"Nonsense," answered Charles; "you shouldn"t say such things, even in jest."
"I don"t jest; I am in earnest: you are plainly on the road."
"Well, if I am, you have put me on it," said Reding, wishing to get away from the subject as quick as he could; "for you are ever talking against shams, and laughing at King Charles and Laud, Bateman, White, rood-lofts, and piscinas."
"Now you are a Puseyite," said Sheffield in surprise.
"You give me the name of a very good man, whom I hardly know by sight,"
said Reding; "but I mean, that n.o.body knows what to believe, no one has a definite faith, but the Catholics and the Puseyites; no one says, "This is true, that is false; this comes from the Apostles, that does not.""
"Then would you believe a Turk," asked Sheffield, "who came to you with his "One Allah, and Mahomet his Prophet"?"
"I did not say a creed was everything," answered Reding, "or that a religion could not be false which had a creed; but a religion can"t be true which has none."
"Well, somehow that doesn"t strike me," said Sheffield.
"Now there was Vincent at the end of term, after you had gone down,"
continued Charles; "you know I stayed up for Littlego; and he was very civil, very civil indeed. I had a talk with him about Oxford parties, and he pleased me very much at the time; but afterwards, the more I thought of what he said, the less was I satisfied; that is, I had got nothing definite from him. He did not say, "This is true, that is false;" but "Be true, be true, be good, be good, don"t go too far, keep in the mean, have your eyes about you, eschew parties, follow our divines, all of them;"--all which was but putting salt on the bird"s tail. I want some practical direction, not abstract truths."
"Vincent is a humbug," said Sheffield.
"Dr. Pusey, on the other hand," continued Charles, "is said always to be decisive. He says, "This is Apostolic, that"s in the Fathers; St.
Cyprian says this, St. Augustine denies that; this is safe, that"s wrong; I bid you, I forbid you." I understand all this; but I don"t understand having duties put on me which are too much for me. I don"t understand, I dislike, having a will of my own, when I have not the means to use it justly. In such a case, to tell me to act of myself, is like Pharaoh setting the Israelites to make bricks without straw.
Setting me to inquire, to judge, to decide, forsooth! it"s absurd; who has taught me?"
"But the Puseyites are not always so distinct," said Sheffield; "there"s Smith, he never speaks decidedly in difficult questions. I know a man who was going to remain in Italy for some years, at a distance from any English chapel,--he could not help it,--and who came to ask him if he might communicate in the Catholic churches; he could not get an answer from him; he would not say yes or no."
"Then he won"t have many followers, that"s all," said Charles.
"But he has more than Dr. Pusey," answered Sheffield.
"Well, I can"t understand it," said Charles; "he ought not; perhaps they won"t stay."
"The truth is," said Sheffield, "I suspect he is more of a sceptic at bottom."
"Well, I honour the man who builds up," said Reding, "and I despise the man who breaks down."
"I am inclined to think you have a wrong notion of building up and pulling down," answered Sheffield; "Coventry, in his "Dissertations,"
makes it quite clear that Christianity is not a religion of doctrines."
"Who is Coventry?"
"Not know Coventry? he is one of the most original writers of the day; he"s an American, and, I believe, a congregationalist. Oh, I a.s.sure you, you should read Coventry, although he is wrong on the question of Church-government: you are not well _au courant_ with the literature of the day unless you do. He is no party man; he is a correspondent of the first men of the day; he stopped with the Dean of Oxford when he was in England, who has published an English edition of his "Dissertations,"
with a Preface; and he and Lord Newlights were said to be the two most witty men at the meeting of the British a.s.sociation, two years ago."
"I don"t like Lord Newlights," said Charles, "he seems to me to have no principle; that is, no fixed, definite religious principle. You don"t know where to find him. This is what my father thinks; I have often heard him speak of him."
"It"s curious you should use the word _principle_," said Sheffield; "for it is that which Coventry lays such stress on. He says that Christianity has no creed; that this is the very point in which it is distinguished from other religions; that you will search the New Testament in vain for a creed; but that Scripture is full of _principles_. The view is very ingenious, and seemed to me true, when I read the book. According to him, then, Christianity is not a religion of doctrines or mysteries; and if you are looking for dogmatism in Scripture, it"s a mistake."
Charles was puzzled. "Certainly," he said, "at first sight there _is_ no creed in Scripture.--No creed in Scripture," he said slowly, as if thinking aloud; "no creed in Scripture, _therefore_ there is no creed.
