The Substance of Faith Allied with Science (6th Ed.): A Catechism for Parents and TeachersLodge, Oliver, Sir
Religion
The Substance of Faith Allied with Science (6th Ed.): A Catechism for Parents and Teachers
Lodge, Oliver, Sir
Religion and science
Others attach more saving efficacy to the life, the example, and the
teachings, as recorded in the Gospels; and all agree that they are
important.
But in fact the whole is important: and at the foot of the Cross there
has been a perennial experience of relief and renovation. Sin being the
sense of imperfection, disunion, lack of harmony, the struggle among the
members that St. Paul for all time expressed;—there is usually
associated with it a sense of impotence, a recognition of the
impossibility of achieving peace and unity in one’s own person, a
feeling that aid must be forthcoming from a higher source. It is this
feeling which enables the spectacle of any noble self-sacrificing human
action to have an elevating effect, it is this which gropes after the
possibilities of the highest in human nature, it is a feeling which for
large tracts of this planet has found its highest stimulus and
completest satisfaction in the life and death of Christ.
The willingness of such a Being to share our nature, to live the life of
a peasant, and to face the horrible certainty of execution by torture,
in order personally to help those whom he was pleased to call his
brethren, is a race-asset which, however masked and overlaid with
foreign growths, yet gleams through every covering and suffuses the
details of common life with fragrance.
This conspicuously has been a redeeming, or rather a regenerating,
agency;—for by filling the soul with love and adoration and
fellow-feeling for the Highest, the old cravings have often been almost
hypnotically rendered distasteful and repellent, the bondage of sin has
been loosened from many a spirit, the lower entangled self has been
helped from the slough of despond and raised to the shores of a larger
hope, whence it can gradually attain to harmony and peace.
The invitation to the troubled soul—“Come, and find rest”—has reference,
not to relief from sin alone, but to all restlessness and lack of trust.
The Atonement removes the feeling of dislocation; it induces a tranquil
sense of security and harmony,—an assurance of union with the Divine
will.
Every form of Christianity aims at salvation for the race and for each
individual, both soul and body; but different versions differ as to the
means most efficient to this end. Varieties of Christianity can be
grouped under the symbolic names, Paul, James, Peter, and John; with the
dominating ideas of vicarious sacrifice, human effort, Church ordinance,
and loving-kindness, respectively.
In the coldest system of nomenclature these four chief varieties may be
styled, _legal_, _ethical_, _ecclesiastical_, and _emotional_,
respectively. More favourably regarded, the dominating ideas may be
classified thus:—
1. Faith in a divine scheme of redemption.
2. Simple life, social service, honesty, and virtue.
3. Spiritual sustenance by utilisation of means of
grace.
4. Obedience, unworldliness, trust, and love.
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