MR. GORE ON THE CHURCH.
Tr Mr, Gore has not always been prudent,—and the essay on "Inspiration," whicli was the most remarkable and the most vehemently attacked in Lux AI undi, was certainly not expressed with all the care that was needful to prevent the misunderstand- ing of his teaching.—he has qualities which are much greater- than prudence, and which, perhaps, account for and excuse imprudence. To us, at least, he seems much the most real- minded of the younger theologians of our Church, much the
most anxious to find the truth and nothing but the truth, amongst those who heartily accept the fundamental doc- trines of the Church, as well as what all admit Mr. Gore to be, much the most learned in ecclesiastical history
and patristic theology. These four leetures are full of careful and discriminating thought, reared upon a basis of true learning. They might be the nucleus of a really great book, and we hope they may become what they well might become in that respect. At present, what they seem to us to' need most is such a development as would teach the best mode of distinguishing that Church which is most clearly identical with the Church of the Apostles ; and teach this especially to those who, like most Nonconformists, are not members of a Church which can claim to be directly linked with the Church of the Apostles. Mr. Gore looks at the Church chiefly from inside, which is, of course, the most natural' and profitable view of it. He does not in the least deny, he earnestly believes, that a great many of the sects are in possession of great truths and of many of the graces which Christ promised to those who would do his will. Only, he says, there are promises made to the Church which Christ came to found, and which he did found, promises made to those whom he chose and whose lives he ordered, and to whom he assigned the duty of propagating his Gospel, which are not made to those who have only voluntarily associated themselves in wor- shipping him ; and though he may give to these last as much, or even greater grace, than he gives to those who are tram. witting his teaching as he directed them to transmit it, be did not in the same way pledge himself to them, as he did to the Church which he founded and the conditions of whose work he himself traced out. This part of Mr. Gore's lectures is very dis- tinct and very effective. But it is clear that Mr. Gore does- not believe in the present infallibility of any existing Church. He holds, for instance, that the Church of Rome has abandoned, its original principle that all its doctrine can be proved out of. Scripture, and that it has adopted doctrines like that of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and the doctrine of the Treasury of Merits and of Indulgences, which cannot be proved out of Scripture, and which, as we understand, he there- fore regards as false doctrine. Nor does he, so far as we appre- hend him, think that any existing Church is exempt from this, liability to err. He seems, indeed, to accept all the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England in some modified sense, though we should have thought that some of them,—the sever. teenth, for instance, on Predestination and Election,—are not even "articles of peace "for OW day, but in their general effect misleading and untrue. But even if he does so accept them, * The Miluion of the Church: Four Lectures Delivered in Jure, 1892, in the Cathedral Church of St. Asaph. By Charles Gore, M.A.., Principal of rimy! House. London; John Murray.
he certainly does not think that the Anglican Church, or any existing Church, is guaranteed against error. For centuries before the Reformation, all the authorities of the English Church held, we suppose, the doctrine of the "Treasury of Merits" and the view of Indulgences which followed from it, and also the doctrine of the supreme authority of the Pope, as implicitly as the Roman Church holds any of these doctrines now. What we want to under- stand more clearly, is the difference in Mr. Gore's judgment between a Church which lays down an erroneous doctrine for the acceptance of all its children, and a heretical sect. Does not teaching what Christ did not teach and his Apostles did not teach either explicitly or implicitly, in- volve any breach of the covenant on which Mr. Gore lays so much stress as the sure condition of grace ? Mr. Gore lays great and just stress on the dogmatic truth committed to the keeping of the Church ; but if a large infusion of dogmatic error may be associated with that dogmatic truth, as his view of the Church seems to imply, how can it be said that the Church which has added that error to the truth com- mitted to it, or has deliberately dropped some truth which would have preserved it from falling into that error, is really one and continuous with the Church of the Apostles to which Christ first committed the great trust of his Gospel ? We speak not as differing from Mr. Gore, for it seems to us that he describes the Church truly as having been constituted, not by men, but by God,—as having been formed, not by the mutual association of men entertaining common convictions, but by a directly divine ordinance and election. As it is said in the Gospel of St. John : "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you ; " and the stamp of divine purpose is set on every act and judgment and speculative principle of the primitive Church, But this is precisely what makes it so difficult to understand how a Church thus founded, and en- trusted with sacraments of its own, can have been allowed to split into manifold parts, each of them liable to error, and probably actually infected with error, without any derogation from the divine gift which each of them derived from their common source. We suppose that Mr. Gore's view may be the usual High-Church view that, if the various branches of the Church could be reunited, a Synod constituted from all the branches would be protected against error. But, in the meantime, there seems something very difficult to accept in the view that, while one fragment of this divine foundation is found to be tolerant of almost any amount of indifference to the dogmatic truth committed to the primitive Church, and another fragment insists on, and exacts belief in, a very large amount of clear addition to that truth, all the branches alike are left in custody of the sacraments which they interpret so differently and use in so different a fashion. It is intelligible enough that a Church which asserts the infallibility of its own dogmatic judgments should regard itself as the im- mediate organ of divine authority. And it is intelligible enough how Christians who deny altogether all human infalli- bility