others which might be presented, it is reasonable to conclude that we cannot expect the whole living, unadulterated truth, even if they had it, from the professional clergy. The caste idea renders it essentially unnatural and philosophically impossible.
But there are other potent reasons why such expectation is vain. All Christendom is covered with numerous sects in the form of ecclesiastical judicatories, each claiming to be the true exponent of all religious truth. The Romish Church is pre-eminently priestly and autocratic. The priesthood is the Church, and the people only belong to the Church; that is, belong to the priesthood, and that, too, in a stronger sense than at first seems to attach to the word belong. Then the priesthood itself is subdivided into castes.:
“Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas; and so—ad infinitum”
When Patrick J. Ryan was installed Archbishop in Philadelphia, an office conferred by a foreign potentate, our own city newspapers in flaming headlines called it “The Enthronement of a Priest!” And so it was. He sat upon a throne and received the honors of a prince. He is called “His Grace,” and wears the royal purple in the public streets. Bishops are higher than the “inferior clergy,” and the priest, presbyter, or elder is of a higher caste than the deacon, and all are higher and more holy than the people. All ministers exercise functions which would be deemed sacrilege in a layman. The same odious spirit of caste prevails in fact, if not so prominently in form, in all orthodox denominations, especially as to the distinction between the clergy and the laity. Even Quakers have higher seats for “recommended ministers.”
Moreover, priests have laid down creeds containing certain affirmations and denials which are called “Articles of Religion,” to which all students of divinity and candidates for holy orders must subscribe before they can be initiated into the sacred arcana.
The professor in the theological seminary, who perhaps was selected for the chair quite as much for his conservatism as for his learning, has taken a pledge, if not an oath, that he will teach the young aspirant for ecclesiastical honors nothing at variance with the standards of his denomination; which covenant he is very sure to keep (having other professors and aspirants for professorships to watch him) in full view of the penalty of dismission from his chair and consequent ecclesiastical degradation. The very last place on this earth where one might expect original research, thorough investigation, and fearless proclamation of the whole truth is in a theological school. A horse in a bark-mill becomes blind in consequence of going round and round in the same circular path; and the theological professor in his treadmill cannot fail to become purblind as regards all new truth.
What can be expected from the graduates of such seminaries?
The theological novitiate sits with trembling reverence at the feet of the venerable theological Gamaliel. From his sanctified lips he is to learn all wisdom. Without his approbation he cannot receive the coveted diploma. Without his recommendation he will not be likely to receive an early call to a desirable parish.
The student is obliged to find in the Bible just what his Church requires, and nothing more and nothing less. In order to be admitted into the clerical caste and have holy hands laid upon his youthful head he must believe or profess to believe, ipsissima verba, just what the “Confession” and “Catechism” contain. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller once said in a sort of confidential undertone, “What is the use of examining candidates for the ministry at all as to what they believe? The fact that they apply for admission shows that they intend to answer all questions as we expect them to answer; else, they very well know, we would not admit them.”
The ecclesiastical system is emphatically an iron-bedstead system. If a candidate is too long, it cuts him shorter; and if too short, it stretches him. He must be made to fit. Then, after “ordination” or “consecration,” the new-fledged theologian enters upon his public work so pressed by the cares of his charge and the social and professional demands upon his time that he finds it impossible to prepare a lecture and two original sermons a week; so he falls back upon the “notes” he took from the lips of his “old professor” in the divinity school, or upon some of those numerous “skeletons” and “sketches” of sermons expressly published for the “aid” of busy young ministers; and he gives to “his people” a dish of theological hash, if not of re-hash, instead of pouring out his own living words that should breathe and thoughts that should burn.
Hence it is easy to see why one scarcely ever gets a fresh, living truth from the pulpit. It is almost always the same old, old story of commonplace fossils that the wide-awake world has outgrown long ago, and that modern science has fearlessly consigned to the “bats and the moles” of the Dark Ages. No wonder the pulpit platitudes fail to attract the masses of earnest men, especially in our great cities.
Then if a clergyman should discover, after years of thought and study, that he has been in error in some matters, and that a pure rational interpretation of the Bible is possible, and he really feels that the creeds, as well as the Scriptures, need revising, what can he do? If he lets his new light shine, he will share the fate of Colenso, Robertson Smith, Augustus Blauvelt, Professor Woodrow, and scores of others. He knows that heresy-hunters are on the scent of his track. The mad-dog cry of Heretic would be as fatal as a sharp shot from the ecclesiastical rifle. Proscription, degradation, ostracism, stare him in the face. Few men who have the esprit de corps of ecclesiasticism and a reasonable regard for personal comfort and preferment are heroic enough to face the social exclusion, financial ruin, and beggary for themselves and families which are almost sure to follow a trial and condemnation for heresy. If the newly-enlightened minister escapes the inquisition of a heresy trial by declaring himself independent, he has a gauntlet to run in which many poisoned arrows will be sure to pierce his quivering spirit. It is true that some sects have no written creed and no trials for heresy; but even among them there is an implied standard of what is “regular,” and more than one grand soul knows by a sorrowful experience, what it is to belong to the “left wing” of the Liberal army, and to follow the “spirit of truth” outside of the implied creed.
Another reason why the whole truth cannot be expected from the regular clergy is, the influence of their pecuniary dependence upon those to whom they minister. The Jews have always been great borrowers and imitators. It was quite natural that they should adopt the “price-current list” of the ancient Phœnicians, whose priests not only exacted the tribute of “first-fruits,” but a fee in kind of each sacrifice. Then the judicial functions exercised by Jewish priests became a fruitful source of revenue, as the fines for certain offences were paid to the priests (2 Kings 12: 16; Hosea 4: 8; Amos 2: 8). According to 2 Sam. 8: 18 and 2 Bangs 10: 11, also 12: 2, the priests of the royal sanctuaries became the grandees of the realm, while the petty priests were generally poor enough—just as is well known to be the case among the Christian clergy of to-day, some receiving a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars and more per annum, while many of the “inferior clergy” hardly average two hundred and fifty dollars a year.
That the Christian clerical profession was borrowed from the Jews, just as the latter copied it from the heathen, is evident from the fact that Paul, while refusing for himself pecuniary support, preferring to “work with his own hands” (weaving tent-cloth), “living in his own hired house,” nevertheless defended the principle of ministerial support, mainly on the ground of the Mosaic law (Deut. 25: 4), “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn” (1 Cor. 9: 9; 1 Tim. 5: 18). It is a striking illustration of the inconsistency of the modern clergy that they quote, in reference to a salaried ministry, the words ascribed to Jesus (Matt. 10: 10), “The workman is worthy of his meat,” or, as it is rendered in Luke 10: 7, “The laborer is worthy of his hire,” very conveniently forgetting to quote the connecting words requiring them to “provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in their purse, nor scrip for their journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves,” but to enter unceremoniously into any house, accepting any proffered hospitality, “eating such things as might be set before them.”
