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the corruption of his own nature, or the, humanity of his God and Saviour, he will accept the doctrines which have been handed down to him, without lingering over the fatal errors of Pelagius and Socinus. In a word, the very idea of prayer and religious exercises presupposes the acceptance of certain dogmas. 'He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.'

In the case of Moral Theology, so largely treated by the greatest of the schoolmen, Aquinas, and among ourselves by Bishops Sanderson and Taylor, a portion of the basis may be fairly considered to consist of Moral Philosophy, and the admitted facts of human nature, as recognised even by heathen sages. But Christianity is needed, in order that a sound and durable superstructure may be raised; it is needed partly as an authoritative republication of natural religion; and, again, as involving in its dogmas several new and distinct precepts of duty.1

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The intimate alliance between morality and the faith of the Gospel, which is constantly implied in Holy Scripture, appears to be distinctly stated in such passages as the following:-The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners. . . . . . for liars, for 'perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine (Sidaokaλia). "If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine (didaxv), receive him not into your house, neither bid him God-speed; for he that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds' (Koivwveî Toîs ěpyois αὐτοῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς). 'God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of 'doctrine (TÚTov didays) which was delivered you.''

The comparatively modern study of liturgies, while it throws vast light upon the faith of antiquity, so obviously starts with the assumption of those verities of the creeds, (which have now for twelve centuries been incorporated into most of them,) that the connexion between ritualism and dogmatism need not be further insisted upon. There is, indeed, no danger of our ritualists becoming insensible to the importance of Dogmatic Theology; while, on the other hand, those who neglect and undervalue dogmatics,' have seldom any taste for liturgical

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It may perhaps, at first sight, appear that Exegetical Theology can dispense with all appeal to dogmas. If, it is urged, Holy Scripture contain all truth necessary to salvation, the science of its interpretation should commence with the abnega

1 Bp. Butler's Analogy, Part II. cap. i.

21 Tim. i. 9, 10; 2 John 10, 11; Rom. vi. 17.

tion of all prior principles. These should be sought within its pages-not in any wise assumed from other sources. We reply that such a course of proceeding is impossible, and that even if it were possible, it would be erroneous. That it is impossible, is admitted by writers very alien from the tone of thought which we would humbly strive to inculcate. It has often been 'said,' writes Neander, 'that in order to true inquiry, we must 'take nothing for granted. Of late this statement has been reiterated anew, with special reference to the exposition of the life of Christ. At the outset of our work we refuse to meet ' such a demand. To comply with it is impracticable; the very ' attempt contradicts the sacred laws of our being. We cannot entirely free ourselves from presuppositions. . . . they control our consciousness, whether we will or no; and the supposed 'freedom from them is, in fact, nothing else bat the exchange ' of one set for another.'' The doctor,' says Sir James 'Stephen, whether he has graduated in law or divinity, has 'grown up from the cradle in the arms of traditions, and in the lap of prepossessions, which have indelibly impressed their own character on all the knowledge which he has afterwards derived 'from his books.'2 That such erasure of prepossessions would be erroneous, if possible, arises from the consideration of the rightful authority of parents and teachers, who were to us the appointed channels of our earliest impressions; from the fact that there are right and salutary, as well as wrong and injurious, prejudices; and that Holy Scripture itself does not profess to fix its own canon, or more than partially supply its own interpretation, these things being left in part to the ordinary means of acquiring knowledge, in part to the teaching of that body which is 'the pillar and ground of the truth.'

