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Transcribed from the 1881 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,ccx074@pglaf.org

WESTMINSTER SERMONS.

WITH A PREFACE.

by
CHARLES KINGSLEY.

London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1881.

The Right of Translation is Reserved.

p. vPREFACE.

I venture to preface these Sermons—which were preached eitherat Westminster Abbey, or at one of the Chapels Royal—by a Paperread at Sion College, in 1871; and for this reason.  Even whenthey deal with what is usually, and rightly, called “vital”and “experimental” religion, they are comments on, and developmentsof, the idea which pervades that paper; namely—That facts, whetherof 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 andmore important; and one which is just now somewhat forgotten. I therefore desire to say a few words on it.  I do not pretendto teach: but only to suggest; to point out certain problems of naturalTheology, the further solution of which ought, I think, to be soon attempted.

I wish to speak, be it remembered, not on natural religion, but onnatural Theology.  By the first, I understand what can be learnedfrom the physical universe of man’s duty to God and to his neighbour;by the p. vilatter,I understand what can be learned concerning God Himself.  Of naturalreligion I shall say nothing.  I do not even affirm that a naturalreligion is possible: but I do very earnestly believe that a naturalTheology is possible; and I earnestly believe also that it is most importantthat natural Theology should, in every age, keep pace with doctrinalor ecclesiastical Theology.

Bishop Butler certainly held this belief.  His Analogy ofReligion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution andCourse of Nature—a book for which I entertain the most profoundrespect—is based on a belief that the God of nature and the Godof grace are one; and that therefore, the God who satisfies our conscienceought more or less to satisfy our reason also.  To teach that wasButler’s mission; and he fulfilled it well.  But it is amission which has to be re-fulfilled again and again, as human thoughtchanges, and human science develops; for if, in any age or country,the God who seems to be revealed by nature seems also different fromthe God who is revealed by the then popular religion: then that God,and the religion which tells of that God, will gradually cease to bebelieved in.

For the demands of Reason—as none knew better than good BishopButler—must be and ought to be satisfied.  And therefore;when a popular war arises between the reason of any generation and itsTheology: then it behoves the ministers of religion to inquire, withall humility and godly fear, on which side lies the fault; p. viiwhetherthe Theology which they expound is all that it should be, or whetherthe reason of those who impugn it is all that it should be.

For me, as—I trust—an orthodox priest of the Church ofEngland, I believe the Theology of the National Church of England, asby law established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is not, therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Churchof England, since the foundation of the Royal Society in the seventeenthcentury, have done more for sound physical science than the clergy ofany other denomination; or that the three greatest natural theologianswith which I, at least, am acquainted—Berkeley, Butler, and Paley—shouldhave belonged to our Church.  I am not unaware of what the Germansof the eighteenth century have done.  I consider Goethe’sclaims to have advanced natural Theology very much over-rated: but Ido recommend to young clergymen Herder’s Outlines of the Philosophyof the History of Man as a book—in spite of certain defects—fullof sound and precious wisdom.  Meanwhile it seems to me that Englishnatural Theology in the eighteenth century stood more secure than thatof any other nation, on the foundation which Berkeley, Butler, and Paleyhad laid; and that if our orthodox thinkers for the last hundred yearshad followed steadily in their steps, we should not be deploring nowa wide, and as some think increasing, divorce between Science and Christianity.

p. viiiButit was not so to be.  The impulse given by Wesley and Whitfieldturned—and not before it was needed—the earnest minds ofEngland almost exclusively to questions of personal religion; and thatimpulse, under many unexpected forms, has continued ever since. I only state the fact: I do not deplore it; God forbid.  Wisdomis justified of all her children; and as, according to the wise American,“it takes all sorts to make a world,” so it takes all sortsto make a living Church.  But that the religious temper of Englandfor the last two or three generations has been unfavourable to a soundand scientific development of natural Theology, there can be no doubt.

We have only, if we need proof, to look at the hymns—many ofthem very pure, pious, and beautiful—which are used at this dayin churches and chapels by persons of every shade of opinion. How often is the tone in which they speak of the natural world one ofdissatisfaction, distrust, almost contempt.  “Change anddecay in all around I see,” is their key-note, rather than “Oall ye works of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him forever.”  There lingers about them a savour of the old monastictheory, that this earth is the devil’s planet, fallen, accursed,