■-\:^i^ 
 
 *'V^^-^'>^ 
 
 i 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Theological Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 0^ BL 2710 .S747 E5 1877 
 
 ^^. Ellicott, C. J. 1819-1905 
 
 B 
 
 Modern unbelief 
 
r 
 

MODERN UNBELIEF: 
 
 ITS PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 SIX ADDEESSES 
 
 / 
 C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE COMMITTEE OF THE 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE; 
 
 sold at the depositories : 
 
 77, great queen street, likcolx's inn fields; 
 
 4, royal exchange; 48, piccadilly; 
 
 and by all booksellers. 
 New York : Pott, Young, and Co. 
 
 1877. 
 
The Christian Evidence Committee of the S.P.C.K., 
 while giving its general approval to the works of 
 the Christian Evidence Series, does not hold itself 
 responsible for every statement or every line of 
 argument. 
 
 The responsibility of each writer extends to his 
 own work only. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Yery few words are needed by way of intro- 
 duction. 
 
 The pages that follow will speak for them- 
 selves, and the circumstances under which 
 they were written will account for the general 
 tenor of the whole. Each Address forms the 
 second part of a Charge delivered to the clergy 
 of an archdeaconry. 
 
 The language is thus such as would naturally 
 he used to an audience composed of those who 
 have to teach and direct others ; the argu- 
 ments and illustrations such as might supply 
 suggestions and lines of thought to men whose 
 professional studies have long made them 
 familiar with the general subject. This little 
 volume thus pretends to be no more than it 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 is, — a Charge delivered in the ordinar}' per- 
 formance of one of the graver duties of a 
 responsible office. It is not directly designed 
 to convince those who might be in doubt, or 
 to confute by any elaborate arguments those 
 who might be opposing the truth of Chris- 
 tianity, but is intended to act by way of sug- 
 gestion, and generally to supply some guidance 
 amid the various and changing phases of modern 
 thought. It has been^ in a few places, slightly 
 modified with some reference to the larger circle 
 of readers to which now, by the kind wish and 
 request of the Venerable Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, it will be introduced in 
 its present form. 
 
 Still it remains substantially the same as 
 it was originally written and delivered. Pro- 
 ductions designed for one purpose are sure to 
 suffer if they are modified with the hope of 
 makins: them available for another and different 
 purpose. The present volume thus does not 
 pretend to be a popular treatise, or a series of 
 controversial lectures, but simply a few con- 
 nected addresses designed to touch gravely the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 salient points in a great controvers3^ It is 
 and remains a Charge to clergy, yet now so 
 far exjjandecl, by the addition of notes, as 
 possibly to be of some little use to the general 
 reader. 
 
 To the general reader, then, this little volume 
 is now commended, with the solemn praj^er to 
 Almighty God, that it may be permitted to 
 be of some passing aid to those that may doubt, 
 to minister reassurance to those that may be 
 anxious, and in all who may read these pages 
 — pages written in no bitter or controversial 
 spirit — may deepen love to Christ Jesus, our 
 only and redeeming Lord. 
 
 C. J. Gloucester axd Bristol. 
 
 Paliice, Gloucester, 
 December 27, 1876. 
 
COITTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Peevalence of U^^BELIEP ... 1 
 
 II. The Causes of Unbelief .... 24 
 
 III. The Chaeacteeistics of Unbelief . . 47 
 
 IV. The Leading Aegxjments against Unbelief 72 
 V. The Leading AEGUiiENTS foe Cheistianity 95 
 
 VI. The best Methods of dealing with Unbelief 122 
 
THE PEEYALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 [Delivered at Gloltester, October 24Tn, 1876.J 
 
 It seems to be impossible for any thougbtful 
 person to contemplate the various aspects 
 now presented to us by the Churcli and the 
 world w^ithout strangely mingled feelings 
 of hope and encouragement on the one side, 
 and of fear and anxiety on the other. When 
 we consider the general nature and amount of 
 the Christian work now, by the blessing of 
 God, carried on by the Church of England, 
 we seem certainly to recognize much that may 
 properl}^ give us distinct and hearty encourage- 
 ment. Not only from what you have already 
 heard, ^ but from all we may generally know 
 
 1 It may be here noticed that the present and tlic 
 succeeding Addresses formed, in each case, the second 
 portions of the Charge, as it was originally delivered. The 
 first part, in each case, was devoted to the local Chtirch 
 work of the Archdeaconry or Deanery, and to a comparison 
 
 E 
 
2 THE PREVALEXCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 of the spiritual progress of our Xational Church, 
 we seem to have full reason for humbly be- 
 lieving that the Holy Ghost is now vouchsafing 
 to quicken the hearts of pastors and people more 
 perhaps than at any time that could be speci- 
 fied since the great days of our English Prefor- 
 mation. ^Vhether we contemplate the more 
 limited area of an Archdeaconry or a Diocese, 
 or form our estimate from the wider survey of 
 the Province, or of the Church of England 
 generally, we certainly seem to recognize the 
 same marks of progress, the same tokens of a 
 fuller and fresher life. Everywhere, thank 
 God, there seems to be greater earnestness and 
 a deeper sense of responsibility ; everywhere on- 
 ward movement ; everywhere increased energy. 
 Kestored churches, warmer services, more 
 ready co-operation in our congregations, Church- 
 life more realized. Church-work more diffused, 
 — all bear abundant witness to the certain truth 
 that religion is becoming more felt to be a 
 reality, and being so felt is — we may thank- 
 fully observe — more acted on throughout the 
 whole wide area of that Church of which we have 
 the blessing and the responsibility to be minis- 
 
 of ifc -with the work of former periods. This first part, 
 under the present circumstances of the publication of the 
 Charge, is necessarily omitted. 
 
THE rHEVALENCE OF UNEELIEF. o 
 
 ters. Hope and encouragement are certainly 
 very fully vouchsafed to us at tlie present time. 
 
 If this, however, be true, on the one hand, it 
 is as certainh^ true, on the other, that unbelief, 
 and that too of a kind whicli demands our most 
 anxious attention, has been silently advancing 
 and spreading througliout all classes, and espe- 
 cially among the educated and cultivated. Un- 
 welcome as it ever is to admit the fact, it yet 
 novr" seems forced upon our observation. With 
 the light there has also come the shadow. 
 Light there is, fuller and brighter light than 
 perhaps has ever before dawned upon us ; yet 
 shadows there are, stealing and deepening 
 shadows of sceptical and irreligious thought, 
 which are now startling and disquieting all 
 serious observers of the times in which we arc 
 living. Such shadows, however, have been fore- 
 seen by many, and cannot in any sense be said 
 now to have come over us unawares. The 
 germs of the unbelief of the present were 
 clearly enough to be seen in the free thought 
 and scepticism of the past. 
 
 It is now as much as twelve years ago (if I 
 may allude for one moment to myself in this 
 matter) that I ventured to point out, in this 
 very place, and in the discharge of the very 
 duty which I am now attempting to perform, 
 B 2 
 
4 THE PREVALENCE OF UN'BELIEF. 
 
 the silent approach of that which then seemed 
 far, far in the background. I said, if I re- 
 member rightly, that there were, even then, 
 baleful and ominous signs that the frightful 
 development of Antichristian error which is 
 summed up not only in the denial of the Son 
 but of the Father was far more rapidly ap- 
 proaching maturity than was at all commonly 
 supposed. I alluded to these signs, and I 
 directed attention, as far as I was able, to the 
 nature of the current speculations of those 
 times, as suggesting the probability of a steady 
 lapse into man's last and worst denial — the 
 denial of the personality of his Maker, and of 
 -the adorable Fatherhood of God." These warn- 
 ings, I well remember, were considered as 
 unreasonable and exaggerated. It was said 
 
 2 See Primary Charge, pp. 99, 100 (Gloucester, 1861). 
 .At that time the personality of God was called into ques- 
 tion, mainly on the same grounds as at present, viz., that 
 the very idea of personality limits and circumscribes thac 
 which must be, by the very definition, illimitable (p. 100), 
 — but the doubts were not then formulated with the sharp- 
 ness with which now they are set forth (see, for example, 
 Fiske, Cosmic Philosopliy, vol. ii. p. 408, seq.), and had to be 
 recruited by arguments from other quarters. These are 
 noticed in the passage referred to, and are specified as 
 "intimations of the gradual and silent appi'oach of man's 
 last and uttermost impiety, — the denial of the pei'sonality 
 «f his Maker." — Charge, p. ICO. 
 
THE PREVALEXCE OF E^^BELIEF. 5 
 
 at the time that this was only a passing 
 phase of modern thought^ and that the opinions 
 and speculations to which such works as Essays 
 and Reviews had given considerable force and 
 currency would gradually disappear, and be 
 soon succeeded by the healthier forms of thought 
 which for a time, but only for a time, they 
 had succeeded in displacing. Such opinions, 
 it was urged, had always existed, had often 
 been expressed, and yet, in the sequel, had 
 fleeted away and left the substance of credenda 
 the same as ever, the deposit of Faith un- 
 diminished and unchanged. 
 
 Is it so, however ? Can we now say with 
 any correctness that there has been any change 
 for the better, in reference to unbelief, during 
 the twelve years that have passed away ? Has 
 current opinion given any indications which 
 might lead any of us to think that the amount 
 of unbelief is diminishing, or that its direction 
 is in any degree changing for the better ? Do 
 we observe it less frequently in our current 
 literature? Is it found less persistently as- 
 sociated with the real or supposed develoj)ments 
 of modern science ? Does it less transpire in 
 popular historical criticism ; or is its influence, 
 so fiir as we can judge, waning in the general 
 context and tendencies of modern society ? 
 
6 THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 As we well know, the state of the case is 
 utterly the reverse. Xot only are scepticism 
 and unbelief far more general and avowed, 
 but their characteristics are seriously changed, 
 in some aspects perhaps for the better, yet in 
 their ultimate effects very distinctly for the 
 worse. Unbelief is changed for the better in 
 having some sort of scope and theory, and 
 in being, though hopeless and despairing, yet 
 not without some sort of joyless earnestness. 
 Whether,, however^ this be for the better or no, 
 it seems quite clear that the unbelief that twelve 
 years ago found popular expression in our cur- 
 rent literature was very different in its tone to 
 that Vv^hich is now silently arrajdng itself against 
 Christianity. Its tone was then often flippant 
 and repulsive/ its attack petulant and de- 
 sultory, and its appreciation of those deeper 
 and more ultimate questions, in reference to 
 man's position on the earth — his past and his 
 future — vrhich are now so eagerly discussed, 
 utterly feeble and unattractive. It simply 
 attempted to destroy without apparently any 
 
 3 The language now used against Christianity by its 
 opponents is, for the most part, free from the coarse 
 invective that marked the attacks of an earlier date. 
 There have been, however, of late, a few painful exceptions. 
 An article last year in the Forinijhthj Rovieic, by Professor 
 Cliflford, reproduced language of a very repulsive character. 
 
THE PIlEVALE^XE OF UNBELIEF. 7 
 
 thought of ulterior reconstruction. It broke 
 with the religion of the past, but never cared 
 enough about religion in the abstract to con- 
 template the possibility of supplying the deep 
 need, which all experience tells us does exist 
 in the poor human heart, with something which 
 might call itself the religion of the future. 
 The scepticism of the more recent past was 
 essentially negative in all its aspects. It did 
 not seek to solve any problems, and concerned 
 itself but little with any special theories. Its 
 simple object was to show that what was 
 generally received was untrustworthy. It 
 rested in part on a literary, and in part on a 
 metaphysical, basis. It attacked on the one 
 hand the documents of Christianity, and, on 
 the other, the leading? doctrines and teaching 
 of Christianity. The former, the documents, 
 it endeavoured to show, were compiled long 
 posterior to the times of which they professed 
 to give a record ; the latter, the general system 
 of teaching, it boldly arraigned as a morally 
 indefensible system, and as involving con- 
 ceptions which, it alleged, vrere at variance 
 with the higher convictions and experiences of 
 the soul. The so-called '' verifying faculty,"" as 
 many of us here may very well remember, was 
 that which was continually appealed to in 
 
8 THE PKEVALENCE OF U^-BELIEF. 
 
 reference to the moral trustworthiness of Chris- 
 tian doctrine, and was always triumphantly 
 assumed to be the sole and true arbitress in all 
 biblical controversies. 
 
 The unbelief, however, of the present time is 
 of a very different kind. Estimated simply 
 with reference to its general tone and ethical 
 characteristics, it is, so to speak, a much better 
 article ; though, as I have already said, its 
 effects are much more dangerous, and the 
 change, as far as regards its influence against 
 the popular teaching of Christianity, very 
 gravety for the worse. It is impossible for us 
 to deny that unbelief is now assuming a much 
 more earnest tone. It professes to take into 
 consideration the gravest questions, to test the 
 evidence on which our belief claims to rest, to 
 suggest answers to all deeper questions that 
 lie within the realm of the knowable, and 
 where they lie bej^ond it, to make it clear that, 
 wdth our present state of knowledge, no trust- 
 worthy answers can be given. And all this is, 
 so to say, becoming public property. A few 
 years ago the results, or supposed results, of 
 modern science were not popularly known 
 beyond the general circle of scientific men. 
 The theory of Evolution, for example, appeared 
 to be simply a scientific theory, more or less 
 
THE ^^vEVALE^•CE OF ^^'BELIEF. U 
 
 probable, which professed to account for the 
 aggregation or disposition of matter in the 
 visible nniverse, but which in no way involved, 
 as it is noTv" declared to involve, the whole 
 question of creation and even of a personal 
 God."* The now celebrated law of Natural 
 Selection appeared at first little more than an 
 intelligent illustration of theories of develop- 
 ment that had found acceptance in years gone 
 by, and had perished from want of a suffi- 
 ciently wide or accurate induction to keep 
 them scientifically alive. Any unbelief that 
 based itself upon such theories of course worked 
 within a comparatively limited circle, and, if it 
 found expression beyond it, won but little real 
 acceptance. It claimed to rest upon what was 
 then but little known, or if known, was deemed 
 to be as yet onl}^ hypothetical and precarious. 
 
 And not only has unbelief thus become more 
 widely diffused, but it has also met with an 
 acceptance which never w^as accorded to the 
 form of infidelity v/hich it has, to a very con- 
 siderable extent, displaced. The infidelity of 
 
 ^ "The doctrine of Evolution,'' says one of its most 
 recent and not least able supporters, "is throughout 
 irreconcileably opposed to the doctrine of creation, so that 
 the establishment of the former is in fact synonymous 
 with the overthrow and destruction of the latter." — Fiske, 
 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 376, seq. 
 
10 THE PREVALENCE OF rNBELIEF. 
 
 the earlier days of this last half-generation 
 never obtained any real hold on the popular 
 mind. It was welcomed and utilized by all 
 minds of a sceptical bias, and it undoubtedly 
 is not without some efPect at the present time, 
 as I shall endeavour hereafter to show ; still it 
 has never exercised a very wide influence, and 
 has never seemed to obtain any such hold on 
 the general mass of moderately educated people 
 as to cause any permanent anxiety. The 
 laborious writings, for example, of Bishop 
 Colenso have probably done as little real harm 
 to the general belief in the truth and credibility 
 of the Pentateuch as were done by any of the 
 Eationalist writers of the earlier part of this 
 century to the belief in the Gospel history. 
 What has always neutralized the efiects of such 
 writers in this country is the thoroughly 
 English feeling and sentiment that there is a 
 o-reat deal to be said on the other side— the 
 kind of persuasion that if any able advocate 
 were to state the case for the defence, fully and 
 clearly, and cross-examine the charges made 
 against Scripture, the opponents would pro- 
 bably be found to have made out but a poor 
 case against the substantial truth of the docu- 
 ments they were attempting to impugn.^ 
 
 ^ There are few subjects -which have been more unfortu- 
 
THE PKEYALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 11 
 
 In all merely literary scepticism there is 
 never tliat kind of evidence which seems to 
 work complete conviction. The mind may be 
 interested and half-persuaded, but the soul^ 
 with its deeper sense of its own real difficulties 
 and perplexities, never rests ultimatel}^ satisfied 
 with what it instinctively recognizes as little 
 more than skilful pleading and clever dialectics. 
 
 But it is very different with the unbelief of 
 our own days. Its principles have been quietly 
 spreading for some time, its influence develop- 
 inof, until at lenofth the time seems now to have 
 come when the whole question must be calmly 
 faced, and when the prevalence and character- 
 istics of our modern unbelief must be fully 
 examined. In a certain sense there is nothing 
 particularly new in these principles. They 
 were silently working a dozen years ago, — and 
 it was on the recognition of this that I ven- 
 tured to speak as I then did speak, — but, as I 
 have already said, their development was then 
 
 nately neglected by theologians than the general i^rinciples 
 of the rules of evidence as applied to alleged facts and 
 matters of detail. An excellent pamphlet on this subject 
 may be here specified, viz., Forsyth, On the Rides of 
 Evidence as ax>iMcable to the Credihilitij of History (Hard- 
 wicke, Lond. 1874) ; see also a sensible sermon by Dr. 
 Reichel, The necessai^ Limits of Christian Evidences (Bel- 
 fast, 1874). 
 
12 THE rREVALENCi: OF ITXBELIEF. 
 
 slow, and the circle to which they were confined 
 limited and scientific. Now they have un- 
 folded ; agreeable and versatile authors have 
 presented them in attractive forms ; the popular 
 occupants of chairs of science have given them 
 currency ; writers in our periodicals are re- 
 producing them in easy and readable articles ; 
 and the so-called educated public is reading 
 them, and beginning to believe them, or, at 
 any rate, lapsing into the persuasion that they 
 have so)ne claims on our attention. This sort of 
 indolent lapse of opinion into what is really 
 fundamentally opposed to all revealed religion 
 is one of the serious signs of the last ten or 
 twelve years. But matters do not end here. 
 There is not only a latent freedom of thought, 
 but a very unrestrained avowal of it. Scep- 
 ticism is no longer confined to the closet and 
 the study. Society no longer frowns upon and 
 discourages it ; nay, it does something more 
 than merely give it a hearing.*^ Strange things 
 
 * Society certainly tolerates a looseness in regard of 
 external religious observances, -which seems year by year 
 increasing. Our secular papers notice this, and sometimes 
 bring it before us with a detail which we must fear is 
 very often verified. It is only a few weeks since that 
 there was an article in the World on th© " Religion of 
 Young Men," which no one of common observation could 
 deny to be otlierwise than telling and true. One of the 
 
THE PREVALEXCE OF UNBELIEF. 13 
 
 are now freely spoken ; opinions that, a few 
 3'ears ago, would have produced a startle in 
 cultivated society, are now ventilated without 
 censure or protest, and are becoming tolerated, 
 if even not approved and fostered. 
 
 I do not wish to be, in any fornix a mere 
 alarmist. I do not desire to specify these things 
 merely to contribute to the already existing 
 anxiety on the subject of modern thought. 
 ^ay, I am quite willing to admit that a great 
 deal is said, and has been said, for which there 
 is no sufficient evidence. Much has been said 
 that cannot possibly be substantiated. Our Uni- 
 versities, for example, have been denounced as 
 scarcely any longer places of really Christian edu- 
 cation,^ our younger public teachers have been 
 
 causes assigned by fhe writers is — The consciousness of 
 unbelief. 
 
 ' This charge which, it will bo remembered, was publicly 
 made two or three years ago, and excited at the time con- 
 siderable attention, has not been, we may be thankful to 
 feel, by any means fully substantiated. A very important 
 witness on the other side (Rev. W. Ince, of Exeter College) 
 demonstrated, in a clear and convincing paper, read 
 before the Church Congress of last year, that the religious, 
 or rather, irreligious state of Oxford was by no means what 
 it had been described to be. All my resident friends at 
 Cambridge on whose judgment I can rely give even a still 
 •more cheering account of the state of religious opinion in 
 that University. 
 
14 THE PREVALEXCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 cliarged yi-ith an indifference to Christianity, if 
 no worse ; even our leading public schools have 
 not escaped the suspicions which, at an anxious 
 time like cur own, are suggested by well- 
 meaning but not very accurately-informed criti- 
 cism. With these outbursts of alarm I have 
 no sympathy whatever ; they are founded on 
 an imperfect appreciation of the real state of 
 the case, and on a very inadequate knowledge 
 of the present position of the great controversy. 
 What I do feel, however, very distinctly is this ; 
 that there is evidence, and evidence that cannot 
 be set aside ; — First, that infidelity of a very 
 serious kind — infidelity that claims to rest, not 
 merely on metaphysical speculation or historical 
 criticism, but on facts, and on science — is be- 
 coming popularly known, and even popularly 
 accepted. Secondly, that all the evil results 
 which attend on this sort of playing with fire 
 are gradually disclosing themselves among the 
 young and inexperienced. There is now a sort 
 of dim feeling in many a young heart that old 
 opinions are untenable, or, if to any extent 
 tenable, that they will have to be totally recon- 
 structed, — that the attack is overwhelmingly 
 strong, and the defence very orthodox, but 
 very weak, — and that it is quite an excusable, 
 if not a commendable attitude to rely upon 
 
TTIE FREVALEXCE OF UNBELIEF. 15 
 
 what seems — yet onl}^ seems — to be sure and 
 agreed upon, to cast out tlie four anchors of the 
 soul— its hope, its faith, its reverence, and its 
 love — on the old sand-bank of simple morality, 
 and so to wait for or wish for the daJ^ 
 
 If this be so, if there is everywhere increas- 
 ing this sort of suspended belief, if principles 
 which are really destructive of all heart-faith 
 are slowly finding their way into our popular 
 literature, if the tendency towards that worst of 
 all states, believing nothing,^ not even unbelief 
 itself, is certain}}^ increasing, — then it does 
 seem our duty, m}^ dear friends and brethren, 
 to give our thoughts seriously to these things, 
 to review carefull}^ our position, to estimate 
 fairly and calmly the nature and direction of 
 the attack, and then in conclusion to turn our 
 best attention to the exact state of the defence, 
 and, where necessar}^, to supplement and 
 strengthen it. Such an attempt may not un- 
 
 8 This believing nothing is now elevated to the dignity 
 of what' we might have called, had it not been a mis- 
 nomer, a definite creed. A clear and ably-written, though 
 very painful defence of this system will be found in the 
 Fortnightly Review for June of the present year. The tone 
 of the whole article is sad, and, at times, bitter. The 
 Avriter ought to have had sufficient regard for the feelings 
 of others to have prevented him using many of the expres- 
 sions which we find in the article. The consolations of 
 Christianity are not the bitterest of mockeries (p. Sil). 
 
16 THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 suitably form the subject of a Charge at the 
 present time. There is a sort of lull in the 
 miserable and pitiful controversies that have so 
 long been forced upon us b}^ restlessness and 
 innovation. There is the homely English feel- 
 ing showing itself everywhere that the law 
 must be made quite clear, and when quite clear 
 as clearly obeyed; — and there is the equallv 
 English willingness to remain quiet and patient 
 till the highest Courts of our land tell us the 
 true meaning of our formularies, and define for 
 us the amount of liberty and ritual which is 
 compatible with the rules and definitions of our 
 Mother Church. 
 
 At such a time, then, it ma}^ not be unseason- 
 able for us to avail ourselves of this interspace ; 
 to leave awhile the wearisome and unprofitable 
 questions which have so long detained us, and 
 to turn to that which is really serious and 
 menacing, — the gradual and silent lapse, on 
 the part of raam^ who still looseh' bear the 
 name of Christians, into opinions which are 
 simply incompatible with a true belief in the 
 fundamental principles of Christianity, and 
 are scarcely consistent with a belief in the 
 blessed personality of God. 
 
 These opinions have been long masking 
 themselves in various disguises, and asso- 
 
THE PREVALEXCE OF UNBELIEF. 17 
 
 elating themselves with many popular forms 
 of contemporary thought. Sometimes they 
 have shown themselves in alliance with 
 attacks upon the credibility of the early 
 history of our race as set forth in the Old 
 Testament. Sometimes they have become 
 mixed up with the real or supposed difficulties 
 of reconciling recent historical research with 
 the generally accepted date of man's first 
 appearance on the earth. Sometimes they have 
 become associated with the now not uncommon 
 protests against the morality of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and against the so-called Judaism of 
 modern Christianity. Sometimes quite an- 
 other ground is taken, and an appeal is made 
 to recent discoveries of science, which disclose 
 wholly different views on the laws and order of 
 nature to those which are alleged to be the 
 assumptions of theology. Scientific research, 
 it is asserted, is tending more and more to 
 obliterate the supernatural ; the idea of Creation 
 has, it is urged, now to prepare to give way to 
 evolution, and Providence to self-adjustment 
 and development. Last of all, to close, though 
 not to exhaust, a wearisome list, sometimes the 
 opinions to which I have been alluding claim 
 to occupy an utterly independent attitude, to 
 swing free of all creeds,, to accept evidence when 
 
 c 
 
18 THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 fairly verifiable, and then to stand at gaze, to 
 allow a few watery hopes just to float across 
 the dreary expanse, but really to believe nothing 
 and to profess really to know nothing which 
 cannot be tested and proved by direct investiga- 
 tion, or, at the very least, bj^ the results of 
 universal experience. Of this composite and 
 mixed nature is much of that unbelief that is 
 really doing most harm at the present time, 
 and is most successfull}^ predisposing our 
 vounger people at last to hold everything as 
 opinionable, and ultimate^ to believe nothing. 
 It may be ingenious and interesting to trace 
 out the phases and causes of religious thought, 
 and to specify the distinctive features of the 
 various systems that are now emerging from the 
 ferment of modern unbelief, — it may be inge- 
 nious, but it is totally profitless.^ The worst 
 forms of unbelief are those that have gathered 
 their doubts from man}^ systems, and rest upon 
 
 ^ A paper on this subject, entitled "The Courses of Re- 
 ligious Thought," will be found in the ContemjporaTy Revieio 
 for August of the present year. Like everything written 
 by the accomplished author of the paper, it is clever and 
 interesting; but it is deficient in a true grasp of the prin- 
 ciples of several of the systems alluded to, and it places in 
 the same list phases and forms of religious thought wliich, 
 metaphysically considered, have scarcely the slightest con- 
 nexion with each other. Great exactness of thought is 
 required in the analysis of these protean systems. 
 
THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 19 
 
 the supposed cumulative evidence that Chris- 
 tianity cannot possibly be maintained in the 
 face of existing difficulties. 
 
 To cut our way through such a jungle of 
 tangled thoughts may be very difficult. Still, 
 with a little patience, some high ground may, 
 from time to time, be reached, from which a fair 
 survey may be obtained of modern difficulties 
 in reference to Eevealed Eeligion, and a just 
 estimate formed of their real validity. At any 
 rate, if we can do nothing else, we shall, I 
 trust, be enabled fairly to show the danger, as 
 well as the unreasonableness, of maintainino- 
 that attitude of suspense which is now regarded 
 as characteristic of all higher philosophic 
 thought ; and further, we shall, I hope, also be 
 enabled to make it clear that there are broad 
 considerations, both on the positive as well as 
 on the negative side, which must cause every 
 sober-minded thinker to pause seriously and 
 anxiously before he merges his lingering hopes 
 of the truth of Christianity in a barren and 
 creedless jSTescience. 
 
 Thus far, my dear friends, I have only 
 generally broken ground in the subject now 
 lying before us. The development and ex- 
 pansion of these thoughts must be reserved 
 for the Addresses that will follow. What 
 c 2 
 
20 THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 I have now said has only been general and 
 introductory. Its design, however, has been 
 to bring home to you, without any exaggera- 
 tion, and without any expressions of unreason- 
 able alarm, the simple fact, that the words 
 which form the title of this present Address, 
 "The Prevalence of Unbelief,'' are not idly 
 used, but do state that which a single glance 
 into the popular literature of the day will 
 abundantly verify. It may be easy enough 
 to say, as is often said, that there are really 
 no grounds for supposing that matters are now 
 worse than they have ever been before ; that 
 there was quite as much infidelity in the days of 
 Bishop Butler as there is now ; that the present 
 movement of modern thought is transitory, and 
 is only prelusive to a reactionary return to the 
 old and true principles of the Catholic faith. 
 It is easy to say these things, but it is by no 
 means easy to support them by satisfactory 
 proofs.. Infidelity, we well know, there has 
 ever been, but it certainly has not been the 
 form, or rather forms, of infidelity which are 
 now confronting us. There may be now no 
 greater amount of disbelief in revealed religion 
 than there was in the days of Bishop Butler, 
 but it is certainly a disbelief of a very difi'erent 
 kind ; for it begins with denying, on presumed 
 
THE PREVALENCE OF UXBELTEF. 21 
 
 scientific evidence, that very truth which 
 Butler and his opponents alike regarded as 
 sufficiently established/ the existence of an 
 intelligent Author of Nature, and of a moral 
 Governor of the World. 
 
 I return then to my position — that there 
 certainly do appear to be some grounds for 
 fearing that unbelief, in a form very likely to 
 do great mischief, esj^ecially to the young, is 
 distinctly prevalent among us, and to an 
 extent and degree that a few years ago could 
 hardly have been anticipated. In the next 
 Address I purpose, with God's help, to notice 
 the causes that have led to this prevalence. 
 
 1 The words of Bishop Butler on this subject are as 
 follows : — After stating that he takes it for proved that 
 there is an "intelligent Author of nature, and natural 
 Govei'nor of the world," he adds, " For as there is no pre- 
 sumption against this prior to the proof of it ; so it has been 
 often proved with accumulated evidence from the argument 
 of analogy and final causes, from abstract reasom'ng, from 
 the most ancient tradition and testimony, and from the 
 general consent of mar .kind. Nor does it appear, so far as 
 I can find, to be denied by the generality of those who pro- 
 fess themselves to be dissatisfied with the evidence of 
 religion." — Analogy of Religion, Introduction, p. 6 (Oxford, 
 1864). It would be urged now that there is strong pre- 
 sumption prior to the proof; and -writers like Hartmann 
 would press that if in any degree Intelligence is to be 
 traced in the structure of things around us, it is utterly 
 unconscious of its own existence. 
 
22 THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 In the Addresses that follow I hope to notice 
 successively, those characteristics of unbelief 
 which have been onlj^ touched upon to-day ; 
 then further, some of the leading arguments, 
 both against Unbelief, and for Christianity, and, 
 lastly, the best practical methods of dealing 
 with unbelief which it may seem desirable to 
 adopt at the present time. 
 
 Much more might now be added, but I pray 
 God that, at an}^ rate, enough ma}^ have been 
 said generally to quicken our thoughts, and 
 to call forth our prayers that the Hoh' SjDirit 
 of power, and light, and love, may now be 
 vouchsafed in fuller measure to the Militant 
 Church, and that He may more and more 
 stablish, strengthen, and settle all shaken and 
 wavering Christian hearts. 
 
 Oh may that blessed Spirit be with us all I 
 The days in which we live are dark and 
 anxious. Deeper learning is, I fear, declining ; 
 patient criticism is rare ; merely emotional 
 belief is not uncommon ; but real and instructed 
 belief, that belief that can give the reason for 
 the hope that is in it, and can exhibit clearly 
 the basis of its own convictions, is less and less 
 showing itself among generally professing 
 Christians. Even we the clergy, we whose 
 duty is to guide and direct others amid the 
 
THE PREVALENCE OF UNBELIEF. 23 
 
 mazes of modern speculation, we, I fear, are 
 often found unequal to the dut}^ that is now 
 forced upon us. Everything now seems to be 
 pressed into the service of external work. We 
 may thank God that there is this amount of 
 Vv^ork, but work is superseding thought ; a rest- 
 less activity is now taking the place of much 
 of that calm and sequestered study that once 
 so honourably marked the order to which we 
 belong. Much is there that is at present dis- 
 quieting. Yet we know in whom we have 
 trusted. We know that with His love in our 
 hearts the lips will speak, and if they speak 
 because His love prompts the words, let us be 
 of good cheer, for such words will never be 
 spoken in vain. 
 
TIE CAUSES OE UNBELIEF. 
 
 [Deliveeed at Cheltenham, October 25th, 1876.] 
 
 In my Address of yesterday I stated generally 
 the subject on whicli I felt it my especial duty 
 to speak at the present time, — existing un- 
 belief, its nature and prevalence, and the best 
 means of counteracting it. Without recapitu- 
 lating what I then said, I may briefly notice 
 that it was my object in that Address to place 
 the subject generally before my hearers, and, 
 more especially, to call attention to the distinct 
 prevalence of that unbelief, or — to use the 
 most guarded form of expression — of that 
 non -belief, of which we have now so much 
 melancholy evidence. 
 
 If I may now assume that the subject docs 
 demand our attention, and that even the most 
 hopeful can hardh^ deny that an unbelief of 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 25 
 
 the most grave and menacing character is now- 
 stealing into the hearts of the young and 
 speculative — if I may assume this as generally 
 substantiated yesterday, I may to-day not im- 
 properly invite your thoughts to the question 
 that at once presents itself, and seems to stand 
 next in the orderly development of our subject, 
 " If this be so, why is it so ?" To what causes 
 or influences can we probably ascribe the appa- 
 rent prevalence of suspended belief, and the 
 increase of the difficulties in heartily accepting 
 the facts and teaching of Christianity ? It is 
 obviously of vital importance to attempt to find 
 some answer to this question. If the causes 
 are only such as have always existed, the diffi- 
 culties only the old difficulties, the arguments 
 only those which have been successfully dealt 
 with from the very first, — if this be so, our 
 anxiety may be much modified. But if, on 
 the other hand, the difficulties are substantially 
 new, or, if old, so recruited by fresh arguments 
 as to assume a form of novel cogency, then it 
 becomes our duty to discuss the question anew, 
 to endeavour to ascertain the causes which 
 have contributed to the new developments, and 
 then to proceed onward to notice the more 
 distinctive characteristics of modern unbelief, 
 and to investigate the general tenor of the 
 
26 THE CAUSES OF TJZsBELIEF. 
 
 argmnents on vrhicli it now claims principally 
 to rest. 
 
 We may therefore properly devote the pre- 
 sent Address to a brief investigation of the 
 causes which have principally tended to the 
 prevalence of existing unbelief.' 
 
 Of the many causes which may be assigned, 
 there are three which seem to claim our more 
 especial consideration, — the tone and direction 
 of recent historical criticism, the deductions 
 that have been drawn from the real or alleged 
 discoveries of modern science, and the moral 
 and metaphysical difficulties which have been 
 
 1 The nature of the causes of unbelief was discussed at 
 the recent Church Congress at Plymouth, but scarcely in p. 
 manner commensurate ^vith the importance of the subject. 
 The most noticeable feature of the discussion was the ad- 
 mission by some of the speakers that misinterpretation of 
 the Bible, on the part of believers, was one of the causes. 
 The tendency, since the Eeformation, of the popular religious 
 mind " to confound inspiration on certain subjects, such as 
 those mentioned by St. Paul, with infallibility on all sub- 
 jects, such as Scripture nowhere claims," was noted by one 
 of the speakers as having produced very injurious effects. 
 Still more striking was the statement made, by the same 
 speaker, that the " Augustinian theosophy," or, in other 
 Avords, the view taken by Augustine of the permanence of 
 an eternal, though impotent malevolence, has not only 
 exerted an enormous influence against religion, but is the 
 only cause which will probably be permanent. The state- 
 ment, to a certain extent, is imdoubtedly true, though 
 clearly somewhat exaggerated. 
 
THE CAUSES OF Ll^^BELIE■ 
 
 supposed to bo involved in or connected with 
 the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 Let us speak first of recent historical criti- 
 cism, and the injurious influence it has certainly 
 exercised in reference to Eevealed Religion. 
 Its leading position has always been the same 
 — that any narration of facts which involves 
 the miraculous element in it must, for this very 
 reason, be regarded with the gravest suspicion. 
 " It is,'^ says Mr. Mill, " a noticeable and a very 
 important consideration, that stories of miracles 
 only grow up among the ignorant, and are 
 adopted, if ever, by the educated when they 
 have become the belief of multitudes." " It is 
 urged that early history in its earliest forms 
 is found nearly always to involve the mira- 
 culous, but that investigation and close exa- 
 mination have never failed to show that the 
 evidence on which the alleged miracles rest is 
 totally untrustv*^orthy. If this be so with all 
 ancient history, why, it is said, is the ancient 
 
 2 :,Iil], Three Essays on Religion, p. 238. It certainly 
 seems reasonable to call in question the latter part of this 
 statement. Surely history and psychology alike concur 
 in substantiating the converse position, viz., that the 
 educated commonly do not adopt the belief of the multi- 
 tudes ; but, unless they are drawn aside by self-interest, 
 are either silent with regard to them, or tend to explain 
 them away. 
 
28 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 history of the Jewish people to be su^Dposed to 
 form any exception to the general principle ? 
 Why, too, it is added, is the same miraculous 
 element in the history of the Xew Testament 
 to be regarded otherwise than as involving a 
 ■prima facie reason why tlie narrative should not 
 be accepted as historically credible ? And this 
 presumption, be it observed, is independent, to 
 a considerable extent, of the scientific aspect of 
 the question whether miracles are or are not to 
 be considered as a priori impossible. The case 
 stands thus. A certain element is found in 
 these narratives which, when found elsewhere, 
 in early history, is invariably associated with 
 what critical investigation shows to be mythical 
 and legendary. The simple presence, then, of 
 this element, it is urged, is in itself enough to 
 raise a reasonable presumption against the true 
 historic character of the narrative in which it 
 finds a place. ^ 
 
 The answer to these objections is, happily, 
 fair and reasonable, and has of late been set 
 forth with considerable force and cogenc}'. As 
 
 3 The general question Avill be found popularly but fairly 
 discussed, in a work -syhich will certainly be of use to the 
 general reader, viz., Barnes, Evidences of Cliristianity in 
 the Niyieteenth Century, Lect. ii. p. 35, seq. (London, 1S71). 
 The Lecture is entitled, " Historical Evidence as affected 
 by Time." 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 29 
 
 it never seems desirable to state objections 
 without also stating what may be fairly urged 
 on the other side, I will venture to pause, 
 for a minute or two, briefly to specify an 
 answer, that, estimated fairly, does seem to meet 
 practically the apriorl objection which has just 
 been specified. The answer, roughly stated, 
 is this. The narrative of the Old Testament, 
 and still more so that of the IN'ew Testament, 
 is so essentially different in nature and cha- 
 racter from that of the early and legendar}^ 
 narratives with which they have been comj)ared, 
 that the presence of the miraculous element 
 in the one suggests no just ground for con- 
 cluding, merely because that element is present 
 in the other, that the associated narrative is 
 consequently mythical and untrustworthy.'' If 
 
 'I It Las been urged by a caodid and competent critic in 
 the Spectator, of October 28, that the objection^ is not 
 accurately stated, and that the answer would not be con- 
 sidered by those who have studied the methods of historical 
 criticism, and are conscious of feeling difficulties in refer- 
 ence to Scripture, as adequate, however true it may be in 
 fact. It may be conceded that the critic states the objec- 
 tion with greater precision; but the upshot seems the 
 same, that the difficulty is not practically felt to be great 
 until the miraculous or the marvellous emerges and claims 
 our belief. It may be quite time that the evidence might 
 not, accurately considered, be deemed enough to warrant 
 complete belief in any but the most broad and popular 
 aspects of ordinary events, still it is the miracle that 
 awakens the slumbering evidential sensibility, and so the 
 
30 THE CAUSES OF UXBELIEF. 
 
 the narratives are essentially different in cha- 
 racter, then the ver}^ utmost that can be said 
 is this, — that the presence of the miraculous 
 may raise a presumption against the credibility 
 of the narrative, antecedent to any investiga- 
 tion of the nature of the narrative, but that it 
 is on the results of a fair investigation of the 
 document itself that the decision must ulti- 
 mately be formed. Now without entering 
 further into the nature of the Holy Scriptures 
 as contrasted with other narratives in which 
 the miraculous holds a place, this at least may 
 be said, that in the Old Testament we have 
 these unique characteristics, — first, a demon- 
 sti-able continuity in the component portions, 
 though these portions are numerous, diversified 
 in character, and range over a period of a 
 thousand years ;^ secondly, — not only the pre- 
 
 iniracle»,tliat, in a general way, may be cousidered the real 
 stone of stumbling. In reference to the answer it may be 
 also admitted that it perhaps cannot be claimed as con- 
 clusive ; but the presence of the phenomena in the docu- 
 ments alluded to in the text is certainly so remarkable, as 
 to lead to the presumption that some agencies were con- 
 nected with them qualitatively different to the oixlinarv 
 agencies at work in the compilation of history. This pre- 
 sumption would, in the case of most minds, more or less 
 predispose towards accepting as true what would have 
 been otherwise instinctively set aside as untrustworthy or 
 false. 
 
 5 See a popular but effective statemcut of this continuity 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 31 
 
 sence of propliecies which can be shown to 
 have been prior to the events to which the}' 
 refer, and to have been verified in detail by 
 those events, but a distinct continuity in the 
 method of these prophetic utterances as well as 
 a convergence in their scope. As it has been 
 well said, " no amount of natural genius, no 
 amount of the quickening of intellectual or 
 emotional endowments can account for a long- 
 series of utterances by men of different habits, 
 in different ages, and different grades of society, 
 such that while the}" adequately embrace and 
 express the junctures and troubles of their own 
 day converge onwards to one single, distant 
 event in the world^s history, of which the world's 
 histor}^ hitherto had afforded neither presenti- 
 ment nor parallel.'^ ^ 
 
 In the third place, still sharper is the con- 
 trast between the New Testament and any 
 other documents or narratives Vv'ith which, as 
 similarly involving the miraculous element, it 
 can possibly be compared. The narrative of 
 the New Testament does not refer to, or include, 
 a remote past, but relates events which, it is 
 
 in Credentials of Christianity, p. 17, soq. (Hodder and 
 Stoughton, Lond. 1876). 
 
 ^ Pritchard, Sermon preached before the British Associa- 
 tion at Exeter, p. 22 (Lond. 1869). 
 
32 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 alleged, took place at a definite time in the 
 world's history, when the principles of history 
 were generally known and recognized. Unless, 
 therefore, it can be shown that the narrative 
 was composed so long after the events that 
 mythical additions would have had time to 
 grow up around them, no just argument, on 
 historical considerations (I am not now alluding 
 to the scientific argument), can be used against 
 the credibility of the narrative on the ground 
 of the presence of the miraculous. The attempt 
 to prove that the Gospels were drawn up as 
 much posterior to the events as the mythical 
 h5^pothesis requires may now be asserted, with 
 perfect fairness, to have finally broken down. 
 But this portion of our subject we do not at 
 present pursue further. All that we now 
 assert is — that the popular arguments derived 
 from historical criticism will not be found to be 
 of any real force or validity, when closely 
 examined. But unfortunately the arguments 
 are not closely examined. The assertions of 
 opponents are tacitly credited with a far 
 greater authority than they have any real 
 claim to. Popular criticism, even in respect- 
 able Church papers^ often uses a language that 
 is seriously calculated to mislead, by the studious 
 respect with which it speaks of publications that 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 33 
 
 fairly do not deserve it.' A vague impression 
 is left on tlie mind of the reader that some- 
 thing, if not unanswerable, yet to which a 
 direct answer has not as yet been found, has at 
 length been brought forward. The vague, float- 
 ing doubts within gain strength and coherence ; 
 and the result frequently is a state of anxiety 
 and suspended belief, as to many details, which 
 never fails to exercise a very harmful and de- 
 teriorating influence, especially in the case of 
 those who have to teach and to guide others. 
 
 I do not wish in any way to represent the 
 case worse than it is, — but I certainly fear that 
 even among sober and religious persons the 
 number of those who feel real diflB.culties in 
 
 '' I may specify, by way of example, tlie reception 
 tliat -was given to the work entitled, Snx>ernatural Eeli- 
 (lion, two or three years ago. It was spoken of, by more 
 than one religious periodical, in terms of stndious respect, 
 which now, after the searching criticisms of Dr. Lightfoot 
 in the Contemx>orary Review, and the extremely able answer 
 of Mr. Sanday, we may certainly complain of as misiDlaced- 
 Our opponents ought always to receive at our hands fair- 
 ness and courtesy ; but it becomes positively mischievous, 
 especially at a time like the present, when there is such a 
 distinct tendency to consider everything as opinionabla, to 
 make complimentary and concessive statements as to the 
 general tenor of sceptical arguments, until a close investi- 
 gation shall have proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that 
 it is right and equitable to make them. The harm done by 
 these reviews is excessive. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 reference to many things in the Old Testament 
 is distinctly increasing.^ And this increase is 
 in a great measure due to the evil effects pro- 
 duced by the historical criticism to which I am 
 now alluding, left unchallenged and unexa- 
 mined as that criticism too often is by the 
 
 ^ The difficulties connected with the Old Testament are 
 set forth briefly, but forcibly, in the article in the Spectator 
 referred to above (p. 29, note). The gi-eatest difficulty, 
 however, is not distinctly specified. It is not wholly the 
 case that " in proportion as the Old Testament history 
 approaches times in which it relies on contemporary records, 
 the number of the marvels dwindles," but in one set of 
 instances, even the converse, — viz., the miracles recorded 
 in the histories of Elijah and Elisha. It is this presence of 
 the miraculous in what would seem to be the ordinary and 
 current history of a nation that does appear to create real 
 difficulty. In the early history and development of the 
 world we seem prepared, by the necessarily exceptional 
 circumstances of the case, almost to expect the inter- 
 positions which we find recorded ; in later history the case 
 is difierent. I cannot refer the reader to any really full 
 and clear discussion of this subject, but must content my- 
 self by pointing out that the more we become convinced 
 that the history of the Old Testament is a true and provi- 
 dential liistory of God's dealings with the one race in the 
 old world that were the depositaries of the true belief in the 
 one and only God (and the plain facts that bring this home 
 to ijs are numerous, convincing, and yearly multiplying), 
 the more we shall find ourselves, reverently and persuadedly, 
 giving our heart-belief to the inspired narrative, even in 
 those portions which, at first sight, might seem to be excep- 
 tional and difficult. God's ways arc not as our ways, nor His 
 thoughts as our thoughts. 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 35 
 
 otiose if not receptive reader. Say what we 
 'will, there is always in the background of the 
 poor human heart a proneness to give heed to 
 the attack, and a disinclination seriously and 
 conscientiously to follow out the true lines of 
 the defence. Every fairly educated person 
 thinks that he will be quite able to find his own 
 answer ; — but "when the hour of real soul-trial 
 comes^ and the aye or no in vital questions is at 
 last brought home to the heart, too often alas I 
 it is found that doubt has silently sapped all 
 the more stable foundations of belief, and that 
 all within is uncertainty and confusion. 
 
 And if this, only too often, be the effect of 
 current historical criticism, when applied to the 
 Holy Scriptures, still more serious, as I implied 
 in my first Address, is the effect produced by 
 the speculative deductions that have been made 
 from the real or alleged discoveries of modern 
 science. I advisedly say real or alleged, — for 
 I am persuaded that many scientific theories 
 of the present day w^hich are now current 
 and popular, will in the sequel have to be 
 seriously reconsidered and modified. Who, for 
 example, can really believe that there is such a 
 thing as a " w^aste-heap " in the universe, and 
 yet we are told by men who deservedly occupy a 
 high place in the ranks of science, that there is 
 D 2 
 
36 THE CAL'SES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 sucli a thing, and that it is made up of diffused 
 heat, and is growing larger and larger as time 
 goes onward. '■* Who again, if heat really be 
 atomic motion, can very readily be led to con- 
 ceive, with Professor Hackel and others, an abo- 
 riginal universe of highly heated cosmic vapour 
 while the question yet remains to be answered 
 where did the heat originally come from ? Or 
 yet again, in reference to the most popular 
 subject of all, evolution, — how is it able to 
 account for that similarity of the ultimate par- 
 ticles of matter which may now be said to have 
 been almost demonstrated ? If the molecule 
 is " incapable of growth or decay, of generation 
 or destruction,'-' ^ how can we reconcile such 
 characteristics with the operation of those purely 
 natural causes which are now so persistently 
 claimed to be the constructive principles of the 
 universe ? Such questions, neither captious nor 
 unreasonable, could be multiplied almost inde- 
 finitely, in reference to several alleged dis- 
 
 ^ This opinion, or rather the expression alluded to, has 
 been criticized by Professor Birks, in his valuable tract 
 entitled the Uncertainties of Modei'n Physical Science, p. 
 22, seq. (Hardwicke, Lond. 1876). This is one of the many 
 useful tracts published by the Victoria Institute, and 
 formed the annual Address to the Society for the present 
 year. 
 
 ^ Clerk Maxwell, Lecture delivered at Brcv'^ford in 1873. 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 37 
 
 covcries which are causing considerable anxiety 
 to many religious minds at the present time. 
 The questions, however, are overlooked ; the 
 reasonable doubts as to the eventual truth of 
 the assertions entirely passed over ; the scien- 
 tific results are accepted as final ; the deduc- 
 tions from them that may be attractively set 
 forth in some brilliant and popular address are 
 considered to be valid ; old opinions and beliefs, 
 it is thought, must be abandoned ; serious dis- 
 quietude is very widely felt ; latent doubts are 
 permitted to gain accumulated strength ; — and 
 all this time it is positively questionable whether 
 the theories, on which the whole superstructure 
 of doubts and difficulties connectedly rests, can 
 properly be considered to be substantiated. 
 The uncertainties of modern physical science 
 are by no means to be regarded as existing 
 only in the minds of prejudiced theologians. 
 
 It may be admitted, however, that though 
 most of the more startling popular theories are 
 either still utterly uncertain, or, like the prin- 
 ciple of Natural Selection, are found to require 
 very serious rehabilitation, there remain some 
 at least that seem to militate with received 
 opinions^, and are consequently causing to many 
 minds very great disquietude. It may be 
 admitted, for example, that, in a certain sense, 
 
38 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 the principle of evolution is apparently sup- 
 ported by trustworthy evidence." It seems also 
 probable that the existence of man upon the 
 earth is to be referred to a period slightly more 
 distant than that which has commonly been 
 assigned ^ — and it perhaps may be conceded 
 
 2 The theory of evolution is still very far from being 
 scientifically established ; and also, if true, very far from 
 standing in any antithesis whatever to creation. It has 
 been justly observed by Mr. Eow that there are undoubt- 
 edly " indications that in the formation of the universe the 
 Creator has acted through the agency of means, and not 
 by direct action." He adds, however, very properly, that 
 it is quite another question whether this be an entire ac- 
 count of the matter. See Kow, Principles of Modern Pan- 
 theistic and Atheistic Philosophy, p. 27 (Hard-n-icke, Lond. 
 1874) ; compare also the special work of St. Clair, Creation 
 by Evolution (Hodder and Stoughton, Lond. 1873). It 
 need scarcely be added that the evolution here referred to 
 does not, by any means, involve or imply the truth of the 
 particular theory known by the name of Natural Selection. 
 The one is a broad principle for which there certainly seems 
 some evidence ; the other is a special exemplification of it, 
 against which, as originally defined, there lie apparently 
 insuperable objections. 
 
