Reply No. 2, By S. Hinds.

You tell me that you are pressed with the question, "If we cannot rely en the Bible, what have we to rely on?" It is prompted, I presume, by a feeling akin to that which caused our Lord's Apostlcs to exclaim, on one occasion, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." (John vi. 68) It is a question which you cannot but respect, and even sympathise with, although you may not be under its disquieting influence. But he who is, may be reminded that, in these latter days of Christianity, a question of the like import, and prompted by the like feeling, has once already disquieted the minds of Christians, and has nevertheless been answered to the satisfaction of, at all events, numbers in their successive generations. When the errors and malpractices of the Roman Catholic Church were impelling multitudes to protest against it and quit it, the question was, "If we cannot rely on the Church, what have we to rely on?" There is a natural craving after some infallible leaching, in matters of Religion, which was thought too reasonable to be denied, and the Bible was proposed and accepted as the substitute, in this respect, for the Church; that, though not the Church, was pronounced to be infallible. We are now entering on a farther stage of religious progress. Numbers are so startled at the exposure of some palpable errors, and even questionable rules of morality, in the Bible, that they are beginning to pretest against its infallibility, as did a past generation against that of the Church, and thus the question is revived, "If we cannot rely on the Bible, what have we to rely on?"

A scoffer might be disposed to say, "This reminds one of the Eastern theory of the earth's resting-place. It was supported on an elephant. But what supports the elephant ? A tortoise. And what supports the tortoise? No answer. Even so, it may be suggested, the Church was made the first resting-prop for the Christian world. When driven to find one on which to rest the Church, it was the Bible. Now, objections being urged against that, what underlies it? Nothing." That such, however, is not the ease, may, I think, be shown satisfactorily, and without drawing on the unreasoning credulity of any. Let me preface what I have to say for this purpose by observing that the protest against the Church formerly, and that which is now gathering strength against the Bible, have not been protests against either Church or Bible in respect of their legitimate character and use; but against each and both as infallible teachers of religious truth. And now for the question which you are called en to answer.

I. Firstly, to assume, by à priori reasoning, that Cod must have provided an infallible teaching of religious truth, is more than we have any reasonable right to do. It may seem to us to be requisite and indispensable; but we are not competent judges of this. The rational, and humble, and pious course unquestionably is, to ascertain, in the first instance, what is actually the religious provision made for us by our Creator, and to accept this, and endeavour to regulate our life and faith by it, whether or not it corresponds to anticipations founded on à priori reasoning.

II. Secondly, in the instances of infallible teaching, or rather, in those which have been successively recognised as such, all that has been apparent page 13 has been human agency, the divine agency having been always imperceptible. The Roman Catholic Church representa itself to be the working of the divino mind within a human exterior; but whatever its members may believe of this assumption, all that they are actually conversant with, the entire of its teaching, comes to them from priests and councils, through words spoken or written by men of the like passions with themselves. There is no vox ex adylis, no sign or sound divine. Protestants, whatever degree of sanctity they may ascribe to the scriptures, whatever extent of inspiration they may assert for their authorship, derive all their religious infruction from human teaching. What they see is a book, confessedly the work of man's hand, the interpretation of which is their instruction, and this interpretation is, and ever must be, human, whether embodied in Church formularies, derived from the lips of a pastar or other trusted individual, or acquired through the exercise of their own human faculties on the contents of the book. Place the divine infallibility where you will, the human fallibility must come between you and it. The book itself is man's report of God's Word, and of all that is asserted to be divine in and concerning his record of it. Reliance on the Bible, therefore, does not mean reliance of the same kind as when we speak of relying on God, or on a fellow-creature, or on any fact; such, e.g., as the continuance of the course of nature. It is, if I may be allowed the expression, a compound reliance,—a reliance on an aggregate of what is divine and what is human. Why should it shock and bewilder your questioner to have it pointed out to him, that that which is human is necessarily fallible, and that this fallibility affects the aggregate. He could never, if he has duly reflected on the matter, have imagined that he could rely either on the interpretation of Scripture or on Scripture itself, independently of the exercise on both of those natural faculties which God has bestowed on us, and as possessing which God addresses us when His gracious purpose is to make us wise unto salvation. It is this joint working that St. Paul impressed on the Christiana of Philippi when he told them (Philippi ii. 12, 13), "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,"—worketh with us, not without us, and not only in doing His will, but in acquiring that knowledge of Him, which it is His will and good pleasure to reveal to us.

