Part 5 (1/2)

What do we mean by coming into a knowledge of G.o.d? Let me ill.u.s.trate a moment by the relation which we may sustain to another man. You do not necessarily come close to a man because you touch his elbow on the street. The people who lived in Shakspere's London might not have been so near to Shakspere as is Mr. Furness, the great Shakspere critic to- day, or Mr. Rolfe, of Cambridge.

Physical proximity does not bring us close to a person. We may be near to a friend who is half-way round the world: there may be sympathetic heart-beats that shall make us conscious of his presence night and day.

We may be close alongside of a person, but alienated from him, misunderstanding him, and really farther away from him than the diameter of the solar system. If, then, we wish to get near to G.o.d, and to know him, we must become like him. There must be love, tenderness, unselfishness. We must have the divine characteristics and qualities; and then we shall feel his presence, know and be near him.

People may find G.o.d, and still have very wrong theories about him; just as a farmer may raise a good crop without understanding much about theories of suns.h.i.+ne or of soil. But the man who does understand about them will be more likely to raise a good crop, because he goes about it intelligently; while the other simply blunders into it. So, if we have right thoughts about G.o.d, it is easier for us to get into sympathy with him. If we think about him as n.o.ble and sweet and grand and true and loving, we shall be more likely to respond to these qualities that call out the best and the finest feelings in ourselves.

I do not say that it is absolutely necessary to have correct theories of G.o.d. There have been good men in all ages, there have been n.o.ble women in all ages, in all religions, in all the different sects of Christendom. There are lovely characters among the agnostics. I have known sweet and true and fine people who thought themselves atheists. A man may be grand in spite of his theological opinions one way or the other. He may have a horrible picture of G.o.d set forth in his creed, and carry a loving and tender one in his heart. So he may be better than the G.o.d of his creed. All this is true; but, if we have, I say, right thoughts about him, high and fine ideals, we are more likely to come into close touch and sympathy with him.

And, then, and here is a point I wish to emphasize and make perfectly clear, this arbitrary a.s.sumption of infallibility cultivates qualities and characteristics which are un and anti-divine.

Let us see what Jesus had to say about this. The people of his time who represented more than any others this infallibility idea were the Pharisees. They felt perfectly sure that they were right. They felt perfectly certain that they were the chosen favorites of G.o.d. There was on their part, then, growing out of this conception of the infallibility of their position, the conceit of being the chosen and special favorites of the Almighty. They looked with contempt, not only upon the Gentiles, who were outside of the peculiarly chosen people, but upon the publicans, upon all of their own nation who were not Pharisees, and who were not scrupulously exact concerning the things which they held to be so important.

What did Jesus think and say about them? You remember the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. Jesus said that this poor sinning publican, who smote upon his breast, and said, ”G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner,” was the one that G.o.d looked upon with favor, not the Pharisee, who thanked G.o.d that he was not as the other people were. And, if there is any cla.s.s in the New Testament that Jesus scathes and withers with the hot lightning of his scorn and his wrath, it is these infallible people, who are perfectly right in their ideas, and who look with contempt upon people who are outside of the pale of their own inherited infallible creeds and opinions.

We believe, then, that the people who are free to study the splendors of G.o.d in the universe, in human history, in human life, and free to accept all new and higher and finer ideas, are more likely to find G.o.d, and come into sympathetic and tender relations with him, than those who are bound to opinions by the supposed fixed and revealed truths of the past.

We reject, then, these old-time creeds for another reason, for the sake of man. A long vista of thought and ill.u.s.tration stretches out before me as I p.r.o.nounce these words; but I can only touch upon a point here or there.

One of the most disastrous things that have happened in the history of the past and it has happened over and over again is this blocking and hindering of human advance, until by and by the tide, the growing current, becomes too strong to be held back any more; and it has swept away all barriers and devastated society, politically, socially, religiously, morally, and in every other way.

And why? Simply because the natural flow of human thought, the natural growth of human opinion, has been hindered artificially by the a.s.sumption of an infallibility on the part of those who have tried to keep the world from growth.

Suppose you teach men that certain theological opinions are identical with religion, until they believe it. The time comes when they cannot hold those opinions any more, and they break away; and they give up religion, and perhaps the sanct.i.ties of life, which they are accustomed to a.s.sociate with religion.

Take the time of the French Revolution. People went mad. They were opposed not only to the State: they were opposed to the Church. They tried to abolish G.o.d, they tried to abolish the Ten Commandments; they tried to abolish everything that had been so long established and a.s.sociated with the old regime.

Were the people really enemies of G.o.d? Were they enemies of religion?

