought of
God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, naturally turns, as I have said, with a
devout curiosity to the contemplation of the Object of its adoration, and
begins to form statements concerning Him before it knows whither, or how far,
it will be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second
to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of these
opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea, which indeed
can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is its development,
and results in a series, or rather body of dogmatic statements, till what was
at first an impression on the Imagination has become a system or creed in the
Reason.
21. Now such impressions are obviously individual and
complete above other theological ideas, because they are the impressions of
Objects. Ideas and their developments are commonly not identical, the
development being but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus
the doctrine of Penance may be called a development of'the doctrine of Baptism,
yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in the doctrines of
the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions of the original
impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one, so the impression
which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing of parts; it is not a
system; nor is it any thing imperfect, and needing a counterpart. It is the
vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not to an assemblage of notions, or
to a creed, but to One Individual Being; and when we speak of Him we speak of a
Person, not of a Law or a Manifestation. This being the case, all our attempts
to delineate our impression of Him go to bring out one idea, not two or three
or four; not a philosophy, but an individual idea in its separate
aspects.
22. This may be fitly compared to the impressions made
on us through the senses. Material objects are whole, and individual; and the
impressions which they make on the mind, by means of the senses, are of a
corresponding nature, complex and manifold in their relations and bearings, but
considered in themselves integral and one. And in like manner the ideas which
we are granted of Divine Objects under the Gospel, from the nature of the case
and because they are ideas, answer to the Originals so far as this, that they
are whole, indivisible, substantial, and may be called real, as being images of
what is real. Objects which are conveyed to us through the senses, stand out in
our minds, as I may say, with dimensions and aspects and influences various,
and all of these consistent with one another, and many of them beyond our
memory or even knowledge, while we contemplate the objects themselves; thus
forcing on us a persuasion of their reality from the spontaneous congruity and
coincidence of these accompaniments, as if they could not be creations of our
minds, but were the images of external and independent beings. This of course
will take place in the case of the sacred ideas which are the objects of our
faith. Religious men, according to their measure, have an idea or vision of the
Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate and of His Presence, not as a
number of qualities, attributes, and actions, not as the subject of a number of
propositions, but as one, and individual, and independent of words, as an
impression conveyed through the senses.
23. Particular propositions, then, which are used to
express portions of the great idea vouchsafed to us, can never really be
confused with the idea itself, which all such propositions taken together can
but reach, and cannot exceed. As definitions are not intended to go beyond
their subject, but to be adequate to it, so the dogmatic statements of the
Divine Nature used in our confessions, however multiplied, cannot say more than
is implied in the original idea, considered in its completeness, without the
risk of heresy. Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which they are designed
to express, and which alone is substantive; and are necessary only because the
human mind cannot reflect upon that idea, except piecemeal, cannot use it in
its oneness and entireness, nor without resolving it into a series of aspects
and relations. And in matter of fact these expressions are never equivalent to
it; we are able, indeed, to define the creations of our own minds, for they are
what we make them and nothing else; but it were as easy to create what is real
as to define it; and thus the Catholic dogmas are, after all, but symbols of a
Divine fact, which, far from being compassed by those very propositions, would
not be exhausted, nor fathomed, by a thousand.
24. Now of such sacred ideas and their attendant
expressions, I observe:-
(1.) First, that an impression of this intimate kind
seems to be what Scripture means by "knowledge." "This is life eternal," says
our Saviour, "that they might know Thee the only True God, and Jesus Christ
whom Thou hast sent." In like manner St. Paul speaks of willingly losing all
things, "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus;" and St. Peter of
"the knowledge of Him who hath called us to glory and virtue." [John
xvii. 3. Phil. iii. 8. 2 Pet. i. 3.] Knowledge is the possession of
those living ideas of sacred things, from which alone change of heart or
conduct can proceed. This awful vision is what Scripture seems to designate by
the phrases "Christ in us," "Christ dwelling in us by faith," "Christ formed in
us," and "Christ manifesting Himself unto us." And though it is faint and
doubtful in some minds, and distinct in others, as some remote object in the
twilight or in the day, this arises from the circumstances of the particular
mind, and does not interfere with the perfection of the gift
itself.
