The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-08-02
Importance of Religious Opinion

perhaps unconsciously, for the fooseness
OF their own creed by ringing manifold
changes on Popes well-known couplet
For modes of faith let graceless zesdots fight,
His cant be wrong whose life is in the right.
They seek to exalt doubt above faith,
apparently accepting as authority that
bald assumption of Tennyson:
There lives more faith in honest doubt
Believe me- than in half the creeds
And while thus commencing themselves
to their congregations as brave bold
men, seeking to remove the garments of
superstition from Christian theology,
they are diffusing impressions which,
like fungi, eat their way into the re-
ligious convictions of the people, and rot
away their belief in the fundamental
truths of the Christian religion.
There is generally half truth in the
teaching of these men which gives it
misleading plausibility, but which they
use in way to make it the hiding-place
of falsehood. Take, for illustration,
Pope's couplet. 1t is doubtless true
that no really right life can be the fruit
of faith which is fundamentally false ;
but it is rank falsehood, that modes of
faith" or religious opinions are SO unim-
portant that he who fights for them is
"graceless zealot. On the contrary, it
is the imperious duty of every Christian
man to zealously contend for the faith
once delivered to the saints, because that
faith is the only root on which Christ
like life can be made to grow. Never
theless this inseparable and necessary
connection between sound opinions and
right practice is, if not positively denied,
yet quietly ignored by our so-called
liberal teachers.
Those lines of Tennyson cited above
illustrates another feature of our liberal
theologians, to wit, their ambiguity. One
can comprehend that half the creeds of
Christendom are only nominally pro-
fessed, not heartily believed. But who
can understand how genuine faith can
wed itself to honest doubt? Faith and
doubt are antipodal quantities, natural
enemies; the victory of one is the ex-
clusion of the other. 1t is true that
there may be more faith in Christian
doctrine, as stated in Holy Scripture. in
one W no honestly doubts some of those
doctrines as formulated in some theologi-
cal creeds, than lives in many who sub
scribe to those creeds. Cowley, from
whom Pope borrowed the substance of
his couplet, had such character before
him when he said
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life I'm sure was in the right.
But it is not in this sense that our
liberal theologians Use the sentiment of
|
doubt Gin some nice tenets" that thew
exalt above faith, but in the central
truths of Holy Writ. 1t is not the un-
Importance of this or that dogma which
the scholastic spirit of the dead past in
corporated into creeds, now fast becom-
ing obsolete, but of all or any religious
opinions. "It is of no consequence, "
they cry, what man believes, pro
vlded he have the life of Christianity
Honest doubt is better than dead faith. -
And thus in ambiguous phrases, partly
true and partly false, they glorify doubt
and cruelty faith in pulpits consecrated
to the Crucifed One. With an en-
thusiasm worthy of better cause thew
use negatives as weapons, which they
bring down like the hammer of Thor
with crushing force upon truths which
have long been the sources of spiritual
life to countless millions, and which are
in fact the policy, not of the Church
only, but also of our modern civilization.
But Is it not true, some may ask, that
the life of Christianity is, as those men
teach, more than its doctrines?
This inquiry may be answered as
Pascal in his paradoxical fashion stated
the relation between force and opinion.
Said he, Force is the queen of the
world, and not opinion; but opinion is
that which uses force" In like manner
it may be said, that the life is the prin-
cipal thing in Christianity, and not opin-
ion or doctrine; but doctrine or opinion
is that which begets the life. How, then.
can the life be real, if the opinion or
doctrine be false?
Wesley, with characteristic transpar-
ency, states the question thus Opinion
is not religion: no not right opinion :.
assent to one or ten thousand truths.
Persons may be quite right in
their opinions, and yet have no religion
at all and, on the other hand, persons
may be truly religious who hold many
wrong opinions. Hence there are
ten thousand mistakes which may con-
sist with real religion, with regard to
which every considerate man will think
and let think. But there are some