them, and they are really much the same." | Gloucester - is, according to Dr. Arnold, "Dogma," on the other hand, means quite another thing. This is "deduced such theoretical or metaphysical views as are held by the Bishops of Winchester and Gloucester about the divinity of our Lord-such ideas as that "God is a person, the great First Cause, the moral and intelligent Governor of the universe, Jesus Christ consubstantial with him, and the Holy Ghost a person proceeding from the other two."

from the ideas of substance, identity, causation, design, and so on." And all this has nothing to do with religion. For surely "if there be anything with which metaphysics have nothing to do, and where a plain man without skill to walk in the arduous paths of abstruse reasoning may yet find himself at home, it is religion. For the object of religion is conduct; and conduct is really, however men may overlay it with philosophical dis

that is to say, it is the simplest thing in the world so far as understanding is concerned; as regards doing, it is the hardest thing in the world."

life."

66

The following is a specimen of the peculiar manner in which he places his subject before the reader: "The dis-quisitions, the simplest thing in the world tinguished Chancellor of the University of Oxford thought it needful to tell us on a public occasion lately, that religion is no more to be severed from dogma than light from the sun.' Every one, again, Again and again, after his manner, the remembers the Bishops of Winchester author reiterates, "Religion is conduct; and Gloucester making, in convocation and conduct is three-fourths of human the other day, their remarkable effort to life." "When we are asked, what is the do something,' as they said 'for the hon-object of religion? let us reply, conduct. our of our Lord's Godhead,' and to mark And when we are asked further, what is their sense of that infinite separation for conduct? let us answer, three-fourths of time and for eternity, which is involved in rejecting the Godhead of the eternal Now of course it is needless to say, Son. In the same way: 'To no teach- and it was hardly necessary for Mr. Aring,' says one champion of dogma, can nold to announce with such repetitory emthe appellation of Christian be truly given phasis, that there is a distinction betwixt which does not involve the idea of a per- religion and dogma. The distinction lies sonal God,' and then lays like stress on obviously in the respective nature of the the correct ideas about the personality of things. Religion is conduct," as the the Holy Ghost. Our Lord unques-author says, or touches conduct. It is tionably, says a third, annexes eternal practical, and may and frequently does life to a right knowledge of the Godhead' exist where there is little or no knowl- that is, to a right speculative dogmatic edge of dogma. Dogma, again, is in knowledge of it." form at least intellectual. It represents our conception of religious truth, and, like all other intellectual products, it may be clearly apprehended without any practical result. But surely the fact that opinion does not necessarily influence conduct, by no means destroys the value of "right opinions" in religion any more than in other things. Because dogma is something quite distinct from conduct, and the one may exist without the other, this is no reason for disparaging dogına, or for putting it aside as of no account. For what are dogmas, after all, but men's highest thoughts about religion — the thoughts of the Church formulated and set down in order respecting those Divine relations out of which all religion comes, and into which, when we make it a subject of reflection, it always runs ? Man, as our author quotes, "is a being of a large discourse looking before and after," and he cannot help thinking out what appears to him the conditions of right conduct. It is of the essence of

But in truth all these things, and not least "the idea of a personal God," are, in Mr. Arnold's opinion, of the nature of "abstruse reasonings" or metaphysics, with which religion has nothing to do. The word “God” is an unscientific term -"a term thrown out, so to speak, at a not fully grasped object of the speaker's consciousness - —a literary term, in short; and mankind mean different things by it as their consciousness differs. Strictly and formally, the word 'God,' we now learn from the philologist, means, like its kindred Aryan words theos, deus, and deva, simply brilliant. In a certain narnow way, therefore, this is the one exact and scientific sense of the word. It was long thought to mean good, and so Luther took it to mean the best that man knows or can know, and in this sense, as a matter of fact and history, mankind constantly use the word." The theological sense of the word — the sense in which it is used by the Bishops of Winchester and