25. (2.) This leads me next, however, to observe, that
these religious impressions differ from those of material objects, in the mode
in which they are made. The senses are direct, immediate, and ordinary
informants, and act spontaneously without any will or effort on our part; but
no such faculties have been given us, as far as we know, for realizing the
Objects of Faith. It is true that inspiration may be a gift of this kind to
those who have been favoured with it; nor would it be safe to deny to the
illuminating grace of Baptism a power, at least of putting the mind into a
capacity for receiving impressions; but the former of these is not ordinary,
and both are supernatural. The secondary and intelligible means by which we
receive the impression of Divine Verities, are, for instance, the habitual and
devout perusal of Scripture, which gradually acts upon the mind; again, the
gradual influence of intercourse with those who are in themselves in possession
of the sacred ideas; again, the study of Dogmatic Theology, which is our
present subject; again, a continual round of devotion; or again, sometimes, in
minds both fitly disposed and apprehensive, the almost instantaneous operation
of a keen faith. This obvious distinction follows between sensible and
religious ideas, that we put the latter into language in order to fix, teach,
and transmit them, but not the former. No one defines a material object by way
of conveying to us what we know so much better by the senses, but we form
creeds as a chief mode of perpetuating the impression.
26. (3.) Further, I observe, that though the Christian
mind reasons out a series of dogmatic statements, one from another, this it has
ever done, and always must do, not from those statements taken in themselves,
as logical propositions, but as being itself enlightened and (as if) inhabited
by that sacred impression which is prior to them, which acts as a regulating
principle, ever present, upon the reasoning, and without which no one has any
warrant to reason at all. Such sentences as "the Word was God," or "the
Only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father," or
"the Word was made
flesh," or "the Holy Ghost which proceedeth from the Father," are not a mere
letter which we may handle by the rules of art at our own will, but august
tokens of most simple, ineffable, adorable facts, embraced, enshrined according
to its measure in the believing mind. For though the development of an idea is
a deduction of proposition from proposition, these propositions are ever formed
in and round the idea itself (so to speak), and are in fact one and all only
aspects of it. Moreover, this will account both for the mode of arguing from
particular texts or single words of Scripture, practised by the early Fathers,
and for their fearless decision in practising it; for the great Object
of Faith on which they lived both enabled them to appropriate to itself
particular passages of Scripture, and became to them a safeguard against
heretical deductions from them. Also, it will account for the
charge of weak reasoning, commonly brought against those Fathers; for never do
we seem so illogical to others as when we are arguing under the continual
influence of impressions to which they are insensible.
27. (4.) Again, it must of course be remembered, as I
have just implied, (though as being an historical matter it hardly concerns us
here), that Revelation itself has provided in Scripture the main outlines and
also large details of the dogmatic system. Inspiration has superseded the
exercise of human Reason in great measure, and left it but the comparatively
easy task of finishing the sacred work. The question, indeed, at first sight
occurs, why such inspired statements are not enough without further
developments; but in truth, when Reason has once been put on the investigation,
it cannot stop till it has finished it; one dogma creates another, by the same
right by which it was itself created; the Scripture statements are sanctions as
well as informants in the inquiry; they begin and they do not exhaust.