III. Thirdly, whilst the attention of the religious world has been absorbed in contemplating the shift from one infallible teacher, or supposed infallible teacher, to the other, a change, not less important and more permanent, has been simultaneously going on in the fuller and still fuller recognition of an appeal to human reason on all questions concerning divine revelation. The first bold step in this direction was taken in respect of Church infallibility. It was canvassed, it was brought to the test of human reasoning, it was roughly handled, and overthrown—overthrown, perhaps, is too strong a word—but, at all events, amongst a large section of Christendom it was undoubtedly denuded of its most extravagant pretensions. An advance from this to an examination of the claim for the Bible to be recognised as the infallible teacher was inevitable. To some extent it was entered on even in the first stages of Protestantism, but tenderly and timidly. Certain portions of the Bible were rejected from the infallible document. What was left, however, was not as yet thought to be questionable. The free exercise of man's reasoning powers found employment in the interpretation of the sacred volume. All agreed that the Scriptures were infallible; but this infallibility was no infallible teaching unless those who interpreted the Bible interpreted it rightly. Where resided the infallible interpreter? For any Protestant Church to have asserted this qualification would have been to revive the pretensions of the Church from which all had separated, and on the decisions of which all had freely exercised their reasoning powers. Was human reason, then, to be supreme even in religious matters? The admission of this principle was page 14 unavoidable; its full cstablishment might be slow and gradual, but eventually it was certain In the meantime, even in its first development, it gave rise to a new feature in the Christian world—at least, in Western Christendom—the formation of sundry churches with no positive bond of union between them; only the negative bond of dissent from Rome. I do not mean that they had nothing positive in common; but that the only common ground on which they could combine for any joint action, was the negative one of being anti-Romanist. Subsiding into this condition, Protestant Christendom has gone on ever since, admitting an exercise of human reasoning in the interpretation of the Bible, but struggling, with more or less of conscious inconsistency, both against the actual fallibility of interpretation as authoritatively set forth in its formularies, and also against the further exercise of that reasoning faculty—which once released from its shackles, was sure to extend its [unclear: flod] of operation,—on the authority of the Scriptural document, on the limits of its infallibility, on its claim, either wholly or partially, to infallibility. This is the stage which we cannot be said to hare reached, but towards which numbers in all Protestant countries are now progressing. Amongst these are many, no doubt, who, like your questioner, are slow to admit the sufficiency of those reasoning powers, the exercise of which has led them thus far. Consideraoins such as I have ventured to suggest may help to assure them, that it is appointed to man thus to seek and attain the knowledge that is from above, as well as that which is of the earth.