 3 Much needless disquietude has been caused to many 
 religious minds, by the unconscious assumption that the 
 chronology of Abp. Usher is as inspired as the document on 
 which its results are placed. It is now well known that if 
 we take our computation from the Septuagint, we lengthen 
 the duration of man's existence some 1000 years. Whether 
 this extension is sufficient to account for the developments 
 in civilization which history discloses cannot perhaps, at 
 present, be dogmatically asserted. This, however, seems 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF, 39 
 
 that, in tlie origination of species, laws hitherto 
 not recognized may be considered now to rest 
 on sufficient induction. This, apparently — I 
 desire to emphasize this word — may now be 
 admitted by cool and reasonable thinkers. 
 What, however, does it amount to beyond 
 this — that our adorable Creator has permitted 
 the creatures of His hand to catch clearer 
 glimpses, as the ages roll onward, of the 
 blessed mysteries of His providential wisdom 
 and power. And this which ought really to 
 dispose our hearts to deeper reverence and more 
 adoring love, has been made to become to us a 
 source of hindrances and temptations. These 
 silently disclosed mysteries which ought to 
 awaken in each true and loving soul a more 
 lively apprehension of the mercy and majesty 
 of the Creator, have been perverted by the cold 
 heart of unbelief cr the vanity of a spurious 
 science into arguments against the truth of 
 
 certain, that modern historical criticism has redaced the 
 vast demands of time, once supposed to be made by early 
 Egyptian history, to very manageable dimensions. The 
 era of Menes is now placed by Lepsius as less than 4000 
 years before Christ ; and this, very probably, is 800 years 
 too early. See a paper entitled, Eg^ji^t and the Bihle (p. 
 18), read by J. E. Howard, F.R.S., before the Victoria Insti- 
 tute in April, 1876; and compare Clarke, Ten Ancient Reli- 
 gions of the World, p. 231, scq. (Boston, 1871.) 
 
40 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 revealed religion, and have been made to minis- 
 ter to distrust in the holy reality of the father- 
 hood of God. 
 
 Our very blessings have thus been made banes 
 to us. Those very discoveries which ought 
 still more clearly to reveal our Creator to us as 
 everywhere present in the realms of that 
 nature which is the work of His hands, are 
 now being largel}^ misused by the powers of 
 evil, working it may be in these days of in- 
 creased knowledge more energetically than 
 ever, and are turned against the very truths, 
 viz. : — the existence and personality of Grod, 
 which (it would seem) they were mysteriously 
 designed to support and substantiate. During 
 the past hundred years,- and especially during 
 the last portion of that time, the All- Good, the 
 All- wise, and the All-!Merciful has permitted 
 the creatures of His hand to see far, far_, more 
 clearly than in any centuries of the past, the 
 glory and the majesty of His works, — and yet 
 it is impossible to deny that during that time, 
 and especially recently, the light that ought to 
 have been welcomed almost as a new revelation 
 of the wisdom and omnipotence of God, has, in 
 many and many a soul, become a cheerless and 
 deepening darkness. " If the light that is in 
 thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.'^ 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 41 
 
 I feel, therefore, that it may be truly said, 
 that though it does seem certain that the 
 alleged discoveries of recent science, and, still 
 more, the rash and unlicensed deductions that 
 have been made from them, have caused the 
 greatest possible amount of doubt and disquie- 
 tude in thousands of hearts, — yet that these 
 two things also are certain. First, that of these 
 alleged discoveries some are, in a very high 
 degree, scientifically doubtful. Secondly, that 
 of these same discoveries, those which apparently 
 seem to be trustworthy are distinctly CYidences, 
 not, as it is alleged^ against, hut for the blessed 
 truth of the existence and personality of God, 
 and that, too, in a very marked and even pro- 
 vidential manner. 
 
 But, in the third place, if much of the un- 
 belief of our own times is to be referred to this 
 misuse of the blessings of which true science is 
 designed to be the minister, — if many of our 
 modern religious difficulties may be traced to 
 scientific generalizations, or, as it might more 
 truly be said, to scientific speculations, which 
 all real science is tending, more and more, to 
 disown and repudiate, still more distinctly 
 maj^ we trace the prevalence of unbelief to 
 the moral and metaphysical difficulties which 
 have been supposed to be involved in the 
 
42 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 fundameiital truths of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion. 
 
 The problem of the existence of evil, espe- 
 cially the traces of the misery and sufiering of 
 living creatures, ages before man^s sin cast its 
 sad shadow on the creation around, — the still 
 deeper problems connected with the holy mys- 
 tery of sin's atonement, and the dark and terri- 
 ble questions that are connected with the doom 
 of the impenitent — these three aspects of ph}'- 
 sical and moral evil do, beyond all doubt, fear- 
 fully try the faith of thousands at the present 
 time. They subtily appeal to the poor doubt- 
 ing heart, and at once ally themselves with the 
 difficulties which may have already been sug- 
 gested by historical criticism, or scientific specu- 
 lation. Our very increased knowledge becomes a 
 snare to us. The more science displays to us the 
 wonders of the realms of nature around us, the 
 further we see into the beauty and the glory of 
 the marvellous works of God, — the more ter- 
 rible seems the difficulty connected with the 
 power and presence of evil.'' Whence comes 
 
 '^ The difficulties connected with ^this subject are ex- 
 tremely great. Some considerations wliich appear to 
 lessen them will be found in the essay on " The Adequacy 
 of the Christian Answer to all deeper questions," in Cre- 
 dentials of Christianity, p. 255 (Hodder and Stoughton, 
 Lond. 1876). See also the striking sermon of Mr. Jayne, 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 43 
 
 the friglitful shadow in a world where it would 
 seem everything .was designed to be brightness 
 and light ? Why is its power often so palpa- 
 bly displayed where it would seem to have the 
 least reason of being expected, — and where its 
 effects seem to be as undeserved as they are 
 malefic. Will it endure for ever ? Will this 
 world, — this age as Scripture calls it, — end in 
 an unsolved dualism, and if so, will all the ages 
 which follow it? Will the real or apparent 
 antinomy ever be adjusted ? '" or will the aeons 
 of the future still be witnesses of evil, sub- 
 jugated it ma}^ be, yet existing and defiant in 
 its very subjugation ? And if so, how and in 
 what sense are we to understand that which 
 not only Scripture but the inner voice of our 
 innermost being tells us must be eternally true, 
 — even that God will become all in all ? What 
 sign, what token is there, either in the moral 
 world or in those wide realms of the material 
 world which science is now so mysteriously 
 revealing to us, that verily there will be a new 
 heaven and a new earth, where there will be 
 
 on "The Difficulties arising from the Existence of Physical 
 and Moral Evil," in Modern Religious Difficultics, p. 25, sq. 
 (Chr. Knowl. Society, Lond. 1876). 
 
 5 See Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, § 286, p. 478 
 (Transl.); Credentials of Christianity, p. 275, seq.; Primary 
 Charge, p. 109, seq. (Gloucester, 1864.) 
 
44 THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 no more suffering, no more trial, and from 
 which every trace of moral ^nd physical evil 
 will have passed utterly away ? — These ques- 
 tions, which we well know, can never be 
 answered while we yet only know in part and 
 prophesy in part, — these questions which 
 really can only properly be met by a faith 
 that finds it easier to believe impossibilities 
 than to doubt for one instant in the mercy and 
 the love of God — these questions, these enigmas 
 of life as they are called, are now pressed 
 home on us in a manner and with a frequency 
 which I fear is telling seriously upon the 
 shallow, the careless, the worldly, the cold- 
 hearted, and the doubting. They readily com- 
 bine, as I have already said, with the difficulties 
 arising from other considerations. Each class 
 of difficulties helps to augment the force of the 
 others, — and the result is that tendency to doubt 
 everything, and to consider everything ojDinion- 
 able which I specified yesterday, and which I 
 cannot but regard as the very worst and most 
 menacing sign of our times. 
 
 On this I shall hope to speak in a succeeding 
 Address. 
 
 Meanwhile let me now conclude with a very 
 few words of earnest and brotherly counsel. 
 Dear friends, this is a time for us all to praj'- 
 
THE CAUSES OF UNBELIEF. 45 
 
 not only for truer faith in our own hearts, but 
 for the power to bring home that faith tenderly, 
 persuasively, and cogently, to the hearts of 
 those to whom we are appointed to minister. 
 If the three causes to which I have alluded are 
 now potently at work, — surely now is the time 
 for us to do our best to counteract them among 
 those that may be committed to our charge, 
 and this, by the blessing of God, can only be 
 done one wa}^ — not by arguments which the 
 doubting heart will always think it can answer, 
 — but by that intelligent and sympathetic mode 
 of setting forth the truth, — that demonstration 
 of the Spirit, which ever bears with it real and 
 abiding conviction. Controvers}^, in the case of 
 those circumstanced as we are, does but little, — 
 but some knowledge of the difficulties to which 
 I have been alluding is, year by year, becoming 
 more and more necessary, especially to those 
 of us who have to minister to the cultivated 
 and to the intelligent. There are, I fear, very 
 many who are losing true peace of soul, and 
 losing that love to Jesus as our Saviour and our 
 God, on which everything in this world and 
 the world to come eternally depends. If this 
 be so, then verily there is no graver duty that 
 is now imposed upon us than to strive, by wise 
 and gentletcaching, — by a teaching that knows 
 
46 THE CAUSES OF TNEELIEF. 
 
 well the difficulties that it seeks to remove, 
 again to bring the love of Christ back into the 
 soul, and with that love to bear back heart- 
 belief, hope, and consolation. The only truth 
 that will be found, when properly grasped, to 
 bear abiding consolation, in reference to the 
 deep speculative difficulties to which I have 
 alluded, is contained in the Saviour's own 
 words, that ^' God so loved the world that He 
 gave His only -begotten Son to the end that all 
 that believe in Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life/' This verily is, and ever will 
 be, found to be consolation^ conviction, and 
 light. 
 
 Lord God Almighty, vouchsafe to us all wis- 
 dom, counsel, and knowledge, but above all 
 things vouchsafe to us sympathy and love. 
 
THE CSAEACTEMSTICS OF 
 MODERN UNBELIEF. 
 
 [Delivered at Stroud, ox Thursday, October 26th, 1876.] 
 
 We have now seen tliat there appear to be 
 grave reasons for thinking that unbelief, in 
 various forms, is displaying itself among us to 
 an extent that is causing very grave and wide- 
 spread anxiety ; and we have also examined 
 what would seem to be the principal causes to 
 which this unbelief may most plausibly bo 
 referred. The general course of the argument 
 seems now to lead us onward to a consideration 
 of no less importance, viz., the nature and 
 characteristics of those forms of unbelief which 
 are now most current, and with which those 
 of us who are ministers of Christ are most 
 likely to come in contact among those who 
 may be committed to our charge. 
 
 To this portion of the subject then, viz., the 
 
48 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 characteristics of modern unbelief, we may now 
 confine ourselves. In doing so, however, we 
 shall be wise to remain content w^ith broad 
 and general outlines. I shall not ask you, 
 my friends, to follow me into any minute dis- 
 cussion of the various schools of sceptical 
 thought ; nor shall I attempt, on this present 
 occasion, to analyze the many startling theories 
 with which those who are acquainted with 
 modern scepticism are only too sadly familiar. 
 Such analyses are but of little practical im- 
 portance, and they are only too often utterly 
 sketchy aiid inaccurate. IN'ay, they are often 
 worse than inaccurate. They often tend to mis- 
 lead the inexperienced reader, and to divert his 
 thought from those broad principles, common 
 to several forms of sceptical thought, to which 
 our attention ought to be mainly, if not ex- 
 clusively, directed. Under this sort of illusory 
 guidance, many a reader utterly fails to re- 
 cognize his own mental state in reference to 
 the various phases of unbelief which he may 
 be endeavouring to analyze. He may often 
 honestly think and feel that he has but little 
 sympathy with any one of the systems which 
 he may find labelled as Atheism or Pantheism, 
 Materialism or Agnosticism, and yet he may 
 be unconsciously gravitating to ultimate posi- 
 
MODEUN U^s'BELIEF. 49 
 
 tions common to some or even to all of tliem, 
 which are utterly inimical to all religious life, 
 and incompatible with all true and revealed 
 religion. The result often is that shaken state, 
 that belieyin^ in nothing, not even in any 
 general form of unbelief itself, which I have 
 already noted as the worst and greatest of the 
 spiritual dangers of our own times. 
 
 As to the real distinctions between the various 
 forms of unbelief, of which now we hear so much, 
 they are simple and few. If we set aside all 
 those phases and forms of belief in something 
 beyond ourselves, as, for instance, polytheism,^ 
 which are obviously only transitional, we have 
 ultimately only three systems, marked by the 
 
 1 As the present series of Addresses is confined to un- 
 belief in its modem aspects, no reference is made to heathen 
 religions ancient or modern. It may be well, however, to 
 notice, for the benefit of the general reader who may be 
 acquainted with German, that brief but satisfactory ac- 
 counts of the principal religions of the world will be found 
 in the second part of Ebrard ;- ApoJogetilc (Giitersloh, 1875). 
 The older works of Archdeacon Hardwick, Christ and other 
 Masters (Ed. iii., 1874), and of Clarke (J. F.), Ten Great 
 Religions (Boston, 1871), will always be referred to with 
 profit. For ground-principles of the leading modern sys- 
 tems of thought the reader may consult the two volumes 
 of Lectures published by the Christian Evidence Society, 
 entitled Modern Scepticism, and Faith ami Free Thought : 
 see also Cliristlieb, Modern Donht and Christian Belief, 
 Lect. iii. (Clark, Edinb. 1874). 
 
 E 
 
50 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 following broad distinctions : — First, belief in 
 a personal God, the creator and moral governor 
 of tbe Universe ; secondly, acknowledgment of 
 the existence of an impersonal First Cause, 
 Power, or Intelligence, conscious or unconscious, 
 either, on the one band immanent in, and in- 
 separable from, the totality of things, with 
 which totality it is itself to be identified, — or, 
 on the other hand, so far separable that the 
 phenomenal universe is to be regarded as its 
 outward manifestation and investiture ; thirdly, 
 denial, direct or inferential, both of a personal 
 God, and of a First Cause, whether identifiable 
 with or separate from nature. 
 
 Of these three systems the first, to which we 
 commonly assign the title of Theism, includes 
 Christianity and all such religions as recognize 
 the moral government of God, and regard Him 
 as the personal Creator and Preserver of all 
 things. 
 
 The second system, under its first form, in- 
 cludes Pantheism and all those phases of it 
 which may be properly grouped under this 
 common term. Under its second form we have 
 to include the cognate, but more modern con- 
 ception of an unknown and unknowable Power, 
 working by evolutionary laws, consciously or 
 unconsciously, but so far the independent cause, 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 51 
 
 or rather substratum, of all phenomena, so that 
 (to use the language of one of the exponents 
 of this form of thought) the visible and mate- 
 rial universe forms the garment and vesture 
 of the imknown Intelligence to whom all things 
 are ultimately to be referred.' 
 
 To this second form, which is obviously a 
 modification and modern exhibition of the first, 
 no specific name has yet been formally assigned. 
 One of its more recent supporters speaks of it 
 as Cosmic Theism, but if we give to it the title 
 of Paratheism,^ that is, a perversion of the 
 essential idea of all true Theism, viz., the 
 personality of God, we may perhaps fairly 
 
 - See Fiske, Cosmic Fliilosophy, vol. ii. p. 417. The 
 definition of the First Cause according to this writer is as 
 follows : — " There exists a Power to which no limit in time 
 or space is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as pre- 
 sented in consciousness, are manifestations, hut tvhicli v:e 
 can hioiv only through these manifestations," p. 415. 
 Compare Spencer, First Frincixiles, § 31, p. 108, seq., and 
 see below, p. 68, note ^. 
 
 3 It seems very desirable to have some short and fairly- 
 significant term to designate this form of unbelief, more 
 especially as it is the most prevalent at the present time. 
 It is both wrong and unjust to speak of the advocates of 
 this system as Atheists. They are not so. Their opinions 
 are, however, scarcely less dangerous ; they involve a dis- 
 tinct denial of the personality of God (see Spencer, First 
 Frinciples, § 31, p. 109, seq.), on which eveiything ulti- 
 mately will be found to depend, and yet they often use a 
 language which seems really theistic. See below, p. 67. 
 E 2 
 
52 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 mark its essential character, and also con- 
 veniently separate it from the Pantheism to 
 which it is allied^ but with which it is by no 
 means identical. 
 
 The third system is distinctly atheistic : it 
 acknowledges neither a personal God nor an 
 impersonal First Cause, but accounts for the 
 existence of things either by the assumption of 
 endless emanations from something aboriginal 
 and primordial, — as in some of the great 
 Oriental systems, — or by the continuous action 
 of Force on Matter, both being supposed to 
 have existed from eternity, and to act upon 
 and to modify each other for ever/ 
 
 We have thus, first, Theism ; then, secondh^ 
 the denial of the true theistic principle,— the 
 personality of God,— either by identifying God 
 with the universe, as in Pantheism, or in de- 
 claring Him to be Unknown and Unknowable, 
 as in the case of that which I have ventured to 
 call Paratheism ; and then, lastly, emanational 
 or materialistic Atheism. 
 
 When we leave details and particulars, and 
 
 4 Tlie insurmountable metapliysical difficulties in this 
 unhappy system of thought have been acutely pointed out 
 by Mr. Spencer: his summary is that "The Atheistic 
 theory is not only absolutely unthinkable, but even if it 
 were thinkable, would not be a solution."— Fmt Principles, 
 § 11, p. 31. 
 
MODERN rNBELIEF. 53 
 
 endeavour to take a general view of tliese three 
 forms of religious and non-religious though.t, 
 several considerations of great importance 
 suggest themselves to our minds. And, first 
 of all, this — that though, as a matter of mere 
 arrangement, Christianity may be included in 
 the same broad division with other theistic 
 religions, as acknowledging a personal God, in 
 contradistinction to an impersonal First Cause, 
 yet that the difference between Christianit}^ 
 and all other theistic religions is, qualitatively, 
 so great that we should really be more in 
 harmony with the true facts of the case if we 
 were wholly to segregate Christianity from 
 all other religious systems that the world has 
 ever known. Christianity, in the classification 
 of religions, is much in the same position as 
 man in the classifications of physiology. We 
 may, for a kind of convenience, place our own 
 race among and at the head of the Quadru- 
 mana, as having certain physical character- 
 istics which are common to the whole order ; 
 but when we regard man on his spiritual side, 
 and recognize in him reason and speech, and — 
 except in rare and exceptional cases — acknow- 
 ledgment of a moral law, and belief in a God, 
 we feel at once how much more consistent it 
 would be with all the facts of the case to 
 
54 THE CHARACTEUISTICS OF 
 
 classify man, as Scripture classifies liim, with 
 reference to the image of God, of which he is 
 alone the adumbration. 
 
 Just so is it with Christianity. It may be 
 convenient, for the sake of preserving broad 
 and intelligible distinctions to allow it to be 
 classed with theistic religions, but it really 
 stands nearly as far apart from every other 
 system as man does from every other genus of 
 living and sentient creatures. I say advisedlj-, 
 nearly as far apart, — for though it is only the 
 IN'ew Testament that reveals to us the true 
 nature of the Triune God, we may not and 
 must not forget that the God of the old dis- 
 pensation is the God also of the new, and that 
 though the blessed Gospel alone tells us of 
 Christ that is come, the Law and the prophets 
 tell of Him that was to come,^ and are as the 
 dawn that ushers in the brightness of the 
 day. 
 
 5 Nothing can bo cloarer or more exactly true than the 
 statement of Hooker on this point. " The general end/' he 
 says, " both of the Old Testament and New Testament is 
 one ; the difference between them consisting in this, that 
 the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through 
 Christ that should come, the Ncav by teaching that Christ 
 the Saviour is come, and that Jesus whom the Jews did 
 crucify, and whom God did raise again from the dead 
 is He." lelcdes. Polity, i. 14, 4 ; vol. i. p. 338 (Ed. Keble). 
 
MODEKN UNBELIEF. 
 
 This must never be forgotten, and it may be 
 that in this respect the above analogy can scarcely 
 be fully maintained ; still it may be useful in 
 warning us against two prevalent errors in 
 regard of the popular estimate of Christianity 
 — first, the distinct and dangerous error of con- 
 sidering Christianity as the development of 
 Judaism ; ^ secondly, the still graver error of 
 deeming Christianity the last, and presumably 
 the best of a series of evolutions of religious 
 thought ; but still, a form and phase of religious 
 belief, which, in its turn, may be superseded by 
 some development of the future/ These are 
 
 <» Attention has not been sufficiently called to this serious 
 tliough, commonly, unconsciously-held error. It will be 
 found in much of our popular preaching, and, though doing 
 little real harm to those who are believers, is neverthe- 
 less extremely dangerous as involving a form of concession 
 tacitly made to opponents. If it be conceded that the New 
 Testament is only an expansion of the Old, it is hard to see 
 how the possibility of the New Testament being only pre- 
 paratory to some more perfect system can be logically 
 denied. Our 7th Article wisely limits itself to the in- 
 disputable truth that, " the Old Testament is not contrary 
 to the New." On the distinction between Judaism and 
 Christianity, see Voigt, Fundamentaldogmatil-, § 15, p. 350^ 
 sq. (Gotha, 1874) ; and for a careful investigation of the 
 distinctive features of the theology of the Old Testament, 
 see Oehler, Theologie des Alien Testaments, Einlcitung, Kap. 
 i. — iv., vol. i. p. 7, seq. (Tiibingen, 1873). 
 
 7 This is the general idea that, forms the basis of modern 
 attempts to found what is called a science of religions ; sec 
 
56 THE CHAHACTERTSTICS OF 
 
 two errors of our own times, against whicli it 
 is our duty to protest with all earnestness and 
 persistency. Christianity is neither a develop- 
 ment nor an evolution. It is no republication, 
 as it used to be once regarded, of the law of 
 nature ; still less is it a mere expansion and 
 development of Judaism. Christianity is alike 
 a revelation and a realization. Under the one 
 aspect it is the blessed disclosure of that mystery 
 which had been sealed in silence since the 
 foundation of the world ; under the other, it is a 
 bringing home to every living soul of that which 
 had been the dim and latent hope of the poor 
 suffering heart of humanity in all ages and all 
 times, but which never became an objective 
 reality until angel voices on the slopes of Beth- 
 lehem sang of peace and blessedness to man- 
 kind ; and was never made the heritage of our 
 race until the words "It is finished " pro- 
 claimed salvation, — salvation present, prospec- 
 
 below, p. 59. The gi-eat religions of the Avorld are considei-ed 
 to follow each other in a kind of historical sequence, and a 
 future is looked forward to, in which either some new re- 
 ligion will emerge out of the best elements of those exist- 
 ing (Hartmann, Eelvjion cler Zul-unft, Leipzig, 1875), or 
 the truest of the existing forms (it is not stated which this 
 is) will gradually absorb the others; see Burnouf, La 
 Science des Religions, chap. vi. p. 17-i. The reader should 
 be reminded that this is not the great oriental scholar of 
 that name. The initials are the same. 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 57 
 
 live, and retrospective, unto all the ages, 
 nations, and families of the children of men. 
 
 There is no truth which is more necessary 
 for us to maintain and set forth at the present 
 time than this essential character of the Gospel 
 dispensation, and of the Christianity which is 
 its result. There is a large amount of uncon- 
 scious Judaism among many really religious 
 people. There are thousands of sober and even 
 devout persons who, if they were to be closely 
 examined, would be found to regard the change 
 that was introduced by the teaching of Christ 
 as not utterly dissimilar in its character to the 
 religious changes that were brought about by 
 the Eeformation. Even better educated per- 
 sons often use language, in regard of Christian 
 when compared with Jewish institutions, which 
 is highly unsatisfactory and precarious. There 
 often is no sufficient consciousness shown of the 
 mighty revolution in the whole religious his- 
 tory of the world, which was introduced by the 
 preaching of the Gospel ; no clear realization 
 of the vital truth that Christianity is a now 
 dispensation, — new, not renewed.^ The con- 
 
 ^ See Hob. viii. 13, eV r^ \4yeiv Kaiu-)}y, ireiraXaiccKCu rrju 
 irpdorrjv rh Se iraXaioviievov Kal yripdcrKov iyyvs a.(pavi<rixov. 
 Though iraXaiovv, as Lunemann [in loc.) correctly observes, 
 does not, of itself, definitely mean ''to abrogate," the idea 
 is clearly implied and involved in the context. 
 
58 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 tinuity, which we rightly recognize and trace 
 in the Holy Scriptures, is often unconsciously 
 exaggerated into such an equalization, so to 
 speak, of the authority and essential character- 
 istics of the Law and the Gospel, as to cause 
 the greatest difficulty to yet unpersuaded 
 seekers, and to give countenance to the gravest 
 misconception that can possibly be entertained 
 of Christianity. 
 
