3. The objection to theology is also incompatible with the historical continuity and unity of the development of theological knowledge in the progressive development of the kingdom of God on earth. The universe is so vast and complicated that no one person and no one generation can discover all which can be known of it. And because every particular object is related to the universe, acting on its environment as well as acted on by it, no one person or generation can discover all which is knowable about anything. At every point of time man is the "heir of all the ages." He begins where the preceding generation left off, and all the discoveries of all the ages lie open before him to master and use in any line of investigation to which he devotes himself. And if this is true of the knowledge of finite things, much more must it be true of the knowledge of God. Here is the necessity of the historical spirit which appreciates and preserves the knowledge gained in the past, while by further investigation mistakes of the past are corrected, obscurities are removed, and new knowledge is gained. An astronomer or geologist would be considered insane if he should undertake to study those sciences without acquainting himself with the discoveries of the past. And he is equally insane who investigates what God is, and what the universe and the men in it are in their relation to God, with no recognition of what God has revealed and what men have learned respecting God in former generations. We must heed the simple but profoundly significant saying of Burke: "If one would go to any place he must start from where he is." It is said a pigmy on the shoulder of a giant can see farther than the giant. But it is only on condition that he climb upon the giant's shoulder. says, "We are the true antiquity." But this is true only on condition that we possess ourselves of the wisdom of the ancients and of the significance and fruits of their history. Thus in each generation man comes into possession of "the capitalized experience of the race." But he must take possession of his inheritance and use it, or it will profit him nothing. In addition to this, God's revelation of himself is progressive by his continuous action in the course of human history, disclosing his character and law, redeeming men from sin and advancing on earth his kingdom, the reign of universal good-will regulated by righteousness in accordance with eternal truth and law. In this way also Lord Bacon the knowledge of God is progressively enlarged by the results of his action through the ages. The oak is the revelation of the acorn and the most complete commentary on its significance. And the kingdom of God in its progressive growth through the ages, continued by the action of God redeeming men from sin, transforming human society into itself, and as it will continue to advance till the consummation of redemption, is the most complete commentary on the significance of his revelation of himself in Christ as recorded in the Bible. The study of theology in this historical spirit develops the historical sense, a sort of immediate insight into the significance and value of opinions. It saves the theologian from the very common mistake of propounding as a new discovery an opinion fully discussed and exploded in a former age. It creates in him a healthy caution in receiving new doctrines. It restrains him from self-confidence and rashness in his speculations. It helps him to distinguish the essential from the non-essential, the permanent from the transient. It quickens him to reverence for the great truths which have been embodied in the confessions and teachings of the church, which have been uttered in its prayers and spiritual songs, which have vitalized the Christian experience and inspired the self-sacrificing love of Christian workers, and have been attested by Christian martyrs and confessors. It turns the theologian away from needless controversies about minor matters and concentrates his attention and interest on the great spiritual realities which concern the practical realization of the Christlike life and the advancement of the kingdom of God. It gives him breadth of view, soundness of judgment, capacity to appreciate the true principles and constituent elements of progress, and so to discriminate between the false and the true, to counsel and guide wisely in the various movements of his time. When the historical spirit is wanting in the study and teaching of theology, the tendency is to isolation in individual subjectivity, in which the individual shuts himself out from the common Christian consciousness of the church and the living growth of Christian experience and theological thought through the ages. E. E. Hale said, in behalf of the Unitarians: "We have stripped off every rag. We have destroyed all the machinery. Just as I am without one plea,' but that I am child and thou art father. This is the whole. Take me in thine arms, Father of my life; in thee I live and move and have my being. To proclaim to the men of to-day religion in this simplicity is the special duty of the Unitarian church." But here, in discarding all theology, he gives us, as is usual in such attempts, a considerably large Body of Divinity. I heard Wendell Phillips say in a public lecture : "In this country we have no institutions. We have come out of them all and stand free with nothing over us but the broad blue firmament." 2 But they who come out from all institutions under the open firmament and strip off every rag are revolutionary Sans-Culottes, who overturn or pull down but never build up. They would expect every one to begin intellectually unhoused, with not so much as a wigwam, and unclothed, in puris naturalibus of the savage. All progress then must cease. Each generation, instead of beginning where the preceding left off, must begin where it began. The intellectual labor of the human race would be, like that of Sisyphus in Hades, rolling a stone up a hill which always rolls back to where it started. Knowledge would become a Penelope's web, all which was woven in the day unravelled in the night. This must issue in universal scepticism, in a creed of one article, the single affirmation of the right to doubt and to ask questions. This isolation in individualism generates self-sufficiency. It substitutes personal infallibility for the infallibility of the church. It prevents all stability of belief. The church is no longer a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid; it is only a wandering tribe of Bedouins, pitching their tents at 1 Discourse before the Unitarian National Conference at Saratoga, 1876. 