Читать книгу Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - Joseph Barker - Страница 20

"I seized on truth where'er 'twas found,

On Christian or on Heathen ground,"

and made it part of my creed: and I warred with error though entrenched in the strong-holds of the Church. I respected what was true and good in all denominations of Christians; and even in all denominations that called themselves Christians, whether they came near enough to Christ to entitle them to that name or not. If I saw anything good in the creeds or the characters of other denominations I accepted it, and tried to embody it in my own creed and character.

And I did, as I thought, see good in every one that I did not see in others. I could see things in some Protestants, which I thought Catholics would do well to imitate; and I could see things among Catholics, which I thought Protestants would do well to imitate. I could see things in Quakerism, which it would have been to the honor and advantage of other Christians to imitate; and I could see good things in other Churches which Quakers would have done well to copy. I could see even among Unitarians of the older and better class, an attention to matters practical, a naturalness of style, and a freedom from certain anti-christian expressions and notions, which it would have been well for orthodox Churches to have made their own; and I could see where Unitarians had both gone too far through their dislike of orthodox error, and fallen short of truth and duty through dread of orthodox weaknesses or imperfections. And I had an idea, that it would be well in all Churches, instead of avoiding, or scolding, or abusing one another, to study each other lovingly, with a view to find how much of truth and goodness they could find in each other, that they could not find in themselves, and how much of error and imperfection they could find in themselves, that they did not find in others. I saw that no Church had got all the truth, or all the goodness, and that no Church was free from anti-christian errors and defects. I saw that to make a perfect Christian creed, we should have to take something out of every creed, and leave other things in every creed behind; and that to secure a perfect exhibition of Christian virtue, and a perfect system of Christian operations, we should have to borrow from each other habits, customs, rules and machinery in the same way, and leave parts of our own to fall into disuse.

And I was willing to act on this principle. I saw that Christ and Christianity were more and better than all the Churches and all the creeds on earth put together, and that all the Churches had errors and faults or failings which Christ and Christianity had not; and I had an idea that one of the grandest sights conceivable would be to set all the disciples of Christ to work striving to get rid of everything anti-christian, and to come as near to Christ, and to each other, as possible, both in truth and virtue.

But to proceed with my story.

I frequently spoke on religious subjects with my colleagues when we met, along with the leading laymen, at the houses of our friends. Some new book, some particular sermon, or some article in the magazine, or perhaps the fulness of one's own mind with the subjects of one's studies, would turn the conversation on the state of the Church and the ministry, and the need of improvement in the theological systems and dialects of the day, and the manner of handling religious subjects generally, both in the pulpit and through the press. Whatever the subject under consideration might be, I expressed myself with the utmost freedom. I stated my beliefs and disbeliefs, my doubts and my convictions, without the least reserve. And I as readily gave my reasons for my views. I was generally prepared with the passages of Scripture bearing on the subjects introduced, and gave them, with my impressions of their meaning. And I did my best to draw my colleagues and friends into a thorough investigation of every point, in hopes that we might all come as near as possible in our views to a full conformity to the teachings of Christ. The results of these conversations, and of my other labors, were in some cases, very satisfactory. Some were led to exercise their minds on religious subjects who had never troubled themselves about such matters before. Some that had been accustomed to think and read a little were led to think and read more, and to better purpose. Some that had been helplessly and miserably perplexed had their minds put right, and were delivered from their distresses. Some had their minds directed more seriously to the practical requirements of Christianity, and labored more, and made more sacrifices, for the prosperity of the Church and the salvation of their fellow-men. In considerable numbers the standard of Christian knowledge and piety was raised, and the general tone of the churches improved.