 This unconsciously erroneous teaching is, 
 however, not only dangerous in itself, but 
 especially so in the encouragement it gives to 
 the second and graver error to which I have 
 alluded, viz., that of regarding Christianity as 
 the last result of the gradual development of 
 the religious idea in mankind. We are now 
 told that the eternal truths of the Gospel are 
 really no more than the last improvements in 
 the religious perceptions of the race, which 
 themselves will have to be so greatly improved 
 upon as practically to be improved away alto- 
 gether ; ^ and we are, consequently, reminded 
 
 ^ "\Miat we arc now told is this, whatever it may exactly 
 mean, that it is our duty to inquire, "whether, in the 
 nature of things, a substitution of scientific for theological 
 symbols involves an alteration of ethical values in the 
 grand equation betv.xen duty and action," Fiske, Cosmic 
 FJiilosophy, vol. ii. p. 453. The result of the inquiry is 
 stated, and is so far comforting, as we are assured that 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 59 
 
 that we have no right to claim for them that 
 Tast qualitative difference, which every one 
 who loves and adores Christ crucified, knows 
 verily to exist between Christianity and every 
 other form of belief which the world has ever 
 j^et known. Nay, so far have we advanced in 
 these conceptions, that a new science is now 
 struggling for a place, — the science of religion 
 as it is called, — a science which not only 
 claims to teach us how religion has followed 
 the laws of development and of natural selec- 
 tion which prevail in the physical world, but 
 how in the future we may look for grander 
 developments, when Arj^an polytheism, and 
 Semitic monotheism, and Oriental pantheism, 
 will all be merged in that one Universal 
 Eeligion which is to be the blessing and glory 
 of humanit3^^ 
 
 " no such change is involved in the substitution." The 
 writer, however, goes on to say that we must be preijared 
 for " the throwing overboard of the whole semi-barbaric 
 mythology in which Christianity has hitherto been symbol- 
 ized," p. 454. We have obviously not much to hope for 
 from Cosmic Theists. 
 
 1 The outlines of this religion are sketched by Hai'tmann 
 in his recent work alluded to above, p. 55, note '. The 
 author states, with studious modesty, that he is only able to 
 describe a few of the piers on which the new way of the 
 future is to rest ; but he says enough to imply that a sort 
 of rehabilitated pantheism, or "pantheistic monism " (what- 
 
60 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 We smile wnen we hear such things : but, 
 my clear friends, there is a growing tendency to 
 believe in these wild antichristian dreams. 
 This theory of religious evolution is put for- 
 ward with much skill and persuasiveness. Iv^ay, 
 we have heard echoes of it in so-called missio- 
 nary addresses, and in places where we might 
 properly look for very different teaching. "We 
 have heard a little already, and as time goes 
 onward we shall hear much more. Liberality 
 of sentiment, and what is termed breadth of 
 religious thought, are now the popular charac- 
 teristics of much of the current theology of our 
 own day ; and this breadth and liberality are 
 daily bearing onward weaker and less disci- 
 plined thinkers into conceptions of Christianity 
 which are wholly incompatible with its true 
 nature and essence. It may be permissible to 
 believe in a law of progress in theology," in 
 
 ever that exactly may be), — ''a synthesis of the religious 
 development of India, and of the Judaeo-Christian develop- 
 ment," is to he the universal religion of the future : see 
 Religion der Zukunft, Kap. ix. ad fin., and compare Creden- 
 tials of Christianity, Lect. vi. p. 274, note (Lond. 1876). 
 
 - This question has formed the subject of two striking 
 and thoughtful sermons by my friend. Dr. Plumptre (Ee- 
 spice, Aspice, Prospice, and the Law of Progress in Theology, 
 Daldy and Co., Lond. 1876). Though we may not be able 
 to follow the i3rcacher in all details, there will be few who 
 will not acknowledge the general truth of his statements, 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 61 
 
 accordance ^Yith which old and vital truths 
 may receive new elucidations and enhance- 
 ments, — hut that progress, which consists in 
 dropping what is really distinctive, and con- 
 serving only what may be common to other re- 
 ligions besides our own, is one of those results 
 of this new science of religion which may well 
 make us all careful, lest, through ignorance 
 and an imperfect estimate of Christianity, we 
 ourselves may be unconsciously adding force to 
 this popular Pelagianism^, and to this current 
 but most dangerous theosophy. 
 
 One truth there is in these matters which 
 stands for ever firm, — one truth that must be 
 held to with ever-increasing tenacity, — that 
 there is none other name given to man whereby 
 he can be saved but the name of Jesus Christ, 
 our Eedeemer and our God. 
 
 There is another consideration of some 
 moment which seems to result from a fair com- 
 parison with each other of the three broad clas- 
 sifications which we are now dwelling upon_, — 
 and it is this, that we have no great reason to 
 fear any real advance on the side of pure 
 materialism, and of what may be justly defined 
 as distinct atheistic teaching. Two or three 
 
 or will fail to admire the force and ability with which a 
 very difiicult suliject is discussed. 
 
62 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 years ago a little impulse was given to this un- 
 happy system by a well-known and brilliant 
 misuse of a responsible position.^ ^Matter was 
 to do a great deal for us ; we were to look to it 
 for the promises and potencies of terrestrial 
 life ; but it would seem that all who have 
 followed the advice have become already sin- 
 gularly discontented with the results they have 
 arrived at. Two great facts there are which 
 will always keep materialism in check, and 
 which may serve to reassure us under any fears 
 of growing tendencies towards atheis-tic specu- 
 lation. The first is this, — that the further 
 
 3 "What the opinions of the distinguished author of the 
 Belfast Address really are, I do not know, and cannot 
 clearly ascertain. It is certain, however, that portions of 
 the Address were accepted both by friends and foes, as 
 favouring distinctly materialistic conceptions. In the two 
 remarkable articles of Dr. Martineaii in the Contemporanj 
 Review for February and March, 1S76, in answer to Dr. 
 Tyndall, the design of the -u-riter is stated as defensive, 
 and "to repel the pretensions of speculative raatcrio.lism, 
 to supersede the ' theological conception,' by tracing that 
 pretension to an imperfect appreciation of the ultimate 
 logic of science." — Cont. Rev., p. 547. Whatever may be 
 the personal belief of the writer, it certainly seems just to 
 say that several joassages in his Address do appear to place 
 before us, not light, but — to use the eloquent words of Dr. 
 Martineau, — " a phosjihorescence of matter set up by the 
 chemistry of nature, not to see things by, but to glisten oa 
 the darkness." The effect of such passages, especially on 
 the minds of the young, is excessively injurious. 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 63 
 
 true advance is made in molecular physics, and 
 in those principles of atomic philosophy on 
 which materialism mainly rests as its founda- 
 tion, the more distinctly is it seen that we are 
 in the very realm of what have been called by 
 those most qualified to give an opinion, '^manu- 
 factured articles," ^ that is, elements which 
 point to a Maker ; and, further, that the sys- 
 tem that is to teach us how to dispense with a 
 divine Artificer, is that very system which in 
 the sequel, under the guidance of true science, 
 will most convincingh' demonstrate His blessed 
 being and existence. 
 
 ^ This remarkable expression appears to have been first 
 used bj Sir J. F. W. Herscliel in his Preliminary Discourse 
 on the Stud.y of Natural PMlosoplnj, Art. 28, p. 38 (Long- 
 mans, Lond, 1851). It was fully justified and expanded by 
 Prof. Clerk MaxAvell, in his remarkable Discourse on Hole- 
 cules, delivered at Bradford in Sept. 1873. " Each mole- 
 cule," the Professor observes, ''throughout the universe 
 bears Impressed on it the stamp of a metric system as dis- 
 tinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the 
 double royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac," p. 12. Some 
 exception has been taken to this expression ; see, however, 
 the comments of Prof. Clerk Maxwell, at the concluding 
 part of his extremely valuable article on " Atom," in the 
 new edition of the Dncyclox)02dia Britannica. In that 
 article (p. 49) the important observation is made that, " the 
 formation of the molecule is therefore an event not belong- 
 ing to that order of nature under which we live It 
 
 must be referred to the epoch, not of the formation of the 
 earth or of the solar system, but of the establishment of 
 the existiiiET order of nn.tiire." 
 
64 THE CHARACTEJIISTICS OF 
 
 The second great fact that is brought home 
 to us by all experience is this, — that man's 
 heart tcill crave after a Father and a God, and 
 that, be the speculative opinions "what they may, 
 there will always be found in the zones of the 
 affections and in that mysterious world of emo- 
 tions, which so often seems to be the home of 
 our truest self, a deep longing, and as Scripture 
 expresses it, a feeling after an unseen Being of 
 power and blessedness, toward whom the soul 
 strives to rise, and with whom it seeks to make 
 itself one. I know well that it may be said 
 not only that there are exceptional cases in 
 which the hapless and denaturalized soul seems 
 utterly to disavow the idea of a God, — but that 
 a great religion or, to speak more accurately, a 
 great philosophical sj^stem, I mean, of course, 
 Buddhism, can exist, nay can even number as 
 many adherents as Christianity, and jQt be, 
 in theory at least, distinctly atheistic. I know 
 it ; but I answer, first, that the cases of those 
 who have remained to the very last hour of 
 life atheists,^ are, thanks be to God, so utterly 
 
 5 An instance is given by the autiior of Heterodox London 
 (vol. ii.), and a melancholy account is given of the burial 
 and speeches at the gi'ave. We may observe, however, a 
 tendency, apparently increasing, to fall back on nescience, 
 not definitely and categorically to deny. For example, in 
 
MODEllX L'N BELIEF. 65 
 
 few as to tend rather to substantiate, than in- 
 validate, the general principle. Secondlj^ I 
 believe it may be unhesitatingly said that 
 Buddhism could never have maintained its 
 hold over the millions that it can number as its 
 adherents, if it had not, almost from the very 
 first, tacitly converted Buddha into its God, 
 and practically made its very Nirvana an en- 
 during Elysium, rather than a realm of extinc- 
 tion and night. Say what we will, there ever 
 lingers in the soul this sensibility, this gravita- 
 tion towards the author of its being, which will 
 always prevent any real spread of materialism. 
 We could have no better illustration of the 
 truth of this than is afforded us by the post- 
 humous essays of Mr. Mill. From these it is 
 clear that, though he seems to have regarded 
 Matter and Force as eternal, he still could not 
 dispense with the idea of a God — a God, it is 
 true, of limited power and wisdom, yet of an 
 infinite benevolence which might call out every 
 
 the Secular Revieiv for Nov, 5, 1876, reference is made to 
 death as something "which may be rightly compared with 
 birth. "We come here," the writer says, "-without promise 
 given ; we leave without stipulations being made : and 
 there is no warrant from experience why those who use life 
 nobly and gracefully should not regard the end as the 
 beginning was — a glad surprise." Compare Mill, Three 
 Essays on Religion, p, 210. 
 
 F 
 
6Q THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 co-operative energy of man, and something even 
 higher than his love.^ 
 
 Such testimonies as these against the ex- 
 treme assertions of positivism and materialism 
 are of great and enduring importance. 
 
 Our dangers come not from these unnatural 
 forms of thought and speculation, but from 
 those S3^stems which I grouped together as ad- 
 mitting in some form or other a First Cause, 
 and as tolerating towards it, if not commend- 
 ing, expressions of something which in Christian 
 language would be spoken of as worship and 
 adoration. Even such a writer as Strauss can 
 speak of that on which we feel ourselves entirely 
 dependent as " by no means merely a rude 
 power, to which we bow in mute resignation, 
 but as both order and law, reason and good- 
 ness, to which we surrender ourselves in loving 
 trust." '' And when I read to you the following 
 passage, and tell you that it comes from an 
 eminent writer who warmly supports the philo- 
 sophj^ of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and distinctly 
 opposes and condemns the Christian conception 
 of a personal God, you will, I think, feel with 
 
 6 See Mill, Three Essays 011 Religion, p. 117. 
 
 ' I am indebted for this quotation to an excellent tract 
 by Prebendary Kow entitled, The Principles of Pantheistic 
 Philosophy, § 43, p. 17 (Hardwick, Lond. 1874). 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 67 
 
 me that this adoption of the language of Chris- 
 tianity, while the fundamental jDosition of 
 Christianity is denied, cannot but be fraught 
 with danger to the undisciplined and inexperi- 
 enced. "Every temptation that is resisted, 
 every sympathetic impulse that is discreetly 
 jdelded to, every noble aspiration that is en- 
 couraged, every sinful thought that is repressed, 
 every bitter word that is withheld, adds its 
 little item to the impetus of the great move- 
 ment which is bearing humanity onward 
 towards a richer life and higher character. 
 Out of individual rectitude come the rectitude 
 and happiness of the community ; so that the 
 ultimate salvation of mankind is to be wrought 
 out solely by that obedience to the religious 
 instinct which urges the individual, irrespective 
 of utilitarian considerations, to live in confor- 
 mity with nature's requirements. * JN^earer, my 
 God, to Thee ' is the prayer, dictated by the 
 religious faith of past ag,es, to which the deepest 
 scientific analysis of the future may add new 
 meanings, but of which it can never impair the 
 primary significance.'' ^ In this passage, re- 
 markable in many respects, and leading one to 
 hope better things for the writer of it, the 
 
 8 Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic PMlosoiohy, toI. ii. p. 502 
 (Lond. 1874). 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 
 higher aspirations of the soul are sympathized 
 with, and that most dangerous of all dangerous 
 impressions is left upon the heart, especially of 
 the young and the sensitive — that it may be 
 possible to be not only moral but religious, and 
 yet deny every clause and article, — let us say, 
 of the Apostle's creed. 
 
 This is the great practical danger we have to 
 face in connexion with the present tendencies 
 to scepticism and infidelity. The form and 
 lineaments of a very angel of light are assumed 
 by systems that are radically opposed to Chris- 
 tianity. The natural bias of the heart to re- 
 ligion is taken into due consideration, and to 
 some extent provided for ; but at the same time 
 the pride of intellect is delicately fostered. 
 What are termed the narrow and anthropo- 
 morphic conceptions of a holy and personal 
 God, are contrasted unfavourably with the 
 broad and philosophical generalizations of a 
 great First Cause, working in all things and 
 through all things, and underlying all pheno- 
 mena.^ Creation is first exaggerated and mis- 
 
 9 This conception of God, and the further conception 
 intimately associated with it, " that the Power which the 
 universe manifests to us is wholly inscnitable " (Spencer, 
 First Principles, § 14, p. 46), is examined with great care 
 and ability by Prof. Birks in his recent work, Modern 
 Physical Fatalism, p. 17, seq. (Macmillan, Lond. 1876). This 
 
MODERN UNBELIEF. 69 
 
 represented, and then skilful!}' contrasted with 
 evolution. Special providence is made to 
 appear incompatible with law, and soon merged 
 in the general processes of a nafura naturans 
 assumed to be wise in its scope and ulti- 
 mately beneficent in its action. The ruin of 
 the soul is then well-nigh complete. Its last 
 instinctive sigh for that redemption which is 
 still felt, through all, to be its deepest need, 
 becomes lost in vague hopes of an endless moral 
 progress, if not for the individual, yet for the 
 race ; its last clinging to a proffered salvation 
 merges in the dream of an ultimate evanescence 
 of evil, towards which it may well be the glory 
 of a life to have given the mite of its own tran- 
 sitory existence. 
 
 These are some of the characteristic thoughts 
 and principles of that unbelief which is now 
 working among us. This is the idealism with 
 which modern scepticism is deluding the souls 
 of thousands. And what is its final effect on 
 the soul ? What but this ? Either to infuse 
 in the soul a steady and deepening distrust in 
 the holy realism of the facts and truths of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christy — or, worse still, to make 
 
 volume, and the earlier volume, The Difficulties of Belief, ed. 2 
 (Macmillan, Lond. 1876), will be found extremely useful 
 by all wbo enter into the modern controversy with unbelief. 
 
70 THE CHAKACTERTSTICS OF 
 
 it feel a vague disbelief in everything, even in 
 any or all of the very sj^stems that have con- 
 tributed to the spiritual ruin. I have said 
 elsewhere/ and I again solemnly repeat it, this 
 last form of unbelief, this drifting, consciously 
 and placidly drifting, slate of soul, is the 
 greatest and gravest danger of our times. 
 Better the paganism itself, from which our 
 forefathers were rescued, better a belief in some 
 powers higher than ourselves, than the selfish 
 and frightful indifference to all belief that is 
 now stealing into many hearts, and is the last 
 and worst outcome of modern infidelity. Yes, 
 we might almost say with a great Christian poet : 
 
 "... Great God, I had rather be 
 
 A pagan suckled in a creed outworn, 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Have glimpses that might make me less forlorn ; 
 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
 
 And hear old Ti-iton blow his wreathed horn." - 
 
 1 See Modern Religions Dificidties, Serm. vi. p. 159 
 (Chr. Knowl. Soc, 1876). This hapless frame of mind is 
 not wholly unrepresented in some of our popular periodical 
 literature. The wretched "it isn't new," and "it isn't 
 true," and "it doesn't matter," finds at least one clev&r 
 and popular exponent that I fear greatly tends to foster, 
 possibly quite unconsciously, the form of unbelief alluded 
 to in the text. Unrestrained and mordant pessimism, com- 
 bined with a studied suppression of everything lofty, ear- 
 nest, and chivalrous, is certain gradually to pass into the 
 lower forms of heartless and apathetic unbelief. 
 
 2 Wordsworth, Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part I. 33 (JVorJcSy 
 
MODEllN UNBELIEF. 
 
 But enough now may have been said on the 
 general characteristics of modern infidelity. 
 We may now profitably pass onward to those 
 broad and general arguments which appear to 
 tell most heavily against it. But that portion 
 of the subject it will obviously be best to re- 
 serve for a separate Address. Meanwhile, dear 
 brethren, let us all pray for increased zeal, 
 increased knowledge, and that increased love 
 which quickens the teacher and preacher with 
 powers not his own, and endows him with that 
 demonstration without which all human reason- 
 ing is vain_, all mere human argument is un- 
 pre vailing. 
 
 Oh, blessed Spirit ! Spirit of wisdom, power, 
 and love ! descend now in fuller measures on 
 Thy Church, vouchsafe to us and to all who 
 adore Thee Thy blessed gifts, help us ourselves 
 to believe more warmly and heartily, and to 
 bring home that belief, in all its warmth and 
 power, to the souls of them that hear us ! 
 
 vol. iii. p. 35, Lond. 1837). An elaborate criticism on the 
 religious significance of the words quoted in the text will 
 be found in Stephen, Kistory of English Thought in the 
 JEighteenth Century, § 15, vol. i. p. 14 (Lond. 1876). The 
 higher meaning of the passage, however, seems to have 
 been missed by the critic. 
 
THE LEADING AEGUMENTS 
 AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF, 
 
 [Deliteeed at Dueslet, OS Feidat, Octobee 27th, 
 
 1876.] 
 
 Thus far we liave considered the general subject 
 of the prevalence of sceptical thought, the causes 
 that would seem to have led to it, and those 
 forms of it which are now most frequent, and 
 with which we, as God's ministers, are most 
 likely to come in actual and practical contact. 
 
 These forms, we have seen, may be grouped 
 under the three following heads, which, for all 
 practical purposes, seem perfectly sufficient : 
 Eirst, belief in an impersonal Power, or Intelli- 
 gence, immanent in all things, and identifiable 
 with their totality ; secondly, belief in such a 
 Power, not necessarily immanent in and identifi- 
 able with phenomena, but separable from them, 
 underlying them, and that of which they are 
 
ARGUMENTS AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 73 
 
 the vesture and manifestation. If to the first 
 of these the title of Pantheism is commonly 
 applied, for the second I ventured to suggest 
 the title of Paratheism, as implying a sort of 
 approach towards Theism, but yet a distinct per- 
 version of it in its most fundamental character- 
 istic, viz., the personality of God. The third 
 and remaining form of unbelief I spoke of as 
 Materialism, and as involving the denial, either 
 directly or inferentially, of any Cause, personal 
 or impersonal, save the unintelligent forces of 
 nature. To this we may properly and con- 
 sistently give the repulsive name of Atheism. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured fully and exactly to 
 realize the nature and characteristics of the 
 evil, we may now properly and logically pass 
 onward to the consideration of the various 
 remedies that may be provided against it, and 
 especially of those broad and general arguments 
 which, whether on the negative or on the posi- 
 tive side, appear most likely to produce an 
 influence at the present time, and to carry with 
 them persuasiveness and conviction. I say, 
 broad and general arguments, — for, in the first 
 place, it is not my object in this Address to 
 enter into those special arguments which are 
 more suitable for a treatise than an Address ; 
 and, in the second place, the real truth is, 
 
74 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 that popular and prevalent unbelief does not 
 exactly manifest itself in any one of these 
 forms, but in a kind of loose compound of them 
 all. What we have to contend with is, either 
 that evil heart of unbelief which just catches up 
 enough from the irreligious thought around it 
 to supply an excuse for doubt in the funda- 
 mental truths of Christianity, especially on its 
 miraculous side, — or else that still more un- 
 happy and more utterly worldly state of mind, 
 which considers everything as opinionable, and 
 is too indifferent to give heed to its own real 
 degradation.^ To believe in nothing, not even 
 in unbelief itself, is the most morally ruinous 
 state into which any soul that Christ came to 
 save can possibly pass, — but of this state I fear 
 our own times are supplying us with many and 
 terrible examples. They are to be found every- 
 where, and though, I trust, in modified forms, 
 yet almost in every congregation. 
 
 ^ It is, I am afraid, considered by many a mark of good 
 sense to adopt this attitude of thought. The famous but 
 really discreditably-evasive saying, alluded to by Mr. Ste- 
 phen in his recent worJc, English Tlwught in the Eighteenth 
 Century, appears at the present time not by any means 
 to be without its influence : " What is j^our religion ? 
 The religion of all sensible men. And what is the religion 
 of all sensible men ? Sensible men never tell." Vol i. 
 p. 342. 
 
AGA1^'ST MODERN UNBELIEF. /O 
 
 What we have then now to consider are 
 those broad and general arguments which are 
 likely to tell most persuasively on the other 
 side. 
 
 I. With minds thus circumstanced^ no argu- 
 ment probably is more likely to carry real 
 influence with it than this, — that the truest 
 science is now plainly taking the other side, 
 and is unmistakably declaring /or the truth, of 
 Theism, and for the belief in a Creator and 
 moral Governor. There seems good reason for 
 hoping and believing, that ere long, this, by 
 the blessing of God, will be made strikingly 
 patent. We seem on the eve of great dis- 
 coveries, especially in reference to molecular 
 ph3'sics, and those ultimate atoms which the 
 Creator vouchsafed to call into being, and with 
 which it would seem He vouchsafed to build up 
 the fabric of this earth, and of the rolling worlds 
 around it.^ "We seem also to have arrived at a 
 
 2 From this subject, and from the results of spectroscopic 
 observation, it seems reasonable to expect much that will 
 place the constitution of things around us in a light that 
 has never yet been vouchsafed to us. For references to 
 leading treatises on this subject, see above, p. 63, note *, 
 and add to them an important scientific paper, by the 
 author there referred to, entitled, Tlie Dynamical Evidence 
 of the Molecular Constitution of Bodies, in the Journal 
 of the Chemical Society for June, 1875. 
 
76 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 turning-point in science. Theories in many 
 important subjects, such, for example, as the 
 supposed action of meteors in reference to solar 
 heat, or the suj^posed constitution of the earth, 
 a thin solid crust round a fluid nucleus of 
 molten matter,^ have been candidly given up ; 
 opinions — for they can scarcely be spoken of as 
 
 3 This hypothesis, which was so generally accepted as to 
 have almost passed out of the realm of hypotheses, was, 
 I beheve, first formally called into question by the late 
 Mr. Hopkins, of St. Peter's College, Cambridge. His atten- 
 tion was first directed to the subject by the phenomena of 
 precession and nutation. The whole subject has been 
 recently discussed with great care and fulness by Sir 
 William Thomson, in his opening Address to the Section 
 of Physical Science, at Glasgow, last September. To use 
 the words of this distinguished natural philosopher, " The 
 state of the case is shortly this :— the hypothesis of a per- 
 fectly rigid crust containing liquid violates physics, by 
 assuming preternaturally rigid matter, and dynamical as- 
 tronomy in the solar semi-annual, and lunar fortnightly 
 nutations ; but the tidal theory has nothing to say against 
 it. On the other hand, the tides decide against any crust 
 flexible enough to perform the nutations correctly with a 
 liquid interior, or as flexible as the crust must be unless of 
 preternaturally rigid matter" {Openincj Address as given 
 in The Times for Sept. 8, 1876). When physicists differ on 
 what would seem such a comparatively-simple question as 
 the fluidity or non-fluidity of nearly the whole of the earth 
 we tread on, it would seem only the commonest prudence to 
 pause before we allow our faith to be shaken by scientific 
 theories, which may be hereafter reversed as distinctly as 
 the theory we have just been considering. 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 
 
 more than opinions — in regard of tlie over- 
 whelming and almost oppressive magnitude of 
 the realm of the visible, have undergone con- 
 siderable modifications. For example, the 
 varying brightness of the stars is no longer 
 regarded as simply dependent on distance, vary- 
 ing size being now admitted to be an element 
 that ought also to be taken into our estimates."* 
 Ajjain, the aores of the world's duration, and 
 the distance of time at which its mass became 
 consolidated, once deemed to be vast beyond all 
 conception, are now reduced to presumable 
 limits that are perfectly thinkable.^ Many 
 
 ** See the interesting treatise of Prof. Birks, Uncertainties 
 of Modern Physical Science, p. 27, eeq. (Jlardwicke, Lond. 
 1876). Herschel himself admitted that the Magellanic 
 clouds supplied an argument against the supposition that 
 the appearance of nebulosity is due only to supposed vast- 
 ness of distance. Modern science is apparently tending to 
 reduce greatly the almost oppressive magnitudes in which, 
 till lately, scientific speculators always tended to indulge. 
 
