THE HEAD MASTER OF CLIFTON ON DOGMA.

-Head Master of Clifton, in two sermons Breached JL respectively at Westminster Abbey and at St. Pail's, the one on " Opinion and Service," the other on "Religion and Revelation," has attempted to discriminate between the human and the divine element in Christianity. In the former sermon he enforces the superiority of service over opinion; and insists that though "doctrine " may be and is necessary to a Church, it is not " of the "essence of truth," and must neces- sarily change with the progress of the human mind, and that we must be very careful to remember that it is not by opinion, but. by service, that our life is to be tested. In the litter sermon he takes up what is called the comparative method in studying religion, and insists that though Christianity may be .compared with all other religions

as regards its embodiments of the religious instincts of men, the element which distinguishes Christianity from all other- religions is the predominance in it of a divine revelation intended to deliver us from the grinding tyranny and superstition into which those religions instincts, left alone, inevitably plunge men,

and to purify and elevate our religious instincts by fixing them on the manifestation of God in Christ. In the first sermon, Mr. Wilson guards us against supposing that we can rely for salva- tion on right opinions, as distinguished from the true service of the heart. In the second; he guards against the danger of assuming that because the religions instincts of man cling to a particular belief or practice, therefore that belief or practice is sanctioned by divine approval.. These religious instincts, he insists, have shown themselves in all sorts of forms in the various religions of the race, and have produced many of the greatest cruelties, and stimulated the most dangerous passions by which the history of the race has been deformed. Though these instincts, like all our instincts, have a true claim for satisfac- tion, and much that is noble in them„they are not less, but more, liable to distortion than our other instincts, and without frankly submitting them to the restraint of revelation, to the puri- fying power which was manifested in Christ, they are quite sure to carry us astray into dark and fierce superstitions. The distinctive element in Christianity, according to Mr. Wilson, is the element of revelation,—the purifying and controlling power exercised over the religions instincts by the manifestation of Christ. There is much in all human forms of the Christian religion besides revelation,—much that is common to Christianity with other religionk—mnch that is due to the original form of the religious instincts ; one thingin one form of Christianity, another

thing in another. But the safeguarding power in Christianity is the revelation of Christ; so far as that is supreme, the reli- gious instincts do not .run into superstition ; so far as that is

subordinate, even in Christian forms of religion there will be the same deformities and twists as we find in the other religions of the world.

That is, in brief, how we understand Mr.-Wilson's sermons ; and they are sermons, we may add; well worthy of the attention of all thinking men. But the critical question which we wish to raise on them is this,—Can Mr. Wilson be right in treating what he calls " dogma " as belonging to the merely human, the merely earthly aide of religion, as distinguished from the divine and revealing side of it P We quite agree with Mr. Wilson that the religious instincts, nnpurified by revelation, have fre- quently resulted in the most dark and hideous superstitions.

Remorse untaught by God has given rise to the cruelest sacrifices and expiations ; panic fear unrelieved by revelation has given rise to all sort of craven self-abasements and attempts to conciliate the unknown but presumedly hostile power. But admitting this fully, can any one say that the whole drift and purport of revelation can be apprehended at all without the apprehension of something that must be called dogma as an essential part of it P For Mr. Wilson treats dogma as belong.

ing entirely to the human and opinionative side of religion. He regards dogma as the mere shape which the human mind gives to its reflections on the object of worship. For instance

