IT should not be supposed, from the facts that have been adduced, that Protestants have doubts as to the soundness of their principles, or that they have ceased to love and cherish those principles; for there can be little question that if the leaders of any party should distinctly announce, ex cathedra, that the theory of Protestantism is false, and that the Bible alone is not sufficient to inform the faith and direct the conduct, such a proposition would be promptly and indignantly rejected with hardly a dissenting voice; and this by men who have all their lives been acting under "Constitutions," "Disciplines," and "Articles," made in violation of this theory.

      The influences which have led them into this [147] inconsistency are partly as follows: 1. A persuasion that their articles and rules are but the embodiment of a learned, critical, and correct interpretation of the Scriptures; that they are, therefore, the very "juice and marrow of Scripture," and consequently to accept them is not to depart from their theory. 2. They distrust their own judgment, especially when to follow it would bring them into antagonism with men so learned as those who have formed their articles; and hesitate to rely upon it in matters so momentous. Every point in their Confession of Faith is supported by an array of marginal references to the Scriptures; and though in many cases they are unable to see the applicability of these references to the points said to be proved by them, that is doubtless owing to their ignorance, and they could not have the presumption to place their judgment against that of men so venerable for their learning and piety. And this timidity, if it ever manifest symptoms of abatement, is immediately strengthened by their leaders repeating the spirit of the words used by Eckius against Luther: " I am astonished," said he, " at the humility and diffidence with which the reverend Doctor undertakes to stand alone against so many illustrious fathers, thus affirming that he knows more of these things than the sovereign pontiff, the councils, divines, and universities!. . . . . It would no doubt be very wonderful if God had hidden the truth from so many saints and martyrs till the advent of the reverend Father."¹ 3. If in spite of these considerations [148] they are brought into doubt, the doubt is speedily removed by the reflection that their fathers and grandfathers, to say nothing of a host of ministers and worthies long since gone to heaven, were saved in this church under these rules; and hence, if they be not scriptural, they cannot at least be essentially opposed to Scripture; salvation is the great matter, and as that is attainable with this Confession of Faith, it is the part of a meek and humble Christian to remain quiet for the good of the world and the peace of Zion; and besides the felicity of

      they cannot forget a text so often heard, that "he that doubteth is damned,"--which means, of course, as they suppose, to doubt the Confession of Faith!

      The gradations, in the declension from the original consistency and purity of Protestantism, may therefore easily be traced, without attributing to Protestants any settled conviction of the unsoundness of their distinguishing principles. Upon the promulgation of the Confession of Augsburg, in 1530, "the pretensions of Catholic infallibility," to recur to the extract from Mr. Hallam, "were replaced by a not less uncompromising dogmatism." This being the work of those who had fought for the right of private judgment, it was ever after looked upon as a precedent of the legitimate exercise of that right. Hence, while the Protestant theory has justified many independent men in thinking for themselves, Protestant example has warranted [149] them in making their thoughts the standard of orthodoxy. The theory has had influence enough to multiply thought, while the example has multiplied, in the same ratio, "uncompromising dogmatism." Hence the number and variety of parties; each with its dogmatic creed.²

      We need scarcely ask what the science of interpretation would become under such circumstances. Every man stands upon the little hillock which some polemic or mystic laborer has thrown up, and surveys the landscape of revelation from this point of observation. While every one sees, and talks of, and maps out the same things, every one makes a different map, because the relative position of objects varies with the stand-point from which they are viewed. They are all compelled, by the force of circumstances, to study the Bible through the medium of a vitiated dialectics; and thus studying it, they impose upon their judgments and bring themselves to see in it dogmas which a strictly inductive exegesis would never have disclosed, and can never be brought to sanction. Thus the dogmatic method of the Schoolmen is still pursued by those occupying influential positions in the church, and by the influence of circumstances almost unavoidably pursued, notwithstanding its necessary tendency to warp the judgment and vitiate its conclusions. [150]

