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THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY AND THE USE AND ABUSE OF ARGUMENT IN THE PULPIT.

To the Editor of the CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.'

SIR,-IN the great matters of Religion and Conscience 'to concede to others what we claim for ourselves' seems so reasonable in itself that most are ready to allow it at once-and yet in practice it utterly fails, so many fears are entertained that, although our own claims may be valid and those who think with us may be allowed to express their opinions freely, yet in universal application it would be highly dangerous. We say there are so many who from ignorance or the love of mischief would give vent to so much that is crude, unconsidered, and even blasphemous, that common sense would be shocked and common decency disregarded; we are so zealous forsooth for the honour of God and religion, that we would fain put down by the hand of power or public denunciation that which militates against our reason, our prejudices, or our predilections; in fact we find a hundred good reasons why those who differ from us should be kept in subjection lest freedom should degenerate into licentiousness. Protestantism professes to give the right of private judgment, but this again has been so hedged about by provisions and explanations that it becomes virtually a dead letter, and what the law of the land fails to recognize we coerce in a hundred other ways,-till men of original mind and independent thought would almost rather have to deal with fire and faggot than with the cruel criticisms and rancorous denunciations of angry orthodoxy.

And yet these so-called champions of Truth have much to say for themselves, and with some shew of reason; they are usually found amongst those whose office it is to instruct the ignorant and guide the erring, and the consciousness that their words and arguments have weight among men begets a love of dogmatism. It is often from a strong sense of duty that they denounce those that differ from them till they fancy the indulgence of bad passions is sanctified by the exercise, and, like Jonah, they do well to be angry; God may bear with weakness, wickedness, presumption and heterodoxy if he will, but they will not-faithfulness is their boast and zeal their defence; but they compromise liberty, charity and forbearance, till the greater is overborne by the less.

These thoughts have been called up by some violent and uncharitable strictures on opinions put forth by some of the leading spirits of the day, men eminent for piety, learning, and patient investigation, whose weight of character ought to save them from

misconstruction; but they are applicable in a thousand instances besides, and must be so till men become more anxious to discern what amount of truth or usefulness are to be found in their opponents, rather than what errors they can discover or mischief they can impute.

When the mind can escape from the arena of conflict, and attaining a little elevation look down on the controversies of the day and their angry champions, it suddenly becomes aware how many of them arise from needless and puerile distinctions and the resolute confounding of things that differ. For want of recognising a few preliminaries men take things for granted which are not, beg questions which have long been open ones, and argue hopelessly in a circle-by the use of a few conventional phrases, a few rhetorical flourishes, and a startling climax they can often make the worse appear the better reason. By such a process anything may be proved or disproved, lauded or condemned, so that perpetual confusion and disappointment meet the inexperienced who may be honestly in search of truth, or are striving for an entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

Indications however, of a better, purer, and more enlightened spirit are dawning on the world, and the folly of dealing with the soul as with the body in a generalizing and empirical way is beginning to be felt. Men's minds are no more alike than their constitutions; what is one man's meat is another man's poison.' Not in vain the apostolic writers have enunciated this truth in declaring that while there may be a diversity of gifts there may be the same spirit,' for we know that the spiritual nutriment adapted to one age and condition is not proper for another.

Our Lord Himself has shown that while to one class it was given to know the mysteries (subjective truths) of the kingdom of heaven, another must be addressed in parable, so that by these means they may be converted and healed, 'lest, seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they might hear and not understand.' The objective form of truth alone is proper for the promiscuous multitudes; a popular language, chiefly in the well-known and almost universal phraseology of Scripture, is best adapted for this purpose-the Bible being a storehouse of tenderness, apologue, promises, and threatenings, set forth in figures simple and sublime, heightened by strong pictorial scenes, and strengthened by the use of powerful antithesis. The grand idea that God speaks and not man, the reverence due to undoubted truths, the eternal distinction between righteousness and wickedness, and the free play of the imagination amid regions beyond the skies, all tend to bring the soul into subjection, and break off the fetters of selfishness and sin. But more than this, the pure and lovely character of the Son of God, rising on the world as the Sun of

Righteousness, going about doing good, and speaking as never man spake, is lifted up before the eyes of all men, that He may draw all men unto Himself. All this will be readily assented to; what I am about to say may not be equally acceptable.

God forbid that I should deny the use of reason or argument in the pulpit, but I very much doubt the usefulness of reasoning so largely adopted by many of our eminent doctrinal teachers. Scripture truths, which ought never to be disturbed from their contexts, commend themselves to our highest reason in a sense very different to the mere exercise of the ratiociative faculty. Reason, argument, with logical definitions and distinctions, are for the subjective and not the objective view of religious truth-here they find their proper place, and we speak wisdom among them that are perfect,' but there they are often as injudicious as they are misplaced. How frequently have I heard the great incontrovertible Christian verities frittered away in weak and one-sided arguments intended to prove them, how often have I heard doctrines upheld by a shameful compromise of principle in quotations for proof-men of straw set up for the very purpose of being demolished, inconsecutive argument, false logic, and frivolous distinctions, uttered in the mere wantonness of opportunity-then followed up by furious attacks on Romanists, Tractarians, Dissenters and doubters-such as could only be listened to from what a late eminent Divine calls 'Cowards Castle'-where there is no danger of contradiction. I am quite aware I shall be overwhelmed by objections such as these that doctrinal preaching has been eminently successful and has been called the building up of the saints in their most holy faith; that the apostle Paul abounds in doctrinal teaching, though by the way this is in his Epistles and not in his Discourses; that the great Reformation was brought about by preaching up the doctrine of Justification by Faith in contradistinction to Roman Errors; that our own Puritan Divines indulged in it to an extent far beyond anything of modern times-that the Evangelical movement of the latter part of the last half century was mainly owing to the strong exhibition of the five Calvinistic points, and last, but not least, that the Preacher to a given congregation would soon be exhausted of matter if he were debarred the privilege of entering the wide field of polemical divinity.

