DR. E‘1'ING ON INFALLIBILITY BY MACHINERY.
DR. EWING, the thoughtful and spiritual Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, who seems to us to put more of a real Christian faith into his charges than any bishop of our Establish- ment, made some remarks last week in addressing his clergy on the Roman doctrine of infallibility by Councils, which are both striking and, in our opinion, true ; and yet they are, we think, unjust to a doctrine which has a great deal more to show for itself in the records of the apostolic age than Protestants are at all willing generally to admit. Dr. Ewing began by remarking that the summons of the (Ecumenical Council was really, whatever it might be called, a very pathetic cry on behalf of the Roman Church for "more light." The Pope, he said, would not accept this as its just definition, but still the object of the Council surely was "to confirm old, and give out new truths, and construct an instrument which should infallibly do so" "It is a strange proceeding [continues Dr. Ewing], strange if we consider that those engaged in it are navigating what they call the Church. The night is dark. There is no open vision. The track is unknown. The sailors meet and declare that the captain is infallible, and retire, it may be, if they please, to sleep. Does this seem a grotesque description? Alas! is it not a true one? This project is surely the revelation of a great need,—a proof of weakness, not, as it has been called, of strength,—of the failing strength of that Church which requires such extraneous help to bolster up her once so great authority. Alas, darkness lit by such a torch can do little to illumine the profound around it ! The construction of an artificial means can only produce children in its own likeness. It is Saul seeking enchant- meets; a meeting of wizards to create a brazen head like Bacon's or a calculating head like Babbage's. There is no difference in principle between this and the methods of the Buddhists to discover truth ; we read of an election of the Dalai-Lama, the pontifical sovereign of Thibet, as follows: It is the result of the election of 1841 reported to the Emperor:—' Your servant, Meng Pa, inserting his hand within the urn upon the altar, reverently proceeded to draw forth one of the slips. The inscription upon the slip was as follows: "The son of Tee-wang- teng-tchu, Thibstan ; present age, four years." All the attendant Lamas exclaimed unanimously with unfeigned delight that the lot having now fallen upon this child, it is placed beyond a doubt that the genuine re-embodiment of the Dalai-Lamas has appeared in the world, and the Yellow Church has a ruler for its governance. The minds of the people are gladdened and at rest.' But the subject of the forth- coming assemblage in Rome, when we think of the objects which it has in view, and the interests which are at stake, is more pathetic than grotesque. The axe is recognized to be blunt, and more strength is to be put upon it, all blunt as it is,—that is the proposed remedy. We do not say this in irony—far from it. Were this a meeting of humble Christians, or the heads of Christ's church (if it has heads), seeking after truth, our deepest sympathy and our highest reverence would go with them. But this it is not. It is the pathetic spectacle of men seeking to make certain their own preconceived opinions by a decree of their own, and to change God's way into their ways, to turn the flood into a particular channel, and to rule God's acts into unison with their own."
Now, we recognize this as, on the whole, a true description of the machinery of a Council for arriving at certainty on theological topics ; but it is, nevertheless, a harsh one; and harsh in this respect, that Bishop Ewing does not recognize what it is only fair for Protestants to recognize, that the fundamental error of the Roman Church in this matter seems to have a real authority in Apostolic precedent. The essence of the error seems to us to be this,—that, failing absolute inward guidance by the action of God upon the intellect of His children in the search for theological truth, the Church appeals to the external fiat of His Providence as seen in the outcome of events,—events depending on mixed causes, by no means solely those which are of spiritual or even intellectual origin, —in some degree even causes which are of a purely physical nature. For instance, it can hardly be doubted that if the Bishops who came with John of Antioch to the first Council of Ephesus had arrived sooner than they did, that physical event might have caused a very different issue to the Council of Ephesus in relation to the condemnation of Nestorius. Probably the Roman Church would not deny this, but would say that Providence decreed the delay of those unorthodox bishops in order to bring about the condemna- tion, or the earlier condemnation, of the heresy of Neatorius ;- in other words, the Holy Spirit not having found sufficient faith in the intellect of the then existing Church to convince it of the heresy, overruled physical events so as to precipitate a condemna- tion which might otherwise have not been given. Now, we confess that we agree with Bishop Ewing in regarding this superstitious method of precipitating certainty as indicating an undue impatience of doubt—an impatience which cannot wait till the inward light spreads so as to convey the truth in the natural and divine manner. But is it fair to regard this appeal from the spirit of truth within, to the finger of Providence without, as peculiar to the Roman Church, and without precedent in Scripture history? What was that casting of lots to decide, as between "Joseph called Bars- abas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias," which of the two should fill the 'place vacant by the treachery of Judas ? The prayer of the remaining Apostles was, we suppose, very much such as any Council might offer up, which, distrusting its own judgment absolutely, even to the point of declining to vote, appeals to the Providence of God to overrule some seeming chance so as to decide for it. "'Thou, Lord," they said, "which which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two Thou hast chosen, that he may take part in this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.' And they gave forth their lots ; and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles." Surely that is an appeal to purely physical machinery, if ever there were -one, to evade a profound feeling of human uncertainty, and to ob- tain a divine casting-vote without any process of moral conviction ? It would seem probable, if not certain, that the physical