Part 3 (1/2)

But take that which I read as a part of our Scripture lesson this morning, that magnificent picture of the judgment scene, where he divides the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Who are the sheep, and who are the goats? Those who are to be admitted with glad welcome to the presence of the Father are simply those that have been morally good; and those who are told they must be shut out are simply those who have bee morally bad. There is no hint of the necessity of any belief at all. Nothing said about any Bible, about any Trinity, about any faith, about anything that is supposed to be essential as a condition of salvation, not a word. Only the good receive the welcome, and the bad are shut out. That is all.

If this is not true, ought he not to have told us something about it, and made it perfectly clear?

Now what was the condition of popular belief? Let me ill.u.s.trate it by one or two points. Origen, for example, one of the most famous of the Church Fathers, believed and preached the pre-existence of the human soul and universal salvation. Now, if Jesus said anything contrary to this belief of universal salvation, either Origen did not know anything about it or he did not regard it as of any authority, one or the other.

We cannot conceive of his holding a position of this sort if he had known that Jesus had p.r.o.nounced explicitly to the contrary.

Take another ill.u.s.tration. Two weeks ago this morning I had occasion to quote to you a few words from another of the old Church Fathers, Justin Martyr, who taught explicitly that Jesus was not the equal of the Father, but a subordinate and created being. Now, if Jesus had clearly taught anything approaching the doctrine of the Trinity, is it conceivable that Justin Martyr had not heard of it, or, having heard of it, had not accepted it?

At any rate, if these things were true and important, it is inconceivable that the Church Fathers, the very founders of Christianity, should have been all at sea in regard to them, should have held divergent opinions, and should have been discussing these questions one way and the other for three hundred years.

Let us now see what we have as a basis for belief in regard to what Jesus really did say. The Gospels grew up in a time when there was no shorthand writing, no reporting. Jesus does not say one word about having any record made of his teaching, does not seem to have considered it of the slightest importance. He simply talks and converses as friend with friend, preaches to the crowds wherever they gather, but says nothing whatever about founding any system of doctrine, says nothing about the importance of having a statement of his doctrine kept.

The Gospels, as a matter of fact, did not come into their present shape for many years after his death. How long? The critics are not at one in regard to it. A book has recently been translated from the German, by a professor in the Union Theological Seminary in this State, which says that not a single one of the Gospels was known in its present shape until between the years 150 and 200 A.D. All scholars do not accept this; but they are all at one in the statement that it was a great many years after the death of Jesus before they came into the shape in which we know them to-day.

There was, then, no clear record at the first in regard to these matters of belief; and, as I said a moment ago, for the first two or three hundred years the condition of the Church was chaotic. It was a long time coming to a consciousness of itself.

Now let us note the time when a few of the creeds were formed, and what are some of their characteristics.

Although the Apostles' Creed would seem to take us back to the apostles, we are not to deal with that first, because it was not the first one of the creeds to come into its present shape.

The oldest creed that we have to-day is the Nicene. When was that formed? It was agreed upon at the Council of Nicaea, in the early part of the fourth century. Now note, if you please, what influences shaped and determined it.

Did those who proposed that this particular clause or that should enter into it have any proof of their belief? Did they even claim to have?

Why, the idea of evidence, the thought of proof, was absolutely unknown to the mind of Christendom at that time. n.o.body thought of such a thing as proposing to prove that this or that or the other was true.

The Nicene Creed came into existence very much, indeed, as does the platform of a political party at the present time. One man fought for this proposition, another man for that one; and at last it was a sort of compromise decided by a majority. And how was the majority reached?

Friends, there were bribes, there were threats, there were all kinds of intimidation, there were blows, there was wrangling of every kind, there was banishment, there was murder. There has not been a political platform in the modern world evolved out of such brutal, conflicting, anti-religious conditions as those which prevailed before and in connection with the Council of Nicaea.

Anything like evidence? Not heard of or thought of. Anything like quiet brooding of those who supposed they were, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, receiving divine and sacred truth? The farthest possible from any conditions that could be suggested by such a thought.

And at the last, though undoubtedly the majority of the Church at that time was Unitarian, as I told you the other day it was the decisive influence of the Emperor Constantine which settled the controversy.

Thus came into existence in the fourth century the oldest of the church Creeds which is recognized as authoritative in the Catholic, the Anglican, and the Episcopal churches of the present time.

And this Nicene Creed, if I had time to go into it and a.n.a.lyze it, I could show you contains elements which no intelligent man in any of these churches thinks of believing at the present time; and yet n.o.body dares suggest a change, or the bringing it into accord with what the intelligence of the modern world knows to be true.

Let us pa.s.s on, and consider for a moment the Apostles' Creed, so called. There was a time in the Church when people really supposed that the apostles were its author. There are persons to-day who have not discovered the contrary. I crossed the ocean a few years ago when on board were a bishop of one of the Western States and a young candidate for orders who was travelling with him as his pupil. I fell into conversation with this young man, and found that he really believed that the twelve clauses of the Apostles' Creed were manufactured by the apostles themselves. He had never discovered anything to the contrary.

A still more astonis.h.i.+ng fact came to my knowledge last year. During that discussion over Ian McLaren's creed, in which so many people were interested last winter, Chancellor McCracken, of the University of New York, published a letter, in which he referred to the Apostles' Creed as written eighteen hundred years ago. It took my breath away when I read it. I wondered, Could the chancellor of a great University possibly be ignorant of the facts? Would he state that which he knew was not true? I could not explain it either way. I was compelled to think, if he was thoughtless and careless about it, that he had no business to be about a matter of such importance. But he said the Apostles' Creed was written eighteen hundred years ago.

Now what are the facts? The apostles had nothing whatever to do with the creed, as everybody knows to-day who chooses to look into the matter. It grew, and was four or five hundred years in growth, one phrase in one shape held in a certain part of the Church, another phrase in another shape held in another part of the Church, people holding nothing so sacred about it but that they were at perfect liberty to change it and add to it and take away from it, until, as we get it to- day, it appeared for the first time in history at about the year 500. And yet it stands in the Church to-day claiming to be the Apostles' Creed.

And this Apostles' Creed, if it were a part of the purpose I have in mind this morning, I could a.n.a.lyze, and find that it contains elements which n.o.body accepts to-day; and yet n.o.body dares to propose touching it, such is the reverence for that which is old. So much more reverence does the world have for that which is old than for that which is true.

If you approach a Churchman in regard to his belief in the resurrection of the body, he will say, Of course, we do not believe in the resurrection of the body: we believe in the resurrection of the soul.

But he does not believe in the resurrection of the soul, either.

Let me make two statements in regard to this. In the first place, if he does not believe in the resurrection of the body, he has no right to say it, because the House of Bishops, representing the whole Church of the United states, in an authoritative pastoral letter issued within three years, declares that fixity of interpretation is of the essence of the creeds. No man, then, is at liberty to change the interpretation to suit himself.

And then, again, n.o.body, as I say, believes in the resurrection of the soul. Why? Because that statement, with the authority of the House of Bishops that n.o.body has any business to change or reinterpret, carries with it a world underneath the surface of the earth to which the dead go down; and resurrection means coming up again from that underground world. n.o.body believes in any underground world to-day. You cannot be resurrected. That is, you cannot rise again unless you have first gone down. It is the ascent of the soul we believe in to-day, and not its resurrection, much less the resurrection of the body.