I am sorry to be obliged to refuse the whole of these statements and objections in the way they are usually urged, and shall endeavour to set the entire question in another point of view.

That the great movements I have enumerated were accompanied by the setting forth of certain doctrines I do not deny, but that they were in any way owing to that is not so plain. Taking the case of the Reformation, the world had grown weary of the spiritual domination of Rome-its childish ceremonies, its shameful abuses,

its arrogant pretensions, backed by every species of tyranny and cruel extortion, and only awaited the advent of a leader. Growing intelligence and a spirit of advance had prepared thousands of minds for a change, while the invention of printing broke through the cloud of ignorance and superstition that had previously enveloped the moral world. Any doctrine or sentiment in direct opposition to Romish teaching would in all probability have answered the same purpose as Justification by Faith, and indeed Luther's doctrinal teaching as a whole, is by no means endorsed by Protestants at large.

With all due reverence for the earnest, manly, and uncompromising spirit of the Puritans, it cannot be denied that, with some brilliant exceptions, they were in no advance of their times as to bigotry and intolerance, and that their divinity was rather an exercise and a discipline than a reflection of the true spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their lengthy discourses, their endless subdivisions, their devout and eager intolerance, with their sour and severe morality, in contradistinction to the licentiousness of their age, gave them that vast power, moral and physical, that revolutionized the kingdom; but to know how little hold their doctrinal tenets and arguments, so far as they were purely religious, had on the public mind of the succeeding generation, we have only to look on the abandoned looseness of their descendants; the flood-gates of licentiousness, drunkenness, and profanity, so long kept closed by the hand of power, seemed at once broken down, deluging every corner of our land. Without deducting one iota from the great work they performed, I would only say, that it was not their doctrinal preaching which accomplished the great work of reformation, as that was only the outward manifestation of their indomitable spirit. When Whitfield and Wesley, those great revivalists, began their work, impenetrating the dark clouds of ignorance and indifference which overshadowed the moral world of their day, it was by an entirely different process-their preaching was almost purely obJective; addressing themselves to the imagination and the affections, much more easily called into action than the reasoning faculty, they fulminated denunciations against wickedness in the strong, figurative, language of Scripture, rousing into activity the sleeping Bonsciences of men; neither was this all, for the copious vocabulary of tender emotions and invitations was put in requisition by Wesley and his immediate followers, to bring men to an apprehension of the love of Christ. Doctrines they preached, but used very little argument, rightly considering how little benefit would accrue from it. The preaching of Whitfield and Wesley, but especially the latter, having been mainly addressed to the poorer classes in the first instance, ultimately gave rise to innumerable congregations and sects taide the Established Church, for their spirit propagated itself

widely, so that beside the better qualified, local preachers and class leaders sprung up innumerable. This was an agency which found its way where none had ever penetrated before, and though some excesses and some scandal accompanied it, a vast amount of good was effected.

The Church itself had now become fairly roused, and such men as Newton, Toplady, Romaine, Thomas Scott, and others, came forward with a zeal and devotion that soon placed them in a distinguished position as popular and successful preachers among the middle, and even some of the higher classes. It was in vain that scorn, contempt, and opprobrium were heaped upon them; armed with something of the Presbyterian spirit, and their Calvinistic divinity, they bore down all opposition by the mere force of character.

What I wish to remark, however, in connexion with my subject is this, that it was neither to their doctrines nor their argument that their success was owing, but rather to their faithfulness, their earnestness-I could almost have said their exclusiveness,—which last has come down in some measure to our own time. In common with the Puritans and Covenanters, they made large use of the Old Testament, its language, its denunciations, and its prophecies. Their distinction between the Church and the World was wide and uncompromising, and though there cannot be a too definite distinction between earnestness and indifference, purity and licentiousness, this distinction was sometimes confounded with party feelings, and a peculiar phraseology.

For all this, however, they had a great work to do, and they did it. The noble institutions they founded and supported, the general character they have sustained, and the life and energy by which their public ministrations have been distinguished, must secure them a high place in the Church of Christ. It is needless, in connexion with my subject, to speak of our Nonconformist Churches, their preaching, or their preachers; it is sufficient to say that much of what I complain of may be found among them; and while piety, talent, and intelligence often modify the evil on the one hand, mediocrity and dullness, however allied to zeal and devotion, sadly neutralize its action by the habit in question.

In conclusion, I have found it a hard thing to convey the idea labouring in my mind, namely, that the popular and objective style of discourse is not dependent on argument, but is rather hindered by it. The preacher who undertakes to prove or sustain a doctrine is seldom content to let it stand in its place, but makes it a point of conscience, and of theological consistency, to lay an embargo on all Scripture, relevant or irrelevant, for its support. That matter could not otherwise be found for pulpit ministration, I think a groundless objection, and if it can be shown that the most effective preaching is that which is most in accordance with Scripture models, it may