 ^ See the Address of Sir William Thomson above re- 
 ferred to. The subject of the age of the earth is intimately 
 connected with the rate of increase of temperature as we 
 descend downwards from the surface. The greatest depth 
 to which we have penetrated in these observations is hardly 
 a single kilometre. Sir W. Thomson remarks that if any 
 falling off of the rate of augmentation of temperature were 
 sensible at this depth, then the whole geological history of 
 the earth would be limited to within 10,000 years. There 
 is, however, no reason for thinking that the rate of augmen- 
 tation diminishes at so small a depth. If the geological age 
 
78 THE LEADING AllGL'MENTS 
 
 other instances of silent or avowed modifications 
 might also be mentioned, all tending to show that 
 science is rapidly getting rid of its crudities, that 
 it has sown, so to speak, its wild oats of specu- 
 lation, and is now fast approaching a state in 
 which, by the over-ruling wisdom of the All-wise 
 Creator, it will be found, more than ever before, 
 to sustain all the fundamental teaching of Ee- 
 velation in reference to our race,, and the begin- 
 ning and end of that earth which is our pre- 
 sent home, and the scene of our present proba- 
 tion. Already there are many things in modern 
 science that seem to point to alleviations of 
 much that at times has weighed heavily on 
 the minds of anxious but believing inquirers. 
 Never was there a time when the two words 
 " Only believe " seemed more vitally necessary 
 for us all ; never a period in which we might 
 more confident^ await the developments of 
 science, and honestly sigh that as yet they are 
 so slow and so tentative. 
 
 All true philosophy is now postulating a be- 
 ginning,— a beginning, at any rate as far as 
 this earth is concerned, that is assuming, year 
 
 of the earth be the ninety millions of years claimed by some 
 geologists, then a sensible diminution of the rate of aug- 
 mentation would not begin till a depth of thirty kilometres 
 was reached. 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEI<. 79 
 
 by 5'ear, more of scientific definiteness. All 
 the views of cosmogony towards which observa- 
 tion is leading us, though, in several important 
 particulars, modifications of views that were 
 once popularly accepted by us all, are tending 
 to bring home to us, from the realm of the out- 
 ward and the material, accumulative evidence of 
 a Personal, Holy, and Omnipotent Will, that 
 has called us and all things into being, and loves 
 with a boundless love all the creatures of His 
 hand. All that our hearts have long since told 
 us, all that stands written and revealed on the 
 pages of the Book of Life, all that the Church 
 of which we are members has professed as her 
 unchanging belief, — all this, as regards the 
 being and attributes of God, is novr found traced 
 on the unfolding pages of the Book of Nature. 
 
 We may say then, justly and correctly, that 
 all true Science is tending distinctly to support 
 all the fundamental statements of revealed 
 religion in reference to the being and attributes 
 of God, — and is even mysteriously adding con- 
 firmation to God's Word in what might other- 
 wise have been considered its questionably 
 specific statements as to the closing scenes of 
 this world's history. No thoughtful observer 
 of nature can forget how, one May evening 
 some ten years ago, the spectroscope explained 
 
80 THE LEADING ARGUME^'TS 
 
 what the telescope was then manifesting to 
 startled observers, — and what in the sequel 
 cool men of science did not hesitate to speak of 
 as — a burning world/ 
 
 Such, in brief outline, is the first argument 
 that may now fairly and persuasively be used 
 against unbelief, especiallj^ unbelief that affects 
 to rest on scientific discoveries. Its tenor, as 
 we have seen, is this : — First, that several state- 
 ments which, only a short time since, were 
 considered scientifically certain, have now been 
 modified or withdrawn ; and, further, that all 
 theosophistic speculations that were based upon 
 them have consequently shared their fate. 
 Secondly, that the tendency of all tested scien- 
 tific discovery is now distinct!}^ tending to sup- 
 port, and not, as it is alleged, to oppose the 
 belief in a personal and omnipotent God. 
 
 ^ The star referred to appeared in the Corona Borealis. 
 It was first observed on the evening of (I believe) May 16, 
 1866, became sensibly brighter and brighter, and then after 
 the lapse of a few days waned in light and ultimately dis- 
 appeared. The examination of the star by the spectroscope 
 led to "the rather bold speculation" that in consequence 
 of some vast convulsion, large quantities of hydrogen gas 
 had been evolved, that the hydrogen had become ignited 
 and was bm-ning in combination with some other element, 
 and that "the flaming gas had heated to vivid incan- 
 descence the solid matter of the photosphere." — Proceed- 
 ings of the Astronomical Societxj, vol. xv. no. 84, p. 149. 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 81 
 
 All true science is now pointing to a begin- 
 ning, and to an intelligent and all-powerful 
 Will that made that beginning, and has since 
 taken part in its progress and development. 
 
 II. We may now notice another argument, 
 or, rather, aggregation of arguments, which is 
 found greatly to influence all cool and intellec- 
 tual thinkers ; and it is this — that the forms of 
 unbelief to which I alluded at the beginning of 
 this Address, whether taken separately or in 
 combination, utterly fail to explain, in a manner 
 satisfactory to the reason, the origin or history 
 of the phenomenal world around us. 
 
 Now, in illustrating this statement, one pre- 
 liminary remark may be made, which, when 
 fairly considered, will be found of really great 
 moment in reference to the general question. 
 The remark we desire to make is to this efiect, — 
 that every one of the forms of unbelief which we 
 have noticed is either a plain reproduction of a 
 form puifc forth long ago in the earliest days of 
 philosophy, or else a modification or rehabilita- 
 tion of it. If any one doubts this, let him 
 take any trustworthy history of any one of the 
 subjects we have been alluding to, — say such a 
 work as Lange's recent history of Materialism,^ 
 
 7 Lango, Geschichte des Materialismus (2nd ed., Leipzig 
 und Iserlobn, 1873-1875). The concluding portion of this 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 — that mine out of which, a learned professor, 
 not long ago, dug out all his ore — let him take 
 it, and,, after reading its careful summaries, 
 fairly say whether much that is now said on 
 the subject of atoms has not often been said 
 before, nay, even whether it was not better 
 said by a philosophic poet nearly two thousand 
 years ago.^ Now this fact of course does not 
 prove that the opinion or theory is the worse 
 for such a lengthened pedigree, but it does 
 show this, that these conceptions have been 
 before the mind of the human race for a long 
 time, and have utterly failed to secure more at 
 sluj time than a most limited and intermittent 
 
 valuable work (Buch II. Abschn. 4) is entitled "Ethical 
 Materialism and Religion," and well deserves careful read- 
 ing. His opinion is that mucb more harm is done by 
 fanciful speculations than by downright materialism. It 
 is less hurtful, he says, to mankind to play the part of a 
 missionary of negation, than of an apostle of confusion (pp. 
 560, 561) . This, however, seems open to question. 
 
 8 " Of Lucretius it must be said, that he not onV wi'ought 
 out the doctrine of materialism with a completeness of 
 statement and profuseness of illustration not attained by 
 any of his predecessors, but also made his system of the 
 universe so comprehensive that modern materialists have 
 added absolutely nothing to his conception, but have simply 
 confirmed at certain points, by observation and experiment, 
 what he had reasoned out from his speculative postulates." 
 — Lucretius or Paul, p. 8, — a striking and eloquent Address 
 by Dr. Joseph P. Thompson (Berlin, 1875). 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 83 
 
 acceptance. Nearty the same might be said of 
 any of the other forms. They are all old 
 friends, or rather old foes. Some have been 
 rehabilitated, some have been cleared of weak- 
 ening additions, some have been expanded into 
 broader generalizations, but they remain, after 
 all, every one of them, labelled with that 
 quod NON ah omnibus, non ubique, et 'so:^ semper, 
 which all fair reasoners will admit to have 
 some little weight in estimates of the validity 
 of theories, as tested by the general acceptance 
 of mankind. 
 
 There is a second remark, also of consider- 
 able weight, that may fairly be made in refer- 
 ence to these forms of unbelief, viz., that they 
 are, and are felt to be, so ultimately incompati- 
 ble with each other that scarcely any modern 
 thinker cares to maintain any one of them in 
 its separate individuality and distinctiveness. 
 An ultimate break-down in logic or meta- 
 physics is apprehended, and the cautious modern 
 thinker avoids the risks of placing all his 
 opinions on one bottom. Hence we have two 
 modes of procedure, both of which are far 
 from unpopular at the present time. Either 
 some one leading form of unbelief is generally 
 adhered to, but supplemented, where it is felt 
 to be weak or insufficient, by elements derived 
 
84 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 from some other form, — or a sort of general 
 attitude of unbelief is assumed, and the prin- 
 ciple maintained, so far as it can be called a 
 principle, of accepting nothing that cannot be 
 proved by observation or general experience, 
 and of denying everything that has the faintest 
 tinge of an a prmi aspect. In other and more 
 homely words, either, when a rent is made, a 
 patch from some other garment is put on the 
 flowing garb of unbelief, or the garb itself is 
 discarded, and there is a relapse to primitive 
 nakedness. Of the first course of procedure we 
 could scarcely take a better example than is 
 supplied to us by Mr. Mill, in his posthumous 
 Essays on religion. The general bias of the 
 writer is obviously to the conception of Matter 
 and Force being eternal. But as his lucid 
 mind saw clearly enough that this conception 
 could not be driven through all the results of 
 observation, without being brought into colli- 
 sion with some phenomena of the moral realm, 
 and many of the clearest suggestive counter- 
 teachings of experience, he did not hesitate to 
 avail himself of the supplementary aid of other 
 systems. At any rate,, he very clearly indicates 
 the possibility, if not the desirableness, of fall- 
 ing back upon an opinion as old at least as 
 Zoroaster, and of conceiving, amid all the 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 85 
 
 endless storm and stress of restless Force and 
 intractable Matter, a kind of Ormuzd, a bene- 
 volent but non-omnipotent God, who, by well- 
 planned designs, overcomes the difficulties and 
 passive oppositions of the matter with which 
 he is surrounded.^ 
 
 The second mode of procedure is, however, 
 the more common, and, though I care not to 
 use hard words, the more unworthy. It is to 
 retire within the fortress of what is called 
 Agnosticism, and to know nothing, believe 
 nothing, and avow nothing, except Avhat can 
 be concluded and proved by experiment.^ This 
 
 ^ Even the benevolence of the Creator is conceded by 
 this writer with great limitations : " To jump, he says, 
 "from tliis [that benevolence is one of the atti-ibutes of 
 the Creator] to the inference that his sole or chief pur- 
 poses are those of benevolence, and that the single end 
 and aim of creation was the happiness of his creatures, is 
 not only not justified by any evidence, but is a conclusion 
 in opposition to such evidence as we have." — Mill, Three 
 Essays on Religion, p. 192 (Lond. 1874). Cold and repulsive 
 as this is,* it is an improvement on the view taken by 
 Hume, in his similarly posthumous Dialogues on Natural 
 Religion, who tells us that "the universe suggests to us a 
 blind nature impregnated by a great vivifying principle, 
 and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or 
 parental care, her maimed and abortive children." — WorTcs^ 
 vol. ii. p. 446, seq. 
 
 1 A clover, though bitter, apology for this system by Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen, will be found in the Fortnighthj Revieiv for 
 June, 1876. The definition of an Agnostic, according to 
 
86 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 system denies the possibiiit}^ of any form of a 
 priori or intuitive trutli,except — as has been 
 shrewdly said — one, \dz., the a priori truth 
 that the system is itself right in its assertion 
 of the incapability of knowing anything except 
 what is proved to it, and in its maintenance of 
 its own attitude of scepticism. This is the 
 popular system of the present day, and by the 
 nature of the case the most difficult to deal 
 with in the v/ay of direct counter-argument. 
 At any rate it concedes to the full the state- 
 ment we have made that, so far as it is con- 
 cerned, no real explanation can be given of the 
 origin or history of the phenomenal world 
 around us. It tells us, however, thus much, that 
 there can be no such things as miracles, be- 
 cause, as far as experience goes, everj^thing seems 
 to be obeying, and, so far as we can tell, to have 
 ever obeyed, eternal and immutable laws. Be it 
 so. We ask, however, and we fairly have a right 
 to ask, what are we to think, then, of the origin 
 of life ? The first monad, the first cell, however 
 loosely coherent and elementary, that showed 
 within it the presence of life, was a miracle 
 qua the existing products of the mechanical or 
 chemical forces that were then the rulers, the 
 
 this -writer, is, — "one wlio asserts, what nobody denies, 
 that there are limits to the sphere of human intelligence " 
 (p. 840). 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 87 
 
 Koa-fjiOKpcLTope^ of all things. There was at any 
 rate a break in the continuity here which not 
 even that ultimum desperatissmumquej^erfugium, 
 the possibility of which every great naturalist 
 has denied — spontaneous generation " — will pro- 
 perly or adequately rectify. As we ascend 
 upwards, and ask the increasingly difficult 
 questions as to the first emergence of sentient 
 and afterwards of self-conscious life, — those 
 breaks in continuity which every system that 
 denies the existence of God has ever found to 
 be hopelessly inexplicable, — as we thus press 
 home reasonable questions, we become more 
 and more persuaded not only of the utterly 
 helpless nature of this self-satisfied system of 
 Agnosticism and intellectual . nakedness, but 
 even, to a certain extent, of its halting and 
 deficient morality. For moral it can hardly 
 be, to be so constituted as to feel that these 
 ultimate questions are now, and always have 
 been, the questions which the best and most 
 cultivated of the race have ever sought to 
 answer, — and yet otiosely to turn aside from 
 them, on the ground that experience has not 
 
 2 The whole subject of spontaneous generation will be 
 found very fully discussed in the lucidly-wTitten and agree- 
 able work of Paul Janet, Le Moierialisme Contemporain, 
 oh. vi. p. 94, seq. (Bailliere, Paris, 1875). 
 
8S THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 supiDlied US, and does not supplj^ us, witli 
 sufficient data to work upon.^ Can the most 
 charitable judgment say that such a ground is 
 a true ground ? Is it not, alas I the uncon- 
 scious manifestation of what the Scripture 
 solemnl}^ speaks of as the e^dl heart of unbelief, 
 that heart of unbelief that, sooner than give 
 up its unbelief, will give up all its higher 
 instincts and attributes, stifle its intuitions, 
 
 3 To all who simply make experience the test, it may 
 always be fairly said that, at any rate, the results of what 
 in a certain sense may be spoken of as the soul-experiences 
 of the race, and, especially, of the best and most cultivated 
 portions of it, do demand a very careful and exact con- 
 sideration. The historical origin of religion can never be 
 put aside in alternate reasonings on the great questions 
 now before us. If the documents we can adduce do belong 
 to the age to which they claim to belong, and if the story 
 they tell is such that it commends itself to the moral 
 sensibilities as well as to the deeper and less definable 
 longings of the truest and purest hearts, then to fall back 
 upon a priori reasoning, and to refuse to investigate the 
 evidence, is simply immoral idleness. Even in works such 
 as Hume's Natural History of Religion, which might justly 
 be cited as being marked by a far greater thoroughness 
 than is popular at the present time, the same disinclination 
 to face fairl}^ the historical aspects of the question may be 
 distinctly observed. Such a A\T:iter as the author of Super- 
 oiatural Relifjioii cannot be said to have neglected the his- 
 torical arguments. It seems, however, now quite fair to 
 say, after the criticism to which his work has been sub- 
 jected, that he has certainly not conducted his investigation 
 either with accuracy or completeness. 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 89 
 
 turn away from all its implanted aspirations, 
 and wallow, almost complacentl}^, in the mire 
 of its own self-cliosen materialism ? 
 
 The 2:eneral aro^mnents that flow from and 
 are involved in these considerations have been 
 felt by all sober and dispassionate thinkers 
 to be arguments, as against any or all of 
 these forms of unbelief, of real and practical 
 yalidity. 
 
 III. One other argument to which I may 
 briefly allude in conclusion is one that I should 
 feel sorry to leave unnoticed, though time will 
 fail me properly to expand it. The argument 
 is this, — that all these systems not only utterly 
 fail to supply any answer to the graver moral 
 difiiculties which every day^s experience brings 
 before us, but also tend to weaken or suppress 
 our higher moral aspirations. 
 
 A very few considerations will lead us to 
 recognize the truth, of both these implied state- 
 ments. Can it, for instance, be maintained 
 for a moment that any one of these systems 
 has thrown a single ray of light on the dark 
 moral mysteries, — the apparently fruitless suffer- 
 ing, the sudden calamities, the seeming waste 
 of moral ei;erg3', — in a word, all those sad 
 phenomena that belong to vrhat Scripture calls 
 *' the subjection to'vanity,'' and ever seem above 
 
90 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 measure baffling and mysterious ? ^ What has 
 the best of these systems, — the system that 
 admits the possibility of the existence of a God, 
 thousrh unknown and unknowable, — to tell us 
 in regard to this class of deeper questions? 
 "Why, simply nothing. All that an intelligent 
 writer of this school of thought has to tell us 
 is simply that at present the distribution of 
 moral forces '^ is hopelessly chaotic" ^ But does 
 such a statement add anything to our existing 
 knowledge, or throw one single ray of light 
 on the ever-recurring gloomy question ? ^'If so, 
 then how came it to be so ? '* How comes it 
 that this Unknown and Unknowable stands in 
 any degree of relation whatever to the admitted 
 existence of such a strange and bewildering 
 chaos ? "^ Or if this Unknown stands presumably 
 
 ^ See tlie comments and references on these dark ques- 
 tions in Credentials of Christianity, Lect. vi. p. 246, seq. 
 (Hodder and Stoughton, Lond. 1876) : see also Modern 
 Religiotis Difficulties, Serm. ii. p. 25, seq. (Clii-. Knowl. Soc, 
 1876). 
 
 5 Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Fhilosopliy, vol. ii. p. 40i 
 (Lond. 1874). Some useful and available considerations 
 on this subject will be found in the 10th Appendix to the 
 recent valuable -svork of Paul Janet, Les Causes Finales, p. 
 742 seq. (Bailliere, Paris, 1876). 
 
 '' How strange it seems that modern systems should in 
 this matter fall greatly behind the conceptions of what, in 
 general name at least, must be called heathenism ! Hidden 
 and unknowable as the Deity was felt to be in some of the 
 
AGAINST MODERX UNBELIEF. 91 
 
 in no relation whatever, does not the very 
 assumption of such an absence of all relation, 
 such a more than Epicurean indifference to all 
 mortal stragglings and sorrows, cast the black- 
 ness of darkness over what is night already ? 
 
 O my friends ! it sounds verily a keenly-re- 
 fined mocker}^ when the exponents of some of 
 these systems tell us of the gradual evanescence 
 of evil ^ — the evanescence of evil ! when the 
 
 purer of the ancient religions of the world, His close rela- 
 tions to His creatures was always consistently maintained. 
 For an example, compare, in the really wonderful system of 
 Lao-tse, his definition of the hidden nature of Tao (chap. 
 XXV., xli.), Avith liis statement of the close relation of Tao 
 to all things (chap, li.) On the real meaning of this mys- 
 terious word, see the excellent introduction of Von Strauss 
 prefixed to his translation of the Tad te King, p. xxxv, seq. 
 (Leipz. 1870). 
 
 " " It is true," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, " that evil 
 perpetually tends to disappear. In virtue of an essential 
 principle of life this non-adaptation of an organism to its 
 conditions [the true principle of evil, according to this 
 writer] is ever hoiug rectified ; and modification of one or 
 both continues until the adaptation is complete."— >S'ocial 
 Statics, p. 74 (Lond. 1868). This certainly was not the 
 experience of a very intelligent observer of life, and whose 
 position gave him many good opportunities of judging : 
 "When one ponders deeply," says the optimist Goethe, 
 " on the misery of our times, it often seems as if the world 
 were ripening more and more for the last day. Evil in- 
 creases from generation to generation. For it is not 
 enough that we sufier from the sins of our fathers ; we 
 transmit this heritage of woe to our descendants, increased 
 
92 THE LEADI^'G ARGUMENTS 
 
 smoke of smouldering villages, tlie death-cries 
 of tortured children, and the shrieks of ravished 
 women are yet fearfully present in the eyes 
 and ears of civilized Europe. To us Christians 
 these things are not without their mysterious 
 difficulties, though we know the terrible source 
 from which they emanate. To us these thino-s 
 often seem dark and inexplicable, — but we 
 know in whom we have trusted. To us this 
 terrible presence of evil is often a soul-trying 
 mystery, — but to those who hope in an eva- 
 nescence of evil owing to the accumulating 
 agencies of a steadily ameliorated humanity, 
 such phenomena would seem only a mockery and 
 bitter call — to curse their unknown God and die. 
 The argument from moral considerations, of 
 which these few words are only a fleeting 
 illustration, is the gravest and most effective of 
 all, as against the various systems of unbelief, 
 and especially their latest manifestations. 
 While Christianity points through the gloom 
 to the stars of blessed Hope that are shining 
 above us, — these hapless systems, fairly reasoned 
 out, lead only to ]^ihilism and Despair.^ 
 
 by our own transgressions."— Co?u-ersa<ions with EcJcer- 
 mann, quoted by Martensen, Christian Ethics, 553, p. 173 
 (Clark, Edinb. 1873). 
 8 This argument will be found worked out in Sermon vi. 
 
AGAINST MODERN UNBELIEF. 93 
 
 My address is now closed. Brief as it lias 
 been, when the nature of the subject is con- 
 sidered, I still hope it has been long enough 
 to convince you, my Reverend Brethren, of 
 the truth of these two positions : — First, that 
 there are arguments, sober and reasonable 
 arguments, against this showy and pretentious 
 unbelief, which appeal to no other authorit}^, and 
 ask for no other ultimate arbiter than properly 
 instructed good sense. Secondly,, that it is our 
 especial duty to turn our attention to them. 
 It will be an evil day for England when 
 England's clergy fail to be forward with the 
 foremost in cultivation and study, and in the 
 power to enter into these questions with com- 
 petent knowledge and disciplined thought. 
 
 I fear much that there has been a tendency 
 of late to make work and detail everything, 
 and to suspend that thoughtful and wise study 
 which, when entered into, not only for its own 
 sake, but for the good, aye, the salvation, of 
 others, ever receives the fullest and largest 
 blessings from the Holy Ghost. It will not be 
 enough for us in these days simply to preach 
 truth ; — we are also called upon, nay, we are 
 pledged, to defend it. Defend it we never can 
 
 in the work above referred to, Modern Religious Difficulties, 
 p. 135, seq. (Cbr. Knowl. Soc, 1876). ^ 
 
94 ARGTJMEJs^TS AGAINST iMODERN UNBELIEF. 
 
 in any proper sense, unless, with meek learning, 
 we meet error on its own ground^ and on its 
 own ground defeat it. God in His mercy give 
 to us strength, to do so, and the ready will to 
 tread those pathways of sequestered wisdom 
 which, in days going or gone by, were never 
 more patiently and successfully trodden than 
 by the clergy of the English Church. 
 
THE LEADING ARGUMENTS FOE 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 [Delivered at Campdex, on 3Ionday, October 30th, 
 1876.] 
 
 In my last Address it was my endeavour to 
 state, briefly but clearly, some of the broad 
 and general arguments which appear to tell 
 most heavily against the Unbelief of our own 
 times. These, by the nature of the case, were 
 on the negative side. They were not intended 
 to pro-sfe the truth of Christianity, but to set 
 forth, calmly and fairly_, some of those con- 
 siderations which seem to render it in the 
 highest degree morally and logically difficult 
 to accept any one, or any combination, of the 
 systems which I delineated in the earlier 
 Addresses. This being done, I may now profit- 
 ably pass to the arguments which appear most 
 calculated to influence candid minds, as on the 
 
96 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 positive side, — those arguments which, in our 
 own times, tend most clearly to establish and 
 confirm our belief in the blessed truth of 
 Christianity. 
 
 What are the chief positive arguments 
 which, if we were suddenly asked why we are 
 Christians, we should put forward with the 
 fullest and clearest confidence ? 
 
 Let this be the general question to which it 
 shall be the attempt of this Address to supply 
 a broad and general answer. 
 