In other cases the results were of a very different character. During the early years of my religious life I supposed that all professing Christians, and especially all ministers of the Gospel, were anxious to be as wise and good as possible, and that they would be delighted, as I was myself, to get any new, or larger, or clearer views of truth and duty. I judged of others by myself, and gave them credit for the same desires and longings that swelled my own soul. I gave them credit too for unlimited capacities to take in and appreciate the truth, and for any amount of ability to use it, when received, in doing good to others. I had seldom any difficulty in understanding them; and it never entered my mind that they would have much difficulty in understanding me. And I never felt myself even tempted, much less disposed, to misrepresent the words or sentiments of my friends, or to take advantage of the freedom with which they spoke, to injure them in the estimation of their friends. I had no intolerance myself, so far as I can recollect, and I had no disposition to cause intolerance in others towards my brethren. How it was with my brethren I will not undertake to say, but, as a person with any knowledge of human nature would have anticipated, I was greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. Some of my colleagues and friends were in a maze with regard to my views and intentions. Shut up within the narrow confines of some old stereotyped form of faith or fancy into which they had been born, or into which they had been brought they knew not how, and afraid to change or modify one iota of their blind belief, investigation, search after truth, enlargement of thought, or change of sentiment, was with them out of the question. The very idea of anything differing from their own traditionary or haphazard belief was, in the estimation of some of them, no less than heresy, treason, or infidelity. Others, who were not so much benighted, were afraid to venture on a free examination of religious matters, or a careful comparison of their views with the teachings of Scripture. Some trusted in their elders, and feared no error so long as they kept in the track of their predecessors. I am not certain that I should go too far if I were to say, that some were under the influence of worldly and selfish motives, and were resolved to take the course which promised to be most conducive to a quiet, easy, self-indulgent life. There were some whose conversations left this impression on my mind. One young minister, when I was pointing out to him some inconsistency between a statement he had made and the teachings of Christ, put an end to the conversation by saying, "I don't want to hear anything about such matters; I know what is expected of a minister of the Methodist New Connexion, and I am resolved to be one; and I shall just hold the doctrines necessary to keep me in the office, and nothing else." And I suppose he did not stand alone.

Some lacked the power to think. They were all but mindless. Whatever they might be able to do in reference to worldly matters, they were unable to think, to compare doctrine with doctrine, or to reason in any respect whatever on religious matters. One young man, a candidate for the ministry, told me that he never had thought matters over in his own mind, but taken what came in his way in books or sermons, never troubling himself, or finding himself able, to do more than to remember and to repeat what he heard or read. He had not the faculty to compare the sayings of men with the sayings of God; or the sayings of one man with the sayings of another. He was a mere dealer in words and phrases, and he aspired to nothing higher than to live by the ignoble occupation. How many of those with whom I came in contact, and in whose society I poured forth so freely the thoughts of my mind, were of the same stamp, I do not know. I never tested any other person so thoroughly as I tested him. There were others, however, that had been fashioned in a similar mould.

Others with whom I conversed had thought, and had embraced certain views believing them to be true; but they had fallen under the influence of teachers and books of a different cast from those by which my own mind had been chiefly influenced. And they had been led to fix their thoughts almost exclusively on one particular class of Scripture passages, and to neglect or overlook other portions of the sacred volume, though much more numerous, and much more clear in their meaning. They had also been led to adopt certain interpretations of the passages on which their attention had been specially fixed, which a consideration of other passages of Scripture had led me to reject. Thus our minds had run into different moulds, and taken different forms. We differed not only on certain points of doctrine, but in our tastes, and in our rules of judging. The consequence was, that we could never talk long on religious subjects without getting into a dispute, or coming to a dead stand. To make matters worse, this class of people had been led to believe that their peculiar notions were the essential doctrines of the Gospel, and that those who did not believe them could not be Christians. When therefore they found that I looked upon their theories as erroneous and unscriptural, they pronounced me at once an erratic and dangerous man. I imagined, at first, that I could bring these people to see things in a different light. I had such faith in the power of plain Scripture passages, and in the force of common sense, and was so ignorant of the power of prejudice, and of peculiarities of mental constitution, that I conversed and reasoned with them with the greatest freedom and the utmost confidence. But I found at length that my expectations were vain. I was conversing once with a colleague who belonged to this class, on man's natural proneness to evil. He was one of the best and most enlightened of that school of theologians, and he regarded me at the time with very kindly feelings. And we were agreed as to the fact of man's natural tendency to evil, but he had been led to rest his belief in the doctrine on somewhat different grounds from those on which my belief rested. And this was enough. He quoted the passage from Isaiah, "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint: from the crown of the head, to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." "Do you think that the Prophet refers in that passage to man's natural proneness to evil?" said I. "What can he refer to else?" said he. "I have been accustomed to regard the words as a figurative description of the miserable state of the Israelites under the terrible judgments of God," I replied. He instantly became red in the face, and said, "Do you mean to deny the natural depravity of man?" I said, "The question is not about the doctrine, but only about the meaning of that particular passage." But all was in vain. I had roused his suspicions and his anger, and the conversation came at once to an end, and he never afterwards regarded me with the same degree of confidence and friendliness as before.

