Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/377

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Letter 31]

WHAT THE BISHOPS MIGHT DO

361

tion. I would not exclude from the ministry any one who can conscientiously worship Christ in accordance with the services of the Church of England, and preach the Gospel without shaking the faith of the masses.

Perhaps I shall seem to you (not now in the temporary episcopal capacity which you have occupied during the last few paragraphs, but as plain ——) very illiberal in excluding from the broad boundaries of the National Church those who are unable to worship Christ. But I am not prepared to alter the Nicene Creed or the Church Services; and if I could not worship Christ, I cannot think that I myself should desire to be included in the Church of England, as long as that Creed and the Church Services remained in use. For how could I offer prayer to Jesus? or say, in any sense, "I believe in Jesus Christ, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God"? No plea of metaphor would ever enable me to repeat these words with any honesty, as long as I found myself unable to worship Christ. I confess to a secret feeling that many of those who at the present time think they do not worship Christ, do in reality worship Him; and I have good hopes that some of them may, in time, when they search out their deepest feelings, find out that they have long been unconsciously worshipping Him, and that they can accept, with a spiritual interpretation, some things that have hitherto appeared to them inadmissible.^[1] But to demand that the Creeds and Church Services may be remoulded, is a very different thing from asking to be allowed to put a metaphorical interpretation on one or

↑ You should look at a most interesting and instructive article by Dr. Martineau in the Christian Reformer (vol. i. p. 78), in which he points out that, in a certain sense, the faith professed by Trinitarians "in the Son, is so far from being an idolatry, that it is identical, under change of name, with the Unitarian worship of Him who dwelt in Christ. He who is the Son in one creed is the Father in the other; and the two are agreed, not indeed by any means throughout, but in that which constitutes the pith and kernel of both faiths."

[1] You should look at a most interesting and instructive article by Dr. Martineau in the Christian Reformer (vol. i. p. 78), in which he points out that, in a certain sense, the faith professed by Trinitarians "in the Son, is so far from being an idolatry, that it is identical, under change of name, with the Unitarian worship of Him who dwelt in Christ. He who is the Son in one creed is the Father in the other; and the two are agreed, not indeed by any means throughout, but in that which constitutes the pith and kernel of both faiths."

[1]