 Before, however, we make the attempt, let 
 us dwell for a moment on this preliminar}'" 
 thought, — that the force and, so to sa}', con- 
 vincing power of evidential arguments appear 
 to vary with the general tone and the general 
 characteristics, mental and philosophical, of the 
 age and generation in which they may be 
 brought forward. Arguments that greatly in- 
 fluenced intelligent minds a hundred j'^ears ago 
 have now, in several instances, lost much of 
 their power, though their real evidential value 
 seems, in the abstract, to be quite as great as 
 ever. The argument from design may be 
 noticed as an instance, and, still more so, the 
 argument from the manner in which the 
 Gospel was first propagated. The first argu- 
 ment may, to a certain extent, have been 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 neutralized in some of its more limited illustra- 
 tions, — such, for example, as those derived 
 from our bodily structure, in which structure 
 we are told that we have to recognize traces 
 of rudimentary or aborted organs ^ — " dysteleo- 
 logical phenomena," as they have been called 
 — which, it is urged, cannot be regarded 
 as involving any manifestation of purpose. 
 Again, the mystery of the existence of para- 
 sitical organisms," especially in man, the 
 
 ^ On tMs subject, and on the objections urged by Hackel 
 and other naturalists, see the comments of Ebrard in his 
 Ajjologetik, § 76, note 1, p. 161, seq., and compare the sen- 
 sible remarks of Henslow, Evolution and Religion, p. 206. 
 
 2 See Spencer, Principles of Biology, part iii. The 
 general remark of his very able follower, Mr. Fiske, though 
 perhaps too sweeping, cannot be deemed wholly unfair, viz., 
 that "just so far as the cori-espondence between the organ- 
 ism and its environment is complete does the teleological 
 hypothesis find apparent confirmation. Just so far as it is 
 incomplete, does it meet with patent contradiction." — 
 Cosmic Fhilosophij, vol. ii. p. 405. In the case before us 
 there is obvious design in the maturation of the entozoa in 
 question; and the existence of animals so matured is a 
 difficulty on the hypothesis that the development of the 
 physical life of man is marked tliroughout by benevolent 
 design. But if it be conceded that an alien disturbance, 
 owing to the entrance of sin, has been introduced, then, 
 though we may not be able to trace out all the subtle 
 lines of causation in the various phenomena that may 
 be presented to us, the supposition that they may 
 stand in some casual connexion with that primary dis- 
 .turbance is perfectly thinkable. The question then re- 
 
 H 
 
98 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 ela'oorate nature of the processes that are 
 necessary to give them their maximum of 
 mischievous development, and the consequent 
 appearance of the higher life being sacrificed 
 to the lower, are considerations which con- 
 fessedly involve real and serious difilculties. The 
 argument from design may thus have perhaps 
 been weakened in some particulars, though the 
 extent to which this has taken place has been 
 greatly exaggerated ; ^ but this certainly cannot 
 be said of the argument that rests on the 
 history of the Propagation of Christianity, 
 which remains now, as far as any weakening 
 answer is concerned, as valid in the abstract as 
 when it was first enunciated/ And yet, though 
 
 solves into another one, Is there sufficient evidence to lead 
 us to suppose that there has been such a primary disturb- 
 ance ? 
 
 •^ Xo one can give a fair consideration to such an elabo- 
 rate work as Janet's Les Causes Finales (Paris, 1876), es- 
 pecially to the chapter entitled, " Objections et Difficul- 
 tes" (p. 251), without feeling that much that has been 
 said as to the decreasing power of the teleological argu- 
 ment must certainly be reconsidered. It does not seem 
 too much to say that the argument is yearly becoming felt 
 to be stronger, and that it owes that increased sti-ength to 
 the further considerations and investigations which have 
 been called out by the arguments of opponents. 
 
 ■* There are many, and those of the highest order of 
 mind, with whom this remains still the Aveightiest of the 
 arguments in favour of the truth of Christianity. I ven- 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 99 
 
 it would be very hard to say why, it is pro- 
 babl}^ not one of the three or four arguments 
 that Y/ould weigh most with the majority of 
 us who are now gathered together. Perhaps 
 the distinctly pronounced bias of our own times 
 towards arguments of an internal character — 
 arguments that appeal to our own subjective 
 experiences, and sometimes pass into the realm 
 of the emotions — may have much to do with 
 these changes in the convincing value of argu- 
 ments such as those alluded to ; but, however 
 tliat may be, no one of any real experience in 
 these difficult subjects can fail to have noticed, 
 how the arguments that tell most with ns now 
 are arguments that, both for good or the re- 
 verse of it, bear the characteristics of the times 
 in which we are living. 
 
 "We might perhaps carry out the thought 
 further, and show how the force of such argu- 
 ments varies with individuals, and even with 
 
 tnred, two or three years ago, to address to one of our 
 most distinguished public men, and most lucid thinkers 
 and speakers, the inquiry as to what he deemed the most 
 valid arguments for the truth of Christianity. He enume- 
 rated six, but the first was the argument now alluded to, 
 and it was thus expressed : " The successful propagation 
 of Christianity, by moral means only, and against the 
 opposition of all the power, physical, moral, and intel- 
 lectual, of the Roman Empire, until it finally prevailed over 
 the Empire itself." 
 
 n 2 
 
100 THE LEADING ARGUMEN^TS 
 
 the states of mental development, — but these 
 are refinements into which, in this short 
 Address, we have certainly no time to enter. 
 What has been said has onlj^ been said to pre- 
 pare for, and account for, the omission of some 
 of those arguments for the truth of Christianity 
 which certainly might haye seemed to claim_, as 
 of ancient right, a place in our present enumera- 
 tion . 
 
 To confine ourselves then to those argu- 
 ments which, so far as I have the power of 
 judging, seem to have the greatest influence at 
 the present time, I may call your attention to 
 three on which a few practical comments may 
 be made, — especially to you^ my dear friends 
 and brethren, who by virtue of your respon- 
 sible office may from time to time have the 
 sorrowful duty of dealing with cases of that 
 tendency to doubt everything, and distrust 
 everything, now so painfully increasing ever}'- 
 where. A recent writer has propounded the 
 question ''Are we Christians ?'' and has an- 
 swered it in the negative/ If we feel that 
 
 5 Strauss, in his last work, The Old Faith and the New. 
 This unhappy volume attracted considerable attention at 
 the time of its appearance, but really never deserved it. 
 The style is popular and attractive, but there is a deficiency 
 of true moral earnestness which has always repelled deejier 
 thinkers, to whatever school of thought they may belong. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 101 
 
 the answer is false or, at any rate, recklessly 
 exaggerated, let us be able not only to prove 
 by our life and conversation that we verily are 
 Christians, but to show also the reasons for 
 the holy name we thankfully bear, and for the 
 faith that is in us. 
 
 I. The first argument for the truth of Chris- 
 tianity, or to speak more exactly, of revealed 
 religion, that we may now notice, is one, which 
 some may regard of but little strength, but 
 which, I am persuaded, does, beyond all doubt, 
 exercise a latent, yet very seriously modifying, 
 effect on the minds of many cultivated thinkers, 
 especially in the earlier stages of their unbelief. 
 The earliest stage is commonly a sort of vague 
 persuasion that the statements of Holy Scrip- 
 ture in reference to the physical constitution of 
 things around us are irreconcileable with the 
 discoveries of modern science. This is com- 
 monly the first substratum on which that 
 which may have been long latent in the soul 
 rests itself as an outward support. It is alike 
 
 There is also an over-eager readiness to assume as valid 
 scientific theories which as yet have not really passed 
 out of the realm of plausible hypotheses. Some acute and 
 thoroughly fair criticisms on leading statements in tins 
 volume will be found in Prebendary Eow's Principles of 
 Modern Pantheistic Pliilosophy, p. 16 (Hardwicke, Lond. 
 1874). 
 
102 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 an excuse and a reason, i^ow it is of the 
 utmost importance that all v/ho may have been 
 tempted into this initial state should know 
 that a leading argument on the other side 
 maintains exactly the reverse position, viz., 
 that the broad statements of Scripture in 
 respect of the physical history of the world are 
 marvellously coincident with the best and most 
 tested results of modern science. In other 
 words, our iirst evidential position is sub- 
 stantially what the illustrious naturalist Cu^der 
 is said to have stated long ago, — that Moses 
 has left us a cosmogony, the exactitude of 
 which is confirmed day by day in a very 
 wonderful manner.^ 
 
 To develope this argument would far exceed 
 the limits of this Address, and would be in- 
 consistent Vv'ith its general purpose, which is, 
 simply to place before you and commend to 
 your consideration those general arguments 
 which will be found worthy of study, with a 
 
 •^ Quoted by Christlieb in liis useful and practical tract, 
 Modern Infidelity and the Best Methods of Counteracting it, 
 p. 44 (Elliot Stock, London, 1874). The tract w'as read as 
 an Address at the New York Conference of the Evangelical 
 Alliance in 1873, and is said to have produced such an iin- 
 pression on those who first heard it that the writer was 
 asked to repeat it in one of the largest churches in New 
 York. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 view to practical applications. It may, hovr- 
 ever, be briefly remarked in passing, that much 
 tliat has been said in earlier portions of this 
 Charge goes far to illustrate, if not to prove, 
 the validity of the argument I have just specified ; 
 and it may be added that several coincidences 
 can now be specified between the latest results 
 of science and the broad statements of Scrip- 
 ture which, it does not seem too much to say, 
 seem just now, not only opportunely, but pro- 
 videntially disclosed to us. I repeat the expres- 
 sion "broad statements," as no fair disputant 
 would look for more than this in documents 
 which he himself would admit were drawn up 
 for a very different purpose than that of com- 
 municating scientific knowledge.'' Now these 
 broad statements are — First,, that this world 
 and the worlds around us were not self- caused 
 or the result of the long- continued action of 
 forces directed by no Intelligence, but on the 
 contrary were made and created by an All- wise 
 and Omnipotent God. " In the beginning God 
 
 " All impartial writers have admitted tlie naturalness, 
 simplicity, and grandeur of the early portions of the Mosaic 
 narrative. It has been justly remarked by D'Eichtal that 
 the power of the Creator has never been more vividly por- 
 trayed than in the first chapter of Genesis. See his Me- 
 moire sur le Texte du premier Rdcit de la Creation, p. 15 
 (Paris, 1875). 
 
104 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 created the heavens and the earth." Secondly, 
 that the reduction of the primordial state of 
 things to the present was by stages, and in a 
 certain gradational order. Thirdl}^ that all this 
 was considerably anterior to the appearance of 
 the human race on the earth, which race was 
 called into being separately and distinctly from 
 other races, only a few thousand jeavs ago. 
 
 !Now, in reference to the first of these 
 general statements, this certainly may be 
 said, that the latest discoveries of science 
 point to the existence of cosmical materials, 
 strangely and marvellously similar in their 
 ultimate nature, for the existence of which no 
 theory of blindly-working forces can possibly 
 account. " No theory of evolution," says the 
 latest and best scientific authority on' this 
 subject, '' can be formed to account for the 
 similarity of molecules ; for evolution neces- 
 saril}' implies continuous change, and the 
 molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of 
 generation or destruction."'' If so, then who 
 thus made them ? or are we to think that they 
 made themselves, and if so, how ? Science is, 
 at any rate, forcing all who are willing to be 
 fair and candid to face plain questions. 
 
 8 Clerk Maxwell, Discourse on Molecules, p. 12, — a paper 
 read at Bradford, September, 1873 : see above, p. 63, note. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 105 
 
 There is obviously only one means of escape, 
 and that, we may grieve to observe, men, whose 
 high powers ought to protest against being 
 thus suspended, are now freely adopting, — 
 and it is this, to say that we don't know ; 
 but all who avail themselves of this subter- 
 fuge, though confessedly doing much moral 
 harm by making a creed of their nescience, 
 are tacitly preparing, if not to capitulate, 
 yet at any rate to accept the inevitable. 
 And that inevitable is year by year being 
 brought nearer to us by tested science — that 
 the universe is the work of an all-wise and 
 omnipotent Will. 
 
 The second general statement, viz., that 
 things were brought into their present state 
 gradationally, is now so well known to be con- 
 firmed, almost in its minor details, by modern 
 science, that I need not pause to illustrate it. 
 So true do we now feel this to be, and so little 
 do we now trouble ourselves about those many 
 anxious attempts to reconcile the Mosaic narra- 
 tive with the discoveries of geology, which 
 were current five-and-twenty or thirty 3'ears 
 ago, that it seems now almost an effort to 
 recall either the objections or the answers. 
 Yet there must be some of us here present who 
 
106 THE LEADING ARGIJMEKTS 
 
 can remember the unsparing ridicule that used 
 to be directed against the general character of 
 the Sacred narrative, and the triumphant asser- 
 tions that were habitually made as to the total 
 inconsistency between many of the details on 
 the pages of the Book of Eevelation, Vvdien com- 
 pared with modern observation, or with the 
 stony records of the opening book of Kature. 
 We must remember, for example, how much 
 was always made by our opponents of the self- 
 contradictory nature (as it was asserted) of the 
 statement that light was created on the first 
 day, and the sun not till the fourth, — and now, 
 thanks be to God, and to that scientific know- 
 ledge, which He has permitted to be acquired, 
 there can be few who do not know how marvel- 
 lously modern science is enabling us to recognize, 
 from a due consideration of the essential nature 
 of light, more than one way of probably ac- 
 counting for the seeming difiSculty and in- 
 
 9 The popular assertions of modern commentators either 
 that there is no difl&culty at all, or that the creation of the 
 sun was in the beginning, but its manifestation not till the 
 fourth day {Speaker's Commentarii, in loc, vol. i. p. 32), 
 must all be received with great reserve. Science tells us 
 what light is ; it also tells us that there is a vehicle of radia- 
 tions, the cether, a material substance filling all the interspace 
 between world and world, without a gap or flaw of T^ijljao 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 107 
 
 How seriously do these things now seem to 
 warn us all, whether theologians or men of 
 science, to desist from the miserable strife that 
 has so painfully marked the questions bearing 
 upon the real or supposed relations of revela- 
 tion and of science. Let us all be content ear- 
 nestly, reverently, and hopefully, to seek for 
 truth by those means which the Father of lights 
 has vouchsafed to enable us to use. We theolo- 
 gians may have been far too ready to denounce 
 as contrary to Holy Scripture that which, in 
 the sequel, has been found still more clearly to 
 set forth its truth. Men of science, on the 
 other hand, have often been far too ready to 
 
 inch anywhere, and most probably penetrating through all 
 grosser matter, the largest, most uniform, and apparently 
 most permanent object we know. Now with these two 
 facts before us it is possible to conceive several ways in 
 which the statements in the two verses could be reconciled. 
 For example, if we take our stand on the science of 1876, 
 some may feel inclined to say that ver. 2 refers to the crea- 
 tion of the luminiferous aether, — the thing that appears 
 to be most primeval and least subject to change, and 
 that the work of the fourth day was the due adjustment 
 of the sun to existing conditions ; but as we remember that 
 the science of 1896 may be much farther advanced in 
 these very particulars than the science of to-day, we prefer 
 to say that in the facts before us there is quite enough, at 
 the very least, to suggest a reasonable and satisfactory an- 
 swer, and we thank God that wc can honestly say so, but 
 we refuse further to dogmatize. 
 
108 THE LEAD1^'G ARGUME^'TS 
 
 accept hj^potlieses, more or less probable, for 
 established facts, and overhastily to proclaim 
 their collision with the supposed statements of 
 God's Holy Word. Let us cease from this 
 unhappy antagonism, and be content, on both 
 sides, to watch and to wait. But to proceed. 
 
 In reference to the third subject, the dura- 
 tion of man on the earth, and the distinctness 
 of his origin from that of other living creatures, 
 no one who is not prepared to enter fully into 
 details has any right to make sweeping asser- 
 tions,* but this at least may be said; that recent 
 historical and philological research is running 
 strangely counter to the triumphant theories of 
 three or four years ago, and that if we will but 
 have patience to wait, we shall find our length- 
 ened pedigree disproved by scientific evidence, 
 now strong, but which will probably then be 
 simply irresistible. Time is a very easy bank to 
 draw upon, but the calls that have been made on 
 it by the theory of Natural Selection have brought 
 
 ^ See the remarks and references in Credentials of Chris- 
 tianity, Lect. vi. p. 234. These it will not be necessary 
 here to reproduce, but they may be referred to as, at 
 least, indicating that there is a great deal to be said on the 
 other side. The difficulties (apparently insurmountable) 
 in the theory of the gradual development of man from lower 
 members of the same zoological family are noticed in the 
 same Lecture, p. 240, seq. and notes. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 109 
 
 about a real crisis, and have put modern 
 theories which have to depend upon almost 
 boundless time into serious collision with the 
 most recent investigations in solar physics.^ 
 
 2 If the vast periods of time whicli the Natural Selection 
 theories distinctly require be considered, so far as the age 
 of the earth is concerned (compare page 77, note s), at 
 the disposal of modern philosophers, this very simple but 
 obvious question suggests itself: — Would the sun at the 
 remote epoch to -which we are remanded, have come to the 
 state which would render life, such as that of the order we 
 are now considering, possible on the earth ? That a diffi- 
 culty is felt by the theorists to whom we are alluding 
 seems certain, as in later works and editions of works in 
 which the Natural Selection theory is maintained, the mag- 
 nitude of the demands on time has been noticeably recon- 
 sidered. But if so, this is only a change which involves an- 
 other and converse difficulty arising from the fact that the 
 differences between species of which we have any sufficient 
 knowledge in history, say 4000 years ago, when compared 
 with the same species now, have not been found to be 
 appreciable. Four thousand years, then, supplies, so to 
 say, no temporal parallax. Other difficulties in which the 
 theory of Natural Selection are involved are acutely enu- 
 merated by Prof. Birks in his Modern Physical Fatalism, 
 chap. xiv. p. 290, seq. (Loiid. 1876). Perhaps the most 
 striking statement is that recently made by Mr. Carruthers 
 (keeper of the Botanical department of the British Museum) 
 in an Address recently delivered to the Geologists' Associa- 
 tion. His words, as reported in the Gardeners' Chronicle for 
 November 18, 1876, are as follows : — " One thing is certain 
 that the whole testimony of the vegetable kingdom, as it 
 is known to us from the remains preserved in the stratified 
 rocks, is opposed to the doctrine that the development is 
 due to evolution by descent." 
 
110 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 II. But we must now pass to the second 
 argument for the truth of Christianity, v»^hich 
 will be judged by many to be the strongest that 
 has ever yet been brought forward. It is an 
 argument of an essentially subjective nature, 
 as it appeals to the reason and inward experi- 
 ence, and it may be stated in the following 
 form, — That Christianity is the only religion 
 or system in the world that gives a consistent 
 account of the moral meaning and purpose of 
 m.an's existence on the earth, and supplies an 
 adequate answer to all deeper questions. This 
 is the great moral argument which, when fully 
 and carefully developed, does seem to bear 
 with it a steadily increasing and deepening 
 conviction, and to appeal more and more 
 strongly to the soul, in proportion as time and 
 life's experiences are vouchsafed to us. To 
 many — especially to those who enter much into 
 the stirring questions of our own times — this 
 argument is the only one on which they will be 
 found ultimately to rest. I have myself con- 
 versed with many who have avowed to me, that 
 whenever the vital question came really home 
 to them. Why, then, are you a Christian ? this 
 argument, or some modification of it, was that 
 which supplied the only satisfying answer.^ 
 
 ^ The argument here specified has been ^yol■ked out as 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. Ill 
 
 Perhaps some here present may have felt this, 
 and may be disposed to agree with me in think- 
 ing that, to minds of an anxious and inquiring 
 turn, — and there are many such in these days 
 — while other arguments prepare the way, this 
 it is which, at last, seems to minister that 
 abiding persuadedness of mind which, by the 
 illuminating grace of the Holy Ghost, becomes 
 faith, living and abiding faith, in the fullest 
 and most Scriptural sense of that vital word. 
 
 At any rate permit me to make a few com- 
 ments — and they can only be comments— on the 
 form of argument which is now before us. 
 Stated in its most simple form it amounts to 
 this, that whenever either or both of the very 
 homely but very deep questions present them- 
 selves to the soul. Why am I here ? and Why, 
 being here, am I as I am ? it is Christianity 
 alone which gives answers that can in any way 
 be considered adequate to, and commensurate 
 with, the observed circumstances. To the first 
 question it gives in substance this answer — 
 '' Thou art here to glorify the God who gave to 
 
 fully as I am able in the last Lecture in The Credentials of 
 Christianity (Hodder and Stoughton, Lend. 1876). I have 
 not at present found any reasons for modifying the state- 
 ments and arguments in that Lecture, and so may refer the 
 reader to it for the details of the argument specified in the 
 text. 
 
112 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 thee and the race to which thou belongest the 
 breath of life ; and thou art called by the out- 
 ward call of the Gospel, and the inner call of 
 duty and conscience, frail, feeble, and fallen, as 
 thou art, to become, through a Saviour's merits 
 and love, a fellow- worker with God in the 
 mighty working whereby He is subduing all 
 things unto Himself." ^ To the second ques- 
 tion, Why am I as I now am ? Why are 
 shadows and sorrows, and a seeming fruitless- 
 ness that is worse than all sorrows, about me, 
 around me, and within me? — To this deep 
 question, and it is confessedly the deepest that 
 can be addressed to the heart of man, Chris- 
 tianity, has ever returned the same answer; — 
 " Man is as he is, because, created morally free, 
 he yielded to an external temptation to make a 
 perverted use of that freedom, and to swerve 
 from a divine command ; and because sin (for 
 sin is the transgression of law) thus brouglit 
 in, has spread and propagated ; and endures, 
 and must endure, in all its wide-reaching, terri- 
 
 4 This answer and the scriptural considerations on 
 ■which it rests will be found in an Essay on Modern Reli- 
 gious Tliought, in The Clmrch and the Age, p. 78—87, cd. 2 
 (Murray, Lond. 1869). Here, again, I have not seen any 
 reason for modifying the general argument of the portion 
 of the Essay referred to, so may venture to assume its 
 results in the present Address. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 113 
 
 ble, and yet ultimately overruled and corrective 
 consequences.'' ^ 
 
 Sucli an answer, like tlie answer to the first 
 question, however else we may regard it, cer- 
 tainly is an answer, and an ansvv^er too that is 
 perfectly clear and thinkable. It rests upon two 
 assertions, which Scripture makes and reveals 
 to us, and of which it can be said with perfect 
 fairness that, when properly considered, they 
 go ver}^ fur to remove some at least of the 
 mysteiy of those enigmas of life that are now 
 seriously disquieting the hearts of many intelli- 
 gent thinkers. The recognition of the first 
 truth, viz., that man fell through the agency of 
 an extraneous evil Will,'^ seems to facilitate the 
 
 ^ See Credentials of Christianity, and reST. p. 251, seq. 
 
 ^ The maintenance of this doctrine is that which really 
 more distinctly differentiates true, consistent, and vital 
 Christianity from the loose semi-Socinianism -which has long 
 been stealing into the Church. This was the truth Avhich 
 though in an utterly exaggerated form, and under extremely 
 distorted aspects, was maintained in that highest and 
 purest of the old heathen forms of religion, — the Eranian 
 or early Persian religion, — and was the heritage that 
 religion had received from the pure primeval faith of our 
 earliest humanity. For an accurate account of this ancient 
 and interesting religion, — a religion wliich seems to 
 have found some favour even with Mr. Mill, {Three Essays 
 on Religion, p. 116) — see Spiegel, Eranische AlteriMtms- 
 Icunde, vol. ii. pp. 1 — 232 (Leipzig, 1873), and the trans- 
 lation, by the same learned writer, of the Avesta, 3 vols. 
 
 1 
 
114 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 conception of the moral possibility of a vicarious 
 atonement, and to prepare tlie ^ay for the 
 acceptance of the blessed truth that that Atone- 
 ment has actually been made. The second 
 truth, relating to the permanence of sin's conse- 
 quences, is of no less spiritual importance. On 
 the one hand, it often seems to lift a corner of 
 the dark veil, and to disclose the true origin of 
 many of the sad phenomena of mortal life. On 
 the other hand, it often leads us to consider 
 more closely the moral purposes to which these 
 very consequences subserve, and how, in the 
 mysterious providences of God, they become 
 agencies in spiritual development, and are over- 
 ruled to minister to virtue and holiness.' 
 
 The argument we are considering is of 
 course not a direct proof of the truth of Revela- 
 
 (Leipzig, 1852—1863). The Evil Principle of the Eranian 
 system (Agro Mainyus) was regarded as eternal a 'parte 
 ante, and a creator of the other powers of darkness, but 
 is ultimately to be destroyed. Spiegel, op. cit., vol. ii. 
 p. 122, seq. 
 
 7 It is proper to notice that a teaching of the perma- 
 nence of consequences is distinctly to be recognized in the 
 writings of all the better exponents of what we have termed 
 (see p. 51) the Paratheistic school of thought : see Ore- 
 dentials of Christianitij, p. 261. The principle is, in fact, 
 involved in the very theory of Evolution, and, in the 
 writers referred to, is not evaded by any of the subterfuges 
 of that immoral optimism which so seriously marks the 
 lower non-religious thought cf the present time. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 115 
 
 tion, but it is one of those arguments which. 
 increase in cogency the further vre investigate. 
 The more closely we examine the answers that 
 have been attempted to the two broad questions 
 which have been already enunciated, the more 
 clearly we see, either that they do not cover 
 the phenomena, or that they appear inadmis- 
 sible to the moral consciousness. For example, 
 the old dualistic theory of the two Principles, 
 or the theory which has been revived by Mr. 
 Mill of a non-Omnipotent God, will, either of 
 them, go far in accounting for very many of 
 the moral phenomena which surround us ; but 
 both of them are so utterly opposed to our 
 innermost moral conviction that God must be 
 free, and never could have been thus hindered 
 and restrained from all eternity, that when we 
 put on such arguments onl}^ the most moderate 
 strain, they break under us at once. Again, 
 the more closely we search into the deepest 
 convictions of our souls,' the more distinctly 
 shall we find that the conception of a primal 
 lapse commends itself to our belief, and the more 
 adequate will the Christian answer seem to be, 
 when confronted with the actual experiences 
 and phenomena of life. Under both aspects 
 the argument will be felt to be progressive in its 
 cogency, and to deserve the high place that 
 I 2 
 
116 THE LEADING ARGTJMENTS 
 
 modern thought assigns to it among the great 
 evidential arguments of our own time. 
 
