DEAN FREMANTLE'S ALLEGED HERESIES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11461, 20 December 1902, Page 7

DEAN FREMANTLE'S ALLEGED HERESIES.

GENERAL AMAZEMENT AND STRONG STRICTURES. i THE DEAN'S VAGUE REPLY. t (raOM OUX OWX CORESPONDENT.) LONDON, November 15. In a recent letter I referred to the as tonishing pronouncement by the Very R«i the Hon. Dean Fremantle of Ripc-to, whie appeared to repudiate come ol the doctrine wbioh have alwaye been accepted as vitc truthe of the Christian faith, including th Virgin-birth of the Redeemer, the realit; of Hk miracles and the resurrection of th body. These remarkable utterances were mad by the Dean of Ripon in an address o "Natural Christianity," delivered at a re cent meeting of the Churchmen's Union. Now, the following is "The Timee" re port of what the Dean said:—"The fauJ of those who had written on natural re ligion was that they liad assumed a con trast between this and revealed religion The Btble was in the fullest sense humai and natural The Bible culminated ii Christ, and Christ had been viewed in pas timee in an unnatural light. Disputes hamade Christ'e life unreal to us, and i seemed to him that pWe were hampere: still by the wrong processes of the past Taking the moral supremacy of Christ fo granted, they were met on the threshold o two Gospels by what eeenwd a prodigy—th birth of Christ from a Virgin. Hia owi belief was that they might safely leave tha out of account and treat it in exactly th came way as the words 'descended inti i hell' were treated. •"Outside the first two chapters of St Matthew and the first two chapters of St Luke the virgin-birth was absolutely non existent in the New Testament. The natu ral inference waa that it was unknowi to the writere of the New Testament, ex oept to those who penned .those four chap tere. And might it not be that they aroei from a misunderstanding? "Aβ to the miraolee, woe it irreverent t< believe that our "Lord Himself could no have made a distinction between wha modern science would recognise ac deatl and the many form* of swooning, syncope or hysteria which sometimes deceived tin wisest in modern times, and that wliei He bade His disciples to heal the aide am raise the dead He was speaking of a pro c«ss very different from that whioh woul< be accepted in these scientific days as tin raising of an actual body to life? Bui many of the so-called miracles, such a< demoniacal possession and its cure, Wen quite natural, although he admitted that i some of the references in the Gtepels wen token literally they were contrary to na ture ac we knew it. He had never beei able to think of the Resurrection as a vio latdon of natural law. ,. Naturally this produced a tremendous sensation, and elicited a storm of adverst criticism. Perhaps the most important re ference to. the speech was made Sy th< Bishop of London, who said he entirely repudiated the teaching about mjracta which was said to have been given. "i I say," added the Bishop, '"said to hav< J>een given,' as it is obviously nnfair tc •judge an utterance by a ehort compressec account in a newspaper. If, however, suci teaching is correctly reported, I repudiat< it in the name of the Christian Church." A direct reference to Dean FremantU elicited a general denial of the accuracy oi the report. This, however, was deemed bj no means an adequate answer in view i>l the gravity of the utterances attributed tc him, for it was clear that he must have said something bearing more or less resemblance to the words quoted, and so a very earnest appeal was made to him to state what he really did say, or to explain what he really did mean. Accordingly the Dean has issued a curiously vague explanation of his position. He cays: —"The object of the reporter seems to have been to make a sensation, not to give the facts. He chose out just the things which might, when dissevered from their context, rightly cause ■ alarm. He did not give the other side ol them which was expressed in the paper He did not record the full recognition of the divinity of our Saviour, 'of Whom, , the paper said, Vβ are all, I trust, enthusiastic followers.' Above all he gave no idea whatever of the argument of the paper. That argument was that the words 'nature , and '■natural' has been misused ; they had been nude to mean only nature in its lower developments, whereas the true nature of man is only found in Christ; and the true nature of the world in its highest ideal to which the Creator is guiding it by working in it and through it. Thus the laws of nature cannot be separated from God nor from Christ. 7 'That there are difficulties in some matters connected with "the manifestation of God in Christ it would be untruthful not to admit, especially in those of the Virgin birth, in some of the 'wonderful works,' and in the Resurrection. But in the first of these, though the facts (1) that it is never mentioned in the New Testament except in the first two chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and (2) that it was not a part of the oreed of Nicaea, ,make it of less authority (as in -the parallel case of the words 'Descended into Hell'), yet the accounts might be understood without any violation of biological law. The incarnation and divinity of our Saviour stand on the firm ground of what He did and thought, and what Hβ has been to mankind. As to the last point, that of the Resurrection, the views of Bishop Horsier, of Dean Goulburn, and of Bishop Westcott, which have bo often been urged by Canon McColl, as well as by myself in Ripon Cathedral and elsewhere, \were followed, namely, that the Resurrection was not a return to the mortal conditions of this life, but a manifestation of the spiritual state, and the 'spiritual body.' As to the 'mighty works' oi our Lord, in some cases we could see them to be instances of the power of a Majestic Presence and Personality over weakened and hysterical frames; and possibly other cases might be similarly accounted for. But since in all things, even the commonest, there it an element of the unknown we must expect that this would be the case etill more in the works .of Christ Himself. If we could know everything no doubt all would appear quite natural according to the higher conception of nature, for which the writer is contending. This is brought out in the late Duke of Argyll's great work, "The Reign of Law.' "The same method may be adopted as to Christian doctrines. All are in harmony with Law. The divinity of our Lord is best understood by the 'fact that there is an operation of the Divine Spirit in the world generally, and in every man; but in Christ it n unique and complete. 'God g'veth not the Spirit by measure unto im.' Redemption is the elevation of man to his higher ideal, his true nature. Election is the plain fact that certain men are called out above others to be, like Christ Himself, workers and sufferers for their fellows. Episcopacy is the following out of the principle which God has imposed upon human life, and there must in every society be one responsible head. And so with other doctrines. Finally, the Christian life ie the common life of men raised to its highest state "ol righteousness and love by union with one perfect life; and the Church is human society transformed by the indwelling of the spirit of Christ. I hope this mode of presenting Christian truth may help to clear away difficulties which are widely felt, and may not excite the personal controversies which have so often hindered the progress of truth." This exceedingly vague reply has not at all dispelled the "prevalent feeling of indignation that an ordained clergyman should, while professing such views, still continue to remain a high dignitary of the Church, and draw its emoluments while virtually repudiating its teaching and doctrine!;. But it now appears that this is no new departure on the part of Dean Fremantle, for in "The New Reformation," an essay contributed by him to the" 'Fortnightly' Review," may be found these strange passages:— "We must be content henceforward to be Christian Agnostics." "We are all alike in the admission of a great object if thought, to which the name of God has been commonly given.'