But the Athanasian Creed," he added quickly, "is _that_ in Scripture? It either _is_ in Scripture, or it is _not_. Let me see, it either is there, or it is not.... What was it that Freeborn said last term?...
Tell me, Sheffield, would the Dean of Oxford say that the Creed was in Scripture or not? perhaps you do not fairly explain Coventry"s view; what is your impression?"
"Why, I will tell you frankly, my impression is, judging from his Preface, that he would not scruple to say that it is not in Scripture, but a scholastic addition."
"My dear fellow," said Charles, "do you mean that he, a dignitary of the Church, would say that the Athanasian Creed was a mistake, because it represented Christianity as a revelation of doctrines or mysteries to be received on faith?"
"Well, I may be wrong," said Sheffield, "but so I understood him."
"After all," said Charles sadly, "it"s not so much more than that other Dean, I forget his name, said at St. Mary"s before the Vacation; it"s part of the same system. Oh, it was after you went down, or just at the end of term: you don"t go to sermons; I"m inclined not to go either. I can"t enter upon the Dean"s argument; it"s not worth while. Well," he added, standing up and stretching himself, "I am tired with the day, yet it has not been a fatiguing one either; but London is so bustling a place."
"You wish me to say good-night," said Sheffield. Charles did not deny the charge; and the friends parted.
CHAPTER XV.
There could not have been a lecture more unfavourable for Charles"s peace of mind than that in which he found himself this term placed; yet, so blind are we to the future, he hailed it with great satisfaction, as if it was to bring him an answer to the perplexities into which Sheffield, Bateman, Freeborn, White, Willis, Mr. Morley, Dr. Brownside, Mr. Vincent, and the general state of Oxford, had all, in one way or other, conspired to throw him. He had shown such abilities in the former part of the year, and was reading so diligently, that his tutors put him prematurely into the lecture upon the Articles. It was a capital lecture so far as this, that the tutor who gave it had got up his subject completely. He knew the whole history of the Articles, how they grew into their present shape, with what fortunes, what had been added, and when, and what omitted. With this, of course, was joined an explanation of the text, as deduced, as far as could be, from the historical account thus given. Not only the British, but the foreign Reformers were introduced; and nothing was wanting, at least in the intention of the lecturer, for fortifying the young inquirer in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.
It did not produce this effect on Reding. Whether he had expected too much, or whatever was the cause, so it was that he did but feel more vividly the sentiment of the old father in the comedy, after consulting the lawyers, "_Incertior sum multo quam ante_." He saw that the profession of faith contained in the Articles was but a patchwork of bits of orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Zuinglism; and this too on no principle; that it was but the work of accident, if there be such a thing as accident; that it had come down in the particular shape in which the English Church now receives it, when it might have come down in any other shape; that it was but a toss-up that Anglicans at this day were not Calvinists, or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, equally well as Episcopalians. This historical fact did but clench the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of saying what the faith of the English Church was. On almost every point of dispute the authoritative standard of doctrine was vague or inconsistent, and there was an imposing weight of external testimony in favour of opposite interpretations. He stopped after lecture once or twice, and asked information of Mr. Upton, the tutor, who was quite ready to give it; but nothing came of these applications as regards the object which led him to make them.
One difficulty which Charles experienced was to know whether, according to the Articles, Divine truth was directly _given_ us, or whether we had to _seek_ it for ourselves from Scripture. Several Articles led to this question; and Mr. Upton, who was a High Churchman, answered him that the saving doctrine neither was _given_ nor was to be _sought_, but that it was _proposed_ by the Church, and _proved_ by the individual. Charles did not see this distinction between _seeking_ and _proving_; for how can we _prove_ except by _seeking_ (in Scripture) for _reasons_? He put the question in another form, and asked if the Christian Religion allowed of private judgment? This was no abstruse question, and a very practical one. Had he asked a Wesleyan or Independent, he would have had an unconditional answer in the affirmative; had he asked a Catholic, he would have been told that we used our private judgment to find the Church, and then in all matters of faith the Church superseded it; but from this Oxford divine he could not get a distinct answer. First he was told that doubtless we _must_ use our judgment in the determination of religious doctrine; but next he was told that it was sin (as it undoubtedly is) to doubt the dogma of the Blessed Trinity. Yet, while he was told that to doubt of that doctrine was a sin, he was told in another conversation that our highest state here is one of doubt. What did this mean? Surely certainty was simply necessary on _some_ points, as on the Object of worship; how could we worship what we doubted of?
