Westminster Sermons

Westminster Sermons

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Kingsley
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Title: Westminster Sermons with a Preface
Author: Charles Kingsley

Release Date: May 10, 2006 [eBook #18369]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
WESTMINSTER SERMONS***

Transcribed from the 1881 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,
[email protected]

WESTMINSTER SERMONS.

WITH A PREFACE.
BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.
London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881.
The Right of Translation is Reserved.

PREFACE.
I venture to preface these Sermons--which were preached either at
Westminster Abbey, or at one of the Chapels Royal--by a Paper read at
Sion College, in 1871; and for this reason. Even when they deal with
what is usually, and rightly, called "vital" and "experimental" religion,
they are comments on, and developments of, the idea which pervades
that paper; namely--That facts, whether of physical nature, or of the
human heart and reason, do not contradict, but coincide with, the
doctrines and formulas of the Church of England, as by law
established.
* * * * *
Natural Theology, I said, is a subject which seems to me more and
more important; and one which is just now somewhat forgotten. I
therefore desire to say a few words on it. I do not pretend to teach: but
only to suggest; to point out certain problems of natural Theology, the
further solution of which ought, I think, to be soon attempted.
I wish to speak, be it remembered, not on natural religion, but on
natural Theology. By the first, I understand what can be learned from
the physical universe of man's duty to God and to his neighbour; by the
latter, I understand what can be learned concerning God Himself. Of
natural religion I shall say nothing. I do not even affirm that a natural
religion is possible: but I do very earnestly believe that a natural
Theology is possible; and I earnestly believe also that it is most
important that natural Theology should, in every age, keep pace with
doctrinal or ecclesiastical Theology.

Bishop Butler certainly held this belief. His Analogy of Religion,
Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature--a
book for which I entertain the most profound respect--is based on a
belief that the God of nature and the God of grace are one; and that
therefore, the God who satisfies our conscience ought more or less to
satisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's mission; and he
fulfilled it well. But it is a mission which has to be re-fulfilled again
and again, as human thought changes, and human science develops; for
if, in any age or country, the God who seems to be revealed by nature
seems also different from the God who is revealed by the then popular
religion: then that God, and the religion which tells of that God, will
gradually cease to be believed in.
For the demands of Reason--as none knew better than good Bishop
Butler--must be and ought to be satisfied. And therefore; when a
popular war arises between the reason of any generation and its
Theology: then it behoves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all
humility and godly fear, on which side lies the fault; whether the
Theology which they expound is all that it should be, or whether the
reason of those who impugn it is all that it should be.
For me, as--I trust--an orthodox priest of the Church of England, I
believe the Theology of the National Church of England, as by law
established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is not,
therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of England,
since the foundation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century,
have done more for sound physical science than the clergy of any other
denomination; or that the three greatest natural theologians with which
I, at least, am acquainted--Berkeley, Butler, and Paley--should have
belonged to our Church. I am not unaware of what the Germans of the
eighteenth century have done. I consider Goethe's claims to have
advanced natural Theology very much over-rated: but I do recommend
to young clergymen Herder's _Outlines of the Philosophy of the
History of Man_ as a book--in spite of certain defects--full of sound
and precious wisdom. Meanwhile it seems to me that English natural
Theology in the eighteenth century stood more secure than that of any
other nation, on the foundation which Berkeley, Butler, and Paley had

laid; and that if our orthodox thinkers for the last hundred