Permit me to say a word or two more on one feature in this direction of progressive thought, which has hitherto marked its course, and is now as prominent as ever. It is the paramount importance which is given to religious knowledge. It would seem to be taken as an indisputable principle, as indeed it has been from a very early period in the history of Christianity, that our chief religious care should be to determine all that we can concerning God and our unseen and future condition. Now this comprises topics concerning which, once sanction the exercise of reasoning, there must ever be a widespread disagreement. The affixing of a creed to a church, embodying all that has been determined by its founders or rulers, is a signal of dissent from, if not of actual hostilitiy to, other churches; and, in no long time, a source of division and discord within each separate community; in the Church of England, at present, carried to an excess which makes it difficult for the different parties to be comprehended in it, notwithstanding the latitude permitted; to say nothing of the large dissenting bodies who find it impassible to remain in it. Is not this, which is confessedly an unchristian condition, enough to suggest a doubt, whether we are not making too much of religious knowledge or belief, in short of the Christian creed. Notwithstanding all the force which may belong to the argument for it from the unbroken tradition of many centuries, when we reflect on all that doctrinal tests have given rise to, the atroeities committed by Christians on Christians, the individual and wholesale persecutions, the bloody wars, is there not enough to make it questionable whether Christians are right in presuming that it is a creed which is required of them above all things? Of two revelations from God to us, whether you include in the sources of them Scripture, or not, He has given us something like infallible teaching for the one, and has [unclear: denied] it, practically denied it to us, for the other. Religious life, the observance of justice, charity, and other moral requirements, of faith, too, in God, and a recognition of responsibility for all matters wherein He has given us free-will to do or not to do, in all this the will of God is so revealed to us that every one, without doubt, can comprehend and conform to it. The religious creed, on the other hand, the knowledge of and belief in the doctrines of a Trinity, an Atonement, an Incarnation, the Personality of the Holy Ghost, Justification, Sanctification are matters which do not admit of the same ready and universal acceptance, and which have been the occasion of much unchristian strife and cruelty, of page 15 much which is condemned by that oilier revelation of the divine will, which is alone capable of being made a universal symbol of God's people. It is not the holding of these doctrines of which I am speaking, but the requiring from those who unite in one religious body that they shall hold them, one and all; that their symbol of fellowship must be, not the living principle winch is evidenced by a Christian life, but the assent to certain formularies embodying these points of knowledge go and belief. Men who lead religious lives may surely be still of one religious society, although they may not agree in thinking alike on such topics. Men may surely worship God, side by side, if that worship consists of simple prayer and praise not stamped with professions of doctrine. Agree to differ, and the very differences are likely to be diminished when they are no longer the battlefield for controversy. Tenets are the appropriate bond and symbol of philosophical and political associations, because tenets express the object for which the members unite; but the ultimate object of' religious union consists, not in aught which is set forth in the tenets of religion, however high and holy that may be, but in holy living, in obedience to a law that is written within as well as without us, in that purity of heart without which no man shall see God.

When, therefore, you are asked, "If we cannot rely on the Bible, what have we to rely on?" you may reply, Will you be left comfortless, without infallible guidance and teaching, as to one great section of divine revelation,—God's will respecting man's life? But the questioner is not satisfied. He asks for a corresponding certainty in what he is to think and believe concerning the nature of the divine Being, the mode of His intercourse with us, the whole scheme of His appointments for man, now and hereafter. Habituated to clothe his piety in the rich garb of an elaborate creed, what is to become of me, he exclaims, if the materials out of which this precious inheritance has been fabricated are not as surely and as essentially my religion as justice and mercy, simple faith and childlike devotion? Say to such an one, in the words of an Apostle, "Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God; shall the thing formed say to him that tormed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" (Romans ix, 20.) On whom ought you to charge your disquietude—on God, if it appears that He has not provided the like plain evidence for your creed, or on man who has assumed that He ought and must have done so, and has built up this system, and, not only so, but has caused it to take precedence of, if not to supersede altogether, that portion of His Revelation which He has made as dear to us as if he had written it on the sky; which needs no learned interpretation, for it is not a matter of learning; which is fitted to bind His people together without the possibility of their union being dissolved through dissent about it; which is, after all, the Revelation to which we instinctively turn, when appeal is made from any portion of a creed which is thought to be inconsistent with a divine revelation? Say to such an one, that his misgiving savours of mistrust in God, who has made us as it seemed best to him, and, as it seemed best to him, has placed us in circumstances which call for the exercise of the faculties with which he has endowed us, and has so ordered it, that in the exercise of those faculties alone He is revealed to us, whether they be exercised on His volume of nature, or on Scripture. The source of revelation may be either; but the revealer is man himself. Bid him, moreover, be on his guard against substituting a vain and presumptuous prying into the hidden things of the Lord, for the desire to know Him by seeking to conform to his will. The tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden, the craving after which caused Adam and Eve to be banished from the tree of life, may serve as an emblem to us. We, too, in our eager pursuit after forbidden knowledge, may find ourselves wandering far away from the life which in destined otherwise to nourish and prepare us for Heaven.

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