" What is religion ? I will not give you the various definitions that have.been given of -religion by philosophers, because their definitions concern its idea rather than its expression ; and therefore do not throw much light on those.elements of religion which enter into its comparative study. But the expression of religion may be defined as consisting of a cultus and a dogma. And hence comparative religion, which deals with the expression, consists in tracing the history and development of cultus and dogma in the different ages and races of the world : ikis the history of forms of worship, and of speculative opinions on the relations of man to unseen powers. That is the sphere of comparative religion; and in this historical survey, Christianity, in so far as it consists of a cultns and a dogma, must of course be included. In so far as it consists of a oultus and a dogma. But the important question is whether this would not be a very superficial view of Christianity ; whether -indeed the historical development of Christianity in cultus and dogma does not conceal more than it reveals of the true nature of the work of Christ ; whether, in fact, cultus and dogma, with which alone comparative religion deals, are not the accidents, and something else the essence of Christianity. The fact is that, unless we watch our thoughts very closely, we are apt to ignore a most fundamental characteristic of Christianity ; and the phrase comparative religion' has tended, along with other causes, to obscure this characteristic. Christianity is essentially a revelation, not a religion : and the difference is enormous. Religion, to use the word in its more precise and limited sense,—religion, Opnoweiti, that is °altos and dogma, is the expression of a universal human instinct. Revelation is some transmuting, transforming influence in man or on man, which is usually antagonistic to this instinct. Religion is a subject of history ; cultus and dogma are born and grow and perish, Revelation is spiritual, accumulative, imperishable."

If that be so as to all dogma, surely revelation in the true sense is altogether impossible. Take Mr. Wilson's own criterion of the distinction between revelation and religion. He says we must regard Christ as the perfect manifestation of God. Well, m ustit not, then, involve something more than mere opinion, some-

thing more than a mere attempt of the human intellect to grasp what is beyond it, when. we accept " This is life eternal, to know- thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou halt sent," as the enunciation of a divine truth, and not merely of a human opinion P What is there left of revelation if all dogma is to be

regarded as belonging, not to what God has told us of himself, but to what we have surmised concerning God ? The 'one ques- tiOn, as it seems to us, on which the reality of theology depends, is the question whether we are capable of distinguishing between what God communicates to us concerning himself, and what we surmise concerning him. If we are capable of this, then we are capable of grasping divine truths which rest on something more than the cravings of our own religious instincts, which rest on divine authority,—and that is what we mean by dogma as distinguished from mere opinion. We are aware, of course, that, etymologically, dogma means no more than opinion ; but

still, historically it has attained a far higher meaning, and if we give that up we have no word left to distinguish the in- tellectual assumptions involved in true theology, from the intellectual assumptions by which men so often overlay and dis- figure true theology. If we are not capable of discriminating-

between what God communicates to us concerning himself and what we surmise concerning him, then not only is all true theology impossible, but revelation itself has been in vain. If that be so, the moment God has given us light, it is so refracted and dispersed in our human fogs and mists that it is for us light no longer,—it is only new bewilderment ; and therefore the distinction on which Mr. Wilson justly insists between revelation and religion, would become an impossible distinction which only ambitions ignorance would attempt to draw. What we desire to make out is this—that the very distinction between what Christ manifests as intrinsically and divinely true, and what our human religions instincts liable as they are to perversion, crave, is a distinction which is ultimately theological, and.if it is not to be traced directly to God, and accepted on his authority, is no safeguard to us against the perversion of our own instincts. Every one who acknowledges a real revelation must acknowledge truths in revelation which are fired and certain,.

and not mere opinions of men. Refuse to call these dogmas if you will,—still you must call them truths, and truths 'raised above the uncertainty of our own opinions. Specimens of such

truths we take to be, for example, Christ's assertion of his own divine life, of his life in the Father, and of the Father's life in him, of his power and will to save, of the gift of a Divine

Spirit to man, and of the sacrifice made by God for man. If . these things are not told us on the divine authority itself, surely the distinction between revelation and religion is an illusory

distinction,—a distinction that cannot be drawn. But if we have a right to be sure that these things are told us on God's • authority, then here is a reality on which we ought to lean, and which, looked at in its intellectual statement, we must

either speak of as dogma or leave altogether nameless, though it is a reality for which we can find words, and . words which, if not fully adequate to their purpose, are much more adequate to their purpose than silence or any denial of those words would be. It always puzzles us to find thoughtful and pious men who insist on the truth of revelation, denying or questioning the divine origin of truths which the Christian Church has always expressed as dogmas, and for which we can find no better term. Surely God cannot communicate anything to us without enlightening our intellect as well as our hearts ; and surely the impression pro- duced by that enlightenment on our intellect must, so far as it goes, be regarded by that intellect as representing an ineffably true and divine fact,—which is all that is involved in the dogmas which Mr. Wilson dangerously depreciates.