even in relation to divine truth, should depreciate the functions of a Church and represent it as a mere asso- ciation of persons of like convictions, banded together to teach what they believe in common. But it is not quite so easy to understand why those who regard the dogmatic infallibility of the Church, if it ever rea114 existed at all, as having now been held in suspense for the greater part of the life of the Church, should insist so much on a• mission which is so crippled in practice by the latitudinarian tolerance for error on one side, and the parasitic growth of superstition on the other side. Surely, the average Christian needs a new spiritual gauge to tell him how he may discern the limits of an authority which in one branch of the Christian Church de- mands from him too much, and in another branch of it is perfectly indifferent even to the integrity of the dogmatic teaching of the first three centuries. This is the anomaly which strikes us most in Mr. Gore's view of the Church, and in this interesting and impressive little book be does not deal with it at all. •
On the other hand, nothing can be more impressive than all that Mr. Gore does say as to the mission of the Church. Especially the third and fourth lectures, on "The Relation of the Church to Independent and Hostile Opinion," and on "The Mission of the Church hi Society," are full of wisdom and power. It would be difficult to dispose of the taudator temporis acti more effectively than Mr. Gore does in the former lecture :— " We are, then, not to be primarily controversial ; but to be occupied in positive teaching. And yet, without being contro- versial, we shall find ourselves in opposition to alien and hostile forms of thought of different sorts in different directions. Thus we must be combatants for we are to try the spirits,' and even now in the world are there minyanti-christs.' Do not let us give way to effeminate complaints of the forces now opposed to us, talking about the good old times,' and contrasting them with the times in which we live ; for, in fact, if there is one thing which history makes more certain than another, it is that there never were any good old times. Think, for example, of the cir- cumstances of the apostolic ago; think of the Epistles of St. John to the Seven Churches, or the Epistle of St. Jude, documents which belong to the end of the apostolic age and speak of the dangers which then threatened the Church. Were those good times ? Or pass into the second century, and study the struggle against various forms of Gnosticism. Hcar Celsus, from without, saying that Christianity was already split into so many sects that there was nothing in common among them but their name ; and Tertullian, from within, regretting that the most faithful, the wisest, the most experienced in the Church were for ever going over to the wrong side.' Wore those good times ? Or, the age of the Councils ; the age to which we owe the Creeds, strong, clear, masterful formulas ? That was an age of wild controversy ; and, amid the din of jarring voices, people seemed hardly able to hear the notes of certain truth at all. That was not a 'good/ time.' How was it with the Middle Ages ? People talk about the 'ages of faith.' Certainly, there was more credulity, more readi- ness to accept what was proclaimed on authority, whether true or false ; but, so far as faith implies some moral effort, there is no reason to think that there was more of it than there is now. Read St. Bernard, and you will see he did not look on his times as good
times. Once more, take the age of Bishop Butler. It is come,' he says, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many per- sons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry ; but that it is now, at length, discovered to be fictitious. And, accordingly, they treat it as if in the present age this wore an agreed point among all persons of discernment ; and nothing re- mained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.' Were those good times ? Or, take the generation immediately behind our own. A good old church man who died not many years ago, used to protest, if be heard men of a younger generation complaining of the evils of the time If you had been born when I was, you would wonder that there was any Church of England left: It is the fact that in every age we have to struggle for a truth that seems hardly bestead."
And it. would be impossible to insist on the side of Christian teaching in which our national Church, though she is cer- tainly awakening to her duty, has in times past most signally neglected it, than in this passage on the duties of wealth :—
" Thirdly, we clearly need careful re-statement for Christians of the responsibility of wealth. Strong and solemn are St. Paul's words. Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruc- tion and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.' One of the most distinguished of living men I once heard say that luxury was like the strings with which the Lilliputians tied Gulliver ; each thread was weak in itself so that any one could break it, but together they held him fast more tightly than strong cords. So with the little things of luxury ; they grow upon people, the things we say we cannot do without.' In their accumulation they tie society down, and make us the slaves of innumerable wants not really requisite for life, or health, or happiness. We want to re-state the obligation of Christian simplicity. We want to press upon Christians the conviction that wealth is not a justification of selfish luxury, but a solemn trust for the good of mankind. Beyond all question, whatever may be the function of the State in regard to wealth, it is the function of the Christian Church to emphasise the responsibility which it involves upon the consciences of its members more, very much more, than has been done in the past."
We think, too, that the duty of the Church towards the poor should not be limited to insisting on the obligations of wealth. In the present day there is quite as much danger of the poor forgetting the evil and danger of a covetous disposition, as there is of the rich forgetting the evil and danger of a selfish disposition, and it is, we think, "the mission" of the Church to illustrate both classes of evils and dangers with equal force and earnestness. Mr. Gore's little book is admirable in every. respect, but we wish he would add to it a good deal on which he has not allowed himself space to dilate in these lectures.. The atrophy of dogmatic authority in the Anglican Church, and its hypertrophy in. the Roman Catholic. Church, is a subject well worthy of Mr. Gore's genius.
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