THE MISSING LINK IN MR. STEPHEN'S ARGUMENT. UR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN,
in the remarkable statement of AL his own creed which he has published in this month's Con- temporary Review, under the title of " Cm3arism and Utramontan- iam," seems to us to concede too much to Dr. Manning, and to leave a key dogma of Rome and of many other Churches wholly untouched. As we read his pamphlet, he asserts that if the propositions of the Apostles' Creed and half-a-dozen somewhat obscure texts can be accepted as literally and perfectly true, then Archbishop Manning is right, and there remains nothing but to obey him in all that vast, and in fact that universal region in which action, political, social, or individual, involves any question of faith or morals. As he disputes these propositions, except, perhaps, the existence and govern- ing power of a sentient and individual Being, an idea to which he concedes a large measure of probability, Mr. Stephen repudiates the Roman conclusion, and no doubt his queries are sufficient for his own argument. If the Resurrection is not certain, Rome cannot bind mankind. But we do not see clearly why he grants so much, why, even if every premiss which he denies were conceded, he should therefore accept the Roman Catholic Church, or any other in which a vital distinction is drawn between priests and laymen. He does, indeed, admit that "to say the New Testament contains a scheme of Church govern- ment, is like saying it contains the differential calculus ;" but then, if it does not contain the differential calculus, Rome falls, for it is on that, and not on a text, that it is built. If Christ did not teach sacerdotalism in its extremest form, where is Rome? Grant- ing that God governs, that God is revealed through Christ, that Christ, when you can obtain His opinion, which upon many sub- jects of vast importance is not given—for example, it is by no means certain whether lie would have accepted or rejected the great modern idea of patriotism—is final authority, that the Apostles' Creed is substantially true, and that he did say to Peter the punning sentence which has since so deeply influenced the world, what proof in all that is there of the sacerdotal idea? Why, in the first place, should it be assumed that the power and precedence granted to Peter, if any, were not granted to that individual Apostle to perish with him, or that, if continuous, they should not continue in the whole body of the Church,—that is, of the suc- cession of conscientious converts ? There is nothing whatever in the words to sustain the notion that a few of St. Peter's converts were to be the depositaries of the faith, and not the remainder ; that half the human race should be cut off, for example, from the possibility of priesthood ; that the supreme direction over the most important speculations of mankind, those upon faith and morals, should be committed to a selected caste, so set apart that, for instance, the nonsense quoted by Mr. Stephen from Bellarmine would, if written by a layman, have been deemed by Catholics of no importance whatever. What is this radical difference among men, and whence did it arise? Certainly not from any words or action of Christ, who, though he chose out twelve apostles, certainly gave to one of them, the betrayer, no func- tion either of directing or of saving mankind. If he chose Judas by mere mistake, we surrender the main notion of Christ- ianity,--that Christ was more than man ; and if he chose him of knowledge, he chose as a chief priest one to whom no priestly function could knowingly have been confided by such a Being, or indeed by any Being subject to moral law. What is there in his teaching, on the most strictly orthodox and literal interpre- tation of his words, to prove that he selected a few of his con- verts to rule the rest—Judas Iscariot included—or that choosing them, be made that particular method of governing the body of disciplies oentinuative for all ages? Why should not each man be priest, or why, organisation being assumed as a necessity of the gregarious being called Man, should not every disciple have the right of electing to the priestly office ? -
Nothing but definite and unmistakable revelation from Christ himself can prove the oacerdotal theory as interpreted by Rome, by the Greek Church, and by many other branches of the Christian body ; by Judaism, and by, as far as we can remember, all forms of Paganism, except the Buddhist—which, in its higher develop- ments, is not fairly to be clamed with Paganisms at all—for that idea is inherently and visibly unjust. It involves a distinct asser- tion that one man can be nearer God than another, can possess mysterious powers, or at least powers so separate-that no-one else can exert them, not by any virtue of his own, not by any nearness between God and him, not by any self-sacrifice, or obedience, or even mystical quality in himself, but by virtue of something done to him which may be involuntary, and very of ten is so far involuntary that no sincere willingness accompanies the surrender. Even in the Catholic Church men are constantly tortured into the priesthood by family pressure. In Judaism and in Hindooism the idea is pushed to such extreme lengths, that the succession is actually