 III. We must not, however, forget the third 
 argument, that argument which seems, if we 
 might so characterize it, the most completely 
 heart-argument of all the arguments for Chris- 
 tianity that have ever yet been put forward. 
 Our reason acknowledges the force of the argu- 
 ments already specified, but our very soul 
 does feel the force of that argument which 
 rests on the correlative nature of Christianity 
 to all the higher aspirations and deepest needs 
 of the human heart. ^ What is the heart's 
 highest aspiration ? Is it not that deep and 
 mysterious yearning which will be found in the 
 background of every heart, that yearning which 
 discloses itself in the absorption theories of 
 Oriental creeds, and even is traceable in the 
 very Is'irvana of Buddhist philosophy, — the 
 yearning to become one with Him who called 
 us into being, and to abide with Him for ever? 
 What is the heart's deepest need ? Is it not 
 that which no religion save one has ever even 
 attempted to reveal ? Is it not Salvation, — 
 that, for which, in every age and ever}^ race, 
 
 8 This argument lias been carefully treated by Dr. Lori- 
 mer in the Tolume already several times referred to, Cre- 
 dentials of Christianity, Lect. v., pp. 183—220. 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 117 
 
 the soul has sighed, which has been sought 
 for, passionately sought for, and, save in the 
 Christian Creed, never, never found ? 
 
 And if this be so, does not that religion 
 which reveals, developes, and points to the 
 realization of this aspiration, and the satisfac- 
 tion of that need, — does not the religion which 
 discloses to us a personal God, and reveals to 
 us a Redeemer and a Saviour, appeal to us 
 with a force and a power which every expe- 
 rience of life seems to render stronger and 
 stronger? There may be difficulties, but we. 
 heed them not. There may be questions which ^ 
 we cannot answer, but when we have found \ 
 Him, we know that we have found the solution 
 of all. There may be dark enigmas in life 
 which we may feel we can never understand 
 on this side the grave, but when we can 
 realize that redemption has verily been vouch- 
 safed to us, all these things are but the shadows 
 that enhance the light, and make us only long 
 more and more for the fulness of the day. 
 
 Of all the arguments for the truth of Chris- 
 tianity, this perhaps is of the widest and most 
 practical influence. To thousands and tens of 
 thousands it is the only argument that bears 
 ultimate conviction ; " I know in whom I have 
 trusted " is the one answer that experience 
 
118 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 shows has never lost its force. It is as in- 
 wardly convincing now as it was in the days 
 of Tertullian. It is the testimonium animcE 
 which no cross-examination, however clever 
 and baffling, has ever been found to perplex or 
 invalidate. 
 
 Of course, we know well that it can be 
 urged, and quite fairly urged, that this is an 
 argument which will be found to carry little 
 or no conviction, except to those who are 
 partially convinced already. Still, the fact 
 that Christianity does reveal that for which 
 experience shows there is a distinct longing in 
 the inconceivably vast majority of human 
 hearts, — that it does so clearly and distinctly, 
 — that it has done so from the very first, and 
 that in doing so it has helped to form a steady 
 succession of the highest, noblest, and purest 
 characters the world has ever known ; this 
 fact cannot be denied, and forms a presumption 
 in favour of the truth of Christianity to which 
 no other systems can, in the remotest degree, 
 supply a parallel. 
 
 There are other arguments, as I have already 
 implied, one of the most practical of which is 
 that which is reflexively suggested by our own 
 irrepressible conviction as to the endurance 
 of our personality, that "impassioned anxiety" 
 
FOR CHRISTIANITY. 119 
 
 of the soul, as a modern writer has called it, 
 relative to a future state, which is ever found 
 to be so closely united with the belief in the 
 personality of God,^ that they who do not ac- 
 cept the latter truth are never able consistently 
 to advocate the former. Other arguments 
 there are, but on this occasion it has been my 
 care only to place before you those which seem 
 to appeal to us most cogentty at the present 
 
 9 In speaking of the question of a future life, Caro justly 
 observes, " C'est encore sous une autre forme, le probleme 
 qui nous a deja occupe, celui de la personalite de Dieu, ideal 
 de I'individualite humaine et garant supreme de la persist- 
 ance de noti-e etre dans le monde inconnu que la moii; 
 ouvi-e devant nous. La question de la vie future depend 
 de celle-ci ; Dieu n'est-il que I'ordre abstrait des clioses, ou 
 bien en est-il le Principe intelligent ? Dieu est-il la force 
 aveugle ou le Dieu moral, le juge et le pere de genre 
 humsiin:'— L' Idee de Dieu, chap. vi. 1, p. 270, seq., ed. 4 
 (Hachette, Paris, 1873). Even in such a really wonderful 
 system as that of Lao-tse, in which as Von Strauss rightly 
 remarks we seem to have a kind of residuum of the old and 
 primasval Monotheism {Tab-te-Jcing , Einleitung, § 30, comp. 
 § 12) we see this principle exemplified. Tao was unknovN'n 
 and unknowable ; the utmost then that could be said of 
 the individual after death was that " he returned back to 
 his Light," and "put on eternity." The conception of the 
 endurance of the personality fades away as the true mono- 
 theistic idea fades into that of the Hidden and the Unknown. 
 The two doctrines are intimately connected. Given the 
 one, and the other logically seems to follow. See the diffi- 
 cult and very striking chapter, Xo. lii., in the edition of 
 Von Strauss, p. 229, seq. 
 
120 THE LEADING ARGUMENTS 
 
 time, and the force of wMcli is admitted b}^ 
 every candid opponent. These arguments I 
 have only stated briefly, and in their general 
 scope and outline, but for those to whom I am 
 speaking quite enough may have been said to 
 suggest principles of evidential reasoning, which 
 will never be found to fail them in the time 
 of trial. 
 
 I must now close this Address, yet I must 
 not fail to advert, however briefly, to one other 
 great evidential argument, which has perhaps 
 produced but little less efiect than the argu- 
 ment to which I have last alluded, and to 
 which it is closely allied— the practical argu- 
 ment afforded by a really religious life. If 
 we would really convince others, this will often 
 work a conviction when all words and argu- 
 ments may fail. my brethren, this is the 
 argument that we, of all men, ought to pray to 
 God for 2:race to set forth with all fulness and 
 clearness of manifestation. We, who would 
 convert and save the souls of others, must show 
 forth the blessed workings of those saving and 
 converting powers in our own souls and spirits, 
 or all our labour will be sadly and seriously in 
 vain. God alone can know the terrible potency 
 of that argument against Christianitj^ which is 
 tacitly supplied by an unspiritual life, in the 
 
FOR CHRTSTIAXITY. 121 
 
 case of those who profess to believe in Christ, 
 and, still more, in the case of those who have 
 declared that they felt inwardl}^ called to preach 
 His holy and soul-saving Gospel. 
 
 If, then, we feel persuaded that there is now 
 much unbelief about us and around us, let 
 this persuasion move us, all the more earnestly 
 and the more solemnly, to pray for grace to 
 live up to that high standard we preach, and 
 to follow more closely the footsteps of that 
 most holy Life which we set forth as the Life 
 and Light of the world, that Life which, both in 
 its course and its close, is the one fountain of 
 redemption for all men. 
 
 blessed Saviour, give to us, and to all thy 
 Church, grace to love Thee more, and to walk 
 more closely with Thee, and ourselves to be- 
 come living arguments of the truth of thy 
 Gospel, and to bear that witness which Thou 
 dost ever bless and make convincing, — the 
 witness of a simple, holy, pure, and consistent 
 life. 
 
BEST HETHODS OF DEALING 
 WITH UNBELIEF. 
 
 [Delivered at STOv,'-oN-TnE-WoLD, on Tuesday, 
 October 31st, 1876.] 
 
 I HAVE now come to the last portion of the 
 important subject on which I have been dwell- 
 ing in the present Charge. In the preceding Ad- 
 dresses I have spoken of the nature of existing 
 Unbelief, and the most convincing arguments 
 against it ; in this concluding portion I must 
 endeavour to place before you a few considera- 
 tions as to the feelings with which we ought 
 to be animated, and the general principles on 
 which we ought to bear our part in the great 
 controversy. This portion is not of less im- 
 portance than any of those that have preceded 
 it ; na}^, it is of more importance, as it involves 
 this really momentous question to each one of 
 us, — If unbelief is now spreading silently, and 
 
JEST METHODS OF DEALING WITH UNBELIEF. 123 
 
 everywhere, and if its general characteristics 
 are what have been described, how can it best 
 be met by us in our general teaching ? 
 
 It shall be m}' care to answer this question 
 as well as I am able in the present Address. 
 
 To do so in the clearest manner, I must 
 again call attention to that which former con- 
 siderations have led us to deem the most pre- 
 valent form of unbelief. This, in its most 
 dangerous aspects, and in those aspects in 
 which we, as ministers of the Gospel, shall 
 probably most be brought in contact with it, 
 is the increasing tendency to believe nothing 
 except what can be definitely proved, and to 
 regard everything else as opinionablc. This 
 form of unbelief, whether we call it Agnosti- 
 cism or Nescience, or by whatever name we 
 may define it, is the form which, under various 
 disguises, will most frequently present itself to 
 us in our general ministrations ; and it is this 
 form which we may now consider as more 
 particularly before us, while we seek to con- 
 sider how we may best countervail its dangerous 
 and dreadful influences.^ 
 
 1 The sort of moocl of mind hero alludecl to has been 
 brieflv, but very clearly, set forth by a recent writer as ex- 
 pressing itself in the folloAving Avords : " Probably there is 
 a God ; and if God exists, it is quite within the limits of 
 possibility that He might vouchsafe His reasonable creatures 
 
124 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 Many will perhaps feel disposed to supersede 
 the whole inquiry by taking the position now 
 taken hy all those who rest principally on 
 authority and dogmatic tradition, and by simply 
 standing apart from the whole controvers}'. 
 As true Churchmen, it is said, we have really 
 nothing to do with these miserable aberrancies 
 of modern thought. Heresies and heretical 
 opinions, it is urged, there have been from the 
 very first, and there will continue to be to the 
 very end of time. They appear quickh% pass 
 into new forms, and soon become lost amid 
 those really mighty antichristian forces which 
 are ever putting forth their energies against 
 the militant Church, and of which this unbelief 
 and these passing heresies are only the transi- 
 tory manifestations. It is against these great 
 forces, it is against our known and recognized 
 enemies, the Worlds the Flesh, and the Devil, 
 that the Church must exclusively contend. 
 These ephemeral opinions, it is said, if dealt 
 with at all, must be dealt with by authoritative 
 declarations of the truth ; simple and faithful 
 
 a revelation ; at the same time it is more likely than un- 
 likely that no revelation should be given, and it is nearly 
 certain that no revelation has been given to men." — In Quest 
 of a Creed, p. 15 (Elliot Stock, Loud. 1876). This agreeable 
 volume is, I am glad to be able to mention, written by an 
 incumbent of the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 
DEALING WITH TNEELIEF. 125 
 
 enunciation of that form of sound words wliicli 
 came down to us from the Apostolic Church is 
 the true remedy for prevalent scepticism ; the 
 clear voice of authority is that which is really 
 needed. Let the Church only set forth the 
 truth, and error will soon lose its power and 
 attractiveness. 
 
 Such expressions, my brethren, are, I fear, 
 often heard at the present time ; and, what is 
 worse, acted upon. It is ever flattering to our 
 self-love to feel that we may properly stand 
 apart from all these controversies, and that our 
 office and mission is not to argue but to teach. 
 It is ever congenial to the mental slothfulness 
 that is too often allied with trust in authority 
 to persuade ourselves that arguments and 
 evidences never ultimately convince,— nay, 
 that they are often precarious and dangerous.' 
 
 2 Sucli, however, is not the view taken by earnest men of 
 science. Modern materialism, especially, lias been felt to 
 be what it truly is, and -has been spoken of in tones of 
 seriousness by those best qualified to give an opinion, 
 wliich may read a salutary lesson to many who think that 
 modern unbelief is only a kind of scare which will soon 
 pass away or yield to mere dogmatic denunciation. Speak- 
 ing of materialism "as regarding the world as the fortui- 
 tons result of the arrangement of atoms, man as the 
 highest term of the natural evolution of organic forms, life 
 as'^the spontaneous modification offeree, birth as the begin- 
 ning of a phenomenon, death as its end," the distinguished 
 
126 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 There are, also, only too many subtle reasons 
 at the present time why such a mode of dealing 
 with unbelief should be w^elcome and attractive ; 
 but we, dear brethren, who really love the 
 Truth, know well that it is by no such prin- 
 ciples that we shall bring that Truth home to 
 the hearts of the doubting and the wandering. 
 This is not that returning an answer, — the 
 answer of meekness and reverence, — which an 
 Apostle has bidden us ever to have ready for 
 those that ask for the reason of the hope that 
 is in us. This is not that active driving away 
 of error to which we stand pledged by the 
 vov/s which we made at our Ordination. No, 
 our duty, especially at this critical time, is to 
 prepare ourselves to bear our part earnestly 
 and bravely in the dread controversy that is 
 hourly deepening around us, — whether there 
 is verily a Father and a God, a Father who so 
 loved us that He gave His only Son for us, 
 or whether there is nothing in this fair world 
 
 chemist, Prof. Dumas, recently used these remarkable 
 words iu the Hall of the French Institute. ''When," he 
 said, "in consequence of this lamentable philosophy, justice 
 is only a social convention, conscience a prodiict of educa- 
 tion, charity, friendshijD, love, various forms of egotism, 
 ■whoever has charge of souls can no longer pass by the side 
 of science, turning away the head and saying. What matter 
 those things to me ?" — -S'pefc/i on Avg. de la liive, cited in 
 the Edinburgh Review for Jan. 1875, p. SOO. 
 
DEALING WITH TNBELIEF. 12" 
 
 around us, nothing in tlie starry lieavens above 
 us, but either the ceaseless pla}* of cosmic 
 forces, that ever have been and ever will be, 
 the eternal rhythm, as it has been said, of 
 evolution and dissolution, of concentration of 
 matter and dissipation of motion, and again of 
 diffusion of matter and absorption of motion, — 
 either this, or the dreaming movements of 
 unconscious Intelligence. This is the con- 
 troversy, and we must bear our part in it ; but 
 how? 
 
 I. First, with a feeling of cheerfulness and 
 confidence. There never was a time when 
 there was more reason for hope and reassurance 
 than at the present. Never has the little 
 liock had less reason to fear than now. Already 
 we can enumerate marvellous confirmations of 
 the truth of Scripture and Scripture's funda- 
 mental doctrines, that far exceed any that in 
 any former age have been vouchsafed to the 
 teaching Church. Already science, history, and 
 literary research are bearing their tributes to 
 Christian truth, and opening their treasures as 
 they have never opened them before. What 
 now does every competent observer of nature 
 tell us he sees written on its unfolding pages ? 
 " Let us fearlessly trace the dependence of link 
 on link of organic life," says one of our greatest 
 
128 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 physical philosophers now living, ''but let us 
 take heed that in thus studying second causes, 
 we forget not the First Cause, nor shut our 
 eyes to the wonderful proofs of design which in 
 the study of organized beings" — especially mark 
 these words, brethren — "meet us at every 
 step."^ "Overwhelmingly strong proofs," — 
 this is ver}^ unqualified language, — " over- 
 whelmingly strong proofs," says another 
 equally great physical philosopher, " of intelli- 
 gent and benevolent design lie around us;"'' 
 and, as if our very adversaries could not now 
 honourably keep silence, in reference to the 
 accumulated evidences of purpose, we have now 
 in a single volume, that has probably produced 
 more effect in Germany, on younger minds, 
 than any similar work of our own times, — 
 I mean the melancholy treatise of Edward von 
 Hartmann on the Unconscious;^ — not con- 
 
 3 Professor Stokes iu his Address as President of the 
 British Association in 1869. 
 
 ^ Sir William Thomson in his Address as President of 
 the British Association for 1871. 1 am indebted for both 
 this and the preceding quotation to the valuable Address 
 of another distingaiished man of science, Mr. Main of Ox- 
 ford, viz. Modern Philosopliic Scepticism examined, p. 22, 
 cd. 9 (Hardwicke, Lond. 1876). 
 
 5 This writer, though young (he -was born at Berlin in 
 184.2), has attracted considerable attention by his Philo- 
 sopliie des Unheivussicn, a thick vokame of 850 pnges, Avliich 
 
DEALING WITH UNBELIEF. 129 
 
 cessions merel}- as to the existence of evidences 
 of design, but lucid and convincing illustrations 
 of it, which make the unhappy volume one of 
 the most useful repertories of telcological facts 
 and arguments that has appeared for the last 
 twenty years. No, let no one's heart fail him 
 as to true science. Far, far from its being 
 opposed to us, it is now supplying such accu- 
 mulative evidence of the presence of Him 
 whom a late exponent of science fittingly spoke 
 of in his presidential chair as the Supreme 
 Author and Upholder of the Universe,*^ that 
 we may bow our heads with thankfulness and 
 adoration, and trace only another of those 
 
 Las already passed through more than six stereotype edi- 
 tions. It has not inaptly been called the " Philosophy of 
 Despair," but is curiously useful in the vast amount of 
 evidence accumulated as to the presence of design in 
 nature. For a brief account of this writer and his prin- 
 ciples, see Westminster Review for Jan. 1876, and compai-e 
 Credentials of Christianity, p. 269. Though we may not 
 care to use the strong language of Cardinal Rauscher, who 
 denounced Hartmann, in an address to his clergy, as the 
 " very soul of the party of impiety," we may yet feel that 
 there are few who have done more harm to the younger 
 men in Germany than this clear but most hopeless specu- 
 lator. His later writings are marked by an exaggerated 
 and pretentious tone which perhaps may indicate that his 
 influence is waning. 
 
 6 Professor Andrews, in his presidential Address at Glas- 
 gow to the British Association, Sept., 1876, as given in The 
 Times for Sept. 7, 1876. 
 
 K 
 
130 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 mystic lines of ever-present working whereby 
 God is subduing all things to Himself. 
 
 What I have said of science might be said 
 with equal force in reference to history and 
 archoeological literature. In reference to the 
 latter, no competently-informed person can fail 
 to admit that all evidence is pointing to an 
 aboriginal oneness of language," and so to that 
 primal unity of our race which of late has 
 been sweepingly and even pugnaciously de- 
 nied, — and yet, as it would seem, in the teeth 
 of evidence, that at any rate (as concerns our 
 descent from apes) was judged, three or four 
 years ago, by a large majority of assembled 
 men of science, at a meeting at Stuttgart, to be 
 both sufficient and conclusive.^ And if lin- 
 
 '' Recent philology, and especially works that particu. 
 larly treat of this question, such as Reinisch, Einlieitlichc 
 Ursprimg der Sprache (Wien, 1874), seem to justify this 
 remark. Prof. Huxley, not unnaturally, regards this sort 
 of evidence with but moderate favour ; he, however, admits 
 that " in the absence of any evidence to the contraiy, unity 
 of language may afiord a certain presumption in favour of 
 unity of the stock of the people speaking those languages," 
 — Critiques and Addresses (Lond. 1873). 
 
 ^ Stated on the authority of Christlieb, Modern Infidelity, 
 p. 47. The opinions of Carl Yogt were successfully met by 
 Virchow and others at the head, it is stated, of a large 
 majority. The Conference was held in the autumn of 
 1873. I have not, however, been able to procure an account 
 of what actually took place. 
 
DEALING WITH TNBELIEF. 131 
 
 guistic research is with us, what may we not 
 say of history and archaeology? Not only 
 have later i^ortions of the Old Testament 
 received the most varied and striking con- 
 firmations from the records of early history, 
 Babylonian and Assyrian, that have lately 
 been deciphered, but even the early ethnology 
 of Scripture, so often called into question, has 
 at length been all but demonstrated to be 
 accurate and true.^ Nay more, the very his- 
 tory of creation itself has been shown to be, to 
 say the very least, in harmony and coincidence, 
 almost literal and verbal, with documents that 
 now disclose to us independently the imme- 
 morial traditions and belief of one of the oldest 
 of the families of mankind.^ 
 
 II. Secondly, whenever we may be called 
 upon to enter into these questions it must not 
 only be with confidence, but with a soul that 
 yearns for the change and conversion of each 
 doubting heart, with which it may happen 
 to be brought in contact. This is the true 
 method. Without that deep desire in our 
 
 9 Seethe valuable Lecture of Prof. Eawlinson on " The 
 Alleged Difficulties of the Old and ISTew Testament," in 
 3Iodeyn Scepticism, p. 268, seq. (Lend. 1871). 
 
 1 See the note and rcff. in Credentials of Christianity, p. 
 236. The document there referred to has been published. 
 K 2 
 
132 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 souls our arguments will have but little of 
 really persuasive influence. Without sympathy 
 our reasoning will never produce any lasting 
 effect. " Sympathy ! " — some one perhaps will 
 say ! *' much misused word ! How is it 
 possible to feel sympathy towards men who are 
 now not only using great powers of mind, and 
 positions of considerable influence, in under- 
 mining the belief in revealed religion, but are 
 frequently using a language of bitterness and 
 contempt which may remind us that aversion 
 to those who differ from us is not strictly 
 limited to Theologians ? " 
 
 " Is not sympathy in such cases almost a dis- 
 loyalty towards the Lord who has redeemed 
 us?" No, I venture to answer, it is not. 
 Everything that tends to set forth love for 
 souls can never be otherwise than well pleasing 
 to Him. And to whom may that feeling more 
 fitly be manifested than towards those who, in 
 all the sad meaning of the words, are alone in 
 the wide world without a Father and a God ! 
 Unbelief, however boldly it may speak, is ever 
 at heart unsatisfied and unhappy. There is a 
 void in the soul that never can be filled save 
 with the love and the knowledge of Christ. 
 When we see men like Mill gazing into the 
 rayless night, and striving with every mental 
 
DEALING WITH UNBELIEF. 133 
 
 power, to find out if poor liuman philosophy 
 can minister to them any presumption for 
 another life, — any hope of reunion with those 
 loved as their own lives, who have passed 
 into that night and now, it may be, are not — 
 when we see this, we forget all their hard 
 sayings, and seek only to bring home the love 
 and Fatherhood of Him who is as yet to them 
 the Unknown God. Yerily we must teach with 
 tenderness and sympathy, if we would ever 
 aspire to the blessed and holy hope of bringing 
 back the wanderers to that Lord, from whom 
 the pride of human knowledge and the un- 
 belief of the poor natural heart of man have, 
 for the present, severed them. 
 
 But if we must speak and teach with sym- 
 pathy, so also must we never fail, especially in 
 helping and guiding others who may require 
 our spiritual assistance, or generally in setting 
 forth the truth to those committed to our 
 charge, to set forth that truth v/ith humility 
 and candour. 
 
 It will be ill for us to forget that there are 
 difficulties, in reference to some points of 
 Christian doctrine, which are acutely felt by 
 many earnest and sensitive hearts at the pre- 
 sent time. All those questions that relate to 
 what may be termed the Theodicy, or in more 
 
134 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 general terms, God's moral and providential 
 government of the world,^ all those dark dis- 
 pensations, which seem to make us think of 
 God as a hidden God, the possibility of evil 
 working the ruin it often does work among the 
 apparently innocent, and all the dread ques- 
 tions connected with evil and its issues in the 
 world to come — all these questions are now 
 trying the faith of thousands, and if dealt with 
 at all must be dealt with in a spirit of gentle- 
 
 - See some further comments on this subject in Credentials 
 of Christianity , Lect. vi. p. 254. The three considerations 
 there mentioned, viz., the lapse of a prior order of beings, 
 the aspect under which the present constitution of things 
 may be regarded, and (so far as we may humbly presume 
 to trace it) the final pui'pose of God in His dealings vrith 
 mankind, will perhaps be found to supply some alleviating 
 thoughts to those who feel (as thousands do) difficulties, 
 general or defined, in reference to these profound subjects. 
 Though it may be sometimes our duty reverently to seek 
 for such light as God's Holy Word and the deductions that 
 flow from it may be found to supply, yet that attitude of 
 mind is far, far better and safer that seeks no solution of that 
 which, in the present state of our knowledge and faculties, 
 may really be insoluble, but simply trusts, believes, and 
 adores. Most truly has it been said, " Ista omnem hu- 
 manam facultatem excedunt, nee ad iuvestigandum judi- 
 cium divinum ulla ratio prajvalet vel disputatio."— Dc 
 Imitatione Christi, Book iii. eh. 58, — a chapter veiy well 
 worth taking to heart. The old advice is the true advice, — 
 " Hoc magis satage et intende, ut vel minimus in regno 
 Dei qucas inveniri." — Ih. § 7. 
 