28. (5.) Scripture, I say, begins a series of
developments which it does not finish; that is to say, in other words, it is a
mistake to look for every separate proposition of the Catholic doctrine in
Scripture. This is plain from what has gone before. For instance, the
Athanasian Creed professes to lay down the right faith, which we must hold on
its most sacred subjects, in order to be saved. This must mean that there is
one view concerning the Holy Trinity, or concerning the Incarnation, which is
true, and distinct from all others; one definite, consistent, entire view,
which cannot be mistaken, not contained in any certain number of propositions,
but held as a view by the believing mind, and not held, but denied by Arians,
Sabellians, Tritheists, Nestorians, Monophysites, Socinians, and other
heretics. That idea is not enlarged, if propositions are added, nor impaired if
they are withdrawn: if they are added, this is with a view of conveying that
one integral view, not of amplifying it. That view does not depend on such
propositions: it does not consist in them; they are but specimens and
indications of it. And they may be multiplied without limit. They are
necessary, but not needful to it, being but portions or aspects of that
previous impression which has at length come under the cognizance of Reason and
the terminology of science. The question, then, is not whether this or that
proposition of the Catholic doctrine is in terminis in Scripture,
unless we would be slaves to the letter, but whether that one view of the
Mystery, of which all such are the exponents, be not there; a view which would
be some other view, and not itself, if any one of such propositions, if any one
of a number of similar propositions, were not true. Those propositions imply
each other, as being parts of one whole; so that to deny one is to deny all,
and to invalidate one is to deface and destroy the view itself. One thing alone
has to be impressed on us by Scripture, the Catholic idea, and in it they all
are included. To object, then, to the number of propositions, upon which an
anathema is placed, is altogether to mistake their use; for their
multiplication is not intended to enforce many things, but to express one,-to
form within us that one impression concerning Almighty God, as the ruling
principle of our minds, and that, whether we can fully recognize our own
possession of it or no. And surely it is no paradox to say that such ruling
ideas may exert a most powerful influence, at least in their various aspects,
on our moral character, and on the whole man: as no one would deny in the case
of belief or disbelief of a Supreme Being.
29. (6.) And here we see the ordinary mistake of
doctrinal innovators, viz. to go away with this or that proposition of the
Creed, instead of embracing that one idea which all of them together are meant
to convey; it being almost a definition of heresy, that it fastens on some one
statement as if the whole truth, to the denial of all others, and as the basis
of a new faith; erring rather in what it rejects, than in what it maintains:
though, in truth, if the mind deliberately rejects any portion of the doctrine,
this is a proof that it does not really hold even that very statement for the
sake of which it rejects the others. Realizing is the very life of true
developments; it is peculiar to the Church, and the justification of her
definitions.
30. Enough has now been said on the distinction, yet
connexion, between the implicit knowledge and the explicit confession of the
Divine Objects of Faith, as they are revealed to us under the Gospel. An
objection, however, remains, which cannot be satisfactorily treated in a few
words. And what is worse than prolixity, the discussion may bear with it some
appearance of unnecessary or even wanton refinement; unless, indeed, it is
thrown into the form of controversy, a worse evil. Let it suffice to say, that
my wish is, not to discover difficulties in any subject, but to solve them.
31. It may be asked, then, whether the mistake of
words and names for things is not incurred by orthodox as well as heretics, in
dogmatizing at all about the "secret things which belong unto the Lord our
God," inasmuch as the idea of a supernatural object must itself be
supernatural, and since no such ideas are claimed by ordinary Christians, no
knowledge of Divine Verities is possible to them. How should any thing of this
world convey ideas which are beyond and above this world? How can teaching and
intercourse, how can human words, how can earthly images, convey to the mind an
idea of the Invisible? They cannot rise above themselves. They can suggest no
idea but what is resolvable into ideas natural and earthly. The words "Person,"
"Substance ... .. Consubstantial," "Generation," "Procession," "Incarnation,"
"Taking of the manhood into God," and the like, have either a very abject and
human meaning, or none at all. In other words, there is no such inward view of
these doctrines, distinct from the dogmatic language used to express them, as
was just now supposed. The metaphors by which they are signified are not mere
symbols of ideas which exist independently of them, but their meaning is
coincident and identical with the ideas. When, indeed, we have knowledge of a
thing from other sources, then the metaphors we may apply to it are but
accidental appendages to that knowledge; whereas our ideas of Divine things are
just coextensive with the figures by which we express them, neither more nor
less, and without them are not; and when we draw inferences from those figures,
we are not illustrating one existing idea, but drawing mere logical inferences.
We speak, indeed, of material objects freely, because our senses reveal them to
us apart from our words; but as to these ideas about heavenly things, we learn
them from words, yet (it seems) we are to say what we, without words, conceive
of them, as if words could convey what they do not contain. It follows that our
anathemas, our controversies, our struggles, our sufferings, are merely about
the poor ideas conveyed to us in certain figures of speech.