      To make this matter perfectly evident--and its importance will justify us in dwelling upon it a moment longer--let us take a young man, and follow his history from the communion table to the pulpit, and from the pulpit to the chair of the commentator, and see if we cannot observe those influences which almost compel him to adopt the course we have mentioned. He is ecclesiastically connected with some one of the great Protestant denominations,--say, for example, one of the Calvinistic family, or, if you please, an Arminian. His early education has all been in the hands of that denomination, and he has grown up with a strong and decided bias in its favor. Its doctrines have been carefully instilled into him; its polity and practice have been commended to him by learning, genius, eloquence, and the power, perchance, of a pious example. It is by no means strange that he comes to regard the church of his parents and minister, which has upon its record a host of names distinguished in history, and whose praises are upon every tongue, as the church par excellence. He is even surprised that there should or could be any other. In process of time he is promoted, first to the communion table, and finally to the theological seminary. Here he is trained and instructed in a course of theology based upon the peculiar system in which he was reared. He is familiarized with its doctrines; taught the methods of stating, proving, and defending them; learns by heart the numerous proof-texts relied upon, and fortifies himself with authorities for sustaining the turn he is to give them, and which his church has given them before him. His mind is thus completely [151] filled with that system of doctrines. It embraces all he knows, all he believes. His thoughts all hang upon the pegs it furnishes, and his reading all flows into the channel it opens.

      He is conscious that at home his relations and acquaintance are cherishing high expectations of him, and looking to him as the future champion of their tenets and defender of their faith.

      At length he leaves the seminary and enters the pulpit; enters it with a burning desire to accomplish something toward the advancement of those doctrines which ten thousand considerations conspire to make him love; enters it with an unshaken faith in their correctness, and with not a fact or sentiment in his mind which does not seem to be completely in harmony with them. Of course he reads the Bible,--doubtless he loves it. But it would be almost a miracle if, when he opens its sacred pages, he did not desire to find his doctrines there. In the first place, he is assured of their truth, because his whole stock of knowledge has been turned by his education into the channel of their confirmation; and in the second place, his natural affections, his gratitude for past favors, his dependence for future support, and his desire to be useful, all combine to deter him from changing,--leaving out of the account that partisan spirit which few men in such circumstances could be free from. Hence the system of doctrines in which he has been schooled, whether he is conscious of it or not, becomes the standard by which he interprets the Bible. And though the standard may be different, the principle does not at [152] all differ from that of the Catholic Schoolmen of the thirteenth century.

      Let him pass to the dignity of a commentator, and the case is not altered. He writes with the honest conviction that all the Bible must be so construed as to harmonize with what he is sure must be true--his early-embraced doctrines. And skilled as he is by this time, in the use of dialectics and rhetoric, he finds but little difficulty in showing that passages of Scripture seemingly the most opposite to his views, can be construed in such way as perfectly to accord with them. If they can, then he feels that they should, because his views must be correct. Hence it becomes evident that, however pious and gifted he may be, all his learning, genius, and tact are exerted with a hearty good will and an honest purpose to force the Bible into a preconceived and preadopted interpretation. Is he a Calvinist? The whole Bible teaches Calvinism. An Arminian? Nothing but Arminianism can be found in Scripture. A Universalist? Universalism is taught upon every page. A Unitarian? The Scriptures are full of Unitarianism!

      Thus error has completed its great circuit, and we have got back to the point from which Origen started. With him, Neo-Platonism was true, and every interpretation false that did not agree with it; with the Scholastics, their peculiar system of Aristotelianism was the touchstone of sound interpretation; while with us--ever progressing with the march of time--there is any number of systems, each of which brings the Bible within its narrow compass. The [153] fundamental error in all these cases is the same, however variously it may be developed,--the erection of a standard outside of the Bible, be that standard what it may, by which to test its meaning.

      The lights now before us will enable every one to answer for himself the question so often asked, Why do pious and learned men differ in the interpretation of a book confessedly simple in style and practical in matter? And we think it must also be evident that, so long as the above state of things continues, no mere rules of interpretation will avail for the correction of an evil which springs not from the want of rules, but from a false method at the bottom of them. [154]

[TOOS 147-154]