Literature and Dogma - An Essay Towards a Better Apprehension of the Bible Book

LITEKATUBE DOGMA AN ESSAY TOWAEDS A BETTER APPREHEXSIOX OF THE BIBLE Bt MATTHEW ARNOLD Jtefo THE MACMILLA1T COMTAITT 0 itLA utKjM bitltifmln tluleiJttus Tuff 1 , DoMine, qurua, absconditJi tt i t tint 2 PbALM XSM. JOCK m Vulgate 10 u Lfl tmifoine h VnnJie an ut-clk fane we yartie eascnttelk de nos tffMCfcfltfs, ik uoite liidtiitt, eoitiute It tuidanee a la ampliation, la Ami as it is owned tlie whole scheme of Seriptme is not yet under stood, t o, if it t-ier cfjiues to Le understood, it mu t be ui the same way as natural knowledge is come at by the eoiiiinuance and piogiess of learning and of liberty, and by particular persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up and down it, which are o ei looked and disregarded by the generality of the world. Nor is it at all incredible that a book nhii h lias been so long in the possession of mankind should contain many truths as yet undiscovered For all the same phenomena and the same faculties oi investigation, from which such great discoveues in iiatnul knowledge have been made in the present and last age, were equally in the possession of mankind several thousand years before BUTLETL If a great change is to be made, the minds of men will be fitted to itj the general opinions and feelings will diaw thai May. Every fear, every ho, will foiward it and then they, who peisist in opposing this mighty current, will appear rather to resist the deciees of Providence itself, than the meie designs of men. They will not be icsolute and firm, but perverse and vbbtinutt 1 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PEE FACE. AN inevitable revolution, of which we all recognise the beginnings and signs, but which has already spread, perhaps, farther than most of us think, is befalling the religion in which we have been brought up. In those countries where religion has been most loved, this revolution will be felt the most keenly felt through all its stages and in all its incidents. In no country will it be more felt than in England. This cannot be otherwise. It cannot be but that the revolution should come, and that it should be here felt passionately, profoundly, painfully but no one is on that account in the least dispensed from the utmost duty of con siderateness and caution. There is no surer proof of a narrow and ill-instructed mind than to think and uphold that what a man takes to be the truth on religious matters is always to be proclaimed. Our truth on these matters, and likewise the error of others, is something so relative that the good or harm likely to be done by speaking ought always to be taken into account I keep silence at many things, says Goethe, for I would not mislead men, and am well content if others can find satisfaction hi what gives me offence. The man who believes that his VI LITERATURE AND DOGMA. truth on religious matters is so absolutely the truth, that say it when, and where, and to whom he will, he cannot but do good with it is in our day almost always a man whose truth is half blunder, and wholly useless To be convinced, therefore, that our current theology Is false, is not necessarily a reason for publishing that conviction. The theology may be false, and yet one may do more harm in attacking it than by keeping silence and waiting. To judge rightly the time and its conditions is the great thing there is a time, as the Preacher says, to speak, and a time to keep silence. If the present time is a time to speak, there must be a reason why it is so. And there is a reason and it is this. Clergymen, and ministers of religion are full of lamentations over what they call the spread of scepticism, and because of the little hold which religion now has on the masses of the people, the lapsed masses, as some call them. Practical hold on them it never, perhaps, had very much, but they did not question its truth, and they held it in considerable awe. As the best of them raised themselves up out of a merely animal life, religion attracted and engaged them...Read More