32. Some obvious remarks suggest themselves in answer
to this representation. First, it is difficult to determine what divine grace
may not do for us, if not in immediately implanting new ideas, yet in refining
and elevating those which we gain through natural informants. If, as we all
acknowledge, grace renews our moral feelings, yet through outward means, if it
opens upon us new ideas about virtue and goodness and heroism and heavenly
peace, it does not appear why, in a certain sense, it may not impart ideas
concerning the nature of God. Again, the various terms and figures which are
used in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity or of the Incarnation, surely may by
their combination create ideas which will be altogether new, though they are
still of an earthly character. And further, when it is said that such figures
convey no knowledge of the Divine Nature itself, beyond those figures, whatever
they are, it should be considered whether our senses can be proved to suggest
any real idea of matter. All that we know, strictly speaking, is the existence
of the impressions our senses make on us; and yet we scruple not to speak as if
they conveyed to us the knowledge of material substances. Let, then, the
Catholic dogmas, as such, be freely admitted to convey no true idea of Almighty
God, but only an earthly one, gained from earthly figures, provided it be
allowed, on the other hand, that the senses do not convey to us any true idea
of matter, but only an idea commensurate with sensible impressions.
33. Nor is there any reason why this should not be
fully granted. Still there may be a certain correspondence between the idea,
though earthly, and its heavenly archetype, such, that that idea belongs to the
archetype, in a sense in which no other earthly idea belongs to it, as being
the nearest approach to it which our present state allows. Indeed Scripture
itself intimates the earthly nature of our present ideas of Sacred Objects,
when it speaks of our now "seeing in a glass
darkly, (en ainigmati) but then face to
face" and it has ever been the doctrine of divines that the Beatific Vision, or
true sight of Almighty God, is reserved for the world to come. Meanwhile we are
allowed such an approximation to the truth as earthly images and figures may
supply to us.
34. It must not be supposed that this is the only case
in which we are obliged to receive information needful to us, through the
medium of our existing ideas, and consequently with but a vague apprehension of
its subject-matter. Children, who are made our pattern in Scripture, are
taught, by an accommodation, on the part of their teachers, to their immature
faculties and their scanty vocabulary. To answer their questions in the
language which we should use towards grown men, would be simply to mislead
them, if they could construe it at all. We must dispense and "divide" the word
of truth, if we would not have it changed, as far as they are concerned, into a
word of falsehood; for what is short of truth in the letter may be to them the
most perfect truth, that is, the nearest approach to truth, compatible with
their condition*. The case is the same as regards those who have any natural
defect or deprivation which cuts them off from the circle of ideas common to
mankind in general. To speak to a blind man of light and colours, in terms
proper to those phenomena, would be to mock him; we must use other media of
information accommodated to his circumstances, according to the well-known
instance in which his own account of scarlet was to liken it to the sound of a
trumpet. And so again, as regards savages, or the ignorant, or weak, or
narrow-minded, our representations and arguments must take a certain form, if
they are to gain admission into their minds at all, and to reach them. Again,
what impediments do the diversities of language place in the way of
communicating ideas! Language is a sort of analysis of thought; and, since
ideas are infinite, and infinitely combined, and infinitely modified, whereas
language is a method definite and limited, and confined to an arbitrary
selection of a certain number of these innumerable materials, it were idle to
expect that the courses of thought marked out in one language should, except in
their great outlines and main centres, correspond to those of another.
Multitudes of ideas expressed in the one do not even enter into the other, and
can only be conveyed by some economy or accommodation, by circumlocutions,
phrases, limiting words, figures, or some bold and happy expedient. And
sometimes, from the continual demand, foreign words become naturalized. Again,
the difficulty is extreme, as all persons know, of leading certain individuals
(to use a familiar phrase) to understand one another; their habits of thought
turning apparently on points of mutual repulsion. Now this is always in a
measure traceable to moral diversities between the parties; still, in many
cases, it arises mainly from difference in the principle on which they have
divided and subdivided that world of ideas, which comes before them both. They
seem ever to be dodging each other, and need a common measure or economy to
mediate between them.
