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XII

CHARITABLE BELIEF1

Charity believeth all things."-I CORINTHIANS xiii. 7.

IT is common to hear the Roman Catholic doctrine of exclusive salvation in the Church of Rome condemned as a most uncharitable doctrine. What want of charity, it is said, for men to believe that all who do not cast in their lot with them must perish eternally. The same doctrine "outside the Church no salvation" has been held and is held by many who do not understand "the Church" as limited to mean the Roman Church. And here again the same objection arises, What about virtuous heathen who lived before our Lord's coming? What about virtuous heathen at the present day? Must we believe that there are none? Well, what about Quakers and other Christian, or nominally Christian, people who live without the use of those sacraments which our Church pronounces to be generally necessary

1 Preached on Quinquagesima, 1887.

to salvation? Is it not gross want of charity to believe that such cannot be saved? I have heard the same epithet " uncharitable" applied, though with less apparent reason, to the opinion that members of our Church stand in a position of spiritual advantage over members of dissenting communities. Thus I have heard it called uncharitable to believe that a clergyman of our Church stands on any higher level than the minister of one of these communities.

When it comes to this we must be conscious that there has been some abuse of language; and a doubt arises whether it is correct to apply the word charitable to beliefs at all, the important question being not whether a belief is charitable but whether the thing believed is true. With regard to the things of this life there is no want of charity in believing that some other men are in a less advantageous position than ourselves. Would it not be absurd to call it uncharitable to believe that civilised nations have material advantages over savages? On the contrary, does not that belief often elicit evidence of the highest charity when it prompts men to make benevolent efforts, and even sacrifices, in order to raise the condition of those whom they believe to be in an inferior position to themselves? Of such efforts some of the strongest and noblest examples are missionary

efforts. And thus to go back to the example I first took, those who hold the most extreme doctrine of exclusive salvation can easily repudiate the name uncharitable applied to their belief if it is supposed to imply that those who hold it are uncharitable persons. As I have just said, the important question is not whether a belief is charitable, but whether it is in accordance with. truth. Suppose this doctrine of exclusive salvation to be true, then it is the highest charity to proclaim it loudly in order that those who are outside the true Church may be made sensible of their peril and induced to fly into the place of safety. Suppose you saw a man sleeping on the brink of a precipice, which would be the charitable course, to allow him to slumber on, or to awake him, it might be from the pleasantest of dreams, and bring him into security? When men have given up ease and comfort, all the delights of domestic affection, all the happiness of civilised life, have endured toil and privation, and at length, as so many have done, have spent out life itself in efforts to make the Gospel known to lands which it had not reached, call them if you will mistaken enthusiasts, fanatics, but at least do not say that the belief which has in so many cases inspired all their exertions, the belief but for which they would never have cared to leave their homes, was uncharitable,

Q

Suppose it to be said that there is something uncharitable in the frame of mind which disposes a man to believe such a doctrine, might it not be retorted that on the contrary want of charity is indicated by the frame of mind that is disinclined to believe it? Suppose an organised effort were being made for the relief of distress said to prevail in a certain locality to an exceptional degree, which would show most charity, the man who gave ready credence to the story and, acting on his belief, joined heartily and liberally in the projected plan of relief; or the man who at once declared that he was sure it was impossible there could be any such misery, that no doubt the people in question were very comfortable in their own way, and that it was quite unnecessary for him to trouble himself about them?

In the Church of Rome there are beliefs said to be pious which it is accounted meritorious to hold. If of two opposing opinions one seems, according to the conceptions of our day, to attribute more honour to God or to the Blessed Virgin than the other, then it is held to be a right thing to adopt it, even without evidence, or it may be in opposition to a preponderance of evidence. This notion of beliefs to be held not on the ground of evidence, but of their supposed piety, has a close affinity

with the idea that we can safely declare a doctrine to be untrue merely because it represents the condition of others to be in some respects worse than we in all charity could wish it to be. It might seem to follow from what has been said that piety or charity have nothing to do with belief which ought to follow the preponderance of evidence, no matter though we could wish the facts to have been different from what evidence exhibits them. But there is another aspect of the case which needs to be presented.

In the first place, it is plain enough that whether or not charity ought to affect belief, belief can affect charity. Take the doctrine of exclusive salvation about which I commenced by speaking, there is no doubt that in some cases it has inspired exertions evidencing the highest charity; but has it not in other cases killed brotherly love towards persons supposed to be the object of God's extreme displeasure and wrath, and whom, therefore, all who loved God ought to hate as though they were their own enemies? When such persons added to their guilt by endeavouring to propagate their opinions, thus doing work infinitely more pernicious than if they disseminated poison for the body (inasmuch as they made all whom they could succeed in seducing from the fold of the true Church their partners in