2 Professor Allen in his "Continuity of Religious Thought," gives us a remarkable instance of its discontinuity. He seems to suggest that the church of to-day in its theological thinking should take a leap backward over all which has been accomplished by the western churches and begin its theology and religion anew from the position of the early Greek fathers. This is the more remarkable in view of the facts that the churches of the East failed to repel the advance of Mohammedism, failed to be powers advancing either spiritual Christianity or Christian civilization, and have but poorly preserved their own spiritual life from being lost in formalism. On the contrary, the western churches, in the decay of the Roman empire, the general corruption of society, and the invasion of the barbarians, quickened a new civilization, christianized and civilized the barbarians and the new nations which arose in central and southern Europe, made powers in civilization the ideas of the sacredness of human rights and the worth and brotherhood of man which have been the watchwords of modern social and political progress, and have their missionaries preaching Christ in every continent and on the islands of the sea. It pre night only to remove them elsewhere in the morning. cludes all continuity of knowledge with progressive increase. issues in what Rothe calls Neodoxy, a love of novelty taking the place of the love of the truth. It is divisive, each setting up his own private opinion or his special reform and riding his hobby with as much enthusiasm and elation of spirit as if he knew for certain that he was mounted on one of the apocalyptic horses which John saw issuing forth to the battle of the Lord. In correcting Christian doctrine and purifying Christian life, it rends rather than repairs, it washes away rather than purifies. As Aubrey de Vere makes one of his characters say of another, "In the washing of the dirt From off the church, he 'll wash the church to nothing. I preached against her sins; there were who said "I Against such individualism Dr. Bellows properly protests: flatly disown all allegiance to those theories of so-called freedom of thought and inquiry which allow every man's right to assume the ignorance and folly of all his predecessors; to approach all social, political, and religious questions as if he were the first man, or after the order of Melchizedek without father or mother, approach them as though he had the authority and wisdom and independence of humanity itself, instead of being a mere tendril of that noble and sturdy vine." 1 This is not the position of physical science, nor of philosophy, nor theology, Theology, therefore, must be studied and taught with candor and openness of mind ready to correct mistakes and to welcome the discovery of previously unrecognized meanings and practical applications of the redemption of men from sin by the God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. This is in harmony with the historical spirit. It is justified and demanded by history, which is the record of the progressive enlargement and purifying of the knowledge of Christianity and of its applications. It is not 1 Sequel to "The Suspense of Faith," p. 39. truth which is new, but man's discovery of it. And theology is new only so far as man progressively acquires a larger, clearer and more correct knowledge of God and the spiritual world, and of man and human life in their actual relations to these great realities. And this progress does not invalidate the reality of God's redemption of men through Christ and his building up his kingdom on earth, nor of any truth involved therein.2 This progressiveness of theological knowledge has been recognized by the Christian church from the beginning. This is seen in the continuous and energetic activity of Christian thought through the ages, seeking to clarify, define and enlarge the knowledge of God; and even in the earnest and honest, but not always wise and good-tempered, controversies as to the true doctrine. "The history of Christian doctrine, a thing hardly conceived of before this century, has now been admitted as an important branch of church history." In studying it a certain progressiveness is also noticeable in the succession of topics which in successive ages have received attention. The first was naturally the calling of the Gentiles and the relation of the Christian church to Judaism; then the person of Christ and the existence of the one only God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in Augustine's time, the doctrine of sin; after Anselm, the atonement; in the Middle Ages, questions like those between the Thomists and the Scotists, having important and far-reaching bearing on theological thought; at the Reformation, justification by faith. While the Christian life of faith and love and the God in Christ reconciling the world to himself have been always central in Christian belief, it seems almost as if a course of investigation had been planned for the church in successive ages, so that the different subjects might be studied as in a regular curriculum. Thus some particular topic is usually found to have been prominent in the thinking of each age, and each generation has the opportunity and is under obligation to contribute something to the healthy progress of the knowledge of God. While we see and lament the imperfections and evils incidental to these discussions, it is evident that through them all the 1 John Wilkes was asked by a Roman Catholic: "Where was your church before Luther?" He replied: "Where was your face before you washed it this morning?" 2 "In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Col.ii. 3.) 8 The Letter and the Spirit; Bampton Lectures, 1888, by R. E. Bartlett, p. 142. |