Were they enemies of truth? No: it was a caricature of G.o.d that they were fighting, it was a caricature of religion that they were opposed to. When Voltaire declared that the Church was infamous, it was not religion that he wished to overthrow: it was this tyranny that had been a.s.sociated with the dominance of the Church for so many ages.

This is the result in one direction of attempting to hold back the natural growth and progress of the world. If you read the history of the Church for the last fifteen hundred years until within a century or two, and by the Church I mean that organization that has claimed to speak infallibly for G.o.d, you will find that it has been a.s.sociated with almost everything that has hindered the growth of the world. I cannot go into details to ill.u.s.trate it. It has interfered with the world's education. There is only one nation in Europe to-day where education has not been wrenched out of the hands of the priesthood in the interests of man, and that even by Catholics themselves; and that country is Spain. It p.r.o.nounced its ban on the study of the universe under the name of science. It made it a sin for Galileo to discover the moons of Jupiter. And Catholic and Protestant infallibility alike denounced Newton, one of the n.o.blest men and the grandest scientists that the world has ever seen, because in proclaiming the law of gravity, they said, he was taking the universe out of the hands of G.o.d and establis.h.i.+ng practical atheism.

So almost everything that has made the education, the political, the industrial, the social growth of the world, this infallibility idea has stood square in the way of, and done its best to hinder. Take, for example, an ill.u.s.tration. When chloroform was discovered, the Church in Scotland opposed its use in cases of childbirth, because it said it was a wicked interference with the judgment G.o.d p.r.o.nounced on Eve after the fall.

So, in almost every direction, whatever has been for the benefit of the world has been opposed in the interests of old-time ideas, until the whole thing culminated at last in this: Here is this nineteenth century of ours, which has done more for the advancement of man than the preceding fifteen centuries all put together. Political liberty, religious liberty, universal education, the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and elevation of women, the abolition of slavery, temperance, almost everything has been achieved, until the world, the face of it, has been transformed. And yet Pope Pius IX., in an encyclical which he issued a little while before his death, p.r.o.nounced, ex-cathedra and infallibly, the opinion that this whole modern society was G.o.dless. And yet, as I said, this G.o.dless modern world has done more for man and for the glory of G.o.d than the fifteen hundred years of church dominance that preceded it.

For the sake of man, then, that intellectually, politically, socially, industrially, every other way, he may be free to grow, to expand, to adopt all the new ideas that promise higher help, hope, and freedom, for the sake of man, we refuse to be bound by the inherited and fixed opinions of the past.

Now two or three points I wish to speak of briefly, as I near the close.

We are charged sometimes, because we have no creed, with having no bond of union whatever. As I said a few Sundays ago, they say that we are all at loose ends because we are not fixed and bound by a definite creed.

What is G.o.d's method of keeping a system like this solar one of ours together? Does he fence it in? Does he exert any pressure from outside?

Or does he rather place at the centre a luminous and attractive body, capable of holding all the swinging and singing members of the system in their orbits, as they play around this great source of life and of light? G.o.d's method is the method of illumination and attraction. That is the method which we have adopted. Instead of fencing men in and telling them to climb over that fence at their peril, we have placed a great, luminous, attractive truth at the centre, the pursuit of truth, the love of truth, the search for G.o.d, the desire to benefit and help on mankind. And we trust to the power of these great central truths to attract and keep in their orbits all the free activities of the thousands of minds and hearts that make up our organization.

Then there is one more point. Suppose we wanted an infallible creed; suppose it was ever so important; suppose the experience of the world had proved that it was very desirable indeed that we should have one.

What are we going to do about it? I suppose that men in other departments of life than the ecclesiastical would like an infallible guide. Men engaged in business would like an infallible handbook that would point them the way to success. The gold hunters would like an infallible guide to the richest ores. Navigators on the sea would like infallible methods of manning and sailing their s.h.i.+ps. The farmer would like to know that he was following an infallible method to success. It would be very desirable in many respects; it would save us no end of trouble.

But it is admitted that in these other departments of life, whether we want infallible guides or not, we do not have them. And I think, if you will look at the matter a little deeply and carefully, you will become persuaded that it would not be the best for us if we could. Men not only wish to gain certain ends, but, if they are wise, they wish more than that, to cultivate and develop and unfold themselves, which they can only do by study, by mistakes, by correcting mistakes, by finding out through experience what is true and what is false. In this process of study and experience they find themselves, something infinitely more important than any external fact or success which they may discover or achieve.

So I believe that a similar thing is true in the religious life. It might be a great saving of trouble if we were sure we had an infallible guide. I am inclined to think that a great many persons who go into the Roman Catholic Church, in this modern time, go there because they are tired of thinking, and wish to s.h.i.+ft the responsibility of it on to some one else.