[British Critic, July 1836]
1.
A SMALL volume has just now made its appearance which well deserves notice, as being the record of what the title-page styles a “Brothers’ Controversy”—that is, an interchange of letters between a clergyman and his Unitarian brother-in-law on the subject of the cardinal doctrine which separates them in religion.
The disputants are men of education and ability: the clergyman orthodox, serious, amiable; his opponent a man of candour and good sense; and “the whole” correspondence professes to be sent to the press “faithfully, without comment, without altering a word or syllable” on one side or on the other.
If men are to argue with each other, they must, of course, find some common ground to argue upon. What gives this controversy to us a painful interest is that this common ground, accepted on either side in this case, is nothing short of a common error, so that in the event the combatants leave off pretty much where they were when they began. It is better, certainly, to hold the truth on wrong grounds than not to hold it at all; but it is better still to hold it on grounds which, not being erroneous, cannot be made a starting-point for distinct religious error in the long run. If the principles on which a controversy is conducted are false or uncertain, it is likely to be little more than a trial of strength between the parties engaged in it, and is doomed to failure from the first.
Such is the judgment that we are obliged to pass on the assumptions on which these friends are content to place their issue. They take it for granted, as beyond all question, that, if we would ascertain the truths which Revelation has brought us, we have nothing else to do but to consult Scripture on the point, with the aid of our own private judgment, and that no doctrine is of importance which the Christian cannot find for himself in large letters there. Not, of course, that, in calling this a mere assumption and a mistake, we would for an instant deny that Scripture has one, and but one, teaching, one direct and definite sense, on the sacred matters of which it treats, and that it is the test of revealed truth; but, as Anglicans, we maintain that it is not its own interpreter, and that, as an historical fact, it has ever been furnished for individuals with an interpreter which is external to its readers and infallible, that is, with an ecclesiastical Tradition, derived in the first instance from the Apostles—a Tradition illuminating Scripture and protecting it; moreover, that this Tradition, and not Scripture itself, is our immediate and practical authority for such high doctrines as these friends discuss. To attempt to prove against adversaries our Lord’s Divinity and Incarnation by Scripture without Tradition, seems to us a mistake as great as that of attempting to speak a living language by studying its classics, or to ascertain physical facts by pure mathematics without experiment or observation.
We have said that the common ground, on which these disputants erect their arguments, admits of being used in behalf of error; but we must go further. Their first principle really is inconsistent with there being any certainties in Revelation whatever; for, if nothing is to be held as revealed but what every one perceives to be in Scripture, there is nothing that can be so held, considering that in matter of fact there is no universal agreement as to what Scripture teaches and what it does not teach: and why are one man’s opinions to be ruled by the readings of another? The right which each man has of judging for himself ipso facto deprives him of the right of judging for other inquirers. He is bound to tolerate all other creeds by virtue of the very principle on which he claims to choose his own. Thus ultra-Protestantism infallibly leads to Latitudinarianism.
2.
However, our proper business here is not to prove what is so very much of a truism, but to fulfil an intention which we expressed some time since, of attempting an exposition and an explanation of the Anglican doctrine on the subject. First, however, by way of introduction, we mean to devote a few pages to the volume which has given us the opportunity of redeeming our pledge.
The Unitarian, then, as we have said, claims the right of private judgment, and the clergyman grants it to him. Says the former,—
“The Protestant Church says that the Gospel is addressed to every individual; and I say that he, who does not use his most serious and powerful understanding in endeavouring rightly to comprehend it, hides his best talent, instead of improving it.”—P. 32.
Says the clergyman in response,—
“As to the duty of free inquiry, it is impossible for any one to advocate it more entirely than I do; only let Scripture authority be paramount. But, if any one tampers with Scripture, … then, be he friend or foe, I will join in reprobating such conduct.”—P. 51.