66

religion that these conditions are felt in their day real growths of Christian largely to be beyond ourselves. Of this thought and experience · -as real as any very fact Mr. Arnold makes much. products of modern thought, to say the "The not ourselves," which is in us and least of it. If Christian theology teaches around us, and exercises constantly so that God is a person," it is not merely much influence over us, is his own that any bishops have thought or reaphrase to express the religious side of life. soned so, but because all the revelations Or again, more definitely, "The not our-of the Divine, "the not ourselves," in hisselves which makes for righteousness; tory and in human life, have pointed or, more definitely still, the enduring towards this conclusion. When men power, not ourselves, which makes for were athirst for the Divine, and could righteousness." These are the forms un-not find it in such mere stoical concepder which he conceives the Divine, or tions of order and righteous power as Mr. that which is more than we are, and in Arnold once more tenders for our acceptconformity with which religion arises. ance, then the words of Christ revealed Even he cannot get quit of dogma so far. to them a living Father-not merely a God is for him not a person or a cause Power making for righteousness, but a (this is to anthropomorphize)- but the divine Person loving righteousness and "Eternal," or "enduring Power not our-hating evil. selves which makes for righteousness." Mr. Arnold does not profess to doubt To talk of God as a person, still more as that this element of personality enters a "personal First Cause, the moral and into the Biblical conception of God. But intelligent Governor of the universe," is he casts it aside as a mere poetic accreto talk what appears to him unverifiable tion of the main idea, which, according nonsense. But to talk of God as "the to him, was "the Eternal." "The Eterstream of tendency by which all things nal" was that special conception of the fulfil the law of their being," or as the Divine which the Hebrew mind meant to "Eternal" — the "enduring Power not designate by the name "which we wrongourselves which makes for righteous-ly convey either without translation by ness" this is to talk in one case the Jehovah — which gives us the notion of language of science, and in the other a mere mythological deity or by a case the language of religious experience. We say nothing in the mean time of the value of these definitions, or whether they have any claim to stand for what our anthor makes them stand; we point merely to the obvious fact that in both cases they are generalizations of the nature of dogma. They are the intellectual forms in which the Divine seems true to him, or the opinions regarding it which he would wish us to receive for our mental peace and our practical good.

But to most minds may we not say to a catholic consensus of minds?the Divine is far more' truly conceived as a "great intelligent First Cause, or moral Governor of the universe." Does Mr. Arnold suppose that the Bishops of Winchester or Gloucester, or even the Archbishop of York, have invented "the idea of God as a person," that this idea is a mere product of their metaphysics, or of anybody's metaphysics? Even the more formal Christian dogmas are in no sense metaphysical inventions. Who has invented them or given them their dominance in the sphere of religion? Powerful as bishops and archbishops are, they are hardly equal to any such task as this. Surely they are only there, the most abstruse of them, because they were

wrong translation, Lord, which gives us the notion of a magnified and non-natural man. . . . In Israel's earliest history and earliest literature under the name of Eloah, Elohim, the Mighty, there may have lain and matured, there did lie and mature, ideas of God more as a moral power, more as a power connected above everything with conduct and righteousness, than were entertained by other races. Not only can we judge by the result that this must have been so, but we can see that it was so. Still their name, the Mighty, does not in itself involve any true and deep religious ideas, any more than our name the Brilliant. With the Eternal it is otherwise. For what did they mean by the Eternal? the Eternal what? the Eternal cause? Alas! these poor people were not Archbishops of York. They meant the Eternal rightcous, who loveth righteousness. This is admitted to have been the idea which Israel, had of the Divine. He personified his Eternal, for he was strongly moved, and an orator and a poet," and "man never knows how anthropomorphic he is," according to the saying of Gocthe. Therefore "Israel called God the maker of all things, who gives drink to all out of his pleasure as out of a river; but he was led to this by no theory of a first

cause. The grandeur of the spectacle | still waters. He restoreth my soul; He given by the world, the grandeur of the leadeth me in the paths of righteousness cause of its all being not ourselves, being for His name's sake. O God (Eloabove and beyond ourselves, and im- him), thou art my God: early will I seek measurably dwarfing us, a man of imag- Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee....0 ination instinctively personifies as a sin- Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall gle mighty, loving, and productive pow- all flesh come." It is surely unnecessary er." The language of Scripture is every- to quote passages to show how pervading where of the same character. So far it this personal strain is everywhere in the is a mere poetical adaptation. "God is Old Testament, heart crying unto heart a father, because the power in and - the conscious self, ignorant and astray, around us which makes for righteousness appealing for light and help to an alis indeed best described by the name of mighty conscious Being, who "knoweth this authoritative but yet tender and pro- our frame," and "like as a father pitieth tecting relation." his children," pitieth them that fear Him. Is not this the deepest strain of psalm and prophecy to which the other strain of righteousness is added, rather than that to this? The idea of a personal Being who thinks and loves and reigns,—is not this the primary idea of the Divine to Abraham, who was the friend of Godto David, who was His servant - and to Isaiah, whose eyes had seen in vision the King, the Lord of Hosts? The idea of righteousness was no doubt a very vital and fruitful growth of the Hebrew mind, but it was of later, and, at the end, of more imperfect development than the idea of personality. God was a conscious Will or Providence- -a personal Power to help and guide and punish, before He was seen to be in all things a righteous Power, demanding not merely sacrifice and burnt-offering, but clean hands and a pure heart. Looking, therefore, merely at the religious consciousness of the Hebrew, how can we reject its primary and accept its secondary revelation? on what principle can we pronounce the one to be poetry and the other experience or fact? Certainly Israel felt Jehovah to be more truly a person- one who cared for, and loved, and protected them-than anything else.

