associations. But let the general tendency once
begin to conflict with it, and its inherent weakness
in an instant becomes apparent. We may see this
by considering the moral character of Christ, and
the sort of weight that is claimed for His example.
This example, so the Christian world teaches, is faultless
and infallible; and as long as we believe this, the
example has supreme authority. But apply to this
the true Protestant method, and the authority soon
shows signs of wavering. Let us once deny that
Christ was more than a faultless man, and we lose
by that denial our authority for asserting that he
was as much as a faultless man. Even should it
so happen that we do approve entirely of his conduct,
it is we who are approving of him, not he who is approving
of us. The old position is reversed: we become
the patrons of our most worthy Judge eternal; and
the moral infallibility is transferred from him to
ourselves. In other words, the practical Protestant
formula can be nothing more than this. The Protestant
teacher says to us, ’Such a way of life is
the best, take my word for it: and if you want
an example, go to that excellent Son of David, who,
take my word for it, was the very best of men.’
But even in this case the question arises, how shall
the Protestants interpret the character that they
praise? And to this they can never give any satisfactory
answer. What really happens with them is inevitable
and obvious. The character is simply for them
a symbol of what each happens to think most admirable;
and the identity in all cases of its historical details
does not produce an identity as of a single portrait,
but an identity as of one frame applied to many.
Mr. Matthew Arnold, for instance, sees in Jesus one
sort of man, Father Newman another, Charles Kingsley
another, and M. Renan another; and the Imitatio
Christi, as understood by these, will be found
in each case to mean a very different thing. The
difference between these men, however, will seem almost
unanimity, if we compare them with others who, so
far as logic and authority go, have just as good a
claim on our attention. There is hardly any conceivable
aberration of moral licence that has not, in some quarter
or other, embodied itself into a rule of life, and
claimed to be the proper outcome of Protestant Christianity.
Nor is this true only of the wilder and more eccentric
sects. It is true of graver and more weighty thinkers
also; so much so, that a theological school in Germany
has maintained boldly ’that fornication is
blameless, and that it is not interdicted by the precepts
of the Gospel.’[39]