posi- tion in which lots are placed being given, and the physical motions to which they are subjected being given, the laws of motion alone, if they could be known, must determine the issue. Yet the Apostles trusted the declaration of God's will in the matter to that absolutely unintellectual and unmoral process. Again, undoubtedly the decree of the Council of Jerusalem, which, if we understand anything at all of the history of the Early Church, must have been more or less of a compromise between those who would not have imposed any regulation at all as to "abstaining from meats offered to idols, things strangled, and from blood,"—(St. Paul certainly expressly teaches that all such abstinences are mere abstinences of policy to avoid offending a weak brother, and entirely needless if there be no such weak brother to offend),—and those who would, concludes its deliberations with the solemn words, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things," —and this though some of the things necessary were quite certainly thought to be unnecessary by one of the apostles who was present at that meeting. Whether, then, it came to a vote or not, we positively know that there were differences of opinion, and this, too, in the highest quarters, as to the universal obligation of the decree. Yet the decree is put forth with the words, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." What can be clearer, then, than that the Early Church did do exactly what the Roman Church now does, appeal from the intellectual and moral uncertainty of some of its members, to the finger of God as shown, or assumed to be shown, either by a casting of lots, or by the more intellectual machinery of a dis- cussion and a comparison of the various opinions expressed,—and that it did conceive that the issue was overruled by God with a certainty far superior to that attainable by any individual spirit in relation to the convictions of his own mind ? Hence even those who agree with Dr. Ewing, as we do, ought to admit in all fair- ness to Rome, that here at least it is following an apostolic pre- cedent from which we are departing,—departing, as we believe, in the spirit of Christ, which the Apostles hardly followed when they expected God to show Himself more clearly by an external machinery than by direct influence over their thoughts,— but still departing. Had we any reason to believe, as of course the Roman Church implicitly believes, that the Apostles were entirely possessed by the spirit of Christ, and could not, in any matter of theological concern at least, err or deviate from His guidance, we should be compelled to accept their method of refer- ring to the decision by lot of a choice which they had no mental means of making. But as we have reason to know that most of the Apostles were, except for the spiritual life derived from their intercourse with our Lord, very fallible and ordinary men, who certainly expected the early coming of Christ to meet them "in tip air," and the resurrection of the dead in their own day, we cannot, of course, follow their methods of attaining a divine certainty which is not given to us, if we cannot justify those methods by anything more than mere apostolic precedent.
Yet, we suppose that Bishop Ewing, — if he accepts our Lord's saying, "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father ; fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many aparrows,"—does recognize that it is a part of the work of Providence, of Providence as revealed in history and in events, gradually to bring the truth to the knowledge of the world. Where he
differs, we suppose, —at least where we differ, from the Roman theory, is here,—that while we regard the whole course of history as in- tended to help on the revelation of God to man,—and the (Ecumeni- cal Council of next December will surely be no exception to this faith,—yet we do not believe that conviction, whether of troth or error, is to be worked by any but spiritual means. It seems to us simply an impossibility for one who is in doubt, to put away his doubt because a lot has detided a question this way or that,— and however superior a Council may be to a casting of lots, it is superior only so far as its discussions tend to carry conviction, and not by the mere issue of the division-list. No man who could not make up his mind on a difficult question, even of conduct, was ever yet really satisfied with referring the decision to the verdict of chance or circumstance in the hope that God might guide that chance or circumstance, though refusing His inner light to the mind. We are sensible that it is manlier far to decide arbitrarily, and without appeal to the dictation of irrelevant circumstances ;—confident that God can overrule an arbitrary choice made in all ignorance but humility at least as well as the casting of a lot, or the lower political motives which so largely influence the voting of a General Council. The true Protestant position appears to us to be that we should trust in Providence so to guide all those of our actions which are honestly and rightly intended, as to help on individuals, as well as mankind in its general history, towarchi a fuller knowledge of Him- self,—but that that fuller knowledge can come only through direct moral conviction, and that such moral conviction is not attainable by any indirect and secondary indices,—in a word, that God in His Providence aids us to enter into His spirit, but that there is no short cut by which we can argue from what He orders to happen, to what He is. The little manceuvres by which men in their difficulties, and blindness, and doubt, appeal from the darkness within to the arbitration of events over which they have no con- trol, seem to us, whether of Apostolic precedent or not, mere modes of insisting that we will know before God tells us ; and as He has not told us cruectly, we will rely upon some augury to which we lend an untenable importance out of our own impatient minds. If God could show the eleven by recourse to lots whether Barsabas or Matthias were the better apostle, He could certainly have shown them the same without lots. Even if the Pope be infallible, the decree of the Council will neither make him so, nor make it known that he is so, to those who cannot believe it beforehand. No one can really get a conviction except by being convinced; and no one is convinced by the verdict of a lottery, or what has more or less of the lottery in it, the vote of a miscellaneous assembly. You cannot honestly grant an appeal, on a spiritual topic, from the lima of inspiration to the laws of motion.
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