صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

sincere of the Christians, the Church would perhaps never have attained to that clear and definite description of the real Trinitarian doctrine, and that irrefragable amount of Scripture proof, with which it is now fortified, which render it scarcely possible that the soul, which heartily longs for the truth, should fall into any material error. The mere fact that any opinion is maintained in the world, as being really expressive of the mind of the Spirit as exhibited in the Scriptures, is sufficient to stir up the mind to a more careful study of the Bible than it would otherwise have pursued. The true Church and the false, the orthodox believer and the heretic, the creed of Athanasius and the creed of Arius, the doctrine of Luther and the doctrine of Bellarmine, unite in accomplishing the one great end of transmitting the knowledge of God's revealed will from generation to generation of mankind. The bright sun in the heavens draws up the pure rains with which the earth is revived in its barrenness, alike from the clear stream and the stagnant marsh ; the noisome pool and the trickling rivulet yield one tribute to that brightest image of the glory and the bounty of Jehovah that our eyes behold, and join in swelling the showers that water the

world. And thus it is with the single-minded heart that longs only for the uncorrupted truth which Christ has revealed: from Christian creed and heretical fancy, from the interpretations of the true believer and the perversions of the unstable, it gathers fresh strength for the examination of God's word, and its own strengthening and nourishing to eternal life. Guided by the free Spirit of Christ, it applies one unfailing test to every system, it compares all it learns with the unfailing Scriptures, and rejects as man's device whatsoever is not therein confirmed.

In the commencement of his course there will undoubtedly be to every person a presumption in favour of that religious system in which he has been educated. But this will only continue so long as he remains in ignorance of the opinions of the rest of the world, and of the liability to error of those to whom he has hitherto been compelled by circumstances to trust. It is only from these circumstances that the presumption arises; it is only to himself that it is any presumption at all; the probability is a merely relative one, the consequence of his own peculiar situation in life, and in no way attaching to the actual truth or falsehood of the system in question. It is the result of his ignorance, rather

than of his knowledge; it springs from the fact that as yet he has had no available means of ascertaining the sentiments of the rest of the world, and the real claims of those whom he has followed. We cannot but begin by accepting as true the religion of our families and friends, because those families and friends are the most trustworthy teachers whom it has as yet been our lot to meet with. We rely in our youth upon the testimony of the great body of our fellow-countrymen, because we know not of any more competent witnesses to the truth. And so far our conduct is most just and reasonable; it is the wisest that we can pursue, in our present state of ignorance; it would be as absurd to reject their authority when we have no reason to look upon it as invalid, as to receive it when we have no cause for regarding it as undoubtedly worthy of obedience. And consequently, a man is bound to accept the religion of his parents or teachers, until from some other source he has gained reasonable grounds for doubting the soundness of the instruction they have given him.

But while he is thus doing, there is reserved to him (whether he is aware of it or not) a right hereafter to try by his own personal judgment the excellence of the system in which he

has been nourished. So soon as an increase of knowledge and experience has shown to him, what hitherto he could not have learnt, that there are other persons in the world to all appearance as trustworthy as his past guides, who impugn as false and mischievous the sentiments he has been taught to reverence, it becomes his duty to follow a totally different course. He must then betake himself to the tests of truth and error, which human nature, the experience of the world, the necessary laws of reasoning, and the voice of the soul within him, supply to every inquiring mind. He must then bring friend and foe to the same tribunal; his prepossessions, his antipathies, the objects of his desires, the objects of his dislikes, fellow-countryman and stranger, the venerable and the new, the men of his own day and those who have long since passed away from the earth, must all be tested by the same criterion and brought before the same judge; he must remember that God has given to himself the same powers of mind, the same reason, the same responsibility, which are bestowed upon his fellow-men, and that for his use of all these talents he must give in his account when he stands before his Judge at the last.

I would here, however, take occasion to ex

press my earnest hope, that I shall not be supposed to advance the strange assertion, that it is the bounden duty of every individual Christian believer, actually to institute this comparison between the written word and the various systems of religious faith which prevail in the world around him. Who shall say that no faith is acceptable in the sight of a heart-searching God, but that which is grounded upon a close examination of the holy Scriptures? Who shall deny the character of genuine believers to all that vast multitude who take their creed upon trust? Not for a moment would I advance so untenable a supposition. I say no more than that all men have a right given to them by God, to test all doctrine, if they think proper to do so, by the sacred Scriptures. They are not bound to do this; a man may be a true believer who has accepted every article of his belief on the simple word of other persons. That which constitutes him a member of the Church of Christ is the actual correctness of his faith; and it matters not whether in forming this faith he has trusted with an unwarrantable credulity to the dictates of fallible minds, or whether he has reared for himself the glorious superstructure of pure Catholic truth, upon a foundation of cautious

« السابقةمتابعة »