ITO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.' - ] SIR,—In your interesting remarks
on Mr. Page Roberts's sermon, you appear to me to ignore what I think a little con- sideration must show you to be a fact,—namely, that every believer's " God " is neither more nor less than his own idea of God; and that, as the shape which that " idea " takes in any individual mind is the product of a vast variety of factors, so even those who agree in their general conception may differ widely in details. As an eminent cleric (who was to preach- the next day in Westminster Abbey) said to me not long since, —" Each of us makes his own God."
In no other way than this, can we account for the vast diversity in the conceptions of God and of Man's religious duty, which have prevailed among sincere believers in all ages, and which are even now conspicuous, though_ disguised by modifications of external form. Hardly more different are Moloch and Juggernaut from the God whom Jesus taught us to address as our Father in Heaven, than was the stern avenging Anthropomorph, whom Hebrew prophets and psalm- ists could represent as taking pleasure in the destruction of his enemies, even to the " dashing of their little ones against the stones." Aud if there were no alternative between belief in the " God" whom the Calvinistic system represents as fore- dooming a large proportion of his offspring (including even new-born " innocents ") to everlasting torment, and the substi- tution for this horrible conception of that high ideal of mom/ duty, which, however it has been arrived at, animates the spirit- and directs the life of the best Agnostics, I should unhesitatingly prefer the latter.
So, in adopting the Will of God as his rule of duty, each believer really sets up a conception of his own as to what that Will directs ; and this, if unchecked by an enlightened moral' sense, may lead him altogether astray. It has been truly said, that no wars have been more savage and brutal than those undertaken on behalf of religion ; no crimes more foul than those committed by men who (like Saul" breathing out threaten- ings and slaughter ") regarded themselves as ministers of the divine justice. The persecuting spirit exists among us still; and there is no want of charity in the assertion, that if those
who most strongly condemn such as differ from themselves in theological belief had lived in the days of Calvin and Torque- mada, they would, like them, have regarded it as a Christian duty to root out all dangerous heresies by the destruction of their professors.
You speak of the " commanding voice, which it is our truest life to hear and to obey," as if there could be no doubt what is the voice of God within us. Yet all experience shows that a strong bias of the individual's mind is as often now mistaken for divine direction, as it was in the days when David num- bered his people,—according to " Kings," at the command of God,—accordiug to " Chronicles," at the prompting of Satan. Most excellent and conscientious persons, who entertain some strong opinion—for or against Ritualism, for example—believe themselves to be divinely directed in upholding it, and would cheerfully suffer martyrdom in its defence, attributing the opposition of their adversaries to the promptings of the Evil One ; the said adversaries being no less conscientiously convinced of the righteousness of their cause, as that of God and Truth, and of being called on by divine command to defend it to the utmost.
Every Medical Psychologist is familiar with the dangerous nature of " commanding voices," and suspects the sanity of any one who considers himself (or herself) directed by them to do anything opposed to the plain dictates of morality. Some years ago I was consulted on the case of a lady who believed herself to be thus guided ; and drew from her the admission that if the " voice " told her to kill her father or her mother, she must do it. And not long since my advice was asked by a highly conscientious young clergyman, who, in the solitude of a country curacy, had brooded over certain peculiar views (obvi- ously, to the medical eye, suggested by his own bodily state), which, without subjecting them to the test of healthy discus_ sion, lie felt " called " to announce as "divine truth " from his pulpit, to the great scandal of his parishioners, and the for- feiture of his clerical position.
It seems to me plain, then, that every man's standard of religious duty, as well as his conception of God, not only is, but must be, of his own making ; even the acceptance of " Reve- lation " as an authoritative guide, leaving it to every man's judg- ment to determine what is Revelation. The Calvinistic system, for example, being fully justifiable by an apt collocation of Scripture texts, is regarded by one man as binding upon his belief ; whilst another takes his stand upon another set of texts, as not only justifying, but requiring, his rejection of it. I have even heard the two opposite systems of " predestination " and "free grace" preached by the same minister from the same pulpit on two successive Sundays, with the assurance that both doctrines mast be true, because both are Scriptural, however irreconcilable they may seem to our limited capa- city.
The tendency now becoming increasingly apparent towards a fundamental accordance in " the religion of sensible men" in all Churches, plainly has its root in their moral agreement. Such men, asserting the duty, and accepting the obligation, to " judge, even of their own selves, what is right," and revolting at the detestable God whom theological systems would force upon them, are coming to adopt as their Divine Ideal the God whose power and wisdom are manifested to them in the outward Creation, and whose righteousness and love shine forth in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. It is in the conception of a living personality, which places him in sympathetic relation with his sentient offspring, that the Heavenly Father of the Christian believer most essentially differs from the lifeless " moral ideal " of the Agnostic. And if it be objected that the Theists' " God " thus becomes nothing more than " an idea evolved out of his own consciousness," I reply that the same may be shown to be true, in the philosophic sense, even of the " person " whom every man believes himself to know best ; such " person" being to him a concrete idea, shaped by his own mind out of a vast aggregate of subjective experiences, and possibly differing widely from the objective reality.
Each man's Divine Ideal thus becomes (as Dr. Martineau has somewhere finely said) the " projection upon infinity " of all that he finds greatest and best in himself; and so, in proportion as he determinately endeavours to raise his own nature towards that Ideal, will he find the Ideal itself becoming more worthy of his reverence and love.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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