[*Hence it is not more than an hyperbole to say
that, in certain cases, a lie is the nearest approach to the truth. [Vide Hist.
of Arians, p. 67, &c. Edit. 3.] We are told that "God is not the son of
man, that He should repent;" yet "it repented the Lord that He had made
man."]
35. Fables, again, are economies or accommodations,
being truths and principles cast into that form in which they will be most
vividly recognized; as in the well-known instance attributed to Menenius
Agrippa. Again, mythical representations, at least in their better form, may be
considered facts or narratives, untrue, but like the truth, intended to bring
out the action of some principle, point of character, and the like. For
instance, the tradition that St. Ignatius was the child whom our Lord took in
His arms, may be unfounded; but it realizes to us his special relation to
Christ and His Apostles, with a keenness peculiar to itself. The same remark
may be made upon certain narratives of martyrdoms, or of the details of such
narratives, or of certain alleged miracles, or heroic acts, or speeches, all
which are the spontaneous produce of religious feeling under imperfect
knowledge. If the alleged facts did not occur, they ought to have occurred (if
I may so speak); they are such as might have occurred, and would have occurred,
under circumstances; and they belong to the parties to whom they are
attributed, potentially, if not actually; or the like of them did occur; or
occurred to others similarly circumstanced, though not to those very persons.
Many a theory or view of things, on which an institution is founded, or a party
held together, is of the same kind. Many an argument, used by zealous and
earnest men, has this economical character, being not the very ground on which
they act, (for they continue in the same course, though it be refuted,) yet, in
a certain sense, a representation of it, a proximate description of their
feelings in the shape of argument, on which they can rest, to which they can
recur when perplexed, and appeal when questioned. Now, in this reference to
accommodation or economy in human affairs, I do not meddle with the question of
casuistry, viz. which of such artifices, as they may be called, are innocent,
or where the line is to be drawn. That some are immoral, common sense tells us;
but it is enough for my purpose, if some are necessary, as the same common
sense will allow; and then the very necessity of the use will account for the
abuse and perversion.
36. Even between man and man, then, constituted, as
men are, alike, various distinct instruments, keys, or calculi of thought
obtain, on which their ideas and arguments shape themselves respectively, and
which we must use, if we would reach them. The cogitative method, as it may be
called, of one man is notoriously very different from that of another; of the
lawyer from that of the soldier, of the rich from that of the poor. The
territory of thought is portioned out in a hundred different ways.
Abstractions, generalizations, definitions, propositions, all are framed on
distinct standards; and if this is found in matters of this world between man
and man, surely much more must it exist between the ideas of men, and the
thoughts, ways, and works of God.
37. One of the obvious instances of this contrariety
is seen in the classifications we make of the subjects of the animal or
vegetable kingdoms. Here a very intelligible order has been observed by the
Creator Himself; still one of which we have not, after all, the key. We are
obliged to frame one of our own; and when we apply it, we find that it will not
exactly answer the Divine idea of arrangement, as it discovers itself to us;
there being phenomena which we cannot locate, or which, upon our system of
division, are anomalies in the general harmony of the Creation.
38. Mathematical science will afford us a more
extended illustration of this distinction between supernatural and eternal
laws, and our attempts to represent them, that is, our economies. Various
methods or calculi have been adopted to embody those immutable
principles and dispositions of which the science treats, which are really
independent of any, yet cannot be contemplated or pursued without one or other
of them. The first of these instruments of investigation employs the medium of
extension; the second, that of number; the third, that of motion; the fourth
proceeds on a more subtle hypothesis, that of increase. These methods are very
distinct from each other, at least the geometrical and the differential; yet
they are, one and all, analyses, more or less perfect, of those same necessary
truths, for which we have not a name, of which we have no idea, except in the
terms of such economical representations. They are all developments of one and
the same range of ideas; they are all instruments of discovery as to those
ideas. They stand for real things, and we can reason with them, though they be
but symbols, as if they were the things themselves, for which they stand. Yet
none of them carries out the lines of truth to their limits; first, one stops
in the analysis, then another; like some calculating tables which answer for a
thousand times, and miss in the thousand and first. While they answer, we can
use them just as if they were the realities which they represent, and without
thinking of those realities; but at length our instrument of discovery issues
in some great impossibility or contradiction, or what we call in religion, a
mystery. It has run its length; and by its failure shows that all along it has
been but an expedient for practical purposes, not a true analysis or adequate
image of those recondite laws which are investigated by means of it. It has
never fathomed their depth, because it now fails to measure their course. At
the same time, no one, because it cannot do every thing, would refuse to use it
within the range in which it will act; no one would say that it was a system of
empty symbols, though it be but a shadow of the unseen. Though we use it with
caution, still we use it, as being the nearest approximation to the truth which
our condition admits.