By a dogma, then, we understand a fundamental article of saving truth, asserted or implied in Holy Scripture, taught by the Church Universal, and consonant to sound reason. It must

1 Life of Christ, Introduction.

2 Essays in Eccl. Biography, vol. ii. p. 199.

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You see, Sir, that in this enlightened age, I am bold enough to confess that we are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree; and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices, and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and ages. .. Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency . . . prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice his duty becomes a part of his nature.'-Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

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4 See Five Sermons on Faith and Church Authority, by Rev. C. Marriott. A.D. 1850. Preface.

be contained, explicitly or implicitly, in Holy Writ; for otherwise, even though it should be a true and valuable principle, its belief cannot be necessary for salvation. It must be affirmed by the undivided Church, for no inferior body can claim the right to pronounce decisively and finally upon such solemn questions. It must be thus far agreeable to right reason, that it does not absolutely contradict, even if it transcend, that faculty; or that, at any rate, if it appears prima facie unreasonable, it is so far supported by the analogy of nature and the practice of men, as evidently to rest upon some rational basis, although at present but dimly visible. To assert that God is one, and that God is three, in precisely the same sense and manner, would be a contradiction of reason; but such is not, we need scarcely observe, the Church's doctrine of the Holy Trinity. On the other hand, if the acceptance of the humiliation and suffering of an innocent Being, as an atonement for the sins of the guilty, seem at first sight incompatible with our notions of what is reasonable and just, yet such acceptance has been shown by Bishop Butler to be consistent with the analogy of nature, and it accords with the all but universal practice of offering sacrifice, and with the principles implied in the stories, whether legendary or historical, of the self-devotion of a Codrus and a Decius.1 lastly, a dogma must be an article of saving faith. Enunciations of belief which fall short of this may be curious, interesting, and far from unimportant; may be abstractedly very reasonable, and not inharmonious with the revelations of God's Word; still they are not dogmas, but merely pious opinions, and consequently in nowise binding upon the conscience of a Christian man. Thus, for example, it is a pious opinion that the number of the redeemed in heaven will equal the number of the angels who fell. A great theologian, Archbishop Anselm, disputes this position, and maintains that it is more probable that the redeemed will exceed the number of those lost ones which kept not their first estate.' But he does not argue the point in the same spirit in which he would combat heresy.

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'Bear in mind the condition on which I commenced a reply to your question; namely, that if I said anything which no greater authority confirms, that point (although I should seem to prove it by reason) should not be received with any certainty, further than that I in the meantime think so, until God in some way reveal to me better. For I am sure that if I say anything which clearly contradicts Holy Scripture, it is false, nor do I wish consciously to hold it; but if upon those subjects on which different opinions may be held without danger, as is that of which we now treat, (for if we know not whether more men are to be saved than there were angels lost, or otherwise, and we approve one view rather than the other, I think that there is no danger to the soul); if, I say, on subjects of this

Cf. Thomson's Bampton Lectures. Lect. II. and notes.

kind we so expound the divine sayings, that they seem to favour opposite opinions, and no ground can be discovered whence men may determine what should unhesitatingly be held, I do not imagine that we ought to be blamed.'1

A very different tone would le observable, if the writer had been discussing the 'one baptism for the remission of sins,' or the fall of man in Adam, or the resurrection of the body.

Our remarks have in some degree anticipated the question which has often been mooted, whether the heathen can properly be said to have possessed any religious dogmas. Inasmuch as they lacked a written revelation from the Most High, and had not among them any community to which was pledged the undying presence of the Holy Spirit, even the truths which they possessed failed, so to speak, in vital power, and became vague, obscure, and shifting in their character. Still they would not have sunk so low as they had fallen before the coming of Christ, had they at all acted up to the light that they really enjoyed. The eternal power and Godhead' of the one Creator, as they had doubtless been traditionary truths, so too ought they (an Apostle assures us) to have been clearly seen and understood by His works. Even among them we seem to trace adumbrations of holy dogmas, as the triads of the Pytha

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goreans and Platonists. Aristotle represented his highest wisdom as dwelling on the thought of the self-existing substance, and accordingly called it Theology. The only one of the four great empires which was free from the guilt of having persecuted God's people, that of Persia, appears to have been the one which had retained the most systematic form of doctrine; and it is surely a solemn lesson to see how S. Paul, in the chapter just referred to, connects the corruption of the truth of God by the heathen with the fearful moral corruption which followed. If that kingdom of Satan was to be in any degree supplanted, even on earth, by a race who should exhibit