On another occasion a brother minister quoted, as proof that men in their unregenerate state cannot do anything towards their own salvation, the words of Jeremiah, already once referred to, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" "Do you really think," said I, "that the Prophet is speaking, in those words, of men generally?" "What else is he speaking of?" was the answer. "He seems to me to be speaking of a particular class of men, who have been so long accustomed to do wrong, that they have lost the power to do right—having made themselves the helpless slaves of their evil habits. He is not, I think, speaking of the state into which they were born; but of the state to which they had reduced themselves by long persistence in sin. Hence he says at the conclusion of the passage, 'Then may ye, who are accustomed to do evil, do well.'" "Oh! I suppose you deny the doctrine of natural depravity." "No, I do not," said I. "It is no use saying that," he replied, "when you explain away the passages of Scripture in which the doctrine is taught."

Such encounters between me and my brethren were at one time by no means uncommon. They took place at almost every meeting. The result was often unpleasant. My brethren generally did not like to be disturbed in their notions, or in their way of talking. But few, if any of them, were prepared or disposed to enter on the investigations necessary to enable them to ascertain what was the truth on the points on which we were accustomed to converse. Some had not the power to revise their creeds and their way of talking and preaching, and bring them into harmony with Scripture and common sense. And people of this class were sure to look on all who did not see things in the same light as themselves, as dangerous or damnable heretics. They, of course, concluded that I was not sound in the faith. They felt that I was a troublesome, and feared that I was a lost and ruined man. The remarks which I made to them, they repeated to their friends; and as they seldom succeeded in understanding me properly, their reports were generally incorrect. In some cases my statements were reported with important additions, and in others with serious alterations, and in some cases their meaning was entirely changed. And the change was seldom to my advantage. A difference of expression between me and my brethren was mistaken for a difference of belief; and the disuse of an unscriptural word, was mistaken for a renunciation of a Christian doctrine. A dispute about the "eternal sonship" was mistaken for a dispute about the divinity of Christ, and a difference of opinion about the meaning of a passage of Scripture, came to be reported as the denial of Christ's authority. In one case I gave it as my judgment that there were really righteous people on earth when Christ came into the world, and that it was to such that Christ referred, when He said, He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." This was made into an assertion that the coming of Christ was unnecessary. Inability to accept unauthorized definitions and unscriptural theories of Scriptural doctrines, was construed into a denial of those doctrines. My endeavor to strip religious subjects of needless mystery, was represented as an attempt to substitute a vain philosophy for the Gospel of Christ. An expression of dissatisfaction with a grandiloquent but foolish and mischievous sermon on the "Cross of Christ," was set down as a proof that my views on the sacrifice of Christ were not evangelical. My endeavors to show that Christianity was in harmony with reason, were mistaken for an attempt to substitute reason for faith, and became the occasion of a rumor that I was running into Pelagianism or Socinianism. My own conviction was, that I was coming nearer to the simplicity, the purity, and the fulness of the Gospel; and that is my conviction still. And those of my brethren in the ministry who were in advance of the rest in point of intelligence and piety, and who were least infected with foolish fear and jealousy, expressed to me their satisfaction with my views and proceedings. And the people listened to my discourses with the greatest delight. They flocked to hear me in crowds; and the crowds continually increased. And many were benefited under my ministry. Sinners were converted, and believers were comforted, and stimulated to greater efforts in the cause of God.

To those, however, who had come to believe that I was drifting towards heresy, all this was the occasion of greater alarm, and my great success and growing popularity led them to make increasing efforts to lessen my influence, or silence me altogether. Their conduct caused me great uneasiness, and it was this that first awakened in me unhappy feeling towards them.