This and nothing else was the sense in which Jesus used the name of Father. He gave no "new or more precise definition of God, but took up this term just as Israel used it to stand for the Eternal that loveth righteousness. If, therefore, this term was, in Israel's use of it, not a term of science, but, as we say, a term of common speech, of poetry and eloquence thrown out at a vast object of Consciousness not fully owned by it, so it was in Christ's use of it also. And if the substratum of scientific affirmation in the term was not the affirmation of a great personal First Cause, the moral and intelligent Governor of the universe,' but the affirmation of an enduring Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness,' so it remained with Christ likewise... Instead of proclaiming what the Bishop of Gloucester calls 'the blessed truth that the God of the universe is a person,' Jesus uttered a warning for all time against this unprofitable jargon by saying, God is an influence (a Spirit), and those who would serve Him must serve Him not by any form of words or rites, but by inward motion and in reality."— P. 191, 192, 198, 199.

a

It is difficult to criticise statements of this kind, in which the language of Scripture is used so confidently, and yet in from what is sense so different customary. If we are to take the language of Scripture as expressive of religious truth at all, on what ground can we accept its witness to the Divine righteousness and exclude its witness to the Divine personality? The "idea of God as a person" may seem ridiculous to Mr. Arnold, but it was plainly a very real and true idea, and no mere poetical imagination to the mind of Hebrew Psalmist and Prophet. "Jehovah is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the

And who can doubt, in reading the Gospels, that this element of personality, sublimed into the perfect conception of fatherhood, is the conception of God which is everywhere present to the mind of Jesus? "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." What need here also to Do we not feel multiply quotations?

by him, and God as "a great personal First Cause who thinks and loves," is that the one, as he supposes, can be vered, and the other cannot. Nobody can is a person. And what people wish nowadays, and especially our hard-headed "masses," is to be sure of what they are called upon to hold or accept. The masses, with their rude practical instinct, go straight to the heart of the matter. They are told there is a great personal First Cause who thinks and loves, the moral and intelligent Author and Governor of the universe; and that the Bible and Bible-righteousness come from Him. Now they do not begin by asking with the intelligent Socinian, whether the doctrine of the Atonement is worthy of this moral and intelligent Ruler; they begin by asking what proof we have of Him at all. Moreover, they require plain experimental proof, such as that fire burns them if they touch it." This is the sort of proof, he thinks, that can be given of God as "the Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." He would say to the working man who rejects God and religion altogether, "Try it. You can try it." That there is such a Power nɔt ourselves you can verify by the very same process as you verify that fire burns - by experience! "Every case of conduct, of that which is more than three-fourths of your own life, and of the life of all mankind, will prove it to you. Disbelieve it and you will find out your mistake; as sure as if you disbelieve that fire burns, and put your hand into the fire, you will find out your mistake. Believe it, and you will find the benefit of it."

everywhere in the life of Christ, and at last in His passion and death, that it was the sense of personal relationship to God which sustained and blessed Him more than all else? God was to Him a Fa-ever know, he says, or be sure that God ther. He was His Father with whom He daily dwelt in blessed communion, whose conscious presence cheered Him, whose absence for a moment bewildered and terrified Him. Can we believe that all that Christ verified of God was "a power not himself making for righteousness;" that He had no conscious intercourse with a Divine mind; that the will of God which He declared was not a conscious purpose? God as a power not ourselves making for righteousness, is not only something less, as indeed Mr. Arnold admits, than the "God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," but something else something outside the genuine Christian conception, and quite different from it. Not that there is any question of righteousness being an element of this conception. It is so invariably. The very giory of the Christian idea of God is that it blends in undistinguishable union the elements of righteousness and fatherhood or personality. God is a righteous Father. The laws of His family and kingdom are laws of righteousness. His will is ever a righteous will. He is, as Mr. Arnold so often repeats, "the Eternal that loveth righteousness." There is no doubt of all this, and the verity of this idea of God is one of the blessings of the Christian revelation. Yet, withal, this is not the inner side of the Christian idea. Righteousness is everywhere present in it, but fatherhood is the core and centre of the idea, or, we should rather say, the fact. Primarily Now, if Mr. Arnold means by this (and God was to Christ His Father, and to all if he does not mean so much, the illuswho know the method of Christ, that very tration will not serve his purpose), that method of inwardness of which Mr. religious truth is to be tested by experiArnold says so much, God is primarily ments of the same nature as that by "Our Father which art in heaven." It which we prove that fire burns, and that is the personal relation that is the deep- no religion has claim upon us which canest relation in the Christian conscious- not stand this test-it is surely evident, ness of God. Nay, it is that which takes first of all, that this is not the order of the place of all other thoughts of God, religious certitude. Men do not find reand to which all others gather, as its liv-ligion in this way. It finds them. ing centre. Father-my God and Fa- seizes them not as a law of being, or conther-is what the Christian heart means duct, to which they must conform, but as by God — what it knows as God-what a living awe, a conscious presence hauntit has verified to be God, although not in ing them. God is not a power outside of Mr. Arnold's sense of verification. them which they seek to verify after Mr. It is surprising that Mr. Arnold did Arnold's manner, but a power within not feel that his own notion of verifica- them which their whole life confesses. tion takes him quite outside the Chris- He is, they feel: and their spirits witness tian, or indeed the religious, sphere. with His Spirit the fact. God, in short, The difference betwixt God as described is a revelation to the human heart and