'Sed memento quo pacto incoepi tuæ respondere quæstioni: ut videlicet, si quid dixero quod major non confirmet auctoritas, quamvis illud ratione probare videar, non aliâ certitudine accipiatur; nisi quia interim mihi ita videtur, donec mihi Deus melius aliquo modo revelet. Certus enim sum, si quid dico quod sacræ Scripturæ absque dubio contradicat, quid falsum est: nec illud tenere volo, si cognovero. Sed si in illis rebus, de quibus diversa sentiri possint sine periculo, sicut est illud unde nunc agimus: si enim nescimus utrùm plures homines eligendi sint, quàm sint Angeli perditi; an non: et alterum horum æstimamus magis, quàm alterum; nullum puto esse animæ periculum: si, inquam, in hujusmodi rebus sic exponimus divina dicta, ut diversis sententiis favere videantur; nec alicubi invenitur ubi quid indubitanter tenendum sit determinent, non arbitror reprehendi debere.'-Cur Deus Homo, lib. i. cap. 18.

2 Rom. i 20.

3"Ωστε τρεῖς ἂν εἶεν φιλοσοφίαι θεωρητικαὶ, μαθηματική, φυσική, θεολογική. Οὐ γὰρ ἄδηλον, ὅτι, εἴπου τὸ θεῖον ὑπάρχει, ἐν τῇ τοιαύτῃ φύσει ὑπάρχει. καὶ τὴν τιμιωτάτην δεῖ περὶ τὸ τιμιώτατον γένος εἶναι. — Aristot. Metaphys. lib. v. (vi.) cap. 1.

a vast improvement when viewed in the mass, and in numberless individual instances what had previously appeared superhuman virtues, there was needed for a supernatural morality the support of a supernatural doctrine. The one sect, among those who profess and call themselves Christians,' which has done the most to destroy the supernatural element of Christian doctrine, and would fain reduce it to a condition but little superior to pure theism, namely, that of Socinus, is, consistently enough, the most devoid of warmth and enthusiasm,— the most alien from all that is poetic and romantic, from all that is tender or awe-inspiring in religion.

The necessity, therefore, for dogma depends upon this principle, that the living faith within man's heart must, if it is to be of any worth, rest upon something without, which is clear, definite, and true. The subjective feeling must find a correspondent objective reality. We know but of two ways of escape from this position. The objector must assert, either that sincere faith is satisfied with what is dim and vague; or else that the inward principle of faith is in itself of so much value, that it matters very little upon what object it may fasten itself. Now, that some degree of dimness must exist concerning the objects of the unseen world is, of course, a necessity during our present state of existence. Many of the terms supplied to Theology by Holy Scripture are such as we can but very partially and faintly understand: such are, for example, the words only-begotten,' with reference to the Eternal Son; or proceeding from,' as applied to the Holy Spirit. But what the Church maintains is, that her dogmatism is correct, her teaching true, so far as it goes, although waiting for a fuller and clearer manifestation, until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' This is surely neither an unintelligible nor an irrational claim; we see it constantly exemplified in our experience of every-day life. A child entering a room, finds a parent or teacher using a telescope. He asks for an explanation, and is allowed to look through it. Fresh inquiry ensues, and he is told that it is a brass tube furnished with glasses; and that these glasses are not all alike, though they may seem so; that some are called convex and some concave, but that he must wait till he is a little older to understand these names. Such knowledge is elementary and incomplete enough, but it is true in its degree; and if our hypothetical infant meets a playmate who believes the tube to be made of gold, and the glasses to differ from each other in nothing but size, he is justified, with his superior information, in declaring such opinions to be false. And we are all but children here, and enjoined to cultivate a child-like spirit. But even the young look for positiveness in

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