"The clergy now prefer only a genera] adherence to the formularies of worship." "The clergy should not be required to make any subscription at ail" (i.e., any profession of belief at their ordination)." "God inav be considered rather after the analogy of Force or Law." Of course the answer to his more recent utterances is manfestly that, granted an omnipotent-personal Deity, the power to suspend or abrogate the laws established by himself must of necessity be possessed by such a Deity. But it will be seen from the passages which I have reproduced from the Dean b earlier paper in the "- rt ° F- • nightly Review" that he practically dw- » cards altogether the idea of a personal i God, and defines the Deity merely as i "analogous to 'Force , or 'Law,' and as simply -a great object of thought to which 5 the name of 'God' has been commonly r given.'" __ j In what respects this differs irom pure Atheism has not been explained by the Dean of Ripon or his friends. It is not ' easy to detect any definite difference be- ' yond a mere variation of the form of ■ words. A new ar.d somewhat disagreeable light was cast upon this curious case yesterday " by the publication <in various leading Lon- : don papers of the following paragraph: — • "We understand that the report of the . Dean of Ripon's address last week was submitted to the Dean by the re port* r before being published, and was approved by ' him, as giving a fair idea of what he had 1 sa:d about the Virgin-birth of Christ, the ; New Testament miracles, and the resurrec- [ tion. Yet the Dean in his telegram on . Monday declared the report, to be 'absolutely untrustworthy and misleading. . And ' in 4ri» explanation published on Wednesday he wrote that the object of the re- • porter seemed to have been 'to make a sen- ' sation, not to give the facts,' eince 'he chose out just the things which might, ' when dissevered from tiheir context, rightly cause alarm. . It is a pity that the Dean > did not express these views to the reporter s when the report was submitted to him, , instead of passing it as satisfactory, and then holding the reporter np to public obloquy as an incompetent sensation-monger. In such a matter as this the good name of the whole newspaper Press is involved. ' The Dean owes it to himself as well as ' to the journalist concerned to make some further explanation of hie change of mind." One London paper yesterday reviewed the situation witli a good deal of cogency. ' It said:—"No step, so far as we know, has yet been taken by the Bishop of Ripon 1 to call Dean Fremantle to account for his recent jlasphemouß address to the Churchmen's Union. His inaction would be the less to be wondered at if we could trust the statements which have been made by i a correspondent of 'The Times,' who oalls himself 'Presbyter Londinensis.' That writer makes Uio astounding assertion, which, without confirmation, we must decline to credit, that a friend of his own was ordained by the late Bishop Lightfoot 'with tie fullest knowledge that he totally disbelieved in the Virgin birth. . The writer adds that tne unnamed Bishop faxjm whom he himself .received Holy Ordera had previously been made aware that he held viewe like Dean Fremantle'e on the resurrection. The insinuation is that at least two cardinal articles of the Creed of Christendom are regarded by Anglican i Bishops as open questions, and it will be a very grave misfortune if tiiat finds general credence among the laity. We know, of course, the almost insuperable difficulties which attend a clerical prosecution. It entails upon the Bishop enormous trouble and expense, and the expense has to be met from ibis own puree; whale the chances are that the proceedings will fail. That m a scandal which ought to be removed by legislation} but we have lad prelates who have boldly faced thecr responsibility, and not always without result. At all eyente the average layman will thank that after ail milder measures have failed, hi« spiritual fathers should' not shrink, in cases which, like that of the Dean of Ripon, have become ffogrant and notorious, from taking the final step." To-day brings a fresh phase of the situation. Dean Fremantle was confronted with the fact that the report which he denounced had been submitted to him ami approved before publication. He responds to-day, with what bears a painful resemblance to another shuffle/ and seems very "thin" at that. Hβ telegraphs: — "Report shown me in confusion of meeting breaking up. My corrections not made. See printed' letter for causes of inaccuracy." That printed letter being t-he one already quoted, in -which he virtually reasserts the same extraordinary views, albeit wrapped up in more "podding," his proceeding* certainly do appear depWbly disingenuous. J