hereditary, and we arrive at this preposterous result,—that if the tribe of Levi or the caste of Brahmins had suffered from the usual law which seems to strike close-breeding castes with sterility, or if they had been killed out, the external machinery of those creeds to which they ministered would have been paralysed and immovable. These evils actually did happen, or very nearly happen, to the tribe of Benjamin and the caste of the Khetreyo, and Domitian might have hunted out the Levites as he hunted out the House of David, driving it, by all tradition, into Parthia. The injustice of the Apostolic succession, as it is called, is less than that, but it is still great ; first, because it makes a man, possibly a more Christian man, dependent on the action of another or less Christian man, who may be guided by his own will only ; secondly, because it strikes out all women, who, having equally souls to be saved, must, in the absence of direct revelation, be equally com- petent to all Christian functions ; and thirdly, because it renders " aalvation " dependent upon time, place, and circumstance, entirely depriving little children, for instance, of all will in the matter. Something must be done to them, on the theory, from without, and they cannot compel it to be done. The right of free- will, which is essential, if religion or morality is to have any basis at all, is narrowly, and as we think, fatally, limited, and that by a privilege the victim can ascertain nothing what- ever about. Granting the whole theory of Apostolic succes- sion and every one of its concomitants, it is not in mortal power to prove that a special priest or clergyman possesses it, that the suppliant is not taken in by one in whom all the condi- tions of the character do not coincide. Without this sacerdotal element, without this separation of caste, Romanism and Angli- canism have no meaning ; and yet if the caste exist, an injustice is done quite as great as in the old sacrificial theory, the sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty, which seemed to all men of antiquity so reasonable, and to most thinkers of to-day so utterly impossible. How can any act done to you while your will is quiescent— as, for instance, in baptism, or in the administration of the sacrament in the death-grip—do you any good ? Nothing short of the definitely revealed will of God could make such an assumption even sensible, and though there may be such a revelation for baptism, there certainly is not .for the sacerdotal theory, —for the prostration of the Church, which is all, before the priesthood, which is only part. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen's theory would, without this rider, force all believers in verbal inspiration into the Church of Rome, whereas the largest number of believers in that untenable doctrine stand outside it, yet occupy, their im- possible premiss once granted, quite as logical a position.
Of course, we are quite aware that the Church of Rome, and the Anglican Church popularly so called — i.e., that section of the Church which asserts full sacerdotal power — claim special protection from Heaven,—a continuous miracle which justifies their pretensions. That claim may be well founded, as any other claim may be well founded, and must be judged, like any other, by the evidence, and it is not that claim we are just now disputing. What we are trying to show is that Mr. Stephen's argument, which is, after all, only Strauss's adapted to a mind better trained to the study of the principles of evidence, is not absolutely complete, inasmuch as it concedes to Rome what she cannot accept without one further concession, namely, her sacerdotal theory,—a theory inconsistent with justice and with full free-will, and not borne out by the revelation to which, if it exists, both Mr. Stephen and Dr. Manning appeal as the final law. The one holds it doubtful, the other certain, and both draw from it a deduction which, as it seems to us, it cannot bear, unless the principle of sacerdotalism is wilfully thrown in. The argument maintained by Dr. Manning, and assented to—granted certain premisses which he does not grant—by Mr. Stephen, would prove the divinity of a Christian Church, but would by no means prove that that Church consisted of a priesthood in power and a laity in submission, even if it proved that a Church must have priests at all, except in the admitted sense that law =et have lawyers, that it is reasonable to respect the authority of experts. If Quaker doctrine were con- sistent with Christ's teaching, the Quaker Church might be the one, and that has no official Ministry at all, though, like every other Church, it has found it convenient to make of exposition a professional and in some sense separate occupation. As against the mere infidel, the concession of the truth of the Apostles' Creed destroys his intellectual standing-ground, but it does not establish the Creed of Rome, unless sacerdotalism is also granted, for the right of the laity once conceded, that right must extend to the election of the Popes and Councils, and every great act of Rome, and therefore the election of every Pope, and the proceedings of several Councils, notoriously those of the Vatican Council, become
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