It

They

conscience, and not a mere law or order | Christendom, which pours itself forth in which we verify, as we verify the proper- all the prayers of the Christian Church, ties of fire or water, or any other natural and which these beautiful natures, with substance. Whether His righteous pow- what Mr. Arnold calls a genius for relier is not also verifiable in this manner is gion, have especially cherished. another question. We believe it is. All have never thought of verifying God as Christian thinkers, no less than Mr. Ar- he would have us to do. They have nevnold, hold that righteousness is the only er thought of the results of conduct as law of happiness in individuals or states, tests of religious truth. God is within and that the course of every life and of them. Religious truth is for them the every national history more or less proves experience of the heart and consciencethis. Nothing can be finer or truer than its own light lightening and sending its much that he says on this subject. But verifying radiance down upon all the lowthe sphere of experimental verification in er levels of conduct. individual conduct-in history—is not the inner religious sphere. It is not properly this sphere at all. This is within the spirit alone. It is the life of the soul abiding in God; and finding all its strength and righteousness and rest in Him. To such a spirit and life there is no doubt of God; and of God as a Father, and not merely a Power—as a Personal Love dealing with us, and not a mere Force binding us.

If this is not the "experiment" of the nature desiderated by Mr. Arnold, it is nevertheless the sort of experiment which has been first of all and last of all satisfactory to the religious nature. It is such an inner consciousness of God to which the saintly and good in all ages have clung, when they had nothing else to which to cling when no way of righteousness was plain to them, and the course of their own lives and the course Plainly this was the side on which of the world seemed to lie in darkness. Christ approached men, and the special" Righteousness is no doubt salvation," aspect in which He set God before them. but the consciousness of this has not God is your Father. He is willing to been always present to the Church, or at save you. For this end have I come into any rate this has not been the primary the world to make known to you His spring of the most powerful religious loving will for your good. "I came forth movements. No thought of conduct, nor from the Father. Again I leave the even passion for righteou ness- but the world and go to the Father.... God so subduing consciousness of God, and of loved the world, that He gave His only the living, personal, responsible, relation begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in of all to Him, as children to a father, as Him should not perish, but have eternal subjects to a lord,- this has been the ife." It is easy for Mr. Arnold to call special inspiration of religious hearts in this mere language of accommodation all ages. And if this relation is unveriàadapted to the common beliefs of the able according to Mr. Arnold's illustraJews, and necessary to be used if Christ tion, it is only because his illustration is was to address them intelligibly at all. inapplicable to the case. Religious facts We quote it in illustration of his essential are not facts of the same nature as the method, as of the method of all great re- properties of fire or water, and you canEgious teachers, whose first and last aim not certify them in the same manner. is not with conduct, or even with right- Fire always burns, and if anyone doubts eousness, all important as these are, but the fact let him try it. But it is of the very with God as a living authority, and with nature of religion to appeal to a religious man as a creature of God. Repent," sense-as of poetry to a poetic sense, as Do doubt such teachers have always said. Mr. Arnold himself confesses, or music "Be changed in your whole inner man." to a harmonic sense. The laws or truths Renounce thyself," they have also said. of both poetry and music are unverifiable But primarily they have always said, to those who have no taste or capacity for or at least all who have "learned of either. They cannot be tested as you Christ" have said, "God is your Father test the facts of nature. They are none -He has claims upon you. He has sent the less true on this account. They His Son into the world to save you." yield an experience of their own which is And this thought of God as a living Being "who thinks and loves," whose we are, and yet against whom we have sinned -this thought of God it is which has been the well-spring of religious life in

66

their sufficient evidence. And taking religious experience as our guide, can there be any doubt that the personality of God is a fact to it as sure as the fact that fire burns, although not after the