39. Let us take another instance, of an outward and
earthly form, or economy, under which great wonders unknown seem to be
typified; I mean musical sounds, as they are exhibited most perfectly in
instrumental harmony. There are seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen;
yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings so
much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master in it
create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventiveness is a
mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game or fashion of the day, without
reality, without meaning? We may do so; and then, perhaps, we shall also
account the science of theology to be a matter of words; yet, as there is a
divinity in the theology of the Church, which those who feel cannot
communicate, so is there also in the wonderful creation of sublimity and beauty
of which I am speaking. To many men the very names which the science employs
are utterly incomprehensible. To speak of an idea or a subject seems to be
fanciful or trifling, to speak of the views which it opens upon us to be
childish extravagance; yet is it possible that that inexhaustible evolution and
disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so
various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound, which is gone and perishes?
Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen emotions, and
strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know
not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and
goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so; it cannot be. No; they have
escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony in
the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home; they are the voice
of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living laws of Divine
Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they besides themselves,
which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter,-though mortal man, and he
perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows, has the gift of
eliciting them.
40. So much on the subject of musical sound; but what
if the whole series of impressions, made on us through the senses, be, as I
have already hinted, but a Divine economy suited to our need, and the token of
realities distinct from themselves, and such as might be revealed to us, nay,
more perfectly, by other senses, different from our existing ones as they from
each other? What if the properties of matter, as we conceive of them, are
merely relative to us, so that facts and events, which seem impossible when
predicated concerning it in terms of those impressions, are impossible only in
those terms, not in themselves,impossible only because of the imperfection of
the idea, which, in consequence of those impressions, we have conceived of
material substances? If so, it would follow that the laws of physics, as we
consider them, are themselves but generalizations of economical exhibitions,
inferences from figure and shadow, and not more real than the phenomena from
which they are drawn. Scripture, for instance, says that the sun moves and the
earth is stationary; and science, that the earth moves, and the sun is
comparatively at rest. How can we determine which of these opposite statements
is the very truth, till we know what motion is? If our idea of motion be but an
accidental result of our present senses, neither proposition is true, and both
are true; neither true philosophically, both true for certain practical
purposes in the system in which they are respectively found; and physical
science will have no better meaning when it says that the earth moves, than
plane astronomy when it says that the earth is still.
41. And should any one fear lest thoughts such as
these should tend to a dreary and hopeless scepticism, let him take into
account the Being and Providence of God, the Merciful and True; and he will at
once be relieved of his anxiety. All is dreary till we believe, what our hearts
tell us, that we are subjects of His Governance; nothing is dreary, all
inspires hope and trust, directly we understand that we are under His hand, and
that whatever comes to us is from Him, as a method of discipline and guidance.
What is it to us whether the knowledge He gives us be greater or less, if it be
He who gives it? What is it to us whether it be exact or vague, if He bids us
trust it? What have we to care whether we are or are not given to divide
substance from shadow, if He is training us heavenwards by means of either? Why
should we vex ourselves to find whether our deductions are philosophical or no,
provided they are religious? If our senses supply the media by which we are put
on trial, by which we are all brought together, and hold intercourse with each
other, and are disciplined and are taught, and enabled to benefit others, it is
enough. We have an instinct within us, impelling us, we have external necessity
forcing us, to trust our senses, and we may leave the question of their
substantial truth for another world, "till the day break, and the shadows flee
away."* And what is true of reliance on our senses, is true of all the
information which it has pleased God to vouchsafe to us, whether in nature or
in grace.