The two acts were contrasted by the Evangelist; when the disciples saw our Lord after the resurrection, "they worshipped Him, _but_ some doubted;" yet, in spite of this, he was told that there was "impatience"
in the very idea of desiring certainty.
At another time he asked whether the anathemas of the Athanasian Creed applied to all its clauses; for instance, whether it is necessary to salvation to hold that there is "_unus aeternus_" as the Latin has it; or "such as the Father, ... such the Holy Ghost;" or that the Holy Ghost is "by Himself G.o.d and Lord;" or that Christ is one "by the taking of the manhood into G.o.d?" He could get no answer. Mr. Upton said that he did not like extreme questions; that he could not and did not wish to answer them; that the Creed was written against heresies, which no longer existed, as a sort of _protest_. Reding asked whether this meant that the Creed did not contain a distinctive view of its own, which alone was safe, but was merely a negation of error. The clauses, he observed, were positive, not negative. He could get no answer farther than that the Creed taught that the doctrines of "the Trinity" and "the Incarnation" were "necessary to salvation," it being apparently left uncertain _what_ those doctrines consisted in. One day he asked how grievous sins were to be forgiven which were committed after baptism, whether by faith, or not at all in this life. He was answered that the Articles said nothing on the subject; that the Romish doctrine of pardon and purgatory was false; and that it was well to avoid both curious questions and subtle answers.
Another question turned up at another lecture, viz. whether the Real Presence meant a Presence of Christ in the elements, or in the soul, i.e. in the faith of the recipient; in other words, whether the Presence was really such, or a mere name. Mr. Upton p.r.o.nounced it an open question. Another day Charles asked whether Christ was present in fact, or only in effect. Mr. Upton answered decidedly "in effect," which seemed to Reding to mean no real presence at all.
He had had some difficulty in receiving the doctrine of eternal punishment; it had seemed to him the hardest doctrine of Revelation.
Then he said to himself, "But what is faith in its very notion but an acceptance of the word of G.o.d when reason seems to oppose it? How is it faith at all if there is nothing to try it?" This thought fully satisfied him. The only question was, _Is_ it part of the revealed word?
"I can believe it," he said, "if I know for certain that I _ought_ to believe it; but if I am not bound to believe it, I can"t believe it."
Accordingly he put the question to Mr. Upton whether it was a doctrine of the Church of England; that is, whether it came under the subscription to the Articles. He could obtain no answer. Yet if he did _not_ believe this doctrine, he felt the whole fabric of his faith shake under him. Close upon it came the doctrine of the Atonement.
It is difficult to give instances of this kind, without producing the impression on the reader"s mind that Charles was forward and captious in his inquiries. Certainly Mr. Upton had his own thoughts about him, but he never thought his manner inconsistent with modesty and respect towards himself.
Charles naturally was full of the subject, and would have disclosed his perplexities to Sheffield, had he not had a strong antic.i.p.ation that this would have been making matters worse. He thought Bateman, however, might be of some service, and he disburdened himself to him in the course of a country walk. What was he to do? for on his entrance he had been told that when he took his degree he should have to sign the Articles, not on faith as then, but on reason; yet they were unintelligible; and how could he prove what he could not construe?
Bateman seemed unwilling to talk on the subject; at last he said, "Oh, my dear Reding, you really are in an excited state of mind; I don"t like to talk to you just now, for you will not see things in a straightforward way and take them naturally. What a bug-bear you are conjuring up! You are in an Article lecture in your second year; and hardly have you commenced, but you begin to fancy what you will, or will not think at the end of your time. Don"t ask about the Articles now; wait at least till you have seen the lecture through."
"It really is not my way to be fussed or to fidget," said Charles, "though I own I am not so quiet as I ought to be. I hear so many different opinions in conversation; then I go to church, and one preacher deals his blows at another; lastly, I betake myself to the Articles, and really I cannot make out what they would teach me. For instance, I cannot make out their doctrine about faith, about the sacraments, about predestination, about the Church, about the inspiration of Scripture. And their tone is so unlike the Prayer Book.
Upton has brought this out in his lectures most clearly."
"Now, my most respectable friend," said Bateman, "do think for a moment what men have signed the Articles. Perhaps King Charles himself; certainly Laud, and all the great Bishops of his day, and of the next generation. Think of the most orthodox Bull, the singularly learned Pearson, the eloquent Taylor, Montague, Barrow, Thorndike, good dear Bishop Horne, and Jones of Nayland. Can"t you do what they did?"
"The argument is a very strong one," said Charles; "I have felt it: you mean, then, I must sign on faith."