DEALING WITH UNBELIEF. 135 
 
 iiess and sympathy. The hard and dogmatic 
 tone in which these subjects are sometimes 
 dealt with in the Christian pulpit, or what is 
 worse, the superficial and conventional argu- 
 ments with which so-called difficulties are dis- 
 posed of in the popular address, often do harm 
 to anxious minds, especially in the case of the 
 young and the sensitive, that no words can 
 exaggerate. It is felt that the real difficulties 
 are 7iot fairly stated, that they are not entered 
 into with that wise sympathy, which, in times 
 like our own, is so vitally necessary, and that 
 argument, only too often, passes into mere 
 censure and denunciations. 
 
 The result is, that a reactionary feeling is 
 often called out, — and minds that, at one 
 period of their trials, might have been power- 
 fully influenced by the blessed truths of the 
 Gospel, and easily led, if a gentle and sym- 
 pathetic form of teaching had been adopted, 
 become alienated and antagonized, and then 
 the lapse is, alas ! only too easy and natural. 
 Wounded and alienated, they soon pass from 
 the sad realm of doubt and difficulty into the 
 still sadder realm of utter scepticism and un- 
 belief. They commonly first fall easy victims 
 either to the milder forms of the pleasant and 
 popular agnosticism of the day, or to that most 
 
130 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 plausible and most perilous persuasion that 
 morality is really the essentia of religion, and 
 that Christianity, after all, is nothing more 
 than its purest manifestation.^ The gradual 
 transition from this to definite doubt in the 
 fatherhood and even the existence of God, 
 becomes very easy, — and then succeeds that 
 state which I have persistently maintained in 
 this Charge to be the saddest and worst of all, — 
 a state into which, I fear, many more are 
 passing than we are at all aware of, — a state in 
 which nothing is believed, not even unbelief 
 itself, — a state in which everything, save per- 
 haps a few vague outlines of morality, is re- 
 garded as uncertain and opinionable. De- 
 finitely formulated disbelief I fear not ; for of 
 this I am persuaded that, with the light that is 
 now breaking around us, no candid and intelli- 
 gent mind can — at any rate in this Christian 
 
 •* Even this is now denied. Such writers as Ilartmann 
 do not hesitate to condemn even the very morality of 
 Christianity. Xo morality, according to this -svriter, which 
 is founded on, what he terms, "blind obedience to another's 
 will can be other than ' heteronoray.' " Moral autonomy, 
 we are told, is the only true form of morality, the only trust- 
 worthy principle on which we can safely rely. It is re- 
 freshing to tui'n aside from these really shallov/ conceptions 
 to such an estimate and comparison as that placed before 
 us by Prof Mozley, Sermons, p. 65, seq., ed. 2 (Lond. 1876.) 
 
DEALlJsG WITH UNBELIEF. 137 
 
 land — long remain at rest in it. The very 
 varied and even opposed forms in which current 
 unbelief is showing itself are so many indirect 
 evidences of the inherent weakness of every 
 sj^stem which has yet been formulated. I fear 
 it not ; and I have given, I trust, in this 
 Charge reasons for such a statement ; but I do 
 fear that dishonest, slothful, and immoral 
 doubting as to everything,'^ that quintessence 
 of the world and of worldliness, that verily is, — 
 and involves all that can be involved in the 
 dreadful words, — ignorance of, and then, by 
 natural consequence, enmity with God. 
 
 This is the real danger of our own times. 
 It is a danger that is especially great in the 
 case of those who may have much cultivation, 
 but little of real life experience. It is the 
 danger that is threatening our younger people, 
 
 4 Tho baneful effect of this state of mind on tlie whole 
 moral nature cannot be overestimated. All that is really- 
 natural, the wistful curiosity, the not unwelcome feeling of 
 awe, the sensibility to the glory of nature,— all those mys- 
 terious feelings which (as have recently been shown with 
 admirable power and truth) are the sort of inward wit- 
 nesses to Him who is invisible, are rudely brushed aside 
 or damped off by tins agnosticism. If the reader would 
 desire really to feel the truth of what is hero said, let him 
 read carefully Mill's Essay on "Nature" (Three Essays 
 on Religion, p. 3, seq. and then read as carefully Dr.Mozley's 
 sermon on the same subject (Sermons, p. 123, seq.), and ho 
 will realize more than can be set forth in many words. 
 
138 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 against which openness and sympathy on our 
 part will do much to protect them. 
 
 But if candour and S3'mpathy are needed, so 
 also is competent learning and knowledge. We 
 the clergy must never fall behind the laity in 
 reference to the questions and difficulties of our 
 own times. It would be an evil day for the 
 Church of England if the large central bod}^ 
 of its pastors and teachers, either from love of 
 ease or from an unseasonable indifference, were 
 simply to content themselves with teaching 
 and preaching a flawless orthodoxy, often more 
 ecclesiastical than biblical, and were to take no 
 heed of the various aspects under which un- 
 belief is novv^ showing itself in all grades and 
 classes of Christian society. The householder 
 must bring forth out of his treasures things 
 new and old. There must be, and there ought 
 to be among us_, a competent knowledge of the 
 really vital questions of the day ; for though 
 our general congregations may know little and 
 care little about the various systems of sceptical 
 philosophy which I have delineated in other 
 portions of this Charge, and may have very 
 little sympathy with unbelief in any of its 
 many Protean forms, 3'et there is an evil at- 
 mosphere around us, a sort of aeris lues by which 
 doubt seems ever}^ where strangely spreading 
 
DEALING AVITH T;Nin::LIEF. 139 
 
 and propagating, and, as many of you know 
 from the harmful publications now I fear cir- 
 culated in many parishes, affecting those classes 
 that once were free from it.' Is not then our 
 duty plain ? Must we not, my bretliren, if we 
 would be true physicians of the soul, at least 
 take some account and acquire some knowledge 
 of the prevalent forms of disease ? But how ? 
 This question, I rejoice to feel, can readily be 
 answered. There is now, thank God, no diffi- 
 culty in acquiring that knowledge. Through 
 the wisdom and energy of the venerable Society 
 for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and 
 the successful labours of the Christian Evidence 
 Society and of the "Victoria Institute, a series 
 of books and treatises have been produced, in 
 the last few years, which will be found to 
 supply nearly all the information that could be 
 needed, and will set before the reader the more 
 
 ^ I am told by those on whom I can depend that bundles 
 of papers containing matte;: opposed to religion, as -well as 
 to social organization, are sent down weekly by railway to 
 prearranged country stations, and are thence disseminated 
 by local agents in the neighbouring country parishes. 
 There are certainly signs, Avhich I have noted for some 
 little time, which independently confirm this unwelcome 
 fact — that disbelief is being silently propagated among the 
 Icast-cducatcd classes of the community, and is beginning 
 to show its presence where we should least expect to 
 find it. 
 
140 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 valid and tested answers to the various forms 
 of mcdern unbelief.^ 
 
 With this knowledge and above all, with a 
 full, accurate, and critical knowledge of the 
 Holy Scriptures, there is no one among us who 
 may not bear his part usefully and effectively 
 in the great controversy. Never was a really 
 accurate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures 
 more needed than at present ;' never a time in 
 which it was more vitally necessary to distin- 
 
 6 The thoughtful student will also be Avise not to neglect 
 the study of ancient religions ; some of which, as for ex- 
 ample the Zend religion, and the striking system of Lao- 
 tse, will be found not only psychologically interesting, but 
 often very deeply suggestive. The more steadily we study 
 these ancient religions, in their earliest forms and purest 
 sources, the more does the gi*eat truth, advocated now by 
 many (see, in this respect, Mr. Fairbairn's recent work, 
 Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History, Lend. 
 1876), stand forth that there was a time when all wor- 
 shipped one supreme God and Father of all. See Yon 
 Strauss, Introdiiction to Translation of Lao-Tse, p. xli. 
 
 7 I fear it cannot be said that we have this accurate 
 knowledge. There are very unwelcome signs, now often 
 recurring, that in the hurry and bustle that marks so much 
 of recent Church work, the thoughtful and critical study 
 of the Sci'iptures is becoming increasingly neglected. It 
 is now unhapi3ily not uncommon to find letters in our 
 religious newspapers complaining of the misapplication of 
 texts in the public utterances of those who occupy respon- 
 sible positions. There is one such in one of our leading 
 Church papers this very week in which this note is written. 
 Mere work is not everything. 
 
DEALING WITH UNBELIEF. 141 
 
 guisli between that which is primar}^, essential, 
 and fundamental, biblical truth, and that which 
 belongs to what has been termed the dogmatic 
 formulation of it. '^IIow true is it," to use the 
 words of a wise writer of our own tiiiies, " that 
 often while men imagine that they are con- 
 tending for Eevelation, they are, in fact, con- 
 tending for their own interpretation of Eeve- 
 lation, unconsciously adapted to what they 
 believe to be rationally probable." ^ How often, 
 even in our own days, have really great scien- 
 tific discoveries been denounced as contrar^^ to 
 Scripture, when, in the sequel, they have not 
 only been found to be true, but to have 
 materially aided, as true science ever does aid, 
 in setting forth the power and the wisdom of 
 God.^ He would perhaps be a bold man who 
 
 8 Wliewell, History of Inductive Sciences, Book v. 3. 4, 
 vol. i. p. 311 (ed. 3, Loncl. 1867). 
 
 9 Few things do more real harm than the " small 
 science " we find in popular commentaries on Genesis, even 
 when the work of reputable writers. Still worse is it with 
 what are called Scriptural cosmogonies, or the many well- 
 meant but very hazardous reconciliations of the Mosaic 
 narrative with science. The truth commonly is that even 
 if such writers have had a scientific education, which is 
 certainly not always the case, the pace at which science is 
 now moving is too quick for them. The theories of the 
 year that is passing may be, and often are, superseded by 
 the discoveries of the year that follows, and Theology be- 
 
142 BEST METHODS OF 
 
 would undertake, before a mixed religious 
 audience, to maintain any of the broader prin- 
 ciples of tlie doctrine of Evolution ; and yet, — 
 when experimental science teaches us by the 
 spectroscope that, as was said a few weeks ago 
 by the Chairman of the British Association, 
 *'The mighty universe is chiefly built up of 
 the same materials as the globe we inhabit,"" — 
 why may not the All-wise Creator have 
 vouchsafed to form existing classes and orders 
 of animal and vegetable life out of a compara- 
 tively limited number of typical forms ; and 
 why may not the earth and the waters have 
 thus obeyed the great creative command which 
 Hol}^ Scripture tells us God vouchsafed to ad- 
 dress to them ? At any rate we cannot but 
 regard it as highly suggestive that the sacred 
 narrative represents the Creator, in two cases 
 at least, as issuing forth His divine commands 
 to the realms of nature, to the seas and the 
 earth, that were to be the future home of the 
 livinfj creatures which were called forth from 
 their productive wombs. ^ But I must not now 
 
 comes clogged -with antiquated and presumably incorrect 
 explanations ; and so the truth greatly suffers. Let iis use 
 science by all means, but let us take care that it is verified 
 science. 
 
 ^ It would bo very unwise to press this, but the language 
 is certainly remarkable and suggestive. Nearly all the 
 
DEALING WITH L'XF.ELIEF. 143 
 
 pause on these details. Let it suffice for me to 
 urge in these closing words a really faithful 
 and intelligent study of the Holy Scriptures, 
 and especially with reference to modern con- 
 troversies and scepticism. The more full}^ we 
 realize that Book to be what it is, the History 
 of Salvation, the more firm will become our 
 own faith, the more deep our impression on the 
 souls of those that hear us. If we would reallv 
 convince, we must touch the heart and the con- 
 science, awaken the sense of need and longing, 
 and then show where and how, and where and 
 how alone, that need and that longing can be 
 satisfied. When sin is felt to be what it is, 
 donbt is over. The whole mighty struggle 
 between belief and unbelief is centred in the 
 conviction as against the non-conviction of sin. 
 May God give us grace to feel this ourselves, 
 and to help others to feel it. This is our 
 work, — this our duty in the great and deepen- 
 ing controversj'. Human knowledge will, if 
 
 older iuterprctei's notice it. Ambrose more than once 
 alludes to the iDrodactive and germinativo power imparted 
 by God to the waters and to the earth. Of the water he 
 says, "Yenit mandatum et siibito aqua jussos fundcbatur 
 in partus, gencrarc fluvii, vivilicare lacus, mare ipsum cccpit 
 diversa reptilimu genera parturire, et secundum genus 
 cffundci-e quodcunqiio formaverat." — Hexaemcron, v. 1, vol. 
 i. p. 79, ed. Bened. (Paris, 16SG). 
 
144 BEST I\IETHODS OF DEALI^'G WITH rXBELIEF. 
 
 blessed by God, not be without its use, but the 
 knowledge we must have, if we would convince 
 the doubting and convert the gainsaying, is all 
 summed up in one word, Christ, — Christ cru- 
 cified and atoning for the sins of a lost, fallen, 
 and sufferino; world. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 GILBERT AKD UIVIXGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
B^tut]} to Iproniofmg Cljilsfiau ^inotolcttge. 
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 ON THE CHIIISTIAN EVIDENCES. 
 
 BOOKS. ^'''^^■ 
 
 Some MoDEr^w Religious Dii't'icuLTiES. 
 
 Six Sermons, Preacherl by the request of the Christian 
 Evidence Society, at St. James's, Piccadilly, on Sunday 
 Afternoons alter Ea.ster, 1S76, with a Preface by his Grace 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury. Post Svo Clotk boards 1 t> 
 
 MoKAL Difficulties connected with the Bible. 
 
 Being the Boyle Lectures for ]871, preacher' in Her 
 Majesty's Chapel at Whitehall. By the Van Archdeacon 
 Hessey, B.C.L., Preacher to the Hon. Society of Gray's 
 Inn, 6:c, First Series. Post Svo Cloth boards 1 iS 
 
 Moral Difficulties connected with the Bible. 
 
 Being the Boyle Lectures for 1872, preached in Her 
 Majesty's Chapel at Whitehall. By the Ven. Archdeacon 
 Hessey, D.C.L., Preacher to the Hon. Society of Gray's 
 Inn, &;c. SECOND Series. Post Svo Cloth boards 2 6 
 
 Prayer and recent Difficulties about it. 
 
 The BoyJe Lectures for 1873, being the Third Series of 
 '* Moral Difificulties connecteil with the Bible." Preached 
 in Her Majesty's Chapel at Whitehall. By the Van. Arch- 
 deacon Hessey, D.C.L.,Preacherto the Hon. Society of Gray'3 
 
 Inn, &c. PostSvo Cloth boards 2 6 
 
 Series 1—3 in a volume Cloth boards 6 
 
 The Analogy of Religion. 
 
 Walogiies founded upon Butler's "Analogy of Religion." 
 By Rev. H. R. Huckin, D.D., Head Master of Repton 
 School. Post Svo Cloth boards 3 
 
 ^' Miracles." 
 
 By the Rev. E. A. Litton, iff.A., Examining Chaplain of 
 
 the Bishop of Durbann. Crown Svo 1 6 
 
 Historical Illustrations of the Old Testa- 
 ment. By the Rev. G. Rawlin'son, M.A., Camrlcn Pro- 
 lessor of Ancient History, Oxford. Post Svo ...Cloth boards 1 6 
 
 Can we Believe in Miracles ? 
 
 By G. Warington, B.A., of Caius College, Cambridge. 
 
 Post Svo Cloth boards 1 6 
 
 The Moral Teaching op the New Testament 
 
 VIEWED AS Evidential to its Historical Truth. Bv the 
 
 Rev. C. A. Row, M.A., Preb. of St. Paul's. Post 8vo...C'^' bds. 1 6 
 
 ScRiiTURE Doctrine op Creation. 
 
 By the Rev. T. R. Birks, M.A., Professor of Moral Philosophy 
 
 at Cambridge. Post 8vo Clothboards 1 6 
 
 The Norwich Di&coui;ses. 
 
 By the Lorri Bishop of Peterborough, the Dean of Norwich, 
 and the Lord Bishop of Derry. Nos. 1 to 10 in a Vol. CI. bds. 1 6 
 [PoBtSvo.] [1/8/76.] 
 
rUELICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 Books (conlinued). Price. 
 
 Thoughts on the Fjr«t PRiNcirLE.=? of the «• <^ 
 
 POSITIVF, PHTLOSOFHY CONSIDERED IN IJELATION TO THE 
 
 Human Mind, By Beniamin Shaw, MA,, iaie Fello.v of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. Barrister-at-Law. Post 8vo. 
 
 Lijup cloth 3 
 
 Thoughts on the Bidle. 
 
 By the Rev. W. Gresley, M.A. Preb. of LicbfieH. Post 
 
 8vo Clothhoardi 1 C 
 
 The Reasonableness of Prayer. 
 
 By the Rev. p. Onslow, M.A. Post 8vo Limp cloih 3 
 
 Locke on the Existence op God. 
 
 Post 8vo Paper cover 3 
 
 Paley^s Evidences 'op Christianity. 
 
 A New Edition, with Notes, Appendix, and Preface. By 
 
 the Rev. E. A. Litton, M.A. Post 8vo 4 
 
 Faley's Natural Theology. 
 
 Pievised to harmonise with Modern Science. By Mr. F. le 
 Gros Clark, F.R.S., President of the Ptoyal College of 
 Surgeons of England, &;c., &;c., with Illustrations. Post 
 8vo Cloik boards 4 
 
 The Story of Creation, as told by Theology 
 
 AND Science. By the Rev. T. S. Ackland, M.A., Vicar of 
 Balne, near Selby, Yorkshire. Post 8vo Clolh hoards 1 G 
 
 Man's Accountableness for his "Religious 
 
 Belief. A Lecture delivered at the Hall of Science, on 
 Tuesday, April 2nd. 1872. By the Rev. Daniel Moore, 
 M.A., Holy Trinity, Paddington. Post 8vo Paper cover 3 
 
 The Theory of Prayer : with special Kefer- 
 
 ENCE TO Modern Thought. By the Rev. W. H. 
 Rarslake, M.A., Assistant Preacher at Lincoln's-Inn, 
 Vicar of Westcott, Dorking, late Fellow and Tutor at 
 Merton College, Oxford. Post 8vo Limp cloth 1 
 
 When was the Pentateuch Written ? 
 
 By Georsfe Warington, B.A., author of "Can we Believe 
 
 in Miracles ?" &c. Post 8vo Cloth boards 1 C 
 
 The Credibility of Mysteries. 
 
 A Lecture delivered at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, 
 
 By the Rev. Daniel Moore, M.A. Post 8vo Paper cover C 
 
 Analogy op Religion, Natur.\l and Revealed, 
 
 TO THE Constitution and Course of Nature : to which 
 are added. Two Brief Dissertations. By Bishop Butler. 
 New Edition, Post 8vo Clolhhoards 2 <J 
 
 Short and Easy Method with the Deists ; 
 
 wherein the certainty of the Christian Religion is demon- 
 strated by infallible proof: in a letter to "a friend. To 
 which are added, a Letter from the Author to a Deist, upon 
 bis conversion by reading his book: and the Truth of 
 Christianity demonstrated, in a D alogue betwixt a Christiai 
 and a Deist ; by the Rev. Charles Leslie, M.A. Cloth loan's 1 
 
 Why do you believe the Bible to be th:^ 
 
 Word of God? An argument to prove the Divine Aii- 
 thority and Inspiration of Holy Scripture, by Josictil 
 Bateman, M.A., ^c. 12iuo CloChlourds 1 
 
PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY, 
 
 Books {continued}. ^ ^ 
 
 Christian Evidences : 
 
 intended chietly for tlie yonn<x, by the Most Reverend 
 Eichard Whately, D.D., Ardihishup of Dublin. 18mo. 
 
 Cloth hoardi Is., or 12mo. Paper cover 4 
 
 A Moral Demonstration, showing that the 
 
 Religion of Jesus Christ is from God. By Jeremy Taylor, 
 D.D., Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. 2>1\no...Limpelotk 8 
 
 The Efficacy op Prayer. 
 
 By the Rev. W. H, Karslake, M.A., Assistant Morning 
 Preacher at Lincohi's-Inn, &c., &c. Post 8vo. Limp cbotli 6 
 
 An Apology for the Bible, in a Series of 
 
 Letters addressed to TliOMAS Paink. By the late Bishop 
 Watson, D.D. 18mo Paper cover C 
 
 Science and the Bible: a Lecture by the iiight 
 
 Rev. Chas. Perry, D.D., Lord Bishop of Melbourne. ISmo. 
 
 Paper cover 4d., or Limp ciotk 6 
 
 The Bible : Its Evidences, Characteristics, 
 
 and Effects. A Lecture by the Right Rev. Chas. Perry, 
 D.D., Lord Bishop ot Melbourne. 18mo Paper cover 4 
 
 Infidelity, in its Perilous Bearing on the Pre- 
 sent and the future State of Man. By the late Rev. Hugh 
 StOWell,M.A.,Hon. Canon of Manchester. 18aio. Lim}) oiotk 6 
 
 A Sermon on the Efficacy op Prayer. 
 
 By the Right Reverend Harvey Goodwin, D.D., Bishop of 
 Carlisle. 16mo Paper cover *2 
 
 The Testimony op the Primitive Fathers 
 
 to the Truth of the Gospel History. By T. G. Bonney, B.D., 
 Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 18mo./*a/;tr cover 2 
 
 The Truth of the Gospel History coutirmed 
 
 by the Earliest Witnesses after Apostolic Times. A Lec- 
 ture delivered at Potsdam, by the late Dr. F. W. 
 Krummacher. Translated trom the German, ISmo. 
 
 Paper cover 2 
 
 A Lecture on the Bible, by the Very Bev. 
 
 E. M. Goulburn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. ISmo. Pajjer cover 2 
 
 Christian Evidence in a Very Small Compass. 
 
 By Josiah W. Smith, B.C.L., Q.C.' 32mo Pa^er cover i 
 
 TRACTS. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 
 
 No. 4.— The Fall OF David per 100 2 
 
 No. 7.— Cain and his Tjmks. 12mo „ 2 
 
 No. 9. — Abi.'aham's Sackifice ,, 2 
 
 No. 10.— Dk.ckit of Jacob „ 2 
 
 No. 11.— Cruklty of Joshua ,, 2 
 
 No. 12.— JiirHTHAUS Vow „ 2 
 
 SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 ]\To^ 1,— Thk CllAUACTi-n OF NoAll. 12mo per 100 1 
 
 No. 2.— Jesus Christ Came to Si'.nd a bwuUD on 
 
 Earth. 12mo. „ 3 
 
PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 Prico. 
 Tracts {continued). 
 
 ScEiPTTJKE DiFFicrLTirs {continued). t. d. 
 
 No. 3.— Commercial Sharp>'ess Exemplified a^td Exposed 
 in the Parable of the Unjust Steward. By the Rev. T. 
 Morse, M.A. Preb. of Linculn. 12mo per 100 3 
 
 No. 5.— Is There a God ? Adapted from H. Eoussel, &c. 
 
 12mo per 100 4 
 
 No. 6.— Norwich Cathedral Ap>gumentative Discourses 
 in Defence ot the Faith, Series 1. 
 By the Lord Bishop of Peterhorough. 
 Discourse 1. Christianity and Free Thought. 12mo...each 1 
 
 Discourse 2. Christianity and Scepticism. 12mo „ 1 
 
 Discourses. Christianity and Faith. 12mo „ 1 
 
 Discourse 4. The Demonstration of the Spirit. 12mo. ,, 1 
 By the Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Discourse 5. Above Reason, not contrary to it. 12mo. „ 1 
 Discourse 6. The Cumulative Argument in favour of 
 
 Christianity. 12mo „ 1 
 
 By the Lord Bishop of Derry. 
 
 Discourse 7. Man's Natural Life. 12mo „ 
 
 Discourses. Man's Moral Life. 12mo „ 
 
 Discourse 9. Man's Wedded Life. 12rao 
 
 Discourse 10. Man's Fallen and Redeemed Life. 12mo. 
 Nos. 1 to 10 in a Volume Cloth hoards 
 
 No. 8.— Order, Adaptations, Design. 
 
 By the Rev. C. A. Row. M.A per 100 
 
 No. 13.— The Believer's Answer „ 
 
 No. 14.— The Comfort of Infidelity. 
 
 Being a short notice of the Life and Death of John H , 
 
 engine-driver per 100 
 
 No. 15.— Free Thoughts on Christianity „ 
 
 No. 16.— The Gospel of the Resurrection: Good News 
 for the Poor. By William Connor, Lord Bishop of Peter- 
 borough per 100 4 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 No. Price 2?«- 100. 
 
 910. Reasons for retaining Christianity. s. d. 
 
 Extracted from Bishop Watson's Letters to Gibbon 6 
 
 1306. Miracles: a Conversation 6 
 
 1365. Why does not God Make me Believe? 
 
 A Workshop Conversation 2 
 
 1523. Materialist Convicted (A) 4 
 
 1547. Miracles, an Old Man's Thoughts about. By the 
 
 Rev. A. T. Craig, M.A 2 
 
 1579. John Aked of Barnsley. 
 
 The Story of an Unbeliever 5 
 
 1581. Deserted House (The). 
 
 Some thoughts for thinkers 5 
 
 1703. General Credibility of Gospel History (The) and 
 
 Authenticity of the Gospels. An Instruction Tract. 
 
 By the Rev. Mervyn Archdall. 12mo 4 
 
 London : 
 
 Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Tnn Fields, W.C. 
 4, Royal Exchange. E.G. ; 48, Piccadilly, W.