[*The senses convey to the mind "substantial truth,"
in so far as they bring home to us that certain things are, and in confuso what
they are. But has a man born blind, by means of hearing, smelling, taste, and
touch, such an idea of physical nature, as may be called substantially true, or, on the contrary, an idea which at best is but the
shadow of the truth? for, in whichever respect, whether as in substance or by
a shadow, the blind man knows the objects of sight, in the same are those things, in
"which eye has not seen, nor ear heard," apprehended by us now, "in a glass
darkly," per speculum, in
aenigmate.]
42. Instances, then, such as these, will be found both
to sober and to encourage us in our theological studies,-to impress us with a
profound sense of our ignorance of Divine Verities, when we know most; yet to
hinder us from relinquishing their contemplation, though we know so little. On
the one hand, it would appear that even the most subtle questions of the
schools may have a real meaning, as the most intricate formuix in analytics;
and, since we cannot tell how far our instrument of thought reaches in the
process of investigation, and at what point it fails us, no questions may
safely be despised. "Whether God was any where before creation?" "whether He
knows all creatures in Himself?" "whether the blessed see all things possible
and future in Him?" "whether relation is the form of the Divine Persons?" "in
what sense the Holy Spirit is Divine Love?" these, and a multitude of others,
far more minute and remote, are all sacred from their subject.
43. On the other hand, it must be recollected that not
even the Catholic reasonings and conclusions, as contained in Confessions, and
most thoroughly received by us, are worthy of the Divine Verities which they
represent, but are the truth only in as full a measure as our minds can admit
it; the truth as far as they go, and under the conditions of thought which
human feebleness imposes. It is true that God is without beginning, if eternity
may worthily be considered to imply succession; in every place, if He who is a
Spirit can have relations with space. It is right to speak of His Being and
Attributes, if He be not rather super-essential; it is true to say that He is
wise or powerful, if we may consider Him as other than the most simple Unity.
He is truly Three, if He is truly One; He is truly One, if the idea of Him
falls under earthly number. He has a triple Personality, in the sense in which
the Infinite can be understood to have Personality at all. If we know anything
of Him,-if we may speak of Him in any way,-if we may emerge from Atheism or
Pantheism into religious faith,-if we would have any saving hope, any life of
truth and holiness within us,-this only do we know, with this only confession,
we must begin and end our worship-that the Father is the One God, the Son the
One God, and the Holy Ghost the One God; and that the Father is not the Son,
the Son not the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost not the Father.
44. The fault, then, which we must guard against in
receiving such Divine intimations, is the ambition of being wiser than what is
written; of employing the Reason, not in carrying out what is told us, but in
impugning it; not in support, but in prejudice of Faith. Brilliant as are such
exhibitions of its powers, they bear no fruit. Reason can but ascertain the
profound difficulties of our condition, it cannot remove them; it has no work,
it makes no beginning, it does but continually fall back, till it is content to
be a little child, and to follow where Faith guides it.
45. What remains, then, but to make our prayer to the
Gracious and Merciful God, the Father of Lights, that in all our exercises of
Reason, His gift, we may thus use it,-as He would have us, in the obedience of
Faith, with a view to His glory, with an aim at His Truth, in dutiful
submission to His will, for the comfort of His elect, for the edification of
Holy Jerusalem, His Church, and in recollection of His own solemn warning,
"Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the
day of judgment; for by the words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words
thou shalt be condemned."
Source:
John Henry Newman, "The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine,
1843", repr. in John Henry Newman, Conscience, Concensus and the
Development of Doctrine: Revolutionary Texts by John Henry Cardinal
Newman, ed. James Gaffney, (New York: Image/Doubleday, 1992), 6-30
This text is part of the
Internet Modern
History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and
World history.
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© Paul Halsall, October 1998
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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